“I’m sure. Oh, look, we’ve arrived at last.”
A footman opened their door and released the steps, helping down first Genevieve, then Hazel. The other guests, bundled up in capes and coats against the chilly fog, were streaming up the wide stone steps and into the gallery. Gen gazed up at the entrance as Hazel chattered on with excitement at her side.
He was likely in there already. Would she be forced to face him again? Surely, he’d be too busy greeting guests, as the reception was in honor of his donation. Perhaps, if she was careful, she could contrive to avoid him for the entire night.
“Are you coming, Gen?” Hazel’s voice startled her out of her daze, and mechanically, her feet climbed the steps, carrying her inside.
A servant divested her of her heavy black cape. She took a moment, as Hazel rebuttoned the wrist of her glove, to glance at her reflection in the large Rococo gilt-framed mirror hanging on the opposite wall.
Black. Of course. From her hair, swept up, dark and sleek, to her gown, black taffeta, edged with black velvet ribbons, to her gloves, black kid leather, all the way over her elbows. She looked like a crow. Or—with her pale skin and dark eyes—perhaps an angel of death was more apt. That was probably exactly what Archie saw when he looked at her—an unwelcome ghost of his past, come back to plague him.
“Gen? Is everything all right?”
Gen spun to face Hazel. “Pardon?”
“I called your name twice, but you didn’t hear me.”
She forced a smile. “Just wool-gathering. Shall we go in? You look very pretty tonight, Hazel.”
Hazel beamed, sweeping a hand across her ruffled white skirts. “Thank you.”
The reception, held in a large, high-ceilinged room adjacent to the gallery of Wrexham’s donated works, was very well-attended for an affair being held so close to Christmas. Genevieve suspected it had more to do with the novelty of Wrexham, new to London, than with his donated pictures. Indeed, there were far more single young ladies in attendance with their mothers than Genevieve often saw at events like this one. Every girl—whether she was self-consciously fidgeting or preening with pride—kept surreptitiously glancing around the room, trying to catch a glimpse of the earl.
“There’s Kitty,” Hazel murmured under her breath. “No doubt she’s throwing her hat in the ring to land Wrexham too. Desperation isn’t a good look for her.”
“Retract those claws, please. You said you’ve gone off Wrexham.”
“I have, but I don’t want Kitty to snag him.”
“I doubt Wrexham will be drawn in by Kitty’s wiles.”
Although, what did Gen know about Wrexham? Past events had resoundingly proved she didn’t know him at all.
“There he is, by the way,” Hazel remarked. “I think every female head in the room turned when he entered.”
She didn’t want to look. She couldn’t help looking. Archie was standing just inside the door leading to the gallery, speaking to someone. He was dressed in a black tail suit, like every other man in the room, but that’s where the resemblance ended. Everything about him drew attention, from his impressive height to his arresting face. He might have lost the smiling charm she remembered from his youth, but it had been replaced by a focused intensity that was just as appealing in its own way.
The man he was speaking with made a joke and burst into laughter, clapping Wrexham on the shoulder, but a slight smile was Archie’s only response. Gen didn’t think she’d seen him laugh, or even fully grin, since she’d met him again in London. In her memories of that earlier time, he was always smiling—his laugh had come easily. Had life changed him that much? Or perhaps those smiles she remembered had been a lie, along with everything else.
As much as she kept denying it to herself, he was still the most handsome man she’d ever set eyes on. Even now, even after everything, even with the changes the years had wrought. She hated him for it. She hated him for coming here now, disturbing her peace. Why couldn’t he have just stayed buried in the past where she’d left him?
“Oh, here comes Conte Santini,” Hazel sighed.
Gen wrenched her gaze from Archie and looked to Hazel. The girl’s eyes went flat as she watched Conte Santini making his way through the crowd. Gen was seized by a sudden wave of despair.
“Hazel.” She touched the girl’s hand. “Be sure you know what you want. What you really want.”
Hazel blinked at her. “But…what I want is beside the point. Isn’t it?”
It was supposed to be. Wasn’t that what Gen had always believed? What she trained these girls to think? “Just…don’t rush to a decision. Everything can wait until after the holidays.”
Hazel scowled. “Is everything all right, Gen? This doesn’t sound like you at all. You’ve been arranging things with the count for ages, and now you’re telling me to wait, when he’s made me an offer?”
This would be tantamount to destroying her business, she could sense it. Her finely honed instincts told her that if she sent Hazel home to Cincinnati unattached, she’d fall in love with that older brother she was clearly still mooning over. Gen would have failed to bring about the match with a European title her parents so desperately wanted.
She didn’t care.
“Yes, I’m telling you to wait. If Conte Santini is still your best option when you return, then you can accept his proposal. Give yourself the holidays to consider it. Do that for me.”
Hazel nodded slowly. “All right. I will.”
Conte Santini, a short, balding man with a drooping moustache, reached them at last. “Signorina Shaw, how lovely you look tonight!”
He fairly reeked of desperation, his pleading eyes fixed on Hazel and, no doubt, calculating her millions.
“Good evening, Conte Santini.”
“Would you care for a refreshment? It would be my great honor to escort you to the punch bowl.”
He held out a hand for hers, and Gen noted Hazel’s hesitation as she set her fingers in his grasp. Yes, she’d effectively just encouraged Hazel to refuse him, and the girl, whose heart was most definitely not in this, would do so. Gen must have lost her mind.
But as Hazel allowed Conte Santini to lead her away through the crowd, Genevieve couldn’t find it in her heart to regret a thing. Well, she could regret nothing regarding Hazel. As to the rest of her life? She had regrets aplenty.
With Hazel whisked away by the count, and desperate to avoid encountering Archie in the crowd, Genevieve slipped out of the reception and into the gallery housing the new paintings. It was early enough in the evening that no other guests had found their way there yet, and she was alone.
Escape had driven her here, but now she was curious to see what was in Archie’s art collection. At least that part—his love of art—seemed not to have been a lie.
To her surprise, she recognized some of the works, or at least the hands that had created them. They were almost all French artists, some of whom she’d met years before in Paris—penniless artists then, now risen in prominence. Some of the scenes were familiar, too, and brought a pang of homesickness. Ah, Paris… Booksellers along the Seine, children sailing toy boats in the fountain in the Jardin du Luxembourg, barges on the St. Martin canal near Belleville, and…
A shock of recognition froze her in front of the next painting. It was the courtyard of the Moulin de la Galette at night, filled with dancers, softly illuminated by those paper lanterns overhead that she remembered so well. The dancing couples were a blur of faces and colors…all except one, the couple in front. The man was very tall, with dark hair. And the woman in his arms, with her long black hair flying out behind her, was wearing a sky-blue dress. There was a kerchief around her shoulders, a smudge of white with little embroidered flowers.
“Yes, it’s you.”
Archie stood a few feet away, hands clasped behind his back.
“But how—”
He cleared his throat and dropped his eyes to the ground. “I met the artist in passing some time later. When he sh
owed me his works, I recognized that one. And us.”
Us.
That was a loaded word, the first time he’d directly addressed their brief affair.
“I can’t imagine why you’d want it,” she said, giving voice to the thoughts racing in her head. Why? Why had he bought this particular picture, of the two of them on that night? Why did it matter to him at all, when their affair—when she—clearly hadn’t.
“It was a memory of happier times.”
Gen fixed her furious eyes on the painting, refusing to even glance at him. If she did, she might claw his eyes out. Was that all it was to him in the end? A fun few days with a pretty young girl? Had he just forgotten everything he’d said to her, the promises he’d made? Her anger and pain might be old, but time, it seemed, had done little to dull its edges. She’d opened the box containing it only to find her pain was still razor-sharp and able to draw blood.
“Have you been back?” he asked, his tone maddeningly conversational.
“To Paris? No.”
“Not once?”
“My memories of it were less sweet.”
He let out a soft huff of laughter. “Funny, it didn’t seem so at the time. You seemed happy that night.”
She shot a murderous glare over her shoulder, which seemed to bounce right off his icy countenance. “Well, circumstances changed, didn’t they?”
“Yes, they did. The life you’re leading in London is hard to imagine for that girl from Paris.”
“Life sometimes steers us in unexpected directions.”
“Yes, it does.”
“Do you still paint?”
He scoffed. “Not for years.”
“Then you aren’t the man I remember from Paris either.”
“I should expect not. Odd choice for you.”
“What is?”
He waved a hand at her. “All this. Society, propriety…”
Her face heated with anger. “I beg your pardon?”
“I recall you having quite an aversion to this class of society when you were younger.”
“Well, this path was the one open to me, so I took it. Needs must.”
“Needs,” he repeated flatly.
Exasperated, she turned to face him. “I needed someplace to go. Philomena Grantham was all I had left. So I came here.”
He blinked once, eyebrows drawing together as he stared at her wordlessly. Then he dropped his hands to his sides and took a step toward her, his voice low and intent. “Gen, there’s something I don’t understand—”
“Here he is! Our man of honor!”
A cluster of society matrons burst into the gallery in a swirl of skirts and glittering jewels, led by Lady Arbuthnot. Gen knew them all to be patrons of the National Gallery, and they were probably the ones who had arranged this evening’s gala.
She took a step back, closer to the wall, her heart pounding, as the women swept down on Archie. Thank heaven they came, saving her from that ugly scene. She didn’t want to answer his questions or explain her life to him. None of it was any of his business.
“It’s nearly time for your speech, Lord Wrexham. Everyone’s assembled in the other room.”
“Yes, of course,” he muttered distractedly.
“I do hope we’re not interrupting anything?” Lady Arbuthnot’s voice carried just the tiniest pointed edge.
“No, not at all,” Gen interjected. “Lord Wrexham and I were just discussing Paris…and the people we once knew there.”
When she chanced a glance at Archie, he was staring at her with a look she couldn’t read in the slightest.
“Ah!” Lady Arbuthnot sighed. “Paris is divine, isn’t it? Now, shall we go?”
Tucking her arm possessively under Archie’s, she gently but firmly steered him out of the gallery.
Closing her eyes, Gen let out a long, pained exhale. Oh, please, let him leave soon. She couldn’t bear these encounters. When she opened her eyes again, it was to see Archie casting one last questioning glance over his shoulder at her as he was spirited away.
Gen had no intention of staying for his speech or any other part of the evening. She couldn’t take another encounter. Finding Lady Fitzherbert in the crowd, she pleaded a headache and prevailed upon her to take over chaperoning Hazel for the rest of the evening. Once her charge was taken care of, she did what she’d wanted to do since Archie first spoke to her at the Bashcombes’ ball—she ran away.
Chapter Eight
Fire crackled in the hearth. A log shifted, sending a plume of sparks spiraling up to the flue. Gen sat curled in the corner of the sofa, staring unseeing into the flames.
Outside, snow was coming down. London had momentarily fallen silent, as Christmas Eve sent everyone scurrying off the streets and back to their families. Gen, of course, was alone. The townhouse, her safe refuge in the world for the past seventeen years, felt echoing and empty on this night.
Hazel had sailed for home a week ago. Gen had given nearly all the servants the holiday off to spend with their families. Only Mrs. Winters remained on. She had no family to go to and wouldn’t have left Gen on her own even if she had.
A rumble of coach wheels and the clop of hooves sounded in the street. Someone’s happy shout of greeting called out in the night. A door closed somewhere. London life went on, with or without Lady Grantham and her girls.
Soon, she’d lose Hazel. Either she’d fall for that boy back home, or she’d come back here and accept Conte Santini’s proposal. Gen had no other prospective young ladies in the offing. She supposed she could have been working her contacts, letting it be known her services were available to young ladies in need for the upcoming Season. She could have gone to America and cultivated new clients there. But she’d failed to do so, frozen by a queer sort of apathy.
The truth was, she didn’t want another girl. She didn’t want to carefully prepare one more young lady for a marriage she didn’t want to a man she didn’t love. The cold-eyed rationality required to do it for all these years seemed to have abandoned her, and she wasn’t sure she wanted it back. For so long, that hardened shell around her heart had been her salvation, keeping all the pain of her early years bottled up where it couldn’t hurt her. But Archie had returned, swinging an ax at that shell, fracturing it, and the trickle of emotion escaping was rapidly turning into a deluge.
The anger and betrayal she’d felt over him hadn’t seemed to have eased one bit in those long years locked away. Neither had her grief over her mother, apparently. Nor her fear for Leo’s fate. Not the aching loss she’d felt leaving Paris either.
After all these years, it was all still there. And she was here, alone, facing it at last.
Something was going to have to change about her life. A great many things, perhaps. If the days of the inimitable Lady Grantham—all of them—had come to a close at last, then Geneviève Valadon would need to find a new way forward.
Perhaps, she thought, a hysterical little huff of laughter escaping her lips, she’d return to Paris and turn herself in at last. Were they still looking for her? Wouldn’t that set London on its ear? Lady Grantham, of the impeccable reputation and flawless breeding, was really Geneviève Valadon, daughter of a whore, a suspected political revolutionary, wanted for helping to plan a bombing. That would certainly be the talk of the Season.
So, no, she wouldn’t be returning to Paris.
That would just be running away again anyway, and what she was discovering was that one could never outrun one’s self. She’d already faced Archie, acknowledged that what he’d done still wounded her every day. The wound wasn’t healed, but maybe confronting it—him—was a beginning.
Maman would be a harder mountain to climb. Maman was a twisted knot of emotions—sorrow, anger, betrayal, guilt. It might take her the rest of her life to untangle it all. Perhaps she never would.
“Ma’am?” Mrs. Winters poked her head inside the parlor. “Do you need the fire built back up?”
“No, Mrs. Winters, I’ll let it burn down. I d
on’t expect I’ll be up much longer. You should go on to bed.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes, I’m fine. And tomorrow’s your holiday,” Gen reminded her. “You’re not to step foot above stairs to wait on me.”
Mrs. Winters had been cast off by her own family as a girl, when she’d made the mistake of running off with some unworthy man and wound up on the same path as Gen’s mother. Which was why, when Winters had washed up on Gen’s doorstep begging for employment of any kind in order to escape an abusive man, Gen had taken her in without hesitation. In another life, her mother could have found herself in the same predicament, with nowhere to turn and no one to help her. Winters had entered her household, changed her name, and left her past behind. Now she ran the Grantham house with military precision, loyal to Gen unto death.
“Mrs. Fife has left a cold ham, some meat pies, and some cheeses downstairs in the larder for you.”
“I’ll see to myself. You’re not to worry about me.”
“I’m not sure I’ll be able to manage that, ma’am, but I’ll be sure to check on you when I get back from dinner with Mrs. Fife’s sister and her family. Happy Christmas, ma’am.”
“Happy Christmas to you too, Mrs. Winters.”
The silence left in Winters’s departure to her rooms below stairs was nearly absolute. Just the crackle of the hearth and the tick of the grandfather clock. The house, usually so snug and welcoming, felt close, almost stifling.
Gen stood, making a slow circuit of the parlor, warm and cozy with its gold striped wallpaper and gilt-and-yellow furniture. She’d diligently built this elegant, comfortable life around herself, trying to make up for all she’d lost in Paris. She’d thought she had, and yet suddenly, it felt as if she might have built it on sand, like it might wash away once again in the same, brutal swoop of fate.
The bell rang and she startled. The bell? A glance at the clock told her it was after nine. No London visitor would show up uninvited at this hour, and on Christmas Eve.
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