“I don’t believe I’ve ever been ’round to this side of Belgrave,” Amelia commented as they entered through a set of French doors. She almost felt like a thief, sneaking about as she was. Belgrave was so still and quiet over here at the back. It made one aware of every noise, every footfall.
“I’m rarely in this section,” Thomas commented.
“I can’t imagine why not.” She looked about her. They had entered a long, wide hall, off which stood a row of rooms. The one before her was some sort of study, with a wall of books, all leather-bound and smelling like knowledge. “It’s lovely. So quiet and peaceful. These rooms must receive the morning sun.”
“Are you one of those industrious sorts, always rising at dawn, Lady Amelia?”
He sounded so formal. Perhaps it was because they were back at Belgrave, where everything was formal.
She wondered if it was difficult to speak guilelessly here, with so much splendor staring down upon one.
Burges Park was also quite grand—there was no pretending otherwise—but it held a certain warmth that was lacking at Belgrave.
Or perhaps it was just that she knew Burges. She’d grown up there, laughed there, chased her sisters and teased her mother. Burges was a home, Belgrave more of a museum.
How brave Grace must be, to wake up here every morning.
“Lady Amelia,” came Thomas’s reminding voice.
“Yes,” she said abruptly, recalling that she was meant to answer his question. “Yes, I am. I cannot sleep when it is light out. Summers are particularly difficult.”
“And winters are easy?” He sounded amused.
“Not at all. They’re even worse. I sleep far too much. I suppose I should be living at the equator, with a perfect division of day and night, every day of the year.”
He looked at her curiously. “Do you enjoy the study of geography?”
“I do.” Amelia wandered into the study, idly running her fingers along the books. She liked the way the spine of each volume bowed slightly out, allowing her fingers to bump along as she made her way into the room. “Or I should say I would. I am not very accomplished. It was not considered an important subject by our governess. Nor by our parents, I suppose.”
“Really?”
He sounded interested. This surprised her. For all their recent rapprochement, he was still . . . well . . .
him, and she was not used to his taking an interest in her thoughts and desires.
“Dancing,” she replied, because surely that would answer his unspoken question. “Drawing, pianoforte, maths enough so that we can add up the cost of a fancy dress ensemble.”
He smiled at that. “Are they costly?”
She tossed a coquettish look over her shoulder. “Oh, dreadfully so. I shall bleed you dry if we host more than two masquerades per year.”
He regarded her for a moment, his expression almost wry, and then he motioned to a bank of shelves on the far side of the room. “The atlases are over there, should you wish to indulge your interests.”
She smiled at him, a bit surprised at his gesture. And then, feeling unaccountably pleased, she crossed the room. “I thought you did not come to this section of the house very often.”
He quirked a dry half smile, which somehow sat at odds with his blackened eye. “Often enough to know where to find an atlas.”
She nodded, pulling a tall, thin tome at random from the shelf. She looked down at the gold letter-ing on the cover. maps of the world. The spine creaked as she cracked it open. The date on the title page was 1796. She wondered when the book had last been opened.
“Grace is fond of atlases,” she said, the thought popping into her head, seemingly from nowhere.
“Is she?”
She heard his steps drawing near. “Yes. I seem to recall her saying so at some point. Or perhaps it was Elizabeth who told me. They have always been very good friends.” Amelia turned another page, her fingers careful. The book was not particularly delicate, but something about it inspired reverence and care. Looking down, she saw a large, rectangular map, crossing the length of both pages, with the caption: Mercator projection of our world, the Year of our Lord, 1791.
Amelia touched the map, her fingers trailing softly across Asia and then down, to the southernmost tip of Africa. “Look how big it is,” she murmured, mostly to herself.
“The world?” he said, and she heard the smile in his voice.
“Yes,” she murmured.
Thomas stood next to her, and one of his fingers found Britain on the map. “Look how small we are,”
he said.
“It does seem odd, doesn’t it?” she remarked, trying not to notice that he was standing so close that she could feel the heat emanating from his body. “I am always amazed at how far it is to London, and yet here”—she motioned to the map—“it’s nothing.”
“Not nothing.” He measured the distance with his smallest finger. “Half a fingernail, at least.”
She smiled. At the book, not at him, which was a much less unsettling endeavor. “The world, measured in fingernails. It would be an interesting study.”
He chuckled. “There is someone at some university attempting it right now, I assure you.”
She looked over at him, which was probably a mistake, because it left her feeling somewhat breathless.
Nonetheless, she was able to say (and in a remarkably reasonable voice), “Are professors so very eccentric, then?”
“The ones with long fingernails are.”
She laughed, and he did, too, and then she realized that neither of them was looking at the map.