Sherri Cobb South

by French Leave

Étienne, perspiration beading on his forehead, inched his way toward the heavy gold curtain. “Abundantly plain, milord. No harm was intended. I do beg pardon—” Feeling the brocade folds beneath his hand, he plunged through the curtain to the safety of the ballroom beyond.

  Alone with his errant wife, Waverly turned to confront her, relieved to discover that while he dealt with Étienne, Lisette had lowered her leg to the floor, allowing the diaphanous folds of her gown to fall about her ankles.

  “As for you—”

  “I did not go outside with him,” Lisette said, blinking owlishly at her livid spouse. “That is what you told me, oui?”

  “Good God, do I have to tell you everything? One would think you should know not to wager your clothing on the turn of a card! Surely you must have surmised that any man who would suggest such a thing could hardly have honorable intentions!”

  “Jusht—just as I must have surmised that the captain invited me onto the balcony with the intention of kissing me?” retorted Lisette. “No, I did not surmise! Vraiment, I cannot understand why sensible men should act so silly as soon as they find themselves alone with a lady!”

  Lord Waverly regarded her with an enigmatic smile playing about his mouth. “Can you not? Then I had best not tell you, lest you think me silly, also.”

  “But if you do not tell me, milord, how am I to know?”

  Waverly looked down at the piquant little face raised so trustingly to his, and became vaguely aware that he was fighting a losing battle. Precisely what that battle was, and why it was so important that he should win it, were not at all clear. He knew only that it would be a relief to give up, at least for a moment, an unequal struggle. Gently, so as not to alarm her, he drew her into his arms and lowered his head to hers. He heard the slight catch of her breath as their lips touched, but the sound was quickly swallowed up as his mouth claimed hers. He could feel the pounding of her heart against his chest, but she made no move to escape from his embrace. At last, the sounds from the ballroom beyond the curtain penetrated his brain, and he slowly released her.

  Lisette, raising shaking fingers to her lips, regarded him with wide and luminous eyes. “Oh,” she breathed softly.

  “That,” he said unsteadily, “is why. Now, if you will put on your shoes, I will take you home.”

  Chapter 11

  Says he, “I am a handsome man,

  but I’m a gay deceiver.”

  GEORGE COLMAN THE YOUNGER,

  Love Laughs at Locksmiths

  Lord Waverly lingered at the breakfast table long past his usual hour, waiting for Lisette to come down. He did not look for this to be soon, given the amount of champagne she had apparently consumed the night before, but he felt the meeting should not be postponed beyond what was absolutely necessary. It was imperative that Lisette be brought to understand that, one kiss notwithstanding, the nature of their marriage had not changed. He frowned, wondering—not for the first time—what had possessed him to yield to that unfortunate impulse.

  He had still not arrived at a satisfactory solution to this puzzle when Lisette entered the sunny yellow-and-white breakfast room, squinting her eyes against the sunlight streaming through the windows.

  “Good morning, Lisette.” Waverly’s greeting was cordial, but not inviting.

  “You need not shout, milord,” complained Lisette, wincing.

  In spite of his best intentions, the earl could not entirely suppress a smile. “I beg your pardon,” he said meekly.

  Lisette was not deceived. “It is unkind of you to mock me, milord.”

  Waverly, seeing where his husbandly duty lay, went to the sideboard and poured her a cup of coffee. “Forgive me, but I seem to recall someone assuring me that wine was as mother’s milk to the French.”

  “Oh, but I am half English, so I daresay that accounts for it,” said Lisette, sipping tentatively at the steaming liquid.

  “I am humbled indeed.”

  Lisette glared at him mutinously. “Say what you will, milord, but I was not nearly so drunk as you were on the day we met, so you cannot scold me!”

  “My good child, do not, I beseech you, look to me as your example! I have done a great many things for which I would not only scold you, but probably beat you soundly into the bargain!”

  His smile robbed these words of any real threat, but Lisette’s expression grew solemn. “I think you were tempted to do so last night, were you not? Pray, milord, what—what did I do?”

  Waverly could only stare at her. “You don’t remember?”

  “No. I know that Étienne was there, and you, and that we were playing cards, but the rest, it is nothing but a blur.”

  Never had Lord Waverly been so grateful for the debilitating effects of alcohol. And yet, his initial relief at being spared any awkward explanations soon gave way, illogically, to a sense of ill-usage that his kiss had been so easily forgotten. He, at least, had not found it so; instead, he had lain awake for much of the night, trying in vain to find a suitable explanation for his lapse.

  “Your memory, such as it is, is accurate, save for one minor detail,” said the earl. “Having no coins to wager, you apparently conceived the happy notion of staking various articles of clothing.”

  Lisette’s pale face grew even paler. “Did I—lose very much?” she asked tentatively.

  “Suffice it to say that your luck was not in.”

  Her expressive eyes widened in horror. “Was I—was I naked?”

  “Good God, no!” Waverly assured her hastily, banishing with an effort the intriguing image her words called to mind. “You were certainly indiscreet, but not indecent.”

  “Une chance,” said Lisette, somewhat relieved. “There is something else, though—I am embarrassed to ask.”

  Waverly’s voice was gentle. “You need not be.”

  “Très bien. Did we—” She blushed rosily. “Did you kiss me, milord?”

  The earl’s eyebrows arched upward in mild surprise. “My good child,” he said, “did I not assure you, when I asked you to marry me, that I would make no such demands on you?”

  “Oui, but—”

  “And since that time, have I done anything to make you doubt that I am a man of my word?”

  Lisette’s face fell. “Non, milord.” Setting down her cup, Lisette rose from the table.

  “Will you not have a bit of toast? Buttered eggs, perhaps?”

  “I have not anymore the hunger, milord,” she said sadly, moving dejectedly toward the door.

  “Lisette—”

  She paused to turn back. “Oui, milord?”

  “There is one thing that puzzles me. When you and I played piquet, you won almost every hand, and yet that damnable Frenchman was able to relieve you of your fan, your gloves, your shoes, and one of your stockings. I am at a loss to account for it.”

  He had all the felicity of seeing her melancholy vanish, and a mischievous smile light her expressive countenance. “Are you indeed, milord? But you knew that I cheated!”

  On this Parthian shot, she nipped out of the room, leaving Waverly to address himself to the closed door. “Oh, Lisette,” he murmured, chuckling, “what the devil am I going to do about you?”

  He could think of only one possible solution. Abandoning his breakfast, he went to the library in search of pen and paper.

  * * * *

  Helen, read the missive delivered by hand to Grosvenor Square some half-hour later, I can wait no longer. Lady Helen, to whose chamber this message was delivered along with her morning chocolate, sat bolt upright in her bed, her heart racing. Alas, a closer perusal of the letter revealed that the handwriting was not that of her husband. Nor, she reflected, frowning, would he be likely to express himself in terms better suited to Drury Lane than to private correspondence. Adjusting the pillows at her back, she continued to read. Attend the Warburton ball tonight, and we will settle the matter once and for all. I will have a closed carriage waiting at eleven of the clock. I have given most of the servants the evening off, an
d will instruct the others not to wait up. We shall be quite alone. Yrs., etc., W.

  Lady Helen had hardly reached the end of this epistle when the connecting door opened to admit her husband.

  “Good morning, Ethan,” she said in a fair semblance of calm, reaching one hand out to him in greeting while, with the other, she deftly folded the missive and tucked it into the bodice of her dressing gown.

  “Secrets, love?” he asked, observing this gesture as he took her proffered hand and raised it to his lips.

  “Oh, the most tiresome thing! The Warburton ball is tonight. I promised to attend, but had forgotten all about it!”

  “If you forgot it that easily, it can’t be that important,” pointed out Sir Ethan, perching on the edge of the bed and taking his wife in his arms. “Can’t you get out of it?”

  “Impossible!” declared Lady Helen, wriggling in his embrace in an effort to work Waverly’s note deeper into the recesses of her bodice. “He—they will be expecting me.”

  “He, or they?”

  “They, but most particularly he,” she said, pleased to be able to cover her slip without resorting to fabrication. “You see, Lord Warburton is an old friend of Papa’s, and he is giving this ball to celebrate his wife’s birthday. It would be very shabby of me to cry off.”

  Sir Ethan abandoned this forlorn hope with a shrug, then came to the purpose of his matutinal visit. “ ‘elen, I’ve been thinking,” he said without preamble. “Let’s go to Brighton,”

  They had gone to Brighton on their wedding trip. The memory was like salt in an open wound. “Brighton?” she echoed with a hollow laugh. “In the middle of the Season?”

  “Why not?”

  On the other hand, she reflected, Brighton was a very long way from Green Street. “I daresay Charles and William would enjoy seabathing—”

  “The children are not invited,” said Sir Ethan in a voice that brooked no argument. “They can stay in Town with their nurse, or if you’d rather, we can send them back to Lancashire.”

  “But, Ethan—”

  “But me no buts! The last time we visited Brighton, we ‘ad Sir Aubrey and Polly and the Dowager. This time it’s going to be just you and me.”

  The note inside her bodice scratched her tender flesh, an all too painful reminder of how much had changed since their wedding trip to Brighton four years previously. Even if they left for Brighton tomorrow, it would never be the same. “I don’t know, Ethan. I shall give it some thought.”

  With this he was forced to be content, so he kissed his wife’s cheek and left her to the tender mercies of her dresser.

  “What do you wish to wear today, my lady?” asked this personage somewhat dampeningly. Rose, it seemed, had no opinion of anyone who interrupted her mistress’s toilette, husband or not.

  “It doesn’t matter—the lilac, I suppose.”

  “Very good, my lady,” said the abigail, retrieving the lilac morning gown from the clothes-press. “And if you can tell me what you will want for the ball, I’ll see that it’s ready.”

  The question caught Lady Helen off guard. What did one wear for cuckolding one’s husband? She joined Rose before the clothes-press and considered her options. White? No, virginal white seemed ludicrous, given the circumstances. Besides, she had worn white on that long-ago evening when she had first met her husband. The blue crape? No, for it was one of her favorites, and she wanted no ugly memories to spoil it for her. The jonquil satin with the lace overdress? Perfect! She had never liked it above half, and she was certain that after tonight she would loathe the very sight of it.

  By the time Lady Helen returned to her room that evening to ready herself for the ball, the jonquil satin was neatly pressed and laid out on her bed. Alas, there was nothing at all neat or orderly about Lady Helen’s thoughts. She looked forward to the evening with a perturbation of spirits unmatched since she had made her first curtsy eight years earlier. And to think that, upon that occasion, she had no greater fear than that of forgetting the steps of the cotillion or treading upon some gentleman’s toes! How woefully naïve she must have been!

  Her sensibilities notwithstanding, Lady Helen knew to a nicety how the game should be played. When the carriage set her down before the Warburtons’ Belgrave Square town house, she joined the receiving line with every appearance of pleasure. When she reached the top of the stairs and the butler announced her name, she greeted Lord Warburton warmly and wished Lady Warburton many happy returns of her natal day. When she entered the ballroom, she accepted a rather foppishly dressed viscount’s offer to lead her into the set just forming. Not once did her gaze scan the crowded room for a glimpse of Lord Waverly, and no one watching her perform the complex patterns of the quadrille would have guessed just how much effort the omission required of her.

  She had been at the ball for fully an hour before the familiar figure of the earl detached itself from the crowd and moved forward.

  “Lady Helen,” said Waverly, making his bow, “dare I hope the next dance is not yet taken?”

  “Indeed, it is not, my lord,” she replied, placing her gloved hand on his sleeve and allowing him to lead her back onto the floor. The next set was a contredanse, whose movements repeatedly paired couples only to tear them apart, so their conversation was brief, and marked by fits and starts.

  “I have not seen your husband this evening,” Waverly observed. “Does he not accompany you?”

  “Ethan dined at his club tonight. I daresay he is still there.”

  “How very accommodating of him, to be sure.”

  As the movement of the dance required that the earl surrender her temporarily to a portly baron, Lady Helen offered no comment to this remark, but when the steps reunited them, asked a question other own.

  “And Lisette?”

  “She has gone to the theatre with a party of young people, and will not return until well after midnight.” He lowered his voice. “So as you see, we need not fear interruption.”

  Once again the steps of the dance separated them, so Lady Helen merely nodded in acknowledgement. Everything was proceeding according to plan, and by morning, revenge would be hers. She should be pleased. Why, then, did she keep glancing at the long-case clock along the wall, wishing she might slow the hands that moved inexorably toward eleven?

  * * * *

  In his assessment of his wife’s whereabouts, Lord Waverly was only partially correct. To be sure, Lisette had indeed attended a performance of Laugh When You Can at Drury Lane with a party of young people; however, as the curtain fell on the first act, the group dispersed in search of food, friends, and flirtations. Lisette elected to remain alone in the box, and it was here that Étienne found her.

  “Bon soir, Madame Waverly,” he said, advancing tentatively into the box.

  Lisette turned and, recognizing the speaker, promptly turned her back on him. “Bon soir, monsieur,” she said frostily.

  “Forgive me, madame,” the Frenchman continued in some agitation. “I know your husband commanded me to keep my distance, but under the circumstances, I feel sure he would understand—even approve of—my approaching you.”

  Lisette again turned to face him. “Oui? I wonder, monsieur, what makes you think so?”

  “I do not wish to distress you, but there has been an accident—your husband—”

  Lisette’s icy demeanor melted in an instant. “Milord? Is he badly hurt?”

  “Not being a doctor, I would not presume to judge—”

  “You must take me to him at once!” Lisette demanded, leaping to her feet.

  “Très bien, if that is what you wish—”

  Lisette stamped her foot impatiently. “At once! Comprenez-vous?"

  She did not wait for a reply, but flung herself through the curtain in a swirl of pink satin.

  “As you wish,” Étienne said meekly to the empty air, then followed her from the box.

  By the time he caught up with her, she had reached the street, where she hailed a hackney in a torrent o
f impassioned French.

  “Where to, miss?” asked the driver of this equipage, drawing up beside her.

  Lisette, finding herself at a loss, turned to Étienne. “Where is he?”

  “It is my understanding that he was taken to a hostel in Southwark. Great Dover Street,” he added for the driver’s benefit, as he handed Lisette into the carriage.

  “Mais non!” Lisette protested, one foot poised on the step. “We must go at once to Park Lane and have everything made ready for his return. I will not allow milord to die in a hovel!”

  “Not a hovel; a hostel,” Étienne corrected her.

  But Lisette would not be swayed. “I am sure they are very much the same thing. To Park Lane—vite!” she commanded the driver.

  This individual had no knowledge of French, but everything in his passenger’s manner bespoke her need for haste. Besides which, he had always had a soft spot for a pretty young thing, even if she was a foreigner. He whipped up the horses just as Étienne entered the carriage behind Lisette, and the equipage barreled westward toward Park Lane.

  Étienne, finding himself tumbled unceremoniously onto the floor of the carriage, scrambled to his feet with what dignity he could muster, pulled the door shut, and collapsed onto the seat. Within a very few minutes, the carriage rolled to a stop before Lord Waverly’s town house. Lisette flung open the door and, not waiting for the step to be let down, leaped to the ground. With Étienne hurrying to keep up, she scampered up the stairs to the portico and burst into the foyer.

  “There has been an accident,” she informed the startled butler. “Milord is injured. I will bring him home very shortly. Send a footman for le médecin, and have Cook boil water and prepare a broth. Tell milord’s valet de chambre to make up a bed on the ground floor, and to find bandages. He may tear up the sheets in the blue bedchamber, if necessary.”

  The butler, astounded at the sight of his youthful mistress taking command like the countess she was, could only stare open-mouthed.

  “Tout de suite,” commanded Lisette impatiently, stamping her foot. “At once, do you hear?”

  “Yes, madam,” he said hastily. “Right away, madam.”