The Counterfeit Mistress

by Madeline Hunter

  “Hell, don’t explain my purpose. When you do one of your investigations, do you start your conversation by saying, I am Ambury and despite my title I have a hobby of sticking my nose into others’ business and I want to trick you into saying compromising things about my current victim?”

  “I cannot send you there without some explanation. They may assume that you—that is, at least one may think that I have sent you for rather different purposes than you intend.” He stopped writing and looked up. “Unless you would like me to allow that assumption to stand—?”

  “No.”

  Again they exchanged glances. And this time, little smiles.

  “Forgive me,” Ambury said. “Hope springs eternal. You know I believe you need a woman.”

  “I have women whenever I want them.”

  “You know that I mean for more than ten minutes a fortnight.”

  “Ten minutes? Is it only supposed to take that long? If so, one wonders why the whores cry, More, more, my lord, instead of, Your time is done, you lout.” He cocked his head, puzzling over it. “Or perhaps it only takes you that long. I have said for years now that you need to exercise more, Ambury.”

  Southwaite howled. Ambury just stared. “Did you just make a joke, Kendale? Are you unwell? Drunk? I swear he showed some wit just now, Southwaite. My world has suddenly tilted in the least expected way.”

  Southwaite caught his breath. “Was it a joke? I assumed he was serious. Now, Kendale, as to knowing any French types—Emma still has some dealings with that woman who dabs at prints, Marielle Lyon. I am sure she would arrange a meeting so that you can ask your questions.”

  “Cassandra could too. I don’t know why I did not think of her. She did us some good turns not long ago, so I believe you could trust her information.”

  “Do you indeed? That is convenient. I would be glad for either of your wives to arrange that Miss Lyon and I meet.”

  The conversation moved on to some boring bill being proposed for parliament. Kendale half listened. The ways in which Marielle had inserted herself into the lives of two ladies married to peers of the realm were among the reasons she needed to be stopped.

  Soon he took his leave so that his mind would not turn to porridge under the onslaught of political gossip and speculations. While he walked out, a voice hailed him. He turned to see Penthurst beckoning.

  Their estrangement was well enough known that heads turned. Annoyed by this public display of a ducal whim, he walked over.

  Penthurst barely looked up from his book. He reached in his pocket and withdrew a folded paper. He held it forward. “The man I mentioned. Here is his name. He is out of town for another week, but will receive you upon his return.”

  Kendale fingered the paper. There were men who would not hand this over until he either begged or forgave or apologized, and England be damned if their pride interfered with catching a spy. He had to give Penthurst credit for putting country first, much as he did not want to think good of the man.

  He stuck the paper in his coat and walked away.

  Dominique fussed with her cap, tweaking its lace this way and that while she peered at her moon face in the looking glass. “I do not see why I must come.”

  “I should not go alone. Madame LaTour made that very clear. They will be of the old blood. They will expect me to have a woman with me, if not a male relative,” Marielle said.

  She picked through her meager wardrobe. Normally she did not mind wearing these old clothes. She intended her money for a bigger cause than passing fashions. Some of her current garments were Dominique’s old dresses from many years ago, and others she had bought used from newly arrived aristocrats. Such women never sold their newer things, however. They would give up the long-waisted dresses of yesteryear, but not anything that might be called à la mode.

  She doubted anyone other than Madame LaTour would be so poorly dressed today, however. Before leaving France the women who had come over would have had dresses made and delivered, even if they did not pay for them.

  She settled on a dress with lavender flowers sprinkled over a cream background. Its lace displayed very little mending and had kept its freshness. It was her best dress, she supposed, as she slipped it on. Made for a shorter woman, it would hang too high except that she owned no thick petticoats to pouf out the skirt. She took a brush to her unruly hair.

  “I do not understand why they cannot come here, as most do,” Dominique said. Dominique did not want to attend this salon. She did not like even leaving the house.

  “A whole boat came. There will be many new faces, and the chance to bring Emma many old items to sell. I can hardly ask them to line up in the street here.” For a year now she had served as an agent for Fairbourne’s auction house. She convinced the émigrés to put their treasures on consignment there if they wanted to convert the books and jewels and art that they smuggled out of France into money. In return Emma gave her part of Fairbourne’s fee. Begun almost by accident, it had turned into an employment that helped feed her savings for her great cause. It also had proven useful for other reasons.

  As she queried the newcomers about their possessions in need of sale, she would also converse about other things. News from all over France might come her way today.

  If one of this new group had come from the Vendée or a nearby region, she might even learn how things fared there and if Antoine Lamberte still lorded over everyone. She would hope for information that might give her a hint whether the attack on her had been at Lamberte’s bidding, and if so how much he knew. She could also discover if he had arranged any executions too.

  Her brush stopped halfway down her hair. That was a piece of news she hoped she did not learn. She would ask, however, no matter how much she dreaded hearing the answer.

  “You be careful,” Dominique said. “You make sure you can trust them before you ask after Lamberte. He may well have sent one of them on this boat to find you, and your own interest will pique curiosity. Better if you left the questions to me.”

  “You cannot play the servant and ask highborn women about the news of their country. Will you present yourself as their equal so they will confide in you?”

  Dominique shook her head. “You just be careful.”

  Two hours later Marielle and her maid entered a handsome townhome on a street behind Bedford Square. She wondered if the family who lived here owned it, or if it was only let. If the latter, she wondered if the rent had been paid.

  Most of the émigrés lived a precarious existence. Few of them would work, not that the aristocrats among them had skills to sell. They were gentlemen and gentlewomen after all. Her own print work was tolerated since it was better than whoring, but unkind comments still came her way, even from families who sent one of their women to sit and dab paint at her tables. A good many families relied entirely on debt to survive, and on the credit offered by tradesmen who counted on the old ways and estates eventually returning to France.

  As she mounted the stairs to the drawing room, she assessed the furnishings. Either Monsieur Perdot had property in England from long ago, or the porcelains and hangings had indeed been bought by his expectations. There was too much here to have been brought over when he escaped.

  The drawing room hardly soared the way they did in France’s best houses, but its decorations were tasteful, and its occupants merry. Seven men and nine women sat on chairs and divans, drinking champagne and celebrating their escape.

  Madame LaTour sat among them. She noticed Marielle, beckoned her over, and introduced her. One of the newcomers, Madame Toupin, a woman of senior years with white hair and very dark eyes, took particular note. She peered through spectacles mounted on a long wand, eyeing every inch of Marielle’s person and deportment.

  Marielle faced her down, mustering as much hauteur as what came her way. Lips pursed and eyebrows high, this woman did not hide her skepticism regarding what s
he saw.

  “So you are the niece of the Comte de Vence. I knew him well, and am delighted to make your acquaintance.” She patted the bench beside her chair. “Come, sit with me, so we can reminisce about that good man.”

  Sabine Peltier lived in a small apartment at a good address on the edge of Mayfair. When Kendale presented himself at the door, a maid ushered him into a tiny sitting room before she walked off with his card and Ambury’s letter. She did not return for a good while.

  He amused himself while he waited by perusing the books in a cabinet tucked discreetly in one corner. Not only French books rested there, but also new ones in English. That fit with the little he knew about the woman. Ambury had explained that the Peltiers had moved in the highest circles in Paris before Monsieur Peltier, an academically inclined younger son of a baron, had paid for his conservative philosophies with his life.

  The chamber itself possessed a feminine, elegant décor that he assumed cost a bit of money. Madame Peltier bought sparingly but well. The few chairs appeared well made. The upholstered divan would be at home in the best drawing room.

  Madame Peltier looked much the same when she finally entered and greeted him. Dark haired, slender, and tall, she was a beautiful woman of middle years. He guessed she was about forty, but it was hard to tell. Her ensemble and style inclined toward the exotic, as was the fashion among some ladies. The high-waist dress looked to have layers of thin fabric, all of which floated as if she flew just above the ground when she moved.

  She still held the letter in her hand, and after they sat she perused it again. “Ambury is very charming. He writes that you want a favor from me, but not my favors.”

  “Perhaps other men are so rude as to call on a lady as a stranger in hopes of the latter, but I am not.” It was an insult to suspect he would do that. Perhaps, however, there was a reason why it did not insult her.

  She gave him a good examination. “I expect you are not.”

  “What else does he say?” It did not appear to be a brief letter.

  “He thanks me for writing to wish him well on his marriage, but very subtly and kindly discourages me from writing again in the future.” She made a sad little smile, then laughed. “Of course he must marry the daughter of one equal to himself. And English, of course. It is normal.”

  It was not his place to explain that there had been little normal about Ambury’s choice of wife, nor that if he had wanted to marry a Frenchwoman whom strange men called on for favors of a special kind, he was the sort to do so. “Very normal.”

  “And you, milord. Do you have such a normal marriage?”

  Madame Peltier had broached an intimate topic with alarming speed. He decided to discourage her from spinning any webs. “I intend to one day. Very soon.” He added the last part in response to a rapacious gleam that entered Madame Peltier’s far too interested dark eyes. It reminded him of the lights in the eyes of men who view a horse at Tattersalls that they would not mind owning.

  “Bien.” The word sighed out of her. It signaled resignation, from the tone and from the less flirtatious way she gazed at him. “Tell me what you want. I will try to help you and one day, perhaps you will help me.”

  He had not expected this to be without cost, but her bluntness surprised him. He noticed that she spoke very good English as she clearly articulated the bargain. Almost as good as Marielle. Unlike Marielle, however, she had lost little of her accent and it caused the sentences to inflect oddly, and to rise when native English might fall. She was one of those whom Marielle considered lazy for not listening and trying to imitate. Of course Madame Peltier had never been trained to listen and imitate. Either that or her accent lent her charm in London so she had little incentive to lose it.

  “I have come to ask you to tell me what you know about Marielle Lyon.”

  “Ahh.” She looked toward the window, thinking. “Little Marielle.” She tsked her tongue lightly. She returned her attention to him. “I know her, of course. We all know each other.”

  “Do you believe her story?”

  “I have no reason not to. And yet . . . all is not right there, to me.”

  He hoped his silence would encourage her to continue. Eventually it did.

  “It is too much,” she said. “The old dresses that make her appear both lovely and helpless. I picture her carefully tearing the lace just so, for effect. The long shawls—they become her too well. How convenient that she owned them and was able to bring them out with her. The way she dirties her hands with that odd studio. There are ways to make one’s way beyond starting a little factory, no?”

  “I expect so.”

  “I know the suspicions that she is a charlatan. I have been there when she is put to the test. She makes no mistakes.” She leaned toward him like a conspirator. “None at all. It is not normal. We all forget things from our youths. But poor Marielle, she remembers it all. The name of the comte’s horse. That he liked currants in his porridge. Little things that his own daughter might not remember, Marielle can recite like a lesson.”

  “I admire your perception.”

  “Then there is the way she speaks,” she added, ignoring his flattery.

  “Her English?”

  “Her French. Usually it is most correct. The language of Paris, as would be taught to her in a good home of a comte’s niece. One day, however, not long after she arrived, I was at the home of a family with three children when she visited. She was still much of a child herself then, and she went to play with them. When I went into the garden, I heard her. No longer did she speak like a Parisienne, but with an accent most provincial. I recognized it as a voice from the west. I had family who lived in Nantes, and she spoke like them.”

  She locked her gaze on his meaningfully. He missed whatever significance she gave to this discovery. He never thought Marielle had come to London from Paris.

  She rolled her eyes at his stupidity. “Milord, she does not claim to come from the west, but from the south. The comte lived in Provence, and Marielle says she lived nearby. That at least is not true, I think.”

  And if one detail were untrue, how much else?

  “Do you know her well? Have you seen her among us?” Madame Peltier asked.

  “I have only seen her among English people.” Mostly he had seen her as a lone figure in the distance. Of course recently he had been face-to-face with her, and very close. Too damned close.

  Madame Peltier lowered her eyelids and gazed down in thought. “You are not the first to wonder. Not even the first to ask me about her. Your government has shown interest before. You, however, are the first who did not threaten me before you asked your question. And the first to come with a letter of introduction, as a sign of respect.”

  “Did you tell the others what you told me?”

  “I only answered their questions. They did not ask about her speech, or ask for my opinions.”

  “I am glad you decided to receive me. I have learned something new from you it seems.” Damned if he knew what to do with it, though.

  He rose to take his leave. She stood too, but paced over to the window overlooking the street. Abruptly she turned.

  “Would you like to see her among her own? There is a gathering right now to welcome some new arrivals. She may be there. She likes to learn if they brought things to sell. She gives them to that auction house and takes a piece for her efforts. Our little Marielle is most shrewd in going between the English and us.”

  “It would be useful to see her being shrewd, but I would not like to intrude.”

  “There are often English friends at such assemblies, so introductions can be made that might be of use. You can escort me.”

  “If I escort you, will there not be talk?”

  She laughed musically. “How gallant of you to worry for me. There is always some talk. What else do we have to do, but talk and wait and pray, and talk some more
?”

  Chapter 7

  Marielle avoided the quizzing by Madame Toupin as long as she could. She engaged the others sitting nearby in conversation. Before the hour was out she knew the identities of all of the new arrivals, and from where they had hailed.

  One man in particular held a special interest to her. A native of La Rochelle, he had visited his home before slipping away. La Rochelle was not Savenay, where Lamberte wielded power, but both were in the west.

  She contemplated how to escape Madame Toupin so she could pull that man aside. Deciding to be direct, she began rising from the bench, excusing herself. Unfortunately that brought Madame’s attention on her.

  “My dear, you must not go so soon. We have not had time to talk.”

  “Of course, Madame.” She sat again, but turned her head in the direction away from Madame. Dominique stood right behind her, and moved close when she gestured. Dominique bent low to hear her whisper. “Monsieur Marion, over there with the green waistcoat. Ask him to meet me in the garden in half an hour.”

  Dominique nodded and eased away. Marielle collected her wits and turned to face Madame.

  “I was so sad, hearing about your uncle. It makes me grieve even now, all these years later,” Madame said, patting her hand.

  “We all have much to grieve, Madame. I thank you for remembering him in your prayers.”

  “I expect the house was taken. And the lands.”

  “Of course.”

  “How sad and unfair. Your family’s land was stolen too, no doubt. Was your father executed as well, after his brother?”

  Such matter-of-fact discussions of death were normal in their community, but Marielle found them disconcerting. Death had become so commonplace during the revolution that no one treated the losses as deserving special reverence anymore.

  “Our property also was taken and my father indeed died soon after my uncle, but of a long illness. I think that you have misunderstood my relationship too. My father was not the comte’s brother. Rather my mother was his sister. The comte’s only brother passed away years before the unpleasantness started.” You will have to do better than that, Madame.