Chapter 12 #2
Padua wore her yellow muslin to dinner again. Thanks to Eva’s perception and reassurance, she did not feel too out of place. She remained an observer for the most part, however. This was a family reunion still, and the members of that family had a lot to say to each other.
After the meal Eva removed herself. Padua followed her out of the dining room.
“I am going to retire,” Eva said once they were alone.
“Why don’t you take advantage of the library.
At dinner you expressed a strong interest in the towns we visited on our tour.
I am sure there are books here with engravings of the views.
I know that there is one with drawings showing the compositions of the art to be seen, including the paintings by Giotto in the town that is your namesake. ”
“My mother told me about those. I will look for that book.”
“I will show you where it is.”
Eva took her to the library. Once Padua saw its impressive size, she doubted she would easily find any particular book for a good while.
Eva went directly to one case, gazed at its shelves, and reached up.
She pulled out a large, heavy tome about Renaissance art, set it on a table, then took her leave.
Padua sat at the table and turned the pages.
The paintings she sought were near the front, since Giotto had painted them two centuries before the Renaissance proper began.
She examined an engraving of the exterior of the chapel and imagined her mother approaching it.
Her mind filled in the missing colors and landscape.
She turned a page to see the chapel’s interior, then another. Each page now held engraved images of each scene in the fresco cycle. Looking at them called forth her mother’s voice. She succumbed to the nostalgia, and allowed her memories to give her a tour.
* * *
“Disgraceful excess.” Gareth muttered the criticism while he looked over his shoulder.
He, Lance, and Ives stood in the night in the family graveyard. At their feet, all but invisible in the dark, lay a simple rectangular stone marking their father’s grave. They had come out to raise a toast to him.
The object of Gareth’s scorn stood ten feet away. A behemoth of a sepulcher, it rose fifteen feet high, its white stone glowing in the moonlight. In that particular grave lay their eldest brother, Percy. No one had suggested they raise a toast to him too.
“I have rebuilt the cottage that he burned down,” Lance said. “There are tenants in it now.”
“And the empty cottage nearby?” Gareth asked.
“I visited, after it was empty of its recent holdings. I discovered that our brother used it as a private lair. There was evidence that he indulged his appetites there.”
“A rendezvous for discretion’s sake? And here I thought he never partook of amorous pursuits,” Ives said. “I thought he chose to be virtuous, to be better than us.” He looked down at his father’s grave marker. “To be better than him.”
“I suspect that his desire for privacy involved much more than discretion,” Lance said. “I do not choose to say more than that. Just that there is much about our brother that we did not know. I for one would not mind leaving it thus.”
They began strolling back to the house.
“She is very tall, isn’t she?” Gareth asked.
Ives sighed. “You are speaking of Miss Belvoir, I assume.”
“I am certainly not speaking of Eva, who is average sized.”
“I agree she is tall. I do not know why everyone is obligated to comment on it. While it gives her a distinctive elegance, it is her least notable quality as I see it.”
Gareth paced along on his right, and Lance on his left.
“Of course she is much more than her height,” Gareth said in a musing tone. “It is just upon seeing her, her height is a little startling. Then one starts wondering.”
“Wondering?”
“Imagining.”
Lance laughed lowly.
Ives glared at Gareth’s shadowed profile. “Imagining what?”
Gareth shrugged. “She is taller than most women by almost a head, so one can’t help but imagine what it would be like. Calculate the difference it would make.”
Ives’s jaw tightened. His fists clenched.
Gareth walked on, unaware that he was in danger. “For an average-sized man, it might prove awkward, but for a tall man, there could be benefits.”
“For certain positions, that is true,” Lance offered.
Ives snapped his head around and glowered through the dark at Lance.
“Yes, that is what I mean,” Gareth said, warming to the topic. “For example, standing, it probably would prove impossible if one tried to raise a woman that tall, but since one might not need to do that, other options come to mind.”
Ives’s head felt explosive. That he had immediately wondered when he first met Padua did not mean other men should presume to do so, let alone his brothers. “I cannot believe that you are speaking so outrageously about this woman who is a lady and our guest.”
Gareth turned his head at the outburst. He leaned forward and spoke to Lance. “What is wrong with him?”
“There is nothing wrong with me. I am shocked, that is all, that you are speculating about her when she has given you no cause to do so, other than being by nature tall.”
“I am not imagining her, but the idea. The woman in my wondering is anonymous. Although I don’t understand why you are cross.
We always wonder and speculate. You have never objected before,” Gareth said.
“Unless—ahhh. My apologies, Ives. You said she was not your mistress, so I assumed—I did not realize that you had a tendre for her.”
“I do not have a tendre for her.”
“He does not have a tendre for her,” Lance echoed.
“It is not like that.”
“It is not like that,” Lance repeated. “Miss Belvoir is just an acquaintance. A friend. A woman in need of sanctuary. Isn’t that right, Ives?”
“I think I will thrash both of you right now.”
“Quick-tempered, isn’t he?” Gareth asked.
“Miss Belvoir is a ticklish subject.”
“I suppose that means she won’t have him.”
“That is my conclusion. At least she won’t so far. Nor will he have her, while they are here. I have forbidden all such activity under my roof.”
Silence fell. They walked on. Ives tried to shed the anger that had him in its grip.
“Just so I understand,” Gareth said. “Did you forbid it only with them, or is this a new house rule?”
“The No Sexual Congress at Merrywood edict applies to everyone,” Ives said. “Lance is damned annoyed that he has to behave, so he has decided no one will have pleasure if he cannot. You are forbidden too. He just neglected to tell you up to now.”
“Don’t be an ass,” Lance said. “His wife is in the family way. I did not need to forbid him. Nature has done it for me.”
Ives looked over at Gareth. Gareth smiled so broadly that moonlight reflected off his teeth.
They separated once inside the house. Lance retreated to his apartment, as ignorant as ever about women in Eva’s condition.
Gareth went in search of his wife, presumably to have some forbidden pleasure with her, edict be damned.
Ives decided a spot of brandy was in order, and repaired to the library.
To his surprise, he found Padua there. He thought she had retired like Eva.
She sat at one of the library tables, reading a large book. The lamp near her head cast a soft golden glow over her profile and the bodice of her yellow dress. She did not hear him enter. Her thick lashes remained at half-mast over her reading eyes.
He stayed near the door and admired the picture she made. Her long, lithe body angled over the book, but her back remained straight. Whatever she read gave her joy. The smallest smile lightened her expression, as if she listened to a friend speaking.
He should leave her to whatever engrossed her, but of course he wouldn’t. Couldn’t. I did not know you had a tendre for her. Perhaps he did. Desire alone would be simpler. He knew how to take care of desire.
Not for the first time since he had met her, he ignored the better sense that told him to walk away, that warned getting entangled would mean compromise at best, and scandal at worst, that suspected none of this was unplanned by her, and that she might be pulling the strings while he danced to her purpose like a puppet.
Right now all that mattered was that she was lovely, they were alone, and he wanted her.