Chapter Seven
The weather was dreadful, and Augusta was terribly happy for it, for it only served to match the storm clouds within her mind.
As she paced Ginny’s music room, listening to her friend pluck away at a harp, she felt as though her very skin vibrated with annoyed energy. When soft thunder rolled outside, she was half tempted to nod along in agreement with it.
“And then - you won’t believe this - he had the nerve to ask me if I’ve ever been pursued before. Oh Ginny, he was positively transparent. The man has more looks than sense.”
“He certainly does have looks,” Ginny agreed.
Augusta scoffed. “That is not the point in the least. For all I know of Lord Brightwater, he might be some philandering wasteabout. I tell you, until last week I hadn’t seen the man since I was practically in leading strings.
He was part of that gaggle of boys up north who played together and all went to Oxford at the same time.
I hardly knew a thing about any of them, except that they were little bullies.
Now he’s gone out of his way to see me three days in a row. ”
That finally earned a furrow of Ginny’s brow. “That is rather sudden. What do you think piqued his interest?”
“I couldn’t tell you in a million years.
” She’d spent the whole morning thinking on it, wondering at what moment Lord Brightwater had even noticed her.
Had she come up in one of his conversations with Reginald?
She could not imagine a single thing her brother could have said that would warrant such sudden interest.
No, it had to be something else. She’d begun to suspect as much even before last night, which had prompted her question as to what he was playing at.
But there was something so unsubtle about his conversation with her that made Augusta believe it had to have been off the cuff and authentic.
Were he attempting to manipulate her in some way, surely he would have done a better job of it.
Whatever had besotted him with her must have taken over his mind so completely that even an outright rejection would not deter him.
He had been alone with her. He’d asked her such improper questions, and expected answers.
And she’d given them to him. What a fool she had been in that library.
She’d handed over so much information about herself to a man who would likely be gone from her life in a week or two.
It had so vexed her that she could hardly work through her studies upon returning home.
Never again would she allow that to happen.
Her pacing brought her over to the window, where rain gracelessly pelted the glass in a steady rhythm.
Much as Lord Brightwater had irked her last night, he’d been correct in his assessment about her love of dreariness.
She wondered what it meant that he’d so easily read her emotions, despite the fact that she had not said a word.
What would it be like? To have someone in her life who could do such a thing? Who looked at her and knew, without her having to state it all aloud?
“You are lost in thought again,” Ginny said teasingly.
Augusta turned back to her friend. “Sorry. I was just…oh, I don’t know, Ginny. Am I being completely obsessive about this?”
“Yes, but it is well-deserved. Matters of the heart always are.”
Augusta did not contain her most unladylike snort. “His heart, perhaps. Not mine. It is not for the taking.”
“Why shouldn’t it be? You work so hard and keep so many secrets, Auggie.
You hardly share about your work with me for fear of word getting out.
And yet…” she lowered her voice, lest a servant be listening from the hall.
“...is not the point of an alienist to allow your patients to heal and live a lovely life? You do not even let yourself live a lovely life. It is tragic.”
That was laughable, though no laughter emanated from Augusta.
She’d never entertained the possibility of tragedy and romance for a single moment in her life.
She’d been Piglet, and now she was a spinster who had, potentially, wasted the last three years of her life working toward some unknown end goal that, in all likelihood, would never materialize. Romance had sidestepped her life.
“You’re a good friend,” Augusta said with a small smile.
“When we grow old, we are going to be the two loveliest spinsters that ever angered the ton. We shall drink wine, and I shall sit in libraries all day and talk of hysteria to people who do not wish to hear of it. How is that for a lovely life?”
Ginny paused her playing. The room plunged into sudden, heavy silence.
“You deserve to be happy, you know. Truly happy. We both do.”
Augusta’s spirits, which had been bolstered by her thinking of a future in which she wasted away in fiction in darkened rooms, sank back to their normal state in a fierce collapse.
“You know I don’t believe in ‘deserve,’ Ginny,” she said, unable to bring her voice much above a whisper. “If everyone got what they deserved, we would all be in such dire straits.”
*****
There was no rest for the weary, Augusta pined: Lord Brightwater called almost as soon as she returned home. It was Reginald who came to fetch her from her writing desk again, where she’d only just begun going over her notes from the day before.
“Are you mad?” she asked him, furiously smoothing her skirts as she stepped out of her room. “My skirts are still drenched from the rain. I am hardly in a state to be presented to guests.”
Reginald hardly glanced at her skirts before he disregarded her worries. “It’s Brightwater. He will not begrudge your appearance if it means he can have your company.”
“You say that because you are his friend and a man. It is different.”
Her brother paused, cocking one brow up. “Are you saying you care so much about his estimation of your looks, then?”
Well that…Augusta would not dignify that with a response. Rather, she rolled her eyes and shuffled past him, heading for the drawing room.
Brightwater stood from his seat beside the tea trays as she entered.
“Good morning, Miss Browning,” he said. There was a slight twinkle in his blue eyes that made her decide to sit in the seat furthest from him.
“Good morning,” she said coolly. “I apologize for my appearance.”
“I assure you I find it as handsome as ever.”
Before she could offer an uninviting retort, Reginald sat on the chaise between them. “Augusta was actually busy with a friend this afternoon.”
It felt off-putting to hear him refer to her as anything but Auggie, but she supposed that that was part of whatever he’d decided during their previous conversation with Brightwater.
He was trying, now, to present her as a proper lady in the eyes of his friend, rather than a child.
Much as she wished otherwise, she had the distinct feeling that Reginald had begun to approve of his friend’s intentions.
She would have to disabuse him of that later.
“Is that so?” Brightwater said with one of those bright, charming smiles that Augusta had come to understand as his signature. “You spend a great deal of time with Miss Greene, do you not?”
“I do.” She left the topic there, and was happy to find that both Brightwater and Reginald did the same. Augusta would not allow strangers into the perfect friendship she shared with Ginny, and the only way to ensure perfection, she’d found, was to never speak on the subject at all.
She poured herself a cup of tea, happy to scent that it had been richly brewed. A part of her hoped against hope that they would continue to speak amongst each other and leave her out of it.
Lord Brightwater, who had so easily read her in the library last night, did not seem to read her now. Or perhaps he did, and forged ahead anyway.
“What was your opinion on the music last night?”
She lumped several sugars into her tea, which gave her hands something to do. “Perfectly respectable, I believe, though as I’ve said, music is not my strong suit. I have neither the talent for it nor the ear.”
Best to leave it there, her deficiency hanging clear between them. She’d noticed last night that Lord Brightwater appeared to be particularly taken with music. Let him now imagine himself shackled to a woman who could not share his enjoyment.
“I understand. I found it to be very enjoyable myself, though I suspect that that can partly be due to the air of the room.”
His wording piqued Augusta’s interest, despite herself. “The air of the room?”
“Yes. I believe that much of one’s enjoyment of music is dependent upon the surroundings of the players.
A concert hall is lovely, yes, but there is an artless romance in that which is performed in a home on a dreary day.
When it is raining and frigid outside, but the room is warm inside, and the gas lamps are softly lit, I find it easier to be carried away.
A good player of course can always accomplish that through effort alone, but it does still aid the goal. ”
It was not until he’d stopped speaking that Augusta realized just how much she’d hung onto his words.
She had never, in her whole life, heard someone speak so eloquently of that feeling wherein one was enveloped by the moment and enraptured by a work of art, by watching someone become lost in creation.
It was the kind of honest observation that made her wish that she herself had made it.
“I see,” was all she said, once she realized that the silence had gone on too long and her response was expected.
“Sebastian, will you be going back to Derbyshire for the winter?” Reginald asked.
It took longer than Augusta would have liked for Brightwater to take his eyes off of her and turn them on her brother.
“No, much to Georgiana’s dismay.”
Augusta had only met Georgiana a handful of times, but each had been a pleasant experience.
The girl was sweetness personified. This was no surprise to anyone who had met Sebastian’s mother, who was only an older version of her daughter, though quite withdrawn.
It had been his father who Augusta, on the few occasions in which she’d found herself at his estate in Derbyshire, had avoided. She had not mourned him upon his death.
Thinking of the miserable man made Augusta soften a bit toward Lord Brightwater.
It could not have been easy to grow up in a house without a chance for escape from him, nor could it have been easy to inherit his estate so recently.
He might have behaved ill toward her last night, but he had done no permanent damage, and in the end he was still Reginald’s friend.
“I would love to see Georgiana when she comes to debut,” she said softly, looking down at her tea. “Perhaps we could arrange a dinner after she arrives. I know it is some time away, but I am sure it will arrive quickly.”
Lord Brightwater had the good sense to look surprised for only a brief moment before he composed himself.
“I would love that. In the meantime, I am wondering if I might accompany you on a walk in Hyde Park tomorrow. The gardens there are quite exceptional, and I have heard they are excellent to sit and read in.”
It was such a clear and obvious step in his pursuit that Augusta was greatly tempted to reject him. Every step forward that he took in his perceived courtship would only make it more difficult to ensure that her messaging remained transparent; that she would not be his future bride.
Then again, she did so love the gardens at Hyde.
Ginny always offered to go with her, but balked at the first hint of rain.
Augusta suspected that Lord Brightwater would trudge onward even in a storm if he believed that she would accompany him.
And just because she went did not mean she had to entertain him.
“I…alright. A walk.” Then, because she could not be too amiable, “But I am afraid I shall bring my book and thoroughly ignore you the whole way through.”
She’d meant it in earnest, but Lord Brightwater laughed at her nonetheless while Reginald shot her a withering look. “That is quite alright, so long as I am allowed to read alongside you. And if my book is dreadful, then I will have a great storyteller at my side to step in and fill the gap.”
Augusta ducked her head in embarrassment. “Perhaps that will occur at some point, though I believe you will be disappointed. My brother imagines much of my genius.”
“I do not believe you would have me any other way,” Reginald said lightly. “Besides, I do not imagine it. If I did, you would also be the greatest pianist to ever play, and I happen to admit that you are a foul pianist. Therefore, I am telling the truth.”
Brightwater laughed while Augusta offered a polite smile.
“Well, there it is, then. My brother has said it, and so it is.”
And so it was.