Mesalliance (32 page)

He found
himself asking both of them to dance. Nell dimpled roguishly and
Adeline gave him a breathtakingly dazzling smile. They both
accepted. Then, with such delicate artistry that he scarcely even
noticed it, they came to the point. Whilst in Oxfordshire, dear
Cecily had been led into certain misconceptions. It was by no means
her fault but it would be better for all concerned if she could be
… encouraged to recognise her error.

‘Of course,’
agreed Mr Garfield, fathoms deep in dark-fringed pools of
aquamarine. ‘I always thought it a prodigious unlikely story and
will be happy to drop a word in Cecy’s ear. Your Grace need not
give the matter another thought.’

‘I knew,’ said
Adeline charmingly, ‘that I might rely on you. Did I not say, Nell,
that one might place absolute faith in Mr Garfield’s powers of
perception?’

‘Those,’ vowed
Nell gravely, ‘were your very words.’

Mr Garfield
puffed out his chest.

‘Your Grace is
too kind. I am overwhelmed.’

Her Grace
finished binding her spell.

‘I shall be
holding a reception when Rockliffe returns from Paris – just a
small, intimate affair, you understand – and shall send you a card.
In the meantime, I hope you will call at Wynstanton House … and
bring dear Cecily, of course.’

And that, she
thought cynically, ought to be a big enough carrot to stop dear
Cecily’s mouth permanently.

It was,
however, belated. Even as she spoke, Cecily was reiterating her
tale to Mistress Delahaye in the hope, this time, of convincing
her.

‘It’s true,’
she finished stridently. ‘Rockliffe
had
to marry her. He
didn’t have any choice. Her gown was torn and he was kissing her. I
saw it myself.’

‘I still don’t
believe it,’ said Cassie stoutly. ‘It sounds to me like utter
nonsense.’

‘Of course it’s
nonsense,’ said a light, musical voice behind her. ‘And I’m
delighted that you recognise the fact.’

With a gasp of
pleased surprise, Cassie whirled round to meet a remote violet gaze
set beneath slender brows, arched like bird’s wings.

‘It’s
Cassandra, isn’t it?’ continued the lady smoothly. ‘And … your
friend?’

‘Cecily, my
lady,’ replied Cassie thankfully. ‘Cecily Garfield.’

The beautiful
eyes moved to where Cecily was standing with her mouth open,
staring.

‘Well, Mistress
Garfield … allow me to point out that if you are wise you will not
repeat this foolishness about Rockliffe and his duchess. No one
will believe you, you see – and therefore you will only make
yourself ridiculous.’

‘I know what I
saw,’ said Cecily doggedly. ‘And if you don’t believe me, you can
ask Mr Richard Horton.’

‘My dear, I
don’t need to ask anyone. I know Rock – and that is more than
enough.’

‘But I - ’

‘Cecy!’ Lewis,
arriving with Adeline on his arm, felt his muscles go into spasm at
the thought that his sister might already have ruined everything –
and apparently done so in front of a lady he had once asked to be
his wife. ‘Come with me. I’ve something important to say to
you.’

‘Why?’ Cecily’s
eyes travelled unrecognisingly over Adeline and then back again. ‘I
was just - ’

‘Then don’t!’
Her brother was too harassed to be polite. ‘Just do as I ask. Now!’
And he hauled her away.

‘Nasty, lying
creature!’ muttered Cassie crossly. ‘Honestly, Adeline – you won’t
believe what she said about you. It makes my blood boil just to
think of it.’

‘Thank you,
Cassie. You’re a comfort,’ smiled Adeline. And then, looking at the
silent figure in amethyst taffeta, ‘But won’t you present me?’

‘Oh!’ Cassie
looked faintly stunned. ‘But don’t you know each other?’

‘No.’ It was
the lady who spoke and, though her voice did not vary at all, the
pansy eyes held an odd gleam. ‘No, we don’t. But I should like, if
you don’t mind, to introduce myself.’

Cassie blinked
and then laughed.

‘By all means!
I ought to be listening to March’s verses, anyway.’ And she whisked
herself off.

Adeline was
left staring at the most beautiful woman she had ever seen and who,
at length, said simply, ‘I know who you are, of course. Truth to
tell, I’d probably not have come to London at all just at present
except that it seemed so odd not knowing Rock’s wife that I was
determined to meet you at last.’ She paused and gave a smile of
delicious sweetness. ‘I’m the Marchioness of Amberley, you know.
But I’m rather hoping you’ll see fit to call me Rosalind.’

*

Thinking about
it afterwards, it seemed to Adeline that nothing anyone had said
had in any way prepared her for Rosalind Ballantyne. True, the
unexpected gift of the gold pin for her wedding had betokened
warmth and Nell had spoken of her with considerable affection …
then, eventually, they had told her about the blindness. But that
was all. Nothing to warn her of that shining beauty – or the grace
and charm and wit that went with it; or even the sheer,
unadulterated friendliness.

It was, of
course, impossible not to like her – and equally impossible not to
feel suddenly and hopelessly outclassed. It was also tempting to
encourage Nell to talk … for that way she could discover if Tracy
had ever aspired to Rosalind’s hand himself. But that was stupid;
stupid and dangerous. What
ought
to concern her was why he
was so long in coming home – and it did. The thought could not help
but occur that, following their last conversation, he might have
decided to seek consolation elsewhere … and even, by now, have
found a replacement for Carlotta Felucci. It was a possibility that
began to haunt her nights; for if he
had
done so, she had
only herself to blame.

As it happened,
Adeline need not have worried. Rockliffe had neither the time nor
the inclination to set up a mistress and would probably have
started for home after ten days, had he not – by the merest chance
- stumbled upon the very information that Mr Osborne had been so
diligently and unsuccessfully seeking.

Mr Osborne, as
it turned out when the Duke finally ran him to earth, had drawn a
series of blanks and was rapidly losing heart. He had found three
gentlemen to whom the name du Plessis was vaguely familiar but no
one who appeared to actually
know
the man … and the Maréchal
Rebec, du Plessis’ one-time commander, was currently serving in the
Americas.

This piece of
information, combined with the lamentable stews at the Coq D’Or,
brought on a severe attack of colic followed by a fresh spurt of
effort. France, in Mr Osborne’s book, was quite bad enough; nothing
… not even his noble employer … could induce him to sail half-way
round the world to a land peopled by savages and at war with his
own countrymen.

To his relief,
however, the Duke showed no sign of suggesting this but merely sent
him to find out if Joanna Kendrick – or possibly Joanna du Plessis
– was known at the Embassy. Mr Osborne departed with alacrity only
to return with lagging feet and nothing to report. His Grace sighed
and desired Mr Osborne to widen his acquaintance with the French
army. Mr Osborne also sighed – and then consoled himself with the
thought that, tedious as this would undoubtedly be, the choice
between America and dismissal was worse.

Rockliffe,
meanwhile, visited a few old friends and accepted more invitations
than he could possibly hope to attend whilst attempting not to miss
his wife. He also began making the occasional reference to the
business that had brought him to Paris – namely, his hope of
tracing and acquiring the rare and particularly fine ivory
snuff-box recently sold in London to one Michel du Plessis.
Fortunately, his collector’s passion was widely enough known for
this to cause nothing more than mild amusement; and, if there
should be anyone in a position to question it … well, it followed
that that person must also be in a position to lead him to du
Plessis.

He was not
surprised, however, when the name fell repeatedly on stony ground
for it had always been unlikely that Joanna had eloped with a
gentleman from the upper
échelon
of French society. After
more than a week of casting his bread uselessly upon the water,
Rockliffe came to the depressing conclusion that – unless he found
out something in the next day or two – he might as well go home and
leave the matter to Mr Osborne. And he would undoubtedly have done
so had not the Vicomte de Charentin persuaded him to share his box
at the Comédie Française … and one thing had, unexpectedly, led to
another.

‘It’s a revival
of Molière’s
La Malade Imaginaire
,’ said the Vicomte, as
though expecting premature applause. ‘You shouldn’t miss it.’

Rockliffe
raised his brows and remarked that, since
The Hypochondriac
had been written some hundred years ago and he had already seen it
twice, he felt quite able to do so.

‘But
L’Inconnu
will be playing! He always takes the lead when the
company does Molière – and the house is invariably packed. Share my
box this afternoon and you will see.’

‘
L’Inconnu
. Really?’

‘Really!’ The
Vicomte stopped and then, sighing, ‘You haven’t heard of him, have
you?’

‘No. But since
he styles himself The Unknown, that’s hardly surprising, is
it?’

‘In Paris, he
is famous – and also a mystery. It’s said that when he leaves the
stage, he vanishes. If he were not such a remarkable actor, one
would laugh at such an obvious ploy … but since he
is
, one
goes to watch him.’

And so it was
that Rockliffe found himself in an off-stage box in the Comédie
Française’s temporary home in the Tuileries. As Charentin had said,
the house was indeed full to over-flowing. It was also exceedingly
noisy – a fact which his Grace didn’t expect to change a great deal
when the play started. He was wrong. As soon as the curtain opened
on Argan sitting at a table adding up his apothecary’s bills, the
audience fell utterly silent.

‘
Three and
two make five, and five makes ten and ten makes twenty. Item; on
the twenty-fourth, a little emollient clyster to mollify, moisten
and refresh his worship’s bowels – thirty sous. Thirty sous for a
clyster? In your other bills you charged but twenty; and twenty
sous, in the language of an apothecary, is only ten sous – so there
they are. Ten sous
.’

The first laugh
came, one of many. Argan polished his pince-nez, fussed busily with
his papers and, timing it to perfection, resumed.

Rockliffe was
surprised. The fellow was good. More than that – he was different
from the common run of his profession because he was utterly
believable. He actually
was
an old man mumbling over his
counters and coins and bills … and he was holding the house
spellbound.

‘
So then. In
this month I have taken one, two, three ……six, seven, eight purges
and one, two, three … ten, eleven, twelve clysters; and last month
there were twelve purges and twenty
clysters
.’ He
paused, shaking his head. ‘
I don’t wonder that I am not so well
this month as last.
’

During the
first interval, Rockliffe asked if The Unknown had a name and was
told that, if he did, no one knew it. During the second, he
reflected that if there were actors of this calibre on the English
stage, he might attend the play more often.

And then, in
the third act, something odd happened. Whether it was caused by a
certain turn of the head or a particular inflection in the fellow’s
voice, Rockliffe couldn’t be sure … but he suddenly had the
peculiar feeling that
L’Inconnu
wasn’t unknown at all; and,
consequently found himself caught less in the performance than in
mentally eradicating Argan’s old-fashioned wig, false eyebrows and
pince-nez. It wasn’t easy. In fact, it was downright impossible. It
was also probably pointless – since it was highly unlikely that an
actor performing at the Comédie Française could, in reality, be a
man who’d fled England some eight years ago in the wake of a
particularly nasty scandal. Rockliffe was just about to dismiss the
notion when, unexpectedly,
L’Inconnu’s
eyes met his; and,
just for a fleeting second – and only because he was watching so
closely – his Grace saw recognition in them.

‘Dear me,’ he
thought wryly. ‘How very interesting.’

When the
performance concluded in a storm of applause, Rockliffe rose and
informed the Vicomte that he would like to meet
L’Inconnu
.
Laughing, the Vicomte replied that so would half of Paris but no
one had managed it yet.

‘But go ahead
and try, my friend. You won’t find him – that I guarantee. My
advice would be to try the Maison Belcourt – some of the players go
there and you might find someone who’ll talk to you. Though I
personally doubt it.’

The Maison
Belcourt, being both a gaming-house and a place where the better
class of prostitutes hawked their wares, was not a place Rockliffe
would normally have visited but on this occasion he made an
exception. He did not, as it turned out, discover anything about
L’Inconnu
. On the other hand, if he hadn’t gone there, he
would probably never have run into the Vidame d’Aurillac who -
newly released from the Bastille - strolled in just as the Duke was
thinking of leaving.

The Vidame had
been clapped up for duelling – which was not unusual – and released
in less than a month – which was. And he and Rockliffe were old
friends.

It was a
pleasing encounter and, with so much to be told on both sides, they
had broached the third bottle – mostly thanks to the Vidame –
before his Grace found himself once more recounting the excuse of
the snuff-box – more, this time, for the sake of continuity than in
the hope of striking a chord.