Drops of Gold(57)

Philip was a wreck! Layton watched him pace in front of the dark library windows, watching the barely discernible front drive. Miss Sorrel Kendrick, his intended, was supposed to have arrived that morning.

“Staring out the window is not going to bring her here any faster.” Layton tried to hold back his amusement.

Philip looked over his shoulder and offered a self-mocking smile. “I know.” He laughed at himself, his dandified mannerisms once again entirely absent. Philip’s head snapped back in an instant as the sound of carriage wheels broke the silence outside.

“Has she arrived, then?” Layton asked.

Philip’s grin was all the answer he needed.

Layton followed his elder brother to the front steps, where the Kendrick women were alighting from their carriage. The youngest member of the family, Mr. Fennel Kendrick, would be arriving in two weeks’ time, accompanied by the youngest Jonquil, Charlie, as both boys were currently at Eton. The patriarch of the family was dead these several years, thus the widow Kendrick and her two daughters arrived on their own.

Philip offered the appropriate greetings to Mrs. Kendrick, whom Layton recognized easily from his short stay in Suffolk over Christmas. The girlish ribbons and bows and flounces gave her away rather quickly, so out of place they looked on a matron of indeterminate years. The younger sister, Miss Marjoram, was the next up the steps, all dainty, feminine beauty. But Philip, Layton noticed with a smile, was anxiously watching the carriage.

Miss Sorrel Kendrick finally emerged, awkward on a stiff, uncooperative limb and leaning heavily against her walking stick. Layton never had learned the reason for her near-crippled state.

“You are late, my love.” Philip swung his quizzing glass in one hand as he offered her the other.

“I assumed you would need the extra hours for your valet to complete his ministrations,” Sorrel replied, eying him with amused mockery.

“He has done admirably, hasn’t he?” Philip swaggered a little more as he walked her up the stairs.

“Yes, he’s made you almost presentable,” came the dry reply.

Those two were well suited, Layton thought to himself. He’d felt it from the moment he’d met his future sister-in-law, though there had been no understanding between the two of them at the time.

Philip was obviously about to make some glib reply when Sorrel’s leg seemed to give out beneath her and his smirking expression immediately melted into one of concern. “Are you hurt?” He had quickly wrapped a supporting arm around her waist.

She shrugged, though Layton thought she looked embarrassed. He stepped a little farther from the doorway and, hopefully, out of sight. “I don’t travel well,” Sorrel explained as though it were a shameful admission.

“I know.” Philip’s hand gently caressed Sorrel’s cheek, a gesture almost poignantly loving.

Layton felt a pang of something—jealousy, regret—watching them. To love so much and be so obviously loved in return. It seemed entirely out of his reach.

“Fortunately for you, your betrothed is quite unbelievably strong.” Philip moved to apparently lift Sorrel into his arms.

“Philip,” she protested. “I am not an invalid. I am perfectly capable of—”

“Pax, Sorrel!” Philip held his hands up in surrender. “I am not attempting to demean your abilities or capabilities or anything of the sort.”

She didn’t look entirely mollified.

“I am simply being shamefully selfish.”

“Selfish?”

“Seeing the woman he loves in pain without being able to alleviate her suffering is the worst possible experience for any man.” Philip grew quite serious and unaffected. “I’d like to avoid that rather acute torture. With your permission, of course.”

Sorrel pressed a quick, affectionate kiss on her fiancé’s lips and whispered, “I love you, Philip.”

“It’s the jacket, isn’t it? Weston, you know.” Philip smiled haughtily. How did Sorrel put up with his constant transformations?

“If you are done extolling the virtues of your tailor, I would appreciate your getting back to the business of alleviating your apparent torture,” Sorrel answered in a voice of command.

Philip laughed and lifted her easily into his arms. “What do you say we pass by the drawing room and scandalize my enormous family.”

“I seriously doubt they would be scandalized by anything you do, Philip.”

His laughter faded as the couple happily disappeared down the corridor.

Scandalized? Hardly. Mostly, Layton felt lonely. He longed to have someone to talk to the way they did, easily, with the familiarity that comes from a deep-seated understanding of one another. Conversations had often been that way with Bridget before Caroline was born. Theirs might not have been a love match, per se, but they’d had a friendship of long standing that easily bred contented companionship.