Page 26

Angelica smiled. ‘It is indeed. The artist is quite the virtuoso, isn’t he? Mama is almost as beautiful as her portrait.’

‘I hope Mr Lawrence will be persuaded to immortalise you, my dear Miss Leigh,’ he said as he impulsively grasped her hand. ‘You need no flattery in paint but it would take an artist of his genius to capture your beauty, your colouring.’ At that moment, Martin entered with a tray laden with a decanter and jug of ale and Angelica gently extricated herself. She offered the glasses of liquor to the company and indicated that they should sit down.

Dante Locke was in sympathetic conversation with Miss Fitzjames and so Angelica turned to sit beside Lord Latimer opposite the fire. ‘This is a handsome room,’ he said appreciatively, looking towards the three full-length windows across the grand façade of the house, reflecting an ominously darkening sky. Mrs Leigh had expressed her extravagant tastes by having the walls hung in primrose yellow silk which brought a lustrous sunniness to the space, regardless of the weather outside. They both looked at the dark head of Mr Locke bent solicitously towards Miss Fitzjames, her face unusually alive with feeling.

In a quiet voice, Lord Latimer said, ‘The tragedy of her father and the Fitzjames family is all over the clubs, you know.’

‘So I hear. I had hoped that a friend might win the estates back from Lord Fulsham.’

Charles Latimer laughed out loud. ‘I presume there are no takers in this fancy?’

Angelica hushed his levity in front of Miss Fitzjames. In a low voice she explained, ‘It’s like seeking a unicorn in a hedge. The man I had in mind, whose house this is, said my head’s in the clouds if I think any gamester would risk all to restore a stranger’s patrimony.’

‘Truly spoke, indeed. And Fulsham’s such a skilled player there’s only one person I know to match ’im.’ Angelica looked at him, knowing just who he meant. ‘But he’s long given up the devil’s bones; instead, he’s become a serious, prosy type more interested in plying the laws of the land.’

‘I find it hard to believe your uncle used to be such a gambler.’

Lord Latimer put his head in his hands in a show of mock dismay. ‘You wouldn’t recognise him now if you’d known him in his wild youth. Drinking, brawling, gaming.’ He dropped his voice to a conspiratorial whisper. ‘The gambling and miscellaneous harlotry meant he had already fought two duels by the time he was twenty-four. Even marriage to the beauteous Mrs Asprey, and cousin Elinor’s birth, did not tame his ways.’ He straightened his back and gazed into the distance. ‘Aunt Emma’s death completely felled him. It changed him into the unsmiling paragon you see today.’

Dante Locke looked across at his friend and gently remonstrated, ‘Truly, Charles, you ride Mr Asprey rough. We need trusty Trojans like him in government. More useful than gamblers, rogues and fools like the rest of ’em!’ As a poet, he felt it was his duty to be as radical as Lord Byron, and as much in thrall to freedom and revolution as the hothead Mr Shelley, whose privately printed epic, Queen Mab, had been lent to him at the university, firing his blood.

Lord Latimer turned back to Angelica and said under his breath, ‘Dante and I met at school. He should never have been sent to Eton though. It’s the home of bullies and brawlers and a devilish place for a poet. He suffered much.’

‘But my lord, surely you’re neither bully nor brawler?’

‘Oh, I’m handy enough with my fists to have got by.’ He gave a self-satisfied smile.

A great rumble of thunder rattled the windows, a flash of lightning illuminating the room with uncanny brightness. Angelica shivered; she was overcome with cold and tiredness and said, ‘How I wish I could just stay here tonight and not have to go to the theatre.’

All eyes were turned sympathetically towards her. Charles Latimer, his face stricken, murmured under his breath, ‘This is why I want to take you away from all this. Just wait until the summer.’ He gazed into her eyes with intense feeling, his hand tracing a slow figure of eight on her palm. Angelica shivered, not entirely due to the approaching storm. She met his passionate gaze again and was taken aback by a prickle of excitement at the possibility of being loved by a man. Had she underestimated Lord Latimer’s feelings for her, and hers for him? Or was it just that she was feeling weak and increasingly ill and longed to relinquish the self-sufficiency she had cultivated since she was a child?

Angelica stood up and straightened her shoulders. ‘It’s actually a profession I’m proud of and love. I only have two more nights before this production comes to a close. Then I can rest for a while.’

Isobel Fitzjames rushed forward and took her hands. ‘Dear Miss Angelica, I wish I could be of more help to you. You have been so encouraging to me. I would particularly like to be in the audience for your last night tomorrow, but Mrs Fitzjames thinks the theatre beneath contempt.’ The young woman’s face was immediately suffused with embarrassment at her unconsidered words. She stammered, ‘I don’t mean what you do…’

With a tired smile, Angelica squeezed her hand. ‘I assure you, my dear, your words do not offend me. I know how cheaply the haut ton hold my profession. I just try to live in a way that proves them mistaken.’ She turned to the young men. ‘Delightful as your company is, gentlemen, I fear I must prepare for my performance tonight.’ They all glanced out at the rain sheeting out of a leaden sky. ‘Martin can lend you and Miss Fitzjames a selection of our large umbrellas.’

She led the party down the stairs and as coats and hats, pelisses and bonnets were donned and Miss Fitzjames’s maid was called from the kitchens, Martin handed out umbrellas. The young men bowed in farewell, Lord Latimer bringing Angelica’s hand swiftly to his lips.

Isobel Fitzjames gave her a shy, fleeting hug. ‘It’s such heart’s ease to be in the company of you and your friends. Thank you, Miss Angelica.’

‘Come on, Miss Fitzjames, I know you live just round the corner; we’ll escort you and your maid home.’ Lord Latimer took her gloved hand and they dashed out into the storm.

* * *

The night’s performance had been lacklustre. Everyone was tired at the end of a gruelling run and were conserving their energies for the final night. The torrential rain had not ceased and the audience too seemed more subdued than usual, the smell from the pit more pungent. Angelica hardly knew how she got through the ordeal. When she and Mary arrived home she was faced with a house in uproar. Martin was harassed, organising the numerous bandboxes and portmanteaus of clothes and accessories that Mrs Leigh had packed for her trip to Paris. The hallway was barely passable. Martin wrung his hands with a tragic expression on his face. ‘Ah, Miss Angelica, your mama and the master are leaving early in the morning. Such a to-do! Where is there space for any more?’ He scurried off into the kitchens to refresh himself with another ale.

Angelica wearily climbed the stairs to find her mother in her room. The bed was piled with dresses, chemises and bonnets. ‘Mama, surely you’ve packed enough?’ Angelica said as she sank onto the sofa between the windows.

Amabel Leigh was flushed with excitement as she held a turquoise pelisse against her face and gazed at her reflection in the looking-glass. ‘Do you think this colour becomes me?’

‘Mama, most things become you. But you’ll be buying more clothes once you are there.’ Angelica sighed; she was so bone weary she longed for bed.

Her mother cast the pelisse onto the bed and looked at her with concern. ‘You look a trifle fatiguée, my dear. I don’t want you ill while I’m away.’

‘Oh, Mama. After tomorrow night I can rest and I’ll be fine. You are not to worry.’ She smiled and stood up. ‘But I think I’ll go to bed now.’

Mrs Leigh peered at her daughter and said fretfully, ‘I cannot bear to see you so lacklustre and hollow-eyed.’