Keeping Faith (Fair Cyprians of London 3)

Crispin and his aunt exchanged a glance. At least she looked more amused than scandalised now.

“My nephew is in line for a title. Once his father dies. But let’s talk of other things, shall we?” She sent a searching look about the room and added

, “I’m sure someone must be looking for you, Miss Eaves.”

She took this for dismissal and nodded. “Well, I don’t know how well you know my uncle, Sir Albion McKinley, but everyone here seems to know everyone else, and if you can persuade him to let me get a job, I’ll be mighty grateful.”

“A job.”

Crispin wasn’t surprised his aunt sounded so scandalised.

“Not for money, surely?” Lady Pymble went on.

Miss Eaves nodded again. “I’ve asked my uncle if I can write about the artists who exhibit for him, and he says I might dip my ink in the inkwell if I choose, but that he won’t pay me a penny for my trouble and scandalise my father.”

“I should think not,” murmured Lady Pymble.

“Oh, I know ladies don’t get paid, of course. But I don’t want to be a lady.” Miss Eaves sent Crispin a considered look. “So, you needn’t worry you’ll hear from me when you land that title. Anyway…” She took a step away. “If you hear of some newspaper job going, please keep me in mind, only don’t get the message to me through my uncle.”

“Your uncle is Sir Albion McKinley?” Crispin tried to see anything to connect the highly esteemed patron of the London Society of Artists with this brash young woman. “Not the greatest proponent of women’s suffrage I would have thought.” He envisioned the tight-lipped, balding and slightly stooped gentleman he’d met on the many occasions he’d ventured into the hallowed precincts of the Royal Society of Artists. Not that that had been for a while. Crispin’s passion for art had been effectively strangled by his father’s insistence he apply himself to following in the family tradition by entering the world of politics. It had been a long time since he’d picked up a paintbrush.

“No, he is not. I might have earned a way into his good books if I’d had an ounce of artistic talent in my little finger, but I do not.” Miss Eaves shrugged. “No, I like to write, and I think I’m good at it. I also think it’s a mighty fine way for a woman to earn a respectable income but…” she sighed. “There you go!”

“Yes, there you go,” Crispin repeated, stepping aside in order to facilitate a satisfactory end to the conversation, for it appeared Miss Eaves was ready to settle in for the night, and he was growing increasingly impatient to meet the vision of loveliness still alone with her chaperone on the other side of the room.

With Miss Eaves finally despatched, Crispin was halfway towards Lady Vernon and her unknown charge when his father clapped him on the shoulder with a demand for an inventory on Crispin’s activities for the past week.

Dutifully, Crispin outlined the tedium with which he’d occupied mind and body, surprised when Lord Maxwell remarked, “Your Aunt Alice thinks you look weary. Says she spied you across the street when she alighted from a hackney at Marble Arch, and she commented on your grey pallor and hunched shoulders, which she put down to the work in the satchel you carried.” Lord Maxwell’s craggy face grew more lined as he frowned, though Crispin recognised this as the ghost of a smile. “You’ll be doing well if you’ve inherited half her persuasive talents, for by the end of the conversation, I’d promised that I’d give you a fortnight off. Yes, a week to amuse yourself before you return to the studies required by your new position.”

Crispin couldn’t have been more surprised.

“A fortnight, Father?”

“Possibly three, in fact, and funds enough to take yourself off to the South of France if you so wish.” His brows knitted. “Just make sure you’re ready to throw yourself back into work when you return and don’t get enticed away by some Frenchie vixen, mind.”

Crispin grinned, and content with this out of character interview, was about to buoyantly head off in Lady Vernon’s direction when he saw that lady deep in conversation with Miss Eaves, who appeared to have wandered into their enclave with the same abandon she had when she’d met Crispin and his aunt.

Better to wait, he thought, so he could have the field uncluttered. Meanwhile, visions of his week of pure pleasure floated enticingly about his head. Where would he go? What would he do?

His friend Roger Jolimont had a boat. Perhaps they’d sail to the French Riviera. That could be jolly good fun at this time of year. If his father were in such an indulgent mood, perhaps he’d grant Crispin a month.

Faith was bored. Tonight was proving a dismal failure. No one had come up to speak to them except for a talkative American young woman whom Lady Vernon had collared, no doubt to extrapolate information about her earlier conversation with the young man she’d noticed glancing at Faith all evening.

Faith now knew exactly how things were to play out. First, Mrs Gedge had known the young man she’d seen at the restaurant would be there. And now he was here again. Clearly, he had been selected, for reasons that Faith would find out in due course. Faith’s job, of course, would be to entice him, seduce him, make him fall in love with her, and then break his heart.

She was almost one hundred percent sure that this was Lady Gedge’s plan. It seemed the obvious reason for calling Faith her ‘beautiful revenge’ for all these years.

And yet, why?

The young man chosen was certainly a very handsome specimen, so of course that made Faith’s task so much easier. Her heart had even given a little jolt when she’d locked eyes with him through the Kentish palm at the restaurant the previous night. It was true that she’d declared she’d rather die than offer her body to a man she didn’t love, but what if she simply found him attractive enough not to be repulsed by what Mrs Gedge wanted her to do? That would surely be within her code?

And she did need to eat. She had precious few alternatives other than the one Mrs Gedge intended for her.

Faith studied the young man closely through lowered eyelashes while she sipped from her champagne flute. He was tall, with dependable shoulders, and when he spoke, there was an animation about him absent from so many of the bored gentlemen about town who frequented Madame Chambon’s.

That was certainly in his favour.

Faith decided she liked the way his mouth quirked when he was clearly amused, which, it seemed, he frequently was, and his quick, impatient gestures in raking his floppy fringe back from his face.