The Sum of All Kisses (17 page)

Later that night

After supper

“Y
ou realize,” Sarah said to Hugh, “that you’re stuck with me now for the duration of the evening.”

They were sitting on the lawn, under torches that somehow managed to make the air warm enough to remain outside as long as one had a coat. And a blanket.

They weren’t the only ones who had taken advantage of the fine evening. A dozen chairs and lounges had been set up on the grass outside the ballroom, and at any given time about half of them were filled. Sarah and Hugh were the only people who had taken up permanent residence, though.

“If you so much as leave my side,” Sarah continued, “Daisy will find me and drag me to the pianoforte.”

“And would that be so very dreadful?” he asked.

She gave him a steady look, then said, “I shall make certain you are sent an invitation to our next musicale.”

“I look forward to it.”

“No,” she said, “you don’t.”

“This all feels very mysterious,” he said, leaning back comfortably in his chair. “It has been my experience that most young ladies are eager to demonstrate their skill at the pianoforte.”

“We,” she said, pausing to give the pronoun just the right amount of emphasis, “are uncommonly dreadful.”

“You can’t be that bad,” he insisted. “If you were, you wouldn’t be staging annual musicales.”

“That presupposes logic.” She grimaced. “And taste.” There seemed no reason not to offer the unvarnished truth. He’d learn soon enough, if he ever found himself in London at the wrong time of year.

Hugh chuckled, and Sarah tipped her head toward the sky, not wishing to waste another thought on her family’s infamous musicales. The night was far too lovely for that. “So many stars,” she murmured.

“Do you enjoy astronomy?”

“Not really,” she admitted, “but I do like looking at the stars on a clear night.”

“That’s Andromeda right there,” he said, pointing toward a collection of stars that Sarah privately thought resembled a tipsy pitchfork more than anything else.

“What about that one?” she asked, gesturing toward a squiggle that looked like the letter W.

“Cassiopeia.”

She moved her finger a bit to the left. “And that one?”

“Nothing that I’m aware of,” he admitted.

“Have you ever counted them all?” she asked.

“The stars?”

“You count everything else,” she teased.

“The stars are infinite. Even I can’t count that high.”

“Of course you can,” she said, feeling lovely and mischievous, all rolled together. “It couldn’t be simpler. Infinity minus one, infinity, infinity plus one.”

He looked over at her with an expression that told her he knew that she knew she was being ridiculous. But still he said, “It doesn’t work that way.”

“It should.”

“But it doesn’t. Infinity plus one is still infinity.”

“Well, that makes
no
sense.” She sighed happily, pulling her blanket more tightly around her. She loved to dance, but truly, she could not imagine why anyone would choose to remain in the ballroom when they could be out on the lawn, celebrating the heavens.

“Sarah! And Hugh! What a delightful surprise!”

Sarah and Hugh exchanged a glance as Daniel made his way over to them, his fiancée laughingly trailing behind. Sarah still had not quite adapted to Miss Wynter’s impending change of position—from her sisters’ governess to Countess of Winstead and their soon-to-be cousin. It wasn’t that Sarah was being a snob about it, or at least she didn’t think she was. She hoped she wasn’t. She liked Anne. And she liked how happy Daniel was when he was with her.

It was just all very strange.

“Where is Lady Danbury when we need her?” Hugh said.

Sarah turned to him with a curious smile. “Lady Danbury?”

“Surely we are meant to say something about this not being a surprise at all.”

“Oh, I don’t know,” Sarah said with an arch smile. “As far as I know, no one here is my great-grandnephew.”

“Have you been out here all evening?” Daniel asked once he and Anne were near.

“Indeed we have,” Hugh confirmed.

“You’re not too cold?” Anne inquired.

“We are well blanketed,” Sarah said. “And truly, if I cannot dance, I’m delighted to be out here in the fresh air.”

“You two make quite a pair this evening,” Daniel said.

“I believe this is the cripples’ corner,” Hugh put in dryly.

“Stop saying that,” Sarah scolded.

“Oh, sorry.” Hugh looked over at Daniel and Anne. “She will heal, of course, so she cannot be allowed in our ranks.”

Sarah sat forward. “That’s not what I meant. Well, it is, but not entirely.” Then, because Daniel and Anne were regarding them with confusion, she explained, “This is the third—no, the fourth time he has said that.”

“Cripples’ corner?” Hugh repeated, and even in the torchlight she could see that he was amused.

“If you do not stop saying that, I swear I’m leaving.”

Hugh quirked a brow. “Didn’t you just say that I’m stuck with you for the rest of the evening?”

“You shouldn’t call yourself a cripple,” Sarah returned. Her voice was growing too passionate, but she was completely unable to temper it. “It’s a terrible word.”

Hugh, predictably, was matter-of-fact. “It applies.”

“No. It does not.”

He chuckled. “Are you going to compare me to a horse again?”

“This is far more interesting than anything going on inside,” Daniel said to Anne.

“No,” she said firmly, “it’s not. And it’s certainly not any of our business.” She tugged on his arm, but he was gazing longingly at Sarah and Hugh.

“It could be our business,” he said.

Anne sighed and rolled her eyes. “You are such a gossip.” Then she said something to him Sarah could not hear, and Daniel reluctantly allowed her to drag him away.

Sarah watched them go, somewhat confused by Anne’s obvious desire to leave—did she think they needed privacy? How odd. Still, she was not done with this conversation, so she turned back to Hugh and said, “If you must, you may call yourself lame,” she said, “but I forbid you to call yourself a cripple.”

He drew back in surprise. And, perhaps, amusement. “You forbid me?”

“Yes. I do.” She swallowed, uncomfortable by the rush of emotion within her. For the first time that evening, they were completely alone on the lawn, and she knew that if she allowed her voice to drop to its quietest register, he would still hear her. “I still don’t like
lame,
but at least it’s an adjective. If you call yourself a cripple, it’s as if that’s all you are.”

He looked at her for a long moment before rising to his feet and crossing the very short distance to her chair. He leaned down, and then, so softly that she was not certain she’d heard him, he said, “Lady Sarah Pleinsworth, may I have this dance?”

H
ugh was not prepared for the look in her eyes. Her face tipped up toward his, and her lips parted with a breath, and in that moment he would have sworn that the sun rose and set on her smile.

He leaned in, almost close enough for a whisper. “If I am not, as you say, a cripple, then I must be able to dance.”

“Are you sure?” she whispered.

“I shall never know unless I try.”

“I won’t be very graceful,” she said ruefully.

“That’s why you are the perfect partner.”

She reached out and placed her hand in his. “Lord Hugh Prentice, I would be honored to dance with you.”

Carefully, she moved to the edge of her chair, then allowed him to tug her to her feet. Or rather, to her foot. It was almost comical; he was leaning on the chair, and she was leaning on him, and neither could stop their grins from extending into giggles.

When they were both upright and reasonably well balanced, Hugh listened for the strains of music wafting out along the night breeze. He heard a quadrille.

“I believe I hear a waltz,” he said.

She looked up at him, clearly about to issue a correction. He placed a finger on her lips. “It must be a waltz,” he told her, and he saw the instant she understood. They would never dance a reel, or a minuet, or quadrille. Even a waltz would require considerable innovation.

He reached over and plucked his cane from where it was resting against the side of his chair. “If I put my hand here,” he said, resting it on the handle, “and you put yours on mine . . .”

She followed his lead, and he placed his other hand at the small of her back. Without ever taking her eyes from his, she moved her hand to his shoulder. “Like this?” she whispered.

He nodded. “Like this.”

It was the strangest, most awkward waltz imaginable. Instead of a clasped pair of hands, elegantly arched before them, they both put their weight on the cane. Not too heavily; they didn’t need that much support, not while they had each other. He hummed in three-quarter time, and he led with light pressure on her back, moving the cane whenever it was time to turn.

He had not danced in nearly four years. He had not felt music flow through his body, nor savored the warmth of a woman’s hand in his. But tonight . . . It was magical, almost spiritual, and he knew that there was no way he could ever thank her for this moment, for restoring a piece of his soul.

“You’re very graceful,” she said, gazing up at him with an enigmatic smile. This was the smile she used in London, he was certain of it. When she danced at a ball, when she looked up at her suitor and paid him a compliment, this was how she smiled. It made him feel positively normal.

He never thought he’d be so grateful for a smile.

He dipped his head toward hers and pretended to be imparting a secret. “I’ve been practicing for years.”

“Have you now?”

“Oh, indeed. Shall we attempt a turn?”

“Oh yes, let’s.”

Together they lifted the cane, swung it gently to the right, then pressed the tip back down on the grass.

He leaned in. “I’ve been waiting for the proper moment to unleash my talent upon the world.”

Her brows rose. “The proper moment?”

“The proper partner,” he corrected.

“I knew there was a reason I fell out of that carriage.” She laughed and looked up with a mischievous glint in her eyes. “Aren’t you going to say that you knew there was a reason you didn’t catch me?”

About this, however, he could not be glib. “No,” he said with quiet force. “Never.”

She was looking down, but he could see by the curve of her cheeks that she was pleased. After a few moments, she said, “You did break my fall.”

“It appears I am good for something,” he replied, happy to be back to their teasing banter. It was a safer place to be.

“Oh, I don’t know about that, my lord. I suspect you’re good for many things.”

“Did you just ‘my lord’ me?”

This time, when she smiled, he heard it in her breath, right before she said, “It seems that I did.”

“I cannot imagine what I have done to earn such an honor.”

“Oh, it is not a question of what you have done to earn it,” she said, “but what I
think
you have done to earn it.”

For a moment he stopped dancing. “This may explain why I don’t understand women.”

At that she laughed. “It is but one of many reasons, I’m sure.”

“You wound me.”

“On the contrary. I know of no man who truly wishes to understand women. What would you have to complain about if you did?”

“Napoleon?”

“He’s dead.”

“The weather?”

“You already have that, not that you could possibly find any complaint tonight.”

“No,” he agreed, peering up at the stars. “It is an uncommonly fine evening.”

“Yes,” she said softly. “Yes, it is.”

He should have been satisfied with that, but he was feeling greedy, and he did not want the dance to end, so he allowed his hand to settle more heavily on her back and said, “You did not tell me what you think I have done to earn the honor of your calling me ‘your lord.’ ”

She glanced up at him with impudent eyes. “Well, if I were completely honest, I might admit that it just popped out of my mouth. It does lend a flirtatious air to a statement.”

“You crush me.”

“Ah, but I’m not going to be completely honest. Instead, I’m going to recommend that you wonder why I was feeling flirtatious.”

“I shall take that recommendation.”

She hummed quietly as they turned.

“You’re going to make me ask, aren’t you?”

“Only if you want to.”

He caught her gaze and held it. “I do want.”

“Very well, I was feeling flirtatious because—”

“Hold on one moment,” he interrupted, because she deserved it, after making him ask. “It’s time for another spin.”

They executed this one perfectly, which was to say, they didn’t fall down.

“You were saying,” he prompted.

She looked up at him with faux severity. “I
should
claim to have forgotten my train of thought.”

“But you won’t.”

She made a sorry little face. “Oh, but I think I have forgotten.”

“Sarah
.”

“How do you make my name sound like such a threat?”

“It doesn’t really matter if it sounds like a threat,” he said. “It only matters if you
think
it sounds like a threat.”

Her eyes grew wide, and she burst into laughter. “You win,” she said, and he was quite sure she would have thrown up her hands in defeat if they had not still been depending upon one another to stay upright.

“I think I do,” he murmured.

It was the strangest, most awkward waltz imaginable, and it was the most perfect moment of his life.

Chapter Fourteen

Several nights later, well after dark

in the guest bedchamber shared by

the Ladies Sarah and Harriet Pleinsworth

“A
re you going to read all night?”

Sarah’s eyes, which had been speeding along the pages of her novel with a most pleasurable abandon, froze in place upon the word
forsythia
. “Why,” she said aloud (and with considerable aggravation), “does that question even exist in the realm of human activity? Of course I’m not going to read all night. Has there ever even existed a human being who has read all night?”

This was a question she regretted immediately, because this was Harriet lying in bed next to her, and if there was anyone in the world who would respond by saying, “There probably has been,” it was Harriet.

And she did.

“Well, I’m not going to,” Sarah muttered, even though she’d already said as much. It was important to get the last word in a sisterly argument, even if it did mean repeating oneself.

Harriet turned onto her side, scrunching her pillow under her head. “What are you reading?”

Sarah pushed back a sigh and let her book fall closed around her index finger. This was not an unfamiliar sequence of events. When Sarah could not sleep, she read novels. When Harriet could not sleep, she pestered Sarah.

“Miss Butterworth and the Mad Baron
.”

“Haven’t you read that before?”

“Yes, but I enjoy rereading it. It’s silly, but I like it.” She reopened the book, planted her eyes back on
forsythia,
and prepared to move forward.

“Did you see Lord Hugh tonight at supper?”

Sarah stuck her index finger back into the book. “Yes, of course I did. Why?”

“No reason in particular. I thought he looked very handsome.” Harriet had dined with the adults that evening, much to Elizabeth’s and Frances’s chagrin.

The wedding was now but three days away, and Whipple Hill was a flurry of activity. Marcus and Honoria (Lord and Lady Chatteris, Sarah reminded herself) had arrived from Fensmore looking flushed and giggly and deliriously happy. It would have been enough to make Sarah want to gag, except that she had been having a rather fine time herself, laughing and bantering with Lord Hugh.

It was the oddest thing, but his was the first face she thought of when she woke in the morning. She looked for him at breakfast, and she always seemed to find him there, his plate so nearly full as to indicate that he’d arrived mere moments before she had.

Every morning, they lingered. They told themselves it was because they could not partake in the many activities that had been planned for the day (although in truth Sarah’s ankle was much improved, and even if a walk to the village was still out of the question, there was no reason she could not manage bowls on the lawn).

They lingered, and she would pretend to sip at her tea, because if she actually drank as much as one normally might over the hours she sat at the table, she’d be forced to cut the conversation short.

She did not reflect upon the fact that a conversation truncated at the hour mark could not possibly be construed as short.

They lingered, and most people didn’t seem to notice. The other guests came and went, taking their food from the sideboard, drinking their coffee and tea, and leaving. Sometimes Sarah and Hugh were joined in conversation, sometimes not.

And then finally, when it became past obvious that it was time for the servants to clean the breakfast room, Sarah would rise and casually mention where she thought she might take her book for the afternoon.

He would never say that he planned to join her, but he always did.

They had become friends, and if occasionally she caught herself staring at his mouth, thinking that everyone had to have a first kiss, and wouldn’t it be lovely if hers was with him . . . Well, she kept such things to herself.

She was running out of novels, though. The Whipple Hill library was extensive, but it was sadly lacking in books of the kind Sarah liked to read.
Miss Butterworth
had been haphazardly shelved between
The Divine Comedy
and
The Taming of the Shrew
.

She looked back down. Miss Butterworth had not yet met her baron, and Sarah was eager for the plot to get moving.

Forsythia . . . forsythia . . .

“Did you think he looked handsome?”

Sarah let out an annoyed groan.

“Did you think Lord Hugh looked handsome?” Harriet prodded.

“I don’t know, he looked like himself.” The first part was a lie; Sarah did know, and she had found him heartbreakingly handsome. The second part was the truth, and was probably the reason she thought him so handsome to begin with.

“I think Frances has fallen in love with him,” Harriet said.

“Probably,” Sarah agreed.

“He’s very kind to her.”

“Yes, he is.”

“He taught her to play piquet this afternoon.”

It must have been while she was helping Anne at her final dress fitting, Sarah thought. She could not imagine when else he would have had the time.

“He didn’t let her win. I think she thought he would, but I think she likes that he didn’t.”

Sarah let out a loud, long-suffering sigh. “Harriet, what is this about?”

Harriet tucked her chin back in surprise. “I don’t know. I was just making conversation.”

“At”—Sarah looked vainly for a clock—“whatever time it is?”

Harriet was quiet for a full minute. Sarah managed to get from
forsythia
to
pigeon
before her sister spoke again.

“I think he likes you.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Lord Hugh,” Harriet said. “I think he fancies you.”

“He doesn’t fancy me,” Sarah retorted, and it wasn’t that she was lying; it was more that she hoped she was lying. Because she knew that she was falling in love with him, and if he did not feel the same way, she did not know how she could bear it.

“I think you’re wrong,” Harriet said.

Sarah turned resolutely back to Miss Butterworth’s pigeons.

“Do you fancy him?”

Sarah snapped. There was no way she was going to talk to her sister about this. It was too new, and too private, and every time she thought about it she felt as if she might burst out of her skin. “Harriet, I am not having this conversation right now.”

Harriet paused to think about this. “Will you have it tomorrow?”

“Harriet!”

“Oh, fine, I won’t say another word.” Harriet made a big show of turning over in bed, pulling half of Sarah’s covers off in the process.

Sarah let out a snort, since an obvious display of irritation was
clearly
called for, then she yanked at the blanket and turned back to her book.

Except she could not concentrate.

Her eyes sat on page thirty-three for what seemed like hours. Beside her, Harriet finally stopped rustling around and fell still, her breathing slowing into light, peaceful snores.

Sarah wondered what Hugh was doing, and if he ever had difficulty falling asleep.

She wondered how much his leg hurt when he went to bed. If it pained him at night, did it still hurt in the morning? Did he ever wake from the pain?

She wondered how he had come to be so talented at mathematics. He’d explained to her once, after she’d begged him to multiply some ridiculously long sums, how he saw the numbers in his head, except he didn’t actually
see
them, they just sort of arranged themselves until he knew the answer. She hadn’t even tried to pretend that she understood him, but she’d kept asking questions because he was so adorable when he was frustrated.

He smiled when he was with her. She didn’t think he’d smiled very often before.

Was it possible to fall in love with someone in so short a time? Honoria had known Marcus her whole life before she fell in love with him. Daniel had claimed love at first sight with Miss Wynter. Somehow that almost seemed more logical than Sarah’s journey.

She supposed she could lie in bed all night and doubt herself, but she was feeling too restless, so she climbed out of bed, walked to the window, and pushed back the curtains. The moon wasn’t full, but it was more than halfway there, and the silvery light sparkled on the grass.

Dew,
she thought, and she realized she’d already donned her slippers. The house was quiet, and she knew she shouldn’t be out of her room, and it wasn’t even that the moonlight was calling . . .

It was the breeze. The leaves had long since dropped from the trees, but the tiny points at the ends of the branches were light enough to ruffle and sway. A spot of fresh air, that was all she needed. Fresh air and the wind tickling through her hair. It had been years since she’d been permitted to wear it down outside her bedroom, and she just wanted to go outside and . . .

And be.

The same night

A different room

S
leep had never come easily to Hugh Prentice. When he was a small child, it was because he was listening. He didn’t know why the nursery at Ramsgate wasn’t off in some far-flung corner like at every other house he’d ever been to, but it wasn’t, and it meant that every now and then, and never when they expected it (which was not true; they always expected it), Hugh and Freddie would hear their mother cry out.

The first time Hugh heard it, he jumped out of bed, only to be stopped by Freddie’s restraining hand.

“But Mama . . .”

Freddie shook his head.

“And Father . . .” Hugh had heard his father’s voice, too. He sounded angry. And then he laughed.

Freddie shook his head again, and the look in his eyes was enough to convince Hugh, who was five years his junior, to crawl back into his bed and cover his ears.

But he didn’t close his eyes. If you’d asked him the next day, he would have sworn he had not even blinked. He was six, and he still swore to lots of impossible things.

When he saw his mother that night before supper, she didn’t look as if anything was wrong. It really had sounded as if his mother had been hurt, but she didn’t have any bruises, and she didn’t sound sick. Hugh started to ask her about it, but Freddie stomped on his foot.

Freddie didn’t do things like that without a reason; Hugh kept his mouth shut.

For the next few months Hugh watched his parents carefully. It was only then that he realized that he almost never saw them together in the same room. If they ate supper together in the dining room, he would not know; the children dined in the nursery.

When he did see them at the same time it was very difficult to determine what their feelings toward the other might be; it wasn’t as if they spoke to each other. Months would pass, and Hugh could almost imagine that everything was perfectly fine.

And then they would hear it again. And he knew that everything was not perfectly fine. And that there was nothing he could do about it.

When Hugh was ten, his mother succumbed to a fever brought on by a dog bite (and a small bite at that, but it had turned ugly very quickly). Hugh grieved for her as much as he might grieve for anyone he saw for twenty minutes each evening, and he finally stopped listening each night as he tried to fall asleep.

But by this point it did not matter. Hugh could no longer fall asleep because he was thinking. He lay in his bed, and his mind buzzed and raced and flipped and generally did everything except calm itself down. Freddie told him that he needed to imagine his mind as a blank page, which actually made Hugh laugh, because if there was one thing his mind would never be able to duplicate, it was a blank page. Hugh saw numbers and patterns all day long, in the petals of a flower, in the cadence of a horse’s hooves on the ground. Some of these patterns caught his immediate attention, but the rest lingered at the back of his mind until he was quiet and in bed. That was when they crept back, and suddenly everything was adding and subtracting and rearranging, and did Freddie
really
think he could sleep through that?

(Freddie did not, as a matter of fact. After Hugh told him what went on in his head when he was trying to fall asleep, Freddie never mentioned the blank page again.)

Now there were many reasons he did not drift easily into sleep. Sometimes it was his leg, with its nagging clench of muscle. Sometimes it was his suspicious nature, forcing him to keep one metaphorical eye on his father, whom Hugh would never trust completely, despite his current upper hand in their battles. And sometimes it was that same old thing—his mind humming with numbers and patterns, unable to shut itself off.

But Hugh had a new hypothesis: he could not sleep because he had simply got used to this particular brand of frustration. Somehow he had trained his body to think that he was supposed to lie there like a log for hours before finally giving up and resting. He’d had plenty of nights with no reasonable explanation for his insomnia. His leg might feel almost normal, and his father not even a dot in his mind, and still sleep would elude him.

Lately, however, it had been different.