Beguiling the Beauty

by Thomas, Sherry

  The remains of the quarry consisted of a near-circular cliff with a ramp going down to the bottom. To reach the top of the ramp, he had to guide his stallion up a small hill. The sight that greeted him as he crested the knoll made him lose his breath.

  Standing halfway up the earthen ramp that he’d had built years ago to facilitate access to the higher parts of the cliff was his baroness, complete with the veiled hat that had been such a part of her mystery. She stood with her back to him, studiously chipping away at a promising patch of sediment, late Triassic by the look of it. Setting down her hammer and chisel, she picked up a brush and swept away the debris around an ocher-colored protuberance. All the while she whistled, a lively aria from Rigoletto, her notes bright and exactly in tune, until she hit a sustained high note where she ran out of air and stuttered. This made her giggle.

  At the sound of her laughter, the Ghost of Ocean Crossings Past shouldered through him, a great, muscular longing.

  He did something: tightened his hands on the reins or the grip of his thighs on the flanks of his steed. The horse shifted, struck its hooves against the ground, and let out a rumbly neigh.

  She looked over her shoulder. The front of the veil had been lifted over the crown of her hat; her face was dirty and smudged, her extraordinary eyes largely hidden beneath the wide brim. All the same he felt the familiar upending of his peace of mind, of the ingrained expectation that he should affect the world and those in it, but not the other way around.

  He nudged his mount forward. At the bottom of the slope there was a hitching post. He tied the horse and made his way up the ramp.

  “How did you find me?”

  “It’s not that difficult to guess which part of my estate you may wish to explore. What have you found?”

  She glanced at him, seemingly surprised by his civility. “A very small skull. I am hoping it might be a juvenile dinosaur but most probably not—it’s too far into the Tertiary strata.”

  “An amphibian, by the looks of it,” he judged.

  She did not quite look at him. “I’m still thrilled.”

  A silence spread. He didn’t know what to say. For a man of science, a devotee to cold facts, he had blundered badly, allowing his action to be guided by assumption after ill-supported assumption. “You said you were there at my Harvard lecture in person,” he heard himself say. “Why didn’t you approach me afterward and correct my misconceptions?”

  She swirled the bristles of a brush against the skull’s small, sharp teeth. “I couldn’t have shared the most painful details of my life with a stranger who had coldly condemned me.”

  No, of course not.

  “So you chose to punish me instead.”

  She drew a deep breath. “So I chose to punish you instead.”

  His hand tightened around his riding crop. For a moment it seemed that he was about to say something, but he only inclined his head and left: untethered his horse, rode it up the slope, and disappeared from sight.

  Venetia bit her lower lip. She was still unsettled from their conversation the night before, during which she had shared the most painful details of her life, and he had reacted not at all.

  But then he too had shared his most closely held secret and she had thrown it back in his face—with great glee, as far as he could tell.

  She sat down to rest on a hardened clump of soil. After a while, she thought of picking up the hammer and the chisel and chipping away some more at the edges of the skeleton. But her arms were sore and each whack of the hammer had jarred the socket of her arm. It had been a long time since she last dug: Then she’d been an indefatigable child who never ached anywhere; now she was a pregnant woman who didn’t sleep well.

  It would be wiser to be on her way back to the house. She had prepared for her outing with a flask of tea and a sandwich. The sandwich was already gone—eaten en route, as it had taken her longer than expected to find the site. The flask, too, was nearly empty—the day had warmed fast.

  It would be a hot, thirsty walk home.

  The sound of horse hooves and wheels. She spun around, hoping to see Christian. But it was only Wells, the gamekeeper, who’d come in a two-wheel dogcart pulled by a Clydesdale.

  “Do you need a lift to the manor, mum?” said Wells.

  Venetia was surprised and relieved. “Yes, I do. Thank you.”

  Wells carried the bucket of tools back to the shed while she climbed up to the slope to the dogcart.

  “Did you happen by the quarry?” she asked, once he had helped her up to the high seat. The gamekeeper’s cottage was somewhere nearby, from what Gerald had told her.

  “No, mum. His Grace stopped by and asked me to wait on you. He also asked the wife to have some tea and some biscuits for you.”

  Wells passed her a basket covered with a large napkin. She ate a biscuit. It tasted lemony. “It’s very kind of you and Mrs. Wells.”

  And even kinder of Christian, to arrange for transport and nourishment, before she’d even realized her needs.

  All of a sudden she couldn’t wait to see him again. Enough of the Great Beauty. Enough of her pride. And enough of this fretting about their impasse. He was the love of her life—it was time she treated him as such.

  “Would you mind hurrying a little?” she asked Wells, who drove as if the dogcart were the state carriage during the Queen’s Jubilee.

  “His Grace said I was to drive slow and steady, so as to not jostle you, mum.”

  “That’s very lovely of His Grace, but I’m not afraid of jostling. Faster, please.”

  The Clydesdale went from a stately trot to a more energetic trot, but Wells refused to accelerate further. Venetia waited impatiently for the manor to come into view. And when the dogcart drew up before the front steps, she thanked Wells and ran inside.

  “Where is the duke?” she asked the first person she came across, who happened to be Richards.

  Richards looked surprised at the question. “His Grace has departed for London.”

  Christian hadn’t said a thing about leaving Algernon House. “Of course,” she murmured, hoping she didn’t look as she felt, faltering. “I meant when did he leave?”

  “Half an hour ago, ma’am.”

  “Thank you, Richards,” she said numbly.

  She wanted to kick herself. So I chose to punish you instead. How could she have given that answer as if it were complete in and of itself?

  So I chose to punish you instead. But my scheme disintegrated once I realized you were not the villain I believed you to be. And the greatest mistake of my life was not marrying Tony, but not telling you the truth after I fell in love.

  That’s what she should have said. But she was too late. He was gone, no longer even keeping up the pretense of honeymoon togetherness.

  “Will you be needing anything else, ma’am?” asked Richards.

  She stood irresolute.

  “Ma’am?”

  “You may return to your other duties, Richards.”

  Richards bowed and walked away. Venetia stared at his disappearing back.

  “Wait!” she heard herself cry. “Ready me a carriage to take me to the rail station. I, too, am going to London.”

  She was not some bleating ninny who stopped at the first obstacle. He’d gone to London, not fallen off the edge of the world. She’d be there before teatime.

  “Yes, ma’am. Right away, ma’am,” answered Richards, something suspiciously like a smile on his face.

  And she would not come back to Algernon House before she’d bared her heart.

  Meg Munn, the maid who’d claimed to be pregnant with Townsend’s child, turned out to be surprisingly easy to locate. Christian had sent out a cable before he left Derbyshire in the morning. Upon his arrival in London, McAdams, his solicitor, already had something to report.

  “I spoke to Mr. Brand, the agent who’d let houses to Mr. Townsend during several London Seasons, hoping he might have some information on Mr. Townsend’s staff. As it so happened, the maid Meg Mu
nn had married Mr. Harney, one of Mr. Brand’s former clerks, who is now a greengrocer in Cheapside.

  “I went to Cheapside and located the establishment. Mrs. Harney told me that while she’d accepted Mr. Townsend’s advances from time to time, she much preferred Harney, upon whom she also bestowed her favors. When she found herself with child, she was fairly certain it was Harney’s, but she felt a little scheming would not be amiss, a way to cajole her mistress to provide a dowry for her.”

  “Thank you, Mr. McAdams.” Not that Christian still doubted his wife. This exercise was less about proving her trustworthiness, and more—he wasn’t sure what to call it. Punishment, perhaps, for himself. To see just how infinitely wrong he’d been where she was concerned. “And the duchess’s fossilized footprints?”

  “The paleontological artifact has been moved to Euston Station, sir. It is ready to leave when you are.”

  “Very good,” said Christian.

  He should have apologized to her in the quarry. But the words had stuck in his throat. To properly express his contrition would revisit the fact that he’d coveted her from afar these many years. And he couldn’t, not before her beautiful eyes and clear gaze.

  The “paleontological artifact” would have to speak for him. And by personally escorting it home, he hoped it would speak loud and clear the words he couldn’t quite bring himself to utter.

  A knock came at the door of his study. “Sir, I have Lady Avery and Lady Somersby calling for you,” said a footman.

  Lady Avery was the gossip who’d been at his Harvard lecture and then spread Christian’s words all over London. Why would he want to see her and her equally worthless sister?

  “I’m not at home today.”

  The footman withered at his tone. “I tried to inform the ladies, sir. But they would not listen to me. They said”—he swallowed—“they said that you’d regret it, sir, if you didn’t hear what they had to say about the duchess.”

  He frowned. He could ignore any and all insinuation concerning himself, but not those concerning Venetia. Venetia, he repeated her name in his mind. So familiar, those syllables, the central refrain of his life.

  “Show them to the drawing room.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  He strode into the drawing room five minutes later. “You are not welcome here.”

  “Well, well.” Lady Avery smiled wolfishly. “Then we’d best state our business quickly and be on our way, ought we not?”

  “We ought to indeed,” echoed Lady Somersby.

  “You see, sir, my sister and I take our reputations very seriously. We might be gossips, but we are reliable gossips. We do not fabricate stories and we do not disseminate news we cannot verify. At times we editorialize and offer our own interpretation of the meaning and significance of events, but we support our assertions with utmost care and we never concoct the underlying events.

  “I was there at your Harvard lecture, sir, seated in the fifth row. The young man who rose to defend the good name of the beautiful women of the world is my son-in-law’s cousin. I took very good notes of what you said and I knew instantly that you were speaking of the former Mrs. Easterbrook.

  “As it is not my duty to protect you from your indiscretion, when I came back, I related the story faithfully and well. But you and the former Mrs. Easterbrook mounted a brilliant counteroffensive: dance, carriage ride, and elopement. Now people who have trusted my sister and me for decades have suddenly begun to question our accuracy and dependability. Our reputation is at stake here.”

  “That is hardly my concern,” Christian said coldly.

  “Of course it is not, but it is very much ours. To that extent, we redoubled our effort to prove ourselves. No doubt you will be interested to hear what we have unearthed?”

  “Not at all.”

  As if he hadn’t spoken, Lady Avery went on. “We have obtained the visitors’ registry from Brooks’s, for the month of August, eighteen eighty-eight. On the twenty-sixth, two days before Mr. Townsend was found dead, there were only four visitors in the evening, and you, sir, and Mr. Townsend, were among them.“

  A tinny, acrid taste was on Christian’s tongue. Fear. Not for himself, but for his wife.

  “We also have in our possession copies of the bills of sale for three jewel necklaces Mr. Townsend bought, in the weeks preceding his death. We have members of Mr. Easterbrook’s family willing to swear on stacks of Bibles that at the time of his death, his wife was chatting and making merry in the parlor. And last, but not least, my son-in-law’s cousin—the one who’d been at the lecture—is on his way to England: a visitor at our invitation, but also an additional eyewitness who will corroborate every last one of our claims.”

  “What do you want?” His voice did not shake, but he did sound desperate—at least to himself.

  “You mistake us, sir. We are not blackmailers, but seekers of the truth. Granted, our truths may be trivial in your eyes, but they matter to us—as much as your pursuits matter to you and very possibly more.”

  “Therefore this is only a courtesy call on our part, sir,” added Lady Somersby, “to let you know that we are not about to let the matter rest. We will fight for our reputation tooth and nail.”

  He almost laughed—their reputation. Except there was not the least irony in Lady Somersby’s words. She meant everything she said—they meant everything they said. Much as he might sneer at their calling and their efforts, they took themselves with utter seriousness.

  “I don’t care what you say about me, but the duchess is innocent of any crimes. I will not allow you to injure her.”

  “Then you should not have implied that she is ruthless and greedy, sir,” replied Lady Avery, perfectly at ease.

  “Precisely. If you lied, you make amends. If Mr. Townsend lied, well, let the duchess make the truth known,” added Lady Somersby.

  “What if she has no interest in making the private particulars of her life with Mr. Townsend known to the public?”

  “Then that is her choice, isn’t it?”

  “I went to school with Grant, Lady Somersby’s nephew. The present company all know of his inclinations. Yet I’ve never heard either of you breathe a word of it. That tells me you do not need to speak of everything you know.”

  “That is different. We gossip to shed light on passions and weaknesses, not to ruin lives.” Lady Avery rose. “Mr. Townsend is already dead and the former Mrs. Easterbrook, well, she is the Duchess of Lexington—such enormous good fortune cannot be dented by a few juicy nuggets that we choose to disseminate. Come, Grace, we have importuned the duke long enough. Good day to you, sir, and we will see ourselves out.”

  “Wait,” he said. His breaths were shallow, his heartbeat unsteady. The Lexington name could protect Venetia from ostracization, but it would not shield her from the sort of torment Lady Avery and Lady Somersby proposed to unleash: She would be forced to relive the worst moments of her life while Society feasted on her private anguish for entertainment.

  “If it is true that you are truth seekers above all, and if it is true that you adhere to your own code of honor, then I am willing to offer you certain truths you will not learn elsewhere. In exchange I ask that you refrain from causing the duchess any further distress.”

  The women exchanged a look. “We cannot make any promises until we hear what it is you have to tell us. After all, we have toiled more than a quarter century for our reputation. We cannot overlook such a blight for a minor confession.”

  A minor confession. Was that what his revelation would be deemed as? There was every possibility. These were jaded women neck deep in every kind of human foible. What was to him an unbearably intimate secret might very well rank somewhere near the bottom of their scale in terms of salaciousness and titillation.

  But he had no choice. His ill-considered words had been the cause of enough chagrin. No more.

  The women’s nostrils flared. Their gaze upon him was that of two vultures that had waited patiently and would soon feast. He
felt ill, nauseated almost, to bare his soul before such as them.

  He gripped the back of the chair before him. “I fell in love with my wife ten years ago, when she was still Mrs. Townsend.”

  The women exchanged another look. Lady Avery sat down again.

  His knuckles were white. He forced his hands to unclench. “It was—difficult. Not only because she seemed happily married, but also because my sentiments were consuming—beyond my control. Then I ran into Townsend. And he’d said what he’d said. I need not repeat how I interpreted subsequent events.

  “What I did not say at the lecture was that my revulsion and outrage did little to emancipate me from my enslavement. However unwillingly, I remained in thrall to her beauty. In the ensuing years, I made sure that our paths would not cross.

  “But the time had come for me to do my duty and marry. I was obliged to be in London during the Season. As my return drew near, my doubts grew. Mrs. Easterbrook’s hold over me remained undiminished. If I came across her again, I was not confident that my principles would be strong enough to withstand my fixation. Years of resistance could be undone by a single encounter.

  “In Sanders Theatre, my mind was in a state of unrest. I managed to get through the body of the lecture, but I betrayed myself during the questions. At the time I only thought I was reinforcing my own resolution, but I quickly realized that I’d committed a great indiscretion. I took comfort in the fact that I was more than three thousand miles from home and my American audience would not know of whom I spoke. That, as you well know, turned out not to be the case.

  “Since then I’ve had cause to revise my opinion of my wife. I’d been very much mistaken about her. Even if I did not know what she looked like, I would still find her beautiful. I—”

  The door of the drawing room opened to reveal the loveliest woman in the world, clad in a sandstone-colored traveling gown. “Christian,” she said, “I know I have not been—”

  She saw Lady Avery and Lady Somersby. Her eyes narrowed. Her tone turned icy. “I did not know we were at home to callers.”

  She was every bit the haughty duchess.