“Cecilia, is all well?” her father asked.
She nodded.
“We need not proceed. Dacre will understand.”
She shook her head. “I will marry him.” Her tone suggested she was taking a vow as binding as the one she was to speak the following day.
That night, as she lay in her bed, Cecilia searched her own heart. Now that she had seen Ormiston, the case had altered. She had not expected the sight of him to affect her so, and she wondered at it. But she also understood that he had been unmoved by their meeting, and probably would remain so. She could not imagine what powers of persuasion Dacre had used to force the young man to comply with the arrangement, but she had recognized that Ormiston was being coerced into the match in a way she was not. A way that could only result in a detestation of the match and anyone participating in its completion.
Recently, Cecilia had taken to reading novels. Marchmont was a subscriber to
Mudie's
and they had enjoyed reading aloud to one another and to Mademoiselle Lavauden once the youngsters were in bed. Marchmont had even purchased a special lamp for the parlor which shed more light than candles. All three had fallen into stitches at the antics of innumerable foolish heroines who persisted in exploring strange castles in the depths of night and who consequently had to flee villains, thereby allowing them to fall into the arms of some eminently suitable suitor. They had spoken of love at first sight and hopeless passions, and Marchmont had even felt able to speak of his own late wife and the very different, deeper passion he had felt for her, and the sorrow her death had brought. Cecilia had since hoped that she might inspire a similar devotion.
Now, the encounter with Ormiston had awakened in Cecilia an awareness that passion might strike one even without love. For how could she love the viscount? She had met him twice, and on this occasion, had seen him for scarcely an hour. Tomorrow, she was to become his wife, but it was clear that he had no interest in becoming her husband. Yet some small part of her wished, however foolishly, for the miracle that he might respond to her as she had reacted to him.
She spent the night building fantasies, imagining that Ormiston would insist on her accompanying him to Europe, that he would leave for Europe and then summon her, that he would find her presence absolutely necessary to his well-being. But every airdream came tumbling down when she remembered his swiftly concealed reaction to her appearance.
When she woke, she was wan and listless, her eyes red-rimmed and lackluster. A maid brought a tray of food to her room, but for the first time that she could remember, breakfast held no interest. A little while later, the maid returned to wrestle Cecilia into her clothes. More time was spent on fussing at her hair, attempting to fix onto it a veil and flowers. Finally, she was ready to meet with her father. He drew her to him.
“You look a picture, my Ceci.”
“I look a fright.”
“Well, I have something here that I hope may give you heart.” Her father handed her a box covered in black velveteen. She opened it and drew in her breath. There lay a diamond parure that she remembered last worn by her mother.
“On this day of all days, she would have wanted you to have it. And it is yours to keep thereafter, as your mother requested when she was failing.”
“What about Amelia?”
“There are other jewels set aside for her. But this came to us through your mother and was hers to dispose of as she wished. She knew you would do it justice.” So saying, Marchmont lifted the necklace from the case and placed it around his daughter's neck as she held the veil carefully out of the way. Next came the bracelet and then the earbobs.
“Are you ready, Ceci? Hereafter, I must address you as Lady Ormiston.”
“I am ready for anything but that. I hope I shall always be your Ceci, Papa.”
“Of course, my pet. Let us go.”
So they went, each longing to tell the other it was not necessary to proceed with the charade before them, neither able to speak the words.
Being a marquis with a full purse to offer, Dacre had had no difficulty in arranging for his cousin the bishop to officiate at St. George's, Hanover Square. The journey from Piccadilly did not take long, and soon, Marchmont was handing his daughter out of the carriage and through the grand portico of the church where so many fashionable marriages took place.
The church was empty save for the backs of four gentlemen and the dim figure of the bishop kneeling at the altar. The bishop stood, turned, and nodded toward Marchmont, who escorted his daughter up the aisle. There was no music. She recognized, through the folds of veil, Dacre and the lawyer sitting behind Ormiston and a short, stout man. The viscount slipped out of the aisle as Cecilia came past, but did not look at her.
The ceremony itself was brief and both bride and groom were scarcely audible in their responses. Ormiston threw back the veil and closed his eyes as he leaned toward her and made a kissing sound in the general direction of her cheek. He pulled back immediately. Cecilia swallowed. The bishop escorted the party into the vestry where they signed the register, and she found out that the short man, who smiled at her encouragingly, was called Peter Buchan. The party returned into the nave and out of the church and, in two carriages, repaired to Dacre House, where a wedding breakfast awaited.
It struck Cecilia that she could have walked the distance that she had travelled, from Piccadilly to Hanover Square and from Hanover Square back to Berkeley Square in half the time it took to drive, due to the press of people and carriages on the streets. London was a lively place, but she found it too crowded and very dirty indeed. She was relieved that on the morrow, she would be returning to Sawards. Dacre House was imposing, but hardly comfortable. Cecilia was shown the way to a bedroom where she might repair the ravages done by her travels that day. She rinsed her hands and smoothed back the hair that was escaping from its confines before returning to the fray.
The door to the library was ajar, and she could not resist another look at the room where she had first seen Ormiston. She wished to imprint the memory of that moment quite clearly in her mind. The curtains were drawn against the sun, but she slipped behind one into the embrasure to look at the garden and its fountain, merrily playing as Hercules struggled with his foe. Just as she had settled, she heard footsteps entering the library.
“Show me the picture you spoke of, Mr. Buchan.” It was Ormiston who spoke.
“It is here, sir.”
Cecilia was about to make herself known, when Ormiston spoke once again.
“So what do you make of my bride, Mr. Buchan?”
“A very young lady, my lord. She has fine eyes.” Buchan's's Scots accent was soft and his voice mellifluous.
“Fine eyes!” exclaimed Ormiston. “I had not noticed, for they are so buried in fat.”
“She will grow. The time when a girl is attaining womanhood is not always a kindly one. I would have said there is great promise there, and certainly, some intelligence.”
“You see more than I. Perhaps it is the artist in you. All I see is a pudding-faced doll foisted on me for a whim of my father's.”
“She may have been compelled as you have into the match. You need only treat her with kindness for a few hours. Surely that is not beyond you. And then we are in Europe and free.” Buchan sounded mildly censorious and Ormiston reacted immediately.
“It is not beyond me, but I do not choose to treat her in any fashion at all. I find her repellent, and I feel that even were she to turn into an Aphrodite on the morrow, I should still find her so. In foisting this child on me, my father appears in his true guise: a man who pays no heed to anything but his own convenience.”
“With whom are you most angry? Your bride or your father?”
“I cannot tell, I detest both so heartily. He for using such weapons against me, she for taking on this invidious role of his instrument.”
“It is an invidious role. You must remember she is a child with as little say in all this as you. She cannot like her position any better, and as the elder, it would behoove you to make things as easy between you as you may.”
But Ormiston did not choose to follow his bear-leader's advice. When Cecilia came stumbling into the dining room, he ignored her and continued to do so throughout an uncomfortable meal during which the bishop, somewhat deaf, and Marchmont, exceedingly troubled, made the lion's share of the conversation.
When it was all over and she was safely back in her rooms, Cecilia tore off the coronet of flowers, the veil, the ugly dress and confining corsets and threw herself on her bed to sob out her misery. Soon her sorrow was overtaken by fury, by a rage which Cecilia could scarcely recognize, for she had never felt such a storm of sensation before. She would have her revenge on the boy who had spurned her so. She would become Aphrodite and she would charm him and bind him to her and then she would turn him over with the contempt and distaste he had shown her. As the fury rampaged through her, it cooled and hardened into a determination to see Ormiston at her feetânot this year, not next, but when next she saw him, she would be everything that a man could want and once she had him at her feet, she would trample upon him and make of his desire and his passion something of dust and ashes.
Three
Paris, February 1822
Ormiston gazed idly about him as he sat dutifully accompanying Henri de Ferrières's mother on her morning ride from the mansion near the Palais Royal, through the Tuileries and across the river to the Jardin du Luxembourg. It was an exquisitely crisp February morning, and as he watched some of the more spirited mounts curvetting in the sharp, sunny air, he wished he was astride Corsair, the highly bred chestnut stallion Henri had insisted he consider his own while he stayed in Paris. Horses were always lively on bright mornings like this, and he would, by far, have preferred the challenge of a ride to this docile trot in the comtesse's brougham, sedately wrapped in furs.
Five years in Europe with Peter Buchan had wrought immense changes in Ormiston. He had quickly discarded his down-at-heel romantic pose and mode of dressing. Buchan had insisted on neatness from the start, but as they made their way through Germany, Ormiston had discovered the advantages of his dark good looks and had learned to dress with a quiet elegance that set them off. He eschewed the barbarities and discomfort of dandified style, and chose instead the comfort of well-cut, soft fabrics. The allowance from Dacre was handsome, and Ormiston took advantage of it to insist on the finest leather for his boots, the best silk for his shirts, and the softest cashmeres for his coats. While choosing subdued colors for his main tenureâbreeches of softest chamois leather, charcoal and bottle greens for his coatsâhe had made it a hallmark of his personal style to add improbable touches of color: in the facings and trimmings of his attire, brilliant acid yellows against dark green, flashes of fuchsia with dark gray, vivid scarlet with navy blue.
Buchan's robust common sense had also improved Ormiston's temper. Five years of being allowed, as he saw it, to follow his own desires had removed the need to rebel.
The Scot had spelled out his own views on the most profitable use of their time in Europe on their way from London to Dover, when Ormiston was at his lowest after the heartless ceremony of his marriage.
“M'lord,” Buchan had said, “I know that you feel much put-upon by this insistence of your father's, but we are now privileged to enjoy a wee breathing space before you take up your responsibilities, and I think we might take some time now to plan how we wish to go on.”
“What does it matter?” snarled Ormiston. “We are exiles, and when I return I shall be imprisoned by that dough-faced dowd.”
Gradually, Buchan's arguments aroused some response, and eventually they agreed that each day must include what Buchan was pleased to call “the Four E's”: Exercise, Enjoyment, Education, and Expression. Exercise they interpreted as riding and fencing; Enjoyment as painting, reading, and listening to well-executed music; Education as anything which would add to the enjoyment of the aforementioned; and Expression as both amassing drawings and watercolors of the sights they saw as well as the keeping of a diary to record experiences. By the time they took ship, Ormiston had begun to anticipate his new career with some relish.
They had met Henri, Comte de Ferrières, in Vienna, at the end of what Ormiston now thought of as the “northern” part of his tour, and he had promised the young count that he would spend some time with him in Paris on his way home.
As is common with young people of similar inclinations, the friendship between the two young noblemen was swiftly cemented. Both were thoroughly bored by life in Vienna, a Vienna which was still lamely trying to recover the sense of being the center of the universe that it had enjoyed during the heady days of the Congress in 1814 and 1815, but failing dismally, offering only starchy palace receptions and staid private balls.
Henri was enchanted with the way that Ormiston and Buchan divided their time between serious study of language, music, and, above all, painting and sculpture, combined with excursions to see all that was to be seen.
“You English are so practical!” he had exclaimed. “You organize a program of utter pleasure, then make rules about how it should be carried out so that you create an illusion of being usefully occupied when you are doing no more than following your own inclinations.”
“But we are learning every day,” Buchan interposed, somewhat indignantly.
“Of course. But whoever said that learning should not be utter pleasure?” was Henri's answer. “I admire your illusion of discipline, that is all,
tout simplement
. It is such a compliment to
les aieux
, our forefathersâI am sure they, your ancestors, rest happier in their graves knowing that you are spending their money in such a disciplined way.”
“It's not so much the ancestors that poor Buchan here has to worry about,” said Ormiston. “He must send reports to my father explaining where we go and why. He has to answer to much more potent Lares and Penates.”
“Then he is your father's spy?” Henri's face was a picture of puzzlement as he tried to understand the precise relationship between his two companions. Ormiston, dark and sardonic, but supremely elegant; Buchan, a stout, but not inelegant, red-headed Scotchman, some ten years older than the two young men.
“My dear Henri,” it was Ormiston's turn to protest, “Peter has been my tutor and my mentor for two years. He has rescued me from a gloomy past and has turned me from a sulking romantic into the toast of the Viennese salons. He has taught me everything I know about the techniques and the styles of drawing and painting. When my father first had this idea of getting rid of me for a while by means of a pilgrimage around these tedious cities, I was against it. I absolutely refused to go, until he agreed to my demand that, if I were to be accompanied, only a serious teacher of art was fit to accompany me. It is Peter who has determined what we should see, and why. But, of course, he must send reports home. A man who spends his every waking hour gambling must needs be reassured that his son and heir is behaving as befits his station.”
Ormiston's contempt for his father was only too evident in this piece of sarcasm. Henri de Ferrières was shocked at the resentful expression darkening his friend's face.
“But you ought to know that we write the reports together,” continued Ormiston, his features lightening with mirth.
“And they are very truthful,” added the Scot.
“Yes, because I do not play.”
The Frenchman looked concerned. “You do not enjoy yourself?”
“No, you chump! Of course I enjoy myself, do I not, Monsieur Buchan? But I do not play at cards, nor gamble in any way. This means that our expenses are very simple to account for. Poor Buchan,” Ormiston laughed at the absurdity, “in Leipzig we laid out a fair amount of money to get ourselves established as belonging to the best circles, and my poor, demented father complained that we spent too little. In his view, the best circles are those who waste all their money at the tables. He is utterly convinced that my time travelling is a complete loss, since we fail to report any substantial sums dropped in the course of games of chance. He refuses to believe that we have met everybody that we should, even though we spent hours waiting for the appearance of the Duchesse de Dino and paid homage to Mme. de Stael at her absurd menage in Geneva.”
Henri was fascinated with Ormiston. He was so confident and so aware that he occupied, or would come to occupy, what might be called “a place in the world.” Yet he was natural, easy-natured and easy to be with, until any mention was made of games of chance. Then Ormiston's face would darken and he would grow silent, moodily shutting up his pens and inks before striding off, refusing any offers of companionship. At times the viscount would disappear on solitary, lengthy rides, returning having exhausted both his mount and himself.
The young Frenchman had only been on one of Ormiston's “rides” during a visit they had made to Mecklen. The young viscount had ordered the most spirited mount from the livery stables. He strode around the stableyard, rejecting mount after mount, until at last the poor ostler had been prevailed upon to produce “something resembling a real horse.” The beast had been hardly broken and was as vicious as could be. Once he had been given his head in the forest he had headed for all the lowest branches with the sole aim of unseating Ormiston, who clung low to his neck and laughed at his friend following in such tame concern on a more docile mount. Henri never forgot Ormiston and his horse returning to the stables. Neither had given in to the otherâboth had enjoyed their ride!
Henri had been recalled to Paris in the early autumn to attend his dying father, prompting Ormiston and Buchan to leave Austria and make their way to Venice. There at last Ormiston was able to indulge his twin passions for architectural drawings modelled on Guardi and Canaletto and fencing with exponents of the Neapolitan style of Rosaroll Scorza and Pietro Grisetti. But soon the November fogs made Venice unpleasantly cold and damp so that, intent on returning for Carnival, they had travelled inland through Padua, Ferrara, and Bologna to Florence, which they made their winter headquarters.
It was during the Christmas festivities in Florence that Ormiston first encountered Giugliana di Podenza. Giugliana was twenty-seven, tall and lissome, with pale features resembling Botticelli's Venus and long auburn hair to match. Descended on her mother's side from the Medicis, she had been married to the Marchese di Podenza at the age of nineteen, and had been heartily relieved when the very rich and very stolid marquess died at the age of fifty-five, some five years after their marriage. She was reputed to have spent the intervening years journeying from house to house of her numerous relatives who, between them, seemed to hold positions of influence in every court in Italy, surrounded wherever she went by a galaxy of aspiring young admirers of whom she clearly thought little.
The entire fortune of the marchese had passed to Giugliana. She was constantly sought out by suitors both rich and poor; the rich seeking to add to their immense wealth, the poor desperately hoping for some way to repair their aristocratic, albeit battered, fortunes.
The Marchesa and Viscount Ormiston had met formally and fleetingly on a number of occasions, but it was at the opening of a newly restored gallery in the Uffizi when they first spoke with any intimacy. Ormiston had wandered away from the main party and was standing quite alone in another part of the building, staring at the Simone Martini Annunciation.
“You do not mix with the throng, Viscount?” The voice was resonant and deep. “Are you one of the few who come to the Uffizi to look at the pictures? You have found one of my own favorites. I love the reluctant Virgin Maryâshe does not look at all pleased to hear the Archangel's news.”
“The angel also appears to have little confidence in the welcome accorded his message,” agreed Ormiston as he bowed formally to the marchesa, “but I was studying the fabric behind the angel. He may have alighted but it looks as though his gown is still whirling in the air ... astonishing technique.” He paused. “But as to your question, the Gallery is so much more pleasant when emptied of the usual hordes. I could not resist the temptation to steal away and revisit some of the treasures on my own.”
“Then perhaps you will allow me to escort you back to the reception via some of my own old favorites. My grandmother used to bring me here as a childâshe told me that her mother remembered it before her aunt settled the Medici inheritance on the people of Florence, just over eighty years ago. I like to imagine my great great grandmother chasing along the galleries with her sisters and cousins when she was a little girl. What a wonderful place to play on rainy days!”
They strolled back slowly, stopping here and there before paintings that one or the other wished to admire. Ormiston was astonished by the acuity of her comments on the paintings and the depth of her knowledge. On their previous encounters, she had always been surrounded by her little court, flirting here, bestowing favors there, and appearing, from a distance at least, merely to be a frivolous and flirtatious widow. But here she let her voice relax to its natural, rather deep tones and showed the serious side of her character. Ormiston was fascinated by the combination of learning and beauty, albeit daunted by her ability to give such a different impression of herself in public.
No sooner had they met, however, than she disappeared. The next day he called to leave his card, but subsequently learned she had left Florence; it was rumored she had gone to Venice to visit her father's elder brother, who was said to be suffering from the agues brought on by those same winter chills and damp that Ormiston had fled.
There were endless rumors about the young widow. Her family was notorious for its political intrigues throughout the length and breadth of Italy, and stretching way beyond into the Hapsburg court of Austria and the Bourbon courts of France and Spain.
Buchan advised his charge to forget her, since the local wisdom in Florence insisted that her parents were determined to marry her off to a great statesman in order to extend their family influence yet further. But Ormiston had not forgotten, and even now, in Paris two years later, his pulse quickened as he remembered a chance meeting with Giugliana in the Piazza San Marco during Carnival. Her deep, sibilant voice. “Signore Ormiston, in a moment you will remember me from Firenze, but you must rescue me instantly from the unwanted attentions of the portly gentleman in the scarlet domino.”