A Fatal Waltz

them from behind a pillar. But if I moved, they might notice me.

“So you’re abandoning your lifelong role as confirmed bachelor?” she asked.

“Yes, and I’m looking forward to it more than you can imagine.”

“You underestimate my imagination, Schatz.”

“Kristiana—”

“You had to know I’d be disappointed.”

“I wrote you. This does not come as a surprise,” he said.

“I confess that I did not take you seriously when you threw me over, though you were very stubborn about it.”

“I’ve nothing more to say on the subject.”

“I believed you when you said you’d fallen in love. It’s an easy enough thing to do. But I never thought you’d marry her.”

“She is everything to me.”

“For the moment, perhaps. But I think we both know… Well, best not to consider that now.”

“You’re terrible,” he said, and I could hear a smile creeping into his voice.

“That’s why you’ve always adored me.”

Stunned? Horrified? Frozen? If there were a word that might have captured my emotion at that moment, it was one I did not know. I realized I had been holding my breath, and when at last I drew air, it felt like icy knives in my throat.

“I may have held you in the highest esteem, Kristiana, but I never loved you, nor did you love me.”

“We both know that’s not true. But it was never your love that I wanted, mein Schatz. Wasn’t that always our problem?” She was moving away from him, her heels clicking on the marble floor as she stepped into the hall under the balcony. Once her footsteps had faded, I tentatively peeked over the railing and saw Colin leaning against a pillar, arms crossed, countenance imperturbable. I counted to one hundred in Greek before speaking.

“There is a deplorable lack of fires in this house, don’t you think?” I asked, calling down from above. “I’ve not been warm since I arrived.”

“Don’t move,” he said, and crossed the hall to the Elizabethan staircase. When he reached the top, he took me by the arms and in one swift motion pressed me to the wall and kissed me with an urgent passion. Delicious though the moment should have been, I found myself distracted. Was he, in his usual charming manner, doing his best to keep me warm? Or was this display fueled by his encounter with Kristiana? Kristiana. Already I hated the name.

He pulled back and straightened his jacket, turning his head towards the stairs.

“Is something wrong?” I asked.

“Wait,” he said. An instant later, I heard heavy, slow footsteps coming from the direction of the bedrooms.

“Hargreaves, let’s go.” Lord Fortescue, clutching a thick stack of papers to his chest, nodded sharply at him but ignored me. “I want to speak with you privately before Harrison and the rest descend upon us.”

“I’m not quite done here,” Colin said. Fortescue grunted and gave me a disparaging look before going back downstairs.

“You’re not afraid of him?” I asked. “Everyone else in England is.”

“I’m not afraid of anyone. And there’s no one in Britain or elsewhere who is going to keep me away when I want to be with you.” He kissed me again, and this time I did not think of the countess at all.

27 November 1891

Somerville Hall, Oxford

Dear Emily,

I’m timing the sending of this letter so that it will arrive during your stay at Beaumont Towers, hoping that it may provide a fleeting bright spot in what will no doubt be an otherwise dull weekend. How I wish you were here at Oxford with me instead!

Do you remember the don we heard lecture when you visited at the beginning of term? Mr. Michaels? Who wouldn’t deign to so much as acknowledge our presence afterwards? Who pointedly refused to answer my questions? After three weeks of hounding him, he agreed to speak to me about my work on Ovid. Imagine his astonishment when he found our views on the Metamorphosis perfectly complementary.

Now that another fortnight has passed, he’s decided to take me under his wing. I’ll begin formally reading with him during Hilary Term, but in the meantime he’s doing all he can to advance my studies, even though, in theory, he doesn’t believe women should be full members of the university. He will reconsider that position before I’m through with him.

I saw Jeremy last week. He’s been cavorting with Lady Templeton, but insists that he’s more bored than ever. I told him where you were spending the weekend and his face brightened—said he was going to wangle an invitation to a neighboring house (the Langstons’, I think) so that he could descend upon you. If your darling fiancé continues to postpone wedding plans, he may find himself in the midst of a fierce competition.

Have you ever met Gertrude Bell? She’s planning a trip to Persia, and it sounds absolutely marvelous. I think, Emily, that you and I should embark on an exploration of the world before you succumb once again to the bonds of marriage.

I am, as always, your most devoted and corrupt friend,

Margaret Seward

Chapter 2

I was delighted to find that Margaret had sent me a note. The reading and writing of correspondence were some of the few activities available to ladies at a shooting party, and as we were only to be at Beaumont Towers for a short time, I had not expected to receive any letters. In the year we had known each other, Margaret and I had become closer than most friends after a lifetime. A mutual interest in the study of classics brought us together initially, but we soon discovered that our common ground was not limited to the intellectual. Her parents preferred to keep her at their home in New York—so far as I could tell, her father owned nearly every railroad in America—but she had convinced them to let her go to Oxford after finishing a degree at Bryn Mawr.

I folded her letter and paused. After the gentlemen, clad in tweed jackets and trousers, had gone outside to shoot, we ladies and the count had retired to the morning room, an oppressively gorgeous space. As with the drawing room, every object was of the best quality. The wallpaper was navy, its darkness relieved by a pattern of gold, but one did not see much of the walls, as a fine collection of old masters covered nearly every inch of them. The details of the paintings were lost against the midnight background, and the overall effect was claustrophobic. Palm trees, brought in from the sprawling winter garden, stood in three of the corners, and the amount of silk used to upholster couches and chairs made me wonder if any was left in China.

The count was doing an admirable job trying to keep the ladies occupied, and he proved a charming companion. He made a point of dividing his time as equally as possible among the ladies—although I noticed that he paid very little attention to his wife. While he, Flora, and Ivy looked at old stereoscope pictures of scenes of the English countryside, I wrote back to Margaret. The countess was reading a book whose title she kept hidden, and Lady Fortescue, who stayed so quiet that I’d nearly forgotten she was with us, was embroidering in the corner farthest from the fireplace, above which hung an enormous portrait of her husband.

It would have been difficult to find a woman more meek and unassuming—gray, really, despite her youth— than the new Lady Fortescue. She jumped, startled, whenever she was spoken to, not so much because she was shy as because she had grown accustomed to being ignored. Her husband was not openly cruel to her; that would