Danse de la Folie (5 page)

“Would it seem churlish, or merely poor-spirited, to admit
that I would very much rather not meet a ghost?”

“Oh, but...” Kitty reminded herself that this lady was very
fashionable, and dismissed her words with a flick of her hand and an apologetic
smile. “Please sit down,” she said, remembering the duties of a hostess. “We
may as well make ourselves comfortable, for I have no notion when my brothers
might—”

She was interrupted by a crack behind them as the door was
thrust open by a careless hand. In strode a young man in a carefully mended,
old-fashioned coat that in their grandfathers’ dashing days was called a
roquelaure.
Clarissa recognized his
round, genial face and unruly black curls escaping from under a battered
tricorne, which was quickly pulled off his head.

“Ned,” Kitty cried.

“Hi, Kit. Jupiter, what a ride. I could eat a table!”

Kitty jumped up. “Ned, where are your manners?”

“Servant, ma’am,” he exclaimed, blushing mightily, as Kitty
said self-consciously, “Miss Harlowe, may I beg to present my brother Edward,
that is, Lord Decourcey?”

Edward executed a correct bow, then said with his sister’s
lack of formality, “None of us have quite got used to my wearing my brother’s
title, which of course he passed off to me on Papa’s death. I wasn’t long
enough at Eton to get used to it—we couldn’t afford it,” he said with his
sister’s same cheerful insouciance. “And as soon as Carl gets himself a son,
off the title goes again, and I’m back to Mr. Decourcey.”

Clarissa looked her confusion, and Kitty laughed. “The
family name and the Viscount title are one and the same, due to some very
tangled history, which starts on the continent, as you may imagine, marquesses
not often being found in England.”

“And nary a bit of land goes with my airy title,” Edward
said, as the servants’ door opened, and in came the butler and a footman
bearing heavy silver trays. “Much less money. All gobbled up in St. Tarval long
ago. But as I said, it sounded fine at Eton—” He had unbuttoned the heavy
roquelaure as he spoke, then looked down in dismay. “Hey day! My boots! I’d
better change or Mrs. Finn will...” He bit off what he was going to say, and
vanished precipitously, chased by Kitty, whose voice could be heard, “Oh Ned, I
did so want to show Miss Harlowe that we are not completely uncivilized...”

Clarissa was left sitting at a table alone, with two
servants standing by, holding heavy trays, as another door opened, and a
gentleman entered, tall and mild of manner, his hazel gaze and curly black hair
instantly familiar. Here was the gentleman who had rescued them.

The marquess bowed to Clarissa. “I trust you are recovered,
Miss Harlowe? Now, where have my brother and sister gone off to? Here, Clemens,
go ahead and serve. They are sure to appear before things get cold.”

As he spoke, he sat at the head of the table, and kept up a
mild commentary to his servants as they set out the meal, which gave Clarissa
time to recover.

His siblings reappeared as the servants departed, Kitty
saying happily, “Oh, there you are, Carlisle. Have you two become acquainted? I
hope so, for I do not want to perform another introduction, not without
practice.”

“We’ve all met,” Edward said breezily, sitting down in a
more fashionable coat that was slightly too short, making Clarissa wonder if
she was seeing the last of Lord Decourcey’s Eton wardrobe.

As the Decourcey family settled to the meal, Clarissa took
the opportunity to covertly study her host. She was aware of extreme
ambivalence as well as interest: this man, though polite, and her rescuer, had
taken his brother and his sister out on the water as smugglers. And though she
knew she owed him her life, she wondered if he had inherited those qualities
that had earned his father a troubling reputation.

He certainly looked the gentleman. He might not have the
perfect Grecian profile of her cousin Devereaux, who was the target of many
young ladies in London, but his mouth was well-shaped, and his countenance
pleasing; the Bedford crop was particularly flattering to the shape of his
head, for he did not wear his hair unfashionably long, nor too short.

When he happened to glance her way and their eyes met, she
became aware that she was staring, and hastily confined her gaze to her plate.

The food was plentiful and excellent, the conversation easy,
without any reference to smuggling or Riding Officers.

At the end of the meal, after a couple of meaningful glances
from the marquess (in so kindly a manner that Clarissa found her estimation of
him improving decidedly), Kitty sat up. “Oh!” She blushed as she invited
Clarissa to withdraw, which they did with correct punctilio.

The two ladies settled in the small paneled chamber next
door, where a good fire crackled merrily, not quite subduing the odor of
mildew. Chairs had been brought from under Holland covers and polished.

Having established Clarissa by the fire, Kitty excused herself
to change her shawl, an excuse that was patently false when her voice rose
plainly through the connecting door: “Ned! I will expire if you do not tell if
me you successfully delivered the cargo.”

Edward’s voice was even clearer than his sister’s. “What we
could save of it. Deuce take that yacht captain—what was he at, so far off
course? How are we going to repair the damage?”

“It’s all the fault of that evil Talkerton,” Kitty declared.

The marquess’s quiet voice came clearly: “No, the fog was at
fault—that and the fact that the wind died, setting the yacht adrift. And
Talkerton is not evil. He’s merely a man employed by the government to what he
considers an honest end, though it’s one I do not envy. And he knows quite well
what our father was at, and that the older men in the countryside were in
league with him. The evil, if any exists, I think lies with that innkeeper
Dobbs, who I suspect is lying. He knows well there isn’t anyone we can complain
to.”

“If Father were alive, that villain Dobbs wouldn’t be
whispering about thin markets, and the rest of it, so he can cheat us,” Edward declared
in a ringing tone.

Clarissa looked around in despair. The room was too small
for any corner to be safe from eavesdropping. There was another door, but if
she were to go through it, what would be the result except further
embarrassment? Ah, but in the sideboard in the corner, there were books. She
pulled a random volume of Rollins.

The marquess said, “Kit, did you visit the tenants this
afternoon?”

“As soon as Mrs. Latchmore and Mr. Bede were gone. Everyone
was snug. One of the outbuildings at Highgate Farm was damaged in the storm,
that was all.”

“Cottage Row?”

“Sound, all sound. Old Widow Iverson said to convey her
thanks for the rethatching, and she will put up supernumerary mint jelly for
us. Little profit, then? Mrs. Finn read me
such
a lecture for going out.”

“She nabbed me on my way downstairs,” Edward said.

“And I, on my way in from the stable,” the marquess stated. “If
there is money to be made in free trading, I am not convinced we have the way
of it. I mislike having to deal with that rascal Dobbs, but Father’s old connections
seem to have vanished, and as I told you before, I would hate to meet the
Amelia
in the Channel. Proby and I
served together aboard the
Tarleton
,
and he would be sick if he caught us.”

“You’d think he’d look the other way,” Ned said. “No, no,
don’t say a word on it. I know that you don’t put a friend to such a choice,
but dash it, Carl, winter’s not over, there’s yet a couple of new moons before
the days get longer, and we did promise the Cowman—”

“Cowman,” Kitty interrupted. “You would think your
mysterious organizer, and I do not think much of his abilities, would have the
wit to think of a better
nom de guerre
.”

“Egad, Kit, left up to you he’d be Lord L’Inconnu or Comte de
Sinistro, or some rubbishing name—”

His voice had risen, until the marquess broke in dulcetly. “Or
the Count de Treasure.”

The other two broke into laughter, and Kitty said, “I should
return to our guest, before she wonders if I am knitting a new wrap.”

“Oh! I nearly forgot Miss Harlowe,” Edward said. “A guest in
this house, do you know what this means?”

“I am afraid to ask,” the marquess responded.

“That we now have a fourth for whist,” his brother said
triumphantly.

“I hope she doesn’t play,” was the retort from his sister.

By the time Kitty reappeared, Clarissa had been able to make
a fair attempt at her book, so that she could look up naturally.

“We shall have tea brought in a moment,” Kitty said, and
then tilted her head. “How do you feel? Are you quite fagged? The bruise looks
very tender still.”

“I am well enough,” Clarissa replied.

“Should you like to play a rubber or two of whist with us?”

There was, of course, no answer to be made but an
affirmative. Clarissa was used to such games, and prepared to be sadly bored.
Much to her surprise, she wasn’t: the marquess and his brother and sister did
not quarrel over the cards as her brother and her eldest half-sister so
frequently had at home, for one thing, and for another, they were excellent
players.

As Ned said cheerfully, when totting up points after the
first game, “When you have little to do and many hours to do it in, you become
a real Captain Sharp. Shall we play for our old stakes?”

Kitty said to Clarissa, “What we do is play a hundred
guineas a point. It’s quite fun to win and lose enormous sums, and at the end
of the evening, we throw the papers into the fire.”

“Do not feel yourself obliged, Miss Harlowe,” the marquess
said to their guest, who when sodden and half-frozen had seemed self-possessed,
and now sat there with calm poise.

But then she laughed, and it transformed her face.

The marquess was unaware of his entry into the
danse
as hero; in that moment he was
unaware of his brother or sister, or the cards he still held in his hand.

And Clarissa was only aware of the fact that she’d never
heard of such a thing. But if one took a moment to consider, was it not more
sensible than the particulars of gaming as generally accepted? “I quite
understand,” she said. “And I confess I consider it perfectly sensible.”

“Here, Carl, give me those. Unless you intend to play that
as your next hand?” Ned looked inquiringly at his brother, who apologized and
relinquished the playing cards.

He made an effort, recollected himself, and Ned dealt.

And so it was that by the end of the evening, Clarissa had
won fifty thousand pounds, but had lost nearly two hundred thousand, and she
had never known an evening to pass so fast in her life.

The bell had chimed midnight before they broke up the party,
Edward pitching their scribbled IOUs into the fire. “And there goes my coronet,
a string of racers, and a phaeton,” he said cheerfully, as the marquess handed
the ladies their candles to light their way upstairs.

o0o

The next morning, Clarissa woke to stormy weather. The ache
in her head had faded. She felt a dull pang only if she touched the bruise. One
glance out at the low gray sky and the ghostly branches nearly hidden in the
whirl of white, and she knew that few would be traveling this day.

While she sipped at the tea that Rosina brought her, downstairs,
the brothers met, the younger surprised to find the elder in the dining room
rather than the kitchen, as was his wont. He thought nothing of it beyond a
reflection on how they must remember their manners, now that Miss Harlowe was
among them.

The marquess’s reflections were more troubling. Nature had
fashioned an energetic young man whose sense of fun led him to enjoy being
outdoors in all weathers, but circumstances had made him serious before young
men customarily settle down. He found himself responsible for the languishing
estate before he inherited it, with the inevitable result: he worked very hard,
and spent a great deal of time contriving ways to deal with disasters, and to brace
for the next.

He did not regard Miss Harlowe as a disaster, but he had
woken aware that the previous evening’s pastime had been the most enjoyable
ever, and that was in large part due to their guest. It wasn’t that Miss
Harlowe was exceptionally witty, or indeed, that she had claimed more than her
share of conversation. It was the way she had appeared to enjoy the silliness,
an attribute that in the cold light of morning he had to attribute to excellent
manners.

A well-bred young lady used to the ways of London could
hardly be expected to be entertained by a family party round an old table in a
tumbledown barrack of a house. He must not think anything beyond that. It was a
firm decision—and yet when he found himself twice looking expectantly at the
door, he outlined a day’s worth of labor that would keep him and his brother.

Ned whistled as they departed, wondering if the weather was
what got a burr under Carl’s saddle.

Kitty and Clarissa came down soon after they left. Clarissa
had waited until she heard Kitty’s step creaking on the wooden floor outside
her door. She did not wish to go down alone and perhaps cause an awkward
encounter with anyone else in the family.

Kitty had woken up remembering a certain humiliating
encounter when she had tried to go into company once before. Knowing that she
had no social experience, during breakfast she scrupulously adopted what she
hoped was the proper demeanor of a young lady of Society.

The result? At the end of the meal, Clarissa rose, and said
softly and apologetically, “Forgive me, please, for the imposition of my
presence. There is no need to abjure the order of your day in my favor.”

“Oh,” Kitty exclaimed, so dismayed she forgot her careful
formality of manner. “Of course, if you wish to be alone, I quite comprehend.”