The Perfect Waltz (24 page)

Without warning, Dorie left Miss Hope, hurtled across the room, and flung herself into Sebastian’s arms. Wordlessly, moved beyond any speech, he lifted her small, skinny body and wrapped her securely in his arms.

Heart full, he carried her into the sitting room and sat down with her on a plush, comfortable sofa. She shivered uncontrollably, clinging to him like a monkey, clearly terrified. He held her tight, stroking her hair. “Hush, little one, you’re safe now. I shan’t let anyone hurt you. There, there . . . You’re home . . . safe now, with Cassie and me. And Miss Hope.”

He felt Cassie stare at him as he spoke and looked at her across Dorie’s head, which was buried against his chest. She hovered, uncertainly, so he beckoned her to him, murmuring to Dorie, “See, Cassie is here, too. We are all here. Cassie and me and Miss Hope. No one shall harm you.” He glanced at Miss Hope, who was hovering as uncertainly as Cassie. Her cheeks were wet with tears.

She knew, then, what it meant to him that Dorie had come to him like that. He felt his own face working and buried it in his sister’s hair a moment until he had mastered himself. Now was not the time for him to be weak.

“What upset her?” He glanced at Cassie and Miss Hope. “A horse?”

Miss Hope answered, “No, there were no horses nearby. Just people and the cows, and she is not nervous of the cows at all.”

“Cassie, do you know what it was?” he asked.

Cassie shrugged, distressfully. Dorie’s little protector. He held out a hand to her, and she came, hesitantly. “Come, help me hold Dorie. She needs all her family, Cassie, her sister and her brother.”

Stiffly, awkwardly, Cassie moved closer, patting her sister’s shivering back helplessly. She blamed herself terribly, he could see, even though she did not know what had frightened Dorie. His poor little little warrior sister. He put his arm around her, too, gathering them both in. She allowed it, a little stiffly at first, and then he felt her relax and put her arms around Dorie and lean fully against him.

He closed his eyes and held them tight. His two sisters finally in his arms the way he’d only dreamed they would be, the way sisters should be. Eleven long, lonely years after the last time he’d held them like this, as babies . . .

And somewhere deep inside him, a gangly, guilt-ridden fifteen-year-old boy began to heal.

Eventually Dorie calmed, and the two girls slipped out of Sebastian’s arms. He rang for a servant and ordered hot chocolate and pastries brought in. The two girls went upstairs with one of the housemaids to wash their faces and hands.

“I don’t know what happened,” Hope said as soon as they’d left. Her voice was husky with emotion. “We were at Green Park as usual, lining up for milk with everybody else, when suddenly Dorie became upset and fearful. But I have no idea why.”

He took a few restless paces toward the fireplace and turned. “Are you sure? Think. There must have been something.”

Hope shook her head, feeling helpless. “No, there was nothing out of the usual. Nothing was said, nothing was done. I saw the whole thing. Dorie and Cassie and Grace were standing in line with Lily, our maid, chatting and giggling as girls do, when suddenly Dorie froze, went utterly white, and before I could move, she just bolted—away from Cassie, away from us, just running like a scared little rabbit. I ran after her and caught her, and Cassie came after us, and she was so very frightened and distressed I summoned the nearest cab and brought her home.”

He said raggedly, “For which I am more grateful than I can ever say.”

She said nothing. There were no words. She had seen his face when Dorie ran to him. And then, when Cassie had come, too.

“And Cassie does not know, and Dorie cannot say.” He sighed heavily and clenched his fist. “I wish I knew when and how she became a mute . . . Somewhere in those eleven lost years—”

She put her hand on his arm. “Would Cassie not be able to tell you?”

His big hand came up to enclose hers, and then he froze as if transfixed. “She never has before, but then, she never would so much as touch my hand before. So much has happened in recent days, I’ve not had time to absorb it all.” He lifted his head; his eyes glittered with hope. “Cassie trusts me a lot more than she used to. Perhaps now she will tell me.”

She squeezed his arm reassuringly, and he looked down at her. His grip tightened. “Thank you for bringing my sisters to me,” he said raggedly, and it was not the cab ride he was talking about.

The moment stretched endlessly. The hand covering hers seemed to burn to her core. Heat spread in slow, languid waves, lapping at every secret corner of her body. She had forgotten to breathe. She took a long, shaky breath. His eyes darkened, like a pool under moonlight, deep, rippling with emotion. She made a helpless gesture and leaned into him, and with a groan, he drew her into his arms and kissed her.

The kiss was ragged and heartfelt and tasted of gratitude and humility. And of hunger. And of desire. She made a small sound deep in her throat and kissed him back with everything in her.

There were no preliminaries, only his mouth meshing with hers, his tongue tangling hers, his big, hard body crushed against her soft curves. And it was everything she had dreamed of and more.

She was lost in the taste of him. He was intoxicated by the taste of her. He pressed her hard against the wall and covered her with his body, lost in the kiss, the need, the hunger. She pressed herself hard against him, reveling in his strength, his power, and his fierce, compelling, exhilarating desire.

His hands roamed over her body, caressing, cupping, creating trails of shivering sensation. She smoothed her hands over his chest, over his shoulders. How had she ever felt wary of this glorious body? She stroked the strong, tanned column of his throat, explored the delicious abrasion of his jaw, and her fingers buried themselves in the thick, dark, closely cropped hair. And all the time kissing him, kissing his mouth, his jaw, his throat. And he was kissing her as if he would never, could never stop, kissing Hope as if she were life itself.

He touched her breast, and a fiery arch of pleasure speared through her, and she gasped and arched and clutched his hair.

He lifted his head, breathing in jagged gasps, his chest heaving. And pulled back.

“I’m sorry—”

But she was having none of that. She pressed her fingers over his mouth and said, “I’m not sorry. And I never will be.” And she tried to tell him with her eyes what she was not yet ready to say, but what her heart and body knew already.

And he gazed into her eyes for a long, long moment and opened his mouth to speak, but there was a knock on the door and they had just seconds to pull themselves together before a servant entered with the hot chocolate and pastries.

The moment was gone. And then the girls clattered in, ready for chocolate and hot, fresh pastries.

 
“When she was a baby, Dorie had a voice.” Sebastian watched Cassie’s face as he said it. It was not a question.

They were all seated around the table, Hope, too, even though she’d suggested she should probably leave. He’d given her a look, and Dorie had reached out and taken her hand.

No doubts remained in his mind. Sebastian felt unutterably blessed. For the first time in his life what he wanted and what he ought to do dovetailed perfectly.

“Cassie?”

She nibbled on her sweet, flaky pastry and watched him with a hint of the old wariness.

“Did she ever learn to speak?”

Cassie glanced at Dorie, who returned the look and gave an infinitesimal shrug in response. “Yes,” said Cassie.

“Normally?” It had to be asked.

Cassie nodded.

“When did she stop?”

Cassie glanced at her sister again and seemed to read consent in her expression again. “Two years ago. Just after Mam died.”

Sebastian sat back, feeling a small trickle of relief. “So she loved Widow Morgan and was distressed because she died. Is that it?”

Cassie said nothing, just drank some of her chocolate. She avoided his eyes.

“Did you both love her?”

Cassie darted a look at her sister, then said, “Mam was all right, she was good to us. She treated us fairly, but we knew we weren’t her daughters or anything. She worked us hard, said we owed her.”

“Worked you doing what?”

“The inn.”

“What inn?”

“The Bull and Boar. Mam ran it. Dorie and me, we did what was needed, made the beds, cleaned, scrubbed, helped with the cooking—whatever.” She darted him a glance. “In the last couple of years I helped out in the bar. Not Dorie. She stayed in the back, helping in the kitchen or upstairs.”

The inference was clear. Cassie was coming to womanhood, so she’d been put in the bar. Sebastian swallowed. It didn’t bear thinking of. She wasn’t telling him the whole, he knew. He hoped she would, in her own time. Hoped, too, that he could bear it when she did.

“So if you didn’t love Mrs. Morgan like a mother, why did Dorie stop talking after she died?”

Cassie shook her head. “I don’t know. She just stopped, that’s all.”

“The day she died or a few days afterward?”

“The night Mam died. Mam died, and Dorie never spoke another word.”

“But why—”

“Look!” Cassie slammed down her cup. “Do you think I didn’t
try
? Do you think I just let my sister stop talking and didn’t do anything to find out why? She won’t talk to me about it. Won’t say a word. Won’t even write anything down!” Cassie’s face crumpled. “I know I should have been able to help her, but I can’t. I tried, I really did.”

“I’m sorry, sweeting.” He reached across the table and took her hands in his. “I know you tried. I know. You have looked after Dorie beautifully.”

Dorie sat frozen, a pastry halfway to her mouth, looking stricken at her sister’s outburst. After a moment she carefully set the pastry down on her plate, slipped off her chair, and apologetically put her arms around her big sister.

But she didn’t utter a sound or make any attempt to explain. Whatever had caused her silence in the first place seemed destined to remain forever a mystery.

WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

 
 
 
 
 
“MAY I ASK WHY YOU HAVE COME, MR. BEMERTON?” LADY ELINORE asked coldly. “It was my understanding that the Misses Merridew were invited, and Mr. Reyne, of course, needs no invitation.”

“Lady Elinore.” Giles Bemerton bowed gracefully over her reluctantly outstretched hand. “When Bastian here mentioned it, I could not resist. I’m thinking of purchasing an orphan institution myself.”

Lady Elinore stared. “You?”

Giles gave a smile, which took in all the ladies and Mr. Reyne and said in a mock-bashful voice, “A gift for a lady.” He batted his lashes. “I understand it’s all the crack at the moment.”

Hope and her twin spluttered with laughter at his mischievous expression. Mr. Reyne cleared his throat significantly. Lady Elinore gave Giles a cold look, then sniffed. “Follow me then,” and she led the way into the Tothill Fields Institution for Indigent Girls.

“And here is the dining hall, where the girls take all their meals. Three nourishing meals a day.” The room was large, bare, and very clean, containing two long, scrubbed wooden tables flanked by wooden benches.

Hope heard her sister sigh. Hope knew what she meant. The visit was proving quite depressing. The orphan asylum was rigidly respectable and so very grim and gloomy. Dinnertime was not far off; an acrid well-boiled vegetabley smell wafted from the adjoining kitchen.

Lord Bemerton sniffed. “Cabbage,” he pronounced gloomily. “Can’t stand cabbage. We’re not staying to dine, are we?” His sunny spirits seemed to be fading fast.

“Certainly not,” Lady Elinore said.

Two small girls dressed in gray dresses and white aprons, marginally too big for them, clattered about in hard, shiny boots also a little too large for them, setting the tables: a spoon, a bowl, and a beaker of water for each child. A plate containing slices of dry bread sat at the center of each table. Presumably bread and soup were the only items on the menu. Their job done, the girls disappeared into the kitchen. They hadn’t uttered a word. Hope had not yet heard one child speak, let alone laugh. It seemed quite unnatural.

Lady Elinore explained, “All of the girls take turns in the kitchen, the scullery, and the laundry. As well as earning their keep, they are trained in habits of cleanliness and good, plain cooking.”

The smaller of the girls, a skinny little urchin with dark hair braided in tight pigtails, reemerged from the kitchen carrying two small dishes. On each lay a tiny pat of butter and a dab of reddish jam. She carried them very carefully, as if they were precious or fragile, but the dishes themselves were the same thick and ugly earthenware as the bowls on the table, and the butter was a meager scrape, hardly worth bringing out, in Hope’s opinion. With great deliberation, her tongue thrust between a gap in her teeth as she concentrated on the task, she placed one dish exactly halfway down the second table and another beside the bowl three places from the end on the first. Clearly each butter dish was for a particular girl.

Hope was intrigued. There was barely enough butter and jam on each dish for one small slice of bread. Why would only two girls out of so many merit a scrape of butter and a dollop of jam? A reward system?

The small girl turned to leave. “Excuse me,” called Hope. “Little girl.”

The urchin froze and turned huge, apprehensive eyes on the group of visitors. She glanced nervously at Lady Elinore.

“May I talk to her?” Hope asked Lady Elinore.

“Of course.”

Hope approached the child and knelt down beside her. “How do you do?” she said gently, for the child was anxiously bunching her apron in her fists. “My name is Hope. What’s yours?”