“Because I haven’t been me. Not since father passed. Not since Gabriel died. Maybe not ever.”
“And you can’t be you here? With me?” she asked.
“You know that I cannot.”
“But you can wherever the property is?”
“Scotland. And no, probably not, but I won’t have to hide so carefully either,” I explained.
“Who’s going to look after me?”
“I’m giving Cee some authority over the accounts. And Mr. Summers will continue to come to your rescue, he just won’t have to wait for my say-so. But I would very much like it if you went easy on them. At least until they accustom themselves to the responsibility.”
“I just don’t understand why you have to do this.”
Because I’m a superfluous liability whose one wrong move could ruin this family forever.“If you really wish me to stay, I will.”
She studied me in silence. Whatever she was searching for she must have found because she simply said, “Go. We’ll be all right.”
Twelve
40 BLOOMSBURY STREET, LONDON - JUNE 17, 1816
TOM
It was something of a habit,even when I was away from my brother’s house, to sit on desks and stare at the paintings behind them. For years, in Grayson House and Thornton Hall, my father’s portraits had hung, judgmental and imposing, behind the desk.
Michael loathed my habit, but staring at the swirls of paint on canvas depicting a man I hardly remembered helped me think.
Henry Grayson hadn’t been a particularly good man. And he’d been an abysmal viscount. But for most of my life, Ithoughthe’d been a good father. It had taken years to see what he’d done, or allowed to be done, to Michael and Hugh. The way he let my mother pit them against each other. The opportunities she stripped from Michael as our father stood silently by. It turned out, he was a terrible father too.
Which was honestly a relief. Because when I’d thought his haughty stare above me meant something, that his judgment was worth a damn, I’d felt the weight of that stare.
The study at the apartments I let on Bloomsbury Street featured a different, almost certainly equally horrid, deceased relative. And though it wasn’tmyhorrid deceased relative, the effect of the crooked nose and beady-eyed stare was the same.
Because I knew now that this man, whoever he may have been, was just as lost as I was. Only time and paint made him seem like he had the foggiest idea of what he was doing.
A knock came from the door behind me. And to my astonishment, behind the maid’s shoulder was Juliet.
“Come in, come in,” I insisted. A quick glance at my desk confirmed that it was shamefully empty. My instinct to stack and shuffle pages and ledgers to make room for her was entirely useless.
She settled across from me with her usual grace, dropping a basket of pastries on the desk between us. We each reached for a tart and tucked in.
“I’m afraid I don’t know what pleasure I owe this visit to,” I said, finally breaking the silence that had been filled with the fruit and cinnamon taste of comfort.
“You did this for me. Once. I only wanted to be sure you were all right.”
“How did—Did Michael tell you?”
“He told me enough to confirm what I already suspected.”
“So you did send me to Michael’s office…”
Her cheeks darkened. It was probably a fetching flush to others, but it was a mere darkening to my eyes. “I am afraid I must confess. I am as shameless a matchmaker as Kate. I had hoped…” She dropped her gaze to her lap. “I do not know what I hoped. It seems I made precisely the wrong choice. And for that I am truly sorry.”
“Don’t be.”
Juliet merely met my gaze with an intrigued expression.
