Rakes and Radishes (25 page)

“Let’s see, years ago, before you came along, I was just an orphan coming to live with my uncle, Lord Damien. I was quite a serious, introspective young man, burning with so many questions. You really don’t care about that part, do you?”

“No.”

He opened his hands. “Your mother and I were young and…well, we fell in love. So when your grandfather arranged the marriage with Lord Kesseley, I said we would steal away. I was naïve then, and bullheaded. I thought I was stronger than this world. Your mother wouldn’t go. She cried when she turned me away. And I accused her of—oh I don’t want to remember the words. You would think what happened decades ago wouldn’t hurt anymore.” He looked sideways at Kesseley. “No, I see you don’t. You are not as foolish as myself.”

Kesseley’s fists balled with an urge to land this man a facer.

The man laughed, as if he read Kesseley’s thoughts. “So she went to London and well, I went on being a charity case. But anger consumed me. I became obsessed with my own misery, blaming Eleanora for the torment I inflicted upon myself. Then several unexpected tragedies befell my uncle’s family, and suddenly, I was Lord Damien.” He shrugged. “I didn’t give a damn about an estate and tenants. I was as noble as that Lord Kesseley, and raging inside. I wanted to make Eleanora hurt as much as I had hurt.”

“Get out.”

Damien raised a bushy brow. “Are you so innocent, my young nobleman? Have you not damaged someone?” He paused to let his meaning wash over Kesseley. “I was handsome then and the London ladies—the married ones—were very receptive. Your mama was so beautiful, more beautiful than when we had parted, and I prided myself when I seduced her. Why should she be any different from the other ladies? You couldn’t have been a year old.”

“Did you come here so I would kill you?”

“That is a possibility,” he said, then continued unfazed by the prospect of his pending death. “Eleanora confided that she’d always loved me. She cried, telling me how much she despised her husband. She wanted to take you, and we would all run away to the continent. I agreed. Then on the night we were supposed to meet…” He paused, straining under his words. “I never left a brothel.”

Kesseley yanked him up by his cravat. “Very little is keeping me from putting a bullet through you. I suggest you leave with your life.”

The man didn’t fight. He met Kesseley eye for eye.

“Where were you the night Henrietta told you she loved you? Ah, look at that face. You are a fierce one. I would never fight you in an alley.” Kesseley pushed him away, his ragged breath hissing through his clenched teeth. Damn this man.

“Tell you what, why don’t you let me finish? Then you can kill me.”

Damien paced for a moment, his hands clasped behind his back. “One night I attended a notorious party at a hunting box in Leicestershire. Your father was there with this beautiful young courtesan. I had drunk too much, eaten opium. I don’t think I need to explain more. So some words were exchanged between your father and me about that pretty little prostitute, and I told him…” He rubbed his mouth and let out a long breath. “I told him I had slept with his wife. I don’t know, maybe I wanted him to kill me.”

“I assure you, if Father had shot you, it would have been the one noble thing he ever did.”

Damien continued, as if he hadn’t heard. “Your father laughed, then said, ‘My wife is a beautiful little whore, isn’t she?’ in front of all those men. In that moment, I changed, as fast as a flash. I had philosophized and romanticized my pain like a selfish, immature bastard. But Eleanora knew hell, lived it, slept with it. And she had come to me for help, but when I could have saved her, I-I turned her away.”

Damien squeezed his eyes shut. His voice was on the verge of cracking. “
I
challenged your father to a duel over your mother’s honor. I could hardly use a pistol. I pulled the trigger, but I wasn’t fast enough. This fire burned through me, and I fell. I knew I was dying, that I deserved to die.” He swallowed and studied his crinkled hands. “Two months later, I ran out of laudanum on a Spanish beach, not sure how I got there. All those years I wandered, running from myself, telling myself all kinds of lies. Until I couldn’t run anymore. I came back to England, thinking that being near your mother was enough.”

“What are you trying to do? Do you want me to absolve you? Forgive you?” Kesseley exploded.

He shook his head. “You don’t understand. I’m trying to save you.”

Kesseley slammed his hand on the wall. “Get the hell out. Now.”

“Don’t give in to this anger and hurt. Fight it. Don’t live your life in regret.”

Kesseley put himself an inch from the man’s face and growled, “Did you not hear me?”

Damien didn’t move. Wrinkles cut deep grooves into the skin of his face. His eyes were tired, but unwavering. “I’m not afraid of you,” he said. He walked past Kesseley and came to stand under the late earl’s portrait. “I know how it feels to have anger consume you. You try to inflict it on other people, trying to get it out of your heart. When that doesn’t work you run away. Be it in China or a glass of brandy at a gaming hell.”

He grew quiet for a moment, then said, “Forgive Henrietta. Don’t lose her.”

“I have forgiven her,” Kesseley cried. He flung himself into his desk chair and ran his hands down his face. So much had happened he couldn’t be rational anymore. It felt like his mind had flown loose. “I pushed Henrietta away to spare her. From me. It’s me I can’t forgive. Don’t you see? I can’t control myself anymore. I’m afflicted with my father.”

“No.” He shook his head. “You may be your father’s son by birth, but how you live your life is your own choosing.”

“You don’t think I know that,” Kesseley screamed. He gritted his teeth, trying to regain his control. “I’m not…” He swallowed and ran his finger down the chain of Henrietta’s necklace. “I’m not strong enough.”

“I know it’s hard, son.” Damien squatted by Kesseley’s chair. “I’ve stumbled in this life more than I’ve stood. I am a weak man. You are not. Letting yourself love Henrietta and letting her return that love gives you that strength.”

“It’s too late. I’ve hurt her too much.”

He snorted. “She called me a coward and now I am calling you one.” His face grew serious again. “Yes, you are your father’s son, but you’re also Eleanora’s, which, in my opinion, makes you the luckiest man alive. And I wish you had been mine.”

Damien stood and laid his hand on Kesseley’s shoulder. “You have the strength inside yourself to overcome all the damage your father has wrecked upon your soul. Don’t give up on yourself. Don’t give up on Henrietta. Not yet.”

***

Henrietta came down to the parlor in the late morning. It was a beautiful day. The light streamed in through the window where residual raindrops from last evening still lingered on the pane. If this weather held, her father could point a telescope into space, straight past the solar system, the galaxy, perhaps into heaven.

She looked beyond the window to the rolling green grass of Greenwich Park, visible just beyond the outbuildings. A peace came over her, one she had not felt in weeks, at least not since coming to London. She felt as if a calm hand lay on her heart, telling her to be still.

She said a small prayer that the man she loved might find the same peace this morning.

The door opened, and Mr. Van Heerlen strode in, crisply dressed in tan doeskins, a pale blue coat and a simple gold pendant on his cravat. He smiled at her, and she smiled back. How easy it was. She didn’t have to struggle so hard. She could just let the day and the world come and float on it. Not digging below the surface.

He sat beside her, leaning over his chair, dangling his hand casually over her arm. At first, she felt the urge to move, but didn’t. His touch was like the first jolt of coldness when she stepped in the Ouse, gradually getting used to the feel, eventually moving easily in the water.

“You look lovely this morning,” he said. “Your eyes aren’t so tired, and you’re smiling.”

He circled his finger, making tiny circles on her arm. “I have some unfortunate news, and I debated if I should tell you. I didn’t want to worry you. It is never my intention to cause you a moment of distress. But I located the caricature that upset you last evening.” He pulled a folded paper from his coat. “Would you like to see it?”

Somehow, despite his kindness, she had the feeling she couldn’t refuse. And she didn’t want to. She nodded. He gave it to her.

She wasn’t shocked, not even angry, when she examined the spiteful image. Just resentful to have it all come back, like a pile of rubbish onto her beautiful morning.

“London is so hateful.” She refolded the paper and set it on her lap. “This isn’t true.”

“Of course not.” He transferred the caricature to the fire. The edges alighted quickly, and the orange flames consumed it. “This isn’t your fault, Miss Watson. You weren’t properly guided. I assure you, in the future you will be better managed, your honor protected.”

“Surely you cannot still desire my—affections—after I have been so disgraced?”

“London is not my world. I find the opinions of other men and society an annoyance I must bear. They are so little, so inconsequential. I am better than they are. The boundaries of my world are beyond their understanding.” He knelt before her, and for a moment, she thought he was going to propose.

“Let us not discuss this any longer,” he said. “We should not let this small matter blight this historic day.” His lips brushed the top of her hand, then he slowly opened her fingers and pressed his lips into her palm. “One day very soon, I will kneel before you again.”

***

Kesseley arrived at the Royal Greenwich Observatory as the last light of the sinking sun lit the road. The silhouette of the old observatory rose above the treetops. From the high perch, Kesseley could see the Thames snaking to London, where the lights of the city blurred in the haze of coal. But up here the air was clean and crisp, fragrant with the sweet scent of flowering trees.

Kesseley touched his breast, making sure the rectangular box was still there. He took several long breaths to try and calm his anxious nerves. He had spent the morning running about the town on errands and then the afternoon being yelled at by the Duke of Houghton. All Kesseley could do was shake his head and agree that he was indeed a disgrace to his name, unworthy of his title, and a callous scoundrel. In the end, he had been ushered to the door and asked never to return.

He wandered into the courtyard, getting in line behind a group of serious men, all in ill-fitting coats and sagging cravats, who seemed to know where they were going. He followed them to a small domed room rising above the trees.

He looked for Henrietta, but neither she nor her father was yet in attendance. He examined the telescope tilted from the floor to an open shutter in the round ceiling. It was a spectacular instrument, at least five feet long, all shiny brass wheels and cylinders. One brave gentleman sat in a reclined chair under the telescope, while another gentleman stood with a foot propped on the small ladder, occasionally pulling a bar or rotating a wheel on the request of his colleague trapped under the equipment. Leaning against the wall, a heavy-set gentleman with wiry curls and a prominent wart—assumedly Mr. Pond, the Royal Astronomer—checked his watch with two owl-like eyes, then looked up at the sky through the ceiling. It was a clear night. Perfect.

Kesseley felt excitement jolt through him like electricity. He couldn’t help but feel a part of this great scientific discovery, even though he had done nothing. He had watched this dream progress over his lifetime and understood that now was the moment of realization. He wanted this planet so much for Henrietta.

At the sound of footsteps coming up the narrow stairs outside the domed room, the guests’ eyes turned to the door. Mr. Watson entered, holding a folded parchment in his shaking hand. He carried himself reverently, as if in sacred space. Behind him followed Van Heerlen with Henrietta on his arm.

Kesseley stifled a gasp. She had never appeared so beautiful as she did that evening. She wore a plain white gown and a simple knot in her hair like she did back in Norfolk. Kesseley hadn’t realized how London had changed Henrietta. A beautiful rosy color that had been absent for several weeks now blushed her ivory skin. A gentle sparkle replaced the overwrought, fearful look that had haunted her eyes.

She seemed tranquil. Happy. She studied the telescope and then smiled at Van Heerlen. He squeezed her fingers, an unspoken communication passing between the two. Kesseley’s belly tightened. The little hope he had mustered suddenly faltered.

Van Heerlen and Pond exchanged stiff bows, their history of animosity salient behind their calm composure. Mr. Watson handed the Royal Astronomer a parchment, which Pond transferred to his assistant. Then Pond led Henrietta to the only chair in the room, his stern expression softening under her beautiful, proud smile. She leaned forward in her chair like an excited child, her eyes scanning the room, coming to rest on Kesseley. Her smile wavered, all the hurt he had inflicted returning to her dark eyes.

He shouldn’t have come. He had driven all his hurt into her. Poisoning her. Poisoning this moment—perhaps one of the most important of her life—by being here.

Van Heerlen sensed her distress and quickly found the source. Kesseley bowed. Van Heerlen didn’t make any attempt to conceal the hatred on his face. His eyes cut to Henrietta, then back to Kesseley, drawing a protective invisible line around her that Kesseley could not cross.

Van Heerlen was the better man. He had cherished her, protected her—everything Kesseley hadn’t. What made him think he should have come here tonight? What made him think he could get her back?

He felt stupid for the words contained in that little box resting on his heart. Why had Lord Damien told him to hope? Why had Kesseley believed him?

Mr. Watson spoke with Pond’s assistant and pointed to a line on his document. Pond looked at his watch again. The assistant pulled down slowly on the chain altering the focus.

Find the planet, damn it. I want nothing more in this life than that planet to be there.