Not only was Gus a thorn in her side, Magda reflected, she was also more observant than one might wish. Discreetly, she wriggled her fingers at Gregoire. “Mais oui! Many men follow me. You will tell me I might remedy the situation by putting on stays. I do not like stays, and I do like the gentlemen, and so— Perhaps you might consider putting off your own corset, Gus.”
Before Lady Augusta could point out that few of the females in the water were wearing stays, including herself, and none had as a result attracted hordes of admiring gentlemen, which may have had something to do with the rigid and comfortable nature of the canvas costumes that they wore, Magda’s émigrés descended upon them, all talking at once. Augusta listened, and thereby learned that Napoleon had tried to level off the graves in a cemetery at Ezbekiya so he could have even ground around his headquarters, but the populace had become so hostile that he was forced to abandon his plan.
If Madame de Chavannes’s various assets were not on public view, due to her stiff costume, she and her admirers still drew no little attention from the crowd. Among those other bathers was Sir Charles Ratchett, who had been waiting so long for the ladies to arrive that he felt like a lobster cooking in the pot. Elizabeth’s step-papa was no stranger—though he had never played it with a parrot—to the game of hide-and-seek. In his mind, the name ‘de Chavannes’ rang a good loud bell. He watched Madame laughing, gay and indolent as if she had no purpose here other than to enjoy the waters. Sir Charles didn’t believe it for a moment. He splashed his way through the throng.
Maybe the lady’s presence was a coincidence. More likely, it was not. What remained to be discovered was whether Madame de Chavannes played a role in counterrevolutionary espionage, paid for by the British government; or whether she was one of the secret agents with whom France had flooded the country in an attempt to provoke subversion and inflame invasion fears; or if she might be more innocent than she appeared.
Augusta, who could have cared less that Napoleon’s own ship L’Orient had narrowly escaped the fighting at Abukir, was distracting herself from the conversation going on around her with details of the entertainment she had planned. There must be cards at Elizabeth’s soirée. The guests would be astonished if there were no cards. Saint would dislike his guests to be astonished, would he not?
A tingle ran down her spine, as if she were the object of someone’s attention. Gus glanced around and saw Sir Charles bearing down on them.
She nudged her companion. “You have another admirer, I think.”
“Mon Dieu! Que difficultle!” sighed Magda. With admirable dispatch, Gregoire and his fellow émigrés melted away into the throng.
Sir Charles was panting when he reached the ladies. The water was demned hot. “By Jove! What a surprise. Where is Elizabeth? Charnwood said she had gone out with you two.”
Augusta would eat her ugly chip straw bonnet if Sir Charles was the least bit surprised to encounter them. How did Magda do it? Yet another conquest, and in this instance without even displaying her enviable décolletage. “My cousin was mistaken. Elizabeth went off somewhere with her maid.”
Magda was under no similar misapprehension concerning Sir Charles’s interest. He had recognized her name. Sir Charles Ratchett was part of a group made up from the intelligentsia of many nations, its prime concern to try and influence the political situation with France. Too late, now, to regret she had not chosen one of the other titles in her repertoire.
Where a lesser lady might have shrieked with vexation, however, Magda raised her handkerchief and wiped away the perspiration beaded on his brow. “Bonjour, Sir Charles. We were discussing Bath Buns. Raisins, chopped lemon peel, almond nibs, coarse-grained sugar. They are most marvelously delicious. If you have not tasted one, you must.”
Sir Charles caught Magda’s hand and regarded her as if she were a Bath Bun herself. “Well met, Madame de Chavannes. You and I must have a little talk, s’il vous plaît!”
Chapter 21
“An absence of vulgar behavior is often a sure sign of attachment. It means that the suitor is trying to prove his good manners and his concern for your comfort and reputation.”—Lady Ratchett
Bath abounded in sites of interest, Roman ruins, lovely parks, pavilions where one might revel in bucolic splendor to one’s heart’s content. In one such public garden, Conor Melchers inspected his surroundings with a disapproving, bloodshot eye. This dissatisfaction had nothing to do with the beauty of the tree-lined walks and shady bowers, and everything to do with the abominable nature of the hour. Rakehells should not be expected to savor the benefits of early morning exercise.
At least here in the gardens his ears were no longer assaulted by the bawlings of newsboys, muffin sellers and milkmen. Milkmen, by God. The last time Conor had encountered a milkman was not because he’d risen early, but because he hadn’t yet been to bed. Furthermore, the blasted sunlight hurt his eyes.
Still, he was curious. It was one of his many besetting sins. Mr. Melchers reflected upon these various shortcomings as he strolled along a graveled path past an artificial wallow, surveyed a sham castle complete with cannon, observed the entrance to the labyrinth, crossed an elegant cast-iron bridge. Though the gardens were far from deserted—Bath provided a constant supply of new faces, at least some of which were respectable, not that Conor cared for that—he met none of his acquaintance, for which he was grateful, because he would receive no end of ribbing at being seen in such a place at such an hour. Mr. Melchers was not here of his own inclination, and if he didn’t shortly find the lady who had requested his presence, he was going to return home and go back to bed.
He saw her at last, pacing back and forth in front of a half-circular stone pavilion at the top of the principal walk. Hard to imagine garb more respectable than that cottage bonnet and green printed pelisse. She had brought a maidservant with her. For protection? Conor began to be amused.
Daphne spied the gentleman walking toward them, and knew at once that she beheld temptation personified. “As I live!” she breathed. “You didn’t— You wouldn’t—” But she had already been threatened with strangulation if she mentioned the word ‘improper’ one more time. “Think what Lady Ratchett would say, Your Grace!”
Elizabeth was disappointed that her abigail was turning out to be a chicken heart. “You are beginning to sound like Maman. You should go and live with her. And I have told you already that I do not want to be called ‘Your Grace’!”
Daphne would allow herself to be boiled in scalding oil before she returned to Lady Ratchett. She pressed her lips tightly together and withheld comment about sultans, and harems, and how those pampered ladies spent their time lounging in the bath, or peeling grapes, or warming the sultan’s bed, and seldom set foot out-of-doors unless wrapped in heavy veils. Her mistress, who was less well-read, might not realize she was engaged in a clandestine meeting with a libertinish gentleman. Daphne, however, knew a philanderer when she saw one. This was a philanderer worth being drowned in a burlap sack for, she admitted gloomily, and wished that she might smoke a Turkish water pipe herself.
The duchess looked both worried and determined. Her abigail looked distressed. Conor disliked any female to be distressed in his vicinity. He viewed it as a reflection on himself. “Good morning, Duchess. I came as soon as I had your note.”
Elizabeth wasn’t sure he would receive her note; she’d paid a street urchin to deliver it, not daring to entrust such a thing to any of St. Clair’s staff. “It was good of you to meet me, especially in light of your condition. I recognize the symptoms. My step-papa is prone to occasional overindulgence in the grape, but this is the first time I have seen consequences so severe.”
It was also the first time she’d had an assignation, Conor wagered. The young lady was as jumpy as a cat on hot bricks. “I am not a kind man, Duchess, and the sun is damned bright. Let us go inside while you tell me why you dragged me out at this curst ungodly hour. Even the roosters must still be abed.”
Elizabeth led the way into the paved
pavilion, which was supported by several stone pillars, and had within it a seat that commanded an excellent view of the park. “There is virtue in rising early, Mr. Melchers. As Mr. Franklin told us, ‘Early to bed, early to rise, makes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise.’ ”
“And as Mr. Kyd would have it, ‘What outcries call me from a naked bed?’ There may be virtue in rising early, but there is infinitely more pleasure to be had lying in late of a morn.” Wickedly, Conor smiled.
It had not occurred to Elizabeth, when she sent her summons, that Mr. Melchers might have been entertaining a companion. “I wouldn’t know!” she snapped. “Pray stop provoking me. Magda has gone off with Lady Augusta to the Pump Room, and I wanted to speak privately with you. We haven’t much time.”
Mr. Melchers was much too wise in the ways of the world, despite his somewhat befuddled condition, to assume the young lady desired his participation in an amorous liaison, though had she desired such a thing, he would quite naturally have been happy to oblige. “I would be delighted to be private with you, Duchess. However, we are not private at the moment, and I admit to a certain prudery about such matters. I daresay you will be astonished to hear it. But a witness would greatly cramp my style.”
Elizabeth took his meaning, and felt her cheeks turn pink. “I did not ask you here to flirt with me, Mr. Melchers. I am seeking your advice. As for Daphne, I have no secrets from her.”
“Ah, but I might.” Conor winked at the maidservant. “You may go for a walk and enjoy the gardens, Daphne. Your mistress will be safe with me.”
No female between the cradle and the grave would be safe with this rascal. He even had Daphne in a flutter, and she knew what he was. On one hand, she didn’t want to be shipped back to Lady Ratchett because she’d given offense. On the other, the duchess was as green as grass, and this dark-eyed rascal could charm the skirts right off a nun.
Daphne actually wrung her hands together, so badly was she torn. “It’s all right,” Elizabeth soothed. “I will be perfectly safe with Mr. Melchers. If it will make you feel better, you may keep us in view.”
“No, she may not!” inserted that gentleman. “I dislike chaperones. Go for a walk, girl, and come back in a half hour. I can do little damage to your mistress in that time. Or I could, but I won’t. It’s not my style.”
He was a handsome devil. Still, Her Grace wasn’t one to throw her bonnet over the windmill. Trying hard to assure herself of the latter, Daphne set out to chase her own tail.
Conor returned his attention to his companion, who was twisting her wedding band. “It is a lovely ring,” he said gently. “Are you in trouble, puss?”
“Trouble? You might say so.” Elizabeth managed a wan smile. “Things couldn’t be in a worse case. Magda told St. Clair you gave me the kitten after I told him you and I had barely spoken. He was so angry I feared he might drown us both. Now he’s going about looking like a thundercloud. When he deigns to speak to me, which he hasn’t yet, he’s bound to read me yet another scold.” She sniffled. “Or tell Sir Charles to take me home.”
Unlike the duke, Conor had no dislike of weeping females. Conor had no dislike of females in any mood save those pertaining to leg-shackling him. He pulled a handkerchief from his pocket. “Sweeting, I’m not worth brangling about.”
“No, you’re not.” Elizabeth grasped the handkerchief and blew her nose. “It has become a matter of principle. If St. Clair may have Magda, I don’t see why I should give you up.”
Conor Melchers was somewhat more experienced than Elizabeth’s step-papa in the matter of feminine logic. “Simple. You have not yet provided the requisite heir. However, once you have—”
“Yes, I know you are one of the wicked! You need not keep trying to convince me of it,” Elizabeth said, so crossly that Conor laughed. “I’m sure I would be pleased to provide St. Clair with his heir, but I don’t know how I’m supposed to go about it when I cannot even persuade him to— That is— Blast!” She broke off, hugely embarrassed by what she’d almost said.
Not one of St. Clair’s admirers, Conor revised his opinion even further downward. The duke was a nincompoop. “If I am to help you—and I imagine I am here because you want me to help you—you must tell me all. Don’t be embarrassed. It is the way of us rakehells to be unshockable.” There, he had made her smile. “In all seriousness, I am at your service, Duchess.”
Elizabeth glanced up at him. Mr. Melchers was a kind man, no matter what he said. “It is Sir Charles’s opinion that I must have bungled the thing somehow. I had hoped you could explain to me what it is I’m doing wrong. What I’ve found in books is of no help. I know how the business is done, because Maman told me, but I don’t know—” She paused for breath. “I have tried to be amiable and accomplished, and sunny-natured, and to show good sense.”
Conor reflected that the lady wasn’t displaying particular good sense at the moment, which was fine with him. She added, “I can hardly turn to Magda for advice, since it is she who— Well, they did elope! Augusta probably knows no more than I do, if as much. It is difficult to speak of this. Are you shocked by my boldness, sir?”
She was flustered and rosy and altogether enticing. Conor took her hand. “Rakehells are seldom shocked. I would be more likely to encourage you in wrongheadedness than to tell you not to flout society’s rules. But back up, if you will. What did your Maman tell you? And I don’t refer to sunny nature and good sense.”
Elizabeth lowered her gaze and explained, as best she could, about lust turning even the most proper gentleman into a slavering beast; closing her eyes and clenching her teeth and wishing herself elsewhere. “Rubbish,” said Conor at the end of this recital. “You might close your eyes and clench your teeth if the gentleman involved is doing his job properly; you might even curse and yell; but you won’t wish yourself elsewhere.”
No? This was encouraging. Elizabeth had been right to try and get the facts straight from the horse’s mouth. “Is it such a chore? St. Clair seems to find it so. He referred to bedding me as a duty. And said he’d made a dreadful mistake.”
The duke had made more than one mistake, reflected Conor, as he shook his head. “It is not a chore but a pleasure, Duchess. You must have misunderstood.”
Elizabeth contemplated her hand, which Mr. Melchers still held in his. “St. Clair doesn’t lust after me. He hasn’t slavered once. Maybe it is my fault, as Sir Charles says. I did pop him in the nose, and though I didn’t mean to, it may have put him off. I also cast up my accounts. Then Magda arrived, and I believed she was his mistress, because no one had bothered to tell me they had been divorced, which made me cross. I accused him of having licentious tendencies. Does St. Clair have a mistress, do you know?”
Conor was fascinated by this glimpse into married life. “I don’t. And neither should you.”
Naturally Mr. Melchers subscribed to a masculine viewpoint. Elizabeth removed her hand from his. “Were you ever in love with Magda, sir?”
Here were dangerous waters. Conor had a notion what she really longed to ask. “I am not such a jingle-brain,” he replied, ungallantly but with perfect truth. “I know the lady too well.”
St. Clair had been a jingle-brain. Elizabeth had not yet decided if he still was. “But you are fond of her.”
“Immensely.” Conor removed the reticule from her grasp and set it down beside her on the bench. “Magda is one of my closest friends. Why do you ask?”
What was it about Madame de Chavannes that prompted such devotion? “St. Clair must have loved her a great deal.”
Conor shrugged. “If so, he got over it. St. Clair is married to you now.”
This practical comment went wide of its mark. Rather than reminding Elizabeth that her husband had cast off her predecessor, it reinforced her belief that the Duke of Charnwood was a powerful man who could cast off any number of unsatisfactory brides, among them herself. She fought against a renewed onslaught of tears.
Rakehell Mr. Melchers might be, but he did not lack chival
rous instincts, and beside him was a lady in distress. He drew her closer to him on the bench.
“What are you doing?” Elizabeth inquired, damp-eyed.
Conor ran his fingers along the fine line of her jaw and tipped up her face to his. “I am going to kiss you,” he murmured, and lowered his mouth to hers, and did.
It was not one of Mr. Melcher’s better kisses; he was aware that in his arms was not one of his worldly flirts but an untried miss; and he wanted not to destroy her innocence, but to further her education a little bit.
Satisfied that he had done so, he released her. Elizabeth said, “Oh.”
Conor’s lips twitched. Though the kiss had not been one of his better efforts, he had anticipated a somewhat more animated response. “Do you not show more enthusiasm, you will do irreparable damage to my opinion of myself.”
“Oh!” Guiltily, Elizabeth’s eyes flew to his face. “It was an excellent kiss,” she said earnestly. “But—”
“But I am not the person you want to kiss you.” Hoist with his own petard. Conor had liked the kiss sufficiently to anticipate a repeat.
Elizabeth flung out her hands in frustration. “No you aren’t! Which just goes to show the extent of my wrong-headedness, because I make no doubt there are few women in all of England who wouldn’t want to kiss you. There must be something wrong with me. I didn’t feel the slightest tummy flutter. Although I am not certain— Do ladies feel lustful, sir?”
When Conor had pondered what else he might teach the duchess, he had not considered that he might not only receive a set-down in the process, but also wind up providing an explanation of the facts of life. He caught her fluttering hands before she could do one of them an inadvertent injury. “I solemnly assure you that ladies do feel lust, might even slather, if the circumstances and company are right.”
Elizabeth pressed her lips tightly together. She refused to weep again.
Her chin was quivering. Conor retrieved his handkerchief and put it in her hand. Elizabeth flung herself onto his chest, and burst into tears.
Love Match Page 17