“If Marthe goes, that leaves no one to see to our establishment here.”
“I can do it. Papa. I have been helping Marthe for years.”
The duc snorted. “It is not fitting for a de Montargis to concern herself with such lowly details. What would people think of such a thing?”
“They will think nothing of it; many émigrés have no one to serve them and have been attending themselves to such mundane matters for years.”
“Non! Absolument. I will not have my daughter working like a common servant. Marthe will stay with us.”
“Very well, Papa.” Isobel sighed. “I will ask Madame de Colignac to look into things for us in Paris.” With a resigned shrug of her shoulders she turned and was heading for the door when Marthe came up the stairs, puffing mightily, a heavy cream-colored note in her hand. “Monsieur le duc, mademoiselle, a messenger, all in livery of the most magnificent brought this.” She placed it reverently in the duc’s outstretched hand.
A smile of grim satisfaction settled on the duc’s face as he read the gilt-edged missive. “At last they deign to recognize us. The Prince Regent has invited us to a ball at Carlton House, ma fille.” He reached in his pocket and pulled out a small packet of faded silk. “You must use this to see that we are suitably attired for such an occasion.”
Isobel gasped as she unwrapped the package. “But it is Maman’s diamond necklace! It is worth far more than a court dress. I shall...”
“I wish you to spend it all. We shall not disgrace ourselves on the first occasion in so many years to show the world who we are.”
“But, Papa, with the money from that we could have ...”
“I will have no argument, Isobel. It is essential that you make your first appearance at the English court en grand tenue. When we return to France, a diamond necklace will again be the merest trifle to the de Montargis.”
Biting her lips to keep back any further retort, Isobel wrapped up the necklace and fled from the room, too angry to remain another minute. All those years he had been hoarding thousands of pounds worth of diamonds and for what? So she could look her best at one miserable ball! Even for the Duc de Montargis, this seemed excessive. All those years when they could have paid for medicines and doctors to help her mother, to keep them warm in winter instead of shivering under layers of coarse chemises and petticoats. It was beyond belief! Not for the first time, she wondered if her father were a little mad, but if he were, it was a collective madness, a ruinous pride that she had seen exhibited by their friends many times before. There was the duchesse who had invited friends to dinner and spent all her money on flowers, leaving nothing to pay for the food, the chevalier who had been court-martialed by his peers because he had been forced to become a servant in order to survive, the comtesse who had sold all the jewels she escaped with so she could have Rose Bertin, the Queen’s dressmaker, make her dresses and then had no money for food or lodging. All of them seemed to possess a pride so strong that it precluded all else. Isobel had nothing against pride if it were justly earned, but this, this was pride stemming from a whim of fate. To have pride in one’s own accomplishments was one thing, to have it over a mere accident of birth was quite another, and she found it nearly impossible to have patience with such foolishness.
Too furious to think, she paced her narrow room in a vain attempt to exorcise some of her frustration. There was no one in whom she could confide her anger. Marthe, whose family had served the de Montargis for generations, would see nothing wrong in this misplaced sense of honor. A genius of practicality herself, Marthe never expected to see such a trait in her master. In fact, she would occasionally take issue with Isobel’s insistence on descending into a realm that most of her peers scorned to visit. “But Mademoiselle should not be troubling herself with such things. Mademoiselle is a great lady,” she would occasionally protest. It was only by pointing out that even the greatest of ladies had to eat that Isobel could silence her. To Marthe, allowing one’s family to suffer the strictest of economies unnecessarily so one’s daughter could appear en grand tenue for one court ball would not seem at all unreasonable.
The only person Isobel could call to mind who would share her righteous fury would be Lord Christian Hatherleigh. He too had lived a life where food, shelter, and survival, rather than fashion and image were the issues controlling his life. He would understand her resentment of her father’s absurdities; in fact, he would be the only person of her acquaintance who would see them as absurdities.
You must calm down. You must calm down, she repeated to herself as she turned corner after corner in her tiny bedchamber. No one would understand her anger; they would only regard it as being excessively ill-bred. The only thing to do was to swallow her annoyance, obey her father’s wishes, have a suitable dress made up, and bide her time. But for what? Isobel sank down on the narrow bed and clasped her head in her hands. What was there to look forward to but becoming the wife of some equally rigid husband who would expect her to live the same narrow, formal existence that her father did, demanding that she appear outwardly elegant and charming, but inwardly empty and docile with nothing more to enliven her days than idle chatter and the occasional interaction with servants who would cater to her every whim? She could hardly bear to contemplate it. If only she were a man, she would run away and join the army, become a diplomat to foreign lands, anything to escape the stifling routine she saw stretching endlessly before her.
I won’t! She lifted her head and straightened her shoulders defiantly. I won’t give up and I won’t give in, she vowed as she rose and made her way downstairs to help Marthe in the kitchen.
Chapter 24
In the end Christian found no relief at Jackson’s. Even sparring with the champion himself, though it tired him out, had not calmed the welter of emotions raging inside him, and he returned home as upset as he had been when he left. After rereading the Prince Regent’s invitation, he decided that he must see Isobel before the ball, for it had become quite clear that he was not going to be able to wait until then to discover the identity of the mysterious lover. He would find some way to encounter her and demand an explanation. With a muttered oath, Christian crumpled the invitation and tossed it into the fire. He had no right to demand anything of her, much less an explanation of her conduct.
How could he have felt so close to her if she were in love with someone else? How could the last look that had passed between them at the opera have felt so much like a kiss if there were someone else with whom she shared real kisses? And why was he torturing himself thinking about such things?
It would pass. She was just another woman among many. It would pass. It always had before. But—he leaned against the mantel, staring fixedly into the flames—he had never cared so much until now. He had never cared if a woman he had flirted with kissed anyone else or not. Frequently he had simply assumed that they had other lovers and it had not bothered him in the least. Perhaps that was because he had only shared their bodies with other lovers. With this woman, for some inexplicable reason, and for the first time in his life, he had shared his soul.
Furiously he rang the bell for Digby, who materialized so quickly as to make Christian suspect that, well aware of his master’s uncertain frame of mind, and knowing Christian to be a man of action, the batman had hovered near the library door in anticipation of orders that were sure to come.
“Sir?” Digby’s features were more wooden than usual as a result of his intense struggle to hide any indication that he recognized the urgency of his master’s summons.
“Digby, I wish you to go to a Signor Bartoli’s establishment in Saint Martin’s Street, and I wish for you to discover, without anyone’s realizing that they have divulged it to you, precisely what time Mademoiselle Isobel de Montargis is expected at her next lesson, and how long these lessons usually last. Do you think you can do that?”
“Of course I can, sir. Believe me, no one will even realize they have had a jaw with me.” He gave his master a broad wink. “Jus
t like old times, won’t it be, sir?”
Christian smiled faintly. “Yes, just like old times.” But it was not. He had never known a time when he had been so confused, so torn up inside over the actions of another person, especially a woman.
Closing the door gently behind him, Digby was coming to much the same conclusion. “He’s in a bad way, he is,” he muttered to himself as he finished brushing off his master’s many-caped driving coat, hung it up, and put on his own coat before heading off to Saint Martin’s Street. “Never seen him upset over a woman since I’ve known him.” Digby stepped out into Curzon Street, pulling his coat close against the sharp breeze that had sprung up. “If I had to say it, I would say the master is in a fair way to being in love, though he’s in too much of a pucker right now to realize it.” A sly smile stole over the batman’s wind-reddened features. “Aye, that’s it,” he addressed the pigeon that fluttered down to grab a crumb in front of him, “top-over-tail he is, and with no more an idea of it than you, Mr. Pigeon, have of wishing me a good day.”
Later that evening, the batman was able to report that Mademoiselle de Montargis was expected at ten o’clock the very next morning and that her lessons lasted an hour. “And the little maid whose parcel I carried had no more idea that I was asking about the particular young lady in question than the man in the moon. ‘Course now I know all about every blessed person that calls on the signor, but she is none the wiser,” he reported with barely concealed pride.
“Thank you, Digby. You always were a first-rate man for intelligence.”
Now there was nothing to do but wait until morning. A long evening of gambling at Brooks’s was in store for him. Ordinarily, Lord Christian did not go in for deep play, considering it a waste of time when one’s mind could be put to so much better use, but in this case, distraction of the highest order was called for and the only way he could put off thinking about tomorrow was to risk enough money tonight to capture his full attention.
At last, as the sky was showing the faintest signs of light in the east, he felt exhausted enough to stagger home for a few hours of sleep before confronting Mademoiselle de Montargis.
Promptly at eleven, freshly shaved and looking as elegant as though he has spent several hours dressing in a leisurely manner after enjoying a full night’s sleep, Christian sauntered down Saint Martin’s Street. Anyone passing by would have put him down as a nonpareil, a Corinthian who had not a care in the world beyond the set of his exquisitely tied cravat, until they looked in his eyes and then they would have seen the haunted look that revealed the unrest in his soul.
At last the door of Signor Bartoli’s house swung open and a slender figure in a lavender sarcenet pelisse and a straw-colored bonnet trimmed with lavender ribbons emerged.
“Mademoiselle Isobel,” he called hoarsely.
She turned in some surprise and alarm. Could it be that she was discovered, that somehow her father knew she was no longer giving lessons at the Duke of Warminster’s? Her expression softened into a shy smile when she recognized Lord Christian. “Good day, my lord. This is certainly a surprise.”
“I had to see you.” Driven by forces stronger than he, Christian plunged in without preamble.
The delicate brows rose in surprise. The blue eyes were wary now as Isobel surveyed him uneasily. The taut set of his shoulders, the dark expression in his eyes, and the urgency in his voice were foreign to the self-assured Lord Christian Hatherleigh. She searched his face for some clue to all this, but could find none. “Is something amiss?”
“Yes, er, I mean no, I mean, I do not know. It is just that I was concerned for you.” He struggled for the right words, but none would come. “Who was that with you,” he burst out at last.
“With me?” Her blank expression should have reassured him. If she had a lover, she would have known instantly to whom he referred, but he was too far gone to notice.
“Yes, in the park. Who was he?”
“In the park? Oh, that was ...” Dawning comprehension gave way to another sort of revelation. “How dare you! What is it to you who my associates are? I am not your sister. I am not your niece. I am not even a distant cousin, and even if I were, I should most certainly take exception to your questioning my conduct, especially when it was perfectly unexceptionable, in a public place, and in the company of one of my oldest friends, the exceedingly respectable Marchioness of Verwood.” Isobel paused to draw an angry breath. “How dare you, sir!” She reiterated it fiercely and then, without another glance, she turned on her heel and strode off furiously in the other direction. Angry tears stung her eyes, making it nearly impossible to see, but she kept on, determined to get away from him, to put as much distance between her and Lord Christian Hatherleigh as possible before she was tempted to turn around and ... and... Isobel would have given anything in the world at that moment to be able to draw a sword and challenge him to a duel. Of all the ... how she longed to be a man, someone who could settle affairs of honor with the clean slice of a blade, or at least someone who could work out some of his righteous anger by doing battle. But no, she was constrained to an ignominious exit, stalking off with only the disdainful set of her head and her proud carriage to register her indignation at such an outrageous affront to her character.
“Isobel, wait. I wish to ex ...” Christian began. But what was it he wished to explain? How could he possible explain this totally irrational, totally unwarranted intrusion into the affairs of a young woman with whom he was only casually acquainted? No, that was not true. It was not a casual acquaintance. The first instant he had looked into her eyes, he had felt as though he had known her all his life, that he could tell her anything and everything about himself, and that she would understand, would accept it all. No, it was no casual acquaintance—quite the contrary, it was the most intense acquaintance he had ever had—but it still did not give him the right to demand an accounting of her actions as though she were some servant in his employ. What had he been thinking?
Experienced as he was in the ways of the world in general, and women in particular, he should have known that no one, particularly a proud, independent woman of ancient lineage, one accustomed to supporting herself and her family, accustomed to enduring hardship and deprivation for loyalty to what many believed to be a lost cause, would take kindly to being questioned about her conduct. After all, how would he have reacted to such an impudent and ill-judged questioning of his affairs?
Christian cursed himself bitterly as he turned to retrace his steps. Isobel’s reaction had been mild in comparison to what his would have been. Why, any gentlemen who had had the audacity to question his conduct might have lived to see the dawn of another day, but not the one after that. The only question would have been whether he would have chosen swords or pistols to defend himself for daring to offer such an incalculable insult.
He had been a clumsy, overbearing fool, ruled by passion instead of intellect. Even a schoolboy would have known that such an approach would not only infuriate Mademoiselle Isobel, but it would also fail to elicit the information he was seeking. In fact, he was worse off than he had been before. Why had he done it? He knew better than to act that way. For years he had maintained a cool superiority in the most trying situations by suppressing his emotions and relying on his intellect, but today he had bungled it like any hotheaded young subaltern facing his first test of fire.
Lord Christian turned into Piccadilly, barely missing a coster-monger pushing a barrow of fruit. Why had he done it? What had prompted him to act like such a benighted fool? It was not until he reached Bond Street that he admitted to himself that it had been jealousy pure and simple. And it was a jealousy so strong and so irrational that he knew it did not spring from disappointment in Isobel’s character alone. He was not marching along in a blinding fury simply because she had not told him that she had a lover. It was because he was in love with her himself.
Lord Christian stopped dead on the pavement. He was in love? How the lads in his regiment, and quite a
few ladies of a certain racy reputation, would have hooted at the thought that the man who was more often than not doing his level best to avoid jealous women or their jealous husbands, was suffering from that same ridiculous ailment himself. He had never, even in his wildest dreams, though he would fall in love, but on the rare occasion when he had entertained such an absurd notion, he had never imagined it would be like this. He had envisioned, rather, something quite pleasant and seductive, not the infuriating, confusing, and thoroughly upsetting range of emotions that he was experiencing now.
“My Lord, how delightful,” a silvery voice intruded on these unsettling thoughts.
He looked up to recognize the smiling features of Lady Emily, Marchioness of Verwood.
“Lady Emily.”
La, what was wrong with the man, Emily wondered. He was scowling like a veritable thundercloud. She devoutly wished that nothing serious was amiss, for she had had such high hopes for him and Isobel. There had seemed to be some sort of understanding between them when he had joined them in their box at the opera. There had been the special language of shared interests, the intimate glances that suggested previous conversations and a relationship more special and deeper than mere acquaintance. She had congratulated herself for having contributed to the development of that relationship by providing opportunities for them to meet. Now, however, he wore the look of a man disappointed in love, for Emily could think of no other passion strong enough to disconcert as experienced a lover and as hardened a soldier as Lord Christian.
My Lady Nightingale Page 18
