The Bride Behind the Curtain (11 page)

Finally, Windford sighed and ran his hand through his hair, thoroughly disordering it in the process. “You could be right,” he muttered. “I've never understood either of them.”

“Maybe you've never tried.”

“Someone else told me that recently, but that's neither here nor there. I'm my sister's guardian, and I have to ask the damned question. What exactly are your honorable intentions, Beauclaire?”

I intend to make her mine.
James glanced over his shoulder at the glimmering ballroom. Laughter and music poured out in a great flood. Adele waltzed smoothly across the floor in the arms of another man. Some puppy, no doubt, attracted by a beauty in a fine gown like a little honey bee to a beautiful flower. Such a man could give her nothing. Adele, his Adele, would not be interested.

Would she?

James's resolve to hold himself back, to let her have this moment to spread her wings, dissolved in an instant. He needed to be with her, to hold her, to claim her, to let the world see she was his.

“I have spent the weeks since the New Year's ball working at leaving behind old habits,” he spoke to Windford, but he watched Adele. “I've built up a competency of my own . . .”

“Yes. I'd heard something to that effect. Impressive.”

James bowed. “By tomorrow, if all goes well, I should be clear of debt. When that is done, I intend to ask for Adele's hand in marriage.” In fact, he'd told McNeil to bring word of the ship's arrival direct to the ballroom. He'd even put his grandmother's ring in his pocket in anticipation of the good news. “I do not pretend it is a good match, m'lord. But, I will come free and clear and with an honest path open to me. I mean to offer Adele my heart and my hand, both of which I swear will belong to her alone.”

Marcus did not shift at all as James spoke. He barely even blinked. In the back of his mind James told himself to never sit down to cards with this man. Windford could stare a hole in a brick wall.

“All right. It's up to Adele. If she'll have you, I'll not object.” He glanced toward the swirling gathering below. “But you might want to be quick about it.”

***

“Did you see that dress? Is it from Paris? Who is her modiste?”

“They're saying it's someone new. A Mademoiselle Marie. I wonder if Lady Adele could . . .”

Marie would rejoice. She would be flooded with orders. But James couldn't find it in him to cheer his sister's good fortune. All he could think was that Adele had vanished.

Where had she gone? He craned his neck over the heads of the crowds and could not see her anywhere. There was Miss Valmeyer, sitting beside Benedict, not even talking as far as he could tell, just being together. There was Miss Fitzgerald, surrounded by a group of earnest young men and women, at least one of them a poet he knew, talking with great animation.

Then, James spied Deborah and waded through the crowd to her.

“Miss Sewell, I'm looking for Lady Adele. Have you seen her?”

“Lady Adele?” she repeated, owlishly.

“That is what I said,” he said, or rather snapped.

Miss Sewell scanned the crowd languidly. “Hmm. I don't see her immediately. Have you tried the refreshment room? She has been dancing rather a lot.”

“What kind of chaperone are you?” he growled, but that only made the Sewell woman blink up at him.

“Did you say something, Monsieur Beauclaire?”

“No. You will excuse me?”

“
Bonne chance, monsieur
.”

What he muttered under his breath as he strode away toward the refreshment room was not suited to polite company. Miss Sewell was right, however. That was the most likely place, unless she'd gone to the retiring room . . .

“There you are, Beauclaire.”

James was so distracted, he did not recognize the man's voice immediately. But when he turned, it was to see Mr. McNeil pushing through the crowd. His black coat was rumpled, and his scalp was beet red. James felt his heart beat once, twice.

“McNeil.” He clasped the other man's hand. “Has something happened?”

“Yes, Monsieur Beauclaire. I'm afraid it has.”

***

Adele spotted James the moment she emerged from the retiring room. She felt sure he could have been in China and she still would have been able to find him. He stood in the shadow of the gallery, half hidden by a pillar, in one of the Italianate alcoves that gave the Bassett rooms their slightly scandalous reputation.

She smiled. She smiled also at the matrons and bucks, who were again crowding around and slid past them all.

“James, what is the matter?” she said as she reached him.

His face lit up to see her, and her heart jolted.

“Where have you been? I have looked everywhere.”

“Someone stepped on my hem, and I needed Bridget to stitch it up for me. But you haven't answered my question. Something's wrong.”

“
Rien.
” He said this with his easiest smile, but something dark shifted behind James's clear blue eyes. “Well, not much. I have had some bad news of my investments. Small, and soon put right.” He took her hand and raised it to his lips, pressing a light kiss to her fingers, and it became very difficult to think of anything else. “I shall have to be very careful in future, for it is impossible for me to hide anything from you.”

She smiled. “Completely impossible.”

Calculations ran back and forth in his eyes, making darkness flicker beneath the clear bright blue. It was like shadows in a sunlit well. Shadows in his heart. Adele realized she was holding her breath. But then the shadows cleared and James was himself again. She yearned for him. She wanted to kiss him and let the whole world watch. She wanted to stand on the rooftop and shout that she loved him.

But the shout that came was not from her.

“Adele, Adele!” It was Madelene Valmeyer, out of breath and pale as a ghost. “Helene has fainted!”

“
Helene
?” she cried.

“The Marquis of Broadheathe is here and she saw him and . . . something happened. I don't know what. I can't find Miss Sewell . . .”

“Good Lord!” Broadheathe was Helene's former fiancé, the one she'd broken with so publically and scandalously. Adele turned swiftly to James. “I'm so sorry . . .”

“Go help your friend. I will call on you tomorrow.”

Adele met James's gaze and saw how much he wanted to kiss her. She wished she could. She wished with all her heart she dared. But she could not, and she had to turn and push through the crowd. Helene was afraid of nothing. What on earth could have caused her to faint? Was she ill? Had she drunk too much? No. Helene would never . . .

While these thoughts raced ahead, a tiny portion of her mind and heart lagged behind, wondering about the darkness she'd glimpsed behind James's eyes.

“Benedict, I need a favor,” James said when he finally tracked his friend down in the foyer of the assembly rooms. “I'm going to clean Pursewell out tonight.”

The decision had come to him the moment Adele's eyes turned toward him and she asked him what was wrong. He felt his heart swell to the breaking point with love and resolution. He could not, he would not, come to her a debtor. He would not come to her a failure and a wastrel, dependent on her money. But he'd sunk most of what he had into those ships, and now it was gone, broken up on the rocks because of a sudden squall. McNeil assured him that those were simply the risks a man ran when he invested in ships and cargo, but McNeil hadn't seen his love tonight, being courted and feted by other men, richer men. Better men. He had no time. One of them might turn her head, and her heart. He could not, he would not, risk that.

Therefore he must find another way to erase his debts and gain the money for fresh investments. That left him only one path.

Benedict turned his penetrating gaze on James. “I thought you'd given up the tables.”

“I wanted to,” said James. “But it seems Dame Fortune will not let me go so easily. The game will be whist, for a while, at any rate. I need a partner I can trust.”

Benedict's mouth twitched. “This has something to do with Lady Adele, doesn't it?” But James said nothing and Benedict sighed. “This is a bad idea, James. Pursewell's a cheat, and he's already killed one man for calling him out on it. You could be risking more than your money playing with him.”

“Let me worry about Pursewell. All I ask is that when Valmeyer starts to sweat, you beg off from the game. Say that it is too rich for you, all right?”

But Benedict hesitated. “You should know, James, Valmeyer's not very well-disposed toward me right now. He thinks I've an eye for his stepsister, and he doesn't want . . .”

James waved these words away. “That only helps us. It will make him even more reckless than usual and get him out of the game that much faster.”

“I hope you know what you're doing, James.”

“I hope so, too,
mon frère
. I hope so, too.”

***

The card room of Bassett's continued the general Renaissance style. The plaster trim was gilded, and statues of nude women and gamboling fauns watched from the corners. Most of the space, though, was taken up by tables covered in green baize cloth, and most of those were occupied by gentlemen of varying degrees of wealth, and sobriety. Those who were not playing circulated among the tables, watching the games and laying their own side wagers as to which of the players would eventually win, or lose.

“Beauclaire!” cried Pursewell from the corner table. Valmeyer just raised, and downed, his glass of wine as James threaded his way between the others to stand beside him. “I thought you had other . . . business this evening.”

“I changed my mind.” James felt Benedict's gaze boring into his shoulder. “If the offer's still open, I thought we might have that game after all.”

“Of course, of course,” said Pursewell smoothly. “No objections, Valmeyer?”

“None,” answered the other man. “Though, I warn you, Beauclaire, Lady Luck's been entirely with me tonight.” He caressed the thigh of the nearest plaster nymph.

What that meant was Pursewell had been letting him win. Beauclaire laughed as he and Benedict settled down on opposite sides of the table.

“It's been a long time since I've seen you at cards, Lord Benedict,” Pursewell remarked, signaling for a fresh pack of cards, and more wine, of course.

“Too busy with his paints,” laughed Valmeyer. “Still, the ladies do love a brooding artist. Just needs to be more careful who he tries to charm.” He winked broadly. Benedict's smile was thin, but James watched his eyes very carefully breaking the man down into his component, and vulnerable, parts.

“Well, what shall it be, gentlemen? Whist?” Pelham took the cards from the waiter's tray. Valmeyer took the bottle.

They all signaled their agreement, and Pelham broke the seal on the cards. He began to shuffle with practiced, easy motions, his long hands moving dexterously as he manipulated the cards.

James sipped his wine and watched those hands with great care.

***

No. 48 was not a large house, and there was only one spare room, and one bed, for guests. Fortunately, the bed was a large piece that Miss Sewell had inherited from her grandmother, with plenty of room for all three of the girls. Adele had imagined this night would be a delightful party, with the three of them laughing and chattering about the dance and everything that had happened there.

Instead, they were all three in their nightdresses, lying stiff as boards, except for Helene, who was curled up tight with her face turned toward the wall. Madelene turned onto her side and stared miserably at Helene's hunched shoulders.

“It was a success, wasn't it?” she murmured.

“Of course it was,” Adele said. “We're going to be answering cards and invitations all morning.”

“When there will be plenty of time to talk about it,” muttered Helene. “As opposed to now, when some people are trying to sleep.”

“Won't you tell us what happened?” begged Madelene, but Helene did not answer.

Adele stared up at the canopy, her own thoughts and feelings a snarled mess. At last she kicked her way out from under the covers.

“Where are you going?” Madelene whispered.

“To the parlor,” Adele said. “I'm going to get some hot milk.”

“Please do be quiet about it,” snarled Helene. “And close the curtains.”

Adele bit back her retort and instead found her wrap and tiptoed down the stairs.

She found the green parlor lit and warm. Miss Sewell sat before the fire, bundled in her own cozy burgundy wrapper, her slippered feet stretched out on the fender.

“I thought one of you might turn up. Milk?” She gestured toward the saucepan warming on the hearth along with three crockery mugs.

“Thank you.” Adele sat in the chair that had been drawn up to the fire.

“You should all be very pleased with yourselves.” Miss Sewell poured some steaming milk into a mug and handed it to Adele. “Despite having to leave early. You and your dresses created just the right kind of sensation.”

“Yes.” Adele wrapped both hands around her warm mug. “So how has everything gone wrong? Helene won't talk about what happened, and Marcus was there and he won't talk, either, and he's acting very odd, and then James . . . Monsieur Beauclaire . . .” She sipped her milk and scalded her tongue, but it was better than stammering, or crying.

Miss Sewell looked into her mug. “Adele, do you love him?”

“I do,” Adele whispered. “And he loves me, I think.”

“You're not sure?”

“How can I possibly be sure? No one's ever loved me. They've pitied me. A couple chased me. Some tried to make a bargain of me for the title, even when there wasn't any money, but they've never
loved
me. How do I know what love looks like or feels like?”

“But you do feel it's different with James?”

“Something's different,” Adele admitted. “New. Wonderful. But is it really love? How do you know?”

“You don't,” answered Miss Sewell. “You hope. You trust. You try.”

“And if you're wrong?” The last word threatened to choke her, and Adele took another swallow of milk.

“Then you're wrong.” Miss Sewell stared into the fire. “We also all make mistakes. Some of them . . . some of them stay on to haunt us. But mostly we cry, and we regret, and eventually, we heal.” She lifted her head and smiled, but Adele sensed a great effort behind the expression. “One thing I do know. Mistaken fear can cause as much regret as mistaken love.”

“But I am afraid, and it's not a mistake. I saw something in James's eyes tonight . . . He's lost some of the money he was investing. He's in trouble, Miss Sewell, or he means to make trouble.”

“But he told you nothing?” Adele shook her head. Miss Sewell reached out and touched her hand. “Then all you can do is wait. If he comes to you . . .
When
he comes to you, then you'll know the right thing to do.”

Adele made herself smile. She tucked her feet up under her and drank her milk and stared into the fire.

Please
, she prayed.
Let it be true. Let him come to me. And let me know what's right.

***

Benedict leaned over James's shoulder, ignoring the meaningful stare that Pursewell leveled against him. “James, don't do this.”

The round of whist had been even stormier than James anticipated. Valmeyer was in a reckless mood, betting wildly, pushing the stakes higher, and higher yet in an attempt to unnerve the other players. It was a strategy that might have worked among the dandies and dilettantes, but Pursewell was a professional, and James, well, James just wanted the nuisance that was Valmeyer out of the game as quickly as possible.

Now Valmeyer paced back and forth beside the table, glowering and gulping glasses of wine he poured from what was probably the fifth bottle. James had not kept track of Valmeyer's drinking. He'd been too busy watching Pursewell. And losing. He'd been very occupied in losing, and losing heavily.

He lost at whist until Benedict caught his signal, and Valmeyer's increasing unease, and retired from the game.

“Pity,” murmured Pursewell, as Benedict pushed his chair back. “What do you say, Beauclaire?”

James shook his head in a great show of reluctance. “I think I've had enough. The night is clearly yours.”

“Oh, come, come, don't be that way. Maybe a change of game brings a change of luck. What would you say to piquet?”

James paused, pretending to consider. Piquet was a two-handed game, so it would be just him and Pursewell, and the deck of cards between them.

Exactly what he'd been hoping for.

“Well,” James drawled. “All right. But only for an hour or so.” He raised his hand toward the waiter, who promptly brought a fresh pack of cards.

That had been three hours ago, and since then James had lost steadily. Not completely. Every so often he'd take three, even four hands in a row, only to lose again. The pile of notes and coin in front of Pursewell looked big enough to open a private bank. He had James's watch and his gold ring. Everything, in fact, except one thing.

“This is a damnably bad idea,” whispered Benedict in James's ear. “If she finds out . . .”

“I'm going to tell her myself. The minute this is done.”

This declaration did nothing to ease the worry in Benedict's eyes, and James felt himself vacillating. He forced his doubt away. The only other option was to leave the table, and he'd leave with nothing at all.

“Well, what do you say, Pursewell?” James made himself smile brightly. “How much will you stake me against the Windford dowery?”

***

The sound of someone pounding furiously at the front door jerked Adele instantly and painfully awake. She'd fallen asleep curled up in her chair before the fire. Before she could shove her hair back from her face, Miss Sewell was on her feet and out the door into the foyer.

“You'll let me in, damn it!” cried a man's voice. “She's my sister and I will speak with her!”

Adele shrieked and ran into the foyer to stare. But the very drunken man shoving Miss Sewell's housekeeper to the side wasn't Marcus. It was Lewis Valmeyer, and he was weaving toward the staircase.

“Maddie!” he bellowed. “Damn you! Where are you?”

Madelene was coming down the stairs, pale as her nightdress. Helene was right behind her, one hand hidden behind her back.

“Lewis.” Madelene stopped on the landing. “What are you doing here?”

“What am I doing here? What are you doing here instead of being at home where you're needed?”

“Who needs me?”

“I do. Specifically, I need your purse.” He stumbled toward the stairs, but Miss Sewell stepped into his path, and Adele joined her so they stood shoulder to shoulder.

“I have nothing with me.” Even as Madelene said this, Adele saw Helene step in front of her and start down the stairs.

“Don't lie,” Lewis sneered up at his sister. “You always have something, or have these pretty pigeons convinced you to turn against your family?”

“Lewis, you're drunk and . . .”

“Of course I'm drunk!” he hollered. “You would be, too, if you'd just been cheated to hell and gone by some damned frog . . .”

“
What?
” cried Adele.

Lewis leaned forward. The wine fumes on his breath were enough to set her reeling. “Oh, it's you. Well, well, I should choose my words more carefully. Not some damned frog, m'lady Adele, but your own personal damned frog is playing cards at Bassett's right now, and he's wagered your dowry against Octavian Pursewell's fortune . . .”

“He's
what
?” Adele stepped forward so suddenly Valmeyer staggered sideways and slammed against the wall. The man barely seemed to notice. He just laughed at her.

“Oh-ho! Have I put the cat among the pigeons? Well, well, how delightful. Yes, indeed, Lady Dumpling.” He spoke the insult with particular relish. “Your darling beau had been gambling and losing all night and has staked his expectations of marrying
you
on a fall of cards. How precious you are! How much he trusts and adores you.” He swung, or rather staggered, around. “Now give me what you've got, sister, so I can go and . . .”

“You will leave now, Mister Valmeyer,” said Miss Sewell. She'd moved from the staircase to the front door and, rather absurdly, clutched an umbrella in both hands.

“No, damn it, I will not!”

For an answer, Miss Sewell stabbed her umbrella straight into Lewis's solar plexus.