Now Comes the Mist

CHAPTER THREE

A ll their eyes are on me.

I feel it the moment Mina and I enter the drawing room. I have followed every rule to perfection, after all. “You must be above reproach at all times,” Papa had always advised me. “People with an unusual heritage like ours must prove to society that we belong.”

And there is no place I belong more than a party. I have stabbed my gleaming upswept hair with pins so that my long neck will appear to best advantage. I have been tightly laced into my corset so that my breasts will look soft and full and my waist impossibly small. I have pinched my feet into costly slippers to make them look delicate and feminine.

I am a dazzling, glittering doll in pink silk, constantly in danger of tripping or having to faint into someone’s strong arms. Helpless and fragile, just the way men want me.

And oh, how they want me, from that rosy-cheeked boy by the door who looks scarcely old enough to be drinking champagne to that aging marquess by the fireplace, talking calmly of business even as he ogles every inch of me.

Every move I make will be observed. When I run my fingers over my collarbone, twirl to greet a guest, or bend to speak to someone seated so that my décolletage is on full display, it will set their hearts racing and fingers clenching on the stems of their wine glasses. My younger na?ve self had been uncomfortable with this avid attention once. There was an unease in knowing that I could never hide my being different, with my tilting dark eyes and gold-touched skin, and that this very difference made me desirable to men. An exotic trophy, a status symbol to be pursued and flaunted. But like my corset, I have learned to think of it as armor, this beauty passed down from my great-grandmother. And tonight, though I have not had a sip of champagne, I feel half-drunk with my own power over these men who rule London society.

“Lucy, your mamma and Jonathan are over here,” Mina says. She has recognized the signs of intoxication in me and steers me away from a cluster of men who are watching me with hungry eyes. “And look, they’re with Lord and Lady Godalming.”

“That means Arthur must be close by,” I say with incorrigible sparkle. I am not to be quenched, not even by my beloved friend. Not tonight.

“There you are, girls,” Mamma says pleasantly. She and I look nothing alike, but she is almost as pinned and trussed and pinched as I am, though to a more forgiving degree. Men relax their expectations when a woman has passed a certain age. Still, her maids have taken great care with her appearance, swirling her ash-blond hair into a perfect knot above her ropes of pearls and eminently suitable gown of lavender silk moiré. She also wears a gold locket identical to my own, embedded with Yorkshire jet and carrying a photograph of Papa. “How pretty you both look tonight! Mina, I adore that dress on you.”

Jonathan Harker is perhaps the only man in the room who does not spare me a glance. His attention is all for Mina, and his eyes on her are so full of wanting that I feel a familiar ache deep inside me. “I agree with Mrs. Westenra. You look like a mermaid, my love,” he says, taking Mina’s hand and rubbing his thumb over her fingers.

Lord Godalming, on the other hand, is gazing at me as intently as any other hot-blooded man in the room. “My goodness, Lucy, how you’ve grown,” he says. “I don’t believe I’ve seen you since you were just a little thing. And now look at you.”

“It wasn’t that long ago, dear,” Lady Godalming tells her husband, laying a hand across the back of his wheelchair. “We saw Mrs. Westenra and Lucy only a few years ago, before we went to the Continent. Don’t you remember? She was full grown then.”

But not like this , he is clearly thinking, even as he replies, “Of course. You’re right.”

“How are you, my lord?” I ask demurely. “I heard you had gone abroad for your health.”

His wife interjects before he can respond. “He is as well as can be expected. His heart still acts up from time to time, and so he avoids walking when possible.”

“I suppose dancing is out of the question, then?” I press a hand over my heart in disappointment. “I regret losing the opportunity to have such a distinguished partner.”

His Lordship’s face reddens with surprise and delight.

“Out of the question, indeed,” Lady Godalming says with a tight smile. “Though I am certain you will not want for partners tonight, so charming as you are, Lucy.” Save your flirting for the other men, you little tart , her eyes tell me.

Meanwhile, Mina’s eyes are begging me to leave the poor man alone, and I can scarcely ever refuse her anything. “Congratulations on your engagement, Jonathan,” I say, turning to him. “And on your impending business trip to Austria-Hungary. Mina has told me all about it.”

“Thank you,” Jonathan says, still holding her hand. “I’m a fortunate man. The job seems straightforward enough. My client wishes to purchase property here in London, and Mr. Hawkins has given me authority over the matter, to increase my independence in the business.”

“How wonderful,” Mamma says. “I assume by that show of confidence that he expects you to take over the practice for him one day? I understand he is advanced in his years.”

“He is approaching seventy, though you wouldn’t know it to look at him,” Jonathan says, laughing. It makes his grey eyes dance and his whole face light up, damn him. Mina gazes up at him like he is a pastry she could devour. “Yes, he has shown me every kindness as an adopted son and now potential heir. I am grateful that someday, if I prove myself worthy, I will have the means to take care of Mina in the way she deserves.”

“And any children you may have,” Lady Godalming adds, looking indulgently at them.

Mina tucks her head into Jonathan’s chest, blushing.

“May they be many in number,” Mamma chimes in. “God willing.”

Someone moves to stand quietly by my side. I know he is coming before I see him because I smell a scent I recognize from the Stokers’ ball: a combination of shaving cream, a whiff of pine, and cigar smoke. Immediately, I think of his hand on my waist and the distracting warmth of him as we danced. I remember how small I had felt against him, as though his body could swallow up the whole of mine. My pulse picks up, my breath seems to stop short in my lungs, and it takes every ounce of my self-control to appear serene and unaffected. I do not turn my head to look at him. Good lord , I think. I must really be lost.

“Mrs. Westenra, please forgive me for not coming over right away to greet you,” Arthur’s low, calm voice says. “I ran into an old friend I have not seen in some time. I hadn’t realized you were acquainted with Dr. Jack Seward.”

Mina and I exchange glances. Her lips fold inward, holding back a laugh that the two admirers who had sent me flowers tonight happen to be friendly.

“That’s quite all right,” Mamma says, her eyes darting between him and me, enjoying the sight of us together. “Dr. Seward was a friend of my late husband’s. He’s a fine young man.”

“As is Mr. Harker, from what I hear,” Arthur says politely, bowing to Jonathan. “I must congratulate you on your beautiful bride-to-be, sir. I understand you are the guests of honor.”

Jonathan returns the bow. “Thank you, Mr. Holmwood. I am grateful to Mrs. Westenra and Lucy for giving us this party. We had intended to have a small, quiet engagement to go with our small, quiet wedding, but these kind ladies would not hear of it.”

“Of course not,” Mamma says, chuckling. “I can never do too much for such a lovely young couple, especially when the bride is like a sister to my Lucy.”

I wait for Arthur to acknowledge me, but he says only, “I am sure your generosity is well deserved, Mrs. Westenra,” before turning the conversation to Jonathan’s upcoming travels, as though I had not been brought into the conversation at all.

So , I think. He asks me to dance in October and sends me flowers tonight and has now decided to ignore me. I am long accustomed to toying with the feelings of men, but having my own emotions manipulated is not a pleasant sensation. Or indeed, acceptable.

“Excuse me, Mamma. My lord and lady,” I murmur to our elders as Arthur is asking about the route Jonathan will take through Germany. “I must see to our other guests.”

Mamma nods with approval at my sudden conscientiousness. She has never known me quite as well as Mina, who raises an eyebrow as I curtsy and move away. Arthur is still speaking to Jonathan, but I hear his voice grow ever so slightly louder as he turns in the direction of my back. Good , I think, and while he is likely still watching, I walk right up to Dr. Jack Seward.

“Dr. Seward,” I say, my voice high and lilting so it will carry back to the group. “Thank you so much for your exquisite roses tonight. They were most appreciated.”

“Miss Westenra. Lucy.” His dark eyes light up as he brings my hand to his lips. He does not leave it there any longer than is considered proper, but his mouth opens a fraction against my skin. The heat of it sears up my arm and down my spine before he releases me, and I wonder how I could ever have thought the doctor a boring, bloodless man.

We had first become acquainted six years ago, when he was a mere medical student and assistant to my father’s physician. I had been a child, too self-absorbed and concerned for Papa’s ailing health to harbor the silly infatuations that girls of my age often did for young men, and anyway, Jack Seward had seemed dull, forever prattling on about the connection between mind and body. Imagine my surprise when he had caught me alone at the Stokers’ ball last year and lowered his lips to my ear. “I think you are the most beautiful woman I have ever seen,” he had whispered, his close-shaven hint of a beard scratching most delightfully against my cheek.

“Dr. Seward,” I had replied, smiling, “you astonish me.”

“It is you I find astonishing.” His eyes had glittered as he ran a finger over my wrist, feather light, and suddenly I had wanted nothing more than for him to take me by the waist as Arthur had moments before. I had seized his hand before he could pull away, both of us gasping at the sudden heat of our palms meeting, and tugged him close to me. He had stumbled forward a bit, off-balance, and for one glorious second I had felt all of him pressed against me.

He had released my hand and stepped away at once, looking discomfited and perhaps even displeased. In my excitement and frustration with Arthur’s cool detachment, I had forgotten my place: as the woman, I was the quarry and not the hunter. I was to be alluring and desirable through my appearance only. Never my words or actions. I had broken Papa’s stern rule of being above reproach at all times.

Luckily, I had known exactly what to do. “I am so sorry, Doctor,” I had said, putting my hands over my cheeks in feigned maidenly embarrassment and lowering my eyes shyly to the floor. “I was overcome by your kind words. Please forgive me.”

Dr. Seward’s displeasure had slipped away at once. “There is nothing to forgive, Miss Westenra,” he had said gently. “Lucy.”

I have always known too well the part I must play in this ridiculous game of courtship between men and women, and I have played it brilliantly. For here he is in my mother’s house, standing before me with the same spark of interest in his eyes, with his bouquet of roses, devil-red and wantonly full-blown, upstairs in my bedroom. From the slow smile parting his lips, I know he, too, must be remembering that night in the conservatory.

“I’m pleased you liked my gift,” he says. “I thought of you when I saw them.”

“And here I believed you too busy with your medical practice to care about something as frivolous as flowers,” I say archly.

“Ah, but flowers are far from frivolous.” He leans toward me as though to confide a secret, and a lock of black hair slips over his forehead. He smells like soap and clean linen. “They carry messages in code, you see. They are like innocent spies.”

“Dr. Seward!” I say, pretending to be shocked. I know Mina would shake her head at the overly coquettish tone I am wielding, but the young doctor looks charmed. “Are you telling me you have sent a bouquet of spies to my bedchamber tonight?”

A slight startled look crosses his face. I have again been too forward. But this time, he recovers quickly and says, “Perhaps spies is the wrong word to use. I would not presume to send such intrusions to a lady so modest. We could say they are … mere couriers, perhaps.”

I tilt my head back and laugh, knowing that the bell-like sound will carry to almost every corner of the room. “You are a very amusing man, Doctor.”

He is all smiles again, looking pleased with himself.

“And what do we have here, Seward?” asks a deep, drawling voice, the vowels peculiar and stretched out flat. “Is it possible you’ve found the most dazzling lady in the room?”

“More than possible,” Dr. Seward says, frowning a little at the interruption, though he claps the newcomer genially on the shoulder. “Miss Lucy Westenra, may I introduce my friend, Mr. Quincey Morris? We met last summer when I was completing my studies in America.”

I can’t help staring at the stranger, and I notice that many others are, too, though not quite with admiration like me. The man stands out like a beacon, and not just because his skin is a rich gleaming ebony where everyone else’s, excepting mine, is lily-white. His merry, intelligent eyes dance in an otherwise stern face with thick brows, a strong wide nose, and full, beautifully shaped lips. He wears a most unconventional outfit of a long sporting coat of grey wool over a tan waistcoat, his dove-colored ascot contrasting with the dark masculine edge of his jaw. He and Dr. Seward are matched in height, build, and age, with both men around thirty or thereabouts.

But the manner in which the stranger stands is different from the languid ease of all the other gentlemen in the room: feet slightly apart, wide powerful shoulders drawn back, and hands braced on his hips, revealing a flash of silver metal tucked into a leather holster around his trim waist. He looks like a man accustomed to having to fight at a moment’s notice, and as I take in some of the guests’ barely veiled stares of hostility directed at him, I believe I can see why.

“M-Mr. Morris,” I stammer, most uncharacteristically, dazzled by his appearance. I see from his grin—straight, flawless teeth, white against his dark skin—that he is pleased by my reaction. “Are you a sharpshooter of the American West? I seem to remember someone with such a stance as yours in a play Mamma and I once saw.”

Quincey Morris laughs, a bright and cheerful sound that softens some of the grim faces watching him. “I am not a sharpshooter, ma’am, though I do know a thing or two about hitting targets. I’ve knocked plenty of bottles off a fence in my day,” he says with a kindly wink, and his smooth, buttery accent is so attractive I can’t help gasping up at him. “A more accurate term to use for me would be cowboy, like my father before me. There aren’t many of us left these days, but I keep the profession to honor his memory. Jack here,” he adds, putting a hand on Dr. Seward’s shoulder, “met me when he was doctoring in Texas. Brave man that he is, he couldn’t resist the excitement of the lawless Wild West. Could you, my friend?”

“I was there studying Indigenous medicine,” Dr. Seward says, relaxing under the other man’s gregarious cheer, though he darts nervous glances at me. My admiration of the handsome, strapping American is much too apparent for his taste. “ That was what drew me, as well as the need for doctors. Quincey is the heroic one. He saved me from bandits.”

Mr. Morris rolls his eyes good-naturedly at me. “And he saved me and ten others on my homestead from the wasting fever. We would have all gone to glory had it not been for him. I don’t know anything about medicine myself. Give me a cow to rope or a horse to ride.”

“And a fire to light under the open night sky, I suppose?” I ask, struggling to recover as best I can. I smile at Mr. Morris’s delight. “I have read a few tales of the American West despite my mother’s disapproval of them. I suppose sharpshooters and gold mines are not the most suitable reading material for a young lady, in her eyes.”

“No reading material is out of reach when a lady is as intelligent as you clearly are, Miss Westenra,” the cowboy says smoothly, bowing with his hand on his heart. For just a brief second, those molten brown eyes flicker to my mouth, so quickly I might have imagined it.

“Lucy’s late father was my good friend and as educated a man as you could meet. He passed down his gifts, as you can see,” Dr. Seward says quickly, trying to win my attention back.

But I cannot take my eyes off Mr. Morris when he is smiling at me. It’s blinding, like gazing directly into the sun.

“You’re a diamond in the rough, then, Miss Lucy,” he says. “And all it took for us to meet was several thousand miles across land and sea. Do you believe in destiny?”

“Yes, I think so,” I say breathlessly, and that beautiful smile widens even more. I do believe I would have said yes to anything he asked.

“Ah, Arthur! Come join us,” Dr. Seward says loudly, not bothering to hide his relief.

Once again, Arthur Holmwood comes to stand beside me, and I struggle to suppress my delight. So, the sight of me with two other interested men was enough to send him over. The doctor introduces him to Mr. Morris and the two shake hands.

“How long will you be staying in England?” Arthur inquires.

“I originally planned to stay a month or two with my friend Jack here. But I wouldn’t be averse to staying longer, if I felt inclined to do so for some reason,” the cowboy answers, with a sly little glance at me that makes the doctor scowl. I feel a pleasant little flutter in my stomach, because Quincey Morris is apparently a man after my own flirtatious heart.

This would have been the perfect opportunity for Arthur to acknowledge me at last. Instead, he gestures to the flash of weaponry beneath Mr. Morris’s coat. “I assume you’re an excellent shot, sir? Jack will be joining me on my estate for a hunt next month, if the weather favors us, and I’d be glad to have you along if you’re interested.”

“Now that’s a kind offer I’d be glad to take, Mr. Holmwood,” the American drawls, and then he and Dr. Seward politely look at me, ready to turn the conversation so that it includes me.

But Arthur presses on. “What is your experience with rifles? I have a few that were given to me by my grandfather. Rather large, unwieldy affairs, but they are reliable and—”

The sound of violins interrupts his speech and my returning annoyance. Arthur seems bent on ignoring my existence, aside from following me around. He has yet to even look at me tonight.

“Ah, the dancing is about to begin,” I say, watching as the guests begin filtering into the ballroom. Deliberately, I move forward and offer my hand to the cowboy. “May I be so bold as to claim you as my first partner, Mr. Morris? I hesitate to ask Dr. Seward, as it would no doubt shock him to be invited by a woman. But I believe you, with your New World sensibilities, might be somewhat more adventurous in this regard?”

A deep furrow forms between Jack Seward’s brows, but Mr. Morris is grinning from ear to ear. “You can read me like a book, little lady,” he says, and the endearment is captivating from him when it might sound condescending from any other man. He places my hand on his arm. “Who am I to say no to a dance with the most glorious woman in the room?”

I smile up at him as we glide away and spare a glance for Arthur, expecting him to look calm and politely bored as usual. Instead, his expression is one of hurt and surprise, and a strange ache tugs at my chest. He could have claimed me if he had wished to , I tell myself, instead of going on about that silly hunt. I place my other hand on Mr. Morris’s arm as well and lean against him, determined to enjoy myself. What have I to be guilty for?

“Do you waltz, Mr. Morris?” I ask as the elegant sound of Strauss fills the air.

“For you, Miss Lucy, I reckon I would dance the mazurka if I had to,” he says, his eyes twinkling down at me. “So I can most assuredly exert myself to the waltz.”

“How absurd you are,” I say, laughing. We turn heads as we enter the ballroom together, and I stare pointedly at the people who are glaring at the cowboy. They avert their eyes, unwilling to displease the hostess’s daughter. “Are all Americans this prone to hyperbole?”

He leans down, and again, his eyes flicker to my mouth. “Let me answer your question with another question. Are all English women as utterly enchanting as you are?”

“Flattery will get you everywhere with me,” I say lightly.

“I’m glad to hear it.” He sweeps me into the throng of dancers and executes a perfect waltz, much more gracefully than I would have expected.

“Where did you learn to dance like this?” I ask, amazed. “I thought a man who spent his life herding cows on horseback wouldn’t know much about a ballroom.”

Mr. Morris’s cheeky wink is as irresistible as his laugh. “They have ladies in America, too, you know. Some of the ones who weren’t so bothered by the color of my skin taught me to dance, so I could cross the ocean and impress you.”

“You have the most beautiful skin I’ve ever seen,” I tell him honestly.

“Now, ma’am, you need to stop complimenting me or I’ll completely lose track of the dance.” He twirls me, my pink skirts sailing around us. “On second thought, I don’t really mind. Go on and keep complimenting me.”

We laugh, and I catch sight of a group of matrons whispering. No doubt my name and Mr. Morris’s will be entangled in much of the night’s gossip, but I am enjoying myself so much, I truly don’t care what the old hens are clucking about.

“My great-grandmother came from Southeast Asia. Vietnam,” I say before I can think too much about it. “My great-grandfather swept in and took her back to London with him. The other French and English officers cared about riches, but the only treasure he wanted was her.”

I am not certain why I am revealing this, not when my family has taken pains to keep it quiet. Even Papa, who had looked like any other English gentleman with a full beard, had never spoken of his ancestry in society. There had been whispers once that my great-grandmother had not been a royal lady but rather a lowly brothel girl who had bewitched an innocent young English lord. Papa had wanted to avoid feeding the gossip, and Mamma—always conscious of status and propriety—had agreed never to speak of Vanessa. But somehow, I have an instinct that Quincey Morris will understand. Perhaps it is the way he had stood in that room of unfriendly eyes earlier, defiantly turning his uniqueness into armor the way I do my own.

And indeed, the American’s gaze on me is kind, as though he can hear everything I am not saying out loud. “That explains why you have the loveliest tint to your skin,” he says, charming to the last. “Like the sun is following your face, even at night.”

“Aren’t you the poet?” I squeeze the hand that envelops mine. It is big and rough, nothing like Dr. Seward’s clever, elegant ones, but I am glad to hold it just the same. It feels friendly—though the look in his eyes is anything but merely friendly. A fire burns there, promising delicious warmth if I find the courage to approach. He pulls me slightly closer, and the nearness of him is daring. Another inch more and it would be scandalous.

“There are Asian folks who live around my homestead. They work on the ranch and the railroad, and I’m lucky to call some of them my friends.” Mr. Morris’s eyes shine down at me. “And I hope I win your esteem as well, Miss Lucy Westenra. You’re a diamond in the rough, like I said, and I don’t tell many women that, I promise you.”

“I don’t believe you,” I say gaily. “A man like you must know many special ladies.”

“None I’d want to ride across an open plain under the night sky with. A great moon up above. Stars shining down. Wolves howling.” His voice is as soft as a bed I would happily sink into. “But you don’t need to be afraid of them, ma’am. Not with me around.”

I lower my voice. “Will you tell me something? Something I’m aching to know?”

His eyes spark. “Anything.”

I press my lips together, feigning nervousness. “I’ve heard that American cowboys have very, very big …” I am delighted to see that he is holding his breath. “Hats. Is that true?”

Mr. Morris throws his head back and howls with laughter. “You’re one of a kind.”

I beam up at him. Dr. Seward would have been horrified by the joke, but Mr. Morris is obviously a different kind of man. A man I wouldn’t have to worry about offending—a man who might actually value my speaking freely before him. “I’d like to see that open plain you mentioned someday,” I say frankly, and there is such warmth in his gaze that it fills my soul.

The music ends and I notice a couple near us. The man is glaring at Mr. Morris. I don’t know him, but I recognize his partner as Penelope Worthing, a lively, pretty red-haired girl with whom I grew up and have always liked. I glance from the emerald ring sparkling on her hand to her pale, horse-faced partner, whose front teeth jut out from his thin lips. Penelope notices my observation, flushes, and whispers to him, but he continues to stare.

She gives me an apologetic smile. “Good evening, Lucy. How lovely you look tonight! I’m afraid I haven’t had the pleasure of being introduced to your partner.”

“I would be happy to introduce you. And your companion, who is looking most avidly at him,” I say, and the man blinks his bulging blue eyes at me, startled by my directness. But I have long since learned that in company such as this—where women are trained never to say what they mean and must instead embed a myriad of insinuations into every innocent comment—it is best to force the knife to the core of a situation. And I am a woman who keeps my knives sharp. “This is Mr. Quincey Morris, an American friend of Dr. Jack Seward’s. Mr. Morris, this is my childhood friend, Penelope Worthing.”

They murmur polite greetings. “This is my fiancé, Alastor Hurst,” Penelope says, sounding abashed as she indicates her smirking companion. I feel a twinge of distaste and sympathy, for I recognize the name. The Hursts are social-climbing merchants who had tried for years to befriend my parents—to no avail, as Mamma despised their airs and pretensions—but their wealth is undeniable. And it is no secret that Penelope’s philandering older brother has put their parents into dire financial straits. Clearly, this will be a marriage of desperate circumstance—not the outcome I would have hoped for Penelope.

Alastor Hurst scans Mr. Morris from head to toe, his lip curled to clearly telegraph his disgust. “Miss Westenra,” he says. “Mr. Morris. You seem to be having a most amusing conversation. I’ve never heard such noise during a waltz before.”

“Alastor,” Penelope says, closing her eyes briefly.

“It’s called laughter, sir,” I say with a dazzling smile, even as anger burns in me like acid. “It must be a foreign concept to you if it puzzles you so deeply.”

“Laughter?” Mr. Hurst repeats. “It sounded more like the braying of a donkey. It is rather distracting, trying to dance amid such noise.”

Above reproach , Papa’s voice echoes in my head. At all times.

But I cannot look at this simpering, equine-visaged fool and remain silent. “Oh, dear,” I say with mock sadness. “If merriment is so repulsive to you, I find your presence at our party rather curious, Mr. Hunt. Or was it Holmes?” I remember his name perfectly, but I can’t resist. This buffoon is not worth even the dirt on Penelope’s shoe.

Mr. Hurst turns white with fury, but he directs his venom at the cowboy. “I didn’t realize you people were allowed in places like this. I’m astonished at Audrey Westenra for inviting you. Shouldn’t you be shoveling coal somewhere or cleaning horse dung out of the stables?”

There is absolute silence in the room. Even the musicians have stopped playing.

Penelope closes her eyes again, looking as though she wishes a hole would open in Mamma’s expensive French carpet and swallow her.

I draw myself up to my full height. “Sir, you have insulted my guest quite enough. I find no other recourse but to ask you to leave at once.”

Gasps of shock and delight sound out around us.

“Miss Lucy, please,” Quincey Morris says quietly. “I reckon there’s no need to send him away on my account, not when he is escorting a young lady.”

But Penelope speaks up at once. “I don’t mind leaving. Come, Alastor,” she says, seizing her fiancé’s arm, her face red with mortification. “Take me home.”

“Am I to be dismissed with so little courtesy?” Mr. Hurst sputters. “Do you know who I am, Miss Westenra? Who my parents are? So high and mighty as you are.”

“I will not tolerate such appalling behavior at a party given in my home,” I say calmly.

“We’re leaving,” Penelope says, pressing my hand in farewell. “I am so sorry, Lucy. And Mr. Morris, I hope you will enjoy your time in England.”

“Do come back and have tea with Mamma and me soon,” I say with an apology in my own voice. Mr. Hurst deserved to be attacked, but I regret having done so at Penelope’s expense.

Mamma unsuccessfully attempts to intercept them at the door, then rushes over to me as the music starts up again and the spectators scatter. “Lucy,” she whispers, with a big smile on her face to mask the horror in her eyes. “What on earth just happened?”

I gesture to the cowboy. “That man insulted my guest, Mr. Morris.”

“Oh, I see,” Mamma says helplessly. “Well, I am very sorry for his rudeness in that case.”

Mr. Morris bows. “No need to apologize, ma’am. I have heard much worse before, and it is I who am sorry for the interruption of your party.” When he turns to me, his gaze is not as warm as it was. “Miss Lucy, thank you for the dance and conversation. Will you excuse me?”

I stare after him as he walks away. “Well, I never!” I say, laughing and trying to make light of the situation. “You would think I had been the one to insult him.”

Mamma’s smile is still plastered on her face as she takes my arm and leads me across the ballroom. “How many times have I told you? Men are scared off by outspoken women.”

“Why shouldn’t anyone speak out against incivility, man or woman?”

“There is a time and a place to do so. And putting aside the fact that you are a woman and expected to be modest and demure,” Mamma continues, “a party thrown in your home for your guests is not that time or place. You should be generous toward everyone here, Lucy. I thought you knew better. Think of what poor Papa would have said if he had seen you just now!” Even as she chides me, she gives a welcoming nod to guests strolling by.

“Papa hated the Hursts as much as you do.”

“He believed in decorum above all, and you have shown an appalling lack of it in ordering that guest to leave with such little civility.”

The fight goes out of me, and I feel the giddy energy of the night ebbing. What is it all for, really? This dancing and flirting in the name of finding a husband to fill the hole Papa left behind in my heart? This is what Mina knows: that my gaiety and charm are just an act to hide the gaping emptiness inside me. And for all their admiration, Dr. Seward and Mr. Morris and even Arthur Holmwood would see this eventually if I married any of them. Away from the fa?ade of parties and in the light of reality, they would realize that I am another woman entirely—one who wears a mask of cheer to hide the smudges on her soul left by Death.

My mind reels away from this crowded room and back to the cool, misty churchyard with Papa and my grandparents. There, I might be alone and peaceful, surrounded by the silent memories of those who had once loved me and can never return.

“I know you were only trying to do the right thing, my love,” Mamma says, squeezing my arm. And then her gaze sharpens. “Or is there more to the story? Who is Mr. Morris to you? I only invited him at Dr. Seward’s request, thinking it harmless. I should have thought you would be dancing with Arthur instead of a perfect stranger. And an American, at that!”

“He’s no one to me,” I say dully, catching Mina’s eye from across the room. Her brows knit with concern, recognizing my mood. “And Arthur has not even looked at me once tonight. He isn’t in the least interested in me, Mamma, and the sooner we accept that, the better—”

“Excuse me, Miss Westenra.” Arthur Holmwood is standing close enough to have heard every word I was saying. A muscle twitches anxiously at the corner of his jaw, but his eyes on me are calm. In this light, they are more of a true green than hazel.

“Mr. Holmwood,” Mamma says, flustered. “I … I hope you are enjoying the party?”

“Very much. But I believe I would enjoy myself more if Miss Westenra would give me the honor of the next dance?” He holds out a hand that is neither slender and sly like Dr. Seward’s nor rough and weather-beaten like Quincey Morris’s. It is simply Arthur .

I stare at it, making no move to take it, then look up at him with no small degree of frustration. Arthur Holmwood has puzzled me to the brink of insanity these past few months, showing interest one minute and apathy the next. The camellias he sent tonight had been warm and open and honest, but the man himself is a fog of indecision. If not for the flowers, I would have assumed that he never thought of me from one moment to the next. I hate that it matters so much what Arthur thinks of me—what any man thinks of me, aside from Papa.

“Lucy,” Mamma whispers, shocked by my silence.

Arthur’s hand wavers and a flash of worry flickers in his eyes, and it is this that saves him. I place my fingers in his. “Yes, I will dance with you, Mr. Holmwood,” I say. “But only if you are being truthful about it being an honor.”

My mother’s mouth is agape at my nerve. Over her shoulder, I see Mina, Dr. Seward, and Mr. Morris all watching us, despite being in conversation in their respective groups.

Arthur applies a bit of pressure to my hand. “I would not have said so if it were not true,” he says, and as he leads me toward the other dancers, I wonder if he can feel my traitorous pulse thundering in my wrist.