Page 46 of The Spinster's Stolen Hear
There was more applause, and Timothy was obliged to get to his feet, red with embarrassment and pleasure, and took up his wife’s position. He was clutching his book in his hands, fingers tapping nervously on the cover.
“I spent a great deal of time on this novel,” he addressed them, clearing his throat. “I drew from real life more than for my other stories. While there are certainly ghosts and murders and haunted manors and perhaps even bandits later on, this book is, at its core, a romance. It’s aboutpeople, people like you and I, and the struggles we face.”
Nathan leaned forward in his seat. Well, you didn’t hearthatvery often in a novel. The more modern stories appeared to aim at being as fantastical as possible.
Timothy glanced among them all, cleared his throat one more time, and opened the book.
“I’ll start at a passage near the end. It was Katherine’s favourite, you see. It begins with a speech by Lady Thomasin.”
In front of him, Miss Randall shifted, her shoulders tensing. Nathan frowned ever so slightly. He had no doubt that Miss Randall would have had the opportunity to read the book. Did she know what passage Timothy was talking about?
“‘The thing about love,” Timothy began, eyes fixed on the page, “is that it is unpredictable. Poets and storytellers would have us believe that it is instant, unmistakeable. They would have us believe it is shallow, which, after all, is what love at first sight must be. That’s not to say that it cannot blossom into something stronger, of course. But love at first sight is not love at all, but a sort of obsession, an infatuation that can be swept away like a rain-cloud in a gale.”
He paused, glancing up to gauge the reaction of the audience. Nathan looked around, too. The other guests were enthralled, leaning forward in their seats to listen. He found his gaze drawn once again to the back of Miss Randall’s head. Her shoulders were rounded, her head drooping. There was tension in her body now, a tension that had not been there before.
His chest constricted, and Nathan found himself longing to wrap his arms around her and console her for whatever had made her droop like a dying flower.
Of course, he could do no such thing, and ought not even to consider it.
“Proper love may, certainly, follow some of these fashions. It may come upon one at once, unstoppably, not unlike a runaway carriage striking an unwary pedestrian. It may occupy one’s senses, the entirety of one’s thoughts. The physicians are wrong, you know. Onecandie of a broken heart. I have seen it. Love, mostly, makes its own standards. It will come upon you as it chooses, and there is very little you can do about it. It’s a force which we poor humans cannot reckon with.’”
Timothy cleared his throat, glancing around at the audience. They were all leaning forward in their seats, eyes wide. Miss Randall’s head had drooped lower. Nathan’s hand was reaching out to rest on her shoulder before he knew what he was doing, and snatched it back.
“That may be true,’ said Cornelius, offering her a wry smile, ‘But I am not quite so eloquent as you, Lady Thomasin, not half as much. I must keep my speeches simple and short. I cannot reflect on the nature of love, I can only feel it. Let me say, then, that I love you. I love you, and this is not a thing I can argue with, not to myself or to others. I love you, and I was foolish to ever believe otherwise.”
Chapter Fifteen
“‘But I am not quite so eloquent as you, Lady Thomasin, not half as much. I must keep my speeches simple and short. I cannot reflect on the nature of love; I can only feel it. Let me say, then, that I love you. I love you, and this is not a thing I can argue with, not to myself or to others. I love you, and I was foolish to ever believe otherwise.’”
Pippa kept her gaze aimed on the floor, these words echoing in her mind. Her heart pounded, and she felt faintly dizzy.
She’d read this book, of course. She’d read this passage. It came near the end, as Timothy said, but he’d wisely avoided giving any extra context. Wise, because this speech came as Lady Thomasin reveals that she intends to marry a villainous duke, in order to save her father from the debtor’s prison. The readers were going to have to wait till the next volume to learn what happens next.
It wasn’t this speech that had made Pippa’s heart ache, though. That came later, in an impassioned speech from Lady Thomasin.
“‘What am I to do, Cornelius, what am I to do? Must I choose between duty and love? Oh, if love hurts the way this does, let me rid of it. What woman could ever follow her heart?’”
It was a good novel, well-written and compelling. Of course, some critics were already disdainful of it all. Even Mrs. Radcliff and her contemporaries were mocked, with the latest fashionable authors, the enigmatic Bells, being ridiculed. Pippa had read the infamousJane Eyre, and found it breathtaking, and so did everybody else.
With, of course, a few notable exceptions.
Timothy continued his reading, passing into the passage where Lady Thomasin and Cornelius are interrupted by the bumbling but good-natured lady’s maid, a comic passage that was pleasantly jarring after the tension of the previous passage. Pippa found that she’d stopped listening, lost in her own head.
Lady Thomasin may not be real, but I know exactly how she feels. Falling in love with one man, only to find herself forced towards another.
That gave her a start. Was she really in love with Lord Whitmore? Things would be a great deal easier if she was not. Closing her eyes, Pippa concentrated on the sound of her own blood pounding in her ears, a heavy and reassuring rhythm. She wished the evening was over. She wished that her mother was not watching her every move, eyes narrowed as if she were waiting for her daughter to make a mistake.
She wished that Lord Whitmore was sitting beside her.
No, she didn’t wishthat. She wished thathewere not there. His presence seemed to cloud her mind. And then, of course, there was her mother’s not-so-quiet disapproval and annoyance whenever Lord Whitmore was near her.
An elbow dug into her ribs, making her flinch. Her eyes flew open.
“Can you credit this nonsense?” Bridget hissed. She spoke in a whisper, but still too loudly for the quiet room. Colour flooded Pippa’s face.
“Mama! You must not say that.”
“Why? It’s not a good novel.”
