The Bride Wore Scarlet (16 page)

“Your point, my lord?” asked Napier. Both men were standing now, Lady Anisha observed—and leaning over the desk, almost nose to nose.

“Have you even had a look in those files of his?” Lazonby demanded. “
Have
you? Or did you just take his word as gospel when you inherited this desk?”

It was at this point that Lady Anisha rose, too, clearing her throat sharply. “Gentlemen, there is a lady present,” she said quietly.

Both men drew back a few inches, and Napier's face, at least, colored with embarrassment. “I beg your pardon,” he said.

Lady Anisha turned a sweet gaze on Lazonby. “Rance?”

“My apologies,” he said tightly, “but you knew what this was apt to come to.”

“What, fisticuffs?” she asked sarcastically. “Rance, kindly leave us.”

He turned on her, eyes wide. “Do what?”

“Get out,” she said. “Go back downstairs. You are overwrought. I wish to speak to Mr. Napier alone. You may come back up when I am done if it pleases you.”

Lazonby half turned, then cut her a nasty glance.

Lady Anisha drew herself up to her full height—which was all of about five feet. “
Go
,” she said sharply. “I mean it. You have pushed your luck with me, Rance, for the last time.”

Surprisingly, he went, slamming the door behind.

Napier had paced across the room, his back now half turned to her, one hand set at the nape of his neck as he stared blindly out the window at Whitehall Place below. She waited for him to speak. She could feel the strong emotion surging through the room. She only wished she knew what it was.

“Well, is this how it begins, Lady Anisha?” Napier finally asked, his voice pitched low, and obviously angry.

“I beg your pardon?” She crossed the room toward him. “Is this how what begins?”

He turned from the window, his expression one of disgust. “Do you now threaten me with your brother's wrath?” he asked. “Or drop Her Majesty's name by way of warning?”

“Oh, my,” said Lady Anisha softly. “Lofty circles indeed.”

His lip curled like a snarling dog's. “Oh, I know all about Ruthveyn's ‘special relationship' with the Queen,” he said. “I know a good deal more than that, actually, about Lazonby and Bessett and their little coven in St. James—though I cannot quite prove all of it yet.”

“I really have no idea what you are talking about,” she said. “I hardly need my brother to do my dirty work, if that's what you think. I'm perfectly capable of it. As to Ruthveyn's relationship with the Queen, any loyalty he earned there, he earned the hard way—with his toil and his sweat and yes, even his blood, all given because he loves his country. And if our sainted Queen is grateful for that, then I say she bloody well ought to be.”

If her unladylike curse shocked him, Napier gave no sign of it. Instead, he stood for a time by the window, backlit by the midday sun like one of Michelangelo's more wrathful angels descending from heaven. One hand was set stubbornly at his narrow waist, pushing back the front of his dark coat. Beneath, his waistcoat had shifted to reveal what looked like the butt end of a knife cleverly tucked inside the waist of his trousers.

An avenging angel, perhaps.

“Well, what
do
you want, then, Lady Anisha?” he asked coldly.

She lifted one shoulder with studied casualness. “I want to know,” she said quietly, “why it is that you never stop looking at me when we're in the same room together.”

Chapter 11

Pretend inferiority and encourage his arrogance.

Sun Tzu,
The Art of War

B
y half-past noon, Anaïs was propped against a tree in the Parc de Brussels with Mr. Reynolds's latest penny dreadful open on her lap. Perched upon a folding stool, Geoff sat at his sketch pad a few feet away, his broad back half turned to her, his bronze hair shifting lightly in the breeze.

Already a fine drawing of the Royal Palace was appearing beneath his hand, the strokes bold and black and unerring. It was a view of the structure as glimpsed through the massive park gates, and Anaïs found herself fascinated by the swiftness of his movements. To look at the sketch, one might imagine he'd been at work for hours rather than a mere fifteen minutes.

“You really do have a knack for that,” she murmured.

He turned and smiled—truly smiled—and Anaïs felt her breath catch dangerously.

“Thank you,” he said. “I've always had a passion for beautiful buildings. It was, so far as I could see, the only saving grace of a childhood spent abroad.”

“Can you draw people?”

His smile fading, Geoff turned back and removed his sketchbook from the easel. After flipping the page, he laid it across his lap, his long hair falling forward to shadow his face as he bent over it.

Dashing his hand back and forth across the paper for a few minutes, he flicked the occasional sidelong glance in her direction. Eventually, he straightened and held it a little away as if to study it.

Apparently satisfied, he ripped the paper free and handed it to her.

Anaïs took the sketch, and almost gasped.

It was the simplest of drawings, really. Just a few swift lines and a dash or two of shadow, but he had drawn her with incredible realism.

Anaïs let her gaze take in every detail. She still possessed her father's strong nose, but on the drawing it looked somehow right, and perfectly proportioned to her face. And although he had sketched her seated against a tree, one knee drawn up—just as she was—in the drawing Anaïs's hair was shown spilling round her shoulders, nearly to her waist.

But it was her eyes that were most arresting. They were large, but not overly so, and it felt as if they stared squarely, almost boldly, at the viewer. And yet they gave up nothing, appearing instead as almost enigmatic pools of ebony.

It was, on the whole, perfectly breathtaking.

“Geoff, it's lovely,” she managed, still holding it. “But I fear you overly flatter me.”

“Oh?” She could feel his curiosity burning into her. “In what way?”

She lifted her gaze to his, but saw no hint of equivocation there. “I'm not sure that's quite how I look.”

He tilted his head and studied her. “That's how you look to me.”

There was an earnestness in his face Anaïs had not expected—and a sort of gentleness, too, though he was the sort of man with whom one would not ordinarily associate such a word. And to her extreme discomfort she felt, quite suddenly and inexplicably, as if she might burst into tears. As if the thing she had waited the whole of her life for was somehow wrong; as if she were not quite the person she'd always believed herself to be. Certainly she was not this beautiful, mysterious woman.

Abruptly, she thrust it back at him.

“You don't want it?”

“No.” The word came out far too husky. “I mean—yes, I do want it. Very much. I just want you to sign it for me. And date it.”

With a muted smile, he did so, scratching a bold, angular signature in the lower right corner, and the date beneath.

“There,” he said, handing it back. “I daresay that's the first portrait I've sketched in a decade or better.”

“Then I'm honored. Thank you.”

But he had signed it
Geoffrey MacLachlan
—a precaution, she supposed, to preserve their ruse.

Just then, something caught her gaze. Anaïs laid the drawing aside. This strange and pleasant interlude was officially at an end.

“I suppose we'd best get our flibbertigibbet faces fixed,” she went on, “for I see Madame Moreau turning in from the Place des Palais.”

Geoff stiffened, but did not turn back around to look. “With whom?”

“A gentleman and a little girl.”

Geoff nodded, and returned to his drawing. Anaïs stood as if to dust off her skirts, then looked up and brightened her expression.

“Madame Moreau!” she called out. “Oh, my! What good fortune!”

Charlotte Moreau smiled, but her eyes shied uneasily toward the thin, elegant man whose arm she held. “Good morning, Mrs. MacLachlan,” she said when Anaïs hastened toward them. “How do you do?”

“Oh, ants!” said Anaïs, stepping onto the path. “I think I sat on a nest! Can you imagine anyone so witless? I seem to be imagining them all over me now, and it's utterly distracting.” She twitched a bit for good measure.

Madame Moreau's smile thinned. “Mrs. MacLachlan, may I present my—er, my uncle, the Vicomte de Lezennes? And this is Giselle, my daughter.”

When the full introductions had been made, Anaïs curtsied with almost comical depth to Lezennes. He was a slender, elegant man of middle age, with close-cropped hair nearly as dark as her own; a fine, thin nose, and a sharp beard that looked decidedly satanic. The child was a coltish thing who said nothing, and refused Anaïs's gaze—understandably, perhaps.

“Oh, Your Lordship, it is
such
an honor,” Anaïs gushed. “A French nobleman—right here in Brussels. And a diplomat, too!”

Lezennes flashed an almost patronizing smile. “My dear lady, Brussels is awash in French noblemen, I do assure you,” he said in flawless English. “And diplomats. What brings you here?”

Anaïs widened her eyes. “Oh, we are on our wedding trip,” she said, tumbling over her words. “Pardon my manners. Geoffrey! Oh, Geoff, do come here. You will remember Madame Moreau, I think?”

Geoff looked placidly up from his easel, feigning slow recognition. “Why, yes, of course!” Finally he rose and came toward them. Anaïs introduced the vicomte.

Geoff pumped his hand with a sort of John Bull gusto. “Oh, I say, good to meet you, old chap,” he said cheerfully. “The wife's been in alt over the notion of an English friend—can't speak a word of this odd Hollandish tongue, you know.”

Distaste flitted across Lezennes' visage, but was quickly veiled. “Technically, Mr. MacLachlan, it's Flemish,” said the vicomte, “but French will do as well here. Surely your wife has a little French?”

Geoff looked at Anaïs blankly. “Yes, I daresay.”

“Oh, enough to stumble along, but I do dislike it,” Anaïs complained, hitching her arm through his. “You must pardon my husband, my lord. We've been married but a few weeks. As to why we've come, Geoff likes to draw pictures of buildings.”

“Of buildings?” Lezennes looked quizzically at Geoff.

“Yes, yes, thinking of becoming an architect. Can't live off m'father forever, eh?” Geoff gave Lezennes a conspiratorial wink. “Or so the gov'nor likes to remind me. Bags of money, that one, but tight as a parson's pucker.”

“Oh, come look at his drawing, do!” Anaïs tilted her head toward the easel. “You really will be quite impressed.”

Left with no polite way to refuse, Lezennes bowed stiffly at the neck. “
Après vous, madame
,” he said with a flourish of his hand.

They crossed the pathway and the clearing, Geoff yammering on about how frightfully expensive it was to live in Brussels, and wondering a trifle too loudly if Paris was any cheaper. Lezennes assured him it was not. Then the drawing was duly produced and a suitable fuss made, with Charlotte Moreau politely declaring it was quite the nicest likeness of the palace she had ever seen.

Anaïs thought it more probable it was the
only
likeness she'd ever seen, but she thanked them both profusely.

“Well, Charlotte,” she eventually declared, “I hope I may call you Charlotte?”

Again, the lady cut an uncertain look at Lezennes. “But of course,” she said. “And you are . . . Anaïs, was it not?”

“It is, and I was so frightfully disappointed over your headache on Sunday,” Anaïs pressed on. “I so desperately wished to quiz you about the best place to buy lace. And books”—here she knelt and snatched up her cheap novel—“have you any notion where I might find a bookshop? With these sorts of English serials?”

Madame Moreau looked startled. “With English serials?”

But the vicomte was eyeing the garish cover in barely veiled disgust. “
Mon Dieu, madame
, what is that thing?”

Anaïs widened her eyes. “A penny dreadful,” she whispered. “They are most exciting, my lord. This one is about a wehr-wolf.”

Lezennes' lip seemed to curl. “And what, pray, is a wehr-wolf?”

“A man who changes into a wolf at the full moon,” said Anaïs with a shiver. “He has sold his soul to the devil, you see, for youth and wealth, but there's a catch—isn't there always a catch when one does such a silly thing? In any case, it is most deliciously horrid. I know ladies do not normally buy them, but I am of the opinion that they should at least try one.”

“Oh, she'll read just any sort of nonsense,” Geoff cheerfully threw in, now repacking his things. “Have pity on us, Madame Moreau, and take her somewhere she can find a proper book.”

“But in English?” said the lady, her delicate brow furrowing. “Alas, I do not think—”

“We could discuss it over tea one day?” Anaïs suggested. “If, that is, you are feeling better?”

Again, Charlotte Moreau glanced at her companion. “Well, I am not sure . . .”

But Lezennes was looking back and forth between Anaïs's silly novel and the perfectly bovine expression on Geoff's face. “Feel free to go, my dear,” said the vicomte. “I think it would be quite harmless.”

Some of the tension went out of Charlotte Moreau at that, and for the first time she flashed what appeared to be a genuine smile. “I should be pleased to,” she said. “When?”

“Monday?” Anaïs suggested, trying not to seem too eager. “Oh, and do bring little Giselle. She is such a pretty thing, and puts me so very much in mind of my own dear Jane.”

Even at this remark, however, the child did not make eye contact, and instead pushed further behind her mother's skirts.

The vicomte, however, did make eye contact. “I am afraid Giselle is delicate, and not quite like other children.” His voice was firm. “She does not often leave home.”

Anaïs let recognition dawn across her face. “No, indeed, then,” she said. “Of course it would not do. The poor, dear mouse. How very good you are, my lord, to be so mindful of her welfare.”

Geoff looked up from the easel he was closing—and making a hash of the whole business, for he'd managed to shut his coattail up in one of the hinges.

“By gad, I've a capital notion,” he said, finally thrashing himself loose with a good deal of flailing and clatter. “The two of you must come to dine! What about Tuesday? We've a smashing good cook over there. Roasts a joint as well as a proper Englishwoman. How does six o'clock sound? Afraid we're still keeping country hours.”

Lezennes lifted his nose a notch. “Giselle's governess leaves in the afternoons, and Charlotte cannot be from home after that,” he said. “I am afraid we could not possibly come to your house.”

“Well, if you insist,” said Geoff good-naturedly. “Hate to put you out, though.”

“I beg your pardon?” said Lezennes.

But Geoff blustered his way onward. “Tell you what—I'll make it up to you!” he vowed. “A cask of the gov'nor's best whisky accidentally fell into my wagon as I was leaving for Brussels. What do you say I drain us off a bottle?”

“Whisky?” The vicomte literally recoiled. “Made of
fermented
grain
?”

Geoff snapped his folding stool shut. “Aye, and I'll wager you'll never drink that tepid French brandy again, Lezennes, once you've had a snoot-full of Scotch glory. So six, then, at your place?”

Lezennes drew a deep, almost shuddering breath. “
Oui
, six,” he said in a tone that suggested the earlier he could get it over with the better. Then he crooked his head to look down at his companion. “Charlotte, I daresay, will be glad for the diversion.”

Charlotte was still smiling her genuine smile. “Oh, I would!” she declared. “Thank you, Uncle. You really are too kind.”

The matter, then, was settled. After a round of polite good-byes, Anaïs and Geoff watched the three of them stroll away in the direction of the Rue de la Loi, on the opposite end of the park.

“Good God,” he said when the trio was beyond earshot. “That was appalling. Even I don't like us.”

“
Stupide
rosbifs
, are we not?” Anaïs grinned up at him. “And now poor Lezennes must have us to dine. That was well done, by the way.”

“Stepped in it like horse manure, didn't he?” Geoff grinned back. “And who knew you could be so dimwitted?”

“Or you so cheerfully crass,” Anaïs added.

“Oh, I have my moments.”

“I thought the coattail in the hinge was a convincing touch,” said Anaïs, rummaging in her pocket. “If we cannot make decent Guardians, I daresay we might tread the boards.” She produced a lace and linen handkerchief, and fluttered it at him.

He lifted one brow. “Thank you, Anaïs, but you have not reduced me to tears quite yet.”

“No, silly, I pinched it from Charlotte's pocket,” she said, tucking it into the collar of his waistcoat. “Vittorio taught me.”

“To
pick pockets
?”

“To do a number of things,” said Anaïs vaguely. “Vittorio said that sometimes a deeply personal item could be imprinted with the owner's emotions. And unless I miss my guess, that handkerchief has been damp with her tears more than once. Perhaps you will find it helpful.”