The confidence that had been growing in him diminished.
Perhaps there was no swarthy Frenchman.
Perhaps there was not even a swarthy footman.
Perhaps there was only himself.
“My darling,” she said huskily. “I will read Byron to you. You will see the beauty in his poems. And then we can—”
“Smash automation machines in factories together?” he suggested.
“Excuse me?”
“Sorry,” he said. “It was a reference to a speech Byron made in the House of Lords once.” Her face still managed to convey confusion, and he added, “In favor of the Luddites.”
“Darling, does this mean you are acquainted with Byron? That you have placed your foot, where he has placed his?”
“I—”
“I am even more convinced of our love.”
Love?
This was too far.
She was a pleasant girl, but she was so much younger than he was. He’d experienced things she’d never even heard of. And though that fact would be fine if he truly cared for her, if he admired her values—he was more bewildered by her.
“I am afraid I do not share your emotions,” he said.
Normally he tended to not be so blunt.
But she seemed to struggle to grasp the gist of what he was saying, for she only nodded solemnly to him. “It is important for you to have confidence in yourself. As I do.”
“I meant…” He sighed. He might be practiced at lying for the Crown, but he sought to avoid it in his private life. But she was the niece of his greatest mentor. This was a time for letting her down gently. “I am attached to someone else.”
“Oh.” Her face paled.
“I am sorry,” he said, striving to sound suitably forlorn at an improper timing between them. “But I am most assuredly attached.”
“But if you’re not betrothed…” She tossed her hair and smiled slyly at him.
“I’m betrothed,” he said hastily.
“What’s this?” the admiral asked.
Arthur practically jumped. “I didn’t see you approach.”
“Splendid,” the admiral said. “I’m practicing for a safari in Africa. Must be stealthy there. Have you ever been to Africa, Bancroft?”
Arthur shook his head.
“Lord Bancroft is engaged.” Lady Theodosia’s voice wobbled, and a pang of discomfort shot through Arhur. “Not unattached.”
Admiral Fitzroy frowned. “Is this true, Bancroft?”
Arthur was faced with two possibilities:
One: confess to his mentor that he’d been so uncharmed by his mentor’s niece that he’d concocted a fake betrothal.
Two: claim he was in fact betrothed.
Arthur chose the latter. He could always concoct a story of ending the betrothal later. Perhaps if he claimed a broken heart, his mentor might not be so hasty in thrusting an equally, unideal match at him. “Er—yes.”
“You found someone you want to marry?” The admiral’s eyes widened.
“Mm…hmm,” Arthur said, soon regretting his lie.
“And where is she?” The admiral looked around, as if he expected some female to pop out from behind one of the palm trees.
“She’s, er, here. We’re keeping things rather hush hush.”
“I see,” the admiral wrinkled in his nose. In Arthur’s experience, wrinkled noses tended to mean that that the person doing the wrinkling did not in fact see at all.
“What does she look like?”
Arthur closed his eyes. “Silky locks that resemble buttermilk, blue eyes that easily rival the azure ocean, and a figure so perfect that Venus herself would be jealous.”
“And you just met her?”
“We met before.” Arthur blinked. He’d just described Madeline. He hadn’t meant to, but when he’d shut his eyes and imagined a future bride—well, her figure had danced before his mind.
He swallowed hard. Likely he’d thought of her because he’d seen her recently on the crossing. He mustn’t dwell too much on the fact.
“I—I should go,” he said.
“To see her?”
“Yes.” Arthur left quickly before the admiral wondered how she’d managed to make her way to the French Riviera to see a man to which she was not yet married.
Guilt at having lied to his mentor soared through him.
Chapter Eight
The sun dimmed, and Madeline ventured past tangerine and peach townhomes. Elegant wrought iron balconies adorned the buildings with an ever-increasing frequency and an ever more complex composition of decorative swirls, until Madeline reached a grandiose villa.
The Beaulieu Palais.
Ivory columns embellished the rose-colored building, and music streamed from ornate windows. Palm trees jutted into the sky, as if attempting to touch the setting sun, and mountains curved over the horizon. Sailboats filled with merrymakers flitted in the azure waters beside the villa, having replaced the morning’s more somber and quiet fishing boats.
The villa exuded perfection, and regret at having to disturb the joyful exuberance of the hosts coursed through her.
Stealing brought her no delight.
Yet the comte had dismissed the letters from the Costantini’s lawyers, writing back a condescending letter suggesting the Costantinis install a more elaborate safe. Madeline resisted any urge to retreat, inhaled and entered the courtyard.
She smiled.
I’ll test the comte’s protection against thieves.
The air was warm, something that on any other occasion she might celebrate, but now she missed a coat’s helpful bulkiness. Unfortunately anything but the thinnest material would render her more noticeable, rather than less.
Instead she carried a small bag. When she left she could toss it in the garden. Any guards could hail the item as a great clue, but the item, purchased at a local street market, couldn’t be traced back to England, much less to her. She’d strapped another important item to her leg, though hopefully she would not be required to use it
Men and women in sumptuous attire strolled over the symmetrical garden, and were greeted by a middle-aged man in glossy ebony evening attire.
Comte Beaulieu.
Some servants approached him, and Madeline opened her fan and held it over her face as she fluttered it. At least the heat rendered her action appropriate.
Insects sang to one another, undeterred in their quest for mates by the sudden influx of partygoers in the courtyard. Peonies and rosebushes were laid in predictable angles, and Madeline pretended to admire a lavender bush, lingering on the pleasant aroma.
She surveyed the roof. She’d visited last night to plan her entrance.
It would be easy. The roof was flat, and she would be able to enter onto it through a neighboring building. She would only be exposed for a short period. She smiled. With the elaborate architecture, the well-maintained garden, and the views of the ocean, who would be looking at an orange tiled roof?
Except—
Last night no guards had marched along the roof. She glanced behind her, angling her head slowly up to another building.
More guards.
Her heart raced.
Perhaps they were simply there because of the party.
Or perhaps they’d linked the thief’s crimes and thought it possible that—
She shook her head.
That possibility did not bring comfort to her. She refused to dwell on it.
“Are you lost, mademoiselle?” A voice wafted toward her, and she turned toward a middle-aged man.
Comte Beaulieu.
Most men did not stand about greeting people outside.
Even most hosts did not do this, but given his frequent coordination with the servants and guards, it seemed possible that some of the servants might be guards in disguise.
Comte Beaulieu managed the local department and administered justice, despite his utter dismissal of basic ethics.
He’d asked her if she were lost, thoug
h, and she halted and put a confused expression on her face. “Where is the entrance?”
“It’s over there, mademoiselle,” the man continued.
Madeline forced herself to look relieved. “Forgive me, I am new to this country.”
“Where are you from?”
Madeline hesitated. The good thing about speaking in French was that her Englishness was less obvious. Yet could she actually claim she belonged to another country, even if it would help her evade notice?
Was it possible someone inside could recognize her? But she’d been careful to keep her identity separate from such events. She wasn’t going to abandon that instinct, now that people seemed to be truly following her.
“I am Swedish,” she said. “Lady Isberg.”
“Forgive me,” he said. “I did not know you were invited.”
She gave her best innocent expression and blinked. “But I received the invitation. I didn’t think I would need to bring it. My carriage has already left.”
The comte seemed to hesitate.
“Surely you must know me,” she said. “I am a countess!”
“A countess?”
“Are you so very unfamiliar with Swedish aristocracy?” she continued. “I will tell the king when I next see him—”
“That won’t be necessary,” the comte said quickly. “You are naturally very welcome here. Forgive the confusion.”
She did her best forgiving smile and strove to remember everything she could about Sweden.
Fortunately the country was so far in the north, that few people were prone to heading there. The only things people seemed to know about Sweden was that the inhabitants were fair and tended to be pretty.
Madeline smiled. She met both those expectations.
Tonight she would be Swedish.
“And I am Comte Beaulieu,” the man said.
Her heart tightened involuntarily, but she managed to smile. “I am very pleased to meet you.”
“I am at your service,” the comte continued. “We want to make certain our guests are taken care of.”
“How kind of you.”
“You haven’t seen any unscrupulous characters about?” the man asked.
Madeline hesitated. “Why?”
“We just want to ensure everyone is safe. Standard security procedure.”
Madeline raised her hand to her chest, and she widened her eyes. “France is still a dangerous country?”
“No, no,” the comte assured her. “We are quite safe. This is probably the safest place in Antibes.”
He laughed, and she joined in.
“Very well,” Madeline replied. “I must confess, I did see somebody closely following me. I think he went behind the house. That is why I looked worried when I entered the courtyard.”
“Mon dieu,” Comte Beaulieu said. “I do apologize. Please enter—I’ll investigate.”
“So heroic of you,” she cried out and slipped into the manor house to steal the jewels.
This time she didn’t enter from the roof, but through the front entrance as if she were just a normal guest.
And though she might quickly feign a headache and leave, perhaps even before she reached the entrance, she did not. She suspected that speaking with the comte rather voided her as a suspicious character, at least from the perspective of the men guarding the roof.
She smiled and forced her strides to be confident. It was easy to do so. She’d always been confident, even as a debutante. She’d been under pressure to marry, to make some use of her skills at flower arrangement and ability to look pleasing, since no other avenue existed for her to secure some coin. Unlike her male cousins, Madeline couldn’t purchase a commission to battle for the Crown, and she’d had no estate to manage. She certainly couldn’t go to the Caribbean and turn whatever meager funds she might have into great wealth as the sugar barons seemed to do, although everyone knew their means for procuring the wealth lacked any attempt at morality.
Once Arthur left, it had been easy to resign herself to her duty to marry well, even if she lamented privately that most of the men when she debuted lacked charm. Most men were fighting France, and the ones who remained were older or sickly. Her husband Maxwell had been both.
But Maxwell had been kind, despite his proclivity to visit Soho brothels, and he’d lived near her family. She’d thought that an advantage, though her cousins seemed wary of spending time with her after she married. To them, everything had changed, even though Madeline had worked to make certain that nothing would change. Her parents had died from consumption soon after she married, and her efforts to secure their finances by marrying a man of ample means had been unnecessary.
Madeline had told herself that love didn’t matter. She’d told herself love was an invented concept, intended to get women to spend more coin at the modiste. Her parents hadn’t experienced love, and Arthur’s easy abandonment of her did not speak well for the concept.
But then her cousin Rosamund had married well, and later her cousin Fiona. Perhaps they’d been right to scoff at her vision of marriage as merely an act of practicality. She sighed. She wouldn’t make the mistake of marrying for convenience again.
She opened her bag and took out a forged sapphire and diamond bracelet. It looked splendid and would allow her some time to leave the ball before it was noticed. Gabriella had had a watercoloring of the original bracelet. She hid the bracelet in the palm of her hand, and quickly continued to stroll.
French women moved their slender figures through the room. They moved purposefully, though with a slight note of suspicion on their faces, as if conscious of the perils in the room: crumb laden canapes, lemonade that might make their lips pucker with sourness, and overly polished surfaces that they might slide over in a manner associated with the clumsy.
Madeline grabbed a lemonade and slid through them. Some debutantes trembled nervously whenever a man sauntered by them. Thank goodness she no longer worried about that. Being a widow had some advantages.
She missed her husband. Maxwell had been pleasant to be around, and it still felt strange riding in a carriage by herself or entering a ballroom without his familiar form at her side. She’d thought they would have many years left. Life was perilous, but she’d never expected to be a widow before the age of thirty. Before she’d even experienced… She shook her head. It didn’t matter. The only thing that mattered was aiding the Costantini family.
Her husband’s heir had allowed her to remain in the manor house. He’d been a distant relative and had already inherited substantial sums from his father. He’d expressed no eagerness to remain in Yorkshire, dismissing it as too prone to rain and snowstorms, and too far from London, the continent and all things delightful.
She’d been lucky to remain there, she reminded herself.
But she still remembered when her husband’s heir had shown up to pay his respects to her, even though he hadn’t bothered to make an appearance at the funeral. He’d been brash and stared far too long at her bosom, while speaking mockingly about her late husband’s habit of spending time in Soho. She suspected he’d probably seen Maxwell there himself, even if Soho had attracted them for differing reasons.
He’d then ordered his servant to remove all the paintings Maxwell and she had collected together. A friend at his club had recommended he take them, given Maxwell’s expertise in art.
She’d chosen each painting, each sculpture. Maxwell, though, had paid for them. They didn’t belong to her, and so Maxwell’s heir had packed them away on top of his carriage, unconcerned about the perils the pieces might encounter on the journey south.
A familiar wave of longing and regret for the missing art surged through her, and she sighed.
Maxwell hadn’t been an expert in art. If she hadn’t decided to have him publish her work under his name, if he hadn’t become renowned in the field, she would have been able to keep the paintings and sculptures.
No matter.
She would ensure the Costantini family did not need
to suffer as much as she had. She continued to stroll through the ballroom, glancing at the wrists of the middle-aged women. At least being a widow had advantages. Nobody rushed to introduce her to people, and in the crush of guests, it was easy for her to achieve some anonymity. An excess of height was not one of her traits, and it was easy for her to raise her glass or fan if passing a person whose attention she did not desire.
Not that she knew many people here.
Older women discussed their health while giving cursory glances to make sure their younger chaperones had not managed to be seduced by the swaggering Frenchmen who lingered near the punch table in search of heiresses.
Madeline strode along the perimeter on the off chance the hosts might have ordered their servants to display the jewels in a case in the ballroom. It was not unheard of for owners of great art to possess a desire to display it, and Madeline felt that it at least showed some appreciation.
The comte had not done so, either adopting a conservative view on his guests’ predilection toward theft or a desire for his wife to wear the sapphires.
Madeline kept her face in a placid expression, honed from years of attending uneventful functions, and swept her gaze around the room.
The comtesse.
It had to be.
A magnificently attired woman, perhaps ten years older than Madeline, circled the room. Sapphire and diamonds sparkled from her wrist.
Madeline just needed to get closer to her…
She surveyed the room again, just in case the comte or a suspiciously burly footman was nearby.
No one.
She smiled.
And then a guest stepped away, revealing a person behind him.
She swallowed hard.
Arthur.
He was here.
At this ball.
Where she intended to steal the final and most important piece of jewelry for the Costantini family.
Her heart galloped, and she jerked away.
Evidently it had been no idle curiosity that had made him interested in Venetian jewelry.
No matter.
He hadn’t seen her.
Madeline fluttered her fan over her face and strode away from him and toward the comtesse and a certain invaluable sapphire bracelet.
A Marquess for Convenience (Matchmaking for Wallflowers Book 5) Page 6