The Scandalous Life of a True Lady
Page 15
“Maybe you can win some of the other contests,” suggested Alice, who could afford to be generous, since her condition kept her from competing at most. “What skills have you? Besides pleasing a man. Can you sing?”
“Not in your language.”
“Claire never sings in English either, but she’d have conniptions if you rivaled her performance.”
“Dance? Play an instrument? Tell stories like that Scheherazade female?”
Sandaree lowered her eyes. “I dance a little, not in your style.”
That did not sound promising to the others, who considered a way for Sandaree to make money of her own, although that was what they were all trying to do.
“We could wager among ourselves, like the men are doing.”
“How would that help? We could lose.” Which did not stop some of them from wagering at cards, Simone knew.
Someone suggested they all cheat and lose to a designated winner who would promise to divide the prize.
Harry would hate Simone’s doing something so dishonest. Besides, Claire Hope would never agree to lose, or to share. And no one actually volunteered to give up her own winnings.
“Gorham has a great deal of influence,” Daisy said, finishing the last square of linen. “Claire can ask him to speak with Danforth. Or maybe Claire has another idea.”
Claire had many ideas, reading a book of philosophy on her chaise longue when Simone entered her sitting room. Her maid was sitting nearby amid a stack of finished handkerchiefs. She tried to hide the needle and thread under the pile.
“I thought you were the maid with tea,” Claire said, after using a word Simone had never heard from a woman’s lips.
“You’re going to cheat?” Simone asked the obvious.
“I am going to win.”
“But others need the money, too.”
“Not as much as I do. I am too old to find a new protector, too used to the luxuries of life to give them up. Gorham owes me.”
“Then he should pay, not count on your winning.”
“His wife would find out. She has her man of affairs look at his books. Her dowry paid for everything, that’s why he married her, but her brass came with conditions.”
“But you cannot cheat! Daisy deserves this round. She needs it badly to help support her family in the country.”
Claire tossed her book to the floor. “Let them find jobs like all the other poor farmers. They do not send me mutton and I’ll be damned if I send them money.”
“Surely you saved money from all your years with Gorham? Your music career?”
“Surely what I do with my funds is none of your concern.”
A duchess could not have delivered a more imperious setdown, but Simone did not retreat. “I cannot let you do it.”
“What will you do, Miss Do-Good? Tell Gorham? He’ll never take your word over mine. He loves me.”
“Then think of him. If he calls me a liar, then Harry will have to call him out.” Harry never would, not to ruin his own plans, but Simone could think of no other threat.
Claire waved a manicured hand in the air. “Pish tosh. Gorham is one of the best swordsmen in England.”
“Harry defeated him this very morning. If you love Lord Gorham so much, you would not want to see him wounded, would you?”
Claire looked at the pile of handkerchiefs, then back at Simone with sorrow in her eyes. “I will lose him either way. I need to win.”
*
“She is going to lie, I know she is,” Simone told Harry while they got dressed for dinner, where the women would produce their handkerchiefs for counting. “If I accuse her, she will only deny it. Her maid will too, of course, for her position is at stake.”
“What do you want me to do?” Harry asked, his chin in the air as Metlock tied his starched neckcloth. They’d waited until she was dressed to enter the bedroom, politely respecting her modesty. Now she watched, fascinated, as Metlock put the finishing touches to the complicated knot.
She had to gather her thoughts back from the breadth of Harry’s shoulders, the cleft in his freshly shaved chin, the blue of his eyes that matched the sapphire pendant she wore again tonight with another blue gown. “I don’t know what you can do, but someone ought to speak against the injustice of it all. You are the one who admires the truth so much.”
“It matters to you?”
“Of course it does! I doubt the other women are being paid as well as I am, so they deserve to have a fair chance at winning.”
“I thought you wanted to win.”
“I do, but not at someone else’s expense. All of the women are in dire straits, Alice and her baby, Daisy, even Claire is losing everything she holds dear. They all need to have an even chance.”
He dismissed Metlock and took Simone’s hand in his. “Did you ever think you would be arguing for the rights of fallen women?” He did not wait for an answer, but kissed her hand, then said, “I’ll think about it.”
“And think about doing something for all the others like poor lost Sandaree.”
“You want me to change the ways of the world?”
She took her hand back. “You say you have influence and power. I want you to use them, instead of using women like other men do.”
They walked without speaking toward the drawing room where sherry was served before dinner. The piles of handkerchiefs were on display, all tied with ribbons with calling cards affixed to them. Claire’s stack was taller than Daisy’s; Simone’s was inches shorter. Gorham’s mistress would win this round.
Harry left Simone’s side and accepted two glasses of sherry from the waiter. He brought one to Claire, bowed, complimented her gown, then pointed to the pile of handkerchiefs with her name on it and bluntly asked, “Did you sew all of those?”
“Of course.”
He upended the second glass of sherry into his mouth. “No, you did not.”
“You cannot prove it.”
“No, but I can prove your name is not Claire Hope, Miss Colthopfer.”
“You wouldn’t.”
Unfortunately he had no more of the sweet wine to take away the taste of that untruth. “I would. By the way, how is your daughter?”
Claire almost dropped her own glass, so he took that one from her. “You bastard.”
He bowed again, and sipped at her sherry. “Does Gorham know?”
She looked around to make certain the marquis was not nearby, which was answer enough. “I went on tour. But why do you care about the sewing anyway? Noma cannot win.”
“But she can see justice done.”
“Bosh. Since when does a rogue like you care about justice? In a just world, you’d be heir to an earldom.”
“Even bastards care about the truth. I have since I was born, I suppose.”
Half of Claire’s pile was removed. Her maid must have misunderstood, the singer said with a laugh, adding her own sewing for the poor to Claire’s. Simone still came in third, but Daisy was declared winner.
Everyone at the lavish dinner was merry, except for Lord Gorham at one end of the table and his mistress at the other. Wine flowed among the guests; glares passed between the host and hostess.
They all trooped into the music room after the meal for the start of the entertainment competition. Miss Smythe, currently in Lord Martindale’s keeping, went first. Several gentlemen went elsewhere as soon as the delicate blonde sat at the harp. She wore a flowing white gown, her hair in ringlets, and she played as divinely as she looked. Unfortunately, the harp was a bit too high-toned for many of the women who were more used to fiddles and foot stompings. They started chatting back and forth across the aisles, flirting with their beaus, the ones who had not decamped or fallen asleep. Miss Smythe played on, but with a less cherubic expression on her lovely face.
The applause at the end of her performance was heartfelt, until the audience realized Miss Smythe was merely resting between pieces. Couples tiptoed out of the room, bankers and baronets sank lower in their seats.
He draped his arm around the back of her chair and wrapped one red curl around his finger. “Blackmail, extortion, threats, misuse of power and information. Everything I try to combat in this world.” He tugged at the curl. “I did it for you.”
Miss Smythe launched into her next piece, over the whispers and the scuffling, with a few giggles mixed in. Then Lord Martindale snored. Loudly.
The angel turned into a she-devil right before their eyes. She stood up, hefted the music stand, and tried to bash in her lover’s head. Harry and Mr. Anthony, the East India Trading Company partner, jumped up to grab her. Martindale tossed a leather purse her way, then ran out of the room.
“Now he knows why she’s had such a long string of lovers,” Harry told Simone, after the woman was led out by the servants.
Miss Elizabeth Althorp, who was the daughter of a vicar and mistress of a viscount, hesitated before stepping to the front of the room when Lord Gorham introduced her, and her original poetry.
More seats emptied, which, Simone considered, was the loss for the deserters. The poems were moving, especially the one about love choosing its course like the river.
“The river doesn’t choose where it goes,” Harry whispered, a shade too loudly. “What the deuce is she talking about?”
Simone hushed him by laying her hand on his thigh, so close to hers.
“Right, the river. Choices. Lovely.”
When Elizabeth was done, the viscount stood and applauded with vigor. So did those whose partners were still to perform, knowing they could defeat the first two. Simone knew she couldn’t.
Then Claire Hope stood and sang as if she were in front of the Italian Opera House with kings and princes come to see her. Gorham shocked everyone by accompanying her on the pianoforte. Claire sang of one tragic love after another, leaning toward him.
“Twelve years,” Harry whispered in Simone’s ear. “That’s a lot of practice together.”
That was a lot of love, Simone thought.
Claire was stunning in looks, with a voice to pierce the hardest heart. Simone’s eyes grew damp, until she remembered she was not supposed to understand the words. Others simply thrilled at the magnificent sounds, without knowing Italian. The missing members of the audience hurried back into the room, with servants standing at the back and filling the hall. When Claire finished, the shouts for encores shook the chandeliers. She sang again, and again, until her voice grew weak.
She had to win.
No one wanted to perform after Claire, so Gorham declared the competition over for the night, with a supper set out in the dining room, cards in the Egyptian Room, and dancing here in the music room, with a hired trio to provide the music. No, he was not going to sit at the pianoforte while everyone else got to dance as soon as the servants rolled back the carpets and shoved the chairs to the sides. He was going to see about a drink, after playing his best to match his lover.
“Are you hungry?” Harry asked.
“I think we should practice dancing first, if we are to compete at that. I understand Claire is inviting the countryside to a grand ball and I would not wish to embarrass you.”
“You never could, my dear,” he said, for the benefit of another couple walking near, waiting for the music to start.
As soon as the others passed, Simone confessed that she had never performed the waltz, although she thought she knew the steps from observing her students’ dance classes. Whatever dances the young ladies were taught, however, they were never like this.
There were no country dances. No studied minuets or complicated quadrilles, either. First the trio played a fast-paced polka, which Simone had never seen. Then came a reel, with much skipping and clapping and laughing. Finally they played a waltz.
Simone and Harry danced awkwardly at first, with not much room to maneuver among the twirling couples. Mrs. Olmstead would be scandalized if she could see the partners touching, leaning into each other, against each other, even kissing while they swayed.
“Relax, sweetheart. You are too stiff.”
“You are holding me too close.”
“Not half as close as I’d wish.” He spun her around, the silk of her skirts flowing against her legs, his thighs against hers, his arm firm at her waist, their gloved hands entwined, the dance of the devil, indeed. Simone felt like a soap bubble, floating effortlessly on the breeze of Harry’s nearness. She refused to think about how he was such an expert dancer that he could make any partner appear graceful.
Maura Doyle shouted for an Irish jig, and she kicked up her skirts, showing ankle, knee and a bit of white thigh while her partner clapped the beat. A few of the other women tried to emulate Maura’s acrobatics, after glasses of punch, but one fell flat on her bum, amid much loud laughter.
“I think it is time we left the music room,” Harry decided, once more trying to shield Simone from the ribald jokes and rum-inspired revelry. “Danforth set out for the card rooms earlier, and I should follow. I haven’t found anything about a seditious plot or a blackmail attempt, but I might hear something later, when they’re all too foxed to mind their tongues.”
“You are still searching for treason?” She looked around at the drunken dancers, lurching into each other and shattering the gilt chairs at the sidelines, or entwined in the corners. “These men have no thoughts but how to spend money and sate their appetites, no matter who is watching.”
She went up to bed, wishing Harry were not cut from the same shoddy cloth.
Chapter Sixteen
Sarah had laid out another nearly transparent nightgown. The blue gauze had white ribbons for straps instead of sleeves, and a matching see-through robe with a white satin collar. Simone wore both to bed, and still pulled the covers up to her chin. Then she tried to stay awake with a book she borrowed from Sandaree. She could not read the words, but the pictures…
No, that was impossible. No, a lady would never do that. Were those two ladies? No body could bend that way, could it? No, no, no! Except for one or two maybe’s, and a few oh, my’s. She hid the book under her pillow when she heard Harry speaking to Metlock in the dressing room, before he came into the bed chamber in his robe.
He sighed when he saw the blankets on top of the bed, on one side. “At least it’s not the floor again.”
“Did you learn anything?” she asked. She certainly had.
He yawned. “Nothing out of the usual. This fast crowd always gambles too high, whether they have funds or not. I heard no whispers, saw no groups holding private conversations. I’m hoping Daniel has better luck in the village, or Jeremy and Sarah among the servants.”
Harry should be gathering information too, instead of adding more disturbing images to those already in Simone’s head, with his smile and his bare feet. “Maybe some of the men are staying up later, after the house is quiet.” And maybe he’d stay away long enough for her to fall asleep.
“I waited until they all went to their bedrooms with their partners. Except Caldwell and Bowman, who must have changed horses midstream, so to speak.”
“They switched partners?”
“Why not? You must know by now that loyalty is not valued here.”
“Would you…? That is…?”
“Choose a different lady?” He pulled her over to his side of the bed. “No.” He pressed her against his chest, cursing about the blankets in the way, which was not exactly a love poem like Miss Althorp’s verses, or a romantic aria like Claire’s, but he’d said no. How could she not kiss him? How could she stop kissing him?
Harry did not seem inclined to stop on his own, either, moving from her lips to her neck to her shoulders, and then to her breasts, over the sheer fabric of her negligee. The bed coverings were pushed aside, and so, it seemed, were both their good intentions. If not for a coal tumbling in the fireplace, who knew where the kisses would lead
, except the illustrators of Sandaree’s book.
At the noise, Harry pushed her back to her side of the bed. “Maybe I ought to put my sword between us after all. You are too damned hard to resist.”
Now a corner of her heart felt as warm as the skin he’d touched. She reached for his hand.
He brought hers to his lips, then held it against his cheek, before rolling further away from temptation. “I did have an interesting conversation, though,” he said. “Gorham asked if I would consider trading a property near his country seat, buying it from Lord Royce myself or getting him to sell it to Gorham, in exchange for a Jamaican plantation he owns. He needs a manager there immediately, but would be glad enough to be rid of the headaches of being an absentee landlord outright. According to Gorham, society in the British colonies is not as strict, and a man’s birth is not as important as his wealth and his power.”
“Why doesn’t he go, then? He and Claire could live happily together.”
“Unwed? No society is that forgiving. And he has responsibilities here: tenants, dependents, investments, Parliament. And sons in school.”
“Then I do not see why Claire cannot stay here. She adores being hostess, and they seem perfect together.”
“His wife has suffered a great deal of scandal over the years. I suppose she is tired of being the discarded female, when it is she who holds the purse strings. Or perhaps she worries about when her sons are old enough to be out on the town. Or she may simply be a woman scorned, getting revenge. If she is not happy, why should Gorham be?”
“After twelve years? I’d think she’d be happy to see him in Jamaica, or Hades.”
“Yes, but he won’t go, to Jamaica, that is. I doubt Claire would, either, to give up her singing career. He wants me to consider taking over the plantation instead. A man could go far there, according to him. In the government, in shipping, in agriculture.”
“Is that what you would like to do? For that matter, would your family give up their land to see you go?”
“Hell, no. They don’t want to be rid of me at all, it seems. Lord Royce is hoping I’ll go into the law. Or stand for one of the seats in the Commons he controls. Rex believes I ought to help establish a nation-wide police investigative force. Daniel, well, Daniel sees nothing wrong with my being a wastrel, watching his back in fights, going bail for him.”