"It is easier than speaking." There was no shyness in the admission, no apology. She lifted her glass and took a small drink, then rested it on her knee with both hands wrapped around it. Arthur noticed the motion because it was unpracticed.
Eleanor's hands moved like music over porcelain and silk, each gesture trained to show grace. Clara's hands moved because they had decided to. "Why are you not inside?" he asked.
"Because I prefer it here." "So you hide." She shook her head once. "No. Hiding suggests I want to be found and rescued. I came here because the rain is honest and the ballroom is not." Arthur looked at her longer than courtesy allowed. He expected her to soften the remark, perhaps laugh at herself, perhaps say she did not mean to sound severe.
She did none of those things. Her gaze remained steady, neither inviting nor rejecting him. "You dislike society?" he asked.
"I dislike pretending to enjoy what exhausts me." "That is a costly dislike for a young lady." "It can be," Clara said. "Though not as costly as marrying someone who rewards the pretense."
The words reached him with quiet force. Arthur shifted his weight, suddenly aware of his own posture, the rigid shoulders, the straight back, the cravat fastened close to his throat. Clara's eyes dropped briefly to that cravat, and when they returned to his face, he had the uncomfortable sense that she had understood more than he had offered. He moved to a stone ledge near the orange trees and rested one hand against it.
"You speak very plainly." "Only when people give me sentences from drawers." This time, he did laugh, softly enough that the ballroom could not hear him. The sound surprised him.
It had been days since laughter had come without effort. Clara's expression changed by the smallest degree. Not pleasure, exactly, and not victory, but recognition. "What were you reading before I interrupted?"
he asked, noticing a closed book beside her. "Essays," she said. "On what subject?" "Women's education."
He lifted a brow. "Dangerous material." "Not nearly as dangerous as an educated woman pretending not to be one." Arthur's smile faded, not because he disliked the line, but because it opened a door in him.
He had met clever women before. He had met women who sharpened wit into a weapon for drawing rooms. Clara's intelligence did not strike outward. It stood where it was and refused to move aside.
A burst of laughter rose from the ballroom, followed by applause. Eleanor had likely finished at the pianoforte. Arthur knew he should return. The evening had a rhythm, and he had stepped out of it for too long.