A Christmas Gathering by Anne Perry

Author:Anne Perry
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
Published: 2019-11-05T00:00:00+00:00

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Vespasia stood in the corner of the long gallery. It was a good place to be alone, while appearing to be engaged in looking at the portraits, mostly of Amelia’s ancestors, going back to the Civil War two hundred and fifty years ago. They were colorful pictures. Artists loved painting the cavaliers—those aristocrats on the king’s side—as handsome; romantic; with long curling hair and hats with feathers, almost plumes; and of course lots of lace at the throat. The detail was ravishingly beautiful. And the cavaliers lost, which made them even more romantic. The roundheads were all plain and grim, with polished body armor that reflected the light in interesting ways. They were pompous, humorless, and self-righteous and had wonderful names like Praise-God Barebones. Imagine addressing a child as Praise-God! They had to be humorless, or they would have tripped over themselves laughing! They won. No romance in that. Except for a satirist, perhaps? Vespasia felt there was a mine of ironic humor there, largely unexplored, to do with imposed religion and laughter: humor based upon the absurd.

But Amelia’s ancestors had not run to satire. One eighteenth-century gentleman wore an expression as if he had bitten into a lemon, and carried the name Blessed Barbon. A descendant of Barebones, maybe? Various other ancestors had gained their lands and titles for service to Charles II, who was wise enough not to take revenge on those who had overthrown the monarchy and executed his father, Charles I. The Restoration was a time for the return of music, theater, dancing.

There was great wisdom in allowing people to laugh.

Vespasia realized she was deliberately escaping the present, and that had to stop. Narraway had not told her what he had been doing in the night, or what connection he had to Iris or the attack on her. However, it was apparent to Vespasia that it was extremely important to him. She assumed he would explain in time; and until then she must forget her own anxieties, the fear of being boring to him already or at least insufficient to feed his intelligence and the dreams that she knew lay deeper inside him than he had allowed anyone else to go. She must help him, blindly, if that was the only way open to her.

Who was Iris, more than a pretty young woman with a husband more interesting than he seemed at first? Who had attacked her, and why? Who was she to Narraway? Why had a couple so much younger than the rest of the guests been invited to this party at all?

No one had mentioned a family relationship. And there seemed no professional connection. Cavendish was a country gentleman with a marvelous estate, who sometimes dabbled in politics, possibly more than was visible in his easygoing manner.

Vespasia tried to recall all that she knew of him, but it was really no more than the tragedy of his first wife, Genevieve, hardly ever referred to. Cavendish had married again, although some time after that.

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