Page 20 of The Gentleman’s Leading Lady

Andrea kept to his studio, grumbling that he had no son to take on his work, and Dante learned everything he could about architecture, earning his own way, finding his own mentors, following in the train of lordlings traveling abroad, and staying in the great Continental centers of art and culture for as long as he could afford to.

Dante had been in Florence when his father died while installing a gallery of classically inspired statures for some Scottish lord. The dutiful son, he had come home to take charge of the family, discharging his father’s debts, finding his own commissions, looking for ways to bring stability at last to the lives of his mother and sisters.

Looking still for ways to emerge from the shadow of others and make a name for himself.

He would not be distracted in his efforts by a woman. Not again.

A scratch at the door surprised him, and Dante shoved the rough scraps between the pages of his folio. “Enter.”

Andover strolled in, tapping his riding crop against a leg encased in leather breeches. He looked about the room as if trying to detect what personal effects Dante had installed. There were none.

“Gotten the theater folk settled, have you? Much obliged to you for staying here to do the pretty for me.”

“It is no matter,” Dante said. He’d not mention the little harpy with the cloud of dark hair had turned up her nose again, treating him like the staff instead of a fellow lodger. “How long do you intend to keep them?”

“Long enough to be friendly. They’ve a need, and I’ve the space. Besides.” Andover winked. “Can’t leave the pretty one without a roof over her head, can we? That’un needs someone wiser to look after her.”

“Whom do you mean?” Dante asked, keeping his voice bland and free of the sudden rage that spiked within him. “I saw several females among them.” There was only one of the troupe he could be referencing.

Andover chuckled and strolled about the room, tapping his crop in rhythm with his steps. “I do hope they won’t cut up your peace too badly. Mama is depending on you to lay out her gardens. She’s persuaded only you can arrange things exactly as she likes them.”

“I shall do my best, though I have not laid out many gardens. There may be someone more suited for the task.”

Andover shrugged and strolled to the window to peer out. “She wanted you. Said you’ve got the eye.” He made a face. “And what Mama requests, Mama receives. The way of the world, no?”

“I suppose,” Dante answered. What he supposed was that Andover, heir to an earl, must be another who had been granted everything he wished from the moment of his birth. He would simply assume that was how the world worked.

But no, Dante recalled, Andover had not been born to the title. He’d been born the second son of a man who was an officer in the Foot Guards at the time. Capricious Fate had made a brigadier general an earl, and then Fate and a hunting accident had snuffed out the life of Charles Howard and left Thomas the only son standing. The new elevation had made him worthy of the Baron Sherborne’s daughter, Dutton’s sister.

And everything his parents built, Andover had an interest in, as the man who would inherit. Little wonder he gazed out the window at the rolling green beyond, knowing someday this would all be his.

“It’ll be quite the party at dinner tonight.” Andover left the window and made another turn about the room, which was not large, but felt spacious thanks to Dante’s careful design. “Ran into some new visitors when we called at the Great House. Lady said she’s a friend of yours, so I invited her directly.” He made another face. “Have to trot out Cousin Diana to be my hostess at table. Suppose I ought to call my sister up from Malmesbury, with all the company we have?”

“I would think the theater group should chaperone themselves.” Certainly someone should take charge of the harpy. She had a tendency to poke her beak into places that were none of her business.

Andover winked. “In particular the little chough, aye? Wouldn’t want aught to befall such a pretty bird.”

Dante set his teeth together. This was the second time Andover had cast out a broad hint regarding Cerys. “I suspect that Miss Evans can look out for herself, should anyone attempt to meddle with her. But I don’t know who would make the attempt, unless he wants the little cat to bite him.”

“So that’s the way of it.” Andover regarded Dante with a level look, then bobbed his head once, as if deciding something. “Dinner, then. Turn yourself out well. Maybe this former friend of yours will prove amusing.”

Dante nodded curtly, hating that Andover should be looking out for him like some self-appointed patron of the arts. The viscount might not have been born to the nobility, but he’d adopted with ease the ancient sense of noblesse oblige. Dante could make his own way in the world, thank you very much. He’d been looking after himself since he was old enough to cast plaster, with his father away so often currying favor or attending to a commission and his mother absorbed with looking after the girls, who’d always seemed to need so much more than Dante did.

He pushed the little harpy out of his mind as he donned his white waistcoat and tied his neckcloth. She had a nerve, eavesdropping on his conversations. A gently bred girl ought to have made her presence known the instant a gentleman entered the room.

For all he knew, a gently bred girl should have fled the room immediately upon the entrance of a gentleman not familiar to her. The high born seemed to have any number of rules about attendance on unmarried females, as if they were delicate flowers that needed a prop at all times. Whatever the rules were, this girl didn’t heed them. She’d hidden herself on the chaise, of all things, and then popped up to argue with him once the foreman left.

He pulled on his tailcoat, the superfine a deep indigo-blue color known as corbeau. She’d caught his reference to the play he’d quoted. The line had come from somewhere and seemed apt at the time, but she knew it. Beatrice and Benedict—it was an absurd play. He’d attended a showing with his sisters, here in Cheltenham, at the Theatre Royal. Princes behaving badly, friends tricking their friends with manufactured love affairs, and a heroine who for some reason pretended to die rather than give the cad who’d jilted her a sound slap across the face.

He could imagine the little termagant cuffing her lover if she’d been jilted. She certainly wouldn’t faint, go into hysterics, or waste away.

Dante hadn’t either, when it was his heart that shattered. He’d taken the blow manfully, refusing to show by a flicker of emotion how deep the humiliation had cut. He’d go to his grave still hiding that wound, if he had to.

Just as he’d hide that the little theater harpy had the least effect on him, beyond an annoyance. She was young. She was spoiled. She was full of herself in the way only the young could be, when they still thought themselves the center of everyone else’s lives, not just their own.

But, by God, Dante thought as he entered the drawing room where the group had gathered before dinner, she was beautiful.

It was as if he’d designed the room merely to showcase her. The grand salon occupied one of the newer wings, and the soaring windows on either side of the room reflected the light of the many candles and strategically placed Argand lamps. The draperies falling from the windows were like fabric columns, mimicking her slender figure, and the patterns of shells and vines woven along the cornices and soaring over the panels above the fireplaces were an echo of her elegant simplicity. The room was full of people, yet all that stood out in it was her.