Cinderella Six Feet Under(111)

Ophelia frowned. “That’s not very charitable, Professor.” A wisp of hope arose.

“I oughtn’t have spoken of her at all. She is really—well, it does not matter what I think of her. She will have her pick of suitors.”

“Plucks them from the orchard, does she?”

“Miss Flax, I may not have been entirely accurate when I said that Miss Banks and I have an understanding.”

“What?”

“I have never asked her to marry me.”

“You scalawag! I’ve been tied up in knots on account of that I—that we . . .”

“I am very sorry. Please. There is something I must tell you.”

Ophelia couldn’t meet his gaze. She simply waited for him to continue.

“I cannot say why, or how, this happened,” Penrose said. “How this has occurred. The revolution that has taken place in my mind—or, really, it is not my mind, for I find that the greater part of my mind rebels against the very idea of you. No, the change has occurred in my soul.” He paused. “In my heart.”

She felt his gaze upon her cheek. She couldn’t move. She stared out into the star-studded horizon.

He continued. “I never could comprehend what people were going on about, speaking of their hearts in circumstances of sentiment. But I comprehend it fully, now. When I see you, Miss Flax—God, even in one of your preposterous disguises, that is how far this has gone—my very heart gives a wrench. When I attempt to sleep at night, haunted by fragments of your voice, the gestures of your hands, the singular gleam of your lovely dark eyes—my heart goes out of me, trying, I suppose, to find you. To bring you close. And when I try to think how I will live without you when I return home to England, well then, it is my heart that aches.”

Ophelia noted, with great sensitivity, the way a breeze fluttered a tendril of hair across her forehead. Still more acutely, she felt the ruby ring on her hand. Cold. Heavy.

“I love you, Miss Flax. That is what I wished to tell you earlier, bumbling like a fool. It is really quite simple. But I see that you have nothing to say. That you cannot look at me—well, I daresay that speaks volumes, does it not? So. Good evening.”

“Wait!” Her lungs were tight. “Wait.”

He stood over her, looking, for the first time in her memory, vulnerable.

Why, oh why, did it have to unfold, to unravel, like this?

She brought out her ruby-ringed hand, stretching her fingers along the balustrade. “I might have made a mistake. But I must behave honorably.”

Penrose stared down at the bloodred glitter in disbelief. “Griffe.” His voice was ragged. “You will be a countess.” He made a stiff bow. “I wish you and the count all the best.”

Ophelia watched Penrose stalk away down the long, long terrace, pulling fragile threads of her behind him. His tall shape melded into the black night, leaving her alone, shivering, with her icebox of a heart.

*

In the blue light of dawn, Ophelia dressed in her fine, forest green visiting gown, which stank of lake water and was only half dry. She drew on her black velvet paletot, laced up her battered brown boots, and carried the turtle out into Chateau de Roche’s park. She found a path that wound through misty woods and fields towards the river.

A turtle ought to be asleep in November, beneath dead leaves and mud in shallow, still water.

Ophelia took her time, despite how chilly she grew in her damp gown. At last, she found a stagnant little backwater sheltered by overgrown brambles, at the edge of a tributary stream. She crouched on the bank and held the turtle out. He flopped into the water and disappeared.

*

Two hours later, Chateau de Roche’s front drive was a carnival of horses, trunks, coaches, footmen, and groggy guests. Ophelia and Prue descended the front steps. They would ride with the Count de Griffe back to Paris. After that, Ophelia wasn’t exactly sure what would happen.

“Guess we aren’t the only ones who want to clear out,” Prue said.

“I allow, the ball did not end on an especially festive note,” Ophelia said.

“I reckon your long face is about the professor?”

“The professor? What? No. Why would I think of him?”

“Maybe on account of you look like your hopes and dreams was just run over by a steam tractor?”

“He has gone,” Ophelia said. “Last night, I was told.”

“He’s a mutton-head to leave you.”