Theo glanced down at her gown defensively. “There’s nothing wrong with my gown. We’re in mourning for the duke, after all.”
“It was made in the village. The only thing that can be said in its favor is that the seams are reasonably straight.”
“I am not interested in adorning myself; that was a girlish dream that I put aside. Besides, I spend almost all my time in the study. Why would I need a gown created by a modiste, especially one in mourning colors, when I have no one to display it for?”
“A lady does not dress for an audience.”
“I beg to differ. As a debutante she dresses in order to find a husband, God help her—”
“That’s just the sort of comment I mean,” her mother put in.
Theo sighed. “I suppose I could order a gown or two from London once we’re out of mourning, if it would make you happy. But I’m certainly not traveling back for fittings, and I shall not attend Pink’s wedding.”
“Happiness,” her mother said, returning to the subject, “is a matter of self-control. And you are not exhibiting enough of it.”
For the first time during the exchange, Theo felt a prickle of real annoyance. How could anyone, least of all her mother, claim she did not exhibit self-control? In the last years, she’d stayed in the study for hours after the household went to bed, poring over books describing Italian ceramics and Elizabethan furnishings.
She had traveled around the entire estate once a week in a pony cart, to ensure that the sheep herds and the conditions of the cottagers were improving. Her trips to London were taken up not with theater and the shops, but with visits to Cheapside and a building full of clanking looms. “I think I show self-control,” she said, making an effort to prove it by not allowing her annoyance to show.
“Oh, you work,” Mrs. Saxby said dismissively.
“The estate is now profitable, even after all the allowance we had to pay the embezzling duke,” Theo snapped. And then, hearing the hectoring edge in her own voice, she felt a wave of remorse. “Please forgive me. I certainly didn’t mean to turn into a virago. And it wasn’t a kind statement as regards His Grace, given that he’s dead.”
Her mother reached over and patted her hand. “I know you didn’t, darling.”
But she did not deny that Theo had become something of a harpy. Drat. “Buying fine feathers in London won’t make me someone other than who I am,” Theo pointed out.
“You are beautiful,” her mother said now, once again demonstrating her ready ability to overlook the obvious. “The more beautiful for not looking like everyone else.”
Theo sighed. “Any feathers and furbelows I add to my person will merely diminish my dignity. My self-respect. If I play the game of making myself look pretty, I will not succeed, and I will just look foolish and vain.”
Her mother put down her teacup again. “Theodora, I did not bring you up to be such a weak-livered, cowardly person. You are not the first woman to receive a blow to your self-regard, and you will not be the last. But that does not excuse you, nor make it acceptable to wallow in self-pity. By avoiding the ton, you make yourself a continuing subject of conversation and speculation. Even more importantly, by dwelling on the less fortunate side of your marriage, you make yourself disagreeable.”
“I do not dwell on my marriage! And in truth, Mama, what would you deem the ‘fortunate’ side of my marriage?”
Her mother met her eyes. “Theodora, it is my distinct impression that you enjoy the way everyone on this estate listens to your every word. And that’s not to mention the effort you’ve put into the weaving concern and the ceramics factory.”
This was indisputably true.
“You would never have had this opportunity had you married Lord Geoffrey Trevelyan. I saw him at the opera a fortnight ago, by the way. It was a production of Così fan tutte, sung in Italian.”
“A nice way to make your point,” Theo said, grinning. “You’re right. I would rather not be made to endure hours of opera.”
“Still, you refuse to allow yourself to be happy. You are bent on seeing yourself as an injured party, whereas in fact you have triumphed over adversity. You threw your husband out the door, and in what I can only imagine was a paroxysm of guilt, James obeyed you.”
“He wanted to go,” Theo countered, having realized it at some point, and more or less made her peace with it. “He married to protect his father’s honor, but that doesn’t mean that he wished to stay married, at least not to me.”
Her mother looked at her, and then back down at the teapot. “May I offer you a fresh cup, my dear?”
“No, thank you. I just did it again, didn’t I?” Theo asked, with a sort of wry chagrin curling in her stomach.
“Life is a good deal more complicated than you admit. I would certainly, for example, contest your characterization of James’s motives, but it seems irrelevant at this moment. After all, the poor man may be dead.”
Theo flinched. “Of course he’s not dead! He’s staying away in a sulk. I did not say that he needed to stay out of England forever. I merely said that I did not wish to see him again.”
“In my opinion, James’s deepest attachment in England was to you. When you dismissed him, he likely severed all attachments in order to protect his heart. His father reminded him of nothing more than his ill-mannered behavior to you, and now the poor duke is dead. There is nothing to bring James back to England.”
“ ‘Ill-mannered!’ ” Theo said, stung. “I would call it rather more than that.”
Her mother ignored that comment. “No matter how irresponsibly the late duke handled his money—and your inheritance—he opened his house to us on your father’s death without a second thought. Ashbrook was never happy again after James disappeared, and you do bear some responsibility for that, Theo. He loved his son dearly.”
“You keep speaking as if James is dead,” Theo said, surprising herself with the vehemence in her tone. “James is not dead.”
“One must hope not.” Her mother rose gracefully from her chair. “I must finish going through the linens with Mrs. Wibble. I will join you at luncheon, dearest.”
It was a dramatic exit, Theo had to admit.
James was not dead. She would know if he were dead.
She did not bother to ask herself why she was so certain of that fact. Instead, she jumped to her feet. She had just remembered that she promised to send a new set of sketches to the factory that very afternoon.
Aboard the Poppy Two
A few weeks after Jack Hawk came into being (and James Ryburn, Earl of Islay, was declared dead by one who should know—that is to say, himself), the Flying Poppy and her shadow, the Poppy Two, docked at an island in the West Indies on their way to France, and James—now known as Jack—succumbed to the amatory blandishments of a plump and jolly widow named Priya.
She taught him a thing or two, even though he felt terrible after the night with her. But his marriage was over—practically, if not formally. Could he truly remain celibate for the rest of his life? Of course not.
Unfaithful . . . unfaithful. He didn’t like the word. It knocked around in his head for a month or two until he managed to cram it into a dark corner of his mind and shut it up. His wife had ended their marriage. Therefore, he was free to act as he would if he were not married. It wasn’t adultery. It wasn’t.
He was acting in the only way a grown man could whose marriage had ended. He was staying away so that, after the requisite seven years, she could have him declared dead. He was living his life instead of simply reacting to it. His heart gave another painful thump at the memory of his father.
James learned even more from a Parisian mademoiselle, and the next year, from a girl named Anela, who lived on a Pacific island and thought the rising sun should be worshipped from a horizontal position.
Jack proved to have a knack for prayer.
For his part, Griffin was never happier than when he had a lass on each arm and French letters stowed all over his person. Since ne
ither of them was greedy—in bed or out—the very sight of the Flying Poppy and the Poppy Two rounding into a cove soon enough became reason for rejoicing in certain parts of the world.
“Jack Hawk” became a name that pirates loved to curse. Every day was hard work, all of it physical—clambering up the rigging, engaging in hand-to-hand combat, swimming between the Poppys, praying with Anela. Jack’s skin darkened and his chest broadened, until his own mother wouldn’t have recognized him. He even grew a few inches taller; he developed the powerful shoulders and thighs of a man who rules the waves.
But at the same time, his blue eyes and high cheekbones signaled aristocrat, though the small inked poppy under his right eye signaled something quite different to pirates: death.
Sixteen
August 1812
Mrs. Saxby and Theo had just finished breakfast one morning when the subject of James arose once again.
“Someday you’ll take him back,” her mother said.
“I will not,” Theo said, nettled. “I don’t even think of him any longer.”
“Have you resolved never to have a child of your own?” Mrs. Saxby asked. It was typical of her parting shots. But this time she paused and leaned her head against the doorframe for a moment. “Oh dear, I have such a headache.”
Theo leapt to her feet and went to her mother’s side. “Would you like me to have a tisane made up? Let me help you to your bedchamber. A few hours in the dark with a cool cloth on your head and you’ll feel much better.”
But Mrs. Saxby straightened her back and said firmly, “I can certainly climb the stairs by myself, dearest. I’ll have a nap and be right as rain.” But she did not leave immediately; she put a hand on Theo’s cheek and said, “Having you has been my greatest joy in life. I merely wish the same for you: a child of your own with the husband you love, though you may deny it as often as you wish.”
Theo wrapped her arms around her mother. “This will make you happy, Mama. I’ve resolved to have a wardrobe made in London all the better to pay a call on the newly wedded Mr. Pinkler-Ryburn, not to mention the delightful Claribel.”
Her mother laughed at that. “And I can’t wait to see your new gowns. I do love you, darling.” And with that, she turned and retired to her chambers.
Mrs. Imogen Saxby never woke from that nap. Theo moved through her mother’s funeral and the attending visitations as if she were in a dense fog. Weeks passed before Theo accepted the truth of it: her mother was truly gone. The house echoed. She sat alone at meals and wept.
Unfortunately, business does not stop merely because there is a death in the family. It was inconvenient to cry in meetings with the estate manager. It was inconvenient to cry in church, at breakfast, and on the way to London.
It was also undignified, but she did not care; the emptiness in her heart was so consuming that what people thought of her was of no importance.
Yet Theo carried on, somehow, knowing that a great many people were depending upon her and she could not let them down. Would not let them down.
At last the mourning year was at an end. She had thought often of the conversations she had with her mother about her marriage, and she gradually reconciled herself to the idea that she and James couldn’t go on like this, without resolution of any kind. Four years had now passed since he’d left, with no word from him, or indeed of him. She made up her mind to find him. After all, it had been her mother’s express wish not only that Theo return to society but that she return to James as well.
Without further ado, Theo instructed her solicitors to engage as many Bow Street Runners as necessary and send them out into the world searching for news of her husband. The success of the estate’s businesses meant that the cost of their search—and it might take them a year or more to return with news—was of no object.
And then she did her best to put James out of her mind. There was nothing she could do about him for the time being.
Theo had employed her taste in the last years in shaping Ashbrook Ceramics into a thriving business that made the finest ceramics for a very select few who shared her interest in ancient Greek pottery. And she had poured her love of color into Ryburn Weavers, guiding its focus on reproductions of French and Italian textiles from the previous two centuries.
But now the weavers and the ceramics factory were on a steady keel. They no longer needed Theo’s daily involvement. What they could most use, in fact, was a highly visible patron: a person whose taste and discernment were uncontested throughout the ton, someone who would spur desire for Ashbrook wares.
It was a brilliant idea in every respect but one: Theo was still in self-imposed exile from the very people she most needed to impress.
She had learned to trust herself and her taste, even if she hadn’t bothered to apply her dictates to her own attire. Style, after all, is a harmonious arrangement of parts that, in Theo’s opinion, was better than physical beauty. What’s more, it was often mistaken for it.
She didn’t think it would be terribly difficult to transform herself into the imagined ideal client. She even unearthed her list of style rules, written carefully all those years ago in round schoolgirl hand and particularized with a passion that made her smile. Rereading them, she was delighted to find that not one caused her to wince with embarrassment. That settled it. She would become her own best patron.
After some thought, she decided to visit Paris for a few months before she conquered London. The papers were full of the welcome news that the Treaty of Fontainebleau (and Napoleon’s abdication) meant that France would once again be welcoming English visitors. No nationality more than the French understood that while beauty is a matter of birth, art—the art of dressing oneself—is available to all who care to learn.
In May 1814, the Countess of Islay (for James had yet to take up the title of duke) closed up her country estate and moved to a magnificent town house on the Seine, opposite the Palace of the Tuileries. She intended to apply herself to the study of elegance with all the passion she had devoted to ceramics and to weaving.
And she had every expectation of success.
Seventeen
Paris, 1814-1815
Within a month of entering Parisian society, the Countess of Islay was considered an “interesting” Englishwoman; by the end of a very few months, she was an honorary Frenchwoman. No one referred to her by such bland words as ugly or even beautiful: she was ravissant and—above all—élégant.
It was widely known that the duchesse d’Angoulême, the niece of King Louis XVIII himself, consulted Lady Islay when it came to tricky questions regarding fans and other accoutrement. After all, a lady’s bonnet, gloves, slippers, and reticule were the most important elements of a truly elegant appearance. Parisians gasped when Theo paired brown with black—and then found themselves even more shocked when she wore a black corded silk evening gown sewn with amethysts, and later, a purple riding habit with sour-green gloves.
They gasped . . . and rushed to imitate.
What the French loved most were Theo’s epigrammatic rules. They were collected like precious jewels, and even the poorest shopgirls ripped the lace from their Sunday frocks when she was reported to have remarked, “Wear lace to be baptized. Period.”
It caused a sensation when she was reported to have declared that discretion is a synonym for intelligence. By the time everyone deduced that she had been commenting not on fashion, but on the Marquis de Maubec’s decidedly indiscreet adoration for his father’s third wife, a number of Parisians had leapt to the conclusion that a “discreet” woman would not wear lashings of jewels. In fact, the countess had remarked, of a particularly ostentatious lady, that “she was wearing so many carats she looked like a vegetable garden.”
Attention to her words was at such a fever pitch that Theo was visited by a delegation of three diamond sellers who begged her aid. That very evening Lady Islay appeared at a ball wearing a necklace that featured no fewer than eight strands of diamonds, caught together by an extraordinary pear-s
haped diamond pendant, and casually remarked that she thought a woman should rival the Milky Way at night: We give babies milk, but ladies? Diamonds.
By the time Theo turned twenty-three, her husband had been missing for close to six years, and none of the Bow Street Runners—though some had not returned to London—had yet reported news of him. She always told people, whenever they asked, that her husband had been misplaced, rather as one might misplace an abhorrent silver candelabra given by a great-aunt.
But inside, she didn’t feel so nonchalant. Silence wasn’t like James. Or was it? He had the most ferocious temper of anyone she’d ever known, except perhaps his dead father. Anger at her—or at himself—could drive him to live in a foreign country without giving a thought for his old life. But would he really brood for this long? Wouldn’t he want to come home and have it out with her?
Unless he had another life, another wife, in some foreign place . . . perhaps he had even taken another name.
It was an unpleasant thought, but it was better than what Cecil Pinkler-Ryburn, in line to be the next duke, believed. Her husband’s heir and his wife, Claribel, had appeared in Paris a few months after Theo, following a rush of fashionable people who deserted London for the Continent. Though Claribel was unfashionably maternal and preferred to stay at home with her little ones, Cecil had become one of Theo’s most frequent callers, as they found (rather to Theo’s surprise) that they enjoyed each other’s company very much.
But Cecil firmly believed that if James were alive, he would have returned to London as soon as he learned that he was now a duke; according to Cecil’s logic, because he did not return, James must be dead.
Theo tried not to think about it. She was having a wonderful time in France, rootling out antique fabrics and sending them back to her weavers; snatching up Greek designs wherever she could and sending those back to Ashbrook Ceramics; being fêted at the French court. Yet the sad truth was that behind every success was a faint mindful awareness of what James would think.