by Lacey, Lilac
‘Philippe La Monte?’ Tara suggested, ‘and anyone who might wish to marry him.’
Freddie laughed out loud. ‘That could be a tall order.’
‘Philippe is charming,’ Tara protested. She had no desire to marry him herself, but he was attractive, witty, and generally a good companion.
‘Oh, very charming,’ Freddie said. ‘The fellow’s likeable enough, I’ll grant you that. But that is all he is. No family, no money, who’s going to look at him?’
‘Surely not every girl in London is only interested in connections or riches,’ Tara said, trying to keep the irritation out of her voice. ‘I am not.’
‘No,’ Freddie agreed, ‘but you haven’t set your cap at him. He’d snap you up, you know.’
‘I don’t wish to marry anyone at present,’ Tara said haughtily. ‘It is not Philippe in particular whom I am avoiding.’
‘All right, all right,’ Freddie said. ‘Truce. I’ll invite La Monte and I’ll see if I can find someone as highly principled as yourself for him. Now when shall we hold this little get together?’
‘We?’ Tara echoed. ‘I had not thought to be there.’
‘But you must!’ Freddie exclaimed. ‘You must act as hostess. Think about it, how better to persuade Rodney that you’re a lost cause than to imply that you have an understanding with me. It’ll be fun.’
Tara looked at him suspiciously. Freddie looked quite taken with his scheme. But was it just boyish delight at the idea of playing a joke on a friend, or did he have deeper intentions? She considered Freddie for a moment, although not terribly tall and destined to be plump as he grew older, Freddie was still quite handsome, and she had enjoyed his friendship ever since they had met at the very first ball of her debutante season. But his heart was given to gambling and although she moved on the fringes of his world, she had no desire to make it her own. Surely he was not getting ideas about her, she thought hopefully, after all she had just made her thoughts on marriage explicitly clear, but she could not shift her feeling of unease and as soon as they had agreed the date for the dinner party, she departed.
The next day Leo received an invitation scrawled in Freddie’s uneven handwriting, asking him to a dinner party on Sunday evening. His first thought was to refuse, he couldn’t see the point of dinner parties, one didn’t get to chat with one’s friends and he was invariably seated between two young ladies who didn’t have enough conversation between them to interest a rabbit. Then he thought about Tara. Somehow an invitation from the man at whose house he had first seen her seemed more than coincidental. Idly he pencilled her profile on the edge of the card while he considered. He could not quite fathom what game she was playing with him, he could tell she was attracted to him, the way her eyes shone and her lips parted whenever he managed to accidentally touch her confirmed it, not to mention the tautening if her nipples, just discernible through the smooth silk of her dress. The thought of that warmed him and made him wonder for the hundredth time what would have happened if Rodney had not chosen to return when he did. But he could tell Tara considered him no better than a tradesman and saw herself as being far out of his reach. Briefly he considered letting her know he was titled, if no longer landed, but dismissed the notion impatiently. He was a craftsman now, skilled and respected, remaking his fortune in his own way; he would not resort to using his title to impress a lady. Besides he was seeking neither mistress nor wife, he had no need to impress Lady Tara. But he longed to take her in his arms and kiss her.
He glanced back at the invitation. He had drawn his own profile on the other edge of the card, looking at Tara’s, the pencilled eyes of both faces locked together across the writing, holding each other without touching, as he had held Tara for two long afternoons in his studio already. He put the card face down on his work table, ready to use as a blotter and picked it up again almost immediately. Tara intrigued him too much, despite her apparent dismissal of him. He would go to Freddie’s dinner party where she was sure to be, and see what happened next.
‘Lady Susannah,’ Freddie said expansively, gesturing with his wine glass, ‘may I introduce my friend Lady Tara. Tara, I’m sure you must have seen Lady Susannah at Carlshot’s ball, she was quite the loveliest thing there.’
‘Very true,’ Tara said, hoping that the laughter threatening to escape her would simply appear as a smile of welcome on her lips. Lady Susannah was perfectly pretty, but Rodney was standing just a few feet away. She knew Freddie’s extravagant praise was for his benefit and she had to admire Freddie’s cunning, there was nothing like the regard of another man to make a woman appear more desirable.
‘It’s very nice to meet you, Lady Tara,’ Susannah said meekly and Tara thought how much better a quiet and biddable wife would suit Rodney than she would herself. ‘This is my brother Earnest and my aunt Claire.’
The gentleman at her side gave Tara a quick bow and out of the corner of her eye she saw Rodney suddenly turn towards the little party with a smile on his face.
‘Lady Susannah, how delightful to see you again, and your brother of course. I don’t believe we were properly introduced the other day. I am Sir Rodney Hulme. It’s a pleasure to meet you.’ So she had been right. Tara suppressed the little grin she felt trying to steal its way onto her face. Rodney had met Susannah in Bond Street accompanied by her brother and had assumed the worst. She caught Freddie’s eye.
‘Is everyone here?’ she asked. ‘Is it time to move through to the dining room?’
‘Not quite,’ Freddie said enigmatically. ‘I am expecting one more guest.’
‘Is it the lady for Philippe? Oh, no, that must be her, the pretty girl with the golden hair.’
‘Certainly not,’ said Freddie reprovingly. ‘That is my cousin Antonia. She can do far better than a penniless frog.’
‘Then who do you have in mind?’ Tara asked, deciding to ignore the insult to Philippe, after all it was a fairly accurate description. But secretly she thought Philippe and Antonia Palmer might do quite well together. 'Is it your mystery guest?’
Freddie shook his head and moved closer to her, lowering his voice. ‘No, no, no. I invited Lady Susannah’s aunt, Claire, for La Monte. As a member of the Maxwell family she is worth a considerable sum per annum, but as you can see for yourself she is on the plain side. She has done too many London seasons without making a match and she is on the verge of being dubbed a spinster by the ton. La Monte can be sure his offer will not be refused.’
‘You can’t possibly think to match Philippe with her!’ Tara exclaimed.
‘Shush, shush, not so loud,’ Freddie said.
‘She is far too dull and unexciting. Philippe would never be happy with a woman like that.’
‘Then you will have to take him up yourself.’ Tara was about to make a sharp retort when she saw the look in Freddie’s eye and realized he was teasing her.
‘Oh, you are quite incorrigible!’ she exclaimed.
‘Lavishing such compliments will get you into trouble one of these days,’ a heart-warmingly familiar voice said in her ear. Tara spun to face Leo. Perhaps because she had not even imagined he would be invited, she had not looked up when the last guest was shown into the room and she found herself completely taken by surprise.
‘Glad you could make it, Fosse,’ Freddie said, shaking his hand while Tara stood by, momentarily at a loss for words. Of course she had seen Leo dressed up before, at Lord Carlshot’s ball only last week, only there she had somehow assumed he was making connections and looking for business. But here he was in a private drawing room, where he could be doing no such thing, looking completely at home, every inch a gentleman, and he took her breath away. ‘Have you met Lady Tara?’ Freddie went on.
Leo looked at her from head to toe and Tara felt a wave of heat run through her. ‘I am painting her at the moment,’ he said, making it sound the most intimate thing in the world. Perhaps, Tara wondered wildly, it was, Leo had certainly looked at her for longer and more lingeringly than any other man and
he knew every inch of her form, albeit most of it clothed, but she had a sudden conviction that he could paint a devastatingly accurate picture of her nude if he so desired.
She was suddenly aware that she hadn’t spoken a word since Leo had addressed her. ‘I didn’t expect to see you here tonight…’ she forced herself to say, and let the sentence linger, unsure what to call him. By rights she should address him by his last name as Freddie did, but after the closeness they had shared in his studio it seemed far too formal. Yet he had not invited her to call him Leo, although that was how she always thought of him.
‘Everyone’s here now,’ Freddie said, turning to the company at large. ‘Please come through to dinner.’ He began shepherding guests through the double doors of the drawing room, into the dining room beyond.
‘Whereas I thought you might be present,’ Leo said, answering her comment.
Was that why he was here? For one wild moment Tara’s heart leapt with hope, but then she remembered how distant he had been when they had last parted, and come to think about it he had barely greeted her now. He had not taken her hand and kissed it as most of the men she knew would have, he had not even bowed, all he had done was apprise Freddie of their business relationship.
‘Are you a friend of Freddie’s?’ she asked, trying to place him in this new context of the world of society.
‘You might say that.’ His answer didn’t tell her much. She glanced at the other guests retreating into the dining room. They were going to be ten at dinner, five women and five men.
‘Did Freddie invite you to make up the numbers?’ she goaded him, trying to get a reaction. It worked, but not in the way in which she had hoped.
He narrowed his eyes and looked at her. ‘That must have been the reason,’ he drawled, and she could not tell if he was angry or if he were mocking her. She was about to retort Freddie would never be so gauche when she realized that even if he wasn’t angry with her, she was annoyed with him. It wouldn’t hurt him to be a little more forthcoming, and as he hadn’t been he must accept that she might jump to the wrong conclusions.
Freddie popped his head out of the dining room. ‘We’re just sitting down for soup,’ he said. ‘Are you two going to join us?’
‘Of course,’ Leo said, smiling at Freddie as if he were his best friend, and for all she knew, Tara reflected, he might be. ‘Lady Tara?’ Leo said, turning to her and offering her his arm, every inch a gentleman again, presumably for Freddie’s benefit.
Tara found she had no choice but to let him escort her the few short steps to the dining table, but as soon as his hand closed over hers she felt her anger drown in her sudden heightened awareness of Leo’s masculinity. He was so strong, with his painter’s hands, used every day for both arduous and delicate work, and he held her firmly as if she belonged by his side and no matter what they said to each other he planned to keep her there because the mere words meant nothing, and all that mattered was the irrefutable attraction between them. But other than by being who he was he had not encouraged her. She knew she must put all thoughts of him aside; it would be intolerable if he thought she was flirting with him despite the distance his words had put between them. He’s a craftsman, she told herself, practically a tradesman, it would embarrass them both if he thought she was taking a particular interest in him.
As unofficial hostess Tara found herself seated at the foot of the table, while Freddie was at its head. Belatedly it occurred to her that she would have had more chance of being indifferent to Leo, who was seated to her right, if Freddie had been on hand to flirt with. She would have to make do with Philippe on her left, she decided, and turned her attentions towards him.
‘My dear Philippe, how have you been occupying your time since last I saw you? At Lord Carlshot’s ball I believe it was.’
Philippe gave her a mournful grin. ‘Time hangs heavy on my hands,’ he said, ‘I have been to only one card party since then, and to the theatre only once, and even then I had to sit in the stalls.’ He shook himself with mock distaste and Tara laughed. ‘I can still find no club that will admit me.’
Beside her Leo paused with his soup spoon half way to his mouth. ‘Why will no club admit you, sir?’ he asked, plainly puzzled.
‘It is the dues, monsieur,’ Philippe said. ‘Each club demands rather more than I am prepared to pay. Even the United Service Club will not have me.’
‘But Philippe, ma coeur, you’ve never been any kind of soldier!’ Tara exclaimed.
Philippe turned his wide eyes upon her. ‘Such prejudice,’ he said sadly, ‘even from men who have travelled.’
Tara burst out laughing, but Leo seemed less than impressed. Rather pointedly, she thought, he turned to the lady on his right. It was Antonia, Freddie’s pretty cousin and Tara felt a hot wave of jealousy run through her, the like of which she had never experienced before. It took all her conversation away and it was as much as she could do to continue to spoon up her soup in an ordinary fashion.
‘So we meet again,’ Leo said gently, smiling at the lady. He knew her! Was this the reason Freddie had invited Leo, to further his chances with his cousin? Surely not? If Freddie thought Antonia could do better than a displaced French aristocrat then he would hardly consider a painter an appropriate match for a member of his family.
‘I have been very busy,’ Antonia said ingenuously, smiling shyly up at him. Be timid, Tara found herself willing the girl, be too quiet and mouse-like to interest him. ‘I have visited the Dulwich Picture Gallery which presently is showing a fine collection of landscapes by Constable, and I went to the British Museum. I was particularly taken with the Elgin marbles although I am not usually drawn to sculpture. What do you think of them?’
Tara suppressed and inward groan. She had seen the Elgin marbles of course, two years ago when they were brought over. Everybody had, and that was the only reason she had gone to look at them. The same was true of the Royal Academy’s summer exhibition, it was a place to see and be seen and she went every year. Otherwise she took no real interest in art, paintings were simply things to ornament the walls of people’s houses. It could be amusing to see from which ancestors her friends had acquired their looks, and painting were useful for covering up unexpected damp spots on the walls, but that was it as far as she was concerned. She could see immediately how conversation with Antonia would be far more rewarding for Leo than conversation with herself and she resolved to visit the Dulwich Gallery first thing in the morning. Then she too would be able to discuss the merits of Constable with Leo at her final sitting on Tuesday.
By the time the main course of roasted fowl accompanied by potatoes and carrots in an odd sort of garnish, which suggested that Freddie’s cook had been given a free rein to experiment, arrived, Tara had sourly concluded that Leo and Antonia had far too much in common. As well as a love of art it appeared that they were both enthusiastic riders and that each liked to travel and explore new places. How much travelling could an eighteen year old girl just out of the schoolroom have done? Tara wondered cynically and suspected Antonia was making much of the locations of a variety of educational establishments which she had attended.
This would never do, Philippe on her left seemed quite as entranced with Antonia as Leo was and was completely ignoring the eligible, spinsterish Miss Claire Maxwell. Obviously he could see that Antonia would be perfect for him and she could not permit Leo to ruin Philippe’s chances any longer. She decided it was time for her to take control of the conversation.
‘Philippe has travelled,’ she said pointedly to Antonia, ‘and in a most exciting way.’ She dropped her voice to add melodrama. ‘He had to flee the French revolution, his story is quite amazing.’ She only had a hazy idea of Philippe’s story; it wasn’t done to cross-examine the persecuted émigrés over the terror. But whether he had made a daring escape from the Bastille or simply turned tail and fled the moment things became uncomfortable for the aristocracy, she was confident of Philippe’s ability to turn such an opening to his advantag
e and enthral Antonia with a riveting tale.
‘I couldn’t speak of it,’ Philippe said and Tara saw that his eyes were alight with the possibilities of the opportunity she had afforded him.
‘Oh, please, sir, you are too modest,’ Antonia said, gazing at Philippe. Tara noted that she had judged correctly, Antonia was just a girl, newly out of school, and quite as ready as any child to be entertained by stories of adventure.
‘It all began on a spring night in Paris,’ Philippe began. ‘Paris is the most beautiful city in the world and she is at her most beautiful in springtime…’ and he proceeded to spin a story so full of dangerous men and daring escapes that Tara was left in no doubt that it was a complete fabrication. But it did not matter, Antonia hung on his every word, right until the end of the summer pudding and Leo was ignored.
Leo, however, seemed quite unperturbed by the slight, instead he seemed to take as keen an interest in Philippe’s story as Antonia, interrupting frequently to ask questions.
‘That is very enlightening,’ he said at one point, ‘I didn’t realize the King’s musketeers were still in existence. But obviously they are and it is very impressive to hear that you bested five of them.’ Philippe fleetingly narrowed his eyes at Leo then moved swiftly on with his story.
Tara grabbed Leo’s upper arm as they rose at the end of the meal. ‘Stop it,’ she hissed in his ear.
He turned back to her slowly and she had the feeling he had no desire to break free of her hold. ‘Stop what?’ he asked languidly.
‘Oh, you know exactly what I mean. Stop trying to poke holes in Philippe’s story.’
