‘That’s true,’ said Alistair. ‘Right. The three of you spread around and keep the practical-joke story going—with plenty of emphasis on how shocking it was for the Hickson and Piercebridge party to explain their outrage. I’ll walk around with Sophia for a bit of moral support.’
‘Thank you,’ she said through a smile that felt in creasingly precarious. ‘Thank you so much.’
*
‘Well, of course I knew about it,’ Cal said, passing glasses of brandy to Mr Hickson and Lord Piercebridge while Will dispensed Madeira to their fulminating wives. ‘Sophia is extremely talented and I was intending to show her work to my brother in the hope he would ask her to do a portrait of Lady Julia. The fool of a footman got in a muddle and thought the portfolios were something we needed urgently.’
‘You knew your wife was a professional artist?’ Cousin Georgia demanded.
‘A few drawings anonymously for an Ackermann memorandum book is hardly professional, Cousin.’
‘But this is!’ Lord Piercebridge brandished a sketch under Callum’s nose. Lady Piercebridge, Cousin Georgia and a number of other ladies were perfectly recognisable in a flock of starlings pecking at a huddled female in a fashionable gown. Speech bubbles issued from their beaks. The whole thing was very much in the style of the vicious caricatures on sale in every print shop.
Callum tilted the drawing and began to read the words. ‘It is entitled “Some Country Nobody Without Even Youth to Commend Her,”‘ he said. ‘Now, what are these birds saying? It is deeply regrettable that young men so close to the earldom should have gone into trade in the first place … The earl is betrothed, most suitably, so there is probably no risk that the inheritance might go in that direction, my dear Lady Piercebridge. That is one mercy … This gangling nobody can only pull him down. Callum cannot even plead the momentary insanity of a love match.’ He looked up and studied the appalled faces of the two women. ‘I wonder where Sophia heard those words spoken?
‘My wife—whom I love very much, for your information—was so hurt by your vicious attacks that she retaliated in the only way she could without confronting the ladies who were so cruel and causing a public rift. I imagine she felt a lot better having drawn this, which is for her own relief and to share with me, not for public consumption.’
‘She draws disgusting things!’ Lady Piercebridge interjected. ‘There was a naked man—’
‘Myself. I am sorry you find it disgusting, I thought it rather flattering,’ Cal said calmly.
‘Maud, did you say these things?’ Lord Piercebridge had picked up the drawing and was staring at it.
‘Well, I might have intimated that I did not approve of the match—’ she stammered.
‘Mrs Chatterton is a charming young lady, very pleasant to talk to. Most interested in my gout,’ the baron snapped. ‘Don’t blame her if she was upset to be attacked like this, anyone would be. We’ll say no more about it, do you hear me, my lady? Good evening to you, Flamborough, Chatterton. Good party. Very good party, but I think we’ll be off now.’
He hustled his wife out, leaving Cousin Georgia pink in the face and attempting to bluster at Will, ‘I have never been so insulted!’
‘No, my sister-in-law has never been so insulted, Cousin. If you wish to explain to your acquaintance why you are no longer welcome in my home, or those of my friends, then all you have to do is spread this malicious nonsense.’
‘And if anyone were to suggest that my wife is responsible for satirical prints of any kind, then I would have to resort to the law,’ Cal said, turning to Mr Hickson, who was tugging urgently at his wife’s sleeve and being ignored. ‘I suggest that what so shocked you was a naughty drawing by one of our young relatives spread around for a prank, was it not?’
‘Of course, of course it was,’ he gabbled. ‘Georgia, we were quite mistaken, you must see that.’
The internal struggle was plain on Cousin Georgia’s face, but after a moment she said with glacial dignity, ‘No doubt we were misled. I have been greatly shocked, but I will disregard it out of respect for Flamborough as head of the family. As for you, Callum, I am gravely disappointed, but my lips are sealed. Come, Mr Hickson.’
Chapter Twenty-One
Will waited until the door closed and then flopped into the nearest chair. ‘Hell’s teeth, Cal!’
Cal went to stand beside the chair and dropped a hand on to his brother’s shoulder. Now that was over he found it an effort to uncurl it from a fist. ‘Thank you for your support.’
‘Did you know?’
‘No. I did not know she had been to Ackermann. I had not seen half of those sketches, certainly not the nude.’ The sense of betrayal was like acid in his stomach. He turned and spread the drawings out on the desk. How could she draw him, so intimately, so tenderly, and yet hide it from him? Hide what she had done. Surely she knew how shocking it was for a lady to sell her work for public display?
‘Did she need the money?’ Will said. ‘Is there a problem, Cal? If I can help—’
‘Damn it, no!’ The implication that he could not support his wife and that she must sell her art for pin money was like a slap in the face. ‘I paid off the family debts, I give her an allowance that made her jaw drop. She isn’t playing cards—I would know if she had got into that sort of company.’
‘Her brother? Trouble with a blackmailing female? Racing debts?’ Will shrugged. ‘No, not that idiot. He’s too dull to trip over trouble, let alone go looking for it.’
Cal splashed brandy into a glass and tossed it back. It did nothing for the pain in his gut. Sophia did not trust him and her art and her ambition were more important to her than he was. That was the only conclusion he could draw from this.
‘And you love her, or was that a lie for their benefit?’
‘Yes. I love her.’ As he said it he found it was still true. Betrayal and disillusion did not, apparently, make you fall out of love.