“What are you doing out here?” Aunt Imene crossed the veranda. “Come inside and take your breakfast.”
“Aunt.” Tavy clasped her hands. “I beg your pardon for leaving the party last night.”
Her aunt stared at her, lips a thin line of disapproval.
“Did you arrange that assignation, Octavia?”
Tavy’s eyes went wide. “No!” But guilt nipped at her. She had met him in secret so many times. “I like him.” Like did not come close to describing what she felt. But she could not share those feelings with her aunt before she shared them with him.
“Yes, and he knows that now, doesn’t he?”
“Why shouldn’t he? He likes me too.”
“You may not take up with that man.”
“I didn’t say anything about ‘taking up with him.’ He is a gentleman, Aunt Imene, and I am a lady.”
“Neither of you looked the parts last night.”
Tavy’s cheeks flamed. She hadn’t felt very much like a lady, pressed up against the banyan tree. She’d felt like a dervish afire, a star being set ablaze for the first time by the hand of the creator, like the doxy her aunt accused her of being.
She wanted to feel that way again. With him. Many more times.
“He intends to pay his formal addresses to me,” she said a little breathlessly. “He is coming to speak with Uncle this morning.”
“No.” Her aunt’s narrow face set like stone.
“No? What do you mean by no?”
“He may not.”
Tavy blinked. “Why not?”
“He is unsuitable.”
“He is the son of a marquess. He could not be much more suitable, Aunt, certainly not for Miss Nobody without even looks to recommend me.”
“Do not be foolish,” Aunt Imene said tightly. “He is one of them, Octavia. Now, that will be all.”
“No, it will not be all. He has just come down from Cambridge. Before that he was at Eton.” She ticked off on her fingers. “His father is not the wealthiest man in England, but certainly not pockets-to-let by any means, and everyone knows he has inherited a fine income from his uncle’s business. And furthermore—”
“He is not acceptable.” Her aunt’s voice cut.
Tavy stared. Her fingers and toes, unaccountably, began to tremble. Why not the rest of her, she could not fathom. But her chest felt suffocated.
“His father is a marquess,” she repeated dumbly.
“And barely acknowledges him.”
“That is not true.”
“Are you so certain of that?”
“No. Of course not. I read the same months-old rags you do and they never—” She halted. She could hardly tell her aunt that for nearly two years she had scoured those journals for mention of him. She jutted out her pointy jaw. “Lord Doreé must acknowledge him in society.”
Her aunt shook her head. “I told your parents this time abroad would harm you. You are too impetuous for this country to have a worthwhile effect upon you.” She strode toward the parlor door, stiff skirts rustling with purpose. “I intend to write to your father about this immediately. He will call you home and that will be an end to it.”
“Good.” The trembling crept into her arms and legs and her lower lip. She bit down to still it. “Benjirou will no doubt return to England soon. He can call upon Papa and Mama there, and they will see that you are wrong.”
Imene rounded upon her. “You foolish girl. Who do you think you are to question me?” Her eyes flashed. “It makes no difference that his father wed his mother legally, a scandal when it occurred, although you are too young to know it.” She punched the air with a poker-straight finger. “His name means nothing to society, nor does his education. He knows that perfectly well. Why do you think he seduced you?”
Tavy gaped, scrabbling for words to cover up the ugly one. Seduced?
“You know perfectly well why,” her aunt said before she could respond. “He saw how gullible and desperate for a man’s attention you are and thought to attach himself to a respectable family if he could.”
“No.” She barely managed the single syllable. “It was not like that.” Was it? The expression of disgust on her aunt’s face swirled nausea through her. Doubt followed, prickling and sticky.
Lucky for me, indeed, he had said.
“Your na?veté is suitable for a girl your age,” her aunt said, less sharply now. “But it does you no credit in these matters. It is a good thing I happened upon you. He is far from the equal of his half brothers. To be associated with him would only denigrate your family and bring condemnation upon you greater than you can imagine.”
Tavy’s throat closed. She forced away doubt, forced herself to think the way her aunt would.
“Aunt Imene, he is the son of a peer. I could not do better for myself, even given his reputation.”
“You are infatuated with him because you see him as exotic. You have always shown a misguided interest in things a proper English girl should hold at a distance. But your penchant for adventure has served you poorly this time. I am relieved I stopped you from making a greater mistake before it was too late.”
“Aunt—”
“You will learn to listen to those who wish the best for you. And you—” She stabbed her finger toward the garden. Tavy pivoted. Ben stood in the ochre morning light, one foot upon the step from the garden as though arrested in his arrival. His jaw was taut, his eyes glittering with anger. Tavy’s heart spun.
“You,” her aunt continued as though the words could poison, “you are not welcome here. If you so much as glance at my niece again, I will have you arrested for battery. I know what you intended, but I have found out your game in time, thank God. You will not inveigle your way into my niece’s bed or polite society, no matter how prettily you have seduced her.”
Tavy gasped. Ben did not speak.
She pressed a palm to her stomach. His gaze followed the action then lifted to hers, hard as polished steel. Completely foreign.
Her certainty wavered, then beneath his cold regard crumbled.
“Is it true?” she asked, realizing more with each moment what a fool she had been. To imagine he might like her—silly, babbling, awkward—that he might truly want her—plain, unnoticeable, all elbows and knees and freckles. It now seemed ludicrous.
They had always met in secret, outside the notice of her aunt and uncle and the rest of English society. She had not questioned it. She encouraged it. He was her adventure, and she knew it was wrong. He never called upon her at home and she absolutely loved that. She adored having the clandestine company of a man of questionable reputation. A handsome, charming, reckless young man who seemed nevertheless to command the respect of every native in Madras.
How foolish could she have been? How blind? For what else would a man like him want a girl like her?
“Of course it is true,” her aunt spat out, gesturing to the garden gate. “Why else would he come here like this? He knows he cannot enter through the front door.”
“Is it as she says?” Tavy uttered, but his eyes already told her. They were blank, as she had never seen them. “It is, isn’t it?”
“It must be.” His voice sounded nothing like him.
“Young man,” her aunt said stonily, “if you do not remove your person from this property I will have the guard summoned.”