Page 16 of The Hollow of Fear
“You give Lord Bancroft too little credit.”
“And you give yourself too little credit for your ability to cause turmoil in a man.”
This earned him a considering look—of course he’d given away too much of himself. “You say that because you are a romantic. You would be deeply disturbed to haveyoursuit be unsuccessful twice in a row. Lord Bancroft is not remotely similar to you.”
“I haven’t been a romantic in a very long time.”
“Being disappointed in love does not change a man’s fundamental nature. You are more cautious, you wonder whetheryoucan ever make a good choice, but you do not question the validity of romantic love in and of itself. And you still first assume that others, such as Lord Bancroft, love as you do, deeply and protectively”—she held up an index finger to forestall his objection—“before the voice of experience reminds you otherwise.”
The woman was a holy terror: the sweetest face, the pillowiest bosom, and a perspicacity that stripped a man naked in seconds.
Fortunately, today at least, she didn’t seem interested in further dissecting his fundamental nature. “And when did you see Lord Bancroft? Were you in London?”
“Can’t you tell whether I’ve been in London at some point in the past three months?”
She didn’t often turn her deductive powers on him. But ever since the day she’d taken one look at him and casually commented,I see you’ve lost your virginity, he’d been half convinced he couldn’t have a single thought without her knowing everything about it.
“Well, from merely looking at you,” she said without looking at him, her gaze on a patch of cabbages. “I can tell only that you have been extremely preoccupied and that you do not wish for me to guess at this preoccupation. But I shall venture to say that no, you haven’t been in London, except perhaps to change trains when you brought the children back from the Devon coast at the end of summer. So Lord Bancroft visited you here—a rather unusual occurrence, wouldn’t you say?”
To her statement on his virginity or lack thereof, he’d replied, with all the haughtiness he could summon,I will not deign to address that. The momentary satisfaction of embargoing the subject, however, had led to years of wondering how Holmes had fathomed what she couldn’t possibly have known.
He chose to spare himself that futile speculation today. “Why would you think I’m more preoccupied than usual? My circumstances practically mandate a degree of preoccupation.”
Now she inspected him, a head-to-toe sweep and back again. “Your valet was gone for a few days and returned day before yesterday, in the evening.”
“Yes?”
“You prefer to shave yourself when Cummings is away, rather than entrust the task to another manservant. And you’ve always been competent at the task. I saw you in Devon, less than two days after Lady Ingram’s departure. Cummings wasn’t there. You shaved that day and you didn’t nick yourself.
“But looking at you now I can see at least three places where your shaving blade had broken skin. They are all at different stages of healing, which tells me that not only have you been preoccupied to a remarkable degree, it is a preoccupation that does not let up.
“The nicks stopped with the return of your valet. But you, upon meeting my sister and realizing that I myself was likely to be in the vicinity and might arrive unannounced upon your doorstep, what do you do? You came home and, instead of changing back into the clothes you’d been wearing before you called on Mrs. Newell, you put on a different set of tweeds, a suit you haven’t worn for a while—it still smells of the lavender sachets with which it had been stored. Not only that, but you also erred on the side of a fresh shirt and a pair of boots that hadn’t been outside since it was last cleaned, brushed, and shined.
“You have never dressed to impress me. And most likely you realized that I would notice your choice of attire. But you opted for it anyway: You’d rather that I guessed at the preoccupation than at the nature of it.”
She did not look to him for confirmation—she knew she was right. He could only be thankful that she hadn’t pointed out that he could have remained inside the manor and avoided her altogether.
He would rather be seen through, as uncomfortable and mortifying as that always was, than not see her at all.
“You are right about London,” he said, exhaling. “I haven’t left Stern Hollow since I came back from Devon. It has been a parade of brothers this autumn—even Wycliffe came.”
Her brow lifted an infinitesimal distance, which for her implied grand astonishment. “Wycliffe camehere, instead of summoning you to Eastleigh Park?”
“I know. I couldn’t believe it either. My steward almost had an attack of nerves.”
The current Duke of Wycliffe, Lord Ingram’s eldest brother, had graced Stern Hollow only once before. A few days after Lord Ingram had inherited the estate, he’d arrived without notice, ordered Lord Ingram to accompany him on an inspection of house and grounds, and departed immediately afterward, saying only,A fine holding. Look after it.
“Did they all come because Lady Ingram is ostensibly in Switzerland for her health? Surely Lord Bancroft didn’t tell the duke the truth?”
Wycliffe’s duty was the continuation of his bloodline and the well-being of his dukedom. Unlike his three younger brothers, he had never sullied his hands with the work of the Crown.
“I’m not sure what Bancroft told him. Wycliffe was almost... solicitous.”
She nodded slowly, apparently as dumbstruck as he had been.
She hadn’t been the only person opposed to his marriage. Wycliffe had objected just as strongly, though primarily on the basis of his then extreme youth. He had expected a reckoning, an if-you-had-only-listened-to-me tirade. But Wycliffe’s silence on the matter had been, if anything, far more excruciating.
He had never felt as colossal a failure as then—when Wycliffe pitied him too much to scold him.
