These Vicious Masks: A Swoon Novel(69)
“What’s going on?” I asked, rushing to follow him.
She sedately climbed the stairs behind us. “This is no place for you to stay overnight and unaccompanied. Considering you have restored my health on two separate occasions, I refuse to take no for an answer. If you do not wish this obliging footman to pack your trunk, I suggest you run ahead and do it yourself.”
For someone I was so used to seeing sickly, she had a resolve to be reckoned with. She waited on the bed while I managed to snatch an underthing back from the footman and inform him that his assistance would be most unnecessary. After he finally retreated and I squeezed in the few items that had spilled out of the trunk, we were ready to leave. Tom (Miss Lodge had sweetly asked the footman his name and received his entire life story) struggled back down the stairs with my trunk. He assured me he would inform the sleeping innkeeper that I had departed, and happily, if clumsily, handed Miss Lodge and me into the waiting carriage.
She hardly spoke the entire trip, except to make sure I was well. No intrusive questions, demanded explanations, or conditional promises. Given the scrutiny I’d endured from Lady Kent, it was oddly unbearable, and I was forced to break the silence.
“Miss Lodge, are you not curious about the reasons for my strange situation?”
“Only if you wish to share them,” she responded politely.
“It’s just—I’m not exactly the company anyone would like to keep now.”
Her expression was rather calm and businesslike. “No matter how catastrophic the rumor, people always adjust and find it dull in hindsight. Or they forget about it altogether.”
“I highly doubt society will forget. There’s always someone to keep reminding everyone else. God, I’m so foolish. I brought it all on myself because I didn’t care. All society did was irritate me. Now I can’t help but wonder, what else is out there?”
“There is plenty out there. You need not worry about London society.”
“Do you not care for it?”
“I have neither a low nor high opinion. It seems ideal for those who love doing nothing and keeping things that way. But I think it’s best to treat it as one of those disposable matters of life where you learn something and move on.”
“Learn what?”
“Who you are, who to marry, who to remain friends with, where to live. But I’ve had all that settled. When we marry, we shall go back to the country, and it will all be peaceful.”
The world went sharp, all colors and sounds heightened, and my tongue dried. “Marry?”
She looked cautiously at me. “You didn’t know?”
“I, do you mean, you, you mean Se—Mr. Braddock?” His name came out more breath than sound.
“Yes, we have had an understanding for years.”
“And you love him?”
She stared at me with those large gray eyes, seeing everything. “Don’t you?”
A whipcord of tension ran between us as I stared into her composed face. “Of course not! Where did you ever get such an idea?”
“Do you have any idea what you were like the night you brought him to me, unconscious?” she asked. “I thought you would go mad with worry.”
I could only stare as her words poured out. My head was swimming, sinking, drowning.
“The truth is, I do love him, and he loves me. We’ve known each other so long, and I’m the last part of home he has. That’s a powerful tie for a man who has lost so much family. But there’s much more to him that I can’t see. I know that he will never fully belong to me—part of him will always be lost in a different world.
“It’s the same way I felt when I first saw you,” she continued, her eyes huge and shining in streaks of passing streetlights. “The other doctors who came to treat my incurable condition, no matter whether they hopelessly went through the motions or ambitiously failed at a radical approach, all looked at me the same way. My disease was a means of keeping their livelihood or making a new discovery. They looked at me without really seeing me.
“But you were different. You knew how hopeless the task was, and you didn’t put much faith in your skills, but there was still a fire, an ambition, and it was not a selfish one. It was in service of something beyond yourself. You saw my life for what it was and imagined a better one.”
She took my hand and gave me a steady smile. “You are so restless, Miss Wyndham! I know that you will be compelled, soul and spirit, to achieve great things and help the world. It will be a beautiful life.”
Her eyes probed into mine, and I wanted to look at anything but her. “I truly do like you—you remind me so much of him. But as drawn to Sebastian as you may be, you will both end up heartbroken because of that restlessness, that energy. He may not love me the same way he could you, but neither will I run off at a moment’s notice. I will be a home for him, an anchor. With my illness, I didn’t know what would happen, but thanks to your cure . . . thanks to you, I will be there for him. Forever.”
Her breathing steady, she turned away and sat composed, silently staring back out the window. I lost my tongue along with all my other functions. The air between us felt like a thin pane of glass that would shatter with the slightest movement.
But it was all presumption. It had to be. Miss Lodge barely knew me. Just because I could handle Sebastian’s touch, I hadn’t expected it to mean anything more. I hadn’t even thought about what would happen after he finished helping me. What did I really suppose he would do? Miss Grey was evidence that someone could control their powers if they had motivation, and I could not imagine anyone more motivated to do that than Sebastian. He’s been searching for a cure for years, and he’s known Miss Lodge for longer. Pressing my forehead to the cloudy pane, cold sinking into my skin, I watched the city flow and melt by, reminding myself that I should be feeling nothing.