The door opened, and Mr. Nashe entered the room. “Good morning, Miss Tate.” He crossed to where she stood and waited for her response.
Good morning. Two words were all he expected of her, so common as to require no thought for their utterance, a simple echo of his greeting. They were the words she meant to say when she opened her mouth, but somehow the intent and its accomplishment were miles apart.
“I didn’t think you would come.”
Behind the mask, his eyes registered surprise, then warmth. Or, if not warmth, had she seen amusement at her discomfort? Perhaps she had misread his look altogether.
“I had no wish to make a liar of myself,” he said.
A liar? He had somehow learned what she’d told Nellie and Cook. She had no choice but to admit her wrongdoing now, before he could accuse her of it.
“I confess, I repeated the same excuse to the others this week. But that hardly makes you a liar.”
Again, something like surprise registered in his eyes. “I was referring to my assertion that I am not avoiding your company.”
“Oh.” Isabelle dropped her gaze, finding it easier to stare at the toes of his cordovan boots while she fumbled an apology. “I should never have spoken so boldly. I overstepped my boundaries.”
He came closer then, too close for her comfort. The cuff of his trousers brushed against the hem of her skirt, only briefly, but the contact was enough to set her heart pounding with the kick of a mule.
“Miss Tate?”
His voice had dropped to a low, scraping whisper that felt more like a touch than a sound. A tremor spiraled through her, settling deep in the pit of her stomach in a disconcerting coil of heat.
He was waiting for her to look at him. If she did not, he would remain standing there until she acknowledged his unspoken wish. His enigmatic eyes unnerved her, though not nearly so much as his nearness.
With an effort of will, Isabelle forced her gaze upward, in her reluctance taking in the details of his costume, the length of his woolen trousers, the line of tortoiseshell buttons that fastened to the top of his matching tan frock coat, hiding all but the starched white collar of the shirt beneath. Her eyes skittered past the blank mask and found his.
He held her gaze, drawing in a deep breath before he spoke. His chest rose with the effort, a barely perceptible movement, but to Isabelle one that seemed huge, bringing him that much nearer when already he stood too close.
“Miss Tate, I fail to see the boundaries you speak of. They are certainly not of my making.”
No, she thought with sudden clarity, they are my boundaries. Unwilling to admit as much, and unable to think of any other response, she nodded.
He appeared ready to say more but instead stepped back, gesturing toward the door. “Shall we begin our work?”
Mr. Nashe reached around her and picked up her bonnet, which was lying on the desk where she’d left it in the unlikely hope that he might consent to another walk. He handed her the bonnet, holding it by the brim, hesitating slightly before releasing his grasp. Or had she hesitated before taking it?
For a long moment, one that seemed longer than the actual passage of time it encompassed, they were bound by this simple act of mutual touch. An inexplicable energy flowed between them, reigniting the coil of heat in the pit of Isabelle’s stomach. And then, the moment passed. Isabelle hurried toward the door before Mr. Nashe might guess the strange effect he was having on her.
Outside on the steps, she stopped to don her bonnet. She had deliberately chosen one that fastened firmly beneath her chin, determined to avoid another incident such as last week’s, when her windblown hat had embarrassed them both. Mr. Nashe turned aside while she tied the ribbons, standing with his hands clasped behind his back.
Isabelle thought uneasily that the bonnet made her look dowdy, then chided herself for her vanity. She had long ago banished concerns about her plain appearance. Or so she thought.
As they made their way toward the stables, silence settled between them like a wall, a circumstance that did not surprise her. Mr. Nashe had confessed he was unaccustomed to company. But honesty forced her to admit that the awkwardness was as much her own. She rarely found herself alone with a man and certainly never, as now, by her own preference.
Fortunately, the walk was a short one, and they arrived at the stables before their silence built into an insurmountable barrier. Mr. Nashe drew an apple from his pocket for Bucephalus. He stroked the horse as it ate, his gloved hand gliding lovingly over its neck.
The caress echoed through Isabelle’s body as an empty ache. In these few moments while she looked on, this animal had experienced more of a man’s kind touch than she had known during a lifetime. More than she ever expected to know.
Mr. Nashe slapped Bucephalus on the neck in farewell, then stepped away from the stall and turned toward her. “Have you seen the sculpture garden?”
He asked the question easily, as though they were the oldest of friends. Isabelle shook her head, paradoxically tongue tied by his newly relaxed manner. His moods changed like quicksilver, always catching her off guard. She could only surmise that the affectionate exchange with his horse had eased his previous constraint.
He led her back toward the house, taking the long way around the eastern wing to the rear of the mansion. Her bedroom window looked out on the back garden, and so Isabelle was surprised when he guided her toward a tall boxwood hedge that she had always assumed marked the end of the formal gardens.
“Careful of the step down,” he said, disappearing through a gap in the hedge. Isabelle followed as he descended half a dozen stone steps into the sunken garden. Reaching the bottom, she stopped to take it all in.
Beside her, Mr. Nashe was watching, waiting for her to express an opinion. Isabelle took her time, trying to hide her disappointment. The garden stretched before her like a ruin, offering a mere hint of its earlier grandeur. Dandelions sprouted from the dying lawn, the life choked from the fine grass by coarse weeds. A double tiered stone fountain, now dry, stood at the garden’s center. Its surface was marred by irregular splotches of fungus that resembled a black scabbed pox.
“I’m afraid the place has suffered from neglect.”
Isabelle detected a note of wistfulness in Mr. Nashe’s voice. Rather than agree with his observation, she pointed toward the structure at the far end of the garden, a good three hundred feet farther on. “What is that?”
“A folly.”
Isabelle studied the circular pavilion, its domed roof supported by a ring of ornately carved columns. She was unable to decipher any purpose for the queer building.
“Whose folly?”
Mr. Nashe’s laughter heated her cheeks with embarrassment. Her question must have been an exceedingly stupid one.
“My father’s,” he said, his laugh bitter this time. “One of many.”
It was impossible to tell whether Mr. Nashe found her or his father laughable. Whether one or the other, her ignorance would inevitably manifest itself regardless of her efforts to conceal it. She was better advised to admit the truth. “I don’t understand.”
Gesturing for her to join him, Mr. Nashe began to walk along the strip of weed infested lawn. “The folly is a Greek temple,” he explained as they went. “Though the rampant vegetation disguises the fact, we are in the company of the gods.”
He veered to his left, aiming toward the hedge with long, rapid strides. Isabelle had to lift her skirts and jog after him to catch up. When she reached his side, he was tearing at the untrimmed box hedge, tossing aside the broken branches. Gradually, the reason for his odd behavior revealed itself in the form of a life sized marble statue, badly overgrown with creepers.
Using his left hand, Mr. Nashe began to strip away the dead vines. When Isabelle tried to help, he motioned her away. She stepped back, afraid that she’d offended him by calling attention to his disability.
“You’ll scratch your hands.” He thrust his good hand toward her to illustrate his point. “M
y gloves occasionally serve a purpose other than to spare your sensibilities.”
Isabelle wanted to object that her sensibilities did not need to be spared, but let the matter pass. She hoped that, given time, another opportunity would arise when she could tell Mr. Nashe as much without offending him.
“Allow me to present Zeus,” he said when he’d finished, backing away so she could see.
Encouraged by Mr. Nashe’s light hearted mood, Isabelle joined in the make believe. She curtsied before the bearded god, admiring his handsome features and the amazingly life like rendering of his bare muscular chest. “How do you—” Her gaze traveled lower, and she swallowed hard. “Do?”
The god’s chest was not the only thing about him that was bare. Zeus was totally, dramatically, and scandalously naked. She could not allow her eyes to come to rest there. There, on the portion of his anatomy that decency demanded should be covered with a fig leaf.
Isabelle jerked her head up and fixed her gaze on the statue’s face. Nevertheless, she had caught a glimpse of the organ resting immodestly against the Greek god’s thigh, enough to register an impression of its size and shape.
As her embarrassment abated, her indignation grew. She had never seen a naked man. What sort of wanton woman did Mr. Nashe take her for? How could he remain unperturbed in her presence with this scandalously nude figure standing between them?
Then the answer occurred to her. He was half French, after all. People always said that the French have little shame. Until now, she’d had no idea just how little.
“Enough of Zeus,” Mr. Nashe said. “The other Olympians are waiting to meet you.”
“Ah.”
It was a stupid reply. Once more, Isabelle felt her cheeks burning with humiliation. She wondered, was Mr. Nashe laughing to himself at her lack of sophistication? She glanced at him and felt her cheeks grow even hotter. At the moment, she envied him his mask.
Isabelle surveyed the boxwood hedge enclosing the garden. Now that she understood what she was seeing, the purpose of the regularly spaced depressions along both lengths was readily apparent. They were niches carved into the shrubbery, meant to house the pagan gods. An embarrassingly large number of naked pagan gods, no doubt. She nearly swooned at the thought.
Mr. Nashe had already found the next statue when she reluctantly came up behind him. He glanced at her over his shoulder, then continued tearing at the hedge, oblivious to or uncaring of her embarrassment. She watched him work, fortifying herself against the revelation of yet another naked god.
What eventually emerged was not a god, but a goddess, one who was mercifully clothed. Though as Mr. Nashe tore the vines from her breasts, it soon became evident that in spite of the goddess’s flowing robes, the sculptor had left little to the imagination. And yet the statue was so finely wrought, Isabelle’s chagrin gave way to wonder at the artist’s skill. He had succeeded in rendering cold, unyielding marble into the likeness of living female flesh.
“Voilà,” Mr. Nashe said, moving aside for her to see. “There she is.”
“A goddess.” Isabelle winced at the dullness of her remark. Fortunately, Mr. Nashe had turned his back to her and failed to notice.
“Aphrodite,” he said, brushing away the last crumbs of dead leaves.
“Aphrodite?” Isabelle echoed stupidly, unable to tear her eyes from the sight of his hand stroking the statue’s breasts and belly. And then his hand dipped even lower, to the juncture of her thighs.
He turned to face her once more, looking at her with disturbing directness. “The goddess of beauty.”
He continued to stare at her with growing intensity. Isabelle looked away, unable to meet his eyes, and pretended to study the statue. She wanted to turn and run, to run until she reached the house and was inside her room where she could bar her door against Mr. Nashe and his penetrating gaze.
He had to be considering how far short of the mark she fell in regards to her own person. Wasn’t that the way of men, always judging her for her lack of beauty? The familiar anger stirred inside her, the anger she worked so hard all her life to keep hidden. The anger that, in spite of her best efforts, refused now to be denied.
“Did she decide who was to be beautiful, then?” Isabelle abandoned her pretense of studying the statue and turned to look directly at Mr. Nashe. “And if so,” she added with a laugh, as though she didn’t care, “what did I do to earn her disfavor?”
“No, she didn’t decide, she merely set the standard.” His eyes swept her figure, head to toe and back again, with the same look he had bestowed on her bare feet that night in the library.
He made Isabelle feel as if she had exposed herself shamefully. She bridled at the injustice of his casting the blame on her for his own crude behavior. When he met her eyes again, she gave him a hard look, imagining herself as cold as the marble goddess.
“And yet she was unremittingly jealous of any mortal woman who dared equal her beauty.” His voice dropped to a whisper. “That is what you would have done to earn her disfavor.”
Would have done. Though she knew what he thought of her, Isabelle reeled at the hurt when he actually voiced his opinion.
“How fortunate for me, then, that I did not.”
Isabelle moved past him, walking away quickly in an effort to gain control of her emotions. Her hurt vied with her anger and would, she feared, soon gain the victory. She refused to allow him the satisfaction of knowing how deeply he’d wounded her.
“Wait.”
Isabelle heard him following her and hurried all the faster, at last coming to a stone bench previously hidden from view by the overgrown hedge. She sat down with a sense of relief, perching stiffly at one end of the bench, her back ramrod straight.
The bench was positioned so that visitors might view the fountain as they rested. Isabelle stared across at the mottled surface of the shallow basins and imagined how it once had been, the water spraying in graceful arcs against the sunlight, landing in the twin pools with the soft, liquid music of gently falling rain. She felt like a Cinderella, only one who had arrived after the stroke of midnight to find the enchantment faded. This once magical kingdom had deteriorated into a dark shadow of its former glory.
A starling landed on the lip of the fountain and cocked its head at her. Such an ugly, common bird, Isabelle thought. It was a petty sentiment, one that shamed her, and yet she was unable to find a scrap of generosity in her soul for this tiny creature, precisely because it was ugly and common and reminded her of herself.
The bird flew away when Mr. Nashe approached. He seated himself at the opposite end of the bench, gingerly, as if he feared she might order him away.
“I didn’t mean . . . ” He stopped when she turned on him.
“I don’t want your pity.” She deliberately threw his own words back at him, knowing they would be doubly powerful if he recognized them as such. And she had no doubt that he would.
He stared at her in silence. Though Isabelle couldn’t see his expression, she could feel the hurt she had caused him. As the silence between them grew, she began to regret her unkindness. Mr. Nashe did not deserve to receive the brunt of her anger. She would never know the name of the man who did, the man who had destroyed her life. He was the proper target of her anger, not Mr. Nashe, who had done nothing but tell the truth.
A butterfly fluttered soft as thistledown onto the bench, settling between them. Its black and orange patterned wings came together, then opened out slowly, as though for the benefit of the two drab creatures on either side of it.
Isabelle glanced across at Mr. Nashe. The slight movement that marked his breath behind the mask had stilled. She, too, had stopped breathing, unwilling to make the least movement for fear of disturbing the butterfly. It rested there between them several more moments before at last taking flight, lifting effortlessly on its delicate wings until a breath of wind caught it and carried it away.
Isabelle sighed, letting out the breath she’d been holding. She caught Mr. Nashe’s ey
e and smiled. The tension between them vanished, dispelled in one brief, enchanted moment, not by a fairy godmother’s magic wand, but by a gift of nature, a tiny butterfly.
Thinking that Mr. Nashe’s interest, unlike her own, may have been purely scientific, Isabelle asked, “Have you ever collected butterflies?”
He shook his head. “Use the need for naming as an excuse to kill?”
The lack of censure in his tone prevented her from taking his question as a reproof. Moreover, his sentiment so closely mirrored her own that she found her good will toward him returning. He was, at heart, a kind man. She had simply forgotten that fact.
“Don’t you think the need to classify is a normal tendency in people?” She creased her brow, thinking, then corrected herself. “No, more than a tendency.”
“A compulsion?” Mr. Nashe asked, completing her thought for her.
She nodded. “Exactly. Don’t we kill one another, albeit slowly, with our compulsion to name and categorize?”
“How do you mean?” Mr. Nashe placed his palm against the bench and leaned in her direction.
Isabelle felt gratified that she seemed to have piqued his interest. Yet she hadn’t made an effort to do so. The subject of their conversation was one that truly impassioned her.
“We want to fit others into the categories we’ve created for them.”
Mr. Nashe tilted his head to one side. “That is to say, a human taxonomy?”
She wasn’t certain how he meant the word, but nodded anyway. “A person takes one look at another and decides. Rich or poor, high or low born, clever or slow witted.”
When she paused to think of another example, Mr. Nashe added one of his own. “Beautiful.” He withdrew his hand and leaned away from her. “Or ugly.”
He fell silent, a silence with edges like broken glass that scraped across her heart. Mr. Nashe was referring to himself. In fact, she knew he thought of himself in harsher terms. Not simply ugly, but monstrous. “Such labels are shallow. If not wholly false, they are at best incomplete.”
A Bed of Thorns and Roses Page 16
