A Regency Charade (13 page)

Before they could take their seats, however, they heard a voice in the next box mention Clio’s name. Instinctively, without even exchanging a glance of agreement between them, they stopped—still back in the shadows—to listen. Two dowagers in the next box, neither of whom was known to Alec, had evidently recognized them earlier and felt free to discuss them as soon as their backs were turned. “And that shameless baggage, Clio Vickers, has only been out a year,” one of them was saying.

“Poor Lady Braeburn!” the other said. “How disturbing it must be for a lady of her retiring nature—and I have met her, you know, and found her to be the most unassuming creature—to hear her husband’s indiscretions bandied about on everyone’s lips.”

“Shocking!” the first agreed. “But I place all the blame on the head of the Vickers chit. What brazen effrontery to appear everywhere on the arm of a married man!”

“I don’t agree,” the other demurred. “They do say that Braeburn can charm the birds from the trees with that devastatingly cynical smile of his. It may well be that the fault lies right at
his
door.”

Alec, who’d been frozen into immobility, had heard all he could stand. Stepping forward, he leaned over toward the next box and smiled with the most devastatingly cynical smile he could manage. “Good evening, ladies,” he said with excessively formal politeness. “May I bring each of you a glass of champagne? Your throats must be quite dry after so much strain.”

The ladies colored and paled in quick succession, struck quite dumb in embarrassment. Alec turned away from them and didn’t even notice when, in the middle of the third act, they crept from the box. (Kean, however,
did
take notice and was said to have remarked to his dresser during the next interval that the straitlaced old biddies who’d left the theater during the third act didn’t have the courage to endure the virility of his performance.)

Alec was very much aware that Clio watched the rest of the performance with her lips tightened and her expression grim. When they were alone in his carriage later, he took her hand in his. “I’m truly sorry, my dear,” he said quietly. “I suspected that our companionship would set tongues wagging, but I didn’t think the gossip would be as ugly as that.”

“It was the most dreadful slander I’ve ever heard!” Clio burst out, her voice choked with suppressed tears.

“No, my dear,” Alec corrected her. “That’s the worst of this situation. Most of what they said was quite true.”

Her eyes flew up to his in distress. “Oh, Alec!” she cried helplessly.

He squeezed her hand. “Don’t be distressed. Gossip dies down as quickly as it fires up. All we need do is stop seeing each other—”

“Alec,
no
! I
can’t
—! You m-mustn’t—!” The tears she’d been holding back burst forth, and she fell weeping into his arms.

He held her gently for a while, but when her sobs subsided, he lifted her face and forced her to look at him. “We must be sensible, Clio. You must have known all along that something like this would happen. Did it never occur to you that the friendship of an ineligible like me would bring a storm of criticism on your head?”

“Yes, of c-course it did. My Mama has been nagging at me for weeks! But I didn’t c-care until—”

He raised an eyebrow in surprise. “Didn’t
care
? Why not?”

She lowered her eyes. “Surely you know. I’ve been madly in love with you since … since I was thirteen!”

Alec’s sensibilities were somewhat jarred by the unexpected unreserve of the declaration, but after a moment’s thought he decided that she couldn’t have meant it seriously. “Come now, my girl, let’s not indulge in irrelevant nonsense. It has no—”

“
Nonsense
?” She lifted her eyes in startled denial. “I meant every word!”

He shook his head. “Don’t be a wet-goose. You told me of your girlish hero-worship, but a child’s infatuation can scarcely be taken seriously. Infatuations don’t last, you know.”

“But my dear,
dear
Alec,” she said with her self-assured smile, “it
has
lasted.”

He began to feel uncomfortable. “You can’t mean what you’re saying, Clio. It makes no sense at all.”

“No? Why not?”

“Well, because, for one thing, the boy you think you fell in love with at thirteen … why, he no longer even
exists.
”

Clio didn’t understand what he meant, and she had no real interest in asking him to explain. She was single-mindedly seeking a response to her declaration, and she would not be dissuaded from her goal. “
Now
who’s speaking nonsense?” she asked, dispensing with his objection. “I see that boy in you even now.” She studied his face with a sudden worried little frown. “Is this your way of telling me, Alec, that … that you d-don’t love
me
?”

Alec was taken aback. He’d never considered the matter before. “Well,
no
, not exactly. I—”

But his denial was all she wanted to hear. Her eyes brightened in glowing relief. She slid her arms around his waist. “Then you
do
love me!” she sighed, nestling her head on his shoulder.

“I didn’t say that, either,” he said quickly, trying to extricate himself. “See here, Clio, we can’t discuss love between us. I have no right—”

“Really, Alec,” the girl said in a tone that combined amusement, affection and rebuke, “sometimes I think you’re as straitlaced as my mother! Are you going to harp on that marriage of yours again? Everyone knows it’s a marriage in name only.”

“Nevertheless, it
is
a marriage. And my wife is your
cousin
. Have you no shame, girl?”

Clio giggled. “None at all. I always knew that cousin Priscilla was not quite up to the mark. Not for a man like you. You need someone with more charm, more sparkle, more beauty …”

Alec frowned at her in disapproval. “Besides having no shame, Miss Vanity, you seem to have no modesty. If you want the truth of it, your cousin had more charm, more sparkle and more beauty than any man could wish.”

Clio, snuggling confidently in his arms, would not be deflated. “Did she?” she asked complacently. “More than
I
?”

Alec’s eyes took on a faraway glaze. “More than any woman I’ve ever known,” he said softly.

“Alec!” Clio sat bolt upright in immediate affront.

He brought himself back to the present by sheer force of will. “I hope, Miss,” he said to her with an avuncular smile, “that I’ve given you a sufficient douse of cold water to dampen your excessive self-esteem.”

She flounced to the far corner of the seat. “You
don’t
love me, then,” she pouted. “Is that what you’re trying to tell me?”

“I don’t know. I haven’t given the matter any thought.”

“Wh-What? Never?”

“Never.”

“Oh.”

Her voice was low, and the pathetic little monosyllable was delivered with the merest quaver. This little indication of weakness and bravery touched him more than anything else that had passed between them that evening. Perhaps she
was
brazen and forward on the outside, as the world of the
ton
had required her to be, but inside, he thought, she was as insecure and needful of protection as a kitten. “Come here, you little ninny,” he said fondly, and he pulled her back into his arms. “If it will lift your spirits, I shall reveal a secret to you, and then we must have done with talk of love and marriage.”

“A s-secret?” she asked, looking up into his face hopefully.

“Yes. So you must not speak of it until I give you leave. My solicitor tells me that in a few months he will make me a free man—as free as I was before the marriage occurred. At that time, if you still wish it, I shall think about whether or not I love you.”

“Oh,
Alec
!” she breathed, completely restored to happiness. “Do you truly
mean
it? We can be
married
?”

He fixed a mock-disapproving eye on her again. “Now, that is quite enough of that sort of thing. I said we must end the discussion on this subject. Really, I don’t know what you were thinking of to bring the matter up at all. What could you have expected of me when you knew I was not free? You didn’t want me to offer you a
carte blanche
, did you?”

She giggled. “No, of course not. But I did think …” She hesitated and looked up at him askance.

“Well, what disreputable suggestion were you about to make? Out with it, or you’ll have me thinking the worst.”

“I thought we might … run off …” she said with a pretty blush.

“
Run off
?” He stared at her, appalled.

“Yes. Well, you needn’t look as if I’d suggested we carry off the crown jewels. It’s not unheard of, you know. I thought we might run away to Paris or Vienna … like Lady Waterton and her French lover. It would be quite exciting to live like romantic outcasts, wouldn’t it? Couldn’t we, Alec?”

“I should say not! Romantic outcasts, indeed. I’ve never heard such drivel. What sort of nonsensical drivel does your mother permit your to read?”

“It is not nonsensical drivel. It was a very good suggestion, especially if you were not going to be a free man. However, under the circumstances, I suppose it would be more sensible to wait.”

“Under the circumstances, my girl, I suggest we drop the entire subject until the proper time. And until then, I had best keep a discreet distance from you so that tongues will not be wagging. Therefore, if you please, you may remove these very pretty arms from about my neck and sit over there.”

Clio, her confidence completely restored and her hopes for the future high, did as she was bid. “But really, Alec,” she laughed as she adjusted her cloak to lie primly about her, “I never noticed before, but underneath your dashing exterior, I think you’re a positive
Puritan
!”

Chapter Ten

In the house in Hanover Square, Priss, making herself ready for her long-awaited visit from Alec, sat at her dressing table brushing her hair, but her eyes were on the note from Mr. Newkirk which lay open before her. She read over the words for the hundredth time:
Dear Lady Braeburn, We have been requested by his lordship, Alexander Tyrrell, to arrange for the honor of an interview with you in the near future. If Friday, the 16th of October, at three P.M. should chance to be a convenient hour, we shall be happy to have him wait upon you at that time. With the very best wishes for your continued good health, we remain your most sincere and humble servant, etc. F. L. Newkirk
.

The forbidding formality of the note, and the fact that Alec hadn’t written himself, had filled her with foreboding. Her mother, too, had found the letter upsetting. “It certainly is a most unencouraging document,” Lady Vickers had said as they’d sat over their morning coffees discussing it. “I truly dislike to douse your hopes after you’ve waited so eagerly to hear from him, but I find nothing in this missive to cause you to rejoice.”

Priss did not rejoice over the letter, but she did permit herself to hope just a little. At least she would
see
him, and that was the most hopeful news she’d had in weeks.

The days between the receipt of the letter and today, when she would actually be seeing him, had been spent on a see-saw of emotions. Sometimes she would convince herself that he truly loved her—that the man who had carried her so adoringly through the streets of Rome had surely shown a passion beyond the ordinary—and would be readily coaxed back into her arms. At other times she felt equally positive that he had forgotten his feeling for her entirely and that her attempts to convince him that the entire business with Blake was insignificant would come too late to interest him at all.

She had heard from more than one of her callers that her husband had been much in evidence in the season’s social activities. They usually spoke of him with great admiration—his caustic wit, his lean and weathered good looks and his cool unattainability all made him a favorite of the ladies. But one or two of the more vicious gossips dropped all too obvious hints that he had been seen in the company of one particular lady more often than was seemly. Her one intimate friend, a modest, unmarried girl named Ariadne Courdepass, tried to convince her not to let the gossip disturb her. Ariadne had remarked with practical good sense that a gentleman on the town, especially one who had been away from home fighting a war for so many years, could hardly be expected to eschew all female companionship. But when one of the gossips dropped—oh, so casually—the name of Clio Vickers, Priss felt quite sick with jealousy.

She had not told her mother what she’d learned, but Lady Vickers had her own sources of information. “I shouldn’t take the gossip at all to heart, my love,” her mother advised her. “A man always needs to sow
some
wild oats during a lifetime.” And she went on to caution her daughter against mentioning a word to Alec on the subject during the forthcoming interview. “It will not do, at such a time,” she said wisely, “to throw
his
indiscretions in his teeth, especially when you are apologizing for your own.”

Her mother was right, of course. It was not a topic she would care to discuss in this, the first real conversation she would have with Alec in six years. The problem was, however, that she wasn’t sure just what topic she
should
discuss. Her weakness in dealing with the importunities of Blake Edmonds so long ago hardly seemed, after all these years, sufficiently sinful to have caused such a rift between Alec and herself. What
really
was troubling her husband? She had no clue to the true state of his mind and his feelings. The bitterness he’d exhibited that morning when he’d awakened in the drawing room those weeks ago had been quite baffling to her.

Of course he’d been suffering the aftereffects of excessive indulgence in drink, and he was obviously not himself. But even after he’d recovered, he had not seen fit to come to her. He seemed to have convinced himself that she’d betrayed him in some way, but the substance of that betrayal was not at all clear. Over and over she rehearsed what she would say to him, but since his motivation was a blur, she had no assurance that her words would be an adequate bridge over the gulf between them.