Chapter One
To be naked in a room full of intently staring strangers had become a sort of relief. Michael Delancey—vicar’s son, ordained priest, and rising star at Lambeth Palace—shrugged out of his dressing gown and let his mind go quiet.
The drawing instructor made a few remarks about the difficulty of accurately rendering hands and feet and the need to pay attention to the smallest shadows—beneath the chin, below the ankle bone—and then Michael was posed, semi-recumbent on a chaise, one foot on the floor, one arm flung back to rest beside his head.
The posture was restful, though after twenty minutes, Michael’s arm began to tingle. The only sounds in the room were the soft scratch of charcoal or pencil against paper, the occasional cough, or one page being set aside so another could be begun.
Berthold, a fussy old Frenchman with a meticulous eye for detail, murmured critical comments to this or that student, and time drifted along in a peaceful trickle of moments.
“And now, mes prodiges, we draw more than the fingers and the toes,” Monsieur Berthold said. “We have noted before the regularities of our model’s features—the nobility of the brow, the fine angle of the chin, the lovely musculature, and the perfect symmetry of the dark brows. This man is quite attractive.” Monsieur’s remarks, while flattering, might have been describing a marble effigy, so dispassionate was his praise. “Now I pose him thus…”
Berthold demonstrated for Michael a sitting posture, one elbow braced on a thigh, gaze on the floor.
“The handsome face is hidden. Draw this man so that without seeing the quality of his gaze, without knowing the set of his mouth or the angle of his nose, he conveys merriment. He is about to spring up and give a shout of joy, to laugh with great glee.”
Michael, staring at his feet—scrupulously clean, second toe longer than the great toe—could not see the consternation in the room, but he could feel it in the silence that greeted Monsieur’s challenge. Berthold had a whole speech about the difference between an artist and a draftsman. The draftsman rendered accurate likenesses and could make a fine living doing so.
May the good God bless and keep the draftsman, and may every artist aspire to at least a draftsman’s skill.
The artist, though, put truth on the page. The visual truth, the emotional truth, the moral truth. All a bit high-flown when the audience was a room full of young men, many of whom were more adept at draining a bottle than drawing that same bottle sitting on a sunny windowsill.
One lone stick of charcoal began scratching away. High up, farthest from the center of the room. That would be young Mr. Henderson, who preferred the longer perspective. Slight, blond, barely emerging from adolescence. Henderson never said much, but when he did pose a question to Monsieur, the answer came without the usual garnish of sarcasm and criticism.
Henderson had talent and didn’t feel compelled to bruit that about. Lord Dermot Anthony, by contrast, had sizable talent and an even bigger mouth. Always in the front row, close enough that Michael could smell the sour aroma of debauchery blended with expensive shaving soap.
Everybody professed to like Lord Dermot, and even Monsieur offered him the occasional encouraging remark. Lord Dermot’s mama, the Marchioness of Stanbridge, was a noted patroness of the arts, as was Dermot’s auntie.
As the minutes crept by, Michael mentally steeled himself for his next obligation—dinner with his sister and her doting husband. Dorcas had chosen well, and she set a fine table. Alasdhair MacKay, Michael’s brother-by-marriage, was a lovely fellow with a sly sense of humor and a fondness for smooth whisky.
The drudgery, though, of being polite and mannerly toward some pretty widow or spinster-in-training for three or four hours… The hope in the lady’s eyes, the determination in Dorcas’s, and the sympathy in MacKay’s… A penance, the lot of it.
The session came to an end, and Berthold passed Michael his robe. “Our thanks, as usual. We will see you again on Tuesday, sir.”
Michael donned the dressing gown and belted it loosely, then took himself to the changing room. Clothes maketh not the man, but rather, the masquerade. A priest wore sober attire, though he need not be shabby.
Michael enjoyed fine clothes. Perhaps if he showed up at Dorcas’s with a stain on his cravat and a smear of charcoal on his cuff… But no. Dissembling for personal gain would not do.
He was making his way through the academy’s grand foyer, wondering if he had time for a quick stop on Circle Lane before he was due for dinner. Just fifteen minutes, not really a visit, more of a sighting. He was too intent on his plans to watch where he was going, and thus he and Henderson collided right in the doorway.
“Beg pardon,” Henderson muttered in his signature husky tenor. “Entirely my fault. Do go on.” He tugged down is hat brim and gestured with a gloved hand.
“My apologies,” Michael said, bowing. “I was preoccupied. After you.”
Henderson bustled through the door and jogged down the steps, soon disappearing among the pedestrians thronging the walkway. Michael stood on the terrace, the chilly evening breeze wafting about him as he reviewed what he’d just learned.
Henderson, who preferred to sit in the studio’s most shadowed corners, who rarely spoke at all, and who never joined with the other students in the general jockeying for status, was distinguished by more than talent and eccentricity.
Henderson had the unmistakable bodily endowments of a well-formed woman.
“Sorry, Mac,” Mrs. Psyche Henderson Fremont called to her coachman. “I couldn’t get the hair right.” She vaulted into the closed carriage as a young man would—as a young lady ought to be free to do—and rapped on the roof with her walking stick.
Wondrous items, walking sticks. A fashionable extension of the personality, a symbol of social status, a support in case of injury, and best of all, a weapon. The one she carried was mahogany and had a dagger secreted in the carved lion’s head.
Jacob had always had impeccable taste.
She settled onto the forward-facing bench and flicked open her pocket watch—a good-sized article, not some squinty little ornament intended to draw the eye to a lady’s bodice. Half past. Would not do to be late. Aunt Hazel would worry, and when Aunt worried, she became fractious.
Psyche extinguished the coach lamps and drew the curtains. Twenty minutes later, in the mews of a quietly elegant side street, the footman handed down a fashionable young lady.
“Walk ’em, Mac,” she said. “We’ll be out front in half a twinkling.”
“Aye, missus.”
Psyche opened the back gate and remembered to alter her stride. “And please walk the horses,” she muttered, “not walk ’em, for pity’s sake.” She stopped at the birdbath, which sported an island of ice floating in a small sea of meltwater. Henderson would have lifted the ice out barehanded and made life a little easier for the birds and night creatures.
Psyche glanced around to ensure the evening shadows were sufficient to mask her behavior from the neighbors, used her teeth to remove one glove, and dashed the ice onto the walkway. Pulling a glove on over damp fingers was more bother than anticipated.
She paused as she always did at the back door and slowed her breathing. Young ladies did not hurry. Young ladies were not preoccupied with some model’s lavishly tousled hair. Young ladies spent afternoons shopping for the sheer pleasure of handling fine fabrics and socializing with other women.