Rowan received Clara’s letter two days before the Wexham masquerade.
He had just returned from an afternoon of dutiful calls, his brain numb from hearing the same set of opinions on the corn laws, when the butler presented him with a small stack of correspondence.
One from Trask, reporting that lambing was underway and that Mrs. Ellison had threatened to castrate any man who let foxes near her hens.
One from Lady Agnes, currently ensconced in another aunt’s house across town, informing him that Miss Denholm’s mother approved of his prospects.
And one, with the Terrington post mark and Clara’s careful hand.
He opened that last.
As he read, the world contracted.
His posture changed. Judith, who had been in the drawing room discussing arrangements for the masquerade, noticed at once.
“What is it?” she asked.
“Geoffrey Harrow,” he said. His voice sounded odd in his own ears. “He…had another attack.”
“Is he—”
“Alive,” Rowan said quickly. “For now. She says it passed. But…”
Judith held out a hand. “May I?”
He hesitated, then handed her the letter.
She read swiftly, her brows drawing together.
“’The soil here is unsteady,’” she murmured softly. “Good girl.”
He shot her a look.
“You would have preferred she lied?” Judith asked.
“No,” he said. “But I—”
He broke off.
He felt…helpless. Which was not an emotion he enjoyed.
“What can I do?” he asked abruptly.
Judith folded the letter, tapped it against her palm.
“Very little that would not be intrusive,” she said. “You could send money. That would offend Geoffrey and Clara both, unless it were done with exquisite tact.”
He grimaced. “My tact is…limited.”
“You could send a doctor,” she went on. “An expensive one. One with more letters after his name than sense. But Geoffrey may refuse him.”
“What would you do?” Rowan asked.
“I?” She considered. “I would send a letter to Geoffrey, thanking him again for lending me his daughter, and enclosing, as an afterthought, the name of a physician I had heard praised for his work with hearts. I would then write to that physician and say, ‘Go to Larkspur Lane. Consider it a favor to me. And if you send them a bill, I will send you to the gallows myself.’”
He almost smiled, despite himself.
“That sounds…effective,” he said.
Judith’s eyes glinted. “Men do better work when they think women will kill them if they do not.”
He took a breath.
“Yes,” he said. “I’ll do that.”
“And you will write to Clara,” Judith added. “Answer her fear honestly. Do not belittle it. Do not promise things you cannot deliver. She is not a child to be comforted with nonsense.”
He nodded.
Judith squeezed his shoulder—an uncharacteristically gentle gesture.
“You care for her,” she said.
He did not deny it.
“Yes,” he said quietly. “I do.”
“Then be a man worth that care,” Judith said. “Not a boy with a quill.”
***
Rowan went at once to his study.
He wrote first to Geoffrey.
*Mr. Harrow,* he began.
He thanked him again for Clara’s work. He spoke of Moorborne’s hedges as if discussing an old acquaintance. Then he wrote:
*I have recently heard praise of a physician in town—a Dr. Selwyn—who has had particular success in treating ailments of the heart. He is said to be cautious rather than expensive, honest rather than flattering. If you would find it acceptable, I should be glad to send him to Larkspur Lane, to examine you and offer what counsel he may. You need not fear any bill; I shall see to that.*
*I do not presume to meddle in your household without invitation. But if you will take this suggestion in the spirit it is offered—I should sleep easier knowing that a man with more medical knowledge than mine had seen you.*
*Your obedient servant,*
*Rowan Ashdown*
He sealed that.
Then he wrote to Dr. Selwyn, whose services Judith had indeed used once for a friend.
*Sir,* he wrote.
He explained that Geoffrey Harrow had served Moorborne faithfully for years, that his health now faltered, that a daughter depended on him. He requested that Selwyn travel to Larkspur Lane within the fortnight, “as a personal favor to me.”
He added, at Judith’s insistence, a line:
*If you present Mr. Harrow with any account for this visit, our acquaintance will end abruptly and unpleasantly.*
He signed, sealed, and sent it with a footman to Selwyn’s rooms.
Only then did he write to Clara.
*Miss Harrow,* he began, deliberately formal.
*Thank you for trusting me with news of your father. I know such trust is not given lightly. I am relieved to hear the turn passed, but I do not mistake the warning in it. I am sorry you had to sit through it. There are few hells I consider worse than watching someone one loves struggle for breath.*
He hesitated. He did not wish to pour his own old wounds into her fresh fear.
He went on:
*I have written to your father, suggesting the visit of a physician in whom Judith and I have some confidence. I have also written to the man himself. If your father throws him out with the broom, that will be his right. But I hope he will not.*
*This is not charity, Miss Harrow. Consider it, if you must, an investment in your firm. Moorborne has too much to gain from Harrow maps to wish to lose half its staff prematurely.*
He smiled, faintly, as he wrote that, hoping she would hear the joke and the truth under it.
*You wrote that ink weighs down fear. Your ink has eased mine more than once this winter. If mine can do even a fraction of the same for you, I am grateful.*
He added, impulsively:
*London remains a fog-map. Miss Denholm remains proper. The only hedge of note I have seen was in Lady Wexham’s garden, and it was too trimmed to be trusted. I find myself increasingly inclined to believe that accurate maps can only be drawn far from any street where the milk is delivered in glass.*
He signed:
*With respect,*
*Rowan Ashdown*
He almost wrote *Rowan* alone and stopped himself.
He sealed it, his hand lingering a moment on the paper, then sent it with the rest.
Afterward, he sat for a long moment, staring at the study’s far wall.
He thought of Clara in the small cottage, holding her father’s hand. Of the weight of helplessness on her chest.
He thought of his own father, gasping for breath in a London town house after a night of cards, his face gray, his fingers scrabbling for his sons’ coats as if he might pull them into the grave with him.
He had been four-and-twenty then. He had felt, briefly, a guilty relief when the coughing stopped.
He had sworn, afterward, that he would not make others bear that mixture of grief and exhale.
He could not prevent Geoffrey’s eventual failing, but he could—perhaps—delay its full weight.
“Do what you can,” Judith had said once. “And accept that it is, always, too little.”
He clenched his jaw.
Too little was better than nothing.
***
The Wexham masquerade was, even by London standards, ridiculous.
Masks, feathers, powdered wigs, men dressed as Roman senators, women dressed as shepherdesses. Eliza, capering as a very poorly behaved nymph, nearly got herself banned from Almack’s by lifting the tail of a lion costume to reveal the red-faced viscount beneath.
Rowan attended, danced, endured three separate women asking him whether Moorborne had electric lights yet.
He wore a simple black mask, refusing Judith’s suggestion of a more elaborate costume.
“You lack imagination,” she complained.
“I have too much,” he said. “I prefer it to stay in my head, not on my face.”
But even as he stood under the chandeliers, watching glitter and farce swirl around him, part of him stood in a small cottage, listening for a cough.
When Clara’s reply finally came, a week later, he nearly dropped the newspaper he was pretending to read.
He read it in his study, door firmly shut.
*My Lord,* she wrote.
*I received your letter and the one you sent to my father. He was, predictably, offended and, equally predictably, grateful. He said, “Tell Terrington he is a fool and I appreciate it.” I translate that as thanks.*
*Dr. Selwyn arrived yesterday. He has, I am happy to report, more sense than lace. He listened more than he spoke, which impressed my father. He examined him, asked rude questions about his habits, and then pronounced that, with moderation and care, he might yet be here to vex me for several years. He has prescribed a tincture that smells vile and tastes worse. My father says this proves it must be good for him.*
Rowan exhaled, some tightness easing.
*I will not pretend your offer did not prick my father’s pride,* Clara went on. *But I am wise enough now to accept help when it is given not as alms, but as respect. You respect his work. You respect my time. You have an interest in the continued existence of both. I accept that. It is…a relief.*
He read that line twice.
She continued, lighter:
*The vicar, on hearing of the doctor’s visit, preached a sermon on the dangers of meddling with God’s plan. I told him that if God wished my father dead, He could arrange a more subtle method than expensive physicians. Meg snorted aloud. Mrs. Pritchard glared.*
He smiled.
At the end, she wrote:
*I do not know what London wills for you. I only know that here, in our small corner, your ink has drawn one more season for my father. That is no small miracle. Thank you.*
She signed:
*With gratitude,*
*Clara Harrow*
He sat back, the letter loose in his hand.
Judith, who had been hovering outside the study with a plate of biscuits under the pretense of needing a book, slipped in.
“Well?” she asked.
“He has some years yet,” Rowan said quietly. “Selwyn thinks so.”
Judith’s shoulders relaxed. She had known Geoffrey too, in her way.
“Good,” she said. “One less coffin to imagine.”
Rowan folded the letter carefully.
“You have done well,” Judith said. “Do not downplay it.”
“I only wrote,” he said.
“And sent a man,” she said. “Ink and action. Both matter.”
He looked at the folded paper.
“So do words on the other end,” he murmured.
***
In May, London began to feel more suffocating.
The heat rose. The smells intensified. The gossip grew sharper, like cheese left too long on the sideboard.
Rowan attended the necessary balls and dinners. Lady Agnes pressed him about Miss Denholm.
“She is everything we have ever said you should want,” Agnes insisted. “Sensible. Respectable. Without scandal. She even tolerates Eliza.”
“She thinks Eliza is ‘amusing,’” Rowan said. “That may not last.”
“You are impossible,” Agnes snapped.
“You would have me choose a wife as if I were buying a new plow,” he said. “Checking for soundness, price, and how well she fits the existing attachments.”
“That is precisely how you should choose,” she retorted. “Do not speak as if romance were anything more than a story told to girls to keep them pliant.”
Judith snorted from her armchair. “You are in a mood today, Agnes.”
“I am in a *fear*,” Agnes said. “Rowan wastes time. Every year, he wastes more. While he dithers, Carston waits. Young men with no sense wait. Girls who might suit him marry other fools. He plays with hedges.”
“I have not been playing,” Rowan said sharply. “I have been securing our land. That matters as much to the next generation as the woman I wed.”
“And yet,” Agnes said, “you do not wed.”
He pressed his lips together.
“I am considering,” he said, more stiffly than truth warranted.
Truth was, he was…stalled.
He met Miss Denholm for walks in the park, with chaperones hovering. They spoke of music, of books. She asked polite questions about Moorborne. She listened, nodding, but he did not feel his mind ignite as it did when he discussed a ditch with Clara.
He could imagine a life with Miss Denholm. A quiet, polite life. A house run efficiently. Children taught to sit straight.
He could, with effort, imagine contentment.
He could not imagine lying awake at night wanting to tell her about a crooked hedge.
He knew, intellectually, that marriage did not require that.
He also knew, increasingly, that he might not be able to live without it.
“You hold out,” Judith said one evening, when Agnes had swept out to scold the cook. “Waiting for fireworks. For some thunderclap of certainty. Life rarely gives that. More often, it gives drizzle and the occasional flash you must decide to follow or not.”
“I know,” he said.
“And yet,” she said.
“And yet,” he agreed softly.
He thought of Clara’s line: *choose someone whose complaints you can bear for forty years.*
Miss Denholm’s complaints would be about weather, servants, perhaps his lack of humor.
Clara’s would be about misplaced posts and lazy tenants.
He could not help which he found more bearable.
He also could not simply offer Clara Moorborne.
Not without tearing her from her world, from her father, from the work that defined her. Not without exposing her to Agnes’s “fear” and London’s cruelty.
He would not do that.
Not now.
Perhaps not ever.
He was, he realized, in a trap of his own making.
He had let himself care.
Now he must live with the consequences.
***
In late May, a letter from Trask arrived that changed the shape of Rowan’s plans.
*My lord,* it read.
*We have had heavy rains. The east road is near impassable in places. Mrs. Ellison’s lower ditch, despite Miss Harrow’s most recent improvements, is struggling. Carston has, predictably, used the excuse of “road repairs” to send his men closer to our boundary than is polite.*
*Moreover, there is talk in the village that he has engaged a new surveyor—a man from town who claims to have knowledge of “modern drainage.” He has been seen walking near the old willow with a measuring wheel. I do not trust wheels. They roll where chains would snag.*
*In short, I believe your presence at Moorborne would be of use in the coming weeks. Lambing has gone well. The tenants have not rioted. I can manage in your absence here. But I cannot glare at Carston as effectively as you can.*
*P.S. Mrs. Pritchard says you have abandoned London to hussies of the worst sort. I informed her you had gone to confer with ditches. She was not amused.*
Rowan felt his mouth curve.
He took the letter to Judith.
“You’re going back,” she said, reading it.
“I am,” he said. “If I do not, Carston will creep while I dance.”
“You will leave Miss Denholm,” Judith said, watching him.
“I will leave London,” he said.
Judith smiled faintly.
“And Miss Harrow?” she asked lightly.
He hesitated.
“I do not know,” he said honestly. “She may curse me for bringing more trouble to her ridge.”
“Or she may be very glad to have someone to argue with who does not wear a cassock,” Judith said.
He huffed a laugh.
Lady Agnes, when told, pursed her lips.
“You run away,” she said.
“I go to my estate,” he said. “Where a genuine threat awaits. Carston is more immediate than any London girl’s disappointment.”
“You overvalue hedges and undervalue heirs,” she said.
“I disagree,” he said. “But I shall not persuade you tonight.”
She sighed, long and theatrical.
“Go then,” she said. “Play with your mud. But do not think this absolves you. I expect you back in London next Season with a firm intention to wed. You cannot hide behind ditches forever.”
“I am not hiding,” he said.
She looked at him for a long moment, then shook her head.
“Perhaps not,” she said. “Perhaps you are merely choosing a different kind of courage.”
He did not understand then.
He would, later.
***
He wrote to Clara that night.
*Miss Harrow,* he began.
*Trask informs me that Carston has acquired a wheel. I take this as a personal insult. He also suggests that my presence at Moorborne would be of use, if only to glare. I will be returning within the fortnight, for some weeks at least.*
*I should not, I suppose, warn you. It would be more amusing to watch you drop your chain in shock when I turned up at Whistler’s Run. But I have grown accustomed, this winter, to doing the more sensible thing despite its lesser entertainment.*
*If your own work allows, I would welcome your counsel again on our side of the boundary. And on Mrs. Ellison’s lower ditch, which seems determined to make a liar of both of us.*
He paused, then added:
*It will be…good to see hedges again. And those who walk them.*
He did not write her name.
He did not need to.
He signed, sealed, and sent the letter north.
Then he went upstairs to pack.
He chose, with a certain grim satisfaction, his sturdiest boots.