Chapter Twelve

Once Lord Kirke had set her season in motion like a spun roulette wheel, he'd receded from her life until he was merely scenery on the edge of it.

As the week went on, Catherine's flagging hopes were revived by a strategic flurry of teas, impromptu picnics, and turns about Rotten Row with Lucy in a carriage belonging to a friend of Lady Wisterberg, all arranged in the spirit of making sure everyone got a look at the first girl with whom Lord Kirke had danced in longer than anyone could remember (though Lady Wisterberg didn't put it that way). Lady Wisterberg even decided to hold a party at her town house a few weeks hence, which would of course benefit both her and Lucy. Invitations were sent out straightaway, and Lady Wisterberg had aimed daringly high—she'd invited young Lord Vaughn and his parents, the Earl and Countess of Vaughn, and many an unmarried heir under the age of thirty, and lots of the finest young ladies, too.

Such a party had never been held in Catherine's honor before. She was dizzied to learn that most of the invitations had been accepted within days. Days! From heirs! People with titles! Lady Wisterberg made it clear to her that this was an honor indeed. Catherine's heart now seemed in a perpetual state of racing.

Surely this social whirl was a harbinger of a dazzling future? And even though she understood her popularity was rather of the manufactured sort, she was still prepared to enjoy it thoroughly and to take advantage of her opportunities. One did not look gift horses in the mouth. For while Lord Kirke had set it in motion, it really did seem as though people were prepared to like her, perhaps because she was prepared to like them.

And as Lady Wisterberg had warned, she had appeared in the gossip columns. But it was more amusing than alarming:

The season has suddenly been enlivened by the mysterious appearance of a certain captivating miss, who appeared from nowhere like an angel on high wearing last year's green dress to waltz with the devilish Lord K—— who hasn't danced at a ball for nearly a decade.

"Angel on high" was a bit much, though she didn't hate the notion of being found captivating. But the "devilish" bit worried her and made her furiously indignant on Lord Kirke's behalf. Did nobody know him at all? Surely he wasn't kind only to her? Was it necessary to hurt his feelings? For wouldn't it?

The "last year's dress" stung far more than she'd thought it might. She supposed if the same little wound was lashed again and again, it was bound to eventually throb.

And for heaven's sake, she thought acerbically. If whoever had written this was so very particular about fashion, they ought to have recognized that her dresses were from two years ago.

But if this little item was the extent of consequences of which Lord Kirke had warned, she expected she could cope very well.

If he'd noticed or read it, he'd said not a word to her.

For the past week, Lord Kirke had been present at dinners at The Grand Palace on the Thames four days per week as the rules required, and in the sitting room, where he and Mr. Delacorte took turns vanquishing each other at chess and gloating or muttering darkly in loss, as the case may be. He then retired to the mysterious smoking room with all the men of the boardinghouse, and who knew what went on in there apart from smoking.

Paradoxically, given her new popularity, the favorite part of her days were now the nights.

She would lie in her night rail beneath the soft blankets and listen to the house creaking and sighing as everyone settled into their beds. It was the coziest feeling to be surrounded by people she liked, all tucked into individual little cubbies.

Night was the only time she had Lord Kirke to herself anymore.

But only the sounds of him. She could sometimes hear him pacing across his room, or sliding his chair back. She imagined him plowing his hands through his hair in frustration, thinking his grand thoughts, writing a speech.

Getting out of his clothes.

His coat, first.

Unwinding his cravat.

Pulling his shirt off over his head.

Sliding off his trousers.

Pulling off his boots.

She imagined all of this in sequence, for the fascinating pleasure of shortening her own breath.

And then, at last, there always came the little thunk she now recognized as him settling into his bed.

Because the fuse he had lit when he'd touched her during the waltz had burned low, but constantly. It was disturbingly clearer and clearer that this wasn't the sort of fire that went out if left unattended.

If she paid it one glancing bit of attention—if she fed it the kindling of her imagination—it flared hotter.

Which beset her with an exquisite restlessness. When she thought of him, parts of her body would thrum for all the world like struck instruments.

This fuse—and therefore, he—had been ever with her over the past week, when she was riding in a carriage in the Row, and meant to be admiring the fine figures of young men riding on horseback alongside, and returning their smiles and tipped hats with nods; when she was taking tea with matrons, any one of whom could very well be the mother of her future husband; when she was attending a picnic with Lucy and more young men to which Lady Hackworth had also been invited. Lady Hackworth had invited her to a salon at her house, but had asked her not to tell Lucy. I'm afraid we only invite people who intrigue us, she'd said, under her breath.

Lady Hackworth made her uneasy. And yet, there was something seductive in being found intriguing enough to invite to an exclusive salon. She'd had no sense of herself before outside of the context of the country. She'd thought she'd known herself well. But was she truly singularly intriguing, and hadn't realized it? Was this why Lord Kirke had paid any attention to her at all?

And... was Lord Kirke conducting an affair during the hours she didn't see him?

She did not know why this possibility should be both a torment and a titillation. She could not reconcile this admittedly scandalous notion with the flash of aching panic she'd seen in his face when he'd caught her in a moment of despair. Just before the waltz.

Would a devilish man truly be concerned about her? For she thought he genuinely cared.

Because he was her friend. Wasn't he?

And yet.

In the dark, tossing fitfully enough to tangle her sheets, she had imagined his hands hot against her back, pulling her up against his body, and felt such a rush of blood to her head and to her nether regions she nearly swooned from it.

All of these sensations were new to her, but clearly not to him.

Had he delegated her to some far corner of his mind now that he had accomplished his allegedly altruistic mission of waltzing with her?

There were any number of logical reasons to believe this.

Except that not once—not once between the time she'd waltzed with him and now—had he met her gaze directly.

He had not even looked directly at her during dinner this evening, even when he'd politely passed the peas.

They were now all gathered in the sitting room, waiting for Mrs. Pariseau to return from dining out with a friend so they could resume reading The Arabian Nights' Entertainments, which she was thoroughly enjoying. Catherine, Dot, Angelique in one corner of the room. Captain Hardy and Lord Bolt sat nearby. Mr. Delacorte's back currently obscured her view of Lord Kirke. The two of them were at the chessboard.

Catherine gasped when Mrs. Pariseau at last swept into the sitting room. "Oh my goodness—your dress is so beautiful!"

"Thank you, Miss Keating." Miss Pariseau smiled and pirouetted, and the soft sitting room light danced over the purple silk of her dress, which was shot through with rose threads. It shimmered like a hummingbird's throat. The long, fitted sleeves and square neckline and the slim rows of quilting at the hem perfectly suited Mrs. Pariseau's generous curves and set off her dark hair. She looked marvelous. Everyone sighed and murmured in admiration.

And for a flashing instant, a potent envy, shot through like the silk with wistfulness, stole Catherine's breath. She was not in the habit of coveting anything. But it was almost inconceivable that she would ever own such a beautiful, expensive thing. She was ashamed that this abraded her heart.

Mrs. Pariseau settled gracefully into a chair near Delilah and Angelique. "I've not had a new dress in a year or so and when I saw this particular bolt of shot silk at Madame Marceau's... well, you know how it happens. It was a coup de foudre." She clapped her hand over her heart. "It spoke to me. I feel it makes me look like a hibiscus."

As it was unclear whether this was her hoped-for outcome, this declaration was greeted by a cautious silence. Mainly because at least half the people present didn't know what a hibiscus was.

"Is that anything like a proboscis?" Catherine touched her nose. Part of being a doctor's daughter was that she often looked at people and thought things like "clavicle" instead of collarbone, even if she'd never heard of Scheherazade until recently.

Mrs. Pariseau gave a happy shout of laughter. "Do forgive me—a hibiscus is a flower, my dear! A frilly pinkish tropical sort. I saw it in an orangery one day and didn't it make me daydream of warmer climes! I never forgot it. Though I love the idea of flowers shaped like noses."

"A flower that can smell you back," Catherine said, and everyone listening laughed.

"There might actually already be a nose-shaped flower, you know," Mr. Delacorte volunteered. "I've seen flowers like all sorts of unusual things. Like trumpets, for instance." He'd traveled all about the Orient, and he had seen quite a bit of interesting flora and fauna, some of which were incorporated into the various ground-up powders and pills he carried about in his case. "That might be the sort of flower I'd be. A trumpet flower."

"You might be interested to learn, Delacorte, that apparently there's a gigantic flower that blooms only once every few years in the forests of Indonesia and smells shockingly, unforgettably bad when it does," Lord Bolt volunteered. "I read about it in Mr. Miles Redmond's books."

Mr. Delacorte slapped the table happily, causing the chess pieces to rattle. "Yes! That's the flower I am." He loved being teased. And he mostly confined his flatulence to the smoking room, for which everyone was grateful. But no one at The Grand Palace on the Thames had been completely spared it.

"Oh yes, of course, that's perfect for you!" Mrs. Pariseau said excitedly. "It's known as Amorphophallus titanum, which is Latin for ‘enormous misshapen phallus.'"

Shock sucked the sound from the room.

Mr. Delacorte's smile plummeted from his face.

He eyed Mrs. Pariseau balefully. Faintly wounded.

Catherine had never been happier that she knew what a phallus was, because she was now both delighted and scandalized.

"I thought we'd agreed that the fancy words for jar words are still jar words," Mr. Delacorte said indignantly. He was none too pleased to be compared to an enormous misshapen phallus.

"What is a phallus?" Dot whispered to Angelique, who reliably answered all of her vocabulary inquiries.

Angelique squeezed her eyes closed.

"If Mrs. Pariseau doesn't put a penny in the jar, I think I should be allowed to say the other version of that word out loud in the sitting room," Mr. Delacorte insisted. "The one that rhymes with clock."

He directed this appeal to Mrs. Durand and Mrs. Hardy.

Controversy crackled like lightning in the room.

Lord Bolt and Captain Hardy were smiling so broadly their eyes nearly vanished.

"I think a distinction can be made, Mr. Delacorte, between words that are used to expostulate and words that are used to elucidate," Mrs. Pariseau suggested, carefully.

Mr. Delacorte's expression made it clear he thought "expostulate" and "elucidate" should be jar words, too.

"Perhaps at the next Epithet Jar Congress you can further clarify the parameters," Lord Kirke suggested, and Catherine laughed, then coughed when Mr. Delacorte and Mrs. Pariseau swiveled their heads toward her.

It was no laughing matter, the Epithet Jar.

"While both of you have made excellent points," Delilah finally said, diplomatically, "if you feel overcome by the urge to mention anatomy, or if it seems critical to the discussion, I would like to suggest that a certain discretion ought to be employed. I feel we have gotten a bit too, ah, anatomical, in this room this week, and surely there are other topics we can explore."

Angelique looked relieved by this answer, as though she concurred.

Mrs. Pariseau could usually be counted on to graciously do the right thing after she'd inadvertently done the wrong thing, which had been more than once.

She sighed. "Yes. You're right of course. I understand. I'm terribly sorry. I do get carried away. You see, I attended a lecture called ‘The Flora of the Indonesian Forest' and I found it all so fascinating that I just did not even think before I opened my mouth. I thought the flower's magnificent singularity was a good fit for Mr. Delacorte. He is one of a kind, is he not? I did not mean to imply that Mr. Delacorte has a... that his... ah, is..." She cleared her throat. "Forgive me, Mr. Delacorte?"

"Of course," he said graciously. "We all make the odd mistake, now and again. And my... well, it's not, by the way. Misshapen," he said with great dignity.

Everyone winced.

Since Mr. Delacorte was usually the one making mistakes, and Mrs. Pariseau was known for being right about everything, and she did not precisely feel she'd made a mistake, a minute little tension ensued.

But then she gamely went up to her room to fetch a penny to drop into the jar, and Catherine admired again the play of light over her skirts as she, with dignity, swished by.

"What sort of flowers would Mrs. Hardy or Mrs. Durand be?" Delacorte wondered. As if comparing people to flowers hadn't already proved to be a risky endeavor.

"Delilah's favorites are daisies," Captain Hardy said.

This earned him a melting look from his wife, who had told him this only once and he had never forgotten it. He had, in fact, remembered it on one of the most memorable days of both of their lives. "But I think pansies, too," he added a moment later, surprising her, judging from Delilah's questioning glance.

"Later," he promised her under his breath.

Captain Hardy would never be comfortable effusing in front of other people.

"Angelique is a rose." Lucien said this as if he'd decided this long ago. "A golden yellow rose, very soft with layers of ruffled petals, gone blush at the tips." Lord Bolt was a great reader of poetry and an unabashed user of metaphors.

Angelique smiled at him, and when she blushed, Catherine could see how easily he had come to this conclusion.

Her heart twinged, sweetly and painfully. How lovely it would be for someone to see and know her so well that he could compare her at once to a specific flower. Or know her favorites. She hadn't a favorite, unless, perhaps it was poppies because that shade of red stole her breath. She liked all of the flowers she saw, especially wildflowers, especially when they sprang up in unexpected places. Every year when things began to bloom after a winter, it never ceased feeling like a miracle.

"Dot would be bluebells, I think," Delilah suggested.

"Oh!" Dot breathed and clasped her hands, as though she'd been anointed.

"Or dandelions after they've puffed out and are ready to float away," Delacorte mused.

"Because you can wish on them?" Dot wanted to know.

"Yes, that's why," Delacorte said, after intercepting a warning glance from Delilah.

"What about you, Lord Kirke?" Mrs. Pariseau turned to him.

"I'm a horse chestnut," he said at once, without looking up from the chessboard. "Prickly and dangerous on the outside, hard on the inside. Sometimes poisonous."

He winked at the audience at large, so they would feel free to chuckle. Which they did, albeit a trifle uneasily.

"But chestnuts are rather nice when they're toasted in the fire, as you nearly were," Catherine said.

He lifted his head and turned it slowly toward her. Once again, she had the pleasure of watching his face go brilliant with glee before his lips curved.

"Good God," he said. "That was dark indeed." He paused. "Well done."

She smiled at him, and he smiled back, and when those little crescents about his mouth appeared it felt as though the sun had come out for the first time in days. Though it had, in fact, been a gloriously sunny week. Perfect weather for picnics and so forth.

Her neck muscles forgot how to turn, now that she had his eyes to herself again.

She became aware that the two of them had been looking at each other and not saying anything, but she couldn't tell for how long, because something odd had happened to time.

Finally he returned his attention to the chess game.

But she noticed that he remained absolutely still for a moment, as if he'd forgotten where he was or what he meant to do. He'd laid his hands flat on the table. Almost as if he didn't trust them and wanted to watch them.

She stared at them. She imagined so easily feeling the weight of his hand on her waist. That was all it took for heat to fan through her torso, pool between her legs, flush her cheeks.

She had come to understand that what she felt was lust.

She wondered if "lust" was considered a jar word.

The ease with which she was able to call it up to her body by just looking at him was fascinating and more than a little frightening. The consuming intensity was unexpected.

How unnerving it was to suspect that he might feel the same way about her.

Moreover... he knew what to do about it.

According to Lady Hackworth, Lord Kirke was allegedly "good."

Whatever that meant.

"And we're all grateful that you were not a toasted chestnut, Lord Kirke," Angelique soothed.

A scattering of chuckles greeted this.

"What flower is Miss Keating?" Mr. Delacorte asked.

Everyone contemplated her and Catherine held her breath, happily awaiting the verdict.

Lord Kirke looked up. "Clover." He said this quietly but definitively. Then returned his attention to the chessboard.

Catherine nearly recoiled.

It sounded much like that "Yes" he'd delivered when she'd asked him if he'd ever been in love. The word arrived with a fence built all around it.

Clover. Food for cows and sheep. Nearly as common as dirt. Half of England was carpeted in the stuff. That's how he thought of her.

She felt scalded breathless.

Because she was a country girl? And could not possibly be a bright, complicated bloom, like Mrs. Pariseau? Or even Delacorte? What kinds of blooms were the other anonymous mythical London women with whom he allegedly had affairs?

He returned his attention to the chess game after having uttered those enigmatic two syllables as if he hadn't said anything at all.

Perhaps she'd simply been briefly novel for him the way everything in London had been novel for her, and now he was bored of her.

Perhaps he was embarrassed now to meet her gaze.

Perhaps the concerted way he refused to look at her was nothing more than embarrassment that he had danced with a bumpkin.

And yet he seemed helpless to look away when he finally did look.

This frustration and confusion were as new as all of her other sensations. All of them originating with him.

"Clovers have lovely blossoms. And make the nicest honey," Delilah approved.

If this had anything to do with his reasoning, Lord Kirke opted not to expound. "Checkmate," he said to Delacorte, instead.

Mr. Delacorte froze. His eyes bulged. "Wha..."

Then he shot to his feet. "BLOO—"

He clapped his mouth closed just in time and the rest of the expostulation swelled his cheeks as if he was blowing into a trumpet. It sounded like "mmmmfffhmph."

He closed his eyes. Sucked in and blew out a few deep breaths.

Then lowered himself gingerly back into the chair and sagged in defeat.

Lord Kirke smiled at him beatifically.

"Miss Keating, if you like, I'll take you to Madame Marceau tomorrow morning to choose a new ribbon for your bonnet," Mrs. Pariseau volunteered. "I'm to collect a spencer they're tailoring for me."

During her garrulous first evening when they'd all been given a sherry, Catherine had indeed mentioned she would like a new ribbon for her bonnet.

"Oh, I would like that very much, Mrs. Pariseau, thank you."

She might not be able to have an entire new dress, but the prospect of a new ribbon was undeniably consoling.

From a comfortable position stretched out in bed, Captain Hardy watched Delilah plait her hair at her dressing table, as was his habit. He found it soothing. It was as if she were sewing up the day, putting a finishing touch on it.

She turned to him. "Do you think women are smarter than men, Tristan?"

"Yes," he said at once, yawning.

"Is that because you don't want to sleep on the settee tonight?"

He laughed. "Am I so transparent?"

She laughed, too, and climbed into bed next to him. He stretched luxuriously, crossing his arms behind his head, then gathered her up. She snuggled into his body and sighed.

"It's so much better when you're here," she said.

"You took the words right out of my mouth."

They were quiet a moment.

"Kirke is a politician to his bones," her husband said drowsily. "And a provocateur to his bones. He says things like that to jar people into thinking about something they wouldn't normally, or into thinking about things in a different light. He may not even believe it. But I don't know why intelligence ought to be apportioned according to gender. A man may start out in life believing that sort of thing because it's what he's taught, but sometimes I agree with him that the definition of wisdom is knowing definitively how much you really don't know. Admire him or revile him, I don't suppose Kirke is wrong about much. So far, anyway."

"How shocked his majesty would be to hear you sounding like a Whig," she teased.

"Whigs were His Majesty's dear friends while he was regent," he said dryly. "Shockingly, once he became king, he embraced the Tories and the divine right of kings and so forth."

"I think I'm glad he's here," Delilah said. "Kirke. Because from the looks of him, if ever a man needed to lay burdens down for a moment, it's that one."

"Any man who gets to sleep under this roof is a lucky one, Delilah. I'm the luckiest of them all."

"Now who's the politician?" she teased. "But so true," she murmured, against his smiling lips, and then he kissed her, long and slow.

"Why pansies?" she whispered after a moment.

And it was a long moment before he replied. "Because your eyes are as soft and dark as their centers." He ran a thumb across her bottom lip.

And just like that, he'd turned her insides molten. He was not a man of many words; he was more accustomed to giving orders.

"Ah. But that's only when they're looking at you, my love," she whispered.

In the kitchen early the following morning, Delilah found Angelique and Dot sitting across from each other at their floured worktable. This wasn't unusual.

But Angelique's expression was as grave as a solicitor delivering bad news about a will. Her hands were clasped in front of her on the table.

Dot's expression was haunted and abstracted. Her eyes were lowered.

They both sported hot pink spots high on their cheekbones.

Delilah's head swiveled with alarm toward Helga, their cook, who was hovering behind Dot.

Helga's face was scarlet and her eyes were watering with what looked like suppressed hilarity. She held a finger to her lips.

"...but... does that mean... that is... so they're not always misshapen?" Dot asked very quietly.

After a moment, Angelique shook her head slowly.

Dot took this in for a long moment. "Just the enormous ones, then?" So quietly it was nearly a (somewhat horrified) whisper.

A long, tortured silence ensued.

"Possibly," Angelique finally decided to say. It sounded somewhat strangled. "Sometimes."

"But... does that mean they all are usually the same shape and size?" Dot's brow was furrowed.

Behind Dot's back, Helga lifted a rolling pin, wagged her brows and pointed at it by way of asking whether Angelique wanted to use it as an illustrative prop.

Angelique cast her eyes up to Delilah with a "help me" expression.

"Dot, I think the flowers in the reception room vase need to be replaced. Will you go and do it at once, please?" Delilah said brightly.

Dot rose gingerly, as if her body was now unfamiliar to her, and progressed rapidly from the room, carefully avoiding everyone's eyes.

She had been given a good deal to ponder. They just prayed it didn't result in a dropped tea tray.

Angelique slumped. "Dear God. It was like quicksand. I felt we needed to answer her, ah, request for clarification from last night before she got her answer from someone else. Or inadvertently used the word incorrectly. And somehow, I just got sucked deeper and deeper in." She shivered. "I may never be the same."

Helga plunked a cup of tea in front of Angelique as though it was whiskey and Angelique gulped it gratefully.

"Thank you for undertaking that noble task. But surely she's not that naive about those things," Delilah said. "She's always seemed sensible about men."

"No, not entirely naive, as it turns out. It was the fancy word for it that caused the turmoil," Angelique said. "Phallus," she muttered darkly, under her breath.

"I'm sure you handled it well, Angelique," Delilah said. "Women are smarter than men, after all."

They all laughed.

"It's a risky game we play, all that discourse in the sitting room at night," Delilah said, with a happy sigh.

Helga placed a cup of tea in front of Delilah, too.

"Thank you, Helga."

The cook turned to begin delegating tasks to the kitchen maids and Angelique and Delilah sipped their tea.

"Angelique... the little gossip item about Lord Kirke in the newspaper the other morning..." Delilah lowered her voice. "I meant to mention this to you. But it occurred to me that it might be about our Miss Keating."

Angelique had been stung by the gossip sheets before she'd married Lucien (who had featured in them frequently when he was younger), and while Dot, for instance, was captivated by the glamorous life they captured, she remained cynical about them. "I considered that, too. She wore a green dress the other night. But would Lady Wisterberg allow her to dance with Lord Kirke? And surely that bit about him not dancing for a decade is an exaggeration?"

They both knew that was what the gossip sheets did: exaggerated. Find a particle of truth, distort it for maximum drama, embellish both the pleasant and the unpleasant: that was their mission.

"You know, it occurred to me, too. But our Miss Keating seems to have a level head on her shoulders."

"True. But how level is any woman's head when it comes to handsome men?"

Angelique gave a soft laugh. "Still. He has been all that is proper and respectful in the sitting room. He doesn't seem to pay particular attention to her... then again... a man of his age and stature and alleged experience would surely be discreet about that sort of thing. He seems to work very hard. And I don't recall anyone ever accusing him of corrupting young women."

"No, the gossip sheets just print coy nonsense about how Lady R rent her garments when Lord K ended it with her, or some such rot," Delilah agreed. "Not that I'm paying attention or know much about that world anymore. His affairs are... his affair, as far as I'm concerned. As long as he follows the rules while he's here, we won't have to..."

They were both thinking of the second to the last rule on the little card they handed guests:

"Well. If it was indeed Miss Keating, it sounds as though it was only one dance," Angelique concluded. "And Lady Wisterberg seems to have things well in hand, given how busy she's kept Miss Keating this week. And Miss Keating has been under our watchful eye in the sitting room. Hopefully we won't need to resort to evicting anyone."

But they were certainly prepared to do it, if it came to that. So far, they'd only needed to deploy that rule once to toss out a guest.

Then again, Delilah had gone on to marry the transgressor.