Chapter 36
The next morning was cool and sunny, a fine day for Gordon to show London to his bride. He ordered a curricle from his local livery, along with a boy to ride on the back and look after the horses when they got out. Now that he was going to be in London more, he must get a carriage of his own.
He started by giving Callie a tour of the parks and palaces of the West End, then a stop at Westminster Abbey to see the grandeur within. She loved the sights, and it delighted him to make her as happy as she deserved to be.
Their stop at Hatchards bookstore ran longer than expected because both of them became entranced with the bonanza of books. After Gordon added her to his personal account, he asked if there were any Rogues Redeemed messages.
Curious, Callie accompanied him to the Hatchards office. There were two new messages in the Rogues Redeemed file. Gordon opened the first. “This is from Duval, a French Royalist. Very sound fellow. With Napoleon gone, he’s back in France, not surprisingly. He says someday he’ll make it to London again, but he has no idea when.”
He folded the first message up and opened the other. “Ah, this one is from Will Masterson. He’s another Westerfield old boy, but the well-behaved sort, not like me. He’s the man who figured out how to get us out of that cellar alive.” He skimmed the note and his brows rose. “Interesting.”
“Interesting good or interesting bad?” Callie asked.
“Interesting good. He spent years as an officer fighting the French in Portugal and Spain, but after the emperor abdicated, he sold out and acquired a wife on his way home to England. He may be in London now, in fact. I shall have to see if I can find him. Kirkland will know. Kirkland always knows.”
“I look forward to meeting the omniscient Kirkland,” Callie murmured.
Gordon grinned. “Think of him as a sinister spymaster, but charming. And musical.” He folded Masterson’s letter and put it back in the file. “Even though it’s a little cool, would you like to stop at Gunter’s for one of their famous ices?”
“Oh, yes! It’s one of those things that I intended to do when I had a London Season.” She made a face. “Which I never got, of course.”
“This will be better than a Season,” he promised. “Since you’re stuck with me, you don’t have to worry about looking for an acceptable husband among the dreary hordes of nervous young men in search of a wife.” He gave a mock leer. “And the sleeping arrangements are so much better than if you were on the Marriage Mart.”
She laughed and tucked her hand around his arm. “That last is certainly true!”
A Hatchards employee carried two sizable boxes of books out to their curricle and stored them behind the seat under the interested eye of Skip, the boy who had come with the curricle. Gordon helped Callie into the carriage and took the reins for the drive to Berkeley Square, location of Gunter’s, the most famous confectioner’s shop in the city.
When they reached the shop, he ordered three dishes of the day’s special, bitter orange, including one for Skip, the carriage boy, who was wide eyed with pleasure at the unexpected treat. As was the custom, Gordon ate his while standing next to the carriage, where Callie was attacking her ice with ladylike gluttony.
“This is heaven!” she exclaimed. “I sometimes made ices in Washington, but these are in a whole different class! Imagine how wonderful such good ices would taste in the blaze of a Chesapeake summer.”
“We would have wanted to drown ourselves in a barrel of this in order to escape the heat.” He took another small bite, enjoying the delicious bittersweet taste as the ice melted, filling his mouth with flavor. “Maybe you should suggest to Sarah that she sell ices in her bake shop.”
“That’s a very good idea. I’ll come back another day to talk to the Gunter’s owner to find out how he makes his ices so superb, if he’s willing to tell me.”
“Bribe him,” Gordon suggested. “Sarah is far enough away so as not to be competition for Gunter’s.”
“That’s a rather good idea. We can discuss a bribery budget later.” With regret, she finished her ice and Gordon returned the three empty dishes to a waiter. Skip had apparently licked his dish. If Gordon had been younger, he might have done the same.
As he returned to the carriage and climbed inside, he said, “Kirkland House, where the musicale is tonight, is just over there on the other side of Berkeley Square. Perhaps there will be ices among the refreshments.”
“An incentive to attend even if I didn’t like music,” Callie said with a smile.
They had left Berkeley Square and were heading home toward Mount Row when Callie caught hold of his arm. “That’s South Street!”
“Yes?” he asked, wondering at the significance.
“Stanfield House is on South Street. Number twenty-two. Let’s stop and see if any of my family is there.” She drew a deep breath. “I should probably get this first meeting over with. If none of the Brookes are in residence, even better. I can say that I tried and forget them for a while longer.”
Understanding the impulse to get it over with, he turned into South Street. Number twenty-two was about halfway down on the right. The knocker was up, so some of the family were in residence.
Callie gazed up at the house. It was large, anonymous, and expensive looking. “Though I stayed here as a child, I don’t remember it at all.”
Richard climbed from the carriage and gave the reins to Skip, then helped Callie down and took her arm as they walked to the house. “If I recall correctly, you got on reasonably well with your sisters and brother when you lived at home. Whom in your family are you most reluctant to meet again?”
His question steadied her by making her analyze her anxiety. “Jane,” she said. “The next oldest after me. She was always such a prig. She’d lecture me on my wild behavior and tattle to my parents. I’m sure she was the one who told my father we were running away. I don’t think I can ever forgive her for that because of the ghastly consequences. You came so close to being killed that night!”
“But I wasn’t.” His voice was calm as they climbed the steps. “She couldn’t have known how disastrous it would be, and she was very young. Fifteen or so? Perhaps she’s learned some tolerance with the years.”
And perhaps Callie would scratch her sister’s eyes out. She slammed the knocker hard into the door. She didn’t think she’d actually do any eye scratching, but she was less charitable about Jane’s youthful betrayal than Richard was.
The door was opened by an impeccable butler who made her think of a stuffed owl. She’d met three butlers in two days, and she liked Richard’s the best, but she smiled at this one pleasantly. “Good day. Are any of the family in residence?”
The butler frowned. “And who would you be?”
“A long lost relative. I hope to surprise my family.”
He didn’t stop frowning, but there was a general resemblance among the Brookes, and apparently she passed the appearance test. “Sir Andrew and Lady Harding are currently staying here since their own residence is being remodeled, but Sir Andrew is out. Lady Harding is taking tea in the morning room. I’ll see if she’s receiving guests.”
Lady Harding! Surely she was the one who had persuaded her husband to send a man all the way to America to find Callie. As act of expiation, perhaps.
The butler admitted them to the foyer, but didn’t invite them to sit. Rather than waiting in the front hall, Richard quietly followed the butler, taking Callie by the hand to draw her with him.
The butler opened the morning room door and announced, “A person claiming to be a long lost relative is here and says she wishes to surprise you, my lady.”
The elegantly dressed young woman on the sofa looked up, her fair hair pulled back primly. The very image of a proper young matron, just as Callie would have expected of Jane.
Lady Harding saw her visitor and leaped to her feet. “Catherine, you’re here!”
Callie blinked. Not Jane, but Elinor, the next youngest sister. Most of the Brookes had the same shade of blond hair. Only Callie had inherited the red-gold color that her father had claimed was the mark of the devil. Though Jane and Elinor had similar coloring and features, Ellie was shorter and slighter than Jane. Sweet and shy. She’d been Callie’s shadow, following her around adoringly, sometimes to the point of being a nuisance. She was the sister who would have missed Callie most.
“Yes, it’s me, home from the wilds of the New World,” Callie said lightly. “You’re the one who sent a rescuer to save me from the war?”
As Elinor nodded, Callie stepped into the salon and drew Richard forward. “I imagine you’ll recognize my husband since he was our neighbor.”
“Dear God, Lord George!” Elinor stopped in her tracks, her face going dead white. Then she folded onto the sofa and buried her face in her hands, her shoulders shaking as she began to sob uncontrollably.
Shocked, Callie plumped down on the sofa beside her sister and put a comforting hand on her back. “Darling, what’s wrong? Since you went to such efforts to bring me home, I’d have thought you’d be glad to see me.”
She patted her sister gently when the tears didn’t abate. “I thought Lady Harding would turn out to be Jane, trying to make amends for past sins.”
Richard said coolly, “Do you think if I slapped her she might snap out of her crying fit?”
Callie scowled, surprised by his lack of sympathy. “You will not slap my sister!”
But the words must have reached Elinor. She lifted her face and produced a handkerchief, blotting her eyes and blowing her nose before crumpling it in one hand. “I . . . I’m sorry.” She gulped. “I was so glad that Andrew was willing to try to find you, but I didn’t really think the search would be successful. And I . . . I thought Lord George was dead.”
“Alive and well and happily married to your sister.” He was leaning against the door, his arms crossed on his chest and his narrow-eyed gaze assessing. “But given your reaction, I’m wondering if you might have something to feel guilty about.”
Elinor’s face twisted and she began crying again. She’d always been a watering pot, Callie remembered. A little impatiently, she said, “Why not tell us what’s wrong? Clearing the air is generally a good start.”
Elinor gazed at her with pale, watery blue eyes. She still had her delicate porcelain prettiness, but she looked twenty years older than her actual age.
“I . . . I was the one who told Papa that you were running away with Lord George,” she said starkly. “I peeked out of my room when you were leaving and guessed what you were doing. But I never, never expected the results to be so ghastly!” Her gaze moved to Richard. “I thought you had died, and it was all my fault!”
Callie drew away from Elinor, horrified. “I thought you liked me! Why did you do something so hateful?”
Elinor began crying again. Richard said in a conversational tone, “Are you sure you won’t allow me to slap her, my dear? Not too hard, just enough to get her attention.”
This time Callie was tempted to let him, but she really couldn’t. Maybe if it had been Jane, but not Elinor. Still, she did want answers. She stood and gazed down at her sister. “Why, Ellie? Just explain why. Or I might slap you myself!”
Elinor swallowed hard. “I loved you, but I also envied you dreadfully. You were so beautiful, so brave. So confident. You never backed down, no matter how horribly Papa treated you. You were everything I wanted to be. I wanted to be you.”
Her agonized gaze shifted to Richard. “And . . . and I fancied myself in love with Lord George. I desperately wanted him to look at me the way he looked at you. When I guessed that you were running off with him, I impulsively told Papa. I never imagined the consequences.” She gazed down at her knotted handkerchief. In a whisper, she finished, “I’ve never forgiven myself.”
His voice surprisingly gentle, Richard said, “You couldn’t have been above thirteen or fourteen. Very young, and many would say that what you did was right and proper. But you’ve earned your guilt because you acted from spite. Your actions did very nearly get me killed and forced your sister into exile and a marriage to a stranger old enough to be her father. You came close to destroying us both.”
“That’s more than sufficient reason for you to be racked with guilt,” Callie agreed with barely suppressed fury. The image of Richard crouched in the hay with his arms wrapped over his head to protect himself against her father’s killing rage made her want to vomit. The blood! Her father’s bellowing insults and threats, the certainty that her best friend was going to be killed right before her eyes . . .
And all because her favorite sister was suffering from calf love. Feeling kicked in the stomach, Callie crossed the room to Richard. He put a comforting arm around her. “Yet we both survived and we’ve found each other again, Catkin.”
His gaze moved to Elinor. “Obviously I didn’t die as reported on the voyage to New South Wales. There’s profound irony in the fact that it was your desire to rescue your sister from the war that brought us together again. I was the man sent to find her and bring her home. That’s some compensation, though accidental.”
“Perhaps God has an appalling sense of humor.” Callie turned back to Elinor, feeling weary. Her sister looked as if she was expecting their father’s horsewhip, though he never used that on his daughters. He preferred the traditional method of punishing his oldest daughter with his bare hands. Very powerful hands driven by rage . . .
She swallowed hard and reached for her better self. “I accept that you never meant to cause the harm you did. But it will take time for me to get over being angry.”
Elinor nodded bleakly. “I understand. Perhaps . . . perhaps someday we can be friends again?”
“Perhaps. But not today.” Callie took hold of Richard’s arm, desperately needing his support, and they left the small salon.
Outside, Richard called to the horse boy, “Skip, we’re going to walk around the block and will join you back here.”
Grateful for an interlude to collect herself, Callie remained silent for the rest of the long block. After they turned right into the cross street, she said haltingly, “I wronged Jane. All these years I’ve blamed her for what happened that night.”
“She might have done the same thing if she’d known your plans, but her motives would have been different. Though not necessarily better.” Richard steered her around a hound that was flopped in the middle of the sidewalk. “Strange to think that the whole chain of events was triggered by a schoolgirl’s infatuation. I had no idea she thought of me that way. I scarcely noticed her, other than the fact that she was shy and often followed you around.”
“I didn’t guess, either. But though you might not remember it, you were always very nice to my little sisters. When they spoke, you listened, and of course you were the best-looking young man in the neighborhood.” She gave an unsteady laugh. “Disaster fell on Lady Agnes’s one failure because you were too nice! Now, there’s an irony.”
“Laughter is better than rage.” He took her hand, their interlaced fingers more intimate than her grip on his coat sleeve. “I don’t know that I’d ever have chosen such a path in life, but I learned much on my strange journey, met many interesting people, not all of them trying to kill me, and became much more the man I wanted to be than if I’d stayed my father’s son in England.”
She gave a twisted smile. “What percentage of those interesting people did want to kill you?”
“Hardly any; less than five percent, I believe.” His voice became more serious. “We’ve both changed over those years. At seventeen, I thought I ought to marry you because you were my friend and marriage to me would save you from a fate you loathed. But when we met again in Washington, I realized that I wanted to marry you for you. Because it was the right time and you were the right woman. Not because you needed rescuing.”
She thought of her years in Jamaica: the friendships, the fears, the frustrations. Would she wish them away if she could? “It’s not possible to imagine the life we might have had, is it? Not when that would mean losing all we’ve learned.” She tightened her clasp on his hand. “I’m just glad we found each other when we did.”
They continued around the block and were approaching the hired curricle from the back when she said, “What does it say about me that I was sure I’d never forgive Jane for betraying us, but I think I will be able to forgive Elinor eventually?”
“It means that you and Jane never got along well, so there’s less of a foundation for forgiveness. You always liked Ellie, so there are more good things to remember.”
“That makes sense. And it’s easier to forgive a mistake made from love, no matter how misguided.” As she remembered her little sister’s face, she realized how much Elinor had already suffered. Yes, perhaps someday they could be friends again.
Someday.