by Laura Parker
“Two daughters married in as many years.” Japonica turned back to the self-satisfied mother and wondered if she had found a friend or a competitor. “I dare not hope to achieve so quick a tally.”
“Tosh! I’m certain when this dreadful war ends, there will be gentlemen enough to go round.” Mrs. Hepple leaned slightly forward in a confidential manner. “Meanwhile, I feel it my duty to offer a smidgen of advice. Launch no more than one daughter per Season. To do else would make it appear that you are anxious. Given the year she is sure to find someone. The selection of a proper spouse cannot be overemphasized.”
“Dear Step-mama is quite beforehand in that matter of advantageous marriages,” Laurel said between bites of the new piece of cake she had selected from the tray circulated by the Hepple footman, who was dressed in rose-colored livery. “One might say she excels in the field.”
“I daresay we mothers must all excel, in our daughters’ behalf.” Lady Hepple smiled uncertainly, for Miss Laurel was to her mind quite too coming for a girl who had yet to make her bow. Her forwardness was superseded only by her fondness for cake. The girl had consumed three pieces!
“ ’Tis Fernlow I despair of. The dear boy won’t hear a word in the matter of his own nuptials. Claims he’s wed to his studies, which I am in all sympathy with. No one understands the needs of my roses, as does Fernlow. Yet he should have a wife to see to his own comfort. He protests he has met no lady who understands his passion for nature. He would hold out for a companion who would roam the world with him like a beggar but I tell him no genuine lady would wish to ….” Lady Hepple flushed up, the color decidedly at odds with her bronze taffeta costume.
“I agree, Lady Hepple. No lady would prefer the wilds.” Laurel’s smile bore a spot of cream from the pastry she had just consumed. “But dear Step-mama is of heartier stock than we aristocrats, Lady Hepple. Her people positively thrive in native climes. I should not but wonder after another generation there’ll be scarce difference made between the heathens and them.”
“Well, r-r-r-eally!” Lady Hepple stammered. “I had not meant to make such a point.”
“Oh, but ’tis true. Have you not read in the gazettes? Dear Step-mama prefers to spend her evenings in the company of the Persian Ambassador to every civilized diversion London might offer her.” Laurel’s voice took on the sugary coating of the too-sweet confection she had been consuming. “I have heard he keeps a harem and that his servants carry scimitars night and day and threaten to behead any who they believe is not sufficiently deferential to their master. I suppose dear Step-mama’s embrace of such barbaric practices must be due to her foreign upbringing.” She turned a spiteful gaze on Japonica. “Do tell us, Step-mama? Is the Mirza as imposing a figure in private as he appears to the public eye?”
The poor lady who was their hostess made a sound rather like a strangled gasp and reached for her tea, spilling a good deal of it on herself as she hurried to lift the cup to her lips.
As Almina offered her napkin in an effort to help her mother mop up the spill, Laurel sent her step-mama a second triumphant glance.
Laurel’s animosity might have a better target, thought Japonica, had she not already been too heartsick to truly care that she was being expertly cut up before an audience neither of them could afford to offend. But her feelings were running high in other directions.
Two weeks! Not a word. No note, or card, or a single flower had arrived from Lord Sinclair since the evening he had not appeared for the opera. The conclusion was undeniable. He had deserted her.
No one she spoke to had seen or heard from him. There seemed only two possible explanations for his desertion. He had recovered his memory and with it a renewed contempt for her. Or their night together had assuaged his carnal appetite brought on by jealousy of Mirza Hassan. That done, he wanted nothing more to do with her.
She could not decide which scenario was worse. Both made her want to stretch herself upon the carpet and weep until she was ill.
“I do wonder where Fernlow could have got to,” Almina remarked when her mother had recovered her poise. “I am never so bored as when my brother is taken by the notion to lecture me on some aspect of botany. Poor Hyacinthe will have expired of boredom if he has chosen her to be his pupil.”
“Nothing could be further from the truth, Miss Almina.” Hyacinthe had appeared in the doorway with the Honorable Fernlow Hepple at her side. “I have passed a most delightful half hour among your roses, Lady Hepple. Delightful!”
The warmth in Hyacinthe’s tone brought Japonica’s indifferent gaze to attention upon the gentleman who accompanied her eldest stepdaughter. Of medium height but slight of frame, the Hepple scion dressed simply in black. A head of thinning locks that looked more like a halo framed the serious but pleasant face of a man dedicated to the soil rather than the ribbons. His air of piety lacked only holiness. For his Grail, as his mother had already remarked upon some three times, was the creation of the perfect pink rose.
Not waiting for her hostess to rise first, Japonica came to her feet. “We must be going, Lady Hepple. You are patience itself to have indulged our company so long.”
“Nothing so strenuous was required I assure you, Lady Abbott.” But Lady Hepple looked relieved to have her guests announce their intention of a rapid departure. “You must come again … sometime.”
“Indeed.” When Hades is paved with ice, Japonica suspected. As she moved toward the doorway with Laurel bringing up the rear, she overheard Fernlow’s conversation with Hyacinthe.
“… Most edifying afternoon, Miss Hyacinthe.” It did not seem to bother him that he had to look up to speak to her. “I shall look forward to receiving your father’s notes on the subject of Oriental blossoms.”
“I can’t think of anyone more deserving with whom Father would have wished to share them.” Hyacinthe blushed like a schoolgirl. “There are, of course, scribblings in the margins which you may find difficult to decipher …”
“I hope I may look to you for assistance should it be needed.”
“Most assuredly, sir.”
It crossed Japonica’s mind, in light of Lady Hepple’s declaration about her son, that he seemed extraordinarily genuine in his address to Hyacinthe. Matches had arisen from less commonality than a love of botany.
Yet it struck her like the blast of the windblown snow that greeted her exit from the Hepple house in Berkeley Square that she knew nothing about love and proper alliances. Curiosity, as well as necessity, had driven her to be reckless in the lair of the Hind Div. Compassion had goaded her into marriage with a man she respected and liked, but would never have thought to wed in other circumstances. A misplaced sense of duty had made her desert her son in order to try to secure the future of five ungrateful girls who had yet to benefit from her interference. Now, she could think of no excuse short of madness that had driven her to seek the embrace of a man she should by all rights despise.
Oh, but it was unfair! She did not despise him. She felt—no, what she felt she must not give name to, lest it truly drive her into insanity.
She turned her head away as the postillion stepped up to open the carriage door for her. A tear had escaped and slipped silently down the curve of her cheek. “I prefer to walk awhile,” she said to no one in particular and set off at a fast pace through the lightened gloom of the snowy afternoon.
“You silly, stupid girl!” Hyacinthe declared after Laurel’s smug recitation of her behavior at Lady Hepple’s.
“There’s no reason to pucker up at me!” Laurel answered and adjusted herself on the carriage cushions. “I did it for us.”
“For us? Don’t you realize what you have done? By ripping up her reputation you threaten to pull down scandal upon our own heads. We may never again be invited anywhere.”
“You make too much of it,” Laurel replied. “Once she realizes that she is considered an anathema to society and withdraws from London, we shall quickly recover. After all, she is nothin
g to us.”
“You are very ignorant of the world,” Hyacinthe said crossly. “Ignorant and arrogant! I always said your temper would get the better of your limited good sense. I see I am right. If your meddling costs me the association of Lady Hepple I shall never forgive you. Our step-mama may not be precisely the sort of person we may wish her to be but she has been nothing but generous and, in the main, helpful.” She nodded in concurrence with the rightness of her thoughts. “Woe to those who bite the hand that feeds them.”
“Don’t you dare preach at me! I’m not the one with secrets! I am not the one who seduced Lord Sinclair beneath our roof. Who pretends to be better than her superiors, yet is no more than a whore!”
“What are you talking about?”
“So, now I have your attention. I know things, things she is at great pains to keep from us.”
“I wonder how that knowledge was got. By listening at keyholes? By thievery, and lying and sneaking and spying? Oh, those are wonderful traits for a young lady of Quality.”
“Never mind my conduct. Do you want to know what I know? It is this. Dear step-mama has a bastard child!”
Hyacinthe’s eyes opened so wide they would seem to fall out of their sockets. “Dear Lord! Say it cannot be.”
“A son,” Laurel confirmed, “named Jamie. I read all about him in one of those letters she received. He is not nearly six months old and living in Portugal with a nanny. I kept the post.”
Hyacinthe shut her eyes and let her head fall back against the carriage wall. “This will mean the ruination of everything!”
“It will ruin her.” A smug smile wreathed Laurel’s face. “Think when it’s published abroad. The dowager viscountess Shrewsbury has borne a bastard.”
“But then ….” Hyacinthe could scarce draw breath. “We have a brother!”
“Rubbish. The child is the result of a squalid liaison. Most probably Persian into the bargain. I’ve written to Mr. Simmons to get us proof!”
Hyacinthe opened her eyes and stared at her sister. “You little fool! Do you not see? If she has borne a son—six months old did you say? That puts his birth precisely nine months after the marriage. He could conceivably lay claim as the Shrewsbury heir!”
Laurel’s smile faded as the full significance of the statement sank in. “Surely not! If she were after the Shrewsbury title, she had only to march into London with the babe at her breast.”
“She must have reasons for keeping silent,” Hyacinthe murmured.
“My point precisely! He is a bastard. So then, if we expose her …”
“Do shut up, Laurel. We must stop these inquiries before they run ahead beyond our reach. Who else have you told of this discovery?”
“No one.” Laurel looked as abashed as one who has pulled a joke only to discover that it is upon herself. “Oh, I may have mentioned the subject in passing in a note to Lord Shrewsbury.”
“What?” Hyacinthe squawked and half rose from her seat. “The very person who has the most to lose? And who may pursue the subject of a public denunciation of our step-mama as an adulteress with a bastard? Well done, sister! You may be the very hook upon which will hang our eventual ruination!”
Feeling as if hornets from a dozen different directions were stinging her, Laurel swelled up and met her sister’s glare of outrage with equal enmity. “So this is how you repay my efforts! That is very fine, I must say. I had not thought my own sisters would turn against me. After all, I did this for us. If you had not been mewling over that Fernlow fellow, you might have been present to see how she curried favor at our expense. Yes, I see it clearly now! I alone care what happens to the family!”
The crack of Hyacinthe’s palm across her sister’s face caught the attention of the postillion and driver but both thought they must be in error of the direction of the sound. After all, they drove two ladies through the streets of Mayfair.
Japonica found herself grateful for the Persian custom of drinking coffee, which to her mind was more warming and stimulating than the customary English tea. Soaked through by thick flakes of snow and icy puddles that seeped through her leather shoes, she was near tears when a strange coach pulled up beside her on Pall Mall. Its occupants, the Mirza Hassan and Sir Ouseley, generously offered her a ride.
She could not remember exactly what excuse she offered them for being found on the street. Something about shopping and losing her way. Her rescuers had been so appalled by her frozen state that they had pooh-poohed her explanations and busied themselves with tucking her into Sir Ouseley’s Carrick coat and the Mirza’s sable lap rug.
They gallantly offered to detour out of their way to drive her to her house, then suggested that, because the Mirza’s residence was nearer and she was in need of a thorough warming, that she stop first there. Gratefully she agreed. Nothing awaited her at the Shrewsbury townhouse but stepdaughters she had no desire to face at the moment. Once inside the Mirza’s home, her coat, bonnet, and shoes were taken away by servants to clean and dry them.
Now, ensconced in the Mirza’s salon, sitting among the cushions that he preferred to chairs, she felt at ease for the first time in two weeks. Thankfully, nothing more than her presence seemed to be required. The Mirza was in a talkative mood, regaling all within hearing of his various outings since his debut at the Court of St. James had released him from his self-imposed house arrest.
“The houses of London, though splendid, all look alike,” the Mirza exclaimed expansively. “Therefore it is clever of each owner to paint his name above the door. Four stories, each of them, so that servants may share the roof of their masters at all times. Something that is not common even in the Shah’s own capital. I find it convenient that stables and carriage houses are located behind each residence. And, too, the large round glass lanterns that are suspended from iron hooks above each doorway dazzle the eye. I have written to his Majesty, the Shahanshah, to inform him how truly amazing it is that in London winter it is so dark that the sun is all but invisible so that the lamps must be lighted day and night.”
All shared a chuckle at his continuing amazement at the English winter.
“Convenient, too, are the shops,” the Mirza continued. “I am told how each is designed to the requirements of its trade with a sign outside. Yet I am saddened by the evidence in this great city of so many drunkards, madmen, and thieves.”
“What makes you believe so, Excellency?” Sir Ouseley asked in evident surprise.
“Why, the fact that every shop door stays shut, opened only to customers by the shopkeeper himself. In our country, wares are left in the open to be looked at and handled by all who pass by.”
“Surely there are thieves, even among the Persians,” another guest suggested.
“Of course. But the one caught thieving loses the hand that plucked the goods. Thereby serving as a reminder to all of the wages of his sin.”
The mention of a lost hand bought Japonica’s thoughts unhappily back to the cause of her dejected state. “Surely not everyone who loses a hand is branded a thief. For instance, Lord Sinclair.”
The Mirza’s mild gaze came to bear on her with an unexpected intensity. When he spoke, it was in Persian. “Lord Sinclair is a great and excellent man. Every great man has a great many enemies. It is sometimes the unfortunate fate of the great to fall into the snare of the envious.”
Japonica knew then that the Mirza was aware of exactly who Devlyn was, though she doubted he would ever be brought to mention it directly. “I do not see Lord Sinclair about in the city these days,” she said, hoping her observation sounded light enough to pass as mere conversation among the company.
“He is no longer in the city, Lady Abbott.” When Japonica turned toward Sir Ouseley, he added, “Lord Sinclair crossed the Channel for France some ten days ago. I thought you knew.”
“No.” Japonica looked away and briefly closed her eyes, feeling as if she had been stabbed. Devlyn, gone from London! Gone from England! Gone from her
forever. Without a word! Something seemed to crack open inside her and spill out all her heat so that she felt a sudden chill.
“The memsahib suffers a chill,” she heard someone say.
The Mirza clapped his hands and a servant sprang forth to offer her a second sable robe to add to the one already about her shoulders.
She took it not because she needed it but because even in her shock she was aware that all eyes were upon her. They would correctly interpret her brooding as the reaction of a jilted lady if she did not quickly distract them.
She looked up with a smile. “How like Lord Sinclair to neglect to mention to his own family the fact of his departure. It is the manner of a seasoned soldier, I presume, to leave without notice when he is bound for enemy territory.”
“I was under the impression that it was a personal matter, lady.” When she looked at Sir Ouseley again, he smiled. “But have every confidence that he shall return unscathed. Our friend is a man of many resources. Intrepid, would you not agree, your Excellency.”
“Alhamdolillah valmenah,” the Mirza answered with heartfelt voice as he gazed speculatively at Japonica. “But come, we make the lady sad with all this talk of enemies and intrigue. It is the duty of every worthy gentleman to bring forth a smile from a lovely lady.”
He turned to the gentleman on his right, an officer in the Light Bobs. “Tell me more of this thing called a pocket watch, Colonel. I see that every man in England, whether of high or low estate, carries one. I would obtain one that I may better appreciate the importance of the regulation of everything from eating and drinking to keeping appointments. This strict keeping of hours is not, I suspect, good for the constitution.”
Japonica continued to listen respectfully and smile and even offer a word or two when it seemed required but all the while she felt as if the fire lit more than a year ago inside her had burned out. No amount of sable or scented heat from braziers or even the benevolent smile of a handsome Persian courtier would ever bring it back to life.