Chapter Thirty-Two

Daphne tugged at one kid glove as she descended the stairs. Uncertainty slowed her steps, but determination pushed her forward. A nearly sleepless night spent in contemplation and internal debate had finally solidified her decision in the quietest, darkest hours of early morning. Though she felt almost overwhelmingly nervous, she refused to go back into hiding. She may have been a plain and uninteresting nymph, but she was not a coward.

Artemis stood in the entryway, her open palm pressed to her heart. The look she gave Persephone dripped with dramatic suffering. “I shall waste away to a mere waif if made to pass another hour in the confines of my dungeon.”

“Your bedchamber is hardly a dungeon,” Persephone said. “And you have not been confined to that room. You have the entire house and the back grounds at your disposal, and you have made any number of excursions out into London.”

“A free spirit must go about in the world without restrictions, Persephone.” At this, Artemis’s eyes turned heavenward, creating the perfect picture of longing and heartbreaking agony. “Walls and gates stifle and suffocate a heart meant to fly beyond the bounds of—”

“I am sorry for your suffocating heart, my dear, but you cannot venture out into Town unaccompanied by your family, no matter its appeal.”

“I wish only to go out into the park. I can see it from my window, calling out to me, just out of reach.” She clutched her hands together before her as though a condemned prisoner at once pleading for mercy and praying for the welfare of her soul. “And I solemnly vow to give any criminals—though you realize meeting an actual criminal would be wonderfully exciting—a very wide berth.”

“Adam’s insistence on storming the halls of Westminster only moments after the Prime Minister was murdered is the closest any member of this family will be permitted to come to the criminal element,” Persephone insisted. “I will not allow you to go searching for one—and do not argue that you won’t go looking. I know you.”

Daphne took a fortifying breath. She had anticipated this contretemps and recognized the opportunity to put her newfound determination to the test. “I will walk about the park with her,” she offered with more assurance than she felt.

Her sisters turned toward her in perfect synchrony. Their looks of surprise would have been identical if not for the hint of triumph that touched Artemis’s face.

She reached her sisters’ sides and acted as though she didn’t notice how very shocked they were. A turn about the park was hardly reason for such amazement. She didn’t think she had been that withdrawn.

Persephone skewered Artemis with a scolding look. “Even with Daphne keeping you company, you are not to venture outside the walls.”

Artemis enthusiastically linked her arm with Daphne’s. “We will be pattern cards of decorum,” she promised.

Persephone gave her a look of patent disbelief. “All I ask is that you do not run amok amongst the flowerbeds.”

Artemis wrinkled up her nose. “That was five years ago, Persephone. I am far more dignified now.”

Daphne bit back a smile and saw Persephone do the same. Dignified and Artemis rarely found their way into the same sentence.

“We shan’t be gone long,” Daphne told her oldest sister.

“Take a leisurely stroll,” she was instructed in return.

Daphne firmed her shoulders and stepped outside arm in arm with Artemis. Though clouds covered a great deal of the sky, the air outside proved less chill than one might expect. Summer was quickly arriving. Town would soon grow unbearably warm, and Society would flee to the countryside. The slightest breeze stirred the shrubbery lining the front path that led to the door, but the temperature was pleasant.

Artemis sighed. “Oh, I had wished for a positively leaden sky. To walk about under threat of rain is far more heartrending, don’t you think?”

“Receiving a thorough drenching would not be particularly welcome though,” Daphne answered. “Perhaps you could consider our partially cloudy skies a happy compromise.” Bless Artemis for choosing a topic as benign as the weather. Daphne had feared she would delve directly into love and loss and unending heartache.

“But don’t you see, Daphne, I have decided something quite, quite important.” Artemis pulled her by the hand into the central garden. “My decision is so important, in fact, that I capitalized the word important when I wrote in my diary about it.”

Oh dear. “What is this important-with-a-capital-I decision?” Daphne asked warily.

“I am going to fall in love in a park, or at the very least in a place that is green and alive. Further, I have concluded that there absolutely must be water.” Artemis grinned at her, eyes overflowing with excitement. “Is that not simply divine?”

“I confess I do not understand the necessity of water, let alone a park.”

Artemis groaned in a fashion Daphne knew all too well. She could have spoken her sister’s next words along with her, so familiar was the response. “Daphne, you have absolutely no romantic sensibilities.”

“I know I am a sore trial to you,” Daphne said dryly. She steered them along the tree-lined path, a pleasant place to spend a morning, even with one’s exhausting younger sister.

“If you had shown a bit more feeling, maybe Lord Tilburn would not have—” Artemis clamped her hand over her mouth but too late.

With effort, Daphne kept the pain of Artemis’s unfinished declaration from registering in her expression.

“This park is nice, but I have always loved Persephone’s little garden at the castle. It is so green, with so many flowers and so much grass.” The words rushed out of Artemis in an unmistakable attempt to cover her blunder. “And a great many flowers. Oh. I already mentioned the flowers, didn’t I?” She looked utterly miserable.

Daphne supposed she ought to take pity on her sister. The poor girl’s mouth did have a tendency to run away with her. A few uncomfortable moments of alarm might help teach her to think before she spoke though. Daphne kept her peace, allowing the sounds of nature to hang in the air between them. The breeze rustled leaves. Somewhere, a lone bird called out for its missing companions. A canine yelp full of enthusiasm and energy joined the cacophony.

A great deal of uncertainty slipped away as she continued to walk. Daphne knew she had made only the smallest of strides by leaving the house without being forced but felt remarkably proud of herself. Adam would certainly recognize the step for what it was. A tendril of hope began to weave its way around her heart. Her future began to look a touch less lonely. She need not thrust herself into Society but, in time, might not feel the urge to hide from it.

They had traversed nearly half the distance around the park when a flash of brown fur darted in front of Daphne, circling about her legs and barking with marked excitement. The merest glimpse identified the tiny pup, and in an instant, her heart lodged firmly in her throat.

“Hello, Scamp.” Her voice trembled a bit. She lowered herself enough to stroke the pup’s head with shaking fingers. Scamp’s presence all but guaranteed the presence of his master.

James arrived at her side in the next moment, his look both amused and apologetic. “I let him off his lead for only a moment, and he immediately darted in your direction.”

She straightened, reminding herself of her newly acquired measure of courage. “I did not realize Scamp had stayed in London after your mother returned home.” Though, thinking on it, she believed Adam may have mentioned something on that score.

For some reason, her innocuous observation made him shift uneasily. “I had thought—He would not have been—” James cleared his throat, apparently struggling to reply. An almost embarrassed smile touched his lips. “I grew rather attached to him and couldn’t bring myself to send him away.”

“Has he caused you a great deal of trouble?” Perhaps if she kept to the topic of ill-mannered puppies, she could prevent herself from falling to pieces. His reluctant admission of tenderness toward the ramshackle mutt tugged at her heart in a worrisome way. She would not allow herself to fall for him once more. Bravery was one thing. Stupidity was another altogether.

“His trouble stems only from youthful spirits and a dislike of confinement,” James answered.

Artemis broke into the conversation. “Would you care to walk with us, Lord Tilburn?”

“Speaking of youthful spirits and a dislike of confinement,” Daphne said under her breath.

James bit back a smile as if they’d just shared a very personal joke. They used to do that a lot, back when she still trusted him.

“I would enjoy walking with you,” James said. “Let me see if Scamp will allow me to put him back on his lead.”

While James fussed with the uncooperative pup, Artemis whispered urgently, her eyes wide with excitement. “Daphne, he must have been most desperate to see you again. Why else would he come to work for someone as horribly terrifying as Adam, staying right here at Falstone House, even with Adam and Linus both carrying their sidearms about with them in warning? How very promising!”

“Keep your voice lowered.” How she hoped James had not overheard. She kept her own voice to a barely audible whisper.

James seemed to have accomplished his task. Faced with the difficulty of holding Scamp’s lead in one hand and walking with two ladies, he asked Artemis if she would be terribly offended if he offered his free arm to Daphne.

“Certainly not, Lord Tilburn.” Artemis seemed positively gleeful. “For I am working quite tirelessly at making the perfect picture of sorrow and suffering. The sky has been horridly uncooperative, but walking in apparent loneliness would be quite a nice touch, do you not think?”

James’s brows knit together and, after a moment of hesitation, he nodded. Daphne slipped her arm through his when he offered it. The feel of his arm beneath her hand still affected her as much as it ever had. Her heart beat louder, her cheeks felt warmer. They slowly retook the path she and Artemis had been walking before James and Scamp’s arrival.

“I am not at all certain just what your sister meant by all she said.” James kept a firm grip and a close eye on Scamp, though he glanced over at Daphne as they walked. “Does her sense of the dramatic never taper off?”

“Not ever.” How she wanted to ask him how he felt about staying at Falstone House. She feared the answers too much to ask. Her bravery did not yet extend that far.

“Let us hope her desire for sorrow and suffering cannot be fulfilled vicariously. If she tells your brother-in-law that I walked with your arm through mine, he will likely amputate mine.” Most people quaked when speaking of Adam’s threats. James, though clearly acknowledging the reality of Adam’s fierceness, was not quelled by it.

Artemis kept to the promise she’d made Persephone and did not wander off nor trample the flowers, though her face took on the dreamy expression that indicated her thoughts had flown quite far afield.

“How much longer will Lieutenant Lancaster be ashore?” James asked.

“That is not yet firmly decided. Our father is quite ill, and Linus is torn between returning to our family home and returning to sea.”

“I am sorry to hear your father’s health is poor.” James’s eyes met hers, and she saw real concern in their depths. “Can anything be done for him?”

“I am afraid his decline is irreversible.”

James pressed her arm to his side, a squeeze she instinctively knew was meant to comfort her. Beyond allowing her to read the letters sent by Father’s caregiver, no one in the family had truly reached out to her. As Artemis was wont to point out, Daphne did not allow herself to be openly emotional. Most people would not think to comfort someone who did not look in need of it. But James had done exactly that.

“A difficult position for your brother,” James said. “He no doubt feels his responsibility to his fellow seamen yet cannot deny his family duty either.”

“We do not know yet what he will decide.”

James watched her a moment as they walked. “If I do not mistake the matter, you hope he will choose to remain.”

How had he seen that? She had worked hard at keeping her opinions hidden lest Linus be unduly influenced by them. “I worry less when he is on dry land.”

“You have already lost one brother.” James understood what she had never voiced out loud.

“And both of my parents,” Daphne added quietly. Though death had not yet claimed her father, she knew full well she had lost him years ago.

James slipped his arm back enough to entwine his fingers with hers. “Please tell me if I might do anything for you. Anything at all.”

“Thank you.” How she managed the response, she could not say. Her eyes were fixed on her hand still held in his.

A moment later, they were once more arm in arm like any promenading couple. That flicker of hope she’d felt upon first leaving the house grew a little brighter. She did not know yet if she could trust its light, but she clung to it for that one beautiful moment.

Then that moment died.

Mrs. Bower and her daughter came around the corner and directly toward them. There would be no avoiding the encounter.

“Why, Lord Tilburn.” Mrs. Bower rushed over, her daughter swift on her heels. “This is fortuitous.”

Miss Bower’s attention shifted too quickly to Daphne. “Miss Lancaster. What a surprise.”

“Indeed,” her mother said. “I had understood you and Lord Tilburn were no longer on friendly terms.”

James spoke before Daphne could think of a response. “I cannot imagine why anyone would think that. Clearly Miss Lancaster and I are quite fond of one another.” He indicated their current friendly position.

“You are walking here alone?” Miss Bower’s words held a note of censure.

Daphne decided it was time she joined in her own defense. “My sister Artemis is with us, as I am certain you can see.”

“Artemis.” Mrs. Bower tapped her finger against her lips. “Are all of the Lancaster sisters named for goddesses?”

“No, Mother. Daphne, you will recall, was only a nymph.”

That distinction had pained and bewildered Daphne all her life. She had always been the nymph among the goddesses.

“Daphne wasn’t merely a nymph,” James said. “She was the daughter of the river god. Apollo mourned her tragic loss eternally. There was and is nothing ‘mere’ about her.”

The praise was as buoying as it was unexpected. And yet, there he stood, his chin held at a defiant angle as if daring the Bowers to contradict him.

“At least her name isn’t ‘Cynthia,’” Artemis said, her offhand observation punctuated by some indefinable thrust. “I’d hide away in a turret tower if I were burdened with such an insignificant and dull name as that.”

Daphne’s champions had quite effectively silenced the Bowers.

“If you will excuse us,” James said. “I should very much like to continue my pleasant sojourn with my lovely companions.”

“We will see you at the Kirkham’s ball at the end of the week?” Mrs. Bower asked.

“If I attend, I will do so as a member of Their Graces’s party and, therefore, cannot say whether or not our circles will overlap.” As far as set downs went, it was a gracefully and pointedly executed one.

The Bowers understood the message. Their upward aspirations would not be accomplished on James’s coattails. They continued on their way, heads pressed together, plotting already.

“Lord Lampton will no doubt be at the Kirkham’s ball,” Mrs. Bower told her daughter. “He is of higher standing than the Tilburns will ever be. We must set our sights a touch higher.”

“But Lord Lampton is so odd,” Miss Bower objected.

“He is an earl, Cynthia. He is allowed to be odd.” It was the last thing Daphne overheard before the ladies were too distant for their words to be distinguishable.

A moment of silence passed between Daphne, James, and Artemis. The others were no doubt waiting for her to fall to pieces. She didn’t intend to. “Artemis, I didn’t realize you disliked the name Cynthia so much.”

“I don’t dislike it at all; it is a lovely name.” Artemis glided past them. “I simply dislike her.” She looked back over her shoulder. “No one speaks to my sister that way. Not anyone. Not ever.”

Daphne was touched more than she felt equal to expressing. She didn’t think Artemis had ever come so close to saying that she cared about her.

“The Bowers are insufferable,” James said. “I hope you don’t mean to give heed to anything they said or implied.”

She squared her shoulders. She had, after all, decided just that morning to be strong and courageous even in the face of her own lingering doubts. “I am determined, Lord Tilburn, that no one will ever be permitted to hurt me again.”