Authors: Rules of Engagement
Eliza stared blankly out the window. “He’s too proud. He’d never allow it.”
A puzzled look twisted Aunt Viola’s normally placid features. “But not so proud as he would condescend to marry for money? That hardly sounds like our Lord Somerton.”
Eliza exhaled. “H-he has not accepted the idea, despite Mr. Pender’s and my own urgings. But he will. He must. He hasn’t much time.”
Aunt Letitia remained quiet for a long moment, then turned to Edgar. “Was there anything else you noticed while you were there—something perhaps that might help us understand Somerton’s current state of mind?”
Edgar shook his head as he thought about it, then his eyes brightened suddenly. “Oh, there was something. Mr. Christie showed great interest in the portrait I brought, as well as the landscape Miss Merriweather gave Lord Somerton earlier. But the earl would not let Christie near them. He told the auctioneer that everything else in the house could be sold, but not the paintings.”
“He wouldn’t sell my paintings,” Eliza repeated to herself. A sad smile played on her lips.
“Mr. Christie was none too happy about that,” Edgar added. “He told Lord Somerton that the paintings were superb and would fetch a goodly sum.”
Aunt Viola clapped her hands. “Well, now. Isn’t it lovely to know your paintings are held in such high esteem by an expert, Eliza?”
Eliza barely heard her. Magnus was selling off the contents of his house. Why would he do such a drastic thing if he planned to marry Caroline? A marriage to Miss Peacock would make the sale of his property unnecessary.
No, he has another plan.
Mayhap there was chance for them after all. Eliza leapt to her feet. If Magnus was selling the contents of his home, no matter the reason, he was in immediate need of funds. And she was now in a position to make sure he had it—if the auctioneer was correct, of course, and her paintings would sell.
Well, there was only one way to find out. She would contact Mr. Christie on the morrow.
Agitation breeds motivation to engage.
Since Mr. Christie had been unable to assess her paintings within the privacy of her aunts’ home that morning, Eliza decided to tote her canvases to Christie’s auction house herself. If Magnus was in need of money, for whatever reason, she could ill afford to wait.
Eliza was much pleased and admittedly a little surprised when, upon hearing her name, the desk agent had ushered her family directly into Mr. Christie’s private office for an immediate portfolio review.
“Honestly, Miss Merriweather, I had no idea that Lord Somerton’s paintings were created by a … woman. The use of color is so bold, the expression so daring,” Mr. Christie admitted, stopping to study each of her seven paintings in turn. “Simply amazing,” he uttered beneath his breath.
Eliza bristled, but held her acid retort between her teeth. This opportunity was too important. She would not dash it simply to set Mr. Christie straight about the equal abilities of women. Instead, she trained her gaze on the collection of small bronze sculptures shelved behind his highly polished cherry desk.
But then, Mr. Christie glanced up from the third canvas, and moved silently on to the fourth, a painting Eliza especially loved.
She knew Christie would see only a simple landscape. But to her, it was much more. For in that eddy of color, she’d captured a moment—a time before tragedy touched her family. A day when sunlight blinked upon the river and set fire to yellow-leafed poplars that bounded their orchard in Dunley Parish. A day when her sisters, instead of picking the heavy fruit as their mother had bade them, swung merrily from the scaffold branches of the apple trees, which stood like soldiers, straight and tall, in four perfect rows. The memory brought an ache in her chest so great that she could hardly breathe.
This was her life she was offering him. Her past as well as her future. For without the paintings, her plans for Italy were forfeit. No master would accept an apprentice, let alone a female, without a portfolio to recommend her. Eliza looked sadly at her paintings. It would take years upon years to build another of similar quality. But she would do it.
Grace took Eliza’s arm and drew her aside. “You worked for years on these. These canvases mean everything to you,” she whispered. “Think about what you are sacrificing. Are you sure you want to do this?”
“Yes. I want to do this … for Magnus.” Eliza patted her sister’s hand but dared not look at her. If she did, she feared the tears dammed behind her lower lids would fall unbidden.
Grace trembled, then swallowed hard. The words that came next were thin and ragged. “I… didn’t know, Eliza. I’m so sorry. I didn’t know how much you loved him.”
A single tear fell from Eliza’s eye. She wiped it away with the back of her hand and refocused her gaze on Mr. Christie.
Aunt Letitia grimaced at Mr. Christie’s delay in coming to a decision. She clapped her hands loudly, startling him into granting her his full consideration. “Are you interested in my niece’s work, or are you not?” Her booming voice startled Christie. “There are others who have expressed interest, you know.”
Eliza cringed at her aunt’s bold lie.
Mr. Christie’s eyes widened. “Err … yes. I want them all.” He glanced at the collection leaning on the wall before him. “Yes,” he purred with delight. “I want every last one of them.” His gaze flitted over the paintings, before returning to Aunt Letitia. “Though taking them on in this way may be somewhat unorthodox, I can assure you, my lady, I shall have no difficulty selling them.”
Within the next quarter hour, Eliza found herself surrounded by oversized ledgers, documents, and receipts, all of which she was instructed to sign. In the end, she had quite literally written away her life, or her hand’s record of it at any rate, for, with a few strokes of ink, she had relinquished her paintings to Mr. Christie.
“Thank you, good sir,” Eliza said to Mr. Christie when the formalities of consignment were concluded. “But I wonder, would you be so kind as to see that the funds from the sale of my paintings are included with those from Lord Somerton’s property—secretly?”
Christie leveled his steely gaze at her, and the look in his eye told her that her request was well outside the bounds of propriety.
“I do not wish to impinge on your generosity in accepting my paintings,” Eliza began again, “but my family is greatly indebted to Lord Somerton. Still, despite his unfortunate financial state, he is not inclined to allow us to repay him.”
From the corner of her eye, Eliza saw Aunt Letitia’s right brow raise and her ruby lips lift as she realized the ruse.
A gleam lit Grace’s eyes and she stepped up to Mr. Christie. “Dearest sir, what my sister is trying to say is that this may be our only chance to repay Lord Somerton and restore our family honor.” Brazenly, she reached out her gloved hand and laid it on his arm, while pushing her pink cherub lips into a little pout. “Please, Mr. Christie. This means a great deal to my family … and to
me.”
Mr. Christie smiled at her and patted her hand. “A matter of honor, you say?”
Grace widened her cornflower blue eyes and nodded.
Mr. Christie looked from Grace and Eliza to their two aunts who stared back at him, completely entranced by their nieces’ performances.
“Very well then. The funds shall be included in Somerton’s account,” he replied without asking for further explanation. After taking over the auction house from his father, Mr. Christie, the younger, appeared a shrewd and prudent businessman with enough sense to know the value of propriety … as well as the appreciation of a pretty woman.
Aunt Viola linked Grace’s arm. “Shall we be off then?”
Eliza gave her beloved paintings one last lingering look. She stared hard at them, desperately trying to record their every detail in her memory, but she knew it was useless.
Her eyes stung as she straightened her shoulders, turned and followed her aunts out the door to Pall Mall where their town carriage awaited.
Her aunts having already taken their seats inside, Eliza had just lifted her hem to board when Grace shoved in front of her and scrambled into the cab, forgoing any assistance from the footman.
“Grace!” Eliza snapped, climbing aboard and seating herself beside her sister. “What was that was all about?”
As the footman closed the door, Grace leaned forward, yanked the carriage’s dusty curtains closed, and poked her finger toward the building outside. “It’s
him.”
Eliza perked up. “Lord Somerton?”
“No, it’s Mr. Dabney.” When everyone simply stared at Grace blankly, she added, “George Dabney. From the Hogarts’ dinner party? You remember.”
Understanding finally dawned on Eliza. “Oh, the
boor.”
“Yes, the singularly most tiresome man I have ever met,” Grace said, crouching low in her seat.
Aunt Viola waved a finger at Grace. “He is the son of a baronet, you know, dear. You could do worse.”
“That,
I sincerely doubt,” Grace croaked out of the side of her mouth. “Eliza, take a look, will you? See if he’s still there.”
Eliza exhaled in annoyance at her sister’s overreaction to a chance encounter. She was hardly in the mood to act as her sister’s spy, but being in need of a distraction from her melancholy thoughts, Eliza lifted the corner of the curtain and peered outward. “He must have gone inside the auction house. It appears you are safe.” She looked at her sister. “Why do you suppose he is here?”
“I do not know, nor do I have any intention of remaining long enough to find out.” Inching upward, Grace rapped her fist on the cab wall. The carriage lurched forward and started down the bumpy road, sending them swaying to and fro like laundry line birds on a windy day.
Aunt Letitia’s blue eyes sparkled with excitement. “Is Mr. Dabney still pursuing your affections, Grace?”
“Not of late, but I will not risk it. I’ve set my cap for Lord Hawksmoor and it would not do for him to hear of another vying for my attention,” Grace replied.
“I do not know if I agree with your thinking,” Aunt Letitia said, mirroring Viola’s growing smile. “It seems to me that a jealous bachelor could quickly become a most motivated bridegroom.”
Eliza exchanged nervous glances with Grace, then dropped her head back against the headrest and exhaled the contents of her lungs. It was all too clear. Their aunts were up to their chins in something.
“What the deuce?” Pender stood dumbfounded in the passageway of Magnus’s town house, looking into the barren parlor. “Have we been robbed?”
Magnus, hearing his uncle’s strained voice, met him at the doorway. He’d dreaded his uncle’s return from Devonshire all morn.
“No, old fellow. Sold the furniture and the frippery. Had no need for it.”
Pender turned his bulging eyes up to Magnus. “Had no need for it? Are you mad? What the blazes are we to sit upon?”
“There is a chair in the corner, should ye need one.”
“A
chair?
Is that all?” Suddenly his uncle’s face went blank and he started for the stairway. Magnus’s hand shot out and caught Pender’s shoulder before he made the first tread.
“No need to fash, Uncle. Everything in yer chamber is as ye left it. I only sold what was mine.”
Pender’s lips fluttered, but he spoke not a word. Instead he walked through the house, gasping as he passed through each empty room.
“Come sit down in the library, Uncle. Left yer desk and chair there.”
Pender dumbly allowed Magnus to lead him into the library where he sat down at the chair behind the desk. “Oh, the books.
All
the books,” he mourned. “Why, Somerton? Why did you do it? You still have weeks before the loan is called.”
“Aye. I do.”
“Is that not plenty of time to convince Miss Peacock to marry?”
“Aye, it would be. If that is what I planned to do.” Magnus lifted his leg and sat on the corner of the desk.
“You aren’t still banking on the notion that your ship will come into port in time?”
“Nay.”
Pender flung out his hands. “Then why, boy, in the name of all that is holy are you selling off your possessions?”
Magnus exhaled a long sigh. “To help Somerton’s crofters.”
“You cannot be serious.”
“I canna save the land or the hall, but I can save her people. When Somerton is sold to pay my brother’s debts, I have no doubt that they’ll be cast out of their homes with the Clearances to make room for bluidy sheep. Where will they go, Uncle? What will they do, when Somerton is all they’ve known?”
“They will go elsewhere. They’ll have no choice,” Pender said sternly. “Can’t expect to have everything in life handed to them, you know.”
“Which is why I’ve sold what I could. When Somerton is auctioned off, as it surely will be, they will be able to use what little money I have raised to reestablish themselves.”
Pender’s eyes widened. “Make a bit of blunt from the sale did you?”
Magnus nodded. “A bit. More than I’d expected at any rate. Still, not nearly enough to cover the debts.”
Pender slapped his hands to his knees and stood. “You are making this much harder than it needs to be. Marry Miss Peacock and save Somerton—all of it!”
"I canna.”
“Why? Do tell me that?” Pender tilted his head back and looked down his long nose at Magnus. “It’s not that Merriweather gel is it?”
Magnus came to his feet and looked down on his uncle. “It is. And I’d be verra careful about the next words that come from yer lips. For if I have my way, Miss Merriweather will soon become my wife. For I’d rather live penniless with the woman I love, than as a king with Miss Peacock.”
“Gorblimey.” Pender withered into the chair once more. “We’re in it now.”
Later that balmy evening, there was a knock at the Featherton door.
Within a moment, Edgar entered the dining room where the family was just finishing their afternoon meal. Grace’s eyes brightened in anticipation of a note from Lord Hawksmoor, who’d recently begun to call each evening without fail.
“Miss Merriweather, for you,” he announced, extending toward Eliza a silver tray with a letter upon it.
Eliza tentatively took the letter and held it in her hands, not daring to open it right away. She was too conflicted, wanting with all her heart for the letter to be from Magnus. Hoping, too, that it wasn’t.