Ruined By The Reckless Viscount

‘A wig and a hat would be an easy disguise. I can procure a moustache, too, and stuff paper in my cheeks to change the shape of my face. That should make me speak differently.’

‘My God, Florentia.’ Maria simply stared at her. ‘You have been thinking of this for a while? This dupe?’

‘The art of pretence lies in painting just as truly as it ever would in the world of acting. It just requires sure-mindedness, I think.’

‘And you truly imagine you could pull off such a character?’

‘I do.’ She smiled because her sister’s face was stiff with disbelief. ‘I’ve been practising, Maria. The walking. The talking. The sitting. I am sure I could be more than convincing.’

‘And what of the serving staff at the London town house of the Warrendens? I am certain they should notice if one moment you are a girl and the next a boy and goodness knows who they might tell. Your true identity would be all over London before we ever got to our next appointment if the stories of the gossip-mongering between the big houses is to be believed.’

‘Then perhaps I should simply go as Mr Frederick Rutherford right from the beginning. The Warrendens’ staff in London does not know me and it would completely do away with the need for new gowns and shoes. I shan’t have to even take a maid with me. I shall simply arrive as Mr Frederick Rutherford and leave as him with no questions asked.’

‘I don’t believe I am having this conversation with you, Florentia. You cannot possibly be serious.’

‘Oh, but I am, Maria. I have no wish to be out and about in society again, but I do have a need to continue selling my paintings. I could, of course, simply go up to the city alone and in disguise, but...’

‘No. If you are going to do this ridiculous thing I want to be there to help you, to make certain that you are safe.’

‘Thank you.’

‘You have forced my hand, dreadfully, but I do want to state quite forcefully that this is a terrible and dangerous idea.’

‘I know I can do it, Maria. Remember the plays we used to put on as children. You always said I was marvellous at acting my parts.’

‘That was make believe.’

‘As this is, too. It’s exactly the same.’

‘If you get caught—’

Florentia cut her off. ‘But I won’t. I promise.’

‘My God, I can’t believe I should even be considering this. I can’t believe you might talk me into it.’

‘Try, Maria. Try for my sake.’

‘All right. I’ll visit the wigmakers if you fashion a drawing of your wants and I can simply say it is for a play we are putting on at Albany for Christmas. Did you have a preference for a colour?’

‘Black.’ Flora was astonished to hear such certainty coming from her mouth. She could mimic Bryson because she had known him so very well, his habits, his stance, the way he walked and watched. His hair had been golden just like hers, so she needed something distinctly different.

‘And I would require some height inbuilt in the boots. I have seen that done so it should not be difficult.’

Maria groaned. ‘I cannot believe that we could even be contemplating this farce, Florentia. God, if we are discovered.’

‘It will never happen.’

‘Well, Roy needs to know at least. I will not lie to him.’

* * *

Flora walked to the stream late that afternoon through the small bushes and the flowering shrubs, through the birdsong and the rustle of the wind, through air filled with the smell of spring on its edge and the promise of renewed warmth.

She had always come here to think ever since the time she had returned in disgrace from London.

The glade reminded her slightly of the woods she had run through besides the North Road as she had tried to escape the carriage of the man who had abducted her.

Her kidnapper.

That was how she named him now and here she allowed him to come into her thoughts just as surely as she had banished him from everywhere else.

His smile was what she remembered most, slightly lopsided and very real. He had a dimple in his chin, too, a detail that she had forgotten about until, when painting from memory, she had rediscovered the small truths of him.

Beautiful. She had thought him such then and she still did now, his short hair marked in browns of all shades from russet to chestnut and threaded in lighter gold and wheat.

She wondered why she still recalled him with such a preciseness, but she knew the answer of course. He had died for a mistake, his own admittedly, but still... He was like a martyr perishing for a cause that was unknown, his blood running on the forecourt of the inn in runnels of red, the dust blending indistinctly at the sides so that it was darker. She had used that colour when she had drawn him, that particular red on the outlines when first she had formed his face and body on canvas and now even when the painting was finished the colour was a part of who he was, both his strength and his weakness.

She’d bundled up the portrait with its power of grace and covered it with a sheet before placing it at the very back of her large wardrobe. Often, though, she looked at him even as she meant not to. Often she lifted the fabric and ran her finger across his cheek, along his nose and around the line of his dimpled chin.

It made her feel better, this care of him, this gentle caress, this attention that she had not allowed him in life even after he saved her from the dogs and wrapped his jacket around her shoulders to deter the chill of spring.

Contrasts. That was the worst of it. The disparity of caring or not.

Her kidnapper had made her into a woman of detail and fear. He had changed her from believing in the hope of life to one who dreaded it. At times like this sitting in her private grove she wondered if perhaps this introspection was exactly the thing that made her take up the brush, for she had never lifted one until she had returned in shame to Albany Manor after her fateful London ruin.

Seeing yellow paint on her nail, she scraped it off with her thumb, the small flakes falling into drops of water caught on a green waxy leaf and turning the colour yellow. With care she tipped it over and the hue ran into the mud and the soil, swallowed up until it ceased to exist at all.

Like him. Perhaps?

Sometimes she imagined he still lived, scarred and angry, as closeted away as she was, afraid to be seen and exposed. Did a wife live with him now? Had he found a woman who might listen with her whole heart to the story of his narrow escape and then stroke his cheek in comfort, just as she tended to the image in the painting? A mistake to forget about, or to laugh over.

Crossroads for them both.

Him in death and her in life. Everyone seemed to have moved on since for good or for bad. Her father to his penchant for sickness, her mother in her willingness to play his nursemaid, Maria in her love of a husband who suited her entirely.

Everybody but her, stuck as she was in this constant state of inertia.

That was the trouble, of course, the puzzling hopelessness of everything that had happened. The scandal she could have coped with easily. It was the grief of it all that had flattened her. Everything for nothing.

Picking up a stick, she began to draw lines in the earth. Six lines for the years. She wanted to add a seventh because this next one would be no different. Then she embellished the lines with twelve circles each representing the months. Seventy-two of them. A quarter of her lifetime.

She wanted to live again. She wanted to smile and laugh and dance. She wanted to wear pretty clothes and jewellery and have long dinners under candlelight. But she couldn’t, couldn’t make herself take that first little step out and about.

It had got worse, her lack of air. In winter now she gasped and wheezed when she walked further than she ought to.

Sometimes she wondered if she were indeed addled by it all. Pushing that thought away, she concentrated on another.

Mr Frederick Rutherford.