The Bolingbroke Chit: A Regency Romance (32 page)

To cure herself of her lovesick swooning, Agatha called to mind the look of unrestrained horror that had swept across the viscount’s face the moment he’d raised his head. As hurt as she was by his reaction, as disconcerted as she was to feel the sting of coldness while her body was still steeped in heat, she wasn’t entirely surprised, for her mother had warned her repeatedly of the irrepressibility of male lasciviousness. All men, Lady Bolingbroke had explained, even the best of them, succumbed at times to their base desires, giving in to a primitive impulse they could not deny and instantly regretted. Naturally, Agatha had treated this grave pronouncement with suspicion, assuming her mother had exaggerated the extent of the problem to underscore her point, but now that she had experienced the mercuriality firsthand, she believed it. The outrageous lengths to which society went to ensure a young lady was never alone with an unmarried man suddenly made sense.

With this discouraging truth in mind, Agatha conceded the futility of trying to sleep and presented herself for breakfast before Mrs. Brookner had finished toasting the rolls. While she waited, she poured a cup of tea and flipped through the early edition of the newspaper. She tried to read an article about an act regulating the practices of apothecaries, but she could not keep her mind on the story and read the same sentence three times before giving up. Next, she sought out a more frivolous item, and although she succeeded very well with an article about fashionable colors for ostrich-plumed hats, it, too, failed to draw her attention away from Addleson.

Sitting still was excruciating, so as soon as she finished her plate of eggs, she excused herself from the table to the surprise of her mother, who had only that moment settled in for a nice long coze about Lord Addleson. Her attempt to have a tête-à-tête with her daughter the night before had been frustrated by a canister of crimson paint, which had spilled so thoroughly that Agatha spent the rest of the evening scrubbing her skin.

Or, at least, that was what Lady Bolingbroke had been told. She had suspected the canister of crimson paint was a diversionary tactic but had been unwilling to risk her pristine silk dress to prove it.

But it was morning now and her ladyship wore a well-loved morning gown and her daughter’s skin was without marks, red or otherwise, which made her doubt the story even more. Lady Bolingbroke did not know which development she was more eager to discuss—the length of Addleson’s visit (63 minutes!) or his departing gesture (a kiss on Aggie’s hand!). She only knew she was determined to discuss them both in minute detail over breakfast, and she would have, if Agatha had not run off as soon as she had sat down.

While her mother drew her brows in frustration, Agatha sought refuge in her studio, but the quiet room, which had always been a source of comfort, felt diminished in the wake of Addleson’s visit.

How dare he do this to her—invade her space, undermine her confidence, cut up her peace, destroy her focus!

Agatha had never been so surprised in the whole of her life as when Addleson asked to see her studio. Surely, he knew her offer to repay him, as sincerely as it was posed, was merely compliance with polite convention. She didn’t actually mean to compensate him for his efforts, for what could she possibly have that he would want? Her shock had been so deeply felt, she didn’t have a clue as to how to respond. At a loss, she had sputtered—actually sputtered like a dollydrip who had lost the thread of conversation. And then, worse yet, she had used her mother as an excuse. Her mother! Not since she was a girl in leading strings had she invoked her mother’s name to extricate herself from a situation.

She knew better, of course, than to imbue the extraordinary request with more meaning than it contained. Addleson’s admiration for Mr. Holyroodhouse’s skill had been expressed before he knew the artist’s true identity, and his desire to see her workspace likely extended from that respect. His interest was in the functional details of her craft, the mechanics of creating a piece of art, like examining the springs and gears of a clock to understand what made it tick.

But even as Agatha assured herself of the impersonality of his appeal, she could not convince herself that a man of his remarkable perception didn’t understand the exact nature of his request. He knew what he was asking—to see her very soul—and because nobody had ever shown interest in that meager apparatus before, she’d found the entreaty impossible to resist. For years, the two people who loved her most in the world had treated her studio like an inconvenience to be suffered, her mother despairing of the paint-splattered surfaces and her father decrying the wasted storage space. Neither had ever cared enough to look.

And now finally someone had.

It had been unnerving, yes, to stand quietly by while Addleson thoughtfully examined her paintings, moving canvases around to scrutinize each work, but what a pleasure it had been, too. Unused to the attention, she had relished the novelty and hoped he saw what she saw when she looked at her work: unlimited potential. She wasn’t as adept with a paintbrush as she could be, not yet, but with enough time and training, she would be as good as the best Dutch master.

Addleson must have recognized something, for a change had come over him as he studied the paintings in the corner and all at once he had seemed different. The light in his eyes—that bright, knowing gleam—was suddenly a burning flame, and she had been at a loss to explain it, as the paintings were merely a series of unfortunate self-portraits, each one more dreadful than the last. She had tried so hard to make herself beautiful but could not when the moment came to add a flattering luster to her true image.

Perhaps it was the simple honesty of those paintings, the straightforward truth about herself that she hadn’t tried to gloss over, that moved him to speak honestly about himself. She did not know why she had asked the question about Lord Addlewit, other than his easygoing manner made her feel overly familiar, and although she wasn’t at all surprised by his rebuff, his sincere and candid reply astonished her. She had known instinctively that she was the recipient of a very great gift and resolved not to spoil it by calling attention to herself. She spoke only when she could not stop herself, and she kept her tone measured and calm.

Listening to his quiet explanation, she had felt the same connection she had felt in the library, and when his lips met hers in a soul-tripping kiss, she thought for sure he felt it too. What a glorious kiss—soft, sweet, gentle, reverent. It had been everything a naïve young schoolgirl dreamed of in a first kiss, and in that moment when his lips touched hers, in that flash of heat and awe, she could see it all: the large attic studio swimming in sunlight and Addleson in the corner reading while she painted, the companionable silence, the mutual respect, the delight in each other’s company, even the passion that would flare up when her work was done.

Naïve young schoolgirl indeed!

Had anyone ever built such a towering castle in the air?

The castle came crashing down quickly enough as Addleson announced in that cold, indifferent tone that he must apologize for his inappropriate, inexcusable and disgraceful behavior.

What an exhaustive list of adjectives to heap onto one small act. Had he left any disheartening words out? Could he not have squeezed
horrible
and
repulsive
in there too?

He had cut her to the quick, standing there in her studio, in her sacred space she had never shared with anyone before, rejecting everything she was. For years, she had longed for someone to care enough to try to piece together a full picture from the scattered images in the small, dark room. He had. He had seen the whole and turned away in disgust.

Distraught, she had watched him climb over the window, his fine tailcoat hitching on a nail, his cravat unraveling, and the amused look in his eyes, which reveled in the absurdity of the moment—a privileged nobleman tugging his body over a grimy windowsill—deftly exposed her beloved studio as the paint-splattered storage room it had always been.

No, she thought angrily, pounding a fist on the table, she would not let Addleson diminish her, and she would not let him take the one thing that mattered.

With single-minded determination, she grabbed paper and ink and began to sketch. She had nothing in mind to begin, so she drew what was in front of her: the table, the chair, the window behind them. With each stroke of her pen, she felt less and less like a lovelorn schoolgirl. Slowly, her thoughts cleared, her anxiety eased, and she found the humiliation of yesterday start to subside. Ideas took form as she thought about the plan to outwit Townshend, and before she knew it she had a picture in her head of Townshend in a Newgate prison cell, his complacent grin replaced by a look of utter desolation. She imagined the filth and despair that filled the tiny room, the darkness and anguish that seeped into every corner of your being until you were nothing but a hollow man staring blankly at the destruction of your soul.

With nimble fingers, she quickly drew a long, narrow prison cell with chains on one wall and a tangle of stringy hay for a bed. On the far side, she added a small window, with its black bars and stingy ray of light. She placed Townshend, thin and gaunt with a long gray beard with a family of small mice nesting in its hairs, in the center of the room, the sharp angle of his knee protruding like a bone. Then, in large capital letters, she wrote
filth
on the wall,
despair
on the hay bed and
darkness
on the shaft of sunshine pouring through the window. Next to his figure, she wrote
anguish
and added an arrow so that it pointed clearly to the abject misery on his face.

Satisfied, she signed the drawing with a lavish script, employing her given name for the first time ever. Then she removed the sheet and began another picture of Townshend in Newgate, this time sparing him the wretchedness of the prison cell and advancing him straight to the gallows. She stood his pitiful figure on the scaffold and hung the noose a mere inch in front his head. Above the crowd of spectators she wrote
merciless,
near the rope she wrote
cruel
and into the gallows itself she engraved the word
hopelessness.
Her next drawing depicted Townshend in the prison yard surrounded by cold-blooded murderers and thieves, the high brick walls of the imposing building obstructing the sun so thoroughly no plants could grow. Again, she added identifying tags:
futile
for the dead flowers,
bleak
for the high walls,
pitiless
for the roughs in the yard.

She was in the middle of a fourth drawing—Townshend eating a gray slimy substance (
ruthless
) from a cracked bowl (
desperate
)—when Ellen entered the room.

“This came for you, miss,” she said, depositing a black oval tin box on the table next to where her mistress was working. She placed a white envelope on top of it. “There’s a note too.”

Thoroughly immersed in her work, Agatha looked up from her drawing and stared at the box with confusion for a moment. She hadn’t ordered any new art supplies recently, had she? Then she remembered Addleson’s promise to provide her with a wig and glanced at the time. Twelve o’clock already?

At once, Agatha jumped out of her chair and reached for the letter, which she hastily tore open. She nodded as she scanned the contents—plan proceeding nicely, Townshend agreed, Rusty Plinth at two, expect carriage at twelve-thirty—and asked Ellen to help her change. While her maid unfastened the buttons on the back of her dress, she removed the wig from the box and examined it closely. It was certainly more modern than the one she had unearthed in the attic, its color a rich brown and its style simple with a queue tied with a leather band. It was also lighter than its predecessor, which she hoped augured well for a decreased level of itchiness.

The rush to transform into Mr. Clemmons—pin up hair, flatten chest, widen jawline—kept her mind so fully occupied that she didn’t think of Addleson until forty-five minutes later, when she was climbing through the window of her studio, the same window through which the viscount had climbed hours before. She looked back at Ellen, thanked her for all her help and reminded her to invent a large, messy mishap if Lady Bolingbroke should request her presence.

“I don’t expect to be gone very long,” Agatha assured her.

“Very good, my lady,” Ellen said. “Do be careful.”

Following her request, Addleson had instructed the driver to wait for her several doors down from her own, so Agatha climbed into the carriage in front of 45 Portland Place. Although the ride to the docks was uneventful, she felt increasingly agitated with each mile covered and, needing to keep her fingers busy, she compulsively tied and untied the purple ribbon that encased her drawings of Townshend, which she planned to present in place of his letters.

Take that, you sniveling coward, she thought as she imagined calmly handing the packet to Townshend as the fact of his defeat slowly occurred to him.

She smiled in anticipation.

Then the carriage stopped in front of a brick building on a narrow street, and her heart plummeted to the floor of her stomach as the carriage door swung open to reveal Addleson. Unaffected by the events of yesterday, he wore a delighted grin and sketched a fleeting bow.

“Mr. Clemmons,” he said, “how very good to see you again.”