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And somewhere, a ship was moving closer, coming to take him away.
Beatrice laid her head against his chest, listening to the sound of his heartbeat. A few more moments within the circle of his arms.
A few more moments within the walls of this impossible dream.
“I read your diary entry, Beatrice.”
She lifted her head. “My diary?”
“You left a torn-out diary entry in the book you lent me.”
What was he talking about? “I didn’t mean to give you any of my writing.”
“I know. I started reading the page and I knew immediately that you hadn’t meant to give it to me so I stopped. You were describing overhearing your mother’s conversation with the doctor about your inability to form a proper smile because of your palsy.”
“I can’t believe I left that in the book I gave you.” She hid her face from him.
“Beatrice.” He lifted her chin. “Don’t be ashamed. Your words were painful to read but they made me know you better.”
She saw no pity in his eyes, only understanding. If there had been even a hint of pity she would have left his bed immediately.
Instead, she answered a strange inner call to divulge more secrets.
“I remember that night so well. The doctor had been there with his metal instruments, stretching my mouth apart, probing and invasive. He’d prescribed a type of sling to wear around my head, to pull the side of my face into position. It was supposed to train my face to behave more normally. It was humiliating.”
“There wasn’t anything less invasive they could do?”
“It was all useless. My mother lived in a world patched together from false hope and quackery. That night I had a stomachache and I couldn’t find my nurse, and I walked downstairs and my mother and father were arguing. I pressed my ear to the door of the study. My father said that I was a damned cripple. That no one would ever love me.”
He cradled her in his arms, stroking her back lightly with his fingers. She nestled closer to his warmth.
“My mother was sobbing. ‘My poor girl,’ she said, ‘she can’t even smile. How will she ever attract a mate?’ I ran back to my bed. That was the moment that I knew I’d never be the daughter my parents had wanted. I was hurt and angry. I didn’t understand.”
He didn’t say anything. He just stroked her shoulders comfortingly.
“There was one physician that I liked. A kindly older man, very distracted and mumbling, but he suggested a healing exercise that I actually enjoyed. He said that reading aloud from dictionaries might help me with the ability to realize and feel facial movements. I progressed from memorizing dictionaries to wanting to create them. I learned all of these new words and I delighted in using them.”
He kissed the top of her head.
She pressed her cheek against his chest. He was so warm and strong. “I retreated into my mind. It was safer there. My mother couldn’t follow me into my scholarship. I decided that if I couldn’t be whole of body, I’d become mighty of mind. But my intellectual prowess and odd turns of phrase didn’t make me any friends at boarding school. There was one girl, Lady Millicent Granger, who decided I was secretly laughing at all of them and thought myself to be superior. She gave me the nickname Beastly Beatrice.”
“She sounds like the beastly one.”
“After my debut, I swiftly learned to shut my mouth, keep my head bent over a book, and hide behind the potted ferns. I became an expert at disappearing. That’s what I was doing when you met me in Cornwall. Hiding from my mother. Trying to find a moment of peace to be myself.”
He rose onto his elbow. “Look into my eyes, Beatrice. Do you see a reason to hide?”
His eyes were a shadowy blue in the firelight, his gaze steady and focused on her.
She could talk to him about this vulnerability. The young girl she’d been, angry and confused. “I’ve developed a tough skin. Nothing bothers me anymore.”
“Your skin doesn’t feel tough to me.” He swept his fingers over her cheek. “It’s soft as the underside of willow bark.”
“I’m on the margins of society and I prefer to stay there. A spinster in my library in Cornwall.”
“I think it would be a shame if you retreated to Cornwall forever, buried by towering stacks of books. Your bright light hidden away.”
“If I’m hiding behind my books, you’re hiding behind your charm. The jokes you make, the way you tease, and flirt and throw bonnets under carriage wheels. All of that posturing and bravado, it can’t possibly be natural all the time. Everyone is sad sometimes, everyone hurts. You’re no exception. And I’m not going to be hiding. I’m going to be free to be as scholarly as I please without fear of ridicule. Being a spinster doesn’t have to mean a miserable existence. I might even take a lover, like Aunt Matilda did.”
