Chapter 15
It was late when Emelia finally went over to Hannah and tugged on her sleeve, reluctant to disrupt what was clearly a magical night for her little sister. After Emelia had danced with Montgomery he'd gone on to dance with Hannah as well, and then a few other lucky ladies at the party. She credited this change in heart to the passing comment she'd left with him as he escorted him from the floor.
"Now, that wasn't so bad, was it?" she'd said with a little laugh. "I had a nice time."
"I had a nice time too," he'd answered, "but I credit that to my partner."
She hadn't been able to resist a little eye roll and put her hand on his arm. "Even if I did believe that," she'd said with a smile, "I would have to remind you that dancing isn't all about you and your own enjoyment. There are ladies out there that want to dance with you because they've been alone and uninvited all evening. Have a little heart."
And he'd taken his leave of her with a bow and a smile, drifting away towards the group of girls waiting expectantly on the sidelines.
Now, as Emelia and Hannah started home in the dark across the thin path worth between the Shaw's estate and their own, Emelia couldn't help thinking about all that had passed between her and her unexpected partner on the floor. She decided that she thought more highly of him than she previously had.
She'd thought that Brody's far flung idea of Hannah falling in love with a morose student and scientist like Montgomery would be bad for her sister, but now she could see that Montgomery would be a good man and a good match. She wasn't completely sure Hannah would go along with the idea, but she had a lightness of heart after seeing a different side of the man.
She looped her arm through her sister's. Hannah looked luminescent in the light of the moon and the last shreds of lantern light fading behind them. "I'm surprised your bevy of admirers let me take you away," Emelia said with a teasing note in her voice. "It seems you could barely get away."
It was too dark to see Hannah's complexion, but Emelia would have put money down that she was blushing.
"I did dance more than expected," she said quietly.
"A girl like you?" Emelia tugged on her sister's arm. "You ought to always expect a full dance card."
"But I don't." Hannah's voice was open, interested. "Really, I think people saw me as a child before tonight; before Brody danced with me, at least. He did me a good turn."
"Yes, I saw you dance with both the Shaw brothers." The girls walked on in silence for a few more moments, and then Emelia prodded a bit more. "Did you find Dr. Shaw more engaging than you did the day of my disastrous tea party?"
"We talked, yes," Hannah said simply.
"About what?"
"This and that." Hannah's voice smiled in the dark. "Actually, we did talk about the tea party. He said that you are too hard on yourself about things like that, and I agree. He also mentioned a new medical procedure that's being developed right now across the pond."
"Really?" Emelia was interested. "What procedure?"
"Oh, I don't know," Hannah said dreamily. "I am afraid I tune out when people start talking about their work. It holds little real interest for me. But he didn't seem to mind. He kept speaking about it, and he's a good enough dancer to mask a bit of dull conversation."
The girls topped the hill and started down into the moonlit valley. The creek sparkled silver below them.
"Well, at least I went to a party where nothing terrible happened," Emelia commented with a little laugh. "No dogs eating the food, no faux pas. I'm pleased that there was a major social event where I was in attendance that didn't end in a major blunder—"
"See?" Hannah stopped in the road and put both her hands on Emelia's arms. "That's exactly the sort of thing Montgomery was talking about. You mustn't speak so harshly about yourself, Emelia. You've got to speak about yourself the way you speak about other people—kindly, with grace. The blunders are amusing on occasion, nothing more. And you don't have to hold them over your own head. No one else does."
"I think Lady Michelle might be doing," Emelia said wryly.
The girls started back down the hill again, crossing the creek at the bottom by way of a small bridge. "Well, when have you ever cared what Lady Michelle thought?" Hannah said.
They started up through the willowy orchard trees. It seemed somewhat eerie, even under the full moon, and the sisters linked arms again. Emelia was not ready to let the subject of Montgomery and the matchmaking go. She could hear the sparkle and light in Hannah's eyes, and she wanted to capitalise on the momentum that the good doctor had already begun in her little sister's heart.
"I can hear it in your voice," she teased.
"What?"
"The magic. Hannah, I'll warrant someone caught your eye tonight; someone special."
Hannah's silence spoke volumes. If it had been a normal night, she would have protested at once that no such special person had been found, but as it was she only kept walking, her eyes on the path, her lips pressed together.
"There is someone!" Emelia cried in delight, just imagining how proud Brody would be of her. "I noticed it when you danced with him, Hannah. There was something special about the way you moved around the dance floor, and he seemed so taken with you."
"You noticed?" Hannah's voice betrayed her surprise.
This was her moment, Emelia knew, to put in a good word for Montgomery. "I did. I don't think I've ever seen him that way with you before, and I know that you wouldn't have presumed his affection even though we've known him so very long…"
"Exactly," Hannah breathed. She looked down at her feet. "I had no idea that you knew. I didn't think you'd be alright with it all."
"Alright with it? I'm thrilled for you. He's a good man. I may tease him at great length, but the truth is that he's honest and true and very kind. I think that if you were to be with him, you would find yourself happy for the rest of your life." She pulled up a bit, wanting to be wise about proceeding. "I want to make sure your heart is safe. From a distance it looked like affection, but do you feel that your conversation reflected any flirtation or attraction?" She thought about what Hannah had said about the scientific procedure that had bored her listless. "Do you have any reason to hope?"
"I think I do. More than reason." Hannah bit her lip. "Or maybe not. He was flirtatious, surely, but then he always is."
This was unexpected. Emelia paused stopped on the flagstone patio behind their house. The servants had left on a light in one of the back rooms and it spilled out onto the ground in a golden puddle around her and Hannah.
"You think him flirtatious?"
Hannah gave a laugh. "I know you think highly of him, Emelia, but you can't deny that he's flirtatious. It's one of his most marked characteristics. I think the man would flirt with a cow if it would give him some attention."
"Hannah!"
"I'm sorry." Hannah giggled. "I'm a little caught up in the moment I think. Was there wine in that punch?" She sank down onto the bench and leaned back, her arms thrust out to the side. "No, I don't think it's drunk on spirits. I think I'm drunk on love."
A note of misgiving was growing in Emelia's mind. "How long have you cared for him?" she asked slowly.
Hannah blushed and dropped her arms. "Honestly? Since we were children. I was…infatuated with him. I am infatuated with him, actually. I know better, I really do. I know that he would never look at me, and ordinarily that's enough for me, but tonight I was dancing with him and he looked in my eyes and I felt that he saw me for the first time. It was like he was looking straight through me."
Emelia swallowed hard. That made sense, she supposed. She'd felt the same thing when Montgomery had danced with her, as though she was finally safe and at peace; as though he really didn't want to hear the things she had to say. At one point in the evening he'd made a comment about beetles and she'd thrown her head back in laughter, thinking he was mocking her as Brody would have done under the circumstances, only to find that he genuinely wanted to know why she had
n't purchased the book.
"Can you imagine me bringing home a book about bugs while Hannah walked in with the latest romantic poet?" she'd said, disguising her discomfort with humor. "Father would have been appalled. He wouldn't understand why I was wasting time on something that could never be of use in society."
"I see," he'd answered soberly, and for the first time in this vein of conversation she'd seen that twinkle reemerge in his eyes. "So you don't think beetles are useful conversation starters at your grand social events?"
"No," she'd laughed, this time genuinely, "No, I don't think so."
"Perhaps you're right," he'd said, "although I will admit that if a hostess ever started talking about the life cycles of beetles at the start of a soiree, I personally would feel instantly at ease. Still, even supposing your audience isn't yet ready for your genius, why limit yourself? If you're interested in expanding your mind with such reading, expand it. Put your nose in the air when people mock you for it, and learn what you can while you have a brain to use."
Even thinking back on the conversation, Emelia felt an odd thrill of delight. Montgomery had a way of opening worlds for her, worlds that she'd never imagined could be hers to understand and therefore possess.
"He does have a way of seeing straight through you," Emelia acknowledged, sitting quietly down beside Hannah. "I know it's not the flashiest thing, but it does have a certain worth."
"Not the flashiest thing?" Hannah let out another laugh. "I swear, Emelia. Sometimes I think you don't know him at all."
Emelia blinked. "Excuse me?"
"Brody is as flashy as it gets," Hannah said in a rush. "He's all sparkle and show, and even though sometimes you might think it's all ridiculous, it makes me want to follow him everywhere he goes."
Emelia felt a jolt of sickening understanding. "You're…you're infatuated with Brody."
Chapter 16
"Yes, that's what I said." Hannah wrinkled her forehead. "Who did you think I was speaking about?"
Emelia's mind was whirling out of control. She opened her mouth to confess that she'd heard everything Hannah had said thus far as though she was just speaking about Montgomery, but she knew at once that such a confession would only add another level of confusion to the conversation.
"I…I thought it was another man at the party—one of the other fellows you danced with."
Thankfully, Hannah seemed to be so swept up enough with her thoughts of Brody that she didn't push further to learn the identity of the other man in question.
"I am not just infatuated," she said softly. "I'm in love. Brody is so remarkable, as you well know, Emelia, and so handsome and refined. I've always thought so, but he's never paid me any attention. I've always just been a little sister to him."
Emelia thought about the last conversation she'd had with Brody, when he'd talked so flippantly about setting Hannah up with Montgomery. It was clear to her that he still only thought of Hannah as a little sister, whatever she'd misread from the evening.
"I don't know what to say," she said slowly.
Hannah read her sister, as always, like a book. Her face fell. "You're sad, aren't you?" she asked softly. "I knew you would be. Emelia, I know he's always been fonder of you, but I thought that if by now nothing had happened between you, then perhaps the rumors are just rumors after all. You would have told me, of course, if you planned to marry Brody."
"Right," Emelia said softly.
"So are you upset for a different reason? You're afraid that I'll marry your best friend and take him away from you?"
Emelia wanted to throw up her hands and put a stop to this—all of it. She wanted to put a stop to the runaway phaeton of conversation, all the hypothetical plans and mental images of Hannah, heartbroken, when she found out that Brody didn't care for her the same way she cared for him. It would crush her.
"I'm only worried that you're getting ahead of yourself," Emelia said at last, biting her lip. "You know how Brody is, Hannah. He's always running after girls without backing his actions up with real heart and words. I don't want you to make more of his perceived affection than is really there."
Hannah's face froze. Emelia expected her to dissolve in emotion as she usually did, but instead Hannah's jaw set in a slant of annoyance. There was something new and bright in her eyes.
"Maybe you're wrong. Maybe you don't know Brody as well as you think you do. You've always been so close to him as a friend, Emelia, but perhaps I know something more about his heart than you do. Why is it that you think he wouldn't care for me? Because I'm younger than you? More shy?"
Emelia couldn't help thinking that Hannah looked anything but shy at this moment, her eyes flashing in the moonlight, her little hands clenched in her lap in anger.
"That's not what I meant," she ventured.
"Well, you're wrong," Hannah said hoarsely. "I saw something real in his eyes, and I've waited so long to see something like that, Emelia. If I want happiness for myself, then I'm going to have to speak up and tell Brody how I feel when the time is right."
"Hannah—"
"And you can't talk me out of it. I've held my tongue long enough."
A slew of warnings tumbled through Emelia's mind, but in the end the open look in her sister's eyes was too much for her. Hannah wouldn't hear the truth right now, and perhaps it would be good for her to indulge her heart for once in her life. Brody would be honest with her when she spoke to him, and he always had a more gracious way with people than she did, anyway.
Emelia swallowed. "I just don't want you to get hurt."
Hannah softened, the sharp edge of her passion wearing away in the face of her sister's kindness. "I know."
They say in silence for a moment, and Emelia noticed how full the night air was of the sound of creatures and animals alike coming alive in the darkness. The sounds of the night always made her think of her childhood; games running about and hiding in the dark after hours, pranks played on Montgomery or their parents, whispered secrets with Hannah after they crept into each other's rooms and shared scary dreams until the fear drained away. Whatever happened with Hannah, she didn't want to stand in the way of her sister's heart any more than she already had. She'd seen the pain in those veiled eyes when Hannah talked about her close friendship with Brody—she was envious, but more than that, she was excluded. Emelia hated that she'd done that.
"You will talk to him soon?" she asked at last.
"When I feel the right moment has come," Hannah repeated, "but until then you can't say a word to him, Emelia. I know how you like to gossip and share with each other, but you can't tell him anything about this. You have to leave me my dignity in this matter."
"I won't. Your secret is safe with me," Emelia answered honestly. And she knew even as she said it that she would never uncover Hannah to Brody. Blood was thicker than anything else, and she owed her sister that much. Still, as she embraced Hannah and the two made their way up to bed with the magic of the ball dissipating behind them, she couldn't help thinking that Hannah's revelation and request left her between a rock and a hard place: she couldn’t go along with Brody's attempt to match make Hannah and Montgomery now, not that she knew her sister loved Brody himself, but how could she divert Brody from his goal without uncovering her sister's secret?
Chapter 17
Brody had always thought that houses the morning after large parties or soirees were the most depressing of places. Everyone slept in late, even the staff, so when he woke and padded downstairs the rooms felt like a tomb all around. The decorations, once so magical and alive, hung limp and loose from the walls and ceiling.
A Lady's Perfect Match: A Historical Regency Romance Book Page 11
