Lady Adventuress 02 - The Education of Lord Hartley (15 page)

“Your scandalous flirtation would suggest otherwise. I promised your brother that I would keep you away from scoundrels.”

She stopped and fixed him with a look, her mouth set in a thin, angry line. “Does that include yourself, do you think?” she asked coldly. “For, as I recall, you have many times showed yourself to have a most pronounced lack of gentlemanly grace. A carriage ride comes to mind…”

At her words, Hart looked utterly, devastatingly furious. Taking advantage of his outraged silence, she carried on speaking.

“Or am I to assume that it is only a friendly feeling that spurs you on to behaving like my guard dog?
Brotherly
feeling, perhaps. It is in the nature of friends, is it not, to entertain an unjustified aversion to the man who shows a particular interest in one? And yet, again, if that is so, one has to wonder why – ”

He interrupted her. “
My feelings
are nothing to do with the want of conduct you display by encouraging even half of your besotted companions. A portion of whom are scoundrels who wish only to marry you for your supposed fortune. But you,
Miss Dacre
, are an utter hoyden and you refuse to see sense. Can you not simply let yourself be protected so that I may have peace again? ”

“No. This hasn’t a thing to do with you. Does wishing to decide my own life maker me a hoyden? I do not pretend to that decorous impartiality to one’s fate which is such an admired trait in young ladies. I am not at all convinced that remaining impartial when one’s life is being decided elsewhere is in the least bit a virtue. Whether you disapprove of my so-called suitors or not, I won’t return with you to marry my cousin, I have already said that.”

“I perceive that you mistake me. I have not said a thing about your cousin. However, I believe it is your
candour
that is your greatest virtue – you certainly never shirk from listing
me
all of
my
faults.”

“If I should suffer by my candour, then I assure you, Hart, I shall bear this suffering most cheerfully. You did not need to mention my cousin any more than you needed to mention England. I understand you perfectly. But I have told you once again that I mean to remain here in Paris. Whatever you choose to do now is up to you, Stanhope be damned.”

“Not Stanhope. No, indeed. Tell me, then, would you marry Blake? I imagine you would have a most fashionable ceremony – by special licence and amongst the roses!”

She did not understand the bitterness in his voice.

“You are confusing ‘fashionable’ with ‘enjoyable’. There is nothing wrong with having a pretty time of one’s wedding. And what of you, then? I suppose you would care so little for your own bride as to present her with a church key in lieu of a wedding ring, or a bed-curtain ring, perhaps, as the Duke of Hamilton did!”

“Why the devil does it matter what I would do?
I
did not run away to Paris to associate with poets. My reputation is not at stake. Or are you saying, perhaps, that it is me you wish to marry and not one of your army of suitors?” the marquess asked, in a low voice.

Maggie shivered. She had never heard such a tone from him before. The passion in it stirred the very desire she had been fighting so hard to suppress.

Sometime in the course of their argument, the sun had come back out amidst glowering clouds. She had to shade her eyes with her hand to be able to look him in the face. She realised then that she had quite lost track of her direction amongst the tall, green hedges.

As quickly as it had appeared, the sun was gone again, and she saw Hart’s face, stormy and powerful, like some ancient god.

Hart was suddenly very close to her indeed. Maggie read a strange purpose in his eyes and her breath stopped a moment before he reached out and brushed a renegade strand of hair out of her eyes.

Surprising her with his unexpected self-control, he bent towards her and Maggie took an involuntary step forward. His lips had just barely brushed hers, leaving a trail of fire in their wake, when a furious roll of thunder shook the ground and a deluge of rain descended upon them.

Maggie gasped and jumped back. “That is three times now that you have kissed me in Paris, Lord Hartley, and I shan’t stand for any more without an explanation of your game,” she whispered, staring at him out of huge eyes even as the world seemed to be ending all around them.

Hart had stepped back too, with more dignity. “You are quite right. I must apologise,” he said grimly. “I find that the propriety of my conduct towards you is not what it should be. Far from it. But you are virtuous and good to berate me. ”

Maggie shook her head, getting progressively soaked in the cool summer rain. She blinked water out of her eyes. “Will you have it as my duty, then, to direct you towards virtue? For, I own, I do not think myself quite suited to the task,” she whispered.

“Right now? I would have you direct me towards a sound roof. The gazebo is our very best bet, I think.”

He took her gloved hand in his, pulling her along after him. They were quite lost, however, and it took some stumbling through wet hedges for them to find their way out. At last, they came to the shelter at the centre of the maze, though on closer inspection it became clear that it could only provide a very meagre cover from the elements.

“You are quite soaked,” the marquess whispered in concern, keeping close to Maggie out of an instinctual need to keep her warm.

Maggie shook her head, waving away the concern and laughing a little. “It is nothing. This spencer is unlikely to suffer much damage from a little water. Though I expect my hair is quite shamefully ruined.”

Hart gazed at her a moment. “It is most lovely, but it is not the state of your pelisse that concerns me. Here, I must insist that you take my coat – for it is certainly much thicker than yours.” Before she could protest, he had removed the heavy coat from his shoulders held it out for her.

Maggie was astonished enough that she accepted it without argument. It hung on her slight frame in a most ludicrous manner, but it was warm and it smelt pleasantly of Hart. It was almost like being wonderfully lost in his embrace. She snuggled deeper into it.

Avoiding his eyes, suddenly shy, Maggie forced herself not to admire the way he looked in his shirt sleeves. What was it about him that made everything he wore seem so shamelessly sensual?

“Thank you,” she said softly, holding the coat even closer to herself. Then, most embarrassingly, she sneezed and was obliged to assure him yet again that she was not at all chilled.

It would have been impossible to be chilled when he had lent her his frockcoat. Her very bones tingled with warmth.

Maggie wondered where the others were, but dared not voice her concern in case it shattered the tentative earnestness that had settled between them. Daringly, Hart put an arm around her slender shoulders.

Maggie closed her eyes. It was so easy, so terribly, tantalisingly easy, to imagine that he had done so not out of a gentlemanly duty to shelter her, but because he harboured some more tender feeling within him. And what harm could come of imagining such a thing? It was only a brief interlude, after all. At any moment, the rain would end and the fragile fantasy would shatter as real life forced its way back in.

And yet every minute that she passed in his embrace was a precious thing.

*

They waited out the rain before leaving the maze. It was easier to find their way back out and they emerged, looking supremely bedraggled, to find their companions dry and waiting.

They were met with startled, pitying glances, though no one said a word about Maggie being in possession of Hart’s coat.

“Oh, Marguerite, my poor dear, you look as though you have been swimming!” Marie-Josette fussed.

“No, no. It is not so bad as it looks,” Maggie tried to protest to no avail, wishing herself back at the gazebo, and back in the unassailable shelter of Hart’s arms. Real life had indeed intruded on her fantasy, and he was once more the preoccupied, distant gentleman.

“We must get you back home, Madame de Gramont,” Sir Lucian said, looking her over with concern. “It wouldn’t do to chance a chill.”

“But how is it that you are so dry?” Maggie asked in astonishment. “That rain was a veritable deluge.”

“Why, we were never in the rain,” Marie-Josette replied.

As it turned out, the countess and Sir Lucian had emerged from the maze when the first few fat drops had fallen from the sky, which Maggie and Hart had not noticed in their furious confrontation. By the time the rain had begun in earnest, they had taken shelter under a huge oak, and so had managed to remain completely dry.

Maggie was relieved that nobody thought ask why it was that she and Hart had not done the same.

The chills hit her mid-afternoon, just as Maggie sat in the shop, finishing a sketch for a blue pelisse.

Cecile, who had stepped into the back room to ask Maggie about an order of velvet, frowned when she saw that Maggie had swathed herself in several shawls. She crossed over to her friend with an expression of concern, feeling Maggie’s forehead.

“You have the beginnings of a fever!” she exclaimed.

Maggie pushed her spectacles further up her nose, wishing not for the first time that she could sew and read without them. “Oh, I am quite well. Just a little cold.”

“Precisely. You are seated right beside two burning lamps. You should be very flustered. Furthermore, your skin is on fire. It is plain that you are unwell. I certainly won’t hear of you working in such a state. Now, you go straight home, and have Cook make you some spiced wine.”

“You’re being silly – that’s quite unnecessary,” Maggie said, trying to sound dismissive just as another shiver stole through her.

“Unnecessary!
You
are being a goose. I will no more let you stay here then you would let me if I were the one shivering in the backroom. Manon is coming to help in the evening and we shall manage just fine, so don’t fret.”

Bundling Maggie into a carriage, Cecile sent her straight home.

The drive seemed to take much longer than usual and when she arrived at the townhouse, Maggie felt decidedly worse. With a deep, put-upon sigh, she had no choice but to call off all of her appointments and her upcoming weekly salon. With a deep, put-upon sigh, Maggie sent out a few notes of apology and asked Duby for a glass of something to warm her.

She sat in the drawing room, watery-eyed, wondering at the ghastly timing. More than anything else in the world, Maggie hated being ill. The sneezes that shook her entire frame did nothing for her mood.

Already she felt restless and extremely irritable, for she rarely found herself in that miserable condition, and she felt dreadfully useless sitting at home, sipping hot possets.

She could not even venture into the garden, for it was raining again, and the dreadful weather looked set to continue for the rest of the day.

Just before supper, Duby presented her with a package from the Marquess of Hartley.

There was a brief note, which Maggie read before opening the package. She was puzzled and intrigued.

The missive was executed with Hart’s usual brevity, in his long, slanted writing.

Maggie,

I beg that you excuse the impropriety of the thing, but I feel I am rather to blame, and perhaps we have known each other long enough that you might accept my offering. Pax?

PS: I have heard it said that the world is sure to fall at the feet of a woman who knows how to drape a shawl. Since your conquest is already so near, you may find this last piece to be of some use.

H.

She read the note twice, savouring every word as she heard his beloved voice in her head. Maggie held it a moment to her heart, as though she could hold him, too, in this way.

Then, she turned her attention to the package. More curious than ever,
she picked it up. It was very light and whatever it contained seemed to be quite soft.

Unwrapping the green paper, she was delighted to find that inside lay a beautiful angora shawl, thick and warm. It was embroidered with a delicate silver border of roses and flourishes.

This was so thoughtful and unexpected a gift that Maggie sat back a moment, running a tremulous finger over the shawl.

If Hart was still concerned about the impropriety of a gentleman sending a lady gifts, even after their encounter in the rain… She shook her head, smiling.

If this was impropriety, she could only ever find delight in it. The gesture was so incredibly tender.

She wondered yet again what it would be like to live out her life with a man like that.

A life filled with little, thoughtful gestures and impassioned kisses in the rain.

She shivered, firmly reminding herself that such a thing was not to be.

Hart was merely amused by her. That was all. At best, he was infatuated: taken in by her new dresses and the swirling persona of the popular baroness.

It wasn’t really
Maggie
he wanted. How could it be?

He had never really noticed her before, if one ignored that peculiar matter of the kiss with the lemonade. But that had to have been an accident – the side-effect of sunshine, warmth and spring that had momentarily enchanted him.

She tried to make sense of things again, but her fevered brain made it difficult to think, and she soon dozed off in her chair.

*

Just when Maggie thought her feelings could not be any more confusing, Hart did even worse and turned up himself, on the third day of her incarceration.

His eyes were full of such honest concern for her well-being that Maggie was quite thoroughly taken aback. Even Duby couldn’t seem to manage a look of disapproval at this breach of etiquette as he showed the marquess into the library. Maggie again sat near the fire, nursing another cup of mulled wine and keeping her hands busy with a tambour frame on which she was creating a Grecian pattern for a morning dress.

She felt very tired and rather unsteady, but tabour work was lighter and easier than embroidery, and she found that it lulled her into a pleasant state of near-sleep.

“Good evening, Hart,” she said, still a little hoarsely. “I own I was not expecting you, but at least I can thank you properly for the shawl you sent. It was most thoughtful.”

“It was the least I could do,” he said, looking at her with concern. “I waited until it was acceptable to call – I feel the fault for this is largely my own.”

“Nonsense! It is just the rain, and I rarely become ill even from that.”

“Ah, yes – I had quite forgotten your remarkable constitution.”

“I think that you are teasing me, Lord Hartley. It isn’t very kind.”

He chuckled. “Well, it is only fair. You were never very kind to me, you know. Nor have you been of late, watching me with those flashing eyes, even as you flutter your fan at your besotted swains.”

“Fie on you, Hart – you make me out to sound the jaded society flirt, when I know perfectly well that I hold no such achievement. Why, even my Parisian admirers are really only interested because the baroness is a mystery.”

She wondered whether this familiar exchange would devolve into another quarrel, and was pleasantly surprised when it did not.

“Foolish boys, the lot of them,” Hart dismissed, with a wave of his hand.

It was odd to be having that conversation in light of their earlier argument. Hart appeared determined to hold out the olive branch.

She smiled.

“They think, as well you know, that I am a personage of tremendous wealth and consequence. I expect they would be sorely disappointed with a plain English girl from the country.”

Hart’s eyes lazily trailed over her form, though she knew that she looked a right mess.

“I do not see any such creature. I never did. Did you know, by the by, that your aunt half-expected you to run away?”

Maggie was taken aback. “But how could she possibly?”

“She said that there is wild blood in the family, and it can only remain dormant for so long. It seems that it has awoken in you at last.”

“I think all the time she spends with the Duchess of Strathavon and Lady Louisa must be rubbing off on her. By that logic, Aunt Verity need only wait for my children to be born. They, it follows, will be the dullest creatures ever to walk the earth.”

Maggie felt rather than saw his eyes drop to her lips, and she found herself remembering the rain and the kiss for what had to be the thousandth time that day.

She was being a fool again.

“You know, my own aunt is quite concerned that you have taken poorly. She blames me, naturally.”

“She does not. How can she? It wasn’t your fault that the weather turned foul.”

“But it was my fault that you were caught in it.”

“You know perfectly well that it was not. You’re making it up, sir – she cannot possibly be vexed with you.”

“I assure you, it is so. When you are better, you shall ask her yourself.”

Hart stayed a while longer, and drank some coffee. He continued to speak of innocuous things, no doubt in an effort to keep her mind off brooding on her miserable state.

“I know how tempestuous you get when you are obliged to stay at home,” he told her, all the while watching her face as though reading in it some great and impossible mystery.

Confused, Maggie wondered what he was about. But she liked having him there, talking to her in his gravelly voice, so she did not ask.

He made no more mention of the kiss or their argument, and when he had gone, Maggie suddenly found the library to be vast and empty.

He had taken all the warmth in the room with him when he left, and suddenly she couldn’t seem to get comfortable by herself no matter what she did.

She tried reading a book, and taking up the tabour again, all the while keenly aware that she missed him terribly.

*

Her misery lasted six more days, until Maggie could stand it no longer.

Sir Lucian had come to see her the day after Hart, and then again two days later, and had told her all about the musical disasters that had coloured the tone of rehearsals up to then. He’d even brought a basket of sweet oranges, because he’d been told that oranges were just the thing for swift recovery when one was poorly. Despite feeling rather weak and restless, Maggie had laughed at his outlandish stories about mad violinists. If only she could have known him at Chenefelt, country life might not have been so very bad, she’d thought fondly.

But six days of incarceration was more than enough. Determined to venture out of doors, she wrapped herself in her new shawl and called for the carriage to take her to the shop.

An order of new print fabrics was set to be delivered in the afternoon, and Maggie was excited to see them. Print fabrics were her favourite to work with – truly a marvel. She had high hopes for the pale green sprigged muslin, which would be set off to perfection with some gold silk trim. Closing her eyes, she could already picture the gown as it would be: the drape of the skirt, and the delicate capped sleeves.

Fabrics, after all, were simple and easy to understand – unlike men. They did not overwhelm one with riddles and enigmas.

As it turned out, Maggie’s restlessness was a blessing. She had just time enough to greet Cecile when an ominously splendid carriage drew up alongside the shop.

Down stepped none other than the celebrated Madame Gallois, the fiercest judge of fashion in Paris, if not in the whole of France. Her chin was held high, and her greying air coiffed to perfection.

She was followed by a companion dressed in all-black – a tall, handsome gentleman. Maggie tried to remember where she might have seen him before.

“Manon, be so good as to include an extra length of ribbon for Mademoiselle Maynier – she wishes to trim a hat to match,” Cecile was saying from the back room as the shop door opened and admitted the new visitor.

Maggie hastily took a chair and pretended to be a customer awaiting assistance.

“Good day, Madame Gallois.”

“Madame de Gramont,” the paragon of fashion greeted Maggie as she swept over to the counter. The gentleman who had opened the door for her followed behind, tipping his hat.

Madame Gallois was tall, with a slim build and sharp, intelligent eyes. She wore a string of pearls coiled around her neck and diamonds on her fingers. She had the air of one who did not follow mode, but forged her own path so that others might stumble along in her wake. She was every inch a woman used to giving orders, and notoriously picksome when it came to her
couturieres
.

Since arriving in Paris, Maggie had very soon discovered that the lady was a brutal critic of fashion, known to support her favourites and cause the ruin of anyone whose dresses did not come up to her meticulous standards. A snub from her could destroy
Maison Finette
even if every other lady in society found its offerings to be
par excellence
.

“Good day, Madame, may I be of assistance?” Manon asked, stepping forward.

“I wish to speak to Madame Finette,” said the lady in a cool voice.

Cecile chose that moment to reappear at the front of the shop, the picture of perfect poise.

“Thank you, Manon. I am she. How may I be of service, Madame?”

“Then I have come to the correct establishment. Good. It is very small, don’t you think? But no matter. It is the quality of the work that is important, isn’t it?” said the other lady, looking around. “My solicitor, Monsieur Alard, who happens also to be my nephew, says that his sister speaks very highly of this shop. I have always trusted her tastes, and so I have come to see for myself.”

“I trust you will find nothing amiss with any gown created at
Maison Finette
,” Cecile said calmly, though her eyes had momentarily shot to the tall solicitor. “Would you care to be fitted for a gown?”