Chapter 21
Tuesday 15 May 1832
The winner of Lady Alice Ancaster’s hand called at Sussex Place in the afternoon. Alice and her aunt were standing at table
in the library, arguing about her trousseau, when he entered. Sketches and lists covered the table.
“Thank heaven you’ve come,” Alice said. “My aunt deems my current wardrobe insufficient. I disagree. It makes more sense to
wait, because we have no idea what role the new Duchess of Blackwood will play in Society.”
He looked startled. Then the mask came down, and his eyes became unreadable black. “Not a great role at Court for the foreseeable
future, I suppose. I hope you’re not disappointed.”
“I’ll try to bear this tragic turn of events with fortitude,” she said.
“As to the rest...” He frowned. “Something to talk about. For the present, I thought we might go for a drive and sightseeing.
Or a walk, if you prefer. It isn’t far, about a mile. The Colosseum. Or have you visited already?”
Though he didn’t display it, she sensed tension. She wondered if the conversation with Ashmont had gone badly. Ripley hadn’t written, but then, he wasn’t the most reliable correspondent.
“I should like to take a walk and sightsee,” she said.
She turned to her aunt. As much as Alice wanted to interrogate Blackwood privately—which would want considerable skill and
probably torture devices—she supposed a chaperon was required.
“Unless Blackwood insists—I know you will not—I see no reason for me to accompany you,” Aunt Florentia said. “It will do no harm for you to be seen in public
as an engaged couple.” She turned to Blackwood. “Naturally you will take care to remain in public.”
The mask cracked slightly, and Alice caught the flash of irritation. “Naturally, I’d rather not face her brother at thirty
paces over a damp heath, and spoil my boots,” he said.
“For heaven’s sake, Aunt, this is the man who did not want to be seen with me in broad day not six miles from here, and acted
as though we’d traveled to the ends of the earth for weeks. He’s the one who fussed about my reputation. This is Blackwood , Aunt.”
“Really, Alice, Lady Kempton is only—”
“Yes, only, but you don’t know what it’s like to be a bride-to-be,” Alice said. “You’d think nobody ever got married before,
the way my aunts carry on. I realize my situation is complicated, and I’m grateful they care so much about me and wish to
protect me from gossipmongers, but I vow, if I hear another word on the subject, I shall scream. Kindly talk to my dear aunt,
and make her feel better, as you know how to do, while I change into something suitable for walking and gawking. And yes,
I shall be delighted. I’ve never been to the Colosseum, though I’ve been meaning to visit for weeks.”
A role at Court.
Blackwood ought to have realized. He was a duke. He was about to be married. His wife would be presented at Court as the new
Duchess of Blackwood.
The three dukes were not favorites there. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d attended one of the King’s levees. Was it
during the previous King’s reign, when Lord Charles was still alive? Certainly Their Dis-Graces were not familiar figures
at St. James’s Palace... unlike Doveridge.
He remembered what Alice had said about envying Maggie’s power. A woman in good standing at Court wielded considerable power.
Certainly Lady Charles had done so and continued to do so, regardless of her self-exile.
While his mind reviewed relevant chapters of Correct Behavior , he made conversation with her aunt, with little idea of what he was saying.
Though it seemed to him that they’d been talking since the time of the Flood, Alice reappeared in what the drawing room’s
mantel clock told him was remarkably short order.
She’d donned an emerald-green pelisse of heavy silk, with a lot of silk ornaments adorning the bodice and skirt fronts and
the decorations over the sleeves. Black lace made a large X over the dress: a V from the tops of her enormous sleeves to a
point at her waist, then an inverted V below the waist to somewhere about the area of her knees, wherever they were, to create
the effect of a coat over the dress. A lacy white ruff encircled her throat. Gauzy white bows framed her face, and ribbons
flowed from the white bonnet. The green matched her eyes, and the style focused one’s attention upon the oval of her face,
which constituted about all the skin on view.
It was ridiculous, and he wanted to kiss her.
But then, he’d been wanting to kiss her for a large part of his life.
Soon, he reminded himself, if he didn’t muck it up.
“Try to behave in a civilized manner,” Lady Kempton said. “No fisticuffs, if you please.”
“None that anybody will find out about, I promise,” he said.
At last they left the town house, and he felt he could breathe properly again. As they started southward, he said, “Are you
so disgusted with wedding business that we must throw the subject into the lake?”
Alice gazed at the lake. He wondered if she was considering throwing herself into it.
She was unhappy, clearly. Second thoughts, no doubt. Ice formed in the pit of his stomach.
“May we elope?” she said.
He gave her a quick glance. Her profile—what little he could discern of it—told him nothing. “That will save me the bother
of getting a special license,” he said.
She looked up at him, and the bows and ribbons fluttered. “I’d forgotten. In that case, we might be married anywhere.”
“A clergyman will be required.”
She waved this away. “It’s only that I don’t want a great fuss, and I don’t see the point of creating one.”
“It’s considered rather a special day.”
“It will be more special to me if it’s simple. I shall order a pretty white dress to be married in, of course. Is that not sufficient? I brought scores of dresses from Paris, but Aunt tells me the Queen wants us to wear clothes of British manufacture to Court events. I said I’d wear my bridal dress to the Drawing Room when she presents me, the way my mother did and she did and Aunt Julia did. It seems wasteful to run up dressmaker bills when I’ve more clothing than I can wear as it is. Then I shan’t have to listen to Ripley’s jokes about how expensive I am. I shall listen to your jokes instead. Kindly make them wittier.”
The inner ice began to melt, and his spirits made a cautious movement upward.
“My dear girl, you might have the wedding in whatever manner you prefer. The prospect of marrying me is trial enough for the
nerves. How you do it is entirely up to you.”
She stopped short and looked up at him. “Will it be a trial for you? Hard for Ripley and Ashmont? Because I’m not oblivious,
you know. Those two are your brothers, in the same way that Cassandra is my sister. You’re used to being with them.”
Before he could respond, she went on, “I imagine it was especially difficult for Ashmont.”
“Ashmont was Ashmont. After the first series of shocks, he bore the news better than expected. I told him of your recent activities.
He listened, enthralled. After he heard how you planted Bray a facer, he opened his eyes very wide and—”
“I know that look,” she said. “I’ve watched women melt under it. Actually, they melt under all his looks. Most unfortunate.”
“I don’t melt easily. His objections did, though. He patted me on the shoulder and congratulated me. Then he became philosophical.”
“After how many bottles?”
“I don’t remember.”
“That many,” she said.
A pair of ladies on horseback nodded at them. They nodded back.
“They’ve had their delicious thrill for the day,” Al ice said. “Now they can tell their friends.” She started walking again, and he went with her.
Then he had a glimpse of what troubled her. His was no deep comprehension, certainly. Women were profoundly complicated puzzles,
so far beyond most men’s deciphering skills that they rarely attempted the feat. Furthermore, he normally dealt with women
who did not require much in the way of solving. Jewelry was an effective solution.
He had sisters, though—much older, but sisters nonetheless. From time to time he’d had to do more cogitating and less shopping—although
gifts never made anything worse, in his experience.
“I did have wedding questions,” he said. “The logical first question is, When shall we be wed? Then I should like to know
whether you would like to escape London for a time and take an extended honeymoon. Six months, if you like. A year. We could
travel about England, Wales, Scotland. We might spend time in Brighton. Or the Lakes. Or the Peak. You’ve traveled extensively
abroad, but not here.”
If what she needed was to get away from the ton, he understood that, quite well.
She slowed and came to another stop. She turned to him. “You think of everything.”
“Sometimes.”
“I should like that very much,” she said.
The inner ice melted a little more.
“Then let’s have a farewell look at London from the Colosseum, and plot our escape,” he said.
The building bore no resemblance to Rome’s Coliseum. Still, it was imposing enough externally: a sixteen-sided polygon, some four hundred feet around, and one hundred twelve feet from the top of the glass skylight to the ground, Blackwood informed Alice.
She’d seen it time and again, of course, from the outside. One could hardly miss it. The outside did not prepare one for the
wonders of the interior.
One entered a saloon filled with works of art, which Blackwood promised they might study at another time.
“I want you to see the panorama,” he said. “It’s impressive.”
He led her to a wooden tubular structure in the center of the building. “We have two ways of ascending. We might climb the
stairs. They’re not taxing, and one might view the lower parts of the picture through a scaffolding like the one the original
artist saw when St. Paul’s was being repaired. Or we might float upward, as though rising in a balloon.”
Alice had read about the Colosseum in various magazines. She knew that a Mr. Horner had made the drawings about ten years
ago from various rickety contraptions at the top of St. Paul’s. He’d also invented the elevating device or whatever it was.
She’d wondered how it worked, and what it would be like to soar upward in it.
“I should like to float,” she said.
They entered a small room in the center of the structure.
It rose, not as quietly as a cloud, but gently and slowly.
“This is a strange feeling,” she said. She giggled. “How odd it is!”
“Like being hoisted in a room-size bucket.”
“But more smoothly. This is so much better than arguing about trousseaus.” She looked up at him to find him gazing down at her, his head tipped slightly to one side, his dark eyes intent.
“When you look up at me in that way, your remarkable face framed by all that nonsensical—” He waved a hand. “Whatever it is.
When you look at me in that way, as though I have performed a mighty feat, I feel, very strongly, that I must kiss you.”
Everything inside her came suddenly alive, as though galvanized by an electrical device.
“If you must,” she said.
She tipped her head back.
He leant toward her. His mouth touched hers. Then it was more than a touch. They came together quickly, as they’d done that
night at the inn. His arms wrapped about her, and his mouth invited. And she went, without the smallest qualm. The opposite,
in fact. She wanted the taste of him and the scent of him and the feel of him and she didn’t hesitate, but gave all he seemed
to ask for, because it was what she wanted, too.
Kissing him was like drinking strong brandy. Shocks ran through her, little fires that seemed to race through her veins. She
pressed closer, and he tightened his embrace, drawing her against his powerful body. While he ran his hands down her back
and over her bottom, she could feel his arousal, despite all the layers of clothing between them.
He backed her up against a wall of the little room, kissing her all the while, his tongue doing wicked things inside her mouth,
and her own tongue learning how to be wicked, too.
The room stopped moving.
It took her time to notice, and for a while it was no more than a distant awareness, as one is dimly conscious of the sky
being overhead and the ground under one’s feet.
He broke the kiss, though his mouth hovered over hers. His eyes were very dark.
“Have we stopped already?” he said. His voice was rough.
“Have we?”
He blinked, then gently drew back. When his hands slid away, she felt bereft.
“I hate when we stop,” she said.
“Then I recommend you set an early wedding date,” he said.
The machinery had carried them to the first gallery. Alice stepped out—and instinctively stepped back from the balustrade.
Below and before her lay London, from the top of St. Paul’s, looking down Ludgate Hill, but so sharply distinct and real . Even from the top of the Green Park arch, on a relatively clear day, drifting smoke had obscured the view. She was so accustomed
to mists and fogs and smoke, though, that she’d hardly noticed.
This was a crystalline view, the original sketches having been made very early in the morning. No pall of smoke hung over
the place, obscuring its buildings and beings. Only a few wisps, here and there, rose into the blue sky from chimneys.
The Thames wound its way through London and beyond, a blue snake sparkling in sunlight, her bridges and vessels crisply detailed. As one moved round the gallery, the vast canvas presented the great streets—Oxford Street, the Strand, Piccadilly, the Mall, the Borough High Street—and row upon row of buildings great and small, magnificent and miserable. Before one lay the parks and gardens and palaces, the warehouses and factories, the churches and monuments. London, all of it and more, stretched out for twenty miles in every direction.
She could not stop looking. Blackwood pointed out particular places, and she felt as though they were celestial beings looking
down on the metropolis.
There was more, another gallery higher up, which this time they reached via stairs. It offered a different perspective, equally
marvelous. Blackwood handed her a pair of spyglasses, conveniently provided for visitors, which allowed her to make out even
finer details.
He pointed out objects he thought would interest her. He had answers for every question, it seemed.
“This is splendid,” she said. “I’ve seen panoramas, but this—such an undertaking. Every street and building and bridge, carriages
and boats.” She waved a hand at the vast scene. “Everything. It’s wonderful.”
“If you care to undertake another set of stairs—a short ascent, this time—we might visit yet another gallery, this time out
of doors, where we shall have a fine view of London as it is today, not quite so sharply clear.”
She went up the stairs with him, and it was altogether different. As he’d said, the view was not crystalline. Smoke, constantly
moving, shortened and dimmed the vista. Still, it was thrilling to feel as though one stood atop the world, like gods.
They two might be Jupiter and Juno, gazing down from Olympus.
They were not unlike that pair, both strong-willed.
“You liked the sensation of being at the top of the arch,” he said. “I deduced that you’d enjoy this.”
“I do, very much.” She gazed up at him. “You’ve made me forget all the petty irritations and squabbles. You’ve given me something
much larger to think about. Thank you.”
All the galleries had benches, since many visitors had trouble with dizziness.
He gestured for her to sit, and she did, and realized that though she wasn’t exactly tired, she did feel rather overwhelmed.
He took the place beside her. “Now that I’ve softened your mind, I’ve something for you.” He reached into the breast pocket
of his waistcoat and drew out a small red leather box.
Her heart beat very hard then.
“We set about this marrying business in the strangest manner,” he said. “But I want it to be right. And here is my promise.”
He opened the box. “It was my grandmother’s. Old-fashioned, I’m afraid, but—”
“Oh, Giles.” Inside its white satin nest, a large diamond sparkled in its gold setting. Two smaller though not very small
diamonds stood, one on each side, like attendants. These each had a pair of tiny emerald attendants.
“It’s perfect.” Her throat closed up, and her eyes filled. Watering pot , she scolded herself.
“We can’t expect it to fit, but—”
“Try.” She put out her left hand.
He slid it onto her third finger. “A little loose. That can be mended easily. The whole thing can be mended. We can reset
the stones. Or buy you another.”
She looked up at him. His face shimmered through her tears. “I don’t want another. I want them as they are. But you are making
me cry, and...”
“I don’t want another,” he said. “I want you as you are, and you are never to think otherwise.” He cupped her face and kissed
her.
She would have climbed into his lap, to continue what they’d started in the elevating room, but he broke the kiss.
“I arranged for us to have as much privacy as possible,” he said. “Still, it’s difficult and awkward to keep visitors away for any length of time at a popular site like this one. In any case, if we continue in this manner, I shall lose my head and forget to be a gentleman, and this is not the most comfortable location for the rites of the wedding night.”
She smiled down at the ring on her finger. His grandmother’s. That told her a great deal. The kissing told a story, too, as
did the time they’d spent together this day. She widened the smile and turned it upward, at him. “We’d better set a date,
then.”