“We’ve had Lady Shrewsbury to tea a dozen times and put up with her pasty-faced little daughter for any number of house parties, and yet she waltzed past me without so much as a how-de-do.” Constance gave an injured sniff. “And do you want to know why?”
“No, but I expect you’ll tell me.” Artemisia sipped her chocolate, hoping Cuthbert would return shortly with a plate of buttered eggs. She made do with a spare breakfast of tea and toast before beginning her work each morning. By the time the rest of the household roused, Artemisia had worked up an appetite. And this morning’s session with Mr. Doverspike had roused more than a taste for jam and crumpets.
With a steely glint of triumph in her light gray eyes, Constance plopped down a dog-eared copy of The Tattler. “Imagine my horror at seeing your peccadilloes flaunted before the entire ton. Your outrageous and lewd behavior is robbing your sisters of a chance for happiness. Really, Artemisia, it is too bad of you. What will people think?”
“If people want to believe ill of a person they will, whether they read it in a scandal sheet or not,” Artemisia said evenly. “The only thing worse than being accused of lewd behavior is having it not be true.”
Delia erupted in a giggle that was immediately silenced by Constance’s black frown.
“Mother, I have never engaged in lewd behavior.” The Tattler’s scathing words still stung her heart, but her mother’s belief in them hurt even more. “Those who know me can attest to my faithfulness to my husband, my dutiful mourning of his passing and that my bed has been cold as a nun’s ever since.”
Artemisia didn’t feel the need to add that her marriage bed had been nearly as chilly as her widow’s bower.
“Honestly, dear, you might temper your speech.” Her mother’s brows lowered. “Have a care for your sisters’ delicate ears.”
“And have them go to the marriage bed as ignorantly as I went to mine?” Artemisia shook her head. If not for the frantically whispered explanations from Rania, her beloved Indian ayah, the mercifully brief coupling with her elderly husband would have been horrifying instead of just painful and embarrassing. “Knowledge of the world is the best defense against it. Delia and Florinda deserve better.”
“Listen to you,” Constance said with a forced laugh. “As if marriage was a thing to be guarded against. You did well enough for yourself by it, Your Grace.” Her mother’s tone dripped acid.
Despite the four-decade difference in their ages, Theodore Pelham-Smythe, the Duke of Southwycke, was considered quite a catch for a girl with nothing but precocious artistry and her father’s impressive fortune to her credit. Southwycke had gained a badly needed infusion of funds and Angus Dalrymple’s eldest became a “by-God Duchess.” Few could cross the chasm from well-moneyed nabob to the lofty heights of aristocracy, but the canny Scot had managed it by arranging his daughter’s splendid match. Artemisia looked upon the marriage as a sort of last request from her father and went willingly, if unenthusiastically, to the altar.
“If you’ve no thought for my peace of mind,” Constance said with pursed lips, “you might at least guard your behavior in order to allow your sisters their chance at a titled match.”
“There’s more to life than a title,” Artemisia said with a shudder at her wedding-night memories.
For form’s sake, His Grace had visited her boudoir once a week. Those hours were most often spent playing companionable chess before her fire. Sometimes Artemisia read the latest installment of Dickens aloud while Theodore slipped into the light sleep of advancing years in his easy chair. The duke became simply “Teddy” to her in those quiet moments, and she mourned his passing as she might a distant uncle.
“I’ll happily settle for Lady before my name, thank you very much,” Delia said with a dramatic flourish that was an unaffected imitation of their mother’s theatrics. “What more is there?”
“W-well, what about l-love?” Florinda stammered.
“I suspect love is over-rated,” Artemisia said. Love she was prepared to do without, but lust was another thing altogether. Artemisia was determined never to marry again and lose the freedom of widowhood. However, Rania assured her that the duke’s unsatisfactory performance was no measure of all men. Intrigued, Artemisia was giving serious thought to acquiring an experienced lover, especially since her session with Mr. Doverspike that morning left her with a flutter in her drawers that wouldn’t settle itself.
Now at twenty-five, even with her title and fortune, Artemisia was firmly on the shelf, especially since her step-son, Felix, would come into his majority in little over a year. Once Felix took a wife, Artemisia would be known as the dowager duchess. That dour title fairly reeked of Epsom salt and stale breath.
Would any man, say even a man like Thomas Doverspike, want to bed a dowager?
But until Delia and Florinda were suitably wed, her parents and siblings would remain in residence. And Artemisia preferred to take a lover to her bed without having to sneak him past the room where her mother and her increasingly delusional father slept.
Since histrionics obviously weren’t swaying Artemisia into a more biddable frame of mind, Constance abandoned the pretense of tears and tucked the hanky back into her cuff. “You have a title to shelter behind. But how shall your poor sisters hope to find suitable husbands if your behavior causes us to be shunned by Polite Society.”
“Rest easy. We shall not be shunned. I received word yesterday that the Queen and Prince Albert plan to attend your ball,” Artemisia said. Young Queen Victoria had found such rapture in marriage to her somber German cousin; she heartily approved of love in general and was charmed by the idea of a masked affair. “The Russian ambassador has sent his acceptance as well. Once word slips out that the royals are coming, the rest of the ton will batter down the doors like a herd of stampeding elephants.”
“Surely th-they’ll have better costumes th-than that,” Florinda said with an innocent stammer.
“Eat your breakfast, girl,” Constance said, fanning herself in her excitement. “Remember what I told you about speaking out of turn. In fact, it’s best if you don’t speak at all, Florinda, darling. Men don’t like women who push themselves forward.”
She cast a reproving eye once more at Artemisia, then seemed to remember that her daughter’s title was probably responsible for this glorious coup. “Just think! The Queen and the Prince here in my—I mean, your—home. Oh, we have so much to do.” Constance pushed back from the table, pulled a slip of paper from her bodice, and handed it to Artemisia. “Here are the names of potential suitors for your sisters. They both seem to be eligible and come from the finest of families, but do have your Mr. Beddington do some investigating, would you, dear?”
Artemisia frowned at the list. “Lord Shrewsbury? The snubbing Lady Shrewsbury’s son?”
“He’d do quite well for our Delia. From what I’ve heard, the viscount has had a run of bad luck at the whist tables of late and is sorely in need of funds.” Constance smiled with feline satisfaction. ”Let’s see her Ladyship snub me with the Queen looking on.”
“And the Honorable Trevelyn Deveridge,” Artemisia read. “A second son?”
“The second son of the Earl of Warre. He should do nicely for the third daughter of Angus Dalrymple,” Constance said with a trace of annoyance. “I needn’t remind you how influential Lord Warre is in the House of Lords. Even without a title, Trevelyn Deveridge will one day be a man of importance. And his older brother has only managed to sire a string of daughters. Once the earl passes, Trevelyn Deveridge will be only one heartbeat from an earldom.”
“Mother, you’re talking about a man’s life,” Artemisia said, tight-lipped with irritation. Constance Dalrymple’s stalking of the aristocracy was as bloody-minded as her father’s beaters before a tiger hunt.
“Have I said anything untrue?” Constance said with a roll of her eyes. “I’m merely being practical.”
Cuthbert arrived with her breakfast in time to save Artemisia from making a reply she might later regret. “Mr. Shipwash has arrived, madam. He awaits your pleasure in the study.”
“Mr. Shipwash, Mr. Shipwash. Always he sends an underling. Why on earth do we never see Mr. Beddington himself?” Constance demanded. “I don’t care how astute the man is. Surely attending the Duchess of Southwycke is not beneath him.”
“I believe the Valiant has docked,” Artemisia said. “Perhaps he’s seeing to the disposition of the tea shipment we’ve been expecting.”
“Still...” Constance frowned, then pointed to the paper with the names on them. “Do be good enough to remember my request to him, won’t you, dear?”
Despite her growling belly, Artemisia excused herself and left her mother and sisters to stew over their costumes for the coming fete. Once she stepped into the hall, Cuthbert appeared at her elbow.
“Madam, before you begin with Mr. Shipwash, perhaps you would do well to see the other fellow who is waiting,” Cuthbert said softly.
“Another fellow?”
“Yes, Your Grace. He claims to have been sent by Mr. Phelps. This way, if you please.”
Artemisia followed her butler to the parlor where she found a young man twisting his cap in nervousness. He reeked of gin, but he ducked his head deferentially when he saw her.
“Beggin’ your pardon, Your Grace. I’m terrible sorry for bein’ late, but the idea of shuckin’ outta me skivvies had me all flummoxed. I only meant to stop at the tavern for a minute, to screw up me courage, so to speak. But after a few pints, I sort of lost track of the time.”
Artemisia listened in distracted disbelief as she studied the fellow’s features. Blond curls wreathed his head like a disheveled halo, framing a cherubically rounded face that was pretty as a girl’s. Obviously, he was Mr. Phelps’s answer to her quest for Eros, god of love.
But if this was the model she’d expected earlier, who was Thomas Doverspike? And why did he let her believe him to be her next subject? A sinking sensation dragged at her belly. Could he be that nasty reporter from The Tattler, come to ferret out her most intimate secrets by masquerading as her life model? It was too horrible to contemplate.
“It’ll never happen again, Your Grace,” her would-be Eros promised.
“Indeed, it will not,” she said crisply. “The position has been filled.” Then because the young man looked so crest-fallen, she turned to Cuthbert. “I believe this young man will serve Southwycke better in the stables than my studio. Might we have a position for him there?”
“Most probably, Your Grace,” Cuthbert said.
Her erstwhile model stumbled over himself, thanking her for the opportunity to muck out the stalls rather than strip out of his clothing for a few shillings. She left him in Cuthbert’s charge and hurried to see Mr. Shipwash.
Artemisia breathed deeply to quell the tremor in her chest as she walked the long corridor to the study. If Mr. Doverspike was a writer for The Tattler, it certainly explained his nosiness. His queries about Mr. Beddington became even more troubling.