Probably Lady Georgina could not put into words the things she felt. The sum of love, and of Miles Redmond, would be impossible to put into words.
And despite how she would have preferred to feel, suddenly Cynthia found herself begrudgingly respecting this girl. For Georgina had the good sense to fall in love with the quiet Redmond long ago.
How in God’s name could she tell this girl how to make Miles Redmond fall in love with her?
“Well, a place to begin,” she faltered, “is to share his interests, Georgina.”
“Oh, I have tried. But Miss Brightly…I have a confession to make.”
Cynthia braced herself. “Y-Yes?”
“I loathe spiders and insects!” Georgina was all passionate despair. “They frighten me.” She gave a shudder. “I hate them. Hate them all.”
Cynthia was shocked speechless. Her words emerged stammered. “But spiders are so—”
“Repellent,” Georgina moaned. “It is all I can do to look at one.”
“But—But—you think ants are—”
“—disgusting, tiny, busy things, eating carcasses and the like.” She gave another shudder. “I care naught for their societies, or that they have queens, or anything about them, and yet I am an expert on the ants of Sussex only because I care for Mr. Redmond. And so I have tried and tried to take an interest in his interests. Why does he have to like these things?”
It was all very dramatic, and admittedly fascinating to see Lady Georgina in the throes of such romantic pain: the pressure the girl had been under to pretend to enjoy the things Miles Redmond enjoyed. She’d held up admirably.
Ironic to discover that she had rather more in common with Georgina than she’d ever dreamed.
Cynthia considered the moment. There were myriad things she could have done or could have said. Myriad things she was tempted to say or do right now.
But here was the woman Miles Redmond was compelled to marry, would spend the rest of his life with, would see and talk to and…
Cynthia closed her eyes for a moment. She needed to breathe through the sudden sharp pain as her heart kicked a protest over what she was about to do.
“Have you considered that these things—Mr. Redmond’s interests—are a reflection of who he truly is?” she said carefully.
“All these many-legged crawling things?” Georgina whispered, aghast. Her hands went up to cover her face, briefly. “Surely not. Surely it’s just a diversion of some sort. A…boy type of thing. Surely once he’s wed he’ll take an interest in the Redmond business and the Mercury Club and his…his children.” The scarlet color that had begun to ebb from her face rushed in again.
“But he wants to return to Lacao. He wants to take an expedition there.” Cynthia was aghast.
“I’ll refuse to go.”
“But, Georgina!” Cynthia was suddenly terribly afraid for Miles. “Perhaps it’s…perhaps he’s interested in all living things. In learning and discovering them. And how they live among us, and the worlds within worlds, and…”
But she could be days explaining Miles. And if she did explain, go on and on, she would only betray herself.
She thought of Miles married to someone who would never truly know him. Who was incapable of seeing him. She felt the howling loneliness of his future in the pit of her stomach, and her palms felt damp, and she thought:
I need to do for him what he is doing for me.
“Do you truly care for him, Georgina?”
“Oh, yes.”
Georgina, at least, thought she meant it.
Cynthia took a deep breath, pressed her damp palms against her knees, and chose her words carefully, feeling as though Miles’s entire future rested upon her shoulders.
“Then you must learn to understand why he likes the things he likes, because then you will know him. Those things will cease to repel you, if you understand them. And once you understand them, then you will be able to truly charm him.”
Lady Georgina seemed to consider this. “I was hoping you could simply tell me how to charm him,” she said stubbornly.
Cynthia sat for a moment in quiet, bemused irony and gazed at this girl who was her same age, but such a babe in so many ways. What a gulf Miles would need to cross.
And here was another person who thought love could be managed. Why is it we want things that are not right for us? She wondered. Why is it we want things we cannot have? What is the point?
She imagined these were age-old questions, and she was not of a sentimental bent, and not one to wallow, and she doubted it was the sort of mystery even Miles Redmond could solve, as he was at the mercy of it, too.
“I have told you how to charm him,” she said to Georgina. “You must do what I say. You must try. Please try.”
And then she stood and walked quickly away, so Georgina didn’t see her squeeze her eyes closed, or see the flush of color on her face.
And so there passed three more days, days both peaceful and also hollow, where Miles scarcely saw Cynthia at all, except from a distance, across the great green spread of Redmond land. He would see her burnished, shining—brown hair, her hair was brown—alongside Argosy in conversation.
What on earth did they talk about? He supposed it didn’t matter, as it was Cynthia after all, and she would make the conversation effervesce, take shape somehow. She would take an interest, and Argosy would feel even more interesting than he already felt, and this would be the life Cynthia would lead for the rest of her life.
And during the evenings, over cards, when they socialized, or during dinners, part of him participated while the whole of him was entirely on edge and vigilant, and though he and Cynthia scarcely exchanged words beyond banalities, because this was part of their agreement, too—the only way they would ever accomplish this—they were both intensely aware of each other as conspirators.
Miles watched the circumstances carefully, like the scientist he was, or like one of the Gypsy acrobats balancing atop the rippling back of a horse. Ready to calibrate with just the right word here, a subtle action there, or a nice juicy lie, if it looked as though Argosy’s ardency was ebbing or his intentions wavering from Miss Brightly.
But Argosy showed every sign of worship. Cynthia showed every sign of fondness. And soon their attachment was much taken for granted.
Jonathan was amused. Violet bemused. And Milthorpe, perhaps sensing he’d been edged out by a younger stallion and giving up hope that Isaiah Redmond would be home very soon, decided to depart to buy the greyhound puppy he’d told Cynthia about during the picnic.
And soon even Lady Windermere, who stalwartly hoped for the return of her friend Mrs. Redmond so she might get in a juicy bout of gossip, spoke in the not quite innuendos so beloved of those who’d been married and bore children and lived to see others do the same.
And when the servants dutifully began polishing silver and beating carpets and getting in supplies for the second and final of the dinner parties—the dinner party that would conclude the house party and see everyone disperse—the air at Redmond House began to shimmer in portent.
“We’ll have a wedding ere long,” Lady Windermere predicted, with a finger alongside her nose. “I always think dinner parties are wonderful places to announce engagements.”
And as for Miles, he took walks in the garden with Lady Georgina. One walk per day.
For all the world as if she were a pet.
And he reminded himself, all the while they were walking, of the reason he was doing it.
Who are you? he’d wanted to ask her. They never got beyond Sussex and their families and flora and fauna.
He was a brave man, but he didn’t have the courage to ask her that question.
His thoughts were too full, and one day the silence had stretched too long, and he’d been mentally planning his overseas expedition, the passion remaining to him, the passion he nurtured.
When she startled him with precisely that sort of question.
“Why do you like the things you like
, Mr. Redmond?” she’d asked him. Hesitantly. She sounded as desperate as he felt.
He turned to her, astounded. He stared at her. Looked down into her gray eyes.
“Miles,” he said to her.
Aware that his name was a metaphor for the distance they would need to cross to know each other. But the fact that she had asked the question at all meant, perhaps, there was a glimmer of hope.
And he tried to explain those things to her. But he didn’t know where to start, as those things had no real beginning or end. So he stopped. It was so much harder to explain it to her when another woman had simply known it from the moment they’d met.
Well, from the moment they’d truly seen each other.
Quietly, bets were taken below-and abovestairs: Lord Argosy would propose to Miss Brightly the day of the dinner party, was the popular guess. No two people had been better matched for beauty or youth or spirit, it was thought, and dancing at a ready-made celebration seemed ideal.
Mr. Miles Redmond was expected to make his proposal soon enough, though less certainty seemed to surround this, as he had appeared so different from himself of late.
“Return of the fever,” it was whispered sympathetically.
Miles felt the tension as surely as a drawn-back bow. Two more days remained.
But Cynthia, who had progressed to allowing Argosy to touch her hand and call her “Cynthia” warmly, began to feel more confident.
She told Spider the cat as much when she went to bed at night. And as a token of her faith in Miles Redmond, she’d left her reticule untouched for one entire day.
Two nights before the dinner party, Jonathan and Argosy went off to the Pig & Thistle for an evening, because Jonathan was about to win the darts tournament.
Jonathan returned home triumphant. He’d been given a small trophy, which he cherished inordinately.
Argosy, on the other hand, returned distracted, morose, and utterly, terrifyingly silent.
Which they all only discovered the following day. When he refused to talk to Cynthia over breakfast. He in fact left the room when she entered it.
And then left yet another room when she entered that.
His mood was in fact so black and impenetrable it deterred people from pressing the issue beyond, “Are you feeling quite well?”
He confided in no one. He instead indulged in the most thorough, bitterly profound sulk anyone had ever before witnessed.
Blasted pup, Miles thought. He felt a strange impulse to shake Argosy hard.
He pulled Jonathan aside. “What in God’s name is troubling the man? What happened at the Pig & Thistle? Who did you see there? Did he stop drinking? Perhaps he should begin again.”
“He won’t tell me, Miles. And I was busy winning the tournament. Didn’t see what Argosy got up to. But whatever happened to him started there, I’ll tell you that much. And whatever it is, it’s clearly all about Cynthia.”
The brothers exchanged a look. Somehow Cynthia’s past had made its way to Pennyroyal Green by way of the Pig & Thistle.
Miles intended to find out how. There was no way in hell he wouldn’t keep his vow to Cynthia to make it right.
Inside of a day Argosy’s mood had blanketed the atmosphere inside the Redmond House like a grim layer of London soot, even as the house itself became cleaner and cleaner and cleaner, until every stick of furniture and piece of silver and china gleamed blindingly, and the delicious smells of cooking for the nearly thirty people invited rose up from the kitchen to fill the upper floors.
Just before three in the afternoon, carriages began to roll into the drive, spilling out neighbors expecting to be entertained, and they came pouring happily into the house, their gaiety jarring.
And still no bloody letter from Mrs. Mundi-Dixon in Northumberland.
Cynthia entertained the possibility that Mrs. Mundi-Dickson might have died of meanness, or been murdered, at last, by one of her companions. If so, the timing could not have been worse.
What had happened to Anthony—which was how she now referred to Argosy—since they’d become so very intimate, so very attached?
With shaking hands, and no idea where to get the bravado she would need to bring with her to the tea party in order to face or, indeed, charm away the impressive aristocratic snit Lord Argosy was indulging in, she got herself into her green dress with the net overlay.
There was a small tear at the hem where it had been trod upon at some point. It suddenly seemed significant beyond all reason.
Her life was unraveling.
On impulse, heart hammering, she crossed to the window and peered up into the corner, half dreading what she might find. She exhaled: The web was still intact. Susan was perched up in the corner of it, quietly waiting for her next meal to fly into it. And somehow this seemed a more significant sign than anything a Gypsy might read in her palm or in the leaves of tea. Cynthia closed her eyes and heard his voice again, saw his eyes, felt his hands on her wrists.
I’ll make it right.
A smile began to tug up the corner of her mouth, and she felt the beginning of ease in her chest.
She gently detached her kitten from the hem before he turned it into streamers, then made her way downstairs, shoulders squared.
By three o’clock in the afternoon a good many of the guests had arrived and were milling happily about in the grand salon, partaking of tea and little cakes, the crumbs of which would be ground into the carpets and keep the maids busy for days.
Miles greeted all of them—from Pennyroyal Green, the vicar had been invited, as well as Mrs. Notterley, a local widow who loved gossip as much as his mother and seemed to know it before anyone else. He held entire attentive conversations with a half dozen or so people without remembering a word afterward. And then, when he’d done his duty, he could bear it no longer.
He brought a glass of brandy to Argosy, who had slumped gloomily in a chair in the corner, oblivious to gazes both admiring and curious from all the guests.
He stood there, holding it out, until Argosy’s hand came up listlessly to take it.
“Argosy, old man…is aught amiss? Of late it has been such a pleasure to witness your happiness, and I was so certain I would be able to congratulate you on the same milestone I soon hope to reach. And here you have a festive occasion and a crowd of friends with which to share it. Perhaps you can confide in me.”
The younger man’s flawless features tightened with righteous anger and he stood suddenly.
“Very well, Redmond. I’ll tell you. I saw Lord Cavill at the Pig & Thistle, Jonathan and I. He was on his way through to take his daughter to Miss Endicott’s academy.”
Ah. Another recalcitrant girl for the school, Miles thought. Miss Endicott did rather a brisk business in that. But the name…Cavill…Cavill…
“He’s a dear friend of the Earl of Courtland.”
Oh, Christ. Miles felt the backs of his hands go cold.
Involuntarily, he glanced toward Cynthia. Her face was too white above the dark green of her gown, her smile forced. She was talking with Violet, or rather, Violet was talking and Cynthia was merely actively wearing that horrible smile. Probably only he realized was false.
“How is Lord Cavill?” he asked calmly.
Argosy was puffed with wounded fury. “I’ll tell you how he is. I shared with him my happy news—that I hoped to be a married man soon, that I was in love—” His voice broke here. Argosy really had thought he was in love. “—and I told him about…” It seemed Argosy couldn’t get the name out now. “I told him about Cynthia.” He made her name sound like the blackest evil, synonymous with betrayal.
Miles instantly felt his temperature changing. A blaze of heat raced over his skin, making it difficult to breathe. He was aware of a peculiar metallic taste in his mouth, and tightness in his stomach, like a coiled spring. He listened.
Argosy went on, his voice low and bitter. “He pulled me aside, and quite in confidence, said he’d heard of Cynthia Brightly.” He gave an incre
dulous laugh. “He told me story after story about her, all the things that went on during the season I was on the Continent. All the betting book wagers, the races, the fights, the duels, her playing men off of one another. Rumors of kisses in gardens. And a duel? By God, man! The girl’s a doxie, from the sound of things!”
Miles’s vision, peculiarly, began to blur. Every muscle in his body seemed to bunch.
“And you saw how she played all the poor fools here, Redmond. I was played for a fool. I would have married her. I count myself lucky to have seen Cavill. And If Cavill’s correct, the girl must have kissed at least a half dozen—”
Later, he remembered the impressions coming at him swiftly, and all out of order:
First, the windstorm of gasps.
The numb and stinging fist he’d instinctively wrapped in his other hand.
Then he followed the general direction of all the heads in the parlor. The heads of a dozen or so of his Sussex neighbors, people he’d known all his life.
All eyes were on the floor.
Which is where Lord Argosy lay stretched out heaving like a fish, eyes bulging up with disbelief. Which is when Miles fully realized he’d thrown his fist like a shot put at the man.
Clearly, Argosy had gone down like ninepin.
Fortunately, he landed on one of his father’s thick Savonnerie carpets and not the marble floor, so his golden head lolled against an expensive cushion of antique wool.
And then in unison all the heads of all the partygoers lifted up from Argosy and swung toward Miles. A hush thick as that Savonnerie carpet blanketed the room. Shock was palpable and unanimous.
Miles Redmond—calm, elegant, reliable, renowned Miles Redmond—had just thrown his fist at a guest in his own home during a party. Knocked him flat.
In front of an audience.
And of all the things he probably ought to have felt in that moment, the first thing that reached Miles through his ebbing tide of fury was immense and inappropriate satisfaction at meting out justice.
He’d felt Argosy’s words as viscerally as an attack upon someone he love—
Like No Other Lover Page 27