Page 46 of The Phoenix Bride
“She will be, if she discovers it. But I managed to escape undetected.”
“Was your suitor angry with you yesterday?” he asks.
“You mean Sir Grey?”
“Yes.”
“I…no, he wasn’t angry. I’m not certain hecanbe angry. He is sweet natured, if a little strange.”
“The meeting went well, then?” he says.
“What do you mean, went well? I haven’t agreed to marry him, if that’s what you’re asking.”
His lips thin. “But you haven’t refused, either.”
He seems aggravated. I smile. “Does that upset you?”
“Why would it upset me?”
“I wouldn’t know,” I say. “You tell me.”
“Cecilia…”
I shouldn’t be provoking him like this; it is like poking at an aching tooth with my tongue, hoping for some outcome other than pain. I turn away from him and start walking down the street. “Wait,” David says, chasing after me. “Where are you going?”
I stop. “I suppose I don’t know. I thought we could follow the pageant.”
“It’s long gone by now, I fear. You want to dance again?”
“To hear the music, more than anything. It has been so long since I heard a performance like that.”
He gives me a considering look. “Come with me.”
I take his arm as he offers it, and we walk together toward the heart of the city.
“It is only a short way,” he tells me. “But you must say if you want to stop and rest.”
“Where are we going?”
He smiles, but he doesn’t respond. Instead, he says, “You seem happy, you know. I mean—youseemedhappy when you were dancing. Much happier than I’ve ever seen you before.”
“How long were you watching me?” I ask.
He rubs at the back of his neck with his free hand, clearly embarrassed. “Not for long. It was difficult not to. Well—I mean—”
“Iamhappy,” I say, interrupting him. “Perhaps it was your epithymum. Does it really cure melancholy? I didn’t believe it could, until now.”
“In truth? I don’t know. Perhaps being willing to take it means a patient is already bound to recover; perhaps it really does ease sorrow. There’s no way to tell.”
“Have you ever taken it?”
He seems startled by the question. “No,” he says. “I haven’t.”
We continue for a few minutes more, and then we reach an opening in the road. Beyond it, there is a large square, where there are dozens of fashionably dressed people milling about and sitting on benches, all drinking and smoking and laughing. Abandoned stalls and signs indicate that during the day, this is a market—but for now, it has become a playground for the jubilant souls spilling out of the theater at the square’s other end. A performance has clearly just finished. Its audience, now released,tumbles over one another like pebbles in a stream, eager to gulp the fresh air and join the others in their amusements.
I give David a curious look. “Covent Garden,” he says. He points to an elderly man who is clearly apart from the rest of the crowd, sitting on a stool at the corner of the square. He is dressed in austere, old-fashioned clothing, and he doesn’t seem much interested in anyone around him. “He will begin soon. We should take a seat.”
Mystified, I follow David to an unoccupied bench. We watch as the elderly man pulls a case from beside him onto his lap and undoes the clasps. He puts his hat down in front of him. Then he pulls an instrument from the case: a silver flute, tarnished with age, which he handles with the careful delicacy of an artisan.
