The Songbird's Seduction (36 page)

The only other occupants of Saint-Girons Inn’s public taproom sat at the bar, well away from the table where Margery and Lucy sat, allowing as private a conversation as possible.

“And the old man with the suspiciously black hair sitting at the bar alongside a handsome middle-aged woman is Bento Oliveria and his wife. I suspect that particular marriage was predicated on his eventually taking possession of his share of the rubies.”

“Why would you say such a thing?” Lucy asked, taking a sip of the aperitif Margery had ordered for her.

“She has the look of one whose ship has finally come in after a long, long, long voyage. And see what an eagle eye she keeps on how much he is drinking? She won’t have him dropping dead hours before that ship makes port, so to speak.”

“You’re awful.”

“I’m a pragmatist. And the old gasser bending his ear and plying Bento with drinks? That is Luis Silva, the other surviving member.” He nodded at a small, energetic-looking man in a flamboyant
cape and slouch hat. “Everyone is here for the big reveal tomorrow afternoon.”

He rubbed his hands together. “I can hardly wait to clamp eyes on those rubies. Lavinia is not given to exaggeration and from what she described I daresay she will be swimming in gravy by this time tomorrow.”

“
Lavinia?
” she echoed, startled.

“Oh, yes. We are all quite chummy.” He nodded, correctly reading her expression. “I
know
. Rather amazing. But then, people are always surprising, aren’t they? You imagine the worst and then they surprise you with unexpected generosity.

“I admit that if I had been told the old girls would tumble to my being a man I would have guessed they’d be appalled. But they were quite accepting of it, even sanguine. Especially Bernie, who is filled with questions—though, as you would expect, none of a personal or indelicate nature.” He smiled. “But enough about me. Who is this man, Lucy? I insist you tell me.”

She could say, “What man?” but Margery would not believe her and she didn’t have any faith at all in his ability, or interest, in taking a hint that she’d rather not discuss it. Not only was he a confirmed gossip, he sincerely believed that anything having to do with anyone of whom he was fond was categorically and indisputably his business. It was a trait that either charmed or irritated depending on one’s mood and what secret he was intent on prizing out. Why fight it?

“Arch—Ptolemy Grant. Professor Ptolemy Grant.”

“Grant.” He frowned. “Where do I know that name?”

“He’s the grandson of one of the original members of the tontine, Lord Barton.”

“Not
Lavinia’s
Lord Barton?”

“Lavinia told you about Lord Barton?” Lavinia hadn’t revealed his name to Lucy until she’d been sixteen and now she was divulging her lifelong secrets to a relative stranger? As soon as the thought
was completed, she realized its error. Of course, Lavinia and Margery could form a deep and abiding friendship in a matter of days.

Hadn’t she fallen in love?

“Oh, yes. Livie and I had quite a few girlish confabs before she realized I wasn’t a girl. She’s quite an interesting woman, your great-aunt. And quite a stunner. Not in the accepted mode, of course, but it’s been scads of fun teasing out her long-ignored vanity.

“She’s something of a clotheshorse, you know, and is finding it all sorts of fun to know she is the object of men’s admiring glances—though would die before she would admit such.”

“Lavinia?”

Margery nodded. “But she’s not half as interesting as Bernice who, while not as elegant, is twice as naughty and you know how I love the naughty ones. She’s got the heart of an adventurer. As a matter of fact, I do think she means to go to Egypt this winter. She wants me to go with her and damned if I mightn’t just.” He looked pleasantly surprised by the notion until he caught her smile. “Oh, no you don’t. You shan’t sidetrack me. Back to your young man. What does he look like?”

“First, he’s not mine, and second, you’ve seen him.”

“I have? When?”

“At the Savoy earlier this month. He was the fellow whose pen you nipped.”

His eyes widened. “Say not so? The gorgeous black-eyed brute in the fabulously cut tuxedo?”

She nodded miserably.

“Well, if he’s not yours why the
hell
not?”

“Because I scotched it, Margery. I made him loathe me.”

Margery, bless him, scoffed. “My darling girl, I doubt you have the wherewithal to make anyone loathe you.”

“No. I mean it. I ruined his life.”

“Ah, I see.”

“I did.”

“Or so you think now.” Margery sighed. “I can’t tell you how many lives I’ve ‘ruined’ only to years later encounter the individual and discover they had been pottering along as happy as a pig in a peach orchard without me. The truth is few people are
ruined
because they are turned down. Thank God.” He lifted his glass in salute then took a long drink.

She took a deep breath. “I didn’t turn him down.”

“Oh?” He looked at her over the rim of his glass. His eyes widened. “Ohhhhh.”

“I
pray
he does potter happily along but I doubt he can or will because it’s not losing me that’s ruined his life—he made it very clear that he was quite looking forward to that prospect.”

“The bounder!” Margery breathed, slamming down his drink and sending the liquor sloshing onto the table. “Look here, Lucy. I’m not the dueling-pistols-at-dawn sort. Or even the fisticuffs in the alley.” He shuddered. “But I know quite a lot of people and some of them are that latter type and if you’d like—”

“No! Good heavens, Margery, I don’t want him hurt. I love him! And he hasn’t done anything wrong. Were I in his position I’d wish to be well rid of me, too.”

“What did you do?” Margery asked worriedly.

“I . . . I got him into a bit of a fix. I . . . there was this situation. I sort of orchestrated a plan that had . . . Aw, hell. I got him arrested.”

This apparently was not enough to sway Margery’s opinion that she was the offended party. He was a loyal, if not particularly discriminating, friend.

“So now, not only is it very likely he will lose the appointment he’s being nominated for, the head of an entire new department at his college, but almost as likely that he will lose his position at the college altogether.”

He straightened to protest but then, upon seeing her expression, drooped. “Oh, Lucy.”

Tears started in her eyes. And here she’d thought she had none left. “I know.”

“And you love him, you say?”

“Oh, Margery, so very much.”

“I’m sorry.”

For a long moment they communed in silence. “Have you ever been in love? I mean, really deeply in love?” she finally asked.

“Yes. Once.”

“Did you ever get over it?”

“I learned to live with it.”

“Do you wish you hadn’t fallen in love?”

“Oh, no,” he said at once. “No. No, my dear. Never. Those were the very best months of my life.”

“What happened?” It said much about Margery’s friendship that he did not hesitate in answering. When asked about his history by either acquaintances or the press, he always gave a pat and unrevealing answer: he’d say he was exactly what he appeared to be—or not. Then he’d laugh. It generally served to stopper any more questions.

Lucy had never asked. She figured he’d tell her whatever he wanted her to know.

“I was young. I had only just begun to achieve acclaim for my impersonations. We met at a party. I would like to say we fell in love all at once, but it took time. We kept running into one another at mutual friends’ homes, various parties, that sort of thing. Somehow, we always ended up together, laughing and sharing jokes, eventually trading dreams. Canny Bernice scored a hit about that.

“And had much in common. We both loved music, word play, fashion, good food, and good company. A match made in heaven, you might say.” His gaze was fixed on his hands folded on the tabletop in front of him, his voice soft and poignant.

“But you couldn’t marry.”

“Couldn’t?” He looked up. “
Wouldn’t
. How could I ask her to
marry me knowing what her life would be like wed to a female impersonator and
why
do people always look like that whenever I reveal that I am interested in girls? And
only
girls. You’d think I’d just grown another head.”

“I . . . I . . . I,” she stuttered.

He waved her down. “Oh, calm down. I’m having a bit of sport. It’s not as if I don’t know what people think. But yes, my beloved was a young lady, a bit of a
bon vivant
, but from a very respectable family. We talked about the possibility of marrying, but we both knew it would never take. She might put up with the sniggers but she could never expose her children,
our
children, to all the ugliness of which people are capable. Thankfully, the vast majority of people are like your great-aunts, but those few others always seem to be the most vocal, don’t they?”

“Did you ever consider not . . . doing what you do?”

“You mean take infrequent male roles, singing an octave below my natural voice in inferior productions for a tenth of the pay?” He snorted.

“For about a day, but that same night she arrived to go to one of our last dinners together. She wore a sable cape and a parure of pearls and diamonds, and I realized that we both enjoyed rarified air too much. I don’t know that we would breath as easily in lesser climes.

“And, too, I love what I do, Lucy.” Her chest constricted at the familiar words, words Archie had spoken to her on Sark. “I love the saucy humor and the dresses, the applause and the music, the wink and the nod . . . all of it. Give up Marjorie with her flamboyance, her
joi de vive
and sophistication, for Jasper Martin, unlisted so-so tenor in knickers? I don’t think so.”

“Do you ever regret your decision?” she asked thinking of Archie. “Do you ever wish you had chosen . . . love?”

“But I did,” Margery said. “I chose the real love of my life, my career. And while she’s a bitch of a mistress, we’ve been happy together.”

The gendarme opened the door to Archie’s cell and jerked his head in the direction of the corridor. “Time to go.”

Relieved at not being required to listen to another rambling dissertation on the coming revolution by his young fellow inmate, Archie leapt to his feet. “Where?”

“Wherever you wish, my friend, as long as you appear on Monday. But for the time being you are being released on your own recognizance.”

Having recently learned from an exemplary teacher not to look a gift horse in the mouth, he snatched up his jacket and followed the gendarme, offering his erstwhile companion a somewhat ironic, “Long live the revolution,” on his way past the boy’s cell.

“
Adieu, mon frère
!” the boy called out fervently, assuming he had recruited Archie to his glorious cause.

The only cause Archie had right now was apologizing to Lucy.

He’d been furious when she’d come to see him, locked in on what he saw as a betrayal of trust. He’d known even as he’d made the
accusation that she hadn’t meant to ruin his life on a lark. She hadn’t a frivolous bone in her body. Odd, outspoken, exuberant, joyful, whimsical bones, but not frivolous. A girl as young as she was when she took over the physical and financial care of two elderly great-aunts could hardly be accused of irresponsibility.

No, she had meant to woo him. In her own weird, unsettling way she had simply been courting him and he’d been too stupid to realize it.

The gendarme opened the door leading into the police station’s main room and stepped aside.

If he only could—

Cornelia Litchfield stood beside the captain’s desk, flanked by his family’s middle-aged lawyer, Oliver Tuttiddle, and Lionel Underwood. Her gaze raked him up and down and found him wanting. “Oh, Ptolemy. Look at you.”

“What are you doing here?”

“I am here in an unofficial capacity, acting on behalf of St. Phillip’s.”

“How did you find out?” he asked, confounded.

“I went to your grandfather’s house to discover your whereabouts. Lord Blidderphenk has moved up the dates he will be interviewing the candidates and I knew you would want to return to London immediately in order to prepare. When I arrived at Lord Barton’s house he had just received the telegram saying you’d been arrested.” She frowned a little. “I must say he was most forthcoming about it all. In fact, I had the distinct notion he took pleasure in showing it to me.”

Archie just bet he had.

“Anyway, of course, I immediately went to Father. He was apoplectic. As your chief sponsor with the chancellor and Lord Blidderphenk, your actions reflect directly on him. He would be a laughingstock if this got out. I convinced him you must have suffered from some sort of fit and persuaded him I was the best person
to fetch you and see if I could make this all disappear.” She looked about the tiny police office with a grimace of distaste.

“
You
bailed me out?”

“Yes. Not only bailed you out, but I am in negotiations with the judge to have all charges against you dropped.”

Archie narrowed his eyes on Tuttiddle. “Then what are you doing?”