by Davyne DeSye
Christine nodded her response as she crossed to the dresser, and began pulling open drawers.
“I have certain financial matters I must attend to. Will you be all right here without me?” he asked.
Moving from the dresser to the wardrobe, she again nodded.
“I’ll tell the servants to come immediately to your assistance. And I’ll have them lock up after me.” He continued to watch as Christine discarded a party dress, took up another, more practical dress, and began to fold it.
“I am sorry, Christine,” he said.
She stopped her packing long enough to meet his eyes across the room. “I love you, husband.” Smiling, she held his gaze a moment longer, and then turned again to the wardrobe. “Now go. Come back as quickly as you can.”
Erik turned and left the room, not bothering to explain to Aina, who was coming down the hall with tea and biscuits – Christine would explain soon enough. He did give orders to Pontus, the aged butler. He paused outside the main door to listen for the lock before running for the stables.
CHAPTER 6
OPPORTUNITIES
Petter turned where he stood, eyeing the magnificent white buildings of the Bush Exhibition site at which he and Evans had been laboring through the day. As he waited for Evans to finish a conversation with a foreman, he rolled his shirtsleeves down, and wandered toward one elaborate building whose Oriental style intrigued his imagination. While he still had not achieved his own commission, he had to admit to himself that the work at the fair site intrigued and fulfilled him – it represented building on such a grand scale. Petter was certain that it must be the largest exhibition site ever constructed, covering as it did one hundred and forty acres, and including an artificial lake and numerous gardens. With the construction underway in the neighboring district for the upcoming Summer Olympics, he felt himself involved in a monumental undertaking.
Petter put his coat on, and pulled a small sketchpad from the pocket. He sketched a portion of an arch above a portico and the carvings and details that illuminated the supporting columns – he would not copy them in his own work, but they intrigued his imagination toward something he knew he would find in his own work later. Replacing the sketchpad, he rejoined Evans, who had finished with the foreman.
“Astounding, isn’t it, Petter, m’ boy?” the giant man said as Petter approached. Petter smiled and turned a circle again, allowing his face and eyes to reflect his appreciation for the grandness of the project.
“Indeed, Mr. Evans. I must thank you for the opportunity of…”
“Nonsense,” Evans squeaked. Raising his beefy hand as he walked and bowing his smooth, shiny head, he greeted a well-dressed, silver haired man. “Good afternoon, Lord Pendleton.” He looked to keep walking, but the man turned and held a hand out toward the large mason.
“Ah, yes. Good afternoon. Evans, isn’t it?” he said.
Evans bowed again before answering, mustache bobbing and ruddy face flushing with pleasure at the Lord’s recognition. “Yes, m’ Lord. Mr. Evans at your service.” After a pause, Evans continued, “May I introduce my colleague, Mr. Petter Nilsson.”
Petter flushed with pride and gratitude that Evans had not introduced him as his journeyman – which he would have been well within his rights to do – but as his colleague. “Lord Pendleton,” Petter said, and bowed.
“I find myself quite pleased,” Pendleton said, and as Petter had done, the man turned in a circle to take in the multitude of ornate buildings, surreal in their whiteness against the half-finished gardens.
“Thank you, sir,” answered Evans, although he could not claim more than a small part of the credit for the extravagant display.
“Quite worth my investment, I should say,” Pendleton continued.
“Oh, Father. Are you discussing investments again?” This latest statement was delivered in a dulcet voice that carried a hint of both chastisement and affection. Petter looked toward the voice, and almost gasped at the sight of the beautiful girl that approached the graying lord. His mouth opened – in awe or disbelief of the vision before him – then closed again, as he forced himself to swallow and breathe. His eyes took in every detail of her loveliness. Her dress was a bright golden yellow – not one of the somber colors preferred by most of the ladies in London – and she carried a matching parasol, which she tilted to one side as she kissed her father’s cheek. Petter nearly bent his head to look around and under the parasol as it blocked his vision of her face. Then, as if answering his most fervent wish, the girl turned to face him, parasol cocked over one shoulder, and smiled at him.
This was no girl. This was a goddess!
Golden hair limned her perfect face, and fell in shining ringlets to her shoulders. Ocean blue eyes mirrored the smile she directed at him with her rosebud lips. Petter’s face warmed as he smiled in return. He could not take his eyes from her and continue living, while at the same time, he had to pull his eyes from hers or never breathe again.
“May I present my daughter, Constance,” came the disembodied voice of her father from what seemed quite a distance, but still Petter could not take his eyes from the girl, or stop smiling.
Constance. Petter clutched at the information with all his mind. The name of perfection is Constance.
“Constance, this is Mr. Evans,” the voice continued, and the vision before him looked away from him, to the spot at his side where he now remembered his employer was standing. Petter shuddered as her eyes left his, but still he could not look away from her, his entire being willing her to turn back to him.
“Delighted,” Mr. Evans said, as he took her delicate, gloved hand in his own, and bent over it. Petter moistened his lips with his tongue as he noticed the fragility of the slim wrist at the base of the glove, imagined the glove removed, imagined his lips pressing to the back of her tiny bare hand.
“Mr. Evans is one of the master masons who are responsible for the splendor you see about you,” Lord Pendleton continued. Petter listened to the words, not interested in the meaning of them – only listening in the hopes of gleaning anything more about the beautiful girl before him.
“How wonderful,” the girl answered, and Petter could not help but agree with her statement.
She is wonderful!
She turned her blue eyes to Petter again – he felt a shock as though she had touched him, or whispered into his ear – and then she dropped them to flutter her golden eyelashes. Drawn to her as though hypnotized, he took a half step toward her.
“And this is Mr.…,” Pendleton said, apparently not remembering Petter’s name. Tongue trapped behind smiling lips, Petter could not speak to answer him.
The high-toned voice of Mr. Evans came to his rescue. “My colleague, Mr. Nilsson.”
“Ah yes, Mr. Nilsson,” Pendleton said.
Petter accepted the outstretched hand of the golden angel before him, and bowed over it. “Constance,” he murmured as he raised his eyes to her face again.
She blushed and giggled as she pulled her hand from his, and her father and Evans cleared their throats. Like a slap to his face, Petter jolted back to himself, to reality, appalled at his familiarity.
“I beg your pardon! Miss Pendleton.” Petter’s darting eyes took in the stern face of her father, and the amused expression on Evans’ face. “Miss Pendleton,” he repeated, turning to the girl, and bowing again. “I am pleased to make your acquaintance.”
The rosebud mouth turned up again in a smile, and she said, with a slight tilt to her shoulders and another flash of golden lashes, “Are you a master mason as well?”
“Yes, Miss,” Petter answered. He hoped his misery – misery as terrible as his ecstasy had been sweet only moments ago – did not sound in his answer.
“Oh, Father. Don’t glare at Mr. Nilsson so. He meant no harm,” she said, flashing her eyes to her father and back to Petter. She giggled again behind one gloved hand.
Lord Pendleton sighed, and then, a slight smile turning up one side of his mouth, and hi
s voice laced with humor, said, “I am glaring at you, my dear. You take too much pleasure in Mr. Nilsson’s attentions.”
“Father!” The briefest of frowns creased her porcelain forehead, and her lips came together in the most delectable moue. Petter imagined kissing the pout from her pursed lips. Instead he managed to look away from the girl, to her father. Thankfully, the man was directing a raised eyebrow of affectionate rebuke toward his daughter.
“We are working on a rather classical building in the Elite Gardens,” Petter said, hoping to recover some semblance of propriety, “but I find myself quite intrigued by the often Oriental styles of many of the buildings and pagodas.” He clasped his hands behind his back to keep from the temptation of taking Constance’s hand in his own.
“Indeed,” answered Pendleton. “The overall effect is quite pleasing. Quite.”
“Thank you, sir,” Evans said. After another moment of silence, Evans said, “A pleasure, Lord Pendleton – Miss Pendleton,” and bowed again to man and girl before moving away from the two.
Petter murmured his own words of leave-taking, but could not remember what he had said. He hoped he hadn’t made an even greater fool of himself.
As he walked, he was startled from his catalogue of Constance’s perfection – he could not bring himself to call her Miss Pendleton in his mind – by the high-pitched giggle of the large man at his side, and a jog to his elbow.
“Love at first sight, eh, Petter, m’ boy?” Evans asked with another giggle.
Petter staggered as Evans put a name to the turmoil within him. “Love…,” he answered, and then as an afterthought, “Is that what it is?” He felt sure of the answer even as he asked the question.
Evans laughed again.
After another immeasurable length of time lost in his thoughts, Evans clapped him on the back and said, “See you in the morning, m’ boy.”
Somehow, Petter found his way home for the evening.
***
It was late, and – as was now usual – Petter and Phoebe were the only two left in the shop. Phoebe sat at her drawing table and Petter at his, although of the two, only Phoebe was getting any work accomplished. Petter gazed over the top of the lamp, not seeing the shop at all, not thinking of the plans spread before him. He tapped his pencil on the leg of the table.
“Do you know Constance Pendleton, Phoebe?” Petter asked into the silence. The name – Constance Pendleton – sounded like a prayer in his ears, and he spoke it with reverence. It had been mere weeks since that fateful meeting at the Bush Exhibition.
“I know of her, Petter,” she answered. She did not look up from where she ran her pen along a straightedge.
“What do you know of her?” he asked. “Tell me everything.”
“What everyone knows, I suppose, Petter. What you know,” she answered. “I know who her father is, and in what area of town she lives, and…”
“No, no. I mean, yes, I know all of that, but I want to know about Constance.” Petter’s gaze shortened when Phoebe did not answer. She sat at her drawing table looking at him across the space between them.
“This morning, her father gave permission for me to court his daughter, and I wish to woo her completely.” He grimaced as he thought through the uncomfortable meeting with Lord Pendleton that had – to Petter’s surprise – ended with the father’s permission to see the girl. The man had said, “Constance must have her suitors,” as Petter had risen to go. Even now he did not know whether the statement was meant to indicate that Petter was one of many, or that Constance had insisted on being allowed to see Petter. He preferred to believe the latter.
Petter lowered his gaze again to see that Phoebe had resumed her drawing. “Do you know if she likes flowers, or chocolates? Does she like the opera? Do you know?”
Phoebe sighed before answering. “Most young ladies like flowers and chocolates, Petter,” she answered. “I know that she often attends the opera, but I do not know whether her attendance translates to an appreciation of the art.”
Petter sat, still attentive to Phoebe’s words, waiting for her to continue. After a moment, she spoke again.
“She likes pretty frocks,” she said.
“Phoebe! I cannot buy frocks for Constance.” His tone was indignant, but Phoebe laughed, and then sighed again.
“I know that, Petter. I’m telling you what I know about Miss Pendleton, as you asked.”
“Yes, of course,” Petter answered.
“She seems to like the outdoors – she likes to take a turn about the park with her gentleman friends,” Phoebe continued.
Petter’s mood darkened at the mention of gentleman friends, but the glorious image of walking in the park with Constance’s arm in his own brightened him again.
“Perhaps roses, Petter. Roses are flowers for courting. Roses, and a walk in the park.” Petter glanced at Phoebe again, thinking her voice sounded diminished somehow – laced with sadness or resignation, or some other emotion he could not name. But when she lifted her dark, luminous eyes to look at him, she smiled the warm smile of friendship.
“Thank you, Phoebe. I think the idea is grand.” And then more to himself than to Phoebe, he murmured, “Roses.” He pictured a delicate bouquet of pink tea roses, clutched in Constance’s small hand; the delicate sniff she would take, and her blue eyes turning down, before rising to meet his.
“You are a true friend, Phoebe, to help me with a woman’s perspective,” he said. She held his eyes for a long moment before dropping her gaze to her work again.
“Yes, Petter, I am a friend,” she said, and this time, he was sure he heard sadness in her tone. If she still seemed unhappy tomorrow, he would find a way to ask her the reason. Perhaps he could return the favor, and as a friend, help ease whatever might be troubling her. Yes, tomorrow. But tonight, he would get no good work accomplished. He stood, determined to dine quickly, and retire – in all likelihood to moon over Constance, which was his favorite occupation of the moment.
“Can I escort you home, Phoebe? I’m of no use this evening.” He pulled on his overcoat.
“No, thank you, Petter. Father knows I am here, and I will be quite all right.” She did not look up from her drawing.
He hesitated, feeling deflated by Phoebe’s unswerving attention to whatever lay before her. “Good evening, then,” he said.
“Good evening, Petter,” she answered.
CHAPTER 7
TREACHERY
Christine stepped back from the travel trunk as Aina and Annika placed the last pieces of clothing within and pulled down the heavy lid. The latches clicked into place under their fingers. She would miss the two ubiquitous, ever-pleasant girls. Today, despite her curt – and sometimes confusing – instructions to them, they worked with diligent effort to follow her directions.
“Now the other,” she said to the girls, as she gestured toward Pontus, the faithful old butler, who in turn, gestured into the hall behind him. The girls moved to the next trunk, and began loading the nearby articles, making the most of the space in the trunk through judicious stacking and arranging.
When Christine looked up, Pontus was bent over one end of the loaded trunk, while Erik’s assistant valet took the other end.
“Pontus,” she said, rushing toward the older man, “you needn’t do that. Wait for one of the others to come back.” She wondered why none of the others had returned.
The man straightened, and with raised chin, said, “I am quite capable, Madam, and loyal to your welfare. I can and will do what must be done.” He did not bend again, unwilling to resume his self-appointed task until having at least her tacit permission.
Christine clutched the man’s arm, and gave him an affectionate squeeze. “Yes, Pontus, I know. Your loyalty has never been and will never be in question.” She smiled as she continued. “I will not interfere. I am quite certain of your capabilities.” She was not altogether sure that the man would not injure himself moving the heavy trunk, but under the circumstances, she could not w
ound his pride by expressing her doubt.
After hearing of Jacob’s treachery, each of their servants had approached her professing their loyalty, and damning Jacob for his defection. Several had confessed to disliking or distrusting the man, and Pontus had even confessed – much to her surprise – that he had discussed the matter with Erik. Christine had thought Jacob to be rather pleasant – although she was now furious over his betrayal – and his hand in the kitchen was nothing short of miraculous. She sighed, thinking that she would have done with a lesser chef, if only to avoid the current danger.
If Erik was correct that there was a danger.
The two men maneuvered the trunk through the doorway. She was pleased to note that Pontus appeared to be handling the heavy load. She turned back to her supervision of the two girls, again wondering with annoyance why the other menservants had not returned. She shook off her irritation, reminding herself that she did not need them until this next trunk was full.
The sound of breaking glass from the floor below caused all three women’s heads to rise in unison. Christine dashed for the door, assuming that the latest trunk had been dropped, and hoping that no one had been injured. She heard a deep-throated shout, and she uncharacteristically swore under her breath.
Not an injury. Not now.
She froze at the head of the wide curving staircase as she heard another shout, and an answering stream of Persian. She covered her mouth with both hands to stifle a scream of her own, and moved with all possible haste back toward the bedroom and the two girls there. She closed the door, turning the handle and easing the door shut before locking it.
Erik had been right to worry after all!
“Annika, Aina, you are in danger.” The girls’ faces were stricken, and they clutched at each other and looked to the locked door as another muffled shout sounded from below. As Christine rushed to the two girls, she prayed that none of the servants had been killed, while knowing from the shouts that her prayer had little likelihood of being answered.
