by Joan Smith
DRURY LANE DARLING
Joan Smith
Chapter One
It was mid-January, and a raw wind nipped at Pamela Comstock’s nose as she strode through the park toward Belmont. The scene before her was composed in shades of gray: gray stone house with windows rising up the front like great ladders, while a series of dormers and gables enlivened the roofline. Darker gray skeletons of trees clawed the silver sky. It looked like an etching in a gothic novel. Why the Raleigh’s house should be called Belmont was one of life’s less interesting mysteries. It was not particularly handsome, nor was it situated on any elevation that could conceivably be called a mount. The icy water squelching underfoot suggested Belmarsh might be a more appropriate name.
Miss Comstock was only a visitor at this Elizabethan heap, but if certain parents had their way she would become a tenant for life. The scion of the family, Nigel Raleigh was probably as tired of hearing hints dropped as she was herself, and as disinterested in the scheme. That was all that made these visits bearable; Nigel wasn’t the slightest bit interested in her.
It added a certain cachet to her reputation at home in Kent to have a suitor lurking in the background. Her papa often pointed out that a lady of plain appearance and moderate fortune, fast advancing into her twenties, could not be too choosy. She did not intend to marry Nigel Raleigh, but that was her own affair.
A particularly persistent breeze found its way under her pelisse, and Pamela ran the last few yards to the safety of the front door. Lady Raleigh had told her, with that hopeful, maternal, coy look she knew and loathed, that Nigel should be arriving around three. It was now three-thirty. Pamela didn’t think he had arrived yet, or she would have seen his carriage in the park. Nigel’s arrival was of only marginal interest to her. It was his guest that had Pamela and the rest of the house in a flutter.
“Is she here yet?” she asked the butler when he opened the door to admit her.
“Not yet, Miss Comstock. Sir Aubrey and Lady Raleigh are in the saloon awaiting the marquise’s arrival.”
Pamela shivered out of her pelisse and round bonnet and handed them to Wetmore. A glance in the mirror showed her she looked a perfect fright, and she tidied her hair before entering the saloon.
“No sign of them yet,” Lady Raleigh announced, and drew an impatient sigh. Lady Raleigh was a great one for sighs. She wore an habitual expression of being hard done by. Her favorite color was gray, to match her surroundings. Her brown hair had obligingly taken on the same hue as her dove-colored gown.
One could hardly blame Sir Aubrey for his occasional flings with a livelier female companion. There was nothing gray about him. His hair was still a rich brown, just turning to silver around the temples. No doubt the extremely dashing jacket of blue Bath cloth and the striped waistcoat he wore had been donned to honor the expected guest.
His blue eyes twinkled when he said, “The Marquise de Chamaude, eh? Nigel is up to all the rigs.”
His lady gave him a jaundiced stare. “You don’t want to encourage him in this freakish sort of behavior, Aubrey. Bringing an actress—and a French actress at that—to Belmont.”
“Why, actresses are considered unexceptionable in France. The very fact that she married a marquis should tell you that, Dot.”
“If she ever did marry one,” his lady retorted sharply. “It seems odd to me that every Frenchie one runs across should be a member of the old aristocracy. It is pretty easy to claim a title in a foreign country.”
Pamela listened, and in an effort to change the subject said, “The Flawless Fleur, they call her in London. Her Christian name is Fleur, I believe.”
“Whoever heard of calling a child Flower,” Lady Raleigh demanded in a purely rhetorical spirit. “And while it may be permissible for a lady to trot the boards in Paris, Aubrey, that does not make it appropriate in England. You should have written to Nigel forbidding the visit.”
“The marquise is an eminent actress.”
“An eminent nobody.”
“We can put up with her for two days for the sake of Nigel’s future,” Sir Aubrey said placatingly. “It was a great coup for him to get the job of editing her memoirs. The lad wants a literary career. This book may be the making of him.”
“More likely the unmaking. If Colchester wanted to do the life of an actress, why did he not choose our own Tragic Muse, Mrs. Siddons?”
“She is old hat,” Sir Aubrey said dismissingly. “Retired now. It is time London claim the marquise as the new star.”
“A comedienne,” his wife scoffed. Her glare told the room her opinion of comedy. “Your ancestors would roll over in their graves if they knew what sort of creature we were entertaining.” She turned her darkling gaze to Pamela. “I shall write an apology to your mama for having you here at this time, my dear. If I had had the least notion…”
“I’m sure that’s not necessary,” Pamela said.
“Why, everybody and his dog was vying to entertain Mrs. Siddons when her husband died,” Sir Aubrey pointed out. “There was even a rumor afoot she was engaged to Lord Erskine.”
“No one ever heard the rumor he married her,” his wife riposted.
“You’ll hear no rumor of Nigel offering for the marquise, either, Dot, if that is what has your hackles up.”
Lady Raleigh’s eyes snapped and a spot of color invaded her sallow cheeks. “Marry her! I should hope not indeed. Nigel is engaged to Pamela. Furthermore, the hussy is ancient. She’s been in England since the French Revolution, if rumor is to be believed.”
“She still plays the ingénue exceedingly well,” Sir Aubrey said. “I saw her in a revival of The Provok’d Husband.”
“I don’t wonder he was provoked, if she played the wife,” his wife snipped, and rearranged her shawls against the draft.
Belmont had all the amenities of a roundhouse. Smoking grates, drafty doors and windows, inedible food, and poor company.
Pamela went to the fire, ostensibly to warm her toes and fingers, but in truth she just wanted to escape the bickering of this tiresome couple. There was nothing as wearisome as a loveless match. Why had these two agreed to marry each other? It must have been an arranged marriage—of the sort her parents and Nigel’s wished to force on them. Her determination not to have Nigel didn’t require strengthening, but if it had, this would do it.
Twice a year her parents sent her on the fifty-mile jaunt from Chatham in Kent to Hertfordshire to visit her godmother, with a stopover to visit her Aunt Foster in London. She’d been coming for four years, and twice a year Nigel repaid the visit. Four years, sixteen visits. She had watched Nigel grow from an obstreperous university student to a foppish man-about-town. Now she would see him as a working gentleman. She knew in her heart she would still find him a fool, and he would find her a bore. Recognizing Nigel for a fool required no assistance, but she took some pains to ensure that he found her a bore.
It probably hadn’t been necessary to wear her dullest gown and have her curly hair pulled back in a knot for this visit. Naturally Nigel would be infatuated with the infamous French actress. Although he favored his mother in appearance, his character had the unsteadiness of the Raleighs where petticoats were concerned. A smile curved Pamela’s lips as she gazed into the leaping flames. Wouldn’t it be exciting if Nigel actually offered for the Flawless Fleur! Lady Raleigh would have hysterics.
A second thought soon showed Pamela that the more likely gentleman to succumb to the marquise’s mature charms was Sir Aubrey. He had already seen her perform. Did he, by any chance, know the lady personally? She wished to ascertain this without asking the question, and when Lady Raleigh went to speak to the servants, she returned to her chair.
“What does the marquise look like at close range, Sir Aubrey
? she asked. “Is she terribly beautiful?”
“I’ve never seen her close up,” he said sadly. “I went to the greenroom one night—no need to mention it to my lady—but the crowd around her was so tight I could hardly get a glimpse. She has hair the color of butter taffy. That’s all I could see, for she’s a statuesque lady. If I could convince Dot to live in London…”
The speech remained unfinished. Everyone who knew Lady Raleigh knew her aversion to living in the vice center of the universe. It was Sir Aubrey’s one delight that when business took him thither, he went unaccompanied by Lady Raleigh. He found frequent excuses to see his man of business, but he had not found opportunity to be presented to the marquise. She was not interested in the acquaintance of a country squire bearing only the title of Sir Aubrey. Princes and dukes hung at her skirts.
The Flawless Fleur wore not only an aura of glamour, but one of vulnerability and fortitude as well. She had miraculously escaped Paris and the guillotine by hiding in a vegetable cart, like all the best heroines. A fishing vessel had carried her from France to dump her at the Prince Regent’s doorstep at Brighton. Alone and destitute (her husband had been caught and executed in the Revolution, and the family fortune remained behind), she refused the formal protection of several married gentlemen and resumed her career as an actress instead.
The marquise was known to have had an occasional affaire de coeur—she was French after all—but she did not accept the formal protection of any of the illustrious aristocrats who were eager to bestow it. It took a few years before her heavily accented speech was comprehensible to dull English ears. She played the provinces first, but recently she had made it to Drury Lane, and her star was rising rapidly.
“You don’t actually know Lady Chamaude then,” Pamela said.
“Not yet,” Sir Aubrey said impatiently, and drew out his turnip watch once more. “Did Dot tell you we are having another guest for the weekend?” he asked. He found Miss Comstock nearly as dull as his wife, but felt an obligation to entertain a guest.
“No,” she said, and looked with curiosity to hear the name. Pamela guessed from the sulky set of his lips that the guest was some spinster aunt or cousin, of which Lady Raleigh was supplied with an infinite number.
“Breslau will be coming with them,” he said curtly.
Pamela blinked in astonishment. Lord Breslau was a name often encountered in the journals. She had never met him personally, nor ever expected to. The Marquess of Breslau was a gentleman from the very tip of the ton. His most recent fame was connected with Drury Lane, where he had been appointed a director of the committee after the fire of 1809, in hope that he might magically dissipate the enormous debt incurred by the rebuilding. And he was coming here, to Belmont.
“I expect he is a friend of the marquise’s?” she asked.
“Bosoms bows. It was Breslau who discovered the marquise, when she was acting in the provinces. He takes an active interest in the theater, especially in Lady Chamaude’s career. She is his protégée, you see. Breslau is some kin to my family. He’s been keeping an eye on Nigel in London for us. He was instrumental in getting the lad assigned to writing the marquise’s memoirs.”
Sir Aubrey felt Nigel had asked Breslau along to dilute the sin of inviting the marquise. He was out in his reckoning. It hadn’t softened the blow where Dot was concerned, and robbed half his own enjoyment of the visit. Obviously Breslau wouldn’t have accepted an invitation to this rural backwater unless he was having an affair with the Flawless One. Sir Aubrey had no low opinion of his own charms, but he also knew hard competition when he met it.
“I see.” Pamela nodded. This much-dreaded visit had taken on an air of wonderful excitement, and even intrigue. She read Sir Aubrey’s thoughts quite easily. It soon occurred to her, however, that the marquise’s affair with Breslau would leave Nigel completely free. She must look lively, or she’d have to spend time with him.
She was interrupted from her thoughts by the clatter of wheels approaching. Like Sir Aubrey, she darted to the window and saw a dashing black carriage with a lozenge on the door flying up the drive. Several cases were strapped to the top. The driver pulled four matched bays to a halt, and a liveried footman bounced down to open the door.
The first to exit was Nigel. A many-caped coat didn’t fool Pamela regarding his figure. Hard to believe that under that yardwide of capes there sloped a pair of slender shoulders and a scrawny chest. The curled beaver hat would come off to reveal blond hair, nattily cut a la Brutus, but with the wispy, evanescent fineness of an infant’s first hirsute growth.
Her attention quickened as Nigel handed down the marquise. Lady Raleigh chose that inconvenient moment to return.
“Ah, they are here!” she exclaimed, and Pamela had to turn from the window to reply, leaving the field to Sir Aubrey.
“Let us take a seat,” her hostess suggested. “She’ll see us gawking at the window. I wouldn’t give the creature the notion we are the least bit curious. What was she wearing, Pamela?” she asked eagerly.
“A feathered bonnet and sables,” Pamela replied, wiping all admiration from her voice.
Lady Raleigh gave a tsk of disgust at such ostentation. Before more could be said, they heard the butler opening the door, and Nigel’s fluting voice sounded.
Chapter Two
“The place don’t look nearly so shabby in summer,” Nigel was assuring the actress. “Every place looks dismal in winter, but in April it looks quite decent, don’t it, Wes?”
A murmur of assent told them Lord Breslau was also in the door.
“It is charming,” the actress assured him.
Lady Raleigh’s features sharpened at the French accent. Sir Aubrey’s face assumed the expression of a hungry dog at the smell of meat, and Pamela stared expectantly toward the doorway. There was a slight delay and a murmur of voices beyond the door while outer clothing was removed. The first to appear, and alone, was the marquise, who always liked to make a grand entrance. The occupants of the room stared as the apparition swept a graceful curtsy, smiled, and advanced with two white, jeweled hands outstretched.
Pamela stared with an open curiosity that soon turned to admiration. How could anyone possibly not love this wonderful person? She had never seen anyone so glamorous and charming. The marquise’s bonnet had been removed to reveal the butter-taffy hair arranged in fashionable swirls and loops. Pamela’s hand went automatically to her own outmoded do. She always wore it skimmed back when she visited Belmont, to quench Nigel’s ardor. She thought of her new rose gown hanging in her closet in Kent. She should have been told the marquise was coming.
Pamela had thought the word flawless applied to the lady’s acting, but she began to wonder if it wasn’t a tribute to her beauty instead. Her complexion was pale and clear, her eyes large, dark, lustrous, and smiling. Her cheekbones were high and her chin was firm. Or so it looked at a glance across the room. Her full but lithe figure was encased in a traveling suit that not even Lady Raleigh could find a fault with, hard as she tried. It was dark green sarcenet, with a white fichu that added an air of innocence and a paisley shawl that added nothing, but would be welcome in the chilly saloon.
“Welcome to Belmont, madam,” Sir Aubrey said, and bounced forward, eyes glazed with admiration, to seize her hand and pump it, while his wife’s nostrils quivered in distaste.
While he told the marquise how much he had enjoyed her performance in The Provok’d Husband, Pamela took a quick glance at the others. Nigel looked even less appealing than usual. His nose was red at the end and his blue eyes were watering from the cold.
The famous Lord Breslau proved to be a tall, slender gentleman who needed no title to tell the world he was an aristocrat. He fairly reeked of it. Nothing but years of inbreeding could produce a nose so razor-thin, eyes so bored, a mouth so cynical, and an air of such perfect disinterest that it avoided arrogance by a hair. No one but Weston could have fashioned the superfine jacket that sat like a second skin on his shoulders. His dark
brown hair was worn short, brushed back in protest against the popular Brutus do.
His manners, she allowed, were excellent. He proceeded straight to Lady Raleigh, bowed, and assured her her son was doing excellently in London. There was a general commotion of introducing everyone.
The marquise proclaimed herself enchantee to meet Mees Calmstock. Pamela smiled and returned the compliment. Her bright eyes did not fail to observe, however, that at this close range the crow’s work was visible at the corners of the marquise’s eyes. The neck, too, while firm, was beginning to assume the texture of crepe.
Lord Breslau was “charmed” to meet Miss Comstock, and said, “Nigel has told me so much about you.” Nigel, he noticed, had not been quite accurate in his description. He said the girl was “a great dull lump of a country bumpkin Mama plans to foist on me.” She was actually a rather small dull lump. When the introductions were over, there was a polite search for seats.
Lady Raleigh had no intention of sharing a sofa with an actress, and with a commanding beam from her eyes, she impelled Nigel and Pamela to the sofa, one on either side of her. This left the marquise abandoned to Sir Aubrey’s eager company. Under Dot’s steely gaze, he showed her to a chair and pulled his own chair as close as he dared. Lord Breslau took up a pose by the fireplace, with one booted foot on the grate and half of his back to the room.
In deference to the company, the talk turned to drama as soon as the trip had been covered and the observation made that they were lucky to have beat the rain.
“We are just paying you a dashing visit,” the marquise said. “The tyrant”—she glanced playfully at Lord Breslau—“has given me two nights off. I must be back in London for Wednesday’s performance.”
“We have an unexceptionable replacement in Rose Flanders,” Breslau said. This earned him an angry flash from the marquise.
“How are you making out with clearing the debt at Drury Lane?” Lady Raleigh enquired politely of Breslau. Thus far, she had nodded to the actress, but not actually spoken to her.