“I believe Lady Susan is up to something, Miss Fairchild.”
This was no real cause for alarm. Spadger always made a mountain of a molehill. “What is it, Spadger?”
“I saw her take a
billet doux
out of her reticule. She looked at it and smiled. You don’t suppose that beast of an O’Leary has got at her?”
“Are you sure it was a
billet doux?”
“It was a piece of paper. What else could it be but a letter?”
“She had a letter from her mama this morning.”
“Ah, well, that could be it, then.”
Abbie could not believe Susan was carrying on a clandestine correspondence with O’Leary. It was not her style.
At seven o’clock, the butler had still not notified Abbie of Penfel’s return. When she took the girls belowstairs, he beckoned her aside and said, “His lordship just came in, madam. As he was in a hurry to change for dinner, I did not bother notifying you. I knew you would see him when he came downstairs.”
“Thank you, Sifton.”
Penfel had apparently hurried his toilette, for he joined them within minutes. Crook or not, Abbie acknowledged that he looked devastatingly handsome in a close-fitting bottle-green jacket, with a small emerald in his cravat. She had never seen such a dashing smile as he turned on her the moment he entered the room. It lingered on her for a long moment, softening as he gazed
into her eyes, and seemed to say a hundred intimate things that could not be said aloud in company. It was almost a caress. When she realized she was gazing back at him in the same moonling sort of way, she lowered her head and fiddled with her fan.
The younger members of the party made lively conversation during the interval before dinner when a glass of sherry was served. The young ladies were allowed a glass of wine. They had to learn how to handle it before their debut. Abbie watched Susan for signs of discomposure or excitement, but found she behaved as usual. She was explaining to Kate why her mount had stumbled at the fence.
“You pulled in when you should have given him his head.”
“I did not! I hate horses that refuse a jump.”
“Mr. Singleton is going to let me take the reins tomorrow,”
Annabelle said.
“Is he, by God!”
Lord John cried. “If Miss Kirby lames my nags, you will pay the price, Singleton.”
Singleton blushed and made a demurring murmur.
Abbie was grateful for their high spirits. It helped conceal the silence of her own dismal mood. When Penfel, after a few words with his mama, came and sat beside her, she could think of nothing to say. What they had to discuss could not be said in public.
“I waited fifteen hours for you to come for the key,”
he said. “That is fifteen hours by romance time. I made sure you would not be five minutes after me. Is it possible da Vinci is losing his appeal?”
The questioning uncertainty of his look implied it was his own appeal that concerned him. “I even ordered tea. Why didn’t you come to my study? Was it the location that kept you away?”
“I went later. You weren’t there,”
she said distractedly. She wondered if the emerald ring was in his pocket even now, or if it was already on its way to London with the man who looked like a race tout.
“I received a note and had to go out to meet a friend.”
That would be the man Kate had seen him talking to. Obviously, no real friend but a business acquaintance. Penfel was not an accomplished liar. He had told Sifton he was going to meet Lord John and the girls.
“You might have left the key with the butler,”
she said.
“And missed seeing your face when you first beheld the da Vinci’s? Not likely! I have been looking forward to that moment, Miss Fairchild. See how carefully I guard our secret?”
He looked, waiting for some bantering reply. When she just looked at him sadly, he said in a voice suddenly serious, “What is the matter?”
“Could I have a word with you in private after dinner?”
Her request seemed to please him, to judge by his smile. “Strange you should say that. I was about to suggest the same thing. Our minds are beginning to become attuned. By the by, I spoke to Mama. She would be flattered to death to have her portrait taken. She is not happy with the Reynolds portrait done when she was young. I have not had my own portrait painted yet. Perhaps I have found the artist to do it, if you could lower yourself to paint a phiz with no character.”
This casual remark, that would have thrilled her to death yesterday, was only another hammer blow to her spirits, to think of losing such a marvelous opportunity. She would never be allowed to do either portrait once he realized she knew he was a thief.
Lady Penfel’s ears perked up at hearing her name spoken. “What is that you say, Algie? Are you talking about my picture? Reynolds made me look like a nun, all in white with the gown cut up to my chin. I plan to wear a red feather in my hair and a low-cut purple gown to show my new freedom when Miss Fairly paints me. They will never show it at Somerset House, but when I am gone, I want my descendants to know what I was really like. But you must take it easy on my wrinkles and crow’s-feet. Algie says you like wrinkles. What do you think of my idea, Miss Fairmont?”
“I think you would look charming, with or without wrinkles, ma’am, I only hope I am up to the challenge of portraying your vivacity.”
“Vivacity! I like that! Ha, she is a cozener, like you, Algie. You are right, I am beginning to like this chit. You are softening up her schoolmistressy ways. We will have her laughing and dancing and wearing red shoes in no time.”
Abbie felt a flush warm her cheeks to learn that Penfel had been discussing her with his mama. She felt sure he did not discuss all his women so freely. She meant more to him than the dancer at least. But it was the dancer who would be with him at two o’clock in the morning, when they were to have reached the intimacy of a first-name basis.
The conversation continued lively over a dinner of two courses and two removes. Abbie noticed that the meal was noticeably grander than last night, and wondered at the improvement. She enjoyed it less, however, even though she was seated at Penfel’s left side. She did not mention this new seating arrangement, nor did he, but he gave her a speaking look when he motioned her to his side and drew her chair. He tried to engage her in flirtation a few times over the turbot, once over the fowl and later over the veal collops, but she was unable to respond.
It was not until the chantilly and almond paste tarts were served that he leaned toward her and said in a low voice, “Is it the menu that displeases you, when I have harried Cook to do her best, or have you taken a vow of silence, Miss Fairchild? You are as quiet as Singleton this evening.”
“I was thinking about something,”
she said.
“The red feather and purple gown will be a sad trial to be sure.”
He studied her a moment, and when she did not reply, he said, “What is really bothering you, my dear?”
She felt tears sting her eyes at that tender “my dear”
that had slipped out, unnoticed, she thought.
“We shall talk later,”
she said, blinking away the tears.
“The port will get short shrift this evening. Shall we say, eight-thirty, in my study? I want no misunderstandings this time, as we stumbled into this afternoon. I promise you shall get the key—that will ensure your coming. You see how easy it is when you have put the lord of the manor in good spirits?”
“What happens when he ceases to smile on me?”
she asked, with a mental sigh to think that all this adventure would soon be over.
“I am gratified that the thought of that day appalls you—to judge by those sad eyes. Let us hope it does not occur any time soon, say for the next eighty or ninety years.”
“Is that romance time, or Greenwich time?”
“Oh, good! You’re getting over your little fit of pique.”
Lady Penfel observed her son’s enchantment and called down the table, “Up to your old flirting ways, Algie? I hope you are not misleading Miss Fairway into taking you too seriously?”
“I find the young ladies nowadays uncommonly well able to look after themselves, Mama.”
“You are right, of course. Tough as boiled owls, as they need to be in this man’s world.”
Lady Susan apparently heard only a part of the conversation. She looked up and said, “Was that a boiled owl we were eating earlier, ma’am? I made sure it was a goose that had not hung long enough.”
Lady Penfel’s “Gudgeon!”
was audible the length of the table. “No, it was an owl,”
she replied mischievously.
“Do owls make you wiser, like eating fish?”
Annabelle asked. “Because of the saying, ‘wise old owl,’
you know.”
Lady Penfel said, “Yes, they do. Pity Miss Slatkin does not serve you gels more owl.”
“I would hate owl!”
Kate said. “Oh, you are funning, milady! Is your mama not funning, Lord John?”
“Of course she is. The fowl was a buzzard.”
The conversation deteriorated into foolishness, and Abbie ate her chantilly without tasting it. Her qualms about conversing with the nobility had been unnecessary. Their conversation was not more elevated than her uncle’s monologues about Mysore, but it was a deal livelier. She would have enjoyed it, were it not for the worries that lay like a dark pall over her heart.
The gentlemen’s taking of port was brief that evening, but it seemed a long time to the anxiously waiting Miss Fairchild, One matter of interest occurred in the interim. While the girls chattered about beaux and balls, Lady Penfel beckoned Abbie to her side.
“I have just had an inspiration, Miss Fairview,”
she said. “I want to be painted as Cleopatra.”
Abbie blinked in confusion. “That is the sort of creature I should like to have been. I see you goggle at the thought of painting a hag like myself as Cleopatra, but you misunderstand my meaning. In the Manuscript Room we have an etching of Cleopatra done by some French fellow—I cannot recall the name—but she is sitting on a stone bench in front of a tent, with a lion at her feet. It is called
After Actium.
That is the battle she and Mark Antony lost, you know, when her inevitable end was in sight. A moment of utter desperation one would think, but it does not kill her spirit. She is still noble and proud, even in defeat. Her chin is up, she gazes into the distance with a queenly gaze, uncaring that life has bested her.
“It is that pose, that expression I want on my face, not her strange coiffure and outfit. That straight hair would never suit me. I shall title it
After Penfel,
referring to Bruce and Penfel Hall, for when Algie marries, I shall leave Penfel Hall. It is how we ladies are treated—kicked out of our homes after giving life service to our husbands, their families, and their estates.”
“I cannot think Lord Penfel would force you out of your home, ma’am!”
“Of course he would not! This is not about Algie. It is about me, about us ladies not having any rights. If Algie and Johnnie were to die, God forbid, my daughters would not inherit Penfel. It would go to some wretched cousin in Cornwall, only because he wears trousers. It is a trick the gentlemen have rigged up to keep things to themselves. They call it primogeniture. I call it common thievery. Come, I’ll show you the etching. I wonder how I came to think of it. I daresay it was that little smirk you all wore when we discussed red feathers and a purple gown.”
“We shall have to get the key from Lord Penfel,”
Abbie said. Her mind flew to the da Vinci cartoons. She remembered Penfel saying he wanted to see her face when she first beheld them. Now it seemed Lady Penfel might be the one to see her face, because she knew that if the cartoons were there, she could not await the tardy Penfel’s pleasure to view them.
“We don’t need a key. The Manuscript Room is never locked. We only use it for storing family records and a few rubbishing old pictures not good enough to hang on the walls.”
One could hardly call the da Vinci drawings rubbishing old pictures. Abbie had already decided her hostess was perilously close to the edge of lunacy, and assumed she didn’t know the room was locked. The butler had confirmed that it was, and that Penfel had the only key. Lady Penfel rose, urging “Miss Fairway”
to follow her. In her various talks with Penfel, Abbie had never learned exactly where in the vast house the Manuscript Room was located. She was led down a long corridor, around a corner to a chamber across from the library. The oak-paneled door opened with a simple twist of the knob.
“Grab a candelabra,”
the dame said, and Abbie took a heavy branched candelabra from a table in the hallway.
They went into a long, narrow, dark chamber, a sort of second, smaller library with a worktable in the center of the room, but with closed cabinets instead of bookshelves lining the walls. While Abbie lit a few lamps, Lady Penfel began rooting through the cabinets.
“Where are the da Vinci cartoons kept?”
Abbie asked.
“I am trying to remember. The French etchings are in one of these cupboards.”
She slammed a door and opened another, “Here we are! These are the French pictures,”
she cried, and drew out a dusty leather folio. Abbie was appalled that the priceless cartoons were kept in such a careless manner, vulnerable to dust, damp, and mice.
“It is right here on top,”
Lady Penfel said, lifting up an aging parchment and placing it on the table. “I have not seen it in years, but it is just as I remember. I was fond of this picture. I daresay I identified with Cleopatra’s indomitable spirit even in those days, though I didn’t realize what ailed me. Too distracted with having babies—all those girls, and they are not the consolation one hears they are, either. At least mine aren’t. They married and moved far away. I seldom see them since I have quit doing the Season.”
The etching was as she had described it. Cleopatra’s expression was grave, but not defeated. In the background, the ruins of her army stood in disarray. Bodies lay on the ground, spears and helmets abandoned in the dust.
“I shall sit on that stone bench in the garden, with Penfel Hall in the background,”
Lady Penfel said. “Pity I do not have a lion, but I daresay a large dog will do as well, eh? Cuddles will rest at my feet.”