A Necessary Deception (23 page)

Lydia grabbed for the kitten. It shot through her reaching hands and landed on Christien, scrambled up the front of his shirt, and perched on his shoulder, swaying with the jostling of the carriage.

“A female, certainly.” Lydia’s lips twitched.

“An
infant terrible
.” Christien grasped the feline around the middle. “Off.”

It began to purr and rub its head against his chin.

“Hodge liked you too.” Lydia stroked the kitten. “She’s soft, but she looks like she has a wound.”

“She’s probably full of fleas.” Christien’s hand joined Lydia’s on the cat’s back.

The feline purred louder.

“A few drops of pennyroyal will take care of that.” Lydia drew her hand free. “I can take her home to Hodge. He might stop attacking my hairpins if he has a companion.”

“Miss Barbara will not be pleased. I don’t think she—”

“Will you two stop talking about that stooopid cat?” Honore’s voice rose like a portentous wind from the opposite corner of the coach. “It doesn’t matter when my life is ruined.”

Suppressing a sigh, Lydia turned to her sister. “Why would you think your life is ruined? Were you more than gaming in that place?”

“No, but—”

“Did you ever take off your mask?”

“No, but—”

“Do you plan on repeating your actions of tonight?”

“Certainly not. I hate-ed it.” A sob hitched her voice.

Lydia ground her teeth. “Then your life isn’t ruined, thanks to our intervention and Monsieur de Meuse’s quick wits in getting us out of there, not to mention his ability to find you in the first place. But if I ever see you with Gerald Frobisher again, I will tell Father, and then your life most definitely will be ruined.”

“But I love Gerry,” Honore wailed.

“
Me-ow
,” the cat protested.

Christien muttered something that sounded suspiciously like, “My sentiments precisely, Noirette.”

Little black one.

Lydia’s heart squeezed with a sentiment she wasn’t certain she wanted.

“You’re too young to know what love is,” Lydia snapped.

“But I’m expected to marry? That makes no sense to my mind.” Honore sounded like nothing so much as a sulky child.

Too young indeed. She’d been the one Father had adored, lavished attention and approval upon, protected from his criticism until recently. Apparently, the sheltering had kept her younger than her years.

“No one should expect you to wed until you’re ready.” Lydia softened her tone and reached across the carriage to touch Honore’s hand. “And that includes you continuing to see Frobisher. Believe me, out of sight, out of mind.”

“Was that how it was with your husband?” Honore demanded with a hint of belligerence. “Did you stop loving him just because he was on the continent?”

“After marriage is different. There are things . . . We’ll discuss that later.” Lydia felt too warm in her lace shawl and silk gown. “If you want to stay in London long enough for your ball next week, you will watch your p’s and q’s, and that includes sneaking around to see Gerald Frobisher.”

“If I may say here,” Christien inserted, “the man appears to be nothing more than a common gamester.”

“A good one.” Pride rang in Honore’s voice, much to Lydia’s horror. “He always wins.”

“A regular Captain Sharp,” Christien continued. “Dishonorable, but nothing more.”

Lydia understood the message—Frobisher was the wrong sort of companion for Honore, certainly not husband material, but from all appearances he was neither a murderer nor a traitor. Appearances could be deceiving, but she suspected Christien could judge what was right. He had ten years’ experience ferreting out spies, traitors, and others who would harm England. He was not infallible, yet Lydia’s own instincts inclined her to agree with him.

Now to convince, bribe, or bully Honore into dropping the man before she caused real trouble for herself.

“Honore,” Lydia began, “you are a lovely young lady, one of the prettiest I’ve seen here in town this Season. You are also intelligent and charming when you choose to be. You can reach much higher than a nobody from the provinces playing at man-about-town.”

“There is nothing higher than the heart.” Honore’s words defied Lydia’s remark about the girl’s intelligence. “And you and Cassandra chose men you lo—”

“Cassandra.” Lydia nearly leaped to her feet. “Where is Cassandra?”

“With her ballooning friends,” Honore answered.

Lydia didn’t like the fact that she missed Christien. More than missed him. She found herself waking in the middle of the night remembering being close to him, and an emptiness surrounded her like a void of darkness. She was not . . . hadn’t been so foolish as to . . . wouldn’t let herself be in love with him.

But for all her days beginning early and ending late, packed with preparations for the ball, painting whenever she could spare a moment, and attending one social gathering after another with her sisters in tow and never let out of her sight for a moment, the barrenness of her heart warned her she may have committed the second greatest error in her life.

She had failed to keep her heart free of entanglements.

Cassandra claimed she had too. “I take more pleasure in discussing aeronautics with my friends at the Chapter House coffee shop than in kissing Whittaker” had been her comment when Lydia, Christien, and Honore had tracked her down at that highly respectable establishment.

Respectable if accompanied by proper chaperonage, anyway. Alone with two gentlemen took Cassandra beyond the pale. Fortunately, no one who mattered had seen her there.

“But if I ever catch either of you behaving like worse than hoydens,” Lydia lectured the two of them in their room, “I will pack your trunks myself and drive the carriage out of town if I have to.”

“Just don’t tell Father.” A little pale, Cassandra worried a sketch of a balloon and basket in her hands. “I know I shouldn’t have gone, but Honore wanted to go to Vauxhall, which I cannot abide. And the men and I began to talk, and one of them wanted to show me his new design, and . . . I shouldn’t have done it. But if Father finds out, he’ll worse than send us away.”

“What could be worse than that?” Honore asked.

“Picking a husband for us,” Cassandra grumbled.

Not even Honore argued with that. She knew Father was perfectly capable of doing so, someone he considered suitable—one of his political cronies, like an older man with five children to keep his wayward daughters too busy to get into mischief.

“I’d run off to America first,” Honore said.

“Let’s get your ball under way before we worry about that.” Lydia managed to distract both girls.

They endured final fittings for their gowns and matched acceptances of invitations with the list of guests invited. They ordered the correct number of ices from Gunter’s and then reordered them, as the guest list changed at the final moment.

That final moment approached with a rapidity that left Lydia drinking coffee instead of tea to keep her awake and wondering if she should have chosen a more matronly purple satin instead of the youthful silver gauze with pink embroidery for her ball gown. Too late to change it now. It hung in her armoire beneath a sheet of muslin to protect it from both white and black hairs and tiny claws.

The possessors of those hairs and claws ruled as king and queen over her bedchamber. After initial hissing on both parts, they decided to be friends, companions in mischief, and playmates. Chasing one another around the room at high speed, they managed to create havoc such as knocking over her easel, clearing her dressing table of ribbons and the rice powder box, and sending Barbara sprawling on her face.

“Either they go or I do,” she declared, picking herself up.

“They need a garden to run in and lots of creatures to terrorize.” Lydia smiled at the twin pairs of eyes peeking out from beneath the bed. “Perhaps I can send them back to Devonshire somehow.”

But the idea of not having their furry bodies snuggled up with her at night left her aching. Still, it was only for a few weeks. A very few now that the wedding had been called off. Even if Honore snared a husband, she wouldn’t get married until autumn at the earliest.

“Give me time to find a way to make everyone happy.”

In a huff, Barbara stalked through the dressing room to her tiny chamber.

Lydia finished getting ready for that night’s rout, the entertainment of choice—Honore’s, not hers. She wore her plainest evening gown, one she’d worn twice already. No one noticed clothes at a rout. The crush of people, engaged in no more activity than strolling through the rooms of the house and returning outside again, tended to be too great for one to notice more than the face or waistcoat of the persons coming down the steps as one walked up. If someone didn’t faint from the crowd or heat, the night was a failure.

Lydia tamped down her sarcasm about what she considered the most ridiculous of entertainments and called to Barbara to come hook up the back of her gown. “Are you certain you don’t wish to come?”

“I’m going to read to your dear mama. She’s had a headache all day.”

Lydia compressed her lips and said nothing about Mama’s increased number of headaches.

“I think it’s her grief over losing her daughters,” Barbara continued. “She firmly believes Cassandra will marry Whittaker in the end, and Honore is sure to find someone soon.”

“I don’t think she should. She’s too young in her behavior. No judgment.”

“And since she is losing her daughters . . .” Barbara glanced past Lydia’s shoulder and met her eyes in the dressing-table mirror. “She’s asked me to come to Bainbridge Hall and be her companion, and I’ve accepted.”

“Accepted.” Lydia repeated the words like a sailor’s parrot—hearing the word without comprehension of its meaning. “You can’t. I mean, of course you can, but I count on you for respectability.”

“You’re respectable enough without me. Indeed, Sarah’s household is far more to my liking, you know.”

Sarah? Lydia started. She so rarely heard her mother’s name she barely remembered it. Even Father called her Lady Bainbridge.

“Yes, she can pay you more than I can.” Lydia glanced at her latest painting, only half finished and already sold. At last she was developing a tidy nest egg through the print shop buying her pictures, but she could never offer Barbara the luxury of Bainbridge, just mild comfort.

“And Sarah would never consort with Frenchmen who are enemies to this country,” Barbara added like a slap.

“Chris—Monsieur de Meuse is not an enemy to this country.”

“Then why was he in Dartmoor?”

“I’ve told you. It was a mistake, an accident.”

“Humph. And don’t think I missed your slip there, calling him by his Christian name.”

“He’s my friend. He—”

Voices in the corridor interrupted Lydia. A moment later, Honore and Cassandra burst into her room on a cloud of white muslin and pastel ribbons, lilac scent and quiet giggles.

“Look what someone sent you.” From behind her back, Honore whipped out a bouquet of lilies of the valley. Their fragrance overrode Lydia’s own linden blossom scent and Honore’s lilac with a sweetness that made her heart ache with longing for woodland meadows and fresh air.

The attached card said simply, “Until I can see you again.”

No signature accompanied the card. She’d never seen Christien’s handwriting to know for certain, but she knew the flowers came from him, wherever he was of late.

“You have a secret admirer.” Honore clapped her hands.

“Perhaps not so secret.” Cassandra winked. “
N’est-ce pas?
”

“No, it isn’t so. Not that sort of admirer you wish I had.” Lydia clipped out the denial even as she brushed the waxy, pale blossoms against her cheek. She told the truth. Christien’s admiration wasn’t secret at all, not to her. Not to her heart.

God help her—no, He hadn’t helped her. If He had a plan for her life, as the Bible said He did, and He allowed this to happen—even perhaps made it happen—she rebelled against the Lord’s will. She did not, must not, could not love Christien de Meuse.

The quivery warmth inside her chest at the sight of the flowers, the sorrow gripping her at the realization he must be away and wouldn’t return for a while, and the way she couldn’t get his kiss out of her too-frequent thoughts told her if she had failed at anything, this might be the worst of her shortcomings.

She was in love with Christien Christophe Arnaud, Comte de Meuse.

She needed to be finding a traitor instead, concentrating on the words, gestures, and actions of her fellow English aristocrats. She should be helping Christien, not mooning over him like a schoolgirl.

But she tucked the flowers into the neckline of her gown, where their perfume rose as a constant reminder of his thoughtfulness. His thinking of her.

“So who is it?” Honore asked.

“Never you mind. We need to be on our way.” She showed them toward the door but paused for a glance back at Barbara. “Perhaps Mama can find a more comfortable bedchamber for you than that box room. I’ll hire a maid.”

Barbara paled. Good if she found Lydia’s dismissal uncomfortable. She was abandoning her in the middle of the Season.