Chapter 5
Flora Witcombe arrived at the Calliope late, but as she was always late, she did not think much of it.
Luncheon had come and gone, which was bothersome.
The cook they employed at the club was quite talented.
She hoped she could wheedle a sandwich from him later.
First, she needed a drink and some fresh gossip.
As she handed her bonnet, gloves, and reticule over to the porter’s tender care, she could hear the booming voices of her fellow members in the Blue Room discussing the latest news from Venice.
There was always a good quantity of gossip coming out of Venice, or Paris, or any number of continental cities.
Every so often, someone in the region even found time to create some art.
Flora turned to the oval mirror placed just behind the porter’s station and checked the fall of her chestnut curls.
They were behaving for the moment, though the summer humidity would surely ruin their careful arrangement before the day was done.
Fortunately, unlike most ladies, Flora could simply remove her hair when it needed brushing.
She floated into the Blue Room, so named for its various settees upholstered in robin’s egg velvet.
A portrait of their society’s founder hung above the mantelpiece, done in the most lurid style.
“Society” was perhaps a generous way to define the little enclave; membership was not strictly regulated to the upper classes.
The artists and poets who found refuge in this club were both famous and unknown, highborn and low, talented and—
Well, suffice to say, the club welcomed all types. So long as a person’s artistic credentials were apparent or could be vouched for, they had a place at the Calliope Club. The lax atmosphere allowed women such as Flora to appear alone, unchaperoned, and without fear.
“Miss Witcombe!”
Perhaps one fear.
Flora turned to watch a man rise from his supine sprawl on a nearby armchair.
His rosebud mouth stretched into a sardonic sort of smile.
His gait as he crossed the room was a tad stilted, his limp barely noticeable in his specially designed boots.
He was instantly familiar to Flora, though she could scarcely believe her eyes.
“How lovely to see you, Miss Witcombe,” Lord Byron said. “It’s been far too long.” He took her hand and kissed it, his lips warm on the skin of her knuckles.
Flora’s mouth thinned. “My lord,” she said severely, retracting her hand, “what on earth are you doing here? Last I’d heard, you were in Rome.”
“It was Ravenna, actually. Rome was ages ago.” He tossed his head, his hair touched by candlelight.
Several of the assembled guests—men and women alike—paused their conversations to stare.
“A wonderful part of the world. God spared no expense when he crafted it.” He feigned some interest in a trinket on a nearby sideboard, thereby noting the people all around the room who were taking note of him.
He was the sort of man who was awfully impressed with himself, and always had been.
Flora was wholly immune to Byron’s charms, however. She was lucky that she did not feel any pull toward the great planet of his personality, though she did admire his work. Some of it, at least. His latest cantos were not as pleasing, in her opinion, as his earlier ones.
“And you’ve decided to return to England at last?” His departure some years ago had caused a stir, preceded as it had been by a string of scandals so lengthy that Flora could not keep them all straight.
Suffice to say, Lady Byron was probably correct to be furious.
Byron winked. “Don’t tell my creditors I popped back for the summer,” he said.
“One longs for one’s homeland after so much time abroad.
” He paused to take a glass of sherry from a passing manservant.
“And I may have made some small trouble for myself in Ravenna, which desires time and distance to smooth over.”
Flora resisted the urge to roll her eyes, instead attempting to catch the servant’s notice so that she might also have a drink. She failed to do so. “I assume you must not be too fearful of your creditors, your wife, or whatever you’ve escaped in Ravenna if you are telling me all this,” she said.
Byron gave her a knowing look. “Your assumptions, as always, are practically fact. A little fodder for your poems, perhaps, to be published well after I depart.” He handed his glass of sherry over to her, eyes bright.
Flora accepted it and took a sip. “Yes, a few coins in my purse and as much attention for your ‘clandestine’ visit to England as you can stomach,” she said with dry amusement. “Honestly, my lord, will you ever be capable of doing anything without drawing every eye to you?”
“God, I hope not,” he said, and held out his hand to accept another glass from a different manservant. “Shall we seek out some privacy to test your theory? You could see for yourself how capable I am with only your eyes upon me.” His gaze remained firmly on hers, the leer unmistakable.
Flora’s rejoinder came easily. “I believe I’ll stick to collecting rumors. I have no desire to be at the center of them.”
“Please do inform me if you ever change your mind.” Byron sipped his drink in his self-satisfied manner until a slight buzz of conversation near the door caught his attention.
Flora followed his gaze and saw, standing in the doorway, clutching a fine reticule, a woman with the most beautiful red hair.
It spilled like licks of flame from its arrangement atop her head, a style that suggested careless abandon but that Flora knew from experience needed careful work to achieve.
Her cream gown was tasteful without being too ostentatious, cleverly trimmed to look expensive without actually being so. Flora’s trained eye could tell.
The men of the club—and the afternoon’s gathering was almost entirely men, as usual—whispered to one another, casting glances at the strange woman.
The few women feigned boredom, though their furtive glances spoke the opposite.
The porter appeared beside the new woman, puffing as if he’d been delayed by some other task.
“Miss Verbena Montrose,” he announced, “bearing a letter of introduction from longtime members Mr. and Mrs. Horace Chesterfield, who vouch for the quality of the lady’s pastoral poetry.”
The whispers turned approving. Flora wondered how many of the men were recalling, as she was now, the tale of the midnight chase that had captured the collective imagination last year.
This was the same Verbena Montrose who had been at the center of that, and all for the benefit, Flora was certain, of ensuring the Chesterfields’ elopement was a success.
Then, of course, there were the more recent dealings with that tailor that had reached Flora’s ears.
How interesting that she was now here. Flora hadn’t known her to be involved in the arts.
She wondered if Miss Montrose had read her latest pamphlet.
Miss Montrose scanned the room with a keen, intelligent eye. Then her sharp gaze settled on Flora’s face and stayed there, unblinking and filled with ire.
Ah. So she had read the pamphlet.
Flora weighed the value of an undignified escape through the window, but it was no use. Miss Montrose bustled across the room, hurtling toward Flora like a cannonball.
Lord Byron strode ahead to meet her. “Miss Montrose, how wonderful to know you. I am Lord Byron, though you are likely already aware.”
Miss Montrose made no answer and met his gaze not at all, which flustered Byron more than anything else. Flora would have enjoyed it if Miss Montrose wasn’t still marching toward her with steely purpose.
Byron nearly tripped over his own feet as he pantomimed guidance toward Flora. “May I introduce you to one of our most commercially successful woman poets, Miss Flora Witcombe?”
Before Flora could even open her mouth to offer a polite greeting, Miss Montrose snapped, “Miss Witcombe, I would speak to you.”
In the months that Flora had been publishing her “society verses,” as she’d come to call them, never had a subject of her poems confronted her.
Most were too embarrassed. A handful had sent letters, dancing around the intent but with sums of money enclosed that she could only imagine constituted a bribe.
Those sums were returned to sender with haste, accompanied by a brief note saying there must have been some error, and she had no need for such payment.
As Flora had told her fellow club members many times, if she had wanted to amass a fortune, she wouldn’t have ever picked up a pen.
It wasn’t about money; it was her art. And anyway, the sales of her tracts supplemented by patronage supported her comfortably enough.
It had not occurred to her that some subjects might leap directly to fisticuffs without first attempting to pay her. At least, judging by Miss Montrose’s stormy face, that was her desire.
Lord Byron cleared his throat and offered some measure of protection. “Ladies, perhaps we might all adjourn to the Green Room. I’ve been toying with some paltry lines of late, and I would be most obliged if a feminine eye cast a glance over them.”
“I should like to speak to Miss Witcombe alone,” Miss Montrose said, staring only at her, “if she is not otherwise engaged.” Her regal chin tipped up into the air.
It was a lovely chin. Quite strong and ending in a sharp point. It put Flora in mind of daggers.
She steadied herself against the sudden and unwelcome urge to do something truly foolish.
Part of her had always fostered an interest in the gothic, and the thought of kissing the point of a dagger was, to her, resoundingly attractive.
Yet there was no time for such things when one was about to be ripped to shreds in the middle of the Blue Room.