Christien laughed and offered his arm. “Come. We shall discuss the French felines along the way to Rotten Row. I have a fondness for cats.”
“Right now I’d happily give you mine.” She took his arm, and the footman sprang to open the front door. “My husband gave him to me for a betrothal gift. I think he knew—” She caught her breath.
“Oui, madame?” Christien welcomed the coolness of the outside air despite the odor of coal smoke strong enough to taste. “What did your husband know?”
“It’s unimportant.” She released his arm the instant they reached the bottom step and stood beside his curricle. “Your horses are lovely. The foreign service must be good to you.”
“My family has prospered here, not the foreign service.” Christien leaped aboard the open vehicle and leaned down to offer the lady his hand.
She grasped his fingers like a drowning woman, stepped onto the spoke, and swung aboard with the fluidity of a sunrise banishing darkness. Even if clouds had filled the sky, he would have rejoiced to be beside her, inhaling her perfume, hearing her voice, feeling the occasional touch of her arm against his.
A man could not fall in love at first sight. Not outside the pages of a romantic novel like those his sisters read, but a man could fall in love with an action that shouted of a lady’s character. Christien had done so the instant she pressed her bracelet into his palm and promised him freedom.
If he didn’t win her to his side, she would rob him of freedom just as quickly.
He unwound the reins from the whip box, called to the lad holding the horses to release their heads, and set the curricle surging forward to bounce over the cobbles of the square before glancing at his companion and launching into his prepared speech. “Thank you for not giving me away. I know you could have easily done so, and I would have found myself right back in Dartmoor Prison. Probably in the black hole there.”
“I didn’t do it to spare you the deprivations of prison. Right now I’d like to see you back there.” She sighed. “No, that isn’t true. I wouldn’t wish any enemies to live like that, not even you.”
“I am not your enemy, my lady.”
“You are French, are you not? We are at war.”
“You are at war with Napoleon’s France, not Bourbon France. I am of Bourbon France.”
“And a month ago, you were an officer in Napoleon’s Army. Do please tell me which person is the true man—Christophe Arnaud or Christien de Meuse.”
“Both.”
She gave an unladylike snort.
“Mais vraiment. I am Christien Christophe Arnaud de Meuse.”
“Please forgive me if I do not believe you.” Her voice held no true request for grace.
He granted her forgiveness anyway. “I understand your doubts, your distrust, your skepticism, your—”
“Outrage? Why don’t we begin with my outrage, monsieur.” She glared up at him with such ferocity he feared passersby would think he had said something improper to her.
He sought for words to calm her. “Oui, you have reason for outrage. I took advantage of your kindness—”
“And now are taking advantage of my love for my family and my fear that something terrible will happen to them if I don’t cooperate with whatever all of you want.”
Christien started. The reins jerked. The team of bays reared and halted. “What all of us?”
“Mr. Lang and his other friends. Not that he seemed much of a friend of yours when he confronted me.”
“What all of us?” Christien repeated. “Lang is my friend of many years and working with me alone.”
“Don’t ye be stoppin’ in the middle of the road, you blithering idgit,” a hackney driver shouted from behind them.
A few other drivers and small boys along the pavement began to pick up the chorus. They added some less savory comments to their catcalls.
Grinding his teeth, Christien snapped the reins to get the bays moving again and turned to Lydia. “Your statement implies that you have had other callers sent by Monsieur Lang.”
“As if you don’t know.” She curled her upper lip.
Kissing it would be a fine way to wipe the sneer away from her lovely mouth. One day. Not yet. Not while she thought of him what she should.
Thought of him what she should . . .
He concentrated on navigating the curricle between pedestrians and carriages. “Vraiment, madame, I know of no others Monsieur Lang has sent for your assistance.”
“Indeed. And do you know all of Mr. Lang’s dealings?”
“Thank le bon dieu, no.”
“No honor amongst spies . . . or traitors?” Her tone was mellifluous, her glance as sharp as a pickax.
Christien’s lips twitched. “What we don’t know, we cannot tell.”
“You admit it?” She jerked beside him, rocking the vehicle.
“I admit nothing.”
“But you said—”
“I have no secret that I am working with Monsieur Lang. That does not make me a traitor.” Christien let her stew over that one for a few moments while he maneuvered the team through the crush at the entrance to Hyde Park. They entered the procession of phaetons, curricles, and barouches taking advantage of the rare fine weather to parade down Rotten Row.
Most of the vehicles held couples—early Season courtships, the newly wed, others who gave Society a less than good name at times. He wondered why a Christian lady like Lydia would bring her younger sisters to London to find them husbands. It seemed the worst place for courtship if they were to make connections with godly young men. Whittaker seemed a nice enough fellow, but Christien had heard talk of the younger man’s escapades at university . . .
But men changed. He had through trial under fire.
Now to convince Lydia Gale of that fact. Or at least convince her of the facts he needed to tell her so she would work with him, not against him.
“I am not on the wrong side, Lady Gale.” He turned his head so he could look at her. “I have lived in this country since I was ten years old. England gave my family shelter and protection when our own people tried to kill us. An Englishman got us out of France and to safety. We bought land and have prospered. Why would I turn against all this to work for the Corsican monster?”
“You were in Dartmoor because you were doing just that.” She held his gaze without wavering. “You were with my husband at his death because of that—working with the Corsican monster.”
“Or was I working with your husband for England?”
Christien posed the question, then focused his attention on turning the curve in the lane without hooking wheels with a youth showing more enthusiasm than skill at driving.
Lydia said nothing. He felt her stiffness beside him. A glance told him she looked straight ahead. Those curls bobbed against her cheek, and the silk petals on her hat’s roses fluttered in the cool breeze. The rest of her remained still, motionless.
“You’re too polite to call me a liar?” Christien asked, flashing her a smile.
“Perhaps I’m too frightened to call you a liar.” The coolness of her voice evoked no hint of fear. Challenge, yes. Apprehension?
Christien slipped the reins into one hand and tucked her errant curls behind her ear. They were every bit as soft as he imagined they would be. “Then you’ll accept the possibility that I tell you the truth?”
“I saw you in that prison. Surely our government wouldn’t ask that kind of sacrifice, that kind of horror in prison, of you, of anyone working for them.”
“Ha!” His laugh burst from him.
Several matrons in a nearby carriage glanced his way, then took a second look.
He smiled at them and bowed from his seat, then he returned his attention to the lovely widow. “Men suffer far worse for causes in which they believe. Your husband saw the men go aboard the transports before going himself, and when the horses panicked, he saved men’s lives at the cost of his own, eventually. But it was a cause in which he believed—fighting Napoleon for his
country.”
“Which only tells me that you endured prison for the cause you believe in—fighting the English for your country.”
Christien frowned at a pair of curricles ahead of them moving at an even slower pace than the sedate promenade that was normal in the park. A lady drove one and a gentleman drove the other. They appeared to be engaged in an intimate tête-à-tête and paying no attention at all to how they held up the progress of others.
“For a yard of tin to blow like the mail coaches,” he murmured.
Lydia laughed. “You’d probably start a stampede.”
“We’d be moving then, no?”
“Yes, we’d—”
A crunch of wood and iron colliding cut across her words. Ahead, the two curricles stood motionless with their wheels locked. The lady began to yell at the gentleman for not steering straight. He in turn made some rude remarks about ladies driving.
“I believe,” Christien drawled, “we will be here for a while.”
“You won’t go assist them?”
“Will you be here if I do?”
“You expect me to slip away from you and walk home the minute your back is turned?”
“I don’t know what to expect from you, Madame Gale.” Christien turned to face her. “You think I am up to no good. You do not like Monsieur Lang’s methods of getting you to cooperate with us.”
“Would you?”
“I don’t. I asked him not to do what he is doing, not to bring you into this. He did not listen to me. So here we are, stranded together.” He glanced toward the tangled vehicles.
Several young men had removed their coats and demonstrated their physical prowess by leading the horses out of the shafts and pulling the two curricles apart.
“They don’t need your assistance after all,” she said.
“No, but I need yours, ma chère.” He tried to look into her eyes, but her hat brim frustrated his efforts. “Without entrée into London Society, I cannot succeed. I need to move freely around and through the ton to complete my mission. With you at my side—”
“Your mission.” She gripped her reticule so hard he suspected her knuckles were white beneath her leather gloves. “The man who blackmailed me into helping you said nothing of me remaining at your side after I make introductions.”
Guts twisting, Christien drew up on the side of the path so he could face her. “What do you mean by the man who blackmailed you into helping me? Lang is from the Home Office.”
“Don’t play the innocent with me, monsieur.” Her dark eyes flashed, and a white line formed around her mouth. “I am as well aware as you that our government doesn’t need to meet ladies in dark gardens to force them—”
Christien grasped her wrist. “What dark garden?”
“As if you don’t know.” She wrinkled her nose as though smelling something revolting. “Now let us be gone before we make more of a spectacle of ourselves than we already have.”
Carriages flowed past them, and many persons stared. They needed to move on, stop drawing so much attention, but Christien’s innards told him something was terribly wrong, and he wasn’t about to move until he got the truth from Lydia.
“Tell me what garden . . . s’il vous plait,” he persisted.
“The one in Portsmouth, six days after you escaped from England against the terms of your parole.” She spoke behind a stiff smile and clenched teeth. “You know that quite well.”
“No, Madame Gale, I do not. Monsieur Lang was with me that night.”
6
What ever had possessed her to purchase a red riding habit?
Lydia stared down at the deep wine-red jacket and skirt, then up at her reflection in the mirror. She didn’t look like a widow. With the red bringing out the roses in her cheeks and somehow making her hair glow with blue highlights, she looked like a lady in search of a husband, and with two men vying for her attention, that was the last impression she wished to give.
Not that they wanted her attention for any honorable reason. Barnaby and de Meuse needed her for her connections in Society. Seen with her, a widow above reproach whose ancestor had signed the Magna Carta, whose husband had died in the service of his country, the men would find themselves welcomed anywhere she requested they be welcomed.
Except perhaps Almack’s. No one told the patronesses whom to invite to those hallowed and—if Lydia remembered correctly—dull halls. But Lady Jersey had an eye for attractive men, and Christien de Meuse was certainly that—attractive, charming, treacherous.
If she could expose him first . . .
Yes, he should be the easiest man to be rid of, being French. Though émigrés dotted Great Britain—from kitchens as chefs, to dressing rooms as ladies’ maids, to drawing rooms as honored guests—the men and women who were or had served the aristocracy of France were not entirely liked or trusted.
With good reason. No one should trust Christien de Meuse. A mere month ago, he had been in Dartmoor, taken when the ship on which his regiment had been sailing was captured by the English Navy. She was supposed to believe he was a double agent, with England the country in which he placed his primary loyalty. That’s what he’d told her as they resumed their leisurely drive along Rotten Row and back. Mr. Lang was supposed to meet her in Plymouth and ask her to help. But a Mr. Lang had met her in Portsmouth and compelled her to help. No doubt, if asked, Mr. Barnaby and Mr. Frobisher would declare they were the loyal subjects of King George of Hanover and Christien de Meuse was the traitor, or the Frenchman in their midst would declare them traitors—Englishmen working for Napoleon.
“How to know the truth?” Lydia picked up her hat and perched it on her head at first one angle, then another.
Hodge leaped from the floor to a stool to the dressing table, then launched himself at the perky feather curling over the hat’s narrow brim.
“Beast.” Lydia jumped back in time to protect her hat and coiffure. “It’s not attached to a bird, I promise. Not that you’ve ever caught anything that flies.” Mice, on the other hand . . . Hodge earned his keep at the cottage. “Be a good kitty and I’ll take you for a walk in the mews later. Maybe even the park.” The idea sounded lovely even as she spoke it.
For now, she wasn’t riding out with de Meuse alone. She doubted she should be alone with any of the gentlemen, not in a carriage, on horseback, or in a parlor, regardless of crowds around them.
She wanted to stay alone in her room or find a quiet corner of the park to paint and think. But the hands of her clock pointed to 10:30, and Whittaker and de Meuse were expected any minute. Barnaby wasn’t expected for another half hour.
And there went the knocker. The banging of the brass ring echoed up the steps of the tall, narrow townhouse. Across the hall, Honore and Cassandra’s bedchamber door opened.
“Lydia?” Honore called. “Are you ready? I believe the gentlemen are here.”
Lydia joined her younger sister in the passageway. “You look lovely.”
“Not as pretty as you. How I wish I could wear that color.” Honore sighed.
“And I’m wishing I’d chosen your deep blue instead of red.” Lydia smiled. “But the blue suits you. It matches your eyes.”
“And Mr. Frobisher’s.” Honore’s eyes grew dreamy. “Did you notice that we have the same coloring? Don’t we make a nice picture?”
“If I say no, it would be a lie, but, Honore, you can’t be thinking . . . I mean, you just met him. You know nothing of him.”
“He’s a friend of your friend. Isn’t that enough? And in my novels—”
“Novels are called fiction for a reason, child.” Lydia smoothed a curling strand of hair off Honore’s face. “Life isn’t like that at all.”
“But you barely knew Sir Charles before you married him. Wasn’t that love at first sight? Didn’t you feel like your heart would just beat out of your chest when you looked at him, and get all warm—”
“That’s not love.” Lydia softened her tone. “Honore, love isn’t a feeling. It’s dee
per. It’s friendship and understanding and—”
What did she know about love? Charles had departed for his regiment before the first blush of marital bliss had faded. He’d departed and doused the flames with the chill of rejection.
“We didn’t have friendship.” Lydia blinked against a mist in her eyes. “Get to know the gentleman a little first, Honore. He mentioned going to Watier’s. Men play a deep game there. You don’t want a gamester for a husband. And we don’t know if he’s a man of property.”
“I have a fine dowry.”
“Honore, please don’t toss your hat over the windmill for the first pretty face you see. Now, let’s be on our way. Monsieur de Meuse and Lord Whittaker are waiting.”
“Not Mr. Barnaby and Mr. Frobisher?” Honore’s full lips dropped into a pout. “But I understood they would be.”
“Perhaps later.”
God had ignored her prayers to keep the men away, at least until de Meuse had departed for whatever occupied his time. She didn’t want to pretend liking or even politeness with either man.
“Then perhaps I should wait.” Honore half turned toward her bedchamber door.
“You’re coming with us.” Lydia curved her hand around Honore’s elbow and steered her toward the steps.
“But there won’t be a gentleman to accompany me. I’m like a carriage with five wheels. It would look unbalanced.”
“My dear girl, if we don’t attract a whole platoon of eligible young men, I’ll be surprised. Now scoot.”
Honore scooted with enough alacrity to give Lydia hope that her younger sister liked the idea of other young men swarming around her. And surely they would. She was so pretty and sweet, if a bit too dreamy. Those dreams—the belief that attraction could be instant and permanent—caused trouble for too many young women. If Honore was one of them . . .
But she wouldn’t be. Lydia would make sure of it. That was one reason she’d asked de Meuse to come a half hour earlier than Barnaby and Frobisher planned to arrive.
With the time limit in mind, Lydia followed her youngest sister down the steps to the entryway. Honore stood talking to de Meuse and Whittaker, who poised beside them in a stance suggesting he intended to dash off somewhere at any moment.
A Necessary Deception Page 6