Page 6 of The Gentleman’s Leading Lady

Thompson strode with confidence toward the group that congregated on the broad sweep leading up to the pavilion, new arrivals greeting one another and hailing those already present. Dante hung back, prickling with the instant, familiar unease that a group of fashionable people always engendered in him.

His father, like Thompson, had been one to head straight for a well-heeled group, unself-conscious about the difference in station, seeing the expensive fabrics, fine horses, and elegant fripperies as a promise of coin that could line his pockets. Andrea Manelli could mingle with the rich of any station and come away with their affection and promise of patronage.

Dante may have inherited his father’s looks, but not Andrea’s charm, nor his fine touch. He’d been told he came across as brutish. Sullen. Superior. He had no interest in inserting himself into a crop of fine folk and handing out cards with his nameplate so prospective patrons would remember him when they wanted to commission fine sculpture for their homes.

Architecture was a science, a profession, a unique skill. Anyone could chip away at a stone or cast plaster and call it art. Creating an entire building that could last for decades or centuries—that was a higher calling. He wasn’t required to expend himself in pleasantries; he was called upon to provide excellent, exacting work of the highest quality.

Inquiring gazes slanted in his direction, wanting to know who the outsider was, standing in embarrassed solitude. Thinking about work, imagining designs, kept him from imagining how the others might judge him. Dante sliced his shoulder toward the group, focusing his attention on the pavilion. It was a decent structure, but built quickly, made of wood and plaster. What Thompson needed was a building along the lines of what Dante was designing for Lord Sherborne’s well.

He saw the outlines of his vision rising above the plain wood, like airy figures drawn in the sky. A colonnade with a line of Doric columns, evoking a temple of Greece. A frieze running along the cornice depicting figures like those the Earl of Elgin had in his collection, of classical figures engaged bathing and other healthful acts. The architrave could be engraved with designs from ancient pottery, or the heads of the gods and goddesses of Greek myth. He’d already made their acquaintance in developing Sherborne’s designs.

There, Asclepius, god of the medicinal arts, dispensing his wisdom. Here, he’d place Hygieia, goddess of cleanliness, and Panacea, goddess of cures. Inside, a hall that felt spacious but also intimate, with places to promenade and places to group and gather, vaulted ceilings that would catch sound instead of echoing it, and floors of flagged stone—no, marble, with mosaics of scenes of bathing from classical myth, Diana surprised by Acteon, Aphrodite rising from the sea.

And no more than a tolerable number of bosoms spilling out. The older matrons taking the cures disliked the sight of too many nubile female bodies on display. His mother was quite vocal about it. He would place a statue of Apollo, god of healing, in the center of the hall, a focal point that drew the eye, while⁠—

“Manelli is the one you want, then. Mr. Manelli!” Thompson’s bellow cut through his reverie. “Come and let me make you known to my friends. I think you can be of some assistance.”

Dante twisted to face the little crowd, and there she was.

The nymph who had insulted his work when they met on the Colonnade some days ago.

He’d known her at once for what she was. A dashing girl, highborn and arrogant, reared to believe that the world had been formed for her pleasure, and quite ready to point out where the accommodations fell short.

The sort of queenly girl who believed her opinion should rule all, and who did not care if she trod upon the lesser. Nay, she did so eagerly, treading hearts and hopes into the dust beneath her dainty slipper.

Dante had encountered such girls before, too many times. He never came out well from such meetings.

“Come, come.” Thompson beckoned, his gesture impatient, and Dante moved in their direction, dragging his feet.

Every eye turned toward him, appraising, passing judgment. He was dressed well enough to pass muster, though. His coat of brown wool was only single-breasted, in the open lapel style; a double-breasted or closed style made him look too bulky, according to his tailor. For the same reason his coat was cut away at the hips, and his gray pantaloons fit closely, an attempt to slim his silhouette. Fuller sleeves at the shoulder were becoming the style, but his tailor fretted that Dante’s shoulders were too broad already and would make him nothing but plain, close-fitting sleeves that fell past his wrists.

His top hat did not have the deeply curved brim worn by the more dashing young gentlemen in the group. His walking stick was tipped with brass, not gold. And while his Hessians were blackened and cleaned, the tassels weren’t nearly as long as those on the men in riding dress. He only wore one waistcoat, with subdued stripes—patterns gave his chest the appearance of volume, his tailor grumbled—and his cravat was merely tied at the throat, fulfilling its function in the plainest possible manner.

She would know he could not call himself a gentleman, nor did he dare write an “Esq.” behind his name. She would detect by his manner, by his dress, that he was not gently born, like she was. He would be introduced as an architect and immediately relegated to that treacherous land between gentility and the trades, pegged as a man who worked for his living and earned money for it.

And she would dismiss him all over again.

Men who earned honorariums could be gentlemen. Men who earned salaries could not. The lines were kept purposefully nebulous and blurred precisely to keep men like him from attempting to scramble higher than the positions they had been born into.

That wouldn’t stop a man from clawing his way up with his bare hands, though. Dante would scrape at that ceiling until his knuckles were bloody, if he had to.

She narrowed her eyes as Dante approached. “You,” she said, in the tone one might say, Ah, and here we have the devil himself.

“Dante Manelli, at your service.” He ought to touch his walking stick to his hat, acknowledging a lady. He could manage nothing more than a strangled jerk of his head.

At your service. What a cur he was, bowing and scraping for favors from the wealthy, for commissions from the great, for projects from ambitious men like Thompson. And standing here like a dolt, exposing himself to slings and arrows from young women who sipped on poison like it was tea.

But he would take any insults from disdainful young women and the young men impressed by them, smiling through his teeth at the slights, if it meant coin in his pocket that could give his mother and sister—and himself—the home and the security they deserved after all this time.

She was painfully lovely, which made it all the harder to look at her. She wore a gown of fine cambric with a prim lilac ribbon giving her a high waist and the slender silhouette of a Greek column. Instead of a pelisse she wore a lilac shawl around her shoulders, as if she walked in a Mediterranean clime, unaware it was spring in England and therefore liable to rain at any moment.

A pert chip hat with matching lilac ribbons almost entirely covered her dark hair. Her skin was a warm golden brown, a startling contrast to her eyes, which held a color he daren’t try to identify. If he drew closer, he’d be within easier reach of her fangs.

The gods were cruel, to instill contemptuous hearts in beautiful women. But even gods required amusement, and tormenting humans was a favorite pastime, according to what Dante knew of the myths.

“Manelli,” Thompson said, indicating an older gentleman who stood beside the girl, “this is Jed Dorsey, head of the Dorsey Players. They’re looking to build a theater.” He clapped a hand on Dante’s shoulder. “Mr. Dorsey, I can find you a builder. Standing right here.”

“Architect,” Dante corrected. “Not a builder.”