That Scandalous Evening

by Christina Dodd

  De Sainte-Amand. Blackburn slipped to cold alertness. Of course. He had met him before, this immigrant from France, but Blackburn had not recognized him. The man had a way of blending into his surroundings. And what had Mr. Smith said?

  We know about the Vicomte de Sainte-Amand, but how’s the information passed to him? How’s the information being taken from the Foreign Office?

  “He speaks French like Monsieur Chasseur, even though he doesn’t know him,” Adorna said enthusiastically. “And he’s been letting me practice!”

  “De Sainte-Amand is only one in a long chain, and while a long chain is easy to break, it is also easy to repair. We’ve broken it before. Someone is cleverly reforging it. We depend on you to find out who.”

  Jane placed her hands into Adorna’s and brought her close. “I found you, but I wonder why you have disobeyed my instructions to remain inside.”

  Adorna hung her head, then looked up through the veil of her lashes. “I know you told me not to believe a gentleman when he said he had something to show me, but Mr. Joyce seemed so nice, and he knew a way to tell time by the moonlight on the sundial, and I thought that would be something you’d be interested in.”

  Fitz leaped to her defense. “You must not scold her, Miss Higgenbothem. She meant only the best.”

  As if seeking support, Jane glanced at Blackburn, and he smiled mechanically. Truth to tell, he scarcely listened, pierced by a sharp fragment of battle memory. A hail of cross-fire had cut down his regiment. Bullets had whizzed past his ears, men had screamed around him as they fell, and cannonballs had thundered the undeniable message—the French had expected their offensive.

  Looking up at the moon, he noted that the pure white edge wavered slightly. He could see, and he wasn’t stupid enough to lament the loss of total acuity. He spied for the lads he’d brought from his estate, and lost in a futile battle on the Peninsula.

  Jane’s exasperation sounded in her voice. “I would be interested in telling time by the moonlight, if it were possible.” She gestured toward the scene Adorna had just left. “When did you discover Mr. Joyce had ulterior motives?”

  “He didn’t have ulterior motives; he wanted to kiss me, and…and…do lewd things to me. I told him no, but he wouldn’t listen, and then, and then”—she held out her hand to de Sainte-Amand, and he stepped over Joyce’s supine body to take it—“this gentleman came to my rescue.”

  “It was an honor,” de Sainte-Amand murmured, his French accent lilting in his speech, his French cologne despoiling English air.

  “He knocked Mr. Joyce right on his head.”

  Fitz stepped over to Joyce and prodded him. “He’s alive.”

  “But I took care not to kill him.” De Sainte-Amand oozed continental smiles and suave hand-kissing. “The English authorities frown when a French immigrant dispatches a British citizen, regardless of how richly he may deserve it.”

  Showing an immense amount of good sense, Jane looked at de Sainte-Amand without favor. “I don’t believe I know you.”

  “Allow me.” Blackburn moved to Jane’s right shoulder. “Miss Jane Higgenbothem, may I present the Vicomte de Sainte-Amand.”

  Jane murmured, “Charmed,” in her most matronly tone.

  But de Sainte-Amand clasped his chest and staggered back as if he were having a seizure. “Miss Jane Higgenbothem? You are Mademoiselle Jane Higgenbothem?”

  “Yes.” Jane edged closer to Ransom, away from de Sainte-Amand’s inexplicable enthusiasm.

  Blackburn touched her. Just a brush of the fingers against her shoulder blades, but enough to encourage her, to let her know he was there.

  Then he wondered why. It was an unusual social situation, true, but she was in no danger. Yet she, apparently, felt the need for protection, and he had instinctively responded, even though he could not start a rumor of a courtship while in the garden with only his discreet friends observing.

  “Mademoiselle, this is such an honor!” The slimy frog took Jane’s hand and cupped it between his own. “I have seen your work.”

  Absolute quiet descended on the garden, smothering all sound with its stifling blanket.

  The statue. Pure horror thrummed through Blackburn’s veins. De Sainte-Amand had seen the statue.

  Sounding as alarmed as Blackburn felt, Jane sputtered, “My…work?”

  But how could de Sainte-Amand have seen the statue? That wretched piece of work remained hidden from all but a chosen few.

  De Sainte-Amand seemed puzzled by both the silence and Jane’s consternation. “Yes. I saw your splendid painting.”

  Relief choked Blackburn, and he stepped back. Than another possibility, more horrifying than the first, occurred to him. Had she been painting him as she had once sculpted? In staccato demand, he said, “A painting. Of what?”

  De Sainte-Amand sighed in extravagant homage. “Of sister goddesses, the blond beauty is so frail and the other, you, Miss Higgenbothem, so strong, and the final parting so near.”

  Whatever this painting was, wherever it hung, it could not embarrass Blackburn. “The painting is of Miss Higgenbothem and her sister, then.”

  “Oui. I have seen grown men wipe tears away from the sight of such pain and such dignity.” De Sainte-Amand flicked an invisible tear away with the tip of his finger. “Your brush is genius, mademoiselle, genius.”

  “Isn’t it?” Adorna wrapped her arm through her aunt’s and tilted her head onto the taller woman’s shoulder. “I remember the picture. She painted it for Mama, but Papa didn’t like it, so after Mama died, it disappeared.”

  Everything about de Sainte-Amand made Blackburn’s skin crawl with loathing, and although his original fear had been settled, distrust rose to take its place. “Where did you view this work of…genius, my lord?” he asked.

  As if to confirm his suspicions, de Sainte-Amand’s smug, villainous, insolent smile flashed in the dark. “Why, where it belongs—in the only place where true civilization exists. In France, my lord. In France.”

  Chapter 9

  Blackburn had seen the effects of hatred on other men. They swore, and stomped their feet, and picked vulgar brawls.

  But hatred didn’t stir him to histrionics. Hatred, for him, came on a frozen wind, chilling his emotions, sharpening his mind, whetting his appetite for revenge.

  France. De Sainte-Amand merely said the word “France,” and hatred clutched at Blackburn. Yet no one knew, for he had a care that they would not. Self-possessed as usual, he asked, “When were you in France, de Sainte-Amand?”

  “A mere six months ago, I went to my dear homeland.”

  “To view the art.”

  “I did not go to see the art.” De Sainte-Amand laid a hand on his chest in a parody of sorrow. “My beloved father sent me to the emperor to plead for the return of our hereditary lands. While there, I saw the painting.” With a sly grin, he added, “At Fontainebleau.”

  “At Fontainebleau,” Jane breathed. “How splendid.”

  Splendid indeed. Her painting hung in one of Napoleon’s homes where his intimates went to hunt and play. Why had de Sainte-Amand been there? Blackburn longed to interrogate him, but the slippery bastard might be suspicious, and in fact might himself be using Jane’s artistic achievements to distract Ransom.

  Two could play that game. Blackburn would appear to take the bait.

  Grasping Jane by the elbow, he turned her to face him. “How did your painting get to France, and to Fontainebleau?”

  The pale moonlight played over her features. “Your question is an intrusion, my lord.”

  “It is so simple, Blackburn,” de Sainte-Amand said.

  Blackburn looked only at the culprit he held in his clutches. “I didn’t ask you, sir.”

  De Sainte-Amand paid him no heed. “Bonaparte might not have the breeding to offer my lands back without payment, but he has excellent taste in art.”

  “So true.” Fitz made his contempt obvious. “He ‘acquires’ it from the countries he conquers.”

 
; “Miss Higgenbothem’s country has not been conquered,” Blackburn pointed out with chilly precision. “But perhaps Miss Higgenbothem nourishes a surreptitious admiration for this emperor.”

  Violet took an audible breath. “Ransom, apologize!”

  Jane jerked her arm out of his grasp. “My lord, you are offensive.”

  Untouched by the tense atmosphere, Adorna gurgled with laughter. “Oh, Lord Blackburn, you’re so silly! Aunt Jane didn’t give the painting away. If you knew my father—”

  “Adorna,” Jane said sternly. “This is private.”

  “He didn’t want to support Aunt Jane, so she had to—”

  Putting her hand over Adorna’s mouth, Jane said, “That’s enough.”

  Apparently Jane had reached the end of her endurance. Locking her gaze with his, she said, “I won’t have you harrying her for an answer, Lord Blackburn, nor will Adorna volunteer any more information about my painting or my circumstances. It is, quite simply, none of your affair.”

  Silence fell over the garden as he stared at her. She was trying to dictate to him, yet his curiosity had been awakened.

  “I am sorry, mademoiselle.” De Sainte-Amand bowed over her hand, then let it go with such obvious regret, Blackburn wanted to ruin his smiling, froggy face. “I would not have mentioned your marvelous painting if I had known it would cause you annoyance.”

  Annoyance? Blackburn thought. Was that what he was?

  “Not at all,” she replied.

  She sounded a little emotional. Upset, perhaps, because he had learned of the parsimony of her brother-in-law? But why should she feel anguish? Most women he knew would use it as a whip over his head. Yet perhaps she was cleverer than he realized, for if anything, her reticence worked to produce a sense of responsibility where her nagging would not.

  Sounding revoltingly sincere, de Sainte-Amand said, “My only thought was to tell you of the pleasure I found in your brilliance.”

  “Thank you. I’m gladdened that someone”—Jane’s voice wavered—“that you were able to discern the emotion I painted into the canvas.”

  Adorna dug in her drawstring bag and presented Jane with a handkerchief.

  Confounded, Blackburn stared. Jane was close to tears. But why? She had never wept eleven years ago. Not in Susan’s ballroom. Not in his study. In the most shameful of circumstances she’d shown remarkable pluck. Why would a simple compliment make her cry?

  Yet she was moved, for Adorna hugged her tighter. Violet laid a hand on her shoulder. Fitz uncomfortably cleared his throat.

  Someone had to take charge before this scene disintegrated into a morass of sticky emotion. “We shall go back to the ballroom now.” Blackburn noted that he sounded a little pompous.

  De Sainte-Amand’s smile flashed again, this time in scorn.

  “We shall act as if our little group chose to take a walk in the garden to escape the heat,” Blackburn continued. “With so many respected chaperones, Adorna will be safe from gossip.”

  “What about Mr. Joyce?” Violet asked.

  “I’ll send some of the servants out to scoop him up and put him in his carriage.” Blackburn didn’t bother to glance Joyce’s way. “Fitz, will you take care of explaining to Mr. Joyce the inadvisability of further disturbing Miss Morant?”

  Fitz grinned with all the good humor of a born rakehell. “I would be delighted. Tomorrow, I think, would be a good day to call on him.”

  As the small group strolled toward the ballroom, Blackburn found himself thinking that Fitz could be similarly employed after every party, should he choose to be.

  De Sainte-Amand moved close to Jane. “Who is it that teaches Mademoiselle Morant her French?”

  “His name is Monsieur Chasseur.” To Ransom’s relief, Jane’s voice sounded normal and steady. “He is a better teacher than Adorna’s performance would indicate.”

  “Ah, Pierre Chasseur. I know of him.” De Sainte-Amand sounded politely indifferent. “A pleasant young man. An immigrant, like me, but he is not, of course, an aristocrat.”

  His arrogance grated on Blackburn. Who was de Sainte-Amand, after all, but a Frenchman flaunting an inexplicable haughtiness and the faint stench of garlic?

  As Blackburn trod the steps to the terrace, Violet brushed close. In a voice so hushed it barely reached his ears, she said, “Jane sold it.”

  He stopped, and Violet stopped with him. “For her living expenses, you mean.”

  “Yes.” She watched Jane trod up the stairs. “Mr. Morant grudged her every penny.”

  “That’s not surprising. Morant is known as being a cheat and a braggart, and I’ve taken care to stay away from him.” This was his chance to discover the truth of Jane’s circumstances, and he chose his words carefully. “But it’s a shame Miss Higgenbothem burdened you with her miseries.”

  “Burdened me?” Fists on her hips, Violet glared at him. “Tarlin saw her one day, gazing longingly at a set of new drawing pencils. She put a brave face on it, but it was obvious that Mr. Morant shamefully abused her.”

  “Abused her? So she was bruised?”

  “No, just ill clad and thin, and her palms had calluses.”

  When Violet drew in a shaky breath, Blackburn realized another woman was close to tears. It must be in the air tonight. “Still, it seems improbable an English gentlewoman would sell a painting to that upstart Bonaparte,” he said.

  “I don’t suppose she sold it to the emperor herself.” Violet’s voice grew stronger as she spoke. “You worked in the Foreign Office too long, Ransom, if you’re seeing treachery in Jane. Oh, when she was a girl she wanted to go to the continent. She wanted to live in Rome in a garret and support herself with her art.”

  He chuckled. “Madness.”

  “Maybe. Maybe it would have been better than the way she lived.”

  There it was. That guilt again.

  “Jane probably sold her painting to one of Napoleon’s agents, or to a collector who knows good work when he sees it. And her work is very good, Ransom. You have to admit that.”

  “I have to admit that?”

  Violet opened her mouth, then shut it. “I suppose you still hold a petty grudge about that statue, but Jane paid for her mistake.”

  “You want me to pity her?”

  “Compassion? From the great Lord Blackburn?” Violet laughed briefly, bitterly. “How foolish of me. Of course not.”

  She swept on, but Blackburn barely noticed. Instead, he watched Jane’s silhouette as she stopped in the light streaming from the doors.

  So the woman had experienced poverty. Yet look at her now! Her glacé silk gown was au courant. That skirt which hugged her slender bottom with such loving care had been designed by a master. Her shawl covered her modestly, true, but it was Belgian lace. Either she had made quite a lot on her paintings, and his pride would not allow him to believe that, or someone else had paid. Who? And why?

  De Sainte-Amand moved to her side and spoke in a barely audible voice. She shook her head in rejection, but de Sainte-Amand insisted, pressing something into her hand. She looked down at it—a piece of paper, Blackburn thought—then tried to give it back. De Sainte-Amand insisted, closing his fingers around hers to make a fist, and with a show of reluctance, Jane slipped it into her handbag.

  Then, as if nothing had happened, she said, “We shall go in as if we’ve had a nice walk outside.” She had a hint of Wellington in her posture. “Adorna, let me look at you. No, you’re none the worse for your experience. Now, smile, everyone.”

  De Sainte-Amand opened the door, and music and laughter blasted out.

  Jane led the way inside with such a semblance of gaiety, surely everyone inside would be fooled. Adorna followed, and Violet.

  Blackburn leaped up the stairs before de Sainte-Amand could relinquish his hold on the door. Smiling at de Sainte-Amand, he said, “So good of you.”

  Inside, the heat and the odor of a hundred sweaty bodies assaulted him. Eyes darted back and forth, seeking amusement, looking for sc
andal.

  With Jane’s help, he would provide it.

  “A lovely evening,” he said, making sure his voice carried into the crowd at the edge of the dance floor. “A pleasant walk in pleasant company.”

  “And, Adorna, here comes quite a large contingent of gentlemen,” Jane said.

  “They are no doubt looking for you, Miss Morant.” Fitz curled his lip in disgust. “Blast them.”

  The breath Miss Morant took brought her bosom to quivering attention, and the gentlemen, and Fitz, and de Sainte-Amand—all seemed stricken by a great, enveloping stupidity at the sight.

  Blackburn didn’t understand it. Yes, the bosom and everything else about Miss Morant exuded sexuality, but it was obvious, garish. He preferred women who utilized clothing to camouflage the length of their legs. Who manipulated their expressions to hide their vulnerability. Who acted as if ardor did not burn in their souls.

  Jane, for instance.

  He couldn’t believe he was thinking that!

  The skillful hunter recognized such a masquerade, and captured the unwary quarry, and reveled in her hidden treasures. Her legs extended far beyond the length any one woman’s had the right to be. Only a fool would complain about legs that could wrap a man close and hold him while he thrust deep inside her.

  Blackburn was not a fool. His mouth curled in self-derision. Or maybe he was, for recalling the range of her legs, for reliving the taste of her mouth, and for wanting more of her than mere duty allowed.

  Yet if he must create a scandal and imitate a courtship to disguise his hunt for the traitor, he should also take what pleasure he could from them.

  The crowd of men surrounded them, jostling for position near Miss Morant. Jane’s ramrod-straight spine stiffened, and purposefully, Blackburn moved to her side. Whenever she was near, her scent teased his nostrils. He would have denied that he remembered, but a faint aroma of spice on warm flesh transported him back in time, to his drawing room.

  He laid his hand on her waist, near the small of her back.

  She looked up at him, her green eyes wide and startled.