Sherry Thomas - His At Night

She smiled at him. Why not? What else was there for her to do?

“Have I told you the Edgertons’ motto?” he asked, after a beat of silence.

“I do not believe so.”

“Pedicabo ego vos et irrumabo.”

On her other side, Lord Frederick coughed, a hacking fit of it, as if he’d choked on his food.

Without a care in the world, Lord Vere rose, strolled to his brother, and struck him a few times between his shoulder blades. Lord Frederick, red-faced, muttered a word of thanks. Lord Vere ambled back to his own seat.

“‘We too have scattered arrows.’ Isn’t that what the Edgertons’ motto means, Freddie?”

“I—I believe so.”

Lord Vere scratched himself in his armpit and nodded in satisfaction. “Well, there you go, Miss Edgerton. I’ve told you everything I know about the Edgertons.”

She was glad of the numbness his genealogical treatise had produced in her. She couldn’t think. Therefore she couldn’t quite feel the horror of knowing she’d made the worst mistake in her life.

But the marquess was not yet through with her. “It has just occurred to me, Miss Edgerton: Is it not somewhat inappropriate for you to be hosting so many of us gentlemen by yourself?”

“Inappropriate? With Lady Kingsley in attendance every step of the way?” She beamed at him, even as she sawed energetically at the venison on her plate. “Of course not, my lord. Besides, my aunt is also in residence.”

“She is? I’m sorry. I must have forgotten meeting her already.”

“It’s quite all right, sir. You haven’t met her. Her health is frail and she is not strong enough to receive callers.”

“That’s right. That’s right. So it’s just you and your widowed aunt in this great big house.”

“My aunt is not widowed, sir. My uncle is very much alive.”

“He is? I apologize for my mistake. Is his health frail too?”

“No, he is away.”

“I see. Do you miss him?”

“Of course,” she said. “He’s the heart and soul of this family.”

Lord Vere sighed. “I aspire to that. One day I should also like my niece to say that I’m the heart and soul of my family.”

It was the moment Elissande was forced to conclude that Lord Vere was not only an idiot, but an idiot of staggering proportions.

“I’m sure she would.” She mustered a reassuring smile. “I’m sure you will be a wonderful uncle, if you aren’t one already.”

He batted his eyelashes at her. “My dear Miss Edgerton, you smile so divinely.”

Her smiles were her armor. They were a necessity. But of course, a man like him wouldn’t know the difference.

So she let him have another one. “Thank you, my lord. You are so very kind and I’m so very glad you are here.”

* * *

Lord Vere at last turned to talk to Miss Melbourne on his other side. Elissande took a sip of water to calm herself. Her head was still numb, but the sinking sensation in her stomach was already quite horrible.

“I’ve been studying your very intriguing painting, Miss Edgerton,” said Lord Frederick, who’d been quiet most of the evening. “But I can’t seem to quite identify the artist. Would you happen to know?”

Elissande regarded him warily. Idiocy was something that ran in the family, wasn’t it? But he’d asked a reasonable question and, as much as she wanted to crawl under a blanket and douse herself in laudanum, she could not leave him without an answer.

“I’m afraid I’ve never inquired into it.” The paintings—there were three on the same theme—had always been there. And she’d always done her best to ignore them. “What’s your guess?”

“My guess would be someone from the Symbolist School.”

“What is the Symbolist School, if you don’t mind my asking?”

Because the Symbolist School could not be explained in isolation—it was related to but distinct from the Decadent Movement, which arose in reaction against Romanticism’s unquestioning embrace of nature—Elissande soon became aware that Lord Frederick was very well versed in art, especially art of their time.

After three courses of Lord Vere’s escalating inanities, it was a relief and a pleasure to encounter conversation that was intelligent and to the point. When she’d had something of a preliminary grounding in the ideas and motifs of the Symbolist School, she asked Lord Frederick, “What do you think, then, of the symbols in the painting?”

Lord Frederick set down his utensils. “Does the painting have a name?”

“It’s called The Betrayal of the Angel.”

“That’s interesting,” said Lord Frederick, leaning back in his chair to better study the canvas. “I thought at first that the angel was the Angel of Death. But it is the Angel of Death’s express role to take a man’s life. So it doesn’t accord with a theme of betrayal.”

“Do you think the man struck a bargain with the Angel of Death, perhaps, and then the angel reneged?”

“That’s an interesting idea. Or perhaps he had no idea what kind of angel she was. Perhaps he thought her the gentle, harp-plucking kind.”

Elissande considered it a moment. “Wouldn’t such an angel have white wings and a white robe?”

“Yes, she would, wouldn’t she?” Lord Frederick spread his thumb and his index finger along his chin. “Perhaps she transforms? If I were to paint this theme, I might show her mid-transformation, her white wings and robe turning black as she flies away from him.”

If he were to paint this theme. “Are you an artist yourself, sir?”

Lord Frederick picked up his fork and knife and bent his face toward his plate, seemingly shy about discussing his artistic inclinations. “I do enjoy painting, but I’m not sure I’d go so far as to call myself an artist. I’ve never exhibited.”

She liked him, Elissande realized. He had not been blessed with his brother’s Olympian looks, but he was pleasing in both his features and his demeanor—not to mention he was an intellectual giant next to Lord Vere.

“Was Shakespeare any less a poet before he published his first volume?”

Lord Frederick smiled. “You are too kind, Miss Edgerton.”

“Do you paint portraits or classical themes or perhaps biblical stories?”

“I have done a portrait or two. But what I like best is painting people when they are outside. Taking walks, picnicking, or just daydreaming.” He sounded embarrassed. “Very simple things.”

“That sounds lovely,” she said sincerely. So much of her life had been spent trapped inside this house that the simple activities Lord Frederick took for granted were infinitely appealing to her. “I would be privileged to see your work someday.”

“Well”—his already sun-ruddied complexion acquired an even deeper color—“perhaps if you ever came to London.”

His blush further endeared him to her. Suddenly she realized something else: Lord Frederick would do well as a husband for her.

He was not a marquess himself, but he was the son of one and the brother of one and that was almost as good, with the influence of his family and all their connections behind him.

Furthermore, she could trust him to understand a delicate situation. Should her uncle come calling, Lord Vere would no doubt nod and agree that of course Mrs. Douglas longed to return to her own home and, well, here she was, and could he help hand her into the carriage? Lord Frederick, a far more discerning man, would sense her uncle’s malice and help Elissande secure Aunt Rachel’s future well-being.

“Oh, I shall try,” she said. “I most certainly shall try.”

It wasn’t a country house party until Vere had mistaken someone else’s room for his own. He had plenty of choices. Miss Melbourne would scream loudest, Miss Beauchamp laugh hardest, and Conrad grumble most forcefully.

So of course he chose Miss Edgerton’s room.

He had been inside her room already: When the ladies had departed for the drawing room after dinner, he’d left the other gentlemen on the pretense of having to retrieve his special Colombian cigar from his room.

He had taken the opportunity to map the rooms and their occupants. But what he had really needed was a moment alone, which he’d spent in the empty passage, his back against his own door, his hand over his face.

He had lost nothing: How could he lose something that had never existed in the first place? And yet he had lost everything. He could no longer think of his constant companion as she had always been—warm, supportive, and understanding. Now he saw only Miss Edgerton’s predatory prettiness, the flattery that gleamed in her eyes as the sun gleamed on a crocodile’s teeth.

Now he at last understood why young boys sometimes threw rocks at pretty girls. It was this wordless fury, this pain of shattered hopes.

He was here to throw rocks at Miss Edgerton.

She was seated before her vanity table, her profile to him, combing her hair slowly, absently. As she raised her arm to reach the top of her head, the loose, short sleeves of her nightdress slid down to expose her upper arm and—for one heart-stopping fraction of a second—the curve of the side of her breast.

“Miss Edgerton, what are you doing in my room?” he called from the door he had silently opened.

She looked up, gasped, and leaped out of her chair. Hurriedly she grabbed her dressing gown and belted it tight about her person. “My lord, you are quite mistaken. This is my room.”

He cocked his head and smirked. “That’s what they all say. But you, my dear Miss Edgerton, are not married yet. No such hanky-panky for you. Now run along.”

She gaped at him. Well, at least she wasn’t smiling.

It had not made him any happier that the rest of the evening she had not come near him, but instead played cards with Freddie, Wessex, and Miss Beauchamp, smiling all too often. The stupid, illogical part of him still wanted her smiles; worse, he felt downright proprietary toward her.

He strolled inside and sat down at the foot of her bed, which brought him face-to-face with the painting that hung on the opposite wall. It was a canvas approximately three feet by four feet, bursting with a single blood-red rose and its razor-sharp thorns. At its edge were the shoulder and arm of a man lying facedown in the snow, one long black feather, next to his lifeless hand—a definite relation to the painting in the dining room.

Vere loosened his necktie and pulled it off.

“Sir!” Her hands held tight to the closure of her dressing gown. “You cannot—you may not disrobe here.”

“Of course I won’t really disrobe, not with you still here, Miss Edgerton. And why are you still here, by the way?”

“I already told you, sir. This is my room.”

He sighed. “If you insist, I’ll kiss you. But I won’t do anything else.”

“I don’t want to be kissed.”

He smiled at her. “Are you sure?”

To his surprise, she flushed. His own reaction was a flash of acute heat.

He stared at her.

“Please leave,” she said unsteadily.

“Penny! Penny, you are in the wrong room,” Freddie, good old Freddie, called out from the open door.

She fled to him. “Oh, thank you, Lord Frederick. I was at a loss to explain to Lord Vere that he’d made a terrible mistake.”

“No, no, I will prove it to both of you,” Vere claimed loudly. “See, I always put a cigarette under my cover, so that I can have one last drag before I go to sleep.”

He marched to her bed and, to her strangled yelp, flung back her bedcover. There was, of course, nothing there.

He widened his eyes. “Did you smoke my fag, Miss Edgerton?”

“Penny! This really isn’t your room.”

“Oh, all right,” said Vere, throwing up his hands. “Drat it. I like this room.”

“Come now,” Freddie urged him. “It’s late. I’ll take you to your room.”

He was ready to walk away, but at the door Freddie took hold of his arm. “Penny, shouldn’t you say something to Miss Edgerton?”

“Right, of course.” He turned around. “Lovely room you have, Miss Edgerton.”

Freddie nudged him.

“And I do apologize,” Vere added.

With some effort, she wrested her eyes from Freddie. “It’s quite an understandable mistake, sir—our rooms are close.”

Their rooms were close indeed. He was diagonally across the passage from her. The next-closest guests, Freddie and Lady Kingsley, were each two doors away. Yet another indication of her careful planning, to bump more easily into the marquess she’d intended to bag.

As if to demonstrate that she bore no grudges at his faux pas, she directed at him a smile as serene and graceful as any she’d dispensed this entire day. “Good night, my lord.”