“You look at him as if you are a baker and he the last sack of flour in the world,” said a voice behind Millie.
Hastings. They’d never spoken openly of her unrequited love for Fitz—or his for Helena. “You mean, the way you look at my sister-in-law—the unmarried one?”
“Tragic, isn’t it? The pair of us.”
Sometimes she thought so, but never enough to quit altogether. “I noticed an animated conversation between the two of you during the lancers set.”
“I’m worried about her.”
“Me, too. But we are keeping a close eye on her.” So close that she felt rather awful for Helena. “Has this been a trying time for you?”
“No worse than what you’ve had to endure of late, I imagine.” Hastings took her gloved hand in his. “But don’t worry, Fitz will see the light.”
“Will he?” It was what her mother had said, too.
“Like Paul on the way to Damascus.” Hastings lifted her hand and kissed it. “You’ll see.”
Fitz, who’d dispatched De Courcy and Kingsland, came and slung an arm about his friend. “It’s three in the morning, David. Stop flirting with my wife. She’s had a long day—and she won’t touch you with a ten-foot pole in any case.”
Hastings winked at Millie. “We’ll let Fitz think such comforting thoughts, won’t we, Lady Fitz? I’ll see myself out.”
Now Millie and her husband were alone in the ballroom. Her knees grew weak. She couldn’t quite look at him.
“Are you tired?” he asked solicitously, standing all too close.
Her fear and her imagination both ran amok—it seemed as if she could already feel his touch upon her. She shook her head slowly.
“Shall we go up then?”
She inhaled—the deep breath before the plunge. “Yes, of course. Do let us.”
CHAPTER 13
The Airship
1892
Fitz was not a man who gave gifts on a set schedule. Millie was just as likely to receive something in November that counted as her Christmas present as getting something in January, for her birthday the year before. She greatly encouraged Fitz in his casualness. “Venetia always has a gift for me from you,” she told him, “because you are so careless about the exact dates. If you became more diligent, then I should have to turn down that second gift—which would quite sadden me.”
Therefore, she was not at all surprised when he announced one day at dinner, when she still had a good while of being twenty years old left, that he had a present for her twenty-first birthday.
“What is it?”
“I’d like to take you to Italy at the end of the Season.”
She was dumbstruck. Just the two of us? Alone?
Those were not acceptable questions. Yet she must say something. Peeling her hand from where it was splayed over her heart, she reached for her glass of water to moisten her suddenly dry mouth.
“Why Italy?”
“I made you come home early when you were there the last time.”
“For a matter that was of deep personal concern to me. Thinking back I’d have been insulted if you didn’t ask me to return.”
“Nevertheless, shall we?”
“But what about—ah, so that was why you said you would take care of the invitations for the shooting party. There is no shooting party.”
He grinned. “Unless you’d prefer a shooting party instead.”
She remembered a time when weeks, or even months, would pass between his smiles. He smiled much more often these days, but she could never take them for granted. Each one still surprised and delighted her anew.
“No, I dare say I’d prefer Italy.”
“Italy it is, then.”
Now the most important questions. “What about Venetia and Helena? Are they coming with us?”
It seemed unlikely, at least for Venetia, whose second husband, Mr. Easterbrook, had passed away not too long ago.
Fitz shook his head. “Venetia doesn’t want to travel while she is still in first mourning and Helena plans to keep her company.”
“Hastings?”
“He is shooting in Scotland. It will be just the two of us.”
Alone. For weeks and weeks. In scenic, romantic places.
She had to take another sip of water before she could speak. “I suppose I must tolerate it if my husband wants to drag me all over the Continent.”
He grinned again. “Oh, rest assured he does.”
And for the rest of the night, it was as if she held a sugar cube in her mouth, a slow, constant melt of sweetness.
They traveled through Switzerland, took the train through the Gotthard Tunnel, scaled the Splügen Pass in a diligence, and descended to Lake Como, their first stop.
Lake Como, with its perfumed air, its red-roofed villas, and its sweeping vista of high slopes and blue, glacier-fed lake, was surely paradise on earth. For a fortnight Millie and Fitz hiked, rowed, played occasional games of tennis, and ate themselves silly. But alas, the romance of the locale failed to spark him to kiss her—or do anything else remotely of the sort.