Jane Feather - Charade

by Unknown

  "Very well," he murmured, slipping his hands between her thighs. "The message was from Lady Mainwairing. Once my mistress . . .

  "But no longer?" she interrupted, her body tensing beneath the stroking fingers.

  "No longer," Justin reassured. "Even had I the inclination, brat, I would not have the stamina to keep more than you satisfied in the bedchamber."

  Danielle seemed content with the statement. "But what then does the lady want of you?"

  "She wishes me to call on her urgently. In friendship only, and we are still friends, Danny."

  "Was she greatly upset when you became married?" Danielle tried to turn over, but a hand in the small

  of her back kept her in place, and since the other hand was exquisitely busy elsewhere she gave up the attempt.

  "A little," Justin said judiciously. Margaret had, in fact, been greatly upset—not by the prospect of his marriage, but by his statement that he intended to be a faithful husband. But she was a wise woman, accustomed to accepting the inevitable, and rather than risk losing his friendship had capitulated with a shrug and the cynical statement that a thirty-seven-year-old widow could hardly compete with the charms of a seventeen-year-old.

  "But why does she send you the so urgent message?"

  "I do not know exactly." Justin turned her over, taking her face between his hands. "She asks for the advice of a friend in a troublesome matter. Do I have your leave to offer it, Madam Wife?"

  Danielle, looking up into the blue black eyes, realized with a surge of joy that the question was asked in

  all seriousness. "But of course you must. One must always stand by one's friends."

  "Danny." Justin shook his head in wonder. "You are the most amazing creature." He kissed her tenderly, but she responded with such fierceness that he realized tenderness was not what she required at the moment and gave her what she wanted, plundering her mouth with a rapacious tongue. She met thrust

  for thrust, her body lifting against his, her legs curling around his buttocks, drawing him against the cleft

  of her body.

  Afterward she lay, her head cradled against his shoulder, one hand stroking dreamily over his belly. "If you are in a good mood, I should perhaps make my own confession." Her teeth nibbled his sweat-damp, salt-tasting skin. Justin sighed, running his hands through the curls on his breast. "Was it so very dreadful, infant?"

  "It should not have been," Danielle asserted. "It was very early in the morning, you understand. Well before seven and there should not have been anyone around." A faintly aggrieved note had crept into her voice.

  "Astride, in britches, no groom and galloping ventre a terre in Hyde Park?" Justin sighed again. He received no answer and took the silence correctly for an affirmative. "Who saw you?"

  "I do not know." The aggrieved note was no longer faint. "Your maman would not tell me. But I cannot abide tattletales and if ever I find out I shall tell them so."

  Justin grinned, imagining the scene. However, he controlled his inner merriment and said severely, "I thought we had agreed that while you may do as you please at Danesbury, in town you will abide by the rules."

  "But you would not allow me to go to Danesbury," Danielle replied in accents of sweet reason. "It would be wise in you, I think, to permit me to accompany you in the future." She was out of his arms before he could react and danced across the room, the brown eyes gleaming in mischievous invitation.

  The challenge was quite irresistible. Justin sprang from the bed and lunged for her. Danielle, with a laugh, leaped sideways and dodged behind a chair. The chase took them around the room, over the chairs and the tumbled bed and into My Lord's connecting suite. Here there was more scope and Justin gave up the fleeting thought of the absurdity of a thirty-five-year-old leader of Society playing tag, stark naked, with the equally naked minx who, for better or worse, was his wife. She was too quick for him, though, and, changing his tactics, he stood still. Danielle stopped also, her face flushed, eyes bright, bosom heaving under her swift breath.

  "Come here," Justin demanded. She shook her head, the tip of her tongue running over her lips. "Come here." He held out his arms and smiled.

  Danielle. examined him thoughtfully. "You are very beautiful, my husband." She walked into his arms.

  "Wretch! Whatever did I do to deserve you?" Justin murmured as the soft pliant body reached against him.

  "I expect you were very good when you were young," she informed him complacently.

  Chapter 10

  "It seems to me, Peter, that the farrier has overestimated his expenses." Danielle looked up from her study of the ledgers piled on the desk in Linton's bookroom. It was later that same morning but there was no trace of the provocative sensual mistress of My Lord's bedchamber in this calm matter-of-fact lady of the house. She wore a simple morning gown of sprigged muslin over a very small hoop. Her unpowdered hair hung in soft, unconfined curls to her shoulders, and she was frowning.

  It was a frown Peter Haversham was well accustomed to and one that boded ill for a comfortable morning. "I could find no fault with them myself, Lady Danny."

  "Ah, but you do not understand these matters, Peter." She tapped an item in the ledger with an imperative forefinger. "Maximilian was shod two months ago. John and I agreed that he should be put to pasture for three months because of a strained tendon. It is not possible that he should then have required four new shoes a month ago. C'estune betise.'We will not pay this Monsieur Harker. He is a stupid man to think he can play such a trick."

  A very stupid man, Peter reflected. But then there were few farriers working for the vast estates of the aristocracy who expected their bills to be subjected to the minute, informed scrutiny of a shrewd eighteen-year-old countess.

  "I have also a small problem here, Peter." She skimmed through the pages of the ledger. 'This shipment of '73 claret was returned to the wine merchant—there was one musty bottle, you understand, so it was necessary to return the whole. We could not lay down a hundred bottles when the one Bedford and I sampled was contaminated."

  "No, indeed not, Lady Danny," Peter concurred, wondering, nevertheless, how many other households returned an entire shipment on the basis of one bad bottle.

  "But the wine merchant has billed us for carriage charges. We will pay half. Qa c'est reasonable, n'est

  ce pas? If he has a further problem, we take our account elsewhere."

  "Are you making my poor Peter miserable, Danielle?" Linton closed the door behind him as he stepped into the room.

  "Indeed not, milord," Danny protested. "At least, I do hope not. Am I making you miserable, Peter?"

  "No, no, certainly not," Haversham made haste to disclaim. "Not as miserable, at least, as the farrier and the wine merchant will be."

  Linton chuckled. He had had a most unpleasant meeting with his mother during which he had gently informed the lady that he or, in exceptional cases, the Earl and Countess of March were the only people who had the right to take his wife to task. Looking at Danny now, he was reassured that the confrontation had been correct. The urchin side of her was his and only his and it was a side of his wife that Justin cherished. Just as he cherished the puckered brow, the firm lips, and the sharp uncompromising eyes as she unraveled the intricacies of his household accounts.

  On more than one, occasion in the last six months he'd listened to Peter's admiring explanations of how much wasteful expenditure had been cut, and then how the money saved had been designated to improve the tenant farms and the lot of various individuals who, through ill health or misfortune, found themselves in difficulties. Danielle, in the two months of their honeymoon, had ridden the acres of Danesbury, more often than not in britches, and had learned in those few weeks more than Justin had ever deemed it necessary to know. That knowledge she had proceeded to turn to good use and should one of the earl's factotums be so misguided as to disagree with her, he found that the tomboy countess could play many parts.

  "We are hardly in financial straits, my love
," Linton now said, examining the ledgers. "These are no great sums."

  "No," she agreed. "But the principle is great. If you allow yourself to be robbed in small ways, my lord, then you give tacit permission for greater losses."

  Justin remembered that he had married a de St. Varennes— a strong streak of economy ran in the blue veins of that branch of the French aristocracy. His wife had also known the extremes of poverty and near starvation. Waste of any kind was intolerable, but then neither was she miserly, as anyone who had cause to request her generosity was well aware. He pinched her cheek. "You will do as you think fit, my love."

  Peter discreetly averted his eyes from the smiling exchange. They behaved sometimes as if he were not in the room, but strangely he felt enormously complimented by this easy acceptance.

  An alerting knock on the paneled door and Bedford appeared. He carried a heavily embossed silver tray on which reposed a visiting card. "My lady." He bowed and presented the tray to Danielle.

  She took the card, read it, and replaced it. "Would you tell the chevalier that I will join him directly?"

  "In the drawing room, my lady?"

  "Yes, thank you, Bedford." Danielle smiled and the butler's thin lips twitched in involuntary response before he left the room with ponderous tread.

  "You have a visitor?" Justin poured two glasses of sherry, handing one to Peter. Danielle rarely took

  wine before noon.

  "The Chevalier d'Evron," Danielle replied. "You have met, I think, Linton."

  "I do not recall, but I daresay you are right." Justin actually remembered clearly his introduction to the chevalier—a sharp-nosed, thin-faced Frenchman, his body taut with a tension that had immediately communicated itself to Danielle. Justin had found this most disturbing, but without knowing why. He

  had dismissed the encounter in the fond hope that it would disappear from reality as easily as it did

  from memory and as far as he knew Danielle's acquaintance with the chevalier was slight. But slight acquaintances rarely paid morning calls without an ulterior motive. However, he had no justifiable

  cause for concern so he bowed to his wife and returned to his sherry and Peter.

  Danielle's frown deepened as she mounted the stairs to the drawing room. She and D'Evron communicated briefly when they met at social functions, and when necessary sent terse notes. Only a matter of considerable importance would have brought him to her doorstep.

  "Bonjour, chevalier." She greeted her visitor, closing the door firmly behind her.

  D'Evron turned from one of the long windows overlooking the street. "Bonjour, comtesse."

  "Voulez-vous prendre un verre?" Danielle laid a hand on the knotted bellpull.

  "Non, merci." The chevalier waved a hand in quick denial of the offer of hospitality.

  "D'accord. Asseyez-vous, s'il vousplait.''' Danielle sat herself on a brocade wing chair and indicated that her guest should take its fellow. "Qu'est ce qui se passe, mon ami?"

  The direct question brought the direct answer. "I need your help, comtesse, in a desperate case; a situation in which your position and power as the Countess of Linton may make all the difference. You are an English lady and my own position as a mere Frenchman is not sufficiently powerful."

  Danielle nodded. Bourgeois prejudice against the French was considerable, and the chevalier would be tarred with the same brush as his more unfortunate compatriots. "It is more than money this time, then?"

  So far her contribution to the refugee cause had been purely financial. She had provided money and custom. Money to alleviate immediate difficulties, and her business and that of others of the haut ton to those who had the wherewithal and the courage to set up business again in a foreign land. Hairdressers, modistes, and jewelers, once under the patronage of the Countess of Linton, were beginning to make a living. But there were many others with problems that could not be solved in this way and she knew that the chevalier worked tirelessly to intercede for his countrymen whenever he could.

  "There is a family in Steeplegate, comtesse. They live in great poverty. Monsieur found work with a shoemaker and madame has been taking in laundry. However, she is . . ."The chevalier colored slightly. "In a delicate situation and can no longer manage the heavy work. Monsieur injured his hand severely

  and was dismissed by the shoemaker. There are several young children in the family and the landlord intends to evict them this afternoon because they are behind with the rent."

  "Then we must pay the rent," Danielle said simply. She received no allowance from Justin, merely carte blanche to draw on his bankers for whatever sums she required. It was an extraordinary arrangement

  and one that, if it became known, would cause many eyebrows raised in horror—the Earl of Linton maintaining no financial control over a bride barely out of the schoolroom! However, Linton had seen

  the absurdity of giving his wife pin money when she held the reins of his various households with such obvious competence. He never questioned her expenditures and Danielle had never thought to ask his permission to spend what were on occasion sizable sums to relieve the difficulties of her countrymen.

  "I fear that will not suffice, comtesse," D'Evron said with a heavy sigh. "The landlord wishes to be rid

  of them. He finds the children troublesome and can extort the same rent from one tenant as he can from this family of five, soon to be six. Even had they the money, they face much difficulty in finding new lodgings with such a large family."

  "Cochon!" Danny spat, rising to her feet. She paced the room giving vent to her outrage at this example

  of inhumanity in language that stunned the chevalier who knew nothing of her history. "Ah!" She stopped suddenly. "Mon Dieu, but what have I been saying? Je m'excuse, chevalier." She glanced anxiously at

  the door, half expecting to see her irate husband.

  D'Evron couldn't help smiling. His friend and accomplice was no longer the sophisticated countess but rather resembled a guilty child caught in her naughtiness. "Please, milady." He made haste to reassure

  her. "There is no need for apology. I quite understand."

  "But I do not think Milord would," Danny murmured. "At least, he would understand my feelings but

  not that manner of expressing them."

  D'Evron said nothing since an appropriate response failed to come to mind.

  "Eh bien." Danielle shook herself out of her uncomfortable reverie. "We shall visit this bete together. I feel sure we can . . . persuade . . . him to change his tune. At least until after madame is confined. Then, perhaps, if they care to live in the country, I shall contrive to settle them at Danesbury."

  "But your husband, comtesse D'Evron demurred. But Danielle dismissed the half-spoken objection

  with an airy wave Justin would make no protest at a needy French family settling on his estates.

  "Allons-y, chevalier. You have your carriage?"

  "I am most grateful for your assistance, comtesse," D'Evron said hastily, "but should you not change

  your dress?"

  Danielle's peal of laughter reached Justin as he mounted the stairs. The chevalier was clearly a more amusing companion than he had thought. He decided against joining them and continued on to his own apartments to change the morning dress necessary for waiting upon his mother for the buckskin britches and top boots of the horseman. He would ride with his wife in Hyde Park this afternoon in an attempt

  to quieten the gossips' tongues should her early morning adventures be as generally known as his mother feared.

  "I will change immediately," Danielle declared. "You will wait a few minutes, mon ami?"

  "Avec plaisir." The chevalier bowed, resigned to a considerable wait. A lady's idea of a few minutes spent on changing her attire was rarely consonant with reality.

  However, it was but ten minutes later when Danielle emerged from her bedchamber and ran headlong

  into her lord.

  "Where to in such a hurry, infant?" Linton laughed, taking
in her driving dress of olive green velvet, a

  lace jabot at the high neck its only adornment. She wore one of her favorite tricorn hats, leather driving gloves, and a serviceable pair of riding boots instead of the kid or jean half boots that would normally

  be considered sufficient protection for a drive through the city streets.

  "I am going for a drive with the chevalier, milord," Danielle informed him.

  The earl put up his glass and surveyed her feet. "In riding boots, Danny?"

  "Ah well, my others have a loose heel, tu comprends" she improvised glibly. "And these are, after all,

  tres comfortable."

  Now what the devil was she up to? But Justin said merely, "I was hoping you would ride with me this afternoon, ma'am."