Chapter 3 #2
“Yes,” Dante said. “Skillicorne.” The Reverend had inherited the empire his forebear had built, taking a muddy spring interesting only to pigeons and turning it into a well of medicinal water that attracted nobles and kings.
“I haven’t had many commissions from him lately, but what can it hurt to ask. ”
Dante tried very hard not to notice how Pearson was fawning on the little harpy, hovering at her shoulder, trying to monopolize her attention. She bore his solicitations with an amused patience that said she was accustomed to being adored.
Men would do much for a smile from an elegant beauty. Make heartfelt promises. Promise vast dreams. Build monuments to her name.
“Have you approached the Earl of Suffolk?” Dante asked, seeing Suffolk’s heir, the Viscount Andover, among the group issuing from the spa.
John Dutton, heir to the Baron Sherborne, formed part of his train.
Both men were Dante’s age, but they had titles to their name, wives in their keeping, and, between them, ten children in their possession.
Dante had a half-built house, partial credit for half a dozen buildings around Cheltenham, and a sound, thorough jilting in his past.
“Can’t say I’ve thought of Suffolk, or Sherborne,” Dorsey mused. “A man knows his range, aye? Knows how far he can shoot, and how high to aim.”
Dante knew the feeling. There were lines laid down everywhere, silent but as good as snares, letting a man know where it was safe to walk. He’d trod on them enough times, to immediate reprimand, to know now where they were drawn.
It wasn’t the same for women. Or for lordlings like Andover and Dutton.
They paused with the theater women and conversed with the obvious intention to be amused, though they would perceive at a glance that these weren’t among the highborn.
All the great knew each other—sought one another out upon coming to town, actually—and made a united front whenever it came to protecting their collective privileges and the ancient rights of class.
Yet women were allowed to trespass boundaries all the time, for the sake of delivering pleasure, while a man was born into his station and every effort made to keep him there.
And the women knew this. All five of the females with Dorsey were dressed as well as ladies, but they stood in a formation that made the termagant their apex, as if her loveliness were the wedge that could drive through any wall.
And perhaps she could. Dante mainly read architectural designs and building journals for pleasure, but his sisters exclusively read sensational novels and gossip, and Dante was aware that the Earl of Craven had married an actress, Louisa Brunton, not so many years ago.
Prinny, now the Regent, had cut a swath through actresses, infamously beginning with Mary Robinson.
And the Duke of Clarence had produced all those FitzClarences on an actress known to be as successful in finding male protectors as she was patrons for the stage.
Oh, yes, a woman with that dainty turn of wrist and ankle, those long lashes, and that devastating smile could aim as high as she wanted, whether or not she possessed an aristocratic nose.
The little harpy wasn’t delivering any disapproving stares and sniffs to the lordlings.
Quite the opposite. That pucker of mischief at her mouth had come out to stay.
She stood still as a reed on a riverbank, no fluttering, no cooing or coy gestures.
Cordial. Even sweet. Pearson stuttered something—probably an ode to her beauty—and she laughed.
Laughed. The sound was the ring of a church bell through the fog of a morning, the golden glint through a cloud on a stormy day. Dante curled his hands into fists. He’d drawn only contempt, but to the genteel or wealthy, she was a pad of butter melting on the tongue.
He’d read her true from the beginning. A rude, thoughtless, social-climbing termagant.
One of those beauties who would charge her way through life seeing only what she wanted, and treading on anyone who got in her way.
He’d seen his sisters wounded too many times by other girls competing for suitors or praise.
He’d been skewered himself by a woman who dripped honey promises from her lips and hid the lance she later drove through his gut, once he was well and truly in love.
He still dripped poison from that wound.
“But you won’t stay at the Great House? I’ve had many a fine dinner there. The rooms are pleasant.” Dutton had pushed close to the harpy. Too close. He was a head taller, perfectly positioned to gaze down her décolletage.
It was worth staring, though Dante wouldn’t be so foolish, neither to stare nor to be caught out doing it. She was slender and taller than the other women, but Nature had not stinted in distributing her feminine curves.
“Too great for us,” said the older matron. She’d withdrawn a fan and was using it, though the day was only beginning to warm. “Mr. Fisher said he hadn’t the rooms. We have a lodging house for the nonce, but the accommodations are not what you would call comfortable.”
Fisher was angling for the patronage of the upper crust, and hosting a traveling theater troupe might cloud that image, however much they pretended to respectability.
Still, Dante wondered why they hadn’t trotted out the termagant when they went looking for lodgings.
She didn’t seem like a woman accustomed to having doors shut in her face.
“Andover.” Dutton turned to his friend. “This won’t do. They must have a theater, and they must have accommodations while their theater is built. We cannot let it be said that Cheltenham was so inhospitable to talent.”
“Really, Mr. Dutton, you must not distress yourself on our behalf,” said the termagant. Her smile was fascination and admiration and a trace of amusement. “We are accustomed to being creative. Indeed, we thrive on it.”
“Would you go so far as to say original?” Dante taunted. “Or are your performances mostly derivatives and copies, written by or modeled on the works of others?”
Her smile turned feral, glinting with teeth. Pretty, white, even ones, as rounded as if not accustomed to tearing flesh. She wore the mouth of a woman who had never been hungry in her life, never wondered if the coin or credit her father had left were enough to last the family for another week.
“Perhaps you are not acquainted with the nature of theater, sir. I know some people consider themselves above its allure. The very strict moralists, and those with no sense of beauty.”
No sense of beauty! He was an architect. He lived for beauty.
“You must stay at Suffolk House, of course,” said Andover with a careless smile. “We’ve scores of rooms, all done up grand, thanks to Manelli here.”
Every eye in the group turned to Dante.
This was exactly the type of scrutiny he hated. Measuring, comparing, judging his worth. He came up short, every time. Too dark. Too abrupt, too assertive. Too opinionated. Too much foreign blood. Too much, always.
“I did design Suffolk House.” He was also staying there, overseeing the last of the interior designs that the Countess wanted in place.
It wasn’t a typical part of his service, but the Countess had put great faith in him, and also understood that Dante was without accommodation while his own house was under construction.
He couldn’t have the lilac harpy under the same roof as him. He could not. She would test his patience to the limit. He would throttle her within a day and prove himself, beyond any shadow of doubt, not a gentleman.
“Milord! We could not possibly impose on your good nature, or your hospitality,” the matron simpered. Dante had marked her for the kind of shrewd businesswoman who cut a sharp deal and never simpered, but she was an actress, too.
He nodded. They couldn’t possibly live in peace all together. The actors would have to find somewhere else to stay.
“Oh, Andover won’t even notice you’re there.” Dutton waved a hand with a small laugh. “And he’s accustomed to noise, you know, with six little Howards in his keeping. Six! One just newly minted, too.”
“Our felicitations, I’m sure, on the expansion of your family,” said the matron. “But we would not think to trespass on your domestic harmony. Or interfere with your wife’s recovery.”