Flowers From The Storm (65 page)

“Thou dost not permit it?”

“No. Maddy—”“

She rose, and sat down on the iron bench, looking at her lap.

What’s wrong, what’s wrong
?—but he was loathe to know.

“I would like something to do,” she said, her breath frosting as she spoke. “I’m not accustomed to idleness.”

“The ball—”

“Oh, yes,” she said lightly. “Hast thou made a note in thy accounts? One duchess, in ball gown, to be stood at the top of the stairs to receive. ” She shook her head. “I am no duchess. I won’t belong there.”

“Maddy.” He reached out to touch her, but she suddenly stood up and walked away.

“I don’t belong
here
,” she said, facing away from him.

“Need you… Maddy. If you want something… task… the ball—”

“I know nothing of that!” Her voice was resentful but subdued, half lost as she continued to look down.

“Thou hast thy secretary. Thou dost not need me.” She picked at the edge of her sling. Her voice broke upward. “Thou dost not need me.”

He gazed at her, holding himself in check. “What do you want… instead?”

She bent her head a little, not answering.

“Quaker?” he asked softly. “Gill?”

“I don’t want to forget what I am,” she said with a strange intensity. “I don’t want to.”

His body tautened. He opened and closed his fist. “My wife. I need now… tonight… stand with me.”

“Tonight!” she said in scorn. “There are other things in the world besides thy frivolous ball. There are other things besides making thyself the great duke again!”

His control was cracking; he breathed softly through his teeth. “Where’s your dress?”

“I’m not going to attend,” she said. She lifted a finger in dismissal. “It’s a creaturely amusement.”

“
Amusement
?” he uttered viciously. “Think I do it… for
amusement
?” He caught her arm, thrust her back to face him. “What happens… when I’m not the duke?” He gripped her hard. “What happens… to you… I’m there again?” Shaking her, he shouted, “Lunatic!
Lunatic
, Maddy! Suppose you can stop?

You can’t. I can’t. King! The king can stop, if he will.” With a low violent sound, he let her go. “Never go back… I will not lose… you! Lose all! I—will—be—the—duke!”

He pushed away, turned and left her in the vacant court. At the door, he stopped and looked back.

“Save us. That’s what I do… tiara… king… frivolous ball.
Save
us!” He jerked his head toward the house. “You want… useful. All right! Useful. One duchess! Receive! Silver dress! Understand?”

She was gazing at him, unmoving, as if he were someone she’d never seen before. He glared back at her. She moistened her lips. “It is… to save thee?” she repeated.

“Both. You and me. Go…
dress
,” he snapped, and slammed the door.

At the top of the staircase, in a hall that smelled of evergreen and ladies’ perfume, so full of noise that the wall of sound seemed tangible, Christian shook hands. There was no need to speak; no one could possibly hear what he said. A footman at the base of the stairs bawled the names of the guests as they mounted the step, but no one could hear him, either.

Maddy stood beside him, the tiara flashing green fire every time she moved her head. She had come back to life, his Maddygirl—serious still, but sometimes she gave him a look beneath her lashes, an anxious question, as if to ask if they were succeeding at what they did.

He could tell that her injured arm hurt her. She held it against herself, trying surreptitiously to support it, no doubt as aware as he that every moment she was under the scrutiny of endless eyes. Christian waited until a brief pause, a distraction produced by a lady catching her hem on the stairs below. He took Maddy’s elbow and steered her away from the hall where they’d been posted for an hour, and into the blue salon.

The press of guests cleared magically at their passage, moving back from the center of the room where the rugs had been taken up, obviously expecting him and Maddy to open the ball. But he could not, not until the king arrived. Christian passed right by the waiting orchestra and began a circuit of the rooms.

He’d found that the social commonplaces were easy, so ingrained in him that he could speak them without hesitation, like the words to an old song too familiar to have meaning anymore. The noise helped: in the library the quartet was barely audible above the talk. He didn’t stop anywhere longer than it took to pause and accept mechanical congratulations, enduring the curiosity and exchanges of looks that he knew trailed behind them.

It was just one more gamble, waiting to begin the dancing. Every minute beyond midnight made it more obvious. “Til half-past, he reckoned—he could wait that long. If His Majesty hadn’t arrived by then, he’d put all his blunt on a losing card.

At least his brothers-in-law weren’t here to see it in person. He’d invited his family—but of course they had not come, nor acknowledged it. Not with Maddy in his house, not with their attorneys trying to have him stripped to nothing.

She walked beside him, a silver Galatea, life turned to sculpture instead of the other way round. She did a strange thing with her grave reserve—she embarrassed them. Christian could see it. They had come to sneer at her—that one night at the opera and the rumor mill had done its work-fortune hunter, Quakeress, elevated demimondaine; one could only guess, and she didn’t give them a clue.

He came across Fane near the end of the circuit and caught him away from the army coterie, drawing him into the open dressing room, where flowers and a few chairs made a quiet but public nook amid the slow current of guests. “Rest.” He handed Maddy into a armchair. She clung to him a moment, her only sign of dismay, but he bowed. “A glass,” he promised. “Fane will stay.”

“Honored to do so,” Fane said instantly.

Christian went to dispatch a footman to them, and check for any word of the king.

“You’re monstrous comely tonight, my love,” Colonel Fane said, bowing to Maddy.

A couple stopped beside them. “Indeed! A
rara avis
,” the man agreed, sweeping a bow.

“Your gown is—so unusual, duchess,” his partner said, in a tone that might be a compliment or an insult.

“Is it Devey?”

“Devey?” Maddy repeated.

The woman gave her a patronizing smile. “Madame Devey. In Grosvenor Square.” She fanned herself with a spread of feathers. “This is such an interesting new idea, to put back the dancing. How late it seems! Is it after midnight yet?”

The colonel dug in a pocket beneath his brilliant scarlet coat. He dug deeper, frowning a little.

“Twenty-five past,” the other man said, consulting his own watch.

“Will we begin soon, duchess?” the woman asked sweetly.

“I don’t know,” Maddy said.

“Ah! Well! We must not monopolize you, ma’am.” With a light laugh, the woman bowed and drew back. “Magnificent decorations.”

As the couple drifted away, Colonel Fane grinned. “Regular cat-party.” He was holding his watch, still digging deep in the pocket of his coat. “Confound it, look here what I’ve found. There!” He pulled his hand free and held it out. “Caught in the lining, by George!”

Maddy looked down into his open palm at an opal and pearl filigree ring of distinctive design.

“Your wedding ring, ma’am,” he announced proudly.

She frowned at it.

“Hang me for a half-wit—no wonder I didn’t have it at the ceremony. This coat never left London.” He lifted her hand, and closed her fingers over the ring. “There now. Better put it on, so you don’t lose it.”

Maddy had long since given up trying to keep Jervaulx’s signet on her hand. She bit her lip, and then slid the opal onto her finger, where it fit with chance perfection.

The tiara had given her a tremendous headache. What anyone saw in this unpleasant form of entertainment, Maddy could not fathom: a huge, hot press of overdressed people with nothing to do but talk to one another at the top of their lungs and drink. The laughter had grown giddy, and people were complaining. She’d been asked five times if His Majesty was expected, and had answered honestly that she didn’t know. She suspected that the guests wished to ask much more than that, but either Colonel Fane or Durham, sometimes both, was always at her elbow, fending off the most pointed inquiries with their singular blend of nonsense and wit.

She’d learned from Durham’s observations, and dedicated herself to brevity in conversation. It didn’t seem to work quite as well for her as he’d claimed it did for Jervaulx— people looked at her in very peculiar ways—but she told herself that she did not care. She did not wish them to like her, nor befriend her, which was well, because they did not.

A tipsy woman in a purple dress pressed up to Maddy from behind, stumbling against her. The lady’s gloved hands clung painfully to Maddy’s sore arm, while a painted mouth opened and smiled, too close.

“Pardon me!” the lady cried. “I am so clumsy!” She took Maddy’s hand. “It is a lovely ball, dear. When is the dancing to begin?”

“I don’t know,” Maddy said, but her questioner was already gone, leaving a folded note pressed into her hand. She opened it.

Upstairs
, was all it said, scribbled unevenly.

Maddy didn’t know why Jervaulx could not come for her himself, instead of sending a drunken lady as a messenger, but she told Colonel Fane that she was wanted. He nodded affably, a little worse for all the champagne himself, and escorted her through the crowd to the back stairs.

At quarter before one, the vultures arrived. Calvin brought word to Christian that Mr. Manning and Lord Stoneham had entered without announcement. Come to gloat, Christian thought. He’d been aware of a subtle outflow of people in the past few minutes. He could hardly blame them. They’d got what they’d come for, a view of him and Maddy—and still the dancing had not begun. The midnight supper was waiting, and people were beginning to look at him and speak in lowered voices.

Durham drifted past in the crowd. He smiled, holding a glass of champagne above the feathered headdress of a countess who was prattling to Christian about some daughter of hers that he didn’t remember. Durham didn’t say anything. With the subtlest of moves, he simply shook his head.

Christian gave it up. He bowed to the countess and went to look for his wife.

Maddy climbed the back stairs alone. On the upper floor, the music from the gallery was much more audible, while the sound of the guests faded to a dull roar. She paused in the hall, and then went to the open door of the spare room where she’d dressed.

“Jervaulx?” She peeked around the door. At the sight of two of the duke’s brothers-in-law, Maddy looked quickly for the duke and did not find him.

“Ma’am. Do come in. We’d like to talk to you.”

She pushed the door wide. “Where is he?”

The ruddy-faced one leaned over and caught her wrist, drawing her inside. “Jervaulx? Why, downstairs with his guests, I suppose. I don’t believe we’ve ever been properly introduced.” He closed the door.

“I’m Manning. This is Lord Stoneham.”

Maddy glanced at the other man, who was smoothing over and over at his ample sideburns. He bowed quickly.

“Let me speak directly to the point,” Manning said. “We’re here to make terms with you.”

Maddy stood silent.

“Come, Miss
Timms
.” He put a sarcastic emphasis on her name. “You must know by now that this wild grasp at the king isn’t going to answer.”

Still she said nothing.

“He isn’t going to come, ma’am. You’ve brought that vulgar trinket on your head for nothing, if you thought you purchased His Majesty’s protection along with it. He is notoriously erratic, my dear. A shrewd cast, and one that might have saved you—but I’m afraid it appears as if it won’t.”

She sank down slowly in a chair, watching him in fascination. “Saved me?”

“If you thought yourself made safe by quashing all hope of a hearing—then indeed—had the king cared to bestir himself this evening, you were saved, weren’t you? But he has not.”

She clasped her hands in her lap, staring at them, feeling the weight of the tiara on her head.

“Perhaps—he might come yet.”

“Unlikely. You hold your orchestra silent for nothing. But there’s no need to dwell on that. Let us talk business. You wear the tiara—you know what it’s worth. You may have it.”

She kept her head lowered. “I don’t understand.”

“Miss Timms, I shall lay the facts before you. We have investigated this so-called wedding, and discovered your ploy. Farce, I might better call it—since only a man who’d gone simple in the head could possibly have tumbled for a pack of country yokels hired to pound at the door.”

Maddy’s chin came up abruptly.

Manning smiled. “Ah, yes. We’ve found you out, you see.”

“Hired—to pound at the door?” she said in wonder.

“Spare us your histrionic talents, Miss Timms. We can produce the fellows in court. I take it this damned Kit Durham is in it with you hand and glove, but what you must realize, ma’am, is that there is no marriage. The law requires the approved Church of England ceremony and no duress. Quite aside from Jervaulx’s incompetence, and the sham pursuit, we have a witness who can testify to the irregularity of the ceremony itself. It has a very ugly smell, Miss Timms. Very ugly. There are heavy penalties for the sort of trick you’ve tried to pull.”