Love Charade Part 23

"I will do as you say." Lavinia nodded thoughtfully. "I think I will arrange a dinner party with D'Evron as guest, you and Danielle, of course, and several others of importance. Yes, that will serve very well. But you will put a stop to her jauntering?"

"You may rest a.s.sured that I shall do so," Justin said, a grim note in his voice that quite rea.s.sured Lady Lavinia.

Linton went next in search of his cousin. In truth, he was not as sanguinely convinced of Danielle's fidelity as he had led Lady March to believe. He thought it unlikely but not as impossible as he would have considered it two months previously. Danielle had changed out of all recognition and he was no longer sure of her, no longer sure that he knew her well enough to predict her emotions and actions. He strongly suspected that his young cousin would know the truth; he and Danielle were like brother and sister and even if she had not taken Julian completely into her confidence, he was no fool and would probably have judged the situation accurately.

He ran Julian to earth in Albermale Street and was, for once, thoroughly taken aback by his greeting.

"Odd's blood, Justin, where have you been? I have been out of my head with worry. It is the outside of enough to disappear for two weeks and leave me to . . ."

"I was not aware I had entrusted you with any charge, Julian," Justin interrupted curtly. "You may offer me a gla.s.s of claret and come out of the boughs, if you please."

The cold tones had their usual effect and a fl.u.s.tered Lord Julian begged pardon and poured the claret.

"Now," Justin said, reclining lazily in a large chair with ear pieces. "You will tell me the true nature of Danielle's relations.h.i.+p with D'Evron."

"You must ask her yourself. Gad, Justin, I cannot understand why you have not done so before." Lord Julian ruffled his powdered chestnut locks with uncharacteristic carelessness. "I have done what I can to make light of the rumors; I have tried to persuade her that she cannot go on in this way, but she will not listen to me."

"She is, then, D'Evron's mistress?" Justin asked, his quiet tones hiding the cold nausea rising in his gorge.

"Oh, do not be absurd, coz!" Jules exclaimed. "Of course she is not. She has eyes only for you and you must be a blind man not to see it."

"Danielle has made it a little difficult for me to do so," Justin said slowly. "But I have been something of a fool, I fear." He smiled ruefully. "I am a great deal older than she, Jules, and thought to let her grow up in her own fas.h.i.+on."

"By abandoning her," Julian declared brutally. "She has more bottom than sense, or at least than sense of self-preservation," he amended. "She actually has a deal of sense where others are concerned. I just wish she would not go off on these flights of . . ."

"Flights of what?" Justin prompted when his cousin's impa.s.sioned speech seemed to peter out.

"You must ask her yourself," Julian repeated. "But the sooner I am freed of this burden of secrecy the happier I shall be, however angry you may be at my part. If you've a grain of sense, coz, you'll stand for no prevarication this time."

"I can safely a.s.sure you that I will not be angry." The earl smiled. "I know how persuasive Danny can be. But I thank you for your advice, Jutes." Linton stood up. "And for the claret. A '67, was it not? One of Danny's favorites."

"She insisted I buy it." Julian was somewhat thrown by this seemingly casual non sequitur. "She has taken my cellar in hand and buys for me as she does for you. So far I have not been able to fault her judgment."

"And I'll lay odds you never will." The earl laughed. "She has much experience in these matters and quite the purest palate." He took his leave of a greatly relieved Julian who now felt much as Lady Lavinia did-that all would be put to rights with due speed.

Linton was forced to bide his time, however, when he arrived in Grosvenor Square to be informed that My Lady had joined a party to Hampton Court and was not expected home until after dinner. At midnight, he informed the night porter that he would wait up for Her Ladys.h.i.+p himself, and sent both Petersham and Molly to their beds. In his present mood the fewer members of the household awake when Danielle eventually decided to return the better.

He stood at the library window overlooking the square, watching for the carriage. It appeared at last bearing the Westmore Arms and the young viscount escorted Danielle to the door. They were both laughing, a fact which exacerbated My Lord's anger even further, although he supposed he should be happy she had been engaged in such an irreproachable entertainment as a young people's excursion.

The door swung open before Danielle could hammer on the bra.s.s k.n.o.b in the shape of a gryphon's head. "You have had a pleasant evening, I trust," her husband said, his tone level but his eyes on fire. "Good evening to you, Westmore." The greeting was so clearly a dismissal that the viscount bowed, stammered a hasty good night to Danielle, and retreated to his carriage.

Danielle, feeling distinctly uneasy, sailed past her husband with a rustle of pomona green satin and made for the stairs.

"Danielle, I wish to talk to you." Linton closed the heavy door. "Will you come into the library for a few minutes?"

Danielle had a foot on the bottom stair and now yawned deeply. "It is very late, Linton, and I am monstrous fatigued. We can talk in the morning if you wish it."

"If you put me to the trouble of fetching you, you will regret it," he said pleasantly, holding open the library door.

Danielle hesitated for barely a moment before sweeping into the library, two flags of color flying on her high cheekbones. "What is it you wish to say to me, my lord, that cannot wait until the morning?"

"A very great deal as it happens. I do not care to return to town after a mere two weeks absence to find my wife the b.u.t.t of every scandalmongering tongue. I do not care to walk into my club to be met with embarra.s.sed whispers and sympathetic eyes. What can you have been thinking of, Danny, to be so free in D'Evron's company? I'll not have it bruited abroad that I wear a cuckold's horns."

"Oh, I see." Danielle's voice shook. "It is the Linton pride. While Caesar may do as he pleases, Caesar's wife must be above suspicion. Well, I will tell you, my lord, that I do not hold with such hypocrisy and I will not live my life by those rules."

"What the devil do you mean?" Justin stared in stupefaction.

Danielle cursed her unruly tongue. She had no intention of confronting Linton with her knowledge of his infidelity. Her position was humiliating enough as it was, but some shreds of pride remained to her.

"I meant only that I find Society's double standards intolerable," she muttered, turning away from him. "If I were to be having an affair with D'Evron and conducting it discreetly, there would be no overt censure. I am not, but an innocent friends.h.i.+p is considered incomprehensible. Some sordid construction must be put upon it and I will not tolerate it."

"And I will not tolerate your continuing in this manner," Justin said tautly. "You may find the rules hypocritical but, so help me, you will learn to live by them. You will now tell me exactly what you have been doing with D'Evron that has thrown Julian into such fits and has caused you to behave with such disgraceful impropriety."

Danielle walked to the window, pulling aside the curtains to look out at the slumbering square. She would have to tell him now. Perhaps, unconsciously, she had hoped by her outrageous carelessness to force this confrontation. Her duplicity nagged at her constantly, like an aching tooth, and if Julian had been obliged to admit to Justin that he knew the truth, then she was in honor bound to release him also from his burden of secrecy.

"Very well. But you will be much displeased, I fear."

"Doubtless I shall," he responded equably, his tension receding as he recognized that the battle had been won with no more than a slight skirmish. "It would be difficult to be more so than I am already, however, so you can have little to lose by the truth."

"I have not told you before, you understand, simply because I was afraid you would be out of reason cross and forbid me to continue. Then I would be obliged to refuse you and matters might become un peu difficile." Her free hand waved expressively.

"Cut line, Danny," her husband advised.

He heard her out in incredulous silence. Danny was scrupulously truthful, leaving none of her adventures out of the recitation and explaining Julian's unwilling part.

"You must not blame Jules," she said anxiously. "He had no choice but to keep my confidence."

"I have no intention of holding Julian responsible. He will stand forever in my debt. The chevalier, however, is a different case."

"Not so very different," Danielle told him. "I have had no gun to my head, Justin. I have done simply what I needed to do and D'Evron has had no say in the matter. He has done his best to protect me from annoyance but realized early on, I think, that I needed no such protection. I have my pistol with me at all times, you understand." She offered this last with a kindly smile of rea.s.surance that brought a gleam of amus.e.m.e.nt to His Lords.h.i.+p's eye, an amus.e.m.e.nt not unmixed with admiration. He had thought she had changed, the indomitable urchin become Society Lady-not so, it seemed. Was it this dichotomy that had caused the tension and withdrawal? She would not have enjoyed deceiving him, of that Justin was convinced, and the strain of keeping her activities a secret must have been immeasurable. No wonder she had been avoiding his company like the plague, obviously petrified that she might inadvertently give herself away. She was naturally indiscreet, after all. It must have been torment for her to have been forced to rein in such an open, high-spirited nature. She had been quite correct in her a.s.sumption that had she asked his permission at the outset he would have refused it out of hand. But Justin was wiser now, and he wanted back the blithe loving spirit of his wife.

"I shall ask only two things of you, Danny," he said after this considering silence.

"Milord?" She looked at him in surprise. She had expected anger, hurt at her own deliberate deception, a flat injunction that she cease her activities forthwith, but Linton showed no signs of annoyance and appeared strangely at ease.

"First, you stop your wanderings in and out of D'Evron's lodgings unless you have my escort. No other will do, you understand? Not even Julian."

Danielle nodded. "I did not truly intend to set the town about the ear."

"Fibber," he accused sternly. "You knew quite well what you were about so you need not play the naive baby with me. The damage is not irreparable and we shall come about nicely if you do exactly as you are bid."

Danielle subjected her satin slippers to a sedulous scrutiny and remained silent.

"Second." The earl resumed. "You will make no more of these excursions unaccompanied. I do not care what escorts you choose and I will accompany you myself when I may, but you will not again go alone. Is it understood, infant?"

"I think I may call upon Jules, Westmore, Tony, and Philip," she said reflectively. "I am sure they would be more than willing. Yes, milord." She gave him a radiant smile. "I see no difficulty in complying with your wishes."

"I am indeed a fortunate man," Linton murmured. "I should warn you, though, that I have not changed my mind about Mervanwey. Your people must manage without you throughout the summer."

"It will be hard for the chevalier, but I daresay he will manage," she responded with an easy smile as relief at the unburdening and his reaction flooded her. This point she could concede and maybe, just maybe, she could win her husband back from the arms of his mistress. It occurred to Danielle then, in the blinding illumination of truth, that for once in her life she had not fought. She had given up her husband with barely a whimper. In this most vital matter, she had bowed to society's rules and accepted the conventional charade in the disguise of pride. Well, she would do so no longer. She would compete with Margaret Mainwairing and the mistress would find a worthy opponent in the wife.

"Just what is going through that pretty but excessively devious little head now?" Justin demanded, watching the series of emotions play over her mobile features.

"Is that so very hard to guess?" Danielle responded, her eyes narrowing seductively. "I had not thought you obtuse, husband." She shrugged nonchalently and walked to the door.

Justin lunged for her, swinging her round to examine her upturned face. "You have given me little reason to be otherwise just recently, Madam Wife."

"No," she agreed simply.

"I'll not allow it to happen again, Danielle," he promised softly. "I'll have the truth from you from now on ... Is it understood?"

Danielle dropped her eyes lest he read the lie in them. It was a lie of his own making after all. She slipped her arms around him. "Take me to bed, love."

Chapter 14.

"I am unconvinced by Desmoulin's words, Linton." William Pitt, Earl of Chatham, paced the Turkey carpet in his study, a deep frown creasing his brow. "It is too simple to say that it is finished."

"The king is in the Louvre, the National a.s.sembly at the Tuileries, the channels of circulation are being cleared, the market is crammed with sacks of grain, the Treasury is filling up, the cdrnmills are turning, the traitors are in full flight, the priests are underfoot, the aristocrats are at their last gasp, the patriots have triumphed."

"Bravo, Justin." Pitt applauded. "You have a formidable memory."

"It is Danielle who has the memory." Justin laughed. "I have heard her quote Desmoulins with such scorn on so many occasions that the words are engraved on my mind."

"She does not believe it either, then?"

"No, and she hears much from those in flight who are in a position to know," Linton replied soberly. "There are frequent lootings and lynchings of the so-called enemies of the people. Since Orleans left Paris for London, the Palais Royale has been turned over to the populace. Orlean's gracious palace is now a place of gambling houses, cafes, taverns, and prost.i.tutes and the police are constantly busy there. But it is also the center of popular political life in the city. How can anything sensible come out of. discussions conducted in such wild and uncontrolled surroundings?"

"There are too many factions," Pitt said. "The Jacobins and the Cordeliers are perhaps the strongest, but new ones appear every day and each has a newspaper to inflame and incite an excitable audience." He walked the floor in ponderous silence and Justin waited in a shaft of early May sun pouring through the open window. His prime minister was taking his time to reach the point, but Justin was under no illusion that he had been summoned simply for a chat about the political situation pertaining in Paris in the summer of 1790.

"I need some firsthand information, Justin. Will you take a gla.s.s of claret?"

"Thank you. And you wish me to furnish it?"

"Yes, I have not asked you before . . ." Pitt smiled slightly. "I thought it only reasonable to allow you time to settle the business of marriage."

"That was indeed generous of you." Linton sipped his claret. "I do not know, in all truth, how I would have answered you had you made your request earlier."

"I had surmised as much, which is why I chose to put neither of us in such an awkward situation, my friend. However, this need not be an extended trip-two, maybe three weeks at most." Pitt scratched at a gravy stain on his cravat. "You would not, I suppose, consider taking Danny with you?"

"No, I would not." It was a flat, soft-spoken negative.

"I was afraid not." Pitt sighed. "It is just that the information she gleans from the emigres here and her own deductions are immensely valuable. And her past experiences have equipped her . . ."

"I do not wish Danielle to roam the streets of Paris again in a pair of tattered britches. She has done enough of that. While I countenance her activities in London, I do so only with the greatest reluctance. But she is not to be in France at this time. G.o.d knows what effect it would have upon her."

William Pitt was well accustomed to weighing the opposition, and accomplished at concession when it was clear no other course was available, so he merely bowed and asked Linton how soon he would be able to leave, since it was rumored that the royal family would move to St. Cloud in June and not return to Paris until October.

Justin pondered the question. He and Danielle were planning to leave for Mervanwey at the beginning of June. Should he suggest she go now with her grandparents while he made the journey? Such an arrangement would certainly set his mind at rest, but Danielle would be bound to rebel. There was still something about her that puzzled him, but he could not put his finger on it-an expression he caught when she didn't know he was looking at her, an occasional brittle quality to her joy in their renewed loving. But then she carried the burdens of many these days and he could only relieve her of a few. He would not add to them by taking her to Paris, but the sooner he got her away from London the happier he would be. However, there would be b.l.o.o.d.y enough battle with his wife, anyway. She would feel less left out if she could continue her work in London than if she were packed off to the wilds of Cornwall. He would just have to hope she got into no trouble in his absence.

"Within three days," he informed the prime minister, "you wish me to observe the working of the National a.s.sembly, to hear the voices in the clubs, and, perhaps, to penetrate the Tuileries and mingle with the court?"

"If you can accomplish that much without aid, Justin, I shall be more than satisfied," Pitt responded. "I expect not so much, but whatever you can tell me . . ."

"I am, as always, at your service, sir." Linton made an elegant leg. "If you will excuse me now, I shall make my preparations."

Chatham's lips twitched. He could well imagine the most arduous part of those preparations, having enjoyed an increasingly friendly and informative relations.h.i.+p with the young Countess of Linton in the months since her marriage. Chatham thought it most unlikely that Danielle would view her husband's plans with equanimity.

Had Linton been aware of the greater shock in store for him that evening, he would have viewed the upcoming confrontation as a mere bagatelle. He had agreed to take Danielle to Vauxhall Gardens that evening, an excursion that required considerable sacrifice on his part since he found the place tedious and the crowds quite abominable. But he had found it impossible to resist Danny's coaxing and the flattering declaration that she could not enjoy herself half so much without his presence. It was to be hoped that grat.i.tude at his sacrifice and a thoroughly enjoyable evening would ameliorate the inevitable tantrum.

When he entered his wife's bedchamber before dinner he found a lively scene. Danielle was sitting before her dresser mirror in an underdress of palest pink satin, a wide lace panel threaded with seed pearls running down its center. Jean-Louis, her emigre hairdresser, was arranging the curls in a daringly simple knot on top of her head that left her neck and ears bare and drew instant attention to the outrageous decolletage. Half a dozen young bucks lounged around the chamber in ardent discussion, which broke off at the earl's appearance.

"Ah, milord." Danielle turned instantly to him, ignoring the pained mutter of Jean-Louis, whose delicate endeavors to insert pearl-headed pins in the knot were thus interrupted. "You are just in time to settle an argument."

"Indeed." Linton surveyed the a.s.sembled company with polite interest. "I should be happy to do so, my dear."

"I have decided to wear a patch tonight," she told him, "and no one can decide where it should be placed."

Linton's eyes skimmed over her bosom. He had long given up his husbandly strictures on her neckline; Danielle knew perfectly well what she was about when it came to her clothes. "I cannot imagine why there should be any question," he murmured, taking one of the black silk patches from the tiny box on the dresser and placing it carefully on her right cheekbone.

"The sorceress." Danielle gurgled with laughter. "What think you of My Lord's choice, gentlemen?"

"It is your husband's choice, Lady Danny." Viscount Lancing expressed the collective view with a bow to Linton. "The matter is decided."

Justin watched with well-concealed amus.e.m.e.nt as the young gallants melted from the room. The art of dalliance was one he had enjoyed himself many years ago and he bore these youngsters no ill will for their fascinated admiration of his wife.

"Well," Danielle announced. "Since you have sent my advisers away, you must take on the task single-handed. What perfume shall I wear, milord?"

She used only the most delicate fragrances, never a hint of musk or gardenia. Smiling, Linton took her wrist and applied the scent of freesias before pressing his lips to the pulse point which quickened in the most gratifying fas.h.i.+on. He would have liked to have kissed the wide full mouth curved in a smile of absolute tenderness, but in the presence of Molly and Jean-Louis such a display was unthinkable. Instead, he sat in a brocade armchair and waited until her toilette was completed and Molly carefully slipped a rose pink ballgown over Jean-Louis's simple-appearing creation. The gown had sleeves to the elbow, where lace studded with seed pearls frothed in perfect harmony with the lace panel of the underdress.

"Tu est ravissante, mon amour," Justin whispered as she pirouetted before him. Whatever had happened to his brat? It was most bewildering-one minute she was there and the next she wasn't. But the unpredictability was never less than exciting.

Danielle was entranced by Vauxhall Gardens. For the first half hour she could not help looking anxiously at Justin to see if he was enjoying himself, but her husband, resplendent in sapphire velvet and lace, appeared not at all bored although, on occasion, she surprised a preoccupied frown between the black eyebrows. But it disappeared the instant her eyes met his and she dismissed it for the moment. He had been with the prime minister that afternoon and no doubt had heard some disquieting news. She would discover what in the privacy of the large bed later.

In the pavilion, the earl trod a measure with his wife before losing her to the flock of eager courtiers anxious for her hand. Danielle, however, made her excuses soon enough and returned to his side.

"Do you care to listen to the recital in the concert hall, Justin?"

"I care to do only what you care to do, my love," he responded, replacing a dangerously loose pin in her coiffure.

"Then let us go to the Grecian temple at the end of the Long Walk." Danielle took his hand. "We shall pretend that we are clandestine lovers and you are about to elope with me."

"Could I persuade you to do so, ma'am?"