Chapter 4 #3
A gust of wind caught her bonnet, and she reached up to steady it.
Her glove brushed her cheek, and she was suddenly aware of how close he was standing, the width of the railing the only barrier between them.
She could smell the wool of his greatcoat, the faint trace of something that might have been sandalwood.
His hand was on the railing, inches from her own.
“You spoke at the ball,” he said, “about the nature of marriage. You said you would not enter a union that was merely convenient.”
“I remember.”
“Most young ladies in your position would not say such a thing. Most young ladies in your position are trained to value convenience above all else.”
“I am not most young ladies.”
“No,” he said. “You are not.”
She could not read his tone. Admiration? Warning? Something in between? She turned to face him, and the movement brought her a step closer, close enough that she had to tilt her chin to meet his eyes.
“You think I am naive,” she said. “You think I believe in romantic possibility because I have not yet been disappointed by the world.”
“I did not say that.”
“You did not have to. It is written in every line of your face.”
His expression flickered. “Then my face is a traitor.”
“Your face is more honest than your words. Perhaps you should trust it more.”
He stared at her. The wind pulled at his hair, and the grey sky pressed down, and for a long moment neither of them spoke. Then he laughed again, that same surprised sound, and shook his head.
“You are the most disconcerting woman I have ever met.”
“I shall take that as a compliment.”
“You should.” He straightened, and the movement restored the distance between them, the careful space of propriety. “I find myself hoping, Miss Ainsworth, that our debates are not concluded.”
“Are you asking for another?”
“I am stating a fact. We will meet again. At my mother’s ball, if not before.” He paused. “You have received the invitation, I assume?”
“We have.”
“And you will attend?”
“My mother has already written the acceptance.”
“Good.” He held her gaze. “I look forward to it.”
There was nothing improper in the words. Nothing that could not be said in front of a dozen chaperones. But the way he said it, the weight he gave the simple phrase, made Sophia’s breath catch in her throat.
“Then I shall endeavour not to disappoint,” she said.
“You could not if you tried.”
He bowed, a formal gesture that felt like anything but formality. Then he turned and walked away along the promenade, his greatcoat billowing in the wind, his figure growing smaller against the grey expanse of the sea.
Sophia remained at the railing. Her hands were cold.
Her heart was not. She watched him until he disappeared around the curve of the coast, and then she watched the empty space where he had been, and she tried to remember all the reasons why Lord Alistair Cavendish was the last man in England she should find interesting.
The reasons were there. They were excellent reasons. They were logical and prudent and entirely correct.
She could not feel a single one of them.
The wind picked up, sharp with the promise of rain, and Sophia turned at last toward home. The promenade stretched before her, grey and empty now, the fashionable strollers driven indoors by the weather. She walked alone, her boots striking the stone in a steady rhythm, and she did not look back.
But she thought about his eyes, and his laugh, and the way he had said I look forward to it as if the words meant something more than courtesy.
And she thought about the essays, the words she had written in secret and sent into the world like messages in bottles, never expecting anyone to read them.
Someone was reading them. Someone was hunting for their author.
And Lord Alistair Cavendish, with his sharp eyes and his sharper mind, had just demonstrated that he noticed far more than he pretended.
The rain began as she reached the Marine Parade, a fine drizzle that misted her bonnet and darkened the shoulders of her pelisse. She climbed the steps to the Ainsworth residence and paused with her hand on the door, looking back once at the grey waters of the Channel.
Somewhere out there, a fishing boat was coming home. Somewhere out there, a man with eyes the colour of winter sea was walking away from her. And somewhere in the rooms behind this door, her mother was waiting with questions Sophia did not know how to answer.
She pushed the door open. The warmth of the house closed around her, and the smell of tea and beeswax and something that might have been anxiety.
“Sophia?” Her mother’s voice, from the sitting room. “Is that you?”
“Yes, Mama.”
She unpinned her damp bonnet and handed it to the maid. Her fingers were steady. Her face was composed. She walked into the sitting room with her spine straight and her expression arranged in exactly the shape the occasion required.
But in her mind, she was still standing at the railing, and the wind was still blowing, and a man she was supposed to despise had looked at her as if she were the only real thing in a world of performances.