by Sarah Zettel
“It is all to do with the style of presentation, Olivia, I assure you.” I winked at Monsieur Janvier. “I think Miss Pierpont will be very much interested in learning some of your newer steps, monsieur.”
“Will she?” Monsieur Janvier smiled in the face of Olivia’s open skepticism. “Well, we shall soon see if your cousin has something like your facility with my particular lessons.”
This, apparently, was a step too far. Olivia turned on me with all the air and expression of a thwarted governess. “Margaret Fitzroy, what are you up to?”
Before I could answer, Monsieur Janvier clapped his hand to his forehead. “Ah! But I forget. I have the commission you sent Madame Rosalind.” He untied the package and held up a stomacher, beautifully embroidered with a complex pattern of gray, green, and silver.
“It is perfect!” I clapped my hands. “What do you think, Olivia? I’m to be an autumn willow for the prince’s birthday masque. This will go over my dress.”
The sound Olivia made was something between a snort and a wordless bellow. “I think it is the first time I’ve seen you excited about a stomacher, of all things. You usually refer to them as bars on your cage.”
“But this one is special, is it not, Miss Fitzroy?” Monsieur Janvier laid the stomacher on the table and deftly slipped two fingers into the concealed pocket. With a gentle tug, he removed a slender silver blade about three inches long.
I had the indescribable satisfaction of seeing Olivia’s jaw drop.
“It will be most useful in case I lose this one.” I put my hand to the front of the pink and gold stomacher I wore currently and pulled free the jeweled pin Mr. Tinderflint had given me. With a flourish, I revealed its gilded blade made in imitation of a tiny rapier, which also happened to serve nicely as a straight pin.
Olivia goggled. She gaped. I clapped my hand over my mouth, a gesture that did little to cover the laugh.
“Peggy Fitzroy, I’m going to murder you!” cried Olivia. “What is going on here?”
“Monsieur Janvier is an actor at the Drury Lane Theatre,” I said, and Monsieur Janvier bowed once more in acknowledgment of this fact. “He teaches dancing to the other actors, as well as card tricks. And fighting,” I added.
“Fighting?” Olivia whispered in tones young women normally reserve for speaking of their latest infatuation.
“Shall we demonstrate, Miss Fitzroy?” Monsieur Janvier doffed his sky-blue jacket to stand before us in a plain buff waistcoat and spotless white shirt.
“I am entirely ready, Monsieur Janvier.” I curtsied. My instructor signaled to Felix to draw the drapes and motioned for Olivia to stand back. For once, my cousin obeyed without question. When both Olivia and the candles were safely out of the way, the fiddler struck up a sprightly country tune.
Monsieur Janvier advanced and bowed. I curtsied and retreated, careful to take note of the distance between myself and the door. Monsieur Janvier straightened—and charged. In an eyeblink, he had hold of both my wrists. He did not pretend during our lessons. The grip that captured me was both tight and painful. The first time he’d done this, I all but panicked. This time, I twisted both wrists hard and yanked down. As soon as I felt his grip give, I danced sideways. My skirts swayed around me so I felt like a clapper in a bell, and my high heels rendered my balance precarious, but I was getting used to them. With each lesson, I learned a little better how they felt when I moved quickly, so that I could slip myself in any direction without losing breath or balance, even as I once more yanked my jeweled straight pin free of my stomacher. I held the little blade down at my side as I’d been taught. A knife brandished at the eyes will keep an opponent at bay, but it can be more easily taken away.
Monsieur Janvier feinted left and right. Olivia gasped. I backed away, and backed again, angling for the door. My blood was up, and my heart beat hard. I took small dancing steps, so my feet would not tangle in my skirts and my breath would not be shortened by my corsets. I was frightened, I was thrilled. I felt daring and dangerous and deadly earnest all at once. No one, no one, would ever render me helpless again. No one would be able to hold me down, or hold me at bay because I did not know what to do.
My tutor charged again. I dodged, but was not quick enough. This time, Monsieur Janvier grabbed my free hand and twisted my arm up tight behind me. In response, I let my knees buckle sharply, using the whole of my weight (and incidentally the weight of my hoop and skirts) to drag him off balance before I swung about. The swift and violent motion sent him stumbling, and I was able to pull free. I ran for the door again, but he was there before me, blocking the exit. Now my blade came up, and without permitting myself an instant’s hesitation, I drove the tip right into his waistcoat.
Olivia screamed. Felix’s playing halted abruptly.
“Sacre bleu!” Monsieur Janvier laughed. “You did not warn her!”
I hastily stowed away my blade and hurried to my cousin’s side. “I’m sorry, Olivia, truly. He’s padded. I can’t touch him with that little thing.”
I laid my hand on her shoulder, but Olivia shook me off. Without casting a single glance in my direction, she advanced on my tutor, slowly, as if she were now the one intending violence. Monsieur Janvier held his ground, quite unperturbed, and let Olivia poke her fingers into the fresh slash in his buff waistcoat. The waistcoat itself, as well as the vest beneath the white linen shirt, were both padded with horsehair, which kept him safe from any blow of mine and also accounted for at least some of the perspiration dotting his brow.
Olivia pulled some of that horsehair out now. She looked from the tangle in her fingers to my instructor’s square, laughing visage. Then she rounded on me, her hair all but standing on end with the force of her own individual variant of righteous indignation.
“Peggy Fitzroy, I am never going to forgive you for not telling me about this! And you!” She jabbed a finger at Monsieur Janvier. “You fraud! You . . . you . . . you’re a WOMAN!”
Monsieur Janvier laughed and clapped “his” broad hands heavily together. “Bravo! You have a quickness of perception, Miss Pierpont. Trust it well. Most will not believe what they see is an illusion, even after such close inspection.”
“After everything that happened this summer, Mr. Tinderflint thought I should learn how to defend myself properly,” I told Olivia. “He engaged Monsieur Janvier for me.”
Olivia flushed, and if the intensity of her color had borne any relation to the length of the scolding she intended to deliver, we would have been there until well past the dinner hour. Fortunately, Monsieur Janvier gave her one of his showiest bows and held out a hand. “Would you care to try my dance, Miss Pierpont?” he inquired.
“Could I?” Olivia clasped her hands together. “Do you have a spare knife?”
Monsieur Janvier laughed. “I appreciate your enthusiasm, but we must begin with something more basic. Now, if you are attacked, Miss Pierpont, it is most likely to be by a man, and he is unlikely to expect serious resistance, so he will grab hastily. Here, for example.” Monsieur Janvier took Olivia’s wrist and held it up for her. “They do this, however, without realizing they have brought their weakest point, that is, their thumb, into easy reach . . .”
Within a half hour, Olivia was doing a creditable job of breaking some of the basic “brute grabs,” as Monsieur Janvier called them. By the time Felix packed his violin away, Olivia was gasping for breath, her hair was disordered, and perspiration traced streaks down her powdered face. I had never seen her so happy.
“You are a quick study, Miss Pierpont,” said Monsieur Janvier as he reclaimed his coat. “You are welcome at my lessons anytime you choose to come.”
“Oh, thank you!” Olivia squeezed my hand. “Peggy, you are entirely forgiven. Although . . .”
I rolled my eyes at her feigned hesitation. “Although what, Olivia?”
“I’ve always wished I could dress as a man.” She peeped shyly at Monsieur Janvier. “Could you teach me that?”
Monsieur Janvier smiled
. “Wearing the clothing is not the difficulty, as your cousin could tell you. As with all impersonations, it is how the body moves, and how one talks that completes the illusion. The clothes are only the finishing touch.” Olivia listened to this like someone who had been hungry all her life and had just been invited to a banquet. If the truth be told, the intensity in her face made me a bit uncomfortable.
“What about swordplay?” Olivia breathed.
Monsieur Janvier looked Olivia carefully up and down. “I could, and I think you could learn. But what would your parents say to such instruction?”
“My mother would faint,” Olivia answered. “My father—”
My tutor held up his hand. “No more need be said. Normally, I would not consider it. But I have been told a little of your recent adventures. I think you are not a girl who will stay out of trouble, and if you are going to enter into trouble, it is better you go in with some skill and science.”
Olivia beamed and curtsied. “Thank you, Monsieur Janvier.”
“He” laughed again and made his bow to us both. As he straightened, we shared a serious look, Monsieur Janvier and I. I knew we both hoped this was not the beginning of something rash. Unfortunately, we also both knew there was no way to tell.
THIRTEEN
IN WHICH A SECOND AND MUCH MORE COMFORTABLE SUPPER IS GIVEN, AND PIE IS CONSUMED BY ALL CONCERNED.
“Oh, Peggy, how marvelous!” Olivia cried as we hurried down the corridors to my room, and the supper I hoped was waiting for us. Monsieur Janvier’s lessons always left me ravenous. “I still can’t believe you never told me. What else have you been concealing, you horrid thing?”
“Cards, mostly.” I patted my new stomacher, which I carried wrapped once more in its brown paper. “I’ve become quite adept at it. But, Olivia, you do know this is serious, don’t you? What Monsieur Janvier is teaching me, us, it’s not for fun and games.”
“Of course I know, but it’s still marvelous.” Her eyes took on that misty quality that meant she was already seeing past the confines of this dull moment and into her dreams of the future. “I can’t believe I’m going to learn to use a sword! And to dress like a man! Do you think Monsieur Janvier might let me go backstage at the theater? I’ve always wanted to!”
I rolled my eyes. “You will run short of exclamation marks if you keep on like this. What do you intend to do with all this knowledge? Take to the highways and hold up carriages with sword and pistol?”
“Now, there’s a thought!” cried Olivia cheerfully. “And would it not make an excellent play?”
It was at this point, I fear, my sense of humor wavered. “Don’t give me cause to regret this, cousin.”
Olivia snorted. “I’d ask when I have given you cause to regret anything, but I suspect you’ll just make faces at me.”
“Exactly,” I agreed as I pushed open the door to my rooms.
Guinevere greeted us immediately, with a high-pitched tale, full of sound and fury. The withering look Libby gave me as she left to see about our dinner told me this was not the first complaint Guinevere had made during the past hour. Olivia, of course, noticed none of this. She just scooped up her dog and rubbed its nose with her own, making the most amazing series of cooing noises. How was it possible that a girl bloodthirsty enough to want to learn how to stab people with assorted sharp objects could be so besotted by a tiny nuisance of a dog?
“Thank you for getting her back for me, at least for a while,” said Olivia, her words slightly muffled by fluff as she kissed the top of Guinevere’s head before setting her down on the floor to patrol the room at a wobbly trot that reminded me rather too much of myself in my court mantua. “I’ll say this, Peggy,” Olivia went on. “The world had better take care. When Princess Anne grows up, she will be a formidable woman.”
“You noticed that, did you?” One of my duties as maid of honor, and godmother to the royal white hounds, was regular attendance at the nursery to help supervise walks and other activities congenial to dogs and their small princesses. I had, as a result, experienced the full measure of that young royal’s headstrong and too-clever ways.
“And if I were you, I wouldn’t turn my back on that governess,” Olivia went on. “I think she’d do you an injury given the opportunity.”
“Oh, she’s made that perfectly plain. Fortunately, open murder of one’s social inferiors is frowned on at court. Most of the time, anyway.” It was scarcely a matter of months since someone had tried to do exactly that to Olivia herself. “Frankly, I wouldn’t blame you if you decided to have nothing more to do with any of us.”
“Don’t be ridiculous, Peggy. As if I would ever desert you, especially now. You’re learning to fight. You’ve become a confidential agent for Her Royal Highness. I could expire with envy.”
“I’d change places with you if I could.” I attempted to speak lightly, but failed. “Maybe your father would be less eager to remove you into a hateful marriage.”
“That won’t happen, Peggy.” Olivia spoke firmly, but I would have been more willing to believe her if she’d been looking at me instead of at Guinevere, who was in turn yipping at a loose hearth tile. “He’s just angry now. He’ll soon see it’s better for us all that you remain here.”
“I can’t be sure of that, Olivia.” I plumped down on my footstool. “There’s something more going on.”
“With my father?” she replied incredulously “Peggy, I’m supposed to be the dramatic one. Father’s a banker. He wouldn’t know an intrigue if it bit him.”
“Yes, well, it’s never too late to learn something new.” I watched pensively as Guinevere waddled back and forth in front of the hearth, looking for more wayward tiling. “Has anything changed at your house since I’ve been away?”
“Aside from the fact that the days are screamingly dull and Mother keeps to her bed most of the time, no, not a thing.”
“No new visitors? No unusual meetings? My uncle hasn’t left for somewhere and refused to say what it was about?”
“You must be joking.”
“No, I’m not.” I lifted my face so she could see there was not a trace of amusement here. “There must be some reason why your father is set on me marrying Sebastian Sandford.”
Olivia appeared ready to give a heated answer, but that would have to wait. Just then, Libby made her entrance at the head of several servers with trestle and board to set us up a table for dinner, lay the cloth, and present the trays. The jostling, sidestepping, and strained beggings-of-pardon this invasion set off made further conversation not only unwise, but next to impossible. I noted that two of these servers were spotty Norris and young Cavey. Norris, at least, was giving Libby a whole series of grins and winks when he passed close by her, which was frequently. More winks were exchanged as I distributed tips for their service and for the bottle of wine that I was fairly sure was more costly than my allowance strictly admitted. I felt confident some of what I gave Norris would wind up in Libby’s pocket. They clearly had an understanding, and given the sheer number of darting glances between them, I suspected it extended beyond the purely financial.
I dismissed all and sundry, saying we would serve ourselves. “You may go as well, Libby,” I added.
For a moment I thought she was going to rebel. She knew full well we were about to say all sorts of interesting things, some of which might lead to profit, or at least fame below-stairs. But it seemed my maid was not prepared quite yet for open and public defiance. Either that, or she succumbed to the temptation of a few leisure moments with her Norris.
Once the door closed behind them all, Olivia and I settled ourselves at the table. It was a light supper, with a breast of mutton with collops and greens, fricassee of kidney beans, a purée of salsify, and a boat of sauce to pass, as well as roast potatoes and fresh bread. We were so occupied with passing, pouring, portioning, and tucking in, I nearly forgot our earlier topic. Olivia, however, did not.
“Peggy, I don’t want to hurt your feelings, but you know there�
�s really only one reason Father wants you married.”
“That would be to get me off his hands,” I said. “I’d believe it, except I’m already off his hands. There is something else.” I scowled at my plate, pushing the greens about as if looking for the answer underneath the boiled stems.
Olivia fell silent for a long moment, which was unusual. What was even more unusual was the serious expression that overtook her. While I was pushing greens about, she occupied herself with slowly mashing the fricasseed beans into a pale paste. I wished I knew something comforting to say. It was one thing to imagine strangers involved in dubious, even criminal, activities. But one’s own flesh and blood? That was quite another matter. She must feel it extremely.
Yet as I watched fresh light blossom in the depth of her gentle blue eyes, I was abruptly reminded that this was Olivia seated before me. She felt all manner of things extremely, but hers weren’t the feelings of a normal person.
“What if you’re right?” she breathed, much more to herself than to me. “What if Father is involved in nefarious dealings?”
“Olivia, I never said—”
“You did!” She pointed her fork at me. “Or near enough. You’re trying to spare my feelings, I know, and you’re a dear. But think about it.” That fresh light brightened to a veritable sparkle. “He could be anybody. I could be anybody, just like you.”
I nearly choked on my bite and had to grab for my wineglass before I could sputter, “Oh, Olivia, don’t wish for that.”
But she wasn’t paying any attention. She was too lost in turning her world upside down, reordering it in terms of hoped-for adventure. “He owns a banking house. He could be holding money, or anything, for anyone! Everyone says that King James threw the Stuart crown overboard when he crossed the channel. What if he didn’t? What if it’s in Father’s vault? He could be a secret Jacobite, gathering treasure from the Highland lairds and passing it to the court in exile—”
“That is about as likely as your mother being a deadly assassin.” Olivia opened her mouth and leaned forward eagerly, and I could only groan. “Forget I said that, please!”
