That Summer: A Novel (30 page)

Fotheringay-Vaughn leaned back against the fence, his very posture an insult. In an insolent drawl he said, “I wouldn’t dignify that sort of base accusation with a response.”

“No,” said Imogen, tight-lipped. “You wouldn’t. Because it’s true.”

“But—” Evie looked uncertainly from Fotheringay-Vaughn to Imogen. “His family—the secret marriage lines—”

It was time to nip this in the bud once and for all. With silent apologies to Gavin, Imogen said crisply, “Your suitor’s real name is Alfred Potts. His father was a dustman. He is no more a Vaughn than I am. If you’d like, I can prove it to you.”

The last was pure bluff, but she had no doubt it was true, if she knew where to look.

“Augustus?” Evie turned wide, bewildered eyes to her betrothed, searching for reassurance. “Augustus?”

But he wasn’t looking at Evie. His eyes were narrowed on Imogen, with a look of such concentrated venom that it took all her will not to take a step back.

“You sanctimonious bitch,” he said.

Next to her, Evie gasped.

Imogen kept her head high, her eyes focused on Fotheringay-Vaughn. “Evie, I think you should go back to the house.”

Fotheringay-Vaughn took a step forward, his usual languid pose abandoned. His hands were clenched loosely at his sides. “I suppose it was Thorne who told you, wasn’t it?” His eyes flicked to Evie. Deliberately, maliciously, he said, “Was it before or after you took him to your bed?”

There was no sound in the orchard but the rustling of the leaves of the trees. Even the squirrels seemed to have ceased their industrious activity. The scent of rotting apples was strong in Imogen’s nostrils.

He didn’t know anything, not really; he couldn’t prove anything.

Imogen could feel the patches of color rise in her cheek, high and bright, but she kept her spine straight, her voice steady. “You, sir, have made yourself unwelcome here, twice over. This interview is at an end.”

She turned her back on him, her step steady on the slippery ground, but Vaughn’s voice followed her. “Oh, you can dish out other people’s secrets, but you can’t take it, can you? Don’t want your little precious knowing what you’ve been getting up to in the dark. In the dark, and the morning, and the afternoon…”

She shut her ears to his nasty words. Whatever she and Gavin had, it wasn’t like that; it wasn’t anything shallow and sordid. She wished she could turn and shout that back at Vaughn, toss his words back in his face. She could feel herself trembling, trembling with anger and frustration, that she and Gavin should have to hide themselves from the world, that it didn’t matter at all—

That she loved him.

Imogen drew in a deep breath, trying to steady herself. Resolutely, she held out a hand to her stepdaughter. “Come, Evie. Let us back to the house.”

Evie made no move to take her hand. There were twin lines between her brows, lines Imogen had never seen there before. Evie looked at Imogen with bewildered eyes, like someone in a nightmare, seeing the familiar turn strange.

In a trembling voice, she asked, “Is it true?”

“Oh, yes,” said Fotheringay-Vaughn silkily. “Down to the last, sordid detail.”

“Cornered rats bite,” said Imogen shortly. “Come.” She held out her hand again to Evie. “He’s trying to hurt you—and hurt me for ruining his chances with you. That’s all.”

Evie took a step back, pale but determined. “You haven’t answered me,” she said. “Is it true—about you and Mr. Thorne?”

Something about the set expression on Evie’s face made Imogen’s heart twist. The little girl whose hand used to rest so trustingly in hers, who used to run to her with her childish tragedies and triumphs. She looked all grown-up suddenly, grown up too fast.

“Evie!” Imogen stepped hastily forward and felt a rotten apple squish beneath her boot, the pungent scent filling the air. She swallowed hard. “How can you think such things? You know I would never—”

But she had. The words stuck in her throat. She couldn’t say it, and she couldn’t bring herself to deny it.

Behind her, she could hear Fotheringay-Vaughn laughing. It was a singularly unpleasant sound.

Despair crashed around her. What did it matter how much she loved Gavin or how much Gavin loved her? “Criminal conversation,” that was the legal term for it. Criminal. As if they had stolen something that belonged rightfully to someone else. To Arthur. Never mind that Arthur didn’t need her love or want it; in the eyes of the law, both it and she were his.

Then why did it feel as though she was betraying Gavin by denying him?

Her eyes on Evie, Imogen said thickly, “I would never do anything to hurt you. I love you. You know that.”

“How could you?” Imogen wasn’t sure whether the words were directed at her or Augustus or both. Evie pressed her fist against her lips, trying to hold back the tears. “How could you?”

“Evie, darling, wait—” Imogen reached out to her, but the girl wrenched from her grasp.

Evie’s hair whipped sharply around her as she yanked away. “Don’t touch me! Don’t speak to me!” Her voice was wild and etched with acid, the tears streaming unheeded down her face. She turned to Augustus. “And as for you— As for you—”

Her words were lost in a sob. With an inarticulate noise of misery, she yanked up her skirts and fled, the ruffled edges of her pantalets visible beneath her skirts, her calves pumping. Imogen had a sudden, disorienting image of her, ten years ago, running up and down this same hill, her little boots sure on the slope, her hair flying behind her as it did now, calling,
Mama! Come see!

Half-blinded by tears, Imogen started to follow. She could find her, talk to her, make her see.… Make her see what? Lie to her? It was an impossible situation. Vaguely Imogen began to realize the depth of the trap she had dug for herself. She could betray her love or her marriage vows. Either way, she was damned.

“That didn’t have to happen,” came Fotheringay-Vaughn’s voice from behind her. The serpent in the garden. “If you’d let right enough alone.”

Imogen knew she shouldn’t, but she turned anyway. He stood by a tree, an apple in his hand. There were lines of dissipation etched in his face, and the curl of his lip was distinctly unpleasant.

“Go away,” she said indistinctly. “You’re not wanted here.”

Fotheringay-Vaughn laughed, a low, unpleasant laugh. “Thanks to you.” He took a large bite of the apple. “How d’you think Grantham will react to the news of your little trysts with Thorne?”

And with that, tossing the apple in his hand, he disappeared through the garden gate, leaving only a muddy set of footprints and the smell of rotting fruit behind him.

EIGHTEEN

London, 1849

“Shhh,” Gavin said. “Augustus is all bluster.”

His fingers itched to reach out and draw Imogen close, to stroke her hair and bury her head in his chest, as if he could protect her from all the calumnies of the world. But she held herself stiff and tense, buttoned from cuffs to chin in a jacket that fit tightly over her demure dress, her hands hidden in leather gloves, her face shaded by her bonnet.

They had met on neutral territory, by Westminster Bridge, far from Herne Hill, far from Grantham’s offices, far from Gavin’s studio. All around them, the daily bustle of London went on, the ships darting along the water, the street vendors hawking their wares. Imogen stood, looking down into the river, her gloved hands on the rail.

“What good would it do Augustus to share his suspicions?” Gavin argued, wishing like the blazes that he believed his own words. Pure venom might be reason enough for Augustus. “That’s all they are. Suspicions. He has no proof.”

“Proof!” Imogen lifted a stricken face. Her cheeks were pale despite the wind, her eyes hollow. “The way Evie looked at me—”

“Shhh,” Gavin said, for want of anything better. He would have settled his hand on hers on the rail, but the posture of her body forbade contact. “Shhh.”

“She won’t speak to me,” Imogen said brokenly. “She looks through me as though I weren’t even in the room.”

“She’s young,” said Gavin, feeling helpless in the face of Imogen’s grief. “These things pass.”

Imogen shook her head, tight-lipped. “She feels that I’ve betrayed her—and I have. Gavin—”

Something about the way she looked at him, the way she said his name, sent a flare of raw panic through him. “She’s probably looking for a scapegoat for her own foolishness,” he said gruffly, “running about with Augustus. She needs someone to blame, and who better than you?”

Imogen stared at her hands, lightly clasping the rail, and said nothing.

Gavin redoubled his efforts. “It’s been two days now. If either of them were going to say something, they would have. Neither of them can say anything without implicating themselves. Your silence for theirs, that’s what they’re relying upon, mark my words. Besides,” he added wryly, “Augustus wouldn’t do anything that didn’t benefit himself. What good would he have out of destroying you?”

“Revenge?” Gavin couldn’t dispute her reading of Augustus’s character. Her fingers fleetingly touched Gavin’s sleeve. “Will Fotheringay-Vaughn make trouble for you? He knows that you were the one who told me.…”

Touched by her concern, Gavin cloaked his feelings in bravado. “What can he do to me? Save remove his presence from my studio? I can pay the rent without him.” In a gentler voice he said, “Don’t worry yourself about me.”

“But I do worry about you.” Imogen lifted a troubled face to his. “I worry what a scandal might mean for your painting. Arthur knows too many influential men in the Academy. If I were to be the architect of your ruin…”

“You’re making dragons out of clouds,” said Gavin dismissively. Every instinct screamed that it was time to end the discussion now, before she could bring it to its logical conclusion.

Before she could bring them to their logical conclusion.

With false heartiness Gavin said, “What you need is some distracting. What do you think of a bit of low theater? I saw a penny gaff just down the street. There certainly won’t be anyone you know there.”

It was a poor feint and he knew it. For a moment, he thought she might argue, but she seemed no more inclined to press the topic than he. Her face was white and tired, dark circles around her eyes.

She bit her lip. “All right. So long as I might sit?”

“It’s crude, but there are benches,” Gavin assured her.

He tucked her hand into the crook of his arm. She didn’t lean into him as she once would have. Instead, she held herself stiffly, moving without her accustomed grace.

“In a few days,” Gavin said softly, “this will all have blown over.”

Imogen lifted her face to his, her lips pressed tightly together. “Perhaps,” she said wearily.

“I wish—” he began, and broke off. “Never mind. That’s the theater, over there. Such as it is.”

Outside the pub, garish posters proclaimed the wonders awaiting them.
The Dastardly Deeds of Jack Sheppard!
proclaimed one, featuring a picture of the notorious highwayman, his hat pulled low over his brow and his pistol at the ready, while another promised
The String of Pearls: A Romance,
as a scantily clad lady fainted over a gentleman’s arm and another man lurked ominously nearby, a knife at the ready.

“It’s not Drury Lane,” said Gavin apologetically.

“I believe I shall like this exceedingly,” said Imogen gamely.

He felt her hand tighten for a moment on his arm, and felt a wave of painful tenderness wash over him.

For a moment their eyes met, but it was no use. There was no way either could say anything of what they felt.

“Come along in, then,” said Gavin, feeling singularly useless. He wished it were Covent Garden he were handing her into, not the back room of a pub.

The small antechamber was already packed with people, many of them clustered around the refreshment table, factory girls in their scanty frocks and errand boys exchanging insults and spitballs. There was only lemonade, apples, and cake for sale at the stall, but the smell of gin was already strong in the air. As one of the factory girls held out her glass, Gavin saw the stallholder add a liberal splash of the clear liquid to the lemonade with a wink and a nudge.

He hastily paid their two pennies and ushered Imogen into the makeshift theater. The floor was sticky beneath their feet, and he saw Imogen surreptitiously lifting her skirts. Nutshells crackled beneath her boots, the detritus of the prior performance, and the air was noxious with the smell of cheap tobacco.

It had been so long since he had been to one of these entertainments that Gavin had forgotten that the seats in the makeshift gallery were segregated by sex.

“Will you be all right in the pit?” he asked. The pit was already swarming with ragged boys, tossing nuts and insults at one another. There were women there, too, ragged factory girls, probably younger than Imogen’s stepdaughter, but aged beyond their years. On a bench in the middle, an older woman snored, sodden with gin. “Otherwise, we must sit separately.”

Imogen picked her way gingerly down, dodging a flying walnut. “I’ve never sat in a pit before.”

“I believe this one was a cock pit before it was a theater,” said Gavin drily. “This should be some slight improvement on its former use, but I can’t promise how much.”

Discreetly, Imogen lifted her scented handkerchief to her nose and took a deep breath. Her eyes took in the crude stage, the women jostling one another in the gallery. “I had never thought to see such a place.”

Gavin turned in his seat. In a low voice he said, “Should I not have brought you? We can still leave—”

“No.” Her hands tightened in her lap. “I want to see this. There is so much I want to see, and you are the only one who doesn’t find it strange in me to want it.”

“Probably,” said Gavin ruefully, “because I am no gentleman. If I knew better—”

“I wouldn’t have you be anything other than what you are. As it is—” She broke off, her lips pressing tightly together, as if she had already said too much.

Gavin’s emotions overmastered him. He caught her hand. “Imogen—”

He was interrupted by a loud banging of a drum. The din of it reverberated through his head. He wanted to leap to his feet and shake the thoughtless drummer, to rip the drum from his hands and fling it in the pit.