The professor remained speechless. It was only after Elizabeth cleared her throat and mumbled something about good manners that he let us inside.
Though the cuckoo clock chimed one in the morning, we soon found ourselves sitting in the library around a pot of tea Elizabeth had insisted on making. Montgomery sat next to me on the loveseat, his hand tightly around mine. He hadn’t let go for a moment since making the announcement.
“Just play along,” he’d whispered as we’d settled on the sofa. “I have my reasons.”
The cuckoo clock ticked, and the steam rose from the pot. I think as shocked as they were by Montgomery’s announcement, it was Balthazar’s presence that had truly rendered them speechless. Now he sat awkwardly on a too-small stool near the fireplace, half cast in shadows, so quiet he might very well have fallen asleep.
“Well. The tea.” Elizabeth broke the silence at last and stood to pour. She eyed Montgomery carefully. “You’ll imagine our surprise to see you, Mr. James. Juliet neglected to tell us you were in London, nor news of any engagement.” Her eyes slid to mine, and I shifted uncomfortably.
“I’m afraid I worried what you’d say. Montgomery is the one who took me to Father’s island last year.”
“A servant!” the professor said suddenly, but there was no disdain in his voice. “That’s where I recognize you from, yes, of course. You were a servant for the Moreau family.”
Montgomery nodded.
The professor settled back into his chair. “I recall you as a quiet boy. Loyal. Hardworking. Though I can’t say I approve of your proposing to Juliet without first seeking permission from her guardian.”
“I apologize for that, sir,” Montgomery said. “I proposed the moment I returned to London. I’m afraid in my haste Juliet’s opinion was the only one I could think of.”
“Is this why you’ve been so cagey and slipping away?” Elizabeth said suddenly, twisting her head at me so that she nearly spilled over the tea. Equal amounts admonishment and relief mixed in her voice. She had been so worried the night I’d climbed through the kitchen window. To know I was just meeting a secret fiancé must have come as a considerable relief.
“Yes,” I lied. Now would have been the time to give Montgomery an adoring look, or playfully apologize for worrying them, and yet I couldn’t bring myself to do it. Acting the part of Montgomery’s sweetheart now, when I’d only just seen him again and still had the feel of Edward on my skin, was a role I wasn’t ready to play.
It didn’t seem to matter. The others took my stiff reaction as nothing more than lingering tension from the masquerade, perhaps.
“And what are your intentions, Mr. James?” the professor asked.
“I have some medical skill. I’d like to apprentice myself to a doctor, perhaps in a rural village, and have Juliet join me there as my wife.”
I glanced at him, wondering if this was the truth, or just some story to appease the professor. He was normally so painfully easy to read, and yet none of his usual tells were showing, which left me feeling deeply curious and even a little suspicious. He’d broken my heart once; I wouldn’t give it so easily to him again.
He’s keeping secrets from you, Edward had said.
Montgomery glanced at me and smiled.
The cuckoo clock chimed that another hour had passed, and Elizabeth glanced at the professor’s drooping eyelids. “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Mr. James, but you understand our shock at this news. I think we’d all like more sleep, and tomorrow you can explain more.”
The professor roused himself. “Yes, and in the meantime, you and your companion—if he wakes from that chair—may sleep in the guest room on the third floor.”
His words had an obvious edge to them, as his pointed stare went between the two of us. Engaged we might be, but not married yet. There would be at least one floor separating us until that day.
We bid him and Elizabeth good night. She paused at my bedroom door, a candle in hand, as the others continued upstairs.
“Why didn’t you tell us?” she whispered.
“I wasn’t certain you would approve of his former position, nor his association with my father.”
“We were all associated with your father, Juliet. By that logic each of us is guilty.”
I looked at my hands and nodded.
“Do you love him?” she asked.
I felt that pressure to play the part again. And yet as I struggled to sort out my feelings and provide Elizabeth with a satisfactory answer, I found it wasn’t that easy.
“He’s a good man,” I said.
I left out the hundreds of reasons why love between Montgomery and me wasn’t simple. How he’d abandoned me, and had helped my father, and how I’d made love with another man. I could still feel the tangle of all those things choking me like summer vines.
She gave me a somewhat pitying smile. Elizabeth had never married, and I’d overheard her telling the professor that she though marriage was a trap meant to keep women in the bedroom and kitchen. If she pitied me that fate, she didn’t know me very well. I couldn’t be a sweet, obedient wife if I’d wanted to.
She left, and without her presence the room took on a cavernous, lonely feel. I changed out of the stiff silk ball gown with the mud on the hem into a shift. I closed my eyes and listened for the sounds of the house settling. Everything was silent save the wind pushing at the windows.
I pulled on my house slippers and padded silently to the door. Montgomery’s room was on the same floor as the professor’s, but the old man slept as though in death, and I’d learned how to be silent on the island.