There Will Be Phlogiston (14 page)

There. He lived. Breathed. Felt. Was.

Arcadius, Lord Mercury, the last of his line, the
oldest and proudest of the Gaslight nobility. He had lain with
other men as men lay with women. He had put his mouth upon the
cocks of soldiers and sailors, dockworkers and tavern boys. He had
stood in dark corners, in the drizzling rain, hot with lust, hands
upon him, in him, working him to fumbling completion. He had given
himself to Anstruther Jones, let him into his body and into his
heart, committed with him acts of gross indecency. And he had
relished them all, these sins, these perversions, these rough
ecstasies, their tenderness and joy.

The last Lord Mercury met his own bruise-shadowed
eyes in the mirror, and did not flinch or turn away. If he was to
be damned, then he was done with shame.

Needless to say, Rosamond was not enjoying the
Copper Ball.

As she had not yet crossed the border into
matrimony, which permitted the alleviation of certain ignorances,
she was not supposed to know about the fall of Lord Mercury. It was
deemed too shocking, too depraved for debutantes. But she knew
because everyone knew. It was all that was spoken of. An excitable
stampede to outrage. Amazing, how many people had long suspected.
The same girls who had swooned over him, the same gentlemen who had
respected him, the same mamas who had coveted his name and his
fortune. And now they scorned him, laughed at him, murmured that he
got what he deserved, recoiled from his temerity in having dared to
lurk amongst decent people.

It would have been her they whispered about, had
they only known about Ashworth Valley and Anstruther Jones.
Selfish, she knew, to think about herself in the midst of someone
else’s misfortune. But every day that passed left her a little more
uncertain, a little more alone. She wondered what people did after
they were ruined. How badly had Lord Mercury been hurt? How much
did he care about his disgrace? Would she ever see him again?

If one stopped and thought about it for a moment,
there was no reason she could not have visited him at home. Or
entertained him at Wolfram Hall. He was, after all, demonstrably no
threat to her virtue. But there was no reason in any of this. Just
fear and hate and cruelty.

And, of course, Lady Mildred and her friends were
talking about him too. Exchanging pathetic little anecdotes about
how he had handed one her stole or helped another into her
carriage. As if such encounters represented some brush with mortal
danger. It made her hot and fizzy-angry inside just to hear
them.

“I stood on his toe once,” offered Lady Mildred. “It
was my first waltz and he was so . . . so terribly dashing, you
know, that I was deathly afraid of him.”

“Rightly so.” Rosamond was glad she could not
identify the interlocutor because she surely would have punched
her.

But, to her surprise, Lady Mildred hesitated before
answering. “I . . . I am not sure. He was very kind. And he need
not have been, for everyone admired him, and any woman in the room
would have been delighted to stand up with him.”

“One kindness hardly means anything, Milly. He is
still a . . . a . . . well. As they say.”

“It means something to me. And so I will not speak
badly of him for a preference I believe to be none of my business.”
Rosamond had always thought Lady Mildred a usefully plain opponent,
but she looked . . . in all honesty . . . rather adequate when her
colour was up, and her eyes were flashing. “And,” she went on, “I
would advise anyone wishing to call herself a friend of mine to do
like—excuse me, do you need something?”

This last was addressed to Rosamond who had edged a
little too close to the group. She wanted desperately to say
something cutting, toss her hair, and glide away. But she couldn’t
think of anything, and she was too fragile to muster much bravado.
“Oh, um, no, I was just . . . I . . . I’m sorry.”

She turned and hurried away, feeling graceless and
ill composed, as if everything she tried so hard to be was flaking
away like ash. Her skin prickled with sudden awareness and she
almost stumbled straight into Jones. He put out a hand to steady
her, his palm curving under her elbow. An innocent touch that
nevertheless ignited her.

Made her remember his mouth, his body . . . his
fingers. Her own had played her false ever since, proving little
more than adequate for the purpose to which she nightly put
them.

But now he was looking down at her with obvious
concern.

She hated concern. It was too close to pity. And she
would not be pitied by the likes of Anstruther Jones.

No matter how wretched she felt, or how much she
desired him.

Choice had been made. And that was the end of
it.

Now, if only she could stop seeing him everywhere.
Like the most delicious cake she couldn’t eat.

She pulled free from his gentle grasp, and pressed
into the crowd, scandalously unattended, in search of her
mother.

Oh, she didn’t want to be here. She wanted to be
quiet and alone, which necessarily meant her father’s house.

Could she claim yet another headache? People would
think she shared her mother’s habits, and honestly, she was
starting to see the appeal. She had been prescribed laudanum for a
while, when she had rushed a jump she shouldn’t have rushed and
been flung from the saddle, breaking her arm. The tincture had
tasted bitter enough that she had protested, but it had made the
world so soft that all her thoughts had just slipped away, and even
pain couldn’t stick anymore.

She remembered, suddenly, her father at her bedside,
his stiff-backed silhouette, and his fingers curled next to hers
upon the coverlet. He had sat there all night long. And the next
day he had sold her hunter, breaking her thirteen-year-old heart.
It wasn’t Thunder’s fault, it was mine
, she had screamed at
him.
Young ladies do not raise their voices
, had been his
only answer. The old helpless fury welled up inside her, but
tonight it felt different, flimsy somehow, unimportant compared to
that sombre, silent vigil, and the hand that did not know how to
comfort her.

She wondered what would happen if she went to him
now.
Father
, she would say,
I am very unhappy, and I do
not know what to do
. But all she could imagine him saying was,
Young ladies are not unhappy, and they do as they are
told.

At that moment, a clock chimed the hour, and an
announcement rang across the ballroom: “Lord Mercury.”

And the whole world—from the guests to the musicians
to the dancers to the servants—fell silent.

Rosamond had no idea the mere absence of noise could
be such a palpable thing. But there it was, a wave of nothing,
sweeping across the marble floor, as heavy and stifling as heat.
And, everywhere, a terrible stillness. A room of painted statues,
their gazes turned towards the door.

Where Lord Mercury stood.

As elegant as ever in his evening dress, and a
waistcoat of lilac silk that turned his eyes to jewels and his hair
to flame. The shining auburn locks that had stirred several less
well-appointed ladies to envy were gone, trimmed almost to nothing
and smoothed back from his face. Such a loss should surely have
diminished his beauty, but she found she liked him like this:
revealed in some way he hadn’t been before. He walked slowly into
the room, head held high, smiling faintly. There was a cut on his
lip, bruises on his jaw, another beneath his eye.

Nobody moved. Or said a word. Until all at once
conversation resumed, and the orchestra jerked into a waltz.

Lord Mercury was left an island at the heart of a
spreading sea of emptiness. He even stood a little taller as
everyone and everything he knew abandoned him. Rosamond took an
impulsive step forward, hardly knowing what she intended, only that
she did not wish to turn away from such dignity and courage, but a
hand closed around her elbow. The marquess, his fingers digging
into a remarkably tender spot at the crook of her arm.

The parting of the crowds had made a human corridor,
bodies and crinolines and closed faces, and the marquess pulled her
roughly aside as Lord Mercury walked past them, his gaze intent on
something beyond her field of vision. She strained to see, and
there, waiting and smiling the biggest smile, was Anstruther
Jones.

Lord Mercury stopped before him, and bowed low.
“Anstruther Jones, may I have this dance?”

And Jones threw back his head and laughed his
fearless laugh, the sound breaking beneath the domed ceiling of the
ballroom like fireworks. “Yes,” he said, “yes. You can, and you
may.”

His hadn’t raised his voice, but it carried anyway.
Most of the Gaslight nobility aspired to a London accent, but Jones
didn’t even try, and the truth was, though she could barely admit
it to herself, Rosamond adored him for it. There was harsh music in
the way he spoke. It showed both the absurdity and the truth of
things, and it made her long for a home she had never known.

Lord Mercury was pale and still, an odd shimmer in
his eyes. Untouched by scorn, but fragile in the face of kindness.
“Thank you.”

It was noisy and crowded in the ballroom, full of
turned backs and cold, inquisitive eyes, but at that moment, they
might have been the only two people in the world. Rosamond
recognised the way they looked at each other—all that longing and
hope—because she’d felt it too. It was strange, and yet not strange
at all, to finally understand it in the reflection of someone
else’s love.

Lord Mercury reached out slowly and took the hand
Jones held out to him. Came into his embrace. Together they stepped
onto the dance floor.

And they waltzed. A pair of entwined shadows gliding
effortlessly through a cumbersome flower garden.

They were beautiful together.

It took a moment for society to realise exactly what
it saw. And then there was carnage: muffled shrieks and shattering
glass, gasps and exclamations, a babble of intemperately raised
voices. Several women swooned, and only some of them were caught.
More than one gentleman surged forward, reaching for a sword he was
not carrying. And among the other dancers, the panic was mounting,
some stumbling frantically away, despite the impropriety of doing
so, some blundering into each other as they tried to see what was
happening, and the rest grimly pressing on, stiff-backed and
stony-faced.

And through it all, Lord Mercury and Anstruther
Jones were turning gently in each other’s arms. If this was ruin,
Rosamond envied them.

Lady Copper pushed her way to the orchestra, and
stopped the music with a savage gesture. As the waltz died a
drawn-out, discordant death, the remaining dancers fled. In the
freshly falling silence, Lord Mercury bowed to his partner again,
and Jones just grinned. Recaptured his hand and brought it to his
lips.

Two gentlemen. Being perfect gentlemen.

To each other.

It made Rosamond want to smile at their wickedness,
their joy. But as she scanned the faces of the other guests, she
saw only anger, revulsion, and incomprehension. And, where there
was not, embarrassment. Gazes trained upon the floor.

Someone knocked into her, tearing her skirt, almost
pushing her off-balance. It was Lord Copper, whose fatherly
geniality she had always rather coveted, although there was nothing
even a little bit genial about him now. He was red-faced and
muttering, his words catching at her like briars as he shoved past.
“—bloody outrage. And in my house. They should be horsewhipped,
filthy buggers.”

Oh God, there was going to be a terrible scene, and
Rosamond could not bear the thought of it. She did not want courage
to bring ignominy, and kindness cruelty. She remembered Lord
Mercury pleading with her to keep his secret. She remembered how it
felt to kiss Anstruther Jones. To ride too fast through Ashworth
Valley on a horse of flesh and steel.

And then she realised. She, too, was tired of being
frightened.

Tired of trying to be good. Tired of trying to be
perfect. Tired to waiting for someone to notice. Tired of waiting
for someone to care.

She might as well have joined the damn circus. They
could have called her the Clockwork Girl.
See how she smiles and
curtseys, how lifelike she is
.
A miracle of modern
mechanical engineering.

Oh, to hell with it. To hell with everything.

For the first time in her life, she was going to
making a fucking choice. And maybe it was the wrong choice. Maybe
it was a stupid choice.

But it was
hers
.

She yanked herself free of the marquess.

His mouth twisted, as though he sensed her
recklessness and her purpose. “If you associate yourself with
reprobates, neither I nor my name will protect you.”