by Candace Camp
“You’re cold,” she whispered, pulling away. “Come inside.” She took his hand, pulling him toward the open door, and he followed, trying to rein in his surging feelings, trying to think. What the devil was going on? How could Thisbe just appear, like a genie from a lamp?
“Do you live here?” he blurted.
She gave a little laugh and pulled him into a short, empty hallway. “Of course I do, silly. Why else did you come here to see me?”
Why, indeed. “Um, yes, of course, it’s just I thought perhaps you were visiting,” he said, relieved that he was able to pull a reasonable excuse out of his stunned mind. “Or—or...you worked here.” Now that was stupid; clearly she couldn’t be a maid. “Your experiments, I mean.” Another daft idea—why would she come to this grand home to mix chemicals?—but she didn’t seem to care, and still smiled at him in that wonderful way.
“I do conduct my experiments here. But I live here, as well.” She squeezed his hand.
He couldn’t stop looking at her. “You are so beautiful.”
She was obviously dressed for bed, her hair down and a brocade dressing gown wrapped around her, a delicate bit of a white cotton nightgown peeking out at the top. Her cheeks were red from the cold, and her lips were soft and dark from their kisses. Desire clenched like a fist in his gut.
Thisbe glanced away, looking embarrassed and gratified at the same time. “How did you find me? Did you follow me home yesterday?”
“Yes,” he blurted. He was beginning to calm down, his mind starting to work again. Thank God he hadn’t entered the place; he didn’t know what he would have done if she had found him creeping through her house in the dark. “Yes,” he repeated. “Of course. Yesterday.”
“I never saw you. You must be awfully good.”
He shrugged. “I...hailed a hack after you boarded the omnibus.”
“Oh. Then you saw me get into the carriage.”
“Yes.” He didn’t know what she was talking about, but it seemed the safest answer. “I’m sorry. I know I shouldn’t have. It was just... I was curious. I wondered why you never let me walk you home.”
“I’m glad you did,” she admitted and went up on tiptoe to plant a light kiss on this lips. “I was afraid to tell you who I was, but when I saw you from my window, I was so very happy.”
“So you are related to, um, the duke?” he asked tentatively.
“I’m his daughter.”
It had been obvious from the moment he saw her, but still Desmond felt the blood drain out of his face. “Why, I don’t understand... Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Here. Sit down.” She led him over to the well-worn wooden staircase and sat down on a step, tugging him down with her. “I’ll tell you everything.”
* * *
THISBE COULD HARDLY describe the feelings churning around inside her; the fact was she could hardly even sort them out. She’d been caught in her lie, which should displease her, but it didn’t at all. When she saw Desmond loitering outside, looking up at her window, all she felt was a rush of joy. He’d tracked her down, which was really not what one wanted a man to do normally, but somehow she found it very satisfying that he liked her so much he’d gone to the trouble of following her. And how sneaky he had been! She had to admire his skill...which was also not what she would usually say.
But mingling with that joy, with the wild pleasure of his kiss, was nervousness. She was now afraid that all the things she had feared would come true or that he’d be angry at her for deceiving him. He had every right to think her deceptive and secretive. She was stabbed with guilt. That faintly wounded look that had flashed in his eyes when he asked her why she had done it made her want to cry.
“I’m sorry, Desmond.” She turned to him, their knees touching, and took his hands between hers. “I know I was wrong, and you probably think I’m a liar, but I didn’t lie to you.”
“You said your name was Moreland.”
“It is! That is my last name. Broughton is just Papa’s title. I’m Thisbe Moreland. All the things I told you were true. I am a chemist. My family is exactly as I described. My father is a scholar and my mother champions causes. My brothers and sisters are what I told you they were. Come to call on me, and I’ll introduce you to all of them, and you’ll see.”
“Call on you?” His voice vaulted upward. “Me? But I’m not... I can’t just call at a duke’s house.”
“Yes, you can.”
“Your butler wouldn’t let me in the door. Thisbe...” He leaned back against the wall, despair blossoming on his face. “You and I... You’re a duke’s daughter.”
“I’m also myself!” Thisbe proclaimed and jumped to her feet. “This is exactly why I didn’t tell you I was Lady Thisbe Moreland. I was afraid you would pull away from me, as you just did. That you would no longer think of me as the person I am, and see only the title. If I had told you, you wouldn’t have asked me to walk in the park or invited me to your shop. You wouldn’t have kissed me!” When he didn’t answer, she demanded, “Would you?”
“No, I suppose not,” he said miserably. “But, Thisbe...how could we ever be anything to each other? I wouldn’t fit in your world.”
“Stop it! Just stop it. Your world, my world. It’s nonsense. We live in the same world. It’s just that some people like to put others in tidy boxes and tell you how you must be because you happened to be born to this family instead of the other.”
“Thisbe, I don’t—”
“You—” She jabbed her forefinger at him, her eyes snapping. “You call yourself an egalitarian. I have heard you talk about equality and the rights of man and all that.” She waved her hand in a circle. “Yet there you sit, judging me by my birth. Condemning me to a lifetime of boredom and good manners.”
“I’m not judging you,” he protested, rising to his feet.
“Yes, you are,” Thisbe retorted, her whole jumble of emotions tumbling out in anger. “You’re saying I have to be a certain way, consort with certain people, do certain things because my father has a title. In other words, you’re saying that I have no freedom at all. And—” as he opened his mouth to speak, she plowed right over his words “—and you’re insulting me. You’re insulting me and my entire family. You’re saying everything I’ve told you is a lie. You’re saying we Morelands are deceiving people about what we’re really like. According to you, we’re actually terrible snobs underneath our nice words. According to you, I’m an entirely different person than I appear to be. But I’m not. I am the same woman I was the other day in the park, the same person who went to those lectures and discussed all kinds of things with you, the same person who told you about her hopes and dreams. I am the same girl, and I have the same thoughts and feelings that I did yesterday when you didn’t know my father has a title!”
“Thisbe, please.” Desmond held his hands out toward her. “I think you’re—you’re the most wonderful girl, and I’m not—”
“Don’t you dare say you’re not good enough for me, or I swear I shall hit you!” Thisbe stomped up the stairs. “Good night, Desmond. I am going to bed.” She turned around, fixing him with a fierce stare. “If you want to—” her voice caught, but she went on “—to be with me, if you care for me at all, then you may call on me tomorrow at my house instead of meeting me in secret at the museum. And if not, then... Well, then, goodbye.” She whirled around to hide the glimmer of tears in her eyes and ran up the staircase.
* * *
BY THE TIME Thisbe reached the top of the stairs, she regretted her ultimatum and swung around to go back down to Desmond, but she heard the sound of the door closing. Well, he’d certainly seized the opportunity to leave. She ran to her room and peered out between the draperies. He was walking away, hands in pockets, head down. She watched as his long slender form passed the streetlamp and was swallowed by shadows.
She sat down in the chair, a welter of emotions
boiling inside her. So much had just happened, so many emotions, so many thoughts struggling to be heard, that she couldn’t sort any of it out. She had been so happy to see Desmond, and then that kiss... Just the memory of it sent heat surging up in her again. But when she told him about herself and he started to pull away, it pierced her heart. She pictured herself losing him, and suddenly her fear turned to anger.
It wasn’t just that her earlier fears had proved correct. It was that Desmond didn’t really understand her, didn’t really know her. After all their conversations, their closeness, those dizzying kisses, he immediately looked at her differently. She was no longer Thisbe to him, but the daughter of a duke. If her name could so easily put him off, then she hadn’t really known him, either. If he cared more for his archaic notions of class distinctions and what was “proper,” she didn’t want to be around him anymore.
Except, of course, she did.
Thisbe wiped the tears from her cheeks. It wasn’t like her to be so emotional. If there was one thing she was, it was reasonable. She liked to deal with facts. What she needed to do what sort this out and look at it logically. What did she know? What were the provable facts of the situation?
First, she was at fault by not telling him the truth from the beginning. Second, the news had exploded on him, with no preparation at all. Desmond was shocked by her revelation, which was only rational and to be expected. He was dismayed at the prospect of calling at a duke’s house. Most people would be. He barely had time to absorb the news, let alone examine the idea and adjust his thoughts. Wasn’t it unfair of her to expect him to immediately accept the things she’d told him?
None of that should have angered her so. It was the way he leaned away from her, the look of sorrow in his eyes. He looked at her as if he’d already lost her. That was what hurt, not his mouthing antiquated notions of class distinctions. He was already giving her up.
Thisbe sighed and climbed into bed. Perhaps she should just accept it. If she wasn’t worth knocking down the barriers for, then perhaps she should let him go, too.
CHAPTER NINE
THISBE SPENT THE next day in suspense. She told Smeggars that he was to let in anyone who asked for her, no matter his misgivings. But would Desmond call on her? Was this the right dress to wear? Was her hair too plain? Too intricate?
She joined Kyria and their mother in the drawing room, which earned her a surprised look from both of them. Thisbe usually disappeared to her lab in the afternoon and didn’t appear again until the evening meal, lest she get dragooned into chaperoning Kyria.
The duchess made an effort to sit through the calls of Kyria’s visitors, even though it went against her opinion of chaperonage, which she considered prison guards for young girls. Kyria enjoyed the social whirl, and for her sake, Emmeline adhered to the rules. She was perhaps not the best of chaperones, as she often left the room, but for the most part, she endured the insipidity of the afternoon visits. When Reed was home, he sometimes relieved his mother of the duties, but at other times, it was Olivia who was called upon to sit in the drawing room, and now and then even Thisbe had to play the part.
Thisbe found this afternoon as stultifying as ever, made even worse by her anxiety over Desmond. One of her mother’s friends called on them, which fortunately cut short a visit by a society matron and her daughter, and young men came and went all afternoon. Kyria kept shooting speculative glances at her sister, but the constant presence of her beaux kept her from questioning Thisbe.
Two of Kyria’s most tiresome admirers were there and Thisbe was considering giving up for the afternoon when Smeggars came in, looking faintly pained, and announced, “Mr. Desmond Harrison, ma’am.”
Desmond, who was approximately the color of Thisbe’s sheets, stood just behind their butler. Thisbe shot to her feet before Smeggars got out Desmond’s full name, and she crossed the room to him, face glowing. “Desmond. You came.”
A smile twitched at the corner of his mouth. “I had my orders.”
She took his arm and propelled him across the room to introduce him to her mother and Kyria, then seated him in the chair closest to her mother. She sat down on the other side, neatly buffering him from the other young men, who were eying Desmond as if trying to place him.
Kyria stood up. “I am so tired of sitting. I believe I’ll take a stroll down the hall. Mr. Jennings? Mr. Ashworth? Have I shown you the gallery?” Thisbe silently blessed her sister as the men jumped to offer their arms to Kyria. Kyria threw her a smile over her shoulder as they left the room.
Desmond looked scarcely any more comfortable at their absence. Thisbe spoke across him to the duchess. “Mr. Harrison works in an optical instruments shop.”
Desmond’s eyes widened in panic at this introduction, but Emmeline sat forward, looking far more interested. “Do you? Excellent. Tell me, Mr. Harrison, what sort of hours do you work? Are the conditions there adequate?”
Desmond blinked. “Why, yes, they’re, ah... It’s a nice place. The owner is a good man.”
“What a refreshing thing to hear.” The duchess continued to interrogate him about the shop, his work and his opinion on child labor laws. Desmond gradually relaxed, and by the time Kyria and her swains strolled back into the room, the two of them were deep in a discussion of sanitation, or rather the lack of it, in the slums of London.
Kyria glanced at them, then cast a conspiratorial grin at Thisbe. As bits and pieces of their talk drifted over, Kyria’s gentlemen callers looked appalled. Thisbe had to admit that dead animals lying in the streets was not a particularly pleasant conversational topic.
“Mama!” The twins trotted into the room—it was rare to see them move any slower. They ran to the duchess, who bent to kiss them and pulled them up into the chair with her.
“What have you been doing?” she asked, and there followed a long and complicated rendition of their activities. The suitors—Thisbe had come to think of them as a single entity—seemed even more dismayed than they had been at the duchess’s earlier conversation.
Con, eying Desmond curiously, slipped down from the chair and went to him. “You’re tall.”
“Yes, I am.”
“Not as tall as Theo,” Con told him loyally.
“No, probably not,” Desmond agreed amicably, smiling at the boy.
Alex broke off his tale and went to stand by his brother. “Who’re you?”
“I’m Desmond Harrison.”
“Desmond is a friend of mine,” Thisbe added.
“Oh.” Alex continued to study Desmond in his thoughtful, unswerving way, a practice some people found uncomfortable.
“He’s tall,” Con informed his brother. “But not as tall as Theo.”
“Not as tall as Reed,” Alex added.
Desmond grinned. “I seem to be growing shorter by the moment.”
“I’m Con.”
“I’m Alex.”
“I’m very pleased to meet you. Con. Alex.” Desmond shook each boy’s hand as he greeted them, which obviously delighted the twins, and they shook his hand with gusto.
“Boys...” the duchess said, frowning a bit. “Where is your nanny?”
“Yes.” Thisbe looked toward the hall. “Usually when you slip your leash, Nanny follows you.”
“She left,” Con said casually.
“Left? What do you mean, left?”
“Granna yelled at her,” Alex said by way of explanation. “And bam! Bam!” He imitated banging a cane on the floor.
Con laughed and joined his brother in slamming a pretend staff against the carpet. “Bam! Bam!”
“Yes, dear, we understand,” the duchess interjected. “What happened then? Your grandmother didn’t strike her, did she?”
This question startled the men in the room, though the duchess’s children took it in stride.
Con shook his head. “No. But Nanny cried.”
“She said, ‘I cannot live here,’” Alex added in the twins’ back-and-forth style of storytelling.
“‘This place is a madhouse,’” Con went on.
“And she ran upstairs.”
“What did your grandmother do?” Emmeline asked.
“She slammed the door.” The boys let out another chorus of bams as they mimicked their grandmother.
“They both just left you alone?” The duchess rose to her feet, her eyes shooting sparks. “Really! Has the woman no sense?” She swept out of the room.
“Do you suppose she was talking about the nanny or Grandmother?” Thisbe asked drily.
“Probably both,” Kyria responded.
Alex and Con gazed at each other for a long moment, then turned their eyes toward Thisbe and Desmond, then to Kyria and her swains.
“Alex? Con?” Thisbe’s suspicions were aroused.
Con gave Alex a nudge, and Alex reached into his pocket. He held out his hand to Desmond. In the center of his palm was an exquisitely detailed, tiny enameled bird sitting on a short round staff.
“Oh, my.” Desmond sucked in an appreciative breath and pick up the tiny bird to study it. “This is lovely.”
“Is this why Grandmother was angry?” Thisbe asked.
Alex nodded, tears beginning to well. Con stepped closer to his twin so that they were shoulder to shoulder, tears glimmering in his eyes, too.
“Did you find this?” Desmond asked gently, and they shook their heads.
Alex reached into his other pocket and drew out a very small box. It was made of lapis lazuli, with gold trim all around it and golden hinges on the lid. Desmond opened the box. Inside was a sheet of chased gold, and in the center sat an oval indentation, covered in a tangle of golden wires so that it resembled a nest. In the center of the nest was a small hole.
“I broke it,” Alex said sadly.