Chapter Thirteen
Libba had not had an enjoyable week.
Given how pointless her meticulous planning had been leading up to the first encounter with the Templeton-Raths, she had embarked on the new septet of days with the intention of trying the opposite: improvisation.
Unfortunately, that had become necessary before noon on Sunday, when she’d had to do an abrupt reversal from the path to church because the entire Templeton-Rath family was in attendance.
Even more unfortunately, she’d had to drag Lem away as well, putting his ingratiation with the vicar in somewhat of a perpetual limbo for the time being.
It was infuriating and guilt-inducing, to say the least. Her involvement in Lem’s plans were sincere, righteous, and necessary. Jasper’s plans were none of the three, and yet here they were, taking precedence.
In any event, she’d found the perfect excuse to postpone dinner with her father. The only problem was getting it into the correct tone with ink to paper before she sent off the regrets and promise of a later date.
She had rotated her first sheet of paper no fewer than five times, each with different opening lines facing outward like some sort of deranged sigil.
Sometimes, inspiration just refused to come. Libba knew that very damned well.
Which meant she knew the improvisation pivot was a bad idea. It was far less satisfying doing something petty when one knew it was a bad idea.
She grimaced and pushed her window open, listening for the cluck of the hens in the coop below.
Instead, she heard Ruby and Errol having a tiff about flowers.
He sounded exasperated but never once raised his voice.
Instead, he just repeatedly sighed and said things in aggressively more reasonable tones.
“Because it isn’t a hothouse. It is a greenhouse.
It takes only the heat the sun provides.
Orchids will die in that environment in England!
It would need a tropical heat, something small and devoted and reinforced by external boilers.
Do you know how many we’d have to plant to replace your import supply, anyway? ”
“No,” Ruby snapped back, evidently unconcerned with volume or tone. “I don’t know how many bloody vanilla beans to a flower. Are you going to tell me?”
There was a long pause.
And then he muttered, “Well, I was going to, but now I don’t think I should.”
Libba didn’t even realize she had begun to smile at it, perhaps her first smile in days, until her brother’s voice at the door startled her out of her reverie.
“You know, when we were children, Hattie taught us a word for what you’re doing,” he said, looking fairly amused himself at their voices floating in. “Do you recall it?”
“Schadenfreude,” Libba recited. “Sometimes I think I was supposed to be born a Prussian.”
Malcolm huffed in amusement, striding into the room and collapsing on the corner of her bed nearest to where she was sat at the desk.
“Do you know any Germans, Lib?” he asked, raising his brows.
“Because they are thoroughly entrenched in the London banking system and I’ve met quite a few.
Their central cultural tenet is … well, can you guess? ”
Libba blinked at him. “Chocolate?”
He grinned at her. “Punctuality.”
“Ugh,” she said, wrinkling up her nose. “They’d love Harcourt, then.”
“Then why don’t we build a bloody hothouse?!” Ruby shrieked, dragging both Lennoxes back to the sounds from the window. “Do you know how?!”
“I do,” Errol replied easily. “Or at least who to go to to have one assembled, but if we do this, Ruby, you need to keep it filled.”
She scoffed in such a way that Libba could feel the toss of her hair, even through the brick of the wall. “You think I’ll struggle with that, Errol? No, of course you don’t. Oh! You wanted to show me that giant turnip.”
“Oh, that’s right!” Errol returned, suddenly bright. “We should let it keep growing and then carve it up for Samhain.”
Libba chuckled, dropping her eyes along the shaft of light and pulling them back across the room to her brother. “Do you think they’re ever going to …?”
“Doubtless,” he replied immediately. “When they are eighty.”
“Oh, that would be a deliciously tragic turn in a play,” she said. “But very boring here in reality. We might have to force it one day.”
“What’s that?” he asked, nodding at her jagged star of failed salutations rather than acknowledging this very sensible and inspired suggestion for family meddling. “You’ve penned verse in concurrent circles? Are you writing in code? Oh, or is it a prop?”
“No! It’s nothing!” she snapped, far more tersely than she had intended to, balling the paper in her fist. “Just errant thoughts.”
He frowned at her, eyes flicking down to the little cannonball of parchment in her fist. “Something is odd about you lately,” he observed, scratching at his jaw. “I know you’re up to something. You won’t tell me, will you?”
She shook her head. “I won’t.”
His expression softened, almost wistful. “You used to tell me everything,” he reminded her. “Where’s that Libba?”
“She’s about to turn twelve and find out you threatened the first boy she was ever sweet on,” she said with a sniff and a lift of her chin. “That Libba was many Libbas ago. In fact, she was still Elizabeth.”
“Now, that isn’t true. I threatened the first boy who broke her heart,” he corrected. “There is a difference.”
“There might be,” she allowed. “But my way or yours, it still betrayed my confidence by alerting said boy and all our mutual acquaintances to the fact that I was not only hurt, but that I go running to big brother for everything.”
He frowned. “All right. Are you … Are you sweet on someone new?”
She scoffed, cutting her eyes to him. “Certainly not. And if I were, I would not tell you. But I am not.”
He was still frowning. “You wouldn’t tell me? Why not?”
“Precedent?” she suggested, giving a little laugh. “Mal, you lack discipline in matters of discretion.”
“I lack discipline?” he repeated, aghast. “No one has ever accused me so!”
She rolled her eyes. “Have they accused you of being clenched up so tight, you can chew on your own ribs?”
He glared at her. “They have not.”
She smiled back, slowly, in just the way she knew annoyed him, until he laughed, stood, and dropped a very hard kiss on the part in her hair.
“I’ve got to go into town,” he said. “Do you need anything?”
“Rose oil,” she said immediately. “And if Seph’s is open, I wouldn’t say no to more cashews.”
“Oho, neither would I,” he agreed, perking up a bit as he turned toward the door. “I’ll stop there first. Lib?”
“Hm?” she said, already moving to throw the wadded-up letter drafts in the bin.
“I just want to know,” he said, a hesitant, little frown playing around his lips. “Is Jasper involved?”
“In this?” she asked, crinkling the ball of parchment and then tossing it into the basket. “He is not. I assure you.”
Malcolm seemed to wither a little and nodded. “All right,” he said. “Good. I’ll be back in a few hours.”
“Godspeed,” she told him, swallowing down the guilt that had begun to bubble in her throat.
As soon as he was gone, she penned the damned letter.
And once it was sent, she could not remember what words she’d chosen, in the end.
*
The night of the dinner arrived earlier than she would have liked, but alas, time was often prickly that way.
She had not seen Jasper at all since the day of the wharf incident. She had avoided him, truth be told. Physically, at least.
He hadn’t needed physical presence to hound her every waking step and thought, as it turned out. Though of course, she would never give him the satisfaction of telling him that.
It wasn’t just the waking thoughts and actions he was sabotaging, either.
She hadn’t slept well. Or at least, not what she estimated as sleeping well, for herself.
At least when awake, she could choose what to recall and envision and get into a temper about.
She could conjure his stupid, mangled face or his fully clothed form leaping into the icy seawater. And that was still not ideal.
When she was asleep, he seemed to eternally be in repose in the parlor, splayed on the chaise with nothing but a pair of trousers on and his face miraculously healed.
She’d endured night after night of fireplace shadows dancing over the contours of his bare torso and glinting off his unexpected chest hair.
Tiresome was the right word for it in many clever ways.
Though she couldn’t tell anyone that thought, either, no matter how clever it was.
Instead, she chose another of Juliet’s costumes, this one in emerald brocade and with copper flourishes and an assortment of matching copper accessories. She’d taken the time to carefully oil and curate every strand of her hair so that she could wear it down tonight.
Scandalous, perhaps.
She’d chosen this costume because it parted in the middle, just a hair, showing a flash of her muscled midriff.
Scandalous without a doubt. And unfashionable, to boot, for a woman to have such a build.
She’d been told more than once that she had unseemly muscles for a woman, often in a voice dripping with a potent mélange of derision and desire. Well, they did not see the light of day often enough.
Well, he’d wanted fire, hadn’t he? And no one could say such things were inappropriate in Xandine’s homeland. No one at all.
She’d told herself that again while applying the kohl to her lashes and the rouge to her lips. It was a lighter touch than what she’d wear on stage, far from her audience, but Libba had dressed in dinner-light costume before.
One had to raise funds for a play, after all. Appearing at banquets in character and costume was no foreign concept to the likes of Liberty Lennox.
And if it was to Jasper Townsend, then that was just too bad, wasn’t it?
Why couldn’t he simply be who he was? Why couldn’t he see that Jasper at his root was all that anyone had ever wanted? Malcolm had been telling him that since they’d been children.
She sighed, shaking her head. Perhaps the schemes were just who Jasper was. He was a man of ideas and enthusiasm, and she had always enjoyed that. She had always found it delightful and diverting because she hadn’t realized he was only doing it to prove something.
Now that she could see that, it wasn’t fun anymore.
And tonight, she’d have to make sure once and for all that he abandoned this caper. She’d blow it all up and then afterward, when they were together in the privacy of the carriage, she would apologize and explain. And then it could be over.
Then things could go back to how they were supposed to be. She could still be a little angry about all of this. He could still pout and speak nonsense about the fire he wanted in a woman. But none of it would have real teeth anymore.
She only knew it was time to depart because of Lem’s heavy sigh at the door.
He had opted to dress in the English style, with a garnet-and-gold waistcoat and matching cravat clip, to at least nod toward the color preferences of their imaginary homeland. She had tried to convince him to wear one of the costumes, of which he had many, but he had flatly declined.
“I am attending as your bodyguard, not a dinner guest,” he reasoned. “No one will be looking at me.”
“When has that ever been true?” she’d snapped back, resisting the urge to pout. “Fine.”
“Liberty,” he said, frowning at the effect she had as she stood and swept her hands down the front of her gown. “Is this wise?”
She blinked at him, assuming the docile, vacant Xandine Jasper had hated so much. “Whatever do you mean, Lemuel?”
He flattened his lips at her. “Very well. The coach is here. We are late.”
“Don’t be absurd,” she said, floating across the room and taking his arm. “I have never been late in my life. You know that.”
He chuckled softly to himself, giving a nod. “Ah, yes,” he agreed. “How could I forget?”
“I should be very cross that you chose that red,” she continued. “You know how well it suits you. What did I say to you the day I hired you into the troupe?”
He was still laughing, his broad shoulders shaking as he helped her into the carriage. “Not to outshine you. Ever.”
“Ever!” she repeated. “You broke that rule first. Ah, how long is the ride?”
“Not long,” he said, plopping onto the velvet cushion across from her. “Are you not cold?”
“Freezing,” she said. “Doesn’t matter.”
He frowned, moving to shake off his overcoat.
“Don’t,” she said, holding up her hand. “Let me get accustomed to it. And, Lem?”
“Yes?” he said, big hands still on his lapels.
She gave him a wincing, aching little smile. “I am sorry about Wednesday. We will go next week. I promise it is foremost in my thoughts.”
He raised an eyebrow. “It is only a week,” he said. “I told you and Mr. Harcourt before. I do not mind a bit more waiting.”
“I do, though,” she said. “Lem?”
“Yes, Libba?” he said again, his eyes crinkling at the repetition.
She sighed and looked out the window as they turned onto the well-lit main street toward the Templeton-Raths’ temporary mansion.
“You are the dearest friend I’ve ever had,” she said softly before Libba slipped away entirely and took up residence, just below the surface, drowsy and warm beneath Xandine’s mask.