by Anne Mallory
A flash of blue had her looking back to a figure sitting alone in a box. In the shadows, a heavy cloak was pulled up and over the figure’s head. A woman with a regal set to her shoulders. Even the way she hugged the shadows couldn’t hide her poise.
The woman’s eyes met hers across the space. Her head tilted.
Miranda’s world drew to a momentary stop. The last person that Miranda expected to see at a night when the innocent were occupied elsewhere and the naughty were making their rounds was sitting in the shadows across from her, hood pulled over her hair, mask in place. Unrecognizable unless one accepted the possibility that anyone might attend. Unless one had been thinking of the person mere moments before the glance.
Charlotte Chatsworth was not so ill after all. Nor did she seem to follow blindly along as her father had implied.
Miranda stared at her, and Charlotte stared back. The main entertainment began, a woman singing of doomed love and dastardly deeds. The viscount, Messerden, and Chatsworth began speaking in low voices so as not to upset anyone around them—though many in the crowd and surrounding boxes were socializing as well.
During the entire first act Miranda barely took her eyes away from the figure across from her. The woman’s eyes seemed to be connected to hers as well. Every so often Miranda would look at the viscount. At Max. Would shakily try to return his smile—his smile more intense than it had been before—and not shiver beneath his fingertips. His reassuring hands.
The curtain finally drew closed, indicating a break before the second act. The woman across from her tilted her head in question, then rose and walked to the door behind her. Her hand touched the curtain, and she looked over her shoulder to Miranda before ducking through.
Miranda excused herself as well. The viscount, still in conversation with Chatsworth and Messerden, cast a questioning look her way. He would stop conversing and accompany her, should she wish it. She could see it in his eyes. That he would leave his future father-in-law and come with her.
Her throat tightened.
But he would not leave the path they were destined to travel.
She forced a smile and shook her head at him, then slipped through their door, heading for the retiring area.
There were a number of women chatting inside, some masked and some not, but Miranda’s eyes sought only one. The woman sat with her back to the door, a padded chair next to her for someone wishing to sit and relax for a moment.
Miranda slipped into the chair and stared straight ahead, into the curved mirror, into the shadowed eyes of the woman next to her.
She was beautiful, in both visible features and poise. She veritably screamed wealth and accomplishment. Her elegant royal blue hood put the outrageous costumes of the others to shame. As if she didn’t need to dress or hide herself at all. She was Charlotte Chatsworth, darling of society, diamond of the first water.
But the deep hood still served to hide her well. For even she could not get away unblemished if she were found here.
“Good evening,” Charlotte said eventually, her tone low and somewhat musical.
“Good evening,” Miranda returned the greeting, the abyss of the unknown opening around them.
Miranda felt like a pale bit of paste pretending to be a jewel. She looked down at her gown. The glorious satin. No. She lifted her head. Even the most expensively dressed women wore paste. Paste could be lovely. And touchable. Something that could be enjoyed with more freedom than the heavy choker of sapphires and diamonds that sat upon Charlotte Chatsworth’s neck, visible just above the throat of her cloak.
Or the outrageously expensive piece that graced Miranda’s own. She, a piece of paste wearing a diamond.
Charlotte must not have returned home after the Peckhurst rout. She must have come here instead, choker still heavy about her throat.
She looked up from Charlotte’s neck to see the girl watching her.
“Your necklace is beautiful,” Miranda said softly.
The girl tilted her head. “Thank you. I find it to be quite heavy though at times. Not unlike your own, probably.”
Miranda touched the necklace at her own throat. Could still feel the viscount’s fingers against her skin, clasping it there.
Laughter rang behind them. A few of the women making bawdy jokes.
“You shouldn’t be here,” Miranda said quietly.
Charlotte tipped her head. “No. But I had to know. Had to see. Before.”
Miranda swallowed and looked away. “I’m sorry.”
“Why should you be?”
“I shouldn’t be here either.” But for different reasons entirely. Miranda looked down at her gloved hands, as if she could see the work-roughened fingers through the silk. She smiled without amusement. “I can’t seem to help myself though.”
Charlotte watched her, weighing her. “You love him.”
Miranda said nothing.
“You don’t have to say a word. I can see it. In the way you look at him.” She looked at her own reflection in the mirror. “My governess was nearly a mistress. Secretly. In her youth. She always looked sad and wistful.” Her eyes dropped for a moment, hidden, then she turned back to her. “You know we are to marry, yes?”
Miranda responded simply, “Yes.”
Charlotte nodded. “It is the way of things. My father has had a mistress for years. My mother…she pretends she doesn’t care.”
There was a resigned, strong look on her face. Like she knew this was her lot in life.
“Even should I want to, I wouldn’t be able to part you from him. I’ve seen the way he looks at you. I wanted to meet with you, especially after the Hannings’. I saw you there. Knew that my father had plans.” She dipped her head to hide her features as a woman brushed by them. “I know that Downing will do the ‘respectable’ thing and keep us apart. For all of his wild ways, he has only ever been like his parents in reaction to them.”
“You know him well.”
Charlotte tilted her chin back up. “No, not at all really. He keeps his cards close. But his face is easier to read when he looks at you.”
Miranda said nothing, for what was there to say?
“I just wanted to meet you.” The girl’s eyes were even, calm. “It seems like it might make things easier that way, don’t you think?”
“I don’t think it easy at all.”
“No.” Charlotte smiled a little stiffly. “But then I don’t love him. I know him not. And I do not presume to think that he will try to love me even a little. It seems that men save those feelings for those on the other side.” She looked away. “I envy you your freedom.”
So strange to hear her own thoughts on the lips of another, in reference to her instead.
“Sometimes the specter of freedom presents more of a chain.” Love, the greatest chain of all.
“Ah. I do see how that could be so.” Charlotte crossed her hands, pulling at a heavy ring on her finger. “Yet, I have no experience of it myself. And I may never have. So perhaps I crave that chain, just a little.” She rose and pulled her hood down lower. “Forgive me for my curiosity, in any event. A good evening to you, madam.”
“Good evening,” Miranda echoed, as Charlotte disappeared in the crowd of women, through the door. She expected not to see her upon her return to the theater, and she was correct. The box across from theirs stood empty.
The viscount looked at her, eyes searching, still intense. “Are you well?”
She smiled, a decidedly sad attempt at brightness. “I’m well. And looking forward to Act Two.”
She just hoped it didn’t end in tragedy.
Chapter 20
From hence through eternity, You are my muse, my salvation. My eternal damnation.
Maximilian Downing to Miranda Chase
(note never sent)
Miranda rose from the bed, untangling herself from warm sleeping man and crumpled sheets. There was something odd and coiled within her. Waiting for the pin to drop. For the kettle to come crashing down, spray
ing scalding water everywhere. The opera had been tense and wild. Strange and exciting in one way, terrifying and draining in another.
She gazed down at the sleeping form on the bed. Did she want that life? If it was the only one she could have with him?
She thought of Charlotte Chatsworth. Sitting in the shadows. Not judging, simply watching. Coming to the opera on a debauched night, hidden and viewing. To see her. To see what her own future held in store.
Miranda picked up the night rail that had been placed on the curling bench at the foot of the bed. She had seen it before. In “her” wardrobe in “her” room. A lovely, diaphanous material. Not like her father’s robe. Something instead made for a man’s pleasure.
She knotted the ties around her waist. Her room. But not for long. She’d not be able to stay here. Would have to have her own household. Get her own staff.
Her throat tightened. She tried to relax under the thoughts. She had accepted this path. Goodness, the other woman about to grace her lover’s life had given her some sort of resigned blessing.
She put a hand to her forehead. She felt a little faint, truth be told. She shook her head and felt around for a lamp and the means to light it. Her hand touched the handle of a door in the dark. Ah, a sitting room. Perfect. She fumbled the handle, then walked into the adjoining room, realizing too late that the viscount’s valet was probably on the other side.
But there was no one there. He must have excused the man when they’d come in.
She lit the small lamp she had found and sunk into a chair. She’d just wait here for a bit. Until the spell passed. She didn’t want to wake the viscount. Her thoughts were already in a muddle, and she needed to clear them before he touched her and made every rational thought disappear from her head. Again.
The soft light of the lamp lit the room, casting golden light onto the comfortable space, obviously the viscount’s personal area. The thought that perhaps she shouldn’t be here sifted into her mind, but then the light caught a series of shelves, and her feet unwillingly carried her to them.
The bookshelves here were the opposite of the Red Room below. Everything here was. There was a lived-in, touched feeling. The side of the viscount that she read in his correspondence, that she glimpsed in the country, and that sometimes she even saw on his face when he was sincere. When he looked at her and melted her insides.
She touched the books dotting the shelves. Lovely first editions. Rare works. Personal pieces. Her hip knocked against something at the edge of the desk, and she had to extend a hand quickly to catch the book there.
Lovely sloping handwriting dotted a page that slipped from between the covers.
She touched the paper and lifted the lamp over it. The Eight Elements of Enchantment was scribbled across the crown.
This was where he worked. Something strange thrummed through her.
She hadn’t needed confirmation; but if she had, it lay in front of her. Feeling like a wayward youth—she really shouldn’t be pawing through his private papers—her curiosity overcame her good sense, and she opened the cover, unearthing the other pages within. Draft pages. There were only two “elements” listed, as if the other six hadn’t yet been created. Scribbles dotted the pages, long, sloping letters. Questions in the margin.
Will she agree if you approach her with a challenge? She gamely accepted the bet.
Need to see the look in her eyes that says you have won.
Uncover her hands.
Her eyes creased. What was this? She had expected to find new material, and instead the lines littering the margins had all the keys to her seduction. Everything about her. Crisscrossing lines thrusting back and forth on the sheets. The pen and ink his tools to create the dance. Branding her name here just as he had branded his own upon her flesh an hour past.
“Miranda?”
Her fingers curled around the page. She felt him come up behind her, heard his bare feet padding across the rug.
“What are—” He stepped to her side, then stopped dead when he saw what she was holding. “I can explain,” he said quickly.
She looked back at the papers. “I don’t think you need to.” Was it strange that she felt so cold? So calm and removed?
He took the page from her, her fingers relinquishing the paper as he pulled. He put it on top of the others and pushed the papers together. “These are old.”
“They don’t look old to me.” Was that cold, removed voice hers?
“I—”
“Why?” There was a calm stillness to her. Ice settling into her bones. A cold relief seeping into her that they would finally have this out. That they could be through with the secrets and lies.
“Because I had to,” he said, a note of desperation behind his usually controlled expression, the shadows of the lamplight shifting over his face.
“You had to make a cake of me? To make me confused eight ways to Sunday and back again? To make me doubt my own judgment?” She lifted a brow. “I see. I was expecting a slightly more florid and charming response from the venerable Eleutherios, I must say. Or at least something suitably scathing and self-assured, like Mr. Pitts.”
His face reflected a combination of emotions—too many to name. But shock stood out sharply. “It was not to make a cake of you. I wanted to make you trust yourself more. And to…to be myself without having to hide behind the layers.”
The words chipped at the ice. She put her bare hand to his cheek, the roughened pads touching his roughened chin, then let it drop.
“You used me. I just didn’t know how severely that use was.”
“I can explain.”
“You don’t need to. I’m just foolish enough to have thought it amusing for a few deluded days.” She tugged the night rail more firmly, then walked through the door, back into the bedroom proper.
“I do need to explain, I…wait. You knew.” He spun her around, his eyes narrowed, the pages still gripped in his left hand. “You knew.”
“Knew that you were making a cake of me, yes. I’ve known that since the Hannings’ ball. That you were doing so in order to get new material, no.”
“My library,” he said, as if something suddenly made sense, slotting into place.
“Yes, your precious library.” And other things not yet discovered—things she didn’t feel a desire to name now. “It will survive, I assure you. I only shuffled up a few sections. Nothing that you can’t fix. Especially since you are the one who created the disorder in the first place.”
He flinched. “I needed you to have something to do.”
She nodded. “You couldn’t have your research walk away from you.”
“I decided not to write a sequel.” His eyes bored into hers, willing her to understand. “After that first week.”
“Why? You should.” She shrugged a hand toward the pages in his tight grasp. “It is all there. I’m sure you will make a pretty penny from it.” She turned and gathered up her clothing in a bunch. “I will likely even buy a copy, fool that I am.”
“What are you doing?”
Now that hot emotion wasn’t clouding her judgment, now that the warm desire to be with him however she could wasn’t forefront in her mind, the clear view of their future path spread before her in cold, crystalline glory. And cool anger made the first step away from that path easier.
“I’m leaving.” She looked to the window, clothing strewn across her arms, bunched in her fists, just like his papers were in his. “Good evening, your lordship.”
“Leaving?”
“Yes. Good luck with your marriage.” She began to take a step around him.
He stepped into her path, gripping the pages, the edges crumpling beneath his fingers. “You are leaving? Giving up?”
She looked to the window for a long moment. “I’m not giving up. I’m going forward. Perhaps to Paris.” She looked back at him. “Just as you’ve always told me I should.”
“I thought you loved me,” he said, a thread of bitterness and disillusionment. As if
he had just been waiting for her to leave him, and now she had finally decided to make the break.
Miranda watched him. A blanket of calm settled over her, soothing the edge of her fury. “I do love you. In all the forms you’ve presented to me. As a complete picture of a man fractured and broken.”
He said nothing. His lips forming a hard line.
“And that’s why I am leaving. If I stay here, like this, I will only ever be a balm for you. For me.” She gripped the clothes. “Not a cure. Not a panacea. You will always wait for me to leave you. I will always wait for you to tire of me.”
She turned to go. She found herself suddenly spun around. The clothes fell from her hands, intermingling with his papers that now littered the space. Firm lips pressed to hers, and she responded, angry and confused, but with the strange calmness threading through.
He pressed her onto the crumpled sheets of paper that had fallen to the bed. “Marriage wouldn’t change that.”
“No.” She arched into him as his hands wound around her rear. “Not as it stands now. Not as we stand now.”
“I’m not going to change,” he said into her ear. I can’t change. His lips pulled at the soft skin at the side of her throat. She’d have marks there in the morning.
She tilted her head, allowing them to be made. A last reminder. “I know. That is why the choice needs to be made.”
His hands suddenly framed her face, his thumbs stroking her cheeks. “You can’t be happy with what I am? The most I am capable of offering? What I’ve never offered to anyone else?” The echo of happy with me filtered through the air.
“Your mother never got past it.”
His eyes turned dark. “My mother’s situation was different.”
“Different, yes, but was it any worse?”
“I’m not my father.”
She touched his hand at her cheek, reassuring him for a moment. “No.”
“You are all I can think of.”
“But it’s not enough, is it?” She flipped on top of him, fingers digging into his shoulders.
He arched up into her, pulling her hips down to connect them, making her skin, the very core of her, light on fire, the mad yearning never darker or more fierce. “It can be enough.”