Mr. Gilbert gave him a strange look. “I never like to pry,” Mr. Gilbert said.
“Oh, go ahead and pry. I know everyone has been dying to ask of her. I don’t promise to answer any of your questions though.”
“Did you dismiss her, sir? I know she wasn’t the best of maids, but I haven’t seen anyone try harder than she did to learn.”
“No.”
“Do you think she would come back? We just heard from Doris that she has found work near her family, so she won’t be returning. There is still room for a maid.”
“No. She won’t be back. There is no place for her here.”
“But Doris isn’t—”
“That isn’t what I mean. She doesn’t belong here.” Anthony ground his teeth together. “I don’t even know who she is.”
“She is Patience.”
Mr. Gilbert made it sound so simple. Patience, as if the sister of a duke could ever just be Patience. No, that Patience, the one he was struggling to live without, didn’t exist.
“You don’t understand, Mr. Gilbert, and I’m afraid I am not at liberty to discuss this any further. She wasn’t who you thought she was. Let’s just leave it at that.”
“I find that very hard to believe when she was always the same. Whether talking to you, me, the children, or even with Mrs. Bates. At times, it would have been in her best interest to be quiet and listen, yet she couldn’t help but speak her mind and plow forward. I’ve never met someone more guileless.”
Anthony couldn’t do this today. When had Mr. Gilbert become so talkative? “Guileless or not, she is gone. And she won’t be coming back.”
“I’ll miss her brightness.”
“We will have to make our own brightness, Mr. Gilbert. We were doing just fine before she came. We will be fine once again.”
Mr. Gilbert finally nodded, but he didn’t leave. In an effort to deter him from staying without outright dismissing him, Anthony tore open the letter from his sister.
Anthony,
I am writing to release you from your prior obligation of waiting at least one year before thinking of marriage. The children miss Patience.
S.
“We would take her back in any capacity.”
“Gilbert.” He’d better not finish his train of thought. Anthony couldn’t have both his sister and his butler telling him to marry Patience. They didn’t understand, and he was honor-bound not to disparage Lady Patience’s name by letting them know.
“I’m leaving,” Mr. Gilbert said. “And I won’t bring her up again, but I will just say this: I’m not sure what type of brightness you are expecting from you, me, and Mrs. Bates. Molly is happy enough, I suppose, but Patience was different. She never seemed to know her place, and yet she somehow made a place for everyone around her. I should think a household would want to keep a person like that.”
Mr. Gilbert spun on his heel and dramatically left Anthony’s study.
Harry and Augusta missed Patience. Mr. Gilbert apparently missed Patience. It was as if everyone was expecting him to bring her back. Well, he couldn’t do the impossible.
He pulled open the side drawer of his desk. The sooner he wrote to Sophia, the better. He would hate to have her say something to Harry and Augusta. The three pieces of sealing wax rattled about in the drawer and then settled to a stop, resting against each other.
The three broken parts came together with two of the smaller pieces on top of the larger one. Like a red heart. What was the probability of that happening? Next to none. But it had.
He traced the wax softly with his finger. What if courting Lady Patience Kendrick weren’t impossible? It could be merely improbably, just like the wax forming a heart. What if Mr. Gilbert was right, and she hadn’t actually pretended to be something she wasn’t? What if the woman he fell in love with did exist?
Something deep within Anthony’s chest broke open. His father had started in the army as a common soldier and had raised himself to general. Surely his son could think of a socially acceptable way to make a lady agree to spend the rest of her life with him.
He pulled out a new sheet of paper and reached for his favorite pen. At the very least, he could try.
For Harry and Augusta’s sake.
Chapter 19
Patience had been home a month, but it felt longer than her two-year mourning period. Thanks to Mama, her presentation to the Queen last week had been flawless. Her dress, which had been ordered before she went to the Woodsworth household, was otherworldly. Then again, everything about returning home had seemed otherworldly. A week after returning home, she’d entered society. Each evening thereafter, she and Mama attended some event or another. She no longer felt as though she knew her place. No matter how late she was out the night before, she woke up early each morning. It was a habit she hadn’t been able to break. If the coals in her fireplace had not been stoked back up, her fingers itched to do it herself.
But she had learned her lesson the first time she had done that. Poor Rebecca had worried for weeks and was still waking up an hour early each day to make certain Patience’s was the first fire revived each morning.
She lay back down in her bed. Nothing would be expected of her for a few more hours. This evening she and her mother were to attend a card party at the Earl of Sumberton’s London house. She would spend her time looking up every time a new gentleman entered the room. But if the last three weeks of being officially out in society had taught her anything, it had taught her that Mr. Woodsworth had been correct: their social circles were not the same.
She couldn’t spend another morning thinking about him. She needed to move, work, do anything. She threw on her dressing gown and inched open her door. Only the servants would be about at this time of morning, but she still hesitated to roam about in such a state of undress.
Her parents’ rooms were just across the passageway from hers. When she was younger and couldn’t sleep, she would creep over to her father’s room. More often than not, she would find both of her parents sleeping there. When Nicholas inherited, he had opted to stay in his room rather than use Papa’s. She assumed he would keep that arrangement until he married. Now the room that used to warm both her and her parents was empty and cold.
She padded across the stone floor. The door would be locked—there was no reason for it not to be. But when she reached for the handle, it turned. She slid into the room before anyone would have a chance to see her.
Everything was the same but different. In the dim light, she could make out Papa’s wardrobe, a small writing desk and chair, and above the mantel, a painting of her mother. She had assumed everything would have been covered in sheets, but nothing was. It was as if her Papa had just left for the morning and would be back. Nothing had been moved, and there was no dust; but without Papa, there was no life here either. Both she and the room knew he wouldn’t be returning.