Chapter 50
Chapter fifty
“Iwas so sure you were dead,” Selaide said, “when you dropped from Lelantos. So I thought: who gets your things? All your gowns?”
The four Longbourn sisters were in a small room in Pemberley manor, preparing for the ball. Alyce was tying Valeraine’s stays. Valeraine was (unsuccessfully) ignoring Selaide. Merna was deftly ignoring them all, scribbling in her notebook.
“Of course, you’re fine,” Selaide continued. “But, if you had met your untimely demise, you aren’t going to be using your clothes — well maybe one gown, to be buried in — but the rest would need a new caretaker. Alyce has plenty of gowns, and Merna doesn’t care, so I would be the best choice.”
Valeraine wanted to say that in the event of her death she would rather see all her clothes shredded and used as stuffing for Lelantos’ nest than go to Selaide.
But then she looked at Alyce’s softly amused face, full of care and patience for their sister, and held her tongue.
She did not want to be the one who broke this painfully balanced peace.
Selaide was annoying, but she had not yet caterwauled.
She could talk all she wished, and it was not harming anything.
It was harming Valeraine’s opinion of her, actually. But that had been so thoroughly ruined already that degrading it further was hardly notable.
Valeraine wished she could smile fondly, like Alyce did, seeing the beauty in Selaide’s spirit and determination. All she could muster was not exploding and saying all the places she would rather put a dress than in Selaide’s hands.
It would be nice, she acknowledged, to not have Selaide as a sister.
If they were just ladies from the same neighborhood, they might be friends, fitting together in their stubbornness.
Alas, because they were sisters, this was impossible.
They were always in competition: for gowns, for Mamma’s favor, for the piece of toast at breakfast. They would always be enemies: two predators forced into a too-small territory. Valeraine could not allow her to win.
However, Valeraine would accept Selaide’s help to style her hair.
She would strut in front of Mr. Pemberley in this elegant ensemble with her hair perfectly coiffed.
He would ask her to dance — in awe of her — and she would have the privilege of rejecting him again.
She hoped for the chance to reject him many times in the coming years, many opportunities to put him in his place.
One day, his infatuation and admiration of her might dry up.
Or, perhaps, that day had already come. Perhaps her rejection of his marriage proposal combined with not responding to his letter had done the trick. He might never ask her to dance again. He already possessed many negative opinions of her, and perhaps those had already overpowered the love.
The thought left her in melancholy. Would she not get the chance to tell Pemberley how offensive and repulsive he was again?
Did he even think of her anymore? Had the good and the bad emotions he harbored mixed together into apathy?
Valeraine should be pleased she no longer needed to attend to Pemberley’s advances, that she would not have to suffer his conversation again.
Instead, she yearned to hear his voice, even if it was just for him to insult her.
The last words they said to each other should not be, “Your mask,” and, “Amaranth’s fine.
” Their last words should be ones brimming with hate and fire — an expression of how thoroughly they despised each other.
Could she really even say those words to him, now? Now that she had seen him helpless, tangled in his tethers. Or now that she had read his letter that contained an honest apology. It was becoming difficult to maintain her disdain.
Pemberley was a flawed, odious man.
He was also an honest man whose mistakes were a product of a flawed attempt at being a stalwart friend and advocate for safety in dragon derbies.
It was time to descend to the ballroom. The Longbourn sisters collected their skirts and checked each other’s hair, and drifted as a pack of women to the ball.
Valeraine would dance, and she would revel in the party. She would not even look at Pemberley. He likely wouldn’t even attend, with his leg injured. She wondered how bad it was, and when he would be able to dance again. He wouldn’t be asking anyone to dance tonight, certainly. No matter.
The ballroom of Pemberley manor could have been a cousin to the Rosings ballroom.
They were both grand and expensively furnished.
However, where the Rosings ballroom had been showing off, this one was more restrained.
There were exquisite mouldings and sculpted filigrees on the walls.
The chandeliers were gold and crystal, throwing light around the room and making everything sparkle.
There were vast windows along one wall, capturing the twilight hour as it creeped in.
By the end of the ball, the windows would let in the sparkling starlight.
There was one man Valeraine wanted to dance with, and she spied him: Kesley was chatting with two people she didn’t recognize.
He smiled easily as she approached and introduced her to the circle, and continued the conversation, talking with competence and passion on dragoneering.
As the conversation turned to the recent actions of the Prince Regent, Kesley skillfully extricated himself and Valeraine to the dance floor.
The song was slow, and Kesley led her beautifully through the steps. He said, “I think my popularity here is due to this baffling rumor that I’m the masked rider for Longbourn.”
“Oh? What do you say to that?”
“I say, ‘Nobody knows who he is,’ and I give a wink. Everyone gets the idea.”
“Thank you for that,” Valeraine said. “We must keep them off the true trail.”
“They do love you, though. A rider who helps a downed opponent is always admired.”
“I would have thought those who abandon the race would be considered fools. I certainly felt one, rescuing Pemberley.” She gave an exaggerated expression of disgust.
Kesley gave this the laugh that it deserved, boisterous and wicked. “It’s true Mr. Pemberley is not popular. However, everyone wishes that if they go down, someone will ambulance them, and so they praise the ones who do it.”
“An admiration born from fear, rather than from charity.”
“Exactly. Well said, Val.”
The song ended, and Kesley went to dance with Selaide — to head off her tantrum upon seeing Valeraine with Selaide’s proprietary favorite.
Valeraine strolled around the room, looking for friendly faces.
She saw Mamma and Merna sitting by the wall, ignoring each other in the way that said they had fought.
Alyce (she was satisfied to see) was dancing with Nethenabbi, both smiling.
The room was full of dragoneers from the race.
They were familiar, and yet she didn’t dare talk to them — particularly Rosings — for fear of the spark of recognition.
It was much safer for them all to only see Kesley, and not consider any other candidates for the masked rider.
“Miss Longbourn,” a self-assured voice called.
Valeraine knew that voice. She should pretend she hadn’t heard him over the noise of the ball, acting like his voice held no power.
Pemberley had reached her, and she couldn’t bring herself to pretend otherwise.
He was sitting near the musicians in the fanciest chair in the room, padded and with intricate damask and gilding.
His left foot was propped up on a footstool, wrapped in bandages instead of a boot.
He would not be dancing with her today. He wouldn’t be chasing her around the ballroom, either; she could walk away.
But then she wouldn’t know what he had to say.
Then, the last words they ever said to each other might really be, “Your mask,” and, “Amaranth’s fine. ”
Valeraine approached and curtsied. “Mr. Pemberley,” she acknowledged.
He gestured to the woman sitting next to him. She was a girl, maybe the age of Selaide, in her older teen years. She had perfect posture, a refined pleasant smile, and golden hair. “This is my sister, Olivinta. This is Miss Valeraine Longbourn.”
Miss Olivinta inclined her head, stately. Then, she abandoned the rigid posture as she leaned forward and asked excitedly, “Are you the same Miss Longbourn who helped reconcile Mr. Nethenabbi and Miss Alyce?”
“I —”
“She is,” Pemberley cut in, obviously flustered. “She —”
“Bennington was so apologetic,” Olivinta said, taking control of the conversation before her brother could. “Did you know Nethenabbi was so angry he did not speak to him for nine days?”
“Good for Mr. Nethenabbi,” Valeraine said.
“Isn’t is just?” Olivinta gushed.
Valeraine smiled. It was good to meet another woman with sense. “Mr. Pemberley seems to need correction sometimes, and I was glad to provide it on this occasion.”
“On occasion, I will admit,” Olivinta said, “he’s so thoughtful that he gets things extraordinarily wrong.”
Valeraine laughed at this cuttingly truthful assessment of Pemberley. Only the mouth of a sister could have been so precise. “You know him better than I do.”
“Yes. Well,” Pemberley said, “Olivinta, would you find a partner for this next dance? I’m sure all you will need to do is walk near that bundle of fellows.”
“I will give you a moment alone with your corrector,” Olivinta teased. “Who knows what she may change yet? Perhaps raise my allowance?”
As she left, Valeraine asked, “You control her allowance?” and took the seat that Olivinta had vacated.
“Since our parents died, I am her guardian.”
The conversation lapsed there, as Valeraine was not brave enough to ask after either dead parents nor a contested allowance.
“I want to,” Pemberley began. “Well that is to say. Without you I wouldn’t have...” His eyes wandered to his lap during this speech, broadcasting his discomfort. Then, his eyes snapped to meet hers. “Thank you for rescuing me.”
His green eyes were attentive. He didn’t look away after he’d delivered his pronouncement. She saw a man of intensity, a man who truly meant his expression of gratitude. Here was a man who was waiting on her next word, worshipping her thoughts with his devotion.
What did he see in her eyes?
“It was nothing.” Valeraine looked away to the dancers, breaking the spell with a snap.
She didn’t want to leave this chair, and yet she didn’t know what to say to Pemberley.
He may have thanked her, but he’d still made his feelings toward her abundantly clear: she was lowly, barely tolerable, something to be pitied and insulted, an attachment whom he resented and would get rid of if he could, someone he deeply admired.
Pemberley didn’t interrupt Valeraine’s reverie.
Was this because he didn’t know what to say, either?
The silence stretched on long enough that it stretched her own feelings.
Her patience stretched until looking at the dancers was irritating.
Her irritation toward Pemberley for summoning her stretched until it was a begrudging acceptance (he couldn’t have come to her, she supposed).
Her acceptance toward him was stretching until it was becoming something like admiration.
She needed to break this silence. This was a dangerous sort of silence.
“How is your leg?” she asked.
Pemberley easily accepted the question. “The doctor tells me I was lucky. It’s a small break, really, and I may even be walking again in a month.”
“That’s good news.”
“Thank you for being there. And here.”
“It was nothing,” Valeraine said. “I was just paying you back for patching up my arm.”
As if in a daze, Pemberley reached out and gently laid his hand on her shoulder, the one that had once revealed to him she was the masked rider.
“How is that healing?” It was a caress, of a sort, a soft touch.
Maybe he was only admiring his own handiwork, the place where he had once stitched.
That must be it. He could not feel tenderness and concern for the woman who so vexed him.
It had been five months. The healing had already come and gone. A scar was all that was left.
Valeraine had an urge to lean into his touch, to rest her head on his hand. She remembered putting her ear on his chest, in that panicked moment. What would it feel like to do that again, in a calm moment?
She leaned away, dislodging his hand. “It healed well, thank you. Are you finding it difficult to host, with your impairment?” She nodded toward his leg, propped and wrapped.
He gave her a sad smile, as if he was disappointed she had pulled away. “No, our staff here is truly extraordinary. The housekeeper, Mrs. Gandy, has an eye for perfect events.”
“That must be nice for you.”
“You should stay — you and your sisters and parents I mean — a few days. I can introduce you to Mrs. Gandy.”
“Oh, I don’t know if Lelantos will be happy staying in the field so long.” Valeraine demurred.
“We can put him in one of our nest’s outbuildings. It really isn’t any trouble. I can show you around the nest, our techniques here.”
Valeraine wanted to return home, to have her nest back, to have Lelantos settled again. She wanted to be away from Pemberley and his confusing kindness. He couldn’t still want her, after she had rejected him?
“Here,” Pemberley said, “could you please bring your mother and father over to me, and I will extend the invitation to them. I would go to them, but,” a rueful smile at his propped-up leg.
She nodded, and left him. She went to where Mamma had been, but now the spot held only Merna. She sat in the chair next to her sister, out of strength. “Where are Mamma and Papa?”
“Dancing.”
Valeraine watched the dancers for a minute before she saw them, not dancing with each other but with other partners.
“Why do you want to find Mamma?” Merna asked. “So she can congratulate you for talking with the rich Mr. Pemberley?”
“Pemberley is inviting us to stay at his manor for a few days — all of us. Well, except Kesley, I suppose.”
“I wish to go home. I didn’t bring enough books for a longer stay.”
“I wish to go home, too,” Valeraine said. “If I look in Pemberley’s eyes once more, I may regret what I do next.”
“What will you do, Val? Challenge him to a duel?”
“Something like that.” Or, maybe, something very different.