He said this without guard, only honesty in his voice. It was as if, somewhere in the last few minutes, they had crossed a sort of border with one another – one that allowed them, now, to lay bare such vulnerabilities while the ball and its inconsequential guests faded away to the periphery.
‘Is that … a comfort?’ she asked, and the question was followed by a pause so long it did not seem he would ever answer.
‘For the longest time, I have hated it,’ he said. ‘It is why I have kept away. I used to love all the frivolity – loved gambling, and drinking, and flirting. But after, I found myself quite done with all the silliness, all the ridiculous rules we have to live by. As if that matters, after – after the things that happened out there. The people we lost.’ He gestured to the other side of the ballroom, where Captain Hinsley was spinning with the dancers. ‘Hinsley is the bravest man I know; I only fought in the hundred days, while he spent years on the Continent – and yet it was he who kept me sane when we got back to England. And yet, in a ballroom, none of that seems to matter – his life is dictated only by his wealth or lack of it, not his merit.’
‘It is unfair,’ she agreed – and though she could easily have pointed out his hypocrisy again, this time for sympathising with Hinsley’s plight when he had not done so with hers, she left it unsaid. She found she no longer cared about scoring points against Radcliffe.
‘You said you have hated it – do you hate it now?’ she asked instead.
‘Less than I thought,’ he admitted. ‘I had not realised how much I missed my family, how much I was neglecting them by staying away. And it has been … entertaining, I can admit, watching you cut a swathe through them all. A wolf in sheep’s clothing.’
Their heads had turned towards each other as he spoke, their gazes no longer fixed upon the portraits, and as his mouth quirked upwards, she felt her own mirroring it. She was struck, as she had been upon their first meeting, by how much his face changed when he smiled.
‘Oh, so that’s why you agreed to help me, is it?’ she said. ‘For the entertainment.’
‘I’m not sure I can be said to have “agreed” to help you,’ he refuted at once, grinning now. ‘I was coerced, I was blackmailed. I didn’t have any choice in the matter.’
She gave a soft laugh. The memory was all at once rewritten to be a humorous part of their shared story, as if it had never been shameful, or fraught – as if they had never even been truly at odds, even for a moment.
‘You had a choice,’ she argued, rapping him lightly upon the arm with her closed fan.
‘Oh, I’m not so sure about that.’ The words – though meant lightly, she was certain – sounded quite serious when spoken aloud, and by the surprise in Radcliffe’s eyes it had caught him off guard, too. They considered each other for a long, thoughtful moment – grey eyes staring into brown, brown staring back – before he cleared his throat, breaking the tension. She took a hasty sip of lemonade.
‘Mr Pemberton, you’ll be pleased to hear, is quite as rich as they say,’ he said after a beat.
‘Oh yes?’ she said, forcing her voice into brightness. ‘May I ask after your sources?’
‘His financial manager, his manservant and his tailor. His bills are always paid on time, his servants report no issues with wages, and his financial manager – once two or three cups into his beer – boasts of a very favourable return on investment. Your Pemberton is as clean as they come: eight thousand a year, quite simply. My tiger, Lawrence, found out the whole – he is a very accomplished spy.’
‘That is good news,’ Kitty said slowly. And it was, though she did not feel as pleased as she would have expected.
‘Does it make your path clear?’ he asked.
‘Almost. I still need to overcome Mrs Pemberton’s final qualms about my quality. But I hope that soon there will only be the where and the how of the proposal to consider.’
‘Oh, only that?’ Radcliffe said. ‘I suppose you will allow Pemberton the privilege of deciding for himself what he is to say to you?’
She scowled at him. ‘Yes, of course I will.’
She turned her shoulder dismissively, but Radcliffe was immune to such slights by now.
‘I wonder what sort of proposal you should most like, were it up to you,’ he imagined. ‘“Dearest Miss Talbot,”’ he did a passable imitation of Mr Pemberton’s self-satisfied drone, ‘“being of sound mind though irritating personality, I promise to you that I am filthy rich and will pay off all of your family’s debts.” Can you imagine it, Miss Talbot? The romance! The passion!’