Margaret turned on Eliza, frowning.
“I did not know if it was a secret,” Eliza defended herself.
As if in proof, Melville raised his forearms up to indicate the ink stains marring the pristine white of his shirt cuffs, without any sign of embarrassment. And, indeed, why ought he to be embarrassed? For somehow, on Melville the blemishes only added to his elegance—and Eliza promptly decided that she would include them in the portrait.
“Splendid!”
“Are we truly meant to interpret such marks as accidental,” Somerset asked. “Not an affectation meant to convey an artistic mystique?”
Lady Hurley and Mr. Fletcher looked on, startled. This being the first time they had witnessed Somerset and Melville sniping at one another, they had no context for Somerset’s sudden sharpness.
“Do you really think I have mystique, my lord?” Melville said. “How wonderful. I was beginning to think no one had noticed.”
“Once again, you take a compliment where none exists.”
“It makes speaking with you more enjoyable, you see.”
“Will everyone attend the concert next week? I think we certainly will, now Lindley is to play,” Eliza interjected, before Somerset could retort. He only seemed to anger further the more cheerful Melville remained.
There were murmurs of agreement around the group.
“I will,” Somerset said. “May I offer my escort?”
“I am afraid Lady Somerset has already agreed to join our party,” Melville claimed and Eliza shot him a startled look, for this was entirely untrue.
“Did she? Before even she decided to attend herself?”
“Ah, I have long known her to be prescient,” Melville said.
“You have not known her long at all,” Somerset snapped.
“We ought to go, now, Max,” Lady Caroline interjected before Melville could respond—to Eliza’s relief. The men were beginning to give her a headache.
Naturally, it was just as they were on the point of exiting that the heavens decided to reopen.
“Oh blast!” Margaret said improperly, staring out into the mizzle of rain. “Just when we shall never be able to get a cab.”
With so many persons streaming in and out of the Pump Room, hackney cabs and sedan chairs would be in short supply.
“Not the thing,” Mr. Fletcher agreed.
“We shall be drowned!” Lady Hurley declared.
“Do you intend to lay face down in a puddle?” Lady Caroline said, amused.
“I think it would be best if we make a dash for it now,” Eliza said, looking up at the sky, which was darkening ominously. “Before it becomes any worse.”
“Brava, Lady Somerset the brave,” Melville said. “It will make for a romantic vista, at least.”
“That is all very well, my lord,” Somerset said, pulling his coat around him. “But Lady Somerset is wearing silk.”
He strode out into the road and they watched him go, skeptically.
“Perhaps this is the last time we shall ever see him,” Melville wondered.
In a trice, however, Somerset was returning, and the sight of him striding purposefully back toward them through the rain, with a hackney cab following closely behind as if he had conjured it up by sheer force of will—well, it was certainly affecting. And once again, Eliza could not help but notice how admirably Somerset’s dark frock coat lay across his frame. He, of course, had no need of the buckram wadding some gentlemen used to pad out their outerwear.
“The gentlemen will have to walk,” he said, “but the ladies shall be dry.”
“You are a magician, my lord,” Lady Hurley said.
“Flatterer,” Somerset accused her gently, and Lady Hurley chuckled, accepting his arm up into it.
Margaret and Lady Caroline followed, and then it was Eliza’s turn. Somerset extended his hand, and as she took it, she thought she felt him squeeze her fingers ever so slightly. She turned her head to regard him, but his expression was smooth, unreadable. Perhaps she had imagined it.
“I shall see you tomorrow, my lady,” he murmured, before shutting the door.
From the street, Melville raised a hand to give a cheery wave.
“Lawks,” Lady Hurley breathed, as the cab drew off. “You’ll have all of Bath’s quizzes talking if that keeps up, Lady Somerset.”
“I’m sure I don’t know what you mean,” Eliza said, avoiding her eyes.
“For a moment they looked about to duel,” Lady Hurley said. “It was . . . most affecting.” And though the carriage was not warm, she began to fan herself vigorously. “I should not mind seeing it again,” she added.
“Do you need smelling salts, my lady?” Lady Caroline asked with an amused smile.
“Since their behavior is motived by dislike of one another,” Eliza said, “it gives me no pleasure.”
It was mostly true—what lady would not feel a fleeting enjoyment for being competed over in such a way, whatever the motive? But to witness such a competition and prevent oneself—by force of will—from taking any meaning from it . . . There was something slightly torturous about it. Melville was a flirt, Eliza knew this, and Somerset was . . . Eliza did not know what Somerset was, but she would not be reading into his behavior again.
Across the carriage, Lady Hurley regarded her for a moment, as if deciding whether she believed her—then cackled.
“If you say so!” she said.
14
As February drew toward March, the weather turned inclement. Each day brought fresh sheets of icy rain and vicious winds, filling Bath’s streets with puddles and bending its trees to inconvenient angles. Inside Camden Place, however, life felt warm. To the undiscerning observer, the pattern of Eliza’s days was no more variegated than it had been before, with most activities still prohibited by her mourning. Onlookers could not know, of course, that twice weekly found Eliza busy with the most unladylike employment of portraiture—outlining Melville’s shapes and shadows upon canvas—nor that the most regular of excursions had been invested with much excitement now she was accompanied, almost everywhere, by Somerset.
Friendship had truly never been so pleasurable. As discussed, Somerset and Eliza met with the land steward, and though Mr. Penney spoke to her with a condescension that made her want to scream, Somerset so considerately listened to Eliza’s opinion throughout that she still, somehow, enjoyed the appointment. It was very agreeable to finally have a person with whom to discuss the complexities of land ownership: she could not do so with her family, for they would certainly try to take over, and Margaret had neither an ounce of interest in farming, nor a single qualm about telling her so. Somerset, however, occupied the same position as Eliza: trying his best to learn a duty he had not been born to.