by Edith Layton
Now Leonora winced to see the page Annabelle’s marker fell open to, for they had left off in the midst of Romeo and Juliet. It had been a choice made over a week ago. As Leonora eyed the page unhappily, she devoutly wished she had opened the book to something different on that past, carefree morning, something that she could have coped with more easily now. Something less poignant, like Hamlet or Othello. Because she knew she would have been more at ease this morning with any emotion as simple as revenge or jealousy, than she could possibly presently be with love.
But she soldiered on to find herself becoming engrossed in the words, just as she always did, taking refuge from her own harsh reality in the equally cruel but safely fictional world, just as she always had.
“Ah dear,” she sighed at length, closing the book, running a knuckle beneath her nose and sniffling rather loudly, “I daresay I’m the only person I know who actually weeps when Mercutio is slain. But he is one of my favorites. Everyone else saves their tears for Romeo or Juliet, of course, but not I. I always weep for Mercutio. He’s such a lively, brave fellow, so full of jest and wit ‘Ask for me tomorrow and you shall find me a grave man,’ he says, even as he’s dying. How I always miss him when he’s gone.”
“But why,” Annabelle asked softly, her clear white brow marred by a frown, “should anyone weep for either Romeo or Juliet?”
“I think,” Leonora said after a pause, “that we will read on a bit more today, if you can bear to let your tea wait, that is?”
“Oh yes, thank you,” Annabelle said happily, sitting up in her chair again. “I should like that very much, cousin.”
Leonora would have been content to read on until her voice shredded away to a whisper, she was so anxious to enlighten Annabelle as to the fate of Master Shakespeare’s star-crossed lovers, but after a long while she noted that whenever she paused for breath, she could hear her listener turning in her chair as though seeking a more comfortable perch. It was her own voice that bred the boredom, she thought shutting up the book as sorrowfully as though she had betrayed a friend instead of a poet nearly two hundred years dead.
But no, she told Annabelle all the way down the central staircase as they went to tea, she did not mind in the least, and yes, she insisted, as they paused at the foot of the stairs, she had wanted the break in the reading, for it was her voice that had grown fatigued. She had begun to promise, upon pain of several forms of violent death, that they would pick up the book again the next day, when she became aware that her father had come out of his chambers and was saying farewell to a visitor.
The dashing gentleman was immediately introduced to the two young ladies, as was proper. He made his bows, confessed himself devastated that he was unlucky enough to be off to the Continent the next day, so soon after finally meeting two of the most exquisite females in London, and then, promising his eternal admiration, was gone through the doors. He had done no more or less than was strictly proper, but though Leonora looked after him with an amused smile, Annabelle hung her head as though she had been offered a carte blanche instead of common pleasantries.
But Leonora had no time to sigh over what a thorny path lay ahead of her in her plans for her cousin’s social advancement, for her father hesitated, and then said,
“Ah ... it’s as well that you intercepted me as I was bidding Baron Stafford adieu, for I had a message for you and my appointment with young Nicholas today had put it right from my mind. But now that he’s gone, if I might have a word?”
Leonora nodded, then put her head to the side and waited for him to continue. She noted that he hadn’t prefaced his remark with “Nell,” as he hadn’t in years, and neither had he said “Leonora.” But since he looked at her sadly and steadily, she assumed he meant he had a message for her and not for Annabelle. Indeed, she wondered if he had forgotten the girl’s presence in his house entirely.
But then he said, “It was from Severne,” and she stopped all her idle ruminations and only listened very closely.
“He’s only just returned to Town, you know,” her father explained. “Well, he had a sudden errand to run for me, I sent him off to the coast for a few days. But almost the first thing he told me when we met again this morning at his club, was that he regretted missing you at the theater far more than he missed seeing Kean there.”
When his daughter said nothing but only stood still and watched his lips as though she were waiting for the next word to form there so that she could seize upon its meaning at the moment of its birth, he went on almost apologetically.
“I’ve spoken with your mama, and understand that you are thinking of having some sort of little ball here soon, not a formal presentation, of course, but something gala nonetheless. I hope you will invite Severne, Leonora. If for no other reason than as a favor to me. I know,” he said quickly, although she scarcely breathed, much less tried to interrupt him, “that he doesn’t enjoy the favor of your mama or sister, but I think him a decent fellow, even with that divorce action against his name. And he’s done me a few services. You don’t have to smother him in kindness for my sake, of course, but I would count it as a favor if his name were to be included in your list.”
The viscountess was more than a little surprised when her daughter roused her from her afternoon nap to insist that they immediately begin to set up the very same ball which she had been urging her to finally put into motion, with a singular lack of success, since they had arrived in Town. And though she was quite naturally gratified by Leonora’s compliance, she could not understand why the girl was on fire to get to the stationers to order up the invitations. Nor could she fathom why her daughter then passed more time worrying about how quickly the fellow could print up the formal summonses than she did about what she was to wear for the occasion, as any normal female might do. But the viscountess was not one to question why her miracles did not come gift-packaged. It was enough that the plans for the ball began to go forward more swiftly than she had ever dared hope.
Leonora lay down her pen and stretched out her arms and heaved a great sigh of relief. Then she applied the blotter and sanded the note and looked at it with great satisfaction. An observer, had there been one in the lady’s chamber, might look to see how many other invitations she had just done with writing out. To judge from her outsize relief at the completion of the task, one might have expected to see half a hundred or more similar ones newly penned. Then, seeing her smirk and gloat as she eyed the single invitation upon her otherwise empty writing desk, the same observer would have to conclude that this particular invitation must have been addressed to no less a personage than His Royal Majesty himself. And from the look of dreamy pleasure upon her face, one would have to further conclude that His Highness had not only recovered from his incapacitating illness enough to promise her personally to attend, but that he had vowed to bring her his son and a dozen glass slippers as well.
But it wasn’t any one of the Hanovers that Leonora was thinking of, it was only Severne, as it had only been Severne that she had thought of for the past days. They had met for the briefest times at a dinner, in the park, at a concert, and in passing, at the Opera. Now the Season was winding down, and now she would have her ball, and now she would have the chance to have him by her side for an entire evening. She could not have mistaken the warmth of his smiles, nor the look in his eyes, nor the caress in his voice, she thought as she rose and took her precious invitation with her to the door. But even if she had, she thought with glee, still she would have him by her side for an evening. And that would be more than she had dared dream of a week before, and more than she’d hoped for when she’d first come to Town.
She made her way down to the hall so that she might see the invitation, her ticket to one evening of realized fantasy, safely into a footman’s care. Her father’s secretary had addressed all the other cards, but this one, oh this was the one she had, for the sake of her own future restful nights, to see correctly and safely launched.
Leonora paused, with a sudden discom
forted, sinking feeling, when she spied Annabelle standing irresolute in the hallway. But then she relaxed as she recalled that she had made no plans with her cousin this afternoon and so had nothing to feel guilty about Indeed, she had been so in command of herself these past days, so pleased with her world and easy in her mind, that she had forgotten none of her obligations. She’d deliberately thrown Annabelle in the way of several eligible young gentlemen in their travels around Town, many of whose names already adorned the invitations that lay stacked upon the reception table awaiting the footmen who would bear them to their destinations.
“Where are you bound, Belle?” Leonora asked merrily as she shuffled through the pack of neatly sorted cards of invitation, nodding at some names, pursing her lips at the sight of others.
“Oh,” Annabelle said as she untied her bonnet, “why I’ve only just returned, cousin.”
“Lucky thing that,” Leonora said absently, “for it’s going to pour soon.” Then, looking up, Leonora frowned. “Belle, I hope you didn’t go sailing out of here without a maid or a footman in tow! You cannot go out alone here in Town, you know that.”
“Oh,” Annabelle said in a tiny, cramped voice, “I almost did, but then I remembered your warning. Then too, when I saw the sky so black I came right back after only a few steps out the door. So no harm was done. What is that you have there, cousin?”
“Trying to evade the subject, eh?” Leonora said with a great mock scowl. But her mood was as light as the afternoon sky was black with impending rain, so she soon laughed and said in a stage whisper, “Only the invitation. Well,” she said more briskly, remembering from Annabelle’s blank expression, that she did not care for the marquess and his reputation at all, “it’s the Marquess of Severne’s. Knowing that father specifically requested his presence, and knowing that Mama don’t care for him by half, I decided to write the thing out myself to be sure of it’s being done. And I’ve brought it here to be certain of it’s being delivered in time.”
And with a great show of nonchalance, Leonora tossed the invitation on top of the pile on the table. And then she absently stroked it into alignment with the neat stack beneath it with the tip of one finger, as she told her cousin she was going back to her room to pass the rest of the stormy afternoon in a little nap. She was greatly relieved to hear that her relative planned to catch up on some stitching in her own room, for Leonora had no desire to read aloud this afternoon, nor even to bear anyone else’s company. But she also had no intention of sleeping this day away, not when her wakeful dreams were so exciting. She only wanted time alone, so that she could sit and hug them to herself.
Then she gave the invitation one last lingering look as though she could scarcely bear to let it out of her sight, and then she gave her cousin good day and fairly skipped up the stairs to her room again. Annabelle, however, stood quite quietly alone in the hall, even after her relative had long disappeared from her view.
Leonora thought at first of the strong hand that would take up the invitation, and the deep blue eyes that would quickly scan the words she had written with her own hand, and then of the curved mouth that she hoped would quirk into a pleased smile of reminiscence and acceptance. Then, as the rain began to drum upon her windows, she thought of the evening to come, and then as the wind drove the rain in rhythmic hisses against the panes, she closed her eyes and slept as she had never thought to do.
So it was that she was startled and a little confused when Katie burst into her rooms and said grimly, “You’d best come downstairs, my lady, for there’s the devil to pay.”
EIGHT
He had been reading in his study but the lowering atmosphere of the day blunted his attention even as the steadily darkening sky dimmed the pages he’d been turning with increasingly less frequency. And instead of calling for the lamps to be lit, he’d closed his eyes several times and almost dozed off over his book just like any one of the old campaigners he’d recently left to their slumbers in the library at his club. But then his butler entered the room and cleared his throat until he saw the firelight reflected in the startled open eyes of his employer.
“My lord,” his retainer said softly, “there’s a message for you.”
He blinked several times as he reacquainted himself with reality, for though he was never a sound sleeper, still the stolen half-sleep of day is more difficult to rouse oneself from than the normal slumbers of the night.
But when he took the slightly damp card from the butler’s proffered silver salver, he blinked several more times as he read it. There must be some joke behind this, he thought as he raised his eyes to the butler’s unreadable face.
“What’s this, Wilkins?” he asked, a smile already hovering at his lips, for he expected some rare jest from one of his friends to follow and was pleased to discover some leavening of this dismal afternoon. In fact, he peered as best he could into the gloom beyond Wilkins’ shoulders, expecting to see Torquay or some other companion hovering in the shadows of the rain-dimmed study, about to spring some delicious mischief upon him.
“A reply is awaited, my lord,” the butler replied stonily enough, but with some trace of discomfort evinced by his barely perceptible shifting of his weight from one foot to another. It was a simple enough movement, and in any other mortal it would have been unremarkable, but in someone as highly trained as Wilkins, his employer realized, it was eloquent and a sign of high excitation or deep distress.
So the Marquess of Severne turned his full attention to the note and read it again, and reread it with a frown.
“A reply is awaited?” he asked, disbelieving.
This was singular, he thought, wide awake now, but as confused as if he were still in a tangle of dreams. For it was only an invitation to a ball to be given at the Viscount Talwin’s house, in honor of his daughter Leonora. Although, he mused with a rare sensation of simple content, the word “only” was highly inappropriate in this case. The sight of her name written out on the card before him was as ironic as it was pleasing. For he had just been thinking of her. But to be fair, he mused, that could have truthfully been said of him at any time during this past week. Still, the pleasure of seeing the name that was on his mind written out before his eyes, and written, moreover, on an invitation that requested his presence at her side, was obscured by the fact that he hadn’t the slightest idea of why the lady would ask for an immediate answer of him.
It wasn’t done. Not that he believed that the lady was a conventional creature, but still she could not be gauche enough to invite a chap to a ball in her honor and let him know that she breathlessly awaited his answer. Yet again, he thought with the merest smile replacing his frown, she might do just such a shocking thing by way of apology for her past missayings. If she were serious, then he could never approve such rashness, it was just the sort of wild behavior that he’d originally been wary of in her. But since he could not believe that she could seriously be awaiting an answer from such as himself with any degree of impatience, he smiled more widely.
And because past circumstances had caused him to so thoroughly murder his self-esteem, and since he so very much did not wish to believe her guilty of any further misjudgments, he allowed himself to appreciate her jest more fully. For since jest it had to be, he decided, then jest it certainly was. He tapped the card upon his hand as he mused on how he could reply in kind.
The Marquess of Severne did not often delude himself. But like the frog in the children’s tale who turned the cream to butter in his efforts to prevent drowning in the chum, precisely because he was unfamiliar with the process, he was able to accomplish what was absolutely necessary without becoming aware of how he did it At this time the marquess would have been able to exonerate Lady Leonora from an accusation of murder, even if he entered a room to discover her fretting about how to pluck her favorite scissors from out of some unlucky fellow’s breast. He had been a good agent in the service of his country because he had a uniquely cautious mind If she had not precisely ruined him for future
work with her father, still the Lady Leonora had unwittingly accomplished a singularly unusual thing herself. For if it had been a very long time since he had wanted to trust anyone quite so much, it had been far longer than that since he had wished to trust his judgment of any female at all.
It had been almost eight years in fact, he realized, remembering, as he stared at the invitation in his hand without seeing it, for his had been an early summer’s wedding.
And it wasn’t that he had trusted little Sylvia so much as that he had no reason in the world not to trust her. They had stood there, that bright morning those eight years ago, and they’d taken the congratulations of all the invited guests. And she’d smiled and laughed even as he had, and there wasn’t a reason why they shouldn’t have been the prettiest, happiest young newlyweds in all the land, just as each of the enchanted company had sworn that they were.
If not a love match, it could not be denied that they were a fair match. They both were young and comely. She had been blushing and fair as the sunrise and he, dark and bright as a starry night She had always admired him, from the cradle upward, or so her papa had said to encourage his offer. He had known of her since he had been breached, for his brother had been promised to her at birth, but his brother had died shortly after that only happy event in his abbreviated life. And just as he had taken on his brother’s title and tributes at his own birth, it had been easy enough to be convinced that she was another duty it was his privilege to shoulder for his phantom sibling. And they were both good, dutiful children, that no one could deny.
There were, however, some things that it was best not to refine upon, for those few things spoiled the symmetry of the picture of the newly married pair, and a few spiteful relatives or jealous neighbors whispered them in certain shadowy corners of the church’s reception room. She was almost three and twenty, and he, two years her junior. She had never made a come-out, or even been to London. And though they had known of each other forever, if all the actual time they passed together were actually tabulated, it would total only a few days of concentrated time.
