Lady Margaret's Mystery Gentleman

by Christine Merrill

  Her tenacity had not won her any points with West or with others in the room. There were a few coughs of disbelief at her bold display of argument. From his seat, St Helier, with his dark eyes, met her gaze with a frank look of consideration, but his words were for the room at large. ‘I was unaware we’d become a debating society.’ Nervous chuckles followed from men uncertain how to take the comment. Was the scold for them or for her?

  Artemisia refused to be intimidated, whatever St Helier’s intentions were. Something moved in his dark eyes. Had he been intending to help her? Warn her that she went too far? Or was he like so many other men she knew who treated women as invisible objects not entitled to their opinions? Her gaze returned to West. ‘Then tell me, what qualifications did I lack? In what way did my portfolio not satisfy?’ He could not answer because there was no answer. She had satisfied in all ways except in meeting one unwritten requirement: she was not male. Some time between 1768 with the founding of the Academy and now, that had begun to matter.

  ‘We feel your art needs time to mature,’ West said with a clearing of his throat. ‘We would like to see more painting from you, something unique, something we haven’t seen before. We are tabling the consideration of your membership until the meeting in March. We are giving you a probationary period to prove yourself.’

  ‘Probation? What has these last twelve years been then if not probation? Isn’t that the function of the associates’ pool?’ Artemisia interrupted. ‘To create a collection of artists from which future academicians can be drawn? I, sirs, have already served my probation. My father—’

  ‘Your father is the only reason we are even having this discussion, Miss Stansfield,’ West cut in swiftly. Whatever benefit he’d been willing to give her in the form of pity or condescension was gone now. She’d pushed him too far and he had his own face to save in front of his peers. ‘It was your father who put your name forward in the nominating book. It is out of respect for him that we have invited you here today to have this discussion at all.’ He made it sound as if the council was granting her a great and tolerant boon in allowing her to stand before them, which they might be. Not even the two female founding members, Angelica Kauffman and Mary Moser, had been allowed to attend meetings on account of their sex. They were represented only by two portraits hung on the wall. Artemisia had not thought of it as exclusionary before. She did now. ‘You know, Miss Stansfield, your invitation is not usual protocol for a candidate who has been refused.’

  No, it wasn’t usual protocol, but she did see what it was protocol for. Her temper went to full boil. She was no longer interested in comporting herself calmly. She was being made an example of in a very public way so that no other woman would try for such lofty status. They would make her request into a scandal while other male candidates were simply notified privately that their membership was not successful. There was no public shaming of them. Some might even try again later for membership.

  She glared at West. ‘What do you think you will see in March that I have not shown you in twelve years?’ The standards of her probation were vague, which no doubt suited the council quite well, but suited her not at all. It was a moving target. Why was she surprised by this turn of events? A man had betrayed her trust before. Why wouldn’t others? Why had she thought it would be different? She swept the council with a final challenging stare. ‘I do hope whatever you think to see in March isn’t a penis, because I don’t think I can grow one by then. Good day, gentlemen.’

  * * *

  What an unnatural woman she was! From his seat near the President’s throne, Darius watched the exchange with something akin to appalled amazement, unable to look away like a bystander caught in the throes of horrified wonder as a disaster played out before their eyes. She reminded him of her namesake, the Renaissance painter, Artemisia Gentileschi, an unconventional firebrand of a woman if ever there was one. There wasn’t a meek, repentant, subordinate bone in Miss Stansfield’s body even when such characteristics would serve her in good stead. Not that such characteristics would have served her today. They would only have made West’s job of dismissing her easier.

  There’d been nothing easy about Artemisia Stansfield. Darius had never heard a woman speak like that publicly in his entire life. He’d never seen a woman look like that either—at least not one that wasn’t a whore or an actress. The ‘look’ was something indefinable in itself. It wasn’t her dress—that was impeccable and above reproach with its high lace collar and tight, lace-trimmed cuffs peeking out from beneath the green jacket of her ensemble. But unlike so many women in London, Artemisia Stansfield was more than her clothes. No, ‘the look’ was all that dark hair piled in unruly curls on her head, that direct, piercing grey gaze that showed no modesty, no deference even in defeat, and that mouth which gave no quarter. Darius would not have wanted to have been West for all the salt in the sea.

  The uproar that met Miss Stansfield’s departure was immediate the moment the door shut behind her. He was not the only one who couldn’t believe such shocking behaviour. ‘It’s why we don’t want women in the Academy to start with,’ Sir Aldred Gray said beside him with staunch authority as if he himself didn’t keep a mistress in Piccadilly. There were other comments that ran in a similar vein. They were not kind, but they were also not untrue. The Academy was dominated by males and now with the two female members gone, this was the moment to solidify that maleness behind the message that these higher echelons of the Academy were for males only. Did Miss Stansfield already guess that? Surely she could not be surprised by such a decision. The Academy wasn’t the only institution to be restrictive on female membership. In fact, he couldn’t think of one that wasn’t. Miss Stansfield was an associate, she should content herself with that, applaud herself for achieving that much.

  And yet, something whispered in the back of his mind—would he be content with that? Would he settle for being told what he could or could not achieve no matter the level of his talents? He had settled once. He’d always regretted it. It was the only time he’d ever been told no and likely the only time he ever would be.

  It was different for him. As a man and the son of a peer, he need not be constrained by the limitations of others. By definition, the world was his—legally, socially. It was something he had been raised to accept as his natural due. It simply was how the world worked. He’d not questioned it.

  Why would you? his conscience whispered. By the nature of your birth, you came out on the winning side of life.

  Perhaps if he hadn’t, he might be flashing defiant stares and daring the powers that be to overturn the natural order of things. It was an interesting thought, but there was no time to ponder it. The words, ‘I think St Helier should go’ jerked him out of his musings.

  ‘Go where?’ Darius glanced around the chamber. What was Aldred Gray up to? He didn’t trust the man as far as he could throw him, as the expression went.

  ‘To check up on Miss Stansfield’s work after the Christmas holidays,’ someone nearby supplied the conversation he’d missed.

  ‘We must handle this very carefully.’ Aldred Gray, egotistical spider that he was, was enjoying the attention as all eyes fixed on him. ‘No matter how good her work is, we must be prepared to declare it, or her, unacceptable in March.’

  Ah, so the probation was meant to be a smokescreen. Darius had thought as much. It was an ingenious smokescreen, one that appeared to offer her a chance and in doing so, one that would not offend Sir Lesley Stansfield. The Academy would not want to risk quarrelling with him, a leading artist and professor within their ranks. ‘Why me? I’m not a member, merely a critic.’ He was an invited guest to these meetings, a non-voting member of the discussions.

  ‘For precisely that reason.’ West took up the idea. ‘You will appear entirely objective.’ Darius didn’t care for that word ‘appear’. He was not in the business of lies and misleading, nor was his opinion in the business of being bought. He was
an art critic, he didn’t take sides.

  ‘I will be entirely objective,’ Darius asserted. He had his own reputation as an art critic to think of as well.

  ‘It shouldn’t be too hard to find incriminating evidence against her character, after all,’ Gray said with a nod and a certain knowing gleam in his eye. ‘A woman like that, a woman of her age, has no doubt had her affairs.’ Gray waved a hand dismissively. ‘Of course, she’s entitled to them privately, I suppose, but we can’t have such behaviour, such lacking in morality, among our academicians. It’s hardly the standard we want to set.’ The chamber nodded as one, as if they’d all been choirboys, which Darius knew first-hand they weren’t.

  ‘If you can’t find any illicit behaviour on her part, you can always seduce her yourself,’ another near Gray chuckled. ‘She said the word penis. Sooner or later she’ll show her true colours.’

  ‘That’s entrapment,’ Darius replied drily, staring the man down. He had no desire to follow up with Miss Stansfield. He was aware of her and the place she occupied in the art world—the talented daughter of a talented artist—but he did not know her well. She was hardly the type of woman the son of an earl would seek out socially. She was far older than the debutantes that peopled his dance card and his mother’s expectations. She had no title, no lineage, no age-old fortune. She merely made paintings for those who did.

  She was a woman of little note to a man like himself, yet as odd as she struck him, as much as she went against the standard of what a woman ought to be, he didn’t want to spend his winter playing her probation officer or, worse yet, deceiving her. From the look on her face this afternoon, she’d had enough of deception. Whatever she knew of the world or expected from it—and surely at her age she wasn’t entirely naive—she’d been genuinely surprised by the rejection today. She’d honestly thought she’d be admitted and that gave his usually rather conservative conscience pause. Was she being unjustly denied a place?

  He prided himself on being a man of honesty and directness. Deception of any sort cut against that code. It was on the tip of his tongue to say he wasn’t their man, but his refusal wouldn’t stop the ploy from going through. They would simply appoint another to go in his place, someone who wouldn’t supply true objectivity, someone who did not have her interests at heart, someone like Sir Aldred Gray. He found he didn’t like the idea of someone deliberately seducing the proud Miss Stansfield for the purpose of using it against her.

  ‘All right, I’ll do it,’ he found himself agreeing. How hard could it be? He’d planned on spending the winter in town looking after some political and business interests anyway. It would be simple enough to drop by her studio once or twice and see how things were progressing. If his report was too objective for the council’s sake come March, that would be their problem. Until, then, however, it looked as though Miss Artemisia Stansfield was his.

  Copyright © 2020 by Nikki Poppen

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  ISBN-13: 9781488071614

  Lady Margaret’s Mystery Gentleman

  Copyright © 2020 by Christine Merrill

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

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