Chapter Ten

P eter walked down the hall carrying a bouquet of primroses and humming the theme from Vivaldi's Spring . A week had passed since he and Heloise had begun their lessons. It had been the most remarkable week of his life. He was giddy, joyful, full of silly optimism. He would say he felt like a schoolboy, but he had always been an intense, sober student. Perhaps he was feeling, for the first time, the casual lightheartedness of the very young.

Each day, he and Heloise would start the morning with tea and conversation. Then she would drag him to the Chesterfield, climb on top of him, and dismantle him piece by piece. She kissed him with a fearlessness that left him breathless, as though she were discovering pleasure for the first time and was determined to wring every ounce of feeling from their encounters. He would let her have her way with him until he grew too inflamed to continue. Then, after he regained a small measure of composure, they would write for the rest of the afternoon.

Peter had begun bringing his treatise to the table and simply working alongside Heloise. His first impulse, which was to hide it, had been foolish. He wasn't a spy making notes on a foreign government, he was simply a man with professional ambitions. He and Heloise would sit surrounded by open books, occasionally passing a plate of Sarah's biscuits back and forth. With each chapter he completed, Peter allowed himself to revel in the fantasy of achieving a lifelong goal, of being celebrated and rewarded after so many years of hard work.

That morning, Peter had decided to walk to the market. It was a bracing winter's day; the air was chilled, the streets gray with mist, and the sun hung like a silver coin in the sky, bright but cold. On his way back, he had spotted a cluster of primroses, their cheerful white-petaled faces peeking out at him from beneath a hedge. The little harbingers of spring made him unreasonably happy, and he gathered them for Heloise, dew still clinging to their furred leaves. As he walked down the hall to the library, he imagined offering them to her, watching her expressive face as she took in the traditional romantic gesture.

Peter turned the corner, primroses in hand, and passed by Fulbert's study. The door was ajar, something that hadn't been the case since the morning of Peter's interview. Peter glanced inside and saw Heloise seated at Fulbert's desk. She had a ledger open in front of her and was casually flipping through the pages. Fulbert himself hovered behind her, chewing his thumbnail, and peering over her shoulder at whatever figures the book contained. Heloise turned to another page and put her finger on a spot halfway down. Fulbert frowned and said something Peter couldn't make out.

The whole scene was baffling. Heloise and her uncle had not exchanged more than a dozen words in Peter's hearing. Why would she be in his private study? Peter knew only the bare outlines of Fulbert's background. For years, he had been a merchant of little renown, importing oil, soap, iron, coffee, and other commodities. Then, a decade ago, Fulbert had embarked on a series of risky and shockingly lucrative investments. He made a fortune, then doubled it. Now, wealthy tradesmen and even members of the gentry threw their money at him to invest. What could he possibly be talking to his niece about? Peter edged closer to the door.

Fulbert and Heloise both looked up and saw Peter at the same time. Heloise gave him a broad smile and lifted her hand in greeting, while Fulbert's face darkened like a thundercloud. The older man hurried past the desk and into the hall, pulling the door to the study shut behind him.

Fulbert turned to Peter with an irritated glare. The man was dressed fashionably; his shirt sported both wrist and collar ruffles, and his double-breasted waistcoat was a sky-blue silk shot through with threads of silver. His immaculately starched cravat appeared to be strangling him.

"Good morning," Peter greeted Fulbert.

"Morning." Fulbert looked at Peter with undisguised dislike, his skinny arms crossed in his expensive coat. The man's gaze traveled down and came to rest pointedly on the bouquet of flowers. Peter followed it, the two of them staring at the fresh handful of white and yellow blooms.

"Your niece and I are conducting a botany lesson," Peter said.

Fulbert gave Peter a look that could have withered a whole meadow of primroses. He opened his mouth, then seemed to reconsider whatever it was he was going to say.

"I'll send her along presently," was all Fulbert told Peter. Peter hurried on to the library, with only a few backward glances toward the puzzling scene in the study.

When Heloise arrived an hour later, Peter was deep in his treatise. Unbelievably, he was nearing the end. It would be ready to send shortly, closing the chapter on this admittedly pleasant interlude and allowing him to begin the rest of his life. He tapped his pen, feeling his spirits dip unaccountably at the thought.

"Flowers?"

Peter looked up to see Heloise standing beside him. Her head was tipped, showing the smooth line of her throat. There was ink on the sleeve of her dress, presumably from the ledger.

"Oh, yes. Here." Peter rose and handed her the bouquet with a flourish. "It's customary to receive flowers from a sweetheart."

Heloise held the blossoms to her nose, looking for a moment like a rosy-cheeked shepherdess in a pastoral painting. "What might a sweetheart say, when presenting them?"

"He might say that when he saw them, he thought of you."

Heloise carried the flowers to her chair and dipped her pen, presumably to record her reaction. Peter reflected that it wasn't just a question of the flowers being pretty. It was that the morning had been gray, and then the primroses had appeared in a burst of beauty, like a piano arpeggio in a quiet room. That is why he had thought of Heloise; because they were startling and unexpected, and they dazzled him.

Peter watched Heloise writing with her shoulders bunched up like closed fists. It hurt his back to look at, though she seemed unbothered. He sat down in the chair beside her.

"Did you conclude your business with your uncle?" Peter asked.

Heloise glanced up a little too quickly. "Yes."

"I don't mean to pry. It's only that the two of you make an unlikely pair."

Heloise stared at him, and Peter held his breath. While she could be shockingly frank and unguarded, there was much she held back. In truth, he knew precious little about the life of the woman he spent his afternoons kissing.

"We are," Heloise said. "He's my mother's brother. Strangers would have more in common, I think. I'd only met him twice when my parents died."

Peter didn't ask, but Heloise must have read the question in his face. "Scarlet fever," she said. "We all fell ill together. I was insensible for several days, and when I woke up, they were gone."

Heloise picked up the penknife, rubbing her thumb idly over the flat of the small blade.

"As I was just twelve, I was put into my uncle's care. The only thing he had ever raised was capital. He stayed with me at the house, but neither of us had the least notion of what to do."

She spoke offhandedly, her fingers busy with the penknife. "We received a visit from a friend of my father, another university professor. He had come to offer his condolences, but I think he saw that we were in disarray. He volunteered to act as my tutor. He knew that my education had been important to my family. I remember how relieved I was to be able to return to my studies."

Peter felt an ugly chill move down his spine. "What happened?"

Heloise gave a faint smile. "Nothing too dire. He was well-intentioned. We started working on some Latin translations, and reading Descartes, if I recall. It took several months for me to realize something was wrong."

"What was it?" He imagined her, barely more than a child, brilliant but unsophisticated.

"The best way I can describe it is that he didn't take me seriously." Peter barked out a laugh, and Heloise held up her hands. "I'm not saying I was his intellectual equal—"

"You likely were."

She gave an amused huff. "Perhaps. I didn't think so, not at the time. I just knew that when I asked a question, he ignored it. He was dismissive of my interests. He expected to speak, and me to listen. I became aware of a subtle condescension in our interactions."

Peter wanted to tell her he was all too familiar with the dynamic she described, but thought he'd better not interrupt.

"I realized then that my parents had been unusually progressive," she went on. "This man was teaching in the standard mode. It could have been worse; he didn't insist that I take up needlepoint, or dancing, or etiquette."

Peter smiled, thinking of Heloise doing any of those things.

"But it was intolerable." She closed her eyes and pressed her fingers to the lids. "I knew that if we continued, I would lose myself. Eventually, I would absorb his low opinion, and become what he thought I ought to be."

"What happened?"

"I went to my uncle, and we struck a bargain. The man was dismissed. I was responsible for my own education thereafter. A few years later, when my uncle made his fortune and built this place, I set up the library for myself. It's worked out well." Her eyes wandered fondly over the shelves. "Whatever one might say about my uncle, he has never underestimated me."

Peter considered the strength of character it took to choose a life of solitude, rather than surrender. He looked at the young woman seated across from him, her poor posture, the ink stains, the stubborn tilt of her chin.

"You might have told me this." He wasn't sure whether that would have been before or after presenting him with a list of sex acts.

Heloise shrugged. "I didn't know what sort of tutor you would be. It's been a pleasant surprise that you tolerate my nature. You embrace me as I am." She colored at her own wordplay. "So to speak."

Peter cupped his hands around her blushing cheeks and kissed her. She stilled in surprise, then twined her arms around his neck with a sigh.

"Has our lesson begun?" She murmured it against his lips.

Peter was reluctant to admit this wasn't a lesson; that these kisses were selfish and born of a need he preferred not to examine too closely. He only wished to show her that ‘tolerate' did not begin to describe his feelings for her. He kissed the question away, the flowers forgotten on the table. Everything forgotten, save the two of them.