Page 89 of Lord Hartwell’s Refuge

Frances had taken up her own correspondence again.

“Do I want to what, Mother?”

“Do these things that your stepmother has asked of you.”

Tamsin stared, not truly comprehending the question. “Of course. It is all for Daphne.”

“That was not what I asked.” Frances took out her little notebook, the one she used to plan the wedding and Lady Emily’s family coming to stay in York.

Tamsin looked down at the letter. There were people Anne wanted her to approach. Invitations she might extend herself. A suggestion that Tamsin come early enough to ensure everything was arranged properly, since Anne would naturally have a great many demands upon her that evening, with three grown-up daughters out all at once.

“I…I want to help Daphne.” That much she knew and felt in her heart.

Frances pursed her lips a moment. “I do not doubt that. You love your family very much. I have heard it in how you speak of them, I have seen it when you are with them.”

“I do love them. All of them. I want Daphne’s come-out to be a success.” Tamsin ran her thumb along the edge of the paper. “However, I…I do not think I want to arrange everything for my mother.”

“Then do not do so.”

The answer was so simple that Tamsin laughed. “Mother! I cannot possibly tell Anne such a thing so bluntly.”

Frances made a thoughtful humming sound. “No. I imagine you can make it sound considerably prettier.”

That prompted a laugh.

Her mother-in-law smiled and returned to her letter. Tamsin moved to the writing desk and pulled a clean sheet of paper toward her, sitting for a moment with pen poised above it.

She would help Daphne, and gladly. She would speak to Lady Gingell, and she would offer a few names. She would arrive in time to stand beside her sister and lend whatever consequence the title ‘Lady Hartwell’ might give to the occasion.

She did not have to arrange anything more.

Anne could do that with their father’s help. Leopold might bestir himself on behalf of his sister. Or, an astonishing thought, Daphne herself might have opinions about her own evening. Tamsin put her pen to paper.

My dear Mother, her letter began. For once, she did not follow it with, Of course, I will take care of everything.

Tamsin went looking for her husband after dinner.

She had spent much of the afternoon answering letters and making calls, and Roman had returned home shortly before the meal. He had been attentive enough while they ate, though she had caught him staring into nothingness twice, and once he had asked his mother a question she had answered not five minutes before. Then he’d excused himself to his study, and Tamsin waited nearly an hour before she followed.

She told herself she had given him sufficient time to attend to whatever business had called him away. She told herself she had spent the whole of the day without speaking more than a dozen sentences to him, and that there could be nothing unreasonable in wanting a few more.

She was halfway to the study before she realized she had no pressing reason to knock. She could tell him about Anne’s letter—but no, nothing there needed deciding tonight, though she was quite pleased with how she had answered it. There was Daphne’s coming out, of course, but that wasn’t until Christmas⁠—

Tamsin stopped in the corridor and looked down at Athena. “Must I have a reason?”

She had spent the morning deciding she need not do things merely because someone expected them of her. Surely the reverse must be true as well: she need not invent some pretext for Roman’s attention merely to justify wanting it.

The thought was uncomfortable enough that she nearly turned around, but eventually she continued down the corridor and knocked.

“Come.” The single word command in Roman’s deep voice sent a pleasant shiver down her spine, even as anxiety for interrupting him tried to speed her along as she opened the door.

Roman sat behind his desk, his coat discarded over the back of another chair and his sleeves pushed back from the wrist—a small enough disorder, for him, that it caught her eye before anything else in the room did. Papers covered nearly every surface. A pamphlet lay open at his elbow, and beneath several sheets of foolscap she could make out the edge of a map.

His expression eased when he saw her—something she had noticed of late. “Tamsin.”

She liked the way he said her name when pleased to see her. Still, he had not expected her. She lingered near the door, though Athena had no such qualms and went directly inside to lay down by the fire next to her mate. “Am I interrupting?”

“Yes.”