Elisabeth Kidd (14 page)

It was Edward who found an unlocked door leading to an empty gallery wherein some of Mr. Turner’s newest works were awaiting preparation for display, and triumphantly ushered Sydney into it. A very large painting depicting Richmond Hill on the occasion of the Prince Regent’s birthday celebrations stood against one entire wall of this gallery. However, it was for once not the painting but the viewer—for the gallery was not quite empty—that drew Sydney’s attention.

Standing some six feet from the painting and studying it intently—one slender hand resting gracefully on a silver-topped walking stick and the other on its owner’s left hip—was quite the most beautiful young man Sydney had ever seen. He was tall and well-proportioned, and about five-and-twenty years of age; he stared out of dark, long-lashed eyes at the painting, oblivious of the intruders and as unmoving as a work of art himself. Like the Turner, he was arrayed in unusual hues and textures—from the black of his thick curls and the grey silk scarf he wore in place of a cravat, to the apricot-coloured coat with matching gloves and his grey velvet pantaloons.

Sydney caught her breath, thinking he was every bit as captivating to look at as anything she had contrived to see yet that day.

“Come along, Miss Archer,” Edward urged her, a little crossly. “Here is another gallery to our left.’’

The young man turned his head at this, but made no move towards them. Sydney let herself be pulled along, and it was not until Edward had found their way to a small, glass-roofed courtyard within the larger building that Sydney said, “Where are we going?’’

“Only to seek a moment’s repose,” Edward replied, with something more like his accustomed gallantry. He led her into the courtyard, a sunny enclosure embellished with statues and potted plants. “Won’t you sit down on this bench, Miss Archer? I imagine you must find our London crowds fatiguing—after the quiet life you have led in the country, that is.”

Sydney, who only half-heard this speech, looked up at Mr. Kingsley and wondered suddenly how she had ever thought
him
handsome. “I’m so sorry—I was not attending.’’

Edward smiled and attempted once more to take her hand, but she shook him off impatiently. “Yes, I can see you are quite overset,” he said, with a regretful sigh, as if he had been the unintended cause of her discomfort. “I wager there are nothing like so many people and activities to be endured near your home—in Kent, is it not?”

Sydney admitted to Kent, but felt an unaccountable reluctance to go into details. A vague feeling of unease came over her, and she glanced around her to see precisely where they were, and whether they were alone. They were.

Happily, Edward did not press her for a reply, and went on speaking with a light civility that eased her apprehension somewhat.

“You have visited Long Hill, have you not?” he said. “I regret I have not had the pleasure of doing so myself, but I am given to understand that Lyle—your guardian, that is—has brought about quite a remarkable transformation since the disaster of some years ago.’’

“Oh, yes,” Sydney replied, making an effort at conversation. “The original house was burnt to the ground, you know, but one would never think it to look at the new one.’’

Sydney rather surprised herself by the note of pride in her voice when she spoke of Long Hill, for she had not up to then realized that she had conceived an affection for the estate in her short time there. Edward, however, appeared to think this perfectly natural.

“Shall you return there at the end of the season?” he asked. Sydney, not having thought so far ahead, hesitated. “Why—I cannot say—” Then, remembering that her plans had not included ever seeing either Long Hill or its owner again, she stopped, an odd confusion flooding over her.

“I do beg your pardon, Miss Archer,” Edward went on, as if from some distance away. “You will forgive my speaking plainly, I am certain. Naturally, you will soon marry one of your many admirers and have a household of your own to look after. But surely Lyle, though his guardianship will be formally at an end, will not—ah, cut you off entirely? I am aware that the estate is entailed, but it is well known that Lyle’s fortune is large enough to make his entire family—by blood or adoption—most comfortable.”

Sydney began at last to perceive where Edward’s indiscretions were leading, and she leveled what she hoped was a quelling stare at him.

“I cannot imagine, sir, what I may have said or done to encourage you to speak to me on such matters—which are no concern of yours—but let me tell you that I do not care to hear any more about them!’’

Edward switched abruptly to another tack. “Forgive me, dear Miss Archer! Of course you have given me no leave to speak so. I can only plead my great admiration—and yes, affection!—for you, which prompts me to wish to know everything about you! I apologize if I have given offense. I am—” Here he paused and, placing his hand more firmly on Sydney’s arm, smiled engagingly. “Won’t you let me speak for just a moment, dear Miss Archer? I should like—indeed I must!—tell you what is in my heart!’’

“Mr. Kingsley, please let us return to the gallery—”

“Dearest Sydney!” Edward moved closer to her and fixed his intense eyes on her as if to bewitch her with a look. “You must let me speak! I must tell you of my great admiration for you, which has blossomed of late into something warmer—indeed, may I say it—?’’

Sydney, being suddenly reminded of Cedric’s lessons in the proper manner of receiving a proposal of marriage—which she assumed was what Mr. Kingsley had in mind—had some difficulty not to laugh at him. A rather damp corner of the Royal Academy was hardly the proper place to be receiving an offer, but she had to acknowledge that Edward certainly knew his part. She lowered her eyes, but an incorrigible giggle escaped her just the same.

“Miss Archer, do not mock me, I pray!”

“Oh, I do beg your pardon, Mr. Kingsley, but—do tell me! How many other ladies have you said this to?”

“Why, none, I assure you! Do I seem so cool? I do not feel so!”

“No, I suppose you don’t, but as my cousin Nicky once told me—and he spoke from vast experience—it makes all the difference if a lady is led to believe she is the first!”

Sydney did not mention that Cedric’s advice to Edward on the subject would have been to strive for a little more originality, but she thought she had already been too cruel to poor Mr. Kingsley, who appeared to be labouring under the delusion that she was possessed of the fortune he was commonly known to be in need of. She had no inclination to discuss her private affairs further with him, merely to disabuse him of a notion that she certainly had said nothing to foster. Furthermore—and while this thought lay quietly unacknowledged in the back of her heart, it was nevertheless the most powerful argument against encouraging his suit—she did not care to receive her very first proposal of marriage in such a way and from someone she cared so little for as Edward Kingsley.

Just at that moment, however, and almost as if he were expected, into the courtyard strolled the beautiful young man of the gallery. He stopped on beholding them, raised his elegant pearl-grey hat, and said conversationally, “Ah, Miss Archer. I thought it must be you, but I was so struck by Mr. Turner’s latest masterpiece that I fear I was somewhat bemused just now—how do you do?”

He shook Sydney’s hand and bowed to Edward, who was obliged to stand up and return the courtesy.

“I’m D’Arcy, you know,” said the stranger, one eyebrow cocked interrogatively at Edward. “Don’t believe we’ve been introduced.”

Sydney, who had no notion who this extraordinary young man was—but who suspected Edward did not know either—rose to the occasion. “Allow me to present Mr. Edward Kingsley, my lord, who has been so kind as to bring me here to view the paintings.”

Lord D’Arcy, who did not deny the title she bestowed on him almost automatically, looked around him in a pointed fashion. “But Miss Archer—there are no paintings here. Do let us return to the gallery and admire the Prince Regent. Such is the artist’s genius that he makes even that subject a pleasure to behold.’’

With a languid manner that made Edward Kingsley appear gauche by comparison, Lord D’Arcy led them back to the Turner gallery, where he declaimed at some length—to Sydney’s fascination and Edward’s infinite boredom—on the particularly luminous effects created by the artist in his new work and how it differed from his previous efforts. He then led Sydney, with Edward reduced to a neglected third, through other rooms they had not previously been aware of, and where those other visitors who chanced to be there bowed deferentially out of his lordship’s way, until an hour later they found themselves again outside the front gate, Edward doggedly and determinedly following.

“Do allow me the privilege of escorting you home, Miss Archer,’’ D’Arcy said, giving an urchin a coin to summon his phaeton for him.

“I beg your pardon, sir!” Edward interrupted. “I brought this lady here and I am perfectly capable of seeing her home again!”

“One imagines you to be capable
de tout
, dear fellow,” D’Arcy said, tilting his head slightly back and raising his quizzing glass at Edward. “Nevertheless, Miss Archer has had quite enough of you for one day, is that not so, ma’am? To be sure, it is—so run along now, fellow, and no more will be said about your boorish conduct this morning.”

D’Arcy reached into his pocket again and extracted two shillings, which he handed to Edward, saying, “There you are—nothing lost after all.”

Edward drew himself up as if to remonstrate further but, recognizing the futility of any such effort, instead turned on his heel and went off, muttering, to find his own vehicle.

D’Arcy apparently forgot his existence as soon as it no longer interfered with his own; he handed Sydney up into a stylish red high-perch phaeton, dismissed his tiger, took the reins, and gave his team of high-stepping greys the office to start. The phaeton sprang lightly into the Strand.

Sydney began to express her thanks to her rescuer for his timely intervention, but he stopped her.

“Pray, dear lady, say no more. There was nothing else to be done.”

“But you are not even acquainted with me, sir!” Sydney protested. “You need not have troubled—indeed, I do not comprehend how you know my name!’’

“That person—one does not call him a gentleman—bandied it about altogether too freely. One could not help but overhear. Shall we take a turn around the Park? Then you will tell me where your home is, and presently I will take you there.”

“Oh, it is in Grosvenor Square—that is, yes, I should like a drive first, thank you.”

For a few moments, as Lord D’Arcy maneuvered gracefully through the traffic coming from the City, and thence into Piccadilly, Sydney sat in silent admiration of his skill and the picture of elegant confidence he presented.

Shortly, however, he remarked, “You were also very quick, ma’am, to follow my lead. My compliments.’’

“Not at all.”

“Are you by any happy chance an actress?”

Lord D’Arcy spoke this phrase almost indifferently, looking ahead of him as he drove rather than at Sydney, but it was only to be expected that his words would have a powerful effect on her.

“Why, no,” she said, after a moment’s struggle with her conscience, which ultimately convinced her that she would not be able to live up to an outright lie but which could not stop her from adding, “I have, however, performed the classics many times among my—my special friends.’’

“One could see as much,” D’Arcy remarked with satisfaction. They turned into Hyde Park then, and his lordship let his horses have their heads on the empty turf of Rotten Row. After an exhilarating rush down the Row in one direction, D’Arcy turned his phaeton and also, at last, turned his head to look at Sydney.

“My compliments again, Miss Archer. Most of the tiresome young ladies of my acquaintance would have fainted away or had hysterics, to be going at any speed faster than a sedate trot.”

“Nonsense!” said Sydney briskly. “How can you think us ladies so poor-spirited?’’

Lord D’Arcy smiled, and allowed there to be some exceptional ladies. “We will now go very slowly back,” he announced, “so that all the mushrooms whose attention we have thoroughly caught may have a proper look at us and wonder at such a well-matched pair.’’

Sydney guessed he was not referring to the horses and gave him a quizzical look. “Come, ma’am,” he admonished, with an amused glance at her, “surely you noticed it immediately? We have precisely the same tastes, you and I—you in your charming dress, and I in my coat and carriage. In addition, we are both raven-haired and pale-complexioned—a classic combination. We might pose for Sir Thomas Lawrence just as we are, is it not so?”

Sydney had been too dazzled by the spectacle of Lord D’Arcy to remember what she had on her own back, but she now took a second look and realized his discerning eye had indeed caught the fortuitous coincidence in their costume—a harmony poor Edward Kingsley would doubtless have marred. No wonder D’Arcy had been so quick to dismiss him! She laughed.

“You are perfectly in the right, sir! Shall we be talked about over dinner tables tonight?”

“Should you mind if we were?”

“Not a bit!’’ Sydney declared recklessly

Their return progress did indeed attract a gratifying amount of attention, but Sydney, following Lord D’Arcy’s lead again, feigned a sublime indifference to the stares of lesser mortals. D’Arcy told her he had recently returned from a tour of Greece and Italy, which he had found balm to his soul—only to find England as ignorant and unsympathetic as ever. He conceded, however, that his hopes had been raised by making her acquaintance. He asked if he might call on her the next day.

“Are you perchance invited to a certain fête champêtre at Richmond Park a se’night hence?” he enquired as they stopped before the house in Grosvenor Square. Sydney confirmed that she was, if he referred to Sir Gavin Thiers’s garden party.

“Excellent. I had not, I own, intended to grace this affair with my presence, but that was before I had discovered my leading lady.’’

“I beg your pardon?”

“Do you know
The Tempest
?’’