All Smiles

by Stella Cameron

  “She has more to offer than a quick mind. She is also very gentle and generous, and she is ready to have fun. The Princess told me so. And she is a witty creature.”

  “You don’t say.”

  “I don’t believe there has been any attempt to know her. If there had been I should not have to point out what I have learned in less than two days.”

  “Yes,” Jean-Marc said, and he wanted to ask her if she would return from Number 7 and when she would return. “I have no doubt you are right.” Best not ask. Better not to invite what he didn’t want to hear.

  “As you say,” she said, “I must go to Sibyl.” What should she do, Meg wondered? How should she depart without knowing what he expected of her? She walked toward the door.

  “Meg.”

  She stopped and said, “It would be unfortunate if your staff heard you call me that.”

  “Meg?”

  He made a demand disguised as a question. “Yes, My Lord?” There was no choice but to turn and look at him. Again he held a hand toward her, a strong but elegant hand. Meg went slowly to him and placed her fingers on his palm.

  “I am not sorry,” he said, and raised her hand to his lips. He kissed her lightly, his eyes closed.

  Her belly tightened. He would think her forward, but she turned their hands over and held his between both of hers. “I’m not sorry, either.” She pressed her mouth to his wrist.

  “You are magical, Meg Smiles. And mysterious. And a little wicked.” He tilted her chin. “I could become addicted to you.”

  She couldn’t look away, even when he bent gradually closer until she felt his breath on her lips. “I wonder,” he said, “did I tell you how much I admire your eyes? They are the color of fine cognac. But you already know that.”

  “I know no such thing,” she said, “I have been told that brown eyes, any brown eyes, are ordinary.”

  “Yours are not ordinary.”

  “Neither are yours. They are so dark, they are almost black. I like them a great deal.”

  “A pretty pickle,” he told her. “Finally I meet a woman…. No, no, no matter about that. I want to kiss you.”

  For the briefest of moments, she kept her eyes lowered, but she said, “Why can’t I be as remote as I should be? Why can’t I refuse you and flee from you at once?”

  “Can’t you?”

  Meg looked fully into his face, so close to her own, at the manner in which he studied her, and shook her head.

  “That is very good,” he whispered, and settled his warm hands lightly at her waist. He rubbed his jaw against her temple. She let out a sigh at the rough, incredibly sensitizing feel of his skin on hers.

  He slipped his arms around her and pulled her onto her tiptoes. “I know we met only yesterday. Do you believe in…Do you believe two people can be instantly attracted?”

  “I don’t know,” she lied. “But I will consider the question. For now I had best leave.”

  “Tell me one thing. Are your trances real, or an act?”

  Concentrating while he moved on to nuzzle the hollow beneath her cheekbone took almost too much effort. “In the beginning it was all practice and learning. It has become something I need—the opportunity to take my mind to a higher place where it is cool and quiet.”

  “And today? What happened in front of your cousin was pure chance? A reaction to becoming overwrought, perhaps?” His widespread fingertips pressed into her back. He brought her ever closer. Her breasts flattened to his unyielding chest, and she tingled at the brush of his lips close to hers. “Meg, don’t be coy now.”

  “I am never coy. Only thoughtful.” She paused to rock her face into his, to take over the stroking of their faces together. “I was pressed. I have become accustomed to employing what I have learned at such times. But it is possible that I was moved to seek a trance in order to distract Cousin William’s attention. He suffocates me.”

  Jean-Marc grew still. “He referred to an accident, Meg. I don’t want to pry, but I should like to know what he meant.”

  “Nothing,” she told him, in a manner she hoped would not encourage him to persist.

  “Of course, there was something.”

  So much for her hopes.

  “Please explain or I shall imagine the worst.” He took the lobe of one of her ears gently between his teeth. The Count expended considerable energy on that ear, and he weakened Meg’s knees. So much new sensory experience in so short a time. Could she remain here, or would her decision to do so cause Jean-Marc to assume she welcomed his attentions?

  She did welcome his attentions—and for that reason, she definitely should not return.

  He raised his face an inch or so, but certainly no more. “The accident, Meg, if you please.”

  “It was nothing,” she told him, more sharply than she intended. “A brush with a carriage, that’s all. I had left Burlington Arcade and thought it was safe to cross toward Piccadilly Circus. Unfortunately I didn’t expect the carriage to move so abruptly. I was bruised and shocked, but very lucky. There is nothing more to say.”

  Jean-Marc experienced a certain sensation he had come to regard as more of a nuisance than a benefit. He controlled the desire to prod her further on the incident. If God smiled, there would be other opportunities to pursue the subject—if he felt it necessary.

  As he’d come to expect, she smelled of lemons and wildflowers. And he was going to kiss her.

  Her extraordinary eyes searched his.

  Restraint had already cost him too much. At first he simply pressed his lips to hers. At another time it could be enough just to feel her respond, to feel her lean into him, but he was both angry and aroused and at the very least he needed some relief from the veiled violence he held in rigid check.

  Her mouth was sweet, and he felt how she wanted his kiss as much as he wanted to kiss her.

  Meg wound her arms around his neck and let him support her weight. She felt the protective strength of a virile male whose very presence, his slightest glance, moved her. He showed her what he wanted. The faintest pressure opened her mouth and meeting his tongue was most natural—natural and with the power to drain all energy, all resistance from her body. He supported her weight and deepened the kiss until their breathing seemed so loud the world must hear it.

  She passed her hands over shoulders that strained beneath the fine cloth of his coat—and she saw him as he’d been last night, naked beside her, his body a strange, intoxicating sight that invited a million touches she dared not give.

  He drew his lips from hers so slowly she felt his reluctance to part from her. With his thumbs he tipped up her chin and bowed to kiss the soft skin of her neck, of the dip between her collarbones, and lower, to brush his lips over the tops of her breasts, revealed by the opening in her bodice.

  Without warning, he straightened and stepped back, but not without finding her hand again and holding on. He shook his head, and his expression became haunted.

  Meg patted his arm briefly and said, “I shall make what we have shared enough. I will never be able to forget, but the memory must satisfy me. And you, Jean-Marc.”

  The wildness he felt was dangerous. Wildness and rebellion. How much longer would he manage to balance his father’s wishes with his own, his father’s crippling expectations with his own needs?

  “I cannot promise what will be enough for me,” he told Meg. “Of course, I will bow to your wishes, but if you decide ours must be a polite and distant relationship, I shall suffer greatly.”

  A woman’s heart should not sing at a declaration that ought to frighten her. And she was too close to declaring that her feelings were one with his.

  His expression smoothed. “Meg,” he said, and she saw that his eyes belied his calm face.

  “Yes, My Lord.”

  “Go now.” He swung forcefully away from her. “Just go. Go.”

  12

  Sibyl wished she could be alone when Meg arrived. There would be much to talk about and Meg would never even begin her
story in the company of Latimer More and Lady Hester Bingham. But they were determined to be present.

  “Meg is coming,” Lady Hester said from her lookout at the Smiles sisters’ parlor window. “Unbelievable. Walkin’ this way as if it were the most normal thing in the world to disappear one afternoon, and remain gone until the followin’ afternoon. And I don’t care what that messenger told you, Sibyl, it just isn’t good enough.”

  “I say,” Latimer said, “Meg and Sibyl need our support, My Lady. A simple enough thing to offer to two people who are so admired by all at Number Seven.”

  When she recovered from what was an amazing speech from Latimer, Sibyl said, “Thank you.” A tall, well-favored man with dark brown curly hair, he undoubtedly turned many a female head, but he had eyes for nothing other than the imported antiquities in which he dealt.

  Lady Hester regarded him through a gold-rimmed lorgnette, her lovely blue eyes magnified by the lenses. “Do you have a tendresse for Meg, Latimer?”

  Sibyl groaned aloud at Her Ladyship’s bluntness.

  Latimer cleared his throat and said, “The Misses Smiles are my friends. They are also my sister Finch’s friends. I choose to take some responsibility for their welfare—as do you, My Lady.”

  Rather than appear chastised, Lady Hester smirked and said, “Pretty speech. I wouldn’t have thought you had it in you.”

  “Odd, your cousin coming back from Number Seventeen, then racing off again,” Latimer said to Sibyl. “Too bad he intends to return at all.” He paused before adding, “Sorry.”

  “Don’t be,” Sibyl told him. “I don’t relish the idea, either. And now we have this Miss Lavinia Ash to deal with. I’m still so muddled thinking about her arriving like that. Unannounced. We’ve never even heard of her before, yet she expects Meg to gain her a position in the Count’s household, and that’s that. That there might be any difficulty doing so doesn’t occur to the woman. I hesitate to mention this, but…well…”

  “She is unusual,” Latimer finished for her. “Downright strange, in fact.”

  “Miss Lavinia Ash,” Lady Hester announced in her best pompous manner, “is an example of the finest teaching that is offered to our young women of high social standing. As she told you, she taught only the best. I think the Count will scarcely believe his good fortune in having such a person sent to him. In fact, one laments that the standard of education is become so poor. That is because there are fewer people like Miss Lavinia Ash to take a firm hand with the cream of young English womanhood.”

  “She appears a most unlikely dancing instructor,” Sibyl pointed out.

  Latimer nodded. “All bone,” he said. “Not an ounce of softness about her.”

  “And what, may I ask—” Lady Hester turned her lorgnette on him “—do you know about the instruction of young ladies in our finest academies? Nothing, that’s what, so do not interfere.”

  Latimer hid a smile.

  “Meg is here,” Lady Hester said. She shook out the skirts of her dark mauve gown, a recent change from the deep mourning the widow had worn for so long. “Now be calm, everyone. Behave as if nothing is amiss. Be politely interested in her escapades—I mean her experiences at her new post.”

  Sibyl heard the front door open, and Old Coot welcoming Meg in nasal tones. Another voice joined in, this one lower.

  In the foyer, the overwhelming sadness in Adam Chillworth’s expression all but brought Meg to tears. “Good to see you,” she told him, and knew at once that she sounded like a stranger meeting someone she had not encountered for a long time. “It isn’t warm out there. Better wrap up.” Taking care of Adam had become part of her life.

  He gave the briefest of nods, his attention lingering on her hair, then ducked his head and strode from the house.

  Meg met Old Coot’s watery eyes. He made a face and said, “Lady Hester and Latimer More are with Sibyl up there.” His right thumb hooked upward and to the left, indicating Meg and Sibyl’s rooms. Hooking the same thumb to the left, this time toward Latimer More’s flat on the ground floor, he said, “There’s a visitor in there, but I think she’s resting. Pinch-mouthed stick of a woman. She came to speak to you, but you’d better deal with them first.” Again his thumb arced toward the second floor.

  With a glance toward Latimer More’s door, she thanked Old Coot and hurried upstairs, preparing herself for Sibyl’s tears.

  Crowded into the doorway of the parlor were Lady Hester, Sibyl and, most amazing of all, Latimer More.

  “Meggie,” Sibyl said, her voice a broken whisper. “Oh, Meggie, I’ve been beside myself. Come here and let me look at you.”

  “You ought to be ashamed, young woman,” Lady Hester said. “Of course we’re glad the prodigal has returned, but you are a young woman of genteel upbringing. You know better. What we are to do, I cannot imagine. Oh! Oh, my word, your hair. What have you done to it? Oh, I need my salts.”

  Sibyl managed to squeeze through the door and fling her thin arms around Meg. She cried into her shoulder. “I love you, Meggie. You are my hero. I know that whatever you did, you did for both of us, but…”

  “But she is cast low at the thought of her sister destroying her reputation for the sake of a few pieces of silver.”

  “I say, Lady H,” Latimer said, evidently relishing the use of the form of address Lady Hester disliked. “Been reading our Bible a lot, have we? Prodigal sons and pieces of silver. Bit of a mixed metaphor there, what? Personally I consider your hair lovely as it normally is, Meg. But the red is very fetching. Very dashing. So, why not, say I? Come along in, you two. Barstow is wallowing in a righteous funk and no one else shows signs of doing anything useful, so I shall make tea for all of us. What do you say?”

  When Meg collected herself, she said, “Why, thank you, Latimer. Yes, thank you very much.” She smiled at him, and he smiled back. He was really most attractive and charming—at least he was when he cared to be so.

  “Take a seat, My Lady,” Sibyl said, still sniffing and clinging to Meg’s hand.

  Lady Hester spread her skirts and arranged herself on a dilapidated chaise covered with aged pink brocade—faded green leaves and a faint suggestion of cream roses all but disappeared from wear. “Do make haste with the tea, Latimer. I am quite faint from all the worry this girl has caused. Now, sit before me, Meg Smiles. I have some questions to ask.”

  “I should like Meggie to have tea first,” Sibyl said hesitantly. “I’m sure she has been through a great deal and must be exhausted. There are biscuits in the barrel on the sideboard, Latimer.”

  He had put a kettle on the hob and assembled cups and saucers on a tray. He popped upright when Lady Hester said, “It is the question about what has exhausted her that is of the greatest concern here. Now, what do you say to that, Meg? Yes, that is definitely—”

  “That is none of our business, My Lady,” Latimer said. “Not unless Meg chooses to tell us if something has concerned her—or brought her joy. And I remind you, with respect, that you are assuming disaster where there may be none.”

  “Ungrateful boy,” Lady Hester said. “And so typical of men, any men. You never hesitate to impose your will upon the weaker sex.”

  “Are you all right, Meggie, dear?” Sibyl asked.

  “I’m very well.” She lied, but what else could she do? “Where is our cousin?”

  Sibyl smiled. “William came to tell us you would soon be coming home, then left, saying he had important business elsewhere. He will return when he can.”

  “How unfortunate,” Meg said. “He made a complete cake of himself at Count Etranger’s.”

  “Which brings us to the question that must be answered,” Lady Hester said. “We all saw the Count usher you into his carriage yesterday. Alone. Before you set off at a great rate, not to return until now. We understand you spent the night at the Count’s house near Windsor.”

  “Yes, Riverside Place. Sibyl, dear, I’m so sorry. I just know you’ve been worried about me but I thought we were only to go there
for an outing, and that we’d be back before dark. When I found out what was intended, it was too late to attempt a return journey.”

  “I know,” Sibyl said. “And it’s all right, really, it is—as long as you are safe and there is nothing wrong.”

  “There’s nothing wrong,” Meg told her. “What happened was an unfortunate mix-up but now it’s over and, as you see, I am my old self.”

  “Were you alone with the Count at Windsor?” Lady Hester asked as if Meg and Sibyl hadn’t intruded on her interrogation.

  “Not at all alone,” Meg said. “With a household full of servants. With Lady Upworth, a good friend of the Count’s. And with my new charge, Princess Désirée of Mont Nuages.”

  Lady Hester’s eyes became increasingly round and she bent a little more forward with each word Meg uttered. She shook her head and said, with some reverence, “You were in such company.”

  “Only as the Princess’s companion.”

  “Surely you didn’t go to dinner with them.”

  If her heart did not ache so, Meg decided she might enjoy this. “Yes, it was the first dinner at which the Princess wore her hair up. She is a delightful girl. Thoughtful, quiet—sometimes nervous and a little sharp-tongued—but so dear and pretty in her own way.”

  “Hmph,” Lady Hester said. “In other words, she’s a plain thing well-disguised by expensive trappings. Not that it matters how plain she is. She will have suitors clamoring for her hand.”

  Meg looked at Sibyl. She could bear Latimer’s presence with them, but Her Ladyship made it impossible to be frank about anything.

  Latimer carried a tray of tea and biscuits around the circle and each lady accepted a cup and saucer. “I have no doubt you’d like to rest, Meg,” he said. “So much excitement must have left you overwrought.”

  “Very true,” she agreed.

  Lady Hester said, “Of course you need to rest. Do tell us all about the Count. He is the illegitimate son of Prince Georges of Mont Nuages, isn’t he?”