“Yes,” Bernadette agreed, nodding. Her throat was parched, now that she thought about it, and she walked briskly across to the tea-table and sat down across from Viola. “Thank you.”
“Not at all,” Viola said, smiling a little concernedly. “You seemed sad just then.”
“Sad?” Bernadette shook her head, distracted. “No. Just lostin thought.”
“You play the pianoforte so well, even when you’re not thinking about it,” Viola said with a chuckle.
“Thank you,” Bernadette murmured, blushing. “I could barely hear myself. I wasn’t even listening.”
Viola smiled. “May I ask what it was that so distracted you?”
“Nothing, really,” Bernadette demurred. Then she smiled. “Nothing. Just, well...Is it possible I might, well, have become partial to Lord Blackburne?”
“You like him?” Viola grinned. Bernadette felt warmth in her stomach.
“Yes. I know...it sounds so silly. He was so rude and awkward when we met him at the ball, and yet...I think that is not his true nature.”
“Only you would know,” Viola said with a grin. “I have never spoken to the man.”
“No. Well, me neither, really,” Bernadette said thoughtfully. “Though we spoke a good deal at the theater. About Hamlet.” She giggled, thinking that it sounded so strange. It had been immensely diverting, though it didn’t sound that way when she tried to describe it to Viola.
“Oh?” Viola smiled. “He likes the theater?”
“I don’t really know,” Bernadette noted thoughtfully. “Wehad a difference of opinion on Ophelia.” She grinned at the memory.
“Oh?” Viola said again. “Well, she is not a simple character.”
“No. I suppose,” Bernadette agreed, though she found she’d always identified with Ophelia. Dutiful, quiet, ready to do what she was told no matter whether it drove her clean out of her wits or not. She frowned. She had not been like that at the theater.
She had been different from the start of the evening, choosing her own gown—the peach silk—and talking freely about things that interested her. She’d stopped trying to do what everybody said she should and started trusting herself.
To thine own self be true.The words from the Shakespeare play drifted into her mind and she grinned. Maybe that was the right thing after all.
“You look happy,” Viola observed, bringing her attention back to the moment. She smiled.
“I am.”
They sat quietly for a long moment, sipping tea without speaking. Bernadette knew that Viola was likely trying to guess what exactly had happened on that night in the theater, but she didn’t have the words to try and tell her. She had no idea how to explain the sudden warmth that had blossomed between them, the fact that it was so easy to talk to him when she found it almost impossible to talk with other young men.
Viola sipped her tea, then glanced up. “Is it three o’ clockalready?”
“I think so,” Bernadette agreed, looking over to the clock on the mantelpiece. Viola pushed back her chair.
“I’m so sorry! I must go. I promised Mama I would return to help check the accounts. I think the coach is waiting for me.” She was already standing. Bernadette pushed back her chair.
“I’ll walk downstairs with you.”
She fell into step with Viola, and they walked hastily downstairs.
The coach arrived as they went down the steps and Bernadette waved to Viola through the window until the coach turned the corner. She walked back upstairs a little dreamily, continuing the conversation with Viola in her head. She wished she had the words to explain how she felt.
She settled in the drawing-room, about to do some mending, but as she lifted the white gown from the basket where she kept her sewing, she heard Mama’s voice in the hallway.
“There you are! Hurry! Hurry! She’s downstairs.”
Mama sounded unusually agitated. Bernadette felt her frown deepen.
“What is it?” she asked gently. “Who is downstairs, Mama?”
