Rakes and Radishes (14 page)

“Too bad, because I can see you are dying for advice. Grapes?”

From within his bag of exotic treasures, he took out a beautiful green vine filled with plump purple grapes and dangled it before her. “Take one.”

Henrietta chose a juicy, fat grape and popped it in her mouth before she could think better of taking fruit from a possible lunatic. The sweet juice tasted cool and vibrant on her tongue. The man took two and chewed them, then neatly spit out the seeds, splashing the lake’s surface. “So you were going to ask me for advice because I gave you a grape,” he said, sitting down, crossing his legs underneath him.

“No.”

“But if you were going to ask for advice, it would be should you just marry some gentleman because the man you love is marrying that blonde chit you met in the park by accident several days ago.”

“No.”

“Is the letter from Lord Kesseley?”

“Good Lord, no. He is just a friend. Or he used to be a friend. Now I’m not sure what he is. He doesn’t talk to me, and I just make him angry. I shouldn’t talk about this.”

“So there is a third gentleman writing the letters. But you don’t love him like the gentleman who jilted you for the blonde chit, and Lord Kesseley is just a friend.”

“I don’t think this discussion should continue.”

“Don’t be embarrassed—in the history of romantic entanglements, this is mild. The answer is no, despite what society may tell you. If you have the freedom of choice and means, you shouldn’t marry someone unless you love him and he loves you.”

“So I’m doomed. Because the man I love doesn’t love me, and I just can’t conceive that I will ever love another man as much.”

“Of course you will.”

“But I’m old!”

“You’re not nearly as old as I am, and I’m still waiting for love.”

“How many times have you been in love?”

He squinted and looked at the sun. “You’re right, you’re doomed. I have only been truly, shamelessly, passionately in love once in my life.”

“What happened?”

“She married another man.”

“You give terrible advice.”

He held up a long, well-shaped finger. “Now wait, you may not be in love. I thought I was in love many times to find out I wasn’t.”

“How could you tell?”

He paused and twirled grass between his fingers. His voice darkened. “Look deep into your soul. The truest part of you. The most silent of places, where everything is as peaceful as still water. Is this man there?”

Henrietta looked for that place inside herself, finding nothing so still or serene. It was like a ransacked room, drawers open, clothes spilling out, papers and bottles strewn about. Chaos.

“I don’t know,” she cried.

“Sometimes it takes time for the waters to clear,” he said unhelpfully.

“But I don’t have time!”

He shook his head and let out a quick snort of a laugh. “Have another grape. In love or out of love, it is a glorious day. We should enjoy it while it lasts and not squander our emotions on circumstances or people we can’t alter. By the way—forgive my changing the subject—I heard you beat Lady Bertram at cards the other evening.”

“What do you know of me?” Henrietta said, alarmed.

“I asked around. Aside from what you just told me, your name is Henrietta Watson, from Norfolk.”

Where had the footman gone? He was supposed to protect her from such scary men in the park. She reached for her letter and stuffed it in her reticule.

The man put his large hand on her arm. “Now wait, you didn’t even ask my name. I’m Danny Elliot from Kent. Pleased to meet you, too.”

“I have to go.”

“Sit back down. I’m not in love with you, and I won’t ask for your hand in marriage. All I want is to enjoy a pleasant day with pleasant company. Everyone else is.”

She hesitated, hovering half bent above the ground. It was true—a family was eating together on a blanket, while the grandfather helped the young daughter feed scraps of bread to begging ducks. Two men lay on the bank, hats pulled over their heads, letting the fish play havoc with their poles.

“Come on, sit down. Where else are you going to find more interesting conversation? I can tell tales from all over the wide world. Just ask me.”

“Tell me about sands of the Sahara,” she challenged.

“Ah, I remember them well…”

Henrietta didn’t intend on staying, but his stories were luscious things you could curl up in and be lulled asleep by. How the sands in Africa blow up bigger than waves on the ocean, blocking the sun and burying everything. Jungles where hairy manlike animals lived in trees. Large snakes that could curl about a man and choke him.

She could see the footman approaching in the distance, both he and Samuel dripping wet. Oh, dear.

“I must go,” Henrietta said, standing up. “Thank you, but I really can’t say if we should meet again.”

“If we are to meet, we will.” An enigmatic smile lighted his face.

Henrietta trudged home behind the footman and Samuel, looking particularly pathetic so that Lady Kesseley might say, “Why don’t you go back to bed, dear. You look so sad, broken-hearted, miserable, sick and exhausted. Kesseley and I will go out this evening.”

No such good fortune. Lady Kesseley waved a note before Henrietta’s face, clearly annoyed. “Tommie says not to wait for him this evening. I certainly hope he doesn’t think I am going to stand about the walls watching debutantes dance. So I’m going to Covent Gardens with Lady Winslow and the princess. You must come. I cannot think staying in bed and moping will help you.”

But that’s exactly what Henrietta wanted to do! “Thank you, Lady Kesseley, but I—”

“I think you need a new gown tonight. My lady’s maid will alter one of mine. Come, let’s find one.”

Lady Kesseley’s kindness confused Henrietta. Did she feel sorry for Henrietta after witnessing how Edward had deserted her? She sighed and followed Lady Kesseley upstairs, surrendering to the strong current running against her today.

For some unknown reason, Henrietta had envisioned Lady Kesseley’s chamber as the same muted gold she wore so often. But it was a breezy place, as if Henrietta could open the long white curtains draping the front windows and see the sunlit Mediterranean sea, not gray London. The walls were smooth bright white with simple stucco work. A tall mahogany bed faced the window, draped in a fabric of yellow buds entwined on a vine. Several volumes were stacked on a table beside her bed, as well as a vase containing a single yellow flower. A light whiff of residual perfume floated on the air. Henrietta felt like a little girl coming into her mother’s chamber, gazing at the perfume bottles, creams and jewelry boxes.

Lady Kesseley disappeared into a small morning room. Henrietta waited, looking at a miniature of young Kesseley that sat on his mother’s commode. Were they ever that young? she thought, studying the young boy with long curls.

Lady Kesseley returned. She held a delicate, shimmering pale rose silk gown with small ruffled sleeves and tiny rolled silk swirling on the low bodice.

“Do you like it? I think it will compliment your beautiful complexion,” she said, holding the gown to Henrietta’s body. “See, look.” She pointed to the mirror above her commode.

Henrietta’s brown eyes glowed like whipped chocolate, her hair shiny against the rich fabric. She looked exotic, like a Spanish dancer.

Lady Kesseley opened the top drawer and drew out a necklace of intertwining strands of diamond clusters falling to a single larger diamond in the center. “I’ve always admired your mother’s pendant. The ruby reminds me of her. She was always so vivacious. But for this dress, perhaps you would like to borrow my diamonds.” Lady Kesseley laid the necklace over the tiny pendant and Henrietta gasped. She had never worn anything as exquisite.

Lady Kesseley smiled at Henrietta’s reflection. “Now, this should make you feel better,” she said.

***

Lady Winslow invited Lady Kesseley and Henrietta to her box on the middle balcony. It was close enough to afford a nice view of the stage and an even better view of the audience. Lady Winslow was clad in a shimmering, orange silk gown with a matching ribbon twisted with gold beads in her hair. She had brought two gentlemen along. One wore a sloppy black cravat and had curls so wild they made Kesseley’s hair look tame. “He’s an artist,” Lady Winslow explained as if the poor man were afflicted with a disease. The princess had squeezed into a slim lavender gown that dramatically plunged in a deep V at the bodice, showing off her breasts. Her hair was piled high on her head and fell in little spirals around her face. Beside her sat a diminutive man who constantly pinched snuff from his gold box.

The balconies inside the theatre were stacked so high it was dizzying. Even at the tiptop, slammed against the stunning oval ceiling, people sat peering over the rail. Using the constant of gravity, Henrietta tried to calculate how long it would take a person falling from that height to hit the gallery. Approximately 1.5 seconds, she decided.

The burgundy curtain at the back of the box opened. A handsome gentleman stepped inside and bowed. He wore a simple cravat decorated with a diamond pin. A well-tailored black coat and tight breeches covered his athletic physique. His graying blond hair was cropped neatly about his tanned, muscular face. He scanned the box, his eyes coming to a rest on Lady Kesseley. She audibly swallowed and looked down at the lace fan on her lap, running her finger along its folds.

“I thought you were avoiding us,” Lady Winslow greeted him. Her voice held a sharp edge as she twirled her opera glass on her finger.

“I think you are mistaken,” he said. “How could I stay away from such beauty?”

Lady Winslow let out a throaty laugh. “How charming you are. But I do not for a minute believe it was my beauty or Princess Wilhelmina’s that drew you.”

He pulled up a chair behind Lady Kesseley and sat down. A waft of his sweet cardamom-and-musk scent filled Henrietta’s nose.

“I did not see your son this evening,” he said in a low voice to Lady Kesseley. “May I stay?”

“We shouldn’t …I’m not sure…” she began. She sounded breathy and flustered.

He touched her shoulder. Her chest rose with her breath and a pink flush spread over her bosom. “Come now,” he said. “I thought we were friends again?”

She nodded.

A lazy smile lifted the edges of his mouth. He relaxed back in his chair and turned his attention to Henrietta. He raked her figure with his eyes. “You must be my lady’s little companion.”

Henrietta looked to Lady Kesseley for the introduction. “Miss Watson, may I present Sir Gilling,” she said tightly, as if she were embarrassed by her friend.

“A pleasure to finally meet you,” he said. His indolent smile widened. “I have heard so much about you.”

“Have you ever seen so many birds of paradise?” Lady Winslow scanned the audience with her opera glasses. “You would think it was the Cyprian Ball.”

Her remark caused a ripple of laughter among the gentlemen. Henrietta didn’t understand. “What’s the Cyprian Ball?”

“Lady Winslow, show some decorum,” Lady Kesseley warned.

“Really, Ellie, you shouldn’t keep the little gel in the dark.” Lady Winslow leaned forward in her seat until she could see Henrietta. “My dear, you go to the balls where the respectable ladies dance, but sometimes there are balls—”

“Tomorrow night, for instance,” interjected the snuff-pinching gentleman.

Princess Wilhelmina whacked him with her fan.

“I said,” Lady Winslow continued, “sometimes there are balls where the unrespectable women dance.”

Gilling chuckled. Henrietta felt a stitch of anger that he found her innocence amusing. Lady Kesseley squeezed Henrietta’s hand. “Lady Winslow is only funning you, my dear.” Henrietta looked about the audience for unrespectable ladies, instead finding Lady Sara sitting in a box, sandwiched between a fair matron and a whiskered man whose corpulence could barely be contained in the seat. Several gentlemen and ladies clustered about them. Edward dangled about the edge of the box as if he weren’t welcome. Nonetheless, Lady Sara’s gaze remained locked on his handsome face. An inane smile stretched his lips. So different from the pained, anxious expression he’d worn in her parlor hours earlier, as if each moment with Henrietta was a kind of acute misery.

He never loved me.

I built my dreams on a lie.

Mr. Elliot’s voice sounded in her head. “I thought I was in love many times to find out I wasn’t. Look deep into your soul. The truest part of you. The most silent of places. Is this man there?”

She looked hard at Edward and tried to imagine the truest part of her. What was the truest part of her?

Suddenly an image of the Great Ouse River unfurled like a rolled-up oil painting in her head, with detail so vivid she could look into the green water and see the reflections of the oak trees and endless sky stretching over the flat farmland. Something deeper than her heart ached, sick for its home.

Surely
Norfolk
wasn’t the truest part of her? Yet—somehow—it was. Silent. Perfect.

Across the theatre, Edward looked up, as if feeling her stare. For a moment, their eyes locked.

Oh goodness! His face wasn’t reflected in the waters. He wasn’t there!

Had she spent the last few years telling herself she was in love? That couldn’t be true. She was too intelligent to spend years in delusion. But it certainly hadn’t felt like a delusion. She focused hard on Edward and tried to squeeze that old amorous feeling back into her heart.

It never came, just an elating liberation.

Edward leaned closer to Lady Sara, whispering something in her ear. She giggled in her gloved hand and peered up at Henrietta. They were talking about her. But Henrietta didn’t care, for it struck her that his face was crooked. The left side rose higher than the right, giving him that whimsical, boyish smile everyone admired. She had never noticed it before. After Act I, everyone in the audience rose and started gathering their belongings as if the play had ended.

“A charming little play,” the princess declared, dropping her opera glasses into her beaded reticule.
“Nous allons.”

“Where are we going?” Henrietta asked.

“To Mr. Whitmore’s party, of course,” Lady Winslow answered. “I can see your fingers are shaking, wild to play cards.”

Henrietta was jittery but not with the anticipation of playing cards. Her world had changed. A stone had been rolled away from her heart and she was free.

She rose and reached for Lady Kesseley’s wrap, but Gilling beat her to it. He wrapped the silk about Lady Kesseley, letting his fingers caress her shoulders. The intimate way he touched Lady Kesseley made Henrietta think he was much more than a mere friend. She wondered if Kesseley would approve of his mother’s suitor.

She followed Lady Winslow, the princess and their gentlemen out the back of the box and waited in the corridor, holding the curtain for her mistress.

“Are you coming?” she heard Lady Kesseley ask Gilling.

“Do you want me to?” he replied.

There was a silent pause. “Yes. But be careful.”

Lady Kesseley sent her carriage home, and the ladies took the princess’s carriage to her lavish home on Berkeley Square. There they repaired their hair, and as Henrietta learned, reapplied their cosmetics. Even Henrietta dabbed a little kohl about her eyes and stained her lips. Her liberation from Edward made her feel oddly exhilarated. When she looked at herself in the princess’s long dressing mirror, she saw another lady, better than old Henrietta, clad in a dashing silken gown, diamonds glittering about her neck, with a loose smile lifting her bright lips.

An hour later, their carriage pulled up outside one of the mansions bordering Hyde Park. It resembled a white iced Christmas cake. Inside, it was lavishly decorated in a bombastic Baroque style, as if all the old French courts had dumped their possessions into this one house before walking up the steps to the guillotine. Fashionable people stuffed the white-and-gold gilt hall, their perfumes and colognes mingling into one headache of pungent sweetness. Footmen hoisted trays of wine and punch high in the air to maneuver through the human congestion.

From the foyer, Henrietta could look into the parlor with ivory silk-covered walls and lacy plasterwork. A lady in flowing sea-green silk with a peacock feather in her hair played the pianoforte, while another lady plucked an enormous harp carved with a swan’s head. Around them, people lounged about on gold upholstered chairs and sofas.

The guests in the foyer parted, making way for a slender man with a fresh, boyish face and toothy smile. His stiff collar reached to the tips of his ears and his coat was padded, making his shoulders appear out-of-balance with the rest of his body. Clinging to his arm was a hunched elderly woman with unnaturally bright reddish-orange curls rising like little flames from her head. She wore a gold gown and diamonds gleamed in her hair, around her stooped neck and on her wrists and curled fingers.

“Lady Kesseley,” the foppish man bowed, “we are honored. You know that Grandmama adores cards. She was hoping you would bring your companion.”

“Is this her?” the old woman asked in a shaky yet powerful voice. The loose skin of her eyelids hung so low, she must have trouble seeing. Even so, her eyes were steady and sharp.

“Mr. and Mrs. Whitmore, may I present Miss Henrietta Watson,” Lady Kesseley said. Henrietta curtsied.

“Enchanté,”
the lady replied. “You don’t think you would want to humor an old lady with a rubber or two?”

“Miss Watson would desire nothing more,” Lady Kesseley said, giving Henrietta a gentle shove forward.

The host took one of her elbows, and Mrs. Whitmore latched on to the other. Together they led Henrietta down the hall. She glanced over her shoulder at Lady Kesseley. Gilling had materialized at her side. She wrapped her hand around his elbow, a secretive, expectant smile on her lips.

Henrietta was taken to a hexagonal room with indigo-blue walls covered with shiny swords and other ancient weapons of brutality. Six coats of armor stood guard at the angles in the walls.

A portly man with pink bald head, big cheeks and an expansive belly that strained the buttons of his striped silk vest ambled over. Henrietta recognized him from the mass of people in Covent Gardens earlier that evening.

“Mrs. Whitmore, now you promised me a game of whist,” he said in teasing voice. “Are you holding out for a better offer?”

“Ah! I was waiting on the right partner to set you back good and proper,” she said. “Do you know Miss Watson, Your Grace?”

Grace? Henrietta dropped down into a deep curtsey.

Mrs. Whitmore jerked her orange head toward the duke. “We are fierce whist enemies, the Duke of Houghton and I.”

Lady Sara’s father! Henrietta’s splotches broke out. She eyed the tables, wondering which would be the best to crawl under.

Mrs. Whitmore tugged Henrietta’s arm. “When he has a good hand, he looks down and to the left. He arranges his cards with spades first,” she said in a whisper so loud someone out in the hall could have heard.