“I want to go home,” she said. “Today. I want us all to go home to Avesbury House. Just us and the children.” Her fingers tightened on his. “May we, Henry? Please?”
He did not hesitate. “Of course. Whatever you want, my love. The doctors can come to you there and any treatment you need will—”
She interrupted him. “You will have to leave everything else behind.”
“Darling, it’s fine,” he interrupted. “I don’t mind—”
But she carried on, apparently needing to say more. “You will have to leave your young man behind,” she said. “You will have to give him up, Henry.”
She was talking of Christopher.
Henry’s throat closed. He couldn’t speak at all.
“I know you will miss his company,” she added, “but, my dear, it is time to put your toys away. We must think of the children now. They will need this time with us together—what little we can give them—and then after, you will have to put them first, Henry. Before your own desires.”
Somehow, Henry managed to swallow against the rocks in his throat.
“I know,” he whispered, stroking her hair. “Sssh, I know.”
But she was too caught up in her own urgency to quiet. “Promise me, Henry,” she begged. “Promise me you will put them first, always.”
“I promise,” he said, though it felt like a wild thing was clawing his heart to pieces. “We will go home, and I will be very glad to do without Parliament and all the hubbub of London to have this time with you and the children. And as for my—my friend—” Somehow, he managed to quirk a smile, despite his sore, raw heart. “He will receive a parting gift and he will be perfectly content when I explain. I can arrange things so that we leave tomorrow—”
“No!” Caroline interrupted. “No, Henry, today. We must leave today.” She began to weep again, and he stared at her helplessly.
“All right,” he said. “All right. Don’t cry, my dear. I will speak to Parkinson, and he will arrange everything. We will leave today, if you wish.”
“Thank you, Henry,” she whispered.
He pulled her close again, and in that moment, grief swamped him.
He grieved for Caroline, and for their children—for the sorrow that would soon be coming their way. But he also, shamefully, grieved for himself.
For the loss of Christopher.
For the loss of the young man who Henry’s heart had fastened upon, despite his better judgment, and who he did not at all wish to lose.
II
London, April 1826
18 years later
3
Kit
Kit was running his finger down the long list of entries in the expenses ledger, totting up pennies, shillings, and pounds in his head, when the door of his office burst open and a small and very grubby person rushed inside.
“Mama!” the small person cried. “Look!” He held something between his closed, cupped hands—God only knew what, but it would be alive, Kit was sure.
“For heaven’s sake, Peter, what is it now?” Clara, his mother, asked wearily.
A former governess, Clara had been working for Kit at his club, Redford’s, for six years now. Peter had a nursemaid, Betty, but Betty had taken ill yesterday. And so Clara had brought Peter to the club with her today, so that, with the help of Kit and the kitchen staff, she could look after the boy as she worked.
It was not going very well.
Clara set down the bundle of invoices and delivery notes she had been sorting through and turned in her chair to face her small son, whose lip had already begun to wobble alarmingly. Her eyes widened at the sight he presented.
“Peter, how on earth did you get so dirty?” she exclaimed, rising from her chair and hurrying across the room. “You look as though you’ve been rolling around in a cellar!”
“I have!” Peter assured her.
Clara closed her eyes.
Kit bit back a laugh and said in the gravest voice he could manage, “Peter, you were supposed to be sitting in the kitchen quietly with Mary.”
“I know, Uncle Kit,” Peter said reasonably, “but I was playing with Gimlet”—Gimlet was the kitchen cat —“and she ran off, so I followed her down the stairs to the cellar, and it was dark and dirty at the bottom, which is how I got so mucky.”
Clara groaned. “Can’t you sit still for a minute even?” she gritted out, her thumb and forefinger pinching the bridge of her nose.
Peter coughed then, a wheezy sound that made Clara’s expression change from one of irritation to anxiety. He’d had a weak chest since he was