Chapter 25 - MARK—KITCHEN CONVERSATIONS

Chapter 25

MARK—KITCHEN CONVERSATIONS

For twenty minutes or more, I played the pianoforte for my audience of Dido and Elizabeth, pounding the keys until my fingers throbbed. I added not one note to my composition.

Torrance’s speech had done what I supposed he’d set out to do: made me a jealous fool. Stepping away from my lifeless audience, I walked out of the music room and headed to the kitchen.

Hearing Georgie’s laughter come from the back of the house, I prepared to see a cozy sight.

But I wasn’t ready.

Two people—she in his arms—chuckling, with flour scattered on them like snow and along the wide cedar planks of the floor. Holding to an upper shelf, Georgina hung there as Mr. Carew supported her.

“My lord,” she said in a voice that sounded surprised and winded, “Mr. Carew and I have had a bit of a disaster.”

Like orange flames in the hearth, I burned. I was in a fake relationship, but I no longer felt as if we had a faux commitment, but something true. Shouldn’t my pretend lover be faithful to me, not enjoying a moment with Carew?

Getting my mind to clear of wishing to haul Carew away from my fake fiancée, I cleared my throat. “Can I assist?”

His ashy-brown hands, or powder-doused ones, were about her waist. He lowered my goddess to the floor.

“Lord Mark,” she said, giggling as the fellow picked up her fallen ladder. “Mr. Carew, you have been too helpful.”

The two laughed again.

“Quite a disaster,” I said. “Let me help you clean up.”

Humored, wiping his hands on a cloth that lay on the table, Mr. Carew turned back to Georgie. “I think Lord Mark Sebastian can assist you. I can take this willow bark tea to my patient.”

“Is Lydia Wilcox better, Mr. Carew?”

He nodded and smiled. His spectacles were dusted. “Yes, she is. The letting broke the fever. This tea will keep it away.”

“Mr. Carew is being too modest. He’s saved little Lydia’s life.” She handed him the teacup. “We are forever grateful.”

“My pleasure,” he said, gazing at her too long, probably noticing how the chocolate gown swathed her hips. The white strings of the apron cinching her waist left nothing to be imagined and led me to that lone memory of embracing Georgie in the garden.

“Get some rest, Miss Wilcox.” Carew nodded to me and left with the steaming mug.

Georgina dusted her palms against her apron. “Are you serious about helping?”

“Command me, Miss Wilcox. Tell me how to assist.”

She went into the larder and brought back a broom. “Do you know how to sweep? Men of the ton rarely know how one of these works.” Her chuckles persisted.

“I’m serious. I’d like to help. I need something different to do or think about other than Pleyel.”

Glancing at me, her warm eyes fluttering over my countenance, she handed me the broom, then moved away, hurrying like she’d done something wrong. Georgina went to a bowl on the other side of the table and began pounding spices in a mortar and pestle.

This thing—I’d seen Chancey use one. I pushed the broom at the floor and tried to gather the excess flour into a pile. The broom left streaks. Wasn’t sure I was helping. But I did hit at dust stuck to the ladder.

“I’m glad I didn’t knock over the jars. The duke has many herbal medicines—chamomile for skin irritations, milk thistle for the liver, and valerian for calm. Mr. Carew was telling me what each herb did.”

“In the morning, if there’s no change with Miss Lydia, I’ll suggest to Torrance to bring Livingston. Lord Livingston’s brilliant mind must be consulted.”

“I think . . .” Georgia glared at me. “I believe Mr. Carew, with Scarlett’s help, is providing the best care. I’m not sure your shrieking friend would be helpful.”

“Merely a suggestion.” I hoped my voice didn’t sound tight . . . or jealous. “I want the best for your sister.”

“Mark,” she said in even, slightly annoyed tones, “I’m sure your friend is intelligent, but so is Mr. Carew. My sister Scarlett is impressed with the credentials of both men. I trust her. She’d be a physician if it were possible for a woman.”

“To be sure.”

“Yes, sir. Despite what the Post or Globe or some inhabitants of Mayfair may say, some Blackamoors aspire to book learning.”

I’d made her mad. I was wrong and I knew it. “My slight jealousy of Carew and admiration of my friend may have made my tone sound odd—”

“Oddly condescending. Yes.”

She cracked an egg. It wasn’t a gentle tap.

Fool that I was, I’d had a similar conversation with Livingston. Then, it was I who was suspicious of his views. In one instance, I’d exposed something terrible in me. Ignorance.

“I’ve known of learned Blackamoor musicians, men of great talent who composed scores of work. I envy that freedom. I didn’t give the same understanding of such excellence to men and sisters who follow science. I apologize.”

My answer seemed to satisfy her. She frowned less, and the second egg wasn’t massacred. She cracked it and dropped a perfect yellow yolk into the bowl.

Yet, I wasn’t satisfied. I didn’t want to think some form of prejudice resided in my heart. “Georgie, in my ignorance, I hadn’t heard of many Blackamoor men being allowed to study medicine. I know of doctors who sew up wounds or yank a tooth, but not learned professionals, never a physician. Carew lectured at one of the duke’s meetings, but I didn’t pay attention. I tried to write my sonata while listening to Livingston tell me he hired a courtesan.”

“The fact that doctors are looked down upon as hacks but the word physician sounds grand is another invention of the ton. A person in pain needs help. They don’t care if relief comes from a gentleman or not. And I think it takes a lot of skill to pull the right tooth. Where do you suppose those of us not in Mayfair would get medical aid?”

Walking around the table, I wanted to kiss her hand and beg forgiveness. She needed to see that I could own my faults.

“Georgie, we’ve talked about a cartoon that depicts the worst when races mix. We need to be able to talk of the politeness that sweeps around tolerated prejudice. I didn’t know. I’m sorry. I only want the best for your sister.”

“And the best can’t come from Mr. Carew?”

“It could. It has. He could have the deepest understanding.” I lightly tapped my fingers along a knot in the table-board but dug more deeply into my blindness. “Georgie, I’m trying to say that I automatically assumed the most intelligent souls would be like Livingston. That’s wrong. But please don’t hate my friend. He’s a gentleman with an income. He’s been scorned badly by marriage. That doesn’t make him evil. He’s human, flesh and blood.”

“Why are you telling me this? You could keep your views a secret. That’s what others would do. I know many saw the Gilroy cartoon and laughed.”

“Actually, Livingston and my mother were horrified. They hate scandal.”

She beat the ingredients in her bowl like it owed her money or had said something foul about one of her sisters. “If it wasn’t you in the paper, they would laugh at what fool had been entangled by a daughter of the coal king.”

“Yes. They would.”

Georgie struck her dough, which smelled of ginger. “You should go compose your sonata.”

My tongue began to tighten, and I felt my words being twisted into knots, but I had to tell her everything. “I must be completely honest with you. I wish . . . wish to come to you with all of me. My thoughts. My flaws. My hardships. My joys. You need to know that somewhere in my head I harbor these thoughts. I need you to challenge me, help me grow.”

“You are grown, Mark Sebastian, Lord Mark Sebastian. I cannot control your thoughts. Nor do I want to be that guiding voice in your life.”

“But you already are, Georgie. You have become important to me. And my jealousy—”

“What?”

“Yes, jealousy and sense of entitlement. I mean, you’re my false fiancée. I take pride in that. I don’t want a handsome man within a foot of you. You need a spice, come to me. I’ll be spicy.”

Her eyes sparkled like diamonds. She gaped at me. “It takes a big man to admit his weakness and when he’s wrong.”

I took the spoon from her hand. “I’m a big man, and you’ve become my weakness.”

Dipping close to her lips, lips I’d dreamed about every moment since our last kiss, I took Georgina Wilcox, my Georgie in my arms, and put my mouth to hers. A jealous fool could become a learned man if it meant having this, a passion birthed from deep down, reaching all the way to the music woven in my soul.