by Rowan Nina
“I never say anything I don’t mean.”
Lydia paused, bringing him to a halt beside her. As much as she enjoyed his company, the oddness of the situation—the sheer improbability of running into him and the even greater unlikelihood that he would actually want to visit the zoological gardens—struck her hard.
She leveled her gaze on him. “Why are you really here, my lord?”
“My sister Talia—you, ah, encountered her the other night—does quite a bit of work with the ragged schools.”
Lydia blinked at the non sequitur. “Oh. That’s good of her.”
“Yes. Are you familiar with the ragged schools?”
“I’ve heard of them, but I don’t know their intent.”
“The schools attempt to reclaim children from the streets,” Northwood explained. “Their students come from impoverished families whose fathers are either in prison or committing crimes that will eventually land them there. It’s a cause that’s very dear to Talia.”
“It sounds like a worthy cause, indeed.”
“It is. Talia and several of her friends have arranged a charity event on Saturday next. It’s a children’s festival with games and such, all to benefit the schools. I’d be obliged if you would attend.”
Anxiety began to simmer inside Lydia. “Oh, I don’t know if—”
“I’m certain your sister would enjoy it,” Northwood said. “I believe there’s also kite flying, dancing, wagon rides. Talia has spent several months helping organize it. She’s even talked Sebastian into playing the piano.” Before she could protest, he added, “I’ll have my carriage pick you up at eleven. I’ll return you home whenever you like. Really, you might even enjoy it yourself.”
Lydia chewed on her lip for a moment. She glanced at her sister, who was walking ahead of them toward the animals’ enclosures, then nodded. “I would enjoy it, my lord, and I know Jane would too. We don’t often attend such events.”
She realized the impact of her hasty comment when Northwood frowned.
“Why not?” he asked.
“I just don’t… I haven’t got a great deal of time for such things.” Never did. Pain sliced through her chest as she recalled her own dark childhood, where frivolities like festivals and kite flying didn’t exist.
She knew Jane’s childhood had been nothing like hers—she’d seen to that—but she also hadn’t actively sought many amusements for her sister.
“Because you’re too busy with your equations?” Northwood asked.
The edge to his voice cut her a little, and she looked away. “I’m not made of numbers, Lord Northwood.”
“Then why do you foster such notions?”
“What does that mean?”
“You want people to believe you’re made of nothing more than mathematical brilliance.”
“I do not—”
“Don’t you? Less than a fortnight ago, you attempted to tell me what I believe about you.”
“Quite frankly, that is what everyone believes about me.”
“I don’t.”
Startled, she looked up at him. “You don’t?”
“No. It isn’t true. Your destiny is not one of cold intellect. And I do not for an instant believe you are happy with only textbooks and numbers as your companions.”
Lydia swallowed. He was gazing at her with more than curiosity, more than puzzlement. He looked as if he knew that beneath her thick shield lay something vulnerable and painfully tender. Something he was more than capable of protecting.
“Why would you believe such a thing?” Her voice shook.
He stepped closer. So close that the cool air began to heat around them, so close that she felt the intent radiating from his body. His voice dropped lower, sliding like a caress against her skin.
“If you were content with such a life, you would not have kissed me, touched me, as if you longed for more,” he murmured.
Her face burned. “I exhibited an appalling lack of judgment.”
“You exhibited what you felt. What you want.”
“I’ve told you what I want. And that was not it.”
You are not it.
She couldn’t bring herself to say the words, knowing they would be a lie to the tenth power. Her shoulders tensed as she stepped away from him.
“You may think what you wish of me, my lord. I only ask that you remember one thing. I said it would be for the best if you believed what I told you, if you left me to a destiny of intellectual solitude. Anything else would most certainly be for the worse.”
She turned away from him. He grasped her arm, his fingers tightening with a possession that caused her heart to jolt.
“Nothing between us will ever be for the worse, Miss Kellaway.” He spoke with absolute certainty. “Nothing.”
“Shorten your statement, my lord, and you’ll have the truth.” She pulled her arm from his grip. “Nothing between us will ever be.”
“You’re wrong.”
Her throat tightened. How she wished she could be wrong. How she wished she could unlock the closed part of herself and let him in. The more time she spent in his presence, the more she imagined how glorious it would be to discover the potential of what they could be together.
Even if it were for only one night.
Shaken by the thought, Lydia turned away. Without looking at the viscount, she went toward her sister. “Jane!”
Jane waved her hand to urge Lydia closer. Lydia quickened her pace, hoping against hope that Northwood would leave.
“Look!” Jane gestured at the screened terrace containing six dens for housing lions, tigers, cheetahs, and a jaguar. “Lord Northwood, did you know the lions are from a place called Nubia? It’s in Africa. And, look, the leopards. I think they’re from India. Isn’t that right, Lydia? One of them is, anyway. Lord Northwood, did you know the ancient Greeks believed giraffes were a mix between a leopard and a camel?”
He stopped beside Lydia. “I did not know that. I’ve ridden a camel, though.”
“Really? Where?”
“When I was a boy, my father took our family on a trip to Egypt. Camels are as common as carriages there.”
“What was riding it like?”
“Like being on a boat about to capsize. It was decidedly one of the oddest things I’ve ever done.”
Jane grinned and turned her attention back to the lions’ den. Lydia and Northwood stopped to watch as the huge felines plodded around their enclosures, pawing at the ground and stretching their sleek muscles.
“Why Paris?” Northwood asked.
Lydia sighed. “You are relentless.”
“All the more reason for you to answer me.”
“This isn’t your concern, my lord.”
“I know. But I am curious. Why Paris?”
“Because we can’t afford to send her to one of the London schools, and Lady Montague has offered Jane a scholarship.”
“And why does your grandmother feel you are not suited to such instruction?”
Lydia gazed at her sister. Jane trailed a stick across the ground as she began walking toward the bear pits. Her long hair glimmered in the sunlight, falling across her shoulders like a swath of silk.
Northwood thought he knew her destiny, did he? He thought he knew what she wanted, what she needed, what kind of life she ought to lead? Perhaps he’d change his perceptions if he knew of her past.
“Because I never received it myself,” she said.
“Not even from your mother?”
Although the question was not unexpected, it caused a sharp pang to spear through Lydia. She stopped, trying to ease her hitched breath.
“Miss Kellaway?” Northwood cupped a hand beneath her elbow. “Are you all right?”
She nodded, glancing in Jane’s direction to ensure the girl was still within sight. “My mother wasn’t capable of taking care of herself, let alone providing etiquette instruction.”
“What happened to her?”
Lydia stilled. His hand remained on he
r arm, the warmth of his palm burning clear through his glove and her sleeve. He stood close, too close, his gaze on her face as if he sought to solve a complex puzzle. His presence was big, strong, unmoving.
Lydia experienced the sudden and unwelcome thought that a man of his formidable nature could easily withstand whatever truth she flung at him. He could bear without effort whatever confessions she sought to unload from her heart.
“She had… trouble.” Lydia lifted a shaking hand to touch her temple. “Here. She developed a disease of the brain. The strangest veering between melancholia and mania. She started having episodes of rage, of profound darkness. Until I was about five years of age, she’d always seemed fine. But then… later my father told me she’d lost several children through miscarriages and a stillbirth. That… that broke something within her.
“She began locking herself in her bedroom, refusing to come out. She’d become furious with me over the smallest things, like a grass stain on my dress. She’d never done that before. She’d leave the house for days, and no one would know where she was. My grandmother came to live with us to help take care of her. That helped for a time, but then it became too horrific even for her. She convinced my father to send my mother to a sanitarium for proper medical attention.”
His grip tightened on her elbow. “Did it work?”
“At first it seemed to.” Lydia kept her gaze on Jane, who had paused outside the bear pit to study a massive brown bear. “She’d come home for a time; then it would get worse again. So my grandmother would arrange for another institution, another doctor. Another course of treatment. They traveled constantly throughout the Continent. Finally when rumors began to mount, my grandmother requested permission to remove her from London permanently. They went to a place in France she’d heard of through her church. Outside of Lyons. My mother was there for almost three years.”
“Did it help?”
“She seemed content there for a time. My grandmother stayed with her. My father visited when he was able. That was where my mother died.”
An odd emptiness widened within Lydia as she said the words, even as she felt Northwood’s body vibrate with shock.
“I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be. She was a prisoner of her own mind for so long that it almost seemed as if she were finally free. But of course it nearly destroyed my grandmother. To lose a child, a daughter, even one as ill as my mother had been…”
She eased her arm from his hold, sensing his mind working, furrowing through all she’d told him. She turned away and began walking toward Jane.
“Lydia.”
She stopped. The sound of her name in his baritone voice thudded right up against the walls of her heart.
“Where were you when your mother was in France?” Northwood asked.
She didn’t look at him. “Not with her.”
Alexander Hall. Viscount Northwood.
Lydia was indeed moving up in society. The question was whether she was merely the man’s whore or if she aspired to be something more.
Did it matter?
Joseph watched as the girl Jane climbed back into the viscount’s carriage, Lydia close behind her.
Yes, it did matter. Now that Sir Henry was dead, perhaps Lydia was no longer concerned with the consequences of her actions, the possible damage to her character.
In which case, his plan might not work.
If, on the other hand, Lydia was pursuing Lord Northwood for more than money… well, that would be of benefit to all involved.
Especially himself.
Chapter Seven
Jane swung her leg back and forth, staring at the dramatic oil painting that hung above the fireplace. A hunting scene with a tiger as the quarry. She didn’t like it at all. An arrow protruded from the tiger’s side, blood dripping over its fur, its face twisted into a snarl.
She swung her other leg and wondered if the delivery boy had given Sophie another letter this morning. Lydia had been rushing Jane around getting ready, so she hadn’t had a chance to speak to the maid privately.
Lydia’s hand came to rest on Jane’s leg, stilling her nervous movement. Jane let out a breath and reached for another slice of tea cake. Mr. Hall’s piano, black and so shiny she could probably see her reflection if she got up close, stood in a corner of the vast drawing room. What if she left smudges on the keys?
She rubbed her hands over her skirt. First she got to ride in a viscount’s carriage, and now she was sitting in an earl’s drawing room about to have her first piano lesson with his son.
Quite a bit to have happened in the past week.
She glanced at Lydia. “Where did you find it?”
“What?”
Jane gestured to the notebook resting on Lydia’s lap. “I thought you’d lost… er, misplaced it.”
“I found it in… well, I’d left it somewhere and it was returned to me. Fortunately.”
“Terribly sorry for the delay.” The door flew open and a man strode in, his dark hair messy and cravat askew. He hurried to them, extending his hand. “Sebastian Hall, Miss Kellaway. I hope you haven’t been waiting long.”
“Not at all. We arrived early. This is my sister, Jane.”
“Miss Jane, a pleasure.” Mr. Hall gave her an easy smile. She liked the fact that he wasn’t all staid and proper. “Have you had piano lessons before?”
“No, sir.” She shifted a little, suddenly not certain she wanted piano lessons anymore. Mr. Hall seemed very nice, but this room was too big, too fancy. And she didn’t like that painting at all.
“I hope you’ll find them enjoyable,” Mr. Hall said. “If we could review the program and schedule, we’ll get started right away.” He looked at Lydia, who nodded and followed him to the piano.
Jane trailed after them as Mr. Hall opened a book and began explaining his theory of music and what Jane could expect to learn in the first few weeks.
She glanced at the painting again and thought of all the animals they’d seen at the zoological gardens. Why would anyone want to kill a tiger?
A bank of windows lined the wall on the other side of the room, sunlight streaming through them. Jane wondered if they overlooked the garden.
When Lydia and Mr. Hall started discussing which books to procure, Jane crossed the room. An alcove was next to the windows with a door presumably leading outside. Metal trays sat on several tables, filled with dirt and sprouting green seedlings. She stepped closer, peering at the little shoots.
The door opened and a tall, big-shouldered man entered, his black hair sprinkled with gray like a coating of frost. He was fiddling with an apparatus in his hands, his head bent. He looked up at Jane and frowned.
She startled. The earl! She knew it. His face was austere and hard, lined with creases around his eyes and mouth.
Jane’s heart pounded. She couldn’t move.
“Who are you?” the Earl of Rushton demanded in a deep voice.
“Er… Jane Kellaway, sir… my lord. I’m taking piano lessons with Mr. Hall.”
“What are you doing here, then?”
“He’s… he’s discussing things with my sister.”
“Is she taking piano lessons?” His words were short and clipped, like bullets.
“No, si—my lord.”
“Then oughtn’t he discuss things with you?”
Jane scratched her forehead, then stopped. Likely it wasn’t polite to scratch in front of an earl.
“I… well, I’m certain Mr. Hall knows what he’s about.”
The earl stared at her for a second, then gave a laugh that sounded rusty and humorless, as if he hadn’t laughed in ages. “Certain of that, are you?”
Jane glanced back to where Lydia and Mr. Hall were still conferring, then shrugged. The earl frowned at her. He looked like a cruel knight Jane had once seen in a picture book of verses.
“Be gone, girl,” he ordered. “I’ve work to do.”
His gruff tone made her insides quiver, but she didn’t move. “Are those your
plants?”
“Whose else would they be?”
“What’s that?” Jane indicated the apparatus he held.
The earl lifted it a bit. It was a long metal tube with what appeared to be a handle at one end. “Water syringe. Meant to spray a mist of water on seedlings. Useful, if one can get the blasted thing to work.”
He pushed the handle, but it stuck halfway down the cylinder. The earl scowled at the thing as if it had deeply insulted him. Jane fought a smile.
“That’s the way it is, isn’t it?” she said. “Most things are useful only if they work.”
“That so? What do you plan to do, then?”
Jane wished she knew. “I haven’t decided yet.”
The earl grunted and turned to his plants. Jane watched him for a moment.
“I like to study insects,” she finally said.
He barked out one of his rusty laughs again. “You like to study the scourge of my garden? Find a way to get rid of them—then you’ll be useful.”
His tone implied that until that day, she would be nothing more than a bother. A twinge of hurt went through Jane, though she didn’t quite know why. It wasn’t as if it ought to matter what the man thought of her, even if he was a peer. Papa had always said a man’s character mattered more than his stature.
“My lord, do you know anything about ferns?” she asked.
He looked as if she’d asked him if he knew how to be an earl.
“Of course I do,” he said. “Why?”
“I’ve got a fern that’s a bit tattered. Turning brown and such. Can’t think what I’m doing wrong, but perhaps you might tell me?”
Lord Rushton harrumphed, then ordered, “Bring it the next time you come round.”
“Jane?” Lydia’s voice, threaded with tension, came from behind her. “Are you… Oh.” She stopped, resting her hand on Jane’s shoulder.
“My father, the Earl of Rushton,” Mr. Hall said.
Lydia’s fingers tightened. “My lord, a pleasure to meet you.”
The earl glowered at her from beneath bushy eyebrows, gave a gruff nod, and turned away. Jane tried to ease away from Lydia, whose grip was beginning to hurt.
“Come along, then.” Lydia steered Jane back to the piano, bending close to her ear. “I do hope you didn’t disturb him.”
