Amanda McCabe - Mischief in Regency Society - To Catch a Rogue

“No, he won’t speak of it. Except maybe to the governors of Bedlam.”

Clio laughed. “There, you see! You made a joke. All is not lost. Perhaps next time you see him you can say you were simply overcome by the power of the music.”

“Or drunk on the wine,” Calliope muttered. She smoothed her hair and shook out her skirts, feeling herself slowly coming back to her usual calm presence. “I wish we never had to see him again at all.”

“That’s not likely, is it? Our world is so very small.” Clio looked again to the krater. “But tell me, Cal, what made you suspect Lord Westwood of being the Lily Thief?”

Calliope shrugged. “It seems the sort of hot-headed thing he would do, does it not? He sent his own antiquities back to Greece; perhaps he thinks others should do the same, willy-nilly. I don’t know. It was just a—a feeling.”

“Now I know you have a fever! Calliope Chase, going by a mere feeling? Never.”

Calliope laughed. “Tease all you like, Clio. I know that I usually have to carefully study a thing before I make my point…”

“Study it to death,” Clio muttered.

Calliope ignored her. “I like to be certain of things. But don’t the exploits of the Lily Thief just seem like something he would do? A person must be clever to get in and out of such fine houses undetected. They must be knowledgeable about art and antiquities, for only the finest and most historically important pieces are taken. They have to be sure of their cause, as Lord Westwood is. And they must be very misguided. As Lord Westwood also is.”

“Why, Cal,” Clio said softly. “It sounds as if you admire the Lily Thief.”

Calliope considered this. Admire the Lily Thief? The most dangerous of criminals, for he stole not only objects but history itself? Absurd! “I admire his taste, perhaps, but certainly not his goals. I abhor the disappearance of such treasures. You know that.”

Clio nodded. “I do know how passionate you are in your own cause, sister. But pray do not let it overcome you again when it comes to Lord Westwood! We have no proof he is the thief.”

“No proof yet.” Behind the closed drawing room door, the strains of music faded, replaced by the ring of applause. “It seems the concert is ending. Shall we fetch Thalia and go home? It grows late.”

“Good morning, Miss Calliope!” Mary sang as she drew back the bedchamber curtains, letting the greyish-yellow light of late morning flood across the room.

Calliope squeezed her eyes tighter shut, resisting the urge to draw the bedclothes over her head. How could it be time to wake up? She had only just fallen asleep. The long hours of the night she had spent tossing and turning, going over and over her hasty words to Lord Westwood. The anger she saw in his eyes.

Clio was surely right. She was fevered. It was the only explanation for showing her hand so early. She would never catch him now.

She needed to regroup. Strategise. It would surely all come back together at the Duke of Averton’s Artemis ball. The Ladies Society would see to that.

“Did you enjoy the musicale last night, Miss Calliope?” Mary asked, arranging a tray of chocolate and buttered rolls on the bedside table.

“Yes, thank you, Mary,” Calliope answered. She propped the pillows up against the carved headboard, pushing herself upright to face the day. No one ever won a battle lolling around! “Tell me, are my sisters up yet?”

“Miss Thalia has already departed for her music lesson,” Mary said, rifling through the wardrobe. “And Miss Clio is at breakfast with your father and Miss Terpsichore. She left you a note on the tray.”

As Mary organised the day’s attire, Calliope munched on a roll and reached for Clio’s message.

Cal, it read in Clio’s bold, slashing hand. I think we need an outing to clear our heads. Shall we take Cory to see the Elgin Marbles? She loves them so much, and we can talk there without Father overhearing.

Calliope sighed. Perhaps Father would not overhear them at the British Museum, but the rest of London would. Still, Clio was right. They needed to clear their heads after last night, and where better than among the glorious beauties of the Parthenon sculptures? Terpsichore—Cory—was a delightful girl, just turned thirteen now and wanting so much to be a young lady, and she deserved a treat after being separated from their younger sisters, who stayed in the country with their various nurses and governesses.

And surely they wouldn’t run into Lord Westwood there. The man probably didn’t rise until two at the earliest, and the Elgin Marbles must represent all he abhorred: treasures taken from Greece and displayed for Londoners.

“Mary, I shall need a walking dress and warm pelisse,” she said, swallowing the last of her chocolate. “And my lap desk. I need to send notes to the Ladies Society.”

They had battle plans to draw up.

The Chases’ de facto second home when in town was always the British Museum. They had been brought there since earliest childhood, escorted from artefact to artefact by their parents, instilled with a love for the past by the beauty of the pieces and by their father’s vivid tales. Many of their favourites—Greek vases, Egyptian sculptures, Viking helmets—were immortalised for them in their mother’s sketchbooks, kept by Clio since Lady Chase’s death in birthing the youngest Muse, Polyhymnia, three years ago.

But their mother had never seen the sisters’ favourite room of all, the Temporary Elgin Room—which was showing signs of becoming rather more permanent. This was where they went now, after climbing up the wide stone steps and passing through the massive pillars into the sacred hush of the museum.

“May we visit the mummies after we see the Marbles?” Cory asked eagerly.

Clio laughed. “Morbid child! You only want to scare your little sisters with gruesome tales of them in your next letter. But we can visit them, if there is time.”

Cory wrinkled her nose. “There won’t be. You two always spend hours with the Marbles.”

“You enjoy them, too, silly monkey, and you know it,” Calliope said. “Perhaps after the Marbles and the mummies we can have an ice at the shop across the way.”

Smiling happily with the promise of dead Egyptians and a sweet, Cory went off to sketch her favourite sculpture yet again, the head of a horse from the chariot of the Moon, his mane and jaw drooping after an exhausting journey across the heavens. Calliope and Clio strolled over to the back wall, where the frieze depicting the procession of a Panathenaic festival was mounted. It was quiet there for the moment, despite the milling crowds, tucked behind the massive carved figures of Theseus and a draped, headless goddess.

Calliope stared up at the line of young women, all of them gracefully poised and beautifully dressed in chitons and cloaks, bearing vessels and libation bowls as offerings to the gods. They were not as well displayed as they deserved; the room was cramped and ill lit, the walls dark. But Calliope always loved to see them, to revel in their classical beauty, in the procession that never ended. And today she was glad of the dim light, for it hid the purplish circles of her sleepless night.

“I have called for a meeting of the Ladies Society tomorrow afternoon,” she told Clio.

Clio’s gaze did not turn from the figure of the head girl in the procession, the one that held aloft an incense stand, but her lips curved down. “So soon? We usually only convene once a week.”

“This is an emergency. The Duke of Averton’s ball is coming up soon. We must be prepared for whatever might happen there.”

“Do you still think you-know-who plans to snatch the Alabaster Goddess away that night?”