A Study In Seduction (11 page)

A bank of windows lined the wall on the other side
of the room, sunlight streaming through them. Jane wondered if they overlooked the garden.

When Lydia and Mr. Hall started discussing which books to procure, Jane crossed the room. An alcove was next to the windows with a door presumably leading outside. Metal trays sat on several tables, filled with dirt and sprouting green seedlings. She stepped closer, peering at the little shoots.

The door opened and a tall, big-shouldered man entered, his black hair sprinkled with gray like a coating of frost. He was fiddling with an apparatus in his hands, his head bent. He looked up at Jane and frowned.

She startled. The earl! She knew it. His face was austere and hard, lined with creases around his eyes and mouth.

Jane’s heart pounded. She couldn’t move.

“Who are you?” the Earl of Rushton demanded in a deep voice.

“Er… Jane Kellaway, sir… my lord. I’m taking piano lessons with Mr. Hall.”

“What are you doing here, then?”

“He’s… he’s discussing things with my sister.”

“Is she taking piano lessons?” His words were short and clipped, like bullets.

“No, si—my lord.”

“Then oughtn’t he discuss things with you?”

Jane scratched her forehead, then stopped. Likely it wasn’t polite to scratch in front of an earl.

“I… well, I’m certain Mr. Hall knows what he’s about.”

The earl stared at her for a second, then gave a laugh that sounded rusty and humorless, as if he hadn’t laughed in ages. “Certain of that, are you?”

Jane glanced back to where Lydia and Mr. Hall were
still conferring, then shrugged. The earl frowned at her. He looked like a cruel knight Jane had once seen in a picture book of verses.

“Be gone, girl,” he ordered. “I’ve work to do.”

His gruff tone made her insides quiver, but she didn’t move. “Are those your plants?”

“Whose else would they be?”

“What’s that?” Jane indicated the apparatus he held.

The earl lifted it a bit. It was a long metal tube with what appeared to be a handle at one end. “Water syringe. Meant to spray a mist of water on seedlings. Useful, if one can get the blasted thing to work.”

He pushed the handle, but it stuck halfway down the cylinder. The earl scowled at the thing as if it had deeply insulted him. Jane fought a smile.

“That’s the way it is, isn’t it?” she said. “Most things are useful only if they work.”

“That so? What do
you
plan to do, then?”

Jane wished she knew. “I haven’t decided yet.”

The earl grunted and turned to his plants. Jane watched him for a moment.

“I like to study insects,” she finally said.

He barked out one of his rusty laughs again. “You like to study the scourge of my garden? Find a way to get rid of them—then you’ll be useful.”

His tone implied that until that day, she would be nothing more than a bother. A twinge of hurt went through Jane, though she didn’t quite know why. It wasn’t as if it ought to matter what the man thought of her, even if he was a peer. Papa had always said a man’s character mattered more than his stature.

“My lord, do you know anything about ferns?” she asked.

He looked as if she’d asked him if he knew how to be an earl.

“Of course I do,” he said. “Why?”

“I’ve got a fern that’s a bit tattered. Turning brown and such. Can’t think what I’m doing wrong, but perhaps you might tell me?”

Lord Rushton harrumphed, then ordered, “Bring it the next time you come round.”

“Jane?” Lydia’s voice, threaded with tension, came from behind her. “Are you… Oh.” She stopped, resting her hand on Jane’s shoulder.

“My father, the Earl of Rushton,” Mr. Hall said.

Lydia’s fingers tightened. “My lord, a pleasure to meet you.”

The earl glowered at her from beneath bushy eyebrows, gave a gruff nod, and turned away. Jane tried to ease away from Lydia, whose grip was beginning to hurt.

“Come along, then.” Lydia steered Jane back to the piano, bending close to her ear. “I do hope you didn’t disturb him.”

“His bark is worse than his bite,” Mr. Hall said without concern, his voice almost amused. “Unless you’re his own child. Sit down, please, Miss Jane, and we’ll begin.”

Jane sat at the piano but glanced toward the alcove at the earl. The outside door shut with a click as he left.

She turned her attention to the piano, obeying Mr. Hall’s instructions as she tried to convince her fingers to cooperate with her brain. After an hour of learning the keys and starting scales, Jane followed Lydia from the town house with a lesson book and a sense that she might not have an exact talent for music.

“It’ll take some time,” Lydia assured her as the cab
rattled toward home. “Once you start learning songs and such, I’m sure it’ll become more interesting.”

“Did you ever take piano lessons?” Jane asked.

“No.” Lydia looked out the window. “Too busy with other things.”

Jane glanced at the notebook Lydia still held on her lap. As much as she loved her sister, she couldn’t help wondering why Lydia never seemed to do anything beyond mathematics and tutoring. She’d never married, she didn’t have friends over for tea, and she attended social events rarely and only when Grandmama insisted upon it; she didn’t even like shopping or going to the theater.

Seemed to Jane there ought to be more to life than numbers. Certainly there ought to be more to
Lydia’s
life.

“Where did you meet Lord Northwood?” she asked suddenly.

Lydia gave her a startled look. “Oh… I can’t remember. Why?”

“His father is a bit stern. Lord Northwood didn’t seem that way. Neither did Mr. Hall.”

Lydia made a murmuring noise. “What did you say to him? Lord Rushton?”

“I asked him about his seedlings and what might be the matter with my fern. Seems he’s got an insect problem. He wasn’t as… as
earlish
as I thought he might be.”

“What did you think he’d be like?”

“Rather majestic, I suppose, as if he’d just come from meeting with the queen. Instead he was more grumpy than regal. I don’t suppose he’s invited to court often.”

“Because of his temper?” Lydia smiled. “Papa was once received at court, you know. When he was knighted. That was years before you were born.”

“Did you attend the ceremony?”

“No, but Mother told me about it. She said it was magnificent, if a bit severe. I’d the sense that she would have liked to tell a rude joke or something simply to see what would happen.”

Jane grinned. “Was she fond of jokes?”

“She was fond of laughter.” A soft, bittersweet affection flashed in Lydia’s eyes. Jane knew that though their mother had died a decade ago, shortly after Jane was born, Lydia had lost her long before that. And yet Lydia rarely spoke of their mother’s illness—she told Jane only of the days when she was whole and well, the way her eyes lit with happiness and her laughter sounded like bells.

“She wanted everything to be light,” Lydia said. “Cheerful.”

“Not like Papa,” Jane said, then added, “Or you.”

“No.” Lydia slipped her arm around Jane, drawing her closer. “I’ve always been like him. Serious, academic. But secretly I wanted to be more like her.”

“Why?”

Lydia brushed her lips across Jane’s temple. “Because I thought life would be easier.”

“But her life wasn’t easy at all,” Jane said.

“No, that’s true. I was wrong.”

Lydia’s arm tightened around Jane with sudden urgency, and she pressed her cheek against Jane’s hair. Jane started a moment, then slipped her arms around Lydia’s waist and hugged her.

“Do you still miss her?” she asked.

“All the time.”

“I wish I did.” Jane’s voice grew smaller, colored with a hint of shame. “But I didn’t even know her. I mean, I
wish she were still here, but I didn’t know her at all, or what she was like… Is it wrong that I can’t miss her?”

“Oh, no. No. And you did know her. For too short a time and not as any of us would have liked, but you knew her.”

“Everything would be different if she hadn’t died, wouldn’t it?” Jane asked. “If she hadn’t gotten sick.”

Lydia’s grip tightened. Jane heard her sister’s heart beating beneath her cheek, a rapid thumping that made her look up.

“Yes.” The word was tight, strained. Lydia looked over Jane’s head out the window. “Everything would be different.”

Tension threaded through her sister’s body. Jane frowned, then reached over to squeeze Lydia’s hand.

An odd, uncomfortable feeling rose in her—the sense that Lydia didn’t want to imagine just how different things might have been if their mother had lived.

Hot, damp air filled the greenhouse, making Alexander’s collar too tight, his coat too heavy. Resisting the urge to pull at his cravat, he passed rows of flowering plants to where his father stood examining a pot of soil.

“Sir.” Alexander stopped a short distance away. An old, familiar feeling rose in him—a strange combination of pride and inadequacy whose layers Alexander never wished to examine. He’d experienced that feeling in the Earl of Rushton’s presence for as long as he could remember, a fact that made his recent aggravation with his father all the more unsettling.

Rushton looked up. “Northwood. What brings you here?”

“What have you heard about the war?”

“Whatever you have.”

“In the event of a declaration, the Earl of Clarendon has emphasized the right to consider anyone residing in Russia an enemy,” Alexander said. “I’ve sent word to Darius in St. Petersburg, though I suspect he already knows.”

The earl pushed the pot away with a grunt of annoyance and went to pick up a watering can. His big chest and shoulders were encased in a plain black coat and waistcoat—never one for fripperies, Rushton—and comb marks furrowed his metal-gray hair. Although he still appeared formidable, his frame had grown thinner over the past two years, his face gaunt and creased with lines of stress.

“Your brother won’t alter his plans,” he said.

“I know. But if you wrote to him, he’d be more inclined to consider the ramifications.”

“If he continues to reside at the court,” Rushton said, “he will be in less danger there than here.”

“I’ve little doubt Darius can and will take care of himself whether he resides at the court or not. However, I’m concerned about the consequences this could have for us here.”

“Such as?”

“Talia, for one. She’s of marriageable age, and she—”

“As are you.” His father shot him a pointed look.

“But Talia is—”

“Let the girl alone, Northwood. It’s your own lack of prospects that ought to concern you, especially after the Chilton debacle.”

Frustration swelled in Alexander’s chest. They’d all borne the embarrassment that followed his broken engagement. Between that and his mother’s desertion, even
Alexander admitted it would be difficult to believe any of the Halls could contract an advantageous marriage.

Since he had no rebuttal to his father’s remark, he chose to change the subject. “Talia has expressed a wish to visit Floreston Manor again.”

Rushton’s expression darkened. “Ought to have got rid of the place years ago.”

“She wouldn’t forgive you if you did.” Although none of them had visited Floreston Manor since their mother left, Alexander knew it was the one place Talia had been happy as a child.

His sister had been a mystery to him then—a bronze-haired child who flitted through the corridors of Floreston Manor and the gardens of St. Petersburg like a wood sprite.

He sighed. Talia was even more of a mystery to him now, though her faint otherworldliness had become weighted beneath a layer of shadows.

“Sebastian has agreed to accompany us, if you’re willing to reopen the manor,” he said. “And we’ll invite Castleford.”

The earl didn’t respond, clipping dead leaves from a plant.

“It would do Talia some good,” Alexander persisted.
You, as well.
“She doesn’t enjoy being in London during the season.”

Rushton finally gave a short nod. “Very well.”

“Good. I’ll leave the arrangements to you, then?” Anything to get the old bird to do something besides tend to his blasted plants.

He turned to leave when his father’s voice stopped him. “What of the Society exhibition, Northwood?”

“The council has expressed concern about the Society’s connection with France and the substantial Russian component. However, I do not anticipate any difficulties yet.”

His father glanced at him, his mouth turning down. Alexander’s final word seemed to echo against the damp glass of the greenhouse.

Yet.

A
lexander paced to the hearth, then swiveled on his heel and went to the windows and back to the hearth. Sebastian hunched over the piano, pencil in hand, looking at a sheet of music as if it were an earwig.

After his third trek across the carpet, Alexander stopped. Through three layers of fabric, he felt the heavy weight of the locket pressing into his chest. He hadn’t looked at it closely for the past three weeks, had only dropped it into his pocket every morning for reasons he couldn’t quite comprehend.

He tugged it out now and stared at the silver surface, the intricate engraving.

“You wouldn’t have that grim look about you if you’d got rid of it,” Sebastian remarked.

Alexander shook his head and replaced the necklace. He’d told his brother the whole tale in the hopes of obtaining some words of wisdom. Instead, Sebastian had strongly advocated that he simply give the locket back to Lydia.

Alexander had been unable to explain why he knew she wouldn’t accept it.

“Her mother was mad,” he said.

“Mad?”

Alexander paced back to the windows. “It happened when Lydia was a child. Sir Henry was forced to institutionalize his wife several times. She died at a sanatorium in France after giving birth to Jane.”

“What has that got to do… Oh.”

Alexander’s shoulders tensed as he stared at the garden. “I assume it caused a stir at the time, though no one appears to remember. Or if they do, they don’t care. Perhaps that speaks to the Kellaways’ lack of importance.”