All Smiles

by Stella Cameron

  “Don’t be silly, it’s brown.” Meg swallowed. “Finch’s letter arrived yesterday. She knows of the people who have moved into Number Seventeen—across the square. They are from a small country on the border between, er, France and Italy, I think. Mont Nuages.”

  “Your hair is red,” Sibyl announced. “The sun is shining on it and it glows red.”

  “The man’s name is Count Etranger and he has brought his young sister to make a London Season. Anyway, he is not well equipped to guide her in preparing for the whirl to come and is in need of assistance. A companion for the girl, someone who can instruct her in matters of fashion and deportment. She is also—although I cannot imagine why—but she is not accomplished at the pianoforte, nor does she sing appealingly although she has a pleasant enough voice.”

  “You sew brilliantly,” Sibyl said, distracted. “And no one has better sense of style or is more informed of current fashions.” Meg’s girlhood skills as a seamstress had provided them with some meager wages since they came to Town. However, she was not well known—did not wish to be—and the ladies she sewed for took advantage by paying her very paltry compensation for excellent work.

  “And you play brilliantly,” she told Sibyl, “and sing brilliantly. What could be more perfect?”

  “Please tell me what has happened to your hair.”

  “Ooh, you are not to be silenced on the matter, are you?” Meg said. “Very well. I shall tell you and then I wish to hear not another word on the subject. There is a certain small shop behind a milliner’s establishment on Bond Street. It is known to young ladies—and certain others—as a discreet place from which to obtain advice on matters of personal delicacy. At Mme. Suzanne’s one need never fear saying, or asking anything. So, when I went to seek that lady’s assistance she was most helpful. As you have said, my hair is brown, the dull brown of a dull brown mouse. Not good enough. I need excitement, Sibyl. I need that mystery you mentioned. Red hair is mysterious.”

  Sibyl fell back on a cushion. “But—but ladies do not do whatever you have done to achieve such a thing. And why do you need it, Meggie, why?”

  “I have told you what I’ve done to my hair. Now I must move on to more important things. Before someone comes with a message.”

  “Before who comes with a message?” Sibyl moaned. “What are you talking about? What is wrong with you? What is to become of us?”

  She would remain calm, Meg told herself. “Early this morning I had a letter delivered to Count Etranger at Number Seventeen Mayfair Square. I informed him that I had heard through a mutual friend, Viscountess Kilrood, that he was in need of a companion for his sister. I offered my services in that capacity and assured him that with my help he need have no further concern about the Princess’s wardrobe, deportment, or her understanding of the social intricacies she will meet while she is in London.”

  “You didn’t.” Sibyl’s voice was faint.

  “Buck up, Sibyl. I most certainly did. We are all but penniless and I will not remain in this house for one moment longer than we can afford to pay rent.”

  “Lady Hester would never make us leave.”

  “No, she would not. And I know it pleases her to insist to her friends that all of her lodgers are her protégées, but it isn’t true. She must need the money, and we understand such situations, don’t we? Of course we do. So, I have decided to find employment.”

  “You will also teach…Princess? Did you mention a princess?”

  Meg composed herself and sat absolutely still. “Princess Désirée of Mont Nuages. The Crown Prince’s daughter.”

  “And you have put yourself forward to be her companion?”

  “They will find none better.”

  Sibyl covered her face. “You applied for work. Oh, what have we come to? What will become of us? Perhaps we should go to Cousin William and ask for—”

  “We will ask William Godly-Smythe for nothing. We are going to become advisers to Count Etranger, for which he will compensate us out of gratitude.”

  “We?” Sibyl squeaked.

  “Well, you are the pianoforte and voice teacher, not I. So the Count will be doubly fortunate. Between the two of us, we will turn his drab, graceless, bad-tempered sister into a charming creature.”

  Sibyl stared, but then she smiled, smiled more widely, chuckled, laughed more loudly than Meg ever recalled her laughing before. When Sibyl was at last in control of herself again, she dabbed at her eyes with a lace handkerchief and said, “You are incorrigible. You frighten me with your wild words. Undoubtedly your abstracted thinking is responsible. It causes you to imagine your dreamings to be true. How foolish of me to believe you even for a moment.”

  “Believe me.”

  “Yes, yes, of course. You wrote to someone you do not know, a count from Mont Nuages, and offered to become his sister’s companion—his sister, the princess, that is—her ultimate adviser in making a successful Season. Certainly, you did. And I suppose your decision to do whatever you did to make your hair red has something to do with this plan.”

  “It does now.”

  “I see.” Sibyl giggled afresh.

  “No, you don’t.” Meg had not meant to sound so cross. “I intend to use this wonderful opportunity to our own ends. In order to do that, I must make the best of my less plain attributes. I have been told I have good skin—so I shall take special care of it. And, so I understand, I have fine eyes. I am deciding how to use them well. I’m pleased to hear my mantilla may be useful on occasion. My hair is thick and shiny, but it is brown. As I have already told you, I’ve done something about that. And then—” she looked at the floor and felt her face grow hot “—then I have, well, I might as well get it said. After all, we’re both women, and sisters. We should be able to say anything to each other. I have a passable figure. Rather a lot of bosom, I always thought, but, since I’m told many gentlemen are extremely attracted to such things, well then, I intend to flatter that aspect of my person.”

  “Meggie.”

  “Oh, don’t swoon, dear. Not now, when there is so much to consider.”

  “You are not yourself. You can’t be. So much worry has turned your mind. Where shall I go for help?”

  “Help will be here at any moment,” Meg said, matter of fact. “I expect a prompt response to my letter. After all, I wrote to the Count that I am a friend of Finch, who is the wife of his long acquaintance, Viscount Kilrood. It was the Viscount who helped the Count’s father locate a suitable establishment from which to launch his sister, you know.”

  “You mean Finch suggested you approach the Count?”

  “Well, no, not exactly.”

  “So you fabricated in your letter? You implied that had been the case?”

  Sibyl was too intelligent to be deceived by any effort of Meg’s to cover the truth. “I did. Just a little. But only out of desperation.”

  “Nothing will come of it.” There was more hope than certainty in Sibyl’s voice. She got up and took a poker to the small fire that burned in the grate. March, always an uncertain month, was proving pretty but cold. “I am hopeful of finding new students, soon. Lady Chattam is so pleased with her Teddy’s progress. She has said she will recommend me to others of her friends who are having difficulty with their children’s music lessons.”

  Poor Sibyl. So talented, yet reduced to spending tiresome hours with the untalented and spoiled offspring of the wealthy.

  “It will not be necessary for you to take on more nasty Teddy Chattams. I will make sure of that.”

  Sibyl dropped the poker. It clanged on the green stone hearth. “Meg.” She spun about. “Oh, no, you cannot possibly be planning such a thing. Say it isn’t true.”

  Meg frowned at her sister through the mantilla. “What isn’t true?”

  “You haven’t spun some fantasy in which you will…” She tottered back to sit by Meg. “You haven’t—aren’t—won’t pursue any notion of getting this Count to…to marry you?”

  Now it was Meg who laughed
loud and long. When she could speak again, she said, “You silly goose. We both know a man like that would never consider marrying the daughter of an English country clergyman. No, nothing of the kind.”

  Sibyl let out a breath. “That’s good then. But…Meg, you wouldn’t. You couldn’t. Could you?”

  “Speak plain, Sibyl. I am tired by my abstractions, and more tired by the matters of this world that interfere with my inner improvement. Do not speak in riddles.”

  “Very well.” When pushed, Sibyl could become quite the rigid little tyrant. She sat straight and drew her lips in tight and pale. “Do you seek to become Count Etranger’s ladybird?”

  There had been few occasions when Sibyl had shocked Meg, but this was one of them. She pulled up her slippered feet and crossed her legs beneath the loose, scarlet robe she had sewn to wear during abstraction sessions. “Mystery,” she said, “that is the answer.” And she rested her upturned hands on her knees, in the manner illustrated in the book she had secretly obtained and which she kept hidden.

  “So, you do not deny it?”

  A rap on the door preceded the slow entry of Old Coot, Lady Hester’s aged butler. He fixed his bulbous eyes on Meg and shook his head. “Unsuitable behavior,” he said, as certain as always of his place in the world and his right to say whatever came to mind. “Can’t imagine what things are coming to. A person to see you, Miss Meg. Are you receivin’?”

  “Of course,” Meg said promptly.

  “Then I’ll send M. Verbeux up.”

  Old Coot withdrew to be quickly replaced by a slender, dark-haired man with a black mustache that curved downward at either side of his mouth. He wore spectacles with small, round frames that barely revealed all of his brooding dark eyes. M. Verbeux was…compelling.

  “Oh, Meggie,” Sibyl muttered.

  M. Verbeux did not as much as glance at Sibyl. “Miss Meg Smiles,” the man said to Meg, with only the faintest trace of a French accent.

  Meg managed to stop herself from shooting her feet back to the floor. “I am Miss Meg Smiles, if that is who you seek.”

  M. Verbeux studied a thick piece of paper in his hand and grunted. “He’ll see you. Now. Accompany me, please.”

  “The Count?” Meg said, scarcely able to breathe at all.

  “Answers only. No questions. He tolerates nothing more.” M. Verbeux turned his handsome back and retreated.

  “Help me change,” Meg said the instant the door closed again. She worked to unhook the satin frogs on her robe. “I must be quick.”

  “Quick to run to a rude man, with a rude man who does not know you but who orders you about as if you were a servant?”

  “I am prepared to be a servant,” Meg said, tossing aside the robe as she entered the bedroom she and Sibyl shared. “I am prepared to become the Count’s most pleasing servant, for which I shall be well compensated.”

  2

  Number 17 was not at all like Number 7. In fact, whereas Number 7 was a single terraced house, albeit shabby but of grand proportions, Number 17 consisted of two houses made into one. There was no longer a Number 16 Mayfair Square.

  “Grand” hardly did justice to Number 17.

  Meg sat where M. Verbeux had indicated she should. The dimensions of the brown, brass-studded leather chair she used were enormous. If she were a considerably taller person, tall enough for her head to reach the chair’s wings, she doubted she could see to either side. As it was she perched, stiff-backed, at the very edge of the seat, surrounded by the lustrous dark paneling of a galleried library and study. Four narrow windows, curtained with fringed green velvet, soared at the opposite side of the room from where Meg waited. Indeed, the windows were so far away as to cast slim oblongs of sunlight that didn’t reach her toes.

  Her toes barely made contact with the green and gold Aubusson carpet.

  Perhaps she had been hasty in approaching the Count.

  Footsteps rang from the stone-tiled foyer outside the room, from behind Meg. Measured footsteps. A man’s measured footsteps—no doubt made by his boots. They paused somewhere out there. She could not risk peering around the side of the chair in search of a person.

  The footsteps continued, drew closer, changed in tenor as heel left stone and descended on wood, then thudded on carpet.

  Meg sat as straight and tall as she could.

  Perhaps she should stand. Yes, that’s what she should do.

  With as much grace as possible, she slid even farther forward and, using a slight but embarrassing jump, made audibly solid contact with the floor. She prepared to curtsey.

  “Sit, if you please,” a man’s voice ordered. A deep voice with the faintest of French accents.

  Intriguing.

  Terrifying.

  Meg worked her way back onto the seat of the chair in time to look up at a person who would undoubtedly fit Sibyl’s list of desirable male attributes—only this man wasn’t smiling, so Meg couldn’t say whether or not his smile might be charming, or produce fascinating dimples somewhere.

  He clasped his hands behind his back. “Miss Smiles, I presume?”

  This was no time or place for the fainthearted. “I am Meg Smiles.”

  “But of course you are.” He bowed very slightly and reached for her hand. When she thought to raise it, he took her fingers in his and passed his mouth within a breath’s distance of her skin. “Charmed,” he said.

  His hands must be the actual hands Sibyl had described. Meg raised her eyes to his and felt hot and cold at the exact same time. His eyes were as dark as his hair—which was very dark. He had an exceedingly handsome face, in a commanding way.

  “Count Etranger,” he said, and released her hand.

  Meg didn’t recall her hand being kissed—in a manner of speaking—by a count before. Meg didn’t recall her hand being kissed by anyone before.

  She remembered to return both hands to her lap and tried not to stare at this tall, imposing, somberly dressed man who would render Sibyl into an ecstacy. He had absolutely no effect on Meg. Well, almost no effect.

  He put some small distance between them. But his regard didn’t waver.

  Miss Meg Smiles conducted herself well, Jean-Marc decided, but the effort cost her considerably. Given her unorthodox and impertinent approach, he had expected someone different, someone more…bold. In fact, despite her mention of his old friend, Kilrood, he would have ignored her letter had she not offered exactly the type of services he urgently needed, including some he hadn’t even identified before she mentioned them.

  He propped an elbow on the opposite forearm and tapped his chin. The question was, could she really accomplish what her proposal had promised? And would she command the respect she must command in order to relieve him of the onerous duty of spending too much time on Désirée’s debut? Naturally, he would assume the essential responsibilities, but what did he know of bringing out a seventeen-year-old girl?

  Miss Smiles was not remarkable, other than for what he could see of her thick, red hair beneath the brim of a fashionable bonnet the color of lemons. Now that was startling, in fact—the contrasts. She achieved a sort of brilliance with her choice of bright colors against that very fascinating hair. He strolled to view her from the opposite side. Only once had she looked at him direct. Memorable eyes of a light brown, perhaps the brown of good cognac. Nice mouth. Full, but not too full. And she had good skin, pale but with color high on the cheek, and a bloom of health. That was appealing—important. It was important that she be healthy. Her yellow pelisse had a stand-up collar faced with satin. Jean-Marc rarely took overmuch notice of such things, but the impression she would give was of the utmost importance.

  Her clothes seemed to him to be highly fashionable, if devoid of excessive ornament, and of fine quality. For the first time since his arrival in London he felt a lightening of the heart.

  Only with extreme difficulty did Meg sit still and endure the Count’s examination, his rather rude examination in her estimation. He strolled to look at her from fi
rst one, then another direction. Meg felt when his regard was on her face, and when it progressed to other parts of her person. She had only recently finished the outfit she wore. The pattern she had made herself, using French fashion plates as her guide. The ensemble might be a trifle girlish, and somewhat too noticeable, but it was in the latest style and the Count might want to feel confident that she could manage the acquisition of a most up-to-date wardrobe for his sister. The Princess could, in fact, already have most items she would need, but there must always be additional purchases at such a time.

  Count Etranger assumed yet another angle on her person. Meg reached into her beaded reticule for a handkerchief and touched it to her nose. Sitting just so while he observed her with such…His regard was rude.

  Her half boots had caught his attention. Meg blushed. They were not new, a fact that the small, yellow satin roses she’d sewn at the ankles would not hide from a sharp eye. And he couldn’t fail to note that even though she pointed her toes, she could scarcely reach the floor. Hardly a dignified situation.

  Miss Smiles was short.

  In other circumstances that would be of no importance. As it was, it could present a problem. She would have to have presence. “Kindly stand, Miss Smiles. If you don’t mind.”

  The manner in which she moved her nether regions to the edge of the chair before launching into a jump that landed her on the carpet was unfortunate. Particularly unfortunate since the combination of that jump, and the concentration that knitted her brow, might cause a less composed man to laugh.

  She did look at him direct then, and said, “The chair is sized for a much larger person, Your Lordship. I fear it makes a spectacle of me,” and she smiled just a little—and he liked her smile. With the explanation, and that smile, she regained her dignity, a feat he admired. Evidently there was some shortage of blunt, though. Something would have to be done about the worn boots—if he decided she was worth a trial.

  “I should like you to walk, Miss Smiles. Perhaps toward the desk, then around the desk to the windows. You might move a curtain to look down upon the street.”