Page 33 of The Secret Identity of the Lord's Aide
And here, she paused, feeling the air grow taut between them. She was offering him a leg-up. A life he’d never been allowed to hope for.
“But imagine a life without the shelter,” she said, her voice hushed. “A life in which you don’t have to beg or steal or …” She swallowed, drawing her arms over her chest and crossing them. “Peter, I want to offer you this job. And I know you can do it.”
Seconds later, Peter tossed his stick-thin arms around her shoulders and drew her against him. He sighed, then laughed, then sighed, allowing his own tears to drench his face. When their hug fell apart, he blinked at her, almost incredulous. “When do I start?”
Chapter 16
Nathaniel’s first ball of the autumn months occurred on the Saturday after his previous speech. Hours prior to the grand event, Nathaniel dressed in an immaculate suit, glossing over his hair with a bit of oil and frowning at himself in the mirror for a solid minute. How foolish it seemed to ready himself for a ball when he hadn’t a single inclination to dance with a single woman. Certainly, he liked the attention—both from the men and the women, but he also felt assured that he wouldn’t settle for just any debutante at any ball.
It was against his nature. And, he felt, it belittled the act of falling in love. If that truly was an act at all.
Lord Linfield imagined the women of the ball—the daughters of his father’s friends—performing the strange task of preparation for the evening ahead. The large ball gowns, donned. The hair, so curled and strange and otherworldly. The make-up, perfectly powdered. He shivered, feeling the animal nature of their brains. “Must find a husband. Must find a husband.” He could see it sparkling behind their eyes when he spotted them on the streets.
Wasn’t life meant for more than this?
Nathaniel met Richard on the porch of the mansion. He gripped the porch railing and gazed out towards the trees that swirled along the edge of the property. Richard asked him about the upcoming event. Whether or not he required company. But Nathaniel sensed a faraway look in the man’s eyes. Something that told him Richard deserved a night alone.
He wasn’t entirely sure why. But he placed his hand atop Richard’s shoulder, trying to catch the man’s gaze.
“Take the next few nights off, Richard, my boy,” Nathaniel said. “You’ve been working for me countless hours the past weeks. And because I’ve been so lost in my own skull, I haven’t given it much notice, now, have I? How reckless of me. Please. Find a way to forgive me.”
“There’s nothing to forgive,” Richard returned, although his eyes were guarded, and his lips were pressed into a tight line.
Lord Linfield considered this, en route to the ball: that it seemed men like Richard, and perhaps like Nathaniel himself, were continually lonely, yet unwilling to fight that loneliness. In Lord Linfield’s case, fighting that loneliness meant dancing with debutantes. It meant following his mother’s wishes to dance, court, engage, and marry a woman of a similar class. It meant following the rules of the society surrounding him, rather than hiding in the woods.
And, Nathaniel sensed that he would be more apt to remain a part of Parliament if he followed these set standards.
The carriage sprung up alongside the grand estate of his father’s old friend, the illustrious architect Lord Frederick Read. Lord Linfield tapped his boot to the side of the carriage, gave a firm wave to the carriage hand, before turning fully to the mansion at the top of the steps. The mansion was alight for the ball, with orchestral music swirling out from the windows. It felt as though the mansion was breathing. It glowed brighter than the moon.
When Lord Linfield entered the foyer, a maid scurried towards him to take his overcoat. He whirled it from his broad shoulders, scanning the balding selection of his father’s peers on the far side of the room. Several of them had spotted Lord Linfield and had turned their slumped forms to face him. Lord Frederick raised his brandy glass, beckoning to Nathaniel. Nathaniel nodded, sensing his place. He had to uphold their vision for a better Parliament, a better future.
“My boy,” Lord Frederick said, snapping his hand across Nathaniel’s back. “It’s quite lovely to see your face around here. I’d heard rumours that your mother’d given up all hope on your settling down.”
“My mother’s only interest lies in matters of the heart,” Nathaniel said, trying his best to be clever.
“That Lady Eloise is a difficult one to cross. When she made her mind up about something, dear me, your father had quite a time with her, I know that,” Lord Frederick said, tittering.
Nathaniel tilted his head forward, stitching his eyebrows together. He ached to hear whatever story bumbled around Lord Frederick’s mind regarding his parents. Nathaniel had his own memories, of course—his own images of his father and mother and their occasional, rare moments of intimacy. The subtle way his father would stroke his mother’s hand when he walked past her reading chair. The way his mother would flash her eyelashes when she teased his father. In some ways, their love was youthful and electric, far more than the relations between many of Lord Linfield’s contemporaries.
But when Lord Linfield began to press Lord Frederick for more details, Lord Frederick’s voice rose louder for his own intentions.
“Of course, I’ll be introducing you to my eldest daughter in good time, this evening,” he continued, raising his eyebrows up and down in a provocative way. “Quite a darling girl. My favourite, if I do say so myself. And I do hope to see you out turning her around on the dance floor at some point in the evening, my boy.”
Lord Linfield ached to march away from the scene, to run from the eyes of his father’s peers, so hungry to tear into him—to ask his opinions about the various Tory policies and whether or not he was thinking of settling soon. The men were perhaps 20 years Nathaniel’s senior, and they were ready to latch onto him: ensure that he lost his hair, that his belly grew long and flabby like theirs, and that his eyes grew grey and tired. It was as though they were already dead and trying to tear Nathaniel down with them.
Nathaniel finally retreated for the far corner of the ballroom, where several 20- and 30-something men stood with hunched shoulders, looking with vague interest at the debutantes in their cake-like gowns across the floor. From where Nathaniel stood, he could feel his tongue coating with their perfume, could smell the thickness of their make-up atop their cheeks. When his eyes raced over them—over the pinks and the blues and the yellows of their dresses—his stomach stirred. Another selection of women, another display. Each of their eyes glowed with promise. They were akin to puppies in a box, waiting for adoption.
“It seems the older I get, the more they become the same.”
This voice rasped in Nathaniel’s ear. Nathaniel turned quickly, blinking into the once-familiar face of Lord Everett Beauchamp, the 9th Viscount Gilford, a man he’d frequently travelled with to debutante balls throughout their mid-20s. Lord Beauchamp was nearly as tall as Lord Linfield’s six foot four inch frame, with curly red hair that swarmed his ears. When he grinned, he showed a chip in his front tooth.
“Everett?” Lord Linfield said, almost gaping. He shot his hand out to shake Everett’s, shaking his head. “My God, I didn’t expect that you’d be—”
“Still very much single, my boy,” Everett said, nearly shaking Nathaniel with the ferocity of his handshaking. “I ran off for a bit. Travelled through India, bits of China. Mongolia. Now, of course, I’m in Parliament. As, I suspect, you will be soon.”
“India. That’s right. Is that where you—” Nathaniel began.
“The old tooth? Of course. Chipped it right out about two years ago, over in India,” Everett said. At this rate, his smile was almost infectious. In some ways, Nathaniel thought he was better looking with the chip.
