CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
August 5th, 1812
Coombe Regis, Devonshire
FELICITY WASN’T IN any of Exeter’s foundling homes. “We’ll have to hope the advertisements bear fruit,” Reid said, and they did, after a fashion. Six people came forward, each with a baby that they claimed was the missing infant. But according to Letitia Reid, all of them were lying.
So Mordecai took Eleanor Wrotham home to Coombe Regis.
It was nearly two weeks since he’d taken the blows to his head. He could read again, he no longer wanted to vomit whenever he rode in a hackney . . . but even so, Mordecai erred on the side of caution. He drove the twenty miles to Coombe Regis in his curricle with a groom beside him ready to take over if dizziness threatened, and the traveling chaise trundling sedately behind. But dizziness didn’t threaten, and Mordecai was confident enough at Clyst St. George to take Eleanor up beside him and relegate the groom to the tiger’s seat. “Go on ahead,” he told Phelps. “Tell Mrs. Putnam we’ll be there shortly.”
Three quarters of an hour later, they trotted slowly along a high-banked lane, and then the lane swung left and the view opened out and there was Coombe Regis—the parkland, the woodland, the house—and beyond those things, not visible from here: the coast, with its red cliffs and rocky islets.
“Coombe Regis,” Mordecai said, bringing the curricle to a halt. “Home.” He glanced at Eleanor. “You can take that wig off now, if you wish. And the spectacles. Unless you want to wear them? My servants won’t gossip about you.”
Eleanor hesitated for a moment, and then took off the tortoiseshell spectacles and placed them in her reticule. She unfastened her bonnet. She removed the hairpins holding the wig in place, and then the wig itself.
“Does that feel better?” Mordecai asked.
“Much better.”
The wig went into one of the deep pockets of Mordecai’s driving coat, the hairpins into another. He waited for Eleanor to tie the ribbons of her bonnet again, then lifted the reins and urged the horses into a slow trot. “When I was fourteen Father started teaching me how to manage Coombe Regis. He signed it over to me on my seventeenth birthday.” He could still remember how he’d felt: alarmed and exhilarated, daunted by the enormity of his new responsibilities, determined to succeed, and—to his embarrassment—a little tearful. Holding the title deed had given him a strange feeling in his chest, a feeling it had taken him years to find a name for: security. The security of having a home—this soil, this grass, these trees, this house. These things are mine. No one can take them from me. They belong to me and I to them.
He had other estates, now, and the house in London, but Coombe Regis would always be home.
Mordecai wanted to extol every point of beauty, to defend every possible flaw. He bit the tip of his tongue in an effort to remain silent, but silence became impossible as the curricle swept into the forecourt. The house’s façade was ornate, playful, exuberant. Mordecai wanted Eleanor to find the scrolls and volutes comical, not outlandish.
“Baroque,” he said unnecessarily. “A bit excessive, really, but I confess I find it amusing.”
He drew the curricle to a halt in front of the steps. The groom jumped down and ran to the horses’ heads.
Mordecai climbed down more carefully and gave Eleanor his hand. Sophia Wrotham had been correct: crimson was Eleanor Wrotham’s color. It made her skin creamier, her hair darker, her eyes a deeper blue. She looked grave and sad and patrician and bold and wholly, utterly beautiful.
In that gown Eleanor Wrotham suited the house perfectly. Mordecai looked at her, and knew in his bones that she belonged here just as much as he did.
“Welcome to Coombe Regis,” he said. Welcome home.
MORDECAI’S VALET, TOMPKIN, had arrived from London before them. Mordecai greeted him with relief. Walter was a good lad, but he was a footman, not a valet; he sometimes had to be prompted what to do. Tompkin never had to be prompted. Tompkin knew what Mordecai needed or wanted before Mordecai did himself. Take now, for example: the steaming pitcher of water, the clothing laid out.
Mordecai washed the dust from his face and dressed in his country clothes, everything a little looser, a little more comfortable. Even his neckcloths had less starch in them here. Sometimes all he did was knot them casually, and sometimes he didn’t bother to wear them at all.
Today he wore one, and tied it carefully.
In the dressing room, Tompkin was already unpacking Mordecai’s luggage.
Mordecai checked his appearance in the mirror one last time, and headed for the door.
“Sir?”
He turned back.
Tompkin emerged from the dressing room, holding a folded piece of paper.
It was the marriage license. Its shape was so familiar by now that Mordecai thought he could tell it from a thousand other marriage licenses just by its creases.
“This was in your portmanteau. Do you wish to take it with you?”
“Yes,” Mordecai said. Of course he did. And of course Tompkin had known. Tompkin always knew what was important and what wasn’t.
He took the license carefully, but he didn’t tuck it into his breast pocket. He hadn’t placed it there for days. A license in one’s pocket meant that one intended to propose marriage imminently, and he didn’t. He couldn’t. Not while Eleanor’s grief was so fresh.
Another six months. Four, at the very least.
The license would have expired by then. He should tear it up and burn it, but Mordecai couldn’t quite bring himself to do that. Instead, he took it down to his study and locked it in the top drawer of his desk—but that didn’t feel right either. The license was a piece of paper, nothing more, but it was too imbued with hope to be locked in a dark drawer.
Mordecai took the license upstairs again, uncertain what to do with it. Not a pocket, not a drawer. Where, then? Inspiration struck as he entered his bedchamber. His pocketbook. It was the perfect place. Neither hopeful nor hopeless. Neutral. He tucked the license at the very back, behind the folded banknotes.
THAT AFTERNOON, MORDECAI took Eleanor walking along the clifftops. Devonshire had some gentle stretches of coast, and at first glance this looked like one of them—the lush, undulating pastures, the deeply wooded hills, everything green and fertile and well-tended—and then the cliffs came into sight and the impression of gentleness fell away and it was wild and dramatic—steep red bluffs and great pillars of red rock rising from the sea—nothing gentle about it at all.
Mordecai inhaled deeply. God, I love this place. He glanced at Eleanor, hoping that she liked it.
For days Eleanor Wrotham had been half woman, half statue, but right now, standing on the clifftop, dressed in crimson, the sea breeze tugging at her hair, she looked wholly human.
“What do you think?” Mordecai asked.
“Magnificent.”
They walked further, not talking, taking in the view. Mordecai listened to the waves and inhaled the sea breeze and tasted the salt-tang on his tongue, and felt himself relax. This shore had always done that to him. Yes, the scenery was dramatic, but underneath the drama was serenity. There was something about the sea that was deeply restful. Here on the cliffs his troubles fell away and the world came into balance.
He thought Eleanor felt the serenity, too. She seemed to hold herself less tensely.
If her sister wasn’t dead, if the baby wasn’t missing, he thought she would have stood on the clifftop and flung her arms wide and laughed with sheer delight—and he would have lifted her off her feet and kissed her. But the spirited, passionate, slightly reckless Eleanor Wrotham was burdened with sorrow, so Mordecai didn’t kiss her; instead, he took her hand.
Her fingers were slim and cool and fitted into his perfectly.
Marry me, Mordecai wanted to say, but didn’t.
HE DIDN’T ASK her to marry him that night, when he lay in the great four-poster bed in the Rose Suite with his arms around her, or the next morning while they breakfasted in the sunny front parlor, but when he drew her attention to the ceiling, with its riot of garlands and cupids painted on a bright blue sky, she smiled, and it wasn’t a polite smile, but a smile that touched her eyes, and if her sister had been alive he thought she would have laughed.
Later that morning he took her to where the cliffs dipped down to a sandy cove shaped like a half moon, and they peeled off their stockings and paddled in the sea, and he thought she seemed almost happy, as if the pure simplicity of sea and sky, cliffs and sand, gave her the same sense of deep serenity it gave him.
Afterwards they sat on a red boulder and waited for the sun and the breeze to dry their feet, and he saw the happiness slowly drain from her.
In the Greek myth, Galatea had been a statue turned woman; Eleanor Wrotham was a woman turned statue.
“Nell,” he said softly. “If you want to talk . . .”
Her lips compressed slightly. She said nothing, just shook her head. Mordecai gave a silent sigh, and put an arm around her.
For a moment, Eleanor resisted, and then she leaned against him, resting her head on his shoulder.
Minutes passed, while their feet slowly dried. Eleanor grew stiffer, and stiffer, until she seemed all angles and bones and misery, and then she burst out: “I was so angry with her.”
“Of course you were angry,” Mordecai said. “You would have been very unnatural if you hadn’t been.”
Eleanor said nothing. She was still angles and bones and unhappiness.
“Even a saint would have been angry,” Mordecai said. “She destroyed your family’s reputation and ruined your betrothal. Of course you were angry.”
“Sophia said she didn’t realize how it had been until she went to Roger’s house looking for me.” Eleanor uttered a choked sound that was half sob, half laugh. “She hadn’t thought that I’d be ruined, too. How could she not have realized? How could she have been so naïve?”
Naïve was one word for Sophia Wrotham. Foolish was another.
“Oh, God. She was only fifteen. Why am I angry with her?” Eleanor’s stiffness dissolved into despair.
“Because you’re human,” Mordecai said. He removed her bonnet and put both arms around her and pressed his face into her hair. “Because you’re human and it’s human to be angry when people do things that hurt you.”
“But she didn’t mean to hurt me.”
“No, she didn’t. Any more than you mean to be angry with her.” He kissed her hair. “Your feelings are natural, Nell. Don’t blame yourself for them.” He rocked her gently, kissed her hair again. “When you discovered she was in trouble, you went looking for her. That’s what counts.”
She was silent. Did she doubt him?
“Being angry doesn’t mean you didn’t love her,” Mordecai told her. “We can love people and be angry with them at the same time.”
Eleanor sighed. “I know. And I forgive Sophia, I do, but I’m still angry. Not about Roger, but . . . oh, the waste of it. Her life!”
“Your sister made a grave mistake,” Mordecai said. “But the mistake your father made was far worse. He could have saved her. Not from her initial ruin, but from everything that came afterwards.”
“I failed her, too.”
“No,” Mordecai said, very firmly. “Listen to me, Nell. This is important. You did not fail your sister. You may have been angry, and perhaps even hated her at times, but you didn’t fail her. The moment you knew she needed help, you came for her, and it wouldn’t have mattered how fast you traveled because she was already dead. Nothing you did could have changed that. You did not fail her.”
Eleanor was silent for almost a full minute. Mordecai listened to the shush of the waves on the sand and the cries of the sea birds.
“There have been times this past year when I did almost hate Sophia,” Eleanor whispered, and he heard her shame. “I wish I could have spoken to her one last time. I wish I could ask her to forgive me for being so angry with her.”
“Do you doubt that she would?”
“Sophia?” She uttered another choked laugh. “Of course not.” Then she sighed. “She had so much faith in me. More than I deserve.”
“No,” Mordecai said. “Just the right amount, I think.”
Eleanor was silent for even longer this time. “That book,” she said finally. “The one Lizzie gave me . . . I thought it was a diary, but it’s not. It’s a letter, a . . . a conversation. It’s as if Sophia’s speaking to me. I just wish . . . I wish I could talk back to her and tell her—” She caught her breath on a sob.
“Perhaps you should write to Sophia,” Mordecai said. “Write everything down, as she did.”
Eleanor thought about this for a long moment, while the waves shushed and the breeze fingered its way through the folds of Mordecai’s neckcloth. “Perhaps I will.”
THEY DUSTED THE sand from their feet and put on their footwear again and walked back to the house, and after luncheon Eleanor Wrotham said, “I’d like to try it, what you suggested: write to Sophia.” She sounded diffident and a little embarrassed, as if writing a letter to a dead sister was a foolish thing to do.
Mordecai didn’t think it was foolish at all. He showed Eleanor the library, laid sheets of paper, several quills, and an inkpot out on the desk for her, and said, “Take as long as you like. I’ll tell the servants not to disturb you.”
He spent the afternoon in his study, catching up on neglected business—letters that needed to be replied to, reports from his bailiffs, accounts sent by his man of business. At twilight, Mordecai put the papers to one side and returned the library. He quietly opened the door.
Eleanor Wrotham sat at the desk, but she wasn’t writing; she was gazing out the window at the encroaching dusk. She looked pensive.
“Nell?” he said quietly.
She turned her head and smiled faintly.
Mordecai didn’t need to ask if writing to her sister had helped. He could tell just by looking her. The stiff misery was gone. By committing her emotions to paper—anger, guilt, regret, grief—Eleanor had found some ease.
HE HELD HER that night, and she didn’t cry, and the next morning he took her riding. Eleanor wore her new habit. Most riding habits were blue or green, but this one was crimson. So dark a crimson that it was nearly black. The cut was severely elegant—no piping, braiding, epaulettes, frogging, or other embellishments—and for her hat she’d chosen a black, slender-brimmed beaver. Mordecai privately thought that she had never looked so striking.
Eleanor Wrotham’s neck-or-nothing riding was one of the things that had first attracted him—so exuberant, such joie de vivre—but today they went no faster than a canter. Galloping suited joy, or perhaps anger, but not grief.
Mordecai showed her the whole estate, and then showed her Great Wynthrop estate, too, with its vast dilapidated house. They halted on the edge of the overgrown lawn and gazed at the building. It was bigger than Coombe Regis, and much older. Tudor, not baroque. “I bought it after Father died,” Mordecai said. “When I didn’t know what to do with all the extra servants. No one’s lived in it for a good fifty years. As you can see, it needs a bit of attention.” A lot of attention.
Eleanor gazed at the building thoughtfully. Her mount was so close to his that Mordecai could have reached across and taken her hand.
“The central part is livable now. The wings will be at least another six months.” And then there was the exterior, and the grounds. A good year’s work. But at the end of it, Great Wynthrop would be a handsome property.
“What will you do once it’s restored?”
Mordecai looked at the wild expanse of lawn, looked at the Hall—huge and old, crumbling slightly at the edges, but with strong bones—and said, “I have absolutely no idea.”
BACK AT COOMBE REGIS, he escorted Eleanor to her bedchamber. “Bessie,” he said. “Can you please fetch the clothes the tailor sent?”
Bessie disappeared into the dressing room.
“One riding habit is all I need,” Eleanor protested.
“It’s not a riding habit,” Mordecai said, as Bessie returned, a pile of clothing in her arms. “But they are for you to ride in . . . if you wish. Look.” He took the topmost item and shook it out and laid it on the bed. A linen shirt. Next was a single-breasted waistcoat, then buckskin breeches, then a pair of linen drawers, and at the very bottom, carefully folded, a tailcoat in the same deep crimson as Eleanor’s riding habit. “Made to your measurements. And there are top boots, too.”
Bessie darted into the dressing room again and returned bearing a pair of gleaming top boots.
Eleanor stared at the clothes displayed on the bed, she stared at the boots Bessie held. She seemed speechless with astonishment.
Mordecai hoped that she was pleased by his gift, not offended. “Do you like them?” he asked, his tone both more diffident and more hopeful than he’d intended. He had a horrible feeling that he sounded like a child asking for praise.
Eleanor turned her gaze to him. “Yes, Mordecai. I do.” And then—despite Bessie standing there—she hugged him. “Thank you.”
Bessie, bless her, withdrew to the dressing room, so Mordecai put his arms around Eleanor and hugged her back. Her elegant beaver hat was in the way. He removed it and tossed it on the bed.
“You can try them out this afternoon,” he said, and stroked her soft hair. “But only if you want to. My feelings shan’t be hurt if you never wear them.”
“Of course I want to wear them.” Eleanor rested her forehead on his chest. “How could I ever have thought you autocratic and overbearing?”
“It did puzzle me,” Mordecai said.
Eleanor gave a shaky laugh. “It’s the fault of that nose of yours.”
“My great beak?”
“You have the nose of a Roman emperor.”
He stroked her hair again. “I’ll take that as a compliment.”
Eleanor drew back and met his eyes. “I apologize for saying you were dictatorial.”
“Apology accepted,” Mordecai said, smiling down at her.