Once in the ballroom, I felt myself transported back to Somerset—to Huntley House in Dulverton. There was the door on one side that led people into a quieter room for rest. The room assigned for card-games and other diversions wasn’t connected to the ballroom, but I passed it on my way. Sedate and dignified, muted in light and conversation, it was the brief calm before the madness of dance and music two rooms away. The orchestra this time was much larger, much grander. Men in bright and smart uniforms of some kind—I could think of no other word to refer to what they wore—coaxed lovely music from their instruments while looking quite imperious in their red, white, and gold finery. The waltz again, I realized, because I’d learned to count beats in Huntley House. Besides, the dancers moving around in wide, wild circles up and down the room told me enough. This time, I didn’t see anyone standing along the room’s periphery who appeared offended by the scandalous intimacy of the dance.
Once I’d settled myself comfortably against one wall of the ballroom—a necessity to avoid being trampled underfoot by overenthusiastic dancers—I took to scouring the scene for familiar faces. One face, in truth, I hoped to find.
I caught sight of my cousins in all the confusion. All were kept appropriately busy, with Vincent and Marianne changing partners more than Edward. Of the two, Marianne changed partners the most, but it didn’t at all surprise me. Edward’s bride-to-be appeared to be a handsome young lady. Tall, with a head of dark hair swept up in a high cluster of curls, she was dressed in a gown of pink silk and white lace that seemed to be an extension of her pale, flushed complexion. From what I could see—which was nothing more than several fleeting glimpses whenever they swept past my wall—she impressed me with the haughty dignity with which she held on to my cousin as they waltzed. She appeared to be an earnest devotee of the dance because she looked quite serious whenever I saw her. Even with her head held high despite her ceaseless turning to the music, she made me think of a scholar perfecting her lessons. Perhaps even a pedagogue demonstrating the most proper way of moving just so. As for Edward, he smiled, laughed, and talked, but his partner didn’t seem to pay him much heed because her features remained unchanged.
Sometime later a red-faced gentleman pushed his way past the crowd toward the doors. He appeared to be muttering something as he escaped the room, but the noise prevented me from hearing him. I recognized him, however. He was one of Marianne’s partners. I could only assume my cousin was once again up to her usual tricks and had pitted one suitor against another.
She could very well be laughing in contemptuous delight as she danced with someone new, but I’d no wish to see.
I didn’t know how long it took me to find him, but I caught sight of Mr. Lovell eventually. He wasn’t dancing, and I saw him only as he wove his way through the guests, smiling and excusing himself as he went. He didn’t see me because I was quite hidden with all the dancing and moving around that carried on. At least he didn’t at first.
I wondered if I ought to call out to him when he reached my general area. A sudden self-consciousness took hold of me, however, and, embarrassed, I watched him walk by and simply contented myself with admiring his tall figure and easy, negligent manner.
Perhaps he saw me and didn’t recognize me at once.
Perhaps he felt himself steadily watched. Whatever the reason, he stopped before he reached the doors and spun around. He caught me staring in a second. It happened so quickly I didn’t have time to look away.
He didn’t hesitate at all. Mr. Lovell redirected his steps in my direction and was soon standing before me, shaking my hand.
“Don’t you care to dance, Master Wakeman?” he asked with a broad grin. Somehow I felt bereft at not hearing my Christian name spoken in his usual way.
“I don’t, no, and I don’t care to learn,” I stammered, braving a smile of my own. The ease I usually felt in his company had vanished. I suppose such was the price when one found himself in love. “You look very well, sir.”
“My family spoils me, I’m afraid.”
“It would be a shame if they didn’t.”
His smile softened a little. “If you’re tired of watching people go round and round, perhaps you’d care for a walk. I must confess my head needs a few moments of silence, and my eyes ache for darkness.”
“The garden?”
“That would be most pleasant.”
My heart beating furiously, I moved away from my wall and led him outside. A thousand questions surged through my head, and I prayed for the strength and presence of mind to have them all satisfied before we returned to the house. Indeed, I didn’t know until we were outside that I’d taken his hand as I led him away from the light and the music. A sudden shock of fear and dismay overcame me at the realization people might have seen us move through the crowds with our hands clasped. That Mr. Lovell didn’t think to pull himself free or to chide me for my audacity only compounded my fear—and stirred my elation.
* * * *
“I used to put all the blame on school,” he said.
“Why?”
Mr. Lovell gave a light shrug. “Being in close quarters with other boys for so many months a year—day in, day out—the temptation was always there. No one would admit it, of course. Everyone was too frightened or bewildered by what we felt for each other.”
I swallowed, not daring to look anywhere else but his face. In the moonlight, with his attention fixed steadily in front of him, his beauty never once diminished. “All of you felt it?”
“No, no—some of us, yes. Not all.”
“Did anyone—well—act on it?” My embarrassment, my confusion, and my horror rose to a painful level at the thought—at my own boldness for pursuing it. I realized, however, if I didn’t ask, I’d never know. And how many other men in my life would share the same tendencies as I? Mr. Lovell could very well be the first and the last person in whom I could confide—and from whom I could learn.
He surely felt the same stab of mortification and anxiety at my bluntness. He didn’t answer right away and instead glanced over his shoulder, perhaps to ensure we were alone in our discussion of outlaw feelings.
“I believe that one of us did, at least,” he presently said, his voice dropping to a near whisper. “I can’t be sure.”
“It must have been terrible,” I half-whispered back.
“Given the risks, Nathaniel, terrible would be the tamest way of describing it.”
“Was anyone caught?”
“In the past, two pupils were. It was a scandal, as you may well know, but everyone did what he could to keep things quiet afterward. While I was there, no one was caught, but rumors were rife.” He sighed and glanced at me. “I can only assume the guilty had learned to be careful with their dalliances, and we were all left with nothing but speculation. Perhaps—perhaps it was all for the best.”
I hesitated. “You used to blame school. Now you don’t anymore.”
“I expected to return to a life of normalcy once I was out—that my experiences were nothing more than odd but dangerous trials that were unique to schoolboys in those circumstances. Even university didn’t stir anything as frighteningly powerful as what I endured in my boyhood. For a time, I believed myself recovered—cured.”
Our slow, idle stroll through my uncle’s expansive garden led us to that familiar corner where, as a child, I was confined because of its remote location in reference to the great house. In the darkness, I recognized those places where Hetty and I used to play, while the household—even Mama—was kept safe from my presence.
“When did you think otherwise, sir?” I prodded. I suddenly realized my hands were damp with nervous sweat.
“When your cousin introduced us.”
“You fell in love with me then?”
“I was attracted to you. You fascinated me, Nathaniel. I couldn’t help myself.”
I looked down to keep him from seeing—if one could see in the moonlight—my cheeks burn. I’d silence my heart if I could, but it kept its desperate pounding. I was afraid Mr. Lovell could hear its muffled drumming under my clothes.
“How can you be so sure of me?” I asked. “That you and I are alike in that way?”
He sighed. “The look on your face when you talk to me—or even watch me—says a good deal more than you probably think. You’re very young and still unguarded in your manners, but my understanding of your nature goes deeper than this.” He pressed two fingers against his temple. “Much of it comes from here and here.” He moved his hand to his chest and then his stomach.
I stopped and regarded him in wonder. Embarrassment, self-consciousness, confusion—all had now merged into one sensation. I was now aware of solace. Of companionship, camaraderie. The relief I felt at the reassurance I wasn’t alone—perhaps would never be alone even if Mr. Lovell were to vanish from my life the next day—overcame me. There were others out there like us.
Quietly hidden away, most likely, but still existing.
He stopped as well and faced me, his features perfectly schooled in showing nothing but calm expectation. I was sure he was simply waiting for me to say or ask more. He seemed to be no more than a teacher, doing what he could to help a younger, far more ignorant student.
My earlier reflections in my bedroom came alive.
Mr. Lovell might understand me, but he still didn’t understand me. No, if I were to live with a preference that most people deemed to be immoral, I was condemned to do so without him by my side. He’d return to Liscombe, possibly marry Miss Thornber despite his doubts and his true nature, and respectability would remain undisturbed.
We were mismatched—not in affection, but in wealth and situation. His obligations paralyzed him. Mr. Lovell ran the greatest risk because of that—disinheritance, scandal, perhaps prison or exile. I didn’t know in full what the law could bring down upon us should we be compromised, but I understood it would be wrong for me to subject him to such danger.
“Thank you, sir,” I said with a forced little smile. “Perhaps we should go indoors now. My parents must be furious at finding me missing from their side for this long.”
We said nothing the rest of the time. We couldn’t.
Scarcely a second had passed after I spoke before we pulled each other close. Mr. Lovell secured me with one arm around my waist, one hand against my cheek as we kissed. With his lips against mine, his scent and warmth sweeping over my senses, I thought myself touching infinity. The pain I felt was immense, unspeakable, and the tears flowed when we kissed.
He held me close for a moment, comforting me with whispered reassurances and gentle fingers stroking my hair while I cried softly on his shoulder.
The only mercy Fortune granted us that evening was that no one found us out.
* * * *
Mr. Lovell remained with me when we stepped across the threshold, and we were once again swept up in a confusion of noise and activity. I wove through the crowds in the direction of the sitting room, where I believed my parents were being entertained.
My efforts were disappointed. Neither of my parents, my uncle and aunt, or even Sir Joseph could be found. I wandered from room to room, at one time pausing at the foot of the stairs and looking up, wondering if they were upstairs somewhere.
“Perhaps it would be better to stay in the ballroom,” Mr. Lovell suggested. “Your parents surely expect you to be with the rest of the younger guests. They might be there right now, watching the dancers or searching for you.”
“Yes, thank you,” I said and walked closely behind him.
As I followed him back to the ballroom, I slowly became aware of a sense of dread that gnawed away at the pit of my stomach. It was, as I’d felt so many times in the recent past, an unsettling feeling of being watched by someone unseen.
That’s impossible! I’m in my uncle’s house, in the middle of a ball! I thought. I pressed a cold hand against my belly, however, stealing glances here and there as I usually did when walking along a footpath, knowing the thing was somewhere nearby.
I saw nothing. Only people I didn’t know, walking, talking, laughing, all moving in a perpetual stream around me. My gaze swept over the area, and I found nothing out of the ordinary. No quiet, pale figure standing in a corner or by a window or by a door. I shook my head and chided myself.
No, it was my imagination at work again.
Before long we were back in the ballroom, and my imagination continued to toy with me. Perhaps it was nothing more than a desperate wish on my part for a sympathetic companion, but I thought Mr. Lovell felt the presence, too. I caught him dart a few puzzled glances left and right as he walked, but he said nothing. Neither did he show that anything was amiss.
Somehow I’d convinced myself he was merely searching the crowd for my parents, and that was all.
“Can you see them, Mr. Lovell?” I asked after a while.
“I can’t say that I—”
A hand suddenly held my arm in a tight grip. I stopped and looked back to find Papa regarding me with a fierce expression. His complexion was dreadfully pale, and his eyes emoted painfully suppressed fury and hurt.
“Papa,” I began, but he cut me short.
“We’re going home, Nathaniel,” he said. He bit off his words in such a manner as to make it nearly impossible for me to understand him. He barely spared Mr. Lovell a look.
“What—now?”
“Yes, now. Come, and don’t argue.” He turned around and pulled me along.
“But—”
“I said don’t argue, and, for God’s sake, keep up!”
I abandoned Mr. Lovell, who couldn’t utter a single word in his surprise. I couldn’t even look back to acknowledge him with a farewell. Papa’s pace was too jarring and relentless, and I fought to stay with him.
He dragged me through hallways, past the main door, and eventually, into my uncle’s carriage. He practically threw me inside before climbing in, pulling the door shut with a terrific bang and shouting at the driver to go.
Confused and shaken, I sat myself down and stared at him while he sank back into the shadows. My arm throbbed with a dull pain, but I dared not touch it for fear of infuriating him even more. “Where—where’s Mama?” I asked.
“Mama,” he repeated, laughing bitterly. I could barely see his silhouette across the way. “As far as our family’s concerned, Nathaniel, your mother died in childbirth.”