False Angel (20 page)

“Not quite,” he replied. “A book. But yes,” he mused, his hard face taking on a softer expression for the first time in the interview, “she would find it consolation, yes.”

“Well then,” Leonora said, tossing her dark hair back, “I will not delay you in your visit with her. Now you can be her consolation.”

“Yes,” he said, “of course. Thank you, my lady.”

“No. Thank you,” she said. And they glowered at each other for a moment before he bowed, she curtsied, and they parted.

But once she came out into the hall and the door closed behind her, she almost sank to her knees. She did not think of her sudden weakness, she only thought with sorrowing wonder, as she attempted to reach her room before Annabelle emerged to join Severne, “Only because he thought he must.” And armed with a gift for another woman to let her know he’d been forced to his offer for her. And that offer made with not one word tossed to her in charity to make it more palatable. Not one word of affection, not a word of respect, nor one of admiration. Because she’d listened closely, and had he offered up just one such with his offer, she would have been promised to him at this very moment. And she would have been, she thought with pain, even if it had only been the one word that decided it, happier than she had ever been.

The Marquess of Severne scowled as he waited for Miss Greyling to join him. He had come to the door of this house bearing two gifts and now he was about to divest himself of the second one. This one he knew would be accepted, and gladly. Then, unburdened, he should feel lighter. He did, though he could find no pleasure in it. For he was free, he had been set entirely free, and he felt not so much unencumbered as confused. For he knew he ought to feel something other than this terrible sense of loss.

It was a large pier mirror with gilt cherubs all around it, and it held a clear reflection with never the slightest ripple, for the viscount bought only the best for his family. Katie stood back, as proud as a cook displaying a four-layered cake with candied flowers on top.

“Now there!” She sighed. “Now there, my lady, is a sight that will take the shine out of every other female in the place.” And especially that curd-faced little cheat, she thought, and she would have said it too, for she wouldn’t hold her tongue with her mistress after all this time out of fear for her position. But she would, she sighed again, and did, out of fear for her lady’s feelings.

But sometimes a current of thought runs so true between two minds that it needn’t be said, for her lovely lady looked deep into the glass and said softly, “It’s very nice, to be sure. But gold’s a color for the cool and blond, Katie. Are you sure it suits a gypsy like me?”

“A gypsy?” Katie gasped, honestly horrified. “A queen of the Egypts, more like, my lady, not of the gypsies.”

For so she looked, Katie thought proudly, with her dark tresses swept up high and cascading down in one great curl. And with the gold-colored gown that fit just as it did in the latest fashion plates, as though it had been carved on a statue rather than buttoned onto a living body. Only no fashion plate illustration Katie had ever seen had possessed such a lavish bosom or curving hip as did her lady. It was almost too much for a gentlewoman to display and still look a complete lady. It would have been too much, Katie decided, for any other. But not for her mistress, and the way she carried her head high and walked so regally.

Katie was about to enlarge upon her theory when a faint scratching was heard at the door. “I know, I know,” the maidservant grimaced, “it’s Miss Greyling,” and without further word she trudged to the door to admit the visitor. Katie’s affection for Annabelle, Leonora thought as she watched the reluctant maid approach the door, had undergone a rapid deterioration even as Severne’s had increased. But then, she mused a little sadly, that had nothing to do with Annabelle herself, for Katie’s loyalty was such that she would have despised an angel if she thought its glow cast her mistress into the shadow.

Leonora sighed and looked at herself again in the glass and tried to share Katie’s enthusiasm for her appearance. It was important to her that she look very well tonight, if only to show Severne that his conduct hadn’t affected her in the least. She doubted that she appeared as magnificent as Katie would have it, but was about to settle for “attractive” when her cousin’s reflection came into view beside her own.

Seeing herself, bold and gold and dark and voluptuous, at the side of Annabelle, who was tonight all milk and butter, flower-stern slim and graceful in a flowing gown the color of peaches, with her fine light hair a drift of light caught up in a simple ribband, she felt like a two-penny tart beside a princess. As the glass threw back their contrasting reflections, she mused that it was no wonder Severne thought her fit only for furtive embraces, while he reserved his loftier emotions for her gentle cousin.

“How very nice,” Annabelle said. “In that gown, cousin, you will be sure to be seen immediately by everyone at the concert.”

“Ah yes,” Leonora breathed, as Katie reminded herself of years of Sunday church going in order to prevent herself from using the curling iron she held in a decidedly creative fashion.

Annabelle’s attitude had subtly changed since Severne had taken up with her, Leonora thought. Then she decided that it was likely only that the poor girl had more confidence now, and that combined with a lack of social experience could produce an effect which might be misinterpreted. Annabelle did not actually smirk at herself in the glass now, rather it could be said to be merely a little smile and nod of approval at herself. And it was not precisely gloating, Leonora thought, when her cousin said,

“Oh cousin, the marquess gave me a book today, when he visited with me. I searched for you all afternoon to show it to you, but Katie said you were suffering from the headache. I’m glad to see you recovered so that you may accompany us to the concert. Joscelin said you might not, you know.”

Joscelin! thought Leonora, it is Joscelin now? But it was Joss for me once. Is it that he knows that even in that he must take no liberties with a true lady? And finds her a lady bred, and me a lady born, but only that? She was so taken with the thought that she did not make an immediate reply after her cousin went on to describe some virtues of the book and urge its perusal.

“No,” she said distractedly when she could, “no, Belle, I don’t wish to read with you now, even if it is a lovely book by Mr. Blake.”

“Tomorrow then,” Annabelle said comfortably, “for I know you’ll like it. Joscelin said he purchased it years ago when Mr. Blake had a showing of his pictures here in Town on Broad Street. And that he was so pleased that someone took an interest in his works, for very few had come to view them, you see, that after Joscelin had purchased a few, he offered him a volume he had just done with composing. It hadn’t even been published as yet, and still has not been. And it is mine now.”

Leonora repressed an urge to scream, Am I to keep count? Is that it? To see how many “Joscelins” you will utter in an hour? As Annabelle went on, “Joscelin said that he felt very guilty about buying an uncirculated book, but Mr. Blake insisted, and practically pressed it upon him. But that he didn’t feel badly about it now, knowing it would be mine. I think you’d like it, cousin, there are two very nice pictures in particular; two angels, one is dark, and one is light and has a face that looks very like mine, Joscelin said.”

Three “mines,” five “Joscelins.” I understand, please stop, thought Leonora.

“What are we to hear tonight, cousin?” Annabelle asked, changing the subject abruptly.

“Some of Mr. Purcell, some of Corelli, some Bach, of course, among others I think,” Leonora said immediately, relieved to be on a less painful subject. “It’s to be a baroque recital, and we’ll hear several compositions for the brass.”

“I’ve had no opportunity to ever hear such before, as you know,” Annabelle said softly. “Do you think I’ll enjoy it?”

“Oh yes,” Leonora said. “I know that I do, enormously.”

“But cousin,” Annabelle said quietly, plaintively, “I don’t know half so much about music as you. I shall feel quite out of place knowing nothing about it, and having nothing to say.”

“Don’t worry,” Leonora smiled in a more kindly fashion, for her cousin did look like an abashed little girl as she sat down with her eyes downcast. “No one will expect you to give a critique. With music, it is always enough to merely listen and take pleasure in it and say as much.”

“Oh,” Annabelle cried, “but I should never presume to comment on music in such learned company. You mistake me, cousin. I only wondered if you would explain it a little to me, only so that I don’t feel so altogether out of place and out of my place tonight, you see.”

Leonora did see, and though she was not a supernaturally forgiving soul, she could step back enough from her unhappiness to know that with Annabelle, at least, there was nothing to forgive. If Annabelle had won Severne, she could dislike it, she could envy it, but she could not hate her cousin for it. She might as well be angry with a blossom for attracting a honeybee. And so, to take her mind from the coming ordeal of the evening, and in some small way as expiation for the intense, though just as intensely resisted and denied dislike she felt for her former protégée, Leonora passed the time before they had to leave by explaining the intricacies of baroque music, and expounding upon music in general.

“And so,” Leonora concluded, her eyes shining with enjoyment, for as so often happened, she had been carried away by her own enthusiasm and her attentive audience, “I think that when anything becomes too great to express in words, then one must turn to music. For music is to emotion as poetry is to prose. It is what happens when a soul, or when a thought must sing ... or so I have always imagined,” Leonora ended in embarrassment, realizing that she had become overemotional from the way her audience, Katie and Annabelle, sat watching with wide-eyed wonder.

“You ought to write that all down, my lady, yes, you ought,” Katie said, nodding her head vigorously, “for I never felt that way about a tune before, and now I know I always shall.”

“Ah well,” Leonora laughed, “from what I’ve just said, I suppose it would be far better if I sang it instead.”

They laughed and sported with this theme, oddly in charity with each other, until word came that the marquess had arrived, and the viscount and his wife awaited them. Then Leonora fell silent, and gathered up her wrap and went to the door like the late French queen to the block.

She let Annabelle go down the stairs first, so that Severne could see her at once. And so never knew that his lip curled in disdain as he saw her later entry upon the long staircase, for, his breath taken away by her splendor, he thought only that she
would
know how to make an entrance so as to take the attention away from her poor cousin.

The marquess was so splendid in his stark white and black evening array that Leonora kept her eyes averted from him after one brief glance at his grandeur. It was only after he’d been greeted by acquaintances in the lobby of the concert hall, when Lord Benjamin and Sybil had joined their group, that Leonora dared to follow that tall lean figure with her gaze.

It was Annabelle that he took in on his arm, after she had hung back in confusion and so was discovered to have been left behind as their party began to mount the stairs to their seats. Leonora walked beside her sister in their wake.

“You,” Sybil breathed in annoyance, “are a fool, my dear. Or at least, you are allowing that creature to make you into one.”

“Nonsense,” Leonora replied in such a hushed whisper that her sister had to bend her imperially dressed head to hear her. “She’s an innocent. She cannot help it if he prefers her.” Leonora no longer thought to dissemble about her feelings for the marquess, knowing that once Sybil got hold of an idea, she could never hope to shake it loose, and knowing, moreover, that she was not so good a liar as to dispatch a notion that was, unhappily, quite true.

“I repeat,” Sybil said, “you are a fool. A great ninny, sister. And I only hope that you do not learn it too late to change things. For although that is a very flattering gown, I cannot say that I like to see you in that cap and bells.”

Sybil timed her statements better than the London-to-York stagecoach schedule, Leonora thought. There was no retort she could make. The thing had been said as a killing exit line, and so it remained, since the last syllable was uttered just as they reached their box. There was little time for thinking about a possible rejoinder either. For soon Leonora forgot Sybil and even the marquess and Annabelle for a space. The flickering lights dimmed, and the music soared, and Leonora allowed herself to fly with it and in it.

It was a fine performance. The musicians played as though inspired. Leonora heard her favorite pieces, and for all her previous unrest she found a certain peace in the night. The harpsichord beat out a fine silver skein while the horns trumpeted like great golden beasts calling to each other across the ornate hall, and she was, for that little while, truly happy.

During the intermission, of course, Sybil and Lord Benjamin were out of their seats at once, since they must promenade to see and be seen by anyone of any importance. The viscount excused himself to visit with a certain baron of his acquaintance, and the viscountess, looking about the box blearily, like a sleeper awakened (which she just had been), demanded her remaining daughter’s escort to the lady’s withdrawing room.

The viscountess met up with a dowager as big with news as she was with importance, and Leonora was relieved when her mama waved her off so that she could hear a particularly good red bit of gossip unfit for an unwed daughter’s ears. They were on the balcony level, not so far from the family box that Leonora would be remiss in walking back to her seat alone. But still, she could not like being seen loitering in the corridors alone at intermission, as she knew that only Cyprians seeking patrons would behave so. Though very few would mistake the viscount’s
daughter for such, hers was not so marvelous a reputation that she could afford the slightest error. Thus, she wanted to go to her seat, and knew that she ought to as well. It was only a pity that she could not.