Dilemma in Yellow Silk (Emperors of London)

by Lynne Connolly

  “It matches the city,” he said, his voice revealing warmth. “It will be my pleasure to show you some of it.”

  “After I make myself decent.”

  “After that.” Warmth changed to amusement. “I’m sure my sisters will help you.”

  The gracious squares and streets of Mayfair were a recent addition to London. They reached as far as Hyde Park, which Marcus referred to casually as “The Park.” Even the newer establishments were soot-blackened, but not as badly. Soot-shrouded might be a better description. These streets had pavements, broad areas lifted an inch or more from the level of the road. Watchmen’s boxes, like upturned coffins with hoods punctuated the corners, and brackets outside the shiny black front doors revealed where torches would be mounted after nightfall.

  Many of the doors were without knockers, a sign the residents were not at home. That sent relief washing through her, the knowledge London was not crowded with the great of society. Fewer people to witness the jilting of Marcus Aurelius.

  She did not want to hurt him, especially after the way he had cared for her. He deserved better, so much better than her.

  The carriage drew up outside an imposing residence, the knocker still firmly in place. Marcus leaped down and held out his hand to help her. She took it without hesitation, remarking how easy that simple act had become. Yet still she thrilled to his touch. Two nights ago she had spent the night curled into his embrace, the safest she had ever felt in her life.

  They did not have to ply the knocker or pull the bell mounted beside the door. As they climbed the shallow steps, the door opened, revealing a footman clad in familiar silver-and-blue. Showing no surprise at Marcus’s dress, even the terrible wig, he bowed. “Welcome home, my lord.”

  “Thank you. Have hot water prepared, will you? Enough for two baths.”

  Oh, yes. She would love a bath. The thought made her sigh with pleasure.

  “Is anyone in?”

  “His lordship is in the bookroom and her ladyship is entertaining in the drawing room.”

  The marchioness would not appreciate a vagabond such as Viola appeared. She felt out of place in this marble hall, the staircase rising in a graceful arch to a landing above. The wrought-iron balustrade was gleaming with polishing. Viola felt grubby. She was grubby. She had not managed her customary all-over wash since she had left Haxby, the inns not providing the privacy or the hot water she required.

  After her bath, she would have to scramble back into the hated riding habit. That did not fill her with pleasure.

  “Send a maid to Miss Gates, will you? Her maid was taken ill on the journey and we were forced to send her back to Haxby.”

  The footman deigned to cast a jaded look on to Viola. “Indeed, sir.” He was a London servant, so Viola did not know him.

  “My sisters will be pleased to see their old playfellow. Are they available?”

  “I will inform Lady Drusilla and Lady Livia you have arrived.”

  “Put her in the bedroom at the back. The one with the blue drapery.” Marcus smiled at her and lifted her hand, brushing his lips across her knuckles. “I will see you at dinner, if not before,” he said.

  His gaze spoke of the intimacy they had shared. She had to fight against blushing.

  A maid appeared as if from nowhere. The stairs to the basement, the servants’ domain, were not obvious in this style of house. When Viola visited her aunt in York, she stayed in a vastly different style of establishment, built two hundred years before this one. The layout was completely different.

  “If you will come this way, ma’am, I will show you to your bedroom.” The maid all but sniffed.

  Viola followed her meekly up the stairs and past a pair of closed double doors, where feminine laughter and murmurs sounded softly. They climbed another flight to the bedroom level. “His lordship has requested we put you in here,” the maid said, and opened the door.

  The bedroom that met her gaze was utterly lovely, the kind of place she would have designed for herself if she’d had the opportunity. Blue sprigged silk hung from the bed canopy, the same fabric covering the daybed and the chair by the window. Just the place to sit and read a book.

  Crossing the room, Viola looked at the garden. A swath of greenery sprinkled with rose bushes and flowerbeds met her eyes. She would hardly believe she was in the city, apart from the distant sound of passing traffic in the street.

  Someone knocked at the door, and another maid entered, followed by another, both carrying huge cans of hot water. A footman followed with a large bath and towels.

  Viola gave herself up to the attention of the maids. Two of them stripped her and helped her to climb in the bath, washing her with efficiency, including her hair. They dropped fragrant flower petals on to the surface of the water. The water felt heavenly. Then they left her to lean back and rest her head on the edge of the bath.

  Viola dreamed of a life spent bathing and loving, attending the highest in society and being feted as a great beauty. Well, she could dream. And at the center of her life, Marcus would remain.

  She sat up hurriedly as the door opened, admitting Marcus’s sisters, Livia and Drusilla. Except they were the Ladies Livia and Drusilla, of course.

  They demonstrated no such attention to their state. They tossed a pile of fabric on to the bed and joined her, where the bath was set before the fire.

  “Marcus says he has proposed to you!” Drusilla was all smiles. They had played together, and while Marcus’s friendship with her was curtailed, the family had allowed her to remain friendly with the girls.

  “Yes, he did,” she said, but she could hardly be more forthcoming with the maids still bustling around the room. No doubt London servants gossiped as much as their country counterparts. While the Shaw family travelled with its closest servants, they had a different establishment in town. The butler, not present today, and the ladies’ maids and valets were familiar faces, but not the housemaids and most of the footmen.

  “We could not be happier,” Livia said. “Since Claudia left, we’ve had a gap at the dining table.”

  Livia and Claudia were twins, and Livia probably missed her sister more than the rest of the family did. Claudia had recently married—a blissful match, by all accounts—leaving her sisters to find their own happiness.

  They would find it soon. That was a given truth. They were rich, pretty, and well connected. How could they fail?

  On the other hand, Viola would watch the man she had given her heart to marry a well-connected, beautiful lady of fashion. Why would he have her, when he could have someone like his sisters?

  Determined not to repine, she signaled the maids she was done, and they helped her out of the tub. The water was decidedly murky, but better there than on her. Roads were dusty, and when they weren’t dusty they were muddy. The maids wrapped her in thick towels and wrapped another around her hair.

  “I feel more like me again,” Viola said.

  “We brought you clothes,” Drusilla said. She was a lively maiden of twenty-six, the same age as Viola.

  Her sister was two years younger. Now Claudia was gone, they were pushed together. Although Drusilla, as the single child between two sets of twins, had not always felt completely comfortable in the family group. She and Viola had played their imaginary games and learned to sew together. Viola had shared Drusilla’s lessons, and for a time they had been as close as sisters. But Viola had made the break between them. Although Dru had offered to ask her mother if Viola could accompany them to London and come out with her, Viola had seen the foolishness of the plan. She gently refused. How could she do that when she had no dowry to offer, nor was she unbelievably good looking? Either of which would have secured her a place in society. Or even better, both. Dru had both. Viola was constantly surprised Dru had not received an offer. Perhaps she had and decided against the gentleman.

  “Thank you for the clothes. I will return them in perfect condition.”

  “No you
will not,” Dru said. “We chose clothes that would suit you on condition you accompany us to the mantua-maker to select new ones.”

  “So I am the excuse for a shopping expedition?” she asked, amused despite her intentions to return the garments.

  “Indeed you are. That green silk becomes me not at all. I knew when I tried it on it was a mistake. You may keep your maid busy for a time, adjusting them to the latest mode. Some have lingered at the bottom of the clothes press for years.”

  Viola rolled her eyes. “So long!” But she was glad she would not have to appear at dinner wearing the riding habit. Rather than that, she would have taken her meal in her room.

  “You may refashion the pink,” Livia said. “I do believe any color becomes you.”

  “You have never seen me in dark brown,” she said. “Or olive green,” she added, recalling the riding habit.

  Dru glanced at the maid. “The rose pink would probably be best for dinner tonight.”

  Goodness. They had even thought of stays. A pair of Dru’s would do until she could bespeak her own. Hers were so well-worn as to be useless. She had left all her good clothes at home.

  Dru and Livia would not leave until the last minute, declaring they would scramble into their gowns in no time at all, which meant half an hour before the family was due to collect in the drawing room. At least, according to Drusilla, they were not expecting guests tonight.

  When she walked into the drawing room, becomingly attired for a change, her hair dressed into a pretty style with the curls she had longed for brushing her shoulders, she was surprised to find Julius, Earl of Winterton there. Or more precisely, Julius Caesar, Earl of Winterton, heir to the Duke of Kirkburton, cousin to the Shaw siblings.

  Also a man who intimidated with a look. His effortless air of command seemed inborn and terrifying. He had defied his even more terrifying father more than once.

  He greeted her like an equal, bowing to her curtsey and taking her fingers with a smile. His lips did not touch her hand, but remained a polite inch above it. His brilliant blue eyes gazed into hers. “Congratulations, my dear. I hope you are both very happy. I claim the privilege of taking Miss Gates in to dinner. Precedence demands it.” He was magnificent. It was a wonder people had not called him Il Magnifico, but someone else had claimed that epithet before him. He was dressed perfectly, his pure white wig set on his head, his buttons glittering with brilliants. Either that or diamonds.

  “But Lord Malton is an earl too,” she protested.

  “He is the heir to a marquess. I’m the heir to a duke. It is a near thing, but I scrape through.” He offered his arm and glanced back at Marcus.

  Marcus grimaced at him.

  Lady Strenshall nodded. “Shall we go in?”

  The footman flung open the door, and Lord Winterton led her into the dining room. He seated her himself. “I beg your pardon if I upset your numbers,” he said to his hostess.

  Lady Strenshall waved her fan. “Don’t consider it for a minute. We are en famille. Let us be as informal as we usually are.”

  In informal terms, Lord and Lady Strenshall, who she could never call anything else, topped and tailed the long table. Between sat Dru, Livia, the twins Valentinian and Darius, and of course Marcus. All Emperors, except, strictly speaking, Lord and Lady Strenshall and her. The lady was the sister of the Duke of Kirkburton, Lord Winterton’s father, so they were first cousins.

  Together they made a formidable bunch. Viola was sitting at table with some of the most influential people in the land. She was betrothed to one, however temporarily.

  She had met them all before and knew them with various degrees of familiarity. Dru best—no, of course not. She had never lain naked in bed with Dru, her arms around her all night. Marcus, then. When she glanced at him, he smiled reassuringly.

  “You look delightful this evening, my dear,” he said to her across the table.

  “Thank you. You’re not too shabby yourself.”

  The family laughed, but she meant he looked wonderful. He wore a dark blue coat that gleamed in the summer sunlight steaming through the windows. His waistcoat was embroidered with tiny flowers down the front opening and around the plackets of each pocket. He had on his finger the signet ring he often wore, but had not on the day of their escape. He must have more than one. And that awful wig had gone, for good she hoped.

  “I’m flattered you should think so,” he said. He gave her far too much attention, considering Winterton was attending to her needs most solicitously.

  At one point, when she’d thanked him shyly for helping her to a dish, he said, as he was replacing the porcelain on the table, “Since we are only family, as my aunt would say, I would count it a pleasure if you addressed me as Julius.”

  She opened her eyes wider. “Not ‘Winterton?’”

  “Our parents were so good as to bestow such interesting names on us. It would be a shame if we did not use them, would it not?”

  Interesting was one way of putting it.

  They ate, chatted, and then Julius asked Marcus what his plans were. He smiled and glanced at her. “We have decided to take things as they come.”

  “That doesn’t sound at all like you, Marcus,” his mother said. She picked up her white wine and took a sip. Beads of condensation frosted her glass.

  “Viola has reformed me and shown me what joys lie in impulsivity.” He toasted Viola.

  She managed a smile. “I try to curtail the more outrageous.”

  “Oh, this will be an interesting union,” Julius said, leaning back. “I predict fireworks.”

  “You may live to be disappointed,” Marcus said.

  “Nobody has ever managed to eke an impulsive action from Marcus except Viola,” Valentinian, commonly known as Val, declared. “When we were children, I saw him take dares from her he would never have taken from anyone else.”

  “Marcus’s pet,” Val’s twin, Darius, put in. “But I think we are about to see a reversal. Will Marcus become Viola’s pet?”

  “My only concern is for her,” Marcus said, just like a lover should.

  Except he was not her lover, not in truth. Their betrothal was one of convenience. That was all. Marcus had said he was fond of her, but that made her sound like his pet again. Not his equal, his lover, or even his beloved. If she did not remind herself, she might forget it, with disastrous results.

  She lowered her gaze and got on with her meal. Although it was better cooked and better served than anything she had consumed for the last four days, it turned to ashes in her mouth. It might already be too late. She might already love him.

  After the meal, Lady Strenshall led the way to the drawing room, but the men were on their heels. Tea was served and port brought in.

  Julius waited until the last servant had left the room. Until then, he had conversed easily on society gossip, keeping the topics light, but after the domestics had left, his expression turned severe. “I did not come by accident,” he said. “We had news yesterday.” He glanced at Lord Strenshall. “Your man brought the news, so you might wish to announce it.”

  Lord Strenshall’s face showed signs of strain. His mouth turned down at the corners, and his eyes were grave. “It is no better coming from me than it is from you.”

  Julius took her hands in his. This was so unlike his behavior she turned her attention to him immediately. She had not grown up with him as she had his cousins, and such familiarity shocked her.

  “My dear, riders travelled ahead of you. We have been waiting for you to arrive.” He sucked in a deep breath, the buttons on his waistcoat glittering in response. “Unfortunately the people who attacked your father in his home returned. He is dead, Viola.”

  She swallowed. The words meant nothing at first, but they returned with the impact of a bullet. Her father—the man who had championed her, cared for her, and never treated her as anything but his own. “I will never see him again?” were her first words, followed immediately b
y, “Are you sure?”

  Hands touched her shoulders from behind, hands that trembled. “I did not know either,” Marcus said. “You should have told us earlier, Julius.”

  “You both needed sustenance,” Julius said calmly. “And I did not want the servants to suspect anything. I wanted to discuss the matter with you and your family first. This is the first opportunity we have had to be alone.”

  “I have no family.”

  The grip on her shoulders tightened. “Yes, you do.”

  The others fell silent, but they had known her father, too. They stared at her, obviously shocked. Not as shocked as she was. “Why did you not want anyone to know? Is the news so secret?” she asked.

  “We received the tidings from a man I can trust not to speak. Tranmere, your footman. He fought the intruders, but they shot your father before he could reach him. Tranmere is currently resting at my house, but he is your servant. I will send him to you tomorrow. While your district is in an uproar by now, no doubt, nobody else in London knows of this. Yet.”

  That didn’t precisely answer her question. Numb with shock, she let him talk.

  “The house was set alight, but they extinguished the flames before they had properly caught hold,” Julius continued. “I believe they were trying to cover their tracks. They had searched the house. Did they find what they were looking for?”

  “No.” Marcus rounded the sofa.

  Julius released her hands and got to his feet, making room for his cousin.

  Heedless of convention, he put his arm around her shoulders. She leaned against him with a sigh.

  “I have the papers safe,” he said. “More importantly, I have Viola safe. I knew getting the stage was the right decision. Keeping people with us at all times.”

  “Except at night,” Julius said, straight-lipped.

  “I slept in the tap room, where I could keep an eye on the comings and goings,” Marcus said. Thank goodness for that one night he had done so. That meant he wouldn’t have to lie to his cousin. Uncomfortably, Viola suspected Julius could spot a lie the moment it was told.

  When Julius turned his attention on her, she found his concentration unnerving.