“What news?” asked Lenox. He kept his voice soft.
She sat down by him, having kissed him on the cheek. “Sad news, I’m afraid.”
“Oh?”
“It’s Toto. I’ve just had a letter from her, down at her father’s.”
Lenox’s heart fell. “Have they been arguing?”
“She has Georgianna with her, too. It must be terrible for Thomas — he so dotes on them both.”
“But what quarrel can she possibly have with him?”
“Her letter is unclear on that point — only says that she cannot tolerate London at the moment, cannot tolerate the country either, and feels heartily sick of it all.”
“I hope there is nothing of a permanent rift.”
Jane raised her eyebrows. “It is difficult to say. I wonder whether I should go down to see her.”
“Are you not planning the ball?”
“I would miss it, of course, for Toto.”
“Shall I speak to Thomas?”
“No, don’t. Or let him speak to you, if he likes.”
Lenox shook his head. “I cannot imagine he will.”
“As long as he has not taken advantage of the solitude to — anyhow, you know as well as I do.”
“He didn’t have his laboratory, his experiments, his marine studies, back in those drinking days. Not to so great an extent. Work is a great distraction.”
She leaned her head against his shoulder. “Shall I call tea for you?”
“Thank you, no. We dine early tonight, do we not?”
“At seven, if Freddie really does come.”
Lenox gestured toward the desk. “You were returning Toto’s letter?”
“Oh, no, that is already sent. I was only — but can I tell you tomorrow?”
“Of course,” he said.
She smiled up at him. “I think you will like the surprise.”
They sat in companionable silence for some moments then, watching the listless light lose its color and then begin to disappear altogether. Through the window he could see smoke rising from the chimneys in Grosvenor Square. How nice it was to be inside and warm, on such a day; how fortunate. “Has Sophia had a productive day?”
“Miss Taylor read to her this morning, and she dined on a very great — a prodigious piece of meringue.”
Lenox frowned. “Can that be healthy?”
“Children need eggs and milk, as far as I can gather.”
“So much sugar, though?”
Jane laughed, pulling a strand of glossy dark hair behind her ear. “She is not so roly-poly as some children.”
“No, she is perfect, of course. I suppose I should not wake her?”
“You may as well, or she won’t sleep tonight. I shall ask Miss Taylor to change her into something fetching, too, for Freddie — her little yellow dress, perhaps.”
The squire of Everley arrived punctually at a quarter to six that evening. As he always did in London he looked more harried than easy. He offered up some parcels to the footman, and took off his coat. “Cabman shouted at me,” he said.
“Did he?” asked Lady Jane. “How rude!”
“I did fall asleep in his cab, I suppose, and we were blocking a line of traffic, from what I saw as I was … as I was hustled out. Still.”
“Was your journey down happy?” asked Lady Jane, guiding him toward the drawing room and setting him in an armchair.
“Endurable, thank you.”
“And Plumbley? Plumbley is well?”
Here they launched into a conversation about Musgrave — the town was taking it with shocking smugness, and also relief that the ordeal was finished.
There were other guests to arrive soon: Edmund and his wife; Dallington; and one or two of Frederick’s acquaintances from schooldays. Jane thought that before they did and the tone of the evening grew more formal Sophia might be brought down.
She was, by Miss Taylor, who wore a fetching blue dress. “That reminds me,” said Frederick. “Charles, if one of your men could fetch my parcels? I brought you, Miss Taylor, some cuttings of the flowers we spoke about in Somerset.”
“How kind of you!” she said.
There was a knock at the door as he was presenting her with this parcel — it was Dallington, who came in, saw her, and rather seemed to blush. He was able to put a good countenance on his embarrassment. Lenox wondered whether there was anything at all to Jane’s speculations. Perhaps, he thought.
It was a long dinner, with a great deal of laughter and storytelling. When it was finally over, and the men were putting on their cloaks in the hallway, Frederick started to don his as well. They had offered him a room here, on Hampden Lane, when he planned his visit, but he was an old bachelor and admitted freely that his club would best tolerate his idiosyncrasies.
“Did you not want to speak to me?” Lenox asked him. “Your letter—”
Frederick smiled at him. “Not just now. Perhaps in the morning you would have breakfast with me, at the Carlton? I will know my mind better then — best not to speak on serious subjects after a day of travel, a rich dinner, and a few glasses of wine.”
“I should be very glad to breakfast with you. Eight, shall we say?”
“Capital.” Frederick smiled, and Lenox recognized some ghost of his mother’s smile therein, a fine lineament. “Charles,” he said, the din of the other guests’ conversation still covering their voices, “you will not be too down in the mouth, when I pass Everley on?”
“Not in the slightest,” said Lenox stoutly, at last, in this very moment, having determined himself not to be.
“I’m glad to hear it. Until the morning, then.”
“Until the morning.”
CHAPTER FIFTY
Lenox had grown accustomed to rising with the daylight this past week, with so much to do, and having taken the previous evening off he was at his desk at six the next morning, reading the minutes of meetings he had skipped, answering his correspondence, and poring over lists of the members of the House who attended sessions infrequently, in the hopes of finding a name or two that might be rehabilitated and brought into the fold. Every so often he rubbed his eyes or took a sip of coffee. Otherwise there was no break in the work.
At half-seven he went upstairs to change from his comfortable morning coat, with its tattered hems at the wrist and the heel, into a smarter suit of clothes, appropriate for dining at Frederick’s club. He felt tired in his bones as he mounted the stairs, but brightened when he saw Jane was upstairs, dressed for a morning round of calls.
“Have you seen Miss Taylor?” she said.
“I have not.”
“She wished to speak to us.”
“It will have to wait, unless it is about Sophia’s health, in which case—”
“No, no, it is nothing of the kind. I shall tell her it must be later, though she was rather pressing in her request.”
Upon saying this, Jane looked at him meaningfully: Dallington. Lenox frowned. “I hope she won’t want to leave us. Just when we are all so used to each other’s ways.”
“In all likelihood it’s some trifle. She’s a methodical young woman.”
“Let us hope so. In the meanwhile help me with this watch-chain, would you dear? I must be on my way to see my cousin.”
The Carlton Club was a sleek and stuffy place — mahogany, red velvet, quiet voices. Quite foreign territory for Lenox, since it was occupied primarily by conservative politicians. In the dining room he waited for Frederick at a table, covered with a white cloth, laid out with silver and a slender crystal vase that held a rose. As he studied the flower two men from the opposite benches passed him with a cordial salutation. “Coming to our side, is it, Lenox?”