Of Noble Family (24 page)

Jane stopped him as he pulled back. “How long was I unconscious?”

“Nearly fourteen hours. You opened your eyes twice tonight, but did not seem aware—” He stopped and cleared his throat. “You did not seem to be aware of your surroundings. Thank God you insisted that Dr. Jones come, or—well, she has been good enough to stay. I have been … worried.”

Without the cravat, and with his shirt open, the frantic beat of Vincent's pulse was obvious. The layers of gentlemen's clothing usually served to hide all but the deepest of emotion, but without that disguise of fashion, his struggle lay clear with each uneven breath. Worried. He worried when the baby kicked. She could not imagine the blow to his sensibilities that the past days must have dealt him, and she knew that he would try to shoulder the burden alone.

“This was not your fault.”

He closed his eyes, stopped breathing, not even the protest of air escaping. Only that vein in his throat beat on. Vincent turned from her, squeezing her hand as he stood. He wiped a hand down his face and rolled his shoulders. “You asked for glamour. Have you any requests?”

“Vincent…”

“I should probably mention that Dover in the coldbox can hear us. His son is waiting as an errand boy in case either of us needs to call for anything.” He walked to the foot of the bed. When he turned to face her, his composure was once again restored. “We are not in view, though.”

“Thank you for explaining. I hope that, later, such a measure will prove unnecessary.”

“As do I.” He reached into the ether and pulled out a fold of glamour that he fanned into a rainbow. “Until then, what shall I perform for you?”

“Artist's choice. I am too tired to make a decision.”

He nodded, rolling the folds between his hands. The furrow reappeared between his brows as he stared deep into the ether. She had expected him to work the rainbow into the foundation of one of his abstracted clouds, but he let it dissolve and turned to the nearest bedpost. Dipping his fingers into the ether, he pulled out strands of brown and wrapped them around the wood so it began to appear to sprout branches. He worked steadily, with a delicate precision that was at odds with his person. One expected a man with his height and build to be rough or coarse in movement. The grace of his hands as they twisted and shaped skeins of glamour into the first blush of a glamural made Jane's breath catch in her throat with a sudden yearning.

He twisted the vine up the bedpost till his head was tilted up, revealing the strong column of his neck. In spite of the coldmonger chilling the room, the effort of governing the folds soon raised sweat upon Vincent's brow. The familiar wonder of watching her husband work warmed Jane into a sense of security.

As she drifted, her vision fogged till the lines and threads that made up his work stood out in a web that glowed in her second sight. Some part of Jane noted that she was watching the ether, but she was too tired to remember why she should not, and then she was asleep.

*   *   *

When Jane woke next,
Vincent lay curled beside her with one hand resting on her shoulder. The warm weight comforted her. His face had slackened, making it more apparent how strained his waking hours had been. Midmorning light filtered through the mosquito curtains and softened his face further. He snored, though to describe the small wheeze as a snore was perhaps unfair. In spite of his broad chest, Vincent's snore bore more resemblance to that of a kitten. He wore the same shirt he had last night, and Jane rather suspected that he had worked until he was dizzy.

Her guess was further supported by the glamural that shrouded their bed. Passionflower vines wrapped the bedposts, bobbing in an imaginary breeze. He had added a faint trace of their honeyed scent, but not so much as to be cloying. Knowing his work, this was far from finished. The vines on the headboard had only been roughed in, with simple brown threads to indicate where they would be. At the foot of the bed, he had gone farther with the detail so that delicate purple blossoms fluttered on their stems.

Shortly after they had first met, Vincent had given her his drawing book, which was filled with his thoughts on the nature of art and glamour in particular. In it, he had described the idea of putting one's passions into art. Tension might become the tight cling of a vine to a post. The tremble of a hand might make its way into the movement of flowers on their stems. The desire to hide could translate into a bower woven of sweet, aromatic vines whose flowers faced the sun.

Vincent had put himself into the glamural, and that familiar act comforted Jane more than the art itself.

*   *   *

Over the next several
days, Jane became acquainted with the variety of ways in which liver could be prepared, learned the joys of boiled greens, and drank more beef tea than she wished to consider. She had not been so exhausted since her miscarriage, and the similarity made her uncomfortably aware of the risk she was in. It took three days before she could sit up without dizziness.

During the first days of her recovery, Jane had alternated between staring out the window, drinking endless gallons of beef tea, and sleeping. She was now beginning to have enough energy to be restless, though not so much that she could leave the bed, so her thoughts had turned to exterior matters such as her book and conditions in the slave quarters.

Vincent, however, could think of nothing else but The Incident, seeming to alternate between worry and anger. If he had not had the glamural to work on, she was not sure he would have survived. He added hummingbirds to the bower, a sky that changed throughout the day, and he resolutely refused to acknowledge any of his distress.

When she pressed him, he replied, “The doctor says you are not to be agitated.”

“I will become agitated if you continue to be so remote. I am imprisoned in bed, and lost, and more than a little afraid because I do not know what is happening.”

He became even more still. Then he stood from the small table he had taken to using as a desk and came to sit on the bed. He only sat for a moment, then wove a deep silence, cutting off all sound. Jane settled down to wait for Vincent to collect his thoughts, but he only bowed his head and continued to sit. One hand dipped in and out of the ether, drawing a small trail of red along with it, a seemingly unconscious motion. The swelling on his hand had gone down, but the bruises remained in dull greens and yellows. Vincent clenched his fist, wiping out the trail of glamour.

“Jane … I am sorry for leaving you in the dark. Truly, I am protecting myself as much as you.” His voice was low and faltering, as though he were finding his way through a darkened room. “I have no practise at.… I know how to survive when I have only myself to worry about. But with you? Here? I do not know how—” He sighed and ran a hand through his hair. “I feel like a glamourist trying to walk and hold two different glamours. One of them is always about to slip. I cannot breathe, and I am about to lose my grip on all the strands.”

She took his hand and ran her thumb gently over the bruises. “You worry me.”

“I worry myself.” He gave a little smile that might even have been genuine. “But worrying you is the opposite of my intentions. So I am going to ask for your indulgence. Will you let me change the subject? Your breath is distressingly quick and you are pale.”

Jane regarded him. The visible bruises were confined to the knuckles of one hand, but, much like the scars on his back, the damage ran deeper. It frustrated Jane that she understood him well enough to know that speaking of such things took effort, and that his reserves were greatly diminished already. When he requested a change of subject—and she was grateful that he at least acknowledged the retreat from the topic today—he often did so to preserve his resources for battles outside their sphere. Still, it vexed Jane that he was correct. She was having difficulty catching her breath and felt as though she were in the midst of working a large fold of glamour.

She sighed to cover her agitation. “You are insufferable.”

“I prefer ‘inscrutable.'” He smiled, softening a little at her teasing tone, and because she had allowed the change of topic.

“Inexplicable would be more accurate.”

“Inconceivable!”

She rested her hand on her ever-increasing stomach. “Not any longer.”

He laughed and kissed her on the forehead. “I do not think that word means what you think it means.”

“Humph!” But Jane was delighted that she had managed to make him laugh. She would mangle all the words in the dictionary if it would help. “I return to my previous assertion of ‘insufferable.'”

“I accept. Tell me about your book.”

“Insufferable man. I have been thinking of how to structure it.” Truly, she had little to do
but
think. Still, she was always somewhat nervous about discussing theory with Vincent because he had the benefit of formal training, while Jane had only books and a tutor in her history. “My plan is to approach the comparison between European and African methods of glamour as a sort of school. That is, I will treat it as a primer, documenting basic techniques and how our European method approaches teaching them. When I can once again visit Nkiruka, I shall ask her how the African schools approach early training. By comparing the training methods, I hope to illuminate any material differences between them.”

“Do you expect significant differences?”

She gave a little shrug. “I am not certain. We were hindered by vocabulary and my inability to see or show folds. I am hoping that this approach will also allow us to build a shared vocabulary of technique. Then I shall be better able to document more advanced theories.”

“Perhaps…” Vincent rubbed his chin, thinking. “Shall I be there at the next meeting? I can watch what she is doing and exhibit the European folds in your stead.”

“Thank you, but you already have more than enough responsibilities.” In truth, she would very much have liked to have him there, but she was not certain if Louisa would be entirely comfortable with him present. In spite of Jane's own discomfort, she wanted to make amends with the maid. Her actions when Jane and Vincent were attempting escape made Jane feel that she had mistaken the young woman's loyalties. “I thought to ask Louisa if she worked glamour. Even a little would be sufficient for the initial work.”

“Louisa? Truly?” Vincent raised his brows.

“Yes, of course.” A sudden concern struck Jane, and she was ashamed that she had not thought of it sooner. She had been exhausted, but that was little excuse. “She has not been sent back to the fields, has she?”

“No. No. The doctor said that you were not to be agitated, so I thought it best to avoid any possible upset.”

“I want it to be clear between us that my health is not a permanent condition.” Jane had no intention of becoming her mother, prone to palpitations at the slightest provocation. “Are you certain that Louisa is well? You saw the look that your father gave her when he realised she had known about my condition and said nothing.”

“I will ask Frank and will report back on her health.”

Jane narrowed her eyes at him. “Or … you might simply tell him that I am in need of a lady's maid again, and then I can see her for myself.”

“I will now remind you of what Frank said about her. And she did report to my father that we left.”

“Well, we told her to do as much.” Jane rubbed her forehead and sighed. “I thought about it a great deal. Given that I suspected her of reporting to Lord Verbury the entire time she was serving me, the fact that I now know she is doing so changes nothing. What has changed is that I no longer have anything to hide.”

Vincent rubbed the back of his neck, frowning at the ground. “I do not like it.”

“Vincent, you cannot stay with me all the time. I shall need someone to run errands, and she is accustomed to my ways.”

“Is she? Perhaps I might ask her for some advice…”

“Rogue.” If Jane could have thrown a pillow at him, she would have. “Insufferable rogue.”

“Inscrutable.” He leaned forward and kissed her. “And you are my Muse.”

 

Seventeen

To Write a Book

Louisa entered Jane's room with her customary knock and curtsy. Jane sat up in bed as much as she could. “How are you, Louisa?”

“I am well, madam.” Her gaze was cast down in its usual pose, as though nothing untoward had occurred between them.

“I am very sorry about the way we treated you last week. If you can, please accept my apology.”

“Of course, madam.”

Perversely, Jane would have felt better if Louisa had shown some trace of anger or resentment. She would have trusted those as being true responses to the mistreatment the young woman had suffered at their hands. This tranquil countenance seemed too smooth to be honest. “Thank you for not telling Lord Verbury that I was with child.” She smoothed the counterpane, which belled over her middle in ways that left her condition in no doubt. “Was he angry that you did not?”

“No, madam. I told him that I thought you were only stout.”

“And is that what you thought?”

“I would never say so, madam.”

Jane sighed and rubbed her forehead. Perhaps Vincent was correct about avoiding fuss. It was clear that Louisa had inherited the Hamilton tendency to keep her true feelings well hidden, and now that Jane knew about it, she could not help being bothered by it.

*   *   *

Given a choice, Jane
would be planning their removal to Jamaica, or even St. John's, but right now she was doing well to simply walk from her bedroom to the blue parlour. She sat at the round table in the middle of the parlour with her papers spread in front of her. Voices at the main entry caught her attention, and she lifted her head from the pages.