Enchanting Pleasures (14 page)

She had to protect Kasi Rao. Clearly, the East India Company was far more interested in Kasi than her father had realized. And that meant that her father’s plan to conceal Kasi in London would ultimately fail. Either the company would search until they located him, or else they would set up a figurehead in his place and insist that they had found the prince.

Months ago, back in India, she had thought up a scheme to stop the East India Company. Her father had curled his lip and dismissed it as nothing more than one of her impulsive, idiotic ideas. Gabby swallowed, thinking of Kasi’s trusting eyes. She could not allow him to be taken from Mrs. Malabright. It was horrible to imagine Kasi forced into a public role.

She had nothing to lose by trying. The hounds were on Kasi’s trail, and her father was not here to say nay.

With a decisive movement, Gabby stood up and walked over to the writing desk in the corner of her room. She drew forth a clean piece of foolscap, sharpened her quill, and began to write. By her calculation, the plan would entail four letters, all of which needed to reach India as soon as possible.

T
HE ADDRESS THAT
G
ABBY GAVE
the Dewland coachman the next morning was in Sackville Street. After a brief drive from St. James’s Square, they reached an area of small houses, neatly painted and kept up, but very modest.

“My goodness,” Gabby said uncertainly to Quill, “this is very different from what Kasi is used to.”

“Do you live in a great mansion, then?”

“Oh, yes, in a palace,” Gabby explained with an utter lack of self-consciousness. “Father has a distinct love of luxury, you see. It’s one of the things that made his missionary endeavors so trying for him.”

“I can imagine,” Quill replied dryly.

Mrs. Malabright turned out to be a bustling, kindly Englishwoman who weighed at least nine stone more than Kasi.

Quill saw immediately why Gabby and her father were determined to protect the prince from taking his place on the Holkar throne. He was a very small, sweet-eyed Indian lad, who looked more like seven than ten. He drifted into the room sideways, like a wary deer entering an open pasture, and his eyes lit uncertainly on each face, darting off to the corners of the room.

Until he saw Gabby. Then he rushed to her side and clutched a bit of her gown. “Tell me a story, Gabby!” He spoke as if he had last seen her that very morning.

Gabby cupped his face in her hands. “Of course I’ll tell you a story, sweetheart. But manners first.”

Kasi grinned, a shy, heartbreaking grin. “
Namasthe
, Gabby.” He brought his palms together and bowed slightly.

“No, no,” Mrs. Malabright broke in. “We are in England now.”

Kasi started again. “How do you do, Gabby? I am pleased to meet you.”

“That’s for strangers, dear. You know Miss Jerningham,” Mrs. Malabright prompted.

He looked confused. Then he backed up and bowed yet again.

“How do you do, Miss Stranger? I am—I am—I am …” He trailed off.

Gabby nodded gravely in response and curtsied. “Thank you very much, Mr. Kasi Rao. It is a pleasure to meet you.”

Kasi’s face brightened. The formula had been played through. “Now tell me a story, Gabby. Please,
please.”

Gabby looked apologetically at Mrs. Malabright and Quill. “Would you mind terribly if I told Kasi a brief story?”

Mrs. Malabright beamed. “He’s told me all about your stories, miss. He does powerfully love them.”

Gabby and Kasi snuggled onto the couch, and Quill heard Gabby begin: “Once upon a time, there was a very small mouse. His name was Joosi, and he lived in the time of the ancient emperors of China, so long ago that neither you, nor your grandfather, nor your great-great-great-grandfather, could have shared a piece of cheese with him.”

Quill’s mouth quirked and he relaxed for the first time all day. But Mrs. Malabright could not allow her visitor to merely listen to a child’s story.

“Kasi adores, absolutely adores, stewed prunes,” she said importantly. “I’ve been making them every day. And he has very much enjoyed apples from my back garden as well.”

“Have you taken him around London?” Quill asked idly. If the truth be told, he was straining his ears to hear fragments of the tale of Joosi, who was wandering into dangerous territory as he climbed the leg of the emperor’s great throne.

“Goodness, no,” Mrs. Malabright said firmly. “Kasi does not enjoy being around strangers. Why, I have to push him into the backyard once a day, even though we have high walls. He’s that nervous.”

“Perhaps he would like to visit a pantomime?”

“No, he would not, and that’s a fact.” Mrs. Malabright looked like a great bear protecting her spindly cub. “Kasi is happy here in the house, and there’s no call to make him terrified by taking him outside. There is no life outside for Kasi.”

Joosi the mouse was performing incredible feats of daring, such as swinging from the feathers adorning the empress’s best hat.

“Is he learning to write?”

“His letters are improving,” Mrs. Malabright said. “Only the
J
‘s are backward now.” And she trotted off to fetch a sample of Kasi’s handwriting, returning just as Joosi’s story came to a triumphant conclusion.

“And from that day forward,” Gabby said, “Joosi the mouse was the emperor’s very best friend. The emperor had a special bed made for Joosi, wrought from gold and adorned with pearls. During the day Joosi always stayed on the emperor’s shoulder, ready to advise him should yet another foolish counselor suggest that China go to war. And since Joosi knew that war was a terrible thing, the reign of the emperor was long remembered in China as the happiest and most peaceful of all.”

Kasi sighed happily. “I wish Joosi was my best friend, Gabby.” He looked around the room. “Do you know where my friend went? She doesn’t live in this house.”

Gabby looked blank for a moment. “Do you mean Phoebe?”

Kasi nodded. “Phoebe.” There was a world of satisfaction in his voice.

“Phoebe asked about you as well,” Gabby said. “I am going to bring her for a visit in a few days, if it would be quite all right with Mrs. Malabright.”

“Could Phoebe bring Joosi the mouse with her?” Kasi asked.

Gabby was clearly used to Kasi’s leaps in logic. “Perhaps Mrs. Malabright will allow you to have a pet mouse,” she suggested.

Just then Mrs. Malabright bustled up with samples of Kasi’s handwriting. So they stayed another half hour, and ate some of Mrs. Malabright’s best spicy gingerbread, and finally left.

Quill had spent quite a bit of time considering why Lady Sylvia did not accompany them to Mrs. Malabright’s house. If Lady Sylvia had intended that Quill indulge himself by kissing Gabby, Quill was not willing to satisfy her. Gabby was Peter’s betrothed, and Peter’s betrothed she would remain.

Not that Gabby showed any inclination to kiss him anyway. She chattered all the way home about Kasi and Mrs. Malabright, and she obviously had no idea that Quill could only think about how soft she felt in his arms, the way she trembled against him, the way her lips opened with a little gasp, the way…the way she made something inside him ache to hold her again.

I
T HAD TAKEN
Lucien Boch two weeks of concerted effort to achieve his current success: luncheon with Phoebe Pensington, her adoptive mother, Mrs. Ewing, and her aunt, Louise. He was seated at a small table, Phoebe to his right and Emily to his left. And he was well aware that the ladies didn’t want him there and that, in fact, he was a thoroughly unwelcome guest. And yet, gentleman though he was, Lucien had ignored all the obvious signals and stayed for the meal anyway.

At the first, Lucien had accompanied Phoebe to her house with no thought other than to satisfy a mild curiosity he had about the child’s
important
new mama. But when he found himself in front of a slender, exhausted-looking Mrs. Ewing, his feelings had undergone a rapid and inexplicable change.

He had bowed his most charming bow and kissed her hand. And then he had embarrassed himself by mentioning the fact that he was a marquis before he left France. Why did he do that? He had terrible scorn for the émigrés who traveled to England and clung to their dead titles.

It wasn’t that she was so beautiful. Well, she was beautiful. Moreover, she was exquisitely dressed and wearing one of the most modish little caps that Lucien had ever seen. But it was something about her blue-gray eyes that had made him visit the house the next day, and the day after. And finally, when he had deliberately appeared on their doorstep at an unforgivably unfashionable time of day, Mrs. Ewing had extended a reluctant invitation to join them for luncheon. She was wary, the beautiful Mrs. Ewing. She didn’t like him very much, he could tell, and her fingers invariably had ink stains on them. She was entirely too thin. And she fascinated him.

So there he was, eating a vegetable pie dished out by an incompetent maid.

“Miss Phoebe informs me that you are a writer, Mrs. Ewing,” Lucien said. She had washed the ink off her fingers before eating. They were beautiful hands—slender, with very, very long fingers.

Emily looked at her uninvited guest. What on earth was the man doing here? He was far too handsome to be a bachelor. Not that a bachelor would have any reason to visit the scandalous Thorpe sisters. She shrugged mentally. Well, if he was too much of a snob to associate with them, he wouldn’t be eating with them. “I write for a fashion magazine for ladies,” she said.

“La Belle Assemblée?”
Lucien asked.

So there was the reason for Mr. Lucien Boch’s appearance at her table, Emily thought. He must be the owner of a rival magazine. She’d heard a rumor of a new magazine in the press. And the owner of a German fashion magazine had tried to lure her to his journal last year. Well, that explained it. There could be no other reason for a member of the French aristocracy to be seated at her table. She was aware of an odd twinge in her heart. It would have been nice if Mr. Boch’s admiring gaze was meant for her, not for her writing.

“I do write for
La Belle Assemblée,”
she said brusquely. “And I do not intend to write for anyone else in the near future.”

“Oh…of course,” Lucien murmured.

She would almost think that he was innocent. Except …

Except Lucien couldn’t think what to say next, so he queried further. “And what would cause you to write for someone else, madame? I mean, for some other magazine?”

“Absolutely nothing,” Emily rejoined sharply.

That seemed to end that train of conversation. Lucien sought about desperately for another topic. “Miss Thorpe, do you write for
La Belle Assemblée
as well?”

“No,” Phoebe’s aunt replied, cheerfully biting into a large apple. “I’m the reprobate in the family. I write for
Etherege’s Portents
, the men’s literary magazine, so called. I write all the fashion copy. If you don’t mind my saying so, Monsieur Boch, I am very partial to olive-green frock coats. And you are wearing a beautiful example.”

Lucien stared down at his coat in some bewilderment. “Thank you.
You
write for
Etherege’s Portents?”

Louise chuckled. “Do you read my column? It is entitled ‘General Observations on Fashion.’ I sign it Edward Etherege,” she added kindly when Lucien looked blank.

“I’m afraid that I have not had the pleasure.”

Louise rolled her eyes. “Well, you may be overestimating my writing skills by referring to pleasure. Emily has a true eye for fashion, but I simply make up rubbish and print it up for any chuckleheads who care to read it.”

“You are severe,” Emily observed, crumbling a roll in her hands. Lucien noticed that she had hardly tasted her vegetable pie. “Louise writes extremely humorous prose,” she said, turning to Lucien.

“It’s just that everyone thinks I’m serious!” said the obviously irrepressible Louise.

“I’m quite certain that your prose are…are impeccable,” Lucien said lamely. He didn’t dare look at Emily again. Every time he did so he found her frowning at him as if he were a thief, come to steal their silver. Or her virtue. Lucien shifted uneasily in his seat. He hadn’t felt so attracted to a woman in years. In fact, since his wife’s death. And why was that? This skinny, fierce Emily was nothing like his sweetly plump wife. He pulled himself together with a start.

Louise had pulled a stack of foolscap off the sideboard and was regaling Emily and Phoebe with her newest column, bound for Mr. Etherege’s magazine.

“Fashion, tasteful yet fantastic, merciless yet idolized, seats herself in the weathercock throne on the dome of elevated Pleasure,”
she announced in a stately, imposing tone, waving her right hand in the air.

“She dictates her unappealable injunctions to the votaries of the enchantress within, the goddess who governs our lives and our waistcoats, the divinity who dictates the drape of our neckcloths, the idol who—”

“Oh, for goodness sake, Louise!”

“Don’t stop me now, Emily,” Louise implored. “I’m just getting started. I have some lovely bits coming up, about how the Spirit of Fashion distinguishes the design of one neckcloth from another. Wait!” She shuffled her papers.

Emily sighed. “I’m afraid you will have to excuse me, Mr. Boch, Phoebe. I have quite a lot of work to complete this afternoon.”

“Oh, no, Mama, you shall miss the custard. I beat the eggs, five of them, all by myself!” Phoebe exclaimed.

“I am not very hungry, child.” Emily bent and gave Phoebe a kiss. “I will hear your lessons later, shall I?”

Then, with a final brief smile, she left.

Lucien gave himself yet another silent lecture. It was not up to him to run after Emily Ewing and kiss her until the strain disappeared from those beautiful blue-gray eyes.

The maid brought in a plate with a sagging custard.

“Drat,” Louise said gloomily. “There’s Emily gone off without eating a thing, and the custard has not been cooked long enough.”

Phoebe was already eating the portion slopped on her plate. “I think the custard is lovely,” she said.

“Well, the eggs were perfectly beaten, I can tell that with a glance,” Louise said, ruffling Phoebe’s hair.

“If I may,” Lucien asked, “is your sister under a time constraint? She appears to be very pressed.”

“We’re toward the end of the month, and her copy will be due soon,” Louise replied. “Her prose are greatly in demand, you know. She writes most of the copy in
La Belle Assemblée
each month, which is difficult because Emily doesn’t go into society herself. She has to read long reports of what such-and-such person wore the night before and then distill them. We have subscriptions to around fourteen newspapers, I think. And every time a really pivotal engagement approaches, Emily gets more and more nervous. At the moment I believe she’s fretting over Lady Fester’s ball. The ball is important as it is generally the first of the Little Season. And Lady Fester maintains a very select list.”

“I don’t understand,” Lucien said. “Why is Mrs. Ewing fretting?”

“She has to proclaim who was the best-dressed woman at any given ball,” Louise explained. “But it is not easy to obtain accurate information. She always worries that one of her regulars won’t get invited to a particularly select occasion.”

“She has
spies?”

“They aren’t spies,” Louise said indignantly. “They are older women who love fashion and are grateful for a small payment. They tell her how everyone is dressed, so that she can report it. You know—” Louise waved her hand in the air again. “‘A most noble lady wore a petticoat with festooned draperies, blah, blah, blah.’ Everyone knows who the ‘noble lady’ is.”

“Why doesn’t Mrs. Ewing simply attend the ball herself?”

Louise gave him a look that was the mirror of the suspicious ones Emily had thrown him. “How on earth would she do that? We are not invited to balls.”

Lucien threw caution to the winds. “And why is that, Miss Thorpe? You must forgive the impertinence of a stranger, but it is obvious that you are from a distinguished family.”

“My father is an irascible man,” Louise said, with a quick glance at little Phoebe. “He threw me out of the house when I was fifteen years old. Emily, bless her heart, defended me and got herself thrown out as well. And that, as they say, was that.”

Lucien almost persisted in his inquiries, but held his tongue. Then, “I have an invitation to Lady Fester’s ball,” he said. “Do you think your sister would do me the honor of accompanying me?”

Louise had Emily’s blue-gray eyes, but for some reason they didn’t move Lucien at all, not even when she looked him over as minutely as a man selecting a new horse. “I have no idea how Emily would feel,” she finally murmured.

“I think she should go with you, Mr. Boch,” Phoebe piped up unexpectedly. “It would be much nicer than listening to Mr. Hislop.”

“What do you know about Mr. Hislop?” Louise asked, clearly startled.

“I heard Mama telling Sally to stay within earshot, in case Mr. Hislop tried to kiss her,” Phoebe said. “Sally said he was a hateful man, and Mama agreed, but she said that she couldn’t insult him.”

Lucien’s stomach was undergoing a slow burn. “You led me to believe that Mrs. Ewing had female spies,” he said, turning to Louise.

She flushed. “Most of them are women. But Mr. Hislop seems to be invited everywhere. And we don’t have to pay him for his fashion accounts. It’s just that he—he—”

“He’s a bounder,” Lucien said. He was startled by the icy tone of his own voice. “Is Emily meeting with him now?” He didn’t notice that he’d called Mrs. Ewing by her first name.

Louise was still looking at their guest measuringly. It seemed to Lucien that her eyes had softened a trifle.

“Mr. Hislop generally arrives around eleven o’clock each Tuesday morning, doesn’t he, Phoebe?” She stood up. “I trust that you will find a time to proffer your invitation to my sister, Mr. Boch?”

Lucien immediately rose. “I believe I am free on Tuesday morning,” he responded. Their eyes met in perfect accord.

“Then I wish you well in your endeavors.” Louise curtsied, a regally beautiful curtsy—the curtsy of a young woman who had been groomed for the highest society rather than for the shabby room in which they stood.

A few minutes later Lucien frowned at the silk lining of his carriage. They were an odd pair, the thin, intelligent Thorpe sisters. Where was Mr. Ewing, if indeed he ever existed? It seemed to him entirely possible that the said Mr. Ewing was a phantom. Emily had a startled, naive look, not a widowed look.

He should know;
he
had that widowed look. Suddenly he felt too old even to contemplate an evening with the lovely Mrs. Ewing. He was old—almost forty now—and weary and…very widowed. And yet his marriage to the kindly Felice seemed so long ago. He could remember Michel much more clearly. Michel’s plump little cheeks and rosebud mouth were lodged in his heart, and the memory still jumped to his throat at odd moments.

Lucien swore under his breath and thumped on the roof of his carriage. He instructed his coachman to change direction and take him to his club. He had learned not to go home to an empty house when memories caught him unawares.

Of course he couldn’t ask Emily Ewing to the Fester ball. For one thing, she was apparently a social outcast and would likely feel uncomfortable. And for another, she was entirely too young. She deserved someone with a young soul, not someone burdened by painful memories and endless regret.