Seven

With this auspicious beginning to Lilith’s education, she could only assume the trip to the clothing shop would be disastrous. George sent his carriage to drive the ladies about. Heaven forbid they should rub shoulders with the great unwashed.

Madame Courtemanche’s shop exuded wealth. Delicate fabrics and handmade lace were draped in the front window amid gold-framed paintings of gowns adorned with intricate ruffles, bustles, trains, and pleats.

Lady Fenmore allowed the footman to help her down without looking back at Lilith. If she did, she would surely see the panic seizing Lilith’s features.

Once on the pavement, Lilith reached for Penelope’s elbow. “I’m sorry, Lady Fenmore, but I— I can’t, that is, I don’t have enough funds for this modiste.”

Why did admitting poverty feel like a crime?

“My brother will pay,” Penelope replied and entered the establishment as the footman held the door.

“But—”

Penelope couldn’t hear Lilith anymore. She was being greeted by a fashionable woman with a lovely French accent.

“But I don’t want to be further beholden to George,” Lilith whispered to no one.

Nor did she desire to become further entrenched in that ridiculous house party. She nervously entered the shop’s lush parlor of mahogany furniture and white, lace-trimmed cushions.

Penelope made a curt introduction of the ladies.

“Your cousin is a beauty.” Madame Courtemanche curtsied. “I shall make a gown worthy of her.” She clapped her hands and a young seamstress appeared from the back rooms. “Bring the English fashion book,” she ordered in French, which, if Lilith translated correctly from the subtle inflection, meant Bring the uninspired fashion book. Madame reverted to English and gestured to the sofa. “Please, please, sit down, my ladies.”

Penelope took a seat on the edge of the cushion, her expansive bustle commanding a great deal of space. Lilith edged in beside her. The modiste chose the wing chair on the other side of a low marble table.

“Now, what lovely creations shall I make for you? Morning dress? Walking dress?” She leaned in to Lilith. “A ravishing ball gown to make a certain gentleman fall madly in love?” She shifted her gaze to Penelope. “You remember the gown I made for your debut ball? Did not Lord Fenmore fall in love that night?”

Penelope didn’t respond, but opened her reticule and retrieved several folded pages. George’s list for Lilith’s education rested on the top. Lilith fought the urge to tear it into tiny strips useful only for bum fodder.

Penelope shifted the pages, handing several to Madame.“My brother sketched pictures of what he thinks are appropriate gowns for Miss Dahlgren.”

What?

“Such magnificent pictures,” Madame Courtemanche commented. “If I may—”

“P-pardon me,” Lilith cried. “Did you say that Lord Marylewick sketched these?”

Penelope looked at Lilith as though she had lost her senses. “Of course,” she said, and then returned her attention to the modiste. “His instructions were that the gowns should be made in shades of soft gold, reds, or browns. Also, if you could—”

“Pardon me again,” Lilith cut in. “May I see them? The sketches. Please.”

Lilith’s fingers shook as she took the offered pages. She gasped. The images were fast renderings, but the style and the composition were exquisite. The top sketch displayed Lilith seated in a chair and wearing a simple yet elegant ball gown. Her hand dangled casually off the armrest and her head was slightly raised, a smile blossoming on her lips. The illustration below featured Lilith standing with her hands resting on a table behind her, thereby pushing up her breasts. Her hair was piled high, accentuating the long line of her neck. The sheer silk gown he had created flowed like smooth water over her curves. Her eyes had been drawn slightly downcast, a modest touch to a rather provocative image.

“And you said Lord Marylewick—your brother George—sketched these,” Lilith broke into the conversation between Penelope and Madame Courtemanche. “Using his own hands and a pencil?”

“Yes,” Penelope affirmed, clearly annoyed at having been interrupted again.

“These could be the work of Edgar Degas,” Lilith marveled aloud.

“Who?” Penelope asked.

“Edgar Degas?” cried the modiste. “J’adore Edgar Degas!”

“Me too,” Lilith said. “I saw his work at the Impressionist Exhibitions in Paris last summer.”

“I was there, as well! How sad that we missed each other.”

Lilith and Madame laughed, each recognizing a kindred spirit. Penelope eyed the two ladies nervously and then tried to nibble on a fingernail through her glove.

The young seamstress returned, bearing the fashion book.

Madame Courtemanche waved her off. “No, no, this will never do. Please bring the French magazine.” Her eyes glittered. “Those designs will better suit my fashionable guest.”

The modiste was overjoyed to have a client who appreciated the more modern fashions. She carried on in fast-flowing French. Lilith did her best to keep up as she was being measured and various silks held to her face. Penelope added nothing to the conversation except to say what George would or would not approve of and to please remain true to the sketches.

Lilith wished she could steal the pictures and examine them in solitary silence. She still couldn’t believe George—overbearing, dry George—drew them. That he was capable of such imagination or beauty. He must answer for this artistic side he hid. What else had he drawn? Did he paint? Where did he keep his art? Her heart raced so fast that perspiration broke out around her temples. Good heavens, she hadn’t time to worry about such trivial things as gowns when a great mystery demanded to be solved.

She was bereft when the sketches were taken to the back rooms to be used as references by the seamstresses. Despite George’s claim that she had posed for paintings, she truly hadn’t. In fact, these were the only sketches ever made of her.

As the ladies rose to leave, Penelope casually asked that the gowns be ready in two days. Lilith thought that wasn’t enough time. The poor seamstresses.

“Of course,” Madame Courtemanche said without a beat. “The gowns will be delivered. My girls and I will make the final fittings at your home, if your ladyship agrees.”

Penelope nodded and then the modiste kissed Lilith warmly on both cheeks. “Au revoir. I shall make inspired creations for you. Edgar Degas with fabric. You will adore.”

Penelope stared on, her expression unreadable.

When they stepped onto the pavement, Lilith was dying to ask Penelope about the sketches. She thought she would ease into casual conversation before she peppered Penelope with questions.

“Madame Courtemanche is a fascinating lady,” Lilith said. “Did she really make your debut gowns?” Penelope had made quite a societal splash with her debut, and Lilith assumed it would be a pleasing subject.

“Yes,” Penelope replied and glanced away. So much for a cozy tête-à-tête. But Lilith couldn’t give up. She spied a confectionery shop down the street. Toffee! That’s what she needed to butter up the conversation.

“Please excuse me for a small moment.” Lilith left Penelope with the footman and dashed along the walk to the confectioner’s. Three minutes later she emerged with a box filled with tiny paradises. She gave two toffees, as well as several pence, to a hungry child under the shop window and hurried to catch up with Penelope. “These are little pieces of heaven. You put them in your mouth and they melt into something sugary and magical. Here, have one. Penelope? Penelope?”

Penelope stared across the street, her eyes large, mouth gaping, and hands clenched as if witnessing some bloody horror. Was there an accident? Were people hurt? A dozen or so dreadful images flooded Lilith’s overactive imagination as she followed the line of Penelope’s gaze. A beautiful woman in a vivid yellow gown smiled intimately at the man whose elbow she clutched as he opened the door to their pied-à-terre. Just another garish actress and her benefactor. An everyday sight in London. Lilith released a relieved breath. No one was bleeding in the street. Then the man turned and gestured for his little yellow lovebird to enter. Beneath his top hat Lilith recognized the features of Lord Fenmore, Penelope’s husband!

Without thinking, Lilith shouted, “You blossoming arse!”

The only weapon she possessed was a box of toffee. She threw it, raining toffee onto the street. “You bloody, blossoming bumhole.”

The man’s head whipped around as a small but strong hand clamped onto Lilith’s shoulder, yanking her back into Madame Courtemanche’s entrance.

“Don’t make a scene,” Penelope whispered.

“What!” Lilith cried. “He’s a deceitful, turgid arse. He needs to know as much. You are the perfect lady and he dallies with…with that bright canary. ”

Penelope pressed her fingers to her temple. “Don’t make a scene.” Her voice was breaking. “Don’t!”

“Oh, Penelope,” Lilith whispered and tried to embrace her. “I’m sorry.” Penelope remained immobile, watching Lord Fenmore escort his mistress into a flat. When the door closed, Penelope yanked away from Lilith and rushed down the walk. Lilith and the footman hurried to catch up.

“We must do the next thing on the list,” Penelope cried. “That’s what’s most important. Lord Marylewick gave me a responsibility.” She opened her reticule with shaking hands and frantically rooted through it. “George’s list! It’s not here. I’ve lost the list. How could I have done that? I’m so stupid. Stupid! Stupid!”

Lilith retrieved the list from the ground where it had fallen. “Here it is,” she said quietly. “You didn’t lose it. You’re not stupid. Don’t ever think that. And look, item three is teach Lilith to drink tea properly. Let’s find a nice tea shop.” She took Penelope’s hand.

Penelope didn’t protest as Lilith led her. Shame poured into Lilith for all her mocking thoughts about Penelope. Her expression resembled that dazed, lost look that Lilith had worn the previous day, when the outside world was a big blur and the only thing she knew was how much her heart ached.

Two streets over Lilith found an establishment with the words Simon Brothers Tavern painted in gold letters above a large, paned window. Inside, well-dressed men and women crowded around a bar and the tables, drinking spirits and smoking. The ladies’ enormous hats shook with their happy laughter.

“Come,” Lilith said to Penelope.

“This—this doesn’t look like a tea house.”

“Of course it is,” Lilith lied and let the footman open the door. The sunlight reflected on the brass fixtures, stamped tin ceiling, and glasses on the tables, spreading beautiful white light over the chattering crowd.

“I don’t think George would approve of this place.” Penelope clutched her reticule to her chest.

“We must remember to ask Lord Marylewick if we should not have come here when he returns this evening to check on my progress.” Lilith dispatched the footman to the bar for a pot of tea, teacups, a bottle of wine, and three glasses. She clutched Penelope’s elbow and led her toward an empty booth in the back corner of the narrow room.

Penelope sat and ran her finger over a stain in the blue table linen. “Don’t tell George,” she finally whispered. “About seeing my husband. Promise me.”

“If you wish.”

Penelope continued staring at the stain. As Lilith studied Penelope’s bowed head, loneliness washed over her. She had a sense that Penelope wanted to talk and that she had wanted to talk to someone for a very long time—someone who understood and didn’t judge.

The footman brought the wine and tea. Lilith poured the glasses of wine, gave the footman one, and asked him to leave the ladies for several minutes.

Penelope shifted her thousand-yard stare from the table to the deep red tones of the wine.

“My cousins on my father’s side left me yesterday,” Lilith shared. “I trusted them. I thought I had finally obtained the life that I had dreamed of. But they…they broke my heart.”

“Fenmore broke my heart a few months after we were married.” Penelope poured a cup of tea, took a small sip, and then reached for the wine.

“I’m sorry. How painful to witness.”

“Yes.” She drank more of her wine. “It’s not the first time. I just wish I didn’t have to see it.”

Lilith ran her finger down the stem of her glass. “Have you thought about a divorce?”

Penelope’s head snapped up, her eyes hot, as though Lilith had asked her to commit murder. “I couldn’t do that to George. To Mama. It is wrong. What would people think?”

Lilith only shrugged. “I think it’s wrong to sacrifice your happiness for something as trivial as another’s opinion. Your mother should desire your happiness. And Lord Marylewick is fully grown. You shouldn’t feel the need to please or protect him.”

“You don’t understand George,” Penelope fired back. “You never have. You’re cruel to him like Pa…” She gazed down, not finishing her angry thought.

“Tell me about him. I’m mad with curiosity to know about this George who creates beautiful sketches.”

Penelope resumed studying the stain on the cloth.

Don’t shut down, Lilith thought. Talk. I’m dying inside.

“Tell me what you want to say, Penelope,” Lilith said gently. “It’s all right.”

Penelope shook her head. “It’s horrid to speak ill of your parents.”

So George’s problems began with his parents.

“Oh dear,” Lilith said. “Pray, my father was a handsome wastrel and foolishly died in a duel after cheating at cards. My dear mother abandoned me to boarding schools so she could start a new and better family. And my stepfather—your uncle—had a higher opinion of plague-ridden sewer rats than of me.” Lilith lifted her glass and gestured to Penelope before taking a sip. “There, I daresay you can’t possibly be as horrid as I am. You are absolved.”

Penelope flashed a tentative smile, like a fragile, tiny sea crab venturing from under its shell. “George is like you.”

Lilith couldn’t help but spew the wine from her mouth in the most unfeminine manner. She grabbed a napkin and dabbed her lips. “Sorry. I just find that, well, a little more than shocking. And pray, never tell George you think we are alike, the man would have an apoplexy.”

“I mean he enjoys art, or at least he did. When we were young, he was always drawing pictures and painting. This was before your mother married Uncle Reginald, so you wouldn’t know. George would make strange sculptures from twigs and objects he found about the estate. He painted on boards, on walls, on his clothes…anything he could find. When I was sad, he made books for me, all illustrations of my favorite stories because I couldn’t read then.”

“George? Big, tall, booming, all-things-proper, don’t-you-dare-be-different George? Are you quite sure you don’t have another brother named George you’ve kept hidden from me?”

Penelope laughed. A true, easy laugh.

“He wasn’t always big and tall. He was once small for his age and ever so thin. He didn’t want to ride horses, shoot, or play cricket—all the things my father loved. Papa was positively terrified that George would turn into what he called a…a…” She looked about to see if anyone was listening.

Lilith leaned forward. “A what?”

“Molly,” Penelope whispered. “You know, a man who—”

“Yes.”

“Father was quite different when other people weren’t around. To everyone else he appeared congenial but…” She paused.

Lilith could tell Penelope struggled to articulate emotions she couldn’t fully comprehend.

“We had responsibilities because of our birth,” Penelope continued. “We had to be examples. We couldn’t be…” She gazed up, hunting for words.

“Human,” Lilith supplied. “You were actors in a play. You couldn’t stray from the lines of the grand stage production We’re Britain’s Most Admired and Distinguished Family.”

“Yes.” Penelope lips curled into a relieved smile. “I shouldn’t say that, but yes.”

It was Lilith’s turn to be silent. The only time she had visited Tyburn Hall was for holidays. Young and so full of anger, and desiring to feed that churning, simmering rage, she had only seen the Maryles as she wanted to: perfect. Was it all truly a play? Had she been buying a ticket all these years?

“That’s sad,” Lilith said. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know.”

“George received the brunt of it. He was supposed to be manly like Papa. If he didn’t ride his horse correctly or refused to shoot his rifle, he was spanked and not fed dinner. Then Father became so frustrated with George he told Nurse to toss all his art in the grate.”

“No!”

“But she couldn’t, at least not all of it.” A devious grin that Lilith had never seen before lit Penelope’s face. She slid forward in her seat. “Because I hid it.”

“You did!”

She nodded her head, her eyes gleaming at her act of rebellion. “I could be rather naughty then.”

“You? Naughty? Have you met this horrid little girl named Lilith Dahlgren? I understand she is a hellion of mythic proportions.”

“Pray, I was quite naughty and wild. Only, George would take the blame for things I did, so no one knew. He figured he was going to get punished for something else anyway.”

Lilith’s throat burned. “W-where did you hide the artwork?”

“In a trunk in the back attic room of the original fortress wing. No one goes there.”

Penelope sipped her glass of wine and fixed her gaze on a spot on the wall behind Lilith. “After that, George stopped painting. He turned quiet and did everything Father told him. Papa was finally proud.”

Lilith’s heart hurt for young George. Did a tiny bit of him still remain in adult George? Could she find it? Could he be saved or was too much damage done? She made a vow to herself that she would be nicer to George, no matter what he said to her.

“Penelope, I’m sorry I cut your lovely hair all those years ago,” Lilith said.

“I’m sorry I didn’t let you play with my dolls. I had outgrown them by then.”

Lilith flicked her wrist back. “I would have ruined them anyway.”

Both ladies chuckled and then an awkward hush fell over them, both unsure how to maneuver now that honesty had spilled onto their relationship.

“I dread this house party,” Penelope mused. “Fenmore will be there, and Mama, she doesn’t understand.”

“Well, I shall be there,” Lilith said, truly committing herself to the party. “And we can always sneak away to a tea shop and have wine. We naughty ladies.”

“Yes, let us,” Penelope said, her eyes bright. She finished her wine and fished the crumpled list from her reticule. “So what is the next item on the list?”

Lilith resisted saying, I think it’s “toss this list in the fire and go to a gallery.”

“Ah, millinery!” Penelope grinned, all her delicate features at ease.

Lilith returned her smile. “Wonderful!” she lied.