by Martha Keyes
He stood, picking up the book from the floor and tossing it carelessly on the chaise. He strode past the screen so that he had more room to pace.
Perhaps he had simply been missing the signs. It seemed unlikely, but he certainly hadn’t been on the lookout for them. Stranger things had happened in history—or things nearly as strange, at least?
He had the sudden, overpowering desire to seek Edith out—to search for the evidence he had apparently been missing these past…how long exactly had she been in love with him? Weeks? Years?
But, even then, what did it change that Edith was in love with him?
She was undeniably alluring, and never more so than when she felt she had bested him in one of their battles of wit— more frequently than he cared to admit. Her dark eyes gleamed, and the smile she clearly thought she was suppressing tugged at her lips.
And yet, no. Love him or no, she was still the arrogant, aggravating woman he had known for years. He was intrigued at the thought of her love for him, but only because it was so very far from the truth he had accepted: Edith Donne disdained him.
There was nothing more to his shock than that. It was only natural, and it certainly was no indicator at all that he had misjudged his own feelings. After all, how could one possibly mistake love for spite?
Chapter Four
Edith shaded in the stem of the rose she was sketching in the gardens of Shipton House, stepping back to inspect her work. Her mouth twisted to the side. She was out of practice. It had been years, in fact, since she had last taken out her sketchbook. But she was happy to do so now, if only for an excuse to get away from the house for an hour.
It wasn’t that she disliked having company at her childhood home; she was merely unaccustomed to having all her nooks and crannies—the ones she had used since childhood to avoid whatever quarrel her parents were currently engaged in—invaded by others.
And, though she would die before she admitted it, the constant back and forth with Elias required a great deal of her energy. She needed to gather her faculties. He was quick to sense any weakness.
A breeze blew into the garden, rustling the leaves on the rose stems and causing a few red petals to drop from the blooms she was sketching. The ground was littered with the petals, giving the gardens an almost morbid appearance, like the scene of some bloody—and strangely located—battle.
Footsteps sounded in the walking path behind Edith, but the intruders were hidden from view by the tall boxwoods that surrounded the rose garden.
“…but how very unexpected!” Viola’s enraptured voice pierced through the hedges easily.
“Yes,” came the resigned voice of Mercy, “but nothing to rejoice over, I’m afraid, for nothing can come of it. He is too proud to make a clean breast of his feelings for her, and she is prouder still—far too proud to do anything but scorn him even if he did confess his love.” She sighed. “No, things will go on as they always have. Edith will never know herself beloved of Elias, and he will continue meeting her disdain with his teasing.”
Edith’s pencil dropped to the ground, and she clenched her eyes shut, cringing at the loud clatter it made on the gravel-specked dirt. But the slow footsteps continued.
“It is such a terrible shame, though,” Viola said. “I am of a mind to tell her myself.”
“Oh no, you mustn’t do any such thing,” Mercy was quick to reply, and distance was beginning to make their voices harder to hear. “Elias would be mortified. Or livid, perhaps. One can hardly blame him, for it would be very much like Edith to lord it over him. Besides, Solomon told me in the strictest confidence, and he had been told in confidence by Matthew. Indeed, I wouldn’t have said anything if you hadn’t brought up the subject.”
“Very well,” Viola said in a resigned voice. “I shan’t say anything.”
“It is for the best, I think. You had better direct your energies toward nudging Elias’s affection in a more promising direction.”
Edith shot a hand out to the nearest bush as she realized that she was teetering on the edge of her chair, trying to hear the last snippets of Viola and Mercy’s conversation as their walk took them to other parts of the labyrinth.
She found that her breath was coming quickly and that she had a sudden need to move. She set her sketchbook upon the chair, grasping at her skirts and blinking in confusion. It was nonsensical. And yet she could not deny what she had heard. Elias Abram in love with her?
But why? She had never said a kind word to the man. If any person on the earth had a reason to hate her, it was Elias Abram. She had been a veritable minx to him for the past decade and more, and well she knew it. And yet, it was like a well-worn track in the road. Try as she might to urge her words into a more polite and civil route, they would insist upon taking the path they knew best.
And certainly Elias bore some of the blame for this, for there was no denying he took great pleasure in provoking her. Why a man would so relish being verbally flogged, she couldn’t understand—particularly if he truly harbored some affection for her.
She didn’t know whether to feel encouraged or disappointed.
The latter. It must certainly be the latter. She couldn’t unhear her cousins’ words, and those words changed everything.
She might despise Elias’s unearned confidence and his obvious misunderstanding of women, but she had no desire for their repartees to come to an end—little though she wished to admit it.
And even less did she revel in the prospect of rebuffing him were he to express his apparent feelings for her, though evidently Mercy thought there was no risk of that. Even if there were, Edith was not so terribly insufferable as Mercy had said. She took no joy in someone else’s pain—even if that someone stood in sore need of a knock to his pride, as Elias did.
She brushed a finger along the outer petals of the nearest rose, fanned out in a full and perfect cascade. She frowned at the realization of just how unsatisfactory her sketch was. There was so much more depth and range of color at this close distance than she had captured from her seat. She leaned in so that her nose nearly touched the bloom. Closing her eyes, she inhaled.
The scent was sweet, but not cloying, and the fragrance somehow enhanced the perfection of the flower. Surely nothing deserved to be so perfect.
She opened her eyes, then ran a finger along the tip of one thorn and then another. The second thorn pricked her finger, and she smiled. The rose was perfect, and yet ready to do battle—to protect itself, to draw blood. It wasn’t some helpless thing for the taking. One must understand the thorns in order to properly benefit from the bloom.
She placed her fingers carefully between the thorns and bent the stem until it yielded with a snapping sound. Setting it atop her sketch, she brushed off the frustration at the contrast between her immature depiction and the transcendent reality that nature created again and again—so effortlessly.
The sun was dipping down toward the horizon, and she needed to dress for dinner. Her heart quickened as she picked up her belongings, and she hated the reaction. She was never nervous to see Elias. And she didn’t wish to remark anything approaching love in his eyes when he looked at her. She merely wished for things to continue on as they had been.
Chapter Five
Edith put a hand to her coiffure as she took the staircase down to the drawing room in preparation for dinner. She had chosen the dress that made her look her most formidable, as well as asking that her hair be arranged a bit differently than usual. The dark waves had been slicked back with pomade and then arranged high on top of her head in a way that, frankly, looked quite silly. But she wanted to appear tall and imposing.
Perhaps if she looked intimidating and unapproachable, Elias would come to his senses. Whatever image he had created of her in his head, she was not that, and the sooner he realized it—preferably without her needing to say anything on the matter—the better it would be for all of them. They could go on as they had been.
Or at least she sincerely hoped so. For her pa
rt, she would act no differently. She would not curtail her wit or treat him with kid gloves. He was a full-grown man who obviously knew how to protect himself, just as she did herself. And while she had a sliver of curiosity that begged to be indulged about what exactly was the nature of Elias’s sentiments and how long it had been since he had convinced himself that he was in love with her, she would not surrender to such a silly impulse.
The thought of his regard still mystified her. It somehow made her feel unworthy, which she detested.
The company was all gathered in the drawing room, save Edith’s parents, who had only returned from their short journey to Keldhome two hours earlier. She was still surprised that they had gone together at all. Her parents agreed on nothing when it came to politics, and her mother was not one to hold her tongue on the matter. Edith had inherited her boldness and her spirit—a sore trial and a constant provocation to her father, whose beliefs on the place of women’s opinions was widely known.
She forced herself to breathe evenly, scanning the room without allowing her eyes to dwell on Elias, yet aware of the fact that he had stopped talking upon her entrance. She clenched her teeth slightly, disappointment settling into the pit of her stomach at his reaction. She would rather he launch some cutting quip at her—teasing her hair, even—than train his eyes upon her as he was now.
“Mother and Father aren’t down yet?” Edith asked Matthew, though it was obvious that they weren’t.
He shook his head. “But I heard Father barking orders at Rigby about the state of his boots as I was coming down, so I think it shan’t be much longer.”
Edith let her eyes travel to Elias, her heart lurching at the unfamiliar glint in them. Would she not have noticed such a thing before? Had she been so blind?
She let her gaze linger on him a moment longer, then moved it back to her brother. “I see you’ve brought your loyal puppy with you. Have you managed to train him yet?”
There was only the merest hesitation—and perhaps she was making it seem more than it was—but it was there, all the same.
“Trained to bark and bite,” Elias said, baring his teeth slightly. The familiar twinkle reappeared in his eyes—the one that told Edith he was ready to do battle.
A little wave of relief flooded her at his response, and she cocked an eyebrow at him. “You had better keep your boasting to yourself. Barking and biting should come naturally to canines. Only the most deficient of dogs would require training for such things.”
The door opened, and Edith’s parents entered. Her mother looked poised, as always, and her father? He always entered a room as though it was meant to be dominated and controlled. His graying hair curled tightly, providing a contrast to his wife’s dark, sleek locks.
“How was Keldhome?” Edith asked as her mother touched cheeks with her. It wasn’t a warm embrace, but Edith’s mother had never been particularly warm. She was far more interested in discussing ideas than in exploring emotion. Indeed, Edith’s father displayed enough emotion to more than compensate for her mother’s lack—though his emotion was generally of the explosive type.
“I believe we made some headway,” her father replied. “But only time will tell! If the borough boundaries are rearranged as I wish, the voters of Keldhome will be vital to my reelection.”
Her mother sighed. “There is far too much resistance to the cause—too much to lose for too many men. But the time for the change is far past.”
“What cause is this you speak of?” Solomon asked.
Edith could have kicked him. Her muscles were tense, just the way they always were when politics came up with both of her parents in the room. It found its way into every conversation, somehow.
“There is talk of rearranging the borough boundaries in an attempt to balance out the power,” Matthew said. “Boroughs like ours have precious few voters but just as much say in the House of Commons as the more highly populated boroughs.”
Solomon nodded thoughtfully. “Forgive me, Mr. Donne, but is not that a Whig cause? I was under the impression that you were a firm Tory.”
“I am!” Edith’s father wagged his finger at Solomon. “Never doubt it. But some causes should have the support of both parties, and this is one of them. Come. I am starved.” He turned to lead the way into the dining room.
Edith listened as Matthew leaned in toward Solomon with a wry smile. “Father always thinks Tory support should align with his own interests.”
“What do you mean?”
Matthew shrugged. “If the vote passes muster—which would be a miracle, mind you—and the boundaries are changed, our borough is likely to lose a seat in Commons. The other seat is held by a man my father heartily despises, and the proposed boundaries would force him into Whig territory, leaving Father to win the sole seat here—handily.”
Edith came abreast of them. “Inspiring, isn’t it?” she said sarcastically. “I beg you will not bring up the subject during dinner, though. I have had enough talk of boroughs and boundaries to last me three lifetimes.” For some reason, the prospect of having her parents debate in front of the others filled her with a sense of dread. There was still plenty of fodder for debating, even regarding a cause they were united in.
Perhaps she was being silly, though. Causing tension in a room was not something foreign to Edith, after all. But there was something quite different from the playful banter she engaged in and the fraught exchanges her parents had—full to brimming with history and deeper significance. They were not above embarrassing each other—or themselves—in company, and Edith would never wish for anyone else to witness what she had grown up experiencing on a daily basis—the glaring brokenness of it: of her father, of her mother, and, as a result, of herself. Indeed, how could she be anything but broken after such a childhood?
Chapter Six
Elias couldn’t keep his eyes from Edith the entirety of the meal. That is, he did keep his eyes from her—he was no greenhorn, after all—but he had found that, absent his intervention, his gaze insisted upon returning to her again and again, as if it was being compelled there. And yet he was certainly not doing the compelling.
He simply found himself intrigued. It seemed impossible that any woman as deeply in love as Solomon and Matthew had described would look like Edith. She seemed hardly to notice Elias, in fact—aside from that barbed comment about his being an inferior breed of canine.
His lip tugged up at the corner. She had a fiery tongue, and no doubt about it.
But whether she looked like a woman in love or no, he could hardly doubt someone as near to Edith as Mercy. If anyone were to know the state of Edith’s heart—apparently she was possessed of one—it would be Mercy.
Throughout dinner, Elias looked for any sign at all that what really lay behind the hundreds upon hundreds of mocking remarks was, in reality, something besides disdain.
Only once was he rewarded for his efforts. It was the most fleeting of glances, but he hadn’t missed it. Her gaze, breaking contact with Matthew’s, had flitted straight to Elias during the second course, only to return to Matthew as quickly as it had left him. Elias could have sworn the pink in her cheeks hadn’t been there before.
And what did he make of such an insignificant moment? He hardly knew. Did it change his own feelings? Why should it? He’d had any number of women throw out lures to him over the years, and the mere knowledge of their regard for him had done nothing to spark reciprocity. Nor did he think that it was doing so now—and Edith was hardly throwing out lures.
Elias was merely curious, as if he had been seeing Edith Donne in the shade his entire life, and now the smallest shaft of light was presenting her to him in a new way. He had always known she was beautiful, but he now had to wonder if perhaps she had something of a heart, too, behind the stony façade.
He stepped into the drawing room beside Matthew, his eyes immediately finding her. If she was hiding a heart behind those walls, it was somewhere deep within. He thought she had never looked so unapproachable as sh
e did that evening. Her hair—normally pinned back in a wavy knot near the crown of her head, with escaped wisps framing her face—was swept back tightly and piled atop her head this evening, with a large riband circling the glossy tresses.
Elias absently followed Matthew, then, realizing he did look somewhat like a puppy following on its master’s heels, dropped back to a more reasonable distance and sat himself in the chair at the far end of the settee upon which Edith sat. Her gaze flitted to him and, as if to discourage his saying anything to her, she reached into the basket beside the settee and pulled from it a stocking and a threaded needle.
Matthew took the place immediately beside her, squinting over at the stocking she held. “What are you doing? You can’t darn that without a candle, silly. You’ll poke holes through your fingers.”
“Nonsense,” she said. “I can see just fine.” Her eyes squinted slightly, but she seemed to catch the contradiction to her words and blinked them open wider.
Matthew only shrugged, leaning toward her more closely. “Not terribly keen on Mum and Father’s newfound alliance, are you?” He spoke in a low voice, but not low enough to keep Elias from hearing.
Edith didn’t look up. “I hesitate to apply the word alliance to something so doomed to fail.”
“Fail? They are for once in agreement on something! Even if the vote doesn’t pass—and I don’t think it shall, mind you—that has to count for something, surely.”
She gave her brother an almost pitying look—one Elias knew well. “Perhaps I would rejoice in that if I weren’t aware how widely diverging are their reasons for seeking the same end. Mama has long wished to rid England of its rotten boroughs. For her it is a matter of justice and progress. But for Father....”
“A way to solidify his continuing reelection,” Matthew said, leaning back with a sigh. “But can we not still rejoice in the temporary peace?”
