Rite of Summer: Treading the Boards, Book 1 (27 page)

If he had been brave enough to say yes.

“Damn it!” Stephen shouted in frustration, and wheeled to kick the wall before catching himself. Broken toes would not make his situation any easier to manage.

…and who said anything about having to manage it?

The idea crept over him, slow and steady, a dawn inexorable in its approach and just as implacable as the rising sun. If he wanted it badly enough, then why wait? Why should he wait for someone else’s timelines to bring himself within striking distance of his desires?

Let him be a man for once, and not a coward.

Wings on his feet, Stephen ran for home. He took the stairs two at a time, no one else inside when he turned the key in the lock and let himself in.

The flat was dark, but he knew where to find pen and paper, lamp and ink. A note, then, for the others, to say where he had gone and when he expected to be back. There was a midmorning coach headed for Berkshire—it would have him there by late afternoon. If he could only talk to Joshua, face-to-face, man to man, he could prove that he had indeed changed, express himself in all the words he could not find to put on paper.

He had failed them both once with his doubts and hesitation. He would not fail again.

To Bracknell, and let not even the hounds of hell stand in his way.

Chapter Twenty-Two

The morning dawned cold and heavy, gray skies lowered overhead.

No letter came. He didn’t really think it would.

Neither of those things helped Joshua’s mood. The prospect of sailing the Channel the next day was daunting enough; to do it under thunderheads was worse luck. Even if he
had
made the idiotic decision to flee the country in the depths of November, the least the universe could do was provide him a clear day to set out on.

Mrs. Colby scolded him for being an impetuous boy and handed him a packed supper, Horlock arranged for his driver to take Joshua as far as the Bath Road to meet his coach, and the morning both sped on and crawled in equal measure.

Finally, the hour nigh, Joshua stepped up into the carriage, his trunk settled behind. The horses pulled away and the house began to recede into the distance.

Some small part of him had hoped to hear from Stephen before he left. It had been a ludicrous dream, one to be harbored in the dead of night and never spoken aloud, not even to Sophie, who kept her counsel close. But, surely, if they had been meant to be, there would have been some last-moment bolt of lightning to set them on the right path once more.

He could have written, Joshua reminded himself severely, the trees slipping by on either side. He hadn’t. He could have gone to that concert. He hadn’t. He had no right to expect any different from Stephen.

Even still, that childish and unworthy refrain sounded over and again in his mind.
If he loved me, he would have come.

So let it be, and let it die.

Far easier said than done.

Chapter Twenty-Three

The rain began as Stephen walked along the side of the road, heading deeper into the woods at Bracknell. Horlock’s estate was supposed to be close to the road—at least the coach driver had not laughed too loudly when told that he would walk the rest of the way.

He had not gotten wet at the change at the turnpike, and counted himself lucky for it. Now, though, he was a sodden mass from his hat to his boots, his shirt sticking to his back and cold rivulets drizzling down the back of his neck to work their way down the length of his spine.

What a wretched figure he would cut, showing up at the earl’s front door.
Hah.
Some suitor or gallant hero.

If he’d had a horse, that might have worked better.

Mud squished up around the toes of his boots, staining the leather and adding to the chill in his bones.

Not much farther now.

Then he would see Joshua again. And even if he was thrown out on his arse into the storm once more, at least he would have
tried
.

Not much farther now.

The mantra kept him going, one foot in front of the other, a steady, careful plod along the fence until the drive turned away from it and opened up toward the Horlock house. He turned with it, his heart leaping up into his throat. Light shone from the windows, a glorious and welcoming thing, promising heat and warmth and…

He was an idiot. He could not walk up to the main door, knock and request entry. They would ask why he was there, what had possessed him to walk. He had not been invited, after all, and it was entirely possible that Joshua would refuse him entry, and then
he
could be forced to explain.

The kitchen door. If they could not call Joshua down, then at the very least Armand, if she would forgive. The cook would be able to send a message to her, and then through her to Joshua, and get him down there without attracting undue attention from the master and mistress of the house.

No dogs had started barking at his approach, which was good. Between that, the slow descent of the sun, thanks to the lateness of the year, and the clouds doing their best to drown him, he could make it up the hill and to the house unnoticed.

He slipped, stumbled and almost fell on the stone outside, catching himself just in time. Around the house, then, and to the side-door servants’ entrance. This was more where he belonged anyway, a hired player, no name nor family to boost him, surviving on nothing but his addled wits and his cold,
cold
hands.

A maid opened the door when he knocked, took one look at him and ushered him into the hall. Heat from the kitchen struck him hard in the face, a blissful tingling pain that suffused his body from the outside in, soaking into every exposed surface. He flexed his hands, the stiffness in them aching under the change in temperature, before they began to loosen.

“Can we help you, young man?” A broad-shouldered barrel of a woman in apron and cap plumped her fists on her hips and stared him down. “What on God’s green earth brings you out-of-doors on an afternoon such as this?”

“I-b…” he began, stuttered and stopped to find his kerchief, sneeze into it and compose himself. “My name is Stephen Ashbrook, madam. I am a-an
acquaintance
of Mr. Beaufort and I’ve come to speak with him. Please, is he about the house?”

Her expression softened as she looked him over, which meant he must be an utter fright. Her next words, though, did more damage than weather ever could. “I’m afraid you’ve missed him, Mr. Ashbrook. He’s gone.”

What?

Not dead, never dead, or she would not say it so easily.

“When do you expect his return?” He was assuming trouble where there was none to be had. Joshua could have gone to town for the day, or to visit family, or—

“Next year, possibly, or perhaps never. He’s gone to Belgium, you see. To paint for a viscount.”

“Gone to Belgium,” Stephen repeated dumbly, the words thick in his mouth. He slid down the wall, landing on the old, wooden deacon’s bench by the door. He had imagined a handful of different scenarios on the long walk over—Joshua welcoming him, Joshua furious with him, Joshua refusing to speak to him entirely. But never this. And it was foolish, because he
knew
…he had been invited on this very trip, and he had hesitated.

How could he have imagined that Joshua would put his own life on hold, when Stephen had kept moving? He was an impulsive fool!

He stared at his clasped hands in front of him, tried to organize his maddened and swirling thoughts into some more logical plan of action. Above all, of one thing he was certain—he had come too far to give up at the first setback. That acknowledged, he looked up at the cook and tried to ignore the rainwater dripping onto his nose.

“Do you know where he is staying?” he asked, subdued. “Or a way to get a message to him?”

“Polly,” the cook called, apparently ignoring his request, “go fetch Armand, will you? That’s a girl. In the meantime, young man,” she addressed him again as the scullery maid scurried off, fists on her substantial hips, “you’d better give me your coat and take off those boots so we can get you a little dryer than you are. I’ll not have anyone catching the ague on my watch.”

He should have argued the point, but, frankly, he was too exhausted to begin.

By the time his boots and coat had been taken to sit nearer the fire and a blanket placed around his shoulders, Sophie Armand had appeared in the hallway. He stayed on the bench, pulling the blanket closer around himself.

She stared at him as though seeing a ghost, her face pale but cheeks flushed, everything about her carriage taut as a string being plucked. “He’s gone, you know.”

“I know,” Stephen replied, his grief bleeding around the edges of his calm front. “When? How long ago?”

She hesitated, as though weighing what to tell him, how much or how true to be. Her fingers twisted in her apron, bunching and unbunching in the fine white fabric until they left creases behind.

“Please,” Stephen asked. She was his only link, his only chance to make everything right again. “You have to help me. Tell me where, when, how long ago. How can I find him again?”

They were alone in the hallway but still she looked over her shoulder, into the open door to the kitchen. The clanging of pots and calling of orders meant that dinner plans were well underway. A good thing, since it left them less likely to be overheard or disturbed.

“Why should I?” Armand said finally. “He’s been miserable since the summer, because of you.”

That gave him pause. “He has?” Stephen asked, wondering, and the look she gave him was filled with such contempt that he slammed his mouth closed again.

“He waited for you to write,” she said, venomous in her anger.

Stephen closed his eyes, sank into the deep pool of despair and remorse inside. “I didn’t think he would read it,” he confessed.

She snorted. “Then you don’t really know him, do you?”

“No,” he admitted, after a long pause. “Perhaps I don’t. But I want to.”

“You’re too late.”

“No!” Stephen said forcefully, then paused to see if the noises from the kitchen had stopped. They continued and so did he, his blood rising, finally, as his body thawed. “Not so. Not until one or both of us are dead, and I will not believe it even then.” If he could suffuse enough emotion into it, cut open his chest and let her see the beating of his heart, would she capitulate? “I could not make him promises this summer, but I can now, and I promise you I will not give up trying to find him.”

Armand frowned, a crease deepening between her brows. “And if he does not wish to hear from you?”

“I will obey his wishes. But only once I hear it from him.” He was hardly anything to be impressed by, wet and bedraggled, huddled as he was in an old blanket that, for a moment, he thought smelled faintly like Joshua. He drew himself up on the bench, set his shoulders and tried to show some vague force of character.

She stared, her arms folded, and he held her gaze as steadily as he could manage. “Please,” he said simply. “We belong to each other.”

“No.” Her jaw set, she was as implacable as the mountain, a barricade that no cavalry could break.

He had but one option left, a ploy that surely she would see through and mock him for. But what was dignity in the face of losing the one thing he wanted most—and had so stupidly thrown away?

“That is your final word?”

“It is.”

“Then, madam…” He swallowed hard against the lump in his throat, one altogether too real. He fumbled in his pocket, his fingers still too stiff and cold to work properly, until he could draw it out. He unfolded the square of linen, his constant companion, so she could see the monogram on the corner. “…would you be so kind as to return this to him in your next letter? I have been keeping it, you see…” and then his voice did break, the sheer stupidity of the whole mess crashing down over him, “…until I could give it back in person.”

Armand took the handkerchief, smoothed it out over her hand, traced the embroidery with a finger. The frown line cut deep between her brows. “You have this?”

He nodded.

“You kept this?”

“As a talisman.” And why should he not tell her now? She knew everything else. “There has not been a single day these past four months where he has not been at the forefront of my mind.”

A drop of water rolled down his forehead and splashed off the end of his nose. He blinked, trying to maintain some form of dignity that did not include scrubbing his hair and face with the back of his hand.

A smile tugged very briefly at the corners of her lips before it was gone once more. The curse she muttered under her breath was most certainly
not
something she had learned at any French boarding school. Was that a good sign? Maybe, perhaps…

“He left four hours ago.”

Only that? Only that? Then there is still hope. Oh, there is hope!

“He left for London this afternoon and meant to take the Bath Road,” she continued, but he could barely hear her over the exultations in the back of his mind and the rapid thrumming of his heart. “Given the weather, he might have stopped instead of changing in Slough. If so, he prefers the lodgings at the Holly and Ivy.” Every word was clipped as she spoke it, as though every letter was painful, but she gave him what he needed, nevertheless.

Stephen rose, grasped her hands impulsively and squeezed them tight, then tucked the handkerchief back into his pocket. “You are a blessing and an angel,” he declared, and heard a giggle from the doorway. The scullery maid vanished again and there would be rumors spreading soon, no doubt, but what mattered that to him now? He had a chance.

And so did Armand. He had closed the distance between them and she narrowed it further, leaning in to murmur in his ear, “Be good to him, or I
will
find you.” Her accent had changed—the sleek and sophisticated daughter of France gone, and in her place, a Bankside girl, thick canting drawl and all. “I will expose you only insofar as it hurts you and keeps him safe, and then I will destroy you.”

That threat was legitimately terrifying, and Stephen nodded seriously as she pulled back and removed her hands from his grip. “I will,” he pledged, and meant it. “I will be good to him. I swear it.”

And thank God, if there was such a thing, for she seemed to believe him. “Then wait here and dry some more,” she commanded. “I’ll go see about finding you a drive to Slough. I’ve no interest in explaining to my employers how the corpse of Coventry’s pet violinist ended up cold on their lawn.”

“You’re too kind,” he murmured, but he was too warm through and through to put any venom in it. Joshua was still in England. All was not yet lost.

Assuming he could get his boots back in time.