And here washe, Flavian thought, feeling all fragile and on the verge of tears or worse, just because he was here, because he washome, though that word had nothing to do with place but only everything to do with the people who would be here with him soon along with Vincent. Then he would be safe again. Then he would be well again, and nothing could harm him. Absurd thoughts!
They had scarcely stepped inside the drawing room when they became aware of the clopping of horses’ hooves on the driveway below and the jingling of carriage traces. And it was not his own coach, Flavian saw when he looked through the long windows. It was not George’s either, or Ralph’s. Hugo’s, maybe? Or Ben’s? Ben—Sir Benedict Harper—had recently taken up residence in Wales, of all the godforsaken places he might have chosen, and was managing some coal mines and ironworks there for the grandfather of his new wife. It was all rather bizarre and improbable and not a little alarming. Even more astonishing was the fact that all of them except Vincent had traipsed off there in January for the wedding. They might have been marooned there for a month or more. What would one do in Wales for amonth? In the middle ofwinter? They all needed their heads examined. Of course, his own head had never been quite right since he had been shot through the side of it and then tumbled down onto it from his horse’s back during one memorable battle in the Peninsula. Memorable for others, that was. It remained a huge, colossal blank for him, as if it were something he had slept through and merely heard about afterward.
“Oh,” Lady Darleigh said, clasping her hands to her bosom, “here comes someone else. I must go back down. Will you stay here, Vincent, and see that Lord Ponsonby has his drink?”
“I shall come with you, Sophie,” Vince said. “Flavian is a big boy. He can pour his own drink.”
“And without spilling any,” Flavian agreed. “But I will c-come down too if I may.”
There was that foolish excitement again, the one that always ensured he was first to arrive for the annual gatherings. Soon they would be together again, the seven of them. His favorite people in the world. His friends. His lifeline. He would not have survived those three years without them. Oh, perhaps his body would have, but his sanity most assuredly would not. He would not survivenowwithout them.
They were his family.
He had another family of people who shared his bloodlines and his ancestral history. He was even fond of them, almost without exception, and they of him. But these, his six friends—George, Hugo, Ben, Ralph, Imogen, and Vincent—were the family of his heart.
Devil take it, what a phrase—family of his heart. It was enough to make any self-respecting male want to vomit. It was a good thing he had not said it aloud.
Keeping,he thought apropos of nothing as he went back downstairs to greet the new arrival. His mind had winked, and there it was—the woman’s name. Mrs. Keeping, widow. An odd name, but then, perhaps his own name, Arnott, was odd too. Any name was, when one thought about it long enough.
***
By the time Agnes had arrived home and removed her bonnet and pelisse, and tidied her hair and washed her hands, her heart had stopped thumping sufficiently that she did not think Dora would hear it when she went downstairs to join her in the sitting room.
It really,reallywas not fair that he looked even more handsome and virile on horseback than in a ballroom. He had been wearing a long, drab riding coat with goodness knows how many shoulder capes—it had not occurred to her to count them—and a tall hat set at a very slightly jaunty angle on his near-blond head. She had been suffocatingly aware of his supple leather boots and powerful thighs in tight riding breeches, and of his military posture and broad chest and mocking, handsome face.
The very sight of himjustwhen she thought she was going to make it home safely had thrown her into such a stupid flutter that she could not remember now how she had behaved. Had she acknowledged him in some civil way? Had she gawked? Had she shaken visibly like a leaf in a hurricane? Had sheblushed? Oh, dear God, please let her not have blushed. How dreadfully lowering that would be. Good heavens, she wastwenty-six. And she was awidow.
“Oh, there you are, dearest,” Dora said, lifting her hands from the keyboard of her ancient but lovingly cared-for and meticulously well-tuned pianoforte. “You are later than you said you would be—but when are you not when you have been painting? You have been missing all the fun.”
“I never mean to be late,” Agnes said, stooping to kiss her sister’s cheek.
“I know.” Dora got to her feet and rang the silver bell on top of the instrument as a signal to their housekeeper to bring in the tea tray. “It happens to me when I play. It is a good thing we are both absentminded artists, or we might be forever bickering and accusing each other of neglect. You found something absorbing to paint, then?”
“Daffodils in the grass,” Agnes said. “They are always so much lovelier there than they are in flower beds. What is the fun I have missed?”
“The guests for Middlebury Park have begun to arrive,” Dora said. “A single horseman rode by a short while ago. He was past the house before I could dash to the window, even though I went at breakneck speed, and I saw only his back, but I believe he might have been the handsome viscount of the mocking eyebrow who was at the October ball.”
“Viscount Ponsonby?” Agnes said, and her heart began its heavy thumping again, threatening to deafen her and make her voice breathless. “Yes, you are quite right. I passed him farther along the street, and he actually acknowledged me and bade me a good afternoon. He could not remember my name, however. I could almost hear him searching his mind for it. He called mema’aminstead.”
Goodness, had she really noticed that much?
“And just a few minutes ago,” Dora said, “there were a couple of carriages. There were two people in the first, a lady and gentleman. The second was loaded down with a prodigious pile of baggage and contained a man who looked so superior that he was either a duke or a valet. I suspect the latter. I almost called up to you, but if I had done that, then Mrs. Henry would have heard too and come bustling to one of the front windows, and all three of us would have been seen to be gawking outward andnotminding our own business as genteel ladies ought.”
“Absolutely no one would have paid us any heed,” Agnes said. “Everyone else would have been too busy gawking on their own account.”
They both laughed and took their seats on either side of the fireplace, while Mrs. Henry carried in the tray and informed them that the guests had begun to arrive at Middlebury Park, but she expected Miss Debbins had been too engrossed in her music to notice.
Agnes and Dora smirked at each other when she had left, and then got to their feet to see who was approaching along the village street this time. It was a young gentleman driving himself in a very smart curricle, with a young tiger in livery up behind him. The driver looked like another lithe and handsome man, except that a wicked scar slashing across the cheek nearest their window was horribly visible despite his hat. It gave him a ferocious, piratical appearance.
“I quite despise myself,” Dora said. “But this really is fun.”
“It is,” Agnes agreed. Though she wished it was not happening. She had really not wanted to see him again. Oh, yes, of course she had. No, she had not. Oh, shehatedthis... this juvenile turmoil over a man who had scarcely noticed her five months ago and had forgotten even her name since then.
Sophia had told her about the Survivors’ Club and had explained about their annual gatherings in Cornwall, and how she had persuaded them all to come to Middlebury Park instead this year because her husband, the foolish dear—Sophia’s words—had refused to leave her so soon after her confinement. There were seven of them, including Viscount Darleigh—six men and one woman. Three of them were married, all within the past year. They were going to be here for three weeks. The whole neighborhood was agog with excitement, even though it was to be a mainly private gathering. Every one of the Survivors was titled: the least illustrious of them a baronet, the most illustrious a duke.
Agnes had decided to keep well out of their way. It should not be difficult, she had thought, although she often went up to the house to see Sophia, especially during the last couple of months before Thomas was born, when it had been increasingly difficult for Sophia to come to see her, and during the month since his birth. She would stop going while there were houseguests. She would have stopped even ifhewas not one of the Survivors, for Sophia would be busy entertaining them all. And though Agnes often went into the park to sketch, at the express invitation of both Sophia and Lord Darleigh, she would avoid the parts of it where the guests were most likely to stroll, and she would be very careful not to be seen coming and going.
She had been careful today—until she had lost track of time. None of the guests would be likely to arrive before the middle of the afternoon, Sophia had told her. Agnes had gone, then, to paint the daffodils, when it was still morning. She could not delay altogether for three weeks, because the daffodils would not delay. She would be home soon after noon, well before anyone could be expected to arrive, she had told Dora before she left. But then she had started to paint and had forgotten the time.
