Gavin heard the quiet comment but did not bother to look back, much less answer it.
Scanned by Coral
Six
On her return to the town house, Ariadne sent the maid Adele, young, spritely and charming in her white, kerchieflike tignon and gold earrings, to the kitchen where she might dry her skirts before the fire. Pausing on the gallery outside the salon, she removed her bonnet and gave her rain cloak into Solon's keeping so it would not drip on the carpets. She smoothed her hair and shook out the skirts of her walking costume of forest green broadcloth, then moved to join her hostess whom she had caught sight of through the French doors.
Maurelle looked up from the letter she was penning at her secretaire to give Ariadne a quick smile. "There you are at last. I expected you back an hour ago, chère. Are you quite drowned?"
"Very near it," she answered on a low laugh. "I'd almost forgotten how it rains here, great plopping drops so different from the civilized sprinklings of Paris."
"Pour a cup of chocolate to warm yourself. Solon brought it just this moment so it's quite hot."
"So he told me," Ariadne stepped to the tray where a chocolate pot painted with a spray of carnations was set out with matching cups and a crystal cake stand piled with meringues. Filling her cup, she strolled with it to the fire that burned in the coal grate beneath the mantel of white marble, holding a hand out to the flames. "He takes good care of you, your Solon."
"I hardly know what I would do without him." Maurelle sanded her letter then folded it. "You had a successful expedition?"
"Most successful."
"You found a fencing costume then?"
"Commissioned one, rather." Her smile was roguish. "I can hardly wait to see your face when you behold it. I don't know who was more shocked at my request, Adele or Madame Pluche."
Maurelle gave her a resigned look. "What have you done now?"
"I shan't tell you for fear you'll insist I cancel the order. You'll have to see for yourself."
"Mon Dieu. As if fencing lessons and midnight meetings with dangerous swordsmen weren't enough. Keep this pace, and even your besotted Russian may desert you."
"If only he would. How do you discourage a man who believes himself indispensable to your existence?"
"With ease, if you are certain it's what you want. I have been meaning to ask what passes between you, chère. I knew this Sasha, as you call him in the Russian way of pet names, danced attendance upon you in Paris while I was there, but had not realized matters were serious between you."
"Nor are they except in his mind." Ariadne sighed.
"Why not, pray? Rumor in Paris was that he is a cousin to the czar, in spite of having a French mother."
"So he is, though he left St. Petersburg under a cloud. I don't know the details, but it seems to have been too close an association with those involved in a failed coup or some such thing. His exile is a great grief to him, especially being parted from his family. As for our first meeting, he appointed himself my cavaliere servante. This was while Jean Marc was ill, you know, and quite had my husband's approval since he was unable to take me about and preferred I have some protection. Sasha has never stepped over the line and always executed the duties of his role most faithfully."
"Which is why you hesitate to wound him, I suppose." Maurelle's wise gaze reflected her understanding of the usefulness to a married lady of such an admirer. Quite accepted in European capitals, so-called servant cavaliers put in an appearance on visiting days, acted as escort on shopping excursions or outings to the theater or a soiree when the husband was indisposed or disinclined, made themselves the bearers of their lady's cloak, gloves or fan, and regularly presented such trifles as books, flowers and bonbons. Though the pose was one of selfless devotion, not unlike that of the knights of the ancient Court of Love, the gentleman's attachment was only half serious in most cases, serving as a convenient shield against the wiles of nubile females and their matchmaking mamans. While a love affair sometimes developed, dread of la scandale was usually enough to assure a mere platonic attachment.
"He was there when I needed a friend," Ariadne answered in wry agreement.
"I do see the difficulty. But you may have one even more pressing now."
"Meaning?" Her attention was caught by the unaccustomed seriousness of Maurelle's voice. Motherly concern was not usually her friend's style.
"Monsieur Blackford did me the honor of calling this morning."
Ariadne felt as if someone had yanked her corset's strings so it squeezed her chest. "And?"
"You seem to have aroused his interest, something not easily done. Are you sure you know what you are about?"
"He was asking questions?"
"Quite pointed ones," Maurelle agreed, and went on to give examples. "I accused him of being infatuated but he avoided an answer."
"So I should hope!"
Even as she spoke, Ariadne recalled with searing vividness the few minutes when the Englishman had removed his coat and waistcoat in front of her while a smile hovered at one corner of his beautifully molded mouth. His dexterous fingers had slipped the studs from his shirt, leaving the strong column of his neck exposed at the front, along with the barest hint of dark gold chest hair. He had known she watched and minded not at all, as if he thought her a woman of experience who might be entertained.
It made her temper rise merely to think of it. How dare he assume such a thing? And the way he had disarmed her, with a mere flick of his wrist? Infuriating.
Nonetheless, she had been transfixed for a long moment, stunned into immobility by the perfection of line and form and intimation of raw power to be found in a man's body. Her husband had never undressed in front of her but always came to her bedchamber in darkness. Whether it was to save her blushes or because he knew his illness was wasting his muscles and virility she had no idea. The result was a great deal less experience with such scenes than Monsieur Blackford might suppose.
She was not the kind of woman to be influenced by flagrant masculinity, however. She preferred men with tender and gentle manners who appreciated music and poetry and the more graceful aspects of life. Sweaty power and the ability to kill did not make her heart beat faster. No, not at all.
"Giving Sasha his congé could be premature," she said after a moment.
"You feel your Russian may be some protection against Monsieur Blackford's interest? As much as I dislike causing you worry, I assure you Sasha will be of little use should the Englishman decide to pursue you. He holds few things sacred, recognizes fewer barriers to his desires or even his caprices. On the other hand, I cannot imagine him making a fool of himself over a woman who holds him in disregard. He has too much pride for it."
"Or too much arrogance?"
"Oh, I'll grant that he holds himself as high as any swordsman in the city, but he allows little to touch him personally."
Ariadne gave her a direct look. "You seem to know him well."
"He has been in and out of this town house along with the other sword masters and their wives I've spoken of so often, Nicholas Pasquale and his Juliette, Caid O'Neill and his wife Lisette, the Conde de Lérida and his condessa, Celina. Yes, and the American, Kerr Wallace, as well—it was Monsieur Blackford who introduced him to me and they are often together as neither has a household beyond the rooms above their ateliers." Maurelle lifted a plump shoulder. "Still, he is a most private man. I'd not presume to say I know him."
"By his choice, I'd imagine."
Her friend's expression turned pensive and she set down her chocolate cup before turning back to Ariadne. "About these lessons between you, there is something I must know. Can you really have said you intend to use any skill you gain for revenge? If I'd thought for an instant you had any such idea, I would never have presented Monsieur Blackford. Tell me, I beg, that he misunderstood what you said to him."
To lie went against the grain, yet it was impossible to admit Maurelle into her confidence. She of all people would understand at once
who the target must be and would surely move to stop her. Ariadne tried to look mystified. "He must have, mustn't he?"
Maurelle gave her a long look, but was prevented from further questions by a commotion on the gallery outside the salon door. An instant later, Solon bowed a lady into the room.
"Madame Savoie," he announced.
The new arrival was a monumental female made more so by the generous width and carpet-brushing length of her lavender velvet cloak. A large hat of purple felt with an upturned brim and a lavender-dyed feather swirling around the crown topped her head, and her hair beneath the confection was drawn back in a severe style like a helmet of polished copper. Clinging to her shoulder was a green-and-yellow parrot that leaned forward, bobbing up and down and whistling with piercing effect. As she cast her outerwear into Solon's waiting arms, she was seen to be clad in purple satin with a laced, Elizabethan bodice that barely confined her magnificent bosom. Drawing attention to it was a necklace of amethysts and diamonds of a size that should have cried paste but looked amazingly real. Her nose was commanding, the cast of her chin and cheekbones from a heroic mold, and her voice as she spoke had such resonance that it rattled the china ornaments on the marble fireplace mantel and roused echoes in the salon's high, plastered ceiling.
"Chocolate, chère Maurelle, for the love of God," she pleaded. "I smell chocolate and must have it this instant. My landlady is a paragon among women but has only coffee and I am like to die of craving the sweet elixir of life, that nectar of the goddess. Oh, please, let me have chocolate!"
"At once," Maurelle said, rising and embracing the vision, then turning to pour from the chocolate service. "Ariadne, permit me to present a diva of talent extraordinaire who will be singing at the Theatre d'Orleans. Zoe, here is another of my dear friends, Ariadne Faucher. Sit, sit, both of you, drink your chocolate and let us be comfortable together."
Maurelle moved to the settee beside Ariadne, giving Madame Savoie the fauteuil she had been using so they made a circle around the low table where the chocolate tray sat. Madame Zoe began at once to demolish the pile of meringues on their stand while she and Maurelle caught up on the latest scandals and quarrels in the theater, the bankruptcies and gaming losses among its backers and the problems with upcoming productions. The opera star was witty, outrageous and often ribald, but not snide or spiteful in her opinions. Ariadne liked her at once.
"You must come to see me in my benefit performance next week, Ariadne. Maurelle has a box and will bring you. Yes, Maurelle? There, all is arranged. And you will both invite as many handsome men as you may find, if you please. I do adore looking at them when I sing of desperate passion—one must have inspiration, you know. Some of these sword masters of yours will do nicely, Maurelle, married or unmarried makes no difference since I mean to look instead of seduce, more's the pity. Of course, I might make an exception for the Englishman, Blackford."
"Le diable!" the parrot chortled, presumably to himself. At the same time, he lifted a foot and scratched vigorously at his ear, as if clearing his hearing.
"What a charming companion!" Ariadne said, certain the bird's comment had been accidental even if describing Blackford as a devil did seem particularly appropriate. "Have you had him long?"
"Oh, forever, fifteen years at the very least. Napoleon was given to me by an admirer in Havana. Unfortunately, his vocabulary had already been corrupted when he came to me. Pay no attention to him." The parrot, perhaps hearing some inflection which allowed him to know he was the subject of conversation, stretched his neck to preen the feather on his mistress's hat. "Stop that, you fiend, or I'll put you in the pot like a chicken," she scolded with affection in her voice. To further dissuade him, she handed him a piece of meringue which he took in one claw and immediately began to crumble upon her shoulder.
Eying the bird's beak that seemed as tough as a horse's hoof but with a much sharper edge, Ariadne asked, "Does he never hurt you?"
"Not I," the diva said with a deep laugh. "He thinks I'm his inamorata or else his mother, which one I've never been precisely sure. He is most caressing, I promise you. He never soils me—not that you asked, but so many do. Most other people he views as prey and pinches with his beak. The exception is Monsieur Blackford whom he tolerates, barely, for the sake of the pecans he brings him."
"He visits you, the Englishman?"
"In my dressing room, yes. He comes to see me every season I am here, regardless of the production. Not that he sheds tears like the beautiful swordsman Rosière, but I shiver, positively shiver, to hear his shouts of 'Brava, Brava!' in his so English voice. It's lovely to be appreciated, do you not agree? Naturally, I send to invite him backstage, and we have an occasional dinner."
"Naturally," Maurelle murmured.
"You begrudge me?" the singer inquired with the lift of a brow. "You want him all for yourself? But chère, he is so fascinating with the quickness of his mind that advances, parries and ripostes like the flashing of his sword. I listen with my mouth catching flies. And the subtlety of his insults, like the cut that only begins to bleed long after it is made. So droll he is, too, at times, yet he has such pain inside him."
Ariadne looked up, her expression openly skeptical, or so she feared. "Pain?"
"He has not had an easy time of it, but then who among us has? We all have a crying child trapped inside us, one we must feed chocolate to stop its tears." She held out her cup for a refill, her green gaze wry even as she lifted a shoulder. "Or give the poor dear something even more delicious as she grows up, like love."
"Oh, love." Maurelle was politely amused.
"But yes," the diva answered, her eyes sparkling. "We are none of us jeunes filles here, lacking the experience to understand that physical love can soothe more than a mere itch."
Maurelle chuckled. Ariadne mustered a smile but could not see that the sally required comment. "It appears you are in the gentleman's confidence."
"A little, perhaps," the diva allowed. "People talk to me, you see. I don't know why it is, but there you are."
"Merde," the parrot muttered with his eyes on his meringue.
It was probably the lady's abundant interest and tolerance, Ariadne thought while watching the bird's antics, and perhaps her profession that was not known for its respectability. She might receive adulation, be feted for her achievements, but, rather like the sword masters, would never be accepted into the rigid ranks of aristocratic French Creole society. The prohibition might make her willing to overlook things that would shock those within the select and protected circle. Ariadne felt herself drawn to the diva, though what she really wanted of her was some indication of weakness in the gentleman they discussed, something that might be forged into a weapon.
"Handsome, healthy, of good family in England," she said with a twist of her lips, "what could possibly plague Monsieur Blackford?"
The diva gave her a clear look. "As with so many others, his family connections rob him of peace. A mother whom he seldom saw as a child, a statesman father who was almost never in England, a grandfather who reared him but despised his preference for books and the sword instead of hunting and guns. Then there was his older brother, the heir apparent, intent on stepping into their grandfather's shoes and titles, after their father, so he aped the old gentleman in all things. They fought, of course, as brothers do, but particularly when one is intent on making the other feel inferior. As the heir was seven years older, it was an uneven contest, with the younger of the two getting the worst of it. Except when it was a war of words. It was in these, I'm sure, that he learned the uses of biting wit allied to circumlocution."
Ariadne could easily imagine it, the two boys facing off against each other, the smaller one tearing the character of the older to shreds with lilting phrases, the older frowning, bull-like in his lack of understanding, unable to answer the high-flown invective except with his fists. Afterward, the younger boy lying bruised and bloodied, but grimly satisfied that the last word had been his.
Abruptly
, she shook her head. She didn't want to think of it, didn't want to envision Gavin Blackford's sorrows and defeats or to be forced to feel sympathy because of them. What had happened to him as a child had nothing to do with his conduct as a man. At some point every person had to discard the past and all the grim things that had happened, to pick up the threads of their lives and weave them into a different pattern, one nearer the ideal they carried in their mind. Events of long ago could not be used as an excuse for whatever occurred, all the things people allowed because they could not, or would not, summon the will to make it otherwise.
For a stark instant, she was reminded of the grief she had known and how it haunted her still. But she was doing something to put it from her, was she not? She had left Paris, the comfort of her husband's home and the supervision of his relatives, to come here. She was attempting to make what had taken place more bearable. She wasn't wallowing in her misfortune or lying supine with a cloth soaked in cologne on her forehead while others dealt with the details of living. No, not even if her husband's family would have preferred it.
Jean Marc's brother had offered his hand in marriage. She was still astounded by that bit of hypocrisy since she well knew the purpose was to keep the fortune she had inherited in the family. His sisters had pleaded with her to accept the proposal, had wept and sworn they could not bear to be parted with her. Perhaps she had grown hard and cynical, but she could not think there was a word of truth in anything they said.
Remaining with them would have meant lingering in a past made dreary by grief and remembrance. She had to move forward, to break free so she could live again.
"Chère?"
It was Maurelle who spoke, putting out a hand to gain her attention by touching her arm. Ariadne gave her a wan smile. "A thousand pardons, my thoughts were elsewhere. You were saying?"
"Zoe asked if you wished to attend a soiree tomorrow evening, and offered tickets to her benefit later in the week."
Guarded Heart Page 5
