Elizabeth dragged her own mind out of the bedchamber. “Maybe not for you.”
“Not for you either, if you will permit me to instruct you. There is Augusta’s dinner party to consider. People will comment if you refuse to dance.” Justin raised his voice over the hubbub of laughter and music and parrot conversation to request a more sober tune. Ignoring him, Gus continued playing briskly. Thornaby raised his arms above his head and snapped his fingers and shouted, “Heuch!”
Magda clapped her hands. “Bravo! Now we shall observe Saint.”
All eyes were upon them as the duke demonstrated to his bride the minuet, which consisted of a salute to the partner, a high step, and a balance, and a number of turns executed with graceful movements and steps. That is, ideally executed it did. Justin rapidly discovered that Elizabeth had not overestimated her abilities at the dance. Augusta laughed. Birdie whistled. Magda shook her head.
Thornaby moaned. The valet had already spent much time removing bramble scratches from His Grace’s boots with a combination of muriatic acid, alum, gum Arabic, spirit of lavender, and sour skimmed milk. Now he realized that he must stock up on pumice stone.
Gus picked up the tempo. Birdie unfurled her wings and clacked her beak and bobbed back and forth on her perch. Thornaby recalled a certain incident involving one of his master’s boots, and moved cautiously away from the bird.
Elizabeth glanced at the parrot. “I believe Birdie wants to dance. Now I’ve stepped on your foot again. It is difficult to think of so many things at once.”
What Justin was thinking at that moment had nothing to do with the minuet. In her efforts at concentration, the duchess had taken to nibbling on her lip, thereby reminding him that he had yet to enjoy his own wedding feast.
Lady Ratchett had been right. Dancing did cause one to grow overheated. Elizabeth was flushed, and her hair was coming unpinned. Justin decided he would like to see his bride in a state of even greater perspiration. Or maybe he would not. The duke had nothing against perspiring in his drawing room, but not before an audience.
A
plié
on the left foot flat on the upbeat, rise to the ball of the foot on beat one, straighten both legs, heels close together.
Plié on
the right foot on beat two, rise to the ball of the left foot on beat three, straighten both legs, heels close together. Keep both legs straight, walk forward on the ball of the right foot, then left foot on beats four and five— Elizabeth despaired of ever getting it right. Was it was the prospect of dancing at the Assembly Rooms that so exhilarated her pulse?
How solemnly she concentrated, as if what she undertook was something a great deal more serious than a minuet. Perhaps to her it was. The duke was again reminded that he had never properly courted his duchess, or written her poems or sent her flowers, taken her for carriage drives in the park, stood up with her at balls. He could hardly have done the latter, because she didn’t dance. Still, he could have flattered her a little bit.
Indeed, he still might flatter her. “You will never persuade me that you haven’t danced before,” he said, and shortly thereafter, “Ouch.”
So much for grace and cheerfulness, Elizabeth reflected. Impossible to turn her feet properly and control her movements when engaged in conversation, even when that conversation was dictated by the dance. “I need a few more lessons, I think.”
Justin would be happy to give his wife any number of lessons. Maybe she might like to learn the German waltz, in which the partners stood face-to-face, her hand on his shoulder, and his hand on her slender waist. Maybe she would dance with him in her sheer nightgown. And did he not turn his thoughts in other directions, he was in danger of succumbing to an attack of the passions on the spot.
The duke was aware of their audience as he executed an elegant right-hand turn. Magda looked pensive, Thornaby anxious, and Augusta her usual contrary self. The damned bird looked like an animated rainbow. He returned his attention to Elizabeth, who was trying to watch her feet. Conor Melchers was also to be present in the Assembly Rooms. Justin must make it clear to his wife that Melchers was not the thing.
“You must be on your guard,” he said, as the dance drew them together. “For once, Gus did not exaggerate. Conor Melchers is a rogue, a scoundrel, the black sheep of his family. You will not associate with him.”
Magda said Elizabeth must not take Mr. Melchers seriously, and Justin said Elizabeth must not speak with him at all. Nigel said Charnwood was a curst cold fish; Augusta said Elizabeth would not want to offend. Magda said the gentlemen were well in their place, and nothing was more amusing than the game of hearts; Maman said Elizabeth was to obey her husband in all things, but beware of the revolting practices to which gentlemen were prone. As result of all this advice, her head fairly spun.
Successfully, she completed a double-handed turn, and sank into a curtsy. Magda and Thornaby clapped. Birdie cried, “Biscuit!” Augusta struck a triumphant chord.
This one thing Elizabeth had managed to do correctly. As for the rest, it was most bewildering, and made a person wish, like Mr. Slyte, to hide beneath the bed.
Chapter 13
“Music often draws a person to mix with much company as she would otherwise avoid.”
—Lady Ratchett
The Upper Assembly Rooms at Bath consisted of a central anteroom, charmingly octagonal in shape, from whence visitors might proceed into the ballroom to the left, the tearoom to the right, or the card room straight ahead. No sooner did the Duke of Charnwood step through the front door than he was accosted by several of his acquaintances, one of whom was eager to discuss the possibility that the Czar might sign an alliance with England; and another of whom had recently visited Sydney Gardens, and had an adventure in the Labyrinth, as result of which he was now embarked on a course of the waters in search of a cure; while the third lamented the sort of people one encountered in such places, a sentiment with which Justin could not argue, since he was present only on the orders of Lady Syb. Lady Augusta took immediate advantage of her cousin’s distraction to vanish into the card room, which had a musician’s gallery, four marble fireplaces, and a fine chandelier; walls containing frames for portraits; and most important, cloth-covered tables where whist was being played. Within moments of her own arrival, Madame de Chavannes was surrounded by a group of gentlemen with names such as Edouard, Achille, and Baptiste. Elizabeth stood beside her and listened to animated speculation about the difficulties involved in landing an expeditionary force in small boats along the English shoreline, a seven- or eight-hour passage which demanded long nights and thereby entailed all the hazards of winter weather, for invasion by sloops in calm weather wouldn’t be practical; but at all events it wasn’t likely that the French would embark upon such a project this year. The rooms were crowded with the fashionable and unfashionable tonight, entrance being available to all who could afford the subscription, with the exception of those who carried on any occupation in the retail line of business, or the theatrical, or performed publicly.
Or were
known
to perform publicly. Madame de Chavannes was clad dramatically tonight in red and white, amazingly low-cut. She glanced up as Conor Melchers strolled into the room, irresistibly sinful in a dark coat and tight breeches that had no need of padding to broaden his shoulders or false calves to improve the shape of his legs.
Deftly, Magda extricated herself from her admirers.
“Mon cher.
I feared you might you would not come.”
Her gown could hardly have been more revealing. Mr. Melchers was amused. Mr. Melchers was frequently amused, if not by his own foibles, by those of his fellow man. Or fellow woman, for Conor was partial to the ladies and their foibles, especially those foibles displayed in the boudoir.
If he was not in a lady’s boudoir at the moment, Conor had been recently, and might have been still: where some ladies wore dampened petticoats to make their gowns cling closer, Magda eschewed petticoats altogether, to provocative effect. “I could hardly resist so charming an invitation,” he said, and raised her hand to his lips. “You are plotting. I remember that look.”
Magda smiled as she took his arm. “How well you know me
.
I need a small favor,
mon chou:
go talk to Justin’s wife. It will cause you no great inconvenience. She is a good girl.”
Good girls did not appeal to Mr. Melchers. He could not recall the last time he had as much as spoke with one. “Why should I do that?”
“For the novelty, perhaps?” Magda dimpled. “Or because you love me, if for nothing else?”
Conor’s lazy gaze moved over her. “Unkind of you to remind me. You owe me a forfeit, as I recall.”
“Allons!
You cannot be bored already, for you have just walked in the door. Go amuse yourself with the duchess. She will not know what to make of you. If Charnwood is a saint, you are Satan,
n’est-ce pas?”
Mr. Melchers studied St. Clair’s duchess, who was trying valiantly to keep Madame’s émigré admirers entertained. “You can’t mean me to seduce the chit.”
Magda’s green eyes twinkled. “That might be beyond even your talents
.
Merely, I need you to distract her while I seek out Gregoire.”
Conor was relieved that he wasn’t required to embark upon a seduction. He had nothing against seduction, as countless ladies could attest, but preferred the business be his idea. Interesting, that Magda believed Charnwood’s duchess proof against him. Or maybe she did not. “Very well. Be off about your intrigues.”
Magda beckoned to the duchess. “You remember Conor Melchers,
petite
. He will take you on a grand tour of the Assembly Rooms. Do not fear his reputation. He will treat you with the utmost propriety, unless you invite him otherwise.” Without a backward glance, she melted into the crowd. Or came as close to melting as was possible in light of her lush person and marked absence of petticoat and stays.
Bemused, Elizabeth stared at Mr. Melchers, at the silver threads in his dark hair, the world-weary lines around his lazy eyes and mouth. Here stood a gentleman with a love of dissipation. Did a lady decide to do what she should not, this was the ideal gentleman to do it with.
She was gaping at him as if he were some queer exhibit. Amused, Conor inquired, “Do I have a smudge?”
St. Clair had said she should not speak with Mr. Melchers. St. Clair, however, was nowhere to be seen. Elizabeth could hardly go wandering about by herself. Moreover, she had never before had the opportunity to speak with a rakehell. “I have heard the strangest conversation.
Is
England is in danger of invasion by a handful of Frenchmen in fishing boats?”
“You have been listening to Magda’s émigrés. They are all talk and little substance. Shall we take that tour of the rooms?” Conor offered her his arm.
Mr. Melchers had a nice smile, Elizabeth decided. A nice, warm, intimate smile. Hesitantly, she inquired, “Have you known Magda for a long time, sir?”
Conor was surprised the girl didn’t go running in the opposite direction, so wicked had Magda made him sound. Not that Magda had exaggerated. Conor was living proof of the odd circumstance that a gentleman might be rendered even more intriguing by his known practice of vice.
“It certainly seems like a long time. Your husband and I are also old acquaintances. How is it that St. Clair does not accompany you tonight? Never mind, I shall entertain you in his place. See that ancient gentleman in the Bath chair?” Conor proceeded to beguile his companion with gossip of a somewhat scurrilous, and highly amusing, nature. She knew, of course, that here was where Prince Bladud cured himself and his leprous pigs by plunging into a reed-grown spring. The same Prince Bladud whose statue stood watching over the Roman Pool. Perhaps the duchess had a fondness for Roman ruins? Or maybe it was not an appreciation of antiquities that had brought the duchess to Bath, but concern for her health? Mr. Melchers refused to be persuaded that she had a predisposition toward gout, or rheumatism, Cold Humors or Hypochondriacal Flatulence.
Elizabeth had to admire Magda’s choice in gentlemen. Her escort’s manner was polished, his smile wicked, his physique superb.
He would hardly qualify as a gentleman, she reminded herself. “I am in excellent health, I assure you. Tell me, Mr. Melchers, how do the Assembly Rooms compare to the gates of Hell? Ah, you are startled. I have not so proper a way of thinking as you had expected I would?”
Saint’s little duchess was a surprising sort of female. And she wasn’t all that little, because she could almost stare Conor in the eye. “It is not as warm here, I’ll warrant. You will notice the construction of the room. Heat from the fireplaces rises to the ceiling and escapes through the upper windows. Tell me, Your Grace, why do you not dance?”
Mr. Melchers was smiling, as if he had an interest in her answer. Through the open doorway, Elizabeth watched the minuet that was under way. “I lack musical coordination, alas. Lady Augusta is in the card room. She dances nicely, and would be more to your taste.”
Leisurely, Conor inspected Lord Charnwood’s duchess, her long nose and strong chin and gold-flecked eyes. Her hair was pulled back in flattering ringlets tonight, and the bodice of her gold silk gown was surprisingly low-cut. “Duchess,” he informed her, “you might be surprised by what suits my taste.”
An unwary maiden might be overwhelmed by the warmth of his attention. Elizabeth now understood what made up a heated look. The sort of look that felt like a caress as it moved over her lips, her chin, her—
She tugged at her neckline.
“Don’t fuss,” said Mr. Melchers. “You will draw attention to yourself. Beside, your bosom is quite nice.”
How easily Mr. Melchers spoke of bosoms. Elizabeth narrowed her eyes. “Are you trying to shock me?” she inquired.
His lazy gaze moved to her face. “Did I succeed?”
Oddly, he hadn’t. “You are an authority on the subject of bosoms, I daresay, Mr. Melchers. Therefore, I am not shocked. All the same, I am not accustomed to going about half dressed.”