“I should be glad this has happened, I know; the woman is selfish and vulgar, and I am well rid of her.”
“Yes, you are! Only consider,” said Arabella, “what was the princess wearing, the last time that you saw her?”
“Oh! A profusion of colors, which jumped and clashed together like I-do-not-know-what, covered by an ill-fitting spencer of lilac satin! Her gown was cut so low that the tops of her nipples were exposed! I cannot recall the rest.”
“Not even her shoes?”
“Oh, yes! Half-boots! Primrose-yellow ones, with the flesh of her fat legs hanging over the tops, and a cap like a pudding bag—with the pudding still in it!”
Belinda was giggling now.
“Wait a bit,” cried Arabella. “Shakespeare has described that very thing!”
She opened The Taming of the Shrew, which she was reading for the fourth or fifth time, and leafed through it till she found Petruchio’s scene with the haberdasher.
“ ‘A custard coffin!’ she said triumphantly. “One would think the bard was describing modern apparel! How ever does he do that?”
But Belinda had grown listless again. “I was hoping that the princess would introduce me to someone I might marry—I do so hate being a burden on you, Bell!”
“You could not possibly be a burden, dear! You are a wonderful, darling companion, and the longer you stay with me, the better I shall be pleased.”
“Truly? Oh, I am glad somebody wants my company. Because it is humiliating to be dropped, even by a person as horrid as the Wolfen Buttock!”
(This was the Beaumonts’ private nickname for the princess, whose title before her marriage was Caroline of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel.)
“Of course it is humiliating, Bunny. But you must try to forget about it. Because Lord Carrington is on the brink of proposing to you, and you need to look as pink-cheeked and sparkling-eyed as you possibly can, for him.”
Belinda smiled at this, and there stole across her countenance such an expression of dreamy contentment that it did her sister’s heart good to see it. But Bunny’s heavenward gaze was interrupted in its journey up the library wall by the portrait of Oliver Wedge which hung there, and her smile faded.
“Bell,” she said. “I own I do not understand why you keep that thing!”
Arabella regarded the picture with wistful affection.
“For three good reasons and one foolish one: as the last bequest of a dying man, as a warning not to trust in surface appearances, and as a reminder to believe in myself—to recall that I may, with application, accomplish miracles.”
“With application . . . and my assistance, d’you mean?”
“Of course, Bunny! I should never have tried to save myself from the gallows, but for your urging!”
“And the fourth reason?”
Arabella rose and began to pace the room. “You have just had the three good ones. Can you not be satisfied with those?”
“No! I want the foolish one, as well!”
Arabella sighed with feigned reluctance—for, really, she was all eagerness to tell it. “Because,” said she, stopping beneath the portrait and gazing up at it. “He was the best lover I have ever had, or am ever likely to have.”
“Oh, Bell; how can you say so? With only one encounter, on an untidy desk top? It was probably just the danger that somebody might walk in upon you.”
“Pooh! I should not have cared if they had! But there is something in what you say: the danger.” She glanced out her window at the misty garden. “When . . . he was strangling me, I was certain I would die. But when he stopped, just for a moment, I felt . . . as though . . . I wanted to have his child.”
Belinda was shocked to the core. “That is the most perverted statement I have ever heard you utter!”
“I know. As I said, it was only for a moment. The feeling passed. But the memory of the feeling haunts me still.”
“Some people are addicted to danger,” said Belinda. “They seek it out because it gives them a kind of thrill not otherwise obtainable. I truly hope that you are not one of those people—they have a tendency to die years before their time.”
“Me? Heavens, Bunny; what nonsense! I am perfectly happy as I am. Home at Lustings, with my library and my cook, my trout stream, my parchment ponies and my aviatory. What more could I possibly want?”
“I’m sure I could not say, if you could not,” said Belinda, with an injured air.
“I shall tell you, then,” said Arabella, pulling her sister up from the chair and enfolding her in her arms. “The love and constant support of the best, the dearest little sister in all the world!”
Belinda, mollified, returned her embrace, glancing down over Arabella’s shoulder at the sketch of the statue.
“Perhaps,” she reflected, “we should place him in the aviatory.”
“Oh, no, dear; he would be coated with droppings inside of a week!”
“Birds fly over the garden, too.”
“Yes, but he stands more of a chance outside.” Arabella picked up the letter and gazed at the little sketch with fond affection. “Now, why could not this have been the deity who created man in His own image?”
“Because,” said Belinda, simply. “Life is not fair.”
Chapter 2
A BAD BUSINESS
It was too late in the year for crickets, even in Italy. But a threatening storm lent the proper atmospherics as a knot of men stood waiting beside an excavation in the cold wind. Around them, the ghostly ruins of a dead city bore mute witness to their activities, and one of the company gave a nervous start as a palm frond rattled in the night air. All eyes were fixed upon the tunnel entrance.
“Here they come,” said one of the men.
“Quiet!” hissed another.
(The reader may wonder at anyone hissing that word, since it contains no sibilants in English, but these men were speaking Italian, in which language I presume the word has an “s” in it.)
Dark lanterns were lifted as four members of the company emerged from the mouth of the tunnel, struggling and grunting with the effort of a heavy burden wrapped in rough sacking, borne amongst them. One of the men stumbled.
“Careful with that!” growled the fellow who seemed to be in charge. This might have been deduced from the thin piece of pressboard he carried, to which a large metal clip was attached and firmly clamped over a tablet of paper, for it is well-established that no other accessory conveys more authority to the mind of civilized man, except a row of medals on the breast of a uniform, or possibly, a crown.
Having set their bundle upright upon the ground, the men proceeded to pad it with more sacking, followed by a layer of canvas and a girdle of ropes. Then they wrestled it onto a small donkey cart standing ready nearby, to which other similarly wrapped items had already been consigned.
“That’s the last of them,” said the fellow with the clipboard. “Now, let’s get clear of this place before . . .”
But the man’s remark, like his life, was suddenly cut short by a shovel, the assailant coming down from behind with such force that the back of the victim’s skull was cleft nearly in twain. At the same moment, an earsplitting thunderclap broke directly overhead, followed immediately by a torrential downpour, which drenched the men to the skin. One of their number leapt into the cart and drove it off as the others seized their tools and melted into the darkness.
KENSINGTON BOOKS are published by
Kensington Publishing Corp.
119 West 40th Street
New York, NY 10018
Copyright © 2013 by Pamela Christie
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means without the prior written consent of the Publisher, excepting brief quotes used in reviews.
Kensington and the K logo Reg. U.S. Pat. & TM Off.
ISBN: 978-0-7582-8640-6
eISBN-13: 978-0-7582-8641-3
eISBN-10: 0-7582-8641-4
First Kensington Electronic Edition: Jun
e 2013
Notes
1 The reader must pardon the substitution of capital letters for names in these entries, the publishers having no wish to be sued by any persons who may still be living.
Death and the Courtesan Page 21