False Angel (6 page)

“I know that we seem to be running into each other everywhere these days. And knowing that Hatchard’s is one of your favorite places, I deliberately avoided it today and came here so as not to appear to be hanging on your sleeve. However now, seeing you so radiant this morning, my lady, I begin to wonder if I haven’t been wasting my time by
not
following you as closely as your own shadow.”

It was a very pretty speech, delivered in front of a growing and appreciative audience, and given, moreover, without the least hint of the insincerity its author felt, or its recipient suspected.

At that point Leonora could have simply simpered, curtsied, and walked away from a social blunder that had been neatly turned into a small social coup for her. But she had never chosen the easy path. And his politic retrieve of a disastrous situation reminded her of another embarrassing time when he had saved her from herself. Even worse, for all his coolness, she detected a flash of humor in his sparkling eyes.

She was tired of amusing him and disgracing herself, and furious with her own clumsiness. She knew she was not a graceless female, yet in all her dealings with him, somehow she always put her foot wrong. And as always, she was impatient with hypocrisy, even her own. She had been the one who had discovered his favorite bookshop, and she had been the one who had found herself patronizing that same shop almost daily from the moment that she had made the discovery. She had run the poor gentleman to earth today, if only by chance, and she had been the one to insult him, however unwittingly. Yet here he stood, apologizing to her amid a crowd of strangers, for all the world as though he were at fault, and even adding the notion that it might be because he admired her so well, which she knew was never true. It was not fair. It was time for her to take some responsibility for her own actions. She was not a child. She decided that her own honor, as well as his, called for her honesty about her part in this meeting.

“Your lordship,” she said clearly and with decision, squaring her shoulders and leaving off her apologetic air, “I appreciate your gallantry. But I insist, you are not at fault. It is
I,
and I assure you that this is true, who avoided Hatchard’s today, for I was the one who earnestly attempted to avoid you today.”

A profound silence greeted this statement, for in many ways it appeared to have turned all the surrounding eavesdroppers to stone. Seeing the immediate look of shock in the marquess’s wide blue eyes, Leonora belatedly reviewed her speech. As the marquess tightened his lips, nodded, and walked away, she could only say faintly, “Oh, but that is never what I meant to say.” Then she could only stand and stare after his retreating back and wait for some kindly providence to take pity on her and come and cause an earthquake to swallow her up completely.

FOUR

A great many gentlemen pride themselves on their utter inability to fathom the feminine mind, as though that were some sort of hallmark of their own masculinity, but Joscelin Kidd, Marquess of Severne, was not among them. It wasn’t that he considered himself omniscient, or even a jot more gifted than any of his fellows, it was only that he had always believed and acted upon the notion that except for a few areas of human experience, the minds of males and females were more similar than not This belief had always served him well. So as he strode away from his disastrous encounter with the Lady Leonora, he wondered just what in the fiend’s name he had done wrong.

He could hear the whispers of gossip picking up behind him even as he walked away, but that did not bother him, it had not for years. More disturbing was the thought that somehow he had wounded the lady, and that was why she sought to pay him back. It was inconceivable that she had acted as she had for no reason, few young persons could be that venomous, and the only cause that he could see for such an attitude would be a desire for revenge for some mortal insult that he had given her. But as he walked the streets of London lost in thought, reviewing his past relationship with the young woman, he could not discover a clue to her malice.

Because, he concluded after a few moments, so far as he knew, they had no past relationship that he could dissect.

He had met the lady five years ago, when she had first come out, even though he had not been present at her formal presentation. Her father had invited him, of course, but he had known it was a courtesy, and out of courtesy, he had stayed away. He owed the viscount a great deal, but it would have been wrong, the young marquess had decided, to repay such a gesture of friendship with an action that could only cause unhappiness. For a gentleman who had just come through the divorce courts, and who still bled the ink of scandal from every caricature and broadsheet in Town, could scarcely go unremarked at a young woman’s come-out ball.

But like all other incendiary matters, scandal’s smoke blows away quickly if there is no fire to feed it. And it was not long before he had been able to attend some affairs, and since his affairs had required that attendance, it hadn’t been long until he had met the lovely Lady Leonora.

He would have noted her even if she had not been his patron’s younger daughter. She had the sort of dark good looks that especially appealed to him. Of course, he had to admit now that at that time, those five years ago, the blond, brunette, red-haired, and possibly even bald-pated good looks of any young female would have appealed to him equally as well. He had not been half so immune to the scandalmongers as he had pretended to be. And a young man, for he’d been only four and twenty at the time, who had just obtained a shocking divorce on the grounds of his own inability in the marital bed, would be likely, no matter how he kept up the pretext of not caring, to seek to prove his masculinity incessantly for all the whispering world to see and hear about.

So, as much as he might have admired her fashion, he had done no more than to speak a few polite words over Lady Leonora’s little white hand at that time. For he couldn’t offer her what a proper young lady was obviously looking for in her presentation year, and she could scarcely offer him what an improper young man was seeking in the year of his absolute disgrace. But there was no denying that he always noted her presence, and not just for her father’s sake, whenever their paths happened to cross. And that happened far more frequently than might have been expected of two persons traversing such absolutely diverse paths of society.

But then, London was much like a small town for all its size, and since people always tend to travel in the same tight congenial groups, just as some species of fish do even in the widest seas, those paths are well marked. So even as all the goldsmiths in Town knew of or about each other, as did all the poets and printers and pickpockets, so then all the members of the ton could be said to be constantly tripping over each other.

Even so, although the marquess had been born to the same world that Leonora had been, he had been cast out from it by his actions, and might have absented himself from it forever had it not been for the lady’s father. The viscount had heard of the young gentleman’s disgrace, and had seen him in a house of ill and wide repute as he attempted to ruin what little reputation he had left to himself. As he was upon the premises for his own purposes anyway, the Viscount Talwin had waited until the following morning, when the young marquess was attempting to restore whatever health he had remaining after his roisterous evening. Then the older gentleman had served up a proposition to the younger, along with his fifth cup of strong and steaming coffee. That proposition, the marquess was fond of remembering, had been his salvation and the making of him as a man.

What he had so urgently needed, he had been given. And that was not just a constant supply of sweet young womanflesh, as he had thought. It was, that first time, just one dangerous, responsible, and important task to perform for his country. And when he’d returned from the Continent, having executed that mission creditably, there had been another for him to essay. It was not until fairly recently, when the French authorities had begun to take note of that lean wolfish face and form to the point where he earned the chilling and deserved nickname of “le loup Anglais,” that he had been forced to return to England for good. But there was still employment for him, his patron had insisted, and he had passed his time these last weeks in Town learning what he could from English sources. Not all of his countrymen were patriots, as the viscount told him, and so until Nappy had given up every last dream of world conquest, he would be needed. And to be needed had been just what the Marquess of Severne most desired.

But now he needed to know just why his mentor’s daughter had vented her spleen upon him. He had only encountered her a few times during that Season five years previously, for he had gone off to the Continent almost at the same time that she had blotted her copy book so indelibly that her father had ordered her home immediately. Their lives seemed to run parallel courses, for now she was back in Town again, just as he was, with a reputation to live down, just as he had. This commonality should have counted for some sympathy or fellow feeling upon her part. He thought he had that, from the frequency with which he’d been running into her of late. He was no cockscomb, but he’d thought that he had seen that in her face last night too, as well as something more. Some other yearning thing that at the worst would have been sensation seeking, and at best, would have been far more flattering, if equally impossible for him to satisfy for her.

Even if he’d been imagining things, at the very least he’d have thought she might have been grateful to him. He thought he had done her a service once. Though he was not the sort of man to call upon those he’d aided so that they could even up accounts, still he would have thought she might have considered herself in his debt for that past incident, if not for his abortive attempt at glossing over what he had guessed to be her inadvertent remark this morning.

Perhaps she’d made a slip of the tongue about his past history last night at her party, but then he’d been sure that the incident disturbed her far more than it had affected him. But this morning, to have so thoroughly rejected the way he’d tried to mend matters when he thought she’d just committed another missaying, forced him to conclude that she was deliberately setting out to insult or enrage him. Why this should be so was a mystery to him. And he could not resist a mystery.

So the viscount’s dark daughter was very much on the marquess’s mind as he entered his club for his luncheon engagement, and his own storm-dark eyes were shadowed by thought even as he absently greeted his luncheon companion.

“Good heavens, Joss,” the Duke of Torquay exclaimed in mock terror, pushing away from his setting as the marquess took his seat at their table, “I should have hidden the cutlery if I had seen that look upon your face before this. At the very least, I shall be sure to examine the dregs of the teapot before I allow you to pour. How have I offended you? Is it that I didn’t immediately compliment you on your vest, dear friend? Or was it my failure to note your new boots?” he inquired in very humble tones.

“What? Oh, Jason,” the marquess said, grinning, “forgive me. I’ve just come from one of the roundest set-downs I’ve ever been privileged to receive, so I suppose I’m still sulking.”

“Ah, you’ve been proposing naughtiness to the minister’s daughter again, then,” the duke commented sagely in his low, hoarse accents.

“No, to Talwin’s daughter, or so you would think from her response,” the marquess replied as he took up his knife, but only to deal with his luncheon.

“Talwin’s filly? Isn’t she the lady whose interest you were complaining of the other night? Why Joss, my dear, first you grumble that she likes you overmuch, and now you become savage at her dislike. Are you quite sure we’re discussing the same female?” the duke asked innocently.

His companion sighed. “Aye, well, it is a coil. First she seeks me, then repels me. If it’s difficult to fathom, it’s harder still to live with, believe me.”

As the gentlemen made their way through prawns and soup to beef and burgundy, the marquess told of his morning’s incident in a frowning, halting manner. This had nothing to do with the texture of his roast, as his waiter feared, but rather with the fact that he was attempting to interpret his tale even as he related it.

“Come, Joss,” the duke said simply when the younger man had done with both his story and his luncheon plate, “you are like a declaration of love in a letter, you’ve left the best part out.”

“How does the duchess bear you?” Joscelin commented, leaning back in his chair.

“With fortitude,” the duke answered briefly, for with all his constant banter, his intimates knew that he never involved his beloved Regina in any of his wicked innuendo. Then he added, more seriously, “Come, Joss, you ought to know that you can always talk with me and that I will keep your secrets close as my next breath. I’m old enough to be your father, dear boy, and since that estimable gentleman is rusticating nicely in the West country, I should be happy to stand in his stead.”

“It’s not my secret precisely,” the marquess said slowly, and then smiled widely and added, “And you must have been a prodigiously precocious child, Jason, to have taken on fatherhood so young.”

“So I was, but I shan’t make you jealous by documenting it,” the fair-haired gentleman remarked airily before he said softly, “But I might be able to help if only because discussing a problem makes it simpler. You cannot always be the lone wolf our foes term you, you know. And believe me, I respect and admire Talwin fully as much as you do. Why, no one else would have been able to lure me from my countrified fastness but he, although my lady is grateful to him, since she’s spent all of our visit buying out every shop in Town. I do believe she has secret plans to erect a complete replica of London on the grounds of Grace Hall so she can charge one pence a peek at it, judging from the amount of objects she’s sending home from here. Why do you think the girl should hold you in such dislike, Joss?” he asked, becoming serious all at once.

“The only thing I can possibly imagine,” the marquess said quietly, although his table was as he always specified, far from any human ear, “is that she resents my having been witness to a foolish moment she had in her youth. Although I can scarcely credit that, for she’s no paragon to be so top-lofty. I interfered with her plans once, years ago when she was first out, for her father’s sake as well as her own. I intercepted her at Mother Carey’s place of business, you see, and detached her from her escort and took her home before any in the admittedly castaway company had time to recognize her face.”

The duke’s china-blue eyes widened and he gave a low whistle. “Salvation indeed, Joss. Tell me, do you think she knew the time of day?”

The marquess laughed and shook his head. “No, Jason, I do not. Most definitely not. Because she turned the colors of an autumn leaf before she commenced shaking like one as I led her to my carriage. She’d just come in, and all the company was occupied elsewhere, grouped around a couple in the center of the room. She only got one peek at what they were ogling before I intervened. Before she could think to swoon I braced her with some hard words and hurried her away. Still, she had a glimpse of some of the carry-on, and for all I know that may be why such a stunner is still unwed. Mother had one of her famous exhibitions on display that night,” he explained as his companion winced.

“Young James Rowers, Wardley’s heir, took her there, and you know what he came to in the end,” the marquess added.

“Indeed. I had an evil reputation once upon a time, but that fellow’s was foul. There is a difference,” the duke mused thoughtfully.

“Well I know it,” his friend agreed. “But Jason, the girl’s attitude troubles me. I work with Talwin because I want to and feel I ought to, and I shouldn’t like to have his daughter at daggers drawn with me. I’ve avoided her because I believed her to be just as wild as she was when she was sent home years ago. I thought her interest in me was caused only by her more lurid fantasies. Well, you can’t blame me for not wanting to be the instrument by which she’s ordered home again.” As his friend began to protest, the marquess raised one thin, well-cared-for hand and said, “No, Jason, hear me out, it would be no strange thing if my presence in a lady’s parlor enraged a dutiful papa. I am a divorced man and I’m not welcomed in the best circles.”

“Thank you,” said the duke sweetly. As the marquess attempted to make a recover, his friend brushed his protestations aside and went on, “I know, and you are right, Joss, but for whatever it’s worth, I also don’t know a decent fellow in the land who wouldn’t want you for his son-in-law, even so. In fact, if my eldest girl were a month more than thirteen years of age as we speak, I’d be marching down the aisle with her to meet you at this moment.”