“Was that necessary?”
Priscilla nodded, this time with a grin. “Yes, I am afraid so. Cook and Fellowes, my butler, have asked me to be as stern as possible with poor Edwards because they think he will make a fine butler one day, and needs a bit of sharpness to accelerate his learning. Poor thing, I hate to do it, but one must do as one’s servants instruct them.”
For the first time in her visit, Mariah almost laughed aloud. It was so very…well, Priscilla to see the world that way. There was no malice in her, never had been, and she saw the world in a very different way to most people.
“Now, are you going to tell me what’s occupying that great intellect of yours?”
Mariah thought quickly as a slice of cake was cut. Was it worth explaining everything to Priscilla—even a small part of it? It would be a relief to share the burden of knowledge with another. Did she want her private business, hers and Patrick’s, to be more widely known?
But although she had not known her for years, Mariah knew Priscilla Seton was someone to be trusted.
The door opened again before she could speak, and the shaking Edwards appeared in the doorway. “Cook would like to know, my lady, wh-whether you would like an alternative to the Bath buns because she has some fruit cake left by from…from yesterday.”
It was a rather long sentence, spoke breathily, and he looked almost adoringly at his mistress throughout.
Mariah smiled as her friend said, “No, thank you, Edwards.”
Edwards bowed and shut the door quietly.
“You have an admirer there,” said Mariah quietly.
Priscilla laughed and shook her head, cutting her own slice of cake. “Oh, Edwards? Yes, I know. I will have to have Fellowes speak with him again, it really is most inconvenient. Now, tell me about your own romance, will you?”
Mariah took a deep breath. There was no choice. She would have to lie. “Romance? I have experienced nothing of the sort, I can tell you. No, I merely find myself caught up thinking about the latest scientific treatise I have read. Did you know—”
“I may not have your academic intellect, but I am not stupid,” Priscilla said firmly. “I know it is more than that, and it is more than a little insulting to think you can trick me. Please do not be daft, or I shall have to speak to you as firmly as I do Edwards.”
Leaning back in the chair, Mariah sighed. “I was foolish to even attempt it.”
The sponge cake was delicious, but it was a distraction for merely a moment.
“I agree,” said Priscilla, placing her plate of cake in her lap. “Go on then.”
“It is not a romance, even so,” Mariah attempted to sound convincing. “It is…just a gentleman who did not act very gallantly.”
Her friend raised an eyebrow. “That hardly narrows down the gentlemen of Oxford.”
Priscilla was not going to allow this conversation to die. The only way to escape was to relent—in part. After all, she did not need to know everything.
“Patrick O’Leary, Viscount Donal,” Mariah admitted reluctantly.
Priscilla swallowed her mouthful of cake and stared. “I did not even realize you knew each other.”
“Sometimes, I do not know if I do either,” Mariah said despondently. “Every time I think I know what Patrick will do, he does something completely different. Each time I needed him to do something, be the gentleman he purports to be, to protect me or encourage me, he doesn’t.”
It was painful to speak the words aloud. It would be wonderful to finally have someone else to discuss this with, to hear how outrageous Patrick was from another’s lips.
But Priscilla was frowning. “I am confused. Mariah, ever since I have known you, you have wanted to do everything on your own terms, and you have been irritated, or at times downright angry, if anyone attempts to help you. But now you are telling me that because Lord Donal did not assist you whenever you requested it, you are upset. How can you expect the poor man to understand?”
“You have misunderstood—I did not always need him to do anything, but if he could have just supported me, vocalized his agreement with me…” Her voice trailed off.
But wasn’t that the problem? Deeds, not words, she had said to him. But Lord Donal was a gentleman. A gentleman’s word was his honor, and giving his word or stating something was as much a deed as an action could be.
By asking him to speak out on her behalf, she had asked him to commit himself to her in a very public way. A viscount could not immediately agree to something. He had to consider the consequences to his name, his family, his title.
She swallowed. Instead of being the brave man she had wanted him to be, Patrick had been braver. He had seen her need and wanted to speak out but sacrificed his own opinion to protect his family name.
“When did you last speak with him?”
“Almost a week ago,” Mariah replied, the words paining her heart.
How had she managed to go so long without speaking to him? It did not make any sense to her, not when every breath without him was painful. She needed him, needed him in a way she had never experienced before.
True, she had never been courted in her life. Too obviously a bluestocking, especially with her spectacles on. No gentleman had ever seen her as a conquest or potential bride.
“I will admit, I do not really understand it,” Priscilla said heavily. “You are not talking to each for no reason at all, as far as I can tell.”
“Wh-what?” spluttered Mariah splutters. “Why, he is ridiculous, stubborn, considers himself to be more intelligent than he is, won’t ever hear no for an answer…”
“Oh, Mariah,” she said, beaming, “aren’t you just describing yourself?”
Chapter Eighteen
“Ouch!”
Patrick’s shout echoed around the room, and there was laughter as he sat up straight in his seat. It was only then that he realized where he was. Shame rushed through him.
The lecture hall. He had been sitting here, right in the middle of the second row for—a glance at the clock told him it had been over two hours. He groaned, shifting in his seat to prevent himself from falling asleep again.
An elderly gentleman he did not know was speaking at the lectern in a dry, monotone voice. Patrick turned to whisper something to Charles Audley, Duke of Orrinshire, seated next to him and had to force down a laugh. It appeared he was not the only one struggling to stay awake.
Well, he should not have been surprised. This was exactly what he thought would happen, another event all the decade alumni received invitations for, and they all came, from a sense of duty more than anything else, forced to sit here and listen old professors sharing their memories of their own youths.
Patrick tried to shift into a more comfortable position, but the lecture hall seats were not designed for comfort.
The professor made a joke, and those who were still managing to stay awake laughed just a little too late.
The man did not look familiar to Patrick; he recognized none of the professors on the front row. He could not have picked them out on the street, but still, he was forced by good manners to sit and listen to them.
This was the last place he wanted to be. But then, when he had been where he wanted to be only half an hour ago, Mariah had not answered his knocking.
The professor bowed, and Patrick joined in the polite applause. Surely, that was the last of them…
But no. Another white-haired gentleman in the long black robes of the university rose and took his place at the lectern, beaming out at the alumni and placing a rather large sheaf of papers before him.
“If we could step outside of these halls and into the past,” he began in a quavering voice, “what marvels would we then see! Why, I remember in your first year of matriculation…”
Patrick sighed. He was going to be here for another half an hour, at least, if he were any judge, and he would much rather be out there, looking for Mariah.
Not that he had any idea where to look. Other than her rooms, the
Bodleian Library, the college, and the Herschels, he had no idea where else she went.
There was so much of her he did not know. The arrogance, his blind arrogance! That was what had broken the connection between them. He had cared far more for his own skin, his own reputation, than her own. Was that not the definition of selfishness?
Perhaps Mariah had left Oxford altogether. The very thought sickened him. But he would not have blamed her. After he had let her down so utterly, she had lost faith in him. What reason did she have to stay?
Patrick swallowed. Hot, searing pain was forcing tears to his eyes, and he would not allow himself to reveal such weakness, not here.
In an attempt to distract himself, he nudged Orrinshire. “Wake up.”
“What?” Orrinshire looked around wildly as the remembrance of where he was slowly seeped into his mind. “You cannot tell me they are still speaking?”
Patrick nodded. “Quiet, someone will hear you.”
Orrinshire sighed as he shifted in his seat. “You promised me you would stay for the last lecture and the dinner, and if I wake up to find you gone, I shall curse the very boots you walk in.”
And with that, he settled his head on his hand and closed his eyes.
Despite the reminder of the promise he had made, Patrick knew he would simply not last until the end of the lecture. He would try to slip out early and head back to Ireland.
Ireland. It had been weeks since he had given that green isle much thought, and when he was there, he often wished to leave. But now, as his heart pained for another, he felt a yearning to return. Back to Ceallach. Back to where his people were, people who spoke like him and understood him.
He wanted to put as much distance between him and where he had lost his heart to Mariah.
Before he could carefully rise to his feet and escape from the lecture hall—and Orrinshire’s curses—something caught his ear and caused him to pause. Some sort of commotion was occurring just outside the door to the lecture hall.
Someone was shouting, and by the sounds of it, having a scuffle with some of the porters. Heads began to turn in as murmurers rose.
A voice became clearer in the din, and a wry smile crept over Patrick’s face.
“What is that smile for?” Orrinshire whispered.
“I was just reminded of…well, Miss Wynn,” he replied. “If she had still been in Oxford, I would have expected her to be the one causing such a fuss.”
Orrinshire said under his breath, “Perhaps, but even your Miss Wynn would not be foolish enough to interrupt this lecture, ’tis one of the most prestigious on the calendar! I would say it is—”
The door flung open and in stormed a clearly irate and slightly disheveled Mariah Wynn.
Something in Patrick rose, not just his desire for her, but something akin to pride, joy, and fierce determination to be by her side.
His heart swelled. She is still here, and even if she had no desire to speak with him, no interest in him whatsoever, even if he was nothing to her, she was still doing what she loved. She was still fighting.
She truly was the woman of his dreams, a lady of such unimaginable intelligence that he had not understood at first.
He did now. She wanted equality of education, and she had a mind sharp enough for it—and a soul with enough passion to overcome her frustrations with him, her pain, her sense of betrayal.
But it soon became clear that Mariah was not here for him. Shrugging off the porter who had attempted to grab her arm, she attempted to march to the front of the podium.
“I demand to speak!” Her words rang out in the lecture hall, designed to capture the wisdom from those at the front.
Patrick’s heart was thumping painfully. Jeers from the gentlemen around him started to rise, and his skin prickled. This was going to be exactly like last time.
It did not have to be.
This time, he knew what to do. Instinctively, as though his bones had learned from his mouth’s foolish mistakes, it felt as though the whole situation had been engineered to give him a chance to act as he should have done before.
Patrick stood up. “Miss Mariah Wynn.”
She turned to follow the sound of her name and visibly blanched when she saw who had spoken. “What do you want?”
Her voice and gaze were cold, but it did nothing to cool Patrick’s focus.
“Something I should have done before,” he said calmly.
Their conversation had quieted the room as gentlemen were distracted from her presence by the strange behavior of him.
Orrinshire tugged at his sleeve. “Have you gone mad, man?”
Patrick did not turn away from Mariah. “Only in the best sense.”
Without heeding the concerns of those around him, he started to push his way along the row to her. No thought was involved now; he just had to reach her.
Mariah, however, was not waiting for him. A porter had started toward her, and she strode toward the lectern in an attempt to avoid him. Patrick could see the provost on the front row, looking helplessly between the lecturer and Mariah.
“What do you think you’re doing?” one of the gentlemen on Patrick’s row hissed, refusing to move, but he merely stepped over him. Nothing was going to prevent him from reaching her.
“How dare you—get your hands off me!” Mariah’s voice echoed around the silent room. “You have no right to hold me, sir, and so I will thank you for removing your hands!”
“Mariah,” Patrick said breathlessly, almost stumbling down the steps.
She was standing with two porters on either side of her, their hands gripping her arms. Despite this, her look of ire was directed at him. “What do you want?”
Her words should have cut him like a burning flame, but all he could do was smile. She was his, and he was hers. It almost did not matter whether she accepted him; he would always belong to her. She had ruined him for any other woman, and if he could not have her, he would spend the rest of his days alone, consumed with memories of Mariah Wynn.
“I am here,” he said aloud, “to give you your moment on the stage.”
There were murmurs around the room, murmurs that rose into chatter, giving her a chance to hiss, “Damnit, Donal, what are you really doing here?”
He could see the panic in her eyes. All he wanted was to crush her in his arms and show her with his lips just how much he cared about her—but he must force down those particular instincts. He could give her something she had always dreamed of.
Ignoring the continued splutters of disbelief, Patrick turned his forceful glare on the two porters. “Unhand this woman.”
They obeyed immediately, compelled by generations of breeding in Patrick’s tone. Mariah rubbed at where their fingers had tightened around her arm and let out another cry of surprise as Patrick enclosed her hand in his and started pulling her toward the lectern.
“Patrick—what are you—”
Mr. Lawrence had risen from his seat and met them at the lectern. “Lord Donal, Miss Wynn, what an unexpected and rather tumultuous surprise.”
Patrick nodded. “Sir, if you do not do something, then I will.”
“What is the meaning of this?” The elderly gentleman who was standing behind the lectern glared at all three of them. “I am in the middle of my remembrances of this graduating class! Provost, I am surprised at you.”
“Go and sit down, Twickenham,” Mr. Lawrence said kindly. “You may finish your remarks another time.”
The elderly gentleman in his master’s robes glared, but the temptation of a chair seemed too much to resist.
As he shuffled away, Mariah began, “I demand to—”
She was interrupted by the provost who waved his hands distractedly. “Yes, yes, demands are all very well, Miss Wynn, but once again, you ask for the impossible.”
“Not the impossible,” Patrick corrected him as the volume of mutters rose behind them. “Just the unlikely. Just something that has never been done before, sir, and it will happen, believe me. I
have met women who have far more intellect and curiosity than anyone else in this room. The world is changing. Maybe not in your lifetime, and maybe not in mine. But one day, these corridors will be filled with women seeking—and receiving—an education.”
Mr. Lawrence hesitated, and then a smile crept over his face. “I am sure you are right, and I hope, for my granddaughter’s sake, that it will not be that long. But do you really think I can do anything? You put too much faith in my powers, I am sorry to say.”
Mariah reached out with her free hand and took one of his. “You have more power than you think.”
“Mayhap that is true,” Mr. Lawrence said slowly, “but in truth, the university beats the drum I must march to. If I wish to enjoy their good graces in my old age, I must toe the line. My hands are tied.”
Patrick’s shoulders slumped. He was within touching distance of the lectern, and yet it just was not close enough.
The provost winked. “But your hands are not. Lord Donal, if you decided to storm the lectern and drag a woman with you, who am I to stop you?”
Joy flowed through Patrick’s veins. This was it; this was the moment.
Mr. Lawrence released Mariah’s hand and returned to his seat. The chatter in the room rose as the two of them remained at the lectern.
Patrick pulled Mariah up, but she resisted him, confusion across her face.
“Come up here, Miss Wynn.”
She did not respond in word or movement. Her anxiety was clear to see, from the crease on her forehead to the slight lean away.
He stepped away from the lectern and dropped her hand. “Mariah,” he whispered, “do not look at them. Look at me. This is what you have always wanted—what you have fought for. Your chance to speak, to have your voice heard.”
“I know.” Her eyes fixed on his own as she continued in a murmur, “I know that, but…now that the opportunity is right before me, I am not sure I can do it. Speak before all these people.”
“You can,” he said simply. “I have no doubt.”
Something shifted in the depth of her eyes; his vision fell deeper as though he had dropped into her soul and found her own crying out to him.
Always the Bluestocking Page 18