A Passion for Pleasure(9)
Sebastian Hall was inextricably woven into the fabric of those very memories because it was there, in Dorset, where Clara had first encountered him in all his vibrant, unruly glory. At balls and dinner parties, he’d enticed people with the beauty of his performances and the allure of his attention.
She’d watched him from a distance, delighted by the way his charm seemed so genuine. He looked directly at people when he spoke to them. He listened. He laughed. He wore his prestige and talent like a cloak that had been bequeathed to him—not as if he deserved the honor but as if he knew he was fortunate to have received it.
And when she woke from the secret warmth of such dreams, the ash-colored light of London spilling into her room, Clara remembered that in the past ten years, all of that had fallen away.
For her. And now, it seemed, for him. But why? How?
Her encounter with Sebastian in the Hanover Square rooms had kindled an intense curiosity to know the truth of what had happened to him. Now, with dreams still clinging to her like threads, that curiosity almost eclipsed her persistent ache of loss.
Clara dressed quickly and splashed cold water on her face, the shock of it returning her to her senses. Nothing could divert her from her purpose, not even memories of a man who had once seemed the epitome of everything she wanted. Everything good and kind.
She scrubbed a towel over her face and took a wooden box from her dressing table. She removed the lid and looked at the contents—a dozen satin ribbons jumbled together in a rainbow of colors.
Red, yellow, blue, green. She dumped them onto the scarred table. The ribbons spilled into a heap like the tangled cobweb of a vivid, exotic spider.
Clara rubbed the length of a red ribbon between her fingers, then a green one. Although she knew it wasn’t the case, she imagined that each ribbon felt different. The red ribbon was slippery and warm, the green smooth-textured like a new leaf, the yellow coarse like the rind of a lemon, the blue polished as a tissue-paper sky.
As she stood looking at the ribbons, a threadlike sunbeam sliced through the fog and shone against the vibrant satin. More recent memories flashed through her. She pushed aside the dark ones in favor of happier thoughts of her boy with his chestnut hair and missing front tooth. When she thought of Andrew like this, she could almost believe she would one day hold him in her arms again and live within the folds of joy and safety.
Clara tucked the ribbons back into the box and went downstairs. Tom had lit fires in the hearth and turned on the lamps in the drawing room, which served as the main exhibition room of Blake’s Museum of Automata. Years ago, her uncle had purchased the town house as both his residence and workshop, but when word of his creations began to grow, he opened the house to visitors.
Dozens of his automata and mechanical toys were displayed on shelves, alongside various machine parts, wires, and tools that Clara was forever trying to contain. Since coming to live with her uncle over a year ago, she had tried to make the museum more of a profitable business, which meant turning the main rooms into exhibition spaces and trying to convince Uncle Granville to keep the mechanics in his workshop.
She opened the curtains in the drawing room and parlor, admitting a watery grayish light. Shelves lined the walls, cluttered with adjustable animals, painted musical boxes, novelty clocks with moving pictures, and mechanical performers and musicians. Clara straightened the objects, cleared away a tangle of wires her uncle had left on a table, and dusted the surfaces.
“Mrs. Winter?”
Clara left the room, schooling her features into a polite expression of cordiality. Mrs. Rosemary Fox stood in the foyer, which also served as the reception room for the museum. She pulled off her rain-speckled cloak, her tall figure slender and rigid as a tree branch.
“Is it nine already?” Clara glanced at the clock, a bit disconcerted to think she’d lost track of time.
“Only just.” Mrs. Fox rubbed her gloved hands together and shivered. Her skin was bleached of color, her sharp, elegant features pinched from the dreariness and cold. “I don’t expect we’ll receive many visitors in this weather.”
“Mrs. Marshall hasn’t arrived yet, but I’ll fetch you a pot of tea.”
“There’s no need to bother.”
“I wouldn’t have offered if it was a bother.” Clara went to the kitchen while Mrs. Fox began straightening the papers and ledgers that covered the front desk.
After brewing the tea, Clara found several currant buns and put them on the tray along with a cup and saucer. She brought it all to Mrs. Fox and placed it on the desk, where the other woman had stacked the museum’s admission receipts.