“Why did you stop sending me flowers?” she murmured.
“Now I’ll have to remember that I sent you flowers,” he said, his voice wooden. “I’m not sure that Her Grace quite believed it.”
Her heart tightened. What did he mean by it?
“Why wouldn’t Her Grace believe it?”
“She knows me too well.”
“To think that you’d ever send flowers to me?”
“To think that I’d send flowers—and on such consistent basis—to a young lady before I’d decided to pursue her hand,” he said. “But I’ll be sure to send you flowers from now on, since they please you so well. Do you like roses? We’ve some interesting varietals at Fairleigh Park.”
Her heart sank. There had not been a single rose in all the flowers she’d received in seventeen months. But the card that had accompanied the very first bouquet had said The Office of Stuart Somerset, Esq., and so she’d assumed that the subsequent bouquets, which had no cards but which all came from the same florist, had been sent by order from his office too.
There were other people who worked in that office: three law clerks and Mr. Marsden.
I believe I deserve better from you.
But when she’d thanked Stuart in person for everything he’d sent her, he’d graciously acknowledged her gratitude. He certainly hadn’t protested that he hadn’t sent her anything.
Because he had. He’d sent a box of books on philosophy (she’d boasted to him of her new philosophical inclination during her affair with Henry), sundry tonics for listlessness and wasting (most of which sat in a cupboard, unopened), and some sheet music for the latest French songs, which he’d acquired when he’d visited Paris—considerate, proper gifts that would raise no one’s brow coming from a gentleman friend of long acquaintance.
But she’d believed that he’d sent the flowers. And had made her decision to marry him based in no small part on that very assumption.
At the sound of her father’s approaching footsteps in the corridor, she pulled away. “It’s late. I should be going.”
“You forgot to tell me whether you like roses,” he reminded her, with an elaborate gentleness, so elaborate it was almost as if they were playing parts on a stage.
“Don’t insist on it. We are almost married; we don’t need such superfluous gestures.”
“But you said only now you wished for flowers.”
Not anymore. And not from him. So she pretended that she didn’t hear him. “Ah, Papa, there you are. We must hurry before we wear out our welcome here.”
Stuart looked at her oddly. But she’d already set her departure in motion. He shook hands with her father and, ever proper, bowed to her. He always adhered to the strictest rules of conduct before her father, but tonight his bow seemed to symbolize the distance between them, a distance that increasingly felt unbridgeable—and filled with everything she dared not, could not, and would not say to this man with whom she’d made the commitment of a lifetime.
The summons surprised Verity. She thanked Mr. Durbin and changed out of her nightgown into a clean dress, one that didn’t smell too much of dinner. Her hair she pushed under a cap. She opened a jar of face cream that she’d made from beeswax and spermaceti and dabbed it across her cheeks, stopping only when she remembered that she’d already applied some earlier in the evening—and that she wasn’t quite ready to show Mr. Somerset her face yet.
Her heart beat fast as she knocked on the door to the study. She couldn’t imagine that it was merely a desire for conversation that had led to the summons. But what could he have wanted badly enough to send Mr. Durbin after her at this hour?
“Come in.”
“La lumière, Monsieur,” she reminded him.
“It would look odd,” he replied.
Neither Mrs. Abercromby nor Mr. Durbin had gone up to bed yet and both might stop by the study to see if he had any needs before they retired for the night.
“I will stay by the window,” he said. “I won’t turn around.”
Perhaps you should, she thought.
And perhaps she shouldn’t have said “I love you” so precipitously. She did not regret it, for it was true. But things hardly needed to become more complicated between them.
She entered the study. The curtains were open. He stood with his back to her, in his shirtsleeves, his hands in the pockets of his dark evening trousers—a man two inches over six feet, wide-shouldered, and whipcord lean. She remembered the sinewed tightness of his body from their embrace in the basement and from their lovemaking the day before.
Lovemaking, she repeated the word in her head. The memory of the pleasure he’d brought her was a hot jolt in her abdomen.
“Why did you and Bertie never marry?”
The question came out of nowhere and disoriented her. “Gentlemen don’t marry their cooks, sir.”
“I was told he came close to marrying you.”
Her heart stilled. “And who would tell you such a thing, sir?”