Читать книгу Mischief in Regency Society - Amanda McCabe - Страница 13

“Good morning, Miss Calliope!” Mary sang as she drew back the bedchamber curtains, letting the greyish-yellow light of late morning flood across the room.

Calliope squeezed her eyes tighter shut, resisting the urge to draw the bedclothes over her head. How could it be time to wake up? She had only just fallen asleep. The long hours of the night she had spent tossing and turning, going over and over her hasty words to Lord Westwood. The anger she saw in his eyes.

Clio was surely right. She was fevered. It was the only explanation for showing her hand so early. She would never catch him now.

She needed to regroup. Strategise. It would surely all come back together at the Duke of Averton’s Artemis ball. The Ladies Society would see to that.

“Did you enjoy the musicale last night, Miss Calliope?” Mary asked, arranging a tray of chocolate and buttered rolls on the bedside table.

“Yes, thank you, Mary,” Calliope answered. She propped the pillows up against the carved headboard, pushing herself upright to face the day. No one ever won a battle lolling around! “Tell me, are my sisters up yet?”

“Miss Thalia has already departed for her music lesson,” Mary said, rifling through the wardrobe. “And Miss Clio is at breakfast with your father and Miss Terpsichore. She left you a note on the tray.”

As Mary organised the day’s attire, Calliope munched on a roll and reached for Clio’s message.

Cal, it read in Clio’s bold, slashing hand. I think we need an outing to clear our heads. Shall we take Cory to see the Elgin Marbles? She loves them so much, and we can talk there without Father overhearing.

Calliope sighed. Perhaps Father would not overhear them at the British Museum, but the rest of London would. Still, Clio was right. They needed to clear their heads after last night, and where better than among the glorious beauties of the Parthenon sculptures? Terpsichore—Cory—was a delightful girl, just turned thirteen now and wanting so much to be a young lady, and she deserved a treat after being separated from their younger sisters, who stayed in the country with their various nurses and governesses.

And surely they wouldn’t run into Lord Westwood there. The man probably didn’t rise until two at the earliest, and the Elgin Marbles must represent all he abhorred: treasures taken from Greece and displayed for Londoners.

“Mary, I shall need a walking dress and warm pelisse,” she said, swallowing the last of her chocolate. “And my lap desk. I need to send notes to the Ladies Society.”

They had battle plans to draw up.

The Chases’ de facto second home when in town was always the British Museum. They had been brought there since earliest childhood, escorted from artefact to artefact by their parents, instilled with a love for the past by the beauty of the pieces and by their father’s vivid tales. Many of their favourites—Greek vases, Egyptian sculptures, Viking helmets—were immortalised for them in their mother’s sketchbooks, kept by Clio since Lady Chase’s death in birthing the youngest Muse, Polyhymnia, three years ago.

But their mother had never seen the sisters’ favourite room of all, the Temporary Elgin Room—which was showing signs of becoming rather more permanent. This was where they went now, after climbing up the wide stone steps and passing through the massive pillars into the sacred hush of the museum.

“May we visit the mummies after we see the Marbles?” Cory asked eagerly.

Clio laughed. “Morbid child! You only want to scare your little sisters with gruesome tales of them in your next letter. But we can visit them, if there is time.”

Cory wrinkled her nose. “There won’t be. You two always spend hours with the Marbles.”

“You enjoy them, too, silly monkey, and you know it,” Calliope said. “Perhaps after the Marbles and the mummies we can have an ice at the shop across the way.”

Smiling happily with the promise of dead Egyptians and a sweet, Cory went off to sketch her favourite sculpture yet again, the head of a horse from the chariot of the Moon, his mane and jaw drooping after an exhausting journey across the heavens. Calliope and Clio strolled over to the back wall, where the frieze depicting the procession of a Panathenaic festival was mounted. It was quiet there for the moment, despite the milling crowds, tucked behind the massive carved figures of Theseus and a draped, headless goddess.

Calliope stared up at the line of young women, all of them gracefully poised and beautifully dressed in chitons and cloaks, bearing vessels and libation bowls as offerings to the gods. They were not as well displayed as they deserved; the room was cramped and ill lit, the walls dark. But Calliope always loved to see them, to revel in their classical beauty, in the procession that never ended. And today she was glad of the dim light, for it hid the purplish circles of her sleepless night.

“I have called for a meeting of the Ladies Society tomorrow afternoon,” she told Clio.

Clio’s gaze did not turn from the figure of the head girl in the procession, the one that held aloft an incense stand, but her lips curved down. “So soon? We usually only convene once a week.”

“This is an emergency. The Duke of Averton’s ball is coming up soon. We must be prepared for whatever might happen there.”

“Do you still think you-know-who plans to snatch the Alabaster Goddess away that night?”

“I’m not sure. That is why I said we need to be prepared for anything. Even nothing. The ball might pass off quite peacefully—or as peacefully as anything could at Averton’s house. The sculpture will stay in place…”

“But it will not stay in place!” Clio hissed. Her hand tightened on the head of her furled parasol, and for a moment Calliope feared she might stab it into the air, or at an unwary passerby. “Averton is sending it off to his infernal fortress in Yorkshire, where no one will ever see it again! He is a vile, selfish man with no care for his collections. Do you think that is a better fate for poor Artemis than to fall into the hands of the Lily Thief?”

Calliope bit her lip. “It’s true that he is well named the Duke of ‘Avarice’. I like him no better than you, Clio. He is a very—strange man. But at least we would know where the statue is, and one day a museum or legitimate antiquarian could acquire her. If the Lily Thief took her, she would vanish utterly! We would learn nothing from her then.”

“Honestly, Cal! I do love you, but sometimes you don’t seem to understand.” Clio stalked away, her parasol swinging, and left Calliope standing alone.

Calliope stared up again at the carved procession, swallowing hard against her pricked feelings. She and Clio were as close as two sisters could be, drawn together by their love of history, by the need to be “mothers” to their younger sisters in the wake of their own mother’s death. And she knew Clio had a temper that subsided as quickly as it flared. That did not make their little quarrels any easier, though.

What was it lately, Calliope wondered, that caused such arguments? First Lord Westwood, now her sister. Her eyes itched with unshed tears, and she rubbed at them hard. When she looked up again, she feared she was hallucinating. Lord Westwood stood right beside her, staring down at her solemnly, his glossy curls brushed carelessly from the sharp, shadowed planes of his face so that he seemed one of the sculptures himself.

She blinked—and found he was still there. She drew in a steadying breath, and offered him a tentative smile. “Lord Westwood.”

“Miss Chase,” he answered. “I trust you are enjoying your outing?”

“Yes, very much. My sisters and I visit the museum whenever we can.” She gestured towards Cory, who was still sketching the horse’s head with Clio leaning over her.

“I come here often, as well,” he said.

“Do you? I—I imagine it reminds you of your mother’s homeland,” she said carefully, wary of yet another quarrel. How could one speak of these controversial carvings without starting a fuss, though?

But he simply answered, “Yes. Her tales when I was a child were always of gods and goddesses, and even muses.”

Calliope smiled. “Perhaps then you have an understanding of how changeable a muse can be?”

He smiled in return, a quick grin that seemed to light up their dim corner of the room. “I have heard tell of such things. One day the muse will smile on you, the next she has vanished. Perhaps that is simply part of her allure.”

Allure? Did he then find her—alluring? She would have thought “prickly” or “annoying” more likely adjectives he would use. But then, did she not think the same of him? Annoying, and yet strangely alluring. She shrugged away these distracting thoughts and said, “Sometimes, too, a muse forgets her manners. Says things she should not. Then she must apologise.”

“Is that what this is, Miss Chase? An apology?”

Calliope sighed. “I fear so.”

He clutched at his heart, staggering back as if in profound shock. “Never!”

She laughed. “I would not have you think I was not properly brought up, Lord Westwood. I should not have said those things to you last night. My sister says I should blame it on the spell of the music or on the wine, but in truth I do not know why I said them. I was just rather out of sorts.”

“I suppose I have been out of sorts with you in the past as well, Miss Chase. Perhaps we can start anew. Cry pax.”

“Pax, then. For now.”

“For now. Come, let me show you my favourite of these friezes.” He offered her his arm, and though she only laid her fingertips very lightly on his fine wool sleeve, she could feel the warmth of his skin, the strength of his coiled muscle beneath the layers of cloth. His arm tensed under her touch, as if he felt it, too. That strange, gossamer tie. “There, that wasn’t too hard, was it?”

“Not at all,” Calliope answered.

He smiled, and led her to the end of the marble procession, where it curved around to the next wall. There was etched the very reason for the procession—Athena, seated in profile as she observed her offerings. She did not wear her usual helmet on her curled hair, but held her aegis on her lap and bore a spear in her right hand.

“She is your favourite?” Calliope asked.

“You sound surprised.”

“Perhaps I imagined you preferred one of the Lapiths and centaurs from the metope, drunkenly breaking up the party. Or Dionysus over there with his leopard skin.”

He laughed. “Oh, come now, Miss Chase! I do enjoy the pleasures of life, but I am hardly a centaur. Or a Dionysus. Were we not just speaking of orgies last night? His soirées tend to end so badly, with the participants tearing each other limb from limb and devouring the raw flesh. No, indeed, cannibalism is not for me.”

Calliope felt herself blushing again, an embarrassing red heat flooding up her throat to her cheeks. “I never quite imagined cannibalism as one of your vices, Lord Westwood. But tell me why you like Athena here so very much? She seems too rational and measured for you.”

“It is exactly those qualities—her rational calm, her dignity. My life has never held much of those qualities, pulled from pillar to post with my parents, and I crave them. I can find them right here, carved in this marble.”

Calliope blinked in surprise. True, the two of them had declared peace only moments before, but she could never have expected such an instance of confidence from Cameron de Vere, of all people. A wistful longing was etched on his handsome face, driving out the careless mockery.

“She is my favourite, too,” she admitted.

“And so she should be, for you are very like her.”

“I, like Athena?” she said, startled. “She would never have been rude to you at a musicale.”

“No, she would have struck me down with her spear. I must feel fortunate you wield no such weapon. Your tongue is quite sharp enough.”

Before Calliope could answer, there was a sudden commotion in the doorway, disturbing the church-like hush of the room. A ripple of comment, of tension. Calliope peered around the bulk of a headless goddess to see that the Duke of Averton had just made an entrance.

He was a handsome enough man, Calliope thought, she would give him that much. Tall, slim, with flowing red-gold hair that fairly shimmered in the dim light, and bright green eyes that took in everything around him in one penetrating glance. The only flaw on his handsome face was a slightly crooked nose, as if it had once been broken and not healed straight. His dramatic, almost Celtic looks were emphasised by his flamboyant way of dressing—a long cape where all the other men wore wool greatcoats, a yellow satin waistcoat, tasselled boots, and jewelled rings on his fingers. Rubies and emeralds.

The duke stood there for a moment until he was certain everyone watched him, then he swung his cloak from his shoulders in a great arc and deposited it with one of the many lackeys trailing behind him. The sweep of his arm seemed to encompass and embrace all the sculptures as if they belonged to him alone.

“Ah, the glories of Greece, the ancient spirits—we meet again,” he said, softly but carryingly. Then he turned and made his way towards the metope section, his entourage hurrying behind him.

Calliope almost laughed aloud. The Duke of Averton so seldom went about in town; it was part of what made his upcoming ball the talk of the ton. But when he did it was more amusing than Drury Lane.

“Ridiculous toad,” Lord Westwood muttered darkly. “What is the purpose of such a preening display?”

Calliope glanced up at him to find him glowering towards the duke, his long fingers curled into fists. Where was the lighthearted Apollo now? Westwood resembled no one so much as the ill-tempered Hades, lurking in his black underworld, wishing he could feed the duke limb by limb to his snarling Cerberus.

Calliope had to admit she rather liked that image herself. Of all the selfish collectors in London, all the people who hoarded their treasures while denying scholars all access, Averton was the worst. He never scrupled about where or from whom he bought his treasures, and the precious objects always disappeared into his Yorkshire fortress. But she had not known that Westwood had a quarrel with him. Indeed, Westwood seldom seemed to dislike anyone—except her, of course.

Yet it was more than mere dislike she saw on his face now. It was dark, unadulterated hatred, raw and primitive. And very frightening.

Calliope shivered despite the warmth of the close-packed room, and edged away from him until she felt the hard edge of a stone base against her hips. He seemed to notice her wide-eyed regard, and that glimpse of jagged emotion was quickly concealed behind his usual smile.

“I did not realise you knew the duke well,” she murmured.

“Not well,” Lord Westwood answered. “Certainly better than I would like. We were at Cambridge together, and the Duke of Avarice has certainly not changed much since those days. Except to grow even more vicious and brainless.”

Vicious and brainless? The duke was a menace, certainly, and had a reputation for eccentricity and rapaciousness. But vicious? Calliope waited, full of anticipation, for Westwood to elaborate, but of course he did not. Their brief moment of confidence was gone, and Calliope was soon distracted by the sight of the duke drawing close to Clio.

Clio did not even seem to notice the man’s theatrical entrance, or his stately parade around the room as everyone cleared a path for him. She was leaning close to a goddess sculpture, frowning as she examined it through her spectacles. The duke, much to the consternation of his followers, suddenly veered from his trail to stop at her side.

As Calliope watched, puzzled and concerned, he edged closer to Clio until his bejewelled hand brushed her arm. Clio spun around, startled, bumping into the goddess.

“Your sister should have a care around that man,” Westwood muttered.

“I have no idea what he could be saying to her. We hardly know him.”

“That won’t stop him when it comes to ladies. Even respectable ones like your sister.”

Calliope saw Clio’s hand edging back and up, towards the sharp pin that skewered her silk bonnet. Clio’s frozen expression and demeanour never altered, yet Calliope knew she would have no compunction about driving that pin into the duke’s arm. Or more sensitive areas.

Calliope took a step forward, intending to intervene, but Lord Westwood was there before her. He strode across the room, reaching out to practically shove the duke away from Clio. As the duke smirked at him, Westwood leaned in to mutter low, harsh-sounding words that carried to Calliope’s ears as only the rushing noise of a stormy sea. Clio eased away from the men, her hand dropping to her side, as everyone else in the room edged closer. A quarrel between a duke and an earl in the middle of the British Museum was not something to be seen every day! This was certain to be much talked of for days to come.

If only she and her sister were not in the midst of it, Calliope thought, perturbed. Yet even she could not help but stare at the two men, Westwood so full of barely leashed anger, Averton still smirking but growing in agitation, if the spasmodic opening and closing of his fists was any indication. It was a scene that hardly belonged in civilised London. More like those Lapiths and centaurs, wrestling in ancient stone.

Calliope shook off the strange spell that urged her just to stare at the growing fight, and hurried to Clio’s side. She took her sister’s arm and whispered, “We should take Cory out of here, don’t you think?”

Clio shuddered, as if she too were bound by some strange, wicked enchantment and only Calliope’s voice shook her out of it. “Of course,” she said, and rushed over to where Cory still sat sketching. Clio overcame her protests with renewed promises of mummies, and ushered her out of the Elgin Room.

As soon as they departed, Westwood and Averton broke apart, Westwood striding from the room without a glance backward. The duke straightened his waistcoat and returned to his friends, laughing as if nothing had happened.

Puzzled, Calliope stared after Westwood. How very angry he seemed! And to think, for a moment there, when they smiled and talked together so easily, she had thought herself silly for imagining him the Lily Thief.

Now, after witnessing that strange scene with Averton, she was more convinced than ever that he had to be the thief. And she was determined to prove it. One way or another.