Marquesses at the Masquerade(49)
He wandered down the street with no destination in mind. He greeted passing people he knew, pretending to be like everyone else with destinations, appointments, and reasons to be out in the world. He continued in this fashion until he came to a print shop. He stopped and took in the illustrations in frames that were propped by the window. They were botany images of flowers and insects he couldn’t name, but they alleviated his mind for a few minutes, so he entered the shop.
The bell tinkling on the door announced his presence, and a clerk shifting through prints at a table glanced up. Exmore waved him off and ambled to a bin of images behind a marble vase on a pedestal. He and the clerk were the only souls in the shop. He flipped through prints of political caricatures, turning his head to read the small text. He didn’t chuckle at any of the grossly drawn images, except the one of him in Parliament, throwing dice with one hand and holding playing cards in the other.
The caption read, Lord Exmore wagers on the fate of the country.
The bell rang again. He looked up as a young woman entered, her body silhouetted against the bright light flooding from the glass door.
*
Annalise survived the glove maker, milliner, hosier, and the first draper perfectly well. She joined in with her cousins’ and aunt’s squeals of delight over kid gloves or a darling straw bonnet. But after the next shop and the next, she found her smile waning, her nails digging into her palms, and her head aching. At every stop, three women were simultaneously asking for her opinion of a slipper or shade of green against her skin or a lace design. She remembered she once could shop all day, delighting in loading boxes into the carriage. She had never worried about the money. All items had been put on an invisible bill that was sent home to her father. Now, the money was hers, and whenever she demurred on an item, her aunt would flick her wrist and say, “My love, you can’t go about in those old unfashionable threads.”
It was to be a shopping expedition to replenish Annalise’s wardrobe, but her aunt bought far more for herself. For everything she picked for Annalise, she had to have one for herself or her daughters. By mid-morning, they had sent the loaded carriage home with boxes and were walking to the Burlington Arcade, where the carriage would return to retrieve them.
Annalise stopped on the walk, arrested by the images in the print-shop window. A dozen prints by Dutch naturalist Christiaan Visser, whom her father had esteemed, were neatly set about in carved frames. She had seen tiny, etched reproductions in Visser’s books that she had read to her father in their garden, but here were the same images in detailed precision and vivid color.
“Please,” Annalise implored. “May I visit this shop?”
“Why ever would you want to do that?” Phoebe asked. “It’s pictures of bugs and such.”
“No, it’s just that, my father… his work…” She stumbled over her words in the face of their confused stares. She couldn’t make them understand that these images stirred cherished memories. “He was a naturalist too. It would mean a great deal to me.”
“My poor darling.” Her aunt embraced her. “We shall be at the draper’s two doors down selecting fabric for you. Come, girls.”
Annalise watched them leave, releasing a long breath. She opened the door and stepped inside the gloriously quiet shop. It was empty except for a clerk and a gentleman in the back. More of Mr. Visser’s work was exhibited on tables or hanging on walls. She gazed around herself, feeling as if days and days of tension were draining away.
The clerk approached. “May I help you, miss?”
She smiled. “I want to stand here and quietly study the glorious illustrations of Mr. Visser.”
*
It couldn’t be, Exmore thought.
The serene woman clad in the soft lavender of half mourning resembled Annalise Van Der Keer in all aspects of outward appearance. Same large eyes, heart-shaped face, and turned-up nose. Yet, it couldn’t be her. There was something very different about this woman. Something he couldn’t articulate.
He edged behind a statue of Athena so that he might safely study the mysterious woman. There was nothing particularly fashionable about her gown. It had none of the numerous bows and lace that had characterized Annalise’s country-aping-city dress. The sunlight that fell at an angle from the window gave her a Madonna-like quality as it rested on her cheekbones and strands of hair falling from her bonnet. She gazed at the illustrations with a gentle smile that curved her lips and lit in her eyes.
But this serene vision couldn’t be Annalise Van Der Keer, the love-sickened, hysterical girl who’d arrived at his home during a rainstorm to blame him for destroying her life. The wild, frenetic energy of that girl wasn’t present. It seemed as if someone had taken the shell of Annalise Van Der Keer and poured another woman into it. He continued to watch her, unable to take his eyes from her. Her radiance infused the space around her.
The young clerk was not immune to her power either. He nervously rubbed his hands as he approached her.
“You—you admire the work of Mr. Visser?” he stammered.
She spun around as if surprised. She must have been wholly mesmerized by the images. Her smile widened as her dreamy eyes focused on the clerk. His mouth dropped open, and his ears reddened.
“Yes, I do.” Her voice was silken and light. “So does my father. I mean, so did my father. He was a naturalist.” There was an inflection in her last words, as if she wanted the man to ask about her father.