“Charades,” Molly announced. “We shall play charades.”
Silas leapt to his feet. “I claim Miss Leavold for my team.”
Mr. Markham’s posture stiffened. “And I assume I’m on your team as well?”
“Don’t be a fool, Julian, where’s the fun in that? No, you and Molly must be together, as you always are.”
There was a possessiveness in Mr. Markham’s touch when he helped me stand so I could walk across the room, but he didn’t argue. And it wasn’t a hardship on my part—as nervous as I felt around these people and at the prospect of playing a game I’d only played once or twice before—Silas’s infectious energy was impossible to be immune to. When I reached him, he took my hand, kissed it and swept into a bow. “My lady.” He tugged me very close and leaned in conspiratorially. “We must defeat Julian’s team. He always wins and it’s really quite unfair to the rest of us.”
This made me smile.
“She smiled!” Silas exclaimed. “And here we all thought that happy faculty had been stripped from her.” His eyes stayed on my face. “And now that I have seen it, I have decided that my life’s work is to make you smile as often as possible, for a smile as luminous as that can only be the handiwork of God himself, and are we not all called to do the Lord’s work?”
His words were in jest, but his thumb rubbed across the back of my hand as he said them, and there was an intensity in his gaze that made heat spread across my cheeks and down my stomach.
“Silas,” Ned said. “You’ll frighten the girl off before we even start.”
“We can’t have that now, can we?” My hand was squeezed once more, then dropped.
Even from across the room, I could feel Mr. Markham’s eyes burning into my back.
Mercifully, the game began before Silas could flirt with me anymore. Various scenarios and words were written onto pieces of paper and then tousled together in a large bowl. Silas volunteered himself as the first from our team to play. He read the paper, a smile twitching on his lips, and then slid it into his pocket. I let the others shout out their guesses as he began to walk unsteadily around, shoulders hunched and face scowled, as if on a ship in rough weather. Then he mimed a bird flying above, then a gun, then the bird’s death.
I opened my mouth, then closed it as the others kept calling out guesses around me. Silas saw me and nodded encouragingly.
“Rime of the Ancient Mariner¸” I said.
Silas pulled out the slip of paper for the other team to verify and then bowed, winking at me as he slid back into his seat. One tally mark for us.
I watched Mr. Markham as his team whispered about who should go first—Molly, it was decided—and then I watched as she gave him a playful squeeze on his thigh as she stood. His face remained still, giving no acknowledgement of her touch, but envy flared through me, hot and quick. I looked down at my hands as she drew her slip of paper, trying to regulate the sudden wash of resentment I felt towards Molly.
Up in front, Molly made no reaction as she read her challenge, only gave the others a slight nod to show that she was ready to begin. Her eyes fluttered closed and her breathing picked up, speeding into quick pants and sudden, sharp intakes of air, as if her breathing was interrupted by some other sensation that only she could feel. Her head lolled back and her hand reached up to fan her face.
“This is too easy,” Silas said disgustedly.
“Shh!” came from the opposing team.
She continued fanning her face as her fingers traced a trail from her neck to her breasts. She let out a low moan. In front of me, I saw Ned shift in his chair and cross his legs.
“The dog days of summer,” Mr. Markham called out.
The charade abruptly stopped and Molly grinned. “A tally for us, I think. And Silas, we don’t all have minds as depraved as yours.”
“You’ve never complained about my depravity before, Mary Margaret, and I know you won’t be complaining tonight.”
There were laughs, but there were also knowing looks, and Silas’s was the most knowing of all. Once again, I felt at sea, out of my depth with these sophisticated people. In a way, I wanted to be like them—familiar with pleasure to the point of dismissiveness. But in another, much stronger way, I still wanted to be outside, away from their sidelong looks and veiled references that I only barely understood.
The game continued in the same vein for another hour—each charade, though perfectly innocent on paper, inevitably turned into something with sexual overtones. As the game wore on, the suggestion of sex became less of a suggestion. Ned pulled Hugh up and kissed him long on the lips to demonstrate the story of Jonathan and David. Mercy unlaced her dress to give herself the bedraggled appearance of a shipwreck survivor. On and on it went, my face flushing warmer and warmer, and not from embarrassment, until Molly and Silas claimed exhaustion and stopped the game while it was tied. Laughter and conversation bubbled up and drinks were called for; I used the friendly chaos as a screen to escape quietly from the room.
The hallway was much cooler than the parlor, and I continued down it until I reached the low door that led out to the gardens, grateful to feel the open air on my face and to be on my own once again.
“Am I interrupting you?” Mr. Markham asked from behind me.
“Not at all.” I slowed my steps so that he could catch up, and together we walked in the moonlight, the light breeze and chirruping of insects the only noise aside from our footsteps on the path.
“Did you enjoy yourself this evening?” he asked.
“Your friends are more worldly than me. I’m afraid I’m a social liability.” I meant it lightly, but he stopped and gazed at me with fierceness that surprised me.
