Scandal Wears Satin (31 page)

Lady Warford sat up a degree straighter and a shade more stiffly. Her blue gaze bored straight into Madame as though she were prepared to read entrails, without the usual preliminaries.

For a moment Madame wondered whether Lady Bartham had made a mistake or misunderstood. Ladies were supposed to ask other ladies if they desired such and such an introduction, to avoid awkward moments. Maybe Lady Warford had agreed but had changed her mind.

Mon dieu
, I’m about to be snubbed
, she thought.
The cut direct—at the biggest event of the Season.

But nothing of what happened inside Madame showed on the outside. Outside she wore enough of a smile to be amiable but not at all fawning.

After all, Madame de Veirrion had a great fortune, and in Paris she was Somebody.

Lady Warford gave a gracious nod. “Madame.”

“Lady Warford.” Madame didn’t return the nod. She sank into a Noirot curtsey, the one Longmore had told her not to perform.

She heard everybody in the vicinity catch their breath.

When she rose, Lady Warford was wearing a speculative look.

Longmore appeared at Madame’s elbow. “Good gad, madame, it’s my mother, not Louis XIV. You French, always carrying everything to excess.”

“What is this excess you speak of?” said Madame. “This is
madame la marquise
, yes? What is wrong in this way I make my courtesy to your so elegant
maman
? Of whom, yes, I beg the pardon.” She turned her attention to Lady Warford. “You will pardon, I beg you please,
Madame de
—ah, no. It is Lady Warford I must say. My English is not yet of perfection.”

“I’m sure you’ll master it in time, Madame de Veirrion,” Lady Warford said. “As you seem to have mastered . . . other things.” She shot a glance at her son before returning to his companion. “I believe this is your first London ball?”

“Yes,
Madame
—Lady Warford. I make my debut, thanks to the great kindness of your friend Lady Bartham.”

“But of course I must have you,” Lady Bartham said. “Unthinkable not to have the most-talked-about lady in London at my party.”

“Of course you must,” Lady Warford said, smiling sweetly.

Lady Bartham said, with a laugh. “And I must have, too, the second most-talked-about, the Duchess of Clevedon.”

“Since most of the talk is in English,” Longmore said, “Madame is in the fortunate position of not understanding most of it. I daresay she barely comprehends three words in ten of the present conversation. Madame, you’re looking a trifle dazed. I think you need a drink. Lady Bartham—Mother—Clara—if we may be permitted to exit your exalted presence?”

He swept her away.

Chapter Seventeen

Had Mr. Brinsley Sheridan been a low, worthless, extravagant profligate, whose marriage was a skilful arrangement with his impatient creditors, we should have been the first to condemn and deplore the step which has been taken.

—The Court Journal
, Saturday 13 June 1835

T
hey danced.

It wasn’t what Sophy had expected. She’d been so fixed on her scheme and playing her part that she’d almost forgotten she wasn’t an actor in a stage drama but a lady attending a ball.

The music had started as Longmore was leading her away from his mother. In another moment, Lord and Lady Bartham began to dance, not with each other but with the partners etiquette dictated.

Then Longmore was saying, “Ah, the perfect excuse not to make polite conversation.” He led Sophy out among the swirling couples, and his arm went round her waist, and she caught her breath and said, “I’m not sure . . . It’s been an age since I—”

“I’ll lead,” he told her in French. “Leave it to me, Madame.
Trust me.
”

Moments later, he’d swept her into the waltz, and she forgot business and schemes and villains. For this time, there was only this man, and the motion of his athletic, confident body, as sure and thoroughly masculine in dancing as in everything else.

Round and round the ballroom they went, and it seemed she was floating among clouds of silks and satins, whites and pastels and vivid jewel tones and black and grey, all swirling about her, while rainbow stars sparkled among the clouds: emeralds, sapphires, rubies, pearls, and diamonds—above all, diamonds—glittering under another thousand stars in the crystal chandeliers.

It was like a fairyland.

How many such events had she attended, playing a maid? How many times had she described such scenes for the
Spectacle
’s readers?

But always, she described from the outside looking in.

She hadn’t danced in ages, as she’d tried to tell him. Not since Paris. And then she’d never attended a gathering like this. She’d never before danced in the arms of a man she . . .

Loved.

She looked up and found him gazing down at her, wearing a hint of a smile while amusement glinted in his dark eyes: amusement and something else she couldn’t read.

“You naughty girl,” he said in French. “What did I tell you about the curtsey? And why did I imagine you’d pay me the slightest heed?”

“I had a reason,” she answered in the same language. It was much easier to converse that way than in Madame’s mangled English. French came naturally. Murdering the English language in a believably French style needed thought.

“You always do,” he said.

“Firstly, like a ballet dancer’s movement, it captivates the eye,” she said. “Secondly, it displays the dress in a way that no other movement can.”

“Even this?” he said. “Was it not designed to appear at its most enticingly beautiful during dancing?”

“You’re learning,” she said.

“In self-defense,” he said. “Like Clevedon.”

He looked away and she followed his gaze. Marcelline and the duke were dancing, and it had to be obvious to all onlookers why he’d broken a cardinal rule of his class and married a shopkeeper. It had to be obvious as well, that he’d married a woman who loved him. Marcelline wasn’t wearing her card-playing face. She was herself: a woman deeply, deeply in love with her husband.

She deserved her good fortune, Sophy thought. Marcelline had worked since she was a child. She’d made the best of a bad marriage to a charming philanderer of a cousin. And when the cholera had come and destroyed their world, everyone in it, and everything they’d worked for, she’d gathered what remained of her family and brought them to England, with a handful of coins and a ruthless will to succeed.

Sophy tore her gaze from her sister. “If you understand this much about the dress design, then you know my motives were ulterior,” she said. “It’s true that this and all our gowns are meant to appear beautiful at rest and even more so in motion. But I ask you to bring to mind my earlier mission—the one that took us to Hortense the Horrible. Do you recall?”

“As though I could forget,” he said. “Your mole, in particular, is deeply etched—or should I say permanently sprouting—in my recollection.”

“We went there so that I could see whether it was the same old Dowdy’s or something different and more of a threat,” she said. “I needed to see your mother’s dress because they’d do their best work for her. It was better than their usual thing, but it still couldn’t hold a candle to ours. But how to make your mother see this?”

“I don’t see what this has to do with the curtsey,” he said.

“It didn’t occur to you,” she said, “that at the moment I was being introduced to your mother, she was surrounded by the work of Maison Noirot: Lady Bartham, Lady Clara, and I were all wearing Marcelline’s creations. Your mother couldn’t fail to notice the difference between what she was wearing and what we were wearing. It may take her a while to fully comprehend, but we’ve planted the seed.”

“Business,” he said. “The curtsey was business.”

“Advertising,” she said.

“You make my head spin, madame,” he said.

He drew her into a turn that made her head spin, too. Then she forgot business. How had she ever thought the waltz was merely a dance? To waltz with him was like making love—a kind of tortured making love—touching but not caressing. Holding but not embracing. A feeling of growing urgency and heat with no way to relieve it, no climax possible.

She was close enough to feel the heat of his body and the way his breath came faster. It was so deeply intimate, like the feel of his hand clasping hers, his other at her waist. It seemed as though this was where she belonged and had always belonged. She wondered at the women about her, who could dance in this intimate way with men who weren’t their lovers.

How can I stop?
she thought.
How can I go back to my life without him?

Nonsensical questions. He and she played a game, and this love affair of theirs—if that’s what it was—was merely a happenstance. Only a complete ninny would turn it into a romantic tragedy.

She hadn’t time to be a ninny.

She had a job to do. And if she made a mistake, a young woman’s life would be ruined . . . and take three women’s hopes and dreams and years of hard work with it.

Yet it was hard to stay detached and calculating while she danced with him.

When the music faded to a close, it was far too soon. Sophy wanted to throw her arms about his neck and kiss him witless and hold on to him because . . .

Because for a short time she’d known what it was to live in his world, rather than trespass in it. For a short time she’d known what it was to be special in that curious way her ancestors had been special: not because they were skilled artisans or inventors or brave soldiers or had in any way contributed anything of value to their fellow men, but because they were simply born special: aristocrats.

Above all, though, she’d imagined—believed—felt, even in her cynical, black Noirot heart—that she was special to him.

Maybe she was. But she knew how this story had to end.

Time to put an end to the tragi-comedy. Or farce. She wasn’t at all sure which it was.

Sometime later

L
ongmore looked on while Madame proceeded to cut a swath through the gentlemen. At present he stood with his mother, who was watching her, too.

As was Adderley, on the other side of the room.

“Do you mean to let the other gentlemen steal a march on you?” his mother said. “I should not be too sure of her, if I were you, Harry. You might have been first out of the gate, as you would put it, but these others might easily make up time.”

For the moment, there was no one else about, except an extremely elderly lady—another of Grandmother Warford’s friends—who was profoundly deaf. For a time, they’d had to say everything six or seven times, as well as answer the same question at least that often, but at present, her head was sinking toward her ample bosom and she was snoring.

Even though no one could overhear them, he was surprised. He bent an enquiring look on his mother.

“Don’t give me that look,” she said crossly. “It only shows how obtuse you are.”

“I can’t help it,” he said. “The lady doesn’t strike me as quite what you’d choose for my bride—yet here you are, urging me on to the altar.”

“She’s nothing like what I’d choose,” his mother said. “Still.”

He raised his eyebrows.

“Her English is atrocious,” his mother said. “She can’t have had a proper education.”

“Some people simply have no aptitude for languages,” he said.

“Apt or not, I’m not at all sure she isn’t a complete henwit,” she said. “But she is a handsome girl—”

“With a handsome fortune.”

“Don’t be vulgar.”

“If she were penniless, you wouldn’t be urging me to chase her,” Longmore said. “And I don’t see what the hurry is about.”

He glanced at the dance floor, on whose fringes Adderley lurked, watching Madame. “Oh, but look, that’s Lady Bartham’s third son Madame is dancing with. It would be a great pity if he won the lady’s heart and her formidable fortune.”

“It would be a great pity if you lost any girl to that callow creature,” his mother said. “But do as you like, Harry. You always did. Your sister, too. I vow, I have been plagued with the most undutiful children. If she had only listened to me, she would not be in this wretched situation. Every day that passes, I like him less and less—and I despised him to begin with. Look at him. Two dances with Clara and he abandons her. When I think of the men she might have had. Oh, it is too much. And see, even he is ogling Madame. How dare he?”

“They’re all ogling her.”

“And you’re mighty cool about it, I must say.”

“I believe it’s the sort of thing one must get used to. She attracts attention wherever she goes.”

She watched Madame for a time, her brow knitting. “Do you know, Harry, she puts me in mind of somebody.”

The dance was ending and Longmore saw Adderley making his way to Madame.

“Oh, no, my fine fellow,” Longmore said. “Amuse yourself if you like, but not with my merry widow.”

“Why should he not?” his mother said. “She isn’t yours. You make no push to fix her interest.”

“He has no business trying to fix it when he’s engaged to my sister—not to mention that Madame promised this dance to me.”

“Don’t make a scene, Harry. Not here, of all places.”

“Mother, you cut me to the quick. I never make scenes.”

He didn’t hurry across the room and he didn’t push anybody out of his way. Lord Longmore didn’t need to. All he needed to do was wear a certain expression, and people hastily moved out of his way.

W
hen Longmore reached them, Adderley was leaning in much too close to say something to Madame.

“So sorry to interrupt the tête-à-tête,” Longmore said. “But this dance is mine.”

“I believe you’re mistaken,” Adderley said. “Madame has promised the dance to me.”

Madame looked in bewilderment from one to the other. Then her expression became chagrined. “This is too bad,” she said. “You must pardon me, Lord Add’lee. Lord Lun-mour speaks correctly. It was this dance I promised to him. My abominable memory—I beg you to forgive. But you will have the next one.”

“Next is supper,” Longmore said. “Since this is the supper dance, I have the privilege of taking you in. To sup.”

“
C’est exact
,” she said. “I forget this.”

“How easily you forget,” Longmore said.

She shot him an unfriendly look, then turned a more affectionate one upon Adderley. “I shall see you after the supper, Lord Add’lee. If I am not too greatly fatigued.”

Adderley bowed and left, still smirking.

Longmore watched him go before turning back to Madame. “You expect to find my company fatiguing?”

“That is not what I say,” she said. “You turn my words the wrong way.”

“And your gaze as well?” he said.

“I cannot comprehend you,” she said.

“I noticed the glance you cast his way. I’ve never claimed to be a genius, but I reckon I know a flirtatious look when I see one.”

“And why should I not flirt?” she said. “Why have we this disagreement again and again? Have I the collar around my neck, like a dog? I am not your dog on the leash, Lord Lun-mour. I do not belong to you.”

Dream on
, he answered silently.

“Perhaps not,” he said. “But the gentleman belongs to my sister—as I have pointed out to you. Again and again.”

“This is monstrous. Of what do you accuse me? To steal this man from your sister?”