A Rational Proposal (Furze House Irregulars Book 1)(30)
“We should also leave,” said Verity. “I am being thrown fulminating glances from the clerk at the handkerchief counter. I helped a child escape yesterday morning. He had taken a handkerchief and I could not see him sent to the gallows.” She embraced her sister, feeling the thinness of her body and the sharp angles of her bones, and raised her voice. “Dearest Kitty, so strange to see you again, twice in two days. I could talk forever, so much as we have to catch up on, but I am promised to my friend for a visit to the paintings at Somerset House and we have already been out longer than I said.” She embraced Ann too and then turned blindly to go.
Outside, Charles offered his arm. “Verity?”
“Charles, I cannot abandon her. I cannot. We have to save her.”
His voice was strong and deep and utterly confident. “We will.”
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Somerset House was very grand and very chilly. Verity drew her pelisse more closely about her as they slowly traversed the first wall of the exhibition. “You are looking beautifully bored, Charles,” she commented after a minute or so. “Well done.”
“Save your praise for when I attempt something difficult,” he replied drily. “I have rarely seen a more insipid set of portraits.”
“But many of them are of people we know,” protested Julia on his other side. “I like them enormously. It’s amusing finding out what the ton consider to be the best costumes for portraits.” She moved away to inspect a particularly large specimen.
“I confess I find the artistic merits of satin versus Brussels lace tedious,” said Verity. “I prefer to look at the visitors. Why are there so many people here? They cannot all have nothing else to do, surely?”
“This is a new collection,” said Lilith, sounding amused as she crossed the room to greet them. “People are here to be seen. Good afternoon, Verity. Good afternoon, Mr Congreve. Yes, you may well look surprised at seeing both of us. My stepmother has a gentleman in to discuss ‘improvements’ she wishes to make to the orangery, so I have brought Benedict out to save him from the hangman’s noose.”
The two men nodded to each other in a well-bred, long-suffering manner and fell behind as Lilith linked her arm in Verity’s.
“Do you really come here for pleasure?” asked Verity.
“Frequently,” said Lilith. She glanced behind. “Benedict, however, does not. I am intrigued to know how a word from you summoned him out when I have been unable to persuade him to accompany me to a gallery these several years.”
“It is not me who is the attraction, but Charles,” said Verity. She paused in front of a soulful lady who had been painted against a background of a choppy sea and Grecian ruins. “They have some sort of altruistic clandestine dealings which the polite world is not to know about, did you not realise? Hence his present portrayal of a conscientious attorney desperate for someone of intelligence to talk to. What does this signify, please? The poor woman looks frozen.”
“The ruins show the lady’s classical leanings, and the sea indicates that her family made their money through trade. How very mysterious. I have long known my brother has interests that occasionally take him away, even beyond the natural desire to avoid my stepmother’s environs at frequent intervals, but I didn’t know what it was. Poor Benedict. He is far too much of a slave to convention for his own comfort. I wish he could fix on a lady who is as politically minded as himself and marry her. He could then set stepmama up in her own villa without incurring the censure of my aunt and her circle, and we would all of us be much happier.”
“Suppose you took your brother’s new wife in dislike? It would be uncomfortable sharing a house, surely?”
“Not at all. I have managed to share with stepmama for five years without coming to blows. The trick is to agree to everything, then efface oneself and continue to do things in your own fashion, except I would no longer need to play the perfect hostess for Ben and could concentrate on my studies. Irritatingly, he has no need to marry for money, which would at least make him work at a relationship, and he is so intelligent that he is bored by all the chattering young ladies who contrive to be thrust under his nose by their mothers.”
Verity moved on to the next portrait, one that Julia was already conning with far more interest than she herself considered the subject warranted. “These people are not at all true to life,” she observed. “Everyone is rosy with health and beautifully dressed.”
“This is because painters must eat,” said Lilith with practical good sense. “No one is going to commission an artist to create an unflattering image of themselves. For that you must visit the print shops.”
Charles and Lord Fitzgilbert strolled up to them. “I see you have found something worth studying, Julia,” said Charles.
“Yes indeed,” said Julia. “I am trying to make out whether Mrs Hesketh is wearing the real Hesketh Emerald here, or whether it is a paste copy.”
Verity made an impatient noise. “Julia, you cannot tell that from a painting! Any such indication is more due to the skill of the artist than the quality of Mrs Hesketh’s necklace.”
Benedict Fitzgilbert gave an amused snort. “Miss Bowman is correct, but the jewel is paste for all that,” he said. “The real emerald has done its family duty by shoring up Hesketh Castle and buying the eldest son a passage to New York, that he may hook himself an American heiress.”