Billy shakes his head. “Don’t try to tell me that no one mistreated their horses on Fennbirn.” But his eyes lose focus as he tries to remember an example. Even in the capital, respect for the naturalist gift kept the worst of abuses in check.
Arsinoe curses when someone runs into her from behind. She does not know if she will ever get used to the crowds. And somehow, she is always the one jostled. Something in Mirabella is still regal, and no one comes within a foot.
“Oh no,” says Billy. They have reached the end of their street, the row of grand, red-brick houses with wrought iron gates and front steps of bright white stone. But clustered around their doorway is a gaggle of young ladies in dresses of pink and green and pale yellow. It can only be Christine Hollen, the governor’s daughter, and her ever-present troupe of society friends.
Arsinoe looks up to the window of the third-floor room she shares with Mirabella. With four stories’ worth of rooms in the town house, they had not really needed to share. But when she and Mirabella had arrived on the mainland, legs shaking and clothes still soaked from the storm, they had clung to each other’s elbows and refused to let go. So Billy’s mother, Mrs. Chatworth, had directed them, lips trembling, to one of the larger guest rooms.
“I don’t know if I have the stomach for this today,” Arsinoe mutters. Christine Hollen had apparently “set her cap” at Billy during the time he was away on the island, and no amount of Arsinoe’s presence seemed able to deter her. If Arsinoe had to endure one more tea watching Christine paw and fawn over Billy, she was likely to behave in a way that Mrs. Chatworth would deem unladylike. Or even more unladylike than usual.
“There’s no way we can scale the bricks and sneak in through our window?”
“Not without being seen,” Mirabella says with a smirk. She touches Arsinoe’s shoulder. “You go. Take off awhile until they have gone.”
“What?”
“Yes, what?” Billy asks. “I’ve no desire to be left alone in there with my mother and Christine. If you go, Arsinoe, you might return to find me gagged and engaged.”
“Go,” Mirabella says again. “Maybe . . . maybe you should visit Joseph.”
“Do you mean it?” Arsinoe asks.
“Of course I do. Why ruin a perfectly lovely day?”
“What about Miss Hollen and the governor’s girls?”
Mirabella steps closer to Billy and slips her hand into the crook of his arm. Just that simple movement and change of posture: a subtle shift in her hips, a slight incline of her head, and anyone watching would think that she and Billy were madly in love. Well, were it not for the shocked look on Billy’s face.
“You leave Christine Hollen to me.”
Arsinoe glances at the girls up the street. All are girls Mrs. Chatworth will gladly welcome into her home and would gladly marry her son to. Girls who are nothing like the strange, foreign ones she took in. They dress in proper skirts and do not have deep scars on their faces. Christine Hollen, in particular, is one of the prettiest people Arsinoe has ever seen. Golden hair and peach cheeks, a smile that dazzles. That she is also quite rich seems just plain unfair.
Arsinoe smiles at Mirabella gratefully. “Poor Christine doesn’t stand a chance.”
Arsinoe takes off through the city, skirting the row houses by way of alleys and side streets. She is relieved to not face another strained meeting with Christine, who looks at her as if she is some kind of a bug when she bothers to acknowledge her at all, but the farther away she gets, the more her relief is replaced by resentment. In the gray sack of a dress, with no friends or family save Billy and Mirabella, no fortune or prospects of her own, she is no match for Christine Hollen. She would be if things were different. If she were still herself in her black trousers and vest, a fierce black and red-slashed mask over the scars on her face. If she were still a queen.
Her legs hasten as she makes her way through the streets, heading for Joseph, ignoring the stares from people she passes by. Stares she attracts merely by running, by being a girl out on her own without the benefit of an escort or a parasol.
She should not have gone off alone. She should have stayed and choked down her tea. It is only when she is alone that the doubt creeps in, that feeling that she does not belong here and never will.
When they first arrived, both she and Mirabella had tried to charm Mrs. Chatworth. Arsinoe especially, had been prepared to like her or even love her. She was Billy’s mother, after all. She had raised a boy who would stand by his friends. So when they met, she expected to find someone like Cait Milone: with a stern face and a stout heart, and strong arms for holding her children. Or even someone like Ellis: never serious but always ready with advice. Instead, Billy’s mother was worse even than his father in some ways. She lacked substance, and her facial expressions vacillated between irritated and horrified.
By the time she reaches the cemetery gates, Arsinoe’s legs burn from exertion, but her frustration has not been spent. She slows to a walk, respectful of those at rest, yet cannot help kicking feebly at pebbles on the path.
“Parasols,” she mutters. “Frilly dresses and silly games. That is all there is for a girl to do here. Drink tea and twirl a parasol until she gets married.” And to be married on the mainland means to obey. If there is one word in the world sure to get Arsinoe’s hackles up, it is that one.
Thank the Goddess, Billy does not want that. Her Billy, who only wants her to be what she is and for her and Mirabella to be happy. Which she is, most days. It is only when she is alone that she remembers that she is not one of them. Not even Mirabella will be accepted as one of them, and Mirabella follows all their rules.
Arsinoe pauses and takes a breath. The cemetery where Joseph is buried is set out on the edges of the city and surrounded by stone walls. It is quiet and sunlit, marked by gentle hills and groves of trees, and overlooks the deep blue water of the bay. It is a place Jules would have liked. Arsinoe likes it, too, for it is always nearly empty.
She follows the path through the northern entrance and past the loose bricks near the Richmond Family markers, then cuts through the grass toward the grove of elm trees. Their shade just reaches Joseph, where he rests near the top of the hill. Before she gets there, she slips into the shadow of the largest tree and strips off her gray sack of a dress. Then she shakes out her rough-cut hair and smooths her shirt—an old one that Billy grew out of—before she clears her throat and says:
“Hallo, Joseph.”
Hallo, Arsinoe, says the Joseph in her mind, and for a moment, her eyes blur. His grave marker is simple. Unadorned. No ornate carvings of ivy. No marble sculptures. It is not a fancy mausoleum with stained glass windows and its own private gate. It is a patch of grass and a dark, rounded stone. She blinks hard and runs her fingers along the inscription.
Here lies
Joseph Sandrin
Beloved of Jules
Brother to Billy
A friend to queens and cougars
It is what she told them to write. It does not matter that no one on the mainland will understand what it means, that in years to come, visitors to the cemetery might puzzle over it and think it a joke. The engraving took some time, and when they buried him, the grave had to go unmarked except for a white piece of wood. When the stone was ready, they returned and mourned all over again.