Gentlemen Prefer Scandal - Chapter 4

Sunday, December 7, 1823

 

I return only now, and only by the traipsing of my tired feet over hill and dale, to the quiet comfort of Albany. Upon my side is still embossed the aching imprint of earth and hay. Upon my lips, the musky fragrance of Rupert Wynn.

Five days ago, I went with Rupert to visit a woman named Sarah, the former housekeeper of Glyde Manor. Upon her unceremonious ejection by the imposter Sir Percival, she’d taken employment as a maid at a dingy coaching inn somewhere in London proper. It was her that I overheard speaking with Rupert all those days ago.

Anyway, Rupert hadn’t heard from her in days, so we went looking for her. On the way, he seemed quite worried. I’ve noticed that when Rupert is nervous, he flexes and fists his fingers repeatedly. I thought about reaching out to steady his hands with my own, but I told myself that would be improprietous. If only I’d been able to summon that same self-control by the end of the night… But I’ll get to that in a moment.

Sarah wasn’t where Rupert expected her to be—not in the entry hall, or the scullery where she worked.

Rupert asked the rest of the staff if they knew anything, but most had no information to give. There was one girl who pulled us around a corner so no one could see and told us, in urgent whispers, that Sarah hadn’t been in to work for two days, and that the door of her cramped little room had been left open. It looked as though it had been forced open, and the things inside were disturbed.

‘Do you have any idea where she is?’ asked Rupert, his voice uncharacteristically rough. He sounded…afraid.

‘I’ve told you everything I know,’ mumbled the girl.

‘But you must have some inclination, some idea—’

She shook her head, shrinking back into the doorway.

He stepped forward. ‘Please, anything—’

The girl looked like she was trying to disappear.

‘Rupert,’ I said, gently pulling him away. ‘She doesn’t know any more.’

He stared blankly at me for a moment and then nodded and muttered, ‘Right, right.’

Rupert walked ahead of me on our way back to Mayfair, silent, rolling his shoulders back and forth.

I said his name, and I remember that he jumped.

‘Are you alright? You’ve been acting…you seem…tense.’

‘Of course I’m tense,’ he said, too loudly. ‘A woman is missing, for Christ’s sake! How could I not be—’ He dropped his shoulders. ‘I…I’m sorry. I’ve not been entirely honest with you. Sarah…she wasn’t the housekeeper. Well, she was, but…’

My heart caught in my chest. He’d said he fancied men, but I’d spent enough time at the Fourth Tier to know that didn’t necessarily preclude attachments to women. An attachment. To a woman.

‘She’s also my sister. Well…half-sister.’

Oh, thank God, I thought with a heavy sigh. For a moment, I imagined you might say that you were in love with her.

Except I didn’t think it. I said it—all of it—out loud and to his face.

I wished in that moment that I could disappear.

Rupert stared at me, eyes wide, mouth agape. And then he burst into laughter, the first real laughter I’d heard from him all day. The tension that had been building since the coaching inn slowly eased from his body. ‘I’m wondering why,’ he said, furrowing his brow in mock contemplation and grinning mischievously, ‘you think it would be so horrible if I were in love with her.’

‘Well…I just thought… I mean…we’ve been spending so much time together…’

‘That’s rather presumptuous, don’t you think?’ He looked positively gleeful. ‘We get dinner together one time, and suddenly—’

‘I like you,’ I said, interrupting. ‘And I want to know if you like me too.’ I looked down at the grimy street.

He stepped forward and lifted my chin in his rough hand. ‘I do.’

I can’t remember how long we stood there, how many people saw us, how many carriages passed by.

But I do remember every golden fleck in Rupert’s amber eyes. I remember the soft thud of my beating heart. I remember that I didn’t want the moment to end.

Reluctantly, he let his hand fall. ‘What were we talking about, before…?’

‘You were telling me about Sarah,’ I said gently.

His smile tightened, and he clenched his fists. ‘Right. She’s always been the one to care for me. And now…I’m just worried something has happened to her. The men we’re up against—the baron and the magistrate—they’re powerful, and they have a lot to lose. What if they’ve decided that she knows too much, that she’s a risk? What if they’ve hurt her, or kidnapped her, or…’ He shuddered. ‘I wish there was something more we could do, something direct, something drastic.’

‘I do have one idea,’ I said tentatively. ‘It’s sort of a long shot…’

And then I was at my writing desk, writing a proposition.

Dear Sir Percival Glyde,

     I, Nathaniel Fletcher, would be honored to represent your likeness…

And then Lord Percival responded: Yes.

And then I was scheduling a date and time.

And then I was in the carriage, on my way to the Glyde Manor and the most perilous portrait session of my life.

My assistant, Rupert, sat beside me, his hair blackened with shoe polish and his soft lips hidden behind a bushy prop beard. On the seat across from us lay a random assemblage of painting supplies we’d borrowed from Charlotte’s studio.

The plan was simple: I would pose Lord Percival in some drawing room or other and pretend to paint him, and Rupert would sneak away to search for incriminating materials. He’d signal when he found something, and we’d leave to finish painting in our studio.

We very nearly pulled it off.

Kind of.

It was early afternoon when finally we arrived at the Glyde Manor. The house was utterly bizarre—tall where it ought to be short, and short where it ought to be tall, round and angular in all the wrong places.

The recently deceased baron apparently fancied himself some sort of acoustical scientist, a connoisseur of sound. His house was designed and built by the eccentric architects of whom old Glyde was a patron. Rupert described some of its features to me, features he’d never seen himself but knew from Sarah. There was one room that had the strangest echo, almost as if you were talking to yourself. There was another room for hosting parties, tall and circular, where you could stand in one particular spot at the edge of the room and hear your voice amplified throughout the entire space. A whispering gallery, he had called it.

We were met outside the manor by the butler, Mr James. His eyes were soft and round, and the corners of his mouth were crinkled with the memory of laughter.

Laughter at the misery of others—though we couldn’t have known that yet.

He led us through the enormous house to a sparsely furnished drawing room with tall windows and abundant natural light.

‘Sir Percival will be down shortly,’ said Mr James with a genial nod. ‘In the meantime, Mr Fletcher, I invite you and your assistant to prepare the equipment you’ve brought along.’ He bowed and retreated, leaving Rupert and me alone.

We managed, barely, to erect an easel and to stretch a canvas before Lord Percival came to join us, sombre and silent as ever. He really does cut a striking figure, tall and sunken and skeletal. I hope Charlotte actually does paint him one day. Hopefully in his prison cell.

With shaking hands, I situated him beside an ornate fireplace at the far end of the room and began to clumsily outline his figure in charcoal. Periodically, I’d ask Rupert to hand me a new brush and to replenish my paint, or I’d remind the baron to stay as still as possible.

The longer I worked, the less human his figure appeared.

It doesn’t matter, I reminded myself. We just need to prove he’s a fraud.

I turned to Rupert. ‘Fetch me the flat brush.’

He winked and rooted theatrically through our bags. ‘I’m…I’m afraid we may have left it in the carriage.’

‘Well,’ I said, turning toward him and trying my best to sound angry, ‘go and get it!’

‘As you wish,’ he answered through a barely suppressed grin.

Ten minutes passed.

I added an orange swirl to the centre of the canvas. He’ll be back any moment, I thought, with all the evidence we need.

Another ten minutes. I was beginning to sweat. This was too much time away—surely Sir Percival was starting to get suspicious.

‘I’m…afraid my assistant may have gotten lost,’ I said. ‘Perhaps I ought to…look for him?’

Sir Percival grunted his assent.

I walked quickly through the labyrinthine corridors of Glyde Manor, quietly calling out his name. ‘Rupert, where are you?’

I was beginning to panic. Was he in trouble? In danger?

And then I found him—standing still in the centre of a room covered on all sides with hundreds of long, dark wedges, his eyes wide and entertained.

‘There you are,’ I muttered with relief. And then my own voice echoed back at me. There you are.

Rupert grinned. ‘Isn’t it marvellous?’ Isn’t it marvellous?

It’s a strange old house that doesn’t sit right with me. I much prefer the simple architecture of a rectangular room. But Rupert was entranced.

‘This echo,’ he said, stepping toward me. ‘It’s the strangest… Why aren’t you painting?’

‘I came to find you,’ I said. ‘You’ve been gone half an hour!’

He grimaced. ‘It would take days to search this place. It’s huge and odd, and I don’t even know what I’m looking for.’ He began to shift anxiously from foot to foot. The sound was strange and unsettling. ‘But we have to… Sarah…and the painting… What are we going to do?’

He flopped onto the couch behind him.

There were only two candles in the room. He looked mystical in the dim and fluttering lighting. I sat next to him and placed a hand on his knee for comfort.

In the glimmering bronze of those flames, his face was radiant. His eyes…I had never really stared into them before, the way I did then. They must be light brown, two starbursts of amber, but they were solid gold in the gleaming candlelight.

His hair is dark orange like the last breath of a sunset.

I told him there were other rooms to check, that we needn’t give up yet. But resignation was already creeping into his face. What could I possibly give to this unstoppable force of a human that would make him smile, make him like me?

George, the last man I courted, grew tired of me, but honestly he wasn’t the first. I don’t stand a chance with someone like Rupert. I couldn’t keep up, even if I wanted to.

And I most certainly do not want to.

But on that couch, between the shifting light and shadows of the candles, I stopped worrying about whatever was to come next. I reached out my hand to find his, and I calmed his fidgeting fingers. I had no words to give, but I could give this.

His next sentence surprised me. He gazed earnestly into my eyes. ‘I’ve gotten you into this,’ he said, ‘and I don’t see any way out. If something were to happen to you…I don’t think I’d forgive myself.’

‘Rupert… You needn’t worry about me—’

‘But I do, Nathaniel.’ He sighed, still gazing at me. ‘How many rooms are inside you?’ I opened my mouth and must have looked like a fool, because he clarified, ‘Where do I look, when I’m looking for Nathaniel Fletcher? We’ve spent days together, but I barely know anything about you.’

I shrugged, playing at nonchalant. ‘You barely ask.’

‘I’m asking now.’

‘What do you want to know?’

He inched closer. ‘What do you do when you’re not traipsing about London with a rakish actor?’ I remember him winking, I think. Or maybe it was the flickering light.

What I said next…oh, it is embarrassing indeed. I was trying to be smooth. ‘Who says I’m not always traipsing about London with rakish actors?’

Rupert laughed, but it wasn’t a mean laugh—he was amused, maybe even endeared. Maybe I seemed attractive in the shadow of danger that crept in the room the longer we were missing.

‘How did you get into acting?’ I asked, moving the conversation away from me.

‘Not many options with a past like mine.’ He said it easily, like he’d said it a hundred times before. Like he had already imagined the story of his life and how it would be written. ‘It’s a decent living, and the gifts I get from admiring patrons keep me comfortable enough.’

I sensed something else, something deeper, in his answer. ‘And?’ I prodded. I should have said something more eloquent, maybe even romantic. I should have said, How many rooms are inside you, Rupert? I always do think of the best lines too late.

He smiled then, so wide it crinkled the skin around his eyes. ‘I can be anyone, on the stage.’ He threw his head back and sighed, as if he were bathing in sunshine. ‘I can be anyone and everyone and no one at all. I can live a hundred lifetimes, go on a thousand adventures.’

‘I’m almost jealous,’ I said, before I could stop myself. ‘There’s so many lives I wish I could live, but I can never quite seem to play them right. A painter, a poet…even the partner of a poet…’

My lips quirked up as I realised that I hadn’t thought of George at all in a week. Why would I need to when I had Rupert Wynn before me, leaning forward and staring right into my eyes? ‘But you can play them,’ he said. ‘You only have to choose. Who do you want to be, tonight?’

I could feel—can still feel—my heart pounding in my chest. I had never seen a face so enticing. I spoke without thinking.

‘Yours.’

And then he was on me, and my hands were clutching his waist. We kissed… I almost feel like I shouldn’t write about it. No words can do justice to the thrill of that kiss and what came after, and I know I’ll fail to capture it, but it was so remarkable it deserves to live somewhere. Even if that somewhere is only on this page.

It was deep and hungry, a restless kiss that would not be contained by time. I kissed the sharp edge of his jaw-line, the subtle slope of his neck—

But a gentle knock on the door startled us apart and stole our breath.

The door pressed open, and the round face of Mr James peered inside.

My short—and until very recently, uneventful—life flashed before my eyes.

We were finished.

As good as dead.

Rupert spoke first, with the easy confidence of a professional actor. ‘It seems we’ve lost our way.’

The butler looked us over and nodded. ‘The house can be…difficult to navigate. Follow me.’

I gasped in relief. My life wasn’t in danger after all.

Yet.

Percival was lying down when we returned to the drawing room, fast asleep on a chaise-longue.

‘Perhaps,’ said Mr James with a smile, ‘we ought to recess for the evening. Can you return, say, next Tuesday at the same time?’

‘Oh…no…that’s alright,’ I stammered. ‘I can finish in my studio.’

Rupert shook his head emphatically.

‘Can you?’ said Mr James with a chuckle, looking over the canvas.

‘Oh…that…yes,’ I sputtered. ‘They’re…erm…technical markings. To indicate form and colour.’

Rupert palmed his forehead.

‘Then I shall send for your horses, Mr Fletcher. I await the product of all your effort with bated breath.’ He stayed with us as we gathered our supplies and then led us through the winding corridors and to our waiting gig.

‘You know I think you’re wonderful and brilliant,’ said Rupert once we were beyond earshot of the house. ‘But why would you possibly turn down another opportunity to search the manor?’

It was just dark enough that he couldn’t see my face redden. ‘Oh right,’ I mumbled. ‘I wasn’t expecting the question and…I got nervous…’

He nuzzled his temple against mine affectionately. I remembered the interrupted kiss and felt my flush deepen. ‘We’ll get to the bottom of this. As long as you’re with me—’

And then the world exploded.

Suddenly I was lying on the ground. Everything hurt. The gig was in pieces. The paint and brushes were strewn about the road. The horses had pulled free of their mangled reins and run off into the dark. And Rupert…

My heart caught. Where was Rupert?

I groped through the cloud of dust, coughing, until I reached his prone form. ‘Get up,’ I whispered as loudly as I could. But Rupert didn’t answer. My stomach dropped when he didn’t move, and I thought I was going to be sick. I almost was, until I knelt to hear his ragged breathing, until I felt the twitch of his arm as I helped him up. His head had taken quite the hit, and he struggled to find his balance as the sounds of our pursuers grew closer. I saw the speck of a torchlight beyond the black trees. I could have run, but Rupert could barely stand on his own. Just as I thought we were doomed, a slender hand squeezed my shoulder and I heard a quiet shhh. I wheeled around. We weren’t alone. Someone else was here with us, their face hidden beneath a thick, dark travelling cloak.

Gravelly footsteps sounded up and down the road. The group from the house was almost upon us. I had no choice but to follow this stranger between the trees, supporting Rupert as best I could. We crouched in the darkness.

‘Well, isn’t this interesting,’ said a calm, familiar voice in the road. I shifted slightly to peek out between the trees. There, by the wreckage of our gig, ghostly in the moonlight, stood the butler, Mr James. Three other men I didn’t recognise sifted through the splintered wood. A furrow, deep and fresh, cut across the width of the road. ‘They can’t have gotten far,’ Mr James intoned cooly. ‘Find them, and bring them to me. Preferably alive. That man is no artist, and he’ll not take what we’ve worked so hard to make ours.’

Mr James turned and walked, slowly, back toward the house. The men separated and peered into the woods. And the cloaked figure beside me lifted their hood.

Damn—my candle is nearly burnt out, and I’m too tired to find another. I shall resume my narration tomorrow.