Chapter Two
The roses were not yet in bloom. The lack of flowers in no way inhibited the beauty of the garden, narrow paths of white gravel and a small maze of stones laid out on the way towards a gazebo, pleasantly situated in the center of it all. The gazebo's trellised walls had long disappeared beneath the foliage of the roses-in-waiting, and Regan brushed a surreptitious hand across her brow as she sent up a prayer of thanks for the shade the lush greenery provided.
She'd exchanged her battered bonnet for one in better shape, though in her haste she'd tied the ribbon too tight and now the thing irritated her throat. Small wonder she never wore a hat unless in company, no matter the risk of a tan and freckles that Aunt Agnes seemed to take tremendous pleasure in warning her about. Itchy, uncomfortable tools of torture, hats were. Even worse than stays, in her opinion. And only marginally worse than stockings.
But there she sat, properly laced and stockinged and hatted, while Katharine dispersed tea cups and milk and strawberry tarts. Even Jack and Maria behaved marginally well on the other side of the garden, following the progress of a turtle they'd followed up from the stream.
"I must say, I am surprised to see two gentleman such as yourselves already abandoning London for the country." Regan sipped at her tea, which was ridiculously sweet, just as she liked it. "Have the delights of town lost their lustre so soon?"
"I had business to attend to," Mr. Talbot said, his smile faltering at the edges. "As my father's health declines, more of the responsibility of caring for our family's estate falls to me. Not that I am one to complain!" he added quickly, and with a brief glance in Katharine's direction. "It will all fall on my shoulders one day, so I guess it is better to be prepared in advance, don't you think?"
Regan smiled and nodded, though she assumed it was to Katharine alone that he was determined to impress his ability to take on the family yoke.
"And what of you, Mr. Cranmer?" Regan said, pushing the conversation along while she glanced through the leaves covering the gazebo. Jack and Maria's heads could still be seen bobbing behind a hedge, having abandoned the turtle for an impromptu game of leapfrog. "Do you hail from Kent originally?"
"Oh, much farther north!" Mr. Talbot put in, his grin returned to its former glory.
"This is my first visit to Kent," Mr. Cranmer said, the first time he'd strung together more than two or three words since her introduction to him. "I've only been here a few days, my lady. But I do hope to see some of the sights before everyone else follows our flight to the country in escape of the heat."
His voice... There was a heaviness, a definite burr to his words. Was he Scottish? Lord, she was terrible with accents. Some people, she knew, would be able to hear a few words and have no difficulty pinning the speaker down to the very avenue of their birth. But the most she could dare to assume was that this Mr. Cranmer did not hail from anywhere south of Leicester.
"I do hope you enjoy your stay," she said sincerely. "And please don't disregard my invitation to fish or shoot on our property as mere politeness. We're nearly overrun with deer, and poor Jack alone can catch only so many trout."
"Thank you, my lady." He dipped his chin, and when he raised his face again, there was a small smile at the corners of his mouth. And with that smile, his eyes gleamed, more grey than blue in the small measure of sunlight that shone through the leaves.
She watched him then, finally returning her gaze to the cup of tea Katharine had poured for her and that had already begun to turn cool. Mr. Talbot had managed to draw Katharine into conversation, and was gesturing to various parts of the garden while she elaborated on the features and when they had been built.
Regan chanced another glance at Mr. Cranmer before she could stop herself. He was not looking at her, his gaze pinned on something far away, his thoughts seeming to be elsewhere. But as if he sensed her attention on him, his head turned and he looked at her from under dark lashes, nearly as dark as the hair that curled out from beneath the brim of his hat.
She returned his previous smile in an effort to cover her embarrassment at having been discovered studying him. She could not comprehend what it was about the man that drew her eye. He was handsome, yes, but nothing out of the common way. And there was a slight line of discoloration on his cheek, something that might have been an old scar. She only noticed it when he smiled, when the skin there crinkled and the pale mark of the injury was pushed into a position of prominence on his face. The rest of his features were put together well enough, though he was too young yet for her to know how he would carry the set of his jaw and cheekbones as he matured.
"Well," she said suddenly, and took a hasty sip of tea when she realized they'd been looking at one another for some time without speaking. "I should see what the children are up to. Should I leave them alone for too long, I'll no doubt find them voyaging on a homemade raft across the pond in search of sea monsters."
Both men stood as she rose from her seat, the cups clattering as she accidentally bumped into the corner of the tray. Katharine stood up as well, inviting their guests on a tour of the rose garden. Mr. Talbot did not hesitate to accept, and offered his arm to her as they stepped out of the gazebo and into the sunshine.
Regan turned away and made to venture in the direction she'd last seen Jack and Maria, but Mr. Cranmer remained a step behind her, bowing slightly as Katharine and Mr. Talbot set off towards a brick maze laid out at one end of the garden.
"Might I accompany you, my lady?"
Regan opened her mouth and closed it again. Why he would want to jaunt across the grounds in search of two rambunctious children, she couldn't imagine. She looked towards Katharine, at the way Mr. Talbot dangled after her, eyes shining as he listened to her every word. Perhaps Mr. Cranmer believed he had no chance with her daughter and so had given up the field to his friend. Or perhaps he simply didn't want to listen to Katharine list all the varieties of flowering bush and tree between here and the house.
"Of course, Mr. Cranmer." She reached up and tugged at the brim of her bonnet, which had begun to slide backwards, threatening to choke her. Though if she would take the trouble to tie it properly... "I must warn you however, it will be a dull chore. They've probably tangled themselves up in some nettles or caked themselves in mud from head to heel. And I'm sure Katharine will take you out to the folly should you ask her to. The former Sir Griffith had it erected before his death."
She took some pride in the fact that she could speak the words so easily, referring to her husband's former presence in the household as something that should no longer affect her. But there had been a catch in her voice, a waver on the last word that she doubted Mr. Cranmer had noticed. Or if he had, he made no sign of it.
"I think I find nettles and mud infinitely preferable to the latest in fashionable garden architecture," he confessed. And there was that smile again, causing his scar to pull slightly on the corner of his eye. "That is, if you won't take offense at my presence?"
"Not at all, Mr. Cranmer."
He did not hold out his arm for her, instead falling into step beside her as she navigated through the garden, beginning at the last place she had seen Jack and Maria's heads during their game of leapfrog. "Ah, there they are!" she announced as they rounded another hedge. Both of the children were crouched on the ground, half burrowed into a topiary that acted as the southern boundary of the garden, the lawn stretching out beyond it. Maria heard their approach and squirmed out from under the bush, leaves and bits of twig sticking to her curls as she beckoned her mother and Mr. Cranmer to come near.
"We've found a bluebirds' nest!" she crowed in hushed tones. "And there are babies in it! Ooh, mama! They're so tiny! You must have a look!"
Forgetting Mr. Cranmer's presence beside her in the face of her youngest child's excitement, Regan tugged at the ribbons that held her bonnet in place and pulled it off her head before dropping onto her knees beside Jack. "You haven't gone and disturbed them, have you? I'm sure their mother will be quite cross if she comes back to find you've poked at her babies."
"No, we haven't laid a finger on them," Jack assured her. He shimmied out from the bush, brushed a few leaves from his shoulders, and gave her room to look for herself.
There would be grass stains on the front of her gown, she knew. But still she tossed her bonnet aside and crawled forward, pushing her head into the dense foliage until she saw the edge of a nest, and then several small birds tucked inside, a few of them still sporting downy fluff for feathers while one had already begun to show a bit of blue under his wings.
"A spectacular find," she said as she slipped out again. She looked up at Mr. Cranmer, who still stood a few paces back, as if he did not wish to trespass on such a familial scene. "Would you like to see the baby birds, Mr. Cranmer? A bit longer, and I fear they'll be off on their own and the opportunity will be lost to you."
She moved aside as Mr. Cranmer came close, staying on her knees beside the children while their guest took off his hat and crawled forward into the topiary. Regan bit back a grin at the sight, and she wondered if the man's valet would ever forgive him for the stains now streaked on his knees and the scuffs and smears of dirt on his boots.
When he backed out from under the leaves - a few of which had found their way into his unruly hair - his eyes sparked with a new light, and his grin transformed his entire expression into something mischievous, almost boyish. Though considering his age, that was not the most remarkable of feats. "I must admit, I've not crawled on the ground in search of wildlife since I was still in the nursery. You should be proud of your discovery," he said to Jack and Maria. "But now, I think, it's best if we leave them be. I wouldn't be surprised if their parents are somewhere about, waiting to rain down terror on our heads should it look like we're going to encroach on their hiding place any longer."
Mr. Cranmer dusted off his knees, picked up his abandoned hat, and held out a hand for Regan. She took it without thinking, his fingers cool and strong around hers. For the briefest of moments, she didn't want him to let go. Neither of them wore gloves, and he had yet to clap his hat back onto his head, allowing the breeze to ruffle his dark curls.
"You've a bit of something..." She rose onto the balls of her feet and plucked the leaves from his hair. There should have been nothing in the gesture. It was the same thing she had done a hundred times over for her children: wiped crumbs from their mouths, smoothed down a few errant strands of hair, plucked at a wrinkled collar. But warmth flooded her cheeks when she realized she must have crossed an etiquette boundary, fussing over the poor gentleman as if he were nothing more than a scruffy child. "Back to the gazebo, then? I'm sure there are a few tarts left, and I'm certain Katharine and Mr. Talbot will be wending their way back for a respite from this heat."
She took Jack and Maria by the hand and began to walk across the garden. She thought Mr. Cranmer was with them, but when she glanced over her shoulder, she saw him return to the topiary and pick something up from the ground.
"Your bonnet, my lady." He walked quickly to catch up and held it out to her. One side of it was decidedly squashed while the edges bore bits of grass that had worked their way into the weave of the brim. Regan laughed at the sight of it, brushed off what dirt she could and passed it to Maria, who plopped the hat on her own head and began tackling the ribbon with as much delicacy as her small fingers could manage.
"If I may?" Mr. Cranmer dropped down to his haunches in front of Maria, his hands poised and waiting several inches from the ribbons she'd managed to knot at a remarkable speed. The girl's face broke into a broad, toothy grin at his request and she nodded.
He undid the tangle of ribbons, smoothed them between finger and thumb, then tied them into a neat bow off to the left side, a few inches below Maria's ear. "That's how all the ladies are wearing them in London this year," he told her, and Regan watched her daughter's smile widen.
"Thank you, sir!" Maria curtsied awkwardly, almost losing her balance as she tried to hold out her skirt and keep the oversized bonnet from slipping down over her hair and covering her eyes.
He stood up again as Maria and Jack skipped off, tracing a winding path back towards the gazebo and any edibles that might be left for them. "Your children are a delight," he said, and held out his arm to her.
"According to my aunt, they are a scourge, to be classed in with locusts and any of the other biblical plagues." She placed his hand on her sleeve, her touch tentative at first before she allowed herself a firmer grip. "She also says I spend too much time with them, that I should leave them to the care of their nurse. 'Snip the leading strings,' as she has often stated. But—" She closed her mouth, cutting off what she had been about to say. Already, she'd shared too much with this Mr. Cranmer, this handsome young man who made her palms sweat at the sight of him taking his time over the tying of a simple bow. But there was something about him, a gleam in his eye that made her wonder... made her wish that she could be a young woman again, someone who could catch the interest of such a man. "We should not linger," she said, and hoped he would not see the edge of sadness in her smile. "Or else Jack and Maria will raze the gazebo to the ground and we'll be left with nothing but a pile of rubble."
They walked in silence, Regan occasionally glancing up at the sky, enjoying the heat of the sun on her cheeks, no matter what it might do to her complexion. A few paces after the gazebo returned into view, Mr. Cranmer slowed his pace, until he halted completely.
"You should spend as much time with your children as your heart desires," he said.
Regan looked at him. His gaze was somewhere far away again, pinned on a place she could not see, if indeed it even existed where she could see it.
"I know what the fashion is, to have your children raised by nurses and governesses, to parade them out from time to time in their finest dress as if they were nothing more than part of a collection." A bitterness clung to his words, and Regan held her breath, a new curiosity forming that perhaps Mr. Cranmer's own childhood echoed his statement. "But believe me when I say that a child wants more." He glanced down at her, his own smile not as bright as it had been a moment ago. "They need everything you're willing to give."
"I will remember that." She gave his arm a gentle squeeze before she could stop herself. "And thank you," she added as they approached the gazebo, where everyone else was again gathered. She was flustered, she realized, at his openness, his lack of artifice. To be that young again, she thought, and have all of one's emotions so boldly displayed. "More tea?" her voice wobbled slightly, as etiquette took over and she tucked all of her own emotions away, safely hidden where they had been for so long already.
***
Once their guests had left, they returned to the house to find Aunt Agnes ensconced in the drawing room, the day's newspapers and gossip sheets - rendered several days old during their journey from London - stacked before her. Regan took a deep breath and fixed as natural a smile to her face as she could muster, though her thoughts threatened to drift back to the garden, to her meeting with Mr. Cranmer. Dangerous thoughts, she reminded herself, as any warmth she felt towards Mr. Cranmer could never be acted upon. She had her household, her family to worry about, and what interest would a young, handsome gentleman have in her? Surely he could have his pick of women, and would probably laugh outright at the notion that she'd felt... well, a bit of attraction to him, she had to admit.
"That lavender color makes you look positively ill," Aunt Agnes said to Regan, in lieu of a proper greeting.
"And good afternoon to you, Aggy." Regan held her smile and took a seat on the sofa, while Katharine went over to her great-aunt and kissed the older lady on her powdered cheek. "I see you've finally decided to abandon your rooms and join the rest of the family for the day."
Aunt Agnes sniffed and reached into a box of chocolates on her lap. "I heard the children racing upstairs to the nursery. Like a herd of unruly colts, they are. As soon as I was sure they were tucked away in the upper floors again, I knew it was safe to make an appearance."
Regan and Katherine exchanged glances, but said nothing. "And what are your plans for the day?" Regan asked as her daughter settled into a chair and picked up a swatch of embroidery she'd begun the day before.
"Oh, too much, too much!" Aunt Agnes waved her beringed hand and heaved a tremendous sigh, the older woman's shoulders trembling beneath acres of ribbons and ruffled lace. "I've several calls to make, and I'm not certain I'll be back in time for dinner. But, poo! Who sent these flowers?" She wrinkled her nose at a particularly massive bouquet on a nearby table. "Smells worse than a French perfumery in here. I don't understand why all these young beaus are incapable of thinking of something more imaginative than a handful of smelly, wilting weeds!"
Katharine snorted over her embroidery, but hid it quickly with a well-timed cough. Regan made no effort to hide her own amusement as she leaned forward and collected the stack of letters and cards brought in with that morning's mail.
"No more invitations!" Aunt Agnes exclaimed, before popping a large chocolate into her mouth.
"The season is nearly over," Regan said, as she sorted through the missives. "Everyone has decamped from town and we've begun to receive more invitations each day as they settle into the country."
"Hmph." Aunt Agnes dabbed at the corners of her mouth with an embroidered handkerchief, one so heavily edged with lace that Regan doubted its powers of absorption. "You've no idea how tired these last couple years have made me. Going to parties, parading Katharine around like a doll so that all the young men can gasp and woo before she so heartlessly rejects them."
Regan glanced at her daughter, but Katharine's stitches remained steady and even. If she was listening to her great-aunt's remonstrances, then she certainly didn't take any of them to heart.
"It is her turn to garner attention, Aggy. Let her break a few hearts before her own is tied up forever."
She returned her attention to the mail. The amount of cards had indeed begun to increase in the last few weeks. "Oh, what is this?" She held up a letter written in a spidery scrawl. "I already received one of these. Why has she sent another?"
Aunt Agnes glanced at the card with a knowing smile. "Because you gave no response to the first invitation. I saw her last night, placated her with some excuse that it must have been lost in the post."
"What is it?" Katharine looked up from her work.
"An invitation to a house party at Maggie Carruthers'. You remember her, dear?" Regan moved to put the card aside, hoping the subject would be put away with it.
"Oh, yes!" Katharine nodded. "She married that baronet last year, didn't she? What was his name?"
"Lord Pomerol," Aunt Agnes supplied, eyes twinkling. Her words were accompanied by the rustle of paper as she set aside her chocolates and picked up her gossip sheets. "Of course, he only went after Miss Carruthers because your mother rejected him."
Katharine blinked. "What did you say? Who did Mamma reject?"
"No one," Regan began, just as Aunt Agnes shifted forward in her chair.
"Lord Pomerol," the older lady pronounced again, and in a significantly louder tone of voice. "He made a few attempts at paying court to your Mamma, but she turned him down. Told him she was still in mourning, or some other such excuse."
"Oh, Mamma." Katharine's face fell. "You didn't! I thought he was such a nice man. And really, why do you still tell people you are in mourning. I know you loved Pappa dearly—we all did—but it's been seven years..."
Regan stood up, a few of the cards sliding from her lap to the floor in her haste. "If you'll excuse me," she said, before another word could be spoken. "I think I will go and check on the children."
She left the drawing room faster than was proper. No doubt Katharine and Aunt Agnes would talk about her behavior during her absence, but Regan could not bring herself to care. She already knew they fretted over her, had endured their constant cajoling to rejoin society and throw off the last of the half-mourning she'd so determinedly clung to for the last few years.
She looked down at her hand. She still held the invitation to the house party, Maggie Carruthers'—no, she would be Lady Pomerol now—smudged handwriting glaring up at her from the cream-colored parchment. Her fingers curled around it, crinkling the paper into a ball before she tossed it onto a table near the front door. Of course Aunt Agnes would contrive for another invitation to be sent. She had hoped the conversation they'd had last night would be as quickly forgotten as the new day began, but apparently the old woman was going to be stubborn.
The staircase stood before her, curving upwards towards the upper floors. She had said she wished to check on her younger children, but her mind was too much of a muddle and her feelings too close to the surface. Maria and Jack were still so young, only seven and nine years old respectively, yet they possessed that uncanny ability to see through the layers of carefully constructed artifice to the barest emotions underneath.
Her steps led her instead through the back of the house and into the garden beyond. The air seemed to have warmed even more since her earlier time in the garden, and she wondered if the haze of burgeoning clouds on the horizon predicted a harsh evening storm to come. She walked along the gravel paths, her pace slowing after several minutes as her agitation began to fade. A bench sat near an ivy-strewn brick wall, but she wasn't yet ready to rest, and so she took to snapping a small twig from a lime tree and methodically stripping it of its leaves.
When the twig was bare, she leaned her shoulder against the wall and closed her eyes. The moment she did so, she saw Mr. Cranmer's face, the light in his glass-blue eyes, the tone of his voice, the kindness in his behavior towards the children.
She let her imagination continue, that the attention he'd shown her demonstrated a glimmer of interest in her, that perhaps he saw her as... as...
No, no. That wouldn't do. There could be only one thing a warm-blooded male of his years could have on his mind, and it wasn't afternoon strolls in the garden and games of shuttlecock with rambunctious children. It would be the same thing all young men had on their minds, when they weren't fussing over horses or curricles or the folds of their neckcloths, as Katharine so often complained. And that was giving herself the benefit of being able to win such attention from a man anymore.
She pushed off from the wall and began her circuit of the garden all over again, though in a more sedate manner. If she was as well acquainted with the habits of her family as she supposed, then she knew that her eldest daughter and her aunt were at that very moment sitting with their heads together, tutting and clucking over what a shame it was that Regan had yet to bring herself out of mourning.
Seven years, she thought. Seven long, lonely years. She clasped her hands in front of her, the fingers of her right hand toying with the wedding ring on her left.
"I miss you," she whispered, her voice almost drowned out by the buzzing of insects, the chirping of birds, and the faint sounds of thunder rumbling from the other side of the county. As if only seven years was enough time for a woman to grieve over the man she loved.
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As always, thank for reading, liking, commenting, and following. I gain so much from my readers here on Wattpad, and I will always be grateful!
Chapter Three will be posted on Wednesday, July 31st. See you then!
Quenby Olson