By a Lady

by Amanda Elyot

  “MY IDEA OF GOOD COMPANY is the company of clever, well-informed people who have a great deal of conversation,” Miss Austen sighed extravagantly, as she walked arm in arm with C.J. under a bright sky punctuated with fluffy, cumulus clouds. They strolled past Sydney House, a hotel within the beautiful Sydney Gardens boasting a ballroom, card rooms, coffee and tea rooms, as well as a taproom in the cellar where weary chair carriers and coachmen could while away a spare hour in leisurely pursuits. How many trusting souls, C.J. wondered, had imperiled their lives at the shaky hands of chauffeurs who had been tippling away the afternoon?

  Miss Austen was enjoying her first outing in her newly made round gown, which she fancied so well that she was considering having the same pattern made up in a lighter color. C.J. was amused to discover what an eye for fashion her companion displayed. She empathized completely when Jane lamented that her financial constraints ill afforded the opportunity to present herself to the world in as stylish a fashion as she would have preferred, still owning, for example, an outmoded accessory she was now loath to wear in public: a three-year-old coquelicot shawl!

  C.J. unsuccessfully suppressed a grin. This afternoon was the fulfillment of one of her lifelong fantasies. To be alone in the company of Jane Austen (and, of all things, talking with her about shopping on a budget!) and, better still, to form a part of the novelist’s circle of relations, friends, and acquaintances! It was sheer, unalloyed ecstasy.

  On observing the amber cross that C.J. wore about her neck, Jane was given to remark that she had just received a letter from her brother Charles, who, as a naval lieutenant on the Endymion, was entitled to a financial share of the prize money from the capture of La Furie, a French privateer. She expressed the hope of conveying this information in a letter to her sister, who, she remarked, shared the same Christian name with Miss Welles.

  They strolled past the maze, a labyrinthine construction of hedges, which, for C.J.’s edification, Jane identified as one of Bath’s most notorious spots for assignations, illicit or otherwise. C.J. wondered if an assignation could be anything but illicit. “I confess that the merest mention of the word illicit makes me desire to venture forth,” C.J. confided, and elected to explore it immediately. Jane declined to join her, preferring to sit quietly on a nearby bench, as she wished to make some notes to herself and perhaps compose that letter to her sister.

  C.J. entered the web of foliage and journeyed deeper and deeper toward its center. The hedges were so high that one could not see over them, reminding her of the mazes at Hampton Court and Leeds Castle; and within a matter of minutes, she had completely lost her way. As everything looked the same, her sense of direction had become entirely unbalanced. Frustrated, she released a vocally trained cry for help that could no doubt be heard well beyond the confines of the leafy configuration.

  “Miss Welles, is that you?” a voice called.

  “Yes. Your lordship?”

  “Stay where you are. I shall come and find you,” Darlington announced; and it could not have been more than two or three minutes, though it felt like an eternity, before his arm protectively encircled her waist. “I have always been rather an ace with puzzles,” he confided with a twinkle in his eye.

  “Miss Austen informed me that this was quite a popular place for romantic assignations,” C.J. said, tilting her chin up at the nobleman. “Did you deliberately arrange this with her? I thought she was above such complicity.”

  “I hope you have no quarrel with my cousin, Miss Welles. The blame rests entirely with me. I merely suggested to Miss Austen that you might enjoy the maze.”

  “Perhaps it is not the custom for ladies of quality to demonstrate such wanton behavior, but I prefer a good romp to maidenly reserve any day, your lordship.”

  “I suppose that means you wish me to kiss you.”

  Actually, C.J. was ready to be tumbled on the ground, right then and there. “If you did not enjoy last night’s encounter at my aunt’s doorstep, I should be loath to force you to repeat it, your lordship.”

  Decorum mattered very little to either of them right now. How could she possibly be expected to conservatively revert to a nonsensical modesty? If God had not wanted men and women to desire one another, C.J. reasoned, the world would literally be a barren landscape.

  Darlington needed very little encouragement. One look from C.J. gave license to his hands to explore every curve of her until she felt she would burst the confines of her diaphanous white dress. The sensations he produced when he nuzzled her neck were most delicious indeed, and when he darted his tongue in and out of her ear, then sought her mouth with his warm lips, devouring her with hungry kisses, she was brought, pulse racing, heart pounding, to the very brink of ecstasy.

  When they finally broke their embrace, C.J. feared that her inevitably disheveled appearance when they exited the maze might raise some eyebrows. “Oh dear,” C.J. sighed contentedly. “What you must think of me, Percy?”

  “I think of you as the woman who has accepted my suit and thus evinces a desire to share my bed in future. If you were to reward my embraces with a chilly reception, I should be forced to rethink my good opinions of you.”

  “I don’t suppose many gently bred young ladies behave as I have been acting these past twenty-four hours.”

  The earl smiled. “You would be surprised, Miss Welles. Your behavior is not only perfectly natural, it is as God intended, or the world would never be peopled. It must be said, however, that what takes place behind hedgerows ought never to be paraded in public assemblies, as you were made well aware last night.”

  The earl expertly led the way out of the labyrinth, and the couple found Jane on the bench where C.J. had left her, making tiny notes with a pencil on a scrap of paper, which, upon noting their arrival, she immediately replaced without comment in her reticule.

  Jane greeted her cousin; and discreetly discerning a blush upon Cassandra’s cheek and perhaps a stray curl or two, hinted that if there was an understanding between Miss Welles and her cousin, she would be quite content to remain where she was while they enjoyed the rare opportunity of an unchaperoned stroll through the gardens. Lord Darlington confirmed her suspicions, then offered his arm to Miss Welles. Miss Austen waved them a fond farewell and removed her notes from her reticule.

  The lovers traipsed over the sloping, manicured lawns, the earl supporting C.J. as she negotiated the occasional stone or uneven patch of terrain in her fragile leather slippers, stopping to rest when they neared a row of stone balusters. Darlington twisted his signet ring in a display of discomfort. “This is not an easy subject for me to broach, Miss Welles, especially with you, but it is precisely with you that I must share these thoughts and feelings.”

  They leaned against the carved baluster, and C.J. felt a knot begin to tie itself within her stomach. The earl read her expression. “I hope that my saga of woe will not give you cause for alarm, but rather illustrate certain facts about my past. You may decide for yourself whether or not you still esteem my character after you hear them. Frankly, I had never expected to meet a young lady who so captured my interest. Heretofore, I have long considered that part of my life over.”

  He sounded like a lawyer. C.J. set her jaw and prepared for the worst.

  “Our . . . courtship . . . is proceeding more along the lines of Cousin Jane’s theories of romance, rather than my own, Miss Welles. I have asked and you have allowed me to pay my addresses to you without your knowing very much about me at all. It does you credit, I suppose, to take me at face value, as it were . . . but I cannot avoid feeling that a selfishness on my part in withholding information from you concerning my past places you at a disadvantage, which, I have determined . . . after agonizing over the decision . . . is unfair.”

  C.J. tried not to appear impatient with his maddening ability to be circumspect, struggling to keep her expression one of placid concern, rather than betray her anxiety. In a way it was hard not to pity Darlington’s difficulty in expressing whatever it was he
wished to confess to her.

  “Miss Welles, it is no secret that I was once married and that I am now a widower. My wife was . . . not the kind of woman who enjoyed a favorable regard among our set, owing to two accidents: one of birth, and one of profession. Marguerite, although a noblewoman—the sister of a count—was a Frenchwoman.” He lowered his voice. “She was also an actress.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  Darlington continues to reveal the details of his own painful past, followed by a fortuitous interruption, and the rather sensuous results yielded by a sudden rainstorm.

  C.J.’S EYES WIDENED and she emitted a little gasp.

  “I did not mean to shock you, Miss Welles,” Darlington hastily interjected. “I had formed the assumption that you were a more open-minded young lady. Forgive me if I was incorrect.”

  “No—no, it is not that at all,” C.J. insisted, wondering if her own secret could be read on her face as easily as if it were emblazoned there. “Go on, please.”

  “My late wife, Marguerite, was one of two sisters of the Comte de Feuillide, the man who married Miss Austen’s relation Eliza. Fiercely independent, Marguerite made a name for herself at the Comédie-Française. I myself was one of the most ardent admirers of her talent, finally screwing up the courage to ask if she would permit me to call upon her one night in her dressing room after one of her luminous performances in Tartuffe.

  “When the Terror began in Paris, I insisted that she remain with me in England. We were extremely happy together, but Marguerite missed her life upon the stage. Her command of the English language was not secure enough for her to gain similar employment here; besides which, because she was a nobleman’s wife, her profession was severely frowned upon by the British aristocracy.”

  “What happened?” C.J. asked softly.

  “We lived in London for two more years, but Marguerite grew increasingly homesick. In 1794, against all my fervent entreaties, she crossed the Channel alone, as I had affairs to attend to that kept me in England. When news of the bloodshed in France reached me, I chartered a vessel to Calais. In cover of darkness I rode straight through to Paris, for it was known on the Continent that I was Marguerite de Feuillide’s husband, and therefore an ‘aristo’ myself, although the Republic could not officially execute members of the English nobility.”

  Percy’s voice became choked with emotion. “There had been a time . . . long before I met Marguerite . . . when she was little more than a girl, that an idealistic young firebrand, a member of the sans-culottes, had turned her head. Emile LeFevre was thoroughly smitten with her, and his Gallic charm was nearly enough to persuade her to abandon her own family and to follow the principles of the new Republic. Marguerite went so far in accepting the merits of LeFevre’s beliefs as to flout the aristocratic Feuillide pedigree and pursue her ambition to enter the theatre. Her suitor was pleased with her apparent conversion from aristo to citizeness, but soon his zealotry for the Republican ideals—which were blossoming into a bloodthirsty form of misplaced revenge against the nobility—caused Marguerite to fear LeFevre, and she attempted to bring a halt to the attentions he was paying her.”

  Darlington anxiously ran a hand through his thick dark hair. Reliving the devastating events of his past was understandably an arduous task. “Marguerite and I met soon after she had requested LeFevre to leave her be. The Frenchman mistakenly believed I had come between them, and he detested me for being an Englishman, for being an aristocrat, and for the alleged theft of his true love. From that time forth, he did everything in his power to destroy Marguerite and me—and by extension, any of her family. When Marguerite returned to Paris to perform at the Comédie-Française, it was Emile LeFevre who gave the names of his former amour and her entire aristocratic family, including her brother—Eliza’s husband—to Robespierre’s Committee for Public Safety.”

  “Good God,” C.J. whispered, horrified.

  “Marguerite and her brother had been taken to the Bastille by the time I arrived in Paris. In 1794, the Terror had reached fever pitch. My efforts to negotiate with—even bribe—every Frenchman from the penurious jailers to the petty officers to Robespierre himself were jeered at. If attempts to secure their release failed, I had plotted an escape for them, but—to the misfortune of all—it was detected. One could not even trust the priests then. On the morning of the execution, I was escorted by armed citizens of the Republic to the Place de la Concorde, where I was forced, at point of bayonet, to watch my beautiful, talented wife and her brother, the Comte de Feuillide, beheaded by Madame la Guillotine, ‘guilty’ of nothing other than having been born into the aristocracy. Perhaps now, Miss Welles, you can more fully apprehend my revulsion for the French and for the fatal influence of the American rebels.” Darlington angrily scuffed a rut into the pebbled ground with the toe of his boot. He found himself unable to look into C.J.’s eyes.

  There was a gulf of silence between them.

  “I’m so sorry,” C.J. said softly. This was not the time to embark on a political diatribe or another impassioned defense of democracy.

  “I have not grown so fond of you, Cassandra, simply because your aunt favors the match. The woman who I feel will give me the utmost happiness has the right to know my past. To embark upon anything more than a friendship with storm clouds of mystery between us is, to my mind, dishonest.”

  “Why should you have feared that I would find defects in your character owing to what you have just imparted?”

  “Perhaps you feel that I should have compelled my wife to remain by my side in England. It would have saved her life,” he said bitterly.

  “No woman can be truly happy married to a tyrant who keeps her under lock and key, regardless of whether he claims it is for her own good. Trust me, Percy. You did do the only proper thing. Marguerite knew the risks, and took them regardless . . . and although I never had the privilege to know her, or to see her on the stage, I am sorry for you both.”

  The earl took her hands in his. “Thank you,” he murmured. As he had hoped, Miss Welles did ease some of his burden. Perhaps it was a form of forgiveness he sought from her, as she was not his first love. Or perhaps it was the freedom to unburden his soul without the fear of her judging him. After he returned to England, it had not been in his plans to ever remarry. His solitude, he felt, was a deserved penance for being unable to prevent the murders of Marguerite and her family. Then Lady Dalrymple introduced him to the remarkable Miss Welles, and he began to reconsider his promise to himself.

  The earl continued his discourse, recognizing, as he spoke, how parallel were some of the branches on his family tree. “Miss Austen’s cousin, born Eliza Hancock, who is presently married to Jane’s favorite brother, Frank, was Eliza de Feuillide, the count’s wife, until his execution. She was spared from the blade because she was an Englishwoman. So you see, we mourn, but we move on. If one were only capable of a single great love, it would be a tragedy. For think how many people experience that love when they are very young and, suffering disappointment, spend the remainder of their years alone, grieving or bitter. Take my aunt Augusta, for instance.”

  Or take Jane, who never moved on after losing Tom Lefroy. She is a tragic heroine such as you have just described. But C.J. could not say the words. It was one story she would never tell. Would that she did have the power to alter Jane’s romantic history. One of the worst things about her nineteenth-century existence was the possession of knowledge she would be happier not to own. “Lady Dalrymple confided Lady Oliver’s unfortunate history just this morning. Your aunt does not approve of me,” C.J. observed.

  “As I mentioned to you once before, she does not approve of anyone. It is a tone she has adopted for decades to shield herself from further injury. Not knowing her, one would think her impervious, when in truth, the very opposite is the case. She is as fragile as sugarpane. Shall we walk on?” Darlington offered C.J. his arm as they continued to wend their way through the lush gardens. After a considerable distance, the earl halted their prog
ress to admire a half dozen men and women clad in light-colored clothes, thoroughly enjoying themselves on one of the manicured lawns. A gleeful young woman clapped her hands as she successfully knocked away a gentleman’s ball, bringing her own black spheroid inches closer to the small white ball at the end of the bowling green.

  “Lady Charlotte Digby,” Darlington informed his companion, as he nodded in the direction of the giddy young bowler. “Her uncle, Admiral Henry Digby, is a highly decorated officer in His Majesty’s navy.”

  “Yes, I heard her name mentioned at the assembly. You were speaking with her and her parents at the time, I believe.”

  “The Digbys are especial friends of my aunt’s. Lady Charlotte is her godchild.”

  “Ahh. The black ones look a bit like cannonballs,” C.J. remarked, trying to suppress a pang of jealousy as she observed the game. “Do you not think so, sir?”

  “Indeed,” the earl mused. “I had not thought of it in that way before. And I should be quite content if I never clapped eyes on a cannonball again. Although some explosions can be quite spectacular. Have you ever seen a fireworks display, Miss Welles?”

  “Oh yes,” she replied enthusiastically, although she would have liked to continue their earlier discussion. But, by degrees, she was slowly getting used to not “pushing.” She was becoming less American. Less twenty-first century. This behavioral modification was like wearing a new garment. It pinched and pulled at times in all the wrong places, and she still had trouble deciding if it suited her.

  Darlington looked somewhat disappointed with her response. “Silly of me to imagine that you had never seen fireworks. As you are accustomed to life in London, you have surely seen that sort of spectacular pageantry. I confess that I foolishly had hoped to escort you to your very first experience at such an exhibition. They are regularly held on midsummer evenings, right where we stand.”