The Orchid Affair pc-8

by Лорен Уиллиг

Laura wore her gray gown to the party.

  She resisted the urge to tug at her cuffs as she made her way out of the darkened schoolroom on her way to the stairs. Jaouen had picked a fashionably late hour for his gathering of the artists. Jeannette had long since put Gabrielle and Pierre-André to bed, retreating to her own room to entertain herself with whatever pastimes she used to beguile her leisure hours, patently uninterested in the revelries planned below. As the schoolroom went silent, Laura had sat at the dressing table of a former Comtesse de Bac, among the voiceless birds and the scentless foliage, staring at her own face in the streaky glass of the mirror, resisting an entirely unaccountable urge to prink.

  For what? And more important, with what? A governess’s wardrobe didn’t exactly lend itself to grande tenue. She was fresh out of silks and laces. And she didn’t have the sort of natural beauty, so commonplace in heroines in fairy tales, that could be expected to stand out above humble raiment.

  Still. She could do something with her hair. She might not be pretty, but her hair was well enough, thick and long and dark enough to pass for black. She could take it out of its accustomed knot, pile it up on top of her head, tie a simple white bandeau around it, pull out some little bits around her ears, imitate the artful disarray of the ladies in the fashion papers.

  Yes, because that would go so well with her plain gray gown.

  Why did she even care? It was only a gathering of artists, after all. Quickening her pace down the stairs, Laura could picture the scene—smoky air, red wine sloshing over the sides of a glass, careless disarray, and tawdry finery. She had seen it all from the fringes, all the carefree soirees of her parents’ youth, assembled ad hoc, sometimes in a studio, sometimes in a tavern, deliberately free of ceremony.

  Laura paused on the turn of the stair, one hand on the banister.

  The entry hall of the Hôtel de Bac was all but unrecognizable. Below was revelry and laughter, bright jewels and expensive gowns, food piled in careless profusion on gleaming platters. From her position behind the bend of the balustrade, she could see the front door open and close, admitting a clutch of gaily garbed guests in a waft of cold air and expensive perfume.

  The gentlemen wore stickpins that glittered even from a distance—diamond and ruby and sapphire—splashes of color against the snowy white of starched neck cloths. And the ladies—the ladies were something out of the fantastical pages of a fashion paper, clad in insubstantial wisps of muslin, shimmering with gold thread and precious stones, bracelets clattering on their wrists, decked out like a barbarian chieftain’s burial horde. What they lacked in fabric, they made up for in gems.

  Just a little gathering of artists? Laura would have turned and fled back, but pride made her stay where she was, poised between floors in the shadow of the stair.

  She wondered, with a pang, if Jaouen had known she would be out of place among his brilliant company. Had he meant it on purpose? Her mind skidded over their past conversations, over the invitation to this evening’s entertainment. If this was his way of putting her in her place, of reminding her what it was to be the governess—well, it had worked.

  One by one, Laura unclamped her fingers from the banister, forcing her uneven breath to calm. She was reading too much into it, being—heaven help her—oversensitive. Caring, when she had learned long ago that it was safer not to allow herself to care. The invitation had simply been what it was, a gesture of kindness, carelessly given on the impulse of the moment. He had meant to be kind.

  Kind. The word grated against her tongue like sand. She wanted to rake it up and spit it out. She didn’t need kindness. Not his, not anyone’s. Hadn’t she managed well enough these past sixteen years? She didn’t need his pity or his charity.

  She could go back. Back to her room, to her single candle, to the novel she had borrowed from Gabrielle. She could immerse herself in the tortured forests and gothic fantasies of Mrs. Radcliffe.

  Laura breathed in deeply through her nose, stiffening her spine. She wouldn’t be such a coward as that.

  She was the daughter of one of the foremost sculptors of his generation. How many of them downstairs could boast as much?

  “Darling!” she heard one bejeweled woman exclaim to another. The woman dropped her cloak carelessly in the arms of a silent servant, not the surly Jean, but someone white-wigged and liveried, standing at attention by the door as though he always had. “The cut! Exquisite! Madame Bertin?”

  “Of course,” said the other smugly, shaking out her skirts. The muslin was as thin and frail as gossamer, embroidered with gold thread as fine as a baby’s hair. It looked as though it might blow away at a breath.

  Laura’s sarcenet skirts weighed on her like lead. She moved silently through the chatting, laughing crowd. It might be February, but they were all dressed as though for high summer, arms bared, décolletages décolleté, bare toes showing beneath the delicate straps of fashionably Grecian sandals.

  A troupe of elves had been at work in the dingy reception rooms of the Hôtel de Bac. The grime was still there, but hidden, behind delicate hangings of silver-tinted gauze that draped the walls and shaded the candle flames. Hothouse flowers blossomed in improbable places, burgeoning out of vast stone urns, festooned in garlands along the walls.

  Jaouen hadn’t lied. The artists were there, even if they were outnumbered by the fashionable. One room had been given over to a series of easels, each bearing a finished canvas. In another, the poet Augustus Whittlesby was in full spate, declaiming to an admiring audience of fashionable matrons who seemed to be ogling his pantaloons as much as his poetry.

  To be fair, they were very becoming pantaloons.

  “Do read again, Monsieur,” one lady called, fanning herself vigorously with an insubstantial confection of pierced ivory and lacework. “Read us some love poetry. Something to warm a cold winter’s night.”

  The woman’s eyes telegraphed an unmistakable invitation.

  Whittlesby shook out a long roll of paper, sending verse cascading into motion. “My poetry is all for my muse,” he declared grandly, sweeping an arm in the direction of a group of ladies who had wisely arrayed themselves by the fireplace, warming themselves by means other than poetry. “For my princess of the pulchritudinous toes!”

  The Pink Carnation detached herself from the group, putting her most pulchritudinous foot forward. “Are you starting at the bottom and working your way up? Or are my toes the sum total of my charms?”

  What was she doing here? Didn’t she realize she was in the lion’s den?

  Laura forced herself not to stare. To show any sign of recognition would be fatal to them both. There was no way a lowly governess would know one of the beauties of Bonaparte’s court. Such a conjunction could cause nothing but suspicion.

  She pretended interest in the poet, watching the group of ladies out of the corner of her eye. The Carnation was with Bonaparte’s stepdaughter again, along with a third woman whom Laura didn’t recognize—shorter and slighter than the other two, with straw-colored hair beneath an exuberant headdress of silver filigree and white feathers.

  The Carnation’s chaperone, Miss Gwen, was notably absent. Off on another mission? Or simply exploring the refreshment table?

  “Really, Whittlesby,” exclaimed the third woman. Her French was colloquial, but accented. American, determined Laura. “These interminable odes! Have you never thought of trying your hand at a sonnet or a sestina?”

  The poet assumed an affronted expression. “Such short forms do not allow proper scope for my art,” he declared grandly.

  “Bother that,” said the American. “Since when was poetic scope measured in the breadth of a pile of paper? It’s content that matters, not size.”

  Behind her, the fashionably dressed matrons on the sofa snickered behind their hands.

  The American shot them a repressive look. “If you would,” she said. “We are discussing poetry.”

  “You may discuss it all you will, Madame Delagardie,” said the poet, giving
the American a look of what appeared to be genuine irritation, “but to discuss is not to create. It takes more than a moment’s puffery to create the lilting syllables of that sovereign of all arts, that perfect marriage of meter and rhyme, that—”

  “Poem?” The American cut him off mid-spate. Her feathers bounced as she raised herself on her tiptoes. “Is that a challenge, Monsieur Whittlesby?”

  “A competition!” exclaimed Hortense Bonaparte. “A verse for a verse!”

  “My muse does not work on demand,” pronounced Whittlesby.

  “Then sack it and get a new one,” replied the American gaily. “It clearly isn’t doing its job.”

  Whittlesby rapidly re-rolled his latest ode, shuffling it into a tight coil. “Maybe my muse has some discrimination.”

  “Or it’s just lazy,” suggested the American. “Lolling about on a cloud somewhere when it should be working.” She looked pointedly at the thick roll in Whittlesby’s hands. “It certainly hasn’t been doing much editing.”

  The ladies on the sofa hissed their distress.

  The American shrugged. “Well?” she demanded. “Have we a pact? Or has your muse gone on holiday?”

  “I’ll keep the wagers,” volunteered the Pink Carnation, her voice rich with amusement. “Who wants to versify first?”

  Whittlesby cast the Pink Carnation the sort of look that could melt stone. He smoldered quite nicely. “For you, loveliest of ladies,” he said pointedly, “anything. The Augean stable would be but a trifle if you were to ask it of me.”

  The group on the sofa tittered and swished their fans.

  “Am I meant to feel slighted?” inquired the American of the ceiling. “Heavens. How crushing.”

  Laura resumed her progress. If the Pink Carnation wanted to speak to her, the Carnation would let her know. It probably wasn’t wise for her to be seen lingering around Whittlesby, either, not if he was to be her contact in future, as he seemed to have become.

  He did put on a very good act. She might almost have believed that his adoration for Miss Wooliston was real.

  Laura wandered through the long suite of reception rooms. Someone else was reading in an adjoining room, declaiming from a new work of fiction. It sounded very dull to Laura, but the audience seemed to like it well enough. By the refreshment table, a trio of artists was debating the best suppliers of canvas and pigments while piling their plates with free fare. She passed a music room, where a tenor practiced his trade; dimly lit rooms where couples sprang apart as she sailed through; and then, just as she was about to turn and go back, a couple of a different sort entirely.

  Laura stopped in the doorway, recognizing them long before they saw her. They were too absorbed in their conversation to notice her.

  Her host stood by the fire in the small anteroom with its green marble floor, one elbow propped on the mantelpiece, his attention fixed on Daubier as the artist spoke in a low, anxious tone.

  Daubier’s back was to her, but there was no mistaking the bright gold-patterned cerise of his coat, or the anxious tone of his voice.

  “Keeps putting it off. Do you think he—”

  “No,” said Jaouen decisively, pushing away from the mantelpiece. “But Delaroche does. Time is running out.”

  Daubier moved as Jaouen moved, turning like the point of a compass towards the other man’s magnetic North. “But what can I do? It’s not as though I can—”

  “Mademoiselle Griscogne!” Jaouen burst out, ruthlessly cutting Daubier off midsentence. He strode quickly towards her, blocking Daubier from her view. “How very, er, tidy you look.”

  “Thank you?” She made to move back through the door. “If I interrupt . . .”

  Daubier hastily recovered his composure, beaming at her with an unconvincing facsimile of his usual bonhomie, like a painting executed in too-garish colors.

  “A beautiful woman can never be an interruption!” He shook a finger at Jaouen in exaggerated disgust. “You’ll have to do better than that if you want to play the gallant, André. No wonder your wee mites remain motherless.”

  “Without which I would never have acquired so charming a governess,” interjected Jaouen gallantly.

  Gallantry sat ill on him. Laura preferred him as he was, blunt and brisk.

  Daubier pursed his lips. “Better, but still in want of work. Watch and learn, my boy, watch and learn. Your hand, if you please, my dear Laure.”

  “You will return it, won’t you?” said Laura, holding out the requested appendage. “I do rather rely on it.”

  “A loan only,” Daubier reassured her. “Now, André, watch how it’s done.”

  Something in the way he said it made Laura suspect that he was talking about more than the rules of flirtation, but when she looked at Daubier, his rumpled face was as guileless as a child’s.

  “I am all ears,” said Jaouen.

  Daubier made a tsk noise before turning his attention back to Laura. With an elaborate flourish, he lowered his considerable bulk over Laura’s hand. She could hear his corset strings creak with the effort.

  “My dearest lady,” he huffed, from somewhere in the vicinity of Laura’s knuckles. “I am rendered speechless by your . . .”

  “Tidiness?” suggested Laura, as he paused for a noun.

  Straightening with visible difficulty, Daubier gave her a reproachful look. “Look how little material you give me to work with. I do wish you wouldn’t dress like—”

  “A governess?” Laura supplied. She meant it to come out lightly, but it sounded ungracious.

  Jaouen broke the awkward silence. “Tonight you are not a governess.”

  She had been a governess for so long, she scarcely knew what else to be. “Then what am I?”

  Jaouen never faltered. “My guest.”

  He meant it too. The simple decency of it staggered her. “Oh,” she said. “Thank you.”

  Daubier, inattentive to by-play, was busy scrutinizing her dress. “It’s not the cut that’s the problem,” he muttered, “but the color. A bright crimson, that’s what you need. Something to bring out the tone of your skin and the luster in your hair. Something deep and rich. Silk velvet, not this drab stuff. Don’t you agree, Jaouen?”

  Jaouen took in every aspect of her appearance, every scrap of fabric, every hair loose. “Crimson, indeed. Tyrian purple in the fine Roman fashion.”

  “I hadn’t realized this was a costume party,” Laura babbled. “I could have come as something interesting. Like a tree.”

  Jaouen’s lips turned up in a smile. “Botany, again, Mademoiselle Griscogne?”

  “If I say I prefer nature to art, Monsieur Daubier will be offended.”

  “But doesn’t art imitate nature?” Jaouen neatly turned the subject before she could retort. “Have you found the refreshment table yet?”

  “I have,” said Daubier complacently. “High art, indeed. Excellent pastries. You should let André fetch some for you, my dear.”

  Laura raised her brows. “The employer waiting on the employee?”

  “Are you testing my egalitarian principles? Come along.” Jaouen held out an arm to her. “I’ll load a plate for you. Then perhaps you won’t doubt me again.”

  Laura placed her fingers very tentatively on his arm. “Such drastic measures. Are you sure it’s worth it?”

  “These are dangerous times, citoyenne,” he answered in kind, using the old Revolutionary address that had already all but fallen out of favor. “One can’t be too careful. Would you prefer sweets or savories?”

  “Savories,” said Laura. “Sweets cloy.”

  Jaouen raised a brow at her. “One could never accuse you of that.”

  Behind them, Daubier beamed benevolently, a proud father sending his daughter off to her first ball. An illusion, Laura reminded herself, and a ridiculous one. Daubier had no daughters, and she made an unlikely debutante. She was thirty-two, not sixteen anymore. She was a working woman, not a girl from a fairy tale to be showered with belated blessings by a benevolent fairy go
dfather in a too-bright waistcoat.

  On Jaouen’s arm, the crowd that had first ignored her fell away for her, clearing a path, nodding and smiling. Such was the power of the favored successor of the Minister of Police.

  He looked his role tonight. Gone was the usual rough uniform of old breeches and a brown coat. Instead, he wore black, tailored to a nicety, with a snowy white stock and a waistcoat in maroon and silver—all in excellent taste and richly made. His rough hair had been brushed smooth, but the cowlick still stood stubbornly up in the back. Other than that, he looked what he was—the master of this establishment, magically transformed for one night from dilapidation to elegance.

  Laura wished, foolishly and futilely, that she had put her hair up after all. Just one curl, one frivolous gesture.

  Oh, no. She wasn’t meant to be thinking like this, and certainly not about her employer. It was only the fairy-tale trappings, she told herself—the ball, the candles, the prince.

  Not a prince, she reminded herself. An employee of the Prefecture. The man on whom she was supposed to be spying.

  Laura made to extract her arm from his, addressing him without any of the bantering tone. “I did mean it, what I said before. You needn’t waste your time on me. You have other guests who want tending to, I’m sure.”

  Jaouen looked at her with amusement. “You don’t accept anything graciously, do you?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Invitations, carriage rides, advances on your salary . . .”

  “Would you have?” Gratuitous gifts generally made her wonder why they were being given.

  Jaouen understood without being told. “No good deed without an ulterior motive?”

  Laura wondered what his ulterior motives might be. Especially regarding her. “Do you disagree?”

  “Not at all,” Jaouen agreed, tucking her hand more securely against his arm. “Most seeming acts of altruism tend to be motivated by something else. So much for the innate goodness of man.”

  His cynicism didn’t ring true. She remembered the books in his study, the well-thumbed volumes of Rousseau and Sieyès. He had been a reformer once and, she suspected, an idealist.