It made things worse that she was on tenterhooks since receiving Oscar’s note an hour ago. He’d invited her to go with him, Victoria, and another person Rosalind didn’t know to investigate the Kreak’s lair.
The thought thrilled and frightened her at once.
The irony wasn’t lost on her. How could she be brave enough to venture out that evening, and yet not have the courage to tell her father what she wanted with her own life?
She longed to go, to be with Oscar and Victoria, to be needed for something else, something that truly mattered.
A seam in her careful composure ripped loose at the thought, and she lost control. She shrieked. She dove for the stack of music on top of the piano and threw it across the space. Papers scattered free, their covers bashing into several unsuspecting music stands. For good measure, Rosalind knocked over several other unfortunate stands that dared be in her proximity. They fell to the floor with heavy clangs.
Tears strung down her face, and she sank to the floor, burying her face in her hands. Her body shook at the new loss of control, at the helplessness consuming her.
“Miss Baxter?” someone asked.
She startled to find a thin man with a scratch of a mustache and diminishing hairline. His movements were graceful as he entered farther into the room.
“Dr. Marsten,” Rosalind exclaimed, her hand flying to wipe the tears running down her face. She glanced in horror at the mess she’d made. This was the maestro of the Chuzzlewit Theater Orchestra. She’d met with him just fifteen minutes earlier while turning in her application and paperwork for acceptance into his ensemble. At her father’s insistence, of course.
“You don’t like it here?”
“I—it’s a lot to take in, that is all. I’m sure once I grow accustomed—” How dreadful. She should have claimed a headache or faked a fainting spell or something of the sort. Now he would never consider her. She was showing not only signs of dislike and weakness, but worse, a temper.
Perhaps that was not such a terrible thing.
“Neither do I.” He cut her off with a smile. “But our talents are made to be shared. Isn’t that what they say?”
“I suppose,” said Rosalind, not entirely sure what the meaning behind his words were. She’d never played under Dr. Marsten’s direction, so she wasn’t quite sure what to make of him.
“Impressive audition today, Miss Baxter,” he said, stepping over a fallen stand to retrieve a stack of scores from a shelf in the wall.
“Thank you, sir.”
“But I did notice one area that could greatly improve your performance.”
She knew it. Even after slaving away for Papa, she still wasn’t good enough.
She forced her voice to remain steady, a trait she’d had a fair amount of practice at. “And what is that, sir?”
“The only way you’d truly excel,” said Dr. Marsten on his way back up the stairs, “is if your heart was really in it.”
With the tip of his head, he left her alone in the pit.
Rosalind stared, listening as his footsteps dissipated above her. She wouldn’t excel unless her heart was really in it? Was she really that transparent, that this man whom she’d never met before could tell her feelings from one wretched audition? She turned away, scoffing and clenching her skirts as more tears eked out.
“What is the matter?” Oscar asked, descending.
Rosalind wiped away the angry tears. What a thing for the director to say to her. He had no right, no right at all to judge her performance based on something as trivial as her feelings. What did it matter whether her heart was in it or not, if she played the notes correctly? If he was this particular after their first and only conversation, she was definitely sure she didn’t want to play under his direction.
“It’s nothing,” she said.
“Your audition?”
Rosalind gave a feeble grunt. Oscar knew her father wouldn’t be able to make it and was eager to support her. Yet here he was and she wanted him anywhere else but there. “It went well. I played wonderfully. The director has just said something that implies . . . well, I don’t know.”
“What did he say?” Oscar’s voice was gentle. He drew her to his chest, and she let him enfold her. The smell of tobacco and wheat lingered in his lapels. He must have come directly from working at his father’s shop.
“He said my heart is not truly in it.”
Oscar’s chin bobbed against the top of her head. She heard him swallow. “And is it?”
No. It is not. Rosalind couldn’t bring herself to say it aloud. The truthfulness of Dr. Marsten’s words stung harder than the time she’d mistaken a patch of poison ivy for woodbine and had gotten blisters all along her hands. Her skin had throbbed for days and she could hardly touch anything.
“I feel as though I’m waiting in line for poison. And there’s nowhere to move but forward until I’m forced to take it, and doing so will end my life.”
“Roz, you need to tell your father. Tell him the truth. He loves you. He will understand.”
“I can’t.” She pulled away from Oscar, squeezing her eyes shut against the sight of the pit. She couldn’t look at the mess she’d made, at the pianoforte in the corner. Dr. Marsten’s words refused to leave her. You will never truly excel if your heart is not in it.
But how could her heart be in something she dreaded?
“Do you still wish to go with me tonight?” Oscar asked. His head brushed the ceiling, but he tilted it to the side and offered a hand for her taking should she need it.
She nodded, eager for the prospect of doing something else besides music. Eager to feel needed and important. To flee her cage.
“We’ll have to meet later than we’d planned,” Oscar said, withdrawing a note from the inside of his jacket. “Victoria said her mother planned a dinner with her cousins this evening that she can’t get out of.”
“Blast,” Rosalind said. “I cannot stay out past eight.”
“It will probably be much later,” Oscar said. “Perhaps you could sneak away again.”
Rosalind glanced over the prison that awaited her once she turned eighteen and was old enough for admission on the theater staff. Savagery coursed through her, an animal broken free of its cage, and she got the urge to chase it wherever it led.
“Yes, I believe I shall. You’ll meet me?”
He nodded. “And Rosalind?”
“Hmm?”
He tucked his lips together. “If music isn’t what you want, why are you doing it?”
The question stabbed such pain behind her eyes she slammed them shut. Tears threatened to spill but she inhaled and kept them at bay, hating the answer that came to mind.
Victoria barely listened to a word of the droll conversation being shared across the elegant table setting her mother had approved earlier that day. It was hard enough to wait here when she wanted to make for the ocean. But now, after Graham’s revelation, she found she couldn’t take her eyes from Jane Baldwin, who sat daintily across from Victoria but kept her face to her lap when she wasn’t eating. What a nuisance sitting still was. All Victoria wanted was to leap across the table and demand answers. What did the girl know?
Wolverton didn’t exist. That appeared to be true enough. But if that was the case, then how could so many people claim to have been there?
Mama finally announced that it was time to retire to the sitting room, and the group sojourned near the fire.
The sitting room. The last thing she wanted to do was sit.
She glanced at the clock. It was nearing on eight thirty. They didn’t have time for this.
Jarvis and Mama left the younger crowd to gather at the card table. Jane swiped the cards from its center. Victoria exchanged a look with Graham, certain that the girl would dismiss him from their game after the way he confronted her earlier. But she smiled at him a
s though nothing had happened.
“I’m so happy to have the chance to spend more time with you,” Jane said to Victoria, shuffling through the cards. “My mother spoke of you all the time, and I so longed to visit you here at the Range. I longed for a friend.”
Cordelia smiled at this.
Victoria barely heard her. Her mind nearly burst from the questions badgering it. “What was Wolverton like?” she asked.
Jane passed a card to each of them in succession. “It was . . . I don’t know, it was much like Chuzzlewit, I suppose. Homes and gardens, a theater in the center of town, and the university, of course. Nothing as extravagant as . . . as . . .”
“Sister?” Cordelia prodded.
Jane’s forehead wrinkled at the momentary memory lapse, and she shrugged with another smile. “In any case, Chuzzlewit is much better. It’s larger, and the people here are so accommodating. I’ve been nothing but pleased.”
“Indeed,” Victoria said, taking her cards but not looking at them. “And how—” Her pulse rose. Surely Jane would be able to read right through her. Graham sent her a poorly concealed scowl. “How, pray tell, did you travel here? Was it by hovercarriage, or did you fly, perhaps?”
“We flew. Naturally,” she added with a laugh. Cordelia simpered beside her.
Graham leaned forward, resting his elbows on the table across from her. “You remember like, boarding the plane and everything? Flying from Wolverton to here?”
Victoria fought the urge to plummet her face in her hands. Could he be any more obvious? She worked to keep her head level and secure the smile to her own lips, hoping she could pass for curious.
“Of course,” Jane said, her eyes shifting. “I—well, that is to say, I did fall asleep on the journey. I’ve never been one to gawk out the window at scenery. Motion sickness affects me, you know.”
“Sure it does,” Graham mumbled. He stood so quickly he nearly knocked his chair over. “Victoria, can I talk to you for a minute?”
Jane’s eyes dart between the two of them. “But our game has only just begun—”
“Try solitaire,” Graham spat over his shoulder as he pulled Victoria from her seat. She faltered, opening her mouth to form some kind of an apology in parting.
“Is everything all right, Victoria?” Enid Digby asked in disconcertion, book in hand. Jarvis’s eyes were calculating from his position near the fireplace.
“Everything is fine, Mama. Mr. Birkley had a question about our hibiscus plant in the corner and I told him I would explain it there. It is easier to explain things hands-on.”
She followed Graham to the appointed corner, incurably aware of both the late hour and her mother’s gaze on the two of them. Victoria was careful not to stand as close to Graham as she’d like. She wished once again the two of them could somehow leave.
Had Oscar already started? And what of Dahlia, had she gotten the note Victoria had sent, asking her to meet them on the beach?
“I think she’s telling the truth,” Graham said under his breath. Victoria glanced past him to where Jane now sat alone at the card table. A puzzled expression took over her.
“Graham,” Victoria said as quietly as she dared. The two leaned closer. His mouth fidgeted. “Please, can you tell me how you got here?”
He buried his hands in his trouser pockets, disheveling his jacket in the process. She restrained herself from pulling them back out again. Really. Did they have no manners where he was from?
“I don’t know, Tori. I worked for Starkey doing housework kind of stuff.”
“You were his valet, then?” Or perhaps a manservant?
He shook his head. “It doesn’t work that way back home. People don’t have servants anymore. At least, most of us don’t. I just cleaned for him as an after school job ‘cause he was old and had a hard time doing it for himself. He started showing me things, teaching me how to draw and home design basics. He’s an architect. And he had other . . . hobbies.”
“What sort of hobbies?”
Graham glanced behind his shoulder. Victoria’s glanced followed, checking the surrounding area for any possible eavesdroppers. Jarvis and Mama were caught up in a card game with Cordelia and Jane across the room. Servants drifted behind couches, attending to drinks before disappearing out into the main hall.
“He was building this machine,” Graham said, walking toward the window opposite from the fireplace. He fingered the thick curtains blocking out the night sky. Victoria stepped with him, never taking her eyes from him. “He called it the Gateway. It started making weird noises, and I swear I heard voices coming from it sometimes. And then one day there was this light when I came in. I thought it was a black light at first, ‘cause it was purplish, but then I saw Starkey disappear into the light.”
“And you followed.”
Graham nodded. “The next thing I knew I was here, standing in the street, and this gorgeous girl forced me into her plane.”
A smile flooded Victoria’s cheeks, but she forced it away. “I did not force you. As I recall, I saved your life that day.”
“That you did.”
When had they moved so close to one another? Her heart became a drum, hammering his name in her chest over and over the longer she lost herself in his eyes. His fingertips brushed the exposed skin of her arm above its glove. Victoria shot a look to her mother, who would certainly have demanded decorum had she noticed the touch. Caught up in their game, Mama had not noticed. But Charles Merek sat on the settee looking directly at them, mouth downturned.
The clock on the mantel chimed. Fifteen minutes to nine.
“For heaven’s sake,” Victoria mumbled. “Can we not leave already?”
“Fake sick,” Graham said. “I’ll act like I’m helping you to bed.”
“Gracious no!” Victoria’s cheeks heated at the thought.
“How do these parties of yours end, then?”
She sighed. “When our guests leave.”
“Any chance of them leaving?” Graham and Victoria both turned to glance across the room. Charles continued his scrutiny of them. Mama, Cordelia, and Jane were lost in their game.
Victoria’s heart sank. “Apparently not any time soon.”
“Were you really engaged to that guy?” Graham asked, meeting the other young man’s stare. If Charles suspected anything before, he could have no doubt of the turn in their conversation now. Victoria peered back.
“Not officially. He never asked me to marry him. It was an arrangement he and my mother were concocting, that they clearly haven’t been able to let go in spite of my feelings.”
“So you don’t like him.”
“I like him well enough, Mr. Birkley,” she said, her voice flirting more than she’d intended.
“Oh, that pesky love business. That’s what’s lacking.” Graham tapped his forehead with a finger and the quirk of his lips.
Victoria couldn’t take her eyes from his. “Indeed it was.”
“Not as good looking as I am, is that it?”
Victoria laughed. “Aren’t you pretentious!” she said, quick to lower her voice as her mother and the others turned in their direction at the interchange.
“Victoria, won’t you join us? I know how much you enjoy a game of cards.” There was a catch in Mama’s tone. Was it worry? The prospect of her daughter growing attached to someone without family connections or even a friend in this town would be unthinkable.
But Victoria wasn’t her mother. In fact, the more she was around Graham, the larger a place he was taking in her heart, whereas Charles had never made it past the front door of her feelings.
She could hear her mother’s argument already, and an unwanted feeling sank the words in deeper in spite of how badly she didn’t want to hear it. She knew very little about these long-lost cousins, but she also knew just as little about Graham Birkley himself. How c
ould she trust his words?
Because she had to.
“It is drawing late,” Victoria said, forcing a yawn. “I’m afraid I’m not feeling myself this evening.” Then she leaned toward Graham. “Find an excuse and meet me in the back gardens in ten minutes.”
He grabbed her hand. “What excuse?”
Her eyes twinkled. “I’m sure you’ll think of something.”
She bid their guests farewell, kissed her startled mother good night, and hurried out the door.
Jane acted as though nothing were out of the ordinary. It was possible that Graham was making all of this up for his own gain. But Graham had been just as surprised as she when her plane had spiraled and delivered them back to shore the moment they should have been arriving in Wolverton. How could Jane claim she was from a town that didn’t exist, and not remember where Graham claimed she was really from?
Twenty-six
Victoria pulled her frock coat tighter against the attack of brisk ocean air. The sea lapped lazily across the sand. Stars winked down between gray clouds, and a biting wind swept across their hiding place among the trees on the cliff behind the shore watcher’s shed.
The weather-beaten shed wasn’t much of a block. The trees beside it waved ominously. A branch brushed against her neck, and she jumped.
“Who are we waiting for again?” Dahlia asked, huddling in her own coat and the hat pulled over her wild curls.
“Oscar Radley,” Victoria said, eyeing Graham. He’d somehow extricated himself from the party minutes after she’d left it and the two of them had hurried here as quickly as they could.
“Why didn’t you tell the other Nauts?” Dahlia asked. “Your uncle is going to have an apoplexy once he finds out we’re meeting behind his back.”
Victoria glanced again at Graham who stood a few feet off and was staring out at the restless ocean. “We couldn’t trust the others. You know Bronwyn would go straight to my uncle if she knew what we were doing.”
“And what are we doing, exactly?” Dahlia pressed.
Victoria bent for the large potato sack Graham had helped her carry. Noticing the movement, Graham rejoined her side and helped her unearth the coils of thick rope within.
The Perilous In-Between Page 17