Chapter Thirty-Two
Victoria’s grey-blue eyes widened.
“Samuel said you had given him up at birth.”
“I couldn’t give him up.” Laura watched the miniature shake in the young woman’s hand and tried to tamp down her own agitation.
“Please don’t tell Samuel.”
Victoria handed back the miniature without a second glance, her mouth a tight line. “You’ve put me in a horrible place, Laura. You’re making me keep a secret from my husband. I am not comfortable with deceiving him.”
Laura accepted the box and placed it on the dressing table beside her, caressing the smooth finish as she composed herself.
“It was never my intent to deceive, although I can hardly expect you to understand,” she said, proud that her voice remained steady. “I meant every word I sent to Samuel in those letters. I’d planned to give up Benjamin. I wanted to give him up. You have no idea of the dread I felt when I learned I was with child or the nightmares I suffered.”
Laura took in a shuddering breath. “There were days trapped in the harem, I thought of taking my own life.”
“And yet, how do I describe what it is like when you feel the first quickening? And after having accepted that there is babe, then feeling him growing inside you, until one day you look into the eyes of the one to whom you’ve given life. Benjamin will always be my son.”
“I may not have an idea what it is like to give up a child, but you have no idea what it’s been like for him, Laura – or for us!” Victoria put a hand to her mouth as though shocked by her own angry words. She turned away from Laura and went to the window. She stared out of it a moment, composing herself.
“Your abduction, and Sophia’s disappearance, nearly killed him. It certainly killed our marriage,” she said softly. “He buries himself in his work and does little else other than drink. I’ve virtually been a widow from the day we wed. The only thing which has brought light to his face was learning you were alive and free again.”
When Victoria faced Laura again, her eyes were brimming with tears. “How can you be so selfish as to take his hope away after everything we’ve done for you?”
Victoria dabbed her eyes with the back of her hand. Laura opened the dressing table drawer and pulled out two handkerchiefs. Victoria accepted the offered linen.
Laura looked down, twisting the lace-trimmed fabric in her hand. “I don’t know if I’m leaving.”
Victoria gasped “But, you…”
“I don’t know! I don’t know what I’m going to do!” This time, Laura’s own tears fell but she continued. “There was a time I came to doubt my own sanity. I clung to your letters like a drowning man clings to a lifeline. Arranging for me to meet Madame Vigée-Le Brun was the spur I needed to pull myself together.”
Laura paused to collect herself, then continued, “When I was in Sicily I… I broke faith with someone who has become so dear to me. I hurt him terribly.
“I never want to be the cause of any more pain, so I won’t make a promise I cannot keep. I don’t know what future there is for me in England, but if there is, I need to find it. It’s the only honest answer I have to give.”
Victoria shook her head to compose herself. “Forgive my outburst. This has been a trying period for all of us. You’ll find Samuel a changed man when you see him tonight. Be kind to him, that’s all I ask. You would break his heart if you left him again.”
Laura agonized over what to wear to dinner that night. Her first inclination was to select the gown in evening primrose yellow which had been her very best in Sicily, but now she had half a dozen dresses even finer to choose from. In the end, it was the maid who selected the sapphire blue gown. Laura had no recollection of acquiring it.
She allowed the maid to dress her hair.
“The Cappleman sapphires would look lovely on you, Madame.”
Laura shook her head. “Not tonight, Wallis.”
She watched her transformation in the mirror. Gina hadn’t the interest or sophistication to be a lady’s maid. Tonight, Laura’s hair was curled and pinned, a simple band of gold keeping the arrangement in place. Wallis insisted on powder. In her considered opinion, Laura’s face had seen too much foreign sun.
The long case clock sounded the seventh hour. On the stairs, she met Sophia and Morwena walking arm-in-arm. With their black hair elegantly coiffed, and in elegantly cut evening gowns, anyone would take them for sisters. The only difference between them was Sophia’s naturally dusky skin, inherited from her Spanish mother. She wasn’t wearing powder. Laura wished she had refused, too.
How different Sophia looked now. If only she’d had the same confidence and poise years ago as she did now. Imagine who she might have married. Why, Laura remembered when…
Sophia gripped her elbow. “Laura, are you feeling faint? I thought you were going to tumble down the stairs!”
“No, no, don’t distress yourself. I suspect I’m just a little over tired from so much excitement.”
“Take my arm, Laura,” said Morwena, folding it immediately into hers. “We three shall go downstairs together. You must stay close to me. While I am in England, I will speak only in English, and I will need your help.”
The three women made their way down the stairs to the library where Jonathan, Kit and Vincenzo, equally resplendent in formal finery, waited. Laura helped herself to a glass of champagne from the footman’s tray, not so much to drink as to give her hands something to do.
“Ah! My copy of Winckelmann’s History of Art in Antiquity is still here!” Sophia ran her hand over the cover and drew Kit to her side to show him the volume. Meanwhile, Morwena, Jonathan and Vincenzo examined the painting over the fireplace.
“Bella! This is your mother, is it not, Miss Cappleman?” Vincenzo enthused. “You are her very image!”
“You flatter me, I’m sure.” Nonetheless, Laura stepped closer and regarded the portrait anew. The artist in her saw the nose, the line of the jaw – shared features that did, indeed, make the relationship seem as plain as day. The woman in the portrait was about her age now, only the old styling of her gown dated it. But her mother’s eyes revealed a difference, not in color, but in the bright optimism that shone from them.
The conversation stilled as the door opened; even the temperature seemed to drop. Kit straightened his shoulders but kept his hands on his silver-topped, ebony cane. Sophia stilled but remained at her husband’s side.
Laura felt rather than saw Jonathan shift the weight on his feet, no doubt in response to Kit’s actions. Of them all, only young Vincenzo was unaffected.
She stared at the man on Victoria’s arm as though he were an apparition – indeed, her own father come back to life.
It was Samuel.
Reminding herself that her brother did not believe in great emotional displays – especially in front of strangers – Laura moved toward him and held out a hand. Samuel’s face crumpled. He relinquished his wife’s arm, threw his own around Laura – and openly wept.
Her shock was deep, and soon her own eyes were wet. But Samuel’s anguish continued much longer than it should and, after a moment, his arms around her seemed like shackles.
Laura pushed him away and took several deep breaths before recovering herself. Samuel’s blue eyes – the same shade as hers, looked hurt.
“Well, let me take a look at you,” she said, her voice shaky. “My, you are looking fine.”
She said the words but didn’t believe them. Samuel had aged ten years, perhaps more. His shoulders were rounded, his nose had tiny red lines, his skin was sallow. Even his evening clothes didn’t hang as they ought. Laura caught Victoria out of the corner of her eye, she looked as beautiful as always, but the rigid press of her lips revealed her true feelings.
It seemed to Laura that the only glimmer of the former Samuel came when he spotted Kit. What remaining pride her brother held in his spine seemed to make its way to the fore. He dried his eyes and moved past her stiffly, like a mechanical automaton she had once seen at some amusement palace.
“I thank you, sir, for finding my sister and bringing her home. It places me in an awkward position because, frankly, I detest you and I’m not without foundation to believe the feeling is reciprocated.”
Despite his now routine use of a cane, Hardacre oozed virility. Her brother did not. When a feline smile spread across Kit’s lips, the contrast between the two men could not be more stark.
“You guess correctly, Cappleman, but in deference to your good lady, and my highest regard for my wife and your sister, I’m sure we can suffer each other’s company for this evening. After which, it would be my greatest pleasure to never see your face again.”
Laura heard Morwena gasp. The tension was broken by the sound of a dinner gong and the footman’s announcement.
“Samuel, dear, why don’t you escort Laura in to dinner?”
Laura mentally acknowledged Victoria’s shrewd suggestion. She spared a glance at Kit and folded her arm in her brother’s, while Victoria took the arm of Vincenzo.
The mood at the table was no reflection on the excellence of the food but, after the second course, Laura wished for the informal atmosphere around the table in Elias’ kitchen. No one stood on ceremony there, the only formality was the saying of grace before the meal. She had grown to like that custom. The prayer of thanksgiving for their sustenance was more than acknowledgement of divine providence; it brought everyone at Arcadia together and frequently marked the start of a lively discussion about their day.
Morwena worked hard to enliven the conversation, but even that effort was strained. Several times, Laura found herself fighting unladylike yawns. By unspoken consensus, customary cigars and brandy for the men were abandoned in favor of an early night. Although Morwena would not leave until she had secured an arrangement to visit Samuel’s factory at Enderby’s Wharf to discuss plans for the cannery.
Laura allowed Wallis to help remove her dress but told the maid she would see to her own night clothes. Surprise showed in the girl’s eyes, but she was too well trained to make any remark. Laura finished undressing, climbed into bed and extinguished the lamp.
Despite the bedwarmer, the sheets were cold. The bed was too large. Laura burrowed down under the blankets. In her mind’s eye, she held Benjamin. Her arms felt the weight of heartache. The child would sometimes fall asleep in her arms and not waken. She remembered how he smelled of soap and sometime a little bit of clove oil Serafina had given him for his teething pains.
And the sounds were different. There were no owls outside hunting prey, no flowers whose scents lingered in the night air, no sound of guitar strumming. In fact she heard no sounds at all, even the chimes of the long case clock had been silenced for the benefits of the sleepers.
She was home. In England. The place she had dreamed about returning for years. In private thoughts, where no one could invade, she would imagine Bentwood House as it was. Now, the reality was a dream in itself where the familiar mixed with the unfamiliar.
Laura stared at the date on the newspaper that had been left following breakfast. She had been in England for two weeks and away from Sicily for nearly four weeks. In five weeks’ time, she was to have a private audience with one of the most famous female portrait artists in the Continent.
And she had nothing to show her.
She had just over a month to produce paintings she deemed good enough to present to Madame Vigée-Le Brun; paintings good enough for next year’s Royal Academy summer exhibition.
Sounds from the servant’s hall echoed up the stone stairs, disrupting her thoughts. Laura rose from the breakfast table and a footman, hitherto invisible, stepped up and cleared her half-eaten breakfast.
What if Madame did not like the paintings? What if she did? She could live on the income left to her by her grandfather if she remained under her brother’s roof – and Samuel’s lavish spending on her was a form of atonement that surely one day would have its end.
To be truly free, she would have to be independent. To be independent, she would have to work. And if she was to make a living at her work, she would need a patron or paying clients.
Her studio adjoining her dressing room was flooded with light, even with the door closed, which helped to silence the noise from the servants at work.
She stared at the pristine, blank canvas for three days.
She sighed. She never had this trouble before, even when all she could paint was black storms. She closed her eyes to contemplate a scene she wished to paint, but all she saw was death and slavery and torment.
She opened her eyes and reached for a paintbrush.
Just do it!
Without thinking, Laura plunged the brush into a pot of water, dabbed the bristles in the paint – then hesitated over the canvas, heedless of the rivulets of color that ran down the handle to her fingers that gripped the implement too tight.
She closed her eyes and all she saw was the harem and the ugly reality of the world outside pretty gowns, elegant drawing rooms and nuncheons.
Her hand shook violently and she threw the brush in frustration. It hit the wall, spattering it with paint. She pawed her hands down her apron, smearing it with more paint.
On the edge of hysteria, Laura steadied herself. Perhaps if she stopped trying to see a scene in her mind’s eye? She might apply herself to something else. A still life… yes, what could be more inoffensive than a still life?
Victoria had brought in a bowlful of summer blooms, determined to rescue them from the gardener’s eager pruning shears. They stood in a bowl in the morning room…
Without any more thought, she hastened downstairs.
There they were! A riot of color in a plain crystal bowl, set on a console table under a window where it caught the light, spilling a glow across the rosewood surface. The heady fragrance drew her to them.
Perfect! Perhaps she should sketch it now. Only she hadn’t brought a pad with her. Never mind, she would bring the bowl up to her room. If she got the flowers just right straight away, she could work on the table later.
She grasped the crystal globe in both hands and breathed in deep, raising it and turned around.
The bemused faces of five women looked at her, four of whom were complete strangers. The room fell to a hushed silence.
Victoria stood up, eyes wide and mouth agape. Laura blinked rapidly, goosebumps rippling down her spine.
“Oh… I didn’t realize you had visitors.”
Her sister-in-law recovered a degree of composure before her guests.
“It doesn’t matter a whit,” she said uncertainly. “Countess Hortence, Felicity, my Lady Asherwood, Lady Louise and Miss Margaret Pearson, may I present Samuel’s sister, Miss Laura Cappleman.”
Out of reflexive habit ingrained by finishing school, Laura curtsied, the bowl sloshing water down her apron. She looked down with dismay as she dripped onto the carpet, and turned back, returning the bowl to the table with a clunk.
Victoria continued her forced brightness. “Laura is quite an accomplished painter.”
“And you know the artistic temperament,” added Laura, turning back to the group and tapping a finger to her temple. “Very absent-minded.” She offered her most winsome smile.
She watched the women smile politely and relax, but did not imagine her excuse had persuaded them. It wouldn’t do for them to think one of their own had a madwoman in the family, even by marriage.
Laura wiped her hands down her damp apron, making the smear of pain even worse.
“I understand you have been abroad for some time, Miss Cappleman,” said Countess Hortence, a woman in her late fifties with a slightly plumpish figure but not overly so. She dressed in violet and smelled of it. She lifted her lorgnette to her eyes to peer at her.
The countess carried the very air of an aristocrat in her bearing and it was clear the other ladies deferred to her opinion. Laura honed her attention on winning this woman’s good favor.
“Indeed, I have, your ladyship,” she confirmed. “I lived in Sicily for nearly two years. My cousin, Sophia, now lives there with her husband. We traveled with our uncle, Professor Jonas Fenton. He studied ancient civilizations there. I painted.”
She felt as though she were back in the school room again, reciting her lessons before the mistress. She waited for the older woman’s verdict.
Their gazes held each other for a moment before the countess inclined her head.
“I do not approve of Lord William Bentinck,” she announced. The statement was in the air, a test to see if Laura measured up.
“I only met Lord William the once, your ladyship. It was not long enough to form an opinion of his character.”
The older lady lifted her chin and offered a small grunt in reply.
“It must have been terribly exciting to go abroad,” chimed in Lady Louise, who Laura guessed was about sixteen years old.
“It certainly does make one appreciate home.” It wasn’t just Laura’s smile that was practiced, so too was her answer to every conceivable question about her time away from England.
She curtsied to the countess once more before addressing Victoria.
“Please do excuse me. I’ll return to my work.”
With all the dignity she still possessed, Laura exited the morning room and swiftly made her way down the hall. She caught her reflection in the mirror above a hall table and stopped. The woman she saw in the mirror was wild-haired and paint-smeared. So often since her rescue, she had been convinced her ordeal was visible for everyone to see – the concubine, the forced prostitute – naked and exposed.
“Laura!”
She jumped and turned to the voice. Victoria wore a slight frown which vanished quickly.
“You forgot your flowers. I’ll have one of the servants bring them up to you.”
Laura attempted a smile. “You’re so good to me, thank you.”
She retreated up the stairs to her studio and locked the door, pressing her back against it with relief.
Soon, she was at the easel, filling the canvas with paint.