* * *
Thump-thump.The dowager edged around the weathered fragment of a classical Doric column topped with a potted fern. “Ah, there you are, Lady Julianna.” The fronds rustled. “I wish for you to meet my great-niece, who has recently taken up residence in London. The two of you share some common interests.”
“Oh?” Julianna responded with a polite smile. “And what might those be, Lady Peake?”
Alison tipped the silver knob of her cane at the elaborate-colored pasteboard cards arrayed on the low table. “Art, for one thing. As for the others . . .” She gave a vague wave. “I shall leave you to discover that for yourselves. I’m growing fatigued and wish to sit with the other old fossils and catch up on all the lateston dits.”
“Your great-aunt is quite an Original,” murmured Julianna as the dowager stomped away.
“She most certainly doesn’t conform to convention,” replied Charlotte.
“I daresay none of us who attend these salons do, Miss . . .”
“Lady Charlotte Sloane.” Charlotte leaned in for a closer look at the cards. “These are quite remarkable. The line work is exquisitely drawn, and the coloring is quite unusual. It’s rare to see nuances that are so subtle, yet so sophisticated.”
Julianna cocked her head. “Most people don’t appreciate nuance or subtlety.”
“Perhaps because it’s harder to understand.”
The heiress’s laugh was softly musical. “Indeed, things that are out of the ordinary require extra effort to comprehend.” Without looking down, Julianna gathered the cards and reshuffled them, her fingers moving with quicksilver grace. “But in my experience, it proves worthwhile.”
An interesting observation.
“Pray, have we other common interests, aside from art, Lady Charlotte?” went on the heiress.
“The late Lord Chittenden,” replied Charlotte.
The flesh seemed to tighten over Julianna’s face, making her cheekbones look sharp as knife blades. “You knew His Lordship?”
“Intimately.” The word was deliberately chosen to see what reaction it would draw. The spasm of emotion was gone in an instant, but it told Charlotte what she wanted to know. Julianna wasn’t quite so cynical as she wished to appear.
“We were cousins, and the very best of friends during our childhood,” she explained, taking a seat in thechinoise-style chair facing the heiress. “Though the connection grew more tenuous after my late husband and I moved to Italy. He was a very talented painter, and I, too, dabbled in art.”
Nuances and subtlety.With a tiny alteration here, a small omission there, Alison had cobbled together a story that didn’tstray far from the truth. And yet it painted a far different picture of Charlotte’s marriage to Anthony Sloane.
“My parents didn’t approve of the fact that I had married a mere mister,” she added. “They thought I could have looked higher.”
A flicker of understanding stirred in Julianna’s gaze. “But that would have demanded that you sacrifice your passions.” A card turned faceup, then another. “I believe there will come a day when those of our sex shall have control over their own destiny.”
Charlotte regarded the pair of numbers. Each one was intertwined with a series of arcane geometric symbols. “Let us hope such things are written in the cards.”
“You would be surprised at what theMaya-Mokshacan tell us.”
“Indeed?” It was Charlotte’s turn to toss out a challenge. “Is that what the game is called? Tell me more about it.”
“It’s not a game, it’s a philosophy,” replied Julianna. “And it would take far longer than an evening to convey even a rudimentary understanding of its systems. You see, along with learning the traditional English skills deemed acceptable for a lady, I studied Indian philosophy with a savant for a number of years. I like expanding my understanding of the worlds outside of our own. We learn by challenging our preconceptions.”
Charlotte could understand how Cedric would have found Julianna bewitchingly seductive. Beneath the demure façade of a beau monde belle was a spark of rare fire.
“I have a very enlightened guardian and am quite fortunate that he’s always had an open mind on what is, and is not, proper for a lady.”
“So it would seem.” Charlotte touched a fingertip to the numeral 6. “Are these cards related to theTarocchi?”
“No, no.” The heiress gave an enigmatic smile. “It’s not about fortune-telling. The system is based on numbers . . . away the natural order of the universe can predict certain . . . relationships.”
“How?” pressed Charlotte.
“As I said, that’s not so simple to explain. One must grasp the conceptual framework.” Julianna drew in a slow breath. “Cedric was making great headway. It grieves me to think about . . .” She looked away, not before Charlotte saw the glimmer of tears in her eyes.
