Chapter 21
Flora returned to the ballroom with her mask clutched in her hand.
She had stayed outside on the portico until the bells from the church across the street rang midnight.
Enough time, surely, for Verbena to make her own escape.
Now Flora’s only desire was to find some quiet room where she would not be disturbed while her emotions overtook her.
She might never see Verbena Montrose ever again, in any guise. Flora was not so na?ve as to think the world required justice to function, and yet this turn of events seemed unduly cruel.
As Flora pushed her way through the harlequins and Pierrots to reach the doors, she spared a thought for Mr. Chesterfield, who might want to know of her exit.
She spotted him by a table of canapés, laughing with his fellow poets, and it occurred to her that Chesterfield had likely been in on the ploy from the start.
Well, if he’d played a trick on her to ensure her attendance, she felt no compunction in playing a trick on him by disappearing.
And so she did—swiftly, moving down the unlit corridor of the Calliope Club, away from the heat and dazzling colors of the ballroom.
The rest of the club was quite abandoned, which suited Flora’s purposes perfectly.
She slipped into the Green Room—where she and Verbena had conducted their first verbal sparring match—and collapsed into a moss-colored armchair.
There was no fire in the grate, and no candles lit.
The only light came from a glimmering streetlamp that stood outside the window.
The noise of the ball was distant enough that it could be from another realm entirely, a world where Flora did not fit at all.
She put a hand to her mouth to stifle her sob, then remembered she was totally alone and need not stifle anything.
Her hand fell to her lap as she cried, the force of it wracking her frame.
It made her feel so fragile, so weak, her breath gone somewhere beyond her reach.
She’d read of heartache but never believed it to be a physical affliction as some insisted.
How foolish she’d been—every iota of her body was revolting against the loss. Every jot of her wanted Verbena.
She pressed her chilled hands to her hot face.
Oh, how she wished for a pair of trousers and a tailcoat in that moment!
If William could be the one to struggle under the weight of misery, then Flora might find some small reprieve.
Or perhaps not. Perhaps this was one of those burdens they shared with no alternative.
Something whispered at the edges of Flora’s mind—Will you not consider me even now?
—but she had not the strength to listen to it.
She let loose a strangled wail in the silence of the room, a terrible sound from the depths of her many-faceted soul.
Over in the corner, a figure sat upright on the shadowy chaise lounge. “Mrpmh?” it said.
Flora, heartbroken or not, found the self-preservation to scream.
Fortunately, the creature leaned out of the shadow and into the slice of lamplight that fell through the window, showing itself to be a rather creased Lord Byron. “Why the devil are you screaming?” he said, a hand clapped to one ear.
“Why are you haunting dark rooms?” Flora demanded in return. She wilted in her armchair, her fright leaving her cold and shaky.
“I am not haunting anything! I was simply resting my eyes.” He produced a flint box from his pocket and struck the included taper, then went about the room to light two mirrored wall sconces. “There. Now you may see I am merely a man, not a demon.”
“You’re missing your masquerade,” Flora observed. She caught sight of the whiskered cat mask Byron had worn earlier hung by its silken cord on the globe stand in the corner.
Byron scoffed and tossed himself onto an emerald divan, where he lounged on his side with his chin propped on one fist. “Then I count myself lucky. Leave those braying boors to their waltzes.” He shuddered, then lapsed into a brown study, his gaze surveying nothing but the floor.
“I understand that times will change; it is the nature of time to do so. Yet I never considered that in changing, there would be no place for me in Britain any longer.”
Flora dabbed at her eyes with étienne’s purloined handkerchief. She knew a thing or two about having no real place, but she’d thought Verbena might prove to be a sort of place. Could a person be a safe harbor?
It didn’t matter now; she’d never have the chance to know. She muffled a sob into the handkerchief, her eyes squeezing shut.
Byron must have, at last, noticed her distress, for she heard him quit the chaise, his unique gait crossing the room. “Miss Witcombe, whatever is the matter? I know meeting me in a dark room would startle anyone, but surely now with the lamps lit—”
“No, it’s not you, my lord.” She raised her eyes to find him pulling a footstool closer to sit directly before her, his face a mask of concern. “It is another matter entirely. I—I’ve just suffered a great shock.”
Byron’s gaze narrowed. “Has someone accosted you? That ruffian you were waltzing with? I have no pistol at hand, but if you give me a moment, I’m sure I could find a gentleman in the ballroom who is not so ill prepared.” He made as if to rise from his footstool.
“Sir!” Flora placed a hand on his knee, keeping him in place with that single touch. “Truly, my dance partner is not at fault.” She hesitated, withdrawing her hand to clasp the handkerchief in her lap. “At least, not solely,” she whispered.
“I see.” There was a gentleness to his voice that Flora had not expected. She lifted her gaze and saw Byron staring at the handkerchief she held. Glancing down, she saw étienne’s embroidered initials were quite evident to anyone who cared to look.
“Oh!” She despaired at the awkwardness of it all.
Byron couldn’t possibly think she was heartbroken over Monsieur Charbonneau, could he?
Many men might share the initials E.C. but only one had accompanied her party to Plas Tan less than a fortnight ago.
She balled up the handkerchief in her fists, though the damage was already done.
“It’s not as it seems,” she said weakly.
Now Byron was the one touching her knee, an indulgent pat that conveyed his sympathies. “You are not the first to fall in love with the wrong man,” he said. “He is to marry our illustrious Miss Montrose soon, is he not?”
“Yes, but it really isn’t—”
“Do you mind if I smoke?” He retrieved another case from his coat pocket, longer and flatter than his flint box. “Tales of heartbreak always make me crave a cigar.” He opened the box, revealing a neat row of the things, each wrapped in dark brown leaf.
Flora sighed through her nose. Clearly Byron was not going to believe her even if she explained—not that she could explain that her disastrous love affair had actually involved Verbena, not Verbena’s fiancé. She held out a hand. “As long as you allow me one as well.”
Byron’s brows rose high. It was considered very uncouth for a woman to smoke anything, at least in mixed company.
Then again, it was frowned upon for an unmarried lady to sit in a darkened room with the maddest man in all of London.
Byron eventually presented a cigar with a flourish.
“Of course,” he said, as if he gave cigars to ladies every day.
There was the usual ceremony of snipping the ends and getting a light from a lamp.
Flora found it all quite soothing. She was not the most prodigious smoker, nor did she partake in snuff very often, but William was apt to find himself in men’s clubs and in the company of his brothers, where a hookah or cigar might be pressed upon him.
If Flora could not seek the comfort of William’s clothing, she could at least indulge in his vice.
She took the cigar between her lips and drew in a heady mouthful of tobacco.
For a long moment, the two puffed away in silence.
Flora was feeling more herself now—or more of someone, at least. She leaned back in her chair, stuffing the accursed handkerchief into the bodice of her dress, and enjoyed Byron’s fine cigar.
If she could only live in this fashion every day of her life, she would consider it bearable.
Not necessarily a daily cigar, of course, but the combination of a masculine pursuit while wearing feminine garb, or vice versa, was so pleasing to her, she could almost forget the farewell she’d endured on the portico.
Almost.
“Do you think,” she drawled as she smoked, “that love always ends in tragedy?”
“Yes,” said Byron immediately. “Without a doubt.” He formed his lips into a perfect O and sent a ring of smoke trembling toward the frescoed ceiling—cherubs and lambs.
Flora had always detested the Green Room ceiling.
“I think it must. Life always ends in death; there is no avoiding it. Even if one were fortunate enough to marry one’s greatest love and remain together for decades, there is still the final parting. ”
Flora regarded him skeptically. “But if one dies of old age at the end of a long and happy union, that cannot be considered tragic, can it?” That was what she had dreamt of with Verbena, before all hope was dashed.
“Perhaps not to outsiders. But to the lover left behind to languish?” Byron considered the glowing orange end of his cigar. “What else is left to us but to embrace death? To make love to the tragic.”
Flora tapped a measure of cigar ash into a convenient vase at her elbow. She had not planned to take Byron into her confidence even this much, but his words filled her with a reckless abandon. “I was issued an invitation tonight,” she began.
“Whilst at my ball? The nerve,” he muttered.
“I was invited,” Flora continued, “to attend an event that will assuredly bring me grief and pain. No, that was but one invitation. I was also invited to be a mistress.” She gazed coolly at Byron. “Now I wonder if to refuse both was a fool’s choice.”
“Do you want my advice?”
“Not particularly.”
He ignored her. “You are speaking to a man who has given and accepted many such invitations. Although if the event you mention is your lover’s wedding, I can’t say I’ve gone so far as that.
Wait—no.” He paused and stared up at the ceiling, his lips twisted to one side.
“Does it count if I’ve gone to bed with both bride and groom? ”
“My lord,” Flora said sternly.
“My point is”—Byron sat up from the slouch he’d adopted atop the footstool, his cigar tip flirting dangerously with some fringe on a nearby tablecloth—“to live your life in the avoidance of tragedy is a fool’s errand.
Misfortune will find you. That is the natural state of things.
You may as well try to grasp what happiness you can alongside the pain. ”
Flora shook her head, smoking thoughtfully. “You speak as though there should be no thought for any consequences.”
“Consequences! What are consequences?” He leaned forward, his eyes blazing through the haze of smoke. “We’re poets, for god’s sake. We are, all of us, at various speeds, descending into hell! When you get there, don’t you want to have something amusing to tell the devil?”
That brought Flora up short. She was not certain she believed in hell or the devil, but she thought Byron might have a point somewhere in there.
A dual soul like hers was not an easy one to bear; William was a balm to her, of course, but lately, perhaps because of the strength of her affection for Verbena, she found herself wanting more.
It was as if, having for some years lived the two lives of her two halves, a third, somewhat more unified presence beat within her.
This was not apart from that which was Flora and William, but some alchemy of them both.
There was salt, and there was water, but then—the ocean.
That was what she felt like at her core, an unknowable, blue-green world, the depths of which she could hardly fathom.
And each part of her did want to see Verbena again. Even if it hurt, even if it was all for nothing—could she not at least try? She—he—was as vast as the sea. Perhaps it would not bring her lasting peace and joy to be Verbena’s secret lover, but her current circumstances were not much better.
Maybe Byron was right. Maybe there was nothing but tragedy to be had.
She might as well make it a good one.
She stood so abruptly her cigar dropped an inch of ash on her gown’s skirts. “I must go to Eden,” she said.
Byron frowned. “What, now?”
“Tomorrow. As soon as possible.” She brushed the ash away. “A coach—I will need to hire a coach.” The prospect of sharing one packed with strangers making the same slow journey filled her with dread. This grand gesture was going to be quite expensive.
“I have a coach,” said Byron.
Flora stared down at his lounging form. “You do?”
“Well, I have the dowager countess’s coach.” He waved a hand through the air. “She gifted me its use so that I might complete the masquerade preparations with speed.”
“Won’t Lady Croydon expect it returned tomorrow?”
“Yes, but by that time”—Byron tapped his cigar ash into a silver dish—“we will already be on the road to Eden.”
“We,” Flora said flatly.
Byron smiled at her like the cherubs on the ceiling frescoes. “Oh yes,” he said. “We.”