A sense of profound relief swept through Anthony as the gentleman left, offering him a small nod of acknowledgment as they passed one another in the foyer. He hadn’t wanted to wound Lady Cecily, who had offered him nothing but kindness and friendship—and now, at last, he knew that he would not.
“Captain Sharp,” Lady Cecily said as he came into the drawing room. “How lovely to see you.” There was still a pink glow to her cheeks as she settled once more into her seat across from him.
“And you,” he said. “No roses today. I brought this instead.” He proffered his own clay pot, filled with the spiky fronds of the Venus’s Flytrap.
“Dionaea muscipula!” she exclaimed, popping out of her seat once more as she reached for it eagerly. “Oh, it is just lovely! However did you find it? Even John—” She stopped herself, her color ratcheting higher still. “That is to say,” she said softly, gently, “while I have the utmost appreciation for your efforts, Captain, and it truly is just—just beautiful…” A wistful little sigh of regret as she retracted her hands, settling once more in her seat. “I’m afraid I cannot accept it.”
“But you must. I can’t send it back, and I’m afraid it will come to a bad end if left in my care. Of course you must take it.” And then, because it was clear enough that she could not accept a gift which might imply that she would be amenable to courtship, he added, “Call it a gift given in friendship. Lady Cecily, I have no intention of asking to court you.”
The poor woman practically wilted with relief. “I mean no offense, Captain Sharp,” she said. “I am fond of you, of course—”
“But you lovehim,” he said, with an inclination of his head toward the door through which her last caller had left.
“I do,” she said on a sigh, as if warmed her heart to admit to it at last. “I truly do. I didn’t expect to—”
“You owe me no explanations,” Anthony said. “I came here today to make my own apologies to you.” He offered the plant once more. “So. Friends, then?”
“Friends,” she said. “Yes. Of course. I should be delighted.” She nipped the pot out of his hand, cradling it gently in her own. “John is a horticulturist,” she said softly as she reclaimed her seat. “He has a positionat Kew. He is neither titled nor wealthy, but we share so many similar interests.”
Anthony smiled as he sat down and allowed her to prepare him a cup of tea. Charity had told him, once, that Lady Cecily had no great need to marry at all; that she did not require money or position. That she could, and would only, marry as she pleased. She had meant it to be heartening. An assurance that if he managed to win her, it would be because she truly wanted him. Now, he could only find himself happy that Charity had been entirely correct in her assessment, and that Lady Cecily had chosen to marry elsewhere.
To exactly the man of her choosing.
“He sounds like a fine fellow,” he said. “How did you form an acquaintance?”
“Through letters, over several years,” she admitted with a blush. “It is through his assistance that I have managed to acquire so many specimens of my own. I had little enough else to entertain me while I was caring for my father in the countryside, you understand.” A gusty little sigh. “But I treasured his letters. They let me feel as if my world were a bit larger than it truly was. He sent sketches and books, and eventually cuttings and seeds for me to cultivate on my own.”
“May I assume that the pot upon the table in the foyer is a gift from him?”
She beamed. “Echinacea purpurea,” she said. “It is a plant native to America, purported to have medicinal properties. John grew it himself.”
A gift from the heart, then. One exactly to Lady Cecily’s tastes. How lovely for the both of them.
“He asked if he might pay a call upon me,” she said. “Since we were at last both in London. Of course I agreed at once, as we have been friends of a sort for a great many years now. I simply did not expect to fall in love with him.”
A lovely surprise, then, to both of them—and a courtship conducted with a bit more privacy than most of those withinTonsociety. A fellow without a title or any significant wealth, and most especially one who worked for his living would not have been extended invitations toTonevents. And still he’d come out the victor, snatching her hand right out from beneath every other man vying for it.
She would be considered to be marrying beneath her station. But he didn’t think she cared whatsoever what anyone else might say of it. She would be happy nonetheless, with her plants and her horticulturist husband.
“I understand completely,” Anthony said. “The truth is that I came heretoday to tell you that I have found someone of my own,” he said.
“Have you?” She dimpled, genuinely delighted.
“I have. And she is…not someone society will consider acceptable.” Something, he supposed, he and Lady Cecily had in common. That they had both selected a spouse quite outside of societal expectations. “I don’t know if she will accept me, but—” He had to try. Nonetheless, he had to try.
“I think it is best, in all things,” she said softly, “to pursue happiness. What cold comfort the approval of society would bring, if one were to sacrifice one’s own happiness to attain it.”
“Yes,” he said, clasping his hands before him. “You might recall that some time ago, you lent me a volume of poetry.”
“Keats,” she said. “Of course. We had quite a lively discussion onOde to a Nightingale.”
And so they had, since it had resonated with him more than he had expected. Because he, too, had experienced many of those same feelings contained within the lines of them poem. The profound sense of isolation, of loneliness. The futile longing to escape the harsh realities of mortal life. “She is my nightingale,” he said simply. “She has made me see the beauty there is to be found in life, even amidst the ugliness.”
A soft smile. “Then I wish you joy,” she said. “And it is my most sincere hope that soon I may congratulate you both upon the occasion of your wedding.”
“And I, you,” he said. His quarter hour had nearly elapsed, and already the butler had sent him a little glance intended to imply that he was soon meant to take his leave. “If you’ll forgive me,” he said. “I really must be going. I’m on my way to see her now; I only stopped round to say goodbye and to give you my apologies.”
“Not goodbye, Captain,” she said firmly as she rose to her feet to see him off. “I have so few true friends in London. I would be happy to have more. Do bring her round to visit sometime; I should like to meet her.”
