chapter IV
I T WAS ONLY A LIGHT FEVER. ARTEMISIA FITZ-LEVI had managed to hide it from her family and was now on her way to the Halliday ball, dressed and decorated and dazzling. In the chill of the winter carriage, it was a positive benefit that she felt so hot. The Hallidays were important, their ball was always one of the best of the season, and she was not going to miss it.
When she emerged into the ballroom, her eyes glittering, her face flushed, heads turned to admire her. Young men asked her to dance, asked if they could fetch her a cooling drink. She laughed and flirted with her fan, feeling her head floating high above them all, knowing that she could keep going forever, since if she stopped or sat down for a moment she would collapse. She accepted the dances, accepted the drinks, accepted the compliments and the jealous or inquiring looks of the other nobles’ daughters who were also there to attract a husband of worth.
Seeing that she needed no coaching, Artemisia’s mother had already gone off to find the card tables, her father to find a convivial crew to drink with and observe the gathered beauties. Her particular friend, Lydia Godwin, was traversing the floor with the scion of the house of Lindley, and seemed to be enchanted by the boy. Artemisia looked around for the next arm to take, the next eye to catch. She was relieved not to see the Mad Duke’s nephew, Greg Talbert, anywhere; he had turned out to be a bore after all, despite his ardent admiration and exotic connections. She knew better, now; weeks of experience had taught her that flowery phrases and passionate glances were a minnow a handful. Every man was full of them; it was what came next that mattered. Her eyes darted anxiously. If no one approached her again soon, she would have to make for the haven of Lydia, Lindley or no Lindley; it was beyond impossible for her to stand in the middle of the floor looking as if she had no one to talk to. She bent her head down, carefully adjusted a curl by winding her dark tress around and around her jeweled finger. When she looked up, she was surprised to find her cousin Lucius bearing down on her.
“Cousin!” Lucius Perry kissed her cheek. “My friend Dav has begged for an introduction to the beauty of the evening.”
She thought dear Lucius had had more than a little to drink; that accounted for the rose of his cheeks as well as the fulsomeness of his speech. But young Lord Petrus Davenant was a likely-looking man, with a jaunty eye and nice hair.
“Must all your friends beg you for favors, Lucius?” she teased. “You should be more generous!”
“You note,” her cousin said to Lord Petrus, “she does not demur at being called a beauty!”
“That is because I know how free men are with their compliments, when they cost them nothing.”
“Philosophy.” She felt a strange shiver when the back of Davenant’s hand swept her wrist as if by accident. She was wearing demi-sleeves, whose lace fell to just halfway down her forearm. The ruffles of his cuff had fallen back, exposing a broad hand tufted with wiry hair. “You did not tell me your cousin was one of those learned ladies, Perry.”
“Oh, I assure you, my lord, I never pick up a book except to throw it at my maid!”
Lord Petrus said, “A learned man is merely a bore, a learned woman an abomination.”
She tapped his sleeve with her fan. “You must not be cruel to learned ladies, for I fear they are so because they lack the power to charm and to delight.”
“Only the fair are free to know nothing, then,” observed Lucius Perry, and, bowing, “You will excuse me?”
His place was taken by Lord Terence Monteith, a man who managed to bore without being learned; but he seemed content to stare at her charms while Davenant attempted to delight her with his conversation.
The flashing jewels and fluttering fan, the rippling laughter and high-flung head were attracting other men. Artemisia Fitz-Levi found herself at the heart of a clutch of eligibles, saying anything that came into her head because it all elicited laughter and compliments from well-dressed, well-tended, well-jeweled men.
“The country!” she cried in response to Davenant’s friend Galing. “Don’t speak to me of the country! It is well enough for those who live to be milked two times a day!”
There was an edge to the laughter that surprised her; she must have said something really clever without realizing.
“I know some who do!” said Davenant.
“Well, don’t we all?”
“What does any of us know, compared to the wit and wisdom of this most excellent lady?” a voice said warmly.
The young men’s hilarity flattened out, and they turned like flowers in the sun in the direction of the speaker.
It was the older nobleman from the Godwin dinner who had so admired her spirit and told her so. Lord Ferris, the Crescent Chancellor of the Council of Lords, tall, commanding, still dark-haired despite his years, and dressed with elegant simplicity.
All the men were looking at Lord Ferris, but he was looking at her.
Artemisia felt her cheeks burning. She smiled brilliantly at him, tried to think of something to say that was clever and high-hearted, but her invulnerable feeling of a moment ago was suddenly gone. Her giddiness resolved into dizziness, and she reached out one arm. The crowd parted, and Ferris was miraculously at her side, giving her the support she needed.
“A breath of air, perhaps, my lady?”
“Oh, no—no, thank you. If I might just sit down for a moment….”
“Of course.” He kept up a stream of easy chatter as he guided her off the floor, past people and through them, keeping her on his right side, where he might see her with his good eye: “These endless parties are exhausting—not any given one, to be sure, for all must be equally delightful, but in the aggregate they are enough to send anyone reeling.”
“Oh, but I love parties!” Artemisia rallied.
“Because you are such an ornament to them,” he said smoothly, “as the jewel must love its setting, or the, ah, the pearls in your ear must love the place that shows them off to such advantage.”
His voice was low and silky in her ear. She wondered if he should be speaking to her so; but he was a great nobleman, and more than old enough to know how things should be conducted properly in society.
She tried to say something pertinent. “What can jewels know of love?”
“Indeed.” Lord Ferris seated her in an alcove. “They are love’s servants, and not the thing itself. A wise lady, to know the difference.” He seized a drink from a passing footman and offered it to her. “So you do not love the country, Lady Artemisia?”
“I had rather live in this city than anywhere else on earth.”
“Not everyone agrees with you. But I do. No, I cannot see you buried in the country, raising herbs and children, and waiting for your husband or your eldest son to come home from Council with bolts of cloth and news of how new taxes will affect the estate….”
She shuddered.
“Just so. You must adorn our ballrooms here for many years to come, I think.”
Artemisia smiled. “Thank you, my lord.”
She wanted to hear more, only her head was pounding so. He must have noticed something. “Will you permit me to fetch your shawl?” he asked, and she answered, “Oh, no, it is so very warm. I promised Lord Terence a dance, but I do not think that I could bear it now.”
“You must be protected,” the Crescent Chancellor said, “from such as Lord Terence, to be sure. Ah! Here is your mother. Lady Fitz-Levi is your surest bulwark. Madam, your daughter has given so much of her charm and beauty for the delight of the company, I fear she has little strength left to sustain herself.”
“Curious,” said her mother; “dear Artemisia is so seldom tired or weak. I assure you, my lord, she has never given us a moment’s worry.”
I N THE CARRIAGE, HER MOTHER HUGGED HER AND THEN shook her. “What do you mean, languishing in front of Lord Ferris like that? Do you want to get a reputation as a vaporish miss? No man wants a sickly wife!”
“No, Mama,” she said, too tired and ill to try to explain how well the rest of the evening had gone. Her mother would surely hear of it from the other girls’ mothers. “But he said I was a jewel and an ornament, Mama.”
“He is a man of very good address,” said Lady Fitz-Levi. “He married late, but Ferris has always had a way with women.”
“I did not know that he was married, Mama.”
“She died, poor thing, and his heir with her. Sickly, both of them. So you see where that gets you, miss!”
But her mama was pleased enough when the flowers began to arrive the next morning: lilies from Petrus Davenant, chrysanthemums from an anonymous admirer, more mums from Terence Monteith, even a bunch of carnations from her cousin Lucius. And from Lord Ferris, a great bunch of white roses.