“If Carlin has Aunt Agatha’s agreement, then he is almost certainly right.” Clive pulled up a chair to sit between Garfleet and Stillman. “Have you saved me a glass?”
“Against our better judgment.” Carlin tucked his watch into his waistcoat pocket and pointed at the mantel where a single clean glass waited. “Langdon’s feeling flush, so he set one aside for you there.”
Garfleet poured Clive the last of the wine. “Battenskill’s promised his sister we will arrive sober, so he’s limited us to two bottles.”
“This year’s matchmaking mamas are only bearable if one is half foxed,” Langdon grumbled, rubbing his temples with one hand.
“Ah, the troubles of the monied classes.” Stillman, the plainest dressed of them, held up his glass in a mock toast. “But one can hardly blame the families: so many men died in the wars.”
“If my mother grows much more desperate to see my sisters ‘settled,’ I’ll have to serve you lot up as sons-in-laws.” Langdon shrugged. “And that includes you, Stillman: your income makes you a perfectly acceptable choice for one of the younger girls.”
Stillman, true to his name, made no reaction.
“Well, if I must be married to one of Langdon’s sisters,” Garfleet took up the conversation, “I choose Jane.”
“Why Jane? She hasn’t paid you the slightest attention,” Langdon asked.
“That’s why I admire her.” Garfleet tore off some of the bread. “She respects herself enough that she has no interest at all in me.”
Clive found himself only half listening. He’d dressed for Lady Ainslee’s ball with special care. Battenskill’s sister had a particular fondness for inviting women of good family but reduced circumstances, and he’d hope he might see Calder’s dark-eyed beauty there. Her walking dress—tasteful but a few years out of fashion—had suggested she fell in that category. But then he’d discovered that Miss Lena Frost was not a member of the distressed gentry or nobility, but a woman in trade. He rarely made such a misstep, and that made Miss Frost all the more interesting.
“Come, Somerville, give us some news.” Stillman turned the conversation away from Langdon’s sisters. “We haven’t seen you at the surgery since last week.”
“I’ve been about some business for the duke.”
“Do any of us believe that?” Garfleet looked around the table.
Each man shook his head.
“Somerville never reveals his hand outside of his family.” Carlin tipped his glass, drinking the last drop of wine off its brim. “We, his best friends, must wait until after the fact to learn the delicious details.”
“I called on you immediately after the incident at the wharves,” Clive interjected. He’d borne his friends’ good-natured complaints more than once.
“That’s true: when he doesn’t want his family to know how badly he’s injured, he trusts us more than any other surgeons in London,” Battenskill added.
“Or outside it,” Clive added, grateful to turn the conversation.
“You’ve never been stabbed outside London.” Carlin pushed back from the table.
“That we know of.” Garfleet shook his head dramatically. “He might well have a band of surgeons in every region of the land, waiting for him to need shelter, succor, and secrecy.”
“If I were stabbed outside London,” Clive interjected, “I would refuse all help until you lot arrived to save me.”
“Excellent choice.” Battenskill laughed. “I’ve investigated the quality of medical services in the provinces, and it’s not encouraging.”
“I defend Somerville on this.” Stillman leaned in confidentially. “Whatever his other faults, he’s never refused me—or any of us—help. Not even when I was in Cornwall, and he had to travel all night in a stolen carriage.”
“I did not steal the carriage; I merely borrowed it,” Clive corrected. Typically his friends would tease for a few moments, then move on to more interesting topics. One had only to wait out the conversation.
“Well, he’s refused me help.” Garfleet grimaced, and the group looked surprised. “At Lady Ainslee’s last ball, the Rirkenby heiress pursued me quite relentlessly, and, despite my every signal, Somerville took up a spot on the balcony and watched.”
“It was the best theater I’ve seen in months,” Clive quipped, but made a mental note that in future he should interpret Garfleet’s odd hand gestures as a plea for help.
“Ah, it’s time.” Battenskill rose, and the men followed his lead. “But I must warn Somerville and Stillman that my great-aunt will be in attendance . . . with her companion.”
Both men groaned.
“Is that the one she described as “a woman without the luxury to scruple over the character of any suitor of suitable means or good family?” Carlin mimicked Battenskill’s great-aunt perfectly.
Battenskill nodded.
Stillman finished his wine. “It’s always instructive to see which wallflowers will dance with me, but not with Somerville—or with Somerville, but not with me.”
“Do any dance with both of you?” Battenskill raised an eyebrow to see if Clive was disturbed by the direction of the conversation.
Clive shrugged genially. Carlin and the other men knew his character better than his own family, and if they wished to tease him for sins, real or imagined, he wouldn’t object.
“Predicting it is a bit complicated, but I will give you this much: desperate women dance with me, and a woman with secrets is always attracted to Somerville.” Stillman rose, and the other men followed his lead.
Chapter Six
The next morning was cold and rainy. Clive rose early, but his “early”—after a long evening at Lady Ainslee’s—began later than the rest of the city’s. He’d spent the evening dancing with those who would dance with him, mostly spinsters considered to have no other prospects. But while his feet were performing the steps of each dance, his mind was replaying his interaction with the clever Miss Frost. In one country dance, he’d even imagined Miss Frost was his partner and balked visibly when the gregarious Miss Alcorn reached out for his arm. His friends had quickly intervened. Stillman and Carlin had ushered him out of the hall, while the smooth-tongued Battenskill claimed Clive had fallen prey to a fever. And it was a fever . . . of sorts: Frost had such alluring dark eyes.
Clive dressed quickly, wearing, as he had the day before, clothes that marked him as a middling clerk or ordinary tradesman. He intended to arrange another meeting with Calder, but if Calder were not available, perhaps he could match wits again with the clever Miss Frost.
He arrived at the Rotunda to find a long line of customers, umbrellas in hand, waiting to buy advance tickets. The secrecy surrounding the exhibition had pushed public interest into a near fever pitch. One had to admire Calder’s ability to garner so much interest in the exhibition of a painting—albeit a very large one. It was rumored that the craftsmen worked only on portions of the panorama at a time and that only Calder himself knew what the whole painting depicted.
Clive made his way down the narrow alley to the Rotunda offices, ignoring the glares of those in line. The passage dead-ended at a ticket window and door to the upper offices. Clive had hoped to reach the upper offices before anyone could object, but the door was locked tight.
“No one goes upstairs today,” a wizened old woman at the ticket window called out. “Calder says.”
“Calder’s here?” He felt pleased. Finishing his business with Calder would put him one step closer to a private conversation with Miss Frost, perhaps one leading to dinner.
The ticket taker shrugged. “May be, may not be. I sell tickets and keep that door locked.” She exchanged two pence for four tickets. The two daughters—clearly from the country—smiled and tittered when Clive looked at them, but the mother bustled them away.
“What if I have business with Calder?”
“Those who have business with Calder know to go round back.” The woman looked him over. “You don’t have business.”
Clive started to mention that she hadn’t done a very good job of keeping the door locked yesterday, but he decided against it.
A heavyset man dropped his ha’pence on the counter, positioning his body to break Clive’s conversation with the ticket seller. “One ticket, and make it quick.”
Clive surveyed the area, looking for another window on the street level, but he found none. Behind the ticket offices, he could see the Rotunda itself, filling the space behind the street-facing buildings that would otherwise have been the backyards or mews. If there was another entrance to the Rotunda, he would find it.
He returned to the street and turned right, examining the buildings facing the street, and searching for a way behind them. Nothing in the first set of shops. He turned right again at the next corner. There, halfway down where the small shops became smaller dwellings, Clive found a narrow alley, leading to the inside of the block and the Rotunda yard. Across the yard, standing at the back entrance, a severe-looking guard examined each workman’s invoices.
Keeping out of the view of the guard, he waited for an opportunity to enter the building. He didn’t have to wait long. The morning rain still puddled slick and treacherous on the cobblestones. Three workmen, shouldering a long roll of canvas, struggled not to fall.
“Ho, there, keep steady, Owen,” the leader called out, when the man behind him lost his footing. The roll, dangerously off-balance, tilted toward Owen, alone on his side of the canvas.
“Whoa, Ben, grab it, grab it,” the leader admonished fruitlessly. The roll listed to one side, then to the next.
Clive, taking advantage of his good luck, stepped behind Owen and lifted the roll to his shoulder. “There. I have it.”
“We appreciate the help.” The leader waited, while Owen shifted forward to bear the weight more evenly.
“I’m happy to be of service. Where are we going?”
“That door on the left,” the leader directed. “Walk steady. Not fast. We can’t afford to bring the canvas in wet or damaged.”
“Right you are there, John. Bring in damp canvas, and Frost will have your head,” Ben, the older man behind John, jibed.
“That might not be such a bad fate.” Owen chuckled in return, and Clive debated whether he should ignore the rude comment or knock the man flat.
“Left, now, steady,” John directed. “Come around right. Slow. Stop, men.” John retrieved a slip of paper from his pocket. The guard read it, then inspected the four men and the canvas. He stood beside Clive for an especially long time, and Clive kept his face turned into the canvas.
“He’s with us,” John interjected. “Besides, Harald, it’s going to rain. You know Frost don’t want damp canvas.”
The guard waved them into the Rotunda’s dark interior.
“Step easy, boys. Let your eyes adjust.” The leader led them forward slowly. “Remember: the exhibition stage juts out from one wall and ends about fifteen feet from the painting at the front and sides. We’ll be walking underneath the stage. It’s packed pretty tight with supplies and stage sets, but there’s a path between the supports. I’ll lead you straight, so don’t step out of line.”
Clive followed the other men carefully, avoiding the sturdy beams that held up the observation stage. Above them, the stage floor echoed with the workmen’s heavy footsteps. Clive listened for the sound of bowing wood. If the stage collapsed under the weight of the visitors, the injuries would be severe, even deadly. The stage, though, only creaked in one or two places. Sturdily built then. At least Calder’s panorama considered safety as well as profit.
Keeping his paces even, Clive counted off the distance from the door to the opposite side of the room where the stage above them ended.
“Leave it here, men, in the wagon bed.”
The men heaved the canvas roll on top of other soft goods. The other men turned back to the entrance, but Clive stepped out of sight behind a tall pile of boxes, waiting and watching.
In between the stage and the wall, ranks of scaffolding circled three-quarters of the way around the inside of the Rotunda. Through the lower ranks of scaffolding, he could see the very bottom of the painting—a fine depiction of dirt and grass—but nothing else. He needed to get onto the stage above him: that’s where Calder would be, directing the workmen.
He skirted the stage’s edge, looking for a way up. Eventually, where the stage attached to the wall, he found an open doorway and a staircase beyond it. Looking around quickly to see if he was observed, he hurried up the stairs onto the stage.
Standing in the shadow of the door, he took his bearings. Next to him was the large doorway through which the patrons would enter from the offices. Nearly straight in front was the panoramic painting itself, a three-story-height canvas, extending up to the ceiling of the Rotunda and down below the stage where he had just been. The scaffolding stood half-height tall, but a giant theater curtain hung in front of the canvas, hiding all but the painted sky from view. Where the canvas met the ceiling, a short curtain was in the process of being tacked to the ceiling around the skylights. Once in place it would hide the top edge of the panorama, obscuring where the sky ended and the painting began.
“Steady, men, steady.” The voice called out from above him. He looked up. There above the doorway entrance was another platform, its ladder a series of boards nailed into the wall. The voice was a woman’s, low and full. It sounded like chocolate, thick and rich and warm. He couldn’t see her face from his position, but he felt drawn to her, as if she were one of the ancient sirens, pulling men to them by their voices alone. He began to climb the wall ladder. No one stopped him, so intent were the men on their various tasks.
When he reached the top, Miss Frost was directing some men working on a scaffold to the immediate right of the entrance. Behind her, painted on the wall, was a grid filled with instructions and, tacked beside it, a set of very detailed plans for staging the middle ground, complete with coordinates for where each object should be set. Below the plans sat a stool and a low bench, and beside them a long cloak hung on a peg.
“Raise it slowly. Ben. Tom. That’s it: you’ve got it off the floor.” Using a series of pulleys, the men were raising a sturdy bar onto which was sewn a long section of painted canvas.
She reminded him of a conductor at the opera. Her arms directed the men’s actions in precise, even economical motions, and her voice was strong. Her instructions, both specific and clear, suggested some degree of formal education. But beyond that, she was clearly a woman in her element, capable, even powerful. How could he have thought even for a moment that this woman—this interesting, intriguing woman—was breathless or dim? For an investigator who prided himself on careful observation, he needed to learn why he’d misjudged her so thoroughly.
“Pull it up evenly. Both ends at once,” Frost called out, and the men pulling the rope followed her direction without question. The line of the rope led up to the pulley and from there to the top of the scaffold. There two men lay belly down waiting to affix the canvas panel. Suddenly it became clear. Once the canvas was in place, it would hide the scaffold as well as obscure the edges of the painting. She fell silent, watching the men inch the canvas up the height of the scaffold.
He stopped a suitable distance from her, then coughed to attract her attention. She remained fixed on the movement of her men. He coughed again, and her back stiffened, but she did not turn. Finally, he called out, “I’m looking for Calder.”
“He’s not available.” Frost waved him away without turning, issuing another set of instructions to the crew to her right. “Steady, steady, men. Let the canvas unfurl slowly.”
“I have pressing business with him,” he repeated, hoping his insistence would move her.
“Then you are unlucky.” She watched the men intently. “Jess, your end is too high.”
“What about this, Miss Frost?” the workman responded.
“Almost there: lower it another hand span. That’s it. You’re level now.”
“Where might I find Calder?” Clive stepped closer until he was almost to her side.
“Try the most disreputable tavern you know, then look at the bottom of a bottle.” She didn’t turn to face him. Her voice was flat, even unemotional.
“Isn’t he the foreman of this crew?”
“Those who have business with Calder speak to me.” With slight emphasis on that one word, she distinguished between his inquiries and the actual affairs of the Rotunda. And by refusing even to look his way, she’d given a slight that even Clive could not misinterpret. Though known for his patience, he wanted to provoke her, to force her attention.
“You?” He gave the word all the disbelief he could muster. “A woman?”
“Woman or man. If you need Calder, it’s me you talk to.” She refused the bait, never taking her attention off her men. “John, pull your end up. A little more on the right there. That’s it. There.”
He would make her look at him. She was clearly a competent woman, so he chose words that would offend his sister Judith, the most competent woman he knew. “Why does he leave you in charge here?”
“My. Good. Man.” Her words were clipped and precise, but she turned to face him. “I’m more qualified than any man here, and they know it.” As she looked him over, her expression changed from annoyance to recognition to something he couldn’t quite identify. “Besides, I pay them. Any man will prefer a woman in charge if it means he goes home with his wages.”
When she looked at him, he felt the same jolt of awareness he’d felt the day before—the awareness he’d puzzled over instead of paying attention to his dance partners. There was something luscious about her: thick hair plaited into braids barely concealed by her mob bonnet, wide eyes, her face set in belligerent lines.
He nodded acquiescence. “I wasn’t suggesting that you aren’t qualified—I was merely expecting Calder.”
She raised one eyebrow, as if to tell him she saw through his game, then her expressive mouth turned under in annoyance. “What is it you want? I mean, other than to search our office.” Her voice cold, she turned her face back to the men.
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