9

WELL PAST MIDNIGHT

IT WAS TIME.

Argus House had fourteen bedrooms, not counting the servants’ quarters. So far, Hal had not been able to bring himself to sleep in any of them. Not his own. He hadn’t lain there since the dawn when he’d risen from Esmé’s warm body and gone out in the rain to face Nathaniel.

“On your bloody croquet lawn!” he said aloud, but under his breath. It was after midnight, and he didn’t want to wake any inquisitive servant. “You pretentious nit!”

Not Esmé’s chaste blue and white boudoir next door, either. He couldn’t bring himself even to open the door, not sure whether her ghost might still linger in the scented air or whether the room would be a cold and empty shell. Afraid to find out, either way.

He was standing now at the head of the stairs, the long corridor of bedrooms lit at this late hour by only three of the dozen sconces, the colors of a half dozen Turkey rugs melting into shadow. He shook his head and, turning, went downstairs.

He generally didn’t sleep at night, anyway. Went out occasionally and roamed the dark paths of Hyde Park, sometimes stopping briefly to share a fire with some of the vagrants who camped there. More often sat up reading in the library ’til the wax from melting candles pattered onto tables and floors and Nasonby or Wetters came silently in with scrapers and new candles, even though he’d ordered the footmen to go to bed.

Then he’d read stubbornly on by the new light—Tacitus, Marcus Aurelius, Cicero, Pliny, Julius Caesar—losing himself in distant battles and the thoughts of long-dead men. Their fellowship comforted him, and he’d fall asleep with the dawn, curled up on the blue settee or sprawled on the cool marble floor, his head cushioned on the white hearth rug.

Someone would come silently and cover him. He’d usually wake to find someone standing over him with a luncheon tray and would rise with aching limbs and a foggy mind that took ’til teatime to clear again.

“This will not do,” he said aloud, pausing at the door to the library. Not tonight.

He didn’t go into the library, though it was brightly lit in expectation of his presence. Instead, he reached into the bosom of his shirt and pulled out the note. He’d been carrying it ever since it had arrived at teatime, reading it again and again—and now opened it to read again, as though the words might have altered or disappeared.

His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales is pleased to invite you to visit him to discuss your proposals regarding the re-commissioning of the 46th Regiment of Foot, a project which is of the deepest interest to him. It would perhaps be most convenient for you to attend the princess’s garden fête at the White House on Sunday, 21 June. A formal invitation will be sent you this week; should the arrangement be agreeable to you, please reply in the usual fashion.

“Agreeable,” he said aloud, and felt an unaccustomed tingle of excitement, as he had every time he’d read the note. “Agreeable, he says!”

Agreeable, indeed—if dangerous. The prince had a good deal of power, a good deal of influence in military circles, including with the secretary at war. But he wasn’t the king. And king and prince most assuredly did not agree. The king and his heir had been estranged—if not actually at loggerheads—for several years, and to court the favor of the one was to invite coldness from the other.

Still…it might be possible to tread the narrow line between the two and emerge with the support of both….

But he knew he was in no sort of shape to undertake that kind of finesse, exhausted as he was in mind and body.

Besides. It was time. He knew it. He cast a brief, regretful look into the library, then reached out and gently closed the door on his book-lined refuge.

The house was quiet, and his footsteps made no sound on the thick rugs as he came back—at last—to Esmé’s room. He opened the door without hesitation and went in.

There was no light and he left the door open behind him, crossing the room to draw back the drapes from the big double window. A pale wash of moonlight fell over him and he went back and closed the door, silently. Then slid the bolt.

The room was cold, and clean. A faint smell of beeswax polish and fresh linen lingered. No trace of her perfume.

He made his way half blind to the dressing table in her closet and felt about in the darkness until he found the chunky crystal bottle. He felt the smooth ground-glass stopper grate softly as he took it out and dabbed a drop of her scent inside his wrist—just as he’d seen her do it, a hundred times and more.

It was a scent made just for her, and for the instant she lived again within it: complex and heady, spicy and bitter—cinnamon and myrrh, green oranges and oil of carnations. Leaving the bottle open, he walked back into the bedroom and came slowly to the curtained white bed. Put back the drapes and sat down.

Everything in her chamber was white or blue; the room was filled with shadow. Even the Bible on her nightstand was covered in white leather. Only the glints of gold or silver in jewel box and candlestick caught the light of the moon.

Without the hiss and crackle of a fire or the melting of candles, the air lay quiet. He could hear his own heart, beating slow and heavy. There was only him. And her.

“Em,” he said softly, eyes closed. “I’m sorry.” And whispered, so low he barely heard the words, “I miss you. God, I miss you.”

Finally, finally, he let grief take him and wept for her then, for a long time.

“Forgive me,” he said.

And at last lay down upon her white bed and let sleep take him, too, to whatever dreams it would.