Lord Skeffington stepped in front of her painting. “Why, it’s fine work. Nice bit of scumbling technique here. Weren’t you planning to exhibit it at a family function?”
She groaned inwardly. “Yes. Next week. At a matinée.”
A dozen men of influence and their wives would attend the event in her parents’ St. James’s residence and stay for luncheon. She already knew she would rather exhibit nothing than this.
“It shall do nicely for a matinée,” said Lord Skeffington. “Though again you chose quite the grim subject matter.”
She smiled cautiously. “Grim?” Again?
“You seem to have a penchant for, how to put it, violent scenarios, Miss Greenfield.”
“I . . . wouldn’t say that I do.”
“I recall your Apollo hunting an unwilling Callisto.”
“Oh. That.”
“Then at the beginning of last term, there was your ravishment of the Cassandra.”
“Which is one of the most popular depictions in Greek art.”
“I was merely observing a theme,” Lord Skeffington said mildly.
She supposed there was a theme. She had painted Helen of Troy last term, her best work yet, but then again, in her interpretation, Helen had been the only one left standing against the smoking ruins of a ransacked city with both Paris and Menelaus broken at her feet.
“Well,” she said, “is there a subject in the classics that is not at least a little . . . violent?”
“Dancing nymphs?” Lord Skeffington suggested. “Demeter and her cornucopia, tending to the fields? Penelope weaving cloth? All perfectly wholesome, suitable subject matters.”
Suitable for a female artist were the unspoken words. Her mood turned mulish.
“I believe Hades was desperate when he snatched Persephone,” she said demurely, because she mustn’t repel the embodiment of Mr. Bingley in a fit of temper. “Being surrounded by darkness and death every day gave him the morbs. He needed company, someone who was . . . alive.”
Lord Skeffington tutted. “Making excuses for the villain, Miss Greenfield? Shocking. Though I suppose the tender female heart cannot help but hope for good in even the lowliest man, and that includes”—he raised his fine hands dramatically—“the king of the dead.” He chuckled again, and so she kept smiling, and her cheeks ached a little from the effort.
Aunty was wide awake and opinionated during the brief walk from the galleries’ side entrance to the Randolph, where they had rented rooms during term time.
“Young Lord Skeffington is rather forward,” she said loudly enough to make Hattie wince. “I saw him distract you from your work with chitchat.”
She slowed their pace by hooking her thin arm through Hattie’s and dizzied her with the heavy scent of her French perfume. Now they made a formidable obstacle for other passersby on the narrow pavement.
“He was just making conversation about the painting, Aunt.”
Aunty cupped her ear with her hand. “Your pardon?”
“He was just making conversation,” Hattie bellowed. Mr. Graves, her spurned protection officer, trailing behind with his bland face and gray coat, was overhearing every word whether he wanted to or not. Aunty’s hearing was mysterious, it seemed to wax and wane depending on whether she actually wanted to hear something, and Hattie had caught her speaking in perfectly hushed tones with her lady friends.
“Ah,” said Aunty, and forced a gentleman who tried to stride past onto the road with a wave of her cane. “They always started with just a conversation, in my day they did. Next, they demand to accompany you for a walk.”
“Mama would be delighted if he started something.”
“What?”
“I said: Mother would be delighted!”
“Ah. Would she now? He’s a bit reedy, isn’t he?”
Reedy? Lord Skeffington had the perfectly pleasant, nonthreatening build of a young gentleman who enjoyed the fine arts. Besides, his looks would hardly matter—ever since Papa had married Flossie to a ham-fisted Dutch textile tycoon, her mother had her eye on someone titled for her remaining daughters. And since Mina was expecting a proposal from a mere knight before the end of the summer, the task of securing a blue-blooded match fell onto Hattie’s shoulders. On a normal day, she absolutely fancied a nobleman for herself. She found Lord Skeffington’s appearance ideal: golden, noble, and only a little older than herself. They would have many years left for him to sit for her paintings as Knight in Shining Armor. . . .
“Watch out.” Her aunt tugged at her arm with enough strength to stop her in her tracks.
They had reached the crossing to the Randolph, but the next approaching carriage was still a long way away.
“This head of yours,” Aunty muttered. “Always away with the fairies. It will get you into trouble one day.”
Hattie patted the frail hand clutching her arm. “You’re watching me, so I shall be fine.”
“Hmph. Then why have you been limping?”
Because her turned ankle continued to be a painful reminder of her foolish bid for an hour of experiences in London.
“I took the stairs too hastily.” Having to yell the lie made it much worse.
“That should teach you not to hurry,” Aunty said. “I suppose his lordship should be invited to dinner, then. Tomorrow!”
“Tomorrow is terribly short notice, Aunt—and it’s the family dinner.”
“Very well. Then we shall prevail on your mother tomorrow night to extend an invitation to Lord Skeffington for a more formal occasion, and soon.”
Aunty waited until they had crossed the street and entered the cool, resounding lobby of the Randolph to ask, “You do know his Christian name is Clotworthy?”
She had known. Now the hotel staff manning the reception desks, Mr. Graves, and some wide-eyed guests who had been in conversation on the settees near the fireplace knew it, too.
“Yes,” Aunty boomed as she took course toward the lift, “Clotworthy, like his late father—come to think of it, his grandfather was a Clotworthy, too.”
“Right—”
“I thought you should know before we extend an invite. A woman must give it due consideration whether she should like to be eternalized in the annals in a long line of Clotworthy Skeffingtons. They would name your son Clotworthy, too—a mouthful for a small child. I suggest you could call him Clotty.”
Hattie cringed and cast a covert look around. This—this was how rumors began. Such rumors could get a young woman into terrible trouble, and she liked to think that she wasn’t skirting trouble for the sake of it. In fact, after her latest excursion had ended with her mouth glued to that of a scoundrel, she had decided to behave impeccably for the foreseeable future. Mr. Graves would appreciate this, too, she thought as her protection officer brushed past her into the apartment to do his usual round of checking whether any potential kidnappers had stolen inside during their absence. For now, Graves chose to keep his employ with the Greenfields rather than report her absence three days ago, but he would not do so forever.