The Oak Leaves (20 page)

28

I have always been an early riser. When the sun brightens the horizon something in me wakes. Beryl and Christabelle, and even Lady Hamilton, have no such malady. They have told me when I become more accustomed to London society I shall put aside this habit, since so many of the parties we attend last well into the night.

So far, my awakening time remains fixed, whether I like it or not. I often read or write in my journal in the upstairs parlor, well before breakfast. But today I was joined unexpectedly early by Lord and Lady Hamilton, who arrived together. . . .

“Good morning,” Cosima greeted Lord and Lady Hamilton. Lady Hamilton often sat with her husband before he left for the day, only to return to her own bedroom once he was gone. To Cosima, knowing Lady Hamilton would rather stay abed yet shared his company at such an early hour was another sign of her devotion to him.

But the somber look on the faces of both warned Cosima that this was not a normal morning.

Cosima stood. “I don’t mean to be in the way. I shall come back later, when the girls are up and about.”

“No, Cosima, you may stay,” said Lord Hamilton. “There’s no reason we shouldn’t speak to you first about our plans, since they affect you as well.”

“Plans?”

Lady Hamilton approached, reaching for Cosima’s hand but then awkwardly pulling back before touching her. Instead she motioned Cosima back toward the settee she’d just abandoned.

“The parliamentary session doesn’t end for another week,” Lady Hamilton said. “Normally we don’t return to our country estate until after that, but Lord Hamilton has decided to send us to the country a bit early.”

Cosima looked from Lady to Lord Hamilton and then back again. “Is anything wrong?”

Lord Hamilton cleared his throat. “There’s been a rather nasty outbreak of cholera here in the city. Now there’s nothing unusual in the disease; it happens every year. But this year it’s especially prevalent, and I don’t want any of you exposed.”

“We should like to extend the invitation for you to accompany us, Cosima,” Lady Hamilton said, but her tone was hesitant, ambivalent. “Only we’re uncertain as to what is best for you. With Reginald here in London and your plans still undecided, we wondered if perhaps you would rather stay behind and transfer residence to your grandmother’s home.”

Thoughts clicked through Cosima’s mind one after another. Leave London or live with her dour grandmother? If she no longer lived with the Hamiltons, there would be no chance of seeing Peter again.

At Cosima’s lingering silence, Lady Hamilton spoke again. “We’re quite certain your grandmother would be pleased to have you spend time with her. She said as much to Lord Hamilton last night.”

Surprised, Cosima eyed Lady Hamilton’s face. Though she was smiling, there was something different about her today, as if for some reason she had a sense of sympathy in the reserved glances directed Cosima’s way.

“And they’re planning to stay in London until the end of sessions?”

“Lady Merit is, and the duke of course. I’m not sure if she’s sending any of the family home sooner than next week. Perhaps in that time you and Reginald can determine what your future will hold.”

Cosima clasped her hands together in an attempt to keep them steady upon her lap. “When will you be leaving?”

“As soon as the girls and I can be packed.”

Cosima raised her gaze to Lady Hamilton, trying to read meaning into the words and tone and expression. It seemed there was more, and yet Cosima had no idea what it could be. “You think it best for me to go to my grandmother’s then?”

Lady Hamilton exchanged glances with her husband, who remained silent. “Yes, dear, we do.”

To her own horror Cosima felt her eyes dampen and sting. Hurriedly she brushed away a fallen tear. “I shall miss Beryl.” She felt as if she were being sent away, even though she knew it was silly.

Lady Hamilton sat beside Cosima and drew her close. The simple gesture invoked more tears, for a moment ago it had seemed as if Lady Hamilton did not even want to touch her. “But you shall still see Beryl! I’ve seen your friendship grow, and it’s warmed my heart.” Her voice shook and Cosima looked up, wondering at the extent of Lady Hamilton’s distress.

Lord Hamilton cleared his throat, and Cosima felt Lady Hamilton stiffen and pull away. She stood beside Lord Hamilton.

Cosima gripped the lace of her gown, wishing she had a handkerchief. She forced herself to her feet. “I shall summon my maid and begin my own packing, then.” Another tear fell even as she offered a quavery smile. “My grandmother was expecting me this afternoon. Only I didn’t know my visit would be with bag and baggage as well.”

* * *

An hour later, with Millie beside her and her trunks half full, Cosima heard a loud tap at the door. Before Millie reached it, Beryl pushed the door wide, a look of alarm lighting her brown eyes.

“Mother told me,” she said, putting her hands on her hips and surveying the disarray in the room. “This is not acceptable, simply not acceptable.” She took two strides closer to Cosima, who stood beside a large trunk with a folded nightgown in her arms.

Beryl’s face was flushed. “You can’t mean to move in with that old . . . well, your grandmother! She’s . . . she’s . . . oh, I can’t say a word without sinning.” Taking the gown from Cosima and placing it carelessly on the bed, Beryl put her hands on the trunk as if to close it. “Why would you want to go and live with her when you could come to Hamilton Hall with us?”

Cosima retrieved the discarded nightgown and refolded it. She couldn’t look at Beryl. “It seemed the most logical option, as your mother presented it to me.”

“Mother is acting so strangely today, but I know her, Cosima. I know she cares for you like another daughter. I’m sure she doesn’t really want you to leave us. Perhaps she’s only following an order from the dowager.”

Cosima shrugged. “If that’s the case, all the more reason I should go to the Escotts. I’ve disappointed my grandmother enough without refusing to live there if she expects it of me.”

Beryl plopped down on the chaise longue near the unlit firebox. “This is unacceptable.”

“You’re leaving London only a week early, Beryl,” Cosima reminded her. “Things would have changed then anyway.”

“Yes, but only to the extent of where we were all living.” She leaned forward. “You’re like a sister to me now, Cosima. Closer than that, since Christabelle and I don’t see things half as similarly as you and I. And besides . . .”

Cosima faced Beryl. “Besides what? You had plans for me? With your brother?”

Beryl stood, nodding and looking thoroughly self-assured. “Yes, that’s right.” She glanced from Cosima to Millie in what looked like a brief moment of uncertainty, then back at Cosima. “And I’ll say it in front of your maid, too. I don’t care who knows. You and Peter are right for each other, Cosima. I knew it the first day I met you. And you know. So does Peter. If you leave our family now, how will that ever progress?”

Cosima grabbed Beryl’s hands and squeezed them in her own. “Oh, Beryl, Beryl, it isn’t meant to! There’s nothing between your brother and me except what your imagination has conjured.”

Impulsively, she gave Beryl a hug, knowing an added benefit of such closeness was that Beryl could no longer see into Cosima’s eyes. It wouldn’t do to have her friend suspect with one look that every word Cosima spoke was a lie. “It’s better this way, Berrie. I’m sure we’ll be able to visit back and forth, especially once Reginald and I wed . . . if we do. You shall be my favorite houseguest.”

Beryl pulled away. “At this moment my own maid is packing my bags too. Oh, it’s all such a mess.”

“But you’ve seen how little time he’s spent around me most of the summer.”

“Yes, avoiding you because you’re supposed to marry his best friend. He’s too loyal to Reginald to do anything about it until you give him a reason. And you must, Cosima. Before Reginald sets a date, now that you’re on good terms with your grandmother and even considering living with her.”

“What do you mean by that?”

“Oh, posh, Cosima. Anyone who knows Reginald doesn’t have to wonder long what his real motives are for marrying you. Not that he mustn’t be fond of you, because frankly, who wouldn’t be? But he has an ulterior motive: to gain the attention and acceptance of the aristocracy. Who can help him better than the dowager? One nod from her and you’re on everyone’s guest list.”

Cosima felt her knees wobble, and she sank to the chaise Beryl had vacated moments ago. None of this came as a surprise to her, of course, but the fact that Beryl knew Reginald’s plans as intimately as Cosima did came as a surprise.

“I must be quite the pity of everyone who knows us, mustn’t I?” Cosima whispered. “To be used in such a way.”

“Oh, for heaven’s sake,” Beryl said, nearing Cosima. “No one thinks anything of it because it happens every day. But it doesn’t have to be that way for you. Peter is obviously interested, and if you would only give him a word of encouragement, I’m sure he’d speak to Reginald, and Reginald would be the gentleman and excuse himself.”

Cosima shook her head, returning to her packing.

“I don’t see why you won’t follow your heart,” Beryl said sullenly.

Cosima watched her friend leave, feeling as bereft as Beryl looked.

29

Talie placed Ben in his favorite chair, the one that spun around but stayed safely in the same spot. She held out a toy for him, but he didn’t reach for it. She smiled and called his name, but he ignored her. He started spinning.

She turned at the sound of the garage door opening, and a few moments later Luke announced his homecoming with a good imitation of Jimmy Durante.

But Talie wasn’t in the mood for charm, either Luke’s or the long-deceased Mr. Durante’s. Since receiving the diagnosis of autism, Luke’s mood had been steady and unflappable. Talie couldn’t understand him. Why wasn’t he worried? How was he able to function, to work, to create office buildings, homes, and skyscrapers just like he always had before?

She suspected he somehow still hoped Ben would outgrow his delays. They’d had the blood drawn at the hospital as the doctor had recommended, but they hadn’t gotten any results yet. She hadn’t made an appointment for a second opinion and wondered if Luke didn’t push doing that because he wanted to believe the first doctor’s opinion had been wrong. Why risk seeing another doctor who might tell them the same thing?

Though Talie longed to cling to such hopes too, she couldn’t. Not anymore. She had to tell him the truth. And she had to do it now.

Instead of a greeting, instead of their customary kiss, Talie stopped short in front of Luke. “I need to tell you something, Luke. Something I’ve been keeping from you.”

She turned from him to the kitchen table nearby, where the journal now sat. She had tried hiding it away like a secret, pushing it to the back of her bedroom closet and pulling it out only now and then. But it haunted her all along.

She’d been ignoring the journal for what it was. The call back she didn’t want it to be.

She faced Luke with the book in hand. “It’s about my family, and it’s all in here.”

“Isn’t that the journal from the box?” Luke looked curiously confused, but not nearly as concerned as he ought to be.

How implicitly he trusted her. Surely nothing she’d kept hidden could be all that important.

Confirmation of that assessment came when Luke’s calm gaze left her for the mail, off to the side of the kitchen table. He might even have reached for it, but Talie placed herself in his line of vision.

“They used to call it a curse. Today it’s genetics.”

A full two seconds went by before Luke looked at Talie. “What did you say?” He sounded more baffled than alarmed, so she knew her point still hadn’t been made.

“Here,” she said, pushing Grandmother Cosima’s writings at him. “Read it for yourself. And then tell me our son isn’t just like Royboy . . . and Willie and Percy. . . .”

Then she fled the room in tears.

30

How is it, Lord, that the curse I thought I could bear seems too heavy a burden? I have never pleaded with You to remove it . . . until now.

I fear that I am being sent away for some reason I cannot fathom. I try to assure myself that everything Lord and Lady Hamilton said this morning makes perfect sense. But it does nothing to change my mood. Servants have arrived to take my trunks to the carriage awaiting me and Millie. I must say my good-byes momentarily, particularly to dear Beryl and Christabelle.

And yet, even in the midst of knowing I have no hope for love, I would not say I would have been better off had I never left Ireland. . . .

“Oh, Cosima!” cried Christabelle, stepping forward to pull Cosima into a hug. “I feel as though I’m losing a sister.”

Cosima squeezed Christabelle.

Beryl joined their hug, and no one seemed to care there were servants around to witness Cosima’s undignified and tearful departure. Lord and Lady Hamilton were not there to bid caution.

With Cosima’s arm looped through Beryl’s, they made their way outside.

“I don’t know what’s come over Mother. She’s not even here to say good-bye.”

“I’ve left a note expressing my gratitude for your parents’ generosity in keeping me so long,” Cosima said. “It doesn’t seem enough.”

“It’s more than enough, if you ask me,” Beryl said with an irritated edge.

“Berrie, ’tis no fault of your mother’s that I should spend time at my grandmother’s,” Cosima whispered.

Beryl nodded just as a tear slipped down her cheek.

A footman helped Millie into the carriage first, and after one last embrace from Beryl, Cosima followed. She waved, forcing a smile to her face as the carriage rolled down the lane.

Cosima settled back, her heart so heavy she could barely breathe. Just as the carriage approached the gate leading to the public street, it halted. Cosima leaned out again to see the last trace of Beryl and Christabelle then looked ahead to see the cause of their unexpected stop. Nothing seemed amiss, but she heard voices from the opposite side.

The footman alighted from the rear of the carriage, and she saw him pass toward the front. Cosima barely had time to exchange puzzled looks with Millie before seeing that same footman lead a horse around to the back of the carriage, where it sounded as though the horse was being tethered.

Then the door opened, not by the footman but by Lord Peter.

“The driver tells me you’re going to your grandmother’s,” he said as the carriage jostled to accept his weight. A moment later he was in the seat beside her. “And I can see from the trunks atop that you plan to stay.”

Throat instantly dry, hands atremble, Cosima wondered if she could speak. “Have your parents not spoken to you?”

“They mentioned something about returning early to the country—well, neither Father nor I would do so until the session ends—but I assumed you would be accompanying my mother and sisters.”

The carriage lurched forward again, much to Cosima’s surprise. Did Lord Peter plan to accompany them to her grandmother’s, then? Her heart had not found its usual place since the moment he’d opened the door, and now it bounced a bit faster. She cast a quick glance toward Millie, ever the dutiful servant, who looked out the window, pretending for the moment she didn’t exist.

“Since my plans . . . with Reginald . . . are still uncertain and he resides here in London, it was decided I should stay with my grandmother for the time being. She expressed an interest in spending more time with me.”

Cosima looked away from Peter’s gaze. If she allowed herself to glance at him more than the briefest, most polite moment, she might not be able to look away.

“Why is it, I wonder,” he said, and suddenly his voice was lower, more intimate, “that those plans with Reginald are still unsettled?”

She clasped her hands tighter together, feeling the tremble that had been confined there threaten to spread throughout her body. “I . . . cannot say, milord.”

“I can.” Peter leaned back on the seat, farther away from her. “But I won’t.”

They rode in silence, and Cosima wondered at his presence. All summer he had avoided her, and now he sat beside her as if it were his rightful place. Myriad thoughts shot through Cosima’s mind like lightning bolts, electrified with emotion. What would he have said if he’d chosen to speak of her uncertain plans with Reginald? Was he disappointed she would no longer reside with his family? Did he regret spending so much time away now that it appeared they would have no further opportunity to spend time together?

The carriage slowed at a corner, and Peter rapped on the roof for the driver to stop. He extended his hand, and Cosima slipped her palm into his. “I bid you farewell, then, milady,” he said cordially, barely looking at her.

Cosima couldn’t help herself. With his hand so strong and firm around hers, every ounce of sense evaporated. She clung to his warm palm as no lady should, even when he began to pull away.

Peter did not miss the simple movement, subtle yet obvious. His gaze rose immediately to hers and fastened steadily.

Cosima lost all courage. She looked away.

Peter still held her hand in his, but with his free hand he touched her chin, tipping her face toward him so she had little choice but to look at him. If he searched, she knew she couldn’t hide her feelings for him.

“Cosima,” he whispered.

She’d never loved her own name so much as hearing him say it. With all her being she wanted to feel his arms around her. Little did she care that Millie, with her outward effort to blend in with the upholstery, could see all that Cosima desired to do.

But she couldn’t. She mustn’t. It wasn’t Reginald that Cosima thought of just then. She thought of Royboy. And Percy. And Willie.

And she knew she couldn’t give such sons to Peter . . . or maybe she couldn’t give them to herself. Not for Peter.

Stiffening, she averted her gaze as she pulled her hand free. “Good-bye, Lord Peter.” Her throat felt so tight the words were barely audible.

Peter seemed as attuned to the language of her movements as to anything verbal. As quickly as he’d discerned her reluctance to have him depart, he must have perceived her sudden rigidity.

He lowered the hand she’d let go, then left the carriage.

Cosima closed her eyes. She heard the footman untie the horse from the rear of the carriage. Not a word was exchanged between lord and servant. All she heard were hoofbeats carrying Peter away.

* * *

Although her grandmother’s town house was as comfortable as the Hamilton city estate, Cosima immediately missed the Hamiltons. All of them.

After her bags were settled and Millie assigned to unpack, Cosima shared the afternoon with her grandmother, listening to the Escott military lineage. Dowager Merit talked of kings and queens, British Whigs and Tories, Chartists and revolutions, mingling family history throughout Britain’s.

Cosima tried to keep the information straight but found her mind wandering more than once. She wondered if Peter would be safe in the city, if there really was an unusually high incidence of cholera this year. She wondered if he would spend more time at home now that she was not there anymore. When would he join his mother and sisters in the country? The town house would be quiet with only a few servants and the two Lord Hamiltons in residence. She wondered if Peter would miss his family . . . if he would miss her.

She knew it was foolish to allow herself such feelings but was powerless to change the way her heart behaved. She supposed she would stop caring for Peter someday. After all, if she married Reginald, she must squelch such feelings for anyone but her husband. She would be the dutiful wife, and maybe, if she prayed very hard and acted like the loving wife she ought to become, her heart would follow in due course.

If she didn’t marry Reginald, she would return to Ireland unwed. She would continue with her plans to convert the Irish Escott Manor into a school. Surely that was a far more valuable future than marriage and this endless social circle Reginald seemed so eager to join.

Reginald was expected to dinner on Friday night. He had respectfully waited for an invitation from the dowager, and now that he had it Cosima believed his proposal would soon be forthcoming.

Although the dinner was not expected to be as formal without the entire extended Escott family in attendance, the next evening Cosima chose her gown carefully: pure white with a single vine of roses embroidered from the waist across the front of the skirt.

To her surprise, Reginald was already in the drawing room when she came down, along with Lord and Lady Escott.

Cosima always marveled how warm were Lord and Lady Escott when Dowager Merit wasn’t in the same room. They chatted for a few minutes, and Cosima found herself enjoying their company. While Lord John was a bit quiet, often when he spoke—or instantly when he laughed—he reminded Cosima of her father. She told him so, and when he looked at her with a frown, she regretted having mentioned it.

Soon the dowager joined them, and Cosima successfully survived the evening without causing a single outward frown upon the dowager’s face.

But Cosima was not only exhausted after having carefully chosen each word and move; she was relieved when Reginald prepared to leave. She longed to return to the privacy of her room, let her thoughts be her own instead of a slave to the rules of Dowager Merit.

When she bid Reginald good evening, however, he lingered over his polite farewell. “Will you see me to the foyer, Cosima?”

She looked to her grandmother, who gave a tacit nod of approval.

“See that you’re not alone,” the dowager said. “Let the footman tarry.”

At the door, the footman with Reginald’s top hat and gloves stood at the ready.

“I want to be sure you’re aware of the upcoming Hamilton garden party and ball.”

Unbidden, undeniable hope rose in Cosima’s breast. She hadn’t seen an invitation. “When?”

“In two weeks’ time,” Reginald said. “Peter leaves tomorrow to join his mother and sisters, and I may go along for a few days then come back in time to escort you. Their party is one of the highlights of country life, and they invite everyone.”

“Oh! I do miss them.” She smiled at Reginald. “Thank you, Reginald, for letting me know about the party so I may look forward to it.”

He kissed the palm of her hand and sent her his most charming smile. “It’s the least I could do for all concerned.”

He took his leave, and Cosima found her way back up to her room, considerably happier than when she’d left it earlier.

Two weeks. Two weeks until she would see Peter again.