Chapter 10
“There was no telling if she’d say the wrong thing, if they’d see through her like gossamer, if they’d accept her as one of their own. But she knew one truth: going forward would always trump going backwards.”
Adelaide, Ch. 8
London
Midnight tolled the clock, but the night before this was the one where Fitz had kissed her. Noelle had thought of little else on the ride to London and all throughout teatime, when her oldest friend Margot had come to call, and at dinner.
Margot had sent her news from London over the last year, and always books.
Noelle had felt the usual tenor of their friendship slip back into familiar territory.
They were stretched out on a settee in the summer house with entangled limbs and a blanket.
It felt better than Noelle could say to be alone with her friend to talk, to just be, and without her family hovering nearby.
Margot was tall, but not as tall as Noelle.
Her head had fallen on Noelle’s shoulder like one of her sisters. Maybe she was. A sister she’d chosen.
“It’s going to be alright,” Margot said, intertwining her smaller hand with Noelle’s.
“What is?” Noelle said as she looked down at her friend.
Margot let out a soft laugh. “Whatever you’re thinking too much about.”
She looked at Noelle’s plaintive face, and added, “I wish I’d been there for you more. I asked my parents if I could come stay like you asked, but they didn’t think it was wise with you having two very eligible brothers,” she shook her head, and Noelle stifled a laugh.
“I’m happy you’re back. I’m glad we are debuting together, and whatever I can see you’re contemplating, just share it with me. Please?”
Noelle looked at Margot for a long moment. Margot would likely keep her secrets to the grave, but they were her closest companions. She didn’t know how to let them leave her lips. So she’d merely squeezed Margot tighter.
And Margot had gone back to telling her a funny story about her sister’s musicale a few weeks prior and the very attractive but aloof Earl her sisters had set their cap for who seemed completely ignorant.
Noelle knew that Margot was trying to set her at ease with her humor as she always did, until it was time for her to return home to dress for dinner.
Noelle had kept her thoughts about her writing and her entangled feelings about Fitz to herself, until dinner was concluded.
Then, she could slip into her night gown and slippers and sit at her desk and have them all to herself.
Noelle pressed her fingers to lips like she could call to life the sensations of the kiss the night before.
Fitz hadn’t kissed her tentatively, or fondly, or softly; he’d kissed her like a man who’d thought of little else.
Perhaps he was still thinking about her knife and wondering where she’d stashed it on her person.
The thought of him teasing his brain over that puzzle hit her like the first sip of a perfect cup of tea: warm, sweet, sumptuous.
She couldn’t banish thoughts of the press of his lips against her own, his hands pressing at her hip through her nightgown. He’d been right, he'd certainly given her a lifetime of suggestions in a single kiss.
She was sure her family thought her sudden silence was due to nervousness about starting the season, but her feelings ran deeper than that.
She’d said the way that Fitz described his attraction to her made it sound like an affliction, and he’d said it might be incurable.
Now that she had time to think on it, he was right.
How was she to dance and flirt and pay attention to other men that weren’t Fitz?
He had afflicted her with his attention and his affection, and she had no idea how to stop the flow of her thoughts from hemorrhaging in his direction.
Noelle ran a hand over the leather folio that housed her manuscript. She was back to having a room all to herself in the family’s London mansion, and she wanted to make the most of such solitude to write queries she’d sent out to all the relevant publishing houses of London.
No man was worth the distraction from her goal, or worth sacrificing her work. Noelle made an accord with herself that she’d do what needed to be done to bring Adelaide out of the shadows into the light of day. Handsome and maddening viscounts or no.
So, the first night reunited with the family mansion in Berkeley Square, the entire family were exhausted and took to their rooms. They adjourned for breakfast to gather their plan of attack for the opening of the season in the less formal, and brightly lit breakfast room.
Jasper pulled out the cushioned seat at the head of the table and motioned for his twin sister to sit.
Kathleen looked up at him in fond bewilderment before sitting and adjusting her small child on her lap.
He gave her braid a tug like he was still a cheeky boy of ten, before sitting a few seats down between Noelle and Olivia.
Noelle felt a lump in her throat when he gently squeezed her shoulder and placed one of the last remaining scones she loved on her plate; Jasper could never say kind things, but he said them wordlessly.
“I figured we would eat together and convene here before making any calls or accepting visitors.”
“Kathleen, I haven’t even had tea or coffee or a morsel of food yet; and god, but it’s early.” said Lawrence, slumping in his chair with his clothes looking like he hadn’t changed from the night before.
Kathleen cut her younger brother Lawrence a look. “Some of us have lived entire lives already before you decided to grace us with your rumpled appearance,” she pointedly looked down at the small child sitting atop her lap who was chewing on a fist.
“Kathleen,” her husband who was seated next to her said with a warning tone.
In answer, Kathleen handed him the baby. “You can take your insomniac son, then.”
“I never sleep well in unfamiliar places, either.” Noelle said. She took the baby from her brother-in-law while he finished his breakfast. She handed the baby a rolled-up cloth napkin to gnaw his angry gums on.
“Perhaps you’d like a furry companion,” Olivia offered, addressing the baby.
“I’d love one!” Beckett, Kathleen’s son answered, his hazel eyes alight.
“You’re in luck. Your Aunt Libby has ample enough to go around, I assure you.” Jasper said to his nephew like he was another adult as he took a sip of his tea. He gave his sisters all an affectionate grin.
Kathleen looked down the table at her younger sister and the rest of the table followed her gaze. “You look terribly tired, Moria, perhaps you need a pet as well.”
Moria, who in Noelle’s mind prided herself on her ability to keep from giving herself away, barely disguised her choke as a cough as she sipped her tea.
“I couldn’t sleep for thinking of all that’s been said in our absence that we have no knowledge of or control over. Wish I had an inkling of what's been said, but you saw to that.”
There was a biting edge to Moria’s tone that Noelle wondered if her sister had meant.
Moria had promised not to hold it against her sister that she’d banned the broadsheets from their household, but it had crept into Moria’s speech.
That wasn’t all that had kept her awake, Noelle was sure of it.
She’d watched her sister retreat to the willow tree overlooking the mill pond at the coaching inn.
Noelle wasn’t sure how long Moria had been gone, as Noelle herself had been locked in conversation with Fitz.
And when she’d reappeared, Noelle hadn’t failed to note the stray leaves in her rumpled coiffure or the nearly wine-colored blush to her cheeks.
One might attribute such alterations to a woman’s appearance to a walk enjoying nature, were said woman literally any woman other than Moria.
The room fell silent. Kathleen seemed to decide her course. Setting down her tea cup, Kathleen said sagely, “Moria, there are things worse than being talked about.”
Ironically, the baby who had just been handed back to his father, chose that as the opportune moment to cast up his accounts on the man’s jacket. Lord Fleming good-naturedly handed the baby off to the nursemaid, kissed the top of his wife’s head, and excused himself to change his jacket.
“You’re right,” Moria looked at her older sister pensively, “it’s probably not being talked about.”
Kathleen threw up her hands in frustration. Noelle wanted to speak, but was too busy spooning more potatoes onto her plate before Lawrence ate them all.
“Other people don’t get to decide who you are, they don’t get a say in what becomes of you. Only you get to do that,” Kathleen assured Moria, taking her hand. Noelle liked the way that that sounded.
Just as it gave Noelle little tendrils of hope, Moria countered, “As long as it agrees with my elder brother and his plans, obviously.”
“Why do you so enjoy trying to needle all of us, Mo?” Lawrence asked, looking at her like a door that no matter how hard one knocked, would never open.
Olivia, who had been quietly eating her breakfast and donating table scraps to Jasper’s hound underneath the table sitting dutifully at her feet, spoke up.
“She’s always been otherworldly beautiful and wants to know that no matter how ugly she behaves, we will all still love her. I’d love her if she grew horns and a tail. Probably more so. She’s already working on the horns, at any rate,
so that wouldn’t really be anything altogether out of the ordinary.”
She turned to Noelle, who looked into Olivia’s gold-green eyes, and gave her an encouraging smile.
Olivia forged on, “We are your family. Regardless of what anyone has said or hasn't said or thinks or doesn’t think; this, us, is more important. Now stop making this about you. You’ve already debuted,” The last three words she said in a sing-songy voice,
“It is Noelle’s first season and you’re not taking that from her, or I will put a snake in your bed.”
Noelle curbed the urge to laugh, Jasper did not.
“Well said. Salut,” Lawrence added, tipping his teacup in the direction of the youngest Pembrooke.
Noelle’s ears had turned pink at the mention of her name; but Jasper, who sat to her right, clasped her hand, and Moria’s.
“She’s right. It’s your turn now, dear one,” then he turned to Moria, “We won’t dwell on the past. We will simply all brazen it out, together. No going back, only forward.”
When Noelle pictured her belated debut in only a few days’ hence, she pictured all the ways that she might fail. She decided to start focusing all her energy on all the ways it could go right.