Sacrament

by Susan Squires

  "Mr. Upcott called, and Her Grace of Delmont," Jasco intoned. "And one or two others."

  "Please tell anyone who calls that I am not at home, Jasco. I cannot bear any more today."

  "Of course, Your Ladyship. Shall I have Mrs. Addison bring some tea to the library?"

  "That would be nice, Jasco, thank you." She sighed again, and made her way to one of the overstuffed chairs in front of the crackling fire in the study.

  Corina hadn't been seen since the masquerade. She was probably in need of comfort from a friend. But Sarah couldn't go to her. She could not overcome her disgust that Corina would have let Sir Kelston go to his death at Davinoff's hands. No one could think him a match for Davinoff with pistols. All for a display to the world that she owned Davinoff's affections?

  No one would ever own that man's affections. Sarah leaned back and examined the crown molding. She was trapped in the muddle, too. Part of her wanted to wash her hands of Corina forever. Part of her knew that in Bath just now, she was the only friend the girl had.

  Sarah gritted her teeth and rose. She could not abandon Corina, foolish and cruel as she was. Sooner or later she would have to confront her, no matter how she felt about Corina's deeds. She might as well start now. "Jasco," she called. "Call for a gig from the livery. I have just enough time to drive out to Chambroke. I shall be back in time for supper."

  What she found there disturbed her greatly. Corina was still in her sitting room, in her wrapper. Her hair had not been dressed. It hung about her face, lank. Her blue eyes were ringed with dark circles and her complexion was wan. She lay on a chaise, a down comforter covered in blue satin clutched about her.

  "Corina, are you well?" Sarah asked as she entered. "Lansing said you were not yourself."

  "Curse her," Corina mumbled. "I am simply bored to tears."

  "Well, I can understand that, when you are not out of your wrapper yet at three o'clock. Why don't we give your horses a run?"

  "Horses? What do I care for riding at a time like this?" Corina raged suddenly to life. "Enemies on every side, my reputation in ruins, my pride—my pride in shreds—and you think of horses!" She subsided into the chaise and her comforter. "You are worse than stupid, Sarah!"

  "Perhaps." Sarah tried hard to remember how Corina must feel. "But it is just your pride."

  "Just my pride," Corina echoed, staring out the windows to the park. The wind was tugging at the trees. "He has destroyed me."

  Corina didn't need sympathy. She needed to be jerked out of the self-pity that paralyzed her. Sarah had never seen her like this. She found it disturbing. "Corina," Sarah said firmly, "you brought this upon yourself. I suppose you have not thought very much about what would have happened to Sir Kelston had you succeeded."

  "He is not important." Corina waved a languid hand.

  "He might have been killed!"

  "What are you saying, Sarah? It is me who is ruined. And Davinoff who has done this to me." The blonde turned her face into the chaise and drew a corner of the comforter up under her chin.

  Sarah realized she would never bring Corina to a realization of her almost crime. She sighed. Corina didn't have it in her. "Why not go to London for a while?"

  "Don't you think the word has spread there too?" Corina's voice was small and hopeless.

  "You cannot stay shut up here. Come to the assembly tomorrow night. You had better face them early than late. At any rate, the event will be less dire than the anticipation."

  "No one will dance with me," Corina whispered.

  Sarah tried to smile. "If you can stand his treading on your toes, I can assure you a dance with George. You know that when your retinue of admirers sees you looking ravishing but vulnerable, they will rush to your side in fits of knight errantry." Corina looked up, half convinced. Sarah was half convinced herself. Young men could forgive Corina anything. Sarah raised her brows in entreaty.

  Corina put her hand to her mouth and shook her head, her eyes filling. Sarah came and sat on the end of the chaise. "You must go out sometime, you know," she said gently.

  "Davinoff will be there," Corina whispered. "I cannot bear to have the devil snub me, or see him hanging on that aged Delmont fright. They will all take his lead. No one will even speak to me." Her voice rose. "I can't do it, Sarah."

  Sarah fingered the satin of the coverlet. There was a solution to this, if she could get him to do it. She pictured herself asking in several different ways, and the scenes all came out badly. But Corina's misery was most real, to her. Sarah sighed, and knew she would try.

  "If Davinoff does not snub you, the whole may be brought off creditably." She patted Corina's foot under the coverlet. "I have a plan. Expect a note from me tomorrow, and be ready." All the way home, Sarah cursed herself for being drawn into Corina's dance with Davinoff. But her heart had been touched against her will by Corina's obvious pain. Now she would be the instrument of their reconciliation, if she could manage it. She pushed away her very mixed feelings without examination. She was about to ask Anarchy for a favor.

  There were few people in Henrietta Park the next afternoon as she waited anxiously on a bench. The wind had died down, but the sky was that dull pewter gray which signaled rain. The park smelled like wet growing things, and the faint rot of decaying leaves. Would he come? How dared she expect the devil to do a good deed?

  Precisely at two, Davinoff strolled around the corner of the yew hedge and down the path that led to her bench. As he approached, he doffed his high-crowned beaver. "Lady Clevancy, I received your note," he said. Cool inquiry filled his voice.

  "Obviously," she replied, more tartly than she wished. "Unless it is your habit to stroll in the park when the weather is coming on to rain."

  "Hardly." He waited, looming above her.

  "I cannot speak comfortably, if you are going to tower over me like that. Do sit down." Sarah did not look forward to this at all.

  Davinoff nodded and sat in his casual way upon the bench. He looked in question at her.

  Sarah suddenly became most confused. How to begin? How to ask?

  "Let me guess," he began. She wondered if he would help her broach the subject. "You wish assistance in choosing someone to begin charting your villa."

  "No, no. Lord Elgin has found me someone most suitable. I start next week." She saw a shadow pass across Davinoff's face. "That is not what I wished to ask you," she exclaimed, poised upon the brink but unable to throw herself over.

  "Then…" Davinoff waited, enjoying her discomfiture, she thought.

  "It's about Corina," she finally blurted.

  Davinoff's countenance darkened, and his eyes narrowed.

  "She is miserable over all of this," Sarah rushed on. "I think she is going into a decline."

  "That is the last woman likely to go into a decline," Davinoff said.

  "You haven't seen her." Sarah saw his doubt in his eyes. "Oh, I know she feigns emotions. The other night was all an act. But this is not. She is afraid to come out of her house." Sarah took a breath. "I am afraid the episode may have unbalanced her."

  "She should have thought of that before she created a scene that might well have ended in bloodshed if she had got another victim besides me." The man was implacable.

  "And do you think that you are blameless here?" Sarah burst out. "Do you think you did not drive her to extremities with your… your variable attentions?"

  "She bestows variable attentions herself. I thought she liked the game of hide and seek."

  "Au contraire, Mr. Davinoff. Corina is used to getting exactly what she wants. I know that does not excuse her," Sarah added. "But you must see that she was not prepared for your on-again, off-again observance. Now she is humiliated. And I think that is very good for her. But she shouldn't be beaten down so far she does not get an opportunity to learn from her situation."

  Davinoff's expression was wary. "And you wish me to do what?"

  "I want you to ride out to Chambroke." She saw his brow lift. "I know it is asking too m
uch, but I saw Corina yesterday, and I knew I must ask. You could say that you just happened in on your way from the abbey, so it would not look like you made a special trip."

  Davinoff looked ever more dubious. "But you do want a special trip," he pointed out.

  "Yes, well, I know that." Sarah mustered her courage. "But all you need do is act as though you expect to see her at the Assembly Rooms tonight, and let her see that you won't snub her, and she will be drawn out of her house to face the town. Once she has done that, she will be better. And if you could bring yourself to dance with her at the assembly, why then it would lead the way for others to acknowledge her." Sarah looked up at him, pleading.

  "I hardly think…" he began.

  But Sarah could see him softening at the edges like the bank of a stream in rushing water. "She really is suffering, you know. And she would never have succumbed to such foolishness if you hadn't dallied with her affections most shamefully," she reminded.

  "I suppose if she regrets her action…" Davinoff trailed off, still reluctant.

  Sarah tried not to reflect on the fact that she had carefully neglected to say that Corina was sorry. "Eight miles. You will be there in half an hour with Quixote or your marvelous pair."

  Davinoff looked disgusted with himself. He rose and put on his hat. "How did you grow to be so persuasive?" His voice was bitter. "I expect your father sold patent medicines on the side."

  "Thank you." Sarah laughed. "You will not be sorry."

  "I am sorry already," he said shortly, and strode off the way he came.

  Julien rode Quixote through the gates of Chambroke in the afternoon. He had to make his way through a stream of servants, departing. They laughed and exclaimed at some unexpected holiday. That was odd, he thought. He handed Quixote over to a groom who himself looked anxious to depart, and turned toward the huge front doors. How had he let Sarah Ashton talk him into this? He had hardly lifted the knocker when the doors were opened by Corina's stone-faced butler.

  "Mr. Davinoff," he intoned, taking Julien's cape and hat. "Mrs. Nandalay is in the white drawing room." He led Julien to the back of the house. It was unnaturally quiet, without the subtle bustle of servants that underscored life in a country house. Julien's eyes swept the white drawing room. It must take its name from the ceiling, where a single garland in gold leaf was picked out of ornately carved white plaster. Corina sat on a divan of chocolate-colored fabric, floating on ornate rugs of chocolate, maroon, and white. She smoothed the lace bodice of her white dress, looking charged with energy, not the despondent wreck Sarah Ashton described.

  "Mrs. Nandalay, I see you are well."

  "As ever. Would you like coffee or tea?" Her eyes sparked under her lowered lashes.

  "I cannot stay more than a moment," he demurred.

  "It will take but a moment. Reece," she called to the departing butler. "Bring coffee."

  Julien saw Reece's eyes meet hers for a moment as he bowed and closed the door behind him. "To what do I owe the pleasure of this visit?" she asked, and gestured to a chair. Julien disposed his long form into its gilt frame.

  "I wanted to see how you did."

  A wave of emotion rolled over Corina's face and was gone. "I do as I always do."

  "Lady Clevancy wanted to reassure herself upon that point." Julien wanted to make sure Corina knew that coming here was not his own idea.

  "Ah. Dear Sarah. I had her note, mentioning that you might be wending our way. Is she the reason you have come?" Corina pretended to nonchalance.

  "One of the reasons."

  Reece returned with a silver coffee service. He set it on the sideboard and began to pour.

  "And what are the others?" Corina asked. She eyed Reece and the tea service, eyes snapping.

  Julien glanced toward the butler. What was amiss here? He cleared his throat. "I wondered if you planned to attend the assembly ball."

  Reece set before them the cups of delicate maroon Haviland ornately worked in gold.

  "I am thinking about it." Her eyes never left Julien as he lifted the cup to his lips and sipped. He examined her face. She was acting very oddly. Perhaps Lady Clevancy had been right.

  Corina began to chatter on. "After last week at the masquerade, I am not sure I am up to public appearances." Julien held the delicate cup and drank again. "I suppose I will go eventually. One can't stay bottled up at Chambroke, after all." She stared at his cup and sipped her own coffee. "I cannot think what induced my father to buy a property so remote."

  And on and on. He did not bother to hide his boredom. Her smile was forced as she waded on through the conversation. Actually, her expression was anxious. She peered at him intently. Why? Since his expression did not dissuade her, he resolved to interrupt and make his escape, no matter how rude. She came to the assembly or she did not, he had done his part. He cursed Sarah Ashton for her solicitous nature. This woman was beyond his reach. She didn't seem sorry at all.

  Before he could insert his intention into the conversation, he noticed that his cup was chattering against its saucer. He glanced down, surprised. He tried to steady it, but it heaved and clattered all the more. He glanced about the room, which was busy bulging and contracting, too. Where was he? Was this the salon of Marie Therese of Austria? His gaze brushed Corina. Her blue eyes shone, and her teeth showed in a grin that stretched into a grimace. His breath quickened. This wasn't Marie's salon. He tried to set the empty cup and saucer on the table, but they clattered to the floor, shattering against each other. He staggered up. Drugs! They had drugged him. Drugged his Companion, too. The little blond toad laughed in triumph.

  Julien stumbled up and reeled toward her. He wasn't done yet! They wouldn't have given him enough to incapacitate one such as he. He would make her pay for her betrayal.

  "Reece," the toad screamed as Julien grabbed her arm and pulled her up.

  The doors to the drawing room burst open. Reece raised a heavy dueling pistol and cocked it. A woman hurried up behind him. "Let her go, Davinoff." The butler's voice cracked with strain.

  Julien turned his gaze on Corina, as the room wavered around him. He held her more surely than by his grip on her arm, as he had held her that night at the masquerade, her will seeping out, until she could not move, could not think.

  He could not sustain it. His eyes lost focus on her. He turned toward Reece and staggered toward the door. He must flee. They had given him enough and more.

  The gun roared in Reece's shaking hands. Julien jerked back. The searing pain of a bullet pierced his shoulder. But he did not stop. He had to get out of here. Putting a hand to his shoulder, he lunged for Reece. He got him by the throat. Corina screamed. Julien cast the butler aside and staggered toward the double doors. A crash sounded behind him as Reece slid across the room.

  "He is escaping," Corina shrieked.

  Julien grasped the doorway for support. Slowly, as his legs no longer did his bidding, he sank to his knees. He panted there a moment longer, unwilling to give up the struggle, but he thudded to the floor. He could still see Corina, panting too, above him. Reece pulled himself up, clutching his throat. The woman servant, one eye on him, comforted her mistress.

  Corina's fright turned to fury. "Lansing, he dared to lay a hand on me! He knew what he did at the masquerade. He planned it all. I could see it in his eyes!" She strode forward to stand over him. He could hate her, but he could not move. "He pays his shot today," she shrieked.

  "He deserves what he gets," Reece croaked, standing. "He was almost the death of me."

  "Handsome bonuses for you both," Corina promised. "Now, let's get him downstairs."

  She came to stand over Julien. "You need a lesson," her voice echoed as blackness closed in.

  For the fiftieth time that evening Sarah turned to the great double doors leading into the Upper Assembly Rooms. It was nearly eleven o'clock, and neither Corina nor Davinoff had made their appearance. Amelia fussed to Lady Beldon about the Corina scandal over near the punch fountain. Beside her, George
was telling Sarah about his latest round of experiments.

  "That Davinoff fellow put me on to it," he said. "Inadvertently, I am sure. But something he said jogged my thinking into a new track. And now I have discovered slight differences in the blood of different patients. When you match the types… Sarah, are you listening?"

  "I am sorry," she apologized. "I have been so worried about Corina."

  "Did you expect to see her here?" George was annoyed. "After what I have heard about her party last week, I should think she would be ashamed to show her face tonight."

  "She was," Sarah fretted. "That is why I sent Mr. Davinoff to get her."

  "You what?" George balanced between astonishment and outrage.

  "I asked Mr. Davinoff to drive to Chambroke, and just hint to her that he would not snub her if she came to the Assembly Rooms tonight. I thought if he acknowledged her, everyone else would, too." Sarah realized too late that George might not appreciate her enterprising effort.

  "Sarah Ashton, you astonish me. I cannot say whether I think it more foolish to interfere in affairs that are not your own, or to involve the likes of Davinoff in your schemes." He frowned down at her as she glanced for the fifty-first time toward the doors.

  "Corina was in distress, George," she pleaded, turning back to him. "I wonder what it can mean that she didn't come. I know he went to Chambroke. He would not break his word."

  "You are an innocent, Sarah. If Davinoff did go to Chambroke, I know a reason they do not appear in the Assembly Rooms."

  Sarah felt her color rise. Her thoughts were exactly on those lines but she would not tell him that. "I should not like to spread such speculations about, George, and neither should you."

  When the rooms closed at eleven, Sarah allowed George to walk her back to Laura Place, since the night was clear, but her thoughts were elsewhere. For all her resolve not to watch Corina at the hunt, in the end she had been the one to help her to her prey. And Davinoff pretended to be reluctant to drive out to Chambroke when all the while he was champing at the bit to go, no doubt! Who was foolish in the end? Not Corina. She had just what she wanted, and society be damned. Not Davinoff. Sarah was sure he had just what he craved as well. George was right. She was laughably innocent.