The Marquess and the Midwife (*On Hold*)

8 Kyrie

Never, in all my life, had I been so thoroughly dressed down. And never, in all my days, had a woman been so acute regarding my intentions. It was as if my soul had been laid bare for her. An open book for her to rifle through at will and regurgitate my own feelings and intentions back at me at a moment's notice, if only to draw attention to their absurdity. Because she was right. That was what it was, wasn't it? This interest in Norah, this intrigue that drew me straight toward her at every public event. It wasn't her. It was her indifference. Somehow, in two years of women swooning at my feet and conspiring to win my heart, cold indifference had become the one thing I craved more than any other. How pitiful had I become that such a woman could win me by not wanting to win me at all?

These were the thoughts which plagued me all evening the night of the Spencer's ball and for the next few days afterwards. I called upon other women, those whom my sister left cards for. I visited with them and their mothers, made pleasant, idle conversation about the weather and the season and the biscuits they offered me in every silence. I spent every remaining moment in my office, buried beneath paperwork as more and more receipts arrived courtesy of the ball my sister was planning to take place at Wentworth. The ledger grew outdated, the accounts became more and more imbalanced, our banker visited to ensure we were properly distributing the funds that he was lending us from our father's contingency account. I was at my wit's end, slowly going mad from staring at numbers day in and day out.

But Grace was planning a ball and it crept closer even as our accounts fell into further disarray. More flowers, more cakes, more fabrics and accessories. Musicians, liquor, decorations. I hadn't realized just how expensive these things were and, though I hadn't properly recorded any of it, I still knew the sum was large enough to leave a hole in the ledger that would need rectifying. I didn't say a word, didn't let on that anything was amiss. But I felt that I was drowning all the same and no one could throw me a life preserver. No one.

So I made the decision, the day before the ball, to escape the house for a little while. I decided that, if things were going to fall apart at the seams, they could do so without my presence just as well as they could do so with it. So I might as well enjoy the time I had left before it did.

"I'm heading to the gentlemen's club," I told my sister as I headed for the door early that afternoon. She looked up from where she had been instructing a servant to string some garland.

"Kyrie," Grace said, excusing herself and picking up her skirts as she strode across the foyer to meet me at the door. "You haven't spoken at all about the young women you went to visit this week. Did you like any of them?"

"I assure you, Grace, when I like one of them, you'll be the first to know," I replied and opened the door.

"Kyrie."

I hesitated, turning back to look at her.

"You're still trying?" she asked and my heart broke at the look on her face then, cautious optimism. I took a breath.

"I promise," I told her.

"Alright," she replied with a nod and a tentative smile. "As long as you're out, would you mind picking up my gown from the dressmaker's? It wasn't ready when I went into town this morning but she said it should be done by the afternoon."

"Of course."

Then I left Grace to her decorating and headed for the waiting carriage which took me straight to the gentlemen's club and deposited me at the door. I found my friends sitting at the very same table we always occupied and raised my hand to the waitress as I lowered myself into my usual seat.

"Gents," I said in greeting as I sat.

"Kyrie," Archibald said, raising a brow in a way that told me I wasn't going to like whatever was coming next. "We've heard you've visited the home of just about every available woman in the gentry during the last three weeks. Is there a scandal we should be apprised of?"