Page 51 of The Phoenix Bride
We walk back toward the fence and I help Cecilia clamber over it. I do the same, then turn to her to see her face stricken with terror. I understand why: She must return to the townhouse. I will go home. We may never have another moment alone together.
We both stand by the fence, illuminated dimly by a streetlamp, staring at each other in mutual horror.
“What are we going to do?” she asks me. “We could meet like this again? In secret?”
I scrub my hand across my face. “I don’t know,” I say. “How long before we are discovered?”
“If I could convince my sister to hire you—”
I gawp at her. “Hireme—I can’t be your physiciannow!”
“If you are not, then how will I see you?”
“I don’t know,” I repeat.
“I want to see you,” she says, pleading, and my chest tightens at the desperation on her face.
“This can’t continue,” I reply. “You know that it can’t. You are to be married.”
“Not necessarily. I haven’t agreed—”
“I am aJew,Cecilia!” I cry, too loud, and she flinches. “Your heart shouldn’t beat like that for a Jew.”
“But it does.”
“And if I could prevent it from doing so, I would. If I could prevent my own from doing the same…But I can’t. It does not matter whether you are betrothed, whether what you feel for me is real, how we met or how we will meet again—we can only ever be a fantasy. A brief dalliance we must forget.”
My voice is strained and shaking. I should be calmer than I am. I owe it to her to maintain my composure; I am only upsetting her further. But I am frustrated and grieving andwanting,even now, and I cannot control myself. I want her as a river wants the ocean, as night wants the dawn, and it feels as if I will waste away for want of her if I leave her here like this.
But I must leave her.
Her eyes well with tears. I reach for her, unable to prevent myself from doing so, but she turns away. “Everything I do is wrong,” she says. “I grieve wrongly, I love wrongly.”
“There is nothing wrong with you.”
She laughs harshly. “We both know that is a lie.”
“I am not lying.”
Cecilia veers back toward me, sneering—she is itching for an argument—but then I hear a gasp from behind us. I turn around to see a group of people at the end of the road, watching us from afar.
For a moment, I almost wonder if the pageant has returned—there are men carrying lanterns, swinging wildly from their sticks. But it is not the pageant. It is Lady Eden and herservants. She wears a nightgown and robe, shawl clutched tightly around her, slippers muddied with city dirt. Her expression is desperate and wild.
“You,” she snarls, approaching us. At first I can’t tell if she is addressing her sister or me; but there is no disdain in her features, only fury. Cecilia, then. “You left—I was so worried—and you were withhim?”
Cecilia takes a faltering step forward. “Maggie, I—”
“Withhim,” she snaps once more.
“We went for a walk in the park—”
“A walk! I discovered you were gone, and I thought you might be here, since you came here last time; in that I was clearly correct. But if I had known you were with Mendes—Lord, I have been a fool. I have been so naïve.”
“Maggie,” Cecilia says. “Listen to me—”
But Lady Eden is not looking at her anymore. She has turned to me, her expression warped with disgust and anger.
“Master Mendes,” she says. Her voice is colder and darker than I have ever heard before. Lady Eden has a light voice, a singer’s voice, like a silver bell; it is strange to hear it pitched this low. “Did you arrange this meeting with my sister?”
