The Lord’s Inconvenient Vow. Lara Temple

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      ‘I know that.’ He was still laughing. ‘You meant I was so boring there could be nothing to gossip about.’

      ‘I did not mean that either. But truly I cannot see what they could object to.’

      ‘Thank you for that, Sam. But anything outside the ordinary is suspect to a closed group.’

      ‘Do you mean because Poppy and Janet raised you instead of your parents? Why were you sent to live with them, Edge?’ It was the most daring thing she’d ever asked him and she waited for his usual dismissal, but he merely stared at the horizon, his profile sharp against the sky. She knew him almost as well as her brothers, but she was not certain she knew him at all. Perhaps that was why those people were suspicious of him.

      ‘I don’t remember. I don’t remember anything of those first six years at all. No... I remember snow and grey, that is all. But if it was anything like what I saw these past months then I’m glad I don’t. My parents... I spent time with my mother because of my sister’s debut. My father thankfully does not leave Greybourne because he could make a funeral procession feel like a fête. They are utterly unlike Poppy and Janet. My mother is very cold and condescending and my father is...rigidly pious.’ He glanced at her. ‘Go ahead, say something about the apple not falling far from the tree.’

      There was almost a snarl in his words which also wasn’t like him and she shook her head.

      ‘I shan’t say what I don’t think. I never saw you condescend to anyone, no matter their choice of gods or their place in society. And as for cold...’ She paused as his frown deepened—she could almost feel him haul up the drawbridge and she realised with surprise that her words mattered to him. She’d never thought that before. ‘I think you do your best to build battlements of ice, but they keep melting because you aren’t really cold. Poppy and Janet could never have loved you so deeply if you were.’

      Her words surprised her as much as they appeared to embarrass him. His high cheekbones turned dark beneath his sun-warmed skin and he planted his hands on the stone as if ready to push to his feet. She almost took his hand and asked him to stay, but his embarrassment spread to her and she waited for him to make his excuses and leave.

      He sighed, his hand relaxing a little on the stone.

      ‘If I didn’t know how honest you are, Sam, I’d suspect you of trying to butter me up for some reason or another. Did you happen to topple some precious antiquity while I wasn’t looking by any chance?’

      She smiled in relief.

      ‘The fallen Colossi of Memnon? That was I.’

      He laughed and she relaxed a little further.

      ‘I hope you do come to London soon, Sam. When you do, I shall take you to the Museum. There is a statue there that made me think of you, a bust of a girl staring at the sky like you do when you make believe you haven’t heard your mother when she summons you to supper.’

      She laughed as well, embarrassed but peculiarly flattered to be compared to a statue and that anything made him think of her at all, let alone fondly. It was so very unlike Edge to say anything remotely nice to her. She smoothed her grubby skirts over her thighs, suddenly wishing she wasn’t dressed in this dusty jumble of eastern and western garb.

      ‘What else did you do in London? Aside from being forced into the company of your unworthy parents,’ she prompted, not wanting him to stop talking. He smiled and the strange lightness about him struck her again. He’d changed so much since his last visit to Egypt two years previously. Or she had. Or both of them.

      ‘I had to attend endless balls and assemblies for Anne’s debut. You would have enjoyed watching me squirm.’

      ‘No, I wouldn’t. Was it terrible?’

      ‘Sometimes. Other times I actually enjoyed myself...’ He brushed some sand from the stone between them, a frown drawing his brows together. ‘It pulls you in, that world. Everything appears so...easy. We barely survived the war and yet they are all so gay, so full of life. It tips the scales back a little; washes away the blood and dirt and pain and you can begin to believe London is the truth, not...everything else. That you are who they see.’ He hesitated, gathering back the sand he’d scattered into a little mound. ‘Everyone calls me Edward or Lord Edward there.’

      ‘Well, those are your names.’

      ‘I know, but... I have been called Edge for years. Ever since a certain annoying six-year-old on her first visit to Qetara decreed I didn’t look like an Edward or Lord Edward Edgerton and rechristened me Edge.’

      Sam flushed again.

      ‘I still don’t think you look like an Edward, and Lord Edward Edgerton sounds like a particularly pompous character from a morality play, but I hardly forced anyone to call you Edge, they did that all on their own.’

      ‘Yes, well, you had a way of dragging people along with you. And I didn’t object. I liked that it was uncommon. Edward is my father’s name.’

      ‘Oh.’

      ‘Yes. Edward Raphael something something. The two monikers bestowed upon the first two Edgerton males.’

      ‘If you don’t like them calling you Edward, tell them so. I’ve certainly told you often enough not to call me Samantha.’

      He frowned. ‘As you said, that is my name. It is who I am.’

      Sam didn’t understand what he was trying to say, if anything at all—Poppy and Janet and everyone still called him Edge and he had not objected. Absently she traced a little pyramid in the sand he’d gathered between them and he added a crescent of a moon.

      ‘Deep in the desert, by the light of a silver sliver of a moon...’ he intoned and she smiled. One of Edge’s redeeming features was how well he read aloud. There was little entertainment in Qetara and their small group did their best with the material at hand, from cards to charades to books. Since childhood she’d loved the moment someone handed Edge a book to read aloud. It wasn’t merely the depth and timbre of his voice, but how it would shift and change with the tale. She would close her eyes and see every word he spoke, more vivid than a dream. It was the one quality for which she was willing to excuse all his lectures about her lack of decorum and his ability to ignore her absolutely when she annoyed him. Someone with such an ability to bring a tale to life could not be wholly humdrum.

      ‘No,’ she corrected. ‘You are telling a different tale—deep in the heart of London, by the light of a hundred chandeliers, they danced that night away...’

      He brushed the sand away completely and re-clasped his hands around his knees.

      ‘Three chandeliers, but enormous. I think each one held a hundred candles. At least it looked that way. I kept worrying the hot wax would drop on the dance floor and we would skid and waltz into a wall.’

      She laughed, but something in his voice caught her attention.

      ‘We?’

      He turned his head and then she heard it as well.

      ‘Daoud’s horn. Come before the flies win the battle for luncheon.’

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