21. In Which Philip Shares His Cheroot

Grace washed, changed into travel attire, and put up her hair before she joined Philip on the bench in the now sun-illuminated garden. He hadn’t moved. He was watching the birds, wearing last night’s clothes, and looked to be on his fourth cheroot.

He gave her a smile as she sat beside him, but when he saw the journal and stack of pages in her hand, his expression moved from curiosity through recognition to somber understanding.

“Diary, was it?” Philip asked. He was trying for nonchalance.

She nodded. “The key, in the end, was your name.”

That took him aback. A moment of pure longing. Grief.

“I am so sorry, Philip,” she said, placing her hand over his where it rested on the bench. “You have been suffering in ways no one understood.”

For a moment, it seemed too much for him. His attempt to smile was a failure. “I think that is life. The occasional lovely night punctuating an endless ocean of ... ” He made a gesture with the burn-scabbed hand holding the cheroot. It lost its energy halfway through, falling back into his lap.

Grace had never quite heard him like this before. “I think you may need to spend a bit more time in the field,” she ventured, gently. “I’ve read that one cannot remain long in a state of despair when fully immersed in nature.”

Denton snorted. “Charlie wrote that sort of thing to convince himself.”

“Mr. Ashburton wrote it. I think he believes it.”

Denton threw her a sidelong glance. “Odd to hear you evoke him without sounding as though you wish to crush his neck beneath a carriage wheel.”

She shrugged. She did not want to let the conversation stray too far. She smoothed a hand over the leather cover. “The key is on the first page. I do apologize for working through so much of it. Once I realized what it was, I really ought to have stopped. But I couldn’t.”

“Fascinated by the perversion of it all?” he asked, dryly.

“Well, that night in the palace sounded a bit extreme, with all the cantharides and whips and so forth. But in all other respects...he sounds like my father speaking of my mother. Or Arabella, about her duke.” She held Philip’s hand now. “That’s why I couldn’t stop reading it. I wanted to know what it was like. To love and be loved so deeply.”

That softened him. He regarded her with a thoughtful look. “No reason to think you won’t experience it for yourself.”

There was plenty of reason to think it, but Grace did not wish to discuss that. Instead, she squeezed his hand. “He loved you completely. You were the most important thing in his life.”

Philip took a slow puff of his cheroot, then cleared his throat. “I know. I knew. But one always wants to hear it.” He glanced over, and saw the look on her face. “Oh good God, don’t pity me. I’ve money and good looks and a lovely life back home. I’m not even a cripple yet. Let’s not turn maudlin.”

“I do not like to think of you enduring it all alone.”

“Kind of you to say,” he said. Then slanted her a look. “If it helps, I’m not as alone as one might assume. Catherine’s known me since birth. Years before we wed, she caught me in a barn with two strapping stable hands. She had her own reasons for marrying me, and we are friends to one another.”

“I’m happy to hear it.” Friendship also seemed like a more reasonable thing to aspire to in her own marriage than to be loved completely. “I hope I can cultivate a similar warmth with my husband.”

He turned to look at her directly. “Did you fall pregnant? Forgive the bluntness,” he added quickly, “but based on what I’ve heard about Randolph St. George, I cannot fathom another reason you’d consent to marry him.”

“He’s a charming future viscount with obscene wealth,” she said mildly.

“So are at least four other men who live at a slightly higher level of intellectual curiosity, which would seem fairly important to a person like you.”

“Oh, he’s intelligent enough,” she said.

“Good to hear. I’d encountered a troubling rumor that the man was a—what was it?—waste of hair.”

She laughed. “Ah. So you heard about him from Luke.”

Philip’s brow ticked at the use of Luke’s Christian name. Grace felt herself blush.

He let a long moment pass in silence. The mistake was no different from the one he’d made with Charlie’s name, and she wasn’t terribly surprised she’d made it, given that Philip was dangerously easy to talk to and she’d had no sleep at all.

Grace cleared her throat. “It is not widely known, thankfully, but my betrothal did follow a ... lapse in judgment. It all occurred very shortly before you wrote to me.” And as of midweek, she was past the day her courses were to arrive. And there was no sign of them. “I think ... I’m certain our families will insist upon a special license the moment I arrive home.” She smiled, trying to make it all sound perfectly fine with her. “You know, St. George is overwhelmingly considered the catch of the season.”

“I see. Luke,” he said, meaningfully, “said a disdainful thing or two about his mental prowess, but his more serious concern was that that the man might take exception to your epistolary friendships. Charlie told me about those,” Philip explained, when her brows rose in surprise, “and when I mentioned them in passing to Ash, he was immediately concerned that your husband might not allow them to continue. The idea of you going without deep exploration of mathematics distressed him with an intensity I admit took me aback.”

She swallowed over a sudden thickness in her throat. Not only because St. George’s evidently predictable stance on the Italian professor was something she was still coming to terms with. But because Luke had realized how it would affect her. Immediately.

“It will all be well. I’m sure St. George won’t mind,” Grace said.

Philip gave her a glance that said he would let it go, but wasn’t sure he believed her. Then turned to watch the birds in the garden.

“You know,” he said, after a moment, lifting the cheroot to his mouth, “I worked as hard as I reasonably could without making it so obvious that your aunt noted it.”

Grace looked at him, confused. “Worked at ... ”

“Well, there was placing the settee in the solarium to move her a bit farther away. Getting her foxed at that dinner whilst spouting wrong opinions of Gottfried Leibniz, so she might be too absorbed in educating me to check if you’d gone up to bed. Also, pleading with her to apply her lovely penmanship to the displays once you’d cracked the cipher, so I could send him to visit you after you swooned. Directly into his arms , I am given to understand,” Philip added, deadpan.

“Are you implying that ... ” she could not finish the sentence without speaking aloud what had happened between Luke and herself. So she closed her mouth.

Philip’s smile had taken on a certain self-satisfaction . “And, of course, the orchid, and the many instances I intercepted a professor on his way to the library, so that the two of you might have more time to quarrel. And making sure you knew of the butterfly vivarium—please tell me that’s where you went when you said ‘greenhouse.’ You’re staring, by the way.”

Grace was so overwhelmed it took a moment to get any words out at all. “But why?”

“Because you deserved it, and so did he.”

“Deserved ... ”

“A bit of fun, in all the misery. You cannot honestly think I missed how badly you wanted to bed the man.”

She flushed even darker. “I, myself ... entirely missed it —”

“I saw it the instant he walked in, the day you arrived. Please hear this with deepest respect: watching you struggle against your desire to know whether Ash’s length and girth matched his height was the one shining brightness in this entire hellacious week.”

Grace was so searingly mortified that she was seized with a coughing fit, which Philip watched with a look of serene enjoyment.

“I did not realize I was so transparent,” she managed.

“You are clear glass. Ash, however, has always been eerily placid and impossible to draw out. So, the fact that I could read him at all made it clear that he was outrageously drawn to you and likely quite desperately at your mercy. Please tell me you had it.”

“Had ... ”

“The fun, Grace,” he said blandly.

Once she went home, she would never speak of it again. So, despite her embarrassment, she found that she did wish to speak of it now, while she could. “I had a good deal of it,” she admitted. Before Philip could speak, she added, “I shan’t tell you a thing about his member. Please do not ask.”

Philip grinned. “Who could have envisioned this? Little Grace Chetwood. Going on and on about members.” She gave him an irritated look, which he accepted with glee. “It simply makes me happy. Despite your cruel withholding of necessary details. To know that you enjoyed yourself.”

“I also fell somewhat in love, unfortunately.” It consoled her more than she expected, to admit it to someone who looked at her with such an empathetic, knowing gaze.

“I’m not surprised,” Philip said, more gently. “Who among us has not fallen a little bit in love with Luke Ashburton, once we saw what was under the air of self-seriousness .”

She giggled. “He does come off a touch aloof, doesn’t he?”

“Oh, it’s infuriating. But then one discovers what a deeply considerate person he is, and how terribly alone he’s been all his life, and one rather wants to adopt him like an orphan puppy.” He shook his head fondly. “I was focused on facilitating wickedness, but I had hope it might lead to something.”

Lead to something. It had ... and it could not. Grace found herself again fighting emotion.

Philip went on, philosophically, tapping ash from his cheroot. “You suit. You’re not alike, but there are so many resonances. And you were Charlie’s favorite people.” His voice had gone somber. A hint of regret. “I was unaware that your betrothal was a necessity. Ash’s situation felt more flexible, but that may have been wishful thinking. His work requires the resources of a Cora Worthing, and you have seventeen sisters, so I can’t imagine you’d be bringing that into a union. I suppose I simply wanted it. I think you could understand one another.”

Grace glanced toward the house. “He’s gone,” Philip said. “Left half an hour ago. To pay Miss Worthing a call, by my understanding.”

Grace nodded. Of course. As he should. Nevertheless, her eyes filled with tears.

Philip said nothing. Smoked, and sat with her as she felt it.

Finally, sh e took a breath, and put the journal and pages in his lap. “Happy birthday,” she said softly.

His eyes widened at that. A sad smile. “Thank you.” He cast her a sidelong glance, then. “As a man acquainted with yearning,” he said, passing the cheroot, “I can tell you that having Charlie for the time I did was not merely better than nothing. It was everything.”

Grace considered this. But could not get her mind around it. “I don’t understand how you could call it that, when there was so much you could not have.”

“He changed me,” Philip said. For an instant, his eyes fixed on something private and luminous, a world only he could see. “I am an entirely different person.”

Grace took that in. It comforted her to know Philip had found a sort of peace with the unfairness of it. But she was dubious that what he was saying could apply to the extremely short time she had with Luke.

“One can be transformed in a night. If it’s the right sort of night.” Philip said, as though he’d read her thoughts. He patted her cheek. “I shall miss you. I dearly hope you will be happy in your new life.”

“Oh, I will,” she assured him. “I can generally find a way.”

It was true: generally, she could.

And her chat with Philip had given her a few new ideas as to how to go about it.