Chapter Nine
And a sweep of the pencil, just like that—oh, blast!
Calliope scribbled in anger over the sketch of a squirrel, which had been coming through so promisingly on her sketchbook page.
‘Another one, dear?’ her aunt asked placidly.
Calliope scowled. ‘Yes.’
Sometimes, the pencil just did not do what she wanted. Sometimes it seemed to skitter away, resisting any attempts to obey and only going where she did not want it to go.
The fact it was entirely controlled by her own fingers?
That was beside the point.
‘Perhaps don’t attempt another squirrel, dear, they don’t seem to agree with you,’ Aunt Louise said as she turned another page in her book. ‘Besides, it’s too hot to do anything but read.’
That was what her sister Thalia always said. No matter the weather, reading was the only entertainment her younger sister believed possible—which was all very well, for a poet. When one was an artist, one had to push through the difficulty of the heat and create beautiful, majestic art.
Or squirrels with legs that were too long.
Aunt Louise yawned beside her on the bench in the Royal Pavilion Gardens. ‘Honestly, I don’t know why you didn’t bring a book. Enjoying the outdoors is all very well, Calliope, but you’ll overheat if you tax your mind too much. A lady—’
‘A lady can do just about as much as any man,’ Calliope said sternly.
Her aunt did not appear offended. She did not appear to feel anything, other than hot. ‘And do you see any foolish men stomping about the place, drawing squirrels?’
It was a point well made, even if it was most irritating that she was correct.
‘Why don’t you go inside, in the cool?’ her aunt suggested. ‘You could go to that nice art gallery you mentioned—though I read in the Brighton Herald that the Glenarm has sold.’
Calliope’s attention was caught by this news. ‘The large canvas? The fishing boat scene?’
‘Yes, that’s the one. Apparently it was beautiful, though I admit I did not go and see it myself. Art, as you know, is not one of my strengths.’
It was all she could do to hide a smile.
Yes, her Aunt Louise was not a particularly artistic woman.
She was gracious enough to praise her niece’s work, but Calliope was almost certain she could allow her pencil to drop onto a page and roll the lead around, and Aunt Louise would congratulate her on another piece well done.
‘And did it sell for a great deal?’ Calliope found herself asking.
A thousand pounds for her painting, if she was able to beat Montague, the Marquess of Laidley, at his own game. She had not considered that too much of a challenge, though now she had seen his work…
Discomfort twisted within her. Surely she would beat him.
And beating him was important, even if the bounder had saved her life. And made her feel things…things she had never known before. Things she had no words for and, even with all the paint in the world, could never depict.
He wanted her and there had to be a reason. He had saved her from the clifftop and beyond human politeness, he need not have risked himself.
Who was this Marquess of Laidley, really?
‘Yes, it sold for almost eight hundred pounds,’ her Aunt Louise said primly, shaking her head. ‘A whole year’s income for many! It doesn’t seem right, does it?’
‘No. Well, yes.’ Calliope tried to untangle her thoughts. ‘If the painting is considered to be worth that much—’
‘But who decides?’ pointed out her aunt. ‘Well, it’s too hot for me, I’m returning home. I’ll take a hansom cab. Will you join me?’
It was a rather pointed question, as was the hand extended to help her up. But Calliope railed against the idea. Home was pleasant enough, but her aunt’s residence did not provide the variety of inspiration that the Royal Pavilion Gardens did.
Trying to smile brightly, and ignore all sense of Society’s expectations, Calliope said blithely, ‘No, thank you, Aunt Louise. I think I will stay here and continue to sketch.’
As she had expected, her aunt’s brow furrowed. ‘Alone? Unchaperoned?’
‘I shall be quite—’
‘I don’t know how I feel about this at all. But then, your mother was much the same. She met a most disreputable gentleman in the process,’ said her aunt disapprovingly.
Now that was new information. Calliope sat up straighter on the bench. ‘She did—really? What happened to him?’
Aunt Louise’s eyes twinkled. ‘She married him, of course. Don’t be out too long, Calliope, you’ll catch the sun. You have a few shillings with you?’
Calliope grinned. ‘I do, thank you. I won’t be too long, I promise.’
She watched as her well-meaning and very kind aunt walked down the path to the street, and only when her relative was completely out of sight did she pull out the two letters she had received that morning and had not yet read.
That was the only trouble with Aunt Louise. She was so…nosey, there was no other way of saying it.
The first letter was from her mother—short, like the letter writer, and very to the point.
Calliope,
Weymouth, a dream, as expected. One day you must come here! More walks in the countryside and along the beach than you can shake a stick at. I have sufficient funds to stay for a few more weeks so I will do so. Shall I meet you at Bath in the autumn, or will you be returning to London?
Ever your darling,
Mama
Calliope tried not to laugh. That was her mother, scatterbrained and passionate, always following her instincts and never thinking for a moment of the practicalities. It was a wonder, really, that Ditty had been able to keep them all solvent.
She supposed it was Ditty who had sent their Mama further funds. Well, at least, her sister did not have to work all hours planning proposals any longer.
The second letter was from Thalia and was, strangely, just as short.
My dear Calliope,
I can’t write much, I’ve just received a long letter from Alex who I must reply to.
She is all in a tither about our plans! We are going to march about the countryside and declaim poetry and perhaps even more poetry.
Oh, it’s going to be wonderful. Finding someone who is such a kindred spirit as she is, someone who understands my art, it was not something I had thought possible. Not beyond you and Ditty, anyway.
Must dash. Send news.
Love,
Thalia
Calliope sighed and leaned back on the bench, closing her eyes in the ever-warming sun. Her sister’s friendship with Alexandra had gone on for some time, the woman writing to her sister so regularly, she rather wondered that Thalia did not know her better than she did her own sisters.
Finding someone who is such a kindred spirit as she is, someone who understands my art…
Calliope had never expected to find anyone who truly understood her passion for painting.
Oh, her mother liked it well enough, and her sisters and aunt were supportive…
but from a place of familial affection, not true understanding.
In fact, the only person who seemed to even vaguely understand her passion for paint was, well, the man who she had been constantly and rather consistently rude to.
A man who had not merely flattered her, but challenged her to improve her painting technique. A man who had not only an eye for beauty, but a joy in it. Just as she did.
Calliope shook the thought from her mind. Just like her—they could not be more alike! Except, of course, that they both adored art, painted, saw the world in the same way and…
Oh goodness. Here, too?
‘I promise, I didn’t even know you were here. Can I sit down?’
Montague did not intend to sound so desperate or so eager for company that he would inflict his very presence on a woman who, the last time he had seen her, had stared after him as he had marched away in a huff.
And the time before that, she had marched away herself. After finding herself in his arms.
But he couldn’t help it.
‘Sit down?’ Calliope, Miss Oliver, replied, her lips parted.
Do not think about her lips. Do not think about—
‘Yes. Please?’ Montague said.
It was not clear whether she was more astonished at the fact that he wanted to sit beside her, or the fact he had asked politely.
Either way, she evidently was in two minds about whether to say yes. ‘I… I…my aunt has—’
‘If this is your aunt’s seat, then I will find a bench elsewhere,’ said Montague with regret pouring through his lungs. ‘But I would like to sit with you.’
Sit with you. Talk with you. Pour out my heart and ask you to marry me, properly, because this boy needs a mother.
Calliope had coloured, or at least he thought she had. It was hard to tell in this ever increasing heat. ‘I…well. Right.’
It was not the most scandalous thing that could be done in public between two people. Montague could think of at least four others, though two of them were perhaps illegal.
But it did not feel like that. It felt intensely scandalous to be seated beside Miss Calliope Oliver, no chaperone in sight, on a bench.
Perhaps it would not feel so scandalous if he had not chosen, wholly accidentally of course, to sit so close to Calliope—to Miss Oliver that his hips and hers were not just touching, but somehow pressed up against each other.
If he could not feel her breathing, her lungs moving up and down.
Her heat, pouring through her gown and into his sleeve.
Montague swallowed. He was hardly a green boy, yet here he was getting all…distracted by merely sitting beside a woman he found attractive.
Dear God, there was more wrong with him than he had thought.
‘Are…are you having a pleasant day, Montague?’ Miss Oliver asked quietly.
Heat flared in his loins merely at hearing her say his name. Yes, there was most definitely something wrong with him. Perhaps he was running a fever.
‘Montague?’
Montague groaned. This was too much to bear. The concern in her voice, the way she leaned over to him and placed her hand on his arm.
When he looked up, Miss Oliver was flushing, though she met his eyes. ‘I suppose if I’m to call you Montague, then it is only fair you call me Calliope.’