Chapter 14
Fourteen
Devil it.
James’ open appreciation of Isabella DuMornay had not escaped Catherine’s notice. Catherine laughed at something Sir Francis said. He had said nothing amusing, but she laughed anyway.
Sir Francis smiled and leaned closer. “How lovely you are tonight. I am so very pleased you decided to join me this week. Your acquaintance, nay, your friendship has sustained me during these difficult times.”
Catherine patted the back of Sir Francis’ hand lightly. “The loss of a spouse can be very painful, indeed.”
She might be mistaken, but he almost looked shocked by her comment. Or had it been her touch of his hand?
“Yes, yes. Of course. And I must tell you, my dear, I have a little surprise planned for you. Later tonight.”
He might press his suit to her this very evening.
Good, let’s settle this troubling thing. Let’s be done with it. Let my darkest fallibilities be vanquished by matrimony.
She took Sir Francis’ arm and went into dinner, knowing she would soon be the mistress of this house. Marriage to Edward Lovelock had saved her, years ago. Marriage to Sir Francis would do the same.
After the substantial meal, Catherine laid her spoon down next to her empty syllabub glass, and Sir Francis Ffoulkes stood and nodded at the butler Rowley, who left the room.
“Normally at this time, the ladies would withdraw to a parlor, and we gentlemen would partake in some port. However, before the rest of the evening commences, I hope I may prevail on all of you to join me in the gallery.”
The party, of course, could be prevailed upon to do so.
Catherine started gamely up the stairs she had descended two hours earlier.
Sir Francis took her right arm. He had not noticed the injured ankle was on the left and it was that side in need of support, and Catherine did not like to bring it to his attention.
Soon the rest of the party had passed them on the wide staircase.
“Upsidaisy.” James was at her left elbow.
“How jolly. Nothing like a little stroll after dinner, even if it’s indoors, what?
” He did not take her arm or touch her, but as she put all her weight on her left ankle to take the next step, she clutched at his rigid arm that had been bent and locked into just the right position for her.
“Thank you,” she said to James.
“You are most welcome, my dear,” Sir Francis said. “And I think you will thank me even more when you see what is in store.”
“How amusing,” James said and tittered. “A surprise for Mrs. Lovelock, what? I can only hope for a surprise for myself at the card table tonight. All the trumps!”
On the next step, Catherine gave up and securely linked her arm with James’.
As Sir Francis and James spoke over her head about the gaming planned for later, she could not help but lean into James and test the unyielding muscle and bone and sinew she found there.
More muscle for me and Wright to appreciate.
And no matter how hard she pressed, how much weight she put on his arm, it held in its locked position and his voice flowed over her head uninterrupted, without strain. He was so . . . solid.
Sir Francis and James moved on to discussing the dogs for the hunt tomorrow.
Oh. Oh. That was it.
James looked like a whippet, acted like a Maltese, but had the strength of a mastiff.
He was a breed all his own.
She looked up at James, at his clean jaw and the brown-gold lashes around his gray eyes, and forgot herself for a moment. She smiled.
He looked down at her, and, although he kept speaking to Sir Francis in the same light tenor voice, she saw something else in his eyes. Something inscrutable.
He knows how he destroys me.
The rest of the party waited in the gallery, laughing and talking pleasantly, relaxed after the meal of rich food and wine.
The gallery itself was well lit, almost blazing, with candelabras all around.
Clearly, there was something that demanded viewing in good light.
A large area of one wall was covered by a red velvet curtain.
Sir Francis walked ahead of Catherine and James and stood in front of the curtain. He clapped his hands.
“My guests, your attention, please.”
Everyone quieted and gathered in front of the curtain. James helped Catherine to a chair at the front of the group and then stepped to one side.
Immediately, she missed his arm, his close presence.
Her mastiff.
“As you may know,” Sir Francis began, “I am an admirer of beauty of all kinds. Including, of course, the present company.” He bowed to Catherine.
“Long have I admired the painting under this drape. Mr. Roger Siddons, the artist, has agreed to loan the painting to me temporarily. But he has promised that when a certain happy event occurs, he will sell it to me. I will say no more but invite you to feast your eyes.”
Sir Francis pulled on a cord, and the red velvet curtain fell away.
Catherine sucked in a breath.
The rest of the party made appreciative murmurs. “Lovely,” and “Quite striking.”
Roger Siddons folded his arms across his chest and stared at Catherine. She forced herself to stare back with an expression that did not betray her dismay, she hoped.
The Marquess of Painswick began to clap. “Very good,” he called out. “Very good.” He walked closer to the painting and leaned in as if to examine the brushstrokes.
“Not too close, my lord,” Sir Francis said.
“No, Sir Francis.” The Marquess of Painswick licked his lips and stepped away. “Not too close. Just close enough.”
Catherine felt ill. In seconds, she would vomit.
She stood up and walked blindly out of the gallery to the corridor that led to her bedchamber.
She sensed someone behind her, keeping pace with her as she limped away as quickly as she could.
The someone did not speak, did not touch her, but stayed just behind her until she reached her room, opened the door, and closed it behind her.
She did not turn as she closed the door. She knew James was the one who had followed her. She did not think she could face anyone right now, but particularly not him.
James had felt Catherine’s distress coming off her in waves. He waited outside her door, unsure what to do next, as Isabella brushed past him and entered Catherine’s room. She turned when she shut the door, and he saw her frowning face and the shoo of her hand.
He returned to the gallery and the rest of the guests.
“Ha! I believe Mrs. Lovelock had rather too much of that syllabub, Sir Francis. Just some dyspepsia, she said. Mamselle DuMornay has her well in hand, what?” James hoped that last sentence was true.
“Hmm, very good, very good, Lord Daventry,” Sir Francis replied, oddly unperturbed. He gestured at the wall. “But what do you think of the painting?”
To James, standing a good twenty feet away, it was a pretty picture.
A golden-haired and half-naked youth in old-fashioned ballooning breeches and hose stood in a lush green forest, a pool of water at his feet.
The boy’s bare back was to the viewer, and he had been caught just after removing his shirt, which he still held in his hands.
A blue velvet doublet and a sheathed rapier lay on the grassy ground.
Some strips of linen—bandages, maybe?—were strewn about.
It looked as if the youth had been about to bathe in the pool before he was interrupted.
His golden head was turned over his shoulder, and he was looking directly out of the painting, at the viewer. Or the artist.
But the rest of the group was whispering, walking up to the painting and then pulling back to look again at it from a distance. James walked closer.
Oh.
He knew those blue eyes. He had seen those creamy white shoulders and back, that spine, at Madame Beauchamp’s. They were Catherine’s. But the picture was not of her, was it? It was someone else. He couldn’t recall, but it was someone of significance. To him.
And despite the youth’s arms being fairly close to his—or her—sides and the youth’s body being turned away, the very slightest curve of a breast peeped from under the left arm as the youth looked over his—or her—left shoulder.
Oh, the barest hint of that breast. He knew that breast. It was also Catherine’s.
And now James could see the skin was not completely flawless.
He spied red horizontal marks just under the youth’s armpit and farther down, below the curve of the breast. The marks were not the lashings from a whip.
As a boy, James had seen those on his own back in a mirror.
These marks were far too fine, and why would they be only on the upper flank and not the back?
Of course, a woman’s flesh was soft in that place under the arm and might take an impression more easily than a man’s flesh in the same place.
James didn’t understand the painting. On close inspection, there was something sickening about it. Some horror in those blue eyes.
One could imagine a monster, a dragon just outside the frame, threatening the innocence and the beauty.
Siddons sidled up to James as if they were friends.
“It’s good to get the thing framed. I remember when Cath sat for it.
She dressed in costume for most of the sittings but agreed to show her back and shoulders.
And why not? After all, audiences of all kinds had seen that and more.
Of course, eventually I convinced her to show me everything. ”
James swallowed back repugnance and rage. He gritted his teeth. “Doesn’t look a thing like her, what?”
Sir Francis stepped forward, grabbed James’ arm. “You don’t think so?”
“No.” James laughed. “It’s some boy, isn’t it?”
With a disdainful smile, Siddons said, “It’s Catherine as Cesario.”
“Cesario? An Italian?”
DuBois stepped forward. “Shakespeare, Lord Daventry. Twelfth Night.”
James shook his head, continuing to play the fool, while his mind raced, his heart thumped, and suddenly so much made sense.
Of course. No wonder he had been drawn to and devastated by Catherine. Cesario was Viola’s boy disguise in Twelfth Night. Perhaps he had even seen Catherine play the role once upon a time. Viola, his cherished ideal woman. The brave adventurer who covered her passion with wit.
But this painting bore no relation to the Twelfth Night James knew.
Twelfth Night was a comedy. With those waggish clowns and some sweet misunderstandings and disguises, some mild anguish over unreciprocated love.
But one knew it would come right in the end.
Viola would get her man Orsino, the Duke of Illyria.
Olivia would fall in love with Viola’s twin brother Sebastian. A double wedding in the fifth act.
This painting had naught to do with that. It induced dread. Revulsion. Terror.
Finally, he had to turn away.