by Nita Abrams
“Well, I suppose—” said Philip.
“I’m afraid we cannot stay very long,” Clermont said at the same moment. “But I had hoped that Miss Allen and Lord Ogbourne might accompany me this afternoon to an exhibition of zoological specimens at Somerset House. If you are not too tired from your journey, that is,” he said to Serena, addressing her directly for the first time.
“Not at all,” she said, with her best demure-maiden smile. “I should be delighted. And I believe I can vouch for Simon’s interest.” An understatement. He would be in seventh heaven. He had spent the entire coach ride discussing his plans for “lessons” with Royce while in town, and while he had mentioned traditional favorites such as Astley’s Amphitheater and the lions at the Tower, he had also listed the Royal Society, the Observatory, and the British Museum.
“You are inviting Serena to go see dead animals?” said Philip in distaste. “On her first day in town in years?”
“Specimens, my dear fellow. Not at all the same thing. A rabbit which has been caught by a fox is a dead animal. An oryctolagus cuniculus, stuffed and mounted, is a specimen.”
“Quite right.” Mrs. Childe had apparently recovered. She nodded. “Rare animals are so very interesting, don’t you agree, Mr. Clermont?” There was a fractional pause before the word mister.
“Certainly.” He bowed affably in her direction.
So, Mrs. Childe was forgiven.
The older woman smiled her odd, closed-lipped smile. “And what is an oryctolagus cuniculus?”
He gave Serena a quick glance and she suddenly knew Mrs. Childe had not been forgiven at all.
“A rabbit,” he said gently.
That was almost enough to make her change her mind. But not quite.
Ten minutes later, with Clermont and Philip safely out of the house, she went up to her desk and wrote Clermont a note. Alas, she had now developed a headache and must beg to be excused from this afternoon’s expedition. She actually wrote the word alas, enjoying herself very much. After some thought she added that she feared Simon would not be permitted to go without her. She would get a headache wondering what mischief her cousin might get up to with Clermont in her absence. “Take that, Mr. Courtly Clermont,” she said aloud as she sealed up the note. “You thought you had me, inviting me in front of my aunt. But two can play the social graces game.”
Somerset House, on raw days in March, seemed to exude a damp chill more appropriate for a prison than the stately home of three royal societies and several important government agencies. Especially when filled with stuffed carcasses of dead birds and animals. Rooms and rooms of them, it seemed, and Simon wanted to see every single corpse. She moved mechanically to the next case. “Sterna paradisaea,” read the label. “Arctic Tern. Provenance: Cape Breton. Specimen donated by P.A.K.” Inside was a gray and white bird, its lifeless eyes surveying her haughtily over a blood-red beak. Behind the bird a painted backdrop depicted snow-covered cliffs and a bay filled with chunks of floating ice. She shivered.
Her cousin—the same boy who had demanded extra hot bricks and wraps both mornings in the coach—seemed impervious to the temperature in the exhibition gallery, which was, in Serena’s estimate, close to freezing. Of course, perhaps she was not suffering merely from physical cold. Perhaps she was suffering from nerves, because she and Simon between them were currently juggling (here she paused to count) seven complete falsehoods. For Simon, that was nothing, but she was already exhausted trying to remember what she had said to whom.
Serena had been prepared to pay a penalty for outmaneuvering Clermont. And she had known—or thought she had known—what that penalty would be: lying in a darkened bedchamber all afternoon on her first full day in London. Not too steep a price to pay, she had decided, for her victory.
She had reckoned without Simon. Twenty minutes after her note had been sent off, he had burst into her room without knocking. Emily, who had just helped the newly ill Serena into her dressing gown, opened her mouth to scold.
“Out,” Simon said to the maid in a tone eerily reminiscent of his father’s more autocratic moments.
Emily fled.
Simon closed the door behind her with a deceptively gentle click. “You traitor,” he said to Serena. His blue eyes were like flint. “You weren’t even going to tell me about Mr. Clermont’s invitation, were you?”
She thought of denying everything, or of trying to convince Simon that she truly was ill. But in the face of his righteous anger—and it was righteous, she had to acknowledge that—she merely sat down on the edge of the bed and sighed. “How did you find out?” Eavesdropping was not as easy in the London house, although Simon had his methods.
“My mother. Who descended on Royce to warn him that his frail little charge was going out later today.” He added, pointedly, “She looked very pleased with herself and nearly forgot to tell me to wear my muffler.”
She should have realized Aunt Clara would go to Simon at once, so that he could be fortified with tonics before venturing out of doors.
“And then,” he said, eyes flashing, “I came running to find you to see when we were leaving and what precisely this exhibition was, and I met Mrs. Digby. Who told me you were laid down on your bed.”
Her conscience smote her. “We’ll go tomorrow,” she promised, and then instantly regretted it. It was never wise to show weakness in front of Simon.
“We’ll go today,” he said.
“I’ve already cried off. I’m ill.” She swept her arm out to indicate the turned-down bed, the drawn curtains, and the cloth pad, soaked in lavender water, lying on the floor where the flustered Emily had dropped it.
“We’ll go today. At two. Or I will tell my mother how you deliberately humiliated Mr. Clermont.”
“You wouldn’t!” He would, she saw. He was furious.
Her penalty, therefore, was much worse than four hours in a dark room. It was two hours in a frigid exhibition hall and more lies than she had ever told in one day in her life. To Emily and Mrs. Digby, the tale of the miraculous recovery, followed by a plea not to distress the countess with any talk of illness. To Rowley, an elaborate itinerary which precluded their using the carriage. The last thing she wanted was for Hoop, the Bassington coachman, to insist on waiting until their fictitious escort appeared to take charge of them. And to her aunt, a whole series of lies: she had promised Simon to take him first to Hatchard’s for a book which accompanied the exhibition and had therefore sent a note asking Mr. Clermont to call for her at the bookstore. Yes, she was taking a maid. Yes, Mr. Clermont would bring them back in a carriage so that Simon did not have to walk both ways.
She stared at the tern without really seeing it. At another time she might have found the exhibit interesting. There was a whole family of beavers, for example, posed beside one of their dams, which some devoted amateur naturalist had reinforced with plaster of Paris, cut apart into numbered pieces for shipping back to England, and reassembled. There was an enormous, shaggy sort of deer, called a Caribou, and a short-quilled porcupine which apparently lived in trees instead of underneath hedges. But in any case her interest could never have matched Simon’s blazing, concentrated enthusiasm. He had long since abandoned her, darting from case to case and from room to room. She gave up and settled down on a marble bench to see how long it would take him to exhaust himself.
Twenty minutes later she was beginning to wish she had brought a maid with her. The crowd was largely male, and she had drawn several rude stares. A lively family group went by, and she was tempted for a moment to get up and drift over until she stood in the protection of their little circle, where she would look like a maiden aunt or perhaps a governess. Another lie; she rejected it. Instead, she looked at her hands, neatly folded in her lap.
Some of the predatory males grew bolder, walking by her repeatedly and slowing as they did so. One even approached and inquired, with oily solicitude, if she needed assistance. She scorched him with her best glare—what Simon called her snake eyes—a
nd then resumed contemplating her glove buttons. His smooth voice faltered, then died, and she heard his footsteps moving away.
“Well, well.” A new voice, a very familiar voice. “What an unexpected pleasure. Very unexpected.”
She forced herself to look up. Dark eyes, dark brows, gold hair, fine-carved mouth. All looking amused. Even his hair seemed to be chortling.
“I am delighted to see that you have recovered from your—indisposition.”
She would kill Simon. In all the contriving and prevaricating which had gone into undoing her false headache, it had never, ever occurred to her that Clermont would, in fact, come to this exhibit. That the liar would tell the truth while she, the honest one, left a trail of slimy falsehoods all over London.
“What are you doing here?” she said. It came out as an accusation.
He sat down next to her. “Isn’t that my line?”
“Simon forced my hand, if you must know. I had no intention of coming.”
“So I gathered.” He took a folded piece of paper from his pocket, and held it up between thumb and finger.
It was her note. The “alas” no longer seemed funny. None of it seemed funny. When had she turned into the sort of female who enjoyed humiliating people?
“Would you like this back?” he asked, in an oddly gentle voice. His eyes no longer laughed. They held a mixture of sympathy and regret.
She shook her head. There was a lump in her throat. “Keep it,” she managed to say. “Or better yet, give it to Simon. He can use it for his next round of extortion.”
“Simon doesn’t need any more weapons than he already has,” he said, handing her the note. “Where is he, by the way?”
“Last I saw, in the room with the bears.” She started tearing the note into tiny pieces, very neatly and methodically. A delicate rain of square paper flakes descended onto her lap. When she had finished she carefully scooped the fragments into her reticule and then inspected her skirts for stray bits of paper.
Clermont was showing remarkable restraint in his moment of triumph. He sat idly scanning the crowds coming through the doorway opposite, as though young ladies tore letters to shreds next to him every day of the week.
“I owe you an apology,” she said, very quietly, to his profile.
He turned to face her. “No,” he said. “I owe you one.”
Startled, she blurted out, “You do? Why?”
He studied her for a long moment, his face curiously intent. But then his normal, slightly ironic expression returned, and he echoed lightly, “Why? Because it was quite unfair of me to use your aunt to trap you this morning. Come, I’ll answer your question.” He rose and offered her his hand.
“What question?” she said, standing and tucking her arm into his.
He smiled down at her. She forgot, she always forgot, how tall he was, until he was right next to her. “What I am doing here.” He led her into the next room, to a case filled with birds. “Look.”
At first she didn’t understand. Some of the birds were beautiful, it was true—especially one goose with silver and blue feathering on its neck—but most seemed quite ordinary to her. It wasn’t until she had read the labels carefully several times that she noticed what they all had in common: Specimen donated by L.F.J.B.C.
She reached out and touched the corner of the nearest label. “These are yours?”
He nodded.
“L.F.?”
He grimaced. “Family names. I don’t use them.”
“Then you are a naturalist,” she said slowly. “My suspicions were unjustified, it appears.”
“Another apology?” He raised his eyebrows. “Don’t be too hasty, Miss Allen. To quote the estimable Mr. Sheridan, ‘there is no trusting appearances.’”
For a Frenchman he had certainly read a good deal of English verse.
17
The conquest of the Bassingtons, Julien reflected, was a delicate balancing act, a house of cards constructed from layer upon layer of social innuendo. The Viscount was his pretext—an easy one; he found Simon rather appealing and could include the boy in genuine interests of his own without much difficulty. The lens grinder, in particular, had been a godsend. Julien had called twice now to confer with Simon about the construction of the telescope, and a further visit would be required to present the finished instrument. The layer above Simon, of course, was Serena Allen—the answer to any skeptics who wondered why a wealthy bachelor would act as an unpaid tutor to an eleven-year-old boy. Miss Allen’s reluctance to encourage his attentions was another godsend. Not only could Julien assure his conscience (at least most of the time) that she would be delighted when he eventually disappeared, but her resistance only made her aunt and uncle more eager to welcome him. The countess was constantly inviting him to join her (and her niece) for various engagements and outings. He and Philip were to dine there tonight, in fact, and then escort the countess, Mrs. Childe, and Miss Allen to a concert in Hanover Square.
“More diplomatic maneuvering,” said Philip from behind his newspaper. “Napoleon should have accepted the terms offered him a few weeks ago. Listen to this: ‘We can now confirm that a treaty has been signed at Chaumont, binding the allies to continue their campaign against Bonaparte. The agreement, drafted by Lord Castlereagh, promises to restore sovereignty to Holland and Italy. Spain will be governed by a Bourbon king. It remains only to settle the Austrian and Russian claims to the eastern territories.’ ”
Julien looked up from an essay in Bulletin of the Royal Institution, which was attempting to persuade him that wolves had a form of language. “Oh, is that all that remains? The merest trifle, to be sure.”
They were at the Alfred, a club Julien strongly preferred to the more fashionable establishments on St. James Street. It was quiet, it had an excellent library, and its membership was more diverse than the dandified precincts of White’s and Boodle’s. More intelligent, too. An older man sitting nearby looked up at Julien’s sarcastic comment and snorted in agreement.
“You are a pessimist,” said Derring.
“No, a realist. Austria and Russia are more afraid of each other at this point than they are of Napoleon. If he offers one of them help against the other, Castlereagh’s treaty won’t be worth the paper it’s written on.” Julien went back to his magazine, but a low cough interrupted him again. It was one of the Alfred’s waiters, holding a tray with an engraved card face up in the center. Three steps behind the servant, not bothering to wait for a response to the card, an elderly man with a hooked nose and piercing light-blue eyes was leaning on a gold-headed walking stick. He was wearing silk, although it was barely noon. He always wore silk. As the others in the room gradually became aware of his presence, those who knew him rose, and others, taking their cue from their fellows, scrambled out of their chairs and listened, awed, to the whispered name.
Julien, too, had risen.
“Monsieur,” he said, bowing stiffly. He was trying not to look as astounded as he felt. Having used his grandfather as an excuse to leave Boulton Park, Julien had made a point of calling in Gloucester Place on his second day back in London. As usual, he had been denied. And as usual, he had left a note professing himself his grandfather’s devoted servant to command. He had not seen his grandfather in a very long time—and the prince, on the few occasions when he was willing to speak to his bastard grandson, normally summoned the aforesaid grandson to him.
“A moment of your time, if you would be so good,” said his grandfather in French.
“Certainly.” Julien signaled to the club’s butler, who was gawking in the doorway of the library, and they were shown to a small side chamber furnished with a globe and writing table.
The prince walked over to the globe and rotated it so that France was facing up before turning to Julien. “I overheard your remark to the young man with the newspaper just now. Had you any particular reason to make that remark? Any special knowledge of the current tensions between Austria and Russia?”
“I beg you
r pardon, monsieur, but I do not understand your question.”
“You are, I have recently been informed, an acquaintance of the Earl of Bassington? You have been a guest at his home?”
“Yes, monsieur.”
“And you are courting his niece?”
Julien hesitated. “The countess and Miss Allen have been very amiable,” he said, temporizing. At least, the countess has, he added silently.
“She is not for you.” His grandfather disposed of Serena with a wave of his lace-cuffed wrist. “I have been remiss, however. It is time you were married. When my affairs are not so pressing, I will consider the question.”
“We have discussed this before, grandpère. My views have not changed.”
The wrist waved again, dismissing the topic. “Let us return to the man Bassington. It happens that he is of some importance to us—to our family and their prospects after the return to France—in regard to this very question of a treaty with Russia. I came to find you here in the hope that you would agree to contrive a meeting between myself and the earl. As if by accident, you understand, so that no great importance would attach to any discussion we might have. But now it occurs to me that I could not rely completely on anything Bassington might tell me, even at such an informal, chance encounter. Information obtained more discreetly, by someone who was welcome in the household, would be far more useful.” He paused, significantly.
With a detached portion of his brain—the portion that was not stunned by the proposal—Julien noted that the grandson of Louis XIV had just asked his own (admittedly tainted) flesh and blood to spy on an ally while he was a guest in the man’s house. He stopped to consider whether that request was in any way more despicable than his own mission and concluded that it was.
“I am desolated, monsieur,” he said. Sometimes he missed speaking French. Only in French could you abase yourself extravagantly and say no at the same time.