Tempted By Fire

by Thea Devine

  It had taken Lady Waynflete but two weeks to order everything just the way she wanted it, and in that time, she had removed Jainee from the Alices, soothed Lady Truscott's vanity, usurped the services of Marie (for a fat fee in compensation, Jainee had no doubt), spread the heroic story of the orphan Jainee Bowman who had had no choice whatsoever in her career but now was saved, and had gotten Jainee, herself and her household packed and at the ready to proceed on the succeeding morning.

  Money, Jainee thought, was a wonderful thing to have. Even she, with her small cache of francs that she had squirreled away from Therese, had comprehended that wisdom in supplying herself with the resources to keep their household together.

  And now, on the morrow, she would be on her way to London, further away still from the haunting images of that awful night when she had buried Therese in a satin curtain shroud and run bleeding and in terror from the burning house that had been her home for so long.

  But enough! One could not repine. If she had learned anything over the course of this past year and several months, it was that she could only go forward, and that fate played tricks and sometimes dealt you a hand with which you could actually win a round, perhaps two.

  And the rest was a toss of the dice. Surely it was sufficient that she had come this far using her wits and guile and several hundred pilfered francs.

  Therese, she thought, would probably be proud.

  ******************

  The next day, wrapped in fur and warmed with a hot brick at her feet, Jainee gazed out at the passing scenery from the thickly tufted cushions of Lady Waynflete's travelling chaise which was eating up the miles toward London with stunning speed.

  Behind them, a carriage piled to overflowing with suit-

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  cases, boxes, servants and one very wary maid Marie, barreled along at a considerably more sedate pace that was timed for arrival in town about a half hour after Lady Waynflete so that "we can have a comfortable space of time before we must cope with luggage and unpacking," Lady Waynflete told her. "But then, of course, the servants will take care of everything. We will ensconce ourselves by the fire and take refreshments. I sent Jeremy up to town yesterday to make everything in readiness for us."

  "So kind," Jainee murmured, averting her eyes once again to the scenery, and forbearing to ask just what Lady Waynflete was getting out of her enthusiastic nursemaiding of her.

  It seemed to her that she fairly tripped over willing chap-erones—look at how amenable Caroline Murat had been to sheltering her after the hideous circumstances of Therese's death. Oh, would she never forget that horrible night — awakening from her faint draped over her mother's lifeless body; determining she must bury her lest deVerville return and wreak more havoc; tenderly wrapping her mother in the lustrous satin draperies Therese had loved so well . . . the feel of her mother's limp body as she lifted it and bore it into the rear garden where she had scratched out by sputtering candlelight a shallow grave . . . then securing the money she had hidden all those years, and allowing herself to sleep for an hour, only to be awakened by the acrid smell of smoke . . .

  She gave herself a hard mental shake. She could not let herself remember. And while Caroline had provided succor and shelter for her, she had been motivated by a great deal more than just sympathetic friendship for Therese: she saw in Jainee another beautiful courtesan who might make her brother forget the dreadful Josephine.

  Had Jainee been willing. And at that, Caroline had been amazingly angry with her when she refused.

  "What do you expect, Jainee? That you might someday

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  fall in love? There is no such thing as love. There are only bargains, and you are a fool if you turn down my brother. He could make you a queen. He is desperate for an heir."

  "I am going to England," Jainee said staunchly and in a tone of voice with which Caroline could not argue. "I promised Therese."

  "But whatever could be in England that you cannot have here?" Caroline wanted to know.

  "I am going to find my father," Jainee told her, annoyed that in the face of Caroline's offer, her quest sounded childish and not a little fantastic.

  But then she always felt impossibly young around Murat. She had lived with her for the year or so that her mother had been involved with the Emperor and it had been Murat who had taught her just how to get on in court, even when the women of the court made her feel gauche and ugly.

  She still could not shake the feeling even though she had applied to Murat for help. But rather than dismissing her little crusade as nonsensical, Caroline actually seemed to consider it.

  "Oh, your father," she said musingly. "I had quite forgotten about him, Jainee. He came from England—I do remember now. And there was something about the boy . . . he took the boy, didn't he? Yes, and your mother was so distraught. Well my dear, of course you should be with your father. We'll have to devise some means of accomplishing that."

  It seemed to Jainee in retrospect that just after this, Caroline had stopped pushing the Emperor's suit, and then that he had found another, more compliant mistress, and she had felt a little prick of annoyance that he had fixed his interest elsewhere so quickly and completely.

  When she asked Caroline about it, Caroline said, "Perhaps it is for the best, my dear. You are so young. And the woman—well, the Emperor has begun to realize he can look elsewhere for an heir and that it needn't be a child of his

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  loins. My husband, for example. Look you, I have convinced my brother to send us to Italy where my husband will reign as King of Naples. It will be a test of his fitness to succeed, do you not agree? And you shall come with us. It is perfect. You need a change of scene."

  And she needed to be that much closer to England, and so she had agreed to go with the Murats when they travelled to Italy. She had spent several fruitless months in Murat's court leading the life of a pampered noblewoman before she broached the plan of her proceeding on to England to Caroline. Like Lady Waynflete, Caroline had been agreeable and had arranged everything, including the gift of Marie as her maid and travelling companion.

  And so here she was, a year and a half later, on the last leg of her journey, accompanied by another amenable chap-erone who posed no questions and made light-hearted conversation about the duress of the trip.

  She wondered at her luck, and why Lady Waynflete had no personal questions about her at all.

  "The transition between houses is always tedious," Lady Waynflete was saying, "and of course it's impossible to read with the carriage swaying so violently, and one really has nothing to do but stare out at the scenery, but then, how many times can you see a small village or miles of pasture and have it hold your interest?"

  Lady Waynflete leaned forward and tapped her on the hand with her fan. "Do you not agree, Jainee?"

  Jainee shook herself out of her trance of memory. "It is all so new to me that it does attract my attention," she said politely, avoiding Lady Waynflete's sharp eyes.

  "In spite of the fact you have been playing with a deck of cards in your hand for this past hour?" Lady Waynflete asked, amused.

  Jainee looked down at her hands. The fortune cards. Yes, she had taken them out and had been fanning them out and closing them almost unconsciously just to give her rest-

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  less hands something to do. They had been a gift from another of the women at the Alices, and while she was well versed in the key, she had never ever used them to tell anyone's fortune.

  It seemed, in a way, like courting bad luck.

  Still, she had deliberately packed them with, she thought now, the idea of somehow using them to supplant her vice of gambling.

  But maybe not. There was something so heady about wagering and the heartstopping moment before a bet was won or lost, she didn't know how she would live without that excitement. She hadn't considered that for a moment in the wake of Lady Waynflete's sweeping expropriation of her life at the Alices to bring her to London.

 
"These are fortune cards, ma'am. Perhaps you would like to look?"

  She handed the deck over, and Lady Waynflete spread the cards. "Why look—there is nothing below a seven and each of the numbers has been blacked out on one side. How odd."

  "No, no—that gives the card a different connotation when it is en reverse. Otherwise, how could one read them?"

  "Can you read them?" Lady Waynflete asked curiously. Amusing at cards— hadn't Southam said it? She would be a sensation if she could and would.

  "I have never tried," Jainee said frankly, "but I have been taught the meanings, yes."

  "Wonderful—you shall read for me."

  "I have never done," Jainee said doubtfully, a feeling of foreboding rippling right through her.

  "Then I must be the first. I am not superstitious my dear; it is parlor game only, as surely you yourself know."

  But she didn’t know if she knew that at all, and Jainee's hands turned cold at the thought of it. Anything could come up in the cards; she knew that well enough from

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  dealing them. The thought of reading made her blood turn to ice.

  "What must I do?"

  She couldn't shake the amusement in Lady Waynflete's voice. "Truly, madame . . ."

  "Nonsense. We'll have a bit of fun to while away an hour or so and then we will be in London. Deal me your worst blow, Jainee—I promise you, I have more commonsense than blue, and I am not easily shocked."

  Jainee swallowed convulsively. Stupid of her to have chosen the fortune cards when she might have diverted Lady Waynflete with a hand or two of picquet or Quinze.

  Or was it luck—a spin of the wheel of improbabilities that had made her take out the fortune cards so that the sharp-eyed Lady Waynflete would notice?

  She couldn't give in to that—she continued to protest: "But madame, there is no flat surface on which to lay the cards and the coach sways so forcefully, they would slide all about anyway."

  "Well then —I will move to sit beside you and you will lay the cards out against the back of the seat and that should do very well," Lady Waynflete said decisively, suiting action to words.

  Fate—surely it was fate once again that contrived to provide her with an expanse of surface on which to play her hand.

  "Very well, madame," she said finally. There was no getting away from it, and indeed, it was still early enough that the coach was not dark inside and the sun shone through the door window clearly and cleanly. It was now a matter of shuffling the deck, presenting it to Lady Waynflete to cut—with her left hand: very important — laying out the cards and interpreting their conformation.

  "Cut the deck, madame, and with your left hand, please," Jainee instructed Lady Waynflete, and she did as she was requested, and then watched with great interest as

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  Jainee counted out six cards and then overturned the seventh, which she positioned against the backrest of the seat, and then folded the previous six cards into the bottom of the deck. She counted another six cards, overturned the seventh, placed it beside the first, and once again put the six previous cards on the bottom of the deck.

  She did this twelve times so that there were twelve single cards laid against the cushion, and then she turned to Lady Waynflete.

  "There is no card representing you here. These cards are not for you."

  "Then we must try again," Lady Waynflete said cheerfully, positively fascinated with the whole rigamarole.

  Jainee gathered up the cards and laid them out again.

  "Ah . . . now we have it . . ." Dieu, she thought with a chill, how facile the cards could be in defining a life. It mattered not which fortune the player sought. The results were the same. The cards always won.

  She took a deep breath. "Here you are, madame —" she pointed to a queen of spades, "and so we know the cards concern a refined and attractive widow . . ." She slanted a look at Lady Waynflete who made a grimace.

  "The cards truly do not say that," she protested. "Do go on, Jainee."

  "Very well. The ace of hearts: this concerns your home; ten of hearts reverse—you may have an unexpected surprise. But I expect you probably have had, my lady, with Lord Southam dropping me on your doorstep."

  "This is fascinating," Lady Waynflete murmured. "Continue."

  "Nine of spades in reverse beside the queen: you have sadly been unsuccessful in love, my lady, and I do not foretell that this will change. There will be a man—the king of spade who will want you, but you must be careful: this is a man you must beware of. There will be no reconciliation. I see prison, a marriage proposal and bad news. I cannot

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  foretell the order of these events, only advise you—and yet I see also some useful person may come to your aid . . . does this make sense, my lady?"

  "Yes," Lady Waynflete whispered, and Jainee turned to look at her. Her expression was positively set, her pale blue eyes riveted on the cards.

  "We are not done yet," Jainee said. "The cards provide that we must check the revelations." She gathered up the cards and shuffled them once again. "Do you cut, my lady?"

  "Yes," Lady Waynflete said, her voice stronger and more positive now. She reached with her left hand and cut the deck.

  "Now we make four packets of three cards each; these stand for the person, yourself, madame; the house; the future; and finally, the surprise. Now—"

  She picked up the first three cards: they were not good. She hesitated a moment before she began her interpretation. "See here, the deceptive widow queen— you, madame—perhaps something here is not what it seems. There is or was a quarrel, the news is worse than you expected."

  She picked up the second three cards. "To the house now. The queen again. You are represented well, my lady. The queen of hearts is everything desirable in a woman. But I see bad love affairs, a bad marriage."

  She looked at Lady Waynflete who was curiously still and then picked up the third packet of cards. "You have a benefactor, madame, but I feel for all his good intentions, he is powerless, and therefore you will have to wait longer than you contemplated for some anticipated occurrence—a journey, perhaps, madame?

  "And lastly — " she picked up the last stack of three cards. "What surprises? Profits, madame, money—always good news, and perhaps an unexpected surprise? Or perhaps it may be that unforeseen journey, who can tell?" She folded the cards together. "I am done, madame."

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  "Most interesting," Lady Waynflete said resolutely, but Jainee heard the slight tremor in her voice; she sounded shaken, as if something in this mystifying party trick were meaningful to her.

  But that was nonsense. She reached out her hand to reassure her, and Lady Waynflete brushed it away. "Most informative, my dear Jainee. You are quite far-sighted. Most amazing. You must read for my darling Jeremy. And of course —for Nick. Definitely Nick. Oh—look, my dear, we've come to the outskirts of London — we are almost home!"

  Chapter Six

  Home.

  For one moment, as she stepped from the cab of the chaise, she felt like a fraud. This was not her home, and yet it was eerily similar: a stately four-story townhouse fronted by semi-circular shallow marble steps, its pristine painted door framed by four grecian columns.

  She felt like a charlatan; the fortune cards burned in her reticule like some devil's apparatus, and she castigated herself for being so ungrateful as to let a party trick turn into something more serious, particularly in view of all Lady Waynflete had already done for her.

  But there was always her scurrilous bargain with Southam to prey on her conscience. She could not come away from this confrontation a winner, and she took a deep, spine-stiffening breath as the door opened and light flooded out of the house, silhouetting Jeremy Waynflete as he came down the steps, his hands outstretched to his mother.

  "Come into the house—hurry—it is too cold for man or beast out here . . ." Quickly he ushered them into the warmth of the reception hallway, and Jainee stared in awe at the height of the ceiling, whi
ch must have reached twelve feet at least. The walls were painted a soft sea green color with the moldings picked out in white, while the floor was inlaid with black and white marble squares and covered over with an exquisite Axminster carpet in the center.

  A servant appeared, silent and unquestioning, took their wraps and removed himself quietly as a ripple of water.

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  "Oh, it is so good to be home," Lady Waynflete sighed. She turned to Jainee. "Have you met my reprobate son? Jeremy, this is Jainee Bowman, late of Brighton, who has come to stay with us for the season."

  Jeremy bowed gravely. "I believe I have had the pleasure." He held out his arm to his mother. "Come, it is much warmer in the parlor and Blexter is ready to serve refreshments.''

  Jainee followed them into a hallway just beyond the reception room off of which there were two doors, front and back, and an ornate staircase which curved gracefully upwards with no visible support.

  Jeremy opened the first door and ushered his mother and then Jainee into the parlor. This was a large square room at the front of the house, furnished with elegant and comfortable furniture, not one piece so forbidding, Jainee thought as Jeremy settled her and Lady Waynflete solicitously by the fire, that one felt ill at ease in the setting.

  The walls were painted the same soft green which contrasted wonderfully with the lustrous mahogany wood of the chairs, tables, sofa frames and one magnificent, multi-drawered drop front desk which was positioned between the two front windows and which was, in tandem with the beautiful carved white marble fireplace surround, the focus of the room.

  Jeremy pulled on a bell-rope by the fireplace and then sat down beside his mother on one of the two red brocade upholstered corner sofas, and fixed his piercing brown gaze on Jainee.

  "Nick is no fool, you know."

  Whatever she expected, she had not foreseen that he would broach the subject of her being taken up by Southam quite so brashly. It felt almost like a frontal assault. Perhaps it was: he had been the man by Southam's side that fateful evening he had played and lost to her.