Page 10 of The General's Gift
Her head tilted. “Take care of me. What do you mean?”
“My duty is to see you established as befits your station.” He looked at her earnestly, as if he carried no subterfuge in his metal blue eyes. “Respected, protected, and safe.”
Safe. The word curled around her like a blanket. Could it be true? That her father had sent this iron general to protect her?
She needed it fixed. Something she could hold on to, before it dissolved like sugar in rain.
“Do you promise it?”
“Lady Cecilia, since this is the first time we've met, and I see you are overwhelmed, I will say this. My word is my honor. As I promised your father on the day he died, I repeat it to you. You are under my protection.”
Her breath released in a rush, and she would’ve shaken his hand if he hadn’t looked so... so formal. So she settled for a smile and a nod.
“I accept.”
For half a heartbeat, his stern mouth eased, as if acknowledging a vow sealed. But then it was gone, smoothed into the same hard lines.
He straightened, folding his arms with finality. “Now, for more pressing matters. Your life is about to change. Do you understand that?”
Celeste bobbed her head several times, but honestly, she hadn’t thought much about it.
“You are not only a lady, but a great heiress with properties in England and on the continent. There is no time to waste. Next week you will move to my estate in Kent for the summer—”
“A vacation? How lovely.”
“Not a vacation. You will have tutors and deportment lessons.”
He believed her uneducated? Katherina had never neglected their etiquette. “Why?”
“You will marry.”
His voice came out lower than before, roughened, as though the word resisted him. Celeste’s heart jolted at the sound, and she glanced at Othello’s ears, pretending sudden fascination with their twitch.
“Must I?” she asked softly.
“Isn’t marriage the goal of every young lady? You must think about your future.”
What a dear concept. Was there a future beyond the end of a season, beyond the next role, the next curtain call? What use was dreaming when girls without pasts didn’t get futures? Gentlemen never married ballerinas. They watched them dance, applauded their leaps and pirouettes, then beckoned them offstage to become some man’s mistress, some patron’s amusement.
“I was chosen to dance a principal part.”
The weight of his gaze fell on her posture, the line of her shoulders, and then his frown forced her to look away.
“I’m a ballerina… Ballerinas dance, I believe, just as generals fight, is it not?”
The corner of his mouth twitched, and then a sound escaped him. Was that a chuckle? Whatever it was, it certainly was not the laugh that warmed a room. It should have frightened her. Papillon ought to have stirred, wings beating against her ribs. But instead the little creature was still, oddly soothed, as though she recognized something steady there.
He might never surrender, this guardian of hers, but he certainly was not very good at laughing. Someone ought to teachhim—if only to prove that even Hotspur could be coaxed into comedy.
“As Lady Cecilia, you can be a respectable wife. Build a family. Become a hostess and have a positive influence on society.”
Celeste opened her mouth—and faltered. The name still felt like a costume she wasn’t sure she could dance in—but maybe, it didn’t have to be a role. What if she could dream past the nextpas de chat? What if, as Lady Cecilia, she could script her own story? A romantic comedy worthy of Shakespeare, where she found her prince, not in the stage, but in real life?
Perhaps…. Perhaps Lady Cecilia didn’t have to flee like the Papillon—fluttering away at the first unexpected cue. Lady Cecilia could stay and step into the light. Be bold, like Rosalind in the forest, or Viola, shipwrecked but smiling. Worthy of love.
A thrill rushed through her like the rise of music in the pit. She stood abruptly, pressing a hand to her racing heart. There was just so much to think about. Every romantic play required a setting. She had no Forest of Arden, but surely a country estate in Kent would do. Wasn’t Much Ado set in a sun-drenched house with too many corridors for propriety and just enough corners for overheard confessions?
The general frowned. “Where exactly are you going?”
