Rondo Allegro (56 page)

A knock at the door, and here was Perkins again, with
Parrette behind him. He expelled his breath, knowing he had not said a single
one of the things he had thought up over the endless days lying blind at Gib,
and then during the endless journey. It would all have to wait yet again.

They separated into their dressing rooms. Anna lingered in
their salon in case he wished her arm. When he came out, tall and fine in his
evening clothes, he carried a wrapped packet in his free hand, which he
surrendered to Perkins with a subdued murmur. Then, “Anna?”

“I am here.”

They started down the stairs together, Henry counting under
his breath.

In the antechamber before the dining room, Henry recognized
his brother-in-law’s laughing voice. “Frederick,” he exclaimed, then felt a
warm clasp of his hand.

“Good to see you returned at last, by Jupiter!”

“Mary, are you here as well?”

“Here I am, Henry. And very glad to find you home again.”

Harriet spoke close by. “Henry, please let me take you in.”

He smiled. “Harriet? If you wish, though I thought that
Mother and I might lead the way. Sit near me, that I may hear what you have
been about.”

Harriet laughed. “That will take all of two moments to
relate: nothing, and nothing.”

“We will see about that,” he promised, and Diggory, seeing
him ready, announced dinner, then opened the door.

Henry felt his mother’s thin fingers close around his hand.
He listened to the rustle and shuffle as everyone fell in behind; Harriet chattering
to Anna about what to expect for dinner, and Frederick wondering aloud to Mary
and Emily what they ate aboard ships.

Under cover of their voices, Henry murmured, “I hope that we
may talk together later, Mother, but I wanted straight away to apologize to you
for my long silence.”

Her voice trembled as she whispered, “Oh, my dearest, I
quite understand. It was a terrible disappointment . . .”

His knuckles collided with the back of his chair. He could
not see the others, and had no intention of having his conversation overheard.
He patted his mother’s hand. “We will talk again later.”

On the beautiful damask tablecloth the Meissen and the
Waterford had once again made their appearance, though Henry could not see
them.

Anna, delighting in the beauty, reflected on the fact that
she could give the order for these to be seen everyday. The thought gave her
pleasure, but she decided that it, like so many matters could wait until she
and Henry understood one another better.

Dinner was a long affair. Henry successfully interpreted the
servants’ welcome by the number and quality of the many dishes served. He tried
to eat something of every one, inured by years of service dinners, and he found
the lingering headache from the chaise diminishing to bearable proportions.

Frederick introduced the topic of food on shipboard, and
they discussed similar matters until, over dessert, Frederick exclaimed, “Hey
day, Henry, it is a capital thing, your being back. I hope you mean to stop
on?”

Frederick, though closer to Henry’s elder brother in age,
had been his friend. John had preferred his Eton and London acquaintance, in
particular those with money and rank. Though the Elsteads’ wealth was by no
means trifling, Henry well remembered that Frederick had been kept on short commons
(as was he), his mother hoping that he would seek a bride with a larger dowry
and more exalted relations than Mary.

But Mary and Frederick had had an understanding from
childhood, exactly the same way Henry and Emily had. Or Henry had thought they
had. Distinctly recollecting Frederick’s honest dismay after Henry discovered
that his brother had secretly cut him out, with Emily’s willing connivance,
At least I was not altogether the last to
find out what everyone else had seen
.

Henry did not reply as he might have. Frederick was not to
blame for anything that had happened, but neither had he helped. Frederick,
when trouble loomed, was apt at playing least-in-sight.

So Henry said only, “I cannot make any decisions until this
bandage comes off. I cannot even attend Nelson’s funeral.”

Frederick’s polite mumble of commiseration—he could not
imagine anyone wishing to attend a funeral—was muted by his sister’s composed,
well-modulated speech. “I believe I speak for us all in admiring your wish to
honor the fallen hero, but we can unite in expressing consternation at the idea
of your taking such a risk. The crowds no doubt will be vast, and unregulated,
made up of mariners and other rude persons. And though many of your peers will
be there, indeed, the very number suggests a rational attitude: one more or
less will not be missed. You are better safe among us again.”

The dowager, whose primary emotion was relief at having her
son home again, agreed fervently, echoed by her elder daughter. Anna observed
Henry’s bent head, the tight line to his shoulders down to his hands, and
sensed something amiss. She kept silent.

Frederick said encouragingly into the pause, “And there is
plenty to do here. And you know, m’father begged me to say that he will be
along to offer any help he might be called upon.”

“Such as?”

“Well, he might take on the duties of the J.P. That has
rather fallen behind. We were forced to hire a stipendiary magistrate for a
year, but all that can wait until Father calls upon you.”

Henry was struggling to get a rein on his emotions. From
Nelson’s funeral to justice of the peace! He had not thought past striving to
get to that memorial if he could. But he knew he would not be able to endure
the coach ride again, much less the jostling. So it was time to force his
attention to the duty before him.

John
had taken the
place of their father as justice of the peace? Another thing to look into. But
he became aware that the clink of eating utensils against porcelain had ceased.
He put down his own utensils, and sat back.

The rustle of cloth and the moving of chairs indicated the
ladies were rising, and next came the sound of the footmen removing the covers.
Henry was left with Frederick, who chattered amiably about the shooting season
and similar inconsequentials. Yes, Frederick still seemed to prefer the safety
of least-in-sight, and Henry decided not to interrogate him. He would do his
own investigations, beginning with John-Coachman, whose opinion he had trusted
as a boy.

“Shall we join the ladies?” Henry asked.

Henry did not have to see the company to know that he would
be expected to be principal speaker. Diggory brought the packet to him, as
instructed. “Permit me to begin by saying that events being what they were, I
have not had an opportunity to bring gifts, save this music for the fortepiano.
Mother, the top sheets are an arrangement by a German fellow named Beethoven.
The sonata is his eighteenth, in case you decide you like him. There are
seventeen before it. This one is called The Hunt. If your tastes have not
greatly changed, I believe you may like it. The rest are some airs I found in
Italy and other ports.”

“Henry! You could not have found anything I wanted more!
Bless you, dearest.”

“Oh, Mother, it is as well you have those spectacles now,”
Harriet called out.

Henry waited until the exclamations died down. His head
panged anew at the sharp voices, the clatter of tea cups and spoons, and he
fought to master the annoyance that had followed Emily’s complacent words about
Nelson’s funeral.
One more or less might
not be missed
.

She was not to be blamed. Her attitude would be regarded as
rational, just as she had said. But there was something he
could
speak about, as soon as he sensed that the servants were out
of the room.
Get it over
, he told
himself, once convinced the room had cleared. “While I was in London waiting
upon tailors, I took the opportunity to consult our man of business.”

He waited as his mother exclaimed softly, Harriet sighed
with satisfaction, and the infernal clink and clatter halted. He said, “It will
come as no surprise that the family’s affairs are left in wretched order.”

He curbed his patience as everyone had to exclaim or protest
yet again. On board a ship, no one spoke unless asked a question by their
superior officer, and he found himself longing for those days.

His head ached anew, and his temper got the best of him. “I
am certain of your expectation that I will execute my duty, as my own
inheritance from my great-uncle, the admiral, has lain largely untouched in the
funds. I have also been lucky enough to do well in prize money. But I do not
intend to throw good money after bad.”

The complete silence following these words caused him to
wish he could see their faces. Silences, he had discovered, possessed a
surprising degree of qualities. He could not quite parse this one now.
“Beginning with the sale of that expensive house in Hallam Street,” he stated,
and inwardly was pleased when he detected a short inward breath that had to
come from Emily.

Then Harriet wailed, “Then I am not to go to London again?”

“Harriet, dear,” the dowager began nervously.

Henry hated to hear that worry in his mother’s voice. “Not
at all,” he said in Harriet’s direction. “Your making your bow to London
society was at the forefront of my mind, which occasioned my decision. Handsome
as that house might be—I could not see it, but I am assured of that—it was
quite unsuitable in every other way.”

His voice sharpened. Anna’s neck prickled at the undertone
of anger that she sensed more than heard, and then gazed in surprise as Emily
reddened.

“It appeared that my brother and his wife preferred a house
in town that admitted no more than two comfortably, but the place is altogether
unsuitable as a
family
house.”

Anna gained sudden clarity then: the former baron and baroness
had spent time in London, leaving the rest of the family in Yorkshire. With
Harriet underage, and their daughters mere babes, it made sense. The question
was, had Emily expected to return to London alone this coming spring, if the
place was unsuitable for presenting Harriet?

“It should bring an excellent price, and as for your visit
to London, Harriet, your Grandmother Dangeau wishes nothing better than to
launch you from Cavendish Square.”

Emily listened with growing horror, so surprised she forgot
to mask her emotions, and Anna thought,
She
did. She had expected to return to London on her own
.

In this, she was incorrect: Emily had expected to return
with Henry.

He, it seemed, was not done. “That puts me in mind of
another thing. Why is it that the stable is crowded with a landau and a park
phaeton, besides the family coach and my mother’s gig? Where was this newly
ordered barouche-landau, which was the first item I was dunned for on my
arrival in London, to be fitted?”

Emily said with a calm she did not feel, “It was to be kept
in London. I need scarcely point out that they are the fashion nowadays.” As
Henry’s frown only deepened, “And as for selling them off, I did cause to be
sold all my husband’s carriages and the main of his horses. As for what remains,
my thought was only of your wife. A lady must not be perceived to be dowdy. It
is positively fatal.”

“Am I to understand that my mother is dowdy when she goes
about in her gig?” No answer was made to that, and Henry turned in the
direction he believed Anna to be sitting. “Do you drive, Lady Northcote?”

“I do not,” she said, but her heart smote her at the
undisguised shock in Emily’s face, and she added, “I would like to learn.”

“That can be arranged,” Henry said, his voice cool again,
his smile strained, curving tightly on one side. “But even after you do, I feel
certain you will not be driving three carriages.”

Henry stopped himself. Though he had been appalled at just
how badly his brother had run the estate into the ground, he knew his response
was splenetic, that John was responsible for most of the bad decisions and
waste. John had clearly thought only of his own convenience, and perhaps he
enjoyed the éclat gained from the spectacle of his beautiful wife driving about
in the handsomest equipage, but Henry was certain that Emily was behind the
order of that devilishly expensive barouche-landau.

He forced himself to pause, to finish the tea he had not
wanted, and then to say, “Perhaps it is best to leave this question for another
time. I apologize for my disagreeable mood, caused by tiredness from the long
journey.”

Everyone rose. He heard Anna’s step, smelled her elusive
perfume, and then came her quiet voice. “Shall I accompany you upstairs?”

“Please,” he said, holding out his arm.

Neither spoke until they reached their sitting room. Her
heart had quickened its beat; and she sensed by the angle of his bent head that
he was deep in thought.

As for Henry, by then he had had time to thoroughly regret
his ill-temper. When he heard the door close, and knew they were alone, he kept
her hand in his as he said, “Anna. I beg your pardon. I promise my manners will
improve on the morrow.”

The morrow. Between that and now was a night.

All his rational, sensible questions went out the window,
leaving him standing there blind, painfully aware that he had no experience of
courtship whatsoever. And yet he had come to England fully intending to court
his wife if he was lucky enough to find her there. She deserved that much.

But he sensed her waiting, and though the back of his neck
prickled with embarrassment, he forced himself to get the words out. “We have
begun our married life, so to speak? That was not entirely a dream.”

‘Married life’. As if one night in a swinging cot meant
anymore than . . . one night in a swinging cot. But these were
the polite words to be used, she expected, and she guessed in the flat line of
his mouth, and the redness of his face below the bandage that he was
uncomfortable.