It Started with a Scandal (13 page)

The two of them, he and Mrs. Fountain, were almost like two people who were recovering from an embarrassment, as if she’d caught him picking his nose, or scratching some intimate place. He still felt a little raw, for reasons he couldn’t quite identify.

And as he held himself still but not too still, and forced himself to improve his mind with Marcus Aurelius, he was all too aware of the two pieces of correspondence requiring his attention. His penmanship was still far from flawless, thanks to his stiff hand. Both pieces of correspondence represented decisions that would determine the rest of his life. And neither would wait forever for him to make up his mind.

He’d sailed the high seas, survived the rabble during the revolution, and fought off six cutthroats in London.

Never in his wildest dreams had he thought he would ever need to muster nerve to ring for a housekeeper.

E
LISE WAS ALL
too aware of how inert her bell had been lately. But it wasn’t the silence of endings. The silence was alive with tension. It was a bit like the wait between skirmishes in a battle—or perhaps more accurately, the rest between movements in a symphony, a melodramatic metaphor she allowed herself when she lay awake at night, attempting to count sheep and instead holding her own hand and pretending it was Lavay’s, to her own helpless chagrin. Or c
hagreen
.

Tonight she promised herself she would do no such thing.

She decided this temporary silence presented the perfect opportunity to tamp down all her fancies and solidify her control so that the next time he rang—for he would ring again, she was certain of it—her heart, let alone the rest of her, wouldn’t so much as twinge.

And besides, she had more mundane things to worry about at the moment. For instance, how the devil was she going to obtain silk stockings for the footmen? All the livery now required was finishing touches, and James and Ramsey looked thrillingly elegant in it.

Alone in her room—Jack was tucked into bed—she freed her hair from its pins and placed them all neatly in a bowl on the little desk. Then she took up her ivory-backed hairbrush, a gift from her mother on her fourteenth birthday.

One hundred strokes nightly before plaiting her hair. The receipt for apple tarts, for simples and tisanes and soaps and milks for the complexion. The need for and pleasure in beauty, the ability to find it in the humble, the everyday. Her mother had taught her all of this. They were so alike in many ways, from the big, dark eyes to their quick minds.

Now that she was a mother, it seemed inconceivable that her own could ever have loved her if she shunned her now.
Nothing
Jack ever did would stop her from loving him, even if he ended up being sent to the gallows, God forbid, in which case, she’d do everything in her power to make sure he’d disappear from them in a puff of smoke a la Colin Eversea and live on as a folk hero.

She ran her thumb lightly over the initials engraved on the back of her brush. ELF. Elise Louise Fountain.

She’d once thought her parents’ love was just as permanent as those initials.

Intervening years buffered the wound like layers of cotton wool, but when she was weary, she felt it, the way an old injury aches when it rains.

She did own another brush. But this one was, as she’d told Lord Lavay, one of the few things she’d seized when she’d been told to leave her parents’ home for good. It had been so precious to her, a gift that made her feel loved and grown up.

And she knew how to get those silk stockings now.

Because she’d learned that when she was at her lowest, there was pleasure in making other people happy, and she could make James and Ramsey happy.

But mostly she could make Lord Lavay happy, which was really all she wanted to do, if she was being honest with herself. And she was usually unfailingly, ruthlessly honest with herself.

“Are you at one hundred, Mama?” Jack called, familiar with the nightly routine.

“One hundred. I’ll be right in with a story.”

“The one about the lion!”

“Naturally,” she said.

T
HE NEXT DAY,
Mr. Postlethwaite was arranging a selection of lady’s combs in what he hoped was the most enticing fashion when the bell jangled on the shop door.

He swiveled to beam at Elise.

“Well, good morning to you, Mrs. Fountain. Are you bringing more letters to post?”

“I have a proposition for you, Mr. Postlethwaite.”

“Ah, so seldom are my days enlivened by propositions from comely young ladies anymore. Please go on.”

“Would it be possible to trade this for a pair of silk stockings? Silk stockings for men, that is?”

She produced her hairbrush.

To his credit, Mr. Postlethwaite didn’t even blink. He took it and hefted it, turned it this way and that, studying it with a merchant’s eye.

“Ah, it’s lovely, Mrs. Fountain. The initials on it . . . they are yours?”

“Yes.”

“ELF. Whimsical, really.”

“I suppose. Do you think someone would buy it even with the initials on it?”

“Oh, certainly. Eventually. It’s a lovely brush, and the initials are unobtrusive enough. I’d be happy to effect a trade. Go and choose your stockings, Mrs. Fountain.”

Chapter 14

T
HE FOLLOWING MO
RNING,
P
HILIPPE
woke with a start. Again, he thought he heard heated whispering outside his door.

And then came, unsurprisingly, a tap.

He yawned. “Enter,” he rasped.

The door swung open. To his shock, a masculine voice said, “I am at your service, sir, if you would like assistance with dressing.”

Lavay propped himself upright and stared. He rubbed his fists in his eyes and took another look.

Surely he was
dreaming
he was back at Les Pierres d’Argent. Because standing before him was a tall, proper, elegant footman . . .

. . . and he was dressed in midnight blue.

Trimmed in silver braid.

Philippe slid out of bed and circled him as if he were an apparition.

He slowly reached out a finger and gave him a tiny poke.

The man didn’t budge or so much as blink.

“Who the devil
are
you?” he finally asked.

“I’m Ramsey, sir. Your footman, sir.”

“You’re one of the pair of footmen that came with
this
house?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Why are you here?”

“I won the coin toss, sir.”

“The . . .”

“Mrs. Fountain was unable to decide which of us to send to attend upon you, as we both, as she said, ‘suited.’ We tossed a ha’pence, sir. Lion side up, and here I am.”

Philippe stood back and studied him. He shook his head to and fro slowly. He was an absolute vision in well-cut livery, a striped waistcoat, pale silk stockings, and shoes that were polished to mirror brilliance.

Lavay gave a short, wondering laugh.

“Well, you’re
magnifique
, Ramsey.”

“Thank you, sir. I think.”

“You do thank me,” Philippe confirmed. “It means you look magnificent.”

Ramsey didn’t twitch a brow or alter his expression. He was impassive and regal. His posture was as straight as a mizzenmast. He was every inch the sort of footman Philippe had known his entire life.

And wonder poured through him like sunlight.

“And thank you, sir, for being so kind as to think of myself and James. Mrs. Fountain told us it was your idea.”

A clever strategic move on Mrs. Fountain’s part. “Mrs. Fountain may have made suggestions, to which I agreed. Never forget how very fortunate you are that she is in charge of the house, Ramsey. She is a . . . she is a miracle.”

“Of course, sir. She runs a very tight ship.”

Lavay smiled. He suddenly felt made of light.

“Please tell me how I may be of service, my lord.”

“Well . . . how are you with a razor, Ramsey?”

“I could shave a baby’s bottom and leave nary a nick.”

“Well, then, you ought to be able to shave me, I suppose.”

“But of course, sir. And might I suggest the nankeen trousers today, if you intend to go out? The weather is inclement, sir.”

“I thank you for the suggestion. But right after we’ve made me presentable, Ramsey, there’s something I’d like you to do.”

E
LISE WAS WAITING
in the kitchen with bated breath for Ramsey’s return, but she hadn’t expected him to return at a run.

“Quickly, Mrs. Fountain! There’s no time to lose! Lord Lavay wants you to fetch the vase from your room and bring it to him immediately!”

“The
what
? But what did he say about—”

“Go, Mrs. Fountain! Go!”

Well, all right, then.

Her cheeks were hot with disappointment. Perhaps he hated the livery so much that he felt the need to throw something, and his sense of economy resigned him to throwing something humble, rather than invaluable.

With a heavy heart, she scaled the stairs to her little room.

And came to a sharp halt.

The brown velvet chair was situated right beneath the window, next to the little writing table. The previous occupant of that space, the pedestrian wooden chair, had apparently been whisked away.

She approached it slowly, as if it were perhaps a hallucination.

Very like, in other words, Lavay had approached the footman earlier.

She circled it at first, then reached out and dragged her hand across its luxurious, now familiar, nap.

“What are
you
doing here?” she asked it.

The chair remained inscrutable.

She gave a short, wondering laugh and closed her eyes as joy poured through her, warm and soft and brilliant. Then she brought her hands up to her face and down again.

She seized the little vase, though now she thought it was a ploy.

She pivoted on her heel and wandered in a daze down the stairs to the kitchen, where things were as usual and none of the furniture seemed to have migrated to where it didn’t belong. Then she paused to review her hair in the nearest reflective object, which was the coffeepot, and bolted with unseemly haste for the stairs.

She remembered to adopt a more dignified pace as she approached, so that she managed to look entirely composed when she arrived, clutching the vase.

And her heart of course gave an appallingly eager little leap when she saw him. He hadn’t gotten uglier in the intervening days.

“A footman woke me this morning, Fountain,” Lavay said without preamble. As if it had been only yesterday since they’d last spoken, instead of a number of very awkward days.

“Very good, sir.”

“He offered to shave and dress me.”

“Did you take him up on that offer?”

“What do you think of my chin, Fountain?”

“It’s very shiny.”

That slow smile of his began, the one that wound around her like a golden net, and she smiled, too, helpless not to.

They basked for a moment in each other’s happiness.

“How did you do it, Fountain?” he said on an awestruck hush.

“Ingenuity, sir.”

He laughed, delighted.

She saw an interloper chair in the place she usually sat, retrieved from the second, smaller sitting room. This chair was a shade of rum, and it, too, looked quite soft though she’d never quite tested it.

“Lord Lavay, the brown velvet chair is in my quarters. Do you know why?”

“Is it? Puzzling, indeed. Perhaps it missed you and your caresses. Perhaps it walked up there all on its own.”

He used his fingers to walk across the desk, presumably demonstrating the chair walking up the stairs.

“My
caresses
?”

Her face all but burst into flame. Of course he’d noticed her touching the chair. He noticed
everything
. Just as he was likely noticing her flaming face now.

He made his fingers walk across the table again. “You see? A week or so ago I could not do that comfortably. Soon I will be stabbing cutthroats with alacrity once more.”

She clearly looked horrified, because he became serious instantly.

“I am giving you the chair, Fountain. You gave me footmen, and you have made me feel more at home than I have in so long. I will give you a chair. A fair exchange,
n’est-ce pas
? It is my wish as your employer that you should accept my gift. It has been in my family for generations. It was, in fact, once temporarily a throne.”

Oh, good God. Now she felt a little faint.

“It was a
throne
?”

“For heaven’s sake, no, Fountain.” He sounded pained. “And I thought you were clever. Only two generations, and I believe my aunt Louise-Anne died in it. She was ninety, closed her eyes, died, and tipped out of it during a game of faro, or so family legend has it.”

She laughed again. “But I can’t keep your chair! It’s an heirloom!”

She could in fact finance a few years of her life and Jack’s with that chair.

“It certainly is.
Your
heirloom now. But if you doubt me, I shall call it and see if it comes to me. If it does not, then it belongs to you.”

She gave a short, breathless laugh and shook her head. “I . . . I don’t know what to say.”

“Say ‘Thank you, Lord Lavay.’ ”

She breathed in deeply and exhaled. “Thank you, Lord Lavay.”

He smiled at her approvingly.

“Perhaps you will fall in love with this one, too.” He gestured broadly to the chair that had taken the brown one’s place.

The word “love” throbbed in the air so obviously that it might as well have been a heart, especially since all her senses were acutely heightened, anyway.

They both looked momentarily nonplussed.

He hurriedly added, “I wondered if you would be so kind as to sit in this new chair and take a letter for me, Mrs. Fountain.”

“It would be my pleasure.”

She settled into the new chair—also quite comfortable—and wriggled in until the back cupped her back. Then she took up the quill.

He strode to the center of the room, prepared to orate.

“Very well. It is to a young lady, so your best penmanship, please, Mrs. Fountain.”

“I have no other kind of penmanship, Lord Lavay.”

“Of course not, Fountain. And we begin.”
“Dearest Alexa.”

She dashed off the words.

“It has been too long, and as you suggest hopefully in your letter, I am indeed indestructible and all the essential parts of me remain intact. How could you question whether I’d like to see you, when you know your very presence is like spring in the midst of winter, and so forth? I hear you laughing even now, but how could I resist hyperbole when I know how it entertains you?”

“Mrs. Fountain? Why are you not writing?”

“Oh! Forgive me.”
“. . . entertains you . . .”

It was just . . . who was this Alexa? And why was his prose suddenly so sparkling?

It certainly sounded rather too enthusiastic to be another sister.

“It is as lovely to be known as it is to survive an attack in London that would have killed most men. Deep is my regret that our paths did not cross when you were last in Pennyroyal Green, and I should rend my garments if you did not pass this way again before I return to Paris.”

He paused.

“Do you think ‘rending my garments’ is a bit much, Mrs. Fountain?”

“Not if you don’t mind breaking the hearts of your new footmen-valets, who think you have beautiful clothing.”

“Lady Prideux finds me amusing, Mrs. Fountain. It is my responsibility to perpetuate that illusion.”

She froze.

The quill hovered over the foolscap, not touching it, like a bird frozen in flight.

And then she lowered it very, very carefully.

She was unusually still.

As if she was enduring some sort of twinge or pain.

“I notice you raised no objection to the word ‘illusion.’ I’m hurt, Mrs. Fountain, truly. In some circles I am in fact considered charming.”

He was teasing. Gently.

Her expression, stunned and blank, was puzzling.

She cleared her throat. “Lady Prideux?” she said faintly. She didn’t look at him. Her gaze was aimed steadfastly at the foolscap.

“Our families have been friends since I was born. They emerged from the revolution a trifle more intact than my family, in terms of both family members and fortune.”

He said this shortly. Because tension was gathering in the room, and he wasn’t certain why.

“Ah,” she said finally. And gave a strange, short little laugh.

She finally did look up at him. Staring at him as if she was seeing him for the first time, or rather, seeing him clearly for the first time.

She didn’t appear to be breathing.

And why on earth had she gone so white?

“Have you said all you wish to say to . . . Lady Prideux . . . Lord Lavay?”

“No,” he said, bemused, and a bit gently. “I have not. There is a bit more. If you would, Mrs. Fountain? Or have you chairs to caress?”

“Of course.”

She squared her shoulders, as if he’d asked her to lift the table instead of a quill, then bent to the task.

“I hope to hold an assembly in the home I am renting, my dear Alexandra, and if you should return, I most certainly will. Nothing gives me more pleasure to imagine dancing with you again, and the possibility of kissing your hand would warm the winter.

I remain your,”

“ . . . and then I shall sign it, as I usually do.”

She was silent, motionless, gone stiff and formal, and the light had gone out of her face. The joy of the previous few moments might never have happened. He was bewildered.

“If you have said what you intend to say, Lord Lavay, I shall post the letter.”

“I will take it to be posted tomorrow, Mrs. Fountain. It will do me good to walk as far as Postlethwaite’s.”

“Very well.”

She still hadn’t moved. As if she was waiting out some great pain.

“Is aught troubling you, Mrs. Fountain? Do you think the line about ‘hand kissing’ too florid?”

“No. If you have no further need for me . . .”

She stood abruptly and turned to leave as if the room were on fire. She was nearly to the door, and he felt something akin to panic.

“If I were to kiss you, for instance, you would never forget it.”

He all but flung the words at her like a net.

She froze midstride.

It was as if he’d shot her in the back with a dart.

Then she spun so quickly that her skirts continued to sway after she’d stopped.

She looked utterly stricken.

Hardly flattering.

“Mrs. Fountain, you’ve gone white. Am I so very repulsive, then? I thought my new scar made me look rakish.”

But his words emerged awkwardly. It was a jest meant to disguise a serious question, but it had failed at the task miserably.

She gave her head a little shake.

“You ought not tease me that way.” Her voice was peculiarly hoarse.

She tried for a smile.

It slid from her face like raspberry jelly.

He stepped toward her abruptly, concerned.

She stepped back.

“Tease you?” he said softly, urgently.

He realized he was burning her with a stare when she dropped her eyes.

He regretted it instantly, because he wanted to study the effect of his words there, because what he’d just witnessed had probably been more thrilling than it ought to have been.