No Proper Lady (9 page)

Eleanor was already in the drawing room when Joan came in, standing near the table and looking out the window. Eleanor wore pink today, trimmed with brown, and someone had done her hair in an elaborate nest of curls. It all looked nice but alien. More alien, Joan realized, than
her
clothes had felt in a week or two. Maybe more.

“You look good,” she said, crossing the room.

Eleanor spun around, raising a hand to her throat. “I—oh—thank you.”

“Sorry. Didn’t mean to startle you.”

Eleanor composed herself and smiled, but there was a blankness underneath her expression. Her back was a rigid line. “Quite all right. You look very nice too.”

“Good dressmaker,” said Joan. She was glad of the crisp yellow-and-blue print blouse and the flowing serge skirt. They felt like armor.

“Oh, yes.” Eleanor glanced back toward the window and then down at herself. “I should have been eating better these past few weeks. Does it show terribly?”

She was thin. She was also pale. But she’d been thin and pale the whole time Joan had known her. “Hard to say. But they know you’ve been sick, right?”

Eleanor bit her lip. “Yes, of course. But I do hope they won’t ask too much about it. It makes me feel dreadful to lie. And I’m horrible at making up details.”

“What details? You had a fever. You came back, you’re recovering, and you’re getting better. It’s not like they’ll ask how high your temperature got. Will they?”

“No, of course not.” Eleanor’s smile had a little more warmth in it this time. Then she sighed. “I suppose I just think they’ll know, somehow.”

“Hey, if they know, we’ve got a whole lot more to worry about than a tea party, right?”

“There is that.”

***

There were footmen this time, or at least a footman. He came in with the Misses Talbot, introduced them, and pulled out chairs so that they could sit down. Then he stood around waiting. It must, Joan thought, be one of the more boring jobs anyone could do. On the other hand, he was indoors and nobody was trying to kill him.

The Misses Talbot—Rosemary and Elizabeth—were both a little taller than Eleanor and both on the plump side, even for this time. Both were also brown haired and brown eyed. Rosemary was wearing white. Elizabeth was wearing light green. Joan made very sure that she remembered that.

They did, thank the Powers, seem to know how hard it was to tell them apart. “We’re not actually twins,” said Rosemary, laughing lightly as she sat down next to Joan. “I’m two years the older. And it was much easier to tell us apart when we were younger, of course, because we were of different heights. Nowadays, it’s awful. Papa threatens every so often to have our initials embroidered on all our dresses.”

“Though we could always switch,” said Elizabeth.

“So it’s really quite pointless, yes. Poor Papa. We’re a dreadful trial to him.” Rosemary sounded happy about it.

“Do you have brothers or sisters, Miss MacArthur?” Elizabeth asked.

Joan shook her head. “I have no family living, I’m afraid.”

Both sets of brown eyes widened. “But how awful!” said Elizabeth. “I’m so sorry.”

“No, don’t worry about it.” Joan said. “It was a long time ago. But when Miss Grenville offered to let me stay with her, I jumped at the chance for company.”

Rosemary smiled approvingly. “Dear Eleanor is everything kind. Anyone who’s made her acquaintance knows
that
.”

“I deserve no such praise,” said Eleanor, blushing. “Miss MacArthur is wonderful company. It was only natural that I invite her.”

“Only natural for you, you mean,” Rosemary replied. And then, that particular dance concluded, she took the first few steps of the next. “We were so relieved to hear that you were seeing callers again, Eleanor. It must have been very hard for you, but Papa says that illness is quite common in town, particularly in the summer.”

“With so many people, it could hardly be otherwise,” Elizabeth added.

Eleanor took a swallow of tea and then entered the fray. “Yes, it is quite crowded. It was all very new to me, of course, but I still don’t know how everyone manages such a crush.”

“Very sharp elbows,” said Rosemary, and giggled. “But you must have been there long enough to have some of the news. We hear nothing at all out here, and you know that the papers don’t print anything that’s really interesting. Worried about panic in the streets, I suppose.”

“Even if we don’t have many streets. Or many people to panic in them.” Elizabeth sat forward. “So please do tell us everything.”

Eleanor managed a smile. “That’s quite an order,” she said, and took a comically deep breath, which made both the Misses Talbot giggle again. “There was no great cause for excitement, I’m sorry to say, or if there was, I was informed of it no more than you were. Nothing like the Jubilee last year.”

“But then, what would be?” Rosemary laughed. “An event notable enough for Papa to take us up to London comes along…perhaps once in a lifetime. If that.”

As they talked on, Joan slowly ate a slice of lemon cake and tried to absorb their conversation. It was harder than she’d thought it would be. Eleanor had taught her well, but a person could do only so much with bare facts. Every time she spoke, she felt like she was crossing an abyss, jumping from one slim foothold to another, knowing that even the footholds wouldn’t have been there two weeks earlier.

It wasn’t just men and fashion. Oh, there was that—they talked about sleeves for ten minutes, while Joan resisted the urge to play with her fork—but there was more too. “Have you heard anything from your family? Papa says that the situation abroad…”

“…but they’re saying that times will be much tighter next year, and we’d best start economizing. Something to do with the wheat crop, I think…”

“The thing is, I’m not sure at all that I want to be an officer’s wife. Not unless I know he’ll be posted somewhere in England…”

“Oh, I don’t think we have anything to worry about in His Royal Highness. You know what rumors are. And besides, Her Majesty’s not in very bad health…”

It was confusing, but it was familiar. Strip off the names and the ranks, and anyone back home might have asked the questions underneath.
Who’s going to be leading us next year? Will they do a good job? Will we have enough? Will we have to fight?

Fighting back home was never a question, though, and while the war the girls talked about might hit them where it hurt—Rosemary’s sweetheart, Eleanor’s parents—they’d never see combat themselves or have to run from armies in their homes. If their queen died, they’d get a ruler who might have had a mistress or six but who wasn’t promised to a Dark One, power mad, or just plain crazy—and who couldn’t have done anything much if he had been. Royalty here couldn’t have people impaled for impertinence or test weapons on the peasants. The queen couldn’t even raise taxes.

In the traitor lands, there were sacrifices every new moon, and you were lucky if the lord slit your throat before he gave you to his master. Even in the caves, leaders had cracked. Joan listened to the three girls discuss “character” very seriously and tried not to laugh or roll her eyes.
You idiots
, she thought.
Does it matter where your prince put his hands? There’s no blood on them.

Except that they did care because they could. Because they’d never known anyone worse. Tyrants were hazy figures from history. If this was a land, maybe a time, in the summer of its life, these were women in the summer of theirs. Their voices held no desperation, no need to hurry, no real fear. Earnestness, yes, and lots of it, but they gave a damn because they chose to, not because they had to.

Even Eleanor was like that. After she’d started talking, the rigid nervousness had left her. She didn’t actually say a lot, but she listened intently. When she did speak, her words were earnest, thoughtful, and unrushed. At ease.

She belonged here.

Joan didn’t. She could live here a hundred years, she thought, and never manage that easy grace. If the other girls had seen her when she arrived—but was she really that woman now? Now that she could dance in a corset and ride a horse? Now that luxury no longer instantly put her on her guard? Was she really Joan, daughter of Arthur and Leia, when she didn’t answer to that name anymore?

In the polished silver of her knife, she saw her own eyes in what should’ve been a stranger’s face. But change was gradual. She saw nothing alien looking back at her, nothing unfamiliar, not the likely traitor she’d have seen a month earlier. Not that it mattered: this was her world now. There was no point in worrying about who she’d been before.

“You seem very quiet, Miss MacArthur,” Rosemary said in the sudden silence that happened sometimes in conversation. “I do hope we’re not boring you.”

“No, not at all,” she said, and the voice came reflexively now. “I was just thinking about…human nature, I guess.”

Rosemary laughed, but the sound wasn’t an unfriendly one. “Truly? How Papa would like you! Have you figured it out, then?”

“I’ve only confused myself,” Joan said, and sipped her tea.

Simon had planned on departing London in the late morning, after taking care of a few genuine business affairs, and arriving at Englefield by supper time. His business took longer than he’d thought, however, and then, walking past a row of shops on his way home, he thought of Eleanor and Joan.

When he did depart, it was after two. He brought with him
The Archipelago on Fire
for himself, a set of pink-and-blue enameled combs for Ellie, and
King Solomon’s Mines
for Joan
,
the last after much frowning deliberation in the bookseller’s. It was a dashed tricky thing to buy presents for women you hadn’t grown up with—for respectable, unrelated women, anyhow.

Not that Joan would know or care, and not that he hadn’t already supplied her with half a wardrobe full of dresses. But that was different, and he would know. For all that he’d spent his youth racketing around with bohemians and socialists, for all that the lady herself thought nothing of stripping off before a strange man, something in Simon quailed at the idea of approaching her as he might one of the demimonde.

Well, of course,
he told himself,
she’s bound to find out about that sort of thing later, if Ellie hasn’t already made her aware. And then she’d question
my
motives, and it would all be quite awkward. Sensible enough, really.

Besides, she
is
practically a stranger. No man of sense would give anything elaborate to a woman he knew so little.

And she’d probably laugh, anyhow. Such things are dreadfully impractical.

It was all very logical when he thought about it. Yet perhaps Joan wouldn’t laugh if he brought her something more luxurious. She might be amazed, as she had been when she first saw the flowers.

He had become used to arousal when he thought of Joan. This other, more affectionate impulse was new. And the way one led into the other was decidedly uncomfortable. Breathless now, Simon closed his eyes. That didn’t help—he could see Joan all the more vividly in his mind now, flushed and eager—and he wasn’t sure that he really wanted it to. If the heat rushing through his body was unsettling, it was also intoxicating, and frustration itself had its own strange appeal.

But infatuation, he reminded himself, could not be helpful here. There was far too much at stake. Lust was a distraction, though perhaps an inevitable one. Any serious attachment could only cloud his mind further.

Simon made himself open his eyes and look out the window.
When I get back, I will see her for what she really is: human, imperfect, no more compelling than any other woman in the world. I’ll note those flaws that might ruin our plan, and I’ll carry on with removing them.

She’s only a woman like any other.

***

Simon arrived past ten at night. The rain had become a downpour by that time, and he was glad to see what few lights remained in Englefield’s windows. All were on the lower floors. Here in the country, only the servants would be awake at such an hour.

Simon hurried inside, handing damp cloak and wrapped parcels off to the appropriate people. He kept
The Wisdom of Raguiel
in his own arm, though. It would not be for the general library. In part, that was why he sent Peggy back to the servants’ quarters and took the candle himself.

In part, but not entirely. There was an appeal to walking the dark halls, a sense that he was reclaiming Englefield that he’d never before felt. Perhaps it was that he had just never been there long enough before; perhaps it was that such strong spells as he’d cast upstairs bound him, in some sense, to the place where he’d cast them.

Or perhaps it was that the world outside was so much less certain now.

The candle cast dancing shadows ahead of Simon. He caught sight of his reflection as he passed a mirror, wavering and alien in the dim light. Half-remembered children’s tales came to mind, none of them pleasant. He looked away quickly.

A line of light caught his eye then: dim light, not much more than his own candle, coming from under the library door. Eleanor, he thought, and shook his head. It was too late for her to be awake, even if she had been in town. If she’d been having trouble sleeping and had told neither him nor her maid, that was not a good sign. Simon straightened his back, assumed his sternest look, and opened the library door.

He had only a moment to see the woman at his desk, to observe that she was bent forward with her face in her hands, to catch sight of red-gold hair in the candlelight and know that he’d been very much mistaken. Only a moment.

Then Joan sprang from her chair and whipped around to face the door, grabbing at the desk. She raised her hand, and the letter opener gleamed in it.

They’d done their best, Simon thought, he and Eleanor. On the surface, they’d even succeeded. Below that, they’d made no impression at all. Joan’s eyes were narrow, her teeth bared, and her body poised to strike. The ivory dressing gown didn’t matter. She was every inch the savage he’d met in the circle of stones. But she was beautiful now.

Simon thought, in a stunned second, that a month of good food and a few civilized clothes couldn’t make that much difference. Not really.
If I saw her in leather and blood now, I’d still want her.

Even as the realization shook him, she was relaxing. “Sorry.” She lowered the letter opener and flashed a smile nearly as sharp and thin. “Jumpy, I guess. But the servants knock, and—anyhow, I’m sorry. Hope I didn’t wake you up.”

“Not at all. I saw the light and was curious. I hope I haven’t intruded.”

Joan shook her head. “Don’t worry about it.”

A candle sat on the table, but even that and the one Simon held revealed only a little redness around Joan’s eyes, a slight flush on her cheeks. If he hadn’t seen that one unguarded moment, he might never have known that anything was wrong.

It might be best to pretend he didn’t. Joan would never mention the incident; quite probably she would rather he didn’t. Or at least, Simon thought, she would be embarrassed if he did. Not quite the same thing. Perhaps thinking that it was had led, in part, to all his earlier trouble with Ellie.

Simon thought of the moment before Joan had known he was there, of the way she’d looked in that small patch of candlelight. Sad, yes, but more importantly, alone.

“Joan,” he said, stepping forward, “tell me what’s wrong.”

She hesitated for only a second. “What? Nothing. Thanks, but I’m fine.”

“No, please,” Simon insisted. “I must know. Is something wrong here? Has anyone been uncivil to you—were the girls—”

Improbable—impossible—for Joan to be crying over what a bunch of village chits thought or said or did. He knew that even before Joan shook her head. “No. It’s nothing you did. Nothing anyone here did. I just—”

She stopped and looked up at Simon, then swiftly away again at the desk and the opened book on it. A flush crept up her neck and over her face. “What the hell,” she said in a tight voice he’d never heard from her before. “If I’m going to act like a six-year-old anyhow,
I want my mother
. And my dad and my friends and the world I knew. It was a shitty world, but it was mine, and everyone I love is there. Was there.”

At the last, her voice cracked. Joan spun around to face the bookshelves, but Simon saw her face before she did, stripped of control at last, a study in weariness and fear and stark bleeding grief. The pain there made his own look like a stubbed toe. “Oh,” he said, sounding awkward and insufficient to his own ears. “But—won’t you see them again?”

“No.”

It was just the one word, as flat and uncompromising as a funeral bell. There was no room for
but if
, no possibility of bargaining, no holding out for one last chance. Just knowledge, cold and dark as the night outside.

“There were rituals,” Joan said. “I’m cut loose from time. That’s how I could come back, and I guess it lets me survive any changes I make by being here. But that’s just me. If I succeed…there’ll be a different world two hundred years from now. Mine won’t be there any more.”

“And if you fail?”

“Then everyone I knew dies. Horribly.” She shrugged, quickly and almost mechanically. “At the end—just before I came—the Dark Ones had broken in. My people might have fought them back that time, but…we were losing.”

Joan laughed humorlessly. “I’m not a priest or a philosopher. I don’t know what the difference is between dying and never existing at all except that dying probably hurts more. The kind of death they were facing? There’s no question.”

Simon remembered the cerberus’s teeth and pictures he’d seen in books and shuddered.

“So you see?” Joan scrubbed the back of her hand across her eyes, quickly and roughly. “I’m doing them a favor. And it’s—it’s not like they’ll miss me.”

Perhaps, somewhere, Simon thought, but he couldn’t say it. It might be true—he thought that the soul persisted, in some shape or other—but he didn’t know, Joan wouldn’t believe him, and it didn’t matter in the end. Whatever might survive outside of time, it wouldn’t be her world or her people.

There was nothing he could say. He stood and looked at her instead. The cream silk of her dressing gown was the brightest thing in the shadowed room. Her shoulders were stiff, her posture military.

It would be good to take her in his arms. It would also be highly improper, and Joan wasn’t one to cry on a man’s shoulder in any case. Still, he ached to touch her. To offer something when words had failed. Simon jammed his fists into his pockets.

Joan took another rough swipe at her face and then took a deep breath. “Anyhow, I didn’t mean to disturb you. Couldn’t sleep—came down to read for a little while.” She gestured to the open book.

Simon, following her gaze, recognized the title on the spine. “The Greeks? Eleanor has been an influence.”

“She’s got good taste.” Joan shrugged again and cleared her throat. “I knew some of the stories. The details changed, but my dad used to tell me the one about Icarus.”

Quite a story for a child,
Simon thought, but he held his tongue.

“I think that was humanity, for him. We’d had all the warnings. We ignored them, and we fell. My father wasn’t a very optimistic guy. But he was proud when I volunteered to go, like maybe I could change the old stories. Reading that book, I could hear his voice.”

She swallowed hard. “It’s late. You’ve had a long day, and none of this is really your problem, is it? I didn’t mean to throw it all on you.”

It’s not your business
, Simon heard in her voice at first, and it was that he first responded to. “No, not at all,” he muttered, and took a step backward, hesitating. Hesitating because there’d been something else in her voice, just as there’d been in her face earlier. And if he was fumbling in the dark again, perhaps there was no other way to find a light. “I hope—”

Again she turned to face him, almost as fast as she’d done when he first opened the door. Her eyes were fierce, all the more so because they shone with unshed tears. “This is just a moment. I’ll get over it. I’m not falling apart. Don’t think any less of me.”

What remained of Simon’s self-control vanished on the spot. “Think less of you? I—” Before either of them knew what he was doing, he’d taken her by the shoulders. “Most men I know would be mad in your shoes. Gibbering. Think less of you?”

Touching her had been a bad idea. There was perhaps half an inch between their bodies now. Simon was quite aware of that and of how little she was wearing. It was quite an improper position to be in. It was quite an
exciting
position to be in. It was a position in which no gentleman would remain for very long, not with a woman he wasn’t paying. But he couldn’t move.

If Joan had spoken or pulled away herself, the spell might have broken. But Simon’s words seemed to have caught her as off guard as hers had him, and she was silent. Her shoulders were warm beneath his hands, and her hair fell over them. Simon’s desire was almost blinding, a sweet hot ache not just in his groin but, it seemed, all through his body, as if his skin itself hungered for the woman in front of him.

I should move away
, he thought.

He had only a second to think it.

Then Joan slid her arms around his neck. Simon thought he’d never felt anything so arousing. “You’re a good guy,” she said. “I hope you know that.”

She leaned upward just a little but enough to close the rest of the distance between them, to press her body against Simon’s from shoulder to knee. Her lips pressed against his, hot and sweet. Then they parted, and Simon lost himself.