The Vespertine (14 page)

"I can't," I said. I curled my arms above my head, tugging at the plaits that would save me an hour's dressing with hot irons. "The first dance drove me to distraction. This one will set me on the road to madness and ruin."

"It's Mr. Witherspoon who does that," Zora teased.

But I refused to blush. "It was a wicked, wonderful thing, inviting me the way he did."

Sarah pressed her toe against Mattie's knee, harmlessly menacing her by rocking her back and forth. The bed quaked with the motion, like an ocean beneath us, the lazy sway of waves in the dark. "You can't marry him, you realize."

"He didn't ask," I replied smartly. Of one thing I was entirely certain: Nathaniel Witherspoon was not the marriageable material that my brother sent me to find. Actually, there was one more thing of certainty: at that moment, I didn't care.

Undeterred, Mattie nattered on.

"We won't find
anyone
to marry here. Mr. Witherspoon is unsuitable. We're all hopeless," Mattie said. She seemed untroubled by this, but then troubled, as she was quick to include, "Save you, Zora. Although you found Thomas in Baltimore. You're only reinforcing him here."

For once, Zora turned scarlet, so bright I was tempted to press my cold hand to her cheeks to warm them. "And yet neither has he asked, thank you."

"He only needs time." Sarah stretched once more, then spilled across the bed in a lazy puddle. "His father's apprenticing him. He won't need to go away to study, and fast as you know it, his name will be on the sign beside the door as well."

Frowning, I peered over at her. "You can't apprentice medicine. There are schools for it. Licenses to be had."

Zora settled with her hands folded on her chest. "Some of them are apprenticed, I think."

"Anyone may call himself a doctor," Mattie said. She wound a loose curl round and round her finger, and seemed to drift before remembering the rest of her thought. "And if there's no harm done—"

"The point," Sarah said, cutting Mattie off and recovering the conversation from its digression, "is that he'll be able to keep a wife soon, which means he'll want one."

"Does a man ever
want
one?" Zora asked.

"I should think Thomas does, and no doubt you're the one he'll ask for." At that, I pressed my hand to her cheek, smiling fondly.

"And you'll tell us every little thing." Sarah's declaration carried about it some certainty.

"What makes you think I'd speak secrets from our marriage bed?" Zora demanded, sitting up. "You do me a grave disservice, Sarah Holbrook!"

For a moment we all held silent, for Zora's ire sounded entirely too real. The crude intimation that there should be something to tell hung there, ripe and round, glaring so until Zora rolled her eyes and gave Sarah a shove. "Oh, if I had a glass, that you could see yourself right now!"

"Harpy," Sarah replied.

Collapsing, Zora declared, "Right now, all I want to be is the thing that distracts him and troubles him and sweetly disturbs him from morning til night."

"I should want to be a wife," Mattie said, sighing thoughtfully. "And a mother. I'm fond of babies."

Bemused, Sarah said, "I will marry, but only beneath me."

"You're so cruel, pretending Caleb has no intentions," Mattie said.

"Those are his intentions, not mine." Swimming in the sheets, Sarah turned and twisted, giving Mattie a little shove before settling again.

Mattie said, "I'd never marry down," but it came out a bit plaintive.

Dissolving against Sarah's shoulder, Zora told Mattie, "You may have to. We're hardly up!"

I giggled along—as if I hadn't set myself on the most unsuitable beau of all. Blinding myself willfully to it, I gave into merriment.

How we laughed, at that and a hundred other jests between midnight and morning—the glorious morning that would bring, at last, the dawning of my next waltz with Nathaniel.

I
WAS SO EXCITED
this morning," I told Zora as we wound our way through the refreshment room. "Why do I feel so ill now?"

Knowingly, Zora turned back to me, blocking the punch bowl for all comers, without the first indication that she cared. "It's anticipation. I told you to have that nerve tonic."

"It smelled like a ... I can't even say it in polite company."

"Well, I had some and look at me." Zora slipped her arm into mine, leading me along again. "Fine and fit and barely ready to have hysterics, considering it seems we're here entirely alone."

And with that, she gave voice to my distress.

Walking through the arch of Sienna Place had been very much an entrance to a fantasy. Under Mrs. Castillo's thoughtful gaze, we fashionably arrived an hour after the start and paid our way with new quarters. In exchange, a boy in a Grecian costume and golden diadem, presumably Apollo himself, offered us dance cards.

Past him, in the ballroom itself, tempered jets glowed along the walls and in ornate sunburst chandeliers overhead. Organza bunting, shimmering like sunlight on a lake, draped the windows, some opened to let out the heat, some closed to keep out the night. Dancing here, conversing there—the ballroom gleamed with all the jewels of respectable society.

Mrs. Castillo excused herself to sit with the other married ladies, no doubt thinking the four of us should manage quite well to chaperone one another with only an occasional glimpse from her to measure our manners.

"We'll sit over there," Mattie told us, soon after Mrs. Castillo took her leave.

She nodded at seats empty by the far windows—seats rather near a clutch of young men gesturing among themselves. Sarah swept her fan open, gazing mysteriously over its lace trim. Though she played at flirtatiousness, her voice came laced with sarcasm.

"Wish us luck on our fishing expedition, ladies."

Amused, we watched them go. As Mattie intended to dance as many dances as she could and Sarah needed time to introduce herself to the carpenters and musicians, apparently, they were wise to separate from us.
We
avoided too-long looks and pretended hem distress, all to the goal of saving ourselves and our cards for two alone.

"I've only just realized," I said, trying to keep bitterness from creeping into my voice, "you're the one who has an actual beau."

"Is there something on your mind?"

We turned our third circuit past the refreshment table, and I stopped to have some punch. I wondered what had turned it such a cloudy shade of storm, and when I took a sip, I had my answer. Lime, tart, teasing lime that left me puckering. "It's just ... it only just occurred to me that your invitation was made in the plain, but mine came by treachery."

Zora coughed on her punch and looked askance at me. "By treachery? Have we found ourselves at a pirates' ball?"

"Mock if you will, but it's true. If Mr. Witherspoon finds himself otherwise diverted tonight, then I'm his fool. There's nothing I can do about it. We're the only ones who know he was obligated to me at all."

Tipping her cup, Zora seemed to dare herself to take another startling sip. "He went to such trouble to lure you. What could he possibly gain by playing you false?"

Nothing,
I started to say, but the word refused to come. For he delighted, again and again, in unsettling me—would this not be the greatest unsettlement of them all? Reason told me that Thomas would suffer before making himself a party to such a plot. But logic told me that if Nathaniel wanted to lie to me, he could lie to Thomas just as easily.

"Stop it," Zora scolded.

"I didn't speak!"

"Your pinched little face did." Zora abandoned her punch. "You're lovely tonight, and he would be the lowest sort to summon you without intent."

Carrying my cup along, I followed Zora in her nervous promenade around the room once more. "He'd have no way of knowing how lovely I am if he doesn't appear."

Zora shook her fan at me. "Away. Out of my sight, you moping chit."

With a grumble, I stepped to let her pass, then fell in behind her to make our way toward the ballroom. I thought about stepping on the lace train of her Watteau, although that wouldn't really please me. It would just annoy her. Two foul tempers at a dance instead of one—that wouldn't improve anything.

"Thomas," Zora breathed.

She stopped so abruptly that I splashed my ridiculously bare chest with punch. Due to the bend of my gown's basque, the spill drained into my corset. It was half a blessing. My gown showed no evidence of a stain, but I felt it growing sticky and warm against my skin.

"Is Mr. Witherspoon with him?" I searched my clutch for a kerchief and said, before she had the chance to reply, "I take that to mean no."

"You've no need to be cross with me." Zora took my hand, pulling me along to put herself in Thomas' gaze.

Still daubing myself dry, I said, "I'm only asking."

With impeccable manners, Thomas made his way around the floor, an interminable progress to watch with Zora all but jittering beside me. The fine union blue of his coat suited him.

"How much could he possibly say to Mattie?" Zora asked, impatient.

I didn't answer. They should have been together, Thomas and Nathaniel. They should have been early to greet us. What if our dance cards had filled early? Didn't they risk missing our charms completely by coming so late?

My throat tightened, and I hated the new sting of tears in my eyes. What an awful, spoiled thing I'd become to expect and to demand, when I should have counted myself lucky to spend even a single day outside my little village in Maine.

"Miss Stewart," Thomas said, once he finally reached our side of the ballroom. "Miss van den Broek."

I offered a game smile and silence in response. Fear clutched me, the certainty that if I tried to speak, I would only cry instead.

"Did you come alone?" Zora asked, the question halfsharpened and plaintive.

"Caleb's here with me to surprise Miss Holbrook, and..." When he realized what she really asked, he turned toward me, apologetic. "Mr. Witherspoon didn't drive in with us; I thought he'd be along on his own."

Clasping my throat, I tried to rub away the knot that had formed there. Now managing to speak, I sounded stilted and formal. Well, if nothing else, I had my manners. "I thank you most kindly, Mr. Rea."

Thomas held out a gallant hand. "Shall I have the honor of dancing this set with you, Miss van den Broek?"

"May I write you in for the schottische after the interval? I haven't looked in on Mrs. Castillo in an hour, and truly I should."

"I would be honored," Thomas said, and if he was relieved to escape me, he showed it not at all.
For Thomas,
I told myself, as I fled to take some air and another dip of awful punch,
was a gentleman.

And
I
was a fool.

***

I suppose I should have, when splitting myself off from my chaperones, slipped into the garden. The illicit thrill of going about in the dark might have cheered me. Instead, I submitted to the melancholy of exploring this grand hall alone.

Taking the stairs, I found the ladies' salon, where summer blooms in all shades sat, resting, fanning the sweat from their faces and mending their gowns. A kind, round woman turned to me. Her smile said that I could come inside if I wished.

I nodded my thanks and moved on.

The music downstairs became a whisper as I retreated down the hall. The gaslights dimmed gradually, until I found myself at a bend where none glowed at all. For a moment, I thought I might go back, but why?

All I had was an empty dance card and the awful realization that I had been rash. I'd been a fool. I'd let Nathaniel insinuate himself into my life. For nothing—for a kiss on the wrist and a dark, teasing look.

How stupid I was.

My inclination the first night, when I denied him on account of all my possibilities for the summer—that was the right one. I had no business playing at intrigue; I'd failed entirely at my single task for the summer by setting my heart on a painter, a Fourteenth—a rogue. If I'd had the slightest sense, I should have returned to the ball and filled my card. I should have stolen Sarah's fan tricks and started my summer work in truth.

But I didn't.

I lifted my skirts and ventured on. The distant cry of violins urged, the delectable cool of shadows tempted. I gave in, slipping into a dreamy haze of wonder at fine things I could never hope to own and elegant solitudes I could enjoy but this once.

A door drifted open at the end of the hall. At first, I hesitated, for what if I should stumble on things never meant for my eyes? But then my boldness reasserted itself—before me now were shadowed busts and paintings. A few more steps indicted me no more than the hundred I'd already taken.

Daring swept over me as I brushed the door open. No conspirators looked up from amap; no lovers gasped, caught by my unexpected appearance. It was just a room, tastefully appointed, but with nothing to recommend it over any other. Fine curtains parted at the window, drifting on a breeze.

Before me, a lawn traced in bluesilver shadow spread into the night. The moon hung low. It glittered like a curved needle, left in a field of midnight velvet.

Clasping the balcony rail, I lifted my face to the wind again. It carried the cold, stony scent of fresh water. All my life, the ocean had surrounded me, saltily pushing me to the west.

This spring's sweetness offered to carry me away, off to cold, clear lands that I had yet begun to imagine. Eyes closed, I pressed forward a bit more, parting my lips to catch a taste of that promise.

"Don't jump," Nathaniel murmured beside me.

Though my breath faltered, I could, at last, face him. Seeing him thrilled me as ever. I was helplessly attracted to his wanton mouth. But now I looked on him without illusion. Whatever method he took to slip in and out unannounced, it no longer impressed me.

"Over You? I should hardly think so."

"You're angry," he said. And as if nothing had passed between us but days since our last meeting, he let his black gaze trace the path of my lips. "I'm unforgivably late. Can we come to an accord, Miss van den Broek?"