The Songbird's Seduction

by Connie Brockway

  “First, he’s not mine, and second, you’ve seen him.”

  “I have? When?”

  “At the Savoy earlier this month. He was the fellow whose pen you nipped.”

  His eyes widened. “Say not so? The gorgeous black-eyed brute in the fabulously cut tuxedo?”

  She nodded miserably.

  “Well, if he’s not yours why the hell not?”

  “Because I scotched it, Margery. I made him loathe me.”

  Margery, bless him, scoffed. “My darling girl, I doubt you have the wherewithal to make anyone loathe you.”

  “No. I mean it. I ruined his life.”

  “Ah, I see.”

  “I did.”

  “Or so you think now.” Margery sighed. “I can’t tell you how many lives I’ve ‘ruined’ only to years later encounter the individual and discover they had been pottering along as happy as a pig in a peach orchard without me. The truth is few people are ruined because they are turned down. Thank God.” He lifted his glass in salute then took a long drink.

  She took a deep breath. “I didn’t turn him down.”

  “Oh?” He looked at her over the rim of his glass. His eyes widened. “Ohhhhh.”

  “I pray he does potter happily along but I doubt he can or will because it’s not losing me that’s ruined his life—he made it very clear that he was quite looking forward to that prospect.”

  “The bounder!” Margery breathed, slamming down his drink and sending the liquor sloshing onto the table. “Look here, Lucy. I’m not the dueling-pistols-at-dawn sort. Or even the fisticuffs in the alley.” He shuddered. “But I know quite a lot of people and some of them are that latter type and if you’d like—”

  “No! Good heavens, Margery, I don’t want him hurt. I love him! And he hasn’t done anything wrong. Were I in his position I’d wish to be well rid of me, too.”

  “What did you do?” Margery asked worriedly.

  “I . . . I got him into a bit of a fix. I . . . there was this situation. I sort of orchestrated a plan that had . . . Aw, hell. I got him arrested.”

  This apparently was not enough to sway Margery’s opinion that she was the offended party. He was a loyal, if not particularly discriminating, friend.

  “So now, not only is it very likely he will lose the appointment he’s being nominated for, the head of an entire new department at his college, but almost as likely that he will lose his position at the college altogether.”

  He straightened to protest but then, upon seeing her expression, drooped. “Oh, Lucy.”

  Tears started in her eyes. And here she’d thought she had none left. “I know.”

  “And you love him, you say?”

  “Oh, Margery, so very much.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  For a long moment they communed in silence. “Have you ever been in love? I mean, really deeply in love?” she finally asked.

  “Yes. Once.”

  “Did you ever get over it?”

  “I learned to live with it.”

  “Do you wish you hadn’t fallen in love?”

  “Oh, no,” he said at once. “No. No, my dear. Never. Those were the very best months of my life.”

  “What happened?” It said much about Margery’s friendship that he did not hesitate in answering. When asked about his history by either acquaintances or the press, he always gave a pat and unrevealing answer: he’d say he was exactly what he appeared to be—or not. Then he’d laugh. It generally served to stopper any more questions.

  Lucy had never asked. She figured he’d tell her whatever he wanted her to know.

  “I was young. I had only just begun to achieve acclaim for my impersonations. We met at a party. I would like to say we fell in love all at once, but it took time. We kept running into one another at mutual friends’ homes, various parties, that sort of thing. Somehow, we always ended up together, laughing and sharing jokes, eventually trading dreams. Canny Bernice scored a hit about that.

  “And had much in common. We both loved music, word play, fashion, good food, and good company. A match made in heaven, you might say.” His gaze was fixed on his hands folded on the tabletop in front of him, his voice soft and poignant.

  “But you couldn’t marry.”

  “Couldn’t?” He looked up. “Wouldn’t. How could I ask her to marry me knowing what her life would be like wed to a female impersonator and why do people always look like that whenever I reveal that I am interested in girls? And only girls. You’d think I’d just grown another head.”

  “I . . . I . . . I,” she stuttered.

  He waved her down. “Oh, calm down. I’m having a bit of sport. It’s not as if I don’t know what people think. But yes, my beloved was a young lady, a bit of a bon vivant, but from a very respectable family. We talked about the possibility of marrying, but we both knew it would never take. She might put up with the sniggers but she could never expose her children, our children, to all the ugliness of which people are capable. Thankfully, the vast majority of people are like your great-aunts, but those few others always seem to be the most vocal, don’t they?”

  “Did you ever consider not . . . doing what you do?”

  “You mean take infrequent male roles, singing an octave below my natural voice in inferior productions for a tenth of the pay?” He snorted.

  “For about a day, but that same night she arrived to go to one of our last dinners together. She wore a sable cape and a parure of pearls and diamonds, and I realized that we both enjoyed rarified air too much. I don’t know that we would breath as easily in lesser climes.

  “And, too, I love what I do, Lucy.” Her chest constricted at the familiar words, words Archie had spoken to her on Sark. “I love the saucy humor and the dresses, the applause and the music, the wink and the nod . . . all of it. Give up Marjorie with her flamboyance, her joi de vive and sophistication, for Jasper Martin, unlisted so-so tenor in knickers? I don’t think so.”

  “Do you ever regret your decision?” she asked thinking of Archie. “Do you ever wish you had chosen . . . love?”

  “But I did,” Margery said. “I chose the real love of my life, my career. And while she’s a bitch of a mistress, we’ve been happy together.”

  The gendarme opened the door to Archie’s cell and jerked his head in the direction of the corridor. “Time to go.”

  Relieved at not being required to listen to another rambling dissertation on the coming revolution by his young fellow inmate, Archie leapt to his feet. “Where?”

  “Wherever you wish, my friend, as long as you appear on Monday. But for the time being you are being released on your own recognizance.”

  Having recently learned from an exemplary teacher not to look a gift horse in the mouth, he snatched up his jacket and followed the gendarme, offering his erstwhile companion a somewhat ironic, “Long live the revolution,” on his way past the boy’s cell.

  “Adieu, mon frère!” the boy called out fervently, assuming he had recruited Archie to his glorious cause.

  The only cause Archie had right now was apologizing to Lucy.

  He’d been furious when she’d come to see him, locked in on what he saw as a betrayal of trust. He’d known even as he’d made the accusation that she hadn’t meant to ruin his life on a lark. She hadn’t a frivolous bone in her body. Odd, outspoken, exuberant, joyful, whimsical bones, but not frivolous. A girl as young as she was when she took over the physical and financial care of two elderly great-aunts could hardly be accused of irresponsibility.

  No, she had meant to woo him. In her own weird, unsettling way she had simply been courting him and he’d been too stupid to realize it.

  The gendarme opened the door leading into the police station’s main room and stepped aside.

  If he only could—

  Cornelia Litchfield stood beside the captain’s desk, flanked by his family’s middle-aged lawyer, Oliver Tuttiddle, and Lionel Underwood. Her gaze raked him up and down and found him wanting. “Oh, Ptolemy. Look at y
ou.”

  “What are you doing here?”

  “I am here in an unofficial capacity, acting on behalf of St. Phillip’s.”

  “How did you find out?” he asked, confounded.

  “I went to your grandfather’s house to discover your whereabouts. Lord Blidderphenk has moved up the dates he will be interviewing the candidates and I knew you would want to return to London immediately in order to prepare. When I arrived at Lord Barton’s house he had just received the telegram saying you’d been arrested.” She frowned a little. “I must say he was most forthcoming about it all. In fact, I had the distinct notion he took pleasure in showing it to me.”

  Archie just bet he had.

  “Anyway, of course, I immediately went to Father. He was apoplectic. As your chief sponsor with the chancellor and Lord Blidderphenk, your actions reflect directly on him. He would be a laughingstock if this got out. I convinced him you must have suffered from some sort of fit and persuaded him I was the best person to fetch you and see if I could make this all disappear.” She looked about the tiny police office with a grimace of distaste.

  “You bailed me out?”

  “Yes. Not only bailed you out, but I am in negotiations with the judge to have all charges against you dropped.”

  Archie narrowed his eyes on Tuttiddle. “Then what are you doing?”

  “Your grandfather sent me.”

  “Never mind him, Ptolemy. You only need to stand before the judge on Monday and apologize. Say you were sadly influenced by the bad company you’d fallen in with—”

  “Bad company?”

  Her lips pursed into a tight line of exasperation. “This girl you were chasing about with, Ptolemy. This actress.” There was no hurt in her eyes, just exasperation and a sort of long-suffering acceptance. In the same situation, he couldn’t imagine Lucy reacting in any way but passionately. Passionately angry.

  “Why are you smiling?”

  “Was I?”

  “Yes. And I must say, Ptolemy, it indicates a decided lack of sobriety. A decided lack. Doesn’t it, Lionel?”

  Lionel, silently standing in the background wearing an odd expression that somehow managed to convey both glee and disillusion, gave a curt nod.

  “What is he doing here?”

  “He is here to provide the benefit of his sound advice.”

  “Advice about what?”

  Once more he’d exasperated her. “Whatever comes up. What is wrong with you, Ptolemy?”

  “Sorry.”

  She sniffed. “After you apologize to the judge, should anyone look into the matter of your arrest, they would only find out that a rural French policeman had made a mistake and that the case had been summarily dismissed.”

  “But he didn’t.”

  “Ptolemy. Please. What does that matter? You are this close”—she lowered her voice and raised an elegantly gloved hand, holding her forefinger and thumb a half inch apart—“to losing the Blidderphenk professorship. Do you understand that? Now, can we please leave this place?”

  Though they’d been conversing in English, the police captain had been watching the exchange from his chair with avid interest. But at Cornelia’s words he got heavily to his feet. “I agree. Fascinating as this has been, I would like to enjoy my breakfast in peace. Until Monday.”

  Cornelia either didn’t have the grace or the imagination to look embarrassed. With a regal tilt of her head, she led the way out of the office, Lionel springing forward to open the door for her.

  “Why is it that you are here, Lionel?” Archie asked, abruptly stopping at the bottom of the steps.

  “To, ahem, to support Miss Litchfield.” He turned brick red.

  My God, why hadn’t he seen it before? “Ahuh.”

  He turned to the lawyer. “And have you earned even a penny of the fee you are undoubtedly charging by the hour, Tuttiddle?”

  “Miss Litchfield has arranged matters so adroitly there hasn’t been any need for me to step in,” the lawyer said admiringly. “Though I will, of course, be submitting my bill based on time I’ve made myself accessible.”

  Cornelia sighed heavily. “If there isn’t anything else, I’d like to remove to the hotel.”

  “There is something else,” said Archie. “Did you read the telegram I sent?”

  She raised her eyes heavenward. “Yes. I didn’t pay it much attention. All you did was rhapsodize about the world being too magnificent or fascinating or some such thing to explore from behind a desk and that you thought you ought to withdraw from consideration for the Blidderphenk professorship.”

  “What did you think?”

  She stopped walking and spun around and now, finally, there was a flash of real anger in her fine, blue eyes. “Honestly?”

  “Yes.”

  “I thought it self-indulgent nonsense. It might have been written by some overly sentimental, quixotic and impetuous boy. It was . . . off-putting.”

  He stared at her, feeling as though someone had just shown him the obvious answer to a problem he’d thought impossible to solve. “Then why did you come?” he asked, though he thought he already knew the answer.

  She scowled.

  “I already told you,” she said, “Father’s reputation.” It took a few heartbeats for her to remember to add, “as well as your career.”

  He’d been right. He wanted to kiss her.

  “Despite everything, Ptolemy, I assume you will act rationally once you’ve returned home.”

  Home? Yes. He needed to go home.

  “Now, are you coming or not?” she asked, clearly having had enough of the conversation.

  “Yes, yes. Of course. What time is it?”

  She looked at her wristwatch. “It’s eight thirty.”

  He started past her and heard her release a sigh of relief. But once in front of the hotel he didn’t enter, he kept walking right past it. Cornelia scurried to catch up. “Where are you going?”

  “I’m going to buy a train ticket.”

  “We don’t need to do that now. We can purchase them on Monday.”

  “I won’t be here Monday.”

  “What? Are you mad?”

  “Possibly.”

  Now, for the first time, she looked truly bewildered and maybe a little frightened; no, more like unnerved, like the world was turning upside down and she hadn’t even known it was tilting. He knew the feeling. Luckily, Lionel would be there to catch her. Still, Archie was fond of her. She’d have made a crackerjack Blidderphenk professor.

  He turned and came back to her, taking one of her hands between both of his. It lay there limply as she stared up at him. “Dear Cornelia. I can’t thank you enough for helping me understand.”

  “Understand what?”

  “That I’m an overly romantic, quixotic, impetuous man. Or should be.”

  “Ptolemy, listen to yourself. Look at yourself.” She pointed to his reflection in the window of the store they’d stopped in front of. “Disheveled and unshaven and wild-eyed. I swear I don’t recognize you!”

  He didn’t need to look. He knew what he’d see. “I know. That’s the problem, isn’t it? That, and that for the first time since I was lad I finally recognize myself.

  “This is who I am and I like this person a good deal more than the one you think so highly of. Too highly, truth be told. I would have made an awful Blidderphenk professor and I’m definitely not someone you’d want to marry.”

  “Marry?” she stammered. “I would not presume—”

  “I know, God bless you. Be happy, Cornelia.” He looked beyond Cornelia to where Lionel stood shuffling, looking decidedly dog-in-the-mangerish. “Bon chance, Lionel.”

  He grabbed Cornelia by the shoulders and pulled her close, bussing her soundly on the cheek. “Thank you.”

  “For what?” she asked, startled.

  “For not recognizing me,” he said and started past her.

  “But where are you going?” she called after him. “What about the judge?”

  �
��I’m afraid he’ll have to wait for his apology. I’m going home.”

  Saint-Girons’s only bank had a small, windowless anteroom furnished with a round table and leather-upholstered chairs reserved for the use of its clients, should they feel the need for privacy in their financial dealings with bank officials. Around this table now sat three of the four surviving members of the siege of Patnimba and Bernard DuPaul, Junior, the son and namesake of the now deceased banker who’d inherited the task set before them from his father.

  Sitting a little distance from the table, along the perimeter of the room, was a gallery of relatives. They had been adjured by Monsieur DuPaul to bear in mind the solemnity of the proceedings, a comment occasioned by Señora Oliveria’s squeal of delight upon seeing the size of the pouch the security guard had brought in and set in the center of the table.

  Lucy sat between Margery and Bernice. Their interest had long since begun to wane. In fact, Margery had dozed off a half hour earlier and was snoring gently. They had been sequestered in this room all afternoon as various lawyers and bank officials brought in stacks of legal documents to be explained and signed. They’d been there so long, in fact, that afternoon tea had been brought in through the discreetly curtained door leading to the bank’s public areas. But now, finally, the grand finale was in sight.

  “Let me summarize,” said Monsieur DuPaul in perfectly accented English. It turned out he had been attached to a French bank in London for decades, only returning to France to retire after his father had died. “As you have already been informed, the individual stones have been assessed by four of France’s most reputable gemologists. After conferring with one another they have assigned a value to each.

  “As agreed upon, my bank is going to arrange for the immediate sale of the stones. After the deduction of our nominal fee, the money realized will be divided into four equal shares, two of which, of course, will be assigned to Miss Litton. Earlier today, in anticipation of this sale, a sum of roughly one hundred thousand English pounds was deposited into individual accounts in your names.”

  Señora Oliveria stifled another giggle.

  “Now I imagine you would like to see the gems.”