Portia Da Costa (13 page)

“Do you think it’s wise to wear them, Syb? We know they belong to Mama, but what if Wilson sides with Grandpa and decides they’re part of
his
inheritance? Wouldn’t it be better to keep them out of sight and mind?”

As if she’d not heard Adela speak, Sybil sprang up and began to turn this way and that before the pier glass in the corner of the room. Then, apparently satisfied that she was adorable, she spun around. “Wilson has never given the slightest indication that he’s interested in the Ruff diamonds, has he? If he was going to claim them, surely he’d have asked for them for his French concubine, and now they’ve parted he doesn’t need them, does he?” She winked and gave a smirk. “Or perhaps he might want them for somebody else?”

Adela gave her sister an old-fashioned look. “How many times do I have to tell you, Wilson has no interest in me whatsoever. And kindly govern your tongue. Mama would have one of her turns if she knew you were flinging words like
concubine
about, not to mention writing letters to young men again. She doesn’t realize what a wicked little minx you still are. She thinks that you’ve mended your ways.”

Hypocrite! Hypocrite! Hypocrite! If Mama found out about
my
“ways” she’d probably expire!

Sybil laughed, a joyous sound that made Adela smile despite her worries. She had learned to cover her own tracks with all the skill of an agent of the Crown, but Sybil was young and believed herself invincible.

“Well, then, if you’re really not interested in impressing Wilson tonight, you won’t need the diamonds, will you? Which means I can wear them to dazzle Algernon and make him my slave.”

“Sybil!”

Her pretty sister flew across the room and hugged her. “I’m only being practical, Della. You know I’m thinking of all of us.”

Adela pursed her lips, resigned. As ever, Sybil believed that her own immaculate complexion and pert button of a nose could save the day, whereas her sister’s flaws rendered her powerless. Was she right?

“You don’t have to carry the whole burden, though, my love. My drawings sell well to my friends of the Ladies’ Sewing Circle, so we’ll always have that income, too.”

Sybil gave Adela a curious and unusually perceptive look. “They do seem to buy quite of lot of them, don’t they? And yet you never show
us
what you sell...just the drawings you do for casual amusement. I’m beginning to think there’s something a little fishy going on, Della, really I am.”

Adela wriggled free. Maybe Sybil was far more astute than she gave her credit for? “There’s nothing more outré than those studies of Mr. Kipper I showed you only last week. That’s the sort of thing I sell....” Mr. Kipper was their cat, fondly pampered by the entire household. “Nothing untoward about those, was there? The ladies of the Sewing Circle are all particularly fond of their own pets, and like the drawings to remember them by...and also, well, other kinds of wildlife.”

Pets and wildlife indeed. That wasn’t all that far off the mark. A number of the ladies of the circle did have special pets among the pleasure boys, and some of the activities involved were most definitely wild. And in addition to her work for members of the circle, Adela had a growing roster of other clients, mostly brought to her by the good offices of her dear friend Sofia, who was at the center of a very racy set, most avid for erotic art in all forms. Unclothed studies of various handsome swains from Mme Chamfleur’s private establishment were popular way beyond the Sewing Circle, and many ladies from the highest echelons of society had the work of “Isis” tucked discreetly in their handkerchief sachets or other clandestine hideaways. Adela’s work had also graced the pages of many issues of
Divertissements
and other risqué journals in the last year, too. Women with generous allowances were eager to obtain such scandalous treasures to enhance their private entertainment, as were many gentlemen of a certain persuasion.

And Adela was more than glad of each and every sale.

Sketches of kittens and puppies would scarcely have paid for the satin ribbons on Sybil’s latest gown, nor would they have paid for the elaborate creation their mother now swept in wearing. But Adela had managed to keep them all in a reasonable degree of comfort by supplementing the pittance grudgingly bestowed on them by her grandfather.

“Adela, what on earth do you think you’re about?” Mrs. Ruffington cried, fluttering and bustling as only she knew how. The new dress—only nominally mourning, black but encrusted with ruffles and bows, and showing almost as much cleavage as her middle daughter’s—rustled and swished as she swept forward, with both quiet Marguerite and their harried-looking maid, Lizzie, in her wake. “You’re barely dressed yet, and the champagne reception commences in ten minutes.”

“It won’t take me but a moment, Mama.”

Despite her claims, she was pressed for time, but the ever-efficient Lizzie darted forward and, with no need for instruction, began to help Adela into her gown with the quick deftness of much practice.

All the time, Mrs. Ruffington tutted and frowned. “I do wish you’d allow a little bust improvement, Adela.” She pursed her lips at Adela’s modest bosom in her black, square-necked gown. “You’re so slightly built.... It’s not really cheating, and the gentlemen do like to see a curvaceous form in a woman.” She reached out and tweaked the discreetly trimmed neckline a little lower. “Ah...I wish we could have run to a new dress for you, too, my sweet. I’m sure Mme Gwendolynne would have extended our credit just a little further.... Black is so severe, especially on the young.”

Adela smiled in an effort to placate her parent. It was the wrong time to get into an argument, at this late stage. A smiling set of Ruffington ladies would be much more likely to impress than four frowning faces and four mouths pinched and cross.

“Ah, but I think this gown flatters me very well, Mama. You’ve always said so.” Surreptitiously, she undid the neckline tweaking. “And Lizzie does such a good job with my hair...and perhaps if I wore my nicest jet beads?” Lizzie was already at work, having launched into action the moment Adela had sat down, creating clever coils from its heavy, lustrous weight.

Mrs. Ruffington quirked her lips, her eyes narrowing. Mama wasn’t quite as silly as she sometimes appeared to be, and Adela guessed that her parent, too, was wise to the fact that serene smiles all round would make a better impression on the menfolk downstairs. She advanced on Adela, then waggled her gloved fingers toward Marguerite, who was quietly following the conversation. “Perhaps you’re right about the gown, Della my sweet. It
does
suit you...and it would make a perfect frame for you-know-what.”

Marguerite flipped open the velvet case she’d been carrying. Adela had registered it peripherally, and had been waiting for the play of their trump card.

No matter how many times she saw their only assured birthright, Adela still drew a little breath. The famous Ruff diamonds were a wonder to behold, and even though she didn’t set too much store by material wealth for herself, she loved their beauty and their exquisite rainbow fire.

Almost hypnotized, she reached out to touch them—even knowing that she wouldn’t be the one to wear them.

The collet diamond necklace of exquisitely matched gems was held by many to be superior to a similar necklace owned by Her Majesty the Queen herself. Reposing in their blue velvet case, the jewels glittered like enormous crystal droplets, flashing an entire spectrum of radiance. Nestled to each side were a pair of matching pendant earrings, equally as fine.

Dear heaven, I’d
love
to wear them. But they’d look absurd on an ugly duck like me.

“If you wear them, and add a touch of powder here and there, perhaps people won’t notice your little blemishes quite so much, my dear.”

The sublime gems seemed to dim. No matter how many times Adela told herself that she didn’t care a jot about her bent nose and her little scars, sometimes she did. Sometimes she wished she was pretty. Sometimes she prayed that she could reverse the course of time, live that day again...and not flee like an idiot from Wilson. If she hadn’t argued with him, she might have been in a different place at a critical moment, and not caught a dose of chicken pox, either.

If. If. If.

If she’d been pretty enough, they might have been married by now, and Mama and her sisters secure and comfortable, despite the Old Curmudgeon’s best efforts.

What would it be like to be married to Wilson? Would we be happy?

Would he love me?

Lost in her reverie, Adela reached out for the dazzling necklace and put it around her throat. Lizzie dashed around to her back and secured it without being asked. Adela had a feeling that the devoted servant wanted
her
to wear it, rather than her sister.

In front of the pier glass, Adela almost gasped. She’d tried on the Ruff diamonds before, but never with an evening gown. The effect was miraculous. The exquisite gems imparted an enchantment to her appearance, and with it a great swell of female confidence. Bathed in their radiance, she saw a simulation of beautiful. Her imperfections were barely noticeable, transformed into piquant features of distinction rather than defects.

Bathed in the strange effect, she seemed to see Wilson looking back at her out of the mirror, too. His pale eyes glittered like the stones, and yet she knew that it was she he sought to possess, not the diamonds. She imagined him standing behind her, his fingers spread at her throat, fondling the gems and the skin they lay against. In another flash, her gown and her undergarments disappeared, and his free hand roved her body, pressing her back against him as his erect member nudged the curve of her hip.

Stop that, Della, you nincompoop! That way lies madness.

She shook her head to clear her brain of the heated pictures. Her cousin might condescend to dally with her because he happened to be alone and bored, but nothing more than that. He certainly didn’t want any kind of responsibility for her, never in a million years.

“Adela, is anything wrong?” Marguerite’s voice was sharp with concern. The youngest Ruffington was perceptive and watchful. “You look awfully queer. You’ve gone quite white.”

Adela glanced around, meeting their faces. Her mother looked a little dazzled, too, as if her hopes of getting her eldest daughter off her hands had suddenly been revived by the beautiful treasure. Marguerite was frowning, worried. Sybil was also frowning, but for a different reason. Reaching around the back of her neck, Adela unfastened the catch.

“I’m perfectly well, Maggie...thank you. But these baubles are far too much for me. They’re overpowering with my hair and coloring. They’ll be shown off to much better advantage by Sybil...don’t you think, Mama?”

Mrs. Ruffington looked perplexed. Mama loved all of them, and tried to avoid showing favoritism...but Sybil was by far her brightest star.

The bright star was grinning now, and she swept across the room to hug her sister. “Thank you,” she whispered, and Adela knew that for all her frivolity, Sybil understood when a sacrifice was made.

“No, thank
you,
Sybil,” she answered just as quietly, as she set about securing the diamonds around her sister’s smooth white neck.

Yes, it’ll be much easier
not
to wear the diamonds. I can eat my dinner in peace without anybody in particular noticing me, and Sybil can dazzle and be enchanting for her viscount.

Very rational. Eminent good sense. The old but well-loved string of jet beads felt familiar and comforting around Adela’s throat as she followed her mother and her sisters down the grand staircase toward the reception salon.

And yet why, in the name of all that was sensible, did she still want a certain person to make her the center of
his
attention?

Why did she
still
wish she could dazzle Wilson, diamonds or otherwise?

10

Under Scrutiny

The meal was interminable. Far too many courses, all horribly rich, with no attempt at balance on the palate whatsoever. Wilson had pushed his food around his plate, and sent back most of it untouched, wishing he was at home in his workshop in London, eating bread and cheese, with a glass of beer to wash it down.

The only consolation was that he wasn’t the only one with a poor appetite tonight. Adela was sending her plates back barely touched, too.

Gentlemen of pleasure.

Wilson scowled. The mousse framboise turned to ashes in his mouth, and he laid down his spoon, finally abandoning all hope of feigning an appetite for his hostess’s sake.

Had Della meant what she said? Did she pay for the sexual services of men? He stared across at her, sitting at the other side of the table and a few places down from him. She was talking quietly with a gentleman on her left, Sir Horace Blatchford, if Wilson wasn’t mistaken. The fellow was paying close attention, and hanging on her words.

Where on earth do you get the notion that you’re unattractive, cousin? The man’s clearly besotted. Just because your idiotic mother tells you that you’re flawed and not buxom enough... I’m sure your “gentlemen” all think you’re adorable.

If Wilson had still been holding his spoon, he’d have smashed it down on the table and bent the blessed thing.

“What do you think of Rayworth Court, Mr. Ruffington? The gardens are most glorious at this time of year, aren’t they?”

Jerked from his fulminating reverie, Wilson turned to the fat matron on his right and gave her a dazzling smile. From his early adulthood, in order to disguise his boredom as well as his natural shyness, Wilson had cultivated a method of making small talk without really engaging the higher functions of his brain. He could manufacture a pretty conversation without too much effort, and he now spun a few pleasantries for both the overeating Mrs. Something-or-other to his right, and the rather thinner and far more rabbity young woman on his left. If he’d been at all concerned, he would have been cynically amused, knowing he’d hoodwinked them with his simulation of rapt attention. But he wasn’t.

There was only one thing on his mind.

Yet while the talk flowed over and around him, he attempted to concentrate on other matters. Such as deciding exactly why the design of his dessert fork had been all wrong—the weighting was poorly balanced, and he would have liked to have made a sketch of a better version, perhaps a whole suite of cutlery. When he was unable to work on one of his many official projects, he tended to fuel the racing engine of his mind with an endless parade of tinkering notions that might improve just about anything.

Tonight it was badly designed cutlery, the possible detriment to health of fatty foods, and playing conversational tricks on unwitting dinner guests. Anything to stop himself gawping at Adela and imagining her in bed with another man, moaning and writhing in ecstasy.

Perhaps you could get that clod Blatchford to service you? He looks keen enough, and it would be cheaper than paying for it!

And it seemed that his cousin also possessed some of his own talents. She was doing a sterling job of not revealing how little she was interested in her dinner companion. Sir Horace was beaming, and appeared to think he’d made a conquest, but to Wilson, tiny telltales screamed out.

The way she, too, toyed with her dessert fork. The hint of tension in her delicate jawline. A faint pulse beating at the base of her throat, adjacent to those dull black beads she wore. Her skin shone like satin there, like freshly poured cream against the edges of her gown, its gleam almost supernatural. Wilson wanted to touch her at that spot. He wanted to kiss her there, maybe go so far as to bite her just a little and show her she didn’t need the embrace of a gigolo to stir her blood.

Adela’s eyes snapped toward him, flashing. Had she heard his thoughts? He lifted his glass to her in a toast, and after a moment’s hesitation, during which a complex melee of emotion crossed her face, she lifted her own glass infinitesimally in response.

When she looked away again, maintaining her facade of polite interest in her dinner companion, Wilson glanced down at the raspberry disaster on his plate, then rapidly back up again, toward his cousin.

Those dim black beads irritated him. She ought to be wearing the Ruff diamonds instead of that simpering miss, Sybil. The younger girl was too bland for such stones. It was like draping them around a blancmange such as the one he’d just mangled; she was a soft girl, and better suited to pearls or opals. Adela was challenging, and uncompromising, and as complex and mysterious as the Earth’s most unyielding form of carbon.

Wilson glowered, angrier than ever with her. Why hadn’t she insisted on wearing the gems? Surely, as the oldest girl, she was more entitled to, if her mother chose not to sport them? For the first time in several hours, he thought of Coraline. She’d have demanded the diamonds as a right. She wouldn’t have acquiesced and been satisfied with such a nondescript adornment as those jet beads.

But Adela wasn’t Coraline. They were nothing alike, and the contrast made him angrier than ever. With himself. And her.

Why do I let women make me stupid?

He’d spent upward of a month fuming and sulking and what he’d assumed was pining for Coraline, and now, after a few moments of dalliance with his stubborn, dismissive cousin, all that time spent feeling sorry for himself was devalued. Pointless.

It’s absurd. You make me feel as if I’m superficial and fickle, Della.

Maybe he was superficial? Maybe he was more fickle than any woman ever born? His appetite gone, all he could think of now was his jealousy. Of her, with her paid-for pleasure. Of her, being fucked, her legs open for another man. Of her, having an orgasm that
he
hadn’t given her.

It was intolerable, but he wasn’t going to just sit back and seethe about it. He was Wilson Ruffington, and his life was devoted to solving problems, and taking action, and deducing brilliant answers to every question he’d ever asked or been asked.

And he’d find a solution to the “Della problem,” too...even if it killed him.

* * *

W
HY
IS
HE
SCOWLING
at me so?

Adela scowled herself as she followed the other women into the salon while the men settled to cigars and brandy in the dining room. She’d got a headache now and it was mainly Wilson’s fault, although not entirely due to him.

Sybil and the likelihood of yet more incautious letters, the oily attentions that Mr. Devine was paying to her mother—these both pricked at Adela’s peace of mind...or what was left of it after this afternoon’s shenanigans with Wilson. Watching the interplay between various parties across the dining table had strung her nerves out tight, like violin strings, and Wilson’s never-ending scrutiny had only jangled them and stretched them even tauter.

He’d stared throughout the entire meal, and somehow, he’d seemed to be staring even when he wasn’t looking her way. For some reason, her necklace displeased him. Once or twice, he’d appeared to be frowning directly at it, his pale eyes filled with dislike. She could have understood it if she’d been wearing the Ruff diamonds, and he had decided that she, or Sybil, or Mama, weren’t entitled to them. But what offense could her simple string of jet beads have caused him?

You’re a very strange man, cousin, and you’re turning this entire house party into an ordeal of strength.

Withdrawing with the other ladies was a respite, even if Adela did find the practice archaic and discriminatory. She’d take any odds that the men talked just as much nonsense over their brandy and cigars as the women did over their petits fours and coffee, but there was no way to find that out for herself.

The grand salon, where the ladies retired, was a beautiful room, furnished in an ornate, luxurious style with comfortable sofas and armchairs thoughtfully arranged in convenient conversation groups. Most of the womenfolk clustered in the vicinity of a rather fine grand piano, but Adela selected a spot on a chaise close to the wall, afforded a little privacy by a large potted palm. A few moments later, on being served her coffee, she was glad of her choice.

Miss Minnie Blankenship, who had rushed forward to claim the piano stool, was no musician and even less of a vocalist. Her selection of self-accompanied light arias by Messrs Gilbert and Sullivan were a stringent test for the eardrums.

Admiring the girl’s pluck and unshakable self-belief, Adela still winced at a high C missed by a mile. A sip of indifferent coffee didn’t help matters, and she sighed, wishing away the ever-increasing niggle of pain in her temple. She rubbed the spot with her gloved fingertips, a tactic that rarely worked, but at least made her feel she was doing something.

“Are you unwell?”

Adela jumped, almost tipping over her coffee cup, but Wilson swooped forward with uncanny speed and saved it.

“Do you have a headache?” His own brow was ruffled in a frown, but whether it was concern now, or just more displeasure, she couldn’t tell. He looked as unimpressed with the coffee as she did when he sniffed the brew, then set her cup on a small table at her side.

“No, thank you, Wilson. I’m perfectly well.” Adela dropped her hands into her lap and attempted a genial, social smile. Best to look calm and amenable. The appearance of Wilson, a man, in this enclave of matrons and virgins, was already causing quite a stir.

Her cousin flopped onto the chaise beside her. “Are you sure?” He was still frowning, but he spoke quietly, as if it had suddenly dawned on him he was out of place...and in jeopardy. As a well-set-up bachelor with an even larger fortune coming to him, he was most definitely a major catch despite his eccentricities. Some of the adjacent virgins and their mothers were just as much on the lookout as Mama was.

“Yes, thank you, Wilson. It’s nothing.” Minnie struck a particularly discordant note, and Adela winced as Wilson pulled a face. “It’s just that I’m not much of a music lover.”

“She’s quite spectacular, isn’t she?” He nodded in the direction of the chanteuse. “But one can’t fault her for enthusiasm, I suppose.”

Adela smiled. Despite everything, he, too, had tried to see something to admire in Minnie and her cacophony.

“Indeed. That’s her talent, I think.” Adela reached for her coffee once more and took a sip, for something to do with her hands. Wilson was staring again, his eyes not especially friendly.

“I admire your talents more,” he said, his voice provocative as he stretched out his legs in front of him.

What was that supposed to mean? What talents? Almost certain he wasn’t referring to her artistic prowess, Adela set aside her coffee and studied those long legs of his. Long, well-formed legs in surprisingly well-tailored trousers. He’d abandoned his most outré garb this evening, and looked almost sartorial. For Wilson. No dressing gown now, but he still hadn’t submitted to a formal evening dress. Wilson’s nod to conventional male elegance was an overlong frock coat somewhat in the Aesthetic style, its unusual shade of midnight-blue set off by the flashiest yet in his series of evermore flashy waistcoats. This latest example was elaborately embroidered, a Byzantine design in several shades of blue such as might have adorned the wall of a Moorish love palace. The base color was near black, and the pattern picked out in threads of silver gilt and gold. Adela had seen the older gentlemen of the party, and many of the ladies, sucking their teeth and tut-tutting at such “preciousness” in male apparel, but to her it was beautiful and suited him to a tee.

To further defy convention, her cousin wore a soft-collared shirt with a floppily tied foulard instead of white tie, and as usual, his shaggy hair had not formed a relationship with the Macassar oil bottle.

Having apparently given up waiting for a response, Wilson ruffled his tie, then trailed his fingertips down the brocade of his waistcoat. “Do you approve?” Were her eyes playing tricks, or did his touch linger momentarily in the vicinity of his nether regions?

Her cheeks hot, Adela snapped her eyes back to Wilson’s and saw his were cool, yet dancing, giving off an aura of antagonistic excitement.

The fingers that caressed his waistcoat had caressed her, only hours ago. That palm had landed hard on her bottom.

“Well, yes, I believe I do,” she replied, keeping her voice light. “That coat is a vast improvement on the dressing gown...although I do think you might at least have combed your hair for the occasion.” She paused. His intense regard was giving her the jitters. “Is there something wrong with my appearance this evening that you object to? You’ve been scowling at me ever since you came down to dinner.”

Wilson pursed his lips, and for a moment, almost appeared dismayed. Then his face hardened again. “You look splendid as always, Della.”

Adela’s heart lurched. He was an unflinchingly blunt man, not given to pretty compliments. He’d once said that social niceties were both hypocritical and boring. When he said something, it was always exactly what he meant, and being a woman often passed over because she failed to meet the most exacting standards of female beauty, she found herself touched by his statement. New Woman or no, pragmatist or not, she did like to hear nice things, even if they came from him.

“It’s these dull beads,” he went on, reaching out. For a moment, Adela thought he was going to wrench them from around her throat and scatter them over the carpet. But instead he just flicked at the strand contemptuously, his nails barely brushing against her skin. “You should be wearing the Ruff diamonds, Della, not these dreary mourning baubles. Only you can match their luster and magnificence...and you’re the eldest Ruffington girl, so surely
you
should be wearing them, not Sybil.”

Was that it? Was he so cross about the diamonds that he’d looked daggers at her all evening on their account? No, it wasn’t that. Why was she trying to avoid the obvious issue? The real reason her cousin had scowled and been unable to mask his raw resentment.