A Lady’s Lesson in Scandal Page 23

“These have always belonged to the Countess of Rushden,” Simon said. “Your mother wore them. She particularly loved the bracelet. In many of my memories of her …”

  She looked up as he trailed off. His expression was impassive but she wasn’t fooled. He had a knack for making his face unreadable at those moments when he felt the most.

  “I loved her, of course,” he said lightly. “Now they’re yours.”

  She had no idea why tears suddenly stung her eyes. She reached up to touch his face. His eyes held hers, deeper and graver than she’d ever seen them. “Thank you,” she said.

  Her throat felt thick as she turned to face the mirror. She watched as he laid the necklace around her throat. His mouth touched her nape, a light, warm brush that made her shiver. His fingers slid along hers as he coaxed the bracelet onto her wrist, promises in the slow stroke of his fingertips.

  The woman in the mirror colored. She took a large breath, then smiled—a strange and wise smile that sent a shock of recognition through Nell.

  It was not a factory girl she saw in the glass, but a woman with jewels at her throat, with assurance in her proud carriage, with serene confidence in her eyes.

  She had seen this lady before, in a photograph that hung in a shop window.

  The Allentons’ drawing room was candlelit. From the high ceiling, rosy Grecian gods looked down on guests who gleamed in silk and satin. The gold brocade of the damask upholstery winked in the low, inconstant light; gems flashed on throats and wrists. Some sweet, subtle spice scented the air. The soft bowing of a violinist hidden by a screen of ferns vied with the pleasant, steady murmur of conversation.

  Nell’s stomach cramped as she hesitated on the threshold. Here was a perfect dream of wealth. Right and left, luxury and smiles and gentle, understated laughter flourished. These people had no idea that they were about to meet a factory girl—about to curtsy to her, even.

  Simon leaned near. “You belong here,” he murmured.

  She forced a smile to her lips. “I’m not nervous,” she lied. She knew she wasn’t a coward. On a deep breath, she took the step across the threshold.

  “Lord Rushden!”

  Simon steered her gently around to greet their approaching hostess, a short, plump, auburn-haired matron with the unremarkable but pleasant features of a Madonna.

  The woman laid eyes on Nell and her serene smile collapsed. “I …” As Lady Allenton drew up, she looked rapidly between them. “Lady Katherine, good evening to you.”

  “Ah, I fear you misunderstand,” said Simon courteously. “Lady Rushden, may I present Lady Richard Allenton? Lady Allenton, my wife, the Countess of Rushden.”

  Hearing her cue, Nell watched her own arm pop out like the stiff limb of a cranked automaton. Harmonic poise, Mrs. Hemple’s voice silently chided.

  But their hostess was too startled to note the finer points of the performance. “My goodness,” said the lady. Bright color bloomed on her cheeks as she took Nell’s fingers. She gave them a light press and bent her knee slightly.

  There: the first curtsy. It triggered in Nell a rising tide of hilarity. Somebody with a Lady before her name had just curtsied to her.

  Simon’s shoulder brushed hers—a subtle nudge. Right. She wet her lips. “How do you do,” she said.

  “Very well,” Lady Allenton said breathlessly. “But I had no idea—that is, my very best wishes to you, Kitty.” Pursing her lips, she corrected herself: “Lady Rushden.”

  Nell’s breath briefly stopped. “Lady Allenton,” Simon said gently. “I fear you mistake my wife for her sister.”

  The lady’s hand clamped around Nell’s, then just as quickly let go. She retreated a pace, her eyes huge. “I—” She swallowed. Shook her head. Then managed a little laugh. “Did I mishear you? I don’t quite …”

  “Forgive me,” Simon said, “for breaking the news so suddenly.”

  Nell dared a brief look at him. His eyes met hers, the smallest smile curling the corner of his mouth. Didn’t he look bloody jolly! She tried to smile back but her lips wouldn’t do it.

  “Well!” Lady Allenton shook her head once, then fell silent, as pop-eyed as a reverend at the devil. A pulse was beating visibly in her throat. Was she going to throw them out? Would she call for a guard? Would she—”You naughty, clever boy,” she said, a look of humor entering her face as she turned to Simon.

  Nell exhaled. Simon’s dimple was flashing. “What can I say?” he replied.

  “I can’t even begin to imagine.” Lady Allenton’s eyes turned back to Nell. “I—what a pleasure! I don’t expect you recall—” Her words now picked up speed, tumbling breathily over one another. “I knew your mother, of course, but you were so small—no, you wouldn’t—but how devastated we were, afterward, how hopeless—” Her lips clamped shut, but her wondering gaze continued to rove over Nell’s face. “I must ask,” she burst out. “Where have you been?”

  “And here you are!” A strapping, ginger-haired man bounded up to clap Simon on the shoulder. He sent a quizzical glance toward his frozen hostess, then looked onward to Nell. “Oh,” he said, swallowing noisily. “Quite—quite right. Lady Rushden, then?”

  “Lady Rushden,” Simon said equably. “My lady, Lord Reginald Harcourt, a friend of old.”

  Nell gamely extended a hand, but the redhead had bowed too quickly for her. “Terribly glad to meet you,” he said as he popped up again, the grin on his face putting her in mind of a jack-in-the-box. She recognized his type. Sporting, jolly: he’d be comfortable down at the pub, singing sailor songs at the bar with the lads who liked to brawl after their fifth or sixth glass. “Expect you’ve come to set the crowd on its ear, eh?” He cocked an eyebrow at Lady Allenton. “The first victim.”

  “I am quite well,” Lady Allenton murmured.

  “No doubt of that,” the man agreed. “Soiree of the season, what? A hard title to come by, once June rolls around, but I expect Rushden has clinched it for you.”

  The words seemed to rouse Lady Allenton. She looked around her as though coming awake. Her eyes narrowed as they returned to Nell, and then she smiled, suddenly and perfectly delighted.

  “But what an honor,” she said. “What an honor, that you should choose my little party to announce this—this miracle!” Her trilling laugh steadied, edging into robust glee. “Oh, yes. Lady Rushden, you must allow me to introduce you.”

  And so, at their hostess’s direction, they walked from group to group, the first and second knots of guests greeting Nell with confusion—and then shock, much as Lady Allenton had done. But as their progress continued, leaving astonished exclamations in its wake, the entire room began to catch on. The genteel atmosphere dissolved into a sharp, increasingly frenetic babble that drowned out the violins. Only two words leapt clearly out of the hubbub: Cornelia Aubyn.

  To her own surprise, Nell relaxed; she actually began to enjoy herself. Mrs. Hemple had framed this evening as a test, but Simon had been more correct: it wasn’t a test as much as a spectacle, and her part in it barely required words. With each new person, she extended her hand, made a shallow curtsy, and then settled back to let them gawp and ogle her. Simon managed all the rest: he guided the stunned guests through their disbelief and into excitement; dexterously deflected their more complex inquiries about her former whereabouts; laughed often, generously, until his interlocutors laughed, too; accepted compliments on her behalf; and smoothed over those moments in which a question was put to her that she had no idea how to answer. “No, she’s not so fond of hunting, but what a lovely invitation; and, yes, I’m working to change her mind”; “The gown is Worth, I believe, but altered by Madame Poitiers; you know she has a gift for muting the harsh French angles”; “Why, no, we were discussing it just last night; she hasn’t chosen a favorite yet, but I’m wagering on Hunsdown’s filly to take the race.”

  Nonsense, clever nonsense, all spun in Simon’s low, smooth voice. He was a bloody genius with these people, slicker than any confidence artist, more popular than whisky
in a room full of Irishmen. People doted on his remarks. They courted him and he rewarded them for it, lavishing his charm on anyone who wanted it, using his free hand to flirt, to deliver glancing brushes over ladies’ wrists and solid, manly claps to gentlemen’s shoulders. He radiated approval, amusement, belonging, and people gathered to him like stars around the moon. Under his influence, their avid curiosity about her shifted into simpler warmth; they looked at her anew, seeing not a grotesque surprise but a delightful discovery, Rushden’s discovery.

  When somebody pressed a glass of champagne into her hand, Nell lifted it to him in a silent toast, congratulating his cleverness. His eyes laughed back at her; in the pretext of inclining to speak in her ear, his lips brushed her temple. “Steady on,” he said. “You’re doing brilliantly.”

  She flushed at the compliment, though she hardly deserved it. In this hullabaloo, nobody noticed if her vowels occasionally collapsed on certain syllables; if, once, she slipped up and called a marquess your lordship, like a servant. But oh, sweet irony! Her tutors would have despaired at how this richly dressed crowd stared and stammered. As Lady Somebody-or-Other gabbled at her about the glorious righting of terrible injustices, she nodded and patted the woman’s hand and thought, Mind your E’s, there, duck, and don’t step so close when you speak to a girl: it ain’t polite.

  When that lady finally stepped away, another took her place: a scarlet-gowned woman whose pale, heart-shaped face might have blurred with all the others had the sight of it not caused Simon to hesitate briefly before issuing a greeting.

  The Viscountess Swanby was tall and dramatically curved, with pale blue eyes as sharp in their sparkle as glass. She received news of Nell’s resurrection with unusual serenity, nodding through the introduction and then immediately inquiring whether or not Simon had received her invitation to a performance by some Hungarian pianist.

  “Thank you, I did,” he said.

  Mrs. Hemple had told Nell one wasn’t meant to allude to invitations in public, lest one’s companions realize they’d been omitted from the guest list. But the blonde did not seem to realize her faux pas. “You can’t miss the performance,” she said. “I believe his piano is another man’s pianissimo.”

  The Hungarian bloke had taken somebody else’s … piano? Was a pianissimo a fancy brand of piano? Nell glanced uncertainly to Simon, who was nodding. “Certainly he has an unrivaled grasp of the counterpoint,” he said.

  Counterpoint. Now there was a word that sounded plain enough, but Nell couldn’t imagine the meaning.

  The viscountess, however, seemed clear on it. “Oh, yes,” she enthused. “He makes me look with new wonder on the connection between musician and instrument. Why …” Her voice lowered. “I’ve never encountered a softer, more skillful touch.”

  Touch. In the viscountess’s purring voice, the word seemed suggestive. Nell looked sharply toward Simon and saw that he was not smiling. For the first time all night, he made no effort to appear entertained. “Is that so?” he asked.

  “Well, I’ve experienced it only once, of course,” the viscountess replied. With a cold start, Nell realized that she was inching closer to Simon. “But I’ve never managed to forget it.” Her ice-blue gaze trailed down Simon’s body to the vicinity of his … hands. “Ever since, I’ve been longing to have him perform again.”

  Comprehension iced through Nell’s stomach. This conversation might have been in Chinese and she still would have sensed the undercurrent here. “I suppose it might be more complicated than you expect,” she said flatly. She could send her own message; she understood the idea of a performance, at least. “For you to arrange another show, I mean.”

  Simon’s arm tensed beneath her hand. Yes, she thought blackly, I’m not an idiot.

  The viscountess flicked her a dismissive glance. “Does Lady Rushden take a real interest in the arts, then?”

  “She has a remarkable instinct for them,” Simon said, his voice unreadable. “I should trust her opinion on any question touching on such matters.”

  For a second, faced with this bloodless exchange, Nell doubted her own suspicions. But then the viscountess lifted her brows, and her thin lips took on a superior, sneering curve as she said directly to Nell, “How lovely! Of course, when it comes to the arts, one must wish for a variety of diverse opinions, the better to invigorate the debate. Don’t you think?”

  The sneer in her voice dispelled all doubt. In Nell, this woman saw a rival.

  Nell took a hard breath. In Bethnal Green, a wife would be lifting her fist about now. A wise husband would be retreating. Nobody would tolerate this odd, elliptical sparring. “I expect the right opinion is the only one you need,” she said.

  “If you’ll excuse us,” Simon said, but Nell resisted the pressure he was exerting on her arm, for the viscountess was opening her mouth to speak and you didn’t turn your back on a snake.

  “I must solicit your opinion, then,” the viscountess said to her. “The last time I spoke with Lord Rushden, we had a very passionate discussion of Andreasson’s tone-color effects. I feel that Bach’s fugues tolerate it very well, but perhaps you do not.” Her tone was pleasant, but her eyes nailed into Nell’s, steady and hard, as though she saw straight to the truth and knew Nell had not an inkling of such matters. “Such a hot debate under way! May I know where you stand?”

  “I doubt she has ever contemplated the question,” said Simon. “I confess I never gave it much thought myself after our discussion. Neither I nor my wife pay much attention to these passing salon styles.”

  Whatever Simon meant, it looked to be the equivalent of a slap, for the woman reddened and retreated a pace. “Yes, I see your point. My goodness, is that Marconi I spot on the other side of the room? If you’ll forgive me—”

  “Oh, we would never keep you,” Simon murmured.

  The viscountess turned on her heel and stalked away. Watching her retreat, Nell felt sick. Maybe the champagne was souring in her stomach. “What’s a salon style?”

  “A musical term,” said Simon. “That’s all.”

  No, it wasn’t. Her husband might as well have been speaking a foreign language with that woman—some cozy, secret talk that Nell couldn’t hope to understand. Like adults around a child, she thought, spelling the words to keep the nipper from catching on.

  “You’re some sort of musical expert?” she asked. How important did he account this business?

  He shrugged. “I’m considered a reliable critic by circles who don’t know very much about it.”

  “But you write music. You play the piano every day.” Those weren’t the signs of a man only mildly engaged by a passion.

  “Yes.” A line appeared between his brows. “Does that trouble you?”

  She shook her head and looked blindly across the room. Lady Swanby was in close conference with a lady in sapphires, both of them smiling, creamily satisfied with themselves. Her pale blue eyes flashed in the light, finding Nell’s briefly, her smile never faltering as she glanced onward.

  What if Simon came to long for somebody with whom he could discuss such matters as—as tone color?

  “Nell,” he said softly, insistently, until she had no choice but to look at him. “There is no cause on earth to let any woman here trouble you.”

  Her throat thickened. Sure and he felt that way now, but in three months, or six, when this current between them dimmed, her ignorance might start to trouble him.

  A balding, rotund baron staggered up with three glasses of champagne. “A toast,” he chortled. “A toast to Rushden’s newest find! Ain’t you the clever one, Rush! Should’ve known if anyone would find her, you would.”

  Nell took the glass with an effortful smile, the liquid sloshing as people pressed in to join the cheer. Simon lifted his flute, making some joke that set everyone to laughing.

  A queer chill ran through her. Simon was a man at a party that had started without him but now revolved entirely around him—Nell herself perhaps only the excuse for what was t
he natural order of things: people crowding forward to bask in her husband’s attention.

  She looked down at her glass, at the bubbles popping and disappearing. He’d told her his reputation was too black to win a more conventional heiress—that fathers wouldn’t approve of him, that people talked poorly of him. She didn’t think he’d been lying to her, but obviously he had been lying to himself.

  She wondered what had given him such a black view of his own prospects.

  She wondered if that black view explained why he’d looked no higher for a bride than a guttersnipe.

  She drowned the wicked thought in a long swig of champagne.

  An hour later, the company was still buzzing when a man walked into the room and made directly for the vacant piano, where he flipped out his coattails and took possession of the bench.

  “Ah,” said Lady Allenton, returning to Nell’s elbow. “Andreasson has deigned to appear!” She directed a delighted look toward Simon, clearly pleased with her party; were she to glow any more brightly, there’d be no need for all the candles. “Your discovery continues to enchant,” she said to him. “I find his music quite … transcendent!”

  Nell sighed. Her spirits had started to lift again—the occasion was too merry, the scene too beautiful, to sulk for long. But if everyone was going to start talking music again, she’d need another few glasses of the bubbly to brace herself.

  The pianist picked out a few notes, testing his instrument. A hush descended—gradually, incompletely, stray voices still leaping out here and there. Simon took the opportunity to draw Nell back against the wall, putting a foot or two between themselves and the hostess. “Are you all right?” he asked.

  “I’m fine,” she said, and with his hand on her arm, she meant it.

  He returned her smile with one of his own. “What do you think of the crowd tonight?”

  She felt as though she’d been walking through a cloud of butterflies, all of them flapping in her face, angling to be noticed. Mostly harmless. Mostly amusing. “They’re friendly,” she said. But not because of me.