Chapter 11
GRACE
After the failed drugging episode, Grace felt awful and embarrassed. Her husband, undoubtedly, resented her even more now. Why else had he been avoiding her for days?
She saw him at breakfast once. She sat through four dinners by herself. She ran into him three more times during the day, into his courteous, “Are you adjusting?” that made her blood boil.
Adjusting to what exactly? His green eyes that unnerved her? His tiny smirks that provoked her? The house void of music?
She took long walks about the opulent mansion with its army of servants. The two floors were filled with art and antiques but not a single diamond or the wonders of Golconda everyone talked about.
So much for being the Diamond King.
She sent a letter to the marchioness about the piano performance at the Summer Ball in July. No response came. Her heart sank. She’d known that would happen. The newspaper headlines blasted her name with the most scandalous suggestions.
The Diamond King Snatches the Biggest Jewel Yet.
Will the New Mrs. Mawr Fall Under the Curse of the Crimson Tear?
Most of them embarrassed her. The latter intrigued her.
She thought of Charles, but he seemed like another life and not hers. She felt bitter and humiliated but, oddly, not heartbroken.
And Grace brooded.
On day five, she finally decided to visit Rivka again, only to find out she was now to be escorted by a bodyguard.
“I am Nina,” said the short slender Asian woman with a confident cold gaze. “I am at your service, ma’am.”
Grace wanted to dispose of her, but that proved to be impossible.
“I don’t need a chaperon,” Grace complained to her husband’s butler since her husband was never in sight.
“Ma’am, Miss Nina is not exactly a chaperon,” the butler explained in a conspiratorial tone.
Nina might have looked small and ordinary, but in her past, he told Grace, there was growing up in the Far East, learning kung fu from Shaolin monks in Tibet, winning all-male underground fights in Shanghai, and serving in the private entourage of an opium trafficker out of Canton.
Grace observed Nina with renewed interest. The guards at the house, she noticed, bowed to Nina with utmost respect.
“And how would you fight if it came to it?” she asked one day, giving in to her curiosity.
“My skirt has a deep pleat, much like those bicycle suits for women,” Nina explained. “And I wear bifurcated knee-length bloomers underneath. You mustn’t worry, ma’am. I can run faster than a carriage if needed. And fighting—well, the skirt can fall off as easily as I can pull a gun out of it.”
“A gun?”
Grace was speechless. And Nina was on strict orders to follow Grace everywhere she went outside the house, usually without uttering a single word during the entire day.
Now Grace was walking with Rivka along Hyde Park, Nina following behind them at a short distance.
“Do you think he hired her to spy on me?” Grace asked Rivka.
She responded with enthusiastic laughter. “Why would he spy on you, Gracie?”
“I shall not hide,” Grace said. “My husband shall have to accept you. You are my best friend, Rivka!”
Grace still hadn’t summoned the courage to invite her to the house. Lovely Rivka—oh, Grace simply could not bear it if her husband, like her guardians, would not accept her friend.
Grace could not remember many happy moments from her childhood.
She had grown up with maids who dressed her, fed her, and were the only ones in the house to talk to her.
Her guardians were mere prison guards who enforced strict rules.
Grace often wondered what she had done wrong.
Why wasn’t there anyone who cared for her, except Rivka?
“You are afraid, Gracie,” Rivka said with a kind smile, always that smile as if there was no worry in the world. “But not of him, my lovely, no. You are scared that he will make you feel lonely just like your guardians always did.”
“What if he locks me in for days, too? Punishes me?” Grace winced at her own words. “Why is it that never in my life did I have a say in what I truly wanted?”
“You wanted to be a pianist.”
“And my vocation still depends on the men who dominate the craft. They won’t let me perform with them on a big stage, will not allow me in an orchestra. Because I am… a woman. Gah! How awfully unfair!”
When she started playing the piano, only seven, so outstanding were her skills right from the start that the Sommervilles hired her the best tutor.
Yet her upright piano wasn’t the best one.
When in three years, she outplayed the fifteen-year-old piano genius of London, the city took notice.
Yet, Grace was only allowed to perform at selective events and under the careful supervision of her aunt.
Rumors spread about the female prodigy pianist. Grace was invited to play with the famous musicians. But she was a girl, and a girl had no place in the Royal orchestra or any grand philharmonic orchestras or on the big stages she so wanted to play on.
Her private life was a cage, too. Her guardians had money.
Yet, Grace was never allowed any luxuries.
At home, she was only permitted to play at certain hours.
No suitors were ever allowed near her. No friends were ever welcome.
Rivka was forbidden to ever set foot in the Sommervilles’ house.
The only time Grace could truly do what she wanted was when she composed her own music and wrote her songs.
And that, usually, was when she was hiding in her room.
Until Charles, who, if only in words, offered a happy future. Finally, Grace would have her own family!
But that had gone up in smoke.
“I don’t know what is happening in my life,” Grace said solemnly, as always hoping for Rivka’s reassuring words.
“But come! Come to my house, Rivka, will you? Meet him. Tell me what you think. Perhaps he will like you. Oh, but that would be lovely!” That hope sent her heart beating wildly so abruptly that tears pooled in her eyes.
“It would be, wouldn’t it?” she added quieter, the hope already fading away like it always did.
Rivka smiled, her ebony eyes shining with kindness. She hadn’t ever once shared her gift of “seeing” with Grace, not even in this, perhaps, the most important moment in Grace’s life.
It scared Grace. He scared Grace. She didn’t know him, nor could she explain how he’d made her feel every time they had briefly met in the past.
“Come visit, Rivka.” Grace smiled through tears, her heart clenching at the words.
“He might be away. He always is. He wouldn’t care, I promise.
And can you…” She bit her lower lip. “Can you put on your best dress?” Right away, she felt ashamed of what she’d just asked, added too swiftly, “In case?—”
“In case your new husband is at home and is like your guardians? Aw, Gracie…”
“I don’t know what sort of man he is. But two things I cannot give up are my music and you.”
Disheartened though determined to stay positive, Grace returned to her new house.
Full of exotic scents and lavish decorations from Asia, the mansion was like an exotic land with Persian carpets and thick drapes, elephant ornaments, colorful rugs, Indian pottery, and handmade throws.
There were scandalous artworks with people performing God only knew what that made Grace blush.
But she studied them in detail, thought about them at night, her husband’s face occasionally replacing those of the men who performed obscene acts.
And it was so… lonely again. Perhaps even more so without her piano.
She stayed up late, listening to the sounds of her husband coming to the bedroom adjoining hers. In vain. And at breakfast, she would hear Samira’s usual, “The master is gone. A little past dawn. He rises early, madam.”
“Of course,” Grace muttered. Maybe, like the night predators, he didn’t sleep at all.
Until the morning she walked into the dining room and halted in surprise. Green eyes, assertive figure, indifferent gaze—her husband sat at the table drinking coffee and reading the newspaper.
“Good morning,” he said coldly, his gaze sweeping over her dress.
Slowly, she took a seat at the table. “You weren’t home last night,” she said, suddenly nervous but somehow cheerful at the sight of him at home.
“I was not.” His eyes followed her over the rim of his coffee cup as he took a sip.
“You didn’t sleep at home.”
“I did not.”
“You own half of this city. You have other homes, I know that. Did you sleep in one of them?”
“I did not.” He cocked his head as if waiting for more.
She ran out of questions that she could possibly ask without coming across as nosy.
Was there another woman? She shouldn’t care. Yet she thought of Charles—the rumors about his paramour that she had ignored even after their engagement.
Grace felt a familiar sting in her heart.
After a prolonged silence, she raised her eyes, running right into his stare.
“Are you not talking to me? Avoiding me?” she asked with disappointment.
“What would you like to discuss? Another possible attempt at poisoning me?”
His face lacked expression, but his eyes, oh, his eyes burned through her like a hot poker that she felt in her very bones.
She huffed and cast her gaze to the table. “You said we needed to discuss the terms.”
“Are you ready to give it your precious all?” The sarcasm in his voice was unmistakable. But why? He still hadn’t told her why he needed to marry her. So, why the bitterness? Why the punishment?
She wouldn’t take it. “The necessary minimum, I’d say,” she replied bitterly.
“I see.”
He rose without another word and left without a goodbye, leaving her alone with her disappointment.
Her heart stung, but right away, the usual response came—a melody started in her head. Her fingers played the chords on the tablecloth.
She heard a sound and raised her eyes to see Samira, her dark hair braided at the back, her bright blue sari decorated with pink flowers.
The maid served her breakfast and poured her tea, while Grace watched her and felt an urge to write a song like that, for once happy, that matched Samira’s broad smile, kind eyes, and vibrant dress. Most of her songs weren’t that happy.
“Master said you are an amazing piano player,” the maid said.
Grace forced her fingers to stop playing on the table. “He did?”
So, he mentioned her talent to others but didn’t bother with a piano.
Very well.
Who was Grace to ask? She would stop by the Music Academy and reserve a piano room for practice.
What she wasn’t all right with was not knowing a speck about her husband. And if he wasn’t giving her the time of day, she would just have to find out for herself.
Naturally, from the newspapers.
So, in the afternoon, she ordered the carriage and headed to a library.
Morsington’s Library was the newest archives collection sponsored by the Press Association.
The large building on Sixth Street was comprised of multiple rooms crammed with shelves stacked with copies from the fifteen biggest newspapers, more than thirty smaller ones, and many other periodicals and journals.
For a fee, Grace had access to all of them.
But how would she find what she was looking for?
“I am afraid our budget is too small to have enough employees to catalog everything properly,” the clerk explained. “But if you are after something that is frequently mentioned, a place or a person, we have reference cards for those. What sort of information do you need?”
“Mawr. Mawr Diamond Industries,” Grace said, surprised at how important it sounded, the name that was now her own.
“Oh, that would be easy!” The clerk searched in the card catalog. “Ah, there it is.” He pulled out a thick stack of cards. “Quite a handful! Mrs…?”
“Mawr,” Grace said quietly, still getting used to her new name.
“Oh? I wish you perseverance, Mrs. Mawr. You have a lot to go through.”
As she walked with her stack toward a row of shelves with the numbers he pointed at, she looked back to see the clerk peeking at her from behind his desk.
There was a lot, indeed, Grace realized as she found one newspaper after another among hundreds of them, leafing through the yellowed pages and reading the headlines.
The Gazette was the most reputable. She found some articles from 1879:
The Construction of the Mawr Building:
The Most Ambitious Architectural Design Yet.
Grace, of course, knew that one, had visited the building as a child when it was erected.
In one of the oldest issues of the Tribune , Grace found an illustration of the two Mawr brothers in India, an elephant behind them, trunks stacked up on both sides.
The Mawr Brothers Reveal Undreamed of Indian Splendors.
1855 , the illustration said. That was before her husband was born.
There were articles about the Indian-English trade, about the Mawrs’ scandal with the French royalty. One described the new steamship, the largest in Europe, commissioned by the Mawrs.
Then Grace stumbled upon an article from the London Telegraph :
Blood and Diamonds:
The Wollendorf Brothers.
Ambitions in South Africa and the New Rivals to the Diamond Kings.
The Weekly Courant was less diplomatic:
Deadly Rivalry or Coincidence?
The articles described the death of Alfred Mawr. Some attributed it to the Wollendorfs. Others suspected Uriah Mawr. Several brought up the Crimson Tear legend.
And then Grace found another article with a photograph.
She held her breath, staring at the black-and-white photo of her husband, not even twenty years of age, in a suit and top hat.
On impulse, she stroked it with her fingertips.
“Hello, Mr. Mawr,” she whispered, mesmerized for a second too long, then sucked in a breath as she read the headline:
Another Tragedy Rocks the Mawr Family.
Young Drasko Mawr Is Hailed the New Diamond King.