Page 20 of Twice Upon a Midnight

Why not I with thine?—

See the mountains kiss high heaven

And the waves clasp one another;

No sister-flower would be forgiven

If it disdained its brother;

And the sunlight clasps the earth

And the moonbeams kiss the sea—

What is all this sweet work worth

If thou kiss not me?

And so you have it here: my heart’s desires and frustrations made plain on the page. As Shelley asks in his lines, I ask the same of myself— what was the point in our meeting if not to share ideas and thoughts, to delve into our philosophies about the world, for our minds to kiss, our spirits to mingle in their own ways? I wanted to make you smile and laugh and sigh. For one precious moment, we had exactly that.

Yet none of that can happen again. We now must be nothing more than strangers passing in the night. This must be our goodbye.

I can do little to ease your distress over our parting except assure you that someone out in the world is thinking of you…

And always will.

~ Spenser

CHAPTER TEN

E

lla looked up from the note that had been tucked into the book delivered that morning and stared out her bedroom window. She could see little of the dreary day outside, all of it lying behind a sheet of raindrops slipping down the glass. Her heart felt as dark and cold as the drizzly day outside.

Her masked man was saying goodbye.

She held the book open on her lap—this time, Spenser had sent a collection of works by Shelley—and let her hand drape numbly across the page. She looked back down at the note, only for the handwriting to blur from her tear-filled eyes as much as the world through her window was blurred by the rain.

She hadn’t handled their last meeting well.

No—shehad handled it perfectly fine.Hehad behaved inappropriately, and she didn’t mean the way he’d whispered such titillating words to her that her head filled with scandalous images and her body ached to be touched. It was what came after that proved him a blackguard. After all, what kind of gentleman would say such things to seduce a woman, only to reject her when she said yes?

“A man who only appears in masks, apparently,” she grumbled.

She tossed the book aside and shoved herself to her feet, to pace the length of her bedroom. He claimed he couldn’t see her again, yet he wanted to—sheknewit! He wouldn’t have sent her that book otherwise. He said they couldn’t communicate anymore, yet he had sent her that note when he could have not contacted her at all. That’s what any other proper society gentleman would have done. Just ignore her and pretend they’d never met. But not him. Oh no—hehad to be apologetic, kind, polite…

She clenched her fists and let out an angry cry. What a monster he was proving to be!

She stopped pacing and let her shoulders slump. No. Not a monster. Apparently only just as confused about the whole situation as she was.

If only they could spend more time together. If only she could prove to him that being the daughter of a duke meant absolutely nothing as far as she was concerned. If only they could talk—

Yet she still had no way of finding him except to continue her search for the owner of the glove. But none of the men she and Mama had called on so far was Spenser. Only two names were left on their list, and Ella’s hope of finding him now hung by a thread.

“A very thin thread,” she muttered.

“Pardon?” Her mother opened the door with a delayed knock.

“Nothing.” Ella dropped her hands to her sides and gave a long sigh as she crossed back to the window seat and collected the book and note to place them with the others in her dresser drawer. She gestured toward the glass. “I don’t think the rain is ever going to let up.”