Page 35 of The Unlovable Lady

“And I confess,” he went on, more quietly, “that I like the whole of you far better than the careful half you give everyone else.”

Color came up into her face, and she did not put it away. She did not glance toward the door, nor did she make her warmth any smaller. She only looked back at the plain young man across the orange slices, seeming to weigh some private consideration.

“Stephen,” she said.

She said it low, meant only for him, yet Dover stood near enough to catch it whole. Her chin came up a little at her own daring, and she did not take it back.

Danforth’s whole face opened.

“There,” he said again, softer now, the teasing quite gone. “Phoebe. You see? It does not bring the roof down.” He gave her name back to her, easy and warm, without a trace of triumph. “I have said it in my head this fortnight. It is a better word out loud.”

She laughed then, the real laugh, the one that got all the way out. Dover looked down into his punch and let them have their moment.

He had not meant to be moved, and yet it reached him. This girl had finished a warm feeling out loud and been glad of it, where another woman had said a name as though it were dragged from her. And it was the frightened one he had been given, and he would not have traded.

* * *

The kissing-bough hung at the middle of the room, since the Danforths set everything where the most people were. When Dover drifted down the table in search of a quieter quarter, he found the corner by the bough nearly empty, for most of the company had moved toward the fiddler, who had at last struck up a proper tune. He set his back against the paneling, intending comfortably to stay out of the way.

From there he had a clear view of Miss Phoebe and Mr. Danforth, who had followed their oranges down the room and now stood directly beneath the bough. Neither of them, Dover judged, had quite noticed where they stood.

Danforth noticed first. He looked up, then down at the girl beside him, a plain question coming into his face. He did not press her. His whole way, it seemed, was to offer a thing and wait, and he waited now.

Miss Phoebe looked up at the bough. She knew what it was, of course, for every girl in London knew by Twelfth Night. She did not glance toward the door, and she did not search the room for her sister or for any of the watchful authority she had consulted her whole life. She tipped her face up toward the green and the white berries and the warm young man beside her, and let herself want what she wanted.

It was the lightest thing in the world. None of the held, charged stillness Dover knew from another corner of another room was in it, no breath drawn and not released. This was young and easy and glad. The girl looked up, the man looked down, and they leaned toward one another by the smallest degree —

“Phoebe!” Cassandra’s voice cut across the room like a dropped tray. “Phoebe, there you are. Mama particularly wished us home early. Have you forgotten we are not stopping? The carriage is sent for.”

She was upon them before the last word was out, having come from wherever in the house she had been, arriving at the precise moment which would do the most damage. Dover watched the small warm leaning come apart. Danforth straightened, courteous and unhurried, while Miss Phoebe stepped back from the bough, color high, her hands finding her shawl. The near thing was over, warm and light as it had been, and a chaperone in the shape of a sister had ended it.

“I had not forgotten,” Miss Phoebe replied. “We were not to be fetched before eleven. It is not eleven.”

“It is near enough eleven.” Cassandra’s hand came half out toward her sister’s arm, the old steering touch, though Dover saw it fail to land. The younger girl did not step away. She simply did not come as the hand expected, which made Cassandra brighten and talk a shade too fast. “Mama will be wondering, I am sure. You know how she is about evenings such as this, do you not? She did not above half wish you to come, and she will not be pleased to hear⁠—”

“That I have enjoyed it?” Miss Phoebe’s chin stayed up, and no hedging came anywhere into her voice, though Dover listened for it. “I have enjoyed it very much, Cassandra, and I shall say so to Mama myself. I shall not pretend otherwise. You may go down to the carriage. I am not coming yet.”

A small silence fell. Dover held very still against the paneling while the two sisters stood a foot apart, something breaking very quietly between them.

“You are making a spectacle of yourself,” Cassandra said, lower now, her voice thin with having been pushed past where it meant to go. “Over a Danforth! Mama disdains the whole connection, and you know it.”

“I know that she does.”

“Gentry, and not even well-set gentry, and you stand under a bough with him before the whole room. Phoebe, you will undo us both.”

“It is my own name too, Cassandra.”

“It is our name!” Cassandra’s brightness cracked across the middle of it. “Whatever you are seen to do, people will say I stood by and allowed. I shall not follow you into this. I am being sensible. One of us must be.”

“Then be sensible.” Miss Phoebe said it gently, which was somehow worse than if she had said it hard. “I am not asking you for anything, Cassandra. I am only telling you that I am not coming down yet.”

Cassandra stared at her, but her sister went on.

“I shall tell Mama I was happy here tonight. I would rather tell her so and lose your good opinion than hold my tongue any longer.” Her hands trembled a little at her sides, though her voice did not. “I have held my tongue my whole life. I am done with it.”

Cassandra looked at her for a long moment as though she faced a stranger. Her sister had given her nothing to grip, only plain warm refusal, and she gathered her brightness back up over whatever lay beneath it and turned for the door.

“I shall tell Mama you were detained,” she said over her shoulder, cold and exact. “You may explain the rest yourself.”