Keeping Faith (Fair Cyprians of London 3)

The reflection sent fear like a frisson of electricity up her spine, reminding her that she only had a handful of years, herself, in which to cement her own future. A future which, she’d assumed, would be assured by the conclusion of her visit to the Cotswolds. Mr Westaway should have been eating out of her hands by now.

“We need to be at Mrs Bromley’s Corner Teahouse by one o’ clock,” Lady Vernon announced, consulting her watch, and the way she said it made it clear there was a very good reason for this. Something to do with Mr Westaway, Faith presumed.

Correctly, it transpired, when Lady Vernon fixed a pair of beetling eyes upon her and said, “You could at least pretend interest in the young man. I thought you were as anxious as your benefactress to expedite this little matter and claim your reward.”

She made it sound so sordid.

Which, Faith supposed, it was.

“I like him very much, and I’ve hinted so, obliquely, which is all a well-brought-up girl like myself can do. With all due respect, you’ve been asleep most of the time, Lady Vernon.”

“Well-brought-up…” Lady Vernon repeated on a decidedly ill-bred snort, thought Faith as she resisted the urge to offer a tart rejoinder. Too much hinged on Lady Vernon’s good offices and while, before she’d sat for Mr Westaway, she could afford to talk back, her current failure could only be laid at her door. What was Mrs Gedge going to say?

Her earlier frisson of fear for her future paid a return visit and settled about her like a cloak ‘which old men huddle about their love, as if to keep it warm.’ Since they were in the town of the old bard, it seemed appropriate to borrow his quote for personal use. Faith had read much of Shakespeare and King Lear was her favourite.

“Yes, this old church is as cold as the grave and it’s time we settled ourselves for lunch,” Lady Vernon announced, mistaking Faith’s shiver of fearful foreboding.

“So, Mr Westaway knows we’ll be at Mrs Bromley’s Teahouse then?”

Lady Vernon sent her an arch look over her shoulder as they trod the thin red carpet down the nave towards the open double doors. “Of course he does. Someone has to keep you on the right path if you’re to succeed in this venture. I’d have hoped Mr Westaway would be eating out of your hands by now.”

“There’s not been much time.” Faith gritted her teeth as she obediently followed Lady Vernon’s wraith-like shadow down the nave. “I can’t let him think I’m fast.”

“No, a girl brought up in a brothel could hardly let a gentleman think that, could she?”

Faith wasn’t sure she’d heard correctly for the muffled words were indistinct and partly swallowed up by the ringing of their shoes upon the stone steps.

Furious, she hurried to keep up. “I might wish my circumstances were different, and believe me, there’s no love lost b

etween Mrs Gedge and me, but I am better educated than any of the debutantes who have no doubt been paraded in front of Mr Westaway’s nose and more beautiful, and regardless of where I rest my head at night, my virtue is unblemished. And will remain so!” Faith descended the steps beside her chaperone into the street. “So don’t you make false aspersions about my good character.” If ever there was proof that Lady Vernon cared little for Faith and had taken her on purely for the money, this was it.

“Ah, now, my dear, only a short walk and then we can rest our weary bones and see if Mr Westaway has taken the bait.” Lady Vernon spoke as if she hadn’t heard Faith, her smile cloying, her tone dripping with false pleasure at the journey ahead.

“You make me feel like a…dog or a…rat caught in a trap,” Faith muttered. The more she spent time with this abominable woman the less able she was to hold her tongue. She and Lady Vernon were partners in a grubby intrigue of which no one else must be the wiser. Sadly, it meant Lady Vernon was the only person she could speak honestly to.

Lady Vernon swung around, and as her eyes met Faith’s, her slack jaw snapped shut, giving her the look of a lazy bloodhound at rest transforming instantly into a pointer, alert and on the hunt.

“We are both rats caught in a trap, and you’d do well to remember that, young lady,” she said, taking Faith’s arm to lean on as if the pair were grandmother and granddaughter enjoying a gentle stroll. “That’s what poverty does to a woman!” She sniffed. “At least I have good breeding as my insurance.”

“And I have beauty as mine,” Faith snapped back, tipping up her chin and wishing her searing gaze could reduce Lady Vernon to a pile of cinders.

Unscathed, and unconcerned, apparently, Lady Vernon cast Faith a dismissive look before her eyes settled for a second too long, lower down the girl’s body. “Yes, it’s all you have to trade on, girl, so don’t make a mess out of this one opportunity to secure your future, and make mine more comfortable until my next call-out to chaperone some horsey-looking blue blood whose mama can’t summon the energy.” A look of triumph wiped away her peevishness, and the fingers of her left hand dug more deeply into Faith’s arm as she raised her right to hail a gentleman hovering by the front entrance of Mrs Bromley’s Corner Teahouse.

“Goodness, Mr Westaway! What a surprise to see you here!”

Suddenly, Lady Vernon looked like a sweet old lady with not a venomous thought in her age-ravaged, ugly old head, Faith thought as she was borne along upon a tide of hopefulness; the tide of hopefulness being on Lady Vernon’s account that she would be paid for notching up a triumphant success.

As for Faith, she didn’t know what she felt. There was so much riding on this next meeting with Mr Westaway. She didn’t want to trade on her beauty and have to do things with a line-up of men that didn’t involve her heart.

Yet, as Faith intercepted, then analysed, the look he sent in her direction, the foundation of the three women’s collective plan suddenly seemed as rackety and shoddy as the multiple theatres they’d visited to honour the town’s great bard that had either been swept away or dismantled to be utilised for something newer and better.

“Miss Montague.” He rose from a gallant bow and there was genuine pleasure in his smile. Faith’s earlier doubts dissipated. She had managed to conquer. Enough to get things underway, at any rate. Why else had he come in search of her after dismissing her the previous afternoon? “I hoped I’d find you in town.”

“You did?” Faith tried to look coy, when in fact she was overcome by an unexpected wave of desperation. Please, make him amenable and easy to manage from hereon in.

“Yes, I did want to see you again because I…I can’t do justice to your eyes, Miss Montague.” He looked anxious as he tried to express himself. Right now, he was the artist, tortured by his creativity, not the diplomat. He tried again, using his hands as if that might make his meaning clearer. “The painting is so close to being finished. I’m nearly happy with it but—” He broke off and sent her a beseeching look. “Would you come back and sit for me one last time?”

Faith glanced at Lady Vernon then back at Mr Montague. He did look very appealing, hanging upon her acceptance.