by Edith Layton
Her clear blue gaze met his regard evenly as she said softly, “No, but I don’t believe that you listened to my reply to your request, and if accounting is necessary to friendship, I believe that attention is even more of a requisite. Not that I require your friendship,” she said hastily, dropping her gaze as she saw the fury gathering in the gentleman’s face, “but I did tell you that I didn’t require any new gowns, and I did say that payment for them was unnecessary. But you left the coins there on the table just the same before you left, and I could not simply leave them there for the servants to gather up as some sort of superior gratuity. I took them, and I did use some of them,” she said to his incredulous look, “for I’ve been sightseeing with Celeste and I had no other French currency in hand. But I’ve been keeping strict accounts,” she said rapidly as he began to speak.
But all she heard was a long sigh, and when she raised her eyes again, she saw that the baron was looking at her and shaking his head slowly, with no anger evident in his expression and only exasperation writ large upon his face.
“Miss Hastings,” he said carefully, “you need new gowns. It is well that you have enjoyed yourself seeing the city, but I repeat, you can no longer do so attired as you are.”
“But I do not,” she said speaking just as precisely as he had done, “for I have no use for them at all. We’ve hired a boat, a little skiff really, that this fellow rows for us quite cheaply, Celeste and I, and we’ve seen the city by water. And we’ve seen the Bastille itself, and the Arc de Triomphe de l’Etoile that Napoleon commissioned, and the great cathedral of Notre Dame, and even climbed its stairs as far as we could go. We’ve been very circumspect and proper and we’ve stopped for luncheon at respectable cafes and I assure you, my mode of dress is unremarkable. Or at least, it is for my purposes. Although there are a great many fashionables here, my lord, I am not one of them, I don’t go about with them, and so I don’t need to be in the first stare of fashion. And when this incident is over with, I shall have no more use for fashion than I do now. I accept that I must be with you,” she said, her voice becoming so soft that he had to strain to hear her even in the quiet room, “but I have no desire to call attention to myself.”
“Yes,” he said with such a world of agreement in his tone that she looked up sharply, “but for that very reason you ought to obey my wishes in the matter. Miss Hastings,” he said seriously, his handsome, usually animate face still and solemn with the weight of his sincerity, “it was only because I wished to please you that I made my request, believe me. And so it is only yourself you harm by disregarding it. For it matters very little to me. My reputation will not be ruined, I assure you, if I am found to be traveling with a single young female. If anything, it would be enhanced in certain circles. It is very unfair, to be sure, but there it is.
“I should dislike to see you pent up in your rooms until we discover Robin, and I don’t believe you run too great a risk in simply being seen with me. For though your countenance cannot be changed,” he paused and added “fortunately” just to see her blush, and then went on, “if you should ever come across anyone who has spied you on our travels when you return to England, you can always easily persuade him that he is mistaken in your face. If, that is,” he said sternly, “you are more discreet than you have been.”
She looked at him in confusion as he said coolly, “In short, Miss Hastings, and I am surprised you haven’t thought on it, this is a superior hotel, and the fact that I am traveling with a beautiful young female dressed like a lower servant gives rise to more gossip than if I am observed in the company of beautiful young lady who is up to the mark.”
He paused and then went on with a hint of laughter in his voice at the outsized surprise with which she now regarded him, “Yes, absolutely. You are dressed most becomingly and properly for a governess or a companion. But as we don’t have a child in tow nor am I precisely an individual who appears, on the surface at least, to be in need of the sort of chaste and proper companionship you insist you provide, it looks deucedly odd, my dear, when we appear in public together. Or when we dine together as we do now, or even when I meet and speak with you in the lobby of the hotel.
“I assure you,” he said, laughing outright now at the look of confusion which had replaced the stubborn expression on her expressive face, “that if you were dressed a la mode, you would be exclaimed over, and indeed, yes, perhaps even inquired after. But as you are dressed now, you stand in some danger of becoming a sensation. A mysterious beauty is acceptable, my dear, and we can make up all sorts of false trails to go with your false name for them to sniff after. It’s commonly done, you know. There are a great many errant wives and daughters upon the Continent, you see. But a stunning creature in rags in the company of a fellow like me? Now that’s just the stuff of high scandal and low gossip that could cause a stench that might drift even across the channel.”
Julia rose and stared at him with such a look of consternation that he said hastily, as he rose as well and came around the table toward her, “No, no, I didn’t precisely mean rags, it was merely a figure of speech. I wasn’t my intent to demean you, it’s the way I speak. Damn. Miss Hastings, accept my apologies, I only meant that your mode of dress is very different from that which one might expect—”
“... Of an acquaintance of yours,” she said quickly, finishing his sentence for him as he came to a stand before her. “I know, and I don’t take it amiss. Why just look at you,” she said on a desperate sounding sort of half-laugh. “One sleeve of that fine linen shirt is worth more than the whole of my plain stuff gown. And that waistcoat,” she said, gesturing toward his new waistcoat, with its rich embroidery, of gold and silver threads upon a background of deep scarlet, “is worth more than my entire wardrobe, I should guess.”
“It is a bit much, isn’t it?” the baron said ruefully, glancing down. “But then, it’s French-made. I bought it at a shop where I had gone to inquire after Robin. I had to purchase something to make my visit there believable. If you think that it is lavish, though, you ought to see the jacket I had to order up in order to buy enough of the fellow’s time. It’s blue with a silver thread through it, and I don’t know if I shall ever be able to wear it outside of a costume ball. But Monsieur LeMay is a famous tattle as well as a famous gentleman’s clothier. The French are very good with female fashions, but they stand in the shadows of our good plain English tailors. This waistcoat is a bit gaudy, isn’t it?” he asked suddenly, frowning down at himself so sourly and looking so dismayed that Julia felt very small and mean for having mentioned the price of his wardrobe. She sought to remedy matters by complimenting his waistcoat as lavishly as she could, but he scarcely heard as he had already left off regarding his vest and had proceeded to continue apologizing to her for his rash remark about her clothes. The babble of both their voices begging pardon reached each other’s ears at the same moment and they left off speaking at the same time, looked at each other, and then began laughing together.
“You are right, I’ll go to the dressmaker’s,” Julia said, even as she heard him say, “You’re right, this vest goes into my deepest drawer.” And then they both began to laugh again, and each time that they stopped, they would happen to get a glimpse of each other’s face, and then they would be set off again. It was a long time till they both were still enough for long enough to let their mirth be done.
“I’m sorry—” Julia began again, but he interrupted her by saying simply, earnestly, “Be done with sorry, Julia. And so shall I. There’s too much to be sorry for, and we can never go forward if we continue to go back to ‘sorry.’ ”
She said nothing in reply but only stared at him as much for the novelty of hearing him speak her Christian name, as for the shock of hearing him so honest with her. He did not seem to notice either his slip of the tongue or his intended utterance, as he went on, “There’s simply too much bad ground we’d have to go over if we persist in going back to apologize. And we’ve gone too far to go back in actuality, fo
r it won’t be long before we’ve achieved what we’ve set out to do. Or,” he said with a strangely self-conscious and wry smile, “what I’ve set out to do, at any rate. Robin’s not far from us, of that I’m sure. We might as well try to get along in amity until he shows up. For even if that is to be tomorrow, it’s still a long way home again. Peace then, Julia?”
She might have made a comment about his usage of her name without her permission, she was to think later. She might have at the very least simpered a bit before she answered, to let him know she was aware and amused at the liberty he took. She might have even been justified in light of all that he had done to her and with her, in calling her proper term of address to his attention and turning her back upon him and his proffered hand of friendship. But she looked at his still face and into his watchful, hopeful eyes and instead, she simply put out her hand for him to swallow up in his, and said, “Yes, truce, then. Let us have a truce.”
They stood in calm silence for a moment, as he continued to hold her hand in his. And then she remembered her position and his, and slipped her hand away from his light clasp as she said, not with triumph but with a note of wonderment, “Then you do understand that I will return to England just as soon as you have gotten to see Robin? You do see,” she said, turning from him, unable to meet his eyes for fear that she was saying too much and that she was sundering their newly made pact of peace, but unable to stop herself since her need to be fully understood was so strong, “that I want nothing more than to go home, and that there is nothing between Robin and myself any longer?”
She held her breath unknowingly, until she heard herself expel it after he said, “Yes, I do see.”
Then she dared say nothing further, feeling that it would be unwise to ask more than that concession from him. But he went on, in a more ironical voice then he had used previously, “But then, I’m not known to be remarkably acute when it comes to pretty ladies, so you must not expect too much of me. God knows, I do not. But still, for what it is worth, let us say that there are certain elements to your story which do have the ring of truth. Isn’t that wonderful?” He laughed. “For if you have told the truth, I am nothing but a kidnapper and a beast; and here I stand saying magnanimously that there may be something in what you say. It’s a bad situation all around, isn’t it, Julia?” he asked suddenly, seriously.
She turned back to see a look of bitter confusion upon his face. He seemed young and lost, at once both vulnerable and in need of some sort of reassurance. So she quickly said, before she could be craven enough to think better of it, “Is it bad enough to make you change your mind about my staying on, my lord? What I mean is, since you see you may have made some error in judgment, perhaps there is the possibility of my returning to England now? At once? I didn’t really expect so,” she sighed, as she saw his expression harden again, “but you cannot blame me for asking when I saw the opportunity.”
She silently railed at herself for her rashness as he stood and regarded her without emotion or speech. Then she asked as she forced a smile, in an attempt to take the curse off the moment, “But whatever did happen to permit you even the shadow of doubt as to my honesty?”
She hoped that her question and her smile might lighten his mood again, for however she felt about her enforced stay in France, there was no question that it was more than bearable when he choose to be a pleasant companion, and there was no sense at all in her alienating him.
She had not angered him, but her attempt to win free of him had altered his mood and he was again in voice and in expression the man she had known before: amused, worldly, and cynical.
“Ah,” he said at last, matching her tone for levity, though he observed her through wide and grave eyes, “but that is simple enough. The sort of female that I had envisioned you to be would have ordered up a few trunkfuls of clothes by now, and by this evening would certainly have been attempting to wheedle her first bracelet from me, to match her new outfit. And then too,” he added, with something in his expression that she could not read, it was not quite humor, but then it was not altogether serious either, “there is the rather incredible fact that you were not Robin’s lover to contend with as well.”
She was stung again by the observation that had perversely annoyed when he had originally made it, after he had first kissed her. But then she had been too amazed to protest. Now she was too foolish not to. Instead of using his words to her advantage, she thought later, as she ought to have done, since he was showing so much self-doubt this night, she went on to challenge him again by crying, idiotically even to her own ears, “How can you know that?”
But now the expression he wore was too clear not to read and she stepped back a pace as a lazy, sensual smile spread across his lips.
“My dear Miss Hastings,” he said happily, “as I have said, my judgment in the matter of young females is sadly amiss, but there are some things I would have to be three weeks dead not to know. Unless you earn your livelihood as some of the poor drabs in the lower sort of brothels in the Rookeries do, as a professional virgin, I suspect you know nothing of the arts of love. Now, those poor creatures are sold and resold as untouched goods, and they are quite good, I understand, at the imposture. Of course, they are starveling things, so thin as to be almost genderless, but then, they have to pass for children. I don’t understand why virgins are never thought to be voluptuous,” he mused, the growing glint in his eye showing that he was peripherally aware and profoundly amused by her horrified reaction to his words, “as though leanness were intimately associated with virtue and poundage implied promiscuity, but such is the case. Although I have often found the truth to be the reverse. I don’t even understand why there should be such a thriving market for their strange talents either, for I myself find little erotic in the prospect of profound ignorance. But then again, there are some fellows who would only feel successful dealing with someone who is in no position to make comparisons, I suppose.
“And then,” he went on as though to himself, although' clearly he was vastly pleased with how wide her eyes had grown, “there are some old fools who firmly believe that commerce with a virgin cures the pox. It doesn’t, you know,” he said off-handedly. “It only stands to reason that all that it will produce is another poor soul with the pox. But I suppose they are desperate. Miss Hastings, I suggest you either breathe in quickly, or else breathe out at once, you are becoming the most alarming shade of blue,” he volunteered, diverting from his topic.
“Despicable!” Julia breathed, only realizing as she said it that he was right, the word was far more sibilant than she had intended, and it seemed to hiss out of her as her pent-up breath was released with its utterance.
They stood facing each other in the empty dining room. His face was impassive, but one of his thin dark eyebrows was upraised as if in a query as she stared at him in outrage. Though the room was silent, the hiss of her breath seemed to still hang in the air between them. And then, incredibly, she found that she had emitted a tiny giggle. She stifled the sound at once, but then she saw the merciless amusement in his eye. She began to giggle again, and then she started to laugh aloud, and so did he, and soon they both were laughing uproariously together again. It did not seem that she could catch her breath to stop when he caught her up in his hands, his face suddenly alive and intent and filled with a terrible urgency, as he shook her the once and cried, “Julia! This is insane, this communion between us. I don’t understand it, but don’t hinder it any longer. Don’t play with me any longer. Be honest and let’s resolve the matter between us now. Why did you leave Robin? What happened that night between you? Only tell me and I swear that I will try to understand.”
But as the laughter died in her throat, she realized that as she had never understood, so he could not be expected to either. Still she said in a rush, her words tumbling out as her wild laugher had done, “I told you. Nothing happened that night. He came and told me that he could not wed me. He sent me home with his friend. That is all that happened. That�
��s the jest. Can you see it? Won’t you laugh at it with me?” she cried, before she wrenched away from him and ran to her room.
Julia had composed herself entirely by the time she judged it time to sleep. She had dismissed Celeste. She could hear no more noise in the corridors of the hotel. She had managed to thrust the matter of her confrontation and sudden departure from the baron from her immediate consciousness since she had returned to her room. But now she was alone, and not only could she no longer avoid thinking of him, she could not even escape the inevitable confrontation with herself.
It was very late and she lay upon her bed and closed her eyes and felt boneless with weariness. But she knew from experience that it was the kind of exhaustion that had nothing to do with being physically spent, and so she knew that sleep would not come easily. So she lay back in her bed in the darkened hotel room and let her eyes drift open to stare at the dim shapes upon the ceiling, and knew that they would not close of their own accord this night until she had gone through it all, all over again.
She had tried to tell him the truth, she had wanted to do so. But at the last she had remembered that despite the bond of communion that seemed to have grown between them, and no matter how frequent their mutual laughter, she was still, after all, his captive, and he was still, in a sense, her jailer. Yet she had not lied to him. She had only, she thought, smiling grimly to herself in the shadows, omitted telling him a part of it. Still, she had never told anyone the whole of it, so why should she think that it would be easy to confide in him? To have told him would have been to have trusted him entirely, and she was not sure she could ever do that with one of his gender again. Certainly, she thought self-righteously there in the dark, excusing her cowardice, she did not owe the truth to a man who was her warder. But however true that observation might be, it made her feel no better.