Chapter 7

CHAPTER SEVEN

“ S carlett! Dear Scar!” Bess practically fell into Scarlett’s arms when they saw her in the drawing room at Carbrooke House.

Scarlett laughed delightedly. “How good to see you, my darling Bess!”

“I have missed you.” Bess pulled away and, for a moment, held Scarlett at arms’ length, appearing to examine her.

“Missed me?” Scarlett laughed again. “You only called on me two days ago!”

“I know, but recollect all the mornings we spent together as girls?” Bess smiled fondly. “Remember the tree where we used to hide from the reverend?”

“I remember the stripes I got for hiding from him,” Scarlett said with another laugh. “It took me quite a while to learn just how long I could be away before he noticed my absence.”

“I long for those days sometimes,” Bess said dreamily. “Do you not?”

Oakley’s eyes met his sister’s; Scarlett’s brow was furrowed as his no doubt was. They were, in fact, not happy times for Scarlett to remember, and Bess knew that better than anyone.

“Forgive me!” Bess tittered anxiously. “I did not mean you should repine the days with that evil man over you! I mean, I long for it to be as it was with you and I. We saw each other every day!”

Scarlett’s brow cleared. “Of course. Of course I miss that! But here we are, two happily married ladies. No doubt we will both soon be mamas, clucking over marital prospects and come-outs!”

“Heaven forbid!”

Scarlett’s brow wrinkled once again at that reply, but before she could say more, Worthe approached their small group. He kissed his wife on her cheek and bowed to Bess before saying, “Oakley, I hope you enjoy your evening of respite.”

“Respite?” Oakley asked. “From what?”

“Silly!” Scarlett tapped his arm with her fan. “From your search for a wife! I had hoped to be able to introduce you to my friend this evening, but she was unable to attend.”

At this most unfortunate of moments, Oakley met Bess’s eyes. She hurriedly dropped her gaze, then murmured something to Scarlett and left them. Dare he hope that meant that she disliked hearing about him marrying another? Then, he hardly wished for her to be miserable, even if he was miserable every time he thought of her married to Beamish.

He watched her walk away from them, utterly beguiled by the swish of her skirts and the sway of her dangling curls as she made her way across the room with grace and poise. A group of older ladies seemed to swallow her, and he turned back to his family to find all of them staring at him with varying degrees of dismay on their countenances.

“Dear brother…” Scarlett began.

“Pray do not say it.” He held up one hand and heaved an enormous sigh. “Scarlett, tell me about your friend and when it is that I might be able to meet her.”

One never saw a dining table laid as the table was laid at Carbrooke House. The length of it was precisely half a foot shorter than the Queen’s own—Lady Carbrooke thought it would be unseemly to have one longer, or equal. Enormous arrays of flowers, feathers, candles, and sculptures made viewing those across the table impossible, but being that Lady Carbrooke took great care with her seating arrangements, one generally did not wish to.

Lady Carbrooke was fond of as many courses as she could possibly stuff down her many guests’ gullets, and she also indulged herself in a strange practice by which the men changed seats between each one. Oakley supposed it was an advantage; if one had a tiresome partner, one only need endure it for a course rather than for the entire dinner.

As each course ended, Oakley hoped to find himself seated by Bess, but he was due to be disappointed. Likely for the best, he reflected towards the end of dinner. The scene with Hanson had plagued him all night, and he could only hope he had succeeded in being an agreeable partner to the ladies beside him. He did not understand the connection between Hanson and Beamish, nor the bit of argument he had heard emanating from the Leightons’ drawing room.

Nor does the lady want you to understand it , he reminded himself. She was very clear on that point.

“That Mrs Beamish is utterly charming,” said Lady Lenora as Oakley joined her for the last course. “The sweetest creature I ever knew!”

“You were sat near her?”

Lady Lenora nodded and then thanked him as he filled her wine glass.

“I just find it all so accursedly peculiar.” Oakley topped up his own glass, then took a deep, contemplative gulp of it. “Who in their right mind leaves a new bride alone so much?”

Lady Lenora shrugged. “Someone with active business interests?”

“And what should that signify? Take her with you, then!”

“Maybe she would rather be in town.”

Oakley grinned at her. “Why must you always make so much sense?”

“A curse we both must bear,” she replied with a smirk. “I shall say it is curious that she asks everyone and anyone to call her Bess. Most married ladies I know are eager to claim their new appellations.”

“There are a great many things about Mrs Beamish’s life and choices that are unusual to me. Alas, I am told continually to disregard her eccentricities, for it is nothing to me how she lives.”

Lady Lenora inclined her head in acknowledgement. “I cannot disagree with that advice.”

He sighed. “Nor can I.”

The night drew long as Lady Carbrooke’s guests finished dining and repaired to the drawing room for the usual sort of diversions. The unmarried ladies all had their turn at the instrument, playing and singing with varying degrees of success, and the men slowly seeped into Lord Carbrooke’s book-room to escape it.

Oakley’s uncle, Lord Carbrooke, was a genial man, the sort who had been thrust into society but had not much use for it. Even now, for his wife’s very elegant dinner, he wore attire better suited to sport and hunting. He was short, and his hair was mostly gone, although even in its finest hour it had been scraggly-looking. But he was very kind and as one of the wealthiest men in England was thus powerful and respected. Oakley found him commanding the room in his reedy, old-man’s voice, speaking enthusiastically about his new fowling piece. While the other men crowded near to listen, Oakley took a position against a wall that he might observe silently while thinking of Bess.

“Has he spoken of the spaniels yet?” Worthe had drawn near to him.

“I only just arrived myself and might have missed them,” Oakley replied, and Worthe chuckled, joining him in his place against the wall. They said nothing for a few minutes, save to accept a glass of port when it was offered by a footman.

“You remember Hanson, do you not?” Oakley asked nonchalantly.

“I do. Quite the insolent sneaksby.”

“Just so. I found him at Bess’s, um, Mrs Beamish’s…well in truth, she stays with her mother. Hanson had called there prior to my arrival this afternoon, and I found him and Mrs Beamish amid a quarrel.”

“A quarrel?” Worthe took a drink. “About what?”

Oakley shook his head. “I did not hear enough of it to understand anything. He wishes to see someone swing, presumably Beamish.”

“Seems a mite impudent, even for him, to walk into a woman’s mother’s home and say he wishes to see her husband swing.”

“That it does.”

“What did Mrs Beamish say in reply?”

Oakley considered that question a moment, then said, “I do not believe she said anything at all.”

“She was likely very frightened. She was alone with him?”

Oakley nodded.

Worthe shook his head, his disgust clear. “A gentleman would have come back another time and conducted whatever business was at hand with her husband.”

“I think it damned strange that Beamish seems always to be away,” Oakley said. “Where does the fellow go all the time? And why does he not take his wife with him?”

Warming to his subject, he edged closer to Worthe. “You know her wedding ring does not even fit her finger? Did Beamish not have the thing fitted? Or has she, as her mother claims, been put off eating? Either way it makes no?—”

His brother placed a hand on his arm, and that, together with the expression of pity on his countenance, made Oakley halt his discourse. Worthe opened his mouth to say something, but Oakley continued speaking, for he already knew what Worthe was going to say.

“Yes, yes, not my business, do not concern myself for it, et cetera, et cetera.”

Worthe grinned. “That obvious what I meant to say?”

“It is what everyone says to me these days.”

“I do not blame you. Indeed, I pity you.” Worthe’s eyes were nothing but kind. “Scarlett told me…well, the matter you had confided in her about the night, when we both returned to the Leighton residence to leave my note for her. I knew something must have transpired, but I could not have imagined that you had proposed.”

Oakley shrugged. “Water under the proverbial bridge now, hm?”

“It is.” Worthe nodded, very firmly. “I remember something I once heard from a professor. If you wish to continue your story, you must turn the page—even if it means leaving the matters in the previous chapters behind.”

He gave Oakley’s glass a little clink with his own. “To continuing your story.”

“To continuing my story, indeed,” Oakley said and then drained his glass.

It seemed apt that when he returned to the drawing room, he found that Bess had arranged her own escort home and left him.