Fic: Good Hope, Chapter 7
May. 31st, 2025 06:08 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sobriquettGood Hope
Masterpost | Chapter 1 | Chapter 2 | Chapter 3 | Chapter 4 | Chapter 5 | Chapter 6 | Chapter 7 | Chapter 8 | Chapter 9 | Chapter 10 | Chapter 11
Chapter 7
When she was gone, Anthony slumped back into his armchair, exasperated enough to lose the will to stand. Something about the way he flopped into his chair brought Benedict to mind, and a sitting room many thousands of miles away. Perhaps his family were sitting down together after dinner at that very moment, without him, and without—
His stomach lurched. He couldn’t think of Colin now.
Instead, Anthony reached for his watch, lying on the table beside his comb, and checked the time. It was no small mercy that it still worked and told him it was half past eight. Anthony squeezed the watch in his hand, feeling the cold ridges of the metalwork pressing against his skin. He tried to imagine it was one of the thousands of times he had checked his watch in the study in his family home, holding the picture in his mind until his heartbeat steadied and he drew an easy breath. Then, he turned his mind to that narrow passage of time until it would be nine o’clock and he would face Miss Sharma again.
He must be prepared. He must rediscover his earlier certainties, reconquer himself. This was the reason he had come; he was on the edge of completing this mission that had taken him six thousand miles from home and family. If he could make her listen, if he could just find the words, this night could change everything. Then, with Kate at his side, he could face everything else.
Of course, she would need to see reason.
He picked up the towel from the floor and scrubbed at his hair while he turned their previous interview over in his mind.
Arrogant and lacking courtesy? He had travelled halfway around the world to speak to her, and she took that as arrogance. He scrubbed harder, fingers digging into his scalp through the towel. How could he make Miss Sharma understand the sacrifices he had made for her? He wanted to offer her the world, to give her everything a lady could hope for and his heart to boot, and she only saw arrogance and rudeness.
He seethed and took a long drink of wine, the dirtied towel hanging by his side.
Anthony was in a foul mood, frustrated and stinging at being scorned, when Mr Prince returned, knocking and entering without permission as he had before.
“Lord Bridgerton,” he said. “Surprised to see you dressed.”
Anthony said nothing; he merely glowered. He was decent, but the damp cuffs were still itching at his wrists and the flowing sleeves sagged heavily, and his boots were still baking by the fire. He would have ordered the man away in his temper, except Mr Prince began to speak.
“I, uh, overheard your arrangements with Miss Sharma, my lord,” the innkeeper continued. “My wife insists on the propriety of seating you both in public, but out of courtesy to the lady’s modesty, we’ve set a table for you beside the bar, out of the general view.”
Anthony offered curt thanks. He would prefer to dine in private, of course, but perhaps it would be to his advantage to have witnesses. They would both be compelled to mind their manners and regulate their tempers, and she may feel obliged to stay for a polite interval before fleeing again. She would have to be fair. If she were to misinterpret him again, there may be others to see and take his side.
Mr Prince was still standing there; Anthony could not imagine why.
“What is it?” Anthony asked. He wished to be alone to prepare. He needed quiet to calm himself, to gather his thoughts and rehearse his speeches — if he could figure out what on earth to say in this situation he had never anticipated. Where was his imagined softness of the weeks apart? He had not thought of her with heart-pounding fury then, only with longing and an ache in his bones. Yet, at first glance, he was once again set aflame.
Mr Prince looked him up and down, and Anthony considered the picture he must make, unkempt and cutting a figure entirely discordant with his station. He could see his hair in the mirror above the fireplace, as wild as it had ever been.
“If you don’t mind me asking, my lord…”
Anthony said nothing, and the innkeeper seemed to take this as permission.
“It’s been a fine day,” Mr. Prince continued. He smiled, gesturing at Anthony. His question seemed genuine, curious. “How did you come to be, well, wet?”
Anthony was suddenly struck by the absurdity of the situation. There was a twinkle in the older man’s eye, a wordless acknowledgement of the farce playing out in this drawing room that was infectious to Anthony. He might be a serious man but he was not entirely lacking in humour, and his awareness of the cold stickiness of damp linen against his skin was suddenly ludicrous, laughable, even to himself. He felt the faintest tug of a smile at the corner of his face, outside of his admittedly lacking control.
There was still a rolling simmer of annoyance, but it was directed at himself now – at his predicament and his frustration in not knowing how to respond. It was a simple question, but there was no simple answer – at least one that did not make him sound unhinged. It was also a question Kate herself might repeat. The answer was that he needed to see Miss Sharma, to the apparent exclusion of all rational thought. How would she take it? And how could anyone else understand?
Of course, he was under no obligation to explain himself, so he did not.
Mr Prince looked him over again, brows furrowed as he tried to put the pieces together and find sense when Anthony offered none. “My wife says you were aboard the Katharine,” he said, mouth frowning, eyes dancing. “But she’s sent a lad down to the docks to check, and it has set sail. Yet here you are – dripping like…” His eyes widened, bushy brows rising. “Well. Did you… no, you didn’t.”
Anthony could find no dignified reply and maintained his silence, which was confirmation enough for the man. Mr Prince howled with laughter, a great initial roar that dissolved into snorts and guffaws. Every time he tried to draw breath to speak, he was rocked again by mirth. His eyes shone with tears and his cheeks were turning the deep purple shade of the wine.
Embarrassment overrode humour in Anthony as soon as he was laughed at. Mr Prince was pressing at the very limits of Anthony’s endurance for gentlemanly behaviour. He felt that spark rise, opened his mouth to put this man back in his place. He might have hit him, except that it was far beneath his honour, and Kate was resident here. At all costs, he needed his hour with Kate.
“I’m sorry,” Mr Prince said, breathless and holding his side – just in time before Anthony’s honour snapped. Anthony wrestled down his fury for the sake of his dignity.
Mr Prince wiped sweat from his forehead. “Oh, lord forgive me. There’s plenty of comedy in a place like this, day in and day out, but that takes the cake. I’m going to – begging your pardon, my lord, I won’t use your name – but I’ll be telling this story for years.” A thought seemed to spark laughter again. “I’ll have to rename the inn – no longer The White Penguin, but The Dripping Lord!”
The dying tremors of laughter faded and Mr Prince clapped Anthony on the damp shoulder. “It’s the young lady, isn’t it? Well, you have my very best wishes for a happy ending, my lord.”
“Thank you,” Anthony said. He had meant it to be cold – humour he might have, but he would not tolerate being the butt of others’ jokes – but it wasn’t. “But first I require privacy.” The whole encounter had made it clear that his first priority should be to render himself respectable, to the best of his ability when he could not change his clothes, in order to avoid further laughter at his expense.
“Yes, very well, my lord.” The man looked around, nodding at the arrangements. “You have enough wine? And the fire is good enough? Very well.” He seemed to swallow back another chuckle before it could escape. “Please ring if you need anything.”
Anthony went back to work on himself.
Their table was beside the bar, along the short end of an L shape. Mrs Prince was serving there, producing drinks from barrels and ladling something from a steaming pot. Abigail and another maid were back and forth between the bar and patrons serving the inn’s fare.
Their little table was round and set for two, with two upholstered dining chairs facing each other and a small stove to the side against the wall, a low fire burning within. One chair faced only a small leaded window while the other had a view of the whole great room, busy with patrons eating and laughing on long benches or around a generous fire. Checking his watch, Anthony took the chair with the view of the room and summoned another bottle of wine.
It arrived just as Kate did, who was prompt to the hour with Newton on a lead. Anthony stood when he saw her emerge from the door to the stairs. It made him think of that intangible but very definite threshold in any good home, from the public to the private rooms of a house, and the intimacy one must have with a family to cross that boundary. He had crossed it today, without her permission, by going upstairs. He told himself it wasn’t a presumption. After all, he had been in her bedroom at Danbury House not once but twice, and with the knowledge and consent of her mama and the dowager.
All those thoughts of propriety were cut off when she met his eye. His stomach jolted. She had paused, surveying the room in search of him and their table. When their eyes met, she held his gaze for a too-long moment, until he bowed from the neck in greeting and the moment snapped.
She had changed for dinner into a violet silk gown with marigold embroidery, and had gold flashing at wrists and throat. She was the brightest thing in the room, and when he forced himself to look away he saw he was not the only man finding it difficult to avoid staring.
“Lord Bridgerton,” she said in greeting.
“Miss Sharma.” He pulled out her chair, then seated himself opposite. Newton yapped up at him from under the table. Anthony glared at the creature as Kate tried to get him to settle in front of the fire, but Newton fussed until he was held. Settled in her lap, head poking over the table, he growled at Anthony.
Anthony refused to squabble with a dog, especially when he could have a much more pleasurable disagreement with his mistress. The mutt was not menacing and Anthony would prevail in time. This was not the moment. He ignored the bloody thing and poured her wine.
“Newton,” Kate scolded as Newton growled again when Anthony reached over. “Hush.” But she was scratching the creature behind the ears, looking down at the dog rather than over at Anthony. She was smiling.
Despite all his attempts to think this meeting through, Anthony had no idea where to start. He took a sip of wine, trying to look collected as his mind tripped over itself in search of the right words.
Are you well, Miss Sharma?
How was your journey?
What the bloody hell are you doing here?
Why didn’t you say goodbye?
Her wine remained untouched with Newton occupying her hands. The silence between them was wary and uneasy, especially amongst the din of the great room. “Well?” she said at last, still scratching the dog but meeting Anthony’s eye.
“I am sorry,” he said. He hadn’t thought; it slipped out. “For startling you earlier.” It was as good a place as any, if he wished to win her.
“An apology? My, that is a surprise. Almost as great a surprise as seeing you, my lord.”
“You are not more surprised than me to find you here.”
She raised an eyebrow. Was he really competing with her over that?
“No. I admit— No, never mind.”
She paused and set Newton down on the ground, fussing over him. Bending that way, he could not properly see her face, and he ardently wished to know what she had been about to say. What was she about to admit? That this wasn’t her plan? He wouldn’t admit it either, although they were in the same boat. Well, he wasn’t in the boat – he had jumped off the boat and was wet, bereft and adrift in deeper, murkier water. Still, they had an infuriating amount in common and he opened his mouth to remind her so.
They were interrupted by Abigail arriving with dinner. She brought two steaming bowls of soup, a questionable beige-orange colour, each with a chunk of coarse brown bread.
They were silent as they unfolded napkins into their lap. Miss Sharma was looking over his shoulder at the leaded window. Anthony watched her while pretending to watch the room behind her. When Abigail left them, he picked up the spoon and dipped it in the soup, but he abandoned the meal before bringing the spoon to his mouth.
He wasn’t hungry.
Kate noticed that and frowned. She had a taste of the soup, then spoke as she brought the second spoonful to her lips, as if this were any dinner in Mayfair and they were making polite conversation. “How were your family when you left?
Anthony was on solid ground again. His answer was instinctual, ingrained. “Well enough, thank you. My mother in particular wanted me to convey her best wishes, as did your mama.”
Kate looked at him directly. Something turned over in his belly. “You saw Mama before you came away? And Edwina? Were they well?”
“I came upon them less than an hour after you set sail. They were both upset — Miss Edwina especially so.” Kate’s face fell. Anthony tripped over his words trying to reassure her. “But they were in good health.” It wasn’t enough. There was something in Kate’s eyes, their width, a glimmer that alluded to nascent tears. “They dined with us at Bridgerton House, the night before our departure, and were in better spirits then. They were very kind, in fact.”
Kate dropped her spoon. “Why do you sound surprised? Have they ever not been kind, even when they had every reason not to be?”
“That is not—”
“Do you find their manners as deficient as I still find yours?”
“Why are you at such pains to think ill of me? I meant no slight; indeed, I cannot comprehend how you perceived one. As I said, they were very kind, both of them, and went to some effort to assist me. I was – I am – grateful.”
Instead of barking back, Kate sipped her wine. Anthony mirrored her, and his wine had an aroma of victory.
“May we negotiate a ceasefire?” he asked. “Can we start again? We – I felt – parted on good terms in London, although—”
You didn’t say goodbye, he thought, but he couldn’t say that. He tied himself in knots trying to decide what to say, to draw her out without pushing her away. He couldn’t find anything to say that was humble enough without being insincere, but actually useful. After a moment, he realised he was thinking too much, too much inside his own head, and that thinking before he spoke wasn’t working for him. It was giving her the advantage, and he needed to avoid that at all costs.
He looked up and found Kate watching him.
Once again, the spark as their eyes met drove all the sense out of his head. All he could think of was her eyes, those long sweeping lashes, the way she had looked when they—
“Before, you said ‘our’ departure. You did not travel alone?”
Anthony paled. He had not thought of Colin for some time. He put his wine glass down before his shaking hand gave him away.
Too late.
“What’s the matter?” asked Kate.
“I sailed with my brother Colin.” Anthony floundered. How could he tell this tale so he sounded a hero from one of her stories, not a crazed lunatic? “He’s always had ambitions to travel the world and gave up his plans to return to Greece in favour of Bombay.”
“Is he upstairs?”
“No, he’s on the ship.”
His hands were shaking. He gripped them together under the table, heart pounding. He took out his watch and simply held it. He could hear the blood rushing in his ears. His soup remained untouched. At least his answer sounded reasonable enough, and it was not untrue. Before she could ask any more, as soon as he trusted his voice to be steady, he changed the subject. “Where were you today?”
“And why is that any of your business?”
“Because I am concerned about you.”
“Your concern is unnecessary. I am capable enough.”
“You weren’t walking Newton, the maid was. Were you unwell?” He gripped his hands together until he trusted them to stop shaking, then he reached for his wine again. He needed something to steady himself and wine was effective.
“I am well, as you see. I am not convinced you are. You are very pale… and damp. Are you ill? Is that why you are here?” Her eyes flashed again, a rapid study of his countenance, and Anthony looked away rather than get lost in them; he was adrift enough already. “Was the journey too much for you? It is nothing to be ashamed of, there are many who lack the stamina and perseverance for—
“I was not seasick!” He clutched at his watch, metal warming under his fingers. “Well, perhaps once in a great storm, but I got my sea legs quickly enough, thank you, and I am in good health. But you. Why are you here? You’ve been here four days, the clerk said.”
“How do you know that? Were you following me?”
“Of course I was! Why the bloody hell else would I be here? I’ve been following you since all of an hour after you set sail from London!”
“Then how—”
“We docked here today, and I asked after the Magdalene. It was public record, a clerk in the offices at the docks. That’s all, no great intrusion.” He still didn’t trust himself with the soup. “But why are you here, and not still en route to Bombay?”
“Unforeseen circumstances.” Kate looked away for a long moment, as if she were imagining herself away from here, and away from him. Newton fussed at her feet and she reached down to comfort him – and herself. Anthony picked up the spoon as if to eat, then dropped it again. Instead, he drank more wine.
“I intend to be on my way again as soon as possible,” Kate said, finally looking away from the window and back at him. She pushed the soup away as well. Neither had made much effort with their repast. “As much as I would be loath to continue the voyage with you , does your ship have a suitable berth for a lady? Or, while I would be sorry to disappoint your brother if you turned back to London here, perhaps I could have yours? As your mission is complete.”
“No,” Anthony said. “I don’t think—”
“I see. In that case, is there anything else, my lord? I am tired, and not hungry, so perhaps we could continue another time.” She rose to leave. Anthony scrambled to his feet too, part manners and part desperation.
“I have letters!” he said, grabbing for the first thing to keep her here. “For you, from your mother and sister. I—”
Kate stopped in her tracks and turned back to face him.
Anthony’s hand reached into his jacket pocket but, of course, they weren’t there. They were in the strongbox in his cabin; he merely had the key, while Colin had the documents.
He stumbled over air, catching himself on the table. He clutched at it with white fingers. He couldn’t hear anything, he couldn’t see, he could hardly breathe. He couldn’t speak if he wanted to. He felt dizzy; there were white stars in his vision. The room was spinning, his lungs were tight, his throat thick.
He had the key. Colin had the box. He was here, in The White Penguin. Colin was on the Katharine, rounding the cape and sailing on to Bombay. But he had the key, and Colin had the box. And he was here, and Colin—
“My lord?” Kate grabbed his arm. The electricity of her hand on his elbow brought his circular thoughts back into a line and he looked at her, still dumb. “What is the matter? Oh, never mind, sit down.” She manoeuvred him back into his chair and pressed the soft back of her gloveless hand against his forehead, frowning.
He had longed for her touch for endless weeks at sea, and for months before that, since the first moment he saw her in the park, but even the sensation of warm pressure against his face after weeks of dreaming could not entirely ground him in that moment. All he could focus on was the small bulge and weight of his coin purse in his pocket, much depleted by the little luxuries of the day, bread and cheese and wine and a wet shave, and the useless key beside it.
It was the key to his strongbox. His strongbox was in his cabin. Inside his strongbox were the letters of introduction, the bills of exchange, letters of credit, all his paper money and the rest of his coin. Every document that could prove who he was, every resource he could leverage in an unfamiliar place, was safely tucked away there, and it had likely rounded the cape and was sailing off to India as well as his younger brother.
“I left them on board the ship,” he said. He could only see the purple bodice of Kate’s dress level with his eyes. He could not have focussed to look up at her face if he tried.
“Very well.” He heard the scrape of a chair as Kate sat opposite him and raised a hand for service. “We will send a man to collect them, and I will wait with you while he does so. If you have other things to say then speak, and I may listen.”
“I–”
Anthony swallowed. He reached for the wine, but his glass was empty. He tried to pour, but it splashed over the rim as he shook. Kate arrested his hands and took the bottle from him.
“What is it?” she said. She poured and passed him the glass.
Anthony raised it as if to drain it half dry, anaesthetic against dawning horror, but… wine was expensive, wasn’t it? And this was his second bottle of the evening.
“Whatever is the matter?” Kate asked again. “You are truly ill, aren’t you? Do you need a doctor?”
“No, no,” Anthony said. His face was clammy and the head-to-toe dampness made him shiver. “No, it is just… Well… the ship has gone. Set sail.”
Kate frowned. “Without you?”
“Without me.”
“How did you manage that? Did they put you off the ship too?”
“No, not exactly, I—” Something sparked in his mind then. “Wait, did they put you off the ship? Why?”
“You first.”
Infuriating woman. “Kate.”
“Lord Bridgerton.” She looked as calm and collected as he had ever seen her, but there was concern in her brow. She was watching him closely.
Anthony forced himself to look back at her, to meet her eye, to read the truth of the matter. “Anthony, please,” he said. He did not want to be Lord Bridgerton for a moment. “Did they put you off the Magdalene?”
She was silent. She looked away.
“Tell me; it cannot—” It cannot be worse than what happened to me, he thought, but he could not provoke her if he wished to know. “Just tell me!”
“Then you will tell me?”
“Alright!”
Kate sighed, flicked her eyes up to the heavens, then looked down at Newton by the stove, belly up and content. “I was removed for the high crime of being a woman, alone.”
“Really? It wasn’t that you were sharp-tongued, exacting, exasperating?”
“No more than I’m sure you were – and you would have been respected for it.”
Anthony did not want to think of the Katharine and her men.
“Can I help? Can it be fixed?” he asked. Surely there must be something he could do.
“You could give me your berth – well, no, I suppose you can’t!”
She laughed then, and there was an edge to it, something hysterical. He felt it too – rising mirth, with absolutely no basis for humour, just the inability to do anything else but crack up in the face of disaster.
She wasn’t telling him everything. “What happened, Kate?” He looked at her hands resting on the table. As he was about to reach for them, she scooped Newton up into her lap and scratched him as she spoke.
“Nothing of note. They were uneasy with me since the moment I boarded, as a lady travelling alone. Every time I left my cabin, I was met with whispers and looks of suspicion. The men didn’t like me, the women didn’t trust me, the crew said I was bad luck. Then I was sick—”
“You were unwell?” He searched her face for hints of pallor or fever until his gaze settled on her lips, which had folded into a frown. Was that why she hadn’t been walking Newton? Was there something seriously amiss? Had she seen a doctor? Did she have the means to pay for one? Did he?
“Of course I was! Nor was I the only one. The first time, it was the Bay of Biscay! In a storm! Everyone was unwell.” Anthony suddenly understood. He nodded in sympathy. He felt his stomach roll just at the thought of that stretch of sea. “And then another great storm a week ago… But some foolish man took particular offence at my illness, or blamed me for the weather, and when we docked here to repair and resupply after the storm, my things were unloaded and I was invited to follow them without any opportunity to decline.”
There was quiet between them, punctuated only by a roar of laughter from rowdy guests in the great room behind.
“I’m sorry,” Anthony said quietly. “They returned your fare to you? You have sufficient means?”
“I need no help from you, my lord.”
“Anthony,” he repeated. “I didn’t say you did. But you do have the means to safely continue your journey, when the opportunity arises?”
“I do, yes. And I send messages daily to seek another berth, but I haven’t yet found one suitable. There was a ship sailing for London, but… Well, what would you have done if I had taken that?”
Anthony couldn’t imagine, and didn’t answer. What would he have done, if he had arrived in Bombay and there was no record of her? He would have simply gone mad; some of the hypothetical terror rocked him as he considered the prospect.
“And you?” she asked. “Were you bad luck?”
Anthony came back to himself. He picked up his wine, took a more measured sip. For how much longer could he afford such luxuries?
“Only to myself,” he said. “My departure was perhaps more sudden, but self-inflicted.”
Her brows came together. She frowned at him, and then her lips relaxed and her eyes widened.
“I saw Newton,” he explained further.
The bloody creature yapped at his name. Kate’s eyes were wide, mouth open and curling.
“On the shore. With Abigail.”
Her face folded itself into an expression of absolute joy. Her grip loosened on the dog and Newton leapt to the floor with another yap. “No…” she said, hardly noticing.
“We were already underway, but…”
She clapped her hand to her face, concealing her grin. Anthony longed for her smile’s restoration; it had been balm against feeling his own idiocy. Her eyes were sparkling; there were definitely tears brewing now.
“You didn’t wonder why I was wet?” Anthony asked.
“Well, you appeared to be washing!”
“Upstairs.”
“I—”
“Before you slammed the door in my face.”
“Yes, I did.” She paused, levity giving way to self-satisfaction at having done so. “Upstairs, I didn’t notice.”
Anthony had to defend himself. “It seemed an entirely rational thing to do.” He lifted a hand, exhibiting his sagging, damp shirt. “In the moment.”
There were still tears in her eyes, which were huge and dancing and fixed on him, and the golden string of physical longing tugged on him until the words just popped out and he reached to grab her bare hand where it lay on the table between them.
“Come home with me, Kate.”
Her joy was gone in an instant, extinguished like a flame, like a lantern dropped in the sea. She snatched her hand back, but he couldn’t apologise. He could still feel the ghost of her touch, as though that half a moment had seared him.
“Are you not homesick? Do you not miss your mama and Miss Edwina?”
Kate folded her hands in her lap under the table and out of his sight. “Those are not the same thing. I am not homesick for London because it is not my home. I do miss Mama and Edwina dreadfully, but this is the right path for me. I will visit them again, or perhaps they will visit me, and we will write, and—”
“But in London you can—”
Kate was firm. “In London, I can only be a vector for gossip and an albatross for my sister.”
“An albatross?” Anthony had no idea what she was talking about.
“Yes.”
What the bloody hell was an albatross? A bird, wasn’t it?
“It’s a poetry reference – and English poetry at that! Coleridge! Are you truly so illiterate?”
“Poetry is no occupation for an active gentleman.”
Kate rolled her eyes. “You are illiterate. Nevertheless, it is true. I will not be a burden to my sister, and I will not further blight her chances. It cannot be, my lord, so I will go home.”
“Anthony, please,” he corrected, one more time. “I–”
They were interrupted by Abigail’s return. She frowned down at them and their untouched soup. Anthony hadn’t touched it except to put the spoon in the bowl, and Kate had eaten less than half and fed most of the bread to Newton.
“You sure you don’t want a bit longer?” Abigail asked, biting her lip, but Anthony waved her off. The girl cleared the dinner things away. They were silent then, and Anthony looked out at the crowd in the great room. There were a few dozen patrons drinking and dining, their chatter a low hum that rose and fell in volume like a ship on the sea. Most of them were drinking tankards of ale, which would probably have been a better choice for his feather-light purse.
Anthony poured himself a little more of the wine; it was nearly gone.
“What are your plans when you reach India?”
“That is none of your business.”
“Why do you keep taking polite interest as some sort of attack?”
“Are you polite, or nosy? Or do you mean to try and stop me? Or do you not think I have a plan, or—”
“Of course you do! You always have a plan—”
“I do not need your input.”
“I know! Damn it, Kate, I’m asking because I care. Will you please just tell me what you intend so I know that you will be safe and well, as you neglected to do so before we parted?”
“It has always been the plan. Have you forgotten? I will return to India, I will be a governess, and I will be independent. If you remember, you even said that it was not far enough.”
“That was a long time ago.”
“It was less than four months.”
“Kate!”
She glared at him, and he sat back in his chair under its power. He made a conscious effort to calm himself, breathing deep and reaching for a neutral question to continue. His words were taut, but he forced politeness out between his teeth.
“Do you know where you’ll go?”
“I intend to call upon some old friends of my father, and I will find a position quickly enough.”
“Yes, you will.”
They were quiet again, apart from Newton fussing. Kate was looking over Anthony’s shoulder again, looking out the small window into the distant world.
“I wanted to— I looked for you,” Anthony said quietly. “At the Featherington ball. In the garden.” A movement in her shoulders told him she was listening, but she did not look at him. “But Lady Danbury said you had a headache. So I called the next morning. I was… I wanted to ask you to marry me. Again.”
He did not expect her response.
“Why?” she asked, turning sharply.
“What do you mean, why?”
That was a bloody stupid question. She didn’t enlighten him, so he continued. He thought back on every romantic word he had scribbled in two months, every variation on a proposal he had considered, discarded, worked and reworked.
“I want you to be my wife, my viscountess.” She looked at him then, and he met her eye and kept going. “If you had stayed, if you had come to say goodbye, if you had given me the opportunity to speak, I would have asked again.” He thought about how she felt in his arms, when they danced and during that one glorious night together. How he had intended to propose in the cold light of day, as she deserved. He never wanted to go another day without feeling as he had done that night, with her taste on his tongue and her breath in his ear, her hands on his chest and his heart in her hands. He never again wanted to fall asleep or wake up alone; he wanted to have the scent of her hair on his pillow, the softness of her skin against his. “How could I do anything else, after we…?”
He reached for her, but her hands were still folded out of reach. He let his rest on the table between them, framed by bottle and candle, light flickering over his skin.
“I see,” Kate said, and the coldness lanced at him. “No doubt you told anyone who would listen that you were coming after me to propose – a result of your impeccable honour, of course; your inexhaustible need to fix my reputation.”
“No! I told very few, and I told them—”
“Is your sense of duty so strong and so narrow that you must follow me halfway round the world in order to— Have you considered that you could live any other kind of life, as I have chosen to do? If you too, as you have publicly declared, view marriage as shackles—”
“So you would choose to be a teacher? To toil for a crust in a stranger’s house, thousands of miles from the people who love you, always a dependent, never the mistress of your own fate?”
“Oh, yes, because a wife – especially an English lady, a member of the ton – has the thinnest scintilla of a possibility of controlling their fate! Always at the mercy of a man – and most likely one who—"
“So you flee? You cannot possibly want this, this life of obscurity and dependence! How could that ever rival life as a viscountess, as my wife?”
“How dare you presume—” She stood, scraping her chair back over the flagstones and drawing the eye of every patron in the inn. The noise dropped to barely a murmur; silence reigned.
Anthony moved to stand, as any gentleman should when a lady rises from the table, but the fury of her glare paralysed him, knees bent and only half risen, peeping up at her from under his unkempt hair. Newton had slipped to the ground with a yelp as she stood and now whined pitifully at them both. Her fists were clenched and blood rushed to his cheeks.
“You claim to know me? You declare that you must know what I want, what I must feel. You— ugh! Go!” she declared, pointing to the door, her chest heaving. “Back to England, or to China, or to the moon for all I care! But leave me in peace.”
She turned in a swirl of violet silk and strode back towards the forbidden door to the guest corridor, Newton at her heels. She was gone in an instant, before Anthony had time to find any retort.
The slam of the door felled any fledgling thought.
He sat again, heavily, clattering the glasses as he knocked the table and reached for his wine. He was acutely conscious of being the centre of attention in this spat, but what did he care? Anthony noticed Mrs Prince watching, white-faced and thin-lipped from behind the bar, but that didn’t matter either. He was not wrong. He had done the honourable thing and all who had heard them must grasp it.
She had as good as refused him, again.
His glass was shaking. Wine splashed onto his hand. He set it down without tasting it. All his muscles and bones were heavy, being pulled down into the ground with yearning, but he felt the urge to move, to do. His body was as muddled as his head, and that was nothing compared to his heart.
He took out his watch to check the time. It was just past ten o’clock. He sighed as he put it away. What now?
Mrs Prince approached to loom over him, still lacking any colour in her face. “Ready to settle the bill, my lord, before you go?”
“I wish to speak to Miss Sharma again.”
“It seems she does not wish to speak to you, sir.”
“A moment,” he said, and she swept away with her nose upturned.
Anthony let his thoughts race. What had happened? She had not actually refused, as he had not actually asked, but he felt as though they were as far away as they had ever been, even during their mutual odyssey.
A few minutes later, it was Mr Prince who returned to settle with him. As the older man loomed over him, Anthony was again aware of so many eyes on this tableau. Mr Prince leaned closer to Anthony under the guise of gathering things to clear, although there were only a pair of spoons that Abigail had missed in addition to the wine and glasses. “Maybe give her a chance to cool down,” Mr Prince suggested. “Come back tomorrow, my lord?” Stepping away and at full volume, he quoted the price of the evening’s hospitality.
Anthony found himself paralysed again, feeling the wine roll in his stomach. He thought of the slight weight of the purse in his pocket. This dinner would cost more than half of it. But there was no question of not paying; what else could any gentleman, a man of honour, do?
He extracted the necessary coins and placed them in the innkeeper’s hands. He knew it was futile but asked anyway, “How much for a room for the night?”
“We’re full, my lord,” said Mr Prince, and there may have been some regret there, but Anthony suspected he was lying. Whether it was because he supposed Anthony could not afford it or because they did not trust him to behave like a gentleman towards a lady, he could not be sure. Either way, it stung.
Anthony drained the last of his glass. With polite thanks, a promise to return tomorrow, and a final glance at the closed door to the guest quarters, Anthony strode out into the night.
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Chapter 7
When she was gone, Anthony slumped back into his armchair, exasperated enough to lose the will to stand. Something about the way he flopped into his chair brought Benedict to mind, and a sitting room many thousands of miles away. Perhaps his family were sitting down together after dinner at that very moment, without him, and without—
His stomach lurched. He couldn’t think of Colin now.
Instead, Anthony reached for his watch, lying on the table beside his comb, and checked the time. It was no small mercy that it still worked and told him it was half past eight. Anthony squeezed the watch in his hand, feeling the cold ridges of the metalwork pressing against his skin. He tried to imagine it was one of the thousands of times he had checked his watch in the study in his family home, holding the picture in his mind until his heartbeat steadied and he drew an easy breath. Then, he turned his mind to that narrow passage of time until it would be nine o’clock and he would face Miss Sharma again.
He must be prepared. He must rediscover his earlier certainties, reconquer himself. This was the reason he had come; he was on the edge of completing this mission that had taken him six thousand miles from home and family. If he could make her listen, if he could just find the words, this night could change everything. Then, with Kate at his side, he could face everything else.
Of course, she would need to see reason.
He picked up the towel from the floor and scrubbed at his hair while he turned their previous interview over in his mind.
Arrogant and lacking courtesy? He had travelled halfway around the world to speak to her, and she took that as arrogance. He scrubbed harder, fingers digging into his scalp through the towel. How could he make Miss Sharma understand the sacrifices he had made for her? He wanted to offer her the world, to give her everything a lady could hope for and his heart to boot, and she only saw arrogance and rudeness.
He seethed and took a long drink of wine, the dirtied towel hanging by his side.
Anthony was in a foul mood, frustrated and stinging at being scorned, when Mr Prince returned, knocking and entering without permission as he had before.
“Lord Bridgerton,” he said. “Surprised to see you dressed.”
Anthony said nothing; he merely glowered. He was decent, but the damp cuffs were still itching at his wrists and the flowing sleeves sagged heavily, and his boots were still baking by the fire. He would have ordered the man away in his temper, except Mr Prince began to speak.
“I, uh, overheard your arrangements with Miss Sharma, my lord,” the innkeeper continued. “My wife insists on the propriety of seating you both in public, but out of courtesy to the lady’s modesty, we’ve set a table for you beside the bar, out of the general view.”
Anthony offered curt thanks. He would prefer to dine in private, of course, but perhaps it would be to his advantage to have witnesses. They would both be compelled to mind their manners and regulate their tempers, and she may feel obliged to stay for a polite interval before fleeing again. She would have to be fair. If she were to misinterpret him again, there may be others to see and take his side.
Mr Prince was still standing there; Anthony could not imagine why.
“What is it?” Anthony asked. He wished to be alone to prepare. He needed quiet to calm himself, to gather his thoughts and rehearse his speeches — if he could figure out what on earth to say in this situation he had never anticipated. Where was his imagined softness of the weeks apart? He had not thought of her with heart-pounding fury then, only with longing and an ache in his bones. Yet, at first glance, he was once again set aflame.
Mr Prince looked him up and down, and Anthony considered the picture he must make, unkempt and cutting a figure entirely discordant with his station. He could see his hair in the mirror above the fireplace, as wild as it had ever been.
“If you don’t mind me asking, my lord…”
Anthony said nothing, and the innkeeper seemed to take this as permission.
“It’s been a fine day,” Mr. Prince continued. He smiled, gesturing at Anthony. His question seemed genuine, curious. “How did you come to be, well, wet?”
Anthony was suddenly struck by the absurdity of the situation. There was a twinkle in the older man’s eye, a wordless acknowledgement of the farce playing out in this drawing room that was infectious to Anthony. He might be a serious man but he was not entirely lacking in humour, and his awareness of the cold stickiness of damp linen against his skin was suddenly ludicrous, laughable, even to himself. He felt the faintest tug of a smile at the corner of his face, outside of his admittedly lacking control.
There was still a rolling simmer of annoyance, but it was directed at himself now – at his predicament and his frustration in not knowing how to respond. It was a simple question, but there was no simple answer – at least one that did not make him sound unhinged. It was also a question Kate herself might repeat. The answer was that he needed to see Miss Sharma, to the apparent exclusion of all rational thought. How would she take it? And how could anyone else understand?
Of course, he was under no obligation to explain himself, so he did not.
Mr Prince looked him over again, brows furrowed as he tried to put the pieces together and find sense when Anthony offered none. “My wife says you were aboard the Katharine,” he said, mouth frowning, eyes dancing. “But she’s sent a lad down to the docks to check, and it has set sail. Yet here you are – dripping like…” His eyes widened, bushy brows rising. “Well. Did you… no, you didn’t.”
Anthony could find no dignified reply and maintained his silence, which was confirmation enough for the man. Mr Prince howled with laughter, a great initial roar that dissolved into snorts and guffaws. Every time he tried to draw breath to speak, he was rocked again by mirth. His eyes shone with tears and his cheeks were turning the deep purple shade of the wine.
Embarrassment overrode humour in Anthony as soon as he was laughed at. Mr Prince was pressing at the very limits of Anthony’s endurance for gentlemanly behaviour. He felt that spark rise, opened his mouth to put this man back in his place. He might have hit him, except that it was far beneath his honour, and Kate was resident here. At all costs, he needed his hour with Kate.
“I’m sorry,” Mr Prince said, breathless and holding his side – just in time before Anthony’s honour snapped. Anthony wrestled down his fury for the sake of his dignity.
Mr Prince wiped sweat from his forehead. “Oh, lord forgive me. There’s plenty of comedy in a place like this, day in and day out, but that takes the cake. I’m going to – begging your pardon, my lord, I won’t use your name – but I’ll be telling this story for years.” A thought seemed to spark laughter again. “I’ll have to rename the inn – no longer The White Penguin, but The Dripping Lord!”
The dying tremors of laughter faded and Mr Prince clapped Anthony on the damp shoulder. “It’s the young lady, isn’t it? Well, you have my very best wishes for a happy ending, my lord.”
“Thank you,” Anthony said. He had meant it to be cold – humour he might have, but he would not tolerate being the butt of others’ jokes – but it wasn’t. “But first I require privacy.” The whole encounter had made it clear that his first priority should be to render himself respectable, to the best of his ability when he could not change his clothes, in order to avoid further laughter at his expense.
“Yes, very well, my lord.” The man looked around, nodding at the arrangements. “You have enough wine? And the fire is good enough? Very well.” He seemed to swallow back another chuckle before it could escape. “Please ring if you need anything.”
Anthony went back to work on himself.
Their table was beside the bar, along the short end of an L shape. Mrs Prince was serving there, producing drinks from barrels and ladling something from a steaming pot. Abigail and another maid were back and forth between the bar and patrons serving the inn’s fare.
Their little table was round and set for two, with two upholstered dining chairs facing each other and a small stove to the side against the wall, a low fire burning within. One chair faced only a small leaded window while the other had a view of the whole great room, busy with patrons eating and laughing on long benches or around a generous fire. Checking his watch, Anthony took the chair with the view of the room and summoned another bottle of wine.
It arrived just as Kate did, who was prompt to the hour with Newton on a lead. Anthony stood when he saw her emerge from the door to the stairs. It made him think of that intangible but very definite threshold in any good home, from the public to the private rooms of a house, and the intimacy one must have with a family to cross that boundary. He had crossed it today, without her permission, by going upstairs. He told himself it wasn’t a presumption. After all, he had been in her bedroom at Danbury House not once but twice, and with the knowledge and consent of her mama and the dowager.
All those thoughts of propriety were cut off when she met his eye. His stomach jolted. She had paused, surveying the room in search of him and their table. When their eyes met, she held his gaze for a too-long moment, until he bowed from the neck in greeting and the moment snapped.
She had changed for dinner into a violet silk gown with marigold embroidery, and had gold flashing at wrists and throat. She was the brightest thing in the room, and when he forced himself to look away he saw he was not the only man finding it difficult to avoid staring.
“Lord Bridgerton,” she said in greeting.
“Miss Sharma.” He pulled out her chair, then seated himself opposite. Newton yapped up at him from under the table. Anthony glared at the creature as Kate tried to get him to settle in front of the fire, but Newton fussed until he was held. Settled in her lap, head poking over the table, he growled at Anthony.
Anthony refused to squabble with a dog, especially when he could have a much more pleasurable disagreement with his mistress. The mutt was not menacing and Anthony would prevail in time. This was not the moment. He ignored the bloody thing and poured her wine.
“Newton,” Kate scolded as Newton growled again when Anthony reached over. “Hush.” But she was scratching the creature behind the ears, looking down at the dog rather than over at Anthony. She was smiling.
Despite all his attempts to think this meeting through, Anthony had no idea where to start. He took a sip of wine, trying to look collected as his mind tripped over itself in search of the right words.
Are you well, Miss Sharma?
How was your journey?
What the bloody hell are you doing here?
Why didn’t you say goodbye?
Her wine remained untouched with Newton occupying her hands. The silence between them was wary and uneasy, especially amongst the din of the great room. “Well?” she said at last, still scratching the dog but meeting Anthony’s eye.
“I am sorry,” he said. He hadn’t thought; it slipped out. “For startling you earlier.” It was as good a place as any, if he wished to win her.
“An apology? My, that is a surprise. Almost as great a surprise as seeing you, my lord.”
“You are not more surprised than me to find you here.”
She raised an eyebrow. Was he really competing with her over that?
“No. I admit— No, never mind.”
She paused and set Newton down on the ground, fussing over him. Bending that way, he could not properly see her face, and he ardently wished to know what she had been about to say. What was she about to admit? That this wasn’t her plan? He wouldn’t admit it either, although they were in the same boat. Well, he wasn’t in the boat – he had jumped off the boat and was wet, bereft and adrift in deeper, murkier water. Still, they had an infuriating amount in common and he opened his mouth to remind her so.
They were interrupted by Abigail arriving with dinner. She brought two steaming bowls of soup, a questionable beige-orange colour, each with a chunk of coarse brown bread.
They were silent as they unfolded napkins into their lap. Miss Sharma was looking over his shoulder at the leaded window. Anthony watched her while pretending to watch the room behind her. When Abigail left them, he picked up the spoon and dipped it in the soup, but he abandoned the meal before bringing the spoon to his mouth.
He wasn’t hungry.
Kate noticed that and frowned. She had a taste of the soup, then spoke as she brought the second spoonful to her lips, as if this were any dinner in Mayfair and they were making polite conversation. “How were your family when you left?
Anthony was on solid ground again. His answer was instinctual, ingrained. “Well enough, thank you. My mother in particular wanted me to convey her best wishes, as did your mama.”
Kate looked at him directly. Something turned over in his belly. “You saw Mama before you came away? And Edwina? Were they well?”
“I came upon them less than an hour after you set sail. They were both upset — Miss Edwina especially so.” Kate’s face fell. Anthony tripped over his words trying to reassure her. “But they were in good health.” It wasn’t enough. There was something in Kate’s eyes, their width, a glimmer that alluded to nascent tears. “They dined with us at Bridgerton House, the night before our departure, and were in better spirits then. They were very kind, in fact.”
Kate dropped her spoon. “Why do you sound surprised? Have they ever not been kind, even when they had every reason not to be?”
“That is not—”
“Do you find their manners as deficient as I still find yours?”
“Why are you at such pains to think ill of me? I meant no slight; indeed, I cannot comprehend how you perceived one. As I said, they were very kind, both of them, and went to some effort to assist me. I was – I am – grateful.”
Instead of barking back, Kate sipped her wine. Anthony mirrored her, and his wine had an aroma of victory.
“May we negotiate a ceasefire?” he asked. “Can we start again? We – I felt – parted on good terms in London, although—”
You didn’t say goodbye, he thought, but he couldn’t say that. He tied himself in knots trying to decide what to say, to draw her out without pushing her away. He couldn’t find anything to say that was humble enough without being insincere, but actually useful. After a moment, he realised he was thinking too much, too much inside his own head, and that thinking before he spoke wasn’t working for him. It was giving her the advantage, and he needed to avoid that at all costs.
He looked up and found Kate watching him.
Once again, the spark as their eyes met drove all the sense out of his head. All he could think of was her eyes, those long sweeping lashes, the way she had looked when they—
“Before, you said ‘our’ departure. You did not travel alone?”
Anthony paled. He had not thought of Colin for some time. He put his wine glass down before his shaking hand gave him away.
Too late.
“What’s the matter?” asked Kate.
“I sailed with my brother Colin.” Anthony floundered. How could he tell this tale so he sounded a hero from one of her stories, not a crazed lunatic? “He’s always had ambitions to travel the world and gave up his plans to return to Greece in favour of Bombay.”
“Is he upstairs?”
“No, he’s on the ship.”
His hands were shaking. He gripped them together under the table, heart pounding. He took out his watch and simply held it. He could hear the blood rushing in his ears. His soup remained untouched. At least his answer sounded reasonable enough, and it was not untrue. Before she could ask any more, as soon as he trusted his voice to be steady, he changed the subject. “Where were you today?”
“And why is that any of your business?”
“Because I am concerned about you.”
“Your concern is unnecessary. I am capable enough.”
“You weren’t walking Newton, the maid was. Were you unwell?” He gripped his hands together until he trusted them to stop shaking, then he reached for his wine again. He needed something to steady himself and wine was effective.
“I am well, as you see. I am not convinced you are. You are very pale… and damp. Are you ill? Is that why you are here?” Her eyes flashed again, a rapid study of his countenance, and Anthony looked away rather than get lost in them; he was adrift enough already. “Was the journey too much for you? It is nothing to be ashamed of, there are many who lack the stamina and perseverance for—
“I was not seasick!” He clutched at his watch, metal warming under his fingers. “Well, perhaps once in a great storm, but I got my sea legs quickly enough, thank you, and I am in good health. But you. Why are you here? You’ve been here four days, the clerk said.”
“How do you know that? Were you following me?”
“Of course I was! Why the bloody hell else would I be here? I’ve been following you since all of an hour after you set sail from London!”
“Then how—”
“We docked here today, and I asked after the Magdalene. It was public record, a clerk in the offices at the docks. That’s all, no great intrusion.” He still didn’t trust himself with the soup. “But why are you here, and not still en route to Bombay?”
“Unforeseen circumstances.” Kate looked away for a long moment, as if she were imagining herself away from here, and away from him. Newton fussed at her feet and she reached down to comfort him – and herself. Anthony picked up the spoon as if to eat, then dropped it again. Instead, he drank more wine.
“I intend to be on my way again as soon as possible,” Kate said, finally looking away from the window and back at him. She pushed the soup away as well. Neither had made much effort with their repast. “As much as I would be loath to continue the voyage with you , does your ship have a suitable berth for a lady? Or, while I would be sorry to disappoint your brother if you turned back to London here, perhaps I could have yours? As your mission is complete.”
“No,” Anthony said. “I don’t think—”
“I see. In that case, is there anything else, my lord? I am tired, and not hungry, so perhaps we could continue another time.” She rose to leave. Anthony scrambled to his feet too, part manners and part desperation.
“I have letters!” he said, grabbing for the first thing to keep her here. “For you, from your mother and sister. I—”
Kate stopped in her tracks and turned back to face him.
Anthony’s hand reached into his jacket pocket but, of course, they weren’t there. They were in the strongbox in his cabin; he merely had the key, while Colin had the documents.
He stumbled over air, catching himself on the table. He clutched at it with white fingers. He couldn’t hear anything, he couldn’t see, he could hardly breathe. He couldn’t speak if he wanted to. He felt dizzy; there were white stars in his vision. The room was spinning, his lungs were tight, his throat thick.
He had the key. Colin had the box. He was here, in The White Penguin. Colin was on the Katharine, rounding the cape and sailing on to Bombay. But he had the key, and Colin had the box. And he was here, and Colin—
“My lord?” Kate grabbed his arm. The electricity of her hand on his elbow brought his circular thoughts back into a line and he looked at her, still dumb. “What is the matter? Oh, never mind, sit down.” She manoeuvred him back into his chair and pressed the soft back of her gloveless hand against his forehead, frowning.
He had longed for her touch for endless weeks at sea, and for months before that, since the first moment he saw her in the park, but even the sensation of warm pressure against his face after weeks of dreaming could not entirely ground him in that moment. All he could focus on was the small bulge and weight of his coin purse in his pocket, much depleted by the little luxuries of the day, bread and cheese and wine and a wet shave, and the useless key beside it.
It was the key to his strongbox. His strongbox was in his cabin. Inside his strongbox were the letters of introduction, the bills of exchange, letters of credit, all his paper money and the rest of his coin. Every document that could prove who he was, every resource he could leverage in an unfamiliar place, was safely tucked away there, and it had likely rounded the cape and was sailing off to India as well as his younger brother.
“I left them on board the ship,” he said. He could only see the purple bodice of Kate’s dress level with his eyes. He could not have focussed to look up at her face if he tried.
“Very well.” He heard the scrape of a chair as Kate sat opposite him and raised a hand for service. “We will send a man to collect them, and I will wait with you while he does so. If you have other things to say then speak, and I may listen.”
“I–”
Anthony swallowed. He reached for the wine, but his glass was empty. He tried to pour, but it splashed over the rim as he shook. Kate arrested his hands and took the bottle from him.
“What is it?” she said. She poured and passed him the glass.
Anthony raised it as if to drain it half dry, anaesthetic against dawning horror, but… wine was expensive, wasn’t it? And this was his second bottle of the evening.
“Whatever is the matter?” Kate asked again. “You are truly ill, aren’t you? Do you need a doctor?”
“No, no,” Anthony said. His face was clammy and the head-to-toe dampness made him shiver. “No, it is just… Well… the ship has gone. Set sail.”
Kate frowned. “Without you?”
“Without me.”
“How did you manage that? Did they put you off the ship too?”
“No, not exactly, I—” Something sparked in his mind then. “Wait, did they put you off the ship? Why?”
“You first.”
Infuriating woman. “Kate.”
“Lord Bridgerton.” She looked as calm and collected as he had ever seen her, but there was concern in her brow. She was watching him closely.
Anthony forced himself to look back at her, to meet her eye, to read the truth of the matter. “Anthony, please,” he said. He did not want to be Lord Bridgerton for a moment. “Did they put you off the Magdalene?”
She was silent. She looked away.
“Tell me; it cannot—” It cannot be worse than what happened to me, he thought, but he could not provoke her if he wished to know. “Just tell me!”
“Then you will tell me?”
“Alright!”
Kate sighed, flicked her eyes up to the heavens, then looked down at Newton by the stove, belly up and content. “I was removed for the high crime of being a woman, alone.”
“Really? It wasn’t that you were sharp-tongued, exacting, exasperating?”
“No more than I’m sure you were – and you would have been respected for it.”
Anthony did not want to think of the Katharine and her men.
“Can I help? Can it be fixed?” he asked. Surely there must be something he could do.
“You could give me your berth – well, no, I suppose you can’t!”
She laughed then, and there was an edge to it, something hysterical. He felt it too – rising mirth, with absolutely no basis for humour, just the inability to do anything else but crack up in the face of disaster.
She wasn’t telling him everything. “What happened, Kate?” He looked at her hands resting on the table. As he was about to reach for them, she scooped Newton up into her lap and scratched him as she spoke.
“Nothing of note. They were uneasy with me since the moment I boarded, as a lady travelling alone. Every time I left my cabin, I was met with whispers and looks of suspicion. The men didn’t like me, the women didn’t trust me, the crew said I was bad luck. Then I was sick—”
“You were unwell?” He searched her face for hints of pallor or fever until his gaze settled on her lips, which had folded into a frown. Was that why she hadn’t been walking Newton? Was there something seriously amiss? Had she seen a doctor? Did she have the means to pay for one? Did he?
“Of course I was! Nor was I the only one. The first time, it was the Bay of Biscay! In a storm! Everyone was unwell.” Anthony suddenly understood. He nodded in sympathy. He felt his stomach roll just at the thought of that stretch of sea. “And then another great storm a week ago… But some foolish man took particular offence at my illness, or blamed me for the weather, and when we docked here to repair and resupply after the storm, my things were unloaded and I was invited to follow them without any opportunity to decline.”
There was quiet between them, punctuated only by a roar of laughter from rowdy guests in the great room behind.
“I’m sorry,” Anthony said quietly. “They returned your fare to you? You have sufficient means?”
“I need no help from you, my lord.”
“Anthony,” he repeated. “I didn’t say you did. But you do have the means to safely continue your journey, when the opportunity arises?”
“I do, yes. And I send messages daily to seek another berth, but I haven’t yet found one suitable. There was a ship sailing for London, but… Well, what would you have done if I had taken that?”
Anthony couldn’t imagine, and didn’t answer. What would he have done, if he had arrived in Bombay and there was no record of her? He would have simply gone mad; some of the hypothetical terror rocked him as he considered the prospect.
“And you?” she asked. “Were you bad luck?”
Anthony came back to himself. He picked up his wine, took a more measured sip. For how much longer could he afford such luxuries?
“Only to myself,” he said. “My departure was perhaps more sudden, but self-inflicted.”
Her brows came together. She frowned at him, and then her lips relaxed and her eyes widened.
“I saw Newton,” he explained further.
The bloody creature yapped at his name. Kate’s eyes were wide, mouth open and curling.
“On the shore. With Abigail.”
Her face folded itself into an expression of absolute joy. Her grip loosened on the dog and Newton leapt to the floor with another yap. “No…” she said, hardly noticing.
“We were already underway, but…”
She clapped her hand to her face, concealing her grin. Anthony longed for her smile’s restoration; it had been balm against feeling his own idiocy. Her eyes were sparkling; there were definitely tears brewing now.
“You didn’t wonder why I was wet?” Anthony asked.
“Well, you appeared to be washing!”
“Upstairs.”
“I—”
“Before you slammed the door in my face.”
“Yes, I did.” She paused, levity giving way to self-satisfaction at having done so. “Upstairs, I didn’t notice.”
Anthony had to defend himself. “It seemed an entirely rational thing to do.” He lifted a hand, exhibiting his sagging, damp shirt. “In the moment.”
There were still tears in her eyes, which were huge and dancing and fixed on him, and the golden string of physical longing tugged on him until the words just popped out and he reached to grab her bare hand where it lay on the table between them.
“Come home with me, Kate.”
Her joy was gone in an instant, extinguished like a flame, like a lantern dropped in the sea. She snatched her hand back, but he couldn’t apologise. He could still feel the ghost of her touch, as though that half a moment had seared him.
“Are you not homesick? Do you not miss your mama and Miss Edwina?”
Kate folded her hands in her lap under the table and out of his sight. “Those are not the same thing. I am not homesick for London because it is not my home. I do miss Mama and Edwina dreadfully, but this is the right path for me. I will visit them again, or perhaps they will visit me, and we will write, and—”
“But in London you can—”
Kate was firm. “In London, I can only be a vector for gossip and an albatross for my sister.”
“An albatross?” Anthony had no idea what she was talking about.
“Yes.”
What the bloody hell was an albatross? A bird, wasn’t it?
“It’s a poetry reference – and English poetry at that! Coleridge! Are you truly so illiterate?”
“Poetry is no occupation for an active gentleman.”
Kate rolled her eyes. “You are illiterate. Nevertheless, it is true. I will not be a burden to my sister, and I will not further blight her chances. It cannot be, my lord, so I will go home.”
“Anthony, please,” he corrected, one more time. “I–”
They were interrupted by Abigail’s return. She frowned down at them and their untouched soup. Anthony hadn’t touched it except to put the spoon in the bowl, and Kate had eaten less than half and fed most of the bread to Newton.
“You sure you don’t want a bit longer?” Abigail asked, biting her lip, but Anthony waved her off. The girl cleared the dinner things away. They were silent then, and Anthony looked out at the crowd in the great room. There were a few dozen patrons drinking and dining, their chatter a low hum that rose and fell in volume like a ship on the sea. Most of them were drinking tankards of ale, which would probably have been a better choice for his feather-light purse.
Anthony poured himself a little more of the wine; it was nearly gone.
“What are your plans when you reach India?”
“That is none of your business.”
“Why do you keep taking polite interest as some sort of attack?”
“Are you polite, or nosy? Or do you mean to try and stop me? Or do you not think I have a plan, or—”
“Of course you do! You always have a plan—”
“I do not need your input.”
“I know! Damn it, Kate, I’m asking because I care. Will you please just tell me what you intend so I know that you will be safe and well, as you neglected to do so before we parted?”
“It has always been the plan. Have you forgotten? I will return to India, I will be a governess, and I will be independent. If you remember, you even said that it was not far enough.”
“That was a long time ago.”
“It was less than four months.”
“Kate!”
She glared at him, and he sat back in his chair under its power. He made a conscious effort to calm himself, breathing deep and reaching for a neutral question to continue. His words were taut, but he forced politeness out between his teeth.
“Do you know where you’ll go?”
“I intend to call upon some old friends of my father, and I will find a position quickly enough.”
“Yes, you will.”
They were quiet again, apart from Newton fussing. Kate was looking over Anthony’s shoulder again, looking out the small window into the distant world.
“I wanted to— I looked for you,” Anthony said quietly. “At the Featherington ball. In the garden.” A movement in her shoulders told him she was listening, but she did not look at him. “But Lady Danbury said you had a headache. So I called the next morning. I was… I wanted to ask you to marry me. Again.”
He did not expect her response.
“Why?” she asked, turning sharply.
“What do you mean, why?”
That was a bloody stupid question. She didn’t enlighten him, so he continued. He thought back on every romantic word he had scribbled in two months, every variation on a proposal he had considered, discarded, worked and reworked.
“I want you to be my wife, my viscountess.” She looked at him then, and he met her eye and kept going. “If you had stayed, if you had come to say goodbye, if you had given me the opportunity to speak, I would have asked again.” He thought about how she felt in his arms, when they danced and during that one glorious night together. How he had intended to propose in the cold light of day, as she deserved. He never wanted to go another day without feeling as he had done that night, with her taste on his tongue and her breath in his ear, her hands on his chest and his heart in her hands. He never again wanted to fall asleep or wake up alone; he wanted to have the scent of her hair on his pillow, the softness of her skin against his. “How could I do anything else, after we…?”
He reached for her, but her hands were still folded out of reach. He let his rest on the table between them, framed by bottle and candle, light flickering over his skin.
“I see,” Kate said, and the coldness lanced at him. “No doubt you told anyone who would listen that you were coming after me to propose – a result of your impeccable honour, of course; your inexhaustible need to fix my reputation.”
“No! I told very few, and I told them—”
“Is your sense of duty so strong and so narrow that you must follow me halfway round the world in order to— Have you considered that you could live any other kind of life, as I have chosen to do? If you too, as you have publicly declared, view marriage as shackles—”
“So you would choose to be a teacher? To toil for a crust in a stranger’s house, thousands of miles from the people who love you, always a dependent, never the mistress of your own fate?”
“Oh, yes, because a wife – especially an English lady, a member of the ton – has the thinnest scintilla of a possibility of controlling their fate! Always at the mercy of a man – and most likely one who—"
“So you flee? You cannot possibly want this, this life of obscurity and dependence! How could that ever rival life as a viscountess, as my wife?”
“How dare you presume—” She stood, scraping her chair back over the flagstones and drawing the eye of every patron in the inn. The noise dropped to barely a murmur; silence reigned.
Anthony moved to stand, as any gentleman should when a lady rises from the table, but the fury of her glare paralysed him, knees bent and only half risen, peeping up at her from under his unkempt hair. Newton had slipped to the ground with a yelp as she stood and now whined pitifully at them both. Her fists were clenched and blood rushed to his cheeks.
“You claim to know me? You declare that you must know what I want, what I must feel. You— ugh! Go!” she declared, pointing to the door, her chest heaving. “Back to England, or to China, or to the moon for all I care! But leave me in peace.”
She turned in a swirl of violet silk and strode back towards the forbidden door to the guest corridor, Newton at her heels. She was gone in an instant, before Anthony had time to find any retort.
The slam of the door felled any fledgling thought.
He sat again, heavily, clattering the glasses as he knocked the table and reached for his wine. He was acutely conscious of being the centre of attention in this spat, but what did he care? Anthony noticed Mrs Prince watching, white-faced and thin-lipped from behind the bar, but that didn’t matter either. He was not wrong. He had done the honourable thing and all who had heard them must grasp it.
She had as good as refused him, again.
His glass was shaking. Wine splashed onto his hand. He set it down without tasting it. All his muscles and bones were heavy, being pulled down into the ground with yearning, but he felt the urge to move, to do. His body was as muddled as his head, and that was nothing compared to his heart.
He took out his watch to check the time. It was just past ten o’clock. He sighed as he put it away. What now?
Mrs Prince approached to loom over him, still lacking any colour in her face. “Ready to settle the bill, my lord, before you go?”
“I wish to speak to Miss Sharma again.”
“It seems she does not wish to speak to you, sir.”
“A moment,” he said, and she swept away with her nose upturned.
Anthony let his thoughts race. What had happened? She had not actually refused, as he had not actually asked, but he felt as though they were as far away as they had ever been, even during their mutual odyssey.
A few minutes later, it was Mr Prince who returned to settle with him. As the older man loomed over him, Anthony was again aware of so many eyes on this tableau. Mr Prince leaned closer to Anthony under the guise of gathering things to clear, although there were only a pair of spoons that Abigail had missed in addition to the wine and glasses. “Maybe give her a chance to cool down,” Mr Prince suggested. “Come back tomorrow, my lord?” Stepping away and at full volume, he quoted the price of the evening’s hospitality.
Anthony found himself paralysed again, feeling the wine roll in his stomach. He thought of the slight weight of the purse in his pocket. This dinner would cost more than half of it. But there was no question of not paying; what else could any gentleman, a man of honour, do?
He extracted the necessary coins and placed them in the innkeeper’s hands. He knew it was futile but asked anyway, “How much for a room for the night?”
“We’re full, my lord,” said Mr Prince, and there may have been some regret there, but Anthony suspected he was lying. Whether it was because he supposed Anthony could not afford it or because they did not trust him to behave like a gentleman towards a lady, he could not be sure. Either way, it stung.
Anthony drained the last of his glass. With polite thanks, a promise to return tomorrow, and a final glance at the closed door to the guest quarters, Anthony strode out into the night.
Masterpost | Next Chapter
