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Authors: Joan Smith

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BOOK: Murder While I Smile
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“It is odd she is selling so many pictures now, when she has been in England for over two decades.”

“Nothing odd about it,” Yarrow said, quick to leap to her defense. “She wants to buy a house in town. I spotted a small mansion on Grosvenor Square that is up for sale and suggested to her myself that she ought to put a bid on it. It is difficult for a lady in her position, with no one to advise her. That little box she is in at the moment is only rented, you must know. Pictures are all very nice, but they make poor walls and roofs.”

“True,” Coffen said, nodding. “And you think the Poosan a good investment, milord?”

“I do, certainly. With art, however, it is best to buy what you like, then you have the pleasure of looking at it, if it goes out of fashion. I am buying up some paintings by a fellow from Suffolk myself. A strange duck. Constable is completely out of fashion. You may pick him up for an old song, but the things will be worth something one day, or I don’t know a thing about art.”

No one was ready to dispute Yarrow’s knowledge of art.

“I think what set Lady deCoventry off,” Prance confided, “is the picture’s being in that dark corner.”

“You saw it by lamplight,” Yarrow said. “I am sure Lady Chamaude will have no objection to your taking it out into the sunlight tomorrow if you want to see it by daylight. Any fool can see it is an original.” He turned a fawning eye on Corinne. “And Lady deCoventry, it hardly needs saying, is no fool.”

Yarrow’s carriage was reached first. “Ah! I forgot to bring the book you so kindly gave me, Prance. I shall just run back in and pick it up.”

“It happens I have another in my carriage
—”

“But mine is autographed,” Yarrow said, and returned to the house.

“It ain’t, you know,” Coffen said. “You didn’t sign his, Prance. Should we wait till Yarrow comes out, and you can sign his copy?”

Prance scowled. “Don’t be obtuse. He just wants an excuse to go back. He left it behind on purpose to be rid of us.”

“You don’t mean that old crock is carrying on with her!”

“Of course he is,” Corinne said. “He takes a very proprietorial interest in la comtesse. I worry a little about that close alliance.”

“I daresay she’d prefer a younger man,” Coffen said hopefully.

“I am not talking about your romantic hopes.” She turned to Prance. “Is it possible he’s claiming the painting is authentic to fill her pockets? That is a new way of supporting a mistress.”

Prance considered the matter a moment. “I shouldn’t think so, if Yarrow is buying them for Prinney.”

“Prinney is not buying the Poussin. Why not, I wonder, as Yarrow recommends it so highly?”

“We don’t know she is his mistress,” Prance said.

“It’s common knowledge. Everyone says so.”

“I am not everyman. I think for myself.” They entered Corinne’s carriage. “Let us drive around the block and see if he comes out.”

They did this. As they rounded the corner back to Lady Chamaude’s house at the close of their circuit, they passed Yarrow’s crested carriage, going the other way.

“You was wrong,” Coffen said. “There’s hope for me yet.”

Prance’s sharp eyes were looking farther along the street, where a hired carriage had already drawn up at the house. A younger gentleman descended and ran up the stairs.

“Do we know that set of shoulders?” he asked.

Coffen peered into the distance. “Not by name, but I’ve seen him about here and there. One of those French émigrés, like Chamaude herself. A handsome rascal. No point sticking around. She don’t love me, but I’ll take the Poosan all the same. I’ve taken a fancy to it. Socrates—there was a fine fellow, but he could do with a good tailor.”

The carriage continued rattling past the house. “All set for Pilchard’s rout?” Prance asked. “The whole world will be there.”

“I shan’t stay long,” Corinne said. “Perhaps one of you should take your own carriage.”

“You’ll want a good night’s sleep to be bright-eyed and bushy-tailed for Luten’s return tomorrow,” Prance said. “Berkeley Square it is.”

Corinne expected Prance would make some ironic comment about her missing Luten, but he sat silently brooding, which was unusual for him.

When they reached her house, Coffen got out of the carriage and went to his own house to call his carriage.

Prance said, “Can we talk for a minute, Corrie?”

“Of course. Come in and have a glass of wine. In fact, I am not at all sure I shall even bother going to the rout.”

“Anxious to get back to
Childe Harold?”
he asked archly.

“No, anxious to discuss Chamaude, and that picture.”

“That is what I want to talk about as well.”

 

Chapter Three

 

“I daresay there will be no talking Coffen out of buying that ugly picture,” Corinne said, as she handed Prance a glass of wine.

Prance stared at her with glazed eyes. “Picture?” he said. “Ah, the Poussin. That is not what I wished to discuss. It is a matter of much more import.” He drew a deep sigh, gave a dramatic little shudder, and announced in a hushed voice, “You are looking at a man in love.”

“Not with her, I hope!”

“Who else? The moment I gazed into her eyes, I knew. I felt our hearts touch——no, collide. It was no brushing of angels’ wings, but a primordial thunder. And did you ever see such eyes? I gazed into them for close to half an hour, yet after all that time, I could not tell you what color they are. Is that not odd?”

“Not so odd when she stationed herself in shadows.”

“Every curve and angle of her incomparable face is carved into the marrow of my bones, but those eyes! I have only a shimmering memory of darkness and depth. What mysteries are concealed in those bottomless pools?”

“Don’t be absurd, Reggie! The lady is much too old for you. She’s ancient!”

“Not ancient, ageless!”

“And she’s too fast, too.”

“I grant you she is probably a daughter of the game. It is her experience of the world that lends her that aura of... Ah, one hardly knows what to call it. Infinite woman! The gentleness of a dove, the vulnerability of a moth hovering toward the flame, the allure of a courtesan, and the passion of a Gypsy queen, all rolled into one exquisite she. I have wrestled with my conscience about pursuing her. Not for any feeling for that old slice Yarrow but because of Pattle. He fancies himself in love. She is worlds too experienced for him. He wouldn’t know what to do with such a woman.”

“That should be no problem. I wager she knows exactly what to do with him, or any other man. Fleece him! It won’t do, Reggie.”

He talked away every objection with a tolerant, forgiving, infuriating smile. “But I shall learn from her. Love should be broadening. I know she will break my heart. That is a foregone conclusion. Such women can never belong to one man—but I shall be a better man for it. What do a couple of thousand pounds matter? I was never greedy of filthy lucre. Loving her will be an education.”

“You’re raving like a lunatic. I think you’ve lost the use of your wits.”

“Drunk on love! I shall follow where my heart takes me, though the devil lead the measure. I always feared, you know, that I would never experience a truly grand passion, of the sort that made Dante and Beatrice immortal. I have had dealings with countless ladies and other... er, females, but never before felt this trembling in the blood, this deep oneness, this touch, almost, of the infinite when I gazed into her eyes. Oddly, the French do not have a word for it, do they?”

“The English have. Folly.”

“No, that does not begin to do my feelings justice. It is the divine Goethe to whom we must turn.
Sturm und Drang!
There is
Sturm und Drang
in my heart, stolen from her eyes. Say what you like, it is the Germans who take love seriously. For the French it is a game, and for the English, of course, it is a mystery.”

“What the devil are you talking about?”

He looked at her as if she were a complete illiterate. “Geothe’s
Goetz von Berlichingen.
Surely you are familiar with Scott’s translation at least? I own I have only read it in English.
The Sorrows of Young Werther.
Like Werther, I shall gladly relinquish any hope of enduring happiness for a few weeks in the company of my beloved. And I promise I shan’t commit suicide when it is over, like poor Werther. Suicide is seldom a viable alternative, if you will pardon the redundancy.”

“You’ve barely met the woman, Prance. You can’t be in love with her yet.”

“I come to see love at first sight is the only love worth pursuing. Don’t be selfish, my pet. You cracked my heart a little when you chose Luten. You cannot begrudge me a crumb of happiness.”

“I begrudge having that woman make a fool of you.”

“Surely a hopeless passion is an allowed infirmity in an old friend?”

“You’ll get over it. It is Coffen we should be worried about.”

“I do feel for him, but he hasn’t my sensitivity, you know. His heart is a sturdy old muscle, only excited by food, and perhaps agitated a little by actresses. He is not cursed—or blessed—with my deep well of feeling.”

“It’s his pockets I’m talking about, not his heart.”

“He can well afford a thousand pounds. Dear heart, let us not discuss trifles. What you must do is help me bring the comtesse into fashion—well, respectability at least. We can do it, if we all stick together. Society will not spurn her if she is seen about with the Berkeley Brigade.”

“You expect me to make a friend of Yarrow’s mistress? Luten would hit the roof if I did such a thing.”

Prance gave her a sly look. “I shouldn’t think so. He is a man, after all. Is that what concerns you, that he’ll fall under her spell?”

“He has more sense—and better taste.”

Prance rose up from the sofa like an outraged Methodist who has been offered strong drink. “No one has ever questioned my taste! Especially a lady who has no notion how to dress!” He regretted that indiscretion as soon as it left his lips, but it was true all the same. Corinne’s toilette was always just a little too busy to please his austere taste.

He hastened on, before she could flare into a temper. “Very well. If that is your final decision, that you refuse to help me in this utmost crisis of my life, then I must carry on on my own.”

“I’m doing what I think best for you, Reggie. And I’m sure Luten will agree with me.”

Prance gave her a mischievous look, said, “We shall see about that,” then he bowed punctiliously and made a chilly departure, leaving Corinne alone, and more than a little concerned that Prance would draw Luten into the comtesse’s dangerous orbit—and wondering what he meant about her style of dressing, too. Fop!

She had initially felt some pity for the comtesse, but as she considered the evening, she felt the pity was misplaced. The woman had caught Coffen in her web at a public art exhibition; she had smitten Prance in the space of ten minutes. Already she and her old friend Prance were at daggers drawn. What effect would this mischievous beauty have on Luten? He was not entirely impervious to beautiful women.

For three years Corinne had reigned supreme as the queen of the Berkeley Brigade. All the gentlemen were in love with her, to a greater or less degree. Coffen, her cousin, loved her like a sister. Sir Reginald never loved anyone as much as he loved himself, but when he felt the need to be in love, it was with her. But of course, it was Luten that worried her most. She must keep Luten away from that siren.

She made a careful toilette the next afternoon to greet her fiancé on his return from the country. As he entered her saloon, she viewed him as the comtesse would no doubt view him. He was tall and lean, with the broad shoulders of a sportsman. His crow-black hair grew in a dramatic widow’s peak. Finely drawn eyebrows over cool gray eyes lent him an ascetic touch. It was his strong nose and square jaw that gave authority to his face, and his haughty smile that gave it a touch of arrogance. A blue jacket of Bath cloth clung to his shoulders like paper on a wall. His modest cravat was immaculate, his buckskins the same, and his Hessians as bright as mirrors. And on top of it all, he owned an abbey and was a marquess. Those last two, she felt, were the attributes that would excite the comtesse’s interest.

All of this flashed through her mind in a second, then Luten smiled and held out his arms, and she rushed into them to be thoroughly kissed.

“Did you miss me?” he asked, in a husky voice unlike his usual bored drawl.

“Desperately.” She held his hand tightly as she led him to the sofa. “How did everything go with the farm?”

“I hired a bailiff to take care of it. I’ll probably sell it. It’s a hundred miles from the abbey, too far away for me to conveniently keep an eye on it and not large enough for us to keep for our second son. And what’s new here?”

Her heart swelled in pleasure at that casual “second son,” which suggested a long and happy marriage.

“Prance has fallen into a wretched muddle,” she said.

“The
Rondeaux
are not leaping off the shelf, I take it? The deadweight of all that poesy suggests it would require a derrick to hoist them. We must give him a hand.”

“He can hardly give them away, but that is not what I mean.” She outlined the situation, just mentioning the comtesse’s age and lack of character.

“And on top of Prance fancying himself in love, Coffen is going to buy a horrid old picture from her—for a thousand pounds.”

He patted her fingers indulgently. “It seems I returned just in time. Fear not, my dear, I shall handle Yvonne.”

Corinne’s heart leapt in her chest. She had not mentioned the comtesse’s Christian name. So Luten already knew her. That he called her Yvonne suggested a certain intimacy. With such a woman, there was only one sort of intimacy that came to mind.

“Oh, you know her?” she said, staring at him in surprise that was already tinged with mistrust.

“I have her acquaintance,” he replied.

Before Corinne could learn more, the door knocker sounded and within seconds Coffen and Sir Reggie came in.

“Saw your rig arrive,” Coffen said. “Saw you dart over here. Gave you two a few minutes alone, then came along to welcome you back.”

BOOK: Murder While I Smile
11.39Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
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