Bride of a Distant Isle (5 page)

We were led into the drawing room, where crystal glasses rested on a silver tray with flasks of spirits, which I politely declined.

“You'll not join Mrs. Everedge in enjoying the green fairy?” Morgan pressed. He drew uncomfortably near and smelled of the Turkish hookah smoke that sometimes clung to Edward; hookah was fashionable at men's clubs, and I knew it was part of our family's imports.

“I'm not familiar with green fairies,” I answered politely.
And they suspect
me
of madness!

“Absinthe, my dear,” Edward said. He looked disapprovingly as Morgan poured water through a sugar cube and into a small glass that held the verdant liquor. Immediately, the area filled with the sweet tang of licorice.

“This particular blend is stronger than most—it's the wormwood, you see. It will free your mind,” Mr. Morgan added.

And the tongue and perhaps restraint
, I thought.
A pleasant boon to you, I'm certain.
“Thank you, but no.” I could not afford to act in any way that was not completely self-composed. Clementine took hers immediately.

“Tea with honey,” I said. “If you have it.”

The drawing room was as strange as the foyer, perhaps even more so. A hundred or more busts of men had been placed on pillars and hearths around the room: lifeless, white, flat eyes everywhere, following us, plaster visages staring, silent, but listening. No matter which way I turned my head I was met with a dead gape. The only way to escape would be to close my own eyes, which, of course, I could not do. “This is an interesting collection,” I noted, politely.

“Men I admire,” Morgan said. “Men of letters and music, commerce, industry, self-made men.”

“I'm in debt to such as well,” Edward said casually.

“You're in debt to many, aren't you, Everedge?” Morgan spoke too bluntly for polite company or even for a friend among gentlemen. “Including to me. Though we shall take care of that soon.” He turned to me and grinned. “Shan't we?” The mordant stink of a hundred burning wicks mingled with the floral-scented candle wax, oversweet, like the stench of a decaying but not yet dried rose.

I hard-swallowed.

“And the cameos,” Clementine said. “They are . . . ?” She referred to a wall papered in deep pink silk, upon which were hung several dozen plaster cameos of women's profiles, all framed in antique gold.

“Conquests, of course,” Morgan said, and Clementine gasped while my eyes grew wide.

“See here!” Edward interrupted indignantly.

“I but jest,” Morgan stepped in. “My apologies, ladies. I spend far too much time in the cruder company of my own sex and I forget myself. They represent ladies I have known and admired—such as my mother, my nanny, a governess, my sister-in-law, and women throughout the ages whose beauty I appreciate and whose likenesses I have commissioned to be reproduced.”

I quickly scanned the wall. I did not see a cameo that resembled the widowed Mrs. Wemberly.

Morgan continued. “I appreciate fine art and, with no disrespect to the fairer members of my own nation, prefer something different from the typical bland English rose. You'll notice the center of the wall, pride of place, remains empty.” He looked firmly in my direction. “For now.”

I cast my gaze aside. Edward spoke up, changing the subject. “What time are Dell'Acqua and his company anticipated?”

There was a longish pause before Morgan answered. “They will not be coming.”

I hoped I hid my disappointment. I thought back to Mr. Morgan staring at the captain and me at the Great Exhibition. Had he subsequently disinvited them?

Edward looked puzzled. “I thought the idea was to build on our common investment interests. We're exhausting the other alternatives.”

“He'll rejoin us on the coast,” Morgan said as his butler came to announce dinner. “We've months to complete negotiations before summer ends.” Mr. Morgan then stood, offered his arm to me, and led the way into the dining room.

Clementine and Edward, Morgan and me. An awkward foursome. I wondered if Edward was truly surprised by this change in dinner guests; he seemed to be.

We sat down at the table, also blazing with candles, and I looked around. There were pictures of exotic animals as well as some real animals, killed and stuffed, all gazing down upon us. As the turtle soup was served, I became aware, in particular, of a monkey on the wall, its face stretched into a permanent scream.

“I grew fond of monkeys after seeing some at the Saint Bartholomew Faire,” Morgan said, following my interest.

I murmured something about how interesting his collection was, which seemed to satisfy him, but I wondered if this was the manner in which he treated those of whom he was, temporarily at least, fond. I no longer had an appetite. He pressed a second helping on me anyway.

“Cook can be instructed to prepare whatever you like to eat,” he said. “She's versatile. You'll get on quite well.”

“I hardly think that will be required,” I responded.

The dinner conversation revolved around the Exhibition and contacts made there, of which the most promising were the Maltese, as they were strategically located in the center of the Mediterranean Sea and, therefore, critical for victualing and restocking all sides. I couldn't have been certain and they'd not admit to it, but the implication was that Edward and Morgan, along with their contemporaries, would be happy to supply and arm both Great Britain and whomever we might fight against, for profit.

Horrifying. Did the Maltese also operate thusly?

After dinner, the gentlemen retired to the library to smoke cigars and Clementine excused herself from the company to tend to personal needs. The men assumed I accompanied her. I did not.

Instead, I quietly sought out the housekeeper I'd seen floating like an apparition around the edges of the house.

“Excuse me,” I began, once I had trapped her in a corner. “I'm just wondering, is Mrs. Wemberly well? I knew she'd been taken ill a few days ago.”

The ferret-like housekeeper looked confused. “Who, miss?”

“Mrs. Wemberly. Mr. Morgan's sister.” I had a quick look around to make sure neither the men nor Clementine were coming to find me.

She shook her head. “Mr. Morgan does not have a sister, miss.”

“She is about my age, perhaps a few years younger, with reddish hair and a dimple”—I touched my chin—“here.”

At that, a veil dropped over her countenance, and I knew what she was going to say before she said it. My breath quickened.

“Never seen anyone like that,” she said, but her darting eyes betrayed her. “I must be about my duties, now. Good evening, Miss.”

I had suspected Mrs. Wemberly had not been his sister. More likely he had tipped his own hand earlier . . . she'd been a conquest, a woman held lightly.

This was the man Edward had, by all indications, destined for me.

T
he next day was to be our last at the Exhibition. Edward and Clementine, and Mr. Morgan and I, walked through the transept. I had always been fascinated by India and wanted to spend some time at their booth. I looked at the lovely lace, made by Indian hands but using British methods. Mr. Morgan was most eager that we visit the jewel, literally, of the Indian offerings.

He led us to the Koh-I-Noor, the great diamond, 186 carats uncut, and guarded in a cage that had been topped by a crown.

“No one can steal her, then,” he said. I thought it would be hard to lug such an item away, and while I murmured politely, as did Clementine, in truth I found it a bit vulgar.

“Do you like it, Miss Ashton?” he asked me, his voice pleading for any affection, which I could not give. The few times I'd met him as a child and young lady, he'd been likewise beseeching and clingy.

“It's a lovely bit of colonial culture,” I replied. He took my arm in an overly familiar manner and grinned widely, the smile of a man who had been given permission.

Permission to me, of course.

HIGHCLIFFE HALL, PENNINGTON PARK

EARLY JUNE, 1851

W
e returned to Highcliffe, I still wondering when someone would speak aloud what was already eddying in the unspoken currents: what my future held. I, however, did not want to speak first and suggest something that might not yet be determined. The house was still being packed. Edward continued making arrangements. One morning, I repaired to the nursery with Lillian, Albert's nanny, as the chambermaids made up our rooms.

“Mrs. Watts herself is preparing the guest rooms,” Lillian chattered freely to me as she wiped Albert's face after his morning toast.

“Indeed! Unusual, is it?” I invited the conversation to continue.

She nodded. “If you can imagine that, though she's not worked here for twenty years, I've heard. She's come to help Watts, of course, and to keep them all happy with her son Jack, who is Mr. Everedge's valet but remains in London to run the house this summer as the mister is more often there. The housemaids work hard. Six and a half days a week, one day off per month, blacking beneath their nails, out of work completely when the family moves, and for what, I ask you?”

“I'm sure I don't know,” I answered politely, and played patty-cake with Albert, who shouted in delight.

“I'm sure you don't, not that I mean it unkindly,” Lillian answered forthrightly, which pleased me very much. She took my smile as permission to finish her thought.

“It's working for the rich, married to a man they like or not, or the workhouse. Them's the options for the likes of us. The house is meant to be sold by end of summer, and then they'll all have to find new positions.”

My stomach clutched. End of summer. I had perhaps two months to find a situation that would allow me to escape Morgan. I knew Edward's intentions, though they'd remained unstated.

Lillian spoke up again as I ran my hand affectionately over young Albert's hair. “I love the boy, but I shan't remain in service. I already raised my mum's whole brood after she died giving birth to the last. I can read and do sums quite well. I intend to become a shopgirl.”

“A shopgirl?” I asked. “In Lymington?” I was not aware of any female shop help nearby.

“No, miss, in London,” Lillian said. “And if I cannot be a shopgirl then I shall marry a shop owner and be in charge that way.” She fastened a loose button on a pair of Albert's trousers before setting them aside. “I will be mistress of my destiny.”

“Right after you put a stitch in Albert's clothing,” I said. She looked at my face and saw I was teasing, and smiled herself.

“Yes, Miss Ashton, it may not be now. But it will come.”

“I've no doubt it will,” I said, taking courage from her own. I, too, had decided to take action of some sort this week. Several ideas had presented themselves and I would put my mind to them simultaneously and soon, very soon indeed . . . just after I greeted Captain Dell'Acqua, that was.

He was due to arrive that day.

By late afternoon, I heard a carriage drive up, and then soon enough a commotion of deep voices assembled in the foyer. I'd thought that perhaps at the last moment he would have his invitation withdrawn, as had happened at Mr. Morgan's. But no. He had come.

Clementine and I were taking tea in the solarium, the one room of cheer in a dim home being shuttered and packed. Its glass allowed a flood of sun in year round, and while it was especially pleasant in the winter, it must have been too warm just then because I felt my face flush.

“My dear.” Edward held out his hand, and Clementine rose to meet him and greet their guests. Captain Dell'Acqua caught my eye but allowed his gaze to linger on me for only the briefest moment; it would not do to be inattentive to his host's wife, and he warmly greeted Clementine. I was not called over, so I did not stand, but I could hear and watch them.

The captain smiled warmly at Clementine and took her hand in his own, kissing the back of it, never letting his eyes wander. I watched her soften and lean toward him in a way I had not noted before—not even with Edward.