“I hate waltzing!” Tabs wailed, curls bouncing.
Ginny could hardly pluck the strings for her laughing fit.
I found Mother in the corner by a low-lit fire, a book open in her hands, though her eyes were trained on the sight before her. “You’re too far apart, move closer together.”
“Good heavens,Mrs. Everett, how scandalous.” Anna snorted, laughing so hard her steps faltered, and she and Tabs broke apart, stumbling.
I stepped into the room, torn between righting Anna and aiding Tabs, when the music stopped suddenly, the fits of laughter silenced.
“Oh, dear, were we too loud?” Mother asked, closing her book. A stern look crossed her countenance. “Girls—”
“No, not at all.” I stood in the middle of the room like a fool.
Anna cleared her throat and exchanged a look with Tabs, who glanced back at Ginny.
“I’ve just finished my correspondence, actually. Heard something,” I said.
Blithering idiot.
“Anna taught me how to properly bat my lashes!” Tabs exclaimed, as though the fact were bursting from her. “And! Anna says if you wish for an introduction to a certain handsome gentleman, you need only drop your handkerchief ahead of him, and the gentleman will bring it to you and—”
I promptly fell into the nearest chair.
“Tabitha!” Ginny chided. “That was asecret.”
“All secrets come out eventually,” Anna said, finding a spot on the sofa adjacent my chair. She turned to me. “And before you lecture me, I also taught her how to hide in the event she is hunted by a persistent suitor, and that one should only dance the waltz with a gentleman she wishes to encourage in courtship.”
“I’m to hide behind a fern. Or a marble statue,” Tabs said proudly.
“Very well,” Mother said with a laugh. “Off to bed with you, darling. Shall we?”
Tabs did not put up a fuss. She hugged Anna, then kissed Ginny on the cheek.
“I can take her, Mama,” Ginny offered, and to my astonishment, the conversation ended there. Mother settled back in her seat across the room. Anna watched them go, and the room fell silent.
I should take my leave. I should get a full night of rest to be at my prime tomorrow. A full day with Anna. A full day of work.
“Are you always this busy at home?” Anna was watchingme, measuring something in my face. “I imagine you in your little room in London always working. But here? At home?”
“I—” I cleared my throat.
“My father never used to miss dinner. In truth, our dinners turned into business discussions, with the two of you prattling on, and me, with a plate and a drink.”
I could picture it. Not-so-distant dinners where the most she’d say was a cutting remark to me or a general comment on some happening in Town.
“How are you feeling?” I asked, though the question sounded ridiculous as soon as I’d released it. Of course she was still upset.
“Your family is a welcome distraction.” She gave a half-hearted laugh. “Your sisters and mother are lucky to have each other when you are away from their table.”
In a flash, I pictured her in her own home, alone. One setting at the Lane’s long, elegant table.
“I fulfill many roles in my family,” I said as a way of excusing my frequent absences. I didn’t say how I hoped that might change soon because she would certainly take that as a manipulation. “Busy, yes, but I try to be present when I am home.”
“They love you very much,” she replied. “You are, by all accounts, a very fortunate man.”
Afortunateman. Me?
After all I’d lost. How far I’d fallen. I’d never considered myself fortunate.
