The Perfect Mistress (48 page)

"If only I had been so blunt years ago, with a different man…"

Two days later, Pierce found himself sitting in the restaurant at the Clarendon, staring out the leaded window at the morning sunshine on the pavement but somehow seeing into a darkened bedchamber… seeing Gabrielle's provocative mouth, her jewel-clear eyes lighted with internal fire, her luscious curves bared just for him… When someone paused on the walkway outside, blocking his view, he roused and shook off those plaguing images, only to find himself wondering what she was doing with her days and how she had managed to both put up with his mother and even win her over, and trying not to wonder whether or not she had cried after he left her at his house the other morning.

Moments later another dark shadow intervened in his line of sight; this time at a much closer range. "Sandbourne! I thought it was you. Saw you through the window…" Pierce looked up with a start to find Colonel Tottenham standing across the table from him.

"Gathering wool are you? Shearing season's long past." The colonel laughed at his own witticism and reached for the chair closest Pierce. "Mind if I join you?"

Pierce felt his gut tighten as he waved permission. "By all means."

"How are things… on the domestic front?" The senior MP was known for coming straight to the point.

"Fine," Pierce said with a forced smile. "How are things… on the political front?"

"No news is good news. Haven't heard your name taken in vain for a day or two now… though, you're still on a bit of thin ice where some of the party leadership is concerned. They're touchy about scandals in the private sphere, especially now that we're so close to bringing down the Liberals on moral grounds. Cannot afford to have
our
private peccadilloes made a public issue. Getting harder all the time to keep a spotless name. With all this damnable reform nonsense about, you never know when you'll run up against some 'shrieking sister,' radical socialist worker, or 'do-good' reformer and find yourself caught in a crack." He made a face of disgust. "It's got so that a bit of muslin on the side is hardly safe for a man in public life anymore."

Pierce steeled himself, purging his thoughts from his expression as he watched Tottenham. In his mind, he heard a voice saying:
hypocrite
. And this time it wasn't Gabrielle's voice; it was his. Do your dirty little deeds in private—whatever the traffic will bear—as long as no one finds out. Never mind integrity, decency, or morality… The party's sole concern was whether or not a man got "caught." Why hadn't it bothered him before? If he was so dedicated to honesty, so insistent on judging the opposition, why hadn't he held his own party to those same standards? What made a Liberal hypocrite any more dangerous or loathsome than a Conservative one?

"Another thing…" Tottenham beckoned him closer with a jerk of his head, then leaned closer and dropped his voice. "Thought you'd want to know. This Saturday night, midnight… Gladstone will have his last debauch. He'll have a drink at his club and wake up in a bevy of naked females at the Pavilion." His mouth twisted into a smirk. "Pity you can't be there. You'd enjoy seeing the old bugger's ruin."

Pierce made a grimace that passed for a smile and nodded. When Tottenham left, he sat for a time, feeling strangely conflicted by the news that Gladstone was about to receive his comeuppance. The old man had wrecked his life, humiliated him, and damn near ruined his political career.

Then why was he sitting here feeling overheated and prickly, as if he ought to scrub his hands to rid himself of the contamination of knowing what was in store for the old hypocrite?

He left the restaurant, his mind set on the day's dismal readings in Parliament. He had just donned his gloves and was retrieving his hat from the rack when the desk clerk spotted him and hurried over. "I'm glad I caught you, your lordship." He held out an envelope to Pierce. "This came for you a short while ago… marked urgent."

His name was written in exquisite script on the vellum envelope. He secured a letter opener from the porter and opened it on the spot. It was a handsomely inscribed note which read:

Lord Sandbourne is hereby invited

to a reception in his honor

at the London Foundling Hospital

on Guilford Street

June third, at one o'clock in the afternoon.

He read it a second time. London Foundling Hospital? Today? What the hell were they doing, giving a reception in his honor? He had no connection with… Dimly, he recalled having spoken to someone recently regarding something… At the Mortons' charity bash, old Rosebery had yammered on about some children's charities and said that Gabri—

Gabrielle
. His whole frame stiffened at the thought of her. His heart began to hammer, and a feeling of expectation collected in his gut. She had done charity work at a foundling hospital and orphanage, near her school in France, and the children there had meant a great deal to her. The thought caused that unwelcome tightness in his gut to migrate into his chest. She had something to do with this, he was certain of it.

Dammit, he had no desire to play hide-and-seek all over London with her. He would have to go of course. He began girding himself mentally for the encounter. He would have to arrive and be gracious and pretend to know what the hell was going on… then take her home and give her a sound talking to before something else disastrous happened.

22

«
^
»

L
ondon Foundling Hospital had been established more than a century before. From a modest start it had grown to a facility that housed more than five hundred abandoned children in a large complex of reddish brown Georgian buildings set on a large greensward in Bloomsbury. As his cab drew up to the address on Guilford Street and turned into the gravel drive, he glimpsed a wide, grassy expanse of lawn, dotted here and there with mature trees. Groups of children in somber uniforms were milling about.

He paid the driver, tipped him generously, and told him to return in half an hour and to wait for him, however long it might be. Pierce entered the front door of the hospital. The starched-looking matron at the desk in the receiving room knew nothing about a "reception." While he waited for the matron to check and return, he became aware of two worn-looking younger women sitting on a bench across the way, one carrying a tiny bundle, the other with an infant in her arms and two small toddlers clinging to her threadbare skirts. The older children were whining they were hungry and climbing over their mother's lap, but she simply stared straight ahead with a deadened expression, ignoring their attempts to get her attention. Pierce averted his eyes, but not in time to avoid a tug of concern in the middle of his chest.

At last, a man in an austere gray suit and a tall woman in a dark blue uniform entered the receiving room and introduced themselves as the administrator and the head matron of the hospital. They welcomed him warmly and informed him that the reception was actually scheduled for five o'clock. They had asked him to come early for a tour and a chance to meet some of the children who would be helped by his generous contribution of the "Sandbourne Endowment." The reverent tone with which the administrator spoke those fateful words hinted at the size of Pierce's supposed generosity. He nodded and accompanied the administrator down the halls of one wing, past offices and classrooms, listening to a litany of improvements his donation would enable them to make.

They passed through a dormitory crowded with iron beds. The place smelled of vinegar and ammonia and the smell of warm, sweaty little bodies. He found himself trying not to inhale and averting his eyes from those beds and what they represented. He was relieved when they paused at an open door facing a small, paved court lined with flower beds and wooden benches. Taking a deep breath of the fresh air, he halted in the middle of it.

Seated on one of those benches was Gabrielle, dressed in a fashionable blue skirt, white tucked blouse with a standing collar, and a simple cameo for decoration. Crowded onto the bench on either side of her and seated in a tight circle at her feet were a dozen little girls, all aged four or five, dressed in worn serge dresses and cotton aprons in varying shades of white. She was reading them a story, making the words come alive with her mimicry of voices. Their eyes were huge, their faces adoring.

The administrator excused himself, and Pierce nodded absently as the fellow left. He was intent on watching Gabrielle, feeling drawn to the scene and yet resisting it. This was what he had been lured here to see—the very picture of compassion and selflessness, the essence of all that was good and decent and desirable. Apparently he was supposed to be impressed and hand his life over to her…

Stepping out into the sunny court, he waited for her to notice him. But when she looked up, she merely smiled and returned to her work, asking if the girls had heard the story of the little gingerbread man. They answered with a chorus of no's. "Well, you will now." She reached into a canvas bag at her feet and pulled out another storybook that was filled with scraps of paper marking stories.

Irritation set in as Pierce leaned a shoulder against the wall and listened to the way a gingerbread man outwitted the farmer's wife, then the farmer, then the farmer's son, then a peddler along the road. Here, art—if it could be called
art
—imitated life, and it didn't take a genius to decipher who was really trying to outwit whom. Unlike her rapt audience, however, he knew how the story came out. He intended to take the part of the fox, not the farmer, and they would soon see who outfoxed whom.

When the story was over, her audience clapped with glee and begged for more. "Girls, there is someone here I want you to meet. He is a very important man. His name is Lord Sandbourne, and he has just made a gift to the hospital that will enable you to have new books, a proper teacher, and new shoes when you outgrow those. I think he deserves a curtsy. Do you know how to curtsy?" She set her book aside and rose to demonstrate. One by one, she held their hands and had them say "thank you" and curtsy.

They thought it splendid fun and insisted on doing it a second time…

dissolving into a bedlam of giggles.

It took patience and tenacity, not to mention the bribe of another story, for her to collect them all and make them sit down once again. Then she pulled out another book and opened it to the story of the fox and the grapes.

Pierce stalked about the court with his arms folded, refusing to let any of this affect him. Children and stories and fables. It was a cheap, sentimental ploy. But, as she was explaining the moral of that tale, he realized that he had heard the story and its explanation before… recently. In fact, she had read it to him, not so long ago, in the privacy of her boudoir. The same story: "The Fox and the Grapes."

Gabrielle watched him pacing near the door to the courtyard. "Lord Sandbourne?" she called, bringing him up short. "Would you read one last story to the girls?"

"Me?" he snapped, then immediately checked his irritable reaction. "I am afraid riot. I've only come to escort you home—as soon as possible."

"But that is not possible until I've read a few more stories. Girls, wouldn't you like to hear Lord Sandbourne read a story?"

She had done the unforgivable; she had set the children on him. In an instant, a dozen little girls were all over him, pulling on his coat and sleeves, patting and thumping him. One wrapped herself bodily around his leg. He was in danger of being entreated to death when he finally held up his hands in surrender. "All right! I'll do it."

It was as quiet as a church as he read the story of the fox and the crow and then tried valiantly to explain the moral: the dangers of flattery. It was hard to put it in five-year-old terms—that people could say pretty things to you and about you when all they want is to take advantage of you. But then, the story was only partly for them, he realized. Its main target was himself. It was another of the stories she had read to him in her boudoir.

In spite of himself, he began to remember… the stories and limericks, the feeling of being in league with someone—with her. Trusting someone… as she had trusted him… and as he had begun to trust her. When the story ended, he rose quickly and handed Gabrielle back her book.

She had the children form a double line at the door, holding hands with their partners, as was their habit. One bright little face, at the head of the line, looked up at her and said, "Where is your partner? You have to have a partner."

The girls set up a clamor, insisting that "partners" was a strict rule.

Gabrielle had to swallow the lump in her throat before she could force a smile and reach for Pierce's hand. "Very well. Will you be my partner, Lord Sandbourne?"

There were at least a dozen pairs of eyes fixed hopefully on him. Pierce knew when he was beaten. He took Gabrielle's hand and together they led the children out to the front lawn, where a stout older lady stood waiting to take them out for an airing.