* * *
“Are you certain you haven’t a taste for delicacies?” Squire Averill dug into the basket filled with wine and food sitting between him and Lena on the forward-facing seat. “Perhaps you’d like some stewed eels or potted eggs?”
Clive, sitting backward across from Lena, mouthed no. Averill looked up, holding out a veal cake, and Lena shook her head with a polite smile.
“Speak up, girl. I broke my spectacles yesterday, and I can’t see a thing without them. I can see your head moving, but whether it’s yes or no, I’ll be damned if I can tell.” From the basket, Averill took out two jars with paper labels and held the jars close to his face to read the labels. “I think they are both marmalade, but I can’t read the flavors. I’d taste them to be sure, but the lemon one is for my daughter and I can’t stand the taste of it.”
Lena took the jars, and giving the one he liked to the squire, returned the other to the basket.
“Lived in France during the Revolution, did you?” Averill dipped his head into the basket, then waved a bottle of wine emphatically.
“I traveled to the Continent first around 1805, and I remained in France until after Waterloo.” Lena slipped her foot out of her slippers and ran her foot up the inside of Clive’s leg, making sure that her skirts hid her movement. Clive’s eyes widened, then he smiled broadly.
“So you weren’t in residence during the Revolution itself, but for ten years after and at the height of Boney’s reign.” The old judge returned the bottle to the basket. “Are you one of those revolution-loving, king-hating Jacobins?”
“Squire Averill!” Clive tried to catch her foot between his calves, but she slipped her foot to the outside of his leg instead.
“Old men ask impertinent questions. Old judges expect to be answered.” Averill waved Clive’s objection away.
“An artist travels where commissions take her, and my benefactor traveled widely.” Lena answered only the question about her residence, paying most of her attention to the progress of her foot up and down Clive’s calf.
“If you won’t tell me your politics, I will have to predict them.” The judge leaned across the basket, staring at Lena with the gaze of a man who expected to be answered. “What is your full name?”
“Lena Frost.” She dropped her foot back to the floor.
“Just the two names? No middle one?” he quizzed, then ducked his head back in his basket.
“Just the two.” Lena lifted her foot and resumed her caresses.
“I have a theory, my dear.” The old judge leaned back, the wine in his glass sloshing wildly. “Regardless of profession, if a man—or woman—uses three names, then invariably that person is a government-by-the-people, king-killing Jacobin. We see it in every profession: Charles James Fox, the politician; Richard Brinsley Sheridan, the playwright; Theobald Wolfe Tone, the revolutionary; Samuel Taylor Coleridge, the poet—I can list a dozen others.”
“I’m not certain that there’s an identifiable relationship between one’s name and one’s politics. A number of political radicals use only two names: William Pitt, the politician; Thomas Paine, the revolutionary; and William Wordsworth, the poet,” Clive interjected, but the old man ignored him completely, focusing only on Lena. Clive, in response, gave Lena a slow, assessing look, beginning at her face, and roaming slowly down her body, until she felt flushed and warm.
“I’m sure you have considered your position very carefully, Squire Averill.” Lena renewed her caresses, letting her toes curl around the back of Clive’s calf. “But perhaps those share some other commonality that causes political radicalism? A taste for Flemish wine? A tendency to gout?”
Clive hid a laugh under a cough.
“No, no, my dear, there’s no other connection. I’ve considered it from every angle. Take my name: Wyman Averill, both good Anglo-Saxon names, meaning fighter and wild boar. My name tells you that I’m a strong opponent, dangerous when threatened.”
“I never realized one could learn so much from a name,” Lena replied absently.
“Are you Helena?”
Startled, Lena looked quickly at Clive, but his attention was focused on their slow seduction. “It’s just Lena. Why?” When the judge tucked his head into his giant basket of provisions, she wet her lips with her tongue, slowly, and Clive’s face flushed.
“Helena, Magdalena, Madeline, Ellen—all the same name. But is your name drawn from Helen of Troy or Mary Magdalene? Are you the seductress or the penitent?”
Clive mouthed seductress.
When Lena didn’t answer immediately, the squire began to laugh. “You must think about it, girl. Our names make us, whether we know it or not. Your man here . . .”
“He is not my man,” Lena corrected, her foot making another descent down his calf. “He is an associate, helping me to address some business arrangements.”
“Ah, right, your associate.” The judge refused to acquiesce. “But don’t underestimate him, Miss Frost. He may be clumsy when it comes to polite conversations, but he’s got quite a reputation for sport, this one does. Other men’s wives—a right harem.”
“Averill!” Clive sounded every inch the son of a duke.
Lena let her foot drop back to the floor.
The judge shrugged. “Have you heard that he once had three mistresses at one time? More troubling, none of them have been seen in the ton since they took up with him. We’d call him a regular Bluebeard, my dear, but mistresses don’t count in the same way as wives, do they, my dear?”
Lena slid her foot back into her slipper.
“So you be wary,” the Squire continued. “When I’m not with you, you make him ride outside. Isn’t that right, Somerville?”
* * *
Clive looked angry and ashamed at once, and she wondered what the truth was behind the judge’s only half-jovial accusations.
The judge continued, unfazed. “That package in front of your associate is a genuine Titian. Though Somerville’s great-aunt tried to dissuade me, I had to have it, and the price was unimaginable before the wars. As an artist, you must look it over.”
“Of course.” She kept her attention firmly on the judge, refusing to meet Clive’s eyes.
“Unwrap it, Somerville.” The judge tapped Clive on the knee, then turned back to Lena. “All those continental hereditary houses need funds, and I’m happy to help—if it means I have a Titian on my walls. It even came framed.”
Clive, still avoiding her glance, unfurled the wrapping as one would a mummy. Soon one corner of the frame appeared, painted gold with a green vine trailing down the edge.
Lena’s stomach turned. Not here, not now. That frame and its painting were supposed to be destroyed long ago. If she were lucky, the frame—itself a work of art—had merely been repurposed.
Clive balanced the large painting on his knees, holding it in front of his face, as he revealed the artwork itself. She wasn’t in luck. The revelation caught her breath. At least Clive couldn’t see her face.
“Take a good look, my dear. How often do you see such work?”
How often indeed? This must have been what Horatio discovered. She should have run.
“Look at it closely, dear, the workmanship, the masculine strength of the brush strokes. If I had my glasses, I’d give you quite a treatise.”
Masculine strength indeed. She leaned forward, as if to examine it. She hummed appreciative noises, as her belly twisted tighter than rigging on a ship. “How did you find such a . . . gem?”
“Someville’s great-aunt and I were at a showing of Old Masters prior to their auction. I was admiring one of the Nicolas Poussins. Another man was admiring it as well—Austrian, very knowledgeable.” The judge took a long drink of his wine and, picking up one of the stewed eels, dropped it into his mouth.
And he confided in you. She already knew the story.
“Eventually he confided that he was the agent of various, impoverished royal houses, selling their works of art very confidentially. I’d heard o
f him through my club, but could never arrange an introduction. Then to meet him by chance, what luck!”
By chance. Lena could imagine exactly how the meeting had happened. Whet the appetite of the victim. Tease him with being excluded from the game, then, when the victim threatens to give up the chase, arrange a chance meeting.
“I couldn’t wait to get it home. In the country it will be safe from London’s robbers and cheats.” The old man preened. “What do you think, my dear?”
“You are wise to protect it. It is a very rare painting indeed.”
“My thoughts exactly! How many others might want it, if they knew where it was?”
“This dealer”—she tried to make the question sound offhanded—“how many paintings was he selling?”
“With him in London, fewer than twenty. All very fine, though not all to my taste. I gave him the name of other men of discriminating taste—the duke among them.”
“My brother has somewhat eclectic tastes.” Clive twisted his head around to see the painting.
“Even he will not be able to resist such an opportunity. By the time I met the dealer—Tenney by name—he had taken orders to bring back at least twenty more from the Continent.”
“So, he’s gone then.” Lena wasn’t sure if she was relieved or angry. Perhaps both.
“Ah yes, for several days now.”
“Tenney. I may have known such an art dealer during my stay in Paris.” Lena tried to sound offhanded. “Would you mind describing him?”
“Tall man, thin, but not overly so, dressed neat, shock of gray hair over his left ear—but the most piercing eyes. They reminded me of a bird of prey. Does that sound familiar?”
“No, not at all.” Lena would never admit she knew Tenney, or that she had trusted him until she’d discovered she couldn’t. She had no interest in being the one the squire tracked down if he ever discovered his painting was a fake, a forgery painted by her own hand. She’d already paid for the sin of knowing Tenney.
She looked up to find that Clive was studying her face. A moment later, he changed the subject to another of her host’s enthusiasms: fishing. She began to rewrap the painting.
Chapter Nineteen
Four hours later, the carriage deposited the squire and his painting at his home. While Lena had tea with the squire’s wife and daughters, Clive and Fletcher, the coachman, oversaw the change of horses. An hour later, all were refreshed and ready to be on their way.
With the help of the postilion, Lena climbed the stairs to the carriage, leaving the door open for Clive to join her.
Clive, however, motioned for the postilions to remove the stairs, then he stepped into the doorway. “I thought you might enjoy one of the Old Red’s more delightful features. Lift your legs to the opposite seat.”
She obeyed. He reached under the seat and pulled out an ottoman, as wide as the well between the seats, but only three-quarters as long, so that two travelers could sit upright at one end.
“It locks into place,” Clive demonstrated. “Inside it, you’ll find a thick pallet that covers the seats to create a level sort of bed. You might find it more comfortable than sleeping with your head tucked into the corner.”
“What if I wish to be more comfortable not sleeping.” She met his eyes, and he looked back to the house, where the Misses Averill watched them prepare to go.
“That, my dear, will simply have to wait.” A look passed across his face that she couldn’t quite decipher, then he shut the door decisively behind him.
Alone in the carriage, Lena found that the long drive to Derbyshire made memories, long suppressed, rise to the surface. She tried to push them aside, wiping the frost from the window to look outside, but the desolate winter landscape gave her little to enjoy. Soon, she was unable to do anything but let her thoughts carry her into a past better left forgotten.
* * *
“You are a disgrace to your father and your name.” The headmistress’s voice had been taut and shrill, as she rapped the back of Lena’s knuckles with her cane. Lena refused to flinch, refused to make any motion at all. She sat with her eyes forward, focused on the front of the room. Mrs. Edstein liked submission, and Lena would not submit.
The other girls tittered to themselves, grateful that Lena always drew Mrs. Edstein’s ire.
“Silence!” Mrs. Edstein rammed her cane into the floor, and the girls fell silent. “What is this?” Her finger tapped the edge of Lena’s work where Lena had sketched a very pretty bird.
“A titmouse, Headmistress.”
“Why would you draw a titmouse? This is not natural history.”
“I skipped a line, Headmistress, when copying from the book. So I wrote the line at the bottom of the page. The titmouse’s beak points to where the line should go.”
“You must copy it out again. You might think a bird carrying the line to its proper place is amusing, but it isn’t.” The headmistress turned Lena’s page a one-quarter turn, so that the already-written lines ran vertically instead of horizontally. “But you will get no more paper, and I must be able to read every letter.”
“Might I please go outside with the others? I promise to copy it out clean before class tomorrow.”
“Do you intend to use a candle?”
“Yes, Headmistress. I have a candle from home.”
“That wouldn’t be fair to the other girls who have no candles from home. If they must miss a walk in the garden, then so must you.”
“But no one else made the mistake.”
“That’s correct. None of the other girls are so careless with their work that they miss the reward of a walk in the garden.” Mrs. Edstein turned to the other students. “You may walk in the garden until dinner.”
The girls rose together and walked in neat lines out of the classroom.
Lena watched them from her seat.
Mrs. Edstein turned her attention back to Lena. “Hold out your hands. Keep them still.”
Lena held them out, watching the cane tap the floor. She was surprised then by the hard slap of Mrs. Edstein’s palm across her cheek, hitting her jaw so hard that she felt it snap. Without thinking, she wiped the tears from her eyes.
“Did I say you could move your hands?” Mrs. Edstein struck her again, this time with the cane against the back of her hands. “You. Will. Learn. To. Follow. Instruction.” Each word accompanied a blow.
Lena couldn’t keep the tears from running down her cheeks, but she wouldn’t respond. She would not concede. She would not be a prize pupil, compliant to Edstein’s face, but mean and petty behind her back. Edstein preferred the pretty girls, girls with perfect English complexions, pale skin, sloping shoulders, narrow chins. She liked nothing about Lena, except her father’s money.
“Your father has entrusted you to my care, Helena, and I will not fail in that mission. As a punishment for your inattention, you will copy out the whole chapter, not just the first three hundred lines.” Mrs. Edstein hit the book with the top of her cane. “You will not leave this room until you are done. And do not rush. Each line must be evenly lettered, or you will do it again, and again, until you have it right. You may ring the bell when you are done.”
Mrs. Edstein walked away briskly, locking the door shut behind her. Wiping the tears from her eyes, Lena traced the wings of her long-tailed titmouse. If only she had wings to fly . . .
Her hands ached, her fingers were swollen, and lettering each shape hurt. But she moved slowly, carefully, ignoring the bruises growing on the backs of her hands.
Shortly before the last glimmers of sunlight left the schoolroom, Lena finished. She rang the schoolroom bell for someone to let her out and waited. But no one came. She rang again. No one came, and the dark grew heavy around her.
She was about to ring the bell a third time, when she saw two of Edstein’s pets, outside the window, pointing at her and laughing. The test, she realized, was to see how often and how loudly she rang the bell.
She moved next to the classroom door, where th
e girls could not see her. From there, she could hear Mrs. Edstein and one of the under-teachers, standing outside the door. She pressed her ear to the keyhole.
“When should I let her out, mistress?”
“A few nights in the dark will be good for our little hellion. It may do nothing to improve her behavior, but it ensures the other girls will follow all our directions. She’s our little scapegoat, if you will, punished for the sins of the group.”
“A few nights for one offense?”
“Oh, she will do something wrong every day this week. Every day, her punishment will be to remain alone in the schoolroom until dawn.”
“Will her father approve? He dotes on the girl.”
“Her father believes that only my methods can redeem his little monster.”
“Will they?”
“Eventually. But more importantly, I have gained the baron’s ear.”
The voices moved away from the door, and Lena pulled her knees to her chest and buried her face in her arms. She let the tears fall, silently, until she had no more.
The darkness grew deeper, and the night sounds surrounded her. Creaks and thumps and groans left her wary and afraid. Curling her feet under her skirts, she wrapped her arms around her chest, already feeling the chill of night.
There, she plotted her escape. She would not suffer in the dark for predetermined failures. She would run.
* * *
Lena wiped the tears from her cheeks, but the sorrow remained. Typically when the memories refused to let her go, she enumerated all her accomplishments. Things she could not have done if she’d remained at home. But all those things seemed tenuous and fragile. She could only hope that she escaped before the rest of her sins found her.
To distract herself from heavy thoughts, she stared at the countryside and made a catalogue of all the painters and other artists who had tried their hand at the British landscape. But counting painters was better than counting sheep, and somewhere after Constable, she fell asleep.
Reckless in Red Page 23
