The Tudor Signet (23 page)

Surely he would tear himself from the joys of Town to celebrate his only sister’s betrothal to his friend!

“Splendid,” said Lilian. “Now let me see, when shall it be? There should be a full moon for safe travelling.”

“Ten days,” said the weatherwise captain.

“That is far too soon.”

“If you wait another month, we shall be celebrating our wedding. You don’t think I mean to wait, do you?”

They gazed into each other’s eyes, and Mariette feared they were going to fall to kissing again. Fortunately Blount came in with the Champagne. After everyone had toasted everyone else, Lilian returned to business.

“Ten days! Desmond, I shall have to leave you to find a suitable place. Besides the ball room, we shall need a supper room, ladies’ withdrawing room, and several chambers for those who live at a distance. Mariette, can you go with us to Plymouth this afternoon? Most of my dresses are made in London but I have heard there is a modiste in Plymouth, a French emigrée, who is very capable. This evening, Emily, we must write invitations. Oh, how vexing of Cousin Tabitha to make me send her away just when I need her!”

At that they all laughed, though Mariette could not help feeling just a little sorry for the woman who had lost her place in so delightful a household through her own censorious spleen. Still, Miss Thorne did not find it delightful, so perhaps she would be happier with her brother.

* * * *

The Maison Duhamel was very different from the dark little shop of the seamstress who made Mariette’s riding habit. Madame Duhamel’s customers entered a large, airy, mirrored apartment draped with beautiful materials. Gilt chairs surrounded small tables whereon rested the latest fashion plates from London--and from Paris itself.

None of Madame’s clients ventured to question the presence of the French plates. And if some of Madame’s silks and laces had a French look to them, Madame was far too discreet to boast of the fact. England had been at war with France for close to two decades, but where ladies’ modes were concerned, Paris still reigned supreme.

Smugglers brought cognac and claret across the Channel for the gentlemen; why not fashions for their wives and daughters?

Lady Lilian Farrar, her daughter, and her young friend were greeted with urbane complacency by Madame Duhamel herself. A dark, slender woman perhaps a year or two older than Lilian, she wore a black silk gown of the utmost plainness and the utmost elegance.

“Milady honours my humble establishment,” she said in nearly accentless English, curtsying. “It will be a pleasure to dress three ladies so lovely.”

Though, as she studied them, her professional gratification appeared to be quite sincere, Mariette thought she caught a gleam of malicious curiosity in her eyes. Perhaps the burgundy-red riding habit Mariette considered so smart aroused Madame’s scornful interest. She must wonder why anyone so obviously tonnish as Lilian was visiting her shop with a dowdy provincial.

Lilian explained their needs. Madame went off to look out suitable materials while the ladies sat down to study the fashion plates. Emily was much taken with a violet satin gown ornately beruffled around the hem, the bodice embroidered with seed pearls.

“I think not, dearest,” said her mother. “See, that is a French plate. I have heard that the Emperor likes his court to be elaborately dressed, but we shall stay with the simpler English fashions--though, to be sure, even those came originally from France.”

“But they are English now, like Mariette. No, I should not care to wear anything Napoleon likes when it was he who shot off my step-papa’s arm.”

Lilian smiled as she set aside the Parisian plates. “Very right. Besides, you are far too young for anything but white to be proper.”

Emily pouted a little, but the gown finally chosen delighted her: a white dress of exquisite simplicity, falling straight to the ankles from a very high waist, with a tunic of silver Urlinger’s net and a white shawl embroidered in silver. In her hair she would wear a wreath of white rosebuds.

“You will look like a fairy princess,” Mariette assured her.

Madame advised Lilian to wear celestial blue, to match her eyes. Assenting, Lilian blushed. Mariette guessed her blue eyes had been the subject of more than one compliment from Captain Aldrich.

Turning to Mariette, Madame said, “White is
de rigueur
for young ladies, but mademoiselle is not just come from the schoolroom, I think? The colour of mademoiselle’s habit is most becoming. For a ball, a more vivid red, perhaps?”

Crimson zephyr, soft and silky, Madame suggested. A tunic of white gauze, spangled with gold--embroidered with gold, milady preferred? But of course, milady had excellent taste. A tracery of gold embroidery on the tunic, nothing vulgarly ornate. White rosebuds in the hair, perhaps, to match Mademoiselle Farrar’s? And a crimson cashmire shawl, for after all, it was February still.

“May I, Lilian?” Mariette asked with bated breath. “Ought I not to wear white?”

“No, you are old enough to wear colours, my dear, and I believe crimson will suit you very well.”

Madame’s assistants escorted the ladies up to small fitting rooms on the first floor. Stripped to her shabby chemise, Mariette stood raising and lowering her arms to order while the girl measured every inch of her.

She faced a window overlooking a small, walled courtyard with a wing of the house on one side. On a line strung across the court hung several dresses, airing or drying. Mariette was inspecting these with desultory interest when a door in the back wall opened. Around it appeared a man’s hat which turned from side to side as if the wearer was peering cautiously around. Apparently all was safe, for he popped in, hastily shut the door behind him, and took off his hat to wipe his forehead.

Mariette at once recognized Lord Wareham’s groom, tall and thin, his long, narrow face apprehensive. Clapping his hat back on his head, he scurried across the cobbles towards the house and out of her view.

Odd! For a moment she feared the baron had sent his man to make mischief for Lilian. However, he could not know her whereabouts since they had come to Plymouth on the spur of the moment. Maybe the groom had a sweetheart in the house, though Mariette failed to imagine any female taking up with such an unprepossessing character.

Measurements taken, the ladies descended to the waiting barouche to repair to the Duke of Cornwall Hotel, where Captain Aldrich had invited them to take tea. On the way, Mariette mentioned seeing Lord Wareham’s groom, and his furtive behaviour.

“Perhaps he was there in connection with a debt,” Lilian surmised. “I know Lord Wareham is deeply in debt, and I have heard Madame Duhamel keeps a gaming house, so what is more likely than that he owes her more than he can pay?”

Emily’s eyes grew round. “A gaming house, Mama?”

“A place for gentlemen to gamble,” her mother elucidated, frowning. “Not on the dressmaking premises, and it is a private club, quite respectable, I believe, but perhaps we ought not to patronize her.”

“Just this once,” Mariette pointed out, fearful for her glorious crimson gown, “because we have no time to go elsewhere.”

She was relieved when Lilian agreed that it was too late to seek out a different modiste. All the same, she could not help wondering whether Madame’s club was where Ralph had been gambling recently. “Deep play,” Mr. Bolger said. Ralph had won to begin with, but already his winnings were lost. Would they let him go on playing when all his ready cash was gone? Might he end up, like Lord Wareham, deep in debt to Madame?

Mariette remembered the fleeting gleam of malice in the Frenchwoman’s eyes.

Reaching the Duke of Cornwall, they found the captain awaiting them, pleased with himself: the hotel’s assembly room, the best in Plymouth, was available for the betrothal ball. They went to inspect it, and the other accommodations, and Lilian gaily pronounced herself satisfied.

As they returned through the passage, they came face to face with Ralph.

“Hallo, Mariette!” he said. “What on earth are you doing here?” Then he noticed who she was with. Flushing, he stood aside to let them pass.

“I’ll tell you later, Ralph.” She was going to move on, but Lilian laid a hand on her arm.

“This gentleman is your cousin, is he not? Will you not present him?”

Grateful for her friendly gesture, Mariette performed the introductions. Lilian promptly invited Ralph to the ball. While he was stammering out a confused and flattered acceptance, Mariette happened to glance at Captain Aldrich.

The captain took a dim view of the invitation. In fact, the captain clearly viewed Ralph with extreme disfavour.

Ralph did not know Captain Aldrich, or so he had said when Mariette mentioned his name at home. Therefore Lord Malcolm must have told the captain about Ralph. What had he said to lead to such deep disapproval?

She had thought his opinion of Ralph less black after their meeting at the manor, but it must once have been black indeed to influence the easy-going captain to such an extent. Perhaps that was why he had left Devon so abruptly: seeing Mariette and Ralph together had forcibly reminded him of the connection, and his fondness...his friendship for Mariette had not survived the reminder.

The hollow in her heart swiftly filled with anger. What right had he to condemn her cousin? She could not really be in love with a man as quick to pass judgment as Miss Thorne!

So why was she so miserable?

She forced herself to smile as they parted from Ralph, forced herself to listen to Emily’s chatter over the tea. Emmie, with great indignation, told Captain Aldrich about the Parisian fashion plates at Madame Duhamel’s, the lace which her mama suspected came from Brussels or Valenciennes. The captain listened intently, though Mariette was not sure whether he was genuinely interested or was humouring his daughter-to-be.

At any rate, when she finished her peroration he did not pursue the subject but said genially, “Are you ladies going to tell me all about your gowns?”

“No.” Lilian shook her head. “You would find it tedious, I make no doubt, and, more important, it would lessen their impact on the night.”

He laughed and squeezed her hand, and they all went on to talk about supper arrangements for the ball.

The following morning Mariette went to Corycombe to help write invitations. The delivery of the local ones brought a stream of visitors, ostensibly to felicitate Lady Lilian on her betrothal, actually to appease curiosity about the unknown sailor she was to marry.

Lilian begged Mariette to come often to help her entertain the callers. As a result, Mariette made the acquaintance of every young gentleman for miles around, many of whom were flatteringly attentive. Her self-confidence in company steadily increased. She began to think she could scarcely help but enjoy the ball whether Malcolm attended or not.

Lord Radford, Lilian’s eldest brother, who lived in Dorset, wrote to say he and his lady would not miss the occasion for the world. They would bring their son and a married daughter with her husband. An uncle and two cousins accepted the invitations. Lilian was not to be cast off by her family. Still, she was on tenterhooks until a letter came from the marchioness.

“Mama says Papa was excessively put out,” she confided to Mariette, “but she has prevailed upon him to give us his blessing. They will come to the wedding, though not to the ball, which is just as well for Papa tends rather to overawe ordinary mortals.”

Then a brief note arrived from Malcolm.

Emily gave Mariette the news. “Uncle Malcolm says he will attend if he has to ride day and night, but he may have to return to Town at once. The Season will be just beginning, you know, and I daresay he will have invitations to dozens of balls.”

Mariette only cared about one ball. He would be there. She’d show him she was a lady worthy of his regard, and at the same time that she did not care a snap whether he stayed or left again the next day.

Now her only worry was whether he would ask her to dance--and how she was to bear it if he didn’t.

* * * *

To Malcolm, cooling his heels in London, time passed with painful slowness. After an initial consultation with his immediate superior, he attended a meeting with two of the Lords of the Admiralty. Nothing was decided as to the propriety of putting Admiral Gault under surveillance like any common suspected criminal.

The Rear-Admiral was brother to Lord Dulwich, a gentleman of high influence in the Government. No one was prepared to risk offending the earl.

Day after day, Malcolm’s enquiries were met with excuses for delay.

The amusements of Town quickly palled. The ladies seemed jaded and oversophisticated; his club was full of lamentable bores; playing cards reminded him of Ralph Riddlesworth; dancing made him wish Mariette was his partner; a ride in Hyde Park failed to bear comparison with a gallop on Dartmoor.

The very air was black with coal-smoke. How had he survived city life for so long?

When he married Mariette, he’d bring her up to London for a month or two each spring if she wished. After all, he wanted to show her off to the Beau Monde. But they would live in the country--he was sure she’d choose to live near her uncle.

By then her confounded cousin would be hanged, transported, or fled to France. It was no use making plans. She’d never marry him after that, Malcolm thought gloomily.

Lilian’s letter arrived, announcing her betrothal to Captain Aldrich and begging him to come to her ball. The ball, she said, was as much to introduce Mariette to local society and to the family as to celebrate. However, she had not told Mariette, in case Malcolm proved fickle. If so, at least the poor girl would have memories of a festive night, as well as an increased acquaintance among her neighbours.

Malcolm redoubled his efforts to obtain a decision from the Admiralty, without success. In the end, he told his superior he was going down to Devon for family reasons, whether he was permitted to set a watch on Admiral Gault or not.

The evening before he had to leave to reach Plymouth in time for the ball, he was told to act as he thought best. The responsibility was his, and if things went wrong, his would be the blame.