Sherri Cobb South (14 page)

“Oh! I am not dressed!” she cried, leaping to her feet. “I will shock poor Reynolds.”

“ ‘Poor Reynolds,’ having been in my family’s employ for many years, has seen far worse, I assure you.”

Neither Lisette nor Reynolds attempted to refute this statement, but the countess gave the butler a conspiratorial wink as she departed in a swirl of pink silk. Reynolds, though not so lost to propriety as to return his mistress’s wink, could not quite repress the twinkle in his eye, nor the slight twitch of his lips.

Waverly, however, noticed neither of these things, for he was busy cursing himself for a fool. Why the devil hadn’t he told her about her unexpected inheritance when he had the chance? He had no real fears about Lisette’s new-found wealth going to her head; she hadn’t a pretentious bone in her body. Still, there was no denying the fact that with her discovery of her riches would come a subtle change in their marriage. From the day he had helped her escape from Saint-Marie, she had been determined, in spite of his best efforts to set her straight, to see him in the light of a rescuer, a knight in shining armor. He was surprised to discover that he rather enjoyed being adored (although he had no illusions as to his worthiness of adoration), and was loth to give it up. But now it appeared that the single most honorable act of his life—some might argue the
only
honorable act—had been just as self-serving as the most hedonistic episode in a spectacularly hedonistic life. What would happen, he wondered, when Lisette learned that she did not need him nearly so much as he needed her?

And so he said nothing. He knew it was inexcusable, perhaps even cowardly. To say nothing of ironic; he had tried more than once to give her a more accurate rendering of his character, but now that he had the evidence to convince her of the truth of his claims, he was reluctant to use it. Instead, he sent to Colling Manor for the Waverly sapphires which, after a brief interlude at Rundell and Bridge for cleaning, were delivered to Park Lane the following week.

They were promised to attend a ball, and Lisette had been in raptures over the new gown which had been delivered just in time for the occasion. As this costly confection was made of silver net over rich blue satin, it seemed fitting that she should wear the Waverly sapphires. The earl, after putting the finishing touches to his snowy cravat, allowed his valet to assist him into his watered silk waistcoat and form-fitting tailcoat, then picked up the black velvet case from his dressing table and rapped on the door connecting his bedchamber with that of his wife.

“Entrez,”
called Lisette from within.

Waverly opened the door and found Lisette, resplendent in her new gown, scowling at her reflection in her looking glass.

“I do wish my eyes were blue,” she complained to Winters. “Not pale blue, but dark, like lapis.”

“I, for one, am glad they are not,” rejoined Lord Waverly, stepping into the room, “for these poor things could never compete.”

Lisette’s face lit up at the sound of his voice, but as she turned to greet him, her gaze fell on the velvet box in his hand. “What is this, milord?
Pour moi?"

“For you,” he said, dismissing the abigail with a glance as he surrendered the case to Lisette.

She opened the box with trembling fingers, and gasped at the riches that lay within. One white hand fluttered to her mouth, then came to rest on the expanse of white bosom revealed by her
décolletage.
“Oh! Oh, but they are too beautiful! I cannot!”

“They are rightfully yours, Lisette.” It was the truth, no more and no less.

“But—but you told Winters there were no family jewels!”

“At that time, there were not. They have belonged to my family since the Restoration. I was obliged to sell them in order to fund my journey to France.”

“And now you have bought them back?”

Waverly’s smile was curiously lacking in warmth. “In a manner of speaking.”

“The cards were very good to you,
oui?”

“Cards?”

“Or was it dice? However you won the money, you must have been very lucky!”

The earl’s expression grew curiously tender, and he stroked his wife’s cheek with the back of his index finger. “Far, far luckier than I deserve.”

It was a pensive pair who boarded Waverly’s crested carriage for the short journey to Dorrington House. Lisette had discovered that, if she closed her eyes and exercised a very little imagination, her cheek still tingled with Lord Waverly’s caress. The earl, for his part, was still trying to assimilate his sudden windfall. He knew he should be happy—delighted, even, for living by one’s skill at games of chance was a risky occupation at best—but he found he could not quite like the change. Nor could he fully understand the reason for his misliking. To be sure, he had agreed to escort Lisette to England with every expectation of being handsomely rewarded, yet he had offered her marriage with none but the purest of motives. To be paid in coin for his chivalry seemed somehow crass, to say nothing of emasculating: a man liked to think he could provide for his wife, rather than be dependent upon her. It was this, more than anything else, which had made him balk at selling himself to one of those smirking heiresses years ago.

Having arrived at Dorrington House, the earl and his countess allowed a liveried footman to divest them of their cloaks, then joined the receiving line which snaked up the curving staircase. Here Waverly was hailed jovially by an elderly gentleman with frizzled white whiskers.

“Ah, Waverly, good to see you this evening! I trust you’ll allow me the chance to win back that monkey I lost to you at White’s?”

Waverly bowed. “I am at your service, Colonel.”

Lisette looked up at her husband, her eyes sparkling with eagerness. “You won a monkey, milord? Why did you not show him to me? May I keep him for a pet?”

The colonel guffawed. “No, no, my dear Lady Waverly. Merely an expression. Your thieving husband managed to win five hundred pounds from me at whist. ‘May I keep him for a pet,’ indeed!”

He pinched Lisette’s chin in a manner which was more avuncular than lascivious, but which made Lord Waverly yearn to do him an injury, nonetheless. It was, perhaps, a good thing that the butler chose that moment to announce, “Colonel Cyrus Latham,” in stentorian tones.

“Meet me in the card room, Waverly, and we’ll see if you can win another monkey for your wife,” the colonel called, still chuckling, as he moved forward to make his bow to his host and hostess.

Lord Waverly was reluctant to leave Lisette alone, given the turn of events the last time he had done so, but the prospect of a hand of whist for high stakes was too much to resist. Perhaps the transfer of a sizable sum of the Colonel’s money to his own coffers would make him feel less of a fortune hunter and more of a man. And so, adjuring his wife to resist any and all attempts to lure her into the gardens, he excused himself to Lisette and made his way to the card room.

Lady Waverly, left to her own devices, felt as if she had been towed out to sea and cut adrift. Everyone seemed to know her as an extension of her once-notorious husband, but her own acquaintances in London were few. Great, therefore, was her joy when Étienne Villiers solicited her for the Scottish reel about to begin. Conversation was difficult during the boisterous dance, although Lisette managed to disclose to her partner that yes, her husband had indeed escorted her, but was now amusing himself in the card room. It could not be pleasant for him, she said defensively, to return to London only to find that the necessity of squiring his wife to various entertainments prevented him from pursuing his own preferred amusements. By the time the last strains of music died away, Lisette was flushed and breathless from the effort of keeping pace with the lively steps. “You must be quite tired out,” Étienne observed solicitously. “Shall we step onto the terrace for a breath of fresh air?”

Lisette’s hackles rose. Etienne’s attentions, though flattering, had never seemed overtly amorous; yet this suggestion sounded so much like the captain’s ploy that she wondered if she had unintentionally encouraged him to think she would welcome more intimate advances.

“Mais non,
I am quite well,” she assured him hastily. “If I may but sit down for a minute—”

“Bien entendu!”
exclaimed her countryman. “If you will follow me, Lady Waverly—”

Etienne’s ready capitulation banished Lisette’s fears to such a degree that she felt quite foolish for entertaining them. “Oh, you must call me Lisette!” she said with a bit more warmth than she otherwise might have done. “For although milord assures me that we are wed, I do not feel at all like a married lady. Does that sound very odd?”

“Not at all,” he assured her, deriving a great deal more from this artless confidence, perhaps, than Lisette had intended to reveal.  “And you must call me Étienne.”

As he spoke, Étienne snagged a bottle of champagne and two glasses from the silver tray of a passing footman. Then, tucking the bottle beneath his arm, he steered Lisette toward a heavy curtain of gold brocade, which he drew back to reveal an alcove famished with a small table and two chairs artfully arranged before a French window overlooking the terrace.

“But how charming!” Étienne exclaimed. “And see, here is a pack of cards on the table. Shall we try our hand at piquet while you recruit your strength?”

Lisette consented to this scheme at once and seated herself at the card table. Étienne, taking the seat facing her, filled both the glasses with champagne and passed one across the table to Lisette.

“Now, then, what shall we wager?” he asked as he reached for the cards and began shuffling the pack.

“Wager?” echoed Lisette in some consternation. “I haven’t any money.”

“Not to worry,” Étienne assured her. “You could always stake your necklace.”

Lisette’s hand flew to the sapphires at her breast. “Ah, but I could not! It is not mine to lose, for it is milord’s family heirloom.”

Étienne, realizing he had overreached himself, made a quick recovery. “I am sure you underestimate your skill at cards, my lady, but I understand your scruples, and honor you for them. Why not stake that pretty little fan?”

Lisette glanced down at the gouache-on-vellum fan dangling from her wrist by a silken cord. It was indeed a pretty thing, but not terribly valuable.
“Très bien,
but only if you will call me Lisette.” Disentangling her hand from the cord, she laid the fan in the center of the table.

“Lisette, then,” he said with a smile, adding to the fan a little pile of coins which far exceeded its value.

The pack was cut and the cards dealt, and soon play began in earnest. Alas for Lisette, it was not long before she was obliged to surrender her fan to her opponent.

“But I would not be such a cad as to deny you the chance to win it back,” he assured her, replenishing the champagne in her glass.

“I have nothing else to stake,” she pointed out.

“Your glove would suffice,” suggested Étienne.  “I daresay it matters little, for you will have it back soon enough. A man cannot be so fortunate in his cards twice in an evening.”

It appeared, however, that Étienne’s luck was in that evening, for Lisette’s long white glove very quickly went the way of her fan.

“I am fortunate, indeed,” Étienne was moved to exclaim as he refilled the glasses. “You very nearly had me, until I drew that queen of clubs.”

Lisette, seeing that victory had been so near, was easily persuaded to play again, and had all the felicity of seeing her glove restored to her. So greatly did this please her that she was convinced her luck had turned, and readily agreed to another hand in order to win back her fan. Alas, not only did she lose the glove again, but her other glove soon joined its mate, along with the fan and the little pile of coins, at Etienne’s elbow.

“It is probably just as well,” she said with a nervous giggle. “I would look very odd wearing only one glove.”

“You, look odd? Never!” declared Étienne gallantly. “But if it will make you feel better, I shall stake both gloves on the next hand.”

“But I must offer a stake of equal value, and I have no more gloves to wager,” Lisette protested.

“If you will permit me,” said Etienne, leaning forward to pour the last of the champagne into Lisette’s glass, “I have an idea.”

* * * *

Lord Waverly, having lightened Colonel Latham’s purse by some two hundred guineas, excused himself from the card room and returned to the ballroom in search of his wife. He raised his quizzing glass, the better to survey the dancers whirling about the floor in a kaleidoscope of color, but the longer he watched, the stronger grew his conviction that Lisette was not one of their number. Training his glass on the French windows opening onto the terrace opposite, he recalled the contretemps of a few evenings previous, and frowned. Despite his words of warning, he had no great faith in Lisette’s ability to stay out of trouble. There was nothing for it but to go in search of her. Skirting the ballroom, he reached the French windows, found them unlocked, and stepped out onto the terrace.

The night was clear, and several couples, overheated from the myriad candles illuminating the ballroom, had already sought recourse to the cool night air. However, feminine giggles from the shrubbery gave Waverly to understand the principal attraction here was not the weather. Hearing no sound which might indicate that Lisette (or indeed, any other lady) stood in urgent need of rescue, he turned to return to the ballroom, when a movement from a window some twenty feet away caught his attention.

The curtains were drawn, but the light from within cast sharp silhouettes onto the thin folds. As Waverly watched appreciatively, a lady rose and propped one slender leg on the seat of her chair, then raised her skirt to mid-thigh and fumbled with the garter tied behind her knee. The earl, being a healthy male, raised his quizzing glass, the better to observe this exercise. Her partner’s arm was raised to his head, as if shielding his eyes; Waverly, amused, would have bet all his night’s winnings that the man was peeking. At that moment the lady moved her head slightly, and Waverly, still watching through his glass, had no difficulty in recognizing the profile which presented itself to his interested gaze. The short, curly hair, the
retroussé
little nose—they could only belong to one person. He covered the twenty-foot stretch of terrace in less than half a dozen strides, and flung open the French windows with a force that rattled the glass panes.