Page 24 of The Sea Siren of Broadwater Bottom
The crowds had thinned, and the sounds of the dance were fading into the background. Now he could hear the gentle babble of the shallow river as it meandered through town and the hooting of an owl from the next tree over.
They found a deserted bench. Across the river, they had a lovely view of a willow tree, its pale branches trailing all the way down to the water’s surface. Edward settled Elissa upon the bench, then peeled off his coat and draped it around her shoulders.
“Oh! You don’t have to—that is, I wouldn’t want you to be cold.”
He answered her with a steady look as he sat down beside her, a look that saidsurely you do not believe I would ever allow a lady to be cold?
She abandoned her protests, sensing their futility. “Thank you.”
“You are most welcome.” They watched the river in silence for a moment, then he said, “I want to apologize for earlier.”
She glanced up at him, her brow crinkled. “Apologize? Whatever for?”
“I could tell you would rather not have led off the dancing.”
She laughed. “As you saw, I’m not much of a dancer. But truly, there’s no need to apologize.”
“It is kind of you to say so. I fear that being around me is often a burden.”
She studied him in the moonlight, and he forced himself not to squirm. “I cannot imagine that anyone who knows you would agree.”
He cleared his throat. That had come out a bit more baldly than he had intended. “So, what’s this announcement you’ve been teasing me with all night?”
“Two things, actually. Firstly, speaking of the bookshops of Oxford, I wanted to thank you. It was exceptionally kind of you to replace the copy of Plutarch I ruined.”
“It was my pleasure,” he said, meaning it. He realized he wanted to make Elissa St. Cyr happy, to make her life easier and better. If something as simple as a book would make her look at him the way she was right now, her green eyes filled with an intoxicating combination of sincerity, gratitude, and awe…
He would buy her a thousand volumes of Plutarch.
“It meant so much to me. Thank you.” She fell silent, staring at her clasped hands.
The suspense was killing him. “You said there were two things,” he said, nudging her with his elbow. She jolted beside him on the bench, then laughed, bringing a hand to her heart.
“Miss Elissa?” he asked. He had been jesting when he used the word “announcement,” but now he was dying to know what it was she had to say.
“I should just come out and say it,” she said, swallowing. “It is in regard to the contest being held at Oxford. The one you’re entering.”
He froze. “What about it?”
She peered up at him uncertainly. “I received an invitation to enter it, too.”
He blinked at her, scarcely comprehending.
This was… this wasawful.
“That’s… that’s wonderful,” he sputtered, his shoulder giving an involuntary twitch.
Awful, his brain repeated.
It wasn’t that he minded Elissa entering the contest. He certainly didn’t think she should be barred from doing so just because she was a woman.
And yet… an image suddenly sprang to mind of Robert Slocombe, the man who had beaten him out as Senior Classical Medalist, and he felt the familiar darkness rising within him.
Two finalists were named for the last stage of the competition, so everyone had known the winner would be either him or Slocombe. They had been assigned a topic upon which to declaim, on opposing sides, in Latin. So when the time came for the announcement, every eye in the Senate House had been darting back and forth between the two of them. When the vice-chancellor announced Slocombe as the winner, Edward had made sure he was clapping. His smile had felt brittle, but he’d made sure it was plastered across his face. He’d caught Slocombe’s eye and inclined his head in a manner he hoped appeared gracious. He had even made a point of finding him after the ceremony to shake his hand and offer his congratulations, even though all he’d wanted to do was go back to his room, shut the door, and not get out of bed for a week.
And why not shake Slocombe’s hand? He didn’t hate Robert Slocombe, not really.
The one he hated was himself.
