Lady of Devices (4 page)

The sun beamed down upon Claire’s face like a benediction—one that would cause an unfortunate outbreak of freckles if she did not get off this stage in the next five minutes.

“The Honorable Claire Trevelyan, firsts in mathematics and languages, and the winner of Her Royal Highness the Princess Alice’s medal for best essay in German!”

Claire stepped forward to shake the hand of the dean of St. Cecelia’s, and took the leather-bound folder that held her diploma. At last, the precious sheet of vellum was hers, with its red wax seal bearing the school’s crest. Around her neck, the dean hung a gold medal the size of a guinea on a purple ribbon. It settled against her chest, heavy as validation. She doubted that Princess Alice had actually read her essay, which was an examination of Herr Emil Brucker’s new design for a four-piston steam landau. But it was most gratifying to have won, and to see the pride on her mother’s face as she and young Nicholas’s nanny watched her descend the stairs and make her way back to her seat in the front rows of chairs arranged on the school lawn.

Her father was supposed to be here. Half the reason she had written about the steam landau was so that he would be tempted to read her prizewinning essay, be astonished at the depth of her knowledge, and allow her to drive his landau with his full permission. She had trodden a long and difficult road of umlauts and consonants and polysyllabic compounds, all for nothing.

But no. A lady of spirit did not despair. There was always tomorrow, when surely she could prevail upon him to take a moment to read the essay, even if he hadn’t seen her receive the medal. She could always wear it down to breakfast.

When the ceremony finally ended—Lady Julia having taken the seniors’ prize for congeniality and Emilie having captured the overall academics trophy—she joined her mother and was enveloped in a perfumed hug.

“I am so proud of you, dearest,” she said, pulling back to look at Claire as though she hadn’t seen her in years and was surprised at how much she’d grown. “I had no idea you’d written an essay in German.”

“You can read it if you like. It’s about—”

“Heavens, dear. French was enough for me. German was insurmountable. I congratulate you.”

“I hope Papa will read it. I had hoped he would be here.”

A shadow passed across her mother’s face. “Your papa is detained in the Lords. He has been spending many long hours there, working for the good of the country, for which you should be proud of him and not wishing him here for your own selfish reasons.”

Claire did not think that wishing one’s parents to see one’s graduation was so very selfish. Well, perhaps only a little. “I hope when I graduate from the university he will be able to come.”

“I’m sure he—what?”

“The university, Mama. I would like to attend Oxford in the fall and study one of the sciences.” That was a very vague way of putting it. Claire wanted to study engineering.

Lady St. Ives stared at her as if she’d never seen her before. “What nonsense is this, child?”

Perhaps she should have led up to this more gradually. Spent some time softening her mother up and getting her used to the idea. But since academics were in the air and it was such a happy day, the words had popped out before she had a chance to consider them more carefully.

Considered or not, words failed her altogether at the sight of her mother’s face.

“You will put such ridiculous ideas out of your head at once. You are to have your Season, accept a suitable young man, and be exchanging wedding vows by autumn.” She seized Claire’s arm while the nanny, carrying her baby brother, trailed them across the lawn. “University. Great Caesar’s ghost. What outlandish thing will you shame me with next?”

“There is no shame in a university education,” Claire persisted with the sinking feeling that she spoke her words into the ether, to vanish forever. “I do not wish to be married so soon. I wish to have a career, like—”

“Like whom?” At the gate, Lady St. Ives rounded on her. “Like that Churchill creature?”

“Mrs. Churchill is admired by civilized people on three continents,” Claire said as steadily as she could.

“Isabel Churchill is a self-aggrandizing, grandstanding woman who deserted her family and prospects to go gallivanting into the wilderness with other people’s money. I will not permit you to use her as a model for success in the feminine sphere.”

Claire fell back a step, as if the very words had slapped her.

“You may well be shocked. She is a Wit of the very worst degree, and I very much regret receiving her daughter into our home last week. She is not related to the Spencer Churchills at all. I had been misinformed.”

“You just don’t like her because she’s not a Blood.”

“Do not speak as if you were a silly schoolgirl any longer. Come. We must get you home in time to dress for your reception and the salon at Wellesley House this evening.”

Mutinous, Claire nearly refused to walk any further next to the woman who had foiled all her hopes as carelessly as she might swat a fly. But if she did, she would only have to walk home, and half a mile in heeled dress slippers would be at least as painful as riding home in the carriage across from her ladyship.

She was still fuming as Silvie, her mother’s lady’s maid, helped her out of her afternoon dress and into her new dinner gown. The last thing she wanted to do was pretend she welcomed anyone to such a backward house. Her parents lived in the previous century, that was all. They couldn’t help it if the things they lived by—blood, breeding, birth—had become an anachronism in the face of the power of the human brain.

Society had divided itself into Bloods and Wits—the former headed by the Prince of Wales and the latter by the Prime Minister, Mr. Leonard Darwin, son of the famous naturalist—and where one rose to prominence, it was only natural that the other should fade to irrelevance.

The thought of her mother being irrelevant and not even knowing it was some source of amusement, at any rate.

This was cold comfort when Claire had to stand next to her and receive their guests. A harpist had been hired and there would be dancing later at Lady Julia’s home, though the affair was called a salon to forestall the gossips from making comments about Lady Julia and her classmates attending a ball before they had been presented. In the meantime, similar parties forming a progressive dinner were going on all over Mayfair and Kensington, the new graduates flocking from one house to another to sip lemonade here, nibble an hors d’oeuvre there, fill a plate with iced cakes and macaroons yet somewhere else.

Only another hour, and she and Emilie could flit off as well, and during the short walk to Wellesley House she could unburden herself in detail to her best friend.

“Formulating another strategy to beat all comers at poker?” A male voice rumbled behind her, and Claire turned in surprise.

“Lord James.”

He bowed and extended his hand. “My best wishes to the new graduate.” When he straightened again, his lashes flickered. “And congratulations are in order, I see.”

“Thank you.” She fingered the round gold wafer sitting just below her clavicle, which Lady St. Ives had insisted she wear, and resisted the urge to take it off and tuck it in her bodice. She was wearing her very first low-necked gown, courtesy of Madame du Barry, and she was not yet used to the way gazes felt on naked skin. “It’s the Princess Alice medal for an essay I wrote in German.”

“How very clever.
Ich spreche nicht Deutsch gut
.”

“Neither do I, but the committee evidently thinks I write it fairly well.”

He laughed, and turned to regard the company moving from the sitting room, where the beverages were laid out, to the buffet in the music room, which was large enough to accommodate the silken, chattering company now that the piano was moved back against the wall.

“And are you enjoying being queen of the day?”

“Not particularly.” She caught her breath. If there was anything Lady St. Ives had drilled into her head, it was that in making social conversation with gentlemen, one did not voice one’s true opinions unless they concerned the weather, music, or classical literature. And sometimes, depending on the gentleman, not even then.

Again, Lord James laughed, though Claire had not meant to be amusing. “And why not? One would think having a party in one’s honor would be most enjoyable.”

Claire smiled a public smile. “Of course it is. I am enjoying myself immensely. I simply meant I am not particularly a queen—of a day, an hour, or even a minute.”

He took her hand in his. “Perhaps not. But speaking with you has certainly crowned this minute, this hour, for me. I shall live in the glow of it for the rest of the evening.”

She blinked, unsure how to respond, while a slow burn of blood crept into her cheeks. She did not blush prettily, like Gloria Meriwether-Astor or Lady Julia. She blotched.

Claire hated to be made to blotch.

She pulled her gloved fingers from his. “Sir, pray do not voice pretty sentiments that cannot possibly be true on such short acquaintance.” She sounded as stiff as her own grandmother, but she could not help it. What she really wanted to say to him could not be spoken aloud in her parents’ house. “Excuse me while I see to my other guests.”

With a swish of apple green silk, she escaped into the sitting room. Where was her father? Perhaps she could prevail on him to speak to Lord James and impress upon him that she was far too young to receive his attentions, particularly when she was still considered to be in the schoolroom until next week. She would not have believed she would take refuge in such a fiction, when she’d been living for today, leaving St. Cecelia’s and its teachers behind and embracing adulthood with joy.

“I haven’t seen your father, either,” Emilie whispered as Claire pretended to pour her friend a cup of punch so that they could speak privately. “I thought he had promised to be here tonight.”

“He did, at breakfast. Mama says he is detained in the Lords, voting on some business important to running the country. But still ...”

“You will only graduate once, and he has missed it,” Emilie finished. “But that aside, I have no doubt he would give Lord James the set-down of his life if he were here. Even if he is not, you still have his protection. This is, after all, his house. Selwyn cannot behave like this and expect to be received by good society.”

“I shall take what protections I can find if it means not seeing that look in his eyes.” She paused, then said in a rush, “It made me feel as though I were a naked statue from ancient Greece, frozen and unable to pull my draperies over myself.”

“How dreadful.” Emilie’s eyes held sympathy and the smallest bit of shock. “The man is a cad and your parents will not receive him once they know.” She glanced over the room, bright with light from the electrick chandeliers and scented with the perfumes of girls and the bouquets of white lilies on the occasional tables. “Do I imagine it, or is the crush thinning?”

“We must be between waves,” Claire said, thankful for the respite. “Now would be a good time to touch up our toilettes. You do still plan to walk with me to Wellesley House, inelegant as that might be? Papa has the landau and Mama is taking my grandmother and my two great-aunts Beaton in the carriage.”

Behind her, the front door slammed. Claire’s first thought was that she had offended Lord James so deeply that he had finally worked up enough steam to take his leave. But no, there he was in the music room, by the piano, talking again with Gloria. She hurried into the hall, followed closely by Emilie and Lady St. Ives.

“My lord!” her mother exclaimed as the Viscount staggered across the marble squares of the hall and fetched up against the carved banister of the staircase, his chest heaving. Every lamp had been lit, serving to illuminate a face gone gray and a cravat loose and disheveled. He raked a hand through his hair and Claire realized he had lost his top hat. “Vivian, are you hurt?”

“We’re done for,” the Viscount croaked. “Persia-Albion’s failed. I put everything we had into it and now it’s gone.” He gasped, as though he sobbed, without tears. “I’m so sorry, Flora. So sorry. For everything.”

He stumbled into his study, where he closed the door, leaving both Claire and her mother staring at it as though they’d both seen an apparition called up from some dreadful séance pass right through it. From behind the sturdy, white-painted oak panel, there came the sound of another door slamming.

No. Not a door. Claire had slammed every door in this house at one time or another during her adolescence, and that was not the sound of a door.

It was the sound of a pistol shot.

The Times of London, June 14, 1889

VISCOUNT PASSES IN TRAGIC MISHAP

In a loss as tragic as the fortunes of those with whom he invested in the Persia-Albion Petroleum Company, Vivian Trevelyan, Viscount St. Ives, left his family bereaved on Friday last. While cleaning his collection of Georgian pistols, he apparently did not realize one firearm had been put away loaded. The discharge killed his lordship instantly.

At the funeral yesterday, a nursemaid carried 19-month-old Nicholas, now the fourteenth viscount, who cried during the service as loudly as if he really had been aware his papa was being laid in the ground. Lady St. Ives, who could be forgiven for ignoring the demands of fashion during such a time of grief, instead was careful to maintain her reputation for taste and distinction in a beaded mourning gown by the House of Elsevier in Paris, and a swansdown-trimmed velvet cloak and hat by Belleville. Her daughter Claire, whose only style is that she is now known as Lady Claire, stood silently at her mother’s side for the length of the service.

This reporter does not know the fate of the Persia-Albion Petroleum Company, of which the late viscount was a principal investor, along with several of society’s leading Bloods and, some speculate, even Her Majesty. However, disturbing rumblings have been heard regarding the company’s solvency. Please see the Business section for more details on this unhappy situation.

* * *

On a good day, Claire could pretend that her father was merely away—in the Lords overseeing matters of state, or taking a quick trip down to Cornwall to visit Gwynn Place. The viscount had been better known as a shrewd investor and one of the leaders of London society than as a family man. It was not as if Claire had been close to him. All the same, he was her father, and one of the anchors to her life, and without him the whole household had been set adrift.

On bad days, the only thing that could rouse Claire from the stupor of grief was the knowledge that someone had to answer the landslide of condolences and black-edged correspondence, whose brass tubes had piled up on the salver in the morning room to such an extent that Penwith finally had to fetch a wooden chest to hold them. The new viscount could not do it. And Lady St. Ives was in no shape to do it. Except for her appearance at the funeral, she had not left her room since that dreadful night and from what Claire could learn from Silvie, she had no intention of doing so in the immediate future. Claire counted the family fortunate that she had managed to attend the funeral. Had she not, gossip would have been delighted to fill in the blanks that the
Times
had so obligingly left open.

The doorbell rang for what seemed like the fortieth time since breakfast, and out of habit, Claire paused on the staircase, halfway between curiosity and duty.

“I’m sorry, miss, but the family is not at home,” Penwith intoned. He must be so tired of mouthing the same words time after time. On the other hand, at least she did not have to do it.

“But I must see C—er, Lady Claire,” came Emilie’s voice, raised in anxiety.

“Lady Claire is unable to receive visitors, miss. You will note the crepe upon our door.”

Crepe notwithstanding, yes, she was able. “It’s all right, Penwith.” Claire hurried down the staircase, her skirts trailing behind her in a welter of black silk ruching and pleats. “I am always at home to Miss Fragonard.” She dragged Emilie into the morning room and hugged her fiercely, the unshed tears backing up in her throat. “I’m so glad to see you I can’t even express it.”

“I’ve sent you a tube every day,” Emilie said with the merest tinge of reproach.

“Have you?” Claire released her and indicated a second pile of tubes on the escritoire, which was reaching the limits of its stability, too.

“Oh dear.” Emilie appeared to do a quick calculation. “There is two weeks’ worth of writing replies between here and the hall.”

“At least. I can’t bear to think of it.”

“Think instead of the kindness of all your family’s acquaintance,” Emilie said gently. “They wish you to know they’re thinking of you.”

“I know,” Claire took a letter out of a tube on top of the stack and smoothed it flat. “And I appreciate it. I do. But what do I say to everyone? No one really believes what the Times said and we don’t dare refute it.”

Emilie took the letter from Claire’s hands. “They would not be so crass as to speak it aloud. Stick to the main point—their condolences. And for that I have just the thing. Have you forgotten my Multiple Nib Scrivener?”

“You’re assigning me lines?” Was this meant to take her mind off her situation?

“No, you goose. Where is your mourning stationery?” She rustled through the pigeonholes of the escritoire. “Never mind, I have it. We line up the reply cards like so—” She laid them out like dominoes and seated herself at the table. The ten nibs of her device hung poised above the creamy stationery. “—and begin composing. What would you like to say?”

“What would I do without you?” Claire gathered her wits and tried to remember what she and her mother had done when Grandmother Trevelyan had gone to her eternal reward. “We so much appreciate your kindness during this painful time,” she began slowly. Emilie’s nibs scratched along, following her. “The viscount, Lady St. Ives, and I are thankful for your thoughts and trust that God will keep us in His hand.”

“Is His capitalized?”

“Yes.”

“‘... hand.’ Anything else?”

“No. Hand them to me and I’ll sign them. Fortunately we use the same ink. India Black.”

Emilie gave her a look over the rims of her spectacles. “Was that a joke?”

Claire winced. “No, I’m sorry. Merely bad taste.”

“I think it’s good. It’s a sign that maybe in time you’ll recover.”

“I suppose I will. And Nicholas will be fine, except for the tragedy of his never knowing Father. Never learning how to ride with him like I did. Never seeing him come in at dinnertime and running into his arms, as I did.” She reached into her sleeve for her damp handkerchief.

“But you can teach him how to drive the steam landau when the time comes.” Emilie’s eyes were soft with understanding, and Claire hung onto her self-control with difficulty.

“That’s true,” she said, swallowing the tears down. “That much I can do.” She picked up the next batch of tubes and began extracting their contents. All she had to do was reverse the address on each tube and pop a reply in. Emilie deserved to have won the all-around academic award. She was brilliant. “At this rate we could be finished by teatime, just in time for the next mail.”

“It almost makes you wish you had no acquaintance, doesn’t it?” Emilie bent to her task.

“Almost.” Claire directed her attention to the pile in earnest.