Chapter 12 #2
“Well, I never thought I would see the day.” The voice was light, carrying the musical cadence of someone accustomed to being overheard. “Plain little Louisa Fairchild, of all people. A duke. Can you imagine?”
“She must be cleverer than she looks. Though I suppose she would have to be.”
Laughter. Not cruel, precisely. Worse than cruel. Amused.
“Her mother must be in raptures. The Fairchilds have been scraping along for years. A match like Ashford would solve everything. The house, the debts, the younger cousins who need placing. One well-married daughter can rescue an entire family.”
“If he marries her. I am not convinced.”
“He danced with her at Thornbury. He walked with her at Hartfield. He was at her side for the entire evening at Mrs. Alderton’s musicale. That is three events in a row. For a man who has avoided courtship for the better part of a decade, three events is practically a proposal.”
“Still. She is so very... ordinary. And rather plump.”
“Perhaps that is the appeal. After years of being chased by every ambitious mother in London, perhaps he wants someone who will not exhaust him.”
Louisa stopped walking. She stood on the gravel path with the champagne glass pressed against her breast, her fingers white around the stem. The words hummed through her like a plucked string, vibrating in the spaces between her ribs.
Ordinary.
She had heard the word before. She had thought it herself, in darker moments, standing at the edges of ballrooms watching other girls shine.
But hearing it spoken aloud, spoken casually, spoken by women who did not know or care that she was close enough to hear, had a different quality entirely. It settled into her bones.
She turned before they could see her. She walked back toward the rose trellises, away from the fountain, away from the laughter. The garden swam. The foxgloves blurred purple against green. She breathed through her nose, counted the steps on the gravel, focused on the crunch beneath her shoes.
She found a bench at the far end of the garden, half-hidden behind a trellis of climbing jasmine. She sat. She set the untouched champagne on the bench beside her. She pressed her palms flat against her knees.
Ordinary.
Plain little Louisa Fairchild.
She must be cleverer than she looks.
“You are hiding.”
She looked up. Oliver stood at the edge of the jasmine trellis, his coat unbuttoned, his hands in his pockets. The afternoon sun caught the gold in his hair. He was watching her with quiet, steady attention.
“She unclenched her hands. “How long have you been watching me?”
“Long enough.” He stepped around the trellis and sat beside her on the bench. Not too close. Close enough that she caught the familiar scent of cedar and clean linen. “What happened?”
“Nothing happened.”
“Louisa.”
The way he said her name undid something in her throat.
“I overheard a conversation,” she said. “Two ladies near the fountain. They were discussing my good fortune in capturing your interest.”
“And?”
“And they concluded that I must be cleverer than I look, because I am far too ordinary to have attracted a duke through any other means.” She kept her voice even.
She was proud of how steady it came out.
“They also observed that my family’s finances would benefit considerably from the connection, which is true, and that you may have chosen me because I am too plain to exhaust you, which I suppose is a compliment of sorts. ”
Oliver said nothing for a moment. The jasmine stirred above them. A bee moved between the white flowers with single-minded industry.
“Which ladies?”
“It does not matter.”
“It matters to me.”
“Why? What would you do? March across the garden and inform them they are wrong? That would rather defeat the purpose of our arrangement.”
He turned on the bench to face her. His knee brushed hers. She did not move.
“They are wrong,” he said. “About all of it.”
“They are not wrong about everything. I am here because of you. These invitations arrived because of you. Lady Tyndale greeted me at her gate today as though we had been friends for years. She seated me behind a fern last Season, Oliver.”
His mouth twitched. She saw him fighting it. “A fern.”
“Do not laugh.”
“I am not laughing. I am horrified on your behalf. The indignity of being seated behind foliage is not something I take lightly.”
Despite herself, she felt the tightness in her throat loosen. “You are impossible.”
“I am truthful.” He leaned forward, his elbows resting on his knees. “Listen to me. You received those invitations because you have spent the last fortnight proving that you belong in every room you enter.”
She looked at him. The hazel of his eyes was warm in the afternoon light, flecked with green. He was close enough that she could see the faint line of the scar above his eyebrow, the slight unevenness of his smile.
“You say that,” she said, “as though I should believe it.”
“You should believe it because it is true. Those ladies by the fountain are the same women who spent the last three Seasons ignoring you, and they will spend the next three envying you, and neither reaction has anything to do with who you actually are.” His voice softened.
“You deserve every invitation on that table, Louisa. Every single one. Not because I stood beside you. Because you are worth standing beside.”
The words settled through her. She felt them land in the hollow place behind her ribs where the overheard conversation still echoed, pressing against the bruise of ordinary and plump until the sting began to ease.
She wanted to thank him. She wanted to tell him that no one had ever spoken to her the way he did, with such easy certainty, as though her worth were a settled fact rather than a question still under debate.
She wanted to tell him that his good opinion mattered more than Frederick’s attention, more than Lady Tyndale’s invitations, more than every embossed card on every silver tray in London.
She did not say any of it. She picked up the champagne glass. She took a sip. The bubbles were warm and flat.
“Lady Tyndale’s champagne,” she said, “is dreadful.”
Oliver took the glass from her hand. He sniffed it. He winced.
“Good heavens. This is an offence against France.”
“You should write to Napoleon about it.”
“I believe he has other concerns at present.”
She laughed. It came from somewhere genuine, low in her belly, startling in its warmth. Oliver handed the glass back. Their fingers touched around the stem, and the contact moved through her like a current, quick and bright.
She pulled her hand away. She set the glass down.
Across the garden, Frederick’s laughter rose above the murmur of conversation. He had not come looking for her. He had not noticed she was gone.
Oliver had.
“We should return,” she said. “People will wonder.”
“Let them wonder.” But he stood, offering his hand. She took it. His grip was firm, his palm warm against her glove. He pulled her gently to her feet.
He did not release her hand immediately.
She did not ask him to.
“Louisa.” His voice was quieter now, low enough that only the jasmine could hear. “The next time someone calls you ordinary, I want you to remember just how far from true it is.”
He stood then, and turned toward the garden path. She watched him walk away.
She stood alone behind the jasmine trellis with a glass of terrible champagne, and she understood, with a clarity that frightened her, that she was in very serious trouble.