by Candace Camp
“We don’t land on our heads,” Con remarked scornfully.
Since her brothers had been jumping from the steps onto the marble since they were toddlers, Olivia had to admit that they were, in all likelihood, experts at it. “What are you marking?”
“How far we slide. You can’t accurately measure your jumps from the stairs because you always slide. We’ve tried factoring in the slide, but one really cannot.”
“Sometimes one slides a lot, and other times hardly at all,” Alex put in. “Here I go, Con.”
He jumped and slid, coming up short of Con’s marker. “Blast!”
“Language, Alex,” Olivia reproved automatically.
“So we thought, why not see who could slide the farthest?” Con finished the tale.
“I see.” Olivia was well used to her brothers’ competitions. Theo and Reed had been much the same, although to Reed’s disgust, Theo had nearly always won, being two years older. “But why are you up so late?” Though her mother believed in freedom, she also had definite views on health, and her children, when young, were bound by early bedtimes. “And where is Mr. Thorndike?”
“Oh, him.” Alex shrugged, dismissing their tutor. “He’s sound asleep.” The twins found sleep a boring and useless pastime and were seemingly able to run endlessly on sheer energy.
“I am sure he is exhausted after a day trying to keep up with you two,” Olivia noted. “But that doesn’t explain why you are up. Your bedtime was an hour ago.”
Con grinned. “We have permission. Thisbe is going to take us out back for an astronomy lesson. We’re just waiting for Desmond.” He named Thisbe’s husband, also a scientist. “He has an experiment running, and he won’t be through until ten o’clock.”
“Ah, there you are,” Thisbe said as she came into the entry from the back hall. “I thought you were working on your Latin upstairs.”
Con’s mouth twisted in a grimace. “It made me sleepy. I hate Latin.”
“Well, you can’t get out of it,” Thisbe said. “You know Papa insists on it. And, besides, you have to know Latin if you hope to be a biologist. Or a doctor,” she added, turning her gaze to Alexander.
“On a more immediate note…” said an amused voice from above them, and they all looked up to see Kyria, in an elegant emerald-green gown, her flaming red hair done in an intricate pattern of curls, descending the stairs. “If either of you hopes to live past ten and a half, you might want to retrieve your boa constrictor. It was traveling down the hall toward the back stairs when I stepped out of my room just now. You know what Cook will do if it enters her kitchen.”
The two boys, who had a healthy respect for Cook and the great metal cleaver she had threatened to use on the next “devilish serpent” that entered her domain, cast an alarmed glance at each other and started off at a run toward the kitchens.
“Hallo, Thisbe. Liv. Have you been out this evening?” Kyria cast a glance at Olivia’s hat.
“Yes. How did you—oh!” Olivia realized that she had not removed her cloak and bonnet. She glanced back at the footman, who was still hovering behind her. “I’m sorry, Chambers. I quite forgot.”
“Perfectly all right…miss.” The footman had to force out the last word. He had not been here long, and it was still difficult for him to address Olivia with the egalitarian “miss” that she preferred instead of the “my lady” to which she’d been born.
Olivia handed him her cloak and hat and turned back to her sisters. Kyria had sauntered down the last few steps to the bottom of the staircase, but she still towered over Olivia by several inches, as did the willowy, dark-haired Thisbe. Olivia was dishearteningly accustomed to it. She was the only one in her family who was not tall, except for her great-uncle Bellard.
“Where are you off to?” she asked Kyria, who carried an elegant satin evening cloak over her arm.
“Lady Westerfield’s soiree,” Kyria answered. “It will probably be quite dull, but it was the best of the offerings tonight.” She sighed. “The season is almost over.”
“Oh, my, and whatever will you do?” Thisbe said with a large dose of sarcasm.
Kyria raised a brow at her sister. “Really, Thisbe, one doesn’t have to mess about with chemicals to lead a worthwhile life.”
“Of course not. But with your abilities, one ought—”
It was a long-standing argument—or discussion, as their mother preferred to call it—between the sober-minded Thisbe and her flamboyant, fun-loving younger sister, and Olivia cut in quickly to ward it off. “Kyria?”
“Yes, dear?” Kyria turned back to Olivia. She never minded her little tussles with Thisbe; in fact, she rather enjoyed them. But she was well aware that Olivia hated to see anyone in her family quarrel.
“Do you know—have you ever met Lord St. Leger?”
“Do you mean the new one? Or Roderick?”
“I—the new one, I suppose. Who is Roderick?”
“He was Lord St. Leger, but he died, oh, about a year ago. A hunting accident, as I remember.”
“Well, no, this man was very much alive.”
“You met him? Tonight?” Kyria’s brows went up with interest. “Is he handsome?”
“Well, yes, I suppose one could say that. He has, well, rather devastating gray eyes, almost silver, one would say, if one were inclined to say things like that.”
“I see.” Kyria’s eyes turned speculative. “Well, I’m afraid I don’t know much about him. I have never met him. He came back to take over the title after his brother died, but he’s been living on the estate ever since he returned. There has been a great deal of speculation about him, of course, because he is unmarried and something of a catch. Apparently he has been living in the United States for the past few years and made a fortune there. I didn’t know he was even in London. How did you meet him?”
“He was at a séance that I went to tonight.”
“He’s one of those?” Thisbe asked with scorn.
“No. He doesn’t seem to believe in it at all. I’m not sure why he was there, really, but he mistook me for an accomplice of the medium!” Her voice rose in remembered indignation.
“No! Why?”
“I had gotten up to go to the medium’s cabinet and open it to show her untied and holding up those silly pictures she does—but then he grabbed me, and of course it was all ruined.”
“He grabbed you?”
“Yes, by the arm. You see, he thought I was going to put on a ghost act myself. And of course there was a tremendous hubbub about it, and they ejected us from the séance.”
Laughter bubbled up from Kyria’s throat. “Oh my. That must have been quite a scene.”
“Yes. But the thing is…” Olivia hesitated, and her sisters’ attention sharpened.
“The thing is?” Thisbe prodded, and Kyria took Olivia’s arm and guided her over to a bench against the wall of the entry. Gesturing for the footman, she handed him her cloak and motioned him away, then sat down on the bench with Olivia, Thisbe providing the opposite bookend.
“What is it?” Kyria questioned her in a low voice. “Are you—well, have you developed any feeling for this man?”
“Kyria!” Olivia gave her a horrified look. “No! How can you ask that? I just met him.”
“Sometimes it does not take long,” Thisbe, usually the most pragmatic and logical of the sisters, interjected.
“The thing is…well, when he grabbed my wrist, it jolted me. I actually screamed, I was so surprised. And scared.”
“Of course. Who wouldn’t be?” Kyria sympathized.
“But then they lit the lamp and I saw who my captor was, and the oddest thing happened. Even though I did not know him at all, and even though he was looking at me quite fiercely, I was no longer afraid.”
“Well, I suppose you saw that he was a gentleman and not a ghost or some such. It is what we cannot see that is the most fearsome, ofttimes,” Thisbe said.
“But it was more than that. I felt the oddest sensation. This sort of
tingle ran up my arm, and for just an instant I felt—oh, I don’t know. This sounds mad, I know, but I felt as if I knew him. Yet at the same time I was sure that I had never seen him before. Of course then he made me quite irritated, and the feeling fled. But still…there was that instant. I don’t know what to make of it.”
For a moment both sisters looked at her. Then Thisbe said calmly, “It’s chemistry.”
“What?”
“That moment of attraction. It is all a chemical reaction. I’m convinced of it. I remember the moment I met Desmond. I have never been so startled in my life by the shiver that ran through me when he turned his eyes to mine. And when he reached out and touched my arm, I felt it all through me. Chemistry.”
“No! I’m not going to marry the man!” Olivia cried out in protest. “I told you, I scarcely know him. He was perfectly odious, too. Not only did he ruin my chance to expose that dreadful Mrs. Terhune, but then he had the audacity to call us the ‘mad Morelands.’ Right to my face!”
“No!” Kyria’s green eyes flamed with anger.
But Thisbe shrugged philosophically. “They all do. It’s their narrow minds. One really has to feel sorry for them.”
“Well, I don’t,” Kyria said. “I give them a piece of my mind. And if that is the sort of man Lord St. Leger is, then you are better not to feel anything for him.” She reached out and took Olivia’s hand. “Come with me to the soiree, Livvy. We’ll search for a gentleman good enough for you—well, that’s not possible, I suppose, but at least one who measures up as well as a man can.”
Olivia gave her a faint smile. “No. Really, Kyria. I’m not interested in Lord St. Leger or any other man. I am fine just as I am. I enjoy what I do, and a gentleman would only interfere.” She smiled over at Thisbe. “Men such as Desmond are few and far between, I’m afraid. To find a man who respects one’s mind and one’s career, even shares it—well, rare isn’t even the word for such a man.” She sighed unconsciously.
Beside her, Kyria echoed the sigh. Then she summoned up her usual glittering smile. “It is just as well that I decided never to marry, isn’t it? Still, there is fun to be had. Please, do come with me.”
But Olivia shook her head, saying, “No. I am a bit tired, I’m afraid. And I must work tomorrow. There is correspondence to be answered, and…” Her voice trailed off. “I fear I have forever lost the opportunity to expose that charlatan Mrs. Terhune. Still, there are other avenues to explore.”
“Of course.” Thisbe patted her youngest sister’s hand, and Kyria accepted Olivia’s refusal with a philosophical shrug. She was well aware that, despite Olivia’s fierceness if a loved one or a cause was threatened, she was a rather shy creature, not at home among crowds. Crushes such as Lady Westerfield’s tonight would at worst make her uneasy and nervous, and at best bore her.
Olivia watched as her beautiful sister let the footman help her on with her cloak, then swept out the door. She turned back to Thisbe, but at that moment the twins came in, accompanied this time by Desmond, a quietly good-looking man who usually wore a faint air of abstraction.
“We got the snake in time,” Con announced with satisfaction. “Cook never even saw it.”
“And we ran into Desmond in the kitchen,” Alex added, pulling Desmond forward. “We’re ready now, aren’t we, Thisbe?”
“Ready for what?” Desmond asked vaguely, and had to be reminded of his promise to star-watch with his wife and the twins. He seemed, however, quite pleased with the notion once he was told about it. “Jolly night for it. Not often you get such a clear sky in the city. Do you have your telescope?”
It seemed the boys did, tucked under the staircase, where it could come to no harm during their jumping from the stairs, and they had also brought a blanket, a lantern and a small sack of fruit for a midnight snack. They asked Olivia to join them, but although she normally would have done so, she demurred, pleading tiredness from her own adventure that evening.
In truth she was not tired so much as desirous of being alone. She wanted to think about the evening and go over what had happened and what had been said. The feeling she had experienced when she looked into Lord St. Leger’s eyes had been so odd…and though she was certain that it was nothing to do with being attracted to the man, either emotionally or chemically, as her sisters had suggested, she was not sure to what she could attribute that brief frisson of awareness that had run through her.
So she went upstairs and undressed, then sat by the window, wrapped in a brocade dressing gown, and brushed out her long hair. She typically did not require the attendance of a maid, for she wore her hair in a simple, practical style, low on her neck in a bun, that she was able to put up and take down without assistance. She also favored pragmatic clothes, with bodices that buttoned up the front and no whalebone corset that had to be yanked and tugged and tied into place to give her a minuscule waist. It was another of her mother’s dicta, adopted by her daughters, not to endanger one’s health with constricting corsets for the absurdity of an eighteen-inch waist. Therefore, she rarely needed help in getting undressed, either. Olivia deemed a personal maid an unnecessary luxury for herself, and besides, she usually preferred to be alone with her thoughts rather than listening to a maid’s chatter.
Brushing her hair normally relaxed her, but she found that this evening it did not, and her thoughts remained unaccustomedly scattered. She could not seem to concentrate, and she rose more than once to pace about the room. She could not figure out why she had felt as she did when she first saw Lord St. Leger, and it irritated her that she was so concerned with the subject. She kept thinking of things she should have said or done, witty remarks that would have put the man in his place. It was some time before she settled down enough to go to bed, and even then, it took her some time to fall asleep. It was another disagreeable problem to lay at Lord St. Leger’s door, she thought. She wished she could see him again, just to give him a piece of her mind.
She spent a rather restless night and arose early the next morning. The only person at breakfast was her great-uncle, Bellard, who smiled with pleasure at seeing her. He was a quiet man usually, but Olivia was his favorite relative, and today he was full of news about the arrival the day before of his latest acquisition, a full complement of French and English soldiers, made out of tin and perfectly replicated down to each tiny ribbon or epaulet the armies of Napoleon and Wellington at Waterloo. Her uncle was a history buff, and his particular pleasure was recreating famous battles in history. On the third floor in this huge house, not far from the nursery, was a huge room given over entirely to tables on which the terrain and participants of such epic clashes as Nelson’s victory at Trafalgar, in which glass painted blue carried replicas of the ships involved, and Churchill’s win at Blenheim were laid out with exactitude.
A thin man, somewhat hunched over from years of poring over books and tabletop armies, Bellard was often subject to chills, especially in the poorly heated upper reaches of the house, and he was given to wearing a soft cap over his wispy white hair. A beaked nose gave him a look somewhat reminiscent of a bird, but the smile beneath it was so gentle and sweet that no one who saw it ever thought of considering him odd. He was simply Great-uncle Bellard, and his great-nieces and-nephews loved him.
After breakfast, Olivia returned with him to his workroom to review the tin figures he had unpacked, and then she left the house, a plain brown bonnet on her head to match her plain brown dress, whose severe lines were softened only by a conservative bustle in back, below which the garment fell in rows of ruffles of the same material, its one touch of frivolity. Her only ornamentation was a sensible gold watch hanging from a brooch on her chest.
The ducal carriage took her, as it did every morning, and deposited her in front of the door of a modest building containing a few offices. Olivia climbed the stairs to her second-floor office, where the door sported the same discreet title as her business card.
“Hello, Tom,” she said as she reached the door, taking out her key to unlo
ck it.
Tom Quick, her assistant, sat on the floor beside the door, his shaggy yellow head turned down to the book in his lap. He jumped up at her words, grinning, and closed the book. “Good morning, miss. ’Ow are you this fair day?”
“Well, I believe, Tom. No need to ask you. You are obviously in good spirits.”
“Not from any misdoin’,” he assured her quickly.
Tom had been one of her brother Reed’s projects, a pickpocket whom he had caught attempting to steal his wallet some years ago. Reed had recognized the bright mind behind the dirty face, and instead of turning the lad in to the authorities, he had provided for his schooling. At her brother’s suggestion, Olivia had hired him for her office assistant two years ago and had never regretted it. No one, including Tom, knew his actual age or name; Quick had been an appellation given him for the speed with which he could pick a pocket. He was, Olivia judged, somewhere between sixteen and eighteen, with a worldly-wise view of life far beyond his years. Slavishly devoted to both Reed and Olivia, Tom refused to leave her, though Olivia was sure that he could have earned more as a clerk for a larger firm. She also suspected, though she had never confronted him about it, that Tom and Reed considered his job more one of unobtrusively protecting Olivia than of actually clerking.
“’Ow’d it go last night?” Tom asked as she unlocked the door and they went inside.
He went around raising the shades on the windows while Olivia walked over to her desk. “Not well at all, I’m afraid.” She described as briefly as she could the contretemps that had arisen at the séance the night before, spoiling her plans.
Tom reacted with appropriate shock and dismay. “That’s ’orrible, miss. Wot are you goin’ to do now?”
“Forget Mrs. Terhune, I’m afraid. It wasn’t even a paying case. I am just so incensed at her foisting those obvious daguerrotypes off as ghosts. Anyone can see that they are flat.”
“Anyone except her followers,” Tom pointed out.
“I know. I suppose I should let them be deceived, if they are so foolish.” Olivia sighed.
