Chapter 21
"Where were you last night?"
Frances burst into the entrance hall with a velocity that nearly sent her tripping over the mat. The concern on her face was so pure and so unvarnished that it might have been comical if Lavinia's own heart were not still pounding from its nocturnal ordeal.
Lavinia handed her damp shawl to Mrs. Down, then took an extra moment to compose herself before facing the inquisition. "You must not alarm Mrs. Down so early, Frances. She has not yet had her tea."
Mrs. Down sniffed but did not disagree. She whisked the shawl away with a glance that promised a lecture later, then vanished toward the kitchen.
Frances seized Lavinia’s arm with her eyes wide. “Truly, though, where? I thought you’d be home before the rain even started, but then it became a proper hurricane, and you never arrived. I imagined a thousand things—none of them good.”
“I sent word.”
“A word is not the same as your presence.”
Lavinia allowed herself a rueful smile. “My lessons with Lady Sophia took longer than expected and the storm trapped me. I was obliged to remain at Evermere for the night.”
"Obliged," Frances repeated, savoring the syllables. "I see. And was it very dreadful? Or merely mortifying?"
Lavinia pretended to scan her gloves for mud. "I survived. As you plainly see."
Lavinia tried for indifference, but the memory of last night, the rain, the heat of Tristan’s hands on her shoulders clung stubbornly to her cheeks.
Frances’ eyes narrowed. "You are rather different this morning." She lowered her voice, as if imparting some great secret. "You are not as you were."
“Nonsense,” Lavinia replied. “I am as I always am. Just damper.”
But Frances only shook her head, curls trembling. “You are not.”
She began to circle Lavinia, her hands clasped behind her back in a manner that suggested she had been rehearsing this for hours.
“You are pale, but your cheeks are pink. Your hair is coming loose, though you hate it when it does. And you are—” Frances paused to search for the right word.
“You are floating. Or perhaps you are sinking, but not in the way you usually do, when bills arrive, or Aunt Petunia writes.”
Lavinia felt her composure begin to crumble, brick by brick. She pulled a strand of hair behind her ear and tried to recall the etiquette for deflecting familial interrogation.
“Perhaps I am simply grateful to be alive,” she said.
Frances drew closer and frowned. “Did something happen at Evermere?”
“No more than usual.”
Frances dropped her voice another octave. "Or did something happen with the Duke?"
There it was. The question Lavinia had hoped to dodge, like a rogue pheasant on the hunt.
She summoned all her composure, gave her sister a look, and said, “The Duke is as insufferable as ever. Perhaps more so, as he is now convinced that I will perish at the first drop of rain. He insisted I stay the night for my own safety, and that was that.”
Frances did not move. “You are lying.”
“Am not.”
Frances grinned, triumphant. “You are. Because your left hand always tugs at your sleeve when you are hiding something.” She reached out and captured Lavinia’s restless hand. “Did he kiss you?”
Lavinia nearly dropped dead on the spot.
Frances’s mouth opened in shock. “He did! He did, didn’t he?”
Lavinia jerked her hand away, mortified. “Absolutely not! You are far too dreamy for your own good!”
Frances laughed. “You are a terrible liar, Lavinia. Your ears are red.”
“They are not. And you need to stop reading those novels about brooding heroes in castles and helpless heroines.”
“Oh, but they are a joy to read!” Frances insisted, and then, perhaps sensing her sister had reached the limit of bearable scrutiny, relented. “If you do not wish to tell me, I shall not make you. But you are different today, and I like it. Even if you hate it.”
Lavinia tried to retort, but the urge vanished. Instead, she managed, “You are incorrigible.”
“And you are in love,” Frances replied, softer now.
Lavinia refused to dignify the claim. “Are there any letters?”
Frances, seeing her escape, fished a folded note from the pocket of her apron. “This came an hour ago. It’s from Aunt Petunia.” She dropped her voice in imitation: “I waited for you to open it first.”
Lavinia took the letter and turned it over. The seal was, as always, too thick for the thickness of the paper, the blue wax crushed almost to the breaking point. She popped it open and read, silently.
“Well?” Frances demanded, bouncing on her toes. “Is it a summons? An invitation? Or merely a complaint?”
“A summons,” Lavinia replied. She handed over the letter, sparing herself the agony of repeating it aloud.
Frances read in a rush. “‘Private evening at Montfort House. Music, dancing, select company in honor of Lady Frances’s prospective debut. Wardrobe to be provided, if required. Attendance is compulsory.’” Frances looked up. “It is for me?”
Lavinia forced a smile. “It appears so.”
Frances squealed, the sound so pure it momentarily swept the last of Lavinia’s gloom away. “Oh, Lavinia, what if I trip and land in the punch bowl? What if no one asks me to dance?”
“Then you shall have an excellent story for your memoirs,” Lavinia said, ruffling her sister’s curls. “But I do not think that will happen. You are too stubborn to fail.”
Frances giggled. “Will you dance, too? Or shall you hide in the corner with the dowagers and the wallflowers?”
“I will do as my duty demands,” Lavinia said, trying to sound noble, but the truth was she had no intention of dancing unless forcibly hauled onto the floor. “But only if you promise not to elope with the first man who tells you your hair is pretty.”
Frances made a face. “I promise. Though if he looks like Lord Byron, I will make no guarantees.”
Lavinia snorted. “Byron is a disaster. You would be bored by Thursday.”
“I should like to be bored by Thursday, at least once,” Frances said, the humor slipping from her voice. “Are you certain you are well, Lavinia?”
She was not. She had never been less certain in her life. But she managed, “I am as I always am.”
Frances seemed content with that, or at least willing to leave it unchallenged. She seized Lavinia’s arm again. “Come, let us go to the kitchen. Mrs. Down made almond biscuits, and she swore at them, which means they are delicious.”
Lavinia allowed herself to be pulled along, but as they reached the hallway, she paused and looked back at the door.
For one irrational second, she half-expected to see Tristan standing in the rain with anger in his eyes. Or perhaps not anger. Perhaps something else.
She shook her head and followed Frances to the kitchen, promising herself it was only the fatigue, or the damp, or the lack of tea.
After a warm cup, Lavinia moved upstairs to her chambers, where she closed the door and pressed her forehead to the wood. Then she made her way to the small vanity and looked at her reflection.
Her hair, loosened by the journey back and by Frances’s relentless fussing, fell in curls over her collar. Her skin was pale except for a flush that lingered along her cheekbones, and her lips—
Lavinia reached up, unable to help herself, and traced the outline of her mouth. Did he kiss me? Or did I only imagine it? No. It had happened. It was as real as the memory of his arms, as real as the ache that had lodged itself beneath her ribs.
She remembered her masked stranger and how he had danced with her as if she were the only woman in London. The only woman in the world. Lavinia had been certain the memory of him would be enough.
But it was not enough. Not anymore. She unfastened her dress, her fingers clumsy at the laces of her stays, and let it drop to the carpet.
She reached for her day dress—something unremarkable, plain blue muslin with a slightly frayed hem—and shrugged into it without looking.
Every movement was mechanical, but every thought was crowded with the sensation of Tristan.
Will I collect this memory, too? Will I store it with the others, a thing to be polished and hidden and never spoken of again? The idea unsettled her.
This was not a story she could store away, not after the way the world had shifted beneath her feet.
The thought was terrifying as much as she believed the kiss was a mistake.
“Have you seen it?” Sophia’s voice echoed through the marble hall, and it sounded strained enough to bring Tristan up short as he moved toward his study.
“I beg your pardon, my lady?” came Mrs. Wood’s response.
Tristan advanced to see Sophia standing with the housekeeper, her face blotchy and wild.
“It’s gone. He’s gone!” Sophia’s hands were balled at her sides, the knuckles white. “I looked everywhere. He’s not in the gardener’s shed, or the old laundry, or even the larder. Someone must have—” Her voice cracked.
Mrs. Woods, caught between protocol and panic, flapped her hands in a way that suggested she might shoo Sophia upstairs by force. “My lady, I am afraid I’m having trouble understanding you.”
Tristan had a good notion of what the object of his daughter’s alarm was. He cleared his throat loudly. The effect was instantaneous: both faces snapped to him, one rigid with guilt, the other with confusion.
He addressed Mrs. Woods first. “Thank you, Mrs. Woods. I will speak with Lady Sophia alone.” The woman executed a bow and fled, looking relieved.
Tristan closed the distance to his daughter, taking in the tearstained cheeks and trembling chin. She looked up, but could not maintain eye contact.
“Well,” he said. “Are we staging a revolution today?”
Sophia wiped her cheek with the heel of her palm, then shook her head, mute.
He let the silence linger, knowing it would do more work than any words.
“Are you keeping secrets from me, Sophia?” he asked, his voice stripped of its usual edge.
She shook her head, then nodded, then shook again. “Maybe. A little.”
He made a small show of considering. “Is this secret gray, with white paws?”
Sophia’s head jerked up. Her eyes widened, raw with hope and terror. “How did you—”
“I have a network of informants,” he replied, deadpan. “But mostly, Lady Lavinia told me.”
Her mouth opened, then closed. “Are you angry?”
“No. Lady Lavinia was quite adamant that the kitten be given a proper chance.”
There was a long silence. Then, “But the kitten is gone.”
Tristan stood. “Are you certain?”
Sophia nodded, fighting back tears. “She is not anywhere. I looked for hours.”
He considered the options. “Have you checked the north wing? Say, somewhere around my chambers?”
She gave him a baffled look. “No one ever goes there.”
“That is exactly why it is an ideal hiding place.” He kept his expression impassive. “Go. Search again. If you cannot find her by nightfall, we will post a notice.”
Sophia stared at him, uncertain. “Truly?”
“Truly.” He gestured toward the stairs. “Go. Do not return without a full report.”
She dashed off, her despair leavened by a new, frantic hope.
He watched her go, then moved toward the study. It was only after three steps that he realized his hands were shaking.
For all his self-discipline, he could not excise the image of Lavinia in the garden, defiant and half-drowned, the memory of her lips pressed to his, the fire that had burned through his careful plans.
It will pass, he told himself. All things do.
But as he entered the study, he realized, with something close to horror, that he was smiling.