Chapter 16
Chapter Sixteen
The morning sun fell across the breakfast table in a cheerful, unapologetic flood, glinting off the silver tea service and the fine bone china.
It was a sharp change from the heavy, velvet-draped shadows of the night before, and it hurt Anne’s eyes.
She sat stiffly in her chair, her fingers tracing the handle of her teacup. She felt as though she were made of glass—fragile, transparent, and ringing with the aftershocks of a strike no one else could see.
Across from her, the girls were a whirlwind of giggles and high-pitched excitement. The ball had been the event of the Season, and for those too young to attend, it was a mythic tale of romance and finery that required a full, topographical mapping.
“And the music, Anne? Was it the same orchestra from Lord Marlboro’s garden party last year, like we thought?” Felicity leaned forward, her toast forgotten on her plate. “I heard they brought a violinist from Vienna.”
“The music was lovely, Felicity,” Anne replied, her voice steady despite the flutter in her chest. “But while it was quite grand, I confess I didn’t catch the violinist’s pedigree. Nor did I attend Lord Marlboro’s party last year.”
“But the dresses,” Celia chimed in, her eyes wide. “Did Lady Margaret Tormey truly wear that shade of chartreuse?”
“And how did you hear such things?”
“I have my ways,” Celia said with a wry smile. “Did she?”
“It was… a vibrant shade of green,” Anne allowed, offering a patient smile. “She certainly didn’t fade into the background.”
“I know you were the most beautiful of them all!” Felicity declared.
For nearly twenty minutes, the interrogation continued. Anne navigated the sea of questions with the grace of a seasoned diplomat. She described the floral arrangements, the taste of the champagne, and the precise sequence of the quadrilles.
She gave them everything they wanted—the glitter, the noise, the superficial charm—while keeping the memory of the heavy mahogany door and the heat in her blood locked away in the quietest cellar of her mind.
That was until she heard William cough.
She looked up and saw him at the head of the table, seemingly absorbed in the morning paper. He hadn’t said a word, his face a mask of masculine indifference as he sipped his strong coffee.
To any onlooker, he was merely a patriarch enduring the chatter of women. But Anne could feel him. She was acutely aware of the tilt of his head and the way his presence seemed to pull the air toward his end of the table. Even behind a newspaper, he stunned her.
Suddenly, Felicity turned her bright, inquisitive gaze toward him.
“Papa, you’ve been dreadfully quiet this morning. Tell us, did you fulfill your duty? Did you ensure that Anne actually had fun, or did you spend the entire evening tucked away in the card room with the Earl of Denbury?”
The table went still. Anne sucked in a sharp breath, her gaze dropping to the remnants of marmalade on her butter knife.
William lowered the paper slowly. His eyes flicked toward her, a brief, searing contact that felt like a touch.
For a fraction of a second, the corner of his mouth twitched.
It wasn’t a smile. Well, not exactly. Anne decided it was the ghost of a smirk, a private acknowledgment of the tension that had nearly snapped the air between them hours ago.
Damn my fair complexion, Anne cursed inwardly as she felt the heat rise instantly, a traitorous pink sweeping up her neck and staining her cheeks as it always did.
She busied herself with her napkin, her heart hammering against her ribs like a tympanist.
“I believe,” William answered, his voice a low rumble that seemed to vibrate through her, “that we both found the evening… stimulating. Her Grace was a most excellent partner.”
Her blush deepened, turning a shade of red that no amount of morning light could mask. She felt as though the entire room could hear the roar of blood in her ears.
“How lovely!” the girls gushed in unison, clinking their teacups.
“Indeed,” William agreed, his tone cool, as he picked up the paper once more.
Anne took a sip of her Earl Grey, nearly scalding her tongue, desperately wishing the floor would open up and swallow her whole.
Thankfully, William seemed inclined to break the spell he had cast. He folded his newspaper with a crisp snap and set it aside, shifting the conversation with the ease of a man used to commanding the room.
“Speaking of entertainment,” he began, and the girls turned toward him.
“Yes, Papa?” Felicity asked, her eyes wide with curiosity.
“I just read an announcement. There is a new exhibition opening at the museum today. A collection of antiquities recently recovered from the Mediterranean. Some pottery, bronze work, and several significant marble friezes.”
“How marvelous!” Celia gushed.
William looked toward the center of the table. “Something about the daily lives of the Greeks and the Romans, if I recall correctly.”
The girls exchanged looks before Celia clapped her hands together. “The Greeks? Oh, Your Grace! I was just learning about the excavations at Mycenae. I have heard the craftsmanship of their jewelry was centuries ahead of its time.”
Anne let out a soft sigh as the tension in the room eased.
“It sounds fascinating, Your Grace,” she said, her voice finally regaining its strength.
She looked at Celia’s eager face and then glanced toward William with more courage than she felt.
“If the weather holds, perhaps we can all go together this afternoon? It would be a shame for Celia to miss such a scholarly opportunity, and I think a walk in the fresh air would do us all a world of good. I am sure Felicity would learn a great deal as well.”
She avoided his eyes as she spoke, but she could feel them lingering on her. Perhaps the cold marble of a museum was exactly what she needed to cool the fire he had ignited.
“I will see to it. We will depart after my morning business is concluded,” William said softly as he rose.
The British Museum on a weekday morning in late June was not, strictly speaking, crowded.
William had chosen to go that Thursday with some deliberation. He had once made the error of attending an exhibition on a rainy Saturday and had spent the better part of two hours in a room full of strangers who had opinions about art and voiced them.
He had not repeated the mistake. Celia, however, was making sufficient noise for a hoard of admirers.
“Oh!” she gasped, stopping so abruptly at the entrance to the first gallery that Felicity walked directly into her back. “Oh, look at that!”
“At what?” Felicity asked, straightening.
“Everything, I suppose,” Celia breathed, looking up at the vaulted ceiling with the expression of a person who had been shown something they were not prepared for and had decided it was the best thing that had ever happened to them.
William looked up at the ceiling out of instinct.
It was a ceiling. It was not the most remarkable ceiling he had ever seen.
Yet, something about the look in Celia’s eyes, the pure awe in it, made him look again.
He saw the proportions, the light, the quality of the stone that had been here for a very long time and intended to remain so. He said nothing.
Felicity, on the other hand, was observing the hall with the composure of a girl who had been told the outing would be educational and had prepared a moderate degree of polite interest accordingly.
She held her small reticule with both hands and surveyed the cases of antiquity with a somewhat cautious expression, as if they might be graded on her opinion of them.
Anne followed quietly behind.
“There,” William said, steering them to the left. “We shall start at the beginning.”
The Greek collection occupied three interconnecting rooms. William moved through them at the pace he had always preferred in museums, which was unhurried and without agenda, stopping where something caught his attention and moving on when it did not.
He did not generally explain as he went.
Before today, he had never had anyone to explain things to who would listen.
Felicity was his light, a bright and wonderful child, but she didn’t have the awe and interest that Celia shared, who listened to his every word.
She stood beside him at each case with the focused attention she brought to her books and fencing, her eyes flickering from the object to his face and back again as he spoke.
She asked questions at the end of each explanation rather than in the middle of it, which was a courtesy he appreciated without remarking upon.
“Why did they put the pattern on the inside of the cup?” she asked, leaning close to the case housing a kylix from the fifth century. “If you’re drinking from it, you can’t see the painting until the wine is gone.”
“That was precisely the point,” William said.
“Brilliant!”
“A reward for finishing.”
Celia considered this; William could almost see the wheels turning in her head. “That is very clever and also very good for the wine-seller.”
“Yes, it is both things. Most business dealings are.”
She looked at the figure painted on the terracotta next, while Felicity hovered close. It was Achilles and Patroclus, rendered in the red-figure technique with the quality of line that had survived two and a half thousand years and showed no sign of fatigue. She studied it in silence for a moment.
“They were friends?” Felicity asked.
“Very great friends,” Celia answered, and William felt a small surge of pride fill his chest. “It says here,” she read from the accompanying placard, leaning in such that her nose nearly met the glass, “that scholars debate the precise…” She frowned at the following word.
“Nature.”
“Ah, yes, nature of their… of their friendship. What does that mean, Your Grace?”
“It means,” William said as he stroked his beard, “that history does not always record every detail, and the scholars like to argue about the gaps.”
Celia accepted this with a quick nod. “Like the fourteen years of Caesar’s life that aren’t written down anywhere?”
“Exactly like that.”
She brightened considerably at having made a correct connection and moved on to the next case.
Felicity, who was still trailing just a step behind with the expression of a person determined not to be interested, had inched somewhat closer once more. William did not press.
“What is that?” she asked, from a case he had not yet reached.
He looked. It was the small bronze figure of a horse, cast with the kind of exactness that suggested the maker had known actual horses rather than merely describing them at a distance. It was a very fine horse, about three inches high and a thousand years old, or thereabouts.
“A votive offering,” he replied.
“A what?” Celia asked.
“An object given to a temple. A dedication to the gods. It was placed there as a gift, or in thanks for something received.”
Felicity looked at the small bronze horse for a longer moment than she had looked at anything else in the room. “What did they want when they gave a horse?”
“Any number of things. Safe travel. Victory. Recovery from illness.” William paused. “The return of someone they loved.”
Felicity fell quiet. She looked at the horse. He looked at the horse.
“I think,” she said finally, in a tone that was devoid of feeling, “that it is a very good horse for something so small.”
“It is,” he agreed.
“The Greeks were quite precise about their horses,” Celia quipped, and they laughed.
As they moved on, William was aware, in the manner of a man who had spent considerable effort not being aware of something, that Anne was behind them. She had kept a comfortable distance through the first two rooms, not close enough to intrude and not far enough to be absent.
He had heard her laugh once at something Celia said that he had not quite caught, but he had not turned around.
He was now looking at a Corinthian helmet, which was a very intriguing object to look at, and which had nothing to do with the fact that her laugh had a quality to it that sat behind his ribs for several seconds after it had ebbed.
You are forty-one years old, and you are in a museum. Get a hold of yourself, no matter how much her taste haunts you. Right?
The helmet remained unimpressed.
In the Roman gallery, which occupied a large connecting room with better light and a magnificent floor mosaic behind a low protective railing, Celia made a noise of profound appreciation. It was louder than the first. Two scholars at the far end of the room looked up. William cleared his throat.
“Inside voices,” Anne warned quietly, from somewhere behind him.
“But it’s the floor,” Celia said, in a whispered shout that was the unwilling compliance of a person who had been told the letter of the rule and disagreed with its spirit.
“They walked on this. Actual Romans walked on this with their actual feet, and it is still here, and we are looking at it. Do you understand what that means, Sister?”
“I believe I follow,” Anne replied.
William heard the smile in her voice. Still, he did not look back.
“It’s two thousand years,” Celia breathed, with the reverence of a high priest. “Two. Thousand.”
“One thousand, eight hundred and forty-three, approximately,” William corrected, because he could not help it.
Celia looked up at him and nodded. “One thousand, eight hundred and forty-three,” she repeated, as if testing out the number. “That is still very many.”
“It is.”
“Were you here when it was made?”
“I was not.”
“You are very old, though.”
“Celia,” Anne chided with a soft click of her tongue.
“Anne! I only meant that—”
“I understood what you meant,” William cut in. “No, I was not here. The Romans laid this floor during the reign of Hadrian, which predates me by a moderate margin.”
Felicity clapped her hands over her mouth, suppressing a laugh.
William counted it as a success. He could not remember the last time, if ever, he had made his daughter laugh.