Then, she was sure he’d nudged his chair just a bit closer to her. She could practically feel the heat from him, the vitality of him.
Now, she trotted up the stairs to her bedchamber with Miss Mayton on her heels. Her dear aunt had talked to her all the ride home, but it had been so difficult to attend to it. Her mind was full to bursting with all that had gone on.
Juliet rolled over in Cordelia’s bed as they came in. She yawned and said, “I do not suppose you found your Corinthian at Harveston’s little meeting.”
“Not one in the whole house,” Miss Mayton said, “though we did have rather a delightful evening. Your sister was an absolute triumph.”
“Triumph?” Juliet said, sitting up. “About Aristotle and Thomas Aquinas?”
Cordelia jumped on the bed. “I took your advice, Jules. Really took it. I trusted in my womanly judgment.”
“Cordelia spoke of the woman setting the tone in the house. Lord Harveston was so admiring of it,” Miss Mayton said.
“It was as if he’d never heard of the idea before, which I really think he had not,” Cordelia said. “Goodness, where would Papa and Darden be without us?”
“Positively floundering,” Juliet said.
“It made them rethink their initial opinions,” Miss Mayton confirmed.
Juliet narrowed her eyes. “Was Harveston flirting again?” she asked.
“Flirting? Flirtingagain?” Cordelia asked, wishing to hear Juliet’s opinion before she gave her own.
“You know what I mean, Cordy,” Jules said. “First he somehow magically arrives at our house though he cannot explain how, then he claims he admires the book we’re reading, though I do not believe it for a moment. Now he’s applauding your ideas at his salon. If that is not flirting, I do not know what is.”
“I did wonder about it, actually,” Cordelia said. “He brushed my hand when handing me my wine, which of course might have been accidental. But then I am sure he pulled his chair closer to my own.”
“There you have it!” Juliet said. “I told you he was flirting. He hasdesigns, but he is not your Corinthian.”
“No, he is not my Corinthian,” Cordelia said thoughtfully. There was probably no less of a Corinthian in the whole town.
And yet, she’d been so pleased that he had regarded her ideas so approvingly and he’d stayed at their group. It was her understanding that he used the gatherings to wander from group to group, he’d said so himself on that first night. He’d done that very thing on that first night.
He hadn’t wandered this night. He’d stayed right by her side.
Now she felt that they were on equal footing. Firm equal footing. Because they were, were they not? She had one sort of knowledge and he had another. He had finally recognized that fact.
Or was it, that she had finally recognized that fact?
How ever it was, she was grown in confidence. He did not intimidate her now. She did not feel small or less than.
Somehow, his coming down in her estimation or her rising in her own estimation had made him more attractive.
Cordelia really could not help but be impressed with her own knowledge. She’d hardly known she had it, it had just come out.
Perhaps she knew even more that she did not yet recognize. Perhaps she might learn even more than she already had.
It was one thing to depend upon her womanly judgment, which really was turning out to be very good. Might she not learn other things?
To her surprise, she’d had no trouble at all debating the men this night. She could only imagine where she might get to if she put some effort into picking up new knowledge.
“Aunt,” she said, “might we go to Lackington & Allen on the morrow?”
“The bookstore?” Juliet asked. “Cordy, do not tell me you will try to turn yourself into an intellectual on account of Lord Harveston.”
“Not an intellectual, exactly,” Cordelia said, “just to know more than I do at this moment. And it is not for anybody but myself.”
“Books? Goodness,” Miss Mayton said.
