Chapter 10

Kit abided the great Johan Gustav Svensson's studio parties only when the night was clear and the big double doors stood open, framing the moon-silvered bay. On those clear nights, the beauty of the view compensated—slightly—for the myriad irritations of the company.

In the foreground, the harbor, a shadowy forest of masts. In the distance, a lonely herring boat tacking round the point, or just the lighthouse, shining.

Tonight, there was nothing to see. Rain fell in sheets. The doors were closed, the windows shuttered. He could look at the art, of course. Svensson's paintings garnered the highest praise from academies all over Europe. He was the most important artist to take up residence in St. Ives, according to him, and to anyone who wanted to curry his favor.

Kit didn't look at the art. He looked at Ponsonby, who was standing with a posse of Svensson's admirers in front of one of the enormous exhibition paintings—easily nine feet high and nearly twice as wide.

Always a bit of a hanger-on, Ponsonby. Good-hearted but too eager to belong. Fame dazzled him. He'd begged Kit to attend this evening's gathering, but he seemed content to mingle on his own, swilling Swedish punch and laughing along to overheard jokes.

Bored, Kit circulated, an exercise in futility. Nothing to see, and no one he cared to talk to. Forty or so loud men, Bernhard and Takada not among them. The hot, smoky air stank of creosote and sweat. He found Ponsonby in the back of the studio, refilling his glass of punch.

"You're not enjoying yourself?" he asked.

"You say that like I shouldn't be enjoying myself." Ponsonby ladled punch into a second glass and pushed it into Kit's hand. "You never missed one of Burgess's salons." He meant Augustus Burgess, Gwen's older brother, onetime enfant terrible of the London art world. "How is this different?"

Kit set the glass down on the table. "You don't notice a difference?"

Ponsonby darted an uneasy glance around him. "Superficial differences. But essentially, with both, you have coveys of artists surrounded by art. Artists discussing art, complaining about art, making controversial claims about art. Everything you love best."

"Ponsonby," Kit growled. "There aren't any women."

"Women, ho!" The exclamation came from right behind him. "Who said women?"

A moment later, O'Brien, Craik, and Landon swarmed the table. The three mop-haired marine painters were Svensson's particular pets. Kit found them particularly obnoxious.

"Where are the women?" Craik jostled O'Brien in a failed bid for the punch bowl.

"Not here, which is my point." Kit stepped back to avoid their elbows. "A woman would get herself killed on the steps."

"Maidens fair," slurred O'Brien dreamily, sloshing punch into his glass. "They'd faint and tumble down."

"The problem isn't that they'd faint." Kit met O'Brien's glassy eyes, aware that he was wasting his breath. "The problem is their dress. You can't manage so long and steep a stair with skirts around your ankles, not without some kind of railing. I've suggested a rope." Kit frowned. "Svensson has yet to act."

"Bollocks." Craik burped it. "I'll tell him. We want women."

"It's not about what you want. It's about women having the option to come and go without risk to life and limb if they want." Kit slapped Craik on the back, hard.

Landon was grinning at Ponsonby. "You mended that fence the other day. Next time you should grab one of those dairymaids and prop a gate. Follow me? Prop a gate. Propagate."

Ponsonby chuckled.

"Nothing to grab in this room but our own pricks," grumbled Craik. "Svensson should have listened to Griffith. Chap's got the right idea."

"Grabbing women's not the idea," said Kit flatly. Landon and Craik exchanged a look.

"Someone needs a good frig," muttered Landon. Craik tittered.

A bead of ceiling plaster dropped into the punch bowl with a splash.

O'Brien startled, and the other men fairly screamed with laughter.

Kit turned to Ponsonby. He was laughing too, his face flushed with heat and drink and mirth.

"Enjoy," said Kit, and stalked off.

He'd reached the top of the stairs before Ponsonby caught up to him.

"Griff, wait."

"Why?" He stopped, looking down the precipitous flight. "You can carry on without me."

"Stay for cards? I'll get a game going."

"I'm tired."

"You're not tired. You're narked, I can tell. Out with it. What have I done?"

"I am bloody tired." Kit scrubbed a hand across his eyes. "It's what you didn't do."

"Didn't do? What should I have done? Barked at that chappie back there because he made a salty pun? Griff, if that's what you think, maybe you don't understand about chappies."

Now Kit laughed, the sound harsh. "Maybe I don't." He started down the stairs.

"Griff."

He twisted, at his own peril. Ponsonby was silhouetted above him.

"This is what you wanted." Ponsonby gripped the walls, leaning forward. "To be, you know, one of us. But chappies act like chappies. Around chappies, that is. So if you're with us, as a chappie—"

"Enlightening." Kit cut him off. "Don't get too sozzled. Chappie or no, these steps can break your neck."

He resumed his descent.

It was raining too hard to bicycle home, not without fortification. Kit slouched into the Smack, feeling fouler than the night.

This is what you wanted.

Ponsonby's words rattled in his skull. He shed his dripping hat and coat and shouldered to the bar, ordered a whiskey, then another. The liquor burned down his throat.

This is what you wanted.

He ordered a third whiskey and sipped it, his eyes roaming the dim room. Fishermen in sou'westers and oilskins drank six-penny ale at the small, sticky tables. No women here either. A few slumming tourists were inspecting the paintings on the walls, gifts to the landlord from artist patrons. Gifts, or in some cases, attempts at payment.

The whiskey sent his mind roaming too.

He was four or five, lying in the grass alongside his nursemaid in Regent's Park, the two of them watching the young gallants ride by, so big and splendid on their stallions. His nursemaid was sighing. What lovely, lovely gents. And the gallant on the bay tossed them a wink as he passed. Kit had felt his own heart thunder with the hooves. There was nothing complicated about that moment. He'd twinkled with recognition, knowing he'd glimpsed his future self. He didn't wonder how he'd grow up to cut such a figure. Or what it would mean.

By the time he realized that his moody stare had settled on one of the tourists, the tourist was staring back.

The man's glossy hair was blacker than his suit, and gleams of light traversed its waves when he tilted his head to smile. His teeth were very white.

Kit looked away, perhaps too late to avoid misunderstanding. When he'd first slipped out of his parents' house at fifteen, in clothing filched from his middle brother's wardrobe, he'd anticipated ecstatic freedom from men's gazes. On the street, in the Burlington Arcade, everywhere, he was shocked to discover more clinging eyes. He soon learned that he was seen not as a boyish girl but as a girlish boy, one of the mary-anns who worked in the alleys and lavatories, and in certain hotels. Thus began his education in the ways of the other West End, which had always existed, invisibly, all around him.

He was older now, and rougher, with calloused hands and broader shoulders, arms and legs thickened by years of training with shot-loaded dumbbells. Less appealing to men who sought effeminate lovers. More appealing to many others.

He tried to let his male admirers down gently.

He hoped tonight it wouldn't be necessary.

His fingers tightened on the tumbler in front of him. The rim sported a smudge he couldn't associate with his own mouth. He pushed it away and dropped his head into his hands.

Tomorrow. Tomorrow he'd ask Sally McDermott to accompany him on that blasted bicycle tour. Unless—hadn't she mentioned a sketching trip to the Somme?

Bloody hell. No Sally. Too bad, but there were other possibilities. Except—worse—he didn't have the sense to pursue them. Even now, his thoughts had begun to circle again around Muriel Pendrake.

She was too forthright to carry off a lie. Her angry blushes gave her away. She hadn't hired an artist, of that he was certain. What if he convinced Takada to devote a few days to her illustrations? She might feel grateful enough to renew her offer to ride. She might think more highly of him.

He shifted uncomfortably, and the barstool gave a derisive creak.

He stood to lose his bicycle shop, a considerable investment, his only financial security, given his increasing distance from both his family and his artistic livelihood. Winning this silly wager was a serious imperative. It behooved him to act accordingly. He should have begun training with a new partner yesterday. Instead, he was dragging his heels, revolving fantasies in the back of his mind. Fantasies that featured a woman with penny-bright hair. A woman who happened to loathe him.

A new thought nettled. This preoccupation—it wasn't because Muriel loathed him? Because he so disliked the thought of her dislike? He would feel gratified if he managed to convince her that he wasn't a villain, and that she was swimming, needlessly, against a current of mutual attraction. But he was entirely capable of letting her go, letting her swim off, low opinion unchanged. No, this wasn't about his ego, or his physical desire. He'd fixated for a different reason.

If she rode with him, the wager was as good as won. She herself had guaranteed it, and he believed her. She was all mettle.

He was slow to interpret the pressure at his side, someone leaning next to him at the bar. Lips brushed his ear.

"You're a pretty fellow. Are you as pretty down here?"

As the man whispered, he slid his hand over Kit's thigh. Kit grabbed a thick wrist before the groping fingers reached his groin.

"You've mistaken me," he murmured, turning his head. It was the tourist, of course. A man of middle years, a pretty fellow in his own right, with that thick black hair and luminous smile.

"I don't think so." The man spoke playfully, but with more heat in his voice. "Another inch will tell if you feel as I do. We'll see how it stands."

His fingers crept forward.

Kit plucked his hand away, the movement forceful but discreet.

"Better luck elsewhere," he said. The man froze and went deadly pale. Kit could read his expression all too well: the displeasure of rejection mingling with the fear of exposure.

He offered a smile. After a moment, the man took it, with a slight nod, and faded back into the depths of the room.

His departure revealed the presence of a second man, who must have approached the bar during the hushed exchange.

James Raleigh.

Kit rose, his eyes on Raleigh's face, which showed exactly how much he'd understood.

Everything.

As though they shared a single mind, he and Raleigh turned and headed toward the exit, stopping in the shadowy passage that led upstairs to the rooms for let.

"You're not a rake. You're a renter." Raleigh's tone was neutral.

Kit shook his head, which sent a twinge down his neck. Every muscle had gone rigid.

"I'm not a renter, in fact," he said. He paused. "You seem familiar with the type."

If Raleigh had pegged him for a male prostitute, it revealed as much, or more, about him.

Raleigh propped a shoulder on the wall. "All right. I'm a sod. Aren't you?"

The wind threw rain against the dark window glass, which rattled the panes like a handful of pebbles. What a filthy night.

"No," Kit sighed. "That fellow mistook me. Wishful thinking. It's not uncommon." He winked, a gallant's wink. "I appeal to all."

The set of Raleigh's jaw seemed to dispute the claim.

"Look," he said, low. "I think of Muriel as my sister. Tell me. What's your game? Do you also fancy women?"

"I only fancy women."

Raleigh's frown was skeptical. "I won't ask if you fancy Muriel."

"Dr. Raleigh," drawled Kit. "I'm beginning to think there's nothing you won't ask."

Raleigh gave him a grudging, sheepish look.

"Touché," he muttered. "Fancy whoever you please." He turned his gaze up to the low ceiling. "Well. This is awkward. Should we introduce a new conversational topic or go our separate ways?"

"Did you come out tonight for conversation?" Kit raised his brows. "Or were you looking for a lark? If the latter, that fellow at the bar didn't seem a bad sort."

"Good grief." Raleigh started, then laughed. "You're in earnest."

"Always. I'm particularly earnest about irony. Makes me feel modern."

"You're not offended, then, by my erotic dispensation? Or my suggestion that you shared it?"

"No." Kit smiled wryly. The tension in his neck and shoulders eased. "The social order offends me. Most theology. The doctrine of separate spheres." He ticked on his fingers as he talked. "Reviews of novels that spoil the effect of the plot. Overcooked carrots julienne. I'll leave it at one hand. You get the idea."

"Overcooked carrots. A true abomination." Raleigh wore a thoughtful expression. "I did worry, though, for a moment. I don't usually announce my proclivities."

"Of course not. We are meant to act as though certain desires don't exist. And yet society is set up to regulate or repress them, which rather proves the opposite. It wouldn't be illegal for men to kiss each other if some didn't want to do it."

Raleigh made a noise in his throat. "Our lawmakers all spooned together at Eton."

"It's not illegal for women to kiss each other," Kit continued slowly. "To make it a crime for women to kiss women would be to admit, publicly, that women kiss women, and that women kissing women is sometimes a matter of sex, not friendship. Erasure, not prohibition. Different but related tactics."

Raleigh's expression grew more thoughtful still. "The medical literature on sexual anomaly contains far fewer case histories of women."

"Because it's less common? Or because the doctors are men?"

"You sound like Muriel." Raleigh's mouth quirked. "The claim is that sexual inversion is a variation in the species, analogous to color blindness, or color hearing. Men have more variability, biologically, and so there are more male inverts."

Kit snorted. "The same argument is used to support the idea that there are more male geniuses. Biology can stuff itself."

Raleigh blinked, bemused. "As a man of science, I wouldn't go so far as that."

It had to be the whiskey that prompted Kit's next words, or some confessional quality possessed by the quiet alcove, combined with the fact that Raleigh had already confessed himself.

"As someone who wasn't raised to become a man," said Kit, "I would."

He held Raleigh's gaze, until a light kindled in the doctor's eyes.

"I don't particularly care what the medical literature has to say," he went on. "I've read some of it myself. I've read that female inverts are mannish. But I used to belong to a ladies' club in the West End convened by sapphists with perfumed skin and waist-length tresses and elaborate taste in corsetry. I've known toms who pass as men and others who pair dinner jackets with skirts in mixed company. Some women from the laboring classes put on trousers to get work. They might feel the trousers suit them, or simply that starving doesn't. There's nothing but variety. Is my friend Ponsonby's masculinity real while mine is an imitation?" Kit realized he'd swerved, that his speech had devolved into a tirade, but the venting came as sweet relief. "I swear to God he's been imitating me for years."

"Ponsonby." Raleigh hadn't looked away. "Your charming squire. That's what he called himself, when we were repairing that fence. Your squire, I mean. I added the charming. He was rather."

Kit grunted. "He has his moments."

"You of all people shouldn't dismiss medical literature. Sexology is a burgeoning field." Raleigh pushed off the wall and came toward Kit. "It demonstrates that anomalies are as natural as the norm, and that moves us closer to social acceptance."

"But the norm itself isn't natural, but rather customary. We're accustomed to dividing everyone into male and female, absolutely." Kit rocked on his heels. "And from what I've read, that's how the doctors describe inversion as well, in terms of those two categories. I'm saying we're more approximate. Not only the sods and the toms and the sapphists—everyone."

Raleigh tilted his head, musing. "You're saying the whole system of classification needs to change."

"I suppose I am." Kit stilled. "Discuss that with your sexologists."

"I'll have to brush up on my German." Raleigh folded his arms. "But I just might."

They looked at each other, the companionable pause rattling with more rain.

Kit sighed and pushed back his hair. "I hope you did come to the Smack for conversation. Otherwise, I can't imagine the disappointment."

"I'm not disappointed. This has been interesting, to say the least." Raleigh took out his watch. "And now it's late. I should head back to the hotel, in case Muriel tries to drag me out of bed before the sun. Unless…" He dropped the watch back into his pocket. "A drink?"

"One drink." Kit turned. "I'm buying."

An hour later, they were both slumped over the bar, laughing about nothing they could remember.

"Do I have a chance?" Kit wheezed. It was likely a non sequitur, so he clarified. "A chance with Muriel?"

Raleigh nodded emphatically. "No."

"Was that a yes or a no?"

"Let me think." Raleigh put his tumbler to his temple. "Yes, no. You don't. Not a bloody chance." He started laughing again.

"Because…" Kit slumped further. "Because of what I told you."

"What? No, because she thinks you're a lazy, heartless, selfish, promiscuous blackguard whose talent finds its primary outlet in the torture of cats."

"I don't entirely understand the accusation." Kit wasn't sure he wanted to. "But I plan to make amends. I'm going to find her an artist."

"You should paint the seaweed," said Raleigh frankly. "If you want a chance."

"I cannot." Kit's words had begun to slur, so he pronounced each consonant. "It is beyond my power."

"At the moment I should say so." Raleigh put his hand in Kit's face and wiggled his fingers. "Neither would I wield a scalpel."

Kit batted at the hand, focused his eyes on Raleigh, and frowned. It was a bit frightening to get pissed with a man who fiddled in people's brains.

"Sober up," he commanded.

Raleigh turned his wiggling fingers into a signal to the barkeep. "Did she tell you why she wants the illustrations?"

"She wants them for her lecture."

"For her lecture," repeated Raleigh. "But there's more to it. She's a plant hunter. Knows loads about trees, shrubs, flowers—plants from all around the globe that people want to grow or use. Some American botanists—women, by the way—invited her to talk about her expertise. But then the patronizing tosser in charge told her she had to talk instead about the love of seaweed, as promulgated by Mrs. Alfred Gatty, an amateur algologist. Algologist. Algologist? It twists the tongue. Algologist. God. Where was I? The tosser. He did it to put Muriel in her place."

Even through his stupor, Kit felt a spark of anger on Muriel's behalf. Various profanities muddled on his tongue.

"Gah," he said.

"Exactly. She's incensed. And she's going to say so, during the lecture. Cheers."

The barkeep was refilling their tumblers.

"Why, then?" Kit laid a shilling on the bar. "Why the illustrations?"

"She wants to do what she was asked to do first, impeccably and impressively and inoffensively. For credibility. So it's more difficult for people to dismiss her as a raving termagant when she makes it rain fire at the end."

"She doesn't need paintings for that."

"I agree. But she thinks she does. Your paintings in particular. That watercolor—it's what gave her the idea. It has acquired for her a talismanic significance. The premise is misguided, but the cause is noble. To hell with patronizing tossers!" Raleigh lifted his glass. It left a sparkling trail in the air.

Kit shut his eyes. The darkness kept sparkling. To hell with patronizing tossers. His own bloody credo.

Only he couldn't paint the seaweed himself.

He couldn't paint anything.

He could try.

And fail.

Or…

Maybe he wouldn't fail. Maybe this was exactly the inducement he needed. Eyes still shut, he lifted his own glass and waited for the clink.