I felt an unladylike stab of jealousy along with embarrassment. One moment he was holding my hand, and the next he was paying particular attention to another woman. Not that I wanted him to hold my hand…. It was frightfully annoying, and I was glad when the dancing concluded.
If he hadn’t let go of my hand, I would have pulled away, of course. I thought it through on the way up the stairs to my bedchamber. I would have pulled awayandgiven him a stern glance that said, “I am not your little sister.”
Tomorrow afternoon the entire party will visit Barton Place, the estate of Sir John Middleton, one of my relatives. I mean to steal into Sir John’s library and see whether I can find any poetry other than Shakespeare’s.
I am positively writhing with curiosity about Andrew Marvel and his “coy” mistress. Colonel Brandon’s opinion of poetry is as low as that of novels, so I shan’t find it here.
February 3, 1815, sent by Baron Hugh Skelmers Vaughan to Miss Margaret Dashwood:
Dear Snaps, No one in Vienna seems to care whether the city is termed the capital of the Austrian Empire or the Holy Roman Empire. They are mad about dancing, so my waltz has improved. When a lady enters a ball here, they give her a miniature of a new invention to pin onto her dress. I wanted to bring one home to show you, so I talked a young princess into giving me her tiny telescope. It turned out her present was the sign of great favor, so I am leaving Vienna at first light before I am coerced into marriage.
September 3 Very Early Morning
Even though it is practically dawn, I am sitting down to narrativize my experiences at Barton Place, because Feodora was once told that Miss Austen was a “husband-hunting butterfly,” who took all her novels from her own life. That suggests there was a Darcy in Miss Austen’s life. She must have been madly in love with him, and he rejected her. Then she wrote the novel in whichhefalls madly in love for the pure satisfaction of crushing his dreams, albeit in fiction.
I approve, and so does Feodora.
Directly after luncheon, I drifted over to Lord Boucheron, the only other novelist in the party besides myself (I’ve decided Lord Dulloch’s claims to literary prowess are dubious at best). Lord Boucheron published one novel a year ago, and Marianne reports that he has a second one on the way.
I meant to engage him in literary conversation on the way to Barton Place, but somehow Squibby ended up in our carriage as well. It turned out that he knows Lord Boucheron just as well as Roderick and the rest.
“I didn’t realize that you were ‘Snaps,’?” Lord Boucheron exclaimed, turning to me. “I know all about you. Why didn’t you tell me, old chap?” he asked Squibby, reaching out and picking up my gloved hand to bring to his lips. “I would have been kneeling at your feet, Miss Dashwood, any number of times in the last year.”
“Just what did you tell your friends about me?” I asked, turning to Squibby.
(Yes, I knew that he had claimed I would get a First, but “all about me”? I couldn’t stop myself from inquiring.)
Squibby was leaning back in the corner of the carriage. “Nothing more than the truth.”
I narrowed my eyes.
“He talked about you all the time,” Lord Boucheron said, his mouth quirked in a smile that was not unlike Squibby’s at his most infuriating.
My heart thumped because—he did?I didn’t think Squibby cared at all. I had imagined him blithely sauntering through Oxford, rarely sparing a thought for the childhood friend he termed his little sister. I had to swallow back the impulse to demand an accounting of every word.
“We had nothing else to talk about back then,” Squibby said, smiling. “Thank God for the Grand Tour. The Tour finishes a man’s education, you know.”
That gave me a sour feeling that could be described as a “throb of rage.” The Tour allows gentlemen to jaunt around the world,whereas young ladies have to stay at home and attend the Queen’s drawing rooms and musicales.
Back when my family moved away from Norland Park, I had to leave behind my favorite book—an atlas. When we were little, Squibby and I would sit in my treehouse and plan long voyages around the world. It broke my heart to leave it behind. Later I heard that all the walnut trees had been cut, which surely included my treehouse.
The memory reminded me how affected I had been by Squibby’s letters, the ones I’m excerpting for my book. Every time I got a letter, I would read it over and over, and then traipse listlessly around the countryside trying to find anything interesting to write to him about.
“Darling boy,” Lord Boucheron said (quite as if they weren’t the same age), “you are such a liar.” He turned to me. “I ran into him in Prague just after he’d had one of your letters. He could talk of nothing else.”
“Prague? I never mailed a letter to Prague.”
“I left a groom behind to collect letters whenever I traveled on,” Squibby said. I was puzzled until he added, “My father’s none too young. Luckily for me, he stayed hale and hearty, and I didn’t have to dash back home.”
He certainly wouldn’t have wanted to miss a notice of his father’s illness.
“Hearty?” Boucheron snorted. “Your father was riding to the hounds for ten hours last Friday. I was exhausted, but the man wouldn’t give up without catching a fox.”
“I’m guessing he didn’t catch anything.” Squibby raised an eyebrow.
Boucheron shook his head.
“He never does, because the marquess is too loud for his own good,” I explained. “Every fox living within forty miles ofVaughan Hall knows that bellow and stays snug until he returns home. It’s the same at Delaford, so I hope you aren’t longing to be in at the kill tomorrow, Lord Boucheron.”
