Pam Rosenthal - The Slightest Provocation

“I didn’t say there aren’t a lot of angry workingmen.”

“Then what are you trying to say?”

“I’m not sure. I’d rather want to ask Richard’s opinion on the matter.”

Well, she hadn’t turned to stone, and she’d said what she’d needed to. She congratulated herself that she’d stayed calm. And would continue so, even if she did feel herself a bit fearful of the way his hands had clenched and his jaw trembled. But although she’d slapped him once or twice over the years, he’d never struck her and she knew he never would.

“I don’t want you to tell Morrice about this,” he said quietly.

“Of course I shan’t. I wasn’t proposing to do so. I think you should tell him. Find out what he thinks. Listen, Kit. He’s the only person you or I know who can shed some light on this business of the London Committees. And he’s nearby, in Wakefield, staying with his aunts.”

“How do you know he’s not in favor of this insurrection?”

“Because he believes in reform, which is quite a different thing. Yes, he has a few romantic fancies. But you haven’t seen him in a decade. He lives a comfortable life with a good wine cellar. He…”

“No. Absolutely not. I’m charged with obeying orders. I shouldn’t have told you any of this.”

It was a very solidly built cottage (as one would expect, it being constructed according to the designs of the great Capability Brown). And so nothing broke or shattered or was even knocked from its place, when he quit the room and gave the door a great thundering slam behind him.

Nothing to do, she thought, but take the path home to Beechwood Knolls.

Odd, how calm she felt, to be parting like this. Or maybe it wasn’t odd at all; maybe it made perfect sense. After all, they weren’t parting. Well, that was her problem, wasn’t it, to keep forgetting that they were already parted-separated and soon to be more than that; this just-ended interlude merely a long final farewell, an indulgence, a very long kiss good-bye.

Nothing had changed between them. The letter brought along with her could be sent without her having to show it to him.

If it weren’t that she were also right, dammit. There was something singular about the elusive Mr. Oliver, about the whole unfolding situation. Surely, when he thought more soberly on it-tomorrow, perhaps…

Not a chance. Tomorrow he’d be just as unwilling to talk to Richard as he was today. A pity that the only person they knew who might be able to explicate the situation was the person Kit would be least able to face.

It wasn’t her concern any longer. She’d done what she could to help him. She was tired of the whole affair. And certainly of plots and informers.

Listen to the birds, she told herself. Fill your head with the rustle of trees. Or with someone else’s words-stray phrases from a play she loved, about lovers and madmen, their “seething brains… shaping fantasies that apprehend more than cool reason ever comprehends.”

A comfort to take distraction from such wit and beauty in words.

Or so it might have been, if she hadn’t just now caught sight of Lord Ayres waving delightedly at her as she made her way over the stile.

Had he really chosen this most inopportune of moments for a poetic tête-à-tête?

Worse, it seemed. He’d chosen exactly this moment, on this oppressive afternoon, to protest that he adored her, that he’d never met such a woman as she, that she was driving him mad with passionate desire.

But, but… this is so unexpected, sir. Her voice was faint, though he wouldn’t notice that. The words were right, anyway; so unexpected was just the sort of flirtatious, encouraging banality he would have been hoping for.

Ah yes, he burbled, precisely so-he couldn’t have said it better himself; how unexpected, how astonishing and delightful. How magical in a word, wouldn’t she agree-that notwithstanding the disparities in their ages (she couldn’t help noting that his passion was not so great as to ignore this disparity) their spirits had come together as from a higher etc., etc., etc. (but she always lost track of a man’s words when his spirit entered into the proceedings).

“And to learn, my dearest, beautiful Mary, that you can feel it too…” (If she remained so distressingly tongue-tied, she thought, she might simply have to slap him.) He seemed to have grasped both her hands during that last effusively delivered phrase of his as he began pouring out his longings and sufferings of the past few days, when his extraordinary respect for her had caused him to refrain (thank heaven for small favors anyway) from following her into the forest.

But certainly (he cleared his throat here), she wouldn’t take it amiss if he were to visit her late tonight.

Which, she realized-upon blessedly solitary reconsideration later in her bedchamber-would have been the perfect moment for her to slap him in a fit of outraged propriety.

Instead of continuing to blink in stunned disbelief at this poor sprig with his violet eyes, hyacinthine curls, and dreadful ear for language.

If she had her wits about her, she would have realized that a slap was exactly what he wanted. At least in lieu of the kiss he wasn’t going to get, a slap would have been rather a mark of honor for this ardent ninny of a would-be lover, all grasping hands and raging amourpropre. But she hadn’t had her wits about her, and so she’d done something infinitely worse.

She’d laughed at him.

Well, not merely at him, though of course he wouldn’t be able to see that. She’d laughed at him and herself and even at Kit, in all their tragically vulnerable pride and absurd comic egoism. She’d laughed helplessly and rather hysterically, her eyes first brimming and then overflowing with tears, nose and cheeks growing red and raw as she wrested her hands from his to cast about for the handkerchief that, needless to say, was nowhere to be found. Things tended to get so moist between her and Kit-her handkerchief was doubtless somewhere among the tumbled bed linen at the cottage.

She’d laughed so long and hard that poor Lord Ayres must have wondered if he’d driven her to a lunatic, apoplectic, or even an epileptic fit. But as she got hold of herself, sighing and dabbing at her eyes with the handkerchief he’d finally thought to lend her, she could see his growing assurance that she was perfectly and regrettably all right. Though considerably less attractive, with her red eyes and roughened, tearstained cheeks, than he’d imagined she might be in a state of heightened emotion-the disparity between their ages was considerably harder to ignore than he’d previously supposed.

And so he’d scowled, turned away, swung into his saddle, and spurred his horse toward Beechwood Knolls-no chance, she thought, of an offer today, to lead her homeward on horseback.

He’d appeared quite calm at dinner, however, and paid Elizabeth such modest and agreeable compliments that the girl couldn’t help but respond-rather to Mary’s surprise. But all in all it was an unusually quiet meal, except for Fred’s chatter about the fireworks he’d bought. Even Fannie Grandin seemed lacking in vivacity and oddly drained and abstracted, causing Mary to wonder if she too were suffering from the disagreeable effects of the day’s humidity.

It was settled, then; their forest trysts were over. It had been fun, Kit told himself, or even more than fun. His eyes softened here, perhaps at some memory, caught in his mind like a silvery fish in a net. But he had his duties to uphold-to nation, family, public order, and the man he’d been struggling to become.