by Julia Quinn
“The governor,” Cecilia repeated, just barely resisting the urge to let her head fall in her hands.
“He’s just a man,” Edward said unhelpfully.
“Says the son of an earl.”
“What a snob you are,” he said with a good-natured chuckle.
She drew back in affront. She was not perfect, and these days she was not even honest, but she was not a snob. “What do you mean by that?”
“Holding his position against him,” he said with a continued grin.
“I’m not. Good heavens, no. It’s quite the opposite. I’m holding my position against me.”
He reached for more food. “Don’t be silly.”
“I’m a nobody.”
“That,” Edward said firmly, “is categorically untrue.”
“Edward . . .”
“You’re my wife.”
That was categorically untrue. Cecilia had to slap a hand over her mouth to keep from laughing. Or crying.
Or both.
“Even if we were not married, you would be a cherished guest at the festivities.”
“As the governor would have no knowledge of my existence, I would not be invited to the festivities.”
“I expect he would know who you are. He’s fiendishly good with names, and I’m sure at some point Thomas mentioned that he had a sister.”
Cecilia nearly choked on her eggs. “Thomas knows the governor?”
“He dined with me there a few times,” Edward said offhandedly.
“Of course,” Cecilia said. Because . . . of course.
She had to put a stop to this. It was spiraling out of control. It was . . . It was . . .
“Actually,” Edward mused, “he might be of help.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“I don’t know why I didn’t think of it before.” He looked up, his brow coming together over his blue, blue eyes. “We should apply to Governor Tryon for help in locating Thomas.”
“Do you think he will know anything?”
“Almost assuredly not, but he knows how to apply pressure on the correct people.”
Cecilia swallowed, trying to hold back tears of frustration. There it was again. That simple, inescapable truth. When it came to the search for her brother, all that really mattered was that one knew the correct people.
Her unease must have shown on her face, because Edward reached out and gave her hand a reassuring pat. “You should not feel uncomfortable,” he told her. “You are a gentleman’s daughter and now the daughter-in-law of the Earl of Manston. You have every right to attend that ball.”
“It’s not that,” Cecilia said, although it was, a little. She had no experience hobnobbing with high-ranking officials. Then again, she had no experience hobnobbing with sons of earls either, but she seemed to be fake-married to one.
“Can you dance?” Edward asked.
“Of course I can dance,” she practically snapped.
“Then you’ll be fine.”
She stared at him. “You have no clue, do you?”
He sat back in his chair, his left cheek bulging out as he pressed his tongue against the inside of it. He did that a fair bit, she realized. She wasn’t quite sure yet what it meant.
“There are a lot of things about which I have no clue,” he said in a voice that was far too patient to ever be mistaken for benign. “The events of the last three months, for example. How I came to have a lump the size of a robin’s egg on my head. How I came to be married to you.”
Cecilia stopped breathing.
“But what I do know,” he went on, “is that it will give me great pleasure to buy you a pretty gown and attend a frivolous entertainment with you on my arm.” He leaned forward, his eyes glittering with a strange, indecipherable ferocity. “It will be blessedly, inoffensively normal. Do you have any idea how much I crave the blessed, the inoffensive, and the normal?”
Cecilia didn’t say a word.
“I thought not,” he murmured. “So let’s buy you a dress, shall we?”
She nodded. What else could she do?
As it turned out, it was not so easy to have an evening gown made for a woman in three days. One seamstress actually wept when she heard the amount of money Edward was willing to spend. She couldn’t do it, she’d tearfully told him. Not without forty more pairs of hands.
“Will you take her measurements?” Edward asked.
“To what purpose?” an exasperated Cecilia demanded.
“Humor me,” he said, and then he deposited her back at the Devil’s Head while he paid a call upon his godmother. She had always enjoyed pretty things, for both herself and her daughter, and Edward was quite certain that she could be persuaded to share.
The governor and Mrs. Tryon lived with their daughter in a rented home at the edge of the town and had done—with the exception of a visit back to England—since the governor’s mansion had burned to the ground in 1773. Edward had not been in New York at the time, but he’d heard all about it from his mother, who had heard all about it from Margaret Tryon. They’d lost everything they owned, and had very nearly lost their daughter too. Little Margaret—generally called May to differentiate from her mother—had survived only due to the quick thinking of her governess, who had thrown her from a second-story window into a snowbank.
Edward took a deep breath as the butler admitted him into the hall. He would have to keep his wits about him. Margaret Tryon was nobody’s fool, and there was no point even trying to pretend he was in hale and hearty health. Indeed, the first words out of her mouth upon his entry into her sitting room were:
“You look terrible.”
“Candid as always, Aunt Margaret,” he said.
She gave him her signature one-shoulder shrug—a throwback from her days among the French, she’d always told him, although he wasn’t sure when, exactly, she’d been among the French—then presented her cheek for a kiss, which he dutifully gave.
She drew back, assessing him with shrewd eyes. “I would be remiss as your godmother if I did not point out that your pallor is gray, your eyes are hollow, and you’ve lost at least a stone.”
He took a moment to digest this, then said, “You look lovely.”
This made her smile. “You always were a charming boy.”
Edward declined to point out that he was well into his third decade of life. He was fairly certain that godmothers were legally permitted to refer to their charges as boys and girls until they toddled off into the grave.
Margaret rang for tea, then leveled a frank stare in his direction and said, “I am terribly cross with you.”
He quirked a brow as he took a seat across from her.
“I have been waiting for you to visit. You returned to New York over a week ago, did you not?”
“I spent the first eight or so days unconscious,” he said mildly.
“Ah.” Her lips pressed together as she swallowed her emotions. “I had not realized.”
“I would imagine it is responsible for my terrible appearance, as you so termed it.”
She regarded him for a long moment, then said, “When I next write to your mama, I shall not offer a detailed description of your countenance. Or at least not an accurate one.”
“I appreciate that,” Edward said honestly.
“Well,” Margaret said. She tapped her fingers against the arm of her chair, something she often did when she was uncomfortable with her own displays of emotion. “How do you feel?”
“Better than yesterday.” Which he supposed was something for which to be grateful.
His godmother, however, was not satisfied with this answer. “That could mean anything.”
Edward considered the current state of his health. The dull ache in his head had become so constant that he could almost ignore it. Far more troublesome was his lack of stamina. He’d had to pause for what felt like a full minute after climbing the half flight of stairs to his godmother’s front door. It wasn’t even just to catch his breath. He’d needed time jus
t to muster the energy to make his legs work. And the trip to the dressmaker with Cecilia had left him utterly wrecked. He’d paid the carriage driver double to take the (very) long way from the Devil’s Head to the Tryons’ home, just so he could close his eyes and not move a muscle for the duration.
But Aunt Margaret didn’t need to know any of this. He gave her a light smile and said, “I’m walking unassisted, so that’s an improvement.”
Her brows rose.
“I’m still exhausted,” he admitted, “and my head hurts. But I’m improving, and I’m alive, so I’m trying not to complain.”
She nodded slowly. “Very stoic of you. I approve.”
But before he could do so much as nod an acknowledgment, she changed the subject by saying, “You did not tell me you’d got married.”
“I told very few people.”
Her eyes narrowed. “Define very few.”
“Well, about that . . .” Edward exhaled as he tried to figure out how best to explain his current situation to one of the few people in North America who had known him before his arrival on the continent. Also the only person who knew his mother, which was probably a far more pertinent fact.
Margaret Tryon waited with ten seconds of overt patience, then said, “Spit it.”
Edward cracked a smile at that. His godmother was well-known for her frank speech. “I seem to have lost a bit of my memory.”
Her lips parted, and she actually leaned forward. Edward would have congratulated himself on having cracked her unflappable veneer if his own injury weren’t the unfortunate cause of the fissure.
“Fascinating,” she said, eyes shining with what could only be described as academic interest. “I’ve never heard of such a thing. Well, no, I beg your pardon, of course I’ve heard of it. But it’s always been one of those tales—someone knows someone else who thought they heard that another person once said they met someone . . . You know what I mean.”
Edward stared at her for a moment and made the only possible reply: “Indeed.”
“How much have you forgotten?”
“About three or four months, to the best of my calculations. It’s difficult,” he said with a shrug, “because I cannot quite pinpoint the last thing I remember.”
Margaret sat back. “Fascinating,” she said again.
“Less so when it’s one’s own memory that has flown the coop.”
“I’m sure. Forgive me. But you must confess, if this were someone else, you would be fascinated.”
Edward wasn’t so sure about that, but he well believed that she did. His godmother had always been interested in the scholarly and the scientific, to the point that others often criticized her as having an unfeminine mind. Predictably, Aunt Margaret had taken that as a compliment.
“Tell me,” she said, her voice softening slightly. “What can I do to help?”
“About my memory? Nothing, I’m afraid. About my wife? She needs a dress.”
“For the ball? Of course she does. She can have one of mine. Or May’s,” she added. “You’ll have to get it altered, of course, but you’ve blunt enough to pay for that.”
“Thank you,” Edward said with a tip of his head. “That is exactly what I was hoping you might offer.”
Margaret waved her hand. “It’s nothing. But tell me, do I know this girl?”
“No, but I believe you’ve met her brother, Thomas Harcourt.”
“I don’t recall the name,” she said with a frown.
“He would have come to dinner with me. Late last year, I think.”
“Your friend with the blondish hair? Oh, right. Pleasant enough fellow. Convinced you to marry his sister, did he?”
“So I’m told.”
Edward regretted his words the moment they left his mouth. Aunt Margaret was on them like a bloodhound.
“So you’re told? What the devil does that mean?”
“Forget I said anything,” Edward said. She would not, of course, but he had to try.
“You will explain yourself right now, Edward Rokesby, or I swear I shall write to your mother and make you sound worse.”
Edward scrubbed at his forehead. This was all he needed. Margaret would never go through with that threat; she had far too much love for his mother to worry her needlessly. But nor would she let him out of her house until he answered her questions to her satisfaction. And given his current lack of energy, if it came down to a physical altercation, she would probably win.
He sighed. “Do you recall those months I mentioned? The ones I don’t quite remember?”
“Are you telling me you don’t remember marrying her?”
Edward opened his mouth, but then it just hung there. He couldn’t quite bring himself to reply.
“Good God, my boy, were there any witnesses?”
Again, he had no answer.
“Are you sure you’re even married to her?”
For this, he was resolute. “Yes.”
She threw her arms in the air, a most out-of-character display of exasperation. “How?”
“Because I know her.”
“Do you?”
Edward’s fingers bit into the edge of his chair. Something hot and angry slithered through his veins, and it was a struggle to keep his voice clipped and even. “What do you imply, Aunt?”
“Have you seen a document? Have you consummated the marriage?”
“That is hardly your business.”
“You are my business, and you have been since the day I stood next to your mother in Canterbury Cathedral and promised to guide you through your Christian life. Or did you forget that?”
“I confess my memory of that day is indistinct.”
“Edward!”
If she had lost patience with him, then he was surely coming close to doing the same with her. But he kept his voice carefully regulated when he said, “I must beg of you not to call into question my wife’s honor and honesty.”
Margaret’s eyes narrowed. “What has she done? She seduced you, didn’t she? You’re under her spell.”
“Stop,” Edward bit off, rising unsteadily to his feet. “Damn it,” he growled as he grabbed the edge of the table for balance.
“Dear God, you’re worse than I thought,” Margaret said. She hurried to his side and practically shoved him back in the chair. “That’s it. You’re staying with me.”
For a moment Edward was tempted to agree. They would certainly be more comfortable here than at the Devil’s Head. But at least at the inn they had privacy. They might be surrounded by strangers, but they were strangers who didn’t much care what they did. Here at the Tryons’ house, his every move—and more critically, Cecilia’s—would be scrutinized, dissected, and then sent home to his mother in a weekly report.
No, he did not wish to move in with his godmother.
“I am quite comfortable in my current lodgings,” he said to her. “I do appreciate your invitation.”
Margaret scowled, clearly displeased with his behavior. “Will you permit me to ask you one question?”
He nodded.
“How do you know?”
He waited for her to elucidate, and when she did not, he said, “How do I know what?”
“How do you know that she tells you the truth?”
He did not even have to think about it. “Because I know her.”
And he did. He may have only known her face for a few days, but he had known her heart for far longer. He did not doubt her. He could never doubt her.
“My God,” Margaret breathed. “You love her.”
Edward said nothing. He could not contradict her.
“Very well,” she said with a sigh. “Can you make it up the stairs?”
He stared at her. What on earth was she talking about?
“You still need a dress, don’t you? I don’t know the first thing about what will suit the new Mrs. Rokesby, and I’d rather not order the maids to empty the wardrobes into my sitting room.”
“Ah, yes, of course. And yes, I can m
ake it up the stairs.”
Still, he was grateful for the bannister.
Chapter 11
Poor Lieu Captain Rokesby! I hope the crossing was not as dreadful as you feared. At least your recent promotion will be of some comfort. How proud I am that you were both made captains!
We are all well here in the village. I attended the local assembly three nights ago, and per usual there were two ladies for every gentleman. I danced but twice. And the second time was with the vicar, so I do not think that counts.
Your poor sister shall be a spinster!
Ha, but do not worry. I am perfectly content. Or at the very least, imperfectly content. Is that such a thing? I think it should be.
—from Cecilia Harcourt to her brother Thomas
And so it was that on the afternoon of the governor’s ball, Edward laid a large box upon the bed that he shared—but did not truly share—with his wife.
“Did you buy something?” she asked.
“Open it and see.”
She gave him a slightly suspicious look as she perched on the edge of the mattress. “What is it?”
“Am I not allowed to bestow a present upon my wife?”
Cecilia looked down at the box, wrapped rather festively with a wide red ribbon, and then back up at him. “I wasn’t expecting a gift,” she said.
“All the more reason to give you one.” He nudged the box a couple of inches closer. “Open it.”
Her slim hands went to the ribbon, tugging the knot loose before lifting the lid of the box.
She gasped.
He grinned. It was a good gasp.
“Do you like it?” he asked, even though it was plain that she did.
Lips still parted with shock, she reached out to touch the whisper-soft silk that lay nestled in the dressmaker’s box. It was the color of a shallow sea, just a hair too blue to match her eyes. But when Edward had seen it in May Tryon’s wardrobe, he had known it was the right gown to take to the seamstress for alterations.
He wasn’t sure if May Tryon yet knew that she’d made a gift of her silk gown; she’d not been home when her mother had thrown open her wardrobe doors. Edward made a mental note to thank her for her generosity before she had a chance to discover it by accident. And besides, if he knew the Tryons, May would be wearing something new, spectacular, and wildly expensive. She would not begrudge Cecilia her remade dress.
