by Sarah Zettel
“There you are, Reade!” cried one plump young wit. “Going to teach Miss Fitzroy to hold your pencil?”
“At least he has one of his own,” I answered sunnily.
“Mind your tongue, Wake, or I’ll have it out for you,” Matthew growled as he hustled me past. I rolled my eyes at this show of protectiveness, but could not help being a little pleased by it.
“Hullo, Reade!” called a slouching fellow I remembered was named Torrent. “Your servant, Miss Fitzroy. Have you seen that thing Holburn’s creating? It’s . . . astounding.”
“That’d be one word for it.” Matthew grinned.
Torrent was elbowed out of the way by August Heathe, a stout, bristling youth who had in his ham-hands, Matthew assured me, the makings of the finest drapery painter in England. “Reade. Miss Fitzroy. Come about the book? In the library, isn’t it, Reade? Curious to see how it turned out myself.” He rubbed his great, meaty hands together and looked at us expectantly.
“Then come you shall, Mr. Heathe,” I said. “The more the merrier, surely.”
“Capital girl of yours, Reade.” Heathe gave a single, thunderous clap. “I’d take great care of her, if I were you.”
“You may be very sure,” said Matthew darkly, but he added a quick smile. Heathe and Torrent at once formed up behind me as my honor guard, and we all together trooped toward the library. The truth of the matter was, I loved this place nearly as much as Matthew did. After the confines of court, it was a breath of madness that revived the spirit.
The library had only four other students at the desks when we got there. Every one of them leapt to his feet as Matthew opened the door for me, and all shouted their individual variations of greeting or promises of servitude. This was accompanied by a series of envious looks at Matthew, which caused him to puff up proudly—a fact I would be teasing him about later, you may be sure.
“Well, are you going to stand there with your chest thrust out, or are you going to open the d—blasted thing?” demanded Mr. Heathe.
“Open it! Open it!” roared the students. In a single mass that reminded me strongly of the royal lap dogs, they surged forward and grabbed Matthew by the arms.
A wooden box lay on one of the chipped and paint-stained tables. Someone had already untied the cordage and loosened its nails. The other young men all crowded around Matthew’s back as he bowed me forward to do the honors and lift the lid.
I stripped off my gloves so they would not be marred by the splintering wood. Inside, packed in straw and wrapped in cloth, lay a book. Its leather cover was trimmed with red and stamped with gilt letters:
The Game Beasts and Birds of Greater Britain
Illustrated by the Members of the Academy for the Improvement of Art and Artists in Honor of His Royal Highness, George Augustus, Prince of Wales
It was a slim volume, but deeply beautiful, composed of a dozen ink and watercolor pages. Each illustrated a different creature, whether furred or feathered, considered suitable for the chase, and the dinner table. The accompanying text was written in a flowing copperplate hand, detailing the finer points of the animal, where it might be most frequently found, and the time of year and even day when it was best hunted.
The Prince of Wales’s birthday was to be celebrated in barely three weeks, on the thirtieth of the month. A masked ball and all other manner of grand celebrations were planned. Of course, the natal day of our prince and future sovereign meant that we courtiers must present gifts. This was an even more daunting task than procuring a suitable wedding gift for a puppy. The prince was a man who, rather more literally than most, had everything. But he was also an avid hunter. When I proposed the project of a survey of the game beasts of his future kingdom to my mistress, she had been charmed by the idea. She even contributed to the cost. Enough, Matthew sheepishly confessed, to buy all the students who had helped him with the drawing and writing several very good dinners, and perhaps rather too much wine, with enough left to pay the stationer, the printer, and the bookbinder.
As I turned the pages, I realized that not one of the young men behind me had drawn breath since I’d lifted the box lid.
“His Royal Highness will love it,” I declared.
The cheer that went up from them fairly shook the shelves. I grinned at Matthew, and he laughed out loud and threw up his own fist in triumph, which only made me laugh and clap my own hands in answer.
Now the students crowded around, each fighting to be the first to tell me which bit he had drawn, or colored, and to discuss point by point the work of his fellows, with due comparisons to the leading journeyman artists of the day. This, I could tell, would take hours, if hours were allowed. I leaned close to Matthew.
“We need to talk,” I told him as seriously as I could manage.
“As my lady commands.” Matthew firmly elbowed the students back, closed the book, laid it in its box, and turned around to make a great shooing motion, as if he were dealing with a flock of outsize, tobacco-scented chickens. “Out, you ruffians! You heard Miss Fitzroy. She needs to talk sensibly, and that can’t be done with you hogs in the room! Out!”
There was much complaining, and many elbows dug into ribs and eyes rolled. I swatted and poked at a few of the slower ruffians myself with my fan, which hung on its chain next to my mask. In the end, the students obeyed, even bristly Mr. Heathe, and Matthew was able to shut the doors behind them.
He turned and pulled out a chair, gesturing for me to sit. I did. Once I was settled, Matthew leaned back against the nearest table. He folded his arms, cocked his head, and waited. He was in his workaday clothes—a plain smock and nankeen breeches. His stockings were black, where they weren’t stained with paints, and his shoes matched them exactly. Yet Matthew Reade took my breath away as no man in silks and lace ever could.
“What is it, Peggy Mostly?” he asked.
I looked up into his fond, patient gray eyes and found I had no idea where to begin.
When his use of my pet name did nothing to start the words flowing, Matthew moved closer and took my hand. I could never get enough of being near him. Matthew’s presence had worked its way deep inside me. Even with just our hands touching like this, I flushed, and my heart beat frantically. I knew many ladies swore they would die without the object of their love, but in that moment, I felt I actually might. Panic descended. I trusted Matthew, but our feelings—our love, if I dared whisper the word to myself—it was all too new. Such revelations as I meant to make could easily crush it, at least in him. Surely it was better to remain silent than to take the risk. My marriage to Sebastian would never happen, so why did Matthew need to hear about the threat of it?
I took a deep breath. I willed my heart to cease its trembling.
I watched the color drain slowly from Matthew’s face.
“Peggy,” he breathed, “are you come to tell me goodbye?”
TEN
IN WHICH OUR HEROINE MAKES HER FULL AND FREE CONFESSION AND MUST ACCEPT THE CONSEQUENCES.
“Lord, no!” I cried. “How could you think that?”
Matthew’s sigh of relief slumped the whole of his lean frame. He reached up one shaking hand and pushed his dark red hair back from his face. “Because you’re staring at me like you’re about to burst into tears. I thought it must be goodbye, or imminent disaster.”
“No, no!” I said hastily. “Well, no, and yes, and . . .”
“Peggy.” Patience strained the edges of Matthew’s voice.
“Yes?”
Matthew straightened up. He stepped closer to me once more and took my hands. “You stopped making sense half a dozen syllables ago.”
“I know. I’m sorry.”
“What is it? You know that you can tell me anything.” He shook my hands for gentle emphasis. “I swear by all that’s holy, I won’t be angry. Or dramatic.”
A certain native skepticism rose in my maiden’s breast. “You’re an artist, and you expect me to believe there will be no drama?”
“And here’s to
seal my pledge.” Matthew lifted up my right hand and kissed it. Then, while I dealt with the fact that various internal organs were melting like ice in the sun, Matthew hooked a stool out from under the table and sat down. All without letting go of my hands. He truly was most talented.
“Now,” he said, assuming a businesslike air, “tell me everything.”
“You’ll remember your promise?”
Matthew nodded solemnly. “I’ll remember.”
I liked the feel of his hands closed around mine. I liked the way his palms were slightly rough against my skin. I liked that he held my fingers delicately, and yet I could still feel the raw strength of him. No man at court had hands to match his. I did not want to lose this. I did not want to even risk the least possibility of losing it.
“I’m betrothed.”
“What!” The force of the exclamation jerked Matthew to his feet and finally pulled his hands from mine.
I said nothing. I just looked at him. Matthew retreated several feet and turned to stare. He approached me again, and stopped, and retreated. I wanted to ask if he was demonstrating some new form of the minuet, but caught myself before I initiated that fresh disaster. This proves the age of miracles is not behind us.
“When did this happen?” demanded Matthew loudly enough that I prayed without much hope that no one was listening at the doors. “Was it at the dinner? Your uncle . . . he can’t do such a thing! I thought your father was still living!”
“My father abandoned me eight years ago and has not been seen nor heard from since,” I reminded him, striving for patience. I was not angry with him, truly I was not. I was angry with my circumstances, with my uncle, and very much with my absent father. “He may be dead anywhere between Paris and Moscow, and I am a female and underage. Unless I can produce a living male relative who is closer kin to me than Sir Oliver, I remain wholly at his mercy. And no, this didn’t happen at the dinner,” I added. “This happened before I came to court.”
Those words sank in, and I saw the disbelief in Matthew’s expression make way for the first flash of genuine anger. “And in the several months of our acquaintance, you could not find time to mention it?”
“I’d forgotten,” I said helplessly.
Matthew folded his arms, letting me see exactly how much belief he was willing to wager on the truth of that statement. It was not a great deal. A feeling of uncomfortable and unfamiliar meekness stole over me, but I rallied against it and met my paramour’s stern gaze.
“Very well, not forgotten entirely, but I swear to you, Matthew, if I thought on it at all, I had no idea anyone meant to try to enforce the agreement. I’d assaulted Sebastian Sandford with a fan. Then I called him names before a witness and was thrown into the street because of it.”
Matthew was staring at me. I gave my declaration a moment to sort itself out in his mind.
“You assaulted your betrothed with a fan?” said Matthew.
I did not know why I should feel shame at this. What shame was there? I had defended myself when no one else would. And yet I was now watching my hands fidget with my skirt rather than looking proudly and defiantly at Matthew.
“It was necessary. He was trying to . . . He meant to . . .” I couldn’t say it. My halting tongue simply refused to shape the words. In the end it didn’t matter. Matthew had already guessed.
“Peggy,” he whispered harshly, “did the blackguard touch you?”
Matthew Reade was a slender man with a manner that was both mild and engaging. Having seen him actually wield a sword, however, I knew him to be more dangerous than he looked. In that moment, every bit of danger he carried inside rose to the surface. It showed clearly in the careful way he held himself just then, in the tightness of his jaw and the clear, cold, and terribly steady gaze he turned on the empty air, as if seeing Sebastian standing in front of him now. This gaze could break down a complex figure into its simplest components, or break a human body down into its most vulnerable parts. I maintain that Sebastian was fortunate in the extreme that he was not there in that moment.
“Yes.” I gripped the chair arm so my hand would not shake. I hated the fact that something over and done with months ago could still set me shaking. “Hence the fan. In his Adam’s apple.”
It was only slowly that Matthew brought his attention back into the room where we stood.
“Adam’s apple,” he echoed my words harshly. “Not the apples I would have chosen.”
“Nor I, but those others were sadly out of reach at the time.”
Matthew barked out a single bitter laugh, and I watched the danger subside a bit further. His eyes turned kind once more, and he lost that careful, alert stance. I felt myself begin to breathe more easily.
“I take it this is what you couldn’t tell me before you dined with your family?”
I nodded. “There was no time. Sebastian had showed his face only moments before. I was still too stunned to know what to think.”
I’m not entirely sure Matthew believed this, but he seemed willing to let it pass without extra examination. “He didn’t . . . importune you again, did he?”
“No. If anything, he seemed afraid. He asked me to write him so we could arrange to meet.”
A muscle twitched in Matthew’s jaw, and I saw the knuckles on his hand turn white where he clenched the table edge. Despite this, his voice remained perfectly calm and disinterested. “Have you?”
“Not yet, but I must.” I dragged in a deep breath and rallied my nerve. It was time to begin behaving like the independent woman I was. This silly little girl would accomplish nothing. “Matthew, I don’t want this betrothal. I never wanted it, but my uncle’s insisting on my carrying through. I’ve got to find out why so that I can stop it.”
“Can’t you just go to the princess? If she can order Thornhill to take me back after everything that happened, surely she can order your uncle to rip up an unwelcome marriage contract.”
I sighed, somewhat impatiently. “These are not the old days, Matthew. Even the king must obey the law as written. I don’t think my going in front of Parliament to argue for a girl’s right to overrule her guardian on the grounds that she does not care to marry a baron’s son would go down well in the Commons.”
“Perhaps not.” Matthew hung his head. “But I don’t like it.”
“Neither do I, you may be sure.”
We stayed like that for a moment, with me twisting my fingers together, and him examining the stained and splintered floorboards.
“Are you worried my feelings for you are going to change over this?” he asked finally.
The palest ghost of a smile formed on my mouth. “Worried is not the word I’d choose. I think perhaps terrified touches closer to the mark.”
Matthew lifted his head so that I could see the light had returned to his gray eyes. “Flatterer.”
“That is my profession, after all,” I replied, with all the grave dignity at my command.
Matthew laughed, and I knew we were friends again, even before he perched once more on the stool and pressed his palms together, an attitude he assumed when he was thinking. “What is it you plan to do?” he asked.
“I will write to Sebastian and ask him to come to the drawing room next Tuesday. No one is likely to notice my talking to him in the crush.” Except Mary Bellenden, of course, but that couldn’t be helped. Trying to meet with Sebastian outside of an ordinary court function would arouse far more suspicion than meeting him apparently by accident at a drawing room.
“You’re sure there’s no other way?”
“I wish there were. I will be enlisting Olivia’s help, of course . . .” From the way his face twisted, I could tell this statement did not reassure Matthew. “How else am I to find out my uncle’s side of the story? I can’t ask him.”
“I know, I know, but, you’ve said it yourself, your cousin loves drama too much for her own good, or yours.”
“That’s when the drama’s at a distance,” I said, mostly because I felt I s
hould defend Olivia, even if that meant defending her from Matthew. “When it’s real and involves her own family, she’ll prove steady.”
“I’m sure you’re right,” replied Matthew and we both chose to believe him. “But if this Sebastian Sandford is to be at the next drawing room, then I shall be there as well.”
I had anticipated this declaration, and I took one of his hands between both of mine. Then I had to allow for a minute for the inevitable little flutters to calm themselves. Maiden’s first love is a wonderful thing, but its side effects can become both awkward and time-consuming. “There is no good way to say this, Matthew,” I told him when I was once more sure of my voice. “But I have to get Sebastian to talk. He doesn’t think much of me, but if you’re there . . .”
“Assuming a stern and manly demeanor, he might take umbrage and resolve to keep his secrets to himself.”
I pulled a face. “I told you there was no good way to say it. You have only proven my point.”
“What if I promised I would not interfere? Took my oath there would be no challenges or other imposition of my masculinity on the conversation while you are exercising your feminine wiles?”
“Then why be there?”
Matthew looked at me as if I’d begun to speak Arabic. “You just told me Sandford attacked you, and you still ask that question? I will be there because I could not stand to be anywhere else.”
I kissed him. It was the only answer available to me. And he returned that kiss with the warmth and gladness that so delighted me. In this moment, resolve formed in my soul as unyielding as London’s paving stones. I would break this betrothal to Sebastian. I would use whatever means were necessary to that end, and any man who got in my way would find out just how far those means reached.
ELEVEN
IN WHICH OUR HEROINE ATTEMPTS SOME ACTUAL SPYING, WITH FRUSTRATINGLY LIMITED RESULTS.