Page 82 of Ordered Home for the Holidays
“She does,” Victor agreed.
Laughter drifted through the house, echoing from the south wing. Pearl recognized Alice’s voice, followed by the more measured tones of Susie, and felt a mixture of embarrassmentand relief. The girls wouldn’t be contained for long, and the thought of them invading this truce of a moment was both terrifying and grounding.
“Your daughters are remarkable,” Victor said, as if reading her mind.
She smiled, softening despite herself. “They are. Percy used to say I’d raised two more generals.”
He chuckled.
Pearl found herself unexpectedly relaxed. The tightness that had seized her chest for months now began to unwind, as if each heartbeat bled a measure of grief back into the world. She flexed her hands, surprised at how they trembled, then let them rest on the arm of the settee.
“I hope it’s not too strange,” she said after a pause, “being together in this way. After so long.”
Victor shook his head. “It’s the only thing that’s made sense in years.”
She met his gaze, found nothing but honesty there, and felt a small, deliberate peace settle over her.
The girls’ voices approached, footsteps racing down the stairs, then past the hall, heading, perhaps, for the kitchens or some hidden corner of the Abbey. Pearl listened until the sound faded, leaving behind only the faint echo of their happiness.
Victor poured her another glass, this time offering it with both hands. She accepted, their fingers touching again, longer this time.
“To old friends,” he said, and for once, the words rang perfectly true.
Pearl drank, and as the warmth spread through her, she realized the pain of memory was no longer sharp, no longer a blade. It had been dulled by time and by kindness, until all that remained was a gentle ache, a longing she could live with.
“Do you remember,” he said, his voice pitched softer than before, “that night at Lady Harrington’s ball? The year before you married.”
Pearl’s first impulse was to feign ignorance, to draw the careful veil of memory and manners over whatever lay in the past. Instead, she nodded, her chin dipping once.
Victor smiled, a bare tilt at the edge of his mouth. “I think of that night more than is strictly healthy for a grown man.”
Pearl looked away, ostensibly to check the fire, but in truth to recompose her face. “It was a long time ago, Victor.”
“Long enough for me to have outgrown the embarrassment,” he replied, “but not the memory.”
She picked at the nap of the cushion beside her, following the raised design of pinecones and laurel with the tip of her finger. “I imagine you must have attended many such parties.”
He waited, letting her words settle. “None quite like that.”
The clock on the mantel marked out the silence with a slow, almost languid tick, each second stretching and thinning until it nearly dissolved.
Victor turned toward her fully, one arm slung behind the settee, so casual it might have been unconscious. His eyes, brown and unflinching, searched her face. “You disappeared,” he said, “and I spent the next two weeks certain I had mortally offended you.”
“You hadn’t,” she blurted, the words escaping before she could dress them in caution.
His smile this time was less a weapon than a wound. “Then why?”
Pearl closed her eyes, letting the question linger in the dark behind her lids. She remembered the garden, the riot of delphiniums along the path, the honey-thick air, the muffled noise of the orchestra pouring through the open doors and windows. She remembered the way Victor’s hand had hoverednear hers, not touching, not daring, as if any contact would collapse the entire edifice of their friendship. She remembered, too, the flutter in her chest—a sensation that was, in retrospect, both terror and exhilaration.
“I think,” she said, choosing each word with care, “I was afraid.”
He made a sound, something between a sigh and a laugh. “Of me?”
“Of myself,” she answered, almost in a whisper.
Victor’s hand, still resting along the crest of the settee, curled slightly, his knuckles whitening. He seemed on the verge of saying something, something reckless, perhaps, or irrevocable, but then he drew back, the movement so subtle Pearl almost missed it. “I’ve always wondered why you chose Percy.”
Pearl’s grip on the cushion tightened. It was a question she had rehearsed privately, so many times that it ought to have been easy to answer. And yet, faced with it in the hush of the drawing room, with the ghosts of memory crowding the corners, she found herself speechless.
