“Of course,” she said, sobering immediately, cheeks going warm under the stoic nurse’s stern regard before she turned her attention back to her daughter. “Mama must let you go with Nurse for a nap now, my love.”
“Nap!” Charlotte’s face was expressive as ever, giving evidence to her disapproval. “Char-char no wike naps.”
“You must sayI do not like naps, darling,” she corrected softly. “However, naps are good for a growing lady. You need your rest.”
And Charlotte needed to answer the note Northwich had sent round that morning, which she had been stubbornly ignoring ever since its arrival. The fears and worries which had kept her awake all night were still coiled within her belly, much like a poisonous snake about to strike. With reluctance, she handed Charlotte off to Croydon.
“Mama will see you after your nap, my love,” she told her daughter, guilt now mingling with the worries and fears.
She never liked being parted from Charlotte, even if she knew the nurse was more than capable of looking after her and that some separation was good for her daughter’s independence. George’s death had left her terrified she would lose Charlotte as well. It was a foolish dread, she knew. One death did not predict another. And yet, no matter how many times she reassured herself of that knowledge, the trepidation remained.
Charlotte was all she had left of George and the life they had once shared.
The love.
Croydon was saying something to her, but Pippa was an automaton now, her mind going to what she must do next. She responded politely, she was certain, and watched her daughter be carried away to the nursery.
She would have to face Northwich one last time.
* * *
A tray of tea.
So civilized.
An impeccable widow who was still dressed in partial mourning despite the length of time which had passed since her husband’s death. She wore dove-gray silk trimmed with ebony ribbons and jet beads. Somber attire indeed for an afternoon that was, in stark contrast to the day before, marked by bright sunshine.
Pippa had returned.
Roland could scarcely credit it.
He had been convinced she would refuse his invitation for afternoon tea and one more opportunity to peruse her husband’s letters before he turned them over to Scotland Yard. He had waited all damned morning long, exercising to distract himself. He had jogged in circles in the former music room which he had stripped of instruments and converted for just such a purpose. Tiring of that, he had then thrown himself into a host of other exercises when still no word had arrived. By eleven, he had been to the London Fencing Club for a bout with the master, Jean Beltrande.
He had returned by a quarter past one, arriving to word she had actually deigned to respond. That she was arriving at half past two. Frantic bathing and shaving had followed the news. Why, he could not say. It was not as if either his ablutions or his smooth jaw would produce anything more than an expression of distaste on her lovely countenance.
Such as the one currently facing him.
“Thank you for accepting my invitation, Mrs. Shaw,” he said, as polite and impersonal as could be.
Inside, he felt anything but good-mannered and civil. Within, all the old feelings continued to dwell and rage.
Her gloved hands were folded in her lap. Her posture was as stiff as any marble bust’s. “I came for myself and my daughter, not because I wished to avail myself of your dubious hospitality, Your Grace.”
Of course she had not. But the more determined she was to remain aloof, the more the perverse instinct to keep her here and play the role of polite host rose to the fore.
“A cup of tea before we turn to the letters, surely,” some inner devil had him suggesting. “You will pour, will you not?”
“I do not want tea.”
Neither did he.
All he had ever wanted, since the day his eyes had first settled upon Lady Philippa Morgan at a long-ago country house party, had been her. She had been dressed simply for a rigorous afternoon of country revelry and physical exertion. Her cheeks had been pink, wisps of chestnut hair falling from her coiffure beneath her hat. He would never forget. She had been a goddess cloaked in sunshine, and he had been more drawn to her than he had ever been to another, before or since.
And later that evening at a formal ball, she had astounded him anew. She had been dressed in the pastel of a debutante. The Morgan sapphires had been glittering from her ears and throat. She had been then, and still remained, the most glorious woman he had ever beheld.
“I would prefer a cup before we begin,” he forced himself to say. “I have been otherwise occupied all morning and had not the time to take luncheon.”
“I hardly think it is my fault if you were occupied, Northwich.”
