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March 10 - March 12, 2025
“Yes. Look for me in the season of mists and mellow fruitfulness,” I instructed with a feeble attempt at a smile. But even a nod to his beloved Keats did not soften his austere expression.
“Of course not.” It was a pathetic attempt at a lie. The truth was that both of us, in an unguarded moment, had very nearly given voice to sentiments we had no business declaring. I could still feel the pressure of his hand, burning like a brand at my waist, as his breath stirred the lock of hair pinned behind my ear, warm and impulsive words trembling on my lips. Had his brother, the Viscount Templeton-Vane, not interrupted us . . .
After all, a proper examination of a butterfly did not take place in the field; one captured the specimen and took it away to regard it carefully, holding it up to the light and accepting its flaws as well as its beauties. So I meant to do with my feelings for Stoker,
“I will manage quite well alone,” he replied as he turned away, his expression carefully blank. “I always have.”
I had sowed the seed of this quarrel, I reminded myself sternly; I could not now complain that I did not like the fruit it bore.
“Besides which, I hardly think Miss Speedwell requires assistance in arranging her affairs.” He lingered on the last word just a heartbeat too long.
gave them both a repressive stare. “I am not your nanny, but if required, I will put either of you over my knee,” I warned them. Stoker, who topped me by half a foot and some forty pounds, pulled a face. His brother’s response was slightly salacious. He lifted an exquisite brow and sighed. “One could only wish,” he murmured.
“Colleagues and friends! How very tepid,”
I still thought often of that last significant meeting, when words had hung unspoken but understood in the air.
“Stoker, I am twenty-six years of age. I have traveled around the world three times, and I have met scores of men, some of whom I have known far more intimately than you can imagine. I promise you, I can smell a burgeoning seduction from across the room. I am no fainting virgin,”
“Oooh, how nasty you can be when you are sulking,” I observed.
“I can take care of myself.” “That is what I am afraid of.”
I took it as a mark of the highest affection and respect that he fought with me as he would a man, and I gave him no quarter either.
The viscount’s overtures were intrusions, Stoker believed, encroachments on something he held dear and that belonged to him—me.
Is there any feeling as delicious as the beginning of a new adventure? To be perched upon the precipice of a fresh endeavor, poised for flight, the winds of change ruffling the feathers, ah, that is what it means to be alive!
Chester had been my constant companion. He was a little the worse for wear these days, his velvet thinning in some places and one of his black-bead eyes a trifle loose. But I would have sooner traveled without my head than without my stalwart little companion.
Huxley surrendered it as a courtship gift to Bet. She rolled ecstatically on the ground, waving her enormous paws in the air and upsetting a model of the Golden Hind made out of walnuts as Huxley watched, his deep chest puffed out proudly.
his apathy goaded me far more effectively than any display of temper might have done.
If he meant to wound me, he could have chosen no sharper blade than indifference.
“Miss Speedwell is a modern lady. She does not travel with a maid.” If his lordship had told the man I intended to travel stark naked with a pumpkin on my head, he could not have looked more appalled.
“I have always said that it is interesting people who find others interesting.”
am not interested in moths,” he admitted. “But I am interested in you.” “That,” I told him without a blush, “is entirely apparent.” “Good.”
“The fact that you envied him anything at all would come as the most appalling shock to him,” I returned. His mouth twisted into a wry expression. “I envy him more than any other man I have ever known,” he said.
Tiberius had fallen silent and merely stood for a long moment, his gaze fixed upon the black stone built upon the eminence. He was sunk in some sort of reverie, and for a fleeting instant, something dark and terrible touched his face.
He looked the sort of gentleman England had made a speciality of producing, stalwart, principled, and with an air of dutiful determination about him, the kind of man who would have been in the first charge at Agincourt. But a second look showed eyes that were a little sunken, as if from sleepless nights, and there were deep lines incised from nose to chin that looked as if they had been drawn on with an unkind hand. If this had not persuaded me that he was troubled, a single glance at his hands would have done so. His fingernails were bitten to the quick, a slender thread of scarlet marking
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“Since I was twelve years old. I came as a nurserymaid when the late Mrs. Romilly bore Mr. Malcolm.”
It was a measure of Tiberius’ newfound distraction that he made no comment
But a tiny dot of crimson just below his ear showed that he had cut himself shaving, a curious development given that his lordship was usually as fastidious as a cat.
There were odd currents of tension in the room, swirling and eddying about us,
I realized then that Miss Mertensia no doubt divided people into “garden” people—worth knowing—and “nongarden” people, who were obviously not.
We made noises of good night and sleep well, and in the dispersal of the group to bed, no one but I noticed that Tiberius put his glass down untouched.
“It is the nature of whatever is between us that we make no demands upon each other.” “Don’t,” I ordered, my hands curling into fists in my lap. “Don’t be understanding and accommodating. It is upsetting.”
“You have contained your rage for too long and that is a poisonous thing. Let go of it and you will let go of Caroline.”
It is far more interesting than monkey puzzle trees and herbaceous borders. Proper gardening is dreadfully dull. This adds a bit of discomfort to the mix. And things are more enjoyable when there is just a little discomfort to sharpen the edge.”
Isn’t a meal more pleasurable when the appetite is strongest? Isn’t sleep sweetest when the fatigue is greatest?”
It was as peaceful a place as any I had seen, and I felt a curious somnolence steal over me. It was like walking into a storybook village, a sleepy place where folk never changed and life went on as it always had throughout the centuries.
There’s not a square inch of this island that doesn’t hold a secret.”
“You think she is definitely dead, then?” Her gaze was piercing as it held mine. Her fingers fairly flew as if enchanted, never faltering, but she did not look down at her work once. “She must be,” she told me. “Otherwise how could her ghost walk?
I had nothing except my wits and my courage, I realized, and I intended to make the most of them.
He was forever distributing coins to the filthy waifs who trundled to our doors with barrows of fruit or half-read newspapers or bits of nasty embroidery stitched by consumptive sisters. He was the softest of touches.
He might disagree with my position, but I could no more change it than I could change the course of the sun.
“I would never make the mistake of thinking you needed anyone.”
Dull and worthy people,”
“He has some bee in his bonnet,” Mertensia pronounced. “We had a great-granny who went entirely off her head, poor lamb. I shouldn’t wonder if he hasn’t done the same.”
“I was preparing to write a new version of the history of St. Maddern’s,” he explained. “I didn’t tell anyone because I was not certain I could bring it off.”
“It cannot be,” she murmured. She reached out blindly, her fingers groping for some comfort. It did not escape me that they landed upon Stoker’s sleeve.
At this Helen Romilly shrieked a little and half rose. Stoker patted her hand and she resumed her seat. Mrs. Trengrouse shook her head sadly while Mertensia regarded her brother with horror.
There was an odd undercurrent between the two men, as if something more significant than words had passed between them, only a flicker and then it was gone
“Shake hands with me, Helen. Do this for me, and let us be a proper family once more.” Her eyes flicked briefly to her son and she summoned a smile that did not touch her eyes. Slowly, she reached out and took the hand he offered. “Of course, Malcolm. Whatever you wish.”
But as she reached to her son, her hand trembled, and something like dread settled in her eyes.
