“Fine wi’ me. I ain’ goin’ nowhere fast,” he quipped and settled into the wall at his back.
She opened her case, removed charcoals and paper, and briskly set about sketching the old soldier. First came the shape of his face, hollowed out and coated with street grime. Then it was on to red-rimmed eyes sunk deep within their sockets, parched lips shriveled to the thickness of wrapping paper, pock-marked skin the texture of old leather. In all, a face as ravaged by war and poverty as one was ever likely to see.
Once her pencil found its rhythm on the paper, she began, “My—” she interrupted herself. She’d almost saidmy husband. She began again, “I once knew a man who served in the Second Division. Captain Lord Percival Bretagne. Perhaps you knew him?”
“Knew of ’im, milady, to be sure. Seen ’im sit ’is ’orse real pretty like.” The old soldier shifted his weight on the unforgiving sidewalk. “But we didna travel in tha same circles like. Unless ’is ’orse needed a shoe or tha like. In such case, Jem’s”—The man jabbed his thumb into his chest—“yer man. I was told more ’n once that I was the best ’ostler on the Peninsula.”
She felt the heat of incipient shame brighten her cheeks. Of course, this old soldier and Percy hadn’t traveled in the same circles. Percy wouldn’t have had the faintest notion of this man’s existence.
Yet another lesson the London streets had taught her: places like St. James and Mayfair existed within their own social stratum, insular and impenetrable. The rest of London was the hinterlands as far as much of thetonwas concerned. The masses were to be used for war and service and forgotten. She quashed the rise of anger that threatened, channeling it into her drawing, which was proceeding at an erratic pace.
“Seem to remember,” the old soldier went on, undeterred, “that ’e came to a bad end, if ya didna mind me bringin’ it up. Kill’t by one o’ our own at the Battle of Maya, wadn’t ’e?”
Olivia’s pencil scratched a dark, incongruous mark across the paper. “As it turns out, he wasn’t.” This old soldier must be the last person in London who didn’t know that Captain Lord Percival Bretagne was alive. “In fact, he surfaced in Paris last year, very much alive. The gossip rags had a field day when his wife petitioned the House of Lords for a divorce.” She blended out the errant stroke.
“You don’ say?” the old soldier said on a whistle. “If ya don’ mind me sayin’, the wife must be a right selfish and unnat’ral wench to do such a thin’.”
Her hand came to an abrupt stop. “Something like that,” she murmured. She began stuffing her materials back into her portfolio.
She glanced at the old soldier, his chatter filling in the blank spaces of absent conversation. “Treatin’ a war ’ero that way. Whate’er ’appened to a warm welcome ’ome?”
A sudden ruckus involving a horse cart on the opposite side of the street half a block away incited a confusion of activity around them, but Olivia took little notice. Her body had gone numb. She dug inside her breast pocket for another coin. “Thank you for your time, sir.”
She dropped the crown into the old soldier’s cup. He fished it out and tested it with the few good teeth remaining in his head. She was gone before the coin was out of his mouth.
Heedless of direction, she fled as fast as her legs would carry her and her dress would allow. It was imperative that she move as fast and as far away from that man and that past as possible.
She was aware of how the world must view her, but this was the first time she’d heard the words spoken aloud.
Selfish.Unnatural.
She must be a selfish and unnatural wench to divorce her resurrected war hero of a husband. She must be a selfish and unnatural mother to deny their daughter her father.
Perhaps it was all true, and she was, indeed, selfish and unnatural. Except no one making those assertions had been in her marriage. Only she and Percy had been in their marriage, and only she and Percy knew the truth about it.
Actually, that wasn’t quite true. She was fairly certain Percy didn’t know the truth about their marriage either, as it hadn’t impacted him in the least.
She glanced around, recognized the cross street, and cut a left. Her pace slowed, and her breath caught up with her. This business with Percy wouldn’t leave her be. And they weren’t in the same city. Not even the same country.
She found herself a single street removed from Jiro’s studio and ducked into a deserted alley, only slightly fetid, and stopped. She couldn’t arrive looking harried and devastated. Eyes closed, she called to mind an image that had comforted and calmed her these last six, tumultuous months since she’d heard Percy was alive: a single freestanding column of brilliant white marble rose into the sky, steady and unassailable, dependent on nothing and no one for support.
From the instant she’d decided to petition the House of Lords to set her marriage aside, she’d known this must be her. She would do anything to preserve the integrity of this column. It relied only on itself.
Decently composed, she stepped out of the dank alleyway, dashed up the street, and down another before landing on Jiro’s doorstep. After a quick double-rap on the front door, an aged servant opened it and silently motioned her inside. She paused to remove her sturdy boots before following the servant through to the back of the house. Once seated at the large white studio’s square central table, she slid the day’s drawings out of her case and patiently awaited Jiro’s arrival.
Her gaze rested on the paintings hanging on adjacent walls, their luminous gold-leaf background an exquisite contrast with the stark white of the room. A skylight and a north-facing wall provided the studio with perfect light and illuminated the paintings, even on the grayest of London days.
As the eye proceeded from right to left, it first happened upon a pair of young cranes being tended by their mother. Next came a clump of summer lilies and a bamboo forest in the background inhabited by a pair of aged cranes majestically settled upon a snow-covered pine.
Although the final painting showcased a group of young women engaged in one activity or another, cooking, sewing, gossiping, even reading, Olivia gravitated toward the serene nature scenes and the meticulous technique involved in the piece’s overall portrayal.
The way the colors of the stylized scenes positively vibrated against the gold-leaf paper was unlike anything she’d ever seen. Someday Jiro would teach her this technique perfected by his art masters in Japan, the Kano school, if she stayed the path. For now, she would humbly accept the privilege of reproducing them on simple white paper with charcoal.
A feeling of guilt and doubt crept in. Her access to this masterpiece was a privilege. Yet when she’d set to work on it in her studio yesterday, her mind had wandered and her focus sharpened on an entirely different image: Lord St. Alban.
The man had invaded her thoughts, her home, and now her school within a matter of days. If she was a paranoid, she would think it part of a nefarious plot. But, of course, it wasn’t. Nefarious plots were best left to the gothic romances that Lucy devoured at an alarming rate.
An agile movement at the door announced Jiro’s arrival. Tall and slender, he cut a handsome figure in the loose-fitting white tunic and trousers he wore in his studio. When he ventured out onto London streets, he exchanged this clothing for the Western-style attire of an English gentleman. Olivia suspected it was a choice designed to help him fade into the background, to observe and not be observed.
