Fair Cyprians of London Boxset

by Beverley Oakley

  Crispin narrowed his eyes. “Money? It doesn’t look like the girl is blessed with a family who can expend much on the outward adornments.”

  His aunt made a tutting noise. “What a thing to say, Crispin. Most young men would not make observations about the plainness of her dress. They’d have eyes only for the beauty of the young woman. I have to say, she is rather exceptional. Shall I make some investigations on your behalf?” She sent Crispin a sly look.

  He nodded. “I would appreciate that, Aunt.”

  His aunt looked on the point of happily announcing some scheme to facilitate Crispin’s wishes, for she was a woman who adored schemes and plots, before she was nearly knocked over by an enthusiastic young lady cutting a swathe through the crowd.

  “I am so sorry!” came the mortified, immediately identifiable mid-Atlantic tones of the young lady who’d inadvertently bumped into Lady Pymble. “I really have no idea how to behave, do I?” She put her hand to her mouth as she hiccupped. “Off the boat from New York last week and unleashed this evening for my first London soiree, and already I’m scandalising my English relatives. I’m Miss Amy Eaves, by the way. Pleased to meet you!”

  Crispin smiled inwardly as he witnessed the aversion his aunt had in taking the hand thrust into her face. He wondered if she’d go so far as to tell Miss Eaves that young ladies did not introduce themselves in such a manner in this country.

  To his surprise, she merely said, “You clearly have much to learn about English ways, Miss Eaves, but I daresay one has to start somewhere. I’m Lady Pymble, and this is my nephew, Mr Westaway.”

  “Oh, my! Lady Pymble, is it? My apologies again.” Now Miss Eaves was curtseying. Crispin didn’t know whether to be embarrassed or amused. He chose the latter.

  “Welcome to London, Miss Eaves. And what are your plans while you are in our fair city?” Miss Eaves was not a beauty in any conventional sense, but there was an enthusiasm about her that set her apart from the coy, well-mannered debutantes of his acquaintance.

  Miss Eaves replied with unsurprising directness, “Well, my father wants a title. That is, he wants me to snare one since he’s got everything else. Including the world’s biggest yacht which he’s sailing around the world.”

  “Indeed.” Lady Pymble seemed not to know what to say.

  Miss Eaves rubbed her little snub nose and frowned. “So, why are you a lady and your nephew is only a Mr?”

  Crispin and his aunt exchanged a glance. At least she looked more amused than scandalised now.

  “My nephew is in line for a title. Once his father dies. But let’s talk of other things, shall we?” She sent a searching look about the room and added, “I’m sure someone must be looking for you, Miss Eaves.”

  She took this for dismissal and nodded. “Well, I don’t know how well you know my uncle, Sir Albion McKinley, but everyone here seems to know everyone else, and if you can persuade him to let me get a job, I’ll be mighty grateful.”

  “A job.”

  Crispin wasn’t surprised his aunt sounded so scandalised.

  “Not for money, surely?” Lady Pymble went on.

  Miss Eaves nodded again. “I’ve asked my uncle if I can write about the artists who exhibit for him, and he says I might dip my ink in the inkwell if I choose, but that he won’t pay me a penny for my trouble and scandalise my father.”

  “I should think not,” murmured Lady Pymble.

  “Oh, I know ladies don’t get paid, of course. But I don’t want to be a lady.” Miss Eaves sent Crispin a considered look. “So, you needn’t worry you’ll hear from me when you land that title. Anyway…” She took a step away. “If you hear of some newspaper job going, please keep me in mind, only don’t get the message to me through my uncle.”

  “Your uncle is Sir Albion McKinley?” Crispin tried to see anything to connect the highly esteemed patron of the London Society of Artists with this brash young woman. “Not the greatest proponent of women’s suffrage I would have thought.” He envisioned the tight-lipped, balding and slightly stooped gentleman he’d met on the many occasions he’d ventured into the hallowed precincts of the Royal Society of Artists. Not that that had been for a while. Crispin’s passion for art had been effectively strangled by his father’s insistence he apply himself to following in the family tradition by entering the world of politics. It had been a long time since he’d picked up a paintbrush.

  “No, he is not. I might have earned a way into his good books if I’d had an ounce of artistic talent in my little finger, but I do not.” Miss Eaves shrugged. “No, I like to write, and I think I’m good at it. I also think it’s a mighty fine way for a woman to earn a respectable income but…” she sighed. “There you go!”

  “Yes, there you go,” Crispin repeated, stepping aside in order to facilitate a satisfactory end to the conversation, for it appeared Miss Eaves was ready to settle in for the night, and he was growing increasingly impatient to meet the vision of loveliness still alone with her chaperone on the other side of the room.

  With Miss Eaves finally despatched, Crispin was halfway towards Lady Vernon and her unknown charge when his father clapped him on the shoulder with a demand for an inventory on Crispin’s activities for the past week.

  Dutifully, Crispin outlined the tedium with which he’d occupied mind and body, surprised when Lord Maxwell remarked, “Your Aunt Alice thinks you look weary. Says she spied you across the street when she alighted from a hackney at Marble Arch, and she commented on your grey pallor and hunched shoulders, which she put down to the work in the satchel you carried.” Lord Maxwell’s craggy face grew more lined as he frowned, though Crispin recognised this as the ghost of a smile. “You’ll be doing well if you’ve inherited half her persuasive talents, for by the end of the conversation, I’d promised that I’d give you a fortnight off. Yes, a week to amuse yourself before you return to the studies required by your new position.”

  Crispin couldn’t have been more surprised.

  “A fortnight, Father?”

  “Possibly three, in fact, and funds enough to take yourself off to the South of France if you so wish.” His brows knitted. “Just make sure you’re ready to throw yourself back into work when you return and don’t get enticed away by some Frenchie vixen, mind.”

  Crispin grinned, and content with this out of character interview, was about to buoyantly head off in Lady Vernon’s direction when he saw that lady deep in conversation with Miss Eaves, who appeared to have wandered into their enclave with the same abandon she had when she’d met Crispin and his aunt.

  Better to wait, he thought, so he could have the field uncluttered. Meanwhile, visions of his week of pure pleasure floated enticingly about his head. Where would he go? What would he do?

  His friend Roger Jolimont had a boat. Perhaps they’d sail to the French Riviera. That could be jolly good fun at this time of year. If his father were in such an indulgent mood, perhaps he’d grant Crispin a month.

  * * *

  Faith was bored. Tonight was proving a dismal failure. No one had come up to speak to them except for a talkative American young woman whom Lady Vernon had collared, no doubt to extrapolate information about her earlier conversation with the young man she’d noticed glancing at Faith all evening.

  Faith now knew exactly how things were to play out. First, Mrs Gedge had known the young man she’d seen at the restaurant would be there. And now he was here again. Clearly, he had been selected, for reasons that Faith would find out in due course. Faith’s job, of course, would be to entice him, seduce him, make him fall in love with her, and then break his heart.

  She was almost one hundred percent sure that this was Lady Gedge’s plan. It seemed the obvious reason for calling Faith her ‘beautiful revenge’ for all these years.

  And yet, why?

  The young man chosen was certainly a very handsome specimen, so of course that made Faith’s task so much easier. Her heart had even given a little jolt when she’d locked eyes with him through the Kentish pa
lm at the restaurant the previous night. It was true that she’d declared she’d rather die than offer her body to a man she didn’t love, but what if she simply found him attractive enough not to be repulsed by what Mrs Gedge wanted her to do? That would surely be within her code?

  And she did need to eat. She had precious few alternatives other than the one Mrs Gedge intended for her.

  Faith studied the young man closely through lowered eyelashes while she sipped from her champagne flute. He was tall, with dependable shoulders, and when he spoke, there was an animation about him absent from so many of the bored gentlemen about town who frequented Madame Chambon’s.

  That was certainly in his favour.

  Faith decided she liked the way his mouth quirked when he was clearly amused, which, it seemed, he frequently was, and his quick, impatient gestures in raking his floppy fringe back from his face.

  She couldn’t decide whether he was of an artistic temperament or just filled with energy that needed to find an outlet. Part of her lessons at Madame’s had been in how to read a man. Not only had Faith attended sessions where young men willingly revealed themselves to a dozen or so of Madame Chambon’s girls for a practical demonstration of how easily they were aroused, and by what, but she’d had to listen endlessly to Madame discussing man’s many temperaments and how to pander to them for the greatest return.

  An artistic temperament required feeding a man’s passion by suggesting that one, alone, had what was required to unleash his genius.

  “There he is, Faith. What do you think?”

  As Lady Vernon had asked the question, Faith was less inclined to answer truthfully. And yet there were benefits since it would be reported back to Mrs Gedge and, in truth, Faith had hoped very much that she’d be able to please her benefactress. It made life so much easier.

  “He’s very handsome,” Faith conceded.

  “And you’ll be five hundred pounds richer once he seduces you.”

  Faith gasped and glanced about her, but they were within no one’s hearing. Surprised at her reaction, when she’d lived so long in a house of ill repute, she said, staring stonily ahead, “That will be between the gentleman, whose name I don’t even know, and myself.” She offered Lady Vernon her haughtiest expression. “I’ll thank you to keep your nose out of my personal affairs.”

  “It’s what I’m being paid for, and I am just as keen to earn my five hundred pounds and be rid of you, my girl.” Lady Vernon stared down her thin nose at Faith. “The sooner you complete the business, the better.” She hesitated. “Though there is a little more to the transaction.”

  “Yes, of course there is. Don’t I have to make him fall in love with me, then break his heart?” Faith thought the acid in her tone was justified.

  “Don’t pride yourself on being too clever. That was plain for anyone in your position to know.”

  “And why does Mrs Gedge wish her revenge on this man, in particular?”

  Lady Vernon shrugged, and the rise and fall of her bony shoulders accentuated her flat chest. Faith stared at the woman, unloved and bitter, but whose nature had perhaps never invited friendship, and decided she’d never be like Lady Vernon with a title and living a celibate life on a diet of boiled cabbage. No, Faith would make the most of her youth and beauty to find an escape from the evil house that confined her until she’d expedited Mrs Gedge’s plans for revenge. She’d find a rich and handsome man who’d love her despite her secrets and sordid past, and who’d marry her and give her a life of comfort and security.

  She sent her prospective gentleman another assessing glance. Perhaps he actually might be the one who would do all this for her.

  “Mrs Gedge is a woman who jumps to conclusions. I think you know that, Faith. She also harbours grudges. Grudges that are never laid to rest until she’s satisfied her requirements have been conquered.” Lady Vernon rummaged in her reticule and produced a lace handkerchief. “That American woman has too much time on her hands to brood and too much money, but if she wants to throw it in our direction, I’m not going to stop her.” She blew her nose. “Who knows why she wants revenge on him. Perhaps he’s the sacrificial lamb substituting for someone else? His father, perhaps. I really don’t care. I just want my five hundred pounds, as do you, I’m sure.” She gave Faith a warning glance. “Just don’t lose your own heart in all this.”

  “I’m surprised you care enough to warn me, Lady Vernon.”

  “Oh, I don’t care a jot. I’m just stating the obvious to fill in a little time and to find something to say while this young man makes his leisurely way over here.”

  Faith now saw that Lady Vernon was using her handkerchief as cover for a very close scrutiny of the gentleman who was perhaps ten feet away, when the old woman took Faith by the elbow and started leading her towards the door, not pausing as they passed by him.

  “Where are we going?” Faith asked. “It’s so early and…he was just about to speak to us!” She felt ridiculously disappointed all of a sudden. Was Lady Vernon suddenly deciding she needed to protect Faith from herself, or the young man, or Mrs Gedge?

  “Yes, I’m afraid we must go home now, Faith. My poor old back is hurting and I’m longing for my bed, but don’t make the mistake of thinking Mrs Gedge will be displeased.” Her lined face softened beneath a rare smile as they reached the double doors which were opened in unison by a pair of footmen. The cool night air hit them like a slap in Faith’s face. “Tomorrow or the next your work will begin in earnest. Soon, Mrs Gedge will understand I’m worth so much more than the paltry allowance she pays me.”

  Chapter 5

  Crispin opened the book that teetered near the top of the pile his father had given him, and tried to focus his attention on its account of British and Prussian diplomatic relations in the past decade.

  An ornate gilt clock loudly proclaimed the passing of time, while the crackle of the small fire in the study grate on this unseasonably chilly day was even more distracting.

  Last night had been a bore. And a sore disappointment. There’d been no lively conversation; no interesting revelations. And the young lady he’d wanted to speak to had simply disappeared in front of his nose.

  He could picture her now, the golden hair that rippled down her back, the intricately coiffured curls complementing her fashionable hairstyle and contrasting with her spectacularly plain dress. Would she look more beautiful in bolder colours or did a more austere presentation highlight her beauty?

  His father had promised him three weeks of freedom and, of course, Crispin was itching to be gone from his books and the stifling timetable his father demanded.

  Yet, it would have been diverting to have made the girl’s acquaintance. It had been such a long time since he’d confronted such a vision that made him so ready to whip out his paintbrush and paints and set to work.

  After another half an hour of diligent study, Crispin was more than ready to entertain the interruption that came from one of the housemaids, who put her head around the door half an hour later to tell him he had visitors and should she show them in?

  It was more shock than surprise that tore through him when they were announced.

  “Lady Vernon?” he repeated. She was not someone with whom his parents were on any level of intimacy, though he knew of her. Her father had been a nobleman fallen from grace on account of some very shady dealings which his untimely death had fortunately meant were not fully investigated.

  Not that that was of any interest when the lovely creature in her shadow was materialising upon the threshold.

  Attempting to mask his delight, Crispin directed them to take a seat on the Chesterfield sofa positioned at right angles to the fire.

  “To what do I owe the pleasure?” he asked, as he lowered himself into a leather wingback chair opposite.

  Lady Vernon clasped her black-gloved hands in her lap with the look of someone who has something very particular to say.

  Crispin glanced from her bony fingers to the interested expression on
the face of the girl on the sofa beside her, and felt the heat rise in his cheeks and his body respond. He leaned forward and looked at the pair expectantly as Lady Vernon cleared her throat.

  “My charge, Miss Montague, is well practised at achieving the utmost stillness required of an artist’s model, though naturally I would be in attendance at all times, Mr Westaway.” She cleared her throat again. “That is, if you believe she is suitable.”

  Crispin drew back in surprise, but even before Lady Vernon finished, he was conjuring up exactly what hue he would pick to achieve the soft peach colour of the girl’s cheeks and the red of her Cupid’s bow. Her hair was an altogether thrilling proposition.

  Then common sense returned. In the next day or so he’d be heading for the French Riviera. After that, he’d be heading for Germany where he’d take up the life of diplomacy just as his father had done and his grandfather before that.

  Regretfully he said, “I believe there’s been a misunderstanding, Lady Vernon. I no longer paint, and I don’t know who gave you the impression that I would consider a painting commission.”

  The pucker between the old woman’s grey, bristly eyebrows indicated the disappointment he was at pains to hide.

  Crispin leaned back in his chair and steepled his fingers. “I am preparing to take up a posting as British Third Secretary to the British Ambassador to Germany. My intended departure is a little over a month from now.”

  “I saw the portrait of Madame Lascelles. A beautiful and faithful rendition so true to life, for I know the young lady. You painted that, Mr Westaway.” There was the hint of aggression in her tone.

  “I did, but that was two years ago, and my career was not decided then. I was following my inclinations only.”

  “You wanted to be a great artist, I heard, Mr Westaway, and there were many who believed you could be. Sir Albion considered you the finest talent of your generation.”

  The jolt Crispin felt was not altogether pleasant. Sir Albion had found plenty to criticise in Crispin’s efforts. He was not a man to praise lightly. And yet he had always been encouraging. Crispin wondered with the vaguest tinge of regret, whether a more pointed word from the Patron of the Royal Society of Artists might have swayed him when his father was so intent that Crispin turn his back on his art in order to pursue a more serious path.