It was not a decision she’d made lightly. She’d thought of little else for days. What did it mean that their lives should intersect again, so long removed from the one night that had set her sky aflame like a rare comet? That he should arrive here one day—the lord of the manor, the prince of the castle—was Fate trying to tell her something? That perhaps it wasn’t yet too late, that it was still possible for their broken fairy tale to be made whole?
But fairy tales concerned only virtuous, blameless girls, girls as pure in body and soul as they were beautiful. There were no fairy tales for willful women of impaired judgment who’d brought about their own disgrace and heartache.
The footman pulled down the steps and opened the carriage door. Her heart seized. He’d had eyes dark as the hours before dawn, beautiful cheekbones, and a surprisingly, almost shockingly intimate smile. And he’d wanted her with the force of cyclones and maelstroms—God, how he’d destroyed her resistance.
He alit from the carriage now, all hat and dark, flying cape. She held her breath. He lifted his gaze to encompass the manor that was now his.
She stumbled back from the window, leaned against the nearest wall, and pressed a hand over her chest. Something was wrong. She was supposed to look upon him with no more than a bittersweet wistfulness. Not this shortness of breath or this frantic rush of blood in her ears, like a swollen spring river that had finally broken through the winter ice.
Not when she’d already made up her mind to leave, very soon, perhaps as soon as Bertie’s funeral.
She only wanted time enough to give him a gift, a gift that had been in the making—she realized just now—since the hour she first left him, her battered valise in hand, a piece of the cake he’d brought her in her pocket.
Stuart had made only one request to the staff, that they leave Bertie’s apartment and belongings undisturbed. For all his otherwise indifference, he found himself somewhat curious for a glimpse into Bertie’s final days.
The master’s bedchamber, like most of the rest of the house, reflected the vibrancy and sensuality of a different era. The walls were a mellow gold, the ceiling an aged champagne on which had been painted a mural of bucolic charm reminiscent of Watteau’s fêtes galantes.
Stuart opened a wardrobe. Bertie’s clothes. Dozens of shirts, waistcoats and under-waistcoats, drawers full of neck clothes and handkerchiefs—everything in its place.
He pulled out a day coat. It was not for a heavyset man: Bertie had not thickened excessively despite his love of good food.
Mrs. Boyce hovered in the doorway to the bedchamber. Stuart realized the housekeeper was waiting to be addressed. “Yes, Mrs. Boyce?”
“Should we make room in the wardrobe for your clothes, sir?”
“No need.” He would stay only three days on this trip and had brought very few things. “You may see to it before my next visit.”
“And that would be, sir…”
“In January,” said Stuart. He would have planned for a house party had he known he’d have Fairleigh Park before Christmas. But as such, he’d already accepted a yuletide invitation to Lyndhurst Hall.
And his life and his career were in London. After the wedding he’d let Lizzy manage Fairleigh Park and make use of it as she saw fit: She was good at such things. “You may return to your duties, Mrs. Boyce. I’m quite settled.”
“Thank you, sir,” said Mrs. Boyce, a largish woman with the features of a farmer’s wife but the pale, un-lined skin of someone who’d spent her entire life indoors. “Dinner is at half past seven, sir. We keep country hours here.”
“Half past seven?” Before they’d come up to Bertie’s apartment, Mrs. Boyce had offered Stuart tea, and he, thirsty and somewhat hungry, had accepted. There’d been scones and biscuits from the housekeeper’s still room and he’d eaten his fill. “No. Have it served at nine.”
Mrs. Boyce blinked. “But, sir, if you started only at nine, you would be at the table ’til eleven.”
“No, I assure you I’ll have finished in half an hour, if not less.”
Mrs. Boyce blinked again. “You’ll finish twelve courses in half an hour, sir?”
Twelve courses? What in the world? “Did my brother have twelve-course dinners every day?”
“No, only eight, sir. But we thought, since this is your first dinner at Fairleigh Park—”
“Three courses will quite suffice.” Bertie might have been mad for his dinners, but Stuart paid little mind to food, if at all.
“But the menu is already set, sir,” said Mrs. Boyce, with an air of desperation. “Perhaps you would like to see it?”
“No, I will not need to see it. Inform the cook: no more than three courses.”
For a moment, Mrs. Boyce looked as if he’d condemned her to wrestle crocodiles on the banks of the Nile. Then she acquiesced. “Very good, sir.”
After Mrs. Boyce left, Stuart closed the wardrobe door and went to the bed. On which side had Bertie slept? He tried the night table to the left of the bedstead. It held two books of philosophy—both by Epicurus, of course—and a few drams of laudanum.