A Lady Like No Other

by Claudia Stone

  “I called on you last night, but your butler said you were out.” Sebastian took in Gabriel’s slightly queasy complexion and gave a knowing smile. “Rough night?”

  “Let’s just say I checked the obituaries this morning to see if I’d been given an honourable mention,” Gabriel replied darkly. After his encounter with Lydia, the Marquess had taken himself to his club - or rather his clubs. From Brooke’s to Boodles and then onto White’s, Gabriel had drunk himself into a messy stupor. And when he deemed that not enough, he had descended on Sebastian’s gaming hell, Nuit Noire, in Pickering Place and had proceeded to lose a small fortune - which he could well afford, but that was not the point.

  “Briggs tells me I made a tidy profit off your adventures,” Sebastian said with no pleasure; as the owner of a gaming hell he never gambled, for he knew that the house always won. The Marquess himself was not overly fond of the past time, and usually, after the clock struck midnight, was more inclined towards amorous adventures with London’s many light skirted Cyprians, but something had stopped him. A misplaced sense of honour perhaps; fidelity to a woman who had not asked for it.

  “Oh, look it’s Lydia,” Aurelia said excitedly, drawing the Marquess from his ruminations, and she stood on her tip-toes to try to attract her friend’s attention across the crowded room. The Norton’s rout was essentially a crush, with dozens of society’s most affluent members packed into the drawing room, where a piano-forte was being played, and a few dozen others crammed into the parlour for good measure. The hosts had set up tables for cards in one room, provided music in another and a buffet in the dining room. It was a far less formal occasion than a ball, and Gabe relished the thought of spending time with Lydia in a more intimate environment.

  Gabriel watched Lydia as she abandoned her Aunt Tabitha, the Dowager Duchess, and made her way across to the trio. Was it his imagination or did she look tired? Dark circles cast a shadow under her violet eyes, and while the amusing idea that Lydia had painted them on for dramatic effect crossed his mind, Gabriel saw upon closer inspection that they were in fact real. So, he was not the only one who had had a dreadful nights’ sleep.

  “You look smashing cousin,” Lydia said, drawing Aurelia into a short hug, before turning her eyes to Sebastian and Gabriel.

  “Would that I could say the same about you two gentlemen,” she said with her usual candour. “Sebastian, you look far too smug to be palatable and Lucifer you look like death himself.”

  Her eyes met Gabriel’s and he saw that she was extending an olive branch of sorts.

  “And you will too Lady Beaufort, once you’ve suffered the youngest Norton’s piano playing for an hour like I have,” Gabriel replied dryly. Serendipitously Thalia Norton missed yet another key as he finished speaking, and a dull, booming flat note stilled the room.

  “Lud she’s even worse than I am, and that’s saying something” Lydia said with wonder, her voice carrying through the silence of the room. Several heads turned to stare disapprovingly, and Gabriel struggled to retain his composure. Thankfully - or not, depending on your hearing - young Miss Norton had not heard the criticism of her skills, and resumed playing with gusto.

  “Do tell,” Lydia turned to Aurelia, “Is being married to my cousin as awful as one might think?”

  “Oh gracious, no!” a blooming Aurelia turned to look up at Sebastian, whose hand was placed protectively at her waist, with love in her eyes. “He is the perfect gentleman, and - promise me you shall both keep this a secret - will be the perfect father as well.”

  Sutherland felt a wave of emotion hit him, as he registered the meaning behind her words.

  “Congratulations old man,” he said with a mixture of shock and delight, for Sebastian seemed fit to burst with pride. “Can’t say I envy the child with you as a father, but with Aurelia as a mother I’m sure it will turn out all right.”

  Gabriel knew that to an outsider his words might have sounded cruel, but both he and Sebastian had weathered Eton together, where any show of emotion was swiftly beaten out of them, and so his old-friend looked at him, almost misty eyed at what was - for an old Etonian - a blatant display of affection.

  “Thanks Gabe,” Sebastian said, punching him on the arm and ignoring Aurelia’s slightly withering look at their outward display of machismo. Only Lydia remained silent, and Gabriel was alarmed to see that her face was paler than usual.

  “Aren’t you afraid?” she asked, after a second’s hesitation, looking at Sebastian and Aurelia nervously.

  “Afraid?” Aurelia asked with confusion, her brunette curls bobbing as she shook her head in wonder. “Afraid of what exactly?”

  “Everything,” Lydia spread her arms out wide, as though trying to encompass the whole world with her gesture. “Afraid of it getting hurt, or dying or - or -”

  “Or it having to spend an entire night listening to Miss Norton butcher Wagner,” Sutherland interjected, stepping heavily on Lydia’s toe to silence her. To be fair to the girl she did not even squeak as her toe took the full brunt of his weight, and at over six feet the Marquess was sure that weight was significant.

  “Let us fetch a plate of something to nibble on Liddy,” he continued, taking her arm, and tucking it firmly under his own, “We shall return shortly you two, so don’t get too lost in the music.”

  With his mouth set in a grim line, Gabriel half-dragged Lydia across the floor and into the dining room, ignoring the few curious glances that came their way.

  “What is wrong with you?” he asked angrily as he selected a plate for her and began piling it high with cold meats and a hearty slice of rout-cake. “Why must you always be so miserable? Can you not be happy for your friend instead of terrifying her with hints of death and disaster?”

  Lydia remained silent beside him, watching as he continued to take an indigestible variety of food from the buffet. Gabriel absently mixed sardines with strawberries, and topped mackerel with a dollop of cream, as he mutinously considered the woman standing next to him.

  “Not everything is a twenty-sonnet ode to the underworld,” he continued, ungraciously drawing out a chair at a small table for Lydia and gesturing for her to sit. He wasn’t sure where his anger originated, perhaps he was just full to the gills of Lady Beaufort’s silly games, but he wished to have it out with her - no matter who heard him.

  “I know that,” Lydia protested, taking the fork, and using it to spear an assortment of foodstuffs that included both tongue and fruit cake. Both of their eyes rested on the concoction of food, which made Gabe’s stomach heave, before rising to meet each other’s gaze. Gabriel’s lips twitched as he saw the stubbornness in Lydia’s expression, she was never one to back down from a challenge. With the air of a woman who gave not a fig, Lydia swallowed her forkful of tongue, mackerel, cream and cake, her expression not betraying any hint of disgust.

  “Delicious,” she said blandly after she swallowed, lifting another heaped assortment to her lips.

  “Why must you be so infuriating?” Gabriel asked, not truly expecting an answer. The Lydia he knew had the capacity to be both very kind and very cruel, and occasionally did not have the maturity to control which one she deigned to bestow on people.

  “I don’t mean to be,” came her mumbled reply. A trace of what, the Marquess hoped, was cream remained at the corner of her lip. He leaned over in his chair, and of its own volition his hand reached out to wipe the cream away. A frisson of longing ran through him, as for the first time, he experienced what touching Lady Beaufort was like. Lydia’s eyes grew dark with reflected desire, and momentarily they were suspended in time, just two people lost in the sensation of being close to each other. Gabriel’s hand remained cupping Lydia’s chin, his thumb wondrously tracing the line of her plump bottom lip. He could see that she, like he, was holding her breath - breathing being a bothersome distraction from the blissful sensation of touching skin. Gabe felt a stirring in his loins, and he longed to sweep aside the table between them, and pull Lydia into his arms, so
that he could taste the bottom lip which had transfixed him so.

  “It’s just that I am so very fond of Aurelia,” Lydia stuttered abruptly, breaking the spell, and Gabriel’s hand dropped to his side. “And I should hate for anything to happen to her. Just as I should hate for anything to happen to the baby, for even though it is not here yet, I know that I will love it dearly.”

  “Well tell her that then,” Sutherland replied gruffly, his brain foggy with desire, “Don’t scare her any more than you have already. Come.”

  He stood and held out a hand to Lydia, who reluctantly took it and allowed him to help her to her feet. As she rose, her reticule fell to the floor, scattering her assorted possessions.

  “Lud, look what you’ve made me do,” she complained affectionately, stooping to gather a collection of pencils, spools of thread, a pamphlet on Catholic Emancipation, an apple and for some, inexplicable reason, a wooden spoon.

  “I don’t know how you did it,” Gabe commented dryly, as he made an inventory of the odds and ends on the floor, “But you appear to have stuffed the entire contents of a house into that tiny bag.”

  “Oh, don’t be silly,” Lydia retorted, “They’re just little mementos, things that remind me of happy events. You wouldn’t understand for you haven’t a sentimental bone in your body, Lord Sutherland.”

  “I take umbrage with that,” Gabe said, though he smiled. “For wherever I go, I always make sure that I have the handkerchief you made me in my breast pocket, close to my heart. Now whenever anyone asks me my name, I just whip it out and let them read it. It’s why you might have heard Colonel Edgeworth refer to me as Gibel, just this very evening.”

  “Oh, you wretch.” Lydia grumbled from her position on the floor, “Fine, I apologize for thinking you unsentimental - though you are rather unchivalrous to stand there watching me struggle, without even offering to help.”

  “Touché.”

  Gabriel stooped down to help her, and as he did so, from the corner of his eye he spotted a familiar silver case.

  That bloody portrait of Byron.

  Making sure that she was otherwise distracted, Gabriel slipped the silver case into his pocket, with only the slightest twinge of guilt. The Bard had taken up enough of Lydia’s time and attention, it was time for her to live in the real world.

  “Come,” he said, offering Lydia his arm, once all her items were collected, “I think the youngest Nugent is finished on the piano forte. If you act quickly, you might finally get a chance to have an avid audience for your own talents.”

  “I don’t have any talent for the piano forte, my Lord,” Lydia disagreed.

  “Oh, I know,” Sutherland gave a smile, “But after that abomination you shall sound like Mozart himself.”

  And so, the two friends returned to Sebastian and Aurelia, squabbling amicably as they always did.

  Chapter Four

  The next morning, after paying a visit to Aurelia to apologize properly for her inadvertent hysterics the night before, Lydia set forth for Covent Garden with a sulky Marguerite in tow. Usually when she visited Carmen, Lydia went alone, with just Henry the ancient footman for company. Henry, who doted on Lydia and could refuse her nothing, would never disclose to anyone about her secret visits to the Gypsy fortune teller.

  “There’s worse things one can do in Covent Garden,” Henry had sagely stated on their first visit, referring lightly to the brothels and whorehouses that populated the theatre district. “I’d rather I accompanied you my Lady, for I know you would simply go alone if I didn’t.”

  Marguerite was not so practical.

  “Alors, mademoiselle,” the maid sniffed, glancing out the carriage window at the farmers’ stalls and swarms of urchin children that populated the square during the day. “Zis ees no place for a lady to be seen.”

  Marguerite had a point; Lydia was almost certainly facing ruin if anyone saw her walking through the squalid area alone. That was why she had brought her cape.

  “You look like a crazed monk,” Marguerite said, her face falling as Lydia handed the maid a matching cloak of her own.

  “I refuse to wear such an ‘ideous piece of clothing,” Marguerite cried. If the maid hadn’t been so stunningly beautiful, and well known because of it, Lydia would have allowed her to forgo the cape. As it was, with her bright blonde hair and sulky beauty, Marguerite was even more recognizable than Lydia, who had for once left her feathered turban at home.

  “Fine,” Lydia snapped, her nerves on edge as they always were before a visit with Carmen, “Then I shall go alone.”

  She hopped from the carriage unassisted, into the dank lane where Carmen plied her trade. The houses were squalid and in disrepair, and they only appeared to remain standing from luck and the collective prayers of their tenants. Lydia glanced at the house in which Carmen rented the cramped, front room, and saw that the Gypsy woman was watching her from her window, but she disappeared behind the curtains when she caught Lydia’s eye. Lady Beaufort gave a shiver; although she half suspected that fortune teller was a fraud, there was an aura of glamorous melancholy around her that Lydia was drawn to. Visiting her was exciting, almost dangerous, and something a well-bred young woman should not be doing.

  “Sacré bleu,” Marguerite huffed, descending ungracefully from the carriage, her progress hindered by the vast amounts of material of the cape that swamped her. “Where is eet you are taking me?”

  “I told you that you didn’t have to come,” Lydia replied, but the French girl clucked disapprovingly.

  “Non mademoiselle,” Marguerite shook her head, “I cannot let you go alone.”

  Lydia was momentarily bowled over by the maids surprising show of loyalty; she had never suspected that Marguerite cared so much.

  “I cannot let you go traipsing around in all zis muck by yourself, for it ees I who will ‘ave to scrub your calf skin boots if you ruin them.”

  The exasperated words sounded harsh, but as Lydia approached the fortune teller’s door, she felt the maid’s hand slip into hers for reassurance. She knocked loudly, the sound echoing through the gloomy, deserted street. Carmen took an age to answer the knocking, and the two girls stood shivering in the unseasonable rain, which fell like a soft mist and caused Marguerite’s curls to frizz. Just as Lydia feared that the maid was going to lose her temper, the sound of footsteps approaching echoed from the hallway beyond. Carmen opened the battered door, just a crack, and peered out at Lydia and Marguerite suspiciously.

  “Who is she?”

  Carmen’s voice was husky from a combination of age and the pipe that she smoked constantly, and her accent made her almost indiscernible. As she stood watching them a trail of acrid smoke billowed out the door, causing Marguerite to wrinkle her nose in distaste.

  “She’s just here to keep me company,” Lydia replied, “She won’t get in our way.”

  “I charge double for an audience,” the Gypsy woman responded, turning back into the hallway, leaving Lydia and Marguerite to push the door open themselves.

  “What ees zis place?” Marguerite asked suspiciously as they entered the hallway which reeked of smoke and boiled cabbage. As they pushed their way into Carmen’s room, which was draped with dark curtains, beads, strange paintings and reeked of incense, Marguerite gasped and blessed herself several times.

  “Non,” she hissed at Lydia, “This ees sacrilege Lady Lydia.”

  “But I’m not a Catholic,” Lydia whispered back pragmatically, approaching the small table where Carmen was laying out her cards.

  “Your friend may sit in the corner, as long as she promises to stay quiet,” Carmen said with a sneer, casting a disdainful look at the Rosary beads that the French girl had taken from her pocket. “Though tell her that her pretty necklace won’t save her if any malevolent spirits appear.”

  “Mon Dieu,” Marguerite groaned at the mention of ghosts, but Lydia ignored her and took a seat opposite the fortune teller. Carmen’s age was a mystery; although her face was lined with wrinkl
es, her hair - what was visible of it from under her red scarf - was black as night. Her eyes were a lively blue, perpetually rimmed with kohl, and when she smiled her teeth were stained brown with tobacco.

  “To begin you must cross my palm with silver,” Carmen intoned, as she did at every reading. Lydia reached into her reticule and retrieved a half-Crown, which she pressed into the woman’s hand.

  “Double for an audience,” Carmen said with her sly, yellow smile, “And payment for the appointment you missed last night.”

  A part of Lydia wanted to argue that nearly eight shillings for a reading was daylight robbery, but as always happened when she was near Carmen, her senses were lost to the heady excitement and sense of longing that Carmen elicited: Perhaps today would be the day. The Gypsy took her payment, and tucked it safely away in the purse that was attached to the band around her waist, before extinguishing her pipe in a small porcelain pot. The cloth which covered the table was riddled with burn marks, and dark stains that Lydia did not wish to contemplate, but Carmen then covered this with a spotless piece of black cloth, that she smoothed out reverently.

  “You want to pick a card?”

  Lydia shook her head; not today.

  “I wish to speak to the spirit world.”

  Behind her Marguerite gave a gasp of shock, while Carmen watched her curiously. The first day that Lydia had sighted Carmen - on a misadventure with Aurelia - she had told Lydia that she could speak to the dead. After months of card interpretation and palm readings that told her of a future she cared little about, Lydia was ready. She wanted to speak to her mother and her sisters.

  “I must blow out the candles,” Carmen said with a heavy sigh, pushing back her chair, and hobbling to extinguish the many candles that lit the room. Once each light had gone out, the room was cast into darkness; bar the pitiful fire that burned low in the grate. The heavy curtains that covered the windows blocked out any hint of daylight, and the effect was most eerie.