I think everyone should have at least one person they love well enough to die for. The scarred corner of his mouth twisted. What if one’s persons were long dead and gone to dust, Miss Posh Tottie, what then?
He let the curtain go and leaned back into the plush seat. He’d never know what his grandmother would have said to a new home; he had been too late to fetch her. But it wasn’t too late to make good on his other promises: Justice for his mother. Justice for Sorcha. A future for the faceless mass of men whose lives were but cogs in a machine, deemed worth less than one of Greenfield’s stinking cigars. Ironic, that it required him to make yet another vow to another woman.
He glanced at his assistant. “Don’t worry about the Greenfield girl, Matthews. My intentions are entirely honorable.”
Matthews’s eyes widened in shocked comprehension. “Oh dear,” he finally stammered, looking more despondent than before.
Chapter 7
“I’m terribly tempted to obey my father and attend the gallery tour,” Hattie told Catriona a few days later in her drawing room at the Randolph.
It earned her a wry glance over a gilded teacup rim. “Are you tempted by the tour or by another scandalous encounter?”
“Ha ha,” Hattie murmured. “Would you be shocked if I told you I wish to support his charitable efforts for the arts, too?”
“Whose charity?”
“Mr. Blackstone’s.”
Catriona put cup and saucer down on the low-legged table between them. “Would that be wise?”
With a sigh, Hattie abandoned her dramatic sprawl across her fainting couch to select a cream-filled éclair from the pastry platter.
“Probably not,” she conceded. “But the truth is, normally when I receive a request for my work or my patronage, I can never shake the suspicion that I’m asked because of who my father is.”
“Why?” Catriona looked puzzled. “Your work is fine in its own right.”
“Do you remember the grand birds-and-flowers exhibition sponsored by the Royal Horticultural Society?”
“I don’t, no.”
“Well, my painting was the only one that had not a single bird in it.”
“Oh.”
“Now, Mr. Blackstone’s invitation can’t be an attempt to curry favor with the Greenfields, since my father was the one repeatedly approaching him.”
“Then the question is, what is his motivation?” Catriona muttered.
It was a justified question. She doubted it was Mr. Blackstone’s admiration for her talent since the only example of her work he had seen thus far was The Gourd … But it was such a pretty idea, to be chosen for herself … She wished their usual quartet of friends was complete, so she could have opinions other than just Catriona’s mercilessly rational ones to consider. But Annabelle and her duke had retreated to their castle in Brittany last week, and Lucie’s usual place on the yellow settee was empty, too, as she was en route to Italy. She herself was expected in London tonight, since the term had concluded and the additional week her parents had granted her in Oxford was over.
She nibbled on her pastry with little enthusiasm. “I should like to join both the gallery tour and Mr. Blackstone’s charity, because I shall be dreadfully bored a fortnight from now. I don’t care for summer in London and I already miss you.”
Catriona’s brows rose with surprise. “You’re staying in London?” Catriona would be on her way to a windswept glen in Applecross soon, fleeing London’s sooty summer heat like a regular person.
“My father requires fast access to Frankfurt and Paris because of the Spain crisis,” Hattie explained. “Mama is staying to give Sir Bradleigh and Mina some more time to court in public.”
Repetitive weeks in town stretched before her, muggy and treacherous like a narrow path across a swampland under her mother’s scrutinizing eye. Meanwhile, Mina would enjoy outings with her knight. She couldn’t even make herself useful by helping Lucie with suffrage work, since her parents had no knowledge of her political activism. She’d have to occupy herself in other ways. Drawing sketches of hands and feet. Envisioning provocative ballgowns she’d never be allowed to wear. Accompanying Mother to her respectable charitable activities, which consisted mainly of drinking tea.
“Let’s hope Sir Bradleigh’s proposal is imminent,” she said. “It would at least focus all my mother’s attentions on planning a wedding.”
A shudder ran down Catriona’s back. “Aren’t you worried she will then turn her marriage designs on you? You’re older than Mina, after all.”