Like No Other Lover (27 page)

Cynthia had decided she would. And the day after he’d asked her to do precisely that, Argosy had become ardency personified. A miraculous evolution, indeed. It required a bit of adjustment, but she was nothing if not resilient, and allowed herself to savor just the tiniest bit of ease, and to enjoy the attention, and to try not to feel guilty.

She only shook her reticule once that day.

And she, like Miles, refused to think of anything that had happened before, refused to think of what could not be. She focused on the needs of the present.

Two days later something extraordinary happened while she waited in the salon for Argosy, who had begged permission to take her walking—alone!—in the garden.

“Miss Brightly, I wonder if I may beg a word?”

Cynthia turned very slowly.

It was Lady Georgina. Sun blazed in the big windows of the salon, and on the shady end of it, Violet sat with Jonathan and Lady Windermere. The safety of other people seemed acres away.

Bloody hell. No escape.

Cynthia eyed Georgina cautiously. She hadn’t
sounded
accusatory. She had sounded…diffident. In fact, as though she were indeed
begging
a word.

“Of course,” Cynthia said warmly. Meaning precisely the opposite.

Cynthia settled into the chair next to Georgina, and the bright daylight pouring in the window contrived to wash Georgina nearly free of color entirely, apart from her hair, which was, as usual, wound up smoothly and neatly and glowed like a halo.

“I don’t quite know how to begin…” Georgina’s hands worked nervously together.

Again, Cynthia studied the girl for signs of irony or innuendo. “Please feel free to be open with me, Georgina,” she said kindly, though her stomach felt as though it were turning on a spit.

Georgina whirled on her impulsively. “Very well! It’s this. Well, you’re so very charming.”

“Am…am I?” Cynthia was suddenly very nervous.

“Yes. Everyone can see it, you know. You quite
sparkle
,” she insisted.

It was tremendously odd to hear these words from Lady Georgina. She’d never dreamed flattery could also be strangely terrifying. And yet, she reminded herself, Lady Georgina communicated primarily by admiring people, and didn’t need to isolate her specifically to compliment her.

She really
is
a nice person, Cynthia thought desperately. And I’m horrible,
horrible
.

“You’re too kind, Georgina.” Which was at least the proper response to most compliments.

Georgina’s hands went still in her lap. Pretty, smooth hands. Nary a freckle, kitten scratch, or scar.

She cleared her throat. “Here is the thing, Miss Brightly. I wonder if…I wonder if you might know what it is I ought to be doing to charm Miles Redmond?”

Cynthia couldn’t help it. She felt her mouth drop open. She closed it quickly, but not before Georgina had gone scarlet in the face.

But the girl straightened her spine, and added in a determined rush, “Since you know how to charm people, and since I cannot quite seem to do it. I can’t charm him, anyway.”

“Since I know how to…charm?” Cynthia was baffled.

“Everyone is quite taken with you.”

Ah. Now this sounded like something of an accusation. Though it was true.

“Mr. Redmond likes you very much, Lady Georgina,” Cynthia offered. Well, he
liked
her, anyhow.

“Do you think so?” Georgina sounded desperate. “He is so very kind, and he teases me sometimes, which is pleasant, but I never know quite what to say, so I become very shy and he must ever carry the burden of conversation. I feel so
gauche
around him Miss Brightly, and I
ought
not, as I am well out of the schoolroom, and I am an heiress, for heaven’s sake. And yet he is…” She paused, picturing Miles, perhaps. Tiny white teeth sank into her neat lower lip. “I feel he is somewhere else when he speaks to me. I do not engage his interest. And I think that
you
know how to engage the interest of a man.”

The generalization was a trifle uncomfortable. Imagine
Lady Georgina
arriving at these conclusions.

Cynthia studied her face for signs of subtle meanings, or warnings. No: she meant it. Georgina thought, somehow, that she could impart the secret of charm.

Charm, my dear,
Cynthia wanted to tell her,
is not learned, it is innate. And it is honed by desperation and need and sharpened by application. If you want the truth, that is.

It might be entertaining to confuse and unnerve the girl by saying those things, but she knew it would be unkind.

“You are fond of Mr. Redmond, then?” Cynthia said slowly, her voice a little faint.

“I have been in love with Mr. Redmond since I was eight years old.”

Cynthia froze.

Georgina’s intonation had been fervent and factual, and her expression scarcely changed, which might be the fault of her pale lashes and brows. But her eyes held misty torments.

“You are in…in
love
with Mr. Redmond?”

“He is
beautiful
. Don’t you think? So very quiet and calm! So large and dark and wise. His eyes…his…” Words clearly failed her. “He has always been so pleasant to me.”

Cynthia couldn’t stop gaping at Georgina.
Pleasant?
And this was love?

Probably Lady Georgina could not put into words the things she felt. The sum of love, and of Miles Redmond, would be impossible to put into words.

And despite how she would have
preferred
to feel, suddenly Cynthia found herself begrudgingly respecting this girl. For Georgina had the good sense to fall in love with the quiet Redmond long ago.

How in God’s name could she tell this girl how to make Miles Redmond fall in love with her?

“Well, a place to begin,” she faltered, “is to share his interests, Georgina.”

“Oh, I have tried. But Miss Brightly…I have a confession to make.”

Cynthia braced herself. “Y-Yes?”

“I
loathe
spiders and insects!” Georgina was all passionate despair. “They frighten me.” She gave a shudder. “I hate them. Hate them
all
.”

Cynthia was shocked speechless. Her words emerged stammered. “But spiders are so—”

“Repellent,” Georgina moaned. “It is all I can do to
look
at one.”

“But—But—you think ants are—”

“—disgusting, tiny, busy things, eating carcasses and the like.” She gave another shudder. “I care naught for their societies, or that they have queens, or
anything
about them, and yet I am an expert on the ants of Sussex only because I care for Mr. Redmond. And so I have tried and
tried
to take an interest in his interests. Why does he have to
like
these things?”

It was all very dramatic, and admittedly fascinating to see Lady Georgina in the throes of such romantic pain: the
pressure
the girl had been under to pretend to enjoy the things Miles Redmond enjoyed. She’d held up admirably.

Ironic to discover that she had rather more in common with Georgina than she’d ever dreamed.

Cynthia considered the moment. There were myriad things she could have done or could have said. Myriad things she was
tempted
to say or do right now.

But here was the woman Miles Redmond was compelled to marry, would spend the rest of his life with, would see and talk to and…

Cynthia closed her eyes for a moment. She needed to breathe through the sudden sharp pain as her heart kicked a protest over what she was about to do.

“Have you considered that these things—Mr. Redmond’s interests—are a reflection of who he truly is?” she said carefully.

“All these many-legged crawling things?” Georgina whispered, aghast. Her hands went up to cover her face, briefly. “Surely not. Surely it’s just a diversion of some sort. A…
boy
type of thing. Surely once he’s wed he’ll take an interest in the Redmond business and the Mercury Club and his…his children.” The scarlet color that had begun to ebb from her face rushed in again.

“But he wants to return to Lacao. He wants to take an expedition there.” Cynthia was aghast.

“I’ll refuse to go.”

“But, Georgina!” Cynthia was suddenly terribly afraid for Miles. “Perhaps it’s…perhaps he’s interested in
all
living things. In learning and discovering them. And how they live among us, and the worlds within worlds, and…”

But she could be days explaining Miles. And if she did explain, go on and on, she would only betray herself.

She thought of Miles married to someone who would never truly know him. Who was incapable of seeing him. She felt the howling loneliness of his future in the pit of her stomach, and her palms felt damp, and she thought:

I need to do for him what he is doing for me.

“Do you truly care for him, Georgina?”

“Oh, yes.”

Georgina, at least,
thought
she meant it.

Cynthia took a deep breath, pressed her damp palms against her knees, and chose her words carefully, feeling as though Miles’s entire future rested upon her shoulders.

“Then you
must
learn to understand why he likes the things he likes, because then you will know him. Those things will cease to repel you, if you understand them. And once you understand them, then you will be able to truly charm him.”

Lady Georgina seemed to consider this. “I was hoping you could simply tell me how to charm him,” she said stubbornly.

Cynthia sat for a moment in quiet, bemused irony and gazed at this girl who was her same age, but such a babe in so many ways. What a gulf Miles would need to cross.

And here was another person who thought love could be
managed
. Why is it we want things that are not right for us? She wondered. Why is it we want things we cannot have? What is the
point
?

She imagined these were age-old questions, and she was not of a sentimental bent, and not one to wallow, and she doubted it was the sort of mystery even Miles Redmond could solve, as he was at the mercy of it, too.

“I
have
told you how to charm him,” she said to Georgina. “You
must
do what I say. You must try. Please try.”

And then she stood and walked quickly away, so Georgina didn’t see her squeeze her eyes closed, or see the flush of color on her face.

What on earth did they talk about? He supposed it didn’t matter, as it was Cynthia after all, and she would make the conversation effervesce, take shape somehow. She would take an interest, and Argosy would feel even more interesting than he
already
felt, and this would be the life Cynthia would lead for the rest of her life.

And during the evenings, over cards, when they socialized, or during dinners, part of him participated while the whole of him was entirely on edge and vigilant, and though he and Cynthia scarcely exchanged words beyond banalities, because this was part of their agreement, too—the only way they would ever accomplish this—they were both intensely aware of each other as conspirators.

Miles watched the circumstances carefully, like the scientist he was, or like one of the Gypsy acrobats balancing atop the rippling back of a horse. Ready to calibrate with just the right word here, a subtle action there, or a nice juicy lie, if it looked as though Argosy’s ardency was ebbing or his intentions wavering from Miss Brightly.

But Argosy showed every sign of worship. Cynthia showed every sign of fondness. And soon their attachment was much taken for granted.

Jonathan was amused. Violet bemused. And Milthorpe, perhaps sensing he’d been edged out by a younger stallion and giving up hope that Isaiah Redmond would be home very soon, decided to depart to buy the greyhound puppy he’d told Cynthia about during the picnic.

And soon even Lady Windermere, who stalwartly hoped for the return of her friend Mrs. Redmond so she might get in a juicy bout of gossip, spoke in the not quite innuendos so beloved of those who’d been married and bore children and lived to see others do the same.

And when the servants dutifully began polishing silver and beating carpets and getting in supplies for the second and final of the dinner parties—the dinner party that would conclude the house party and see everyone disperse—the air at Redmond House began to shimmer in portent.

“We’ll have a wedding ere long,” Lady Windermere predicted, with a finger alongside her nose. “I always think dinner parties are wonderful places to announce engagements.”

And as for Miles, he took walks in the garden with Lady Georgina. One walk per day.

For all the world as if she were a pet.

And he reminded himself, all the while they were walking, of the reason he was doing it.

Who
are
you?
he’d wanted to ask her. They never got beyond Sussex and their families and flora and fauna.

He was a brave man, but he didn’t have the courage to ask her that question.

His thoughts were too full, and one day the silence had stretched too long, and he’d been mentally planning his overseas expedition, the passion remaining to him, the passion he nurtured.

When she startled him with precisely that sort of question.

“Why do you like the things you like, Mr. Redmond?” she’d asked him. Hesitantly. She sounded as desperate as he felt.

He turned to her, astounded. He stared at her. Looked down into her gray eyes.

“Miles,” he said to her.

Aware that his name was a metaphor for the distance they would need to cross to know each other. But the fact that she had asked the question at all meant, perhaps, there was a glimmer of hope.

And he tried to explain those things to her. But he didn’t know where to start, as those things had no real beginning or end. So he stopped. It was so much harder to explain it to her when another woman had simply
known
it from the moment they’d met.

Well, from the moment they’d truly
seen
each other.