by Jo Beverley
She paused at first sight of him, to absorb a special thrill that came from knowing he was her beloved. When she took his proffered arm, the simple action excited her like a kiss. She managed a dignified good morning, but then babbled as they went out into an overcast day.
“I hope this is interesting, but I have little faith. Cork, after all.”
“I’ve seen clever models out of paper, plaster, and even bone,” he said.
“I remember our governess setting us all to making an Egyptian scene with pyramids of papier-maˆché. It also involved a lot of sand. We were brushing it out of clothes and carpets for weeks.”
“I can imagine. Did you all take lessons together?”
“Much of the time. Though Benji went to school eventually, of course.” Mara wanted to cut her own throat. He was going to die of boredom with such dull talk. “When did you go to school?” she tried.
“I had tutors until I went to Harrow at thirteen.”
“Did you mind leaving home?”
“Not at all. It was an adventure.”
She lured him to tell stories of the Rogues, including some about Simon that her brother had concealed. By the time they arrived at the exhibition in Lower Grosvenor Street, she almost had her head back on straight.
The building seemed like any other house, but once Dare had paid, they were ushered into a large chamber at the rear, well lit by windows up near the ceiling. Tables around the walls held ancient monuments in miniature, but in the middle of the room stood the pie`ce de resistance.
“Oh, my,” Mara said, approaching a craggy rock crowned with the ruins of a temple. Water tricked down to gather in a pool at the base. “No wonder these are famous. Apart from the scale, it could be real.”
“Very cleverly done,” Dare agreed.
“Is it truly all from cork?” Mara longed to reach out and touch and glanced around. She could only see six other visitors, but an attendant was already hurrying over.
“Indeed, yes, madam,” he answered. “Monsieur Dubourg discovered entirely by accident that cork, in texture and color, is ideal for the representation of ancient structures.”
He chattered on, but Mara simply looked, enjoying the trick played on her senses. Silence fell and she saw that Dare had givin the attendant a coin and he was now approaching another couple.
“I half expect people to emerge from the temple at any moment,” she said, “but it doesn’t bother me that none do.”
“Perhaps because it’s a ruin. We expect ruins to be deserted.”
She looked at him. “Have you seen real ruins? I mean, in Greece?”
“No, but one day I will.”
He intended to wander? She couldn’t imagine sharing a life like that. Brideswell St. Brides stayed close to home. It was their nature.
“Where else would you like to go?” she asked, hoping her concern wasn’t obvious.
“All Europe lies open to the traveler now. Wouldn’t you enjoy travel?”
“Short trips, perhaps,” she said, not adding the essential, With you.
“Despite being a Brideswell St. Bride, you would be an enthusiastic traveler, I think.”
“You were once full of enthusiasm, Dare.”
He looked at the model. “As that was once whole and full of worshipers. Come, let’s admire the Tomb of Virgil.”
“No tombs,” Mara said firmly. “According to my guide book there’s a model of Vesuvius that actually erupts. I wonder where that is.”
Dare shook his head, but summoned the guide.
“Indeed, sir, madam. It is in that curtained area over there for darkness, but it erupts only at certain hours.”
“How very convenient,” Dare commented. “Would that some people were like that.”
His eyes were twinkling and it was as if an eruption threatened inside Mara. She deliberately plunged into enthusiasm. “I long to see it explode, Dare.”
“Of course you do, but I admit, so do I. Natural darkness seems more appropriate than curtains. May I bring you this evening?”
“Yes! No. Bother, I can’t. We’re going to the theater. At last. Covent Garden. Some new piece called The Lady’s Choice. But we must see this soon. Promise? And don’t come without me.”
“I promise. My time is almost entirely free, so you must set the day.”
“Like a wedding,” she said—then wanted to strangle herself. “Oh, look. Pyramids!” She towed him to the side tables. “Smaller than the ones we made at home, but much more believable.”
They contemplated pyramids, and then strolled past an amphitheater and an obelisk. These models were quite small, but still exquisitely realistic.
“‘The Temple of the Sibyls at Tivoli,’” she read from the next label. “What exactly is a sibyl?”
“An oracle?”
“They can’t be the same thing.”
“Perhaps a sibyl is a type of oracle. Or an oracle a type of sibyl. Just as a minx is a type of young lady, but not all young ladies are minxes.”
She wrinkled her nose at him. “This minx knows something about a sibyl.”
“What?”
“One of them—I can’t remember which—had twelve books of prophesies. She offered them to a king—I can’t remember which-”
“Not an attentive student,” he remarked.
“Were you?”
“No.” He was still smiling, so she continued to amuse.
“This Sibyl offered her books to the king for an enormous price. He tried to haggle, so she burned three and offered the nine for the same price. When he refused to pay, she burned three more. By the time he gave in, there were only three left and he paid her original price for them. I like her.”
“You would. But think of all the wisdom lost.”
“That was the king’s fault for being miserly. He probably thought a woman would buckle to his demands.”
“One would think a king would have greater wisdom.”
“Why?”
He laughed. “An excellent question, especially as ours is mad. What do we have next? The Grotto of Egeria. Who was Egeria? We need Nicholas or Lucien.”
“We do?” Mara was treasuring that laughter.
He glanced at her. “Nicholas Delaney and Lucien, Lord Arden.”
“I know that. Why do we need them here?”
“Nicholas has a magpie mind and Lucien—never tell the world—was a brilliant scholar.”
“Shocking!” she declared, moving on to some sort of medieval square.
Their guide reappeared at their side.
“Ah, Verona! Site of the touching story of the star-crossed lovers. Behold the model of Juliet’s house, the Casa di Giulietta. That is the true name in Italian, ma’am,” he kindly explained. “And here you see the very balcony upon which fair Juliet stood to be admired by Signor Romeo. Beside it we have her tomb….”
“No tombs,” Dare said and steered Mara firmly onward. “With Black Ademar’s hair it would be fatal to encourage tragic love.”
“I’m a St. Bride of Brideswell,” she protested, laughing. “I’m incapable of it.”
“…the Coliseum, where Christian martyrs were fed to wild beasts,” the guide orated with determination.
“And can you really imagine the St. Bride family involved in a blood feud with anyone?” Mara asked.
“In Simon’s case, yes.” Dare thanked the frustrated guide and dispatched him with another coin.
“He’s going to make a fortune by pestering us,” Mara pointed out. “I think Simon’s burned away that sort of fury, and Jancy is the epitome of calm practicality.”
“Thus, a perfect match.”
Mara ignored antiquities. “Opposites make an ideal couple? Ella and George are very alike, and Rupert and Mary, and father and mother—”
“But none of them have Black Ademar’s thatch.”
“So,” Mara asked, “what would my opposite be?”
“Dull.”
“A compliment, I think.”
“I sus
pect many pray for a dull spouse.” He turned her toward the display. “Pay attention to the ruins.”
“The Parthenon,” Mara said, considering the famous temple. “Father might enjoy this, you know. He hates travel, but is interested in antiquities. He thinks there’s some sort of ancient temple beneath Brideswell, but can’t think how to explore for it.”
“I wouldn’t be surprised.”
At his tone, she glanced at him. “Why?”
“There’s something special about the place.”
“It’s a rambling hodgepodge of a house.”
“I don’t mean Brideswell itself, though that has a sort of magic, but the house, the church, the village. It’s all built within the grounds of the old monastery. If that had been built on some pagan site, it would explain why it feels…good,” he completed, obviously dissatisfied with the word.
Mara’s heart was beating fast. “You’d always be welcome there, Dare. We think of you as one of the family.”
Would you like to live there? Marry me, and it can be done. Father’s already built a wing for Edmund and Mary. He’d build one for us.
But he was looking around the room. “Pierre might enjoy this. The volcano especially.”
Mara let the moment slip away. There would be other times. “Boys being boys,” she said, “and liking noisy explosions.”
He smiled at her. “I seem to remember a lady expressing enthusiasm.”
She wrinkled her nose. “As you say, it’s the hair.”
They strolled past the last models and left the house. Mara eyed the clouds, praying it wouldn’t rain. Rain wouldn’t dampen her spirits, but they’d have to hurry home.
“Buy a souvenir for your lady, sir?”
The harshly accented cry drew Mara’s attention to a woman selling reproductions of the models. She was holding one out to tempt Dare. Your lady. Mara cherished that as they strolled over.
The copies were crudely made, but Mara picked up one of the volcano. “I wonder if this could be made to erupt. It could be filled with gunpowder.”
“No,” Dare said firmly, taking it from her, “but Pierre would probably like it and not have such notions.” He purchased it, and a Casa di Giulietta for Delphie.
“You’ll encourage her toward tragic love,” Mara teased.
He picked up a Juliet’s Tomb. “For you,” he said, “as warning against unruly love.”
Mara protested his words, but took her package with delight. Her first gift from Dare! They turned to walk the short distance back to Ella’s house, but Mara couldn’t bear this excursion to end.
“Would you mind if we visited the book shop in the next street?” she asked. “It’s not far out of our way and I have a copy waiting of Sarah Burney’s Tales of Fancy.”
“Not, I assume, about boxing.”
“Fancy,” she said, “not ‘the fancy.’ How anyone can find amusement in watching two men pound each other with their fists, I don’t know.”
“We’re vile creatures, we men. So what is the fancy in question?”
“Imaginary things. In this case, a shipwreck.”
“All too real, unfortunately.”
“In this wreck,” she said as they turned the corner, “a lady and her daughter are stranded on an island, just like Robinson Crusoe.”
“With a Man Friday?”
“In the shape of a fine English gentleman, also a survivor of the wreck.”
His lips twitched. “Definitely an imaginary thing.”
“What? A fine English gentleman?” Her laughing eyes met his. A perfect moment. “It’s supposed to be very adventurous. And very touching.”
“So I would think.”
“Dare, you’re having naughty thoughts!”
“Mara, men always have naughty thoughts.”
She winked. “So do women.”
His brows rose and he propelled her into the bookshop. The bookseller hurried to bow and quickly produced Tales of Fancy in three volumes, the pages already cut, and gave the package to Dare.
“As I have a beast of burden,” Mara said, “I think I’ll look to see what else is on the shelves.”
Dare followed, protesting, “Three volumes won’t keep you occupied for at least a month?”
“I lead such a quiet life at Ella’s.” She slid him a look. “Except when a dashing hero rescues me.”
“Simon will be here soon.”
“A brother can never be a dashing hero to a sister.”
“But when he arrives, won’t you move to Marlowe House with him and Jancy?”
“Yes, and life’s bound to be more lively then, especially as it will probably have Rogues.”
“Which sounds rather like ‘have rats.’”
She laughed. “A plague of them.”
She turned to the shelves. “Oh, look.” She grabbed four volumes entitled Husband Hunters!!! “Three exclamation marks. Very promising, don’t you think?”
“Of excess, especially from an author called Amelia Beauclerc. What about that one? Barozzi, or the Venetian Sorceress.”
“But it’s by a mere Catherine Smith. Doesn’t such a commonplace name threaten a commonplace book?”
“Mara, how can anything about a Venetian sorceress be commonplace?”
“You’d be surprised,” she said darkly. “There are novelists, would you believe, who create the most tempting delights only to use them as a vehicle for pious homilies. It should be illegal.”
“If I enter Parliament, I pledge to see to it. It occurs to me that you should pen novels.”
She looked at him in surprise. “I? I struggle to write letters.”
“But you have the name for it. Can’t you see The Captive Corpse of Castle Cruel by Ademara St. Bride?”
“My goodness, yes. But how could a corpse be captive?”
“We’re talking fancy. The corpse is under a spell. Or a potion, like Juliet.”
“Locked away until her hero can find her? How thrilling.”
“Then write it.”
She gave a theatrical shudder and fluttered her lashes at him. “You could write it, dearest Dare, and I would lend my name to it.”
“Simon would shoot me. Come along. You have enough literature here to last till doomsday.”
“Especially if I’m writing novels at the same time.” She arranged for the account to be sent to Ella’s house and Dare paid for the books to be delivered, though Mara protested that he was shirking his task.
They left the shop in high spirits.
“What shall my heroine’s name be?” she asked, to keep the fun going.
“Bellissima,” Dare said. “Bellissima di Magnifico.”
“No, no. The heroine must be an ordinary lady with a name like…Anne.”
“Anne Brown?”
“Too dull.”
“Anne Orange?”
“Stop it!” But she adored him in this playful mood.
“Anne White, then,” he said. “White is suitably virginal. I assume she is a virgin.”
Mara prayed not to be blushing. “Of course. Spelled with a y to give it elegance.”
“Virgyn?”
“Whyte!” Mara exclaimed. “And the hero’s name is…?”
“Can he have a glorious name?”
“As long as it’s not Glorioso. What about Tristan?” she suggested.
“St. Raven would strangle us both.”
They paused for a sweeper to get rid of some horse droppings before crossing the street. “That’s the Duke of St. Raven’s Christian name?” Mara asked.
Dare tossed the lad a coin. “Yes,”
“How do you know?”
“I knew him as a boy. What other name appeals?”
“Darius,” she teased.
“Then I’d have to strangle you.”
“Novel writing is a lot harder than it seems,” Mara complained as they walked on. “We need a noble name. Kingly, even.”
“Ethelred.”
“As in Ethelred the Unready? No!”
“A whole Canute or nothing, sir.”
“There you are, then. Your hero is Canute. Canute Or-not-to-canute,” he declared, “lost Duke of Dawlish. They’re always lost heirs to something, aren’t they?”
Mara was laughing almost too much to talk. “You’re impossible.” You’re the old Dare.
“I dare you,” he said.
It was as if he’d picked up her thought. “To do what?”
“To write a novel using those names.”
“If I succeed, what do you forfeit?”
“I have to write a novel myself?”
“In iambic pentameters.”
He winced. “It would be a very short piece.” They strolled on for a moment. Then he recited: “Canute Ornottocanute, lost Duke of Dawlish/Was raised as a pig boy, and thus somewhat poorish.”
“Those lines have only four beats. Iambic pentameters require five.”
“There’s a silent beat, like the silent k on knock. Wait, wait, I have more: He met pure Anne Whyte,/ Which inspired him to fight,/Which he did with an elegant flourish!”
She laughed but said, “Your beat is all off, and there’s not a trace of a captive corpse, never mind the castle. Be serious.”
“Why?”
An excellent question. Mara felt she could almost float away on light spirits.
“Very well,” Dare said with an artificial sigh. “Who is our villain? Presumably he has poisoned poor Anne and locked her in a dungeon.”
“In her wedding gown,” Mara suggested.
“They do tend to be, don’t they? So, the villain?”
“The lord of the castle, of course. Baron Bane.”
“Very good,” he said, tossing a coin to a crossing sweeper. “Savage Bane, Baron Cruel.”
“Isn’t that just a little heavy-handed?”
“Have done with subtlety. He probably has a squint and oozing sores.”
“No one christens a baby Savage.” Mara said. “What about Caspar? That’s a real name but with a savage sound to it. Caspar the Cruel lusts after virtuous Anne Whyte, innocent maiden of the village. She is the beloved of Canute Ornottocanute—that really is ridiculous!—who is striving to reclaim his title.”
“Which of course has been misappropriated by Caspar, his wicked uncle.”
“Who believes he killed Canute as a baby…”