Chapter 20 #2
“Happy? I haven’t been truly happy for a decade. You left me. You, who after kissing me, then urging me so stoically not to allow anyone to break me—you broke me!”
“I did what I thought was best. For you. I know you better than anybody, Violet.”
“You don’t know me better than myself, sir. Even at fifteen I might have had an answer that brought happiness to both our lives. A compromise of hope.”
He paused, temporarily silenced, considering how it might’ve been if things had been worked through differently.
She took advantage of his silence and stepped to him once more.
“Ten years of wondering, of looking for you, of not daring to ask your family how you’ve been, of bruised feelings turned cold.
Of once again being put in my place. But it was you, Cyril.
You, of all people, should not have been the person to dash all my hopes of men. ”
He swallowed hard. “I felt the trial of it as well. You must believe me. My heart was not uninjured. Even now.”
The soft green of her eyes brightened.
“But, Violet, if you are to have success in anything you undertake, whether it be the school or some other brilliant, edge-of-society course, you must know that your reputation must remain pristine. Your connections must be … untouchable.”
“But Lydia—”
“Lydia has her brother Andrew. Who do you have?”
She drew back, her wide eyes blinking. As soon as the words left his mouth, he knew they had been a mistake.
“Forgive me, Violet. I did not think.” He pushed a hand through his damp hair as she turned away, her arms wrapped tightly around his coat. “I did not think of Daniel, and of course he’s your brother—”
“Quiet,” she softly demanded, and he stilled.
She walked to the tower’s arched entry. “The rain has stopped.”
Indeed, the sound of rain that had so fully surrounded them moments ago had ceased. Sunlight had managed to break through in a column over the meadow below.
“I feel him nearest at times like these, you know,” she continued in a quiet voice. “Abrupt changes in the weather. A sudden downpour. The first snowfall. A strike of lightning. Perhaps because I experienced all those for the first time with him.”
She turned again to face him. “But not meadows of wildflowers. Nor birds taking wing. Not a ballroom floor, nor a chessboard. The taste of sweetgrass. Drinking songs and marbles. Those are yours. They always will be.”
He shook his head slowly. “Violet,” he whispered. “Don’t do this.”
She seemed to shake herself and take in their surroundings. She reached and ran her hand along the stone next to her. “You know, we’re all alone in this tower.”
His gaze narrowed with a sense of foreboding.
Her expression became one of sly petulance. “And some might agree that you’ve compromised me.”
The hairs on the back of his neck stood straight. “I have done no such thing.”
She lifted a shoulder and blinked her wide eyes. “It was enough.”
He stepped forward and pointed to the ancient stone floor. “This is not the Middle Ages.”
She leaned forward, a menacing sparkle in her eye. “Tell that to my father. He adores the Middle Ages.”
“You wouldn’t dare.”
Her hands hit her hips. “Try me.”
He felt his face grow red, and his words gathered in a jumble in his chest until he threw them out. “It would be lowering!” He shook with the need to get through to her. “You would be ruined! I will not do that to you!”
“Well. Far be it from a woman to have a choice in the matter.”
He threw his arm out toward the school in the distance.
“You would throw away everything, again, just to prove a woman has a choice?” He spun, his hand to his forehead, and began to pace, muttering to himself.
“She doesn’t want to be a wife; now she’s open to the idea.
She wants to break the shackles of history, now considers marriage by entrapment?
She wants to be in charge, but heaven forbid she is warned against doing something that would lose her the position like that—” He snapped his fingers crisply.
“Oh no you don’t,” she said, now shadowing his steps like a pacing cat.
“Two can play at that game. You tell me I am capable, yet it is only when you say so in front of my father that he even thinks to consider it. You tell me I can’t marry a lord and run the school, and then you tell me I can’t choose a working man and remain a lady of high standing.
” She pressed her hands to her middle as if pained.
“To the world, I am a … a flying fish. But instead of acknowledging that I’m an excellent flying fish, they see me in the air and censure me for not keeping to the water.
” Her eyes grew shiny. “Perhaps I’m just a drowning bird, desperate to dry her feathers.
” She stepped toward him, her finger stabbing his chest, and he stepped back, startled by the force.
“You can’t tell me what to do, and you can’t tell me what I want. ”
They both ceased and stood, breathing together, eyes wide.
She was no fish, he thought. She was a lioness.
Finally, with a shake of his head, he opened his hands at his sides. “What is it you want?”
After a few more breaths, she stepped back, assuming her natural, regal posture. “I … I don’t know. I’m not sure I’d be allowed to voice it if I did.”
He stepped to the tower entrance, then turned, his chest tight with frustration. The words ground themselves out. “I know that feeling well.” He nodded. “Good day, Violet.”