Season For Desire (11 page)

“Hardly. I’d never test myself on purpose. What are the chances I’d pass? No, you’re the one who brought up honor, princess. I’m guessing it means something to you.”

The pencil stopped its movement. “I do not know what it means to me.”

“Maybe. But you must know what sort of behavior it’s not.”

“Yes.” Her reply was faint. “Does reputation not matter to Americans?”

“Of course it matters. We’re not heathens.” He chose his words carefully, keeping his gaze fixed on the painted ceiling. “But a woman’s good reputation doesn’t come from not being alone with a man. All that does is tell me she’s solitary. It doesn’t tell me anything about what sort of person she is.”

“What do you require to think well of—someone?”

“Would it be too imprecise to say I know it when it happens? Yes? Well—pluck, I guess. Courage. I admire courage.”

“Oh.” The pencil began shushing furiously over the paper again. “That is not unique. Everyone admires courage.”

“Are you sure about that? Do you think the illustrious David Llewellyn does?”

“Ugh. No, I suppose he does not. He begged me for a gift, then scorned me when I granted it to him.” She gave a harsh laugh. “I wonder how he and my father are getting on. The subject of my shortcomings as a proper English female might well occupy them halfway to London.”

“Then they’ll be repeating themselves a lot.”

“Flatterer.”

“Not one of my skills, sadly. If I’ve said anything flattering since entering this room, I can’t remember it. Maybe not since entering England.”

A cloud passed before the moon, and he took that as a sign to sit up again. She folded her paper, then handed back his coat.

“Do we have to pretend this never happened?” she asked as he stood and struggled back into the snug-fitting coat.

“I’m not that good at pretending.” He held out a hand to help her up; her fingers brushed his only for a pale instant. “I’ll probably think about it all the time, even when I shouldn’t. Like when you’re being showered with dry evergreen needles, or when you’re eating soup at dinner—”

“Or when you gnaw on your lip as you glare at the puzzle box,” she added.

“Do I do that?”

With a nod, she looked up into his face. “We will think about it. But we will also remember that it will not happen again.” The twist of her mouth was almost like a real smile.

She left the library first. Reputation, for God’s sake. Reputation.

He admired courage, he’d said, and that she possessed in great amount. She had a regimented place in the world, and she didn’t know whether she fell into step with it anymore. Yet she gave the appearance of marching along for the sake of the militant around her. Better to protect her winged heart than let others stone it.

How had Giles lost his? When had it fallen so heavy and low? He’d given up his hopes in exchange for his father’s dream of gold and jewels. To protect his siblings; to live through them since he had no idea what his own life would be like.

The pain in his wrists had ebbed again, and he bent to retrieve the forgotten pencil from the floor. He folded Sophy’s shawl, too, and placed it over the back of her chair before dousing the lamp and the candles.

It was only a matter of time before the pain came back. Yet in the meantime—ah, Audrina had tilted and shaken the world. She made him want to forget his dying hands. To have the right to hope, when all he should be thinking about was cracking open that gilded
himitsu-bako
and getting the hell back to Philadelphia.

It was too late for him to follow a star, but she made him want to forget that, too.

For the next three days, the world felt like a caught breath. Outside, the sky dithered between grayness and rain, sleet and more rain. And within, Audrina waited—because now that something had changed, it seemed inevitable that more change would follow.

But for the next three days, nothing did. Long hours were spent in the drawing room, where fires were built up high and Giles sat at a tiny table pretending to work at the puzzle box. Audrina had stopped taking notes on his attempts, because by tacit agreement, his attempts had stopped being serious.

Because once he opened the box—whether it proved empty or not—there would be no reason for them to remain here.

It was just as well that she and Giles had not vowed to ignore their nighttime interlude. Though some of their conversation that night had been awkward, even abrasive, the parts that were not conversation had been very pleasant indeed.

But it was the conversation, especially, that Audrina could not forget.

Maybe it was this that caused the feeling of air still before a storm. Now that Audrina had skipped like a stone over the rings of Saturn, now that she knew Jupiter had moons and that stars came in different shades, England seemed small. London, longed-for London, was too close in some ways: Llewellyn and her father had probably finished their journey by now.

Richard Rutherford and Lady Irving had wreathed nearly everything that could be adorned with festive trimmings; Lady Dudley had fastened a sleigh bell about the neck of each dog. It was impossible not to be aware of Christmas, hurtling closer with evergreen and hummed snippets of carols and the notion of hunting for a star.

And that meant the time was drawing nearer for Llewellyn to ruin something: the Earl of Alleyneham’s fortunes, Audrina’s reputation, her sister Charissa’s wedding to the Duke of Walpole.

Maybe all three.

Llewellyn must get money or he would cause a scandal: this, she knew. And she also knew that His Grace the Duke of Walpole would not tolerate such a humiliation. Not when he was stickler enough to ask Audrina to sit in as a chaperone during his every teatime call to his future wife.

But she knew one more thing: Charissa, dutiful daughter that she was, really loved the duke.

There was no denying that Charissa loved London society, too. She wanted to be a duchess and have noble babies and raise them to responsibility and fashion. But during a nighttime sisterly conversation a month ago, Charissa had admitted how she felt about Walpole himself.

“He never does anything wrong.” Wearing her nightdress, she flopped across Audrina’s bed, stretching out her limbs. “He’s incorruptible. He’s
good
.”

Audrina thought he was a prig, personally. “I do not doubt that he will make you a faithful husband.” Which was true.

“I know he will,” Charissa breathed. “A duke. To think a duke should choose
me
.”

She sat up, her long red-brown hair a floating tangle. Audrina fetched a hairbrush from her dressing table and began to draw it through her older sister’s hair. “I am happy for you.”
Brush brush.
“But you are quite good enough the way you are. He is lucky to be marrying you.”

“Pfft. He could have anyone. There are far more earl’s daughters than there are dukes.”

“True, but only one of those earl’s daughters is Lady Charissa Bradleigh. He’s fortunate that you chose him.”

Audrina tried to twist her sister’s hair into a loose braid, but Charissa turned to stare at her over one shoulder. “Who would not? What is there not to admire about the Duke of Walpole?”

At the time, Charissa had been satisfied with Audrina’s noncommittal gesture and a turn of the subject to her bride clothes.

But Audrina had an answer now.
If he had a sense of humor, I would admire him more. If he ever said what he ought not, but what was on everyone’s mind, I would think him braver.

She would not know what to think. At the time, she had felt insulted; then ashamed. Unwanted. But this feeling had faded, and now she was less certain she had tried to do the right thing, or Giles the wrong one.

The household had fallen into a simple carousel of steps in their short time at Castle Parr. The Dudleys shuttled between the drawing room and the yellow parlor. Lady Irving and Richard Rutherford had become oddly fond of a passageway full of severed statue heads, though they popped into the drawing room at intervals for tea.

And Sophy remained in the library. Usually alone, though Audrina wondered if she wanted to be. She had been willing to share her telescope; eager for them to see what she saw, and to understand it.

Were it not for Audrina’s dread, her feeling of helpless distance from her sister, she would enjoy the slow dribbling of these days. She liked the space of York, the high ceilings and the open land. The eager wind that knocked at the windows and the fires that seemed all the warmer for the cold outside. The dogs that roamed the house, toenails clattering across the finest marble floors.

In London, she was so used to carrying chaos about with her that she forgot what it might be like to set it down; to scrub her fingers through the wiry fur of a brindled hound, then laugh when it bounded off to join its friends.

The fourth day was a slow Sunday. Freezing rain had prevented the party from attending church. Giles and Audrina had taken their seats at the tea table in the drawing room, the puzzle box between them like a talisman.

She wanted to shatter that caught-breath feeling, to make the world around her hitch and heave. As she extracted a wood-cased pencil and several sheets of Sophy’s gridded paper from a pocket, her voice was bland. “Just so you are aware, Giles, I am not planning to kiss you today. And I certainly will not permit you to kiss me.”

His hands went still. She could not help but think of them as harbingers of ill health now—though they seemed flexible and fit enough.

Were she to allow herself to remember, she’d think them much more than that. Those hands had covered her with a coat. Had spread a shawl on the floor for her. They had cradled her face, skated over her clothing, and caressed her breasts.

“As a matter of fact, princess”—those same hands tightened about the puzzle box—“I wouldn’t even try. Don’t think about kisses, because it’s not going to happen.”

The pencil slipped from Audrina’s fingers to clatter on the table, sending a chip of precious graphite flying.

“I’m telling you,” he added, “don’t think about me kissing you. Or you kissing me. Or both of us wanting to kiss each other so much that we argue over who gets to kiss whom first and wind up falling to the floor in a tangle of limbs. Kissing, naturally.”

By the time he finished this speech, she was biting her lip so as not to laugh aloud.

“That’s something that won’t happen today. Just for example.” He worked a penknife into a seam of the puzzle box, then eyed it with great concentration. “And getting this puzzle box open is another example of something that won’t happen today.”

This time she did let herself laugh. What was the harm in a laugh?

Giles began nudging at panels of the box again; he coaxed a few of them to slide, beginning the process of opening the box.

Across from him, Audrina let her pencil travel across one of Sophy’s gridded sheets. The lady astronomer used them for mapping out her observations, but Audrina wondered whether the page could be used to map something far more everyday. A building.

She had seized on the idea when talking to Giles in the library, when desperate distraction was needed from desperate thought. With all the freedom of being male, trusted by his family, and free to travel the world—how had he given up on doing exactly what he pleased with his life?

And what, for that matter, would she like to do with hers? Now that Charissa was to marry a duke, the other Bradleigh daughters might be more free for . . . something.

Or maybe not. Marriage or disappointment; this was what her parents expected of her. Such expectations were the habit of years. Audrina had battered at them, but had never been able to shake them. They only sprang back, knocking her about. Knocking her into the company of people she hardly knew so that she would not return to London an embarrassment.

But she knew these people now. And—she wavered. Wanting to be home; wanting to stay here. Blessedly free of her father’s disapproval, Llewellyn’s threats, her mother’s well-meant suggestions for improvement. She knew the freedom was false, temporary, but it beckoned nonetheless.

In silence, Giles worked at the box and Audrina began to pencil in a few unsteady lines. She would have found it easier to build a model with blocks or clay; rendering a three-dimensional structure into something flat was unfamiliar and odd.

Before she had sorted out more than a few shapes, Lady Irving slammed into the drawing room. At her heels, the smallest of Lady Dudley’s dogs—a sweet-tempered russet mongrel named Penny—yipped and nipped at skirts of a bright paisley.

“Save me from your father, Rutherford,” Lady Irving called. “He wants to decorate every head in the passage.”

This sentence would have been unintelligible to Audrina a few days ago, but she now knew of both Castle Parr’s corridor full of broken statuary and Richard Rutherford’s fondness for adorning sculptures with evergreen leaves.

“What are you up to, girl? You’re wearing an uncommonly mischievous expression.” Lady Irving marched over to Audrina. Penny’s short legs were a blur as the small dog followed, the sleigh bell around her neck jingling with every tiny step.

“Uncommonly? Do you really think so?” Giles said. “In my experience, Lady Audrina looks like that a lot. She has a devious and inscrutable mind.”

Audrina ignored him. “I am drawing, my lady. You know how proper young ladies are. We can’t bear to be idle.”

“Harrumph.”
Lady Irving would no doubt have said more, but Richard Rutherford entered the drawing room just then. “Out of rosemary again,” he sighed. “A shame, because just one head lacks a wreath. Ah, son, there you are. Do you think mistletoe would make a good wreath?”

Lady Irving rolled her eyes. When she bent over the gridded paper, Audrina caught a faint whiff of something sweet and sharp. Brandy? “That,” declared the countess, “is the ugliest brooch I’ve ever seen.”

“Let me take a look.” Richard Rutherford all but ran over, then looked disappointed when he saw Audrina’s drawing. “Oh, I’ve seen far uglier than that. Remember, Estella, I’ve been looking at jewels for the last two months.”

“You haven’t asked to look at any jewels here,” said Lady Irving.

“There’s no need. The jewel here”—Rutherford made a little bow toward the table—“is the puzzle box.”

“Am I,” broke in Giles, “supposed not to notice that
you
, Father, just called
you
, Lady Irving, by your first name?”

“Too many pronouns,” said the countess airily. “I don’t have any idea what you’re talking about, Rutherford.”

“Oh, God,” said Giles. “If I’m Rutherford, then he’s . . .”

“Richard. So? A matter of efficiency.”

Giles folded his arms atop the table, then buried his face in his makeshift fortress. A muffled voice issued forth: “I wish my ears had fallen off this morning.”

“Son!” Richard sounded amused rather than dismayed. “What an irrational idea. Your ears would only need to have fallen off a few minutes ago.” When he caught Audrina’s eye, she saw laughter in his.

No sense in trying to save face when everyone seemed bubbling with good humor—or good liquor. “Thus are my artistic dreams dashed,” she said. “I meant it to be a drawing of Castle Parr, not a brooch.”

The speed with which Giles sat up straight was astounding. “Let me see.” Before she could move, he grabbed the paper from the tabletop. “Castle Parr . . . Huh.” His brows knit.

“You don’t like it.”

“Of course he does,” Richard Rutherford hastened to assure her. “I’ve known my son quite a while. That’s the face he always makes when he’s liking something very much.”

“Rubbish.” Lady Irving poked at the paper. “And if that were a brooch, that pointy bit would puncture someone’s skin.”

“But it’s not a drawing of a brooch,” Giles ground out. “Please allow that I can tell the difference between a drawing of a gemstone setting and a building, since I have been trained in both areas.” He added a frown to his furrowed brow.

“
She
hasn’t, though,” pointed out Lady Irving. “So there’s no shame in being confounded by the strange blobs on that paper.”

Audrina snapped the paper back and folded it in half. “Point taken. I will never draw anything again.”

“Allow me.” Giles drew it from her hand and flipped it open again. “This gridded paper—it’s interesting. I haven’t seen it used before.”

“Sophy said she makes it.” Audrina made another grab for the paper, but Giles held it out of her reach. “Giles, give it back. I have been mocked enough for today.”

“Surely you’ve heard me mock things and people enough for you to know that I’m not mocking you now,” Giles said.

“Wait, wait.” Richard folded his arms. “Am
I
supposed to ignore the first names being bandied around this table?”

“Yes,” muttered Giles. “And yes, I think you could make a wreath out of mistletoe.”

Now beneath the table, the little dog Penny yapped her approval. A hard nose bumped at Audrina’s feet as Penny sniffed around, probably looking for biscuit crumbs.

Again, the drawing room door opened, and Lady Dudley ran in—white hair flying, a calico apron askew over her gown. “Where’s my Penny? I need Penny. There’s someone at the door and I need all the dogs.” Catching sight of the little animal, she strode over to the table and scooped Penny up.
Jingle.
The dog rewarded her with an affectionate lick.