The Disdainful Marquis (14 page)

Sir Sidney and his blatantly beautiful wife (an actress who had been lucky beyond her deserts, Violet whispered to Catherine as they went up the great steps to the front portals) were busily greeting their new guests.

“Ah, Duchess.” Sir Sidney, a portly little man, beamed. “So you have come to grace our halls as well. And dear little Violet, and this must be Rose,” he chortled, chucking Rose under her chin. “You see, we hear all here at Beauvoir. But who is this little darling? Never say, Duchess, that you have three exquisite companions now?”

The duchess permitted herself a little smile. “I do say it, Ollie. Good evening, Lady Sidney. So good of you to have us,” the Duchess said, knowing quite well that Lady Sidney had nothing to say about who shared her house with her.

But her host and hostess had already turned to greet other arrivals, Sir Sidney chuckling that every time the packet came from France, he sent orders to his servants to make up the beds, for the British were coming. It was with relief that Catherine followed in the train of the duchess up the staircase, off the huge stone hall to which no amount of torches or candles could lend warmth.

A flustered housekeeper showed them to spacious, lavish rooms that Catherine was too weary to admire. Before settling in, Catherine scratched softly on the duchess's door. Being told by a perfunctory Gracie, already in her night shift, that the duchess was going to retire, Catherine was happy to wash and slip into bed. She had time only to murmur a silent thanks that she had gotten so far without difficulties before sleep took her far from the duchess, the château, and France.

*

Catherine knew that her employer never rose before noon, and in the hours that she wandered through Sir Sidney's house, she came to understand that no female of rank did otherwise. Only the lower servants and she herself were up and about in the morning. A few gentlemen, she heard, had gone out early to ride with Sir Sidney over his countless rented acres. But she was well used to being alone, and contented herself in prowling the halls and investigating the premises, storing up details to regale Jane and Arthur with on some later, quiet country evening.

Still, she thought crossly much later on, as she struggled to do up her buttons while changing for dinner, if she could only get into the habit of sleeping the day away, her state would be vastly improved.

Rose tapped and entered her room just as the early dusk of a winter's day descended. Catherine stared at her in awe. For the comfortable, companionable Rose of the day seemed vanished. In her stead stood a startlingly beautiful woman. Rose wore a low gown, the color of her namesake. Her blond hair was swept up in a flurry of ringlets, a sparkling necklace sat upon her ample breast, and she glittered when she walked. A heavy perfume hung over her, and her bright eyes seemed heavily lidded and glistened in the candle's glow.

“Oh, don't you look fine?” Rose said happily, turning to Violet, all in flaming red, with red plumes twined in her curls, as she stepped into the room behind her. “Don't Catherine look lovely? I told her to get rigged out fine, and so she did.”

“And she didn't even ring for a maid. And so you should have, Catherine, to help you dress. Even though mine couldn't get out a ‘how do you do' in English, and just chirped ‘wee-wee' whenever I asked her anything.”

Catherine could see nothing exceptional in her looks beside her two co-companions. She wore the simplest of light-green garments that she could find in her wardrobe, with a sash of darker green beneath her breasts. She had built up Madame Bertrand's bold bodice so that only some of her white shoulders and breasts showed above it—not at all like Violet and Rose's deep expanses of exposed breast. At the last moment she had bound up her dark hair with a green fillet, and the only ornament she wore was a simple gold pendant that her mother had left her. She felt she looked the servant to Violet and Rose's great ladies.

But they saw, tentative and graceful in the candlelight, a slip and sprite of refreshing girl, so simple and refreshing as to overwhelm their finery and make them seem tawdry.

Violet sighed. “You're either the boldest thing in creation or the most innocent. I'm not sure I want to know. Come, we're dining in state with the ‘great lady.' After that, simply stay away from darkened corners or stay at the old dame's side if you wish to escape trouble.”

“Don't rally with Sir Sidney, dear,” Rose cautioned as they went on slippered feet to the duchess's room, “for he's a right old caution. And don't dance with Lord Lambert, nor Jimmy Crawley neither. And don't flirt with Sir Harold, for he's up to no good, and don't agree to see Viscount Hightower's collection of snuffboxes, because he hasn't got any, and, no matter what he says, don't offer to help Jamie Prendergast when he comes all over faint, for he's fit as may be, whatever he says.”

Rose's admonitions went on, with Catherine losing track of her whispered warnings and only vowing fiercely to herself to avoid all members of the opposite gender, footmen and waiters included. At last the duchess appeared in her doorway, nodding complacently at her entourage and quite taking their breath away. For she was in her best looks, all in lavender, tall, erect, and stately. She breezed down the stairs, as regal as a visiting dignitary, with her three companions behind her and her devoted Gracie watching from an unobtrusive darkened part of the upper stair.

They dined in a great room with a blazing fireplace that was big enough, Catherine thought, to accommodate a forest full of logs. Their table was set up under two huge chandeliers whose candles lit their plates and faces as daylight, but left the shadowy retainers who filled their dishes and glasses as faceless as wraiths. Catherine might not have been able to swallow a morsel if it were not for the fortuitous fact that she had been seated next to the gentleman she had met on the ship whom the duchess had called “the Vicar.” He was actually, he admitted, the Baron Watchtower, but his intimates called him Vicar because of his quiet, cautious ways. Catherine found him a dear, gentle old fellow and enjoyed his calm good humor and his easygoing ways.

She wondered what he was doing in this ribald company, for all about them the other guests, led by their host and hostess, were laughing loudly and drinking freely and calling to each other from all parts of the great table, in a manner, she thought, that was not at all seemly. But the Vicar spoke no more than the truth when he told her that though he was too old for such pleasures, still he enjoyed being part of such merry company. She could not know that in his time, the Vicar, so named because all his actions had so outrageously belied his manner, had been one of the most absolute dissolutes of his era. There had been no pleasure of the senses that he had not engaged in, no deeds too outrageous for him to attempt. He had never married, never having been so inclined toward women. And when he had noted an excellent nephew coming of age, he had decided the fellow would do a great deal better with his title than he ever had, and so had gone happily on with his own proclivities. Now he was truly burnt out and content, at last, to be just an observer of the scene. But since he had nothing in common with the tame socially correct world, he traveled in the duchess's set, preferring to spend the last of his years among those who understood his past rather than those who pretended to ignore it.

Catherine, he thought, watching her animated face, and seeing the candles reflected in the blue depths of her eyes, was in way over her head. This amused him, and he made a note to follow her adventures. For, for all his pleasant ways and gentle, amused acceptance of life, he was fully as selfish as the duchess and would never make a move to help a fellow creature if in some way it did not help him. Like the duchess, he had no interest in the passions between a man and a woman, but instead of spending his time gaining the attention of others, as she did, he derived pleasure from simply watching the follies of others. Catherine, he thought, would be an entertaining little creature to watch. There was every possibility she was what she appeared to be. And every possibility she was not. He was delighted to devote his attention to her throughout the long and riotous dinner.

After dinner, the ladies absented themselves from the gentlemen for only a brief time. The servants scurried to set up gaming tables in the great room to the left of the staircase, and musicians filed into the other room to the right. Catherine stood with Rose and Violet in the ladies' withdrawing room, but when the great doors opened, with a hasty farewell they both left her. She quickly sought out the duchess, who was seated at a card table with another elderly female and two middle-aged gentlemen.

Catherine, not wishing to call attention to herself to the point of summoning a chair, stood at Her Grace's shoulder in the shadows of the candlelight. After a few hands of a game Catherine did not know, the duchess glanced up at her.

“I thought so,” the duchess grumbled. “My luck never runs right when someone's watching the cards. Run away, gel, I don't require you now. You're setting my luck to ruin. Run away, gel, and amuse yourself. I won't need you any longer tonight.”

Catherine wandered out of the gaming room, for she did not wish to wager anything herself and could not just stand and watch others. She decided that as no one yet had gone back upstairs, it would be socially incorrect to do so. So she went into the large room where she could hear the music and watch the dancers swirl about, to look around for the Vicar to keep her company.

She stood in a dim corner, although not a truly darkened one, as Rose had cautioned. For in those dark recesses of the room she could make out dimly the figures of men and women, close together in intimate conversations. The waltz was played, and she saw Violet sweep by, her red gown swinging out with each step, in the arms of a tall, bulky gentleman with side whiskers. Rose, whom she could pick out by her dress, was in close converse with a short gentleman with a booming laugh. The Vicar, she thought, must be intent on remaining as unobtrusive as herself, for he was nowhere in sight.

So she stood and watched the scene before her. At one moment she saw the marquis dancing with a willowy woman in black; at another, she saw Rose again, this time with their host, laughing uproariously with him. She occupied herself with watching the changing couples for some time. But then her own hiding place was discovered. The aging gentleman she recognized as Old Bertie, his face gleaming with exertion, bowed and without a word hauled her, protesting weakly, off to the dance floor. She was not a bad dancer, she knew, but dancing with Old Bertie was one of the most harrowing experiences she had ever had. He gripped her too closely with his hot, wet hands. He trod upon her foot every other measure, and he clutched her closer to his protruding stomach every time she managed to get a little distance between them. When the music ended, he stood there and grinned at her.

“Right,” he said, mopping his forehead. “Now how about it, eh lass?”

“Oh no,” Catherine said quickly, to whatever he was proposing. And before he could reach for her again, she took advantage of the crowd and slipped away from him to the darkest corner she could find. But upon reaching it, she found that she had intruded upon a couple in intimate embrace, and, drawing in her breath sharply, she muttered an apology and made her way to another recess. Breathing more slowly, she found she had discovered an excellent outpost, very near to a window, and very near to some draperies, in only dim shadows, not absolute dark. She had barely caught her breath, when her heart sank as she saw the gentleman approaching her.

“Old Bertie's in a dither,” he laughed. “He's searching for you everywhere. ‘Where's that demned little green gal got to?'” the marquis imitated perfectly in Bertie's accents. “However, don't worry, I won't let on a word. You're quite safe here. But I would suggest standing near to a green drape next time. This golden one sets your gown off too well. Come, dance with me this time. I have ten years on Old Bertie, and he won't trifle with you when you're in my arms. In point of fact, you'll be safer from him there than in the embraces of these curtains.”

In some ways, Catherine thought, waltzing with the marquis was worse than dancing with Old Bertie. For although he was a graceful dancer, and although he did not hold her any closer than was seemly, she was far more aware of his lithe well-muscled body next to hers than she had been of the round mass of the older man's. He drew her near once, and the clean scent of him was sharper in her nostrils than the overheated miasma that had consumed her in Old Bertie's clutches. Far worse, though, was that he said not a word to her while they danced, and when she looked up, he gazed down at her with an unreadable expression. She was relieved when the music finally ended and he walked her back to a dim corner.

He stood next to her, looking down at her still while she searched for some light word to dispel the strange silence that surrounded them. At last, when she was about to begin to tell him some nonsense about what a lovely night it was, he spoke.

“Jenkins is right,” he sighed, so close to her now, she could feel his warm breath on her cheek. “It is far better to find out for oneself. And the question has been troubling me more than it should. For though you do indeed, in this glittering company, look like Bertie's ‘green girl,' the proof is in the tasting, isn't it?”

Before Catherine's mind could register what he said, she found herself in his arms, completely captured there, and being expertly kissed. The shock of his lips, so warm and unexpectedly gentle, quieted her for a moment. The experience was so oddly delicious that she stayed there, savoring it until a split second later the intensity of feeling that arose in her recalled her to her good senses. She was transformed into a fury the moment the realization of his action came to her from far beyond her amazed senses. She struggled free from him and, glaring up into his bemused, newly gentled face, she, her mind whirling with possible methods of retribution, kicked him forcefully on the shin.