Maggie sniffled forlornly. “If my sisters knew—about what Jerry and I did, I mean—they would never speak to me again.”
“Your sisters are already not speaking to you,” Berangère reminded her, “and your only crime has been that, like a good many women before you, you are trying to make a living on your own, using the talent that God gave you.” Berangère shook her head until her blond ringlets swung. “You are an artist! There is no disgrace in being an artist. It is not as if you were a … a …” Berangère struggled to think of a truly shocking occupation. “A prostitute!”
“No,” Maggie admitted reluctantly. “But I suppose, in their minds, painters lead scandalous, sordid lives. And now they’ve been proven right, you know, Berangère.” She
heaved a miserable sigh. “I
am
a fallen woman.”
Berangère’s lips quirked into a wry smile as she leaned back down upon the couch.
“Ma chérie,
if
you
are fallen, I shudder to think what
I
am. I should truly like to meet these sisters of yours,
princesse.
How is it that you grew up in a home so
bourgeois
, yet paint the way you do?”
“I don’t think my home was
bourgeois
,” Maggie said defensively. “At least, no more than anyone else’s. I think I was just cursed with a more … carnal nature than anyone else in my family. I can’t imagine, for instance, that any of my sisters made love with their husbands before they were married. Especially not Anne. She is so very proper. Although, when Mamma was alive, Anne was a good deal more … tolerant. Now, it is as if, with Mamma gone, Anne seems to feel that it is her duty to bring me to task.”
“And you will not be,” Berangère said. “Being far too … how did you say it?
Oui
, carnal. That is a very good word. It is fortunate that you managed to find a man to marry who is equally carnal.”
“Augustin?” Maggie finished off her glass of wine. “Augustin isn’t a bit carnal.”
“Not Augustin,
imbécile,”
Berangère snorted. “This Jerry you speak of.”
“Jeremy?”
Maggie blinked at her. “But I can’t marry
Jeremy
.”
Berangère blinked right back. “And why not?”
“Why not?” Maggie echoed. “Why not? Haven’t you heard a word I just said?
He’s engaged to someone else!”
“Pfui!”
was Berangère’s skeptical reply to that.
“Berangère, the Star of Jaipur is a beautiful, exotic woman. You haven’t seen her. She’s like …” Maggie stopped herself just short of saying
She’s like you
. Instead, she said, “Well, nothing you could ever imagine … .”
“
Oui
,
chérie.
But with whom did this Jerry spend the night last night? This rock—this Star of Jaipur—or you?”
Maggie shook her head. “Oh, Berangère. Don’t you see? Even if by some miracle Jerry
did
want to marry me, I couldn’t marry him … .”
“Why not?”
“Because I’m engaged to Augustin, that’s why not! I can’t just break off my engagement to him like that—” Maggie snapped her fingers. “It wouldn’t be fair, not when he’s been so kind … .”
“So?” Berangère clasped her hands behind her head and leaned back against the pillows, gazing up at the skylights that revealed a cold and gray winter sky. “You did not ask Augustin to be so kind. He was kind of his own volition. You do not have to marry him for it. You can merely thank him and walk away.”
“But it would be wrong! I let him believe I returned his feelings, when all the time, I was in love with someone else!”
Berangère rolled her eyes. “You are a stupid, stupid girl. Marry the soldier and be done with it. If you like,
I
will take care of Augustin. Though I cannot abide red hair on a man.” She shuddered expressively.
“What do you mean,” she inquired suspiciously, “you’ll
take care
of Augustin?”
“What I said.” Berangère shrugged.
“You mean …” Maggie straightened. “You mean you‘ll—” She broke off, suddenly extremely embarrassed. “Oh, Berangère,” she murmured. “You really oughtn’t—”
Berangère’s laugh rang out through the studio, bouncing off the skylight and crashing back down upon the wooden floor like glass. “
Ma pauvre princesse
!” she cried. “I’ve shocked you!”
“But that’s just it, Berangère,” Maggie said sadly. “I’m
not
a princess. I never could be. You’re the only one who thinks so. And Jerry—the soldier—isn’t just a soldier. He’s a duke. Even if he asked me to marry him, I don’t think I could, because then I’d have to become a—”
“A
duchesse
?” Berangère sat up and clapped her hands, clearly entranced with the idea. “Oh,
Marguerethe
,
c’est magnifique!
What a lovely
duchesse
you will make! You will invite me to all your dinner parties and balls, and I will meet many handsome, rich men!” Stars shone in Berangère’s eyes. “Oh! How perfect! The
princesse
will be a
duchesse
!”
“No I won’t, Berangère,” Maggie insisted. “I’m only a
princess in
your
eyes. I’m actually a social disaster by English standards. But this woman—the Star of Jaipur—she really is a princess. She’d make a much better duchess than I ever would.”
Berangère, on her divan, narrowed her eyes, much in the way a cat, eyeing her prey, will take aim before a particularly daring pounce. “I see,” the French girl said slowly. “So you are willing to give him up so easily, because you would not make a suitable
duchesse
?”
“I—it’s not just that, Berangère. I told you, he hasn’t asked me—”
Footsteps sounded in the hall. Berangère had left the door to Maggie’s studio wide open. There were only two studios on the top floor of the building, her own and Maggie’s, so whoever was approaching had to be coming to visit one of them.
“Well?” Berangère persisted. “And if he asked you? Would you?”
But Maggie’s reply dried up in her throat. Because just then, Jeremy himself walked through the door of her studio.
Jeremy was not in a particularly good mood. Nearly getting killed did that to a fellow. Well, nearly getting killed as well as having one’s engagement announced in
The Times
, by someone to whom one was not engaged.
Not that Jeremy was brooding, or anything. He had completely gotten over the first attempt that had been made to murder him. In fact, what with all the other disasters in his life, he had forgotten all about it. It wasn’t until he was storming out of the offices of
The Times
—where he’d gone to demand a retraction—that he was nearly run down by a chaise-and-four.
Now, it was one thing to get stabbed, in the dead of night, in front of one’s own home. That could easily be blamed upon the increase in urban crime. It was something else entirely, however, to be nearly trampled to death in front of the offices of
The Times
. Jeremy, getting up from the slush, into which he’d dived to avoid being killed, decided that it was time to take action. He dispatched his valet with instructions to find Augustin de Veygoux, follow him, and determine whether or not he was, in fact, the man responsible for these murder attempts … not because Jeremy feared for his life, but because, well, it was getting to be a damned nuisance, this diving about the street, dodging knives and flying hooves. And if de Veygoux was the one trying to kill him, Jeremy would have a perfect excuse to call him out. A duel would kill two birds with one stone: Jeremy would be rid of
his annoying assassin, and Maggie would no longer have a fiancé.
“And at your peril,” Jeremy warned Peters, “do you let Maggie see you. The only way we’re going to convince her that this bloke’s the one that stabbed me is if we catch him in the act. But if she sees we’re following him, she’ll think we’re just trying to harass him, and that’ll only make her feel sorry for him.”
Peters saluted. “Never fear, Colonel. You can count on me. This is one mission I shan’t fail.”
That done, Jeremy returned to the town house, where he changed out of his ruined clothes, and into something more presentable before heading straight out again. His first stop was the Dorchester, where he found the Princess Usha in deep consultation with a number of dressmakers and milliners. It seemed the Star of Jaipur had decided saris were passé; she was intent on purchasing a Western trousseau. Her efforts at doing so were hampered, however, by the absence of her translator—he had apparently slipped out some time earlier to send another letter to the maharajah. This made it exceedingly difficult for Jeremy to make his feelings concerning the announcement in that morning’s
Times
understood … at least by the princess. The dressmakers understood him well enough, though, if their nervous looks at one another, as Jeremy was leaving, were any indication. Providing a trousseau for a bride with so reluctant a groom was not good business practice, and everyone in the room, with the exception, perhaps, of the princess, knew it.
Having failed to impress upon Usha his unhappiness with her behavior, Jeremy decided to concentrate instead on the equally difficult job of finding Maggie and repairing whatever wounds the announcement might have inflicted. His fervent hope—that she had not seen that morning’s paper—had been dashed shortly after breakfast, when he’d gone to her room to speak with her about it, and her maid had answered the door.
“Good morning, Your Grace,” Hill had said icily. “I’m afraid Miss Margaret has already left for her first appointment. But might I wish you joy? I am certain you and the
princess will be very happy together. Your aunt and uncle must be so pleased … .”
Jeremy knew good and well that his aunt and uncle would be anything
but
pleased. Oh, he supposed if he’d really loved Usha, they’d have accepted her willingly enough … at least until she managed to alienate them with her complete and utter disregard for anyone’s feelings but her own.
That
they might take exception to … .
Jeremy’s interrogation of Maggie’s maid had proven disappointing. The only thing he’d been able to get out of Hill—and he’d nearly had to wring it out of her, stubborn old woman—was the address of her mistress’s studio. Still, that was better than nothing.
But when he arrived at the address in which Maggie’s studio was housed, he suffered yet another shock. He had never seen a more dilapidated building, with the possible exception of some attempts at European architecture he’d witnessed in Bombay. Was this, he wondered, the best that Maggie could afford? Now he had a new reason to resent Sir Arthur. His pomposity was forcing his daughter to rent in a clearly uninhabitable building. No wonder the flats in this particular structure had all been converted to artists’ studios: The only people who could be convinced to inhabit them were painters and sculptors, who lived in worlds of their own making, anyway.
Jeremy had managed to pry the address of Maggie’s studio from her maid, but not the exact flat number, so it wasn’t surprising that he found himself wandering about the long, dismally lit corridors, fruitlessly searching for her. The smell of turpentine was heavy in the air, as was a very distinct odor of opium, which Jeremy recognized from a brief foray into Burma. As he wandered down the hallways, he glimpsed several men painting naked women, using actual live models, robust but strangely unpleasant-looking women who stood shivering on pedestals or had draped themselves, rather uncouthly, for Jeremy’s tastes, across soiled couches. Some of the efforts he thought rather good. Then, as he passed a studio in which a man was painting not a naked woman, but a naked man, an odd thought occurred to Jeremy: Had
Maggie
ever painted any naked men? Was his not the first nude male body she’d ever encountered?
The idea of Maggie being in the company of an unclothed male other than himself made Jeremy feel very uncomfortable, and caused him to hasten his efforts to find her. He leaned into one studio on the third floor and asked a rather harried-looking young man, who was cleaning out his brushes at a slopbucket, “I say, but would you know where I might find Miss Herbert?”
The young man jumped, swiveled his head sharply in Jeremy’s direction, then laid aside the opium pipe he’d been drawing upon. “You mean Maggie?” he asked, in a surprisingly high-pitched voice.
“Er, yes,” Jeremy said. She was on first-name terms with these men? He’d see that an end was put to
that
after she became Duchess of Rawlings. “Which studio is hers?”
“Sixth floor, door to the left,” came the laconic reply. “But it’s no use askin’ her to pose for you, mate. She and that French bitch won’t take off so much as a stitch. Believe me, I’ve asked.” He put the pipe back to his lips, and sucked mournfully. “We’ve
all
asked.”
Jeremy cleared his throat. “I see,” he said. “Well. Thank you, then.”
“But if it’s wine you’re lookin’ for,” the young man added, just as Jeremy was leaving, “she’s not stingy with it. That’s the thing with these lady portrait painters. Won’t take their clothes off, but they’re gen’rous with their liquor.” He stared moodily at a canvas sitting on an easel in the center of the room. “’Course,
they
can afford to buy plenty of wine.
Everybody
wants their portrait painted. Hardly nobody wants a picture of the doors to Newgate prison.”
Jeremy hastily took his eyes off the depressing painting. “Yes,” he said. “Well. Good evening.” He beat a hasty retreat, before the young painter could show him any more of his masterpieces.
Three rickety flights of stairs later, and Jeremy could hear her sweet voice lilting down the corridor. He couldn’t tell precisely what she was saying, nor could he tell to whom it
was she was speaking. But the leap of joy he felt in his heart at hearing her told him it hardly mattered. He’d found his Maggie, and that meant he was home.
He strode confidently through the open door to her studio.