"Good morning, Dickon."
The viscount looked up from his papers with a blink and a laugh. "Now, here's a surprise! Don't you know better than to beard a gentleman in his study, Lady Rebecca?"
"I do, actually," said Becca, easing the door shut behind her. "But I particularly wanted your advice."
Dickon cocked a blond eyebrow. "You could have asked it at breakfast, you know. I'm sure it would have been much more entertaining that Caro's transports and agonies over this damned—beg your pardon, Becca—dance of hers."
Becca smiled and moved into the room. "Yes, but you see, it's a . . .private matter, which I did not care to air before Caroline. I fear that I am not," she murmured as she sat in the chair next to her brother, pulling her shawl more snuggly around her shoulders, "a very filial sister."
"Well, take comfort from the fact that Caro isn't, either," Dickon said, then, more gently, "Is the arm bothering you, love?"
"It's the damp," Becca said apologetically, throwing an exasperated look at the streaming windows. The rain had come in with the dawn, and the day looked fair to be soggy and dim. Not, Becca thought sourly, that it concerned her. Mother expected her help indoors today with a myriad of dance-related details.
Dickon followed her glance and frowned, leaning back in his chair. "As fine as it's been, we're due a tithe of rain," he commented. "But I'll wager that you haven't risked an affront to propriety just to talk about the weather."
"In fact, I haven't," Becca murmured. She looked down, saw her hand fisted on her lap and tucked it under the trailing edge of her shawl before looking back to Dickon.
"I . . .have been having—doubts about my . . .marriage. Almost I might call them 'second thoughts,' except I believe that I never once thought about it until now! I only heard what Father said—that I'd disgraced myself and put an undue burden on my family—and on Caro, who was blameless, but must remain unwed unless something was done to mend my error. Then he produced Sir Jennet and—oh! It was just as he said, Dickon, that here was the solution. It was rational, and symmetrical, and my mind accepted it."
"But your heart," Dickon murmured, "did not."
"Well . . .no," Becca said slowly. "But surely that hardly signifies. No secret was made of the fact that Sir Jennet needed a wife with a portion and that Father needed to see damaged goods hidden away." Dickon lifted an eyebrow. "You can't think that Sir Jennet cares for me!"
"Be at ease. I don't think that Sir Jennet cares a fig for you, Becca. But whether or not hearts are engaged, a man should have some care for his affianced wife, and make some push to become . . .friends let us say. It would not have been improper of him to ask Father's permission to open a correspondence—and certainly it would have been given! A simple thing, and yet he bestirred himself not at all." Dickon sighed, and looked at her from beneath his golden lashes.
"Before we go further, my love, you must allow to me say how glad I am to see a fire in your eye, and a lift to your chin. You are quite the old Becca, full of passion and purpose. Infinitely preferable to the dutiful, dull automaton Mother professes to admire so greatly." He turned his palms up, smiling ruefully.
"Which is to say that, if you are having second—or first!—thoughts about this business now, it only confirms in me an admiration for your very good sense."
"If I had good sense," Becca pointed out somewhat acerbically, "then this problem of myself would require no solving."
"No, that's going a fence too far, my love. The problem of ourselves, in my experience, which you must admit to be vaster than your own—the problem of ourselves is in continual need of solution." He raised his hand, grinning. "No, don't eat me, Becca-beast!" he cried, calling up a name out of the nursery. "I only mean to say that, if not this problem, then another." The grin faded. "Though I will own that this problem is knottier than some. Do you wish my advice on whether or not you should go through with the wedding?"
"No! Or, rather," Becca stammered, "yes. I—Last night, I could not sleep, and so got up to read. Melancholy overtook me, as it has been wont to do these last few days, and I thought—oh, ridiculous things! At first, I thought that I could not marry Sir Jennet, and then I decided very rationally to engage his support, and then the next moment I was certain that I must run off to live as a wild woman in the park—" She frowned at her brother, sitting comfortably slouched in his chair, his expression no more than attentive.
"You hardly seem alarmed—or surprised."
"Nor am I. To be sure, the contemplation of marriage must make cowards of us all. But I am fascinated! Pray continue. What other mad thoughts came to you?"
"As for mad, no more, though I did have one other notion, which may or may not be made. Therefore, I would like your advice about whether I ought, really to marry Sir Jennet, so that I might make a . . .sensible decision about my future." She smiled slightly. "If you please, Dickon."
"Well." He looked up at the ceiling for a time, his face unwontedly serious—and serious still when he looked back to her.
"One of the things my wide experience has taught me, Becca-love, is that it is never enough to decide simply what one will not do. One must also decide what one will do instead. We must, I fear, take it as a given that the local Parker will not allow a wild woman to stay long in his park. You, however, speak of another 'notion' which you cannily do not dignify as 'mad' immediately. In which case, I must ask you—and myself—what will you do think to do instead, if you do not marry Sir Jennet?"
Becca shook her head. "I—cannot stay here," she said slowly. "That is decided. And I cannot go to Irene—oh, she might take me in, but Edward has more sense! My disfigurement, I think, precludes me from taking up employment as a governess, or," she smiled slightly, "a seamstress. The Wanderer's Village is—"
"Entirely out of the question," Dickon said harshly. He blinked, abashed, and waved a hand. "Your pardon, Becca. Pray continue."
She nodded and took a breath. "So. I have thought to ask Sonet to ask among the herbwise, to see if there might be a village or a settlement . . .at some distance . . .in need of an herbalist."
Her brother frowned. "A woman living alone, with only one good arm . . ."
"I might soon take an apprentice," Becca said briskly, having had this welcome thought while Lucy was doing up her hair.
Dickon turned his head to consider the rain-swept day. "It is a better scheme than running wild in the woods," he said at last, turning again to face her. "But, I must ask—Do you think that you can renounce all the comforts you have been raised to, and live as Sonet does?"
Becca made a show of frowning. "I am not precisely certain, but I do not believe it is required to forever have fifty foundlings and stray kittens about."
Dickon laughed—"A score!"
"Indeed. And, really, Dickon, you must have heard Sir Jennet speak of the condition of his estate. I scarcely think I would be less comfortable in my own cot, tending the health of the village." She paused. "Especially if it were . . .somewhat warmer. The Corlands—"
"The Corlands," Dickon said, completing her sentence for her, "is frigid even in high summer, and your injury will never cease to ache."
"It may," Becca murmured, "accommodate itself. After a time. But—I think it unlikely."
"So do I." He frowned in thought, staring down at his papers, but not as if he saw them. "Well. Perhaps you might speak to Sonet and see what she advises. I wish . . ." he murmured, and fell silent.
"What do you wish, brother?" she asked after a long moment had passed and he had not said anything else.
"I wish," Dickon said again, lifting his head to meet her eyes, "that there were someone whose heart was engaged, and from whom you might look for aid. Someone whose regard you might return fully and—" He stopped, as if catching himself in an indiscretion, color mantling his fair cheeks.
"Your pardon, Becca. It never occurred to me until now, but—perhaps the gentleman who was . . . whose ride you accepted—?"
"Kelmit?" Dickon looked so sorrowful that Becca smothered her laugh. "I did not love Kelmit, Dickon. I accepted his offer of a ride because it was a mark of distinction and I had been so miserable—'Brown Becca' was hardly a success, even with her portion. All of the young men were hanging out for golden-haired enchantresses."
"Sharp scythe!" Dickon closed his eyes; opened them. "Becca, my dear. I'm so very sorry."
"Without cause," she said briskly. "You have never been unkind to me—once we were out of the nursery."
Dickon laughed. "Wretch! And here I have given you my most valuable advice!"
"Indeed you have," she said earnestly. "And I am most grateful, Dickon, truly!" She rose and held her hand down to him; he took it between his large, warm palms "I did not ask you to solve the conundrum, after all! Only to listen, and to advise, which you have done handsomely! I have much to think about!"
"If you say so," Dickon said doubtfully. His hands pressed hers more firmly. "Becca," he said earnestly.
She looked down in to his fair, good-natured face, now shadowed by care. "Yes, brother?"
"If you do decide to—unmake this marriage, I will stand with you. If I had my own establishment, you would be welcome there. Indeed . . ." His face grew thoughtful.
"Indeed," Becca teased him. "It is time and past that you were wed, sir!"
The smile with which he greeted this sally was somewhat abstracted. His fingers pressed hers warmly and released her.
"Bold heart wins all, Becca," he said, softly, and it was tears she saw sparkling in his blue eyes.