A Necessary Deception (17 page)

She shook the man’s hand off her shoulder and rose. She stood half a head taller than he and stepped close to him to emphasize that fact. “Why does England need to blackmail its subjects into helping with the war, sirrah?”

“Would you have helped otherwise?” He maintained his cool, indifferent tone.

“Yes.” The word spoken with more certainty than she felt, she spun on her heel and rushed away from him so fast she bumped her glass against a pillar. Its sticky contents splashed over her hand and over the silk flowers wound around the post to make it look like a trellis of roses. As soon as she found a place, she set the glass down and wiped her hand on a serviette, then fled the ballroom.

A mistake. She never should have run. She should have gone along with his intimidation, let him think she would do what she must. Through running off, she’d given herself away. A mistake.

Running was always a mistake. It was the only recourse for eluding the coil into which she’d gotten herself. But she wasn’t prepared to engage in espionage, not even as an auxiliary to the real participants.

Stomach knotted, head spinning, she searched for and located a door leading to a miniscule balcony. Cool night air washed over her, clearing her head, calming her pulse. Below, the Tarletons’ garden smelled of lilacs—sweet, pure, the promise of spring, a harbinger of summer beyond. She leaned on the balustrade to take in the sweet, spicy aroma—

And someone grabbed her legs, began to lift.

She shrieked. Her fingers scrabbled at the stone railing. No handhold. No way to stop. Her scream blended with the tumult inside the ballroom. She tried to kick. Strength poured from her assailant’s hands into her ankles, lifting up and up until she flipped over the balustrade and tumbled toward the garden below.

The scream brought Christien running from library to garden. A blur of white shot past him from the overhanging balcony. He lunged to grab it, caught only white silk. The grate of tearing fabric ripped the night, then the crunch of breaking limbs and thud of something striking the earth.

Not something—someone.

He rushed outside, dropped to his knees beside the crushed lilac bushes, and reached for the wearer of the white silk costume. He touched an arm, silky black hair, a mask torn half off. “Madame,
vous tges
—” He took a deep breath of the air smelling of crushed flowers and grass and a honey-citrus scent. “Lydia—I mean, Lady Gale?”

No answer. Wrong woman? Others could wear that unusual fragrance. Or—

He ran his fingers along a smooth neck, found a pulse, breathed a sigh of relief. It beat strongly under the skin, fast and a little erratically, but a true sign of life. But she could suffer from many injuries after a fall like that—broken limbs, ribs tearing into vital organs, a crushed skull.

His own heart pounding out of his chest, he began to run his hands along her arms, up to her shoulders, into her mass of dark hair in search of breaks, blood, lumps. He must fetch a physician to examine the rest. He didn’t want to leave her. A shout would bring someone from the library. Cassandra must still be in there, hiding behind the curtains with a thick Greek text.

“I’m going to call for help.” Slowly, he began to remove his hands from her hair.

“No.” Little more than a whisper, the touch a mere brush of fingers on his sleeve. “All . . . right.”

“You need a physician.”

“No. Please.” Her grip grew stronger. “Winded.”

“Something could be broken.”

“Only the bush.” A sound like a breathless laugh escaped her lips.

“
Vraiment
, madame?”

“
Vraiment
, monsieur.” She raised her hand to his cheek, her touch light and cool, burning him like flame. “Please, help me up.”

“Of course, if you’re certain.” He slipped one arm behind her shoulders. Still cradling her head in his other hand, he eased her to a sitting position. “Shall I find your sisters?”

“In a moment. I need to collect myself.”

“Collect yourself? Madame Gale, you just fell off a balcony.”

“No, monsieur, I didn’t fall. I was pushed.”

Christien caught his breath, waited for her to say more.

“My Mr. Lang is at this masquerade—” She broke off and ducked her head.

He cupped her chin in his hands and nudged her face up, then his nostrils flared. “Pardon me, madame, but have you been drinking gin?”

“What?” She sounded normal now, her breath restored along with her strength, and she pushed him away. “I don’t even know what gin tastes like, let alone drink it. How dare you accuse me. I say I was pushed, and you accuse me of drinking.”

“I am sorry.” His face burned in the darkness. “But I know the scent. Could someone have given it to you without you knowing?”

“I drank only lemon—is gin kind of bitter?”

“What will you think of me if I say yes?”

“More than I did not so long ago.” She shifted, groaned. “No breaks. Lots of bruises. Will you help me stand?”

“O
ui
, but I fear your costume is ruined.” He gathered her hands in his and rose, drawing her with him.

“Better my costume than my person, which was someone’s intent.” She gripped his forearms. “Or do you simply think I’m making up a tale because I’ve been drinking?”

“I believe someone could have played a May game with you and tried to get you to drink lemonade with spirits in it. But surely you’d notice. And who?”

“It was Mr. Lang. He even had my bracelet to remind me to cooperate. As for why . . .” She took a deep breath and winced.

“You are injured.”

“I have bruising, but it’s not important. Why I fell is.”

“He thought to have people think you’d been drinking to give reason for your fall,
n’est-ce pas
?”

“Yes, I believe it is so. I implied I was weary of helping and—” Her voice shook. Her hands shook.

Christien drew her close to him, tucked her head against his shoulder, and stroked her hair. He murmured nonsense in French, so much softer and more soothing than English. He rested his cheek atop her head and, with great willpower, managed not to turn his face and brush his lips against the glossy curls. She needed comfort, not advances.

She acted like she trusted him.

He embraced her until her trembling ceased, then held her at arm’s length and peered into her face, nothing more than a pale blur in the dark garden. “We must talk about this more, but I think you should go home now, take a bit of laudanum, and rest.”

“My sisters. I must find them.”

“You cannot go back to the ballroom, my lady. Your gown—”

She let out a little shriek of horror.

“Here.” He enveloped her in his voluminous domino. “Come into the library. Miss Bainbridge was hiding there earlier.”

He led Lydia into the house and a room not open for guests, as the garden was not. But Miss Cassandra Bainbridge still skulked on her window seat, as though a woman screaming in the garden meant nothing to her. She didn’t even look up at their arrival.

No wonder Whittaker grew frustrated with her.

“Cassandra, we’re leaving.” Lydia’s tone was sharp, showing no trace of her quiet hysterics of moments earlier.

Cassandra glanced up. “Lydia, what happened to you? Why are you wearing Monsieur de Meuse’s domino?”

“I had an accident with my gown.”

“Indeed?” Cassandra’s eyes narrowed.

“Yes, an accident,” Lydia snapped. “Now, go find Honore.”

“I shall find her,” Christien said. “She is more likely to come if I say so. You ladies remain here. I will have your carriage brought around to the mews.” Christien slipped away.

Behind him the door latch clicked. Good. No one would disturb them. He should have told them to lock the windows too. Whoever had pushed Lydia—

She’d been pushed off a balcony!

Christien tamped down his own desire to shake at what could have happened to Lydia and pressed through the crowd that grew denser the closer to the ballroom he drew. He would think about the mishap later. He would wait and get more information from Lydia. He must find Honore.

He had spotted her earlier with her charming crown of laurel leaves, and found her again. The gentleman with whom she shared a glass of something that looked suspiciously like Madeira wore a domino and mask, but Christien never doubted for a moment he was Gerald Frobisher. And the youth held Honore close with an arm around her waist. A good tableau to end.

“Miss Honore,” Christien clipped out, “your sisters need you immediately. Come with me.”

“But I—”

“You can’t drag her away, whoever you are,” Frobisher protested.

“I can and I shall.” Christien grasped Honore’s elbow in a firm though gentle grip and turned her toward the library. “Do not make a scene, Miss Honore. Your sister has had an accident.”

“Don’t tell me that Cassandra fell down steps again.”

“No, Lady Gale.”

That got Honore moving, firing questions at him he didn’t feel free to answer. Let Lydia tell her sisters whatever story she liked.

Once the sisters were united in the library, Christien slipped out through the miniscule garden to the mews and sent a stable hand around to fetch the Bainbridge carriage. As he stood in the French window awaiting the vehicle’s arrival, Lydia slipped up beside him, now smelling of lilacs along with her own scent.

“I think our culprit is George Barnaby,” she murmured.

“Why?”

“I cannot say here. Call on me tomorrow.”

But when he called on her the following day, the butler informed him that Lady Gale was indisposed. “She said she will send for you when she is well.”

But she did not. For another week, Christien waited for messages from her. He waited for messages from his sister. He sought out Miss Honore at balls. That young minx acted as though she neither knew nor wanted to know him and gave him the cut direct with her pert little nose in the air. When he saw her riding in the park with Gerald Frobisher again, Christien suspected why.

Not wanting to intrude upon Lydia if she were truly indisposed, and concerned about his sister’s silence, Christien finally made an appearance at the Bainbridge back door, wearing the plain garb of a tradesman.

“I need to see the cook,” he announced to the tiny scullion who opened the portal.

“Are you the tea merchant?” the lad asked, his green eyes twinkling. “If so, she’s likely to take her biggest skillet to your skull for delivering bohea day before yesterday.”

“My reasons are my own, young man.” Christien tried to be stern, though the corners of his mouth twitched.

“Yes sir, guv. It’s your head at stake.” The lad nipped inside.

A volume of French spilled from the half-open door like peppercorns from a broken chest: She didn’t need to talk to a merchant. She was too preoccupied to talk to a merchant. How could she prepare the special broth for Madame if the oh-so-inconsiderate tradesman thought he could interrupt her day?

Christien pushed the door the rest of the way open and stood on the threshold.

“And now you bring in the damp and cold that will make my soufflé—ah.” She stopped speaking, and her cheeks paled. “I will speak to you then.”

The kitchen staff, standing as far from her as they could, gave Christien looks of awe.

He smiled, bowed, and ushered the cook up the areaway steps.

“You missed our rendezvous,” he began in French. “You know our agreement. If you don’t report to me regularly, I will make you go home and keep you locked up there until I find a man fool enough to marry you.”

“I am so sorry,
mon frère
, but I have been inundated with the work. Madame is ill—”

“Lydia—that is, Lady Gale?”

“No.” Lisette tilted her head sideways, and a little smile curved her lips. “It is Madame Bainbridge. But it is
tres interessant
that you would think of Lady Gale first.”

“Only that she hasn’t been about of late.” Christien shoved his hands into his coat pockets. “And neither have you.”

“Madame Bainbridge had a relapse of her lung fever, and I am kept on my little toes preparing invalid fare to tempt her appetite. I tell you, Christien, I have not avoided you on purpose.”

“You should have gotten a message to me to let me know.”

“Why? They are all safe.”

“Except for Miss Honore riding out with Gerald Frobisher.”

“That one.” Lisette swept her arm out as though throwing something disgusting away. “There is no stopping her when Madame Gale is busy with her maman and preparing this ball and painting and . . . She scarcely sleeps, and keeping after that youngest one to behave herself properly is
tres impossible
.”

“You should have told me, gotten me a message. I’d have—”

What could he have done? Call on her when she made it clear that she wanted nothing to do with him? He couldn’t even use the excuse that he needed her help with entrée into Society. His desk overflowed with invitations.

“And how was I to do this? Send a footman to your rooms?” Lisette wrinkled her nose. “A fine kettle of fish that would have me stewing in, the cook sending the
billet dou
, the love letters to a gentleman, or so it would appear. I could not—”

Above them, a window slammed.

“Now that does it.” Lisette planted her hands on her nonexistent hips. “We have disturbed someone in the family, and I will likely be dismissed without a reference for conducting an alliance with a man when I am to be working.”

“Nothing would make me happier. In fact, I’m sending you back—”

Running feet clicked around the corner of the house. Lisette’s eyes widened.

Christien swung around. “My lady.”

“Monsieur de Meuse, do tell me where you plan to send my cook,” demanded Lady Lydia Gale.

Her words sounded calm to her ears despite tremors racing through her body and a bit of shortness of breath from her headlong dash down the steps to catch Christien with her cook.

With her cook!

“I think it is time for me to go back to my kettles
, n’est-ce pas
?” The diminutive chef darted toward the area steps.

Lydia caught hold of her arm. “Not so quickly. Why are you discussing me and my family with this man?”

The young woman’s gaze shot to Christien.
Do not
, she mouthed.

“I asked her to inform me if all was not well with you.” Christien smiled at Lydia.

She blinked and her toes curled. Her mind raced. “Why would my cook do this for you, a stranger?” She narrowed her eyes. “Unless it has something to do with—”

“It has something to do with her being my sister.”

“Oh, you
bête
,” the girl cried. “How could you? Now I am ruined, finished, an exile.”

“And I am struck dumb.” Lydia glanced from Christien to the cook and back to Christien.

She saw little resemblance. The girl was petite and dark. Although Christien’s hair and complexion ran on the dark side, his blue eyes gave the impression of lightness, of sunshine and warmth. The cook was more like a banked fire smoldering on a hearth and awaiting the merest prod of the poker to fan it into flames.