He had told her, in so many words, that he would go back there tomorrow. If she was wise, she would barricade herself inside her house tomorrow and every day thereafter until he was long gone from Gloucestershire.
Would she be foolish enough go back?
Would he?
There had been sunshine and springtime and daffodils all about her. . . .
“Flave.” The voice spoke softly.
“Huh?”
“I am sorry to wake you,” Vincent said. “I could tell from your breathing that you were sleeping. But it seemed ill-mannered to leave you alone here without a word.”
He had been sleeping?
“I must have d-dozed off,” he said. “R-Rude of me.”
“You did ask for a lullaby,” Vincent reminded him. “I must have played it better than I thought. I expect Sophie has gone to the lake by now. I should join her and the others there, but I am going to steal half an hour or so in the nursery instead. I don’t suppose you would care to come with me?”
Flavian was comfortable where he was. The cat was warm and relaxed on his lap. He could easily nod off again. He had not slept much, if at all, last night. But Vince wanted to show off his infant. He would not say it in so many words, of course. He knew very well that infants bored most men.
“Why ever not?” Flavian said, sitting up while the cat got to his feet, jumped down from the sofa, and went to stand by the door, its back arched, its tail pointing straight at the heavens. “Does he look like you?”
“I have been told he does.” Vincent grinned. “But, if memory serves me correctly, babies look simply like babies.”
“L-lead on, Macduff,” Flavian said, cheerfully misquoting.
And who would have imagined, he thought later, that he would spend a good hour of this particular morning, which he had started in such a . . . savage mood, in the nursery with a baby who looked like a baby and with the child’s father, who behaved toward his son for all the world as if he were besotted? And that Flavian would actually feel soothed by the experience? And that he would read through two children’s books written by Mr. and Mrs. Hunt—Vincent himself and his wife—and illustrated by the latter? And that he would chuckle over the stories and pictures with genuine delight?
“These books are p-priceless, Vince,” he said. “And there are more to come, are there? Whatever gave you the idea of having them published? And how did you go about it?”
“It was Sophie’s idea,” Vincent told him. “Or, rather, it was Mrs. Keeping’s. Have you met her? She is the sister of Miss Debbins, our music teacher. She and Sophie are as thick as thieves. Mrs. Keeping took one look at the first story, which Sophie had written out and illustrated, and remembered that she had a cousin—her late husband’s cousin, actually—in London who she thought would like it. She sent it to him, and it turned out that he is a publisher and did indeed like what he saw and wanted more. So we are famous authors, and you really ought to bow down in homage before us, Flave. He wanted to publish the stories under just my name—Mr. Hunt—to protect Sophie’s sensibilities. Can you imagine anything more asinine?”
Yes, Flavian thought. Yes, he had met Mrs. Keeping three times. Once at the ball last October, once on the village street two days ago, once in the daffodil meadow beyond the cedars this morning. And he had kissed her, dash it all.
“I have j-just salaamed three times,” he lied. “It is a pity you couldn’t s-see me, Vince. I looked suitably worshipful.”
“You were on your knees when you did it, I hope,” Vincent said, his hand stroking over the almost bald fair head of his son.
He would not go back tomorrow, Flavian decided as he turned to the window to watch Ben make his slow, ungainly way up from the lake with the aid of his canes, the viscountess beside him, while Lady Harper walked ahead of them with Hugo’s wife. Ben was laughing at something Lady Darleigh was saying, and the ladies were looking back, smiles on their faces, to discover what the joke was.
Everyone at this particular gathering was so damnably happy.
Len had been dead for a year, and they had not spoken in more than six years before that. They never would now. Velma had been left with a daughter and was returning home to Farthings.
Mrs. Keeping had laughed when he told her he was going to write a sonnet about meeting her among the daffodils.
She should always laugh.
* * *
Sophia came calling during the afternoon, Viscount Darleigh with her, as well as Lord and Lady Trentham and Lady Barclay.
Lord Trentham was a fierce-looking giant of a man, his wife a small, exquisitely pretty lady who smiled a great deal and was warmly charming. It seemed odd, considering the fact that he was one of the Survivors, that it was she who walked with a heavy limp. Lady Barclay was the one female member of the club, having been present, Sophia had explained to Agnes, when her husband was tortured and killed in the Peninsula. She was a tall lady of marblelike beauty, though she had kind eyes.
Viscount Ponsonby had not come with them.
“Miss Debbins,” Viscount Darleigh said to Dora after they had all drunk tea and conversed on a number of topics, “I have come to beg you to save my guests from the exquisite agony of having to listen to me play on the harp or violin for longer than a few minutes at a time. I must offer them music, but my own leaves something to be desired, despite the fact that I have you for a teacher.”
“And mine would please no one but a doting mama if I were eight years old,” Sophia said.