Always Proper, Suddenly Scandalous (Scandalous Seasons #3)(43)

From the corner of the room, Beatrice sat conversing with several young ladies. They broke off into a fit of giggles. Abigail marveled that she’d ever been so very innocent. How greatly her life had changed in the span of a few months. She’d gone from blushing, innocent debutante to scandalized woman forced to flee the shame she’d wrought upon her family’s name.

Using the distractedness of those present, Abigail took the opportunity to skirt the edge of the room, and slip out the door into the silent hall. She closed her eyes, welcoming the bliss of privacy, and then wandered the length of the hall. She weaved her way toward the parlor that opened out onto her uncle’s meticulously maintained gardens.

As a relative of the host, her presence could easily be explained away. Her lips twisted. And if not, well, there were far greater scandals than excusing herself from company to steal a silent moment in the moonlight.

Abigail slipped inside the Chintz Parlor, resplendent in floral décor. From the rose-patterned curtains to the Aubusson carpet stitched with lilacs and lilies, it inspired a desire for a different setting than the dirt-laden streets of London.

She closed the door behind her and turned around.

“Abigail,” a deep voice murmured.

A startled gasp escaped her. She slapped a hand to her breast, and her eyes searched for his now familiar figure in the room lit only by the glow of the moonlight. “Geoffrey,” she greeted, as her eyes adjusted to the dark room. Abigail located him over by the doors leading onto the terrace.

His gaze remained focused out the window, on the grounds below. She chewed her lip, looking from Geoffrey back to the door behind her. If they were discovered, she’d cause a scandal to nearly match the one she’d fled back home.

Reason told her to turn around.

Reason told her to flee.

She took one step forward.

“Lady Beatrice has rejected my suit.”

Abigail froze, the tip of her slipper hovered a hairsbreadth above the floor. She completed her step. “I’m sorry, Geoffrey.” And oddly, she found even with the envy she’d felt over his honorable intentions for Beatrice, she meant it. She didn’t want to see him hurt.

Her words were met with silence.

Abigail took another step.

“I don’t like seeing you with Sinclair.”

She cocked her head. “I beg your pardon?” she asked quietly.

“That bastard Sinclair. I don’t like the way he looks at you.”

“Oh.” Abigail blinked, stunned by his harsh pronouncement.

Geoffrey still remained stock still, his broad, muscular back presented to her. “I cannot explain my reaction. It shouldn’t matter who courts you.”

Her heart stilled.

“Yet it does, Abby. It matters for reasons I don’t understand…and for reasons that terrify me,” he said hoarsely.

She took a step toward him, and another, and another, until she hovered at the point just beyond his shoulder. He tensed, but she reached past him and pressed the handle of the door. Unseasonably warm spring air spilled into the room, and surrounded them with the sweet fragrant scent of roses and crocuses.

Abigail took him by the hand. “Come with me,” she said.

Geoffrey hesitated a moment, and she waited for him to do the proper thing and take his leave. Except, he continued to defy every preconceived notion she carried of him as a stiffly formal nobleman. He allowed her to pull him along to the armillary at the center of the garden.

“What…?”

“Shh,” she said, placing one finger against her lips, and then pointed her finger skyward. “That is Lyra.” Geoffrey’s indecipherable stare followed her finger, upward. Abigail studied the lute-shaped formation in the sky. “Orpheus was given the harp by Apollo. He would use the harp to play for his bride, Eurydice. Some say her playing was so beautiful, that when man or animal heard the sound of it, they would stop what they were doing and just listen.” Geoffrey remained silent. “Eurydice died suddenly and Orpheus was left broken-hearted. So he journeyed into the underworld, begging Hades to return her to him.” At one time she’d believed the stuff of legends, had believed that a man was courageous enough to fight to claim her as his, at all costs.

“What happened to her?”

Abigail dropped her hand to her side but continued to study the pattern of stars. Until that moment she’d believed his silence indicated he found her recounting silly. How very different he was from Alexander, who had found her fascination with the stars tedious, and encouraged her to pursue more ladylike interests.

“Hades allowed Orpheus to take her back, under the condition that he’d trust Hades and not look back over his shoulder at her.”

“And he of course, failed to abide by Hades orders.” There was something bitter and cynical in that succinct utterance.

“He did,” she confirmed. “And so Hades swept Eurydice back to the underworld. The stars were put there by Zeus to honor the love Orpheus had for Eurydice.”

From the corner of her eye, she noted the way Geoffrey’s firm, square jaw hardened. “Or it served to remind man of the dangers in not honoring ones word.”

A smile teased the corner of her lips. “Perhaps, that, too.” And Abigail expected that Alexander’s betrayal should have disabused her of any further dreams of love. Her gaze locked with Geoffrey’s. “But I prefer the romanticism of the first one, Geoffrey.”