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To Jacob,
for always being willing to read just a little more
In which Sophia has an unpleasant encounter
ondon at night looked nothing like Sophia remembered. The recently installed gas lamps lining the street shed an unwavering glow over the pavement, gilding the doors of the tall, winter-bleak houses. The light looked warm, but was unable to blunt the chill of the frigid November night that seeped through her cloak and numbed her cheeks.
Sophia nestled into the seat of Cecy’s chaise and clenched her hands in her lap, shivering inside her fur-lined cloak and wishing her gloves were made of kid and not thin red silk. Not for the first time that evening she thought about raising the hood of her cloak. But that would disorder her auburn locks, so painstakingly arranged by her maid, and she did not want to look mussed for her first public appearance after returning to London.
She smoothed her gown over her knees; it was a modish emerald green that stood in vibrant contrast to the red gloves. She probably should have worn something that was not so eye-catching. Everyone would already be watching her tonight. That was something she was always certain of.
The lamps lining the streets of London were not the only things that had changed in the more than four years of Sophia’s absence from the city. Despite the war, it seemed new construction, and the remodeling of old construction, was everywhere. New streets offered new routes to familiar old places; shops had vanished and were replaced by other shops. It was a testament to the irrepressible optimism of the English people.
The only thing that had not changed was the smell. The winter weather did little to dispel the odor of animal waste in the streets and the more distant but equally pervasive scent of the Thames. Sophia knew she would become accustomed to the smell with time, but only six weeks after her return to this great city, her nose still involuntarily wrinkled whenever she stepped outside. She remembered the brisk, damp breezes coming off the Tagus River, the soft rains that fell at this time of year, and experienced the familiar mix of longing and fury that rose in her whenever she thought of Lisbon and what had happened there.
“Whatever sour thoughts you are entertaining, I suggest you dismiss them soon,” Cecy teased. “You will hurt Countess Lieven’s feelings by implying you do not appreciate her generosity in providing you with a voucher.” She seemed not at all discommoded by the chill in the air.
“It would be more accurate to say she pressed it upon me with great insistence,” Sophia said. “The Countess’s admiration of Extraordinaries is…rather overwhelming. I am grateful I was too young and insignificant to attract her attention when I was in London for my first season, because I would have found her terrifying. Besides, she may not even be at Almack’s tonight.”
“It is the first ball of the Season, and you will be there,” Cecy said. “The Prince of Wales himself could not excite more—oh, my dear, I was thoughtless, wasn’t I?”
Sophia realized she was clenching her fists more tightly together, and forced them to relax. “Hardly that,” she said, but she knew Cecy could hear how false her reassurance was.
Her friend clasped her intertwined hands and squeezed lightly. “No one knows of the manner in which you left military service,” she said in a low voice, though Sophia was certain Peter the coachman could not hear them in any case. “They know only of your exemplary record, that it was you who helped foil the Caribbean pirates by deducing how that foul man Rhys Evans was tracking our Navy’s ships. Your reputation is secure. The War Office has seen to that.”
“They also saw to my dismissal,” Sophia said bitterly. “They may seem to care for the interests of the Extraordinaries whose actions they direct, but I know now they only maintain the public appearance of my reputation because it reflects well on them. They betrayed me, Cecy, betrayed me to keep the good will of a liar and an embezzler. Am I to be grateful, that they did not spread the word that my Visions are false?”
“Your Visions are not false!”
“As far as the War Office is concerned, they are.”
“But you need not care about them any longer. You are free from your obligations, free to start a new life, and I insist you do so. I cannot bear to see you suffering.”
Sophia smiled. “I might say the same of you.”
“I feel very well tonight,” Cecy said, pushing a lock of blond hair away from her thin face. “I have almost no pain, and I look forward to sitting and conversing with my friends while you dance the night away.”
The smile fell away from Sophia’s face. “I am not convinced this is not a mistake,” she said. “It has been nearly three years since I danced with anyone.”
“Did you and Richard not attend dances in Lisbon?”
“Richard was too often gone on his—he called them ‘jaunts,’ those intelligence-gathering journeys of his. I disliked dancing without him. And then he was killed, and I lost interest entirely.” Her memories of her husband, dead these two and a half years, were distant and gave her only a little pain, unlike the far fresher stabs thoughts of her expulsion from the military gave her.
“Well, it is not as if you have forgotten how to dance,” Cecy said in a mock-stern voice. “No one has introduced a new dance at Almack’s in forty years. I doubt such a thing will happen again in our lifetimes. So you will dance, and you will enjoy yourself, because your isolation is beginning to cause comment.”
“I know. The Duchess of Lenshire wrote to me again today on that very topic.”
“She wishes you to give her a Vision?”
“In public, no less. I am invited to attend a dinner party at which I will be the entertainment. Not that even she would be so crass as to put it that way.”
“I am afraid she sees you rather in the light of a performing bear.”
“I know. I wish I did not have this talent.”
“Sophy! Never say that! It is not true.”
Sophia sighed. Her Extraordinary talent might be the proximate cause of her current anger and humiliation, but it gave her such joy she could not imagine giving it up. “I am in rather a mood tonight, aren’t I?”
“Yes, you are. And if I can endure a little pain, you can endure a little social interaction. Even if the refreshments are bland and tepid.”
The chaise was making the turn onto King Street, and in the distance Sophia could see the glow of their destination’s many windows. She sighed again, but with a smile. “I will endeavor to be cheerful, and to enjoy myself,” she said. “And perhaps no one will ask me to dance.”
Cecy laughed. “You are an attractive, wealthy widow who is also a war hero and an Extraordinary. I probably should have found you a stick to beat the men away with.”
The c
oachman assisted first Sophia, then Cecy out of the carriage. Sophia gave Cecy her arm and her friend leaned on her support only a little heavily. At least she was willing to accept Sophia’s support instead of insisting there was nothing wrong with her. Cecy disliked being a burden and often lied about the amount of pain she was in, so Sophia and Lewis, Cecy’s husband, had to watch her carefully for signs that her condition was beginning to trouble her. No doctor and no Extraordinary Shaper had been able to discover what it was that kept Cecy in near-constant pain, and Sophia had sought Dream after Dream with no more success. But tonight, at least, Cecy would be able to enjoy herself.
They passed through the famous doors of Almack’s to find that although it was yet early in the evening, the place was thronged with people, all of them dressed in their finest and talking loudly enough that the noise spilled through the doors and washed over Sophia like a murmuring tide, warm and buoyant.
Sophia had never attended Almack’s before tonight and was struck by how brightly lit it was, with the chandeliers that hung low over the gathering shedding their brilliance over the dancers and shining off the many large mirrors lining the walls. The mirrors, reflecting their own images, made the room seem larger than it was, as if they were windows opening on other, similar rooms filled with the dancers’ doppelgangers who were enjoying themselves as much as their originals.
She caught a glimpse of herself in one, tall and gawky, with skin darkened from four years of the Mediterranean sun, and turned away, feeling some amusement that she would likely be considered a great beauty thanks to her talent when all the evidence showed her to be…well, attractive was the best she could hope for. Richard had thought her beautiful, but love did seem to alter the perceptions in unusual ways.
The room was surprisingly warm despite its size, with all those bodies in such close proximity, and it was comforting after the cold outside, though no doubt it would feel over warm soon enough. In the gallery, the musicians plowed through a reel with rather more energy than it probably required, and men and women filled the center of the room, passing and circling one another in time to the sprightly beat. The exertion of dancing would only make things hotter. She wished she had not forgotten her fan, though it was unlikely to do her much good, only moving the warm air from one place to another.
The thought of dancing made little tendrils of dread creep across her chest, chilly in a way that did not counteract the heat of the room. She might not have forgotten how to dance, but she felt as if she had forgotten how to converse easily with strangers who had nothing more in common with her than a mutual interest in dancing.
She pushed through the crowd, opening a path so Cecy would not have to endure the physical contact that so often caused her pain, ignoring the awed glances and whispered comments that spread through the crush as she passed. Her face might be as yet unknown, as she had rarely gone out in public since her return to London, but the red gloves, the outward sign of an Extraordinary Seer, were better than a calling card to advertise her identity.
Why they must be red was a tradition with origins lost to history, but she had donned them every morning for the last twelve years, ever since her Extraordinary talent had manifested, to avoid touching anything that might trigger a Vision. Not every object had enough history weighing it down to bear anything worth Seeing, but those that did could overwhelm her with the shifting, overlapping images of past and present and future connected to the object and the person most closely associated with it. Sophia had considered, more than once, wearing gloves of a different color, but although such an action would give her blessed anonymity, she was always uncomfortable at the idea, as if she were denying this fundamental part of herself in trying to conceal it.
She found them an unoccupied sofa and tried to appear serenely unconcerned at the discreet attention she was attracting. At least none of the guests here tonight would be so crass as to ask her for a Vision; more likely they would angle for an introduction that would allow them a few words with her that they could brag about later. Countess Lieven and her oppressive attention were nowhere in sight.
A woman sitting on a sofa about a foot away from theirs caught sight of Sophia and nudged her companion, a well-dressed man in yellow waistcoat and dark knee breeches. He began to raise his quizzing glass to examine her, then put it swiftly away and turned his head in such a deliberate manner that Sophia knew he was still watching her. And so it begins.
She straightened her gloves to conceal her discomfort at being stared at, even covertly. Most of her fellow Extraordinary Seers loved the attention they received, but Sophia had never quite been able to shed the feeling that the gloves made her an object, a living, breathing statue, instead of a person. It was a pity Lady Enderleigh, England’s only Extraordinary Scorcher, was somewhere in the Caribbean; her entrance was likely the only thing that could eclipse Sophia’s appearance at Almack’s tonight.
“I do not see anyone I know,” Cecy murmured. “Perhaps you will not have to dance after all, if you cannot secure an introduction.”
“I am certain someone will find an excuse to speak to us. Until then, we will sit here and amuse ourselves by inventing histories for those who pass before us,” Sophia said. “That young man speaking to the rather large woman, over there—does he not look like an insect? With that dull brown hair and his thin limbs?”
Cecy covered her mouth to hide a giggle. “He does! And—oh, no, Sophy, only see to whom he is speaking! Is it too late for us to hide?”
Sophia turned partly away. “Perhaps she does not see us. Quickly, turn your face.”
“Mrs. Westlake!” A strident voice rose above the clamor of the crowd. “I’m surprised to see you here in London. And Mrs. Barham, good to see you out in public.”
“Lady Daveril, what a pleasure,” Sophia said. Lady Daveril, dressed in old gold silk with topazes around her neck and in her hair, loomed over them like an elegantly gowned battleship. “You look well.”
“Fresh air and frequent walks, that’s what keeps a body well. You should follow that regimen, Mrs. Barham,” Lady Daveril said. Cecy’s gaze dropped to her lap, and Sophia had to control the urge to rise and slap the tall, buxom woman across both her rosy cheeks. “But what brings you back to London so soon, Mrs. Westlake? I thought you had another eight months of service to go.”
“How kind of you to take such an interest in me, Lady Daveril,” Sophia said. Would she be ejected from Almack’s if she took hold of the Countess’s elegantly coiffed hair and yanked it out by the roots? “But after the pirates’ decisive defeat, the War Office agreed I should be released early. As a reward, you see.” It was the story the War Office had concocted, and she had no choice but to repeat it as they directed and pray no one realized how many months had passed between that event and her leaving the service.
“The more reward for us, that we enjoy your presence again,” Lady Daveril said. “Pity about your husband, but you’re well out of mourning and I imagine you’re eager to remarry.”
“I have chosen not to marry again, Lady Daveril,” Sophia said. “I do not feel the lack of a husband.”
“Nonsense,” the tall woman said. “It’s your duty to marry and produce talented children for England. And I intend to introduce as many eligible men as possible to you. Even someone as choosy as you can’t reject all of them.”
Can I not? Sophia thought, but said only, “I am very obliged to you, Lady Daveril, but we both know the law—”
“Oh, never mind the law,” Lady Daveril said. “I’m talking about what’s right. Never fear, Mrs. Westlake, no one’s expecting you to marry where you don’t feel an attachment. I’ll speak with you later, shall I?” She sailed off into the crowd, unperturbed at forcing a few of the dancers at the bottom of the set to step out of her way.
Sophia and Cecy looked at one another. “This was a terrible idea,” Sophia said.
“I know Lady Daveril is unpleasant, but you will have to find partners somehow, and at least she will provide an
introduction,” Cecy said.
“How is it you maintain such unrelenting optimism in the face of abject horror?”
“I will grant you horror, but it is hardly abject. Spine-chilling, perhaps.”
Sophia laughed, and said, “I suppose I could always attempt to hide from her. But you are correct, and it would be ridiculous for me to come here and spend the entire evening not dancing.”
“Mrs. Westlake!”
Sophia, startled by this high-pitched exclamation uttered in loud tones from only a few feet away, stood and turned to see who had spoken. A short, plump young woman with pale blond ringlets in some disorder around her face was looking directly at her, her mouth and hazel eyes as round as her cheeks.
“Mama, it’s Mrs. Westlake! Mrs. Westlake, how good to see you—but I can see you don’t remember me, I suppose it’s been years since—I am Richard’s cousin Daphne—oh, mama, Mrs. Westlake is family, don’t make that face at me.” The young woman approached Sophia despite the restraining hand an older woman with much neater blond hair placed on her shoulder. “Mrs. Westlake will want to speak to us.”
“Daphne, contain yourself,” the older woman said. “I beg your pardon, Mrs. Westlake. I am afraid Daphne has been sadly indulged all her life. But it is true, poor Richard was my nephew. I hope you received our family’s condolences upon his death.”
“Lady Claresby,” Sophia said, dredging the name up from memory, “of course I remember you. Your kind letter was such a comfort to me. And Lady Daphne—it is good to see you again.”
“I know I’m much changed since you saw me last, but I didn’t realize you might not recognize—but then I was several inches shorter, I’ve grown much in the last four years—are you enjoying yourself? Because I have to say”—Lady Daphne’s voice dropped to a whisper barely audible above the noise of the crowd—“I feel as if I’m on display, don’t you? You know I’m an Extraordinary Bounder, yes? And I can tell everyone is looking at you as well—it’s so uncomfortable, and they all know I’m determined not to marry until—you must tell me what the service is like! I tried to make them admit me two years ago, when I was eighteen, but no one would listen, and now I will be eligible in May and I’m in ecstasies!”
Wondering Sight (The Extraordinaries Book 2) Page 1