Chapter Four #4
In her mind, it wasn’t. But what was she to know?
She’d found herself chosen, quite randomly, as an artist’s muse.
She just couldn’t tell anyone. Not even her close friend Isobel, or anyone else.
It had to stay a family secret, until Phillippe revealed it to the world.
But what would happen then? She wondered.
And also, why had Kate not said a word about her sitting for Phillippe? Had he bidden her to secrecy as well?
“And what would you say if such a woman was here now?” Kate asked.
Sibyl glanced at Kate, as did a few of the others around the dining table.
The young Mrs. Jones tapped a slim index finger to her chin and said thoughtfully, “I would want to ask her opinion on things. I’d want to know her background, her origin, where she buys her hat and gloves, her modiste, where she attends concerts, where she goes on holiday. I’d want to know everything about her.”
“I wouldn’t,” Mr. Cullen said.
“Oh, Mr. Cullen,” a middle-aged woman across from him said fondly.
That must be his wife, Sibyl realized.
“She sounds vapid,” said Mr. Cullen. “Who cares where the woman shops, or goes to spend an evening? If she attracts young people like this, I’d only want to know where she’s going so that I can stay away.”
That elicited some laughter and talk. Mrs. Jones did not look amused but smiled sweetly through gritted teeth. “That’s all right, Mr. Cullen. I wouldn’t expect you to share my own interests.” She glanced at Kate. “Do you know the artist?”
Kate grinned back. “We’ve met.”
Mrs. Jones’s eyes widened. “Really? You’ve met Phillippe?”
“Oh, a few times. Why, we were just taking in the sights at the Royal Exhibition the other day.”
Mr. Percy shot Kate a look.
What was she doing?
Sibyl stared at Kate, and exchanged a look with Mr. Percy. Isobel glanced from her to the gentleman. She raised an eyebrow at Sibyl, who studied her cream and watercress soup.
“You two were together at the Royal Exhibition?” Mrs. Jones repeated.
“Yes. He particularly wanted to show me his paintings. His portraits that he’d done of a duchess, over in Bavaria somewhere,” Kate said offhandedly. “He spent some time in telling me about the women who modeled for him. Singers, women of quality. Aristocrats. Quite the thing.”
“Tell me all about it,” Mrs. Jones gushed.
Kate launched into a discussion about art and the exhibition, which a few of the men and women politely paid attention to.
But Sibyl also saw that a few of the men looked bored and eventually changed the subject.
When the group split up for brandy and cigars afterward and the women moved to a different room, it almost felt like a relief.
Sibyl’s mother cornered her. “I’m surprised you didn’t say anything at dinner. Weren’t you there as well? At the Royal Exhibition? Wasn’t that the day you met with Miss Harvey and the others?”
Sibyl nodded. “Yes, Mama. But…”
Isobel came to her side. “Why, Mrs. Clifton, you look wonderful. Do tell me where you have been walking. Your skin looks so clear. Have you been using Gawain’s lotion? I hear it’s the best.” She shot Sibyl a glance that said, I want to hear everything later.
Sibyl gave her friend a grateful smile and listened to Kate’s conversation with Mrs. Jones, who sat enraptured by Kate. Miss Harvey sat pride of place on a very comfortable sofa, a drink in her hand, while Mrs. Jones perched on a wooden chair nearby, utterly engrossed.
“Is she very pretty, his muse?” Mrs. Jones asked.
“Oh, I’d say so. It’s like looking into a mirror, honestly.” Kate touched her hair and brushed back a golden curl.
“So you’ve met her.”
“Oh, yes. She’s…” Kate’s gaze wandered around the room and landed on Sibyl standing nearby. Her expression withered. “There’s no need to look so severe, Miss Clifton. I can’t help it if Phillippe and I are good friends.”
Sibyl raised an eyebrow. That was an exaggeration if she’d ever heard one. And yet she had no wish to cause a scene, so she said nothing.
Isobel, however, appeared by her side. “I think it is so interesting to know that one of our own party is so well acquainted with this artist. And you know his muse. Surely, you could tell us. Or is it a great secret?”
Two spots of color appeared in Kate’s cheeks. “Not at all, it’s just… he wouldn’t want me to say. Not yet.”
“Whyever not? We won’t tell,” Mrs. Jones said. “I promise you, wild horses couldn’t drag it out of me.”
Sibyl’s mouth quirked in a half smile. Nothing could have been further from the truth, and she expected Mrs. Jones to tell everyone she met within moments of learning the news.
“I made him a promise I wouldn’t breathe a word.” Kate held a finger up to her lips for secrecy. “But I can say, you’ll know soon enough. When the time is right.”
“Oh, pooh. Well, tell me all about him. Is he very smart, or is he wicked?” Mrs. Jones asked.
Sibyl surveyed her young hostess. Honestly, the woman was acting like a schoolgirl.
Why such interest in someone who had met a person of renown?
Did it matter? Who cared if Phillippe was famous?
In her mind, he was just an artist. A good one, sometimes of strange opinions, but a decent fellow.
She didn’t like Miss Harvey acting as if she and Phillippe were good friends.
It was wrong. It was false. And it bothered her.
She tucked a curl behind her ear and set her jaw.
“I know that look,” Isobel said in her ear. “Whatever it is you’re about to say, don’t.”
Sibyl looked at her friend.
“Keep it to yourself. I can always tell you’re preparing yourself to do battle when you tuck a curl behind your ear and your mouth firms like that. It means trouble.” Isobel dragged her away. “What is going on? Tell me.”
“Not here.” Sibyl pulled her friend out of the vicinity and watched the young Miss Harvey and Mrs. Jones chat. “Miss Harvey is fibbing.”
“What do you mean? She wasn’t in the Royal Exhibition with the artist?” Isobel asked.
“No, she was. It’s just… She’s acting like they are close friends and they aren’t. They weren’t.”
Isobel breathed in. “And just how do you know that? What have you been up to?”
Sibyl shrugged. “The usual. Mama taking me to parties and now gambling dens in the hope I’ll meet a suitable bachelor who will fall head over heels in love with me.”
There came a hearty laugh behind them.
Sibyl blushed and turned to look. George Percy stood there.
“Sorry, ladies. I couldn’t help but overhear.”
Isobel straightened immediately. “Mr. Percy. Perhaps you can solve this mystery for me. I hear that Miss Harvey was in the Royal Exhibition with the artist Phillippe, but my good friend tells me Miss Harvey is playing with the truth. Can you shed some light on this matter?”
“I can, for I was there.” He smiled at Sibyl. “We all were. The artist took the time to give us a tour of his paintings. Can’t say they’re really to my taste, but—”
“But what about his muse? And his relationship to Miss Harvey? Are they as close as she makes it seem?” Isobel asked.
“Now that, I couldn’t say. They seemed like polite acquaintances at the exhibition, but anything more and I would not know.
But these artists, they are rather free and easy with their friends, aren’t they?
Rather wild.” To Sibyl, he said, “He did seem to rather like your company, but then so did my friend.”
“Who?” Isobel asked.
Sibyl blushed. She did not need reminding of Mr. Heyter.
“Why are you so curious, Miss Blakeney?” Mr. Percy asked.
“I want to know what my friend has been up to, and she’s being rather mysterious. And I would dearly like to know which of these men has made her blush.”
They both glanced at Sibyl, who put her hands to her cheeks. Isobel and Mr. Percy laughed.
“Don’t mind me, honestly.” Sibyl grinned.
“So who has got you smiling like that? I can guess, but I do enjoy a bit of mystery. I think it adds a bit of allure to a woman.” Mr. Percy winked at Sibyl.
Sibyl laughed, as Miss Harvey joined them. “‘Allure’? Who’s alluring?”
“Why, Miss Clifton here. She blushes. We are most curious as to why. You remember that day at the Royal Exhibition, don’t you, Miss Harvey? We were all there. I wager our innocent Miss Clifton made a new acquaintance there. Or perhaps one whom she’d like to know better, eh?” He grinned at Sibyl.
“You are teasing me, sir,” Sibyl said.
“Yes, I am. It is what friends do,” he said. “But now I suspect our hostess wants my attention. Do excuse me.” He bowed and left.
The women watched him go. “He’s so handsome,” Isobel said dreamily.
“Hmph. He is, in a certain way, I suppose. But he’s no Heyter,” Kate said.
“Who?” Isobel asked, turning around.
“Mr. Neville Heyter.” Kate drew herself up and said with a confident smile. “A good friend of mine.”
“Like Phillippe,” Sibyl said, unable to stop herself from drawing her out.
In a flash, Kate’s eyes narrowed. “Yes. Like Phillippe. But unlike the artist, with whom I am merely well acquainted, Mr. Heyter and I…” She smiled.
Isobel leaned in. “Do you two have an understanding?”
Kate bit her lip. “Not exactly. Not yet, anyway. But he pays me attention, and we dine together quite often. And we go to dances together. So I think it would be wise to tell your friends to not consider him a suitable prospect. He is taken,” she said simply, eyeing Sibyl.
Sibyl looked at her. This Miss Harvey marveled her at times. At first she claimed a close acquaintance with the artist, and now Mr. Heyter. She knew one of those claims was false, but what of the other? They did seem to know each other. Could she be telling the truth?
Isobel and Sibyl passed a pleasant evening together, but Sibyl would speak no more of the artist, despite Isobel’s attempts to learn more. All she would say was they had been together in a group at the Royal Exhibition, and that was it.
Isobel dropped the subject eventually, then said, “Wait a minute. Before Mr. Percy joined us, you said something about gambling dens?”
Sibyl inwardly cringed. “Yes. The place you heard about? I’ve been there. Mama took me. She’s hired a matchmaker to help find me a suitable husband.”
Isobel’s mouth dropped open. “She did? You’ve been there? The menagerie?”
“The Lyon’s Den is what it’s called, and yes. But so far, things haven’t been very successful.”
“Oh, I don’t know. If you’re already meeting eligible men, that’s something,” Isobel said, watching George from across the room.
Later, after an hour of cards and idle discussion, Sibyl and her mother were collecting their cloaks in the foyer, when Kate called out to her. “Miss Clifton, a word. If you please.”
Sibyl nodded to her mother to go ahead and turned to Miss Harvey, joining her a few feet away down the corridor. “Yes?”
“I think it would behoove you to keep your mouth shut.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“I mean it. Keep your lips sealed about all things with the artist Phillippe. We have a business arrangement, you see, and I don’t want you interfering.”
Sibyl snorted. “I wouldn’t dream of it.”
“Somehow, I doubt that. I think you are exactly the meddling sort, and I want to stop that before it starts. You’re like a weed. Always growing in the flowerbeds where you don’t belong.”
Sibyl’s hands curled into fists. “Have a care, Miss Harvey. We may not be friends, but I’ll ask that you speak civilly.”
Kate’s smile was snide. “Just remember what I said. If you speak even one word about the artist, or say anything to suggest that we aren’t close acquaintances, I’ll know. And I can make your life uncomfortable.”
Sibyl balked. “I honestly don’t know what you mean.”
“My father is the editor of The Daily Tattler, and he writes the news. If I tell him I have a good story, he prints it. And if I were to tell him that a young woman was throwing herself at an innocent artist at the Royal Exhibition, he will print it and people will believe it.”
Sibyl stared. “I thought journalists were supposed to be honorable. Don’t they check their facts for their stories?”
“Not the gossip columns. They’re hearsay, most of the time. And as the daughter of the editor, I am a very trusted source. So believe me when I say, leave it. Keep your mouth shut. Or else.”
Sibyl gripped the folds of her dress. Her mouth twisted and she turned to go, when Miss Harvey snatched her wrist. Her grip was like iron.
“And don’t go thinking that Mr. Heyter is available to you, either. He is as good as promised to me.”
“Surely, it’s up to him to decide that,” Sibyl said.
“He will. It’s no business of yours.”
“Sibyl,” her mother called.
Sibyl pulled her wrist free. “You don’t tell me what to do.”
“Consider it a bit of friendly advice.”
“We are not friends.”
“No matter. If you value your good name and reputation, you’ll heed my words.” Kate smiled thinly.
There came the conundrum: to curtsy and be civil to one’s enemy or not?
The young women stared at one another. Sibyl would have turned and walked out, without giving Kate the courtesy, but she remembered she was still a guest in Mrs. Jones’s home.
She wouldn’t put it past Kate to spout rude gossip about her in Mrs. Jones’s ear.
Although at this point, she didn’t much care what the hostess thought and rather suspected Kate would do so, anyway.
Sibyl did not curtsy but offered a polite nod, turned on her heel, and left to collect her cloak and join her mother outside.
Once inside their family carriage and the vehicle had begun its way through the London streets, Mrs. Clifton said, “Well, what an enjoyable evening. And what did you think of Mrs. Jones? A great reader too, like yourself. So accomplished, her mother was telling me. And her husband, Mr. Jones. Very agreeable.”
Sibyl looked out the window, her gloved hands clasped in her lap.
“So those were your friends, at the party, then. Miss Kate Harvey and Mr. George Percy. I think he would make a fine match for Isobel, don’t you? She mentioned to me that she was no longer engaged, the poor thing. A new man in her life is just the thing.”
“Yes, Mama.” Sibyl’s voice was pleasant, but off, and she knew it. Like a stray note, where it should have been fine.
“Sibyl? What is it?”
“Nothing. I was overly warm. Some fresh air tomorrow will be good.”
“A smart idea. Nothing like a bit of fresh air to invigorate the soul, my father always said.”
Sibyl smiled. Her grandfather was a clergyman in Kent, and a very popular man, with many witticisms and turns of phrase. But her smile faded as she looked out into the night. The question was, did Mr. Heyter know that Miss Harvey considered them practically engaged?