A babble of voices filled the air, as the patrons perused the latest newspapers, all of which had columns devoted to foreign news, and voiced their opinions of what they had read, which resulted in a great deal of good-natured joking, as well as rumor and gossip and much talk of politics. Magda dropped coins into a brass box, inspected the noisy room, and chose a small round table placed near the back wall. A waiter brought two cups of hot steaming coffee in shallow delftware bowls. Magda requested a piece of almond cake. The walls were plastered with advertisements: Dr. Belloste’s pills for rheumatism, Parke’s pill for the stone, Daffy’s elixir, Godfrey’s cordial, Velno’s vegetable syrup for the alleviation of venereal disease.
The waiter placed a plate on the table. Augusta sniffed. “Cake so early in the day? Magda, you are decadent.”
Madame plunged her fork into the pastry. “I was always decadent. But I didn’t realize it until I lived in France. You have no idea how horrid it is to be an émigré. Living abroad in humiliating circumstances, properties confiscated, income stopped. You must not begrudge me my cake.”
In truth, Augusta begrudged Magda nothing, unless it was that shocking dress. She knew what it was like to be penniless. Or if not precisely penniless, dependent upon someone else’s good will. She stripped off a glove and applied one fingertip to a cake crumb that had fallen on the table. “Justin will tolerate no scandal,” she remarked.
“Pfft!” Magda waved an airy hand. “You refer to our divorce. Unlikely that anyone will recall that ancient business. And if someone does, I am a friend of the family, am I not? The worst that may be said is that we are monstrous civilized.”
In this setting, Lady Augusta felt monstrous civilized herself. Certainly she was a great deal more civilized than the people seated at the nearby tables. She twitched her skirts closer to her chair. “I don’t understand why Justin married Elizabeth. She is a very ordinary sort of girl.”
Magda pushed the cake plate toward her. “You are mystified? Allow me to explain. Saint’s bride is all that’s proper. It is a marriage à la mode.”
Augusta smiled. “She is your opposite, you mean. Justin may have gotten more than he bargained for. His proper little bride has already bloodied his nose.”
If Augusta knew how attractive she was when she wasn’t scowling, she would probably never smile again. Magda ticked cake frosting off her lips. “You were always jealous, Gus.”
Augusta didn’t dignify this accusation with a response. Not that it lacked truth. In light of her advanced age and reduced circumstances, she was unlikely now to make a match. Magda, on the other hand, had been married four times at last count, or maybe five, including the unfortunate Jules, for whom she wore no black. Better to have loved and lost? Gus wondered if Magda would agree.
She picked up another larger cake crumb, and popped it in her mouth. “Elizabeth has no friends in Bath. My cousin will soon be off doing whatever it is that gentlemen do. She will be bored, poor child. We cannot in good conscience abandon Justin’s bride.”
Magda sipped her coffee. “In other words, you cannot abandon the gaming tables. Do you hope that here your luck will change? Saint will not like it if you expose his bride to such things, I think.”
“He will not like it if you expose her to worse.” Gus abandoned her good manners altogether and finished off the cake.
Magda eyed the empty plate. “As if I would do such a thing. You misjudge me, Gus.”
“I know you, Magda. You always have an eye to the main chance. I am curious to see how you will manage to feather your nest in Bath.” Augusta picked up her coffee cup. “Maybe Justin had to have a fortune. Elizabeth was well-dowered, from all accounts.”
Magda chuckled. “You are of so many minds that you’ll never be mad, ma chère. A pity that you are Saint’s first cousin and could not marry him yourself.”
Augusta choked on a mouthful of coffee. “Marry Justin? It’s you who must be mad. Ah, but you did marry him, didn’t you? A pity it didn’t work out.”
Magda’s smile faded. “I have thought so sometimes. Had things been otherwise— Tout même, that is water under the bridge.”
Had things been otherwise how? Augusta was curious. Magda had changed since her girlhood. For that matter, so had Gus.
Magda fell into conversation with the occupants of a nearby table. Augusta picked up a copy of The Lady’s Magazine, its frontispiece an elegant engraving showing Lord Nelson engaging two Spanish ships of superior force off Cape Saint Vincent, faced by a sketch of the national hero’s life. She flipped the pages until she came to a fulsome ode to the late glorious hero. Mentioned were Neptune’s heroes, Gallia’s tarnished laurels, death-dealing thunder shaking oozy caves where hoary bellows crimsoned beneath a purple sky.
What nonsense. Gus was weary of politics. Naval mutinies, invasion scares— On display in Fleet Street were a series of startling engravings showing the type of machine Englishmen might expect to see bearing down upon their shores from France, a giant raft with four windmills and a battlemented wooden fortress, batteries of forty-eight-pounders at each corner. She studied her companion, who was engaged in an energetic conversation about the alarming aspect of affairs in Ireland. Could Magda be a revolutionary herself, with a taste for republican sentiments and severed heads?
Magda finished her conversation, and her coffee. Augusta set down her own cup. “Justin will want to make known his presence in Bath. We shall give a small entertainment. Soup à la Reine. A fillet of pheasant and truffles. Larded partridges. Woodcocks. Dantizic Jelly. Lemon-Water Ice. Followed by a musical interlude.”
“And then some cards?” Magda placed her elbows on the table, and folded her hands beneath her chin. “I do not mean to blast your schemes, truly I do not, but I must point out that Saint’s bride is now the lady of the house.”
So she was. Augusta didn’t begrudge her cousin his happiness—if happiness he would find—but his marriage left her without a place again. She could hardly reside indefinitely with Justin and his wife. Unless she made herself indispensable. “Elizabeth is not foolish. She will allow herself to be guided by older, wiser heads.”
Magda’s brief impression of Saint’s duchess was that she was not so malleable. The young lady had looked quire ale to spit fire. “Has it occurred to you that your cousin might wish to be private with his bride?”
Again, Gus grinned, causing herself to look several years younger, and considerably less prim. “He’s hardly private now. We’re here. A little effort on my part, and we shall all rub along together tolerably well.”
Unlikely, thought Magda. But if Augusta concentrated her efforts on the new Lady Charnwood, Magda would be left to pursue her own plans. Plans that would be much more easily accomplished without Gus stuck to her like a court plaster. “D’accord,” she said therefore, as she got up from her chair. “And now let us spend some of Saint’s vast wealth.”
Augusta’s spirits rose. Spending money not her own was one of her favorite things. Not that she had money of her own to spend.
Perhaps she might persuade Magda to purchase a corset. Justin would be grateful. In perfect accord, the ladies made their way to the shops on Pulteney Bridge.
Chapter 8
“A bride should always strive to appear accomplished and amiable.”—Lady Ratchett
Dinner en famille that evening was not a comfortable affair. This had nothing to do with the excellence of the meal, for Cook had outdone herself in the preparation of stewed eels and sole à la normande, lobster pissoli, stewed celery, and roast beef, among other things; and the footmen stationed at the mahogany sideboard were assiduous in their attentiveness, quick to provide an additional spoonful of oyster sauce, or refill a wineglass. Despite all these efforts, the food was consumed largely untasted, and the wine injudiciously drunk. Each person seated at the vast mahogany dining table, where silver and crystal and excellent Staffordshire pottery gleamed in the soft candlelight, had other matters on his mind. The duchess brooded upon the perfi
dy of her mama, who had kept her in such appalling ignorance of her husband’s marital history; the duke contemplated the odd circumstance that his bride held him in such low esteem she believed he would introduce his fancy piece into the household; Lady Augusta pondered the relative merits of roast pheasant, boiled fowl with béchamel sauce, and galantine of veal. Madame de Chavannes, upon whose mind the most weighty matters of all might be expected to prey, was the most animated of the four, and had thus far discussed with great erudition the Irish Rising, the defeat of the French at the Battle of the Nile, George Ill’s repeated bouts of insanity, and the stubbornness of the citizens of Cairo, whose continued opposition to Bonaparte had in one day alone resulted in ninety people being shot in the Citadel, and seven others thrown in the Nile to drown. Currently her attention was fixed on a slice of tipsy cake.
Madame de Chavannes was a prodigious eater. Elizabeth watched with fascination as she wielded her fork. Madame was dressed for dinner in a semitransparent gown with an astonishingly low-cut bodice, her curls styled in the Grecian fashion and topped by a tall peacock plume, her cameo nestled in the cleft between her breasts. She much more closely resembled a gentleman’s petite amie than a previous wife. The lady was also older than she had first seemed, and rendered no less beautiful by cake crumbs on her chest.
She smiled at Elizabeth. “And so! You will call me Magda, and I will call you Elizabeth. We shall be great friends. Do not concern yourself that Saint and I are bosom bows, mignonne. He is a difficult man, this husband of yours. But Magda is here now, and will tell you how you must deal with him.”
Why was everyone so convinced she needed guidance? Elizabeth must seem to them a paltry thing. Her dress of pale blue trimmed with satin roses could only appear missish in comparison with Magda’s dramatic décolletage. As must Elizabeth herself pale in comparison.
Nonetheless, she didn’t think she cared for guidance from this source. Elizabeth peered around the fruit bowl placed in the middle of the table, a circular basket supported by three caryatids, each standing on one arm of a triangular base raised on satyr’s masks with swags of fruit in between. St. Clair was deep in conversation with his cousin—Elizabeth heard oyster patties mentioned—and she returned her attention to the duke’s previous wife, who was now being served with raspberry cream. “Magda,” she said, “you have cake crumbs on your—um.”
Magda brushed off her plump bosom. “You are astonished. My late husband was used to say that I was possessed of the appetite of an elephant. Quel dommage, poor Jules! Never marry a Frenchman, petite.”
Odd to be called ‘little one’ by a lady who scarcely came up to her chin. “Unlikely that I shall, since I am already married,” Elizabeth retorted. “To St. Clair.”
Magda responded with a throaty chuckle, and a dismissive wave of her hand. “Très bien! May you have joy of him. Saint! See how I am conversing with your duchess. We are all merry as crickets together, n’est-ce pas?”
Elizabeth didn’t feel the least bit merry. Justin’s cool gaze flickered over them, and away. She found scant comfort in the fact that he viewed the fair Magdalena with no more enthusiasm that he did his bride. Elizabeth stared at a silver saltcellar. Dinner might as well have been boiled beef and cabbage for all the pleasure of it in her mouth.
The interminable meal finally ended. The duke lingered over his port. His cousin requested that tea be served in the drawing room, and led the way to that chamber, where the walls were hung with crimson Spitalsfield silk that complimented the gilded ceiling medallions of diamond and octagon shapes. On the floor lay a Moorfield carpet with large octagonal patterns of crimson and gold, brown and blue. Fine rosewood furniture was scattered around the room, various tables, a pianoforte, sofas and chairs drawn close to the warmth of the fire. Urns, candelabra, statuary, and porcelain figures were elegantly displayed. Oil paintings adorned the walls.
Near the pianoforte stood Birdie’s cage. The parrot was balanced on one foot, inspecting her other claw. She startled at their entrance, and let out a great squawk. Magda moved closer. “What a discerning bird! Or has she met you previously, Gus?” She waggled her fingers at the cage.
Elizabeth and Lady Augusta waited, with mutual anticipation, to see if the parrot would bite. Birdie merely fanned her feathers. Perhaps she recognized a kindred spirit in the peacock plume.
“That beauty wants more attention.” With a last finger wiggle, Magda turned away.
“You speak parrot now, do you?” Lady Augusta took up a position behind the teapot, and began to pour.
Magda arranged herself upon a chaise longue covered in red velvet. “You might be surprised by the languages that I speak. Sugar, please, and cream, since you are determined to do the honors, Gus.”
Augusta twitched at this none-too subtle reminder that she had usurped the honors of the tea table. “I apologize, Elizabeth. I didn’t mean to presume. Would you prefer to pour?”
Elizabeth would have preferred to remain with St. Clair in the drawing room. She might even have joined him in a glass of port. Not that she had ever tasted port. And not that he would have asked for her company. She assured Lady Augusta that she had no desire to preside over the tea table, and sat down at the piano, where she began to absent-mindedly practice her scales.
Augusta and Magda chattered away like the old friends they were. Magda made an occasional effort to include Elizabeth in the conversation, which had to do with the shops visited earlier that day. Madame de Chavannes had especially liked Sally Lunn’s bun shop in Lilliput Alley. And while she had no intention of purchasing a corset, she was very interested in visiting the food markets, and in sampling cheese. “Biscuit,” put in Birdie, plaintively.
How comfortable they all were together. Elizabeth felt like a stranger in her husband’s house. Which in fact she was. Her fingers wandered over the piano keys.
Voices sounded in the hallway—“Don’t bother to announce me, Chislett. I’m quite one of the family!” —and Nigel Slyte strolled into the room. “‘Pon rep! Saint’s ménage extraordinaire. What have you done with him, ladies? Swept him beneath the rug?”
Birdie squawked. Elizabeth swung around on the piano bench. Mr. Slyte was dressed for the evening in light brown coat, white waistcoat, buff-colored breeches buttoned at the knee with two gold buttons; yellow stockings with large violet clocks, bright yellow cravat tied in the Trone d’Amour, bright red watch fob, and decorative buckles on his shoes.
He paused so that the ladies might admire him, then opened the cage door. “Hallo, Birdie, did you miss me, you ungrateful fowl?” The parrot stepped onto his outstretched hand, ruffled her neck feathers and bowed her head. Nigel scratched her feathers. Birdie closed her eyes. Had she been a cat, the parrot would have purred.
He surveyed the company. “Hello, Mouse. Nice dress, what there is of it. I must commend you on your timing. You always did have a special sense about such things. No, don’t bother to pour me any tea, Gus. I prefer it without poison.” He sat down beside Elizabeth on the piano bench, Birdie perched on his shoulder now, and picking through his hair.
“Lice,” he said, in response to Elizabeth’s inquiring expression. “No, I don’t have any, but Birdie don’t know that.”
Elizabeth smiled, grateful for Nigel’s nonsense. “She likes you.”
“Naturally she likes me. She’s a female. All females like me. I am irresistible.” Across the room, Lady Augusta snorted. “Or almost all females. There’s no accounting for tastes.”
Elizabeth too glanced at Augusta, who looked very much the mistress of the manor in a simple print gown with a deep V neckline trimmed with lace, long sleeves tightly fitted to the arm, an absurd lace cap perched atop her chestnut hair. Another house needed to be found for her if Elizabeth was ever to preside over this one.
St. Clair had said that once Nigel would have married Augusta. Perhaps Augusta might be persuaded to be less off-putting. Perhaps Nigel might be persuaded that they would still suit.
More likely
that Elizabeth would go to her grave with Gus still presiding over the teapot. “You don’t like females, Mr. Slyte?”
Nigel rubbed his cheek against the bird’s soft feathers. “It ain’t that I don’t like them, I know them too well. I’ve got a gaggle of sisters. Enough females to last a fellow a lifetime. No mystery left, you see.”
Amused, Elizabeth struck a discord. “Palaverer.”
Nigel tilted his head to one side. “I must give you a nickname. Justin is so superior that I call him Saint. Magda is Mouse because she ain’t one. Augusta is Gus because it annoys her so. What shall I call you? Liz, Lizzie, Betty, Beth— No, simply Duchess, I think. It suits.”
So little did the nickname suit her that Elizabeth chuckled. “Because I am not duchess-like, you mean.”
Nigel returned her smile. “No, Duchess, because you’ve never been given a chance to be anything else. I’ll wager you don’t know what you’d like to be.”
Other than not married? Elizabeth eyed her all-too-discerning seatmate. “I’m not entirely sure, but I think you just insulted me. That, or you’re bamming me again.”
Nigel winced as Birdie took a strand of his hair in her strong beak and tugged. “Never shall I bam you, Duchess. My word on it. No, you shan’t snatch me bald, you wretched bird.”
The duke paused in the doorway, his expression remote. His cool gaze flicked over Augusta, seated behind the teapot, and Magda on the chaise, then rested on Nigel.
Elizabeth stared at her husband. He looked every inch the haughty aristocrat in his dark blue coat with flat blue buttons, the fawn pantaloons that displayed his muscular thighs. He appeared impossibly patrician, and impossible to please.
Love Match Page 6