They felt much like his mood. As did the petals fallen from the wilting wreaths festooning the place, dirty and bruised on the stone floor. Always too much of everything, the Allinghams.
Mrs Ardingly stopped just outside the terrace door. Even here, there was a crowd. Sebastian stood close by her—there were no other options—his elbow brushing hers. They stood in silence for some time.
“He’s well.”
She looked up in confusion.
“The boy,” he elaborated. “Tonk. Though I’ve told him he’s going to be Tom from now on. It’s as good a name as any.”
“Tom’s a very good name. If he takes to it.”
“He’s had another bath. He’s eaten—cake and bread, some meat, some cheese, and an orange I fed him, piece by piece.”
“You don’t want to overfeed him. Not at first. His stomach won’t be used to so much.”
“I know.” But those ribs… “He thought I was joking about the orange at first. He’d never had one, didn’t know how to eat it. And then he tried the first piece and almost spat it out, said it hurt his tongue. But he got used to it.”
She looked at him for a moment, but it seemed she couldn’t quite think what to say. It seemed to trouble her anyway. She sipped her lemonade and stared out through the movement of people on the terrace, gaze seeking the dark garden beyond.
“What?” he prompted. “I suppose you’ll tell me I’m doing it wrong. That it ought to be gruel. Or that I’m spoiling him with oranges before he goes back to wherever it is he’s going back to.”
“No. You are just…”
“What?”
“Almost making me like you again.”
A smile stole over his face. He savoured it for a moment, rolling the words around his mind as though they were fine wine. They might as well have been, so complex was the flavour.
“Dance with me, Mrs Ardingly. I believe I’m promised to you.”
Her smile met the rim of the lemonade glass as she took another sip—a long swallow, the contours of her throat moving with the liquid. She continued to look at the dark garden before cutting her gaze sideways to his.
“Why yes, my lord. I believe it’s the only thing left to make my victory here tonight complete.”
She thought she was being sarcastic, but it was only the truth.
He turned to her and bowed in the small space left available to them by the press of people all around, the dip of his head a hands-breadth and one breath from hers. Then he took her hand upon his and led her to the dancing.
Sixteen
“I had a veryinteresting case today, in which an older widow—quite into her middle age—came to me in an agony of indecision. She’d been offered the protection of remarriage by a very respectable man of good means, but having promised before God to love only her first husband, she felt an uncommon degree of hesitation in accepting the man’s offer, her worry being, can it ever be right, having made the marriage vows, to promise yourself again?”
Reverend Moore was forced to address this to Madelaine’s aunt, Madelaine herself having drifted out of his eyeline, towards the window, where she sat, rather rudely, on the shallow window seat and looked up at the sky.
It was the chalky white of unglazed pottery today, a great bowl of it above their heads, over all London, though the pressing rooftops clustered and cluttered its edges. The roofs would take over the sky if they could, claw their way up to heaven and build offices and taverns there.
Dimly, from the corner of her eye, she saw the reverend turn his head and glance her way, checking for any reaction to his words. It was hardly the first time he’d raised such a topic with her, always under the guise of some ecclesiastical pondering, but he was not normally quite so direct.
“To be sure,” said her aunt, polite, but not much more fond of the topic than Madelaine herself, their histories being so similar, “where there has been deep attachment…” She trailed off.
Memory glazed the white pottery dome of sky with colour, with the swirl of satin skirts in a dance. They could be painted all around the rim, the colourful dresses, the white muslins, and the black punctuation marks of the men in their evening wear…a line of dancers all the way around, flecks of gold for the candlelight shining on jewels and gilt and eyes.
She must be tired—she’d arrived home at three in the morning—she was dreaming awake. The reverend had called, as he so often did, just as she and her aunt were getting ready to go out. The Duchess of Cumbria had invited them to make a morning call, apologising for having to give them a set time, a meeting of mere minutes, but she was busy—apologising, wincing—so busy it made her dizzy, and she was leaving London again that evening, but she would so dearly love to hear more of their cause…
And after that… Well. She planned to stop at Lord Cotereigh’s house on the way home. Oh, be still, stupid heart! It was only to see the boy. Buthemight be there, of course, tall and dark, and every time she thought of it a great drop of something squeezed from her chest to splash into a shimmering pool in her belly…and that wasn’t wise. That wasn’t wise at all.
He’d led her to the dance, her hand resting lightly, decorously, atop his. She’d glanced up, once, twice, and there had been no smirk on his jaw. It had been hard and set and verysatisfied, hisplan clearly going exactly as he intended, as she supposed they usually did.
