Not the fainting kind, p.11
Not the Fainting Kind, page 11
And all of that meant Albert Isaksen deserved someone who could love him back. And Nat would never be able to. They might have once, love could have grown from fondness but that was before. Before living over the sea. Before being submitted to the pain that lingered like an ill-healing bruise. Before learning how to dandy like a pirate. Now, such a life and such a bond would scrape at Nat like a poorly constructed chair, nails and splinters digging into their flesh. And it would do the same to whomever Nat was bound to. Maybe it always would have.
“Please convey my apologies to the Isaksens and, if you can, throw in a hint that I’m not marrying anyone let alone Albert Isaksen. Excuse me.” They swept past Lady Adelhard and toward the receiving library.
17
16: Do I Look Any Straighter To You?
Lady Adelhard didn’t bother to acknowledge Nat the next morning at breakfast, going so far as to chase the heels of her husband both into and out of the breakfast room.
Nat took themself off to hide in the library until the Adelhards were all ensconced in their afternoon activities. Lady Adelhard entertaining guests in the parlour and Lord Adelhard talking with a business partner in his study. The door to the parlour clunked shut and Nat poked their head out of the library to call softly for, “Brett?”
The ever-present butler emerged from his haunt.
“Could you arrange for the carriage to take me to town?”
Brett pressed his lips together.
Nat tilted their head.
“I feel it is my duty to inform you… though I doubt your father will appreciate my doing so. Nevertheless, I feel it is my duty to inform you that he has asked to be notified should I be aware of you leaving the house.”
Nat’s eyebrows drew together. “Why?”
“I believe he is…” Brett’s eyes narrowed. “Concerned about the family reputation.”
Nat pacified their face. “Thank you for letting me know, Brett. Belay the carriage request.”
“Very good, My Liege.” With that he disappeared back down the hallway.
Lord Adelhard wanted to be informed about Nat’s every move. That was going to make things difficult. On the other hand…
Nat slunk out of the library and through the hall. They grabbed a top hat from the cloakroom — it was plain black and didn’t quite match the pastels coating the rest of Nat’s outfit but Nat could resolve themself to that.
Tentatively they pulled open the front door. They squished themself through the tiniest possible gap in the door, closing it behind them just as carefully. With the door closed, Nat hesitated a heartbeat longer. No roaring Adelhards.
They shot a furtive look at the parlour windows, if Lady Adelhard looked out now she’d see Nat taking off down the driveway. Not that Nat had much of a choice; there was no other way off Adelhard grounds. It would be fine; Lady Adelhard wouldn’t look, not with guests.
Once they were hidden behind the outer wall they slowed down to a comfortable stroll. The walk was pleasant enough, late August sunlight shone warm and orange on the wild berry bushes opposite the estate.
The thudding of horses hooves on dirt tickled Nat’s consciousness. They turned on the path to see what kind of vehicle approached.
The Adelhard family carriage pulled to a stop next to Nat. The door flung open and Lord Adelhard’s splotchy red face peered out. “What in the world do you think you’re doing?” He roared.
Had he left his business associate alone in his office? How had he known Nat had gone? Had Brett really told on them?
“Walking,” they answered.
The way Lord Adelhard’s eyes blazed told Nat that was the wrong answer. “Where?”
“Oh, you know,” Nat circled a hand in the air, “here, there.”
“Get in the carriage.”
“I’m quite happy to walk.”
“That was not a request.”
“Oh? I’m sorry, Sir.” Nat’s voice dripped with sarcasm and disdain. “I hadn’t realised you intended to treat your child as a subordinate officer. My mistake.” They climbed slowly and with all the dandified elegance they could muster into the carriage.
Lord Adelhard slammed the door closed.
The silence stretched between them. Nat watched the world pass by the window. The road leading up to Adelhard manor was too narrow for a carriage to make a full turn, so the driver had to travel to where the road widened. The cross junction that lead either to town, to Lady Rajni’s old house, or to the more populated area where the Roydon, Mishra, and Harcroft families lived. Nat closed their eyes, too pained to watch the return to Adelhard Manor.
“Did Brett tell you?” Lord Adelhard’s quiet voice made Nat flinch.
“Tell me what?” They didn’t bother turning to look at Lord Adelhard.
“Did Brett tell you to avoid using the carriage?”
“I couldn’t have just wanted to walk?”
“In the early afternoon August sun? I may not know much about dandies but I do know you and your freckles and I do remember how self-conscious you were about gaining more.”
Now Nat did turn to face him. “You think I wouldn’t have got over that? There aren’t many places to hide from the sun on a ship’s deck. Why would Brett have warned me to avoid using the carriage?”
“So he wouldn’t have to alert me to your use of it.”
“You asked Brett to ground me.” The contained rage made each word sharp, an embroidery needle repeatedly stabbing the same piece of fabric. “As if I am not a fully capable adult. As if I have not been supporting and maintaining myself. As if I were an unruly child.”
“You can see why I felt it necessary,” he mumbled.
“What exactly did you expect me to be doing on a weekday afternoon? Am I not permitted to visit with my friends? Attend appropriate social activities? Or is it merely that I must run all my actions past my commanding officer — oh, I’m sorry, I obviously mean my father — first?”
“Don’t argue with me!” Lord Adelhard’s voice exploded from him. “You brought this on yourself. Your clandestine activities—”
“Is that going to haunt the rest of my life?” Nat roared back. “I know high society has a long memory, I know the memory of what happened is in the back of enough people’s minds that it wouldn’t take much to dredge it back up. But Rajni is married now, I am hardly about to put that into question even if I wasn’t painfully aware of the way that activities like that will affect the entire family. Most importantly Carrolline.”
“It cannot be held to your activities from—” he cleared his throat “— before. You just snuck out of the house to go wherever you intended today! Yesterday too, you snuck out. I need to know where you’re going and what you’re doing.”
“Perhaps if I were afforded a modicum of trust I wouldn’t feel the need to sneak anywhere.”
The carriage pulled to a stop in front of Adelhard Manor. Nat flung the door open before the footman could leap to their aid.
“Does your family mean nothing to you?” Lord Adelhard called after Nat, voice booming in the still summer air. It made Nat think of Tao’s revelation, the way he had described the voice of the terrifying Admiral Adelhard.
Nat spun, a brittle laugh escaping them. “That’s pretty rich for a man who banished his heir to sea.”
“For a year!”
In the corner of Nat’s eye, something shifted. People looking out the parlour window. This was not the place to have a conversation like this. Too public. But Lord Adelhard had started this and Nat wasn’t just going to stand there and take it.
“I believe your exact words were ‘a year at sea should straighten you out’ — or am I mistaken?”
“What of it?”
“I was given to understand you meant, were I not ‘straightened out’ by the year’s end, I would not be welcome to return.” They flung their arms wide, presenting their fanciful clothing, their dandified stance only changed slightly by a year of piracy. “Do I look any straighter to you?”
Lord Adelhard deflated like a balloon that hit a sharp rock. “That isn’t…”
“Isn’t what? The case? Then why such a tight hold on the reins? Why the constant supervision. Not to mention the fact that your own wife told me to keep out of Carrolline’s business, at best, the very first night of my return. You think I haven’t heard you debating the best way to get rid of me since then? Give me a little credit. I am not a child and I am not oblivious. Now, if you’re done playing politics with your own household and if you’re done expecting me to treat you like a naval superior, I—”
The slap rang out, echoing in the subsequent silence.
Nat took a deep, even breath. Their hands fisted at their sides. “That was wholly unnecessary,” they snarled.
Lord Adelhard’s head reared back, causing his neck to bunch up under his chin.
The last time Lord Adelhard had slapped Nat, they had fallen to the floor with the force of it. Tears had streamed down their face, they had cradled their cheek, they had stuttered out an apology.
That had been before the navy ship.
Before being captured by pirates.
Before all the blood and pain that Nat had endured because of those experiences. Because of Lord Adelhard’s decisions.
Nat’s face burned with the blood rushing to it but they didn’t reach up to touch it. Lord Adelhard could watch the way he turned his child’s face as red as their hair. He could watch and he could feel whatever emotion might spark in his cold dark mind.
One more breath. One more frozen second. One last chance to salve the wound, to save the chance at a relationship.
Nat turned and entered the Manor.
18
17: You Seem Besieged By Those
Nat didn’t bother to respond to the knock on the library door. Who cared for their privacy? Who ever had?
Brett poked his head around the door. “My Liege, a Lord Roydon to see you.”
They unfolded themself from the windowsill. “Show him in please, Brett.”
“Very good.”
Nat slumped into one of the uncomfortable chairs that had replaced the set they had known and loved. They felt like sharp glass tossed into the sea, shifting from cutting to rough and scraping.
“Liege Adelhard,” Lord Roydon’s voice swept over Nat like the brush of fabric over the back of their neck. He paused just inside the door, eyes tracking over the red mark on Nat’s slapped cheek. His practised smile didn’t break, but it did freeze in place.
Brett brought in tea as Roydon picked his seat.
“I cannot thank you enough for introducing me to the lovely Mr Zima.”
Nat searched for the intent behind the words, rough edges catching on any dip or edge and scraping against their insides. They swallowed and forced their own smile. It twinged on their bruise. “Yes, I hear you two have become quite close.”
“Indeed we have. He is possessed of a unique set of attributes.”
Nat nodded slowly, trying not to think too hard about which of Aleksei’s particular attributes Lord Roydon was enjoying. “I’m sure you know he and I are friends.”
“No offence, Hummingbird, but I doubt your friendship is much going to affect him here.”
Hard as Nat clung to their persona, to the dandy presentation they had practised for as many years as they had been counted something like an adult, more years than they hadn’t used it, itshattered. They surged into motion, serving the tea in the desperate, unbearable, and completely futile hope that it would prevent Roydon from noticing.
Roydon leaned forward but instead of taking the newly poured tea cup, he placed a hand over Nat’s. They looked up at him, faces closer than propriety should allow. “Dearling, what in the world happened to your face?”
Nat couldn’t stop their free hand from rising to touch at their face. It was hot. Their voice came out soft. “An unfortunate incident…”
“You seem to be besieged by those in this household.”
“We don’t pick the families we’re born into.”
“Indeed we don’t.” The words came out serious. Nothing like what Nat had heard from him before. He shifted to pick up the tea cup. That serious manner remained. “You’re never going to tell anyone, are you?”
“Tell anyone what?”
“Anything relating to what transpired after you and Rajni got caught in that library. I asked Aleksei and he had no idea what I was talking about.”
“We were caught outside the library, you need better intel.”
“Apologies for misremembering a minor scandal from almost two years ago, wild-one.”
“Forgiven,” Nat teased with a soft smile.
“But I’m right.”
“That I intend to keep my secrets secret? Yes.”
Lord Roydon sighed. “A secret for a secret, at all tempting?”
“Depends on the secret. You can ask, and offer your secret as payment.”
“Because then you can decree whether you’ll answer the question at all and how much my own secret is worth?”
“Of course.”
“You never could do things in a simple manner.”
“Self-protection rarely is simple. Particularly for heirs.” And pirate prisoners. And pirate captain’s whose fathers were decorated naval admirals.
“I wouldn’t know,” Lord Roydon mused. He took his time thinking of his question.
“I’m not a genie; I won’t twist your question.”
That got a laugh. “I’m just musing over what I most want to know.” Another pause and then, “Where have you been? Your current residence — not Adelhard Manor.”
“I’ll answer.”
“My secret…” He thought again. “I really like Aleksei. More than I’ve ever liked anyone. If he were a real gentleman I would…”
He didn’t need to finish. Lord Roydon would invite Aleksei to live with him in his bachelor pad. He would commit to Aleksei. The closest he, as a member of the ton, could get to marriage with another man.
Nat swallowed painfully. “I live on a ship.”
Lord Roydon shifted to frown at them. “Not naval?” he gaped.
“Fuck no!”
Laughter burst out of Roydon. “Merchant then?”
Nat glanced at the door, it remained closed. They shook their head.
“If it’s not a naval or a merchant vessel then what…?” he trailed off, mind whirling like a spinning top.
“What would you give up for him? For Aleksei?” Nat asked.
“More than I’m willing to admit. How did the two of you meet?”
Nat considered the question. “Someone tried to kill me.”
“What? Aleksei did?”
“No. He was just… around when it happened.”
“Stepped in like a dashing rescuer?”
Nat stared into their tea cup, remembering the white line of Aleksei’s jaw as it stood out starkly with tension. Doing his best to cope with the captain he had and the way his loyalty to her warred with his own wants and needs. “That’s not who he is.”
“Oh?”
“But maybe it’s different for you.”
That evening, bedecked in bronze and surprisingly matching Carrolline’s taffeta gown, Nat ended up sat in a painfully silent carriage as the whole Adelhard contingent headed out to a ball.
As the carriage pulled up the driveway to a manor-house far larger than the Adelhard home, Lord Adelhard leaned over to hiss in Nat’s ear, “Do not embarrass me tonight.”
As if the bright purple bruise on their face wouldn’t do that all on its own.
Gas lamps had been lit all round the edges of the Great Hall, even as the evening sun shone through the huge windows all along the western wall. Pink, red, and white curtains had been gathered on either side of each window, matching the likely colour of the sunset when it came.
Carrolline touched a hand to Nat’s arm. “Ask me to dance?”
Nat opened their mouth to refuse; they were hardly in the mind-set to subject themself to something so awful as dancing at a ball. But instead they forced a smile. “My Lady, Carrolline.” They performed a nonbinary bow in the most over-dramatic fashion they could manage, eyes flicking away from Lord Adelhard’s glare over the top of Carrolline’s head. “If I might have the honour of a dance?”
Carrolline took Nat’s proffered hand, bobbing into her own curtsy with a giggle before Nat led her onto the dance floor. Thankfully it was a quartet piece, not a paired dance. The band began the music and Nat and Carrolline launched into motion, coming together and parting as the dance demanded.
“I heard you and father outside the house,” Carrolline said. “Did mother really say that? About staying away from me?”
“It wasn’t quite so clean as that.”
“Is that why you’ve been avoiding me? — ow!” she complained as Nat’s foot strayed too close and onto Carrolline’s.
“I miss the days of huge hoop skirts,” Nat moaned. “It was so much harder to step on a woman’s feet then.”
Carrolline laughed lightly, thoroughly distracted from her point. The dance demanded they join into quartets with a nearby couple and Nat stumbled again upon realising their new partner was Rajni, resplendent once again in a wonderful mesh of cultures and traditions. The long sleeves of a married woman’s gown, paired with a turquoise sari covered in white stars and with a band of gold along one edge.
Each touch of Lady Bakshi-Mishra’s hands sent sparks up Nat’s limbs. Memories of touch, feeling, emotion. Memory of adrenaline. Want paired with the oh-so-desperately rare being wanted in return.
When they came together Lady Bakshi-Mishra leaned close to Nat to whisper, “You have more freckles than you used to.”
Nat’s eyes closed at the sensation of feather-light breath on their skin.
“I wonder if the spread as far down your neck as it looks like they do.”
Nat let out a shaky breath. Thankful for the dance demanding the two separate, even if only for a moment.
It didn’t last.
