Did she know, he wondered, of his intentions towards Lady Frances? She gave no hint of it, only looked mildly amused—and sceptical.
It hardly mattered anyway. Mrs Ardingly was getting from him what she required and was sensible enough to know it. Lady Frances, amused by his wager, was beginning to see another, lighter side to him.
He suspectedthatwas what she really wanted to prove, not this heart nonsense. She would hang back until she could be sure he would be an amusing husband, not too strict. One she could have a degree of control over.
Well. He could have fun, couldn’t he? He was having fun right now.
The door opened and that ancient old footman entered with a message for Lady Pemberthy. Someone or other had called about something or other. Both women knew what it was about, exchanging a glance.
“I’d best go down and see which bags she’s collecting,” said Lady Pemberthy. “Don’t you remember last time? She took the rags to the orphanage and the clothes to the ragman! Excuse me, my lord. Business is always calling.”
Politely, he smiled as she left the room. He looked back from the door and met Mrs Ardingly’s eyes. She quickly looked down, pouring tea into her cup from what must, by now, be a very cold and overstewed brew.
Sebastian stood. He walked around the table and sat down beside her. She stiffened, her cup rattling in her saucer as she put it down again, though he’d left a good foot of space between them.
The modiste’s book was still in his hand, and he pushed the tea tray over, placing the book down in its place.
“Allow me to help you choose, if you trust me eye?”
“For fashion? Yes. I trust you know a great deal.”
“Oh,” he said carelessly, starting to flip through the pages, “it’s far from my only area of expertise, Mrs Ardingly.”
She knew what he meant. That was the charm of widows. He’d kept one as a mistress a few years ago. Everyone did it, at one time or another, and so he’d done it too.
It was part of the life he lived, part of the conversation in clubs and on long rides with friends. It was an experience Sebastian Thorne was supposed to have, and so he made sure he had it. There were no gaps in his knowledge. No soft little innocent flaws for his friends to discover and poke at in mischief and glee.
Steadily turning the pages, he said, “What was he like? Your husband?”
She went so still he could feel it.
“I would prefer not to talk about him.”
With youwas the clear subtext.
He turned another page, studying the plate. “I was five when my mother died. I hardly remember her at all, but I wish I could remember more. The memories I do have are very dear. And I find…” He slowly turned another page, confronted by a celestial image or dark beauty, adorned with ostrich feathers. “I find that the ones I remember best are the ones I shared most often, as though speaking of them helped imprint them into my mind. Or perhaps they’ve just become stories that I’ve told myself. Perhaps I don’t remember the truth at all. When I look at paintings of my mother, she doesn’t look how I remember her in those stories.”
A pause. Another adjustment to the conversation’s mood shifting.Why is he telling me this?He could almost hear her thinking.
A technique, a tactic, a social lure.
“Does…does your father think the paintings a good likeness?”
Sebastian’s hand stilled. He forced himself to turn another page. “My father does not like to speak of her.”
And his stepmother had all the paintings removed, except the miniature in his bedroom and the locket he’d stolen long ago from the cabinet his father kept locked. She’d said she was removing the paintings out of sympathy for his father’s grief. Sebastian hadn’t believed it even then, aged eight. She replaced them all with portraits of herself and never commissioned a single one of her with her husband or her adopted son. But then, that was an accurate portrait of their life: all three of them, under one roof but living entirely separate lives.
“I remember everything,” Mrs Ardingly said, her voice quiet and careful, as though she moved carefully with an overfull cup.
He looked up from the book, finding her staring unseeing at the tabletop, her hands clasped on her lap, her skin pale, despite its light tan—unfortunate, the tan, but he could hardly fix it before the picnic. There were very, very faint freckles over the fine, delicate bone of her nose and more on the sliver of shoulder that deplorable dress left bare.
Her brown hair was twisted carelessly at the back of her head, no attempt at ringlets, just left to curl vaguely this way and that, a light, even brown, except where the sun caught the odd strand and turned it to coppery gold. There was gold on her finger too. He noticed it for the first time—the wedding band she still wore.
“Perhaps that’s harder,” he said, “than remembering nothing.”
She let out a breath, a little shaky, the tight smile she gave him embarrassed.
He tapped the book. “This dress. But paler still. And less fuss around the hem and shoulders. Perhaps you’re right to wear so little ornament, but not rags.”
