Without a Summer (9 page)
Jane stiffened, shocked into silence by the bluntness of his attack. She had made every effort to put her miscarriage behind her, but all the horror returned. She could lay the blame for the unhappy event on no one but herself, and yet, had this man replied to her letter when she needed his aid to save Vincent’s life in Binche, she would never have been forced to the exertions that she had faced.
“That is quite enough.” Vincent turned Jane from Lord Verbury. “Good day, sir.”
“Wait! If you will not treat with me as your father, then treat with me as a client.”
Jane laughed openly. “Why on earth should we consider such a request? You have established that you have no use for me, Vincent, or our skills.”
“I spoke poorly.” Lord Verbury ground his teeth and stared away from them, watching Melody skate on the pond. Jane could not but imagine that he was aware of who she was. “I need to commission you.”
“Your dining room needs to be redecorated?” Vincent raised a brow.
“No … no, I refer to your other talents. The ones that earned you the knighthood.”
Vincent glanced at Jane. They had told no one of his reasons for being in Binche in the days before the Battle of Quatre Bras. The Prince and the Duke of Wellington had asked them to keep the matter private. The one person to whom Jane had laid the situation bare had been Lord Verbury, when she had written begging for aid. In this moment, Jane knew that Lord Verbury had received her letter and had
chosen
not to answer. He had chosen to let his son die.
“It is a matter of some discretion.” Lowering his voice, Lord Verbury stepped closer. “You have access now to people of quality who would not suspect you. The Prince employs you often, I think?”
Jane shivered. Though he had not stated it, there could be no doubt that Lord Verbury wished them to spy on a peer—likely a member of the cabinet.
Bowing, Vincent said, “I will work for the good of the Crown, but spying on my fellow Englishmen is not to my taste.”
“Will you—”
Without waiting to hear what his father had to propose, Vincent led Jane away. They left the Earl of Verbury standing in the snowy path, quite alone.
At home that evening, Jane attempted to carry on the whole of the dinner conversation by herself. Vincent stared into his soup and made the occasional requisite reply, but she had no real sense that he heard her. Twice, he drew breath as though to speak, but, upon seeing Melody, exhaled and asked Jane to pass the salt. The second time, she was obliged to point out that he already had it.
Melody pensively drew flowers with the sauce for her lamb and said little beyond noting that the day had been lovely. Her every look at Jane, though, spoke expressively of a desire for conversation, if only they were alone. It was with some relief, then, that Vincent pushed back his chair and announced that he was “going to the studio to work” and Melody declared an intention “to go to the parlour to practice the pianoforte.”
Jane sat for a moment after they left, trying to decide which to approach first. Her immediate desire was to go to Vincent, whose disturbed sensibilities had been more freely displayed than was his usual habit. It spoke to the disorder of his mind that he could so little govern his countenance. She suspected, though, that he required some time alone to organise his thoughts. His natural reserve had come up like a shield around him. Working glamour would relieve some of his tension.
She went, therefore, to Melody.
Her sister sat at the pianoforte, turning through the sheet music on the instrument. Occasionally, she would lift a page and hold it at arms’ end, squinting at it. Jane shut the parlour door. “You appeared to enjoy yourself today.”
“Yes…” Melody picked out a scale on the piano. Sighing, she closed the keyboard. “It was very kind of Mr. O’Brien to assist me on the pond.”
Cautiously, Jane leaned against the instrument as she felt her path forward in the conversation. “He paid you a great deal of attention.”
“I am conscious of that. La! When he rescued me from the Prince Regent I was beyond grateful.”
“Rescued you?”
“Oh—oh, well. You were occupied with the
tableau vivant,
and the Prince Regent—he is very gallant. But. But he is … well.”
He was fat and given to drink. His excesses could cause him to take gallantry beyond mere approbation and into indecorum. “I see. I am sorry that I left you to his attentions.”
Melody coloured and Jane wondered how far the Prince might have gone in her absence. Thoughtless. Truly thoughtless of her to have left Melody to her own devices amidst that group. Worse—no, far worse—was that she had willingly pushed Melody among them without regard for how their attention might be displayed. The Prince Regent’s set had a well-known reputation for licentiousness.
“Do not feel bad. It was only a few moments, truly. Mr. O’Brien saw my … my confusion and asked me to skate. It was over quickly.”
Jane closed her eyes. With any other man, she might have hope of some consequences to such an affront, but not the Prince Regent. Even in their own home, his rank was such that she and Melody were assiduously avoiding any details, lest they be overheard. The difference in their stations alone left them with little recourse, no matter how objectionable his attentions might become. “I will not leave you in that circumstance again.”
“Thank you.” Melody smoothed her skirts. “Honestly, there are days when I am tempted to stomp about in boots and cut my hair.”
“Like me?” Jane touched her cropped hair where it peeked out from under her mobcap. Even if Melody’s head were shaved, she would still be of surpassing loveliness.
“Well, yes. If I had accomplishments, then perhaps … at any rate, Mr. O’Brien was very kind. He reminded me, at times, of someone else, though they are nothing alike. But the way he looked at me, as though…” She broke off, sighing heavily, and stood. She paced around the pianoforte, stopping to square the small vase on a side table. “I know that I should not feel sorry for myself because I am pretty, but sometimes it is nice to have someone speak to me as though I am not.”
“Was he impertinent?”
“Oh no.” Melody continued her turn around the room. “Not at all, but … I suppose it is only his spectacles, but it did feel as though he looked at
me
.”
“Are you certain you were not simply grateful to have been rescued?” No matter what service he performed for her at the skating party, Jane hoped that Mr. O’Brien’s interest in Melody was not simply because of her perceived connection to His Royal Highness.
“I do not know.” Melody straightened a shawl hanging over the back of the sofa, smoothing the lace edges with a frown. “That is my trouble, I think. I do not trust my feelings in this.”
“You have met him only twice. This is too soon to have a sense of how you feel.”
“How many times had you met Vincent before you knew? You disliked him violently at first—do not pretend that you did not.” Melody turned to her with earnest confusion lifting her brows. “That is what frightens me so. If I am to judge by my history, then I should distrust any man for whom I felt an instant regard.”
“Do you … am I to understand that you hold Mr. O’Brien in high regard?”
“I don’t know. Oh, Jane. I do not know. Do I hold him in regard, or am I merely lonely?”
The pain in her voice led Jane to cross the room and put her arms around her sister. “I am so sorry that I have neglected you.”
Melody clung to her as she had done when a child. After a long moment, she said, “You are busy, with your work and with Vincent.” Lifting her head, she wiped her eyes, which were quite red. “La! I am simply spent from the excitement. Do not fret on my account. It is nothing that a good night’s sleep will not cure, which is where I shall take myself now.”
“Are you certain? Is there nothing more that you want to discuss?”
Firmly, Melody shook her head. “Thank you. No.”
They said their good nights, but Jane was left feeling that she had failed her sister. She had thought that as a married woman she could be Melody’s chaperon, but her work seemed to prevent it. Who had the strongest claim to her time? Her sister or her husband?
For some time, Jane remained in the drawing room, thinking through everything that Melody had said and what she had implied. She stared into the fire, but found no answers among the embers. So she roused herself and climbed the stairs to the studio and Vincent.
* * *
When she opened the
door, Vincent stood in the middle of a whirling mass of glamour. He had fashioned a
thing
that had no distinct shape, no defined illusion, only an abstract accretion of colour and light. Folds of crimson and black roiled like a confusion of storm clouds. It filled the space, obscuring even the walls.
The disorder of the glamour struck a raw nerve in Jane. The deep reds and charcoals spoke of fear and anger. It almost obscured Vincent, who stood in its midst, directing enormous folds in swirling patterns. The amount of energy it must take to maintain so large a structure astonished Jane. More, it alarmed her. She had seen Vincent distressed, but never so undone.
On the ground near the door, Vincent’s coat lay in a crumpled heap. Not far from that, his cravat nestled atop his waistcoat. She half expected to see his shirt abandoned as well. In the silence of the top floor, his breath sounded loud and ragged.
If the nature of art was to convey emotion, this glamour might be applauded for the sense of panic it caused her. Jane took a few steps into the illusion. “Vincent?”
The structure stopped its revolution, a few pieces at the outer edges drifting to a halt after the rest. In a moment, it began moving again. “Yes?”
“Do you have anything you wish to discuss?”
With a sigh that sounded like the ether tearing, Vincent released the glamour masking him. The heavy crimson folds faded first, taking the yellows and deep ash with them until the studio was bare of glamour. Jane shivered, recognising that Vincent had held
all
of that glamour at once. Nothing had been tied off. The amount of effort it must have taken was all too visible in his appearance.
His cheeks had a high colour to them. His shirt was soaked with sweat and the fabric clung to his broad chest. He gasped for breath as though he had been running for hours. Vincent wiped his hand across his face, smearing the perspiration on his brow. “I dislike burdening you with my troubles.”
“It is not a burden. Truly. And if you need further justification, consider that I will feel guilty when I burden you with mine.” She paused, shifting from one foot to the other. “Or would you rather I not confide in you?”
He grunted and almost laughed. “I will grant you the point.” He slid his hand across his hair, matting it down. “There is little to tell. My father and I do not get along.”
At least he made no pretence of misunderstanding what she inquired about. Jane wet her lips and tried again. “Is it that he—you said that he disciplined you when you were a child?” Some things she knew, but Vincent had always been guarded with his past. He was willing to discuss everything that had happened since he became Mr. David Vincent, but said little about his life as the Right Honourable Vincent Hamilton, third son of the Earl of Verbury. From few things he had told her, his father possessed strict ideas of propriety and exacting standards for what comprised the masculine ideal. He had thought Vincent’s interest in the “womanly” art of glamour beneath him, and made every effort to break him of it. Even knowing that, she was unprepared for the severe disorder of senses that Vincent now displayed.
“You mean the beatings?” Vincent shrugged, lacing his fingers behind his neck. “It is not that. My father made sure I was well trained in all things masculine, and I feel certain that I should win any corporal confrontation since I am younger than he. To be honest … to be honest, the strength of my feelings surprised me.”
“You were shocked to see him. Naturally so.” Jane went to her husband, stopping just short of touching him. His resemblance to a wild bear was so strong that she was not certain touch would be welcome.
“I will own that I was. More so that he would acknowledge me.”
“It is no wonder that when he spoke to us your sensibility should be affected.”
Vincent stared at the wall, brow knit in thought. In a very low voice, full of feeling, he said, “But it was when he spoke to
you
that I—” Groaning, he tilted his head back and stared at the skylights and the dark sky beyond. “I could not think. I could not draw breath. I could only hold myself still and not hit him. I had forgotten what it was to be angry all the time.”
“It did me no harm.”
He dropped his gaze back down to her. “Not yet. That … you see, that is the genius of my father. The punishment always comes, but you never know when.”
Jane could only stare in appalled fascination at Vincent. His childhood was so foreign from the convivial household in which she grew up that she could scarcely comprehend it.
“The only question I have is—I keep thinking that I should not have turned down his commission so I could at least know where the battle is to be played.”
“Why must there be a battle? Is there a reason we must engage?”
“I—perhaps not.” Vincent groaned again and turned in a great circle, as though he were still managing the glamour. “It is hard to think not. He controlled every minute of my life until I went to university.”
“But he no longer has any hold on you.”
Vincent was silent, but pulled a fold of glamour out of the ether. He sketched a rough tree in the air, passing his hand through the branches. He was so focused Jane thought he might have forgotten her, but Vincent unstitched the tree and stared at where it had been. “He has always found a way to make me do what he wants.”
Jane laid a hand gently on his arm. “Not always, I think.”
Recalling himself, Vincent looked at her. He lifted the tips of her fingers to his lips. “No. I suppose not always.”