Stroke of Genius

by Marlowe Mia

  “Regrettably, I have another appointment which will engage me for the entire day.” She had no such thing, but she was tired of him ordering her about. “Perhaps I can fit you into my schedule the day after, but not until nine o’clock. Good day, Mr. Hawke.”

  Crispin watched her go. The full sunlight in the atrium rendered her gown nearly transparent and he was treated to a glimpse of her long legs beneath the palla.

  Once she disappeared around the corner, he strode over to the canvas and yanked off the sheeting.

  The sketch was of the woman who’d invaded his dreams for the past month. The wanton succubus caused him to wake with either an aching cockstand or a damp sheet and a flush of pleasure like he’d never known.

  Only to be followed by yawning emptiness when he realized she was but a dream.

  Capturing her on canvas had started as a lark. She was his ideal woman, he’d told Wyckeham, the one his soul was destined for, even though he knew she was nothing more than mist. He thought bringing his dream nymph to life on canvas would make sense of the recurring night phantom.

  Instead it only cemented her image more firmly in his brain.

  He never fancied he’d meet her in the flesh. Now that he knew her name, he doubted he’d ever be free of her. Not that he would act to make his fancies real. The idea was laughable.

  “Do you think she saw it?” Wyckeham said from behind him.

  “No. She wouldn’t have left so quietly otherwise.” Crispin picked up a bit of charcoal and added a tiny mole near the figure’s elbow. Then he tossed the sheeting back over the easel again. The fine linen billowed over the portrait. Anyone viewing the sketch would never believe Miss Grace Makepeace hadn’t sat for it personally.

  And in splendid nakedness.

  Chapter 5

  No one knew for certain why Pygmalion shoved people away, but one suspected the reason was rooted in his past.

  A past he guarded as if its secrets would topple the Crown.

  25 years earlier

  Peel’s Abbey, a Cheapside House of Pleasure

  The bells of St. Paul’s chimed the hour. Seven of the clock. The ‘gentlemen’ would be coming soon. Time to make himself scarce just as soon as he finished scrubbing the corridor outside Madame Peel’s chamber.

  “No, Leo, I don’t hold with such things,” young Crispin overheard Madame tell one of her best clients. Leo was a longtime customer and one of the few who were allowed to enter her inner sanctum. “It ain’t natural.”

  “But that’s what makes it so very lucrative. My friend runs the cleanest molly house this side of the Thames. Your bootblack boy is a likely lad. I assure you he’d be well treated. A regular pet, that one.”

  “He’s too young,” Madame protested.

  Crispin heard her bracelet tinkle merrily and pictured her imperious gesture in his head. The girls always said he had more imagination than a body needed. Even though Crispin knew the sparkly gems stuck in Madame’s bracelet were only paste, he thought it a thing of beauty. A bright spot of color in a world of gray.

  “The boy’s only five or maybe six.”

  “But big for his age,” the man said. “And so very comely.”

  There was a long pause and the boy in question leaned closer to the crack in the door to Madame’s private chamber.

  “You’re only against it because you figure the mollies cut into your business with some of the upper crust,” the man said with a laugh. “You’d be well compensated for the boy.”

  In the silence that followed, Crispin didn’t dare breathe. Something inside him shivered once and then went perfectly still, a wild young thing hiding from the predator sniffing nearby.

  “No,” she finally said.

  He released the breath he’d been holding.

  But even a lad of five or six knew Madame Peel’s ‘no’ was only a deferred ‘yes.’ If Peel’s Abbey had a few lean weeks, the answer would change in a heartbeat. He knew it as surely as he knew his own name.

  Crispin knew lots of things. He’d lived at the Abbey all his life. After the pale, dark-haired woman he called mother died of a fever there, Crispin toddled around the pleasure house, growing up wild as a thistle, with little help from the adults around him. The girls who worked there took little notice of him. They wandered about the house in various stages of undress, thinking it didn’t matter to such a youngster.

  But he noticed and it did matter. He knew the line of a long feminine leg and the curve of a breast almost before he could talk. And they meant something to him. Enough for him to be sure he wouldn’t be happy as a molly’s pet.

  The girls talked over his head while he played with little wooden soldiers he’d carved himself. He knew which of the ‘gentlemen’ were kind and which were rough, who had a short sword and who was gifted with a long one, but was loutish in his bedplay. He learned about every whore’s trick and every possible manner of coupling before he could read his first word.

  If Madame Peel was set on selling him, he’d have to run away. But he didn’t want to leave the Abbey. It was all he knew.

  So Crispin made himself useful at every opportunity. He spit-shined Madame’s black boots till she could see herself in the glossy leather. He ran errands for the girls while they slept in the mornings. He’d always been clever with his hands, so he drew pictures that pleased them, making the thin ones more plump and giving the chubby girls one chin less.

  He gave Madame no excuse to rid herself of him.

  And every evening when the ‘gentlemen’ came, he crept up to the garret and hid himself away.

  Chapter 6

  Pygmalion shunned the society of others, but that didn’t mean he had no need of it. Almost against his will, he found himself drawn into the paean of life.

  The gas lamps of Vauxhall winked on throughout the pleasure garden like a long strand of glowing pearls. They cast the pavilions and statuary into a beguiling half-light, teasing the eye and tempting the senses. Strains of a sprightly tune wafted over the murky water of the Thames.

  “It’s like a magical kingdom,” Grace exclaimed as their boat docked at the garden’s stairs. The park was now accessible by land, thanks to the new Westminster Bridge, but her mother had wanted to ride one of the little ferries across the river from Whitehall.

  “There you see, Homer. It’s just as I remember it.”

  Minerva had spent time in London with her English cousins as a child and Grace suspected she frequently embellished her memories. At her first sight of Vauxhall, Grace knew this was not one of those times.

  “The water trip adds so much to the experience.” Minerva clapped her gloved hands together in satisfaction.

  “It might if I were a duck,” her father said gruffly.

  Grace cast a quick glance at her earth-bound father. All ledgers and schedules, Homer Makepeace was not one for flights of fancy. Even the idea of something as frivolous as a ‘pleasure garden’ was abhorrent to him. Worse, he’d been abominably seasick on the voyage over from Boston. The ferry ride over the gentle swells might have seemed far more violently rolling to him than to Grace and her mother.

  “Are you feeling all right, Papa?”

  “Never better.” He swiped his bald pate with his handkerchief. The boat trip hadn’t ended a moment too soon. Grace knew the only thing Homer Makepeace detested more than tardiness was weakness, so he wouldn’t show any if he could help it. “Let’s not dawdle. We agreed to meet your cousins at 9:00 sharp.” Homer consulted his filigreed pocket watch. “That gives us less than a quarter hour to find them in this confounded press.”

  “Never fear.” Minerva took her husband’s arm and led him up the stone steps. “I know exactly where they’ll be.”

  Once they reached the gate, Grace’s father grumbled at the admission price. “3 shillings and 6 pence. A piece! I thought you said it was only a shilling to get in here, Min.”

  “Hush, dear. Someone might hear you,” her mother scolded. “Times change and so do prices. Besides, it’
s not as if we can’t afford it. And this is all for Grace, remember.”

  Her father’s expression softened a bit. He snugged Grace close and planted a quick kiss on her forehead. “Anything for my baby girl.”

  I’m not a baby, Grace wanted to cry. And truthfully, this whole trip and the nonsense of seeking a titled husband was her mother’s wish. If not for lure of lovely cathedrals and museums and the throbbing city of London itself, Grace would have been quite content to remain in Boston.

  Minerva’s blood was blue on her mother’s side and she never let anyone who’d listen forget it.

  “Your great-grandmother was the daughter of a real English viscount,” she often told Grace. “But she married down—a commoner, in fact, and then she followed him to America.”

  Grace thought the tale oozed romance, but all her mother saw in the story was the loss of status. Minerva was determined to recapture her family’s toplofty standing through a brilliant match for Grace.

  What her father made of all this, Grace wasn’t sure. Homer Makepeace was born the son of the cabinetmaker, but through his own hard work and ingenuity had risen to become one of the wealthiest men in Boston. He’d built a lovely brownstone on Beacon Hill for them and showered his wife with every possible indulgence.

  But more pearls than cover Heaven’s gate wasn’t what she wanted.

  “I’ll buy the girl a title if that’s what it takes to satisfy you, Minerva,” Grace had overheard her father offer in exasperation one night after they thought she’d gone upstairs to bed. “God knows I’ve got the chinks for it.”

  “Homer,” her mother had said reprovingly, “people of good breeding find the discussion of money distasteful.”

  “People of good sense don’t. And even people of good breeding need money, though they are often incapable of making it for themselves. Mark my words. The size of my wallet will see to our girl’s future sooner than all the good breeding in the world.”

  Grace had tiptoed on up the stairs before she overheard something she didn’t wish to know her parents believed of her.

  Like how gawky and awkward she was. And how difficult it would be for her to catch the eye of a member of the aristocracy without the requisite social charm. Or the way she danced as if springs were attached to her feet. And on the subject of her feet . . . honestly, had any young lady of quality ever suffered from such large feet as she? Her brothers always said she ought to be able to walk across the Charles River on them.

  Her father had called off the boys and joked that Grace, like the new Statehouse going up, needed a “good foundation” but she never found it funny. The list of her shortcomings was endless.

  Fortunately, her father’s pockets were equally bottomless.

  As she walked alongside her parents through the beautifully dressed throng, she was grateful that the cut of her gown was of the first water, even if she wasn’t.

  “Just imagine how difficult a time I’d have of things if I was gawky and awkward and poor,” she muttered.

  When they reached the base of a larger-than-life statue of a man, Minerva stopped and tried to peer over the heads of the crowd, a difficult task for one so fashionably petite. “This is where the note said my Washburn cousins would meet us.”

  “Well, where are they?” Her father pointed up to the statue. “And why in blue blazes is that fellow in his dressing gown?”

  “Homer, mind your language.”

  “Mind my language? Have you forgotten how long it took you to get me to say ‘blue blazes?’” her father asked with a wicked glint in his eyes. “I suppose I could always go back to saying why in h—”

  “It’s a statue of Handel, Papa. You know, the German composer,” Grace said, hoping to stall her parent’s eternal argument.

  They didn’t seem happy unless they were fussing with each other over something. She’d pored over the guidebook of London landmarks before they embarked on this evening’s outing, hoping for a wealth of distracting information with which to diffuse their little tiffs.

  “The artist wanted to show Handel in his dressing gown, as his friends and family might have seen him,” Grace explained. “It’s so folk realize that even though he was a genius, he was still just a man.”

  “A man in his dressing gown.” Her father gave a little snort. “Minerva, where are these cousins of yours? I don’t mind tellin you, they’re late.”

  “I don’t know,” her mother said fretfully. “But if we wait here too long all the best supper boxes will be taken.”

  “Perhaps you and Papa can secure a box and I’ll see if I can find your cousins,” Grace suggested. “Miss Washburn will be wearing green, the note said, and her brother will be sporting a red boutonnière on his lapel. That should be easy enough to spot.”

  “I don’t like it,” her father said.

  “Nonsense, Homer. One of the lovely things about Vauxhall when I was a girl was that ladies could walk about unescorted in perfect safety. She’ll be fine so long as she stays nearby. We’ll be right over there, lambkin,” her mother trilled. “It’s the perfect place for the after dinner concert.”

  Which meant the box was situated so the occupants would be seen by all the right people.

  Grace took her little guidebook from her reticule and thumbed the dog-eared pages till she found the map of Vauxhall.

  “There’s a pavilion up this path I’d like to see. If they entered from the land gates, our cousins should walk that way.”

  Despite her father’s grumbling, her mother waved her on. Grace scurried away before her mother was overruled. It didn’t happen often, but sometimes Homer Makepeace put his foot down.

  Once she was out of their line of sight, she put the guidebook away. She didn’t want to see any stuffy old pavilion. She wanted to see the Dark Walks, the places lit only by moonlight and small fires.

  Vauxhall was astonishingly liberal in its admission policies and theoretically the lower classes could rub elbows with the upper crust. But in reality, people tended to gather in stratified groups, like flocks of birds all nesting in the same large tree, confining sparrows to one branch, snowy doves to another. Only the ‘birds of paradise’ seemed to come and go at will between the branches.

  Grace enjoyed scandal as much as the next person. She’d heard of those fashionable courtesans and followed their wild exploits in the daily tabloids. This was her first chance to see them in glorious plumage.

  She didn’t know their names, but she recognized them on sight. They were bedecked with jewels and the line of their gowns made Grace feel like a pauper. A coterie of young men tagged after them, hoping for an ardent glance. But however outrageously the women flirted with others, they clung to the arms of their patrons.

  Grace decided there must be an unwritten rule in England that stated the more wealthy a man was and the more power he wielded, the more fiendishly ugly he must be.

  She shivered, hoping whoever her future titled husband might be, he would be neither wealthy nor powerful.

  As she walked on, Grace wondered what it must be like to have so many men panting in one’s wake.

  As the way grew darker, the sounds of the dignified string quartet faded and coarser, much more joyous music took its place. She passed a group of people cavorting around a Maypole. The young women dancing in the circle let their hair fly unbound, lifting their hems to display their shapely calves. They were all lovely and wild as a group of wood nymphs cavorting about Dionysus.

  No one troubled Grace as she moved along the path, but the underbrush on either side of the walk was teeming with life. Lovers found the soft grass an inviting trysting spot and the furtive sounds of lovemaking seemed to come from behind every bush. Grace felt hot all over and she knew her cheeks must be scarlet.

  But she didn’t want to turn back.

  This was life she’d never find in her library if she read for a hundred years.

  Up ahead, the trees thinned and a broad lawn spread out around the path. Near the top of a small rise,
Grace made out a group of fellows blocking the walkway. There were no gas lamps in this part of the park, but by moonlight, she counted five of them circling a single person.

  A person leaning on a cane.

  The sound of raucous laughter reached her ears. One of the ruffians darted in and tried to knock the cane out from under the man in the center. He stumbled, which amused his tormentors no end, but managed to remain upright.

  A red haze clouded Grace’s vision.

  How dare they? There was such joy in the garden, why did some people have to ruin it by seeking their fun in the distress of others?

  “I say,” she yelled and stomped toward them, quivering with righteous indignation. “What is the meaning of this outrage?”

  Bullies were always cowards at heart. Stand up to them and they’ll take to their heels. That was the firm consensus in all the books she’d read on the matter.

  Apparently these bullies hadn’t read the same books. The five of them turned toward her as one, their teeth displayed in smiles that held no mirth at all.

  “Well, lookee what we ‘ave ‘ere,” one said. “A fair bit o’ muslin, ain’t ye, peach?”

  “My name is not Peach,” she said primly, stepping back a pace. “And I’ll thank you to keep your distance. We’ve not been properly introduced and I have no wish to become acquainted with those who prey on someone weaker than themselves. Shame on you.”

  The man Grace was trying to help swore softly.

  “Don’t she talk fair?” the ringleader said. “Makes you wonder what else that little mouth can do. Shall we give it a go, luv?”

  Panic curled in her belly.

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she babbled. “Whatever you’re referring to, I’m disinclined to oblige you. I’d rather not ‘give it a go.’”

  “Shut up, Grace,” the man with the cane murmured.

  How does he know my name? She squinted at him, but the man’s face was in shadow.