“And if character and rank disagree?”
“Then you choose the one you’ll be able to live with when the lamps are out.”
He studied the dark beyond the window for a moment. “You make it sound simple.”
“It isn’t,” she said. “But simple to say isn’t the same as simple to do.”
He nodded as if that were exactly what he’d expected her to say and exactly what he dreaded. The carriage slowed for a crossing. Louisa sighed and slid down the cushion until her head found Cordelia’s lap. Cordelia’s hand settled on the child’s hair without looking, the way a person breathes without thinking.
They reached St. James’s Place while the lamps still burned strong in the street. Housemaids had left a fire in the library and another upstairs. The night drew its own line under the evening without asking their permission. Later, after Louisa had been tucked into bed and Cordelia settled with a book she didn’t read, Winston stood with Adeline in the corridor outside the sitting room.
“Thank you,” he said.
“For the knee?”
“For the knee. And the lemonade.”
She made a face. “I owe you two lemonades.”
“I owe you less pain,” he said. He hesitated a fraction. “You did right, out there.”
She didn’t ask how much he believed. “We should go home,” she said instead. “Greystone will be easier.”
Her breath caught when she realized she had referred to Greystone as home. The look on Winston’s face, the half smile, the lean in that could easily be disguised as a relaxed posture; all told her that he had noticed as well.
“Yes, home will be easier for all of us. London is an excellent place to visit…”
“But I would not wish to live here,” Adeline finished.
Winston’s answer was a grin, and his relaxed posture had moved him closer to her. She looked into his eyes as long as she dared and wished she could do so without blushing. Putting a hand to the windowsill behind her, she affected a relaxed posture of her own. Her arm touched his, their fingers lay as bedfellows, side by side.
The contact was brief but awakened her imagination, sent tongues of fire swirling through her.
“We’ll go at first light,” Winston said.
Reluctantly, Adeline turned to go and then looked back again. There was something else in his face, a question that had mutinied and refused to march. He let it be a moment longer.
“Good night,” he said finally.
“Good night,” she answered, and went down the corridor to her room with the quiet, urgent wish that tomorrow would keep its promises.
In her chamber, she sat on the edge of the bed and unlaced her bodice with fingers that were steadier than they had been in weeks. She thought of Robert Grebe’s face when the water took him and of Winston’s jaw when pain loosened its hold. She thought of Lord Duskwood waiting at Greystone and a house called Briarwood with clean plaster and space enough for new habits.
She blew out the candle. The room settled. The city made its far-off sounds. She lay down and told herself she would sleep. She did not quite. But when she drifted, the dreams were of apples and neat rows and a path that did not yet fork, only ran on.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
The second carriage lurched at the same moment the clouds opened again. Winston set his boots wider and caught the strap above his head. Across from him, Adeline steadied the basket of provisions with one hand and braced the other flat against the squab.
“We won’t make the turn if he drives at that rut,” she said, eyes on the wavering line of hedgerow outside.
“He won’t,” Winston answered, though the driver did, and the wheels slithered before finding purchase. “Hartley has a better head than that.”
The pace eased. Rain hammered the roof and ran down the glass in sheets. A moment of quiet followed inside the carriage, the kind that belonged to people who had spoken freely for an hour and must now breathe. A ham pie sat between them, rather the worse for miles. Louisa and Cordelia’s carriage had long since gone on ahead. Adeline and Winston’s carriage had beenforced to stop when the offside horse had thrown a shoe near Hounslow, only regaining the road at a walk.
Winston told himself the choice to ride with Adeline, rather than with his mother and daughter, had been practical. He’d said it at the door of the townhouse. Hartley would need a steady hand on the lead team and someone to judge the road, and Cordelia would rest more if left to Louisa’s chatter. All of that was true enough. None of it explained the way he watched Adeline now, noting the set of her mouth when the wheels struck a stone, the way she never missed a change in the horses’ breathing.
He cleared his throat. “You’ve not asked to trade places,” he said.
