Or, worse, had he seen the quickening of interest Genevieve had felt when she’d thought Xavier focused on her?
She needed to say something, anything to dispel the awkwardness. “You were awfully clever, too. About the tree bough, and the motto, and all.”
Xavier quirked his head to one side, openly studying her face, seemingly perplexed. “Why are we having such an inane—?”
Michael interrupted him, but not before Genevieve felt the sting of the word “inane”; she dropped Xavier’s hands at once.
“I’ve a new dance to teach you, everyone,” Michael’s words reached Genevieve through burning ears. “We’d normally need more people, but we’ll make our own way out of what we have, eh?”
She backed away, making sure to seem to give Michael every gram of her attention, and making sure she wasn’t partnered with Xavier. Inane? Well, yes, it was inane…but it isn’t like Xavier to make a lady aware of a defect in her conversation. The cheek! She went so far as to let a little scowl settle on her brow, which others would just have to assume came from concentration.
Michael organized them into a version of a line dance. They formed twin lines, males on one side, females on the other. Genevieve’s agitated awareness settled on Kenneth, who stood across from her, but he seemed lost to his own thoughts, brooding almost. So a quick glance at Penelope showed that the woman stood far too still, as does someone who wishes nothing so much as to turn and run but may not. Or is that how I’m feeling? Summer, on the settee, was looking cast down, having not been included despite having rested for the whole of the prior dance.
Michael, the only one showing signs of enthusiasm, demonstrated that sometimes one couple stepped out of the line to do a kind of sideward sliding step between the rows as the others did their designated steps, and that at other times the entire line did half turns to face various partners. Laura must have been unaware of the air of dissatisfaction as well, and started to laugh at the mistakes they made as they attempted to learn the steps. Once they agreed to try the dance with music, Michael seized up Summer’s hand and returned her to the dance as part of the women’s line, causing her face to brighten as though by sudden magic.
With the extra female added, there was always one woman forced to pretend to be dancing with a partner, as Haddy played the music. When it came her turn to curtsy to and promenade with an invisible partner, Genevieve could only put aside her disenchantment and begin laughing, too.
“But what a fine dancer you are,” she told her nonexistent partner. Perhaps she even felt relieved, because when she and Xavier had danced across from each other, he’d seemed his usual self, even down to a pleasant little smile.
Michael pretended to protest their amusement at the new dance’s expense, which caused Summer to start giggling, and then Penelope, and finally everyone joined in, down to Haddy, whose laughter put a discordant end to his playing.
The music having stopped, the dancers collapsed onto various seats, still chortling, the group’s usual equilibrium restored. Michael began recounting the various absurdities the dance had created, which led to contributions from each of them for the next quarter of an hour more, until it was decided they should all find their beds. They were to take trays in their rooms come the morning, and get an early start.
The renewed cordiality made for a more pleasant note on which to end the evening, Genevieve reflected as she headed toward her room. Summer was arm in arm with her, bubbling with gaiety still, her blue eyes glowing with satisfaction. Genevieve listened to her friend recount the night’s events with a smile, although, as they readied for bed, the smile drifted away. She ought to be just as caught up in the evening’s final mood, but a different tone surfaced in her thoughts. Poor Xavier. If he meant to challenge Michael for Summer’s affections, he must behave more like her effervescent brother—but was Xavier made to play that part? And ought he try, if that was not how he would go on? Could he fool Summer into believing his heart was light?
And for her part, what ought she do? She could help Xavier to come between Summer and Michael—she shook her head just to contemplate it—or, a thought struck her suddenly, keep him as far from Summer as she could. Physically separate the two, come between them on this journey, allow no time for anything more to grow or flourish between them. Was that possible?
What kind of friend—to either of them—was she to even think it? To which of them did she owe the most allegiance? What about her brother? Ought she help Michael’s interests only, or her friend, the ofttimes neglected fiancée, to see which was the better man? Was Xavier “the better man”, particularly for Summer? Genevieve chewed her lip to think the answer might be yes. So should she assist Xavier’s pursuit, he of the infrequently open and always fragile heart?
She didn’t know. It made her head spin to weigh her torn loyalties. What was “best” for any of the three?
Or, for that matter, best for herself?
Chapter 8
I am a man
More sinned against than sinning.
—Shakespeare,
King Lear
Xavier faced his mirrored image once again, scraping another day’s growth of beard from his chin, shifting a little to one side so the bright morning light beaming through the window didn’t reflect quite so blindingly into his good eye.
“Do you know what I most dislike?” Haddy asked from where he sat on his rented bed, scowling at the boot resting along his forearm. Next to him sat a tray filled with the remnants of a breakfast.
“What is that?”
“Polishing my own boots. I’d quite forgotten how time-consuming it is. I brush and I rub, and I’ll be hanged if I can get the things to shine the way my man Warton does.”
“What, old Warthog never told you his secret?” Xavier asked, turning a bit more so that his reflection smiled at Haddy.
“Secret? What secret? If there’s one, he would have told me.”
“He spits on them.”
“No he does not!” Haddy said in something very like horror.
“He does. Told me so himself. Thinks about mince pies and roasted squab, and after two minutes of thought, has enough spittle to polish two sets of boots.”
Haddy stared at his boot a moment longer, then promptly spit and began vigorously rubbing the leather with a soft cloth. He held it up before him, looking with a critical eye. “I don’t see it makes any difference.”
Xavier looked over his shoulder for a moment, then shrugged, resuming his morning’s shave. “Perhaps it needs be an old man’s spittle.”
“Gad! I always thought he used champagne, or some wax or other. I wonder if I shall be able to bear wearing the things, now I know they have an octogenarian’s antique spittle on them…?” Haddy mused, holding both up for further inspection. “I’ve only got my pumps with me otherwise, and they would never do for racing across the countryside, so I guess it makes no never mind.” He pulled the boots on, only grunting a little, for his muscular arms had the strength to pull the calf-tight boots on without assistance. For himself, Xavier had brought his old, looser boots, knowing he’d be forced to dress himself.
Haddy stood, assured himself from a distance (in the half mirror Xavier used to shave by) that he was adequately put together this morning. He touched a finger to his brow in a salute. “I’m off to see about horses. I think we might need a new right leader, as I wasn’t pleased with the fellow’s hoof when we arrived last night. Bruised, I think. I’ll tell anyone I see of our party that we’re leaving in twenty minutes, if you’d be so kind as to do the same.”
“That means you’re most likely leaving me to rap on the ladies’ doors,” Xavier accused good-naturedly, lifting a cloth to wipe the blade of his razor.
“They’re in the first two rooms to the left at the head of the stairs,” Haddy supplied as he slipped out of the room.
Xavier shook his head, yet smiling, as he finished shaving his neck. He looked into the mirror then and uttered a small oath; he’d gotten shavi
ng soap on his eye patch.
He reached up and pulled the black patch from his eye, taking the cloth and wiping at the soapy marking. That only made the problem worse, so he opted to drop the eye patch in the bowl of still lukewarm water he’d filled from a ewer a footman had brought up with their breakfast trays. He swished the fabric in the water for a moment, then decided it was adequately cleaned. He pressed it flat between his two hands, wringing whatever water he could from it. At home he would have hung it on a peg on his mirror to dry, but he didn’t have that option in a posting inn. Instead he crossed the room and slipped it into his coat pocket, making a mental note to hang it up tonight when they were at whatever inn they found. He crossed back to the stand with the mirror, retrieving his razor. He thought about throwing the used water out the window, but then opted to leave it for the servants to clean up. He half stepped back, reviewing the stand to be sure he’d not left his watch or monies or any such items behind, and then looked up, catching his own reflection in the mirror.
He winced, as he always did when he saw himself without the eye patch. It wasn’t a pretty sight. The rough scar was bad enough, but the eye itself was no congenial sight. The lid permanently drooped, more than half closed all the time. He could force it open with his fingers if he chose to, which he seldom did. He seldom even touched it. He couldn’t like the way the lid hung limp, flat, almost concave, reminding him that the ball underneath had lost half its size, its viscous contents lost as a result of the injury. He couldn’t like its cloudy color, the way what remained there looked like an old man’s eye overgrown with cataracts. Unpatched, it ruined the symmetry of his face, this drooping, sightless, atrophied organ.
He reached into his waistcoat pocket, pulling out the spare patch he always carried with him. He’d been caught out before without a spare, once, at age seven. When he was just getting used to the bedamned thing, the thong that tied around his head had snapped unexpectedly, there in church, in front of God and everyone. A little girl in a neighboring box had actually screamed and pointed at his bared wound. His mother had taken him home, not staying for the end of the service, and he’d walked the whole way with his head hanging and his hand carefully covering the left side of his face.
Since that tender age, he’d never been caught out without a spare patch. Which wasn’t to say that was an end to his trials. More than once, the patch had been wrested off of him and lost in the midst of either a game or fisticuffs, sometimes by design, sometimes by accident. His mates had either reacted to those unplanned revealings by finding the sight of his injury engrossing, or, more often, they reacted with cries of disgust that reflected how startling the sight of it was. He’d quickly learned to press his own face into the ground or pull his arm across his face, securing his patch or its spare before he rose, denying the lads the further chance to stare, or mock, or sneer in repugnance.
And…then there had been the ladies. Always, upon first meeting him, the sideways glance from the ladies.
The result: keeping his eye hidden was ever in Xavier’s mind, He’d reach to feel the patch a dozen times a day, or move his cheek so that he might feel the reassuring rub of the fabric on the left side of his face.
Now he crossed to his traveling case, removing another patch, replenishing a spare into his waistcoat’s pocket. The one still in his hand was lifted and tied about his head, fixed in place with the smoothness of long practice where it needed to lie to hide his disparity from the world. He moved back to the mirror and evaluated his altered reflection, still and silent as a bird that suspects it’s become some other creature’s prey. He stared into the singular gray eye, but saw only a reflection, not a magnification of the soul or a clarifier of muddled dreams, and so he turned away from his own too-familiar visage, no lighter in spirit.
* * *
“Ladies?” Xavier said, the sound of his knock echoing faintly in the narrow hallway. “Haddy has ordered the horses ready for—” He pulled his watch from the waistcoat pocket opposite his spare patch pocket, lifted the lid with his thumb, and read the time— “ten minutes from now. Will you be ready?”
The door cracked open; Summer stood there, her hair plaited but not yet pinned up. “Ten minutes?” she echoed. She turned back into the room, making a soft inquiry. He heard Genevieve’s voice responding, though the words were unclear. Summer turned back to him and nodded. “Yes. We will. I think. I’ve nearly got my last portmanteaux ready.”
Xavier heard more commentary from Genevieve. “What did she say?”
Summer shrugged. “She said ‘festina lente,’ whatever that means.”
“Ah. ‘Make haste slowly,’ actually,” Xavier supplied, smiling. “Sage advice.”
“If you say so. Although I vow I still don’t know what that means,” Summer said as she gave him a quick smile, a nod, and closed the door.
He proceeded down the hallway to the next door, and repeated the procedure. Penelope said they were ready, and Laura murmured agreement from where she was sitting at the room’s vanity, making an entry in a small journal.
Xavier went below to summon someone to retrieve the ladies’ bags.
That was a problem. It seemed they were not the only guests who had chosen to leave at the relatively late hour of half past nine. There were at least six carriages waiting in the yard, and each of those was aswarm with ostlers, grooms, and various other servants who’d been pressed into service for the morning’s exodus. Someone’s pet, a small dog of uncertain breeding, harried a flock of chickens that had wandered into the bedlam, until its owner—an elderly woman who deigned to call the creature “lovey”—scooped it up and carried it like a baby into one of the waiting carriages. Haddy was standing, arms akimbo and face reddened with ire, arguing some point or other of horsemanship with a groom; perhaps there was no extra horse for hire to replace the one with the possibly bruised foot.
Xavier turned, his head pivoting as he reentered the inn, but he only came across one servant, a kitchen maid of diminutive size. She would hardly do to carry out baggage, especially the two rather awkward trunks some of the ladies had esteemed absolutely necessary for this stop. He mounted the stairs, knocking again at Lady Summer’s room.
This time Genevieve opened the door, her hair twisted up in a clever knot atop her head. She was just finishing tucking into it the ends of a pale blue ribbon matching her gown.
She’d obviously anticipated a servant, and it was equally obvious she wasn’t sure how to react to Xavier after last night—a night in which he’d watched her go through a handful of mercurial moods.
This morning she settled on brisk friendliness. “Xavier. I thought you were a man come for our bags.”
“And so I am,” he replied, shrugging his left shoulder to begin the removal of his jacket. He strove for a light tone, the one he’d mastered because it always worked well in social settings. “Or so I am today at any rate. You’ve none but myself to take your baggage below. Would you be so kind as to hold my coat?”
“Of course,” she said, stepping back to open the door fully and allow him to enter. Summer was seated at a table with a mirror affixed, just placing the last few pins in her hair. She caught Xavier’s eye in the mirror, and stood at once, blushing a little to have a man in her room, even one of such old acquaintance.
At least neither of these ladies had had a trunk brought up. “Not to worry. I’ll take these two larger bags for now, and fetch the rest on a second trip, shall I?”
“Not at all,” Genevieve said firmly. “I’ll take this small one now, and you may take those two, and then we’ll be done with it, for Summer can certainly contrive to bring down her portmanteaux herself.”
“Of course I can,” Summer agreed at once.
Genevieve cast her friend a quick glance, leaving Xavier to wonder what was behind her moment of vexation. He moved into the room, took up the bags, and motioned with a little swing of his arm that Genevieve should go first out of the room.
As he followed her into the narr
ow passageway, he considered she looked as well today in blue as she had yesterday in yellow. She was lucky in her coloring, with that peachy skin, and her brown eyes. Her eyes, how had he ever found them anything other than enchanting? They invited you in, especially when she gave that bubbly laugh of hers…
Xavier’s heart did a jig in his chest. He recalled how it felt to touch her hair, how it had been yesterday to move that stray piece back into place; how it had felt to hold her small hands in his while they danced; how she struck sparks off his steely heart when she filled his ears with impossibly kind words.
Don’t think like that. Don’t ruin what’s good.
Solid advice—but how to enact it? Xavier sighed, recommitting himself to what he knew he must do, because he’d done a lesser version of it since he’d first realized women’s stares followed him. He would take what he could of Genevieve, little things: smiles, laughter, dances, kind words. And if the medicine was bittersweet, was she to blame for the disease? Of course not. He’d only himself to blame. Only look at her now, smiling over her shoulder at him, doing all she could to be charming, helpful, and generous with her friendly affection, however idle that affection might be.
He put on a crooked smile. “There’s happy news, I believe. It oughtn’t be as warm today,” he babbled as he followed her down the stairs.
* * *
“That is welcome news indeed. I think the warmth has been difficult for Summer.” As soon as she said the words, Genevieve wished them back. Late last night, just as she was finally falling asleep, Genevieve had made the decision to keep Xavier and Summer apart while they were on this journey. So why bring the girl into the conversation at all?
“I was a bit sorry to have a tray brought up this morning. I rather enjoyed eating breakfast en masse yesterday,” she said the first non-Summer thing that came to mind.
A Heart's Treasure Page 10