That Scandalous Summer (33 page)

Liza smiled. “But it’s not the gown that makes you
beautiful, silly goose. Or perhaps it is, but only because the gown is an invitation to really
look
at you. And your spectacles do quite the opposite, you know. They allow
you
to see, but they blind the rest of us entirely.”

Mather bit her lip. “Perhaps that is their point,” she said after a moment.

“Is it?” Casting caution to the wind, Liza crossed the room for the poppy seed cake. The first bite rewarded her courage: moist, flavorful, utterly perfect. “Was typing school so dangerous, then?”

Mather’s eyes bounced from her hands in her lap to the window, then back to Liza. She rarely talked of her past. This look in her face now was the reason Liza had never pressed her on it. The headmistress of the typing school had recommended her handsomely, and that had been enough for Liza.

“You needn’t answer,” Liza said gently—although her curiosity was suddenly aflame, eager to seize on this puzzle, which offered a very welcome diversion indeed. Seeing Mather dressed as though to the manor born—and so very
comfortable
in the role—made her wonder a great many things. Mather spoke in refined accents, but if she had been forced to look for employment, then surely her family had not been sufficiently moneyed to provide a governess for her. “Did the typing school also supply your French?” And her piano skills, and her fine knowledge of geography?

A line appeared between the girl’s russet brows. “No. The typing school was concerned with more useful things.”

“How boring that sounds.”

“Not at all. It’s lovely to learn to be useful. To
feel
useful. French . . .” Mather pulled a face. “French is not useful.”

“Spoken like one who has never braved Paris!” Liza took another bite of cake. Because it was Mather, she did something very savage, and talked with her mouth full: “Besides, darling, you are the
definition
of useful. I suspect you were born so. I am more curious about the French. If not at school, where did you learn it?”

“From my mother,” Mather said slowly.

“And did she play the piano, too?”

“Anyway, it’s quite the opposite, ma’am—I was born utterly useless. And very noisy, I’m assured.”

A neat evasion. “A bawling baby,” Liza said. “Yes, I can imagine that: you
would
be colicky. Sometimes I think you still are.”

Mather laughed. Here was another riddle: the unlikely whiteness of her teeth. Indeed, now that Liza was looking for them, little clues appeared everywhere, contradicting one’s prior assumptions. Mather’s graceful deportment; her height, which suggested hearty meals in her childhood; her self-possession: these things did not suggest a child raised in poverty.

“Your mother was a Frenchwoman?” Liza guessed.

Mather shifted a little, her satin skirts crunching. “No, ma’am. She was quite English. Nobody of note,” she said, which struck Liza as odd—for who would imagine a typist’s mother to be otherwise?

“And your father?” Liza asked.

“It was only my mother and I.”

“Widowed, was she?”

Mather’s mouth thinned briefly. “Abandoned, ma’am.” Her clipped words suggested she’d now grown weary of interrogation.

“I see.” Liza felt a new suspicion forming.

“You mustn’t think the worst,” Mather added, making
Liza wonder what had come into her own face. “We always had enough to get by.”

Not living on charity, then. Liza’s intuition strengthened. “I imagine she was very beautiful, your mother.”

Mather smiled widely now. “Yes, she was. A great beauty, I believe.”

A rich man’s mistress. It would account for Mather’s caginess, and also explain how an abandoned woman might nevertheless possess an income that would support her child’s education.

“Then your looks are from your mother,” Liza said. “For in that dress or out of it, you’re a beauty as well. For all that you disguise it.” She reached for a half-drunk cup of tea.

“I hope I am not a beauty,” Mather said somberly. “For I see how that fortune treats you, madam.”

The cup halfway to her mouth, Liza froze. “I beg your pardon?”

Mather sighed. “You are not enjoying this party, ma’am.”

Liza set down the cup. “Have you overheard something from the guests?” The last thing she needed was tales circulating about her downcast spirits. Good God, Nello would assume
he
was the cause. How irksome!

“Nobody else has noticed, I think. But it’s quite clear to me.” Frowning, Mather leaned forward. “Madam, I know you feel some urgency to marry, and were aiming at first for a very grand match. But I wonder . . .” She hesitated. “I do not wish to offend.”

Liza waved this away. “You have always been frank with me,” she said. Then, with a smile: “At least in regard to my own circumstances. So, out with it, darling.”

“I wonder if perhaps a title is not what you require.”
Mather adjusted her spectacles, her blue eyes round and earnest. “You said once that Lord Michael required a . . .
saintly virgin,
were your words. But that does not strike me as the case.”

“Ah.” Liza felt the breath and good cheer slip out of her. How instantly and completely her hard-won composure shattered.

Do you want me to say things that can’t be unsaid? For I will, you know.

“I should not have spoken,” Mather said instantly. “Forgive me, I—”

“No. No, don’t worry.” Liza reached again for the teacup, turning it in her palms as she sorted through her thoughts. Good
God,
she was in trouble. “Mather, you’ve been over the accounts with me. You know how sore my need is. And a second son . . .” She swallowed. “He cannot supply it.”

In the silence, she kept her eyes on the tea, the bits of leaves at the bottom of the cup. Some thought fortunes could be read in the patterns of the leaves. What a depressing notion—that one’s fortune might literally be located in the dregs.

“I am no romantic,” Mather said finally, her voice hushed. “You mustn’t think that.”

Liza’s low laugh ruffled the surface of the tea. “Goodness, Mather. I assure you, I’d never imagined it.”

“But that’s precisely why I feel emboldened to say this. Marriage is the
greatest
risk a woman ever takes. I know you have some experience of it, but there are so many shades of unhappiness in a union. And the darkest shades—why, even poverty is not nearly so dangerous.”

Liza looked up. Mather had bent her head to study
her hands where they lay locked together in her lap. The set of her shoulders was stiff.

“Have you some personal cause to know that?” Liza asked softly.

Mather looked up, her face unreadable. “I have two eyes, ma’am. And I have seen a great deal with them.”

Liza hesitated, puzzled by the mystery her secretary had become. “You know I am always here to help you, Mather.”

The girl’s expression softened. “I do, ma’am. But I speak now of you. I would not like to see you unhappy.”

Liza tried to smile. “Well. I agree with you that the opposite of unhappiness is not money. Money cannot buy happiness. But love isn’t a very reliable currency, either, you know. And I don’t think only of myself when I think of marriage. I think of Bosbrea. Of the hundreds of tenants who work the land, who rely on me for their support and livelihood.” She could sell the land—but the men with the money to buy it no longer looked to farming for their incomes. Men like Hollister looked beneath the ground to minerals for their fortunes, or to timber, or acres for factories . . . “My future is not only my own, darling.”

Such good sense she spoke. Would that she could
listen
to herself!

Mather was studying her. “Is it love, then?”

Her throat closed. “Oh, Mather,” she said with difficulty. “Don’t be ridiculous.”

Oh, Liza,
she added silently.
Please,
please
don’t be ridiculous.

Mr. Smith, the spirit writer, had insisted on particular scenery: dark, dimly lit, with high ceilings to allow for “circulation of the vapors” . . . whatever that meant. In conference with Mather, Liza had chosen to host his event in the portrait gallery, which she had filled with standing candelabra to aid the mood. He took a seat now beneath a portrait of her father and laid out his utensils—a pot of ink; a feathered quill; a stack of vellum—atop a small writing desk, which he’d brought with him all the way from York.

Mysterious glyphs had been carved down the desk’s polished wood legs. Liza might not have noticed them had she not been trying so intently to avoid Michael’s eyes. He stood two feet away, and he was making no effort to disguise his interest in her. She felt his steady look like a hot hand on her skin. He wanted her to look back at him. She couldn’t. The scene on the terrace seemed to have left her sensitized almost beyond her ability to bear. If she looked at him, she would go to him; if she went to him, she would take him by the arm and drag him out of this scene.

He’d lit a fire she did not know how to put out.

It’s not love. It’s not.

Desperate to distract herself, she leaned toward Lydia, who had walked in with her. “Those symbols on the desk.”
Yes, very good, Liza. What of them?
“Aren’t they remarkable? Do you recognize them?” Lydia was something of an expert in such things.

“Not in the least,” Lydia replied. “They’re vaguely reminiscent of hieroglyphs, but I suspect some artist had a very good time inventing them.”

“A fraud?” said James. “Denounce him, Lyd.”

This exchange made both the Sanburnes laugh loudly. For her part, Liza gathered it was a reference to how they’d first met—James had been taunting his father in public with some artifact that Lydia had decried as fake.

A vivid vision opened in her mind . She and Michael might trade such jokes—a sly allusion to the trustworthiness of mere country doctors. He would laugh, and so would she. And nobody else in this room would understand.

A shudder went through her, powerful and bittersweet. How had she ever imagined herself in love with Nello? The jokes between them had been malicious, and always at somebody else’s expense. He had excited her, of course—and angered and annoyed her; every moment with him had been tumultuous, and in the interludes between their meetings, she had fretted, parsing every moment of their past interactions. But that was not love. Love, she saw now, did not feel at all the same.

Love was more than passion. It was built on
intimacy,
a history woven of private moments, knowing looks, and silent smiles. She had
known
that as a girl. How had
she grown so confused? She had seen such love between her mother and father—and now, for the first time, she had seen the prospect of it for herself. She saw in a single moment how it might go between her and Michael, if she . . . abandoned everything else of worth.

Her parents’ legacy.

Her own surety.

Her tenants’ futures, and the hopes of smart young boys like the Browards.

This was too cruel. Her very thoughts seemed to be gouging out her own heart. She could not stand to listen to James and Lydia murmur to each other a moment longer. She walked around them to join Tilney’s conversation with the Hawthornes. Their barbed tones suited her better.

“Ah, Mrs. Chudderley,” said Nigel in greeting. “I was just speculating on the unlikely idea that spirits might incline toward the
written
form of expression.”

“Nigel lacks imagination,” said Katherine. She was dressed head to toe in gunmetal gray satin that reflected the candlelight in strange ripples. “After all, letters are the natural medium for all manner of delicious and shocking tidings. If you know what I mean.” She lifted one thin, dark brow.

The words were clearly pointed, and invited a leading reply. “How intriguing,” Liza said. “That sounds like the view of a woman with
tremendously
interesting correspondents.”

“So it does,” said Tilney with a sly laugh. “If only Katherine were tasked to read
her
letters tonight!
That
would be true entertainment.”

Katherine tilted up her chin, striking a supremely satisfied pose. “I would never betray my correspondents’ trust. I will say, though, that I received the most
fascinating
letter in today’s post.” She lifted a brow at Liza. “I don’t suppose you also heard from Mr. Nelson?”

How predictable. “Darling. Had you not gathered that my interest in Mr. Nelson has diminished considerably? Why, I’ve not thought of him in weeks.”

“I see.” Katherine exchanged a charged look with Tilney. “What a pity. I suppose we mustn’t mention his name, then.”

What on earth had happened to Nello? Oh, she did not care. The memory of him felt like a fading itch, mildly annoying but not worth her notice.

Mr. Smith clapped his hands, calling the group’s attention to his little desk, where a single candle burned next to a slim stack of vellum. “If you please,” he said. “I will require full silence for my labors here.”

Conversation collapsed into whispers—and then died entirely, as Mr. Smith lifted his candle to his face to display his strenuous frown. For the unsteady light painted a strange and fearsome mask on his bulldog face, which was hatched by deep lines, and sagged at the jowls and brow. His eyes were beady and dark and glimmered strangely.