Of Moths and Butterflies (55 page)

“Here? In the house?”

“Yes. In Sir Edmund’s rooms. He was looking for something, but I don’t know what. I’m afraid of him. And of what Sir Edmund will say—or do—when he learns of it.”

“You haven’t told him?”

“No. And I won’t. I can’t take the risk of having him think I met Wyndham on purpose.”

“But why would you meet him on purpose?”

“I wouldn’t. But it won’t prevent Sir Edmund from thinking it. Or… You won’t mention it?”

“No. No I won’t. But we must be on our guard.”

“He is not expected to come to the party, I think.”

“No. But that doesn’t mean he won’t make an appearance.” Claire paused to consider for a moment. “What of Archer? Do you think he’ll not worry when he returns and finds you are not in your room?”

“Do you think he will? Return tonight, I mean?”

“He had very well better. Or I’ll give
him
something to be afraid of.”

One corner of Imogen’s mouth turned up in a half-hearted smile.

“Shall I leave him a note to tell him you are with me?”

Imogen nodded and closed her eyes, signalling that that was the last of the questions she would answer. But before Claire arose from the bed, Imogen, in a gesture of gratitude, reached out and squeezed her hand.

Claire kissed her cheek and left the room.

MOGEN SLEPT THAT
night, and slept well. When she awoke the next morning, it was quite late. No sooner had the first glimmering signals of consciousness coaxed her from her sleep than the nauseating anxiety descended. Today was the day. Her family would come, perhaps Claire’s, too, and she would have to put on that plaster of Paris mask and smile to the world as though she had entered into the most amicable of arrangements imaginable. But how do that if Archer had not yet returned?

Or had he?

She arose from the bed and dressed. Leaving Claire’s room, she walked the distance to her own as quickly as she dared. Upon entering, she closed and locked the door. There was no fire. Not even any sign that one had been laid. Archer’s door remained closed. She listened. There was no sound. She knocked and listened again. Still, nothing. The door was locked, still. And only after several minutes of searching did she find the key that she had thrown the day before. She unlocked the door and opened it. A fire was blazing away, but there was no other indication whatever that anyone had been there. She closed the door again and sat down on her bed. She would not succumb to despair today. She could not afford to do anything but keep her wits about her.

It was already late. Nearly midday, and though she was hungry, she was not yet prepared to get caught up in the fray that was the last minutes’ preparations for the next two days’ events. There was something she wanted to do first. Something she had wished to do earlier, and would have done had she not been so infernally tired last night. She went to examine for herself Archer’s mother’s rooms.

At the furthest end of the house from her own rooms, beyond the guest rooms, in a separate suite that might have mirrored her own, was the room in which Ethne Hamilton had slept, where she had lived, where she had borne her one and only child. And where she had, shortly after, died. Imogen stopped at the doorway and looked around blindly as her eyes adjusted from the bright light of the cloisters to the shaded darkness of the musty and forgotten room. Respectfully, she entered and crossed to the window where she drew the curtains aside. Then faced the room once more, to observe it in the full light of a beautiful day.

What she saw at first dismayed her. Under two decades’ worth of cobwebs, of dust and dirt and unchecked decay, there had once been a charming and tastefully appointed room. The whitewashed dado, now cloaked in dust, bore the outline of the panelling beneath it in varying hues of grey. A leak in the roof had left a ragged stain down the length of one wall, peeling the blue beribboned papers to reveal the bare and water-ravaged plaster beneath. The photographs and portraits that adorned the walls required first a dusting before the likenesses they concealed could be recognised.

Removing from her pocket a handkerchief, Imogen set to work, carefully restoring, as far as she was able, the countenances within the frames. One of these must be his mother. Another, perhaps, his father? The weight of sorrow and tragedy, of lost and frustrated hopes descended upon her. Whether she had carried these here with her or whether they had been in residence already, she could not be sure. To recognise Archer’s parents did not demand that she make a blind guess, for she had seen Ethne Hamilton before. Of the many women who might have been her, one was unmistakeably so. It was a photograph. She stood between two gentlemen, while another, much older, sat before her in a chair, his legs covered by a thick rug. Sir Gordon, presumably. But which of the gentlemen was Magnus? And which Sir Edmund? One was fair, like that in the mural. One dark. So which was Archer’s father? She thought to look for some tell-tale sign of adoration in their countenances, but was recalled to Mrs. Montegue’s words. Both brothers had been in love with Archer’s mother. Both had wanted… She suddenly stopped. There was something in Mrs. Montegue’s allusion she had missed before, and which now came slowly back to her.

For the sake of Ethne Hamilton alone would Sir Edmund consider taking on such a responsibility as raising a child. Even then I don’t think he would have done it were it not for the chance that he might have something to gain by it—or, just possibly, some further obligation to consider in the matter, and one that might save him from owning it in other quarters.

But did that mean that Sir Edmund had somehow gained by assuming guardianship of Archer…or that the responsibility was his own all along?

“Here you are.”

Imogen started again upon hearing the voice and turned to face the doorway.

“Archer!” Had she been better possessed of herself, or less, perhaps, had she not been so stunned by his appearance, she might have flown to him. But she did not. She simply stood there, staring and unable to move. Or to think.

“I was longer than I’d planned.”

“Yes,” she answered him, the single word suffused with both relief and accusation.

“I’m sorry.”

She had nothing to reply for this.

“You are all right? You had no misadventures, I trust?”

Neither did she answer this, but looked away.

Archer took a step within the room and closed the door.

“I left you in Roger’s care. Tell me he did not fail in his charge.”

“He cannot provide for my every comfort, Archer. Or, at least, you would not want him to.”

“No. But as far as that goes, neither can I.”

She looked away. She deserved that, but it hurt nonetheless. “You won’t leave again?”

With a regretful look, his gaze found hers. “I can’t make you that promise.”

“Ah.” And she looked away once again.

“But neither will I leave you here. I’ll make arrangements to send you to Claire.”

“Send me? Like a letter or a package, do you mean?”

A heavy silence descended and the space, though no one moved, seemed to widen between them.

“Sir Edmund is home?” he asked.

“Yes.”

“When?”

“Monday.”

“He returned early, then?”

“Yes.”

“Has he spoken to you?”

“Since Monday? Oh yes!”

“Dash it, Gina!”

“Imogen.”

He stopped, whatever it was he was going to say, was halted by her correction.

She turned from him again, back toward the picture of his mother and the two men, one of which she knew to be his father, though she had not quite figured out which.

He came to stand just behind her, and turning her gently around, he held her to him. Laying her head against his chest, she took in as much of him as she dared allow herself. His warmth, his smell, the comfort of his presence that she had missed so greatly these last several days. Yet there was something not quite right in this embrace. There was a tension, as though he was holding something in reserve from her. But he was home, and that was enough for now.

“Are you angry with me?”

With a laugh, he answered, “No. Why should I be?”

“To find me in your mother’s rooms, I mean.”

“I should have shown them to you already. You have found her, I take it? Her image, I mean.”

“Yes. She was very beautiful.”

“I’ve always thought so.”

“You look a great deal like her.”

“Do I?”

“Can I ask you something?” she said and looked up at him cautiously.

“I doubt very much you have more questions than I have just now, but yes.”

She drew a little away from him, but hesitated. “I was wondering,” she began at last. “Have you ever considered why your uncle detests so much the very mention of your mother’s name?”

Archer simply shook his head, the slightest look of frustration on his face.

“You don’t know why he is so cruel to her memory? Or you do not know if you’ve ever considered it?”

He sighed and looked away.

“He was in love with her.”

Archer seemed stunned for a moment or two. And then, recovering, answered, “That’s a rather preposterous assumption considering the way he speaks of her, how he has veritably forgotten her and has insisted that I should too.”

“Yes, but it’s considering that that makes me certain of it.” She did not add that Mrs. Montegue had told her it was true.

Archer gave her yet another strange look, as though he was unwilling to believe it and yet waiting for her to offer further evidence.

“You don’t think that if you loved someone long and hard and then found that they could never return it, or worse, that they could and did but then changed, that you’d learn in time to hate them?”

He thought for a moment, apparently weighing very seriously the question in all its possible implications. “No. I don’t think I would.”

“Don’t you?” And truly her question had changed. She was no longer asking after his mother, but about herself. What was this reserve, this hesitation? Had he changed toward her? And if so, why?

“What if you were to learn that she was, somehow, less than you wished for her to be? That she was, after all, irrecoverably beneath you? That her circumstances, her history, had caused her—and might subsequently cause you—shame?”

“What are you trying to say?” he said, moving away from her. “That my mother was less than she should have been?”

“Isn’t that what you fear, after all? What if it should prove to be true?”

“What is this about?” he asked as if he were afraid of the answer she might give. “What is it you are trying to say?”

“I don’t know.”

“You don’t know?”

“I’m only trying to make sense of it. I want to understand.”

“What do you want to understand? Where I fit? Where you fit? Because, to be quite honest with you, I don’t know anymore.”

This caused her more pain than she was prepared to show. If she had, he would not have seen it, for he had already turned to leave the room.

“Where are you going?” she dared to ask him.

“To have a word or two with my uncle.”