Read Online The American Heiress by Daisy Goodwin - Free Book Online

Lord alone knows what twisted Papist fancies are at work. Oh, don’t worry, Mrs Cash,’ said Odo, seeing the expression on her face. ‘It’s a very old Catholic family, they’re not converts. No, I think the Duke is having money troubles. Lulworth is a huge estate but rents are down. Duchess Fanny spent every penny and more on entertaining Tum Tum, and then old Wareham and poor Guy died so close together, which meant paying death duties twice.’ Mrs Cash assumed that Tum Tum was the Prince of Wales, and that this was a nickname that, as a foreigner, she would not be safe in using.
    Odo was still speaking. ‘No wonder Ivo is lying low. Shame really, because what he needs is a nice rich wife. Who knows, Mrs Cash, perhaps you will spirit him back to Newport and find him a lovely young heiress? She’ll have to be beautiful, though. Ivo is very particular.’
    Mrs Cash was deciding how to reply when a small hubbub erupted at the other end of the table. Charlotte Beauchamp, who had been fingering the choker of black pearls around her throat, had inadvertently touched upon a weak link in the stringing, and the necklace snapped, the pearls exploding across the table, rattling across plates and ricocheting off the crystal glasses. Charlotte, making a sound somewhere between a shriek and a laugh, was trying to recover the pearls as nonchalantly as she could. The Rural Dean found one in his claret and embarked on a long-winded allusion to Cleopatra’s dinner with Antony.
    ‘She said she would give him a priceless dinner, so he was very surprised to be given indifferent food and then Cleopatra took off one of her pearl earrings, dropped it into her glass of wine where it dissolved and she offered him the glass to drink. What a magnificent gesture. I can’t claim to be Antony of course but, my dear Lady Beauchamp, you are surely a modern Cleopatra.’ The Dean stopped, rather amazed at where his unexpected eloquence had taken him.
    Charlotte was busy trying to retrieve the pearl with a teaspoon when her husband called out, ‘I hope, Dean, that you are not suggesting that my wife should have herself delivered to you in a carpet, the better to seduce you. You really mustn’t put such fancies in her head.’
    The Dean looked rather pleased with himself. ‘Age cannot wither, nor custom stale her infinite variety.’
    ‘Eighteen, nineteen, twenty,’ said Charlotte as she counted the pearls rolling about on her dinner plate. ‘Only one missing. Is it in your waistcoat pocket, Dean, I wonder?’
    ‘I will ask Druitt to have a thorough search afterwards,’ said Lady Bridport hastily, alarmed equally by the thought of Charlotte going through the Dean’s pockets as by the Dean’s willingness to quote Shakespeare at a civilised dinner party. She rose and gave the signal for the ladies to withdraw.

    When Odo went to visit his wife’s bedroom later that evening, he found her in her peignoir at the dressing table. He noted the blue veins that threaded her slender arms as she pulled the silver hairbrush through her long fair hair. Cleopatra was altogether too coarse an image for Charlotte, he thought. She had the head of an Italian Renaissance beauty. When he had last been in London, Snoad the dealer had shown him a painting by the Sienese painter Martini of Bianca Saracini. She had long fair hair and a high forehead like Charlotte’s, in her hand she held a snowball to signify her purity. He must have Charlotte painted, although he could think of no one who could do her justice. Meanwhile, he would buy the Martini and give it to Charlotte for her birthday. She liked presents.
    ‘I’m sorry about your necklace, Charlotte. Such an exotic colour. Have I seen it before?’
    Charlotte’s hair flickered in a sudden storm of static. Odo took the brush from her and began to brush it himself. He liked to pacify it into a shining sheet. Charlotte flinched and avoided his eyes in the mirror as she said, ‘It belonged to my great-aunt