Chapter 20

Nerves writhed in Leah's belly as she searched the faces of the cards in her hand, wondering what to pick. Cards had never been her forte, and the expectant stares of her dearest friends were not helping matters.

They were sitting on picnic blankets in Hyde Park, wrapped up in furs to keep out the autumn chill, and though she kept trying not to look, Leah's gaze continuously drifted across the Long Water to where people were milling about, taking down the remains of the carnival. Her heart soared, seeing the lake where Nathaniel had rowed her safely, the dance floor where they had danced, the horse arena where he had come running to meet her, and what she thought might be the trees where he had accidentally grabbed her. In truth, she had been disappointed when Nathaniel disappeared for two hours, but somehow, it had only made his eager return sweeter. He could have easily left without saying a word, but he had not; he had wanted to end the night walking with her, sharing a paper bag of roast chestnuts, talking of everything and nothing as her mother trailed dreamily behind, likely envisioning a wedding in those gardens.

"This is ridiculous!" Matilda threw down her cards. "Are you really not going to say a word about last night? You know, I ordinarily do not care for such things, but it was the Countess of Grayling, and you have said nothing!"

Anna sniffed. "I find her vulgar."

"Only because you were not invited," Phoebe quipped, looking fully recovered after her sickness. "If you had been in attendance, you would have spoken of nothing else."

Anna crossed her arms. "That is not true! I could not care less if I was invited."

"There were footmen dressed as fairies," Leah said, smiling as Anna's expression transformed into one of envious awe. "There were tumblers, jugglers, fire-eaters, horse riders performing tricks, and every sort of delicious stall you could think of. There were even merfolk perched on rocks in the Round Pond. Nathaniel rowed me to see them."

Anna's face scrunched though it was uncertain whether she meant to cry or rage at the injustice or burst into a fresh interrogation. "Merfolk? No, that is impossible."

"I promise you," Leah replied. "And I met the Countess of Grayling."

Matilda squeaked. "You did not!"

"Why have I become an infamous liar, all of a sudden?" Leah laughed. "I swear, I met her, and you would have been pleased to hear what she said to me, Anna. She told me that if I were to find a good man, a truly good man, that I should hold on and never let go."

Anna shook her head. "Now, I know you are fibbing. She despises gentlemen. She despises the very idea of love and marriage."

"And that is precisely why I adore her," Matilda sighed.

But Phoebe was staring at Leah strangely, her head tilted to one side. "Why would she say a thing like that to you?"

"Hmm?" Leah pretended not to understand the question.

"Why would she say something like that to you?" Phoebe repeated. "Was Nathaniel with you when she said this?"

Leah gulped. "Yes. He is a friend of hers."

"Oh, well, this makes it all so much worse!" Anna wailed. "Clearly, he is in some sort of secret relationship with the Countess, and that is why he is in this deceit with you. His mother must not approve of such a woman, and I do not blame her."

Phoebe shook her head, smiling in a way that made Leah's stomach twist. "Or she saw something between you and Nathaniel," she said slyly. "Might I be right? Was it after you had danced, perhaps?"

"Who said I danced with him?" Leah's chest squeezed, her eyes unable to meet Phoebe's.

"Your face does," Phoebe replied. "Is the ruse, perhaps, becoming real?"

Matilda scoffed. "Oh, what tosh! Leah is not interested in the fellow. You are becoming like Anna, putting fancies of romance into your own head." She glanced at Leah, nudging her. "Tell them, dear Leah. Tell them that you have not followed the same path as our darling Olivia."

"I have not," Leah insisted, banging on her chest to loosen the tightness. "It is still just a ruse to help us both, but that does not mean I did not have an enjoyable evening. Is one not allowed to have an entertaining evening with a friend, simply because he is of the male variety?" She heard herself, worried that her protests sounded false.

Phoebe nodded her head slowly, sarcastically. "Of course, you are, but we all know how difficult it is for men and women to be just friends."

"Again, nonsense. Tosh. Balderdash." Matilda harrumphed. "Men and women are perfectly capable of being nothing more than friends, but society is designed to make it almost impossible by keeping them separate. I, myself, have made several acquaintances at Cambridge University, and not one is interested in me in that manner."

Anna sniffed. "That is because you dress like a boy."

"That is beside the point," Matilda replied.

Phoebe shuffled closer to Leah. "But would it be so terrible if this ruse had become something real? Would it be so awful if you began as friends, and it transformed into something more… romantic?" She took hold of Leah's hand. "You do not have to be scared of telling us what your heart is saying, Leah. I know you were worried about telling us of this ruse in the first place, and that is what makes me think you might be too afraid to confess that your feelings have changed. You need not be. You are safe with us, safe to tell us everything and anything."

The other two seemed to realize that they might have been somewhat judgmental, both of them moving closer to Leah until she was wrapped up in their warm embrace, flanked by those she held dearest in the world.

"If you love him, I will immediately approve," Anna murmured. "I am sorry if I was coarse or unkind before. You are, obviously, far prettier and far lovelier and far more intelligent than the Countess of Grayling. Besides, as I said, she loathes gentlemen. Of course, she is not in a secret relationship with Nathaniel, not if you are in love with him."

Matilda made a noise of agreement. "Just because I do not want love does not mean I would ever prevent you from embracing it if it comes your way. I am in utter alignment with the Countess—if you find a good man, a truly good man, then hold onto him if that is your desire. I will only pull a few faces and make a few remarks under my breath, I swear."

"Nothing has changed!" Leah urged, feeling suddenly suffocated by their loyal show of support. She choked as she told them, "I am not like Olivia. I could never… give my heart to any man, even a good one. It is… impossible. I do not trust… any man enough, nor will I."

Her three friends pulled back: Matilda wore an expression of partial relief; Phoebe had a maternal look in her eyes as if she had just had to tell one of her sisters that a beloved rabbit had died; meanwhile, Anna looked like she was about to cry, her hand clasped to her own heart.

"Jonathan ruined me," Leah said simply. "There is no recovering from what he did. If, in an entirely made-up world, Nathaniel were to propose marriage to me, the anxiety would kill me. I would go to the church, fearing the very worst, and when he did not appear, for he does not want marriage either, I would be thrown back into the same storm of three years ago, my heart stomped to irretrievable fragments." She hastened to add, "Not just if it was Nathaniel, but if it was any other man who might… find me endearing. Jonathan did not just break my heart, dear friends, he broke my faith in the world and in the men who reside here."

Anna made an odd, strangled sound. "It is too awful. Why, I have half a mind to take the largest bucket of horse filth that I can find and go to his door, knock upon it, and throw it in his face." She balled her hands into tight fists. "I have never hated anyone, but my goodness, do I hate him!"

"It seems you are not the only one," Matilda said in a hushed voice, chinning toward the main thoroughfare that cut through the park.

A gig rattled along, led by a rather thin-looking horse. In the back, Jonathan and Dorothy appeared to be in the midst of a heated disagreement. But that was not the most alarming part: Jonathan had a black eye, puffed up so badly that it resembled a raw piece of meat. Another purple bruise traversed the bridge of his nose while a third bloomed upon his jaw.

Leah clamped a hand over her mouth to stop a gasp escaping. "What happened to him, I wonder?"

"He got what he deserved, I should say," Matilda replied.

Phoebe nodded. "I rarely condone violence, but I cannot deny that is a satisfying sight."

"I heard it was debt collectors," Anna whispered as the other three whirled around, gaping at her.

"Excuse me? You already knew of this?" Matilda asked.

Anna nodded shyly. "I might have overheard my father discussing it with my uncle this morning. Apparently, one of their friends found him drunk and incoherent at the winter extravaganza last night. They took him home and tried to sober him, but he just kept repeating, "She is ruining everything. She will be the end of me." But this friend said that Jonathan's apartments were entirely empty of everything other than necessities. Completely bare. And Dorothy mentioned to the friend that they had "given a few things away as a charitable donation" though that cannot be true—Jonathan is a miser."

"He did not look like that when I saw him staring at me," Leah said, shuddering at the memory. She had glimpsed him several times throughout her dance with Nathaniel, his glower burning into her flesh.

Matilda tapped her chin in thought. "So, do we think that Dorothy is living beyond their means? She is always in the most fashionable gowns which I find utterly silly and wasteful, but I know it pleases some ladies." A smirk tugged at her lips. "Now, that is even more satisfying than seeing his eye like that—he thought he was marrying Dorothy for her family's wealth, and instead he has had his own depleted by her frivolous spending. It is ironic perfection!"

A far worse, yet somehow thrilling, notion began to form in Leah's mind as the gig rattled out of sight. She believed Matilda's assumption about Dorothy's spending, for it seemed the most likely explanation for the bare apartments, but there was one part she did not believe—that debt collectors had done that to Jonathan's face. Her mind turned back to the previous night and the fresh bruise upon Nathaniel's cheek. There had been some redness on his knuckles too; she had noticed when he took her hand to kiss it.

Could it be? Her heart turned a peculiar somersault, imagining Nathaniel fighting in defense of her honor. Did they run into one another? She recalled the scene at Mrs. Dibney's dinner party. Even in that polite setting, there had been a fiery exchange between the two men because of her. Perhaps, they had found themselves in another altercation, and in the anonymity of the carnival with all the crowds and noise, it had turned physical.

"Are you well?" Anna grasped Leah's arm. "You have gone quite red."

Leah forced a smile. "It is the cold wind nipping at my cheeks. I am quite well."

"Are you not glad to hear that there is trouble between those two?" Phoebe swooped in, eyeing Leah with curiosity. "You must, at least, be pleased that someone has smacked him that hard. It was long overdue."

Leah shrugged. "I rarely condone violence."

"Then why are you smiling like that?" Matilda asked with a knowing look in her eyes. "You are pleased!"

Leah chuckled softly. "No, I do not know how to feel about it." And that, at least, was the truth… in more ways than one.

* * *

"Absolutely not. Straight out with you. Do not even think of taking off your outdoor things," Leah's father shouted the moment she stepped through the front door of their Marylebone apartments.

Leah froze, her fur tippet dangling from her hand, ready to be placed in the small cloakroom. "Did you change your mind about sending me back to the Abbey to freeze myself into the daughter you want me to be? Are there guards waiting to escort me, so I cannot cause a scene?"

"Do not begin a quarrel with me, Leah; there is no time," Ezra replied, running back and forth between the dining room and the parlor as if a particularly determined wasp was chasing him.

Leah's mother emerged from a doorway further down the hall—the door to Leah's bedchamber. "Ah, there you are! Thank goodness," she said, walking briskly toward her daughter. "We were about to go in search of you."

"Is something wrong?" Leah put her fur tippet back around her neck.

Sarah danced a little jig, half answering Leah's question. "You have been summoned!"

"Are you certain that father has not been summoned to an asylum? Why is he running around like that?" Leah did not know whether to laugh or be truly concerned for her father.

Sarah took hold of her daughter's hands. "The Dowager has asked you to take tea with her this afternoon at two o'clock. Your father is preparing a gift and would not allow me to assist." She grimaced and lowered her voice, "Please, do check the gift while you are in the carriage on the way there. If it seems inappropriate, leave it behind."

Leah glanced at the clock in the hallway. It read a quarter to two. "But it is almost two o'clock as it is. Should I not change my attire? I have been traipsing through the park; the hems must be filthy." Panic fluttered in her chest. "Goodness, I hate to say it, but Father was right—there is no time, not even for the smallest squabble!"

"Be calm, dearest," Sarah urged. "You look refreshed, your dress is unscathed, and I find nothing becomes a woman so well as some pink in her cheeks. You are perfect as you are, my darling. And as everyone keeps shouting, there is no time for anything other than you walking directly out of the door."

Leah frowned. "You are not coming with me?"

"She has asked to see you and only you," Sarah replied.

Leah's heart thumped harder. "What do you think that means? Do you think she is going to try and pay me to leave her son alone? Do you think she means to threaten me into abandoning the courtship? That incident by the lake caused quite a stir; do you think I have embarrassed her?"

Is she suspicious of the bruise on Nathaniel's cheek? Dread weighed heavy inside her, realizing that if Nathaniel had gotten into a fight with Jonathan because of her, it would not make the Dowager very happy at all.

"I think she would have come here if she intended to do any of those things," Sarah answered gently, squeezing her daughter's hands. "The fact that she has summoned you to her residence is very promising. Oh, it is very promising indeed!"

That light of excitement had returned to Sarah's eyes, sparking a fresh wave of guilt in Leah's stomach. Evidently, her mother thought that the Dowager was going to give her blessing for marriage or something of that ilk. Leah had thought that the ruse would allow her to spend the London season not being a disappointment to her mother, but now, she wondered if it might be the most disappointing season of all for the person she loved more than any other.

"Then," Leah said haltingly, "I suppose I should not delay."

Sarah leaned in and kissed her daughter's cheek. "Good luck, my dearest girl."

"Thank you," Leah replied, the hopeful kiss burning her skin. "I think I shall need it."