Garlands of Gold (25 page)

‘What of your mother?’

‘She died at my birth.’

‘That was a sad loss for you,’ she said sympathetically. ‘I never knew my father and when I was young I envied my friends who had fathers to take them skating and to fairs and all else.’ She did not want to bore him with her reminiscences and gestured towards the library shelves. ‘I should like to publish a book one day. But before that can come about – and how one gets a book published I do not know – I aim to have a little shop in which to sell my wares.’

His interest had sharpened. ‘What would your book be about?’

‘How my products can improve and even restore women’s beauty. I have a record book where I have written down countless receipts that I learned from my mother, including many that were handed down to her from her mother, and others that are of my own invention. Most of them are herbal and none contain anything at all harmful. I’ve looked at books on the subject that appear sometimes in a tattered state on stalls or pristine in bookshops. Not only is it alarming to read some of the ingredients that are included in lotions and other products for the face, but without exception all of the books I have looked at combine the subject of beauty with household hints and medical advice of a frightening nature. I believe that such a book as mine would be welcomed by women if ever it could come into print, even though my mother always told me to keep the secrets of my products to myself.’

‘Maybe she meant until the time was right,’ he suggested, but then paused briefly on a frown as he glanced around the room. ‘Is there any wine here?’

‘No. Only in the cellar.’

‘I’ll fetch a bottle.’ He returned quite quickly with a dusty bottle and two glasses. After pouring the ruby-red wine he handed a glass to her and then sat down again in the wing chair. As he sat back comfortably against the padded leather, he raised his glass ceremoniously to her before putting it to his lips. ‘Now,’ he began, ‘getting a book published privately can be a costly business unless it is done by the subscription method.’

‘How do you mean?’

‘You would call on all your clients and ask them for a subscription towards the publishing of your work. In return their names would be printed in a list of donors and it is usual to give a complimentary copy to each person. People like to see their names in print. If I wished it I could publish a book on architecture by the same means.’

She smiled, shaking her head to dismiss his suggestion. ‘I’m able to see how it would work with architecture or with any other such subject, but – being a man – you’re not able to see the barrier that would make my book impossible to publish by that method.’

He looked puzzled. ‘I don’t understand.’

‘None of the ladies that I deal with in my work would want the world to know that they rely on cosmetic artifices to remain beautiful.’

‘But paint and powder on women’s faces are so obvious!’ he exclaimed on a laugh.

‘Only when cosmetics are used crudely. My products are made to enhance.’

He narrowed his eyes at her. ‘Do you really believe a book such as yours would be sought after?’

‘I’m sure of it, but it is just a dream of mine. At the present time I have far more practical matters on my mind. As soon as I leave here I have first of all to make a living with a market stall. Then with time I should be able to rent a small shop.’ Her eyes began to twinkle. ‘Who knows? I might gain royal patronage from the Queen herself one day.’

‘A commendable aim,’ he said with a grin. ‘But now I want to discuss the business matter with you that would have brought me to London with or without my godson’s christening. I want you to hear me out before you voice any opinion.’

Smiling, she raised her eyebrows questioningly. ‘How on earth do you expect me to advise you on any business matter?’

‘You will be able to do very well in this case. I believe you have heard from Elizabeth – and perhaps from others – that Master Wren does not consider me a sufficiently pious man to work at his right hand on the cathedral and the many churches that are to be rebuilt, even though I know he approves my talents.’

Saskia nodded. ‘I have heard your situation mentioned.’

‘What’s more, he would have no hesitation in taking me on if I could present myself as a reformed character.’

‘Are you leading such a wild life?’ she asked teasingly on a smile.

He threw back his head and laughed. ‘In the dales of Yorkshire? There it is all fresh air and long walks!’ Then he paused briefly. ‘I’m not ashamed to admit that I have sown plenty of wild oats in my earlier years and some would say until comparatively recently, but those times are past. If I can present myself as a responsible man settled into marriage Master Wren will accept me into his fold.’ He tightened his hand into a fist on his knee, unconsciously displaying the intensity of his feelings on the matter. ‘To have the chance to design beautiful houses for graceful streets where once there were only slums and wretched pest-ridden alleys is every architect’s dream.’

‘Then you must find yourself someone to love and marry,’ she advised sensibly.

He had turned his head to gaze unseeingly into the fire, his thoughts far distant as he paused for a few moments before he spoke again.

‘I have found her,’ he said quietly, his frown heavy and his tone deeply serious. ‘Her name is Jane Montgomery and she would marry me tomorrow if the chance were ours. Unfortunately she is the daughter of the baronet for whom I’m building the York mansion and she is already betrothed. Her parents had arranged the marriage some months before I first went to view the site for the house and to have preliminary discussions about what was required in style and embellishments.’ He got up from his chair and moved restlessly across to the bottle he had left on the library table. There he poured himself a refill, she having shaken her head when he had glanced enquiringly at her half-emptied glass. ‘I wish you could meet her, Saskia. I believe you would have liked each other. She is beautiful and intelligent and everything any man could wish for in a wife.’

‘Is there no chance at all of her breaking that betrothal?’

He shook his head. ‘No, it’s signed and sealed.’ Then he returned to stand with his back to the fire as he looked down at her. ‘So now you and I are in the same boat. You can never have Grinling as a husband or lover and Jane is beyond my reach. Neither of us can have the one person that matters most to us.’

‘I’m learning to live with the situation and so must you.’

‘I’m taking the first step by being here to talk over with you the business proposition that I have in mind.’

‘What is it?’ she asked, her curiosity roused.

He sat down again, leaning towards her with an elbow on his knee. ‘As I said to you earlier, I must have a wife if I’m to get the work I want from Master Wren. Marry me, Saskia. It will be a business arrangement, a marriage of convenience as most are these days, but without demands. Separate bedchambers and, in a way, separate lives beyond necessary appearances together. In exchange for marrying me you’ll have a comfortable home and, if you should wish it, a shop in an elegant street where you could sell your beauty preparations and become financially independent. Then I’m sure you would find among your clientele some ladies willing to subscribe to your book. In return I can promise you without any false pride that my architecture will enhance Wren’s own beautiful works for centuries to come. You have nothing to lose, not even your virginity.’

She had sat still and speechless, but now her eyes widened even more. ‘You are very blunt in your speech!’

‘I’m putting all my cards on the table,’ he said in the same controlled and yet curiously angry way. ‘We should be equal partners, but – using discretion – we would go our own ways, although I suppose in your devotion to Grinling you are hardly likely to fancy anyone else. But it is not in my nature to live like a monk. I’m not asking for a reply now, but I want you to think about it.’

She had risen slowly to her feet. ‘I can tell you now that even a marriage in name only would be too high a price to pay for the loss of my freedom.’

‘Would it be freedom to end up managing a stall in a dirty London square in all weathers? All your grander customers would desert you. None would ever buy from a market woman.’

‘It did not put them off when I had my stall at the cottage!’ she retaliated fiercely.

‘Then you were a novelty. A pretty young woman with charmingly presented wares outside her own cottage. It was fast becoming a vogue to buy from you.’ He saw that he had surprised her. ‘Did you not know that?’

Subdued, she shook her head. ‘No, but I’m well aware how women can be swayed by fashionable notions that come and go.’

‘If it had not been for the fire you might eventually have made enough profit at your stall to rent a property, but it would have taken a long time again – if ever – before you could get a shop in an area where the right kind of affluent customer would have come to you. Now I’m giving you the chance to get business premises of your own a deal quicker than the decades that it would take otherwise.’

‘Aren’t you forgetting something most important of all?’

‘That we each may meet someone to love again?’ He gave a careless shrug of his broad shoulders. ‘Divorce is not impossible, although it’s a lengthy process.’

‘I’m not listening to anything more,’ she replied emphatically, rising to her feet. ‘You have put a most extraordinary proposition to me and I’m quite stunned and bewildered by it.’ She made a wavy movement with her hands. ‘I’m going to bed. Good night.’

He made no attempt to detain her. ‘Sleep well, Saskia. If you have any doubts about me I can assure you that as a royalist and as a gentleman I always keep my word.’

She did not doubt that he meant what he said. Englishmen of breeding were renowned for their word being their bond. In the hall she took up a candle-lamp from a side table to light the way upstairs. One phrase he had used danced in her mind. He had said she could make herself financially independent. It was like a beacon in the darkness. Therein lay the only true independence for a woman, but few could obtain it when by law upon marriage everything the bride owned became her husband’s property. Yet Robert had made it clear he would want nothing from her in any way. Had she become so mercenary that independence meant more to her than any relationship?

She shook her head fiercely against the thought. Since the love she had yearned for could never be hers she had to be practical about her future, fulfilling her life in another way. She would give his proposal very careful thought. If she should decide to accept him on the terms he had put to her she would in return do her utmost not to let Robert regret his generosity. She was determined that to the world she would appear to be the perfect wife for him.

In the library Robert refilled his glass again and sat down to finish off the rest of the bottle. He could not understand now why he had ever thought that if Jane had been free that she could even begin to take the place of the only woman he wanted above all others. Saskia was always a challenge and created depths of feeling in him as no other woman had ever done.

His thoughts drifted back to when he had seen her earlier that day and lingered on the memory of when he had opened the kitchen door. Botticelli’s Venus, rising from the waves, was not more alluring than Saskia in her wooden tub, reaching for her bath-towel.

Fifteen

S
askia gave her answer to Robert three days later on the morning he was to journey back to Yorkshire. His coach had been repaired with a replacement wheel and the restoration of the damaged paintwork before being returned to him. The horses, although they had been frightened at the time of the accident, had been unharmed. She had seen little of him. He had been out most of the time, keeping appointments by day and involved in social occasions by night, but now there was half an hour remaining before his departure and they had left the breakfast table to go into the library where a cheerful fire was blazing.

She held out her hands to the flames. Right up until this last minute she had been undecided whether to accept the offer he had put to her or to turn it down. She could tell with every nerve in her body that he was watching her, knowing that she was about to announce her decision.

In a curious way she felt that because of her mother’s hours of self-sacrifice in making up the collections of pots and flasks she was equally committed to such a task. It made no difference that the conflagration that had destroyed the collection had been no fault of hers. The guilt of losing what had been bequeathed to her would remain a torment until somehow her heritage was fully restored. Only then could she pick up the threads of her life again. Robert’s offer was a swift route to achieving her goal among other advantages.

‘I will enter this marriage of convenience with you,’ she stated decisively as she turned to face him, ‘but it will be exactly on the terms that you stated and we shall remain totally independent of each other.’

‘Agreed,’ he replied without hesitation. ‘In the meantime go ahead with the marriage arrangements. Get the banns read and order a whole new wardrobe of clothes for every occasion. I confided in Elizabeth that I hoped we would soon be wed. She will help and advise you. We’ll be married at Aldgate Church and have a banquet after the ceremony.’

She frowned. ‘Why were you so sure I would not refuse?’