Giving up on the very idea of working, Edward left for his rooms, tugged out a drawer in his washing room, and took a dram of laudanum. Back in his chambers, he pulled the drapes down and fell back against the pillows as fatigue began to spread outward in languorous waves.
His eyes and limbs grew heavy, and he barely felt when Atticus clambered onto the bed and curled up at his feet. Sleep beckoned, and too exhausted and ill to resist, he finally followed.
CHAPTER 15
Gazing up at the front façade of the Ashmolean Museum, at the four tall columns with their massive Corinthian capitals with lateral projecting wings, Alice easily made the correlation between the museum and the Temple of Apollo.
“It is all very intimidating, isn’t it?” Penelope whispered by her side.
“Come on, girls,” Aunt Agatha called while she held onto her husband’s arm as they took to the steps. Eliza was on her father’s other side. “We shan’t dilly-dally.”
Glancing down at the invitation for an up-and-coming artist’s debut that Benedict had sent her, Alice swallowed and looked up again. Linking her arm with her sister, they headed up the stairs as well, careful to not trip over their feet.
While most of the museum was closed for the night, there were three other parlors that were open for viewing: the antiquities, coins, and Eastern art.
It had been two weeks since the disastrous visit to Edward’s home and as much as she tried to put it out of her mind—she couldn’t. Benedict had been over twice, they’d taken strolls in Hyde Park and even gone to Gunther’s for their famous ices, but Alice could not shake the feeling that the enthusiasm he’d once had was waning.
After handing in their invitations, she looked up at the soaring roof and the liveried waiters with trays of champagne wandering through the crowd. This was an event where the truecrème-de-la-crèmeof the ton was attending.
“Oh my,” Penelope whispered. “Is that man over there one of the royal family?”
“I think so,” Alice replied after peering in the direction, then nodded to their aunt. “Aunt is overjoyed at attending this night. She’d always wanted aninwith the beau monde and this might be it.”
Aunt Agatha fiddled with the grey velvet turban slipping over her faded brown curls, her small hands pushed the headpiece back as she verily vibrated with energy. She wore an indigo-colored velvet that was four seasons behind and was thick and rather shapeless.
“Does she not see the ladies looking at her as if she were a three-eyed fish?” Penelope asked.
“I don’t think she cares,” Alice replied. “What I do care about is you and Lord Rutledge. How is that coming along?”
Shouldn’t he have proposed marriage by now? It was in his agreement, or, well, his order from that mysterious man.
“He’s been… polite,” Penelope sighed. “But I cannot help but think he is being disingenuous in it. I don’t think he wants anything to do with me, Alice, and while I thought I was in love with him, now I am wondering what I ever saw in him.”
Her sister’s words made Alice stop cold. “But Penelope—” she dropped her voice, frantic with worry. “What about the…”
“I will bear it,” Penelope whispered. “But I am not sure he will be a willing father either.”
Alice cast through her head on how to reply—but no words came to her mind. She didn’t have a moment to worry about that as her aunt began making a spectacle of herself.
“Lady Somerset!” her aunt tittered, “and Viscountess Rutherford. So delighted to see you two! How do you do?”
“Isn’t that Lady Tulloch and Countess Trent?” Penelope whispered. “Is Aunt addled?”
Alice flushed with humiliation as her aunt continued to greet the occupants of the room; some of them by their right titles but most of them far from it.
Despite the polite murmured replies, Alice saw the raised brows and mocking smirks behind the champagne flutes and fans. She could practically hear what they were thinking;is this woman fit for Bedlam or has she just been released from it?
Eliza was halfway across the room, talking with two other ladies, ignoring her mother completely. Her uncle, as unseasoned as he was with the ton, could only stand by and watch in polite mortification as his wife did her best to ingratiate herself into the upper class.
A bell rang, calling the guest’s attention to the host, who told them the exhibition was open and for them to follow him.
“Please, start from the right to the left,” the host began. “Monsieur Lefebre has indicated that is how they are to be viewed.”
After waiting for most of the guests to go before them, Alice and Penelope began to take in the artwork, which started with a young girl in a field of daisies, her dark hair fluttering in the wind, as did her small white dress. The art was so detailed and precise, Alice half wondered if she were not looking through a window and gazing at a real meadow.
The portraits continued with the same girl turning into a young woman in a Grecian white dress, sitting atop a tree limb—thethird had the girl in the arms of a young man, gazing at him with the expression of a lady in love.
The fourth had the lady with a young boy in her arms, and the last, the young woman as an old woman, her dark hair now grey through the roots, leaning on her husband while waving to her son in the distance. But what was so intriguing and utterly enthralling was the field stretched from the first painting to the last, unbroken.
