Amanda Scott (17 page)

“Oh, surely you are too hard upon them, sir. My sister tells me that Mr. Bonaparte, who prefers to be called Napoleon in quite the royal manner, has charmed all the ladies in Paris.”

“No doubt. But ’tis the men who concern me. Look at them.”

She obeyed him and was forced to agree that they were by and large a mincing, dandified lot. Nonetheless, she found it difficult as the evening passed to condemn any of the gentlemen she met for anything more serious than a lack of interest in any but the lightest conversation. She attempted more than once to bring up the subject of the uneasy peace, but each time her listener, whoever he was, adroitly evaded the issue.

She did not meet Père Leclerc’s friend Alexandre Deguise that night, nor for several nights after that, and when she did, it was at a musicale in the home of one of Madame Elise’s friends. With people chatting on her every side, she could scarcely do more than introduce herself and mention that she had been given a letter of introduction to him from the priest in Rouen.

“I will do myself the singular honor to call upon you at Maison de Prévenu,
mademoiselle
,” said the elderly gray-haired gentleman with a courtly bow. And so he did, the following day, not long after Meriel and her sister had departed from the breakfast parlor. They were sitting companionably together in a charming sunlit chamber known to the inhabitants of the house as the ladies’ boudoir when Monsieur Deguise’s card was carried up on a silver tray by one of the blue-and-cream-clad footmen.

“
Merci
, Michel,” said Meriel when he presented the card to her. She scanned it briefly, then looked at her sister with a smile. “’Tis Monsieur Deguise,” she said, “the gentleman I inquired about when first I arrived. I chanced to make his acquaintance briefly last evening at Madame de Poine’s musicale, and he promised he would call. Show him into the downstairs drawing room, Michel, if you have not put him there already. When I have fetched Père Leclerc’s letter, I shall go down to him at once.”

“Not alone, you won’t,” said Nest, laughing at her as the footman departed. “That don’t suit my notions of propriety one bit. You may have traveled across France with gentlemen dancing attendance, but you shan’t entertain one in my drawing room without a proper chaperon, and so I tell you to your head.”

“Fiddlesticks,” retorted Meriel. “It has naught to do with propriety and all to do with your insatiable curiosity, my girl. I am well able to deal with a gentleman old enough to be our grandfather without interference from you.”

“Call it what you may,” said Nest, still chuckling. “You run along and get your letter, and I shall reintroduce myself to your beau.”

So it was that when Meriel descended to the ground-floor drawing room, it was to find her sister happily engrossed in conversation with the elderly deputy minister. Nest looked up with a wide grin.

“You find us out, my love. I have been flirting outrageously with your latest conquest, and I mean to cut you out with him before the week is out.”

Meriel was a trifle dismayed by her sister’s behavior, but she quickly realized that her visitor was only flattered. Smiling at him, she said, “You must think us quite without manners, sir. I am so pleased that you have honored us with a visit this morning. Here is the letter from Père Leclerc. It was kind of him to refer me to you.”

“One can never have too many letters of introduction when one travels beyond one’s own country,
mademoiselle
,” Monsieur Deguise said in his low, rumbling voice. He straightened his neckcloth with a slight, expert gesture, lifted the seal, and began to read.

Remembering what the priest had promised to ask of him, Meriel suddenly wished her sister were elsewhere. After all, she could scarcely discuss her need to be assured of Nest’s safety with Nest sitting right there. Not—from what she had seen of her sister since her arrival—unless she wished to have a basin of cold water emptied over her head at the first opportunity. She watched Monsieur Deguise with feelings of uneasiness, but she need not have worried.

When he had finished reading, he looked up at her, glanced at Nest, smiled, and returned his gaze to Meriel’s anxious face. “I shall be most pleased to be of service to you in any way I possibly can,
mademoiselle
. I daresay we shall encounter one another from time to time, since it appears that we have friends in common. Thus, if there is ever anything you require, you have but to ask.” He turned slightly toward Nest. “
Sans doute, madame
, you have a great concern for the fate of your husband?”

Nest shrugged, but the quick frown that had crossed her pretty face as he spoke belied the gesture, and she realized the fact at once. “You are too quick for me,
monsieur
. I do feel concern, despite the fact that I know in my heart that all will be well.”

“I can tell you,
madame
, that your heart speaks truly. The First Consul has already tried the patience of the great and generous Depuissant family more than good sense should permit. The
comte
’s uncle, who is a man of resource and wealth, as you know, has already made some discomfiting demands and has refused to provide Napoleon with further funding for his armada at Boulogne until the
comte
has been released. It will not be more than a week or two at most. Only till Napoleon returns to Paris, I am convinced.”

After that, Meriel was able to relax her own concerns. Surely if André was in a way toward being released from prison, Nest was in no danger so long as the uneasy peace continued. If war were to break out again, then there might be danger to them all, but Nest had been in France before while England was at war with her, and she had survived that. With a clear conscience, Meriel turned her full attention to enjoying Paris.

The Parisian spring was all that Mr. Carruthers had told her it would be. The boulevards which encircled the town were thickly planted with high branching trees, under which there seemed to be an eternal scene of festivity. All the best cafés, Meriel soon learned, were out-of-doors, and a thousand groups of happy-looking people could be seen at any time of day or night, sitting under blossoming arbors, quaffing lemonade, wine, cider, or beer, and conducting themselves with such cheerfulness and decorum that she found it a delight to watch them. Besides the usual evening parties that she might have taken part in in London as well as in Paris, she discovered in the weeks that followed that one of the favorite pastimes of the
beau monde de Paris
was to go “vagabondizing.” Upon more than one occasion, but always under the escort of several gentlemen, she and Nest found themselves poking their noses into every haunt of the lower orders that they could find. There were cabarets full of dancers, “Theaters for the People,” and entertainment booths on every major boulevard presenting conjurers, puppets, menageries, and the like.

“Music seems to be the very breath of Paris,” she told her sister one evening as they strolled along a boulevard lined with tall trees and a number of these booths, from all of which a harmony of sound floated on the gentle breeze.

“Very poetic,” said Nest, looking at her. “I believe you are becoming a romantic at last, Meri. Do you not think so, Mr. Carruthers?” she inquired of the gentleman strolling at her side.

“Nonsense,” Meriel retorted before he could draw breath to speak. She had grown accustomed to seeing him often, because her sister flatly refused to see anything amiss in admitting an erstwhile—or so one hoped—thief to her drawing room, particularly when he was handsome and possessed of a charming impudence. Indeed, Nest seemed to have set Mr. Carruthers up as her latest flirt, making her sister wish more than ever that Napoleon would return from Boulogne and set the Comte de Prévenu free, so that he might take his pretty wife in hand.

A chuckle from the tall, sleepy-looking gentleman beside her made Meriel look up at him in pretty confusion. “Nest will be giving you and Mr. Carruthers quite an incorrect opinion of my nature, Sir Antony. I have no sensibility, and well she knows it. Moreover, though this sort of entertainment no doubt suits Mr. Carruthers down to the ground, I daresay you must disapprove of vagabondism quite as much as Papa or Joss would.”

“You wrong me, Lady Meriel,” said Sir Antony calmly.

She looked up at him again and this time surprised a look that she had often seen since their arrival in Paris. This time, however, there was an additional admiring warmth in his eyes that made her feel that her new Parisian gown of pale apricot muslin was quite unsuitable. She had had her doubts when Nest had insisted upon its purchase, but she had been unable to deny that it set off her charms as no other gown she had ever owned had done. Indeed, that it set them off too well was her concern at the moment. She blushed and, feeling the warmth spreading throughout her body, she was certain the blush spread from her Grecian topknot to her shell-pink toenails. The spring evening was balmy, and the only wrap she carried was a long scarf of lavender silk that she wore draped over her elbows. Suddenly she had an urge to wrap that scarf around her torso. She looked away, but that didn’t help for she could feel his gaze upon her like an intimate caress.

It was disturbing, she thought, that she could remain so aware of Sir Antony without so much as looking at him. His presence seemed to vitalize the very atoms of the air around her, setting nerves atingle and making her feel more alive than she had ever felt before, except possibly when she stood atop her favorite mountain after the long, hard climb to reach the summit. Now so aware of him was she that her breasts swelled of their own accord, pressing hard against their light covering, their tips stirring as though he had touched them with his fingers. The warmth in her cheeks became painful. She didn’t dare to look up.

Fortunately, Nest commented just then on the way the trees on either side of the boulevard met like an arch over the middle, and the moment passed. “And do you know, Meriel,” she went on, happily unaware of any charged feelings in the air, “I do not believe Joss would disapprove of what we are doing in the slightest. He was always an adventurer, you know.”

“Ah, yes, indeed, but he rarely invited us to go adventuring with him,” Meriel pointed out, recovering her poise, but avoiding Sir Antony’s eyes nevertheless. “His notion of adventuring was that it was famous sport for gentlemen and altogether unsuitable for ladies.”

“Your brother sounds like a fine fellow,” said Mr. Carruthers with a droll look.

“Oh, pooh, he was never so fusty as Meriel would have you believe,” Nest told him, laughing. “And in Paris, moreover, what we are doing is entirely
comme il faut
.”

“Except to your Napoleon,” Meriel said dryly, “who would keep women in their drawing rooms under the eyes of their husbands. No doubt he would believe both of us to be compromising our virtue by this delightful outing.”

Nest grinned at her. “You are determined to find fault with Napoleon, but I shall not allow you to draw me into another argument. Not tonight, at any event.”

Before that week was out, however, Meriel had written to Mademoiselle Lecolier to inform her that she had decided against enrolling Gwenyth in l’École de Bonté. As she sanded the final draft of her letter, she wondered why it had taken her so long to write. She knew now that she had realized long since that the political situation was entirely too unstable for her to contemplate sending her young sister into France. Even with Nest and the powerful Depuissant family at hand, Meriel knew she would not be easy. And England, as Sir Antony had said more than once, had many excellent schools.

Indeed, now she came to think upon the matter, she realized that she had nearly decided against l’École de Bonté before ever laying eyes upon the place. Certainly what she had seen there had had nothing to do with her decision. Anyone must be glad to send a child to Mademoiselle Lecolier, in confidence that the child would be prepared in the best way possible to take her place among the ladies of the
beau monde
. But not if the child might be trapped by war in France, far from her loving family.

Meriel knew that negotiations were still in progress between the two countries. She knew, too, that Napoleon’s foreign minister, Prince Talleyrand, and his brother Joseph Bonaparte were both exerting themselves in the cause of peace. But since neither Napoleon nor the British cabinet seemed to have yielded so much as an inch, she could not be optimistic as to the probable outcome. And now that she had made her decision regarding l’École de Bonté and had discovered Nest to be as safe as one might expect and in momentary expectation of her husband’s release, Meriel began to turn her thoughts toward her family in London. Whenever she had previously mentioned that she ought to be thinking of leaving, Nest had protested vehemently, and Meriel had allowed herself to be easily overborne, so that April had disappeared into May before anyone had any notion of how the weeks might have gone so quickly.

“You have shown me a whirlwind of activity,” Meriel told her sister over breakfast one bright morning the second week of May. “I should not have been so busy even in London with the Season at its peak.”

“No, indeed, dearest, and so I promised you it would be. But, alas, if I had had my way, all this activity would have resulted by now in your engagement to be married.”

Meriel stared at her. “What on earth are you talking about? I have no wish to marry. Good heavens, Nest, I am nearly seven-and-twenty. My days of thinking about marriage are long since gone by.”

“No woman is ever past the age of thinking about marriage,” Nest told her, reaching for the toast rack, “and what’s more, you have a perfectly eligible
parti
in Sir Antony. That man is head over ears in love with you, my dearest, as anyone with half an eye can see.”

Meriel flushed. “You are all about in your head, Nest. I don’t deny that we have enjoyed a most agreeable flirtation, but with the family to look after, I have no time for anything more than that, and I cannot believe Sir Antony, having reached his middle thirties without making a push toward matrimony, has given the slightest thought to it now.”