Lady Roma's Romance (12 page)

Mrs. Keane came forward at once. Though she greeted Roma first, as was her right, the older woman eyed him with the greatest inquisitiveness. He felt sorted, catalogued, shaken out, and tacked down by the time she’d inspected every inch from hairline to soles.

“How are you?” Lady Roma said, shaking hands with her. “It’s a great pleasure to meet you again.”

“Thank you, Lady Roma. May I present my youngest daughter, Livia?” Mrs. Keane drew the harpist forward.

The younger girl curtsied to Lady Roma’s title, her gray eyes big. Then they slid to Bret. A smile not unlike her older sister’s, alluring and sideways, though less knowing, appeared on her gently rounded face. The rose scent she wore triumphed for the moment over her mother’s jasmine. “My sister has spoken of you so often, Lady Roma, I feel like I know you.”

“How kind,” Roma said, offering only a smile. Invited to sit down, she added warmly, “Such a charming room.”

“Oh, it’s impossible to find suitable lodgings in Bath, even now that they’ve built so many new places.”

“Never tell me this is a rented house? Furnished?”

“Why, yes,” Mrs. Keane said, surprised perhaps by this domestic turn.

“But surely you have added your own touches? It’s all so ... so artistic. The drapery, that arrangement of the vases on the mantelpiece ... Surely your landlord never put this room in such a splendid condition?”

Mrs. Keane turned her head from side to side as if she were also a new come guest. “Oh, I suppose the girls have garnished the place a trifle.”

“It’s quite delightful. I, alas, have no knack for making a place truly cozy,” Roma said.

Bret did not believe her. No woman who dressed with such propriety of taste could create any residence that would be other than a pleasure to dwell in. Her care for her father, too, would encourage her to make a pleasant resting place for him out of even the meanest hovel.

Mrs. Martin laughed. “I do enjoy decorating and redecorating our house. So different from the old dormitory. Do you remember how we weren’t even permitted to hang our own work over the bed?”

“My work was never worth hanging. Even the art instructress recommended I give it up.” She touched her lips with one gloved finger, as if to assist thought. “You had a sister who was rather the artist, didn’t you, Julia?”

“Oh, you mean Sabina,” Mrs. Martin said with a dismissive hunch of her shoulder.

“Yes, Sabina. Is she not with you on this visit to Bath?”

“She’s about somewhere. Running an errand, I think,” Mrs. Keane said.

Bret straightened, finding an answer to his wondering about this visit. Who was Sabina and was the sketchbook hers? If the sketchbook belonged to the “artistic” Sabina, why not return it openly, instead of having her maid smuggle the thing into the house?

He never could resist a mystery, and Lady Roma was growing more mysterious every time he met her. Beautiful yet completely unaware of that power, gifted with womanly talents yet content to be a spinster, he was drawn by the thrill of discovery, even of her apparent cunning.

Above all, he was happy she didn’t wear scent.

How it happened he was never quite sure, but his quiet theater party suddenly expanded. Now it was to be supper first at Lord Yarborough’s house in the Crescent and from there to the theater. The Keanes were invited, and he found himself pledged to bring all those of his friends that he could persuade.

“That is,” Roma said, turning to him, “if you don’t think Lady Brownlow will object?”

“I think it is just what she needs,” he said, truthfully enough.

“Oh, is that the same Lady Brownlow whose ...” Mrs. Martin’s words trailed off just as her mother exclaimed, “Where can that foolish girl be?”

It slowly dawned upon Bret that this was no ordinary social meeting. In a way, Roma was on a reconnaissance mission. But why was she hunting for the owner of the sketchbook and in such a roundabout fashion?

He wanted to help her, but he hardly knew how. It was obvious that she didn’t wish to ask any direct questions, so he couldn’t either. Turning to the youngest girl, he smiled upon her. “Do you enjoy the harp?”

“Oh, yes,” she breathed. “It’s my favorite thing to do. I could spend hours and hours just playing.”

She batted her eyes, pretty eyes, for all they were brown, not greenish gray. Like her mother, she was slender but with the bloom of youth softening her contours. If he had never seen Roma, he might be charmed, but somehow in the last few days, he’d found a new standard of beauty. Still he smiled at her. “I should very much like to hear you play.”

“Now?” she asked with an anxious glance at her mother. Mrs. Keane noticed and gave a quick shake of her head.

“No, no,” he said. “I’d rather talk to you.”

Very slightly, she relaxed. He wondered whether her practice had developed her talents or shown her to have none.

“Have you been long in Bath, Mr. Donovan?”

“Only a few days, so far. I’m visiting my aunt. And you ladies?”

“We’ve been here a week. I was visiting my sister, Mrs. Martin, and she always comes to visit Mama when she is taking the waters. She’s in excellent health, of course, but it is better to be safe than sorry, don’t you think, Mr. Donovan?”

“Who could possibly argue otherwise?” She looked a trifle blank at that, so Bret quickly offered her another conversational bait. “How do young ladies occupy themselves here?”

“Occupy ourselves?”

“Yes,” he said, realizing that no man would ever love Miss Livia Keane for her intellect. “If I, for instance, were walking along New Bond Street, at what hour would we meet?”

“Oh, Julia is ever so fond of shopping. It’s amazing I how often we’ll see something that we saw in town for much less here in Bath. The shopkeepers must be awfully clever, don’t you think?”

“So
you shop. What else?”

She bit her lip to assist thought. “Well, I do like to visit Sydney Gardens; they have fireworks there some evenings. And there are some pleasant walks by the river.”

“Your sister enjoys these excursions?”

“Oh, Julia doesn’t like to walk. She reads a great deal, always has a book by her. Reading is important, I suppose, but so is exercise. Don’t you think so?’

“Indeed. I have always been very fond of riding. But I meant your other sister, Miss Keane. Does
she like walking and reading?”

“Sabina?” Again, a fair shoulder hunched, slighting the missing member of the family. “She’s ever scribbling away at those little pictures of hers. Dreary. At least a book is easily carried about. A sketchbook is such an awkward size. And that dreadful satchel, full of crayons and paint. Her sleeves are always covered in oils. Mama’s always saying a girl shouldn’t look like a vagrant, and I think she’s quite right. Don’t you?”

Bret wondered if her mother had told her to always finish a thought by consulting the nearest available man for his opinion. He noticed that even when talking to one of the other women in the room, as when Roma drew her skillfully into conversation, Livia would still turn to him with wide eyes and a “don’t you think so?” He had only found it exasperating until Roma showed him that it was funny. After that realization, he did not dare meet Roma’s eyes for fear the spark of laughter in their depths would kindle his own.

After a correct half an hour, Roma rose. “Now remember you are all to come. I am most eager to meet Miss Sabina Keane. One cannot have too many friends, and as she is your sister, Julia, I’m sure I shall love her dearly.”

“Yes, of course she’ll come with us,” Mrs. Keane said, gently stepping on Mrs. Martin’s slippered toe when she would have spoken.

“Excellent. We shall dine early for Lady Brownlow’s sake and, of course, to make the curtain.”

Pigeon was waiting in the foyer,
sans
sketchbook. Once outside, Roma thanked him for accompanying her and tried to part from him. But he said firmly, “I shall walk you home.”

He couldn’t resist taking a last glance at the house as they started away and was not at all surprised to see the curtain pulled aside once more. He imagined all three Keane women were standing there and kissed his hand to them. The curtain promptly fell.

Roma laughed under her breath. “At school, Julia was famous for her inquisitiveness.”

“What about you?” he asked, mindful of Pigeon behind him.

“I was known for my deportment.”

“I meant, what about your inquisitiveness.”

“Mine?” she asked, shocked.

“Yes. This passionate yearning to know everything about Miss Sabina Keane. Who is she, besides the owner of that very ungainly sketchbook? “

“You saw that, did you?”

“I’m not blind or mentally deficient. You evidently wanted to return the thing to Miss Keane without her family’s knowledge and, at the same time, catch a glimpse of the girl. Who is she?”

“A changeling.” She smiled radiantly at the dumbfounded expression on his face. “Or so I hope.”

Bret frowned. “I don’t understand you.”

Lady Roma put her hands behind her back, her eyes on the cobbled street. “I shouldn’t say any more. We are strangers to one another, after all.”

“Not a bit of it,” he said, moved to protest. “We are cousins, or should have been. With the added merit of being in passage. It might be years before we meet again. Therefore, we combine the closeness of relations with the charms of the passing stranger. We can say anything to one another.”

Suddenly her whole demeanor changed. The prim, stately young woman that he’d met the last few times was gone. The eager, open friend of their first meeting had returned. “That’s it,” she said, unmistakable relief in her tone and face. “I mean... that’s true.” She glanced back at Pigeon.

In a lower tone, she added, “I do need to speak frankly with someone. Everyone I know, however, would have their own arguments to put forward, and I don’t wish to hear them.” There was a flash of temper in the last words, yet her voice had thickened as though with unshed tears.

Seriously alarmed, Bret looked about him for some quiet spot where they could talk. But all was Cotswold stone and faded brick without even a portico for privacy. Then, upon the right side, stood a small chapel with a deep, columned porch. Something about the name on a brown varnished plaque by the door caught at his memory, but he hadn’t time to search his mind.

The dim interior of the Laura Chapel was quiet and cool at this hour of the morning. An underscent of damp stone and beeswax polish filtered through every breath. Though it was eleven o’clock, there was evidently no service today. He guided Roma to a pew, leaving Pigeon to walk about, reading the inscriptions and dedications on the walls.

Bret took Roma’s hand and rested it lightly on his knee. “Tell Uncle Bret everything,” he said, rewarded by a smothered laugh.

“I’m a fool,” she said, lifting her head. Her beautiful eyes were the color of a dew-sparkled lawn. Freeing her hand, she fumbled in her reticule and brought out a sharply ironed handkerchief. “I haven’t any proof, not a shred, but I can’t help being troubled.”

Then she laughed outright. “You haven’t a single notion of what I’m talking about. I’m sorry.”

“It’s something to do with the oldest Miss Keane and her satchel?”

“Yes. My father met Miss Keane yesterday, somewhere in town. She forgot her bag.”

“Which leads me to ask, why didn’t he return it to her at once? He is acquainted with her family through you, isn’t he?”

“Yes. I can only imagine that he doesn’t wish her mother to know they met.”

“Having met Mrs. Keane . . . but no. T’would be ungentlemanly to say what I’m thinking.”

“Every mother wants an advantageous marriage for her daughter. Mrs. Keane is no worse than many others.”

“Then you can’t blame your father for not wanting to fall into her clutches. But it’s not that fear that has you so overset, my lady. Or is it?”

She let her hands fall helplessly. “The way he spoke about Miss Keane . . . I’ve never heard such a tone in his voice before. Such admiration, such tenderness. I don’t believe in love at first sight, but he was changed by meeting her, I’d swear to it. Powerfully changed.”

“A man can, indeed, be changed by meeting the right woman, there’s no doubt of it,” Bret said, his voice softening. Then he grew brusque again. “I’ve known a dozen such cases. Of course, they were all young men with hot blood and short life expectancies. Your father would be—what?—fifty?”

“He’s forty-six.”

Bret took off his hat, the better to run his hand over his head. “It’s a difficult age, indeed. How long has he been a widower?”

“All my life.”

“I see. Well, I can’t blame you for not wanting him to marry again considering how long it’s been the two of you alone.”

She laid her hand on his arm. “No, you don’t understand. I should like it above all things if Father were to find a bride. A quiet woman who would be of use and comfort to him would find me a most sympathetic and loving daughter. Only ...” She paused, seeking words. Bret realized they’d come to the crux of the matter.

“Only...” he echoed.

“What becomes of me?”

“Of you? What should become of you? You’ll go on as you have done. I met your father for only a few minutes, but he didn’t seem the sort to throw you into the cold just because he marries again.”

She sighed and looked off into the distance. “I suppose it is hard for a man to understand. You see, I have been the mistress of my own household, or as good as, since I was sixteen. I fancy that I am good at it. But if Father marries, then his wife will do those things a countess should do.”

“As well she should.”

‘Yes, you’re right. They would become her duties, and she would rightly object to any interference on my part. But I do not think I could endure just sitting about.”

“ ‘Walking by the river and practicing the harp,’ ” Bret murmured.

“Only it’s riding and embroidery. And that is not enough to fill a day let alone a life. Well, there’s always good work among the poor.”

“You could marry,” Bret said, in the spirit of one moving a pawn forward on a chess board.

“I doubt it. I am told that I am too ‘tragic’ to be attractive to men.”