Charlotte arrived on the second floor only slightly winded, and proceeded to admire the curved antlers up close. They were not deer, as she’d first thought, or at least were no breed she had ever seen before. Perhaps they belonged to the cervine creature in the background of Cecily’s portrait downstairs. A cool draught caught the back of her neck, and she turned to find the door opposite ajar. She bit her lip. Snooping was not ladylike, but then again, a quick peek surely could not hurt. Mary had said that the house contained many secrets—was this one of them? She sidled along the wall and pushed the door open, revealing a room much smaller than she’d expected. It was half the size of the guest room she was staying in, and the furniture was mostly covered with dust sheets. This must be just one ofCecily’s rooms, she supposed, which would be uncovered and cleaned by the servants prior to her arrival. Though all the furniture was covered, several portraits hung uncovered on the walls, and one leaned against a corner of the room.
Charlotte sidled towards the left-hand wall first, which held another portrait of Cecily alone. In this one, Mary’s aunt rested against a tree, facing a riverbank. The water was smooth and clear, the bank steep. Cecily was dressed in men’s trousers and a smart, dark jacket, her dark hair tumbling loose around her shoulders. Charlotte stared at the painting, trying to picture Mary in the same sort of clothes, and then tried to picture herself in them. She rather liked the idea—certainly it would make gardening easier if one could bend and kneel with impunity.
She turned to the centre wall, upon which hung a portrait of Cecily with her husband. This must have been their wedding portrait, for they were standing side by side looking stiff and formal. It was a far cry from the pictures of Cecily which Charlotte had seen so far. She tilted her head, examining Mr George Langley, who boasted fine bushy whiskers over a short, dark beard. His dark eyes were kind, and either the painter had been very generous or Mr Langley was quite a few years Cecily’s junior.
Charlotte turned towards the portrait in the corner and leaned down to take a closer look. She stared, confused, at the portrait of the three people: Cecily, Mr Langley, and another woman. A portrait of three was a little unusual, when it did not contain immediate family, and this woman—with her red hair and blue eyes—was surely no relation of either. The pose was an unusual one too; Cecily’s hand rested on the woman’s shoulder, and Mr Langley’s hand on Cecily’s shoulder in turn. It was as if they were all connected somehow, looped like a daisy chain. The woman was surely Edith, the friend Mary had mentioned who’d embroidered the blanket on the guest bedroom.
Charlotte stared at the painting, certain she was not imagining what she was seeing, or what it implied. Cecily had twolovers—her husband, and a woman. Perhaps they were all lovers together, three at a time. Now she understood precisely what had made Mary blush at the mention of Edith, and flush even more deeply at the mention of bacchanalic rituals.
Something burned inside her—knowledge, as yellow-hot as any newborn flame. This was the confirmation she needed, far beyond Maria’s passing comment about Great-Aunt Ethel. It was possible for women to like men or other women or both; how had she gone her whole life being so ridiculously unaware of the possibilities? The words swelled up inside her and she found herself dashing along the hallway, down the stairs, and towards Mary’s room. The door was closed but Charlotte burst in anyway, hardly knowing what she meant to say, only that she had discovered something glorious and new and—
Pitt’s hand was on Mary’s shoulder, and hers was on his chest, and they were laughing together, laughing so hard they were weeping, tears in their eyes. Mary turned towards the door, her expression fading into surprise and then horror.
“Oh, I—” Charlotte skidded to a halt, staring at them. “I’m so sorry. I should have knocked. I did not mean to—”
She backed out of the room, cheeks flaming with horrified jealousy; she’d thought at first that Mary’s lover must be a lower-class artist or worker, and then she’d suspected it was Miss Delia Highbridge. Never had she considered Pitt, who must be more than twenty years Mary’s senior. Charlotte bolted down the hallway to her own room and closed the door behind her. What a fool she had been, and now she had made a fool of other people too. They must have gone to great pains to hide their relationship and—
Quick footsteps sounded in the corridor. Before Charlotte could take more than a couple of steps into the room and spin, ready to meet the reprimand that was surely coming, Mary entered, her cheeks flushed.
Chapter Eighteen
“I’m sorry,” Charlotte repeated, before Mary could make excuses. “I did not see anything.”
Mary blinked. “Charlotte, there was nothing to see. You mistake me.”
Something about the way Mary had looked at Pitt—so intimately, so deeply amused—had scorched through Charlotte’s innards. The wound burned, making her feel as if she were about to vomit. The dragon of jealousy, it seemed, had a tongue made of pure fire. “It is none of my business. I—”
“You mistake me,” Mary repeated. Her fingers flexed, curling into fists and splaying widely again and again. “And I had thought you understood—well. No matter. Suffice it to say that Pitt is not interested in courting me. Or, for that matter, any other woman. Nor are the footmen. In fact, every servant in this house courts a more…” She cleared her throat. “A secret kind of love.”
Charlotte opened her mouth to argue, then closed it again. “Oh.”
“Indeed.” Mary’s eyes were blazing. “My aunt has a particular fondness for those the rest of society considers beneath them. They reside here in safety, for to be caught is death formen. It is the one circumstance in which women have it easier. I thought…well. I thought you might have got the clue from Barton’s diary.”
“Barton’s…” Charlotte trailed off, feeling very foolish.To my beloved P.“I’d thought it referred to a young lady.”
“It refers to our very own Pitt. And I’m sorry if that offends your delicate sensibilities.” There was something under Mary’s anger that Charlotte couldn’t quite grasp. A hurt, perhaps, though for what reason she could not guess. “I am aware that your marriage to a parson might have convinced you that such things are sinful and wrong but I can assure you, the kind of love that exists between two men or two women is just as pure as—”
A giggle rose in Charlotte’s throat, high and shrill and completely unstoppable.
“What on earth are you laughing about?” Mary demanded, flushing with anger.
“I warned you not to take me for such a prude, and yet you did. I already saw—”
“Well, pardon me for not immediately introducing my most secret desires to a clergyman’s wife.”
“Your most secret…” The laughter had died, replaced by the burning embers of anger, disappointment, and embarrassment.
“Yes, I’m just like them. I should have known you’d had no idea. I was foolish to think that—” She broke off, a muscle jumping wildly in her jaw. “Well.”
Mary hadn’t been flirting with her; Mary hadn’t even thought Charlotte capable of doing so. Charlotte was not even the tiniest ship on Mary’s horizon, and yet she had been so open with her affection towards Miss Highbridge at the ball. Had they shared a bed, held hands, just as she and Mary had done? She’d been foolish to think there anything more between them. Charlotte had been so wrong in so many ways that it was mortifying to comprehend them all at once; there was nothingbetween she and Mary but friendship, and perhaps even less of that than she’d thought.
“I merely misunderstood.” The words were a struggle, each one a small agony. “But if we are such good friends as you profess, then why did you not tell me sooner? I would have welcomed Miss Highbridge as your…” Charlotte struggled to find a suitable word, and couldn’t help the bitterness that edged the word, “lover. If only you’d told me.”
It was a half-truth at best. Certainly she’d have been polite to the girl’s face, and squashed down her own feelings more deeply, though she could never have welcomed any lover of Mary’s with any real joy.
“Delia?” Now it was Mary’s turn to laugh, though the sound was a harsh, bitter one. “We are simply close friends. I assure you, she is no lover of mine and never has been. Whyever would you think that?”
“But you… But I heard her say…” Charlotte trailed off.
