Mischief in Regency Society: To Catch a Rogue

Cory wrinkled her nose. “There won’t be. You two always spend hours with the Marbles.”

“You enjoy them, too, silly monkey, and you know it,” Calliope said. “Perhaps after the Marbles and the mummies we can have an ice at the shop across the way.”

Smiling happily with the promise of dead Egyptians and a sweet, Cory went off to sketch her favourite sculpture yet again, the head of a horse from the chariot of the Moon, his mane and jaw drooping after an exhausting journey across the heavens. Calliope and Clio strolled over to the back wall, where the frieze depicting the procession of a Panathenaic festival was mounted. It was quiet there for the moment, despite the milling crowds, tucked behind the massive carved figures of Theseus and a draped, headless goddess.

Calliope stared up at the line of young women, all of them gracefully poised and beautifully dressed in chitons and cloaks, bearing vessels and libation bowls as offerings to the gods. They were not as well displayed as they deserved; the room was cramped and ill lit, the walls dark. But Calliope always loved to see them, to revel in their classical beauty, in the procession that never ended. And today she was glad of the dim light, for it hid the purplish circles of her sleepless night.

“I have called for a meeting of the Ladies Society tomorrow afternoon,” she told Clio.

Clio’s gaze did not turn from the figure of the head girl in the procession, the one that held aloft an incense stand, but her lips curved down. “So soon? We usually only convene once a week.”

“This is an emergency. The Duke of Averton’s ball is coming up soon. We must be prepared for whatever might happen there.”

“Do you still think you-know-who plans to snatch the Alabaster Goddess away that night?”

“I’m not sure. That is why I said we need to be prepared for anything. Even nothing. The ball might pass off quite peacefully—or as peacefully as anything could at Averton’s house. The sculpture will stay in place…”

“But it will not stay in place!” Clio hissed. Her hand tightened on the head of her furled parasol, and for a moment Calliope feared she might stab it into the air, or at an unwary passerby. “Averton is sending it off to his infernal fortress in Yorkshire, where no one will ever see it again! He is a vile, selfish man with no care for his collections. Do you think that is a better fate for poor Artemis than to fall into the hands of the Lily Thief?”

Calliope bit her lip. “It’s true that he is well named the Duke of ‘Avarice’. I like him no better than you, Clio. He is a very—strange man. But at least we would know where the statue is, and one day a museum or legitimate antiquarian could acquire her. If the Lily Thief took her, she would vanish utterly! We would learn nothing from her then.”

“Honestly, Cal! I do love you, but sometimes you don’t seem to understand.” Clio stalked away, her parasol swinging, and left Calliope standing alone.

Calliope stared up again at the carved procession, swallowing hard against her pricked feelings. She and Clio were as close as two sisters could be, drawn together by their love of history, by the need to be “mothers” to their younger sisters in the wake of their own mother’s death. And she knew Clio had a temper that subsided as quickly as it flared. That did not make their little quarrels any easier, though.

What was it lately, Calliope wondered, that caused such arguments? First Lord Westwood, now her sister. Her eyes itched with unshed tears, and she rubbed at them hard. When she looked up again, she feared she was hallucinating. Lord Westwood stood right beside her, staring down at her solemnly, his glossy curls brushed carelessly from the sharp, shadowed planes of his face so that he seemed one of the sculptures himself.

She blinked—and found he was still there. She drew in a steadying breath, and offered him a tentative smile. “Lord Westwood.”

“Miss Chase,” he answered. “I trust you are enjoying your outing?”

“Yes, very much. My sisters and I visit the museum whenever we can.” She gestured towards Cory, who was still sketching the horse’s head with Clio leaning over her.

“I come here often, as well,” he said.

“Do you? I—I imagine it reminds you of your mother’s homeland,” she said carefully, wary of yet another quarrel. How could one speak of these controversial carvings without starting a fuss, though?

But he simply answered, “Yes. Her tales when I was a child were always of gods and goddesses, and even muses.”

Calliope smiled. “Perhaps then you have an understanding of how changeable a muse can be?”

He smiled in return, a quick grin that seemed to light up their dim corner of the room. “I have heard tell of such things. One day the muse will smile on you, the next she has vanished. Perhaps that is simply part of her allure.”

Allure? Did he then find her—alluring? She would have thought “prickly” or “annoying” more likely adjectives he would use. But then, did she not think the same of him? Annoying, and yet strangely alluring. She shrugged away these distracting thoughts and said, “Sometimes, too, a muse forgets her manners. Says things she should not. Then she must apologise.”

“Is that what this is, Miss Chase? An apology?”

Calliope sighed. “I fear so.”

He clutched at his heart, staggering back as if in profound shock. “Never!”

She laughed. “I would not have you think I was not properly brought up, Lord Westwood. I should not have said those things to you last night. My sister says I should blame it on the spell of the music or on the wine, but in truth I do not know why I said them. I was just rather out of sorts.”

“I suppose I have been out of sorts with you in the past as well, Miss Chase. Perhaps we can start anew. Cry pax.”

“Pax, then. For now.”

“For now. Come, let me show you my favourite of these friezes.” He offered her his arm, and though she only laid her fingertips very lightly on his fine wool sleeve, she could feel the warmth of his skin, the strength of his coiled muscle beneath the layers of cloth. His arm tensed under her touch, as if he felt it, too. That strange, gossamer tie. “There, that wasn’t too hard, was it?”

“Not at all,” Calliope answered.

He smiled, and led her to the end of the marble procession, where it curved around to the next wall. There was etched the very reason for the procession—Athena, seated in profile as she observed her offerings. She did not wear her usual helmet on her curled hair, but held her aegis on her lap and bore a spear in her right hand.

“She is your favourite?” Calliope asked.

“You sound surprised.”

“Perhaps I imagined you preferred one of the Lapiths and centaurs from the metope, drunkenly breaking up the party. Or Dionysus over there with his leopard skin.”

He laughed. “Oh, come now, Miss Chase! I do enjoy the pleasures of life, but I am hardly a centaur. Or a Dionysus. Were we not just speaking of orgies last night? His soirées tend to end so badly, with the participants tearing each other limb from limb and devouring the raw flesh. No, indeed, cannibalism is not for me.”

Calliope felt herself blushing again, an embarrassing red heat flooding up her throat to her cheeks. “I never quite imagined cannibalism as one of your vices, Lord Westwood. But tell me why you like Athena here so very much? She seems too rational and measured for you.”

“It is exactly those qualities—her rational calm, her dignity. My life has never held much of those qualities, pulled from pillar to post with my parents, and I crave them. I can find them right here, carved in this marble.”

Calliope blinked in surprise. True, the two of them had declared peace only moments before, but she could never have expected such an instance of confidence from Cameron de Vere, of all people. A wistful longing was etched on his handsome face, driving out the careless mockery.

“She is my favourite, too,” she admitted.

“And so she should be, for you are very like her.”

“I, like Athena?” she said, startled. “She would never have been rude to you at a musicale.”

“No, she would have struck me down with her spear. I must feel fortunate you wield no such weapon. Your tongue is quite sharp enough.”

Before Calliope could answer, there was a sudden commotion in the doorway, disturbing the church-like hush of the room. A ripple of comment, of tension. Calliope peered around the bulk of a headless goddess to see that the Duke of Averton had just made an entrance.

He was a handsome enough man, Calliope thought, she would give him that much. Tall, slim, with flowing red-gold hair that fairly shimmered in the dim light, and bright green eyes that took in everything around him in one penetrating glance. The only flaw on his handsome face was a slightly crooked nose, as if it had once been broken and not healed straight. His dramatic, almost Celtic looks were emphasised by his flamboyant way of dressing—a long cape where all the other men wore wool greatcoats, a yellow satin waistcoat, tasselled boots, and jewelled rings on his fingers. Rubies and emeralds.

The duke stood there for a moment until he was certain everyone watched him, then he swung his cloak from his shoulders in a great arc and deposited it with one of the many lackeys trailing behind him. The sweep of his arm seemed to encompass and embrace all the sculptures as if they belonged to him alone.

“Ah, the glories of Greece, the ancient spirits—we meet again,” he said, softly but carryingly. Then he turned and made his way towards the metope section, his entourage hurrying behind him.

Calliope almost laughed aloud. The Duke of Averton so seldom went about in town; it was part of what made his upcoming ball the talk of the ton. But when he did it was more amusing than Drury Lane.

“Ridiculous toad,” Lord Westwood muttered darkly. “What is the purpose of such a preening display?”

Calliope glanced up at him to find him glowering towards the duke, his long fingers curled into fists. Where was the lighthearted Apollo now? Westwood resembled no one so much as the ill-tempered Hades, lurking in his black underworld, wishing he could feed the duke limb by limb to his snarling Cerberus.