by Bliss Bennet
He still felt a foolish pang, every time he was reminded he’d never sire an heir. Mina would in all likelihood marry and amply provide his parents with grandchildren to indulge, but neither she nor her male children could assume the earldom. And his father had no other heirs besides Dulcie. After Dulcie’s death, the title would become extinct, unless the King chose to bestow it upon some other deserving soul.
But a leopard cannot change his spots, and Dulcie could not change his proclivities, even had he so wished. Besides, he’d have a far more valuable legacy to gift to the world than any heir of his body: the innovative artworks he had collected, and would continue to collect, for the remainder of his time on God’s good earth.
And if he could succeed in his goal of being named a Director of the British Institution, he’d use every bit of his charm to persuade its stick-in-the-mud members to bestow their patronage not just on artists who followed slavishly in the footsteps of the Old Masters, but those who chose to create more modern, experimental works. Now that would be a legacy well worth bragging of.
At long last, his father finally pulled a sheet of paper from his piles. “What say you to the eldest Miss Davenport-Devenport?”
“If she’s anything like her brother, I say no thank you.” Dulcie leaned back in his chair and wiggled his toes. He’d still not broken in these new boots entirely to his satisfaction.
“Lady Constance Wingfield? She’d be glad to wed a lively sprig like you after nursing a sickly husband all those years. Your mother tells me she’ll be out of mourning next month.”
“A saintly martyr?” Dulcie shuddered. “Far too good for the likes of me.”
“What think you of Miss Fishclyffe?”
“The Fish? Who still believes the Oldenburg bonnet the height of fashion? And who never met a ruffle she didn’t like?” Dulcie sniffed. “I think not.”
“Now, you cannot find fault with every young lady in the ton,” Lord Milne said, swatting at the paper with a frustrated hand. He gazed over his glasses with narrowed eyes. “Unless your head has been turned in a far less suitable direction. Must I remind you of your promise after that horrid Copeland affair, that you’d never again allow another man to tempt you to effeminate familiarities?”
Dulcie gritted his teeth. Lord Milne must be in dead earnest to openly refer to that dreadful incident. Dulcie’s days—and especially his nights—with Tom Copeland, a stableboy he’d met while at Oxford, had been some of the most satisfying of his entire life. Yet in the end, what he’d thought had been a mutual affaire de coeur had proven markedly one-sided. Dulcie cringed to remember with what open ardor he had declared his passion to the young man, while Copeland, the opportunist, had only been using Dulcie as a means to a lucrative end.
He could still see his father’s face as Copeland’s uncle accosted him, flinging crude accusations of how Dulcie had corrupted his innocent nephew. No, Dulcie would never lay his feelings so open to another lover again, not after his father had been forced to pay such an outrageous sum to keep Copeland’s uncle quiet.
And not after witnessing such an excruciating expression of dismay, disappointment, and disgust on his father’s face every time he looked at Dulcie in the days and weeks that followed. Changing his proclivities might not be in his power, but discretion with his lovers surely was.
Dulcie tugged on his shirt cuff. “Who else is on the list?”
Lord Milne nodded. “Raikes’s girl? Or Fry’s? No, what say you to Adler’s? Does he not own one of the finest art collections in all of London? You and he would be able to natter on about collecting, even if you had little to say to his granddaughter herself.”
“Miss Adler? Miss Polyhymnia Adler?” Dulcie sat up in his chair. In all the chaos of his broken non-engagement with Sibilla Pennington, he’d done nothing to help forward his bet with Leverett. Well, well. How very interesting!
“Yes, I believe that is the girl’s name. Have you been introduced?”
“We’ve not yet met, but I believe I caught a glimpse of her at Colnaghi’s a fortnight or so back. Yes, I’d be more than happy to make Miss Adler’s acquaintance.”
Lord Milne folded his hands together and set them on his desk, leaning forward with far more eagerness than Dulcie had expected. “Excellent. For we’ve already send Adler an invitation to the British Institution’s spring exhibition, and offered your services as guide. Just in case Miss Pennington, in the end, found your charms a bit too—er, petticoated?—for her tastes. Your mother’s idea, you know.”
Dulcie forced himself to smile, even as he flinched inside. “Mama’s idea. Of course. And when is our meeting with the Adlers to take place?”
“In early May, soon after the exhibition opens. We must find a mutually suitable date.”
“I am entirely at your service, sir.”
Especially if beginning to court Miss Adler might throw him in the way of Benedict Pennington once more.
CHAPTER THREE
Benedict stared up at the pair of carved stone lyres, each set within a beribboned wreath that flanked the fan-light over the entrance of the British Institution. Inside, no doubt, he’d find Dulcie tuning the lyre of his oh-so-charming voice, not to deeds of fame and notes of fire, as Byron would have it, but to a pitch best designed to resonate with an unsuspecting Polly Adler.
Oh, Benedict had tried to warn her, with hints growing less and less subtle as the day for her visit to the exhibition with Dulcie grew ever nearer, that she’d do well not to put too much faith in anything the viscount said. He’d told her about Dulcie’s insincere courting of his sister, and even some part of the scene of chaos at Pennington House last week, caused in large part, he suspected, not by Sibilla or her new fiancé but by Dulcie and his behind-the-scenes manipulations. He’d been careful to avoid mentioning his own sudden burst of rage at the revelation that Dulcie had once kept a mistress, or his own uncharacteristically violent reaction. How could he explain it to Polly, when he could barely even explain it to himself? Besides, hearing how he’d almost shaken the teeth from the knave would only awaken the kindly girl’s sympathy.
Instead, he’d been forced to hint at Dulcie’s heartlessness during their mutual school days, although he’d not confided any of the more damning details. But Polly, tolerant to a fault, had just laughed. “I am only the more eager to meet a man who can stir the reticent Mr. Pennington into such a swither,” she’d teased with her eager smile.
And so today he found himself at number 52 Pall Mall, standing uneasily between the two Horse Guards acting as sentinels at the British Institution’s entrance, poised to insinuate himself into a gathering to which he’d received no invitation. At least Dulcie had chosen a public venue for his first meeting with Polly, rather than his father’s London residence. Or a somewhat public venue. He pulled the ticket that his brother Kit, who had a far wider London acquaintance than did Benedict, had managed to wrangle for him from his waistcoat pocket.
After handing his hat to the attendant, and a shilling for a catalogue to the money-taker, he strode across the vestibule and mounted the steps to the Gallery. A gaudy chaos of the fashionable bustled about, gazing as much at one another, alas, as they did at the Italian, Spanish, Flemish, and Dutch paintings adorning the gallery’s walls, temporarily borrowed from the collections of the nation’s most prestigious connoisseurs. Many argued that the masses could have no appreciation for the fine arts, but few in this modish set seemed intent on aesthetic edification, either.
Benedict examined the crowd more closely but could not see any sign of his quarry. Nor, thank heavens, of Dulcie’s boon companion, the odious Lattimer Leverett, a man he’d do more than cross to the other side of the pavement to avoid. Polly’s grandfather, though, stood at the west end of the room, in front of what looked to be a quite fine Guercino. But Adler had his back turned to the masterpiece, his head lowered in close conversation with Dulcie’s father, Lord Milne.
Damnation. Adler must have already abandoned his granddaughter to Du
lcie’s ingratiating charms.
Adler gestured him over before Benedict could make his way into one of the other two rooms of the gallery in search of the pair.
“Lord Milne, have you an acquaintance with Mr. Pennington?” Adler asked as Benedict arrived by his side. “If not, may I have the pleasure of introducing you?”
Milne, no doubt remembering the ridiculous scene to which they had both recently been a party less than a fortnight before, caught back a laugh. “Mr. Pennington and I were on the cusp of being far more than acquainted, sir. But once again Dulcie managed to let an eligible young lady slip through his fingers. I console myself that at least Sir Peregrine Sayre is a deserving young man.”
“I am sorry to hear it, my lord. But take heart; the season is far from over. And as you see about you today, many a young lady of breeding and character remains as yet unmatched.” Adler’s eyes traveled the room, as if weighing the merits and faults of each such young lady present, setting them in the scale against all that his own granddaughter, and he, had to offer. “If you are set on Lord Dulcie making an eligible match before the fall, you will certainly have little difficulty finding a suitable lady. And a dutiful son will always respect the authority of the head of his family.”
“As you say,” the earl replied, his words of agreement at odds with a wry grimace he couldn’t quite repress. Poor Lord Milne. Dulcie’s lack of respect for authority had endeared him to many an admiring schoolboy during his days at Harrow, but it could hardly please a father.
“What think you of the exhibition?” Benedict asked, redirecting the conversation. “Are there any works which you particularly admire?”
Adler glanced down at the catalog in his hand, then shrugged. “I’ve seen better by most of the artists listed.”
“That large one of the foreign king and the ghostly hand seems quite popular,” Milne said, gesturing towards an open archway. “Over in the North Room.”
Adler sniffed. “Belshazzar’s Feast? Yes, the unknowledgeable will flock to a Rembrandt, even one of his lesser works.”
“My son did seem quite eager to show it to Miss Adler.”
Polly’s grandfather smiled. “So he might impress her by expounding on its faults?”
“Ah, yes, Dulcie does love to flaunt his knowledge to all the world, and to the ladies in particular.”
“My granddaughter will be in raptures with anyone who will speak with intelligence to her about art. A wise choice, having them meet at this Exhibition. Rumor has it that Dulcie may be named a Director of the Institution before long.”
“The North Room, did you say?” Benedict interrupted as the two older men shared a companionable laugh. Between them, they’d have Polly and Dulcie betrothed—and the best of Adler’s paintings installed in Dulcie’s home rather than held aside for a national gallery—before he could even blink. “I confess I am eager to see the Belshazzar myself. If you will excuse me, gentlemen?”
Benedict bowed, then made his way through an open archway to the next gallery. A crowd of viewers was indeed clustered in front of the large Rembrandt, but Polly and Dulcie were not among them. Instead, he found them before one of the few paintings of a woman in this room—one of the Catholic saints, no doubt. Polly had always been drawn to such works whenever they encountered one during their many visits to churches and galleries on the Continent.
Polly’s eyes were fixed on the painting, but Benedict’s turned almost as if by instinct to the man gesticulating with animation beside her. The coltish adolescent body that had strode with such confidence onto the playing fields of Harrow had grown broader, stronger, yet retained all its lithe elegance. Almost preternatural, it was, the grace with which Clair moved, the glow of vitality which suffused his every expression. And his golden curls, more suited to a cherub than to an Englishman, paired with those impish blue eyes glinting in unholy humor—one could never tell whether angel or devil would take the lead on any particular day. That taunting ambiguity, its glorious unpredictability, had once been Benedict’s ideal of male perfection.
A boyish habit, this staring at Clair. But for the life of him, he could not seem to stop it. Even knowing how easily the devil could drive him, the sheer vitality of the man still took his breath away.
“. . . both a princess and a scholar, and a powerful orator,” Dulcie said as Benedict moved close enough to catch hold of their conversation. “Had the effrontery to lecture the emperor Maxentius about his barbarous treatment of the Christians to his very face.”
“Yes, and when the emperor called fifty of his best philosophers to reason her out of her religious beliefs, it is said she outdebated them all,” Polly answered. “Several even converted after hearing her speak.”
“How fortunate I am to be in the company of a lady as learned as Saint Catherine herself.” Dulcie reinforced his compliment with a particularly winsome smile.
“You are too kind, my lord,” Polly demurred.
“Miss Adler has made a particular study of the virgin martyrs, and can regale you with all the most pertinent details of their lives,” Benedict said as he joined them before the painting. “Good day to you, Miss Adler. Lord Dulcie.”
“Mr. Pennington.” Polly’s eyes glinted with amusement. “You did not tell me you intended to visit the Exhibition today.”
“Perhaps he wished to escape the uproar at Pennington House,” Dulcie said. “You did hear that his sister has recently become engaged to my friend Sir Peregrine Sayre?”
“Indeed, I have,” Polly replied with a smile in Benedict’s direction.
“I did once think to secure Miss Pennington’s affections myself,” Dulcie said, then gave a deep sigh. “But alas, the lady preferred sober Sir Peregrine to my more insouciant self. I do hope you will take pity on me, Miss Adler, and offer the balm of your consolation to my bruised heart.”
Yes, he would make himself out to be the wounded party, wouldn’t he? But surely Polly was too intelligent to be taken in by such dramatics.
“From what I understand, the paintings on these walls would offer you far better consolation than any mere human could,” she said with a chuckle.
Benedict’s hackles settled at Polly’s cheerful taunt. No, she hadn’t yet been taken in by Lord Dulcie’s polished charms.
“Oh, Mr. Pennington, do you not agree that she is sublime?” Polly asked as she turned her attention back to the depiction of the saint. “How rapt she is in her inspiration. The red of her lips, and the flush of her cheeks, fired with such spiritual passion.”
“Fired? Or fevered?” Dulcie asked. “You must admit, her poor face does look a bit bloated.”
But Polly took no offense, kind girl that she was. “Yes, perhaps not the best execution there. Yet I cannot help but admire the way he’s captured her sorrow, as well as her passion. See, in those deep, dark eyes? She knows her time on the earth is soon to end.”
Benedict’s jaw clenched. After only an hour’s acquaintance, Polly would share such intimate insights with Dulcie? Benedict was of a far more reticent nature than the viscount, but still, it had taken weeks of traveling with Polly and her grandfather before she and Benedict had become so at ease with one another.
“Perhaps Saint Catherine should have accepted the emperor’s offer of marriage,” Dulcie said with a far too charming grin.
“And given up her beliefs?” Benedict scoffed, even knowing Dulcie had likely only said it to provoke. He’d always taken delight in extending any argument by adopting the role of devil’s advocate. “How craven.”
Dulcie raised an eyebrow. “Few beliefs are worth losing one’s head for.”
“Few beliefs, and even fewer people?”
“Very few people indeed,” he answered, not responding to the sarcasm in Benedict’s tone. The slightest of smiles played about his sensuous lips, as if he took pleasure rather than offense at the implied insult in Benedict’s words.
Before he could move closer to the man, Polly stepped between them, glancing from one to the oth
er with a frown. “Condemn herself to the control of such a cruel, arrogant husband? I do not believe a woman as educated and intelligent as Catherine would have ever done such a thing.”
Benedict clenched his fists. “No. Being subject to another’s control is irksome in the extreme.”
“But you did not always feel so, did you, Mr. Pennington? In fact, I recall a certain schoolfellow taking boyish pride in completing the tasks set him by his fagmaster.”
Dulcie’s taunt sent a pulse throbbing at Benedict’s temple. “I soon learned, though, that a master rarely appreciates such pride, or such effort. Far better to be one’s own commander than subject oneself to the whims and caprices of another.”
“Oh, on that we all may surely agree,” Polly said, laying a hand atop his arm. “But will we also share the same opinion of Guercino’s St. Catherine? In the South Room, was it not?”
With a tug on his arm, she pulled him free of the flow of people carefully circulating the room, examining each picture in the order in which they were listed in the exhibition catalog.
“Please, stop, before you cause a scene,” she whispered to Benedict, her face a mixture of confusion and concern. “I’ve never seen you behave with such discourtesy. And to a man so pleasant and amusing, too.”
Benedict shook his head. He’d managed not to lay hands on Dulcie this time, but only just. How could he keep letting the man goad him so?
“Polyhymnia, my dear,” Adler called as Polly pulled him back into the middle gallery. Adler glanced at Benedict with a tinge of displeasure. “Have you finished looking at the pictures yet? And what have you done with Lord Dulcie?”
“She has merely demonstrated her desire to please by granting his wish to review the pictures completely out of order.” Dulcie, clearly not put off by Polly’s abrupt departure nor by Benedict’s rudeness, offered an engaging smile as he joined their small circle. “I wished to compare how the followers of Carracci each attempted to capture the passion of Saint Catherine.”