Elizabeth Boyle (55 page)

“Bless you,” Lily called out from behind the dressing screen where she was undergoing the last of her fittings with the modiste.

If his father, Sophia, and Giles hadn’t been in the room, the only blessing necessary would have been one over Lily’s dead body. As it was, the four of them sat in Sophia’s morning room, which for the past fortnight had been transformed into their war room of preparation.

“What ever possessed you to go out on that balcony last night?” Sophia clucked in her most motherly tones. “You’re lucky you aren’t dead from a chill.”

When no one had responded to his banging on the door, he’d been forced to climb down the ivy-covered facade of Byrnewood. In the last ten feet, his freezing-cold fingers had lost their grip and he’d fallen nearly into the arms of the departing duchess.

“Really, Mr. Dryden, you should be more careful,” Lily chimed in from behind the screen.

The delighted giggle in the shameless little chit’s voice nearly drove him to his feet. He ought to give her the throttling she deserved.

“An error in judgment on my part,” he said, ignoring the amused looks on his father’s and Giles’s faces. By the time he’d escaped her trap, he’d been unable to find Adam, Adam’s mother, or the countess. Cautious inquiries to the other guests and staff revealed the threesome had been seen hightailing it away from Byrnewood.

If Sophia and Giles had any comment on their house guests’ hasty departure, they hadn’t said anything in front of him.

Another mystery added to Lily’s arsenal of secrets.

One he vowed to uncover and unlock.

From her post behind the screen, a suddenly brilliant Lily continued her recitation of the de Chevenoy lineage, a room-by-room description of both houses, and an almost tearful story of the wreath of native flowers she’d prepared for the funeral of one of her most beloved teachers, Sister Marie-Rufina Helena.

The uncanny girl put the best agents in the Foreign Office to shame, Webb thought.

As if seconding his conclusion, his father chimed in his approval. “Well done, Lily, well done. I should have recruited you into the business years ago. Whatever was I thinking allowing your family to take you off to the wilds of America? Your talents have been wasted.”

As for her previous ill behavior, she’d very convincingly explained that away as a case of nerves and fears about returning to Paris. Especially after her traumatic childhood experiences in the Terror. Her luminous eyes glistening with well-timed tears had gained her a full pardon from his father.

Webb conceded she’d done well on all those points, but there was still one obstacle for her to overcome.

Adelaide’s portrait hinted of a girl about to bloom into startling beauty.

While he knew Lily had the inner passion of her Ramsey forebears, she still needed to show the outward beauty expected in Paris.

This, then, was to be the final trial. When Mme. Pontius, one of London’s most favored modistes, unveiled her work of art, either Lily would be accepted for the mission or she would gain her freedom.

After his initial anger last night at being duped by her, he’d thought long and hard, stuck as he was on the balcony two stories above the ground, why was he fighting so adamandy to drag her unwilling carcass to Paris?

Alone in Paris with Lily? What was he thinking?

If she thought nothing of leaving him locked out in the rain, what might she say or do in front of Paris society?

And then there were those strange feelings she’d evoked in him last night. Protectiveness, jealousy, longing.

As for the kisses they’d shared, he didn’t like even considering those emotions and Lily in the same thought.

Mme. Pontius stepped back from her work and clucked her tongue. “I think you will be pleased, my lord,” she said to his father. “This is my best work to date. You will see, I have created your heiress. An angel to behold.”

Webb smiled as politely as he could at the lady, for he knew his father held her in high regard.

And if Madame wanted to crow about her latest work of art, so be it, but Webb didn’t believe for a minute that even the highly talented Madame could transform Lily into an angel.

For beauty was something not even Lily could fake.

Yet even as he came to this silent conclusion, Lily stepped out from behind the screen.

Though held together mostly with pins and blue basting threads, the dress she wore molded to her body like the marble drapings on the Grecian statues in Brynewood’s grotto. The sheer silk, held at her shoulders with gold clasps, cascaded to the floor in a waterfall of white foam. The V front fell deeply into the cleft of her breasts, so their rounded fullness threatened to spill out.

Webb took a deep breath and another look. He suddenly found he couldn’t trust his eyes, though the rest of his body reacted with a jolt of awareness and seething memories.

Until now, she’d been hidden beneath the black depths of that hideous bombazine. Released from her widow’s weeds, she looked like a dove in flight, free to fly, free to show her fine bright feathers to the world. Her face, which had been framed by her black cap and had seemed pale and lifeless under the layers of powder, came to life.

Though his hands had caressed her form while they’d kissed, now he could see that what he had imagined was indeed very real—the slim rounded lines of her hips, her wisp of a waist, the perfection of her small, upraised breasts.

She’d tied her hair up with a pale green ribbon, and the shimmering tresses fell down from their simple binding in a cascade of spun gold. It was as if Diana had stepped from her prison of marble and now stood before him, a living and breathing woman.

As if an angel had dropped from her heavenly perch.

He knew he was staring, but he couldn’t believe the transformation.

This fair goddess before him was little Lily? Where was the hoyden? The little pest who tagged after him, the bothersome chit with her gawky ways? Where was the pale widow with her bleak dresses and washed-out features?

Somewhere in the back of his mind he remembered Lady Marston’s long forgotten prediction.

That child has all the markings of a beauty.

She now stood before him, her elegant grace mocking all his illusions. Lost forever was his image of the hoyden menace, lost to this enticing creature before him.

And he wasn’t the only one transfixed by her sudden metamorphosis. Everyone else sat gaping in open-mouthed amazement.

“What’s the matter now?” Lily asked. She turned left and right, twisting and looking around herself as if trying to find the problem.

Madame laughed. “No,
ma chérie
. I think you are too perfect.”

Webb suddenly saw his life swim before his eyes.

Their mission suddenly took on a new and extremely dangerous turn.

Looking like that, Lily would take Paris in a riot it hadn’t seen since the fall of the Bastille.

And that would leave them open to every possible danger.

Oh, they’d found their heiress, Webb thought. But somewhere along the way, they’d unearthed a temptress.

M
onsieur Bernard Troussebois arrived at the back door of the de Chevenoy house as had been his custom since the first day he’d been retained as Henri de Chevenoy’s solicitor. The quaint stone house, with its three stories of pale stone and crenellated roofline sat on the quiet
Rue du Renard
.

The solicitor preferred to arrive at the back door of his clients’ homes as it gave him an opportunity to visit for a moment with their servants and learn the latest about his clients’ welfare and business.

Bits of information a client may be reluctant or too embarrassed to share.

He’d always liked coming to the de Chevenoy residence for it meant a chance to sample a bite or two of Mme. Costard’s latest baking before he continued on to his business with the comte. How the woman constantly secured food for the household, he wasn’t sure, but it probably helped that Henri de Chevenoy always managed to have more than enough gold to pay the inflated prices.

And Troussebois didn’t count out the formidable Mme. Costard herself.

He doubted there was a butcher or grocer in Paris who would refuse the giant lady service, though he knew her to be soft-hearted and kind despite her size and ferocious looks.

After his second rap on the door, M. Costard answered. Wherein his wife looked about the size of a draft horse and just as strong, M. Costard was a narrow, angular man who looked as though he hadn’t seen a good meal in months.

This, Troussebois knew, wasn’t true, for Mme. Costard was an excellent cook. Still, he found them an odd pairing at best.

“Come in, Monsieur Troussebois,” Costard said. “Come in out of the cold.” The man’s pinched face held a worried frown and his gray bushy brows jutted out in anxious lines. Despite his obvious anxieties, the good valet never forgot his duties, taking Troussebois’s rain-splattered coat and hanging it by the fire.

“So the heiress has arrived.” Troussebois took his usual seat at the kitchen table. Before him sat a plate of almond studded cakes. They smelled heavenly, but good manners dictated he wait until offered.

To his disappointment, the normally generous Mme. Costard didn’t immediately begin filling a plate for him.

“Oh, yes. Our heiress is home,” Costard replied, before sitting down at the head of the table. De Chevenoy’s faithful valet and his wife were the only servants in the house, and had been, for as long as Troussebois had worked for the comte.

He’d thought it was because the reclusive de Chevenoy preferred his privacy, but since Henri’s death, the solicitor had learned the true reason for his employer’s limited household staff.

One he shuddered to think of, and for the thousandth time since his employer’s death, asked himself the same question.

How had he ever gotten involved in this mess?

Well, he thought, it was too late to consider any other course than the one he and the Costards had agreed upon.

“She arrived not an hour ago and is settling right in,” Costard explained. “Trunks, a servant, and …” the valet leaned forward, his narrow elbows propped up on the wooden table, “… a fiancé.”

A fiancé?
Troussebois gulped, speechless at this notion. A fiancé could only mean trouble, or worse yet, needless questions and inquiries.

Calming the panicked butterflies ratcheting through his stomach, Troussebois lamented his fate at ever accepting Henri de Chevenoy as a client. Never mind the fact that the de Chevenoy account had kept bread on his table for the last seven years when many of his profession had starved or, worse, lost their heads.

No, Troussebois
, he said to himself as he often did when faced with a challenging legal dilemma,
you must have courage
.

Their lives depended upon the de Chevenoy heiress—the Costards’ for their living and the roof over their heads, and his for the fees he charged for handling her vast estate.

But a fiancé?

He didn’t like the notion one bit. It wedged an entirely new set of problems into their carefully laid plans, but he didn’t have time to consider that now, when the most important question remained unanswered.

He looked from husband to wife, his concern growing. “Is there any chance of us passing off this imposter as Adelaide de Chevenoy?”

Lily paced across the Oriental carpet in the de Chevenoy salon and stopped in front of a tall secretary in the corner. Without a second thought she began pulling open drawers and pawing through the contents.

“What do you think you’re doing?” Webb said, bounding off the couch and spinning her away from her task. His hand closed over hers, and for a moment he held her, both of them staring at each other, the heat of their bodies once again joined.

In the instant she raised her gaze to his, he dropped her hand as if it burned and glanced away.

“I’m looking for the journals, what does it look like I’m doing?” she snapped, tired and cranky from their travels and the wariness of being in Webb’s constant company. While an unspoken truce had risen since the ball at Byrnewood, that didn’t mean there still wasn’t an undercurrent of tension rippling between them.

As she turned to renew her search, he pulled her away from the tall cherry-wood cabinet, and with his free hand pushed all the open cabinets closed. Before she could utter a word of protest, she found herself being dragged toward a brocade-covered sofa. Pointing to a spot on the cushion where she was supposed to sit and stay put, he released her.

She sat down, slowly though, if only to annoy him.

“You search when I tell you to search,” Webb said, resuming his seat on a wide chair next to the sofa. “What would you say to the Costards if they walked in and found you rifling through the house like a common thief?”

Lily bit her lip to hold back her retort.

The only difference she saw between herself and a common thief was that a thief had the good sense to come and go in the dead of night and be done with his dirty business.

“I just don’t like all this waiting around.” She crossed her arms over her chest and stared at the closed salon doors. The entire house stood beyond those doors, and Henri’s journals could be anywhere.

No matter how soon they found them and got back to England, it wouldn’t be soon enough for Lily.

Some spy she made, she realized. Here they’d arrived at the de Chevenoy house only an hour ago and she was already itching to leave.

She should be coursing with excitement, for she’d passed the first test of their mission—deceiving Henri’s long-time servants, M. and Mme. Costard.

The first tense moment, when M. Costard opened the door and frowned through his bushy eyebrows at her, had quickly turned into a happy reunion. The Costards welcomed her with open arms, a series of great hugs and many tears, holding her at arm’s length and claiming her the very image of her dear, departed mother.

Napoleon’s guards, still posted at the door, had paid her little heed once Costard told them who she was. One of them had even been cajoled into assisting the driver with carrying her trunks into the house.