Angry, somehow, deep inside. But I did not know how to fix whatever was wrong.
So I said, “Let us proceed, shall we? You can ask your secret first tonight, if you like.”
He folded his arms across his chest, faced me as if confronting an op-ponent, and said, “I want to know why you are so opposed to marriage.”
I took a deep breath. He had asked me this many times before, and I had always refused to answer. But now I was bound to answer him, and the thought of being honest about this frightened me. My chin trembled.
I looked away, searching for something within myself to anchor my courage to. India. This was for India, and open cages, and freedom. This was for a land far away, where I would never have to witness the marriage of Henry and Miss St. Claire. I gripped my courage and turned my nervous-ness to anger and hardness. I thought of my mother and father; I thought of Eleanor and her husband, James. And I said, “Marriage is bondage and misery.”
“Bondage and misery?” Surprise turned his voice. He shook his head.
“I think of marriage differently. A companionship of like minds. A tie that binds, yes, but in the binding comes strength. A lifetime with your dearest friend as your truest and best companion. That is what it can be.
I believe that.”
His na?veté infuriated me for a reason I could not explain. “Is that the sort of marriage you expect to have with Miss St. Claire?”
Henry’s head jerked back, as if I had slapped him.
185
J u l i a n n e D o n a l D s o n He took two breaths before answering. “We are not speaking of my future. We are contemplating yours.”
“That is a thoroughly unsatisfactory answer, Henry Delafield.”
A smirk lifted one side of his mouth. “You always fall back on ad-dressing me by my full name when you are upset. As if you were my mother.”
I scowled at him. “And you always fall back on trying to change the subject when you don’t wish to be forthright.” I reached out without thinking and grabbed him by the shirt front, pulling him down so that we were on eye level with one another. All I could see in his eyes was surprise and amusement. “Why should I be the only one making myself vulnerable? You have asked me for my secrets; now you should share something with me. It’s only fair.”
Henry reached both arms around me, resting his hands on the low wall at my back, trapping me. And even though I quickly released my grip on his shirt (what had I been thinking?) he continued to lean down, close enough to me that I could see the instant his expression changed from amused to intense. “What would you have me share with you?”
“Something honest. Something you have told nobody else. A secret of your own.” I paused, then added, “Something about Miss St. Claire.”
He shook his head. “She is not a part of this. This is between you and me.”
I felt thwarted and angry because of it. He never spoke of Miss St.
Claire. Any information I had about her before this week had come from Sylvia. Through the years, Henry had been consistently reticent about his intended, and I burned with envy. I hated that he had a secret I could not get from him. I hated that he had a month out of every year that he spent here, with her, and I had never been allowed to be a part of it. And I knew from experience that the secrets you never spoke of, to anyone, were the most treasured secrets of all.
I resisted the urge to shove him away, crossing my arms across my chest to rein in the impulse. “You never speak of her. I think it is 186
abominable of you to keep something from me, after everything I have told you.”
“I will tell you a secret. I only said it wouldn’t be about Juliet.”
Juliet. He had called her by her given name, as if there was already an agreement between them. As if he had already proposed to her. As if they were already connected to each other.
“I hate that name, by the way,” I muttered.
Henry smiled, as if my hatred of her name gave him great amusement. Joy, even. “Do you? Why is that?”
“It sounds presumptuous.”
“Hm.” Henry nodded. “Presumptuous.”
“Yes! As if she has something classical about her. As if she could be the star in a Shakespearean tragedy. It is entirely too presumptuous. Did her parents not think how they were setting her up for disappointment? For that is what I felt as soon as I met her—disappointment that she was so very bland.”
I stopped, realizing I had gone too far. Henry’s eyes narrowed. I was speaking of his intended. Perhaps his affianced. I should not have said what I had.
“Bland? Oh, I see. You object to her because she is not stubborn and willful and outspoken like you. Is that it?”
I pressed my lips together, cursing my loose tongue. But I did not retreat. “Yes. I suppose that is it.”
He spoke lightly. “Some men prefer quiet women.”
“You do not prefer quiet women, though,” I said, lifting my chin.
“Do you?” It was pride that made me ask that. Pride asking if he disapproved of me. I had never considered it before—I had never considered that Henry might not approve of me. But now I had to know.
He considered me for a moment in silence, a faint smile lingering on his lips, then he spoke softly. “I think you have misjudged Miss St. Claire.
She is intelligent and refined.”
I disliked her even more after hearing his praise of her. “Well, if that 187
J u l i a n n e D o n a l D s o n is all you are looking for in a wife, then I suppose you will be very happy with your intelligent and refined Miss St. Claire.” I could not help muttering, “Even though she didn’t know the difference between Phaeton and Icarus.”
His lip quivered.
“What? What are you smiling about?”
“You are jealous,” he said with a laugh.
“I am not,” I scoffed.
He smiled, as if everything I had said gave him real pleasure. “Do you want to know my secret or not?” he asked in a low voice.
I took a deep breath. He was standing too close. “Yes.”
He shifted his weight, moving even closer to me, so that I felt off balance, as if the world had tilted and if I did not hold onto something, I would fall. My heart quickened its pace, and so did my breathing. I felt his arms on either side of me, anchoring me or trapping me—I could not decide which.
A long moment stretched between us, the silence so taut that I thought something would surely snap. He was looking at me as if contemplating a whole host of secrets he could share, and my curiosity mixed with dread.
“Your eyebrows,” he finally said.
My eyes opened wide with surprise. “My eyebrows? What about them?”
“I love them,” he stated as if it were a fact. A truth.
I laughed again, breathlessly now, and shook my head. “They are too dark. Too thick.”
“No. They give your face character. And there is something so very . . .
graceful about them.” His voice dropped to almost a whisper. “Perhaps it is their curve. They look like the wing of a bird in flight.”
I felt extraordinarily self-conscious, and I was grateful for the dark-ness hiding my blush. Henry shifted again and lifted his hand to my face.
I held perfectly still, trapped with surprise, my heart in my throat. He 188
touched my face as gently and carefully as he had touched the caged bird.
His fingertips brushed lightly along the curve of my left eyebrow, trac-ing the line, his eyes following the path of his fingers. A tremor shook through me and my heart raced. He stroked my cheek with the back of his fingers, lightly, a graze, a burning left it in its path before his hand fell off the edge of my jaw.