Glamour in Glass (2 page)

“Do you not think so, Mrs. Vincent?” His Royal Highness leaned close to her, smiling.

Jane straightened in her seat, alarmed that she had lost track of the conversation. “I could hardly dare to venture an opinion.”

“You do your husband wrong, if you should not vouch for him.”

She would do her husband more wrong if her fears about the fish were correct, and yet to admit that she had been ignoring the Prince would not do. Jane sought for some answer that would serve. “But you see, sir, as his wife I am over-partial to him and cannot be trusted to give an unbiased opinion. I must bow to yours.”

“Then I will make it so, and trust that it give you some pleasure as well.” The Prince Regent lifted the asparagus tongs and offered her a few delicate spears.

Jane nodded her assent, without having the least idea of what he would make so, while darting glances at the window where the fish appeared. If she unfocused her attention on the tangible world and let her vision slip into that realm of ether where the folds of glamour lay, she could study the thread as it flowed past. From watching others, she knew that such distraction gave her countenance a somewhat insipid expression which might be appealing on certain beauties, but not on her own unassuming plainness. It was too at odds with the sharpness of her features to be pleasing.

The knot went past. It had, as Jane suspected, slipped. What alarmed her more was that it showed every sign that it was on the verge of coming untied altogether. She tried to remember what she had fixed that thread of glamour around.

“And have you been to the Continent before, Mrs. Vincent?”

The question brought Jane’s attention back to the table. “I have not, sir.”

“Then I suggest avoiding the north of France when you go, though I cannot remember where Mr. Vincent said his colleague lived. Still, I counsel against it, as well as parts of Spain and Italy. While Napoleon has abdicated, there are still factions that would seek to put his son on the throne. I think it shall be calmed by the time you travel, but you must let me make some arrangements for your tour.”

Jane was all astonishment. To the best of her knowledge, neither she nor Vincent had spoken of going abroad, and yet the Prince Regent spoke as if it were a certainty that they would go. “Sir—”

He held up his hand. “Mrs. Vincent, you must do me the favour of not using my honourific with every sentence. It does wear on one. In an intimate setting such as this, I would rather be reminded that I dine with friends than that I am Prince. I shall have enough of that tomorrow, and while it does have its merits, one enjoys it only for a time.”

He referred, of course, to the grand opening of the ballroom to the public, in which he would dine in great state. Once the ballroom was open, there would be no opportunity for repairs. Jane would have to attend to the fish as soon as dinner had completed, lest they unravel farther.

“Of course … and yet, one must call you something.”

“Oh, as to that”—Sir Lumley again disregarded his duties to his dinner partner to drawl—“we all call him ‘Prinny.’ I dare say he would like you to do the same.”

“Oh yes, would you do me that kindness?”

“And you shall call me Skiffy.” Sir Lumley leaned in close. “We are all terribly fond of you, for your husband’s sake.”

Not for her own, but this could hardly surprise Jane. She attempted a smile while trying to recall where the thread of glamour went. “Thank you for the honour. And have you known each other long?” In this manner, she hoped to distract the gentlemen to talk between themselves. No matter how rude that might make Sir Lum—Skiffy to his dinner partner, it would grant her some brief span in which to puzzle out the fish. While Vincent had created glamurals this elaborate before, if perhaps on a smaller scale, it was the most intricate work which Jane had yet attempted, and the sheer number of threads, folds, weaves, and braids of glamour overwhelmed her memory.

“Prinny had come down to Eton for a fête back when your husband was still a Hamil—” Skiffy cleared his throat, just avoiding pronouncing the name that Vincent had renounced. “Even in those days Vincent had the reputation of being a curmudgeon. Though we were all terribly fond of him.”

Jane’s attention was now split in two. On the one hand, she worried about the fish, for, if on their first commission together, she introduced a flaw into their work, it would not bode well for their future projects. And yet, Vincent so rarely talked about his life before giving up his family name to pursue his art that her curiosity was piqued beyond all else.

“Your husband had glamoured the clock tower so it showed the time backwards!” The Prince—Prinny—threw his head back and laughed.

Skiffy resumed the tale. “Oh, the deans were furious at that one, because he had managed to tie the glamour off so it did not show in the least. In any case, they could not conceive of how someone might have climbed the clock tower to weave one. Which showed your husband’s cleverness, for he did not ascend the tower at all.”

“No? How did he do it then?” Jane’s interest in her question faltered almost at once as she finally traced the thread of glamour to its source. The fish’s trailing line was wrapped around the support for the coral reef comprising the wall opposite her. She had thought herself exceedingly clever for finding a way to contain it thus without having to loop the thread into the earth for stability, but the trouble she now faced was that if the knot came undone all at once, it might snag and cause an unravelling in the wall as well.

Prinny chuckled again. “Your husband created it from the base of the tower.”

Jane choked on her turbot at this and had to hold her serviette to her lips to stifle her coughing. The Prince patted her on the back, and passed her a glass of water.

“Thank you.” She cleared her throat, conscious of once again attracting more attention from the table than she might have wished.

At the foot of the table, Vincent studied her, his brows raised in concern. She gave him the smallest shake of her head to let him know that she did not require his aid, though she desperately wished that she were seated near him. One of the distinct disadvantages of being married was that one never sat with one’s spouse when dining in company.

Giving the Prince Regent her attention, Jane kept her composure smooth. “Though I above all should be partial to my husband’s talents, still I find my credulity stretched by this.”

Even with her deep admiration for her husband’s skills, Jane could scarcely imagine the sheer strength it would take to work glamour from such a distance. As with a small stone, in the hand it might seem to weigh nothing, but if one held it at the end of a pole, it became increasingly difficult to manage. Though glamour borrowed the language of textiles to describe it, there were ways in which the manipulation of glamour also resembled water. One might direct a jet across a fountain, but it always wanted to return to the ground, widening into a mist as it curved downward. So too, with glamour: a glamourist could hold a strand of light pulled from the ether and direct it across a room, only to see it bend and lose its resolution. A skilled glamourist learned to adjust the ways in which the strand left his hands to compensate for its propensity to return to the ether, but it took much greater effort than producing a glamour at close range. To create a glamour from the base of a clock tower would have required great strength and steadiness of hand.

“Oh, it is quite true.” Skiffy leaned in again, so that she could see the powder on his cheeks. “They all thought that something had gone wrong with the mechanism, and were after the clock-keeper’s head. The poor fellow was up to his arms in the gears when Hami—when Vincent relented and withdrew the glamour. It happened right as the fellow pulled out a gear that truly broke the clock. Do you know what your husband did then? The great curmudgeon proved that it was all an act, for he stood beneath the clock tower and retied his glamour so that it showed the clock running the correct direction. He saved the clock-keeper’s job by that, and I think it very handsome of him.”

Jane could not be surprised by the generosity her husband had shown, but her attention was drawn again to that detail of distance in Skiffy’s telling. If Vincent were able to create a clock illusion from so great a distance, perhaps he could retie the knot in the fish without drawing unwelcome attention to himself. Jane would have to stand and walk over to the section of the wall, which, besides the attention it would draw to her, would be rude to his royal highness …
Prinny
, that is.

At the foot of the table, Vincent was now engaged in conversation with Lady Hertford. He did not spare a glance in her direction. Her attempt to reassure him had, it seemed, been too successful.

Perhaps her fears were amplified by the company she kept, and yet Jane could not help thinking of the courses yet to come and estimating the time which remained for the dinner. Would the knot continue to slip, or might it hold through the meal? She pushed the asparagus on her plate, unable to think of anything else. While the question of a few fish might seem but a trifle, to Jane, placed as she was in a position above her rank merely on the merits of the work around them, the thought of having the glamour
fail
at this moment was a thing of horror. To be sure, knots did sometimes come undone, but the Prince Regent, for all that he styled himself Prinny, had not paid them for inferior work. Left to its own, it would come undone before the end of dinner, and it would likely damage the coral with it. The work they would have before them to have it repaired in time for the official opening of the ballroom tomorrow would be immense.

Jane bit the inside of her mouth. No. No matter how honoured they were by this small dinner, the simple fact was that her role in life had shifted from guest to artisan, and, as such, her duties were clear. She set her knife and fork on the table and lifted the serviette out of her lap.

The Prince stopped in mid-sentence, and Jane realized that she had again lost track of his conversation. “Are you unwell, Mrs. Vincent?”

“I am quite well, thank you.” She could not bring herself to call him Prinny. “Only I have noticed a spot in the glamour to which I must attend.”

“Now? During dinner? Surely you have worked hard enough to have some rest.” The Prince shook his head in wonder. “I see why Mr. Vincent finds you so appealing. You have the same focus on work that he does.”

“And yet, not his skills. I am afraid that if the knot I have noticed comes undone it will require more effort to fix later. It will be but a moment, and then I shall be better able to focus on enjoying the evening.”

Pushing his chair back, the Prince Regent said, “I know the artist’s temperament too well to attempt to dissuade you again.”

For that, at least, Jane was grateful. But when he arose to pull out her chair, conversation in the room stopped and all the guests attempted to rise themselves, unable to remain seated while their prince stood. Vincent rose as well, his face filled with alarm. The Prince Regent waved them back to their seats before resuming his own seat.

Jane smiled with as little concern as she could muster, though her heart raced as if she had already begun to work the glamour. “Please ignore me. I do not wish to disturb.”

Keeping her head down, Jane walked across the ballroom floor as quickly as she could.

In moments, Vincent was by her side. “Jane, are you well?” His low voice grumbled in his chest, but the hand he pressed against her elbow spoke of deep concern.

“Embarrassed, rather. This school of fish is coming untied.” She stopped in front of the window in the coral and reached out to grasp the line of glamour that the fish twined around. “Please sit down. There is no sense in both of us standing here. It will be some moments before it comes round again, and as this is one of my illusions, the error is entirely my fault.” Letting the thread trail loosely in her fingers, she waited for the knot to reappear.

Vincent did not move from her side, and she could feel the warmth of him even through the heavy material of his coat. It was Bath coating, not the superfine which “Skiffy” so abhorred. Jane took a strange and momentary pleasure in that before she chided herself. They were not fashionable members of society who had to worry about these things, and being in such people’s company would seduce her into wanting pretty clothes which she did not need. Still, she thought that her husband cut a fine picture, and that there was no harm in thinking so.

“Will you not sit?” She turned to find him staring at her with an endearing smile.

“Because you ask, I shall. Muse.” He leaned forward as if to kiss her, and then gave a side-glance at the company, who had
all
turned in their seats to watch them. Straightening, he offered her the most correct of courtesies from husband to wife, and returned to his seat.

Jane set her back to the rest of the ballroom, grateful for that pretence of privacy. When the knot came under her fingers, she tightened her grasp to stop the fish. Carefully, she inched the two schools toward the proper relation to one another and then tied the knot with a triple hitch. It was less elegant than the
nœud marin
she had used before, but was unlikely to come undone.

Letting her attention return to the room, she stepped back from her work and was pleased to note that the diners had stopped paying her any heed. In truth, even the most astute observer would have noted only a woman standing with her back to the room, because the adjustments she had to make to the glamour were too subtle to be noticed. Only Vincent watched her, and offered her one of his rare and radiant smiles. Flushed more than the small amount of glamour merited, Jane returned to her seat, managing to slip into it with the aid of a footman before the Prince Regent noticed that she had rejoined the table.

She was thus prepared to enjoy the rest of the meal … until the table turned, and “Skiffy” claimed her attention.

Two

Art and Talent