Elisabeth Fairchild (14 page)

“Would you?” Richard sounded surprised, amused, even faintly desperate. “That would be very kind.”

“His friends . . .” she began.

“They’ve no idea how to be with him.” He gathered together the dice, his hands careful and meticulous in stacking them, sixes up. “They come on rare occasions. All awkward and inappropriate and gruffly well-meaning. Taxes his nerves, really. He is never so sapped and disheartened as when they visit. Today was different. To hear him laugh again . . .” He took a deep breath, and looked on her with such warmth and appreciation it made her wonder, if life was a game, what game Richard was.

“It is really rather wonderful of you and your mother to come.”

She smiled at him, glad their visit had been help rather than hindrance. “What of you, Richard?”

“Me?” He rose from the table abruptly, his tone dismissive as he crumpled the page on which they kept score. He busied himself clearing the table, something the servants would have done. She wondered if he meant to avoid her question.

She swiveled on her chair, watching him. “You have the look about you of a weary man.”

He laughed ruefully as he absently turned the empty dice cage with a rattle and squeak. “Kind of you to mention it.”

She took up the cards again, gave them a fresh shuffle. “I do not mean to tease you.”

“No, of course. Thank you for asking.” He rubbed the flat of his palm across his forehead, a gesture he had used often the day of his father’s funeral.

“How do you manage?” she pressed ever so gently, and dealt two hands of eight, turning up the seventeenth card, a nine of hearts.

He shrugged, sighed, made a dismissive gesture, seemed not to know what to do with his cards once he looked at them.

“Is he always like that?”

Richard chuckled wryly. “You manage to bring out the most obnoxious in him.”

She smiled. Waited. Set the stock cards in the center of the table where they might both reach them.

He spoke slowly, as if unsure whether she still listened. “I keep asking myself, What would Father have done?”

She nodded, made a noise of understanding.

He sighed. “I do my best not to fall apart in front of Mother, or lose temper with Chase when he is unreasonable, or divert my anger and sorrow onto the servants.”

How tall he looked perched beside her on the edge of the old leather cushion. How capable. Bowed but not broken. He reminded her of the oak tree they had climbed so many years ago. She could see it behind him, through the window, just beyond the garden.

“You were made for this, you know.”

“What?” He cast a sardonic look from beneath dark brows. “Death and misery?”

“No. No.” She must make him understand. She did not jest. Not now. “It is just . . . your personality is perfect for such a crisis. As if you’ve prepared all your life.”

He shook his head. “What? Fate? Destiny? No. I will not have it.” For the first time he allowed anger to surface. He tossed his cards facedown upon the table, and looked at her with the intensity he had so often displayed, but this time when he frowned his features pulled into lines of anguish. He shook his head. “As for being prepared, I have fooled you. I feel completely unprepared. I do not know what game we play, what moves to make.”

She had no idea what to say, how she might help. This was a Richard she did not know, had never imagined. His unexpected vulnerability moved her, struck her to the heart, in a way she had never anticipated. She got the strangest feeling that his words in some way applied to her. A silly conceit. He had far more important things to think about than her.

She sorted her cards, paired off a queen of diamonds and a king of hearts, and said, “Any marriages?”

He gave her a confused look, “Marriage? Who would you have me marry?”

Such a desperate look in his eyes—as if she had the answer.

She smiled, reached out toward his cards, was surprised when he grabbed her hand.

“Tell me, Patience. Who do you see me marrying?”

She stared at him, felt the fast beat of his pulse in the wrist he pressed to the back of her hand, a bit too warm. Something in the moment reminded her of a day long ago in this same room—when Pip had hidden beneath her skirts, his hand too hot upon her ankle—when Richard, flustered, had reached out to touch her sleeve.

He seemed flustered now, his fingers clinging to her hand, his gaze clingy, too. It unnerved her.

She moved her hand, tapped the cards.

“I meant the cards, silly. We play bezique. Hearts are trump.”

“But of course they are.” He sounded disappointed, as if he knew before he looked that he had few hearts in his hand.

Birds chittered in the garden as he sorted his cards. Her mother and Lady Cavendish murmured. In the distance a horse neighed, familiar sounds, and yet the world seemed changed. In her neck a tension rose, the sense of impending disaster, of loss. Marriage would mean losing Richard just as she was losing Pip.

“I would not have you marry anyone at the moment,” she admitted quietly.

“No?” He looked up.

“No. Not unless you are in love, and perfectly suited.”

“But I would marry.” He eyed her over the fan of his cards, blackbird-wing brows taking flight.

“Oh?” The air weighed heavy in each breath she took. The ticking sound of the clock seemed slowed.

“Yes. To someone perfectly suited.”

“Is anyone perfectly suited?”

“I am convinced of it.”

But that could not be Lady Wilmington. A married woman. Who did he mean?

“You surprise me.” Her chest felt suddenly too pinched by her stays.

“Will you wish me happy?” he asked. “Or will you miss our cards and conversation?”

“Of course,” she said a trifle irritably. “To both. Now play your hand.”

He laid down the king and queen of spades.

“A royal marriage,” she said. “A perfect pair of the same suit. Were you talking cards all along?”

He smiled enigmatically. “Was I?”

Chapter Twenty

“Bezique,” Patience said triumphantly, and added the knave of diamonds and queen of spades to the royal pairs already littering the table.

“That’s forty points.” Richard jotted the number on a bit of paper already busy with scores. “But you will have to do better than that to beat me.”

“And so I shall,” she said, her eyes on the marriages of red and black. How easy to pair cards in a game, she thought. How difficult to pair people in real life. She looked up to find he watched her, head cocked.

“If only it were that easy,” he murmured, as if he read her mind.

“Winning, or marriage?” she asked.

He smiled and set aside his cards. “Either. Oh. Almost forgot again.” He stretched out his legs that he might pull from his pocket a jingling handful of coins, which he stacked carefully on the table beside her hand. “These are for you.”

She eyed the silver in confusion. “What’s this, then? We do not play for money in earnest, do we?”

He laughed and made his discard, and, plucking up another card, declared a seven of trumps for ten points. He waved his cards at the pile of silver. “Long due repayment of a favor.”

“Favor? It is generally you doing me favors.”

“You loaned me money at Vauxhall.”

“Ah,” she said, “I remember now.” She drew a knave of hearts with a little frown of impatience, and discarded an eight. “I also remember you promised on that evening to reveal to me the name of a gentleman you thought suitable as a match for me.”

Tossing down his unplayed cards as if tiring of the game, he ran a hand through his hair, and rose abruptly to look out another of the windows. “I suppose I did.”

She straightened the coupled cards that his movement had separated, and thought of their childhood, of Pip’s hand at her ankle while Richard stood looking down at her staggered cards. She could see his face clearly in her mind’s eye, the expression in his eyes as he stood before her like a blackbird, head cocked.

And as clearly as if he had spoken, she recognized the truth.

“You knew!” she whispered, amazed, eyes gone wide. “You knew!”

“Knew what?” he asked from the window, his voice gentle.

“That day I played Patience here at this table.”

“What, that Pip hid underneath?”

She inhaled sharply.

He turned, dark hair catching the light, green eyes amused. “I knew,” he agreed.

She pretended to return her attention to the cards, but she saw them not—saw only, in her mind’s eye, the staggered configuration of the old deck. She felt the heat of the hand at her ankle, the breath at her knee. She blushed. She knew she blushed; she could feel the rising heat in her neck and face. So many years ago, and still she blushed. She had convinced herself he had not known—could not have stood talking to her so calmly.

“All those years, and you never said a word!” Anger welled in her, fired by her embarrassment. “Not so much as a suggestive remark! Pip would have . . .”

“Teased you unmercifully?”

She glared at the matched pairs on the table. The kings and queens stared back at her, unblinking. It was true. Pip would have teased her no end.

He shrugged, not the type to tease. “I am not Pip.”

No. He was not Pip. No one but Pip was Pip. No one but Pip would do, and she might not have him, might never have him. A queen never paired? She did not like the idea.

Were they happy matches? she wondered. Did the king of hearts understand the queen of hearts’ moods? Did he tease her? Or did he refrain? And what had the knave of diamonds done to so impress the queen of spades that she ran away with him?

“You never told me who he was,” she said.

He turned once again from the window.

“Who?”

“The gentleman you once considered as a match for me.”

He cocked his head, the blackbird revived, just as he had when they were children.

“Is he any closer to being in a position to consider such a match? You mentioned obstacles.”

He turned back to the window, straightening his shoulders, clasping his hands in the small of his back, blackbird’s wings folded. “It is very nearly time for me to introduce you, I suppose.”

“No hurry.” She rose quietly from the window seat and went to stand beside him, wondering what she might do to relieve some of the emotional burden he carried. For a long moment they just stood there together, staring out at the garden, glancing now and again at each other’s faded reflections, drawing strength from the silence, from the sight of Lady Cavendish weeping on her mother’s shoulder among the roses.

“It is far better he rails at you,” he said, voice low, “than that he sink into dark, silent moping where he bellows for drink, and threatens the household with violence he no longer has the strength to carry out.”

“The gentleman whom you would introduce me to?” She deliberately played the fool.

“No. I meant—”

She stopped him with a light touch. “I know.”

“Of course.” He started to laugh, but the sound failed him, falling off on a mournful note.

She could not hide her pity. “Is there nothing to be done?”

He shook his head and took a deep breath. “There is little anyone can do, least of all me.” His voice cracked under the strain of his words. “He resents . . .” He sighed, shrugged. “We have never been close.”

“And yet you love him,” she said with certainty, her hand seeking the warm perch of the inner crook of his elbow. “It is evident in your every word and gesture.”

Head bowed, his gaze still on the distant horizon, he tilted his head her way. “He does not see it that way. I feel destined—or is it cursed?—to love those who cannot see how much I care.”

“
I
see,” she protested, and gave his arm a heartfelt squeeze.

“Do you?” he asked wearily, his eyes so filled with sadness when he turned to face her that she wondered if she did, indeed, understand the depth of his despair.

“Of course I do.” She gave his arm another squeeze. How could he doubt the depth of her empathy? They had known one another since childhood. He was her closest, her dearest friend. He had kept her secret all that time.

He stepped away, her hand sliding from its nest. She regretted he took no comfort in her clasp.

He bent to lift a stray card from the floor, a worthless seven he placed carefully upon the table’s edge.

“I do not think you understand,” he said. “Not really.”

She was surprised to find, as he turned in to the light from the windows, that his eyes sparkled, bright with unshed tears.

She thought of Lady Wilmington. Surely he knew how much she cared for him.

“Does she trifle with your affections?” she dared ask.

He looked up suddenly, as if the question surprised him.

“The one you love. The one you have yet to express your affections to.”

He closed his eyes, as if he could no longer bear to look at the world, and said with a weary nod, “Without knowing. She does. Yes.”

Chapter Twenty-one

Patience listened to the sound of footsteps approaching through the neighboring gallery, and assuming they were to be interrupted, she begged, “Tell me who she is?”

“Someday, perhaps.”

She gazed at him with a feeling of frustration—dear Richard, clever Richard. Why would he not confide in her? “She would be quite foolish, and completely unworthy of you, if she did not recognize how wonderful a person you are.”

He seemed surprised by her compliment. He stared at her intently a moment with a pleased expression. “She is wonderful in her own way. I do not think she understands just how wonderful.”

Patience felt a pang of jealousy that he should speak of a woman so ardently. She could not imagine Pip using such words to describe her.

“You will tell me how she responds?”

He nodded, his gaze very serious. “You will be the first.”

“Promise?” she teased.

“Promise,” he said in all seriousness.

“Beg pardon, sir.” Toby Smith stood in the doorway.

“Yes, what is it?” Richard asked.

“A moment of your time, sir?”

Richard rose. “You will excuse me?”

“Of course.” Patience watched them pause in the doorway, curious what the boy needed. How urgent the movement of the lad’s hands, the wide-eyed look.

Richard frowned, and bit off quick questions.

She rose, concerned, arriving at the doorway just in time to watch the two of them stride off through the gallery, heels ringing, rows of painted Cavendishes blankly observing their haste.

She paced the drawing room thereafter, going often to the doorway to gaze into the gallery.

A maid scurried by, arms bundled with soiled linens; another passed her going the opposite direction carrying a steaming pitcher. A footman headed across the garden in the direction of the stables.

The ticking of the clock seemed suddenly very loud.

Patience wandered the room, uneasy, her face anxiously staring back when she passed the swan-topped mirrors.

She remembered thinking this drawing room quite splendid when she was a child. It had, with the years, grown dowdy with neglect, the carpets thin, the upholstery worn.

A large drawing room, it spanned the width of the house, windows looking out on three sides, so that one might view both garden and park. Upon the mantel sat the familiar ormolu clock. Above her head caged birds still sang, but the canary yellow damask wall fabric, upholstery, and draperies had faded to a frayed, buttery yellow. Melting—the room seemed to be melting away, no improvements made since she was a child, since the death of Richard’s father.

As heir, Chase had spent his money on horses, a new carriage, hunting boxes in Surrey, Sussex, Kent, and Oxfordshire, a huge London town house, three packs of hounds.

No need for any of it now.

How much money had slipped through Chase’s fingers? In lost bets? In upkeep of a series of expensive mistresses?

Patience wondered if things would have been different if Chase had found himself a wife. She had heard he preferred singers, dancers, and actresses. It was quite scandalous—and always mentioned in hushed voice—like Pip’s Titian-haired songbird.

No sign of such women here. She wondered if they knew of Chase’s injuries—if they cared. She wondered if Richard would be responsible for sending them packing now that Chase had no more use for them, tried to imagine it—what a task!

Richard, so careful of the finances. Had he issued banknotes for the upkeep of such women in his role as his brother’s bookkeeper? He had never mentioned detail of his responsibilities, certainly none so tawdry.

Footsteps drew her gaze. It seemed appropriate in that moment that two footmen walked by the doorway, a hip bath between them.

Who meant to take a bath at this hour of the day? Would the earl still be in possession of servants and bathtubs had Richard not seen to its upkeep?

So much she did not know about dear Richard. She had never thought to ask.

The clock mocked her, its hands seemed permanently fixed at half past three. Still no sign of Richard, no sign of anyone but her mother and Lady Cavendish strolling peacefully among the flowers, Lady Cavendish bending now and then to clip a handful of blooms to add to the basket full of cheerful color at her hip. The drone of their voices echoed the drone of the bees.

Such a peaceful scene, Patience thought, so at odds with the race of footsteps now, plunging along the corridor, agitated voices rising, a cry for “Fresh linens to his lordship’s room!”

Gravel crunched as a horse was led into the drive, its tail flicking flies.

And there went Richard, his hand upon the shoulder of the lad, Toby, a stream of urgent words voiced too low for her to hear. A stable lad gave the boy a leg up, flung him into the saddle.

“Quickly now,” Richard called, pulling a coin purse from his pocket, handing the lad a flash of silver. “Tell Moore he must come at once!”

Moore, the physician!

The boy dug in his heels. The horse kicked up gravel in a spray, and Richard stood watching him go a moment, shoulders sagging like the coin purse in hand, a coin purse that stirred memory in her. She could not quite place it, had no time to place it before he turned on his heel to find her waiting for him in the doorway.

“Chase has taken a turn for the worse?” she suggested.

“Chase,” he said harshly, his voice low, anger brilliant in his eyes, “grows impatient with death.”