There it was. A quest. And he was already in the perfect position for it: on his knees before her. She had no need to move beyond a simple bend at the waist. She touched his face, startled anew by the thin feel of his skin on such a large man. He truly had been suffering. Which made it all the easier to lean down and bestow a tender kiss to his lips. He clutched at her then, trying to draw her deep into his embrace, but she was prepared. She dug the thumb of her free hand into the juncture of neck and shoulder. She knew just the place to make him rear back in pain.
“Very well,” she said. “I am lost in madness. I have given myself over to my mother’s disease, and you cannot reach me.”
“Mellie!”
“I am committed to this path of self-destruction, and now, your only hope is this quest.”
“I will prove myself to you!”
“Bring me a dodo bird. A live one loved and nurtured by your own hand.”
She feared for a moment that he hadn’t heard her, but then his eyes narrowed. “Wasn’t the bird killed by sailors? In Madagascar?”
“Every quest is impossible.”
He was thinking hard. “I can do it, Mellie. You think I can’t, but I—”
She’d had enough. She’d played the evil queen, she’d given him an impossible quest, and now she was done. Hopefully, the time he spent searching for a dodo bird would bring him some sanity. And if he took a very long time at it, she would gain some measure of peace. So she stepped back. “Mr. Anaedsley?” Mellie said as she held up her hand. “I believe I should like a walk around the garden.”
Trevor was looking at them with a thinking man’s frown, but at her words, he immediately stepped up to her. Ronnie’s hands had gone slack, so she was able to slip through his arms to join her fiancé.
Ronnie had one last plea. A low moan that might have been interpreted as her name. It didn’t matter. In order to be the evil queen, she had to be cruel. And what she’d just done was the cruelest thing of all. She’d finally refused him in terms he would understand.
They were off into the garden when Trevor finally spoke. His words were quiet, but attuned as she was to every noise around her, his words came to her clear with concern. “You know the dodo bird is extinct, don’t you?”
“I gave him a quest. It’s grand and romantic, and it will take him far away from me.” Her words were strong, but her mind was elsewhere. She was thinking over Ronnie’s words. Had she just descended into madness as he accused? It was possible. What sane woman talked about quests? And Trevor was smart enough to see the flaw in her plan.
“Aren’t you encouraging his delusions?”
“Maybe.” She sighed. “But I’m not sure he’s deluded so much as fanciful. Either way, the romantic part of him won’t deny the quest. The practical part knows that a long sea voyage will help him find another lady love.”
“But the bird is extinct. And it wasn’t from Madagascar. I think it was Mauritius.”
“Maybe the place has pretty girls.”
He chuckled. “Do you think he’ll really go?”
“I don’t know. What’s more surprising is that I really don’t care.” And that—said her logical mind—was a sure sign of madness. That’s what her father always said. That he’d known her mother was beyond his reach when she ceased to care. For herself. For the young Mellie. And for the unborn child she carried.
Meanwhile, Trevor’s thoughts were going along their own path. They were walking out of the garden now, and as they left the small patch of greenery, he posed the next logical question. “What happens when you and I don’t wed? Will he come back to bother you?”
A chip of ice twisted in her chest, but what she said was forced into a casual tone. “I will send him on another quest. Maybe make it three quests like in the fairy tales. Or twelve like Hercules. It doesn’t matter. I will do it until he understands.” She took a deep breath, and finally put words to the fury she was feeling. “I’ve finally found some measure of freedom from my family, and I don’t care what they think or do. I’m not going back.” Just as her mother had never looked back when she ran to the bridge. Or so the tale went.
They continued to walk in silence. She used the time to wonder what it was like to be at peace. To have no family showing up at balls, no threatened duels, no gossips surrounding her on all sides. In the end, she decided her life at home had been very boring. Which perhaps explains why her mother descended so easily into madness. It was invigorating. It stirred her blood. It made her wish to never return to the bleak life of reason she’d been raised to embrace.
So there it was. She was mad, and she didn’t care. And while she tried to absorb that thought, her words ran somewhere else entirely. “What happened in the card room?” she asked.
Beside her, Trevor slowed his steps, his words starting out as a groan. “I was a fool. I lost my temper with my grandfather and did something unforgivable.”
Her gaze cut to his, but in the darkness it was hard to see. “Your grandfather, the duke? What happened?”
He looked up at the sky. As it was overcast, there were few stars to speak of, but he wasn’t really looking to them. “I told the truth, Mellie. And now, I think I will be cast out completely.”
For such a dire prediction, he didn’t seem that upset. But then she remembered that he’d been in a devil’s temper when he pushed his way into her crowd of admirers. “As bad as that?”
“Maybe. Maybe not. But like you, I seem to find it hard to care.”
Two people in the grips of madness. This was not a good combination. Or rather, since she was a student of chemistry, it was an explosive combination. “Then we are two of a kind,” she said, liking the sound of her words. “We are both unfeeling outcasts from our families.”