Chapter 27 #2
“A book,” she said. “Translated from the Chinese. A physician in the East described it. He said that pain lives in circles and can be coaxed out the way it came in.”
“That sounds like philosophy.”
“It is,” she said. “Hold still.”
She worked in silence for a minute more, then changed the angle of her hands and pressed along the muscle that tethered the joint.
His shoulders lowered. The carriage hit a rut, but he didn’t swear.
Cordelia pretended to examine the route through the window with great interest. Louisa pretended to sleep and succeeded.
“Better?” Adeline asked.
“Yes.” He sounded surprised, and she smiled.
“You may pronounce it nonsense tomorrow,” she said. “Not tonight.”
He let out a breath that almost counted as a laugh. “As you command.”
She returned to her seat, their knees nearly touching on the cushion. The carriage’s lamps threw a quiet circle on the ceiling. The two on the opposite bench breathed in the even rhythm of people who had made a temporary peace with the dark. Winston opened his mouth and closed it. He tried again.
“May I ask you something not very clever?”
“You may ask,” she said.
“My mother would say I’m bound to marry well,” he said, keeping his voice to the space between them. “I’ve spent years pretending to know what that means. I don’t. Is it rank? Is it a list of qualities on a paper? Or is it something else entirely?”
Adeline felt the question's edges. It wasn’t only a question about Society. It was the outline of a different, larger question he was not yet ready to ask. Her heart beat once, hard and careful.
Winston, do you really think there can be a happy ending between us? If you do, it is only because you do not yet know the truth.
“People say rank,” she said. “And money. And houses. They mean those, because they’re easy to see. Perhaps well is quieter. The kind of person a child runs to when she has a bad dream. The kind who doesn’t leave when the room is difficult. The kind who tells the truth when it’s costly.”
He looked at her. “Character.”
“Yes.”
“And if character and rank disagree?”
“Then you choose the one you’ll be able to live with when the lamps are out.”
He studied the dark beyond the window for a moment. “You make it sound simple.”
“It isn’t,” she said. “But simple to say isn’t the same as simple to do.”
He nodded as if that were exactly what he’d expected her to say and exactly what he dreaded.
The carriage slowed for a crossing. Louisa sighed and slid down the cushion until her head found Cordelia’s lap.
Cordelia’s hand settled on the child’s hair without looking, the way a person breathes without thinking.
They reached St. James’s Place while the lamps still burned strong in the street.
Housemaids had left a fire in the library and another upstairs.
The night drew its own line under the evening without asking their permission.
Later, after Louisa had been tucked into bed and Cordelia settled with a book she didn’t read, Winston stood with Adeline in the corridor outside the sitting room.
“Thank you,” he said.
“For the knee?”
“For the knee. And the lemonade.”
She made a face. “I owe you two lemonades.”
“I owe you less pain,” he said. He hesitated a fraction. “You did right, out there.”
She didn’t ask how much he believed. “We should go home,” she said instead. “Greystone will be easier.”
Her breath caught when she realized she had referred to Greystone as home. The look on Winston’s face, the half smile, the lean in that could easily be disguised as a relaxed posture; all told her that he had noticed as well.
“Yes, home will be easier for all of us. London is an excellent place to visit…”
“But I would not wish to live here,” Adeline finished.
Winston’s answer was a grin, and his relaxed posture had moved him closer to her.
She looked into his eyes as long as she dared and wished she could do so without blushing.
Putting a hand to the windowsill behind her, she affected a relaxed posture of her own.
Her arm touched his, their fingers lay as bedfellows, side by side.
The contact was brief but awakened her imagination, sent tongues of fire swirling through her.
“We’ll go at first light,” Winston said.
Reluctantly, Adeline turned to go and then looked back again. There was something else in his face, a question that had mutinied and refused to march. He let it be a moment longer.
“Good night,” he said finally.
“Good night,” she answered, and went down the corridor to her room with the quiet, urgent wish that tomorrow would keep its promises.
In her chamber, she sat on the edge of the bed and unlaced her bodice with fingers that were steadier than they had been in weeks.
She thought of Robert Grebe’s face when the water took him and of Winston’s jaw when pain loosened its hold.
She thought of Lord Duskwood waiting at Greystone and a house called Briarwood with clean plaster and space enough for new habits.
She blew out the candle. The room settled. The city made its far-off sounds. She lay down and told herself she would sleep. She did not quite. But when she drifted, the dreams were of apples and neat rows and a path that did not yet fork, only ran on.