His first morning back at Plas Bryn, David awoke to the sound of Luke wailing. It was very early, the first hint of light filtering through the curtains and a steady drumming rain beating outside. He waited for Luke to quiet so he could get back to sleep. Luke did not quiet. Eventually, David pulled himself groggily out of bed, slipped into a dressing gown, and followed the sound to Cate's bedroom door. He knocked, but did not open it.
"Yes?" she said.
"It's me. May I come in?"
"Please."
He opened the door and looked through the gap, not entering the room. Cate was in her nightgown, rocking Luke against her chest. His little face was scrunched up with the force of his tears.
"Is he alright?" he asked.
"He's fine."
"He's crying."
"Sometimes, he does, for no reason. Perhaps he had a bad dream." She kissed his hair. "Shush, darling. Shush. Sorry. I didn't mean to wake you."
"No, no you've nothing to apologise for. Is there nothing I can do?"
She shook her head. "He'll wear out soon enough."
David should have left then, but instead he leaned against the door jamb and watched her. In the dim light, she looked younger, the lines on her brow disappeared, the shadows under her eyes faded. It would have been a peaceful, charming picture, had it not been for Luke's screams. The sort of charming picture of married life David had thought lay in his future, when he was courting Cate. And now he had it, but it was not his picture. Not really. Cate was not his lover and Luke was not his baby.
"I return to London tomorrow," he said, making up his mind that moment. "I've no reason to stay here longer. And I've business to attend to."
"Oh!" Cate looked surprised, then guilty. "What about Sarah?"
"She wants to visit her old haunts, I believe. Can you tolerate a guest?"
Cate bit her lip. "I do not wish to be entirely alone, certainly. Perhaps I would be happier with a guest."
And happier still if that guest were not Sarah, David saw. But he had no wish to return to London with Sarah in tow. He had had enough of her, most acutely last night when she had come upstairs to bully him into dining together with them and then made such uncomfortable conversation. Not only had her conduct at the dinner table been embarrassing, but once Cate had left she had remarked upon Cate's manners and mode of dress in a sort of pitying manner that had been far more insulting than if she had outright called Cate ugly and rude. Cate, for all her flaws, was well-mannered and understood the value of silence.
"She seems quite friendly," Cate added optimistically.
"She is." David quelled the whisper of guilt inside him. Sarah might be an infliction upon Cate's society, but she would treat her better than Miss Skinner had. "Well. I just came to see if you were alright. I'm going back to bed now."
"Sorry for disturbing you."
"Think nothing of it."
He did go back to bed, though he could not fall asleep again. At the earliest polite hour, he dressed and left the house to see his steward. Baxter was not surprised to see him, as word of his arrival had spread the afternoon before. He had strong, sweet tea ready, and they drank it by the kitchen-parlour fire.
"You're back quickly," Baxter said. "I hope that means you were successful in London."
"Partially. Some people pledged small funds to me. I've got the receipts in my study, waiting for you."
"Partially." Baxter looked skeptically at David. "Partially isn't good enough."
"I know. I thought my wife was sick, so I came home early. Lost a valuable investor by doing so as well."
"How is she? I noticed she hasn't been at church for a while."
"There was nothing wrong with her. It was all a mare's nest." David sighed. "She and her stupid companion had a plot to pretend she was sick so I would send them away from here. It was mostly her companion's doing, but Cate didn't stop it."
Baxter was not a man easily given to anger, but now a dark flush slowly suffused over his cheeks. "Of all dirty tricks! Didn't she think what she would cost you? Doesn't she know what she has cost herself?"
"I tried to explain it. I think she is sorry, not that that fixes anything." Somehow, seeing Baxter's anger made David feel better about it all, as though he was right to feel wronged. "I got rid of the companion, warned her off. A poisonous influence."
Baxter's top lip curled. "Indeed. In the village, people were beginning to say that her nose was always held as though she had shit smeared on her upper lip."
David sputtered, trying not to laugh. "Don't. It's not polite."
"But it is true. And good riddance to her."
"I'll drink to that." David raised his cup of tea. "And what are they saying of Cate?"
Baxter looked away. "What you would expect of a woman who has a baby out of wedlock. Not much more. She treats her servants well and she's pretty, so some are sympathetic to her. Others, more loyal to you, are less forgiving. And the gentry look down upon her, as far as I can tell."
Baxter's unwillingness to meet David's eyes was suspicious. "And what are you saying of her?"
"Nothing. I do not speak of her. I am no gossip."
"You're gossiping with me right now."
"Well, I don't gossip of you or your family. I know what side my bread is buttered."
"You're too kind. What do you think of her?"
Baxter shrugged. "A great deal less, after what you've told me this morning. It's not just your livelihood and hers. It's the people who live here. The miners. Their wives. Their children. The village that has grown from the wealth of the mines. Expanding them would mean prosperity, perhaps not what would you consider prosperity, but mouths fed, fires lit, rooves and boats mended, and comfort, in some small measure, for so many. I don't think she understands that."
"I tried to make her."
"And did you succeed?"
"I don't know. She is remorseful, but perhaps more for what she did than for its consequences."
"Hmm." Baxter poured himself another cup of over-brewed tea, sipped it, grimaced, and put it aside. "Would she try to make up for it?"
"What do you mean?"
"It occurs to me that, having lost you one investor, she might help you find a second one."
"I don't see how she could. If she returned to London with me, no one would speak to me."
"Not in London." Baxter rubbed his knee where his false leg attached. "At her home. Her father is very wealthy, is he not?"
"Significantly. But I can hardly ask him. He hasn't forgiven Cate for having the baby. In fact, I have the impression that he saw our marriage as a way to excise her permanently from the family circle. Since the day of our wedding, he never sent a single letter to either of us. He forbids her siblings to communicate with her. I believe he would refuse because I'm Cate's husband."
Baxter raised his eyebrows. "Blue blood isn't thicker than water then."
"His at least, is not." David frowned. "Though I don't know. He did love her, perhaps still does. The night I first asked him for her hand, he spent hours interrogating me. Wanted to know my financial position, my social position, my history, my character. Wouldn't take my word for it. Sent out to Major Bouverie that night to get his opinion of me. And kept looking into me after, when I was courting her. He heard the story about what I did to Wynn, somehow. He was very taken with that. He said he knew I would protect his daughter. But if he did love her, then it might be all the harder to forgive her."
"You've nothing to lose by asking him. If he won't do it for love of her, then he might do for love of money."
"Maybe." David rested his boots on the edge of the grate, feeling the flames warm his toes. "But she's the one he can't forgive, not me. I can hardly extend an olive branch on her behalf."
"Then ask her to do it. She owes you, doesn't she?"
That was a solution so elegantly simple David did not wish to believe it. The truth was, he had no desire to see Sir William again. Sir William did not have a warm, inviting personality. But Baxter was right that there was a opportunity there.
"I'll ask her," he decided. "She can write to him and ask to be invited for a dinner together, a visit. A chance for them to see Luke. If he refuses, well, I'll find someone else when the season really gets going."
"That's the man." Baxter looked pleased. "And if he does refuse, well, you'll know he really is a foul creature."
Their talk turned to other topics after that. Baxter's daughter was learning to crawl and he had many amusing tales of trouble she had gotten into. An hour or so later, when the rain had eased, David left Baxter's cottage and headed back to the manor. It was around noon now. He found Cate downstairs in the old music room, sifting through stacks of books while Luke explored the land beneath a dust-sheet-covered piano. She looked up guiltily when he came in.
"I just wanted to borrow something to read."
"You can read whatever you like." He was surprised she looked so guilty about it. "I haven't managed to arrange a library yet. It was one of the things I always looked forward to, when I was in the army, but now that I can..." He stopped himself from speaking further. Cate probably did not care to hear about his book situation. Laurie had heard enough of it to declare herself violently bored. The trouble was, he wanted it done right, which meant making decisions, and he was not very good at this kind of decision. Even now, as Cate knelt with a black leather and red marble paper book in her lap he wondered if the choice was not too dark and gloomy. He had intended to get all his books rebound in that same design, but suddenly he was not so sure.
"Anyway, the book are yours to read as you would like," he said. "I came here to ask you... a favour, actually."
"A favour? What can I do?"
"I'd like you to ask your father to invite us both to dinner. And, given the distance, a night or two at his home."
The faint pink of her cheeks drained to white. "No."
He had expected refusal, but he had not expected it to be so quick and definite. She set the book in her hands back on a stack and crawled towards Luke, pulling him into her lap and rocking him. He waited, unwilling to try to persuade her, but knowing he must try.
Eventually she said, her voice quavering, "Why do you wish to speak with him?"
"Business. He has the power to make a significant investment in my mines."
"I do not need to be involved."
"You are his daughter and my wife," he said, as gently as he could. "I cannot talk to him without your involvement to some degree."
Her fingers shook as she tidied Luke's hair. It was getting long now, curling past his ears and haloing up around his head. It was impossible to keep it tidy. Every time he wriggled in her arms, more fine locks rose into the halo. It would be curly, David thought. Curly and black, not unlike his own.
"All I am asking you to do is write him a letter," he continued softly. "Is that too much?"
"That is not all you're asking me to do." Her voice was even softer than his, not with gentleness but with fear. "You are asking me to visit him with you. If it were just a letter, I might write it, but if it were just a letter, there would be no need for me to write it."
David sighed. There was too much logic in that statement. "You are right. It is not such a simple favour. Still, I ask it."
"And I have told you no." Tears shimmered in her eyes. "If you must do business with him, do business with him, but I will not take part in it."
"I cannot do business with him if you do not have a part in it. You must see that. He will not do business with me as your husband until he cares to again claim you as his daughter."
"He never will. What I did was unforgivable." She bent her head and kissed Luke. "You know that as well as he."
The parry was unexpected. David gritted his teeth. "If I can marry you, he can spend a few days with you."
"But you are nothing like him." Luke was squirming, so she let him slide down her lap to the floor. "No one was ever good enough. No one could ever follow all his little rules. Except me. And that was worse." She took a short breath then let it out. "I never dared do anything he did not approve of. No. I lived to seek his approval because I was terrified of earning his disfavour."
Luke had crawled over to David's foot and clung to David's calf, trying to pull himself to his feet. David looked pointedly at him. "Until Luke."
"Until you!" She bit her lip. "I'm sorry."
They were coming close to an argument again, which was strange, because David rarely argued with anyone, even Laurie.
"I'm sorry," Cate repeated. "I told you I'm a coward. I was afraid of you. I'm still afraid of my father. I can't do this for you."
It was a coward's euphemism, to say can't where she meant won't, but there was no point arguing it. She had refused and he could not persuade her.
"Then you can't." He pushed Luke gently away from his boot and got to his feet. "Enjoy your reading, Cate."
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2023-03-13: I'm sleepy, but I updated.