“The first thing you must know about boys,” Priscilla said, “is that they are all mad.”
Emily could easily believe that as she sat across from Priscilla the next day in the withdrawing room of the tiny house in a forgotten corner of Mayfair, the only house Priscilla’s father had been able to afford. The little room was far less opulent than any at His Grace’s townhouse. The furniture looked as if it had been picked from a number of places and thrown all together, with less than pleasing results. Still, Emily could only consider it a refuge after the scolding she’d endured from her aunt yesterday following Jamie’s exit.
“Your behavior is completely beyond the pale,” Lady Minerva had insisted, pacing in front of Emily right there in the entry hall, with Warburton standing along one wall and the footman, who very much looked as if he wanted to cringe, along the other. Even the movement of her aunt’s blue wool skirts had sounded angry. “First running off with Lord Robert like that...”
“Running off!” Emily protested. “It was a scheduled outing, and you gave your blessing!”
Her aunt jerked up a finger. “Do not interrupt me when I am speaking! I quite lose my place. Where was I? Running off with Lord Robert . . . failing to comb your hair when leaving Barnsley . . . not folding your napkin properly after dinner last night . . .”
“Who knew I had such faults?” Emily said.
Her aunt glared her into silence. “And now taking up with a street urchin of all people! You will be the death of your poor sainted father!”
Emily took a deep breath, tried to keep her tone measured, logical. “In the first place, I haven’t taken up with anyone. In the second, I hardly think it appropriate to compare a Bow Street Runner to a street urchin. And finally, my father is hardly a saint. Saints, as I understand them, actually care.”
She knew she’d gone too far, for her aunt drew up her slender frame, one finger pointing imperiously toward the stairs. “To your room, young lady. I cannot abide the sight of you right now.”
“The feeling is mutual,” Emily replied, but she marched up the stairs anyway.
But not to her room. It was lovely, it was sophisticated, but it felt as if it belonged to another girl, someone who preferred the social whirl, someone who obeyed without questioning, someone her father and aunt expected her to be.
Someone she very much feared she would never be.
Instead, she went to the studio, pulled on her apron, and stirred up her paints. That wasn’t difficult, the way her hands were shaking. She slammed her brush into the mixture and stabbed at the canvas. She wanted blood, fire, shouting, the clash of metal on metal. She wanted to lose herself in power, might. She wanted good to triumph, evil to be vanquished, the world set to rights once again. That’s what her paintings meant, even if no one else ever noticed.
“Why do you persist in painting such ugly things?” her aunt demanded from the doorway.
“Why won’t you leave me alone?” Emily countered. Then she took a deep breath, set her brush down carefully. “Forgive me, Aunt. But I am not the woman you think me. I prefer a dirge to a country reel, a Shakespearean drama to a modern farce. I feel as if everyone is trying to force me into a mold that I cannot fill.”
“Will not fill, you mean,” Lady Minerva said, coming into the room and shutting the door. “And you are still behaving like an idiot. I told you I would deny any involvement with bad behavior on your part. You saw through my acting before. Your faculties have not failed you. Why would I think you would believe me now?”
Emily reached for her rag to clean the scarlet from her fingers, hands still shaking. “Are you telling me you staged all that?”
“What else? Your father expects me to honor his wishes. He will not stomach me honoring yours above his. I must put on a good face if I am to eat.” She wandered closer and grimaced at Emily’s battle scene.
“My father would hardly starve you,” Emily replied, setting down her rag.
“You didn’t seem so sure of that a few minutes ago,” her aunt replied. She sucked her lower lip a moment, then nodded. “This is rather good, in a dismal, disturbed sort of way.”
Emily could not find it in her to thank Lady Minera. “So am I in your good graces or not?”
Her aunt turned to eye her. “Why do you care what I think? Why do you care what your father thinks?”
Emily blinked. “You are my family. I rather thought I owed you a duty.”
“Duty and love are two different things. It appears you prefer the latter.”
Emily turned away, busied herself in tidying up her paints. “Did you have something else you wished to discuss? If not, I would prefer to paint.”
“So you have said,” her aunt had replied, moving toward the door. “But perhaps you should think about whether the two are connected.”
She refused to think on it. She knew she’d only go mad. She’d simply been grateful her aunt had been willing to accompany her on a call to Priscilla’s house today, so she could at least talk to someone she had confidence actually cared about her wellbeing.
“All boys cannot be mad,” she told her friend now, settling back in her seat and keeping an eye on her aunt, who was conversing with Priscilla’s mother as they sat on a Egyptian-styled sofa nearby.
“They are completely illogical,” Priscilla insisted, long fingers curling around the worn gilt ends of her chair’s armrests, which were shaped like lion’s heads. “You’ve heard about how Byron alternately chased and pushed aside Lady Caroline Lamb.”
“Poets are expected to be a bit mad,” Emily pointed out.
“What of the way the Prince Regent treats his wife?” Priscilla said. “She’s all but banished to the Continent!”
Her mother paused in her conversation to give Priscilla a look in warning.
Emily shook her head. “I hardly count His Highness as an example of good decorum. He wears a corset!”
Priscilla shuddered at that. But she obviously refused to be swayed. “Look at Lord Brentfield, then,” she said, keeping her voice low to avoid a further scold from her mother. “He is no poet, and you cannot claim he was anything less than charming. What on earth would possess him to marry Miss Alexander of all people?”
Emily knew Priscilla still smarted over the fact that the Earl of Brentfield had preferred their art teacher over her or her Aunt Sylvia.
“I like to think it was her art that impressed him,” Emily said, fingers anchored to her navy gown. She refused to give in to the temptation to stroke the arms of her own chair, which was covered in scarlet ostrich plumes. “She’s very good, you know.”
Priscilla rolled her eyes. “A gentleman is seldom as impressed by a lady’s accomplishments as he is by her anatomy.”
Emily sighed. “I certainly hope you’re wrong, or I’m doomed, Pris.”
“No, you’re not,” Priscilla said immediately, straightening so quickly the pink satin ribbons decorating the front of her gown fluttered like birds. “Because the only thing more impressive than a lady’s anatomy to a gentleman is her connections. You are the daughter of a duke, you know.”
“So you think that’s what Lord Robert finds attractive?” Emily shook her head. “Perhaps your father can adopt me in time for me to attend the ball.”
Instead of laughing, Priscilla’s look darkened. “You do not wish to be a member of my family right now. Trust me on that score.”
Emily glanced toward Mrs. Tate and her aunt, then lowered her voice even further. “Are things still so bad?”
“Impossible,” Priscilla whispered back. “Mother keeps insisting that only the attendance of the Prince Regent at the Ball will save us from disaster.”
“I doubt the Prince will be much help,” Emily whispered back. “You’ll have better luck with your duke.”
Priscilla brightened, but her smile lasted only long enough for their manservant to announce another caller. Trailing behind him and simpering obsequiously were a young lady and her mother.
“Oh, no,” Priscilla breathed, but she managed a smile as her mother rose to greet their guests.
Emily knew the feeling as well as she knew the girl who was sashaying toward them. Four other girls had graduated with Emily, Priscilla, Daphne and Ariadne. Emily had little trouble making conversation with any of them except Acantha Dalrymple. Acantha was narrow and dark, as if even her physical nature was stingy. Every topic of conversation must be brought around to her, or she simply brought conversation to a halt. Worse, she fancied that her insipid, uninspired watercolors made her an artist. She quite simply rubbed Emily the wrong way.
But Emily had to admit to surprise over Acantha’s mother. Mrs. Dalrymple was the epitome of overblown satisfaction. Her ample girth was encased in a stylish muslin gown of pale yellow. Her bonnet groaned under the weight of peacock feathers, silk sunflowers, and green satin ribbons. With her short quilted jacket of a deeper yellow, she resembled nothing so much as an overripe melon.
Though Mr. Dalrymple’s father had made his fortune in trade and the family had only recently joined the ranks of the Beau Monde, Mrs. Tate acted as if royalty had come to call. She darted about, fingers flying from the soft pleats of her blue day dress to the dark curls beside her slender face. To Emily, who’d visited often over the years, Priscilla’s mother had always seemed rather bemused that she’d birthed someone as breathtaking as Priscilla. Now she couldn’t seem to believe she’d been visited by people as impressive as the Dalrymples.
Mrs. Dalrymple seated herself on the flowered sofa beside Lady Minerva, who blinked as if the sun had come into the room, leaving Acantha to take up a spindle-backed chair next to Priscilla and Emily. Her gown was a wondrous creation of fine blue cambric and silk lace, with a ruffled skirt and graceful sleeves that danced when she moved her gloved hands. Emily thought she heard Priscilla sigh in envy as she gazed on the paisley shawl that draped Acantha’s boney shoulders. Acantha merely smiled beatifically.
“And are you enjoying your Season, Miss Dalrymple?” Priscilla’s mother asked after they were all settled.
Acantha dropped her gaze demurely. “Oh, a very great deal, Mrs. Tate. Everyone has been so kind, so gracious.”
“I declare our sitting room is never void of callers,” Mrs. Dalrymple said with a proud smile at her daughter.
Acantha shot Priscilla and Emily a look. “Yes, even Lord Robert Townsend, who I believe is a particular friend of yours, Lady Emily. He calls most every day.”
Emily stiffened. Surely the girl knew Lord Robert and Emily were betrothed. She could not know how little Emily liked him, but how rude to imply that Emily’s fiancé was more fascinated with her!
Priscilla must have been of the same mind, for she winked at Emily. “Oh, how delightful,” she told Acantha. “I’m certain the two of you get on famously.”
Acantha blinked as if she had not expected so enthusiastic a response. Then she stroked her lovely shawl, and Priscilla’s gaze followed each movement.
“Indeed we do,” Acantha said. “Such a fine gentleman. He has the very best taste, in clothing, in furnishings. He was most admiring of the sapphire necklace my dear papa gave me upon graduation.” She beamed about at everyone as if dispensing bon bons instead of bile.
Her mother reached out to pat her hand. “And you, minx, must take more care of such baubles. You gave us quite a scare.” She nodded to Lady Minerva and Mrs. Tate. “She couldn’t find them the other day. We thought them stolen. Can you imagine?”
Emily could. Her gaze met Priscilla’s, and she knew they were thinking the same thing. First Lady Minerva’s pearls, and now the sapphires. Lord Robert really was a jewel thief!
Priscilla smiled at Acantha. “Such a shame you lost them.”
Acantha’s smile was nearly as poisoned. “But I didn’t lose them. I found them later, in the drawer of my dressing table.”
Now Emily blinked. “What?”
As Priscilla frowned, Acantha nodded. “It’s true. It seems I’d only misplaced them.”
Mrs. Dalrymple put her plump hand to her plumper bosom. “So many jewels she can misplace them. Such a daughter!”
Mrs. Tate rushed to assure her that Acantha was indeed a gem, but Emily was no longer attending. If the necklace wasn’t missing, and even James Cropper could not find evidence that Lord Robert had taken Lady Minerva’s pearls, did that mean they had been mistaken about Lord Robert all along?
“It seems you’ve been quite fortunate,” Priscilla said to Acantha, but each word was bitten off as if she didn’t appreciate being in a position to praise the creature, for anything.
Acantha fluffed at the limp brown curls on one side of her narrow face. “Too true. Fortune seems to follow me, just as it does my dear papa. Of course, I am entirely too gracious to lord it over anyone, particularly someone of your dire straights, Miss Tate.” Her dark gaze roamed over the mismatched furniture and common paintings of the sitting room, and she scrunched up her nose in obvious distaste.
Priscilla’s fingers were pressed so deeply into the lion’s mouth of the armrest that Emily wouldn’t have been surprised to hear the wooden beast gag. Why couldn’t Acantha leave well enough alone? If Emily had been home, she’d have called for Warburton to throw the girl out, but as Emily was in Priscilla’s home, all she could do was sit and try not to do or say anything that would bring shame on Priscilla, the Tates, or His Grace. The head mistress of the Barnsley School said that the daughter of the duke would sit serenely while her fate was pronounced by the executioner.
Sometimes Emily hated being the daughter of a duke.
The older women began discussing the tedious task of shepherding a young lady on her first Season, and Acantha focused her attentions on Emily and Priscilla.
“I am, by nature, entirely too sensitive,” she said with a sigh, as if she bore a burden too great for her scrawny frame. “I care too deeply what others think and feel. In fact, I’m likely the only one who understands how devastated Lord Robert was after the tragic accident.”
Emily started. Accident? She opened her mouth to ask and felt Priscilla’s slipper come down hard on her own.
“Well,” Priscilla said, “that was most kind of you. I suppose the fellow needed someone to comfort him. Don’t you agree, Emily?”
Emily met her green gaze, feeling a bit as if she were walking out onto an empty field with no knowledge of how she’d come to be there in the first place. “Oh, indeed,” she tried.
It must have been a good enough answer, for Priscilla nodded. “And then compounded with the death of his poor father. Well . . . ”
“Actually, his father died first,” Acantha corrected her with a sniff of disdain at Priscilla’s apparent ignorance. “Though I’m sure Lavinia Haversham’s death hit far harder. He thought himself in love, after all.” She squealed out one of her laughs. “That was before he met me, of course.”
It was very nearly the same conversation he’d had with Emily! That could only mean one thing: this Lavinia Haversham must be the merchant’s daughter with whom Lord Robert had dallied.
“It didn’t matter if Lord Robert was in love,” Emily told Acantha. “His family would never have allowed him to into trade. Particularly a girl ill enough to die so young.”
“Ill?” Acantha squealed another laugh. “You two are sadly misinformed. Lavinia Haversham was never ill. Indeed, she went everywhere with Lord Robert. Several balls, Astley’s Riding Amphitheatre, the Egyptian Hall, Lord Elgin’s marbles . . .”
The Marbles! But Emily had had to beg him to take her there! And he hadn’t offered to take her anywhere else.
“He might even have offered for her,” Acantha insisted, “if she hadn’t died. Can you imagine anything worse than dying by accident in your first Season? She passed on only four days before we graduated, you know.”
“No,” Priscilla said, “we didn’t know. And I do believe you’re making this all up.”
Emily couldn’t tell whether the tragic story of Lord Robert’s relationship with Miss Haversham was true or not. For all his claims of grief and loyalty to his father and the girl he’d thought he loved, Lord Robert had a poor way of showing those tender emotions. And if she was adding the time correctly, he must have been camping on her father’s doorstep from the very day that Miss Haversham had died. Any way she looked at it, Lord Robert was an unconscionable scoundrel.
Acantha apparently thought otherwise, as her gaze darkened. “I did not make it up! I have exquisite details from the gentleman himself. Take a turn about the room with me, and I shall tell you all.”