Page 21 of The Proposition
“O-Of course, sir. Anything you like, sir.” Mr. Batt bowed awkwardly behind the desk.
“Excellent,” Audric said, taking a small card from his pocket and adding it to the stack of money. “Please include this note with the gift.”
“No trouble at all, sir.” He paused, eyes flicking from the pound notes to Audric’s face and back again. “How is it that you know the man, if I may ask?”
Shrewd, Audric thought, but not shrewd enough.
“We shared the same society in Paris, though it seems a lifetime ago now,” Audric explained, hoping it sounded wistful. “We both have a passion for horses and the more…unmentionable delights Paris has to offer.”
He winked.
Mr. Batt tapped his nose and gave a knowing chortle. “Right, right. Gentlemen about town, eh? But you mentioned a proposal?” Mr. Batt carefully took the money and stuffed it behind the desk quickly, as if afraid Audric might change his generous mind.
Greedy, greedy…
“There could be ten pound more for you in it,” he continued, watching Mr. Batt flush with excitement. “I ask only that you confer with the other merchants in the village. As I said, my friend must be taught a lesson in responsibility, and I think it’s time his debts were called up. All of them.”
“Ha!” Mr. Batt gave a short, uproarious laugh. “Are you trying to give the man an episode, Mr. Ferrand?”
“Me?” Audric slid his billfold back into his coat with a casual shrug. “Surely not, there simply comes a time when a man must confront his place in the world. I assure you, Mr. Batt, I would never dream of giving the estimable Lord Boyle more than he deserves.”
—
As Clemency stood at the window, a light rain had begun to fall outside. The scent of woodsmoke and damp filled the house, remnants of a day spent with the windows and doors flung wide open. They had all assembled in the Painted Salon, named for the attached corridor where portraits of and collected by the Fry family were displayed. Sherry and port had been poured, and Honora sat at the pianoforte, playing through her many memorized études while everyone digested and bathed in Tansy Bagshot’s enthusiastic glow.
She looked like a candle, slender and bright, illuminating the entire room with her smile while she bobbed her head a little drunkenly to Honora’s music.
Clemency gazed around at her family, feeling as if she were somehow apart, set behind a thick screen, there but translucent, a gossamer figment of a person. Nobody had brought up the awkward moment at Tindall and Batt’s during supper, for Tansy’s news was far better conversation material. Naturally, it interested Clemency too, as a financial turn for William could free both her and Honora from the burden of marriage. Clemency had begun to suspect that Honora’s disinterest in courtship might be permanent, andthat she would rather remain Mrs. Hinton forever, even if her husband was no more than a ghost.
Honora’s husband had been struck by a carriage and killed over a year ago, not long after Christmas. She had more than exceeded the appropriate period of morning, yet she never so much as glanced at a man when they attended church or parties.
Her sister had always been a quiet, solitary creature, and more and more, Clemency liked the idea of growing old with her, just the two of them confined to Claridge, happy, forgotten women. She smiled to herself, imagining Honora’s probable horror at the idea—no, Nora would insist she go out into the world, try for love, even if all the men Clemency had the displeasure of meeting were trouble in one way or another.
Holding her full glass of sherry, Clemency wandered into the shadowy corridor housing the paintings. It was a wide, airy space, and the recipient of many of her mother’s overwrought floral arrangements. Still, it made for a pretty combination—the riotous explosions of blooms juxtaposed with the statelier, subdued oil paintings of men and women stiffly posed in their finery. Honora began wandering the melodious paths of Handel while Clemency came to stand in front of a portrait of her grandmother. Margaret Fry was not by any means a beautiful woman, but the artist had captured her spirit, a mischievous gleam in her eye that had been passed down to Clemency’s father and, she had been told, to Clemency herself.
She tapped the nail of her forefinger restlessly against the sherry glass. They had expected Turner Boyle at dinner, but he never appeared, his chair sitting conspicuously empty,everyone else ignoring it while it seemed constantly to mock Clemency. Perhaps word of their humiliating experience in Tindall and Batt’s had reached him and he was refusing to attend out of spite. She had spent all afternoon preparing her speech, rehearsing the sharp words she intended to use, slicing him to ribbons once they had a private moment to speak.
She could not play the meek and accepting woman, not even for a handful of days. Ludicrous, then, that she had thought herself capable of changing completely for Boyle.
Unlike Honora and Amy Brock, Clemency did not think the incident a misunderstanding. A gentleman paid his debts, so what did that make him?
Honora’s playing ended abruptly, commotion erupting in the sitting room as everyone leapt to their feet. A visitor had come. Clemency wandered to the archway leading back into the salon and froze. Her stewing must have summoned him, for there was Turner Boyle, fresh out of his hat and coat, his boots slick with rain, a few wet, ginger curls falling in his eyes. He brushed them away and rushed to congratulate Tansy.
“What excellent news,” he said, beaming at both William and Tansy. She hiccupped and pressed the back of her hand to her glee- and drink-reddened cheeks.
Honora’s wide, terror-stricken eyes slid from Turner to Clemency.
“Come in, come in,” William was saying, ushering him toward the sofa. Their father had long ago retired, leaving William to be gallant and obliging. “Warm yourself, take some brandy, Honora was just delighting us with her playing.”
“Yes, of course.” Turner did as he was told, but quickly his gaze found Clemency where she lurked in the shadows between sitting room and gallery. He gave her the strangest smile, apologetic, maybe, or ashamed. “I do apologize for my lateness,” he said, Honora beginning to softly strike the keys again. “The road near Foster’s Gate flooded so we were very delayed returning from Heathfield.”
He touched his hair again, and Clemency scowled.Liar.
“Foster’s Gate flooded?” William asked with a laugh. “With so little rain?”
Yes, interrogate him. Show him for the snake he is.
“The weather turned earlier over the north pastures I think,” Turner told him smoothly. Had he been caught out in the rain on his horse for that long, he would have been soaked through. Nobody else noticed, and conversation again turned to happier things. Was this how he glided smoothly through his deceptions? Too amiable, too handsome to ever really sustain a critical thought?
