“In a moment. I need to collect myself.”
“Collect yourself? Madame Gale, you just fell off a balcony.”
“No, monsieur, I didn’t fall. I was pushed.”
Christien caught his breath, waited for her to say more.
“My Mr. Lang is at this masquerade—” She broke off and ducked her head.
He cupped her chin in his hands and nudged her face up, then his nostrils flared. “Pardon me, madame, but have you been drinking gin?”
“What?” She sounded normal now, her breath restored along with her strength, and she pushed him away. “I don’t even know what gin tastes like, let alone drink it. How dare you accuse me. I say I was pushed, and you accuse me of drinking.”
“I am sorry.” His face burned in the darkness. “But I know the scent. Could someone have given it to you without you knowing?”
“I drank only lemon—is gin kind of bitter?”
“What will you think of me if I say yes?”
“More than I did not so long ago.” She shifted, groaned. “No breaks. Lots of bruises. Will you help me stand?”
“Oui, but I fear your costume is ruined.” He gathered her hands in his and rose, drawing her with him.
“Better my costume than my person, which was someone’s intent.” She gripped his forearms. “Or do you simply think I’m making up a tale because I’ve been drinking?”
“I believe someone could have played a May game with you and tried to get you to drink lemonade with spirits in it. But surely you’d notice. And who?”
“It was Mr. Lang. He even had my bracelet to remind me to cooperate. As for why . . .” She took a deep breath and winced.
“You are injured.”
“I have bruising, but it’s not important. Why I fell is.”
“He thought to have people think you’d been drinking to give reason for your fall, n’est-ce pas?”
“Yes, I believe it is so. I implied I was weary of helping and—” Her voice shook. Her hands shook.
Christien drew her close to him, tucked her head against his shoulder, and stroked her hair. He murmured nonsense in French, so much softer and more soothing than English. He rested his cheek atop her head and, with great willpower, managed not to turn his face and brush his lips against the glossy curls. She needed comfort, not advances.
She acted like she trusted him.
He embraced her until her trembling ceased, then held her at arm’s length and peered into her face, nothing more than a pale blur in the dark garden. “We must talk about this more, but I think you should go home now, take a bit of laudanum, and rest.”
“My sisters. I must find them.”
“You cannot go back to the ballroom, my lady. Your gown—”
She let out a little shriek of horror.
“Here.” He enveloped her in his voluminous domino. “Come into the library. Miss Bainbridge was hiding there earlier.”
He led Lydia into the house and a room not open for guests, as the garden was not. But Miss Cassandra Bainbridge still skulked on her window seat, as though a woman screaming in the garden meant nothing to her. She didn’t even look up at their arrival.
No wonder Whittaker grew frustrated with her.
“Cassandra, we’re leaving.” Lydia’s tone was sharp, showing no trace of her quiet hysterics of moments earlier.
Cassandra glanced up. “Lydia, what happened to you? Why are you wearing Monsieur de Meuse’s domino?”
“I had an accident with my gown.”
“Indeed?” Cassandra’s eyes narrowed.
“Yes, an accident,” Lydia snapped. “Now, go find Honore.”
“I shall find her,” Christien said. “She is more likely to come if I say so. You ladies remain here. I will have your carriage brought around to the mews.” Christien slipped away.
Behind him the door latch clicked. Good. No one would disturb them. He should have told them to lock the windows too. Whoever had pushed Lydia—
She’d been pushed off a balcony!
Christien tamped down his own desire to shake at what could have happened to Lydia and pressed through the crowd that grew denser the closer to the ballroom he drew. He would think about the mishap later. He would wait and get more information from Lydia. He must find Honore.
He had spotted her earlier with her charming crown of laurel leaves, and found her again. The gentleman with whom she shared a glass of something that looked suspiciously like Madeira wore a domino and mask, but Christien never doubted for a moment he was Gerald Frobisher. And the youth held Honore close with an arm around her waist. A good tableau to end.
“Miss Honore,” Christien clipped out, “your sisters need you immediately. Come with me.”
“But I—”
“You can’t drag her away, whoever you are,” Frobisher protested.
“I can and I shall.” Christien grasped Honore’s elbow in a firm though gentle grip and turned her toward the library. “Do not make a scene, Miss Honore. Your sister has had an accident.”
“Don’t tell me that Cassandra fell down steps again.”
“No, Lady Gale.”
That got Honore moving, firing questions at him he didn’t feel free to answer. Let Lydia tell her sisters whatever story she liked.
Once the sisters were united in the library, Christien slipped out through the miniscule garden to the mews and sent a stable hand around to fetch the Bainbridge carriage. As he stood in the French window awaiting the vehicle’s arrival, Lydia slipped up beside him, now smelling of lilacs along with her own scent.
“I think our culprit is George Barnaby,” she murmured.
“Why?”
“I cannot say here. Call on me tomorrow.”
But when he called on her the following day, the butler informed him that Lady Gale was indisposed. “She said she will send for you when she is well.”
But she did not. For another week, Christien waited for messages from her. He waited for messages from his sister. He sought out Miss Honore at balls. That young minx acted as though she neither knew nor wanted to know him and gave him the cut direct with her pert little nose in the air. When he saw her riding in the park with Gerald Frobisher again, Christien suspected why.
Not wanting to intrude upon Lydia if she were truly indisposed, and concerned about his sister’s silence, Christien finally made an appearance at the Bainbridge back door, wearing the plain garb of a tradesman.
“I need to see the cook,” he announced to the tiny scullion who opened the portal.
“Are you the tea merchant?” the lad asked, his green eyes twinkling. “If so, she’s likely to take her biggest skillet to your skull for delivering bohea day before yesterday.”
“My reasons are my own, young man.” Christien tried to be stern, though the corners of his mouth twitched.
“Yes sir, guv. It’s your head at stake.” The lad nipped inside.
A volume of French spilled from the half-open door like peppercorns from a broken chest: She didn’t need to talk to a merchant. She was too preoccupied to talk to a merchant. How could she prepare the special broth for Madame if the oh-so-inconsiderate tradesman thought he could interrupt her day?
Christien pushed the door the rest of the way open and stood on the threshold.
“And now you bring in the damp and cold that will make my soufflé—ah.” She stopped speaking, and her cheeks paled. “I will speak to you then.”
The kitchen staff, standing as far from her as they could, gave Christien looks of awe.
He smiled, bowed, and ushered the cook up the areaway steps.
“You missed our rendezvous,” he began in French. “You know our agreement. If you don’t report to me regularly, I will make you go home and keep you locked up there until I find a man fool enough to marry you.”
“I am so sorry, mon frère, but I have been inundated with the work. Madame is ill—”
“Lydia—that is, Lady Gale?”
“No.” Lisette tilted her he
ad sideways, and a little smile curved her lips. “It is Madame Bainbridge. But it is tres interessant that you would think of Lady Gale first.”
“Only that she hasn’t been about of late.” Christien shoved his hands into his coat pockets. “And neither have you.”
“Madame Bainbridge had a relapse of her lung fever, and I am kept on my little toes preparing invalid fare to tempt her appetite. I tell you, Christien, I have not avoided you on purpose.”
“You should have gotten a message to me to let me know.”
“Why? They are all safe.”
“Except for Miss Honore riding out with Gerald Frobisher.”
“That one.” Lisette swept her arm out as though throwing something disgusting away. “There is no stopping her when Madame Gale is busy with her maman and preparing this ball and painting and . . . She scarcely sleeps, and keeping after that youngest one to behave herself properly is tres impossible.”
“You should have told me, gotten me a message. I’d have—”
What could he have done? Call on her when she made it clear that she wanted nothing to do with him? He couldn’t even use the excuse that he needed her help with entrée into Society. His desk overflowed with invitations.
“And how was I to do this? Send a footman to your rooms?” Lisette wrinkled her nose. “A fine kettle of fish that would have me stewing in, the cook sending the billet dou, the love letters to a gentleman, or so it would appear. I could not—”
Above them, a window slammed.
“Now that does it.” Lisette planted her hands on her nonexistent hips. “We have disturbed someone in the family, and I will likely be dismissed without a reference for conducting an alliance with a man when I am to be working.”
“Nothing would make me happier. In fact, I’m sending you back—”
Running feet clicked around the corner of the house. Lisette’s eyes widened.
Christien swung around. “My lady.”
“Monsieur de Meuse, do tell me where you plan to send my cook,” demanded Lady Lydia Gale.
Her words sounded calm to her ears despite tremors racing through her body and a bit of shortness of breath from her headlong dash down the steps to catch Christien with her cook.
With her cook!
“I think it is time for me to go back to my kettles, n’est-ce pas?” The diminutive chef darted toward the area steps.
Lydia caught hold of her arm. “Not so quickly. Why are you discussing me and my family with this man?”
The young woman’s gaze shot to Christien. Do not, she mouthed.
“I asked her to inform me if all was not well with you.” Christien smiled at Lydia.
She blinked and her toes curled. Her mind raced. “Why would my cook do this for you, a stranger?” She narrowed her eyes. “Unless it has something to do with—”
“It has something to do with her being my sister.”
“Oh, you bête,” the girl cried. “How could you? Now I am ruined, finished, an exile.”
“And I am struck dumb.” Lydia glanced from Christien to the cook and back to Christien.
She saw little resemblance. The girl was petite and dark. Although Christien’s hair and complexion ran on the dark side, his blue eyes gave the impression of lightness, of sunshine and warmth. The cook was more like a banked fire smoldering on a hearth and awaiting the merest prod of the poker to fan it into flames.
From the way her tiny fists clenched, the flames had ignited.
“I think,” Christien said, “we should retire to a more private venue. We’re attracting attention, and my lady is not dressed for the street.”
Lydia caught her breath and stared down at the paint-smeared smock she wore over her oldest gown. Swaths of dark hair fell on either side of her face, one strand bearing a streak of periwinkle blue paint. Perhaps, if God really did pay attention to her, the paving stones would part and swallow her up into the tunnels and streams beneath London before anyone noticed who she was.
But God wasn’t paying attention to her that day any more than He did any other. The pavement remained firm. Traffic continued through the square, and sunlight burst through the clouds, depicting her flaws in even brighter light.
She started to cover her face with her hands.
“Have a care.” Christien grasped her wrists and held her hands away from her. Paint daubed her fingers too.
“Oh, my lady, I am so sorry.” The cook—Christien’s sister indeed?—grasped Lydia’s elbow. “We shall descend to my room and be private. You would like some tea? And café au lait for you, Christien?”
If they weren’t related, the cook was unforgivably familiar with a gentleman.
“Let us.” Still grasping Lydia’s wrist, Christien headed down the areaway steps.
She didn’t protest. Going to the cook’s room was preferable to standing on the pavement for the passing world to see her in her painting smock and tumbled hair she thought she’d pinned up that morning. Either all the pins had come out or she had removed them as she worked. She didn’t recall. If asked at that moment, she couldn’t tell anyone the day of the week.
She’d thought she was dreaming when she heard Christien’s voice below her window, especially paired with that of the cook. Surely he would have no reason to speak to one of her servants. Yet his voice drifted to her like a rising tide of caramel—smooth and rich. And her name drifted right along with it.
She needed to confront him, to learn his business with the cook, but for him to see her in such disarray pushed her life beyond the pale.
“I need a basin first,” she said. “Strong soap and lots of water.”
“We have that in the kitchen, but of course.” The cook ran ahead and began issuing orders for water, soap, towels.
Lydia glanced up at Christien. She fully intended to demand an explanation then and there.
“You’re not wearing your sling now,” she said.
“A good disguise not to wear it.” He touched his injured shoulder. “It pains me little most of the time. I can even drive with one hand.” One of his fingers caressed the inside of her wrist. “Your absence has been felt. Your maman is well now, I trust?”
“My mother has never been truly ill.” Lydia snapped her teeth together, but the damage was done. Sea-blue eyes, smooth, arching eyebrows, and that gentle hand on her arm compelled her to continue. “She’s so embarrassed about Cassandra calling off the wedding, then me taking a tumble at the ball—the best explanation I could give for my bruises—she can’t face the world. Father has convinced her she’s a failure as a wife and mother—but this is none of your concern.”
“Of course it is.” He removed his hand from her wrist and laid his palm against her cheek, turning her face fully toward his. “Everything about you concerns me, ma chère. It has since I met you in the prison, but especially since you gave me your bracelet.”
“That bracelet was always intended for you, was it not?”
“No.” His hand lay warm and gentle against her cheek, and she suddenly found breathing difficult. “The bracelet was intended for you. Charles was given it by a Spanish woman—ah, here is Lisette.”
But Lisette—presumably the cook’s Christian name—wasn’t there. Christien had changed his mind about telling her more about a Spanish woman who gave away expensive jewelry. Lydia’s brain teemed with the possibilities—an informant, a camp follower of the lower sort, one of the highborn sort, one Charles had rescued . . .
A reason why he had never even tried to come home.
“Who was this Spanish woman?” Lydia demanded.
Christien dropped his hand to hers, pressed her fingers, then gestured her forward without saying a word. The cook was coming now, beckoning them down to the back door and her rooms tucked behind the kitchen hearth—a sitting room and bedchamber not much larger than Lydia’s dressing room. But the kitchen fire lent the chambers warmth, and bright chintz cushions made the small sofa and chairs comfortable.
“First the washing
.” Lisette led Lydia into her bedchamber, where she found warm water and soap so she could scrub paint off her hands.
“Why did you deceive us about who you are?” Lydia asked.
Lisette shrugged. “I wanted an adventure.” She had lost her French accent and spoke with tones as British as Lydia’s own. “My brother has spent ten years sneaking about the continent or pretending to be in the French Army, and I have been stranded in Shropshire with nothing to do but learn to cook because I am no good at sewing or reading.”
“So you slipped off to London.” Lydia cocked her head to one side and tried not to smile. “And acquired a French accent, I see.”
“Well, yes.” Lisette giggled. “I was only three years old when we came to England. And with maman being American and my governesses being English, I learned to speak the language well, unlike that brother of mine. He will never be English, however much he serves the king.”
“That will do, Lisette,” Christien called from the sitting room.
“Oui, monsieur. Tout de suite, monsieur.” Lisette dropped a curtsy and scampered from the room.
“Minx.” His glance, his tone reflected affection. “Ah, but she has managed me since she was born.”
“Which is why you allowed her to stay here and didn’t inform us that our chef is an impostor?” Lydia stood in the bedchamber doorway, finding Christien too close at his window post.
“I allowed her to stay here,” he responded, “because I wanted to ensure nothing went wrong in your household that I did not know about. Though she has failed me.”
“Why would you do that?”
“You tell me you get pushed off a balcony after someone tried serving you spirits, and you ask me why I would do that?” He made no apparent attempt to mask his impatience.
Lydia bowed her head in acknowledgment. “I should have told you I’m all right. I’ve been so preoccupied with my painting, as I’ve found a shop that will sell small ones, and with Mama being in her state of illness and Cassandra moping about, not to mention Honore’s ball.”
“Regarding Miss Honore . . .” Christien said.
A Necessary Deception Page 17