Fair Cyprians of London Boxset: Books 1-5: Five passionate Victorian Romances

by Beverley Oakley

  Yet in a few sentences, she’d succinctly summarised the situation with which he and his father had grappled during long dinner conversations these past months.

  He wished his father could have heard Miss Montague speak just now.

  And then remembered his father must never know of Miss Montague’s existence or the fact that Crispin was painting.

  “You have a remarkable grasp on the situation, Miss Montague,” he allowed. “Where did you pick up such information?”

  “I read a lot.”

  Her face was turned up to the sun, and her lids had drifted sleepily closed while a contented smile played about her lips. In her hands, she held a small posy of flowers he’d placed there for artistic value. Now, as he gazed at her, he was struck by a sensation he was completely unable to identify. He frowned as his eyes roamed the length of her. She was a beauty, and she seemed entirely unaware of the fact.

  What else was in that mind of hers? He could wonder for it went without saying that any other part of her was out of bounds.

  Into the lengthening silence, she volunteered on a small sigh, “There’s not much a girl like me can do except read…and do other people’s bidding.” She blinked open her eyes suddenly and smiled. It was like a shadow giving way to the sun. Her eyes were pools of crystal water; her skin dew-brushed petals.

  “Don’t move!” he cried again, dipping his paintbrush into a blob of colour on the palette. “Keep smiling. You don’t smile enough. Yes, that was the problem before.”

  Feverishly he returned to work. He’d thought a pensive creature suited the mood of what he sought to recreate. But that was before her lightness had transformed his work. His world. She was all vibrancy and life, not a half-dead creature lying languidly amongst the grass. Not a girl living a half life, burdened by a destiny that would not be of her choosing. He’d not thought any of this, but it flashed through his mind in a blinding maelstrom of insight—replacing in the vacuum left behind only the fear that he hadn’t the talent to capture the exquisite purity, the joyful radiance of a young woman, in that moment, uninhibited and alive.

  She gave him a few minutes to satisfy the call of genius and then said lightly, “Ah, but I thought the problem was that you were too serious, Mr Westaway. I was afraid I’d fall in your estimation if I allowed my frivolous nature to reveal itself.”

  She was teasing him. The chit of a girl so beneath him in age, station, and everything else was smiling her amusement with all the consummate confidence of a dowager holding forth in a salon.

  And he was entranced.

  He returned her smile, but beneath the veneer of a sudden shared camaraderie, lurked an uncomfortable realisation that she was becoming just a little too interesting.

  He’d have to bring the session to an early finish.

  “Thank you, Miss Montague.”

  Her mouth dropped open as he nodded, suddenly brisk as he began to clean his brushes. He was sorry his words sounded unaccountably clipped and tried to ameliorate with a smile any sense she might have that he was displeased with her.

  “You have been a wonderful subject.”

  “Surely, you’ve not finished the painting, Mr Westaway? May I look?” Once she’d got over her surprise, her good nature seemed to have returned, and he was grateful. Relations between them must be utterly proper, verging on formal even—if he were to do what he had to do. Paint the picture that would satisfy his artistic urges, so he could do his father’s bidding and concentrate on more important matters in the world.

  “Of course, though it is very raw in its current form.”

  He was too conscious of her closeness when she came to stand beside him, pointing out various flourishes she liked, admiring the work that fed his desperate need to be recognised for what was most important to him in the world—his art.

  He stepped away slightly and glanced from the beautiful, smiling girl whose head came up just above his shoulder, to the withered, sleeping woman in the wicker chair beneath the apple tree. The contrast between the two suddenly overwhelmed him with possibilities, and without thinking, he put his hands on her shoulders to move her into a position in the foreground where her youthful bloom would shine as the subject, and the old woman in the background, surrounded by fallen apples, would be the juxtaposition.

  Fuelled by artistic excitement, he cupped her cheek. Smooth. The essence of eternal youth. Her halo of golden hair would complete the picture. It would be better than anything he’d done. His head throbbed with excitement, and unconsciously, he stroked the beautifully rendered contours of her brow, nose, and cheek. Her lips. Yes…this was the angle.

  And then, as his fragmented vision for what could be coalesced into what was, he saw that she’d closed her eyes and raised her face to his.

  She was anticipating a kiss? A plethora of emotions slammed through him. First and foremost was the desire to respond, but fast on its heels was the realisation that succumbing to such desire would doom them both. He swallowed, and she opened her eyes in time to catch his confusion.

  Quickly, he said, “I want to paint you exactly as you are and in just that position…that alignment with your chaperone just behind, still sleeping, is perfect. Please indulge me a few minutes longer, Miss Montague?”

  “Of course.” She pressed her lips together, and as the hot blush spread from her bosom upwards, he cursed himself for putting either of them in such a position.

  Channelling his frustrated desire into artistic energy he worked quickly, teasing out the expressions with a few accurate strokes, throwing the entire mood he’d wanted to create right onto the canvas.

  It was done in a flash of time, a blur of colour, and he was breathing quickly when he put down his paintbrush and was ready to…

  Dismiss her?

  Yes, that’s what he had to do if he was to get through this unscathed.

  “You’ve been marvellous, Miss Montague,” he declared with false bonhomie. “I’ve never had a better model. So still, so...”

  “So obedient?” She was smiling that artless smile of hers, and he wondered if she had any inkling of the trauma he’d just been through.

  But of course she would have no idea. She was very young but, yes, very obedient. Well trained would perhaps be apt, for once she’d recovered from the moment of awkwardness over the nearly kiss, she was as perfectly composed and well behaved as any demure debutante needed to be in order to prosper in society.

  “Very obedient!” he said on a laugh which broke the ice and woke Lady Vernon, who now called out peevishly for her charge to fetch her sticks and help her to her feet.

  “Will you require another sitting, Mr Westaway?” Lady Vernon asked as they prepared to leave. “I trust she was everything for which you’d hoped. She’s not very experienced, but she wanted very much to please, didn’t you, Faith?”

  “With nine brothers and sisters, that’s my primary duty, Lady Vernon. To please.” She speared him with a look of amusement that insinuated itself more than it should. Was she sharing a secret joke with him? If she were older, more experienced in the ways of the world, he’d have known that’s what she was doing.

  “A great trial you obviously bear very well, Miss Montague,” he managed as the safest response he could come up with. “And I’m delighted with today’s progress. Thank you for your consummate professionalism for I have managed to get down everything I need and can work on the rest at my leisure. No, I won’t require another sitting.”

  She nodded and gave a half curtsey. “Glad to have obliged, Mr Westaway. In that case, I daresay we shall return to London in the morning.” She glanced at Lady Vernon for corroboration, but the old woman shook her head.

  “We’ve booked the room for a few more days, and these weary old bones of mine aren’t up to a return trip to the hustle and bustle of the city just yet. Where would you suggest we go for a short sightseeing trip, Mr Westaway? You know the area.”

  Faith had grown up a country girl. Until the age of twelve, the crampe
d cottage she shared with her nine siblings and parents in the Welsh Borderlands had epitomised all she wanted to escape. At thirteen, she’d gone into service and learned the ways of the gentry. She’d learned how they spoke and watched how they behaved.

  Now, the rolling countryside of the West-Midland Vales with its elm-fringed water meadows of the Severn and Avon, and orchards laden with damson, cherry, apple, and pear, represented freedom.

  Even if just for a day or two.

  That morning, they’d traipsed through the town of Stratford-Upon-Avon, imbibing the history of the Great Bard, William Shakespeare and, later, learned of efforts expended by the actor David Garrick whose Shakespeare Jubilee the previous century had contributed to turning it into a tourist town.

  This was the kind of safe, prescribed sightseeing Lady Vernon preferred. Faith would have preferred to delay their journey amidst the lush green fields and go for a meandering walk in the woods. This, of course, was out of the question due to Lady Vernon’s infirmity, though she’d proved nimble enough in town until clearly worn out in the Guild Chapel where she now sank into a pew to gaze at the medieval paintings in the nave.

  “Five minutes, and no longer, and then we must have lunch at the teahouse at the end of the road,” she announced between wheezes. The sunlight that streamed through the stained-glass windows was not kind to her, highlighting the sagging bags of wrinkles under her eyes and the energetic spouting of hairs from the fleshy mole on her chin.

  “We can rest longer if you like,” Faith said, determined to be amenable and charitable. She knew Lady Vernon would be reporting back to Mrs Gedge on Faith’s success which, to date, had been negligible. Staring at the old woman, she wondered if Lady Vernon had ever had a modicum of good looks before her mouth had caved in and age had stuck its claws into her.

  The reflection sent fear like a frisson of electricity up her spine, reminding her that she only had a handful of years, herself, in which to cement her own future. A future which, she’d assumed, would be assured by the conclusion of her visit to the Cotswolds. Mr Westaway should have been eating out of her hands by now.

  “We need to be at Mrs Bromley’s Corner Teahouse by one o’ clock,” Lady Vernon announced, consulting her watch, and the way she said it made it clear there was a very good reason for this. Something to do with Mr Westaway, Faith presumed.

  Correctly, it transpired, when Lady Vernon fixed a pair of beetling eyes upon her and said, “You could at least pretend interest in the young man. I thought you were as anxious as your benefactress to expedite this little matter and claim your reward.”

  She made it sound so sordid.

  Which, Faith supposed, it was.

  “I like him very much, and I’ve hinted so, obliquely, which is all a well-brought-up girl like myself can do. With all due respect, you’ve been asleep most of the time, Lady Vernon.”

  “Well-brought-up…” Lady Vernon repeated on a decidedly ill-bred snort, thought Faith as she resisted the urge to offer a tart rejoinder. Too much hinged on Lady Vernon’s good offices and while, before she’d sat for Mr Westaway, she could afford to talk back, her current failure could only be laid at her door. What was Mrs Gedge going to say?

  Her earlier frisson of fear for her future paid a return visit and settled about her like a cloak ‘which old men huddle about their love, as if to keep it warm.’ Since they were in the town of the old bard, it seemed appropriate to borrow his quote for personal use. Faith had read much of Shakespeare and King Lear was her favourite.

  “Yes, this old church is as cold as the grave and it’s time we settled ourselves for lunch,” Lady Vernon announced, mistaking Faith’s shiver of fearful foreboding.

  “So, Mr Westaway knows we’ll be at Mrs Bromley’s Teahouse then?”

  Lady Vernon sent her an arch look over her shoulder as they trod the thin red carpet down the nave towards the open double doors. “Of course he does. Someone has to keep you on the right path if you’re to succeed in this venture. I’d have hoped Mr Westaway would be eating out of your hands by now.”

  “There’s not been much time.” Faith gritted her teeth as she obediently followed Lady Vernon’s wraith-like shadow down the nave. “I can’t let him think I’m fast.”

  “No, a girl brought up in a brothel could hardly let a gentleman think that, could she?”

  Faith wasn’t sure she’d heard correctly for the muffled words were indistinct and partly swallowed up by the ringing of their shoes upon the stone steps.

  Furious, she hurried to keep up. “I might wish my circumstances were different, and believe me, there’s no love lost between Mrs Gedge and me, but I am better educated than any of the debutantes who have no doubt been paraded in front of Mr Westaway’s nose and more beautiful, and regardless of where I rest my head at night, my virtue is unblemished. And will remain so!” Faith descended the steps beside her chaperone into the street. “So don’t you make false aspersions about my good character.” If ever there was proof that Lady Vernon cared little for Faith and had taken her on purely for the money, this was it.

  “Ah, now, my dear, only a short walk and then we can rest our weary bones and see if Mr Westaway has taken the bait.” Lady Vernon spoke as if she hadn’t heard Faith, her smile cloying, her tone dripping with false pleasure at the journey ahead.

  “You make me feel like a…dog or a…rat caught in a trap,” Faith muttered. The more she spent time with this abominable woman the less able she was to hold her tongue. She and Lady Vernon were partners in a grubby intrigue of which no one else must be the wiser. Sadly, it meant Lady Vernon was the only person she could speak honestly to.

  Lady Vernon swung around, and as her eyes met Faith’s, her slack jaw snapped shut, giving her the look of a lazy bloodhound at rest transforming instantly into a pointer, alert and on the hunt.

  “We are both rats caught in a trap, and you’d do well to remember that, young lady,” she said, taking Faith’s arm to lean on as if the pair were grandmother and granddaughter enjoying a gentle stroll. “That’s what poverty does to a woman!” She sniffed. “At least I have good breeding as my insurance.”

  “And I have beauty as mine,” Faith snapped back, tipping up her chin and wishing her searing gaze could reduce Lady Vernon to a pile of cinders.

  Unscathed, and unconcerned, apparently, Lady Vernon cast Faith a dismissive look before her eyes settled for a second too long, lower down the girl’s body. “Yes, it’s all you have to trade on, girl, so don’t make a mess out of this one opportunity to secure your future, and make mine more comfortable until my next call-out to chaperone some horsey-looking blue blood whose mama can’t summon the energy.” A look of triumph wiped away her peevishness, and the fingers of her left hand dug more deeply into Faith’s arm as she raised her right to hail a gentleman hovering by the front entrance of Mrs Bromley’s Corner Teahouse.

  “Goodness, Mr Westaway! What a surprise to see you here!”

  Suddenly, Lady Vernon looked like a sweet old lady with not a venomous thought in her age-ravaged, ugly old head, Faith thought as she was borne along upon a tide of hopefulness; the tide of hopefulness being on Lady Vernon’s account that she would be paid for notching up a triumphant success.

  As for Faith, she didn’t know what she felt. There was so much riding on this next meeting with Mr Westaway. She didn’t want to trade on her beauty and have to do things with a line-up of men that didn’t involve her heart.

  Yet, as Faith intercepted, then analysed, the look he sent in her direction, the foundation of the three women’s collective plan suddenly seemed as rackety and shoddy as the multiple theatres they’d visited to honour the town’s great bard that had either been swept away or dismantled to be utilised for something newer and better.

  “Miss Montague.” He rose from a gallant bow and there was genuine pleasure in his smile. Faith’s earlier doubts dissipated. She had managed to conquer. Enough to get things underway, at any rate. Why else had he come in search of her after dism
issing her the previous afternoon? “I hoped I’d find you in town.”

  “You did?” Faith tried to look coy, when in fact she was overcome by an unexpected wave of desperation. Please, make him amenable and easy to manage from hereon in.

  “Yes, I did want to see you again because I…I can’t do justice to your eyes, Miss Montague.” He looked anxious as he tried to express himself. Right now, he was the artist, tortured by his creativity, not the diplomat. He tried again, using his hands as if that might make his meaning clearer. “The painting is so close to being finished. I’m nearly happy with it but—” He broke off and sent her a beseeching look. “Would you come back and sit for me one last time?”

  Faith glanced at Lady Vernon then back at Mr Montague. He did look very appealing, hanging upon her acceptance.

  With a slight shrug, she deferred to her chaperone. “I’m afraid that only Lady Vernon can make that decision. I know she’s set on the idea of returning to London on tomorrow’s early train, but if she can be persuaded, I don’t mind.”

  I don’t mind.

  Was that the right thing to say? Would her lack of enthusiasm strike the right note with both Lady Vernon and Mr Westaway? She had to appear pliable; a girl who knew her place. Not too eager yet also hint at a flicker of interest. To bolster this last, she fluttered her eyelashes and looked demurely at her hands as if suddenly shy. That should be a nice finish to the whole charade before Lady Vernon fixed the time for tomorrow.

  Yet her intake of satisfaction was expelled on resignation. She didn’t feel true to herself to be taking manipulation to such extremes.

  Still, she thought, the moment she had her cheque for five hundred pounds from Mrs Gedge she could do as she pleased. She’d never again have to worry about pretending or about what anyone else thought. How pleasing that would be.

  “Tomorrow then. At ten o’ clock?” He smiled, and Faith thought what pleasant grey eyes he had. “In the garden where the light is good. It’ll be a fine day, I believe.”