Transmuted (29 page)

Though such imaginings sent pangs through my heart, I did not buckle.

Was this what it was to come to terms with one’s matters?

“Lady Compton?”

I blinked, quickly dispelling all such fancies, and turned a smile upon Piers. “I apologize, my lord.”

“No need,” he demurred, flicking a hand. His cup was filled with coffee, which smelled both strong and hearty. He took it without cream, as Ashmore did, and seemed to enjoy the flavor.

“I think,” I said, returning back to the topic, “that the Veil was there.”

Piers choked on the black brew. He caught himself with a rasp, setting the cup down quickly lest it tilt.

I half rose, but he lifted a hand to belie the need. “What?” he demanded, eyes sharp and wide over the cloth he held to his lips. “There? At the gala?”

“Well, certainly not invited,” I replied quickly, hastening to dispel any such nonsense. No matter the nature of the Veil’s alliances, an invitation of an obviously foreign gentleman to a simple engagement ball would no doubt have made quite the rumor. “However, I believe that he was watching his employed associates. When Mr. Bennett appeared ready to share his knowledge, the Veil…” I hesitated.

“Silenced him,” Piers interjected, though a touch husky thanks to the coffee he had taken in too recklessly.

I nodded.

“Damnation.”

I nodded again.

The earl frowned most earnestly. “Will the Veil move against us?”

“I am not certain,” I allowed. “However, I intend to leave here soon. Rest assured, your family should remain safe. I only—”

When I stopped, frowning in surprise at the direction my own thoughts had taken, the earl once more picked up his cup. He surveyed me over the delicate rim, eyebrows gathering into a knot so similar to that glower his late brother had perfected. “You only what?”

Dare I?

I thought of the marchioness’s slim shoulders, so rigid as to be brittle.

I thought of the dedication scripted within my mother’s journal, gifted to me by the very lord I took my repast with.
For my dearest Almira. Love, your Josephine.

There had been love between our families once.

I did not know what I hoped to gain, but at the very least, I did not feel right leaving things as they were. “I hope to speak with your mother,” I said quietly.

Piers did not argue. Such was my lot in this world that I always seemed braced for argument from those men I associated with, yet he simply sipped from his coffee in silence and studied me most carefully.

He had, I thought with a sudden rise of affection, matured.

It made of him a handsome prospect. Whatever the future held for him, I hoped that he found comfort with Miss Turner for as long as she would love him.

“She may not be willing,” he finally said, and I inclined my head in acknowledgement of the concern. “However, on clear days, she takes her tea in the garden. Perhaps she might be amenable to conversation as a proper hostess.”

“Then,” I said, with the long-suffering sigh of one facing execution, “I shall remain until teatime. Afterwards, I will press my luck elsewhere.”

“Cherry.”

The use of my given name earned him a sharp frown, though out of inquiry rather than offense.

Piers’sgaze, though infinitely warmer than his mother’s, revealed his disquiet. “Be kind.”

“I will,” I promised, though I had not yet ascertained how.

Chapter Twenty-Four

In all the chaos that followed in my wake, I had utterly forgotten Lady Rutledge. Truth be told, the stolen diamond had fallen quite through my fingers, and this I remembered rather abruptly when I was escorted to the patio overlooking a gorgeously manicured garden and found not one lady, but two.

Of course, Lady Northampton could entertain readily while mourning. I, on the other, should not.

I could not allow my guilt or my regret to force me into isolation. Matters were entirely too dire for it.

I had chosen to wear the widow’s cap after all, though I continued to pin back the veil. It seemed a small concession, given my current circumstances.

“Lady Compton,” boomed Lady Rutledge’s warmest welcome, and a veritable mountain of eggplant fabric turned in my direction. In deference to the house, I suspected, the lady had worn a somber shade. Various hues of purple were acceptable in such cases.

The weather had warmed rather nicely, bathing the grounds in sunshine and promise of summer. So delightful was the temperature and clear sky above that we could forego heavier outerwear.

That crape was not a breathable fabric immediately bathed me in a fine layer of sweat. Fortunately, the veil arranged upon my head allowed for some shade, similar to that afforded by Lady Rutledge’s enormous hat.

The lady’s brim was furnished with what appeared to be various types of fruit, arranged in a sort of still and affixed by thatch. At the side, pinned up in fashionable accord, a large clock ticked.

The lady, I remembered, enjoyed clocks. Such was the scope of her masquerade the year prior.

Lady Northampton did not rise at all, but sat at the ornately worked garden table and did her level best to freeze me in my tracks with a silent stare.

“Lady Northampton,” I said in determined courtesy. “Good afternoon, Lady Rutledge,” I added, equally respectfully, and allowed her to take my hands in show of companionship. “I am surprised to find you present.”

If she read in my words a shred of pointed inquiry, not a single flicker of it showed as her fleshy cheeks rose in a wide smile. “Nonsense, my dear lady, nonsense. How could I avoid the lure of such
rampant
rumor as the disgraced Countess Compton returned to her dear mother-in-law’s home?”

“Euphemia,” the marchioness said curtly, “enough.”

“Oh, tosh,” the lady replied, gesturing me most comfortably to a chair at the small round table. “You are too uptight, Almira. Do take a breath now and again.”

It took a great deal of effort to keep my mouth from falling open.

When the marchioness made no effort to pour tea for me, a discourtesy delivered with stinging purpose, Lady Rutledge gaily poured instead.

The china used for tea was different than that I’d seen at the breakfast table. What seemed to be scenes of bucolic harmony decorated the glazed porcelain, blue on white, and still edged with gilt. Too plain for my taste, but smooth in my fingers.

I took the proffered saucer with great care.

It was not until I raised the rim to my lips that I realized I did not suffer the usual pangs of self-consciousness I had often felt at such things.

In truth, though I sat with two of the most vaunted ladies among the Peerage, my nerves remained calm.

My focus sharp.

If I were to spill tea on myself now, would I take note?

I almost chuckled, but for the sheer inappropriateness of such a gesture in midst of so much tension. Quietly, I set the saucer down atop the decorative placement cloth before me.

“Word has it,” Lady Rutledge said, her gaze fixed upon me, “that there is a gentleman guest within.”

The marchioness did not so much as twitch, which led me to believe that her son had no doubt informed her—if the staff had not first.

“Mr. Oliver Ashmore,” I replied dutifully. “My guardian during my youth, and now a family friend.”

“I see.” And I was rather sure she did. Lady Rutledge’s eyes were a rather unique shade of blue—similar in hue to the color of the blue sky as twilight set in. That they held mine so firmly seemed something of a message, though I could not decipher what. “He is ill?”

“He is.”

“A shame.”

It did not escape me that the marchioness allowed this. Were she less a lady, she might have thrown him out simply by virtue of his association with me.

“Have you met the gentleman, Almira?”

Lady Rutledge’s innocuous question earned a sharp glare, and the very deliberate placing of the marchioness’s saucer atop the table. “I have no interest.”

“Come now,” the lady replied, chuckling boldly. “Surely you must wonder as to the nature of a man pressing so bold a case to the court.”

My ears colored at that. My gaze flicked to the marchioness, who made no secret of her anger on the subject as her stare clashed with mine. “The very nature of it is beyond the pale,” she said crisply. “I will brook no such—”

I clasped my hands in my lap. “My lady, please, I meant no insult.”

“Well, insult you have delivered,” snapped the marchioness, with more heat than I’d expected of such frozen a heart.

For a breath, only silence reigned. Then, on a low laugh that by very nature of the lady’s massive girth was not quiet, Lady Rutledge mused, “Now, this is interesting.”

I agreed most readily. While the lash of the marchioness’s social humors was sharp enough, I had never seen her truly angry. Or at the very least, pushed into such humor that something other than cool regard crack loose.

The marchioness’s lips sealed into a thin, white line.

I was not the only guest to note how fine a trembling assailed her hand, placed most delicately atop the table.

“Oh, look,” Lady Rutledge boomed, her gaze fixed on something beyond the patio’s charming trellis. “Almira, your roses are blooming!” She stood, burbling some nonsense or another, and I would be daft indeed to fail to recognize the pretext for what it was.

As the lady sailed off in a froth of purple and delighted mutterings, the marchioness and I regarded each other from within the fragile confines of the silence left behind.

A thousand words filled my thoughts, but of them, I could pluck no perfect sentence.

How would I go about salving this wound?

I did not like failure. I despised circumstances wherein I was fated to lose before the first hand had been drawn.

I had long spent my life avoiding such things, and when I could not, hiding behind the bliss.

Enough was enough. I could not hide nor run from this.

I owed it to my late husband to try; more, I owed it to myself.

I could not step forward without it.

“I have never,” I said, and though it quaked, I firmed my back and pressed on, “in all my life felt as deeply sorry as I do for your loss.”

The fine line of Lady Northampton’s jaw shifted.

“Though it is in some small way my own loss, I know what I feel pales in comparison to a mother’s grief,” I continued, floundering and unable to stop. A knot gathered in my throat; I dared not choke on it. “I know you have never liked me—no,” I added swiftly when her gaze narrowed, “please.”

She did not have to allow me to struggle. She could have ended this all right here, but Lady Northampton did not. Her mouth pinched tighter, wrinkled in terrible sign of effort.

I took it as indication to continue. “I ask for nothing, my lady. Neither apology nor acknowledgement. I deserve neither,” I said softly, gaze falling to my lap.

No.
I could not allow such cowardice.

With effort, I dragged my focus again to her. Met her stare and held it. “I am aware that in some way, my mother must have offended you greatly.”

The golden hue of her lashes flared. If I had witnessed a crack in her façade before, it widened as I watched.

“I am sorry,” I added quickly, because I felt I must. “For whatever it was she did, for whatever terrible thing caused such a divide, I am deeply apologetic. How you must have loathed to know your son married her daughter. And then I—”

“Enough.” The word came crusted with ice. The marchioness did not move, but there was no grace to it—no ease of comportment. She did not move, I realized, because to do so would be to reveal the tremors locked behind iron control.

The signs, were I only to look, were there. Minute, subtle, but apparent had I only the generosity to
look
.

No one, not man nor beast nor marchioness, was truly made of marble.

What a wretched girl I had been.

“Enough of this,” she repeated. Her fingers closed around her tea cup. “This relentless—” She bit off whatever it was she meant to say. “Are you here simply to hound me?”

Behind her, far enough away that I could no longer hear what nonsense she spewed, Lady Rutledge bent and fawned over various rosebuds.

I was grateful to the lady. Without her, I did not know that I’d ever have gotten this chance.

“I would be remiss,” I said to my mother-in-law with great care, “if I did not personally forward my regards. At the very least, I owe you the whole of my repentance.”

The marchioness said nothing at first. Perhaps thinking it over. Perhaps swallowing whatever it was pride forced her to feel.

Or, and I was not so confident that I could assume this to be untrue, perhaps she fought back the desire to see me bodily taken from her house and thrown out into the street.

Even a marchioness might have a point to which no more control could be exerted.

Very calmly, as though she felt none of these things, she sipped at her tea. The sun dappled the table, bent long fingers of radiance over the upswept knot of her veil.

It eased into the fine lines carved at the corners of her eyes.

Such humanity I found when I stopped allowing my conceit to lead my senses.

“To my humiliation, I am forced to inquire,” she finally said to me, her voice low. “That you are no proper child has always been readily apparent, but to leave matters as they are tarnishes the memory of my son and I cannot allow that to remain. Tell me true.” She lifted her chin. “Was there some part of your heart that loved Cornelius?”

I did not hesitate. In the face of such thinly veiled dislike, I could not bring myself to respond in kind. “I did love him.” No matter what quantifiers I wished to include, no matter what demons I wrestled with beside such honesty, they were not hers to contend with.

I would not burden her. I loved Cornelius Kerrigan Compton, Earl Compton, enough to seal my name and troth to his.

I loved him enough to gamble my future upon his support. If it was not the fiery thing I felt for Hawke, it did not lessen Compton’s place in my life. I had trusted him.

I would not demean it, demean him, by comparing him with anyone else.