Page 15 of Miss Devoted
“Aunt Esme brought those prints to my attention, and that does not bode well for my aspirations, Belchamp. I mean Smith no serious harm, but I would like to learn more about him. Where does he lodge? With whom? How does he support himself when he’s not lolling around as God made him? I’m merely curious. Now, tell me of your family. Are they properly impressed with your exploits in London?”
Dermot flattered Belchamp ceaselessly until the apple compote was brought out, slathered with whipped cream and sprinkled with spices. Belchamp nearly broke into a third-act aria at the sight of this rather mundane sweet.
“It’s not a still life, my good idiot,” Dermot said, picking up his spoon. “One generally enjoys food by consuming it.”
“And you are supposedly a visual artist,” Belchamp said, turning his bowl ninety degrees. “How many times has Berthold exhorted us that great art is all around if only we have eyes to see it?”
“I do believe I’ve invited an eccentric artist to my table. How dashing of me. What didyouthink of that flower girl?”
Belchamp picked up his spoon and shaved a bite of whipped cream from the side of his treat. “Uncomplicated composition, simple palette. Interesting subject—both lovely and a reproach to those who’d spend coin on the print rather than for the girl’s next meal. It made me uncomfortable, and yet, it was pretty to look at.”
A more thoughtful answer than Dermot had expected, one that suggested Belchamp was not mindless-minion material. Well, damn. He hadn’t exactly been a font of information regarding the symmetrical Mr. Smith either.
“Shall we have a stroll around the Haymarket to aid our digestion?” Dermot asked when Belchamp had all but licked the bowl of his apple compote. “I’m of a mind to find a hand of cards someplace a tad more exciting than ye old club. You’re welcome to come along.”
“Don’t they have cardrooms here?”
Dermot winked. “Tame play. No ladies to improve a fellow’s luck.” And in the club’s cardroom, Enderly sat like a smug toad on the lily pad of his family’s wealth, ready to politely inquire as to when Dermot might make good on the last set of vowels.
“The weather’s brisk enough that a short walk will do,” Belchamp said. “Thank you for the best meal I’ve had since my dear mother served up the Christmas roast. Very kind of you.”
“Wasn’t it?” Kindness was for fools and parsons.
Stevens bowed them a good-night, and Dermot was soon in the chilly evening air with Belchamp bustling along at his side.
“Avoid that address,” Dermot said, nodding to an unprepossessing town house across the street. “Beautiful women, but I suspect the tables are crooked. The Coventry is an honest house, though the ladies are only friendly there to a point. Free champagne after midnight, though. We could swing by if you’d like to play a hand?”
Wandering into a gaming hell alone was as good as advertising that a fellow had nowhere else to be and nobody willing to pass the time with him. Not done.
“I’m off to my lodgings,” Belchamp said when they reached the corner. “I ought to walk, but it’s too damned cold to hike to Southwark.”
“You live across the river?”
“It’s cheaper by far, and the air’s better most days. I walk the bridge in the morning, but allow myself a hackney in the evening.”
“Then I will thank you for sharing a meal with me and bid you farewell.” An evening more or less wasted, but one never knew when an investment of port, steak, and flattery might pay off.
Belchamp raised a hand and whistled, and a hackney moved forward from the stand at the far end of the street.
“I have seen Smith over in Southwark,” Belchamp said. “He might lodge over there. He’s not in the throng hiking into the City every morning, which suggests his employ is on the far bank as well.”
“Southwark? What’s to do over in Southwark?” Warehouses, shops, cheaper lodgings… Lambeth Palace and its sprawling grounds sat over there as if having disembarked from the river onto the wrong, unfashionable shore. Perhaps Smith performed in lewd tableaux?
“You were curious,” Belchamp said as the hackney came to a halt beside them. “If I see him wandering about over there again, I’ll pay closer attention.”
“Do that, and some time when you’re free, I really must introduce you to Auntie. She adores aspiring artists and stray bachelors.”
“I’d enjoy that.” Belchamp offered a ridiculously formal bow and climbed into the coach.
Dermot waited on the walkway only long enough to be polite and lordly and all that other balderdash, then made a swift progress for his own lodgings. Would not do to be ambushed on the street if Enderly decided to make an early night of it. Worse yet if Enderly removed to the Coventry for more play and found Dermot losing at vingt-et-un.
Though what the devil—what the naked, symmetrical devil—was Smith doing larking about Southwark?
Another modeling job had not been in Michael’s plans, but he could hardly chase after Mrs. Fremont’s hackney and tell her he was having second thoughts about the bargain they’d just struck. Walking home allowed him to have second thoughts as well as third, fourth, and impossibly absurd thoughts without acting on his fancies.
More income was good, and lounging about unclad was hardly work. Michael assured himself of both facts as he approached Circle Lane. He ought to simply keep moving. He was almost warm, and desperately tired. He ought to send a wish and a prayer heavenward and deny himself…
Psyche Fremont’s words came back to him:The more we deny ourselves, the more insistently our yearnings clamor for our attention.
