Lie With Me by Patricia Spencer

Author:Patricia Spencer [Spencer, Patricia]
Language: eng
Format: epub, azw3
Publisher: Patricia Spencer
Published: 2021-05-31T14:00:00+00:00

“Lord D’Avenant,” Elizabeth said, waving her fork over her plate, “Mama said you pointed at a hole in the roof at Skylark today and said it wasn’t supposed to be like that.”

“I did.”

“Are you sure?” she giggled.

He smiled. Elizabeth was bright and imaginative. He loved how she invited him to be silly with her. “I am,” he replied. “Would you like to know why?”

“Why?”

“Because the stars fall in at night and can’t get out. Then someone has to go every morning to release them.”

“So there’s more work.”

“That, and the stars, in the daytime, don’t know how to get back home because they can’t see the pattern in the sky. So now the stars are getting clumped up near Skylark. Which means that even more are falling in. That’s why we need the roof.”

“Lord D’Avenant?” Edward cheerfully interrupted. “Mama brought our playing cards from London. We could teach you how to play Laugh and Lie Down.”

D’Avenant lifted his eyebrows, then exchanged a glance with Maman. “Maman, do you want to Laugh and Lie Down? Edward, can an old woman laugh and lie down?”

“Old?? Edward!” Maman said. “I can do both! I will be on your team!”

Edward launched into a convoluted description that involved pairs, prials, mournivals, and how you need to throw your cards on the pile and have everybody laugh at you. The laughter, he said, was the best part of the game, and you had to laugh as loud as you could. Then he demonstrated laughter. And Elizabeth demonstrated laughter. And Maman started, and D’Avenant, from the sheer contagion of it.

He looked over at Lady Maryam. Maryam looked tired but a smile spread like daybreak over her face as she watched everyone’s delight. Megan had straddled her lap, exhausted from a big day chasing her older siblings, leaned forward onto her mother’s bosom and fallen soundly asleep. Maryam, with her usual grace, had simply held her with one hand and eaten around her with the other.

Maryam had done well today. She was intelligent and attentive to detail. He himself, when doing that walk-through with Tate in the Spring, had nearly missed the exterior staircase windows. She applied herself to the work, listened attentively when he was teaching her, and did not complain. He did not know any Countess who would have tiptoed through goose droppings with such grace as she had.

He loved watching her when she spoke. Her eyes were bright, her expression engaged, her white teeth flashed when she smiled. She often gestured when she spoke, her sculpted hands describing her thoughts like designs in the air. She had an extraordinary way of putting people at ease. She simply showed genuine interest in them. That was it. In her hands, social rank was never a weapon.

There were a hundred reasons why a man could love Maryam. A man. And only one reason why a woman could not.

He glanced at the sideboard and his untouched bottle of cognac. He rubbed his hand across his mouth, the laughter dying from his lips.

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