The Importance of Being Wicked (8 page)

Bream agreed. “I'm about to draw your face, Caro. Could you try to appear more alarmed? The man's about to violate you. The way you look, he'd think you were asking for it.”

“Like this?” she asked, her features twisting into an exaggerated grimace.

Miss Brotherton, whose presence in the room Thomas hadn't even noticed, let out a gasp, then the two cousins relapsed into giggles. The ginger cat, who had been asleep on the hearth rug, woke up and leaped onto his mistress, making her laugh even harder.

“Oh my Lord!” she shrieked, kicking her legs up and down with an indecent display of shapely calf. “Save me, save me! My virtue is under attack from a vile, furry creature!” The vile furry creature settled on her stomach and started to purr, for which Thomas could hardly blame him.

Bream was not amused. “Remove that cat, please, Annabella. And Caro, I just need ten minutes to get the expression. Could you manage to look frightened and disgusted for that long?”

“Ten minutes,” she said, pushing the cat onto the floor. “Then we'll all have some wine.” She noticed Thomas standing by the door. “Oh, there you are, Castleton. Do pour yourself a glass.”

“I'll wait.” He felt awkward and a little foolish, standing like a servant with a tray of glasses and the wine bottle. Worried that he'd trip and drop his burden, he made his way carefully to a console table and set it down.

“Do you often pose for Bream?” he asked. It didn't seem quite proper for a lady.

“Whenever he's low on funds and can't afford a model,” she said.

“Can't afford coal, either,” the artist said, unabashed by the revelation of his financial straits. “It was too cold out in the carriage house, so I brought my sketchbook here.”

The drawing room wasn't exactly balmy this chilly April afternoon. The fire was a small one and his hostess very underdressed. Thomas frowned and walked over to the fireplace, stepped over the cat who'd resumed his position in the only warm spot in the room (apart from proximity to his mistress's body), and picked up the coal scuttle. It was less than a quarter full, so Thomas dumped the lot on the fire and picked up the bellows. As he coaxed a warm glow from the coals, he reflected that the afternoon was teaching him quite a lot about the duties of a servant.

Bream was utterly thoughtless to make Mrs. Townsend pose in such a scanty garment. Miss Brotherton wore long sleeves and a voluminous shawl. Bream himself was fully, if shabbily, dressed. Not for the first time, Thomas found himself wishing he could wrap Mrs. Townsend in a blanket, then shied away from an image of her under the covers, with himself as a companion.

“That's a little better,” he said after a few minutes' effort. “But not good enough. Do you wish Mrs. Townsend to catch cold, Bream?”

The artist, who had been applying his pencil with utter concentration, looked up in surprise. “
Are
you cold, Caro? It's much warmer in here than in my rooms.”

“An icehouse is warmer than your rooms, Oliver. It's not precisely the weather for Roman rape wear, but I can stand it a little longer.” She shivered perceptibly. A shawl was draped over the back of the chaise, cream-colored, with a floral pattern. Thomas strode across the room and, over Bream's protest at the disturbance of his scene, pulled Mrs. Townsend to a sitting position. He felt the gooseflesh arise on her arms. Crouching, and trying not to look at her almost entirely exposed bosom, he enveloped her in the shawl. As he arranged the fine wool cloth about her, she raised a hand and for a moment he thought she was going to touch his cheek. Instead, she crossed her arms over her chest.

He examined her face, so close to his, and noted her pallor. She looked back at him gravely. “Thank you,” she said softly.

Their eyes met for what felt like an age. A delicate pink flushed her cheeks. When at last she spoke, she sounded dazed. “You have a black eye. Or rather a colored eye.”

Unfortunately true. In the last three days, the bruising had acquired tints of yellow, blue, and purple. A smile tugged at his lips. Miss Brotherton had tactfully refrained from comment the entire afternoon. If she'd even noticed, that is. Quite likely, her mind had been too full of tesserae to care that her suitor resembled a defeated pugilist.

“Perhaps Oliver should paint you, instead.” Caro's teeth were still chattering, and Thomas wanted to take her in his arms and warm her up.

He stood up to put distance between himself and the temptation to do something foolish. “You're a fool to wear so little in this damp weather.”

Bream, the selfish idiot, chimed in. “Are you all right, Caro? You should have said something.” Miss Brotherton made cousinly clucking noises. Too late for both of them.

“I'll pour you some wine,” Bream added.

“I'll do it,” Thomas said, damned if he was going to let Bream make up for his thoughtlessness. Leaving Bream to serve Miss Brotherton, he brought Mrs. Townsend her glass.

“I'm so sorry, Oliver,” she said, sipping the claret which was, unfortunately, even cooler than the room. “Could you finish the sketch tomorrow?”

“I'm giving a drawing class at Mr. Monro's Academy.”

“That's marvelous!”

“I didn't know you taught, Oliver,” Miss Brotherton said.

Thomas was glad to hear that the artist did anything except live off his landlady. Though not his business, it was beginning to annoy him the way Bream leeched off her.

“There's a lot of competition for these positions. And since I haven't yet made my name as an artist, my services aren't much in demand. I'm filling in for Girtin, who was called out of town.”

“It's a start,” said Mrs. Townsend. “They'll find out how good you are.”

“And I've decided,” Bream continued, his voice portentous with news, “to submit to the Royal Academy this year. The Rape of Lucrece, if it turns out as well as I expect.”

“Really? I thought you believed the Academy to be a crowd of timid old women.”

Intent on his own important announcement, Bream ignored the quizzing note in her voice. “They are, of course, but thousands will see my work there. I shall pass by the banal judgment of self-anointed cognoscenti and reveal my genius to the people. I shall elevate their minds and stir their emotions. I see Lucrece as an emblem of the common man and her rape by Tarquinius as symbolic of the fate of the French peasantry at the hands of the nobility.”

The ladies appeared to drink up this radical nonsense along with their cold claret. Thomas couldn't imagine that the stolid English patrons of the Royal Academy would be converted to Jacobinism by a mythological scene. Nor that the minds of the masses would be elevated by a painting of Caro Townsend being ravished. Though it might, he would allow, stir the emotions. How uncomfortable. Supposing it hung in the dining room? Having your emotions stirred during meals sounded like a poor idea, likely to lead to indigestion. He looked at the naked Venus, laid out in her glory of the wall opposite his seat. The painting left him cold. Whoever she was, the model displaying her every asset, she didn't please him half as much as the sight of Caro Townsend huddled in a shawl, laughing at something Bream said and teasing him back.

The informality of her hospitality was disturbing and beguiling, unlike anything in his ducal life. At Castleton, he lived with the blend of pomp and restraint his father had deemed suitable to the station of the Fitzcharleses. Neither did he have intimates. Aside from a brief period at Winchester, he'd been educated at home, so he had no close friends from his schooldays. He was on affable terms with his country neighbors, but the distinction of rank was maintained. During brief visits to London, before and after his father's death, he'd become acquainted with some of his peers, but he knew none of them well. Even his sisters, all his junior, looked up to him.

His father had always been his companion. The duke had kept his only son and heir close, personally directing every aspect of his life. The respect he'd felt for his sire had made it easy for Thomas to quell the occasional stirrings of rebellion.

Quietly sipping his wine, he watched Caro, her cousin, and her friend, and he envied them. He had no one to support his endeavors, as Caro did for Oliver, no one to tease him. He believed himself a happy man. Actually, he'd never even given the matter much thought, but he was content with life, always had been. What if there was something more, something he was missing?

Covertly he studied Anne Brotherton, his ideal bride, smiling at one of Caro's quips. She always looked best when in the company of her cousin, whose joy in life was infectious. With conscious effort he kept his eyes on her, resisting their constant, involuntary tendency to drift in the direction of Caro Townsend's sparkling countenance.

He considered remaining until asked to stay and dine. Bream would, of course, and he'd gathered Mrs. Townsend kept a virtually open house. But he was a duke, not an artist. Dukes did not cadge meals.

With some reluctance, he took his leave.

“Shall we see you at Almack's, Duke?” Mrs. Townsend's valedictory words were delivered with provocatively lowered eyelids and the incipient descent of her garments when she rose to offer him her hand.

Thomas managed to avert his eyes and meet her challenge. “I believe that's up to you, madam. And Miss Brotherton,” he added as an afterthought.

The response that emerged from her throat was a husky gurgle, if that was possible.

“I'll see you at nine o'clock on Wednesday, then.”

Chapter 7

O
n Wednesday evening, Thomas knocked on the door at Conduit Street, wondering what the evening's entertainment was to be. Bartholomew Fair? A gambling hell? Naked bathing? Not knowing lent a certain anticipation, mixed with foreboding.

Handed a note, he ordered his carriage to Lincoln's Inn Fields and the home of a Mr. Soane, whom he believed to be an architect. It sounded decent enough, even dull, though the late duke would never have attended an evening party in such company. That was true of a lot of things Thomas had done lately.

An acceptable contingent of footmen attended to his arrival. He ascended a handsome staircase—architecture was apparently a lucrative profession—to be welcomed by Mr. and Mrs. Soane who assured him he was expected. He passed into a drawing room filled with people. No one he recognized immediately, but they all appeared respectable ladies and gentlemen, more of the latter, with no tendency to an overexposure of flesh or likely to start a brawl. Most of the furnishings had been removed, but the room was amply possessed of paintings on the walls and marble antiquities on pedestals and shelves.

An art collector. He should have guessed. As he passed through, looking carefully at every glimpse of a gown, he heard snatches of conversation, phrases like “debasement of taste” and “unfortunate novelty.”

In a second room, he spotted his intended bride. She was listening with rapt concentration and an expression of fascinated deference to a pair of elderly gentlemen in wigs. He decided to let her be for the moment. Neither seemed a potential rival. More likely, they were discussing antiquities as old and musty as themselves.

He didn't see
her
at first, but heard her voice. She was after all on the short side, as was Oliver Bream, her inevitable escort. But those smoky tones reached him and did something odd to his beating heart.

“I wonder how soon Lord Stuffy will be here. I wagered ten o'clock, but Anne thinks he'll go to Almack's first. I think better of him.”

“If he does, he's even more of a pigeon than I thought,” said Bream.

Thomas tapped on the shoulder of the last body that stood between him and Mrs. Townsend.

“Good evening, ma'am,” he said with a polite bow. “Bream.” A brief nod for the artist.

She smiled, Bream nodded back.

“I don't like to be particular,” Thomas went on, “but that really should be the Duke of Stuffy, you know. Or, if you insist on ceremony, His Stuffiness.”

Her smile stretched to a delighted grin. “No formality between friends, surely. I shall simply call you Stuffy.”

The ridiculous thing was, he wouldn't mind. There was no malice in her words. He felt instinctively that if she disliked him, she'd never have given him a nickname. He had the urge to ask her to call him Thomas, but naturally no one outside his immediate family so addressed him. Perhaps he'd invite the informality after they were cousins, after he and Anne were wed.

“And how was Almack's, tonight, Your Stuffiness?”

“Most enjoyable, thank you, ma'am. But the company wasn't all I could have wished, so I didn't stay.”

“I thought you might have been refused admission since you aren't correctly dressed.”

“I see you have found me out. I decided to forgo the pleasure and come instead to this excellent and most interesting gathering.”

“A wise decision. I think.”

“You don't sound certain.”

She screwed up her nose. “I prefer my entertainment a little less sober.”

“The masquerade was your choice?”

“And this was Annabella's.”

“It seems highly respectable,” Thomas said. And deathly dull, he thought.

“And deathly dull,” she said.

“The absence of violence must be held to be an advantage in an assembly,” he said.

“You think so?” Her eyes twinkled, and her provocative lips demanded a kiss. Which he couldn't—wouldn't—give her.

“How did you make the acquaintance of our hosts?” he said instead.

“Neither Anne nor I had met him, or Mrs. Soane, before tonight. The evening is in honor of Mr. Ashley. Anne had some correspondence with him about digging up a barrow. She's talking to him now.”

“The old fellow or the very old fellow?”

Mrs. Townsend giggled. “The very old one. Look at him carefully, Duke. He may be a rival. I believe he is unmarried.”

“I quake with fear.”

“And so you should. In a short while he's going to make a speech about barrows, and Anne will be in ecstasy.”

Thomas, who had been trying to keep a straight face, lost any desire to laugh. “Please tell me you are joking.”

Her face twisted into a caricature of dolor. “I am afraid not. You must wish you were at Almack's.”

He didn't. He wanted to be nowhere in the world except wherever Caro Townsend was. Even a lecture on barrows, whatever the deuce they were, would be bearable if he could watch the fascinating parade of expressions that spoke her thoughts as well as any words.

“No,” he said. “I'm content to allow you to choose the evening's entertainment. I mean Miss Brotherton.”

She placed a hand on his sleeve and leaned close. “Well done, Castleton.”

“You're testing me, I believe,” he managed to say, his head dizzy at her proximity.

“Perhaps.”

“And do I pass?”

She regarded him with a serious face, but her eyes danced, making his heart turn over. “I've discovered you and Anne have something in common.”

He should be pleased to hear it. He
was
pleased to hear it. “Does that mean I have your support in my courtship of your cousin?”

“I'm not sure. The thing you have in common is a tendency to take life too seriously. You both need someone to make you laugh. I question if you can do it for each other.”

Make me laugh!
he wanted to beg, but that was the road to madness. “Miss Brotherton and I have been born to positions of great responsibility.”

“Does that mean you can never amuse yourselves?”

“Does that mean you never take anything seriously?”

He held her gaze as his pulse raced, and her breathing accelerated. Oliver Bream's interruption saved them both from having to answer. The artist's attention had drifted to the nearby wall, where he regarded a picture with disfavor.

“Faugh!” he uttered. “I heard Soane paid four hundred guineas for this piece of rubbish.”

Thomas lowered his arm to free himself from Mrs. Townsend's touch and wrenched his attention to the object of Bream's displeasure, something Thomas recognized, a view of Venice. “A Canaletto,” he said, relieved and disappointed at the distraction. “I own two. My grandfather bought them in Italy.”

“How predictable! Pretty views to attract the tourist. No originality. No passion. And the artist is dead and doesn't need the money.” This last, Thomas guessed, might be the greatest insult.

“I like it,” he said.

“You like pictures of horses and dogs,” Bream said.

“My father bought terrible pictures of saints and Lord knows who else doing strange things. I prefer pictures I can understand.”

Mrs. Townsend looked at him with approval. “I agree. I hate those dreary Italian scenes! Robert always said art should stir the emotions. How can it do so if the subject matter is far from our experience?”

That wasn't quite what Thomas meant. “I don't know about emotions. I enjoy pictures that remind me of things I like.” He pointed at another view, hung next to the Canaletto. “That's Edinburgh Castle, I've been there. It's very well done.”

“So you only like things that are familiar?” Bream shook his head in disgust.

Thomas gave the question some thought. He wasn't in the habit of examining his opinions about art. “I like pictures that speak to me in some way, that strike a chord in my memory or my feelings.”

“A follower of Payne Knight and his theories of the picturesque!” Thomas recognized the new voice. The Duke of Denford had stolen up on them.

“I've never heard of the fellow. But he sounds like a sensible man.”

“His work on
The Worship of Priapus
is a brilliant examination of the ancient phallic cults. Otherwise, his ideas are nonsense.”

“I'd like to remind you, Denford,” Thomas said stiffly, “that we are in the presence of a lady.” A lady who was giggling again.

“Don't worry on my account, Lord Stuffy. I've read the book. Robert had a copy. Very dull, though the illustrations were interesting.”

It was a good thing Denford had appeared. Her response reminded Thomas of Mrs. Townsend's very real faults, her many charms notwithstanding. Miss Brotherton was now free of the ancient Mr. Ashley. He made his way over to her, hoping for time to converse before the threatened entertainment. Perhaps he could then escape.

Her perfectly gracious greeting and smile had no unsettling effect on his emotions. Her manner and dress were notable for their propriety, her breeding and fortune impeccable. After a brief exchange of conventional politesse, they stood together without a thing to say to each other.

“I understand,” he said, “that we are to be gratified by an address from a distinguished gentleman on the subject of barrows.”

“Are you interested in barrows, Duke?”

“I don't know much about them, but I've always wanted to learn more.”

“Really? What do you know? Have you ever seen one?”

She wasn't referring to a handcart, he was pretty sure. A vision of an artificial hill not far from Castleton crossed his mind.

“A hill, a mound, containing . . .” Containing what? Rubbish perhaps, like that other thing she'd talked about. What was it called? A midden.

“Ancient graves,” she said, taking pity on him.

“I look forward to hearing all about them.”

“Just as much as Caro is. It took a lot of persuasion to get her here this evening.”

“May I ask, Miss Brotherton, why we are not dancing at Almack's? I understand that having me follow you around London is amusing, but why not simply tell me where you wish to spend the evening? And for that matter, why
not
Almack's? I thought you wished to come to London to sample some of the delights of the season.”

“As you may guess, Duke, I'm not addicted to
ton
pastimes. I enjoy dancing, but not in a place that might refuse admittance to my cousin.”

“Mrs. Townsend was refused vouchers?”

“She never asked for them.”

The inference was clear. “Is your cousin not received? How do you come to be in her care, then? Lord Morrissey I know to be a most punctilious man.”

“Since my guardian is in Ireland, he wasn't in a position to forbid my journey. His co-trustee, Mr. Thompson, my grandfather's man of business, gave me permission for a visit to London. Knowing that my grandfather received Caro, he had no reason to think her an improper chaperone.”

She spoke without any shame at deceiving her guardian. As he knew, association with Mrs. Townsend could weaken anyone's moral fiber.

He couldn't leave the subject of this dangerous woman. “Mrs. Townsend told me she eloped as a young girl.”

Miss Brotherton nodded. “Robert Townsend was her neighbor, a young man of good birth and an excellent estate, but he had a wild reputation, and Caro's mother disapproved.”

“Her father?”

“My great-uncle was dead. After the marriage, my aunt Elizabeth cast Caro off, refused to see her. My grandfather, who loathed his sister-in-law, always said it was her fault that the scandal was not forgotten after the marriage.”

“Was the marriage a happy one?”

“Caro was devoted to Robert, and mourned him, still mourns him, deeply.”

Which didn't quite answer the question. Thomas had sometimes detected a hint of sadness in Caro Townsend, not the conventional grieving of the recent widow but a deeper melancholy, something buried and hidden from the world. An aversion for Robert Townsend, whom he'd never met, possessed him. A man lucky enough to be loved by Caro ought to have made her happy.

“Running off with a young girl is disgraceful behavior,” he said. “What did you think of him?”

“I didn't know Robert well. My grandfather disliked him, but he was fond of Caro, and she came to visit us at Camber, usually without her husband. I've missed her, so when the opportunity arose to come to London, I grasped it.”

Thomas should have been shocked by her stratagem. Instead, he admired her loyalty. However, talking to Miss Brotherton about her all-too-attractive cousin was not the way to woo her. He wished they had more interests in common. It was probably a good thing for a husband and wife to like at least some of the same things. His own parents had not. Odd that he'd never given the matter much thought before.

He wondered if she was interested in horse racing. Probably not, alas. Landscape improvements perhaps. She certainly owned enough land, and surely some of it must need improving. This promising topic died at birth when Thomas noticed a new arrival approaching Mrs. Townsend. It wasn't the same striped coat, but he recognized the style.

“D—” He bit back an oath. “Is that Horner with your cousin? They are leaving the room together. She shouldn't give the fellow the time of day!”

“Caro seems determined to tolerate him, but I confess I did not like the man when he called two days ago.”

T
he evening had been going so well. Anne was happy with her barrow man. The Duke of Castleton had been delightfully stuffy and teasable, and she'd managed not to make a fool of herself by leaping on him and ripping off his clothes. And now she was safely in a corner with Oliver.

Then Horner appeared. What was he doing at a gathering hosted by an architect to celebrate an antiquary? Why did he not take his loathsome striped coats and find a venue where a striped snake would be at home? A brothel, for instance. Or a menagerie. He must have followed her. Probably bribed the owners of the livery stable where she'd hired the carriage for the evening. She owed them so much money, she couldn't blame them for taking something on account.