Season For Desire

by Theresa Romain

  “That’s something that won’t happen today. Just for example.” He worked a penknife into a seam of the puzzle box, then eyed it with great concentration. “And getting this puzzle box open is another example of something that won’t happen today.”

  This time she did let herself laugh. What was the harm in a laugh?

  Giles began nudging at panels of the box again; he coaxed a few of them to slide, beginning the process of opening the box.

  Across from him, Audrina let her pencil travel across one of Sophy’s gridded sheets. The lady astronomer used them for mapping out her observations, but Audrina wondered whether the page could be used to map something far more everyday. A building.

  She had seized on the idea when talking to Giles in the library, when desperate distraction was needed from desperate thought. With all the freedom of being male, trusted by his family, and free to travel the world—how had he given up on doing exactly what he pleased with his life?

  And what, for that matter, would she like to do with hers? Now that Charissa was to marry a duke, the other Bradleigh daughters might be more free for . . . something.

  Or maybe not. Marriage or disappointment; this was what her parents expected of her. Such expectations were the habit of years. Audrina had battered at them, but had never been able to shake them. They only sprang back, knocking her about. Knocking her into the company of people she hardly knew so that she would not return to London an embarrassment.

  But she knew these people now. And—she wavered. Wanting to be home; wanting to stay here. Blessedly free of her father’s disapproval, Llewellyn’s threats, her mother’s well-meant suggestions for improvement. She knew the freedom was false, temporary, but it beckoned nonetheless.

  In silence, Giles worked at the box and Audrina began to pencil in a few unsteady lines. She would have found it easier to build a model with blocks or clay; rendering a three-dimensional structure into something flat was unfamiliar and odd.

  Before she had sorted out more than a few shapes, Lady Irving slammed into the drawing room. At her heels, the smallest of Lady Dudley’s dogs—a sweet-tempered russet mongrel named Penny—yipped and nipped at skirts of a bright paisley.

  “Save me from your father, Rutherford,” Lady Irving called. “He wants to decorate every head in the passage.”

  This sentence would have been unintelligible to Audrina a few days ago, but she now knew of both Castle Parr’s corridor full of broken statuary and Richard Rutherford’s fondness for adorning sculptures with evergreen leaves.

  “What are you up to, girl? You’re wearing an uncommonly mischievous expression.” Lady Irving marched over to Audrina. Penny’s short legs were a blur as the small dog followed, the sleigh bell around her neck jingling with every tiny step.

  “Uncommonly? Do you really think so?” Giles said. “In my experience, Lady Audrina looks like that a lot. She has a devious and inscrutable mind.”

  Audrina ignored him. “I am drawing, my lady. You know how proper young ladies are. We can’t bear to be idle.”

  “Harrumph.” Lady Irving would no doubt have said more, but Richard Rutherford entered the drawing room just then. “Out of rosemary again,” he sighed. “A shame, because just one head lacks a wreath. Ah, son, there you are. Do you think mistletoe would make a good wreath?”

  Lady Irving rolled her eyes. When she bent over the gridded paper, Audrina caught a faint whiff of something sweet and sharp. Brandy? “That,” declared the countess, “is the ugliest brooch I’ve ever seen.”

  “Let me take a look.” Richard Rutherford all but ran over, then looked disappointed when he saw Audrina’s drawing. “Oh, I’ve seen far uglier than that. Remember, Estella, I’ve been looking at jewels for the last two months.”

  “You haven’t asked to look at any jewels here,” said Lady Irving.

  “There’s no need. The jewel here”—Rutherford made a little bow toward the table—“is the puzzle box.”

  “Am I,” broke in Giles, “supposed not to notice that you, Father, just called you, Lady Irving, by your first name?”

  “Too many pronouns,” said the countess airily. “I don’t have any idea what you’re talking about, Rutherford.”

  “Oh, God,” said Giles. “If I’m Rutherford, then he’s . . .”

  “Richard. So? A matter of efficiency.”

  Giles folded his arms atop the table, then buried his face in his makeshift fortress. A muffled voice issued forth: “I wish my ears had fallen off this morning.”

  “Son!” Richard sounded amused rather than dismayed. “What an irrational idea. Your ears would only need to have fallen off a few minutes ago.” When he caught Audrina’s eye, she saw laughter in his.

  No sense in trying to save face when everyone seemed bubbling with good humor—or good liquor. “Thus are my artistic dreams dashed,” she said. “I meant it to be a drawing of Castle Parr, not a brooch.”

  The speed with which Giles sat up straight was astounding. “Let me see.” Before she could move, he grabbed the paper from the tabletop. “Castle Parr . . . Huh.” His brows knit.

  “You don’t like it.”

  “Of course he does,” Richard Rutherford hastened to assure her. “I’ve known my son quite a while. That’s the face he always makes when he’s liking something very much.”

  “Rubbish.” Lady Irving poked at the paper. “And if that were a brooch, that pointy bit would puncture someone’s skin.”

  “But it’s not a drawing of a brooch,” Giles ground out. “Please allow that I can tell the difference between a drawing of a gemstone setting and a building, since I have been trained in both areas.” He added a frown to his furrowed brow.

  “She hasn’t, though,” pointed out Lady Irving. “So there’s no shame in being confounded by the strange blobs on that paper.”

  Audrina snapped the paper back and folded it in half. “Point taken. I will never draw anything again.”

  “Allow me.” Giles drew it from her hand and flipped it open again. “This gridded paper—it’s interesting. I haven’t seen it used before.”

  “Sophy said she makes it.” Audrina made another grab for the paper, but Giles held it out of her reach. “Giles, give it back. I have been mocked enough for today.”

  “Surely you’ve heard me mock things and people enough for you to know that I’m not mocking you now,” Giles said.

  “Wait, wait.” Richard folded his arms. “Am I supposed to ignore the first names being bandied around this table?”

  “Yes,” muttered Giles. “And yes, I think you could make a wreath out of mistletoe.”

  Now beneath the table, the little dog Penny yapped her approval. A hard nose bumped at Audrina’s feet as Penny sniffed around, probably looking for biscuit crumbs.

  Again, the drawing room door opened, and Lady Dudley ran in—white hair flying, a calico apron askew over her gown. “Where’s my Penny? I need Penny. There’s someone at the door and I need all the dogs.” Catching sight of the little animal, she strode over to the table and scooped Penny up. Jingle. The dog rewarded her with an affectionate lick.

  “Ah—is someone opening the door to whoever has arrived?” Giles asked.

  Lady Irving hesitated. “I’ll check. Lady Dudley, care to come with me?”

  Penny yapped again, a sound of canine delight, which decided the matter. The older women left the room.

  Richard made a V of his index and third fingers, pointed them at his eyes, then pointed them at Giles. “Puzzle box,” he said. “That’s why we’re here.” And then he, too, trailed from the room.

  “There’s more traffic through here than there was at the Goat and Gauntlet.” Giles smoothed out Audrina’s drawing, then slid it back to her and took up the puzzle box. “As though I don’t know this is why we’re here. In this castle, in Yorkshire, in England.”

  “It is why you are here.” The caught-breath feeling in the room had vanished, replaced by heavy reality. There could be nothing between them but teasing an
d a few Christian names, and suddenly she just wanted the whole damned situation to be resolved. Yes, all right; she liked Yorkshire. But she didn’t belong here, and she wasn’t supposed to be here. None of them were. “Do you want me to work on the puzzle box for a while?”

  “Sure, try it out. I’m probably thinking too much about it. You might have better luck since you’re not utterly tired of it.”

  So she was not the only one upon whom time weighed. Did Giles think of arthritis as a ticking clock, his hands the counterweight? Would it one day soon fall, rendering the clock useless? The gears of the human body were delicate and complex. Sometimes they ran smoothly for decades; sometimes they ground and locked far too early.

  Such an analogy. This was what came of spending so much time with a man who wanted to build.

  “Do you want some of this paper? To draw a brooch or a building, or both at once?” she asked lightly.

  “No. There’s no point.” But his gaze lingered on the disproportionate lines she had drawn.

  When Audrina picked up the puzzle box, she marveled again at its slightness. This fragile structure of gilded wood had waited for more than three decades for someone to open it. It could only have waited and survived so long in the hands of someone like Sophy, a little girl when she’d received it. Too young to question the gift, young enough to treasure it. Keeping it, but over time, not really seeing it anymore. Not trying to open it. Just safeguarding it until the right moment—the right people—came.

  A prickle between her shoulder blades made Audrina shiver.

  The wood was smooth as porcelain under her touch; its patterns danced and dizzied the eye. She tapped at the box, holding it up to one ear, but it sounded empty and dry.

  Giles had worked some of the panels from their starting position, and Audrina slid them back, marveling at the intricate catch and grab. The pieces would not budge if pressed in the wrong order.

  She shut her eyes, imagining how it must lock together inside. Not the two pieces of a paper spring, but something far more complex. Dowels? Notches? Tightly joined; each slight movement of a panel working free, bit by bit, from that inner structure.

  When she opened her eyes, the puzzle box seemed to gleam just for her.

  She hardly noticed when the drawing room’s door opened again—but there was no ignoring Lady Irving’s voice. The countess spoke in a hurry, her tone breathless with relish. “Rutherford. Audrina, my girl. You’ve got to come meet this woman who just arrived at the castle. Somehow, she splashed her way here on the most abominable roads, and”—Lady Irving drew a deep breath—“she’s brought another puzzle box with her.”

  Chapter Twelve

  Wherein the Clues Are Doubled

  It was becoming a common occurrence for Lord Dudley to rap at the library door and inform Sophy of a visitor. She could not recall so many arrivals in the past year as there had been in the past week.

  Where Lady Irving, the Rutherfords, and Lady Audrina had been expected, though, this new guest was a surprise. As Sophy gave her arm to her father-in-law—an excuse to let him lean his weight on her as they shuffled along, for he did not like to use a cane—she could hear the ringing of voices over the barking of excited dogs almost as soon as they turned toward the entry hall.

  At the center of the grand space, Lady Irving and Giles Rutherford were arguing about the puzzle box. Lady Dudley was holding up a biscuit, and several dogs were perched on hind legs, panting for the treat. And Richard Rutherford and Lady Audrina were talking to the visitor.

  “Miss Millicent Corning,” murmured Lord Dudley in Sophy’s ear. As they walked close enough for conversation with the new arrival, she was glad for his arm to clutch.

  Millicent Corning stood several inches taller than Sophy, and she appeared a bit younger; perhaps thirty-five years of age. Old enough to take a bold risk with fashion, and young enough that it still looked well on her. Her gown was a lustrous deep red-brown, a watered silk that caught and tilted light, with an elaborately swaddled bodice of filmy gauze over black lace.

  Her features were of unexpected lines: a long nose with a gentle swoop in it; a strong cleft in the chin. Deep-set eyes, dark blue under arched black brows. Hair glossy and dark and tidy as a folded-up raven’s wing, twisted into an elaborate tiara of a braid into which a few clipped green feathers were tucked. Jeweled droplets hung at her ears, and a stark band of hammered gold draped about her neck, over her collarbone.

  She was money and elegance, confidence and excitement. She looked like London and promise and hope, and Sophy had to look away. As Lord Dudley performed the introductions, Sophy studied the worn toes of her kid boots.

  “Sophy is an abbreviation of Sophia, correct? So you are the owner of the puzzle box,” said Miss Corning. Her voice was low and tremulous, as though a laugh wanted to bubble through its surface. “I believe mine is a twin to yours. Or to be more accurate, ours are both triplets to a third.”

  Sophy’s head snapped up at this—and hers was not the only one. Everyone fell silent, so that the only sound echoing through the entrance hall was the panting of Felix the beagle, the soft crunching of Penny’s teeth on a biscuit.

  “There are three puzzle boxes?” Richard Rutherford was the first to snap the surprised silence. “What has made you think so, Miss Corning?”

  “Because the inside of my puzzle box says it is the second of three.”

  More silence, into which Miss Corning lifted her brows. “I see this is unexpected news to you, as was my arrival. Dear me—I did send a letter ahead. Did it not arrive?”

  “We’ve had no letters for days,” said Lady Dudley. She tipped her head, snowy locks drifting over her shoulder. “But we take in strays when needs must. We’ve always room for one more at Castle Parr.” Their dark eyes limpid, eight dogs followed the movement of their mistress’s hand and stared at Millicent Corning, panting.

  “You are so kind, my lady.” The visitor’s smile took in all of them: people, dogs, the cold marble underfoot, the rogue bits of greenery at mantel and doorway. When she looked in Sophy’s direction, a tickle bothered Sophy’s nose.

  Damn. She turned away and sneezed. And sneezed.

  “Sophy hates the dogs,” Lady Dudley informed everyone. “They make her sneeze.”

  “I do dot hade theb.” When Sophy wrested her cranium back under her control, her face was flaming, her eyes streaming. “Welcobe, Miss Cordig. I should like to see this puzzle box that is a twid of mide.”

  “In the library, maybe,” suggested Lady Audrina. “We should all like to see it. Once Miss Corning has been settled.”

  “Of course, of course.” Lord Dudley tottered toward the guest and gave her arm a squeeze. “Lovely to have company. I’m sure I don’t know what happened to your letter, but we’re glad to have you all the same. Are you staying through Christmas?”

  Sophy did not catch the visitor’s reply as her father-in-law waved the butler nearer. With a few instructions, Miss Corning’s belongings, maid, and person were escorted off to the upper reaches of the castle. Lord Dudley followed, making pleasant chatter.

  Without the warmth of a surprise to keep them collected in the entry hall, the others scattered. Lady Dudley called her dogs to heel, then led them away. The Rutherfords, Lady Irving, and Lady Audrina fell into a hurried patter of conversation about the puzzle box—something about notes, and progress. As a quartet, they hurried to the drawing room to get the puzzle box.

  My puzzle box. Sophy shivered within her snuff-brown cotton gown.

  Few possessions mattered to Sophy. Her telescope, for the sake of her mind. Her spectacles, for the sake of her body.

  And her golden puzzle box, for the sake of her heart.

  As a child of five years, she had not known she was plain or awkward. Sophy’s older sister—now living in Ireland with her third husband—was doting, and her sister’s friend Lady Beatrix had been everything kind and beautiful in the world. Had Sophy guessed that the puzzle box was sent to her as Lady Beatri
x’s good-bye, she would not have accepted the gift with such delight.

  But it did delight her, then and through the years. As golden as her own hair . . . wasn’t. As lightly and gracefully made as her body . . . wasn’t. Such judgments of form mattered little to a child, but they mattered a great deal when she grew into a young woman and felt herself awkward, out of step with the polite world in manner and inclination. It was a comfort to remember that once, a beautiful woman had given her a gift for being good enough just as she was.

  She had assumed it was a sculpture. Some sort of objet d’art. As a mathematics-loving child, she had called it “my parallelepiped,” which made her father smile and her mother shake her head in tolerant dismay.

  These past few days, she had shared her telescope. Her parallelepiped, which held secrets she’d never suspected. And she had found that it was frightening yet comforting to share one’s precious belongings and have others treat them with tender care.

  Only her glasses remained to be shared. Perhaps Miss Corning would like to borrow them.

  As she plucked her pince-nez from her nose, her cheeks flamed with heat. Another sneeze overtook her, making her ears ring—and then, shaking her head, she returned to the library to await the first news her puzzle box had yielded in thirty-five years.

  With everyone gathered in the library, Sophy felt like the hostess of a party. The room was rather cramped for eight people—or maybe it was just that all eight people wanted to stand in exactly the same spot to look at the pair of puzzle boxes, now resting on the tabletop of Sophy’s flipped-open secretary desk. Several lamps had been lit against the waning gray afternoon light, casting their glow over the boxes.

  “Why, they aren’t twins at all.” Sophy felt self-conscious as soon as she uttered the words. But where her puzzle box winked and tossed light off its gilded frame, Miss Corning’s puzzle box drank it in. The wooden surface was dark and glossy, its patterns darker still, and the whole of it was smooth as resin. A faint floral scent was noticeable if one bent close; it was built of the rosewood Giles Rutherford said his mother favored.