Silver Storm (The Raveneau Novels #1) (44 page)

"If it will make you feel better, Papa. Thank
you!"

Adrienne was tying the ribbons of her
chipstraw bonnet when a knock sounded at the door. In the hallway,
a footman delivered an envelope with her name on it, and Nicholai
watched as his daughter broke the seal.

"Rather odd, isn't it?" he said. "Who would
know that you are here?"

Her eyes moved rapidly over the paper, then
she laughed with false gaiety and tore it into pieces. "Oh, Papa,
it's nothing. People in London are very odd. They love to send
mysterious messages to amuse themselves, but it's just a game."
With that, Adrienne tossed the bits of paper into the bottom of her
father's fireplace, then sought to distract him with an embrace.
"Do stop worrying about me and begin packing for your journey home
to Mother. She needs you far more than I do!"

Nicholai stood at the window, watching until
she had emerged from the hotel onto St. James and climbed
gracefully into a hack. When it started off into the crush of
vehicles, Nicholai crouched in front of the sitting room fireplace
and picked up the pieces of his daughter's note. Several minutes
later he had fit the tiny squares together and read:

Lock your doors, strumpet!

I mean to make you pay, and you know how!

* * *

Oxford Street was jammed with the vehicles of
well-to-do patrons who, attended by servants, were fluttering among
the shops.

From her open hack, Adrienne found herself
staring at window displays of linen-drapers, haberdashers,
silversmiths, and silk mercers. She cared little about fashion but
adored objects of real beauty, and at that moment, she was
desperate for a distraction. Adrienne felt as if her problems—the
vengeful Walter Frakes-Hogg, her father's displeasure, and the
impending interview with Lady Thomasina Harms—were coiling about
her like a python.

She shivered at the thought, "A python!" she
murmured. "How hideous!"

Deliverance intervened. Her eye was drawn to
a tasteful display in the window of E. Ralna, Fanmaker, where
Adrienne beheld a true work of art. The fan was an exquisite
concoction of ivory, embroidered silk, and lace. One glimpse in
passing was not enough.

"Coachman!" she called, leaning out the
window in a most indelicate fashion. "I must go into the
fanmaker's—there!—this
instant!"

The fellow assumed that a crisis was in the
offing and yelled to the phaeton that was approaching on the left,
between his hack and the raised flagstone walkway. When Adrienne's
coachman attempted to cut off the phaeton, its raven-haired driver
would not give way, and the confused horses reared back, whinnying
in confusion.

"Are you trying to cause an accident?" the
dark-haired man shouted angrily. "Get out of my way!"

"My mistress desires to reach that shop!"

"And why should that piece of news interest
me?"

Adrienne, perceiving the problem, interceded.
"You there, coachman!" she addressed the phaeton driver. For
emphasis, she leaned farther out, so he would be sure to see her,
and pointed her delicate parasol at him. "Do be a good fellow and
let us over, won't you?"

One of his eyebrows flew up, then he gave a
harsh laugh. "You have a very high opinion of yourself, miss, which
I do not happen to share. This road is not your possession!"

Outraged by his rudeness, Adrienne shocked
her own driver by jumping out of the hack and pushing her way
through the crush to reach the side of the phaeton. Still pointing
the parasol, she stared up at the scoundrel, her cheeks hot with
color.

"You, sir, are horrid! Has no one ever taught
you to show respect for ladies?" She didn't like the sound of her
own voice, or the things she was saying, but he'd pushed her past
reason.

"Is there a lady present?" He caught her
parasol and pulled it from her hand. "Stop aiming that weapon at
me."

In spite of her mounting temper, Adrienne
noticed the driver's compelling sea-blue eyes and the crisp,
expertly tied cravat that set off a deeply tanned visage. It was
even more maddening to perceive the laughter that lurked just
behind his reprimand. Was he really a common coachman?

"I do not wish to waste another moment of my
time with the likes of you, sir." Adrienne tried to salvage the
scraps of her dignity. Head high, she turned and walked coolly to
the fanmaker's window.

Eugene Ralna himself came scurrying out to
greet her. Spectacles bobbed on his long, thin nose. "Ah, it's
young Lady Adrienne, is it not? I still remember the day last
autumn when you accompanied your mother to my humble establishment.
How may I serve you? Have you come to choose a fan on her
behalf?"

Hoping that the odious man in the phaeton was
watching, Adrienne let the fanmaker fawn over her. "I have business
of my own, Mr. Ralna. In passing, I could not help admiring this
exquisite creation in your window."

"Ah! You have flawless taste, just like your
mother!" He smiled broadly. "That fan is made with the rarest
ivory, fifteenth-century embroidered silk, and priceless Arles
lace. Rumor has it that Marie Antoinette herself commissioned it
after receiving the silk as a gift." Ralna paused, allowing his
words to sink in, then murmured, "Shall we step inside for a closer
look?"

"Why, the fan is part of
history
!"
Wide-eyed, Adrienne had turned to follow the elderly man, when she
was distracted by a tap on her shoulder. A backward glance revealed
the phaeton driver's face, and she found that the sight of him made
her furious. "Leave me alone," she hissed.

"Don't tell me that you made all that fuss,
disrupted traffic, and endangered my horses over a bloody
fan
?" came his acid reply.

Adrienne refused to look back. "A brute like
you would not understand. Do not speak to me again."

She had progressed several steps and was
about to precede Eugene Ralna into the shop when the voice she
despised called out, "Did you intend to make a
gift
to me of
your parasol?"

Whirling, Adrienne met his mocking eyes and
watched as he held out her parasol. The frilly thing looked
ridiculous in his male hand. Did he mean for her to walk over and
retrieve it? An instant later the parasol came sailing through the
air toward her, and somehow she reached out and caught it. Her
tormentor laughed, then bowed low.

"Don't let me keep you from your urgently
important
fan
inspection," he taunted, and returned to his
high-perch phaeton.

Adrienne hurried past Eugene Ralna, into the
safety of his shop. Meanwhile, outside on sunlit Oxford Street, two
young women were tittering as they stood, with a lady's maid, in
front of the haberdasher's shop and discussed the impertinent rake
who had caused Adrienne Beauvisage to blush to the roots of her
chestnut hair.

"Isn't that Nathan Raveneau?" the first girl
whispered.

"Definitely," her friend agreed. "I have
heard the most outrageous stories about him from my sister and her
friends. Since he returned from the West Indies, he's been setting
London society on its ear!"

Not to be outdone, the first girl pronounced,
"My cousin told me that everyone has taken to calling him the
'Scapegrace'!" Just then Nathan Raveneau seemed to sense their
scrutiny and turned his head to stare at the two gossiping girls.
They went pale, then pink, and scampered away like frightened
bunnies.

***~~~***

Excerpt from

Spring Fires

Special Author's Cut Edition

Beauvisage Novel #2

(A Beauvisage/Hampshire/Raveneau Novel)

by

Cynthia Wright

***~~~***

Spring Fires brings back beloved couples from
CAROLINE, TOUCH THE SUN, and SILVER STORM! The story centers around
the indepedent beauty, Lisette Hahn, who owns a CoffeeHouse in 1793
Philadelphia with her ailing father, and dashing Nicholai
Beauvisage, who has lived in France for a decade and lately has
been embroiled in the bloody revolution in Paris. This excerpt
opens with a party being given by Alec and Caro Beauvisage in honor
of the newly-elected Senator Lion Hampshire. Lisette has agreed to
provide desserts for the party and has come to Belle Maison's
kitchen in spite of her father's worsening health.

***~~~***

March 25, 1793

It was a beautiful, clear starlit evening at
Belle Maison. Caro and Meagan dressed for the party upstairs before
joining their husbands in the library. The strains of music drifted
up to greet them as the two couples descended the wide staircase
together.

Caro, lovely in cream satin embroidered with
seed pearls, was relieved to see Pierre DuBois hurrying toward them
from the dining room.

"Madame, I have delivered Lisette Hahn to the
kitchen building," he informed her, "And–"

"Oh, thank goodness! I'd begun to fear that
you'd had a carriage accident."

"There is a reason we were late. Her father
has taken a turn for the worse and she was reluctant to leave him.
But, because she had given you her word, she did come, and she is
making the tortes. I promised to bring them over to the main house
when they are done."

"I am so sorry to hear about Mr. Hahn!
Lisette really didn't need to come; we certainly would have
understood. Pierre, you'll tell her, won't you? I was going to
invite her to join us, but I can't imagine that she would care to
do so..."

Alec wandered closer to capture his wife.
"Caro, are you ready?"

Servants were posted in Belle Maison's
entryway to greet the guests and take their wraps before they
proceeded into the stairhall to greet the host, hostess, and the
guests of honor.

Among the first to arrive were Alec's
parents. The dashing Frenchman's Russian bride had come to him as
pirate's plunder over forty years ago. Although their love remained
deep, their life was quieter now. With the latest dark developments
in France, both Jean-Philippe and Antonia seemed to move under a
cloud of worry.

Caro kissed them and asked, "Is there
news?"

"We have no word of Nicky," her mother-in-law
replied. "I can think of little else."

They went on into the brightly lit parlor
just as William Bingham entered with his beautiful wife Anne, who
was known as "Queen of the Republican Court" now that Philadelphia
was America's capital.

"I hope you do not mind that I brought a
guest?" Anne inquired a trifle haughtily, pulling forward a pale,
birdlike girl. "This is my cousin, Ophelia Corkstall, who is
visiting us from England. Ophelia, may I present Mr. and Mrs.
Beauvisage and Senator and Mrs. Hampshire."

The girl tittered nervously before offering
her hand. She stared, first at the dark, rakish Alec and then at
the dazzling new senator.

"Ah, here is Samuel Powel," murmured Alec
with relief, turning to greet Philadelphia's mayor and his wife.
The Powels were followed by President and Mrs. Washington, a fact
duly noted by Meagan and Caro. Gossip was thick concerning the
close friendship between the coquettish Eliza Powel and the aging
president. No one cared to suggest they were lovers, but they
enjoyed each other's company to an unseemly degree.

Musicians were tuning up and people milled
about, spilling into the south parlor and the huge dining room
where food was already being arranged. As the late arrivals tapered
off, Alec and Caro took the Hampshires to join the party. When they
appeared in the parlor, the musicians began to play and the
harmonious mixture of harpsichord, violins, flute, and harp set the
tone for the lighthearted evening ahead.

* * *

Belle Maison's kitchen was large, occupying
its own building behind the main house. All evening, the wooden
floor had been tapped like a drum by the feet of dozens of servants
who carried the meticulously prepared dishes over to the house. A
mammoth fieldstone hearth spanned one wall and Lisette sat at a
nearby table to do her work.

Surveying the seemingly endless cake layers
and filling bowls, she sighed heavily and pushed back her unbound
golden hair. Mixing and baking the tortes had taken hours and now
she struggled to assemble them into beautiful desserts. She was
exhausted and sick with worry for her father. What a terrible night
it was!

The last of the servants had disappeared into
the house. Lisette sat alone in the kitchen, suffused with a
melancholy that stole through her body in uneasy waves.

Music and laughter drifted back from the
house and each window was ablaze with candlelight. Looking down at
her simple sky-blue frock and the full-length white apron that
covered it, Lisette wondered what the elegant women guests were
wearing tonight. Were their upswept curls studded with jewels? Did
they smell of jasmine or gardenias?

Wearily, Lisette pushed loose tendrils from
her brow, set down the wooden frosting spoon, and closed her eyes.
Images flickered through her mind of the richly garbed people
dancing, laughing, and chatting with witty sophistication.

I don't envy them
, she
reminded herself
, but tonight... it would be nice to feel
beautiful, to be free of worry and responsibility, to feel alive...
even to be in love.

The last thought was so out of character that
Lisette smiled at herself and what she decided must be utter
fatigue. She opened her eyes, blinked in disbelief, then took a
second look.

A strange man stood in the doorway. Actually,
he leaned indolently against the frame, regarding her with emerald
eyes that sparkled like real jewels.

Lisette's heart quickened. The man could not
be a guest, for he wore a soft leather coat over a casual
dirt-streaked shirt, fawn breeches, and riding boots that were
mud-spattered. His face and hands were deeply tanned, dark hair
curled where his shirt was open at the neck, and his flashing smile
was as rakish as a pirate's.