‘Not all of them,’ chuckled Carolina. ‘We would find ourselves dancing till dawn!’
Flattered, Monsieur Deauville beamed.
‘Just of your amourette with her,’ specified Carolina, giving him a wicked glance. ‘I am told it is an amusing tale.’
At this reference to the affair as a ‘passing fancy’, Louis Deauville drew himself up. ‘But it was très sérieux, madame!’ he declared with mock solemnity.
‘Well, serious or not, I would be glad to hear you tell of it, Monsieur Deauville,’ laughed Carolina.
‘First I must say that I am not so much the gambler,’ sighed the Frenchman with a charming shrug. (Carolina doubted that statement but she repressed the merriment it brought to her eyes.) ‘So when this former schoolmistress bore me away to her abode, this gaming establishment, I did not care to play but merely sipped wine and observed the play until this jeune fille, this glowing glowing beauty, this - ’
‘Auburn-haired girl,’ murmured Carolina, wishing he would get on with it. ‘The one with the elegant clothes.’
‘Ah yes.’ His expressive face mirrored an ecstatic memory and he paused to let her expectations mount. ‘But I did not meet her at once, you understand. She was indisposed.’ (Probably sleeping late, thought Carolina sceptically, remembering Reba’s old habits.) ‘But later, when the patrons had gone, I was about to leave also, but Jenny Chesterton asked me to stay on. She said there was to be a party. And indeed almost at once an English peer, who I learned was Lord Ormsby, arrived with a party of friends. The gentlemen were all very far gone on drink, and most of the ladies as well - do you think this story too risqué, perhaps, for your tender ears, madame?’
‘I doubt it,’ Carolina said tranquilly.
His eyes sparkled. ‘There was much drinking of good Bordeaux, the evening grew wilder. Someone brought a sheet and the ladies disrobed down to their chemises and paraded behind it with candles behind them while the gentlemen made wagers as to which lady it was who stood revealed in silhouette.’
Carolina could envision the scene. They would have pushed back the tables in the main gaming room downstairs - that room she remembered so well as the stiff front reception room of Mistress Chesterton’s School for Young Ladies and as a citadel of virtue - and the men, drunk enough to slosh their wineglasses, would have lined up on the gilt chairs, all in a row, to cheer on their favourites as each minced out in a state of undress behind the sheet to pose saucily with the candlelight behind her and only a thin sheet between her and the onlookers.
‘There was one young lady whose - er - profile I could not quite recall. She was not, you understand, to be overlooked. She was a shade taller than the others and of a more delightful - er - stance.’
Reba always stood proudly, thought Carolina. And thrust her chest out provocatively. Ah, yes, Deauville would indeed have noticed her enticing silhouette behind the rippling sheet!
‘Afterward we all played Blind Man’s Buff in our smallclothes and there were pretty indiscretions all about.’
Carolina could well imagine!
‘The ladies, I am afraid, got very drunk and the auburn-haired beauty, who seemed not so used to drinking, tripped while dancing and fell upon a wineglass that had rolled out upon the floor and cut herself on the hip. I carried her upstairs, away from the fray, and washed the cut. It was, you understand, necessary’ - his wicked grin flashed - ‘to remove the young lady’s chemise in order to attend her wound properly and - ah,’ he finished regretfully, ‘the dance is ending. I regret I cannot say more, madame.’
A cut on the hip! And when Carolina had shared a cabin aboard the Mary Constant with Reba, she had acquired a small new scar on her hip! Carolina remembered remarking on it and Reba had shrugged and muttered something about broken glass.
And now her irritating dancing partner was regretting that he could not say more!
‘Oh, but you must say more, Monsieur Deauville!’ cried Carolina in a state of near panic lest this elusive Frenchman disappear into the crowd before telling her all there was to know. ‘I cannot let you escape. You really must dance the next dance with me!’
Deauville’s grin deepened. He prided himself on his timing and knew he had caught the attention of the woman in black and silver at last. Now he shook his head chidingly at several young bucks who were just converging upon Carolina. One of them had heard her last remark and was staring open-mouthed at the couple as they glided out upon the floor. The dazzling Silver Wench begging this Frenchie from nowhere to dance with her while she snubbed the cream of Port Royal? His indignation caused him promptly to repeat what he had heard to both of the disappointed young bloods who had joined him. Soon the story of Carolina’s beseeching remark was all over the room and heads were turning curiously to eye the handsome pair, who were gazing at each other in such rapt fashion as they trod a measure.
But Carolina was happily unaware of all this furore. She was hanging on Monsieur Deauville’s words.
‘And she was the schoolgirl?’ she heard herself saying. Indeed, Monsieur Deauville, I can scarce credit it!’
Her dancing partner nodded urbanely and executed a difficult turn with aplomb. ‘The chemise presented no obstacle,’ he informed her with a bland look.
Carolina almost choked. ‘And you - ?’
‘Carried her away to paradise, madame - or so she said! Ah, she was of a vivacity unmatched. Her fervour enveloped me, destroyed me!’ He rolled his eyes mischievously towards the ceiling.
Carolina blinked. His meaning was transparently clear. Plainly Reba had not spent all her time at Jenny Chesterton’s mooning over her lost marquess! Indeed there was obviously much that Reba had not told her!
She let Deauville rave on, describing Reba’s eyes (‘russet pools’), her skin (‘purest silk’), her mouth (‘a delicate rosebud’), her hands (‘fluttering hands’), her feet (‘daintily flying’), but she could not resist giving him a sceptical look for she remembered Reba’s russet eyes as hard as agates, her rosebud mouth often intoning harsh things, her ‘fluttering’ hands waving imperiously at servants, and her ‘dainty’ feet tapping the floor angrily when her will was not instantly obeyed.
Deauville sighed. ‘Ah, she was an amazing beauty, this lady. The most glorious I have ever seen save for one - yourself, madame. Indeed you are a jewel of price in that gown!’ His hot gaze played over Carolina in her elegant shepherdess gown, and rested lingeringly on her breasts now rising and falling with the exertion of the dance and threatening to break through the delicate silver tissue of her bodice. ‘I have no doubt you could match her,’ he added significantly. ‘Indeed that you could best her, feature for feature.’
Sans chemise, no doubt! thought Carolina, hot colour rising to her face.
Across the room a tall gentleman in gun-metal satin arrested the wineglass he was just then raising to his lips and regarded them with a narrow gaze.
‘Monsieur Deauville - ’ she began protestingly.
‘Ah, call me Louis!’ Monsieur Deauville’s golden periwigged head bent slightly over hers and his voice deepened. ‘For you, ma beauté, are incomparable!’
It was very pleasant to be told one was beyond compare, whether or not one believed it.
‘You must not call me “your beauty”,’ Carolina chided him a little breathlessly - but her eyes were dancing as she said it.
‘But, mon Dieu, it is of such a truth!’ he exclaimed, whirling her about.
‘Nevertheless,’ cautioned Carolina, laughing, ‘let not my husband hear you say it!’
The Frenchman’s voice was tinged with insolence. ‘Why?’ he scoffed. ‘Is he of such a dangereux disposition?’
‘He is a dangerous man at all times,’ she warned him lightly. ‘But truly I have enjoyed hearing about your English schoolgirl, Monsieur Deauville. I found it all most amusing.’
Deauville saw that the dance was ending - he was losing her!
‘Ah, but you have not yet heard all, madame,’ he said regretfully. ‘The tale
she told me about her life and about some blonde friend of hers - that was even more amusing.’
Blonde friend! Carolina snapped to attention. That ‘blonde friend’ could well be herself! The dance had ended but she was of no mind to let the Frenchman go. He bowed but she snatched at his arm. ‘I am dying to hear - no, no, you must not leave me yet, we must have one more dance!’
Delighted that he could hold this dazzling beauty in thrall with tales from a past that was none so glamorous, if the truth be told - and fully aware, as Carolina was not, that all eyes were upon them - Monsieur Deauville swept the lady in silver and black out upon the floor again with a masterful flourish.
Across the room conversation around Kells grew hushed. The lean buccaneer did not move so much as a muscle, but his grey eyes had taken on a very steely expression.
‘Monsieur Deauville.’ Carolina’s voice was breathless and for the moment she was alone in the world with her dancing partner. ‘What did she tell you?’
‘She told me she was the daughter of a duke but she had changed her name.’ (Daughter of a rich merchant and using her own name! Carolina corrected him mentally.) She said she was on an escapade, that she had run away from home.’ (That at least was true, but did she tell you that she had been living with a scapegrace marquess? wondered Carolina.)
‘Did she tell you where her family seat was?’ she asked scathingly.
Deauville frowned. ‘No, she was rather vague about that,' he admitted. ‘She insisted that she could not tell me because she was escaping from the unwanted attentions of some fellow who wished most ardently to marry her.’ (Reba was the one who wanted most ardently to marry! thought Carolina. Her marquess wanted to escape, and I was the one who plunged them into matrimony at the last!)
‘Go on,’ she prodded impatiently.
Deauville was searching his memory, perhaps embroidering now.
‘She told me her father had far-flung interests and that she had quarrelled with her mother over her blonde friend who had come to visit her.’
Carolina missed a step.
‘And what was the basis of this quarrel?’ she managed in a tight voice.
Deauville was frowning. ‘I cannot - ah, I remember now.’ His face cleared. ‘She said her blonde friend was very wild and had paraded about London by night dressed as a man.’
By now Carolina’s silver eyes were snapping. It was true enough but it had been only for one night! How dare Reba tell this - this total stranger about it! And what else might she have told him? Carolina’s face, hidden from view from Deauville as she looked down at her satin toes, was mutinous. Deauville, unaware of this, went obligingly on with his tale.
‘She told me that her blonde friend had visited at their country house and had horrified her mother by accepting a quantity of gold for her favours from a gentleman who just then was paying his addresses to her and - ’
Carolina’s head came up. ‘Oh, how dare she?’ she cried indignantly, coming to such an abrupt halt on the dance floor that Deauville almost lost his grip upon her. Across the room her buccaneer saw her abrupt halt. He straightened and strode through the dancers towards her. ‘Telling lies about me when she knew very well - !’ She checked herself for the Frenchman was regarding her dizzily.
‘You knew this lady?’ he demanded in amazement.
Carolina tossed her blonde head. ‘I knew her very well indeed! We attended Mistress Chesterton’s school together - before it became a gaming establishment. I am delighted to know how Reba got the scar on her hip, Monsieur Deauville, and I hope she did you no harm as she has done so many others!’
The lady in question had indeed done him no harm save to spend all his available cash and forget him the moment the money was gone, but Deauville was too astonished to admit it. He stood stock-still amid the milling dancers and stared down at the flushed angry face turned up to his.
A moment later Kells had reached them.
‘Has this fellow insulted you?’ he demanded.
‘No, indeed,’ said Carolina with energy. ‘It is Reba Tarbell who has insulted me - or perhaps I should say the Marchioness of Saltenham since that is what she is now called! This gentleman was just telling me how she got the small scar on her hip!’
Since Deauville had no idea he had been dallying with a future marchioness and Kells had no idea that Reba had a small scar on her hip - or if she did, how it could possibly matter to Carolina - both men looked down at her, dazed.
Kells recovered first.
‘Deauville,’ he said firmly. ‘I think I had best finish this dance with my lady. She is upset.’
The Frenchman, aware that he was in beyond his depth, nodded gravely and strode through the dancers, frowning as he tried to sort it all out.
Curious looks followed the tall buccaneer captain as he whirled his gorgeous lady about the floor. ‘Is this why you have been clinging to Deauville, entreating him to keep on dancing with you?’ he demanded. ‘To learn about Reba?’
Carolina nodded angrily. ‘But I haven’t been entreating him to dance with me, just entreating him to finish his story! Oh, Kells, Monsieur Deauville had an affair with Reba while she was staying at Jenny Chesterton’s - can you imagine? And she told me all the time she had been pining away for Robin Tyrell!’
The straight line of her buccaneer’s mouth altered into a twitch of amusement at the corners. ‘I can see the tale might interest you,’ he agreed drily.
‘Oh, she is a dreadful liar!’ Carolina cried indignantly. ‘Saying I accepted gold from you for my favours!’
Her buccaneer’s cold eyes strayed to the Frenchman watching the dancers silently from the sidelines. ‘Did Deauville say that?’
‘No, he told me Reba said it was “her blonde friend who came to visit her”, and I told him her story was an out-and-out lie!’
Kells laughed. ‘So you identified yourself as the “friend” of the story. Very clever, Christabel!’
Carolina flushed at the critical note in his voice. ‘And to think that I was the one who got her married to Robin! Made her a marchioness!’ Indignation heightened her already high colour and sharpened her voice. ‘Oh, how I wish I could undo that!’
‘It was not precisely a marriage made in heaven,’ Kells reminded her. ‘With that harpy for a mother-in-law, the Marquess of Saltenham must frequently wish himself dead!’
‘Oh, if only they would both but cross my path once more!’ Carolina ground her pretty teeth.
‘You would hoist them to the yardarm, I presume?’ He grinned, for it had been pleasant to learn that although Deauville’s interest in Carolina was very marked, his lady’s interest in the Frenchman had been fleeting.
‘Or something very like!’ rejoined his lady crushingly. She reminded herself abruptly that she had not come here to discuss old friends or old times but to get financing for Kells’s plantation on the Cobre. ‘I am afraid I have been distracted by Monsieur Deauville’s story,’ she said apologetically. She looked about her, searching the crowd. ‘Where is the governor?’
‘It seems his suit was ruined by the debacle in the kitchen’ laughed Kells. ‘He went upstairs, all splattered, to struggle into another coat, and word has filtered downstairs that in his hurry he split one of the seams of his new one and must needs wait about whilst it is mended - all his others being too gravy-stained to wear! His wife and cousin are greeting the latecomers.’
Carolina’s good humour was restored. After all, Reba and Robin Tyrell, Marquess of Saltenham, were far away in England. There was small chance she would ever see either one of them again.
Having satisfied himself that Carolina was not being annoyed by some insolent fellow, Kells relinquished her for the next dance to the elderly doctor who had come to attend the injured serving girl and who stayed to dance a measure with the prettiest girl in the room.
‘The wench will recover soon enough,’ the old doctor told Carolina placidly. He snorted. ‘Faith, ’twill teach her to have more respect for hot pots when she handle
s them in the future!’
And so it was that Carolina did not meet the guest of honour until some time later - for her beauty and her light step made her a popular dancing partner. Over first one satin shoulder and then another, she saw Kells drinking with the governor, who had come downstairs at last and was mopping his brow. She wondered if Kells was having success in getting the governor’s backing - but of course he would! Kells’s powerful figure fairly exuded determination - who would not want to back him in any venture? Even a plantation up the Cobre! Carolina tossed her head in a manner that set her white-gold curls dancing, and Louis Deauville, now watching her ardently from across the room, thought she looked more ravishing than ever.
Brought up breathless beside a small group which included the arrogant figure of Mistress Grummond, Carolina heard her voice say piercingly, ‘This climate has near overcome me. I do not see how any of you endure so much heat!’
‘We grow used to it,’ was the mild rejoinder, indeed it has prostrated me,’ sighed young Mistress Grummond, wielding her fan so energetically that the frizz of curls on her forehead danced. ‘I have been unable to rise from my bed all week.’
Carolina turned to look at the complainer. Slender, dark-haired and of a sallow complexion, Mistress Grummond seemed not to have much in common with her florid cousin, the governor. Nor did her voice contain any of his humour as she added pettishly, ‘There are two sights in this out-of-the-way place’ (Mistress Grummond hailed from York and was impressed by it) ‘that I have promised myself before I leave, however, no matter how hot the weather!’
‘Really, and what is that?’ asked a bored voice.
‘A sight of the woman they call Rouge and that other one - the Silver Wench.’
A sudden embarrassed stillness fell over the gathering and Carolina, who had just had a glass of port placed in her hand by the adoring Monsieur Deauville, filled that silence with a light laugh.
‘You will find the two have not much in common,’ she observed.
‘Really?’ asked Mistress Grummond avidly. ‘And why is that? Are they both not pirate’s women?’
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