The Portrait

Chapter 1

Chapter 1

Bath, May 1800

“Let us move you closer.”

“Thank you, I am quite all right.”

“Stop being so accommodating, Catherine. It is easily done. Perhaps if we call for a footman and your chair—”

“I am perfectly fine, Melinda.”

“Well, you never say a thing, when I am sure you would rather—”

Catherine put a gloved hand on her friend’s arm. “I am rather thirsty, I suppose.”

“Let me procure a glass of lemonade!” Melinda exclaimed. Having found a way to be of use, she hurried away. Two fat matrons and a young man with a keen glint in his eye bore down upon her as soon as she reached the refreshment table.

Catherine leant back on the pillows of the window seat and adjusted her shawl. Thank goodness Melinda was so easily distractible: her constant flutter and anxiety were enough to give anyone the headache. It was true that their spot was some distance away from the stage where the musicians were now tuning their instruments, but Catherine enjoyed the view of the milling crowd, the swish and swirl of silken gowns, the young men in pursuit of blushing girls guarded by dour chaperones. She had long been accustomed to the notion that she would never be one of those pretty hopefuls, and the covert glances cast in her direction did not bother her. She was a fixture on the Bath scene – the occasional pitying look invariably came from a newcomer. Her acquaintances certainly knew better than to direct any such sympathy her way.

Melinda was blushing at the overtures of the young man. He offered his arm. She smiled and barely dipped her head in Catherine’s direction. The young man turned slightly and caught Catherine’s eye. The usual expression of polite sympathy crossed his face and Catherine smiled automatically. It was a frozen smile, but it was the most she felt inclined to offer the curious. The man turned around again. When Catherine managed to catch Melinda’s eye, she frowned to indicate that Melinda should stay where she was. Melinda gave her a grateful wave of acknowledgement.

Catherine leant back again in her seat. It gave her some small pleasure to consider how annoyed Melinda’s stepmama would be if she knew that the very proper Lady Catherine Claverton was encouraging the attentions of some young man of unknown background. Melinda’s stepmama was a notoriously difficult person, prone to palpitations, who made it virtually impossible for Melinda to show herself in society – she would not accompany her stepdaughter herself and considered almost no one else appropriate. But she was willing to very grudgingly acknowledge that Lady Claverton’s company was unexceptionable.

Catherine accepted the role with good grace. At twenty-four, she was really far too young to be anyone’s chaperone, but no one had ever regarded her as a girl. And she did not mind being passed over by the gentlemen. Melinda needed her. It was a pleasure to be needed.

She adjusted the skirts of her gown. One could at least wear pretty clothes, she reflected, even if one could not be a beauty. She turned slightly in her seat, running a critical eye over the crowd. The room was filling. Most of the faces were familiar. Stuffy old Bath, with its outmoded social rules – it was bound to be a dull evening.

Loud laughter beckoned, and she glanced in the direction of the door. Ah, unfamiliar faces. She peered at them from behind the lacy shade of the window-seat curtains. Two pretty girls, not likely to be much past their coming out. Two men in naval uniform. One leant over, whispered conspiratorially to the girls. They tittered loudly. The other officer hung back, looking somewhat uncomfortable. He scanned the room, as if he expected to find someone he knew there.

“Look, John. Seats.” One of the girls tapped the arm of the officer at her side with her fan and headed off into the crowd, pulling her friend behind her.

“Fanny, wait!” the officer called in alarm. He looked back at his colleague, who was still surveying the gathering.

“You go ahead,” the other officer said.

“Silly chit,” his friend muttered, taking off after the two girls at a rapid clip.

Catherine, safely ensconced in her lacy refuge, watched as the man pushed his way through the crowd, murmuring his excuses, to where the girls had spied a group of empty chairs. However, there were only three. The man turned around and lifted his hands apologetically.

“Quite all right,” muttered their abandoned companion. “Quite all right.” He didn’t seem the least bit put out. In fact, he seemed relieved. He heaved a sigh and edged along the perimeter of the room until he was so close to Catherine’s seat that she thought he would smack into her knees. She held her breath, but he stopped just inches away from the curtains and stood fiddling with his hat. He had thick, curly brown hair that was almost unkempt in appearance and refused to stay put at the back and around his face. His features seemed almost to have been carved in rock: they were stern, and his nose was strong, chiselled. Surprisingly for a sailor, his skin was smooth – barely weather-beaten at all, only tanned to gold.

Catherine stole a look at his boots. They were scuffed at the toes. She could see that they were well-maintained: lovingly cared for but heavily used. A man of action, she concluded. The compulsive neatness of his uniform seemed to reinforce the character suggested by the boots. It was not a new suit of clothes by any means, but it had an air of shiny readiness. Was this what was expected of a naval officer, she wondered. Had he ever flogged a man, or used the cat-o’-nine-tails? Catherine shivered, and cast another look at his face.

No, she decided. He was grave, but not cruel. His eyes were lovely – changeable, grey and green and blue at the same time, like storm clouds on a spring day. His mouth was soft. He could smile, she thought, if he wanted to. It was a finely cut mouth, in fact …

She flushed and looked away. Her voyeurism was getting the better of her. One of the reasons she liked to sit on the fringes of society was that it gave her licence to eavesdrop, to stare, to imagine. Thinking her private thoughts, thoughts that no one in the world would imagine someone such as she might have, made her happy. She always had the better of everyone in society: they could not conceal what they really were and they did not know that Lady Catherine Claverton was watching. But yet she should be careful, lest she give herself away.

Her father, she reflected, had intended her to spend her entire life sitting in her room. He would be so furious if he could see her now. She suppressed a smirk.

The officer muttered an oath. Three very large, very loud matrons sporting garishly dyed plumes had taken up positions squarely in front of him. They chatted loudly and fluttered their fans; not supposing anyone to be watching, one of them surreptitiously pulled at the seat of her gown, which was cut much too tight to flatter.

Catherine choked back a loud snort. The officer looked around. His questioning gaze landed on her, half-hidden in the window seat. A little embarrassed, Catherine smiled at him. He bowed slightly.

“They really aren’t very good,” she said in a whisper.

He raised an eyebrow, then nodded toward the musicians. “They aren’t?” He seemed rather nonplussed by the statement.

Catherine shook her head. “Not very. You aren’t missing much. By not being able to see, I mean.” The concert suddenly began with the violinist leaping energetically into a divertimento that required far more skill than he possessed. Gamely, he staggered on.

A rueful grin crossed the officer’s lips as he inched a little closer to Catherine’s seat. “Are you musical?”

“A little,” Catherine confessed. “But it would make no difference. I heard them play last Thursday.”

“Ah.” The officer looked back in the direction of the musicians, but his view was still thoroughly obscured by the three fat matrons with their bobbing feathers.

“Is this sort of crush usual?” Irritation edged his voice.

Catherine blinked. “Crush? Do you regard this as a crush?” It had never occurred to her that a boring Bath musicale might be a crush. In London, assemblies and parties in the best homes were often crushes but not this.

A flush stained the officer’s cheeks. “I beg your pardon. I seem to be demonstrating my ignorance of society,” he said stiffly.

“Not at all,” Catherine said hastily. “I imagine that you have been at sea for a considerable time. Have you a long shore leave?”

The officer did not reply at once. When he turned, those stormy eyes caught her gaze. He was a beautiful man, if such a word could be applied to one in naval uniform. The clouds in his eyes stood in sharp contrast to his dark hair and tanned skin. A spring shower, Catherine thought with bewilderment. A spring shower, passing through the meadow at Albrook Hall. Green and blue and swirling grey mist. Words, whatever they might have been, died at her lips, and she felt the warmth ebb away from her extremities.

For an icy moment, they looked at each other while the musicians sawed away energetically in the background. Most people did not dare look her full in the face.

“I have indeed been away from these shores for a very long time,” the officer said finally. “I am not aware of the … the niceties of social discourse.”

“Do not let it trouble you, sir,” Catherine said quickly. Her mouth was dry; she searched for a way to ease the tension. “I do not know your name.”

“My name is Avebury. Captain, Royal Navy.”

Catherine saw something flicker in his eyes. She searched her memory, but came up blank. She didn’t know any Aveburys. She held out her hand. “Catherine Claverton.”

He bowed slightly, barely touching her gloved hand. “And you live in Bath? Miss – is it Miss? – Claverton?”

“Er … yes.” Catherine hesitated. She was not being quite accurate, but she felt uneasy about correcting him. “And you?”

“How did you know?” He said the words in a low voice, so softly that for a brief second Catherine wasn’t sure she had heard him at all.

“Know?”

“That I’ve just returned – that I’ve been gone from England for so long.”

She wanted to look away, but the intensity of those changeable eyes held hers pitilessly. Here was a man who expected to have his questions answered. “I-I … your boots,” she concluded feebly. “And your uniform. You look like someone who is … accustomed to a demanding life.”

His gaze softened. He looked at her, his eyes sweeping over the pink gown, the silk shawl, the fine blonde hair dressed in a modest style that put her on the edge of matronhood.

She looked back at him, her heart ceasing its fitful pitter-patter. Why, he was neither stern nor severe, after all – he was merely ill at ease, shy.

“I give myself away, it seems.” A hesitant smile seemed to touch his lips, then fade away.

“Do not be concerned by it,” Catherine said apologetically. “It is I who am at fault – I sit here behind the curtains, spying. It is inexcusable, and I beg your pardon.”

“Are you alone at this concert, Miss Claverton?”

The piece had ended. Well-bred applause echoed politely through the room and, from a distance, a voice called for Avebury to hurry over and occupy an available seat.

He glanced in his friend’s direction. “Forgive me,” he said. “My friend calls me.”

“Of course.” Catherine held out her hand. “You must join your companions.”

“He has brought his sister to the concert as a treat, you see. He would not forgive me if I left him for the evening with only her and her friend for company.” He smiled ruefully.

Boldly, she leant forward to grasp his hand. “I hope we meet again, Captain Avebury. Bath is a quiet town, but we do our best. Perhaps you will honour us with your presence at the assemblies?”

“I am not much for dancing, I’m afraid,” Avebury said. He bowed.

Catherine watched as he moved off into the crowd, eventually easing himself into a seat guarded for him by the blushing girls, who seemed very much in awe of him. As the music struck up again, she smoothed her dress over her legs, feeling her useless limb, twisted and bent, through the lush pink fabric. Her eyes tingled. She tasted salt tears in the back of her throat, and was immediately ashamed. She had not cried in a very long time. Why now? “Neither am I, Captain Avebury,” she said softly. “Neither am I.”

For a moment she felt bitterly sorry for herself. The missed opportunities. The cruel looks, whispers, comments. The discomfort of servants when they had to wait on her. The sheer force of will that made it possible for her to have any kind of life outside the walls of her home – it exhausted her.

But here I am, she reminded herself. I am here. And I am in control. I will not let myself fade out of sight because of a single withered leg. I will not. I will not let Papa hide me away – not now, and certainly not after he is dead.

She was jolted from her musings by Melinda’s hand on her elbow.

“Dearest,” Melinda said in a low voice. “We will need to leave, and do so as quietly as possible. If I send for a footman, there will be a disruption. Do you suppose you could lean on me just until we are outside the door? Papa has sent the coach for us.”

“Leave? Why—”

Melinda wasted no words. “Your father, Catherine. You must go to him immediately.”

Catherine drew back. She saw Melinda’s concerned expression, and felt her own face stiffen. “Is he dying?” She said the words with such coolness that even Melinda was shocked.

“Catherine, you must go to him.”

“Is he dying?”

“He is near the end.”

“Then I will go. But if he is not dying, I will turn around and head home. I have no need to see him more than once.” She rose, placing as much of her weight as she could on the arm Melinda proffered. “Let us get this over with.”

As she limped heavily out of the room, she cast one last, regretful look over in the direction of Captain Avebury and his friends. She was sorry to have misled him into thinking that she was Miss Claverton, and not Lady Catherine Claverton. She wished she could have stayed to explain herself.

But Bath was a small town. They would meet again.