by Edith Layton
Now, as she watched him stride past her so as to take Cecily Deems into his arms, she realized he had been toying with her, of course, amusing himself cruelly, like the great cat he resembled might when bored, never thinking of her as an equal in anywise, but only as his rightful prey. Perhaps the most bitter realization she came to as she watched him waltz with his chosen lady, the one that finally made her turn her head away, was that however angry she might be at him, she had to admit it had been her own need that had sent her into his arms, her own loneliness and fear that had seduced her as effectively as his talents had almost done.
Still, “almost” was the word to fasten on, she remembered, lifting her chin, since “almost” never hanged a man, or compromised a woman, however foolishly she’d behaved. And she almost succeeded in believing this as she stood and continued to watch the gala ball swirl on around her.
Arden waltzed with Cecily, Julian danced by with Roxanne, the Deemses stood at the sidelines and congratulated themselves with identical knowing smiles. Only her own father was absent. He, of course, was still in the gaming rooms somewhere in Paris tonight, even as they were, but as he’d gleefully whispered to her before he’d left the coach they’d all come in, he was going to dance only after he’d built their fortunes higher, as he was sure to do this night.
They’d all been asked to this ball, finding the cards of invitation on their breakfast trays, not because, as the Deemses assumed, they were friends of a baron and a viscount and a man-about-the-ton, but, as Francesca suspected, because they could afford the rates at their hotel. So far as she could discern, for all its splendor, the only entrée necessary for this ball aside from a title was a full purse. Because although the ball was held in a grand ballroom in the heart of Paris, in a home that had belong to a duc, then a citizen, now a descendant of a duc again, it was as widely attended and as various a company as any she’d ever heard of at one of London’s scandalous public subscription masquerades. Those well-advertised, well-attended occasions were where she’d heard that the nobility, disguised in every meaning of the word, consorted with the common herd, and masked commoners also became elevated in many several ways. Although drunkenness was not so obvious tonight, the costumes she saw before her were almost as fanciful as at any masquerade, for all that they’d been meant to be fashionable. Since persons of all ages, ranks, and financial circumstances were crowded into the room together, the effect was more motley than a la mode, and there was just as strange a mixture of classes as costumes.
A varied lot had been invited, from the ranks of the new regime, the old regime, and any regime that looked possible in future, including any wealthy visitors to France. These turbulent days, no one was sure who ought to be invited, only that it was prudent to exclude no one who might be, or become, important. Napoleon was gone, the king had returned, but nothing was certain except for money and power, and to judge from the past, even those two constants were remarkably inconstant. Here, Francesca thought as a merry young gentleman took his polite refusal from her with good grace, even a chaperone might be invited to dance, and invited to more, of course, she thought wretchedly, by a gentleman in the dark and in secret.
That was why she indignantly turned her back upon the waiter who seemed to be trying to signal to her from across the room. Because, she thought, it might be that her situation was clear to persons of the male gender from any rank, and she might as well be being enticed by a waiter as by a gambler or a gentleman. But when she saw Arden Lyons chatting comfortably with the Deemses as Cecily stood by, blushing and radiant, for all the world as though her papa were a minister, her mama a maid of honor and she were being wed to the large gentleman as she stood at his side, Francesca spun round once again, and so almost collided with the waiter, now bearing a tray of napery.
“Madame,” he whispered as he appeared to be adjusting the tray on his shoulder, “please, there is a gentleman who wishes to see you. Now and at once. In the garden. If you please, madame, he says it is of utmost urgency. Vite! C’est important!” he whispered harshly, abandoning his labored English before he bowed and made off into the crowd again.
She thought of her father. He was the only man left who might have something important to impart to her, for he was the only one she trusted now. He held her future in his two hands, along with his new fortune and whatever cards he was dealt, she thought in fearful acknowledgment of the tenuousness of that future. If he were physically hurt or in danger, there’d be no need for secrecy; that he summoned her alone into the dark terrified her. She raised the hem of her skirt and rushed from the room, ignoring a footman who pointed out the ladies’ withdrawing room to her. She asked instead for the location of the garden. He grew a shadow of a smile at that. Ladies, after all, did not seek out the gardens at balls except for purposes most unladylike, but reluctantly remembering his place as he ogled her, he bowed and pointed out the long door at the end of the hall, and the torch-lit gardens beyond.
There was a small flight of steps leading from the terrace, and then narrow paths circling a few trees in tentative bud, several shrubs and benches, and a great many white marble statues. In the leaping torchlight she could see there were also several shapes that could only be couples perambulating and whispering together in the darkness, and other shapes that could only be couples, interlocked, saying nothing but sighs.
Her slippers made little sound as she stepped out on the flags, and it was so secretive there in the cool, murmurous night that she gasped when she felt a light touch on her arm.
“Please,” Harry said softly, “say nothing,” and led her by that one touch down the path and to one side, and through a gate, until they stood outside the garden in a darkness lit only by the moon, as were her eyes with tears. But these were tears of indignation.
At first she’d been frightened, and then her instant reaction had been one of joy at seeing him again. He stood before her in his neat evening clothes, his familiar, long-remembered, and loved face so full of concern that she longed to forget the present as well as the future. But then she grew uneasy with all the things she hadn’t come to terms with, and frightened of everything she denied. And so, trying to deny all, she grew angry at last.
“What is this?” she whispered furiously. “I have a position I must fulfill. Do you mean to have me lose it?”
“I’ve come to tell you it appears that you have already lost it, if not more. If you can’t open your eyes to the truth, Fancy, I must do it for you. I was going to leave you time to think, but then I discovered you’ve been doing far more active things than that,” he said coldly, and when she fell completely silent, guilty and amazed that he could have known of her one transgression, he nodded, and went on with bitter satisfaction, “The nights have as many eyes as stars. Think of that next time you steal out for a secret embrace, my dear.”
But now her anger overcame her shame. Her meeting with Arden might not have been correct behavior, but neither was his spying upon her. She’d not let herself think too much about Harry since yesterday; there were too many dreadful, profound things to take in all at once in what he’d said. And Arden had chased all those thoughts away; in fact, she wondered if she’d not welcomed him as much for doing just that as for himself. That thought alone made her feel stronger now.
But there was still, at the surface, her new anger toward Harry, for he’d betrayed her as well as his country. She’d grieved for a man not dead, and rejoiced at his living, only to realize, at once, before all else, before any thoughts of his cowardice or lack of honor came to bedevil her, that however he’d survived, he had, and yet hadn’t sought her in the year since his supposed death. Not yet daring to contemplate the fact of his desertion entirely, she seized upon the simplest hurt: he’d only found her out by accident, the accident of her weak and sentimental gesture in taking on his name, the name of the man she’d mourned in all innocence, and in all innocence, loved. And that man, surely, was dead.
“You’ve no right to lecture me!” she hi
ssed at him.
And he, who hadn’t sought her in that year because he’d been thinking only and ever of what he’d done that June day, as he’d done and tried not to do since that day until he’d heard her name again, looked at her again and saw a new reason to live, a new cause to continue outside of himself, and so contained his temper.
“No,” he said calmly, “I have not. Except that I can’t help it, Fancy. Someone must care for you. Your father won’t, you know, and Arden Lyons certainly will not.”
“I know that,” she said furiously, knowing more than that, “he’s a beast. Perhaps the greatest beast in nature. I’m well aware of that. Have you come to tell me that? Then you’re far too late.”
When he only stared at her steadily in the darkness, her face grew red as she heard her own words echo in her ears and she added haughtily, “Not that late, of course. Unless you call a stolen kiss a lady’s virtue.”
“No,” he said, enormously relieved at her denial of the other man, as well as of any further intimacies with him. “No,” he said, “I know you better, my love,” he lied, for he did not. “But what shall you do when you lose your position when he weds the rich little cit you’re employed to protect?” he asked. “And what shall you do when-you lose your position as well as your good name when he lures you to an indiscretion again? What shall you do alone, Fancy? For I swear you haven’t anyone but me.”
She shook her head, but before she could deny him as well, he spoke again.
“I may not be what you’d dreamed when we were young, but you didn’t know reality any more than I did then. We’re neither of us that young anymore, my love, though I’ll swear I love you just as much, if not more now. I’d give you the time to grow up, years of it, and gladly, but you haven’t that much time, Fancy, not anymore. Events move too fast for us, for that luxury. I’ll come to see you again—when you most need me, I’ll be there for you. And I’ll be the only one that is, my poor dear. Then I’ll ask again, but then I think I’ll know your answer too. God keep you, love,” he said fervently as he took her hand before she could withhold it, and kissed it before she could pull away, and bowed and backed into the shadows and was down into the dark at the end of the street before she could tell him: No, never. Before she could even say: Don’t bother. Before she could say: Good-bye.
She didn’t return to the ball immediately, though she knew she ought. The town house held laughter and light and as much betrayal as the darkness had, but at least she was alone with her sorrow here. So she trailed back to the garden, and moving stealthily as a shadow, made her way to the terrace to stand near the windows so that if she were discovered she could claim a sudden light-headedness, and seem to have been seeking nothing but the cool night air. Not that the Deemses would likely do anything but rejoice at her disappearance tonight, or call it anything but tactful and inspired. She was as invisible and useless here with the clandestine lovers of the night as she was within the bright and noisy house, but at least here, she thought wretchedly, there was no need of artifice.
“‘She walks in beauty, like the night of cloudless climes and starry skies; and all that’s best of dark and bright meet in her aspect and her eyes’…so why then, I wonder,” the deep voice asked, “is she weeping?”
“Am not,” she muttered rebelliously, feeling very foolish as she rummaged through her reticule to find a handkerchief, and having to resort to snatching the huge white one proffered her, like a white flag waving in the blackness, before she could say something really cutting. Because it seemed he was right and her face was streaming with tears so that she could scarcely speak, much less clearly see the man looming over her there on the terrace, although he stood not inches away.
“I was going to quote that last night, though it’s lamentably modern,” Arden went on thoughtfully. “George Byron recently penned it, you know, and so, lovely and popular as it is, it’s not tried-and-true. So I’d decided on using that line about the Ethiopian’s ear instead, you know, that bit from Romeo and Juliet…‘she hangs upon the cheek of night like a rich jewel in an Ethop’s ear…’—because it was a beautiful night and the context of the play would have been most apt, but your face as it looked then took the words from me entirely. A singular achievement,” he said admiringly when she only stared at him, her eyes dark and damp and wide above the handkerchief he’d handed her.
“Very nice,” he said, when she remained silent. “You look very like an Arabian dancer just now. Are we doing charades, then?”
“That you dare…” She struggled with the words, and then hearing them muted as well as glutted with tears, she lowered the handkerchief from her mouth and blazed up at him in a strident whisper, “that you dare mention that night now!”
He gazed down at her and his smiled slipped slowly. She was in pain, just as he’d thought. And for all she looked adorable and he wished to go on teasing her, she grieved, as much as he’d suspected she had when she’d stared after him and Cecily, and then when she’d flown out of the room like that… And so while all the while not attending to the Deemses’ light babble, he’d decided.
He’d had a careful plan and a beautiful scheme concocted. But a crafty general, a clever gambler, and a considerate lover all had to know that the best of finely wrought, practiced schemes must be put aside when events turned quickly. He’d seen the hurt, and had known at once that he must act quickly to prevent the hate that would surely follow. Even if it didn’t, he admitted he could not bear to see the hurt. He would do as he’d done since she’d come into his ken: he’d act on his desires.
The game was ending now, and he was glad of it, for he was as weary of the banality of his courtship of Cecily Deems as he was of the banality of his life, it seemed. And too, although he doubted the blond infant had more than her mother’s desire for him, and was sure she’d no more sensibilities than that would-be lady, he wanted to spare her embarrassment at least, and discomfort as well. She was, after all, as harmless as she was witless. Very unlike Mrs. Devlin, who could wound him as well as be wounded. For it hadn’t only been her intelligence and her beauty that had attracted him; he knew he’d also been drawn to her sorrow. That had always been a lure. He bowed to the inevitable.
“Francesca, listen,” he said with such urgency and seriousness in his deep voice that she stopped struggling as he gripped her elbows and held her fast.
“I’ve had to court Cecily, or seem to be doing so, so that I might continue to see you, foolish girl. Did you think me in need of money, wit, or a doctor? I’m a villain, admittedly, but not a fool, an idiot, or a pauper. Did you really think I’d want such an angelic little fribble for a wife? Lovely opinion you have of me. But, consider, my dear, would they have stayed on even so long as they’ve done if I hadn’t shown some interest in her? I’d have asked Julian to do the pretty to divert them and buy me time with you, but he’d already noted Roxanne, and even if he hadn’t, he’s not the man, for a great many reasons I’m not at liberty to divulge, to ask to pretend to love.”
When she continued to stare at him, uncomprehending, he allowed himself a little smile before he said, gently and clearly, “Mrs. Devlin, my dear, you’ve enticed me entirely, and although I know it’s early days, I can’t go on with this charade of mine. I won’t hurt you any longer, nor tease myself, neither. In the best of worlds, you’d have the leisure to get to know me, and trust me. This is, as I know you’ve also found, not that world. So I must act now, but better too soon than not at all,” he added, half to himself.
He looked at her steadily. “Both of us have been around long enough to dispense with the veils around our emotions, or our motives. You need a protector, and it seems I need someone to protect.
“Francesca,” he said softly, still holding her, though she’d ceased to wriggle and stood looking at him with her head to one side, “there’s only one hope for it. If you’re going to be anyone’s widow, I’d like you to be mine.
“Ah…that’s a proposal of marriage,” he added when she
only gaped at him.
10
The waltz music ended and the musicians began to play the undanceable strains of one of Mr. Haydn’s more complex compositions to signal that a light dinner was to be served. It became evident that in France there were certain priorities that transcended love, for as Francesca stood on the terrace and continued to stare wide-eyed at Arden Lyons, a slow procession of couples cleared the garden and filed past them to reenter the house. Although they stood in a shadow, still Arden took her hand and walked her, unprotesting, to a more deeply shadowed alcove, away from the steady file of lovers hungry for more than each other’s lips could provide.