Chapter Eight #2
The woman she wished she’d been, beautiful and demure, smart but not too smart, kind and nurturing, able to see and feel what others felt and care for them before they had to cry for help to get her attention.
The woman every novel painted for her mind’s eye: the woman she was not, because she was the creature inside.
The creature who saw everything as too bright and too loud.
Colors suffused in blinding saturation, beautiful to the point of pain.
The creature heard even the smallest criticism of every person she loved as a painful refusal, a dismissal of her whole existence.
The constant whirring and clanging and ticking of her mind, unceasing until sleep finally claimed her in total exhaustion.
This was the self she’d put on that canvas, as if painting herself could help her hide it from the world.
It was the creature who had punished Monsieur Cobb.
It was the creature that scrabbled and scrimped during the early days of Mrs. Dove-Lyon’s largesse.
She wasn’t the woman in the portrait, for the woman was too pretty and proper to make the decisions Nell had made.
The path that Nell had unknowingly carved.
And now Beckett not only knew about the creature, he took it from her.
But why? Panic scrabbled at her temples.
He also took her landscape of her family’s inn.
Did he know? Was he going to find out what she’d done?
Or did he already know and was taking the paintings as proof?
Was he calling a constable on her right now? Was she going to Newgate?
She had trouble breathing. Dimly, she was aware of Jacobs taking her hand and guiding her back to the warmth and comfort of the sitting room.
Words were spoken, conversations had, but Nell wasn’t able to comprehend any of it.
The world was underwater, and she succumbed to the deluge of her senses.
She tried to speak, but only keening noises would come out of her mouth.
How could she tell them that her world was collapsing?
That her carefully built, quietly tended existence in London was as tenuous as a sandcastle within reach of the tide?
She was forced to drink something bitter.
Not that the taste mattered. But then, she was in her bedroom, and it was dark.
Soft hands touched her forehead—softer than her mother had ever touched her, who had always been frustrated and angry that she wasn’t a help like her sisters, or strong like her brothers.
But this hand didn’t mind, so Nell obeyed the unspoken command of the dark room and slept.
His friend’s expression was closed and pensive. He sifted through papers, his glass of port full and forgotten on the table between the two worn leather chairs at their club.
“Still working?” Beckett asked.
Timothy had arrived before him. Beckett still had mountains of proposals to sift through in his study at home.
Parliament might be out of session, but that didn’t mean the work stopped.
It only meant that it slowed down. The younger members used the time to draft bill proposals, and the older members used it to solidify political bonds and social pressures.
His secretary had gone home hours ago, but Beckett hadn’t stopped working.
Beckett tried to stay afloat, feeling unable to do either.
For the younger members, he agreed to read over anything they’d written, commenting in margins and slashing out whole paragraphs for grandiosity.
For the older guard, he had stacks of invitations that he ignored and denied, as they were gambits for daughters and sisters, hoping to rope Beckett into a familial tie that could be used as influence.
But that was precisely why Beckett held so powerful a voice—he was his own agent, and his allegiance was to ideals and progress, not to a group of men or a dynasty.
“Work of a sort. Haven’t heard from Mr. Smalls in a while and it worries me,” Timothy said, folding up another letter and moving onto the next one.
His secretary sent all of his refusals and monitored any correspondence from unknown persons. There were more than a few letters from random men who wanted to have Beckett’s ear, or at least rail at him for their perceived injustices.
“The infamous Mr. Smalls,” Beckett said.
“My secretary takes care of all of those. The man doesn’t know when to quit.
” He poured himself a splash of port from the decanter.
He’d dined in his study at home, giving his cook a chance to fix him a tray.
Poor woman hadn’t been able to exercise her skills in weeks.
Perhaps he would host a dinner party for Mrs. Reid’s cohort. Would that please her? He didn’t know.
“I’m quite taken with him. He possesses a nice turn of phrase here and there. Prodigious mind.” Timothy tucked away the sheaf in a leather holder and stowed them away.
“Prodigious ink, I should say,” Beckett joked, but Timothy didn’t look like he was in the mood for joking.
“We have a responsibility, Beckett. If Mr. Smalls had befallen some kind of accident or difficulty, I should like to know. We owe the public.”
“And that’s why he reaches out. He courts influence and favor. Perhaps he found himself a marquess or a duke willing to return his letters,” Beckett said, sipping his port.
That sort of responsibility was precisely why Mrs. Reid’s invitation to the engagement dinner of her friend was appealing to him.
He was there not as a member of the House of Lords, or an earl, but rather as a widow’s escort.
He went as a gentleman, not a gentleman of rank.
Oh, he knew they would all be aflutter that he was titled and powerful, but that was not why he’d been invited.
He was there because Mrs. Reid had asked for him.
It was sweet. It was simple. And, if he could be honest with himself, he was charmed.
But Timothy could not be comforted. So Beckett changed the subject. “What have you found?”
“I have turned up something,” Timothy said, still not looking at Beckett. “But I’m not sure you want to hear it.”
He settled into the chair next to Timothy, waiting for his friend to speak.
He didn’t want to appear too anxious regarding Mrs. Reid, as he didn’t want Timothy to get his hopes up regarding any attachment of the heart.
Still, Beckett’s chest felt lighter than it had in ages.
There was a joy held close, small like a walnut shell cracked open at the seams, the precious meat waiting for a delighted finger to dig it out.
“First, the village with that pub is called Billig. Small place, few dozen families, set just east of Colchester. If my man didn’t have a name and building description, he would’ve ridden right past.”
Beckett nodded, absorbing the information. He knew her family wasn’t landed—he could tell by her manners and her accent. This was no surprise. But she had an education, so her family must have been elevated in some kind of way. Access to books was expensive, let alone a tutor.
“However, there is no family by the name of Reid living there. Not alive, nor dead, according to my man. He went through the parish register the next village over and walked through the cemetery.”
“That is her married name,” Beckett pointed out. “And if the village is on the road from London, any number of travelers may have come through. Perhaps her husband had been one of them.”
Timothy sipped from his snifter and glanced at Beckett, concern evident. “When my man mentioned Mrs. Reid—not by name of course, but by your description of her—she was remembered. But not kindly.”
He frowned. “She can be a bit strange in her mannerisms. I suppose in a small community they might ostracize someone who is unable to conform.”
Timothy shook his head and downed the rest of his liquor. “When I say not kindly, I mean that one woman claimed she was a murderess.”
Beckett dropped his port. The glass didn’t break on the soft pile of the carpet, but the liquid seeped into the fabric, staining it dark brown, the color of old blood. Beckett stared at it.
“Do wish to know more?” Timothy asked.
“There’s more?” Beckett asked, his voice hoarse.
“Might as well top up that glass. You’ll need it.” Timothy handed him his own glass. “Mine as well, if you please.”
Beckett rescued his glass from the carpet and took his friend’s. “What else could there be?”
“The story my man relayed to me is from a maid at the inn. The innkeeper and his wife refused to acknowledge any such woman ever existed there, and he speculated that Mrs. Reid may be the daughter of the couple. It’s unclear.
The maid appears unhappy with her lot, so there is some doubt as to the veracity of her claim. ”
Beckett nodded, happy to hear that perhaps this was a story that had the tinge of gossip, not one that held any truth to it.
“The story goes that maybe fifteen years ago, give or take, an artist came through the village. Master Roger Cobb, a portrait painter by trade, and fairly good by all accounts. Sadly, he was a bit of a drunk and ran up his bill at the inn far more than he could pay. Knowing that he might run off instead of paying his bill, the village agreed to let him run art classes for the girls of the village, thinking that it might give them an air of education and entice a wealthier patron who might make his way through one day.”
Beckett nodded. It was a bit unconventional, but he could understand the impulse.
If the man didn’t have any money, there wasn’t much a villager could do, since he could run off and be lost in other places.
Entice him to trade his talents instead.
That must have been how Mrs. Reid developed her interest in painting in the first place.
“But the man was a lecher, and his attentions on some of the girls went a bit too far.”