by French Leave
“So there you are!” she whispered, the plumes on her aigrette bobbing in agitation. “I was beginning to wonder if you had changed your mind.”
“Changed my mind?” echoed the earl. “On the contrary. I have been awaiting this moment for four long years.”
Taking her elbow, he guided her up the shallow steps into the shelter of the temple. The brilliant lights from the ballroom did not reach this far, but as Waverly’s eyes adjusted to the darkness, he noticed that the folly contained no furnishings save a rug on its smooth marble floor.
“Convenient,” he remarked, smoothing the rug with the toe of his evening pump. “One might suppose someone to have been expecting us. Then again, I daresay such structures are often put to such a purpose.”
Lady Helen’s darted a glance at the rug, and licked her lips nervously. “I suppose so.”
“Well, then, shall we?” suggested the earl, putting his arm about her waist and drawing her closer.
“Yes, but—” Lady Helen’s hands splayed against his chest as if to ward off the very advances which she had herself solicited.
“But what?”
She shook her head. “Nothing. It’s only that—well—I’ve never done this before—”
“Never?” the earl echoed mockingly. “Surely you do not expect me to believe that your four children were immaculately conceived!”
“Of course not!” said Lady Helen, annoyed. “I meant I have never done such a thing with anyone other than my husband!”
“Four years of fidelity? In that case, your husband is more fortunate than most of the gentlemen of the ton. I must remember to congratulate him.”
“You will not dare to mention this to him!”
“No? But how can you expect to punish him if he is not to know he is being cuckolded?”
Lady Helen had not previously recognized this flaw in her plan, but she was not prepared to acknowledge as much to the earl. “I did not come here to discuss my husband! Now, if you please, may we just get on with it?”
“Your eagerness overwhelms me, my dear.”
Waverly’s arms tightened around her and he lowered his head to hers. He could feel her warm breath on his face, could almost taste her lips, when a shriek from the shrubbery nearby made him release Lady Helen so quickly that she nearly tumbled to the floor. He vaulted over the low wall of the folly, then rounded the edge of the ornamental shrubbery just in time to see Lisette struggling in the arms of a rakish young officer in scarlet regimentals.
“Mats non! Stop at once, monsieur, or I will—”
Her captor only laughed. “You will what? Come, ma petite, let us cry friends! Consider it an exercise in diplomacy between your country and mi—”
He got no further before Waverly seized him by the collar. The earl never raised his voice, yet it was as cold—and as lethal—as forged steel. “Your diplomatic skills are superfluous, since the hostilities are long since over. However, the peace could end very quickly, at least as far as you are concerned, unless you unhand my wife and remove your miserable carcass from her presence. Do I make myself clear?”
“Yes, sir—I didn’t know—I meant no offense—”
Stammering incoherent apologies, the soldier took his leave, sped on his way by a swift kick to his derriere.
Alone with his wife, Waverly regarded her expectantly. “Well, Lisette?”
“Oh, milord, do not be angry with me! Vraiment, I did not know what he meant to do! He asked me if I would like to step into the garden for a breath of fresh air, and as it was very hot inside, I said I would like it very much. But then, when we reached the shrubbery, he tried to—to—”
As Lisette concluded this speech by bursting into a hearty bout of tears, it behooved the earl to gather her in his arms and pat her consolingly. “There, there, child, it’s all right.”
Lisette looked up, and the tears trembling on her long lashes sparkled in the moonlight. “Then you are not angry?”
“On the contrary. I am extremely angry, but not with you.”
“I swear to you, I never did anything to make him think I wanted him to kiss me!”
Waverly stared down at the woman in his arms, at a loss for words. How could he explain to this innocent creature that she didn’t have to do anything, that she merely had to be to have this effect on men? He’d been aware of it since he’d seen her descending the stairs earlier this evening, not dripping wet this time, nor garishly painted with kohl, but looking entirely too grown up—and entirely too desirable—for his peace of mind. What insane notion had possessed him, to assure her that theirs would be a mariage blanc! His lip curled in derision as the answer came to him: honor. And just when he had convinced himself that he had none! What a damnably inconvenient time that overrated quality chose to make its presence known! Now he was trapped, living like a monk while he played nursemaid to his young wife, who had no more idea of how to go about in Society than a babe newborn. “Let’s step outside for a breath of fresh air,” indeed! That one was so old, it had whiskers.
“Milord,” Lisette said meekly, interrupting his thoughts, “would you mind very much taking me home now?”
Lord Waverly thought of Lady Helen waiting impatiently for him in the garden folly. God, yes, he minded taking her home! He minded very much, indeed. But one look at Lisette’s woebegone face informed him that only a cad would abandon her after such an ordeal in order to keep an assignation, and whatever else he might be, he was apparently not a cad. Would that it were so, he thought with a sigh of regret for what might have been. Then, tucking Lisette’s gloved hand into the crook of his arm, he led her out of the moonlit garden.
* * * *
Lady Helen, remaining discreetly out of sight in the Grecian temple, waited for some time before coming to the conclusion that Waverly would not be returning that evening. Stretching her lips in a bright, false smile, she made her solitary way back into the house, where she bade her host and hostess adieu and boarded her carriage for the short drive to Grosvenor Square. The butler was waiting to fling open the door for her, but in spite of his commanding presence, the big house seemed strangely empty.
“Good evening, Evers,” she said, her voice echoing in the cavernous hall.
“Good evening, my lady,” he replied, relieving her of her velvet evening cloak. “Shall I send for Matthews?”
The last thing she wanted at the moment was to listen to her abigail’s chatter. “No, that won’t be necessary.”
Her footsteps rang on the tiled floor as she made her way toward the curved staircase dominating the far end of the hall. She was perhaps halfway there when a door flew open on her left.
“ ‘ome so soon, ‘elen?”
Lady Helen started guiltily. “Ethan!” she exclaimed, placing one gloved hand over her pounding heart. “How you startled me! I wasn’t expecting to see you.”
He gave her a searching look. “Nor were pleased to, I’ll be bound.”
“What—what nonsense!” she said with a shaky laugh, presenting her cheek for his kiss. “I’m always glad to see you.” At least then I know you’re not with that dreadful woman, she thought.
Sir Ethan, not one to be content with a chaste peck on the cheek, took his wife in his arms and proceeded to do the job properly. For one delicious moment, Lady Helen closed her eyes and relaxed in his embrace, willing herself to forget the Green Street encounter to which she’d been an unwilling witness. But even as she fought to expunge the memory, it came rushing back with startling clarity: her husband, a flame-haired courtesan, and a kiss so ardent it knocked the hat from his head...
“Really, Ethan, you’re crushing my dress,” she protested feebly.
“I ‘aven’t even got started yet,” he informed her with a grin, but his smile faded as she pulled away. “ ‘elen? What’s the matter, love?”
“Why must there be something the matter?” she asked testily. “What if I just want to be left alone?”
“Then I guess I’ll leave you alone,” he said
ruefully, unhanding his wife with some reluctance. “We weren’t always like this, ‘elen.”
“No,” she said slowly. “But that was before you started spending all your time in Green Street.”
If she had hoped to catch him off guard, she succeeded. She had been so caught up in the gaieties of the Season, he hadn’t realized that she was even aware of his meetings with Grenville, Grey, and company, much less that she resented his absence.
“So you know about that, do you?”
Up came Lady Helen’s chin, and she regarded her low-born spouse with eight hundred years of ducal forebears invisibly ranged at her back. “Then you do not deny it!”
Sir Ethan shrugged. “What would be the point? I was going to tell you, but you’ve been gone so often of late, we ‘ardly ever see each other,”
“So I suppose I am to blame!”
“I wouldn’t say anyone is to blame, exactly,” said Sir Ethan, baffled by his wife’s response to the prospect of himself sitting in the House of Commons. “I would’ve told you before, if I’d known it meant that much to you. After all,” he added with a smile, “it’s ‘ardly your area of expertise.”
Lady Helen’s speechless outrage caused the plumes on her jeweled aigrette to tremble ominously. After she had risked her life to bear him four children, he had the gall to inform her that she was inadequate! If that were so, he had only himself to blame, for all she knew on the subject she had learned from him! That much, at least, could be remedied: if Lord Waverly had chosen that moment to present himself in Grosvenor Square, she would have commanded him to do the deed at once, without further roundaboutation.
Sir Ethan, seeing that his innocent observation had failed to please, hastened to multiply his sins by adding, “Nor would I expect a lady to interest ‘erself in such things.”
“How very good of you, to be sure!” retorted Lady Helen, finding her tongue at last. “But if it is truly my welfare you have at heart, it seems odd to me that you gave no thought to what must be my chagrin, my humiliation—”
“ ‘Humiliation,’ ‘elen?” he echoed incredulously.
“Yes, humiliation! Can you doubt it? To be made an object of ridicule, or worse, pity—”
He didn’t hear another word. He could not have been more stunned if she had struck him. She was ashamed of him. He had known, of course, that she had once felt that way. In all fairness, it would have been very odd if she had not, given the vast difference in their stations. But he had thought those days were long gone. In Lancashire, there had been no thought of family trees, no talk of pedigrees. There had been other, infinitely more pleasant, ways to pass the time. But while she considered him good enough to warm the cold North country nights, she was embarrassed to think that the workhouse riffraff she’d married might someday defile the hallowed corridors of power. It was, he supposed, not so very different from the aristocratic ladies who married gentlemen but amused themselves with their footmen—except, in Lady Helen’s case, she hadn’t the dowry to entice a gentleman, so he had to suffice for both rôles. The funny thing was (or perhaps it was not so funny, now that he thought about it), he hadn’t realized until now how badly he had wanted this, how much he had wanted to prove that perhaps he was not so unworthy of her, after all.
“I’d ‘oped you would be pleased,” he confessed.
“Pleased! Pray, what pleasure should I take in such a state of affairs?”
“At least I’m acting a bit more like a gentleman,” he pointed out reasonably. “I doubt you’ll find many work’ouse brats there.”
In spite of her anger, Lady Helen was touched. Ashamed, too, as she recalled every time she had ever wished her husband spoke, or dressed, or behaved more like a member of her own class.
“Is that what this is all about?” she asked, her voice gentle. “Being more like a gentleman?”
Again Sir Ethan was his own worst enemy. “Only a little,” he replied candidly. “I wouldn’t even consider it if I didn’t already ‘ave leanings in that direction.”
At this admission, Lady Helen’s self-recriminations vanished. “I see. In that case, I suppose there is nothing more to be said.”
She turned to leave, but he caught her arm. “Would you rather I didn’t, ‘elen?”
Oh, how she wanted to say yes! As she looked into his warm brown eyes, it was all she could do not to cast herself on his chest and forgive him everything. But he had not asked for her forgiveness. He had, in fact, not admitted any wrongdoing at all. With such a great gulf between them, what hope did they have for reconciliation? Quickly, before he could see the tears welling in her eyes, she pulled away.
“I’m sure it is a matter of complete indifference to me,” she lied, and quitted the room, leaving Evers (still hovering discreetly in the background) to reflect that, had he been the sort to carry tales, he might have dined out on this little scene for a month.
* * * *
In the reading room at Brooks’s club, a glum trio of men assembled before the fire, the low hum of their conversation occasionally increasing in volume sufficiently to cause one or another of the club’s members to glare at the three over the top of the Times sporting page.
“Damnation!” Lord Grenville exclaimed. “I thought we had convinced him. What can have caused him to change his mind?”
“Surely he must have offered some explanation?” put in Lord Grey.
“He sent a letter by the early post,” admitted Sir Lawrence Latham, drawing a folded paper from his breast pocket, “but as to whether it constitutes an explanation, I shall leave it to you to decide.”
He unfolded the paper and studied the lines as if seeking some hidden meaning. “He says he is flattered by our interest, but if he must make a choice, he would rather be a footman than an M.P.”
“A footman?” echoed Lord Grey in bewilderment. “I thought the fellow was a weaver!”
As Sir Lawrence refolded the letter, the three men shook their heads at the vagaries of the lower classes.
Chapter 10
She is herself a dowry.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, King Lear
The following morning at eleven o’clock, Mr. Matthew Bartles, senior member of the firm Bartles, Rankin, and Bartles, Solicitors, presented himself in Park Lane and was conducted to the library, where the earl waited to receive him.
“Good morning, Mr. Bartles,” said Lord Waverly, gesturing to a chair positioned near the fire. “Do be seated. I trust you were able to obtain an answer to my query?”
Mr. Bartles sketched a bow and seated himself, then withdrew a folded paper from the breast pocket of his coat. “I was, indeed, sir. The Waverly sapphires, a parure consisting of a necklace, tiara, and earrings, were sold for the sum of twelve hundred guineas on 10 July 1816, shortly before you, er—”
“Shortly before I decamped for France,” inserted Lord Waverly, regarding with cynical amusement the solicitor’s delicately flushed countenance. “You need not spare my sensibilities, Mr. Bartles. Pray continue! Who was the buyer, and is he willing to sell?”
“As to that, my lord, there is a slight complication. The buyer was a gentleman from Lancashire—”
At the mention of that northern county, four years of animosity came rushing to the fore. Lord Waverly gripped the rolled arms of his chair until his knuckles turned white. Damn Ethan Brundy! Which woman now possessed the Waverly family heirlooms—the lady he had once hoped to make his countess, or the most avaricious courtesan in London? He wasn’t sure which would be the greater insult. Gradually, however, he became aware of Mr. Bartles’s well-modulated voice enunciating words that somehow made no sense.
“—It seems the gentleman went quite mad after becoming estranged from his only son—”
“Nonsense!” interrupted Waverly. “Whatever else may be said of him, I will do him the justice to own that he is quite sane. Furthermore, he has two sons, and neither of them is over three years old!”
His brow puckered in consternation, Mr. Bartles reviewed the pa
pers in his hand. “I assure you, my lord, Colonel Colling fathered one son, John, who died in France—”
Relief flooded Lord Waverly’s bosom at the discovery that his family’s heritage was not, after all, in the possession of his archrival. Alas, this emotion was short-lived, quickly yielding place to a growing sense of unease.
“Did you say Colling?” the earl asked. “Then the Waverly sapphires were not, in fact, purchased by Ethan Brundy?”
“Why, no. As I said, the buyer was Colonel Robert Colling. Therein lies the difficulty, for Colonel Colling died quite recently.”
“Good God!” murmured Lord Waverly.
“The sapphires are now the property of this John Colling’s daughter, who inherited everything upon her grandfather’s death. I have attempted to contact Miss Colling through the French uncle who is her guardian, but without success.”
“And have your attempts to locate Miss Colling extended as far as the Morning Post?” inquired the earl with awful courtesy.
“As a matter of fact, they have not, my lord. Why do you ask, if I may be so bold?”
“Because had you consulted the newspaper, you might have read the announcement of my marriage to the lady!” Waverly snapped.
Mr. Bartles blinked at the earl as comprehension dawned. He had been wont to regard his aristocratic client as a wastrel and a rakehell, but now looked at him with new respect. “I see! Pray accept my felicitations upon your marriage, my lord. If I may say so, I should have known you would find a way to salvage your family’s heritage.”
Lord Waverly bristled at the suggestion that he had married Lisette for her fortune when in fact he had only just now learned of its existence. Still, Lisette’s reputation would not be enhanced by his revealing the true circumstances behind the hasty union, so he accepted the solicitor’s congratulations and sent the man on his way. Alone in his library, he crossed the room to the window and stared unseeing into the street as he pondered the situation in which he now found himself.