Lord Harry's Folly (16 page)

“How very unsettling. It seems my popularity is shrinking by the day.” He thought briefly of young Harry Monteith. At least that young cub sought him out rather than fleeing from him like Henrietta Rolland. He looked meditative for a moment, saying nothing more.

Louisa said suddenly, “Perhaps I understand. Hetty told us she attended a soiree at your aunt Melberry’s last week. Jason, were you there?”

“Yes, but what has that to say to anything, Louisa?”

“You must have offended her in some way, inadvertently, of course. Can you remember meeting her?”

The marquess stroked his chin with long fingers. “What does you sister look like?”

“She’s quite a pretty little thing. Bright, laughing, full of fun. Not one of those damned simpering misses.”

“Oh, Jack, you’re still seeing Hetty when she was five years old. Jason, she’s the beauty in the family. She’s not little at all, rather tall and slender. If you can imagine Jack the giant here as a female, blond hair and all, you’ll have Hetty.”

“Her nose is shorter than mine,” Sir John said. “And she comes only to my chin.”

“A female giant then,” Louisa said.

The marquess remembered his aunt Melberry asking him to speak to a Miss Rolland and pointing toward a very nondescript female seated with a deaf old dowager. Yes, he remembered now stepping toward the young lady, but she had turned her face pointedly away from him. At the time, he had thought her quite rude. He pictured a hideous alexandrine cap of the most putrid shade of green imaginable. Oh yes, and a gown of pea green, equally as revolting as the cap. He remembered wondering if her face were as unfortunate as her wardrobe. No, certainly that female couldn’t have been Jack’s beautiful sister. But why hadn’t he met her? If she were like Jack, then she certainly wouldn’t be a wallflower.

“She’s a beauty, you say, Louisa?” he asked slowly.

“Yes, she’s lovely. Did you meet her at your aunt’s?”

“No, I did not. Ah, then it’s a mystery we have on our hands. The young lady has taken me into dislike, yet I know I’ve never met her. Such a beauty as you describe, well, rest assured that I would have remembered her.” It was all very odd.

“Enough of my little chit of a sister,” Sir John said. “I want to talk about that dandy cravat you’re wearing.”

While the occupants of Sir Archibald’s town house were discussing in high good humor the vagaries of fashion, Hetty was wiping the remains of cold chicken from her lips and fingers.

“It’s a problem, Pottson. I can only hope that Louisa doesn’t want to take me to Almack’s or some other exalted place before she and my brother leave for Paris.”

Pottson removed the tray to the sideboard, remarking in a gloomy voice, “Bound to meet Lord Oberlon, particularly at Almack’s. It was a narrow escape you had tonight, Miss Hetty, too narrow for the warmth of my blood. Yes, another gray hair. I’ll find it in the morning.”

There was a sudden knock on the outer door. Hetty jumped to her feet. “Good God, who the devil can that be? Hurry, Pottson, you must answer. Oh yes, I’ve told you a dozen times, you already have gray hair, all of it is gray. Maybe you’ll find a black hair.” Hetty picked up her skirts and ran down the narrow hallway that divided the small drawing room from Lord Harry’s bedchamber.

She heard Scuddy’s voice. “Ho, Pottson. Is Lord Harry about?”

Hetty reached a quick decision and called out in Lord Harry’s deeper voice, “Hello, Scuddy. Do come in, old boy. I’m dressing and shall be with you shortly. Fetch Mr. Scuddimore a glass of sherry, Pottson.”

As she stood in front of her mirror arranging her cravat into The Pavilion, an elegant yet uncomplicated series of folds inspired by the Regent’s residence in Brighton, various schemes on how she would spend the evening with Scuddy flitted through her mind. Suddenly, an idea burgeoned in her head, an idea so daring and outrageous that she refused to examine its less desirable consequences. Was Lord Oberlon not otherwise occupied for the evening? Indeed he was, she thought, rubbing her hands together. She’d observed cynically over the past months that gentlemen were far more possessive toward their mistresses than toward their wives. What better way to push the marquess to fury than to poach upon his preserves? She glanced up at the clock above the mantelpiece. Only shortly after nine o’clock. Ample time, indeed more than enough time, she thought, knowing that Sir John and Lady Louisa loved to entertain. She resolutely banished a seed of guilt at using her brother to further her own ends. After all, wasn’t Lord Oberlon playing a far more perfidious game than was she, posing as the friend of a man whose brother he’d killed?

As she shrugged into her coat, she thought of Melissande. Indeed, an unforgettable name and an equally unforgettable woman. Hetty had seen Melissande only upon two brief occasions, neither of which had provided her with many clues as to the lady’s character. If Melissande happened to be faithful to her protector, then Hetty or rather Lord Harry would just suffer a wasted evening. But one never knew. She looked at herself in the mirror. She looked at Lord Harry and she winked at him.

Although Mr. Scuddimore frowned at the mention of visiting someone in Pemberley Street, he could think of no reason not to accompany Lord Harry, and thus climbed into a hackney alongside his friend.

“I say, old boy, who the devil does live in Pemberley Street? If it’s your mistress, I really don’t think I should be tagging along. Why, whatever would I say to her?” His protest was a halfhearted one, for he realized that Sir Harry would willingly give a guinea to be in his place. Were they really going to visit Lord Harry’s mistress? Scuddy couldn’t wait. He mentally tried to make room in his brain to store up all the memories this night would bring.

“Don’t worry, Scuddy. It’s not my mistress we’re visiting. But she is a woman and she is lovely. I just want to better our acquaintance, that’s all. You’ll enjoy yourself, you’ll see.”

Well, that wasn’t too bad, Scuddy thought. What woman?

The hackney creaked and swayed upon turning into Pemberley Street. Hetty perused the small, elegant town houses that lined the brick pavement, and dug the head of her malacca cane into the roof of the hackney when she spotted the small Queen Anne residence. The jarvey obligingly drew to a halt and Hetty jumped to the pavement, smiling. “Come along, Scuddy,” she said over her shoulder, after tossing the cabby a goodly number of shillings. “I promise you an interesting evening.” Had Mr. Scuddimore realized that this charming house was owned and maintained by the Marquess of Oberlon, Hetty with all her persuasions, wouldn’t have been able to extricate him from the relative safety of the hackney.

Since Melissande wasn’t expecting Lord Oberlon this evening, particularly given his excesses in her bed the night before, she was attired in a negligee, a frothy confection of green silk and gauze that revealed more than covered her delicious self. A slender red vellum book lay in her lap, and as her eyes traveled down the page, she sighed in boredom. Really, she was thinking, the heroine is such a stupid, whimpering little miss. She hasn’t a gut in her limp body. Must she fall into a swoon at the end of every scene? Lord, what would the young maiden have done if Lord Oberlon visited her as he had Melissande the previous night? Melissande grunted. The stupid chit would have probably screamed her head off and removed herself to a convent. But still, she thought, torn somewhere between envy and cynicism, the dashing hero appeared to cherish the heroine all the more for her frailty and feminine weakness. He appeared to adore her lack of guts. In a moment of pique, she flicked her finger against the thin volume and sent it spinning to the carpet. She wasn’t at all certain that she had any desire to be so cherished, but still it might be nice to be offered the choice.

She rose from the settee and stretched lazily. Her house was beautifully furnished, and she had, after all, most of what she desired. When Jenny, her maid, tapped on the small drawing-room door, her lips were pursed in deep concentration, her uppermost thought being how she could bring the marquess around to the idea that she would look most charming driving her own phaeton and pair in the park.

“There are two gentlemen here to see you, Madam,” Jenny said, so surprised she’d forgotten to curtsy. “His grace isn’t with them. Whatever shall we do, Madam? This has never happened before.”

“How very nicely peculiar,” Melissande said. She looked at her image in the mirror above the mantelpiece. Boredom slipped from her shoulders and she felt a tingle of excitement. Someone to visit her besides Lord Oberlon. It couldn’t be bill collectors. Lord Oberlon was generous. Men, she thought. No gentlemen a very different stripe of man. She felt like singing. “Don’t just stand there like a gutless heroine, Jenny, do show the gentlemen in. Oh, Jenny, your bosom is sticking out. Bow your shoulders a bit. Yes, that’s good.”

“Lord Harry Monteith and Mr. Thayerton Scuddimore, Madam,” Jenny said, trying to sound important as a butler in a grand house.

Melissande’s first thought upon the entrance of the gentlemen was that the infantry had just invaded her house. Why, they were but boys. She frowned ever so slightly before advancing toward her unexpected and uninvited guests.

Hetty was very aware of Melissande’s initial response, but wasn’t at all surprised or disturbed by it. Of course she and Scuddy presented a far less prepossessing image than the older, more experienced Marquess of Oberlon and any of his rakehell friends. Well, I can but try, she thought. She halted in her tracks and stood poised in rapt wonder, causing Mr. Scuddimore to bump into her.

“You’re much more beautiful than I could have imagined.” She breathed deeply, and hopefully, reverently. Then, as if gathering her scattered wits, she coughed in mild embarrassment. “Oh dear, do forgive our intrusion, ma’am, but both Mr. Scuddimore and I have worshiped you for many weeks now, always from afar. To be allowed to see you, to be in your divine presence but a moment it is all a man could desire, it is beyond what most men ever gain, it is the very elixir of pleasure.” She thought she’d puke if she didn’t stop, so she did.

Melissande wondered fleetingly if she had just stepped into the pages of her discarded novel. Though she had thought the hero rather asinine in his high-flown phrases to that silly fragile heroine, she wondered if she hadn’t been too abrupt in forming her opinion. She gave the young gentleman a dazzling smile and said, voice as sweet and encouraging as a virgin’s with her beau, “Fie on you, sir, such flattery, but it’s quite nice, I won’t scold you for it. Now, who are you?”

“Lord Monteith, ma’am, Lord Harry Monteith. And this is my friend, Mr. Scuddimore.” Hetty stepped forward, as if propelled by a powerful unknown force, and reverently clasped Melissande’s white hand. She turned it over and planted a moth-light kiss on her palm. “It’s beauty such as yours, ma’am, that launched the ships to Troy.”

Melissande arched a perfect brow, and Hetty rushed on, “No, it is too paltry to compare you to Helen. I should be flayed for my smallness of imagination. Ah, yes, you are Aphrodite emerged from the ancient myths to cleanse the jaded palates of Englishmen.” I will surely puke, she thought, and smiled.

Although such names as Helen and Aphrodite meant very little to Melissande, she was, nonetheless, able to deduce from Lord Monteith’s passionate tone that he was paying her high tribute indeed. None of the gentlemen she had ever known had compared her to an ancient myth. She smiled an enticing woman’s smile, and with an effort, turned her attention briefly to the plump gentleman were those indeed cabbage roses on his waistcoat? at Lord Monteith’s elbow. “Mr. Scuddimore,” she said only, one glance at his flushed countenance assuring her that dazzling compliments to her incomparable beauty would not be coming from his quarter.

“Yes, ma’am, but you may call me Scuddy. Everyone does, you see, even my parents.”

Melissande smiled and motioned for them to be seated. She ordered the staring Jenny to bring sherry for the gentlemen. She wanted gin, but knew it wouldn’t be wise of her to drink such a thing, not in front of gentlemen, not in front of this lovely young lad who had honey flowing from his tongue.

Melissande turned willingly back to Lord Harry, and was taken aback to see him gazing with a frown on his fair forehead about the small drawing room.

“My lord?” she asked. She felt a twinge of disappointment that he hadn’t continued in his praise of her person.

Hetty turned readily back to Melissande. She’d seen the novel lying upon the carpet and had made out its title a dripping, maudlin story. She smiled and said, “Oh, my dear ma’am, do forgive my wandering wits. It’s just that your parlor lovely though it may be doesn’t adequately reflect the loveliness of the person in its midst. It’s a palace you require, beautiful lady, with silken draperies and mirrors to cast your image to every corner. I would have a lutist to play for you whenever your heart desired it. I would have a minstrel sing to you of your loveliness and your goodness. I would feed you the finest of delicacies. Perhaps escargots from the finest French gardens, well cleaned and cooked, of course. One wouldn’t want to take a chance with your precious health.”

Had she gone too far? To her relief, Melissande sighed and seated herself in a graceful, languishing pose, and patted the chair beside her. Hetty cast a quick glance at Mr. Scuddimore, saw that his eyes were glazed in bewilderment, and said under her breath, “Come, Scuddy, sit down.”

“Nice house you have, ma’am,” Scuddy said. “I agree with Lord Harry. The draperies and furnishings are very nice. Er, maybe they’re not nice enough for you, but I’d take them, in a flash.”

“Thank you, Mr. Scuddimore. Ah, here is your sherry. Do allow me to pour for you, my lord.”

Hetty accepted the crystal goblet, her eyes never leaving Melissande’s face. “A toast to your eternal beauty, Aphrodite. But I am wrong. You’re a goddess in your own right. Aphrodite, bah. No, you’re now the goddess Melissande, goddess of beauty and grace.” She allowed the goblet to tremble ever so slightly in her hand, then raised it to her lips and sipped. She lowered the glass and gazed soulfully into the deep rich sherry. Her voice was intense with adoration. “But look at the depths of the color, ma’am, it glistens and glimmers with the lights of your hair. I beg you will forgive and understand my poor mutterings, dear Melissande, but these moments in your exquisite presence turn my very thoughts into water.”