The Dress of the Season (5 page)

Chapter Six

“What do you mean, the bridge is impassable?”

Osterley put down his fork and knife, his appetite for kippers and eggs suddenly quelled. His coachman, wet to the gills, looked contrite as his hat dripped water onto the breakfast room floor.

“Not impassable, sir,” his coachman said.

“Oh. Good,” he breathed, unable to hide a sigh of relief. He didn’t realize he’d been holding his breath until that point. But thankfully, he would be able to disembark soon, even though the rain had not let up all night, and continued on now. In his mind, after last night’s disastrous supper with Felicity, he could not leave soon enough.

He simply did not understand her anymore. Could not understand why she would accuse him of being negligent like that. He had never been negligent of her in his life. If anything, since becoming her guardian, he had been too careful, too precise with her. Standing a step or two further away, making certain she was safe, but not becoming prey to her emotional whims.

It had hurt, when she said what she had.

He hadn’t expected to be hurt.

But no matter. The emotional outbursts of Felicity Grove would not be able to reach him in London. He would be safe there. Busy. He did have a great deal of work to attend to.

“It’s not impassable, no sir.” The coachman was shaking his head, rivulets of water spraying this way and that. “The bridge is clean gone!”

“Gone?”
Osterley exclaimed.

“Aye sir—the river got so high last night, it unset the keystone—the bridge washed clean away.”

Osterley turned the news over rapidly in his mind. There was no other way out of Croft Park—not when one had to take a carriage, due to the weather. He could take his horse to town and hire a gig there, he supposed, go through the fields to the north and cross the river at its narrowest point. But if the river was high enough to take out a bridge, it must be running very fast, and could likely take out his horse.

He could go to the west, but it was a good six miles, as the crow flies, until one reached a road, and if his horse hadn’t come down with a cold by then, Osterley knew he very well will have.

How was he going to sit in Parliament? What about the votes? He had investments to oversee, men to do business with! What about his other properties—they required rigid management, he had just managed to ease the burden of Croft Park and the village of Whitney from their rents, now he needed to be wily about how he put money back into them . . .

“That can’t be,” Osterley replied stubbornly.

“Afraid it is, though,” the coachman replied. As unhappy as his posture was, the older man could not hide the sparkle of relief in his eye when he said, “We shall have to set up here, until the weather calms. Then the bridge must be repaired.”

“And how long will that be?!”

But the coachman just shrugged, and bowed to excuse himself, to see to the unhitching of the horses.

Osterley plunked back down into his chair. He stayed that way for some time, staring at his rapidly congealing kippers and eggs.

He was stuck here. At Croft Park.

What was it that was setting his heart to flying, that had the tic at the corner of his mouth twitching? Was it that, without his clerks, without his club, without his work, he would be left with nothing to do? Or was it the company he was about to be stuck here with?

The Felicity of his childhood was always underfoot, always looking up to him with those large dark eyes, craving his time and attention. Even then he had felt the pull, the desire to simply give in. But it would never do.

As he sat there, his eggs cooling, the subject of his dark thoughts came tentatively into the breakfast room.

“Good morning,” she began, her voice careful. She was wearing a dress likely designed to make her look sweet, innocent, and young, he thought cruelly. And it did the trick, with light, airy layers of fabric and short little puffs of sleeves. There was more to it, of course—laces and ruffles and bands of ribbons—but the only thing he could think was that her skin looked like cream, her eyes like dark coffee, and that he knew he was unhappy with her, but was hard-pressed to remember why.

But then his eyes flicked to the window and the rain pounding down upon it. Yes, he remembered the cause of his sour mood quite clearly . . . and Felicity’s part in it.

“I doubt it could be described as good,” Osterley said flatly.

“Yes,” Felicity replied, moving to the sideboard to put a currant muffin and poached eggs on her plate. Indeed, Mrs. Smith had the cook prepare a vast repast for them—more than he’d ever seen prepared before. Although to be fair, he never asked for anything more than plain food . . . but those currant muffins looked quite fresh. Apparently Felicity had brought Mrs. Smith under her spell as well. “They told me about the bridge. It’s unfortunate.”

“Yes. Well, I would not worry overmuch. The house is large, and I have work to keep me busy. I’m sure we will be able to keep out of each other’s way.” Osterley nudged his plate back and stood. His congealed kippers and eggs would not sit well with this lump in his gut. Perhaps one of those currant muffins would be better. When he returned to the table, he found Felicity’s eyes on him, quizzical.

“I meant it was unfortunate that the bridge washed away, because it was as old as Croft Park itself. And beautiful.” She tilted her head to one side. “Why should you think I meant it was unfortunate you had to stay?”

“I . . . I don’t know.” He blinked. “I assume, given last night, that you will be glad to see the back of me. Regardless, it will only be a few days at most.”

“I, be glad to see the back of you?” A spark lit her eyes, as a corner of her mouth turned up in wry humor. “You, who were happy enough to sequester me in the country for an unspecified amount of time, and then light off back to London—” Felicity stopped herself abruptly, before she could escalate to a full rant. He almost smiled when he saw it . . . if the rant had not been directed at him, of course.

“No,” she began again once she calmed down. “I wanted to apologize for my temper last night. I was overwhelmed by the changes wrought in the past twenty-four hours and it made me irrational. I should not have laid blame at your door for something that had naught to do with you.”

Osterley found himself at a loss for words. He could only nod in acknowledgement of Felicity’s speech. He should be becoming accustomed to her by now—after all, they had spent the better part of two days in each other’s uninterrupted company. But it was not the innocence, the happy child, that he found most disconcerting. It was these moments of grace and maturity. At some point in the past four years, she had grown up, and he had not noticed.

Willfully. He had willfully not noticed.

“At any rate,” she continued, undaunted by his silence, “I should like us to be able to go on as friends. I may be here for some time, and you may be as well—”

“I told you, a few days at most,” he hastened to add.

“Fine, Harris, a few days at most.” She rolled her eyes at him, a smile coming to play on her face.

It was as if his heart stopped. His Christian name came from her lips to zip along his spine. She had said it once before in the past few days. In the dark of night, with confusion flitting over her face, as blood rushed to his groin. Now, it rolled off her tongue accidentally, as if they were young again, and she the annoying little girl who trailed after him and her brother. But she did not seem to realize that she had said it, because she continued on.

“But while we are stuck here together, shouldn’t we be able to tolerate each other’s company? When we run across each other, in the vastness of the house, that is?”

She was teasing him, he realized. Teasing him over the distance he was trying to put between them. But if he was being teased, why wasn’t he cross about it? Why did he feel the twitch at the corner of his mouth easing?

And why did he hear himself responding, in an equally teasing tone, “Alright. Perhaps we can aim for civility. When we run across each other in the house, that is.”

“Excellent,” Felicity replied. “So. We are friends, then?”

“Yes,” he agreed, taking a bite of the currant muffin, as he felt the lump in his stomach subside. Must be the muffin. It could have nothing to do with how Felicity was smiling at him. “We are friends.”

*  *  *

While Harris had agreed to be friendly with Felicity, he had not, in reality, intended to spend that much time in her company. After all, there was much to do at Croft Park. Almost as much as there was for him to do in London.

Except—the rain made it virtually impossible to accomplish anything.

He composed a notice to hire workers to repair the bridge as soon as the rain stopped, but he could not in good conscience send a footman or a stable lad to Whitney with the posting. The rain too hard, the river too high, and just as impassable for them as it was for him. He could have gone over the many small things that required maintenance and repair at Croft Park with the estate’s steward. But they could not very well ride out and inspect grazing fields for sheep, or the tenant’s cottage that needed a new heating stove—nor could they place the order for one (due once again to the impassable river).

He could compose letters, but they could not be sent. He could take stock of the political on-dits via the newspaper . . . if one could be delivered. Thus, for the first time in over four years, Harris found himself with absolutely nothing that he could do, and no one to converse with.

No one, that is, except for Felicity.

Not that he would seek her out, of course.

No, a good book. That was what he required. Perhaps one of his father’s records of irrigation practices used in the last twenty years. That would make proper use of the time. But when he ventured into his father’s library, it was inevitable that he would find her curled up in one of his father’s large leather chairs. One of the few pieces of furniture that was permitted to survive the epidemic, mostly because it had survived nearly two hundred years before it.

He should have known that she would be in here. Not because she had a great love of reading—although she was nose deep in the book she was engrossed in—but because there was no escaping her. In London, they maintained separate lives, by his design. Even when they were both under the same roof in Berkeley Square, she was never underfoot, because he could always step outside. Here, even though Croft Park was larger by acres, meeting her was inevitable.

She did not look up when he entered, so unblinking was her concentration.

“Felicity, do you require spectacles?” he asked abruptly.

She jolted out of her reverie. “What? Oh, hello.” She blinked at him. “How goes your morning?”

“It’s afternoon,” he replied. “And you did not answer my question.”

“What question?”

“Do you require spectacles?” He sighed, gesturing toward the book she clutched to her breast. “Your nose was practically touching the pages.”

“Oh! No. At least, I don’t believe I need spectacles.” Then, with glint in her eye, she squinted at him obviously. “Who are you again? I’m afraid I cannot make you out from the doorway.”

“Very funny,” he replied. She was joking. At least he hoped she was joking. He was gratified when he saw her break into a smile.

“I was simply invested in the story. It is utterly delicious! Have you read it?”

She held out the book for him to see the title. It was a sensational novel, one that she must have brought with her from London, because he knew that his father’s library did not contain such tomes.

“I have not,” he replied.

“No? You simply must try it!” she squeaked, thrusting the book into his hands. “It’s brilliant—there’s a count, and he has this poor young girl trapped in a crumbling old house—”

“Trying to tell me something, Felicity?” he drawled, taking the book from her.

“What? Oh no, don’t be ridiculous.” She waved her hand at him, then brought one finger to her mouth, pensive. “Although now that I think about it, there are some rather obvious corollaries . . .”

He cleared his throat at her. She obliged him by not pursuing that line of thought.

“At any rate, it’s a ripping good read. You should try it. I’ve already read it once.” She smiled at him, putting her arms around her knees, curling up into a little ball of quizzical looks and massive brown eyes.

“I did not think you one for reading over much.”
Let alone the same book twice.

Her eyes flitted to the window. “A last resort. On days like this, one has little choice. Besides, now you are here, and you can read it, and we can have a lovely discussion over dinner about the merits of kidnapping and swooning in old gothic houses.”

A discussion? Harris wrinkled his nose. “The last time I tried to discuss something I read with you, you told me it was dry.”

“Well, yes, parliamentary acts can be quite dry, especially to a seventeen-year-old,” she countered. “But if you had given me a copy, I would have read it, and might have been able to carry on a decent conversation with you.”

“But why would I have done that?”

She gave him a pitying shrug. “So we could have something in common?”

“But you were never interested in it.”

“No, you assumed I wasn’t interested. I would have been interested in anything you found interesting.” She nodded toward the book he still held in his hand. “Perhaps you will find this dry and uninteresting. But you never know until you try.”

He looked at the red leather binding, the gilt lettering. “Ah . . . thank you, no. I don’t have time to read novels.” He held the book back out to her. But she refused to take it.

“Really? What else do you have to do?”

“I’m . . .” He thought about all those letters he had written that could not be delivered. The property inspections he could not do in the rain. He was well and truly not doing anything. Hadn’t he wandered into the library, looking for twenty-year-old agricultural reports to read? Or . . . had he wandered into the library because he overheard Mrs. Smith mention to an underbutler that Miss Grove was in here?