Deanna Raybourn - Silent in the Sanctuary

“Nicholas Brisbane.”

Alessandro clasped his hand and bowed formally. “Mr. Brisbane.” Father gave a guffaw. “Not just Brisbane anymore. He’s a viscount any day now, my lad. Lord Wargrave.”

“Milord,” Alessandro amended.

Brisbane waved a careless hand. “No need to stand on ceremony. We are among friends here. Very good friends, I should think,” he finished with a flick of his gaze toward me.

“Quite,” I said sharply. “Ah, I see Uncle Fly and his curate have finally arrived. Come along, Alessandro. I should like to introduce you to my godfather.”

Before I could manage our escape, Father caught sight of Uncle Fly and bellowed out, “What kept you, Fly? Damned inconsiderate to make me wait for my dinner.”

Uncle Fly laughed and clapped a hand to Lucian Snow’s shoulder. “Blame the lad. He was an hour tying his cravat. Doubtless to impress the ladies.”

Father and Uncle Fly chuckled like schoolboys, and Lucian Snow smiled good-naturedly. “Well, with such lovely company a gentleman must trouble himself to look his best,” he said, sweeping the room with a gallant nod. A few ladies tittered, but I realised Portia was not among them. She had taken herself off, and I cursed her for a traitor that she had dropped me in it so neatly and then fled.

But I had no time to consider her whereabouts. Uncle Fly had made a beeline for me, Snow following in his wake. My godfather smothered me in an embrace that smelled of cherry brandy and something more—earth, no doubt. Uncle Fly was an inveterate gardener and spent most of his time puttering in his gardens and conservatory. No matter how often he scrubbed them, his hands were always marked with tiny lines dark with soil, like rivers on an ancient map. His fingertips were stained green, his lapels dusted with velvety yellow pollen. And his hair, tufts of fluffy white cotton that stood out about his head where he had tugged at it in distraction, was usually ornamented with a leaf or petal, and on one memorable occasion, a grasshopper.

His curate could not have cut a more opposite figure. He was taller than the diminutive Fly by half a foot, and more slender, although one would never think him slight. His posture was impeccable; he was straight as a lance, with a slight lift of the chin that made it seem as if he were gazing at some distant horizon. But when the introductions were made and he bowed over my hand, his eyes were fixed firmly on mine. They were warm, melting brown, like a spaniel’s, and they were merry. He twinkled at me like a practised rogue, and I found myself wondering how a man like him had come to hold the post of curate in an obscure country village. I introduced him to Alessandro, and Snow gamely attempted to greet him in Italian. It was laboured and wildly ungrammatical, but he laughed at his own mistakes, and Alessandro tactfully pretended not to notice.

Just then I saw Portia slip in, her expression smug. Before I could accost her, Aquinas entered and announced dinner. There was a bit of a scramble for partners, but since we were an odd number with more gentlemen than ladies, Portia insisted we dispense with etiquette and instructed each gentleman to choose the lady he wished to lead in.

To my surprise, Lucian Snow offered me his arm. “My lady, I hope you will do me the honour?”

I hesitated. Alessandro was hovering near, too polite to dispute with Snow, but a little dejected, I think. Just then Portia glided over, and slid her arm through Alessandro’s.

“I do hope you will escort me, Alessandro. I simply couldn’t bear to walk in on the arm of one of my brothers.”

That was a bit thick, I thought. Lysander was already steering Violante to the door, and Plum was busy trying to lever Aunt Dorcas out of her chair. But Alessandro was too well bred to point this out. He merely bowed and smiled graciously at her.

“It would be my honour, Lady Bettiscombe.”

I turned to Lucian Snow with a smile. “Certainly.”

I took his arm, and he favoured me with a smile in return, a charming, dimpled smile that doubtless made him a great pet of the ladies. His features were so regular, so beautifully proportioned, he might have been an artist’s model. One could easily fancy him posed in a suit of polished armour, light burnishing his golden hair, his spear poised over a rampant dragon. St. George, captured in oils at his moment of triumph.

“I must tell you, Lady Julia, I was not at all pleased at being invited here tonight,” he said as we passed through the great double doors. Those warm spaniel eyes were twinkling again.

“Oh? And why not? Are we as fearsome as all that?”

“Not at all. But his lordship has been gracious enough to invite me to dine at least once a fortnight since I came to Blessingstoke, and I have gained half a stone. Another few weeks and I shall not be able to fit through that door,” he said, his expression one of mock horror.

My gaze skimmed his athletic figure. “Mr. Snow, you are baiting me to admire your physique. It will not serve. I am an honest widow, and you, sir, I suspect are an outrageous flirt.”

He laughed and gave my arm a friendly squeeze. “I know it is entirely presumptuous of me, Lady Julia, but I think we are going to be very great friends.”

I raised a brow at him. Curates in country villages were not often befriended by the daughters of earls. But our village was a small one, and Father rarely stood on his dignity. He preferred the company of interesting people, and would happily speak with a footman over a bishop if the footman had better conversation. He must have made something of Snow for the curate to have been invited to dinner so often, and Snow seemed to be preening a bit under his favour.

The curate leaned closer, his expression mockingly serious. “I have offended you by my plain speaking. I am struck to the heart with contrition.” He rolled his eyes heavenward, and thumped his chest with a closed fist.

“Gracious, Mr. Snow, are you ever serious?”

He rolled his eyes down to look at me. “On a very few subjects, on a very few occasions. I shall leave it to you to find them out, my lady.”

He was an ass, but an amusing one. I primmed my mouth against the smile that twitched there.

“I shall look forward to the discovery,” I said solemnly. We exchanged a smile, and I thought then that this might very well be the most interesting house party that Bellmont Abbey had seen since Shakespeare had spent a fortnight here, confined to bed with a spring cold. Of course, I was entirely correct about that, but for reasons I could never have imagined.

THE FIFTH CHAPTER

Let it serve for table-talk ; Then, howsoe’er thou speak’st,’ mong other things , I shall digest it . —THE MERCHANT OF VENICE

The dining hall was an impressive, handsome chamber carved out of the space of the north transept. It had been fitted with a tremendous fireplace and a table long enough to seat forty. We entered to find the seating arrangements at sixes and sevens. I blamed Portia. Aquinas, if left to his own devices, would have manfully struggled to create some order out of our uneven family party. But Portia had absented herself just before dinner, and the organisation of the place cards demonstrated a wicked sense of mischief afoot. Aunt Dorcas had been slotted between Plum and Ly, a move calculated to unnerve both of my brothers. Hortense was flanked by Father and Fly, both of whom doted on her outrageously. And I had been bookended by Alessandro and Lucian Snow, the two most eligible gentlemen present. In a final masterstroke, Portia had placed Brisbane squarely opposite me, where he could not fail to notice their attentions. Portia herself took a chair on the other side of Alessandro, doubtless with an aim to directing his focus wherever she fancied. It was Machiavellian, and had I not been at the locus of it, I should have admired it greatly.