15
We danced to this, did we not?” Somerset said, so very quietly that his voice almost seemed to blend with the lowest violin in the company.
“Yes,” Eliza whispered, her eyes still closed. “At—at Lady Castlereagh’s ball.”
“I remember,” he said. “You were . . . you were wearing a dress that seemed to twinkle, somehow.”
“It was embroidered with silver thread rosettes,” Eliza said. She had been so proud of it.
“I could not take my eyes off you.”
“Nor I, you.”
It was as if they had entered a different world. They were speaking so softly, their eyes facing forward, lips barely moving, their whispers hardly louder than a thought, as they confessed their memories into the air with the kind of honesty that belonged to dreams.
“I left Lady Jersey mid-word,” Somerset said. “She never forgave me for such deplorable rudeness.”
Eliza could hear the smile in his voice even as she kept her eyes directed forward and it felt far more intimate, somehow, than being able to see it.
Eliza breathed out a hint of a laugh.
“My mother had promised all my dances away. But you said that you did not care . . .”
“I did not. I have never cared about anything less.”
“And the music started,” she sighed.
“And I took your hand . . .”
“And we danced . . .”
She could see them in her mind’s eye now, the memory playing before them, rather than the musicians. Two young persons, as impossibly in love as could be, with no notion that their days together were already so numbered. She could remember the firm press of his hands as well as if they were grasping hers now, the drag of her skirts upon the ground, the soar of the music overheard. How it had felt so impossibly perfect. How hopeful she had been.
“I have never been one much for dancing,” he said. “Too tall, too ungainly . . .”
“You always danced so beautifully,” Eliza disagreed.
“Age has altered your memory,” Somerset said wryly, and she felt the press of his leg against hers on the bench. “I had all the grace of a tree.”
“I do remember laughing a great deal,” Eliza admitted.
“With me, I hope,” Somerset said.
“Always.”
“I could have danced with you forever that night.”
“The music stopped too soon.”
Eliza swallowed, her mouth suddenly dry. She wished they might linger there, in that moment and that moment only—the dancing, the joy, the sense their time was endless . . .
“And I asked if you wanted to take in the air,” he said, softly.
“I agreed,” she said, voice barely audible. “The moon was so bright.”
She could still smell Lady Castlereagh’s peonies. Almost too sweet on the air, but only almost. It was a night for sweetness.
“I can’t remember what we spoke of,” Somerset said.
“I think it might have been the weather,” Eliza said. “And all I could think of was . . .”
“And then . . .”
They paused. Involuntarily, Eliza pressed a trembling hand to her lips, remembering. Beside her, she heard a catch in Somerset’s breath.
“If I had known,” Somerset said. “What was to happen . . .”
It had been the very next day that everything had fallen apart. They had not even one day to enjoy the promises they had given each other. It had only been that night.
“I would never have let you go,” Somerset said, his voice low, hoarse.
Eliza could no longer see the musicians ahead through the tears building in her eyes, and a tiny sob broke from her throat.
“Eliza,” he said, so quietly she did not know if she had imagined it.
“Oliver,” she said, brokenly.
And though they were in public . . . though there were a hundred persons around them . . . she felt his arm move and just when she thought him about to throw caution to the wind and take her hand in his—
The music stopped. Everyone began to applaud. Eliza took in a gulp of air, and . . . Somerset dropped his hand.
“Everyone is gathering for tea,” he said, his voice very rough.
Eliza nodded blindly and stood, but found she could not move. Looking toward the laughing faces heading to the tearoom she knew she would not be able to pretend all was well.
“Would you please,” she began. “W-would you please inform Margaret that I have returned home? I am feeling a little . . . light in the head.”
She disentangled herself from Somerset’s arm without waiting for a reply and hurried toward the door.
“Lady Somerset!” she heard him call after her, but Eliza did not look back. She dashed from the rooms, and through the hall, not even pausing to collect her cloak before stepping out into the air. She found herself enveloped immediately into drizzle, but with another half of the concert to go there was a plethora of hackney cabs available to her, and she did not wait for a footman to procure her one.
“Camden Place, please!” Eliza called to the first she saw, climbing inside and breathing a sharp sob of relief to be finally alone. But the door barely closed before it was wrenched open again.
And Somerset was standing there, his arm bracing the door open against the wind. He was not wearing a cloak, his hair was already dark from the rain, and his chest was heaving as if he had been running.
“Are you all right?” he demanded.
And what was there left for Eliza to say, except the truth?
“No,” Eliza said, her voice breaking. “I am not.”
There was the muffled sound of a question from the driver, and Somerset abruptly climbed into the carriage after her and slammed the door. The carriage drew off.
“If you will let me explain—” Somerset started.
“At my dinner party you spoke to me in such terms,” Eliza overrode him, “as I thought made any romantic feeling between us an impossibility.”
“I lashed out with an anger I truly regret,” Somerset said urgently, clasping her hands. “I must assure you, the sentiments I alluded to that evening—the ones I spoke to at the end of our acquaintance, so many years ago—are not ones I feel any longer.”
“They are not?” Eliza asked.
“I understand now that your actions spoke to an abundance of duty, rather than a lack of spirit,” he said.