Pam Rosenthal - The Slightest Provocation

But now… “I don’t know. If he’s still stopping at Rowen, perhaps I’d better remain at home. Even if it becomes awkward while they’re divorcing, I could nod good morning at church, and give him a little smile to show him that I, at least, don’t bear him any ill will for wanting to remove himself from his marriage. A modest, subtle smile of… admiration. Good cheer. And… encouragement, I was rather thinking.”

Her cousin’s eyes had grown very wide, their clear hazel lit by sudden disapproving surprise.

But I don’t care, Elizabeth told herself. She may think she understands a great deal, and I suppose in some ways she does. But it’s different when one is in love. One becomes more mature, more… womanly, I expect.

“I’ve begun to wonder,” she continued, “whether I should come out next year after all. I might just remain at home while they get this divorce over with. Perhaps he’ll continue helping his brother-apoplexy is awfully difficult to recover from, isn’t it? And if I wait another year… well, in any case, I needn’t hurry as I’d planned to, to be out.”

Fannie had never seriously considered how one went about marrying a gentleman who’d been divorced-or even if you legally could, in case of a divorced uncle. The situation was so rare, the laws governing property and consanguinity so much more difficult and correspondingly less logical than the laws of statistics. Of course, the complexities of the thing could be understood; from time to time she’d thought it might also have been interesting to become a barrister or a parliamentarian. She’d puzzle out the law in her papa’s library, when next she had a moment free.

But none of that was really the point.

Not, at that moment, that she was exactly sure of what the point was. Something about envy-of a girl who’d recently become so beautiful as to think that anything was possible (if you could call it thinking -well, then to believe it, which was all the worse). Suddenly, Fannie felt an awful pang-of loss to herself and bitterness toward Elizabeth. Suddenly, she found herself wanting a passionate devotion as well, while just yesterday she’d thought such things were only consolations-for the plain, like Philamela, or the odd and quaint, like the Penleys.

Was she simply envious of how Elizabeth looked these days? Not just the physicality, but the power, the magic of it. When a girl looked like Elizabeth, she might be able to set her own rules-of conduct, and who knew what else?

Or perhaps… but no, she couldn’t credit it, for he was a younger son and-well, one had heard the speculations about his mother. Still… after all, he had (had he not?) expressly mentioned that he’d be seeing their charming guest as well. Yes, she was sure of it-Lord Christopher had said that Fannie was charming and hadn’t said a thing about Elizabeth. And one could even make the case that it was at that moment that his lips had curved so provocatively and his eyes had-could one say they’d flashed? Well, if eyes of such a moody, fascinating hue could flash, his had. The color made one feel-well, the first word that came to mind was womanly. But she rejected it-her mama was womanly; everybody’s mama was womanly. Womanly wasn’t what she wanted.

The truth was that Fannie didn’t know if English had a word for what she wanted. Not proper English anyway, and not the French they’d parroted at the Misses Duxbury’s either. It was all a bit disorienting.

But even with her mind on a tear and her emotions on a wild, unaccustomed ramble, Fannie’s hands had remained firm and quiet. The horse trotted through the gate and up to the house; she climbed down and handed the reins to the groom waiting to take them from her-while a certain flare of light seemed to make her very dizzy.

The sun might be poking its head out from a cloud; Miss Kimball might be making her nasty little dormouselike sounds of waking; Fred and Lord Ayres might be strolling by-she might have heard them say something about the wondrous fireworks display they were planning for Midsummer Night.

Elizabeth might be staring at her in some confusion.

Fannie wasn’t sure of any of this. Nor did any of it matter, except, of course, for her astonishing latest thoughts.

“Fannie?” Elizabeth asked.

“Miss Grandin?” Lord Ayres had his hat in his hand.

“Cuz?” Fred reached out his hand to assist her. She shook him off.

Smiling vaguely at the company, she heard herself apologizing, protesting a certain sudden exhaustion. “From the heat,” she added faintly, “the oppressive humidity.”

She must go, she told them. She needed rest and solitude-perhaps it would comfort her to take a look at the pictures in the album she’d borrowed (yes, thanks, Miss Kimball, I can manage it). Grasping the large book in both hands, she hurried down the gravel path to the house, leaving them all quite bewildered, she expected, for she’d never been known to be ill or even faint for a moment in her life.

Nor was she now, except for wanting the rosemary water rinsed through her hair.

And-on sober reconsideration-there certainly wasn’t enough of it to share with Elizabeth. Nor was there room in the little alcove off the bedchamber where Fannie was staying for two girls to get their hair washed and their heads cooled. Which was just as well, because Fannie needed all the space she could get, to think through the remarkable thing that had just happened to her-and to see if she could figure out how those confusing footpaths at Rowen really connected one to the other.

“We should have done the reading first.” Mary adjusted the gold wire of her spectacles down over the bridge of her nose.

“Indeed we should’ve,” Kit agreed. “I’ve never made love to a lady in spectacles, and I’m findin’ it deuced difficult, Lady Christopher, to restrain myself…”

Allowing herself a final giggle or two, she picked up the portfolio of spy correspondence from the bedside table.

“… from grabbing the papers out of your hand and ravishing you in your current fetching state.

“Ravishing you once again,” he added.

“I need to concentrate,” she told him. “Go stir the fire. Oh, and after we finish, I’ve a document to show you as well.”

She drew the quilt up over her naked breasts. He watched until they were quite hidden, then shrugged his shoulders and slid out of bed. Just as well to turn his thoughts away from her and whatever she’d make of the papers she was reading-not to speak of whatever document she’d mentioned. Anyway, the room could do with a bit more heat. For even on a warm day like this one, the cottage tended toward dankness, situated as it was in so overgrown a part of the forest.

But the fire could wait until he dealt with the room’s rather distressing state of disarray. Though he couldn’t suppress a small, rueful smile at the mess they’d made, hurling themselves at one another, tugging and peeling at their clothing in a frenzy not to waste precious time.

He’d learned to tidy up after himself a bit while living in primitive conditions in Spain. Not that he liked doing it; he doubted that anybody liked doing it. And Mary, it was clear, had never for a moment considered applying herself to the matter of physical order. But now that he’d managed to assemble the rest of what he’d been wearing, where the bloody hell was his other stocking?