Vixen In Velvet

He took the message and retreated a pace.

“The circus,” she said, much as she might have said, “The moon.”

“Astley’s,” he said. “It’ll be fun.”

“Fun,” she said.

“For one thing, no melancholy verse,” he said. “For another, no melancholy verse. And for a third—”

“It’s on the other side of the river!” she said, as though that were, indeed, the moon.

“Yes,” he said. “That puts the full width of the Thames between us and the melancholy verse.”

“Us,” she said.

“You got all dressed up,” he said. “What a shocking waste of effort if you don’t go out to an entertainment.”

“The circus,” she said.

“It’s truly entertaining,” he said. “I promise. Actors and acrobats and clowns. But best of all are the feats of horsemanship. Ducrow, the manager, is a brilliant equestrian.”

For all his careless manner, Lisburne rarely left much to chance. In her case, he’d done his research. Her given name was Leonie and she was, as she’d said, the businesswoman of Maison Noirot. One sister had married a duke, the other the heir to a marquessate, yet she went to the shop every day, as though their move into the highest ranks of the aristocracy made no difference whatsoever. This was an odd and illuminating circumstance.

The seamstresses, he’d learned, worked six days a week, from nine in the morning until nine at night, and her own hours seemed to be the same or longer. This, he’d concluded, greatly increased the odds against her having time to spend at Astley’s or any other place of entertainment.

She gave a little shake of her head, and waved her hand in an adorably imperious manner, signaling him to get out of her way.

He knew he stood too close—that was to say, as close as one could get without treading on her hem, women taking up a deal of space these days, in the arm and shoulder area as well as below the waist. In her case, he tested the boundary more than usual. Still, he was a man of considerable, and successful, experience with women.

He obediently moved out of the way to walk alongside.

“Here’s the thing,” he said as he accompanied her across the conversation room. “We can take a hackney to Astley’s, watch the show for an hour or so, and still get back before this funeral is over. By that time, the crowd’s bound to have thinned out. The girls are all here with chaperons. A good many girls, I promise you, will be dragged home earlier than they like, because there’s a limit, you know, to how much a brother, say, will sacrifice for his sister. Same for Papa and Mama and Great Aunt Philomena.”

They’d reached the door to the lobby. He opened it.

She sailed through, in a thrilling swish of silk.

“I know you’re unlikely to find the sort of clientele you prefer in a place like Astley’s,” he said. “But I thought you might enjoy the women’s costumes.”

“Not half so much as you will, I daresay,” she said. “Skimpy, are they?”

“Yes, of course, like a ballerina or nymph or whatever it is Miss Woolford will be playing,” he said. “She’s a treat. But the whole show is wonderful. The performers stand on the horses’ backs, and go round and round the ring. And the horses perform the cleverest tricks. As good as the acrobats.”

She looked up, her blue gaze searching.

He bore the scrutiny easily. A boy born beautiful becomes a target for other boys, and the schools he’d attended never ran short of bullies. He’d learned very young to keep his feelings out of sight and out of reach unless he needed to use them.

You are like a diamond, one of his mistresses had told him. So beautiful, so much light and fire. But when one tries to find the man inside, it’s all reflections and sparkling surfaces.

Why need anybody see more?

True, he wasn’t the shattered young man he’d been nearly six years ago, when his father died. The loss had devastated all the members of the tight-knit little family Father had created. That family, comprising not only Lisburne and his mother but her sister—Swanton’s mother—as well as Swanton, had fled England together. Still, it had taken a good while, far away from London and the fashionable world, to recover.

Few, including the many who’d respected and loved his father, understood the magnitude of the loss. Not that Lisburne wanted their understanding. His feelings were nobody’s business but his own.

All the same, he knew what true grief was, and mawkish sentiment made him want to punch somebody.

He couldn’t punch Swanton or his worshippers.

Much more sensible to set about what promised to be a challenging game: seducing a fascinating redhead.

“You’ll like it,” he said. “I promise. And I promise to get you back here before the lecture is over.”

She looked away. “I’ve never seen an equestrian,” she said.

And his heart leapt, startling him.

Astley’s was crowded, as always, but the multitude seemed not to trouble Miss Noirot as much as the crowd at Swanton’s lecture had done. Perhaps this was because the space was so much larger and more open. In any event, Lisburne took her to a private box, where she wouldn’t be jostled, and from which she’d have a prime view of both the stage and arena.

They arrived too late for the play, which was a pity, since it usually featured fine horses and horsemanship and stirring battle scenes. They were in good time for the entertainment in the arena, though. He and Miss Noirot settled into their seats as the crew members were shaking sawdust into the ring.

It had been an age since he’d entered the premises, and Lisburne had thought it would seem shabby, now that he was older and had lived abroad and watched spectacles on the Continent.

Perhaps the place awoke the boy in him, who’d somehow survived life’s shocks and lessons and had never entirely grown up or become fully civilized. He must be seeing it through a boy’s eyes because Astley’s seemed as grand as ever. The lights came up round the ring, and the chandeliers seem as dazzling, the orchestra as glamorous as he remembered.

Or maybe he saw it fresh through her great blue eyes.

He’d observed the small signs of apprehension when they’d first entered and the way the uneasiness dissolved, once she’d settled into her place and started to take in her surroundings. She sat back, a little stiff, as a clown came out and joked with the audience. She watched expressionlessly when the ringmaster appeared, carrying his long whip. Her gaze gave away nothing as he strode about the ring and engaged in the usual badinage with the clown.

Then the ringmaster asked for Miss Woolford. The crowd erupted.

And Miss Noirot leaned forward, grasping the rail.

The famous equestrienne walked out into the arena, the audience went into ecstasies, and Miss Noirot the Inscrutable drank it all in, as wide-eyed and eager as any child, from the time the ringmaster helped Miss Woolford into the saddle, through every circuit of the ring. When the performer stood on the horse’s back, Miss Noirot gasped.

“So marvelous!” she said. “I don’t even know how to ride one, and she stands on the creature’s back—while it runs!”

When, after numerous circuits, Miss Woolford paused to rest herself and her horse, Miss Noirot clapped and clapped, and cried, “Brava! Bravissima!”

The pause allowed for more play between the clown and ringmaster, but Miss Noirot turned away from the clown’s antics—and caught Lisburne staring at her.

For a moment she stared back. Then she laughed, a full-throated, easy laugh.

And his breath caught.

The sound. The way she looked at this moment, eyes sparkling, countenance aglow.

“How right you were,” she said. “Much more fun than dismal verse. How clever she is! Can you imagine the hours she’s spent to learn that art? How old do you think she was when she first began? Was she bred to it, the way actors often are—and dressmakers, too, for that matter.”

The eagerness in her voice. She was so young, so vibrantly alive.

“I reckon, even if they’re bred to it, they fall on their heads a number of times before they get the hang of it,” he said. “But they must start young, when they’re less breakable.”

“Not like dressmaking,” she said. “Sooner or later would-be equestrians have to get on the horse. But we mayn’t cut a piece of silk until we’ve been sewing seams for an eternity and made a thousand handkerchiefs and aprons. What a pleasure it is to see a woman who’s mastered such an art! The equestrians are mostly men, aren’t they?”

“That does account in part for Miss Woolford’s popularity.”

“But she’s very good—or does my total ignorance of horsemanship show?”

“She’s immensely talented,” he said. “A ballerina equestrienne.”

“This is wonderful,” she said. “My sisters are always telling me I need to get away from the shop, but Sunday comes round only once a week, and then I like to spend time with my niece, or outdoors, preferably both. Sometimes we go to the theater, but this is entirely different. It smells different, certainly.”

“That would be the horses,” he said.

“Beautiful creatures,” she said.

He caught the note of wistfulness. He considered it, along with her reactions to Miss Woolford, and filed it away for future reference.

The second part of the equestrian performance began then, and she turned back to the stage.

He looked that way, too, outwardly composed, inwardly unsettled. She’d changed before his eyes from a sophisticated Parisian to an excited girl, and for a moment she’d seemed so vulnerable that he felt … what? Ashamed? But of what? He was a man. She was a woman. They were attracted to each other and they played a game, a very old game. Yet along with the thrill of the chase he felt a twinge of something like heartache.

And why should he not? Hadn’t he endured an hour of death and dying in rhyme? And was he not obliged to go back to it?

It seemed to Leonie a very short time before she and Lord Lisburne were in a hackney again, traveling along Westminster Bridge Street, back to the “obsequies,” as he had put it a moment ago.

He’d been true to his word.

But then, she’d felt certain he would be, else she wouldn’t have come with him.

Yes, she’d been aware of his watching her during the performance when he thought she wasn’t paying attention to him. As though one could sit beside the man and not be aware of him, even if a host of heavenly angels floated down to the stage or a herd of elephants burst into the arena. And when she’d turned and caught him at it, he’d looked so like a boy caught in mischief—a boy she wanted to know—that her logic faltered for a moment, and something inside her gave way.

But only for a moment.

Now he was the charming man of the world again, and she was Leonie Noirot, logical and businesslike and able to put two and two together.

“You don’t care for his poetry, yet you came back with Lord Swanton to London for the release of his book,” she said. “That’s prodigious loyalty.”

He laughed. “A man ought to stick by his friend in hours of trial.”

“To protect him from excited young women?”

“That wasn’t the original plan, no. We’d prepared for a humiliating return. The reviewers were savage. Didn’t you know?”

“I’m not very literary,” she said. “I look at the reviews of plays and concerts and such, but mainly we’re interested in what the ladies are wearing. I rarely have time for the book reviews.”

“He’d had a few of the poems published in magazines before Alcinthus and Other Poems came out,” he said. “The reviewers loathed his work, unanimously and unconditionally. They lacerated him. They parodied him. It was a massacre. Until he saw the reviews, Swanton had been on the fence about coming back to London when his book was unleashed on the general public. After that, the choice was clear: Return and face the music or stay away and be labeled a coward.”

“I had no idea,” she said. “I was aware that his lordship had returned to London when the book came out because everybody was talking about it. Certainly our ladies were. I haven’t heard that much excitement since the last big scandal.” The one Sophy had precipitated.

“We’re still not sure what happened, exactly,” he said. “We arrived in London the day before it was to appear in the shops. We had a small party, and Swanton was a good sport about the rotten reviews—he doesn’t have a high opinion of himself to start with, so he wasn’t as desolated as another fellow might have been. We made jokes about it at White’s club. Then, a few days after we arrived, we had to order more copies printed, and quickly. Mobs of young women were storming the bookshop doors. The booksellers said they hadn’t seen anything like it since Harriette Wilson published her memoirs.”

Harriette Wilson had been a famous courtesan. Ten years ago, men had paid her not to mention them in her memoirs.

“Lord Swanton seems to have struck a chord in young women’s hearts,” she said.

“And he’s as bewildered as the critics.” Lord Lisburne looked out of the window.

At this time of year, darkness came late, and even then it seemed not a full darkness, but a deep twilight. Tonight, a full moon brightened it further, and Leonie saw that they must have crossed Westminster Bridge some while ago. She saw, too, the muscle jump in his jaw.

“Sudden leaps to fame can be dangerous,” he said. “Especially when young women are involved. I should like to get him back to the Continent before …” He trailed off and shrugged. “That crowd tonight troubled you. The one at the lecture.”

“When I see so many people crowded together,” she said slowly, “I tend to see a mob.”

A moment’s pause, then, “That’s what I see, too, Miss Noirot. I should have remained and stood guard. But …” He paused for a very long time.

“But,” she said.

“I had a chance to steal a pretty girl from the crowd, and I took it.”

Leonie and Lord Lisburne arrived in time for the concluding event of the poetic evening when, according to the program, Lord Swanton would debut one of his recent compositions.

As Lord Lisburne had predicted, the crowd had thinned. Though the hall remained full, the men had moved out of their cramped quarters along the walls and into seats in the back rows. The galleries no longer seemed in danger of collapsing.

While she and Lord Lisburne paused in the doorway, looking for a place to sit, what looked like a family group bore down on them. He drew her back and, either out of courtesy or because he wasn’t in a hurry to join the audience, made way for the departing family. When the other gentleman thanked him, Lord Lisburne smiled commiseratingly and murmured some answer that made the other man smile.

That was charm at work, charm of the most insidious kind: humorous, self-deprecating, and disarmingly frank and confiding.

Leonie well understood that type of charm. Her family specialized in it.

She of all people knew better than to let it work on her. The trouble was, it truly was insidious. One was drawn closer without realizing. One believed one had found a true intimacy when what was there was only a masterful imitation.

She lectured herself while he led her in the direction the group had come from, to the recently vacated seats at the far end of the rearmost row.

Though she’d prefer to sit closer to a door, for an easy escape, this was preferable to any place she’d have found for herself earlier. With reduced crowding, air could circulate, and when the doors opened for departing audience members, cooler night air drifted in.

Having a large, strong male nearby—even the kind who was dangerous to a woman’s peace of mind—helped keep her calm, too.

Since she truly didn’t want to listen to the poetry, and it was unintelligent to dwell too much on the large, strong male, she let her attention drift about the room. She counted twenty-two Maison Noirot creations. That was a good showing. Maybe writing the article for Foxe’s Morning Spectacle wouldn’t be so difficult after all.

Among the ladies in Maison Noirot dresses were Lady Clara and— Oh, yes! Lady Gladys Fairfax had worn her new wine-colored dress! A victory!

Leonie smiled.

Her companion leaned nearer. “What is it?” he whispered.

She felt the whisper on her ear and on her neck. Thence it seemed to travel under her skin and arrow straight to the bottom of her belly.

“An excess of emotion from the poetry,” she murmured.

“You haven’t heard a word Swanton’s uttered,” he said. “You’ve been surveying the audience. Who’s made you smile? Have I a rival?”

Like who, exactly? Apollo? Adonis?

“Dozens,” she said.

“Can’t say I’m surprised.” But his green gaze was moving over the crowd. She watched his survey continue round the hall, then pause and go back to the group sitting in the last row, as they were, but to their right, nearer to the doors.

“Clara,” he said. “And Gladys with her. I never saw them when we came in, thanks to the gentleman desperate to drag his family away. But there’s no more room on that side, in any event, and so we’re not obliged to join them—oh, ye beneficent gods and spirits of the place! Well, then …” He tilted his head to one side and frowned. “Not that I should have known Gladys straightaway.”

He turned back to Leonie, his green eyes glinting. “She isn’t in rancid colors for once. Is that your doing?”

Leonie nodded proudly.

He turned back again to look. “And there’s Valentine, roped in for escort duty, poor fellow.”

Lord Valentine Fairfax was one of Lady Clara’s brothers. Unlike Lord Longmore, who was dark, Lord Valentine was a typical Fairfax: blond, blue-eyed, and unreasonably good-looking.

“He’s been here the whole time, unfortunate mortal,” Lord Lisburne said. “Whiling away the hours weaving luscious fantasies of killing himself, I don’t doubt. Or, more likely, Val being a practical fellow, his dreamy thoughts are of ways to kill Swanton without getting caught.”

“If the men dislike the poetry so much, why do they come?” she said.

“To make the girls think they’re sensitive.”

She smothered a laugh, but not altogether successfully or quickly enough. A young woman in front of her turned round to glare.

Leonie pulled out a handkerchief and pretended to wipe a tear from her eye. The girl turned away.

The audience wasn’t as hushed as it had been earlier in the evening, when Leonie had peeked through the door. Though many occupying the prime seats on the floor sat rapt—or asleep, in the men’s case—others were whispering, and from the galleries came the low hum of background conversation that normally prevailed at public recitations.

The increased noise level didn’t seem to trouble Lord Swanton. Someone had taught him how to make himself heard in a public venue, and he was employing the training, his every aching word clearly audible:

… Aye, deep and full its wayward torrents gush, Strong as the earliest joys of youth, as hope’s first radiant flush;

For, oh! When soul meets soul above, as man on earth meets man,

Its deepest, worst, intensity ne’er gains its earthly ban!

“No, dash it, I won’t hush!” a male voice boomed over the buzz of the audience.

Leonie looked toward the sound. Not far from the Fairfaxes, a well-fed, middle-aged gentleman was shooing his family toward the door.

“A precious waste of time,” he continued. “For charity, indeed. If I’d known, I’d have sent in twice the tickets’ cost and stayed at home, and judged it cheap at the price.”

His wife tried to shush him, again in vain.

“Give me Tom Moore any day,” he boomed. “Or Robbie Burns. Poetry, you call this! I call it gasbagging.”

Lord Lisburne made a choked sound.

Other men in the vicinity didn’t trouble to hide their laughter.

“It’s a joke, it surely is,” the critic went on. “I could have gone to Vauxhall, instead of wasting a Friday night listening to this lot maunder on about nothing. Bowel stoppage, I shouldn’t wonder. That’s their trouble. What they want is a good physicking.”

Gasps now, from the ladies nearby.

“I never heard anybody ask your opinion, sir,” came Lady Gladys’s musical voice. “None of us prevented your going to Vauxhall. Certainly none of us paid for a ticket to hear you. I don’t recollect seeing anything on the program about ill-educated and discourteous men supplying critiques.”

“Glad to supply it gratis, madam,” came the quick answer. “As to uneducated—at least some of us have wit enough to notice that the emperor’s wearing no clothes.”

Lord Valentine stood up. “Sir, I’ll thank you not to address the lady in that tone,” he said.

“She addressed me first, sir!”

“Blast,” Lord Lisburne said. He rose, too. “Leave it to Gladys. Valentine will be obliged to call out the fellow, thanks to her.”

Men were starting up from their seats. Lord Swanton became aware of something amiss. He attempted to go on reading his poem, but the audience’s attention was turning away from him to the dispute, and the noise level was rising, drowning him out.

Leonie became aware of movement in the galleries. She looked up. Men were leaving their seats and moving toward the doors. A duel would be bad enough, but this looked like a riot in the making.

Images flashed in her mind of the Parisian mob storming through the streets, setting fire to houses where cholera victims lived … her little niece Lucie so sick … the tramp of hundreds of feet, growing louder as they neared …

Panic swamped her.

She closed her eyes, opened them again, and shook her head, shaking away the past. She counted the rows in the hall and estimated the audience size, and her mind quieted.

This was London, an altogether different place. And this was a different time and circumstance. These people were dying of boredom, not a rampaging disease.

“Ladies and gentlemen, if I might have your attention,” Lord Swanton said.

“You’ve had it these three hours and more!” someone called out. “Not enough?”

Other hecklers contributed their observations.

By this time Lord Lisburne had reached his cousins and the irate gentleman, who was growing more irate by the second, if the deepening red of his face was any clue.

Meanwhile, the audience grew more boisterous.

Leonie reminded herself she was a Noirot and a DeLucey. Not nearly as many of her French ancestors had got their heads cut off as deserved it. Hardly any relatives on either side had ever been stupid or incompetent enough to get themselves hanged. Or even jailed.

Marcelline or Sophy could have handled this lot blindfolded, she told herself.

She swallowed and rose. “Thank you, my lord, for your kind invitation,” she said, pitching her voice to carry. “I should like to recite a poem by Mrs. Abdy.”

“More poetry!” someone cried. “Somebody hang me.”

“Hold your tongue, you bacon brain! It’s a girl!”

Lord Swanton cut through the commentary. “Ladies and gentlemen, Miss Noirot—that is to say, Madame, of Maison Noirot—has kindly agreed to contribute to our poetic mélange.”

Leonie had dressed for the occasion. She knew she’d get the men’s attention because she was young and not unattractive, and the women’s because her dress was beautiful.

She was aware of the argument continuing to her right, and more aware of how hard her heart pounded, and how she couldn’t stop her hands from shaking. She told herself not to be ridiculous: She performed every day, for extremely difficult women, and she got them under control.

She began, “‘I’m weary of a single life—’ ”

“Why didn’t you say so?” someone called out. “Come sit by me, my poppet.”

“Oh, stifle it!” somebody else said. “Let the lady say her piece.”

Leonie started again:

I’m weary of a single life,

The clubs of town I hate;