Sherri Cobb South (16 page)

She had been at the ball for fully an hour before the familiar figure of the earl detached itself from the crowd and moved forward.

“Lady Helen,” said Waverly, making his bow, “dare I hope the next dance is not yet taken?”

“Indeed, it is not, my lord,” she replied, placing her gloved hand on his sleeve and allowing him to lead her back onto the floor. The next set was a contredanse, whose movements repeatedly paired couples only to tear them apart, so their conversation was brief, and marked by fits and starts.

“I have not seen your husband this evening,” Waverly observed. “Does he not accompany you?”

“Ethan dined at his club tonight. I daresay he is still there.”

“How very accommodating of him, to be sure.”

As the movement of the dance required that the earl surrender her temporarily to a portly baron, Lady Helen offered no comment to this remark, but when the steps reunited them, asked a question other own.

“And Lisette?”

“She has gone to the theatre with a party of young people, and will not return until well after midnight.” He lowered his voice. “So as you see, we need not fear interruption.”

Once again the steps of the dance separated them, so Lady Helen merely nodded in acknowledgement. Everything was proceeding according to plan, and by morning, revenge would be hers. She should be pleased. Why, then, did she keep glancing at the long-case clock along the wall, wishing she might slow the hands that moved inexorably toward eleven?

* * * *

In his assessment of his wife’s whereabouts, Lord Waverly was only partially correct. To be sure, Lisette had indeed attended a performance of
Laugh When You Can
at Drury Lane with a party of young people; however, as the curtain fell on the first act, the group dispersed in search of food, friends, and flirtations. Lisette elected to remain alone in the box, and it was here that Étienne found her.

“Bon soir,
Madame Waverly,” he said, advancing tentatively into the box.

Lisette turned and, recognizing the speaker, promptly turned her back on him.
“Bon soir, monsieur,”
she said frostily.

“Forgive me, madame,” the Frenchman continued in some agitation. “I know your husband commanded me to keep my distance, but under the circumstances, I feel sure he would understand—even approve of—my approaching you.”

Lisette again turned to face him.
“Oui?
I wonder,
monsieur,
what makes you think so?”

“I do not wish to distress you, but there has been an accident—your husband—”

Lisette’s icy demeanor melted in an instant. “Milord? Is he badly hurt?”

“Not being a doctor, I would not presume to judge—”

“You must take me to him at once!” Lisette demanded, leaping to her feet.

“Très bien,
if that is what you wish—”

Lisette stamped her foot impatiently. “At once!
Comprenez-vous?"

She did not wait for a reply, but flung herself through the curtain in a swirl of pink satin.

“As you wish,” Étienne said meekly to the empty air, then followed her from the box.

By the time he caught up with her, she had reached the street, where she hailed a hackney in a torrent of impassioned French.

“Where to, miss?” asked the driver of this equipage, drawing up beside her.

Lisette, finding herself at a loss, turned to Étienne. “Where is he?”

“It is my understanding that he was taken to a hostel in Southwark. Great Dover Street,” he added for the driver’s benefit, as he handed Lisette into the carriage.

“Mais non!”
Lisette protested, one foot poised on the step. “We must go at once to Park Lane and have everything made ready for his return. I will not allow milord to die in a hovel!”

“Not a hovel; a hostel,” Étienne corrected her.

But Lisette would not be swayed. “I am sure they are very much the same thing. To Park Lane—
vite!”
she commanded the driver.

This individual had no knowledge of French, but everything in his passenger’s manner bespoke her need for haste. Besides which, he had always had a soft spot for a pretty young thing, even if she was a foreigner. He whipped up the horses just as Étienne entered the carriage behind Lisette, and the equipage barreled westward toward Park Lane.

Étienne, finding himself tumbled unceremoniously onto the floor of the carriage, scrambled to his feet with what dignity he could muster, pulled the door shut, and collapsed onto the seat. Within a very few minutes, the carriage rolled to a stop before Lord Waverly’s town house. Lisette flung open the door and, not waiting for the step to be let down, leaped to the ground. With Étienne hurrying to keep up, she scampered up the stairs to the portico and burst into the foyer.

“There has been an accident,” she informed the startled butler. “Milord is injured. I will bring him home very shortly. Send a footman for
le médecin,
and have Cook boil water and prepare a broth. Tell milord’s
valet de chambre
to make up a bed on the ground floor, and to find bandages. He may tear up the sheets in the blue bedchamber, if necessary.”

The butler, astounded at the sight of his youthful mistress taking command like the countess she was, could only stare open-mouthed.

“Tout de suite,”
commanded Lisette impatiently, stamping her foot. “At once, do you hear?”

“Yes, madam,” he said hastily. “Right away, madam.”

“And now,” she pronounced, turning back to Étienne, “you will take me to this hovel in Great Dover Street where is milord.”

Étienne, recognizing his cue, took Lisette’s arm and ushered her back outside to the hackney carriage, whose driver waited impatiently for his fare.

“That’ll be a shilling and sixpence, that will,” he informed Étienne in a manner calculated to inform him that he did not intend to be taken advantage of by a foreigner.

“But we have not yet done with your services,” Étienne protested. “Take us at once to the Pig and Whistle, in Great Dover Street.”

“I’ll not be taking you nowhere until I get my shilling and six,” reiterated the driver, thrusting his cupped hand belligerently at the Frenchman.

“Oh, very well,” muttered Étienne, shoving his hand into the pocket of his breeches. Having paid the driver, he climbed into the carriage and seated himself beside Lisette. As the vehicle lurched forward, he patted her hand consolingly. “There, now! You’ll be with your husband again very soon.”

Lisette, however, had by this time recalled her grudge against him, and removed herself to the rear-facing seat. “I will accept your escort to Great Dover Street because I must, but until we arrive there, you will please be so good as not to touch me again.”

“Lisette—Madame Waverly—you have every reason to be angry with me,” Étienne said coaxingly. “You see, I thought your husband could have no objections to your entertaining another gentleman’s attentions. I supposed your marriage to Lord Waverly must be a
mariage de covenance,
a—how shall I say it? A purely financial arrangement.”

“A financial arrangement?” echoed Lisette, her brow wrinkling in a puzzled frown. “In what way?”

“Milord Waverly left England under a cloud of scandal and bankruptcy, and has lived in Paris for the last several years with gaming as his only source of income. When I learned that he had wed you and taken you back to England, I imagined—pardon my bluntness!—that he must have married you for your money.”

“
What
money,
s’il vous plaît?”

“Why, your inheritance from your English
grand-père,”
explained Étienne. “But when milord Waverly was so very angry at our, er, indiscretion, I saw at once that I was mistaken.”

“But I have no inheritance!” Bright spots of color burned in Lisette’s cheeks. “It is too absurd!”

“Of course you do not,” Étienne assured her. “I merely supposed that you, being his only grandchild, must have inherited his considerable fortune.”

Had she the leisure to examine this statement, Lisette might have wondered at the source of Etienne’s considerable information. But having undergone a series of revelations in less than half an hour, from the news that her husband might be on his deathbed, to the possibility that she might be the possessor of a considerable fortune, and the subsequent suggestion that her injured husband might have married her for the sake of said fortune, Lisette was in no fit state to consider Étienne’s argument rationally.

“It does not matter whether I have the inheritance or not!” she declared passionately, as much to herself as to her traveling companion. “Milord married me because he is good, and honorable, and would not abandon me in a foreign land!”

“I am sure you are right,” said Étienne reassuringly. “After all, who would know Milord Waverly better than his own wife? I am certain it is just as you say, and anything between him and the Lady Hélène Brundy is all in the past.”

Lisette drew breath to hotly deny any connection, past or present, between her husband and Lady Helen, but the words stuck in her throat, refusing to be uttered. She no longer trusted Étienne, for anyone who would lure her to such indiscretion as he had at the Dorrington ball was assuredly no true friend. She could not believe a word he said. And yet, there were things, small things, to be sure, but things which, when taken together, made her fear that in this instance, at least, Étienne might be telling her the truth.

“Ah, here it is, the Pig and Whistle!” declared Étienne cheerfully, apparently oblivious to Lisette’s inner struggle. “We have arrived!”

Surely when she saw him again, all these terrible doubts would be put to rest. He would laugh at her and call her a foolish child, and they would be happy again. Unless, the dreadful thought occurred to her, he was so badly injured that he could not speak. Perhaps he might even die, and she would never know the truth. Without waiting for Étienne, she wrenched open the door and leaped from the carriage before the wheels had stopped rolling, and ran into the hostel where her husband waited.

“Welcome to the Pig and Whistle, miss,” said the proprietor of this establishment, bowing to his elegantly clad visitor. “How can I helps you this evenin’?”

“A man was brought here earlier, a gentleman who was injured,” Lisette explained hurriedly. “Where is he now?”

“There’s a gentleman in the private parlor to your right, miss, but he’s not—”

“Merci,”
said Lisette, not lingering to hear more. Turning to the closed door on her right, she tried the knob and, finding it unlocked, hurried inside.

She froze on the threshold. She had expected to find her husband lying on a makeshift bed, or perhaps the sofa, wrapped in blood-soaked bandages and groaning in pain. Instead, a fire burned merrily in the grate, and a wing chair had been drawn up before the blaze to take advantage of its warmth. The chair’s high back blocked Lisette’s view of the man seated there, but that there was a man she had no doubt: his booted foot stretched out toward the hearth, the flames casting dancing reflections off the glossy black leather.

“Milord?” Lisette asked, advancing tentatively into the room.

“Non, je regrette,”
The gentleman rose to meet her, revealing a pair of close-set black eyes over a long nose and pointy chin. “But perhaps you will have a word of welcome for your Cousin Raoul?”

“Raoul!” Lisette fairly spat the word. “What have you done with milord Waverly?”

Raoul spread his hands in a gesture indicative of innocence. “Why, nothing,
ma cousine!
I have seen him only once, and that was many weeks ago in Amiens.”

“But he was here! Étienne said—” Lisette’s eyes grew round as, too late, she realized the full extent of her countryman’s perfidy. She spun toward the door, and found Étienne leaning negligently against the doorframe. “I will have the truth now,
s’il vous plaît.
Milord was not here, was he? In fact, he was never injured at all.”

Étienne bowed. “You will be pleased to know milord Waverly enjoys his customary good health,”

“Then why—?”

“I have come to take you home,” said Raoul. “I am to be married, and your presence is required.”

“Married? To whom?”

“Why, to you,
cherie.”

“I am sorry to disappoint you, Raoul, but I am already wed.”

“Faugh!” scoffed Raoul.   “Do you truly think that such a marriage—contracted by a minor to an Englishman in a Protestant ceremony—would be recognized by the Church, let alone the courts?”

In truth, Lisette did not know what to think or whom to believe. She had no doubt that her cousin would not hesitate to further his cause with lies; indeed, had she entertained any doubts on this head, Étienne’s betrayal would have by this time put them to rest. And one of his claims, at least, she now knew to be true. She was now quite certain that she must be a great heiress, as Étienne had claimed, for she could think of no other reason why Raoul would scheme to marry a cousin for whom he had never felt any emotion more tender than mild annoyance. And if this claim were true, then perhaps his other arguments were equally true. If his insinuations regarding her marriage to Lord Waverly were correct, it would explain why the earl was in no hurry to consummate the union. There was even the possibility that Waverly had not insisted upon a second, Catholic, ceremony in order to give himself an escape route, should Lady Helen suddenly become free. The greater the number of possibilities which presented themselves to her, the more confused she became. She wanted nothing more than to clap her hands over her ears, blotting out the whispered innuendoes that overwhelmed her, but she knew this would accomplish nothing: the voices that now mocked her were inside her own head.

As if aware of Lisette’s inner turmoil (and his own imminent victory), Raoul regarded her with a smug smile. “Admit it,
ma cousine,
what choice do you have? You have run away from your convent and cohabited with a man to whom you may or may not be legally wed. You are a disgrace to your vocation, Lisette, as well as to your family. Fortunately, for the sake of our family’s honor—”

“Much you know about honor!” retorted Lisette,

Raoul’s face darkened. “For the sake of our family’s honor,” he repeated slowly, “I am willing to give you the protection of my name.”