A Rose in Splendor (34 page)

“Plague me no longer with that threat,” Deirdre snapped. “I do not believe you know where he is to be found. I think you deceived me in order to make this journey.”

“Sure’n, I wouldn’t have missed so grand a time for anything!” Fey shot back caustically.

Deirdre turned to the girl, ready to answer her barb for barb, but one look at Fey made her pause. Fey’s bonnet was powdered with dust, as was her woolen cloak. The weather was bitterly cold, and she knew her own face must be as pinched and her lips as blue as Fey’s. They were cold, travel-sore, and weary beyond imagining. No wonder they were at each other’s throats.

“We’re nearly there,” Deirdre said in a conciliatory tone. “Everything will seem better when we’ve had a decent meal and the warmth of a fire to melt the stiffness in our bones.”

She reached out to pat the girl’s arm but Fey drew back. “Keep yer words and hands to yerself. I’ll nae soon be forgetting ye called me a liar!”

With a sigh, Deirdre turned away. Some things were better left alone. She had far more pressing problems to solve. Unconsciously her hand tightened on the cloth-wrapped package inside the fur muff on her lap. She was in Paris. What now?

She had concocted many fine reasons to persuade her stepmother to agree to the journey, among them a letter from Conall inviting her to Paris. He was not, however, as she had suggested in the forged letter, open to the idea of accompanying her to Liscarrol. Nor had he found an honest
man to take the job as Liscarrol’s steward. In fact, he had
no
knowledge of her arrival in Paris. Anyone with a bit of guile would have seen through the ruse. But Lady Elva was too preoccupied with her confinement to look for lies.

Deirdre closed her eyes, knowing what to expect. It was
so simple. Each time she closed her eyes on this journey, MacShane was there, waiting for her just behind the veil of consciousness.

In her mind’s eye, his harsh features were made softer by desire. His mane of black hair had been brushed and curled, falling in smooth waves onto his shoulders. His smile intrigued her. As always, she felt a slow warmth spread through her from breast to belly as she concentrated on his mouth. It held a promise of a pleasure she had known for the space of a few short hours. She had tasted those firm lips, had felt their touch on her face, her shoulders, her breasts. She was not ignorant of bliss and the knowledge was a torment.

To be with Killian MacShane again, that was why she had come to Paris.

“Shall I ring, miss?” the footman asked when the coach had halted before the small house and he had jumped down from his perch.

Deirdre lifted the curtain and peered out. This was the place that Conall and Darragh had often told her would be the perfect place for her to stay if she ever visited Paris. It looked nothing like the charming townhouse that they had described. Rain fell in a waterfall over the porch from the slate roof, and heavy drapes at the windows obscured whatever light and warmth there might be inside.

“Aye, we are expected,” Deirdre answered, but she felt less confident than she sounded.

To her relief the door opened almost instantly upon the footman’s knock; and after a brief exchange of words, he came hurrying toward the carriage with a smile.

Minutes later, she stood frowning before the fire in a small, sparsely furnished but scrupulously clean room.

“Will ye nae eat then? ’Tis little enough that can be said for the French but they cook a fair meal,” Fey remarked as she buttered a slice of the bread they had been given with their meal.

“I’m not hungry.” Deirdre held her hands to the fire, her frown deepening. The hiring of the coach for the journey had cost her a goodly sum. The cost of lodgings had surprised her. Evidently, what Conall considered modest prices were far different from her own estimation. At these rates, she could not afford to stay here more than a week. That was little time in which to find a man in a strange city. Fey must be persuaded to act as quickly as possible.

“We must begin searching for MacShane in the morning,” she said without glancing back over her shoulder.

“I do not know if ’twill be possible,” Fey answered with a mouthful. “Me memory is still clouded.”

Deirdre tamped down her impatience. “When do you feel that your memory will clear?”

Fey shrugged. She had exchanged her travel gown for a new wool gown and was feeling quite pleased with herself. After all, she had tricked Lady Deirdre into making the trip to Paris, a place she had heard about but never seen, and now she was within reach of MacShane. She could tell him that the lady was in town, but she would not do it until she had seen him, talked with him, and determined that he still wanted the lady. After all, Fey had seen how easily men were distracted by a pretty face. And she had grown these last months, was beginning to fill out in places that would be of interest to a man. “I need to rest, regain me strength. In a few days, ’twill be about then, I’d say.”

Deirdre turned about to face her. “In a few days, my lass, you’ll be seeking lodgings on your own. The money is nearly gone, and we have traveled a great distance.” She took a step toward the girl, her patience slipping as worry and fatigue and hunger took their toll on her nerves. “If you have deceived me, if you have lied and dissembled, I will—will turn you over my knee and skelp you!”

Fey’s hand paused midway between her plate and her mouth. She was not afraid of the threat, merely astonished by it. Then resentment reared up within her. “Ye cannot do that. I’ll run away. Then what will ye do without me help?”

Deirdre’s shoulders dropped in defeat. She put a hand to her throbbing head and closed her eyes. She was tired, too tired to argue. “I’m going to bed,” she murmured and turned away

Fey sat a long time after she had finished her meal, staring at the lovely lady who lay asleep in the bed in the corner of the room. She had been unkind. She squirmed in her chair, disliking the pricking of her conscience. She thought about apologizing but she knew the words would not come out right. No, there was only one way she could atone for her spite.

Without waiting for morning, she reached for her heavy woolen cloak, flung it about her shoulders, and slipped out the door.

*

Deirdre gazed up at the impressive facade of the grand chateau in trepidation. She glanced again at the paper in her hand to be certain she had not made a mistake. The address provided in the note Fey had given her that morning had meant nothing to her. She had been too shaken, delighted, and pleased to receive a note from Killian MacShane’s own hand to think of anything but the fact that she was to meet him at seven in the evening. But this!

The house at 23 Chaussee d’Antin was really a palace. Inside the golden gates, the carriageway turned from cobblestone to marble. The steps of the house itself led to gilded double doors carved in rococco fashion. Before the footman who accompanied her could alight and announce her arrival, the huge doors opened and a splendidly liveried doorman rushed down the steps to open the door of her carriage.

“Mademoiselle Fitzgerald?” he inquired politely, his accent mauling her name.

“
Oui
,”
she answered and accepted the hand he offered to assist her. Since she was expected, then Killian must be here. Fey had informed her with a broad smile that Killian was flourishing under the patronage of a member of the “Sun King’s” court, but she had not suspected that his largess included a palatial dwelling.

The anteroom was hung with heavy sky-blue silk, the paneling intricately carved. But she was not allowed to
linger there. The doorman turned her over to a footman in matching livery, and she was led up a flight of marble stairs to a pair of doors cleverly concealed in a mural that portrayed Louis XIV as Zeus upon Olympus. Unease moved within her as the doors were opened. Something was wrong. Killian could not be master of this splendor. Who was?

The huge octagonal room into which she stepped was draped in vivid sapphire silk interspersed with gold cloth drapery and carved wood.

“Mademoiselle Fitzgerald, your grace,” the footman announced before closing the door behind himself.

At first Deirdre thought the room unoccupied, but then she saw the woman at the end of the salon. She sat on a gilded chair whose ornate back spread out behind her like a peacock’s tail. In a sapphire silk gown, the skirts of which billowed out onto the pink marble floor like a great sea-wave, she sat with her hands folded and her eyes closed. Sapphires and diamonds of every size and cut glittered at her throat, her ears, her wrists, and fingers.

“Come in, mademoiselle,” the lady said without opening her eyes.

Deirdre moved closer until she could see the lady more clearly and what she saw made her shiver.

The lady’s face had once been beautiful; lily-white skin still stretched seamlessly over the elegant bones of one side of her face. A cruel lash had cut the left side of her face from hairline to mid-cheek.

Before Deirdre could compose her features, the lady suddenly tilted her head forward and opened her eyes and Deirdre could not still a gasp of amazement.

The lady’s left eye was missing, and in its place was a glass orb set with a huge sapphire where her iris should have been.

The lady smiled. “Did I startle you, child?”

Remembering that the footman had addressed this woman as “your grace,” Deirdre sank in a curtsy. “Forgive me for disturbing you, my lady. I am here at the request of Captain MacShane.”

“Rise, child,” the duchess said, her voice as cool as the night air.

Deirdre rose, keeping her eyes averted from the lady’s face.

“MacShane has not yet returned. Will you not favor a lonely woman with your company?
Alors
.
Does my ugliness revolt you?”

Deirdre looked up into the lady’s face, quelling the trepidation she felt in staring at the cold sapphire eye. “You are not ugly, my lady. Indeed, you must once have been a beauty without comparison.”

“You are too generous,
chérie
.
But then I like generosity in youth. They have so much, do they not? Energy and hope; ah, to recapture what you have. That would be worth the loss of more than an eye.”

The duchesse’s gaze flickered over the younger woman as though taking in her appearance for the first time when, in fact, she had been observing her through her lashes from the first. “You wear black well. I would have expected it to dull your hair, but it sets if off like spun gold against ebony. I would counsel you, however, to exchange those dreary pearls for diamonds. A gentleman prefers a little ice with his fire.”

The condescending tone rankled, and Deirdre forgot a little of her nervousness as she said, “You have the advantage of me, my lady. I am Deirdre Fitzgerald, daughter of the late Lord Fitzgerald of Liscarrol, County Cork.”

“That would be Ireland,
n’est-ce pas
?
You are in mourning, I presume. My sincere regrets. I, child, am the Duchesse de Luneville. You know of me certainly.”

“No, your grace, I did not know to whose home I had been invited.”

“
Vraiment?
MacShane shall soon hear of that! Have you known my Killian long?”

“Your Killian—?”

The duchesse smiled. “La! I see that Killian has been keeping secrets again. Naughty boy! Did he not tell you of me?
Non
.
Of course he did not. Perhaps it should come from him, since it is him you have come to see.” She waved a languid hand toward a velvet chair which had
been placed near her own. “Do sit, mademoiselle, you fatigue me with your youthful energy.”

Her legs felt like wood and her heart thumped irregularly in her chest as Deirdre crossed to the chair.
Killian and this woman
!
No, she must not think that!

The duchesse’s painted brows rose in amusement as she watched the young lady. “While we wait I will tell you a little about myself, because it pleases me. As you have said, I was once a beauty sans rival. I was but fifteen when the Duc de Luneville took me to the altar. I was too young,
chérie
,
to know what utter boredom and disillusionment awaited me.

“So, what was I to do? I made friends, of course. The duc’s companions were much more interesting than he. They had their vices and their mistresses to keep them company. From them I learned that I had two passions: a hunger for the pleasures of the flesh and a mad desire for chance.

“Do you gamble,
chérie
?
You should not develop the talent. It is a madness of the soul, a searing hunger without satiation. I nearly ran through the duc’s entire fortune before he died. Afterward I was free to indulge both my passions. I met many fascinating and dangerous people, men and women for whom the gamble of a life is nothing. One night I was feeling that hunger and had lost all my money. I made a bet which was accepted by the man who had become my lover a few nights earlier. He was a stranger, a Venetian, a wicked man who made love as he gambled: recklessly, passionately, uninhibitedly. It was he who gave me the idea. My eyes were my best jewels, he had whispered as we made love. He said they were more beautiful and precious than the sapphires they resembled because they were the only two in all the world.”