Valentine’s birth, I think.”
The coach clattered along past the dormant trees and dead grass of Grosvenor Square. Gladys peered out the window then huffed a sigh.
“It was worse for me with Elizabeth. I thought I’d never stop weeping. Her Grace, of all people, was a comfort.”
The idea that Her Grace could have been a comfort to anybody was intriguing. “How?”
“She’d lost Eustace, you’ll recall, when he was only five. She said a mother must not give in to the melancholy, that your children will always be with you in some regard, despite that you must send them out into the world. I think she also cornered Tony and told him to cosset me within an inch of his life.”
“As if he doesn’t anyway?”
They shared a smile, though as conversation again lapsed, Esther marveled that she and Gladys hadn’t had this discussion before. Perhaps, with six children between them under the age of six, they’d been too busy.
Melancholy was a serious word, a potentially dangerous word. “I don’t weep, much. Hardly at all, but there’s a sense…”
Gladys barged into the silence. “Your heart aches abominably after the baby arrives. When I was girl, we used to go to Lyme in the summer. I’d stand on the beach in my bare feet and let the water swirl about my ankles. After Elizabeth was born, I felt like something was dragging at my ankles the same way, taking all my happiness and pulling it out to sea. I’d cry at anything and nothing.”
In for a penny… “Did you faint?”
“Not until Charlotte came along.”
Another shared smile, nowhere near as merry.
“I don’t think I’m carrying again.” Though after last night… Last night had been a mistake in some senses, and much needed in others. Esther hadn’t completely sorted the whole business out, but she’d slept well, and she had not made arrangements to consult any physicians.
Nor had Percival brought it up again at breakfast.
“Esther, lower the shade.” Gladys reached over and unrolled the leather that covered the window.
“Why are we shutting out the last sunshine we might see for days?”
“Because that beastly O’Donnell woman was sitting in her open carriage, flirting right there in the street with some poor man.”
“She must earn her living too, Gladys.” Esther could be charitable, because Percival had assured her early in their marriage—early and often—that he’d been ready to divest himself of the drama and greed of professional liaisons.
At the time, she’d believed him. Through a crack between the window and the shade, Esther studied Cecily O’Donnell, one of Percival’s former mistresses—the tabbies had been all too happy to inform a new bride exactly where her competition might lie. The lady’s coiffure was elaborate and well powdered, a green satin caleche draped over it just so. Her white muff was enormous, her attire elegant to the point of ostentatious, and in her eyes there was a calculation Esther could see even from a distance of several yards.
The carriage rolled past Mrs. O’Donnell’s flirting swain, and Esther thought of Percival’s words from the previous night: I do love you. I’ll always love you.
She’d believed him then. She still believed him in harsh light of the winter day.
“Good of you to receive me, Kathleen.”
Percival bowed over the hand of a woman he had seen little of in the previous five years, and had seen every inch of prior to his marriage. Her hands were still soft, her smile gracious, and her modest house welcoming.
And yet, she had aged. The life of a courtesan was a life of lies, of making the difficult look easy and fun, when it was in truth dangerous and grueling. Percival knew that now, now that he was married.
Or maybe he’d always known it, only now he could afford to admit his part in it.
Kathleen St. Just rose from a graceful curtsy. “My lord, you look well. May I offer you refreshment?”
He loathed tea, and he did not want to consume anything under her roof for reasons having to do with Greek legends regarding trips through the underworld. He parted with her hand.
“Nothing for me, and I won’t take up much of your time. I trust you are well?”
She glanced around the room, which, now that he studied it, was also showing a few signs of wear. By candlelight, the frayed edge of the Turkey carpet would not be obvious, nor would the lighter rectangle on the wall where a painting had hung.
In the harsh light of day, the decor had deteriorated significantly.
“I’m well enough. I hear you are a papa now.” She led him to a sofa Percival recognized from his visits here more than five years ago. He sat as gingerly as he could, having taken his pleasure of the lady more than once upon its cushions.
This sortie was proving damned awkward, but sending a note would not do.
“I am blessed with four healthy sons, if you can believe it.”
She considered him. Her hair was still a rich, dark auburn, her eyes a marvelous green. Even without her paint and powder—especially without it—she was a beautiful woman, and yet… the bloom was off her. She’d been, in cavalry parlance, ridden hard and put away wet too many times, and all the coin in the world could not compensate her for that.
“And your lady wife? How does she fare?”
The question was a polite reminder that Kathleen St. Just did not permit married men among her intimate admirers—or she hadn’t five years ago. Percival had liked that about her—respected her for it.
“It’s about my lady wife that I have presumed to come to you.”
He rose, the damned sofa being no place to discuss Esther’s problems.
“Are you sure you wouldn’t like something to drink, my lord?”
My lord? She’d seldom my-lorded him in the past, but there was comfort in the use of the title now. Kathleen was a fundamentally considerate woman, something he hadn’t appreciated enough as a younger man.
“Nothing, thank you.” He paced away from her to peer out her back window. In spring, her tiny yard was a riot of flowers, but now it was a bleak patch of dead, tangled foliage and bare earth, with a streak of dirty snow by the back fence. “I need advice, Kathleen, and information, and I cannot seek them from the usual sources.”
“I will not gossip with you, my lord. Not about anybody. I know how you lordly types like to revile one another by day then toast one another by night.”
He turned and smiled at her. “You know, my wife frequently takes that same starchy tone with me. I have always admired a formidable woman.”
He’d confused her with that compliment. Beautifully arched brows drew down. “Perci—my lord, what are you doing here?”
He admired women who could be direct, too.
“My lady wife is sickening for something, and she won’t consult a physician. She didn’t refuse me outright when I suggested it, but she has a way of not refusing that
Kathleen left the sofa too and went to the sideboard. None of the decanters were full—in fact, they each sported only a couple of inches of drink. Her hands on the glass were pale and elegant, though the image struck Percival as cold, too. He swung his gaze to the bleak little back garden, where a small boy was now engaged in making snowballs out of the dirty snow.
“You love your wife, I take it?” In the detachment of her tone, Percival understood that the question was painful for a woman who would likely never marry and never have any pretensions to respectability again.
He kept his gaze on the small boy pelting the back fence with dirty snowballs. The boy had good aim, leaving a neat row of white explosions against the stone wall at exactly the same height. “I love my wife very much, else I would not be here.”
Kathleen said nothing for a moment while the snowballs hit the wall, one after another. “Describe her symptoms.”
He did as best he could while the boy ran out of ammunition and knelt in the snow and mud to make more.
