Page 13

The answer was obvious when one thought about it: Bianca must pass as a widow, and disguise her real identity. She might still raise a few eyebrows in new places, but far fewer. She’d be an object of pity and sentimental interest, perhaps, which would be irksome, but her solitary state would be remarked upon much less. And while she was spinning a false tale, her fictional deceased husband might as well have been Italian, a person of no particular consequence, and she should choose a humble, unremarkable name to pass under – the Northern Italian equivalent of Smith – so that nobody she met on her travels would expect her to be mixing in grand society.

Since the wars that had lasted for most of her life had ended in 1815, half the ton had headed for Europe, having been to a large extent starved of its manifold pleasures for so many years. The last thing Miss Constantine wanted, newly freed from any form of chaperonage for the first time in her life, was to encounter and be recognised by ladies and gentlemen she’d met during her one unsuccessful London Season.

Especially gentlemen, of course. She had every reason to wish to avoid people of fashion who might know her. When she’d made her debut in society, she’d been impoverished and of no particular consequence, apart from a few exalted connections by marriage. But if word got out here in Italy that she was an heiress now and travelling unprotected into the bargain, which it surely would if she was seen and recognised by anyone, all her peace and freedom would be destroyed and she might as well have stayed at home.

It seemed likely that the sort of fortune-hunters who infested the cities of Europe, where life was much cheaper than in England and disgrace might perhaps be outrun for a time, would be even more desperate and ingenious than those in London. Look at Mr Brummell, eking out a greatly reduced existence in Calais now – there must be hundreds more like him spread out across the Continent, and they would fall on a lone woman with money like so many carrion crows on a dead sheep. Bianca had no desire to be any sort of prey; she wanted to travel freely, see art properly, not as a mere casual tourist, and paint all day and all night if she chose. She also wanted a few romantic adventures of her own too, away from home where nobody knew her. It seemed male artists could live pretty much as they pleased; she wanted that for herself. Anonymity was essential for all these purposes.

The summer they’d come into their inheritance, her sisters Cecilia and Beatrice had used their new-found freedom to some effect, though they had not had to travel far to do it. Cecilia was now happily married, and – after some tribulations – Bea had found a person who was her life’s partner and her love. Bianca had not been so lucky; there had been nobody in Suffolk to tempt her, and it seemed unlikely there ever would be. She was the youngest sister and she was, as it seemed she had been all her days, running to catch up with her elders, missing both the pains and the pleasures of their lives. She’d wanted that to change, and if she was going to make mistakes, she’d make them where none of her elders would see and criticise. She had strong feelings about this; she was thoroughly sick of being the baby.

So one cool night in Rome, over a bottle of ratafia, she and Miss Macintyre devised a story to explain her lonely state and protect her from unwanted attention; she could hardly recall all the details of it now. Some farrago about being married young to an artist, a man from a decent but unexalted background with modest means. He’d been an orphan; her own family were far away. He’d died of some tragic, sudden illness, as was all too plausible, and left her widowed, childless, and uninterested in further romantic involvement.

And it had worked. She had been liberated. There had been no unpleasant results at all. Until Venice.

19

LONDON

‘I cannot believe you actually mean to hold me here against my will,’ Bianca said resolutely, ‘nor kiss me without my consent. All I need to do is scream. Your servants will come running. I know you don’t keep a disorderly house, so I’m sure they’re not accustomed to such things. Adrian might rush to my aid, with his tutor. Lady Deborah might arrive demanding explanations. Is that really what you want?’

Lord Fairmount’s hand was still hot and tight on hers; the door was still closed. ‘You won’t be able to scream if I cover your mouth. I could cover it with mine.’

‘I’d bite you.’ She knew this was a foolish thing to say as soon as the words had left her mouth.

‘Why not? You think I would dislike it? Bruise me, make me bleed if you wish. If you should give me delicious pain, it would be no more than I deserve, and as for you…’

She was ambushed by the memories, and by the desire that must accompany them, but with a great effort of will she fought it all down. ‘I don’t believe you will assault me. Mostly that’s because I don’t think you’re that sort of man, but if I am wrong and some sudden madness has possessed you, I want you to reflect on the fact that your son is just a room or two away. Adrian has shown me where he has his lessons, so I know it is not very far – well within earshot. You cannot risk him finding out about this, seeing his face change. I don’t believe you will. You must know how he looks up to you; you can’t want to destroy that, possibly forever. What could you tell him – that you’d laid violent hands on me because I was your mistress when you left him to travel abroad, supposedly because the death of his poor mother had left you grief-stricken? That our prior acquaintance somehow gives you that right, though I told you no? That when he thought you’d gone away from him for all those months to overcome your sadness and depression through travel, you were really pleasuring yourself with me in Europe and not thinking about him or your late wife at all? Is that really how you want him to see you for the rest of your life and his?’ It was a low blow, but she did not hesitate: ‘Like your brother, or your own father, or worse?’

Lord Fairmount did not stagger, though he must have felt the impact. He shook his head in frustration, and she thought his grip on her grew a fraction weaker. ‘You almost convince me that you want nothing more than to get away from me. You are so damn plausible. I don’t know what game you’re playing – maybe you want to inflame me further by not making things too easy for me. Maybe now marriage is to be the only way I can have you.’

She was far down in a pit of her own making, and it seemed only to be getting deeper. ‘I’m not playing any games, Xan. You must surely have seen how horrified I was when you walked into this room. Why would I fake such a thing, if my desire was only to entrap you?’

‘I don’t pretend to understand you. I only know you’re a liar, and yet still I want you.’

‘I can’t help that. And actually I don’t owe you any explanations, if all you’re going to do is abuse me. All I want is to leave and never come back. I’d have thought you’d want that too. Let me be a terrible mistake you will never speak or think of again. I am content it should be so; I know I have deserved it.’

She held his gaze, and if she felt a sudden coldness and sense of loss when his hand left hers at last, she did not let him see it. ‘Go!’ he ground out. ‘Go, before I change my mind and do something we will both regret forever.’

Bianca did not wait for him to say anything more. Her hand slipped on the doorknob, fumbling for an instant, but she persisted and turned it, and in a moment she was out of the door without looking back, breathing shakily and using all the strength she had to force herself to make her way slowly, agonisingly slowly across the landing and down the stairs. A tall footman she didn’t know bowed and presented her with her bonnet, which she put on with hands that shook, leaving the ribbons untied because it seemed she could not manage them just now. He opened the heavy front door for her; it seemed she was free. She ran, and did not look back.

20

Once she was safe inside Sabrina’s house, Bianca stayed shut up in her bedchamber for the rest of that morning, pleading the headache with a certain amount of truth. Even the Carriera miniature on the stand by her bed, which usually brought her strength and comfort, seemed to be judging her today.

She did not take any nuncheon, but she was obliged to come downstairs later in the afternoon, when her sister Viola came to call. It wasn’t the first time they’d met since Bianca’s return to England, but on previous occasions there’d been husbands and countless children present, demanding attention; now there would be a chance for the three sisters to have a comfortable coze together.

This was almost the last thing the youngest Constantine felt like doing just now, but she could see she had no choice. She certainly had no desire to upset any of her sisters, least of all now when she felt vulnerable and in need of their support. As she’d lain brooding on her bed, she had toyed with the idea of telling them all about her adventures in Italy, and their shocking aftermath, but had not yet resolved what she should do.

She knew Viola a little better than she knew Sabrina; the Duchess was over ten years her senior, but Bianca had spent time with her and her boys on her first husband Edward’s estate in the Midlands, both before and after his death. She didn’t think Viola would be shocked by anything she might tell her, but… she was embarrassed, that was the plain truth of it. She’d been a fool and did not particularly need anyone to tell her so, least of all her sisters, whose lives were always so well-ordered.

They were two beautiful women, Mrs Da Costa and Her Grace the Duchess of Ventris, both tall, dark, and fashionably voluptuous. They had all the assurance of their age and experience, and Bianca, as always, felt like a child beside them rather than a woman of two and twenty. Surely neither of them had ever done anything as stupid and reckless as she had; she knew that Sabrina for one had never taken a lover, nor even contemplated such a shocking action; Viola… probably not. Probably she and she alone was the disgrace of the family.

Sabrina was keen to talk about Bianca’s grand new acquaintances, and her exciting commission to paint young Lord Dawbney’s picture. This was understandable, and though Miss Constantine would much rather not engage in such a discussion, she couldn’t deny that she would listen with intense curiosity to anything Viola might have to say about the Challender family, if indeed she happened to know them, or know of them.

‘I have not met the new Earl more than once or twice,’ the Duchess told them between sips of tea, ‘but I was a little acquainted with his father, who was of Edward’s generation, and of course I know all the gossip about the Earl who has recently died – the brother, I mean, though I never met him. He was quite notorious throughout the ton as a rake, a helpless drunkard, and a frequenter of the lowest of company.’

‘He was not married?’ Sabrina asked, consuming tiny lemon cakes and settling down to be pleasurably scandalised this fine afternoon.

Viola scoffed. ‘I don’t suppose it would have stopped him for a minute if he had been, but no. I have heard it said that no gentleman who loved his daughter or even liked her a little would have consented to see her tied in wedlock to such a man, despite his title, property and fortune. Yes, yes, much worse even than Richard before he married me: imagine that! This is why, of course, the younger brother – the present Earl – married in his early twenties, and not through his own choice. It was an arranged match with a suitable young lady at the behest of his father, in the old-fashioned manner, because it seemed plain to everyone that the older brother’s course in life was such that he could not be expected to survive long or ever make a decent match. As indeed he didn’t.’