“I can’t promise that, not when I can see that you’re still very upset. Besides, he has every right to know. He loves you very much and he’s ultimately responsible for—”
“He doesn’t love me!” cried the girl, her voice rising a little again. “I don’t want him to come here, I don’t ever want to see him again! Promise me that you won’t send for him or tell him anything about this. I won’t cry anymore, I promise.”
Leonie felt sad as she searched the girl’s face. To agree to her pleas would be wrong, for Guy should indeed be told, but at the same time it was obvious that for the moment seeing him would be rather inadvisable, for Stella was very overwrought and the subject of her uncle seemed only to make matters worse. Perhaps it would be better to temporarily agree to her request, in the hope that when she was more calm she would be ready to say what had happened. “All right,” she said at last, “but only on one condition. If I truly feel that Sir Guy must be told about this, then I will do so.”
“But, Leonie—”
“No, Stella, I cannot possibly promise what you ask. I’m your friend and I love you very much indeed, but Sir Guy loves you as well, no matter what you might think to the contrary at the moment.”
“He doesn’t love me at all,” replied Stella in a quiet voice.
“You’re very wrong.”
“I don’t want to talk about him.”
Leonie nodded. “Very well.” She smiled, leaning forward to push a stray curl of the girl’s dark hair back from her hot forehead. “I think you should try to sleep now. You’ll feel much better then. I’ll go and see if Mrs. Durham will make you a hot posset to drink.”
Stella nodded, lying back on the pillow again. She looked very tired, drained in fact, as if the dreadful weeping had sapped all her strength. “I do hate him now, you know,” she said quietly. “I loved him so much, too much to want him ever to marry someone as hateful as Imogen. Now I think they deserve each other, and I hope they’ll make each other very unhappy.”
“Oh, Stella—”
“No, it’s true, I
do
hope they do.” The girl’s eyes met Leonie’s. “I wanted him to like you, that’s why I made him ask you to the theater as well.”
Leonie stared at her. “That was wrong, Stella.”
“I know, but it was what I wanted. Now I wish I hadn’t.” She fell silent for a moment then, gazing toward the window. It was snowing outside again, small wispy flakes which spiraled aimlessly through the iron-hard air. “I wish Nadia would come to see me again,” she whispered.
Leonie said nothing more.
At almost midday that same morning, Nadia Benckendorff was taking a very late breakfast in the orangery at the embassy. She had a sleepless night thinking about Rupert and Leonie, and now she had an abominable headache. More than anything in the world she wished to be rid of Leonie; she wanted her summarily dismissed so that the next time Rupert went to the seminary, she would have vanished from his life forever. Yes, that was what was required, but achieving it was still an apparently insurmountable difficulty, and would remain so until Dorothea at last returned from Lord Palmerston’s ardent embrace. Half-formed plans and ideas there were in plenty, but nothing which offered a definite chance of success. The cozy little talk with Stella had been most illuminating, and now Nadia knew a great deal about Leonie’s day-to-day duties and so on, but it was how to put all this information to the best use which was proving distressingly elusive.
Nadia sighed, settling thoughtfully back on her wrought-iron chair, gazing past the tropical foliage toward the snowy gardens beyond. For a moment she was reminded of St. Petersburg, and thoughts of Leonie Conyngham faded. Surely her troika would soon arrive, and then how grand and eye-catching she would look, skimming across Hyde Park behind three milk-white horses!
A footman bowed before her. “Miss Benckendorff, Lord Edward Longhurst has called.”
She looked at him in astonishment. Edward Longhurst was calling upon
her!
But he loathed the very sight of her, and the feeling was mutual! Curious to know what had brought him, she nodded. “Very well, I will receive him in here.”
She poured some more thick cream on top of her black coffee, sitting back again then to watch as Edward approached. He was, she admitted grudgingly, rather handsome, and he certainly dressed very modishly, but his eyes were always so clever, and his lips curved in that perpetual half-smile which she had long since learned to mistrust.
He bowed to her, his glance moving quickly over her slender, graceful figure, revealed so subtly by the soft folds of her high-waisted white muslin gown. “Good morning, Miss Benckendorff.”
“Milord.” Her green eyes were cool and she did not return his smile.
“I trust I haven’t called at an inconvenient time.”
“Inconvenient? No. I confess I’m astounded that you’ve called on me at all, given the way you and I feel toward each other.”
“I fear you must have misunderstood me, Miss Benckendorff, for I feel no animosity toward you. May I sit down?”
“Please do, for I’m most intrigued to hear what you have to say.”
He lounged back on a sofa, reaching up for a moment to pull down an overhanging spray of orange leaves, sniffing the sweet-smelling flowers before releasing it again.
She was a little irritated. “I’m sure you did not come to admire flowers, milord.”
“No, but nevertheless flowers do form part of my reason for coming here.” The penetrating blue eyes were turned full upon her then. “Did you know that earlier this very morning twelve more baskets of roses were delivered to Leonie Conyngham, and that Rupert himself then called to see that she had received them? Ah, I see from your face that you did not know. It is a disagreeable state of affairs, in more ways than one, and if you and I have hitherto not exactly seen eye to eye, I rather think that now is the time for us to rectify the situation. Don’t you agree?”
“I don’t understand.”
“I think we both have the same aim, Miss Benckendorff, we both wish to be rid of Leonie Conyngham.”
“I wish to be rid of her, I make no secret of it,” she replied, “but I had not realized that you were in any way concerned about her.”
“Oh, yes,” he said, suddenly serious, “and as I’ve already said, it’s for more than one reason. Shall I go on?”
She still doubted his sincerity, regarding him with mistrust. “Please do.”
“Very well. I will begin with my sister’s unwise complacency where Guy de Lacey is concerned. I saw him with Leonie Conyngham that night at the theater, and the warning signs were there.”
“They quarreled afterward, did you know?”
“Yes.” He smiled. “I also know that they have since mended the rift.”
She lowered her cup, a little surprised. “Surely not, for Imogen said he ignored Leonie at the seminary yesterday.”
“He subsequently spent some time alone with her.”
“How do you know?”
“Servants can be bribed, Miss Benckendorff, but then you know that already, don’t you?”
She flushed a little, looking away angrily.
“Kitchen boys are very poorly rewarded for their labors, Miss Benckendorff, and at the seminary there is one who likes his palm to be crossed with a little silver now and then.
He
saw them in the visitors’ room when he was sent out into the seminary garden to feed scraps and crumbs to the birds. He said they were most definitely
not
quarreling.” The smile was playing about his lips again. “So, there you have my first reason: I wish to see Leonie Conyngham bundled away somewhere to keep her from harming my sister’s happiness.”
She sipped her coffee. “Very well, I accept that that is a good reason, indeed, an admirable one. I had not realized you were so fond a brother, milord.”
“Nor had you realized that I hold you in high regard,” he reminded her.
She stared disbelievingly at him. “Oh, come now, sir, don’t treat me like a fool!”
“I’m not, I promise you. I happen to think that you are the very wife for Rupert Allingham, but I’m afraid that at the moment Leonie Conyngham is once again rather getting in the way of things. He is in danger of becoming infatuated with her, and that won’t do at all, will it? That is my second reason: I don’t want him making a fool of himself with a creature like that, Nadia. I may call you Nadia, may I not?” He smiled.
“Please feel free…Edward,” she replied dryly.
“That’s better. I do so hate being formal. So, I think we are allies in this particular war, Nadia, for we both wish to destroy Leonie Conyngham.”
“And the two reasons you’ve just given me are your only reasons?”
“Yes.” He met her eyes without a flicker.
After a moment she nodded. “Very well, sir, we are indeed allies. How do you suggest we go about achieving victory?”
“I’ve been giving the matter a great deal of thought, but the answer did not come to me until I learned how cleverly you’d ingratiated yourself with that odious brat Stella de Lacey.”
“Ah yes, Stella….” Nadia sipped her coffee, savoring the taste of the warm cream. “She must be the key, but I have not been able to think of the best way to use her.”
“I’ve thought of a way, Nadia.”
She looked quickly at him. “Tell me.”
“I want you to go to see Stella again. After my sister’s visit this morning I would imagine the child needs cheering up.” He smiled. “Imogen has a way with children, don’t you know? Anyway, you must toddle along to the seminary, with your friendly hat on, and you must offer her all the comfort and understanding in the world. Oh, and you must offer to give her her heart’s desire, a visit to the frost fair.”
Nadia stared at him. “Sir, forgive me if I’m being dull-witted, but how will all that achieve Leonie Conyngham’s dismissal?”
“Have a little faith in me, Nadia,” he reproved, a little offended. “Stella has been strictly forbidden to go to the fair, but at the moment she’s so upset that she’d do anything to go against her uncle’s wishes. She must be encouraged in this rebellion, and afterward it must all appear as if the fault lies solely with Leonie, who will have been…er, lured away for several hours at night while the visit to the fair takes place.”
“Lured? How?”
“She will be with her lover.”
Nadia’s eyes widened. “I did not know she had one. Who is he?”
“Why, I am he, Nadia.” Edward smiled.
“You?”
“Well, yes, but she will not realize that until it is too late. She will think she’s meeting Rupert. Let me explain. I will send a note to the seminary, accompanied by a red rose or two, and in it I will pretend to be Rupert, begging her to meet me in my carriage outside the seminary at nine in the evening. The note will be couched in such a way that she is bound to at least come _down to speak to the sender, at which point she will be whisked away against her will and kept away. The moment Leonie has left, Stella must also leave, going the back way through the garden into South Audley Street, where you will be waiting in another carriage to take her to the fair. When both carriages have left, another note will be sent, this time to Guy de Lacey, and it will inform him that his niece has fled the fold for a while and that her teacher is languishing in the arms of her lover. I rather think that will bring him hotfoot to the seminary, where he will find it all apparently to be very true. There will be no mistake about his reaction this time; he will
definitely
demand Leonie’s dismissal, and Miss Hart will have no option but to comply, Dorothea Lieven or no Dorothea Lieven. And I think that that will be the end of any interest de Lacey might have in Leonie, don’t you agree? It will also be the end of Rupert’s, for he will not be able to endure the thought of her having surrendered her all to his best friend.”
Slowly Nadia got up, going to stand by one of the huge stoves that heated the vast conservatory. She was silent for a long moment, and then she looked shrewdly back at him. “It seems to me, sir, that you are being very clever, for while your plan will indeed achieve what we wish, it will also attach a great deal of odium to me, for having lured a child away and taken her to a place as disreputable as the frost fair.”
“Come now, surely it is an easy matter to persuade Stella not to mention your part in it. Send someone else in the carriage to pick her up. You don’t have to risk anything at all. All you are needed for in this is to persuade Stella to do as we wish, and since you’ve made yourself such a dear friend in a remarkably short space of time, I think it well within our capabilities, don’t you?”
“Why use me at all? Indeed, why even use Stella? All you need to do is lure Leonie outside to your carriage.”
“Don’t forget that I have my sister’s interests at heart as well. I wish to rid her not only of Leonie Conyngham but also of that interfering, spoiled little brat. Guy de Lacey is in a cleft stick where his niece is concerned, for he’s been forced to take a stand, and if she blatantly continues with her disobedience, then Imogen is assured of her absence from the forthcoming celebrations at Poyntons, possibly forever, if cards are played skillfully. Now then, are you convinced that my plan is good?”
Slowly she nodded. “Yes. When do you wish to begin?”
“I wish it all to take place tonight.”
She stared. “
Tonight?
But that is so soon.”
“Stella is particularly upset right now, and so now is the time to strike. Soon we will have Miss Conyngham packing her bags, her reputation in tatters, we’ll have the Duke of Thornbury’s faith in her destroyed, Guy de Lacey’s faith not only in her but also in his niece equally destroyed, and Imogen will at last be happy. And you, my dearest Nadia, will be happy too, for you will be there to offer comfort to Rupert’s bruised self-esteem. I don’t think his attention will wander again after that, do you?” Inwardly Edward was smiling, for he was thinking that at the end of it all, he would have won the wager, for he would have conquered Leonie, and that was really all he was interested in. The rest was incidental.
Nadia’s green eyes were shining with anticipation now. “I like your plan, Edward. Shall we discuss it in more detail?”
“But of course,” he replied smoothly. Oh, what a gull the woman was; she actually believed she still had a chance of winning Rupert, who felt nothing for her and was merely amusing himself before soon casting her off forever. But in the meantime, her vanity and ambition made her a very useful tool. The winning of the wager with Rupert was all that mattered, and it didn’t matter one jot what means were used for there was little time left now.