Chapter 2
The dining room at Oakford Hall shone with warm candlelight.
Flames stood to attention along the table, glasses chimed, a quartet stitched melody through the talk.
Alice let the room wash over her as she took her seat—two chairs down from Viscount Crewe, exactly where Clara promised.
Beside her, Mr. Davenant sat in amiable comfort, all kindly whiskers and dinner-table tales.
Alice’s mother would have called this a perfect arrangement.
Near enough to be noticed, far enough to be safe.
Alice, who liked her games played at the edge of the board, found the distance both vexing and invigorating.
Safety might please her mother, but Alice preferred the thrill of unsteady ground.
Clara, radiant at the foot of the table, lifted a glass to welcome her guests. Crispin, at the head, added a promise of “music that will not demand heroism.” Laughter skated the silver. The soup arrived like clockwork.
“Country drives and archery,” Mr. Davenant observed. “Lord Oakford is determined to have us all healthy.”
“An alarming trend,” Alice murmured. “I had meant to be languid.”
Across Mr. Davenant’s shoulder, Crewe’s profile stayed composed.
He did not look at her. The slight pricked her pride more than she expected, sparking a childish urge to win his notice.
His stillness seemed too exact, as if he held himself in check.
Did he mean to ignore her? Or was that, in its way, its own kind of notice?
She resolved to be entertained without him as she took a deliberate sip of her wine.
To her right, conversation turned to hunting. A gentleman extolled the virtues of rising at an hour that sounded punitive to Alice’s ears.
“I prefer pursuits that reward curiosity rather than endurance,” she said lightly. “Libraries. Gardens. People.”
“People seldom reward curiosity,” someone remarked.
“They do,” Alice said, “if one asks better questions.” She savored the stir her answer provoked. To risk standing apart was a gamble, but it thrilled her nonetheless.
Over Mr. Davenant’s recollection of a bishop and a terrier, Alice caught the slightest shift in Crewe, his attention sharpening.
Lady Alice’s voice carried. Not loudly, but clearly, the way a single note lifts above the rest. Earlier that day, he’d told her, Purpose.
Not bravery, nor foolishness. Curiosity had its own discipline.
Still, his hand tightened on the stem of his glass, just enough for her to notice.
“Your view on questions, my lady?” Mr. Davenant prompted.
“They ought to be honest,” she said, offering a wicked smile. “And inconvenient.”
A few gentlemen laughed. One matron pursed her lips as if confronted with a lemon.
The fish course followed, delicate and perfectly sauced. Clara, reading the air with her usual mastery, steered talk toward poetry.
“Mr. Wordsworth,” declared a gentleman, “is all very well for lakes and clouds, but I prefer sense to sentiment.”
“Perhaps he would say your sense lacks sentiment,” Alice returned, quick as a flick of a fan. “A pity to miss half the world for love of the other.”
A ripple of amusement went through the room. Crewe’s glass paused, then continued to the tablecloth. She wondered at that hesitation. Had she touched a nerve, or did he simply dislike revealing himself in company?
“And you, Lord Crewe?” Clara asked. “Do you vote for sense or sentiment?”
“Neither,” he said, and conversation thinned to a hush. “I vote for order. It makes room for both.”
Alice met his gaze. “Order seems so proud of itself.”
“Pride is an untidy word,” he replied. “I prefer necessity.”
“Necessity is the refuge of dull men,” she said with a slight tilt to her chin.
“Then allow me to be dull,” he said, pleasant. “It keeps the world from tipping.”
Clara laughed lightly, easing the edge, and turned the talk to Oakford’s pear that refused instruction.
Alice let herself breathe. She had not meant to spar, she had only meant to dance.
Beneath her satisfaction came a flicker of doubt.
Had she pressed too far? She caught what might have been the faintest quirk at the corner of his mouth, quickly suppressed. Was that irritation, or amusement?
When the roast arrived, the volume rose with the wine.
Alice slipped between topics with her usual agility.
Amused by a tale of an eloping groom. Moved, unexpectedly, by a widow’s reminiscence.
She did not perform delight. She selected it.
And when his eyes strayed back to her, she caught the faintest pause, as if he had nearly smiled and thought better of it.
At the far end, a whisper tried to pass as silence. “Too much,” said Lady Harrowby, famed for policing every laugh that rose above a whisper. “Always too much.”
Lord Crewe set down his knife and fork with care, as though weighing his words. “Lady Alice’s conversation,” he said, “is precisely measured. It keeps the rest of us from dozing.”
A chuckle ran around the table. The matron colored. Lady Alice did not look at him, but she felt the acknowledgement as distinctly as warmth from a fire.
It was nothing, a mild remark, but it landed with a weight that startled her. She had not asked for a champion. She had never wanted one. Yet the courtesy steadied something she had not admitted was unsteady. Gratitude warred with irritation at needing defense at all, leaving her oddly exposed.
When the sweets had made their procession and the gentlemen had done pretending they did not prefer them, Clara rose with a smile and the universal rustle followed. The drawing room doors opened to a tasteful invasion of chairs, footstools, and a pianoforte glimmering with expectation.
Crispin arranged the flow with a conjuror’s ease. “Something simple,” he announced. “No heroics. We have a harp for those inclined, and if anyone threatens an aria, I shall feign a fainting fit.”
Laughter, again. Alice found herself beside the instrument more by accident than design. A girl played a lively country piece as a gentleman sang a sentimental ballad without disgracing himself. When the moment came, as it always did, someone begged Alice for a song.
“I have not the voice,” she protested, smiling. “Only the nerve.”
“Then nerve will do,” Crispin said, merciless and fond.
She sat, because refusing would be making a fuss.
Her hands were steady. A light tune, cheerful as a May morning.
Halfway through the verse she altered the lyric by a hair—only a turn of wit, nimble enough to make the room catch up a beat later.
Laughter rang, not brittle but clean. Alice’s shoulders loosened.
Pleasure surged at bending the room’s mood to her will.
When she rose, a few people pressed her hands, and the girl with nimble fingers looked relieved. Alice retreated to the side, content.
“Your timing,” said a voice at her shoulder, low and even, “was excellent.”
She turned. Crewe stood there, not quite smiling, looking as if he had surprised himself by approaching at all. “And your pitch was true.” His tone sounded softer than she expected, and his gaze lingered just a fraction too long, as though he, too, wondered why he had spoken.
Praise from him, sounded like fact. It pleased her in a way that felt perilously like pride. Why his approval mattered more than others’ she could not say, and she did not wish to linger on the thought.
“Thank you,” she said.
“For what?”
“For the high praise,” she replied.
The ghost of amusement moved through him. “I am fond of well done performances.”
“Are you? I had you down for an advocate of early nights and accurate wording.”
“Even dull men,” he said, “are permitted a waltz.”
Clara, who missed very little, drifted by with praise for a shy girl’s harp solo and, in passing, laid the lightest hand on Alice’s arm. “Will you take some air in the corridor? It grows warm.”
It was both meddling and rescue. Alice nodded. “Indeed, it is.”
She slipped through the drawing room doors, leaving Crewe behind.
Moonlight striped the parquet in silver ladders. Alice moved to the window as Clara arched a brow. She pressed her palm to the cool glass and let her breath fog and fade.
“Was I in error to swear you away?” She asked.
“Perhaps, for I find myself enjoying Lord Crewe’s company,” Alice admitted.
Clara grinned. “I shall endeavor to let Crispin know.”
“Perish the thought,” the Alice said as Clara turned back to the drawing room.
Alone, she turned her attention back to the night sky. Clara would most certainly tell Crispin and he would use the information for his own amusement. Nonetheless, Alice could not bring herself to regret the admission.
The corridor beyond the drawing room lay in a hush of moonlight.
A long paneled passage where sconces and windows alternated like lanterns along a quay.
Music seeped beneath the doors, as Samuel Baldwin, Viscount Crewe, stepped from the warmth into the cool corridor and found Lady Alice already there, her palm against the glass, breath misting in rhythm.
Reflections layered her—the ghost of a chandelier in her hair, the faint echo of her profile in the polished pane. He told himself to turn back.
He did not.
“Too warm,” he said, because anything else would have been too much.
She glanced over, not startled. “And a little loud. I like to hear myself think now and again.” She leaned a shoulder lightly against the frame, as though inviting him to share the view.
He joined her, leaving a polite interval of space. The lawns beyond were stripped of color by moonlight. The hedges black, terrace pale, the lake a band of pewter. For a moment neither spoke.
“Thank you,” she said at last, eyes still on the night. “For staying the matron’s tongue at dinner without making a scene of it.”
“It was merely exactitude,” he said. “Scandal grows best in the soil of imprecision.”
She laughed softly. “Then you and I are allies. Temporarily. I prefer my mischief crisp.”
“Allies,” he repeated, tasting the word. “Parlor alliances reshuffle when the games change.”
“Do they?” She turned, eyes sharp. “I make it a point to win regardless of the game.”
“Winning,” he said, “is not always the point.”
Her head tipped. “No?”
“Sometimes it’s finishing with dignity intact.” He allowed a fractional smile. “An underrated sport.”
She considered him with interest devoid of coquetry, which he found more dangerous than flirtation. “You are a surprising man to be so devoted to order. Though I suspect you make room for more of the world than you admit.”
He did not answer. The admission would have been too much like surrender.
From the drawing room came a burst of applause, then the lilting close of a country dance. The doors opened, spilling light and talk into the corridor. Clara slipped through with the easy air of a hostess who could be everywhere at once.
“Do rejoin us,” she said warmly, though her glance was sharp. “I sent for lemonade. Oakford claims the air is cool, which means he is either impervious or teasing.”
“Both,” Samuel said dryly.
Clara laughed. “You see through him. Good. Then you will forgive him when he meddles.” She lowered her voice. “Tomorrow we have the country drive. Pairings by lot at breakfast. Crispin insists it is the fairest method.”
“Fairness,” Alice murmured, “is a cousin to mischief when Oakford is in charge.”
“Quite,” Clara said. “But it keeps guests guessing, and guessing keeps them entertained.” She touched Alice’s sleeve. “Do not stay in the cool too long. I should like you in excellent voice for teasing my husband later.” With a smile she vanished back into the warmth.
Silence returned. Samuel was aware of the faint citrus Clara left behind, and more heady, the violets at Alice’s wrist.
“You dislike lots,” Alice said.
“I dislike ceding control to chance,” he replied. “It tends to collect interest.”
“And yet,” she said, glancing down the corridor where a footman placed a lacquered bowl on a table, “chance throws the liveliest parties.”
The footman arranged slips of cut ribbon, pale blue and black. Two clung in the dry air, then fell apart. Samuel watched longer than he should, unease prickling at the back of his neck.
“Do you mean to request an alternative?” she asked, laughter in her voice but interest beneath.
He considered a lie and declined it. “I did.”
“And now?”
He looked again at the ribbons, foolish in their symbolism. “Now I shall submit to the experiment.”
She nodded, as if granting him credit for courage in a theatre that did not value it. “I look forward to seeing which sort of experiment you are.”
“Controlled,” he said. “When I can manage it.”
“And when you cannot?”
“Then I endeavor to fail gracefully.”
“That,” she said, “I should like to see.” The words were light. The look she gave him was not. It carried assessment, invitation, and wary respect.
The doors opened again and sound spilled. Alice straightened. “If I linger, someone will fetch me and insist I sing ‘Black-eyed Susan,’ which will sour me for a week.”
“I will take the blame,” he said. “Tell them I detained you with a discourse on necessity.”
“Perish the thought,” she returned, laughing.
She started for the door, paused, and glanced back. “Thank you. For accuracy, for honesty, for not being bored.”
“I am never bored,” he said, “when people mean what they say.”
She inclined her head, then was gone, absorbed by light and conversation as water takes back a stone.
Samuel remained, the quiet gathering him in. At the table, the bowl sat prim, its cargo of chance innocent as sugar almonds. In the morning, hands would dip and draw, and the day would arrange itself with an inevitability Crispin would call Providence and Samuel would call interference.
He turned toward the stairs, pausing when Crispin appeared at the corridor’s far end, sauntering with the satisfaction of a man who had set clocks to his liking.
“Crewe,” Oakford said pleasantly. “Enjoying the architecture?”
“It stands up,” Samuel said. “That is sufficient in a house and a plan.”
Crispin’s mouth tilted. “Do be at breakfast promptly. The lots behave best when drawn before the coffee is finished.”
“I suspected as much,” Samuel replied. “Good night, Oakford.”
“Good night. Dream of straight roads,” Crispin called, and vanished the way he had come.
Samuel looked once more at the moon-washed lawn, at the black seam of hedge and the pale sweep of terrace.
He told himself he had weathered greater hazards.
He had. Greater hazards, sterner tests, worse nights.
This was, in the end, only a fortnight among friends and their schemes.
It was a mere matter of keeping his footing.
And yet some part of him, unhelpfully awake, knew that equilibrium is a trick best practiced on firm ground.
Tomorrow would provide none.