“Harriet was one of those, who, having once begun, would be always in love.”
Jane Austen, Emma
Briar went down to the kitchen the following morning, prepared to help Mrs. Darden set matters to rights. But when she arrived, she was surprised to find the room immaculate. Even more so than ever before. Sunlight gleamed through sparkling clear windowpanes and off the surface of the copper pots and faucet fixtures. The stone tile floor looked glossy and new.
She hardly knew if she was standing in the same house. “What happened in here?”
“He stayed here all night cleaning up, refused to leave even a speck behind,” Mrs. Darden crooned, hugging an earthenware bowl to her generous bosom and beaming.
“Nic—Lord Edgemont did all this? By himself?”
“Indeed. What a dear. Didn’t want you to see a disaster, so he worked himself into exhaustion. Practically had to prop him up to get him out the door early this morning.”
She eyed Mrs. Darden coolly. “Don’t tell me you’ve warmed to him, too.”
“Can’t a woman appreciate a man who knows how to take care of a mess?”
“Some messes are just too large to fix,” Briar huffed, and went about making a tray to take upstairs. After all, it was important to carry on with her life as it was. She couldn’t sit around feeling sorry for herself for the rest of her days. And besides, she had no doubt that a certain someone would be there with her knitting.
Briar looked forward to the distraction. Though, when she went into the parlor, Mrs. Teasdale wasn’t the only person she found. Daniel was there, too.
Briar nearly dropped the tray. “Mr. Prescott. But what are you doing in London? I would have thought . . .”
He came forward to assist her. “That I would want to be as far away from my cousin as possible?”
Mutely, she nodded.
“Is there someplace we can talk?” He glanced uncertainly at Mrs. Teasdale, sitting on the sofa.
“Don’t mind me, for my attention is on my knitting. Won’t hear a word,” she said, click-clacking away. “This is as good a place as any, the way I see it. After all, it’s Miss Bourne’s office.”
Briar opened her mouth to argue, then the strangest thing occurred to her. With fresh eyes, she looked around at the cozy little parlor with the rose silk wallpaper, a landscape painting of a boat on a lake, and the furniture she’d arranged for ease of conversation. And she realized something important. This was her office. It had been from the very first day.
All along, she’d felt excluded and left to do a job that meant nothing. Only now, she realized that what she provided was just as important as taking applications, vetting clients, and making matches. She put people at ease with friendly conversation and, perhaps, she even gave them hope. And a monkey, no matter how well trained, could not do that. No, indeed.
“If it is amenable to you,” she said, standing a bit taller as she gestured to one of the tufted armchairs. After he placed the tray on the low table and they settled in, she poured for him, this new awareness brimming inside her.
Peculiarly, she felt a sense of peace for the first time in days.
She handed a cup to Daniel. “I apologize for leaving Hampshire without bidding farewell, or without explaining my sudden illness the day we drove to . . . Mr. Cartwright’s residence.”
Daniel nodded, his expression solemn. “Under both circumstances, your absence was perfectly reasonable. My regret is that you had to suffer at all.”
“We all have our trials, dear,” Mrs. Teasdale said with a tsk to her yarn. In the silence that followed, she looked up. “Well, go on. I was only giving a little encouragement. Not listening to a word.”
Daniel shifted uncomfortably. “Yes, well. You see, I came here to tell you that I plan to leave in a matter of days, but I wanted you to know that I hope we are able to meet as friends in the future.”
“Of course. I can think of no reason it would be otherwise.”
“You are all kindness, especially when the matter that ended my betrothal was the very thing that finished yours as well.”
Briar sucked in a breath, her hands trembling as she set down her cup. “Your cousin and I were not engaged.”
“My apologies. With the way Nicholas has been moping around and muttering strange things about starting from the beginning, from the day you met, I thought surely . . .” He shook his head, confusion marking his brow in furrows. “Well, perhaps I have misunderstood. I’ve just never seen him this way.”
“I marvel at your ability to speak with such compassion. Had the same been done to me, I don’t think I could ever forgive him.”
He looked down at his cup, thoughtful. “I am disappointed. He showed me little respect by withholding the simple fact that he’d been acquainted with Miss Smithson before I met her. Then he showed me even less by offering her father a fortune to marry her off to someone else, without even discussing it with me. He’d always been of a nature to protect me, but this time he went too far.”
Briar’s heart stalled, blood rushing in her ears. “Did you say he knew her before you met?”
It seemed to take an eternity for Daniel to speak. He stared back at her with his head tilted in scrutiny and then suddenly his brows shot up and his face grew pale. “I think I understand now. Miss Bourne, let me assure you that Nicholas would sooner cut off his right arm than to . . .” He stopped and averted his gaze, clearing his throat. “I did not know Miss Smithson when she was in London.”
“Oh,” Briar breathed, realizing that she’d misunderstood that part. Tears gathered in her throat, threatening to spill.
Yet, before she was too swayed by this information, she reminded herself that it did not alter what Nicholas had done. He’d still acted without conscience or concern about who he may have been hurting.
“I am ever so sorry for what you endured,” she said to Daniel.
“Miss Smithson was unlike anyone else and I was captivated by her vivacity.” He glanced sideways at Mrs. Teasdale as if expecting a comment, but to her credit, she didn’t break her knitting stride. “I was so caught up in her spirited attentions, reveling in my good fortune, that I ignored every flirtation she cast in Nicholas’s direction. And I ignored every warning from him, too. I turned a blind eye to how uncomfortable she made him, how many times he would leave a room when she entered. I even made excuses for her.”
Briar shivered, the images forming in her mind. Hearing Daniel’s account, she couldn’t help but compare this with what Nicholas had gone through with Marceline. How both his wife and brother had deceived him.
Then Briar thought of how Genevieve Price had left London and had ended up in Daniel’s path. Of all the men she might have encountered, it was uncanny that she should have formed an attachment to Nicholas’s cousin. And perhaps a bit too convenient.
I was just a debutante with a small dowry, doing whatever I could to marry well.
And yet, Daniel’s annuity was more on the conservative side, which made Briar doubt that he had been her true target for marriage.
“Sounds to me that lad had good reason to break the betrothal,” Mrs. Teasdale interjected.
“Mrs. Teasdale, please,” Briar chided, even when the same thought had run through her mind. “It was still Mr. Prescott’s decision to make. Not only that, but he wasn’t given the opportunity to truly confront the situation.”
Briar knew what it was like to be underestimated and made to feel as if you’re incapable of making your own choices. And yet, after her talk with Ainsley, she’d come to realize that there are often reasons for family to think they are acting with your best interests in mind.
Then it occurred to Briar that she’d done something similar to Daniel. Oh dear.
“I’m afraid I have a confession as well,” she said, abashed. “I’ve been secretly trying to find you a match these past weeks.”
He grinned shyly. “I’ve known all along. My mother is not the best at keeping secrets.”
“I hope you know that I meant no disrespect.”
“Easily forgiven.”
Mrs. Teasdale gave an irritated sigh, lowering her knitting to her lap. “That’s all well and good, but what about your cousin?”
But before Daniel could respond, they were interrupted.
“Forgive me, I don’t mean to intrude,” a gentleman said, appearing in the parlor doorway, looking down at a card in his hand.
The instant she saw him, Briar felt her jaw go slack and heard Mrs. Teasdale make an inarticulate sound of appreciation, her knitting needles dropping to the rug in a brief pit-a-pat. The stranger was a tall handsome man with wavy hair the color of caramels and strong, elegant features.
Lifting a pair of remarkable gray eyes, he scanned the room. “Oh, Mr. Prescott, perhaps you might be of assistance.”
“What are you doing here? Interested in matchmaking all of a sudden?” Daniel asked with the wry amusement that one usually reserved for close acquaintances.
“Well, not exactly,” he said then, looking to Briar and Mrs. Teasdale, who were both likely fish-faced. “I seem to have come to the wrong address. Edgemont sent me this card and, well, perhaps you can make out your cousin’s abominable handwriting.”
Daniel stood and took the card, but paused to make the introductions. “Brandon Stredwick, Lord Hulworth, might I present Miss Bourne and her friend Mrs. Teasdale.”
Hulworth? Briar stood as another tumble of shock fell through her. Nicholas had sent Lord Hulworth here? First the chocolate and now this . . . but what could be his reason?
. . . Nicholas has been moping around and muttering strange things about starting from the beginning, from the day you met . . .
Briar’s heart quickened.
“Miss Bourne, a pleasure.” He bowed, then turned and bent to pick up the fallen knitting needles and offered them. “Mrs. Teasdale.”
She gave him a saucy wink. “How do you feel about the number five, Lord Hulworth?”
“I suppose I like it as much as any other number.” His broad mouth quirked in a wary sort of grin and then he returned his attention to Daniel. “Again, I apologize for the intrusion, but I don’t believe I’ve got the correct address and I can’t make out what the card says at the bottom.”
Daniel chuckled and lifted a plate from the low table. “You’re in the right place. The message at the bottom says to ‘try the scones.’”
“How odd. That’s precisely what I thought it said.” With a shrug, he took the offered pastry, then a bite, and in the next moment he looked at it with wonder.
The magic of Mrs. Darden’s scones.
“Brandon?” a lilting voice called from the corridor. “Brother, where have you gone?”
At once Daniel stood straighter, turning to face the door, his cheeks abruptly ruddy.
Then the voice’s owner appeared. She was a lovely young woman with porcelain skin, glossy black hair, and eyes a pale, clear blue that lit with recognition on Daniel. And then came a stunning smile. “Mr. Prescott, surely that is not you, for you have grown ancient since we last met.”
“Meg.” Her name came out on a strangled breath and then Daniel stumbled over a correction. “Miss Stredwick, you haven’t altered one bit.”
She set her hands on her hips, arching a winged brow in indignation. “A fine thing to say. When we last met, I was still in braids.”
“And climbing a tree, if I recall.”
“Well, you climbed it first. I wanted to show you that girls are just as good at climb—”
“Meg, you are in a room of strangers to whom you should be introduced,” Lord Hulworth said with fond exasperation as he made the introductions, then added, “I see that I have clearly wasted a fortune on finishing school.”
By the dazed look in Daniel’s eyes, it was clear he did not agree. And if Briar wasn’t mistaken, she might have just witnessed a rather substantial spark.
* * *
Briar spent the morning in the parlor with her new acquaintances. By the time Lord Hulworth had sampled his third scone, London’s most elusive bachelor seemed to warm to the idea of filling out an application.
And it was all because of Nicholas.
Late in the afternoon she went out to the small garden—once the scene of her infamous blunder—and sat beneath an arbor, heavy with overblown roses, the sound of bees thick in the warm, breezeless air.
But her thoughts and feelings were too scattered to enjoy the scenery.
The ones lingering in her mind were indignant, railing against a man who would go behind his cousin’s back instead of allowing him to decide his own future, and warning her that he was a rake. The wrong sort. Yet the others—the ones in her heart—clutched their bosoms and sighed about a man who would make chocolate all day, clean all night, and even send his friend to her doorstep in the hopes that she might make a match for him. Just as she’d proclaimed that first day they’d met.
He was going back to the beginning. How could she not love that?
Yet, before she could form a complete, thoughtful answer, Temperance arrived.
She flew down the garden path and smothered Briar in an embrace. “Had I known that Mr. Cartwright was living in the same house where you . . .” Her voice broke and she sniffled. Drawing back, she revealed eyes that were wet and filled with tea-colored remorse. “I’m so very sorry. If I’d told you where we were going, you never would have endured that pain.”
“There is no need to apologize. How could you have known, when not even I knew until that very moment?” Briar soothed her friend’s worries.
“And yet, if I’d have been forthcoming with my growing fondness for your half brother, you still might have been spared.”
Briar looked down at her hands, having given the matter much thought in the past few days. “Your growing fondness had nothing to do with it. I very much wanted to get better acquainted with Mr. Cartwright. I still do, in fact. But when I saw the house, a pain that I unknowingly buried suddenly came forth in a rather unexpected and dramatic fashion. I feel like a ninny, thinking back on it. But it was your cousin”—Briar’s heart quickened again, her heart lodging in her throat—“who helped me by letting me pour out every bit of it until it was all said.”
She swallowed and drew in a steadying breath, the rest of the memory warming her.
Last night, she’d spoken with Ainsley about their half siblings, expressing a desire to invite them here for tea one afternoon. Her sister—while still holding on to her own reservations—had agreed to send an invitation when Mr. Cartwright was next in town.
“Besides,” Briar continued, smiling at her friend, “part of me is glad you did not tell me. For I was able to see your happiness untainted by my own confused feelings on the matter. And if I had confessed that to you, then you might never have begun exchanging letters with him, and the spark I saw between you would have faded out of existence.”
“I did feel something the instant I saw him. It was as if I had known him for all the years of my life and he was only now returning into my company. Does that sound strange to you?”
“To me? Do you forget who you’re talking to?” Briar laughed quietly, but felt a wistful sigh pinch her heart. A day ago, her answer would have been much different, dire even. Yet, today, she felt more like herself—but a newer, wiser version. “If I have learned one thing, it is that nothing is guaranteed. You must seize happiness when it is upon you, and hold fast.”
A sob escaped Temperance, her eyes brimming again, her mouth spread in a broad smile. “I was hoping you would say something like that. Oh, I just knew you would understand. But what about your own happiness?”
Briar shook her head, her thoughts still preoccupied with everything she’d learned. She hadn’t come to a firm conclusion on what she would say to Nicholas.
“Do you think you can ever forgive my cousin?”
“It is not my place to forgive him. It is your brother’s.”
“But for Nicholas to betray Daniel in such a way . . .” Temperance expelled a long drawn-out sigh.
“Surely you can forgive your cousin,” Briar prodded. “You’ve said yourself that he has always been selfless with his affection and caring toward you. I’ve never seen a man who loves and dotes on his family more.”
It was true and she’d seen it firsthand. He was loyal to them as well, if not a bit misguided. He certainly would never turn his back on them.
“Oh, I hated her from the very first day,” Temperance admitted, suddenly smiling. “So did mother. It was almost a relief when she was gone. If not for Daniel’s melancholy, I would have dusted the entire episode from my hands.”
“Then why were you being so hard on your cousin just now?”
“I was only attempting to show you support. After all, you’re the one who’s making him grovel.”
Briar scoffed. “Grovel.”
“I cannot fathom what else you’d call it.” Temperance eyed her knowingly. “I mean, he followed your carriage all the way from Hampshire, waited in front of the agency for nearly a day, came here to make you chocolate because he knows it’s your favorite. He made it himself, Briar, when he could have hired a servant to buy it and bring it here, instead.”
“See here, how do you know all this?”
“Adams told me on the way,” she said with a half shrug. “But I already knew something was between you from the beginning. After all, you’re not the only one who can spot a spark.”
“I thought I’d hid my feelings rather well.” At least until he’d come to Holliford Park, then she was all over him like ants on a secret stash of comfits.
Temperance shook her head as if she were talking to a dimwit. “Not you, silly. Nicholas. I’ve seen the change in him all along. Whenever you were near, his eyes turned all soft and dark.”
Briar swallowed, trying not to think about how much she loved it when he looked at her that way. “They’re always dark.”
“I also knew because he asked you to marry him,” Temperance said quietly. “He’s never done that before. Not even the first time.”
“That wasn’t a proposal. That was a moment of panic,” Briar said, indignant.
“Because he was afraid of losing you. He couldn’t imagine his life without you.”
“Now you’re just putting words in his mouth. He always went out of his way to tell me that he would never marry. I was the one who filled my head with romantic scenarios, not him.”
Aside from that brief slip of the tongue in the kitchen, he’d never once told her he loved her. And yet, the thoughts in her brain that had been shaking fisted hands a moment ago weren’t so indignant any longer. In fact, they had defected to her heart.
“Then why didn’t you give him an answer?”
“I did.”
Temperance shook her head, adamant. “Adams told me, and he was there for the whole thing.”
“Well, ‘no’ was implied, then.” There hadn’t been any point in answering when she knew he wasn’t sincere.
“Hmm . . . I don’t think he understood. Perhaps that’s all the two of you need, just to settle things once and for all. Simply meet with him and give him your answer.”
“Are you going to badger me about this?” Briar crossed her arms.
Temperance grinned. “Until the end of your days.”