Page 43 of The Phoenix Bride
“Ill-suited to marriage?”
“The physicians I have spoken with say I am afflicted with a permanent restlessness,” he tells me. “My thoughts are like bees,swarming in my skull. Sometimes they fly out of my mouth without warning, and sometimes they buzz so loudly I can’t hear anything else at all. I fear afflicting someone with such madness without warning would be cruel.”
“It is not madness, surely,” I say with a flash of sympathy. I understand what it is to fear your own mind. “Only…difference.”
He smiles at me. “I should hope so. Regardless, I hope my offer might be amenable to you.”
I open my mouth, then close it. I know what my sister would tell me in this moment:Patience, Cecilia. Affection comes with time. This is the best that you can hope for.
He seems sweet enough, handsome enough. And despite all the pressure placed upon us by our relatives, I have the sense he would accept my refusal.
But what other choice do I have? My widow’s pension is small, and I am reliant on my sister’s charity. If I cast myself upon Will’s family, beg them for refuge, they would take me in—but for how long? How long until I meet a similar fate, to be handed to another gentleman as a consolation prize?
“I cannot make any promises,” I tell Samuel Grey. “But I promise to consider it.”
Grey blinks at me. He unfolds his legs. Then he refolds them in the same position as before; unfolds them again. “Really?”
I smile quizzically. “Yes, really.”
“Goodness!” he says. “Did you know, I have asked two women this month already. I poured tea on the last one. Accidentally, of course, although she maintains otherwise.”
This is so oddly tragic, so patently absurd, that I bend over and begin laughing into my skirt. Grey also laughs, albeit with some confusion, and for some time we don’t speak at all.
“Sir Grey—Sam—” I say once I am recovered, and I offer himmy hand across the coffee table. He takes it in both of his as if to kiss it, but then he has a crisis of confidence, and he stares at my knuckles instead. I pry one of his hands away, shaking the other. “I have the sense,” I tell him, “that we are each other’s last resort. Considering this, we really ought to be friends before anything else, and see what may proceed from that.”
“Friends,” he says. “What an excellent idea! Are you certain?”
“Quite.”
“I shall call upon you again, then. Do you know how to play whist?”
“I don’t.”
“Nor do I. We shall learn it together.”
“I would be happy to,” I reply. I pause, and then add, “May I ask you something?”
“Of course.”
“You said your thoughts are like bees. Do they ever sting you?”
He cocks his head, eyes wide. He looks very much like his spaniel. “Why do you ask? Do yours sting you?”
“Yes. Quite often.”
“Hm.” He frowns in thought. “There is something my father once told me when I was young.”
“What was that?”
“Bees sting because they are afraid, not because they are angry.”
“That makes sense,” I say. “I am often afraid.”
He smiles at me. “So, then, you must be brave. That is the only solution. Not an absence of anger, but an absence of fear.”
“An absence of fear? That is impossible, surely.”
“Oh, yes,” he says. “Of course it is. But it is worth trying, isn’t it? Impossible things happen all the time. They killed King Charles, and now Charles is king again.”
