Mr. Darcy laughed easily at her mockery. “I am surprised that my activities could provoke such interest.”
“For some years you were quite a topic,” she informed him, “even as recently as three years ago. Since then, after I withdrew from circulation, I no longer heard the latest on- dits, so I cannot say whether you are still discussed.”
“I sincerely hope not,” he said with some distaste.
“I know what it is like to be talked about,” she said sympathetically, “and it is not very agreeable. But how long does Society stay interested in a subject, after all? Let me see. When was it that I first heard of you? I cannot recall whether you were first talked about during my come-out,” she said, conjuring up memories. She looked over at him. “I did have a Season, you know.”
“So I had supposed.”
“Two, in fact!” she divulged, incurably honest.
“Before you fell on hard times.”
“Precisely! But, as I was saying, my come-out was six years ago, so I cannot be faulted for failing to remember whether you were a topic of conversation then. I am trying to recall when it was exactly that—”
“I thought you much too young for a governess,” he interposed, thereby interrupting her attempts to pinpoint the beginning of his career.
“My first season was six years ago!” she iterated, thinking he had misunderstood her. “That makes me four-and-twenty, sir!”
“As I said, you are too young for a governess.”
“I am not too young! What would you have me do?” she asked indignantly. “No! Don’t answer that, for I can guess! You would have me traipse around the countryside with you for a ridiculously large sum of money.”
He inclined his head politely. “There are worse fates,” he commented. “But you still have the advantage of me. May I know your name?”
“Denville,” she said. “Helen Denville. My father was Sir Gareth Denville.”
He looked at her a moment as if to determine whether he had ever seen her before.
To help him decide, she felt compelled to add defiantly, “I was a little heavier when I was in Town!”
He gave no indication of having met her or of having heard of the collapse of the Denville fortune. She thought it entirely possible that he had been in London six years ago, but he would be unlikely to remember a slightly plump debutante if she had ever crossed his path. Furthermore, he did not look the type to frequent Almack’s, whose assemblies she had regularly attended. She could not even be sure that he had been a member of the ton, although every instinct told her he had. Something in his manner warned her that she should not ask him if he knew of her or her family, and he did not volunteer any information.
All he said was, “Puppy fat? The plague of the debutante!”
“Yes!” she corroborated, pleased with his ready understanding. “It was horrid. Always feeling conspicuous, never being able to wear the most stylish gowns because of my size! Of course, I have lost the weight since then. In fact, a restricted diet is the only advantage of poverty that I have discovered so far! It has been a long time since I have indulged in jellies and creams!”
Mr. Darcy wisely kept his opinion of her now shapely figure to himself. “What contributed to the Denville poverty?” he asked.
“Bad investments and my father’s failing health,” she said with a sketchy gesture. “So my Seasons came to naught. You see,” she explained, “it became known towards the end of my second Season that the Denvilles were about to go under. It took a full year for it to happen, though, and it was almost a relief when the end finally came! Nevertheless, contracting a marriage was out of the question, as it always is when a woman is not a Beauty or does not have other assets.”
“Or a fortune,” he added.
“That is what I meant,” she replied.
“Of course,” he said smoothly. “So, no offers for the poor Miss Denville?”
“It is no very pleasant thing to be left on the shelf, after all, Mr. Darcy!” she said, rather annoyed by his unfeeling question.
“I beg pardon. I was not aware you wanted my pity.”
“Not your pity, sir!” she retorted. “A little sympathy wouldn’t hurt, however.”
“You have all of it. But did you not receive sympathy from your relatives?”
A reluctant twinkle came into her eye. “I received from my relatives so much solicitous sympathy and … and condescension, that I was finally forced to flee from it. Anything seems better than having to endure the role of the penniless relation!”
“Even becoming a governess?”
“There is no other genteel employment a woman of my birth can find,” she pointed out.
“I am aware that there is always a need for female ivory turners and elbow shakers on the Continent,” he suggested helpfully.
“I said genteel!” she replied hotly.
“I have no doubt that your Quality would lend a distinct cachet to the profession,” he offered.
“No, I thank you!” She laughed, recovering from her indignation. “You are too absurd! I have told you that I have no turn for games of chance, and being a governess is much safer.”
“Much!” he agreed. “Tell me. Have you met your employer?”
She replied that she had not and that she had been engaged through an agency.
“Even through an agency, is it not customary for the employer to conduct an interview?” he asked.
“My employer does not travel. She is infirm,” she replied after a second’s hesitation.
“Ah!”
There was no need for him to say more. The horrors of the situation were evident. Not only would Miss Denville fill the position of governess, she would be expected to perform the function of a nursemaid as well.
“There must be at least seven children,” he pursued.
“No, there is only one.”
“That is indeed fortunate. Is it too much to hope that your charge is a sweet, biddable girl who will instantly befriend you?”
“No, it is a youth, ten years old.”
“Then you will last four years in the post. Five if you are lucky.”
Miss Denville dropped her eyes. The meaning of his words did not escape her. The lad would quickly develop into a young man, and Miss Denville was too young and too attractive not to offer temptation, especially when she must be in such close contact with him. She would have preferred a position in a household of girls, one that held the promise of more security, but no other choice had come her way. Considering the alternative of remaining as an unwanted “guest” of her relatives, Miss Denville had opted for the position in the Happendale home.
“You amaze me, Miss Denville,” Mr. Darcy told her. “You do not seem to want for sense, and yet you insist on accepting a position whose disadvantages are patent, and spurning my offer, which cannot but be attractive to you.”
“My mind is made up,” she answered with a smile, and began to draw on her gloves. Mr. Darcy had a maddening way of being right, but she could not allow herself to be tempted. If she did not leave soon, she would lose her resolve to decline the offer and miss her stagecoach as well. “There are many reasons why I find myself unable to assist you.”
“I am sure there are,” he said, “but I won’t press you to offer me any!”
“It is simply—too extraordinary!”
“If that is sufficient reason for you,” he said politely, “I must accept it.”
She laughed and rose to her feet. “You are determined to provoke me into accepting you. However, it is drawing close onto four o’clock and I must be going. I thank you for the tea and your generous proposal, and I sincerely hope that you find what you are looking for.”
She held out her hand to him. He took it, accepting defeat.
“I shall call Keithley to help you,” he said.
In the event, this was unnecessary. That worthy burst into the room at that moment, without ceremony.
“I think I’ve seen him, sir!” Keithley said,
obviously excited. “Right put out I was, too, hardly believing me winkers, but there he was, skulking around the building, fitting the description of our man, and I had to come in and tell you. Just give me the word, and I’ll be pleased to draw his cork!”
Keithley’s words, his pugnacious stance, and the martial light in his eye clearly indicated that he was ready to do battle. Miss Denville could only marvel that his master’s response to these bellicose intentions was so unruffled.
“Are you saying that you have spotted Vincenzo?” Mr. Darcy enquired blandly.
“Aye! He’s the one—without a doubt!” Keithley continued, hardly dampened. “I can scarce believe it, sir, having caught miss, here. But rumbling onto the both of them—! I was not expecting such luck!”
“I am not at all surprised,” Mr. Darcy remarked.
Keithley, who was just warming up, stopped mid-career at these words and his jaw dropped. “Not surprised?! You could not have known they were travelling together! In fact, you told me you were sure they weren’t!”
“They aren’t.”
Keithley looked momentarily puzzled, then his heavy brow cleared. “Spilled the beans, did she?” Keithley said knowingly, indicating Miss Denville with a nod of his head.
“No,” Mr. Darcy replied, his lips twitching, “but she has made me realize that Vincenzo has led us on a merry chase.”
“Tipped us the double?” Keithley said in disbelief.
“Yes, until now. But I think that the tables have turned, through the providential intervention of Miss Denville, and that we are about to, er, bubble him!”
“Now you’re talking, sir!” Keithley responded, cheered beyond measure. He bunched his hand into a hammer-like fist.
“Not so bloodthirsty, I beg of you, Keithley,” Mr. Darcy recommended calmly. “You remember that Vincenzo is a frail man and very gentle!”
Keithley was heard to grumble some comments that centred on a heartfelt desire to crush the hapless Vincenzo’s bones.
“You want finesse, Keithley,” Mr. Darcy said.
“That I do, sir!” Keithley agreed readily, interpreting that as a compliment. “I says, let’s hunt ’im down and deal with ’im like a man!”
“That might be difficult.”
“You cannot doubt my abilities, sir!”
“Not at all,” Mr. Darcy said soothingly, “but I feel that I must tell you that Vincenzo is a woman.”
Miss Denville excused Keithley his blank astonishment, for she was feeling a great deal of it herself.
“Only sometimes,” Mr. Darcy continued, apparently feeling some clarification was in order. “I am quite convinced now that there is no brother-sister team because—”
“And never did you think so, sir!”
“Because,” Mr. Darcy continued, unperturbed by the interruption, “Vincenzo and his ‘sister’ are one and the same person. This portmanteau clearly belongs to someone on the stagecoach, but not to Miss Denville. It occurred to me that these clothes could certainly fit a man of Vincenzo’s size, but he must be carrying his wig in another case. If this is so, and Vincenzo has been disguising himself, it explains why we have had such a damnably difficult time trailing the ‘pair’ of them across the Continent. I wonder that I did not think of it earlier, for we knew they never worked together, and it seemed that just when we lost the scent of one, we would pick up the other.”
“This is very interesting, I am sure,” Miss Denville interjected, “for I perceive that you mistook me for the woman who is really a man who is only sometimes a woman, but I really must be going!”
“In a minute, Miss Denville,” Mr. Darcy said, laying a hand on her arm to detain her. “Before anyone leaves the room, I must be certain of this man’s identity so that I can determine the best course of action before he sees us.”
Keithley had yet to recover from the effect of these disclosures, thus requiring Mr. Darcy to repeat the question he addressed to him.
“What he looked like, sir?” Keithley echoed, still in the grip of amazement. “Oh, it was he, I make no mistake! Not too tall, willowy as a woman, with yaller hair and as nervous as bedamned—begging your pardon, ma’am!”
In a flash of insight, Miss Denville exclaimed, “Could it be—? Yes, I believe you must be talking about the Fugitive Frenchman!”
CHAPTER THREE
MR. DARCY LOOKED at Helen. “I beg your pardon?”
“The Fugitive Frenchman,” she repeated. “The man I rode with in the coach.”
“We seem to be talking about two different people. Vincenzo is Italian.”
“But you said that he was a slight man and blond.”
“Yes, I did.”
“He cannot be Italian, then,” Helen reasoned.
“Miss Denville,” Mr. Darcy said with admirable patience, “have you ever been to Italy?”
“No, but—”
“Then you cannot know that all Italians are not dark. There are a good many fair-haired Italians, I assure you, especially in the north. Vincenzo happens to be from Padua.”
“Oh!” Helen said, abashed, but found the spirit to defend herself. “I still maintain that he does not look Italian!”
“I agree that he does not fit the stereotype,” he replied, and then a speculative gleam came into his eye. “Miss Denville,” he said in persuasive tones that should have put her on her guard, “do you speak French or Italian?”
Surprised by the question but modest to a fault, she said that her French was creditable and her Italian poor.
“And you pass yourself off as a governess?” he rallied her.
“My watercolours are held to be far above the ordinary,” she riposted with aplomb.
“Much good that will do a ten-year-old boy,” he rejoined. “But that is of no moment. If you cannot handle Italian, I shall have to revise my perfectly good plan.”
“I should not like any plan of your making,” she informed him.
“I shall endeavour to contrive one to your taste.”
“I must be going,” she said anxiously, ignoring this. “Keithley, would you be so good as to help me?”
“I am forgetful of my manners, Miss Denville,” Mr. Darcy said. “You will allow me to introduce Keithley to you. Keithley, you have had the pleasure of Miss Denville’s company already and now you have a name to attach to her.”
“Pleased to meet you, ma’am!”
Helen deplored Mr. Darcy’s tactics to stall her. “I should return the sentiment if I were not in such a dreadful hurry,” she said. “Now, please, Mr. Darcy! I must tarry no longer.”
Keithley was a trifle confused. “Going, ma’am? Helping to bubble Vincenzo the way you did was mortal clever, and I thought that you were now part of our team.”
“She is, but she doesn’t know it yet,” Mr. Darcy said smoothly.
“No, I am not!” the unwilling participant protested.
Keithley scratched his head. “I don’t ken, ma’am. I knew when I first laid my glaziers on you that you were a right ’un, and it didn’t seem fitting that you were Vincenzo’s ‘sister’—though we thought all along that she was his barque of frailty, begging your pardon. As it turns out, of course, you weren’t! And he don’t have a sister or a light-skirt. But the master always knows what a body should do, and if he thinks it best for you to be with us, then you should not be going off.”
“There, Miss Denville! You have it on best authority,” Keithley’s master said.
Her emotions threatened to overcome her. “And why should I accept Keithley’s word for your judgement?”
“Because I’ve known him many a year, ma’am. We’ve been together ever since the master was breeched!” Keithley said, visibly pleased with this simple explanation.
Adequate words with which to answer this failed her. She could only cry in some desperation, “There’s not a moment to lose!”
“You are right,” Mr. Darcy concurred. “Keithley, please have my chaise brought around to the yard.”
Keithley i
nstantly obeyed. As the door closed behind him, Mr. Darcy turned to Helen and said amiably, “I think you will find you prefer travelling in my chaise to riding in the stagecoach. It is very well sprung.”
“Only if I discover that your destination is Calvert Green,” she replied.
He shook his head. “I do not want to ask you again,” he said as he drew out his watch, “and you are short of time. It is one minute to four.”
“Coachmen are not famous for punctuality,” she countered.
“Five minutes more or less are of no consequence. I feel that you have made your decision to remain with the portmanteau.”
“It is being made for me.”
“That is because I see that you do not know clearly what to do.”
“But I do know! It is wrong! I know it is, but I cannot say why. And it is utterly mad besides!”
“I appreciate the fact that what I propose to you does not fit into the general pattern of a young woman’s life.”
“Yet you speak as if it were the merest commonplace!”
“If it will please you, I will tell you that it is the most outrageous thing imaginable,” Mr. Darcy said, at his most matter-of-fact. “It is not, however, and do not make a piece of work over nothing! I have all due respect for your delicacy of feeling, but I am not considering your feelings at the moment. I am certain that you can help me. The matter is of too much importance for me to permit you to run off to be a governess. I should feel differently if I were offering you false coin. I am not. You have nothing to lose and you run no risks.”
“But I simply cannot allow myself to be tempted—to overcome my scruples! I should hope that I have too much delicacy of principle to—”
“To take money won at the gambling table,” he finished in the manner of one hiding a profound mortification.
She gasped and uttered an inarticulate protest. She realized a moment later that he had completely taken her in with this ploy. “Oh, you are unscrupulous!” she said indignantly.
Julie Tetel Andresen Page 3