Jessopp reached out and curled his fingers around his copy of Hellgate’s Memoirs. “You have your uses, Goffe,” he said slowly.
“Damn right I do,” Goffe said, relighting his pipe.
5
From The Earl of Hellgate, Chapter the Second
’Twas a small space, just large enough for the two of us. My heart sank, as there was no place to lie down. A moment later I was introduced to the sweet art of standing fare. She curled her legs around me with all the strength and wiliness of a circus performer. My hands gave her support as if I were made for the chore (and indeed, I think perhaps I was). Then she rode me, Dear Reader; she took me where she pleased.
The Earl of Mayne sauntered up to Josie as if he’d seen her only yesterday, although she’d been in London for two months, and he’d never bothered to say hello to her. She found that intensely irritating. He may be old enough to be her older brother, but he didn’t have to act with a brother’s carelessness.
She resisted the impulse to stick out her tongue at him. There were limits to how much of an older brother he likely wished to be.
“Miss Essex,” he said, bowing as if she were the queen.
She didn’t waste time with pleasantries. “You called me Josephine on the trip to Scotland,” she pointed out.
“Josie, actually. And how are you?”
“Fine,” she said flatly. She liked Mayne, and felt hurt that he had never bothered to see how she was doing in her first season. Even when she became notorious…he must have heard about that. “Aren’t you going to ask me to dance? Because generally your sister Griselda has at least five men arranged who are required to ask me to dance.”
“She must have forgotten to give me my marching orders,” he said easily, handing her a glass of champagne. “Drink this, chérie. You look as if you could use it.”
“Why?” she asked a little wildly. “Because I’m standing here at the ball given for my sister’s wedding, waiting for my prearranged dances to begin? Because I’m—”
“Because you’re growing hysterical,” he observed. “How interesting. I never knew you to be hysterical before.”
She took a deep breath. “Well, I’m very sorry to tell you that I am remarkably tedious company.”
“We all are when we’re wallowing in self-pity,” he said, without a trace of sympathy in his voice.
“You don’t know what it’s like.”
“Thank God I don’t. There’s nothing more monotonous than Almack’s on a hot Wednesday night. Nothing but sweating jackasses and flushed young women trotting about in too many ribbons.”
Josie didn’t know why she’d even wanted Mayne to care about how she was doing. He was a fool, just like the rest of them. She started to look about, because if he wasn’t her designated dancing partner, there was sure to be another old codger limping along in a moment. But then she remembered something. “You’re engaged to be married! I saw you in the church.”
His eyes lit up and for a moment Josie forgave him for not caring about her debut. “I want to introduce you to Sylvie. I am persuaded you will be enchanted by her,” and he took her by the arm and started towing her across the floor.
“Isn’t she French?” Josie asked, hanging back so that he had to walk slowly. Anything was better than standing around looking like a marooned cow missing her herd. “I’m sorry,” she said, coming to a halt, “I don’t remember her surname. I wouldn’t want to meet her without knowing her name.”
“Her name is Sylvie de la Broderie.”
She had to smile at the way Mayne said it. He was so—so adorably beautiful, in a rakish, French kind of way. All that exquisitely tumbled black hair, falling precisely in the most popular of windswept styles. And cheekbones you could cut with. She could see why Annabel and Tess had nearly come to blows over who was going to marry him. “What’s Miss Broderie like?”
“She’s very intelligent. She paints portraits, in miniature. They’re exquisite. She has the skill of a natural artiste, and her father gave her the best tutors in Paris, at least until they fled to this country in 1803. Her father…”
He kept talking about this paragon he’d discovered, pulling her across the room again. He talked just the way that Rafe talked about Imogen, which annoyed Josie.
“But what does she look like?” Josie said, stopping him again.
“Look like?” He blinked at her. “She’s beautiful, of course.”
“Of course,” Josie said, skipping a little to keep up with him. She knew all about Mayne’s reputation for seducing beautiful women. By most accounts he’d had a hundred affairs, though none of them lasted over a fortnight. Not to mention that everyone was saying that he was the model for the Earl of Hellgate.
A moment later Josie was curtsying before Miss de la Broderie, and one thought was foremost in her mind. Everything about Sylvie de la Broderie was exactly as Josie most longed to be. She was slim, of course, and dressed in a gown that was clearly French. Imogen kept telling Josie that clothing construction was all in the seams. Well, Miss de la Broderie’s gown didn’t have any seams. It was made of a sheer material that swept down her body and then swished out around her toes. All around her bosom was exquisite embroidery in silver-gilt thread. A beautiful little twisted tie ran under her breasts and fell down the length of her body.
But it was her face that Josie kept looking at. Mayne was marrying a woman with a perfect face. It was the face of all the heroines in the romantic novels that Josie loved. Sylvie had huge eyes and a laughing mouth, and one beauty mark, just above her crimson lips. She looked—well, she looked utterly confident. Why shouldn’t she be?
Josie curtsied, feeling as dumpy as a bowl of yesterday’s porridge.
“I am enchanted to meet you,” the goddess said with a ravishing French accent. Mayne stood beside her with a gaze of helpless adoration. Without even glancing at him, Miss Broderie waved her fingers in his direction and said, “Mayne, chéri, leave us if you please. I should like to make Miss Essex’s acquaintance.”
And just like that Mayne was gone.
Josie must have shown her astonishment on her face, because Miss Broderie suddenly smiled at her. “You think I am too peremptory with my fiancé, yes?”
“Well, of course not,” Josie said. “That is—”
“Men must be treated with the same courtesy that one treats a good strong farm animal. Firm, yet kind. Now my dear, I have heard all about your disasters.”
Josie swallowed. Of course she had. Everyone had.
Miss Broderie leaned over and said, “Shall we visit the ladies’ retiring room? I assure you, it is quite my favorite place, and in this house there is a beautiful one.”
Josie blinked at her. Over Miss Broderie’s shoulder she could see Timothy Arbuthnot bearing down on them. Timothy was one of her most faithful dance partners; she frequently reminded herself that his four orphaned children did not disqualify him from matrimony. Although his lack of hair might.
Miss Broderie shot a look as well, and then before Josie even knew what had happened, they were slipping through the door into the ladies’ retiring room. Josie never went to those rooms on her own. She knew what went on there. The ladies sat around on little spindly chairs that made her feel like an elephant and talked about who was expecting a proposal of marriage from whom.
When they weren’t gossiping, they were staring in the mirror while powdering their noses, or adjusting their hair, another of Josie’s least favorite activities, right along with being mocked, or sympathetized with. Although she had to say that none of the debutantes she’d met had been unkind, and in truth, they had no reason for malice. She presented no threat whatsoever to their marital ambitions.
Luckily, there wasn’t anyone in the retiring room when they entered, but a second later Josie’s luck ran out because her sister Tess strolled out of the privy chamber. “Josie, darling!” she said, giving an equally large smile to Miss Broderie.
Josie sat down while the two of them curtsied a
nd generally summed each other up. She’d got to know the ritual. Women eyed each other and then quickly decided whether they considered each other worthy. Since Tess was beautiful and married to the second richest man in England, she rather thought that she would pass Miss Broderie’s inspection. And since Miss Broderie was just as beautiful, and engaged to Mayne, it was a friendship made in heaven.
“I have longed to meet you in private,” Miss Broderie was saying. “After all, we share quite a bit, have we not? If I am not mistaken, you are the only other woman whom the Earl of Mayne asked to marry.”
“It was only a matter of a few days,” Tess said hastily. “He didn’t mean anything by it.”
“Of course,” Miss Broderie said. “I completely understand.” She sat down beside Josie. “Please, Mrs. Felton, won’t you sit with us? I just met your beautiful little sister.”
Josie suppressed a snort. She hadn’t looked in the mirror but she knew just what she’d see there: a rigid, plump girl with a face like a moon. The only good thing about her was her posture, and that was because her corset laced from the middle of her shoulders all the way down to her hips.
Tess sat down and took Josie’s hand. “I can think of nothing I’d prefer than sit for a bit. When they talk about carrying a child, no one mentions how much it makes your feet hurt!”
Now they would start chattering about babies, and such; after all, Miss Broderie would likely be having a baby as soon as she married. Lord knows, Annabel was enceinte within a month. But Miss Broderie looked no more than politely interested.
“I have heard that there are some discomforts involved in the—the procedure,” she said, waving her hand.
Josie couldn’t help giggling.
“How have I spoken incorrectly?” Miss Broderie asked.
“It’s charming, Miss Broderie,” Josie said quickly.
“Please, you must both call me Sylvie. After all, I am marrying a man who has so many…ties… to your family.” Her eyes were twinkling. “I am practically an Essex sister myself, don’t you think?”
Tess giggled at that, and Josie laughed outright.
“You’d have to be Scottish instead of French,” Tess pointed out.
Sylvie shuddered. “Never. I am the French part of your lost family stick.”
“Family tree,” Josie said.
“Precisely. And as the French branch on that tree, I propose that we do something about Josephine’s unfortunate situation. Mayne told me about it and—”
Just like that, Josie stopped laughing. Mayne had talked about her? To Sylvie?
“I have heard of something like it in Paris,” Sylvie was saying. “It was some years ago, you understand, before Father became disenchanted with all the unpleasantness there—” and with a wave of her hand, she referred to the troubles that had presumably taken the lives of many of her acquaintances.
Josie had to get out of the room. It was bad enough that her sisters and Griselda considered her a pitiful case, and that her brothers-in-law had given her a dowry, just to lure a husband. It was—enough. “I’m sorry,” she said stonily, rising from her chair. “I must have forgotten—”
“Sit, please,” Sylvie said. Her voice had ten times the authority of Josie’s former governess. “Life is, you understand, young Josephine, full of these humiliations. Absolutely ripe with them. You must learn to swim the wave, do you understand? Turn everything these fools are saying back on themselves.”
Tess had obviously fallen under the enemy spell because she pulled Josie back onto her chair. “She’s right. The whole situation could switch in the blink of an eyelid.”
“I would wake up to find myself the most marriageable woman in London,” Josie said, hearing the grating desolation in her voice and not knowing how to hide it. “I find that truly hard to believe.”
“I believe that most things in life are within our control,” Sylvie said. “Now, is there any particular man whom you would wish to marry, Josephine?”
“You might as well call me Josie,” Josie said ungraciously. “And—well, I just want—”
“Josie has a list,” Tess said. “Do you remember what’s on your list, darling?”
“Why bother? There’s no question of narrowing the field of my admirers.”
“A list is an excellent idea. I myself had just such a list when I selected Mayne,” Sylvie said.
“You did?” Josie asked. “May I ask what was on your list?”
“A great deal of money. A title, because I was born into the French nobility and it is too late for me not to care about such things.”
“Do you sympathize with the revolutionaries?” Josie asked with some fascination.
“My feelings are divided. In the beginning my father was young and idealistic. We moved to Paris and he became Napoleon’s finance minister. But then the corruption…the nepotism…We fled in the night. My mother never shared my father’s hopes. She loathed the revolutionaries because they killed, and so brutally, many people whom she loved. Luckily, my father saw the direction of the wind, and brought us all here a year or so before war was declared again. But of course, there were those people we knew who did not survive.”
Tess made a sympathetic noise.
“The people had little to eat under the old system,” Sylvie said, with a little Gallic shrug that said volumes. “But this is a gloomy subject, and will make us all more miserable than we deserve to be.”
Tess grinned at that. “So there is a degree of deserving misery, then?”
“Of course! These foolish men who have spread rumors about our Josephine, they are deserving much misery. Much. Do you know them, Mrs. Felton?”
“You must call me Tess; after all, we are nearly sisters,” she said with a mischievous smile. And then sobered. “The ringleader is a man named Darlington, and I have never met him, to the best of my knowledge. Apparently, he is a second or third son, I don’t remember which, to the Duke of Bedrock.”
“Bedrock’s surname is Darlington?” Sylvie said. “A charming name for such a one as this.”
“I’ve seen him,” Josie said. “He’s very good-looking, all yellow curls and blue eyes.”
“I suppose we could have someone seduce him,” Sylvie said thoughtfully. “Men are so amenable in the first days of love. I have noted it innumerable times.”
“It’s a shame that Annabel is married; she would take to the task immediately,” Josie said.
“Another sister?” Sylvie asked. “Do you realize the legendary reputation the four of you have gained amongst the ton? I heard about you the very moment I arrived for the season. Four exquisite Scotswomen who took London by storm and scooped up all the available bachelors.”
“I’m afraid that our happiness in marriage may in itself have led to Josie’s uncomfortable experience,” Tess pointed out.
“The contrast is just too great,” Josie said, striving for a careless tone. “Between myself and my sisters, I mean.”
“You are just as beautiful,” Sylvie said. “It is simply your misfortune to follow such remarkable successes. You must expect a certain grumpiness amongst those Englishmen who were not chosen by your sisters.”
The door opened and Josie’s chaperone, Lady Griselda, poked her head in. “Oh darling,” she said, “there you are! Timothy Arbuthnot has been looking for you with a veritably desperate air.”
“I like it better here,” Josie said. In truth, it was the first time all day that she had felt happy.
Griselda raised a delicate eyebrow. “In that case, I shall join you, if I may.” She smiled at Sylvie. Obviously, Josie thought rather grumpily, Mayne’s choice of wife pleased everyone.
Well, who could not like Sylvie?
She was laughing with Griselda now. Griselda had apparently encountered Lady Margaret Cavendish, whose hair—according to Griselda—had changed color. “She’s yellow as a marigold,” Griselda was saying. “Actually the color of burnt marmalade, if you know what I mean.”
“And what hair had she
last week?” Sylvie wanted to know.
“Brown,” Griselda said decisively. “I can’t imagine how she did it.”
“They have all sorts of potions that will dye one’s hair,” Josie said. “Don’t you remember how Papa used to encounter dyed horses at shows occasionally, Tess?” She didn’t add that their own father was quite adept at dyeing a horse black, in order to make him a more attractive candidate for sale.
“We are discussing who should seduce this objectionable person,” Sylvie said, “this Darlington, and now of course I know precisely who should do it.”
“Do what?” Griselda said.
“Make Darlington fall in love,” Sylvie said. “You, chérie. You are the one.”
“What?” Griselda blinked at her future sister-in-law.
Josie almost giggled. Apparently Sylvie was not a good judge of character. Griselda was certainly beautiful enough to seduce Darlington or anyone else, given her pale blond curls and lush figure. But after being widowed some ten or eleven years previous, Griselda had not indulged in even the slightest indiscretion. Her reputation was, in her brother Mayne’s rather acid summary, a thing of snowy wonder that made her a terrible foil to his exploits.
“You must seduce this Darlington,” Sylvie said patiently. “We need the man silenced, and I’m sure it won’t be difficult for you. Why, Josie reports that he is good-looking. And yellow-haired. The two of you will be exquisite together.”
“I don’t wish to have anything to do with that poisonous viper,” Griselda said. “And I know precisely what he thinks of me. He told Mrs. Graham that I was unattractively chaste.”
“Then he meant precisely the opposite,” Sylvie said. “If you were not quite so chaste, you would be enormously attractive. And Griselda, surely you do not need us to create some compliments for you?” She waved at the glass, and all four women instinctively looked at Griselda’s reflection. “Guardez!”