Chapter Seven
‘And you are absolutely certain you are going to be safe?’ Aunt Louise said sternly.
Calliope tried not to smile. Sometimes, her aunt looked remarkably like her mother. It was almost as though her mother was here in the room.
Well, a version of her mother. Perhaps what her mother would have been like if she had not fallen apart after her husband’s death.
Sometimes Calliope could barely remember the joyful, laughing, singing, painting woman who had danced in the rain with her daughters, and dressed up as pirates and taken their father hostage in exchange for a ransom of teacakes and chocolate macaroons.
No, that version of her mother had disappeared the day Calliope’s father died. Was that why she felt so comfortable here? Not just because Brighton was a haven for artists, but because her aunt offered her a taste of a life Calliope had never had?
Calliope cleared her throat. Focus, woman! You’ve got a bet to win.
‘I will be safe,’ she said solemnly.
Her shawl was tucked around her shoulders again by the caring and concerned older woman, despite the blazing heat of the day. ‘And you’re not taking your easel?’
‘No, I do not think it wise to lumber around with that thing up a cliff,’ Calliope said kindly.
‘And your canvases?’
‘Are being left here where they will be quite safe—’
‘Aha!’
‘—and so will I. I am only taking my sketchbook and a pencil,’ continued Calliope with a wry smile. ‘You worry too much, Aunt Louise.’
Her aunt did nothing but look worried, cross her arms and tut. ‘I don’t worry enough, it seems. Public spats with the Marquess of Laidley—’
‘It was not a spat,’ Calliope said correcting her aunt immediately, as she tucked her smallest notebook in her reticule telling herself it was not a good excuse to hide her face for a moment.
It was not a spat. It was far more than a spat. This was war. The annoying, irritating, aggravating man had pushed her too far this time. Taking her paint! Her cerulean blue paint!
She was going to find the most impressive view up on the cliffs to the east of Brighton, sketch a brilliant landscape, paint it perfectly and win.
There was nothing else for it. Win, or die in the attempt.
As her aunt appeared convinced would occur.
‘…strong winds up there, a body never knows where the breeze is going to come from. And the cliffs, so dangerous,’ muttered Aunt Louise with a puckering frown of concern.
And it was concern, Calliope could see that. Her aunt was not attempting to keep her away from the cliffs on purpose. But she had to go there. She just had to.
‘I have to go,’ she said aloud, the words tumbling from her mind past her lips before she could stop them.
For some reason, the statement made her aunt pause and smile. ‘I know.’
Calliope blinked. ‘You do?’
‘Oh yes, your mother always had to go up there too, when we were growing up here,’ her Aunt Louise continued, ramming another hairpin into Calliope’s bonnet.
It was all Calliope could do to remain upright. ‘Growing up here?’
Her aunt stared owlishly. ‘Why yes, of course. Did you not ever wonder why your mother and I enjoy Brighton so much? Why I have always stayed here, even after losing my dear Rupert?’
Well…no. Like many people, Calliope had never really thought about her mother as a young woman, let alone as a child.
As far as she knew, her mother’s life appeared to have begun when she met her father. Considering anything before that had never occurred to Calliope, nor she would guess, to either of her sisters.
Well, perhaps that was why she felt so comfortable here and so at home in the town she had never visited before.
The streets of Brighton appeared familiar, cosy almost, the layout instinctive.
Calliope had not gotten lost during the week and a half she had been staying with her aunt.
Only once had she had to ask for directions and the helpful woman who had advised her had only confirmed to Calliope what she had already known.
‘Well then, all the more reason for me to go up there and enjoy myself sketching,’ Calliope said aloud, finally managing to untangle herself from her aunt’s continuing ministrations.
‘No, please, Aunt Louise, I am quite suitably dressed. Besides, there will be no one there, we need not worry about propriety or chaperones or the like. And I shall be home for afternoon tea.’
‘But—’
‘Goodbye!’ Calliope called as she half walked, half ran, out of the door.
She had made careful enquiries at the post office the day before and discovered coaches to London travelled along a road right along the cliffs to a position she hoped, based on a very decrepit old map in her aunt’s dining room, would give her the most splendid views.
There would be a mail coach passing at about one o’clock, the pleasant postmaster had said, and other stagecoaches would be returning in the other direction every hour until six o’clock—every day.
Which was perfect.
It only took two shillings to convince the driver to allow her to sit on the coach for half an hour or so and Calliope enjoyed feeling the wind in her hair and the impressive sea views as she sat beside him.
She gladly shared the sandwich he proffered, but declined the offer of a cigar with as much politeness as she could muster.
When the coach had dropped her off and disappeared into the distance, Calliope inhaled deeply.
Yes, this was perfect. The air was clear, the view was spectacular and, from what she could see, she would gain an even greater view just around the bend. All she had to do was—
‘Well met by—ahem, daylight, proud Miss Oliver,’ grinned the Marquess of Laidley, leaning back from his easel and sticking a paintbrush in a jar. ‘I suppose it is only fair we take turns in ambush, should we not?’
Calliope almost dropped her reticule.
Which would have been a shame. This close to the cliff, there was a very real chance it could have slipped down to the rocks before.
‘Y—You!’ she spluttered.
‘It’s not the most intimate of greetings, but I’ll take it,’ said the Marquess of Laidley with a roguish wink. ‘And I must say, I’m delighted you have managed to leave your chaperone behind. All the better to speak plainly, don’t you think?’
Calliope gaped, hardly able to concoct words in her mind.
This was impossible! How on earth had he known she would be here? Was he, well, having her followed? Surely it was only villains who did that in books, not actual noblemen!
‘You…you spoke to the postmaster,’ she said hazarding a guess as she took a step forward despite herself.
Precisely what was he working on? A landscape, yes, but how had he decided to frame the piece? Was it possible he had omitted the cliff entirely, focusing on the horizon to the detriment of…
Her gaze raked over the canvas. It was a bold approach, to be certain. Not one she would have attempted.
Something twisted most uncomfortably within her. Not something she would have attempted, yet she could see, quite plainly, the frustrating Marquess of Laidley was doing a rather good job of it.
Blast the man. He hadn’t told her he was, in fact, quite a proficient artist!
‘Believe it or not, I have had no dealings with the postmaster either in regard to your whereabouts or my post,’ the Marquess of Laidley said vaguely, picking up his paintbrush and dabbing some blue—some of her cerulean blue, Calliope thought darkly—on the canvas before him. ‘I have a man for that.’
Calliope snorted. ‘Of course you do.’
‘Is there something wrong with having servants? With providing employment to others and ensuring that money circulates?’ the blaggard said innocently.
Or more accurately, as innocently as that wicked smile would allow.
‘And I must say, if you are here to sketch a scene for our competition, I find it rather bad form that you are copying my location,’ added the Marquess of Laidley with a stern expression that could surely not be serious. ‘Very bad form indeed.’
Calliope was so filled with rage, she found it difficult to speak.
Her, show bad form—the very idea! It was outrageous, it was scandalous, it was… It was devilishly attractive and the worst of it was, he knew it.
The Marquess of Laidley grinned. ‘Care to work beside me?’
‘No,’ Calliope snapped. ‘You do know how aggravating you are, don’t you?’
For a moment, just a moment, there was a flicker of something dark and pained and shadowy sweeping across the man’s face.
It was gone in an instant. If she had not been examining him closely—looking for guilt, Calliope told herself, not appreciating his handsome good looks—then she would not have spotted it.
And then he was smiling again. ‘Yes, I do. Thank you. And I meant it, by the way.’
‘Meant what?’ Somehow Calliope had managed to find herself just a few feet from the maddening man. How, precisely, she was not sure.
The Marquess of Laidley smiled, but some of the levity was gone. ‘I would appreciate it if you would not copy my landscape location. For our competition. If you wish to paint here for another piece—’
‘I am not—I was recommended to come here by another artist in Brighton, and apparently my mother and father used to come here too!’ Calliope said sternly, defending herself most assiduously.
That had to be why she had taken a step towards him.
‘Your mother?’
‘Yes, my mother,’ Calliope said firmly, ignoring the twinge of pain at the thought of the woman. ‘She is a great adventurer, I’ll have you know. She travels quite a bit. Usually to avoid me, it seems, but—’
‘To avoid you?’ The Marquess of Laidley’s brow had furrowed. ‘Why would a mother wish to avoid her daughter?’
All too late, Calliope realised she had said the last of that aloud.
Botheration. She was not one to speak ill of her mother, even if that meant she had spent a great deal of time thinking ill of her mother.
How could she not? The woman was brilliant, of course, and Calliope loved her but it was hard to love a shawl whipping around a corner as her mother chased after adventure.