The Exploits & Adventures of Miss Alethea Darcy (5 page)

Paris.

A cold, grey day, with a wind ruffling the waters of the Seine and the trees still stark with the bareness of a late spring. Alethea and Figgins were heartily glad to have a respite from the interminable hours of travel they had endured since Alethea slid out of the window of Tyrrwhit House, but it was not an easy stay. Despite all that common sense told her about the unlikelihood of Napier knowing where she had gone, let alone setting off in pursuit, and the impossibility of his being now in Paris, Alethea couldn't help looking over her shoulder and jumping every time a carriage came into the Poisson d'Or, where they were lodging.

Figgins was brusque. “He can't be here, not without he's sprouted wings and flown across that dratted channel. It stands to reason; we came at such a pace, down to Dover and then straight on the road to Paris from Calais. If he should be on our trail, which I take leave to doubt, we'll be out of Paris and on our way to Italy before he sets foot on one of those dirty old bridges.”

Figgins didn't like Paris. In comparison with London, she said, it was grubby and mean-looking and she regarded the fine buildings with no enthusiasm. “It's no good these Frenchies giving themselves airs for putting up one or two grand palaces, and they're most likely used as prisons or some such, look how they did away with the poor king and queen. And for every fine building there's a street full of hovels, and the streets aren't never cleaned, and they don't seem to have heard of gas lighting. Give me London any day. London is a city as is a city, and the people which live there are a respectable lot compared to these shifty types, cheat you as soon as look at you; you don't need to understand their language to know that, you can see it in their eyes.”

On the first occasion that Alethea had been in Paris, she had accompanied the Wyttons on a visit to her sister Georgina, who was married to a rich Englishman. Sir Joshua had left England in a hurry after killing his man in a duel, and he had stayed in France ever since. Georgina had run off with him in the most outrageous manner, but that was an old scandal now, and one that had been well hushed up. As Lady Mordaunt, she was the mother of twin boys, and those who had forecast nothing but misery from the match had been quite confounded. Sir Joshua was dotingly fond of his beautiful young wife, and a proud father. Georgina had quickly found her feet in Parisian society, and had been at pains to show her little sister—who was quite half a head taller than her—how smart and infinitely superior this world was to London.

“Where the drawing rooms are full of bucolics, where eminent men are excluded from salons unless their fathers are lords. How much more civilised we are here in Paris! And so you will find when you have your come-out; I shall insist that Mama brings you to Paris so that you see for yourself how very superior the society here is.”

Alethea, who wasn't given to being impressed, and who had never had much respect for either of her twin sisters, had said that it seemed to suit Georgina, while privately thinking what a nonsense it all was.

And how different was her second visit to Paris in comparison with the prospect of delights that Georgina had planned for her. Alethea looked down at her drab coat and laughed.

Figgins was full of disapproval at Alethea's plan to call on her sister.

“Might as well announce to the whole world that you are here!”

“No, for I shall not call on her in her house, but send her a message to meet me somewhere quite private. A park, or some such place, where no one will take any notice of us.”

“And she'll bring that long-nosed husband of hers along with her, and he'll get on his high horse at the very idea of any young woman scurrying away from her husband like you have done, and say that you must stay under close supervision while word is sent to England of where you are.”

“Georgina will come alone, when she reads what I have to write.”

“And go dashing back to tell Sir Joshua the very instant she can.”

“Which will do her no good, for I shan't tell her where I'm putting up, and she wouldn't imagine for a moment that I'd stay in an inn such as the Poisson d'Or. Besides, she'll be looking for Mrs. Napier, not for Aloysius Hawkins.”

Alethea donned the single gown Figgins had thoughtfully put into her portmanteau, rolled up tight inside a pair of breeches, in case of a nosy chambermaid discovering it. Alethea hadn't thought it necessary, and said so, but Figgins knew better.

“Miss Camilla, Mrs. Wytton, I should say, is very free and easy in her ways, but she didn't take to your hopping about London in breeches when you was younger, and you want her to help you, not go exclaiming about you cavorting across Europe dressed like a man.”

It wasn't a smart gown, and it drew instant criticism from Georgina.

“You look such a dowd! And what an ugly bonnet; wherever did you buy such a dreadful thing?”

“It's the fashion in London,” Alethea said untruthfully; she had sent Figgins out to buy the hat from a drapers in the next street to their inn.

Figgins had disapproved of it every bit as much as Georgina. “For it is a nasty, unfashionable object, and one that no lady should be seen in.”

“I'm not a lady, I'm a man, and no one will give me a second look dressed like this.”

“Does Mr. Napier not give you money for your gowns?” Georgina said, unable to get over the shock.

“Never mind the gown.”

“Is Norris not with you?”

Alethea rushed her fence. “Georgie, I have run away from him. He is—”

She couldn't finish her sentence. “Run away! Do you mean you are here in Paris alone?”

“I have a servant with me.”

“A servant! Why have you done such a dreadful thing?”

“If you'll listen, I'll tell you.”

And she did, and Georgina did listen, but with no very sympathetic ear. “You always were fond of dramatics, Alethea. It is wrong of you, very wrong, to run away from your husband. And I don't believe what you say about him. I heard from Letty; she says you were in Yorkshire complaining about Norris, and he was there with you, and she said she never saw such an attentive husband. You are making it all up, Alethea, you are in some scrape and think you can get out of it by running away. And coming to Paris! The very idea of it. The scandal, if it should become known.”

At first, Georgina had the moral advantage. Alethea felt shabby and ill at ease, and she hated having to say how things were between her and her husband. Just as she hated having to beg a favour from her older sister. They were attached to one another, but weren't close, and Georgina had always been a little afraid of her younger sister's sharp tongue and clever mind. Alethea's perception was as keen as her words, and she had the ability to make both the twins uncomfortable when she chose. Moreover, she laughed at them, and Georgina was one who took herself very seriously.

“Scandal!” Alethea hit back. “Any scandal there may be in my marriage is as nothing compared to the way you behaved when you ran off with Sir Joshua, yes, and lived with him before you were married and were his mistress before that.”

Georgina looked sulky. “We were married almost at once.”

“Yes, and twins eight months later.”

“There is nothing to that, twins rarely go to term, everyone knows that. There isn't a soul in Paris who does other than admire me for presenting Sir Joshua with an heir so promptly after we were married.”

“Well, I don't admire you for it.” She caught herself up. “No, I didn't mean that, they are fine boys, and I am glad for your happiness. But can't you see, Georgie, that my marriage is not a happy one? Don't you wish for me to have the same pleasure in married life that you do?”

“Mr. Napier is a proper man, he is handsome, rich, well-mannered, well-born, what more can you ask? He is a lover of music; that alone should make him acceptable to you.”

“That is the front he displays to the world. Let me tell you that once the door to the bedchamber is closed, he is a very different sort of person.”

“As to that, you are prudish, I dare say, and not used to quite what the marriage bed means. You will become accustomed by and by, and take pleasure in it.”

“I don't believe it is how Sir Joshua takes his pleasure of you.”

Georgina clapped her hands over her ears. “I won't listen. You are making it up. Letty told me it would be so.”

“How heartless you are become, heartless and selfish.”

Georgina held out her hands. “It is not so,” she said in cajoling tones. “Where are you staying? I will send a servant to collect your things; you may stay in Paris with us, you know, for as long as you want.”

“And Sir Joshua will send off an express this very day and before I have time to turn round, Mr. Napier will be on the doorstep. I thank you, but no.”

“Alethea, you cannot walk away from your marriage like this, believe me, it is not possible. You have exchanged vows, you have been married so brief a time, just a few months. You have hardly had time to get to know one another.”

“It took one night for me to get to know what Napier is like.”

“Well, I do not want to hear another word about it. Is it to tell me all this that you have come to see me?”

It was a good question, and one that Alethea was asking herself. She knew why she was in Paris: it was a matter of convenience, a natural stopping place on her way to Italy, the city from which all kinds of conveyances were available to carry her and Figgins across the Alps and on to Venice.

As to why she had decided to call on Georgina, that was a more complex matter. It had to do with childhood alliances and sisterly solidarity, when they had tumbled in and out of trouble, she and Georgie and Belle. The twins were closest to her in age, and their heedless, careless approach to life had appealed to Alethea, with her innate appreciation of freedom.

Only now Belle was wrapped in the feminine happiness of approaching motherhood; she was a softened, more peaceful creature and Alethea would not have dreamed of approaching her for support or advice, not when she was so near her time.

Strait-laced Letty had behaved just as anyone could have predicted she would; there had been no point in expecting anything else from Letty. Wild, convention-flouting Georgie was another case—or so Alethea had thought.

Now, as she looked at her sister's beautiful, wary face, she knew she had made a mistake. There was no comfort or understanding or support to be had from her. She was happy in her marriage, secure in her position, not given to quick understanding of human relationships other than her own, reluctant, certainly, to take any steps of which her husband might disapprove.

As though she could read Alethea's mind, Georgina said, “Sir Joshua does not consider you a good influence. Indeed, he says that the very idea of five sisters distresses him. He wishes to have my full confidence; he would be very angry if he discovered I was going behind his back in any dealings I might have with you or Belle or Letty or Camilla.”

In other words, Georgina would tell her husband that she had seen her sister, even if Alethea begged her not to. She was a Mordaunt now, through and through, not a Darcy.

She rose to go.

“Come back with me,” Georgina was urging. “To take some refreshment, at least, and then we can talk further. You cannot stay alone in Paris.”

“I don't intend to.”

“Whatever do you mean? Oh, you are going back to England?”

“I am not,” Alethea said quickly, and added, “I shall go to Austria.”

“You do not mean to go to Vienna! Only consider how angry Papa will be.”

It had been a mistake to have this meeting with her sister. She would run back to her husband with the shocking news; Sir Joshua would send word at once to Napier, and he would come after her, she was sure of it.

Let him, then, and let him go to Vienna. Once he was there, and finding no trace of her, she doubted if he would approach her father. He might be able to deceive Letty, who was a fool in such matters as these; he could hardly hope to hoodwink Mr. Darcy.

She moved swiftly away, brushing aside Georgina's restraining hand, and walked quickly away from the park. Georgie might follow her, but she wouldn't get far, not in those shoes, and not alone. Alethea could vanish, in her dowdy gown, long before her sister could catch up with her.

 

“And I could have told you that, and would you listen? No, and now it's hurry, hurry, pack up and go.” Figgins's voice was shrill and scolding. “Without alerting the landlord that we're off at first light like a pair of scalded cats, if you please. An orderly journey, you said, that was what we were undertaking, an orderly journey. Well, so it could have been if you hadn't taken it into your head to visit Miss Georgina.”

Who had never knowingly helped another human being, as far as Figgins was aware.

“For heaven's sake, keep your voice low, the landlord will grow suspicious if he hears your voice pitched so high.”

Figgins was silenced, but she muttered to herself as she deftly packed their bags. She'd known how it would be. Miss Alethea didn't need to have another of her sisters turn her away; better not to ask for what you were sure not to get.