Why didn’t her goal ring as true today as it had yesterday?
“Mum?” A quizzical Lucy stood at Olivia’s side. “I said I’m leaving now.”
“Oh, yes, dearest. Love you,” she replied to Lucy’s retreating back. This left her alone with the Duke. She peeled away the buttery layers of her croissant until it was nothing more than a flaky mess on her plate. “Will Lord St. Alban be joining us this morning?” The question hadn’t aired quite as nonchalantly as she’d hoped.
The Duke peered at her over the top of his paper. “He sent a note around this morning that he had other matters to attend.”
“Ah,” she replied.
“In fact,” the Duke continued, his gaze fixed upon his newspaper, “I’d be shocked if he returned at all. At least, for my mentorship. Other reasons might bring him back.”
Her heart gave a solid kick. “I can’t imagine.”
“No?” the Duke returned, but remained otherwise silent, leaving her to stew.
It had gone too far, and now the Duke sensed something between her and Lord St. Alban. She must find a way to put an end to whateveritwas, but how? She was being swept along by a force entirely out of her control and beyond her experience: her desire.
She needed to be alone. She pushed away from the table and stood. “I shall be in my studio if you need me.”
Her feet carried her through the maze of corridors leading to her studio. But the closer she drew to her destination, the heavier, the more leaden, her feet became. She wouldn’t be alone in her studio, not really, forhehad taken it over. In more ways than one after last night. Even in the privacy of her apartments, her face flamed.
What she needed was a restorative rest. Small wonder she was anxious. She hadn’t had a proper night’s sleep all week. Well, she would remedy that deficit immediately. Instead of pointing right toward her studio, her feet went left and didn’t stop until she reached her bed.
She hadn’t avoided her studio—and the evidence of her denial—at all.
~ ~ ~
The dream hadn’t come to her in years.
It was the night of Olivia and Mariana’s debut ball. Olivia had never seen her parents’ ballroom illuminated so magnificently: light casting halos about the hundreds of guests, the servants, too; champagne bubbles effervescing their way up crystal flutes in a glittery little dance; and the chandeliers were too brilliant for words. They sparkled. They glimmered. They twinkled. They received the light and threw it out in a million little ways.
At the head of the grand staircase, she gazed across the crowded ballroom, excitable nerves clanging about her body. This great multitude of people was here forher. She brushed her fingertips across the diamond brooch pinned just below her shoulder. Hundreds of sapphires of varying sizes and shapes set in platinum formed a perfect closed rosebud, one petal peeking open, on the edge of coming into full bloom. Mother and Father had given Mariana a nearly identical brooch, hers in rubies and gold.
Mother’s steadying hand squeezed her shoulder. “Are you ready, dearest?”
She nodded. She was too full of light and life to speak, to do anything other than glow and smile.
The orchestra struck up yet another waltz. She and Mariana had requested no music other than waltzes be played tonight, and their parents had indulged the slightly scandalous request. The night was perfect. Almost. But for one person she’d prayed would be here . . .
Mariana, cheeks flushed with high color, rushed up the staircase toward her. “Olivia!” she breathed out, each syllable a short burst. “He’s here!”
A rush of anticipation clamored through her veins, heating her up, body and mind.Hewas the boy, the young man, they’d spotted on Rotten Row, not once, but three separate times this week. Little conversations here and there revealed him to be the Duke of Arundel’s youngest son, up from Cambridge.
The mere sight of him had made her heart miss every other beat. What would it be like to be near him? Were his dark brown eyes as deep and soulful up close as they were from afar? She wanted to be close to him and far, far away from him all at once.
Her gaze roved across the tops of heads until she, too, spotted him, laughing and joking with a group of his friends gathered round in a jocular circle. She’d never seen him without a smile in his eyes or a laugh ready on his lips. It was possible that she had enough light inside her to illuminate this entire room, all of London.
She stepped forward in his direction and a staying hand clamped onto her shoulder. A vaguely familiar voice whispered in her ear. “You need not be in such a rush.”
But when she turned toward the voice, she saw no one there. Without another second’s hesitation, she took Mariana’s arm in her own, and the two of them flitted across the ballroom floor.
~ ~ ~
It was here, at this point in the dream, that an older Olivia began watching her younger self from across the room. Young Olivia looked straight through her. She always did, never seeing her older self.
Of course, her younger self never saw or heard anything that deviated from her own wishes and desires. Such a willful girl. A girl who had never known any troubles, therefore couldn’t anticipate any.
As Young Olivia and Mariana floated toward Percy’s group, she tried calling out again, “Dance with a few others first. You never know . . .” she trailed off.
