Vixen in Velvet

by Loretta Chase

  He reminded himself how insufferable Gladys had been at a time when he was trying so hard to be the man of the family and not give way to the black misery engulfing him. And her father!

  Lisburne was shaken, all the same, and acutely uncomfortable.

  “It’s easy enough to ascertain when a young lady is popular with gentlemen and when she isn’t,” he said. “If we fail to see it, the scandal sheets will point it out. Let’s say that if my cousin Gladys acquires a following by the end of the month, you win. Will that do?”

  She looked up at him. “You’re making it too easy, my lord. She’ll acquire a following in a matter of days.”

  She exuded confidence.

  Enough to make him doubt himself.

  But no, she had to be out of her mind. In this regard, at any rate. One of the perils of her trade. Like mad hatters.

  Still, she wasn’t completely insane. She couldn’t have been more lethally precise in choosing the Botticelli. Of all his possessions, the loss of that one would hurt deeply. On the other hand, it would go to a good home, to a young woman he had no doubt appreciated it as much as, perhaps even more than, he did. And she’d probably share it with those indigent girls of hers.

  But losing the fortnight in which he might educate Leonie Noirot at delicious length? Now that he’d had a taste of what he could look forward to?

  Out of the question.

  “What then?” he said. “Shall we say half a dozen beaux? An offer of marriage?”

  “But not by anybody in financial straits,” she said. “Lady Gladys’s dowry, I estimate, is something between twenty-five and fifty thousand pounds. No obviously mercenary offers.”

  “Are you trying to lose?” he said. “I’m flattered, madame.”

  “Half a dozen beaux,” she said. “Either men hang about her or they don’t, and that’s easy enough to judge. Social success is measured by invitations, too. She’ll have at least three invitations to country house parties. And, yes, at least one offer of marriage.”

  “All by the thirty-first of July,” he said.

  “Yes. Is there anything else, or would these three conditions satisfy you?”

  “I have every expectation of being satisfied,” he said.

  She rolled her great blue eyes.

  He wanted to laugh. He wanted to kiss her witless. What a treat she was!

  She took out from a desk drawer a sheet of paper.

  He approached the desk.

  She folded the paper in half, took up a pen, and wrote out their agreement twice. She signed her name twice. She handed him the pen. “Here and here,” she said, pointing.

  He signed.

  Using a ruler, she tore the sheet into two precisely equal halves. She gave one copy of the signed agreement to him, and bid him good day.

  The following morning, Lisburne was at breakfast, reading Foxe’s Morning Spectacle, like nearly every other member of Fashionable Society.

  And like everybody else that day, he found himself reading the account of the previous night’s assembly at Almack’s twice. Because, like everybody else, he didn’t believe what he’d read the first time.

  The ball on Wednesday was numerously attended, there being present upwards of 500 persons of distinction. Weippert’s band filled the orchestra, and dancing continued until four o’clock. One of the more notable among the brilliant assembly was Lady Gladys Fairfax, who wore a dress of an altogether new style, in gold satin, ornamented with black blond, a creation by Maison Noirot’s talented mantua-makers. We are informed that her ladyship regaled a small group of the attendees with her delightful recitation of a comic poem, her own adaptation of Aristophanes’s naughty Lysistrata, which her ladyship had composed, she said, in response to a Member of Parliament’s declaring that women had no rights.

  A ghastly image was painting itself in his mind’s eye when he became aware of Swanton plunking down his breakfast plate on the table.

  “You look ill,” the poet said. “Has that rascal Foxe found out about the hundred pincushions you bought?”

  “My cousin Gladys has been reciting poetry,” Lisburne said. “In public.”

  “Is that the girl with the melodious voice? I should like to hear her recite some of mine. Maybe she can make it sound intelligent.”

  Lisburne put down the paper and looked across the table. “Lysistrata,” he said. “She wrote a poem about it.”

  Swanton’s pale blue eyes widened. “But that’s the one—the one about the women. The Peloponnesian War—and the women banding together to stop the fighting by refusing to—” He made the universally understood gesture for coitus. “It’s obscene. How on earth did she get hold of it? Surely it isn’t part of a lady’s curriculum. Or have I been away from England for too long?”

  “Her education wasn’t feminine,” Lisburne said. “And her father was rarely at home. She learned Greek and Latin and probably read whatever she pleased. I can’t believe she did this. Is she trying to be ejected from Society?”

  Yes, of course he had to win his wager with Miss Noirot. That didn’t mean he wanted Gladys to humiliate herself. Again. He hadn’t been in London for her debut, but Clara’s mother, Lady Warford, who’d sponsored her, had written to Lisburne’s mother, in despair and at length. A host of others had written, too, not so compassionately, because Gladys had, in a few short months, contrived to make everybody loathe her.

  Every year, flocks of girls made their social debut. Naturally, not all of them were successful. By all accounts, Gladys’s failure had been so spectacular as to set a new standard.

  “Let me see.” Swanton snatched the newspaper from him and swiftly read the entry. “It doesn’t sound scandalous. She ‘regaled’ the company and the recitation was ‘delightful.’ Obviously, her version must have been highly expurgated. If she’d shocked and offended everybody, the Spectacle would be thrilled to say so.” He gave back the paper.

  “Maybe not. The Spectacle might have decided that the better part of valor is discretion. Her father is Boulsworth. You remember him, don’t you? At my father’s funeral?”

  “Who could forget?” Swanton said. “He was terrifying. I reckoned that was the secret of his military success. At the mere sound of his voice, the enemy fled, screaming like girls. I certainly would. Your cousin Gladys is his daughter? The poor thing! Or perhaps not so downtrodden as one might suppose. A girl who can compose a poem based on Lysistrata—and recite it—at Almack’s—sounds like a girl of spirit.”

  Lisburne stared at him. “Sounds like? You’ve met her, on more than one occasion. How can you not recall? The general brought her to my father’s funeral with him.”

  Swanton shook his head. “Those days are a haze of misery. But the general stands out vividly. A personality like a charging bull.”

  “She was at the British Institution the other day,” Lisburne said, striving for patience. How could anybody who’d ever seen Gladys forget her, even if he wanted to? “With Clara. Surely you remember. You must have spoken to them. And I’m sure we’ve encountered them elsewhere.”

  Swanton lifted his shoulders. “There seem always to be so very many young women. Their faces become a blur.” He shook his head. “But your cousin Gladys can’t have spoken to me. Had I heard her voice before, I could not have forgotten.” He looked down at his plate, and seemed to recall what it was there for, because he picked up his cutlery and began to eat.

  A day earlier, Lisburne might have dropped a hint to his cousin about Gladys’s being unforgettable in less than agreeable ways. But Miss Noirot’s remarks silenced him on that subject.

  Her father, however, was fair game.

  “Even Tom Foxe might decide against stirring up the wrath of Boulsworth,” Lisburne said.

  “If your cousin Gladys stirred up the wrath of Almack’s patronesses, everybody will know about it. Hard to believe Foxe would ignore
such a juicy story.” Swanton chewed in silence for a moment. Then he said, “Only one way to find out whether or not she’s made herself persona non grata. She’s staying with the Warfords, is she not? Let’s pay a call at Warford House.”

  If Gladys had made no impression on Swanton in person, Lisburne preferred to keep it that way. While he couldn’t believe she’d suddenly become alluring to men, he could believe that Swanton sometimes saw what he wanted to see. He wasn’t the best judge of women. He was softhearted and too easily imposed upon. This made it not entirely impossible to imagine Gladys effecting, through sheer force of personality, a capture.

  The prospect of Swanton trapped by Boulsworth and his daughter, and having his sensitive soul crushed beyond recovery, was too horrible to contemplate.

  Wager or no wager, sporting or not, in this case Lisburne had no choice but to intervene.

  “You don’t have time for social calls,” he said. “You were the one who was moaning yesterday about having to write half a dozen poems in less than a week. I’ll call at Warford House this afternoon, after Clara’s adoring hordes have come and gone. I’ll report to you when I return.”

  Chapter Six

  How often do we see the same countenance change its expression, according to the influence of the feelings! And how many are the transformations of beauty when under the magic power of Fashion’s variegated wand! Inexhaustible in her resources, she rules over the female part of the human species with peculiar despotism.

  —La Belle Assemblée, 1827

  Later on Thursday afternoon

  Lisburne had had an earful this afternoon, at Warford House and elsewhere. He still didn’t believe what he’d heard. He had to see it for himself.

  Driving in an open carriage to Hyde Park, he couldn’t help but be aware of the sky’s unpromising grey complexion and the air’s increasing oppressiveness. But this was a distant perception. He was aware in the same way of the streets on which he drove and the vehicles, animals, and people who cluttered the route. This afternoon they cluttered it more than usual. His mind, though, was mainly on the phenomenon those four hundred acres contained this day.

  It was no great journey from St. James’s Street to the park. The trouble was, at this time of day everybody—meaning Everybody who was Anybody—traveled in the same direction. Even though the Season neared its end, the ton could produce carriages and riders enough to take possession of the park during what they considered to be their time. Today, especially, everybody wanted to be there, because Lady Gladys Fairfax was driving with her cousin Lady Clara.

  And everybody wanted to know what she was wearing, according to both Lady Warford and the shopgirls at Maison Noirot.

  People wanted to see what Gladys was wearing, not Clara.

  When Lisburne reached Hyde Park Corner, he realized that word had traveled even unto the lower ranks. Not only was the entrance to the park in the stage of conglomeration more commonly seen on Sundays, but a wall of onlookers lined the railings of the roads.

  Once he’d disentangled himself from the mob near the Triumphal Arch and was able to look about him, he spotted her easily enough.

  Not Gladys.

  Leonie Noirot.

  She stood surrounded by men at the railing, a short distance from the statue of Achilles.

  She wore a dress of deep blue, adorned with a frothy piece of white ruffles and lace that spread like a cape over her shoulders and tucked into her belt, to reappear beneath it in two flowing tails. A narrow green scarf draped the garment’s neck, drawing the eye upward to the matching green flowers and bows of her bonnet.

  Though she seemed not to notice all the fellows ogling her, Lisburne hadn’t the slightest doubt she’d taken an exact count of those vying for her attention, assessed their bank accounts, and could make a reasonable estimate of their property holdings.

  He halted his curricle, to the audible annoyance of the other drivers. His tiger, Vines, jumped down from his perch at the rear of the vehicle and went to the horses’ heads.

  Lisburne alit.

  “Drat you, Lisburne!” someone shouted. “You’re blocking the road.”

  The road here was wide enough to allow several vehicles to ride abreast. Today, however, too many were trying to squeeze in. The place reminded him of Paris, especially Longchamp during Easter week.

  “Gentlemen, I must beg your indulgence for a moment,” he called. “A moment only, if luck is with me.”

  He sauntered to the rail where Miss Noirot stood. In his usual lazy way he let his gaze travel over the crowd surrounding her.

  The men moved away.

  “Miss Noirot,” he said. “This is a pleasant surprise.”

  “My lord,” she said, with a polite nod that set the ruffles aflutter. “Is it?”

  “Pleasant but probably not a surprise, since I was told you’d be here,” he said.

  “I’m waiting for Lady Clara and Lady Gladys,” she said. “I thought this would be the best place to wait, since all the park roads meet here.”

  “Confound it, Lisburne!” someone behind him shouted.

  “Had we but world enough, and time, dear lady,” he said, “I should linger here for days and converse. A hundred years should go to the innocent pleasure of contemplating a great mind and prodigious wit in a beautiful package. But at my back I always hear those louts in the road, who are in a perishing hurry to cover ground. I seem to be in their way. Will you join me—in the carriage I mean,” he said, leaning closer and dropping his voice. “The other connection will come, I hope, later . . . at a place of my choosing.”

  She didn’t blush, exactly. He saw only a hint—more of a promise, so faint it was—of color washing over her cheeks. He wondered what it would take to make her blush fully.

  “In the carriage,” she said. “A drive?”

  “That is what, in my clumsy way, I was trying to say.”

  He watched her blue gaze flicker to his cattle, a fine matched pair. He remembered her reaction at Astley’s, to the horses, and the note of longing he’d detected in her voice.

  “Are those good horses?” she said.

  “They are not permitted to go wherever they please at any rate of speed they choose,” he said. “They are not allowed to rear up when the whim takes them or bite each other or anybody who looks at them in a way they don’t like. You’ll be quite safe.”

  “That isn’t what I meant,” she said. “They seem unusually beautiful to me. I only wondered whether I’d judged correctly.”

  “As always, madame, your taste is impeccable,” he said. “The question remains, Will you allow me to take you round the park? I’ll let you hold the ribbons.”

  Her eyes widened before she caught herself. “You’re only trying to tempt me,” she said. “I may know nothing about horses, but I know how men feel about women driving their carriages. In any event, the point is moot, because I’m on this side of the railing, and you’re on the other, and I’m not going to—oof—no! Don’t you—”

  Lord Lisburne picked her up and lifted her over the rail.

  Leonie had not seen it coming.

  “That isn’t what I meant,” she said, her voice not completely steady.

  “Now we’re on the same side,” he said as he set her on her feet. “Moreover, we’ve given the fashionable set something to talk about besides my cousin Gladys.”

  Now, drat him, Leonie was reeling with physical awareness. The expert tailoring and almost foppishly perfect style hugged a body, she was hotly aware, of solid muscle.

  As was not the case with other big, strong men, the muscle did not extend to his brain, unfortunately. He was entirely too perceptive.

  She didn’t have time for this. She had a young woman’s future to save, not to mention her shop. She couldn’t afford to have her mind cluttered with Male. Big, strong, male, smelling of male things—starch a
nd shaving soap and leather and mingled with it, the tantalizing scent of horses.

  While she was trying to put her wits back into order, he found the part of her arm not encased in stuffing—her lower arm—took hold of it, and led her to the carriage. In other words, like every other aristocrat, he did as he pleased, leaving others to cope with the consequences.

  England belonged to them, and so, naturally, she belonged to him.

  She’d noticed the way he’d given the latter message to the men standing near her.

  Oh, very well, she’d felt a thrill, stupid she, because this splendid man had given other men possessive signals about her, and she was human, not made of wood or stone or steel, as would be infinitely more practical. Meanwhile, there were those beautiful creatures. He’d promised to let her hold the reins because she’d given herself away in some manner, and he knew how much she wanted to.

  She climbed into his carriage and wondered whether one of his ancestors had been a Noirot or DeLucey.

  He took his seat and the ribbons again, and his groom leapt to the rear of the carriage. The onlookers applauded.

  Lord Lisburne threw her a little smile, and set the carriage in motion. And all of it, from the moment he’d stopped the vehicle and come to the railing, he’d done with effortless grace. So smooth, so elegant, and so charming that he made it all too easy to forget how dangerous he was.

  Last evening she’d dined at Clevedon House, and the duke had told a story about Lord Lisburne—Lord Simon Blair at the time—at Eton. A group of boys had been bullying Lord Swanton. Young Blair had taken on the lot of them. He’d walked away from the melee with a few cuts and bruises. “The rest of them lay broken and bleeding on the ground,” the duke said. “Lisburne was like a berserker—if you could picture a cold, quiet, and methodical one.”