Smirke 01 - An Unlikely Hero (7 page)

“It doesn’t
seem to bother you.”

“Truth never
frightens me. Things are as they are, but I don’t expect other
people to believe or want the truth either. For instance, when you
told Lady Tate that she looked exactly like her poodle; you broke
her heart. Lady Tate will hate you forever because she doesn’t want
to know that she looks like her poodle. She wants to think that
people think she looks like the latest idea of beauty.”

“But she’s
seventy and I thought she looked adorable in her old fashioned wig.
I wouldn’t have said it if I didn’t think it a compliment.”

“I’m afraid
your virtuous intent becomes null and void when an individual’s
self inflated image of themselves is splashed by the truth.”

“And Mr Smirke
doesn’t like me because…?”

“My brother is
doubtless torn between finding you a beautiful desirable woman and
the fact you make him see himself as he really is…” Agnes smiled
with unholy glee. “…a most uncomfortable position for any man, but
for a villain it must be insupportable agony. Your father was a
genius.”

“But I want a
family. I need people to talk to. I hate being alone!”

“John’s very
similar. If he could he’d have a slave that would entertain him or
retire at the snap of his fingers. If you do decide to marry the
devil, be warned he’ll expect you to keep him company or warm his
bed on demand. If I’d been so unlucky to find myself his wife, I’d
have closed my eyes and thanked God I didn’t have to gut fish for a
living.” The mahogany bracket clock demanded attention as twelve
strikes announced that another hour of life was over. Miss Lark sat
numbly contemplating her awful future. She was the legal property
of a man who might force her to re-enact the images in his
favourite paintings. Perhaps he was a villain, but the night before
at table he’d made her feel like a beautiful woman who could ask
for the moon, have it plucked from the sky and put on her plate.
He’d looked like a man in love.

Her heart
danced in triumph. Her guardian was the breathing image of his
beautiful portrait and more exciting and dangerous than the man of
her dreams. Hopefully she’d persuade him to kiss her at least once.
Had she really seen love in his eyes or had she imagined it? It was
another depressing thought to add to the list. The probability of
dying an old maid seemed to solidify with every breath.

The hands of
the clock appeared to be slowing. How long was he going to sleep?
Miss Lark chewed another nail and wondered how she’d endure being
thrown back into the loneliness of Bolingbroke. Being near Mr
Smirke was proving more pleasurable than she’d imagined. There was
something magical about how he moved, the way he turned his head or
held his glass. He really was a beautiful painting come to life.
She sighed in despair; she’d lost her heart to a painting. If only
the painting would get out of bed.

John lay
entrenched under his covers ignoring his bursting bladder, stinking
armpits and rumbling stomach as the clock chimed twelve. As soon as
he rolled out of bed the clock would start ticking off reasons why
he’d spend the rest of the day feeling miserable. At the top of the
list was facing his ward’s large unhappy eyes as he pushed her into
his carriage. As long as he stayed in bed the day couldn’t begin. A
few minutes later he rushed from his bed and grabbed the chamber
pot. His bladder relieved, he stood shivering in his nightshirt.
Where was his blasted valet? The man had orders to appear every
fifteen minutes after eight to see if Smirke was awake. After five
minutes John felt he’d waited as long as kindness could ever
possibly demand. Picking up his discarded Sunday breeches still
lying on the floor, he pulled them on with vicious force popping
off several important buttons. Storming from the room, he shouted
for a servant and nearly tripped over an upstairs maid half buried
in a linen chest. “I want my valet. Go tell that lazy blockhead
Woods that there are two whole weeks before his next day off. That
means he has to work fourteen days before he can go whoring. And
tell him if I don’t see his surly lip in my room immediately I’m
going to…” How could one punish a lazy valet without involving
physical force? “…he’ll forfeit a new Christmas bonus.”

“But he’s dead
Sir.”

“I don’t want
to hear any of his infamous excuses. I want this hair off my face
and a bath before one-thirty.”

“I’ll get
Master James’s valet right away Sir.”

John took in a
loud breath through his nostrils, “Are you deaf woman? I want
Woods!” As he roared at the young woman he could almost hear a
heavenly pen scratching a check in the wrong side of a heavenly
piece of parchment headed, ‘John Sebastian…heaven or hell’?

“Woods is as
dead as a, a piece of wood Sir.”

“He can’t be
dead. He was perfectly healthy last night when I told him to go to
blazes.”

“Well he’s
good and gone this time Sir. He’s laid out on his bed if you wish
to pay your last respects Sir.” John whirled away and headed
downstairs for the basement. Woods couldn’t be dead; he was only
thirty-two.

A gleeful
looking boy met him at the bottom of the stairs, “If yer come to
see the body it’s in there Sir.” John pushed past three kitchen
maids crying into their aprons and walked over to the bed where
Woods lay in his shirtsleeves.

“Do you hear
me laughing Woods? Get up before I sack you without a reference.”
John bent down and snatched up one of the coins. “Get up!” The eye
snapped open and stared past him at the ceiling.

“You can’t
flog a dead valet, Sir.” John turned to find a sniffling chamber
maid looking at him as if he had two heads. “We were keeping each
other warm last night. He made an awful noise and rolled away. I
thought he was asleep, but he was dead.” John stared numbly at the
man who’d been shaving his chin, ironing his cravats and sharing
his sins for sixteen years. John began to tremble as he stared at
the lifeless body. He didn’t feel sad. He wasn’t even sorry that
the man was dead. He was overcome with terror. He was only a year
older than the dead man. He too could roll over one night and find
himself stitched into a woollen sack. He’d be thrust back into
awful darkness, tormented by his own company. He blinked away
unmanly tears as he swallowed a cry for his mother. He turned and
rushed blindly from the room, back up the stairs in search of
comfort.

***

Agnes looked
up from her embroidery to see her brother-in-law standing in the
open doorway looking in the direction of his ward with wild eyes.
“The fact that your valet is dead does not excuse you from social
niceties John. We didn’t want to know that you have a hairless
plucked chicken chest and we certainly do not wish to see the
remaining two buttons on your fall pop off and reveal nature’s
cruelty. Spare our eyes your unsightly flesh and go finish
dressing.” John didn’t hear Agnes as his ward turned her large eyes
in his direction. His heart erupted against the inside of the skin
exposed by the open neck of his nightshirt.

“Oh Mr Smirke,
you look dreadful!” Miss Lark jumped up and rushed to John’s side.
“You must have loved him very much.” His brain was swirling with
thoughts of cornflowers and kissing the lips attached to the
feminine hand kindly fluttering against his sleeve.

“Loved
who?”

“Mr Woods,
your dead valet.”

“What about
him?”

“You’re taking
his death very hard.”

“Am I? I don’t
want to go back there…”

“You don’t
need to. Someone else will stick him in the ground. In the spring
you can plant a tree over his grave. I’ll help you.”

“Plant a tree?
Who cares about Woods? I don’t want to die!”

“No one wants
to die Mr Smirke…well, not unless you’re one of those people who
want to do themselves in, but those people aren’t very sensible.
What sensible person would want to die when they could have
adventures and be loved? Not that I’ll ever have either…come to
think of it, why does anyone want to live?”

“I refuse to
die. I won’t go back there. I won’t. I refuse!” John drew in a long
shuddering breath, but it wouldn’t fill his lungs.

“Relax Mr
Smirke; let me help you to your room.” John groaned as the soft
warm arm around his waist turned his legs to jelly. “Do you have a
red beard Mr Smirke? I didn’t know a blonde man could have a red
beard. I like it…”

Agnes stepped
into the hall, “Joan Lark, where’s your good sense? He’s probably
spent all morning thinking of a way to get you to touch his
stinking shirt. You’re feeding his vanity. The next thing you know
he’ll need your help warming his bed.” Agnes’s eyes filled with
glee as John’s cheeks drained of colour.

“J…Joan?” The
word was a gasp of horror as John looked down at smiling lips only
inches from his own. “I thought your name was Jane…your name is
Joan?”

“Agnes…help…he’s fainted.” John cringed away from the smelling
salts and moaned into a silk draped knee as a feminine hand
caressed his cheek. “Mamma…”

“Your mother’s
in France with her new husband remember?”

“Go away Agnes
and spend your sympathy on your two hellions.”

“If Joan
wishes to befoul her skirts pandering to your theatrics you’ll be
replacing them, but don’t lie there all day. I’m expecting
visitors. I don’t want my friends to think I’d allow you to lie on
the floor to look up their skirts.”

John’s eyes
adjusted to ripples of light highlighting folds of black silk and
slowly looked up into cornflowers filled with concern. “It’s
alright Mr Smirke. You’re not going to die for a very long time.
I’m going to take good care of you.” The clock chimed half past
twelve as John closed his eyes and prayed for deliverance.

John stared
out the large rectangles of glass framed by green and gold walls
watching the rain. He was reclining on a Recamier day bed facing
away from Agnes and her stream of visitors wondering if any man
could be so wicked as to deserve Miss Joan Lark’s company for
eternity. An eerie peaceful feeling mocked any attempt to deny she
was ‘the Joan’ he’d been searching for. His black eyes drifted to
his immediate left and devoured the sight of the innocent beauty
embroidering a large cornflower on her apron. His mouth watered at
the pleasurable prospect of examining virgin flesh in private, and
then his mouth went dry at the thought of waking up and finding
himself shackled in Bedlam.

There was no
way he was going to marry the girl. There had to be a spinster
younger than seventy somewhere in England who could love him. The
war with France was over; he’d send the girl off to see Europe and
if she disappeared into the pocket of an Italian prince so much the
better.

Woods had been
dead for almost two weeks and John hadn’t yet managed to get as far
as ordering the carriage. Every morning he opened his eyes and
promised himself that he’d escort her back to Bolingbroke as soon
as he’d finished his breakfast, but for some reason he couldn’t
follow through. His heart tapped happily his chest as he let his
eyes wander from golden curls down to black slippers peeping out
from under her skirts. Any moment she’d say something strange,
something maddening.

“How’s your
drawing coming Mr Smirke?” It was a perfectly innocuous question,
and just the one he most did not want to be asked. His eighth
attempt to draw the pleasant scene out the window was not coming
along at all. His amateurish renditions made him cringe. It didn’t
look anything like the image in his head. He felt like throwing his
sketchbook out the window followed by his pencil.

“Mind your own
business.” He turned the page in his sketchbook and started
again.

“You could try
sketching something else. Perhaps it’s too dull a subject.”

“What a good
idea Miss Lark. Perhaps if you took off your dress and stood in
front of the window I’d be inspired?” With burning cheeks she
silently picked up her chair and forcefully turned her back on the
wicked man and continued embroidering. After ten minutes of being
ignored John was seething. Determined to be kind, he successfully
refrained from screaming at his ward to turn around. “Alright,
you’ve made your point. I shouldn’t have said it, but I told you to
mind your own business.” There was no response from the back of his
ward. “I didn’t actually mean it. I was being sarcastic.” After
five more minutes of deliberate silence his pride cracked. “I’m
sorry.” The words felt strange on his lips, but he sighed with
relief as she picked up her chair and turned back to face him as if
nothing had occurred.

“Would you
like me to move my chair in front of the window Mr Smirke?”

“Yes, that
would be helpful Miss Lark.”

“About
here?”

“That will do.
Dare I ask why you’re smiling?”

“I was just
thinking how the image of you sitting there sketching would make a
beautiful painting.” John glowed with pleasure as he concentrated
on sketching his ward oblivious to the rest of the room. Two hours
later he closed his sketchbook almost pleased with the result and
rubbed his chest as he watched his ward try on her finished apron.
The large bachelor button could only catch the eye, stitched over
her right breast.

“Umm…” John
coughed to clear his waterlogged tongue. “Do you realise men will
see that and think you’re announcing a desire to wed?”

“Yes of
course.” Her smile seemed to command the rhythm of his heart. “If
it was spring I’d tuck a real cornflower in my bosom and think
about the man I want to marry and wait and see if it wilted by
evening, but it’s not likely to make much difference. The man of my
dreams doesn’t want to marry a penniless truth-fairy.”

“What are you
talking about? Don’t tell me you think you’re a fairy.”

“Agnes…”
John’s question was forgotten as Miss Lark rushed to the window to
see who or what was causing the commotion outside. “What a
magnificent coach and six…they look like they’ve come a
distance.”