Chapter 22
The Mercer ball was not, by any measure that mattered, a great ball. The Mercers were prosperous and ambitious, and their ballroom was large enough.
But they occupied that precise stratum of society where the truly fashionable came when they had nothing better to do, and everyone else came hoping proximity might do something for them.
Genevieve had attended two of their events before and found them lively and warm in a way she preferred to more elevated gatherings.
She wore the pale green silk that Thomas had said, on two separate occasions, suited her particularly well. She had noted both occasions without commenting on them.
She had not told Thomas why she had chosen it.
She had simply worn it, and he had looked at her in the hallway before they left with an expression that lasted only a moment before he offered his arm, and she had decided that was sufficient.
She had been nervous in a way she could not entirely account for.
She had attended a dozen events with Thomas by now and had long since moved past the self-consciousness of the early weeks.
But something in her said tonight would not be so simple.
It is truly illogical, is it not?
They arrived to find the rooms already populous, the music already under way, and the ambient temperature of the gathering already several degrees above comfortable.
Genevieve moved through the crowd , her hand on Thomas's arm, nodding and smiling and exchanging the small, warm fragments of conversation that constituted the first half hour of any ball.
After a short while, Thomas went to speak to a friend he had seen across the room.
For a small moment, the tightness and anxiety in her chest released. She smiled as she talked and laughed with people.
Then, she turned her head.
She saw Clarissa before Clarissa saw her.
It gave her a moment she had not asked for and was not entirely sure she wanted.
A moment of observing her sister unobserved, which was a luxury Clarissa had never particularly extended to her in return.
She looked well. Better than Genevieve had expected, though she could not have said what she had expected exactly.
Something chastened, perhaps? Something slightly reduced?
There was nothing reduced about Clarissa. There never had been.
Her sister was standing near the far window with a small group that Genevieve recognized in part.
Lydia Hargrove, and one or two others whose connection to Clarissa she could not immediately place.
She was wearing something deep blue that suited her spectacularly, because Clarissa had always known how to wear colors.
Her hair was dressed high and she was laughing at something with the full, beautiful laugh that had always made people turn to look at her.
Genevieve felt the small, familiar complicated feeling that had been Clarissa's accompaniment in her life. Not dislike, nothing so simple, but rather the bracing sensation of encountering a force of nature and needing to decide how to stand in relation to it.
She steered gently in Clarissa's direction, because to avoid her would have been obvious. But also, because she genuinely wanted the reunion to go well. She was aware that this made her, in certain estimations, foolish.
Caroline had once said as much, in the gentle, sideways manner Caroline used when she wanted Genevieve to hear something she suspected Genevieve already knew. “She is not your responsibility,” Caroline had said. “Her comfort in society is not something you owe her.”
Genevieve had heard her. She had not, in the end, been able to fully apply it. They were sisters. Whatever stood between them currently was the product of circumstance, and Genevieve had always been the sort of person who believed that most things could be managed with sufficient goodwill.
Clarissa saw her at precisely the right moment, and her expression opened into delight with a speed that Genevieve noted and chose to take at face value.
"Mrs. Harrington." Lydia materialized at Genevieve's elbow. "How lovely. I do not think we have had the chance to speak properly."
"No," Genevieve agreed pleasantly. "We have not."
"I am so glad to see you looking well," Lydia said. "After everything."
Genevieve looked at her steadily.
"After everything," she agreed.
A small, knowing pause. Lydia smoothed her glove.
"You have been so brave about the whole thing. Most women would have found it… Well. Very difficult."
"Most women find most things difficult when they choose to." Genevieve smiled. "I find it generally more useful to simply get on with things."
A flicker across Lydia's face, too quick to be certain of.
"I always say the same. Clarissa's return has been so unexpected. For everyone." A little tilt of the head. "I imagine especially for you and Mr. Harrington, given the circumstances of your marriage."
There it was. Genevieve held her smile with something like iron underneath it.
You have about thirty seconds before I say something you will not enjoy.
"The circumstances of my marriage," she said, "are that I married Mr. Harrington. I do not think of it as more complicated than that."
"Of course." Lydia's eyes were warm and interested and not at all kind. "Though it must be strange, must not it, to always wonder—"
"Lydia."
Both women turned.
Clarissa came directly to them, all smiles.
"Genevieve." Clarissa turned to her. The smile remained in place, exact and measured. "What a surprise."
"Is it?" Genevieve said.
A breath of silence. Lydia looked between them with bright, alert attention.
"I shall leave you both be," Lydia said, and removed herself with a speed that confirmed she intended to do nothing of the sort.
They were as alone as one could be in a crowded drawing room. Genevieve kept her posture easy, her teacup in her hand, her expression friendly.
"You look well," Clarissa said.
"Thank you. So do you."
"Do I?" For a moment, a brief, unguarded moment, something shifted in Clarissa's face, something that was almost honest. Then it was gone. A silence.
"Lydia tells me," Clarissa said, "that your marriage is… settling in well."
"It is."
"Thomas seems—" A small pause, decorative as a rest in music. "Very attentive."
"He is," Genevieve said calmly. "He's a good man."
"He always was." Clarissa's voice was light, effortless. "One of the best I have known."
Genevieve looked at her sister.
"He is my husband, Clarissa."
Not loudly. Not with any particular edge to it. Simply as a statement of fact, the kind that did not require ornamentation because it was already complete.
Clarissa's chin went up, fractionally.
"I know that."
"Good." Genevieve picked up her teacup again. "Then we understand each other."
"I only meant—"
"I know what you meant." Genevieve looked at her and let her see, briefly and clearly, that she did.
"I have always known what you meant. We are sisters.
I can read you as well as you can read me, and probably somewhat better, because I have been paying attention for years and you have generally been too occupied being dramatic to notice. "
Clarissa opened her mouth. Closed it.
"I love you," Genevieve said. "You are my sister, and I am glad you are home and not lying in a ditch somewhere, which is where I spent several weeks imagining you might be.
I want good things for you. I want you to find a life that makes you happy.
" She paused. "But do not mistake my kindness for inattention.
And do not test my husband's good nature, because his patience, unlike mine, has a floor. "
A long, still moment.
Something moved across Clarissa's face. Complicated and perhaps, if Genevieve was being generous, not entirely without shame.
The practiced beauty of her expression fractured, just slightly, and underneath it Genevieve caught a glimpse of the girl she had grown up beside, prickly and envious and genuinely, achingly wanting.
It lasted only a moment. Then Clarissa smiled again.
"You have changed," she said.
"I have grown up," Genevieve said. "You might try it."
She said it without heat, the way you said things that were simply true and did not require anger to support them.
Clarissa stared at her. Then, unexpectedly, she made a sound that was almost a laugh.
Short and a little disbelieving, as though Genevieve had produced something she had not thought her capable of.
Then, Genevieve felt warmth at her side. Glancing up, Thomas was there. His expression tense but not yet stormy.
She felt, rather than saw, the moment Clarissa's attention shifted to Thomas. It was a subtle thing. A slight brightening, a particular arrangement of expression. She could not have described what changed, only that something did.
"Thomas." Clarissa smiled at her brother-in-law with the full effect of her smile, the one that had always operated on men like a language they did not know they spoke. "It is so good to see you."
Thomas inclined his head.
"Clarissa. I hope you are well."
Clarissa tilted her head slightly.
"You have been keeping well, I think? I hear you have been very social." There was nothing in her tone that could be objected to. The words were entirely ordinary and the warmth in them was entirely convincing and Genevieve, who had grown up listening to Clarissa's various registers.
"We have enjoyed the events we have been able to outside of the season," Thomas said, evenly.
"You both look wonderfully settled." Clarissa's gaze moved to Genevieve with something that in a different face would have been generosity. "Genevieve, I always said marriage would suit you."
Genevieve did not recall her saying any such thing.
"You are kind," Genevieve said pleasantly.
“Not at all, it is just wonderful to see you doing so well,” Clarissa said, her voice saccharine.
“It is good to see you doing well too,” Thomas said. His voice was not flat, per say. No. It was…