Scandal Wears Satin

by Loretta Chase

  “He said that he understood that the circumstances leading to your betrothal were not what one could hope—but he said—he said . . .” Lady Warford trailed off. “I can’t remember exactly what he said, but it was all it ought to be. There’s no changing the fact that he’s a bankrupt, and his mother is not what one could wish for. But she is dead, and he does seem to care about you, Clara, and I do believe that with a little work, you can make something of him.”

  Though Clara was clearly taken aback, she caught Longmore’s warning look, and contrived to appear to be seriously taking this in.

  He didn’t try to hide his incredulity. Not that anybody would expect him to. He was sure Adderley’s worry about Clara was genuine: If she sickened and died before the wedding, he’d need to find another fortune in a hurry, and dowries like Clara’s weren’t thick on the ground.

  “If anybody can make a man of him, it’s Clara,” he said. “In any event, I’ve said before that we need to make the best of matters. There’ll be less talk if we all seem pleased with the arrangement. It does no harm for the world to see that we’ve belatedly discovered that Adderley isn’t quite so bad as everyone’s assumed. For my part, I promise to be civil to him when next I see him.” He drank the rest of his sherry and set down his glass. “May I go now?”

  Chapter Thirteen

  To secure the honour of, and prevent the spreading of any scandal upon peers . . . by reports, there is an express law, called scandalum magnatum, by which any man convicted of making a scandalous report against a peer of the realm (though true) is condemned to an arbitrary fine, and to remain in custody till the same be paid.

  —Debrett’s Peerage of England, Scotland, and Ireland, 1820

  Exclusive to Foxe’s Morning Spectacle

  Wednesday 10 June

  It has come to our attention that a Mysterious Stranger from France has arrived this week in London with a considerable retinue. The trunks containing the lady’s wardrobe, we are informed, were so numerous as to require the hire of a private vessel. This portends a lengthy stay on our green and pleasant isle. As to where, specifically, in these domains the lady will reside, to what purpose, and—most especially—her identity, we hope to inform our readers with our usual alacrity.

  The Queen’s Theatre

  Wednesday night

  All of London was aware that the Duke of Clevedon had met Madame Noirot at the opera in Paris. This night was the first, however, that she’d appeared in any theater in London, and the occasion left no one in the audience—the masculine part of the audience, certainly—in any doubt as to why the duke of Clevedon had succumbed to the lady.

  This was the first time any gathering of Those Who Mattered had ever seen her. While the handful of Maison Noirot’s clients present knew her, these were primarily ladies of the gentry classes and aristocracy’s lower ranks. In the great scheme of things, they counted, but not very much.

  To all intents and purposes, this was Fashionable Society’s first look.

  The men looked very hard, indeed, because His Grace had escorted into his box not one dashing woman but two: his duchess and a fair-haired stranger.

  Across the theater, in the Warfords’ box, Lady Warford gazed resolutely at the stage, refusing to acknowledge the new Duchess of Clevedon’s existence.

  Clara, however, stared for all she was worth. To Lord Adderley, who sat dutifully beside her, acting the part of attentive spouse-to-be, she said, “Do you know who that lady is with the Duchess of Clevedon?”

  Adderley, who’d been staring as hard as everybody else, turned a surprised look on her. “Don’t you know? I thought she must be one of the sisters. Isn’t one of them a blonde?”

  “The sisters are unwed, and this lady is wearing the dress of a married woman,” Clara said. “A married Frenchwoman, I should say.”

  Longmore, who sat behind the engaged couple, said “French? You can tell that from this distance? And without employing an opera glass—as the other ladies are doing, I notice.”

  “One can always tell,” Clara said. “We Englishwomen can wear exactly what Frenchwomen do and yet somehow we always look English.” She turned round to meet her brother’s gaze. “You were in Paris, Harry. Don’t you agree?”

  Their mother made a harrumphing noise and sent a frigid glare their way. Both of her offspring pretended not to notice.

  “What I can be sure of is that she’s got the theater in an uproar,” Longmore said. “One can hardly hear the performers—not always a bad thing, although I’d rather she’d done it at a long, boring German opera instead of during The Waterman. But a little stimulation for the performers to outdo themselves won’t come amiss. I believe I’ll toddle round at the interval and make Clevedon introduce me. Then I can tell all of you what the fuss is about, a few hours in advance of the Spectacle, for once.”

  Knowing that a great many other fellows would be traveling to the same destination, he left his family’s box some minutes before the interval began, and entered Clevedon’s ahead of the pack.

  His nod in Clevedon’s general direction passed for polite greetings.

  “Beat the other fellows by a furlong,” he said.

  “I thought you would,” Clevedon said. “You can be quick enough off the mark when you choose.”

  Longmore turned to Her Grace. “Before the hordes descend, Duchess, would you be so good as to make me known to the lady?”

  “Madame de Veirrion, will you permit me to introduce Lord Longmore, a very good friend of my husband,” the duchess said.

  Her friend looked blank.

  Her Grace repeated the introduction in French.

  “Ah, yes,” said Madame. “Thees friend of a long time. Comme un frère, n’est-ce pas? Lord Lun-mour.” She gave a little nod, and the brilliants artfully arranged among the plumes of her headdress sparkled and danced.

  Her English was comically dreadful. To spare her, Longmore carried on their exchange in French. This gave him a small advantage over the mob of males who stampeded into Clevedon’s box a moment later. While most of them spoke correct French, as a properly educated gentleman ought to do, it was like Clevedon’s—correct French spoken by an Englishman. It was the conversational version of dress, as Clara had described it: They had all the right words, but they still sounded English.

  Longmore, the world’s worst scholar, had, for some reason, an aptitude for languages. The Latin-based ones, at any rate.

  “But Monsieur de Lun-mour speaks my language like the parisiens,” said Madame. “How is this? Me, my English, he is stupid. I cannot be taught. Hélas, they try. Mon mari—my ’usband so dear—” Her blue eyes grew dewy. A lacy handkerchief appeared in her beringed and braceleted hand, and she dabbed gently at the tears. “Ce pauvre Robert! He try and try to teach me. But what? I am the dunces.”

  All the gentlemen begged to differ.

  Longmore said, when they’d quieted down, “But you are a charming and beautiful dunces, madame. And,” he continued in French, “a charming and beautiful woman can get away with murder. Can you imagine that any man here would prosecute you for assassinating our language?”

  Longmore left Madame and her coterie shortly before the interval ended, and returned to his family’s box.

  His mother was looking daggers, and no wonder: Lady Bartham had joined her, and had undoubtedly been rubbing salt in as many wounds as she could find. Or inflict.

  “A French lady, as you deduced,” Longmore told his sister, not troubling to lower his voice. The two older women stopped talking. “Madame de Veirrion. A friend of the duchess from her Paris days. A widow—of some means, I’d say. I bow to my sister’s knowledge of dress, but the lady’s looked deuced expensive to me. The jewelry’s easier to judge, and it isn’t paste, I assure you.”

  Lady Bartham put her glass to her eye and proceeded to inspect the French lady.

  After the briefest hesitation, Mother did the same. “A widow, did you say, Longmore?”

  She always took care to use h
er eldest son’s title with Lady Bartham, who had two marriageable daughters, both dark-haired little fairies, too bony for his taste.

  “Quite a young widow,” Longmore said. “Speaks the most appalling English.”

  “That presents no problem to you,” Clara said.

  “No, indeed,” Adderley said. “Always was your forte, language. That and the punishing uppercut.” He smiled ruefully, and stroked his jaw. The bruise was still visible. “Served me right, too,” he said in a low voice.

  It was exactly what a man ought to say if he wanted to make peace with his in-laws-to-be. He did it so well that a less cynical man than Longmore might have believed it.

  “You were there a good while,” Clara said.

  “She’s pretty, and she mangles English in a most charming manner,” he said.

  “Clearly, she’s charming,” Lady Bartham said. “She seems to have enthralled all the gentlemen.”

  “Frenchwomen so often do,” Lady Warford said darkly.

  “I thought the duke would be obliged to summon the attendants to control the crowd,” Clara said.

  “She’s undoubtedly caused a commotion,” said Lady Bartham. She turned her sharp hazel gaze upon Longmore. “But who is she?”

  Exclusive to Foxe’s Morning Spectacle

  Thursday 11 June 1835

  Who is she? That is the question on everyone’s lips since last night, when the Mysterious Stranger made her appearance at the Queen’s Theatre, wearing a black satin dress, the corsage à la Sevigné, ornamented with a row of black bows. The sleeves, which were topped with nœuds de page, were very full, with double sabots of white satin. What appeared at first to be a robe was in fact an artful illusion created by a front panel of gold brocaded satin.

  Your correspondent has it on the very best authority that Madame de V_____ is the descendant of a French count whose family was long associated with the court of the House of Bourbon, and who perished, tragically, as did so many members of the ancien regime, under the guillotine blade. Given the present unrest in Paris, we cannot be surprised that the lady, bereft in this last year of the protection of a devoted husband and acting no doubt on the sage advice of her counselors, has determined to place herself and her considerable fortune (rivaling, we are told, that of the Duke of C_____) in the peaceful realms of His British Majesty. We are told that the lady has determined to seek a permanent residence in London. In the meantime, she has taken a suite of rooms at one of those hotels described in Cruchley’s Picture of London as having “sheltered the incognito of foreign grandees and potentates.” We are reliably informed that the lady was one of the Duchess of C_____’s premier patrons during Her Grace’s long sojourn in Paris, and that both Madame and the late Monsieur de V_____ were among His Grace’s numerous acquaintance during his time there.

  Following the usual court news, general gossip, commentary on the Sheridan-Grant elopement, and amusing anecdotes, there appeared at the end of the last column preceding the page of advertisements, this note:

  We observed last night a certain lord in the company of the lady he is to wed in a fortnight. We are pleased to report that the lady appears fully recovered from her recent alarming illness. We cannot claim to be pleased to inform our readers that later in the same evening—or it would be more accurate to say, in the early hours of the following morning—his lordship was observed to enter a gaming establishment of dubious reputation, from which he did not emerge until some hours after dawn. For all of those—and we count ourselves among them—who have wished her ladyship, in spite of the distressing circumstances that precipitated her engagement, a happy future, this is a most disheartening turn of events. We had hoped that, having obtained the hand of this beautiful lady, his lordship would show his gratitude by resolving to go and sin no more. We had hoped that, having left his errors behind him, he would reflect upon the errors of his forbears, and resolve—for the lady’s sake if not his own honor—to restore dignity to the family name. As our readers are no doubt aware, his lordship’s father was awarded a barony for services rendered to a royal personage. These included considerable loans, one of which was the loan of his beautiful wife for an indeterminate time. The fortune having long since been dissipated at the gaming tables, we must wonder at the motives and mendacity of any person who encourages his lordship to further folly by extending him credit for such a purpose.

  Drawing room, Warford House

  Thursday afternoon

  Like most of the ton, Lord Adderley had read the Spectacle with his morning coffee. He swore a great deal, and abused his valet and every other servant who had the misfortune to cross his path this day. Having put his household into a state of seething resentment, he’d hastened across town to present himself to his intended. There he proceeded to lie through his teeth—that was to say, issue a suitably indignant denial.

  He’d taken the offending document with him. After being shown into the drawing room, where his bride-to-be awaited him, he’d flung it down on a table with a fine show of righteous outrage.

  “I don’t know how those curs of the Spectacle get away with printing these filthy falsehoods,” he said. “They need to be taught a lesson. It’s long past time they were prosecuted for these slurs. If Tom Foxe were a gentleman, I’d call him out. Since he isn’t, I’ll insist he be arrested.”

  Lady Clara drew in a deep breath, let it out, and said, “People can be so unkind. They will take the most innocuous circumstance, and twist it into something shameful. They exaggerate everything they hear and see. But the Spectacle never name names, do they? In any case, surely anybody who reads that won’t believe it refers to you.”

  “They won’t?” He frowned at the paper. Though he’d never thought Lady Clara Fairfax particularly clever, he’d supposed she could put two and two together.

  “Certainly not,” she said. “Harry said that even a man of the meanest intelligence would know better than to game there. The place is as crooked as Putney Bridge, he said.”

  His face heated. “Longmore was here—about this?” He nodded in the direction of the scandal sheet.

  “Oh, he often collects a copy of the Spectacle on his way home from wherever he goes after the theater or a party,” she said. “He came by a little while ago. He was on his way to call on Madame de Veirrion. He was going to try to persuade her to drive out with him. Is she respectable, do you think?”

  Not if she’s driving out with your brother, he thought.

  He said, “I’ve heard nothing to the contrary.”

  “I think she must be,” Lady Clara said. “She’s a friend of the Duchess of Clevedon, and the duke apparently made her acquaintance as well, when he was in Paris. I can’t imagine their taking her to the theater if she wasn’t.”

  “Clevedon seems to care nothing about what others think of him,” he said.

  He didn’t say, and she was too tactful to point out that, with an annual income numbering in the hundreds of thousands, the Duke of Clevedon could afford not to care.

  “He cares what’s said of his duchess and her daughter,” Lady Clara said. “The King and Queen have accepted her. I don’t think she’d wish to jeopardize her position by associating with improper persons.”

  “It would be foolish, I agree.”

  “If she is respectable, Mama will be in alt,” Lady Clara said. “Madame’s husband left her everything. Mama won’t mind her being a widow. She’s always been terrified that Harry would end up marrying a ballet dancer or a barmaid.”

  Adderley’s face burned. His mother was a sore spot. Still, she hadn’t been a barmaid but an innkeeper’s daughter. She’d been a royal mistress, as had scores of “respectable” women. Unfortunately, she’d become one after he was born. No one cared if one was a bastard, if one was a royal bastard. It’s no small thing to be descended from kings. He, alas, was descended from an innkeeper and obscure country gentlemen. Not a drop of royal blood trickled through his veins.

  “Marry?” he said, bewildered. “Longmore?”
That was inconceivable. “Has it gone so far as that already?”

  Clara shrugged. “Who can say? But he seemed quite taken with her. And you know Harry, always plunging headlong into—” She broke off, coughing. She put her hand to her forehead.

  It was a small, involuntary gesture, but it was enough to remind him that she’d recently been ill—ill enough for the house to be closed to all but a very few visitors, for three days. He hurried to her, and knelt by her chair. “My dear, are you unwell?”

  She let her hand fall. “No, a little . . . oh, it’s nothing, only I’ve been indoors forever, it seems. What I need is a dose of fresh air. I think I’ll order the cabriolet, and take a turn about the park.”

  “Nonsense,” he said. “If you wish to take the air, I’m happy to drive you. You’ve only to send a maid for your bonnet and shawl.”

  The fashionable hour of promenade hadn’t yet arrived when Lord Longmore turned his curricle into Hyde Park’s Cumberland Gate. He was listening to his fair companion. She was prattling in a fractured English so ridiculous that he couldn’t help but smile, though he wasn’t in the most cheerful frame of mind.

  “You have too much in your head,” said Madame. “One part of milord attends me. The other part of him rests in another place. I am compelled to demand to myself, Do I cause to him the ennui?”

  “I begin to wish, oddly enough, that you were some degrees more boring,” he said. “It’s almost more excitement than I can bear. Last night . . .” He shook his head.

  “But how calm you seemed! Not in the least fearful.”

  He looked at her. “You’ve deceived the ton with breathtaking ease. I vow, women who must have looked straight into your face countless times while you adjusted their bows and such ought to have recognized you, even from across the theater. Several men who came into the box last night were at White’s on the day you stood in the rain on St. James’s Street, generously offering them a view of your petticoats and ankles.”