Celia stared at her hands. Her arm was throbbing, and she didn’t want to know why. The rush of emotions that had propelled her from the ballroom was fading into mere exhaustion.
“Celia, look at your arm! Are you hurt?” Aunt Thompson lifted Celia’s elbow with gentle fingers.
Charlotte moved the candelabra closer. “What happened? I was dancing and didn’t see.”
Tears prickled Celia’s eyes, but she blinked them away and pulled her own arm across to examine the spreading red marks. It wasn’t that bad, it was just that everything showed quickly on her pale skin. “I was just clumsy, like usual.” Half true. “I kept getting further off the beat, and I bumped into the girl ahead of me.” After he trod on her gown. “I knocked her over, poor thing”—that part bothered Celia—“and my partner was… kind enough to catch me.” Celia rubbed her elbow, aching worse with every minute, and a flare of something hot and irrational closed her throat for a moment.
Aunt Thompson snorted. “Not much of a gentleman. You are such a little thing, he needn’t—”
“The whole accident was his fault!” Rose said. “He was weaving out of the lines all evening—”
“Itoldyou to keepquiet!”
“I’m not talking about—”
“Auntie, do you think it needs a salve?” Celia kept her voice neutral.
Her aunt focused back on Celia, fingers pleasantly cool. “We’ll use comfrey when we arrive home tonight. It can wait until then.”
Celia did not reply. When she had managed her own stillroom, she knew to apply salve as soon as possible.
Charlotte moved to the back of Celia’s dress, pinning in quick little pleats, looking as awkward as Celia felt. She was dark-haired, like Celia and her cousins, but Charlotte’s chin was receding, her nose was button-like, and she was uncomfortable stating her opinions in public—distinctly different from the Thompson women.
Aunt Thompson picked up a threaded needle, took two stitches, and abandoned it again. “Celia. Celia, darling.”
Celia looked up.
One more stitch. Silence.
“Yes, ma’am?” Celia tried to sound encouraging, although her heart was tumbling faster and faster. Aunt Thompson was usually full of words, spinning easily between brittle criticism and warm encouragement. “I’m sure I can help, if you wish.”
“Help? Oh—yes, you must—Celia, this is quite enough. It is time that—this is enough.” Aunt Thompson panted slightly.
“Yes, ma’am.” Tension was rising in Celia’s stomach like water sluicing into a canal lock. Something had been off-kilter all winter, in the way her aunt and uncle looked at each other without saying what they meant, the arguments with an extra edge.
“We love you. We love having you live with us.” Aunt Thompson smiled so brightly that her cheeks stretched like a carnival doll.
In the corner, Rose gasped. Charlotte bent her head to her sewing.
Celia braced for the “but.” For losing everything all over again.
“I think it’s time you marry. Quite sure. This spring. You can…marry.” Aunt Thompson brushed her hands together, like everything was settled.
“Marry?” Celia turned towards her aunt, accidentally twitching her skirt away from Charlotte. She was flummoxed; she had been expecting something more novel. They were at a ball, weren’t they? Celia was accepting every offer of every dance, even from galloping buffoons who made off-color jokes about Catholics and trod on her hems.
“Don’t you want your own house, dear?”
“Yes, ma’am.” Celiahadher own house; she just needed her brother to allow her to return. But unmarried women are supposed to long for a new name and a new house, so Celia longed obediently. “Of course I want a husband.”
“This spring?” Rose apparently could not repress her bitter comment.
Celia startled again, like a sheep faced by a growling collie dog on every side. She hadn’t noticed that qualifier the first time, but it echoed in memory just before her aunt repeated the words again, with deliberate bonhomie.
“Lilacs in St George’s! Such a wonderful perfume. White narcissus for your dark hair, Celie. Won’t it be lovely, girls?”
Planning a wedding to coincide with the lilacs was the most nonsensical idea that Celia had ever heard, and Aunt Thompson was a supremely sensible woman. Celia stared at her, trying to deduce what they were actually discussing.
“I’m sure lilacs would… be lovely.” Celia cast for words. “But wouldn’t it be better to…” She spun her hands helplessly. “To wait until a gentleman… shows interest?”
