Page 13 of An Honorable Deception
It made her all the gladder to know that these friends of hers—the ones who had consented to share their most serious secret with her—had put her in a room on this side of the house, where she could see the acrobatics training. Lady Alethia, on the other hand, had been given a room on the far side of the house, where her view would only be of the lawns, when she could even get up to view them. She might see a zebra pulling the lawnmower, which would raise a few questions, but she’d only need to be given the usual explanation about the Caesars taking over some household chores in return for their room and board on the estate.
The story Lavinia had believed. She had thought, too, that the other staff had left in objection to the presence of the Romani family ... and why had she thought it? Had they planted that thought? Had her mother perhaps mused of it? She ought to have known better. The staff had loved the Caesars as much as she had as a girl.
No, the real problem was that Lavinia had spent too many years thinking of nothing and no one but herself. It hadn’t been intentional. It had simply been all she’d had energy for. When Marigold visited, she would ask her questions, but it had felt a bit like playacting. She’d been too weak to work up either enthusiasm or concern. She remembered loving them all—Mama, Papa, Marigold, Genie, her friends from school—but they’d seemed more shadow puppets than real people.
No.Shehad seemed more a shadow puppet than a real person.
“No more.” She whispered it toward the trapeze, knowing Yates would never hear it over the creaking, and it certainlywouldn’t travel through the next window down, which belonged to Marigold and Sir Merritt’s suite of rooms. She had purpose now, even if it was borrowed. Something to focus on other than her own health or her mother’s deceptions or whether she could ever make herself trust any of the strangers in the London ballrooms enough to marry one of them.
Yates hung from the trapeze bar with his hands, and she watched as he swung up to the apex, let go, and flipped so many times she couldn’t count the revolutions before his feet landed in the sawdust and sand of the arena floor. His knees bent to absorb the shock, then straightened, his arms coming up in a perfectY, despite the fact that there was no audience to clap for him.
So she clapped for him, adding a verbal cheer too. If it awoke Marigold, her friend would forgive her.
Yates looked up, the same grin on his face that he’d worn the first time the Caesars let him on the trapeze. Not a bit of embarrassment at being watched when he hadn’t realized he was, no self-consciousness over the state of undress he was in, not the least bit ashamed of loving something no earl ever should.
How free he was. How resolutely himself. How she’d envied him all their lives for that.
He ran for the side of the courtyard, and she craned over the railing to see what he was doing. Her mouth fell open when she realized he was scaling the wall, quick as a spider, using only the spaces between the stones as hand and footholds. Before she could even gasp out a breath, he was there, leaning on the opposite side of the railing like his feet were on solid ground as hers were, rather than dangling in midair, held in place only by the tips of his bare toes.
He was still grinning like an eight-year-old. “Morning, my lady.”
“My lord.” It was so ridiculous that she returned to lounging there too, a foot away from him, knowing her own smile was probably as informal as his—and quite glad she’d slipped into a simple day dress upon waking and hadn’t wandered out in her dressing gown. “When did you learn to climb walls?”
“Well, you know. Tools of the trade.” His attempt at a shrug was a bit lacking, giving that his arms and shoulders were rather busy with holding up his not-inconsiderable weight. “Did Marigold outfit you with proper attire yet? Ready for your first trip to the gymnasium?”
She refrained from wrinkling her nose—barely. “Don’t I get tea first? Porridge?”
“After.” He leaned back, hands still gripping the railing but arms extended straight. If he was trying to make her gasp again, she refused to grant him the pleasure. “Though we make it ourselves. Drina will be coming out for her own turn on the equipment.”
He was trying to shock her. And honestly, he was succeeding. Whoever heard of an earl who made his own breakfast? And yet, if ever one would, it was Yates, so she simply nodded and stood straight. “Excellent. I was telling Papa last week that I’d like to learn to be more self-sufficient.” Of course, she’d meant only that she needed to learn how to better care for the household accounts and give instructions to the servants—lessons that had grown rusty since her illness—so that she could stay at home while he was in Town from time to time.
“Five minutes. In the gymnasium. Or I come searching for you.”
She gave her cheekiest grin. “If I really need to escape you, I’ll hide behind a chair again.” She hadn’t admitted to anyone that she’d fallen asleep in that corner, feeling safer, somehow, than she had in ages.
He sent her a playful scowl, and then his head vanished again, along with the bronzed, bulky arms. She wanted to lean over and watch him descend, but five minutes wasn’t that much time to change from her dress into Marigold’s leotard, trousers, and blouse, and walk all the way to the newest Fairfax outbuilding, finished right before the last earl’s untimely death.
And gracious, but she might need the whole five minutes in order to convince the tight fabric to slip over her hips and up her torso. How did Marigold stand this thing? It was even worse than a corset—not cinched so tight, but it clungeverywhere, and had Lavinia not been unable to eat much in the last several years, she never would have been able to get it over her curves.
A look in the mirror, and she squealed, face flushing. She knew for a fact that Marigold had once practiced wearingonlythis thing and her stockings. How could she stand it? Granted, her audience had merely been her brother and father and the Caesars, but still. It revealed far more than a corset and bloomers and chemise did, and Lavinia was more than a little glad her friend had passed along the trousers and blouse too.
The trousers were more like Indian-style pajamas than trousers proper, but they were comfortable, and they would allow for free movement. The blouse was loose, thin cotton. Her next look in the mirror only earned a shake of her head, anyway.
If Mother had ever seen her in trousers—but Mother wasn’t here to be horrified.
“I like them,” she said to the mirror. And if the light in her eyes was spite more than truth, her reflection forgave her. She hurried from the room, down the stairs, and back out into the morning.
The back door stuck horribly, but she employed her hip to convince it to open and then again to convince it to close.
Yates was still waiting on the path toward the gymnasium, a new grin on his face. “What a lovely ensemble, my lady. You’re certain to earn a place in G. M. Parker’s next column with such trendsetting fashions.”
Lavinia snorted a laugh and strode forward to meet him. “So what exactly do you think I can do in this gymnasium of yours? You know well I was always a dunce at tumbling.”
Yates sighed and made atsking sound. “You’re lucky we suffered your company at all.”
She was, at that. Her days spent with the Fairfaxes had been the sunniest of her childhood—even before she’d realized everything was a lie. But she wasn’t about to say so.
Instead, she batted her lashes and said, “Should we invite Genie Ballantine to our morning exercise too,Yates?” She used the same exaggerated inflection that Genie had once employed any time she said his name, just to watch his wince.
