Phoenix and Ashes

Ravaged knee or not, he was light on his feet. Not a brilliant dancer, but a competent one, and the gown she was wearing was practically made for waltzing in. With a heady feeling of euphoria, she surrendered to the moment and let him guide her three times around the floor while the musicians kept the tempo a little slower than usual. After all, wasn't this the sort of thing she had dreamed of doing? It felt like a dream. It had all the perfect unreality of a dream.

The musicians must have had a fine sense of just how long Reggie could dance; about the time she felt his steps faltering slightly, they brought the waltz to a close with a flourish.

Under cover of the polite applause to the orchestra, he bent and whispered, "If that's enough for you, would you like to see the gardens?"

All she could do was nod; once again, as the orchestra began a new piece, he tucked her hand into the crook of his elbow and escorted her out of the Great Hall, into the room behind it—she got a glimpse of a long table set with huge arrangements of flowers and punch-bowls— and then out onto a terrace.

The view down into the gardens was breathtaking, but he didn't give her much chance to look at it. He drew her down the stairs into the gardens themselves, which had, as he had told her, been lit up with fairy-lanterns. The wave of perfume that washed over her told her that the roses for which Longacre was famous were in full bloom. He took her down one of the paths to a stone bench—still within sight of the terrace, but not a straight line-of-sight. She carefully arranged her skirt, and gingerly took a seat. With a sigh of relief, he sat beside her.

"I was horribly afraid I had offended you past forgiveness," were the first words out of his mouth. "I never meant to. When you didn't come back—"

"You went to the meadow?" she interrupted, hit again by one of those surges of irrational pleasure.

He nodded. "As soon as I could. And you didn't come back, so I thought you were angry with me."

"I couldn't—" that was all she could manage before Alison's coercions clamed down on her.

"Because you had work to do—I hoped that was all it was, but I was afraid I had been a boor." He sighed. "I am neither fish nor fowl, Eleanor. On the one hand, I was raised by my parents and the nannies they chose for me, who are of the opinion that education beyond reading, writing, and a little figuring is bad for females. On the other, I am heavily influenced by my godmother, who is an unrepentant suffragist, and by what I learned myself at Oxford. Sometimes, when I am not thinking, things escape from me that are parrotings of Mater, and I am always sorry when they do. I plead forgiveness. I never meant to slight the intelligence of women, and least of all yours."

She took off her domino and looked up at him gravely. "As long as you promise to remember that," she said. "And I hope—"

How do I warn him about Alison and the girls? She couldn't say anything directly, but—

"I hope you're also remember that intelligence is a weapon of sorts, and it isn't always used to good ends, and that signifies for women just as well as men. Maybe more," she added, thoughtfully, "Since women don't have a great many weapons at their disposal, and they are inclined to use the ones they have with skill and precision."

He blinked for a moment, as if taken aback by her words, then nodded. "Ah. I think I know what you are hinting at. The charming Alison Robinson and her two lovely daughters." His mouth tightened. "Eleanor, what hold have they over you? I cannot believe that they can come up here to tea and tennis on a daily basis in gowns of the latest mode while you clearly are working at manual labor and kept as shabbily as a tweenie in a miser's house, unless they have some power over you!"

Oh, how she wanted to tell him! She fought the constraints of the spell, but all she could manage to get out, through gritted teeth, was, "She's my guardian. I have no rights, and no say in my life."

"Until you come of age, and that can't be long," he replied, his eyes icy for a moment. "And then—you can depend on me, Eleanor. You can."

She felt her hands starting to tremble, and she clasped them together to hide it. He reached over and took her hands.

"Eleanor," he said, as she stiffened. "I would like to be more than just your friend. A great deal more."

She went hot, then cold, then hot again. "You don't mean that," she said, half begging, half accusing. "You can't mean that. I don't fit in with all this—" she took her hands out of his and waved vaguely at the manor behind her. "and I don't fit in with 'your people!' Can't you see that?" She shook her head violently. "You and I—it's impossible, surely you understand!"