“Well,” Lady Templeton said, clapping her hands, “shall we take another peek at Thurston’s sketches?”
Yes, please.Something to distract them all, to bring back the smiles and laughter, and banish the suffocating silence. But also, she found herself more interested in male anatomy than she had been yesterday. How did one know what a man looked like beneath his clothes? Surely, there was no way of knowing. How then had her imagination conjured an entire, detailed physique for Mr. Trent while she’d slept last night?
She jumped at the book. “I did not get a good enough look at that last one.”
The others crowded closer, and the door swung open. Samuel stood in the frame, his fingers twitching at his sides, his face pale.
“Clearford”—Lady Templeton grinned—“you are finished with your guest and come to welcome me back to England’s shores.”
He nodded, a stiff, unnatural movement. “It is good to see you, my lady. But I am afraid I must speak with my sisters. Will you excuse us?”
“But of course.” Lady Templeton rose, her gaze never leaving the duke, her frame relaxed and controlled, even though she seemed to extend motherly arms over the sisters. She plucked Thurston’s notebook from Isabella’s hands and faced them all in the doorway. “I will see all of you soon?”
Lottie nodded. “You promised to offer your opinions on some of my choices for my ball in a fortnight.”
“I’ll visit you tomorrow, then.” With one last smile for everyone, Lady Templeton patted Samuel’s shoulder and disappeared down the hall.
So too did Samuel, turning with a snap and marching in the other direction. Isabella rose with her sisters, all at once, melting into a line that followed their brother like bright, fallen autumn leaves floating along a current of wind. When they stepped through Samuel’s study door, he’d already lined the chairs up, and they sank into them, leaves fluttering to the ground.
“I have news.” Samuel stood rigid as a board before them, his arms folded behind his back. “Miss Haws and I are to be married.”
Where had all the air gone? The same place as all the sounds. Perhaps time had stopped. But the clock next to the door still wound its way round with silenttick, tick, ticks.
“Well?” Samuel asked, the word frigid and sharp.
Prudence leaned forward. “It is only that… I thought you saidMiss Haws.”
“I did.”
She snapped back upright. “Ah.”
“But we thought you were going to choose Lady Margaret,” Isabella said. Yesterday at the park… all the other days. Miss Haws had seemed a fly about their brother’s head, all his attention going to Lady Margaret as he waved his hand to swat back the annoyance of the other lady. She’d pursued him, not the other way around.
Felicity half rose from her chair, and Samuel’s gaze swung to her, dropping her back to her seat. “It is only, Samuel, that she is… younger than me.”
“She’s of marriageable age.”
“But you are so old.”
“I am not old.” Had his jaw popped? “Such age differences are not uncommon.”
“You don’t seem happy about it,” Lottie said, one eyebrow arched high.
“She’s certainly pretty,” Andromeda said. “A diamond.”
“Not very sharp, though,” Imogen added. “So maybe a flower is a more apt comparison.”
“Enough.” Samuel began to pace the length of their row and back. “I am not happy. I would not marry her if I did not have to.”
“Have to?” Isabella wrapped her hands around the ends of her chair arms. “What do you mean?”
Samuel stopped pacing. “My guest this morning was her father. Mr. Haws has a letter. From our mother to his wife. Mrs. Haws is the daughter of a viscount, and she and Mother, apparently, were friends until their marriages. When his wife died last year, he discovered the letter among her belongings. The letter is… distressing.”
A letter from their mother. A new bit of paper with her voice splashed across it. Forget distressing epistles. Isabella needed that voice. It had been so long since she’d had any new words from her mother. “Let us read it, please.” She clenched her hands tighter around the chair arms to keep from grabbing for it.
“You cannot. Mr. Haws still has it. I saw it. It’s her writing, but he jumped away from me before I could take it from him.”
“Then fling a knife at him, Samuel,” Lottie said. “What good is your particular talent if not put to use?”
