by Abigail Agar
“I don’t understand,” Nathaniel said, turning his eyes back towards Irene.
“It’s not so difficult to understand,” Irene said, scoffing. She muttered, mostly to herself, “Perhaps he really doesn’t have the intellect to run for office, in the end …”
“Shhh.” Bess rolled her eyes and returned to her seat. This time, she didn’t remove her eyes from Nathaniel’s. “Really, Irene, that’s unkind. I told you, I know Lord Linfield to have the bones of a brilliant campaign.”
“The bones?” Nathaniel demanded.
“What was it you said in your letter, Lord Linfield?” Bess asked. “You said you wanted to discuss my writing talents. You said you wanted to pick my brain. Is that correct?”
“I mean, that was before …” Nathaniel began.
“Before what?” Bess asked, her grin widening. “I can’t imagine anything is different, now that you know I’m a woman. I’m still the hand and the brain behind those essays, Nathaniel.”
Nathaniel was no longer hungry. He shoved his plate away, sipping the last dregs of his first glass of wine. Within moments, another maid appeared and poured another helping. She kept her eyes downturned. In these moments, Nathaniel felt strange and far away from his own mind. For whatever reason, in these moments, he was able to shove off the ordinary fear he had when in front of a crowd—the very fear that so often caused him to flub his speeches. When he spoke, he was more articulate than he’d been in months.
“Here’s the thing, Bess,” he began. “I grew up watching my father’s political career. I admired everything that he was: from his speechmaking to his balanced decision-making, to his ability to read a room before speaking, to his essay writing. He was remarkable in every sense of the word. And I know, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that I do not have the skills he once had. However, I also know that I carry within myself a deep, moral belief in people. I want my life to involve helping those people to a higher, better society. And in order to do that, I have to jump through the meaningless hoops of speechwriting, of shaking hands with the right people, of putting myself at the mercy of journalists like you.”
Nathaniel paused, sensing a fire at the base of his tongue. “In this case, if you wish to ruin my career, so be it. But know that you’ll be dismissing a man who wants to fight for his countrymen. And that would be a tragedy, in and of itself.”
Chapter 7
Bess felt her lips press tightly together, listening to Lord Linfield’s explanation. As he spoke, he was truly a far different man than the one she’d seen in front of the crowd just the day before. That man had fumbled with his papers, sweated through the back of his shirt and then ambled from the stage, anxious and foggy-brained. This Lord Linfield, seated at the head of his table, spoke to her like the kind of man she’d want at Parliament.
Of course, his good looks were never far from her mind, when regarding him. He was clearly irritated, if not full-on angry, and his thick eyebrows had taken up residency just above his eyes—creating a perpetual frown. She forced herself to breathe, feeling strangely faint in his presence. She was grateful that she’d been so articulate, previously, as she hadn’t fully known how she might react when she arrived at his dinner table and was forced to reckon with the fact of her “lies.”
Lord Linfield and Lady Bess gazed at one another in the silence that followed. Bess could feel Irene’s eyes skate between them analysing the intensity before returning to her turkey below. It had been a long time since anyone had captivated Bess in this manner. His words still rang through the air, almost echoing through her ears. “Know you’ll be dismissing a man who wants to fight for his countrymen …”
Bess crossed her arms over her chest, lifting her chin. She clucked her tongue, then said, in a matter-of-fact voice, “Why, Lord Linfield. That’s more like it.”
Lord Linfield looked perplexed. He reached for his glass of wine and sipped it, keeping his eyes upon her. “What in the world do you mean?”
“I mean, that speech you just gave me. You’re angry, and I understand that. But if only you could bottle that emotion, that volatility, and put it out for the people to see,” Bess continued.
Nathaniel’s nostrils flared. “You can’t possibly understand what it’s like in front of that crowd,” he said.
“Sure. I know that. Speechmaking isn’t for the faint of heart,” Bess said. “But when you spoke, just now, you sounded much like the kind of man those people would listen to. I haven’t heard you sound like that since this all began, you know. So fiery. So filled with adrenaline …”
“So you’re asking me to bottle my anger for you, Miss L.B.,” Nathaniel said, sounding scornful. “And use it with the people?”
Bess shrugged, chuckling to herself. How strange it was to have such power over this man! He seemed to be truly listening to her. She hadn’t been listened to in years. Even Conner and her father had had only a passing interest in what she had to say. She paused, digging her teeth into her bottom lip.
“Now who’s at a loss for words?” Nathaniel said, sounding both accusatory and playful.
Irene chortled beside her, drawing the back of her hand across her lips. Bess cast a rueful glance at Irene, one that she hoped would translate her feelings of strangeness. What in the world was going on?
“It’s not that, Nathaniel,” Bess said, rebounding evenly. “Never at a loss. If you give me a pad of paper right now, I could scribe to you a story of this exact moment. A story with a beginning, and a middle, and an end that we will soon provide.”
“So pompous, thinking that this will have a proper end. I could truly send you to the door right now before you finish your dinner,” Nathaniel said, again teasing her.
“You absolutely could. But wouldn’t that be a remarkable ending to the piece? In my mind, a better insult would be to drag on and on about one boring story or the next. I’d have to make up an ending, and fiction never seems to be as strange or as good as the truth. Don’t you find that, Lord Linfield?”
Lord Linfield looked completely stumped by the likes of Lady Elizabeth Byrd. He leaned back in his chair, his eyebrows high and his palms splayed across the white tablecloth. Irene, again, clacked her fork against the side of her plate, digging through her yams. It seemed that she’d lost all concentration where the conversation was concerned. After long days at The Rising Sun, Bess knew Irene was apt to fall into a kind of trance. One that necessitated food, only.
“So, we find ourselves in a bit of a conundrum, I would say, Lady Elizabeth,” Lord Linfield said.
“Why is that?” Bess asked. Her heart had begun to flutter in her throat. Why was he looking at her in such a manner? He seemed to look at her like she was the first creature he’d ever seen in his life.
“Because I wanted to bring you here this evening to pick your brain, to see if I might learn something from you in order to deliver better speeches,” Lord Linfield continued. “But it seems that we might not be able to get along.”
Bess felt her mouth itch with a coming grin. But she shoved it away, lifting her chin. “You know, asking me to do such a thing might taint my position as L.B. And, you must know, becoming L.B. has been an aspiration of mine for several years. Much as it has been yours to follow in your father’s footsteps.”
“You know that any and all help you might give me I would pay for,” Lord Linfield told her. “And the payment for your writing talents would be handsome. I can assure you of that.”
Bess drew her fingers through the curls that had flourished from her up-do. She felt that she was standing in the sun, so beautiful was this conundrum. Someone else—beyond The Rising Sun—wanted to pay her for her writing work.
“I will have to think about it,” Bess told him evenly, drawing her eyes back towards Irene. She remained unhearing, smearing her fork across the last bits of her yams. “For as you know, my allegiance remains with The Rising Sun. And those essays have been astronomically popular. You must understand that your failing ties up with my well-being.”
“Ha. Yes, I tell you, my failing might correspond with the lack of homes, of food, of happiness of thousands and thousands,” Lord Linfield told her, leaning closer.
Bess stared at him, feeling awash with passion. Perhaps her brain was simply sloshing from the few sips of wine she’d had. But she found herself murmuring, “Lord Linfield, I will take these words to heart. And I tell you, I will think long and hard before I make my decision. You have been heard.”
“I understand. Please, write me when you’ve come to your conclusion,” Lord Linfield said, still staring at her.
For whatever reason, for Bess, looking into his eyes was akin to looking into a fire. Her stomach stirred with warmth. Within seconds, she turned her eyes away from him, pushing away another wave of emotion. It didn’t belong to such an occasion. It was far too intense.
Bess decided not to finish her dinner. The air was taut with tension, and she felt unable to breathe through the rest of it. She excused herself, and Irene—who hesitated, her eyes filled with thoughts of dessert—and allowed Lord Linfield to escort them to the door. One of the maids scurried up with their coats, which they slipped over their shoulders. A carriage boy had escaped to grab their carriage. Lord Linfield bid them both adieu, saying—in words that seemed rather genuine—that it had been incredibly pleasant and enlightening to meet them.
“I have to say, the night turned in a way I didn’t expect,” he said, his eyes still lingering on Bess. “But I pray it’s the beginning of something great, for both of us.”
His words echoed around Bess's mind as she and Irene sat in the back of the carriage, drawing closer to their home. Irene chuckled, placing her hand atop her food-filled belly bulge, which looked strange on her normally flimsy, tall frame. Bess realised she had hardly eaten a single morsel, yet didn’t care. Her stomach felt far away from her. Her thoughts swirled.
“What are you going to do, then?” Irene asked her, her smile stretching wide.
“I’m not terribly sure,” Bess sighed. “That money would be quite handsome, wouldn’t it?”
Irene stifled a yawn. “Absolutely. Although, as you said, it might taint your pen name …”
“It’s not as though I would be making the speeches for him,” Bess said. “Just giving him tips. Perhaps writing bits and pieces here and there. In the end, the politics would be his own. And my opinions on those politics wouldn’t shift, despite my involvement.”
Irene nodded, her face growing solemn. Outside, they clacked alongside another carriage, in which a married coupled bickered too loudly. “You know what you’re meant to do, Rita, and you overstepped your station …”
“How terribly boring to be married,” Irene said, her eyes glittering.
“And what of poor Lord Charles?” Bess asked. “Don’t you think that’s what will happen at the end of all this? The dances. The courting. The flowers.”
“Don’t be foolish, Bess.” Irene sighed. “Lord Charles wants a young girl without a career. A girl willing to close down everything to stand by his side as a wife and a mother. And I’m simply not willing to do that.”
Her eyes grew shadowed and sad. She turned back to the front, giving Bess a view of only her profile—the curve of her nose, the way she bit her lip when she was anxious. Anxious like now.
“You know, you’ll always have me. Me and that paper,” Bess told her, her voice low.
“Just never give up on yourself,” Irene told her. “Even if you take the money. Remember that you’ve built up your life, after devastation. And no one can take that away from you unless you let them.”
Bess took these words to heart, turning them over in her still-empty stomach as they arrived home. Once there, she followed Irene to the door, where she watched her unlatch it and creak it open. Once inside, Irene lit a match to a candle and hobbled towards her bedroom, delivering a sad, “Good night.”
“Thank you for coming with me, Irene,” Bess told her, calling down the hallway. “Thank you for always sticking by my side.”
For in essence, Irene had been there since the beginning of the end—when Lady Elizabeth Byrd had been just a debutante, a stunning, young and brash woman, willing and able to fall in love and open her arms wide to whatever that love would entail for her. Irene had been similar, Bess supposed, but always with The Rising Sun in mind, and thus less apt to fall head over heels.
Bess leaned heavily against the edge of her bed, looking out the splotchy window. London seemed a perpetual drizzle, a near-constant percussive beat dribbling against the pane. She held her arms across her chest, trying to remember what it had been like to be wrapped in a man’s arms. Conner had only been her fiancé, of course, and thus they hadn’t had time alone. But during those moments when they’d been allowed to twirl across the dance floor—she’d been wrapped in the image of decades and decades of his arms around her.
The decades they would never live together, now that he was dead.
“Remember that you built up your life, after devastation,” Irene had told her, reminding her of something Bess could never possibly forget. The whispers had swirled around her months before the wedding, wondering if Bess had any inkling of what her father and her fiancé were truly up to. “She must be an idiot,” someone had muttered once, as Bess had marched past. But back then—when she’d been a young, lovely thing, her head had been clogged with thoughts of matrimony, of children.
She resolved never to fall into such a trap again.
Indeed, she had built up her life at The Rising Sun paper. She’d become a powerful pen-holding warrior, one of strong opinion and incredible bravado. She wouldn’t necessarily give it up, if she began working for the likes of Lord Linfield.
In fact, she argued to herself, working for Lord Linfield would give her even more power, as she would be making money. Her own money. It was a thought that thrilled her, after her wayward fall from fortune.
Back before her father had latched onto Connor, and their scheme had ruined them, Lady Elizabeth Byrd had been a member of high society, unquestioned. She sighed, remembering the grandeur. The sheets beneath her in bed had been of the finest silks. The china had been reminiscent of that which they’d dined upon at Lord Linfield’s: nearly priceless in value. All the food, the wine, the balls, and the ball gowns themselves had been miraculously beautiful, “the best that money can buy,” as her father had frequently said. But after he’d run off, leaving her to reckon for the sins of her now-deceased fiancé and himself, he’d left her with nothing.
Now, the sheets beneath her were cotton. The shoes on her feet were scuffed and ageing. She had little money for a shoeshine, something that felt near-insanity, given that back in the old days she hardly wore the same pair twice.
When Irene had learned about her father and Connor’s affairs, she’d appeared at the steps of Bess's father’s mansion, her hands clenched into fists and her cheeks red and blotchy. Initially, Bess had stammered to the maid that she wanted no guests. “Please, send her away,” she’d said, tears dripping down her cheeks. “I can’t possibly handle anyone right now.” In Bess's eyes, nobody could possibly understand. Especially not Irene, who’d been by Bess’s side throughout the first Season.
But Irene had stormed into the mansion, her eyes fiery. She’d smashed her fist against Bess's bedroom door, blaring out, “If you let this destroy you—if you let these idiot, horrible, evil men destroy you—then they win. Even in death, Connor will beat you. Even in his abandoning you, your father will win. Don’t let them.”
The words had echoed in Bess's mind. She’d reached towards the doorknob, swinging the door open between them. Irene had walked through the rain. She looked nearly worse for wear than Bess herself. Immediately, Irene flung herself towards Bess, wrapping her into the kind of hug only sisters could possibly share.
Bess had broken down in that moment. She’d stammered, “I can’t believe he did this to me!” not fully knowing which man she was speaking of.