“He’s handsome. And cheerful. But I’ve not even known him a half hour.” And this was all beginning to feel rather like an ambush.
“I wrote to our mutual acquaintances. They speak highly of him. If you do not marry, Tessa, you will have to find another position. Then one after that and one after that. You will never have a home of your own. Your mother and I… we have only ever wanted what is best for you.”
She picked at a thread on her skirt. “I know.”
“You are our eldest daughter.”
“I know.”
“And if you do this, it could be like the past never happened.” Her father tipped her chin up with one gloved hand. “I have missed you. Your mother has missed you. Do not snort. It’s not ladylike. And I’m telling the truth. Your mother would never admit it out loud. She’s stored away everything thatbelonged to you.”
That hurt. Thathurt.
“But she has it still. And some days she disappears into the attic…”
That made it hurt even worse.
“You broke our family, Tessa. You can mend it. Mr. Tilbury is an impeccable suitor. I hope you make me proud by accepting him, though knowing you… it is too much to ask.” She didn’t watch him walk away, but she heard each footstep like a boot to the gut.
She wandered on numb legs in her father’s wake back down the path and found Mr. Tilbury sitting in her abandoned chair, flipping through her sketchbook. Her father and the others had disappeared. They were alone again.
He must have sensed her or heard her approach, because he looked up, then raised the notebook in greeting. “You’re quite good. Even if your eye is drawn to rather morbid subjects. Insects and graveyards and broken cups.”
“I would not call it morbid, Mr. Tilbury. Life is more than blooming beauty. Things wither. Die. And that is beautiful, too.”
“Hmm.” He slapped his thighs as he stood. “I see you are philosophical. Perfect.” He leaned low and near, a conspiratorial posture. “You can help me write my sermons.”
Hugging her sketchbook to her chest, she said, “I do not think my philosophy extends to the religious.”
“Then we will find other ways of getting on. Will you walk with me?”
He was so genial, and she had so few choices, she could not reject one of them without consideration.
She smiled, nodded, and closed the sketchbook, hesitating only a moment to study the line of the rose petal she’d been sketching that morning. Curvy and firm yet soft as velvet, and somehow shaped just like Remmy’s lower lip before a kiss.
Oh, why had he kissed her? Why ruin the almost sacredimage she’d carried with her for six years, her knight in shining armor. He could not be so changed. It was bad enough her easy days with Lady Chattaway were ending, but to know that Remmy now was cold and callous… That seemed a tragedy too far.
Chapter Five
Remmy excelled at failing. As middle child of eleven, he was neither oldest nor youngest, tallest nor handsomest. The most interesting Ives siblings were thetwosets of twins. His eldest brother was the heir so most important, and his youngest brother was the baby, so most beloved. And both, currently, were beating him at billiards.
But neither could spin the stick like a windmill in one hand or looked quite as dashing as Remmy. He knew how to go to extremes to be seen.
“You are thirteen years of age, Timothy,” Remmy said, leaning against the wall. “How is it you are beating two men who’ve been playing since before you were born?”
Timothy had the same dark hair all the Ives men possessed, and he swept it back with the kind of grin the Brazen Belle would mark with suspicion should she ever see it. “I am forever bored, brother, and when one is bored, one takes entertainment where it is on offer.”
“You’re skipping lessons with your tutor, then,” Kit said, “and hiding out here. Does Father know?”
Timothy dropped his cue stick and pressed his palms together. “Please do not tell him.”
Remmy laughed. Timothy had grown two inches since he’d last seen him. He careened between manhood andboyhood, swaggering toward adult vices with confidence one moment and giggling over flatulence the next.
Kit ruffled Timothy’s hair, his own dark hair coming out of its careful backward sweeping line. “I’ll keep my silence if you promise to stop skipping lessons.”
“Very well,” Timothy grumbled.
Kit leaned low over the table, stick in hand, and lined up a shot. His eyes crinkled at the corners, and the scruff of his almost beard was grizzled with gray. He wore an expression of hard concentration much better than the one of blank grief he’d worn over the last few years since the death of his wife. He sank a ball in a pocket, then rounded the table to the other side.
