Francesca (7 page)

“That was Lord Devane,”
she mentioned to Mr. Irwin. “Did you recognize the lady with him? She was a redhead—very lovely.”

“I just caught a glimpse, but it looked like Marie Mondale, one of this Season’s belles.”

“Marie Mondale? I don’t recognize the name....”

“No more you would, my dear. She ain’t precisely a lady, if you catch my meaning. It is as I said, one sees them everywhere.”

Francesca understood him perfectly. She felt a burning annoyance at Devane’s blatant parading of a lightskirt in a polite park. That was the sort of thing David would have done. They were cut from the same bolt. She hardly listened as Mr. Irwin praised the bays.

Lord Devane had no business publicly engaging a mistress when he was interested in herself, Francesca thought. He had implied he was interested at the ball the other evening. He had been running after her as hard as he could, bribing the musicians to play a waltz and trying to get her to stand up with him a second time. That augured a strong interest—but the minute her back was turned, he was out with lightskirts.

“Let us go home,”
she said angrily.

Mr. Irwin didn’t argue. He was finding the widow very attractive and hoped to win her favor by recovering her necklace. He would run around to Rundell and Bridges and the other good jewelry shops to make enquiries. Not that they’d tell him if they had seen it, but they might have a sketch of the thing, as they had of the country’s more prized heirlooms. At least he would know what he was looking for.

Mrs. Denver was surprised to hear that Francesca was going out that evening, but when the reason was explained, she nodded her agreement. She hoped that Mr. Irwin would succeed, and become a hero, at least long enough for Francesca to accept an offer from him. She saw marriage as the only possible solution to her charge’s problem.

Lady Camden went to the theater with no notion of enjoying herself or even of giving more than a passing glance at the play. It proved impossible to entirely ignore a stage where an extravagant piece featuring an elephant and sixteen horses was in progress, however. She had never seen a live elephant before, and gaped in awe like the rest of the audience.
Bluebeard
was a great popular success and proved so distracting that it was only at the intermissions that Francesca remembered to scan the lightskirts’
throats for her diamonds.

Lord Devane was more debonair. He had seen an elephant before, and while the throng gasped at the menagerie onstage, he lifted his glasses and scrutinized the boxes. Yes, there she was, and with her Mr. Irwin and Mr. Caine. Rather odd, that. He lowered his glasses to her creamy throat, and saw, sitting against her pale skin, not a diamond necklace, but a somewhat insignificant strand of pearls. Her late husband could not have left her well provided for, or she would be wearing diamonds. Had Mr. Irwin failed to procure her a set at Stop Hole Abbey? He lowered his glasses even farther, to look for the patch. It was missing, though he had seen patches on a few other ladies after the Incomparable introduced the notion.

He regarded her a long time, taking in every feature of her face, and every item of her apparel. The Incomparable was introducing no new fashion this evening. Her toilette was unexceptionable, but it lacked her usual flair. He noticed the girlish smile hovering about her lips as she gazed in rapture at the stage. There was still something of the girl in her. He rather liked that. A little town bronze was all well and good, but he didn’t want a jaded sophisticate.

Mr. Irwin had chosen his party with care to provide no competition for Lady Camden’s attention. His sister, a flat, had requested that he ask Mr. Caine as her escort. Finding escorts for Lavinia was always a problem, and he had acquiesced to having Job along. Mr. Caine’s sole comment on the first act was that the play must have cost a great deal of money to produce. Even a full house could not possibly cover the cost. The third couple were married, a Mr. Grant and his wife, who were respectable rather than
tonnish.

When the curtain closed for the first intermission, Irwin leaned over to Lady Camden and said, “Now is our chance to check the ladies for the glass. You take the left side of the theater, I’ll take the right. Don’t waste time on anything but the boxes.”

She understood this to mean that David’s flirts were too high to sit anywhere but in a box. There was a great commotion of people leaving for a stroll in the hall, to greet their friends and exercise their legs after a long sit. It was difficult to know where to begin looking. Jewelry glittered everywhere in the flickering lights of the chandeliers. The gemstones—diamonds, sapphires, and rubies—came in combinations, and they all glowed, so it was difficult to distinguish diamonds at a distance.

Francesca found the most efficacious way was to glance first at the lady’s face, and if she recognized it as belonging to a respectable lady, she moved her glasses along. There was no point thinking Lady Jersey or Lady Castlereagh would be wearing stolen jewelry. To her consternation, she soon realized that half the women present were not ladies, which left a great many necklaces to be examined.

From her box on the right side of the hall, she moved her glasses over the boxes on the left. One box caught her particular attention. It held three bucks and three of the loveliest young women she had ever seen, none of whom she recognized at first glance. She trained her glasses to examine their jewelry. One, a blonde, was wearing sapphires. A brunette wore pearls, and the third, a redhead, wore diamonds. A quick glimpse revealed some similarity to her necklace. She adjusted her glasses for a sharper look. No, they were similar, but far from identical.

As she was looking, a hand appeared on the lady’s white shoulder. The fingers moved, giving the shoulder an intimate squeeze, and on the small finger sat a carved emerald. A spontaneous gasp escaped her lips, and she moved the glasses to the man’s face. There, looking close enough to touch, was Lord Devane. His lips moved in some tender endearment, then widened in a smile. Just so had he smiled at her at the ball. He hadn’t seen her.

He inclined his head closer to the redhead. Francesca adjusted her focus for a good study of the lady’s face, and recognized the woman from Devane’s carriage. Marie Mondale, Mr. Irwin had called her. Francesca admitted that he looked extremely attractive, his hair so dark and his face so rugged. The woman opened her lips, revealing perfect white teeth, and laughed provocatively up at him. Devane inclined his head and touched his lips to her naked shoulder. The lady rose, and they left the box arm in arm.

Francesca moved her glasses away hastily before he saw her. Not that he appeared interested in anything but the woman he was with! She felt a raging inside that she hadn’t felt since her first knowledge of David’s perfidy. Men were all alike! Bad enough they had their unsavory affairs, but to be parading their women in front of respectable people! Her chest heaved in vexation.

She jumped in surprise when Mr. Irwin reached out and touched her shoulder. “Nothing on this side. Did you have any luck?”

“No.”

“Shall we go out for a glass of wine?”

“I would rather remain here, thank you. One meets such unsavory types wandering the halls.”
Types like Devane, and his mistress.

“I’ll bring you a glass, shall I?”

“Thank you, if you will be so kind.”
Mr. Caine and Miss Irwin had left, but the Grants remained behind to keep Lady Camden company. Their chatter was all about the play. “I wouldn’t have missed it for a wilderness of monkeys,”
Mrs. Grant said.

Mr. Grant fancied he knew what the more demanding critics would think. “It is good enough entertainment, but one can hardly call it a play,”
he objected. “Poor Kemble owes the theater proprietors a fortune, and is reduced to such ‘draws’
as this. We shan’t see
Macbeth
or
Lear
for many a long month, I fear.”

“That’s good, then,”
his wife said bluntly. “Did you see the elephant butt that actor with his trunk? I thought he would come tumbling off the stage. Isn’t it marvelous, Lady Camden?”

“Lovely.”

The Grants’
excited chatter concealed any lack of enthusiasm on Francesca’s part. She would never hear the word
elephant
again without seeing that white shoulder with the ringed hand gripping it. The lips touching that white shoulder ... A shiver ran across her scalp. She could almost feel those lips caressing her own flesh. Horrid, wanton man. Such intimate pleasures should be restricted to the boudoir—and to marriage.

Mr. Irwin returned with the wine, and the conversation continued to revolve around the play. “I fear it signals the end of drama as we know it”
was Mr. Caine’s opinion. “It is fatally easy for the public taste to be degraded, but to raise it again—it is all but impossible. What will Kemble show us next year? Wild tigers, monkeys? It don’t bear thinking about.”

At the last intermission Mr. Irwin again suggested a stroll, and again Lady Camden declined, adding, “You go ahead, Mr. Irwin.”

“But I cannot leave you alone. The others have left.”

There was a commotion at the door of their box, and a young couple entered. It was Sir Bedford and Lady Harcourt, friends of Francesca’s. Mr. Irwin could then leave with honor.

“We spotted you across the hall and had to drop in.”
Lady Harcourt smiled. “Delicious play, is it not?”

“Very amusing, and so unusual,”
Francesca replied. “I have never seen an elephant before.”

They chatted for two or three minutes. The Harcourts wished to visit other friends as well but did not like to leave Francesca alone. When the door opened and another caller entered, they hastily took their leave. Francesca looked into the shadows to see who was calling and saw Lord Devane. Her heart began hammering. She thought of running out after the Harcourts, but it was too late. They were gone.

Devane’s severe face was wearing a smile as it emerged from the shadows into the front of the box. “Good evening, Lady Camden. Aren’t I fortunate to find you alone? I had not looked for such luck as that.”

Her lips thinned, her nostrils pinched, and her voice was frosty. “Good evening, Lord Devane.”

“You must be the only lady in the house who is not smiling at this delightful performance,”
he said, tilting his head playfully to examine her. Oh, yes, she had seen him with Marie, right enough. Why else would she be looking daggers at him? Excellent!

“Do you think so? I doubt your partner is smiling, to see you desert her at the intermission.”

“I did not leave her alone. Marie is with friends.”

“She is not with the gentleman who brought her.”

“Nor are you. It is remiss of Mr. Irwin to leave you alone.”

“I was not alone! I was with my friends, till you chased them away.”

“I was under the impression they were just leaving. May I?”
He put his hand on the back of the chair next to her, and sat down without waiting for permission. Obviously he could not leave her alone. “What has put you in such a pucker, ma’am? Am I about to hear how Kemble has set drama back a hundred years?”

“It’s not exactly Shakespeare, is it?”

“For small mercies, let us be thankful. The best Shakespeare could do for us was a bear—in
The Winter’s Tale.”

“If you want to see wild animals, you should go to the Exeter Exchange,”
she snipped, pulling her shawl about her shoulders.

“One monkey is much like another, and one tires of that hippopotamus. I am always willing to settle for a wildcat,”
he added with a bold grin as his eyes moved over her face, lingering a moment on her eyes, her nose, and, lastly, her lips.

“If you expect to see me bare my claws in public, you will be disappointed. Some things ought to be done in private,”
she said, glaring.

“That is easily arranged.”

“Then might I suggest you take her to your pied-a-terre on the Chelsea Road and arrange it, sir? We came to see the play onstage, not in the boxes.”

“You have obviously been casting your glasses in the wrong direction, ma’am. My box is some yards away from the stage.”
He glanced across the hall to it. “Fairly dark, too. I am flattered that you singled it out for your attentions. Had I known, I would have behaved more discreetly.”

“I doubt that.”

“There’s still one act to go. You will observe--through your glasses—that I behave with the utmost discretion. Mind you, I cannot speak for my partner. Marie is hot-blooded.”

Francesca’s own blood was in some danger of boiling, but her face looked frozen. She was happy for an interruption, yet not entirely happy either. She enjoyed this verbal jousting with Lord Devane. If only she could get the better of him! “Ah, here is Mr. Irwin, returned with wine. I suggest you return to Marie before her blood reaches the boil. Good evening, sir. So kind of you to keep me company.”

“I fear I speak the simple truth when I say the pleasure was all mine, madam.”
He bowed gracefully, nodded to Mr. Irwin, and left.

“What the devil was Devane doing here?”
Mr. Irwin asked. His concern was for the competition this illustrious gentleman presented. He could see, however, that Lady Camden was displeased with the visit.

“He stopped by to say good evening.”

“I had the impression, last evening, that he didn’t know you that well.”

Lady Camden’s eyes flew to his in chagrin. “What do you mean, last evening? Was he asking about me?”

“Just a word in passing. We happened to meet at Brooke’s Club. He had seen me with Caine—your name came up somehow or other. He mentioned the lovely lady he had seen with Mr. Caine—something of the sort. I remember you particularly discouraged me from asking his help.”

“We met only a few days ago. I did not want you to pester a mere acquaintance. What did he say about me?”

“Now, it is nothing to get in a pucker over, my dear. He scarcely mentioned your name, I promise you. You need not fear him. He is no prude, but he would never dishonor a lady of unsullied reputation. He has lightskirts enough without ruining ladies. Well, he is a bachelor after all, and a highly eligible one, too. He owns St. Alban’s Abbey and an estate in Somerset, to say nothing of his hunting box and London mansion.”