Adam’s feelings on Seraphina Arden were a chaos he could scarcely stand to think about, but he was certain she was not a seditionist. “Surely urging women to know their letters is not an act against the Crown.”
Mayhew, indifferent to politics as ever, rolled his eyes. “It’s the question of respectability. Wouldn’t do to be seen as under the influence of her sort.”
“Her sort?” Adam asked. He knew what Mayhew meant, but his brother-in-law’s judgment irritated him.
“You know. Jacobin intellectuals,” Mayhew said. “They oppose the government, and we need the support of every peer we can find if we’re to make us whole.” He gave Adam a meaningful look. The debt Adam owed Mayhew for his share of the business was never far from either of their minds. Nor was the tension between them over how they should conduct themselves. The longer they spent in London, with its suspicion of Scots, the more desperate Mayhew was to be seen as more English than an Englishman. Adam understood the impulse, but he disliked the idea that they needed to appear as something other than what they were to move ahead.
Even if it was true.
“Never fear, James. I suspect I can read a book in private without being moved to go give a public speech in support of it to Pendrake.”
Mayhew chuckled. “Just have a care you don’t corrupt my sister’s children with your reading.”
He knew his brother-in-law was mostly joking, but even in jest, the comment irritated him. “What is appropriate for my children is my concern, James.”
Mayhew looked taken aback at the irritation in his tone. “It’s my concern as well, I’d think. I’m their godfather and their uncle.”
“And I’m their father.”
Mayhew crossed his arms and sighed. They had this conversation at least once a month, over something or other. Mayhew advising Adam to send the children to stay with Mayhew’s mother in Edinburgh, to receive a proper upbringing with their cousins. Mayhew suggesting Adam hire a governess lest Marianne spoil the children with her unconventional opinions. It drove Adam mad.
Mayhew’s father had never minded that Adam was cut from different cloth, so long as he could support his family. But the elder Mayhew had passed away, and after Catriona’s death, the family had developed a way of looking after Adam that seemed suspicious. Like he might somehow turn his children into people more like his parents than their mother. Like he could not be trusted to know what was best for them.
He loved the Mayhews, but he sometimes wished he owed them less, so that he could draw a firmer line without seeming like an ingrate.
Mayhew was staring at him. “You know, you’ve been intolerable ever since you returned from Cornwall.”
“I’ve been busy, James. You try doing six months’ work in as many weeks and see how affable it makes you.”
Mayhew shook his head. “Charming. I suppose I just stumble about contributing nothing.”
Adam squeezed his eyes together and rubbed his temples. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it as a criticism. I’m in a low mood. Ignore me.”
In truth, his spirits had been low ever since that day that Seraphina had fled from him in Cornwall. He’d spent every night going by her house, angrily ripping posters off her gate.
Trying to understand how she could leave without a single word to him.
Trying not to let his anger leach into his children’s consciousness.
Trying to forget her.
“Well, rest up while you can,” Mayhew said, patting him heartily on the back. “We’ve a race to win.”
Adam rose. “You’re right. I’m going home.”
He picked up Seraphina’s book, tucked it into his satchel, rolled up his scrolls, and blew out the lamps.
As he walked along the darkened street, he thought about Seraphina’s tale. She put great effort into appearing unemotional in Cornwall. It had taken time to see that she was neither as callous nor as impervious to pain as she would have one believe.
But her searing words gave the lie to every bit of that reserve.
It was a testament to youth and longing, an interrogation of the perverse, self-sabotaging yearnings of the heart. To open up such wounds for the betterment of men would require courage from any author. But for a woman like Seraphina—who did not like to indulge in backward glances, did not like to admit when she’d been hurt, who hated to seem vulnerable in any way—the bravery of it was heroic.
Mayhew was wrong about the book’s power to corrupt. Her story was a cry in defense of humanity over the expectations of one’s station. He felt it powerfully, the injustice of wanting more than what the world believed you were entitled to.
He wished he could tell her.
He couldn’t, of course. Not after the terrible awkwardness of that moment when he’d refused her friendship.
He’d felt he had no choice but to decline. She’d been kind at Lady Westcott’s, but his father had also been capable of acts of kindness when he was at his best. Trusting it only meant being crushed anew each time the lighter side of the man was swallowed by the darker one.
He was too wary to take the risk.
But perhaps, if he simply wrote to her, expressing his admiration for her work, it would make him miss her less.
His house was dark when he stepped inside. He lit a candle in his study and prepared a quill. And he began to write a letter to Seraphina Arden.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Seraphina awoke to the sound of Thaïs moaning—and not with pleasure.
Ever since Seraphina had returned from Cornwall, Thaïs had taken up residence in her spare bedchamber, hovering protectively. Sera went to Thaïs’s door and knocked.
“Sweetling, are you ill?”
The noise that came back in response brought to mind a hedgehog attempting to give birth to a foal.
Sera threw open the door. “Thaïs! What is the matter?”
Thaïs was lying on her bed with a bladder of hot water over her stomach and the soles of her feet pushed up flat against the wall, writhing in pain.
“What in heaven’s name are you doing?”
Thaïs grunted. “It’s the curse. Twisting through me like the devil himself. Feels like he’s wrenching out my innards.”
Sera sat down beside her. “Oh dear. Is there anything I can do for you?”
“Take me into the garden and shoot me square between the eyes.”
Sera snorted. “Would you settle for a cup of tea?”
“No. Just leave me to die in peace. Bury me at sea.”
Sera patted her hand. “I’ll go out and get you a remedy at the apothecary.”
Thaïs only closed her eyes and groaned. Sera closed the door, and stood in the dark hallway. Her skin felt tight and sharp and hot.
The curse. Where in the bloody hell was hers?
She had bled in Cornwall. She ticked the weeks on her fingers. That was over two months ago. She fought the desire to collapse onto the floorboards, and instead braced herself up against the wall, took a breath, and walked as calmly as she could to her bedchamber. She dug through her papers and found the journal where she recorded her menses.
No ticks since June.
Well, July had been a blur of emotion. She must have had it and forgot to write it down. But she never forgot. And even if she had, should she not have bled this month, by now?