Francesca (10 page)

Devane left the party early, and continued on to a different rout. The necklace story was making the rounds there, too. A Mrs. McGillis nabbed Devane at the corner of the dance floor and whispered in his ear. “If Lady Camden has the thing, why not give it back? I’ll tell you what
I
think. She’s sold it. Probably to pay her gambling debts.”

“I don’t believe the lady gambles, except for a friendly game of whist.”
His tone invited the lady to either explain or retract her statement.

“She does everything else she shouldn’t,”
Mrs. McGillis replied knowingly. “A shocking flirt, milord. She uses men up like linen. Uses them awhile, then flings them aside. Old Maundley is fed up with her. He is going to put her out of her house, did you hear? He obviously knows something the rest of us don’t, or why would he treat her so harshly?”

“I cannot believe he would be so vindictive.”

“No more he would if there weren’t a good reason,”
she said sapiently.

The lady left, to pour her tale into other ears. Devane withdrew to a quiet corner to digest what he had heard. If Lady Camden was indeed the grasping sort of woman this story suggested, he was glad he hadn’t become involved with her. She had indicated that afternoon that she was in some financial trouble, but when he had urged her to confide, she had shut up like a clam. That didn’t look as if she was trying to use him.

Yet this evening she had sought his help. Surely this necklace business was what she wished to discuss with him. He went over their conversation, looking for clues as to her thinking. She had mentioned retiring to the country. Was that a hint that she required a patron? Under the present circumstances, she could hardly have expected any other sort of offer.

Would the fun-loving Frankie Devlin really want to retire from society? More likely, she had sold the entailed necklace to pay her debts, gambling or otherwise, and wanted him to buy it back in return for her favors. A bauble like the Maundley diamonds would be worth several thousand guineas. A bit steep ...

But then, Lady Camden was something rather out of the ordinary. Considering the problem without the facts was pointless. He would call on Lady Camden tomorrow and learn the truth from her. When his decision was taken, he put the matter at the back of his mind and continued on to another party, where he enjoyed a flirtation with a different lady.

Mr. Caine took Lady Camden straight home. She went to her room immediately, and Mrs. Denver spoke to Mr. Caine. “What happened to her? She looks like death.”

“She had her say to Devane. You see the result. The man has no more interest in her than in a flea. I don’t know where she got the notion he is nice. He couldn’t have been ruder. He all but cut her dead.”

“How very odd.”

Weaving was not enough release of Selby’s nerves on this occasion. He paced the room instead. “I begin to wonder if word of Maundley’s stunt isn’t circulating in society already. Fran was too absorbed in Devane to notice, but I saw several ladies at the assembly looking at her askance and whispering behind their fans. Lady Jersey herself, that renowned chatterbox, was noticeably silent. Nothing would cool Devane’s interest more quickly than a sordid scandal. Very likely that is behind his suddenly becoming an icicle.”

“The poor girl. She won’t dare show her nose outside of the house. Whatever can we do, Mr. Caine?”

“If we don’t do something, her reputation will be in shreds. I think I ought to go and have a word with Lord Maundley.”
He stopped pacing and turned back to her. “What do you think?”

“You would tell him about David and that Rita woman?”
she asked uncertainly.

“I don’t see any other way out of this imbroglio. Did you keep the letters?”

“No, Fran threw them into the fire.”

“A pity. It leaves us with no proof. Still, it’s worth a try.”

“Fran was most eager to spare Lady Maundley grief. Could you ask him not to tell his wife?”

“He shouldn’t need telling, but I’ll explain that that is the reason Fran hasn’t spoken before now. This is not an interview I am looking forward to,”
he said, frowning deeply to consider it.

“Most unpleasant. Will you return this evening and tell me what Maundley had to say?”

“Indeed I shall. It shouldn’t take long.”

Mr. Caine left, and Mrs. Denver remained belowstairs, waiting for him. She was so agitated she had a large glass of sherry, which helped very little. She knew Fran would be unhappy with the action being taken behind her back, but really there was no other way out of this quagmire. Once she heard that Maundley had backed down and apologized, she would be so relieved she would thank Mr. Caine.

No forty-five minutes ever seemed so long or so ghastly as the forty-five minutes Mrs. Denver waited for Mr. Caine’s return. Fear clutched at her heart, making it ache in her chest. She couldn’t take much more of this sort of carrying-on. If Fran was to continue on in London, she would have to find another companion. Much as she loved the girl, she could not ride herself into the grave.

At last the tap at the door came, and Mrs. Denver herself answered it. She knew by Mr. Caine’s frown that he had met with no success. “Was he not at home?”
she asked eagerly.

They went into the saloon, and Mr. Caine resumed his pacing back and forth. “He was home right enough, but he didn’t believe a word I said. Where were the letters from these alleged mistresses of his son’s, he wanted to know. Why had Lady Camden not told him sooner? Before I left, the word
slander
was being flung at my head. He used phrases like ‘dishonoring the memory of a hero, who is not alive to defend himself.’
‘If Lady Camden breathes a word of this salacious lie, I will take her to court for the lying thief she is.’
Those were his last words. I wouldn’t stay to hear more. I am not a violent man, Mrs. Denver, but it was all I could do to keep my fists off him.”

Mrs. Denver’s face was ashen. “What can the poor girl do?”

“Nothing. Maundley is the guardian of her trust fund. He will dock it for five thousand and put her out of this house. How will that leave Fran fixed financially?”

“Just five thousand left. She hasn’t another
sou
in the world, and she would never approach her papa for more. But can Maundley take her money? That was her dowry. It didn’t come from Camden. He gave her nothing but his title, and a life of misery.”

“When she married, the money became Camden’s by law. Fortunately Sir Gregory got a promise out of Camden that if anything happened to him, the money would revert to Fran, no strings attached.”

“This is so unfair!”

“Indeed it is. Justice is an illusion. And the whole town will believe Maundley’s lies if they don’t already. It quite kills Fran’s chance of ever making a respectable alliance. I think the only thing to do is take her home to her father.”

“She’d never go, Mr. Caine. Nor could I ask her to. She was not happy there, and with this new twist her papa would rag the poor child to death. No, we must manage to live somehow on the interest of five thousand pounds.”

“That will hardly pay her rent, to say nothing of servants and daily living expenses.”

“She must cut her coat to fit the cloth. She could eke out a respectable existence in the country, I expect.”

“Yes, in hired rooms, or a little cottage,”
he replied glumly. He took a deep breath and said, “Do you think I ought to offer for her?”

The question obviously cost him something. Mrs. Denver shook her head. “You have already done more than enough, Mr. Caine. Marriages of that sort never work out. I’ll let her sleep tonight and give her the bad news in the morning.”

“I’ll come around to see if there is anything I can do to help.”

“You have been very kind. I don’t know what we would have done without you.”

Her desolate expression was a tacit admission that even with him, affairs had reached an impossible state. Mrs. Denver went up to bed and spent a sleepless night trying to make plans for the future. Some secret corner of her heart was half relieved that Fran would have to leave London. The girl would be bitter, of course, but at least she would be away from the sort of fast company encountered here. The sort of company that could bring a simple country girl to utter ruin. Company like Lord Maundley, and Lord Devane.

Lord Maundley was in a fury, and in his wrath he did not hesitate to blacken Lady Camden’s character as she traduced the memory of his son. He did not believe a word the lying thief said against David. She had been nothing but grief to his family. A nobody out of the country, when David might have had a duke’s daughter, and she hadn’t even given him a son. He went straight to his solicitor in the morning and instituted the legal proceedings to seek payment for the necklace. He would not see the woman again. It was all up to the law now, and the sooner the world knew what she was, the better.

Lady Camden went down to breakfast late that morning. Her face was pale, and purple smudges below her eyes spoke of a sleepless night. She seemed strangely apathetic, even when Mrs. Denver admitted that Mr. Caine had called on Lord Maundley.

“I’m sure you both meant it for the best, Auntie,”
she said in a flat voice. Her eyes snapped when she heard the names Maundley had called her, but even that she took without resorting to hysterics. “One always considers the source of an insult,”
she said with one of her shrugs.

Mrs. Denver did not point out that the source, in this case, was the highly prestigious Lord Maundley. Mr. Caine came to call, as promised.

After a few moments’
general repining, he got down to business. “I have been thinking about this wretched affair, and what you must do is hire yourself a lawyer, Fran, and a good one. You’ll be bitten to death by the fees, but you must defend yourself. You’ll need character witnesses; I shall be happy to speak on your behalf. And we shall have to find people to confirm that David was not Simon Pure.”

Lady Camden’s lips curled in distaste. Drag all the dirty family linen through court? “If Lord Maundley is that eager to steal my five thousand pounds, let him. I shan’t appear in court. It is too degrading.”

Mr. Caine urged her to stand up for herself, but Mrs. Denver was hesitant. “Maundley would drag in that Fran has been running around with a dozen young men,”
she mentioned. “There is no denying that, Mr. Caine. All perfectly innocent, of course, but it won’t look that way. Much better to just let him take the money, and we shall retire into the country.”

“There is something in what you say. A reputation cannot be bought at any price.”

“No,”
Francesca said calmly. “What we must do is find the necklace.”

“We’ve already tried that,”
Mr. Caine reminded her.

“It wasn’t pawned at Stop Hole Abbey, so the woman must still have it. I must discover the identity of Rita, and recover the necklace. I shall take it to Lord Maundley and throw it in his face—in public. Perhaps in front of the House of Lords,”
she said, smiling a malicious smile.

“Yes, and he’ll say you had it all along,”
Mr. Caine pointed out. “How do you plan to find the necklace?”

“I have no idea. I must think about it, and come up with a plan.”
On this brave speech she thanked Mr. Caine most kindly, and left.

“Any plan to find the cursed thing will involve her with the muslin company. In her present mood, I dread to think what she has in mind,”
Mr. Caine said, worried.

“The sooner we get her out of London, the better,”
Mrs. Denver said. “We’ll get her far enough away that she can’t be running back to make more mischief. Somewhere in Surrey, perhaps, but not too close to her home. Close enough to visit her family, I mean, but not to be overwhelmed by them. I expect we should go and visit an estate agent who deals in country properties.”

“Weber’s, on Coventry Street,”
Mr. Caine said. “Meanwhile, I wonder if she would like to visit my sister. Mary would like to have her, I’m sure. They haven’t seen each other since Fran and I stood godparents to Harry. It would get Fran’s mind off all this bother.”

“That’s a good idea. I’ll suggest it. Shall I go to Weber’s, Mr. Caine, or
...
”

“Why don’t we both go now, while she is busy? She won’t come up with a plan before lunch, I shouldn’t think.”

“I’ll just get my pelisse. I’ll tell the servants we are going to the lending library, in case Fran comes down and asks.”

* * *

Lord Devane went on the strut on Bond Street that morning to replenish his supply of snuff and talk to his friends. He was particular about his snuff. He favored the light character of Martinique, which he strengthened with one tenth part of the powerful, large-grained Brazil. As he strolled through the shop, he read the labels on the glazed jars: Macouba, Spanish Bran, Violet Strasbourg—a lady’s snuff. Beside and around him, the low rumble of gossips at work could be overheard. The only
on-dit
on anyone’s lips was the Lady Camden affair. Frankie had really pitched herself into the suds this time.

“Poor girl, I can almost pity her. Whatever will she do?”

“She’ll have to leave town, won’t she? Mean to say, old Maundley’s kicking her out of the house. If I were her, I’d be gone by now. No one wants to be the butt of cartoons and public jokes.”

A quiver of apprehension shot through Devane. He had been making his plans and had decided to let Lady Camden stew a few days in this broth of her own concocting, but it was possible she might leave town before he spoke to her. He bought his snuff and went out to leap into his curricle, which his tiger had awaiting him.

“Half Moon Street,”
he called, and let his man take the reins, to allow him to prepare his speech. A little apology for last night’s brusqueness for openers. Some excuse for being still in town, when he had claimed a trip to Newmarket. A fleeting, oblique mention of the trouble she found herself in. He would not dwell on it or rub it in. He hoped she didn’t cry. He despised watering pots. But of course she would be deeply troubled, and that is when he would broach his plan of rescue.