Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Fifteen
Anna
Laughter carried on the salty wind. Through every door, around every corner, it mingled with the pattering sounds of horses’ hooves on the dirt footpaths bordering what Graham called the Steine. Sunshine fell upon us from an open blue sky, and I felt as though my every breath reached deeper than the last.
The Steine pulled everything together, like a force of gravity. Shops, inns, houses, a library, the Royal Circus with a stone horse leaping at its top, and more were all situated on the borderline of the Steine’s open green lawn. Rows of entertainment and commercialism growing outward, he’d said, and I believed him.
“That, just there,” Graham said softly at my side, startling me, for I’d thought he’d been walking with his mother, “is the Marine Pavilion, where the Prince Regent takes residence.”
Following his outstretched finger, I saw a white, longpalace-like structure farther down on the northern edge of the green lawn with many windows and a dome-shaped entrance in the center. Graham had mentioned it at dinner with Papa, and several times a day since.
“It looks smaller than I imagined,” I said.
Graham’s brows furrowed.
“The library!” Tabs squealed. “You promised, Graham!”
Mrs. Everett shushed her, but Graham waved her forward. “Go on. Though they may not have anything you’ll like,” he said.
“Then I shall find something you’ll like so you can read it to me!” She grinned at him, then tugged on her mother’s hand, hurrying down the dirt path opposite the Pavilion.
Graham matched my slow pace, soaking in the views despite his family strolling ahead.
“You are never this quiet. It is disconcerting,” I said.
He pursed his lips and gave me a look. “I am quiet because you seem to prefer me that way.”
“That’s not—” I started to protest, but he was right. I’d said things to him I shouldn’t have. I’d been cross and cruel. It was just, after this morning, Graham seemed like a different person almost. Like I’d put on my own form of spectacles and the man I’d been hating so fiercely, had named my eternal enemy, finally came into view, his fuzzy edges layered on top of one another to form a clearer picture. “Perhaps I have been harsh in the past.”
His steps slowed. He squinted at me, frowning. “Don’t do this,” he said, shaking his head. “Don’t pity me because of what you saw this morning.”
Was that what I felt? Did I pity him?
“I like my life as it is,” he added sternly.
I bristled. Was it so wrong that my view of him had changed? That I wanted to be kinder to him? “Forgive my attempt at civility. It seems your preferences are so inconstant that I shouldn’t have wasted the effort.”
He winced, and we stared at each other, testing the limits of who’d break first. Or maybe trying to figure out how to talk to each other like normal people. How to have a conversation without reopening old wounds we’d been poking at for years.
“What do you want me to say?” he asked.
I threw my hands up. Intolerable man. I was trying, truly trying to understand him and treat him better. Could he not help me at all?
“I do not know, Graham,” I sputtered. Perhaps he did not wish for things between us to change, but they had. And like it or not, we’d be civil.
We only needed to practice. I searched the view encircling us and asked the first question that came to my mind. “Are there gardens at the Pavilion?”
“Yes,” he answered flatly, the slightest note of question in his voice.
“One day soon I would love to see them.”
He narrowed his eyes. “Why?”
“Because that is what people do in gardens. They promenade.” Mine was the well-worn voice of a patient teacher.
“The Pavilion does not seem to meet your expectations. Perhaps our time will be better spent elsewhere.”
He loved the Pavilion, and I’d offended him. For so big a man, he was easily wounded. I thought of all I’d learned about him. I did not necessarily want him around when Papa returned, but that did not mean I had to reject him fully. We could be acquaintances who saw each other on the streets of London and waved a passing “Good day” now and again.
I sighed, then spoke with a gentler tone. “Sometimes the view is different when you look a little closer. I’d like to give the Pavilion a second chance.”
A crease formed between his brows. He looked back at the Pavilion, raising a hand over his eyes to see it clearly. Then he glanced back, clear confusion written on his face. “You are never this kind,” he said in as gentle a fashion as I had a moment ago. “It is very disconcerting.”
I should’ve been offended or defensive, snapping back at him with some clever retort. Instead, I lifted my hands, palms up, and said, “Perhaps you should take a closer look, Graham.”
He looked down at me, watching, waiting. The tips of his ears turned pink. How had I never noticed how sensitive he was? He’d endured difficult circumstances and often portrayed such a rough and confident exterior; I had never considered that it all was a fa?ade. Until now.
“Very well,” he said in a soft voice.
He offered me his arm with a question in his eyes as he swallowed hard. Like I might reject him. Like my refusal would hurt him. In truth, I’d stuck my nose up at his offerings a hundred times before. My cheeks pinked as I remembered how he’d once asked me to dance the last set at a dinner party, likely to impress my father, and I’d said no, claiming a headache and ending my night early just to spite him. I’d been laughing seconds before with two ladies my age. He’d straightened, then turned to the girl beside me, who’d accepted.
I hadn’t hurt him then, had I?
I laced my arm through his. His arm flexed as though by instinct. Was this as strange for him as it was for me? Strange, but different enough to send sparks of warmth through my chest. Graham held his arm firm, supporting my hand and leading me toward an unconnected building just down the way. Tall pillars lined the front, and the closer we walked, the more distinct the music became.
“It’s much more than a library,” Graham explained as he led me inside. “There’s music, a billiards table, a reading room. We’ve a family subscription, so if you find something of interest you’d like to borrow while you’re here, I am happy to oblige.”
“Thank you,” I said, but I was distracted. The room was enormous. People were everywhere. Books were everywhere. There must have been thousands. Signs with things for sale were at every turn, and walls full of bookshelves welcomed the ladies and gentlemen gathered together, perusing the titles. Tables sat sporadically throughout the open space, perfect for flipping through pages or setting down one’s things. A clerk worked at a larger desk at the back, loaning out books to patrons.
“I do not know where to start,” I admitted.
Graham nodded at a man surrounded by a throng of ladies; he smiled amiably back. “Well, what sort of books do you enjoy?”
“Guess,” I teased him.
He cocked his head to the side, smiled openly, then looked around the room. “Horticulture. But only the really long, excruciatingly boring books.”
I sucked in an exaggerated breath. “How did you know?”
He squinted. “Novels, then?”
I lifted three fingers in turn. “The hero must be titled, wealthy, and extremely handsome.”
“I’m sorry to report that I am unaware of any hero who meets all three of those qualifications. Shall I direct you to a clerk? I could ask for the catalog. Ah, here is one.”
He directed me to a nearby table with a large, thick book placed atop it. There were lines of titles sorted by topics or genres, all alphabetized. Graham held up the book, turning pages until he found the listing for novels, then squinted and brought it closer to his sight.
The man was blind without his spectacles.
“The Duke and His Forbidden Love,” he read, then cleared his throat and tempered his smirk. “It takes three whole volumes for the poor fop to secure his fate.”
I took the catalog from his grasp, placing it down on the table in front of us. “I’ve already read that one, and I can tell you in no uncertain terms that he does indeed secure her.”
Graham leaned his hip against the table, one hand resting on its top as he faced me. “What else, then? You can tell a lot about a person by what they borrow from the library, you know.”
I started at the top of the page, tracing my finger down the rows of titles. My right side grew comfortable and warm, until I realized Graham was leaning close to read alongside me. My breath hitched, and my finger froze on a title.
“Cecilia. Isn’t that an Ann Radcliffe?” Graham asked, squinting. “Quite controversial.”
“Frances Burney,” I muttered, shifting my hip to the left, decidedly away from his warmth. “Put on your spectacles so you can actually read.”
Not responding, he folded his arms. “You could always try Shakespeare. I hear Romeo and Juliet is full of intrigue,” he said.
“I refused to leave my bed for days after finishing that play.” I flipped a page, finding nothing to interest me. When Papa was away, I lived at the library. I’d read so many novels, I was entirely tainted. I’d already read many of these, but there were many more I’d never heard of. I closed the book. “Perhaps, the music room?”
Graham straightened, nodded, then led me toward an archway that opened into another room. Ginny sat alone in a corner, listening to the small orchestra play a cheery tune. We stayed for a time, then left her to find the others. Tabs and Mrs. Everett were in the reading room; Mrs. Everett had removed her gloves and was reading some sort of mystery book aloud quietly. After a time, Graham slipped out of the room, but I sat beside them, captivated by Mrs. Everett’s soothing voice and by how Tabs sat so close that the upper half of her body sprawled across her mother’s lap. Mrs. Everett lightly brushed through her daughter’s curls with her fingers.
Portraits and mementos from my own mother’s life were all I had of her. Growing up without her, I’d wondered what her voice sounded like, if she ever grew angry and why, and what it might feel like to be held in her arms. I’d never missed her, but this past Season, I’d felt her absence as I watched other girls’ mamas fuss over them, push them toward eligible gentlemen, or pull them out of conversation with reckless ones. How different life must be with a mother’s guiding hand.
And watching Tabs, seeing the love that so clearly existed between a mother and daughter, I felt the hole expand in my chest. That desperate ache, that loneliness I felt when Papa traveled too much or spent long days out of the house, seemed to multiply.
Tabs didn’t have a father, but she had a mother. And that was a glorious thing.
I excused myself, turning from the reading room back to the main library. Perhaps I’d rejoin Ginny in the music room for a time. As I started walking through the open space, I saw Graham with his back to me standing at our table and leaning over the open catalog.
What was he looking for? I realized I had never asked him for his favorite books to read. I paced over to where he read, a stupid smile curling my lips, and slowly approached the table until his profile came into view. I panicked at the sight of the man, spectacles on his nose and a serious look on his face, for I thought I’d been mistaken. But a step closer and there was Graham, in his round, thin spectacles, looking sharp and sleek and intelligent all in one perfectly packaged form. My pace slowed, shoulders relaxed, and I found myself sauntering toward him like a sodden fool, but I could not help myself. He’d put on his spectacles, and I had to get a closer look.
Slowly, I leaned against the table as he had done with me earlier. His finger was set over a line on the open page, but I caught his peripheral attention, and he looked up.
He jerked back, eyes wide. His hand flew up to his face, but on instinct, I reached up to stop him.
“Don’t. You look so handsome.”
The words were out of my mouth before I could filter them, and we stood there, his hand on the arm of his spectacles, mine on his wrist, frozen.
He let go, blinking and looking away, and I cringed so hard my face became a prune. Handsome! I’d just called Graham—my host and nemesis-turned-friend—handsome. Even worse, I’d said it to his face. I rubbed the heat from my cheeks, too proud to walk away and let him see how mortified I was. In truth, I wanted to hide under a rock like one of Tabs’s dead sea things and never be unearthed.
Graham cleared his throat. “Thank you,” he muttered, looking down at the catalog. He gripped the table, knuckles white.
My skin felt ten sizes too tight, my lungs laughing at my attempts to calm my nerves with a few deep breaths.
“I—” I started, swallowing hard. “I meant, handsome, as in—”
Graham bit his lower lip, perhaps to keep from laughing at my failing attempt to recover myself. He knew I was mortified, but he wouldn’t save me.
“Everett,” a man’s familiar voice called from behind. Deep. Raspy, like he’d just finished a cigar.
I drew in a sharp breath. I knew that voice.
My shoulders tensed, lips parted, breath stilled inside my lungs. His gait was familiar, too, for we’d walked alongside each other often over the past few months. The thud of his fashionable cane came to a stop nearby.
Graham, instantly alert, tore off his spectacles as he swung around. He straightened, frowning, as Mr. Lennox took another few steps closer. “Lennox,” Graham said, shoving his spectacles into his jacket pocket.
Mr. Lennox’s round blue eyes found mine. I’d once searched for those eyes in a crowded room; now I wished to hide from them at any cost. His attention sent my mind into a panicked state. I should run. I should hide. And yet, I remained frozen in my spot. “And Miss Lane. What a delightful surprise. I had no idea you’d removed to Brighton.” His tall form bowed low as he held fast to his sleek, lion-headed cane, then rose again.
He grinned down at me, his face so perfectly symmetrical, his jaw so manly and square. I’d half expected deep-set scars or black eyes as cold as his heart, and yet, despite the shocking revelation now between us, he remained unchanged. Only now upon close examination did I realize that his cunning smile did not quite reach his eyes.
He had lied to me for months. Deceived me into affection, and when the truth of his engagement came to light, he’d claimed he was the one who’d been deceived.
I might be a poor judge of character, but I was not that daft.
What the devil was he doing here? From Bath, he should’ve traveled straight back to London. Were the unanswered notes not enough of a clue? He had somehow found and followed me.
Graham bowed in return, but I did not trust myself to speak.
“You vanished halfway through the Season,” Mr. Lennox said to Graham, spinning his cane to reveal encrusted diamonds as the lion’s eyes. Jewels he absolutely could not afford. “I hear you’ve been busy here in Brighton.”
“I have indeed.” Graham looked between us expectantly, like he waited for one of us to explode.
“Yes, well, some fortunes must be built, I suppose. Good for you.” Mr. Lennox gave a solemn nod.
The arrogance! The whole of Society must know by now how he had wasted away his fortune near to nothing.
Then, “Miss Lane, may I have a moment of your time?”
He’d softened his voice, gaze pleading. Desperate, undoubtedly. But I had nothing left to give him.
“Mr. Lennox, as you can see, I’m quite entertained at present.”
He raised a brow and glanced at Graham with a look of distaste—had I once looked at Graham that way?—that only served to anger me. How dare he look down upon anyone, let alone Graham, who was his opposite in every way. “I see that. Did you—well, I hope you enjoyed the roses I’ve sent.”
Graham started to rub the back of his neck, and I realized there were eyes all around, watching us. I would not give them more to whisper about.
I tilted my head with a tense smile and said, “They’ve wilted.”
“Mr. Everett! How nice to see you,” a slender woman said as she strode to Mr. Lennox’s side. Young, small, with a round, cheery face framed with blonde curls and a well-trimmed hat.
My face turned instantly cold, and I could not help but study her. Was she the woman? The woman Mr. Lennox had kept secret from me, all the while begging for an opportunity to court me? And I’d almost allowed it. The entirety of London had watched with bated breath until one brave soul stepped forward to speak the truth. A stranger, but a godsend, had saved me.
Graham straightened. “Miss Ryan, how do you do?” He bowed low, and she giggled.
“Very well, thank you, Mr. Everett. I see you are acquainted with my cousin. He is visiting for the week,” she said, looking at Graham like a hopeful child in front of a sweet shop. She might as well have offered herself on a platter by the way she salivated over him.
Not her, then, for Mr. Lennox’s intended had not been a relation at all. My shoulders dropped an inch, but I’d grown weary. I could not stand as tall as I had, for I felt like I’d run from London to Brighton and back again.
“Indeed,” Graham said to the woman. “How is your family?”
“How kind of you to inquire. My mother is quite recovered,” she said in a quiet voice, and something secret passed between her and Graham. The feeling brewing in my chest turned colder. Uglier. Graham had a life here. People knew him, admired him, begged for his company. Judging by the way her eyes wandered over Graham’s face, the two of them were well-acquainted.
Mr. Lennox reached for my arm, his eyes pleading as he stepped sideways and boxed me out of the circle the four of us had created. “Please, Anna,” he whispered.
“Don’t you dare,” I snapped back, seething. The library had suddenly gone still. Hushed. “There is nothing you can say. No amount of roses will change my opinion of you.”
“I understand why you’re upset.” He spoke low enough for only the two of us, but he still glanced over his shoulder to where Graham and that woman were conversing all too happily. “But please understand the engagement would never have happened regardless of whether we’d met. It was a sham—a ploy to help a family friend have more opportunities. She cried off!”
“At your behest,” I said, raising a trembling finger. My breath shook as I spoke. “I know your uncle paid her off. I know your funds are dwindling. And I am not interested in becoming your purse.”
His jaw clenched as he spun his cane in hand. “That is not the whole of it. I truly care for you.”
I scoffed. “If you cared for me, you would never have lied.”
He threw up a hand as though I was the one being unreasonable. “You are a woman. You have no idea the trials of men in our society. What secrets we must keep. What we cannot tell you for fear of ruining your polite sensibilities.”
“I could’ve borne it, I assure you.” I hated the thickness in my throat, how weak and shaky my limbs felt despite the rising anger in my chest. I felt like a rope pulled tight enough to snap.
“Let me prove myself—”
“No, for heaven’s sake,” I cried. I could not bear his attempts to reconcile for one more moment.
“Anna,” he said, reaching for me.
“My answer is and will always be, no.”
Graham cleared his throat. He’d been watching. Several pairs of eyes had been. If the whispers hadn’t yet come, they undoubtedly would now.
I licked my lips and touched my hair, forcing a smile. “So pleasant to see you, Mr. Lennox. If you’ll excuse me. My host and I have quite a full schedule this afternoon.”
He bowed, frowning, shoulders tensed. “Of course. I do hope to see you again before my departure.”
“What a pleasure,” Graham said to Mr. Lennox, but he was frowning. Then he bowed to Miss Ryan.
Blindly, I let my feet carry me around a table, then another, trailing whispers with every step.
“Did you see how distraught he is?”one woman asked.
Then, another, “The way she spoke to him—how impolite!”
“I heard her father paid for his silence.” That lie stopped me in my tracks. It was entirely unfounded! I’d yet to tell Papa a thing! “Apparently poor Mr. Lennox proposed, then cried off when he learned of her true character.”
I looked up, eyes blurry, in a desperate search to match that ugly voice with a face, but a hand rested on my arm and tugged me backward.
“Come, Anna,” Graham said gently. “Come away from here.”