Nigel grimaced. “The whole household is in a flutter. Cook has already threatened to quit twice. What brings you here? That’s a good girl you married, Saint. And no, I don’t want one myself.”
Justin sipped his claret. “Do
you
think I’m a coxcomb?”
Mr. Slyte didn’t make the mistake of asking what had given his companion this odd notion. “Sometimes I’m grateful to be a younger son. No title and no prospects. Except from Aunt Syb, who’ll probably outlive us both.”
The duke could sympathize. There had been a time when he longed to be a younger son himself. “How
is
Lady Syb?”
“In prime twig. I left her sitting in bed drinking a concoction of primrose wine mixed up with honey, brandy, and white of egg; and ordering the servants around. Fortunate it is I
ain’t
in the petticoat line, the way Aunt Syb has me dangling on her string.” Nigel’s shrewd eyes rested on his friend. “I probably shouldn’t mention it, but it seems to me you may be dangling yourself, Saint.”
“You are correct. You
shouldn’t
have mentioned it.” Justin’s tone was so savage that Nigel cocked his bright head to one side.
“Ain’t you devilish out of humor. I’m not sure I want to know why. Don’t go getting your hackles up! Tell you what, I’ll loan you some of Aunt Syb’s leeches if you decide to purge yourself.”
“It’s not purging I need.” Justin swirled the ruby liquid in his glass. “I think she means to drive me mad.”
“Which one?” inquired Nigel. “You have a flock of females in your house. All you need now is for Lady Ratchett to come to town. If she does, you can come stay with me. Aunt Syb would like the company.”
Would Lady Syb tell him whether he was a coxcomb? “Elizabeth,” Justin said, and paused. How to best broach so delicate a subject? “Is, ah, innocent.”
Nigel brightened. There was no better cure for a fit of the doldrums than to encounter someone worse off. “Of course she is an innocent. God’s teeth, Saint, the girl is your wife.”
Reminded of teeth, Justin gritted his. “I mean that she is
still
innocent. Don’t make me spell it out.”
Nigel would have loved to prolong the moment. However, St. Clair was his friend. “Well now, this is extraordinary! Never tell me that you are, uh, sleeping by yourself? Ah, I see from your expression that you are.” He beckoned a waiter. “Another bottle of claret. Or maybe you should make it three!”
Chapter 11
“Towns are the destroyer of feminine virtue. Women are particularly susceptible to the fashionable fripperies and time-wasting amusement found there.”
—Lady Ratchett
While the Duke of Charnwood was being advised by his oldest friend on the ins and outs of courtship—Mr. Slyte might not be in the petticoat line, but he
did
have a gaggle of sisters, not to mention a worldly aunt, and therefore deemed himself something of an expert on feminine likes and dislikes—the ladies of his household were embarked upon an expedition to the shops. The chill weather did not deter them; they simply bundled up. Lady Augusta fetched a cloak of velvet trimmed with swansdown, and a cottage hat. Elizabeth donned a pelisse of fawn-colored sarsenet trimmed with mohair fringe, a straw bonnet, and Limerick gloves. Magda was persuaded to put on a Grecian cloak fastened on her left shoulder, and to abandon her sandals in favor of half boots.
The streets were crowded with people and vehicles. Magda had to be pulled out of the path of a collier’s cart, though Augusta would have just as soon let her be run down. Elizabeth would not have approved, however, and Elizabeth must be appeased. Gus’s jaws fair ached from smiling. “A select part for fifty people. Dinner. Music. Dancing, perhaps.”
She went on to suggest who should be invited to this festive occasion, as well as who should not. Mainly because she wasn’t listening, the duchess took all Lady Augusta said in good part.
Had
she been listening, Elizabeth might have informed Gus that she didn’t give a fig. She stepped aside to allow a wheeled invalid chair to pass.
“But I don’t see,” Augusta continued, as she followed Elizabeth down the street, “why we shouldn’t have cards. Everyone has cards. You must put in a word with my cousin. Justin is unreasonable.”
Magda paused to inspect a print shop display. “Don’t exert yourself,
petite.
Simply,
Saint doesn’t want Gus to lose her pin money three times over under his own roof.”
Augusta disliked this reminder of her estrangement from Lady Luck. “You are quick to defend someone you once called a brute.”
“Alors!
I
was married to him. I may call him anything I please.” Magda twinkled at Elizabeth. “As may you,
ma chère.
”
Elizabeth wondered what other things Madame de Chavannes might have called her one-time husband. “Maman does not approve of card play. She says that gambling is the national preoccupation, and that it dedicates people to becoming their own executioners.”
“Ma foi!
I didn’t know your mama had met Gus.” A pastry shop caught Magda’s eye, and she paused to ponder the relative merits of a jelly and a tart. The ladies moved on to inspect the food markets, where vendors touted fat chickens and flounders, oysters and cherries, hard onions and pea soup; and for those customers who lacked an appetite, goldfish and cutlery and lace. Elizabeth and Augusta weren’t hungry. Magda selected a cheddar cheese. From there they proceeded to the fruit and flowers and confectionery shops on Pulteney Bridge.
All
this time, Magda chattered gaily, a worldly frivolous gossiping kind of conversation of which Maman also would not have approved. Elizabeth was discovering she enjoyed many of the things Maman did not. Shopping. Parrots on the breakfast table. Bath itself.
Magda explained that
the war with France and the resultant financial crash had marked a turning point in the city’s fortunes. “Bath is past its heyday. The city grew too fast.”
“Speaking of heydays,” murmured Augusta, as they approached a milliner’s shop. A discussion of corsets followed, with Augusta for, and Magda against. “You are sensible and levelheaded, Elizabeth. Tell us what you think.”
The duchess thought Madame could enlighten her about what constituted a revolting practice, and whether women were known to slaver, or succumb to lust. “If Magda doesn’t want to wear a corset, she shouldn’t have to. She is of an age to do as she pleases.”
“A hit! A palpable hit!” Augusta grinned. “Magda, Elizabeth says that you are an old crone.”
“Don’t gloat,
chérie
.
”
Magda wrinkled her nose. “You are even older than I am.”
Augusta stopped smiling. “Then I, too, should also be able to do as I please.”
“Saint does not agree.” Magda linked her arm with Elizabeth’s. “I do believe that you will make him an excellent wife,
petite.”
Elizabeth succumbed to temptation. “As you did not?”
Magda’s dimple danced. “Some women are not designed for marriage,
mignonne,
which is not to say that I would mind if some handsome rogue fell in love with me. It is above all things amusing, the game of hearts. And it is always good for a lady to have a gentleman or two dangling at her slipper strings. But as for anything of a more permanent nature, thank you,
non
.”
Elizabeth was so fascinated she stepped smack into a puddle. “You do not want a husband?”
Magda laughed. “I have had several husbands. After the death of poor Jules, I decided that to bid another spouse
adieu
would be too much even for me. Instead, I shall confine myself to amours.” She drew her companion out of the path of a sedan chair. “I do not mince words with you. The gentlemen are fine, if kept in their place. You are a married woman now, and you know where that place is.”
Elizabeth guessed that Magda referred to the bedchamber. No question but that Madame de Chavannes had quelled any number of gentlemanly fires, without guilt or regret. She was not the sort of female to be married for her fortune, or any other reason than her splendid self.
“I never had a fortune!” protested Magda, for Elizabeth had said this last aloud.
Elizabeth flushed. “Well, then, for duty’s sake.”
Magda patted her arm. “To wed for other than affection is the way of the world,
petite.
You would not like to be me, I think.”
Elizabeth didn’t think it would be a bad thing to be a woman of the world. Better that than a maiden still. Did she remain a maiden much longer, the duke could simply have his marriage annulled instead of going to the trouble of obtaining a divorce.
He wasn’t likely to do so. Was he? “I’m not so sure,” she said.
“
Mais non!
” protested Magda. “It requires a great deal of effort to be a successful flirt. One must never allow the gentlemen to become complacent, must in one moment sigh for their attention and in the next hold them at arm’s length.”
Madame de Chavannes still spoke in the plural, Elizabeth noticed. “In which category would you place bloodying a nose?”
Magda chuckled.
“Du vrai,
there have been stranger bedfellows than you and Saint. Now, where can Gus have gone? If she has found a game of cards, your husband will have both our heads.” Fortunately, this suspicion proved unfounded. Lady Augusta was discovered doing nothing more exceptional than browsing through the multifarious articles for sale in a bazaar.
The duchess next spotted a bookseller’s shop, where novels, plays, pamphlets, and newspapers might be perused for the small subscription of a guinea. The ladies swept inside. Magda’s attention was caught by a newly published collection of letters intercepted at sea during the Egyptian campaign; though French headquarters had ordered all dispatches to be thrown overboard when capture threatened, the hardy British soldiers jumped into the sea right after them. Lady Augusta scanned a newspaper article about the vast number of émigrés
in England, and the government’s attempt to keep suspect agents in the country instead of letting them run free on the Continent. Elizabeth picked up
Manners and Rules of Good Society
and refrained from flinging it across the room.
After these exertions, the ladies repaired to the nearby Pump Room. Light from two banks of windows illuminated the interior of the large room, which was set round with three-quarter columns of the Corinthian order, crowned with an entablature, and over it a covering of some five feet. On each side of the room was a fireplace. In the center of the southern side stood the pump, from which the waters issued out of a marble vase. “I suspect the waters are said to be medicinal because they are nauseating,” Augusta said to Elizabeth. “Take my advice and drink tea instead.”
The room was crammed with people, young and old, healthy and infirm, come to exchange scandals and criticize their companions while they took drink the waters for which the resort was famed. All were talking at once, raising their voices to be heard over the musicians.
Not every voice was English. Augusta recalled the newspaper article. “Well, Magda, you have found some of your wretched émigrés.”
Who had found whom, Magda wondered? She preferred to be the hunter rather than the fox. “The émigrés are hardly to be blamed because the French Republic is eating Europe leaf by leaf, like the head of an artichoke.”
Augusta had a queer vision of herself as a bug on an artichoke leaf. “The newspapers have Bonaparte in Egypt.”
“And you assume he will stay there, fighting Mamelukes and Turks? By whatever means, the Corsican intends in time to encompass both the ruin of the present French government and the British Empire. He is an ambitious man.”
The room was warm, and redolent with the scent of many bodies. Magda unfastened her cloak, thereby attracting the attention of several male passersby. “How do you know all this?” asked Elizabeth.
“I keep my eyes and ears open.
Pardon,
I must speak with someone.” Magda fluttered her eyelashes at two gentlemen who had stopped to admire her plunging neckline; stepped gracefully around them to vanish in the crowd.
“Keeps her ears and eyes open indeed,” muttered Lady Augusta, as she followed Elizabeth toward a window, out of the way of the promenade. “She’s probably an enemy agent herself.”
Elizabeth was tall enough to peer over the heads of the crowd nearby. Magda stood some distance away, in animated conversation with a group of gentlemen. “You cannot believe that.”
Maybe Augusta believed it, maybe she did not. If
Magda
was
an agent, would her loyalty be to England or to France? “If you look out the window, you will see the King’s bath.”
Elizabeth gazed through the glass. Down below them was a huge cistern where patients of all shapes and sizes wallowed, packed close together, in water that was steaming hot. On one side a covering, supported by a handsome colonnade, shaded the bathers from any inclemency of weather if not from curious spectators.
Augusta moved closer to the widow. She gestured toward Elizabeth’s hand. “That ring belonged to Justin’s mother. It is the traditional wedding ring of the Duchesses of Charnwood. Magda preferred a simple golden band. Justin picked hers out himself.”
Elizabeth put her hand behind her back. “You have known Magda for some time?”
“We grew up on adjoining estates, my brother and I with Saint’s parents, and Nigel’s family nearby. Magda’s father owned a holding in the neighborhood. All that property now belongs to Charnwood. It would suit Justin’s consequence to own most of England, I vow.” Augusta paused, and studied her. “If I may presume to offer you a word of advice? You will have noticed that my cousin tends to be dictatorial. Magda was able to manage him, once. In time, you may also be able to do so. But until that day arrives, you will not want to offend.”
Magda had managed the duke so well that he had divorced her. Elizabeth wondered if St. Clair’s cousin would like to see him divorced a second time. “And so I should conduct myself accordingly. Allow myself to be guided by you, in other words.”
Augusta ignored the ironic note in that polite voice. “That will be as you wish. I certainly do not mean to say that you should take Magda as your guide. Justin
did
divorce her, though he was ridiculously besotted at one time. I have always believed she quite broke his heart.”