Microsoft Word - Sherwood, Valerie - Nightsong (12 page)

Kells grunted and Hawks hid a grin as he turned the team about, a maneuver necessitated by the position of the building, which was set at an angle with the street as if to command a view of Fort James on the point.

But Carolina's impressive entrance was destined to be spoiled. Even as they were about to step through the doorway, where the portly little governor in bronze satin was standing next to his wife in applegreen and an arrogant young woman in pink silk, there was a howl from the direction of the kitchen followed by such piercing screams that the governor and his wife both broke and ran for the commotion; the woman in pink-who must have been his cousin, Mistress Grummond-trailed distractedly after them, leaving the arriving guests to fend for themselves.

"Someone upset a boiling kettle, I'll be bound," muttered someone at Carolina's elbow. "Over somebody else from the sound of it," came a cheerful observation from behind her.

And Carolina found herself looking into the smiling face of Louis Deauville, who must, she thought irritably, have deliberately stationed himself with a view of the door, for he bobbed toward her eagerly the moment they entered.

By the time she had introduced the Frenchman to Kells, by the time all the proper pleasantries were exchanged, by the time the panic in the kitchen had been quieted and a doctor summoned for the sobbing servant girl who had accidentally dribbled scalding sauce onto her foot, by the time Acting Governor White and his lady were back in position to receive at the door, Carolina and Kells were deep into the room, the music had struck up, and Louis Deauville had made her an impressive leg and demanded the honor of the first dance.

Kells was conversing with a nupriverplanter who was urging him to buy the property next to his, a subject which might keep him occupied for the next half hour, so Carolina was pleased enough to glide out upon the floor with the engaging Monsieur Deauville, for she was dying to ask him about his adventures in London.

"I am told you know London well, Monsieur Deauville," she challenged him.

The Frenchman, a marvel this night in fawn satin heavily stitched with orange silk, shook his golden periwig gracefully and admitted to having some small acquaintance with the town.

"And perhaps some acquaintance with its gaming houses as well?" Carolina asked negligently, permitting him to twirl her about so that her wide skirts billowed.

"Indeed yes," was the blithe rejoinder. "What would the so beautiful lady care to know about them?"

The so beautiful lady smiled up at her elegant dancing partner and murmured, "I wonder ifyou could tell me about a certain gaming house-let me see if I can remember the name. Could it be Mistress Masterson's?" She frowned as if searching her memory.

"I believe you mean Chesterton," he supplied promptly. "Jenny Chesterton's." "Ab, yes ..." Carolina's face cleared. "And was she not once a headmistress?" she wondered vaguely.

"Indeed she wasl" the Frenchman agreed gaily and promptly led Carolina into a pattern of steps so intricate that she decided he must indeed have been a dancing master back in France. "She maintained a very select school for young ladies, so she told me, until she was discovered en deshabille, I believe I must call it, with one Lord Ormsby."

Carolina chuckled inwardly. En deshabille was a mild way of putting it, for Jenny had been discovered by the mama of one of her young charges, clad in her chemise, in the midst of a wild game of Blind Man's Buff with Lord Ormsby and some of his rowdy friends-all of them caught prancing about, very drunk, in their smallclothes.

She was careful not to betray a personal knowledge of Jenny Chesterton or her establishment. Instead she looked up at Louis Deauville with her large lustrous eyes and said in a wheedling voice, "I am told you have some wonderful tale to tell about the plaee----something about an English schoolgirl?"

Beneath the power of that silver gaze, Louis Deauville's fawn satin chest expanded.

"Ah, she was a pretty piece," he sighed. "A head of wonderful auburn hair, tres merveilleux, tres elegant."

Yes, that would have been Reba-marvelous auburn hair, very elegant! Carolina's next question was flung out carelessly. "Did you know her well?"

Monsieur Deauville's eyes glittered with amusement. "You wish to know if she was my paramour, non? You wish to hear of my amorous adventures, my affaires de coeur?"

"Not all of them," chuckled Carolina. "We would find ourselves dancing till dawn!"

Flattered, Monsieur Deauville beamed.

"Just of your amourette with her," specified Carolina, giving him a wicked glance. "I am told it is an amusing tale."

At this reference to the affair as a "passing fancy," Louis Deauville drew himself up.

"But it was tres serieux, madame!" he declared with mock solemnity.

"Well, serious or not, I would be glad to hear you tell of it, Monsieur Deauville,"

laughed Carolina.

"First I must say that I am not so much the gambler," sighed the Frenchman with a charming shrug. (Carolina doubted that statement but she repressed the merriment it brought to her eyes.) "So when this former schoolmistress bore me away to her abode, this gaming establishment, I did not care to play but merely sipped wine and observed the play until this jeune fille, this glowing glowing beauty, this-"

"Auburn-haired girl," murmured Carolina, wishing he would get on with it. "The one with the elegant clothes."

"Ah, yes." His expressive face mirrored an ecstatic memory and he paused to let her expectations mount. "But I did not meet her at once, you understand. She was indisposed." (Probably sleeping late, thought Carotina skeptically, remembering Reba's old habits.) "But later, when the patrons had gone, I was about to leave also, but Jenny Chesterton asked me to stay on. She said there was to be a party. And indeed almost at once an English peer, who I learned was Lord Ormsby, arrived with a party of friends. The gentlemen were all very far gone on drink, and most of the ladies as well-do you think this story too risque, perhaps, for your tender ears, madame?"

"I doubt it," Carolina said tranquilly.

His eyes sparkled. "There was much drinking of good Bordeaux, the evening grew wilder. Someone brought a sheet and the ladies disrobed down to their chemises and paraded behind it with candles behind them while the gentlemen made wagers as to which lady it was who stood revealed in silhouette."

Carolina could envision the scene. They would have pushed back the tables in the main gaming room downstairs-that room she remembered so well as the stiff front reception room of Mistress Chesterton's School for Young Ladies and as a citadel of virtue-and the men, drunk enough to slosh their wineglasses, would have lined up on the gilt chairs, all in a row, to cheer on their favorites as each minced out in a state of undress behind the sheet to pose saucily with the candlelight behind her and only a thin sheet between her and the onlookers.

"There was one young lady whose-er-profile

I could not quite recall. She was not, you understand, to be overlooked. She was a shade taller than the others and of a more delightful-er-stance."

Reba always stood proudly, thought Carolina. And

thrust her chest out provocatively. Ah, yes, Deauville would indeed have noticed her enticing silhouette behind the rippling sheet!

"Afterward we all played Blind Man's Buff in our smallclothes and there were pretty indiscretions all about."

Carolina could well imagine!

"The ladies, I am afraid, got very drunk and the auburn-haired beauty, who seemed not so used to drinking, tripped while dancing and fell upon a wine-glass that had rolled out upon the floor and cut herself on the hip. I carried her upstairs, away from the fray, and washed the cut. It was, you understand, necessary" –his wicked grin flashed-"to remove the young lady's chemise in order to attend her wound properly and-ah," he finished regretfully,"the dance is ending. I regret I cannot say more, madame."

A cut on the hip! And when Carolina had shared a cabin aboard the Mary Constant with Reba, she had acquired a small new scar on her hip! Carolina remembered remarking on it and Reba had shrugged and muttered something about broken glass.

And now her irritating dancing partner was regretting that he could not say more!

"Oh, but you must say more, Monsieur Deauvillel" cried Carolina in a state of near panic lest this elusive Frenchman disappear into the crowd before telling her all there was to know. "I cannot let you escape. You really must dance the next dance with me!"

Deauville's grin deepened. He prided himself on his timing and knew he had caught the attention of the woman in black and silver at last. Now he shook his head chidingly at several young bucks who were just converging upon Carolina. One of them had heard her last remark and was staring open-mouthed at the couple as they glided out upon the floor. The dazzling Silver Wench begging this Frenchie from nowhere to dance with her while she snubbed the cream of Port Royal? His indignation caused him promptly to repeat what he had heard to both of the disappointed young bloods who had joined him. Soon the story of Carolina's beseeching remark was all over the room and heads were turning curiously to eye the handsome pair, who were gazing at each other in such rapt fashion as they trod a measure.

But Carolina was happily unaware of all this furor. She was hanging on Monsieur Deauville's words.

"And she was the schoolgirl?" she heard herself saying. "Indeed, Monsieur Deauville, I can scarce credit it!"

Her dancing partner nodded urbanely and executed a difficult tum with aplomb. "The chemise presented no obstacle," he informed her with a bland look.

Carolina almost choked. "And you-?"

"Carried her away to paradise, madame--or so she said! Ah, she was of a vivacityunmatched. Her fervor enveloped me, destroyed me!" He rolled his eyes mischievously toward the ceiling.

Carolina blinked. His meaning was transparently clear. Plainly Reba had not spent all her time at Jenny Chesterton's mooning over her lost marquess! Indeed there was obviously much that Reba had not told her!

She let Deauville rave on, describing Reba's eyes ("russet pools"), her skin ("purest silk"), her mouth ("a delicate rosebud"), her hands ("fluttering hands"), her feet ("daintily flying"), but she could not resist giving him a skeptical look for she remembered Reba's russet eyes as hard as agates, her rosebud mouth often intoning harsh things, her "tluttering" hands waving imperiously at servants, and her

"dainty" feet tapping the floor angrily when her will was not instantly obeyed.

Deauville sighed. "Ah, she was an amazing beauty, this lady. The most glorious I have ever seen save for one-yourself, madame. Indeed you are a jewel of price in that gown!" His hot gaze played over Carolina in her elegant shepherdess gown, and rested lingeringly on her breasts now rising and falling with the exertion of the dance and threatening to break through the delicate silver tissue of her bodice. "I have no doubt you could match her," he added significantly. "Indeed that you could best her, feature for feature."

Sans chemise, no doubt! thought Carolina, hot color rising to her face.

Across the room a tall gentleman in gun-metal satin arrested the wine glas she was just then raising to his lips and regarded them with a narrow gaze.

"Monsieur Deauville-" she began protestingly.

"Ah, call me Louis!" Monsieur Deauville's golden periwigged head bent slightly over hers and his voice deepened. "For you, rna beaute, are incomparable!"

It was very pleasant to be told one was beyond compare, whether or not one believed it.

"You must not call me 'your beauty,'" Carolina chided him a little breathlessly-but her eyes were dancing as she said it.

"But, mon Dieu, it is of such a truth!" he exclaimed, whirling her about.

"Nevertheless," cautioned Carolina, laughing, "let not my husband hear you say it!"

The Frenchman's voice was tinged with insolence. "Why?" he scoffed. "Is he of such a dangereux disposition?"

"He is a dangerous man at all times," she warned him lightly. "But truly I have enjoyed hearing about your English schoolgirl, Monsieur Deauville. I found it all most amusing."

Deauville saw that the dance was ending-he was losing her!

"Ah, but you have not yet heard all, madame," he said regretfully. "The tale she told me about her life and about some blonde friend of hers-that was even more amusing."

Blonde friend! Carolina snapped to attention. That "blonde friend" could well be herself! The dance had ended but she was of no mind to let the Frenchman go.

He bowed but she snatched at his arm. "I am dying to hear-no, no, you must not leave me yet, we must have one more dance!"

Delighted that he could hold this dazzling beauty in thrall with tales from a past that was none so glamorous, if the truth be told-and fully aware, as Carolina was not, that all eyes were upon them-Monsieur Deauville swept the lady in silver and black out upon the floor again with a masterful flourish.

Across the room conversation around Kells grew hushed. The lean buccaneer did not move so much as a muscle, but his gray eyes had taken on a very steely expression.

"Monsieur Deauville." Carolina's voice was breathless and for the moment she was alone in the world with her dancing partner. "What did she tell you?"

"She told me she was the daughter of a duke but she had changed her name."

(Daughter of a rich merchant and using her own name! Carolina corrected him mentally.) "She said she was on an escapade, that she had run away from home."

(That at least was true, but did she tell you that she had been living with a scapegrace marquess? wondered Carolina.)

"Did she tell you where her family seat was?" she asked scathingly.

Deauville frowned. "No, she was rather vague about that," he admitted. "She insisted that she could not tell me because she was escaping from the unwanted attentions of some fellow who wished most ardently to marry her." (Reba was the one who wanted most ardently to marry! thought Carolina. Her marquess wanted to escape, and I was the one who plunged them into matrimony at the last!)