The Last Waltz: Hearts are at stake in the game of love... (Dorothy Mack Regency Romances)

by Dorothy Mack

  CHAPTER 2

  It proved impossible to remain pessimistic for long in the face of Adrienne’s enthusiasm for her scheme, especially since Miss Beckworth soon found herself deeply involved despite her reservation. Well before the housekeeping chores were completed the next morning, the girl erupted into the bedchamber they shared, triumphantly holding out a moth-eaten item that Miss Beckworth took no delight in recognizing as her once-prized wig.

  “I was up in the attics at first light rooting about in our trunks,” Adrienne explained, pausing to brush a trail of dust from her dark skirts.

  Miss Beckworth watched unmoved as the dust settled on the surface she had just polished. She ignored the moulting object being offered her in favour of removing the dust from her spotless table.

  “See, there are mounds of hair left, some of it very long, more than ample to cover up the bare spots.”

  The older woman paused in her labours to cast a look of extreme disfavour at the tangled mass of golden tresses falling over Adrienne’s wrist. “You overrate my talents if you believe I can make anything of that deplorable article.”

  “Now, Becky, let’s not give up before we begin.”

  “I assume that is the royal we I am hearing?”

  “I’ll fetch your workbox and finish cleaning in here, shall I?” offered Adrienne, ignoring the dryness in her companion’s tones as she relieved her of the polishing cloth. She whisked out of the room, to return in seconds carrying the large wooden box decorated with the Egyptian design motifs that she had glued on each surface and covered with innumerable coats of varnish as a Christmas surprise a few years previously. Miss Beckworth was installed in the armchair near the window, the wig in her lap, before she could express any additional doubts about the feasibility of the proposed renovation. And after a thorough examination of the remains, her expression of fastidious distaste was transformed into interest, reluctant at first but soon fired with the zeal of creativity as she became intrigued with the challenge presented by the object in her lap.

  It was readily apparent that the wig must be almost totally reconstructed, for Adrienne’s report of bare spots had not been exaggerated. It took the better part of the day to cut, gather, and re-stitch sections of hair to the cap to eliminate these areas before any thought could be given to restyling. In the course of the day, Luc and Jean-Paul wandered in and out of the bedchamber and sitting room where Miss Beckworth resettled as the sun moved in the sky. Characteristically, neither boy displayed more than a minimal interest in feminine activity. Luc was intent on relating snippets of information about the arrival of the Fighting 52nd in the area, and Jean-Paul, as usual, had his head stuffed full of some scientific experiment or other reported in the books he devoured with unnerving regularity. The women were more relieved than otherwise at this state of affairs, since each had her own reasons for preferring to keep the proposed gambling sortie a secret for the time being.

  Though she could not like the scheme, Miss Beckworth summoned all her experience and counsel to her charge’s benefit for the simple reason that it partially appeased her notions of propriety to ensure that Adrienne should be disguised beyond the possibility of detection. Consequently, she created a classic hairstyle, smoothly sweeping the golden tresses up high off the face to serve as the greatest achievable contrast to the girl’s own short curls that ordinarily refused to be tamed. Adrienne’s one decent evening dress was a youthfully styled celestial-blue muslin trimmed with deeper blue grosgrain ribbons at the hemline and high waist, but since most matrons insisted on wearing similar gowns, no matter how inappropriate to their figures or status, this could not be considered a sure indication of the wearer’s youth. Miss Beckworth was cautiously satisfied with the effect of her handiwork until Adrienne broke into a smile of triumph on being told that she looked several years older, which action brought twin dimples flashing into play in her cheeks to augment the rather distinctive one in her chin. Her duenna groaned as the illusory maturity gained by the hairstyle was instantly routed.

  “Pray, try to remember not to smile like that, dearest. You look about sixteen. For purposes of identification, three dimples might as well be three scars!”

  Adrienne composed her features into sober lines on the instant and promised to remain cool and unamused no matter what hilarity transpired during the evening. Spotting the mischief sparkling just beneath the prim exterior, Miss Beckworth was a prey to strong doubts as to the girl’s ability to play a sober role for any length of time. She groped for additional measures to alter her outward appearance and finally hit upon the trick of lightening the straight brown brows that gave character to Adrienne’s face with an application of grey powder. The young girl’s potent attraction lay more in her vivacity and vivid colouring than in any classic arrangement of features, and Miss Beckworth considered that the washed-out effect achieved by the powder rendered her looks fairly insignificant.

  Despite all her precautions, Miss Beckworth spent an uneasy evening awaiting Adrienne’s return from the gambling club. The boys had retired before their sister left, so her sentence was a solitary one. The ticking of the clock on the mantel progressed from a background murmur to a rhythmic cacophony with threatening undertones as the hours crawled past. She sat with her sewing in her lap, her fingers engaging in periodic flurries of activity that died to a halt after a few minutes as her eyes roamed involuntarily and unseeingly about the empty room. By midnight she had abandoned all pretence of working, setting aside the white heap of sewing in uncharacteristic disarray. One o’clock found her eyes fixed with decreasing efficiency on a volume of poems while they strayed with increasing regularity to the relentlessly ticking clock. It was close to two, and fears of bodily injury had long since replaced earlier apprehensions about discovery and disgrace, when quiet sounds from the main entrance downstairs brought her to her feet in an agony of relief and trepidation. Before her shaking legs could carry her to the door, Adrienne burst into the room waving her reticule in triumph.

  “I won almost twenty-five louis!” the girl declared, seizing her companion’s upper arms and whirling her around in an exuberant victory dance until the latter begged for mercy and staggered into a chair. Adrienne tossed the bulging reticule into her lap and bent down to pick up the sewing she had scattered in her impromptu gyrations. She dropped into a chair herself, sprawling in a graceless attitude that earned her an automatic rebuke from Miss Beckworth. The older woman surveyed the sparkling face of her charge, enhanced at the moment by a slight becoming flush on her high cheekbones, put there by excitement.

  “Did you find it a simple enough matter to engage an opponent in a game of skill?” she inquired in tones that she strove to make casual.

  “Well, not at first,” confessed Adrienne. “It was different when Papa brought me. He introduced me to all his acquaintances and mentioned that I enjoyed playing piquet. Most of the gentlemen were quick to challenge me to a rubber to test my skill. I felt just a little awkward tonight without an escort, and judged it the better part of valour to remain in the background while I reconnoitred the situation, as Luc would say.”

  “And how long did this reconnoitring take?”

  “After an hour or so, I began to feel a trifle conspicuous.” Adrienne stopped abruptly and shot her companion a look from under her lashes before racing on. “There was a man who had tried in vain to interest one of his friends in a game of piquet — they were bent on gaining a seat at a faro table. He was wandering around from table to table watching the play and drinking glass after glass of wine, so I took my courage in hand and asked if he would do me the honour of playing me at piquet.”

  Miss Beckworth was scandalized. “You invited an inebriate to play cards with you?”

  “He wasn’t an inebriate, Becky, not even really bosky. He was just an ordinary gentleman slightly on the go. When we began our contest, he switched to soda water and was actually more sober at the end of play than the beginning. Also, twenty-five louis the poorer, not that he se
emed at all upset to be bested by a female. In fact, he was quite complimentary about my abilities,” she finished with a grin.

  Miss Beckworth sat up a little straighter, made uneasy by the too-innocent face confronting her. “What nationality was this obliging gentleman?”

  The blandness dissolved into giggles. “He was Bruxellois, and we spoke entirely in French. I told him my name was Madeleine Giroude. During the whole evening, no one showed the least sign of recognizing me, Becky, so you may be reassured.”

  A satisfied Adrienne went off yawning to her bed, but Miss Beckworth was not reassured. She remained sitting where she had landed for another half-hour, mentally forming and rejecting plans to reduce the risks to the girl. The problem was that Brussels was full of visiting English of all social classes. She herself could not accompany Adrienne to the gambling clubs without giving away her identity, and there was no one to whom she could entrust the duty. Such acquaintances as they had made in Brussels were either cronies of Matthew’s or persons residing in the immediate neighbourhood. The former would be sure to think the situation a lark, too diverting not to share with others, and there was no one in the latter category who could fill the bill, their neighbours, though pleasant enough, being mostly persons of inferior rank and as poor as themselves. Not for the first time in the last half-year did she experience a cold chill of loneliness and a prickling sensation of impending disaster.

  This presentiment was strengthened three days later when Adrienne returned from her second visit to the gambling club. The girl smilingly presented her winnings — only ten louis this time — but Miss Beckworth was quick to detect a diminution of the tearing spirits with which Adrienne had greeted her on the previous occasion. A show of sleepiness designed to put her companion off the track had quite the opposite effect, as deviousness was not a quality in Adrienne’s behavioural repertoire. Careful questioning elicited the reluctant admission that, as an unescorted female, she had begun to attract a deal of unwelcome attention. She reiterated her belief in her ability to fend off such advances, citing the fact that she had been able to give the slip to two gentlemen professedly eager to escort her home by stealing out to take the sedan chair she had earlier engaged for the return trip while the gamesters’ attentions were directed elsewhere for the moment. The blithe assurance that she had paid the chairmen well not to reveal her destination to anyone utterly failed to quiet Miss Beckworth’s alarms.

  “What gives you to think that men who have accepted money from one person who wishes to buy their silence will not then accept money from a second who desires information?”

  Adrienne’s eyes widened in protest. “Jacques and his brother are not like that! Indeed, Becky, they appeared to be very honest fellows who were quite sincerely concerned for my safety.”

  Her companion discovered that Adrienne’s disappointment was connected with her mediocre showing at piquet that night. It seemed the gentleman she had played the first time had again been present and desirous of an opportunity for revenge, which request she had been happy to grant, having assessed his play previously and found it inferior to her own. The outcome had been a repeat of their earlier encounter, and she would have come home enriched by seventy louis had she not succumbed to a challenge issued by a dark-browed Englishman who had systematically relieved her of her winnings. Fortunately, she had established a time limit at the beginning of play. Her opponent had been obliged to release her before she was quite run off her legs, but her confidence in her ability had received a severe jolt.

  Miss Beckworth waved away Adrienne’s apologetic murmurs. “You say your opponent was an Englishman? Of what age?”

  “I should suppose him to be a few years younger than Papa,” replied Adrienne, a bit puzzled.

  “Did he display any undue interest in you — any personal interest, I should say?”

  Adrienne chuckled in understanding. “Not at all. I might have been the pig-faced lady for all the interest Mr. Emerson took in me.” Her expression darkened. “There were others, though, younger men, who did display a tedious curiosity. I told them all my name was Mademoiselle Giroude and pretended I understood no English. It answered quite well. Fortunately for me, our countrymen are not exactly noted for their linguistic abilities. A poor dab of a girl whose only asset is an ability to play piquet and who cannot even speak English will not long hold the attentions of such dashing young bucks.”

  Miss Beckworth, who did not agree with Adrienne’s slighting self-portrait, was patently unconvinced, but her efforts to persuade the girl to discontinue her reckless scheme proved unavailing. To her arguments that each additional visit would increase the general curiosity about the mysterious lady gamester, Adrienne would promise only to alternate her visits to both establishments to lessen the chance of detection. The conversation ended with her agreement to wait a few days before making her next excursion, this time to the house of Madame Mireille, whose clientele was perhaps a bit more select.

  A comprehensive glance around the brilliantly lighted rooms off the entrance hall of Madame’s large house alerted Adrienne to some recent changes in the once-staid establishment. The dark heavy tables and chairs that had formerly graced the rooms had been replaced by spindly-legged items of gilded wood whose seats were upholstered in crimson to match the new draperies at the long windows. Blinking in the glare of hundreds of candles placed strategically around the rooms, the girl could see it would be idle to hope for a dark corner in which to enjoy a private contest. The recent influx of military personnel in Brussels had obviously brought prosperity in its train; all was sociability and noise these days. A number of nationalities were represented by the patrons, judging by the variously coloured uniforms present among the players sitting around the faro tables or circulating between the rooms. Adrienne cast a jaundiced eye on the rather youthful assemblage, her instincts telling her it would be more difficult to arrange a serious game in this atmosphere of bonhomie.

  And so it proved. After a period of seemingly aimless wandering about the rooms trying to make herself as inconspicuous as possible, she did manage to engage a gentleman in a hand of piquet but was not left to enjoy the contest in peace. Not being blind to the interest an unescorted female would arouse in such a setting, she had been careful to approach a soberly dressed civilian of indeterminate age. Unfortunately, her antagonist turned out to be a jolly Bruxellois whose hearty laughter attracted an audience after a short time. By dint of a strong-minded performance of complete indifference, she was able to ignore the comments of the onlookers, but her concentration, so vital to success in piquet, suffered as a result. The score seesawed for an hour or so until Adrienne became disheartened and brought the game to a close as gracefully as possible, bidding her partner a cordial adieu.

  It was as she was tying the strings of her hooded cloak under her chin a half-hour later that it became evident that lack of pecuniary gain was to be the least of her problems that night. In order to avoid the importunities of a pair of young Belgian officers bent on conducting her to a private party and disinclined to accept a polite refusal, she had lingered in the ladies’ retiring room as long as she dared, though it was still too early for her sedan chair to be waiting. Now she stood on the stairway landing until the entranceway should be free. Breathing a sigh of relief, she slipped out the door and ran lightly down the steps, intending to wait in the shadows until her chair arrived.

  She had barely gone a step when two figures materialized on either side of her, taking her arms and propelling her forward.

  “Told you she’d try to give us the slip,” one said with a silly laugh that proclaimed how deeply he had been imbibing of Madame’s supply of wines.

  “She’s just shy, that’s all. Come along, little darling. We can promise you a good time tonight.” There was a hint of coercion in the amiable tones of the second man that sent a tremor of fear along Adrienne’s nerve endings.

  She dug in her heels, pulling the men off balance for a second while she tried unavailingl
y to free her arms. “I have no intention of going anywhere with either of you. Unhand me instantly or I’ll scream loud enough to empty Madame’s establishment.”

  “Now, now, my dear, we can’t have that. Can’t allow you to make a scene,” said the second voice.

  “She’s not very friendly,” complained the one with the giggle.

  “Oh, a drink or two will do wonders for her good nature.”

  Adrienne was opening her lips to scream when a rough hand went over her mouth. She struggled frantically, kicking out behind her, and had just managed to bite the fingers pressing against her mouth when a new voice rang out, followed by the sound of quick footsteps on the stairs as someone leaving the gaming house rushed to her assistance.

  Still flailing about in a concerted effort to break out of the hold, Adrienne was too intent on aiming a lethal elbow at the body of her assailant to catch everything the newcomer said. She had a confused impression that his French was very accented and his voice sounded amused! The words “chère amie” came through clearly, however, and the instant she was free she rounded on her rescuer, who was watching the rapid departure of the Belgians.