Flavian was gone when she awoke in the morning, and she realized she must have slept late, an unusual thing with her. There was a cup of chocolate on the small chest beside her bed, but its top was a film of gray, and she guessed the drink was cold. She felt a bit glum as she dressed, even though it was a bright, sunny morning. He would doubtless be gone by the time she went down to breakfast, and she would not see him again until goodness knew when. And what would she do with her day? Would her mother-in-law have something planned? Or would she advise remaining at home in the hope that whatever scandal had been brewing last night would blow over before she emerged again?
Whatwaslife going to be like after Easter?
Flavian had not gone out, however. He was at the breakfast table, reading the paper while his mother read a letter that must have come with the morning post. Flavian lowered the paper to bid Agnes a good morning and gestured with his head toward her place at the table.
“You have l-letters,” he said. “Plural.”
She fell upon them with what she suspected was undignified eagerness while he watched. She had had none since they arrived in London, and realized how very isolated she had felt. Now suddenly there werethree, all of them in handwriting that was familiar to her. She set aside Sophia’s and Dora’s to read at leisure after she had read her father’s.
It was very typical of him—brief and dry. He was pleased to hear of her marriage to a titled gentleman and trusted that her new husband also had the means with which to support her in some comfort. His health was tolerably good, and her stepmother, she would be pleased to hear, was enjoying her usual robust health, though unfortunately the same could not be said for either her sister or her mother, both of whom had taken a chill earlier in the spring and had not yet shaken off its full effects, though they were eating rather better than they had even just a week or so ago, and he entertained the cautious hope that another month would see them restored to full health. He was her affectionate father, etc. etc.
Affectionate.Had he ever been? Well, at least he had never been openly unkind or cruel, as many fathers were.
“Your f-father, I assume?” Flavian asked. “It was franked in Lancashire. Is he likely to turn up on my doorstep, horsewhip in hand?”
“Oh, surely not, Flavian,” his mother said, looking up from her own letter. “Even gentlemen fromLancashireknow how to be civil, I trust?”
“He simply hopes that you are able to provide for me,” Agnes said, and his eyes laughed at her even as he tipped his head slightly to one side and looked more searchingly at her.
“He does not disapprove?” he asked. “Or wish he might have attended the w-wedding?”
“No.” She shook her head and broke the seal on Sophia’s letter.
“I heard someone say yesterday,” Flavian said before she started reading it, “that we are b-bound to suffer for all this lovely spring weather we are having. One can always depend upon at least o-one person to say it. But on the chance that he may be right, shall we make the m-most of the sunshine before the suffering begins? Shall we walk in Hyde Park?”
“Today? This morning?” She gave him her full attention. “Alongside Rotten Row? To see and be seen?”
He lifted one eyebrow.
“Your new outfits are very fetching,” he said, “and I can understand your d-desire to show them off. B-but I was hoping to be more selfish and have you to m-myself. There are other, more secluded paths to walk.”
Her heart turned over.
“I would like nothing better,” she assured him.
He closed his paper and got to his feet.
“Is half an hour long enough to r-read your letters and get ready?” he asked.
“Flavian!” his mother protested. “Agnes will need at least an hour just to get ready.”
Agnes smiled. She could have been ready in ten minutes.
“Shall we say three-quarters of an hour?” she suggested.
An hour later they were strolling in an area of Hyde Park that felt more like the countryside than part of one of the largest metropolises in the world. The path was rough underfoot, the trees thick and green around them, the stretches of grass visible between their trunks slightly more overgrown than the lawns elsewhere. Best of all, there was no one else in sight, and the occasional sounds of voices and horses were distant and only served to emphasize their near seclusion.
Agnes inhaled the smell of greenery and felt a rush of contentment. If only every day could be like this.
“Do you miss the countryside, Agnes?” he asked her.
“Oh, I do,” she said in a rush. “But how foolish I am. Any number of people would give a great deal to be in London as I am, to be looking forward to the social Season, to have a dressing room full of new clothes and the prospect of balls and parties and concerts at which to wear them.”
They had stopped walking at the top of a slight rise in the path as though by mutual consent, and they both tipped back their heads to gaze upward through the branches of a particularly large and elderly oak to the blue sky above. He turned about in a complete circle.
“Are you all right?” he asked her. “After last night?”
“Yes.” She laughed slightly. “Is that what is known as a baptism by fire, do you suppose? But who would so diligently have sought out the skeletons in my closet? And why?”
