chapter II

I T WOULD HAVE BEEN CHURLISH, WHEN LYDIA GODWIN received an offer of marriage from Lord Armand Lindley, for her dear friend Artemisia to be anything but delighted at her friend’s good fortune. With the Godwin and Lindley families’ glowing approval, they were quickly betrothed and a wedding date set for the spring. But Lady Artemisia had always believed she herself would be the first to capture a husband, and she had to be careful not to think of that while congratulating Lydia and listening to her endless plans for the future. Of course, Lydia vowed a hundred times a day that even marriage to the sweetest man alive would never alter her eternal bond with her dearest Mi.

So said Lydia as they sat together in Artemisia’s window seat, dark and fair curls bent over the scraps of ribbon she had brought so that her friend could help her decide what colors she should trim the table with for her betrothal dinner. But the young lady was sensitive enough to note when her friend began to tire of the details of her upcoming nuptials, and she leaned back in the window seat and said encouragingly, “Now come, tell me about your suitors.”

Artemisia crunched a biscuit. “What suitors?” If she could not be a blushing betrothed, it would be best to take on the air of someone much wearied with the follies of courtship. “It is all very tedious. I go to dances, I receive flowers, but there is no one who touches my heart.”

“But surely there must be one—what about Greg Talbert? He is poor, but of ancient lineage and utterly mad for you.”

“Oh, him.” Artemisia rolled her eyes in what she trusted was a jaded way. “Last week’s news, my dear. All talk, no action.”

Her friend hissed in delighted horror. “You don’t mean that!”

Artemisia lowered her eyelids. She had seen Lady Hetley doing that, and thought it looked very sophisticated. “Do I not?”

“Well, then, what about Lord Ferris? He’s certainly been paying you marked attention.”

Artemisia shrieked. “As a lover? But he is so old!” She recollected her sophistication and smiled wryly. “He has polish, I’ll give him that. And he’s sent the most adorable roses—here, smell.”

“Mmm, lovely.” Lydia buried her face in the blossoms. “Expensive, too. Well, then—Terence Monteith?”

“Snowdrops.” Her friend gestured.

“Even so…it’s clear he’s vastly taken with you.”

She yawned. “Oh, he’s pretty enough, but a terrible bore. Besides, what are the Monteiths? He is only a second son; what can he offer a wife? He’ll be back to the country as soon as he’s found one, to manage his brother’s estate. I want a city life, and jewels, and gowns. How I envy you your Lindley, dearest!”

Lydia blushed. “Hardly mine. But I would not care were Armand as poor as a goatherd. I think I could live with him anywhere, if I could just feel his strong arm around me, and look into his eyes and know he loves me.”

“There.” Artemisia sighed. “That is true love. I believe it has made a woman of you already, Lydia, indeed I do. Your eyes—yes, there is a grave beauty in them that was never there before.” She took her friend’s face in her hands. “How I envy you!”

“Oh, dearest Mi.”

Lady Artemisia’s maid interrupted these girlish confidences with the news that her father required her immediate presence in the morning room. And so the friends were forced to part, with mutual assurance of future consultations.

T HE MORNING ROOM CONTAINED BOTH FITZ-LEVI parents. Artemisia made her curtseys, and wondered frantically what she might have done wrong this time. They could not possibly have found out about the parrot. If they had, she’d kill her maid, truly she would.

“Daughter,” her papa said, “there’s very good news for you.” Not the parrot, then. Maybe her dress bill had been lower than she thought, or the shoemaker had lost her receipts. “Anthony Deverin, Lord Ferris, Crescent Chancellor of the Council of Lords, has asked our permission to pay his addresses to you, and if you agree, we’ll begin the thing at once.”

Artemisia felt the room grow exceedingly hot, and the next thing she knew, she was sitting on the couch, smelling spirits of hartshorne.

“There, Fitz,” her mother said, “I knew you’d make a botch of it.” Lady Fitz-Levi took her hand. “Listen, child, one of the most important nobles in the city wants to make you the mother of his heirs and mistress of his establishment. There’s not a girl in town but will be sick with envy. (Nor a mother, neither, I’ll warrant!) You let him pay his court to you, and we’ll make certain Lord Ferris makes a very decent settlement and allowance on you: all the dresses you want, shoes, jewels, gloves—and the houses, of course, furnished to your liking. Your dowry is nothing to sneeze at, and we mean you to live properly. You’ll be one of the first ladies of the city, right after Lady Godwin, what do you think of that?” Artemisia managed to smile. “Lording it even over your friend Lydia and the rest of that family, how’s that, then?”

Artemisia drew in what felt like her first full breath of air. “Yes, Mama. Thank you, Mama.”

Her father leaned over the back of the couch. “How about a kiss for your dear papa, then? Pretty chit, I don’t know how he could resist you—Of course, he couldn’t, could he? Ha ha!”

Her father smelt of whiskey and barber’s scent. Lord Ferris, she thought, was possibly even older. But contrary to her father’s cozy sloppiness, Ferris was lean and fastidious; elegant, even. He was always dressed to the fashion, and knew exactly what to say.

Her mother picked up a flat box from the sideboard and brandished it in front of her. “He left you a gift, miss, and not only flowers this time.”

Artemisia took the box and opened it.

A necklace nestled in the velvet folds: a delicate collar, designed just right for a young girl’s daily wear, in the very latest style. But the twisted web was gold, the dangling jewels sapphires.

For the most exquisite woman in the city, the note with it said, with the heart of Anthony Deverin, Lord Ferris.

Artemisia breathed in her gilded fate. She wondered what Lydia would say.