“What are they doing?”
“It’s a landau.The top comes off.”
In a few moments, the entire front side of the carriage had fallen away—and they could see and be seen by the fashionable street before them.
The carriage opened, the assistant went into the shop to get their ices, bringing back a vanilla for him and a chocolate for her.
As she ate her ice, Beatrice could feel the eyes of the other diners on their carriage.He had especially opened up the carriage, she realized, so that she would get the publicity that she wanted.So she could find the other man that she would need to keep her soon.She tried not to let the thought dispirit her.
“Thank you for this trip,” she began, trying to speak in her usual spirits.“It is very thoughtful.It will be helpful, I’m sure, for finding my next protector.”
She looked at him as she said the words.
“I am happy to do it.I want to make you happy, Beatrice.”
“And I am sorry,” she said, the words rushing forward of their own volition, “about what I said yesterday.”
Now he truly looked confused.“When?”
“In—in bed.”It was unlike Beatrice to feel uncomfortable directly addressing a matter.At home, at Parkhorne, ever since her father had died, she had prided herself on plain speaking.With her family, with her lovers, in business, she did not stutter or evade.But, somehow, in this instance, with him, she found it difficult to be matter-of-fact.
He furrowed his brow.
“We said many things in bed yesterday, Beatrice.You will have to be more specific if you would like me to know which you are apologizing for.”
“Surely you know,” she said in frustration.
He shook his head, concern etched on his face.
She sighed.She would have tosayit.
“The endearment.My love.It was silly.A slip of the tongue, you know.”
For a moment, he was still.With a dawning horror, it occurred to her that he had missed her words altogether and now she was drawing unnecessary attention to them.It would have been better, she was suddenly sure, to not say anything at all.
“Beatrice,” he said, taking her hand.She cringed.She was forcing him to tell her to check her emotions.
She pulled her hand away.“No, really—you mustn’t.As I said it was a mistake.”
He took her hand back.She liked the way his hands looked closing over her fingers, bare because she had just been eating the ice.
“I don’t know what you mean,” he said, bringing her hand to his mouth, brushing her knuckles against his lips.“But I want to be very, very clear.”
She squirmed.Dear Lord, this might be the most humiliating moment of her life.
“You can call me anything in bed that you like,” he said.“It doesn’t matter to me.As long as you continue letting me be that close to you, I don’t care what you call me.”
She exhaled.Of course, she realized, she had made too much of it.
“I see,” she said, with a little laugh.“It was silly of me to worry.I just didn’t want you to get the wrong impression.”
“Ah,” he said, thoughtfully.“NowIsee.”
Her relief vanished in a flash.It occurred to her that she had somehow managed—if she hadn’t before—to say the wrong thing.His expression looked a bit stony, and he put his ice down on the squab, unfinished.
“Preston, we are leaving,” he said to his coachman.The assistant cleared the refuse of the ices.Then, the two men closed up the carriage once more, and the brilliant spring of Mayfair was once more on the other side of the carriage wall.
He looked out the window, appearing pensive.
