Chapter 7 #2
“Kneeling on dry peas. Standing with my hands outstretched and a book in each palm for an hour. Silence, for days, which is a punishment when you are the sort of girl whose thoughts run until someone interrupts them.”
Stephen stared at the far wall.
“And men after him looked like… him.”
“They looked like a rule,” she said, and barely smiled at herself. “I am trying to learn how to ignore rules that do not belong to me.”
He said nothing for a moment.
“I am going to find you a man who hates that sort of rule.”
“If he hates rules entirely, he will be difficult to live with,” she returned, because if she did not make a small jest, she might weep; and weeping would feel like giving the steward one more hour than he deserved.
She felt a strange weight having been lifted off her chest as she spoke now. It was no secret to the girls in the nunnery that this was the treatment she had received, but to those outside of it, she could never bring herself to talk about it.
Perhaps it was because they had asked her too many questions, while Stephen had been curious without probing too much. It was an art, truly. And he seemed to have mastered it.
As he had many things.
“A man who hates cruelty’s rules,” Stephen amended. “If he raises his voice, it will be because the fire has taken the roof, not because a hem has frayed.” He turned his head the smallest degree.
“Do you understand? I do not say I will find a saint. I do not trust saints. I will find you a man who is safe.”
She looked at him. His face, usually arranged to pay for his arrogance, had a different sort of expression on it altogether. He did not look like a duke just then. He looked like a brother who had decided he would burn down a house if it meant a sister could sleep.
Or perhaps something else, but she did not wish to give a name to that thought yet. But there was concern, and it was earnest. That was more than enough, and certainly more than what he owed to her.
“Thank you,” she said, and the phrase felt paltry. “I do not deserve…”
“Stop there,” he said, so quietly she obeyed before she could decide whether to argue. “You deserve everything you can bear. When you cannot bear it, I will carry it or I will take it away.” His mouth twisted. “For a week.”
“For a week,” she echoed. “And then I will be…placed.”
“And then you will be placed,” he said. “Well, if I have my way.”
She let the silence be companionable. She found herself smiling without anyone having earned it.
“We have wasted five minutes on confessions. Should I be punished by more steps?”
“You should be rewarded,” he said, rising and offering his hand again. “But you’ll have to settle for steps.”
She took his hand and stood. “Command me, Your Grace.”
“I intend to,” he said, perfectly even. He arranged them.
“We will do three things. First, you will begin without apology.”
“I never apologize.”
“You apologize,” he said. “Second, you will stop helping me lead.”
“I... help?”
“You think of what I might do and try to do it first.” He arched a brow. “Annoying.”
“That is… fair.”
“Third,” he said, “if I say ‘close,’ you will come nearer. Not scandalously. Just enough to know that if the world collapses, you will not.”
“I…”
“Humor me.”
“Very well.”
“Begin,” he said, “One…two…three…”
They moved
“Ask me something,” he said as they turned. “Conversation while moving will save you a hundred awkward sets.”
“What makes you laugh when no one is watching?” she repeated from last night, because she wanted to hear whether the answer changed.
“Dogs sneezing,” he said, a smile touching his mouth in exactly the same place as before. “And the way men try to remember which lies they’ve told.”
“You are very hard on men,” she said.
“I am very hard on myself,” he returned. “Men receive the leftovers. Ask me something you would never ask in a ballroom.”
She did not think; she startled herself.
“Who did not keep his word?”
“We do not need to talk about that.”
“I am sorry,” she said.
“So am I,” he murmured, so lightly she might have believed he was teasing her if she had not felt the old iron there. “Close.”
She obeyed again. The room tightened around the space between them.
“Look at me,” he said.
She did. She kept it for one, two, and then three.
“You blush easily,” he said, satisfied.
“You sound smug.”
“I sound relieved.”
“Relieved?”
“It means you care,” he said. “Caring reads well.”
“That is a dreadful thing to say.”
“It is true,” he said, and guided her through a turn that would have made her stumble an hour ago and now did not. “Again.”
She had improved.
“Enough,” he said at last, drawing them to stillness. He released her and did not, quite, step back.
“If I keep you longer, the floor will begin to gossip.”
“You told me you paid it not to.”
“Even bribery fails at two in the morning,” he said, and that made her smile.
“I was not… terrible.”
“You were not,” he said. “You were brave.”
“Blue makes me brave,” she said, and he only nodded as if she had reminded them both of a rule that actually belonged to her.
She looked toward the screen. “Your man…”
“Will cough once if there is danger,” he said. “Twice if Nicholas is in his shirtsleeves.”
She swallowed a laugh and then surprised herself with honesty.
“Thank you. For… not being angry. For this.”
“It is my week’s work.”
“And after your week?”
“After my week,” he said evenly, “you will not look at your feet unless you are admiring your shoes.”
She hesitated. Impulse brought her hand half-up, toward his sleeve, toward a touch that made no sense.
She stopped it.
“Good night, Your Grace,” she said.
“Good night, Miss Havenford.” He stepped aside and then remembered something and stepped back into her line.
“Tomorrow, dancing again. In daylight. With other people.
If you find a man who will not stop talking about himself, you will say, ‘Mr. So-and-so, you are very reassuringly certain. Will you save some of that certainty for later and dance?”
She covered her smile with the back of her hand. “ I shall keep that in mind.”
“You are learning,” he said gently.
From behind the screen came the faintest cough, once. He lifted his brows: time.
Maria gathered her skirts, felt for her courage, and found it where he had placed it. She moved toward the door.
“Miss Havenford.”
She turned.
He looked at her as if memorizing a thing that he would never admit out loud.
“You are not a chair in anyone’s house,” he said. “Remember that tomorrow when men are talking.”
She swallowed.
“I will.”
On the other side of the panel, Maria paused, her fingers on the wood.
Somehow, a week did not feel long enough.