“Spoilsport!” murmured Magda. “Alors, we will leave Saint to his sulks. And we shall contrive to be merry without him, enfin."
Lady Augusta also begged off, saying that she had an entertainment to plan out, and would do it much better if she weren’t obliged to rub shoulders with canaille. Therefore, it was Elizabeth and a couple of stalwart footmen who accompanied Magda on her outing, which wasn’t precisely into the country, as she had suggested, but to a country fair. “I only stretched the truth a little bit,” she protested, in response to Elizabeth’s accusing glance.
The day was cloudy and overcast, the weather cool. The ladies were clad appropriately for their adventure, the duchess in a white muslin gown with a lace collar, pale purple pelisse with gold cord and gray fur trim, a matching bonnet with pink ribbons and roses, and half boots. Madame de Chavannes was less flamboyant than usual in a gown of chintz with long sleeves and a narrow flounce, a red shawl with a Greek pattern, a hat modeled on a Greek helmet, and high red morocco shoes.
For someone who had fled the guillotine with the clothes on her back, Madame was surprisingly well-dressed. “Gus says you are a foreign agent,” Elizabeth remarked.
“Vraiment?” Magda smiled. “Gus would see me burned for high treason to amuse herself.”
Granted, Lady Augusta was of a perverse nature. Still, Elizabeth was not convinced. She studied the people pressed around them, traders offering fabrics and trimmings and countless other products, merrymakers and pickpockets and thieves. The air smelled of animals and food cooking and unwashed flesh. “You can’t deny that you have friends among the émigrés. There might even be French spies among this crowd.”
Magda was counting on it. “If there are Frenchmen among us, what of it? You grow as suspicious as Gus. The émigrés gather together to lament their exile and curse the Republicans in Paris and do little else. At any rate, I am not French.”
Nor fish, fowl, nor good red herring. Elizabeth wondered exactly what Magda was, and her reasons for coming to the fair. Maman had not approved of fairs, which she condemned as gatherings of loose, idle, disorderly people where morals could be corrupted in a trice.
Corrupt or no, the crowd was merry. Hucksters and musicians strolled about the grounds. Elizabeth saw acrobats and rope dancers, equestrian performers, freak shows, and gambling tents. Had Gus known of the gambling tents, she would have overcome her fastidiousness quickly enough. Drum and fifes, pictorial handbills and banners advertised a puppet show. Elizabeth was staring entranced at a tightrope walker when beside her Magda said, “Mon Dieu! I am astonished. Conor is here also, petite,”
That Magda was the least bit astonished, Elizabeth took leave to doubt. She frowned. Magda twinkled. “Bonaparte is busy in Cairo executing rebels and dining in restaurants opened by the city’s French citizens for the soldiers in their midst.”
What had Bonaparte to do with anything? Elizabeth greeted the newcomer skeptically. With the air of a conjurer performing a magic trick, he presented the ladies with apples obtained from a fruit stall. Magda laughed and bit into the fruit. Juice trickled down her chin. She wiped it away with a careless glove.
The crowd was thick about them, the air dense with noise. They paused to watch a dancing horse, a conjurer, and a puppet show, which incorporated some senseless dialogue between Punchinello and the Devil, and inspired Magda to inexplicably remark that Napoleon had poisoned the dogs in Cairo because the beasts sounded a warning whenever French soldiers approached.
A blare of trumpets sounded. Costumed actors marched back and forth on the balcony of the strolling players’ booth, where a placard announced a performance of the farce, The Whore of Babylon, the Devil, and the Pope. Magda led the way inside the structure, which was built of stout wooden boards, and boasted two galleries in addition to the boxes and pit.
The farce was amusing, and dealt irreverently with witches, necromancy, and regicide, the Papist church being the whore of Babylon, and the pope the Antichrist. Elizabeth forgot her troubles for upward of a half hour.
The performance ended. Elizabeth and Mr. Melchers emerged from the players’ booth to find darkening skies. Magda and the footmen were nowhere in sight. They had gone but a short distance when thunder crackled and rain began to fall. Sighed the duchess, “It needed only that.”
“This way,” said Mr. Melchers, and took her arm. The crowd pressed close around them, some amused by the sudden soaking, and others less so. Animals milled, people shouted. A bedraggled harlequin tripped and fell flat in the mud. With a firm grip on her arm, Conor drew Elizabeth with him, using his body to shelter her from the worst shoving of the crowd.
What was Magda playing at, leaving them alone like this? Though she had escaped Madame Guillotine, Conor might have her head himself. He had no doubt as to how St. Clair would react to this têtê-à-têtê. And a têtê-à-têtê it would be, were that cart where he remembered. Not for any number of angry husbands would Conor get soaked to the bone.
Memory did not fail him. Before them loomed a wooden caravan wagon with a high arching roof and door at the back. The apparatus would be drawn by a horse or mule, the driver perched in front on an outdoor seat. Neither horse, mule, nor driver were in evidence at the moment. Conor scooped up a bedraggled black kitten that huddled beneath the cart and pushed open the door. Elizabeth followed him inside.
She looked around with interest. The caravan was partitioned at the further end to accommodate a sleeping place constructed like a berth aboard a ship. The other half served as a kitchen, fitted up with a stove, a closet, and several chests. Cooking utensils and crockery hung on the wall. Strewn all about were hardware, tools, and strange metal items, she assumed to mend and sell. “We’re trespassing. Someone lives here.”
“We’ll leave a few coins as token of our appreciation. They’ll probably invite us back.” Conor placed the kitten on the floor, removed his greatcoat, and shook it out “Give me your pelisse, Duchess, before it’s soaked right through.”
It was but a coat, Elizabeth told herself. It wasn’t as if she were stripping naked in front of this strange man. She took off her pelisse and handed it to him. He shook out the garment and hung it up to dry. Elizabeth removed her sodden bonnet and brushed raindrops onto the floor. The kitten pounced on the dangling ribbons. “What a wretched little scrap you are!” she said, and scooped it up in her arms.
“Here.” Conor tossed her a rag he found by the stove. “Dry it off with this. The creature is probably infested with vermin.”
Elizabeth wrapped the kitten in the rag. It peered out at her with bright green eyes. Magda eyes, she thought. “It’s not your fault if you have vermin, is it, you poor thing?”
Conor smiled wryly, his amusement at this moment focused upon himself. Here he was, alone with a lady in the most private of circumstances, and she was far more interested in a bedraggled baby cat. He pushed aside miscellaneous objects and sat down on a chest.
If Elizabeth was lavishing attention on the kitten, which responded by emitting a rough hiccoughing little sound, she was far from unaware of her companion. She was defying her husband’s wishes—nay, his stern instructions—in even speaking with the man. However, Mr. Melchers was here with her, whereas St. Clair wasn’t, and his manner suggested there was nowhere he would rather find himself. If he would be as charming to any other lady, what did it signify? At least at this moment Elizabeth felt like someone enjoyed her company, which St. Clair obviously did not. Nor did he desire her, or find her the least bit attractive, because what else could ‘I cannot do this’ mean?
If Mr. Melchers had been going to proceed with his lessons in flirtation, which naturally he had meant to do, the duchess’s expression gave him pause. Her pretty face was somber, and there were shadows beneath her lovely eyes. “Blue-devilled, are you, puss?”
Elizabeth set down the kitten, which promptly set out to explore. She might feel more at ease with Mr. Melchers than with her own husband, but she was not so comfortable as to ask his advice
. Outside, the rain still poured down. “This is most improper,” she commented. “Being here with you.”
“Not so improper as it could be.” Conor glanced suggestively at the far end of the caravan, and the sleeping berth. “I am only teasing you! Don’t fly out the door. In answer to your comment, the fair itself is hardly proper. Under the circumstances, one more little breach of propriety can hardly hurt. You see I do know the term, though I choose to disregard it. Do stop pacing the floor, and come sit here by me.”
Elizabeth glanced around the caravan. In truth, there was no place else to sit. Gingerly, she perched beside Mr. Melchers on the chest. Curiously, she studied him. “Are you really a rakehell?”
St. Clair’s little duchess was amusing. Conor awarded her a smile. “I am beyond wicked. Do you mind so much?”
“I don’t know why I should mind.” Elizabeth stripped off her water-spotted gloves, and set them aside to dry. “Why does my husband dislike you so much?”
Conor watched the kitten attack a metal shaving. “It is an old story, and not a pretty one. I will not tell it to you, lest you think ill of me.”
“More ill of you, you mean.” Elizabeth met his lazy gaze. “Your reputation is hardly a secret. I’ve already been told that it is improper for me to even speak with you.”
Who had told her that, Conor didn’t wonder. “That is no doubt true. Still, bear in mind the rain. I suspect catching your death of cold is surely an even fate than being closeted alone with an incurable rakeshame.”
Incurable and impenitent, Elizabeth silently amended. Maman wouldn’t think death from cold a worse fate. Neither would St. Clair. Perhaps the two of them might get together and discuss her grievous misconduct.
How glum she looked. Conor tweaked her nose. “Poor Duchess. I’ll wager that before now you’ve never done anything improper in your life.”
Perhaps Elizabeth had not, but she was about to, as soon as she screwed up her courage. Mr. Melchers was an encyclopedia, after all. Not that she wished to be corrupted. She simply wanted to know how it felt to be kissed. And since St. Clair did not care to kiss her— Elizabeth closed her eyes, tipped up her face, and said, “Mr. Melchers, would you kiss me, please?”
Here was a temptation, and one sufficiently alluring to wipe the amusement right off Conor’s swarthy face. He was sufficiently experienced in the ways of the world, however, to realize that the duchess nourished no warm feelings toward him. Therefore, after a brief tussle with his conscience, and much against his inclination, he dropped a chaste salute upon her cheek.
Elizabeth opened her eyes and observed him with disfavor. “That isn’t at all the sort of kiss I had in mind. I am uncertain what I expected, but… Oh, blast!”
Mr. Melchers was coming to some very strange conclusions about the relationship—or lack thereof—between the Duke and Duchess of Charnwood. “Has that gudgeon of a husband of yours never kissed you properly?”
Elizabeth couldn’t bear to admit she’d never had a proper kiss. She picked up the kitten, which was playing with her skirt flounce. “Now it is you who are guilty of impertinence,” she said.
Conor watched the kitten crawl out of Elizabeth’s arms and up his jacket sleeve. “Impertinence, sweeting, is the least of my sins.”
Even the profligate Mr. Melchers refused to kiss her. “Am I such an antidote?” Elizabeth asked.
She looked rumpled, and rosy, and adorably cross. Conor found himself oddly annoyed with her duke. He lifted Elizabeth’s hand, and brushed his lips over her fingers, her knuckles; pressed a kiss into the palm of her bare hand. “You are anything but an antidote, and I am far from an example of the virtues. Say the word and I shall continue. But be sure what you are about, because once started on that course, there is no return.”
Elizabeth stared at her hand as if it belonged to someone. “Goodness!” she remarked. “And no, you shouldn’t continue, though I can’t say I didn’t like what you were doing, because that would be a lie. But St. Clair isn’t really a gudgeon, you know.”
Mr. Melchers knew nothing of the sort. If St. Clair didn’t properly kiss his wife before much longer, then Conor would. The duchess deserved a thorough kissing, and cherishing as well. Conor was very good at cherishing, at least for a short while. “Sits the wind in that quarter?” he inquired.
Her hand still tingled where he’d kissed it. With no little difficulty, Elizabeth pulled on her damp gloves. “ ‘Persons of our station do not marry for love’,” she quoted, and met Conor’s skeptical dark eyes. The man was entirely too discerning. “Have you never been in love?”
“Countless times.” Mr. Melchers detached the kitten from his shoulder, where it was engaged in an inspection of his earlobe. “But I have never loved a lass enough to step into parson’s mousetrap, nor have my pockets been sufficiently to let. Now why are you so down in the dumps?”
“St. Clair didn’t marry me because he cared for me.” Elizabeth took the kitten back into her lap. “And I don’t like it much. Don’t tell me that it is the way of the world, sir, or I may offer you violence.”
Conor saw before him a young woman on the verge of rebellion. He was tempted to encourage her. “I would never dare presume.”
He had presumed a great deal already. Elizabeth sighed. “I try to do what is right, but it is frequently beyond me. I am not cut out to be a duchess, I think.”
“You are cut out to be whatever pleases you.” With an idle finger, Conor stroked the kitten’s matted fur. “You merely need to decide what that is. Meanwhile, take that little fellow home to your husband. He will like it of all things.”
Chapter 17
“Nothing on earth is more abominable than to be nattering always at the same thing.”—Lady Ratchett
While Conor Melchers amused himself flirting with the duchess, and in the process amazed himself with the discovery that proper ladies did appeal, and Elizabeth was amusing herself with the notion that Mr. Melchers might provide her her first kiss; and Magda was, if not amusing herself exactly, engaged in a stimulating meeting with the mysterious Gregoire; the duke was engaged in an unexpected, and not at all amusing, encounter of his own. This encounter took place in the library, where Justin had withdrawn to brood in silence about his newly developed habit of behaving like an ass, most recently exhibited in his refusal to accompany his wife on her excursion into the countryside. In lieu of a hair shirt, he had brought the parrot with him. “Biscuit,” Birdie suggested.
“No biscuit,” said the duke, as he watched the third occupant of the library stride back and forth across the carpet in front of the writing desk. “I am not certain I understand what brings you here.”
Sir Charles Ratchett paused in his pacing to study the duke. Tall like his stepdaughter, gray-haired and blue-eyed, Sir Charles remained in splendid physical shape as result of regular sparring matches with Gentleman Jackson, exercise that had the additional benefit of relieving the frustrations attendant upon living with his waspish wife. If at home he dwelt under the hen’s foot, Sir Charles remained a man of some influence in the world, however, and had been instrumental in the installation of a Semaphoric Telegraph, an ingenious apparatus devised to convey news of impending invasion, atop the Admiralty Office and a tower of Westminster Abbey. He had been involved as well in persuading the Duke of York that the defense of London was not most practically accomplished by providing the inhabitants of corner houses with grenades. Better, in Sir Charles’s opinion, that the night cellars in the city were examined and all questionable foreigners ejected. No one knew better than he that London was awash with émigrés and spies. For the apprehension of more than one traitor, Sir Charles had been responsible. That he had a nose for such mischief, he would modestly admit. Were he still in Town—
But he was in Bath, where it was raining, and embarked up an unpleasant interview with the duke. “I don’t scruple to tell you I am shocked, Charwood. Lady Ratchett didn’t raise her gel to be party to such goings-on. That Elizabeth should write to her
mama— We may be glad I got to the letter first! I don’t need to tell you that Lady Ratchett would find this business too smoky by half.”
Justin, it may be recalled, was already out of charity with his wife, and with himself, and perhaps with the whole world. Therefore it did not sit well with him to find himself being raked over the coals by Sir Charles. “As for that, I have a crow to pick with you! I distinctly remember being told she was a good, biddable girl.”
So did Sir Charles remember. He had been present at that interview, during which he’d watched his stepdaughter being auctioned off as if she were a piece of middling good horseflesh. He hadn’t liked the business, not one little bit. However, neither did he like being the target of his wife’s sharp tongue, and Elizabeth was no blood kin, for all she’d dwelt beneath his roof since she was but a child. “She is a good biddable girl. Unless she Takes a Notion, and she generally don’t do that without being given cause. Tell you what: it sounds to me like you muddled the thing. I don’t mean to tell you your business, but if I was in your place, which I freely admit I’m glad I’m not, I’d get rid of what’s-her-name. Confound it, man, it’s hardly the thing to bring along your previous wife on your honeymoon!”
The duke was not accustomed to having his conduct questioned, other than by himself. “I did not bring Magda along. I had no wish to ever set eyes on her again. I still have no such wish. And once I determine what she’s up to— But I am obliged to offer no further explanations. You are correct, Sir Charles, it’s not your place.”
Charnwood distrusted his previous wife? Sir Charles’s knowledgeable nose twitched. He picked up the brandy decanter and boldly poured a libation for his host, and for himself. “That’s as may be, but it’s Elizabeth as has the bee in her hat.” He sampled the brandy. Of course the duke kept a fine cellar. Sir Charles wondered how much of it was smuggled. “Females! They give a man no peace.”
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