Chapter Thirty-Four
“You’re out of sorts,” Eden’s sister, Anna, observed at dinner his first week back in London. “Even more so than usual. You’ve barely said a word all evening.”
Out of sorts. If Anna thought he was merely out of sorts he was doing an excellent job of pretending to be in high spirits.
He could not recall a time since childhood that he’d ever been so at a loss for joy.
It wore on him, feigning normalcy each day as he went about his business, when all he wanted was to be left alone.
“I’m unenthusiastic about being here in town,” he said, which was true, but not the reason for the relentlessly gray way he felt. “I was enjoying my time in the country.”
“Dogs, horses, and fresh air,” Anna said drily to her husband, Gilby Howe. “The only things my brother truly longs for.”
No. What he longed for was waking up beside a certain kindhearted, foulmouthed woman he could not stop thinking about.
Gilby gave him a sympathetic look, though Eden knew Gilby was a Londoner through and through, and found the countryside as dull as Tha?s did.
Tha?s. He longed to say her name out loud. He missed the feeling of it on his tongue. But who could he speak of her to, even in passing? No one knew they were acquainted in any more than the most cursory way.
“I’m fine,” he assured his sister. “Merely tired from the opening of Parliament.”
“Well,” Anna said, “whatever you are, it’s time to summon some enthusiasm. You can’t be morose while courting at a ball. You have to show the ladies your charming side.” She paused and grinned at him. “If you possess a charming side, that is.”
He shot her a withering look.
“No,” she said and laughed. “Certainly not that one. Try a smile.”
He humorlessly bared his teeth at her, and she dissolved into laughter.
“How’s work going, Gilby?” he asked his brother-in-law, to change the subject. Gilby was preparing evidence against a slave trader accused of attempting to kidnap a group of free Black men on a ship bound for the West Indies.
Gilby opened his mouth to reply, but Anna held up a finger to stop him.
“Didn’t Mathson prepare notes for you on potential brides?” she asked. “Surely you must be excited to meet a few of the young ladies tonight.”
“Of course,” he said, though he could not summon much conviction, even for show. He could barely remember the specifics of any of the girls he’d read about. What he remembered was Tha?s’s responses to them.
Particularly that final one.
“Try a little harder to convince me,” his sister said.
“In truth, no one caught my particular interest.”
“Well, anyone will seem uninteresting when her characteristics are inventoried in a list by a man more accustomed to sending reports on sheep,” Anna said. “You should have let me write the reports. I’m much more florid.”
“It doesn’t matter. If I’m not struck in person, a list of accomplishments is meaningless.”
She looked at him with mild surprise. “But you love lists of accomplishments. What has come over you?”
Tha?s was what had come over him. He could no longer think about courtship without hearing her voice admonishing him. There’s no such thing as perfect. Only perfect for you.
He wondered what would happen if she escorted him through the capital’s ballrooms, observing his interactions with potential brides. Would she dismiss all the girls out of hand, the same way she’d done when she’d read about them in his letters?
Of course, none of the young ladies in question would associate with him—perfect for him or not—if he showed up with a courtesan on his arm.
He needed to stop thinking about her.
But he couldn’t.
He hated how things had ended. How they’d formed an intimacy unlike any he had ever known, only to end in a bitter détente. At least when she’d arrived they’d been cordial acquaintances. Now he suspected that if he met her in the street, she’d walk the other way.
And after that brutal remark he’d made, she deserved to feel that way.
She’d recognized his words for exactly what they were: evidence of an instinctive thought that she was less than him.
The torment of it was he didn’t even actually believe that it was true. The more he thought about the impulse that had made him laugh off the idea of marriage to her, the more it seemed archaic and revolting. He knew Tha?s, and he knew that she was every bit as deserving of his respect and kindness as any other woman. More deserving because she’d given him so much and taken nothing back from him, save coin he could easily afford to spend. Aside from Anna and his mother, no other woman—no other person—had ever been so close to him.
He was grateful to her.
He missed her.
Her enormous personality. Her intelligence, which came at him fierce and sideways. Her raucous laugh and wretched language and tumbling red hair. Her body, warm beside him in bed.
What he’d give for even one more day with her. A chance to undo what he’d done.
A chance to tell her he was sorry that he’d hurt her.
That it was he who was the undeserving one between them.
But the truth was, however deeply he regretted his snobbery, a hard fact underlay it: he could not be with her. It was not merited or fair, but it was incontrovertible. He was an earl, and she was a whore.
Their time was over.
And he was being ridiculous, letting himself brood on the past, when he should be welcoming the future.
The future that started tonight, at the opening ball of the season.
Anna chattered the entire carriage ride to Lady Rasby’s gracious St. James’s town house, peppering him with tips on how to behave and whom to talk to. As soon as they were announced, she delivered him to Lady Rasby herself, who had evidently promised Anna to introduce him to every mama and daughter in the room.
He poured himself into the task of seeming like an eligible gentleman. He smiled, bowed, asked polite questions. But the girls all seemed so young, so nervous, so inexperienced. Though he was far from the eldest bachelor in the room, they made him feel ancient. In such formal confines, with such perfectly mannered women, he found himself reverting to exactly the same behaviors Tha?s had called stiff and remote. (Or, in her parlance, priggish and cold as a witch’s kitty.)
And though he felt crass for thinking of it, none of the girls he met drew the interest of his body. He scanned the crowd for more curvaceous figures or tumbles of red hair. But Tha?s’s figure was not in fashion among the upper crust. Many of the girls were whippet-thin, their hair arranged in tight ringlets pinned atop their heads with pearls and flowers. Some were gorgeous, some were plain, but none of them tempted his eye to linger.
He retreated to the billiards room and drank a brandy with a few acquaintances from his club to fortify himself.
“On the hunt?” Lord Zachary, an occasional ally in Parliament, asked him. “Don’t usually see you at these evening dos.”
“I’ve decided to marry,” Eden said.
Zachary laughed at him, though not unkindly. “You sound awfully morose about it. Women are not illnesses, you know.”
Eden rolled his eyes at himself. “You’re right. It’s just that I hate these things. Circulating among the crowds, meeting so many people all at once. I can’t believe anyone comes to balls for enjoyment.”
“Oh, they’re not all bad. Finish your drink, and I’ll take you for a spin. We’ll find you a pretty girl to dance with.”
Eden had no desire to dance with any girl, pretty or not, unless she were Tha?s. But this was not an attitude that was going to lead to him being settled with a family, so he threw back the last of his drink and followed Zachary from the room and back out into the swirl.
Zachary frowned at a very young lady sitting alone in the corner. “Oh dear,” he said. “Poor Miss Clark is unattended. She’s a friend of my sister’s. Let’s go rescue her. I’ll introduce you.”
Eden was struck by Zachary’s kindness. As a sought-after gentleman, there were plenty of people waving him over and competing for his interest. Nevertheless, he went directly to the young lady all but shivering from fear in the corner of the room.
“Miss Clark,” Zachary said warmly, “I was not aware you were out this season.”
“Yes,” she said in a voice scarcely louder than a whisper. “My first ball.” She lowered her eyes. “I don’t think I’m very good at it.”
“Ah, well then, you should meet my friend here. Lord Eden, this is Miss Emily Clark. Miss Clark, Eden here detests socializing and is perfectly miserable.”
Oh. Miss Emily Clark. This was the young lady he’d heard Lord Bell had taken an interest in. The woman to whose uncle he had written a letter of warning and from whom he’d heard nothing back.
Looking at her in the flesh, he was even more appalled by Bell’s intentions. Though Miss Clark was of age to marry, she had the appearance and demeanor of a girl still in the nursery. She could easily be fourteen years old.
“A pleasure to meet you, Miss Clark,” Eden said.
He felt so bad for her cowering here all alone that he impulsively decided to ask her for a dance. She accepted, looking exceedingly relieved, and he led her out onto the floor.
He noticed many eyes glancing at them in surprise. He was not sure if it was because people were unused to him joining the dancing or if they were expecting to see Miss Clark on Lord Bell’s arm.
Miss Clark was an able dancer, nimble on her tiny feet. Eden led her across the floor with the competence he’d possessed since childhood.
He did not, as Tha?s had instructed, make a promise to her with his body. He could not fathom doing such a thing with any of the proper young ladies in this room. Surely, they’d be as horrified as he was uncomfortable and insincere.
They were like pristine little angels.
He’d come to find he had a taste for devils.
When the movement was over, he and Miss Clark adjourned for the refreshments table.
“Thank you for the dance,” he said. “You do it well.”
“As do you, milord. Though, you are being kind. In truth, I am better in the library than the ballroom. I prefer reading to dancing.”
He was surprised by her candor, not to mention her rueful tone. “Is that right? I will confess I share your taste. What do you like to read?”
“Modern philosophy,” she said. “I recently enjoyed the work of Mr. Adam Smith. And—” she glanced around them and lowered her voice “—Mary Wollstonecraft.”
He could not stop himself from raising a brow at her. “Miss Clark. You are a scandal.”
“I only tell you because I know your sister is a friend to the Duchess of Rosemere.”
Her implication being that if he allowed his sister to associate with Cornelia Ludgate and her ilk, he must have progressive views.
Which he did.
Unlike the man who Miss Clark was reputedly fated to marry. Bell took an almost sadistic pleasure in persecuting Cornelia and Seraphina for their radical views and close friendship with his estranged wife. He’d led a faction against them and their Institute in the papers and was suspected to have done much worse.
What a ghastly match.
Before he could offer a discreet word of warning, they were joined by a Mrs. Perth, Miss Clark’s chaperone, who appeared old enough to be Eden’s grandmother. Mrs. Perth announced their carriage was waiting.
He felt fond of the girl as he watched her walk away. And could not imagine her in the clutches of a brute like Lord Bell.
It made Eden wonder if he should marry her, just to protect her from such a fate.
It was exactly the kind of match Tha?s had warned him away from. After all, there was no way he would want to consummate a marriage with such a girl for years. It would essentially defeat the purpose of marrying at all, given that he was only doing so to have a family.
But if tonight had proven anything, it was that there were no women in this milieu who moved him like Tha?s. She had said he needed to find a woman perfect for him.
He’d already found her and lost her.
Protecting a woman might be the best that he could do as a husband.
It would stand in place of loving her.
He resolved to send Miss Clark flowers and call on her the following afternoon.