10. Chapter 10
Simon
Simon Balfour crosses the threshold into the parlor, exchanging one persona for another as he does so. Standing straight and silent, he absorbs the atmosphere of the room and allows it to color his bearing with practiced ease.
Slipping into a role—this is what he does best.
The hour has grown late, but a handful of gentlemen still linger over display cases of Dunn’s fine jewelry settings, voices lowered. One of them will have information for him, he’s certain.
A gent with a gold ring on his last finger seems the easiest nut to crack, with his wide, genial smile and ready answers, but another chap approaches, drink in hand, eyeing Simon with that guarded suspicion that ignites warnings in his skull. “Balfour, is it?” says the man.
“It is.” Simon smiles benignly, his brain grasping for a name, for details. “I don’t believe we’re acquainted, Mr…”
“Mandeville. Felix Mandeville.” He takes one last sip and sets his drink aside, turning to face Simon. “You’ve come a long way for this house party, have you?”
“A mere train ride. Cornwall at Christmas is worth the journey.”
“As is Miss Snow, no doubt.” He winks, and Simon instantly recoils. “Jane tells me you’re from Exeter.”
“Among other places, yes. And yourself?”
Felix Mandeville stares openly, peeling back the layers to everything Simon has been hiding for years.
“Jane insists you are familiar to our set, and I’m beginning to agree, but your name is not familiar to me.
Perhaps it was a brief encounter—might London perchance be one of your many places of residence? ”
“It was, yes.” Simon inhales against the tightness in his chest, avoiding the man’s gaze. “How did you come to be acquainted with the Dunn family?”
“I’ve been a family friend for years. Rosalyn—Miss Snow—and I were neighbors in Chelsea.” He tilts his head. “It’s your face, Mr. Balfour. I know your face. I’m quite certain of it. I can’t think how, but it’ll come to me.”
Simon forces a smile and pivots the topic. “You’ll have met Silas Snow, then, if you’ve been in the Dunns’ acquaintance that long.”
An odd look twists Felix’s features. “You cannot mean Rosalyn’s father. I’ve not heard that name in years. What interest might you have in him?”
“I knew him—once, that is, years ago.”
He looks Simon up and down, from his clean but faded shirt to dull leather boots. “You were in mining then too, were you? A sorry business, that. Especially for the owners.”
“Indeed.” Simon tucks that information away—Silas Snow was in mining once. “A pity, what became of the man’s business interests.”
Felix Mandeville’s expression goes shocked, then sours. “Yes, that’s the pity.”
Simon takes a long, intentional sip, buying himself a moment to think. Yet he cannot invent a viable way to probe further into the matter without letting on how little he knows. “I don’t suppose you’ve seen the man lately, have you? In the last few years, perhaps?”
“I did, come to think of it. Here in Cornwall, perhaps last summer or the one before.”
His heart slams into his chest. “What was the occasion? I was given to understand he vanished more than a decade ago from this house.”
“Why, yes, he certainly did, but—”
“Well, well. Our unexpected guest.” Elias Dunn’s commanding voice slides neatly into their conversation like a blade. “I do hope you’re settling in well.”
“Mr. Mandeville has been entertaining me.”
“Ah, but that is my role.” His long lips stretch into an odd smile. “I don’t believe you’ve seen the house, have you? Perhaps I might interest you in a tour.” The man’s gaze pierces him with an order.
Simon accepts. His entire being urges him to flee, yet what keeps his feet moving forward deeper into this house is her face. From the first moment she’d been irresistibly lovely, but tonight on the cliffs, her poise had cracked open and shown him the delicate pieces beneath.
Elias Dunn propels him out the main doors and around a gaslit corridor and beneath the grand staircase.
Through another set of doors stands a green-carpeted room with papered walls hung with paintings.
A few are the expected family portraits, but most are impressionist-style renderings of Cornwall. “You’ve a love of the sea, Mr. Dunn.”
A maid pours tea near a small sideboard.
“I came to St. Ives as a child, and the sea was my rescue.” Elias Dunn pauses in the midst of his musty, perfectly squared gallery and stares until Simon grows restless.
“My family, since you seem quite taken with them, Mr. Balfour.” His pointed look conveys he overheard the conversation—but how much?
Two steaming teacups wait untouched on the tea cart as the maid arranges the sugar cubes and cream beside them.
Dunn holds up his hand to indicate the paintings. “My eldest sister, who’s gone to France, my nieces… and my youngest sister, Rosa. She is Rosalyn’s mother.”
Simon approaches a portrait done in oils, looking up at it in the dim light streaming through stained glass high overhead.
“She’s lovely,” he says truthfully. Soft hair curling over one creamy shoulder, long lashes shielding lovely violet eyes…
this is no doubt Rosalyn Snow’s mother. There is kindness in her face—not fragility, but natural tenderness.
“She was, yes. Yet life has a way of ruining the most lovely things first.”
Simon’s eye is drawn to a painting of a familiar young woman pictured on a garden swing, head thrown back and long hair grazing the grass. Her upturned face sparkles with that familiar wit that makes his stomach twist.
Rosalyn.
He drinks in the sight of her and realizes he’s smiling. His soul is lighter.
“I’ve learned to recognize men of no account who take an interest in my niece. They rarely last long under this roof.”
Simon looks his way and their gazes lock.
“Her sympathies make her appear vulnerable, and many a man has sought to avail himself of her weakness.”
“Her compassion is not a weakness, sir.”
“No, indeed. It’s her weakness that makes her compassionate. All her charity work isn’t for them, but for her—so she may hold a higher opinion of herself.”
“And why would she need to do that?”
Elias Dunn’s eyes protrude like that of a fly’s, even when he scowls.
But as the maid slips from the room and closes them in alone together, those eyes narrow on him.
“Felix Mandeville is a barrister in London. If he recognizes a face, it’s because its likeness has come across his desk on a warrant paper. ”
Simon leans onto the back of a chair, fixing nonchalance upon his face. He stares at the satiny wood grain. “What will you do, call the constable?”
“Not while the guests are here.”
Simon is white-knuckling the back of the chair now, but he looks up at his host. “Tell me what became of Silas Snow.”
“Perhaps you ought to ask what became of the men in his mine.”
“How many lost their positions?”
“Forty-seven.” His mouth twists. “But they lost a great deal more than positions.”
Simon drops his gaze, with shards of realization piercing him. “What happened?”
“Collapse.” Dunn turns his back, staring up at the portrait of his beloved sister. “He had a habit of neglect.”
“Certainly after all these years—”
“It isn’t me who needs to forgive the man. It’s all of St. Ives.” He steps back from the portrait, taking in the whole of the splendid woman, then turns back to Simon. “And frankly, I hope they never do.”
Simon narrows his eyes. “One would hope that unforgiveness does not extend to Miss Snow. She suffers, being without him.”
His composure cracks. “She suffers,” he says, his voice low, “because she does not understand.”
Simon can feel his pulse.
The door sweeps open and the maid stands frozen there, bearing a tray of delicacies, eyes wide as she looks between them. The colonel slips in behind her, casting a glance about. “I heard you were offering tours of your art. I did not realize you collected.”
“Here and there.” Dunn slides his hands into his pockets and doesn’t even force a smile.
Simon straightens. “Mr. Dunn seems to hold a keen appreciation for the style of Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema.”
Dunn’s shocked gaze flicks to Simon, assessing.
“Ah, yes. The Greek gods and goddesses.” The interloper stands beneath each portrait, admiring the posed figures polished to an unnatural sheen.
“It’s a forgiving style,” Simon says mildly. “It allows for blemishes.”
Dunn’s smile is quietly wicked. “Which is why I prefer oils—one can paint out such things.”
“He isn’t well,” Simon says tersely when the guest leaves, then catches himself.
Dunn’s shock is evident. “You’ve met him.”
Simon coughs. Rubs the back of his neck.
Suddenly Dunn’s face is in his. “Who are you?”
Simon clamps his jaw. “A man who knows all about blemishes being painted over.”