A Terrible Beauty

by Tasha Alexander

  “I am of the opinion that you turned out most heartily well,” Fritz said.

  “Thank you,” I said. “Were you there the day he found the Achilles bronze?”

  “No, I was working at Magnesia on the Maeander that season.”

  “What do you make of the story?” Jeremy asked.

  “It is not easy to find sense in it, but I do believe his basic narrative. What we cannot be certain of is the bronze itself. No one had a chance to study it, so we can estimate neither its age nor its origin. Ashton, of course, wants it to have come from Achilles’ helmet, but it just as easily could have been brought to the site by someone else much later.”

  “Alexander the Great visited Troy,” I said.

  “Yes, it was practically a place of pilgrimage to the ancients,” Fritz said. “I exaggerate some, but no Greek man would have traveled through that part of Turkey without going there. The stories surrounding it were highly significant to their culture.”

  “What was his condition when you found him in Africa?” I asked. “Was he very ill?”

  “Not when I first saw him. He was lean to the point of gaunt, but healthy. Sunburned. From his stories it was clear life with the Masai suited him in a way.”

  “Why did he leave them?” I asked.

  “To come back to you.”

  I bit back the words I was about to speak. Jeremy, seeing the change in my expression, patted my arm. “There, there, darling. I am certain he would have come sooner had the hunting been not quite so good.”

  “Thank you, Jeremy,” I said. “You are a source of true comfort.”

  “I am confident he had no real idea how much time had passed,” Fritz said. “When we told him, he appeared genuinely horrified.”

  “I believe you,” I said, flicking ash off my cigar before extinguishing it. I looked over at Colin, but he was too caught up in conversation to notice. If Philip had not tarried so long in Africa, Colin and I might never have married, a thought too awful to contemplate. For the first time since I had started traveling to Santorini, the villa began to feel more like a cage than a peaceful retreat. “Would you excuse me?” Smiling took an effort, but I did not want Jeremy or Fritz to follow me. Consolation offered no appeal, especially when my husband did not so much as look up when I started down the stairs.

  I went first to the drawing room, where candlelight illuminated the Impressionist paintings on the wall. How I loved them—the way they captured light, and the way their colors so well suited the island. I paused before the portrait Renoir had painted of me, long before I had met him, using a photograph Philip had given him. I could hardly bear to look at it now, knowing the original image had been taken on the day of my first wedding. I removed it from the wall and called for Mrs. Katevatis.

  “Could you please stash this somewhere?” I asked. “I don’t want to display it anymore.”

  “But of course, Lady Emily, although I must say—”

  A loud bang interrupted her. We looked at each other and rushed toward the back of the house, the direction from which the sound had come. Adelphos was already in the courtyard, making his way to the barn, from whence I could hear the distress of the horses. I ran after him, terrified they had come to harm, but was relieved to find them only startled.

  “It was a gunshot, Lady Kallista,” Adelphos said. I started to run again, this time to the room in which the injured man reposed. He was still unconscious, and so far as I could tell nothing had changed in his condition. By the time I returned to the courtyard, Colin and the others had arrived. My husband held me by the shoulders and looked me over.

  “You are not hurt?” His dark eyes burned with intensity.

  “No, I am unharmed. What happened?”

  Mr. Papadokos, entering through the gate near the barn, laughed as he saw our frenzied state. “No need for alarm,” he said. “The shot was fired in the air to celebrate an engagement in the village. You English are too skittish. It is—” he paused, then shrugged “—it is embarrassing.”

  I could not agree. The shot may have proved harmless, but in the shadowy courtyard, outside a house that held one man I had long thought to be dead and another who may have been sent on an evil errand, nothing felt secure. Uncertainty permeated the spring night, and I could not rest easy.

  Philip

  Constantinople, 1893

  When the season ended at Troy, Philip debated his options, finding he welcomed the break from his colleagues and from the site. The Achilles bronze had caused him more than enough trouble and aggravation. He needed to make as much profit as possible from the objects he had acquired over the past months, some his share of the dig, others purchased from locals, and decided to try his luck in Constantinople. He thrilled when he entered the Grand Bazaar, the cacophony of foreign tongues and scent of exotic spices assaulting his senses. Today, he was no tourist looking for trinkets and souvenirs. He was a merchant, ready to ply his trade, and he had an appointment with a man who ran a respected shop, a man who had come highly recommended by both buyers and sellers.

  “I assure you it is genuine,” Philip said, eager to curry the shop owner’s favor. “I am allowed a few pieces from the dig, ones not quite museum-worthy, but nonetheless beautiful and important. They would be valued by any collector. This pot is from Troy, and the painting on it tells me it is Mycenaean, from the Helladic period. See how it almost looks Minoan? They favored designs of this sort, floral patterns and sea creatures. Look at the detail on the nautilus on the front.”

  The robed man sitting across from him grunted. “It is not from the Trojan War and could not have belonged to Agamemnon.”

  “You’re quite right,” Philip said. “It is too early for it to have belonged to Agamemnon, although some might not agree with my precise dates for the piece. Regardless, it is a magnificent vessel.” He watched as the dealer fingered it, examining it with a magnifying glass.

  “It is genuine?”

  “I have all the paperwork concerning the provenance. Herr Dörpfeld himself signed off on it. I could not have removed it from the site without his permission.”

  The dealer grunted again and called for a boy to bring them both tea. “I will buy the vase and the two spear points, but next time find me something better. Something gold.”

  “Would that it were so easy,” Philip said, taking the small pouch of money the man handed to him.

  “You will count it here, Mr. Chapman, so I see that you know I am honest. I pay fairly.”

  Philip did as instructed, and once finished shook the dealer’s hand and ducked out the low door of his shop and back into the teeming bazaar, ignoring the myriad merchants imploring him to come inspect their wares. He had no need for another carpet or brass lights or leather slippers. He wondered if coming to Constantinople had been a mistake. The man had paid him well enough, but would his goods have commanded a higher price in Athens? He did not think it likely. In London, perhaps, Paris, or Berlin. Next year he could venture west.

  Or so he told himself, but even as he did, he knew he could never go. Not after the Countess von Lange had recognized him in Vienna. He could not risk being spotted again and had waited too long to see Kallista, who was now married to Hargreaves. His hesitation to confront her—and his disloyal best friend—had cost him her love, and he held little hope of getting it back. Better that he stay in the east and forget everything about his old life.

  It certainly proved cheaper to live in the east. He had a small house in Athens now, something he would never have been able to afford in England on his meager wages. While he did not miss managing Ashton Hall and the rest of his estate, he had to acknowledge the unassailable fact that money made everything easier. He had become a good salesman and had earned a tidy sum buying and selling antiquities, but he would never be able to approach the luxurious level of his former lifestyle.

  Surprisingly, this did not trouble him. He loved his work, from the alternating extremes of thrill and drudgery while excavating to the nervous excit
ement that came from negotiating a sale. His best results with the latter had come not from the paltry items he was allowed to take from the dig, but from pieces he spotted in villages, things the locals did not value and would give him for a pittance. He would never take advantage of them, but what they considered to be a fortune was an insignificant amount to him, even in his reduced circumstances. Reselling the piece in Athens or Constantinople or even Cairo to a dealer whose clients were wealthy Europeans—that was where the real money was made.

  If he opened a gallery of his own he would make still more, for he knew the dealers turned an outrageous profit after paying him, but he feared it would be too risky. He did not want to interact directly with Western clients. His world would come crashing down if anyone recognized him, and he could not face having to reinvent himself again.

  What he truly desired was to go back to Santorini, the one place on earth that made his soul sing. He wondered if Kallista ever used the villa, or if it sat, neglected. She might have sold it. Much as he wanted to return to the island, he feared he might be too easily identified there. Few foreign visitors came to the Cyclades, and those who did were more likely to visit Delos or Naxos than Santorini, so he had stood out, and many of the locals, especially in Fira and Imerovigli, had known him on sight. In a few years, perhaps, enough time would have passed for them to have forgot him. He would be patient for as long as necessary. Santorini was worth the wait.

  11

  Mr. Papadokos continued to laugh as we all stood in the courtyard near the barn, and before long the gentlemen had joined him. I blame the ouzo. They all thought it was a good joke, my having been stricken with terror at the sound of one innocuous gunshot. Margaret and I stood apart from the others, our arms crossed, looking disapprovingly at their antics, which now included Mr. Papadokos teaching them Greek folk dances. Colin had the advantage, as this was not his first ouzo-fueled evening with the woodworker. It was only a question of time before more men from the village appeared and the strains of violin music accompanied their shouts and stamping feet.

  “They are like children,” Margaret said.

  “I could not agree more,” Jeremy said, coming up behind us. “It is mortifying to observe. I myself insist upon much higher standards of behavior.”

  I boxed his arm and grinned. “You are a model of good breeding.”

  “Why are you unwilling to take part in the fun?” he asked.

  “I understand this particular incident was harmless, but we have in the house a man suffering from grievous injuries who Philip claims was sent to threaten him. Are we to believe his nemesis will stop now? Should we not be taking measures to secure his safety, not to mention ours?”

  “Personally, I could not be less concerned. If someone wants to shoot me, I do wish he would get on with it. Tedious business, waiting around.” He took a cigar from his jacket pocket and rolled it between the fingers of his right hand. “This trip, may I remind you, is meant to provide consolation for my wounded and insulted heart. Instead, it is making me start to think I would have been better off subjecting myself to the matrons of London and their desperate attempts to marry me to their daughters.”

  “You know that is not true,” I said.

  “I may be teasing, just a little,” he said. “However, Em, I do think it is unfair of you to subject me to not only one, but two, of your husbands. It’s bloody awkward. And just when I had finally started to get used to Hargreaves.”

  “Only imagine what it must be like for Colin,” Margaret said. “He may be all stiff upper lip and what have you, but I have never seen him so troubled.”

  “Impossible to see anything beneath that implacable countenance,” Jeremy said.

  “Don’t be unkind,” I said. “You are quite right on one count, though, Jeremy. We are here to amuse you, and I refuse to let anything stand in our way. Philip can defend himself without us for one day at least. Tomorrow we will cross the caldera and visit the volcano. Perhaps we will even indulge ourselves with a dip in the hot springs. I trust you have a swimming costume?”

  Before he could answer, Philip swooped toward us and looped his arm through Jeremy’s. “Come along, Bainbridge, that’s quite enough fraternizing with the ladies. If anyone understands heartbreak like you do, it is I. Join me and together we will forget all of our sorrows.”

  Margaret and I stayed for only a little while longer. When we bade the gentlemen good night—they showed no signs of abandoning their dancing in the courtyard, and, as I predicted, several more village men had joined them—Colin pulled me aside, to the shadows of a dusty alcove of the barn, and kissed me with such passion I nearly lost my balance.

  “Why don’t you come upstairs with me?” I murmured, barely pulling my lips from his.

  “Can’t, not now.” He stepped back, then leaned forward and kissed me again, quickly this time. “You ought to sleep. I will be late.”

  I admit to being somewhat vexed by this, but made sure to give him no indication of my feelings as I went inside. Margaret confessed to being exhausted, so we parted outside our bedchambers, but Morpheus eluded me. I read for a while, first The Iliad, but found that Homer’s poetry soothed me not at all, and so discarded it in favor of Mary Elizabeth Braddon’s Sons of Fire, but its setting—Africa—put me off, and I decided to abandon literature as a source of consolation. I blew out the lamp, tucked the mosquito netting around the bed, and did my best to sleep.

  As anyone who has struggled with insomnia knows, trying to force sleep is at best a hopeless business. Slumber is unimpressed by suitors. I lay on my left side, then flipped to the right, then stayed flat on my back. I sat up when a sound from outside caught my attention. The strains of music still wafted through the open shutters from the courtyard behind the house, but I also heard voices coming from the front, muffled, and the banging of furniture, accompanied by shushing noises and deep, masculine laughter.

  I slid out of bed, getting tangled momentarily in the mosquito netting, and went to the balcony, the smooth tile of the floor cool against my bare feet. The rail was not iron, but solid plaster, in the Cycladic style, and quite deep, at least a foot—more wall than rail, really, so I could skulk behind it and peek over the top just enough to see Colin and Philip adjusting chairs on the terrace below. The red tips of their cigars glowed in the darkness as they sat.

  “I never thought we would do this again,” Colin said, his long legs stretched in front of him. He had removed his jacket and his collar, and the top buttons of his shirt were open. A glow of yellow from the drawing room windows shed just enough light on the scene for me to watch them. “I have missed you, missed our talks.”

  “And I you, old boy,” Philip said. “Glad I could at least leave you a wife as compensation for the loss of our friendship.”

  “Don’t—”

  Philip laughed, low and steady. “I do not mean to disparage you. We always had so much in common it cannot come as a surprise that we should both love the same woman. Although you must admit that prior to Kallista’s winning your affection, your attention strayed in a very different direction. Older and catastrophically sophisticated, if I recall.”

  “Don’t remind me,” my husband said.

  “I saw Kristiana in Vienna some years back,” Philip said. “You left her devastated.”

  “Kristiana never let anyone devastate her.” He paused. “She is dead now, at any rate.”

  “Dead? Are you quite sure?”

  Something—perhaps the ironic tone of his friend’s voice—made Colin laugh. “I realize that your question is most prescient given your … may I say, resurrection? You and I never discussed it—for obvious reasons—but Kristiana was an agent for the Austrian government and died trying to stop an unprincipled Englishman’s attempt to catalyze a war between Britain and Germany.”

  “In that line of work it would not be unheard of for her to have staged her death, would it?”

  “No, but in this case, I know exactly what happened. Unfortunately, she
is dead. It still pains me greatly to say it.”

  I sank down, my back hard against the plaster wall at the edge of the balcony. He had loved Kristiana, long ago, and had admitted as much to me before we were married. I, too, regretted her demise—she had been killed defending the Austrian state, and it was unfair of me to begrudge Colin remembering her with fondness all these years later. Emotions frequently refuse to bend into nice, rational packets.

  “I’m sorry, old boy,” Philip said. “It had to be a blow.”

  “Thank you.”

  After that, they sat in silence for so long I started to grow bored. Margaret and I would never have tolerated such a lag in conversation. I had just about decided to return to bed when Philip spoke again.

  “You love her, don’t you?”

  “Emily?” Colin asked. “More than anything. I did not think someone could ever be so dear to me.”

  “Yes, you can imagine my shock at having found you so well and thoroughly domesticated.”

  “She is not like other wives.”

  “I wish I had—” Philip sighed. “There is no use wishing.”

  Colin did not reply. The scent of their cigars filled the air. I wanted to peek over the edge again, and try to read the expression on my husband’s face, but I dared not. The risk of exposure was too great. I did not want to be caught eavesdropping. That said, I must admit, as I always attempt to be absolutely candid, I should have felt mortified at listening to what the men below thought was a private conversation. Yet I found I could not pull myself away.

  “You have children?” Philip asked.

  “Three boys.”

  “One is your ward?” Colin must have nodded, for Philip continued as if his question had been answered. “It was good of you to take him in. And your oldest will inherit when Earl Bromley dies?”

  “Yes,” Colin said. “The irony is not lost on me.”