Summary: Prequel set in Adam’s college years in Boston. A formal ball, a friendly social, a red dress, a flamingo, and the sea, the sea! The beginning of Adam’s complicated love life, and, somewhere beyond the sea, someone’s first tentative steps into becoming The Queen. Can be read by itself, yet it is a part of the “Art” series.

12,750 words, rated K

My Story Index and reading order for the Art-Universe

 

Somewhere Beyond the Sea
or
The Art of the Impossible

May 20th, 1850

I. Brighton

Henry Heatherstone, only son and heir of Henry, fourteenth Earl of Barnstoke, checked his appearance in the great mirror in the hall of Preston Manor, the family’s summer residence in Brighton. He straightened his bow-tie one last time and grinned at his reflection, arching a mocking eyebrow. Henry knew exactly what this evening was about, and it most certainly wasn’t about him. It really didn’t matter how he looked tonight, even though, admittedly, he looked good. At the age of twenty, Henry, who had inherited his mother’s famous good looks and his father’s tall and well built physique, was already a coveted bachelor and a welcome guest to any social event.

Not that he planned to get married too soon, not before he’d finished his studies at Cambridge anyway; but he had already cast his eyes over one or two young ladies. Isabel FitzAlan, with her raven-black hair and those cunningly blue eyes, in particular made his heart race anytime he saw her. And, feeling her soft, small hand in his while they’d danced at the Christmas ball in Arundel, he had fantasised how it might be to hold that hand every time he wanted to. But just when he had tried to sneak her out of the room and into one of the many niches in the long halls of Arundel castle, her father, the Duke of Norfolk, had materialised out of nowhere and given Henry a glare that could be only matched by—

“Juliet! Aren’t you coming?”

His father’s call interrupted Henry’s train of thought. The Earl had entered the hall with a glass of brandy in his right hand and a pocket watch in the left. He looked up the wide staircase, frowned but then chuckled.

“Women,” he said, shaking his head. “They can’t be punctual on an occasion like this. Your mother was the same. The times I spent waiting for her in the halls of the empire’s manor houses…”

The Earl’s smile went from mocking to reminiscing. “It was always worth it, though. Florence never ceased to make me breathless.” He looked down into his brandy glass and swirled its contents, watching the play of light in it as if he were glancing into a fortuneteller’s crystal ball.

Henry did what he was supposed to do: he remained silent and let his father delve into his memories. He couldn’t remember when exactly it had happened, but sometime between the day he had stopped wearing short trousers and tonight his father had started to speak to him about his deceased wife in a different way. As if he had been waiting until Henry was old enough to understand that this “Florence” had been someone with more than just the label “mother,” that she’d also been a woman, a wife, someone his father had felt for in a way similar to how Henry felt for Isabel. It was strange and comforting at the same time, and somehow Henry felt closer to that woman of whom he had no memory the older he got and the more his father talked of her not as “mother” but as “Florence.”

Again, he was interrupted in his musings. This time the Earl tugged at Henry’s sleeve and whispered conspiratorially, “Here she comes.”

Henry looked up and watched his little sister descending the stairs. The first thing he saw was a foot in a dark scarlet satin shoe, then the matching ball gown, and finally Juliet’s shyly smiling face, and the piece of art Carol, her maid, had created from Juliet’s sumptuous golden curls.

He exchanged a short glance with his father—did the Earl see what he saw? Yes, he did.

“Juliet, my dear, you look absolutely wonderful!” Father took Juliet’s hand and performed some quick dance steps with her. “You look…” He choked, and then he blinked a few times and shook his head as if he couldn’t believe it. “Like your mother, child, like…like your mother.”

It was the ultimate compliment, they all knew it; and Juliet beamed and stood even taller. She looked at Henry, her green eyes sparkling in a contest with the diamonds at her neck, and when he nodded her smile became even more radiant.

Of course, even though it hurt Henry to admit it, Juliet wasn’t and would never be a real match for their mother—but she’d never come as close to it as tonight. Which was good, very good indeed, because tonight was the night Juliet, who had turned seventeen only a few days ago, would be presented. It was called “introducing her to society,” but actually it meant “putting her on the market.”

Henry wasn’t sure if Juliet was ready for that or if the “market” was ready for Juliet (or would ever be, for that matter) but he sensed her excitement and her anticipation for the dance, the music, and the conversation.

The conversation.

God help us.

The coach was already waiting at the front door, so they didn’t waste any more time, and soon they were on their way to the event of the year: the opening ball of the Brighton season at the Royal Pavilion.