Beguiling the Beauty Page 4

  “So when you see a beautiful woman, sir, is that what you think, that she is fit for reproduction?”

  Venetia’s jaw slackened. Americans had such phenomenal cheek.

  “No, I rather marvel at the homage we pay beauty—it is fascinating for a man of science.”

  “How so?”

  “We have been taught from birth to judge one another on character. Yet when faced with beauty, everything goes out of the window. Beauty becomes the only thing that matters. This tells me that Mr. Darwin was exactly right. We are descended from animals. There are certain beastly instincts—the attraction to beauty, for example—that are primal to our makeup and override the markings of civilization. So we romanticize beauty, out of embarrassment that we should still be so susceptible to it in this day and age.”

  The audience murmured at his unconventional and very decided views.

  “Does this mean you do not enjoy beauty, sir?”

  “I do enjoy beauty, but I enjoy it the same way I enjoy a cigar, with the understanding that while it gives temporary pleasure, it is essentially meaningless, and perhaps might even be harmful in the long run.”

  “That is a very cynical view of beauty.”

  “That is all the consideration beauty deserves,” said the duke coolly.

  “You might have a slightly more difficult time than you first anticipated, Venetia,” said Helena softly.

  “The duke is clearly a troublemaker.” In whom Venetia was developing a rather lively interest, an interest that was perhaps warmer than warranted for a potential brother-in-law.

  A young man leaped to his feet. “Sir, if I understand you correctly, you have essentially declared all beautiful women untrustworthy.”

  Venetia tsked. The duke had said no such thing: He’d advised a neutral stance on the consideration of beauty. Beautiful women, like all other women, should be approached and judged on aspects beyond mere physical attributes. And what was wrong with that?

  “But beautiful women are essentially untrustworthy,” replied the duke.

  Venetia frowned. Not that old chestnut. It was as bad as equating beauty with virtue. Worse, probably.

  “A beautiful woman is desired for as long as her beauty holds, forgiven for all trespasses, and never asked to be anything other than beautiful.”

  Venetia snorted. If only.

  “But surely, sir, the rest of us are not so blind as that,” argued the young man.

  “Allow me to present some anecdotal evidence, then. Anecdotal evidence does not constitute data. But where unbiased, unpolluted data is not possible—a given when it comes to the study of the human psyche—we will have to make do.

  “Some years ago, I passed through London in the latter part of August, a time when English Society vacates the city entirely and repairs to the country. My club was empty, except for myself and another man.

  “I knew this man because he’d once been pointed out to me as the husband of a very beautiful woman. He spoke briefly of his wife and warned that a man shouldn’t covet her unless that man wanted to become like him.

  “The conversation was distasteful to me. It also made no sense, until I read the man’s obituary in the papers a few days later. I made some inquiries and learned that not only was he bankrupt, he had also run up exceedingly large accounts at several jewelers. The circumstances of his death had very nearly triggered an inquest.”

  Something clanged inside Venetia’s head. This woman, whom the duke clearly blamed for her husband’s death … Could he possibly be speaking of her?

  “His widow remarried scarcely a year later, to a much older, very wealthy man. Rumors were rife that she conducted an affair with his good friend. And when he was on his deathbed, she did not even have the courtesy to attend him. He died alone.”

  He was speaking of her, only with the facts hideously distorted. She wanted to cover her ears, but she couldn’t move. She couldn’t even blink, but could only stare at him with the blind gaze of a statue.

  The judgment on her second marriage stung, but that didn’t quite matter as much—she’d helped spread some of those rumors herself. But what he’d implied about Tony, in Tony’s own words, no less, insinuating that Tony wouldn’t have killed himself had it not been for her …

  “Exceptionally heartless, our beauty.”

  Had his speech slowed? Each damning syllable hung for an eternity in the air, an air brilliant with the projecting lantern’s beam, a thousand specks of mote caught in a harsh white radiance.

  “You’d think an odor of censure would hang about her,” the duke continued inexorably. “But no, she is welcomed everywhere and constantly pelted with proposals of marriage. No one, it seems, can remember her past. So, yes, I do believe the rest of us are indeed that blind.”

  There were other questions. Venetia didn’t hear them. Nor did she really hear the duke’s answers, except his voice, that aloof, clear, inescapable voice.

  She didn’t know when the lecture ended. She didn’t know when the duke left or when the rest of the audience filed out. The theater was dark and empty when she rose, politely removed her sister’s hand from her arm, and marched out.

  I still can’t believe what happened,” said Millie, pressing another cup of hot tea into Venetia’s hands.

  Venetia had no idea whether she’d finished the contents of the previous cup or whether it had turned cold and been taken away.

  Helena paced the parlor, her shadow long and lean upon the wall. “There are a great many lies and liars involved here. Mr. Easterbrook’s family is certainly a mendacious bunch. Mr. Townsend was capable of a great deal of it. And, Venetia, you, too, have contributed your share in covering for the two of them.”

  It was true. Venetia had lied her fair share. Sometimes people must be protected; sometimes appearances had to be kept; and sometimes her own pride needed preserving, so she could go about her business with her head held high, even when all she wanted was to cower in a corner.

  “The duke, most likely, is not a liar,” continued Helena. “But he has spoken with reprehensible recklessness, presenting a series of unsubstantiated rumors as if they were from the Encyclopedia Britannica. Unforgivable. We can only be grateful that while Americans might have heard of the Prince of Wales and the Duke of Marlborough, they don’t know of Venetia and won’t be able to guess her identity from what he’s said.”

  “Thank goodness for small mercies,” murmured Millie.

  Helena stopped before Venetia’s chair and lowered herself so that her eyes were level with Venetia’s. “Avenge yourself, Venetia. Make him fall in love with you, then give him the cut.”

  Loud, dark thoughts had been crisscrossing Venetia’s head like a murder of crows over the Tower of London. But now, as she gazed into her sister’s cool, resolute eyes, the past dropped away, and the thought of Lexington likewise receded.

  Helena. Helena was a woman who made her decisions with an almost frightful ruthlessness.

  If Helena had truly decided that Andrew Martin was worth the trouble, then the die was cast, the board set, the bridge crossed and burned. Millie, Fitz, and Venetia could try all they want. They would not change her mind, not by any means in their possession.

  Venetia could only be glad that her mind had gone largely numb. She could not feel any despair.

  For now.

  CHAPTER 3

  When Venetia was ten, a train had derailed near her childhood home.

  Her father had led the charge in pulling passengers out of the wreck. Venetia and her siblings had not been allowed to go near the scene, for fear it would upset them too much. But they were encouraged to attend to passengers, especially children who’d suffered only minor injuries.

  There had been a boy about her age who bore no visible damages. When sandwiches were set down before him, he ate. When a cup of tea appeared, he drank. And when asked questions, he gave sensible enough answers. Yet it became apparent after some time that he wasn’t entirely there, that he was still caught in the
midst of the derailment.

  In the days following Lexington’s lecture, Venetia carried out a similar approximation of normalcy. At her insistence, they departed for their tour of Montreal as scheduled. Braving the cold—barely feeling the cold, in fact—she visited the Notre-Dame Basilica, smiled at the quaintly costumed country folk who thronged the Bonsecours on market days, and admired the panoramic views of the city from the belvedere atop Mount Royal.

  All the while she relived Lexington’s condemnation. And relived the awful days immediately following Tony’s death. For longer than she thought possible, she was but a bystander in her own mind, witnessing the events as if they were happening to a stranger a continent away, and marveling that she should be so removed.

  The first crack in her detachment came three days before they were to leave for New York. She woke up in the middle of that night, her heart pounding, wanting to destroy something. Everything.

  By the time Helena and Millie awoke she was already packed and dressed, her portmanteau strapped to the boot of a hired carriage. If she were to scream and smash things, she didn’t want her family to see her.

  “I’ve decided to go ahead to New York and facilitate your arrival,” she said.

  Helena and Millie looked at each other. In this day and age, all one needed was a decent guidebook and access to a telegraph office to make travel arrangements. There was no need to send a scout ahead to thoroughly modern New York, especially as they’d already applied for and received reservations in one of the best hotels in town.

  Helena began, “We can come with—”

  “No!” Venetia winced at the harshness of her refusal. She took a deep breath. “I’d like to go by myself.”

  “Are you sure about this?” Millie asked hesitantly.

  “Quite. And don’t look so downcast—it will only be two days before you see me again.”

  But they did look downcast, dismayed, and anxious. They wanted to keep her near and protect her. Some hurts, however, were beyond the protection of sisterly love and some wounds better licked in dark, lonely caves.

  “I’d better hurry,” she said. “Or I’ll miss my train.”

  Venetia had once thought she’d made peace with Tony’s memories. She’d lied to herself. There had never been peace, only a tenuous truce with him forever silent and her studiously avoiding the subject.

  And now even that truce had been undone. As her train sped south, she stared at the still-frozen landscape rushing by, while a bewildered, plaintive voice in her head kept repeating the same question. Why had you said such things to Lexington, Tony, why?

  It’s simple enough, you idiot. He wanted someone to believe you were responsible for his death.

  Why this should come as such a bitter surprise, she didn’t know. Perhaps with the passage of time, she’d allowed herself to romanticize the past, to believe that her marriage hadn’t been so suffocating after all, that she’d been no more unhappy than anyone else, and that Tony hadn’t really proved himself anywhere near as mean-spirited a man.

  This, then, was his way to remind her, from beyond the grave, of her misery, heartbreak, and shame.

  Of the truth.

  * * *

  Venetia’s head pounded as she detrained at Grand Central Station. She almost walked past the sign held by her friend Lady Tremaine’s driver. Lady Tremaine, her husband, and their two young daughters had already departed for England, but they’d put their automobile at Venetia’s disposal.

  The manservant, who told her his name was Barnes, guided Venetia outside, to where he’d parked the vehicle. Except for the lack of harnessed horses, the automobile exactly resembled a victoria—the open body, the raised driver’s seat in the front, even the calash hood at the back.

  “Driving hats for you, Mrs. Easterbrook, from Lady Tremaine.” Barnes motioned toward the stack of hatboxes on the seat.

  “Very considerate of her,” Venetia murmured.

  Most veiled hats employed ornamental lattices of fabric meant not to conceal, but to draw more attention to the face. The driving hats from Lady Tremaine, however, were not the least bit frivolous. Not that they were ugly, but their veils were proper veils, consisting of two layers of fine netting that wound all around the brim of the hat.

  “We won’t go very fast in the city,” said Barnes, adjusting his driving goggles, “but you might find a hat useful driving out in the country, ma’am.”

  Venetia unpinned her own hat and set the driving hat on her head. The effect was that of being plunked down inside a fog—not a London pea souper, but the kind of fog she encountered on early morning walks in the country, like smoke flowing on the ground.

  The bustle outside Grand Central Station receded. Barnes cranked the engine, climbed onto his seat, and released the brake. The now dreamlike streets of Manhattan glided by outside Venetia’s translucent cocoon, the colors muted, the buildings smudged at the edges, the passersby blurred in ways that might intrigue modern artists.

  Would that she traveled through her entire life at such a remove, protected from its pitfalls and upheavals.

  They drove for a mile or so before the automobile came to a stop. “Here’s your hotel, Mrs. Easterbrook. All seventeen stories of it,” said Barnes proudly. “Ain’t it grand? All electric, too—and a telephone in each room.”

  The hotel was indeed very tall, dwarfing its neighbors.

  “Very impr—”

  Venetia froze. Striding down the street toward her, tall, haughty, and impeccably turned out, was none other than the Duke of Lexington. He cast a cursory glance at the automobile and headed inside the hotel.

  Her hotel. What was he doing here?

  Her first instinct was to run. She would lodge elsewhere—she didn’t need seventeen stories or a telephone receiver in her room. She had not escaped to New York to be under the same roof as her nemesis.

  But a perverse pride refused to let her make the request to Barnes. She squared her shoulders. “Very impressive. I’m sure I will enjoy my stay.”

  If anyone ought to run in the opposite direction, it was he, not she. She had not slandered anyone. She had not spread malicious rumors. She had not spoken without regard to consequences.

  A doorman materialized to help her down. The hotel’s porters came to receive her luggage. She declined Barnes’s offer to speak for a room for her, tipped him, and bid him good day.

  Not until she was crossing the onyx-and-marble rotunda of the hotel did she realize she was still fully veiled. The dim interior made it more difficult to see, but she was far from blind. She arrived at the hotel clerk’s station without mishap.

  The hotel clerk blinked once at her appearance. “Good afternoon, ma’am. May I help you?”

  Before she could reply, another clerk several feet down the counter offered a greeting of his own. “Good afternoon, Your Grace.”

  She froze again.

  “Any news on my passage?” came Lexington’s cool voice.

  “Indeed, sir. We have secured you a Victoria suite on the Rhodesia. There are only two such suites on the liner, and you will be assured of the greatest comfort, privacy, and luxury for your crossing.”

  “Departure time?”

  “Tomorrow morning at ten, sir.”

  “Very good,” said Lexington.

  “Ma’am, may I help you?” Venetia’s clerk asked again.

  Unless she abruptly abandoned the counter, she must speak and, at some point, give her name. She cleared her throat—and out came a string of German. “Ich hätte gerne Ihre besten Zimmer.”

  She was running away after all. She balled her fingers, the chaos inside her igniting into anger.

  “Beg your pardon, ma’am?”

  Through gritted teeth, she repeated herself.

  The clerk looked flustered. Without turning, without ever having appeared to pay attention, Lexington said, “The lady would like your best rooms.”

  “Ah yes, of course. Your name, please, ma’am.”

  She swallowed
and reached randomly. “Baronesse von Seidlitz-Hardenberg.”

  “And how many nights will you be staying with us, ma’am?”

  She held out two fingers. The clerk wrote something in his ledger. Venetia signed the register with her new alias.

  “Here is your key, baroness. And a walking map of Central Park, which you will find just outside our doors. We hope you enjoy your stay.”

  A hotel attendant ushered her toward the lift, which came promptly, the metallic cage shunting into place with a soft ding. An accordion door folded into the wall; the inner door slid open.

  “Good afternoon, ma’am,” said the lift attendant. “Good afternoon, Your Grace.”

  Him again. She turned her head a few surreptitious degrees. Lexington stood to the side, slightly behind her, waiting for her to enter the lift. Move, she ordered herself. Move.

  Somehow her feet carried her forward. Lexington followed her inside. He glanced her way, but did not acknowledge her. Instead, he turned his attention to the gilded panels that adorned the elevator’s interior.

  “Which floor, ma’am?” asked the lift attendant.

  “Fünfzehnter Stock,” she said.

  “Pardon, ma’am?”

  “The lady wishes to go to the fifteenth floor,” said the duke.

  “Ah, thank you, sir.”

  The lift was leisurely, almost sluggish, in its ascent. She began to suffocate under her veil. Yet she dared not breathe with any vigor, for fear she’d betray her agitation. The duke, on the other hand, was at his ease. His jaw carried no tension. His posture was straight but not rigid. His hands, folded over the top of his walking stick, were perfectly relaxed.

  Her anger blazed to a firestorm. It roared in her ears. Her fingertips were hot with a desire for violence.

  How dare he? How dare he use her to illustrate his stupid, misogynistic points? How dare he destroy her hard-won peace of mind? And how dare he ooze such cool smugness, such insufferable satisfaction with his own life?

  When the lift dinged into place on the fifteenth floor, she charged out.

  “Gnädige Frau.”

  It took her a moment to recognize his voice, speaking in German.