Chapter 15 #3
"You offer her safety," Adrian said, his voice dropping to a register that would have sent wiser men running. "I offer her freedom to be herself. Which do you think she values more?"
"Freedom?" Theodore laughed, but there was no humor in it. "Freedom to be ostracized? Freedom to be whispered about in every drawing room in London? What freedom is there in social exile?"
"The freedom to choose her own path rather than be saved by someone who sees her as a problem to be solved."
"Better a problem with a solution than a scandal without redemption."
"Gentlemen." Eveline's voice cut through their escalating tension with the precision of a surgeon's blade. Both men turned to her, seeming suddenly to remember that she was more than just a prize to be debated. "I believe you're both labouring under a misapprehension."
"Eveline..." Adrian began.
"Miss Whitcombe," Theodore said simultaneously.
"I am not," she continued, raising her voice just enough to carry to their avidly watching audience, "a damsel in distress requiring rescue.
I am not a problem requiring a solution.
I am not a fallen woman in need of redemption or a scholarly curiosity in need of preservation.
" She looked between them, these two men who claimed to want her best interests.
"I am a woman with my own voice, and I have already used it.
Mr. Browne knows my answer. Your Grace has no standing to speak on my behalf.
And everyone else..." She turned to address the watching crowd directly.
"Everyone else may occupy themselves with their own affairs, which I'm certain are far more interesting than mine. "
The silence that followed was absolute. Then, from somewhere near the potted palms, came the distinctive sound of slow applause.
Harriet, bless her, had started clapping, and after a moment of shock, a few others joined in.
Whether from appreciation or embarrassment at being called out, Eveline neither knew nor cared.
Theodore's face had gone through several colors during her speech, finally settling on a mottled red that clashed unfortunately with his burgundy waistcoat. "I see," he said stiffly. "I apologise for my... persistence. It was ill-done."
He bowed to her, but not to Adrian, she noticed, and turned to leave. But at the last moment, he paused.
"I hope you find what you're looking for, Miss Whitcombe," he said quietly. "Though I fear it may cost you more than you're prepared to pay."
Then he was gone, disappearing into the crowd that parted to let him pass with the eager efficiency of those scenting fresh gossip to dissect.
Eveline watched him go with genuine regret.
He was a good man who'd offered what he could, and she'd hurt him with her refusal.
The fact that she'd had no choice didn't make it easier.
"Eveline."
She turned to find Adrian still standing there, close enough now that she could see the faint lines of exhaustion around his eyes, could smell that achingly familiar scent of sandalwood and something uniquely him.
He looked as he had that first time in Hatchard's; controlled, elegant, slightly dangerous.
But now she could see beneath the facade to the man underneath, could read the tension in his shoulders and the way his hands clenched and unclenched at his sides.
"Your Grace," she said formally, aware of their rapt audience. "I didn't expect to see you here. You famously avoid such gatherings."
"I do." He seemed to be struggling with something, his usual eloquence deserting him. "I came because...that is, I thought..."
"You thought I might need rescuing?" The words came out more bitter than intended. "How chivalrous."
"No." The denial was immediate and fierce. "I came because I couldn't stay away. Because the thought of you facing them alone..." He gestured at the watching crowd with barely controlled violence. "Because I'm a selfish simpleton who needed to see you, even if only from across a crowded room."
The admission hung between them, too honest for their public setting, too raw for comfortable social discourse. Around them, fans fluttered faster as matrons absorbed this fresh development in the ongoing drama.
"Adrian," she said softly, forgetting formality in the face of his obvious distress. "You shouldn't have come. This only makes things worse."
"Worse?" He laughed, the sound harsh. "How could they possibly be worse? You're already condemned in their eyes, already suffering for my weakness. At least let me..."
"What? Share my disgrace? Add to the scandal? Give them more fuel for their gossip?" She shook her head. "I don't need a knight errant, Adrian. I never did."
"I know." The words seemed torn from him. "Heavens help me, I know. You've never needed anyone, least of all me. But I..."
He stopped, seeming suddenly to become aware of their audience again. When he spoke next, it was in a different tone—formal, controlled, but with something underneath that made her pulse race.
"One dance, Eveline." He extended his hand, a challenge and invitation combined. "Let them see that you are not alone, whatever they might whisper. Give me that, at least."
She stared at his outstretched hand, knowing what accepting would mean. Dancing with him would cement her ruin, would confirm every speculation about their relationship, would close doors that were already barely cracked. It would be the final nail in the coffin of her respectability.
But oh, how she wanted to take his hand. How she wanted to feel his arms around her again, even in the formal confines of a dance. How she wanted to show every gossiping matron and simpering miss that she regretted nothing, that given the choice, she would make the same decisions again.
"This is madness," she whispered.
"Yes," he agreed, his hand still extended. "Complete and utter madness."
The orchestra, with timing that suggested divine intervention or mortal mischief, began the opening strains of another waltz. The melody was hauntingly beautiful, one of those pieces that seemed designed to accompany moments of terrible decision.
Eveline looked at Adrian's hand, at his face with its mixture of hope and resignation, at the watching crowd that waited breathlessly for her choice.
Then she smiled, not the polite society smile she'd worn like armor all evening, but the real one, the one that had gotten her into trouble in libraries and bookshops and quiet moments stolen from propriety.
"Well," she said, placing her hand in his, "I've never been accused of wisdom."
The shock that rippled through the ballroom was almost physical. She felt it in the collective intake of breath, saw it in the widening eyes and dropping fans, heard it in the sudden buzz of whispers that rose like a storm.
But all of that faded to nothing the moment Adrian's hand settled at her waist, the moment he drew her into the familiar circle of his arms.
"You're certain?" he asked quietly as they began to move.
"I'm certain of nothing except that I would rather dance with you than stand safely at the edge of the room." She met his eyes directly. "Is that enough?"
"It's everything," he said roughly.
They moved into the dance, and it was like coming home.
Her body remembered his, remembered the perfect way they fit together, the way he guided her with subtle pressure and absolute certainty.
The last time they'd been this close, lightning had split the sky and rain had lashed the windows.
Now they were surrounded by crystal and candlelight, by music and malice, but the essential truth remained the same.
When she was in his arms, the rest of the world ceased to matter.
"They're all watching," she murmured as they completed their first circuit of the floor.
"Let them watch." His hand tightened on hers. "Let them see what they've lost by their narrow-minded stupidity. Let them see that brilliance and beauty can't be dimmed by their whispers."
"Pretty words, Your Grace. Have you been reading poetry?"
"Byron, actually. You left a volume in the library." His thumb brushed across her gloved palm, the gesture so subtle no one could see it, so intimate she nearly stumbled. "I've been trying to understand what you see in his overwrought verses."
"And?"
"And I think I begin to comprehend. 'She walks in beauty, like the night'—I thought it melodramatic nonsense. But watching you enter this ballroom, head high despite their viciousness, I finally understood what he meant."
"Adrian," she breathed, her carefully constructed defenses beginning to crumble.
"I know," he said. "I know we agreed to forget, to maintain distance, to be sensible. But I find I'm tired of being sensible. I've been sensible for years, and where has it gotten me? Alone in a magnificent house with eighteen thousand books and no one to argue with about Latin pronunciation."
"You have Graves."
"Graves refuses to engage with my literary opinions. He says it's above his station, though I suspect he simply finds me tedious."
"Impossible. You're many things, Adrian Blackburn, but never tedious."
They turned again, and she caught sight of their reflection in the mirrored walls. They looked right together, she thought with a pang. As if they'd been designed as matching pieces of some cosmic puzzle, finally slotted into place after years of searching.
"Do you know why I really came tonight?" he asked suddenly.
"To save me from social catastrophe?"
"No." His voice dropped lower, meant only for her. "I came because I heard you might accept Browne's proposal. The thought of you marrying him, of you finding contentment with someone else...I couldn't bear it. So I came to torture myself with one last glimpse before you made the sensible choice."
"But I didn't make the sensible choice."
"No," he agreed, wonder and something else in his voice. "You didn't. Why, Eveline? Why refuse him when he offered everything you need?"
She was quiet for a long moment, letting the music and movement carry them while she searched for words.
How could she explain that Theodore's proposal, perfect in every rational way, had only clarified what she truly wanted?
That his talk of Byzantine manuscripts and intellectual partnership had made her think of another library, another man, another kind of partnership entirely?
"Because," she said finally, "he offered me safety, and I've never been safe. He offered me comfort, and comfort has always felt like a cage. He offered me everything except the one thing I actually need."
"Which is?"
She looked up at him then, meeting his storm-grey eyes with all the courage she'd used to face down the gossips and Theodore's proposals and her own stubborn pride.
"The freedom to choose my own disasters," she said simply. "And the right to find my own salvation, even if it looks like ruin to everyone else."
Something shifted in his expression, a dawning understanding that made her heart race. His hand at her waist pulled her fractionally closer, propriety be damned.
"Eveline," he said, and her name on his lips was a prayer and a promise and a question all at once.
But before he could say more, the music swelled to its conclusion. They slowed, stopped, stood for a moment in the center of the floor while around them the other dancers dispersed. They should move, should step apart, should return to the pretense of formal distance.
But neither of them moved.
"Your Grace," someone called. Lord Hastings, she thought dimly. "A word, if you please?"
Adrian's jaw tightened. "In a moment," he said without looking away from her.
"I should go," Eveline whispered. "We're causing enough scandal..."
"When have we ever done anything else?" But he released her, stepping back with visible reluctance. "May I call on you?"
The request, so formal after everything they'd shared, almost made her laugh. Or cry. She wasn't entirely certain which.
"You know where to find me," she said softly. "Though I can't promise the lodgings will meet ducal standards."
"Nothing about you has ever met ducal standards," he replied. "Thank Heavens."
She left him then, making her way through the crowd that parted, though from horror rather than reverence. She found Harriet near their original palm tree refuge, her friend's face a mixture of concern and admiration.
"That was either the bravest or most foolish thing I've ever witnessed," Harriet said, linking their arms.
"Can't it be both?"
"With you? Usually." They moved toward the exit, ignoring the whispers that followed like persistent flies. "I suppose this means we're leaving?"
"Unless you'd care to stay and enjoy the rest of the entertainment. I believe I've provided quite enough drama for one evening."
"Drama? My dear Eveline, you've provided enough scandal to fuel gossip for the next decade. They'll be discussing this night at dinner gatherings when we're old and grey."
"What a delightful legacy." They retrieved their cloaks from a footman who looked as if he were handling contaminated goods. "However I suppose there are worse things to be remembered for than dancing well and refusing to cower."
They emerged into the cool night air, and Eveline drew in a deep breath, feeling as though she'd been holding it all evening. The stars above were obscured by London's ever-present haze, but somewhere beyond the smoke and scandal, they still shone.
"He came for you," Harriet said quietly as they waited for their carriage. "The Duke of Everleigh, who famously avoids social gatherings, who hasn't attended a ball since his broken betrothal—he came because he couldn't stay away from you."
"Don't romanticize it."
"I don't need to. The facts are romantic enough on their own." Harriet squeezed her arm. "Whatever happens next, remember that. A man doesn't brave the censure of society for mere duty or passing fancy."