An annoying look of sympathy passed across Hugo’s face. “You have remedied your mistakes, cousin. How long will you punish yourself for?”
“My mistakes will never be remedied,” Dominic shot back through gritted teeth. “I ruined lives, Hugo. It is a miracle that Harriet has the generosity of heart to even speak to me. Seven years, Hugo! For seven years I all but ignored her! And that is not counting the years before, where I was all but a stranger to her.”
He glanced around, conscious of his volume, but the streets were practically empty of passersby. Indeed, it seemed as if all of Bath had ventured to the fair to enjoy its garish delights… and he had been enjoying it too, despite himself, until the past had crept up to smack him over the head.
“It is what you were taught to do,” Hugo insisted, his hand still resting, determined, on his cousin’s shoulder. “It is what Althea asked you to do. You tried, Dominic. You tried to be a husband; she tried to be a wife. It did not work. It happens, cousin.”
“It is no excuse,” Dominic rasped. “And I did not try. I did not know her, or care to know her, enough to try.”
Hugo squeezed harder. “Because it was not your choice, for either of you.” He looked at his cousin in earnest. “Do you care to know Frances enough to try? Rather, do you care for her enough to try?”
“I said leave it alone!” Dominic wrenched away from Hugo, and did not stop, as he marched down the steep hill toward the theater, where the footman had hitched his horse before the carriage departed.
He climbed up into the saddle and wheeled his horse around, riding out of that peaceful city, taking all the chaos of his thoughts and troubles with him. He did not look back at his cousin, for he did not want to see the pity that he knew he would find there.
“There you are.” Catherine’s voice was a welcome interruption to the clamoring confusion in Frances’ skull.
The carriage had returned to the manor an hour ago, and both the offer of a bath and a tea tray had been politely refused by Frances. Meanwhile, Harriet had retired with the sleepy giddiness of someone who had just had a most wonderful evening: an enviable disposition.
Frances knew she should probably be in bed too, but restlessness had driven her from the comfort of her garret bedchamber, to sit on the drawing room terrace with her square of Dhaka muslin in hand.
“What are you doing on the ground?” Catherine asked, not hesitating to sit right down next to her on the cold flagstones.
“Hiding,” Frances admitted. “If I were to sit on one of the terrace chairs, I would be seen.”
Catherine nodded. “And that would be a grave problem because…?”
“Because I feel safer when I cannot be seen,” Frances replied. “This is my pergola.”
“Ah, I see.”
In the London townhouse where she had spent so much of her life, Frances had needed somewhere that was just for her. As her sisters grew older and her father grew accustomed to relying on Frances, their demands had occasionally taken a toll, and she had required a hiding place where she could not be found fora while. It was the cook who had taken pity on her in the end, showing her the overgrown pergola at the rear of the garden.
There, among unsightly bushes, hanging ivy, and climbing jasmine that smelled so fragrant in the summer that it brought on an instant headache, she had found her little corner of peace.
“Does this have anything to do with you promenading in the gloom with His Grace?” Catherine asked with a nervous smile. “If anyone asks, Iwaschaperoning you. I definitely wasn’t distracted by the fire-breathing dragon.”
Frances chuckled. “I am sorry to have missed such a beast.” Her soft laughter became a softer sigh. “He said he was not a good man, Cathy, and it felt like a warning. Yet, just before, he gave me this.”
She showed her friend the gift, the sea-green fabric catching the low light from the drawing room, so that each undulation on the surface resembled the ripple in a pond. It even seemed to change color, from green to silver and back again, with pinkish hues appearing here and there.
“The muslin…” Catherine stared at it in shock. “He heard us?”
Frances nodded. “It was such a sweet gesture, but I almost wish he had not done it.”
“Whyever not?”
Taking back the fabric and smoothing it out on her lap, concerned that the fine edges were already starting to fray, Frances shrugged. “Because it… it… it makes me want to stay. It makes me hope that he will turn around and ask me to remain, when I know it is impossible.” Her throat bobbed. “He has no reason to ask me to stay. I am his daughter’s tutor; when she is taught, my work is done.”
“You’re fond of him?” Catherine prompted.
“Nonsense,” Frances replied, a note too quickly and far too insistently. “He is my employer. He is a duke. He is… uninterested in companionship or… anything of that ilk.”
“You’re fond of him,” Catherine repeated, though it was not a question this time. “And, forgive me, but a gift like this doesn’t speak of indifference to me. I know how much that one square cost.”
Folding the muslin back into the handkerchief and tucking it up her sleeve, Frances turned her gaze out toward the still night, surprised by how much she adored the quiet now. She did not miss the constant bustle of activity in the city anymore, her mind and senses attuned to the serenity. So much so that she was not sure how she was going to readjust when she had to return.
“Do not give me hope, Cathy,” she said, as she heard the familiar hoot of owls calling to one another. “There is none.”
