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I declare this the time of my universal peace.
“Strange is that unexpected moment that stays with you, that makes you think about it again. Strange is memorable, and compelling.”
I suppose one was bound to look happy in a photograph if you were gazing at Niall Pierce.
Agnes frowned. “Are you expecting someone, Miss?” “No,” I replied. “Oh. Drat. Yes, I am. Though he’s less of a someone and more of a something: a threat with a lovely smile.”
It was not quite a battle of the Titans, but I imagine Zeus and his lot would have fled. We argued back and forth all the way to Lapis Lazuli House where, unexpectedly, we saw none other than Young Hawkes walking down the other side of Whereabouts, book tucked under his arm, hands in his pockets. It was cosmic humour at its near best.
Agnes, bless her, was sitting asleep on the stairs outside my garret door with a half-burnt candle. “Agnes dear,” I said softly. “What are you doing?” She rubbed her eyes and yawned, “Oh Miss Lion, I knew you would need help out of your dress. Did you have a nice costume party?” So sweet after Islington’s vinegar, I kissed her on the cheek. Agnes took such a fancy to the birds we extricated from my hair that I told her she could keep them for an arrangement. It would serve Islington right if she displayed them right below his portrait in the kitchen.
It was too long a moment to be comfortable, with me seeing beyond the veneer of his ducal presentation. But I had caught the scent of some past memory. And this man, so accustomed to being sole arbiter of the hound and rabbit game, saw that I had.
“You are wise in this thing. However, if the right man should come along, and money looks more like love than one would initially suppose, don’t turn your back on a chance for happiness merely because he has the means to save you.” It was the most fiscally romantic thing I had ever heard.
His face is neither displeasing nor handsome. It simply hovers in an unremarkable place in between. All this until he smiles. Dear me. When Damian Spencer smiles, something only explicable as sorcery happens. He looks like Puck having a merry dance with us mortals; his eyes catch a spark, his hair rebels in a fetching manner, and two mischievous dimples grace his cheeks.
To compose oneself—such a strange phrase. As if one were a musical score. If I were, what would I be? Emma M. Lion in D Minor?
Is it immoral to marry a man solely to gain a library? And if that man happens to be tremendously good looking, is it more or less of a sin?
Father always liked fall best. Mother claimed it was his natural melancholy. I don’t agree. One doesn’t have to prefer spring to be a contented soul.
“Is the burning of my tea why you weren’t at church?” he asked. “You went?” “I did. Mostly because I expected your sanctimonious company.”
“I expect you want tea, now that you’ve driven my curiosity a country mile and abandoned it on the side of the road?”
And at some in-between moment, a key fit a lock, a door opened. As if the four of us created a room not having previously been in existence before.
My feelings for October are fierce: a sharp love of cool air, a season transforming the landscape towards, and through, death. I’ve always loved it.
It is an impossible thing, to be proud of one’s messy grief. Reason is taken captive, as all bad manners are thrown forward.
His expression was not dismissive of my principle, rather my stubbornness.
“Of course I’m coming with you. Don’t be daft. My friends do not go to war alone.”
“Perhaps Maxwell sorted it. I don’t know how the hell it works, but maybe he got the information to you.” For a man who despises the church, it was a show of faith I wasn’t expecting.
Pierce’s natural atmosphere slid into the October day, and so as we walked around the back of the village and onto the field road, I scarcely could delineate him from the day at all.
His defiance has always been his protection.
Lady Stuart could focus only on keeping her countenance in an emotionally acceptable place. It looked to be the hardest thing she had ever done.
Then, without quite realising, I was speaking the dreaded soliloquy of mourning. Mentioning stupid childhood games and long, green afternoons, all in avoidance of not knowing how to say goodbye. It felt the moment for it. A goodbye. Three years due. Surely even he wishes those of us left would say it and be done.
Bless a man who knows how to keep his own counsel when you can’t bear to speak.
“I see why you have so many friends,” I said. “Oh?” he said in a dismissive way. “You are loyal, Pierce. True friendship, and all that.” He looked back at his letter. “If anything, it’s self-serving. I like good people. They remind me of what I used to be myself.”
It was the most tremendous gift, to think that a new piece of my life had briefly touched the old.
He said nothing, did nothing but keep me close. I, feeling like a ghost he kept chained to earth.
They might not be of the Old Testament variety—Pierce, Islington, and Hawkes—but whatever strange confluence of events led to them holding me up was the gentlest hand of fate I’ve ever encountered. It might even be Divine.
“I’d rather you stayed, if you don’t mind. Looking for quiet does not follow I was looking for solitude.”
IT’S HARD FOR ME TO TRUST THERE IS GOOD. You know there is good. You are good.
