"Then I must politely decline," Davinoff said, in a manner Sarah thought hardly polite. He swung into the saddle and urged Quixote on. "My horse needs a run."
"Come on, Madame," Sarah said tightly, disappointed, and disappointed in herself for being so. It was just that she would have liked to see Quixote jump, she told herself. Then she grew a little angry. Davinoff thought she rode like a slug.
In any event, they had a lovely ride. They cantered about the park and through the woods. Maggie took logs and hedges, everything in stride. As they came round to the meadow and turned toward home, Davinoff and Quixote appeared, trotting along the crest of a hill. She could see him looking down at them and imagined his disdain. She had already decided that she and Maggie would take the stile to the left of the large, white-paneled gate leading to the south pasture. But now she changed her mind. Don't be petty, she told herself. But it was too late and she knew it.
"Madame, there is a stile to the left of the gate," she called and gestured toward the easier route. She patted Maggie's neck. "Well, my dear?" Most horses didn't like the stark-white panels of the gate and it was four feet high. But she knew Maggie was a match for it, even this late in the ride. She brought the mare up to an easy canter with her haunches up under her for power and curved right to approach the gate. She did not even look up to the ridge.
Slow, slow, she thought to Maggie, as the gate loomed. Don't rush. She sat back on Maggie to shorten her stride with that instinct that came from many jumps for how many strides were left to the fence. Maggie rose under her as Sarah looked up across the field. She just touched Maggie's shoulder with her short crop. Maggie responded with extra effort and tucked her forelegs neatly up to clear that gate with room to spare. Sarah laughed, as she brought the horse down to a trot and stroked her neck. "You are very generous," she praised. Maggie snorted and pranced, proud of herself.
Sarah applauded Sultan as he cleared the stile. Then she could not master the urge to look up toward Davinoff. He stood under an oak, too far away to see his expression. Perhaps he was just giving Quixote a breather. She turned Maggie toward the stable and refused to look back.
The afternoon was deepening to dusk and the wind was blowing as Sarah burst into the house in search of Madame Gessande. She found her ensconced in Corina's library. Sarah could just see her reach for her tea from a comfortable wing chair at the far end of the grand room. "She is very independent." Was there someone in the other wing chair? Sarah's steps slowed.
"Stubborn, some might say." Sarah stopped in her tracks at the all too familiar voice.
"And curious, and courageous. I find her many things. Not just in the ordinary style."
"Ah." Sarah saw Davinoff's hand wave. "I expect you knew her as a child, perhaps think of her as your own. It colors your opinion." Sarah wondered if she could escape unseen.
"I think of her as a good person and friend," Madame returned. "One is never objective about the people one truly values." What was Davinoff doing closeted with Madame, talking about her?
Madame glanced up. "What is it, ma petite?" she asked calmly.
"Minton was quite helpful in the matter of pruning." Sarah cleared her throat, pushing some strands of escaping hair behind her ears as she approached. "My peach trees, you know…"
"Ah. And did you have a reason for seeking me out?" the woman asked.
"Well…" Sarah shifted her weight to her other foot. Davinoff had Plato's Dialogues spread open over his crossed knee. "I thought you might like to play some whist."
"I'd love to," her friend said, setting down her tea and copy of Frankenstein.
"If you find a bearable fourth, I'll join you." Davinoff peered round his chair.
Sarah could not believe her ears. "I am sure you would be bored stiff unless the stakes were high enough to ruin someone." Madame glanced up. Well, how could one help but be rude to the man?
He turned to Madame Gessande. "I shall strive to stay awake," he drawled. "But only if you give me leave to veto the choice of a fourth."
Sarah was interrupted in the midst of a gurgle of laughter as Corina flashed into the library, still in her hunt clothes, red and military, with black braid and a high-crown beaver with red feathers at the brim. Corina had dressed to kill this morning in more ways than one. Madame and General Wentworth had just won a closely contested hand from Sarah and Davinoff. The general could only be said to be crowing. Madame exclaimed over his skill. Davinoff tossed his cards negligently on the table. But his mouth held a ghostly smile.
Sarah could see Corina take in the scene at a glance. Her eyes darkened. "Well, there you all are, wasting the afternoon with cards." She stripped her gloves off.
"How was your hunt?" Madame inquired. Sarah looked up, anxious.
"Fine, except there was no fox." Corina stalked up to the table. "He got away."
Sarah smiled to herself and gathered the cards.
"I thought you were scheduled to hunt, Davinoff," Corina challenged.
"I rarely adhere to schedules," he answered and pushed back from the table.
"Are you squeamish, like Sarah here?"
Davinoff looked up, considering. "I hardly think you could call me squeamish," he remarked, and rose. "You will excuse me," he murmured then and nodded to the table. In a moment, he was gone.
"Sarah, come help me put off this habit," Corina commanded. Sarah recognized a summons. She shrugged her apologies to Madame and the general, and followed.
"I can't believe he spent an entire boring afternoon at cards when he could have been hunting with me," Corina said. Sarah seated herself on a small divan, as Corina paced her dressing room. Now she would accuse Sarah of monopolizing Davinoff.
"We did not play for long," Sarah excused.
"Then what in heaven's name did he do all day?" she cried.
"I believe he rode in the morning," Sarah said, as if she didn't know for certain. "And he was talking to Madame Gessande and reading in the library when I came in from the greenhouses."
"Reading?" Corina fairly shouted. "When he could have been hunting with me?" She calmed and sat abruptly at the dressing table. "Last night, he was mine," she muttered. "Today, he plays me the fool. What is his game?"
"He doesn't hunt." Sarah was grateful Corina did not blame her for Davinoff's defection.
"Beside the point." Corina dismissed Sarah with a wave of her hand and sat gazing into the mirror. "He is fascinated, I can feel it," she mused. "But he cannot commit to the consequence."
"What do you want of him?" Sarah asked, her voice so low that she wasn't sure her friend would hear her. "A man like that is not used to committing."
"I want him devoted." Corina rose from where she had been slumped against the dressing table and danced slowly around the room, her voice airy. "I want him to think of me, be where I am, do what I want to do. I want him to shower me with gifts and treat me like a cherished, treasured jewel." She turned to Sarah, and her voice turned also to reveal its edge. "I know what they are saying. They want to know whose heart will break, his or mine. Are they betting yet?"
"You can't listen to idle gossip, Corina. I should think you would be the last to care."
"I don't care if they all think I am outrageous. But they will never, ever feel sorry for me," Corina whispered. "And they will never laugh."
"Then you have your wish, Corina. Everyone in Bath thinks drat you are outrageous."
Corina was not listening. "He just needs a push to make his declaration public. Once he has shown the world he loves me, it will be different. He is only skittish of going through the gate."
"Corina, whatever are you thinking?" All Sarah's feeling of foreboding assaulted her.
Corina stood, tapping her foot, her finger to her lips in thought. There was a long moment of silence before she began to laugh, low at first, then shouting and gasping for breath, gusts of mirth shaking her body.
"What is it, Corina? Don't do this. You are frightening me."
The woman controlled herse
lf with difficulty, cupped a hand over her mouth. "Never mind, my sweet," she gurgled. "You run along now." She lifted Sarah and pulled her toward the door. "But watch what happens tonight at the masquerade."
Sarah stayed in her room until long after she could hear guests stirring in the corridors. She put on her domino, one of those clever satin capes that concealed one's clothes, and together with a mask constituted a perfectly acceptable masquerade costume. Dominoes were safe. In choosing an actual costume, one ran the danger of being too precious, or again too outrageous. George first encouraged her to wear a domino. She had got one from the lending library, which allowed borrowers to check out costumes or reticules designed for parties. Finally she had purchased her own red one, thinking it a very good value. A single domino might last one all one's life, she thought, unaccountably depressed. Madame planned to come as Marie Antoinette. One could count on the usual assortment of medieval ladies popularized by Mr. Scott, pirates and devils and monks. Corina had refused to reveal her costume plans. Sarah wondered what Davinoff would wear.
At a quarter to nine, she could put off the inevitable no longer. She descended the stairs and allowed Reece to show her into the first-floor ballroom in the central wing of the house.
Orange trees potted in silver tubs from Corina's hothouses sat around the edges of the room, exuding their heavy scent. Sconces and Venetian chandeliers glowed with a thousand refractions of light. The oak floor gleamed, whispering, as evening slippers shushed across it, that dancing was the order of the evening. Portraits and dim landscapes looked down from between the pilasters upon the guests below. Surrounding the perimeter several small tables had been set, along with chairs and divans. Across the back, a champagne fountain glittered and bottles rose in pyramids of what Sarah knew would be an excellent claret, brought up from the cellars of the Dukes of Bimerton. Corina's cook had produced tiny succulent bits of finger food to tide the revelers over until the late supper.
Sarah gazed out across the sea of costumes feeling rather lost. There was nothing for it but to wade into the crowd and try to locate someone to talk to, a difficult business when no one looked like who they were. Before she could get into the room at all she was asked to dance by a naval commander who turned out to be Edgar Kerseymere, John's younger brother. Then the general, dressed as a magician in conical cap and a black domino scattered with stars, begged for a waltz.
As she turned to sit, she bumped straight into Davinoff. "You have no costume, Mr. Davinoff," she exclaimed. His black satin coat with its black-figured waistcoat was impeccable, but his only concession to costume was a baleful ruby, winking redly from the folds of his cravat.
He raised one brow. "I do. I come as the devil."
Of course she could not imagine him deigning to dress up. "Perhaps you insinuate that your normal appearance is but a disguise," she observed, half taunting.
He examined her closely as the crowd whirled around them. She became positively dizzy, held by his eyes. "Perhaps," he murmured.
"Have you seen a Marie Antoinette?" she stuttered. "I am looking for Madame Gessande."
"Let me escort you." He offered his arm. She could feel his strength through his coat sleeve. The knowledge of his flesh beneath the fabric unnerved her, just as it had in the coaching inn yard, how long ago? She thought she would be immune to Davinoff after a week of watching him with Corina. But she could not say exactly how she arrived, breathless, to sit beside Madame Gessande, or as near as she could, since Madame's panniered skirt took up the whole divan and Sarah was forced into a nearby chair. When she looked up, Davinoff had already disappeared into the throng.
Corina made sure her appearance was the last of the evening. The musicians played a fanfare and the doors to the ballroom at the top of three stairs opened to reveal Corina as Juno, queen of the gods. Long curls threaded with tiny gold chains coiled over a bare shoulder. She wore a toga fastened at the other shoulder by a golden brooch and girdled at the waist by a net of gold and pearls. The fabric was the sheerest silk, which left little to the imagination. But the imagination was not deterred. Her bare arm bore a single golden bracelet above the elbow. On her feet, golden sandals, and most scandalous of all, her toenails were painted with gold paint.
The crowd hushed; then one of the gentlemen began to clap his hands, and soon the applause rippled across the hall. Corina nodded, most imperial, and descended into the room.
Sarah sighed. The feeling of her hand on Davinoff's arm receded. She felt acutely all the differences between her life and Corina's. Would she have felt better if George had deigned to come? Corina danced with Davinoff once, but she paid most of her attention to the bluff Sir Kelston, one of many monks tonight. Poor thing, he was not up to Corina's tricks. She simpered, she cajoled, she plied him with wine. She granted him dance after dance and he held her much too close for propriety at every chance.
Sarah was puzzled. "It is not like Sir Kelston to become foxed. What is Corina doing?"
"He is a trifle well to live," Madame agreed. "Likely he will end having shot the cat."
"Madame!" Her worldly friend's language could still make Sarah gasp.
"Don't pretend you don't know what I mean, Sarah Ashton," Madame replied tartly.
After midnight the guests indulged themselves at the great buffet table in the first floor dining room. Many witnessed Corina begging Sir Kelston to take her outside, saying that she desperately needed air. That young man hastily put down his plate, causing several glasses on the table to overturn, called to a servant to fetch her wrap, and led her away to the balcony.
"Only Davinoff seems oblivious to Corina," Madame observed. That man lounged toward the table holding the wine.
"A bad sign," Sarah said, her brows creased in worry. "She has some plan tonight to attach him to her. I thought if he was terribly attentive… but his indifference will urge her on."
Suddenly the door to the first-floor balcony burst open, and Corina struggled in, her hair disheveled, clutching the torn shoulder of her toga. A wail escaped her. The bustle of the room ceased. All eyes turned toward her. "Help me," she sobbed and threw herself past several other men, onto Davinoff's shoulder as he stood holding a glass of wine.
Sir Kelston appeared at the French doors, looking dazed. "Corina, pet, what are you doing?" he asked. His absurd mustachios and his fair skin made him look younger than his twenty-five years.
"Oh, Davinoff, this man has, has soiled my honor in my own house," Corina cried.
"Has he?" Davinoff set down his glass and disentangled her grip from his coat.
"But, Corina," Sir Kelston expostulated. "I didn't." Then more uncertainly, "Did I?"
"My honor demands satisfaction," Corina practically shouted, turning to the room. "Davinoff, you must be my champion. You must give me satisfaction."
"Are you talking about pistols at dawn, my dear?" Davinoff inquired.
"I am talking about honor," the girl sobbed. Sarah had never seen Corina cry.
Sir Kelston turned white as a sheet as he saw how matters lay. He steadied himself, and drew himself up to his full height. "I agree, Mrs. Nandalay," he said in a formal tone with only a slight slur to his words. "Honor needs satisfaction. My honor has been impugned with these accusations. I will meet you where you will, Davinoff. We shall let the bullets determine the right of it."
"I'll act as second, Kelston," John Kerseymere called.
"Fools," Davinoff whispered. Corina lifted her handkerchief to her mouth, as though to stop her sobbing. But Sarah could see the gleam of satisfaction in her eyes. Here was public proof of Davinoff's devotion. He would fight a duel in her honor. What could be better? The room held its breath. No doubt many were remembering the rumors of Davinoff's other duels.
"I pick up pistols only when I choose the cause," he said shortly.
Corina looked up at him with eyes brimming. "But my honor!" she gasped. The shoulder of her toga dropped to reveal the curve of her breast. Sarah wondered if she had practiced that.
> "I'll fight for your honor." Edgar Kerseymere fought his way through the crowd.
No one heeded. Davinoff stared down at Corina. "You do not have honor enough for anyone to fight for," he said, his voice a deep ramble all the room could hear. Corina gazed up at him, her fists clenched, rage beginning to suffuse her. But she was held, apparently, by the power of Davinoff's eyes alone. "You will stop this charade. There will be no duel." With that, his eyes ceased to hold her, and she slumped to a chair. He turned the power of his gaze on the room, sweeping the faces, frozen in shock or in anticipation. "There will be no duel," he said again.
With that, he whirled and strode away. There was a moment of stunned silence, then an embarrassed shuffling toward the exit. A wail escaped Corina, to be followed by real sobs.
"Corina," Sir Kelston asked, "what was all this about?"
The whispers were already starting. Sarah could hear Countess Delmont's voice, first among many. Soon they would realize that Sir Kelston was too much the bluff innocent to have ravished Corina. They would suspect that she had staged the entire incident. Would they feel sorry for her, or would they laugh? Corina had managed to achieve her worst nightmare. Sarah put a hand on her friend's shoulder, only to be shaken violently off as Corina rose and ran from the room.
The party broke up the next day without the presence of its hostess. She refused Sarah entrance to her suite of rooms. There was nothing to be done but to slink home with the others.
Chapter Eight
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Sarah's every venture into Bath was a disaster. By Wednesday she wanted to hear no more gossip, be asked no more questions about Corina. And while she was about it, she wanted no more speculation on what would happen next between the young woman and Davinoff. As she trudged up the steps to her own house, Jasco opened the door. Sighing, she gave him her gloves and her pelisse and looked at the several cards lying on the deal table in the hall. "More visitors," she remarked, taking off her hat. "Being a friend of Mrs. Nandalay is trying."
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