Her fervor would have surprised anyone else who knew her. However, he had seen her in tears, confessing the fears that led her to resist marriage, admitting that she could not contemplate the love of any man without freezing with terror. A deep friendship had emerged from that unexpected confidence, and a casual association had become a calculated deception. Such a ruse had a limited life, however.
“A woman with your beauty is bound to attract suitors, Fleur, especially if she has your fortune. If you looked more gently on them, perhaps one would—”
“Not you, too, Laclere. Please, do not. Forgive my outburst. You have been very kind, dancing attendance in a waltz you knew would end.”
“Not kindness, Fleur. Remember that it also spared me the tribulations of the marriage mart. For my own reasons I would like to avoid pressure to take a wife right now as much as you would a husband.”
“You never told me why. Not fair, to share confidences only one way. I was tempted several times to try and learn your secret. It is nothing sordid, I trust.”
“That depends on what you call sordid.”
“Nothing you would do, I’m sure.” Her laugh turned into a sigh. “What a pair we are, Laclere. Do you think anyone has guessed our little arrangement?”
“No, but some have probably begun to wonder.”
She turned thoughtful eyes to him and the frown returned. “I suppose so, especially if mother has grown so bold. It has been falling on you, hasn’t it? The suspicion that you are behaving less than honorably toward me.”
“Nothing has been said, Fleur, nor do I think that my reputation has been affected.”
“But mother . . . yes, people are beginning to wonder. I will tell mother after we leave that you offered and I refused you. I will let it be known that it was my decision, as I always promised I would. Father will be furious, of course. He always is when I let a title slip away.” She cocked her head. “Unless, of course, you have decided to accept the arrangement I proposed last spring.”
He couldn’t help but smile. “It had its appeal. A permanent solution for us both, and your inheritance as well. But I cannot marry right now, Fleur. If the day comes when I can, I will want children. A white marriage is not for me. No doubt you can find another man who will accept it.”
“I will make that offer to no one else. I would trust no other man to honor the terms. Nor do I expect to find another whose company I enjoy enough to contemplate a lifetime with him. I think that once I break things off with you that I will go on a grand tour. A very long one. By the time I get back I will be old enough to be on the shelf.”
“There is no need to tell your mother immediately. Take your time if you want.”
“I may put her off another month or so. Express some reservations first, that sort of thing.”
He patted her hand. “There is no hurry, as I said.”
Her soft palm turned up and grasped his with a child’s desperation. “I do not fancy facing the loneliness again,” she whispered. “Promise me that we will always be friends.”
He wished he could spare her. He would obliterate her fears if he could, and send her off to find happiness with a good man.
He held her small hand tightly, to reinforce his words. “Of course, Fleur. I am always here for you.”
chapter 10
The sabres clashed and rang under the watchful eye of the Chevalier Corbet. Vergil met the challenge of Cornell Witherby. On the other side of the large chamber in the Hampstead manor, Julian Hampton sparred with Adrian Burchard. Adrian’s brother, Colin, and Dante formed a third pair.
“You have improved,” Vergil said as he caught Witherby’s sword making a new move.
“You have not.”
No, he had not. It had been months since he had met the others here. What had been a regular sport before he became viscount had turned into a diversion that he had little time to enjoy anymore.
Not only his skill had suffered, but also the friendships that he shared with these men. Today he had made time for both them and the exercise.
The practice continued, with the old French chevalier snapping praise and criticism.
“Have your sisters come up to town with you?” Witherby asked as they paused and faced off again.
The light in Witherby’s eyes revealed more than Vergil wanted to know. But then, he had seen how Pen’s demeanor had changed since the house party. Her glowing happiness made it easier to accommodate himself to their escalating intimacy, but there was a husband who never would. Vergil trusted that if a love affair began, his friend would be carefully discreet, and not only because of their old friendship. No man wants to be named in court for criminal correspondence with an earl’s wife.
“They have both come. It is time to prepare for Charlotte’s first season.”
Witherby rolled his eyes. “I have always considered it a gift from heaven that I had no sisters demanding such an expense.”
“Well, we all find our way into debt, and a sister is as good a path as any.”
“Speak for yourself. I am happily solvent.”
No doubt he was offering reassurances to the brother of the woman he pursued, but Vergil found the admission interesting. It appeared that Witherby’s printing establishment, which he liked to treat as no more than a gentleman’s hobby, served the baser purpose of supplementing his income.
They engaged again, but the sounds beside them stopped. Hampton and Burchard strolled toward the entry to prepare to leave.
Vergil made a better show during the ensuing minutes. His lack of practice hampered him less with each move. He forced himself to concentrate on the task as well, and that made a significant difference. Instead of contemplating his unproductive investigation into Milton’s death, or exploring improper thoughts about Bianca Kenwood, he honed his attention on the moves of his sabre.
The chevalier called a halt and treated them both to little lectures on how to improve. They joined Hampton and Burchard in the chamber used for dressing, while the chevalier turned his attention to Colin and Dante.
“I am glad that you could join us, Duclairc,” Hampton said as he tied his cravat in the reflection of a small mirror tacked to the wall. “Will you be coming back to the club?”
“I need to escort my sisters this afternoon. Pen will be commissioning Charlotte’s presentation gown.”
“Say no more. Even with your oversight, the cost will be obscene. Left on their own, they will ruin you.”
Adrian had already dressed, so he sidled over. “Will you be in town a few days now?”
“Two or three.”
“I will call on you.”
Vergil knew why Adrian planned to call, and what he intended to discuss. While Vergil wanted to know what Adrian had learned on his mission for Wellington, he had no desire to reveal his own investigations.
Hampton and Adrian left to claim their horses. Within a minute of their departure, the sounds of an altercation poured in the window of the dressing chamber. A carriage clamored up as a man’s voice shouted curses.
Vergil grabbed his coat and headed out to the front drive with Witherby on his heels. They joined Hampton and Adrian just as a slender man with graying hair jumped out of the coach.
It was the Earl of Glasbury, Penelope’s husband.
“Fiend,” he snarled, striding to the men arrayed in front of the building’s door, pointing with a walking stick. “You despicable scoundrel.”
Witherby tensed. Vergil stepped closer to him, to form a human shield, and Adrian closed in from the side.
The earl advanced with the walking stick thrusting like a sword. His slack mouth formed a flaccid, scowling line and his face flushed redder with each step.
The tip of the stick did not seek its mark on Witherby. Instead, the earl thumped it against Julian Hampton’s chest.
“I’ll not be your prey,” the earl said, poking the stick with each word. “Who do you think you are, daring to try and make a fool out of me?”
Hampton bare
ly reacted. His hand grasped the stick’s tip where it rested on his chest. He did not even remove it. He merely held it and walked forward, forcing the earl backward.
When he had him twenty yards away, he yanked the stick out of the earl’s hands and thrust it aside.
A conversation took place that Vergil and the others could not hear. Vergil could not see Hampton’s face, but he witnessed the earl’s reactions. The man looked half-mad, and more than anger made him so. A frantic terror fired his eyes.
The earl turned on his heel and gave Vergil a pointed, disdainful glare as he climbed back into his coach. Insignia flashing in the morning sun, the coach pulled away.
“I’ll be damned,” Witherby muttered with annoyance. “Hampton? Who would have thought—”
“It had nothing to do with the countess,” Adrian said.
Hampton’s expression showed no reaction to the drama as he rejoined them. “A misunderstanding,” he said blandly.
They all claimed their horses, to ride back to the city. As Vergil prepared to mount, he caught Adrian’s eye. It was not hard to do, because Adrian was in the process of trying to catch his in return.
They soundlessly acknowledged their mutual conclusion regarding what had just occurred.
Someone was trying to blackmail the Earl of Glasbury, and the earl thought it was Julian Hampton.
Bianca shuffled through the fashion plates and plucked one out to set aside.
Very casually, Diane St. John removed it from the preferred plates and returned it to the original pile. “The waist is too high.”
Across the elegant sitting room, Penelope and Charlotte bent their heads in consultation with Madame Tissot, debating designs for Charl’s presentation gown. Diane had joined the party to offer her opinions. She and her husband frequently visited the house they owned in Paris, and she knew the latest developments even better than Madame Tissot.
Vergil patiently waited. Mostly he ignored the proceedings, while he gazed out the window or paced around the room.
“What is he doing here?” Bianca muttered to Diane. “Surely he could trust Pen’s taste in these matters.”
Diane cast Vergil a sidelong glance with her soulful eyes as she tilted her chestnut head toward an image of a morning dress. “Perhaps his attendance has nothing to do with taste in fashions.”
“Well, he is underfoot all the time now. He left Laclere Park with the rest of you after the house party, but then inexplicably returned in time to travel with us up to London. Now every day he shows up at Pen’s house, always in time to accompany us. These visits to the modistes must be boring him.”
“His sister will represent the family when she is presented. However, perhaps he finds female company other than boring. Many men do.” Diane spoke quietly and casually, but her little smile left Bianca wondering if Mrs. St. John referred to the company of one female in particular.
It horrified her that someone may have guessed about that, especially since Diane had probably heard about the episode with Dante by now.
Bianca was very sure that the viscount’s presence had nothing to do with his desire for her company. Vergil was hovering about for some other reason, probably to keep an eye on the expense of Charlotte’s new wardrobe. However, as a result, Bianca had not been able to slip away as she needed to. Worse, she had been forced to bear the discomforting presence of a man with whom she had twice now been shockingly out of control.
He did not appear at all discomforted. He acted so calmly one would think he had forgotten those embraces.
Except for the moments when she caught him regarding her with eyes that said he remembered all of it. Those looks served as little pokes at her composure. Scandalously exciting provocations.
A male hand reached around her shoulder and plucked a plate from the pile. “This one. Without the lace on the sleeves and in this rose color here.”
With a fluid movement, Diane St. John rose and strolled across the room to where Madame Tissot was unfolding silken evening wraps.
“I rather thought this one,” Bianca said, pulling out a flamboyant ball gown with an excess of frills. “In scarlet red.”
“No wonder Madame Tissot has taken no orders from you. She has her standards.”
“Then I will have to find another modiste to dress me as society expects. There will be no point in swathing myself in sedate rose if everyone sees scarlet anyway.”
“You do not need to worry about that. It is clear that the episode with my brother remains unknown.”
She looked up at him with surprise. She had assumed that the force of his reputation had merely delayed the storm.
“It has been a fortnight, Miss Kenwood. If anyone in that house learned of it and intended to speak of it to others, they would have done so by now. You have been denied your scandal.”
“Perhaps I will speak of it.”
“I do not think so. Suffering shots from others’ guns is one thing. Turning the pistol on oneself is quite another. It takes hopeless despair to do that. Stubbornness will not suffice.”
He was right. She had steeled herself for the onslaught of scorn, in part by concentrating on her escape from it. It would take more determination than she possessed to deliberately provoke the gossip that might free her.
She suspected that he had found a way to thwart her. Just as well, then, that she had an alternate plan.
Madame Tissot unfolded a shawl with a flourish. Woven of the finest deep sapphire silk with violet undertones, it fluttered over Charlotte’s lap like an eddy of water. The modiste cocked her head critically, then shook it with a sigh. “The hue is not right, mademoiselle. Since it is not a fashionable color this year, it must be just right for the woman who wears it.”
Vergil walked over and lifted the exquisite shawl. It cascaded from his hand like a waterfall.
Madame Tissot noticed his appreciation. “However, with the right gown, a violet one perhaps . . .”
“It would suit my ward.”
Madame Tissot turned to Bianca with new eyes. Within moments the little French woman had draped the shawl over her back and arms.
“It is lovely on you,” Diane St. John said. “You have an excellent eye, Laclere.”
Charlotte clapped her hands. “It is beautiful, Bianca. You must have it. See what it does to her eyes, Pen.”
“Yes, you must have it,” Vergil repeated. “The violet gown too, Madame Tissot. Something modest and understated.”
“Of course, Lord Laclere.”
Madame Tissot escorted Bianca back to the inner sanctum, and a whirlwind of measuring and draping ensued. An hour later Bianca emerged into the front room again, to find only Penelope, Diane, and Charlotte waiting for her. The guardian who had just imperiously spent a sizable chunk of her income for her had disappeared.
Which meant only Penelope stood between her and a few hours of freedom.
“Let us walk back,” she suggested while Roger, Pen’s footman, carried the wrapped shawl to the carriage.
“Heavens, no,” Charlotte said. “I am exhausted. Where do you get your vigor, Bianca?”
“It has been a curse all my life, and I really grow troublesome if I cannot walk it off.”
Pen blanched at the word troublesome. “We are supposed to attend the theater tonight. Surely you would like to rest.”
“I really feel the need for a good walk, Pen. A nice long one. Why don’t you and Charlotte take Mrs. St. John in the carriage, and I will follow. I know the way.”
Pen glanced around the street, as if hoping to see reinforcements. Bianca had already determined that the general had left the field.
“If I was not expected by my husband, I would join you in this walk,” Diane St. John said, giving Bianca a private wink. “One absorbs the life of the town when one strolls its streets. Why not permit it, Pen? Especially since it will avoid her becoming troublesome, as she says.”
“If you insist. I must require that Roger stay with you, however. Please do not tarry, and be sur
e not to get lost.”
“I can hardly get lost with Roger as an escort.”
The other ladies left in the carriage. Bianca began walking away from the direction they had just ridden. Roger fell into step behind.
“May I ask where we are going, Miss Kenwood?” he ventured after a good half hour.
“To the City.”
“The City? Nothing to see there and it is too far. Best if we turn back now. My lady said you should not tarry.”
She began to respond but a passing carriage caught her eye. She turned and watched its progress down the street. Surely that had been Nigel by the window. And across from him, the shadowed figure of a woman.
Roger waited with strained forbearance. He appeared ripe for negotiation.
“No doubt this excursion keeps you from other duties, Roger. Perhaps it would be best if I found a coach. Show me where to hire one, and then you can return to the house.”
He began shaking his head even before she finished. Sighing with defeat, she turned and led him down the street. She would prefer to do this alone, but even if Roger spoke of it and word reached Vergil, she still would have accomplished her errand.
Like magic, his name summoned his memory and his memory summoned his presence. A curricle slowed into pace beside her. She glanced over to find Vergil holding the reins.
He had a whole city to ride in. He might have taken another street to wherever he was going.
He stepped out of the carriage and Roger rushed to hold the horse.
“I will take Miss Kenwood home, Roger. You are released of your charge.”
The footman turned on his heel. Vergil gestured to the curricle.
“I am not returning to the house yet, Laclere, so I will continue walking.”
“No, you will not. Whatever your destination, I will accompany you.”
She let him hand her up. He settled beside her. “Where can I take you?”
“To the City. I wish to see Mr. Peterson.”
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