Page 83 of What Cannot Be Said

Hero watched as the two boys crouched down, laughing, with their hands tucked up under their armpits and waddled along the riverbank, quacking in imitation of a trio of ducks that had come in to land farther up the bank. “I was thinking about going for a walk in Grosvenor Square tomorrow morning in the hopes I might run into her again. I can’t stop thinking about what the poor child must be going through, losing both her mother and her sister at the same time—and in such a horrible way. But...”

“But?” prompted Sebastian when she paused.

She swung to face him. “To be deliberately pumping an innocent, grieving child for information about her cousins under the guise of offering her my sympathy and friendship strikes me as vile.”

He took both her hands in his. “Except that, as you said, you were planning on trying to see her again anyway.”

“Well, that’s a pathetic sop to my conscience if ever I heard one.”

“Perhaps. The thing is, if there were a way to be more honest and direct with Thisbe without risking increasing her distress, then I’d take it. But there isn’t. And there is still so much about that day we don’t know but she very well might. Hell, I’m not entirely certain who came up with the idea for the picnic in the first place.”

“I thought Arabella told you the picnic was her aunt Laura’s idea—or Emma’s.”

“She did. But at this point I’m not inclined to take anything either of those two children tells us as the unquestioned truth. Are you?”

She met his gaze and held it. And he saw in her stricken gray eyes all the pain this was causing her, and all her doubts, along with the unwanted realization that there was too much sense in what he was saying for it to be easily dismissed. She drew a deep, ragged breath and let it out slowly. “No. No, I’m not.”

Monday, 31 July

“I was hoping I’d see you again,” said Thisbe the next morning as she walked with Hero along one of the gravel paths that wound through Grosvenor Square’s naturalized plantings. The sun had come up bright and hot that morning, so that the wet gardens around them seemed to steam in the rising heat.

Hero tamped down an unpleasant twinge of guilt. Reaching out, she took the child’s hand in her own, gave it a squeeze, and said lightly, “It’s lovely to have the sun out again, isn’t it?”

Thisbe nodded, although her features remained pinched and wan. “Malcolm made it home last night, you know.”

“No, I didn’t know. That is good news. I know you’ve been missing him.”

Thisbe kept her gaze fixed straight ahead, but Hero saw a quiver pass over her small features. “They’re going to bury Mama and Emma the day after tomorrow, on Wednesday.”

Thank God, thought Hero. But all she said was, “I am so, so sorry, Thisbe.”

Thisbe blinked and dashed a gloved fist across her eyes. “I keep having dreams about that picnic,” she said softly. “Even though I don’t want to, even though I wasn’t even there, I still see it in my dreams. Miss Braithwaite says it’s because I keep thinking about it.”

“I don’t believe anyone can control their dreams, Thisbe.”

“That’s what I told Miss Braithwaite. It’s not like I want to dream about it. I never want to go on a picnic again.” Her voice broke, and she swallowed before saying quietly, “Oh, how I wish Mama had never given in to Arabella and agreed to do it!”

Hero felt her breath catch. “The picnic was Arabella’s idea?”

Thisbe wiped her eyes again and sniffed. “She started talking about it weeks ago. Mama wasn’t particularly keen on it, but Arabella was so excited about the thought of it and kept pushing for it so hard that in the end Mama gave in. She was always telling us about how we needed to be extra kind to Arabella and Percy on account of Aunt Georgina. Whenever one or the other of them would do something nasty, Mama would sigh and say how we had to make allowances for them because they were so sad and lonely, growing up without a mother and with only governesses and nursemaids to take care of them. She said they needed to know we loved them, and so she was always pushing Emma to spend more time with Arabella—as if it weren’t obvious to everyone that Arabella absolutely hated Emma.”

Hero felt an unpleasant sensation crawl up her spine. “She did?”

“Malcolm always said it was because Arabella was jealous of Emma.”

“Jealous? Why?”

Thisbe wrinkled her nose. “It’s kinda weird. Arabella is always bragging about how her papa is a viscount, while our papa is only a baronet, and how the Priestlys go way back, all the way to the Conqueror. Except the McInnises are almost as old, and our mama was a Priestly, too, whereas Arabella’s Grandpa Bain started out as a clerk.” Thisbe colored faintly. “Mama always used to say it’s shallow and ill-bred to talk like that. But the thing is, it’s Arabella who’s always going on and on about how grand the Priestlys are. It’s like it eats at her, knowing that both sides of her family aren’t as wellborn as she wishes they were. Not that the Priestlys don’t have what Malcolm calls a few skeletons in their closet. Grandpapa Priestly was a horrid gambler, you know. Malcolm says that by the time he was fifty, Grandpapa Priestly had lost so much money that he almost lost the Priory, too. That’s why Uncle Miles had to marry ‘beneath him,’ as my great-aunt Honoria is always saying. Except then, even though Uncle Miles married Arabella’s mama because her papa was so rich, before he died old Mr.Bain lost most of his money on account of what Malcolm calls ‘bad investments.’ So while the Priory is no longer encumbered, it isn’t as though Uncle Miles is exactly flush, as Malcolm would say.”

Hero stared at the child beside her. “Malcolm told you all this?”

“No. No one ever tells me anything. But I heard him talking to Emma about it. He said it was one of the things that drives Arabella crazy.”

“Emma talked to Malcolm about your cousin?”

Thisbe nodded again. “It was after Arabella got so mad at Emma that she tried to scratch her eyes out.”

“When did that happen?”

---