A Notorious Countess Confesses (PG7) (11 page)

“Will you bring it up to the table now, then?” he asked her.

“I suppose I will.” She didn’t move. She did square her shoulders.

“Godspeed, Lady Balmain.”

She did smile at this, albeit wryly, and bore her cake off into the lion’s den.

He watched her walk, as regally as someone about to be presented to the queen, right up to Mrs. Sneath. They exchanged a few words; Mrs. Sneath relieved her of the basket rapidly, as though it did indeed contain a snake, and gestured, almost shooed her, in the direction of the rows of chairs, while behind them the cluster of women in the corner shifted and buzzed with low conversation, like a cloud of disturbed bees.

Mrs. Sneath had been silent for a long, long time when he’d broached the topic of the countess.

“She’s a very striking woman,” she began carefully. “The sort your cousin Mr. Colin Eversea might have known some years back, I suspect. I’ve heard she can captivate even the most stalwart of men like a veritable Circe.”

She was clever, Mrs. Sneath. But not direct. Perhaps she was concerned Adam was exhibiting latent rake tendencies.

“Pennyroyal Green is blessed with more than our fair share of striking women, wouldn’t you say, Mrs. Sneath? I imagine that’s why I noticed nothing unusual about the countess.”

Surely this was the sort of lie that could be forgiven.

“Oh, Reverend.” She laughed and blushed, and would convey his words to all the women in the town, thus fanning into a bonfire the hopes of many of them.

“You are a good man, Reverend Sylvaine,” she said carefully, though it had the faintest, faintest ring of a reminder. “I understand that your compassionate nature compels you to convey her request to me. But what you suggest might be difficult, indeed. If Napoleon had confronted a mass of women determined to protect their morals and the morals of their families, he might have turned around and gone straight back to France.”

“Don’t you think, Mrs. Sneath, that if one’s morals are solid, then one woman with a basketful of cake is hardly likely to corrupt them? Wouldn’t the sheer volume of moral certainty you ladies possess be more likely to influence her?”

He thought this very unlikely in the present circumstances. If any influencing was about to take place, he suspected quite the inverse.

“Excellent point! “ Mrs. Sneath seemed pleased with this. “It’s why you are the vicar.”

“Wouldn’t it be an interesting challenge to welcome her graciously into the society and see whether one’s morals can withstand the strain of her?”

He told himself it didn’t matter whether she noticed how heavily laced with irony the sentence was as long as she embraced the intent.

She seemed captivated by the notion. “Perhaps if we consider her a prodigal daughter? Or …” and this seemed to animate her. “ … a soiled dove?”

“I expect she could be … wait. A what?” He was a bit uneasy now.

But Mrs. Sneath’s reformist zeal was stirred. “A lost sheep returning to the fold!”

She was delighted at the prospect, and so he let it be.

Mrs. Sneath was hurrying over to him now. “I’ve taken the countess’s basket, Reverend,” she said with the briskness of a subaltern reporting to a commanding officer. “But I shan’t hope for a miracle. As I said, acceptance might be more difficult than you think. My niece was quite taken with you, by the by. She left a gift with me for you. I’ll send it over to the vicarage. I think you’ll be very pleased. Very pleased indeed.”

He mentally made room for another jar of preserves in his pantry and wended his way to the back of the room, which was gratifyingly full. The poor were with them always in Sussex, and he sincerely hoped the audience would reach deeply into their pockets. It did simplify his job to some extent, when there were funds to feed and clothe the hungry and repair their roofs.

Though his life in general seemed to resist simplicity.

Mrs. Sneath hurried away, and Adam made his way to the back of the room and stood, hands behind his back.

There was a pleasing sort of pianoforte-key symmetry to the assembly, the men in their best dark coats arrayed alongside women in brighter finery, all in the several dozen rows of seats provided by the Sir John.

And in the final row sat the countess, in blue, all straight-backed dignity, entirely alone.

A narrow strip of pale nape between the collar of her pelisse and bonnet, with dark curls escaping. It seemed all at once absurdly vulnerable, that pale skin. Proof again she was human and could be hurt.

She didn’t fit into the pianoforte-key arrangement.

He couldn’t help but think she was an entire Hallelujah chorus of a woman.

Yet another thought he wouldn’t be sharing with his cousins. Or with anyone.

Chapter 8

ONCE THE BIDDING had gotten under way, the sidelong glances and the yawns and stretches that were really excuses for the men to peer over their shoulders at her finally ceased, and she sat alone in the row, she hoped, forgotten. But as basket after basket was claimed with good-natured bidding, Evie was half-amused, half-appalled to realize her palms were clammy inside her gloves because every bid brought her closer to the moment her basket would be offered.

She didn’t see the vicar in the audience. Likely he was off bestowing goodwill and partaking of confidences, she thought. Basking in the rays of admiration. Deflecting flirtations.

She did think she caught a glimpse of a profile that had years ago been familiar, a man’s. The very shape of loathing itself. But then he’d turned his head to face the auctioneer. Surely, she was simply seeing him through a filter of trepidation? When one has a past, one has a tendency to see it out of the corners of one’s eye under times of great strain. She knew this through experience. She still, on occasion, dreamed of the rooms in St. Giles and woke thrashing.

The auctioneer was thumping his great gavel with abandon.

“ … Next we have Mrs. Bainbridge’s legendary lemon seedcakes. Who among us would risk offending Mrs. Bainbridge’s excellent cook by bidding less than three shillings? Your future invitations to dinner depend on it!”

Much genial laughter was followed by escalating bids ricocheting about the room.

“One pound for the seedcakes if I get an invitation to dinner!”

“Two pounds for the seedcakes. But I’ll give ten for her cook!”

Roars of laughter greeted this. Thanks to the fever of bonhomie and the warm glow of charitable giving blended with the ratafia and flasks slipped from the pockets of men and sipped liberally, the seedcakes went for the exorbitant figure of two pounds fifty. Mrs. Bainbridge was compelled by shouts to stand and curtsy, to much applause.

The auctioneer moved to the second-to-the-last basket on the table. Hers.

Eve’s heart pounded as though it were opening night in Covent Garden.

“Now this basket contains a ginger cake donated by none other than …” He paused, at great length and stared at the sheet of paper, as if he hoped if he stared at the words long enough, they’d transform into different ones. At last, with a strained heartiness, he completed: “the Countess of Wareham!”

Well, that effectively dammed the bonhomie spigot. All was suddenly creaking chairs and cleared throats and uneasy rustling. She felt they were all acutely aware of her. And yet no one, not a soul, turned around to look at her. Not one word was muttered.

The auctioneer rallied. “Do I hear one shilling for the ginger cake!”

He heard nothing at all is what he heard.

Just more rustling.

He seemed momentarily daunted by the glacial silence. Evie could only imagine his view: accusing, righteous eyes, row upon row of them. She’d stood on the stage before a bored silent audience before. It was enough to make even the most stalwart of souls perspire a river.

“Who will bid one shilling for the ginger cake? A favorite after any Sunday dinner!”

“Ginger cake. Is that the Black Widow’s new nickname?” came a man’s whisper. It unfortunately carried brilliantly in the silence.

“She wouldn’t do it for less than five shillings, I heard.”

A few filthy little chuckles were stopped by an appalled feminine shhhhhhhh.

“It’s excellent for digestion, ginger!” the auctioneer coaxed desperately. “Ooooone shilling! For the poor of Sussex, ladies and gentleman, who deserve and need your charity, for there but for the Grace of God …”

Mouths remained steadfastly, punishingly clamped shut. After all, opportunities to shun a genuine harlot, the Black Widow herself, were few and far between, and they were all taking full delicious advantage.

The moment stretched torturously, dreamlike. Her stomach tightened until she couldn’t breathe, then tossed like a skiff on a stormy sea. Evie thought, perhaps if I walk out now, just drift right out of here, one day I’ll eventually believe it was a dream.

She knew she couldn’t. Not just for her own sake.

But the sake of Reverend Sylvaine, who had risked his reputation for her.

“Perhaps we haven’t any lovers of ginger cake present today,” John Fisker tried. “Perhaps we should—”

“Five pounds for the ginger cake.”

The voice was almost bored.

In unison, all the heads turned, mouths dropped open into “O’s.” Gasps fluttered up ribbons on bonnets.

The vicar was used to being stared at, so he didn’t even blink. He stood in the back of the room, hands clasped behind his back, one knee slightly, casually bent. He didn’t smile. He didn’t look at her. His face was inscrutable.

She did note a distinct ironlike tension about his jaw.

It was then she wondered what a man like Adam Sylvaine looked like when he was truly furious.

She wondered if she was the only one present who suspected he was.

The eyes continued beaming in his direction. Stunned silence prevailed.

“I like ginger cake,” he said, finally. As if in answer to a collective silent question.

He would, of course, be inundated with ginger cakes by the end of the week.

“Do I hear SIX pounds for the ginger cake?” The auctioneer sounded a trifle dizzy. He had the gavel upraised, poised for a tremendous blow.

The audience was dumbstruck. Confusion clearly had a grip. Gazes flitted between her and the vicar and back to her. Hissed conversations took place. But like the vicar, Evie was used to stares, both the worshipful and censuring kind, and like the vicar, she had a special smile she used for audiences. Small, serene, noncommittal, impenetrable, with a just a soupçon of warmth. She donned it now, and all the stares could find no purchase or satisfaction, so they turned around to face the auctioneer again.

“Going once … twice … three times! Reverend Sylvaine is now the proud owner of a ginger cake! And thank you to the Lady Balmain, and the poor of Sussex thank you for the generous, serendipitous donation today.”

Evie gave one regal nod. As if she’d planned this beneficence all along.

She didn’t look back at the Reverend Sylvaine.

She wasn’t certain whether she was relieved or humiliated. But she realized he’d just, before nearly the whole of the town, cast his lot in with hers, to some degree.

She would need to do him proud.

And what must five pounds mean to a vicar?

She glanced over her shoulder then, to find Adam nodding just at the auctioneer, apparently a signal. Sir John Fisker hastened over the silence with a clear of his throat.

“Right. Yes. Next we have … well, if it isn’t our final basket of the day! Inside we have … it looks like … tea cakes with currants contributed by Mrs. Margaret Lanford!”

The audience bestirred themselves to clap for Mrs. Lanford, and when the heads swiveled toward her, Evie recognized her as Paulie’s mother, she of the frosty stare and righteous silence and easy condemnation. She was wearing her best clothing today, from the looks of the bonnet almost flattened beneath the weight of a cluster of dusty grapes.

“Do I hear one shilling for the tea cakes?” Sir John Fisker urged. “They’ve currants in them! A favorite of children everywhere!”

“Why, one shilling is a bargain for a box o’ rocks!” the man next to Mrs. Lanford called. His thick neck rose up out of a tight collar, and his stiff black hair was very short, rather like bristles on a boar. “Right useful, rocks are!”

A rustle of chuckles from the men.

“Can I skip ’em across the pond, Lanford?”

Then the man was Margaret Lanford’s husband. An argument against marriage, that, Evie thought.

“Better than that. You throw ’em at foxes when they get near the henhouse!”

More laughter.

“Aye, but you can build a wall with ’em to keep the foxes out. They’ll withstand the winter, those tea cakes,” came another voice.

“Use ’em to keep the door propped open on warm days!”

The men, the hateful beasts, were having a wonderful time. She loathed how some of them behaved when they were full of drink.

She watched as the women alternately exchanged dark looks, shifted uncomfortably, or stared stonily ahead. Emotions twitched over their faces, from anger to fear.

And from where she sat, Evie had a perfect view of the vivid red color that had washed up the back of Margaret Lanford’s neck. Her face was likely a painful scarlet. She saw her throat move in a swallow.

And then her shoulders twitched and squared, in the way one does when attempting to accommodate a humiliation with dignity.

Evie ought to know.

“Two pounds,” Evie said then. In a drawl so regal it could have cut diamonds.

It silenced the room again. The stillness was followed by an uneasy, yet decidedly fascinated rustle of murmurs. A few dared to peek over their shoulders.

And then, all at once, it welled in her, the deliciousness of a calculated risk, the thrill of a bit of theater. She might never see these people again. What had she to lose?

“Although …” she mused, raising her voice, “who can put a price on the loving labor the women of this fine town put in day after day after day? All in an attempt to feed their families, to keep them healthy and happy. Three pounds,” she said firmly, as if she’d reconsidered the value.

It was a startling figure. In the silence that followed, tension gathered almost palpably, roiling like storm clouds, hovering portentously. All around her, she saw the spines of women stiffening like coiled springs; everywhere, jaws clenched, bottoms shifted restlessly.