by Regina Darcy
“I am very glad,” Gemma said, a sliver of heat escaping the icy wall of her reserve, “that I am the means by which Aunt Ann will go to meet her Lord. I have no doubt that she will be welcomed in heaven and that Almighty God will remember how it is that she arrived there.”
Lord Benton’s eyes narrowed. The chit was insolent. If London society knew of his proposition, or of the means by which he intended to pay for his dead wife’s funeral, he would be shunned and despised. He didn’t care about the views of the ton, but he knew that he could not dwell in London as a pariah.
“You will end up on the street,” he predicted, “selling that body that you deny to me, and for coins, do you hear me? You will struggle to have enough to eat, to find lodgings, to clothe yourself. You are an outcast from the moment you leave this residence. I suggest that you reconsider. You have not been bred to a life of chance, girl. Your aunt coddled you and your silly fancy to be an artist.”
“There is nothing to reconsider and my silly fancy is, so you say, going to be used to bury my aunt. Good night.”
“Be gone by morning!” he shouted after her. “Or I’ll take you by force. Your consent means nothing to me!”
THREE
Gemma closed the door behind her. Only then did she realise that she was shaking, just as she had been after the thief had tried to rob her, and that kind gentleman had intervened to save her and her purse—
Her purse! Where was it? The thief had wrested it from her grasp and it had fallen to the ground in the scuffle. In the confusion, she had failed to retrieve it. All the money that she owned, the profits of the paintings her aunt had sold for her, were in her reticule, now lost. She truly was bereft.
“Miss Gemma,” Wadsworth appeared in the shadows outside the door of Lord Benton’s study. “Miss Matilda asks that you go to her. She is in my office downstairs in the servants’ quarters.”
“Thank—thank you, Wadsworth,” Gemma said. She stifled a sob. “I appreciate Miss Matilda’s kindness to my aunt, and I shall go to her now.” And then where? To the streets, it seemed.
Gloomily, she walked down the stairway to the servants’ quarters. Their lives were not easy and yet they would sleep in their beds tonight, a comfort that would be denied to her.
She would not risk remaining under her uncle’s roof until morning. She had no doubt that he would seek her out during the night and turn his vile offer into a fait accompli.
“Miss Gemma,” Miss Matilda stood up when Gemma entered the butler’s office. “I’m so sorry. She were at peace when she passed on, I can tell you that. Just before death, all of a sudden, her face changed and she looked like the angel that she was.”
“I’m so glad that you were with her, Matilda. I know that she took great comfort in your kindness and your strength.”
“She were a great lady, Miss Gemma. Mr Wadsworth, me and the others . . . We reckoned that with your aunt gone . . . it would not go well for you. So I gathered up some of your things. Here is your mother’s jewellery. And here is that painting you made of the town that you lived in when your parents were alive and you were with them. I took it right down from the wall in your room. He’ll not notice until it is too late. I’ve bundled it all up so that it’s easy to carry. I’m ever so sorry, Miss . . . Your aunt will be filling St. Peter’s ear with her outrage, I’ve no doubt.”
Gemma laughed shakily. “I believe you are correct,” she agreed. “Aunt would be horrified. But she is also telling St. Peter that you are a saint, and I thank you for thinking of me at such a time.”
“Where will you go, Miss?”
“I don’t know,” Gemma said honestly. “But I must leave now. I dare not remain.”
“God go with you, Miss.”
When Gemma returned upstairs, Wadsworth was waiting. He helped her on with her coat.
“Miss Gemma, we pray that all will be well with you.”
“Thank you, Mr Wadsworth.”
At least her coat was warm and would keep off the chill of a very damp March. Winter seemed determined to maintain a grip on the month. With her bundle in hand, Gemma made her way into the street. She was halfway across when she heard her name being called.
“Miss Gemma! Wait!”
Gemma turned, startled to hear her name called out. It was Miss Matilda, running out of the house.
The horses of a carriage that was drawing down upon them reared up. The driver cursed, and the passenger inside, a lady, who judging from the jewels in her hair, appeared to be on her way to an elegant evening affair, curled her lip in scorn.
“Miss Gemma, wait!” the maid, undeterred by the traffic or the near-accident, met Gemma in the street.
“We’d best cross or risk getting mowed down. I have something else for you. It’s something your aunt wanted you to have.”
“Matilda, whatever belonged to my aunt is now the property of Lord Benton. He will accuse you of stealing if anything is missing.”
“That skinflint don’t know true value, Miss.”
“Let us walk on a bit, at least, so that we are out of view. I don’t wish you to be seen giving me anything, in case he is watching.”
They walked on until they were out of view of the Benton house, which was now shrouded in complete darkness and the melancholy of mourning. Matilda handed Gemma a small package wrapped in a linen handkerchief.
“This was your grandmother’s ring. Your aunt wanted you to have it. Lord Benton didn’t know of it. Your aunt didn’t wear it and it wasn’t included when she inventoried her jewellery as Lord Benton bade her do.”
“My grandmother’s ring?”
“Lady Evan was most particular that it was to go to you. I nearly forgot until after you’d already gone, and then her words come back to me, like she was speaking from heaven. She wanted you to have it. God go with you, miss. I must get back before anyone notices that I’m gone.”
“Farewell, Matilda Mae,” Gemma whispered, watching as the brave maid ran across the street and headed back to the Benton home.
Gemma’s nightly travels, forbidden though they were to a woman, stood her in good stead. She knew that she had to find a place for the night and with no money, she could not procure a room in an inn. She adopted a purposeful stride, that of a woman who had a specific destination and did not intend to be interrupted. A good three hours later, her steps took her to the Westminster Bridge.
Gemma hesitated, but by now she was feeling emotionally and physically exhausted. Biting her bottom lip, she forged ahead under the bridge. She knew that she would not be the only person to seek shelter there for the night and she also knew that the streets of the city teemed with desperate people who had long since abandoned the customs of courtesy.
She found a spot that seemed to be isolated from other people and sat down. It was then that the tears that she’d been able to hold off overwhelmed her. Sobs racked her slender frame, soaking her handkerchief with her tears.
All around her, the night emitted noises and sounds. She spied shadows moving in front of her. At several spots beneath the bridge, people had built fires for warmth and for light. The illumination allowed the shadows to loom ominously as other bridge inhabitants walked by. Thankful for her dark coat and hat, and for the fact that she was a brunette and not a blonde, so that her colouring blended in with the seclusion of the hour, Gemma hoped that the night would shield her.
The sounds were too close for her to feel safe. The city seemed to be rife with noises that almost sounded inhuman when uttered out of doors. Any fantastical creature could have been lurking underneath the bridge, and any villain could have been there as well. It was not a sanctuary.
Nor was it a site where a woman of vivid imagination could take her rest. A high-pitched, keening wail floated through the night, sounding like a mythological creature in distress, Gemma could not bear it anymore and she stood upright, preparing to bolt.
When a hand reached out to grab her, Gemma’s voice opened to emit a scream.
“Miss,
please, I mean you no harm. I have been searching for you this night. I have your reticule. The thief must have dropped it when he was apprehended, and it fell. I found it and would have returned it to you, but you had vanished.”
Relief washed over her. It was the man who had rescued her from being robbed. The one who seemed kind. The one who had offered to take her to his home. How had he found her?
“My name is Charles Fitzsimmons,” he said as she struggled with the quandary over what she ought to do. “I mean you no harm. I do not mean to frighten you. I have looked for you in places where I should pray no woman would be, and it is by the grace of God that I have found you.”
“I thank you,” she responded, taking the reticule from him. She was not penniless now.
She was still faced with the dilemma of what she should do and where she ought to go, but at least she had funds. Assuming, of course, that he had not emptied the reticule of its contents. But that seemed unlikely. He would not have gone searching for her if he had done so, and by the looks of him, he had no need of money.
“Might I ask why a woman of your obvious breeding is out on such a night? On any night, really. You are clearly not one who belongs in these miserable surroundings, although I’m hard put to concede that anyone would belong here. Certainly not by choice.”
“I was searching for this,” Gemma lied. “My footman has gone off in that direction,” she pointed nearby, “and my driver is guarding the horses against theft. I have a few things to donate to the poor,” she said, indicating the bundle she clutched. “Nothing of worth,” she added hastily, lest he be tempted to have a look.
Mr Fitzsimmons smiled wryly, perceiving the lie and the reason for it, as well as her suspicion that he was less than virtuous. “I see,” he said. “In that case—”
Shadows appeared. Moving shadows that belonged to real people. Gemma saw three men carrying torches. And pistols.
But Mr Fitzsimmons had seen them first. Moving into the safety of the shadows, he grasped Gemma’s arm and pushed her back to the secluded spot under the bridge where she had previously hidden herself. Wrapped by the protection of the night, they were unseen. The voices of the men continued talking. Gemma did not need the urging of Mr Fitzsimmons’s finger pressed to his lips. She had no intention of giving away their location by speaking. She had experienced enough danger this night.
FOUR
In the shadows, Gemma and the Earl sat on the grass, which was still hard from winter. Close together, they availed themselves of the heat that their proximity afforded them. Gemma could not stop shaking, however. The Earl opened his coat and, wrapping his arm around her, pulled her into the folds of the garment so that she would receive added warmth.
She did not resist, even though she knew that the gesture was highly compromising. What did it matter? There was no one there to see, at least no one likely to disclose the event to the patronesses of Almack’s, Gemma thought derisively. She had not travelled among the swells before, and it was obvious that she would not be doing so in the future. Through no fault of her own, she would be facing calumny for whatever she did from this point on, she knew.
“These belongings for the poor,” the Earl whispered in her ear, “they seem uncommonly large.”
“They are . . . paintings,” she answered. “My family thinks that even a humble abode can be made cheerier by a landscape or a portrait.”
The Earl refrained from observing that a family so conscientious about the poor ought to have more concern when sending out a helpless female to exhibit such charitable impulses, but as he suspected that the subterfuge was entirely false, he kept his thoughts to himself.
“May I see them?” he asked, expecting to see trite recreations of the Bath seaside or representations of apple trees and gardens done in the untrained hand of a schoolgirl.
Gemma bit her lower lip, but there was no reason not to show him the paintings that Matilda had bundled together. Silently, still wary of the three armed men who had appeared, she unbound the knots in the cord that Matilda had used to wrap the paintings.
“They’re . . . not professional, of course,” Gemma said as the Earl examined them without a word.
“They’re just silly landscapes.”
“Devon?”
“You recognise it?” Gemma felt a tiny glow of pleasure that her work was, if amateur, at least recognisable as a scene from the county she called home.
“Certainly. I’m from Devon and before I joined the army, I spent much of my time there. The Fitzsimmonses have been Devonshire men since before the Tudors. I’d recognise this coastal scene if I were half blind. It is Plymouth, is it not? Is the artist from Plymouth?”
“Originally,” she told him.
“Fitzsimmons. There are Fitzsimmonses in Devon who live in the Hemsworth Hall. The Earl of Hemsworth is in line to the throne of England.”
“There’s only the Prince Regent, Princess Charlotte, and a smattering of Dukes and Marquess’ ahead of him,” the Earl replied with a smile.
“I fancy that he shall have to abandon any notions of wearing a crown. I should think the blasted thing is only good for headaches anyway.”
Gemma frowned. Was she hiding under a bridge with a man who was related to the royal family? Could he be the Fitzsimmons? Gemma swallowed hard. Based on the immaculate necktie that could rival Beau Brummel himself and the exquisite cut of his coat, he could be no other.
Her heart started beating erratically. Could this be one of the most eligible bachelors in Europe?
No, it could not be true. Fitzsimmons was not an uncommon name, after all. An esteemed gentleman like the Earl would have introduced himself. Satisfied with her conclusion, her mind was instantly more at ease. No, this man was not the Earl of Hemsworth.
***
“Are these paintings for sale?” the Earl asked abruptly. “I should like to own them. I am not in Devon as often as I would prefer to be and having landscapes like this would make London less alien to me.”
“I . . . They are. Except for the small one. That’s the village square in Tedstone. The artist is from there.”
“I know Tedstone. There’s a very old church there that dates from the early days of Christianity. Do you know it?”
“Yes,” Gemma replied eagerly. “It’s in ruins, you know, but it is very picturesque.”
The Earl laughed softly, taking care to avoid raising his voice to a level where it could be overheard.
He detected no signs that their attackers remained nearby, but he was taking no chances. It seemed very odd that he should have been beset by thugs. Of course, he reasoned, it was very odd that he was hiding beneath Westminster Bridge with an unnamed young lady he’d only met hours before. That said, ever since he had laid eyes on her, he had . . . He shook away the thought before it finished forming.
“Yes,” he agreed. “They are picturesque. Do you have a painting of the church? Or ruins, if you must be prosaic.”
“I did have, but . . . I no longer have the painting.”
It was on the wall in the music room where her aunt had spent much of her time. Now Lord Benton would have it. Doubtless it was one of the paintings he would sell to finance his wife’s funeral service.
“Could the artist do another?”
“No,” she answered.
Gemma knew her heart was not in it. Painting was her pleasure, but it was also where her heart sought refuge, and to recreate a painting that reminded her of her aunt’s death was not something she cared to do.
“No?”
“No,” she replied with her eyes downcast. It was exceedingly difficult to tell her rescuer an untruth. The intensity and mystery in his gaze was proving intoxicating.
“I have not seen the artist since leaving Devon and I am not sure when we will meet again.”
“I see. That’s a pity. There’s no chance, I suppose, that you are a protégé of the artist and could try your hand at it? I should be delighted to offer you space in my own living quarters w
here you could live and paint. It would all be most respectable, I assure you. I have a redoubtable great-aunt who would see to it that no harm came to either you or your reputation due to me.”
“I . . . must decline. My . . . family would not consent to such an arrangement,” she replied forlornly.
It would solve her immediate dilemma. But she could not become artist-in-residence for a young and virile man who would likely expect recompense for his hospitality. She had no legacy now but her virtue.
She was merely Gemma Blake, the orphaned daughter of Algernon and Felicia Blake.
Felicia had been disinherited when she married a poor curate instead of following her sister Ann’s example and marrying for a title.
Lady Benton had done her best to remedy the situation with generous gifts to her sister’s family, despite Lord Benton’s obvious disapproval.
Gemma caressed the locket around her neck which contained the likeness of her parents. She didn’t think that her parents had minded being less well off, because they felt themselves enriched by their love for one another.
Still, she was of humble stock and not suitable in social class or in professional standing to merit a patron. Never mind the scandal it would create for a woman to have a male patron.
“That’s a most generous offer, sir, but I cannot accept. Even with the chaperonage of your esteemed great-aunt,” she tried to smile and match his jolly tone, “I could not invite the inevitable scandal that would arise. It is not seemly for women to be artists in the first place, and if I were to take up residence in your home, I fear that my reputation would suffer.” She added, “As would yours.”
“I trust that I can conduct myself as a gentleman,” he said stiffly. “It is not my habit to ravish young ladies of good reputation.”
“I did not mean . . . I am sorry. Words do not always come forth with the meaning that I intended when I utter them,” she apologised.
“I suffer from the same affliction,” he admitted. “No apology is necessary.”