Kathryn Caskie (23 page)

Below stairs, Hannah sat silently at the scrubbed kitchen table with Annie and Mrs. Penny. She was taking a much-needed cup of tea—along with a generous dose of powder for her pounding head.

Annie laid a comforting hand on Hannah’s shoulder. “Your eyes are still red as bloomin’ poppies, Miss Hannah, but at least you ain’t cryin’ no more.”

“Her tear ducts are dry, Annie.” Mrs. Penny filled Hannah’s teacup again. “Drink this down, child. Don’t want you to go all light in the head.”

Hannah smiled weakly in reply.

There had been no consoling her, though the Feathertons had tried for two full hours after she left the ball, until Hannah sought refuge in the kitchen away from their pitying gazes.

The ladies had assured her that there was a good and true reason for the two Messrs. St. Albans to conceal the truth of their identities. They assured her, yes, but neither could tell Hannah what that reason might be.

Hannah sipped her tea until Mrs. Penny stopped gesturing for her to take more of the liquid, then she settled her teacup on the table. She rested her head in her hands.

“Twins. Lud, it all makes so much sense now, doesn’t it, Mrs. Penny?” Annie snatched a sugar biscuit off Hannah’s saucer and began to munch on it. “So the cocky one was Mr. Garnet, was it?”

Hannah nodded, not bothering to look up.

“Well, the Mr. St. Albans who resided here was certainly cocky, proud . . . and rude.”

“It was
Mr. Garnet,
wasn’t it?”

Hannah placed her hands on her lap and raised her head. “I am sure of it. Griffin is so different. He is kind, and quiet. So intelligent . . . and passionate. I could have never fallen in love with such a pompous fool as Garnet.”

“But you loved Mr. Griffin.”

Hannah felt her cheeks color. She diverted her gaze to the popping fire in the cooking hearth.

“You
do
!” Annie leaned close. “I bet he is far more handsome than his brother, ain’t he?”

“They are
identical
.” Hannah felt the edges of her mouth lift a little. “Though they are formed differently. Griffin is somewhat . . . larger.”

“
Larger
. Oh, I get it.” Annie’s eyes went wide. “Oooo . . . how do you know that, Miss Hannah?”

Mrs. Penny slapped her hand to the table. “Annie!”

“Well, I saw her climb in her window early one morn. It weren’t even light yet. And one of those Mr. St. Albans was standin’ below making sure she didn’t fall or nothin’.” Annie peered into Hannah’s widened eyes.

Hannah was not going to comment on Annie’s observation, though it did make her wonder what Annie was also doing outside the house at such an early hour.

“Which one was it, Miss Hannah? The one with the larger . . . well, you know.” Annie was almost salivating in her anticipation.

A small twitter slipped through Hannah’s teeth. “No, no, Annie. You misunderstood me. I meant Griffin’s body is larger . . . more muscular, while Garnet’s is slimmer and lean.”

“Well, dear gel,” Mrs. Penny said in a confident tone, “it certainly sounds as though you snared the better of the two Messrs. St. Albans.”

The smile on Hannah’s lips fell away. She quickly reached for her teacup and brought it to her mouth.

Annie and Mrs. Penny exchanged concerned glances.

“Miss Hannah, you did forgive Mr. Griffin, didn’t you?” Annie asked gently.

But Hannah did not reply.

“Miss Hannah, if you love him, then you
must
forgive him.”

“I cannot!” Hannah blurted. “Don’t you see, he and his brother purposely made a fool of me.”

“Are you sure of that, gel?” Mrs. Penny asked. “He must have had a very good reason for keeping such a large secret. Perhaps you should give him another chance to redeem himself. Life is short, dear. Too brief to waste your days simmering over a misunderstanding. Forgive him, and give yourself a chance at happiness.” Mrs. Penny was now wearing that same pitying expression the Feathertons had donned earlier.

She couldn’t endure it. She just couldn’t.

“I am not like my mother. Why does everyone assume we are the same?” Something began to ache inside Hannah, and she leaped from the stool. “I do not need a
man
in my life to be happy.”

“No, Miss Hannah, you don’t need a man for your life to be full and happy,” Annie agreed. “But you might need
Griffin
.”

The backs of Hannah’s eyes began to sting. Turning, she lifted her hem and raced back up the servants’ staircase.

Hannah ran for the front door and swung it open, thinking that a walk in the cool night air might help her clear her mind . . . and to sort out her jumbled emotions.

She lifted her foot to step outside, when she saw several hundred people milling about on the Crescent Field.

The yellow light of lanterns dotted the hillside sloping down from Royal Crescent and the flat field below. In the soft glow of the moon, she could just make out scores of ladies, gentlemen, and even children, stretched out on blankets spread all about the sweeping lawn. They were laughing, supping on sweets, and clinking glasses of drink in celebration of the coming comet.

Hannah turned her gaze upward to the star-strewn sky, then stepped back inside the house and snatched up a candlestick from the table in the passage to check the time on the tall case clock.

Thirty minutes.
That was all, according to Griffin’s earlier calculations, until the comet would swoop low over the city.

She wondered if the Featherton sisters had already found their places on the field, or if owing to her own drama in the ballroom, they had entirely forgotten about the much-lauded event.

Whirling around, Hannah headed quickly for the drawing room and pressed the door open. It was dark inside the room, but she could hear Lady Viola’s voice whispering something, then a heavy thump.

“Lady Viola? Are you in here?”

Hannah raised the candle outward before her and walked toward the settee. The old woman could be napping from the effects of her nightly cordial. When she reached the back of the settee, she lowered the candlestick, allowing its circle of golden light to illuminate the cushion.

“Oh, good evening, Hannah.” Lady Viola, who was stretched out across the settee, squinted up at her. The paint on the old woman’s lips smeared off the side and down her chin.

“Good heavens, are you well?”

She lifted a frail, withered hand to block the light. “Do lower the candle, dove. My eyes have not adjusted.”

“Certainly.” Hannah rushed around to the other side of the settee, but she tripped on something on the floor and fell to the carpet.

Something dark and heavy crawled up from the floor and righted the candle immediately. Hannah saw the flickering light rise in the air, as if transported by a ghost, and settle on the tea table beside her.

Then, she felt a hand on her arm, helping her to stand.

“Do let me assist you, Miss Chillton.”

Hannah gulped. “Edgar?” Once she was on her feet, she reached down for the candlestick and lifted it toward the manservant. “It
is
you!”

Smudges of red lip paint were smeared across the elderly man’s face. Hannah raised the candle higher, and saw three lip-shaped impressions dotting his cheeks. She brought her free hand to her lips to quiet the giggle welling up inside her.

“I shall fetch a few more candles,” the manservant said, and quickly disappeared into the darkness.

“Lady Viola, just what was happening in here?” Hannah lifted her brow playfully as she helped the old woman sit up on the settee.

Instead of going all coy, as Hannah expected Lady Viola to do, the old woman actually beamed. “Mr. Edgar and I have decided to marry.”

“I beg your pardon.” Hannah could not have heard correctly. After all of these years, according to Annie, of Lady Viola and Edgar being in love, what would prompt them to finally proclaim it to all?

“We are to be married. We already told Sister, and at once she rushed to the study to locate her notes on our grandnieces’ weddings. She could not be more thrilled than if she herself were marrying the man she loved.”

Hannah reached out and took Lady Viola’s thin hand. “But why now, after all this time?”

“Because of you, dear.”

Hannah blinked at that.
“I?”

“You showed me how fragile and fleeting love can be.”

“I don’t understand.”

“You and Mr. St. Albans, Griffin St. Albans, are in love. You are meant to be together. Sister and I realized that from the moment the two of you met on the cliffs of Kennymare Cove.”

“But what has that to do with you and Mr. Edgar?”

“I watched as the two of you let the wishes of the earl, the impressions of the
ton,
your pride—even your own mother’s faults come between you . . . threatening your love. Threatening your own chance at happiness.”

The downy hairs on Hannah’s forearms prickled as they rose beneath her sleeves. Lady Viola spoke the truth. There was no denying it.

“After what happened in the Tea Room this eve, after seeing how your stubborn pride would not allow you even to listen to Mr. St. Albans—even if it might cost you your happiness—I knew I had been a fool all of these years.” A small whimper fell from Lady Viola’s lips. “I had let what others thought, what others told me was correct, prevent me from acknowledging my feelings for the gentleman I loved . . . simply because we are from different classes.”

“No longer. At last I will follow my heart. I will marry Mr. Edgar.” Lady Viola came unsteadily to her feet. “True love is rare in this world. Do not forsake it, Hannah. If you love Mr. St. Albans, go to him and tell him now. Before it’s too late. Come morning, you may not have another chance.”

Hannah rose slowly from the settee. For several seconds, she did not move. Did not speak.

In her heart she knew Lady Viola was right. She had to find Griffin. Had to set things to rights.

Now. Before it was too late.

Whirling around, she raced into the passage and tore her pelisse off a hook nearest the door.

At that very moment, Lady Letitia entered the passage from the study and observed Hannah’s haste. “Dear gel, where are you going in such a flutter?”

Hannah threw the door open, then cast a glance over her shoulder. “To Beechen Cliff to find Griffin—and tell him that I love him.”

Chapter Nineteen

H
annah lifted her hem and raced down from the heights of Royal Crescent, through the huge crowd that congregated on the gently sloping field of grass, and on to Bristol Road.

The moonlight could not reach the ground on the narrow branch streets upon which she turned and ran. The buildings, buff-hued and bright during the day, were dark and menacing in the dimness, and rose up on either side of her, making Hannah feel as though she could not breathe until she was free of them.

Still she ran, finally making her way to the Horse Street crossing over the River Avon.

Instead of passing through the Prior Park gate down the road to her left, she decided to head for Well Road, where the climb to Beechen Cliff would be steep, but a shorter distance.

She paused before beginning her ascent up the vertical path to the cliff and peered upward at its pinnacle. There, she could just make out a single flickering lantern. Her heart began to pound with excitement.

She had found Griffin.

He would be alone at this vantage, she knew, despite its being the highest point from which to view the coming comet.

All of the other astronomers would no doubt have positioned themselves at Mount Breacon on the complete opposite side of the city. There the Royal Astronomical Society had erected a forty-foot telescope for the sole purpose of observing the Bath Comet. Even Miss Herschel would have taken her position at the lens at the Mount. There was no question that the viewing of the Bath Comet from the Mount would be far superior to Griffin’s.

But that fact had obviously not dissuaded him from positioning his telescopes on Beechen Cliff—for as Hannah at last neared the cliff’s ledge, there he was, dutifully bent over the eyepiece of his Newtonian sweeper.

Slowly, she walked up behind him, not quite knowing what to say or how to begin.

He heard her, though, for his shoulders suddenly tensed, and he lifted his eyes from the telescope’s lens.

Yet, he did not turn. Instead he called out. “So you’ve decided to join me after all, Garnet.” He turned a bit and looked up then, a smile on his handsome face . . . until he saw her.

“Hannah.” His countenance became expressionless, and he simply stared at her for several seconds before venturing to speak another word. “What are you doing here?”

Before she realized it, Hannah was running toward him, hands outstretched. When she reached him, she threw herself against his hard chest and hugged him to her. She closed her eyes and held tight, wanting the moment to last yet fearing it would not.

His hands moved over her shoulders, then slid down her arms until he could pull her back from him. His hands grasped her upper arms as he leaned closer to peer into her eyes. “Why are you here, Hannah? After what happened in the Tea Room—”

Hannah raised a finger and laid it vertically over his lips. “Shhh,” she whispered. “Do not speak. None of that matters anymore. Do you hear me? It no longer matters to me.”

Griffin released one of her arms in order to catch up her hand and draw it away from his mouth. “But Hannah, I
must
explain why—”

“Not now.
Please
.”

He opened his mouth again, but Hannah covered his lips with her own and kissed him softly. She drew back her mouth, then looked up into his amazing eyes again. “All that matters, Griffin,” she said in no more than a breath against his lips, “is that I love you.”

A deep sigh poured from Griffin, and she felt the tension in his body relax. He stared down at her beneath half-lidded eyes. “And I love you, Hannah. I always have . . . since the moment I first saw you . . . on another cliff, far, far away.”

Neither spoke for several breaths. Then Griffin bent and caught her in a heated kiss, slipping his fingers through her hair, sending a twinkling of bejeweled hairpins tumbling down her back to the ground.