Page 38 of The Proposition
Four nights had come and gone since Clemency’s secret trip to the Ferrand townhome. She had expected that over time, her outrage and despair would cool somewhat. The opposite proved to be true. While Boyle deemed it necessary to spend only the evenings at the Bagshot residence, the experience of existing within his orbit for those four evenings of cards, music, poetry recitation, and conversation stoked the searing fire in Clemency’s chest higher and higher. That he dared smile in her direction, touch her hand, flirt with her, struck her as disgusting and ludicrous.
Yet somehow she did not find it hard to perform the role of Naïve and Trusting Intended. In fact, she was perfecting the part. Boyle seemed delighted by her quiet, pliant nature of late. He did not know, nor probably even suspect, that the wide-eyed, openmouthed gaze of wonder Clemency turned upon him was not one of doting affection, but one of constant, awestruck horror.
And now the villain was holding court, luminous in a suit he had stolen or borrowed. He was unbearably handsome, of course, his hair more radiant than ever, his eyes bluer than the queen’s own sapphires. But Clemency was hardenedagainst his beauty. She saw only a perfumed Lucifer, and any brightness in his eye or twinkle in his smile she immediately deemed nefarious. Whenever a look of excitement or joy flickered across his face, she assumed it was only because he was brewing up some new and horrid way to enrich himself. The song ended. It was one of her favorites, which Boyle knew, and he had thrown her mischievous looks throughout the whole ordeal, very pleased with himself indeed that he had managed to remember a single thing about her tastes.
Perhaps it was unfair to compare him to the devil. At least Lucifer had at one time been an angel.
What have you ever been,she thought,but selfish?
“The absolute bastard,” Clemency muttered.
“Sorry?” Tansy was suddenly at her elbow, appearing there like a lacy apparition. She had no idea how the woman had traveled from piano to her side in a mere blink.
Clemency spun toward her, composing herself, stretched smile at the ready. Yes, she was becoming good at playing this part. “I said what amazing plaster,” she chirped, batting her lashes and pointing to the bouncy cherubs above them. A few columns were littered about the space too and wound with real, vibrant ivy.
“Mm. Lady Veitch has the most finessed style; do you not agree?” Tansy asked, loud enough for the widow herself to hear and smile, and nod, and fan herself with elegant approval. “The columns were shipped from Rome,” she continued, now apparently Lady Veitch’s confidante after only days of acquaintance. But Tansy was like that, infinitely good-natured, warm, and easily impressed, and easily making a warm impression. The perfect friend for an aging widow with dim-witted, unremarkable daughters.
Full credit to Arabella and Adeline, Clemency thought gently, they were not spiteful or nasty, but nobody had ever asked a single thing of them in their lives. Their wealth and position alone made them interesting, and neither of them had aspired to be anything greater than growing into human-shaped wife material. That was perhaps for the best, Clemency decided—it was easier to swallow the barbs of matrimony if one lacked even the desire to understand why it stung so.
“Arabella and Adeline are completely taken with India these days,” Tansy said, pointing out the obvious. Both girls were swaddled in bright gold-and-magenta silks, their wispy blond hair mostly concealed by orange brocade turbans. “Lady Veitch dotes on them so, she is considering redoing the whole space and calling it a Dream of Calcutta! Marvelous. Her daughters are both a vision of loveliness.”
Clemency tried on another of her new, cool, agreeable smiles. “They are both perfectly tolerable in every way.”
Tansy shot her a warning glance. “They are introducing me to very good society,” she whispered. “It will make London quite what I have always wanted….”
“I will not jeopardize your chances, Tansy,” Clemency assured her, softening. “The girls are not mean-spirited, and that is high praise. They are rich enough to be whatever they want, and they have chosen to be harmless. That should be celebrated.”
“I should wear a turban next time,” Tansy mused, glancing over at Lady Veitch’s daughters. “Perhaps I shall wear one to your wedding!”
Clemency coughed, hard, tapping at her own chest. Over Tansy’s shoulder, arranged in a pleasing tableau with herdaughters at the center of the room, Lady Veitch gasped in alarm.
“Stevens! Fetch Miss Fry a ginger tonic at once. At once. There is a horrid little disease making the rounds this month; I shall not have her falling prey to it, and under my roof!”
There was no avoiding the woman anymore, and so Clemency wandered arm in arm with Tansy toward the sofas. Lady Margaret Veitch fanned herself on a chair placed to the left and slightly diagonally toward her daughters, who sat like posed marionettes on a low, cushioned bench. They did not often move their hands or arms, but rather their matching ice-blue eyes flitted swiftly around the room, and in almost uncanny unison. The heavy silk turbans wrapped around their heads looked quite hot, and both girls wore a sheen of sweat that beaded on top of their perfumed face powder.
With nowhere convenient to sit, Tansy and Clemency hovered while Lady Veitch inspected Clemency from head to foot, perhaps searching for signs of the ailment she so dreaded. The old woman had once been a beauty, that was obvious, though her cosmetics and dress spoke of a bygone era of panniers and severe corsets, and she still wore a good amount of candy pink rouge in generous circles on her cheeks. She and her daughters shared a dull, porridge complexion and a rather wide neck.
“Ah! There is Stevens!” Lady Veitch sighed with contentment as a footman, also dressed like a rococo antique, hurried over, thrusting a copper cup into Clemency’s hands with a bow. She took the concoction and sniffed, and nearly shed a tear from the overpowering smell.
Subtly, Tansy nudged her. She took a sip and grinned while the stuff burned its way down her throat.
“Very thoughtful, Your Ladyship,” Clemency burbled.
“Not at all, not at all. I suspect you will feel much refreshed; that particular tonic is an invention of my physician and always fills me with immense vigor.” Lady Veitch thumped her palm thoughtfully with her closed fan. “Stevens! More chairs. These poor ladies are looming in a most uncomfortable manner.”
Stevens leapt back into action, trotting out to the gallery beyond the open drawing room doors and returning with light wicker chairs for both Clemency and Tansy.
Tansy lowered herself into the chair and smoothed out her skirts, and Clemency pretended to sip the tonic while trying not to gag just from the odor.
After she was seated, Lady Veitch gave her another close inspection. “I enjoy your company, Miss Fry, I do, and Mrs. Tansy Fry speaks very highly of you. Very highly. Though there is a sharpness about your face that I usually find unbecoming in a woman, somehow it is not off-putting on you.” She squinted, and her head fell a little to the side. “Hm. The result of too much reading, I think. Yes, that is what it is, I can always detect it. Am I correct? Come now, Miss Fry, I will have your confession.”
Clemency clutched the tonic close to her chest, suddenly red-faced. All afternoon, Lady Margaret Veitch had found it satisfactory to speechify on everything from her late husband’s arduous struggles with gout, his love of German poetry, her daughters’ endless list of accomplishments, the weather, and the horrible fashions at court, to a detailedsummary of every social gathering she had engineered in the last six months. Yet now her attention turned to Clemency, and while the woman’s wealth and title did not overly impress her, it was not to be missed that Lady Veitch possessed an intimidating presence.
“I do indeed have a passion for reading. Your Ladyship can hardly dispute that a woman of sense and accomplishment is expected to have an education, and to cultivate a mind for books,” Clemency said, feeling as if each word were a step through a field laced with deadly traps.
Lady Veitch sniffled. “I will dispute whatever I like, Miss Fry, though it is true that the written word, in moderation, adds a certain polish to a lady’s manner. A distinguished air. But under no circumstances should a lady overread. Never! For it leads to a belief in one’s own cleverness, and that is never a desirable trait in a young woman of quality.”
Clemency’s eyes shifted slowly to Arabella and Adeline, and her only feeling toward the girls became abject pity. Well. They had traced the source of the girls’ lifelessness, and it was their mother’s doing. Mystery solved. She wondered what the sisters might become, how they might change, if let loose in a well-stocked library for a few months. Their only relationship with books, Clemency thought, was balancing them on their heads to refine their posture.
