Deb Marlowe - Cinderella in the Regency Ballroom

Her expression hardened. ‘And that is what all of this has been about, has it not?’ Her slate eyes turned to chill, blue ice as she gestured about them, to the park and the house and the carefree revellers grouped in the distance. ‘Or has it been only that from nearly the very beginning?’

He shook his head.

‘What a lucky coincidence that it was I who you nearly ran down in the street, no?’ she whispered.

‘No. It’s not like that,’ Jack protested.

‘I think it is. You think that I, in turn, will be able to tell you where Matthew is?’ She gave an ugly, bitter laugh. ‘Well I am destined to disappoint you once again, Mr Alden, because you know far more about all of this than I! I knew nothing about any of this. Nothing! I did not even know that Matthew had left his home. And I refuse to believe that he could be mixed up in something so foul as slavery.’

She whirled around and walked away from him and the gate. Before Jack could call out, she let out a sudden gasp and turned back. ‘Does your mother know all of this as well?’

‘No! Of course not,’ he said.

Her shoulders slumped in relief.

‘She knows nothing about it and she won’t unless you choose to tell her. Please, just listen to me,’ Jack asked quietly. ‘You said you were close with your cousin, that you still correspond. All I ask is that you tell me if you hear from him.’

He’d thought her indifference was painful. The contempt that shone from her now cut deep and was nearly unbearable.

He winced and sighed. ‘I can help Matthew. I want to help him. All I need to do is ask him some questions about likely spots where Batiste would hide away. He’s spent a considerable amount of time with the man; he might know something that will enable us to find him.’ He took a step towards her, held out a beseeching hand. ‘My brother has a great deal of influence. He will use it to help your cousin.’

She turned her back on him once more. ‘And if he does not possess the information you want? What will you do then?’

Jack did not even wish to contemplate such a thing. ‘Charles and I will still help him, even if he does not. I swear.’

Her head dropped and she began to pace. Jack watched her graceful form and sent out a silent plea to the heavens. He needed her help. God help him, he was beginning to fear he needed her.

Avoiding his gaze, she passed him and approached the gate. She ran a hand along the elaborately carved stone until she came to the middle. There she ceased her restless motion and gripped the iron railings of the inset door.

‘You don’t know what you are asking!’ She spoke not to Jack, but to the empty park beyond. In the distance people chatted and laughed, but Jack’s world had shrunk alarmingly. Naught mattered save her and him and this gateway to their future.

‘I simply cannot believe my cousin would be mixed up in this. Matthew is a good person. He’s the only person left alive who knows me. Really, truly, deep down inside, he knows me. When we were young he never cared that I preferred a good gallop to gossip, that I would always choose to climb a tree over embroidering a sampler.’ She sent a pleading look over her shoulder. ‘Even now, when he writes, he doesn’t ask me the same inane, irrelevant questions that the rest of the world seems to focus on. He asks me about the crops, and my tenants, and whether I’ve convinced my mother that attendance at a local assembly will not taint my soul.’ She turned to face him again and he saw that her gaze had grown distant and unfocused. ‘He even occasionally remembers to ask if I’ve seen two blackbirds sitting together on a fence post.’

‘Blackbirds?’ Jack began to feel as if they were carrying on two separate conversations.

‘Blackbirds,’ she answered firmly. ‘You see—he understands me and all my foibles and still he cares for me. That is the person you think could stoop so low, the one you are asking me to betray.’

‘It would not be a betrayal. You can trust me, Lily.’

‘Trust you?’ Her voice fairly dripped scorn. ‘I do not even know you, Jack Alden.’

‘Don’t be absurd. You know me well enough to trust my word.’

‘Not I! In fact, I question whether anyone in your life can claim to truly know you. I thought you hid behind your books, but today I begin to wonder if perhaps it is only in your intellectual pursuits that you are open and accessible. At all other times you’ve shown yourself to be distant and cold—closed behind walls that you only think are protecting you.’ She crossed her arms in front of her. ‘I cannot know you or trust you, Mr Alden, until you learn to know and trust yourself.’

With her every word Jack could feel the intelligent, rational man he knew himself to be fading away. She was an innocent, naïve little fool, but he felt wild, frenzied, like a child on the verge of a temper tantrum. She did this to him. Every time he got near her she shone a light on his every flaw, magnified his every emotion until he thought he would go mad with it.

He thought of Batiste, a malevolent threat hovering over Trey and Chione and their family—in just the same way his father had hovered contemptuously, dangerously in the background for most of his life—and he knew he would indeed go mad if Lily Beecham did not co-operate.

‘You don’t know as much as you think you do, Lily. Of a certainty you don’t know what you are asking of me. But perhaps you are right,’ he said, moving closer, his heart pounding, his blood surging. ‘There are also many things that I do not know—including why you feel such antagonism towards me.’

‘I … I don’t,’ she whispered, suddenly flustered.

‘You do.’ He was glad to see her unbalanced. It was only fair. She stirred him up until he felt as if he must prove his manhood or die trying. He approached her stealthily, a hunter prowling forwards with soft, light steps. And she, she was his prey. ‘You lecture me, but I think you must follow your own advice. Everything I see and hear of you tells me that you are a warm person, giving to others. But you will not consider my request—even though it might benefit your cousin and will help save a family from a dangerous and unscrupulous man. And why not? Because the request comes from me?’

‘No.’ Her freckles disappeared again in the flush that rose from beneath her gown.

‘It’s true.’ He advanced further, trapping her between him and the iron bars of the gate. ‘Look deep, as you’ve asked me to do. You are allowing your dislike of me to influence your judgement.’

Her breathing quickened. He could see the flutter of her pulse in her throat, the quick casting about of her gaze as she searched for an escape. ‘I don’t dislike you.’

Discipline had gone. Reason and judgement had disappeared. The other, darker side of Jack’s soul ruled now. It roared to life inside of him, loosing a great whirl of longing and want and more than a bit of anger too. The small bit of sanity he had left knew that anger had no place in this, and urged control. But it was too late for restraint. He held Lily’s gaze prisoner with his own and asked the question to which he must have the answer. ‘Then what do you feel, Lily, when you look at me?’

‘I …’

‘Honesty, remember? Tell me the truth.’ Their lips were but a whisper apart.

She shook her head, looked away, breaking the hypnotic link between them. ‘Not dislike,’ she said to the ground.

He knew that she meant to hide the desire in her eyes—the same desire that flowed molten through him even now. Did it burn like fire through her veins—as it did his? He reached out to trace a fiery path, drawing a fingertip over her collarbone, along the smooth and shimmering nape of her neck. He lifted her chin and forced her to confront him, herself and the truth.