Chapter 13

CHAPTER 13

They were young all over again.

Everything was the same but different.

Georgina sat next to him in the curricle, the road stretching out before them into lush green countryside. White yarrow and orange poppies dotted the pastures. Golden sunlight outlined the tops of distant trees, stone fences, and faraway tenant cottages.

"I think I know why you came."

Something in his voice made her look at him.

He was stiff. He was grave. He was…handsome, unbearably handsome, with his strong jaw and his fine nose and his eyes so aflame with fervency. He felt everything with such depth. He always had. All his emotions poured out so easily—in his words, his paintings, his expressions, while all hers were locked so deep inside herself no one would ever see them.

She wished she could let them loose.

If only she were brave. Strong.

Like him.

"I no longer wish to ask it of you," he said.

"Ask what of me?"

"Marriage."

"Oh."

Birds chirped. The carriage wheels creaked.

She folded her hands and stared down at them, a smile twitching her lips. "You presume much, Mr. Fancourt."

One brow rose in surprise. "I have offended you."

"No."

"I did not mean that—"

"Pray, why were you laughing?" She breathed in hay-scented air. "In the turret room. The three of you."

"It was nothing."

It was wonderful. The words clung to her tongue. The sound of it. Had she ever seen him happy before? Would he ever be happy? Would she?

"What did you wish to speak of?"

She explained her remembrance of Patrick Brownlow at Hollyvale, then drew the magazine column from her velvet reticule. "I thought perhaps it was of some significance."

"You did right."

"You may keep the column."

"Thank you." Stuffing it into his coat, he turned the matching bays down a smaller road, where hemlocks and oaks bowed over their heads. "Do you still acquaint with Mr. Oswald?"

"On occasion."

"How much do you know of him?"

"As much as I know of any other gentleman, I suppose. Why do you ask?"

"He seems of questionable morals."

"To what do you base such a charge?"

"You defend him?"

"No." She looked away, brushed away a leafy branch as they passed. "I only wondered."

The carriage passed on down a road they had never been before. The breeze bathed them with warm, sweet-smelling, murmuring sounds as it rustled leaves and grasses.

With sudden force, the carriage pulled to a halt. "You have wondered much and I have told you nothing."

"You need not tell me anything."

For the first time since they left Sowerby House in the curricle, his eyes lifted to hers. "There are many things that need to be explained. I wish to tell you everything, if you will listen."

She nodded, but the answer she wanted to speak simmered in her heart. Simon, I have always listened.

He did not mean to tell her so much. He had intended to keep the account as short as he had with Sir Walter—the facts, nothing more, plain and brief.

But he told her about the tattered blue dress. He should have stopped there, for emotion wobbled his voice, yet he told her about his children in the barn loft too. He told her where he placed Ruth, the things she said before he lost her.

All the time, Miss Whitmore listened. She did not attempt to pacify him, not with well-versed consolations he had heard a hundred times. But her eyes, every now and again, moistened during his story.

Her sympathy soothed him.

She soothed him.

"I came home to find the men responsible for what happened. It has placed myself, my children, even you in danger, and for that I am sorry."

"You cannot be sorry for doing what is right."

"I had no right to involve you."

"Anyone who hears of your plight should wish to be involved." How soft and quiet she was. How easy to tell things to. How had he never noticed that before? Yet had he not always told her ideas and dreams he had never shared with anyone else?

He had always imagined it was because he cared for her so little.

He had fathomed her empty brained like so many of the other girls he knew.

But she was shy, not empty.

"If Patrick Brownlow is the brother of the man you killed, and the conversation you overheard was of a certain with Mr. Oswald, perhaps there is more between them than a mere disagreement." She shook her head. "Though I cannot imagine him to be involved in this."

"I already had reason to doubt him."

"Why?"

"He followed me. He was there, outside the prison, when I was stabbed."

"I cannot fathom him capable of such atrociousness. He is strange, but he is not wicked."

"Wickedness is not always perceivable." Nor were other things, apparently. Like goodness, sweetness, trueness, all the things he read in her expression and should have seen twelve years before.

"As I am in his good graces, I shall discover all I can and see if I might—"

"No. I want you to stay away from him."

"But—"

"The search is mine and mine alone. Sir Walter has already suffered for aiding me. I will not allow that to happen to you."

She nodded, folded her hands in her lap, as he gathered back the reins and turned the curricle around in the road. He headed back for Sowerby House, somehow lighter for having told her the impossibilities stacked against him.

"It was Mercy." He felt her eyes glance up at him in question. "In the turret room. The reason we laughed." He mimicked the noise she had given the monkey, another laugh stirring.

Her own joined him, as her elbow brushed his and her faint smell of jasmine drifted to his awareness, a bothersome pleasure.

Back at Sowerby House, he swung her down from the curricle. He walked her to her own carriage, handed her in, then bid her a good evening and watched the vehicle depart Sowerby's gates.

Before he had been ready to resign her to a loveless marriage, assuming that wealth and position would be enough to satisfy her through the long years ahead.

He had been wrong.

She deserved more than the arrangement he had offered her. She deserved a man who respected and admired her and wished to keep her near as much as Simon did right now.

For the first time, he wondered what his life might have been like if he had stayed twelve years ago. Perhaps, in more ways than Simon wished to admit, Father had been right.

Vanprat Avenue was still in the early morning hours, with few carriages and no more than a tattered crossing sweeper boy occupying the street.

Simon approached the Brownlow town house. He knocked twice, but when no one answered, he pressed his shoulder against the door and busted it open. He glanced around.

Down the street, the sweeper boy ceased swaying his broom and raised his head in alert.

Simon entered anyway. The town house was dim, the air no longer fragranced, the rugs all rolled up and stacked along one wall. He navigated back to the drawing room. White sheets were draped across the furniture, as if departing servants had hurriedly attempted to leave the abode in proper condition before finding employment elsewhere.

But there were still signs.

Broken glass glistened under a mahogany stand. The bureau drawers were busted and stacked on the floor. Even the draperies on the windows had been slashed. Had someone been looking for something Brownlow possessed? Or only meant to frighten him? Was that why he disappeared?

Weaving around an overturned harp, Simon approached a writing desk in the corner. The drawers had already been dumped. Crumpled papers, ripped books, a cracked chinoiserie vase, and a spilled inkwell littered the floor beneath the desk.

Simon hunkered down, unfolded several of the papers. Mostly bills from local London merchants or short notes, as if the man wrote down each daily task in fear he might forget.

Then a name snagged Simon's attention on a shredded paper.

He smoothed it out, but it had been torn from the middle, leaving only the left side of a neatly written letter. He read over the broken lines, "unfair that interference should keep…if anything, the journey flamed my…pretend all you wish, but I am certain that…tomorrow night or I shall sever your promises from my heart."

The signature sparked surprise and confusion. Eleanor Oswald. How did that make sense? Somehow, he could not join the two in his mind—the assured and lofty Miss Oswald with the nervous, short-necked Mr. Brownlow. How had so young a girl become involved with a man twice her age? And so soon after his own wife had passed? Or had their secret romantic tryst started before that?

"Eh, what you doin' in 'ere?"

Simon stood and turned, crushing the letter in his fist.

The sweeper boy stood in the doorway, hair in his eyes, pant legs jagged about his scuffed knees. "You gets to thievin' in 'ere and the runners'll be after you."

"My business here is finished." Simon started forward, but the boy stayed planted in the doorway.

For one so young, likely no more than ten, his dirt-ringed eyes remained sharp and unflinching. He bore the same bravery as John. "Empty your pockets."

Simon obliged. Even dropped the paper back to the floor. "Satisfied?"

"Mr. Brownlow will be comin' back. I sweeps for 'im every day, I do. I did, I mean. An' I'll be makin' sure everything is 'ere for 'im when he gets home."

"You have any idea who did this?"

"Not everyone likes Mr. Brownlow. Don't matter none. Not everyone likes me neither." The boy brandished his broom like a weapon. The blackened straw reeked of dung. "You best be leavin' now 'fore I calls the runners."

"I have one question to ask of you."

"What?"

"Do you know where Mr. Brownlow has gone? I would like to speak with him." The boy's lips pinched, so Simon added, "As a friend, not an enemy."

"I don't knows where he went."

"Did he go of his own accord?"

"He left one mornin' when it was still dark. I was sleeping in the bushes outside of his town house. He lets me stay there. He makes the cook give me potatoes an' bread sometimes too."

"He left alone?"

"Went with another gent, he did. I heard 'em talkin' to each other. Something about a ship…an' a Captain Mingee or Mingay or somethin' like that, but I didn't worry because I knows he'll come back." The boy's throat bobbed. "He has to come back."

Simon pulled coinage from his coat pocket. "Here. Just in case he doesn't."

The boy stared at his hand. "What's I gots to do for that?"

"Forget I was here today."

"You mean not tell the runners?"

"Yes." Simon grinned. "Not tell the runners."

The boy snatched the coins so fast Simon hardly saw his hand move. He raced from the drawing room and was off the streets by the time Simon exited the town house and forced shut the door behind him.

He took in a long breath and shook his head. The more answers he found, the more questions he was left with. He was not certain if Brownlow was involved in his brother's release. Or if Miss Eleanor Oswald knew something of her lover's disappearance. Or if Alexander Oswald had a hand in anything at all.

He only knew much more was boiling beneath the surface than anyone realized. And secrets were coming to light.

No one could stay hidden forever.

She should not come here so much. Mamma never came.

Bending next to the grave, Georgina swept her fingertips along the wet stone. No yellow flower decorated the grave, and no strange-looking figure stared at her from the hawthorn tree. What had the man been ready to confess? Why had she heard nothing of him since her return?

She had forfeited her one chance at answers for Simon.

Her soul burned.

She would do it again, and again, and again for him. "I love him, Papa." The confession eased some of the ache deep within her. "I questioned my own motives. I even assured myself that the infatuation stemmed from his lack of interest."

She imagined Papa nodding, eyes serious and thoughtful.

"But the truth of it is that I just…I just love him." She leaned her forehead against the grave. "I always have." This morning, a letter had been delivered from Sowerby House.

Like a child, anxiousness had shaken her fingers and her cheeks had heated—but when she broke the seal and unfolded the paper, the handwriting did not belong to Simon.

My dear girl, if I have missed anything in these past weeks, it is your delightful visits to Sowerby House. I know the presence of my son does complicate matters. Indeed, it quite complicates everything. I can scarcely bear the pain of knowing we have but one week before Sowerby is lost to this family. How Geoffrey would have lamented. Darling, forgive me for speaking this way, but I must say what troubles my heart. Will you not reconsider the offer of marriage made by my son? I fear he is too proud to ask a second time, and as I know you have always been fond of him, I cannot imagine why you would refuse. I daresay, it must be the children that bother you and the rugged creature Simon has become. But with prayers and patience, perhaps he shall one day return to the decency and sensibility of his father. Do not write an answer, my dear. Come and see me for dinner and we shall talk more then.

Signed, in the handwriting likely of a servant, Mrs. Fancourt.

A sigh filled Georgina. Would she go? Should she?

After all, she could not do as Mrs. Fancourt asked. Even before Simon's declaration on their carriage ride, she had already determined against such a marriage. All her life she had been loving people who, in the end, did not love her.

She had not the strength to commit her life to such a fate.

With a whispered goodbye to Papa, Georgina departed the graveyard and fingered Mrs. Fancourt's letter in the pocket of her spencer jacket. Perhaps the kindest thing would be to write a response.

At least then she would not have to look Mrs. Fancourt in the face.

Or see Simon again so soon.

Back inside her town house, she hung her bonnet on the hat rack and thanked the butler when he mentioned that Mamma wished to see her in the parlor.

If Mamma was reading that dreadful magazine again, Georgina would scream.

"Oh, darling, there you are!" Mamma sprang from a chair the second Georgina entered, clapping both hands and already laughing. "You shall never guess who arrived when you were out today. Who do you think?"

Georgina glanced at the man sitting on the cream-velvet settee, his back to her. She smiled. "Pray, do not keep me in suspense, Mamma."

"Byron, meet my daughter, Georgina Whitmore. Daughter, meet my husband, Mr. Lutwidge."

He stood, turned, met her eyes—

Him. Georgina's head spun. The man from the graveyard. The stranger with the yellow flowers, only he was different. His black hair was short, a stylish Caesar haircut, and the clothes that once seemed haggard were new and polished and glistening.

Even the lines about his face seemed smoother.

His mouth didn't gape.

He was steady, unaffected, and bowed with a careful ease that set every alarm ringing in her skull.

"Darling, do say something. He is your new papa now, you know." Mamma swept next to him and hugged his arm. "She is only shy, my love. I should have mentioned it. But we shall all get acquainted soon enough, shan't we?"

Neither Georgina nor Mr. Lutwidge answered.

Instead, her eyes were drawn across the room, next to Mamma's fan and magazine on the stand, where an old vase sported new flowers.

They were yellow.

But they were not dry or faded at all.

Dinnertime became more dreaded with each day. Even the children, who at the cabin would chatter and hum and fidget in their rickety wooden chairs, sat still and ate their meals in silence.

As if they too sensed this was the end of something.

"Mother, you must try to eat." Simon glanced at her untouched plate of haricot lamb and pot herbs. "You shall make yourself ill."

"I am already ill." Mother dabbed her eyes with a napkin. "Sir Walter was here again today, discussing the will and the matter in which everything shall proceed. Heaven knows, I never thought it would come to this."

"Papa?"

Simon glanced at Mercy in the chair next to him, pease soup on her cheeks. "Me done now?"

He shook his head. "Finish your bowl."

"Me not like it."

"Do as you're told."

"I suppose you should tell my grandchild to appreciate the abundance of courses now, as she may be fed on mere bread and potatoes before the week is through—"

"Mother." Scolding tightened his voice. He clenched his fork, considered grabbing his children, running from this dashed house, and never looking back.

Fluttering a napkin over her nose, Mother wilted with a sob.

"Papa." Mercy sat straighter. "Why her cry?"

"John, take your sister back to the nursery. You may have a picnic on the floor, as we did back home in the meadow."

Both children beamed and, balancing their plates and bowls, raced from the somber oppression of the room.

He wished he could run as easily.

Before he could decide what to do with Mother, the butler cleared his throat from the doorway. "Master Fancourt, sir, I hope I am not disturbing." He cast a bewildered look at the weeping lady of the house. "Er, excuse me, perhaps I should—"

"Never mind. What is it, Mr. Wilkins?"

"A visitor, sir. Miss Whitmore. She says she was expected."

"Oh, she cannot see me this way." Mother scooted from her chair, grasping the table as she stood. "Wilkins, send my lady's maid after me. I wish to retire at once."

"And Miss Whitmore—"

"Send her home with the gravest apologies. There is nothing that can be done to save Simon. I know that now. He has not changed in all these years. I daresay, he shall never change. Sowerby House is doomed to fall into the hands of strangers."

The butler spared a sympathetic glance at Simon. Face heated, he bowed, then hurried off to do his bidding.

Simon departed after him. In the corridor, he called out, "Mr. Wilkins."

"Sir?"

"Make certain a plate is sent up for Mother. She did not eat."

"Yes, Master Fancourt." He hesitated. Then kindly, "Do not mind her greatly, sir. It is only that she is rather sentimental, I imagine, over this house."

"She may stay here forever, if she wishes."

"Without her son and husband, I do not imagine she could." Mr. Wilkins started on.

"One more thing." Already, Simon tried to retract the words, but they came out anyway. "Where is Miss Whitmore?"

"Waiting in the drawing room."

"I shall see to her myself."

"Very good, sir."

Simon headed for the drawing room with a shake of his head. No, it was not very good at all. What was he doing? He must send her home at once.

Of course he would.

His only mistake was in not allowing the butler to do it for him.

Striding into the drawing room, an oddity stirred in his stomach. The same anticipation that roused him when he had his arrow aimed at a deer, or his paintbrush stroking canvas, or—

"Mr. Fancourt." She stood from the edge of her seat, blond curls full and elegant about her face. "I was to arrive for dinner, but the carriage had difficulty on the way and I was delayed. I pray the meal is not yet finished?"

"The last course has not been served, but I fear Mother has retired early. She does not feel well."

"I am sorry."

"As is she." He cleared his throat. Odd, that he felt the need to do so. "Are you hungry?"

"No."

"Does the carriage need attending?"

"The manservant repaired it alongside the road. All is well."

"Then I shall escort you out."

She nodded, smiled, but something was amiss. Why had she truly come today? Surely, she knew of Mother's plight. Did Miss Whitmore not understand she had been lured here with the intent of being persuaded into matrimony?

When they arrived in the anteroom, in the butler's absence, he handed over her reticule and paisley shawl.

"Thank you."

"You are welcome." He opened the door, followed her into a dimming world that blinked with glowing night bugs.

She took a step down the stone stairs, back poised, as if nothing was the matter even though he knew it was.

"Miss Whitmore." He touched her elbow without meaning to. Almost unconsciously, he pulled her down to the stone step, where he had not sat since he was a child.

He should not sit here now.

Not with a lady.

Mother would call him savage and society would deem him preposterous, but neither could see him now. What did it matter anyway? They had already formed their opinions of him.

Only Miss Whitmore found him guiltless.

Even now, as she sat next to him—a little startled, eyes a little wide with surprise—such an overwhelming gleam of trust and respect glowed on her face that his spirits were reinforced. "Something is wrong, Mr. Fancourt?"

"With you."

"I do not know what you—"

"Why did you come?" He pressed his elbows on his knees, leaned forward. "You must have known Mother's ploy."

"You need not worry. I had every intention of persuading her otherwise."

"She is not one who can be persuaded."

"Neither am I."

He glanced at her face—her sad eyes, the disturbing quiver at her lips, the way her curls swayed with the cool evening breeze. "What is wrong?" he asked.

"I did not imagine it was so obvious."

"Tell me."

"It is too much to tell."

"Then you came for naught." He straightened. "You will return without having unloaded your burden—and without dinner too." He expected a smile from her, a small laugh at the very least.

But when her eyes slid to his, face closer than he was prepared for, only torture echoed in her stare. "What do you wish me to do, Simon? Say the words?"

"What words?"

"That I came for you…that I could not help myself." She covered her face with her hands. "It is so terrible. I am so confused. The only thing I kept thinking, all day long, was that if I could just get to Simon then perhaps everything would—"

"What is terrible?" Tightness swarmed him. "What has happened?" "There is so much you do not know."

"Tell me."

"I cannot."

"Georgina—"

She sprang to her feet and hurried down the steps, but he beat her to the bottom and blocked her way. "Someone has bothered you. The same one who threatened my children."

"No."

"Then what?"

She stood in front of him, head down, breathing fast enough that her chest worked up and down.

"Georgina." He touched her arms. He shouldn't have. He should have stopped his words from pleading, whispering, softening, as if he were affected by her. "Georgina, look at me."

She obeyed him. Of course she did. Was she not always everything he needed of her? For once, could he not be something she needed of him?

"Papa killed himself. I found him."

Shock bruised him. Then pity.

"But now it does not make sense. I do not know. It was so dark in the library and the window was open. I thought Papa opened it that night because of the smoke…his pipe…but what if he had not been alone at all when he…"

"What are you saying?"

"I think someone murdered him." She slid her eyes shut and turned her head. "And I think that someone just married my mother."

If only he would say something.

Georgina would have retreated backward, except the stairs were behind her and Simon still clung to her arms. She should have wiggled herself away. She should have kept the words inside herself.

But the secret had slipped free of its own accord.

His face angled slightly, brows lowered, as if he was not certain what to think. Then, low, "Sit."

They sat on the bottom step, and she grasped the edge of the stone with aching fingers. The realization that he knew—that someone knew—pulsed through her in a maddening race. What did she feel? Remorse for having told what should have been kept silent? Or relief for bearing the secret no longer?

"You found him." Not a question, but deep and careful, as if he understood the horrors of stumbling upon death.

"I fainted. Mamma awoke me. We cut down his body together."

"I am sorry."

"I cannot overcome it."

He had no response for that, but he looked at her. Not as he had before—absently, a courteous glance, as if he was dull with indifference. He actually looked.

His gaze traveled from her hair to her nose to her lips to her eyes, yet still he did not glance away. He saw into her. Something inside her cried to turn her head, or hide her face, but she could not.

She knew this would hurt later.

Everything she felt for him, everything she'd always felt, would seem faint to what she experienced now. All her senses livened. She smelled him. Her skin tingled with his breath. "Simon, what do I do?"

"I don't know—"

A distant, bloodcurdling scream struck the air.

Simon leapt to his feet and was halfway up the stairs before the entrance doors crashed open. A maid stood in the doorway, white-faced, with a dreaded shriek: "Someone is in the house!"