Drury Lane Darling (7 page)

He was quite simply amazed to find himself ignored by a country miss whom he had honored with his attentions. Not only ignored, she went out of her way to argue with him! She actually found it conceivable that standing up with him was an unpleasant duty. His eyes slid down to her profile, and he found himself gazing at a small, shell-like ear, as dainty as a newborn babe’s. A thick chestnut curl nestled on the ivory nape of her neck. He felt an urge to touch it.

While he sat, entranced at the feelings this farouche young lady was engendering in him, she suddenly turned to face him, and he was struck once more by the beauty of her eyes. “Who’s the gentleman with the marquise?” she asked.

He leaned forward and peered through the broad archway, to where Fleur stood in earnest conversation with a young stranger.

“He can’t be from Hatfield. I’ve never seen him,” Pamela said. She had the countryman’s eager interest in strangers. Added to it was the bonus that this particular stranger was young and handsome, and wearing a jacket of a cut seldom seen in the country.

Breslau felt a burning sensation in his chest. Jealousy was a stranger to him; he thought it was merely annoyance at the interruption in their conversation. “Would you like to be presented to him?” he asked, intending sarcasm.

She immediately bounced to her feet. “I should like it of all things. Do hurry, Lord Breslau, he’s leaving.”

By the time they reached the ballroom, the man had left, and a group of locals were shyly shimmying forward to compliment the Flawless Fleur.

“Too late,” Pamela said, and looked around for some other group to join.

Breslau placed a firm but gentle hand on her elbow to lead her back to the refreshment parlor.

“Let’s stay here,” she suggested. “There’s no one in the refreshment parlor. We’d be all alone, and I haven’t found a partner for the next set yet.”

Breslau smiled in rising dudgeon and remained in the ballroom. So the lump spurned the opportunity of being alone with him! Had God sent her to teach him a lesson? Miss Comstock had soon attracted another gentleman’s eye. A callow youth approached, and she smiled in apparent pleasure at someone called Ethan, wearing a jacket Breslau wouldn’t have tolerated on his servants.

“I hear the marquise is putting up with the Raleighs,” the young man said. “What’s she like, Pam?”

“Not nearly as dashing as I had hoped,” Pamela replied, and began to regale him with some anecdotes.

Breslau coldly excused himself and left, perfectly aware that he wouldn’t be missed one iota. He made a firm resolution not to honor Miss Comstock with another dance, and stuck with it till after dinner, which was a perfectly hideous affair. Fleur was in one of her moods, and became louder and less polite as the meal advanced. She flirted with every yahoo who stopped at the table to meet her.

The more she flirted the stiffer Lady Raleigh’s face grew, till in the end she couldn’t get her mouth pried open to eat anything. A delicious cream bun grew soft on her plate, and cream buns were one of her few weaknesses. The Maxwell table was about the only one in the room that wasn’t staring at Lady Chamaude with varying degrees of ire or admiration or mirth. No eye at the general’s table was allowed to come within a right angle of the actress.

“An intolerable evening,” was Lady Raleigh’s opinion when they reached home, and for a change, her husband agreed with her.

“I have a splitting headache,” she said. “The youngsters will remain belowstairs for a half hour or so. Breslau will play propriety. If I am with that creature for another moment, I shall crown her.”

She informed Breslau of his duty and retired abovestairs at once. He was incensed to hear himself relegated to the role of chaperone, but concealed it like the well-bred gentleman he was. Sir Aubrey accompanied his dame upstairs. He thought the open doorway was an oversight. Dot had specifically mentioned she had a headache. He wouldn’t inopportune her at this critical juncture. He’d need all her goodwill to explain a few matters.

The marquise had only a glass of wine before retiring. “I’ll look over chapter four before sleeping,” she said to Nigel. “Tomorrow morning we’ll get busy on it. I expect you’ll find more broken sentences. He is always teasing me about my poor grammar,” she explained. “Say ten o’clock in the library?”

Nigel smiled a blissful smile. “I’ll be waiting.” He sighed, then turned to the guests. “Well, this visit ain’t going as badly as you thought it would, Wes.”

“No, it is going worse,” Breslau replied, and helped himself to wine. He brought a glass to Pamela, which she set aside, untouched, though she did give him the echo of a smile for his thoughtfulness. It was enough encouragement that he sat beside her.

Any notion of proceeding with the flirtation was soon dispatched. His charges had other matters on what they chose to call their minds. Nigel firmly refused to discuss Fleur with Pamela. He held the floor, “trying an idea for the play” out on them.

“I envisage a hero with a surfeit of hubris, and a heroine chockfull of altruism to knock the stuffing out of him—philosophically speaking I mean.”

“Could you translate that into English?” Pamela asked.

“In simple words that even you could understand, what I have in mind is a confrontation between a man of specious good and a woman of intrinsic merit, who is spurned by society for some reason or other.”

“Another simpering, put-upon heroine and a villain for her to tame into a hero,” Breslau said wearily. “At least we aren’t to be treated to autobiography, the other failing of amateurs. Try for a little originality, Nigel, and a little heart. Fleur aims her arrows south of the neck.”

“Eh? You make it dammed hard.” He scowled. “The heroine has to be good.”

“Good, but not necessarily perfect. And remember, if you’re writing for Fleur, make it a comedy.”

“Damme, she’s told me to make it a tragedy. That’s what she wants to do next.”

“What she wants is fifty guineas a performance. I told her I know half a dozen fine actresses who’d be happy to work for half that.”

“And she knows the half dozen you have in mind—Rose Flanders, that’s who. Rose ain’t one, two, three with Fleur.”

“Couldn’t you work out some compromise?” Pamela suggested. “I mean a serious play with some comedic scenes.”

“Oil and water don’t mix. Every playwright worth his salt knows that,” Nigel told her.

“Does Shakespeare know it?” she demanded hotly.

“Hamlet
don’t exactly have them rolling in the aisles,” Nigel riposted.

“What about the grave-diggers’ scene? Just write about life, Nigel,” she urged. “Everybody’s life has some good times and some bad. Fleur’s own life certainly has.”

“When I want help from an amateur, I’ll let you know, Pam,” Nigel said haughtily, and walked to the grate to stand with his hand artistically braced on his brow to aid inspiration. He found that the other hand on his waist, pushing back his jacket, added a certain something to the pose.

Pamela gave him a derisive look. Breslau had begun to wonder if it was Miss Comstock’s involvement with Nigel that held her back from responding to his advances. She appeared quite concerned at his offering for Fleur. He gave her a laughing look. “You’ll not bring him up to scratch by nagging, Miss Comstock.”

“I should hope not indeed!”

It seemed she had no interest whatsoever in Nigel, so that couldn’t account for her behavior. His eyes rested on her newly arranged hair, and the rather plain gown. Her shawl had been cast aside, revealing an enchantingly lithe figure. “I was beginning to wonder if you hadn’t changed your mind when you dared to appear in front of Nigel in such a dashing new style. This isn’t the spinster who was scowling at us when we arrived.”

“There’s no reason I must look a quiz in front of all the other gentlemen just because I don’t want Nigel to think I’m pretty,” she answered. Her tone was far from flirtatious. It had an angry buzz to it.

“You’re regretting the young blade with Fleur, the one who got away?”

Pamela called to enquire of Nigel who the gentleman was. He lifted his head from his hand a moment to reply, “I didn’t see any strange men there.”

Even when she described him in vigorous detail, Nigel didn’t recall seeing him. “Fleur is the only one he spoke to, then he left,” she said. “I think he came just to see her. What do you think, Nigel?”

“I think I’ll open with a duel.”

Pamela scowled at Breslau. “You’ve created a monster,” she charged. “Bad as Nigel was before, I can see his head is going to be swollen to a pumpkin before this play is finished.”

“Perhaps it will resume normal proportions when it is rejected.”

An angry flare shot from her catlike eyes. “You mean you don’t intend to produce it! Breslau, that’s horrid! Why on earth did you ask him to write it then?”

“It will be a learning experience for him.”

She wished to say a good deal more on the subject, but Nigel was stirring to life at the grate. His hand left his brow and began to draw random figures in the air. His head nodded as though he were speaking to some invisible listener. His lips even moved, though no sounds issued forth.

“Is he having a fit?” Pamela asked.

“A fit of inspiration, I fear.”

Nigel turned a beaming face on them. “By Jove, I’ve got it, Wes. Listen to this! You’ll love it, and so will Fleur. I shall write a dramatization of her memoirs. The woman’s had an incredible life. Did you know the Frenchies were after her to spy for them? They hounded her mercilessly. I’ve been running a few ideas through my mind and come up with the perfect opening. Her arrival at Brighton in the lugger—the crux of the whole thing.”

Breslau blinked. “How did you plan to get an ocean and a lugger onstage?” he asked.

“That’s your department. Damme, they had an elephant and sixteen horses in
Bluebeard,
and made money on it, too. It was a roaring success.”

“But still, an ocean…”

“A painted ocean,” Pamela suggested.

“She’s got the idea,” Nigel agreed, with the first smile shown Pamela since her arrival.

“It’s an interesting notion,” Breslau admitted. “The publicity from the book and play would feed each other, and to have Fleur playing herself—yes, it has comedic possibilities.”

“By the living jingo, it’s perfect!” Nigel said. “Fraught with—with everything. I’ll even put in a little comedy to please you, Wes. The scene where Fleur is escaping in the cart of turnip—now that could be humorous, in a bloodcurdling sort of way.”

“You said it was going to open with her arrival at Brighton,” Pam reminded him.

“We’re in the preliminary stages. I’m not sure Paris ain’t the place to start. The crux of the whole thing. She had some pretty good stuff in her opening chapter.”

“You could paint the backdrop of Paris, too,” Pam said hastily.

Breslau found another objection. “Before you go any further, Nigel, you really ought to discuss it with Fleur. If the plan is to dramatize her book, then she’ll have to approve it. She’ll expect a share of the royalties.”

“Dash it, I’ll be doing the writing! I’ve practically rewritten the whole mess, if you want the truth. Honestly, you wouldn’t believe what she calls a sentence.”

Breslau had heard quite enough of the play, and said rather imperatively, “Still, you’ll have to clear it up with her before you go any further. I don’t plan to referee a plagiarism suit. You can discuss it tomorrow.”

“I’ll discuss it now,” Nigel announced. “Fleur ain’t sleeping.”

He flung out of the room and pelted off to her suite.

“Now see what you’ve done,” Pamela scolded. “Lady Raleigh would throw a fit if she knew he was going to her room.”

“Who suggested writing from life?” he asked. “Actually it’s a good idea. I wonder who I could get to write the play.”

“Breslau! Nigel is writing it! You can’t pull it out from under him!”

Breslau gave a guilty start, and silently cursed himself. “I meant who could help Nigel put a final polish on it. He’s a rank amateur. This idea is too good to risk dwindling to a mediocre melodrama.”

Her color rose, and her eyes flashed. “You’re a perfect beast!”

“Surely not perfect!” Despite his facetious reply, he knew she was right. He also knew no other lady would have told him so to his face in such angry accents. Before he had time to conciliate her, Nigel was back.

He stood in the doorway, his face the color of snow, and his eyes staring wildly.

“Won’t she let you do it?” Pamela asked.

“She’s dead,” he said in a quaking voice. “She didn’t answer when I knocked, so I went in—I wasn’t sure she could hear me from the drawing room, so I opened the door, and she was lying on the bed…stone…cold—dead.”

His words petered out to a whisper and his knees buckled. As Pamela and Breslau watched in horror, Nigel sank gracefully to the floor in a faint.

“Brandy, Wes. Get him some brandy, and a feather to burn.” Pamela jumped up, her arms flailing the air futilely.

Breslau was already rushing toward Nigel. He lifted his head and tapped his pale cheeks lightly. “Bring some wine,” he called over his shoulder.

She found it easier to follow one explicit order than to think rationally. She took up her own wineglass and flew to hold it to Nigel’s lips. His watery eyes opened and looked up in vague confusion.

“She’s dead,” he muttered, and gulped the wine.

“She can’t be dead,” Pamela said. “She was hale and hearty not fifteen minutes ago.”

“Damme, I know death when I see it,” Nigel scowled, and with assistance from Breslau, he gained his feet.

“Could she be foxed?” she asked.

Breslau shook his head. “Fleur’s not much of a drinker. She quacks herself with laudanum when she can’t sleep. That could be it."

“She wasn’t trying to sleep. She was working on chapter four,” Nigel reminded them. “If you don’t believe she’s dead, go and see for yourself.”

“I have no intention of charging into the lady’s chamber on such a fool’s errand,” Breslau stated. “You might have a look, Pamela, if you’re worried.” In the excitement of the moment, first names cropped out unthinkingly, without their even noticing it.