by Edith Layton
“Why, there she is,” Lady Carstairs cried, stopping by the entrance to the salon. “Still in the salon. My own little Ella, sit by the cinders. Oh, Phillipa, my love, what you missed!” her grandmother went on. “It was a grand soiree. Everyone was there. My English friends all gathered together and we talked about what we ought to do next. And would you believe,” she asked with pride, “many of them thought I would know, since I was a personal friend of the First Consul.”
Pippa’s eyes flew to Maxwell.
He shook his head and looked grim.
Pippa had accepted her grandmother’s lie about their meeting with Napoleon. “But Grandmamma,” she said, using that incident as a wedge, “I was there. Having him acknowledge you in the receiving line was very gratifying, but not exactly a vow of friendship. I doubt you could demand his attention if you were in difficulty now.”
Her grandmother’s smile was beatific. “Ah, but you don’t know everything, my Phillipa. You couldn’t hear what he said to me, or what he promised to say when we were alone together.”
Pippa’s shoulders slumped. She’d put her grandmother’s recent antics down to confusion, or self-aggrandizement. This, however, was madness. She looked at Maxwell again, her desperation clear to see.
“I think we ought to sleep on this,” Maxwell said.
“A good idea,” Lady Carstairs said with satisfaction. “We’re all meeting again in a week’s time to decide what to do. Some are already leaving for home or going farther abroad. I heard there’s not a space to be found at any price on the next packets to England. But I think we should stay and wait. This may all blow over. For now,” she said, stifling a yawn, “I must have my beauty sleep. Good night, Phillipa, gentlemen.”
Maxwell shot a look to his brother.
“If I may assist you up the stair?” Duncan asked Lady Carstairs.
“With that poor leg?” she said. “I think not, thank you.”
“Then I will, if you please,” Maxwell said, offering her his arm. “Duncan, will you stay and wait for me? I’m sure Miss Carstairs will want to hear more about tonight’s doings.”
“I would,” Phillipa said quickly.
She watched her grandmother make her way up the stair with Maxwell and then went back into the blue salon with his brother. She sank into a chair and heaved a great sigh.
“How the devil am I going to get her home?” she asked him.
He settled himself in a chair opposite her. “Devil a bit, if I know,” he said. “Kidnapping, I think.”
“It may come to that,” she mused. She sat up straight. “Is there any truth at all in her thoughts about the safety of the English here? Is this as temporary a war as it was a peace?”
He shook his head. “No. This time the war will be ferocious. Napoleon won’t stop until he owns the world. Or we, until we’ve defeated him.”
She looked down at her lap. “Is there any possibility that by any chance she does have any personal connection to him?”
He understood at once. “No,” he said. “None. So the war has also convinced you to give up your search for your lost fiancé?”
Her laugh was bitter. “Didn’t your brother tell you? I did that a while ago. I wish I’d never had such a mad fancy. If Noel came to harm, I’m sorry for him. If he simply wanted to be rid of me, then I’m not. Whatever it was, it was for the best. He may have had no manners for leaving me in the lurch, but I had less pride by following him. Rather,” she said, cocking her head to one side, thinking about it, “I think I had too much pride, I couldn’t believe he would simply jilt me.
“No matter. That’s done with now,” she went on with a crooked smile. “Because now I haven’t a shred of pride left and it serves me right. I was a fool for pursuing him. I wasn’t even thinking correctly when I got here. I felt cast off and abandoned and wanted someone to love me. What a farce I made of that!”
She ducked her head, raised it again, looked him in the eyes, and added, “All I want to do now is go home and live quietly. Although with the way the world is going, and my grandmother’s state of mind, I have doubts of being able to do it. But the world will go its way, and maybe being home again will steady my grandmother’s wits.”
“And my brother?” he asked simply.
“What of him?” she asked as answer.
“You’re also giving up on him?”
This time her laughter was real. “Oh, my goodness, my lord. There’s nothing to give up. I don’t blame him for having no plans to change his life. He was, in fact, as you know, a perfect gentleman at a…difficult moment. You should be proud of him. Now. How do we get my grandmother to go home?”
“I have a few ideas,” Maxwell said as he came into the room. “As of the moment, she refuses and thinks it a foolish idea, and only wants to stay here and enjoy herself. She puts great stock in what her old friends are doing.”
“And they are doing what?” Pippa asked.
“Waiting, as she is,” Maxwell said. “The clever ones have already removed themselves from the scene. The foolish have gone on to Italy, Spain, or farther abroad, ignoring the fact that Napoleon’s reach is growing longer.”
“I’ll write to my grandfather immediately,” Pippa said, “and finally tell him the whole truth. I concealed a lot for her sake, but now that time is critical, I’ll tell all. He’ll insist she come home.”
“In a month or so,” Maxwell said. “But we don’t have that much time. The post isn’t that swift and I don’t know how quickly your grandfather will respond. Doubtless some English persons will stay here that long. But I won’t and my brother won’t either if I leave.” He paced a few steps. “I don’t fancy ferrying home an outraged dowager. So I think we’ll have to somehow engineer the lady’s departure, and although I don’t shrink at actually bodily removing her after enough powders have been dropped in her wine, it might not be necessary. We’ll wait on it.”
He stopped pacing and looked at Pippa. His eyes were dark and serious. “What you have to do is to keep her here, in the hotel, for the next few nights. At least until her next grand party with her friends. Do you think you can do that?”
“I will,” Pippa said, rising from her chair and standing tall. “One way or the other, I will.”
He smiled. “I believe you. But as a precaution, I’ll have someone watching your hotel.”
He took Phillipa’s hand in his and said soberly, “There’s more I have to say to you, but now is not the time or place.”
“I’ll just go and see if our coach is ready,” Duncan said, awkwardly rising from his chair.
“That won’t make it the right time or place,” Maxwell said over his shoulder. He pressed Pippa’s hand, let it go, and then bowed. “Good night, Miss Phillipa. Don’t worry. Whatever else may be, this time you’re not alone.”
Pippa watched the brothers leave, although it was hard to focus on them because her eyes were suddenly so misted.
“You’re going to stay here, with me,” Maxwell said bluntly.
“I have engaged rooms,” his brother said. “I’m all grown up now, and besides,” he added in a deliberately childish voice, “Father sent me to watch you, not the other way around.”
“That was folly,” Maxwell said. He was pacing the sitting room in his own rooms. “You’ve been wounded. How bad is it, by the by? Truth now, if you please.”
Duncan sat back in his chair. “I deal with it. We don’t know if and when it will completely heal, and won’t until more time passes. It’s been set and stitched together again. I won’t pretend it’s been easy. But I persevere. Actually, it’s good for healing parts to work rather than rest. Speaking of which,” he asked, “how is your heart doing?”
Maxwell turned around to stare. “By which you mean?” he asked, his eyes narrowing.
“A fool could see you’re smitten,” Duncan replied idly. “And only a fool would deny it, so don’t bother. And why not? She’s lovely. Well-bred, intelligent, sensitive, and…honorable.”
“How long were you watching us in the meadow?” Maxwell demanded.
“Not that long, and I certainly would have left had things gone further. In fact, I was beginning to go when events suddenly turned. I don’t know where you get the control, Maxwell. That’s a thing I wish you’d teach me. Although I confess I don’t entirely understand it in this case. You want her. She wants you. You’re both of age and free, so where’s the hindrance? And don’t try to tell me that virginity withers a fellow’s desires. She may have believed you, which just goes to show what an innocent she is. I am not.”
Maxwell sat down and knotted his hands together. His eyes were clear and candid as he looked at his brother. “The hindrance is that she doesn’t know what she’s doing any more than her daft grandmother does just now. Her worm of a fiancé left her at the altar. I don’t think she’s been thinking straight since then, else why would she have gone tearing off to find him? She’s not that forward in anything else. She seems attracted to me, I’ll grant. But how can I know how much of that is just reaction to what happened to her? I care for her, very much. Who wouldn’t?
“But I can’t dally with her. And I won’t enter into a marriage without knowing all that I can before I do. If I’m devastated by fate after that, so be it. But it’s not a light undertaking. I learned from Father. He loved too much twice, and too little once. None of it made him happy. In fact, it’s what set him to drink. Is he still overindulging again, by the by?”
Duncan shook his head. “He gave that up. Strange, but I think he’s actually gotten to like our Theo the Terror, which gives him an interest in the world again. Another benefit to him, I suppose, is that his wife hates that.”
Both men chuckled, thinking of their obstreperous sibling and their detested stepmother.
“So,” Duncan continued, “no matter what Talwin wants, am I to assume that if you found Miss Phillipa’s confounded fiancé and saw her reaction to him you’d know where her heart really lies? Reasonable. But what if he’s dead? You’d just let her wilt on the vine?”
Maxwell scowled. “As with your confounded limb, brother, we’ll just have to wait and see.”
“At last!” Lady Carstairs said. “I am free! You are finally well enough to go out, and I am conscience free to do as I please. Almost a week of ill health, never have I seen you so susceptible, Phillipa,” she said, turning from the looking glass in her chamber to scold her granddaughter. “One night you were succumbing to coughing spells and the next a stomach upset. Then you suffered the headache, and then the toothache. The physicians who came didn’t know what to do for you, nor did I. I confess, I’d have gone out of an evening anyway, but you made me feel too guilty to enjoy myself.”
“I merely said that if I expired alone, Grandfather would be upset,” Pippa said meekly.
Pippa shot her maid a sharp glance and stopped her incipient giggles.
“But here you are, up and about and looking fine as five pence,” Lady Carstairs said with approval. “The enforced rest seems to have done you good. And myself as well, I admit.”
Lady Carstairs smiled at her reflection. Her gown was red as a rooster’s comb, and her bright yellow hair was done up with red plumes and topped with a ruby-encrusted tiara. She looked like rising dawn in a henhouse, Pippa thought. But her grandmother preened in front of the glass.
Pippa stood quietly, wearing a dark blue gown with a modest neckline, with a lighter blue sash tied under her breast. The French modiste had said it would suit her perfectly. It did. Her pale hair was drawn up and back and she wore a cameo on a black ribbon at her neck. Her attire was simplicity itself, and she was pleased with herself.
“And now,” Lady Carstairs said, rising and pulling on her long gloves, “we’ll go out for the evening as a visitor in Paris is supposed to do. Doubtless Lord Montrose and his charming brother will be delighted to see us. They sent bowers of flowers to you, the dear lads. Life must have been dull for them this past week.”
Pippa followed her grandmother down the stair. Neither Maxwell nor his brother, awaiting them in the front hall of the hotel, looked particularly deprived she thought as she first caught sight of them. They looked dapper, elegant, and at ease. She wondered what female Maxwell had found to help him while away the lonely hours, and hated herself for caring so much.
“Ladies,” Maxwell said, bowing. “How good to see you again. So my lady, we go to your friends the Chestertons’ house this evening. I hear they’re generous hosts. Do you think that you’ll discover what they and the rest of your compatriots are planning to do now that we are at war with our other hosts?”
“I shall,” Lady Carstairs said with certainty. “And I would have found out sooner had my dear Phillipa not been so ill all week. But I could scarcely leave her to her own devices, could I? A doctor a day, we had here, I think, and none able to cure her. It is the water, I told her again and again. She should emulate me and drink only wine and tea. But that is the past. As for tonight, she’s fine again and I am set on having a good time this evening. I know you all will as well.”
“Are you sure you’re well enough to go out on the town tonight?” Maxwell asked Phillipa solicitously as Lady Carstairs’s maid brought her a shawl.
“Absolutely,” Pippa said. “Positively.” She thought of the endless games of cards she and Annie had played to pass the hours, and unable to say more now, added, “Although I must admit that at times I felt it might be fatal. When I wasn’t being vilely ill, I was bored almost to death.”
“A worse fate than dying of some mysterious French malady,” he said with a smile, and added in a whisper, “Well done!” before he turned to take Lady Carstairs’s arm.
“You are a gem,” Duncan told Pippa with admiration as they left the hotel.
“I promised,” she said simply. “And I keep my promises.”
Chapter 21
The Chestertons lived in a huge old town house near others of the same type in an area that had somehow escaped the fires of the Revolution. By the number of carriages arriving in the drive, Pippa thought the enormous house would be crowded to the doors and steeled herself for another night of her grandmother’s idea of frolic: food and drink, dancing and gossip, the entire house filled with the deafening noise of music, conversations, and shrill laughter.
But when they entered, the place was strangely still. There was the murmur of conversation and, in the background, a trio of string musicians from somewhere behind the ferns playing soft reflective melodies. The dance floor of the ballroom was filled with guests, most of a certain age. But none were dancing. Rather, they stood in small groups talking in lowered voices. At least, the English guests did. Pippa realized there must have been French citizens at other parties but she’d never particularly noticed them before. Now it was obvious. They were the ones who strolled the room, smiling broadly and talking in normal tones. They were the only ones who seemed in the mood for festivity.
The other Frenchmen were impossible to ignore. There were a number of French army officers in brilliant military regalia. Yet in spite of their finery, they didn’t seem festive either.
Maxwell and his brother exchanged looks.
“It’s more like a wake than a party,” Maxwell said in a hushed voice.
“Then I shall have to awaken them,” Lady Carstairs said confidently. “Come, my lords, let me introduce you to our hosts. I warn you, they may put on airs, but they are the Chestertons from Middleborough, and have little to give them entrée into London Society but their money, as is evident here as well.”
The Chestertons were in the midst of a knot of guests to the right of the room. They looked up when Lady Carstairs and her party approached.
“Monroe,” she said, greeting her host, “so still? Has there been a recent death?”
The tall thin elderly man she addressed winced. “No, my lady, but these are serious times.”
“All the more reason for frolic,” she answered.
No one smiled.
Maxwell deftl
y introduced himself, his brother, and Pippa. “More the time for careful planning, I should say,” he said. “Are all the English leaving?”
“Really? A pity. I would dislike losing your company,” a new voice intruded. The speaker was a short, swarthy gentleman dressed in high fashion so new it almost seemed foolish. He had a French accent, dark eyes, and a penetrating stare. His words might have been meant to be pleasant, but they didn’t come out sounding that way.
“Monsieur Denton, welcome,” his host said, bowing. “I hope you enjoy yourself this evening.”
“As do I,” Denton said. “Merci,” he added with a light laugh before he strolled away.
“A parvenu, to use their own words,” one of the guests said low and with disgust. “He was made by Bonaparte and now plays the high lord. Beware of him. He doesn’t care who he climbs over.”
Pippa watched the French gentleman as he roamed through the knots of other guests, ignoring them. Instead, he was looking at furnishings as though they were up for auction.
“Yes,” her host said with a sigh. “So it is now. All the jumped-up citizens are looking to rise to new heights, and they don’t care who they throw off the top in order to reach them. Homes are being taken over without restitution or so much as a by your leave. It doesn’t matter to us anymore. We’re going to leave, and soon. This night is to be our farewell to France for a while or forever. Most of the homes on this street are being abandoned because the owners are aware they are about to lose them anyway. Better to lose your roof than your head. You can see for yourself that our home is already obviously being measured for new draperies.”
“Grim talk!” Lady Carstairs said sharply. “Brought on by fear. That is a great weapon by itself. The French are subtle. It may be the rude fellow we just met has no evil intentions, only few manners. I shall go have a chat with him and find out what his intentions really are. I too, after all, have an acquaintance with the First Consul, you know.”