Chapter 10 #2
“The Romans are endlessly fascinating,” Alistair agreed. “Do give my regards to your father. I understand his investments in the canal scheme have been performing so well. A relief, I am sure, given the uncertainties of the market.”
Caroline’s face went very still. Arthur, who knew about Uncle Finch’s canal investments and knew also that they had been performing about as well as a lead balloon, felt something between admiration and alarm.
Alistair had not only deflected the attack.
He had fired a warning shot across Caroline’s bow, a quiet demonstration that he knew where her own family’s vulnerabilities lay and was not afraid to mention them.
“Good day, Lord Alistair.” Caroline’s voice was a single degree above freezing. “Miss Ainsworth.”
She turned. Her companions turned with her, a small flotilla of muslin and wounded dignity, and the crowd of the promenade swallowed them in moments.
Arthur remained where he was, four paces behind, invisible.
He should have left. He knew he should have left.
But Alistair and Sophia were standing very still now, facing each other, and the air between them had changed quality in a way Arthur could not name but could feel, the way one felt a storm before the clouds appeared.
“You did not need to do that,” Sophia said.
“No,” Alistair agreed. “I did not.”
“Then why—”
“I dislike Miss Finch. I have disliked her since she informed me, at a dinner party three years ago, that my cravat was tied in the Oriental style and that the Oriental style was considered vulgar by persons of taste. She was correct, as it happens, but I disliked being told.”
Sophia’s mouth twitched. “That is not why you intervened.”
“No.” He regarded her with those dark, assessing eyes, and Arthur saw something move in his expression, something that was not the lazy rake’s mask but was not quite unguarded either.
“I intervened because she was being cruel, and she was being cruel about something that is true, and truth made cruel is the worst kind of weapon. I have wielded it myself often enough to recognise it.”
“The Ainsworth finances are not your concern.”
“No. They are not.”
“Then I fail to understand—”
“Must you understand everything?” The question came out sharper than his earlier words, less polished, and Alistair seemed to hear it himself because he paused, looked away toward the sea, then back.
“I do not have a reason. I saw you standing there with that expression you wear when you are about to say something you will regret, and I did not want you to say it. That is the whole of my logic. It is not satisfactory. I am aware.”
Sophia was staring at him. Arthur could see her trying to fit this version of Alistair Cavendish into the framework she had built for him, the notorious rake, the cynic, the man whose family had despised hers for generations. The framework was resisting.
“Thank you,” she said, and the words seemed to cost her something.
Alistair inclined his head. “Do not thank me yet. I have a proposition, and you will like it less than the intervention.”
“I am listening.”
“The charitable ball for the Brighton Seamen’s Hospital.
There is a planning committee. It meets tomorrow afternoon at the Assembly Rooms. Lady Hargrave chairs it, which means it will be tediously organised and the refreshments will be adequate but not inspired.
” He paused. “I am on the committee. Against my will, I should add. Lady Hargrave believes that my involvement lends the cause a certain—cachet.”
“And you are telling me this because—”
“Because the committee requires additional members. Specifically, members who can write. There are invitations to be composed, notices to be placed in the newspapers, a great deal of correspondence that Lady Hargrave’s secretary finds overwhelming.
It is practical work. Efficient. Two people with a facility for language would accomplish it in half the time. ”
Sophia’s expression, which had been softening toward something Arthur might have called warmth, closed like a door. “Efficient.”
“Yes.”
“You are asking me to join a charitable committee because it would be efficient.”
Alistair frowned. “I am asking because the work needs doing and you are capable of doing it. Is that not reason enough?”
“No,” Sophia said, and the word was flat and hard. “It is not.”
“I do not follow.”
“Of course you do not.” She took a step back, and the railing stopped her.
“You frame everything in terms of practicality, of efficiency, of what is useful. As if a charitable cause were a ledger to be balanced. As if the purpose of the ball were not the hospital, not the sailors who will benefit from it, but the smooth execution of the event itself.”
“The smooth execution of the event is what ensures the hospital receives the funds.”
“The smooth execution is what ensures you are not inconvenienced.” Her voice had risen slightly, and a woman passing with a small dog glanced toward them. Sophia lowered it. “You do not care about the cause. You care about the mechanism. The cause is an excuse for the mechanism to operate.”
Alistair’s jaw tightened. “You presume to know what I care about.”
“I know what you have shown me. What you have shown everyone. A man who drifts through society with a clever remark and a walking stick, amusing himself, committing to nothing. And now you invite me to join a charitable committee on the grounds of efficiency, as if I were a clerk you were hiring, as if the whole enterprise were a transaction.”
“It is a transaction. Most of life is.”