Chapter 10
Well, of course it must not happen again. It should not have happened, to begin with.
Thalia swallowed thickly, resisting the urge to fiddle with her hair and straighten her dress.
She felt ridiculously untidy and thoroughly out of sorts.
Was her face red? No doubt it was. Her spectacles, which had been pushed up and sideways, slid down her nose.
She reached up to adjust them and noticed with horror that her hands were trembling.
What have I done? I let him kiss me. No, it’s worse than that. I kissed him back.
Shivering, she saw herself in her mind’s eye, clutching at his shoulders, pressing her lips against his, pushing herself against him.
It had not done anything to ease the heat in her gut. If anything, it had made it considerably worse.
Her heart thumped, and that tight feeling had returned, sitting in her stomach and dipping low to rest between her legs. She resisted the urge to press her thighs together.
Lord Trowbridge spoke again. “Christian?”
“Here we are,” Christian said aloud, gaze still fixed on Thalia.
Without seeming to move, he had put space between them, and the scene looked marginally more respectable than it had before.
Daphne and her husband appeared. Daphne’s face lit up at the sight of Thalia. She had come here as a favor to Christian, but it seemed that she and Thalia were getting on well.
“Where did you wander off to?” she asked, sounding faintly annoyed.
“Nowhere,” Christian answered placidly. “We were here the whole time.”
Daphne and her husband exchanged glances, and Thalia was not entirely sure she liked what she saw on their faces.
How much do they know?
The answer to her question came sooner than she had expected.
“We noticed that a great deal of the pictures were landscapes, and they seemed familiar,” Daphne explained. “We spoke to one of the ushers here and described Laura. He remembered her.”
Christian’s eyes widened. “She’s been here?”
“Yes, but she only looked at the paintings of the Highlands. She asked several questions, but he could remember very little.”
Thalia glanced between them.
So, Daphne and her husband know about Laura’s disappearance. Christian must trust them a good deal. Almost like family.
“Well, that means very little,” Christian muttered, frowning. “We’ve learned nothing.”
“Perhaps she’s traveling to the Highlands,” Thalia heard herself say.
The three of them glanced at her.
“What?” Christian frowned.
She shrugged. “Perhaps she plans to travel to the Highlands. Most of the paintings here were made by people who live in the Highlands, so she might have hoped to speak to artists or people who know the region well. Or… or perhaps there was some other reason,” she added, reddening a little. “It’s only a guess.”
Daphne raised her eyebrows. “Well, a guess is the best thing we have right now. Christian, what do you think?”
“I don’t know,” he confessed. “I simply don’t know what to think. Why would she have gone to the Highlands or to Scotland at all? Why the secrecy? I would have taken her if she wished to visit or arranged passage.”
“There’s something more to this,” Lord Trowbridge declared. “We have missed something.”
They stood in silence for a long moment, the four of them staring at nothing, lost in thought.
At last, Daphne cleared her throat. “We ought to take Thalia home, Christian. Her brother will not be pleased if she is kept out late.”
“I imagine that man is rarely pleased under any circumstances,” Christian huffed. “But you are right. We’ll take her home now.”
Daphne nodded, giving Thalia a reassuring smile.
Do I feel reassured? I cannot decide.
Jonathan’s conversation with Christian was reassuring. Perhaps if he were convinced that they would marry, he would stop trying to push her towards Mr. Pembroke.
I can only hope.
The four of them traipsed outside, led by Lord Trowbridge and Christian, who were conversing in low voices. Daphne fell into step beside Thalia, offering her a quick, reassuring smile.
“I am glad to meet you,” she said. “Christian told us that you were going to help him find Laura. I’m glad you and he are friends.”
Friends? Thalia thought, bewildered. This poor, deluded woman.
She didn’t say so, of course, but when she glanced up, she found Daphne’s eyes fixed on her, a faint smile lingering on her lips. Despite herself, Thalia felt a blush rising to her cheeks.
“I know Christian better than you think,” Daphne murmured, linking their arms. “In truth, Edwin and I have been concerned about him for some time. He has a tendency to build up walls around him. Men can be so silly, you know. He and Laura had been distant for a while. They love each other, I know that without a doubt, but you can love somebody and not quite know them as well as you think, can’t you? ”
Thalia immediately thought of Jonathan. “Yes, you can.”
“But if Christian can learn to calm down just a little, his life would be much better,” Daphne continued, shaking her head.
“I have no idea what Laura was thinking, disappearing like this, but I do know that she’s not a flighty, silly girl.
She hasn’t eloped, and she hasn’t run away out of peevishness. ”
“She is purpose-driven,” Thalia noted. “We only have to discover what that purpose is, and it will lead us to her.”
“I only hope you are right. And I hope that Laura can keep her wits about her, wherever she is. The world is a dangerous place for delicately bred ladies. I should know; I myself had a great many shocks before I married Edwin.”
There was a softness in Daphne’s voice when she mentioned her husband.
Thalia glanced over at her, chewing on her lower lip. “You love him, don’t you?”
That was, of course, entirely too personal a question to ask of a new acquaintance.
Asking if a woman loved her husband was considered inappropriate in any setting and certainly irrelevant.
Love, as they were all frequently reminded in Society, did not matter.
It came after marriage, if it came at all.
Marrying for love was vulgar, it was often said.
Thalia did not believe that marrying for love was vulgar, nor did she believe that hoping for love and affection was solely thought of by silly young girls who did not understand how the world worked.
If love did not matter and was not supposed to matter, then why was just about everybody in the world constantly thinking about it?
Daphne did not take any time to respond and did not tut or sigh at her question.
“Yes, I love him a great deal,” she said, smiling. “Because Christian is such a close friend of Edwin’s, I was going to love him for Edwin’s sake anyway. But I find that Christian is a wonderful man all by himself, and if he would relinquish even a little control, he would be more pleasant.”
Thalia gave a wry smile. “I concur.”
They stepped out of the gallery into a sunshiny day. The horses had been brought around with the carriage.
“I’ll ride home with Edwin if you don’t mind,” Daphne said. “You’ll be quite safe in the carriage with Christian.”
Thalia thought of the searing kiss, of the feel of his lips against hers, and her throat constricted.
I am not too sure of that.
“Lady Pembroke is hosting a fireworks show in two days’ time,” Daphne added. “I hope I shall see you there?”
“I believe I am invited, yes.”
Daphne nodded and smiled, before turning to her husband. Edwin smiled fondly down at her, the two of them exchanging a long, meaningful look.
Something in Thalia’s chest shifted.
Jealousy, she realized with a jolt. I am jealous.
They said their goodbyes. Daphne and Edwin took off. That left Thalia and Christian standing alone by the carriage.
Their gazes met, and the heat in her chest intensified.
“I feel that I should apologize,” he said. “Regarding what happened earlier.”
Thalia stiffened. “Do you mean when you stole my first kiss?”
He blinked, rocking back on his heels. “I beg your pardon?”
She rolled her eyes. “You cannot be so oblivious. I am a lady. Of course, I have not kissed anyone else before.”
“Well,” he sniffed, shifting from foot to foot, “I daresay that was a better experience than any other kiss would be.”
Thalia frowned. What did that mean? The kiss seemed to be connected to her insides, tugging deliciously when he moved against her. Would those feelings not come with any other kiss?
Despite it all, she found herself remembering a kiss she had witnessed at a wedding about a year ago.
A young debutante was marrying a gentleman of around forty, and everybody knew the match was arranged by her mama and him.
The vows were said, the rings exchanged, and they were pronounced man and wife.
Smiling, the gentleman had leaned forward to claim his first kiss.
Quite clearly, Thalia recalled the fear that had crossed the girl’s face.
She could not pull away, since he was holding her hands and the whole congregation was watching.
He pressed his lips against hers for a second, perhaps, and then pulled back.
A string of saliva stretched between them, just for the blink of an eye, but it was enough to make Thalia feel sick.
She could remember the look on the girl’s face—it was not pleasant. There was a forced smile and the gradual fading of hope.
“I never thought that kissing would be pleasant,” she heard herself say and immediately regretted it.
Christian’s eyebrows flickered. “Perhaps one day you’ll explain why you thought that.”
“It does not look very pleasant.”
“You were unhappy?”
She swallowed. “I was not.”
“The truth is”—he took a step towards her, keeping a respectable distance between them in case of onlookers—“I did not steal anything, my dear. You were exceptionally generous.”
She reddened, tearing her gaze away. “Generous. I wish you would not say it like that. I was… I was taken by surprise.”
That was a lie. There had been a moment when their eyes met and her vision blurred.
Her insides knotted up, the hairs on the back of her neck rose, and she…
Well, she did not understand what was happening to her.
The next minute, his lips were on hers, his hands around her waist, and she was burning.
The strangest sensation. Not unpleasant, but a little frightening. She found herself going over the scene again and again in her head.
Stupid. I am stupid. This is all pretend. Then why did he kiss me?
Well, she had no answer for that, and now was possibly not the time to think it over.
“I do not blame you,” she said, lifting her chin. “I am not angry or hurt, if that is what you are afraid of. For some reason, I…” she trailed off, frowning.
For some reason, I keep thinking about the kiss and wondering if it might happen again.
He arched an eyebrow. “For some reason, you what?”
Oh, there was no chance, no chance at all that she would tell him what she was thinking. Instead, she flashed him a bright, wide smile and shook her head.
“Never mind.”
Again, that eyebrow of his quirked, as if he didn’t quite believe her. Well, she was probably not convincing.
“At any rate,” Christian continued, glancing around them, “I wished to apologize. You and I have a common goal. We both want to find Laura and ensure her safety. I will inspect her room to see if there are more hidden papers. I should like you to look them over. In the meantime, I can assure you that this… mishap will not happen again.”
So, he would not kiss her again. Well, she should be grateful, shouldn’t she? So why did her heart sink into her gut?
Careful, girl, she warned herself grimly. When women fall, they fall hard and fast. You might find yourself going from enjoying a single kiss to being shunned from Society in the blink of an eye. Jonathan will not forgive you.
“When you are searching her room, you might want to check the floorboards,” Thalia advised, meeting his eyes. “And some of the paneling might be loose. Take a look at the window seat, too.”
He frowned. “What else has she told you?”
“Very little. Just enough for me to think that she prefers that room because there are things she likes to hide. I couldn’t tell you if there would be anything in those places.
And I would like you to know that I am not deliberately betraying my friend’s confidence.
I hope Laura will forgive me. I am just…
I am just a little worried. I want to be sure that she is safe. ”
Christian pursed his lips, studying her. “Are you sure she never spoke to you about any plans to leave? Any concerns? Any goals? Anything that bothered her?”
“No, nothing. Or else I would tell you. If she had told me of her plan in full and sworn me to secrecy, I might choose to stay quiet if I believed she was safe. I won’t lie to you there.”
“But in that case, I imagine you would refuse to help me,” he murmured wryly.
“Yes, I would. She has told me nothing, and that is why I am concerned.”
He stared at her for a long moment, gaze raking her face as if he were unsure whether she lied or not. At last, he gave a grunt and a nod, stepping back.
“I am grateful for your honesty,” he said brusquely, pulling open the carriage door. The conversation was clearly over. “The carriage will take you directly home.”
“Aren’t you coming?” she stammered.
He tilted his head. “Are you afraid of riding in the carriage alone?”
“No, of course not!”
“Good. I don’t think your brother will be pleased to see us alone in the carriage, and I won’t give him a chance to apply pressure on our engagement. As we have both agreed, this engagement will not progress to marriage.”
“No, of course not,” she huffed, reddening. “I don’t want that.”
“That is perfect. Anyway, in you go. Your darling brother will be wondering where you are.”
She tossed back her hair and climbed into the carriage. He closed the door after her, and she glanced back, her eyes meeting his. The air seemed to grow heavy.
But then the driver snapped the reins, the carriage lurched forward, and they were off.
Christian’s face receded. For a moment, Thalia felt the urge to press her nose against the window and stare back at him, but the last shreds of her pride refused to allow it. Instead, she sat very still on the fur-lined seat, staring at nothing.
Why did he kiss me? There was a moment when I saw hunger, real hunger in his eyes. In that instant, he craved me, I’m sure of it. But perhaps it meant nothing. I know little about men. Perhaps it’s a fleeting fancy.
Yes, a fleeting fancy.
She relaxed a little into the seat. Jonathan had often warned her that men were hungry, mindless beasts and that she ought to be careful around them. Perhaps the moment simply conspired to make Christian long for her, just for a little while. His hunger sated, he would no longer think of her.
He won’t kiss me again. And that is a good thing. Yes, a very good thing indeed.