Mr. Watters and Mrs. Fitzwilliam were urging me to accompany them to the park for the fashionable hour, and I was resisting.
“It would be so much more enjoyable with you on my arm, Miss de Bourgh,” Mr. Watters said, and then, when I demurred, he added in a teasing voice, “Surely Miss Amherst would not call at this hour.”
The mention of her name made me bite my lip, and I turned away, pretending to busy myself with my mostly untouched whitework, to prevent his keen eyes from noticing. But he leaned around and said, “What feminine secrets do you two ladies expose to one another in those notes Preston is always bringing in and taking out, hmm?”
There was something I did not like in the odd lilt to his voice; in his pale, raised brow. The fine hairs all along my body sprang to attention, and it was I who looked away first.
I was somewhat afraid to approach John’s book room again, but when I knocked and he bid me enter, I found him alone at his desk, looking over some correspondence.
“Anne,” he said, looking up. “I thought there was some scheme to go walking. Did you not wish to go?”
“Not today.” I took a seat across from him. “I see you are not out, either.”
“Hyde Park at this hour has long since lost its allure for me,” he said, with an almost-smile. Then he set down his quill, running a hand over his head so that his hair stood to military attention, and sighed. “And I’ve rather a mess to contend with on the estate. It seems a windstorm knocked over a number of trees—my steward says the damage to some of the cottages was devastating. No lives lost, thank heaven, but a few injuries, and the rebuilding will take some time. In the meantime, there is the problem of housing those who have lost their homes. I really must leave for Surrey directly.”
He pinched his brow, just above the bridge of his nose, then grinned at me. “The perils of estate management, eh? It would be much easier, I sometimes think, if I could be like so many other gentlemen, and leave everything to my steward. But—”
“But your tenants are under your protection, and thus are your responsibility,” I said, and he gave me a startled look.
“Yes, exactly,” he said.
Harriet Watters brought with her a substantial dowry; when she and John married, they were able to buy a modest estate of some four thousand acres in the same neighborhood where John had grown up. I, of course, had never been there, though I’d heard much of it from Mamma, who visited not long after the couple returned from their wedding trip; she saw great potential in the size of the house, though the kitchens, she said, must be improved if Colonel and Mrs. Fitzwilliam were ever to host ample dinner parties.
I realized I was picking with one hand at the skin at the base of the opposite thumbnail, and forced myself to stop. “I have been . . . thinking about that, as well,” I said. “My—responsibilities, that is.” I looked at the papers scattered on the desk before him and said, “I am sorry; you have more than enough to worry about just now.”
“No, no.” John leaned forward, hands clasped together atop one page of his steward’s correspondence. “Please, go on—is it your estate that brings you here today?”
“Yes. I . . . have been avoiding questions that I should not have . . . for far too long. And I think you might be able to help me.” I licked my lips. “How—how does Rosings Park do, in your estimation? Is Mr. Colt a good manager?”
“Ah.” John frowned. “Yes, I think Colt does well enough by the estate. And I believe my aunt likes to keep her hand in things as well.”
“Which is part of the problem. Rosings Park is profitable, but I do not know any of the details. And I do not know . . . I do not know my tenants at all. I’ve no idea of their lives, or their needs, or . . . And I do not know whether they have those needs met, at present. Or even what meeting them would mean.” What I did not say—that my tenants were, for the most part, not people at all to me but shadows, anonymous bowing figures in the fields and village as I passed them—was too contemptible to admit aloud.
John’s smile unfurled like a leaf in spring. “Anne,” he said, “are you preparing to take your proper place?”
I flushed. “I am . . . not sure. Perhaps.”
“Then I would suggest beginning with a letter to Mr. Colt. He could answer these questions better than I. I can only say from once-yearly observations that Rosings does appear to be well managed; but I cannot speak to your tenants’ thoughts.”
I released a shaky breath, and he laughed softly.
“Cousin—this is truly admirable.”
“Mamma will not approve.”
“No,” he said, and rested his chin upon one fist, the picture of thoughtful ease. “But when does she ever?”
Outside the carriage window, I watched the passing scenery. This part of London was less chaotic than more commercial quarters, but still the streets teemed with horses and vehicles; passing ladies and gentlemen strolling arm in arm; servant girls carrying baskets from the market; a small boy scuttling along the pavement, a message clutched in one fist. The afternoon was bright and pleasantly cool, and the whole of the city seemed golden to me, a cup filled to the brim with beautiful life. I thought at last that I was in the place I was meant to be at the time I was meant to be there, and my lips spread irrepressibly wide of their own volition.
Mrs. Fitzwilliam seemed less pleased with her current circumstances. “You were upstairs a long while,” she said, as if making a simple observation; but I heard the criticism in her tone.
But even her sourness could not induce me to feel less than perfectly content. “I apologize,” I said. “I did not intend to be gone so long.”
“Mrs. Amherst was rather put out,” she said, and I shook my head. She would never dare speak so to my mother. But I held my peace, for in truth, I knew she was right that I behaved badly, leaving her and Mrs. Amherst alone in the drawing room while Eliza took me upstairs with the flimsy excuse of showing me a new book. I touched my fingers to my lips to stop the smile that longed to grow there. My body hummed.
“As I said, I am sorry.”
She looked out the window as well, but I doubted, from her expression, that she enjoyed the view as much as I did.
We had scarcely handed off our gloves, hats, and spencers to the servants when Mr. Watters poked his head out of the drawing room. He affected surprise upon seeing us, and hesitated a moment before coming forward down the hall.
“Harriet,” he said, nodding to his sister, and then to me, “Miss de Bourgh. I hope you had a pleasant visit with your friend.”
“Yes, very pleasant, thank you.”
“I wonder,” he said, looking down at his fingernails, as if they held some great fascination for him, “would you care to take a turn in the garden with me? There is something I would speak to you about.”
“I . . .” I looked at Mrs. Fitzwilliam, who, to my eternal frustration, was smiling now. She nodded at me, all encouragement. “Very well.”
The garden was not particularly conducive to exercise, and I felt a little ridiculous as we began a slow circuit around the center topiaries. Mr. Watters kept his hands clasped behind his back and his eyes on the toes of his boots as he took one measured step after another. I watched him from the periphery of my vision.
“Miss de Bourgh,” he said at last when we had achieved a full circle and were standing before the table and chairs near the door. And then, reaching for my hand, “Anne.” I was too startled by the contact, my hand trapped between his, to protest the intimacy. “You cannot have failed to notice my attentions these past weeks. I think—I know—others have marked my preference for you, as well.”
My mouth opened, closed, opened again.
“And so I think the time is right to offer you my . . . hand”—with a faint smile down at our own layered hands—“in marriage.” He raised his eyes to finally meet mine, adding, with an almost boyish earnestness, “I very much hope you will accept.”
There were calluses on his palms, I noted from some distance, probably from riding. I tugged gently and he released me, surprise darting across his face before he returned his expression to one of patient expectation.
“I would like to sit down,” I said, and half-fell into one of the chairs. He perched on the edge of the other, but I did not look at him. My eyes sought rather wildly for the spider in her corner, but she was gone, and all that remained of her web were a few tattered strands of weaving. For some reason I felt like crying.
“Are you well?” Mr. Watters said.
I managed a small smile. “Yes. I am well. And you are right, this is not . . . entirely unexpected. But I did not . . .” I glanced at him and then away. “May I speak plainly, sir?”
“Of course.”
“I rather hoped I was misjudging your intentions. I intend no offense whatsoever, but I . . .” I paused, for there was no possible way for him to take my meaning without taking offense.
“You speak not a word of affection,” I said at last. “I imagined you would . . . pretend to it, at least.”
When I chanced a look at him, Mr. Watters was very still, his face quite impossible to read. “Do you require affection from your husband?” he said in a strange low tone, and then added, “Do not misunderstand me, Miss de Bourgh, I hold you in high regard. You have . . . quite subverted my earlier understanding of your character, and I find I like you very well. But affection of the . . . romantic sort . . . I cannot offer.”
He tapped his steepled fingers together in a way that spoke of some internal disquiet. I looked at him for a long moment, not speaking, then said, cautiously, “I think, sir, that I do not entirely understand you.”
He rose abruptly, paced a few steps in one direction, then wheeled about to face me. “I think, madam, that you are in possession of all the affection that you require.”
I pressed back against the chair. “I do not—”
“I saw you,” he said, lowering his voice until I had to strain to make out the words. “Here, in this very garden. I came into the breakfast room for a moment, and there you were. You and Miss Amherst.”
“No,” I said; and my voice was even weaker than his.
My fear seemed to calm him; he regained his seat and his earnest expression. “I would not curtail such . . . activities as your husband,” he said quietly. “For you see, Miss de Bourgh, I am . . . sympathetic . . . to your plight. I would require little from you in the way of wifely duties after we’d an heir in the nursery.”
“I . . . oh.” The garden seemed to be tilting rather alarmingly around me; or was it I, myself, who was tipping over? Apparently it was the latter, for quite suddenly Mr. Watters wrapped his hand around my arm, steadying me. I pulled away from him, wishing, for the very first time, for Mrs. Jenkinson; she would probably have smelling salts somewhere about her.
“You needn’t answer now,” he said. “But can you not see how agreeable such an arrangement could be for both of us? My fortune can help enrich your already prosperous estate—”
I waved him silent, as irritably as ever Mamma waved off unwanted conversation. I did not need to hear the rest, for I understood him perfectly. Our union would provide him instantly with an estate of his own; for once wed, my property would no longer belong to me. Mr. Watters, by contrast, would be elevated instantly by our marriage into the class of the landed gentry.
“Please take as long as you’d like to consider,” he said after a time.
I did not look up as he returned to the house.