No Conventional Miss

He stood beside her. She no longer resented his intrusion. Indeed, it felt as though they were removed from the outside world, just the two of them, and had found a kinship amid these past treasures.

She smelled the faint lingering scent of tobacco and heard the infinitesimal rustle of his linen shirt as it shifted against his skin. Even the air stilled, as though trapped like a fly in amber.

She swallowed, shifting, wanting to both hold on to this moment and, conversely, end it.

‘My father wanted to translate the Rosetta Stone,’ she said at last.

He straightened. She instantly felt his withdrawal as he stepped back and was conscious of her own conflicting sense of regret and relief.

‘I am not surprised. It is one of the most important discoveries in modern times. Has he been to the museum since it arrived?’ he asked.

‘No, I—he—’ London was not a good place for him, but she could not say that.

‘His responsibilities have been too great at home,’ the viscount said gently as though understanding that which she’d left unspoken.

‘Yes.’

And then it happened—without warning—without the usual feeling of dread or oppression. The present diminished. The man, the Rosetta Stone, the display cases, even the long windows dwarfed into minutia as though viewed through the wrong end of Father’s old telescope.

She felt cold, a deep internal cold that started from her core and spread into her limbs.

A child—a boy—appeared to her. She saw him so clearly that she lifted her hand as though to push aside the wet strands of hair that hung into tawny, leonine eyes. He stared at her, his gaze stricken with a dry-eyed grief.

She recognised those eyes. ‘I— What’s wrong?’

‘Miss Gibson?’ the viscount spoke.

She blinked, the boy still remaining clearer than the man or the museum.

‘Miss Gibson,’ the viscount said again.

‘You were so young—’

‘What?’ He thrust the word at her, a harsh blast of sound.

‘When she died.’

The boy vanished.

‘Who died?’ Lord Wyburn asked as the present sharpened again into crisp-edged reality.

His eyes bore into her, his jaw tight and expression harsh. She dropped her gaze from his face, focusing instead on the intricate folds of his neck cloth.

What had she said? What had she revealed?

‘Has my stepmother been speaking about me?’ A twitch flickered under the skin of his cheek.

‘No, we didn’t, I—’ she said, then stopped.

‘I will not be the subject of gossip and you will not do well in London if you cannot be appropriate in word and deed.’

A welcome surge of anger flashed through her. ‘I am visiting a museum, that is scarcely inappropriate.’

‘Discussions of a personal nature are unseemly.’

‘Then I will endeavour to discuss only the weather or hair ribbons.’

‘Good.’

He made no other comment and the silence lengthened, no longer easy. She wanted to speak, to cover this awkwardness but, after that momentary anger, lassitude filled her.

This often happened. Exhaustion leadened her limbs only to be replaced later by a need to run, to jump, to ride. None of which she would do here, of course.

‘Wonderful! There you are!’ Lady Wyburn’s sing-song tones rang out.

Rilla turned gratefully as Lady Wyburn and Imogene appeared at the doorway.

‘No doubt you are both entranced with these ancient objects, but I admit I am done with them,’ Lady Wyburn announced.

‘Indeed, let’s go.’ The wonders of the Rosetta Stone had dissipated and Rilla longed for her own company.

As they walked through the corridor and into the entrance way, she could feel Lord Wyburn’s silent scrutiny and her sister’s concerned gaze.

Only Lady Wyburn seemed impervious to any discord and happily related a discussion with Lady Alice Fainsborough. Apparently, they had met Lady Alice while admiring the giraffe on the second floor.

‘A lovely girl,’ Lady Wyburn said as the wizened caretaker pushed open the oak door. ‘Although unfortunately she resembles her mother with her propensity for chins. Still, it is good to know a few people prior to your début and one cannot hold her chins against her.’

The door creaked closed as they exited into the dampness of the London spring. Rilla exhaled with relief as if leaving the museum made her less vulnerable.

The rain had stopped, but the cobblestones gleamed with damp and raindrops clung to twigs of grass, glittering as weak sunlight peeked through still-heavy clouds.

But the smell—it was the smell she noted.

Earlier, the courtyard had smelled of fresh grass, mixed with the less pleasant odour of horse manure or sewage from the Thames. Now it smelled of neither. Instead, it was sweet, cloying and strangely old-fashioned.

She wrinkled her nose. ‘Lavender. I smell lavender.’

Lord Wyburn stopped. She felt the jerk of his body beside her.

‘I hate lavender,’ he said.

* * *

Even hours later, Paul could feel his bad humour as he sat astride his mount. Ironically, his own ill temper irritated. There was no sensible reason for it and he had no tolerance for moods. Rotten Row was pleasant and unusually quiet and while the clouds looked dark, it had not rained.

He rolled his shoulders. They felt tight as bands of steel. Amaryllis Gibson had unnerved him. The way she’d looked at him or through him as though seeing too much or not seeing at all. And her change from vivacious interest to unnatural stillness.

And lavender.