Gently, she picked up my bandaged wrists. “We have to find better ways to get into places. I’m sorry you got hurt. I should’ve been with you.”
“Patience, the duke needed you this week. I should’ve been more careful. Widow Cultony’s not good with knots. She’ll get better. I’ll be better. Nothing broken, just very sore.”
“Well, your glove hides most of the wrapping. Follow me,” she said. Patience had me sailing through the crowds. Several of the soldiers or former soldiers that I’d seen visiting Sandlin Court were here.
“Do you think the duke sent them, Jemina? I’m not sure what he’s up to these days. I find him whispering to Lionel and Gantry in his study more and more, then he starts to treat me as if I’m fragile.”
I pulled Patience to the side beneath a big urn cascading with roses and ransoms. “Dear heart, why are you given to doubt?”
“Jemina, I know he loves me and I him, but this world of London, it’s not me. I’m not sure it’s him. Do you know how he longs to shoot off cannons or march with his troops? You can’t do that in Mayfield. Well, not easily.”
“True, Mr. Gerard can’t keep hiding the balls.”
“Our butler and my lady’s maid are the only two servants in the household who aren’t in the military, but he’s made them give reports too. What can they be reporting? Laundry, stockings inventory?”
She sighed and held her elbows. “I don’t know if I like the people we are when we’re here. I don’t want to bring up Lionel under this scrutiny. I should talk to Lord Ashbrook. He might understand and have suggestions.”
Him, not me?I squinted at her. This was the first time, the first moment I felt distanced from her.
“Jemina, don’t frown, I didn’t mean it like that. But you fit in this society more than I ever will.”
When we discussed the slights she faced, we never asked if the woman I was before theMinervamight have been one of those heartless women who made a point to be cruel to Patience because she was mulatto. I hoped old me wasn’t awful. I didn’t know.
Patience lifted my hands. “You’re the dearest. I love you, but some things are difficult to express unless you’ve walked my path and know how carefully I must always tread.”
I searched her pretty dark eyes, shimmering in the light and saw a smidge of something I hadn’t seen in a long time. Fear.
She stroked my arm. “Let’s see whom we shall be sitting with. Lady Shrewsbury won’t let us be together.”
I let the moment go. I didn’t know how to ask her to explain why the small slights of strangers made her feel low or of the lingering hurt of being singled out because she was different. I couldn’t let her remember that pain, not when she needed to focus on smiling and getting through this evening.
We moved back to the grand tables. Servers added silver chargers to hold the bone-white plates. They topped each with crisp starch napkins. The sweet starch made me think of the earl.
I picked up the card that readLord Ashbrook, then put it down as a footman lit the candelabras. Polished to a mirror shine, they sat on the tables every three or four feet. One centered on the table was the tallest, with arms like a starfish holding ten-inch beeswax candles.
I touched the smooth metal. “No tallow for Lady Shrewsbury.”
“Not tonight, or for the Widow’s Ball, I suspect.” Patience’s frown, thin and wan, returned. “I’m going to get some air, Jemina.”
I started to follow, but she held up her hand. “I need a moment alone. I’ll be right back. Please stay. Find the earl. Clear the air. Fix the rumors running rampant for his sake and yours.”
Knowing what it meant to want your own peace, I let her go but would go after her if she took too long.
A rumble of a laugh fell to my left.
The hair on my neck pimpled. I turned. The handsome Earl of Ashbrook stood near, chatting with the Lord Mayor.
With a stiff stance, Ashbrook nodded and offered a jest, some legal scholarly joke.
At least he was here, and I can personally thank him for the roses. Twenty-four long stems, with petals the color of fiery red. Mr. Gerard said they’d arrived from the finest hot house not a bunch purchased from a flower seller in Covent Garden.
That meant it wasn’t a whim but something deliberate. Ashbrook had thought of me. Didn’t know what that could mean.
He caught my gaze and looked as if he’d move toward me, but his aunt took his arm and led him the other way.
It was hard not to stare. My hands had nothing to do but to fold and refold the napkin in front me.
Lady Shrewsbury and Ashbrook made what appeared to be small talk, complete with him laughing and her tapping him with her silvery fan. Such a dazzling pair—his height and nice broad shoulders to the demur countess, pretty Lady Shrewsbury with her thick shiny pearls dangling about her throat, her cream-colored dress.
