False Angel

by Edith Layton

  “Nor do I anymore,” the viscount said sadly, “but I do want her happiness.”

  “It’s happiness we’re both after, then,” the duke agreed, and then smiling widely as he rose from his chair, he said, “Talwin, if you find it amazing that I am become such a paragon of husbandly virtues, you may find it even more delightful when I tell you that I know myself to be perhaps the most unlikely cupid that ever picked up a bow. And I can’t ascertain,” he mused, “whether it’s my advancing age that has made me so interested in the trivial, or whether the wisdom that comes with age has shown me that affairs of the heart are what is essential, and all the rest, trivial.” As the viscount took his guest’s hand, he said, “Whatever it is, Jason, I’m grateful for it And so would Leonora be, I’m sure, if she knew of it If I dared let her know of it, that is.” He grinned. “Oh, and before I forget, I’ve some papers for you to look over,” he said, turning to take some correspondence from a desk drawer. “There’s some nastiness on the coast that I’d like your opinion on. It may well be trivial compared with my daughter’s love life, but I think our Prince should know of it, and I’d like your recommendations. I doubt Boney’s going to fly over Dover in a balloon, and don’t think for a moment that he’s about to tunnel under the channel neither, but I don’t like the look of this report of beacons on the cliffs. See what you make of it,” he said as he handed the letters to his friend.

  “Of course,” the duke said. “So then we shall see you, the viscountess, and the Lady Leonora as well, on the twenty-fifth?”

  “Thank you, and gladly,” the viscount replied.

  The duke hesitated, and then asked, after a pause, “And her companion Miss Greyling accompanies you? I inquire,” he said carefully, “because Joss specifically asked me if she were coming as well when he received his invitation.”

  “She accompanies us,” the viscount said on a sigh. “How could she not at this point?”

  “Do you have that report on her history as yet?” the duke asked casually, glancing down at the gloves he was donning.

  “I only just sent for it, on your urging,” the viscount answered glumly, “and I doubt it will come to anything.”

  “Oh doubtless,” the duke said carelessly as he took up his walking stick and prepared to take his leave of the older gentleman, “but I’m nevertheless glad that you acted on my suggestion and are proceeding with the inquiries. I’ve always followed my impulses, and see what they have got me. My duchess,” he said on a laugh that was all self-aware, and aware of his friend’s embarrassment even as he laughed with him.

  The fair-haired young woman stood looking down silently at the great book which lay open upon the table. She ran one finger gently across the page, brushing it slowly across the picture which showed two little boys embracing while their spaniel played at their feet and a king looked down upon them.

  “No,” commented the dark-haired woman who’d come into the room behind her to look over her shoulder, “I’m never in the mood to follow the awful chronicles of Richard Crookback today, Belle. In fact, it’s become so warm today, so summery actually, that I scarcely feel like doing any reading at all. Why don’t you read on without me? Then later, if you like, we can go for a stroll. Or,” Leonora said lightly, as she turned her back to her relative, “there may be no need for me at all, for you may be invited out for a ride again.”

  The chamber grew very still, and then Annabelle said in a soft, hurt, and puzzled voice, “Cousin, are you angry with me? For if you are,” she said at once, when the lady spun around with a deep blush upon her cheek, “I’m sorry for it and want to know what I can do to remedy the situation. A carnage ride,” she said quietly, “can never make up for my losing your esteem. Is it that you dislike my associating with the Marquess of Severne? But that is nothing, for I can always tell him no, next time that he calls. I can always refuse politely by telling him that my friendship with you, cousin, is of paramount importance to me.

  Annabelle stared at Leonora expressionlessly, awaiting her answer. But it was a time in coming, for Leonora was too appalled for immediate speech. Trust Belle, was her first acutely embarrassed thought, to bring the thing out into the open without hesitation. The girl has no shadows in her soul, Leonora thought, feeling very small and crabbed. I am a spiritual troll compared to her. No wonder he has chosen her, she is light to my dark, in morality as well as looks. Who would not choose day over night? Then she rushed to say, almost stumbling over her words in her haste, “Oh, Belle, no never. Whatever gave you that impression?” while all the time she thought, I did, heaven help me, I do.

  “But cousin,” Belle replied, “you looked so very unhappy when I accepted his offer to ride around Town to see the sights the other day, that I almost refused him until you insisted that I go. And then, when he came to call that first time, you left the room at once, or at least you did when you realized that he had come to visit with me and not you. Then too, when we met at the Winthrop house that night, and he came to sit with me, you frowned and then left us. I do enjoy his company. He is amusing and very kind, and handsome, too, but I owe you so much that I would forego his company for you if you wish. You have but to ask me to do so. I cannot say,” Annabelle went on, cocking her head to one side in thoughtful consideration, “that he would then take up with you. But I could ask that he do so, for my sake, if you wish me to.”

  Had any other female of her acquaintance but Annabelle said what she just had, Leonora felt that she would without doubt have slapped the chit soundly across the face, or even done more complete mayhem with whatever stray objects were at hand. Or if not that, she thought sadly, remembering that her passions, while strong, were usually ridden and reined by strong conventions, she would have at the very least dressed her down and slammed from the room.

  But Annabelle, she sighed, Annabelle had no malice in her. Just as it had turned out to be impetuous rather than presumptuous of her to take matters into her own hands and deliver Severne’s invitation personally, so too, what might appear to be vicious behavior, this gloating over Severne’s apparent courtship, was only the innocent reportage and observation of a child. Or a childlike adult, she corrected herself.

  She gazed at Annabelle sadly as she tried to frame a politic answer for her. What was it, she wondered, as she had since Severne had taken up with Belle, that attracted him to her? If she herself were a gentleman, Leonora thought, surely she would not wish to make love to a female who behaved more like a girl than a woman. But then, she admitted that she hadn’t the slightest idea of what gentlemen truly preferred in their choice of females.

  She’d once believed, hadn’t she, she remembered, that her father would prefer to remain faithful to his wedded wife rather than taking up with sluttish baggages that he encountered in public parks. Although, Leonora thought again, as she had in her recent uncomfortable nights, she could see how a man might be drawn to a vulgar tart like the one she’d seen her father embrace far more readily than she could understand interest in such a meek, obedient creature as Annabelle, no matter how lovely she appeared to be. But then, she decided, bizarre as it seemed, perhaps the gentlemen wanted Annabelles for their wives so that they could then go out and betray them with females who were low harlots.

  And if so, why then it might well have been her wholehearted response to his kiss, she thought wearily, that had convinced him to begin his courtship of Annabelle. He might have thought her an experienced cheat, he might have had a wife who cuckolded him, or he might have thought her delightful to dally with but nothing more, and had known that one did not trifle with a viscount’s daughter.

  It might have been a dozen other things she could not, and would never know about. But Talwin’s daughter had certain obligations to her position and to herself. So Leonora drew herself up and steadied herself.

  “Please say nothing to the marquess,” Leonora said humbly, “for though it’s true that I once liked him, I cannot say that I know him at all, not really. And I think that if he prefer
s your company to mine, you certainly ought to allow him to continue to see you. He would be a wonderful catch for you. And that is what our trip to Town was all about originally, wasn’t it?”

  “Yes,” said Annabelle, “but I thought you’d forgotten that.”

  Leonora looked at her sharply, but the fair-haired girl’s expression was bland and she only trailed her finger over the opened page again.

  “You said you did not wish to read Richard Crookback today, as though it were an unpleasant chore. Is it? And if it is, why is such a work included in such an entertaining volume?” Annabelle asked suddenly, leaving off the other conversation with the unconcern of a child. And so, Leonora, glad to forget all her painful ruminations, gave her a brief lecture on King Richard the Third, which became so interesting to her that it was not long before she was reading aloud from the book after all.

  She looked up at her audience just about the time that Richard was beginning his treacherous courtship of the Lady Anne. Annabelle was patting at the dust motes that were set spinning around her like golden fairy dust in the stream of light from the window each time one of the great pages of the book was turned. Leonora dropped the smooth and unctuous voice that she had adopted for her characterization of Richard, and said simply, as she closed the book, setting up a draft that caused the golden specks to whirl in a blizzard of activity, “It really needs a man’s voice to do it justice. I don’t blame you in the least for losing patience. Richard is such a lovely villain I’m sure I’d enjoy his company more than I would most heroes. But a woman reading his lines gives him a dimension I’m sure was not intended, for I don’t believe that a woman could ever be so entirely evil, so wholeheartedly concerned with only her own advancement, so brutally self-interested as to blithely destroy all those closest to her. Richard is gentle here, to be sure, for he must be so, but it is a particularly seductive, dangerous gentleness, and I do think a man ought read the part. Then again, men did act all the parts when it was first performed, and I often wonder what other connotations the roles had then.”

  Annabelle did not answer. She only looked steadily at Leonora. In those moments, when she was fixed with her relative’s wide, unblinking stare, Leonora often felt uncomfortable, for she liked a face that gave one a clue as to what was beneath.

  “I think you are right,” Annabelle said at last, “and it is too sunny a day for Richard Crookback. The other day, when we were at Lady Sybil’s tea, one of the ladies mentioned another poet, one I didn’t know about. I wanted to ask you about him immediately, but I didn’t wish to interrupt your conversation then. For you know everything, I think, cousin.”

  “Oh well, oh really,” Leonora said, speechless because she was so unexpectedly flattered and pleased. For if she had lost everything else, it was good to be reminded that there were some things that fate and fickle gentlemen could never rob her of, that there were some things that were entirely her own: her wit and her erudition.

  So she turned an interested face to Annabelle, who said, furrowing her brow in remembrance, “The lady asked me what I thought of William Blake, and I didn’t reply, for I’m sure I’ve never heard of him. Have you?”

  “Why how delightful!” Leonora cried. “But who was she? The lady that asked, I mean. Because I’ve always loved his little books, and I’ve never met another who had enjoyed him, aside from my father, that is to say, and I should love to know her.”

  “I can’t recall,” Annabelle said apologetically. “There were so many ladies there, and all talking at once, I recall.” “Well, no matter,” Leonora said happily, “for I’ve not read him in years, and just the thought of his work cheers me. He’s a very simple fellow, Belle, and his poems are so slight that you think them childish until you begin to think about them, and then you realize that like a child’s statement, they have all the wisdom in the world within them, only not done up in all the flowery trappings that some of our poets like to use. And he illustrates his books as well. My father keeps his copies in the library downstairs, I believe. Come, let’s have a look at them.”

  There were two volumes in the library and Leonora first read some selections from one, and then gave the book to Annabelle to scan while she picked up the other.

  “It’s the contrast,” she said, engrossed in riffling through the little book, “the marked contrast between the two books, between innocence and experience, just as he says, that I find most interesting. For example, you recall that one about the lamb? Well, here is one about a tiger, and—”

  But she wasn’t fated to finish her statement, for a faint background noise she hadn’t attended to before resolved itself into the undeniable sound of a throat being carefully cleared. When she looked up at the second impatient, “A-hum,” it was to see the butler awaiting her attention.

  “The Marquess of Severne has come to call, my lady,” he announced, “and your father wishes you to join him in the little salon, if you would.”

  “Oh,” said Leonora, as she snapped dosed the book and lay it absently upon a library table. “Then you must go to him, Belle. Go on, I’ll just stay and read for a bit,” she added, looking about her awkwardly, and then gesturing stiffly to the rows of books upon the wall.

  “But cousin,” Annabelle said with something very much like amusement, “it is not my father who requests my presence.”

  “But it is you that Severne has doubtless come to see,” Leonora stated bluntly.

  “Yes,” Annabelle said reasonably. “So then, I think we must both go.”

  He must have been surprised that she had come, Leonora thought, for he looked hard at her the moment she entered the room. She was perversely glad that she had worn a bright gypsy crimson gown this afternoon, for it did make her seem more blatant than Annabelle, in her soft dawnblush pink frock. And if that is what he thinks me, she told herself, lifting her head, then that is what I shall appear to be. He had come to call for Annabelle three times in the past weeks, twice to pay proper morning visits, once to take her for a sedate ride about Town, and he had monopolized her conversation at two social affairs. And all the while he had studiously ignored herself. Then let him have his milk-white maid, Leonora thought, and when in time he begins to lust for his spicier wicked ladies, I shall be glad that he can never have me.

  They made their curtsies, and they made their bows, and the viscount made polite chatter for the four of them. It was he who took on the major burden of the conversation since his wife was occupied with her afternoon nap, and neither young woman seemed about to speak, and the marquess appeared for once to be uneasy. He answered his host readily enough, and commented sagaciously about the weather, just as he ought, but his face was still, and he never turned his head in Leonora’s direction again. In fact, she thought with a spurt of anger, she’d like to have fired off a pistol over her head just to see him startle and stare at the one place where she knew he would not.

  Since he was not observing her, she had time and to spare to covertly gaze at him. He wore a dark gray jacket over his white shirt and silver and gray waistcoat, his breeches were a dark gray, and his high black hessians gleamed. He seemed rapier keen, even leaner than she’d remembered, and when he smiled at something her father said, she saw the angular planes of his face shift, and when he looked at her cousin, she saw the brilliance of his eyes soften.

  “Oh would you, cousin?” Annabelle asked.

  “Well, I certainly can’t offer objection to Severne’s plan to take you ladies in his new barouche for a short spin about the park,” her father said at once when Leonora did not reply. She understood again why it was that he was considered such a perfect diplomat, for she’d been so busy watching the marquess, she’d never heard the conversation at all. Then she had time to gather her wits as her father added, “Of course, as it’s an open carriage, there can’t be any gossip about such a jaunt, and then too, from the way he’s been going on about those new cattle of his, I doubt he’d be interested in anything else, even if it was to be a ride at midnight in a
carriage with black curtains over each window.”

  After the marquess had done denying such a lack of appreciation for beautiful ladies, Leonora said coldly, carefully, and concisely, “Ah, too bad. For I’ve a mountain of correspondence to catch up with. But Annabelle, you go, please do.”

  As Annabelle looked to her cousin, with a great deal of shy hesitation, Severne took up the fair girl’s hand and echoed, with great warmth in his rich, deep voice, “Oh yes, Annabelle, you go, please do.”

  Even as Annabelle dropped her lashes over her eyes and flushed prettily and hung her head, Leonora looked at their linked hands and took in one steadying breath. For she noted that it was a strong and slender hand that captured Annabelle’s. And when he raised it, to bear Annabelle’s hand to his lips, his soft white cuff fell back, exposing his wrists. Then she saw that his wristbones stood out prominently, almost like those of a boy who’d come into his growth too fast. That one unexpected glimpse of him made her remember that it had not been so very long since he’d left his boyhood behind and that he was, no matter how aloof and mannered he appeared to be, yet vulnerable, yet very human.

  Leonora saw him reluctantly loose his grip from her cousin and, still gazing at his hand, she remembered its touch upon her in the darkened garden. Then she thought, just as a gentleman she’d recently read about had thought of his lady, and with fully as much longing, “O that I were a glove upon that hand ...” before she recalled herself and was shocked and sickened to her soul by her own unlooked for, uncalled for, and passionate reaction.

  Leonora was very glad to see him assist Annabelle up to his carriage’s high seat, and she did not need to pretend her smile of relief as she waved good-bye to the pair when the equipage went off down the street. Only then, only when she let the window curtains fall back into place, did she hear her father’s voice.