The Stepsister's Triumph (12 page)

“I know,” Benedict said softly.

“The funny thing was before I met her . . . well, I'd made more than a few mistakes, and one or two of them came back on us.” He poured himself another measure of port, and Benedict pretended not to notice the tremor in his hand. “I was sure she'd leave me when she found out. Far worse, though, was the certainty that if she did find out, it'd break her.” He set the decanter down and took a healthy swallow of the fortified wine. “Amazing thing was, when it came down to it, she turned out to be the stronger of the pair of us.” He paused again. “You're not the boy you used to be, Benedict,” he said finally. “You've grown into a good man. Your own man. If you'll take my advice, you'll stop punishing that man for the boy's mistakes.”

Benedict didn't answer. He loved his father, and he appreciated how hard it was for the man to understand his difficult second son. But this was not something his could explain. Or that he wanted to explain. Ever.

Father sighed. “Well, there's the gong. Let's go into dinner, shall we? I've had a letter from my brother, you know . . .”

Benedict followed him, sinking gratefully into stories of family and friends and the country and politics. But in the back of his mind he saw Madelene, turned away, ready to run. But where did she have to run to?

In his mind's eye he saw himself, saw his arms open for her. A wave of sweetness suffused him.

Stop punishing that man for the boy's mistakes.
His father's words played over in his mind.

But how could he dare to love Madelene, whose strength had already been so tested? Where did he even begin?

He knew, though. She'd told him. He would concentrate on taking charge of the space around him. Around them. And then . . . and then . . .

And then he could hope and he could trust and he could try.

Oh, Madelene. Please say you'll give me a chance to try.

*   *   *

Madelene was beginning to feel that her season, rather than being a triumph, was turning into a long series of bad ideas. The worst, thus far, had to be writing to Mr. Thorpe to request an interview at his office, just two hours before she was due at her next sitting with Lord Benedict. In the two days since she'd last entered Benedict's studio, she'd swung from hope to despair and back again. Yes, they'd parted on a note of friendship, but could that note be sustained this time? None of the others had.

So when she set this appointment with Mr. Thorpe for the same day as the sitting, she had seen it as something akin to taking unpleasant medicine—she should try to get it all down at once.

Now, Madelene sat on the edge of the comfortable chair in Mr. Thorpe's calm, ordered office deep within the hushed confines of the bank.

“I received your letter, as you know, Miss Valmeyer.” Mr. Thorpe closed the door behind them. “You have requested a truly extraordinary amount.”

“I know, Mister Thorpe.”

Her trustee sat behind his desk and steepled his fingers, and she saw the grim set of his features.

“If this was for an emergency, or a disaster, I might be able to convince the rest of the board to advance the sum. But this is for a party.”

“I know.”

“I recognize balls are a matter of great concern to young women.” Mr. Thorpe drummed his fingertips against one another. “I had never thought of you as one of that kind before.”

“I have never had the opportunity before. Now, with Lady Adele and Lady Helene . . .”

“Who are looking to you to make up for their own deficient finances, are they not?”

“They will supply half the cost,” she said quickly.

But Mr. Thorpe just shook his head. “I'm sorry, Miss Valmeyer. I cannot authorize this. With all the rest of your expenses, which have been considerable, as you know, this is just too much.”

No. It couldn't be. Mr. Thorpe had never refused her when the requests had been for her family, but it seemed he had no qualms about refusing her when the request was for herself.

Madelene knew full well that family must come first. She'd always made sure their bills were paid and their debts were honored. Extra sums were always found when father's investments had not turned out, again. She'd sat in front of Mr. Thorpe every single time, and she'd pleaded, and always, she'd come back with what her family needed.

“You can spare yourself the burden,” Father said, usually in his study, when they were away from the others. “If only you weren't so stubborn and ungrateful. One note, written by you to the bank, and you'd never have to hear another complaint from your stepmother again. Come now, Maddie, I know she's hard on you. I would never choose to see you in this position, you know that. Just write the letter, and I will be able to protect you as a father ought to.”

But she never had. She'd done everything except that. She'd dug her own hole, Father reminded her, and she knew that he was right. But she also knew that if she handed him control of her money, the hole would become a grave.

And this was where it had led.

It's not fair.
But as soon as she thought that, she heard Miss Sewell's voice answer.
But it is reality, and you cannot ignore it.

“Mister Thorpe,” Madelene said, slowly. “Who is it you work for?”

“The bank, of course,” he answered.

“But who do you represent?”

“The Cross Trust,” he said.

“Which is for the benefit of whom?”

“Yourself, naturally.”

“So you do work for me?”

“After a fashion, yes.”

“Then, as your employer, may I speak plainly? Please?”

“Miss Valmeyer,” he said. “I wish you would.”

“Very well.” Madelene drew herself up. She tried not to worry about where she was or who was watching her, or how oppressive the hushed and solemn office felt around her. This place was not worse than the expanse of the empty Theatre Royal. She did not need to be afraid.

“Mister Thorpe, I need this money. You know that if my stepmother and my stepbrother do not receive large, regular payments, they raise many complaints and even more bills. This year . . . this season, I have every hope of changing my condition before matters reach a crisis. That is, before I turn twenty-five and the money becomes mine, so I no longer have you to stand between me, my father's family, and my mother's money. But if I cannot continue regular payments to them, as well as have enough to meet my own needs, I will be trapped in the house, as I am, permanently.”

Mr. Thorpe let out a great long breath. He ran his hand across his shiny, spotted scalp.

“I have waited ten very long, very anxious years to hear you say those words.”

Madelene's jaw threatened to drop open in astonishment. “You
knew
?”

“I have been hinting as hard as I can that I know. You were placed in a position that would prove impossible for a grown man, let alone a young girl. But my hands were entirely tied. Even now I have my limits. The rules of the trust are explicit, and so is the law, and to tell you the truth, they sometimes run counter to each other. I was always afraid if I spoke too directly, that fact might come clearly to light. Therefore, it became impossible for me to act without your direct orders, no matter how much I wanted to.” Mr. Thorpe leaned forward, and for the first time in all the years Madelene had known him, he smiled.

It was perhaps not quite as wonderful as Benedict's smile, but it would do.

“Well, Mister Thorpe, I hope you have a notebook ready,” Madelene said. “Because that list of orders is going to be extensive.”

Madelene all but skipped up the stairs to Benedict's studio. She tried to tell herself to be cautious, but her spirits were so buoyed by her success with Mr. Thorpe that anything seemed possible. It was certainly reasonable to hope for the best, she told herself. After all, she and Benedict had left things on a note of kindness last time. Why should they not begin in the same tone?

She raised her hand to knock, but just as she did, the door flew open in front of her, leaving her hand at about the level of Benedict's nose.

The first thing Madelene noticed about Lord Benedict was that his hair had come loose from its usual neat queue and hung in curling locks about his shoulders. The second thing she noticed was that he was dressed only in shirtsleeves and breeches. The effect of this dishabille so entirely disordered her wits, she forgot for a moment to lower her hand.

“Oh, ah, good morning, Lord Benedict.”

“Good morning, Miss Valmeyer,” he replied.

“I trust I am on time today.” She also finally remembered her hand and returned it hastily to her side.

“Yes, very prompt. Won't you please step in?” Benedict moved aside and bowed, too hastily. A fresh lock of hair fell loose across his sharp cheekbones. “I, ah, you'll excuse me a moment?”

Before she could answer, he darted behind a carved screen. There was a moment's rustling, and he came out, his hair tidied, and his coat and smock pulled on over his rumpled shirt. “As you can see, I've made some special preparation for our sitting this time.”

“You have?” For a moment Madelene thought he must mean his clothing, or his lack thereof, and her heart quivered.

“You didn't notice?”

Madelene looked around herself in confusion. The studio seemed exactly as it had been. There was the easel and the blank page waiting. The rush-bottomed chair and the stool and the strings and the pot of geraniums, but . . .

Benedict smiled. “Turn around.”

Madelene obeyed. “Oh!”

He'd been at work with his chalks again, but this time instead of the floor, he'd decorated the wall. Benedict had drawn an ornate golden frame over and around the plain threshold of his studio door. It looked like something out of the engravings Madelene had seen of Versailles, complete with cherubs and turtledoves and curlicues, spread lavishly across the chipped wood and plain whitewashed wall. The door itself had been covered entirely in white chalk and a drawing of a wreath of yellow roses. They looked so lifelike that for a moment, Madelene was certain she smelled the flowers' sweet perfume.

“It's wonderful!” she cried. “But what . . . ?”

“This,” said Benedict solemnly, “is my answer to our mutual contradictions. I hope it is, anyway.”

“I don't understand. I mean, it's beautiful, but . . .”

“You gave me the idea when you spoke about your cousin's method of taking charge of the space around oneself. Only I took it a step further and thought I might . . . set aside a space. This”—he gestured toward the gold and white decorated door—“is the threshold of the world. All the city, all the country, everyone and everything, lies on the other side. On this side, there is only you and me. We are the only ones who see what happens here, or hear what is said.”

“This space is ours,” she said slowly. “We neither of us need to be nervous here, because no one can see.”

“You understand, but I was sure you would.” Benedict was talking too quickly and rubbing his hands on his smock, leaving smears of color behind. He must have been working up until the minute she climbed the stairs. “Artists, we live a great deal in our own minds, and sometimes we come up with ideas that seem perfectly sensible, until we tell them to other people. Then we can find ourselves looked at very oddly.”

He was holding himself apart from her, deliberately. His whole frame was as stiff and alert as a soldier at attention. She'd never seen him so nervous. It made him look entirely boyish, and as she watched him, a sweet warmth spread through her. He was waiting to know what she thought.

She felt herself smile, both at the lovely decoration and at the fact that Lord Benedict so clearly cared about her reception of his work. She knew what he was doing, of course. He was giving her a game to play, one where she could pretend to be safe and unobserved. It was to make it easier for her to sit still. She also knew it wouldn't work. At least it shouldn't have worked. Except as she gazed on his lovely, elaborate, lifelike drawing of a gilded threshold and saw all the care he'd put into the idea, something inside her eased and opened. He'd made this for her. It was a gift, and it was thoughtful and heartfelt.

It also meant that he wanted to be alone with her as much as she had always wanted to be alone with him.

Madelene knew her eyes were shining when she turned toward Benedict. “Thank you,” she said, and, to her embarrassment, her voice trembled a little. She swallowed and tried to steady it. “I don't think it's odd at all. I think it's lovely.”

“I'm glad.”

It was only two words, but Benedict spoke them with a world of meaning. Madelene's heart, already swollen with hope, fluttered gently beneath her breasts.
Something is going to happen
, it whispered.
Not yet, not yet, but so soon . . .

“Shall we begin?” Benedict gestured toward her chair.

“Yes,” she said. “I think we should.”

Madelene assumed her usual place, and Benedict took up paper and pencil. Anticipation curled up tightly beneath her breast. She could feel it like a warm and pleasant weight next to her heart.

Benedict felt something, too. She could tell. He brimmed with fresh energy. There was a spark in his dark eyes that she had not seen before this. It felt close to that sympathetic vibration she'd recognized the first moment they'd stood together, but this was no brief lightning flash of feeling. This was the steady, extended warmth of the sunbeams on her face and hands.

Soon
, whispered anticipation.
Soon.

But she must not think on it. She must not dare to imagine or to hope for too much. This feeling might still break as it had so many times before. She might lose heart, or nerve, or he might. She must concentrate on her pose. Even seated she could practice the lessons Cousin Henry had given them.

“You do not need to be sure of the whole world,” Henry had reminded her as they'd walked through the figures of a particularly complex quadrille, with bits of scenery standing in for other dancers. “Just the inch around you. That's more than enough.”

Benedict's voice cut across her thoughts. “Where are you, Madelene?”

“I'm right here.”

“No, you're not. You're somewhere out there.” He gestured over his shoulder. “Beyond the threshold.”

“I'm sorry. I was thinking about yesterday and dancing lessons. My cousin Henry, Henry Cross the actor, he's teaching Adele and Helene, and me, to dance.”

Benedict's pencil paused. “When you said your cousin Henry was an actor, I didn't realize you meant Henry Cross.”

“He says you've met.”

“Once or twice,” Benedict said briefly. “I would have thought you already a very good dancer.”

“I know the steps, when I'm not too flustered. But I need practice. That's why he's been teaching me all his notions of space.” She paused. Benedict was staring toward the balcony, a soft smile playing about his expressive mouth. “Now it's you who's gone, Lord Benedict.”

Benedict shook himself and dropped his gaze from the windows. “I'm sorry. I was just woolgathering.”

“That's not fair,” Madelene told him primly. “I told you about my distraction. You must tell me about yours.”

His smile turned shy. “All right.” He took a deep breath. “I was imagining dancing with you.”

A flush crept across Madelene's cheeks, but there was no feeling of shame. The image of Benedict in evening dress and holding his arm out to lead her to the floor, the swell of music around them . . . It was magic.

“You could come to a party,” she ventured. “We're going to Lady Virgil's ball this Friday. I'm sure Miss Sewell could acquire . . .”

“No,” Benedict said flatly.

“But . . .”

“No,” he said, more gently this time. “I do not go into society. Not regularly. Not to dance.”

“Why not?”

A shadow of anger crossed his face, and Madelene watched him rein in his first impulse to snap at her. She bit her tongue hard to keep back her own first instinct, which was to apologize at once and change the subject.

“It's difficult to explain.” Benedict picked up his pencil and added another line to the drawing in front of him, and another. “I . . . When my pictures were beginning to be shown in England, they were successes. I was invited everywhere and made much of. The marquis's painter son. I was scandalous and yet one of the ton at the same time. And of course, I had my exotic wife . . .” His voice faltered. “In fact, I, we, became the fashion. I enjoyed it. I enjoyed it the way a drunkard enjoys his drink. I enjoyed it all to the point I was no longer able to properly govern myself, and . . . I became a disgrace.”

“I'm sorry,” Madelene whispered.

“Don't be.” He tried to smile at this, but the expression was bitter beyond words. “It was my own fault. Now I simply stay away.”

“But surely now that you're older, more experienced . . .”

“No.” The word dropped like a stone. “There are some things time cannot cure.”

“I understand what it is to be afraid.”

“It's not fear!” he snapped. “At least, not that kind of fear.”

She had no answer for that.

“I did it again.” Benedict sighed and dragged his hand through his hair, causing stray locks to fall about his ears and slant across his brow. “I'm sorry. I wish I could go to one of your parties. I would like to dance with you.”

“It is a shame we've no music on this side of the threshold,” she said, attempting to make the sort of joke Miss Sewell might.

“Yes, it . . . Wait. Wait.”

Benedict hurried out to the balcony. “Hey there!” he shouted, leaning so far over the railing, Madelene squeaked in fear. “Wallace! Have you got your flute out?” He paused, and a man's voice shouted back. “Give us a waltz, won't you?”

Benedict came back inside, grinning. He also left the doors open and moved the easel aside. As he did, a thin but sprightly waltz tune drifted in through the French doors. The music was much dimmed by the shouts and traffic noises from the lane below, but it was still audible.

Benedict bowed and held out his hand.

Madelene slapped her hand over her mouth.
Now
, whispered that insinuating voice.
Now, if you dare.

She looked at Benedict's lovingly decorated threshold. On the other side of the door, she couldn't, but here . . . here there was no one to see. Here the world did not exist. There was only Benedict, and Benedict was smiling and holding out his hand.

Slowly, Madelene stood and stepped down from the dais. She moved carefully, feeling herself within the space about her, feeling herself in relation to the man who waited for her, and it was a feeling like none other.

She laid her hand on his shoulder and felt his come to rest against the small of her back. His free hand closed around hers. They wore no gloves, so there was no barrier between her soft palm and his rough, stained one.

“One, two, three,” he began, and they started to move. “One, two, three, one, two, three . . .”

“Do you have to do that?”

“Oh, did I forget to tell you? I'm a dreadful dancer.” His shoe stepped on her slipper. “You see?”

Madelene laughed; she couldn't help it. “Well, you can't count music, that is for certain. Let me. One, two, three . . . one, two, three . . .”

His steps smoothed out, and he began to hum along with the faint tune. It was a pleasant sound, a little off-key but sweet all the same. The sweetness of it got into her, lightening her feet, easing her mind.

“One, two three . . .” Madelene smiled up at him. His eyes were so deep, so open. She could fall into them, dive into them, drown in them. No, not drown. Benedict would never let her. He would hold on to her with his strong hands as he did now. He . . .

He dropped her hands and stopped dead, his breath heaving, his deep eyes staring. Without a word, he walked past her.

Madelene stood where he left her, her arms dangling limp at her sides, her hands numb. The moment was broken, and the warm anticipation dissolved.

I should have known. What else has ever happened between us? Why on earth did I believe today would be any different?