False Angel (2 page)

The Marquess of Bessacarr, for all his famous skill at evasion, was similarly backed to the wall by a pair of spinster sisters who had known his late father and who now demanded to know the lineage of his new bride, as well as the size of her waist. This was either so that they could fashion a morning robe for her or to help them to ascertain whether her marriage had been imperative or not. The marquess could not tell which was their precise intent, since he could not have gotten a word past them edgewise.

The Duke of Austell found the helplessness of these two worldly, roguish fellows when confronted by elderly and vastly proper females vastly amusing. Or at least he did until he found himself fixed by the rheumy stare of an ancient toothless social lioness who proceeded to question him in loud and quavering tones as to why he was as yet unmarried. Since he was not cad enough to insult a female of such profound years, and since he very much doubted whether she could have heard his insult anyway, he soon discovered once again why it was that he so often shunned such proper entertainments.

And so it happened that at that precise moment, for only the briefest space of time, Lord Severne found himself standing completely alone in the midst of a roomful of company. His hostess had turned from him to say a word to her husband, and his host’s daughter and cousin had said good evening and now had been engaged in conversation with some earnest young man.

It might have been because there was no one in his general vicinity that knew his family, such as chanced to know the others’. It may have been that those dowagers who did know his family yet disapproved of him so much that they refused him speech. It may even have only been that as he was not an easy fellow to approach, there were those who wanted a word with him who were presently steeling themselves to do so. But whatever the reason, for that brief time, he stood quite alone.

This neglect did not seem to discompose him much. He stood and surveyed the room, casually taking note of the younger ladies, caught for a moment, as most men might have been, by the beauteous Miss Merriman. For she threw back her long white neck and gave forth her famous long rippling laugh at some sally some lucky fellow had made, and yet managed to cast the most roguish glance in the direction of the marquess at the same time. A most talented young woman, and a brave one as well. For while a great many females covertly noted the marquess as he stood alone, few dared attempt to attract his notice. He was quite good to look upon, but not a comfortable fellow in any fashion.

He would have been noticed in any crowd even if he were not a little taller than most men. His hair was lustrous and thick and dark as night But that was all that was lavish about him. He was lean, his face so thin that his cheekbones stood out in bold relief. Yet he was not gaunt. Nature had not been stingy with him, so much as careful. His forehead was high, his skin clear and pale, his nose thin and straight, as were the brows which were etched above his wide, observant eyes. His lips were full and well defined. His features seemed to have been shaped with a fine keen steel blade, they were so cleanly delineated.

In fact, there was that about him that bespoke a cutting edge. There was his taut, muscled figure, and the dangerous easy grace with which he moved. And then even when he appeared to be at his ease, there was that glint of light that could flash unexpectedly from his fathom’s deep blue eyes, sometimes so brilliant that it seemed to be struck from the spark that arises from the clash of steel upon steel. No, not a very comfortable fellow, the Marquess of Severne, but not one easily forgotten either.

But his voice contradicted all that his wolfish face and form implied. If there were some instrument that could erase his countenance and form and leave only his voice remaining, one would think of velvet and deep safe places, it was so low, seductive, and smooth. But now he had no chance to exercise it. For the moments dragged on, and no one greeted him, or sought a word from him, until his host’s daughter, whose party it was, broke off from her conversation with the earnest young man and attempted conversation with her newest, most silent guest.

He looked down at her with a slight smile upon his lips as she began to speak, and it may have been more than mere courtesy, for Lady Leonora was a taking creature. No, she was rather more than that, for everyone said that she was as sweet a looker as could stare actually, and it was a constant wonder that she was still unwed. The lady had hair almost as dark as that of her guest, but there all similarities ended, for all that was spare and lupine in his aspect was lush and gentle in hers. They looked so well together, that dark couple the Marquess of Severne and the Lady Leonora, so oddly matched and yet so perfectly at odds in their appearance, that unwittingly the Honorable Miss Merriman began to frown, and Jane Turnbell closed her hand so tightly about her fan that she snapped two of its ribs.

The pair attracted even more attention when Lady Leonora brought her female companion, her cousin Miss Greyling, closer and into their conversation. For that dainty young woman was day to their night, being small and fair and flaxen-haired. Seeing the attractive trio close together, Jane Turnbell looked so ill and near to weeping that Lord Bigelow took alarm and wondered if his dear girl was going to expire before he ever got the chance to declare himself. But he needn’t have fretted on any score, for in a trice the Lady Leonora brought the conversation, and the encounter, and the brief visit of Lord Severne to her house to an abrupt ending.

It was a pity, observers were to complain later, that the viscount had done such a superior job of warding off sensation seekers, for no one was close enough to the participants to actually hear what was said. Sir Phillip had been, of course, since he had just left off speaking with Lady Leonora. But he was an earnest, honorable young man and the gossips’ despair, for wild horses couldn’t drag what he’d overheard from him. But there was no doubt when the thing was said, for everyone was observing the scene closely and it unfolded as clearly as a well-acted pantomime might have done.

They were talking, and the marquess was asked a thing by the Lady Leonora, and he answered, with a small smile. And then Miss Greyling breathed a few words, for she was a shy little creature and seldom said a great deal. And that made Severne smile again. A brief silence followed in which Lady Leonora looked uneasy and then she said something. The marquess’s smile faded, and he looked at her sharply. She seemed unaware and then slowly aware of something wrong, since Miss Greyling turned a delicate but distinct shade of pink and fell to inspecting her fingertips. Lady Leonora’s gloved hand flew to her lips and she looked aghast. She said something else, while shaking her head in denial. And then the marquess forced a smile that nevertheless looked rather grim, said a few more words over the lady’s continued protests, and then, bowing, he took his leave of the pair, and then his host, and then the house.

“Not that I’m complaining, my dear,” the Duke of Torquay murmured as his coach started up and his passenger sat back in his seat, “for you’re something in the way of being our savior tonight, if you’ll forgive the heresy. When we saw you reaching for freedom, we other prisoners took heart and made our break as well. The last I saw of Cyril, he was whistling down the avenue like a schoolboy skipping classes, and Sinjun was on his horse and down the street like a streak, for he’s newly wed and quite naturally eager to be back in his bride’s embrace. The only thing powerful enough to have drawn him forth tonight would have been Gabriel’s trump or Talwin’s summons.”

When his companion gave no answer, the duke went on imperturbably, “I’m glad, actually, that Sinjun hasn’t got to do any more havey-cavey business. He’s risked his neck enough abroad, it’s only right that he should act as advisor now he’s settling down. Cyril has no ties so he’s happy enough to waltz off to the Continent in his stead. I’m far too old, and far too far under the cat’s foot to don my cloak and slip my dagger into my pocket. And my duchess would use that instrument on me if she thought I was about to risk so much as one of my lovely long eyelashes, even in the service of my country.”

“Ah,” commented the marquess from his corner of the darkened carriage, “you have my sympathies, Jason, you truly do.”

“Thank you,” the duke said, with the merest hint of laughter in his voice, before he went on laconically, “And so I am happy enough to simply evaluate information as you other retired agents do, and will be pleased to continue to until Bonaparte’s fate is sealed ... For pity’s sake, Joss, what in God’s name did the wench say to you?” he appealed suddenly in livelier tones. “I’ve been sitting here and chatting as though I couldn’t care a rap, and all the while restraining myself from leaping up and throttling it out of you! How do you expect me to go home and face Regina without knowing what happened under my very nose tonight? It’ll be all over town by tomorrow and though we’re rustics, she and I, we do draw breath, you know. Out with it.”

“The lady,” the marquess answered in thoughtful tones, “has been pursuing me, it seems.”

“A novelty for you, no doubt,” the duke said dryly.

“Well, yes,” the marquess responded musingly, “for she is a lady, you see. Still, for the past two weeks or so, since she arrived in Town, I’ve been running into her and her shy pretty little companion quite by accident in the oddest places: bookshops, street corners, and the like. I’ve begun to develop a rather outsize caution of the outdoors.”

“Poor Joss,” the duke sympathized, “I know just what you mean. What’s London coming to these days when a fellow can’t stroll the streets without fear of some exquisite young female accosting him?”

“Not some young female, Jason. Talwin’s daughter,” the marquess answered. And to the thoughtful silence which followed, he added, “I met her years ago, when she first came on the Town and was well on her way to ruining herself. I saved her one night then, I think, from making a fool of herself, or worse. I can do no less for her, for her father’s sake at least, now.”

“And her interest in you is so disastrous?” the duke asked mildly.

“Why, yes,” his passenger replied, “because I fear she hasn’t changed much at all. She must still be wild as bedamned and dead set on making a sensation. For she doesn’t know me at all really, and that means that there’s only one thing about me that interests her. One large and pertinent thing.”

“Braggart.” The duke laughed. “Have you no shame, if no modesty?”

“And that one thing,” the marquess went on in his soft, rich voice, “is precisely what she let slip tonight when she sweetly asked me why I seemed so—” and here he raised his voice a treble note and mimicked in mocking falsetto tones—“ ‘... divorced from the company ... ah no, d-d-d-detached, that is to say, my lord ... Oh lord, forgive me, for I never meant to say that at all.’ ”

“ ‘Oh lord,’ indeed,” groaned the duke.

“Yes. It’s not delightful, you know, to be valued for the one thing that you least value. The one thing that you can do nothing about. The one thing that is, like it or no, such a rarity that it is become your most outstanding characteristic,” the marquess said in tones that were not so much saddened as resigned.

“Do you never cease showing off?” the duke asked merrily.

“I meant my divorce.” The marquess sighed.

“I know,” his companion said seriously for once, “I was only attempting to lighten the subject.”

“I know,” the marquess replied; “consider it lightened.”

“And as to the lady ... ?” the duke asked in an off-hand manner.

“Why, since I refuse to oblige her, I suppose I’ll just have to wait it out until she becomes interested in some other chap’s outstanding characteristic,” the marquess said, his teeth showing white in his smile even in the dim light.

The duke chuckled, and then after a pause in which they were absolutely silent, they both began to chortle, and then they burst into laughter together just like the lads the lady’s father had named them. And their relieved laughter hung in the soft night air even after their carriage had rolled off into the April night
.

TWO

The fair-haired young woman lowered her hand from the door and let her arm fall to her side in a sad little gesture of defeat Although she uttered no sound, her whole countenance was so abject that the whisper of her light blue skirts as she backed away from the closed door was as an involuntary sigh. She had just turned and begun to walk away down the long carpeted hall when the door she had approached swung wide and a lowered voice called excitedly,

“Annabelle! Belle! The very one I was hoping to see. Oh Belle, you have no idea how I’ve wished you would come. Come in, please do. And quickly.”

As Annabelle turned and came into the room, the dark-haired young woman who had summoned her made rapid little gestures with her hands, signifying stealth and speed. Once the blond young woman entered the room as she had been bade, the other closed the door quickly behind her and then rested her body against it as though to hold it even more securely shut.

“Good lord! Belle, you can have no idea of how desperate I was,” she breathed. “I couldn’t send word through the servants, for then the fact that I was up and about would have gotten to my father. I know that I’m to have a peal rung over me, believe me I’m aware I deserve it. I’m not trying to evade that, but I wanted to have some time to myself before I entered the dock. I’m that embarrassed. I pretended I was still asleep when Katie came in with my chocolate, but dressed as soon as she had left. Then I waited and waited for you to appear. I was going to slip out and creep to your rooms on my hands and knees if I had to.”

“I was here an hour ago, cousin,” Annabelle said in her soft voice, not reproachfully but rather with a sort of sad surprise. “I supposed you were still asleep.”

“It’s probably because you scratched at the door, didn’t you?” her cousin accused. At the smaller girl’s weak shrug and downcast eyes, she went on with a note of exasperation, “Good heavens, Belle, how many times must I tell you? You’re not some sort of lower servant. Knock upon my door, kick and bang it if you must. But a weak little scratch and a whispery little ‘Leonora’ won’t get you anywhere. And I wasn’t sleeping,” she said on a gusty sigh, “for I couldn’t all the night. Good lord, Belle, how old do I have to grow before I stop making such a clunch of myself?” she asked with such a note of sincere misery that her cousin’s pale brows went up in alarm.

“Here I am at three and twenty,” railed the dark-haired lady as she left the door and paced across her room, “and still committing social errors so ghastly that I stand apart and watch myself as though I were seeing some other person—at some other person hell-bent on destroying myself at that—take over my body. And now still hiding from Papa as though I were a guilty toddler because of it! Oh, Belle,” she cried wildly as she sank to sit on the edge of her bed and stared at her cousin, “shall I never grow up?” Since it was an unanswerable question, Lady Leonora did not wait for a reply, but only went on to say feelingly, “What a dreadful thing to have done. And to such a man as Severne, as well! I don’t see eye to eye with Papa on many things, as you well know, but in this case I shouldn’t blame him in the least if he shipped me off home this very day. It would put paid to all our plans, but I don’t think I’d blame him in the least. No, and if he shouted the house down over my head before I left as well, I shouldn’t blame him either.”

As the lady sat and hung her dark head as though the thoughts it contained made it too heavy for her to hold erect, her cousin said in puzzled tones, “But cousin, it’s nothing like that, I assure you. I went down to breakfast this morning. And your papa came in when I was halfway done. He asked after you, and your mama said you were still abed. She did say that she thought you might be avoiding him,” Annabelle added consideringly, “but he said nothing further until your mama asked if he knew what you had said to Lord Severne, and if he was very angry at you for it.”

“And ...?” Lady Leonora prodded, some life and animation coming into her eyes.

“And,” Annabelle said calmly, “he said he hadn’t the slightest idea, nor did it matter. ‘For it’s only more of the same,’ he said, ‘and only what I’ve come to expect from her. And Severne is a grown man,’ he said, ‘and well used to slings and arrows.’ Then he left for the day, for his club, he said.”

“Ah,” Lady Leonora breathed, as all energy and color fled from her face, “but that is even worse.”

She sat with her eyes closed a moment and then opened them and met her cousin’s wide blue and uncomprehending stare. “It would have been better to have been scolded,” she explained softly. “Even a sound thrashing would feel better, I think, than that cold disappointed resignation of his does. But you don’t understand, do you Belle? I suppose it’s because you lost your father so young. And I, on the other hand, lost mine so late. No, don’t look so shocked. I know he still lives, silly, and a long life I wish to him, too. But
I
lost him long ago, you see. No, you don’t.” The lady sighed. “Well, no matter.”

She rose and seemed to give herself a little shake, and then turned a singularly gentle smile upon her cousin.

“The light blue frock,” she commented in a brighter tone, and with evident approval as she inspected the other girl as she too stood up. “Now if you go and get your figured rose wrap, the new one we picked out at the Pantheon Bazaar last week, and your biscuit-colored bonnet with the rosebuds on it, you’ll do very nicely. Then we’ll go off to the booksellers, and have a long stroll while we’re about it, so that we may meet up with some of the young gentlemen you were too unsure to say boo to last night. We shall make a social success of you yet, my fair and timid lady. And then,” she added with a wry grin, as much to her cousin as to her herself, “I can go home and live content, with no one to scandalize but the geese.”

“But you haven’t had your breakfast,” Annabelle protested as her relative ordered her to the door.

“No,” Lady Leonora said as she shooed her cousin off down the hall to her own room, “but then, I don’t deserve one.”

As she watched Annabelle obediently leave to fetch her wrap and bonnet from her room, which Mama had insisted on being located in that netherland somewhere between the servants’ quarters and the best guest rooms, Lady Leonora sighed again. It had been useless to argue that Annabelle ought to have accommodations as fine as her own, for Mama had steadfastly insisted that impoverished distant cousins do not belong in, or feel comfortable when being accommodated in, lavishly appointed bedchambers. But then, Leonora thought as she turned to go back to her own bedchamber to await Annabelle, Mama did not understand that the only reason her daughter had agreed to return to London after all this while was so that she might see to that same impoverished distant relative’s future.

She had been happy enough, she thought, as she went to her wardrobe to get out her own wrap, to live quietly in the peace of the countryside and watch the seasons turn and listen to her birthdays tick away. Not “happy” precisely, she frowned now to herself, for she was a stickler for honesty, even when only arguing with herself, but content No, not that either exactly, she thought, but living on all those acres in the North, so far from London and society and past shame, had numbed her nicely.

There was society in the countryside, of course, but not precisely suitable for young, wealthy, nubile noblewomen. And so of course, rather than going to London again, she was resigned—yes, she smiled to herself, there was the exact word, “resigned”—to stay at home and wait until she was old enough to properly sink into the local whirl of matrons’ teas, church bazaars, and charity work without a ripple.

There were gentlemen in the North too, of course. But if she’d refused to have any of the most eligible partis from the cream of ton society when she’d had the chance, the best of a few remaining bachelors of the proper age that her small district had to offer weren’t likely to make her long for wedded bliss. Especially since she spent a great deal of time avoiding them, as well. No, attracting the gentlemen, wherever she happened to be, had never been the problem. Or rather, it had always been a problem in itself.

The fact was that she always had difficulty with the way she interested gentlemen since she’d come of age. Although she knew it wasn’t fair, it always annoyed her when a male immediately responded to her looks. Then too, she knew, to her sorrow, that her physical appearance often dissuaded other females from befriending her, even if her reputation did not But just as she often felt that she stepped outside herself to watch in horror whenever she committed some social suicide, as she had last night, she always felt as though her physical person belonged to some other female. And one, moreover, that she did not care for at all. It wasn’t surprising that she was not the greatest admirer of her own style.

Her hair was dark, and that was the fashion this season. But it wasn’t black as a daw’s wing such as the Incomparable Miss Merriman boasted. It was only very dark brown, so dark as to appear to be made of smoke when she brushed it out at night It didn’t curl riotously as Caro Lamb’s did, though, but rather it lay smoothly until it came to the end of its length, and then it tended to spring up in frothy waves, as though it regretted its earlier sobriety.

Her skin was pale, but there were no shy pinks to tint it such as she admired in other fair ladies’ cheeks, rather it was the crimson damask rose that lay beneath her skin. Her eyes were not the blue of lakes and pools that poets found so entrancing in their mistresses’ regard. Hers were large and generously lashed, to be sure, but they were dark brown to echo her hair and not the summer sky. Her nose was straight, but it too tended to give way to levity at its end, for it turned up just at the tip. Her lips were rosy and full. Too full, she thought. As a besotted and sottish fellow during that disastrous last year in London had whined as he attempted to excuse his advances after she’d boxed his ears, it seemed as though she had already just been soundly kissed, her lips had looked so swollen and ripe for him.

That was only part of the difficulty, Leonora thought as she drew her wrap about her. For if her lips gave men strange fancies, why then, no matter how she draped it, and the fashion of the day did not permit too much coverage, her form gave them even stranger ones. She was high and full-bosomed, and her small waist drew in only to flare out again in rounded hips that gave way to long and rounded limbs. Not as a lady’s figure should be, she thought, like Mama’s small trim form or even her elder sister’s tall, thin elegance. Rather she wore the blatant body of a gypsy or a sultan’s favorite. She couldn’t blame the gentlemen for what they thought her since that last Season, even if it had not been for her actions. They might admire such looks, but she never could.

When Annabelle had arrived that windy night three months ago, with her poor bedraggled traveling cases at her side and the family bible in her hand to prove that she was at least related to them, Leonora had only needed to take one look at her. It only took that long for her to decide that there stood the beauty in the family. For apart from her clothes and bewildered expression, of course, Annabelle perfectly suited her idea of precisely how a lady should look.

Annabelle was small and delicately made, just as ladies were classically supposed to be. The first gowns that Leonora gave her that first morning after she had come to stay with them, so that she might have something fitting to wear immediately, hung so loosely about her slender body as to make it appear that she were a child dressing up in antique clothes taken in play from some attic trunk. Leonora had begun to feel clumsy and cumbersome even as she watched her maid pin a very recently favored frock closer about Annabelle’s insubstantial frame.

And though Leonora was only of average height, Annabelle was so diminutive that her relative felt like a great gawk when she had to look down in order to converse with her. And Annabelle had eyes as blue and round as robins’ eggs, with lashes and brows so light as to make her countenance as open and perpetually surprised as a wondering child’s, and skin so white that each moment of embarrassment or confusion was plainly, pinkly written upon it, and her hair was as fine and light as milkweed pods blown out upon the wind.

A great many young women would have detested Annabelle on sight. There were also a number of otherwise good-natured ones, who at the very least would have shunned her company in public. It was not that they feared being judged against her beauty, for she was not an exquisite by any measure. It was simply because the cannier females would intuitively realize that they must always suffer by comparison with her sort of artless female. Her simplicity made even prettier blond ladies seem overblown, her coloring made more vividly styled young females appear to be dark as moors, even as her fragility made most other young ladies, no matter how petite, seem coarse. Her shy silence would make magpies out of the wittiest of them, while her humility would make any decisive female appear to be overbearing. In fact, even the other women in the viscount’s own family, his wife and elder married daughter, disliked the new arrival amazingly.

But Leonora championed her, and it was her plea that the girl be given a home that had secured her one. Though Lady Leonora and her father seldom spoke to each other even when that gentleman was making one of his rare visits home, he had been home the day Annabelle arrived. He was a generous man and her timorousness, such an uncommon trait in his family, had touched him. He hadn’t seen any reason why the chit shouldn’t be given a roof over her head, nor why that roof shouldn’t be his, despite his wife’s disapproval. Then too, that lady’s objections had been the very sort of vague, formless things filled with innuendo and foreboding that females often express and that the gentlemen always detest. His elder daughter was married and living in Town and not present to give support to her mother’s opinions. The viscount had been looking for a reason to say yes and put an end to the bothersome matter, so when Leonora had quite surprisingly spoken up and actually addressed words to him, and those in the wretched chit’s behalf, he had been only too happy to end the discussion in an affirmative manner.