After dinner, they reconvened in the Blue Room again. Louisa was at the piano, while Lady Genevieve turned the pages for her. Charlotte and Sinclair were playing cards with Isabella and Frederick. Cousin Andrew was reading a book in the corner.
Elizabeth and Elinor were listening to Talbot, the Baron, and Stone discuss the upcoming coronation, while Pratt had gone into the smaller parlour for some reason. When Louisa had finished playing, she and Lady Genevieve joined their group.
“What have you been reading?” Elizabeth called out to Andrew when she noticed that he had closed the book and was staring into the fire.
“Prometheus Unbound,” he replied. “It is a lyrical drama based on Greek mythology. I’m sure you remember how much I enjoy those stories.”
“I remember too well,” Lizzie laughed.
“Can you read us a portion?” Elinor asked, and Andrew agreed.
Soon, a silence settled over the room, and everyone abandoned what they were doing in favour of listening to Andrew’s clear voice. Even Pratt emerged from the smaller parlour to rejoin them. Just as Prometheus promised that he wished for no living being to suffer pain, Andrew stopped reading. Exclamations of protest were heard around the room.
“I do apologise, but my voice is starting to feel the strain. Someone else can continue, if you’d all like to hear more of the story.”
“I’d rather like to hear the Duchess read to us,” Lady Genevieve said. “Seeing as you two are cousins, she might possess a voice as clear as yours.”
“Cousin Elizabeth, would you like to read?” Andrew asked hopefully.
Elizabeth hated that everyone was looking at her now. She was about to decline when she felt Talbot’s thigh pressing against hers in silent encouragement.
“I would, thank you,” she said, emboldened by the small gesture. “You select the page, please.”
“You can read this poem that was published together with the drama, hold on.”
Andrew found the page and handed her the book. Elizabeth delicately cleared her throat and started reading,
“To a Skylark…”
When she was done reading, she looked up and saw Talbot's proud smile. She smiled back.
“That is such a wonderful poem,” Amelia was the first to break the silence.
“It’s a poem about a bird,” Pratt said with a frown. “How wonderful can it be?”
“It is not justabout a bird,” Amelia countered. “The bird and its song are but a medium for the exploration of nature and the human struggle! Don’t you see?Thou of death must deem / Things more true and deep / Than we mortals dream.Being human has so many limitations, whereas the bird is perfect, and it is free.”
When she was finished speaking, Amelia seemed to remember who she was and where she was, and her entire body deflated.Oliver’s face seemed to Elizabeth as proud as Colin’s had been moments ago. The Corporal smiled at Amelia, and even the roots of her hair blushed.
“That was… unexpected,” Colin whispered to Elizabeth and his perfume called out to her.
“For you, maybe,” she whispered back.
Lady Genevieve’s irritating voice interrupted their intimate moment, “Wonderful reading, Your Grace. You seem like quite the accomplished young lady. I hope we shall also hear you play for us while we’re here.”
Elizabeth’s whole body tensed. Although she was no longer ashamed of her lack of musical talent and education, she wasn’t keen on giving Lady Genevieve the opportunity to witness it. Talbot coldly replied, “I’m afraid my wife plays only for me.”
Elizabeth allowed herself to look at Lady Genevieve. She sat artfully posed in one of the soft armchairs, her dark hair styled in a way that almost made it seem like it was down. Elizabeth hated that her skin looked soft and inviting.
“Don’t concern yourself with her,” Mary had told her as she was helping her dress for dinner, and Lizzie had recounted Genevieve’s numerous provocations from earlier in the day. “You are putting on one of the dresses your husband had made for you because he didn’t like that other men had touched your other clothes. He wants to annihilate the trace of any other man from your life. I think it’s safe to say he’s not thinking about anyone else, and it must be torture for her.”
He did annihilate the trace of all other men from my life and heart,Lizzie thought.
“Jealousy and possessiveness are so unbecoming, wouldn’t you agree?” Lady Genevieve addressed the rest of the room before returning her hungry gaze on Talbot. “Weren’t you once at the forefront of those mocking the young swain husbands who were following their wives around like lovesick puppies?”
Talbot calmly listened to her, all the while keeping his left hand next to his wife’s knee, as if even the smallest touch was invigorating for him.
“Haven’t you heard the story of how I tricked my wife into marrying me? Or that I duelled a man who dared speak ill of her? Jealous?” Talbot laughed to himself while shaking his head slowly. “Lady Sinclair, the scope of that word is too narrow to encompass how I feel about my wife and the lengths I’m willing to go to keep her at my side, as unfashionable as you and your ilk may find it.”
