Chapter 29
Artemisia paced her studio, trying to decide what to do. She rarely was at such a loss. Whether it came to business or her artwork or even helping Flora decide to elope with the footman, she usually knew the best course of action.
But now, she hovered in indecision.
She set the Beddington statue down on the table that held her model’s props. There was the Greco-Roman helmet. She fingered its crest, a half-smile on her face as she remembered the first time she crowned Trevelyn with it.
Back when he was Thomas Doverspike. Of course, even then he’d set her fidgeting in her drawers.
She wandered among her shrouded canvases, pulling off the protective sheets and examining each one. They were good, she decided.
But not terribly important.
She stopped at last before Mars, her hand hesitant when she reached to remove the drape. Difficult or not, she must see him. She yanked the sheet and let it fall to the floor. Her gaze traversed the canvas, noting the graces and insufficiencies of the work. Of course, she needed to redo his gen**als. She was ashamed that spite had led her to depict Trev with such pint-sized attributes. Besides, after their heart-stopping tryst, she had a much rosier view of that part of his anatomy.
In truth, she loved every part of him.
She looked at his face, drawn with anguish on the canvas. Why had she ever thought he was the god of war when so clearly he was crafted for love?
She loved him.
Oh, God! She loved him. The realization hit her with the force of a boot to the stomach. Then it galvanized her will as a bucket of cold water tempers steel.
She ran back to the Beddington statue and picked it up. It was the first evidence of her artistic ability and possibly the last to ever garner the honor of royal and critical praise. In a swift motion, so she wouldn’t have time to change her mind, she raised it over her head and threw it to the floor with all the force she could muster. The statue shattered into thousands of shards of fired clay, and the base cracked neatly in two.
“Your Grace, is anything amiss? I heard . . . oh!“ Cuthbert burst into the studio with Naresh at his heels. They skidded to a stop before the remains of Mr. Beddington.
The two of them must have been huddled by the door waiting for her summons. Artemisia thanked God she had such faithful retainers. She was going to need them.
“Everything is fine,” she said to Cuthbert as she knelt to sift through the ruins of her early masterpiece. She found the cylindrical device Trevelyn described nestled in the hollow of the statue’s base. She lifted it gingerly.
“‘Beddington holds the key,’” she whispered.
“Oah, yes, of course,” Naresh said with a puzzled frown. “Did you not know it was there?”
She turned to Naresh sharply, regarding him with fresh eyes. “You did, it would seem.”
The old Indian nodded. “The master, your father, he told me to put the key in the base and send to the great Queen over the water. Just in case, he said. Then when the sickness fell over him, I sent the message as he bid.” A pained expression stole over his brown features. “I did not know you were looking for it, Larla, or I would have told you, yes.”
“So you did much more for my father when we lived in your country than starch his shirts and brew his tea,” Artemisia said as she stood. “You were a player in The Great Game.”
Naresh straightened his back. “The master and I had many excellent times on the Grand Trunk Road together. Up and down all of Hind, we gathered the news that no paper will print and few will ever know. When your father heard of an injustice by the English, he saw to it there was change. When I caught wind of rebellion, I warned him. Between us, we hoped to make an India fit for both our peoples.”
“Then you know the names that are encoded in this key?”
“Not all of them,” Naresh admitted. “But if you pluck a single thread, will a cloth not unravel?”
Artemisia rolled the cylinder between her palms, knowing it represented countless men and women who were trying to continue the work her father began and Trev was pledged to bring to fruition. A plan began to take shape in her mind to protect those unknown Players, much as Naresh and Rania had shielded her family during the dark days of the sepoy mutiny. A plan that would hopefully see Trev and Mr. Shipwash freed as well.
“I know a man who wants to pluck that thread and pick up where Father left off,” she said. “But I fear he’s in terrible trouble and I need your help, both of you.”
Then she laid out the rough idea that had just come to her. Cuthbert and Naresh listened without comment until she was finished.
“Will you help me?”
Naresh smiled at her. “Even though you were not a child of my body, since I first dandled you on my knee, you have been the child of heart. It pains me that you must ask if I will help you.”
She stood on tiptoe to place a kiss on his sunken cheek. Then she turned to Cuthbert.
He didn’t say anything.
“Cuthbert?” His hesitation surprised her.
“Madam, I greatly fear that once I confess to you my activities of late, you will require neither my help nor my continued service in this house.” Cuthbert stood ramrod straight and unblinking, but a muscle ticked on his jaw, the only outward sign of his inner agitation. “My motives were of the highest order, you understand, but I now realize I have done you a grave disservice through my actions.”
With a queasy belly, Artemisia sank onto her straight-backed chair. “What have you done?”
“I have served Southwycke since I could walk, and it has ever been my aim—nay, my chief goal in life—to see the reputation of this house held in highest esteem,” Cuthbert said, unable to meet her eyes. “When you chose to flout convention with your choice of artistic subject, I thought perhaps the weight of public opinion might sway you to pursuits more appropriate to your station.”
“And you didn’t consider that sitting in judgment of my behavior was inappropriate to your station?” she said archly.
He nodded miserably. “Indeed, Your Grace, the thought crossed my mind more than once, but as I said, I felt I was acting for your greater good.”
“Very well, we have established that your intentions were pure and noble,” Artemisia allowed, unable remain upset with him when he was so clearly unhappy. “What have you done for my own good?”
He looked her squarely in the eye and held her gaze, something she couldn’t ever remember him doing for more than the flicker of an eyelash.
“Madam, I deemed you flighty and undependable and in grave need of public reprimand, which of course it is not my place to deliver.”
“No, of course not. Especially since you are so good at private reprimands.” Her tone dripped sarcasm.
“Nevertheless, I was approached by a certain member of the press who assured me that he would do all he could to amend the unfavorable opinion Polite Society had conceived for you. He encouraged me to believe that a glowing article about you would lessen the negative gossip. So I gave him information which to my sorrow, he used for very different ends,” Cuthbert said without flinching. Then his face crumpled in misery. “Yet this past night, you risked your own person in the interests of England and now destroyed a masterpiece that was dear to you in order to save others.” His pale eyes glistened. “I am unworthy to serve so gracious a mistress, but I do crave your pardon before I leave.”
“You mean you conspired with The Tattler?”
He shook his head, his expression sadder than a Bassett hound. “I would never see you shamed.”
A giggle made her belly quiver before it fought its way out of her throat. Soon she was laughing with near hysteria.
“Madam, I am overcome with remorse. Pray, do not take leave of your senses,” Cuthbert pleaded. “It would be more than one could bear.”
This statement only served to increase her hilarity.
“I will summon a physician at once.” He turned sharply on his heel and headed toward the studio door.
“No, no!” Artemisia finally managed to subdue her laughter and recovered her power of speech. “I’m not destined for Bedlam just yet, Cuthbert, though I daresay there are those who might argue the point.”
“Then why do you laugh when this is no laughing matter?”
“Because the things that used to seem so terribly important are so clearly not,” she said, the last of her giggles gone. “The ton may deride me all it wishes and welcome. I care not at all, if only I can see Mr. Shipwash freed and Trev—”
Her voice broke with suppressed emotion. She didn’t dare contemplate what had happened to him. He must be all right. If not . . .
“You’re right. In the eyes of society, I am flighty and undependable and in need of reprimand. I was all that you say. I still am. Since your opinion of me was but the truth as you saw it, there is nothing to forgive, Cuthbert,” Artemisia said. “Unless you still intend on quitting my service, in which case, I will never forgive you.”
A quick smile flitted across his thin lips. “One is gratified,” he said, his somber demeanor firmly back in place. “How may one serve you this night?”
A new idea struck her, one that might grant them all a thin layer of protection. It was no thicker than a sheaf of newsprint, but it was better than nothing.
“For starters, you can contact Mr. Wigglesworth again,” she said. “He doesn’t deserve it, but he’s about to be handed the story of a lifetime.”
* * *
Trevelyn wasn’t sure which sound stirred him to full consciousness—the steady drip of condensed moisture or the skittering of rat claws on ancient rock. He became dimly aware that he was lying face down on an uneven surface, his cheek pressed against grainy stone. He tried to open his eyes, but only managed one since the other seemed to be swollen shut. A sleek, fat rodent was nosing along the floor of his cell, trying to work up the courage to nibble on Trevelyn’s outstretched fingertips.
“Bah! Get away.” Trev scrambled into a sitting position. The rat disappeared down a drain in the center of the small space. Trev’s quick movement cost him a streak of pain that arced from the base of his skull down the length of his spine.
He brought a hand to the back of his head. A goose egg swelled beneath blood-matted hair. The last thing he remembered was straddling the ambassador’s chest with his fingers wrapped around Kharitonov’s neck. But for the life of him, he couldn’t remember why. A sudden burst of pain, a flash of light had splayed across his vision, then darkness. Someone must have clubbed him from behind.
He supposed he should be grateful they didn’t pump a lead ball into him instead. But the ambassador’s residence was on a fashionable London street. The neighbors might take exception to the report of a pistol and send a constable round to investigate.
Trev rose to his feet, swaying with nausea, the after-effect of the blow to his head. He was certainly far from the fashionable district now. In the dimness, he made out a few details of his cell—the rough ochre walls, the tally marks gouged into the sandstone by previous occupants, and the pervading stench of ancient misery leeching from the very rocks around him. A narrow corridor disappeared in either direction outside the bars of his cell, leading to the foot of a stone staircase to the left and down into deeper darkness to his right.