Love Charade Part 21

"D'accord." Danny shrugged and returned the small weapon to her pocket. "Now you know my story, Jules, and you will breathe not a word, on your honor?"

"I will not pledge my honor, Danny." Julian was suddenly serious. "If you should disappear when you are on one of these ridiculous journeys, you could not expect me to say nothing."

"No, of course not, but such an event is most unlikely. But I cannot tell Justin because he will forbid it and then I shall refuse to do his bidding and we shall really be in the basket, n'est-ce pas?"

"Without doubt." Julian nodded gloomily. However indulgent his cousin was of Danielle's peculiarities, there was a line he would draw eventually. So far these two had continued to avoid a major battle with a delicate dance of compromise, but Justin would never accept Danielle's present activities-not necessarily because they were indecorous, although they were certainly that, but because they were dangerous.

"I have made you my confidant and as such have made you miserable." Danielle was suddenly all smiles as she took his hands. "You will not concern yourself about this, tu comprends, Jules?"

"I will try," he said, unable to resist the infectious chuckle. "But if you are in difficulty, you will call upon me. You give me your word."

"You have it, mon ami. Now, I must dress. We are to go to the opera tonight and I think we have dinner guests. In fact, I am sure that we do." Danielle pulled a face. "Justin's mama and several of her friends. The women are all cats and the men fuddy-duddies, but I must appear demure and correct. So you will excuse me."

Julian made his way back to his lodgings on Albermale Street, his mind much exercised by Danielle's revelation. He had the most uncomfortable feeling that he was duty bound to attempt to call a halt to her wanderings, but how to do that without involving Justin? And he could not break a confidence. Perhaps he should talk to D'Evron, put it to him that he could not in honor involve the Countess of Linton in these dangerous waters . . . Yes, Julian decided, that was the correct if not the only course of action available to him.

He ran D'Evron to earth later that evening at White's. The chevalier was playing piquet with the elderly Lord Maulfrey. There was no sign of Linton, fortunately, but he would be escorting his party to the opera and safely out of the way for some hours.

Julian strolled over to the piquet table, greeting the two men with a disarming smile. "A word with you, D'Evron, when you are finished playing?"

If the chevalier was surprised at this request from a bare acquaintance, there was no indication on the thin face. "At your service, Lord Julian."

Julian joined the macao table where Sir Anthony Fanshawe held the bank. "Do you care to take my place, Jules?" A young buck tossed a pile of guineas on the table and arose with a world-weary sigh. "The cards have the devil in 'em tonight."

"I thank you, Markham, but the luck's not running well for me, either. I'll watch the play."

Sir Anthony shot his friend a quick look. Jules enjoyed play as a rule, although he never lost his head, but he was looking unwonted serious this evening.

When D'Evron rose from the piquet table he found Julian Carlton waiting to catch his eye. He nodded imperceptibly and the two men walked together out of the salon. "You have business with me?" the chevalier asked in a low voice.

"D'ye care to accompany me to my lodgings? I've an excellent brandy."

They walked through the streets in silence, each deep in his own thoughts but both aware of nighttime dangers. They carried swordsticks and walked in the center of the narrow lanes, eyes alert for footpads.

"Cognac, D'Evron?" Julian's lodgings were comfortable, bespeaking the affluence of a young bachelor who had never had to concern himself with income. D'Evron accepted with a gracious bow and looked around the well-appointed sitting room. They had been greeted by an elderly manservant who had accepted his dismissal with the dour injunction that His Lords.h.i.+p not dip too deep into the cognac. Julian had merely laughed and explained, as the chevalier had already guessed, that Graves had been with him since he was in short coats. They were a lucky breed, these English aristos, the chevalier reflected.

"You wish to talk to me of Danny, Lord Julian?" The chevalier was some fifteen years older than his host and judged it were time to initiate matters.

"Of Lady Linton, yes," Julian stated in dignified accents.

The chevalier showed no signs of discomfiture at this frozen reprimand and Jules sighed. "She has told me the whole, D'Evron, and it will not do. She went to the Eastgate alone this afternoon in a common chair . . . If Linton were to hear of it." Julian shuddered. "It is dangerous, chevalier, and you must cease to involve her."

"It is, indeed, dangerous." D'Evron sipped his cognac. "However, my lord, Danny is more than capable of handling such dangers. I have seen her do so."

Julian thought of the pistol. "That may be so, but prowling around the backslums rescuing indentured servants is no suitable activity for the Countess of Linton."

"Perhaps the countess should be allowed to decide that for herself," the chevalier said quietly.

"If you did not involve her, that would not be necessary."

"On the contrary, sir. Danny is now so deeply involved of her own accord that there is little I could do to prevent her. I freely admit my initial guilt, but she now works alone. We communicate, certainly, but her name is now well known to those we serve and she may be called upon without my knowledge. She does what she considers best."

"And Linton?"

"The earl's feelings are not my concern." D'Evron spoke firmly. "Danny and I are equal partners in this venture and she takes her own risks. She would not have it otherwise and her presence is needed far too much for me to play careful courtier even if she were to allow me to do so. Maybe, you do not know her too well, my lord. I would not dare to attempt to impose limits on her activities."

"Linton would. And that is what concerns me." Julian refilled his gla.s.s. "It is also what concerns Danny. Do I make any sense, D'Evron?"

"You do, but Danny will make her own choices. She knows what she is doing and has chosen to deceive her husband. She is no naive chit, Julian."

"No, but she is young." Julian persevered, although he knew the battle was lost.

"Young in years, perhaps, but not in experience." The chevalier placed his gla.s.s on the table. "I sympathize, but there is nothing I can do. Danny has confided in you and what you decide to do with the confidence is your decision."

"What the deuce can I do with it?" Jules exclaimed. "I'm not about to bear tales to Linton, although he'll have my hide if he ever finds out."

D'Evron smiled. "And mine also, I fear, my lord."

"Yes, by G.o.d." Julian refilled their gla.s.ses gloomily. "Let us drink to concealment, D'Evron."

It was a most dissatisfied Lord Carlton who retired to bed somewhat under the hatches in the early hours of the morning. If Danny could be persuaded to accept his protection on her missions of mercy then maybe all was not lost, but his powers of persuasion seemed lamentably lacking these days and his cousin-in-law was a d.a.m.nably stubborn creature.

Chapter 12.

"I do not quite understand you, Beatrice." Danielle looked at her sister-in-law directly, her eyes hard and cold.

Lady Beatrice dropped her own gaze into her satin lap. But she was here at the instigation of Mama and must do her duty by her brother's wife however unpleasant that duty. "Danielle, my dear, I wish merely to put you on your guard. It is best that you hear these things from a member of your family than from a gossip's tongue. Mama feels that if you are aware of what is being said about Linton then you will be better able to ignore it. It is not unusual, my love, and the wise wife turns a blind eye. If you react in public, it will be considered disgraceful want of conduct."

"You mean, I take it, that should someone be so kind as to inform me that my husband has taken up with his former mistress, I might scratch the cat's eyes out. You would be right, my sister." Danielle smiled sweetly-a shark's smile that caused Lady Beatrice to fear for her own eyes. But incautiously she persevered, mindful of her mother's instructions.

"Danielle, you must not take it hard. Justin is a great deal older than you; it is not to be expected that he will live forever in your pocket. A man has needs that a wife cannot satisfy, particularly a mere child. Why, even my own Bedlington has his little adventures." She laughed airily. "They do not worry me."

"If I were to be bedded with Lord Bedlington, they would not worry me, either. I should be glad of the respite," Danny said brutally.

Her sister-in-law's color changed, became puce, then deathly white and puce again. "How dare you!" Her voice shook.

"Well, how dare you?" Danielle snapped back. "I am, as it happens, well aware that my husband holds Lady Mainwairing in friends.h.i.+p. She has asked his advice on a delicate family matter and he has been good enough to a.s.sist her. Now, I suggest you leave because I should warn you that I am about to lose my temper. You may tell your mama that I am suitably grateful for her solicitude but should be more grateful if she would allow me to mind my own affairs." She stood up and hauled on the bellpull. "Lady Bedlington is leaving," she informed Bedford curtly.

Beatrice left without another word, her back stiff, mouth set. Never had she been so humiliated and by an ill-mannered babe to boot. What had happened to her urbane brother that he should take to wife such a wild creature, with no sense of propriety? How could she have said such an unpardonable thing? The fact that Danielle had hit the nail on the head with her caustic animadversions on the s.e.xual attractions of Lord Bedlington only added fuel to the lady's ire.

Justin became painfully aware of the estrangement existing between his wife and his family when, in response to an urgent summons from his mother, he appeared in South Street to be coldly informed by the dowager countess that, while she would not, of course, cut Danielle in public, private social intercourse between them must now cease. His wife had been unpardonably rude to Beatrice and by extension to herself. She refused to tell him the issue and his sister, when questioned, had a fit of hysterics that required smelling salts and a mountain of cambric handkerchiefs to stem the flood. Justin, resisting with difficulty the urge to slap his sister back to her senses, bowed curtly and left. His brother-in-law, when accosted, could throw no light on the situation and managed to convey to Justin with much hemming, hawing, and humphing that his peace was quite cut up. The house was in an uproar and Beatrice burst into tears whenever she saw him. What was a man to do with a household of hysterical women, for G.o.d's sake, except go to his club?

Justin had scant sympathy for his brother-in-law at the best of times and none at all at this moment. He said coldly that if Bedlington chose to have his life made a misery by a pair of nagging women that was his affair. Linton did not.

Danielle, however, had some explaining to do and he strode back to Linton House in search of those explanations. He was not mollified by finding his wife closeted in the library with the Chevalier d'Evron. There was a strained look to her eyes that reminded him forcibly of those early days and did nothing for his temper.

D'Evron took his leave instantly with a courteous bow to Justin and a most elegant leg for Danielle, whose responding curtsy was impeccably formal.

"That man is always here," Justin stated with unusual irritability, pouring himself a gla.s.s of Madeira.

Danielle looked at him in surprise. "Do you object, Justin?"

"Do I have cause to?" he snapped.

"Oh, do not be absurd. What has put you out of temper?"

"I have just spent an unpleasant hour being informed by my mother and sister that they wish to have no further contact with you outside the inevitable social meetings. Why?" He turned to face her and drew a sharp breath at what he saw. She was rigid with fury, her lips a thin line.

"I suggest you ask them, my lord."

"I have done so. Since they will not tell me, you will. I am not prepared to find myself in the midst of hysterical feuding women. What did you do?"

"I did nothing." Danielle could not believe that Justin was accusing her of initiating things. He always took her part and in this instance should be doing so even more. "Your interfering sister, at the instigation of your mother, took it upon herself to give me some advice and information that was quite uncalled-for and prompted only by mischief. I encouraged her to leave the house." Since Justin had neglected to pour her a gla.s.s, she took up the decanter of Madeira, but her hands were shaking so much that she put it down again.

"I do beg your pardon." Justin filled her gla.s.s. "Danny, will you tell me what was said?"

"No," she stated flatly, taking a steadying sip of the tawny wine. "If you wish to know, you must find out from your sister. I am no talebearer. Does it not occur to you that her reluctance to tell you herself might be to do with your possible reactions? She holds you in some considerable awe. I have no desire to be private with either your mother or your sister so the arrangement suits me very well. You have my a.s.surance that I will show all due respect in public. Now, if you will excuse me, I am having luncheon with Lady Graham and I must change my dress." She was gone in a swirl of muslin before Justin could recover his wits sufficiently to prevent her.

He stood nonplussed for a few moments as he accepted with a slow, rueful grin that he had lost that encounter, and he had lost it because he had attempted to deal with a child and been met with the dignified anger of a woman. Danielle's code of honor was absolute, as well he knew from experience. If she was not going to tell him then he'd best accept that fact. There was no question as to whose side he was on, even without the facts, so he must simply resign himself to the cold war until it petered out. It would do so eventually.

Danielle maintained a rigorous silence as Molly helped her to change. Molly knew the signs of Milady's anger well enough by now, just as she knew it was not directed at her. She kept her own tongue still, therefore, serenely going about her tasks, ignoring the snapping eyes and the impatience when Molly's fingers slipped on a tiny cloth-covered b.u.t.ton. She was rewarded with a smile and a quick kiss as Danielle prepared to leave. "Bless you, Molly. I don't know how you put up with me."

The statement made no sense at all to the servant who set about tidying the room in the knowledge that no one could have a better position than hers. The countess was generous to a fault, never unjust and, on occasion, treated Molly as she would a best friend.

But Danielle was miserable. However much she tried to deny it, Beatrice's words had sown the seeds of doubt in a trusting soul. Justin had told her about Edward Mainwairing and it had not occurred to her to question the truth of his explanation. It did not do so now, but like a bee sting embedded in her flesh, the thought throbbed-if he is spending so much time with the woman who had been his lover for five long years, how could he resist the temptation? Society would regard the infidelity with a benign eye. Danielle's intolerance, on the other hand, would be heavily censured. She was a wife only-the property of her-husband with no rights, either legal or personal. And she should be grateful that she was not abused, not required to account for every penny spent, not treated with the indifference her lord might accord a chair or a piece of china. Danielle, growing up in the male-oriented house of de St. Varennes, knew the pain and indignity callously inflicted on her s.e.x without retribution or concern. And this London society was no better; more hypocritical, if anything, since such cruelties occurred in private, were privately condoned under the blind eye of a woman's lot.

Danielle saw pitying glances now wherever she went, eyes hastily averted as she came into a room, voices suddenly lowered or raised in bright small talk at her approach. She tried to ignore them, tried to persuade herself that they were a product of her overactive imagination, but the poison seeped into her pores. She had been too full of joy and love in the very early days of her marriage to recognize the barely concealed signs of envy, and was now unable to recognize the pleasurable malice as Society saw a minute crack in the fabric of the Linton's marriage and proceeded to take hammer and chisel to create a yawning crevice.

The Earl of Linton was seen going in and out of the house on Half Moon Street at all hours of the day and night and the little de St. Varennes could lose her complacence and join the ranks. How could an eighteen-year-old chit expect to hold the interest of a thirty-five-year-old who had been on the town for seventeen years? The sooner she gave Linton an heir and settled down in resignation, the happier she would be. A nursery full of brats would keep her occupied and take her mind off such frivolous nonsense as a love match.

Danielle struggled in grim silence. She was as bright and cheerful as ever, publicly as happy in her husband's company as always. Only in private did Justin notice the withdrawal which was almost always followed by a pa.s.sionate hunger that for a while slaked his growing unease. His brat was growing up, he told himself firmly whenever she had a reason for not partic.i.p.ating in a treat he had planned, or preferred to take tea with a group of matrons rather than ride with him. It was right that she should do so, cease to be the giddy exuberant girl; his outrageous brat of the sharp tongue and quick impulses. But in the constant presence of Danielle, Justin missed Danny.

It was a beautiful April night when the last nail hammered into the coffin and Danielle gave up the pretense. She had retreated, overly full of lemonade, to the retiring room at Almack's where she was in the process of wrestling with her skirts and the commode behind a worked screen, when two elderly dowagers entered the room to collapse on a sofa before the open window and fan themselves and, incidentally, the smoldering fires of Danielle's confusion.

"Pon my soul, Almera, but I was like to swoon when I heard news of that marriage." The dowager d.u.c.h.ess of Avonley tried to adjust her stays, which were pinching like the devil. "Just fancy Linton takes the mother as mistress and the daughter to wife. I wonder whether it was the Rockford or the de St. Varennes that appealed." She wheezed with laughter and Danielle froze behind the screen.

"Louise was beautiful." Lady Almera sighed in fond reminiscence. "She had not an easy time of it with the de St. Varennes. No one could blame her for taking pleasure when it came."

"Nor young Linton." The dowager fanned herself vigorously. "D'ye think the child knows, Almera?"

"Linton's a man of sense," her companion answered as if such a question were ridiculous. "What's it to the chit, anyway?"

"Why nothing, of course. She cannot expect a man seventeen years older than herself to be without a past . . . but her own mother! 'Tis monstrous amusing, Almera, d'ye not think?"

Clearly Lady Almera did, judging by the cackle of laughter that reached Danielle, rigid behind the screen. She straightened her skirts and with head held high moved into the room. "Good evening, your grace, Lady Almera." She paused for a moment to check her coiffure in the mirror, threw them both a tiny smile, and returned to the ballroom.

"Jules, I do not feel quite the thing. Will you escort me home?" The request was whispered but none the less urgent and Lord Julian looked at his cousin-in-law with concern.

"Immediately. Do you have the headache?"

"A little." She smiled wanly. "It is too hot, Jules."

"Devilish hot," he agreed. Since when had Danny found a ballroom to be too hot? "I will procure your carriage."

When he set her down outside Linton House she refused his escort inside, pleading the headache that she must instantly take to bed and Julian, perforce, was obliged to agree. It was but eleven and Linton would not return for some time. He had said he was dining with friends but Danielle, in a world turned topsy-turvey, no longer knew what to believe. It was rumored that her husband was again the lover of Margaret Mainwairing and she had just heard from people who had no knowledge of her presence that he had been her mother's lover. There had been ample opportunity for him to tell her that and he had not done so. How could she then trust?

Danielle found that she had no difficulty accepting the fact that her husband and her mother had once been lovers. She lay in her darkened chamber and thought. It was a peculiar circ.u.mstance, certainly, but no more than that. Justin must have been barely a man at that time and she herself a nothing in eternity-unconceived and unthought of. But he had not told her and if he could not tell her such a fundamental fact how much more would he keep secret?

When Justin came home he found his wife apparently asleep, her breathing even in the dark room. She had been looking fatigued just recently and was in sore need of an undisturbed night. He tiptoed from the room to seek a lonely bed next door. As the door closed, Danielle buried her face in the pillows, m.u.f.fling the sound of her sobs.

She awoke the next morning after a few broken hours of sleep, quietly determined. If Justin chose to play Society's game then would she also. She would be his wife, his hostess, would manage his households, but she would be no willing playmate. She would not refuse him her body when he required it, but neither would she offer it. He could take his pleasure from Margaret Mainwairing.

Danielle sipped her hot chocolate, propped up against a fluffy mountain of pillows and read the billets doux scattered over the satin spread. Ordinarily, the effusive notes would have amused her and she would have shared their contents with Justin, calling through the connecting door as he attended to his morning toilette. This morning she pushed them aside with a desultory hand and concentrated instead on her plans for the day. There was work to be done with a family lodged near St. Paul's and she was in fair mood to wage battle.

"I will get up," she announced to Molly, throwing aside the bedcovers. "A riding habit, I care not which one."

When Justin appeared, expecting to find his wife pink and pearly beneath the covers ready to exchange accounts of their separate evenings, he found only a brisk lady in riding dress who proffered her cheek for his morning salute, laughed brightly, and said she was already late for her appointment. He bowed her from the room and returned to his own chamber to exchange the brocade dressing gown for morning dress, a deep frown creasing his brow.

Things went from bad to worse. Danielle suffered from an inordinate number of headaches that necessitated her early retirement of an evening and Justin, faced with the pale face, smudged eyes, and clearly effortful smile, could not doubt her excuse. After the second week he probed gently and received only a listless response. There was nothing the matter with her, only she would be glad when the Season was over. But when he suggested they go to Danesbury for a se'enight she was full of protestations. How could they miss the d.u.c.h.ess of Richmond's ridotto? And besides she had a host of other engagements ...

He had capitulated with apparent serenity and attempted to court his wife, arranging elaborate surprises, on one occasion waking her at five o'clock in the morning to tell her to don her britches because they were riding to Richmond where they could gallop without fear of prying eyes and sharp tongues. She had complied, but with such lack of enthusiasm that Justin felt as if he had received a glove in his face. After that, he left her alone. She was always polite, never turned him from her bed, but he found he had no stomach for the pa.s.sive body beneath him, obedient to her conjugal duty. Rea.s.suring himself that Danielle was going through a period of adjustment that had been inevitable-her past experiences bore no relation to her present and she must at some point reconcile the two-Justin made the biggest mistake of his life and countenanced her withdrawal.

They became polite strangers, meeting by accident on the staircase, exchanging small talk over the dinner table. Justin returned to his bachelor existence and his wife played her part, surrounded by admirers, the very soul of gaiety, except that she was becoming thin and the brown eyes huge in the small face. She was also seen much in the company of D'Evron.

More often than not, though, she ventured alone into the backslums to deal, with an icy tongue and a handful of guineas, with the exploiters. The Countess of Linton was now well known and urgent notes reached her daily, scribbled in hasty French on sc.r.a.ps of paper with the blunted end of a quill pen. Danielle responded to them all and by so doing managed to push her marital problems into the background. She had a job to do and a purpose to fulfill and the triviality of London's Season rapidly lost all appeal. Nevertheless, she took her part in the round of b.a.l.l.s and a.s.semblies, ever gay, ever flirtatious, never a crack showing in the public facade.

Justin endured in stolid silence, certain that he was doing the right thing. The child and the woman would come together eventually, and he must stand aside. He ached with loneliness but kept the ache well concealed.

Early one rainy afternoon, returning from his club with a piece of scurrilous gossip that he hoped might amuse Danielle, he was informed that My Lady had not left her bedchamber today. Much puzzled he mounted the stairs and entered his wife's room without ceremony. At first it appeared empty as well as cold and dismal. There was no fire in the grate, no lighted candles, and the rain beat desolately against the windows.

"Go away," a voice muttered peevishly from the bed. Danielle was visible only as a small curled mound, just the tip of her wheat-gold head appearing above the coverlet.

"What is it, Danny? Are you ill?" He crossed anxiously to the bed.

"No. Go away. I just want to be alone," the same voice grumbled crossly.