Chapter 5 #2
“By all means,” Flora said, though her voice was in tatters, “allow me.” She lifted an arm to direct Miss Montrose and hoped her smile did not appear as watery as her insides felt.
Miss Montrose swept by with a sniff. The lavender scent of her hair caressed Flora as she went by. Flora took a shuddering breath, her eyes meeting Byron’s briefly. He looked equal parts pitying and jealous. She glowered at him in return.
The Green Room was smaller than the Blue, used primarily by the club’s members to discuss their nascent works.
It was arranged to facilitate intimate conversation: a handful of wingback chairs stood in a tight semicircle, all upholstered in an array of green shades.
Flora chose the sage chair nearest the grate, which she soon realized might be a misstep, as Miss Montrose was providing all the necessary heat with her incensed gaze.
Flora decided to feign ignorance. “Please,” she said, indicating the verdant lime chair opposite. “How may I be of service to you, Miss Montrose?”
Miss Montrose sat primly on the very edge of the cushion, her reticule clasped in her lap.
“Regarding a poem of yours I chanced to see the other day—” she began, then stopped.
Her delicate nostrils flared. Flora felt it very unfair that Miss Montrose possessed nostrils so fine, and that she was being forced to notice anyone’s nostrils at all.
This woman was too dangerous by half, she decided.
“Yes?” she prompted, voice still scratchy. “I’m afraid you’ll need to be specific. I publish dozens of little ditties every month.” Flora injected as much apology as she could into her tone. Nobody liked a braggart. “One must make a living somehow.”
A pink flush overtook Miss Montrose’s pale cheeks.
Flora watched in fascination as it spread down her throat.
She unclasped her reticule and removed a folded pamphlet that Flora instantly recognized.
“This…obscenity,” Miss Montrose said, flattening its creases, “was brought to my attention by a good friend. I am exceedingly lucky to have many good friends in this world, Miss Witcombe.” Her gaze whipped back to Flora.
Flora felt the force of her stare like a cat-o’-nine-tails. “Oh?” she managed, swallowing. Her throat was so dry.
“These friends understand my situation,” Miss Montrose said.
“I’m surprised you don’t seem to. You are also a woman, making her way in the world.
How must we do this, Miss Witcombe? What can we actually claim as our own?
” She rolled the pamphlet into a sort of bludgeon, tapping the point of it against her knee with every word she said.
“Our wit. Our charm. And our reputations. That is all.” She ceased her tapping and pointed the bludgeon in the direction of Flora’s chest, which tightened at the gesture.
“When someone seeks to destroy one-third of that small collection of assets, it should come as no surprise that I would destroy theirs in turn. If you were a man I would not speak so boldly, but as we are two women, I see no sense in employing coyness.”
“Miss Montrose, I can see I have caused you some distress—” Flora tried to say.
“What you have done is endanger my prospects by composing your ‘little ditty,’ ” Miss Montrose said with fiery scorn.
“You have tried to sully my name and that of Monsieur Charbonneau with tawdry, baseless accusations! And for what? Is this some sort of, of—blackmail? Is it money you’re after?
Because I am not in the mood to reward vipers and their poison tongues!
” She flung the pamphlet at Flora, though it only fluttered harmlessly to the carpet.
Flora flinched anyway, feeling each word as a blade in her ribs.
She stared at Miss Montrose, at her slight frame trembling in rage, her fine-boned hands clutching the arms of her chair.
Not on the verge of sobbing, but poised to strike.
This was not some meek society lady wrapped in silks and fine linen, stored away from life’s trials. This woman was terrifying.
And Flora was helplessly smitten by her.
“Well?” Miss Montrose demanded. “Don’t you have anything to say to me?”
Flora jolted in her chair. “I—yes. My goodness, yes,” she said in a rush.
“I am very sorry, Miss Montrose. It was never my intention—that is, my poetry is not a means of extortion.” She accepted the cool look this earned her, then stooped to retrieve her pamphlet from the floor.
She smoothed it out in her lap, uncurling the cheap paper as best she could.
“Of course, if anyone were to think that particular poem referred to you or Monsieur Charbonneau, I would not allow them to continue laboring under such a gross misapprehension.” Her eyes flicked up to meet Miss Montrose’s, then lowered back to her lap.
“I do not mean to denigrate the friend who brought my poem to your attention, but I doubt that most readers would be able to form such an…injudicious conclusion. Clearly your friend only worries for your stature and read between the lines some unintended meaning.”
It was a gamble, but a calculated one. Flora watched the woman across from her carefully and hoped Miss Montrose understood.
Obviously, the poem is about you, but most people aren’t clever.
They won’t see. You’re clever, though, aren’t you?
You may be the cleverest girl in all of London.
Please don’t murder me. Or do—but slowly, so that I may at least enjoy your touch.
Well, maybe it would be best if she didn’t understand all of it.
Miss Montrose cleared her pretty throat. “If they do not refer to me, then who do your verses describe?” Her eyes were sharp as swords.
Flora was certain what she meant: Who shall we name as the victim, if not me?
“No one, Miss Montrose,” Flora said. “My subjects are purely hypothetical. I only write about the things that…interest me.”
The people, she would have more accurately said.
The people who interested her, with their comings and goings, their adventures in love, their petty dramas and wonderful lives.
Flora found it endlessly fascinating, these movements of the heart.
It was no wonder the whispers of a budding romance, combined with Flora’s established knowledge of the French tailor, had resulted in a poem.
Her gaze was drawn inexorably back to Miss Montrose’s lips, which had ceased to quiver and were now pinkly parted. Flora had a notion that they could inspire many more poems.
“Well.” Miss Montrose did not relax, as such, but a little of her anger seemed to slip away, her voice losing its hard edge. “I suppose if you tell that to your audience, then we have no quarrel.”
Flora wriggled in her chair in eagerness.
“Of course! I would say it a thousand times if it pleased you.” Careful, she told herself.
She subsided back into the plush upholstery.
“Yet I fear announcing the fact unprompted will cause you even more grief. ‘The lady doth protest too much,’ et cetera. One must be careful not to inflame the public further.”
Miss Montrose was miles ahead of Flora’s point, shaking her finger thoughtfully in the air.
“What I need is something more sensational to be revealed to the populace. Give the people something else to look at, and you can pass unmolested through any gauntlet. It is a tactic I have seen bear fruit time and again.” She spoke this to herself as an aside, as if Flora’s presence was merely incidental.
Flora wanted her desperately.
What a mind. What a spirit. Indomitable and unapologetic in her ambitions—Flora had never seen the like. Even in these artistic halls, Miss Montrose was a masterpiece.
She brought herself up short with a mental scolding.
Miss Montrose may have been a uniquely spirited woman, but her circumstances were as common as could be.
She needed to marry; everyone knew that.
The Frenchman, the gentleman tailor, would take her as his wife.
Her very appearance here at the Calliope was meant to protect this arrangement, false though Flora suspected—knew—it to be.
Miss Montrose was fighting like a wildcat for the kind of life every woman was expected to have.
Her desires did not align with Flora’s, much as Flora wanted them to.
Still, she owed the woman recompense. “I could provide such a distraction,” she said. “Lord Byron, for instance.”
“Who?” Miss Montrose said vaguely. She was preoccupied with staring into the distance.
How delightful to find perhaps the only woman in England who didn’t care about Byron’s movements. “Lord Byron,” Flora repeated. “The poet? You met him when you arrived.”
“Oh, yes. I nearly forgot. Didn’t he flee the country several years ago? It made quite the splash.” Miss Montrose arose from her contemplative state and locked eyes with Flora. “If I recall, details of his exploits were my entrée into carnal happenings.”
“You and most of Britain, I’d wager,” Flora said, fighting off a blush unsuccessfully. “Anyway, he has asked me to publish a few lines alluding to his scandalous return to our shores. I had half a mind to withhold my pen, but in light of your situation, I am happy to oblige you both.”
Miss Montrose’s head whipped toward her. “You would do that?” Her eyes narrowed. “I had expected solicitors to become involved at the very least. Why are you being so accommodating?”
“It is no hardship, truly.” Flora chanced a weak smile, knowing she would accommodate much more when it came to Miss Montrose.
“Such a stir will likely pay for the next few months’ rent on my rooms. And anyway, His Lordship relishes the attention.
” Byron had wanted her to withhold publishing until he’d left, but would he really mind?
Flora suspected he was hoping to be caught out, prancing around in broad daylight as he was.