The Bride Behind the Curtain

by Darcie Wilde

  “Is it really your favorite waltz?” he inquired as he turned them. The crowd watched. Some of them gaped. He pretended to ignore them, but he turned her again and made no move to steer her to the edges of the floor as a man might do if he was a little ashamed of his partner. He would not hide her in some corner.

  “Sir, you . . .”

  “I what?” He raised his brows. “I am too bold, perhaps? Unforgivably saucy?”

  She blushed, a pretty rose pink this time. She was smiling, too, just a little. He liked that. He liked how she moved through the dance with a kind of delight that set his thoughts skittering in highly impolite directions.

  So much for the hard-hearted fortune hunter.

  “You saved me,” she said.

  Coming from another girl, this might have been the lightest flirtation, but Lady Adele meant it. Oh, Benedict had been right. She was wounded—wounded by creatures like the Pursewell and the Delacourte sisters for the unforgivable sin of being unfashionable and perhaps a little shy. James felt his jaw tighten in anger. As quickly as he could, he hid the expression beneath a practiced smile. He did not want Adele to worry his outrage was aimed at her.

  “I have saved you? How wonderful. I have always wanted to be le chevalier en armure étincelante. I thank you for providing the opportunity.”

  “You are teasing me.”

  “Yes,” he admitted. “Should I cease?”

  “No. Thank you. You . . .”

  “You do stop your sentences at the most interesting points.”

  “You don’t tease like the . . . them.”

  “Lady Adele, I must warn you. The day you are able to fairly compare me to those persons”—he nodded toward the little cluster of Patience’s friends—“in any particular, is the day I will have to kill myself.”

  “Well. I would not want that.” A small, wistful smile lit her eyes. They were, he noticed, a deeper blue than Lady Patience’s famous cornflower orbs. There were flecks of black and gray within them. A man could go deep into such eyes, even drown there.

  Why has no one noticed how lovely this girl is? Her skin was clear and satin smooth. Satin soft as well, as he had reason to know. Her shining hair was the dark golden color of fine honey. Its current style, however, suited her no better than the dress did. He wondered what it would look like trailing loose about her shoulders, especially when her face was pleasantly flushed, as it was now.

  A pretty daydream.

  That daydream, however, featured Adele wearing something quite different. Something in red, perhaps. Then, as he contemplated the depths of those storm blue eyes, the fantasy blurred and changed, until Adele was her wearing nothing at all, and James realized he’d entirely forgotten what they were saying. Not only that, but his silk breeches had grown dangerously tight.

  “I must apologize for the lack of proper introduction.” He paused and made sure he held her gaze as he turned them again. “But perhaps we have met before?”

  Her blush deepened, but the light of pleasure glowed from her deep eyes. Good. She remembered their little encounter with delight, just as he did.

  “No, I don’t believe so,” she murmured. “How could we have? I would remember a . . . bold gentleman such as yourself, I do assure you.”

  “Ah well. We are meeting now.” He paused. “I don’t think your brother is best pleased.”

  Adele tried to crane her neck, and he turned them both so she could see more easily. She responded quickly to his lead. Really, dancing with her was a pleasure, even though he could tell by the tension in her back and hands that she was nervous. He found himself wondering how it would be to dance, or do other things, with her when she was more relaxed.

  Stop it, Beauclaire. You’ll miss your step and embarrass the both of you.

  “Oh, that,” she was saying. “That’s nothing to worry about. Marcus looks at everyone like that.”

  “I would say that is a relief, but I would be lying.” In fact, the glower the Duke of Windford leveled at him would have blistered paint.

  “I thought . . . that is, I’d heard, you and Marcus were friends.”

  Have you been asking about me, ma belle? How gratifying. “We have had some dealings in the past. It was all amiable enough, but it left him, I think, a little too knowledgeable about myself to be very glad I am dancing with his sister.”

  “Oh,” she said softly, but her step did not falter, and neither did her gaze. “Well. Still. You mustn’t let Marcus’s looks worry you. One gets used to them. That is . . . I didn’t mean . . . Oh dear.”

  James squeezed her hand gently. “Do not distress yourself, ma chère. I find I would like the chance to get used to your brother’s frowns.”

  Before she could answer this, the music drew to a close and they had to let go of each other in order to join the general applause. James held out his arm again, and Adele smiled up at him as she laid her hand in place. His heart stirred to see it. So did several parts far lower down. He ignored the unruly beast and concentrated on steering Adele through the crowd, but soon it was his turn to frown. Patience had joined the Delacourte sisters, and they were all waiting to pounce.

  “Have you a friend to whom I can escort you?” he asked.

  Adele hesitated. “No . . . Wait, yes. Helene Fitzgerald. She’s over there, in the gray.”

  “Bon.” He put their backs to Patience and guided Adele through the crush.

  ***

  I want to die, right now. I want waltzing with James Beauclaire to be the very last thing I ever do. Nothing could possibly be more wonderful.

  Except maybe the look on Patience’s face as she watched M. Beauclaire lead her dumpling sister about the dance floor. That, however, was wicked and unkind, and she must not think it. Except she had, and she probably would again.

  Usually about this time, Adele would be trying to work out how to sneak something from the refreshment table without earning a lecture from her aunt, or perhaps just sitting in the corner, watching the gathering and waiting for dinner. For just this one time, things were different, and she meant to savor each delectable minute.

  She knew herself to be a terrible dancer. Her masters had carped and criticized until she felt barely able to try. So she’d suffered a moment’s panic when James’s arms folded around her. But somehow, looking into his eyes and feeling his hands on her, she’d been comfortable instead of awkward, and even though she was nervous, she was also glad. This devastatingly handsome man, who had half the fashionable world sighing after him, looked at her and smiled like he saw past the bad dress and unflattering hairstyle. He remembered their secret. He even joked about it and made her relax. What was more, in these few moments, she not only felt she could really be herself, but that she wanted to be.

  But those moments were quickly over. It seemed to take them only a heartbeat to cross the ballroom and reach the place by the wall where Helene Fitzgerald stood in a plain, gray satin gown. Beside her, and partly behind her, hovered a petite girl with strawberry blond hair, who gazed at Adele and James with a look somewhere between awe and abject terror.

  James bowed to them both with perfect aplomb. “Good evening, Lady Helene. James Beauclaire, at your service. We met last year, at Lady Pritchard’s, I think it was.”

  Helene met his gaze with an arctic air, but curtsied politely. James smiled and turned to the red-haired girl beside her. “I do not believe I have had the pleasure?”

  “Monsieur Beauclaire, may I introduce my friend Miss Madelene Valmeyer,” said Helene.

  “Enchanté, mademoiselle.” He bowed over her hand, but something clearly caught his eye. His mouth moved silently, and Adele had the distinct feeling that what he said was not a polite word.

  “Well, Monsieur Beauclaire, there you are!”

  Adele suppressed her own impolite exclamation, because it was Patience, at her sparkling finest, bearing do
wn behind them, and Aunt Kearsely with her right on her heels. They’d noticed that Adele was dancing, and that near-unprecedented occurrence clearly required a timely intervention.

  “I told you he had not abandoned us, Aunt.” Patience smiled up at James, all eyes and teeth and glitter, and, incidentally, stepping right between him and Adele.

  “How are you enjoying yourself, Monsieur Beauclaire?” Aunt Kearsely fluttered her fan, clearing the air for more flattery.

  M. Beauclaire looked over their heads, and Adele saw him wink. “Wonderfully, Madame,” he said to her aunt. “What a magnificent affair. The music is exquisite. We all but floated upon it.”

  “And the company is quite to your liking?” said Aunt Kearsely. “Some persons do not care for the inclusion of . . . originals”—her gaze passed coolly and dismissively over Helene and Madelene—“such as our dear Miss Sewell.” Aunt Kearsely waved her fan toward a mature woman in a daring gown of black and gold.

  “Is it Deborah Sewell you were avoiding by taking to the dance floor, Monsieur Beauclaire?” Patience inquired mischievously. “Perhaps you were afraid if she saw too much of you, she’d make you a caricature in her next book! I’m sure her writer’s eye delights in unexpected contrasts.” She smiled, not at him, but at Adele, and Helene and Madelene. “What do you think, Adele? Would you dare to go and find out which of our guests most intrigues Miss Sewell?”

  The moment’s lightness Adele had known waltzing with James evaporated beneath the heat of Patience’s glower. She felt herself shrinking. She felt the press of the horrid, starched ruff all around her throat and the awkward weight of her sash, and its enormous bow.

  And she was not the only one who was brought back to reality by Patience’s pointed speech. James turned away and said languidly, “Well, Lady Patience, should your sister choose to beard the lioness, she can tell us after our dance.” He bowed. “It is our dance, is it not?”

  “Why yes, it is. I had quite forgotten.” Patience tossed her head, but she took his arm just the same. Aunt Kearsely watched her youngest niece be lead away. Her weary glance said to Adele that they would continue this conversation later, and she sailed away to speak with another set of guests.

  Not, Adele noticed, the notorious Miss Sewell.

  A hand touched her arm, startling her. She had forgotten Madelene Valmeyer.

  “D-do you really think Miss Sewell wrote The Matchless?” she stammered. “My stepmother says she should be sued for libel for the things she says about society.” It was an obvious effort to distract Adele from Patience and James on the dance floor, but it was just as obviously meant kindly, so Adele rallied her nerve, and her manners.

  “Aunt Kearsely certainly thinks she wrote it. That’s why she was invited. And she really is watching us.” From her side of the ballroom, Miss Sewell might have her fan raised to half cover her face, but there was no mistaking where her searching eyes were directed.

  Pointing this out, however, was a mistake. The very last speck of color drained from Madelene’s cheeks. “Oh. Oh. I don’t think . . . I don’t think I can stand it anymore, Helene. You promised we could go if I . . .”

  “I did, and we will, in just a minute,” answered Helene. “Just try to breathe calmly and think of something else.”

  Adele furrowed her brow. She wanted to tell Madelene to buck up, there was nothing so terrible in being stared at, even by a suspected lady novelist, but one more look told her the girl really was on the verge of panic.

  “I can’t. Helene . . .”

  “You can.” Helene laid a hand on the other girl’s shoulder. “Just another minute. Do you know, Lady Adele, before you joined us, Madelene and I were reordering the company? Deciding who we would invite, if we were in charge of the guest list. I actually think we might keep Miss Sewell.” She nodded toward the older woman, who had, thankfully, turned her face away from the three of them to enter into conversation with Brandon Cleft and stoop-shouldered M. Odevette. “I have decided Monsieur Beauclaire has earned a place on our private guest list. Especially as he was so good as to remove Patience for us.”

  Was that really what had happened? Adele didn’t dare believe it. She watched how coolly, how easily James moved down the line of the country dance with Patience stepping beside him.

  “Terese Summershaw is pleasant,” Adele remarked, trying to enter into the spirit of the imaginary guest list, and to force her gaze away from James. “Louisa Graham as well.” She paused, a wave of wistfulness overcoming her. How many times had she stood by similar walls, wishing she was somewhere else, with people she actually might be able to like? “Not that my opinion is ever likely to matter, of course.”

  “None of ours do,” murmured Madelene. “That’s our problem, isn’t it?”

  Adele smiled ruefully. “If it did, the first thing I’d do is ban Georgiana Delacourte’s turban.”

  Madelene’s eye opened even wider. “But it is entirely the fashion!”

  “It is, and it doesn’t suit her any better than this”—Adele tugged at her ruff—“does me, or all that blue lace does Patience’s pink dress. A dozen perfectly amiable ostriches must have been sacrificed to give Georgiana that forest of feathers. And those ribbons? The thing looks like it’s about to reach out and throttle her.”

  Madelene slapped her hand over her shocked gasp, but Helene just narrowed her eyes. “What should she wear?”

  The question startled Adele, and for a moment, she thought the other girl was being sarcastic, but one look told her Helene was perfectly serious.

  Unfortunately, Georgiana was in the same line as James and Patience. It was difficult, but Adele made herself look past them and concentrate on the older Delacourte sister, not really thinking, just noting the way Georgiana carried herself, the way she appeared against the surrounding crowd, the way the light fell across her skin and hair.

  “With those dark curls and that complexion, she could wear green,” Adele answered slowly. “A real, rich green. And she should pin those curls up with diamonds, not cover them with a turban. She could carry off good stones. She’s got enough of an air.”

  “How can you be so sure?” asked Madelene, a tone approaching wonder in her voice.

  But Helene spoke before Adele could. “What about Madelene? What would she wear if you were in charge?”

  Madelene was in pink, and it didn’t suit her any more than the yellow suited Adele. But she couldn’t say that. The girl was nervous enough. “You’re lucky,” she told Madelene instead. “You’re all sunshine with that hair and everything.”

  “Oh no.” Madelene touched one of her trailing curls. “It’s red. It’s horrible. And I’m too thin.” Her eyes darted about the room. Clearly her nerves were getting the better of her again.

  “Nonsense.” Helene took her friend’s arm firmly and turned her a little to face Adele. “Go on, Adele. Tell us, how would you dress Madelene?”

  Adele bit her lip and thought about some notebooks she had tucked away in her rooms. They were the results of hours of private daydreams. Could she risk showing them to these girls she barely knew?

  Patience laughed. Adele’s gaze darted back to the ballroom. Her eye lit on M. Beauclaire, standing in the corner next to Benedict Pelham. Patience was now on the other side of the room with the Delacourte sisters and Mr. Valmeyer. James nodded toward Adele, and she felt the heat of her blush rising and the ruff tighten around her throat as she tried to swallow.

  She had to get out of here.

  “Adele?” prompted Helene.

  “I’ll show you something,” she murmured to her companions. “But only if you swear never to tell a soul what you are about to see.”

  ***

  “Good evening, Mister Pelham, Monsieur Beauclaire.” Miss Sewell drifted casually up to where James stood with Benedict.

  “Bon soir, Miss Sewell,” replied James, bowing. “Are you enjo
ying yourself?”

  James had originally met Miss Sewell three seasons ago. The sharp-eyed woman was a regular at some of the more political and artistic parties James was occasionally invited to. He found her to be a shrewd observer of society. Unlike some others, though, she kept her barbs for those who earned them. He was not at all surprised when he heard her name come up in speculation as the author of the three-volume novel that had so recently set society tongues wagging.

  “I am enjoying myself very much. It is an extremely interesting party. Do you not agree, Mister Pelham?”

  “There are several points worth looking at.”

  And they all seem to be in one particular direction. James could not help but notice how Benedict had been watching Lady Adele as she stood beside the pillar with her two friends. The artist had been so intent on that particular trio that he’d barely attended to the compliments the matrons paid him. Again, James found himself wondering if Benedict was nursing a penchant for Lady Adele. His gut tightened uncomfortably. His friend might not be heir to a title, but he had the rank and connections that James lacked, and an artist, especially a widower whose first wife had died tragically, had the air of drama that could not help but interest a young lady. Was Adele the sort to be attracted to the dramatic and the dangerous? She might be. After all, she was attracted to him.

  Mon Dieu, Beauclaire. Get ahold of yourself. You sound jealous.

  Worse, something of his unease was showing on his face.

  “I am surprised you are not over with Lady Patience and her friends, Monsieur Beauclaire,” said Miss Sewell. “She will be feeling your neglect again soon.”

  “Lady Patience has a very full dance card. I am afraid to be in the way.”

  “And you, Mister Pelham, have you no particular friend here with whom to while away the evening until midnight?”

  “Like you, Miss Sewell, I prefer to observe.”