Tarnished Amongst the Ton

P

hyllida let herself out, locked up and hurried home.

It was not until she was changing in her bedchamber that she realised she had slipped the incense stick into her reticule.

It was a while since she had bought the bundle, so it was as well to test the quality of them, she supposed. The coating spluttered, then began to smoulder as she touched the tip of the stick to the flame and she wedged it into the wax at the base of the candle to hold it steady. Then she sat and resolutely did not think of amused green eyes while Anna, her maid, brushed out her hair.

She would act the shopkeeper tomorrow and then become someone else entirely for a few hours at Lady Richmond’s ball. She was looking forward to it, even if she would spend the evening assessing débutantes and dowries and not dancing. Dancing, like dreams of green-eyed lovers and fantasies of marriage, were for other women, not her. Coils of sandalwood-scented smoke drifted upwards, taking her dreams with them.

Chapter Two

‘May I go shopping, Mata? I would like to visit the bazaar.’

‘There are no bazaars, Sara. It is all shops and some markets.’

‘There is one called the Pantheon Bazaar, Reade told me about it.’

Ashe lifted an eyebrow at his father as he poured himself some more coffee. ‘It is not like an Indian bazaar. Much more tranquil, I am certain, and no haggling. It is more like many small shops, all together.’

‘I know. Reade explained it to me while she was doing my hair this morning. But may I go out, Mata?’

‘I have too much to do today to go with you.’ Their mother’s swift, all-encompassing glance around the gloomy shadows of what they had been informed was the Small Breakfast Parlour—capital letters implied—gave a fair indication of what she would be doing. Ashe had visions of bonfires in the back garden.

He murmured to his father, ‘Fifty rupees that Mata will have the staff eating out of her hand by this time tomorrow and one hundred that she’ll start redecorating within the week.’

‘I don’t bet on certainties. If she makes plans for disposing of these hideous curtains while she’s at it, I’ll be glad. I can’t take you, Sara,’ the marquess added as she turned imploring eyes on the male end of the table.

‘I will,’ Ashe said amiably. Sara was putting a brave face on it, but he could tell she was daunted as well as excited by this strange new world. ‘I could do with a walk. But window shopping only, I’m not being dragged round shops while you dither over fripperies. I was going along Jermyn Street. That’s got some reasonable shops, so Bates said, and I need some shaving soap.’

An hour later Sara was complaining, ‘So I have to be dragged around shops while you dither about shaving soap!’

‘You bought soap, too. Three sorts,’ Ashe pointed out, recalling just why he normally avoided shopping with females like the plague. ‘Look, there’s a fashionable milliner’s.’

He had no idea whether it was in the mode or not. Several years spent almost entirely in an Indian princely court was not good preparation for judging the ludicrous things English women put on their heads and he knew that anything seen in Calcutta was a good eighteen months out of date. But it certainly diverted Sara. She stood in front of the window and sighed over a confection of lace, feathers and satin ribbon supported on a straw base the size of a tea plate.

‘No, you may not go in,’ Ashe said firmly, tucking her arm under his and steering her across Duke Street. ‘I will not be responsible for explaining to Mata why you have come home wearing something suitable for a lightskirt.’

‘Doesn’t London smell strange?’ Sara remarked. ‘No spices, no flowers. Nothing dead, no food vendors on the street.’

‘Not around here,’ he agreed. ‘But this is the smart end of town. Even so, there are drains and horse manure if you are missing the rich aromas of street life. Now that’s a good piece.’ He stopped in front of a small shop, just two shallow bays on either side of a green-painted door. ‘See, that jade figure.’

‘There are all kinds of lovely things.’ Sara peered into the depths of the window display. Small carvings and jewels were set out on a swirl of fabrics, miniature paintings rubbed shoulders with what he suspected were Russian icons, ancient terracotta idols sat next to Japanese china.

Ashe stepped back to read the sign over the door. ‘The Cabinet of Curiosity. An apt name. Look at that moonstone pendant—it is just the colour of your eyes. Shall we go in and look at it?’

She gave his arm an excited squeeze and whisked into the shop as he opened the door. Above their head a bell tinkled and the curtain at the back of the shop parted.

‘Good morning, monsieur, madame.’ The shopkeeper, it seemed, was a Frenchwoman. She hesitated as though she was surprised to see them, then came forwards.

Medium height, hair hidden beneath a neat cap, tinted spectacles perched on the end of her nose. Perfectly packaged in her plain, high-necked brown gown. Very French, he thought.

‘May I assist you?’ she asked and pushed the spectacles more firmly up her nose.

‘We would like to look at the moonstone pendant, if you would be so good.’

‘Certainement. Madame would care to sit?’ She gestured to a chair as she came out from behind the counter, lifting an ornate chatelaine to select a key before opening the cabinet and laying the jewel on a velvet pad in front of Sara.

Ashe watched his sister examine the pendant with the care their mother had taught her. She was as discriminating about gemstones as he was and, however pretty the trinket, she would not want it if it was flawed.