Love's a Stage (25 page)

Vent answered with a grin that while there was nothing in the green land of England that he respected more than a sweet lady’s opinion, he had to say that there wasn’t a man in the world better to work for than Lord Landry. Mr. Vent had tried to make his name in the boxing ring for a time, but it was no life for a peaceable man, so he’d returned to the service of a man who’d been his boyhood friend. To hear Nick Vent talk, one would think Lord Landry a paragon of paragons, in kindness second only to the archangels, in generosity equal to the patron saint of alms. Frances was assaulted with anecdote after anecdote extolling Landry’s virtues, mercifully brought to a close by a sudden eerie whistle of wind in the chimney grate that recalled Mr. Vent’s mind to his responsibilities.

“If you don’t mind then, ma’am, I’ll set up in a straight-backed chair before the front door.” He nodded to Frances with a good deal of kindness. “You can rest yourself easy, ma’am, for there’s nobody that’ll get in here by me; so you have the word of Nick Vent. It’s a right bad scare you’ve had this night, so His Lordship tells me!” He tsked his sympathy. “There’s some that will have it that it’s a full moon that drives men mad.
I
say watch out for an eve like this one, for the dark of the moon.”

“Dark of the—” Her stare was blank, into space; then she flew to the window and gaped raptly at the heavens. “It is! It is!” She held up one finger, begging silence, and then paced a short circle on the flowered carpet, her hands pressed to her cheeks in a worried and thoughtful posture. She came to rest before Vent and looked at him with troubled hazel eyes. “The smuggler’s moon, they call it? The weather is clear, so I know they’ll make a run! And Kennan with them, no doubt!”

“Kennan, you say?”

Frances looked at him sharply. “You look as though—has Lord Landry mentioned something about Kennan to you?”

“Naught, ma’am, only that,” Vent hesitated, “that if that fellow tries to approach you, I’m to keep him off, and damn the consequences—begging your pardon, miss.”

“I must speak to Richard Rivington immediately! He lives downstairs.” She was walking toward the door as she spoke. “No! He won’t be there! He was going to Lord Landry’s house. I shall go there at once.” Heart thudding with excitement, she rushed to her bedroom and pulled from her wardrobe a wine-colored three-quarter-length coat lined in pink satin. With hurried fingers, she pulled a reticule jingling with sixpence over her wrist. As she returned to the hallway, she found herself confronting Vent.

“Ma’am, you don’t want to be going to Lord Landry’s house,” he said concernedly. “It’s a bachelor establishment, y’see, and not the right place for a young lady. And less tonight than most nights, when it will be filled with his lordship’s friends, bright young bucks every one of them. And spirits flowin’ like the Thames at flood tide.”

Frances would have walked barefoot across pin grass to catch Kennan. After the guillotine, a few drunken young bluebloods were a mere nothing. Vent shifted uneasily on his feet as he saw the determined look in her eye. He lodged every argument he could think of to dissuade her, until at last he saw she was adamant, and he’d better take her or she’d make her way there herself. What Landry would say about it later would be another thing entirely.

*     *     *

Some fifteen years earlier, Lord Landry’s father, a brilliant nobleman noted for his iconoclastic tendencies, had sold his ancestral pile on Saville Row to a wealthy paper manufacturer and employed one Mr. Basevi to build him a handsome Greco-Roman mansion on Belgrave Square. If, on completion, he found Mr. Basevi’s attics a bit too ornate and the porch a trifle pompous for his taste, he felt himself more than compensated by the particularly handsome interior with the many modern conveniences upon which he had insisted. His French chef had gone into raptures over the built-in Bodley range, the maids adored the modern plumbing, and even the lofty butler, Quelbream, was forced to concede the cellars adequate to hold his master’s store of fine wine. Of course, Quelbream had been a more tolerant man fifteen years previous to the arrival of Frances Atherton and Nick Vent on his doorstep this moonless night. He had never approved of Mr. Vent, and looked at the groom with magnificent impassivity, while ignoring Frances entirely.

“Lord Landry,” pronounced Quelbream, “is not at home.” The yellow-lit windows and the bright ring of laughter from within belied Quelbream’s words. Lord Landry was at home, but not to unknown females.

“As it happens,” said Frances, with more confidence than she felt, “I have no wish to see Lord Landry. Would you be so kind as to summon Mr. Richard Rivington?”

Quelbream’s nose tilted until it was nearly at right angles to the floor; he was much too dignified to allow a gleam of triumph to show in his eye as he said, “Mr. Richard Rivington is not within.”

This statement at least had the virtue of being true. Quelbream noted with dismal satisfaction that he had given the encroaching young woman pause; but Nick Vent, like the unabashed plebeian he was, began an immediate protest, saying that Quelbream was a dried-up snakebait and he’d better let the young lady in or lay no blame tomorrow on Nicholas Vent when Landry gently nailed his hide to the cellar door. Quelbream made only a barely audible sniff. He knew himself to be on solid footing. Landry maintained a bachelor suite several blocks to the east where he withdrew when the extended visits of his female relations rendered his mansion an excessively nice atmosphere. At this apartment, it was said, Quelbream was happy to have no personal knowledge of such irregular goings on; his lordship might, should the mood suit him, see fit to receive a member of his enormous flock of female admirers. However, they did
not
press their claims on him at his family home. Lord Landry might be renowned for the sweetness of his temper, but there was a streak of steel beneath that brooked no uninvited familiarities. Vent was much in his young master’s confidence, but Quelbream was smugly certain this time that the young ape had overstepped his bounds.

Vent was struggling with the unacceptable choices of leaving Frances outside while he fetched Landry, or napping Quelbream on the honker, when he saw at the far end of the foyer His Lordship’s cousin, Sir Giles, take a step from the Egyptian room. Sir Giles was one of the closest of what he affectionately referred to as “His Lordship’s cronies,” so he hailed him by name, adding, “Could you give us a hand, guv?”

Sir Giles, at least two sheets of the proverbial three sheets to the wind, spun about uncertainly and peered searchingly down the length of the foyer. “Nick?” he said questioningly, then, “Nick! Hello, little man. What’s toward?”

An intimate knowledge of Landry’s intelligent if rakish young cousin ensured that Vent would know the quickest way to attract that young gentleman’s somewhat erratic attention. “I’ve got a young woman here I’m trying to bring to Landry, but Quelbream won’t let me in.”

“A woman? Hell you say!” said Giles, sufficiently interested to begin the journey down the foyer in their direction. “Is she pretty?”

“I venture to say, sir, a beauty.”

“Is she, by God? Quelbream, you chicken-necked fossil, clear the way! Here’s David made another smash at the theater, and you cut up stiff about Vent’s damsel,” said Sir Giles amiably. He stopped, dismay spreading across his features as he recognized Frances. “Good God—Miss Atherton!”

It was a prologue that under any other circumstances might have set Frances writhing with embarrassment, but urgency has a single mind. “Please, Sir Giles, would you tell Richard Rivington that I’d like to speak with him?”

“I’ve already informed this”—Quelbream paused, majestically searching for Frances’ category—“this young individual that Mr. Rivington is not within.”

Giles shook his head to clear the pleasant fog in which it was enveloped and then glanced at the butler with an impatient frown. “That’ll do, Quelbream. You may go.” He waited for Quelbream to complete his disapproving retreat before continuing. “Frances, for the love of God, what are you doing here? David said you were safely home with Nick. And Quelbream was right, Richard isn’t here.”

“I have to find him.” There was an urgent pleading expression in her eyes.

Giles was a man of no little sangfroid, but in the past hour he had been as unstinting as the next man in toasting his cousin Landry’s success. It had never occurred to Sir Giles that he would be called upon to pursue any later activity more challenging than to lift his foot so his valet could remove his boots before putting him to bed. From what he’d seen of Miss Atherton, she could be a formidable armful, approached from a sober state of mind; and here she was, beautiful eyes shining with suppressed agitation. He took a step back, shoved his hands distractedly into his hair, and bluntly said:

“Well, you can’t. Zephyr’s had a bet riding with Sefton that David could turn out a major piece of drama before this year was out, and somewhere after he’d broached his third bottle, he took it in his head to collect. No one knows where Sefton is except there was mention of him intending to play cards tonight, so very likely Uncle Zeph will spend half the night trying to chase him to earth. Richard’s gone along with him to make sure he doesn’t do himself a mischief, considering what he’s consumed. Now listen, I’m no one to be telling you what to do, but there’s been some hard drinking going on, which makes this no place for you, and Nick—David’s going to wring your neck in the morning for letting her leave the safety of her home.”

“Let’s see if you can do better with her,” remonstrated Nick Vent.

They were interrupted by an opening door and the sound of voices at the end of the hall. Sir Giles cut Nick’s protest short with a wave of his hand, saying, “Oh, Jesus, someone’s coming. We’ve got to hide the girl.”

Vent grabbed Frances by the right arm and began to drag her across the foyer. “We’ll put her in the south drawing room.”

“No! Alvanley and Claremont are there having a hand of piquet!” Sir Giles seized her by the other arm, and she was rent nearly in two as he hauled her in the opposing direction. “It’ll have to be the library. Wait!” Giles fumbled inside his jacket and produced a gold coin, flipping it to Vent. “Go to the kitchen and give this to Quelbream, and tell him to hold his tongue with the other servants. I’ll send for you later.”

Frances was in perfect sympathy with any attempt geared toward the prevention of her presence being detected in this bachelor household, but she found her transition down an elegant landscape-lined hall, through a charming breakfast room highlighted with yellow glass, and into the library was accomplished with more breath-stealing haste than even she could have wished for. She saw that the effort had also taken its toll on Sir Giles, who released her arm, leaned against the wall, and winced as he massaged his temples. This action apparently bringing him some measure of relief, he stood erect and put his hand on the door to leave. Over his shoulder he said:

“Wait here, will you? I’m going to get David.”

“No,” cried Frances. “I—my business is with Mr. Rivington, and I don’t care to see . . .”

Her speech was cut short by Giles, who was on her in a second, slipping his arm around her shoulders and clapping his hand over her mouth.

“Hush! Just hush now! Or I’ll kiss you. Want me to kiss you?”

Frances shook her head so vigorously that he gave a crack of laughter. “Damme if I don’t want to kiss you anyway. Though I won’t, so stop kicking.” He gave Frances a rogue’s grin. “You’re adorable, but what a knack you have for injecting yourself into perilous situations! If you were my woman, I’d flog you. But I don’t doubt David’s too kind. Stay here.”

Frances’ indignant protest that she was
not
Lord Landry’s woman was addressed to the empty air. She was left to stare in angry bewilderment around the library.

It was a large room, the walls covered by glass-enclosed bookcases separated by classical statues. On the west wall was an enormous Renaissance canvas of Venus sprawled lasciviously in her bath, and on the east wall the exquisite marble fragment of a nude male torso, far more anatomically detailed than Frances deemed necessary in a statue. Life-size busts of Homer and Shakespeare examined her impassively from recesses near the window. Frances turned toward the neat bundle of coals glowing in the grate. As she watched, their sharp red iridescence began to remind her of the cruel, hungry orbs behind the slits in the executioner’s mask. Fox eyes—Kennan’s eyes.

She gave a start as the latch clicked behind her, and Landry, dressed still in his deep-blue evening coat, came into the library. He crossed the room with a graceful stride and enfolded her gently in an embrace. His questing fingers curled into her hair, caressing the back of her neck, and his lips nuzzled at her throat.

Frances felt a sweet burst of pleasure, quickly stifled. She might have tried to throw him off, but it occurred to her that the slightly heavy weight of his body against her was not only an amorous advance. He was leaning on her as much for support as in passion. After a moment, he said thickly:

“I wish you were naked.”

Frances exclaimed, and as she shook herself out of his arms, he said, “Will you do that for me sometime, Frances? Come and stand naked in my library? That would be beyond anything.”

“Certainly not!” said Frances severely, her cheeks tinted pink. “Sometimes, I think, you have the oddest notions!”

He laughed and pushed her unsteadily into a cane-work chair, propping himself with a dangerous bang against the glass door of a bookcase. “I’m drunk as a monk, sweeting; though I’m also devilish glad to see you. Giles tells me that Nick brought you, and you came looking for Richard. I’m bereft. Won’t I do as well?”

Frances eyed him somewhat nervously. “You don’t look to me as if you’d be good for much.”

This seemed to amuse him, and he swung his hand down to lightly pinch her cheek. “God, wouldn’t I love to show you how wrong you are. Why don’t you take off your cloak?” He bent to plant a kiss on her lips. “And your gown, your chemise, your . . .”

She wriggled from his grasp and put the cane chair between them and glared at him across its narrow width. “Do you think it’s possible, my lord,” she said in tones of honeyed sarcasm, “that we might have a
rational
discourse?”