Chapter 28
“One-two-three, one-two-three,” Lucy counted out over Mina’s shoulder.
As Lucy led her through the simple steps of the waltz—surely a silly sight as she stood a head taller than Lucy—Mina marveled over how she’d gotten herself into this position.
“Ouch!” Lucy cried out.
“I’m so sorry.” Mina had stepped on Lucy’s toes no fewer than seven times this waltz alone. “We can stop, if you like.”
“I definitely do not like. Now, I never thought I would say this to you of all people, but you must concentrate.” An impish grin curled about Lucy’s mouth. “Besides, ten broken toes wouldn’t be too high a price to pay for waltzing to a string quartet. Even if the musicians are a room removed, their music is heavenly.”
Mina tried to concentrate on the dance steps, really, she did, but it held little interest for her. For Lucy, this dance, every dance, even the minimal act of breathing, was an adventure, and she was ever on the lookout for the next one.
At school, some impertinent question was always erupting out of Lucy’s mouth, not from malice or to cause trouble, but out of a need to know. No subject was taboo. This was where Mina felt a deep connection to Lucy. She, too, was a curious person.
It was from this place that she viewed their friendship, even if others couldn’t see it. Their curiosity manifested itself in different ways, but once stimulated, they stopped at nothing to satisfy it. Which was how Mina found herself in this small, forgotten room one wall removed from a ball, stepping through the waltz with Lucy. Even if Lucy’s ebullience wasn’t inspirational, it was most definitely motivational.
“Oh, my dear,” Lucy said, all stuffed up matron. “This music is divine. Simply the music of the gods. Why, I haven’t heard this song since my debutante ball.” A few beats of the waltz skipped by for dramatic effect. “One hundred and fifty years ago!”
A laugh, shocked and delighted, startled out of Mina. She liked that about spending time with Lucy. She made it easy to believe that the world was a bright, fun place.
“Now, try setting your arms like so.” Lucy demonstrated a loose, elegant turn of arm, one Mina could never come close to mirroring in an eternity of moons.
“You mustn’t be so . . . stiff. What will all your lovers think?”
“I shan’t have any lovers,” Mina replied matter-of-factly. “I shall dedicate myself to—”
“Science,” Lucy said, her tone dry as a dinosaur bone. “But Mina? Why isn’t there room for both?”
Before Mina could reply, Lucy’s gaze fixed on a point in the distance, and the next moment she flew out of Mina’s arms on a high-pitched squeal. “Huey!” her voice sang out as she shot across the room toward her cousin, Lord Hugh Bretagne, Earl of Avendon, heir to a future duke . . . and heir to the sun, Mina remembered thinking the night they’d met in the Duke of Arundel’s foyer.
“I knew I would find you in this very room,” Lord Avendon said, a mixture of supercilious reserve and genuine amusement infusing the words.
Into an unlit corner, Mina shrank, hoping to avoid his attention. Of course, he’d seen her dancing with Lucy, but perhaps he hadn’t really noticed her. Members of the ton tended not to look directly at her. Except when she wasn’t looking at them. Then they feasted their greedy eyes on her to their heart’s content.
“Lulu, Grandpapa has sent for you to meet him in the ballroom.”
“Me?” Lucy squealed. “At the ball?” She fled the room without a single backward glance as if the slightest hesitation would render her invitation null and void.
Mina’s attention remained fixed on Lord Avendon. Instead of following in Lucy’s turbulent wake, he strode deeper inside the room and stopped in front of a bookcase, clearly perusing titles. She stood still as a statue as if he was a wild animal, and the smallest movement would scare him away. Or invite his notice.
She wasn’t certain which would be worse.
His gaze scanned gold embossed titles, down the line, one after the other. Which books interested someone like Lord Avendon? What did the heir to the sun read?
Now no more than ten feet from her, his eyes continued roving left, toward her, and stopped, a particular title catching his attention. He reached up and began to slide it out. She opened her mouth to ask which book and snapped it shut. She was trying to remain unnoticed, after all. Still, what book could it be?
She tried to make herself smaller in her little corner, her heart pounding, anticipation racing through her veins. Perhaps he wouldn’t see her . . .
His head angled left, and his translucent amber eyes unerringly landed upon her, not a speck of surprise in their depths. He bowed, and she lowered into a polite curtsy.
“You may want to come, too, Miss Radclyffe,” Lord Avendon said, pushing the book back into place. “I believe your father is looking for you.”
“Thank you, my lord.”
He stepped aside, clearly waiting for her to pass. As she drew level with him, her eyes darted sideways to see which book it could have been, but she couldn’t tell. They all looked the same. She continued forward and felt a seed of frustration crack open. Curiosity must always be satisfied, no matter the cost. Her feet planted in lush, Aubusson carpet, and she swiveled around, the question on her lips, ready to be asked.
She gasped. He was closer than she thought. Taller, too. Taller than her. A rarity. Her gaze lifted to meet his, and she cleared her throat. “May I ask which title you were perusing?”
A confounded look crossed his features, and he appeared his age. A few years older than her. No more than that. He mostly didn’t look like a future duke. He reached over, slid the book out, and cleared his throat. “Emile, or On Education by Jean-Jacques Rousseau, it appears.” He turned the book over in his hands a few times, as if to test its weight, and met her gaze, his head cocked to the side.
A smile sprang up from the soles of her feet. “Emile is the foundational text of my and Lucy’s school, The Progressive School for Young Ladies and the Education of Their Minds. Of course,” she added, “as applied to females instead of males.”
His eyes clouded over, and her smile dropped, suddenly conscious of itself. He pushed the book back into place, and his usual air of . . . dukeliness . . . returned. “Honestly, Miss Radclyffe,” he replied in a voice reeking of disinterest, “I took it out at random. I don’t give a fig about it.”
In the face of such a provocative remark, Mina’s curiosity chased away her self-consciousness. “But why?” she asked. A possibility occurred to her. “Can you read? I’ve heard that some members of the English nobility find it too tiresome ever to learn.”
A surprised laugh startled out of Lord Avendon. “Of course, I can read.”
“Then why wouldn’t you care about that book? You held it, felt the weight of it in your hands. Not to mention the fact that it’s one of the most influential books of its time. Doesn’t anything interest you?”
Lord Avendon drew himself up to his fullest, noblest height. “I’m interested in everything appropriate to a gentleman of my age and rank.”
“Appropriate?” Mina asked, nonplussed. “But that isn’t how curiosity works. It has nothing to do with appropriateness. One is either interested in the world, or one isn’t. It’s a true measure of one’s intelligence.”
Lord Avendon’s eyebrows drew together into an expression that could only be characterized as utter shocked bewilderment. “Miss Radclyffe, are you calling me a simpleton?”
The tips of Mina’s ears burned in sudden mortification, and her heart became a hammer in her chest. She’d been too bold, gone too far. Why was she speaking this way to this young man of all people? She hadn’t the faintest idea, but now that she’d started, she couldn’t seem to stop. “I wouldn’t say I’ve directly called you a simpleton, but in my word choices, I might have implied it. In my experience, someone who is interested in little is of little interest.”
Lord Avendon’s mouth gaped open for an instant before he recovered himself. “Miss Radclyffe, I’ve never met anyone quite like you.”
“That’s because you only associate with your kind.”
“My kind?”
She nodded. “You might try casting your social net a bit wider, so to speak.”
Lord Avendon opened his mouth to reply when the exterior French doors opened and in walked Lady Olivia Montfort, Lucy’s mother. She was a vision in ivory and gold, the epitome of the English lady. The sort of lady Mina never would . . . never could be.
Lady Olivia’s eyes darted between Mina and Lord Avendon. “Have I interrupted something?”
“Not at all,” Lord Avendon said smoothly. He appeared to have recovered himself. “Miss Radclyffe was just educating me on some of the finer points of Society and questioning my intelligence.”
Again, embarrassment flared inside Mina, and something else, too. The weight of her place in Society, or lack thereof, pressed down on her, and she wondered for the first time if she could bear it. It wasn’t only her exterior that marked her as different to the ton, it was her interior, too. Lord Avendon sensed it, she could tell by the way he watched her, speculative gleam in his eye. Indeed, he was a young man very much of his class. Someone who actively strove to be uncurious and idle, someone who not only didn’t understand her, but who was someone she couldn’t understand.
“Meisje.”
All three sets of eyes swung toward the voice, and the room startled into complete stillness. Relief swept through Mina at the sight of her father, but something kept her from going to him. In a way that felt new and strange, she sensed this odd tension between her and Lord Avendon was theirs alone to sort out.
“We’re needed in the ballroom,” Father said. Concern radiated about him, and a look might have passed between him and Lady Olivia. Something lay within the look that might have piqued Mina’s curiosity another time. Right now, the exterior French doors called to her. Beyond them lay a quiet garden and an open night sky.
“I need a breath of fresh air first,” Mina said, her feet already moving toward freedom. “If you’ll excuse me.”
~ ~ ~
With that, Mina slipped out the door and faded into the gray night. Olivia returned her attention to the two men still occupying the room with her, neither of whom she’d expected to encounter when she’d entered it not five minutes ago. Unable to look the one man in the eye, she started with the other. “Hugh, have you anything you would like to say?”
“I believe the Duke would like you join everyone in the ballroom, too.”
Olivia suppressed a groan. “Please inform the Duke that I’ll see him later.” She didn’t have it in her to face that ballroom of nobility again tonight. The Duke would understand. He always did. “Before you go, Hugh, what occurred between you and Miss Radclyffe?”
Before Hugh could answer, Jake cut in, a glower darkening his expression. “What do you mean what occurred between him and Mina?”
Had Hugh noticed that Jake’s hands had clenched into fists at his sides? Likely not as Hugh released a disinterested sigh. “Nothing occurred,” he drawled. “I came to find Lulu for the Duke, and Miss Radclyffe called me a simpleton. That’s the basic long and short of it.”
Jake’s hands released, and a gruff laugh escaped him. “I believe I’ll see to my daughter now.”
Without thinking, Olivia held up a staying finger, stopping Jake in his tracks. “Let me.”
His eyes met hers and held a moment. It was a moment that could last until the end of time. It was a moment that couldn’t end soon enough.
He nodded his assent, and Olivia pivoted, her skirts a silky swish about her slippers as she stepped into the Duke’s garden for the second time tonight, filled with both relief and despair for having left Jake behind . . . for the second time tonight. But she wouldn’t think about that now. She needed to see to Mina. It didn’t take her long to find the girl perched atop a gleaming marble bench in the informal section of the garden, a small, brass telescope held to her eye.
“A brilliant night for stargazing,” Olivia said.
Mina startled and instantly lowered her telescope as if chastened.
“Do you mind if I rest a moment beside you?”
Mina shifted over and made room. Olivia gestured toward the telescope now resting on her lap. “What a lovely little telescope.”
The girl flushed. “Thank you.”
Olivia’s brow lifted in silent question, eliciting a shy smile from Mina. “I constructed it.”
“Indeed?” Olivia asked and held out her hand. “May I?”
A companionable silence fell around them as Olivia gazed through the eyepiece, the wondrous universe a little bit closer.
“This telescope isn’t powerful enough to see all that far into the cosmos,” Mina said, her voice equal parts pleasure and pride. “But the brighter constellations and odd shooting stars aren’t out of its reach.”
“From up there, we must all seem the same,” Olivia said, her voice faraway, even to her own ears.
“It’s only down here that the differences matter.”
Olivia lowered the telescope and glanced at Mina. “Would you like to be the same as everyone else?”
The girl’s fingers worried the silk of her skirts, a gesture that spoke of unease. “It might be a nice experiment.”
“Perhaps,” Olivia began and stopped, hoping the right words would come to her. “Perhaps you might try viewing the matter from above, away from your place down here. Might it be possible that being different in one obvious way affords you the freedom to be truly yourself? Sometimes when a person looks like everyone else, society forms certain expectations about who that person should be, rather than who that person really is. You, Miss Radclyffe, are young, beautiful, wildly intelligent, and talented with a magnificent future stretched before you. You can be exactly who you are, don’t let anyone tell you any differently. I know that’s the future your father wants for you.”
Beside her, Mina held still, clearly considering Olivia’s words, before she nodded once, and the breath Olivia hadn’t realized she’d been holding, released.
“Expectations and surfaces matter not to me,” Mina said. “It’s workings beneath the surfaces that interest me most. But I’ve observed the English to be wholly different. They would be content to build a society composed entirely of surfaces. They don’t seem to care about the substance behind them.”
Olivia handed Mina’s telescope back to her. “Don’t be too quick to paint us all with the same brush. Some of us may surprise you.”
A smile found its way to Mina’s lips, and relief flowed through Olivia. “For all that you and Lucy are very different, she’s also very like you,” Mina said as she came to her feet. “Lady Olivia, thank you for joining me out here. I’ve enjoyed our conversation very much, but I must join Father in the ballroom. I hope we have the pleasure again soon.”
As she watched Mina rush toward the ballroom, Olivia rose and followed slowly in Mina’s wake. She liked the girl and saw how easily she could form a maternal attachment to her. Mina would turn out all right, Jake would ensure that. And he would find exactly the correct stepmother to help him, too.
A little voice reminded her that he’d asked her to marry him. He’d asked her to be that stepmother. And she’d said no. A strange numbness that insulated her from the devastation of his proposal and her refusal filled her from the far depths of her soul to the surface of her skin, her entire being insensate to the very air around her.
Across the green expanse of tufted lawn, rendered slate gray by the indifferent moon above, stood the Duke’s mansion, blaring its chorus of music, light, and general gaiety. The stars dimmed their collective glow, overtaken by so much ducal glory.
She touched fingertips to the tense patch of skin between her eyebrows and applied pressure. The beginnings of a headache stirred as her feet delivered her to the outer terrace beyond the edge of light.
Inside the ballroom, the quartet stopped mid-stroke, and the crowd quieted to a monotone hush at the sound of a metal object purposefully striking glass. Ding-ding-ding. There was to be a toast.
From her vantage point, she could all but see a frisson of excitement ripple across the ballroom floor. The Duke and the Dowager stood at the top of the grand staircase. Below them, arranged on the steps like a descending waterfall of privilege, gorgeous and aristocratic, stood the entirety of their two families. She located Lucy. Mina, too. She knew every face shining out at the gathered multitude, all reaffirming examples to the ton of the rightness of a world where they made its rules. If she were to put this scene to canvas, her color palette would barely extend beyond stark whites and yellow golds, so bright was their combined glory.
She didn’t give much credence to the right to rule, but many of those gracing the staircase did. Take the Duke’s heir, for example, Lord Michael Bretagne, the Marquess of Exeter. As Percy’s elder brother and the Duke’s only other surviving child, she’d had plenty of time to observe him, and he most definitely believed in divine right. To Exeter’s left stood his heir, Lord Avendon. Lucy called him by the diminutive Huey, but she suspected only Lucy could secure that particular right with a young man like Hugh, so self-serious. What had she interrupted between him and Mina? Had she really called him a simpleton?
Her eye swept across the staircase. Both families claimed descent from the reign of William the Conqueror and all made jolly on this joyous occasion, but their place in the world was a serious business, and none of them would stop at anything to keep it secure. In a way, she could relate to the feeling. It was that particular feeling, the need for security, that had bound her life together this last decade and kept it from falling apart. It was the same need that had predetermined the outcome of this night.
She couldn’t give up the security of the life she’d built around herself for the uncertainty of a life with Jake. The trade-off was too fraught with instability. A moment’s grief now was nothing to a lifetime’s worth of mourning should their experiment fail.
The stately rumble of the Duke’s voice cut through the still night. “I would like to thank everyone for gathering here tonight to celebrate this most special of occasions.” The Duke’s hand extended toward the Dowager, who brusquely swiped at tears that dared stray from her eyes. “Please raise your glasses in a toast to the Dowager Duchess of Dalrymple, soon to be Her Grace Lucretia Bretagne, Duchess of Arundel.”
A little “squee!” of excitement sounded from the staircase, eliciting delighted snickers all around. Olivia’s gaze found a flushed Lucy, and a grateful smile for the moment of levity crinkled the corners of her eyes, even as every single one of tonight’s unshed tears rushed forward.
“Hear, hear!” chorused the crowd while the quartet struck up a lively country reel.
The Duke, majestic and assured, led his future duchess down the staircase and into the center of the ballroom. They instantly fell in step with the music that would have been popular in their youth. The assembled nobility lost all awareness of its aristocratic airs and joined together in clapping a beat to the rhythm of the strings, harkening back to roots that no city aristocrat ever left completely behind. The land was in the blood of every English nobleman. They were nothing without it.
As her eyes picked over the two families soon to be one, Olivia finally allowed herself to settle on the one head she’d been most carefully avoiding. Apart from Lucy, he shone the brightest of all, his serious gaze sweeping across the crowd as if he was looking for someone . . .
A shard of pain stabbed through Olivia. He was looking for her.
He might love her.
Her breath caught in her chest.
He’d lied to her. He’d followed her. He’d betrayed her trust.
She’d vowed years ago never again to put herself in the position where a man could betray her. And, yet, she had.
He’d asked her to marry him.
What if there’s a babe?
A babe was the least of her worries. She would never marry without love.
What if I loved you?
She would never marry for love.
Olivia, you’re the prize.
She shook her head and forced her breath to release. She must go it alone. As she’d done for so many years. Surely another decade wasn’t a problem.
Happiness may be held at arm’s length, but so, too, would heartbreak. She would be safe from the inevitable betrayal of marriage inside the marble prison tower that she’d so carefully and thoroughly constructed for herself.