by Marlowe Mia
First Lady Dorset insulted the memory of her husband. Whatever his faults may have been, Grace had been schooled not to speak ill of the dead. Then the marchioness insulted her. Grace straightened her spine.
“I find my height useful when I want to look down on small people.”
The marchioness laughed. “Oh, very good. How I hate it when people fail to say what they are thinking! You just might have a brain.” She eyed the books tucked under Grace’s arm. “And I see you found the reading material I left for you in your chamber.”
So much for Lord Dorset’s supposed tribute to her mind.
“Yes, and as long as we’re saying what we think, I must admit these are not to my taste,” Grace said. “I was trying to find the library to return them and choose something different. I apologize for intruding on your . . . if you don’t like your husband, why are standing in the dark looking at his portrait?”
The question was impertinent, rude actually, but Grace could no more keep the words from spilling out her mouth than she could keep her hair from escaping its pins.
“I never said I didn’t like him.”
“But you said he should be roasting—”
“Oh, that.” The marchioness waved her damning comment away. “Theology was never my strong suit, and besides, if there is a loophole around the payment for sins God exacts from rakes, I’m sure Cris found it.”
“Cris,” Grace repeated. The name that sent Crispin into a fury.
“Yes, Cris. I know it’s not the done thing for a marchioness to speak of her husband so informally, but why should I refer to a man I fought with hammer and tongs for twenty-odd years by something as stuffy as Dorset or—God forbid!—my lord?” Lady Dorset shuddered. “No, whatever else Cris and I were to each other, we were not such strangers.”
The marchioness looked back up at the painting. “He broke my heart a dozen times. Oh, I know it’s bad form for a woman to even acknowledge her husband’s light-o-loves, but I can’t bear falsehood. And I’d be lying if I said it didn’t matter to me. Even now.”
Her expression softened as she continued to gaze at painting of the outrageously handsome dead marquess.
“He couldn’t help it, I don’t think. Women were like an opiate to him. I don’t believe he ever meant to hurt me, but the opportunities for dalliance for a man of his power and damnable good looks were legion.” Lady Dorset sighed. “He’s been gone sixteen years and I wish the scoundrel back every single day.”
Then the marchioness gave herself a little shake. “If you’re worried that his son will be just like him, don’t be.”
“Lord Dorset doesn’t favor his father in looks,” Grace said, still eyeing the portrait in superstitious awe. But the dead marquess looked so much like someone else she knew, even down to the unusual pewter-gray eyes, a tickle of apprehension ran down her spine.
“No, but handsome is as handsome does, they do say. Now our son Richard takes after my side of the family. He’s the spitting image of my father, the Earl of Templeton,” Lady Dorset said. “Come back in the morning when the light is better and you’ll see Lord Templeton’s portrait on the opposite wall.”
She waved her hand toward the opposite wall of the great hall, but didn’t leave her vigil post at the foot of her dead husband’s portrait to show Grace her dead father’s picture.
“Richard,” Grace repeated. She hadn’t heard the marquess’s name before.
“Yes, Richard Templeton Royce, 8th Marquess of Dorset, et cetera, et cetera, the apple of my eye and the paragon of manly virtue his father never was. I greatly fear he’ll never find a young lady who deserves him, but he has the succession to think of, so we have to make allowances, I suppose. Still, one ought to have some standards,” Lady Dorset announced. Then she turned her gimlet gaze back to Grace. “If you don’t like the practical books I chose for you, what sort do you like?”
Grace mentally reeled with the abrupt change of topic, but she was grateful as well. It was uncomfortable to feel the marchioness’s private pain, and less comfortable to hear her doting praise of her son and veiled references to Grace’s general unworthiness of him.
“I’m a student of history and most especially mythology,” Grace said.
“Rubbish!” Lady Dorset pronounced them both. “Can’t think why you’d bother your head with the past, a young thing like you.” She gave the portrait one last look and snuffed out her lamp. Then she took Grace’s arm, leading her back toward the well-lit areas of the house. “Time enough for that when time is all you have. Now then, let’s go to the library and you can find whatever folderol pleases your little upstart heart.”
“I’m sorry you think I’m an upstart,” Grace said.
“Well, of course I do. What else would you call a colonial and one with only the slimmest connections to aristocracy to boot?”
“William the First was called a bastard before they called him the Conqueror, so I expect he was an upstart, too,” Grace said. “In fact, if you go back far enough in anyone’s lineage, I assure you there will be ‘upstarts’ to be found.”
She knew she shouldn’t speak so to Lord Dorset’s mother, but she was sick to death of being made to feel as if she was somehow inferior by virtue of her commoner birth.
A crooked smile spread over Lady Dorset’s face and a silver brow arched. “Well, Miss Makepeace, I see you’ve put that study of history to good use. That was as nicely a delivered set-down as I’ve had in quite some time.”
Grace dropped a curtsey. “I ask your pardon—”
“Don’t you dare! It was quite refreshing. I like a girl who speaks her mind. Richard might just be right about you.”
As Lady Dorset chattered away, Grace decided she liked her, too despite her bluntness. Or maybe because of it. There was something comforting about knowing exactly what another person thinks because they don’t hesitate to tell you.
Once they reached the library, Lady Dorset directed Grace to a small section devoted to mythology. To Grace’s delight, she found three titles that were new to her.
“When you are ready,” Lady Dorset said, “the dining room is down the corridor. Take the first right, then the second door to the left.”
“Aren’t you dining with us?” Grace asked.
“Oh, no,” Lady Dorset said. “I make it a point never to dine with less than a viscount at the least. One must maintain certain standards. However, I would welcome you and your mother for tea in two days time in my apartments.”
Grace wasn’t sure whether to be insulted that Lady Dorset wouldn’t deign to eat with her and her parents or pleased that she’d condescended low enough to extend the invitation for tea.
And as Grace made her way to the dining room, she wondered how she’d find the courage to tell Crispin there was a portrait of a man whose face was the spitting image of his hanging in Lord Dorset’s great hall.
Chapter 29
Galatea had consumed all his energy while he created her. Now that she was slipping from him, she devoured Pygmalion’s heart.
Crispin waited in the anteroom outside the grand dining room but Wyckeham had warned him that every room in Clairmont was designed to awe, so he opened one of the double doors to take a quick peek inside.
“Well, Hawke,” the marquess’s voice rustled quietly behind him. “Let us not stand on ceremony. Go on in. Tell me. What do you think of my ceiling?”
Crispin craned his neck and turned an appraising eye upward. Pagan goddesses were interspersed with Christian saints in a mishmash of disjointed scenes separated by the curved spines of the high ceiling’s supporting arches.
“Reminds me of the Sistine Chapel,” he said after a few minutes study of the over-embellished vault. “The artist obviously studied the original. Similar ornamentation, unfortunately dissimilar execution. Whoever your artist was, he charged you too much.”
“My thoughts exactly though you’d never convince my mother of it,” Dorset said gruffly. “How do you find the cottage?”
“It’s comfortable enough for tonight,” Crispin said. The place Dorset called ‘the cottage’ might have been the manor house on a lesser estate. “Tomorrow I’ll see if it’s light enough for my work.”
Lord Dorset eyed Crispin speculatively. “I’m curious, Hawke. Artistic geniuses don’t sprout from the ground like cabbage. From whence do you hail?”
He groaned inwardly. The less said about his past, the better.
“I find the public enjoys a bit of mystery surrounding artistic types. Besides, I believe in looking forward, not back,” Crispin said as the sound of approaching footsteps made his head turn. Speaking of looking forward . . .
Grace was coming down the long corridor wearing that delectable chocolate and sapphire blue gown. Long limbed and elegant, she might have been a goddess condescending to join them. Just being able to see her determined stride made his heart lighter and convinced him that truth and beauty still existed in the world.
“Blast! Not that bloody brown and blue thing again. It’s not at all the done thing.” the marquess muttered with disgust. “Hasn’t the girl any other gowns?”
“None that are worthy of her,” Crispin returned smoothly, wondering at both the marquess’s eyesight and his sense.
“Well, that is something I’ll remedy once she is mine. A marchioness ought never wear the same gown twice,” Dorset said and pushed past Crispin to meet Grace before she reached the dining room door.
All the air fled from Crispin’s lungs. If the marquess had punched him in the gut, it wouldn’t have hurt as badly. Crispin knew the marquess was interested in Grace, but his tone was so blasé about making Grace his wife, it was as if it was an accomplished fact.
This had started as a game. A lark. Pull a fast one on the ton of London and fashion a bumptious Bostonian miss into the toast of the town.
For an unworthy moment, Crispin almost wished Grace would trip and fall headlong on the red and gold carpet runner. The marquess would probably not find her clumsiness as endearingly human as Crispin did. It was all that reminded him she wasn’t an angel who’d temporarily shed her wings.
But no, he really didn’t want her to fall. She might be injured or embarrassed and Crispin couldn’t bear that.
When the marquess made his obeisance over her hand and lingered in his kiss on her knuckles, Crispin vowed not to see her hurt any other way either.
He’d not lost one of his ‘games’ in a very long time, and he was very near to winning this one. Grace was about to bag her titled husband. But in winning the game, Crispin was actually the loser.
If Grace wanted to be a marchioness, so be it. But the bastard better treat her like the queen she was.
Growing up rough in Cheapside taught him there were lots of ways for a man to die. Crispin would see the marquess found one if he ever made her shed a single tear.
* * *
Lord Washburn stared at his plate. Yes, it was Limoges. Yes, it was embossed with the marquess’s gilt crest. Yes, it was heaped with roast duckling and eel pie and a cranberry and raisin concoction that Lady Sheppleton declared “simply divine,” but Lord Washburn’s plate did not make him happy.
It was not located in the correct place.
He was seated at the furthest end of the marquess’s long table, with Lady Sheppleton on his left and her simpleton of a nephew, Manfred, across from him. There was an empty seat to his right at the foot of the table, where the marchioness should have been sitting, but they were informed Lord Dorset’s mother was dining ‘en suite’ that evening. Perhaps it wouldn’t have been so humiliating if she’d been there.
“You’re not eating, brother,” Mary said from her seat next to Lady Sheppleton’s nephew, the future Lord Brumford, should he ever find a woman daft enough to marry him.
“I’ve lost my appetite.” Jasper felt mildly guilty about throwing Mary to that particular wolf, but she was timid enough not to complain. He’d even seen his sister and Manfred Brumford in quiet conversation from time to time. Mary was the sort to make anyone feel more comfortable.
“You’re not the only one,” Manfred piped up between stuffing huge bites into his gaping maw. “Looks like Mr. Hawke is off his feed too.”
Jasper glanced up the table toward the end that tilted toward the power in the room. Lord Dorset had placed Grace Makepeace on his left hand and her mother at his right. Mr. Makepeace was at his daughter’s side and Hawke was across from him next to Mrs. Makepeace.
“He’s sitting next to my Cousin Minerva,” Jasper said sourly. “What would you expect?”
“My lord, such a remark is hardly worthy of you. That’s the sort of observation a gentleman keeps to himself,” Lady Sheppleton said primly.
If she only knew the observations he was keeping to himself about her!
He’d have been perfectly happy to switch seats with Crispin Hawke, even if it meant sitting next to Minerva, whose gushing enthusiasm was beginning to dance on his last nerve. But he’d brave Minerva if it would get him further from Lady Sheppleton and closer to Cousin Grace.
Besides, he was a baron and Lord Dorset’s neighbor. He was the scion of an old and venerable English family. Why should he be relegated to the nether regions while some nobody of an artist basks in the light of Grace Makepeace and her lovely dowry?
Perhaps the marquess realized Jasper was a rival for Grace’s affections and that’s why he’d been disrespected. But after the grandeur of Clairmont, how could he tempt Grace with his little Burnside Manor?
Lord Dorset leaned one elbow on the table and spoke confidingly to his comely cousin. She laughed and then darted her gaze toward the artist. Hawke was back staring at her. A spark seemed to leap across the table between them.
Of course! Why hadn’t he seen it before? He’d thought Crispin Hawke merely one of those insufferable ‘self-made’ men that seemed to be sprouting up everywhere.
In a world where Beau Brummel, the mere son of a tailor, could rise to such prominence as to have the Prince of Wale’s confidence and friendship, many such nobodies were under the misapprehension that breeding no longer mattered. They could claw their way into the upper echelons of society on their own steam. Hawke was one of those.
But he wasn’t just out to annoy his betters.
Hawke is panting after Grace, too.
Jasper tucked that little gem of information into his pocket and wondered how best to make use of it.
“Oh, Lord Washburn,” Lady Sheppleton said. “Do you recall that matter we decided needed further investigation?”
Crispin Hawke’s background. “Indeed, I do. Has your agent discovered anything of note?”
She dabbed her thin lips with her linen napkin and smiled. “Oh yes. Quite a bit of fascinating information. And I fear most of the intelligence is severely damaging to the subject of the investigation.”
Her smile betrayed no fear whatsoever.
“I look forward to hearing more,” Jasper said.
“What are you talking about?” his sister asked.
“Something that needn’t concern you,” Jasper snapped. “Lady Sheppleton and I share a common interest in . . . a matter of some delicacy.” He raised a brow at his partner in crime. “A matter which will require discretion till we decide how best to proceed based on the knowledge we possess. We want to be certain the innocent aren’t tarred with the guilty. Shall we meet later in the library to discuss our mutual interests?”
“Quite,” she said with a nod. Then her sharp gaze snapped to her nephew. “Slow down, Manfred. That duck isn’t going anywhere.”
But evidently, Crispin Hawke was.
The artist pushed back from the table, mumbling what sounded like apologies. He bowed to his host and the ladies at the favored end of the table. Then he nodded in the direction of the less favored and limped out of the dining room, leaving his plate nearly untouched.
Grace’s eyes followed him until he disappeared down the long hall.
“Suddenly, my appetite is returned,” Jasper said
as he attacked his eel pie with gusto.
Lord Dorset and Crispin Hawke were both revolving like rival moons around his comely cousin Grace.
Now all he had to do was figure out how to best use that unholy trinity, judiciously mixed with Lady Sheppleton’s nasty little tidbits, to further his own ends.
Chapter 30
Pygmalion made many mistakes in her creation, but Galatea was fashioned with love.
And for love.
Since there was no hostess at the dinner, the ladies did not withdraw for tea in the parlor. Neither did the gentlemen repair to the smoking room for cigars and brandy, a situation Grace suspected sucked a good deal of pleasure from the evening for her father. Her mother however was in high spirits and once they all moved to the splendid music room, it took very little coaxing to persuade her to sing The Maid of the Mill while Cousin Mary played the piano.
Grace had longed to pop up when Crispin excused himself at supper and tag after him, but unless she could plead a convincing headache—and she’d never developed any theatrical talent—she was stuck with the whole party for the duration of the evening. She couldn’t remember what the topic of conversation had been when he made his exodus, but the tension in his jaw told her he was upset.
Lord Dorset insisted Grace share a spot on the padded window seat with him. It left them in full view of the rest of the company, but able to have a quiet private conversation.
“Tell me, Miss Makepeace,” the marquess leaned over and whispered to her as her mother launched into the second verse. “Do you also fancy yourself a singer?”
“No, my lord,” she whispered back. “That gift did not fall on me.”
Cousin Jasper was moved to join in on the chorus and splatted out a singularly bad high note.
“It appears the gift missed others as well, but you at least have the good sense not to advertise it,” Lord Dorset said. “Do you play?”