Lily of the Valley (The Gents, #2), page 25
“Digby smoothed that over for us.” Niles slapped the King on the shoulder. “We’re fortunate you are very convincing.”
“And by ‘convincing,’ I assume you mean ‘handsome.’”
“Not what he said, my friend,” Kes tossed back.
Again, laughter rang among them.
“Stanley came up with the most ridiculous adventures,” Lucas said. “We all knew we were in over our heads, and he would grin with excitement.”
“The Highwayman enjoyed everything he did.” Niles shook his head in appreciation. “And everything he did was treated as the greatest lark of all time.”
“What do you suppose he would suggest as our next adventure if he were here now?” Digby asked.
If only that were their reality. If only Stanley had remained. If only . . . a lot of things.
“He would already be organizing an effort to meet Finley’s coach on whichever road the cad means to depart the county,” Lucas said, “and treat the louse to a bit of land piracy.”
“And he could even convince Grumpy Uncle to participate.” Henri grinned at him. “He was very persuasive.”
Kes had already discussed Stanley at some length with Violet the day before. He was not at all ready to do so again. “I do not wish to talk about him.”
“You’ve avoided talking about him for ten years now,” Aldric said. “Perhaps it’s time we did.”
He increased his pace and pushed out ahead of them. “Is this what Violet was talking to you about?”
“Why would Violet be talking to us about Stanley?” Lucas pressed, keeping pace with him quiet easily.
“Because I talked to her about him.”
Lucas set his hand on Kes’s arm and stopped him. “Why would you talk to her about him and not to us?” he asked in a tone of hurt.
Kes took a few steps away. “She didn’t know him. She’s not grieving him like we are. I didn’t—” It was too much. He couldn’t force the remaining confession to slip from him.
“You’ve been different since he left.” Aldric had caught up to them. “You’re somehow more distant and more present. We can’t make sense of it.”
“Would you rather I be entirely distant?” he muttered.
“No,” they all answered.
“What we’d rather,” Lucas said, “is that you tell us what weight you’re carrying. Even a year on the Continent didn’t grant me any insights. We’re baffled. We’ve been baffled for years.”
“What is there to be baffled about?” Kes kept walking, not looking at any of them. “I missed a gathering. I regretted it. I haven’t missed one since. And that means being present even when I’m a little exhausted from the whirl of it all. It is not such a difficult puzzle.”
“Why did you regret missing the gathering?” Henri asked.
“Because I should have been there.” He took in a deep breath and slowly released it. “Stanley asked me twice to join in. But I decided instead to spend that time pouting. There is plenty enough in that to regret.”
“You were nineteen, and life had bombarded you with difficulties,” Lucas said. “We all understood. We missed you, we wished you were there, but we understood. You needed time.”
“I needed to be there so I could convince—” He shoved his hands into his pockets.
Aldric stepped in front of him and stopped his forward movement. “Convince whom?”
Kes dropped his gaze to his shoes.
True to character, Aldric didn’t need an answer. “We tried everything to talk Stanley out of joining the fight in the colonies, but it became apparent rather quickly that he could not be dissuaded.”
It wasn’t that simple. “I often talked him out of his most ridiculous schemes. I could have then. But I wasn’t there.”
“It wasn’t a lark or a whim,” Aldric said firmly. “He didn’t go to have an adventure. He went because it was what he was determined to do. It mattered to him.”
Kes hadn’t heard that before.
“You couldn’t have stopped him.” Lucas met Kes’s eyes. “Though you were better at it than we were, if you had seen and heard him talk of it, you would know how impossible he was to dissuade in this matter.” His eyes grew more focused, the look in them more heavy. “Had you been there, Kes, you could not have stopped him.”
“But I could have tried.” He swallowed down the emotion that rose in his throat. “When I received your missive, I knew it was too late to catch him in Derbyshire, so I went directly to the port where he would be shipping out.”
“You did?” Lucas watched him closely.
Kes nodded. “I missed him by less than a day. I wasn’t at the house party, the one that he had all but begged me to attend. I wasn’t there to try to change his mind, and I didn’t get to the port in time to talk to him there. Even if I couldn’t convince him to stay, I could have at least seen him one last time.” The emotion he’d been fighting pooled hot in his eyes. “I never even said goodbye, and it was all my own doing. I could have been there, but I chose not to be. It’s my fault.”
“He wouldn’t have wanted for you to be miserable all these years,” Henri said. “He would not wish for you to spend your life suffering and crushed with these regrets.”
There was a reason Kes didn’t discuss these things. Even these well-meaning reassurances sat like a weight.
“If he were here,” Lucas said, “what do you honestly think he would say to you?”
There was an obvious answer to that. “He would call me a hulverhead, probably.”
The group smiled at the well-known turn of phrase. They had all been called that by him countless times over the years.
“He would also tell you to live your life,” Aldric said. “He would tell you to be happy.”
Kes shook his head. “Even if he did, it doesn’t change the fact that—that I didn’t—”
“He would further tell you,” Lucas interrupted, “that the generosity and support you showed Julia when she faced our forced marriage and the loss of so many of her dreams was far more important to him than you being present when he left England. He cared more for her than he did for himself. Her worries would have weighed far more heavily on him than his own.”
“I wanted to say goodbye,” he said. “I can’t simply stop regretting that.”
“If you had told any of us about this,” Digby said, “we could have informed you that none of us said goodbye to him.”
That stopped Kes short. “You knew he was leaving.”
“Yes, and we all attempted to bid him farewell, but he refused to allow us to say anything other than to commit to enjoying ourselves until we were all together again. That was the only thing he let us say. No goodbyes. No farewells.”
Kes had not expected that. “Do you think he knew he wasn’t coming back?”
“No,” Aldric said. “I think he thought he would survive. And he nearly did. The Battle of Yorktown came at the very end of that war. The very end. He nearly made it.”
Kes breathed through the difficult reminder. They’d nearly gotten him back. He’d come so painfully, painfully close to returning to them.
Aldric continued. “I also think he was worried that our concern for him would mean we wouldn’t live our lives while he was away. And that wasn’t at all what he would have wanted for us.”
“You all honored that request,” Kes said.
“And it’s time you did too.” Lucas set his hands on Kes’s shoulders. “None of us, and that absolutely includes Stanley, wants you to keep drowning in these regrets. Live your life the way you are meant to live it. And when our enthusiastic idiocy gets in the way of that, tell us.”
“And,” Digby said, “for heaven’s sake, don’t sever your connection with Violet. Her family moving to Irthing Grange is the best thing that’s happened in your life for years.”
Words of agreement rippled through the group. They weren’t unaware of the disaster he’d made of things, but they were forgetting it rather quickly.
“I gave her my word, and I won’t break it. My feelings were not what hers were. And I’ve sworn not to impose upon her. I will hold myself to that. Knowing friendship is the limit of what I can claim, I don’t intend to repeatedly break my own heart hoping for more.”
Niles nudged him onward once more.
Aldric spoke on the group’s behalf. “You absolutely must keep your promise, but don’t give up.”
“Hoping for the impossible isn’t—”
“On yourself, hulverhead,” Lucas said. “Don’t give up on yourself.”
Don’t give up on yourself. He felt like he’d been doing exactly that for ten years. But Stanley’s last wish for them all was to live their lives, to be happy. It was time Kes allowed himself to do so.
Chapter Thirty-Four
Violet was in the sitting room at Irthing Grange the next day when Kester was announced. All her family were there as well, though her parents sat across the room near the fireplace. He stepped inside, dressed in his usual fashionable soberness, spectacles perched on his nose, a book tucked under one arm. He offered the expected bows and words of greeting and was invited to join them. He moved to where Violet and Georgie were seated on either side of the window seat.
Georgie was “fussing” with Violet’s prosthesis. That Violet hadn’t even a moment’s uncertainty about Kester’s response to seeing her without her arm attached was further testament to how much she trusted him.
“A pleasure, ladies,” he said. He looked to Georgie. “I had hoped to see you in particular, Miss Georgie. I have found something in one of the books in my library that will be of particular interest to you.”
“You have?” She eyed the book under his arm with interest.
He nodded. “It is a book that delineates many of the events of the early sixteenth century. And in the back is an illumination.” He motioned to the space between the two of them. “May I?”
Georgie didn’t bother discussing the matter with Violet but nodded emphatically.
Kester looked to Violet for confirmation. She gave a quick nod of agreement. He sat and placed the book on his lap, opening it to the back. “This is a facsimile of the Westminster Tournament Roll. And this right here”—he tapped the page—“is John Blanke.”
Georgie gasped with excitement. “It’s actually him?”
Kester nodded. “The famed trumpeter from Africa, favored by the king and members of the royal court.”
With wide eyes, Georgie looked up at their visitor. “May I show the book to my aunt? He is her ancestor, you know.”
Kester nodded.
“Be careful with it,” Violet added.
Georgie handed the prosthesis to Kester, took up the book, and crossed the room with careful but quick steps to where Violet’s mother sat. She began an eager conversation, one Violet could hear only bits and pieces of.
“Thank you for that,” Violet said. “And thank you for suggesting that she write her own stories. I fear we will go through a great deal of parchment, but she is the happiest I have seen her in years.”
“She has an active mind and such a love of reading and learning and exploring that I couldn’t imagine she didn’t have ample things in her mind that could be written down.”
“Do you still mean to look in the London bookshops for a book about John Blanke?”
“I do, but I’m not certain we will find one. Though he was an important person, I fear not enough is known of him for an entire book to be written exclusively about him. It will be well worth the search though.” He held out her prosthesis to her. “I suspect you would like this back.”
“I’d rather leave it off.”
He studied her a bit. “Is something the matter with it? It’s not broken, is it?”
“It’s not. But I have a sore on my arm that the cuff is rubbing against painfully. It is a relief to have it off.”
“Do you often get sores?” he asked.
“More often than I’d like. All it takes is the tiniest bit of dirt or unaddressed bit of moisture between the cuff and my arm or the straps being buckled unevenly.”
“We should mention that to Mr. Miller. He may have some thoughts on the matter.”
It would be worth bringing up, though she couldn’t imagine raw skin and painful sores could be entirely avoided.
Kester carefully set the wooden arm on the window seat beside him. “Your parents must be eagerly anticipating the possibility of improving your prosthesis.”
She lowered her voice, not wishing to be heard over the conversation still happening across the room. “They might be excited if they knew about it.”
His brow drew. His scrunched nose shifted his spectacles downward. “You haven’t told them?” He matched her lowered volume.
“If we manage the adjustments we’re attempting, then I will tell them.”
“Why not until then?” he whispered. “Why would you not tell them about something that means so much to you?”
She adjusted the bit of light bandaging she’d tied around the end of her arm. “I don’t want them to be disappointed if, in the end, this proves impossible.”
“We know it’s not entirely impossible. We are hoping for improvements on what already exists, but the most basic of what we want is entirely within reach.”
That was true, but it didn’t address everything. “There’s still the possibility of failure. I’d rather not tell them about this unless I can tell them good news.”
His eyes didn’t leave her, didn’t shift away. She knew the look on his face: he was sorting something out. And that something, she suspected, was herself.
“You are choosing to adhere to the adage that if one cannot manage to be sunny, one has an obligation to be silent?”
“You’ve heard them say that I am the sunshine in their life and a source of joy and cheer,” she said. “Telling them things I’m worried about, things I long for but might never have isn’t precisely being a light in the darkness.”
“Neither is it being fully honest,” he countered. “I suspect they would want you to share this with them.”
She knew her role in this family, and she wasn’t overly comfortable abandoning it.
Their conversation, though conducted in whispers, was beginning to draw the notice of her parents. Nervousness tiptoed over her, wrapping tightly around her lungs, lodging as a lump in her throat.
“You trusted me,” Kester said. “You agreed to share with me the things you worry about and the things that weigh on you. Why not offer that same openness to your parents? Anyone who has watched your family knows how deeply you all love each other.”
“And I suspect they like you quite a lot,” Violet said. “Your kindness to Georgie alone would endear you. She’s going to miss you when you travel. We all will.”
He colored a little. “I won’t be traveling for some time. I’ve decided it would do me good to stay in one place for a while. I can work on my carriage lanterns. And I can rest. I haven’t allowed myself that in years.”
She reached out and squeezed his arm. “Everyone needs to rest from their worries now and then.”
He set his hand atop hers. “One way to rest is to share your burdens with people who are willing to help carry them.”
“I don’t have a great deal of practice with this,” she admitted. “It won’t come easily.”
“I imagine it won’t, but one thing I have learned about you these past weeks, Miss Violet Ridley, is that you manage to do difficult things all the time. I believe you are equal to this.”
“Do you really?”
He nodded gently.
She took a fortifying breath and rose. Georgie had stationed herself near the fireplace, lying on her belly, the book open on the Axminster carpet, she no doubt studying the depiction of her long-revered ancestor.
Violet took the seat her cousin had abandoned beside Mother and Father.
“How is your arm feeling?” Mother asked. “I wish there were a way to prevent the sores.”
“I’ve given some thought to the difficulties I have with my prosthesis.” Violet wished her voice were a little more confident and steady. “It isn’t just sores, but—” The words stopped as her courage temporarily ebbed. Kester believed in her; she could do this. “I’ve long thought it might be nice to have a prosthesis with a moving wrist and fingers. I could hold things and adjust the position so the hand looked more natural. It would certainly be more useful.”
Far from shocked, they looked intrigued. She’d expected that. And feared it. If their hopes soared and she and Kester couldn’t manage the improvements, disappointment would inevitably follow.
“Mr. Barrington knows an apothecary in Northumberland whose father is a clockmaker. The two of them know about such things.” She looked over at Kester, who had crossed the room as well but still stood a few paces away. He nodded subtly. Attention on her parents once more, she continued. “We’ve been writing to them, discussing possibilities and ideas.”
Her parents’ eyes darted between the two of them.
“You have?” Father asked. “Why didn’t you tell us?”
“There’s no guarantee this will be successful. In the end, what is possible might be disappointing.”
“Well, of course, there’s that possibility, but it’s exciting to be pursuing the chance of something more.” Father leaned forward in his chair. “And does this apothecary think you could improve upon what you have?”
How tempting it was to simply resort to nothing but sunshine. She meant to trust Kester in this and be fully honest. “We do know some improvements are not only possible but already exist. We’re hoping to build upon that to refine the prosthesis even more, but we don’t yet know how much can be done.”
Mother nodded. “You might not, in the end, be able to implement every improvement you wish for, but every advancement you make would be worth celebrating.”
