Mr. Yale departed the following day. Viola went with him into the foyer, where he took her hand and lifted it close to his lips but did not kiss it.
“It has been a remarkable pleasure, Miss Carlyle. I hope to see you in town anon.”
“Thank you. You have been very kind.”
“Kindness has little to do with it.”
“I don’t think you know what it has to do with.” She twisted her lips. “That was inelegantly said. Or at least grammatically unclear, I think. And after all your coaching.”
“You are charming, Miss Carlyle.”
“I still have not mastered which glass is meant for which beverage or how to fasten my garters.”
“Or apparently which matters are inappropriate to discuss with a gentleman.” His gray eyes twinkled. “But, no worry. A footman will always see to the former, and another man altogether is no doubt quite happy about the latter.”
Her cheeks warmed.
He grinned. “Do you know, I believe I will kiss your hand after all. I mayn’t be allowed in the future.”
She snatched her fingers away. He chuckled, donned his hat, and left.
Lady Emily stood in the doorway to the foyer and came forth now. She wore spectacles the color of her short silvery-gold hair, and carried a book.
“Has he gone for good?” Her voice was unusually bright.
“Yes. He likes to tease you. Why is that?”
“Because he hasn’t a thought in his head. I prefer Mr. Seton. He does not plague a woman with idiotic banter trying to pass it off as conversation.”
Since their frustrating conversation on the terrace, Mr. Seton had not plagued Viola with any conversation at all. She had not seen him to be plagued or to plague in return.
“Mr. Seton is taciturn,” she mumbled.
“No. He is a thinking man, Miss Carlyle. Such men are not to be dismissed as merely taciturn.”
“A thinking man?”
“He reads.” She opened her book as though searching for something in it. “ ‘Words frighten not him who blanches not at deeds.’ Sophocles. I encountered him in the library this morning settled comfortably with Herodotus. An inestimable companion.”
Herodotus? It could be coincidence. Then why did her heart beat now as it had that evening when he stood at her cabin door and she touched him for the first time?
She adopted her most innocent posture. “Herodotus? Did another gentleman arrive at Savege Park that I have yet to meet?”
“Herodotus perished in Greece over two thousand years ago. I should hope he is not present at this gathering.” She looked so sincere. Viola laughed.
Lady Emily’s emerald eyes narrowed. “You quiz nearly as well as Mr. Yale, Miss Carlyle.” But she grinned.
“You do not hate him, do you?”
“Unfortunately I cannot. He helped me in a difficult situation with my parents and I cannot forget that, although I certainly wish to. He is like a bothersome elder brother.”
“I am glad. I like him. He has been very good to me.”
Lady Emily bent her fair head over her volume anew. “I should not account that a particular accomplishment on his part, Miss Carlyle.” She turned another page. “You are quite easy to like. If all ladies were more like you I shouldn’t mind going about in society half so much.” With that, she wandered through the opposite door, head in her book.
After lunch from which the gentlemen were absent, Viola went to the library seeking out something or another to read. More than once.
She was the greatest idiot alive. He was not there, of course. Back in the parlor, Lady Fiona said the gentlemen had gone out riding. Viola considered going to the stable and saddling up a horse, but she didn’t know how.
The gentlemen returned just before dinner. In the drawing room Sir Tracy said many pretty things to her, but she didn’t mind his foolishness. At least he spoke to her.
At dinner and afterward during tea conversation was lively and general and Jin did not come near her. She had learned enough of polite manners to know that she could not very well abandon her seat and put herself near him. But she would if he showed any interest in her doing so, which he did not. He seemed distracted, his attention little on the group and occasionally directed toward the terrace again.
She slept poorly, listening to Madame Roche’s snoring through the wall from the bedchamber beside hers and wondering where his bedchamber might be. The idea that he might be in one of the more accessible rooms now, perhaps in the parlor having a drink or playing billiards with Alex and Sir Tracy, nearly inspired her to dress and go searching. But the wound to her pride would not allow it. He did not want her; she would not chase after him.
The following day, Serena enjoined the ladies to take tea with her at the teahouse in Avesbury, a quaint establishment beside the modiste’s shop. After the repast, Serena took Viola alone next door.
“What are we doing, Ser?” She looked about the tiny place stacked with bins of ribbons and laces and skeins of fabric. “I am certain Mrs. Hamper delivered all my dresses directly to-” Her hand flew to her mouth. “Holy Mary Magdalene. For me?”
Serena’s delight shone so clearly, the shimmering gown in the dressmaker’s arms must be for her.
“Do you like it?”
Viola reached out to stroke the butter-soft silk in the perfect shade of sunset, sewn with tiny pearls and sequins across the bodice and dripping down the filmy skirt like rain falling through sunshine.
“How could I not? But-”
“It is for the party tomorrow night. The gowns we made for you are all so lovely yet none of them suited a truly grand celebration.”
Viola’s eyes widened. “Do not tell me this party is for me.”
“It is. Everyone for miles around has heard you are here. They are all mad to meet you again after so many years.” Serena’s face crinkled. “But… you do not want this?”
“Of course I do.” Not at all. The mere idea of being the center of this sort of attention turned her hands cold. She was certain to do something atrociously wrong and shame Serena, Alex, and the baron. “Thank you, Ser. You are so generous and I will be happy to meet everyone again. I wonder if I will remember them?” She didn’t much care. She wanted only the company of one man whose company she would soon be denied forever.
Malta. Malta. Halfway across the world… Wasn’t it?
When they returned home she went to the library. He was not there, but a gold-embossed atlas of the world was. She flipped open the huge volume, found England, and traced a path all the way to the boot of Italy with her fingertip. She blew out a giant breath. Good Lord, she was acting like a child, just as he had said. But the tear upon her cheek came from a woman’s sorrow.
She scrubbed it off, slammed the book shut, and shoved it back in its place on the shelf.
She didn’t give a fig where he went or what he did. She would be perfectly fine without him. And perhaps when the project of becoming a lady finally wearied her beyond endurance she would go back to Boston where she belonged. If Alex floated her a loan, she could purchase a new ship and, better equipped, take on new projects. The trip to Port of Spain with that cargo might have been lucrative if she had gone about it with the intention of making money. She would hire out her ship to one of those outrageously wealthy merchants like Mr. Hat, and pay back her brother-in-law within a year or so. Hopefully. With a truly sturdy vessel she would also be able to return to England every so often to visit her family. That would be lovely. Activity suited her so much better than this ladylike sitting around waiting for something to happen, or waiting for other people to make decisions for her such as throwing a big party at which everyone for miles about would attend, or waiting for a man to look at her again like he wanted her and wished to tell her something significant.
Oh, God.
She pressed the heels of her palms into her eyes and drew a long, shuddering breath. She did not wish to return to Boston or the sea. She only wanted Jin. But she was not to have him. She must get a hold of herself. Straightening her shoulders, she marched to the door, pulled it open, and slammed into a hard body.
Jin grasped her shoulders. And just like that, she was lost, drowning in the pleasure of touching him again, heat filling her. She dragged lashes that seemed remarkably heavy up to see his beautiful mouth hovering above hers, a muscle working in his jaw. In silence she begged, Kiss me. Kiss me.
He put her away from him, turned, and disappeared down the corridor.
Shaking, confused, and furious that for the first time in her life she could not manage to tell a man exactly what she was thinking, Viola went to find Serena to help prepare for the party the following day-the grand event that would introduce her into polite society, when all she wished was to be back sitting on the forecastle of her old ship in the sunset with an Egyptian pirate.
Her sister reclined on the chaise in her dressing chamber draped in a blue dressing gown, a tiny bundle of infant in the crook of her arm.
“You are very relaxed for a woman about to have a party,” Viola commented.
“I am savoring a moment of peace. I have spent the day greeting all our guests who will remain the night here and seeing to everything that needed seeing to. Now my husband is managing the rest. He is quite good at throwing parties.” She smiled a sweet, private sort of smile. Viola’s chest ached a little.
“Did Papa hate Mama after she died, or only Fionn?”
Serena’s eyes popped open. “I don’t believe he hated either of them.”
“No. I am quite certain he hated my father.” Viola toyed with the string of her delicate gold and white fan painted with exotic birds. Serena had just given it to her, after Jane strapped her into her pretty gown and fussed with her hair. “He was remarkably uncivil to Mr. Seton when they spoke the other night. Especially when he said the word ‘sailor.’ He nearly choked on it.”
“He did?” Serena chewed on her lower lip. “That doesn’t sound like Papa at all. But I guess it should come as no surprise given Mama and Fionn’s attachment to one another.”
“I suppose devotion that lasts ages despite them never seeing one another is impressive.” Again she had not seen Jin all day, yet her nerves tangled merely thinking of spending the evening with him. That she would be spending the evening with about seventy other people really mattered very little.
“They never should have met, let alone spoken.” Serena sighed. “But they did, and he could not give her up, nor she him entirely.”
“No wonder Papa dislikes sailors.”
“You are a sailor and he loves you very much.”
“May I enter?” Dressed formally, the earl radiated the sort of elegant, confident masculinity a woman could not fail to notice. Viola had heard enough from Madame Roche to suggest that in the past many women in fact had noticed Alex Savege. How her kind, dreamy sister had ever seriously considered the suit of such a man, Viola marveled. But there could be no doubt of his fidelity to Serena now; his devotion was patently clear.
“Do come in.” Serena stroked her fingertip along the crown of Maria’s wooly head. “Your daughter has just fallen asleep, so shh.” Her glance flickered over him. “You are quite handsome tonight, my lord.”
“I must make a vain attempt to meet your splendor, my lady.” He bowed. “I do not wish to shame you.”
“But I might.” Viola wrinkled her nose.
“Of course you won’t,” Serena said firmly. “You look beautiful, and you have excelled in nearly every lesson Mr. Yale gave you.” Her eyes danced.
“Nearly being the operative word. I stepped all over Alex’s toes while we danced-don’t deny it.”
“If you do not wish to dance tonight,” he assured, “you needn’t.”
“I suppose it would be all right if I danced only with you and Papa. But to step on a stranger’s toes, that I should rather not do.”
“Jinan is not a stranger,” Serena said. “You can step on his toes and he won’t mind it at all. Tracy won’t either.”
The earl leaned his broad shoulders against the door frame. “Jin at a party like this is a marvel in itself. When Yale made the announcement the other day that he was departing I half expected Jin to take to the road with him. That he has remained here longer than a day astounds me.”
“It has been nearly two years since you have seen one another.”
“That wouldn’t matter to him. His loyalties and affections don’t operate on those terms. But I have never seen him so restless. He is not himself.”
“Perhaps he is merely at a loss for suitable activity. He must miss his ship.” Serena’s gaze slipped to her. “As perhaps you do, too, Vi?”
Viola’s mouth was dry. “Only a little.”
“Serena,” Alex continued, “do not be surprised when he departs as abruptly as he arrived. Tomorrow is as likely as next week.”
“I will expect it. I am not all that ignorant of the ways of sailors, my lord.” Her eyes twinkled. Alex smiled. Viola’s heart felt as though it might implode.
She stood. “I will go finish preparing now.” She hurried to the door.
“But you are already pre-”
She fled. She could not bear to imagine him gone. Not again. Not so soon. Because then it truly would be good-bye. He would leave and she would never see him again and she would be much better off for it.
Damn him. Damn him for returning and oversetting her so thoroughly. Oversetting? She was not overset like some maidenly ninny. She was confused and thought perhaps that any moment, the moment he chose to leave abruptly as Alex prophesied, her heart would finally break.
Guests had been arriving all day. By the time the sun set, dipping over the ocean in a froth of gold and pink stripes, the house was brimming. It was not too large a gathering, Madame Roche assured her.
“Jusque le petit fête. No more than one hundred of the peoples.”
One hundred seemed like quite a lot of the peoples to Viola. All richly garbed and talking of town and when they would return for the fall session, they seemed enormously elegant and sophisticated. Servants wandered about with trays of champagne as ladies gossiped in little clusters and gentlemen partook of wine and stronger drink. In the drawing room, Lady Fiona played beautifully on the pianoforte, followed by another young lady who also sang. There was much animated conversation, more music by a hired quartet, and a buffet supper, and finally dancing. Candles glimmered on every surface. Laughter spilled onto the terrace lit with paper lamps and dancers followed into the warm, blustery night. All indulged in the evening’s pleasures, smiles and gaiety abounding.
Viola tried to hide.
At first, she enjoyed it a little. But she remembered few people. The older ladies cooed and exclaimed over her, insisting that she had been a remarkably pretty girl.
“And so… spirited,” one lady proclaimed with an overly wide smile. “Why, do you remember, Amelia, that Sunday in church when she bathed her kitten in the baptismal font?”
“She said it needed holy water to heal its tiny wounded paw.” The lady bobbed her head. “And you mustn’t forget the toad pie she brought to tea at Mrs. Creadle’s, Hester. I always told dear Maria that her little Viola was a wild thing. A wild thing.” She said this last as though Viola were not sitting right beside her.
“Yet she has lived such a retiring life with her aunt in Boston, none of us even knew she was there. What a lovely demure young lady she has become, hasn’t she, Amelia?”
“Remarkably lovely, Hester. I commend her American aunt.”
They had to be lying through their teeth. Or ignorant. Or simply very foolish. She hadn’t any idea where these rumors had come from, but she doubted Serena and Alex spread them.
Swiftly, she grew weary of pretending fifteen years of her life at sea had simply not occurred. The only person in the place who knew the full truth of the life she had lived was a former pirate, but he didn’t look anything like what he had once been either. Tonight he was arrayed gorgeously in dark coat and waistcoat, a single blood-red gemstone glinting in the fall of his neck cloth. He was perfect, and he did not come within a league of her.
To save herself from complete misery, she pretended he was not present. She remained on the opposite side of the room, did not look in his direction, and in general tried to not think of him.
Lady Fiona had clearly decided on the opposite tack. With the departure of Mr. Yale, her attentions were now all for Jin. With actually demure smiles she engaged him in conversation that did not seem to tax him in the least; talking with her he did not roll his eyes or frown even once.
“She is not the girl for him, ma chère.” Madame Roche wagged a red-tipped finger before Viola’s face.
She blinked. “Pardon me? Oh, I mean, pardonnez-moi?”
Crimson lips split into a charming smile in a face tinted with white powder. “Mademoiselle Fione is not the girl for him. Non.” She waved a scented black kerchief about, lacy shawls floating. “She is très jolie. But he is not taken with her.”
“How do you know that?”
“Because all the night he has been looking at you.” Her shawls floated off, taking her with them.
Viola’s heart beat quite swiftly. She glanced up. He was, in fact, looking at her.
Then why hadn’t he kissed her at the library? Why had he walked away? Rather, fled. And why did he not come speak to her now?
She turned away, went into another room, and found a trio of old gentlemen to entertain with outrageous stories. She made up most of them. If they were married to the old ladies who made up all those stories about her, they would be accustomed enough to it anyway.
She danced a little, first with the baron, then with Sir Tracy, and once with one of the old men. She almost did not tread on any of their feet. Several young gentlemen asked her to dance. She declined, smiling. “Your shoes are far too shiny. I would not wish to scuff them with my heel.” Indeed, she smiled incessantly, laughed in delight at every witticism, invented story after story, each more implausible than the next, and generally attempted to prove to herself and probably to him that she didn’t care the least little bit about him or the lovely girls with whom he enjoyed his evening.
Sometime in the very late hours, or perhaps the very early, when Viola had begun to believe her feet would fall off if she could not rid them of her punishing slippers, guests began to depart. Those who lived close by went to their carriages, and those who had come from a distance staggered to bedchambers in the labyrinthine corridors of the Park.
“Everyone adored you.” Serena curled her arm about her waist and kissed her on the cheek. “And you looked as though you were enjoying yourself. I am so glad.”
“Thank you for the wonderful party, Ser. It was splendid.” And finally over, so that now she could go to her room and spend the remainder of the night crying over a man she had been quite, quite foolish to fall in love with. The last she had seen of him, Lady Fiona had been wrapping her hand about his arm while two other young ladies stood by looking on with patent jealousy. So at least Viola was not alone in her envy, which made her feel absolutely ill.
“Come,” Serena said, “I will tuck you in.”
“Oh, no. You will wish to visit Maria before going to bed, and you must be exhausted.”
“We will walk up together. And there is my lord to escort us. Will you see us up, Alex?”
He came toward them and took Serena’s hand to kiss. “I am charged with playing cards. Cards, as though I haven’t a lovely wife waiting for me. Some fellows will never learn.”
“But you must act the gracious host,” his lovely wife replied, and drew Viola toward the stair.
On the landing to the third story, Viola released her. “Thank you. Now go see Maria.”
Serena’s tired eyes smiled, and she went.
Dragging sore feet, Viola moved along the darkened corridor, wishing she’d brought a lamp or candle, then happy she hadn’t. She was so weary and wretched, she must look like she’d been through a squall. And to be so wretched after her sister had thrown her a fabulous party made her more wretched yet. Halfway along the corridor she met a pair of matrons, gray head to gray head, still gossiping madly. She bade them good night, they waved, never ceasing their whispered chatter, and she slogged along on blistered toes and heels.
Five minutes of slogging later it occurred to her that she was once again lost. This time quite literally. Amber circles from sconces lit the corridor at long intervals. She recognized nothing, not the side table nor the painting on the wall; she had never been in this corridor. Voices came from a distance. The ubiquitous footmen seemed to have eschewed their ubiquity.
She halted and turned around. Jin was walking toward her. Her heart did an awful leap against her rib cage.
“What is the chance that I get myself lost and you appear out of nowhere to take me back where I belong?” she whispered very unsteadily.
“No chance.” He came right to her, as close as he had on the terrace the last time he spoke to her, and at the library door when he did not. “I was looking for you.”
“Me?” She could not bridle her tongue; it was apparently firmly attached to her heart. “Are you certain you weren’t looking for Lady Fiona, rather?”
“Quite certain.” His eyes covered her all at once, it seemed, her face and hair, shoulders, and the place where her quick breaths pressed her breasts against her bodice. She wanted him to look at her like this, but he had looked at her this way before and then rejected her.
“She wants you,” she uttered, trying to push him away with words.
“I don’t want her.” He grasped her arms, not gently, and bent over her mouth. “I want you.” Then, finally, he kissed her again.