Emma said loudly, “It’s probably not at all like that, Mama, but we’d only interfere with everyone else’s fun.”
After dinner, Emma played the pianoforte, and Charlotte sang. Sir John talked at length about tariffs on grains until his wife shushed him. He seemed well-versed in the matter, so perhaps that was the subject of his secret correspondence with the marchioness. But Lady D'Oyly far preferred to discusshow well Emma and Henry looked standing next to each other.
Henry was restless. He was still vexed by something.
At last, Lady D'Oyly wore herself out, all the ladies retired, and Sir John poured brandies for Henry and himself.
“It’s a fine night.” Henry pulled back a curtain, expecting darkness, but there was a full moon lighting the landscape.
Sir John joined him at the window. “They always hold the fête on the first full moon in May.”
“It looks bright enough to ride.”
“Does it?” Sir John turned away. “You better hurry then, or the dancing will be over before you get there.”
Six
Long before she met her king, the concubine dreamt of a just, wise, and tender man with a wicked laugh and strong hands and an insatiable lust for her.
For many years, the dream was enough.
—The Concubine and Her King.Unpublished MS.
“Help.”
Susannah looked up from her darning. Dando stood in the doorway of the parlor, neckcloth in his hand. He was in his best clothes, his jaw was freshly shaven, and he’d attempted to tame his hair with pomade.
She leapt up. “Oh, my goodness. Yes, yes.”
She went to him and took the neckcloth and gestured for her little brother to lean down.
Little brother. Ha. Dando hadn’t been little for a long time. He was well over six feet, well over fifteen stone. But he was the youngest of all the Beasley boys, so he’d always beSusannah’s little brother, no matter how big he got. No matter how old.
Susannah stopped in the middle of arranging the neckcloth. She counted in her head—Dando was thirty-eight years of age. That made her fifty. Fifty years on this earth! Half a century and she had no idea where the years had gone because it had been only yesterday that she’d been a girl of seventeen running off to dance on the village green herself.
“Susannah.” Her brother brought her back to the here-and-now.
“Oh, yes.” She began to work on forming the knot of the cloth. Turn and smooth and twist and smooth.
“You look very well,” she ventured.
One had to be careful not to compliment Dando too much, or he would retreat into his shell like a tortoise. Even with this mild bit of praise, he turned red.
Susannah finished tying and tucking the ends of the cloth. “There.” She picked a thread off his waistcoat. “Fair of flesh and fell.”
He growled. Oh, no, she had gone too far. Would he now refuse to go to the fête? That’d be a shame when he’d gone to so much effort, and he really did look so well.
He straightened up and used one of his huge hands to shovel back the locks that had fallen forward over his brow. Susannah really should have cut his hair this evening, but it was too late now.
“You won’t go?” her brother asked.
Ned had been very silly at last year’s fête, and Susannah had decided she had better stay away. This year, at any rate. Although she hated to miss the dancing. The men of Much Wemby wouldn’t partner her, wouldn’t want to be seen with her out in the open and in front of their wives or mothers, but Dando always lumbered through a few sets with her, and sometimes a stranger might ask for a dance.
But she should wait until she was alone to think of strangers. Blond, startlingly handsome gentlemen-strangers with noses and shoulders.
“I’m going to put my feet up here by the fire.” She sat in her chair and took up her darning. “I’m going to have a splendid time closing this hole in your stocking.”
And thinking aboutHow Susannah met the startlingly handsome gentleman.She’d probably never stop thinking about that. About him.
