A Most Unseemly Summer

by Juliet Landon

  ‘But Sir Leon cannot be short of money, surely. And he’d not allow that to stand in his way, would he?’

  ‘Hah!’ Marcus barked with genuine regret, but appreciating the sudden pain in her eyes. ‘Houses and servants cost money to keep up, dear lady, as you well know. There’s not a man alive who can afford to ignore the wealth that comes with his chosen one, or the lack of it. She’ll need considerable funds to keep her happy. Court beauties come expensive, my lady, and none more so than the lovely Levina. That one demands the best of everything.’

  Heavy ice-crystals formed around Felice’s heart, chilling the blood in her veins. Lord Deventer’s notorious niece was the one he would have liked Felice to emulate more closely. She was about four years older than Felice, handsome rather than beautiful, overflowing with vitality, extravagance and style, demanding and holding the attention of everyone within her circle. The two of them had met only last year at the height of Felice’s grief over Father Timon, and her dislike of the dashing niece was then transparently mutual.

  Felice was no prude, but news of Levina’s persistent scandals which Lord Deventer found so diverting sounded to her more desperate than amusing, and the thought of Sir Leon being the favourite of her many lovers made Felice feel sick with disgust that he could show such little discrimination in his choice of women when he could have had the best.

  ‘What is it, my lady?’ Marcus asked, tenderly. ‘You are unwell?’

  ‘No,’ she whispered. ‘I saw the portrait you painted for Dame Audrey today. It’s beautiful. She’s very proud of it.’

  ‘Thank you. She should be; it’s one of my best.’

  ‘Did you know that Frances Vyttery had died?’

  ‘Oh, I heard. Summer sickness, I suppose.’

  ‘Yes, I suppose so. It must have cost Dame Audrey a great deal of money, Mr Donne. The portrait, I mean.’

  ‘I would paint your likeness for nothing, my lady.’

  ‘Well, thank you, but doesn’t one need a loved one to give it to?’

  ‘I have an idea. We will share it. I shall allow you to keep it for six months and then I have it for the next six. Then it would belong to both of us.’

  At last she smiled, liking the sound of his offer, but that night she wept bitter tears at the relentless inconstancy of her mind and the uncontrollable jealousy that twisted her innards. Now, it seemed that she must accept her heart’s involvement with a different existence in which her love for Timon bore no part. She had been used to calling it love, but the overwhelming emotion that now held her in its terrible grasp was something she could never have imagined. It was a sickness; a madness. Men died of it, she’d heard, and women, too. She could well believe it. It would have been more bearable if she had thought that his heart was similarly obsessed, but she knew that it could not be, and the notion that she might have to suffer this pain for the rest of her life was the blackest thought of all.

  Being a stranger to the real thing, Felice could hardly be expected to know the other side-effects of love—like anger, for instance, anger that she had not discovered more about the object of her desire before falling beneath his spell. It was unfair. Illogical. She was sure she would not have succumbed to this dreadful affliction if she had known he could love someone like Levina Deventer.

  Just as disturbing was Marcus Donne’s cynical implication that it was only Levina’s lack of a substantial inheritance that was keeping Sir Leon from marriage with her. After three years, what other reason could there be? Levina was the fourth child of Lord Deventer’s youngest brother and had therefore never been in the running for anything more than a modest allowance and the promise of a limited dowry. Her extravagances in London were largely financed by friends, lovers and sundry indulgent relatives, including her uncle, none of whom could be relied on to subscribe to a marriage-fund to line the purse of a prospective husband. Her father, with other offspring to finance, would never be as wealthy as his eldest brother whereas the Lady Felice Marwelle, as the eldest daughter of the late Sir Paul, was potentially wealthier by far than Levina could ever hope to be, for all her show.

  As dark hour after hour crawled by, these implications grew out of all proportion, finally convincing Felice that Sir Leon Gascelin’s real reason for taking her in hand was most likely to ingratiate himself into Lord Deventer’s favour, to obtain his permission to marry her and then to avail himself of her considerable marriage-portion which would allow him to set the abominable Levina up as his mistress in his London home. He would be able to squander it to his heart’s content while she, Felice, would be kept contentedly manicuring the gardens here at Wheatley near her mother and their growing family. Her mother would naturally be happy with the latter arrangement, and Lord Deventer with all of it.

  If love could turn to hate in an instant, the discovery of this ghastly plan would have turned the tables completely and for all time. Unfortunately, one of the other side-effects was that the two were often inexplicably entwined, and Felice found that she was unable to untangle them, being so new to love.

  Having sown the seeds, Marcus Donne sat back to watch with interest as the situation developed over the next few days, assuming that Felice’s increased interest in him was due to his escalating interest in her. Confident that his plan was working well, he saw nothing particularly significant in the tension that always surrounded the meetings between the lady and her guardian, not even when the sound of their voices could be heard above the hammering and sawing.

  He heard Felice’s fierce reprimand as he rounded the corner of the great staircase in the New House. ‘You’re impossible!’ she yelled. ‘And anyway, it’s my mother I’m trying to please, sir. If her tastes happen to disagree with yours, that’s unfortunate, but she’s the one who’ll be living here.’

  ‘I don’t care who’s going to live here,’ Sir Leon was heard to reply, ‘you’ll not cover those walls with painted cloths. It’s tapestries or nothing. You may have an old-fashioned mother, but I have a reputation.’

  It sounded to Marcus as if the lady was walking away, but then a door slammed and the argument continued. ‘If you must bawl at me, do it when we don’t have an audience of workmen. I’ve not brought enough tapestries with me from Sonning for all these walls. If you’d built them to fit the hangings, as other builders do—’

  ‘Other builders can do what they like. And if you’d spend more time preparing some lists instead of posing for our limner friend, you’d know more about what was needed up here.’

  Marcus heard a rattle of paper and saw a flash of white. ‘What d’ye think this is? Whilst you’ve been fiddling about out there, I’ve been in here since early morning making lists as long as my arm. And what good will that do when I’ve no way of getting to the merchants? Shall I walk to Winchester?’

  ‘Give them to me. I’ll see they get there.’

  ‘Not on your life, sir. You’d change everything on them. And what I do with Mr Donne is not your concern.’

  ‘It’s very much my concern, my lady. Don’t get too friendly,’ Sir Leon snapped.

  ‘Why ever not?’

  Marcus strained to catch the reply but the door nearest him was the next to close, and all their words were cut off.

  ‘Because,’ Sir Leon said, speaking more quietly, ‘our friend’s interest tends to gravitate from a lady’s face with alarming speed. Don’t say I’ve not warned you.’

  Contemptuously, Felice turned to go. ‘Then you two have more in common than I thought, sir. I bid you good day. I must not keep him waiting any longer. Thank you for another warning, but I find his attentions more appealing than yours.’

  His stride reached her before she reached the door. ‘His attentions? What are you saying? Has he touched you?’ His eyes were suddenly like cold steel, demanding the truth of the matter.

  But Felice was determined to press the point, even if it hurt her most. ‘Yes,’ she said, refusing to lower her eyes modestly. ‘Yes, he has. He took my chin and moved my head into the co
rrect position. He has such gentle hands, Sir Leon.’

  He placed a hand on the wall to prevent her escape. ‘Is that so, lady? Well, then, allow me to remind you yet again that if ever his hands stray into your guardian’s territory, he’ll be on the road to London faster than you can blink. Do I make myself clear?’

  ‘No, sir. You are being your usual obscure self, I fear. A guardian may not claim any part of his ward as his territory, especially without her permission.’

  ‘I can easily prove you wrong on that point also. Do you wish for a demonstration? I can oblige,’ he said, lowering his head to hers.

  ‘Your concern for my safety is touching, Sir Leon, but it sits rather at odds with your offer. Am I to believe that you want for yourself what you would deny your friend?’

  ‘Believe what you wish, but as soon as your mind has decided to accept what your body is telling you, we can have a more serious discussion on the matter. Until then, lady, stop playing games and get on with what you’re supposed to be doing, for all our sakes. Is that any clearer?’

  ‘But for one small point. By “games” I suppose you mean having my likeness painted?’

  ‘Now who’s being obscure?’ He opened the door to let her pass.

  It was not the outcome to the argument she had wanted, having left her with no score to speak of in her favour. And having felt at one point as if she might win, she was now left with a far-from-winning smile to greet Mr Donne on the stairway.

  ‘Yes,’ she answered his call, rather too loudly. ‘I’m coming down. There’s little more I can do up here until I get more co-operation.’

  It was made no easier for her to accept Sir Leon’s warnings by knowing that they were to some extent justified, if a little exaggerated. While finding it impossible not to like Mr Donne, and not to be impressed by his painting ability, she was well aware that his interest was not confined to her face alone.

  If anything, his attitude towards her was intensifying from the friendly to the lover-like, and Felice’s jibe about his gentle hands was not entirely a device to rouse her guardian’s anger. The painter’s hand had strayed only yesterday to the nape of her neck where a tendril of hair had been caught by her starched collar, and she knew that the caress that followed was not part of the rescue. It had interested rather than aroused her, for though Marcus Donne’s fair good looks had a certain attraction, his manner was too similar to Timon’s to be comfortable, which she now understood to be a diluted version of the real thing.

  Nevertheless, despite Sir Leon’s obvious concern, Felice was quite sure she could manage the situation and emerge unscathed with a portrait, for what she had purposely failed to tell Sir Leon was that Mistress Lydia had been with them at every sitting, so far. Marcus had made use of the excellent light in the large chamber above Felice’s, the windows on both sides giving superb views of the conventual buildings on one side and the river and woodland on the other.

  After a two-hour session, Marcus took advantage of Lydia’s departure down the stairs to approach Felice as she looked through the window to the courtyard below. He slipped an arm about her waist and held her, gently, speaking just below her ear. ‘Perhaps you could find a task for Mistress Lydia to do at our next sitting, do you think? There are one or two areas I’d like to examine in more detail. In private.’

  The temptation to defy Sir Leon, even for the wrong reasons, was strong, but so was the memory of his hands on her, his potent kisses. Voices from the stairway interrupted them and, taking Marcus’s hand, she peeled it away and slid it to one side, giving him no answer.

  Dame Celia Aycombe, the vicar’s homely wife, appeared in the doorway, her face glowing with the exertion of two flights of stairs. ‘My dears,’ she said, ‘how are things progressing?’

  ‘Coming along nicely,’ said Marcus. ‘Another day or two, perhaps.’

  Chapter Six

  With Dame Celia, Felice found some respite from Sir Leon’s seemingly constant differences of opinion on everything ranging from the decoration on the walls to the size of the candlesticks. But as they walked together through the spacious rooms of the New House, the dame’s sympathy was not quite of the same order as Marcus Donne’s.

  ‘He does have such very good taste though, my dear,’ Dame Celia said. ‘He knows all the latest trends; indeed, I believe his is the latest trend.’

  ‘Tapestries on walls are nothing new, Dame Celia. That’s what he’s insisting on in the best bedchamber.’

  ‘Jan van der Straet’s are,’ she said. ‘Sir Leon was one of the first to use his designs here in England before he was snapped up by the Medici in Florence. There’s no one here who can compete with the Flemings, you know. I’d follow Sir Leon’s advice every time.’

  Felice’s resistance to the surveyor’s ideas had not been based on any sense of her own superiority but on her mother’s strong preferences that had collected the showiest items from the homes of three husbands and crammed them all together. To Lady Deventer, if you had it, you showed it, discrimination being an excuse for not having it. This placed Felice in some difficulty since she could easily predict how her mother would react to Sir Leon’s restrained elegance.

  They entered the best bedchamber through a nest of smaller rooms with cupboards as big as closets. Even without furnishings, everything was proportionate and pleasing to the eye.

  Dame Celia had not missed the ups and downs of Felice’s relationships. ‘I’m glad you and Marcus are such good friends. When will the portrait be finished? Are you pleased so far?’

  Felice swept a hand across a sawdust-covered window-seat and sat sideways to the view beyond. ‘I hope it will be as attractive as Dame Audrey’s,’ she said. ‘Was Frances an only child?’

  ‘The only one,’ Dame Celia said, opening a door on the far side of the room. ‘Where does this lead?’

  ‘Nowhere. It’s a maid’s room, I think. What did she die of?’

  ‘Your mother will be needing a new nursery nearby. Does she breast-feed or use a wet-nurse? What did she die of?’ she repeated, closing the door. ‘Childbirth, my dear. They lost the baby, too. Very sad business.’

  Felice knew how common such deaths were but this was something she had not expected to hear. ‘But…she wasn’t married, was she?’

  ‘Frances? No, dear, she wasn’t. That makes it even sadder.’

  ‘What happened, Dame Celia?’

  The lady was preoccupied with the pattern of gilded knot-work on the ceiling. ‘Lovely…lovely,’ she whispered. ‘Well, she was sent off to have her child in Winchester with one of Audrey’s friends who lives at the Sisterne House—you know, the home for sisters who’d been at the nunneries in the area. Of course she’d have been allowed back to live with my brother’s family here in Wheatley if she’d lived—not as a lady’s maid, but they’d have found some kind of work for her, if only so that she could leave the child with her parents. Such a silly girl, getting herself caught like that.’

  The sun sparkled on the river, sending shimmering diamonds across its surface, and Felice wondered for a fleeting moment what she was doing there in that strangely echoing room, hearing about the tragic death of an unknown woman whom this kindly woman was calling silly. ‘Who was the father?’ she asked. ‘Do you know?’

  Dame Celia’s short laugh held no humour. ‘Oh, it could have been one of several men, I believe. She never lacked for admirers in London, and my brother and his wife entertained almost constantly. It was hushed up in case my brother was held responsible for the girl’s safety, but if a lass is determined to court danger, she will, no matter what her employers do to prevent it. I feel sorry for the Vytterys. They’d have loved a grandchild.’

  ‘And did they hold your brother responsible, dame?’

  ‘No, I don’t think so. They’ve been very philosophical about it, though I doubt not that they’re still grieved.’

  ‘She was a lovely woman.’

  ‘Yes, a lot like you in some respects, dark-eyed and the same independent s
pirit. Everyone loved her.’ She wandered off into the next room, calling back to Felice, ‘Now this could be the nursery, my lady. Come and see what you think.’

  ‘Marcus Donne!’ Felice said emphatically to Lydia at supper that evening. ‘There can’t be any doubt about it.’

  Lydia disagreed. ‘I don’t know how you can be so sure when Dame Celia believes it could have been one of several. Besides, he wouldn’t…’

  ‘He would, Lydie! And he painted her portrait in London and that means he had plenty of time to get to know her. Look how fast he tried to impose himself on me. Nobody’s safe with him, even Sir Leon told me that. I saw the weeping in her eyes on that portrait.’

  ‘I still think you’re being too hasty. He’s a flirt, and maybe he goes a bit too far when he thinks he can get away with it, but he’d not last long as an artist if he sired a brat every time he paints a woman’s portrait.’

  ‘That’s as may be, but I believe Sir Leon knows more about Marcus’s reasons for being here instead of in London. Keeping out of someone’s way, I suspect. Well, I’m not going to sit for him again, Lydie. A man who can carry on as if nothing had happened in those circumstances is an unprincipled wretch, and I want nothing more to do with him or his portrait.’

  For the next few days, Felice made herself unavailable to the fervent, if puzzled, Mr Donne until he came to realise that something other than the pressure of work was causing a hiatus. Careful to make no particular mention of the problem to Sir Leon in case it should be misconstrued, it was none the less only a matter of time before the observant surveyor noticed what was happening. Or rather, what was not happening.

  ‘Four days?’ he said to the limner. ‘Of course she’s available. She’s been keeping out of my way too, but at least I know why. Which is more than you seem to, my friend. What happened at the last sitting?’

  ‘I painted. She sat,’ Marcus snapped. ‘What else can I tell you?’