My Sweet Folly (56 page)

“I cannot say, as I do not know what those pretenses may be.” Robert rested his fingers against his wineglass. “I thought the assembly was in honor of my bride.” He lifted his glass toward Folie, smiling affectionately. “To my lovely Mrs. Cambourne...she walks in beauty, like the dusk.”

As everyone hastily lifted glasses, joining in the toast to her, Lord Byron choked on his wine. He began to cough so hard that he had to push away from the table and rise. “Excuse me,” he wheezed. “M’ ‘cuses!”

He walked quickly out. Folie thought that Lord Byron, supposed to be quite dark and dashing, looked rather foolish limping from the room. She thought Robert would make a far better Gothic hero in any case. He had certainly done a masterful job of putting to use the lines of unfinished poetry that Lander’s emissaries had scavenged from a search of Lord Byron’s rooms while he had been dining out the previous night.

Folie carefully did not look toward Robert, for fear that she would burst into exultant snickers. Instead, she turned to Lady Melbourne and assured her that Toot the ferret sent his regards and regrets that he could not attend.

Robert was aware of Byron’s attention returning again and again to him as the rooms began to fill with guests. Folie stood beside him at the head of the stairs, accepting compliments and congratulations. He was trying to watch both Byron and Dingley; at the same time nod and smile to the line of arrivals filing past to shake his hand. He didn’t know a third of the names bawled by the servant at the foot of the stairs—all he was listening for was the announcement of Brougham’s arrival. So when a vigorous voice hailed him, at first Robert only looked at the man who had just climbed the stairs and seized his hand—saw a handsome brutal face and the uniform of the 10th Bengal Infantry.

“Sly fox! Ran away back home, did you?”

Balfour. Robert’s whole body reacted. Automatic shame fountained up through him. A numbness enveloped his brain. He stared insensate at the man who had cuckolded him with Phillippa.

“John Balfour!” the man said heartily. “Has it been so long you don’t know me?”

Folie turned toward them. “Ah!” she said warmly. “Is this an old friend?’’

As she dropped into a deep curtsy, Robert tried to fight his way from the nightmare deadness that held his tongue. “Mrs. Cambourne,” he said—meaning Folie, of course, meaning only to introduce Folie, but in the instant that he spoke that name, Balfour looked into his eyes. Phillippa’s image was like a burning ghost between them.

Robert could not speak. He shook his head.

“Major John Balfour, ma’am. We was garrisoned together for ten years and more! Marched all over India with this gentleman.” Balfour seemed to be having no problem with his voice. But then, he never had.

Before Robert could marshal any hope of composure, he recognized the next guest laboring up the staircase, a white-haired old lion in a resplendent dress uniform. St. Clair. Robert was suddenly an ensign again, called up the hill for a thundering upbraid.

“Sir,” he said. He lifted his hand, aborted the salute midway, and said stupidly, “General St. Clair.”

“Shabby as ever,” the general said with a great barking laugh. “This fellow was never meant for a military character, ma’am, I am sorry to tell you. Cambourne, you are a civilian to the bone.”

He said it as if it were a joke. Folie smiled in appreciative innocence, not knowing that the general had just delivered a scathing insult to an army man. He gave Robert a fatherly slap on the shoulder, made an apologetic grunt, and bowed to Folie.

“Have you come recently from India, sir?” she asked.

“Ten days off the boat!” he said. “Retired! Can you believe it? I don’t know what to do with myself.”

“You must come and visit us at Solinger Abbey,” she said, to Robert’s horror. She nodded toward Balfour. “And you, Major Balfour. I long to hear more of India.”

“Thank you, my girl!” St. Clair gave a crooked smile. “Good of you.”

Robert was relieved that his old nemesis said nothing more positive in reply. Neither did St. Clair offer Folie any congratulations before he and Balfour passed on into the house. Robert fervently hoped he would never have to lay eyes on either of them again in his lifetime.

He had lost track of Dingley. Byron still lingered within view, the obvious target, ready to be plucked further. But even after Balfour and St. Clair had moved away, Robert felt shaken. He resolved to pass on any displays of his “power” tonight, then changed his mind and determined that he would not let unpleasant apparitions from his past deter him. The powdered servant at the foot of the stairs bawled, “Lord Brougham!”

Robert drew a breath. He had to go on; there was no missing this opportunity, not for any mere failure of nerve.

Lord Brougham was tall and energetic, the sort of man who moved in jerky pauses like a live marionette. As he stared at Folie with an eye that was bright and wild, he reminded her of Toot, restive and eager to sink his teeth into something interesting.

She and Robert seemed to be the plaything he had targeted tonight. After they had greeted the guests and returned to Lady Melbourne’s throne in the drawing room, he wasted no time in cornering them.

“The famous Mr. Cambourne!” he exclaimed, booming in an orator’s voice that seemed to catch the attention of the entire room. Folie could easily believe that he riveted a courtroom with his style. “I’ve been intending to see to you for some time now.”

Folie took Robert’s arm. She did not like this man.

“See to me?” Robert said calmly.

“Look into this stuff and nonsense about divining thoughts and moving articles about the room. Come, prove it to me if you can.”

Folie saw guests gathering closer. She noticed Lord Byron and Mrs. Witham-Stanley—and Lady Dingley, looking as white-faced and nervous as a rabbit.

“Sir,” Robert said, hardening his jaw. “I have nothing to prove to you.”

That was not what Folie had expected him to say. She had thought he would be anxious for a chance to perform before Lord Brougham.

“What?” Brougham asked. “You will not press these claims before a man of reason and intelligence?”

“I make no claims,” Robert said.

“He never was worth a dog’s damn,” someone muttered among the guests. Folie saw General St. Clair shaking his head. “Stand up, man.”

“Pshaw! Shame upon you!” Mrs. Witham-Stanley pressed forward. “Mr. Cambourne is not some quacksalver, who must trumpet his accomplishments up and down the street!”

“Ah! An advocate!” Lord Brougham bowed. “My dear lady, come and testify.”

“With pleasure,” she said. “I have myself seen Mr. Cambourne work several cures and discover dreams and thoughts.”

“Aye.” It was Lord Byron who spoke up. “He plucked a line right out of my mind,” he said dryly. “I should like to know how you did that, sir! I swear I should.”

“It comes to me,” Robert said. “It comes to me sometimes.”

“What comes to you?” Lord Brougham demanded.

Robert ignored him. He stared at the poet. “Your work,” he murmured. “You have a strong light about you.”

“I say.” Lord Byron cleared his throat.

“Starry nights...” Robert said. “Midnight climes.” He seemed to look very far away. “Beautiful and dark-eyed.” He smiled at the poet. “Very beautiful. But you are not done with it.”

The celebrated Lord Byron shook his head rapidly. “Good God. You make my spine tingle.”

“Oh, come now. Come,” Brougham exclaimed. “What are you talking about?”

Lord Byron drifted backward. “If you want to have your hair stand on end, then let him look into
your
brain!”

“Nonsense. Stuff and nonsense.”

“My dear Brougham,” Lord Byron said sharply. “I am no more gullible than the next man. He has just related lines I’ve shown to no man alive!”

“Nay, I don’t believe it.”

Byron gave him a cold look. “Do you give me the lie, sir?”

Lord Brougham snorted. “ ‘Tis Mr. Cambourne I might give the lie, eh?”

“Have a care, my dear,” Lady Melbourne said. “Mr. and Mrs. Cambourne are my honored guests.”

“Why, I thought you invited me for the prosecution, my lady.” Brougham bowed deeply. “I cannot see why else I should have received a card to this delightful affair.”

“I asked Lady Melbourne to invite you,” Folie said. “I hoped to have the opportunity to meet you.”

“Oh?” Brougham turned his bright glance upon her.

Folie gave him a pert smile. “Lord Byron should not have
all
the ladies at his feet.”

“I cannot but agree,” he said. “But do you say you have chosen me instead? May I expect impassioned epistles, madam?”

She curtsied. “I shall write you pages of fervid admiration for your brilliant defense of Free Speech,” she said demurely.

“A bold female you have here, Cambourne.”

“Cambourne adores brazen women,” Major Balfour said, raking a bow toward Folie. “Beautiful, brazen ladies.”

She felt Robert’s arm tense under her fingers, but Lord Brougham was smiling like a mad cat. “Now there is an interesting topic. Tell me, Mr. Cambourne, if you can discover my thoughts—do I like or dislike impudence in a woman?”

A silence fell. Folie was not quite certain if they were being deliberately insulted or if this was only meant as the sort of bloodthirsty flirtation that some London dandies favored. Robert’s face was stone.

“Give me a few of your cards,” he said. “I’ll write it down.”

“You’ve only to tell me. Look into my mind!”

“Nay, what is to be proved by that? I’ll write your answer, and then you write it yourself, and we shall compare.”

Lord Brougham smiled. He put two fingers inside his waistcoat pocket and drew forth a card case, flipping it open and holding it out. “Take all you like.”

Robert took several visiting cards. He turned them over and wrote on one of them inside his palm. He turned and handed the card to Lady Melbourne. “If you will hold this, madam, without looking at it, so that no one may say that you aided me somehow. Now, write your own answer, sir.”

Lord Brougham chuckled. “Is this a yes or no question?”

“Write what you think, sir—do you like impudent women?”

The lawyer shook his head, writing, carefully concealing his pencil behind his hand. But Folie noticed now what she would not have before—that Robert stood just a little in front of Lady Melbourne, so that it was perfectly natural for him to take the card from Lord Brougham and pass it to her between two fingers, keeping the card face down, so that he could not see what was on it.

The guests pressed closer, craning to see. His friends from India were part of the audience, looking even more absorbed than Robert himself, who seemed to Folie to be in an unsettled mood, as if Lord Brougham’s aggression angered him.

“Let us get it all over with at once,” Robert said, “because you will say this is only luck. Your mind is hot with challenge—so give me another. Something that may be written down in a word or two, so that there is ‘proof.’ “ He sounded slightly disdainful. “It is solid evidence that you prefer, is it not?”

“All right. Tell me then, in what year did I begin school?”

Robert looked at him, then at Mrs. Witham-Stanley, who was standing anxiously beside Lord Brougham. He smiled, more amiable with her. “Are you thinking of a year too, ma’am?”