by Jane Feather
Once they arrived at the Polanski mansion, however, he decided that he could not approve her behavior as wholeheartedly as her costume. The black silk loo mask and golden domino were no true disguise of her identity and, in fact, were not intended to be so. No one was in any doubt as to the identify of their various partners, and the unmasking at midnight was merely an excuse for a little games-playing. Genevieve was never without a partner, never without an eager circle of admirers of every age and reputation, and she bestowed her charming favors indiscriminately, meeting successively outrageous sallies with an equally daring response. It was as if she had thrown all caution to the wind, was in the grip of some madness, some fever that obscured her vision of the effect she was having on the shocked pillars of Vienna society.
Dominic could not avoid noticing the horrified looks sent in her direction, the quickly averted eyes when he intercepted the glances, the whispered buzz running around the room. Discretion was the only rule, and Madame Delacroix was violating that rule in the most shameless fashion. Only once did he manage to get close enough to her for private speech, and that proved to be totally unsatisfactory since he was by then too angry and mortified by his own position to try to understand what lay behind her extraordinary performance.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” he demanded in a furious undertone. “Are you lost to all sense?”
“I am making quite sure that our suspicious friends lose their suspicions,” she said with a brittle laugh, followed by a betraying little hiccup.
“How much champagne have you had?” They were dancing, and Dominic tried to ignore the fascinated, speculative looks sent in their direction. He squeezed her fingers painfully.
“Not enough yet,” she responded, tossing her head. “You said something had aroused their suspicions. I am just proving that I am only what they have always believed, and you remain the indifferent, complaisant husband. No one intent on deception would make such a spectacle of themselves, would they?” She shot him a triumphant, if slightly askew smile as the dance came to an end. “I am going into supper with Major Vivian, husband. So you will excuse me, won’t you?” Before he could say that the only place she was going was home and suit action to the words, she had twitched from his hold and turned that ravishing smile on the resplendent major come to claim his partner. Dominic was forced to yield her up with a bland smile and a mock bow. Then, in high dudgeon, he stalked out of the ballroom and into the cold winter air to smoke a cigar and attempt to regain his composure.
Genevieve seethed, resentment and anger fizzing like the wine in her glass. And the more it bubbled, the more sparkly she became with the men around her. By what possible right did Dominic presume to judge and criticize her behavior at every turn when she was only doing what he had so readily encouraged? When she did not even do what he had so readily encouraged, she amended through a fizzy haze, allowing her head to rest for a moment on the shoulder of her partner. She had played her part in the charade, performed her information-gathering task to perfection, and he barely acknowledged her efforts, let alone praised her for them. Instead, he criticized at every turn. He had accused her of behaving improperly with Fouché and de Graçay when all she had been indulging in was a very little, mutually enjoyable flirtation of the kind practiced by everyone. Well she had decided to show him the difference between socially acceptable flirtation and the other kind. Since he was going to accuse her of behaving badly whatever she did, she might as well give him cause. At the same time, her flagrant behavior would assuredly allay any suspicions of her four would-be lovers that she was not the lady of easy virtue that they had believed. So thought Genevieve, buoyed up by champagne and justifiable anger that for the moment suppressed the weariness, the strain and indefinable depression that had dogged her throughout the Viennese deception.
By midnight, Dominic had had as much and more than he could tolerate. To his jaundiced eye, Genevieve seemed to be taunting him with every toss of her head, every flutter of her eyelashes, every note of laughter, every sweetly seductive whisper that he could not hear but could guess with tormenting accuracy. Only the thought of the inevitable ensuing scandal prevented him from dragging her forcibly from the ballroom. There would be plenty of talk about the way she had acted tonight, but it was a hair’s breadth short of scandalous, and the talk would eventually die down. But if her husband publicly played the part of outraged spouse, then there would be no salvation.
“The unmasking waltz is mine, I believe, ma chère.” He appeared at her side, taking her hand, offering a benign smile to the surrounding company. Only a blind man would have missed the looks of slightly contemptuous sympathy he received in return—a man who could not take charge of his wife—and his lips tightened with his fingers around hers.
“La, husband, but surely you will not hold me to the promise,” Genevieve protested with a brittle laugh, giving an experimental tug of her captive fingers and fluttering her fan. “To be unmasked by one’s husband must be quite the dullest thing.”
“Indeed it is, Delacroix,” boomed Major Vivian. “Don’t be a dull dog, there’s a good fellow.”
“I am desolated to disappoint you all, but a promise is a promise, is it not, my love?” He smiled down at the diminutive figure, and the first slight shiver of misgiving pierced her champagne haze. The privateer was very, very angry. She could feel it in his stillness, read it in the frozen azure wasteland of his gaze. He had a right to be so, of course, but then so did she.
Her chin went up and the tiger’s eyes met ice with fire. “If you can find no one more exciting to dance with, husband, then, of course, I will keep my promise. Pray excuse us, gentlemen.”
They made their way into the middle of the floor already thronged by laughing couples busily unfastening the silken ribands of their partners’ masks. Dominic, impatient with the game that fooled nobody, had discarded his own some time earlier. Now, he held Genevieve in the circle of his arm and deftly removed the strip of black silk from her eyes. “I must congratulate you on finding your true métier, my dear,” he said, biting sarcasm in every syllable. “I had not realized how quickly and easily your whoring would become indispensable to you. Is it really so utterly pleasurable and satisfying that you must prostitute yourself publicly simply for the sake of it?”
Genevieve felt the bitter bile of outraged innocence rise in her gorge. Her whoring, he called it! Those abominable evenings teasing information from zealously aspiring lovers, keeping them at bay with her wits. How dared he, who had willingly connived in a scheme that her own innate delicacy had made impossible, accuse her of whoring! The melodious strumming of the musicians, the lively chatter around her faded into a distanced buzz, and she seemed to see only those mocking, derisive turquoise eyes, the cynical twist of his mouth. With an incoherent exclamation, she stopped dead in the middle of the floor, pulling her hands from his. Her hands flashed, first one and then the other, cracking against his face, powered by the full force of her arms.
The whirling room stilled; the bright voices fell silent; everyone stared in shocked horror at the two figures, for the moment sculpted in immobility, in their midst. Dominic had gone white beneath the sun’s bronzing, and the raised scarlet handprints stood out startingly against his cheeks. There was a moment when the blue eyes were utterly blank, then, as Genevieve watched in stunned horror at what she had done, they filled with that dreadful anger that meant she had again conjured up the devil in Delacroix. She turned and ran, pushing through the throng, leaving him standing, quite alone and humiliatingly conspicuous, in the middle of the floor.
Genevieve ran blindly, unaware as the ballroom returned to life. The musicians, who had continued to play throughout the scene as if to maintain some element of normality, now increased their volume and tempo, and the dangers began to move again as the deliciously scandalized whispers ran like brush fire around the room.
Genevieve ran, not noticing where, knowing only that she must put as much distance as possible betw
een herself and the privateer. The knowledge that she would have to face him at some point lurked in the corner of her mind, but she thought only of making that time at some far point in the distant future. Leaving the sounds of the ball muted behind her, she turned into a wide corridor of tapestry-hung walls interspersed with carved oak doors. The corridor was deserted and her pace slowed at last, allowing her to draw breath and calm the violent thudding of her heart. She needed to get out of the Polanski mansion, and not by the front door opening onto fashionable Karntnerstrasse. The only trouble was that she had no idea of the geography of the house and in her headlong rush had lost all sense of direction. Even if she did achieve the outdoors, what was she to do then? It was a cold night and a crepe ball gown and satin domino were ill covering for a night’s wandering. She would think of something.
A door at the end of the corridor stood ajar, and she paused. Through the angle of the door she could see long blue-velvet curtains, which billowed into the room as if the french window behind them were open. Tentatively, she stepped inside and felt instantly the reassuring draft of cold air.
“Why, if it is not Madame Delacroix.”
Genevieve spun round and saw Legrand, the grand duke, Cholmondeley, and Sebastiani sitting around a whist table, brandy goblets at their elbows, a haze of cigar smoke wreathing above their heads. They must have opened the window to alleviate the stuffiness, she thought with wild irrelevance. “Wh … what a s … surprise, gentlemen,” she stammered weakly. “I was in need of a little air … and …”
“And a hand of cards, perhaps?” suggested Sebastiani silkily. “We were just saying how very much we would all enjoy playing with you again.”
“Pray sit down, madame.” Legrand rose, pulling out a chair for her.
“Pray do.” Sergei cupped her elbow and eased her into the chair. The touch looked innocent enough to a casual observer, but Genevieve felt the bruising pressure of his fingers and realized with dull despair that they were going to force a confrontation and she had not her wits about her. She seemed to have fled from one danger and stumbled right into the arms of another, and her head was too fuzzy with champagne for clear thinking, and what thoughts she had were all centered on Dominic Delacroix and his inevitable vengeance for an act which she knew with utter hopelessness had been unpardonable.
She played with her fan and attempted a light smile. “I am flattered, sirs, but I do not find myself in the mood for cards tonight, and I would not dream of disturbing your four. But I would be happy to bear you company and watch you play while I enjoy the fresh air from the window.”
Legrand gathered up the pack and began to shuffle them with obvious deliberation, his heavily beringed fingers deft as the shiny-backed cards slipped and slid between them. “You must grant us the opportunity for recovering our losses, madame,” said he gently, with a flickering smile. “You are a gamester, after all, and in honor bound to allow us a second chance.”
Genevieve moistened her suddenly dry lips with the tip of her tongue. Her hands in contrast were clammy and slippery. “Gladly,” she said, clearing her throat. “But I claim the right to choose the time and the venue.”
Sebastiani smiled. “But the stakes remain the same.”
Genevieve thought rapidly. By some miracle, her head seemed to be clearing—probably in response to the danger that beset her from all sides, she decided grimly. At this point, no harm would be done by seeming to go along with them, just as long as she could avoid playing tonight. She put her head on one side in a coyly coquettish gesture and allowed her lips to curve slowly, invitingly sensuous. “But of course,” she murmured. “The pleasure is still to be mine, is it not?”
The words fell into silence, and she realized that they had probably not heard them. All their eyes were fixed on the door behind her. With sick apprehension, yet knowing exactly whom she would see, Genevieve crept around in her chair. The devil in Dominic Delacroix stood in the doorway, a whip in his hand.
“You cannot …” Genevieve heard herself croak as he shook out the thong of the whip with a menacing snap. Her throat seemed to close, and black spots danced before her eyes. Once again, she had ignored her own advice, and the consequences were going to be devastating.
He strode toward her, swooped down, it seemed to Genevieve in her horrified trance, like a hawk on its prey, seizing her wrists and jerking her to her feet. “I have killed men for less insult,” he said with an appalling quietness. “And by God, you shall smart for it.”
A deadly silence blanketed the smoke-hazed room. The four men at the table just sat and stared as if they could not believe the evidence of their eyes and ears. Not having witnessed the scene in the ballroom, they could only assume that it was his wife’s presence in clandestine intimacy with four admirers that had driven Monsieur Delacroix to these extreme measures.
Genevieve shook her head in mute denial and appeal even through her wretched recognition that in a world of strict justice this version of an eye for an eye would be considered entirely appropriate. She felt herself spinning like a top to face the curtains billowing at the open window. A hand in the small of her back pushed her forward, and the whip cracked. It was only as she leaped for the french door that she realized the thong had not touched her.
Grand Duke Sergei adjusted the lace ruffles at his throat in the expectant silence following Delacroix’s whip-cracking departure on the heels of his fleeing wife. “I do not think, gentlemen, that Monsieur and Madame Delacroix, if, indeed, that is who they are, have been entirely honest with the Congress of Vienna.” Rising to his feet, he fetched the brandy decanter from the sideboard and refilled their goblets. “I do not care to feel that I have been used, but I fear that in this instance I am able to reach no other conclusion.” He locked interrogatively around the table and received thoughtful nods of agreement.
“Why?” Cholmondeley asked, taking a deep draught of his brandy.
“Perhaps we can answer that, my friends, if we each go back over our conversations with the so elusive Genevieve, particularly those that took place in the privacy of those intimate rendezvous over the card table—when so much was promised and so little delivered.”
“And if we find a common thread?” inquired Legrand, cutting the shuffled pack on the table in front of him. The ace of spades was revealed.
“Then we shall know how and why we were used,” Sebastiani said, cutting in his turn, showing the five of diamonds. He shrugged and took up his goblet, inhaling the bouquet.
“And then we may decide what we wish to do about this unpleasantness.” Sergei cut and laid the ace of hearts on the table. “We appear to be partnered, Legrand.”
Cholmondeley gathered up the cards and shuffled them, passing the pack to Sebastiani who cut for Legrand’s dealing. “I do not care to be used, either,” he announced firmly. “Any more than I care to be made a fool of.”
“Not something to be done with impunity, I agree,” Sergei declared, picking up his hand. “Most definitely not.”
Chapter Twenty-Two
There was a hard frost, and the spiked grass crackled sharply beneath her thin satin slippers as Genevieve flew across the lawn at the rear of the Polanski mansion. A narrow strip of light from the room that held the four card players stretched ahead of her, but apart from that the garden was in darkness inhabited by the looming shadows of trees and bushes. Behind her came the inexorable crackle of the privateer’s more solidly shod feet and when, experimentally, she slowed her pace, looking over her shoulder in an effort to establish some communication, the hiss and crack of the whip drove her on.
“Where are we going?” she gasped in desperation as they reached a gate set into a high stone wall at the end of the garden.
“Home,” came the curt answer.
“But the carriage is on Karntnerstrasse,” she wailed, sobbing for breath.
“You are not riding, you are running,” she was informed with another encouraging whipcrack.
“Damn you, Dominic Delacroix!�
�� Imprecations were the only weapons she had to combat the much fiercer one at his disposal, and yet, ludicrously, the funny side of this appalling situation threatened to overcome her fear and anger. The devil in Delacroix, whip hand raised and armed, was going to drive her through the back alleys of Vienna. And as long as she kept running, the whip would rise and fall without doing her the slightest harm. Quite what would happen if she stopped and challenged him, Genevieve was not prepared to find out. She had struck him twice in the middle of a crowded ballroom, subjected him to the most horrendous public humiliation, and in her heart of hearts she knew, even as she stumbled and stubbed her ill-protected toes on an uneven cobblestone, that she had the best of the bargain.
This extraordinary progression through the deserted, medieval, cobbled streets around the cathedral was just between the two of them—except for the four cardplayers, she realized suddenly. They would hardly keep such a succulent morsel of gossip to themselves. But she could not stop to think of the ramifications of that realization. The freezing air was combining disastrously with the champagne, setting her head whirling and her stomach to behaving as if it had lost all sense of gravity, but she kept running because the alternative did not bear contemplation.
The route Dominic directed kept them well way from the broad main thoroughfares where merchants plied their trade regardless of the time of night, the two-horse carriages bore enthusiastic revelers through the night-time city, and the private carriages bowled along with their sharp-eyed occupants. And Genevieve, in spite of the groans of her complaining body, could only be grateful for this unlooked for—and undeserved—consideration. At last they turned onto the peacefully residential Domgasse, and Genevieve leaned panting against the heavy wooden door, flush with the pavement, set into the imposing gray stone facade of their house. Dominic’s arm reached across her shoulder for the brass knocker, and she straightened the instant before the door swung open under Silas’s hand. Silas was supposed to be with the carriage waiting on Karntnerstrasse, wasn’t he? Genevieve stumbled past him into the welcome warmth of the hall. Of course, Dominic must have sent him home before he had marched through the Polanski’s house in search of her. Presumably, it was from Silas that he had got the whip, also.