Chapter 9 #2
She tilted her head just so, a curl grazing his shoulder. “I do nothing by half measures, Mr Deverell. If I mean to flirt, I shall do so without ambiguity.”
His jaw tightened; the leather of his glove creaked as his hand clenched in his lap.
“And if I mean to kiss you,” she continued, softer still, her breath warm against the shell of his ear, “I shall not wait for moonlight to grant permission.”
A sharp tsk from the duchess sliced through the dark.
The pair sprang apart with the guilt of two pupils caught whispering during prayers. Jasper cleared his throat and fixed his eyes upon the stage; Miss Tolliver, with immaculate composure, snapped open her fan.
They behaved themselves, more or less, until the interval.
When the curtain fell at last and attendants began bustling through the aisles with lemonade, ratafia and sugared confections, Miss Tolliver turned to Jasper once more.
“Well,” she said lightly. “What is your verdict on the play thus far, Mr Deverell?”
“I find it tolerably entertaining,” he said, accepting a glass of lemonade from a passing attendant. “A little wit, a great deal of shouting, and quite a lot of longing disguised as contempt. Altogether very familiar.”
“Familiar?”
“Indeed. An entire act spent denying one’s affections, followed by another spent failing to conceal them.”
“Yes,” she said thoughtfully, accepting a glass of her own. “I suppose it must seem familiar to you.”
Jasper lifted a brow. “How so?”
“Well,” she replied, “you are very like Benedick.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“You did suggest the comparison. And now I find I cannot unsee it.”
“In what respect am I like him, pray?” he asked, feigning affront. “Is it my wit? My charm? My unmatched verbal dexterity?”
“It is your pride,” she replied, sweet as a sugared plum. “And your maddening conviction that you are far more desirable than you truly are.”
He took a measured sip of lemonade before turning in his chair, enough to regard her with renewed interest. “That seems a severe judgement.”
“Oh, I have not yet begun judging you, Mr Deverell. Shall I proceed?”
He took another slow sip of lemonade, never looking away. “By all means.”
“Benedick is simply insufferable. All that swagger and sulking. I cannot imagine how Beatrice restrains herself from striking him with a candlestick.”
“I daresay she is biding her time. And besides, women are not generally encouraged to strike men, no matter how thoroughly they may deserve it.”
“Indeed. We are encouraged to endure men in silence, and faint prettily at the first sign of distress.”
He smirked. “I cannot picture you fainting prettily, Miss Tolliver. Threatening prettily, perhaps—but never fainting.”
She inclined her head in mock gravity.
Jasper leant back in his chair, letting his gaze drift over the glittering sea of patrons in the theatre below. “Still, one must allow Benedick some forgiveness. He does possess a certain wit.”
“Wit, yes. But always wrapped in self-importance. He struts about Messina so assured of his own excellence—because, naturally, he is a man.”
Jasper bit his cheek to stifle his smile.
There were, certainly, advantages attached to his sex, but Miss Tolliver could not possibly understand the expectations that attended them.
That, of course, was far too revealing, and so instead he sipped his champagne and arranged his expression to one of easy superiority.
“Well, there are certain privileges attached to the condition.”
She turned very slowly to look at him, her posture composed to perfection, the graceful angle of her neck revealing the pale column of her throat. “Ah,” she said softly. “There it is.”
“There what is?”
“The inevitable condescension. As predictable as the interval. Tell me, Mr Deverell,” her eyes flicked to his mouth, “do you believe yourself superior in every pursuit merely by virtue of your cock?”
“I believe,” he said, straightening in his seat at the word, “that I possess the advantage of training and experience. I was taught to ride, to fence, to shoot, all before I could properly manage a cravat. I was trained, in short, to kill a man at twenty paces.” He glanced at her sidelong.
It was true, of course, though he knew he was provoking her.
“You, I imagine, were instructed to pour tea without spilling and waltz without wilting.”
“Oh, indeed. And yet,” she returned, “I seem to recall that the last duel you attended ended with your best friend bleeding in the grass.”
“You shot him, Miss Tolliver.”
“Precisely.”
Their eyes held a moment too long. Miss Tolliver’s lips parted slightly, and Jasper—who had already tasted them twice, and thought of little else since—found his attention straying in a most ungovernable direction.
Behind them, Langley gave a pointed cough.
Jasper blinked and looked away.
Langley rose and tugged on his gloves. “If I am not returned within ten minutes, assume I have flung myself from the balcony.”
“Shall I send for a net?” Miss Tolliver asked sweetly.
Theo gave her a look of reproach. “Your sister is now responsible for your continued existence. Do try not to duel the cast, provoke a diplomat, or abscond with a bottle of claret.”
“I shall endeavour,” Miss Tolliver said demurely, “to behave with uncharacteristic restraint.”
Langley gave a sound halfway between a sigh and a warning, and disappeared behind the curtain.
Jasper let out a breath.
By God, Miss Tolliver was a wild thing.
She wielded charm the way a man might wield a blade. Had she been born a man, Jasper suspected they would have been excellent friends: riding recklessly, gambling irresponsibly, drinking port until dawn. He suspected, too, he would have still desired her, regardless of her sex.
But Miss Tolliver was not a man. She could not ride alone, drink port in public, or fire a pistol without scandal, and yet somehow she gave the impression of having done all these things already—and would again, if only given the chance.
“I do grow rather tired,” Miss Tolliver murmured then, as though following the very shape of his thoughts, “of being told what I cannot do.”
Jasper turned towards her once more, but she was not watching him. Her eyes were distant, fixed somewhere past the edge of the box.
“Particularly,” she continued, softer now, “by gentlemen who have never once thought to ask what I might.”
Jasper regarded her for a long moment. “You surprise me, Miss Tolliver.”
She glanced at him, arching one brow.
“I had supposed you quite accustomed to bending rules when it suits you.”
“Oh, I am,” she said lightly. “But it is one thing to bend a rule. It is quite another to be told repeatedly, inflexibly, and often condescendingly, that you are not even built for the game.”
“This is about Langley, I assume.”
“It is about every Langley,” she said. “Every man.
No—every person who guards the gate and declares who may pass.
“ She took a small sip of lemonade and set the glass carefully upon the ledge before her.
“You may smile, Mr Deverell, but do you have any notion of how many things I have been cautioned against today alone?”
“I imagine it is a lengthy list.”
“Indeed. I was advised not to raise my voice, lest I appear ungovernable. Not to laugh too heartily, as it is unladylike. Not to speak too plainly. Not to contradict a gentleman, even when he is manifestly wrong. I must not walk unescorted, or eat more than one syllabub, or touch the duke’s dog, or express a preference for one horse over another.
And now, of course, I must not duel the cast nor abscond with the wine. ”
“The claret, I believe, was named in particular.”
“I am quite partial to claret.”
Jasper attempted not to grin and failed.
“There are so many rules, Mr Deverell. So very many do nots. It is a wonder women manage to accomplish anything at all.”
He tilted his head, his expression turning thoughtful.
There were, after all, a great many things a man must be: steady, capable, purposeful; he must distinguish himself, command respect, make something of consequence of his life—and do it all without ever appearing to try too hard, or to care too much.
Jasper had long since perfected the art of seeming equal to such expectations (to all but his father), which was not at all the same thing as being so.
What might it be, he wondered, to be a woman within such a system? To live under so many restrictions, without even the small freedoms that rendered them tolerable?
“And what is it, Miss Tolliver,” he said very quietly, “that you believe you might do, if not told so ceaselessly that you must not?”
She tilted her head in imitation, considering the question, then said, quite simply, “Anything you can.”