Of Noble Family

by Mary Robinette Kowal

  “Unequivocally.”

  “Oh.” Jane reached for his hand.

  He raised her hand to his lips, kissed it, and held it there with his eyes closed. His fatigue and strain had pressed dark circles under his eyes. The mask he had worn cracked into deep furrows across his brow. Underneath that lay anguish and rage.

  Light, rapid footsteps sounded in the hall, followed by a knock at the door.

  “Enter.” Vincent stood, retaining Jane’s hand.

  The door opened and Dr. Jones entered, wrapped in a white dressing gown. Her heavy dark hair hung down over her shoulders in a pair of braids. A young man in shirtsleeves followed her.

  “How is she?”

  “She is alert, this time.”

  “Good. Will you light more candles, Zeus?”

  “Yes, ma’am.” Without his livery on, she had not immediately recognised him.

  The memory of being held down returned. The weight on her legs. His firm grip on her shoulders. Her heart beat wildly, and Jane could barely draw breath. Spots of grey swam over her vision as though she were working glamour. Jane pressed back in the bed with a low moan.

  Zeus lit the candle near her, but paused after lighting the one on the far side of the bed. “Should I go out, sir?”

  “Yes … I think you had better.” Vincent squeezed Jane’s hand before releasing it to walk around the bed. He took the taper from Zeus. “I will finish the candles.”

  At the door, the young man paused. “I am so very sorry, madam. I did not think it would be that bad. Sir Ronald, he bleeds Lord Verbury nearly every visit.”

  The doctor snorted. “There is a good deal of difference between bleeding a man who is sitting up and a reclining woman who is with child.”

  The door shut behind Zeus and Jane slowly relaxed. Sir Ronald had threatened to beat Zeus. Jane was aware of that fact and knew that the young man had little choice, but she could not forget the strength of his grip so readily.

  As Vincent lit candles around the room, Dr. Jones leaned over Jane and felt the pulse at her wrist. She frowned, shaking her head. “Mm. How is your hand, by the way?”

  Vincent flexed his right hand, the knuckles of which were swollen and bruised. “Better, thank you.”

  Jane frowned. “What happened?”

  “I … I hit the wall.” He nodded to a place by the door where the plaster was cracked.

  The doctor said, “I wish you had followed your original impulse.”

  “My original impulse was murder.”

  With a chill, Jane understood that “murder” was not a figure of speech.

  “As I said…” The doctor reached for a little pot sitting on a small copper brazier and poured some of the steaming liquid into a mug. “Mrs. Hamilton, I have some beef tea. I want you to drink as much of this as you can.”

  “Delightful.”

  “It is indeed.” She slipped a strong arm around Jane’s shoulders and helped her sit up a little.

  Even that slight motion made Jane’s head swim and the room turn circles around her. She stared at the bedpost and breathed slowly, waiting for the dizziness to pass. It did not. Neither did it grow worse, so Jane did her best to pay it no mind. She raised her hand to the mug but was still grateful for the doctor’s help. She had not had a beef tea since she was living with her parents. The warm, salty drink restored some of the moisture in her mouth.

  She finished the mug, and the doctor eased her back to the bed. “Good. We shall try you with some liver and greens next.” She set the mug on the side table and turned the counterpane back. “I just want a quick look at the baby. This will not take a moment.”

  Vincent hovered at the foot of the bed, arms crossed over his chest. He bit his lip, shifting from one foot to the other. Jane stretched out her right arm to the far side of the bed, beckoning him, for his comfort as much as hers. He moved to sit on the edge and laced his fingers through hers. His gaze darted between her face and the doctor’s activities.

  He cleared his throat. “Have you attended many births?”

  “Mm … close to forty this past year. Roll on your left side for me, Mrs. Hamilton.”

  Jane complied, trying to recollect how many she had read about in the estate records. It had not seemed like half so many. “Were those all live births?”

  The doctor’s hands paused on her stomach. “Some are at other estates or among the free coloured population, of course.” She drew the quilts back over Jane with a smile. “Everything seems in order. Now, I want you to keep your feet up and drink plenty of the beef tea. I shall be just down the hall tonight if you need anything.”

  “You are staying here?”

  “At your husband’s request.”

  “What about Amey? And your other patients, and—”

  “It keeps me closer at hand, should Amey begin her labour. My assistant knows where to send for me should I be needed. He is used to me moving from time to time.” She brushed the hair back from Jane’s forehead and laid her warm palm against it again. “I shall see you in the morning. Mr. Hamilton? A word, please.”

  Jane clutched his hand. “Not in private.”

  “Muse—”

  “I have nothing very alarming to report, but wanted you to rest.” Still, the doctor addressed her comments to Vincent rather than Jane. “She is not to be moved until she regains some strength. Even then … Mr. Frank told me that you had intended to take ship, and I must advise against that. A week in bed. Then she might move about the house, but no agitation. I cannot stress this enough. No agitation or exertion. Another two weeks should see her fit enough to venture out for gentle exercise, but I should still be cautious about travelling far for a month or more. I will stay here tonight and tomorrow, after which she should be out of immediate danger. Have you any questions?”

  “Is there anything I should be doing to help?”

  The doctor looked from him to Jane and gave a little smile. “In the ordinary course of things, I often advise the husband to sleep elsewhere so that my patient’s rest is not disturbed. You, I think, should stay with your wife as much as you can. Am I correct, Mrs. Hamilton?”

  “Yes. Thank you.”

  “Very good.” She gave a brisk nod and blew out the closest candle. “I shall see you in the morning.” As quick as that, she was across the room and out the door.

  Vincent let out an unsteady breath. “Well, Muse. Shall I blow out the rest of the candles so you can sleep?”

  “I think I shall sleep regardless of the light in the room.” Jane had never been so tired. “What were you reading before?”

  “I have no idea. It was something about plantation management, but I think I read the same paragraph all evening.” The slight compression of his lips as he bent his head spoke volumes. Vincent ran his thumb over the ends of her fingers. “It is very dull. Shall I read you to sleep?”

  “Would you … would you work some glamour?”

  His brows rose in surprise.

  “Not much. I am certain you are tired as well. I only want…” She wanted a change in the room so that it looked different from where she had been held down and bled. But a full glamural was too much work for a night. “I like to watch you work.”

  “Of course.” Yet, he paused, gazing at her. The candlelight played around the planes of his face and smoothed them into an expression of earnest concern. Her breath stopped at the unexpected openness. Without the sharp line of a collar guarding his jaw, he always seemed younger somehow. “Jane … I do not say this often enough: I love you. Very much.”

  Even without stays, Jane could barely draw breath. She offered him a smile that threatened to dissolve into tears. “I love you as well. Rogue.”

  “Muse.” Vincent leaned down and kissed her cheek, dark circles under his eyes.

  Jane stopped him as he pulled back. “How long was I unconscious?”

  “Nearly fourteen hours. You opened your eyes twice tonight, but did not seem aware—” He stopped and cleared his throat. “You did n
ot seem to be aware of your surroundings. Thank God you insisted that Dr. Jones come, or—well, she has been good enough to stay. I have been … worried.”

  Without the cravat, and with his shirt open, the frantic beat of Vincent’s pulse was obvious. The layers of gentlemen’s clothing usually served to hide all but the deepest of emotion, but without that disguise of fashion, his struggle lay clear with each uneven breath. Worried. He worried when the baby kicked. She could not imagine the blow to his sensibilities that the past days must have dealt him, and she knew that he would try to shoulder the burden alone.

  “This was not your fault.”

  He closed his eyes, stopped breathing, not even the protest of air escaping. Only that vein in his throat beat on. Vincent turned from her, squeezing her hand as he stood. He wiped a hand down his face and rolled his shoulders. “You asked for glamour. Have you any requests?”

  “Vincent…”

  “I should probably mention that Dover in the coldbox can hear us. His son is waiting as an errand boy in case either of us needs to call for anything.” He walked to the foot of the bed. When he turned to face her, his composure was once again restored. “We are not in view, though.”

  “Thank you for explaining. I hope that, later, such a measure will prove unnecessary.”

  “As do I.” He reached into the ether and pulled out a fold of glamour that he fanned into a rainbow. “Until then, what shall I perform for you?”

  “Artist’s choice. I am too tired to make a decision.”

  He nodded, rolling the folds between his hands. The furrow reappeared between his brows as he stared deep into the ether. She had expected him to work the rainbow into the foundation of one of his abstracted clouds, but he let it dissolve and turned to the nearest bedpost. Dipping his fingers into the ether, he pulled out strands of brown and wrapped them around the wood so it began to appear to sprout branches. He worked steadily, with a delicate precision that was at odds with his person. One expected a man with his height and build to be rough or coarse in movement. The grace of his hands as they twisted and shaped skeins of glamour into the first blush of a glamural made Jane’s breath catch in her throat with a sudden yearning.

  He twisted the vine up the bedpost till his head was tilted up, revealing the strong column of his neck. In spite of the coldmonger chilling the room, the effort of governing the folds soon raised sweat upon Vincent’s brow. The familiar wonder of watching her husband work warmed Jane into a sense of security.

  As she drifted, her vision fogged till the lines and threads that made up his work stood out in a web that glowed in her second sight. Some part of Jane noted that she was watching the ether, but she was too tired to remember why she should not, and then she was asleep.

  * * *

  When Jane woke next, Vincent lay curled beside her with one hand resting on her shoulder. The warm weight comforted her. His face had slackened, making it more apparent how strained his waking hours had been. Midmorning light filtered through the mosquito curtains and softened his face further. He snored, though to describe the small wheeze as a snore was perhaps unfair. In spite of his broad chest, Vincent’s snore bore more resemblance to that of a kitten. He wore the same shirt he had last night, and Jane rather suspected that he had worked until he was dizzy.

  Her guess was further supported by the glamural that shrouded their bed. Passionflower vines wrapped the bedposts, bobbing in an imaginary breeze. He had added a faint trace of their honeyed scent, but not so much as to be cloying. Knowing his work, this was far from finished. The vines on the headboard had only been roughed in, with simple brown threads to indicate where they would be. At the foot of the bed, he had gone farther with the detail so that delicate purple blossoms fluttered on their stems.

  Shortly after they had first met, Vincent had given her his drawing book, which was filled with his thoughts on the nature of art and glamour in particular. In it, he had described the idea of putting one’s passions into art. Tension might become the tight cling of a vine to a post. The tremble of a hand might make its way into the movement of flowers on their stems. The desire to hide could translate into a bower woven of sweet, aromatic vines whose flowers faced the sun.

  Vincent had put himself into the glamural, and that familiar act comforted Jane more than the art itself.

  * * *

  Over the next several days, Jane became acquainted with the variety of ways in which liver could be prepared, learned the joys of boiled greens, and drank more beef tea than she wished to consider. She had not been so exhausted since her miscarriage, and the similarity made her uncomfortably aware of the risk she was in. It took three days before she could sit up without dizziness.

  During the first days of her recovery, Jane had alternated between staring out the window, drinking endless gallons of beef tea, and sleeping. She was now beginning to have enough energy to be restless, though not so much that she could leave the bed, so her thoughts had turned to exterior matters such as her book and conditions in the slave quarters.

  Vincent, however, could think of nothing else but The Incident, seeming to alternate between worry and anger. If he had not had the glamural to work on, she was not sure he would have survived. He added hummingbirds to the bower, a sky that changed throughout the day, and he resolutely refused to acknowledge any of his distress.

  When she pressed him, he replied, “The doctor says you are not to be agitated.”

  “I will become agitated if you continue to be so remote. I am imprisoned in bed, and lost, and more than a little afraid because I do not know what is happening.”

  He became even more still. Then he stood from the small table he had taken to using as a desk and came to sit on the bed. He only sat for a moment, then wove a deep silence, cutting off all sound. Jane settled down to wait for Vincent to collect his thoughts, but he only bowed his head and continued to sit. One hand dipped in and out of the ether, drawing a small trail of red along with it, a seemingly unconscious motion. The swelling on his hand had gone down, but the bruises remained in dull greens and yellows. Vincent clenched his fist, wiping out the trail of glamour.

  “Jane … I am sorry for leaving you in the dark. Truly, I am protecting myself as much as you.” His voice was low and faltering, as though he were finding his way through a darkened room. “I have no practise at.… I know how to survive when I have only myself to worry about. But with you? Here? I do not know how—” He sighed and ran a hand through his hair. “I feel like a glamourist trying to walk and hold two different glamours. One of them is always about to slip. I cannot breathe, and I am about to lose my grip on all the strands.”

  She took his hand and ran her thumb gently over the bruises. “You worry me.”

  “I worry myself.” He gave a little smile that might even have been genuine. “But worrying you is the opposite of my intentions. So I am going to ask for your indulgence. Will you let me change the subject? Your breath is distressingly quick and you are pale.”

  Jane regarded him. The visible bruises were confined to the knuckles of one hand, but, much like the scars on his back, the damage ran deeper. It frustrated Jane that she understood him well enough to know that speaking of such things took effort, and that his reserves were greatly diminished already. When he requested a change of subject—and she was grateful that he at least acknowledged the retreat from the topic today—he often did so to preserve his resources for battles outside their sphere. Still, it vexed Jane that he was correct. She was having difficulty catching her breath and felt as though she were in the midst of working a large fold of glamour.

  She sighed to cover her agitation. “You are insufferable.”

  “I prefer ‘inscrutable.’” He smiled, softening a little at her teasing tone, and because she had allowed the change of topic.

  “Inexplicable would be more accurate.”

  “Inconceivable!”

  She rested her hand on her ever-increasing stomach. “Not any longer.”

  He lau
ghed and kissed her on the forehead. “I do not think that word means what you think it means.”

  “Humph!” But Jane was delighted that she had managed to make him laugh. She would mangle all the words in the dictionary if it would help. “I return to my previous assertion of ‘insufferable.’”

  “I accept. Tell me about your book.”

  “Insufferable man. I have been thinking of how to structure it.” Truly, she had little to do but think. Still, she was always somewhat nervous about discussing theory with Vincent because he had the benefit of formal training, while Jane had only books and a tutor in her history. “My plan is to approach the comparison between European and African methods of glamour as a sort of school. That is, I will treat it as a primer, documenting basic techniques and how our European method approaches teaching them. When I can once again visit Nkiruka, I shall ask her how the African schools approach early training. By comparing the training methods, I hope to illuminate any material differences between them.”

  “Do you expect significant differences?”

  She gave a little shrug. “I am not certain. We were hindered by vocabulary and my inability to see or show folds. I am hoping that this approach will also allow us to build a shared vocabulary of technique. Then I shall be better able to document more advanced theories.”

  “Perhaps…” Vincent rubbed his chin, thinking. “Shall I be there at the next meeting? I can watch what she is doing and exhibit the European folds in your stead.”

  “Thank you, but you already have more than enough responsibilities.” In truth, she would very much have liked to have him there, but she was not certain if Louisa would be entirely comfortable with him present. In spite of Jane’s own discomfort, she wanted to make amends with the maid. Her actions when Jane and Vincent were attempting escape made Jane feel that she had mistaken the young woman’s loyalties. “I thought to ask Louisa if she worked glamour. Even a little would be sufficient for the initial work.”

  “Louisa? Truly?” Vincent raised his brows.

  “Yes, of course.” A sudden concern struck Jane, and she was ashamed that she had not thought of it sooner. She had been exhausted, but that was little excuse. “She has not been sent back to the fields, has she?”