Intolerable Civility

Chapter Twelve: Ulterior Motive

During the first week of his stay at Cousin Sarah's house, David sometimes wondered if he would not be more comfortable at a hotel. It was true that Sarah was a solicitous host. The trouble was, she was too solicitous. He could not reach for the salt pot at the dinner table without her bustling up from her seat to hand it to him herself. She always insisted he sat in the most comfortable chair closest to the fire, even if he had no wish to sit at all. Every morning, he was woken by a chambermaid bearing a pot of steaming, gritty chocolate. The pot of ivy on the mantelpiece was beginning to look quite sickly as a result. But of course, it was all done to be kind, so David thought it would be rude to complain.

The other problem was that sometimes he was quite sure she was flirting, which puzzled him greatly. When they had been younger, she had never betrayed any suspicion of tenderness towards him. Indeed, he might have suspected quite the opposite from the way she had ordered him about and teased him. It seemed exceptionally peculiar for her to begin with flirting now.

For a few days, he stonily ignored all her attempts at flirting. When she complimented the fit of his coat, he pretended he did not hear her. When she remarked on the intimacy of dining alone together, he suggested she invite some friends to join them. When she found excuses to touch his shoulder or hands, he simply moved away. Eventually, to his relief, her flirtations ceased and she treated him in a much more normal manner. He decided she had merely been lonely.

Thankfully, David's business kept him out of the house more often than not. He was around his old clubs, around his old army friends, trying to find investors to pay for the expansion of the slate mines. Tunnels would have to be dug deep into the hills to access a rich but hard-to-reach ore deposit. Once the tunnels were dug, he would be able to mine and sell vast quantities of slate, but until then, it would be all expense and no income.

Several of his friends or acquaintances pledged small investments, but the highest of his hopes were pinned on Lord Varley, a viscount, a little older than David, who had recently come into his title and inheritance and was determined to make something of it. Before any real arrangements could be made, however, Lord Varley left town for his Sussex estate to attend his wife who was expecting a baby very soon. He promised David that he would let him know when he returned but could not commit a date or time. Until then, David had little to do but amuse himself in London.

It was easier not to remain alone in the house with Sarah. David went to clubs and dinner parties and the theatre. It was while he was shopping one morning in James Street that he quite literally ran into Luke Balley as he came out of a tailor's shop. After the first reflexive apologies, Luke looked sheepish and uncertain, as if he did not know whether to say goodbye or hello.

"A funny coincidence meeting you here," David said, trying to be helpful. "Good day, Mr Balley."

"Wait." Luke trotted after him. "I must ask. How is Cate?"

David stopped with a frown. He had received no response to the letter he had sent, and he had not wanted to send another. He had nothing more to say. "You would know better than me," he said. "She writes to you, does she not?"

Luke shook his head. "My father forbids it. We are none of us to make contact with her. She knows well. He will only punish me if she sends me letters. And that old weasel is spying on her, I'm sure."

It was too easy to guess which 'old weasel' Luke meant. David considered him thoughtfully. When he had been courting Catherine, Luke had never impressed him as anything more than an over-energetic and rather childish young man with too much time on his hands. Despite that, David knew Catherine was fond of him, for whenever she mentioned him a light came into her sad eyes. It seemed monstrously unfair to refuse them even the right of correspondence.