Lady Incognita (8 page)

Lady Constance, whose knowledge of cats, though quite sufficient before this day, had been rather thoroughly exhausted, looked up with a sigh of relief. “Phrenology?” asked she. “What is that?”

Aunt Julia, with the smile of a hunter keen upon the scent, pushed a chair closer and prepared to initiate a new believer into the mysteries of science.

Louisa, turning back to his lordship, saw his eyes dancing with merriment. “Do not despair,” he said softly. “I warned my dear sister. And so if she has her character dissected not to her liking the fault is entirely her own.”

He glanced toward the window. “Will you take a turn or two with me in the garden?”

  Louisa nodded. In her present state she thought she would surely scream should she have to watch Aunt Julia probe under Lady Constance’s artfully arranged curls. Anything was preferable to hearing Aunt Julia insult the Viscount’s friendly sister.

Their departure was not even noticed by the ladies, now deep in a discussion of the vagaries of the male sex and what an obvious help it would be to the female half of the species if they could ascertain these vagaries before it was “too late.”

Louisa, pausing in the hall to gather up her shawl, thought with a slight touch of hysteria, that any moment now Aunt Caroline would offer her cats as subjects of study and Aunt Julia would agree!

As they descended the steps into the little courtyard, Louisa drew in a deep breath. At least out here she would be spared the embarrassment of her peculiar relatives.

Quietly Atherton took her shawl from her arm and placed it around her shoulders. “Thank you,” said Louisa with a shy smile as he offered her his arm. For a few moments they ambled among the  flowers  in comfortable silence. Louisa felt a sort of calm peacefulness descend on her as they strolled. How very pleasant it would be, she found herself thinking, to stroll this way often, with Atherton at her side.

  This thought, however, soon shattered her calm. It was unwise to think such thoughts, unwise ever to regard his lordship through the sensibilities of a heroine. Such actions could only lead to heartache for the portionless daughter of a dead baron.

“I hope,” said Atherton after a little while, “that you will not refuse my sister’s kindness. She is, perhaps, a little before herself. She does dearly desire to design someone’s entrance into the
ton.
And at times she can be a mite feather-headed, but she is a good soul nevertheless. And she does feel this obligation to your Mama.”

At this last, Louisa scrutinized his lordship’s face sharply.  But if Lady Constance’s friendship with Mama was a made-up one, his lordship’s demeanor gave no sign of it. It seemed, thought Louisa, as though she had no choice but to give herself into Lady Palmerton’s capable hands.

“Do you think it wise,” asked his lordship suddenly, “to endeavor to persuade Betsy that romance does not exist?”

“I ... I am only trying to protect her,” faltered Louisa. “Young, innocent girls can be very badly hurt.”

“So they can,” agreed Atherton. “Have
you
been so hurt?”

His dark eyes fastened so suddenly on her own seemed to take her breath away.

“No, no,” she stammered. “I ... I have not been hurt. I have known few men.”

“That perhaps explains it,” said his lordship speculatively. “But is not your approach to life - the belief that
no
heroes exist - perhaps as detrimental to a girl as the belief that the world abounds with them? Would not a happy medium perhaps be a wiser choice?”

“I ... I do not know.” Louisa felt all her convictions being shaken. For years she had written romances, quite set in the thought that heroes never
had
and never would exist. But, confronted by one in the flesh, how could she deny their existence?

“I wish you may at least consider the possibility that heroes exist,” his lordship continued. “Unless , of course, you mean for Betsy to go off to the highest bidder.”

“What!” Louisa drew away from him in outrage. “How dare you say such a thing! I only want Betsy to be loved and cared for.”

“And for that she needs a husband,” added the Viscount gently. “Nor will it hurt her, in acquiring one, to have a little faith in heroes.”

“I ... I shall think about it,” Louisa found herself saying. “Perhaps you are right.”

Atherton bent to pick several marigolds and offer them to her. “They complement your hair,” he said with a grave smile, reaching out to touch a truant curl.

  Louisa accepted the golden flowers and sniffed their slightly bitter fragrance. “I love marigolds. They were Mama’s favorite flowers.”

“Then I made a wise choice,” said Atherton again tucking her arm through his.

“Have your read Lady Incognita’s latest romance?” he asked.
“Love in Peril
I believe it is called.”

“Yes, I have read it,” replied Louisa.

“As I recall,” said his lordship, gazing at the flowers in her hand, “marigolds were that heroine’s favorite flower.”

“Yes,” murmured Louisa. “I believe they

were.”

“Do you not find it unusual that the heroine should have the same preference in flowers as you do?”

Louisa shook her head, hoping that Atherton would not remember that that heroine also bore a physical resemblance to Louisa herself. But then, she assured herself quickly, there must be many young women in the world with chestnut hair and gray eyes.

His lordship looked as though he was going to speak again, but before he did, Betsy called from the open doorway. “Lou-is-a. The lady wants to go home.”

“Coming, Betsy.” Louisa did not know whether she was pleased or not that the Viscount would be leaving. She certainly enjoyed his company, but their conversation of the last few minutes had been rather close to an area she would prefer to avoid. She could not tell Atherton that she was Lady Incognita. Such a disclosure would, among other things, break her word to Mr. Grimstead who insisted that complete secrecy as to the author’s identity would insure higher sales. And she shuddered to think what would be his opinion of her should his lordship ever discover the truth. Women writers were considered a species apart. Surely no well-bred woman would so demean herself as to fall to such depths. And if Lady Incognita were discovered to be the daughter of a baron, what a field day the
ton
would have ripping her into little pieces. There would be nothing left, nothing at all.

His lordship, hand on her elbow, guided her up the steps and down the hall to the front door, where Lady Palmerton stood waiting. Louisa watched in silence as Atherton expertly shawled his sister and accepted his beaver and gloves from Drimble.

“You will hear from me, depend on it, my dear,” said Lady Palmerton. “We shall have all the
ton
talking about you.”

Louisa was about to protest that this was not at all her wish, but a look from Atherton stopped her.

“I shall be calling again,” he said calmly as he drew on his gloves and clapped the beaver on his dark head. “I much enjoy our conversations about literature. And, of course, I have to check on Apricot’s growth.”

“Of course,” murmured Louisa, scarcely knowing what she was saying.

His lordship escorted his sister down the steps to the carriage and handed her in. Then he climbed in beside her, said a word to the coachman, and sat back as the carriage drove off.

Louisa stood in the doorway staring after the departing carriage until a discreet cough from Drimble recalled her to the present. With a start she withdrew so that the grave butler could close the door. “Thank you, Drimble. I fear I am getting absentminded these days.”

“Yes, miss,” replied Drimble gravely and Louisa, already turned away and mounting the stairs, did not notice the merest of smiles that crossed that worthy retainer’s face. Absentmindedness, he was telling himself, was not precisely the matter that ailed his young mistress. No, it was something far more common than that. And about time, too.

Chapter Six

The next several days passed slowly. Louisa spent a great deal of time “at her accounts.” The family was all so used to her spending hours closeted in her room that they gave it little thought. But for Louisa the writing of the romance became more and more arduous. It seemed that nothing she could do would keep Reginald from looking and behaving like Atherton.

Her rest at night was disturbed by visions of the Viscount performing all the manly feats that the plot had decreed for Reginald. Even more disturbing was the fact that in those dreams Bernice’s features and form were those of Louisa herself.

This simply must stop, she told herself as she lay early one morning watching the sun send golden glimmers over the faded yellow curtains of the old oak bed. She had to finish this book. And she had to sell it. There was no other way to keep the family going. And most especially now that Lady Constance had become her friend. For that lady’s grand designs would demand some new gowns for Louisa, of that she was quite sure.

Thank goodness that Aunt Caroline had some skill with the needle. Between them they should be able to alter a few gowns, maybe even just one new one, to make them serve for many. They would simply have to, Louisa told herself firmly. For she would not eat away the small reserves that she had so carefully built up against Betsy’s coming out.

She sighed. But there still remained the question of what to do about
Love in the Ruins.
How could she take the book to Mr. Grimstead when the hero was so blatantly a copy of Philip, Viscount Atherton? She could not, she told herself, her fingers picking restlessly at the covers. If all the
ton
were engaged in trying to discover the identity of Lady Incognita, it would never do to so involve Atherton.

She sighed again. Before this last visit it had seemed all right. Who would imagine that a man of Atherton’s stature would stoop to reading romances? But even if he did not read this one - and after their last conversation Louisa much doubted that - someone in the
ton
would. And the Viscount would become the object of notoriety.

Louisa shifted anxiously. She could not allow that. But neither could she tell Mr. Grimstead that there was no romance. If only there were some way...

Suddenly Louisa sat bolt upright in the old bed, the covers falling from her shoulders. There was a way! It was a daring one, certainly. For all Lady Incognita’s heroes to this day were dark brooding men. But if she made Reginald blond? Gave him piercing blue eyes instead of black ones? Then perhaps Atherton’s mannerisms could be retained. Surely many men moved with lazy catlike grace and many beaux surveyed the world from heavily lidded eyes.

Yes! That was it. Louisa threw back the covers  with determination and went straightway to her task. It was not easy changing the forceful dark Reginald to a forceful fair one. For Atherton’s familiar features kept getting in the way.

But finally, when the rest of the family had long breakfasted and the sun was high in the sky, Louisa laid down her pen with a feeling of satisfaction. Mr. Grim-stead would get his manuscript on time. Lady Incognita’s newest work would harm no one, and life in the house on Arlington Street would go on in its normal fashion.

  Or almost. Louisa still looked with some foreboding on Lady Palmerton’s plan to introduce her to the
ton.
But there seemed little she could do about it. Lady Constance, like her brother, was not a person to be thwarted.

With this none too comforting thought, Louisa locked everything up and pushed herself away from her writing desk. She must hurry into her clothes for it was nearly that time when visitors might be expected. And these days one could never be sure.

Some minutes later she regarded herself in the cheval glass that had been her Mama’s and frowned in dissatisfaction. The dress of coral jaconet that she and Aunt Caroline had stitched fit well. And certainly it was as much of the latest mode as poring over the fashion books could make it. But there was certainly no denying the fact that she was not a beauty. She had been ridiculous to imagine that anyone might connect her with the heroine, Bernice. Gray eyes and chestnut hair did not make a woman a beauty.

At four and twenty she knew she was beyond the age for marrying. She had never come out. And it was pure stupidity on her part to be dangling for a husband.

  Thus said one part of her quite severely. But another part replied with equal strength that it was not a husband that she particularly sought, but a hero. And if those two should happen to be united in the person of one Viscount Atherton it would only be by the purest chance. Then, thoroughly fatigued by this inward argument that seemed to go on even while she slept and was probably the occasion for the unusual paleness of her cheeks, she turned toward the door and her tardy breakfast.

As she entered the dining room she found a giggling Betsy chasing the kitten Apricot around the legs of the great table. At the sight of her sister Betsy scooped the kitten up and held him out for inspection.

“He has grown very well, don’t you think?” asked Betsy, eyeing her sister’s face far too closely for Louisa’s comfort.

“Yes, he has, dear. He is a lovely kitten.”

“Louisa, are you ill?” Betsy, never one to mince words, came directly to the point.

“Me! Of course not, Betsy. You know I am perfectly healthy.”

Betsy shook her head. “Something is wrong, Louisa. You are dreadfully pale.”

“It’s just that I have not been sleeping well of late,” Louisa confessed, hoping to turn the conversation to other matters.

“Then it must be love,” replied Betsy promptly. “And the hero is Atherton.”

“Betsy!” Louisa felt the room begin to recede and grabbed desperately at a chairback.

  “I’m sorry, Louisa. I didn’t mean to upset you.” Betsy was there immediately to give her sister a supporting arm. “But that’s always the way it is in books.”

“I know, dear.” Louisa eased herself into a chair. “But life is not a book. And if you were to suggest such a thing to his lordship ...” The mere thought made her tremble violently. “I do not believe he would ever return. And I ... I should be most dreadfully mortified.”