Chapter 17

Chapter 17

Dorian helped Emma down from the carriage and escorted her towards her rooms. She stopped at the central drawing room, however, laying a hand on his sleeve.

“Let’s talk a while,” she said.

Dorian wanted nothing so much as to retire to the music room and work on his composition. He always found music soothing;, just now, he felt very much in need of a calming activity.

“What did you want to discuss?” he asked, allowing her to draw him into the room. Her maid hovered at the door, just out of sight. Her fluttering attentiveness annoyed Dorian, but he could scarcely refuse his fiance.

“Nothing in particular,” Emma said. “We’ve scarcely seen each other since my return. You always talk with Miss Temple. I thought, perhaps, we could converse. Just the two of us.”

“Lenora usually has something to say,” Dorian said, not stopping to think how this was going to sound to Emma.

“And I do not?” It was easy to hear the hurt in her voice.

“I don’t know,” Dorian said. “You don’t speak often. Lenora always has opinions, even if they are wrong ones.”

“I don’t want to talk about Lenora,” Emma said firmly. “I want to talk about us. About our future.”

“Oh. I, uh,” Dorian stopped speaking. “I don’t know what to say. I’ve not given it a great deal of thought.”

“Exactly,” Emma said. “I think you should. Give it some thought, I mean. I know this is your father’s choice as a solution for keeping his promise to see that I am cared for. But I don’t think anyone, not even my father, has asked what I think or what I want.”

“I see,” Dorian said. And he did. He knew that he did not particularly want this marriage, but he had promised. It had never occurred to him to question how Emma might feel about it. “Then I promise I will give it some thought. After I have done so, perhaps we can talk then?”

Emma looked at him, her face studiously blank. “Thank you,” she said. “I think I will go to my rooms now.” She rose and left Dorian gaping after her.

Absently trying to puzzle out what had just happened, Dorian wandered into the dining room and rang for a servant. “Hot tea, please,” he requested when a maid appeared.

“There’s fresh biscuits,” she said. “Would you fancy some? They’ve got currants in them.”

“That sounds delightful,” Dorian replied.

When the tea and biscuits were delivered, Dorian sipped the tea meditatively but found he had little appetite for the sweet rounds of baked dough, even though liberally studded with currants.

The truth is, he’d been so studiously avoiding taking up this duty that he had not once considered how it must seem from Emma’s point of view. To be sure, Jonathan Holt was highly in favour of the match. But he’d rarely even spoken with Emma beyond polite table conversation at parties.

Charles Hooper peeked around the doorjamb, spotted him, and almost bounded into the room. “There you are!” he exclaimed. As he neared the table, he stopped short, his nose twitching like a hound’s. “Are those currant biscuits? The aroma . . . they smell divine!”

Dorian laughed and pushed the plate towards his house guest. “Have some. I requested tea, only to find that I have little appetite.”

“Too much picnic?” Charles asked. “It was a delicious spread.”

“Too much something,” Dorian replied. “I find I have little desire for food. Help yourself. It seems a shame to let the cook’s efforts go to waste.”

“Especially not a cook such as yours,” Charles said. He bit into one of the biscuits, chewing with evident relish. “Oh, so good. “You should eat at least one, so you know how to praise the fellow.”

“You can tell me about it,” Dorian said.

Charles waved his half-eaten biscuit as if in an attempt to get Dorian’s attention or to give himself time to swallow. “So, is it true, what Lenora said, that you are betrothed to Emma?”

Dorian sighed and nodded. “From childhood. It was a promise my father made to care for her in perpetuity. Perpetual care can take a very long time, so he proposed that we wed when we became adults. It is a reasonable solution. It maintains the family’s connection with Mr Holt while making sure that Emma will be secure. Anyone I marry will have a substantial income for life.”

“A sensible arrangement, no doubt, but I wonder if it will bring you happiness in the long run?” Charles emphasized his point by taking another bite of the biscuit.

“Is that the point of marriage? To find happiness?” Dorian asked. “I rather thought it to be more like a business arrangement. A man offers a home and security in exchange for a chance to have at least one if not more, heirs.”

“Oh, Dorian, Dorian, Dorian!” Charles shook his head at his host. “That might be reason enough for most men, but it will never do for you. Let me tell you, every courting couple has a story, a thing that binds them together. But when I see you and Emma together, I don’t see a story at all. You have no chemistry.”

Dorian took another sip of tea, trying to hide the heat he felt rising in his face. Whether it was from irritation or embarrassment, he scarcely knew. Perhaps it was anger because he suspected that Charles was correct.

“I see that my comments have struck home,” Charles says. “I’ll leave you to think on it. But Dorian, keep in mind that you are your own man. You are fully qualified as a physician; you are the head of a fine hospital. Jonathan Holt might be a valued partner, but you do not owe him obedience, nor should you feel obligated to fulfill a promise your father made.”

Dorian stares at Charles Hooper for a moment. “Of what else is honour made but the keeping of promises?”

Charles popped the last bite of biscuit into his mouth and spoke while still chewing, “Good thing I don’t have such an inconvenient thing as honour.”

Dorian laughed, “Alas, not all of us have such a flexible view of our obligations.”

“Thanks for the biscuits,” Charles said. “I’ll leave you to your ruminations. I need to make some notes before I forget them.”

Dorian stared after Charles, wondering just why the gentleman’s observations made him feel so uncomfortable. After a few minutes of staring at the darkening windows, he downed the last of his cold tea and went into the music room.

He had just settled into a soothing stream of practice twiddles when Jonathan let himself in. “There you are, m’boy,” he says. “I’ve just come by to tell you that you are an excellent matchmaker.”

“I am?” Dorian asked, looking up from the keyboard.

“Oh, yes, indeed. Despite the shabby way he rebuffed her when his disability struck him down, Lenora went to Reuben’s side the moment he asked for her. They apologized to each other in a way that should bring tears to the eyes of all but the most jaded. Desperate as she is for a comfortable home, she did not even bat an eye at his condition.”

“Beg pardon?” Dorian shot up to his full height, nearly knocking over the music stool. “What are you saying?”

“Why, only that Miss Temple will, no doubt, gladly marry Lord Whitchurch despite what is clearly a debilitating injury. No doubt she expects that he will pass on from it in a year or two, and she will be left with a fortune.”

“Lenora is not that kind of person,” Dorian defended her fiercely. “She might be foolish and brash at times, but she has always had a good heart. It is completely unkind of you to belittle her sympathetic feelings for someone who has less than her robust good health.”

“Oh, say what you will. She is most skilled. Perhaps you see a little of yourself in her. She is quickly ensnaring Lord Whitchurch in her wiles and no doubt will soon bring him to the question.”

“Lenora and I have been friends since we were small children. She has never, ever used another person’s misfortune as a means to get them to do something to her advantage. She is wilful, and often heedless, but she is not greedy. She would never use anyone in such a shameful fashion.”

The unspoken accusation that Jonathan was not above using others to gain his ends hung quivering in the air. Dorian clenched his jaw to keep further words from escaping. He felt his nostrils flare with anger.

After a moment, he unclenched his jaw enough to say, “I do not like your tone at all. I think you should leave before I forget myself.”

Jonathan raised his eyebrows. “Very well. I can see that somehow I have touched a nerve. I’ll leave you alone with your music. It is clear you need some time to recollect yourself.”

Dorian remained standing until Jonathan Holt let himself out of the room, and his footsteps went away down the hall.

Then he sat down at the pianoforte, bracing his clenched fists against the wood that framed the fingerboard. After a while, he unclenched his hands and began to play a set of scales. These morphed into his composition.

The first notes were simple ones, almost childish in their skipping, light-hearted tone. The melody then deepened and grew in complexity. Little notes of happiness suffused it, mingled with moments that seemed almost sad. It was clearly not finished, even when Dorian came to the end of the score he had written out.

He shuffled the pages back to the beginning, scratched out “Her” and wrote a different title.

He played it through again before carefully arranging the music on the rack, then folding down the keyboard cover.

He went to his room, made his nightly ablutions, and then lay on his bed, staring up into the dark. His thoughts were a swirling jumble that would neither still nor take coherent shape. At last he fell into an uneasy slumber where the notes danced mockingly before his eyes.