Suzanne Robinson (16 page)

“That does it. I’ve had enough of your nasty temper and rattlesnake tongue. I may have to put up with a passel of money-hungry suitors for Papa’s sake, but I don’t have to put up with the likes of you.”

He’d done it again—lost his temper and antagonized her. He had to find some way of reconciling his feelings toward her.

Clearing his throat, he swiftly approached the tomb and inclined his head. “I apologize, Miss Bright. I was snappish, and it was uncalled for. Please forgive me.”

“You wouldn’t have to apologize all the time if you’d keep your manners.”

“I seldom have trouble keeping my manners, as you put it.” They regarded each other quietly. Then he said, “Why for your father’s sake?”

She looked at him in confusion.

“You said you had to endure your money-hungry suitors for your father’s sake.”

“Oh.” Miss Bright looked down at her parasol and touched one of its pearl-gray ruffles. “I promised Papa I’d make something of myself by marrying well. Papa set a powerful store by gentility, and he figured that a noble family was the most genteel of all. But he—he died, you see.”

“Yes?” he asked gently. When she didn’t answer, he said, “Come, Miss Bright. We’re to be partners in a dangerous game. Perhaps we should know more about each other.”

She shot a look at him. “You first.”

“What do you mean?”

“If we’re telling secrets, you go first.”

“Ah, I see.” He shrugged. “Very well. If you must know, my own father is a perfectly appalling blighter. The word
art
is a curse word to him. He uses books for firewood, and he has the sensitivity of a fence post.”

“Oh.”

“So you can see why I’m not enamored of Society and the idea of lineage.”

“You like art and books, and he doesn’t. He must think you’re a …”

“Indeed.” Cheyne smiled. “My military career annoyed him tremendously.”

Miss Bright smiled back at him.

“So,” he said. “Why did you make such a promise to your father?”

Picking up her parasol, Miss Bright twirled it. “Papa wore himself out making us rich. Wore himself into the grave, I think. The doctors said it was his heart. And when he was dying, he begged me to make him proud by bringing a title into the family. See, back home we weren’t accepted. The society folks thought we were uncivilized like you do. Mrs. Astor called Papa crude and boorish, even though she’d never met him. Nearly broke his heart.” She put a hand on the tomb and leaned toward him. “You see, Papa loved all the fine things people have made in the world, like great art, and music, and beautiful houses. He wanted to share his love, and he thought Society people were the ones to do it with.”

“Unfortunate.”

“Yes, I know.” Miss Bright straightened. “He never realized what they were really like. He never wanted to give up his dream.”

Cheyne walked around the tomb and stopped in front of Miss Bright. “And when he knew he was dying, he asked you to carry on making his dream real.”

“I guess you could say that.” She sighed. “Anyway, I promised, and I’ve never broken a promise to Papa. Not going to start now. And of course there’s Mama.
Mama
.”

“Who has a more practical view of the benefits of a good marriage.”

Miss Bright chuckled, causing Cheyne to feel gratified that he’d lifted her spirits. She’d seemed so sad when she spoke of her father.

“Pardon me, Miss Bright, but don’t you think it’s unwise to make so crucial a choice based on the wish of someone who’s gone?”

“And on what would you base that choice, Mr. Tennant?”

“On the merits of the gentleman in question.”

“Kind of like choosing a good horse?”

It was Cheyne’s turn to flush. “It’s better than choosing a man for an accident of birth. A more shallow and vapid manner of reasoning I’ve never encountered.”

Miss Bright stabbed the tip of her parasol into the flagstones. “That’s enough. You keep your sour opinions to yourself, ’cause you got no call to set yourself up as my judge, Mr. Saintly Tennant. Just
you write those letters, and I’ll write mine. The sooner we catch this blackmailer, the sooner I’ll be rid of you.”

“I agree,” Cheyne said. He gave her a mocking bow and offered his arm.

Miss Bright snorted, turned in a whirl of pearl-colored skirts and vanished through an archway.

 
11
 

She had lost the will to marry.

It was the first week of August, and Mattie sat at the secretary desk in her bedroom with the antique French gilt box that held Cheyne Tennant’s letters. She opened the box and placed his latest missive on top of the pile, then opened the cabinet in front of her and placed it inside. Dora was bringing her dress for this evening’s dinner party. The electric lights flickered, then settled down. It was the third time this week, and Mama was threatening to resort to candles.

She sighed and took up her pen, then put it down. During the almost two months she’d been engaged in this plot to catch the blackmailer she’d received seven letters, each of which served to make her feel worse than the one before. Reading them had made her realize what was missing from her life and from her relationships with her suitors.

Violent passion, a grand love that swept away any milder affection—these she never felt when she was with Avery Richmond. The only man who evoked passion in her was Cheyne Tennant.

Mattie’s hand reached for the cabinet, hesitated, and then opened it. She took out the newest letter and read it again.

Mattie sighed and put the letter back in the box. She’d never imagined that Mr. High and Mighty Cheyne Tennant could write like that. Each time she received one of the envelopes, she had to prepare herself to read them. She’d tell herself he didn’t mean what he wrote, he was just pretending, he
didn’t feel the emotions he described. It did no good. She would read his words and long to inspire them, to have someone say them to her, to feel as passionate as the imaginary lovers they had created.

What was even harder was having to respond, to match the emotions and the appeal of those letters. She should have done as Mr. Tennant asked and not written responses. She would have saved herself a lot of misery.

Hardest of all was separating Cheyne Tennant from the letters he wrote. She knew he was pretending, but against her will she felt the appeal of the man who could write the way he did. What would it be like to be loved by such a man?

Yes, she’d lost the will to marry. On top of that her efforts to reform her character seemed futile. Every time she behaved well, Tennant would destroy all her good intentions either by making her mad or by sending her one of his magical letters.

There was a knock at her door. Mattie shut the cabinet and rose as Dora entered holding a dinner gown draped over her arms.

“Phew. This thing’s heavy, miss.”

“Hmmm.” Mattie looked at the dress glumly.

Dora spread the gown on the bed, and they stood surveying it. Mama was giving her last dinner party of the season, a small one. Mattie was certain her mother intended it as an opportunity for the Marquess of Stainfield to propose. Wearing this particular dinner gown had been a special request of Mama’s. The dress had four skirts—teal-blue
peau de
soie
under accordion-pleated chiffon under plain chiffon and then a lace overskirt.

“That, Dora, is what’s called a décolleté dress, which means it practically doesn’t have a neck. And the weight of all those skirts makes it hard to keep it from slipping down, if you know what I mean.”

“Yes, miss.”

Mattie glanced at the maid. “No sign of the blackmailer today?”

“No, miss.”

“Something better happen soon. The Season’s almost over, and Parliament adjourns next week.”

“Now, miss, you know what Mr. Tennant said. It’ll take a bit of time for the blackmailer to get wind of the affair, and time for him to plan his move.”

“I know,” Mattie said. She slipped off her dressing gown. “Help me climb into this rig, and then you can have your night off. You’ve been working straight since you came. One night isn’t going to hurt, and Mama’s maid can see to my hair.”

“Thank you, miss.”

An hour later Mattie helped her mother receive their guests in the hall of Spencer House. Mama had invited the Countess of Ixworth and Mr. Cheyne Tennant, the Honorable Lancelot Gordon, Dr. Elland Capgrave, Narcissa Potter, Sir William and Lady Julia Stellaford and, of course, Avery.

Sir William and Lady Julia were the first to arrive. Sir William was a hearty young man of solid build with eyes that belonged to a humorist on a musichall stage, and his
joie de vivre
found its match in his
wife’s ability to look at the world through a lens of merriment. He’d brought his new Kodak camera box with the intention of commemorating Mrs. Bright’s last dinner party.

“Shall I have to sit very still?” Mrs. Bright asked.

Sir William grinned and held up the camera box. “No, dear lady. I push a button, and it’s over.”

“Sir William has photographs of Egypt and Persia, Ma
ma,
” Mattie said.

As Mrs. Bright chatted with the Stellafords and Avery, Mattie turned to see Cheyne Tennant enter with his friend Lancelot Gordon. Tennant greeted her coolly and went to introduce Gordon to Narcissa Potter. Soon everyone had arrived and assembled in the Painted Room upstairs. Mattie spent most of the time talking to Rose Marie and Dr. Capgrave in order to avoid Avery. He was growing more attentive, and she suspected he’d soon make an offer of marriage.

“You were very kind to have invited me,” the countess said.

“Nonsense,” Mattie said. “You’re one of the few ladies in Society who can put two sentences together and make sense. You and I are going to have a long talk about women’s suffrage here in England.”

“I shall be delighted, my dear.”

“Of course, I’m sure we’ll scandalize your friends with such talk,” Mattie said.

Rose Marie nodded. “Yes, but the greatest obstacle before us is the fact that women don’t have money.”

“I do.”

“But you’re an exception.” Rose Marie put her hand on Mattie’s arm and drew her aside. “Ask some of your married friends. Most of them hardly see ten pounds cash in a month. They have accounts with merchants, and their husbands pay the bills. There lies the source of a husband’s power and a wife’s dependency.”

Rose Marie’s body was stiff with repressed indignation. “The great Society hostesses who refuse to call on me don’t know the value of tuppence, much less a pound.”

Mattie caught a glimpse of deep unhappiness in the countess’s eyes and turned the conversation in another direction. She couldn’t imagine what it would feel like to be rejected publicly year after year. Rose Marie Seton had given countless balls, contributed a fortune to Society’s favorite charities, all to no good. Her low birth counted more than her good character. Rich Americans escaped this ostracism in spite of their origins, mostly due to their vast fortunes and the patronage of the Prince of Wales. Mattie wouldn’t have blamed Rose Marie if the woman had resented her for the ease with which she’d been accepted in the highest circles.

While Mattie was contemplating the unfairness of life, Lancelot Gordon sought out the countess, and she was joined by Dr. Capgrave.

“Are you as contemptuous of Society as you were a few months ago, Miss Bright?” Dr. Capgrave asked her.

Mattie had been watching Tennant, who was part
of the group around Narcissa, but dragged her attention back to the doctor. “I’m not contemptuous.”

Capgrave only smiled. He was from an old county family the lineage of which predated that of the royal family, and Mattie remembered Mama saying that he came to London more for the theater, the opera, and the paintings he could buy than for the delights of the Season. Tennant had told her Dr. Capgrave’s lack of a title or position was deceptive. His friend had a unique ability to bring men of power together and convince them to work together. His opinions influenced ministers, royal, judges, banking magnates, and generals. Leonine and auburn-haired, he appeared younger than his forty-five years and looked at the world through a heavy-lidded gaze.

“He’s a remarkable young man,” Capgrave said.

“Who?”

“Cheyne,” Capgrave said with a look of amusement. “I noticed that you’ve been staring at him.”

“I don’t think so,” Mattie said, hoping her face wasn’t pink.