by Evie Dunmore
M.
She gave a bemused laugh. Pride and Prejudice. There was no doubt now that they were playing a game. With book titles.
Her fingertip touched the M., scrawled so confidently in black ink.
He’s very arrogant, and you don’t like his type.
Something to remember as long as she was trapped in this splendid bubble where food came at the ring of a bell and the libraries had starlit skies.
Still, a restlessness that had been roiling inside her all day seemed to dissipate. Her body stretched out long as soon as she had extinguished the lamp, and she plummeted into sleep like a small child.
* * *
Sebastian’s day had been ruthlessly productive since morning. That happened when there were no guests in need of entertaining. He had read the reports on all estates, had decided on a new irrigation method for the northern landholdings, and had finalized the draft for the last leg of the Tory campaign. He would need the queen on his side to push the approach through, because Disraeli would object, but since he had just signed off the bill for the biggest bloody firework show in England, he figured Her Majesty would indulge him.
A scratch at the door, and Ramsey slunk in.
“Your Grace, the organizers for the ball had another suggestion for the décor.”
He shot the valet an incredulous look. “I don’t have time to approve decorative details.”
“Indeed, it is just, with this particular detail—”
“What is it?”
“Reindeer.”
“Live reindeer?”
“Yes, Your Grace.” Said with a perfectly straight face.
“In the ballroom?”
“Yes. Apparently, they are highly popular with the guests.”
He rubbed his temples. “Ramsey, did you think I would approve of a herd of ungulate animals on the parquet to please the masses?”
“No, Your Grace.”
“Then feel free to not bother me with it.”
“Yes, Your Grace.”
Sebastian scanned the neat stacks of paper on his desk. “Has there been any correspondence for me?”
“I delivered all to your desk this morning, as usual,” Ramsey replied.
He knew that. There had been a note from Caroline, Lady Lingham, asking him to bring Miss Archer along to her annual Christmas dinner on the twenty-fourth. News of his guest had traveled fast and wide, and naturally, Caroline would take note.
“Are you certain there was nothing else in the meantime?”
Ramsey knew better than to look nonplussed at his master’s insistence that there be mail. “No, but if you have a specific sender in mind I can make inquiries—”
He shook his head. “No. Tell the groom to get my horse ready.”
* * *
Annabelle had had the armchair moved to the window. The sun was dissolving into a pink hue on the horizon but it was still light enough to read a letter from Lucie that had arrived during her afternoon nap.
Dear Annabelle,
I am sorry to hear about your illness, unless it was a ploy all along to stay on behind enemy lines, in which case, I salute you for your dedication to our cause.
I have little hope of us converting M.—I recently learned through my more secret sources that the queen promised him his family seat back in case he helps win the election. I think he’ll move heaven and earth to keep Disraeli in power. So we have to move fast on other fronts. I heard the suffragist chapter in Manchester is planning a large demonstration on Parliament Square during the Tories’ pre-election meeting in January. I am presently coordinating with Millicent Fawcett’s chapter in London to join them. I strongly believe we should pull together and mobilize all the scattered suffrage chapters throughout England. Strength is to be had in numbers. It is still a secret, though, so I must ask you to treat this confidentially. As for—
Hoofbeats sounded on the cobblestones below. She lowered the letter into her lap. Gathering up her robe, she leaned forward and peered down into the courtyard. Her heart gave an appalling leap when she saw the white horse prancing past the fountain. Her first instinct was to shrink back, but then again, she couldn’t.
The duke’s head turned toward her window.
Her heart began to beat like a drum.
Montgomery raised his hand and touched the rim of his hat. Slowly and deliberately enough that it could not be mistaken for anything other than an acknowledgment.
She sank back into her chair.
She hadn’t yet thanked him for the latest book. She had begun to give too much thought to the wording, hopelessly gauche. And the deeper truth was, she liked being the one owing the answer. Much more so than waiting for letters from a man who made her heart beat faster.
* * *
The next morning, her fever was gone. Annabelle padded to the windows and pushed the heavy curtains aside. The morning sky was bright blue and spotless as if freshly rinsed. Below in the quad, smatterings of snow sparkled like carelessly scattered diamonds.
Ah, she could almost taste the fresh air.
A quick glance at the mirror said that she looked presentable. Soaking in the tub the night before had washed away much of her exhaustion, and indulging in rolls and custard for three days had restored a long-lost softness to her face. She secured her hair in a simple bun, brushed her teeth, and splashed herself with the rose-scented water from the washbasin. Chemise, corset—loosely laced—Lady Mabel’s gray walking dress, hat. She shrugged into her coat and slipped out the door.
She managed to find her way through the labyrinth of stairs and hallways to the ground floor. There was a vast stone terrace, curving like the prow of a ship, at the back of the house, and one of the glass doors leading outside was already ajar.
She glided into the open, drinking in the clear air as she closed her eyes against the warm glare of the sun. When she opened her eyes, her next breath lodged in her throat.
His back turned, Montgomery stood at the balustrade.
She was still holding her breath.
Even from behind, the duke did not look welcoming, his coat stretched taut across his shoulders, his stance as rigid as the weathered stone statues to his left and right.
It stirred an emotion in her, the way he held himself so still and looked so . . . alone. Perhaps that was why she did not tiptoe back into the house.
And of course, he had sensed that she was there. He did not as much turn as rotate toward her.
Her mouth went dry. When had she begun thinking of him as handsome? Because he was; indeed, he looked as attractively crisp and cool as the winter morning.
His brow promptly creased with disapproval. “Should you be out yet, miss?”
“I’m much improved, Your Grace.” She strolled closer. “The fever was gone yesterday.”
The view from the balustrade was magnificent, a vast rectangular expanse of symmetrically swirling evergreen hedges, as favored by the old French kings. One would hear the gurgle of fountains from here in summer.
Montgomery was still scrutinizing her.
She met his gaze furtively, the well-mannered way. “I couldn’t bear another minute in my room.”
His frown deepened. “Is there anything you need?”
“No. You have provided everything and more, thank you. I just cannot stay confined for long.”
His lips quirked at that. “No,” he said, “I did not think you could.”
It was remarkable that he should have formed an opinion about her. Then again, it might not be a flattering opinion. Perhaps he considered an urge for the outdoors a defect in a woman.
“May I ask what brings you to that conclusion, Your Grace?”
“It’s the second time I’ve seen you walk away from a warm place in the space of a few days. That’s not a woman who is amenable to confinement.”
“I wasn’t aware there were women who are amenable to confinement.”
That seemed to amuse him. “Most are. Confinement is but the other side of safety. Take the rule of law, or a warm room. Or a husband. Most women desire the safety that comes with this, and accept the confinement.”
Safety.
She wanted to be safe. But apparently, not at all costs. She had of course known that about herself already—what rattled her was that he, apparently, knew this about her, too.
“It doesn’t mean that women wouldn’t prefer freedom,” she said.
“Freedom,” Montgomery said, testing the word. “Is that what you prefer?”
His face revealed no clue as to why he was asking about her. She had to glance away, because looking into his clever eyes made her feel strange. Strangely overheated, strangely queasy low in her belly. Mundane gestures became infused with meaning; her senses opened and sharpened, and there was an unnerving awareness of the rapid beat of her heart against her ribs.
She focused on their hands, side by side on the granite banister. Her gloves looked shoddy next to pristine kid leather, and she dropped her hands and folded them in front of her.
“Yes, I prefer freedom,” she said. “John Stuart Mill says it is better to have choices even if it complicates matters, that it is better to be a dissatisfied human than a satisfied pig.”
Montgomery made a sound that resembled a laugh, choked back just in time. “Compelling,” he said. “Are you implying that most of your fellow women aren’t fully human?”
“I’m not implying that at all,” she said quickly. “I’m well aware that with how things are, the price women pay for independence is often too high.”
“Everything always has a price,” Montgomery said.
Still not a trace of resentment in his voice over her philosophical foray, no attempt to lecture her on John Stuart Mill. An unexpected thrill of elation licked through her, much as when they had been sparring over voting rights at the breakfast table. There was something to be said about debating with a learned man who had nothing to prove. It took more than an educated woman with opinions to threaten him. And that allowed for an easy, absurdly pleasing intimacy. He is still the enemy to your cause, you goose.
Montgomery turned toward the stairs leading down to the French garden. “Come, if you will.”
She took a step before it dawned on her that she was about to walk with him. Alone. Instinctively, she cast a look around the terrace for a chaperone. She saw the precise moment when the duke understood her predicament. His face assumed a mildly derisive expression. Do you think anyone here could stop me or hold me accountable? said that expression, and there was an annoying, challenging glint in his eyes. Blast her inability to resist a good challenge. To his credit, he didn’t gloat when she wordlessly took the arm he offered. He led her down the stairs in silence, then steered her left onto a gravel path.
“What do you think people would do if someone handed them their freedom on a platter tomorrow?” he asked.
They would breathe. “They would go on to find a purposeful life, suited to them.”
Montgomery shook his head. “They would be frightened witless.Why do you think some young people rebel until they hit a boundary?”
“To become capable adults with independent minds?”
“Hardly. To get a sense of themselves by way of their limits, to feel assured that there is something to stop them from spiraling into disorientation no matter what they do.” He seemed to have someone specific in mind now, for his voice had darkened with some private displeasure.
“Why not just ask the rebel in question about his motivations?” she ventured.
“But that presupposes that what he thinks he wants is actually what he needs.” He sounded bemused. Clearly, that wasn’t a possibility.
Annabelle peered up at him. The morning light was unforgiving on his face, showing every line. It had to be exhausting, striding through life knowing better what people needed than the people themselves. But that was part of his attraction, was it not? In a world where everyone was swept along in the murky current of circumstances, paddling frantically this way or that, his unapologetic self-assurance loomed like a rock in the rapids. Here was a man who would take charge, and then not bungle it.
Out of nowhere flashed a thought: what would it be like, to be married to such a man?
Free. At the side of a man who took care of things, a woman could be free.
She nearly stumbled on the perfectly even path. What a ridiculous notion—freedom was probably the very last thing a domineering male like Montgomery would offer. With his wealth and position he’d certainly provide more safety than she could wish for, but anyone with an ounce of independent thought would be crushed under his protection. He’d manage her and demand submission, convinced he’d always know best, inside and outside the marriage bed, and no, she really should not have thought of him in bed, performing his marital duties, with his eyes glazed over with lust and his fair hair damp and plastered against his temples . . . A heat wave surged through her veins.
She kept her gaze firmly on the path. His merciless eyes would spot it immediately, that her whole treacherous body had blushed pink.
“So,” she muttered, “is it always a matter of being either free or safe, Your Grace?”
“Actually,” she heard him say, “I find it is usually a compromise between the two.”
They rounded the corner and a flat stone building with a large glass cupola at its center came into view. Long rows of floor-to-ceiling windows brightly reflected the morning light and made her shield her eyes with her hand.
“What is this place?”
“A compromise,” Montgomery said, and steered her toward the building. He halted at a side entrance and swung back the door.
The green tangle and pungent warmth of a jungle greeted them. Towering canopies in lush shades of green absorbed the light that slanted through the glass cupola above.
“It’s a conservatory,” she said softly.
The air clung and throbbed like a physical thing, a blend of rich, damp soil, of overripe fruit and nectar and decay. A flagstone path disappeared into the thicket ahead, enticing her to follow scattered pink and red blossoms like the will-o’-the-wisp. And it was so warm. She had been feeling cold.
He must have expected her to refuse to go back inside.
A compromise.
She turned to him, feeling strangely somber. “It’s magical.”
* * *
Magical? Such whimsy from a woman who read Thucydides. In Greek. But then he was learning that Miss Archer was many things.
And here he was staring at her face again. He knew he had an exacting eye. He had never been able to not notice the error in a ledger, or that one quavering note in a song. But her features were arranged exactly how some primal aesthetic blueprint in his head envisioned beauty. It made her look oddly familiar, as if he had long known her and now she had walked back into his life. Impossible, that. She might speak and carry herself like landed gentry, but his informant had finally sent his report, which said she had been a maid in her cousin’s dilapidated cottage in Kent.
Her green eyes widened. “Is it my imagination, or does the floor feel warm?”
“That would be the underfloor heating.”
She made an excited little noise, and it sent a thrill up his spine.
“The building is state-of-the-art,” he said, “very functional. It allows crop breeding year round with great efficiency.”
Her eyes gleamed with some secret mirth. “Without doubt, Your Grace.”
She began meandering along the path looking up and around in wonder, and he followed, strangely mesmerized by the gentle sway of her skirts around her ankles.
“How did you collect all these plants?” she asked.
“The botanist in my employ does. He ta
kes off to a foreign country to acquire them, or he purchases them from other traders here in England.”
She touched her fingertip to the delicate pink petals of an oleander blossom. “What a marvelous profession,” she said, “to travel all the corners of the world to bring back beautiful things.”
The way her face had lit up made it hard to look away from her.
He had no time for indoor walks with her. He presently had a revolt of Tory backbenchers on his hands over his latest campaign proposal and he should be in his study, writing threatening letters. There was no other reason for him to be here than that he wanted to be here, and he didn’t even feel inclined to question why a most unsuitable woman—a commoner, a bluestocking, a suffragist—would give him so much pleasure.
“So, to which corner of the world would you travel, miss?”
Her eyes darted to his face, probing the sincerity of his question.
She did not give lightly of herself.
“I should like to go to Persia,” she finally said.
Most people would have said Paris. Perhaps Rome. “An ambitious destination.”
She shook her head. “I used to dream of owning a Greek galleon. In my mind, I have already sailed the seven seas.”
“A Greek galleon?” But of course, she studied the classics. “Did Odysseus inspire you?”
She looked at him from the corner of her eye. “Possibly.”
“Why Persia?” he asked, intrigued. “Odysseus never left the Mediterranean Sea.”
“Because,” she said slowly, “there are theories about how Persia and Greece have influenced each other, in terms of architecture, government, literature . . . but we have few concrete proofs, and either side denies having been influenced by the other. And now my professor is very focused on this area of research.”
“Would that be Professor Jenkins?”
“Why, yes! Are you familiar with his work?”
