Page 8 of Miss Devoted
And who instead pursued her art.
“We all claim we’re happy to do the Lord’s work,” Natty said, “but what we really mean is, as feckless younger sons and preachers’ boys, we’re happy to call ourselves gentlemen while we admit of no personal ambitions and deny ourselves a second helping of mousse.”
That was plain speaking and uncharacteristically grumpy too. “Ingram, you are brilliant with church law. Dean of the Arches material, and you enjoy all that canonical whatnot. I’ve learned scads from you, and I hope to learn much more.”
Ingram let his coattails drop and headed for the door. “Dean of the Arches is a job for settled fellows with aristocratic connections. I’m shabby gentry and always will be. Was the mousse truly excellent?”
“Ambrosial.” And the sight of Mrs. Fremont closing her eyes as she slipped the spoon between her lips had been a pleasure too. More confirmation that the widow was not what she appeared to be.
“If Helmsley offers you a congregation,” Ingram said, back half turned to Michael, “you take it. You take it, and you leave this place, and every Yuletide, you send me a happy little note telling me how many children you have and what lovely people your congregants are.”
“You assume I’ll marry.”
“You make a good point. A man too stupid to enjoy a second helping of dessert might also be dunderheaded enough to deny himself a wife. I am in dire need of a second slice of currant bread, with butter and jam. To blazes with you.”
He blew Michael a kiss and slipped from the room.
“Let me know when Helmsley gets in.”
Ingram shut the door without replying.
“Please not the north again,” Michael muttered. He’d done penance aplenty in Yorkshire, and his return to London had solved all manner of problems. To leave now, to have to rearrangeeverything, move households…
He had neither the means nor the energy for that undertaking. He would simply have to convince Helmsley that even a future Dean of the Arches ought to spend a few years ministering to an actual flock.
Michael had made some headway with a Bristol parson’s question about offering the sacraments to a new parishioner who’d faked his own death—how could one baptize a fellow who was officially dead? Could such a walking shade legally marry?—when his thoughts wandered again to Mrs. Fremont.
She had means. Her clothing was exquisitely well made and fashionable, though the colors were chosen for camouflage rather than flattery. Mrs. Fremont had also apparently come to terms with her loss. She hadn’t mentioned her husband but once or twice in passing, rather than alluding to him in every other sentence as reminder of the lady’s erstwhile marital consequence and ongoing sorrow.
A financially secure widow could afford her own drawing master and engage in all the amateur painting she pleased to.
Why impersonate a man? Why sit among Berthold’s collection of dilettantes and wastrels to take instruction when that venture could result in a stain on the lady’s good name?
Michael took up his pen to draft an answer to the Bristol vicar, but instead watched the ink collect on the tip of the quill and drop back into the bottle, bead by bead. Why deny anybody the sacraments, especially a soul with a history of desperate mendacity?
The next time Dorcas served that exquisite orange mousse for dessert, Michael would allow himself a modest second helping.
ChapterThree
“You think to impress old Berthold by being the last to leave?” Dermot sneered.
Psyche had smelled Dermot’s approach—roses and ruin—and ignored him. Berthold had taken a few swings at his lordship’s artistry this evening, and rather than appreciate the criticism, Dermot was apparently in the mood to swing back—at an innocent target, of course.
She tried to recall the curve of Mr. Delan—Mr. Smith’s—ear, the contrast between that graceful little arc and the uncompromising angle of his jaw. The softly tousled hair and the shadow of beard stubble that—
“You ignore your betters now, Henderson?”
“You are my social superior,” Psyche said, erasing the point of the chin and sketching it in again. The result was satisfying—more accurateandmore true. “Whether you are my better in this class is for Berthold to decide, isn’t it?”
She held the sketch up to assess the whole. A face was more than a collection of features, a body more than a collection of parts. The sketch was promising. Not quite good, but promising, and focusing on it would spare her further conversation with Lord Dermot.
Her voice was low for a woman—she sang with the altos or even the tenors in church—but silence had no gender and was always Henderson’s safer course.
Dermot snatched the page from her grasp. “I think you like looking at naked men, Henderson.”
By Leonardo’s beard… To stand or to remain seated? What was the masculine thing to do? Across the room, Belchamp, the only other student still working, looked up and then pretended to resume sketching.
Psyche put down her charcoal and stayed in her chair. Dermot had thrown the first verbal punch, meaning she was all but required by masculine pride to retaliate.
