Mary shook her head. “You know Madame will never travel that far over the sea.” She came to the bed, straightening and smoothing Violet’s covers. “And our contract at the theatre is until the end of the month. We have to live here at least until then.” Mary, dark haired, plain faced, kind, and practical, always said what needed to be said.
“I know, blast it.”
Violet closed her eyes. She saw again the French countryside unrolling before her under the balloon, heard the sound of wind in the ropes and the hiss of Daniel’s machine, smelled the scent of the sky, and felt the warmth of Daniel beside her.
Life and its petty troubles flowed away behind her. Aloft over the world, she could be Violet, not the fake Princess Ivanova, or Mademoiselle Bastien, or any of the other personas she’d invented in her life.
Up in the balloon, Violet had been no one but herself, someone she hadn’t been in a long, long time. Whatever else he’d done, Daniel had given that to her.
“When we’re finished with the contract, we can go,” Mary was saying. She patted Violet’s knee through the blanket. “Someplace nice. Maybe a spa town in Germany. Those are always pretty.”
Violet opened her eyes, the sanctuary of her vision fleeing. “Thank you for trying to comfort me, Mary. Tell Mama I’ll do the job.”
If Violet could rise from her bed. The images of the balloon flight vanished, and she again felt the horror of Monsieur Lanier’s hands on her, the sting of his slap on her cheek. Then the kick to the gut when she’d seen Daniel climb into the coach with the courtesan, he smiling at her the same way he’d smiled at Violet.
No other man in her life had made Violet feel completely valued for herself alone. She’d sworn that Daniel had seen through her, all the way to the shivering pieces of her soul. And he hadn’t turned away in disgust, hadn’t treated her like the whore Monsieur Lanier assumed her to be.
Daniel had treated her like a friend.
“Miss?” Mary asked, worry in her voice.
Violet opened her eyes again and sighed. “I’ll do it,” she said in a dull voice. “Fetch my costume and help me dress.”
Daniel spent his day with Richard Mason. While Daniel breakfasted with his family in their suite, Simon had brought a message from Richard, who’d pitifully begged Daniel to come see him.
Daniel found Richard in elegant rooms at another hotel, in bed, feverish, hungover, and despondent. Richard expected Daniel to settle in for the day, reading newspapers and lamenting on the state of the world, sharing whiskey until Richard felt better.
Daniel was impatient with tending him today, wanting a chance to return to Violet. His time with her hadn’t been nearly long enough yet. He needed more of her.
But Richard was in a bad way, and so unhappy that Daniel stayed. Daniel suspected something else was wrong with the man besides a hangover and too much debauchery. Richard didn’t say, but he was tired and moody, and the edge had gone from his razor-keen mind. Daniel realized what was the matter before he departed later in the afternoon—Richard was syphilitic.
“You need to tell the woman you were with last night,” Daniel said, stubbing out his last cigar and rising to leave.
Richard looked at him in surprise. “Tell her what?”
“About your affliction. Only fair she knows.”
“What?” Richard stared, flushing.
“And get treatment. Doctors are brilliant nowadays. There’s a man in Munich, Doktor Schauman. He’s intelligent and will actually heal you, not give you a quack cure. Tell him I sent you.”
Richard remained openmouthed, color deepening through his skin. “He treated you?”
“No.” Daniel had been wise enough to avoid the affliction. “He’s a friend. He’s working on cures for many dreadful diseases, including this one. Just trust me, lad. Go. And when ye’ve done and can speak like the reasonable human being ye once were, look me up.”
“Right.” Richard sank back into his chair, his eyes too bright. Sad waste of a man. “Thank you, Danny. You’re a friend. Not a word of this to anyone?”
“Of course not.” Daniel took his hat and coat from a servant who looked relieved Daniel had talked some sense into his master, and departed.
He walked back to his hotel deep in thought. Cameron, he realized, had worried that Daniel would turn out like Richard. Dissipated, ill, broken at a young age. Daniel had given his father plenty of reason to worry—he’d been more interested in cards, ladies, and drink than studies, and had more than once run away from school to pursue decadent pleasures.
But Daniel had been reacting to Cameron’s habit of sending him off to his uncles or tutors while Cameron disappeared with his women. Daniel had always supposed his father was pushing him away, not wanting the bother of his son.
Daniel understood more charitably now that Cameron had feared himself to be a bad father, that Daniel might turn out just like him if they spent too much time together. Cameron had been a womanizer and a drinker, devoted to nothing but his own pleasure. The only things that had saved Cam from being completely dissipated were his love for his horses, which he cared for meticulously, and his son, whom he loved but didn’t know how to.
Poor Dad. I gave him hell, didn’t I?
When Daniel reached the hotel, he stopped at his father’s suite. A servant let him in, and Cameron turned from the fireplace, where he’d been enjoying a cigar.
“Good, Daniel, I’ve been meaning to ask you—”
Cameron broke off in surprise when Daniel put his arms around his father and pulled the larger man into a hard embrace.
“You did your best, Dad,” Daniel said. “Even if I was an ungrateful little monster.”
Cameron returned the embrace somewhat bemusedly, then drew back. His Mackenzie-golden eyes fixed on his son, smoke from his cigar curling around them both. “Daniel, what the hell are you talking about?”
“Gratitude from an ungrateful child. Take it. You did well.”
“You must be drunk.”
“Maybe a little. Sat with a sick friend nursing a whiskey decanter. Too much time on my hands makes me think.”
“I see that.”
The edge Richard had lost was still honed on Cameron. Cameron had married in scandal, lost his first wife in a tragedy that only increased the scandal, then muddled along trying to raise a son on his own. Finding Ainsley had given him a chance to try again.
“What were you meaning to ask me?” Daniel asked.
“About a horse. It doesn’t matter now. Ye’ve broken my train of thought.”
“Sorry. Ran into it with one of mine.”
“Ainsley told me she talked you into going to this do of the comtesse’s,” Cameron said. “Some advice—keep your wits about you around the debs. One remark on the weather and they’ll run back to their fathers and say you proposed. Some of them are desperate for husbands.”
“Poor things if that’s true. I like the way Ian’s Belle thinks—that a woman can be something on her own without marriage.”
Cameron made a noise of disparagement. “When she’s out of the schoolroom and a handsome young man winks at her, she might change her mind.”
Daniel grinned. “That will be Gavina soon enough.”
Cameron gave him a dark look. “Don’t remind me.” His expression softened. “Doesn’t seem fair, does it, that I was so hard on you, but I spoil her and Stu rotten?”
They’d almost lost Gavina once. Daniel recalled the cold winter night when hope had been dust in his mouth, when he’d thought he’d have to watch his parents be broken by the loss of their beloved baby daughter. Tragedy had been averted, but the fear had left its mark.
“Don’t be so hard on yourself,” Daniel said, patting his father’s shoulder. “You’re only human. And don’t worry, I won’t let Gavina become too much of a brat.” He drew a breath and let Cameron go. “Now, I’d b
etter get a move on and dress for this ball, or Ainsley will never let us hear the last of it.”
The rambling manor house of Comtesse de Chenault, which reposed on a hill overlooking the lights of Marseille, was overheated and overfull. Violet had been sitting at her table in a corner of the drawing room for an hour now, telling fortunes to the comtesse’s eager guests.
She’d dressed in a voluminous skirt, loose blouse, and tightly laced black bodice, with a scarf over her head and a long necklace of coins clinking on her bosom. A worn pack of cards lay next to her on the scarf-draped table, and a crystal sphere she’d found in a junk shop in Liverpool sat upright on a stand. She was the very picture of a Romany from the stage and penny novels, which was the point. Everyone would see what they expected to see.
Violet had held up well so far, pulling on her persona like a well-worn pair of gloves, handing out fortunes with smooth aplomb. But then she looked up to see Daniel walk by in the hall, and misery crashed down on her.
Violet couldn’t look away from him. As unhappy as she was, she needed the sight of him, to hear the sound of his voice.
Daniel paused outside the drawing room door. He was speaking to, and laughing with, a blond woman in a gray satin ball gown and a giant of a man who wore a kilt of the same plaid as Daniel’s. The man’s casual stance echoed Daniel’s, and when they both turned to greet someone new, their movements were identical.
Father and son. Violet’s heart squeezed with a strange yearning. She wanted to know his father, to talk with him and his stepmother, to learn the way they saw Daniel.
“Tell our fortune, miss?”
Three young ladies arrived to block her view of Daniel. She’d watched these three, in their blue, green, and yellow silk gowns, move around the rooms with haughty aplomb. Clearly they were the leaders of their set—or at least they considered themselves to be.
Two were English and one French—the French girl being the comtesse’s daughter. All three wore ball gowns with bits of puffy sleeves, tiny waists, and narrow but flowing skirts. Hair was dressed in loose curls on the tops of their heads, glittering gems tastefully interwoven into the coiffures. The French miss and one of her English friends were dark, the second young English lady, Lady Victoria Garfield, daughter of a marquis, the lightest blond.
The dark-haired English girl sat down. “Me first.”
She dropped a coin into the bowl on the table, then tugged off her glove and laid her hand flat, palm up. She’d done this before.
Violet kept her movements elegant, her voice dusky with a hint of accent. She’d let Mary brush her face and hands with dark theatrical powder to stain her complexion, and the faintest touch of kohl under her eyes made her irises look darker.
Violet lifted the girl’s hand in her own and brushed a finger across the lines on her palms. She didn’t have to make up things to please people—every line on the palm meant something, as did the number of lines, the way they crossed and where, and where they were broken. She’d learned reading from a Romany woman, who had the uncanny knack of being right about everything. Violet could only imitate—whether her fortunes came true or not, she never knew.
After studying the young woman’s hand for a time, tracing the lines this way and that, Violet said, “You will be well loved. Your path might take you far from home, but your love will endure.”
“Oh.” The girl’s cheeks grew pink. “I’ve never been told that before. But you might be right about my path taking me far from home. My beau is an officer.”
“This line is long,” Violet said, gliding her finger along it. “It means that your love will not be broken, no matter what, no matter how wide your travels.”
The young woman smiled happily and shot a glance across the room, where a man in uniform was engaged in loud conversation with a knot of men. Violet, while quietly setting up her table earlier, had heard him confess to a friend that he was madly in love with the dark-haired young woman but worried she wouldn’t follow him into army life.
Looking into the young woman’s eyes now, coupled with what Violet had overheard her telling her friends, Violet knew the girl would follow her soldier to the ends of the earth.
“You should tell him your choice,” Violet said, keeping the mysterious note in her voice. “He needs to know.”
“I will. Yes, I will.” The young woman’s eyes glowed. “Thank you.”
“Now me.” Lady Victoria slid herself into the seat, forcing her pleased friend out of it. “I want to know if I have a handsome husband in my future too.” Her look turned sly. “Someone Scottish, perhaps?”
The French girl giggled. “She wishes you to tell her she will marry the Scottish man Daniel Mackenzie. She is, as the English say, gone on him.”
Violet’s mouth went dry. Lady Victoria smiled a knowing smile, waiting for Violet to tell her what she wanted to hear. Violet had only to touch the girl’s palm and say that yes, her husband would be tall, handsome, and Scottish. Lady Victoria would go away feeling smug and leave Violet alone.
But another glimpse of Daniel made Violet’s heart pound. He was in the hall again, speaking to the hostess. Being gallant and charming, no doubt, excelling at it. He could charm paint off the walls.
Violet’s anger surged. She traced the lines on Lady Victoria’s palm with a light finger. “I can tell you only what I see.”
Lady Victoria leaned forward, eager, and in the background, Daniel laughed, the sound warm and smooth.
“You will not find love where you assume,” Violet said, trying to shut out the laughter. “It might take you a long while to find love at all, and you might have to go far. You might think it hard, but from this hardship will come strength.”
Lady Victoria’s blond brows slammed together, and she snatched her hand away. “I don’t like that fortune.”
Violet shrugged, trying to look indifferent. “That is your destiny.” She truly had seen that in the girl’s palm—the lines read exactly as the Romany woman had taught her. “What we like or do not like is not of interest to Fate.”
Lady Victoria got huffily to her feet. “It’s all nonsense anyway. Fortune-telling is lies. I’ll wager you’re not even a real Gypsy.”
Violet drew herself up with all the dignity of her Romany teacher. “I was born in a field in eastern Romania. My mother was Romany. My father . . . who knows? That is my lineage.”
Lady Victoria had a mean light in her eyes that her dark-haired English friend didn’t notice, but the comtesse’s daughter did. As Lady Victoria strode away, the comtesse’s daughter dropped two coins into Violet’s bowl and thanked her. Lady Victoria hadn’t bothered to leave a tip.
When they’d gone, Violet balled her fists in her lap and drew long breaths. She heard Daniel laugh again. She both wanted to push the sound away and grab it and wrap it around her.
No one approached the corner for a moment, so Violet took the opportunity to close her eyes and try to compose herself. There was no use being upset. The world wouldn’t change for Violet because she had one nice day out in a balloon.
The soft young ladies who were now clustered together like a clump of butterflies were the sort of ladies Daniel would marry, and that was the way of it. The titled classes intermarried, striving to keep money and property circulating amongst themselves. A business arrangement. The debutantes might believe this man or that in love with them, but what the gentleman usually saw was a deb’s dowry or title, or perhaps the influence of her family.
When a debutante followed her heart with a man not of her privileged world, scandal and ruin ensued. Likewise, when a highborn gentleman married below his class, that wife was never truly welcome in the family. She could be ridiculed and shunned. And a stern father could banish a son who didn’t marry to his pleasure.
Violet had seen such things time and again while doing performances in the big houses. Theirs was a closed world. Transgressors
were harshly dealt with.
But witnessing Daniel in this setting, especially when she saw the comtesse stop him and introduce the three girls to him, made Violet want to be sick.
If she could get through this night, she’d do her best to come to her senses, return to being Princess Ivanova until the end of the month, and then decide where she and her mother should go. Violet would have the memory of two lovely days to savor, and then they’d be gone, lost in the mists of might-have-been.
She opened her eyes as two eager young men approached her, and smiled at them, forcing herself into her role again.
“We’ve practically known each other forever, do you not think?” Lady Victoria Garfield said over the orchestra as Daniel whirled her in the waltz. “We have so many mutual acquaintances, people I’ve known and you’ve known for all our lives, even if this is the first time of us meeting.”
Daniel had hoped that spinning Lady Vic around fast enough would stop her talking, but it wasn’t to be. This young lady could chatter over a barrage of artillery fire.
He should feel sorry for her, really. The comtesse had told Ainsley that Lady Victoria hadn’t taken in her first two Seasons, so her mother had sent her to France to try her luck. Seeing the rather mad ruthlessness in Lady Vic’s eyes, Daniel couldn’t blame the English aristos for fleeing the other way. In a few years, Lady Vic would be a redoubtable matron, commanding her husband with the firm hand of a determined sergeant major.
A man needs to see a little warmth in a smile, Daniel wanted to advise her. Not an obvious calculation of what she hopes to gain for herself.
Contrasting Lady Vic’s predatory stalking to Violet’s open-eyed excitement was unfair to poor little Lady Vic, but Daniel couldn’t help himself.
How long could he stay before his departure wouldn’t be considered rude? He didn’t want to embarrass Ainsley, but he needed to go. He’d make his way back down to town, knock on the door of a boardinghouse, and take Violet out anywhere she wanted to go—a restaurant, a cabaret, a theatre. Hell, they could walk down to the strand and watch street performers; he wasn’t bothered.
Wicked Deeds of Daniel Mackenzie Page 17