In Regency England, two brothers vie for Mabel's affections. Their passionate rivalry puts her reputation on the line and tests both her sense and sensibility to the maximum. On the verge of despair, she must cast the die: to decipher the most enigm...
Night filled the pause with silence, and that silence rattled Mabel's soul with suspense. The habit of thinking before speaking was commendable, but Lord Chesterton made it egregious.
"Because it's my responsibility as the head of the family to ensure that you don't cause another stir in London," he said after what seemed like an eternity. "I need you to marry well, and the society will stop forgiving the japes once they are bored of them."
Despite growing respect for Radcliffe's unshakable comportment, Mabel pouted: how prosaic after the clash of passions.
Everett echoed her disappointment with a chuckle. His breathing became louder, heavier. "Radcliffe, Radcliffe... You know perfectly well that the society wants nothing more than to be shocked out of its self-satisfied torpor."
To Mabel's relief, his shoes thudded on the boards of the veranda back toward his brother, then stopped abruptly, safely away from her. "You want to dance? Is that it?"
"This is absurd," Radcliffe objected, still calmly, but Mabel heard a pang of heartbreaking wistfulness. The uncertainty of it vibrated in the air like the last chord of a song.
Everett cut him off with a bark of laughter. "If you want to dance with Miss Walton, go and do that, and admit for once—for once, Radcliffe!—what it is that you actually want. Stop living vicariously through me and setting your bloody traps."
"I don't want to dance, Everett."
"Then I am so relieved that we finally understand one another, at least where dancing with Miss Walton is concerned."
This was more than Mabel could stand.
This time there could be no mistake. He was mean to her, but more appallingly, he was deliberately tormenting his unfortunate brother. After bickering with Hazel throughout their childhood, she recognized the pain of such an attack immediately. It hit precisely where it did the most damage. With Lord Chesterton's infirmities being the target, it felt especially low.
Heat flooded into her cheeks, and a furious force catapulted her out of the safety of concealment.
The two men froze where they stood, gaping at her, though neither cried out in surprise. As if maidens accosted them out of the shadows daily. Merciful Heavens, what were they used to in London?
Radcliffe leaned against the door, nearly hidden by his brother's enormous dark shape. He absently passed the handle of his cane from one hand to another, making it swing on its point from left to right.
He appeared a thousand times more relaxed than Mabel would have been if Everett towered above her. There must have been steel in his character, though obscured before by the mild manners and quiet demeanour.
As if to confirm her guess about him, Radcliffe only spared her the briefest of glances, then craned his neck to look back into his brother's face.
In the brief moment that Mabel and he looked upon each other, the flicker of recognition sparked in his eyes, a brow lifted and dropped, and that was about it. No derision, no pity, no embarrassment toward her obvious eavesdropping, and then a rude intrusion on their private conversation.
For some reason, his acceptance emboldened her.
She advanced on Everett with her fingers curling into the unfamiliar shape of a fist, nails digging into her palms. Just like Radcliffe, she would have to crane her neck to hold the tall man's gaze.
She did so, fighting off the knee-shaking effect it had on her.
"There is no need... no need to be cruel to your brother."
She swallowed to keep the quiver in her voice down. The full blast of this striking blue gaze would have robbed her of speech before, but no longer. The quiver she couldn't help, but she could deal with it, as long as she was not entirely silent.
"Because I don't wish to dance with you, Mr. Chesterton, not tonight, nor ever in the future," she said, revelling in every word. Oh, it felt good to sound proud. "In fact, I should think that I cannot be bothered to ever dance again, because I don't like dancing at all."
Her back straightened so much that she felt like gained an inch of height. She hated dancing, this much was true, and she intended to stop torturing herself with it. It was incredibly simple—and it wasn't.
Something shifted in Everett's face.
It showed amusement at first; the usual front he presented the world. Then his lips twisted just a little. The blue of his eyes glittered with the icy cold of the moonlight, summoning to mind the tales of the night creatures yet again. Maybe that's how the faery princes appeared to the mortal, remote, mysterious and perfect.
Then a spark hit them from a stirring emotion... or because he tilted his head, catching light at a different angle.
No, it was a new warmth, the glow that had nothing to do with the moon. A shiver passed through Mabel because she realized that, at this moment, while she was saying these angry words like a harridan, this—against everything common wisdom taught her—this was when Everett began liking her.
She swallowed again. Yet neither the change in him, nor the vexatious jolt of pleasure when she sensed what had happened, had stopped her.
"This is my flaw, and I own up to it, and you should own up to your own vices, that I dare say are by far more damning than mine," she said.
That was it. That was all she could possibly say to him.
The neurotic energy that drove her ebbed as suddenly as it filled her, leaving nothing but tremors in its wake. Out of words and out of breath, she glanced around, her trembling hands dry washing one another in a plea. She didn't know whom she was calling to for help, or how they could have relieved her. She had wished to get out of the overcrowded ballroom, now she wanted nothing more but to slink back inside, under the protection of the crowd.
If only the two men didn't bar her from entering this safe haven! She willed them to move, but the building was more likely to tiptoe behind their backs, they looked so rooted to their spots.
Her gut coiled with unease at the thought of pushing between Adonis and Caliban made flesh. Each brother scared her in a different way, and the air between them had the same heavy charge that descended upon the countryside before a thunderstorm.
So, she did the only thing available to her—she turned on her heel and fled down the steps into the darkness of the garden.
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