Page 5 of Now Comes the Mist

“Don’t be so hard on him,” Mina chides me gently. “He’s just bashful. And I happen to know he is admired by many girls, even ifyouthink nothing of him, dear.”

“I don’t think nothing of him. I simply never remember him when he is not in front of me,” I say to make her laugh at my incorrigible thoughtlessness. But it is a practiced thoughtlessness, one I have honed over the years to protect my innermost feelings.

Arthur Holmwood, indeed. His parents, Lord and Lady Godalming, are friends of Mamma’s, and it had been inevitable that their only son and heir be a part of my childhood. But among the acquaintances with whom I had spent many a summer, he had always faded into the background: a quiet boy with skinny arms, mousy hair, and a perpetual sniffle. Papa used to tease me about my lack of interest in Arthur and call me “Your Ladyship,” joking that one day, years hence, the awkward boy would grow up to be the handsomest man of our circle and sweep me off my feet.

Papa never lived to see his joke come true.

“I don’t believe you truly mean that about Arthur,” Mina says knowingly. “You told me he asked you to dance at the Stokers’ ball last October.”

That autumn ball, again, and another man who had changed my opinion of him there.

“He had been away at school for so long. And then his family went abroad for his father’s health.” I study the camellias. A soft gold radiates from the warm red center of each flower, like a secret tucked inside their hearts. “When I saw him at that ball, I almost didn’t recognize him. He looked so different. Stronger. More self-assured.”

Mina’s eyes glow with excitement. “You never told me this, Lucy,” she reproaches me. “You only said he looked like his mother had dragged him there kicking and screaming. Except he would have done it all silently because a peer of the realm never causes a scene, not even in his family’s private carriage.”

A startled laugh escapes me. “How on earth do you remember my insipid comments?”

“I remember everything you say. You were surprised when he asked you to dance because he could barely look you in the eye. He was always staring at your nose or chin.”

“Or something lower still,” I add with a dazzling smile.

Mina tries but fails to look stern. “You do know what camellias mean, don’t you?”

“Of course not. As my former governess and the expert on all things pertaining to etiquette, I was hoping you could tell me.”

“Camellias meanmy destiny is in your hands. They are unutterably romantic. More so than roses, in my opinion. I’ve never liked roses. They always feel too bold.”

I look between the camellias in my hands and Dr. Seward’s bouquet on the table. “Are you trying to tell me something, my Mina?”

She leans over and kisses my cheek. “I wouldn’t dare. Besides, your mind is already made up one way or another, even if you don’t know it yet.”

Mina knows me so well that I wonder if she has guessed what else I did not tell her about that ball and that dance with Arthur. How the shyness I had once mocked had seemed endearing and gentlemanly in this tall, elegant almost-stranger. The walnut hair, hazel eyes, and quiet demeanor had still been there, but all else was different: the broadness of his shoulders beneath his suit jacket, the newly confident fluidity of his movements, and the low, soft timbre of his voice. And such hands! Tender and firm and big enough to envelop mine, applying gentle pressure on my waist to move me exactly how and where he wanted me. I wonder if Mina has guessed how I dreamed of those hands for weeks afterward, and what they did to me in the most secret recesses of my subconscious.

Arthur, however, had seemed calm and collected. He had thanked me for the dance and returned to his mother’s side without a backward glance. No passionate whispers, no straying touches, no notes slipped into my hand, like my other admirers. For the first time, I alone had been affected. A reversal of roles … or so I had believed.

I bring the camellias to my nose once more.My destiny is in your hands.

“Lucy?”

I realize that Mina has been speaking to me and I haven’t heard a word. “Yes?”

She tilts her head to one side thoughtfully. She has tucked a few of the forget-me-nots over one ear, and their soft azure is enchanting against the deeper blue of her eyes. “Which flowers will you wear down to the party?”She looks from Arthur’s flowers to Dr. Seward’s, and there is a coyness in her voice that tells me she will read a great deal into my answer.

But I am not one to easily satisfy, not even when it is my most cherished friend.

“Neither,” I say lazily and toss the flowers in an untidy heap on the table without bothering to get them any water. “Come, let us join the party. Mamma is expecting us.”

CHAPTER THREE

All their eyes are on me.

I feel it the moment Mina and I enter the drawing room. I have followed every rule to perfection, after all. “You must be above reproach at all times,” Papa had always advised me. “People with an unusual heritage like ours must prove to society that we belong.”

And there is no place I belong more than a party. I have stabbed my gleaming upswept hair with pins so that my long neck will appear to best advantage. I have been tightly laced into my corset so that my breasts will look soft and full and my waist impossibly small. I have pinched my feet into costly slippers to make them look delicate and feminine.

I am a dazzling, glittering doll in pink silk, constantly in danger of tripping or having to faint into someone’s strong arms. Helpless and fragile, just the way men want me.

And oh, how they want me, from that rosy-cheeked boy by the door who looks scarcely old enough to be drinking champagne to that aging marquess by the fireplace, talking calmly of business even as he ogles every inch of me.

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