Vintage Love (13 page)

“Answer briefly and always vaguely,” Felix Black told her. “That is the style of kept women.”

“I’m fortunate in having the benefit of your experience,” she said with a rueful smile.

“You all know what you have to do,” the man at the desk said brusquely. “A carriage will be here at seven to take you to the party.”

After their dismissal George Frederick Kingston rushed off to the tailor to get some suitable clothes. Eric Walters lingered in the hallway to address her.

“Are you nervous?” he asked her.

“A little,” she admitted.

“I’m sure you’ll manage very well,” he said.

“It is different for you,” she told him. “You are playing yourself. My role is foreign to me.”

“If you follow Black’s instructions, you’ll be all right. He is a master at this sort of thing.”

“I’m beginning to realize that,” she agreed.

The handsome Walters smiled. “Though I think it a shame to take a lovely creature like yourself and make her up as a painted French woman of ill repute.”

“I do not mind at all,” she told him. And not wanting to hear any more compliments from him, or get too friendly, she turned and went upstairs.

Mademoiselle arrived late in the afternoon, and the process of changing her into the French woman began. Betsy had to patiently allow the excitable Mademoiselle make her up. It all had to be exact, even to the dress with the extravagantly low-cut bosom — more daring than anything she had ever worn before.

“It is too revealing. And low in the back as well!” she complained.

“Not for the woman you are supposed to be,” Mademoiselle laughed. “Those are the places you wish the men to focus their eyes on!”

By seven she was ready. And as she stood before the full-length mirror in her room, she was filled with admiration for the ability of Mademoiselle. She looked like quite a different person, while still retaining her own features.

Mademoiselle warned her, “You must walk so! Not like a little school girl but like a woman of experience!” And she moved slowly across the room showing her.

Betsy laughed and tried it and after a few minutes she was able to give a fair imitation of the mademoiselle. “Will I do?” she asked.

“But perfect!” Mademoiselle exclaimed. “Now we go down to Monsieur Black. He will have the final word.”

Felix Black was in the lower hallway in earnest conversation with a well-dressed young dandy, Walters, and his richly clad and earnest-looking father, Kingston. All three men turned to watch her come down the stairway accompanied by a beaming Mademoiselle.

“Gad!” Eric Walters exclaimed. “I don’t believe it! You’re tormentingly beautiful!”

Felix Black stepped forward and took her hand. She bowed to him and smiled in a flirtatious manner. The master spy, with his usual dry understatement, said merely, “You will do!”

Kingston filled in generously with, “I have never had a more scintillating leading lady.”

They left in the carriage which took them through the foggy cobblestoned streets. There was a somewhat embarrassed feeling among them that did not encourage conversation. So they sat in near silence.

After what seemed an interminable time to her, the carriage came to a halt by a mansion with torches burning on either side of its entrance. Pages in livery came running to open the carriage door and direct the driver where he was to take the vehicle.

Major Eric Walters, more handsome than usual in his evening jacket of blue, stepped down and took her hand to help her to the street. He smiled as he said, “The curtain is about to rise!”

BETSY TENSELY clung to Major Eric Walters’s arm. She was as nervous as she could ever remember as they mounted the stone steps and entered the vestibule of the great mansion. George Frederick Kingston was close behind them, and at the door he caught up with them and gave her a smile of encouragement.

“You’ll be the hit of the party,” he predicted.

Their wraps were taken by servants stationed at the door, and then they joined the reception line presided over by Sir Humphrey Wood and his wife, Lady Estelle. Major Eric Walters bowed to their host and hostess, who knew him well, and gave her introduction, “My fiancée, Mademoiselle Gaudet!”

Sir Humphrey Wood, a huge man of more than six feet, towered above her as he did over everyone else. He had a craggy face with a large, hooked nose, but his eyes were friendly, and he took her hand and said, “You are charming, mademoiselle.”

She smiled graciously and moved on to Lady Estelle who commented on her dress. “You must have the best seamstress in London, my dear!” the thin gray-haired woman said.

Mademoiselle merely smiled again, since she was not supposed to be fluent in English. She moved on as Eric introduced Kingston as his father. The actor put on a good show, playing the part of the blustering country squire to the hilt. After they moved on, Eric procured drinks and some food for them, and they stood together in a group.

“The dancing is across the way in the ballroom,” Eric told her. “And the gambling is upstairs.”

Kingston gazed at the fashionably dressed guests around him and said, “I’ll leave the dancing to you young people while I go up and investigate the gaming tables.”

“Be cautious,” the young major told him with a smile. “The stakes are high here. He would never consent to cover any debts you might accumulate.”

The actor bowed. “You may depend on my discretion! I shall put out only a few pounds of my own money and no more.”

They left him to enter the brilliantly lighted ballroom. An orchestra played at one end of the big room with its shining hardwood floor. The floor was filled with dancing couples, and in chairs arranged along the sides of the room, there were a number of spectators.

“Do you enjoy dancing?” he asked her.

“When I’m in the mood.”

“What about now?”

“I’m terribly nervous,” she whispered. “I feel everyone knows I’m wearing a wig and makeup, and they’re staring at me.”

“If they are staring, it is because of your beauty,” he told her. “They don’t see such loveliness except on rare occasions.”

“I’m sure you’re flattering me,” she said.

“At any rate let us dance,” he replied, leading her out onto the floor. They took their places in a platoon of stately dancing couples.

Betsy thought it strange that she was attending this ball with a man she had been determined to hate. They danced well together, and he made a handsome figure in his evening dress. She knew that many girls would be at his feet if he showed the slightest interest in them. He was striking in his good looks, charming in his manner, and of a fine family. But there was still the shadow of her brother’s death spoiling things between them.

The dance ended, and then the orchestra began to play a lively mazurka. They danced one set of the brisk Polish dance, and then she begged off.

She confided to him, “I fear my wig will be askew if I do much of that!”

He laughed. “I doubt it. But I see Sir Humphrey Wood on his way over here to claim you as a dancing partner. If you wish to escape, we’d better go upstairs to the gambling.”

Out of the corner of her eye she saw the tall Sir Humphrey gradually coming toward them, halting now and then to speak with a guest.

“Let us hurry!” she urged Eric Walters. “I’m not equal to playing the silent French mademoiselle with him yet.”

“Felix Black wanted you to have this experience,” her escort reminded her. But at the same time he guided her out of the ballroom and to the winding stairway which led above.

It seemed that all fashionable London had descended on the great house. They passed couples coming down the stairway as they made their way up.

The large room set aside for gambling was at the head of the stairway. They entered it through wide double doors, and Betsy saw it was crowded, with more men than women there. A roulette wheel was drawing a lot of patrons, and there were many other tables which offered games of chance.

Major Eric Walters pointed out a thin dandy of a man talking animatedly with another foppish type. He told her, “The one in the yellow satin suit is Lord Lumley Skeffington, everyone calls him Skiffy!”

She said, “He is surely eccentric.”

“He writes plays, paints his face, and perfumes himself so thoroughly that it is a challenge to stand near him.”

“His friend is dressed in green,” she noticed. “All that he has on is green!”

Eric laughed. “That is Henry Cope of Brighton. He is famous as the green man. He only wears green clothing, and all the rooms in his house of green are painted in the same color. They say he’ll only eat green fruits and vegetables. He’s more than half dotty!”

“I wonder where George Frederick has gone,” she worried, still clinging to the young major’s arm.

“I think I see him at the other side of the roulette table,” her companion said. “There’s such a jam in here, it will take us a little time to reach him.”

“It is more crowded than below,” she agreed. And the bustle and noise of conversation filled the place. Men were arguing about their betting, the shape of their cravats, and where they’d had their new jacket tailored.

Betsy had led more of a country life and so knew little of the London regency style. The painted ladies and men were a group foreign to her as was their conversation. She was relieved that she was supposed to know no English and so was not required to engage in talk with anyone.

A wiry little man with graying hair passed them and nodded to Eric. “Back in London, my boy!” he commented in passing.

Eric made a brief reply to him, and after he’d passed on, he informed her, “That was Lord Petersham. He is said to own a snuffbox for every day in the year!”

She said, “I have never met such a collection of eccentric people.”

“London society breeds them,” the young man agreed. As he finished speaking, Kingston left the roulette table looking worried and came over to meet them.

“I hoped you’d be along soon,” the actor said. “In the role of your father I have accumulated a gaming debt of twenty-five pounds. I left my IOU. But if you will be so good as to let me have the cash, I’ll redeem the paper at once.”

Eric sighed. “I remember warning you.”

“I could not stand there and make no bet,” Kingston complained. “I have to make a good showing as your father.”

“Do not feel the compulsion again,” Eric said, taking his wallet out and counting the twenty-five pounds and handing them over to the actor.

“Thank you, my boy,” Kingston said with feeling. “I shall repay you from my salary.” And he went back to the roulette wheel to settle the IOU.

Betsy told Walters, “I think it is time we left. We have made our appearance.”

He said, “Are you not enjoying yourself? Surely my company is not all that dull?”

“It has nothing to do with you,” she said. “It is just that I’m so terribly nervous.”

“Remember you need not converse with strangers,” he reminded her. “You are a French mademoiselle and a lovely one.”

“I think we should get Kingston out of here also,” she added. “He might be tempted to gamble again.”

“That is a good reason for getting away,” Eric was forced to admit. “I think the fellow is a compulsive gambler.”

Betsy was going to reply to this when she saw Sir Humphrey Wood and another man coming towrad them and felt she might faint! It was not the towering Sir Humphrey whom she was afraid of, it was the man walking at his side! Her stepfather, Sir John Cort!

Eric saw her stepfather at the same instant and in a low aside to her whispered, “Your precious stepfather up from the city for a gambling escapade. Don’t falter! I’ll see you through this!”

Sir Humphrey came up and with a smile on his craggy face said, “Here you are with your French lady! I’ve been looking for you downstairs.”

Eric said, “Mademoiselle wished to watch the gambling.”

“And so she shall,” their host said. Then he turned and introduced her stepfather, saying, “This is Sir John Cort, a familiar at most gambling spots in London. He’s known to be fiendishly lucky at cards!”

Her burly purple-faced stepfather was dressed in a wine jacket, his London best, and he bowed to her and Eric. He said, “I can also be just as fiendishly unlucky. I remember meeting you at Watier’s, Major.”

“Yes,” Eric said, “though I haven’t been at the tables as much as usual since bringing my fiancée, Mademoiselle Gaudet, across from Paris. You may speak freely before her as she understands no English.”

“Damned fine-looking girl,” her stepfather said in his blustering fashion. He poked Eric in the ribs and waggishly confided to him, “Should you tire of her, let me know. I’m staying with Sir Charles Oram at his bachelor flat. Expect to be in town a week or so. A little dalliance would be a pleasant diversion.”

Sir Humphrey chided him. “You’re much too old for this lovely wench!”

“Do not quarrel over her, gentlemen,” Eric protested. “For the moment she is mine, and I have no thought of sharing her with anyone else, I promise you.”

Now Sir John Cort began staring at her so fixedly that she felt her cheeks burn, and she lifted the fan she was carrying to partially cover her face. Her stepfather said, “It has just struck me!”

“What, sir?” Eric wanted to know.

“Your mademoiselle has been reminding me of someone, and now I’ve got it! She bears a faint resemblance to my stepdaughter, Betsy Chapman!”

Sir Humphrey Wood chided him. “There is little or no resemblance. Your stepdaughter is a blonde, and this woman is a brunette. Also this woman is clearly older and more experienced than your Betsy.”

Sir John frowned. “That is true. But there is a slight sameness of face. I swear to that.” He apologized to Eric. “It happens I have Betsy much in mind. The ungrateful creature ran off after nearly killing Lord Dakin who had come to court her.”

Eric said, “That must be the son or grandson of the only Lord Dakin I have met. He is an old, rather senile man.”

Her stepfather showed annoyance. “There is only one Lord Dakin, and while he is a man of some years, he is my friend and perhaps will one day be my son-in-law. So I bid you not to talk loosely about him!”