The House of Happiness Page 10

  Soon enough she must offer up her body as well as her future. Would she then be able to keep at bay images of Gregor’s tousled hair and impassioned presence?

  Eugenia was sure that Bridget had informed Gregor of the engagement, but from Gregor himself there came no word, either of admonishment or of passionate regret. Eugenia liked to think that the painter was too heart-broken to respond.

  Since Bridget now remained determinedly silent on the subject, all that Eugenia had to remind herself that there had ever been a chance of perfect happiness was the note that he had sent her. She could not bring herself to destroy it as she should, but folded it into a perfume-drenched lace handkerchief which she kept in her reticule.

  The Marquis showered his fiancée with gifts. Flowers in great profusion began to adorn her bedroom at ‘Paragon’. Kid gloves, silk scarves and purses began to pile up. Eugenia surveyed all these treasures with a heavy heart. She could see them only as the spoils of her ill-considered conduct rather than what they were – sincere tokens of the Marquis’s love.

  At last, however, she began to yield to the constant nature of her fiancé’s attentions. He did not rush her nor demand more than she felt able to give. He was all courtesy and patience. She began to see her way to being a devoted rather than merely a dutiful spouse.

  The sad realisation that she must once again leave the happy confines of ‘Paragon’ was tempered by visions of herself as Mistress of one of the great houses of England.

  By late November, she was utterly reconciled to her fate. How simply events might then have progressed would never be known, for fate, with the unwitting aid of Great-Aunt Cloris, decided to prove mischievous.

  The Marquis was showing his collection of family portraits to Great-Aunt Cloris, Mrs. Dovedale and Eugenia, when Great-Aunt Cloris declared that it was a great pity that there was no portrait of Eugenia in existence.

  “She is a beautiful subject, you must admit,” she said.

  Eugenia blushed under the Marquis’s fond gaze.

  “Indeed she is,” he agreed.

  Great-Aunt Cloris gave a sudden clap of her hands.

  “That will be my wedding present to you! I shall have a portrait of Eugenia painted to add to your collection.”

  “Capital!” exclaimed the Marquis.

  “I know the very painter,” she added with great satisfaction.

  Eugenia felt the blood drain from her cheeks. She both knew and dreaded what her great-aunt would say next.

  “Gregor Brodosky!” she exclaimed. “He painted a handsome portrait of me. Not that I have seen it completed, but there was no question that from the beginning he captured me perfectly – “

  Her great-aunt’s voice seemed to be coming from far away. Eugenia clutched the back of a chair. “I don’t want – a portrait,” she heard herself say faintly.

  “Nonsense!” Great-Aunt Cloris waved her hand. “I will have none of this false modesty! It is not up to you, anyway, my girl. It is a matter between myself and the Marquis. It is decided. I shall write and ask Mr. Brodosky to join us here at Buckbury. That is of course – ” And here the old lady turned quickly to the Marquis, “that is if my Lord agrees?”

  The Marquis hesitated. He was concerned at Eugenia’s response and at her sudden pallor. “Do invite him here,” he said. “I should like the portrait to be commenced immediately.”

  Eugenia felt as if all her hard-won mastery of herself was in danger.

  A stone has been cast onto the settled surface of her days. The disturbance spread in vast, unwieldy ripples. She could not control the feelings they stirred up within her breast.

  *

  Gregor replied to Great-Aunt Cloris’s letter that he would be delighted to come to Buckbury. To Eugenia’s tremulous surprise – he had after all been silent for quite a while now – he sent, via Bridget, a letter of a more intimate nature entirely.

  “My little treasure, my little nugget of gold, I shall be there to stare at you all day and paint and – ha! take advantage of whatever else might be permitted your adoring Gregor.”

  Bridget watched in amusement as Eugenia read the letter. “Well, miss?”

  “He writes that – he will be glad to see me again.” said Eugenia.

  “So he will be, miss. And you’ll be glad to see him. You’ll find out that you’ve made a mistake!”

  “You – you are a fool,” retorted Eugenia, becoming angry with herself for having read the letter at all. She should have torn it up before Bridget’s very eyes. “How can marrying the Marquis – who loves me and offers me a secure future – be a mistake?”

  Bridget shrugged. “It is if you dream of someone else kissing you, miss.”

  “Oh, do go away, Bridget. I care not a jot for Gregor Brodosky. I am happy to be engaged to the Marquis.”

  Bridget closed the door behind her with a smirk. Eugenia waited for a moment to be sure that the maid would not return, then she folded Gregor’s letter and tucked it into her reticule.

  Now she harboured two guilty secrets from the eyes of the Marquis.

  She really must destroy these letters before the wedding.

  At the thought of the wedding her brow clouded. She rose and paced the floor.

  Perhaps there was a hidden meaning to all this. Perhaps her commitment to the Marquis must be tested as in a fire for its strength and durability. Yes, that was it!

  This idea almost soothed her, for it enabled her to set herself a task. To muster all her powers of self-restraint to overcome this resurgence of romantic interest in Gregor.

  She began to almost relish the challenge.

  Yet on the day of Gregor’s arrival, as she waited with the Marquis, Mrs. Dovedale and Great-Aunt Cloris in the hall at Buckbury to greet the painter, her heart faltered. She could not be still, but moved from window to window, sinking into one chair and then springing up again to sit in another.

  Bridget – hair plaited for the occasion and rosewater sprinkled over her bosom – watched Eugenia slyly from under her brows.

  “Do sit down, Eugenia, you are making me nervous!” demanded Mrs. Dovedale.

  “She seems somewhat feverish,” remarked Great-Aunt Cloris. “I hope she has not caught a cold.”

  The Marquis turned to observe his fiancée. She caught his eye, flinched under his gaze and looked away.

  “There is nothing wrong with me,” she said. “I am restless, that is all. It’s the – the wind in the chimney. It has that effect on me.”

  “Perhaps I should send for a shawl,” began Mrs. Dovedale.

  “No, Mama, no, I don’t want one. Oh, listen, listen! A carriage is drawing up outside.”

  All present turned to the door. The Marquis signalled. A footman opened the door and went out. A horse neighed, someone issued instructions. The word ‘boxes’ was heard. A second later Gregor Brodosky bounded into the hall.

  Eugenia felt faint.

  He looked as wild and as intemperate as ever. His startling green eyes swept over the assembled company and came to light on Eugenia. Loosening his green velvet cape, he strode over to her and grasped her hand, seemingly unconcerned with the normal proprieties of greeting one’s host first.

  “My delicious subject,” he said mockingly, raising her hand to his lips. “How I have missed you.”

  She tried to speak, but could not. Her lips parted but no sound issued forth. The hand that Gregor held began to tremble violently.

  Her eyes met those of the Marquis.

  His stare was black and troubled. Jaw clenched, he regarded her, and her heart sank at sight of the dark shadow crossing his stern, unyielding brow.

  *

  The following weeks seemed to Eugenia to be the most difficult of her life.

  Every day she sat for Gregor. A chair, draped in red velvet, was set up on a dais in the library.

  The role of chaperone to Eugenia was performed by Great-Aunt Cloris, Mrs. Dovedale and Bridget in rotation, depending on their other duties.

  Posed three-qu
arters on to Gregor, Eugenia could not see him at work, but was intensely aware of his heated scrutiny. At times she felt herself blushing, certain that his gaze at that moment was lingering on some delicate portion of her anatomy.

  When either of the two elder ladies were present, Gregor was all courtesy and circumspection.

  When it was Bridget who accompanied Eugenia to a sitting, however, it was a different matter entirely.

  Gregor found a thousand reasons to rearrange Eugenia’s skirt, draw her gown a little lower on the shoulder, loosen her hair so that it spread out like a mantle. Eugenia could not find it in herself to protest. For one thing she was unsure of what was normally permitted a figure so authoritative as a painter.

  For another she experienced a forbidden pleasure at his touch.

  He was altogether mercurial. One morning he placed a spray of freshly plucked mistletoe on her lap. Another he ignored her entirely. Sometimes he sang as he painted, songs in Russian, that by their yearning tone Eugenia decided were love songs. Sometimes he addressed Bridget as if Eugenia was not present.

  “Why should she wish to marry this Marquis? What does an Englishman know of great desire, of passion?” And he would strike his chest and sigh. “Only a Russian can love a woman as she should be loved.”

  “P-please, I beg you,” whispered Eugenia. “It is wrong to speak like that. Just as it was wrong to send me that last letter when you knew I was engaged. Please. Do not – torment me in this manner.”

  “Torment you? I?” Gregor turned an ingenuously puzzled gaze upon her. “You think this is torment? If you would yield to me, dear angel, dear treasure, you would know what true torment was. The torment of the flesh, of warm lips, heart beating against heart. Would she not, Bridget?”

  Bridget, eyes wide and absorbed, nodded as she chewed the end of her plait.

  “Shall we show her, Bridget?” continued Gregor mischievously. Again Bridget nodded and then gasped as Gregor swept her into his arms and kissed her violently on the lips.

  Eugenia closed her eyes as a lightening fork of jealousy seared through her. Was there something more intimate between Gregor and Bridget than she had imagined? After all, they had had plenty of time alone together in the kitchen of the house at Craven Hill –

  She struggled with her conscience, but Gregor acted upon her sensibilities like a magnet, rendering her powerless to banish him. She was under his spell.

  ‘Once the painting is finished – once I am married – will be time enough to be without him,’ she told herself.

  She might have found strength of purpose in the person of her fiancé, but the Marquis began to change in his behaviour towards her and indeed towards the household in general. He was sharp in tone and withdrawn in manner. With Eugenia he was as courteous as ever, but it was a courtesy that was increasingly as cold as frost. Even Mrs. Dovedale and Great-Aunt Cloris noticed.

  “The Marquis seems to be out of sorts entirely,” remarked Mrs. Dovedale with a worried frown.

  “No doubt it is nerves, Florence, nerves,” said Great-Aunt Cloris, with no great conviction. “All gentlemen are so as their marriage approaches.”

  “Why should he have so greatly altered in his attitude towards you, my daughter?” Mrs. Dovedale continued. Eugenia looked up quickly. “Is it really so, Mama?”

  “Come, come, you cannot be unaware. When did he last request a walk with you or accompany you on a ride about the estate?”

  “The latter is not possible, since neither you nor my great-aunt nor Bridget, my chaperones, are able to ride,” Eugenia reminded her mother.

  Mrs. Dovedale looked exasperated. “Eugenia, you know what I mean! He hardly seeks your company at all these days. If we dine together he hardly looks your way. It is a mercy that he troubles to come to the library when you are sitting. And then he stands like a sentry, all stiff and wordless.”

  “He would hardly dare interrupt the work of a great artist like Gregor,” interceded Great-Aunt Cloris.

  “Great artist, indeed!” muttered Mrs. Dovedale. “Who says that fellow is a great artist?”

  “Oh, but he is,” cried Eugenia. “He pours his whole soul into his painting.”

  Mrs. Dovedale regarded her daughter narrowly. “Is that all he pours his whole soul into, daughter?”

  Eugenia coloured. “Of course.”

  “Only I am beginning to wonder if there is some connection between the Marquis’s seeming – withdrawal of attentions and – this Gregor Brodosky or whatever he is called.”

  “Impossible!” Eugenia declared. “Gregor is – is quite taken with – with Bridget. Why, I even saw him kiss her – !”

  To Eugenia’s relief, this last piece of information seemed to satisfy her mother and she took up other, less contentious subjects, with Great-Aunt Cloris.

  Eugenia remained brooding over her embroidery.

  It was true that the Marquis often appeared unannounced in the library when Gregor was at work.

  Eugenia felt guilty that she did not welcome her fiancé’s presence. His brooding gaze disconcerted her. It was as if he saw deep into her fickle heart.

  One day Gregor was re-arranging Eugenia’s foot, where it rested on a footstool, when she looked over his bowed head to see the Marquis watching the scene from the doorway.

  “M-my Lord,” she stammered.

  “My Lady,” he replied somewhat sardonically.

  Gregor rose and turned to face the Marquis.

  “This is an exquisite ankle Eugen – Miss Dovedale has,” he remarked, running his paint stained fingers through his unruly hair. “Do you not think so – my Lord?”

  “Sight of a young lady’s ankle is not generally permitted to a mere fiancé, Mr. Brodosky,” replied the Marquis coolly.

  “Ah.” Gregor shrugged. “A pleasure to come.”

  The Marquis stepped forward. “By gad, you overstep the mark, man!” he growled in a low voice.

  Gregor raised his hands in mock apology. “What do I know of – these bourgeois conventions – what you can say – what you cannot say? I am a free spirit.”

  The Marquis’s jaw clenched. “Make sure you are not too free!” he snarled, before turning on his heels and departing.

  Bridget gave a little giggle which she quickly suppressed when she saw Eugenia’s horror-struck countenance.

  “Oh, Eugenia, my flower, do not fret,” murmured Gregor soothingly. “Let us all run away together, you and me and Bridget.”

  Eugenia blinked away incipient tears. “B – Bridget?”

  Gregor tossed back a lock of dark hair. “Why not? How can I bear to deprive you of a maid?”

  Eugenia glanced at Bridget but she was now twirling her plait around her finger while staring at the floor.

  “I could not do such a thing – to the Marquis,” Eugenia said with a catch in her throat.

  Gregor shrugged. “Perhaps the Marquis would not be as unhappy as you think,” he said, before taking up his brush again.

  *

  This exchange with Gregor haunted Eugenia all afternoon and evening. In her bed that night she lay turning his words over and over in her mind.

  ‘Let us run away together. Perhaps the Marquis would not be as unhappy as you think. Let us all run away together. Perhaps the Marquis would not be so unhappy – ’

  Could it indeed be possible, she wondered, that the Marquis himself now had serious reservations about their marriage? Could it be that he was beginning to regret his decision?

  The longer she considered this, the stronger became her conviction that the Marquis would indeed welcome an escape from the situation in which he now found himself. Then – and Eugenia hardly dared ponder this most seductive of scenarios – then indeed Gregor might take her away and make her his very own.

  She resolved to approach the Marquis and offer him his freedom the very next evening.

  Eugenia turned to her mother. “If you will excuse me, mother, I wish to go and speak to my – fiancé.”

  She spoke the wor
d ‘fiancé’ with the conviction that it might be the last time it was uttered as a mark of her relationship to the Marquis.

  “Alone,” she added.

  Mrs. Dovedale hesitated. “Alone?”

  “Yes. It must be so.”

  “Very well. No doubt the Marquis will send you home in his carriage.”

  Eugenia watched her mother depart and then hurried to the Marquis’s study.

  The door was ajar. She pushed it further open and then hesitated.

  The Marquis sat at his desk, facing the door. Though he held a pen in his hand he was not writing, but was staring into space. With a start, his eye settled on Eugenia.

  It was some time since the two had been alone together and he seemed taken aback. He put down the pen and rose.

  “To what do I owe this – this honour, Miss Dovedale?” he asked coldly.

  Eugenia closed the door behind her and advanced. The Marquis observed her with a strange curl to his lip. At last she stood trembling before the desk.

  “I have come – to offer you – your freedom,” she started falteringly.

  The Marquis seemed for a moment not to understand.

  “I believe you have – ceased to be happy with the idea of – marrying me,” she continued. “And I felt that it would be better for us to withdraw from a union that – seems no longer to promise a felicitous life together.”

  The Marquis’s response was not what she had expected. He sprang from behind the desk and grasped her face in his hands, tilting her head so that his eyes might bore into hers. His eyes glittered dangerously.

  “You thought yourself in a position to decide my future for me, did you?” he thundered. “Who has put you up to this – this perfidious behaviour?”

  “N-no one, my Lord!”

  His eyes searched her face in a manner that was both hungry and enraged at one and the same time.

  “I do indeed wish to change my plans as regards our marriage, Miss Dovedale,” he said through gritted teeth.

  “Be assured – I will accept your decision without protest, my Lord,” murmured Eugenia, flinching under his painful t touch.

  “Good. Then I am pleased to inform you that I wish our marriage to go ahead as planned, except in one respect and one respect only. I wish to bring the date of its execution forward.”