by Edith Layton
And Arden Lyons, striding toward the stables to get his mount, could only think that for once he’d spoken his heart and his mind and so likely Julian hadn’t believed him. But this time he wasn’t so confident as he pretended to be, and was determined to take no chances with his luck. To see her each day, to watch her every moment, yet be allowed to touch no more than fingertips when he was able, was trying more than his patience. And so, he reasoned, the woman of his heart must not be allowed to concern his body, lest he frighten her away before he’d a chance at winning her. He needed time as well as surcease, he thought confusedly as he strode toward visiting a woman he didn’t want in order to try for success with one he wanted above all else. But he was at a loss to know what else to do. Because he knew very well that he mustn’t allow a breath of passion to blow down his carefully constructed house of cards.
As Julian mused over his friend’s actions, and his friend went forward with them as full of doubt as he was of desire, Francesca, for once completely free to do as she wished, sat before her mirror and mused over whether she ought to crawl into bed with the covers over her head.
She had the evening off. It was a rare and bold gesture for the Deemses to make. A companion, after all, might be given blameless Sundays and rainy mornings off, but evenings, especially evenings in the presence of their charge’s most ardent suitors, should be their true workplaces. It was as much their field of play as a pickpocket’s at a carnival, as Francesca’s father was fond of saying about anyone particularly in place for his best work. But then, she sighed, it was entirely possible her work was done, simply because she’d done it all too well.
At first she’d been thrilled at being actually able to perform her job at last, when Mrs. Deems had stopped accompanying her daughter and had left all guardianship to her chaperone. Then, of course, Francesca hadn’t guessed it was all because of the astute Mr. Deems’ proclamation. For, that clever gent had ruled, insisting on his wife’s retiring from the lists: “No gent can be natural with a girl whose mother’s sitting on her shoulder.” And, the canny fellow had said, clinching the matter, “He ain’t going to try to lay a finger on her with you there neither.”
So in the past week, left to her own devices and noting Mr. Lyons’, Francesca had become as alert as Argus, as watchful as a lidless eye. Although she knew that Arden’s intentions, however mercenary and dishonest, were honorable, at least toward Cecily, she knew he’d compromise the girl toward a faster resolution to his game if he could. And so, of course, it was clear to her that her job was to be sure he couldn’t.
She became the perfect chaperone. Always and ever in the middle: when Julian and Roxanne were there, a fifth wheel; when they were not, a third party. Welcome as a mother-in-law in a marriage bed, she persisted. There was only one advantage. She’d nothing to fear from Mr. Lyons herself now, except perhaps, she thought, for him slipping a sleeping draft into her tea, not so as to have his way with her so much as to have it without her. For she saw he’d not a thought or a look for her now, except for when he was plotting how to get around her. Which was always. And oddly, for a girl who’d forsworn every form of gambling, it had become an intricate and somewhat exciting game. Which, so far, she’d always won.
There was that time at the museum, and the one at the musicale, the triumphant moment in the carriage, and the frightening near-miss, that time when Mr. Lyons had mutely beckoned with a tilt of his mighty head, and Cecily had risen like a sleepwalker to follow, only to find Mrs. Devlin behind her like the train of her skirt when she’d gotten out in the corridor to join him.
And if sometimes Mrs. Devlin, that ever-vigilant guardian of morality (herself not much more aware of what would have happened in that corridor or in that carriage than her charge was), sometimes wondered at her own wholehearted fervor on behalf of Cecily’s continued ignorance, especially since the gentleman’s aim, however self-serving, was, after all, holy wedlock, she solaced her doubts by reminding herself that the gentleman was supposed to ask for Cecily’s hand from her father first before he took her lips to his own.
But being honest as well as alone a great deal, she sometimes allowed herself to marvel at how much she was enjoying herself these days. For she couldn’t remember ever having laughed so much before. Certainly not in all her years away at school, not even with her closest friends in their silliest secret deep-night conferences. Never in those few visits to whatever home her father had, for she’d been too thrilled at being there and too fearful about leaving as soon as she’d arrived to laugh a great deal, and though she’d loved Harry and had loved to talk with him, she’d never laughed so much with him either.
Arden Lyons might be a rogue and all sorts of a low trickster, but Lord, she’d think when she was consumed with laughter, or trying not to be, he was amusing! He’d a way of joking, a way of saying the most absurd things straightly, a way of seeing things on a slight tilt, that never failed to divert her. It had become easier to laugh as time passed because he never looked at her with the slightest awareness of her femininity again, and she’d come to think it all had been a product of her overwrought imagination that day, since she really knew very little of the ways of gentlemen. If he looked at her at all these days, she assumed it was to see how carefully she was watching him, or whether she thought something he’d said was amusing. She usually did. He was so witty that there were even times that she discovered herself, contrary creature that she was, feeling sorry for him, and not Cecily! Because if he were successful and was eventually allowed to be alone with Cecily until death did them part, she wondered how Cecily would know when to laugh when there was no one to watch as a guide—when at their breakfast table, for example, or even when beneath his sheets in their marriage bed.
Thoughts of beds made Francesca cast a wistful glance to hers; she was very weary with her week’s exertions. But then she looked back into her glass and was so enraptured at what she saw there that she forgot her exhaustion.
The Deemses had freed her tonight, obviously to secure Mr. Lyons’ proposal without her interference. But Father had invited her to his tables, both dinner and gaming. She could go to a well-deserved rest. Or she could dress up and go downstairs as though it mattered not at all to her, as though she was a lady who wasn’t afraid to lose a lucrative position or anything else. So she’d dressed up for the first time since she’d taken on her position, just to see the result, she told herself, and now she was enchanted with her reflection, as Narcissus must have been. And, she cautioned herself, she might come to the same sad end if she persisted in gawking at herself.
But really, she thought, she looked very well. She’d gotten into one of her old dresses, a lavender concoction the shade of dusty violets, with a high waist banded in deep plum. Entirely respectable for a young schoolgirl or even a widow said to be in half-mourning now, but as she’d grown up since she’d bought the dress, what the soft folds of the gown did for her body wasn’t remotely respectable. Its modest neckline became daring as the fabric was stretched more than it had been intended to, and the rest of the soft wool clung to every other thing that had not been fully there when the gown had originally been designed.
Francesca piled her heavy black hair up on top of her head and held it there in one hand while she threw back her head, gazing at herself with what she thought was a look of sophisticated seductiveness. She would, she decided, eyeing herself through half-shut eyes, go downstairs tonight and show them, everyone, what they’d been missing. And if for a moment she wondered why a companion who was about to lose her post in the most natural way, because she’d become unnecessary, thought it important to show her charge’s affianced what he’d missed, she didn’t let on, even to the sultry lady in the glass. She was usually more honest with herself, but in all fairness, she was really, after all, very tired.
“Ah, too bad. Got something in your eye?” Roxanne asked, appearing in the glass behind her. “Here, let me have a look.”
“Lud! Don’t trouble to scratch at m
y door,” Francesca said, one hand to her rapidly beating heart. “Just march in,” she went on irritably, getting over her fright and reacting very like the Honorable Miss Carlisle and not a humble companion, whether she realized it or not.
But Roxanne realized it, and appreciated it, for she knew there was no harm in the girl and that it was only a well-bred young lady’s way of dealing with surprise, and like all things that she thought might eventually do her some good, she hoarded up the movement and the words, should she find she ever needed to play at being a fine young lady on a very high horse.
“I did,” she answered simply, “but there was no answer. Your father wants you, his dinner’s waiting for you too. I didn’t want to stand cooling my heels in the hallway all night, so I came in. You might have been lying in a pool of blood for all I knew,” she added, grinning.
“Drowning in a pool of conceit, more like,” Francesca admitted ruefully, for she never took offense at what Roxanne said. She knew the young Widow Cobb had a shadowy background, a less-than-spotless present way of life, and shady motives for her future, but there was no harm in the woman. There were only four years between them—Roxanne was truly five-and-twenty—but for all that, they could scarcely be friends. Francesca admitted that the gulf between them was as wide as the one between herself and Cecily, and in any event, Roxanne never had any female friends. Still, for all they didn’t understand each other, they tolerated each other fairly well.
“What? Oh, aye,” Roxanne said, laughing. “Conceit? Likely, poor girl, having to wear that old-fashioned rag. Why don’t you have the baron buy you something decent? He’s flush right now, and generous with it, as always. Ask him for the price of a real gown tonight, before he loses it all. In the meanwhile, here,” she said generously, taking a beautifully patterned paisley shawl from off her own white shoulders. “It’s got lots of purple in it, come to think, and suits you better than me, and will cover that shabby old thing you’re wearing well enough.”
Francesca looked at the fashionable new French poppy-colored silk frock that Roxanne was wearing, and realized how badly her own faded, outdated, undersize muslin gown really looked, and feeling foolish, like a little girl caught peacocking in cast-off finery in the attics, she bent her head and flushed.
“No, take it, take it, I’ve heaps of others,” Roxanne insisted, misunderstanding her embarrassment. “Don’t you want to cut a dash tonight? Don’t you want to show the Deemses it don’t matter that they’re giving you the shove? Don’t you,” she added slyly, in what she thought were airy, unconcerned tones, although she’d paused long enough to alert the densest listener, “want to impress the viscount, at least?”
Francesca grinned at Roxanne’s attempt at subtlety. But she didn’t blame her for the blatant preference she’d been showing in the past weeks. The Viscount Hazelton was shockingly attractive, and having been as omnipresent in Cecily Deems’ company as his friend Mr. Lyons had been, she herself had often found herself gazing at him for the sheer pleasure of it. Having him around, she reasoned, was very like having a masterpiece of art in one’s own home; he was always good to look upon. She’d found nothing in his character to contradict that, for he always treated her kindly and with grace, although at odd times he’d looked at her with a great and secret amusement brimming in his light eyes.
But she never presumed to think of him in the way Roxanne increasingly and obviously did. He was simply too handsome ever to think of attaching. She believed he wasn’t interested in any female for more than the moment either. It was as though despite their obvious differences—he a titled gentleman in the thick of his social life, and she, a titled but drab companion on the fringes of it—there was an obvious commonality between them, aside from their noble backgrounds. For she sensed he was merely walking through life now, amused and interested, but as detached from it emotionally as she was physically.
“Thank you,” she said, taking the shawl and quickly wrapping it around her shoulders, “I’d like to look well but I promise you I haven’t the slightest interest in fascinating the viscount. But take care,” she warned, rising and looking down into Roxanne’s satisfied smile, “because he’s got no more than that charm and handsome face, Roxie, and I don’t doubt he’s a Captain Sharp like his friend Arden Lyons, into the bargain, and bad company leading him astray or not,” she said, lecturing Roxanne like a schoolgirl before she could protest, “you don’t need that sort of trouble.”
“Fancy,” Roxanne laughed, using the baron’s pet name for the younger girl, “step back, do! You’ll drip all over me new gown, love,” she said merrily, “you’re that wet behind the ears. Why, where are your senses, girl? However they’ve got it, and I don’t doubt those rascals could tell a rare tale or two, they’re rich as they can hold together, the pair of them! ’S truth,” she said earnestly, crossing her heart. “Old man Deems is no flat—he had them checked out by his man of business straightaway, his wife told me. Why do you think he’s letting Arden get so near his little beauty? Why,” she said merrily, watching the other girl’s astonishment, “Arden’s a regular Midas too, famous for it, didn’t you know?
“And I sometimes wonder,” she said, seeing something subtle shift in Francesca’s expression at hearing that name, and being far better at reading faces than she was at any sort of book, she continued, “what it is he sees in Cee-cee, and being a famously canny gent, I wonder if it ain’t something he sees next to her, and not in her, after all. Now, don’t blush, girl. Lord, what did they teach you at that school? I’ve got some home truths to tell you, and as I’ve got to get another wrap in my room before we go down, come with me and don’t say a word till I’m done, hear?
“I’ve a bit of advice for you,” she said sternly, taking Francesca’s arm as they left the room, “for dealing with Arden, or any other gent. You’ve taken on the name of a widow, and the least you can do is to use it to your advantage.”
Holding her arm tightly, she walked the younger girl toward her room, leaning toward her as she did so, speaking low and urgently. Francesca listened, appalled and fascinated.
“A widow’s got it all over a young unmarried chit. Because a young chit isn’t supposed to know nothing more but that men aren’t women, and woe to them if they so much as cuddle a chap to try to find out more. They’re supposed to be untouched and untutored and unwilling. But a widow is expected to know it all, and more important, miss it all as well, if you take my meaning.”
Roxanne could feel Francesca start at that, and she nodded wisely and went on, “Even if she don’t, and trust me, but don’t quote me, sometimes she don’t. But nevertheless, she can be bold as brass, and come to the wedding bed as eager as her gentleman, and before her wedding too, at that, and still never feel a moment’s shame for it. Funny, how losing a husband gains you a world of freedom, but there it is. So use it, Fancy. All Cee-cee can do is blush and shuffle and make sheep’s eyes. You can do anything, and I daresay you ought. Arden’s a catch. A big one,” she giggled as they reached her room.
“And I am not a widow, and even if I were, three times over, I wouldn’t want Arden Lyons for anything, except if he were my husband, to do me the honor of making me a widow again,” Francesca cried out wildly and irrationally in her anger, when she could catch her breath.
“And I haven’t got eyes, neither,” Roxanne agreed smugly. “Have it your way. But remember,” she said as she selected another shawl from a welter of them in her crowded wardrobe, “like your papa would say, when you’ve got an ace up your sleeve, it’s a crime against nature not to use it.”
And as though to illustrate her point, in illuminated script and gold leaf, as soon as they reached the dining salon Roxanne proceeded to show Francesca exactly how a widow should behave toward the gentleman of her choice.
The Deemses were dining in gloomy state in one corner of the hotel dining room, the absence of Cecily’s huge suitor a palpable presence at their table. The Viscount Hazelton was taking his wine with the Baron Wyndham,
and though the Deemses looked over enviously from time to time, they’d made a point of taking a separate table an hour ago, and couldn’t change that now without offering insult where nothing but having the unexpectedly vanished Arden Lyons to themselves was originally intended.
Roxanne took a seat next to Julian, and when Francesca sat next to her fattier, it was as though they were suddenly alone at the table. For Roxanne gave the blond gentleman a glance so warm, so replete with promise that Francesca, only half-guessing at what that promise entailed, grew warm about the ears. Then, with no more artifice, Roxanne proceeded to completely monopolize the viscount’s attention. The baron noted none of it, he was so excited about his own prospects. He occupied himself by entertaining his daughter with his plans for the night, which had to do with gaming with a certain gent he swore was so foolish he couldn’t win a wager on a snowflake falling on him in a blizzard.
At that, Francesca forgot the murmurous conversation going forth between Roxanne and the viscount.
