The Portrait of Lady Wycliff

by Cheryl Bolen

  She took the money and put it into her sewing bag. "I'm very grateful to you, Williams."

  "It's grateful to you I am, Mrs. Phillips, for not puttin' me out on the street."

  She smiled at him, hoping she could continue to put a roof over his head. If only she could find a nice little cottage that didn't cost so very much. Then perhaps she wouldn't have to dismiss Cook and Williams. Like her, they had nowhere to go.

  After he left the room, Louisa put away her sewing and took up her pen. She had best concentrate on her writing. Every shilling counted, and it looked as if she was going to have to earn her keep — and Ellie's and Cook's and Williams' — through her writing.

  But no sooner had she dipped her quill than Ellie moved into the room with a length of sarcenet. "I do believe I'll begin a new dress. Mr. Coke is sure to think I possess but two dresses."

  Louisa looked up at her lovely sister. "And what Mr. Coke thinks matters to you?"

  Ellie giggled. "Despite that he's a man, and you hate men, Mr. Coke is all that is amiable. Can you not agree?" She fixed her sister with a smile.

  "I know nothing bad about him," Louisa said, "though I must say I don't think of him as a man. He seems rather boyish to me."

  "He's three and twenty." Ellie said this as if she were saying he was a hundred.

  My own age, Louisa thought, realizing that she was not so very old after all. Actually, she would not be that age until her next birthday.

  Compared to his elder cousin, Edward Coke seemed neither manly nor mature. Thinking of Lord Wycliff, she imagined she heard his voice. A moment later, Williams confirmed that he and his cousin were downstairs.

  Ellie's hand flew to her hair. "I cannot go downstairs until I make myself more presentable."

  Louisa smiled as she rose and spoke to her sister. "I'll tell them you will be down in five minutes."

  "Five minutes! That's not nearly enough time," Ellie protested.

  Louisa attempted to sound firm. "That will be enough time, my pet." Then she strolled from the room and told herself that if that wretched Lord Wycliff were standing at the bottom of the stairs gazing admirably up at her again, she would completely ignore him. I will not let the man's attention rattle me.

  Fortunately, he was in the morning room, not at the bottom of the stairs. Unfortunately, he stood when she entered the room, and as always his eyes lingered admiringly over her from the top of her head to the tip of her satin shoes.

  She tried to ignore him. This she did by addressing his cousin first. "Mr. Coke, how good it is to see you and your cousin." An almost imperceptive nod was directed at Lord Wycliff.

  Not to be ignored, Lord Wycliff stepped forward, swept into a bow, then took Louisa's hand and pressed his lips to it. For a bit longer than necessary.

  Curse him! She chose to address Mr. Coke again. "My sister will be down in a moment."

  "Capital!" he said. "'Tis a lovely day. I thought to persuade her to do me the honor of accompanying me on another walk in the square."

  "Which is an excellent plan," Lord Wycliff added, looking at Louisa, "for I have business of a very personal nature to discuss with you, Mrs. Phillips."

  Good lord! He's looking at me again with those dangerously dark eyes. The way he said 'personal' brought colour to her cheeks. Now she was acting more the schoolgirl than Ellie.

  Soon Ellie was in the room, and then she wasn't. And no one was there except for Lord Wycliff and his wretched eyes. Louisa got up and walked to the window and watched her sister, who was dressed in light blue, as Ellie put their key into the lock on the gate to the park in the center of Grosvenor Square.

  Louisa turned back and faced Lord Wycliff. "What is it you wish to discuss with me, my lord?"

  "First," he said, "I wish to discuss the most brilliant piece of writing — of philosophy — I've ever read."

  "Pray, of what author do you speak?" she asked as she moved toward him, her brows lifted.

  "Jeremy Bentham. I've just read his Classification of Offenses. You had told me about it, but this was the first time I had actually read it."

  Now her eyes brightened as she went to sit on the settee. "He presents it all so logically and with such ease, one is instantly baffled as to why no one ever proposed so simple a solution to imprisonment before." Lord Wycliff suddenly saw the light.

  He smiled as he came to sit on the settee across from her. "My feelings exactly. Classifications have been commonplace since the days of Plato's dialogues. That it has taken us hundreds of years to apply classification to punishable acts is incomprehensible.”

  "I agree completely!" she said. "It should have been as obvious to us as the noses on our faces."

  "If Mr. Bentham never wrote another word, his Classification of Offenses would have been enough to secure his position as one of the world's greatest thinkers."

  Louisa beamed at Lord Wycliff. "I am so very happy you understand."

  "And I am so thankful to you."

  She faced him, her brow hitching. Had he not said he wished to speak to her of something personal? "You said first you wished to discuss Mr. Bentham. Pray, what else did you wish to discuss?"

  "My lack of success with your solicitor yesterday."

  She sank back into the settee. "Then you were unable to coerce him into giving you the information you desired?"

  "The man was impervious to my money."

  "How novel, my lord."

  "Come and sit beside me, Mrs. Phillips. I dislike shouting across the room."

  For reasons she would never understand, she obeyed the arrogant man and sat on the settee next to him. "I am here, my lord. Are you happy?"

  His eyes looked black today. And they sparkled with mirth. "My, but you are a saucy vixen."

  "Do I take that for a compliment?"

  He could not seem to repress his smile. He settled back and pinned her with a knowing stare. "How much did the late Mr. Phillips's things fetch?"

  A flash of anger swept over her face, and she stiffened. "How do you know so much about my affairs?"

  "Because I need all the leverage I can get."

  "And your vast amounts of money cannot buy that?"

  "I don't know. I'm prepared to settle a handsome sum on you for the information I failed to obtain from Mr. Twining."

  "The identity of my husband's benefactor?"

  He nodded, a morose expression on his handsome face.

  "That I cannot give you. I honestly do not know the man's identity."

  * * *

  He gave her a long look. Gone was her flippancy. And her anger. She was telling the truth.

  His face was grim, his voice low when he spoke. "You really don't know, do you?"

  She shook her head.

  "Did your husband never discuss the man?" God but he hated to call the despicable man her husband.

  "Only to tell me to stay above stairs when a lone man came two or three times a year. A man — I think he's a lord — who my husband addressed with great reverence — and great secrecy."

  That would fit, Harry thought. "Did you ever get a glimpse of the man?"

  "Actually I did, once, from a very great distance."

  Before she could say more, Ellie and Mr. Coke burst into the room. "You will never believe it!" Ellie squealed. "Even though the sun is shining, it has begun to rain!"

  Ellie and Edward were not so wet that they could not sit down and join in the conversation, which soon turned to Jeremy Bentham's impending visit for a speaking engagement in London.

  "I cannot believe that I will actually get to hear the great man in the flesh," Ellie exclaimed.

  Edward cast a bemused glance at his cousin while Harry made every effort to show the proper respect toward the ladies' pontificating idol. That deuced Edward had better not betray him. It was imperative that the widow believe he enthusiastically shared her political views.

  "When will we have the pleasure to hear Mr. Bentham's address?" Harry asked.

  "He comes next week."

>   Hopefully he would be spared the boredom of hearing Bentham. Hopefully, by next week he would have the information he sought.

  Chapter 6

  Louisa was grateful for the opportunity to stay home this evening. She really must put pen to paper to turn out another essay. In the past her essays were the result of strong feelings she wanted to express about the rights of man — and of women. Now, though, she sought to write merely for the money. She felt guilty writing for the wrong reasons, writing solely for the money.

  She had been sitting here for the past hour trying to decide upon a topic. With no vituperative feelings begging to come forward, her pen was stilled. She could write about the franchise, but she had already done that. Child labor, prison reform, and birth control were subjects that also had been addressed by her.

  She looked up at her sister, who sat across from her, sewing on her new dress. Ellie's face lifted, and she caught Louisa's stare, taking it as permission to speak. "Are your writing one of your famous essays, Mr. Lewis?" A cocky expression lighted her youthful face, and she giggled.

  Louisa sighed. "If only my muse would return." She put down her pen. "What are you sewing?"

  Ellie's voice became animated. "A promenade dress for one of my wonderful walks with Mr. Coke."

  "Whatever do the two of you find to talk about during these walks?"

  A far-away look in her eyes, a satisfied countenance on her face, Ellie answered. "Mr. Coke and I have a great deal in common. First of all, he is as enamored of his cousin as I am of my elder sister. Then there is the fact that we were both tutored at home. We are both country bred. And he is just so very amusing.

  "There is more to him than that," Ellie went on. "He allows me to expound endlessly on the merits of Mr. Bentham and on the wisdom imparted in Mr. Lewis's essays, and I believe I'm converting him to our way of thinking — which is rather a coup, given that he hails from a noble family."

  "You must not be impressed by the circumstances of his birth. Remember that his class has done nothing to earn respect."

  "He tells me Lord Wycliff built his fortune by his own cunning after his father squandered away their lands and possessions. Do you not find that commendable?"

  "I would find it far more commendable were Lord Wycliff to give his fortune to the poor," Louisa said.

  "As much as I want to agree with you, I find that notion most unrealistic."

  Louisa sighed. "You are, of course, right. I suppose the most I can hope for is that Lord Wycliff and others like him use their influence in Parliament to enact laws beneficial to the less fortunate."

  Ellie's gaze flitted to the pen and paper before her sister. "You cannot believe how difficult it is for me to withhold your authorship from Mr. Coke. I am so very proud of you, and so close to him that it is quite an accomplishment for me not to confide in him."

  Louisa's face clouded. "I beg that you never even consider revealing my identity to the gentleman – or to anyone. It's imperative that no one ever suspect I am a female – I mean, that Mr. Lewis is a female. If his gender were to become known, my work would never again have the opportunity to be widely distributed."

  "Don't fear, Louisa. I shall never reveal that you are Philip Lewis."

  "Labor unification!" Louisa smiled as she picked up her pen and began to write furiously.

  * * *

  Edward looked at the dog-eared volume reposing in his cousin's lap across the carriage from him. The sunlight reflected off the worn gilt on the edge of the pages. "Surely you're not going to tell Mrs. Phillips you read the book last night when you spent the whole of the evening at your club and didn't make it home until daylight!"

  A sly smile slid across Harry's tanned face. "I thumbed through it enough to expound to her on its merits."

  "You can't believe that ridiculous poppycock in those foolish treatises."

  "Oh course not, my good man, but if I hope to accomplish my goals, I must have the widow on my side, and the best way to gain her trust is to feign appreciation for her bloody do-gooding reforms."

  "But you even indicated to Lord Seymour that you sympathized with the reformers."

  "I did no such thing," Harry protested. "I merely introduced him to a beautiful young woman, who then expounded on her beliefs as I stood silently beside her." The thought of how lovely Mrs. Phillips had been the night of Lord Seymour's ball left Harry weak inside and anxious to see her today. The woman was indeed a feast for the eyes. For the remainder of the carriage ride to his former home he reflected pleasurably on her silky skin and golden hair and the perfect oval of her incredible face.

  And he grew impatient to see her.

  * * *

  The foursome seemed to have fallen into a pattern. Mr. Coke and Ellie would walk in the park that centered Grosvenor Square while Louisa and Lord Wycliff discussed the latest reading she had given him. As they had done on the previous day, Harry and Louisa sat next to each other on a settee in the library.

  Despite her distrust of peers, Louisa had bestowed her favor on Lord Wycliff, whose earnestness impressed her. He had even told her he would take his seat in Parliament. This was obviously her most important conquest to date, and she owed it to him to help him regain his property so that he could fulfill his duties.

  "When we were interrupted yesterday," he said, "you were saying that you once saw the man you believe was your husband's benefactor."

  She settled back on the settee, crossing her legs at the ankles. "Yes, I thought about it a great deal last night, and I've decided the mysterious man must be Godwin's benefactor, though the Lord only knows why a man like Godwin would merit a benefactor."

  "I have some idea," he said bitterly.

  She gave him a probing look, then continued. "I only caught a glimpse of him once, and Godwin would have. . ." she hesitated a moment. "He would have been extremely angry with me had he known I peeked from over the upstairs balustrade to see the man."

  Harry's eyes flashed. "What did the benefactor look like?"

  "He was quite old. Older even than Godwin. And he had silver hair. He was tall, yet stooped, and I think he must have been handsome as a younger man."

  "Could you identify him if you saw him again?" Lord Wycliff asked.

  She thought for a moment. "I believe I could."

  "Tell me," he said, "how long had your husband's valet been with him?"

  "I don't really know. For many years. He was here when I came."

  "Where is he now?"

  "He's here. He's training to be my butler, but I don't know how long I'll be able to afford to keep him."

  From nowhere Lord Wycliff's large hand curled around her forearm. "That husband of yours left you nothing?" Lord Wycliff asked, his voice tender and concerned.

  She gave a bitter laugh. "Nothing."

  "Death was too good for him."

  She agreed, but would not admit it aloud.

  He removed his hand. "Do you suppose his valet would know the identity of the benefactor?"

  "I can ask."

  His voice softened again. "I appreciate all you've done for me, especially since trusting a peer was repugnant to you but a few weeks ago."

  She tossed back her head and laughed. "Oh, it's still repugnant, but in your case, I am learning to trust you. You've made an impressive effort to amend your ways." She got to her feet. "I'll go talk to Williams now."

  * * *

  He watched as she walked from the room, her back straight and her step light. She was a joy to watch.

  While he waited for her to return, Harry cursed his own deceit. He had done many things that made him ashamed, but this deception stung deeper and with more regret.

  She was such a passionate little thing, bursting with ideas and schemes to aid the masses. She had enough on her plate without having to worry about surviving with no money. Damn Godwin Phillips. Harry did not know if he hated the man more for treating his lovely wife so shabbily or for yanking her from the schoolroom and veritably purchasing her. His hand fiste
d, and he shocked himself by uttering a curse.

  He got up and walked to the window and watched Ellie Sinclair and Edward walk about the small park. Edward seemed genuinely fond of the girl. God knows, she was pretty enough. She was a more youthful version of her sister. But she seemed so much younger and, frankly, stupid. He could not imagine Louisa Phillips ever having been so silly and carefree.

  Then, with a thud in the vicinity of his heart, he realized Louisa Phillips had long been a married woman by the time she was Ellie's age. And he once again cursed Godwin Phillips.

  He turned from the window, deliberately kicking his boot against the patterned carpet as he did so. The least Harry could do for the poor widow was to see her settled in a little home. Perhaps that would assuage his conscience.

  Damn, she trusts me, he thought with shame.

  When she returned to the room, he read disappointment on her face. "Any luck?"

  She shook her head, then returned to the settee. "Like me, he knew of the man's importance to Godwin, but Godwin was careful to shield the man's identity. Williams does know where the man came from, though."

  A smile on his face, Harry sat down. "And, pray, where might that be?" He was getting close.

  "Somewhere in Cornwall. And I was right about him being a lord. Williams confirmed it. Apparently the man was somewhat of a recluse."

  Harry's mind spun. He tried to remember a lord from Cornwall, but the only one he knew — Lord Robartes — was an honorable man who took his seat in the House of Lords and was far from being a recluse. There must be any number of lords residing in Cornwall. The problem was to find one. The right one.

  Say!" Harry said. "Have you a Debrett's?"

  She got up and went straight to the book. "How clever of you!" She began to thumb through its pages. "Though I daresay it will take hours to go through all these names and titles and determine which of them live in Cornwall."

  He took the tome from her. "We'll need paper and pen."

  "Of course. We shall have to draw up a list." She went to the desk drawer and removed several sheets of velum and set them on top. Then she pushed a second armchair up to the desk. "Come Lord Wycliff, we can both sit here."