And then, again, there was the dress.
“I feel a bit like Cinderella, all done up by her fairy godmother, even though I’d be better cast in the godmother role,” she whispered to her hostess before Lady Devin went to greet other guests. Not for the first time in the past hour, Honoria puzzled over how she’d ended up here. In Lady Devin’s guest room. Being dressed up like a china doll. Not that she’d had a serious chance to say no. Her proud yet futile resistance of the offer was ignored and finally subsumed by this remarkably gorgeous gray silk, the color of storm clouds. She chided herself for being so easily swayed, but really it was the most extravagantly lovely fabric she’d ever encountered. The full, bell-shaped skirt flowed like cool water through her fingers. The dress shimmered like fine rain and made her feel, even with all the layers of crinoline and petticoats, as though she floated. She felt so exposed, though. The neckline of this gown, according to current fashion, was much lower than her usual serviceable attire with collars up to her chin, more befitting a widowed bookseller. And she was laced in so much more tightly than she would choose; she was sure she’d crack a rib if she tried to take a deep breath. The corset added significantly to the sensation that her bosom could pop right out of the top of the dress. When one of the maids went to powder her shoulders, it felt embarrassingly intimate. She wrapped her shawl tightly around herself and proceeded to join the party.
By this time, several of the guests had arrived and had overflowed from the drawing room into the main hall. Honoria descended the stairs slowly, growing more uncomfortable and ungainly with each step. As she neared the bottom, she was startled by the sudden appearance of Lord Devin at the foot of the stairs, facing away as he spoke with a stately older couple. And, of course, startled, she would have to get tangled up in the skirts of her borrowed gown and trip halfway down the stairs. As she pitched forward, she thought, Ah, yes, this is how it is. Greeting London’s literati by pitching myself headlong into their midst. Can I not hope for one unabashed evening? But then the oddest thing happened. For the second time in their very brief acquaintance, as she braced to slam into the floor, Lord Devin caught her. It was not nearly as spectacular or intimate as his first rescue. He simply turned and extended his hand to her as if their movements had been choreographed; it was all she needed to anchor herself. In fact, quite possibly all anyone else saw was that, with her hand in Lord Devin’s, she lightly danced down the stairs.
Safely on the ground floor, she greeted him cordially, trying to level her breathing.
“Good evening, Mrs. Duchamp. What an honor for you to grace us with your presence,” he said, ever dryly. Then he kissed her gloved hand before blessedly releasing it. The electric tension was still there, transferring even through their gloves. The sensation immediately brought to mind their last encounter, and she had to school her face as she tamped down the little zings shooting through her. He continued. “It is a pleasure to see you looking well. May I introduce you to Lord Tennyson and his wife?”
Lady Devin, the dress, and now Lord Devin himself... with a dash of literati sprinkled into the mix. Any woman would be swept off her feet, even one who prided herself on being too old for such stuff and nonsense.
And so began a lively evening of sparkling conversation and wit, such as Honoria had never experienced before. It was difficult to avoid feeling like a sycophant in the presence of such literary luminaries. Lord Tennyson turned out to be every bit the erudite gentleman and attentive husband he was rumored to be. He and his wife exchanged frequent glances, and she wished she could interpret them, at once sad and intimate and encouraging.
Until they were all seated at the table, she had trouble keeping track of who was who. She’d observed carefully how the assemblage followed a delicate order of rank as they entered the dining room. Only when they were all together was she able to get a sense of each individual character. The only person with whom she was already acquainted was John Chapman, publisher and fellow bookseller. They maintained cordial acquaintance as his offerings were more specialized than hers. He’d told her excitedly at dinner that he was starting a new venture, a periodical called the Westminster Review. Astutely, Lady Devin seated him near essayists, including Mr. Thomas Carlyle.
Honoria was impressed by Lady Devin’s choice of seating arrangements overall. Clearly, she’d planned with an eye toward lively, thoughtful conversation. Essayists were seated around Chapman near one end of the table, poets claimed the center on both sides of the table, and she found herself flanked by novelists and poets on the other end of the table. She ended up seated between Lord Tennyson and novelist Edward Bulwer-Lytton, who began a swiftly moving discussion about the purpose of literature. This was clearly an ongoing and potentially heated debate between them. She noticed Lady Devin had judiciously placed Lord Tennyson and Mr. Browning a reasonable distance apart and remembered, as everyone else there likely knew too, that Mrs. Browning had been considered the favorite for poet laureate the previous year, but Lord Tennyson had been named Wordsworth’s successor instead. It would have been such a crowning achievement for Browning, not only because her work deserved such honor but because it was exceedingly rare for the title to go to women. Of course, as gentlemen, no sign of animosity or discomfiture showed between them. Still, distance made sense. Honoria wondered if Tennyson’s presence was the reason for Mrs. Browning’s absence.
She could feel Lord Devin’s eyes on her. Silly and juvenile as it seemed, she was fairly certain it wasn’t her imagination. At first, when she felt the occasional prickles on her skin, she glanced at him surreptitiously and noticed swift movement of his head in other directions. Then she avoided looking at him, but her skin tingled every so often. Her lips remembered the soft touch of his; every forkful of food became an unbearably sensual exercise. Periodically, the hair on the back of her neck stood and sent a slight shiver through her. Eventually, she noticed Lady Devin was watching him not very subtly, as were the few pairs of young feminine eyes arrayed around the table. It was easy to interpret the interest of the young misses, but she was afraid of what Lady Devin might see.
When the poets around her turned to the subject of love, she felt telltale warmth wash over her skin and struggled to keep from looking in his direction.
“Surely love for one’s wife, if indeed it is a love match, is far different from love for one’s friends, even bosom friends,” said Mr. Browning. It was easy to see how smitten he still was with his wife.
“All relationships are unique, to be sure. But there are some friends with whom one shares perhaps a deeper affection than marital love,” Lord Tennyson replied quietly. The murmurs and nods suggested that everyone at the table was as familiar as Honoria with his masterpiece In Memoriam, written in honor of his dear friend Arthur Henry Hallam. The two had been close, and anyone present could see how deeply the loss still affected the great poet. “And there is a difference between fresh, naïve love and love that has been tested by fire and blight and been strengthened like steel.” Here he looked conspicuously at his wife, who seemed to be fighting back tears.
“I think we can agree there are those, whether lovers or friends, who we simply cannot live without,” Tennyson continued. “There are those who make our world. Oh, the world exists before them and possibly long after them, but their love gives us life and meaning and wholeness.”
Honoria felt painfully choked by this barrage of sentiments. Who talked like this at dinner? What struck her keenly was the quiet awareness that she had no such person, whether lover or friend. She knew her work held meaning, but could she truly say she lived? When her hand stole up instinctively to worry the button and lace that normally covered her neck, she was surprised to feel only bare skin. That notch, that warm, soft hollow at the base of her throat, reminded her sharply of the gown’s low neckline.
Again, she felt a warm flush spread along her face and shoulders, along with a prickling sensation of being observed. Feigning casualness, she looked in the direction of Lord Devin, in
tending to focus just past him, at the doorway. Instead, she found herself caught in his dark, open gaze. He made no pretense of accidental or fleeting eye contact. Instead, the intensity of his expression deepened into an almost elemental entitlement. His eyes seemed focused on her hand, on the spot where her fingers touched her throat. She froze under that riveting stare, momentarily unable to breathe, unable to see anything in the room but him, unaware of anything or anyone else. When she recollected herself, she quickly moved her hand back down to the table. His eyes briefly tracked the motion and then lingered again at her neck before meeting her eyes. Something about him reminded her of Jupiter—the way the tabby would crouch, belly nearly brushing the floor, body contracted, just before springing on his prey, whether it was a hapless intruding mouse or a ball of dust. She was shaken and tried hard to mask her tumultuous emotions, but, from across a crowded table, he’d somehow established a commanding intimacy without even touching her. She knew she ought to feel offended by his presumptuousness, but that didn’t help to quiet the hot licks of some undefined emotion skittering across her skin, particularly in areas caught by his eyes.
“Mrs. Duchamp, perhaps you can shed some light on the female perspective.” Lady Devin cut into her thoughts. The lady’s kind eyes begged her to speak up. “The gentlemen here seem quite sentimental this evening, do they not? Do you think love is a necessity in marriage ?”
She felt thirty pairs of eyes on her then and wished she could faint dead away instead of responding. No such luck.
“In deference to my fellow guests,” she replied as she looked around the room, “I certainly see the appeal of a love match. It makes marriage so much more tolerable, I’m sure. So much more meaningful, as Lord Tennyson has said. Yet I suspect the ideal of star-crossed lovers drawn inexorably to each other, despite all obstacles, despite all reason, is fundamentally dangerous.”
Silence.
Lady Devin stepped in to mend the breach, and Honoria had the strangest sense that they understood each other entirely in this matter. “We women are more practical than we are given credit for, don’t you think, gentlemen?”
Mr. Browning nodded to her but then looked back at Honoria and prompted, “Dangerous, you say? How so?” he asked without accusation or affront, so it was easy to respond to him directly.
“It has to do with how expectations are shaped. Girls take these romantic fantasies and will not be content without them. Yet the function of marriage has historically been political, not personal. The entire history of British rule has been about establishing powerful alliances and protecting the English throne through political marriages. And those times when a monarch has given passion precedence over politics have been disastrous.” She continued in this vein with greater vehemence and detail, even as she saw one young miss barely hiding a yawn with her napkin. “And so here is my concern—when we train girls, and boys too, to expect that marriage is founded in a love match, we obscure how marriage weaves them into our social fabric. To put it more bluntly, marriage makes them hypnotized cogs in the machine.” When she finally stopped and caught her breath, she realized just how severe she sounded. “Present company excluded, of course. I didn’t mean anyone here was . . .”
She abruptly shut her mouth as she realized all of the married men at the table were, in fact, in marriages of love.
“Sounds like you’re fond of Karl Marx and his bosom friend Engels.” This from a gentleman across the table whose name she could not recall. He sounded accusatory.
“I have read their work, yes, and I find it thought-provoking.”
“Tell me,” the unnamed man continued, “do you not feel complicit then in your own role as merchant? Do you not actively feed the machine by parting customers from their hard-earned shillings?”
It seemed no one would step in. But then, at least no one else was on the attack.
“I am as much a cog as anyone, I admit. But I strive to spread knowledge, to foster learning, to perpetuate the history of civilization. Until someone makes it possible to give such knowledge away freely and still feed and clothe and house themselves, I suppose I have to accept my place and my limitations within the current system.”
Having stated her situation so baldly, she felt a tremendous opportunity to shift the group’s attention to real, serious problems.
“We are not animals at the mercy of our instincts. We are rational and spiritual beings, with both the privilege and responsibility of building a society better than the one before us. We can only do that if we know where we are, who we are, how we fit. If we know what goes on around us.”
“Of course, but—”
“Tell me, sir. Do you know how many children have died working in the Featherbury factory this past year alone?”
“I—no, but—”
“Twelve in just these past six months. More than half of them were the age of five. They should be clinging to their mother’s skirts and playing Ring around the Rosy in a field. Instead, they died in a dark, dank dungeon—starved, filthy, beaten, and choking from ash.” She stifled a cry and realized her voice had risen sharply. She was near hysterical. “My deepest apologies to Lady Devin and to all of you for introducing such unpleasantness into the evening. I hope you may understand somewhat my reluctance to speculate about fanciful notions of love when I am preoccupied with matters so very different.”
“Nothing to apologize for, dear Mrs. Duchamp,” Lady Devin announced graciously. And her statement was enough to shake the others loose of the dark turn of discussion. They turned to Marx and Engels and various assessments of these radical theories.
“ ‘From each according to his ability, to each according to his need.’ Pshaw!” said the gentleman who could not be named. “If that were the case, I’d be entirely useless in this society, unless whistling, tying a cravat, and riding a horse count as abilities to sustain a nation. London society is not meant to be productive.”
He laughed at himself, and many at the table joined in, nodding and adding their own useless talents. She gradually slipped into more ease.
“Have you heard Mr. Marx’s view of our beloved Great Exhibition?” he asked the table.
“I heard he denigrates it as an obscene spectacle of English commodification,” an essayist responded from the far end of the room. “My impression is that he objects to the way the Exhibition treats the labor and ingenuity of so many nations as a sales opportunity.”
“Heathen!” said another. “That Exhibition shows the world how very advanced and all-encompassing England is today. No society has progressed as far as ours. And no society embraces and celebrates the achievements of other nations as exuberantly as ours does.”
“Spoken like a well-oiled cog in the machine.” Honoria, who’d remained silent through this part of the discussion, glanced up from her plate as her words echoed back at her. Lord Devin, for whatever reason, had joined the fray by parroting her words. “Well, you must admit,” he continued, “Sir Dawson is not wrong in that assessment. That’s exactly the purpose of the show—to display to the world what great advances and trappings of wealth England has wrought and how superior England is to the rest of the world.”
“There’s nothing to be done, then, but go and see it,” Sir Dawson responded. “One cannot determine the Exhibition’s success or value without firsthand experience.”
“What a splendid idea!” Lady Devin spoke up from the head of the table. “We should all take a tour of the Great Exhibition! Oh, Mrs. Duchamp, do say you’ll join me.”
What could anyone say when Lady Devin focused her gentle hazel eyes and embracing manner in their direction but “Yes, of course, Lady Devin. I would be delighted.”
Chapter Five
Evans Principle 5: Beware of extravagant offers. They come with hidden costs that are often too dear.
“Darling Alex,” Lady Devin said as everyone rose from the dinner table, “everyone else here has seen the library before. I am certain they would all understand if we indulge Mrs.
Duchamp’s professional interest in the special editions. Be so kind as to give her the tour.”
No one demurred, although a young Miss Spenser looked longingly toward Lord Devin, then at her mother. No, such a proper girl of the ton could not be so forward, could not make her matrimonial aspirations so blatant, even though it must be clear every marriageable girl in attendance had to have her eye on his lordship, by necessity. Significantly, no one called into question his escort of Mrs. Duchamp to the library without a chaperone. Her age and station put her outside of concerns about maidenly propriety; theirs would be a purely business interaction, as his mother made clear.
The library was what one would expect of such a house, and Alex knew its secrets would be irresistible to a bibliophile like Mrs. Duchamp. Bookshelves lined three walls, ceiling to floor, and were completely full. Decorative paneled columns on each wall broke up the visual monotony. A writing desk and chair stood between the windows on the far wall, and a heavily upholstered settee sat askew in one corner. Two long tablelike display cases ran perpendicular to the windows. The room was lit only by sconces behind the desk.
“This is inappropriate, you know,” she said. Yet she appeared drawn to the nearest display case, captivated by the sight of leather and parchment. “You should not be here with me, unaccompanied, in a dark room, no matter what your mother said.”
When she described it like that, he could imagine all sorts of inappropriate reasons exactly why he should be here with her in this dark room, lit only by a few candles. It was also conveniently out of earshot from the evening’s festivities. He could see her comment was an idle one, though; she made no move to open the door. She knew all too well this was a business matter between a lord and a merchant, best handled behind closed doors, just as everyone would perceive it. So he shifted his thoughts to business, particularly in light of her dark observations at dinner about the Featherbury deaths. He’d given the sample printed sheet from her shop to Withersby to demonstrate his meager progress. It was time for him to do more extensive archaeology of her professional work, but he had to do so delicately, or she’d startle and bolt like a cat.
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