The Surrender of Miss Fairbourne Page 9
“I know that some consignors wanted privacy,” she tried.
“So many?”
“My father had an excellent memory. All the rest of the information was probably in his head.”
“No doubt.” He pushed off the table and righted his coat. “I expect with some effort I will make sense of it all, even without his memory to guide me.”
“Perhaps you should take the accounts with you, so you may study them at your leisure.”
He thought about that, then waved the notion away. “I will do it here. It will give me a chance to see how Riggles is improving this sale, and whether it should even be held.”
He took his leave then. As he did their gazes met once more, very briefly. During those few seconds she again could not look away, or move, or even breathe very well.
“Are you reading, Southwaite? Am I intruding?”
Darius looked up from his book. He had not been reading. His thoughts had been on a very nervous Obediah Riggles, suspiciously vague account books, and a pretty woman in a rose dress, surrounded by beautifully crafted old silver.
He had almost kissed Emma Fairbourne today. He would like to claim it had been a mad impulse. Only he never was a victim of such things, and today, in that back room, the decision to kiss her had been just that: a decision, one that had been very cool and not at all impulsive, and also very calculated.
His better sense had stopped him. He supposed he was glad for that. Mostly. Probably. That he really wasn’t only forced the conclusion that he needed to end this alliance. He would do it very soon.
“You are not disturbing me, Lydia.” He set the book aside while his sister sat down in a nearby chair. “That is a pretty dress.”
She picked indifferently at the fabric on her lap and shrugged. Her maid had dressed Lydia’s dark hair in the simplest of styles, a chignon on the nape of her neck. That had been Lydia’s choice, not the servant’s.
For reasons he did not understand, his sister did not care about her beauty, or about much at all. She had grown so quiet this last year, so nondescript and separate from the world, that he often feared for her health.
He wondered if he found her even more vague and devoid of warmth today because he had spent time with a woman full of spirit and vivid humanity. He looked in Emma Fairbourne’s eyes and saw an active mind and frank disposition, and layers of thought and experience. He looked into Lydia’s eyes and saw…nothing.
“You went down to Kent,” she said. “You did not take me as you had promised.”
Her voice carried a note of accusation. He was glad to hear anything that reflected some emotion. “I went with some friends. It would not have been appropriate to bring you.”
She did not argue. She never did. She just gazed at him, her eyes shallow and opaque. “I want to go and live there.”
“No.” It was an old argument between them. Her relentless pursuit of isolation troubled him, like so much else about her.
“I will find a companion so I am not alone.”
“No.”
“I do not understand why you refuse me this, and force me to stay in town.”
“You do not have to understand it. You only have to obey.” He spoke with irritation, not at her rebelliousness but because this conversation was the only one they had anymore. He swallowed his resentment over that, and found a better tone. “You have removed yourself from society, from your friends, from our relatives…” From me. “I will not allow you to take the final step and remove yourself from even the observation of normal human activity.”
Her gaze fixed on a spot on the distant carpet. He wished she would truly rebel, and start a row. Any evidence of emotion would be wonderful. Instead she wore the kind of manner a woman might don for a formal evening among strangers. It was as if she had put on a costume one day, and forgotten how to take it off when she returned home.
The insight distracted him. Put her at the right table with the right people, and her cool blandness would not look out of place at all. The peculiarity, and his worry, came from the mask never dropping, even with him. Especially with him.
“If I were a man, you would allow me to be whatever I needed to be.” She said it quietly. Flatly. Then she left the library.
The chamber quaked for a moment with her sudden absence. Quickly, however, the shallow impression she had made on the space disappeared.
No chamber would dare obliterate Emma Fairbourne’s presence like that. But then, her spirit did not whisper in a monotone, did it?
Chapter 8
“It will be a very small dinner party, Emma. Mrs. Markus specifically told me to bring you,” Cassandra said, while she and Emma walked together on Bond Street the next afternoon.
“How small?”
“No more than twenty, I believe.”
“It would be inappropriate for me to attend right now.” She made a sweeping gesture at her subdued gray dress and lack of ornament, the evidence of her state of mourning.
“Mrs. Markus obviously does not think such restriction necessary for such a minor social event. Nor do I; nor would anyone else who will attend. I will bow to your choice, if I must, but I intend to arrange a full social agenda for you once it is acceptable.”
Emma rather wished Cassandra would not do that. Emma had accompanied Cassandra to a few of her parties and dinners. She never felt comfortable at them. She so clearly was out of place that it was a wonder the other guests did not simply address her as such. “The weather has been unseasonably warm, don’t you think, Miss Whoever You Are?” Or “Dear Social Clawing Friend of Lady Cassandra, have you decided how you will live now that your father’s trade has been compromised by his death?”
Even Cassandra’s friendship was more a happy accident than a normal alliance. They had met two years ago while they both stood in front of a painting at the Royal Academy Exhibition. Emma had muttered to herself that the artist’s handling of form was flamboyant but weak and Cassandra had taken umbrage because the artist was a friend of hers. They had argued for fifteen minutes and chatted for an hour more before Emma even learned her new friend was the sister of an earl.
“I will be much too busy for a social agenda, whatever that is,” Emma said. “I have an auction house to manage. Remember?”
“I hope that you are not going to become like those men who attend to business and nothing else. With whom will I play, then? I know why you avoid my invitations, Emma. I promise that I will only arrange future ones to parties attended by the most democratic and artistic minds. Radicals and poets will never cut you. It would not be fashionable to do so in their circles.”
“I am reassured that they would condescend to know such as me. I still will not fit in. That you think twenty is a small dinner party speaks eloquently to how our worlds are very different, and ne’er the twain will meet.” They paused to admire some Italian cloth in a draper’s window. “As for doing nothing but attending to business, I will try to avoid having it consume me. I currently can think of little else, however. Fortunately, I had a visitor yesterday and I believe she may be able to bring me more consignments and relieve me of one worry.”
“Was it anyone I know?”
They walked on. “Possibly. She was French, although her English was quite good and not even heavily accented. She appeared poor, yet possessed a good deal of style.”
“If she is French, it is unlikely that I know her. My contacts with the émigré community ceased once my interest in Jacques did.”
“Surely your memories did not cease too.”
“I have made progress in encouraging that they do, thank you.”
“I think she may be an artist,” Emma said. “She had smudges on her hands that appeared to be paints, or something else it would take time to remove, since she had not done so.”
Cassandra turned her head toward Emma, interested now. “Might they have been ink stains?”
“Possibly. Yes, that makes sense now that I see them in my memory, but they were larger than one
would get from carelessly blotting a letter.”
“Then I may indeed know who she is, although I have never met her. I believe you were visited by the mysterious Marielle Lyon. What did she want with you?”
“She had questions about consigning items to auction.” It was not a lie, although it was definitely one more deception. “I could use more lots, and I thought if I could find her, and offer a commission, she might point some of her countrymen toward Fairbourne’s.”
“It is said she is the niece of a count who was lost to the guillotine. Her family’s fate is unknown. She escaped on her own during the terror.”
“How horrible.”
“Mmmm. Except some of her own people do not believe her story and whisper she is a fraud. Jacques was sure she was a shopkeeper’s daughter who assumed another’s past.”
“Small wonder you called her mysterious. Do they all suspect her?”
“Only some. Others treat her like a princess. I am sure that she does know some émigrés who seek to convert treasures into coin.”
That was what Emma hoped, but she had other reasons for wanting to find her mystery woman. “Do you know where she lives?”
“No, but perhaps I can show you how to find her.”
A short while later Cassandra pulled a large mezzotint out of a bin at a print shop. She pointed to the inscription at the bottom. “This is from her studio. ‘M. J. Lyon’ is how she obscures that she is a woman.”
Emma examined the mezzotint. It showed a rather tame view of the Thames near Richmond, and bore the name and address of the printer, M. J. Lyon. “The smudges on her hands could be the inks used in printing, I suppose. At least she has found a way to support herself, without going into service.”
“It is said she makes others, with a fictitious name inscribed, that are less…formal.” Cassandra carried the print to the proprietor, and opened her reticule for some coins.
“Scandalous ones?” Emma whispered. She knew there were very naughty images to be had, although she had never seen them.
Cassandra accepted the rolled print, and handed it to Emma. “Mocking ones. Humorous prints that poke at society’s foibles and hypocrisies. Satires of government leaders. Jacques said he had seen them, and knew they were hers. He would not give me the name she uses, however.”
“Why not?”
“It appears that one of her satires had my brother as its subject, wearing an ass’s ears and tail. How silly of Jacques to think I would mind.” Cassandra linked her arm through Emma’s and guided her out of the shop. “Now, tell me about this idea you have, of offering commissions if someone brings consignors to you. I am insulted you did not think of me if you sought to recruit such agents, instead of some woman whose name you did not even know.”
Before Emma had a chance to respond, they were distracted by a grand coach stopping in the street right beside where they walked. Even before the wheels stopped rolling, the door swung and Lord Southwaite stepped out, blocked their path, and bowed.
“Miss Fairbourne, how happy an accident to see you as I rode by. I was on my way to call on you.” He added another bow in Cassandra’s direction. “Lady Cassandra.”
Cassandra bestowed the tightest of smiles. “It is always a joy to see you, Southwaite. May I ask how your sister fares?”
Expression amiable, but eyes narrow, he maintained the pretense of friendship. “She fares very well. Indeed, she flourishes. And your aunt, Lady Cassandra? Has she been out of late?”
“My aunt finds that the comforts of her own home surpass those of anyone else’s these days.”
“I am sure that your company is a great comfort to her.”
“I like to think so.”
Emma all but groaned. She disliked when she was with Cassandra and was treated to these meaningless greetings. Neither of these people cared for the other, and it had been perverse for Southwaite to go out of his way to engage in such useless conversation.
“Lady Cassandra, I hope you will not mind if I steal Miss Fairbourne away from you,” Southwaite said, still smooth and politely bland. “There is a conversation that she and I must have that should not be delayed.”
Cassandra turned curious eyes on Emma, who now tried to appear as blasé as the two of them. She attempted a tiny shrug that only Cassandra would see.
“It concerns your father’s estate,” Southwaite said to Emma.
“Oh,” Cassandra said. “I did not realize that you had a role in settling that, Southwaite.” She peered at Emma with undisguised curiosity, and looked a little hurt.
“I am sure Lord Southwaite’s conversation can wait until tomorrow,” Emma said.
“It really should be today,” he corrected. He opened the door of his coach.
Cassandra’s eyebrows rose a fraction. “Southwaite, I am handing my friend over to your protection, not for you to subject her to scandal. You of all men should know better.”
Southwaite did not so much color in anger as blush. Emma wondered if she would ever see such a thing again.
“You must stay with us, Cassandra,” Emma said.
“Southwaite’s instincts for discretion are telling him that would be worse. Is that not true, sir?”
“Then tomorrow will have to do,” Emma said triumphantly.
“Not at all,” Southwaite said. “Lady Cassandra, perhaps you would take Miss Fairbourne to the park. I will follow, and once there we can all stroll where we want and have conversations as needed.”
Cassandra pondered the idea at length. She mumbled about such an outing not being in her plans and how she would rather not be diverted. Finally, however, with much muttering about the willfulness of certain lords who think the entire world should accommodate them, she agreed to his plan.
Emma had strong words for her once they were in her carriage. “You could have gotten me out of this. You almost did.”
Cassandra turned those big blue eyes on her. “That would have been a disservice to you, Emma. Whatever the earl wants to say, it could have been said on any day. It could have been said by his solicitor, if you think about it.”
“Quite true. That is why you should not have let him trap me into this, let alone become his accomplice.”
“Darling, I do not care for him, but he is an earl. If an earl goes out of his way to spend time with a woman, she should at least find out why.”
Emma knew why. He wanted to have that conversation about the auction house that she had thus far dodged.
“If you want my opinion,” Cassandra mused, “I think Southwaite is pursuing you.”
“What a mad idea. As you just said, he is an earl.”
“He is without a mistress now. He sent the last one packing a month ago. So he has to pursue someone. Why not you?”
Emma thought the answer to that was obvious. She was not about to list the many reasons why men, and especially earls, did not pursue her.
“How delicious if I am correct,” Cassandra said. “I hope so. I am sure you will be unable to tolerate him, Emma, so he will pursue in vain. I would not mind seeing him get his comeuppance. I think, however, that you should practice your flirting on him before you reject him outright. Since you will not like him much, there will be no danger, but his frustration will be all the greater for it.”
Emma avoided blushing only by keeping every memory of her experiences with Southwaite out of her mind. She managed that only by changing the subject. “I think that you understated the situation when you said the two of you do not rub well together.”
“He has never forgiven me for befriending his sister. She is a dear young woman, but a bit odd. Since I am a bit odd too, she and I got on very well. Then Southwaite forbade the friendship.” She made a face. “So now poor Lydia has no friends at all.”
“How cruel of him.”
“I am confident that the more you know him, the less you will like him. I anticipate that comeuppance with secure delight.”
“You will be disappointed. He is not pursuing me.”
Chapter 9
Southwaite was indeed waiting in the park, standing where his carriage had stopped on Rotten Row. He did not appear to be a man in pursuit. Emma thought he looked more like a man who had just eaten spoiled food. While evidence he pursued her would have been bad news, the true reason for his interest struck her as far worse.
Cassandra strolled with them no more than fifty feet before she saw a friend and diverted her path in that direction. Emma paced along beside Southwaite, taking two steps to each of his strides.
“It is time for us to address the reason I first called on you, don’t you think, Miss Fairbourne? Whenever I raise the matter, you manage to deflect it. However, the future of your father’s business must be settled. It gives me no pleasure to disappoint you or to thwart your carefully laid schemes, but I have concluded that the business must be sold as soon as possible, for your sake.”
It all came out at once, as if he had rehearsed it in front of a looking glass to ensure he communicated his resolve in both tone and expression.
“For my sake? Are you so bold as to try to make this sound as if you are doing me a favor? That is rich, Lord Southwaite, when more likely you are seeking revenge for the embarrassment you experienced due to those presumptions you had.”
“You will not succeed in distracting me with a row by dragging that up now. It will not work this time.”
“I think we should wait to talk about this until after the next sale.”
“Do not dare to treat me like a fool, Miss Fairbourne. I know what you are up to. After that sale, you will plan another, and another. Each one will decrease Fairbourne’s prestige. I have no confidence that Riggles can manage the business as you claim.”
“I do. He is very competent.”
“Indeed? He seemed incapable of answering the smallest questions that I posed about the accounts, and reacted as if he had never heard of Andrea del Sarto. No, I have made up my mind. I will seek a buyer at once, and we will be done with it.”