The Loves of Leopold Singer (2 page)

She and Mr. Baker discovered each other’s admirable qualities starting that night and continuing over the months thereafter. They discussed revolution versus civilization and the new natural style of poetry. It wasn’t long before she was in love with him. She never dreamed he’d return that love.

When Saturday came at last, Mama again eluded her maid’s watch. “Never mind, Fisher,” Susan said. Nothing could bother her today. She found her mama in the woods, leaning against the same ash tree. The older woman’s bonnet lay on the ground nearby, and her hair cascaded over her shoulders like a white-gold shawl.

“Did you see, Susan?” She accepted Susan’s arm without complaint. Mama had her quirks, but she was congenial. “The white lady came to me.”

“That’s very fine, Mama.” Susan sighed.

“This is her favorite tree, you know,” Mama said.

Susan used to fancy that her mama once belonged to the white lady’s retinue and had fallen in love with her papa—then came to regret staying in this world. But that was then. Susan was long past believing in fairies or special trees.

Excepting, perhaps, this tree. It had felt special enough when Morgan pressed her against its trunk.

“I might walk to the village after lunch,” Susan said.

Morgan lived at the Leopard & Grape, the inn in Carleson Peak. There’d be no harm if she happened to be in the square when the coach came in. No harm if they both happened to stop at Mr. Davies’s shop to inquire whether an ordered book was in the last shipment. No harm if their hands met reaching for the same volume on a shelf in the dark corner.

They’d already done so much more.

“I
will
walk to the village later.”

“You won’t find the white lady there.” Mama chuckled as if she’d told a wonderful joke, and Susan joined in the laugh for the joy of it.

She was in love! She loved Morgan Baker for his impudence—and his brilliance and his ambition and his industriousness. He wasn’t a gentleman, but that didn’t matter. He was a brilliant engineer with the audacity to improve his position through study and hard work. Things were changing in the world. Character meant far more than lineage.

At the cottage Papa’s curricle—well, the one he used from Millam Hall—pulled up to the front door. The hall was the country manor of the family’s benefactor, the Duke of Gohrum. John Gray had designed the duke’s canal and supervised its construction and now the improvements on the locks.

Papa wasn’t with the rig. Instead a footman handed Susan a note from the duke’s son, the Marquess of Millam. Miss Susan Gray’s presence was requested at the hall.

“What an honor,” Mama said.

Susan frowned. She’d never been invited to Millam Hall. “Has my…” She glanced at Mama. “Has someone been injured?”

“Not that I know of, miss,” the footman said. “But his lordship wanted me to say it is an urgent matter.”

The hall was a mere quarter mile walk, but after the long search through the woods Susan was glad for the ride. She was left in the library where she found a copy of the very Rousseau she and Morgan and Papa had recently discussed—and in French too. She made herself comfortable in a chair by the fire.

Papa, the gentleman, sympathized with Rousseau’s radical ideas about natural men while Morgan passionately defended the trappings of civilization. People never value what they have as highly as what they want, and Morgan wanted desperately to be accepted among the gentry.

His passion was admirable. He felt deeply about so many things, including about Susan. She smiled about her secret and fell into reading. After a while a dog barked at the door and a maid brought in tea.

The maid was agitated, and as Lord Millam appeared she knocked over a cup. She erupted in tears and fled the room, but Millie barely registered the outburst. It was wrong to think of the marquess as Millie, but that’s what Papa called him.

“My dear Miss Gray. Please sit down.” He avoided looking at her.

She remained standing. Despite the fire a chill shot through her bones. Her papa was hurt after all; she felt it. For weeks he’d worried about the boat lift.

“You must prepare yourself.” Millie’s eyes were swollen and red.

“If you please, my lord, just say the words. I can imagine far worse than the reality.”

“I am so sorry, Miss Gray. Little more than an hour ago, your father and mine were both found dead at the canal.”

Someone cried out. Was it Susan's voice? It was so far away. The world pressed in on her, crushing her lungs. Millie’s lips moved, but no words came out.

With a loud crack from a log on the fire, the world popped out again, sharp and clear. Millie’s shadow flickered against the wall. He seemed to expect her to faint, but she only sank into the chair.

“How?” She’d meant to ask if the lift mechanism had failed after all, but she couldn’t speak a complete sentence.

“Murdered.”

She gripped the chair’s carved wood arms.
Susan.
Papa’s voice sounded in her head:
Be useful as well as ornamental
. Use! Ornament! She could barely draw breath.

Millie sat down in the overstuffed chair beside her. He ran a hand through his brown hair and stared into the fire. “One believes there’s an abundance of days, one following upon another, stretched out to a far, far distant end.”

Susan made herself stand and pour out tea, as if going through the motions of a normal, mundane act would make everything normal and mundane again.

The marquess—no. The duke accepted the cup with a bewildered expression. “In the past when I looked into that distance, my wife was there with our son. Then they were gone, so sudden. Through everything, his grace was there. He’s so—he
was
so unyielding. It never occurred to me he could yield to death.”

“I understand,” Susan said, thinking of Papa. How could a man so solid, so true and good, die? “Where is he?” It didn’t make sense. “Where’s my father?” She had to see him or her brain wouldn’t accept it.

“Most of the men on the estate are searching for the fiends who did this foul deed. I sent two groomsmen with the dog cart to bring the…the bodies, but they should be a while yet.”

If the entire estate had rallied to the search—
Good lord. Mama
. “I must go. I must get home before...” Before her mama heard from someone else and slipped into madness completely.

“Of course. And your family must stay at the cottage until you can make arrangements.”

Arrangements. Yes. “You are very kind, my lord – I mean your grace.” Reality fell like a sudden downpour. Everything had changed. The murderers had killed more than Susan's papa. The family no longer had a claim on Millam Cottage.

The duke’s bottom lip quivered and a tear rolled down his cheek. Poor Millie. He’d been married once, but his wife and son had died of fever. He was alone now. At least Susan had her mother and little brother John—and Morgan.

Thank God for Morgan. She remembered to curtsy and left Millie staring into the fire.

The servants at Millam Cottage had heard news of the outrage, but Mama’s maid was reluctant to inform her.

“She’s resting so nicely, Miss Gray. I didn’t like to disturb her.”

“Quite right, Fisher. Don’t let anyone see her, and tell me when she awakes.”

Susan sent a quick note to Morgan at the inn. They weren’t formally engaged, but that hardly mattered in this circumstance. She hoped his coach would arrive on time.

Her next task was more daunting. She must write to her grandfather at Grayside in the north to tell him he had lost his only son. She’d met her relatives but once thirteen years ago, just before Papa began work on the Millam canal.

My dear Grandfather…

With great sorrow I write to inform you that my wonderful father, your son John Gray, has died.

The Grays were aghast at her parents’ marriage, and the visit had not gone well. Susan had liked her grandfather well enough. Even better, it turned out there were two cousins, a boy and a girl near Susan’s age. But the cousin’s papa was horrible. He’d said awful things about Mama. Susan had felt sorry for her cousin Lizzie, despite her grand house and fine clothes.

The estrangement seemed so trivial now. Lizzie would be nineteen, maybe married. Perhaps Susan and Morgan could visit Lizzie and her husband on their wedding trip and establish a friendship.

She listed her father’s achievements and assured her grandfather that John Gray was admired in the county and loved by all who knew him. She hoped in some small way it would mitigate the pain he must feel, knowing he’d forever lost the ability to reconcile with his son.

Perhaps that would make him more eager to see Susan’s brother, young John, now his heir. John and Mama would go to live at Grayside, and Susan’s uncle by marriage would have to accept it. That, at least, Susan could be glad of. John spent far too much time with the tenant farmers of Millam. Their grandfather would send him to a proper school and have him turned out as a proper gentleman.

She closed up the ink with a twinge of guilt. It was disloyal to Papa’s memory to second-guess his distrust of boarding schools. He’d educated her himself well enough, but she felt a boy needed more from education than the stuff found in books, the opportunity to meet other young fellows of his class. John would be a gentleman. He should learn how to act like one.

It was strange to be thinking of wedding trips, of renewing an acquaintance with her cousin, and now of John going to school and Mama comfortable at Grayside. In a way, Papa’s death had set Susan free.

***

Morgan didn’t come to the cottage that evening or the next day, and he didn’t answer her note. She saw him three days later at her father’s graveside. During the rector’s brief remarks, Morgan acknowledged her with an emotionless nod.

Afterwards, he tipped his hat to Mama and turned away from them.

“Mr. Baker.” Susan curtsied. Morgan’s curls fell forward, and she very nearly reached up to brush them out of his eyes. His coolness stopped her and sent a jolt of pain through her heart.

“Miss Gray.” He looked through her, as if his gaze found no purchase, as if he had never looked into her soul. As if they were strangers to each other. He nodded to her brother. “John. My condolences on your tragic loss.”

“Morgan.” Susan felt her face burn. But didn’t she have the right to speak his Christian name? “We’ve missed you the last few days.”

“Couldn’t be helped, I’m afraid. There is much to do at the locks.” He replaced his hat and nodded. “Well. Goodbye.” He walked away.

It made no sense. “Morgan!” She followed him, ignoring the stares and whispers from the gathered mourners. At the last gravestone, Morgan stopped. His impatience made her sick to her stomach. What was happening?

“Miss Gray.” He shifted his weight from foot to foot. “Is there some service I can render your poor family?”

“What’s wrong, Morgan? Why did you not come to see me?”

She followed his nervous glance to the navvies bunched together at the fresh grave, hats crushed in their work-worn hands and tears streaming down their faces. Mr. Davies from the bookshop not far from them with the rector. They quickly looked away, embarrassed.

Susan’s stomach turned again. They were embarrassed for
her
.

“Mr. Baker.” She couldn’t stop herself. “You were going to speak to my father.”

“But that’s all changed now, isn’t it? You have no father.”

“What…Morgan, what are you saying?”

“Nothing. We can have nothing to say to each other.” He stepped closer and lowered his voice. “I’ve considered my position carefully. I was bewitched by your strange gray eyes. But now I’ve come to my senses. I’ll not degrade myself with a…”

She steadied herself against the headstone.

“I wish you no harm,” he said. “I mean to say nothing about what passed between us. But neither will I be dragged into the gutter.”

With a lift in his step as if he’d survived battle with a dragon, he jumped into the curricle from Millam Hall, Papa’s curricle, and drove away toward the mansion.

The next afternoon a reply arrived to Susan’s letter to her grandfather, not written by the old gentleman but by her uncle. He sent no condolences, no words of comfort, no welcome to the new heir.