“So…he might well reverse his decision and restore Max to his position as heir.”
“I’d say that’s what someone believes.”
“And if Max is dead…”
“Someone is safe.”
“Have you any idea who that someone is?”
“Word is it’s probably the cousin, Harold, but no one knows for sure. I’ll keep my ears open, if you like.”
“Thank you, I would like.”
Jemmy’s warm lips brushed her nape.
Aphrodite felt herself tingle all over, and it was as if they had not been lovers for these many years. Her body recognized his, readied itself for his, she was his, and always had been. It was just that she had not realized it until it was too late. And that was why she would never allow Marietta to make the same mistake—to turn her back on love.
Jemmy kissed her again, and his hand slid inside her chemise, with its narrow band of lace, and cupped her breast. Aphrodite sighed with pleasure, and put aside her own concerns, as she turned into her lover’s welcoming arms.
That night in Berkley Square, Marietta found herself too restless to sleep. Her mind was on the assignation with Max, and although she had told Aphrodite she was not nervous, she was. Excited and nervous, all at the same time. Max would help to teach her to be the best courtesan in London, after her mother that is. One day she would wear the fine clothes and the jewelry, to show how many lovers she had had and how successful she had been.
She snuggled down under the covers, trying to imagine what Max would think of her if he were to meet her many years into the future. Would he boast that he was the one who taught her to kiss, or would he listen to Harold and cut her dead? But then again, she reminded herself, Max would be living in Cornwall—it was doubtful she would ever see him once he left London.
The thought unaccountably depressed her, but then she cheered herself up by remembering the assignation at Aphrodite’s. Being submissive to Max, serving Max his supper, flirting with Max and kissing him, if he’d let her. Never mind, she’d find a way to persuade him. There was a lot that Max could teach her, Marietta thought with a smile, but there was also an awful lot that she could teach him.
And then there was her father. She hardly dared to imagine what he would be like, and whether she would feel a closeness to him. She had spoken to Vivianna earlier tonight, and Vivianna told her about Fraser, and how she felt when she first met him, and how she grew to love him, before the end. Perhaps there was something about sharing the same blood that formed a bond between two people, no matter how you tried to deny it.
Marietta turned over and her eye caught the sober gleam of a leather-bound book, sitting on her bedside table. Aphrodite’s diary. Vivianna had given it to her, telling her that Aphrodite had once presented it to her to read. “She has added to it over the years, but do not expect to find your father’s name in there,” she said. “I think it will help you to understand our mother a little better.”
Marietta wriggled up against the pillows, and drawing the candle closer, took the diary into her hands. The tooled leather felt luxurious, almost alive, against her fingers. She let the book fall open, and found herself about a third of the way through it. Aphrodite’s neat writing told her that she was living in Paris, on the Boulevard de la Madeleine…
Today the Compte de Rennie offered me his heart and all else he had it in his power to give me, if I would come and live with him at his chateau on the Loire. I should feel wild with joy, but I don’t. It is as if the golden gloss has been worn off this life I wanted so much that I was willing to sacrifice anything to achieve it. And beneath the gold there is nothing but base metal.
I left the Seven Dials behind me, and Jemmy, and yet now I think of nothing else. His face is with me when I wake and when I sleep, and I want to go home to him. I want to go home.
I have told the compte that I cannot live with him, that my heart is calling me home. He does not understand and I hardly understand myself. London. The word is like a spinning top in my head, turning around and around, and I will leave tonight. The servants will pack up the house and follow me. I will not return.
The channel crossing has been rough but I do not care. What is a little mal de mer when I am home again? The journey to London is tedious but I cannot sleep. And then the city bursts upon me and my eyes are stinging with tears as I look upon her beloved face. The crowds and the smells and the sounds, those lovely London sounds, bringing the memories back so powerfully that I can hardly breathe.
I see myself running through those streets, holes in my shoes, my hand in Jemmy’s, and I see us clinging together, loving each other, and all the time my face was turned away. My eyes were fixed on the false glitter and I could not see that I already owned the best jewel of all.
And suddenly I ask myself the question that I have not dared to ask before: What if my Jemmy is dead?
Elena is waiting for me at the hotel in St. James’s, and her face is so familiar it makes me ache. “It is good to have you back,” she says, and I know that she means it. She is a seamstress with her own shop, but it is difficult for her. We talk for a time, and then I say, “I must see the Dials.” Her expression tells me that she does not think that it is such a good idea. But I insist, suddenly desperate to see my parents and believing, somehow, that Jemmy will be there, too. That he will have come back from the war and he will be home, like me. For me.
Reluctantly Elena makes the journey with me. The coach fights its way through the narrow streets, and the raucous voices whose cries are like birdsong to me. So long, it has been so long. And then there is my mother, older, her eyes suspicious of the daughter I have become in my fine clothes. My father will not look at me except for little sideways glances, as though he is ashamed of me.
But I do not care.
“Jemmy?” I ask them, ignoring the ache of regret and the burn of anger. “Have you seen him since I left?”
They look at each other and I know then. I know that Jemmy is dead…
The words, when they come, make me strangely lightheaded with relief.
“Young Jemmy’s married, ’appened last month. Nice girl, wheelwright’s daugh’er.”
He is alive. I tell myself that at least he is alive. Does it matter that he belongs to someone else? I tell myself it doesn’t, that I am not greedy for miracles, and yet as I ride in my coach back to the hotel, I know that something inside me has broken.