“Oh no, I shouldn’t think so. One doesn’t speak of such family scandals, you know. Phyll might have mentioned you to the poet. It’s the sort of thing you tell a poet, isn’t it? But Dahlia has some sense of things and wouldn’t be so daring, though I cannot imagine Mr. Mason would care.”
Well, then. There were things more interesting to be done than to sit in splendor, eating bread and feeling sorry for herself. It would be amusing, and possibly enlightening, to see how he reacted to Marie-Anne appearing on his future sister-in-law’s arm. It might even be so amusing that she would celebrate with some of Gunter’s finest confections.
“I’ll wear my best bonnet,” she smiled, “and we shall surprise them in style.”
Chapter Four
Mason was feigning a polite interest in Dahlia’s confused recounting of a novel she had recently read when Marie-Anne de Vauteuil and her perfect blue eyes walked back into his life. He was stupid enough to actually feel nothing but excitement at the sight of her until, at the sound of his accidental fiancée’s voice, his happy smile again slid abruptly from his face.
“Oh but this is wonderful, Amy, you are bad to keep such a secret, we were so hoping you would come to town, isn’t it just wonderful?” Dahlia was gushing. It was genuine and artless emotion, Mason realized with surprise. He was not used to that, from Dahlia.
Before he was ready for it, Marie-Anne was looking directly into his eyes, expectant and faintly amused, while Dahlia clutched at her hands and turned to Mason to say, “This is Mr. Spencer Mason, recently come all the way from New York.”
He watched the Frenchwoman’s eyebrows lift slightly at the announcement of his full, false name. She must know. Amy would have told her that he and Dahlia had an understanding, as they said here. The slightest smile curved Marie-Anne’s lips and drew his attention. It made the whole situation feel absurdly dangerous, like she knew his game and would call his bluff right here outside the confectioner’s shop. Instead of putting him on alert, it gave him a little thrill.
“Mason,” said Dahlia breathlessly, “This is–”
“Madame de Vautueil,” he said with a bow. “It’s a pleasure to see you again.”
Her expression told him he’d passed a test – she’d thought he might pretend not to know him. God, he liked her more and more.
“You’ve met?” Dahlia was bewildered.
“At Lady Huntingdon’s ball last night,” he explained. Dahlia had not been invited, so he hadn’t told her that he was. She would be annoyed, but he’d make a point of telling her it was a last-minute invitation and that she had said more than once that she was tired of attending balls when he would not dance with her. “But I had no idea you were acquainted.”
“Here’s the carriage,” said Dahlia. “Marie-Anne, won’t you join us for a drive through the park?”
“A drive in the park?” Marie-Anne asked it as though she had never heard of anything so profoundly innovative. “What a delightful idea, a drive together in the park. Don’t you think so, Mr. Mason?” she asked, and directed her dazzling smile squarely at him, daring him to answer.
“You must not think she really means to go to the park yet,” Amy interjected. “We’ll get in the carriage and sit in the shade here in the square as a waiter brings ices to us.”
“It is a ritual of London I remember very well, because it was always my favorite. I shall leave the driving in the park to you, after we have our treat.” And with that, Marie-Anne tucked her hand into Dahlia’s elbow, leaned in close as though to share confidences, and set off across the road to where the carriage awaited.
It was left to Mason to fall in step beside Amy and try to act naturally. Last night, Freddy had said he’d never heard of Madame de Vauteuil and planned to ask around. But maybe Mason could learn something on his own this afternoon. He wouldn’t even pretend to himself it was for any reason other than to satisfy his own burning curiosity about her.
“They seem like old friends,” he observed to Amy. “Strange how your sister has never mentioned her.”
“Madame de Vauteuil was very nearly our sister-in-law. She was to marry our brother Richard.”
Amy kept her voice low. They always spoke in hushed tones about this deceased brother Richard, he noticed, though the subject was not raised often. No one had ever mentioned a grieving almost-bride.
“I hope you’ll pardon my ignorance. If they were never married, why is she called Madame instead of Mademoiselle?”
“Because of my very advanced age,” Marie-Anne answered him. They had reached the carriage, and she had overheard him as Dahlia waited for him to hand her up the step. As he did so, Marie-Anne continued, “And because I am so much more like a widow than a mademoiselle.”
“It was so cruel,” said Dahlia, settling into the landau as he handed up the other ladies. “To think that the wedding was just days away. Everything would have turned out so differently, if only…”
Marie-Anne made a soft tutting noise and shook her head gently at Dahlia. “No sadness and no ‘if only’, petit chou.” Dahlia’s face lit up at the endearment. “You were not a melancholy child and I will not let you be one now. Do you think I have done nothing but weep and mourn for all these years? No, because your brother would hate that, from me as well as you. So! What flavor of ice will you take?”
Mason tried to use the opportunity, as the ladies chatted amongst themselves, to look at the other well-heeled citizens putting themselves on display in the park. It was a perfect place to watch all kinds of little dramas unfold, the kind he could take back to Freddy who would then pull the details together and make a story of it for the paper. But even if there were no tidbits to take back to Freddy, there was no shortage of information to take in for his own purposes. The way they dressed, and preened, and were so obvious in how they watched each other while pretending that they didn’t have a care in the world.
He took it all in, and later he would pull the visual details together to make a picture to go with Freddy’s stories. It was so far a very entertaining and very lucrative endeavor.
But his eyes kept straying back to the carriage to watch Marie-Anne de Vauteuil lick at her spoon. Advanced age, she’d said, the most precious piece of nonsense he’d ever heard. He couldn’t know her age exactly, but he was more practiced than most at guessing. She was in perfect prime – not a baby-faced debutante nor a fading beauty, in possession of a face that showed plenty of life experience but none of the cynicism or bitterness that age so often brought. And she was clever. And funny. And she ate iced cream in a way that was sure to give him some of the most erotic dreams of his life.
“Mr. Mason sells as much timber in a week as exists in all of England, isn’t that right, Mr. Mason?”
Dahlia was determined to impress everyone she could with his wealth, so he’d gotten used to this. For the first time, though, she made it not sound like a boast, or like it was something that proved her own superiority. She seemed hopeful, which meant she very much cared that Marie-Anne de Vauteuil approved of the match.
Which meant that maybe if Marie-Anne didn’t approve, he could get out of this mess.
“It’s not difficult to do when there’s so much of the stuff back home,” he answered. He made sure to sound bored, hoping a little surliness would contribute to the impression that he was bad husband material. If nothing else, he hoped to discourage them from talking about this business he’d invented. A few days ago Dahlia had gone on about it to a naval officer, who immediately launched into a discourse on the pressing need for a new supplier of ship’s masts. That was the last thing he needed, to get the Royal Navy involved.
“Is your business here in London to do with finding investors?” asked Marie-Anne. “What is the word – speculation?”
That did put him on alert, but he was well practiced at not showing it.
“Timber, speculation, social restitution,” he smiled, recalling her words last night. “I didn’t expect ladies would want to speak of such tiresome
subjects.”
“But of course you are right,” she smiled back, cool as anything. “Of what shall we speak, then?”
“Mason is very interested in art,” offered Dahlia. It was the first time he’d ever heard her mention this fact about him, and she was downright eager. “Paintings and sculptures and so forth. It is a passion of his.”
“Is that so?” Marie-Anne looked politely perplexed. “You must have learned to appreciate art, Dahlia? I remember how you loathed your lessons in painting. Once, you threatened to drink the watercolor to put yourself out of your misery.”
“And you told me it would not be fatal and I would only turn green and be very sick, so it was not worth the bother. I confess I never learned to like it.”
“But you must wish to show Mr. Mason the Academy’s exhibition this summer. It begins soon, I think?”
“This week, in fact,” Mason put in. He had wanted to go yesterday, and today, but an exhibition was not where Dahlia wanted to be. She insisted they must been seen here and in the park, all part of a social strategy he couldn’t hope to understand.
“I am sure with an escort who has a passion for art, it would be most fascinating.” There was something of a challenge in Marie-Anne’s voice. Was it his imagination, or was she daring Dahlia to say she wasn’t interested? “I can think of nothing more enjoyable than to see the art with someone who knows the subject very well.”
Dahlia looked uncertain, glancing between Mason and Marie-Anne. He knew she wanted to laugh and say that nothing was less appealing to her than a stroll past the paintings, but it was obvious Marie-Anne would disapprove of that. Then Dahlia’s face lit up, announcing that she’d suddenly had a bright idea.
“Then you must let Mr. Mason escort you, Marie-Anne, as soon as possible! You will so enjoy it, I remember how well you love to look at paintings. Tomorrow?”
“Tomorrow?” Marie-Anne’s slightly suspicious look landed on him. “But Mr. Mason, I am sure he has his business affairs–”
“Not at all,” he chimed in. He politely pretended not to notice the urgent and pleading look Dahlia was giving her. For some mysterious reason, she desperately wanted Marie-Anne to spend an afternoon looking at art with him, and he was not about to disagree with the plan. “I can’t think of anything more important than properly entertaining Miss Shipley’s dear friend. Your direction, madame? Where may I call on you?”
Her eyes met his in an arrested look, and he knew she was holding back a startled laugh. It felt disproportionately wonderful, to share this tiny memory with her, this little secret, even if it did recall his own embarrassment.
“There you see, it’s all settled,” said Dahlia with satisfaction.
“Is it indeed,” murmured Marie-Anne, still looking at him. Then she blinked the amusement out of her perfect blue eyes and told him he could call on her at Summerdale House.
Mason had never seen homes as elegant as the ones he glimpsed in London, and Summerdale House was so far the most elegant of them all. He admired the placement of some lilies in the foyer, how the size and color of them were the exact touch needed for the space, and wondered which of the servants had the artistic eye. He also wondered how much money the Earl of Summerdale must have, to keep a London house full of servants up and running for the sake of a single guest while he and his wife took a jaunt across the sea.
It was a very brief thought, though, and it did little to distract him from his nerves as he waited for a painfully dignified butler to open the door to a room of perfect proportions and graceful lines. In the center of it stood Marie-Anne de Vauteuil in her sprigged muslin and upswept hair. He almost said that he would paint her like that if she’d let him: the warm golds of the room a lovely backdrop to her cornflower blue dress, her form outlined by the white marble of the fireplace, strands of hair the color of honey artfully framing her face. He could never do it justice, but he’d like to try to preserve the image. It was so pretty.
“Mr. Mason, you are a cad,” she announced quite cordially by way of greeting. “Would you like tea, or shall we go and pretend to look at art now?”
He sucked in a deep breath. She really was something entirely new in his experience. “Is tea one of these circumlocutions they’re so fond of here? A polite way of saying pistols at dawn, or something like that?”
“No, of course not,” she said, but then she looked a little uncertain. Her own brows furrowed. “If it is, I have never heard it used that way. Have you?”
“I haven’t, but I don’t often hear of ladies offering tea to cads in the home of an earl. I’m a little out of my depth.”
She looked beyond him and called, “Collins, is offering tea a way to declare dark intentions toward a guest?”
“No, madame,” came the butler’s reply from just outside the door where he had stationed himself. He appeared immediately at the doorway. “It is my experience that an invitation to tea is rarely more than an expression of hospitality.”
“Except when it is Lord Summerdale’s mother who offers it, I understand,” she said with a sudden spark of humor in her eye. The butler maintained his impassive expression but – a slight triumph for her – ever so faintly cleared his throat. She let loose with a little smile. “We must thank all the saints she is not here. Will you ask the kitchen to prepare a tray for us, please?”
“Of course, madame.” The butler gave a brief bow and disappeared again.
She watched his retreating form, her smile fading to thoughtfulness. “Later I will have to hear a very polite little lecture on how to use a bell pull. But I will explain that you do not deserve the finest manners of this house, no matter how prosperous and good-looking you are. Because you are a cad.”
He tucked away the delightful knowledge that she found him good-looking – he could savor that later. For now, if she was going to be so wonderfully forthright, he decided the best way to proceed was for him to do the same. Within reason, of course.
“I suppose I am a cad,” he allowed. “What made you decide that? If you don’t mind being specific.”
“Sir, let us not play games.”
“Ma’am, I would dearly love to play all kinds of games with you.”
“Ah! There it is, you answer your own question.” He couldn’t tell if she was annoyed or amused. Probably both. “And at the ball as well, you flirt with me and charmed me absolutely–”
“It worked?”
“Of course it worked, I am a living and breathing woman, do not be stupid.” She was definitely annoyed, and he was definitely enjoying honesty. “Then you ask to call on me and to drive with me through the park, and all the time you are engaged!” She paused and he just looked at her. “To be married! To Dahlia!”
“Yes, well, I forgot,” he said simply. “Momentarily. Because you’re so–”
“Oh no, I beg you do not say it,” she said in exasperated warning, and held a palm up to silence him. “You will save the compliments for your fiancée, please, who does not deserve this treatment. It is obvious she arranges this afternoon so that I will know you better and approve of you. Already you make it impossible.”
“Wait.” Mason began to feel the first stirrings of a great hope. “Do you mean you’ll tell her you don’t approve of me?”
“It is not my place to approve or not approve–”
“Because I can keep flirting,” he assured her. “I’ll ply you with roses, I’ll ogle your ankles, I’ll ravish you if you let me. Right here on the divan, the butler can be a witness to my depravity, where’s that bell pull?”
“Mr. Mason!” She looked more surprised than scandalized. She blinked at him once, and then gave a sputter of laughter. Her hand came to her mouth to hide it, but it was too late. He realized he enjoyed her laughter as much as he enjoyed acting entirely like himself, without the faintest veneer of civility, for the first time since he’d come to London. He felt entirely at ease with her, which was as welcome as it was unexpected.
A parlor maid chose that moment to e
nter with a tray of tea. As she put it down, Marie-Anne said, with a smile still tugging at her lips. “Thank you, Susan, and will you thank Mrs. Chapman for the little cakes, too? You must take one for yourself so that I do not grow plump all alone, and please tell everyone that Mr. Mason is only making a joke.”
The blushing girl bobbed a curtsy and hurried out of the room.
“Everyone?” he asked.
“The servants. They hear everything,” Marie-Anne said, and sat. She began to pour the tea. “And Collins is just outside that door. To prevent any ravishing, you know.”
Mason sat across from her and accepted a cup of tea that he had no intention of drinking. “I suppose ravishing even a willing woman would make me a pariah in this town, and I’m trying to avoid that.”
She gave a shrug that was a hair too careless.
“You assume I would be willing.”
“I assumed we were still not playing games.”
She looked up then, caught him in her very blue eyes for a moment before her gaze slipped down to his lips. He gripped the tea cup like it was a talisman, a reminder of civilization that could keep him from leaning across the tea tray and kissing her silly.
“Well,” she said in a very soft voice, and lifted her eyes to look directly into his again “There are games and there are games, monsieur. We will not play, you and I.” She said it with a gentle finality, and he hoped it was only because he’d gotten himself engaged. She picked up her tea and assumed a more business-like demeanor. “Now you will tell me, please, how you have promised to marry someone you so obviously do not want?”
He hadn’t planned on making her his confidante, but he couldn’t see what he had to lose. It was all heading toward a bad end anyway. Maybe she could help it to be a little less disastrous, since she wasn’t going to play any lovely games with him. He put down his tea and prepared to tell her the sordid truth, praying he would not flush too purple.
“I didn’t mean to,” he began. “It was an accident.”
House of Cads (Ladies of Scandal Book 2) Page 5