“Five days. Kent.” She let the card drop to her lap, her vision glassy.
“Who?”
“Carbury.”
The name rang a bell but Lily couldn’t place— “Oh, no.”
Marianne nodded. “The Earl of Carbury. From the night at the Paris Opera.”
Julian Ash, in all his impeccable glory, swam up like a genie before her eyes. Graceful, ruthlessly correct, every black hair in place. Julian of the intense looks. Julian of the warm hand. Julian.
Lily swallowed. “Carbury and he are neighbors.”
“Yes. Chelton will be certain to attend.”
Lily shifted in her chair, swinging around to stare into the fire. Since that night by his side, she had not mentioned the illustrious, unforgettable lord. He of the heroism in the Rue de la Paix. He of the opera box. He of the inscrutable lure to her senses.
Foster’s voice intruded on her reverie.
“Miss Hanniford, Mrs. Roland, the Countess de Chaumont.”
The French lady sailed into the drawing room in her newest finery, a bright mandarin silk tea gown that she’d purchased from Worth with the compensation she’d received for her services to the Hanniford women.
“The orange is very becoming.” Relieved at the interruption, Lily rose from the sofa to greet her. Over the past few months, she thought of Chaumont more as a friend than an employee. “I’m so glad you decided to treat yourself.”
“The generosity of your father is magnificent, Miss Hanniford. I shall praise him ever more. His employment comes to me at a time of desperate need.”
“He is very grateful,” Marianne told her as she walked around her to inspect her attire. “And this is superb.”
“Only if I live,” Chaumont joked and put a hand to her midriff.
“I understand.” Lily put a hand beneath her breast and made a desperate face at the other two. “I am so corseted, I can barely breathe. And I’m so excited, I hope I don’t spill the tea.”
“You will do well.” Chaumont squeezed her hand. “Do not think of it. Converse. Smile. Enjoy yourself and it will come to you.”
“And if I make a mistake?”
“Never stop. Make the change when next you have the same task to perform.”
“Yes, of course. I will do this well.” Lily closed her eyes. Her father expected it of her. The three of them had traveled from Paris three weeks ago and upon their arrival had taken up residence in this house in Piccadilly. Beginning with a skeleton staff headed by Foster, the butler, they’d gotten on well enough while he hired a housekeeper, four more maids and three footmen. Chaumont had joined them from Paris last week and taken a small house near Hanover Square. With her, she brought two more trunks of clothes for Lily plus another two for Marianne. All had been tailored to the precise measurements of each lady, crafted by those at the House of Worth.
Dressing the ladies in grand style was Killian’s priority, closely seconded by furnishing the London house.
“No expense will be too great,” Killian had often repeated.
He wanted a showpiece and had rented the house from an elderly earl frantic to pay his bills. As a backdrop for his business dealings and a venue to exhibit his wealth and his family, Killian reveled in his skill to wrest it from the desperate Englishman. The house sat on one major thoroughfare in London, a few doors away from Number One, the home of the Dukes of Wellington. A few houses in one direction, the Duke of Devonshire lived. The Rothschilds lived in the other direction. An American bachelor from Montana who had made millions from mining silver had recently rented the house next door. Across the street was The Ritz, where Killian dined often or had terrines de frois gras sent over for his lunch. This afternoon, he’d insisted that the chef send over amuse-bouche for the tea party Lily and Marianne hosted. Their first event at home in London, he wanted every detail to be the finest.
Chaumont surveyed the art in the drawing room. Pausing in front of an oil over the mantel, she looked at Marianne. “Mon Dieu, I am overcome. Is that painting by Monsieur Delacroix?”
“Oui, madame,” Marianne said, walking toward the portrait of pianist Frédéric Chopin. “Marvelous for its delicacy, is it not?”
“Is this the one that some fool cut in half? The one with his lover, George Sand?”
“It is. Monsieur Hanniford likes Chopin’s etudes and he decided he must have it.”
“Even if,” added Lily, “the piano in the picture seems unfinished and his lover, Miss Sand, is missing.”
“No matter.” Marianne chuckled. “Monsieur Hanniford likes it.”
“And even though it cost more than all our wardrobes from Worth combined,” Lily said with amusement, “he had to own it.”
Marianne had found it in an auction house on the Champs-Élysées and had told her uncle about it. “He comes in here to view it each morning after his breakfast.”
“Astonishing,” said Chaumont, bending forward to examine the brushwork. “When we were in Paris, I knew he liked to visit the galleries, but I did not know he wished to buy pieces.”
“He wishes he could draw or paint,” Lily said as she led them to sit near the fire. “Marianne does both and knows a brilliant work when she sees it.”
Chaumont put a hand to her throat, in her eyes stood awe. “I am enthralled. I did not know this about you, Madame Roland. I would like to see your work.”
“Thank you. But no, I will not show any of it.”
“She’s very good,” said Lily. “She won’t tell you that, but I can.”
“Oh, but you must let me see! I insist.” Chaumont touched her hand to Marianne’s wrist.
Lily answered for her cousin, “She refuses to show her works to anyone other than us at home.”
“Today, after all your guests leave,” Chaumont pleaded with Marianne.
“No, thank you. I do what thrills me. My work is not classical.”
“All the better,” Chaumont said. “In Paris, there is new interest in art. It spreads, I think, here too. We have—how shall we say?—new interpretations. Painters, sculptors. You met one of them a few months ago. He has created sensations with his women.”
Lily could recall having met no artists. “Who is this?”
Marianne glanced away.
“Who?” Lily asked of Chaumont.
“The Duc de Remy.”
“You did not tell me he is a painter,” Lily said to Marianne.
“A sculptor,” Marianne said quietly and strolled to the window.
Did she not wish to speak about Remy? “Does he have talent, Madame Chaumont?”
“Indeed.” The comtesse inclined her head. “He has recently acquired a new commission for the City of Paris.”
“How wonderful for him.” Lily raised her brows at Chaumont, puzzled by Marianne’s silence.
In answer, Chaumont lifted her shoulders. “He works in marble. Bronze, too.”
“I understand he has a mistress.” Marianne fingered the edge of the draperies. “Is that true?”
Chaumont gave a sharp laugh. “I understand he has sent her away.”
“Really?” Within the word was hope.
“Truly, madame. My friends say he was bored.”
“How can that be? She was lovely.”
Lily cocked her head. How would Marianne know if Remy’s lover were beautiful?
“Lovely or not, she has departed. The story goes that he gave her money to retire to the country. Gossips say he is…how you say in English… Pining.”
Marianne whirled to face Chaumont. “Pining?”
“For a new woman.”
“Oh.” She struggled to smile. “What you would expect from an artist, oui?”
Lily had never seen Marianne so secretive. Indeed she was a very bad actress, feigning disinterest in Remy.
Marianne grew nervous, her fingers clutched together so hard her flesh turned white. “He needs a new model, I expect. One who will pose for him in the nude.”
How does Marianne know that women pose f
or him without their clothes?
“Does he,” asked Lily, “need models who do that?”
“He does,” Chaumont confirmed.
“How else could he impart realism, eh?” Marianne asked. “I saw two of his pieces. A man, tortured, which he named Samson. He was spectacular. Diana was another form and she was breath-taking.”
Lily gazed at her cousin, marveling in surprise. “You’ve seen his works?”
“I went one day to a private showing. You’d gone to the book store along the Seine and I knew you would be hours.”
Lily recalled the day, a cold one, when Marianne had left her to her own devices in the book store and gone off for an hour or more. Lily suppressed a grin, but was eager to tease her cousin. “I thought you’d gone in search of a new hat.”
Marianne demurred with a small smile. “Perhaps, at first. But I’d seen a billboard outside the Louvre advertising Remy’s exhibition and since I had met the man, I was curious.”
Chaumont leaned toward her. “What did you think of his work?”
Marianne flourished a hand. “I liked the Samson, not the Diana.”
“Rumor has it, he sold the Samson,” said Chaumont. “For many thousands of francs, too. Enough to make his bankers smile.”
“I hope enough to feed him and a new mistress.” Marianne’s gaiety did not hide her jealousy.
“Oui, many artists earn a living,” Chaumont said with a sigh. “People can afford to buy art now that we are done with empires and wars and revolutions. All the more reason to cultivate your own talents, Madame Roland.”
“I am not accomplished. And I was never trained. The war took my land and home. There was no money for frivolities like art instruction.”
“But talent may not need instruction. You know I have many friends in Paris. You could bring your work and we could call on Remy—”
“Oh, no, merci, madame.”
Was Marianne too quick to refuse?
Lily made a note of it.
“I do not wish to trouble them.”
Chaumont muttered something about small damage, shrugging off Marianne’s objection. “But they are quite friendly, eager to meet others who struggle with their art. When next we return, I will introduce you. We’ll go up to Pigalle—”
Marianne laughed politely and took a chair opposite Lily and Chaumont. “No, no. I’ve heard of that crowd up on the hill in Montmarte. They are radicals.”
“Remy is one of them,” Chaumont said with nonchalance. “But no revolutionaire. You saw him. A normal man but with talent. He encourages the others, too. In truth, they are becoming the mode. Trust me. They live and breathe and eat and make love just like the rest of us. But if they render the rest of us in lines that are startling and new, is that to be condemned? Or ignored?”
Marianne gazed at her hands in her lap. “You put me to shame, Madame Chaumont.”
“I do not mean to. If you are inclined to sketch or paint or sculpt or write or compose, is it not your life’s work to perfect your vision and give it to the world?”
Those were the most profound words Chaumont had ever spoken to them. Lily gazed from the French woman to Marianne who raised her face to consider the countess, respect upon her features.
“You have a point, madame. I shall attempt to change how I regard my art.”
“Do.” She smiled, her smile a whole-hearted benevolent one. “Now, we must think of our tea. Who has been invited? Refresh my memory.”
Lily brushed the silk of her skirts, ready to recite the list they’d worked so hard to perfect. For their first afternoon at home, Marianne and she had endeavored to make the party lively. Yet because their acquaintances were so new and limited, they invited other Americans they knew as well as the English they had met in the past few weeks. “Lord and Lady Templeton have accepted and they bring their son, Charles. Lord Pinkhurst. Lord Hardesty and his sister, Lady Rose. The Manchesters from Boston.”
Chaumont tapped a finger against her lips. “Pinkhurst is a rogue. Not rich, but his charm makes up for the lack. And the Manchesters? Who are they?”
Lily was tickled to see Pinkie again. She hadn’t since Paris and their escapade to the cabaret in Montmarte. “Bankers. My father has accounts there.”
“And what of the Duchess of Landon? Did you invite her?” Chaumont had pressed for the elderly lady to be added to the invitations. She was a doyenne who influenced society by merely breathing the same air as others. She’d led the town to accept newcomers like the Jeromes from New York and the Kings from Georgia. Hopefully, she’d shepherd the Hannifords from Baltimore, too.
“I did, but—” Lily shook her head. “She declined due to a prior engagement. But she begged to be remembered for our next tea.”
“Excellent.” Chaumont cocked her head. “What of Lord Chelton?”
Lily caught sight of the footman approaching with the tea tray. “I did not send a card.”
“No?” Chaumont looked from Lily to Marianne and back again. “But he showed such interest in you in Paris.”
Too much. Too quickly. That night at the opera, so close for so very long, his focus on her electrified her. His intensity stole her breath. His proximity set her afire. His hand on hers burned and branded. She admired his grace, she applauded his demeanor, she envied his savoir faire. But near him, she felt rough, uncut. Too buoyant. Close to him, she compared herself to any English girl. She was not sedate, not always serene. At home in America such contrasts never occurred to her. There she was in her element. Here, with him, she doubted she could ever be. “Really I think it best he not come.”
“But he was most enchanted with you. I am certain. I saw it.” Chaumont was triumphant in her declaration.
“I did not encourage him, madame.”
Chaumont fell back in her seat. “Why ever not? He is most handsome and of a proper lineage.”
Lily beseeched Marianne with a look. “You won’t help me here?”
Her cousin laughed. “You’re digging a big enough hole for yourself.”
“Ah, thank you.”
“Lord Chelton is heir to a very fine title, lands that are extensive and a few houses, one here in town.”
Clutching her hands together, Lily vowed to close this topic. “His father and mine are in a dispute over a business dealing. I know few details, but from what I gather it is bitter.”
“However, you told me their name is not on your father’s list. Therefore, viola!”
“I tell you, madame, their dispute won’t end amicably. I know my father.” She shot from her chair. “It’s bad enough I came here appearing the pitiful supplicant with dollars in her hand shopping for a husband. But I will not entertain any man who thinks ill of me or my father. I agree to look at those gentlemen who appear before me, but I refuse to mix my father’s aspirations for my future with his intentions for his own.”
“As you wish, Mademoiselle. I will speak no more of him.”
“Thank you, Clemence,” Lily said, using the countess’s given name for the first time and employing one of her father’s techniques to endear an adversary to his cause. She needed the woman for many reasons, not the least of which was to smooth the path for her to meet men, many men, many English men of some means or much or none. Lily did not care how many were set before her. How many she danced with or ate with or curtsied to. She cared only that none of them be an opponent of her father’s. And no one bear the carriage or the beauty or the name of Julian Ash, the Marquess of Chelton.
Foster appeared in the doorway.
“Yes? What is it?”
“Miss Hanniford, the first guests have arrived.”
“Wonderful.” She could get on with this little tea party and end this useless argument. “Do show them in. We’re ready for them, aren’t we?”
Marianne tossed her a grin.
Chaumont nodded.
The procession began. The Templetons were an older couple, graying and doddering. Assisting them to their chairs was their son, Charles,
also gray but very sprightly, talkative and nervous. Charles, his parents were quick to tell the ladies, was a bachelor. With a deftness borne of years in good society, he changed the subject to the weather.
In the midst of that, Lord Hardesty and his sister, Lady Rose, arrived.
“They rented a house near mine in Troyes last summer,” said Chaumont as the two took their seats and were introduced all around. “Lady Rose is a talented pianist. I thrilled to hear her play each evening, the notes waltzing on the night breezes to my little house.”
Lady Rose, a pale blonde with small plain features, inclined her head in polite acceptance of the praise. “You are more than kind, madame. I play only to amuse myself and my brother. Do either of you play? I notice you have a portrait of Chopin.”
So on the conversation went among them all at a pleasant pace when Foster once more appeared to announce a new set of arrivals.
“Superb, Foster,” Lily said, glowing that this reception was going along so very well with lively discussion and great harmony among them all. She rose to her feet.
But froze in her tracks.
Behind Mr. and Mrs. William Manchester and their daughter, Dahlia, stood the very man who had not been invited. He was imperious, tall and dark and faultlessly attired in a black suit, fine linen shirt and bronze waistcoat that set golden fires in his dark brown eyes. He smiled, his gaze finding hers, friendly and cool for teatime ambiance. With a small sigh of gratitude from her training, she discovered her manners did not desert her and introduced them all in turn. He was appropriately apologetic for having intruded on the invitation. But Manchester came to his defense sighting a meeting between them that had gone on too long and the hope to bring him along, knowing the Hannifords wished to make new acquaintances here in London.
“We’re delighted to have you, Lord Chelton,” Lily lied through her teeth.
“Thank you, Miss Hanniford. I assured Mr. Manchester we had met before and you approve of me.”
Approve? You rogue. You know I do no such thing. “We did meet in Paris when Madame le Comtesse’s coach was waylaid by a dog running in the streets.”
Lily moved, a hand out indicating he should sit beside her on the sofa. It was no particular honor as it was the only seat vacant. Settling into a quietude, she let the others complete the tale of the afternoon when Remy performed his valiant service in the Rue de la Paix. Taking his tea from her, Julian sat back to enjoy his proximity.
Wild Lily (Those Notorious Americans Book 1) Page 6
