“For the gowns,” she said. “For the hour. For… catching me before the floor did.”
“That last was selfish,” he said. “I preferred not to see you fall.”
She glanced at the tray. “I do not think I shall be brave again until next week.”
“Prudent,” he said. “Bravery is a poor habit if practiced nightly.”
She took one step toward the door, then turned back, compelled by some loyalty to honesty he had made inconveniently fashionable. “About the ball?—”
“We will go,” he said. “You in blue, if you please.”
She felt the blush threaten again and knew it would make him look the way he had just told her he liked. It was a perilous thing to know about a person. “If I please,” she said, which was another way of sayingyes.
He moved with her to the door, as he had the night before, as if the habit had always been his. He did not touch her again. He did not need to. The air between them had learned something and would not forget it.
“Good night, Maria,” he said.
“Good night, Stephen,” she returned, and the names felt strangely intimate for words one heard each day.
She slipped into the corridor. It was cooler there. The house seemed to know enough to let the night lie quietly over all its rooms. She walked back to her chamber with care, as if the floor were freshly polished truth.
The gowns waited where she had left them, each with its own promise folded into its color. She set the card atop the blue silk and pressed her fingertips to the neat script.For the ball. And after.The words looked different now than they had an hour ago, and she could not have said how. She undressed with hands that remembered the brief steadiness of his. She lay down, shut her eyes, and told her heart sternly to be quiet.
It did not obey at once.
He remained a moment where she had stood, palm resting on the doorjamb as if it were the only solid thing available. The whisky had not made him foolish; it had only softened the line he drew around himself until he could see over it. He let out the breath he had taken in when she had tipped, and went back to the table to set the decanter straight in its tray as if room were restored by symmetry.
He did not pour another measure. Instead, he laid a hand flat on the table where her glass had rested and felt, ridiculous as it was, the circle of condensation it had left.
“Tomorrow,” he said to the quiet room, as if the word was part instruction, part prayer.
The fire gave a small, agreeable crack. He banked it, turned down the lamp, and left the study with the feeling of a man who had nearly taken a step off a cliff and had found, at the last possible inch, that a bridge waited just beyond the edge.
CHAPTER 16
Maria had learned to look forward to visiting her brother and his wife, and today would be no different.
Even though she had spent most of her life as a stranger to both of them, somehow they had finally begun to grow on her.
Violet stood when Maria entered.
“Maria,” she said, arms already out. “You’re a sight for a tired day.”
Maria could only blush in response.
“What a sweet thing to say, that,” she replied, wrapping the woman in her embrace.
“Not sweeter than yourself, surely,” Violet replied. “Sit, please. I shall love to speak to you.”
Maria sat down, feeling herself warm immediately by the affection that was being extended towards her.
This is what it feels like to have family surround you.
“You look as if you’ve been thinking,” Violet said after a moment. She had been observing Maria diligently.
“Only a little,” Maria said, taking the cup Violet poured.
“A little or a lot, both are fine with me,” Violet laughed gently. “Would you like to share your thoughts?”