by Edith Layton
He had not meant to hurt the chit, but he had once more. If only she would drop this veil of propriety and be honest with him, it would make the rest of this increasingly difficult journey more bearable. His business for the crown was done. It hadn’t been pleasant, not that he had any brief for Sir Sidney, but it was hard to be the instrument of any man’s destruction. And now he had his own pressing, equally unpleasant business to see to.
He wished that he too could find an ally to be easy with as simply as Miss Hastings seemed to have done. But Makepiece, while a superior valet, was not a friend, nor a confidant, and would be appalled if his master so much as asked his opinion on any matter more personal than that of a neckcloth or a button.
At home, Nicholas thought, feeling for the moment a sudden longing for his native land that surpassed anything his reluctant traveling companion might have imagined he could feel, there were a great many people he could have discussed his problems with. There were his close friends and his family and his gray eminence, his stepfather. But in the general way of things, there was little need to ever so burden those he loved. For, the baron thought suddenly, so struck with the idea that he involuntarily pulled up on his mount’s reins and came to a complete stand in the middle of the road, his life was a tranquil one and he had never needed a confessor or advisor. Or he had not at least since that boyhood affair with Ivy had run its course.
Before the lead coach could turn a corner to see the head of the expedition, the lofty Baron Stafford, sitting lost in thought, still as a statue in the park upon his horse, Nicholas kneed his mount forward again. All I needed was a pigeon upon my shoulder and a sweeper at my feet to complete the picture, he thought with some annoyance at his actions as he rode on. But the damnedest part of this journey he had undertaken was that he could think of no one, either at home or abroad, to whom he could have unburdened the whole of his heart upon the subject, so much as he wished that he could.
He had not told his revered stepfather the entire truth. Worst of all, he thought morosely, he had not even told it to himself, until now, until the thoughts became inescapable. For there had been rumors about Robin in London, and some of those were of such a nature as he would not repeat to anyone, not even himself.
He had ignored them. But then, there had also been that obscene caricature on display in the bookseller’s shop window in Picadilly Circus, a full month before. The crowd outside the shop had been both amused and aroused to anger by the illustration of the wild set cavorting abroad while their country’s security was menaced by her enemies. It had been well-done: the buxom lady labeled “Britannia,” about to be sexually assaulted by the evil Napoleon, her cries for help unheard by the rollicking set of fashionables disporting at an orgy behind her. But Nicholas had not been amused. One of those gentleman depicted bore an uncanny resemblance to Robin. And he was shown in the vilest fashion, as the most debauched, or so at least his uncle thought. And so at least he told the shopkeeper when he bought up all the pictures, and so he claimed as he had his solicitors threaten suit against Mr. Rowlandson should he ever decide to reissue it with that same character in the background.
Burning the pictures did not end the matter, and he did not seriously think it would. He was wise enough to know that fire consumes only substance, and never essence. He had heard the tail ends of similar sorts of stories even at Sir Sidney’s house party. Or, he wondered, had he only imagined that he had? But then they always seemed to abruptly trail off when he was noticed in the talebearer’s vicinity.
Then there was this matter with Miss Hastings. He did not think himself so diffident in his judgment of human nature. It was true that Ivy had deceived him, but he had been a boy then, and had never been so misled again. From the first, he had to force himself to disbelieve Miss Hastings. Now, he dared not even call her Julia in his private thoughts, if he were to keep his distance measured and his rage alive. But lord, the baron thought restlessly, with all he knew, still she had all the trappings of an ill-used innocent.
f Robin were truthful, then she was a vicious and dangerous slut that should be shown no kindnesses. “If Robin were truthful!” The baron swore to himself at his own thought. There was the crux of the matter. Why should he disbelieve his own nephew? But her behavior forced him to doubt even the evidence of his own eyes. If by some mad chance she were telling the truth, then both he and his nephew had done her a terrible injustice. More unsettling was the fact that if she were telling the truth, Robin was not. And this led to conclusions so painful that the baron spurred his horse forward without realizing what he had done.
The great chestnut horse galloped down the road as though its rider were a fury. The truth, Nicholas Daventry almost cried aloud as he finally pulled the animal up, having raced so far afield that the dust from the coaches was no longer visible, however painful, he must have the truth. He was become as obsessive upon the subject of truth as those Greek philosophers that he had studied at school had been. But none of them, he thought with the characteristic sense of humor that always lurked beneath the surface of his personality and always saved him from despair, had ever sought to extract that rare commodity from the lips of a magnificently beautiful young female.
He would dine with Miss Hastings tonight. The offer had been made spontaneously, as an act of apology, but he would turn it to good use. As he could not shake her story by force or threat, he would befriend her and somehow, he would have the truth from her.
As he sat and quietened his mount and waited for the carriages to come into view again, he smiled slightly as the thought occurred to him that he was not trying something new at all. He was only experimenting with that theory which his own governess had taught him years before. He was going to attempt to catch a fly with honey. And if he could not, he thought, the smile upon his lips becoming not at all pleasant to see, he would capture it in the more common way—by crushing it.
9
Julia had the uneasy feeling that there was a hairline crack in the looking glass and that was why it seemed to show her the head of one person and the body of another. For Celeste had done wondrous things with her hair: Julia saw a mass of golden tendrils as she gazed into the glass, and the coiling, curling, sinuous hairstyle gave her face a classical romantic look that she had never associated with herself before. Somehow, the raised style also lightened her complexion and made her features appear more delicate. She conceded, as Celeste stood quietly and proudly behind her, that she had never been in better looks. But only from the neck up. Celeste was quite right about that as well.
Looking in the glass, first down at her drab mauve gown, and then up at that exquisitely coiffed head, Julia sighed and agreed with her maid. The juxtaposition was absurd. It was the visual merging of a countessa and a governess. But unlike her maid, Miss Hastings decided that it was the hairstyle that would have to change, and not the body. For she was a governess, or at least had been one, and she hoped would be one someday soon again. It would be far better to put her hair back the way it had been, she insisted, reaching for her hairbrush, than for her to attempt to alter the rest of herself to suit her hair.
It wasn’t Celeste’s shriek of protest that stopped her from immediately flattening the creation and returning her tresses to their normal state, it was the next words her maid uttered. For they were undeniably true. It was simply too late to redo her hair, or anything else. The baron had said dinner at eight, and it only lacked a few minutes to that hour.
Julia had agreed to meet her captor and co-traveler for dinner, but only because at the moment of his invitation she had felt a strange stirring of sympathy for him, he so clearly seemed to wish to make amends. But now, as so often happens when one rashly agrees to something that would normally be against one’s best judgment, she felt very anxious about the forthcoming evening. The baron’s presence always presented her with the twin emotions of fear and nervousness, and his attempt at politeness tonight added uncertainty to those reactions. She could only hope that the unexpecte
d invitation might signal the beginnings of a more civil attitude upon his part. And the best way to foster that, she realized as she looked at her mismatched appearance a last time in the glass, was certainly not to show up late to dinner with him.
Celeste sighed unhappily as she handed Julia her shawl. She had done her best with the coiffure, but the dress, although her mistress claimed it was her best, was just as all her others were: homemade, ill-fitting, and not at all the fashion. It was amazing that she insisted on dressing so badly, for so far as Celeste could see, her new mistress had a form as perfect as her face. But it was difficult to see very far. Miss Hastings had been modest to a fault, even to the extent of snatching up towels to hide behind if her maid entered her room after her bath. Perhaps, Celeste thought fatalistically, all English misses were so prim. But to conceal one’s body from one’s own maid was a rare thing indeed, especially as, from what her servant’s practiced eye had been able to spy, Miss Hastings had a form as divine as one could wish.
For although she was slender and as narrowly made as a young boy, with fragile wrists and slight shoulders, her breasts were high and shapely, (when one could get a glimpse of their form behind her omnipresent shawls), her waist was curved, her legs long with trim ankles tapering up to firm calves, and her derriere superb. The English, Celeste mused as she straightened the room before she took herself off to her own dinner, were a very odd race. Indeed, she thought, if this was how their females normally went on, it was no wonder that their gentlemen traveled so extensively. The only wonder of it was in how they had managed to populate that small island of theirs in the first place.
The baron was in the private dining parlor before Julia arrived, and he rose to greet her as she entered. She thought the room charming. It was a small chamber with enough space only for the dining table and chairs and two other small chairs stationed near a wide, leaded-glass window which looked out over the inner central courtyard of the inn. Julia was so uneasy when she was first seated that she kept her gaze firmly fixed on that single view, as though there were something extraordinary to be seen there. But in fact it was a commonplace enough vista, with ancient blue paving stones in the center, some attempt at flowerbeds to the left, and a more successful functional kitchen garden far to the right. There were some tall trees at odd intervals, there was a bench or two, a rose trellis, and a well close by the kitchen garden. The stables were fortunately in the front, out of sight of the window. It was a pleasant scene to observe while one dined, but not, Julia had to admit to herself, so attractive as to occupy her attention as completely as it did.
The baron was in his own way a far more interesting sight, but she could hardly gape at him, so after one inclusive glance, she fell to studying her plate, and then the window again. He was dressed so properly for dinner that he made her feel a perfect drab. He wore a blue jacket with a velvet collar, a high white neckcloth, she had gotten a glimpse of a dark waistcoat and darker breeches when she arrived, and the single golden fob he wore keynoted the pristine perfection of his attire. His dark hair had been brushed forward, and he must have recently completed his toilette by washing and shaving, for his white skin seemed to glow and the faintest odor of lemon and bay rum emanated from him. In all, he was an attractive, handsome, perfectly correct dinner partner, and Julia wished she were anywhere on earth but at dinner with him.
“Yes,” he said reflectively, “it is a remarkable view, I grant you, Miss Hastings. It quite took my breath away and I can readily understand how it has affected you. But I do think we ought to try to make conversation despite the magnificence of it.”
Julia turned to him with a strong retort ready upon her lips, but the mischievous, understanding expression of wry amusement he wore, as though he expected her fury and was patiently awaiting it as a schoolboy waits deserved punishment, quite disarmed her.
“It is only,” Julia said, relenting by speaking honestly of her helplessness, “that I didn’t know quite what to say. That is, I don’t often dine alone with gentlemen, unless you count those times with little Toby, of course. But since you don’t seem inclined to throw custard at me, or weep if the waiter brings you snap beans, I don’t know if I quite know how to go on this evening.”
He laughed openly, as though delighted by her response, and seemingly as relieved to escape her bad graces as the toddler she was describing might have been.
“I don’t know,” he answered thoughtfully at last, “I might accept snap beans without a fuss, but I think that if they bring out some of that omnipresent ratatouille, I shall at least overset my water glass and feed it to the dog while they rearrange my place setting. Oh, pity, there is no dog in attendance. Now that is how you know you are in a French establishment,” he said with a great deal of mock regret, “for any respectable English inn has a few dogs slouching about, looking sharp for a handout. I cannot imagine what little French boys do when they’re served something nasty then, can you?”
Happy to be included in his unexpectedly high spirits this evening, Julia turned her sigh of relief into a little chuckle and said with as much spurious seriousness as he had used, “I don’t think little French boys acknowledge that there is anything nasty to eat. After all,” she said reasonably, “they do eat snails. And from an early age upward, I do believe,” she concluded with such a look of censure upon her face that her host laughed once again.
They laughed often during that dinner. For when Julia realized what their first course was to be and then saw the look upon her host’s face when he lifted the cover off the dish and held it out for her inspection, she was so overset by mirth that she had to request a glass of water before she could speak rationally.
“But do try one. Try to think of them merely as unknown creatures that just happen to be called escargots,” her host implored. “Picture them to be a sort of a cross between crabs and kippers,” he said brightly, and she had been unable to speak for some time again at the look of sweet reason he had given her along with his impossible request. Then she had made it impossible for him to drink his soup when she had, with great exactitude and an inspired bit of mime, described her encounters with members of that species which he had just devoured when she had been out early gardening after a rain.
By the time that they had been served chicken in a heavy wine sauce, they had done with their uproarious mirth and were merely chuckling weakly at each other, as people will do when they have laughed long and hard and wish to give their sides and cheek muscles a rest. Julia could not remember when she had had a better time, and only wished that she could completely forget who her host actually was.
But that was more than merely difficult. All the while that they had seemed so in concert, even while she had held her hand to her stomach to support her laughter, she had in some portion of her active mind remembered who he was, and in some portion of her wary heart observed him carefully. She was not the only one to do so.
The Emperor had so depleted the land of its able-bodied men that their waiter was, perforce, a waitress. The expression upon the proprietor’s face had been one of hopeless helplessness when he had accompanied the girl to their private parlor. His establishment, his morose expression made manifestly clear, was used to better ton, abler servants, and higher standards. “C’est la vie” and “C’est la guerre”: his language had all the right expressions for the situation, but their host’s shrug as he left the girl Delphine to continue serving them was even more eloquent than speech could have been.
Julia knew the girl’s name was Delphine by the way she had whispered that name hoarsely to the baron as she had served him his veal. She knew that Delphine was a very friendly girl by the way she smiled and smiled at the baron, even when he was clearly laughing together with his dinner guest. She was fairly certain that Delphine was a poor seamstress, for she seemed to have a badly fitting blouse, from the way it consistently slid off her shoulder whenever she waited on the baron.
And, Julia thought sourly when she had a moment to think alone
while her host was sampling a new wine, the girl was either inordinately proud of her chemise, or she had some secret message written for him alone on the inside of her frock, since she bent forward so frequently whenever she had a thing to give to the baron.
It hardly matters, Julia told herself when the baron gave the wench a pleasant smile as he put down his glass. If he confuses the sheen of grease upon her black tresses for the glow of health and if he finds the scent of garlic and overheated girl stimulating, it is scarcely my concern, she thought with a queer pang of virtue. But as their meal went on and their moods turned from high hilarity to more reflective speech, she was forced to conclude that in all honesty, he was no more than courteous and no less than kind, both to herself and to Delphine.
They discussed many subjects during that strange dinner, politics and poetry and all sorts of topics that a governess who possessed a questing mind and had had an empty hour or two to fill in the past could be expected to handle coherently. This was so obvious to Julia that she was amused by the frequent look of surprise that she often spied upon her host’s face when she replied both sanely and knowledgeably about some subject he brought up. In turn, she was herself surprised not only at how little notice he took of the increasingly blatant movements of their waitress, but at how much attention such a staple of the ton had obviously paid to art and literature, when she assumed he had been occupied by far more worldly pastimes.
When the last plates had been cleared, and the last crumbs had been languorously swept from the tabletop, and one last, lingering, burning look had been tenderly offered by Delphine before she so reluctantly left them, the baron sat back and sighed.
“I shall never complain about lack of service in an inn again,” he said, shaking his head. “I never knew that total attention could be far worse than meager attention.”