Page 37 of It Takes Two to Tumble
“The kitchen maid’s sister is out of work and could come up to help with laundry.”
“Do whatever you believe is needful,” Phillip said. “In fact, consider yourself deputized.”
The children had vanished into thin air, which likely meant they were in the stables, spying on the guests’ horses, or perhaps taking advantage of Mrs. Morris’s absence to steal sweets from the kitchen. Phillip had utter confidence that they were up to no good, but also that they’d come to no real harm. He had grown rather philosophical about misbehavior over the last few weeks. When he returned to thePatroclus,it might take him some time to get used to shipboard discipline, where any infraction needed to be treated seriously.Ifhe returned, whispered some lunatic voice inside him.
“There you are,” Walsh said, descending the stairs, just in time to stop that line of thought. “Daphne is getting changed but she’ll be down in a moment.” Daphne was Mrs. Howard, Walsh’s widowed sister, a woman of about thirty who had arrived in approximately an acre of gray silk. Phillip couldn’t imagine what she was going to change into or why. Was he supposed to have arranged entertainment? Oh, hell, he most certainly was. Suddenly he remembered Sedgwick’s brother and—damn it—Miss Crawford. They were lively and charming and he had said he would invite them for dinner. Well, he could send a footman to the village with a request for their company tonight.
When, still on board thePatroclus, he had invited Walsh to Barton Hall, he had thought he’d be desperate for a familiar face. Now, he was utterly stymied by the man’s arrival. He had mere weeks left with his children, with Sedgwick, and he didn’t want to waste a single half second of his time on anyone else.
“Let me show you the gardens,” he said, because that seemed like a normal thing to say. He felt like he was playing the role of Affable Host in a stage play. Next, he’d be suggesting a game of charades.
Walsh looked at him curiously, as if he weren’t quite sure whether Phillip was serious.
“The countryside agrees with you,” Walsh said after admiring the shrubbery with due respect. “I haven’t seen you look so well since, ah, that storm off the coast of Burma.”
Walsh meant the storm where they had lost McCarthy, and Phillip was surprised to hear Walsh acknowledge it. Phillip had thought he had done a halfway decent job of concealing his grief.
“Perhaps the country does agree with me,” Phillip said, at a loss as to how else to answer. It stood to reason that he’d look healthier, happier, more whole after a fortnight such as the one he had just passed.
Oh, damn it. Damn Sedgwick and his easy charm and his general loveliness for ruining Phillip’s peace of mind. Now Phillip would be unhappy at sea, and he certainly couldn’t stay here at Barton Hall. His life was at sea. Wasn’t it? And why the hell was he even doubting that?
This was insanity. Puppy love. Midsummer madness. He didn’t even know what to call it, only that his head wasn’t on straight.
And that it was Sedgwick’s fault.
With so many perfectly worthy things to be concerned about—Hartley’s past, Alice’s future, his own vocation—Ben could somehow only manage to think about the one thing he couldn’t do anything about. Ben was jealous. He envied Mr. Walsh’s friendship with Phillip, their years of shared experience and the years they would spend together on board ship. He envied the doctor’s sister, Mrs. Howard, who practically had a placard on her chest announcing that she was a wealthy widow in want of a home. He fairly seethed with envy when Phillip took her arm to lead her into the drawing room, and felt unreasonably surly that he couldn’t do the same. He wanted to take Phillip by the arm, drag him into the nearest room with a door that locked, and make it perfectly clear that he, Ben, was the only one who was allowed to touch Phillip.
It didn’t help one bit that the guests were all perfectly unobjectionable—polite to Ben, gracious to the children during the short time they had appeared in the drawing room, and brimming with amusing stories.
Nor did it help when Hartley and Alice arrived to join them for dinner. There was no hiding from Hartley’s too-knowing gaze. And as for Alice, well, he felt like a rotter.
“You’re walking,” he said when he met them in the hall, stating the fantastically obvious. Her steps were uncertain and she leaned heavily on Hartley, but she was able to support herself.
“We couldn’t fit the Bath chair in Hartley’s curricle. Don’t tell anyone but Hartley carried me down the stairs to the street. Mama said it was lewd, and I laughed so hard Hartley threatened to toss me out of the carriage.”
“She has no conduct,” Hartley said without rancor. “Rusticated chit.”
“This rusticated chit took six steps. Well, Hartley did most of it, but I stayed vertical.”
“You look lovely,” he told her. And she did. Her honey gold hair was held up with pearl combs and she wore a gown of plain muslin that he recognized as her best frock. He took her hand. It was still cold and thin, and he wondered if this was only a temporary recovery. When she smiled weakly, he knew she harbored the same thought.
“What about me?” Hartley asked, breaking the mood. “Don’t I look lovely?”
“You never let us forget it,” Alice retorted.
“I spoke with Martin Easterbrook about his father’s will,” Ben said quietly after the introductions had been made and Alice was talking to Mrs. Howard.
“Ah.” Only the briefest flicker of recognition passed across Hartley’s face. “He has letters that he intends to produce in chancery.”
“How bad are they?”
“Bad enough.”
Ben squeezed Hartley’s arm. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t realize.”
“You weren’t meant to,” Hartley said, raising an eyebrow.
Seated at the table, Ben tried to summon whatever remnants of good humor he had left, but he was almost relieved when a slightly frazzled-looking housemaid presented him with a folded square of paper. Thank heaven, somebody needed him elsewhere. A leak in the vicarage roof, anything at all would be preferable to enduring dinner with the brother he had failed, the woman he was about to fail, and Phillip. He supposed he and Phillip would soon be failing one another.
