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“He said that he understood that the circumstances leading to your betrothal were not what one could hope—but he said—he said . . .” Lady Warford trailed off. “I can’t remember exactly what he said, but it was all it ought to be. There’s no changing the fact that he’s a bankrupt, and his mother is not what one could wish for. But she is dead, and he does seem to care about you, Clara, and I do believe that with a little work, you can make something of him.”
Though Clara was clearly taken aback, she caught Longmore’s warning look, and contrived to appear to be seriously taking this in.
He didn’t try to hide his incredulity. Not that anybody would expect him to. He was sure Adderley’s worry about Clara was genuine: If she sickened and died before the wedding, he’d need to find another fortune in a hurry, and dowries like Clara’s weren’t thick on the ground.
“If anybody can make a man of him, it’s Clara,” he said. “In any event, I’ve said before that we need to make the best of matters. There’ll be less talk if we all seem pleased with the arrangement. It does no harm for the world to see that we’ve belatedly discovered that Adderley isn’t quite so bad as everyone’s assumed. For my part, I promise to be civil to him when next I see him.” He drank the rest of his sherry and set down his glass. “May I go now?”
Chapter Thirteen
To secure the honour of, and prevent the spreading of any scandal upon peers . . . by reports, there is an express law, called scandalum magnatum, by which any man convicted of making a scandalous report against a peer of the realm (though true) is condemned to an arbitrary fine, and to remain in custody till the same be paid.
—Debrett’s Peerage of England, Scotland, and Ireland, 1820
Exclusive to Foxe’s Morning Spectacle
Wednesday 10 June
It has come to our attention that a Mysterious Stranger from France has arrived this week in London with a considerable retinue. The trunks containing the lady’s wardrobe, we are informed, were so numerous as to require the hire of a private vessel. This portends a lengthy stay on our green and pleasant isle. As to where, specifically, in these domains the lady will reside, to what purpose, and—most especially—her identity, we hope to inform our readers with our usual alacrity.
The Queen’s Theatre
Wednesday night
All of London was aware that the Duke of Clevedon had met Madame Noirot at the opera in Paris. This night was the first, however, that she’d appeared in any theater in London, and the occasion left no one in the audience—the masculine part of the audience, certainly—in any doubt as to why the duke of Clevedon had succumbed to the lady.
This was the first time any gathering of Those Who Mattered had ever seen her. While the handful of Maison Noirot’s clients present knew her, these were primarily ladies of the gentry classes and aristocracy’s lower ranks. In the great scheme of things, they counted, but not very much.
To all intents and purposes, this was Fashionable Society’s first look.
The men looked very hard, indeed, because His Grace had escorted into his box not one dashing woman but two: his duchess and a fair-haired stranger.
Across the theater, in the Warfords’ box, Lady Warford gazed resolutely at the stage, refusing to acknowledge the new Duchess of Clevedon’s existence.
Clara, however, stared for all she was worth. To Lord Adderley, who sat dutifully beside her, acting the part of attentive spouse-to-be, she said, “Do you know who that lady is with the Duchess of Clevedon?”
Adderley, who’d been staring as hard as everybody else, turned a surprised look on her. “Don’t you know? I thought she must be one of the sisters. Isn’t one of them a blonde?”
“The sisters are unwed, and this lady is wearing the dress of a married woman,” Clara said. “A married Frenchwoman, I should say.”
Longmore, who sat behind the engaged couple, said “French? You can tell that from this distance? And without employing an opera glass—as the other ladies are doing, I notice.”
“One can always tell,” Clara said. “We Englishwomen can wear exactly what Frenchwomen do and yet somehow we always look English.” She turned round to meet her brother’s gaze. “You were in Paris, Harry. Don’t you agree?”
Their mother made a harrumphing noise and sent a frigid glare their way. Both of her offspring pretended not to notice.
“What I can be sure of is that she’s got the theater in an uproar,” Longmore said. “One can hardly hear the performers—not always a bad thing, although I’d rather she’d done it at a long, boring German opera instead of during The Waterman. But a little stimulation for the performers to outdo themselves won’t come amiss. I believe I’ll toddle round at the interval and make Clevedon introduce me. Then I can tell all of you what the fuss is about, a few hours in advance of the Spectacle, for once.”
Knowing that a great many other fellows would be traveling to the same destination, he left his family’s box some minutes before the interval began, and entered Clevedon’s ahead of the pack.
His nod in Clevedon’s general direction passed for polite greetings.
“Beat the other fellows by a furlong,” he said.
“I thought you would,” Clevedon said. “You can be quick enough off the mark when you choose.”
Longmore turned to Her Grace. “Before the hordes descend, Duchess, would you be so good as to make me known to the lady?”
“Madame de Veirrion, will you permit me to introduce Lord Longmore, a very good friend of my husband,” the duchess said.
Her friend looked blank.
Her Grace repeated the introduction in French.
“Ah, yes,” said Madame. “Thees friend of a long time. Comme un frère, n’est-ce pas? Lord Lun-mour.” She gave a little nod, and the brilliants artfully arranged among the plumes of her headdress sparkled and danced.
Her English was comically dreadful. To spare her, Longmore carried on their exchange in French. This gave him a small advantage over the mob of males who stampeded into Clevedon’s box a moment later. While most of them spoke correct French, as a properly educated gentleman ought to do, it was like Clevedon’s—correct French spoken by an Englishman. It was the conversational version of dress, as Clara had described it: They had all the right words, but they still sounded English.
Longmore, the world’s worst scholar, had, for some reason, an aptitude for languages. The Latin-based ones, at any rate.
“But Monsieur de Lun-mour speaks my language like the parisiens,” said Madame. “How is this? Me, my English, he is stupid. I cannot be taught. Hélas, they try. Mon mari—my ’usband so dear—” Her blue eyes grew dewy. A lacy handkerchief appeared in her beringed and braceleted hand, and she dabbed gently at the tears. “Ce pauvre Robert! He try and try to teach me. But what? I am the dunces.”
All the gentlemen begged to differ.
Longmore said, when they’d quieted down, “But you are a charming and beautiful dunces, madame. And,” he continued in French, “a charming and beautiful woman can get away with murder. Can you imagine that any man here would prosecute you for assassinating our language?”
Longmore left Madame and her coterie shortly before the interval ended, and returned to his family’s box.
His mother was looking daggers, and no wonder: Lady Bartham had joined her, and had undoubtedly been rubbing salt in as many wounds as she could find. Or inflict.
“A French lady, as you deduced,” Longmore told his sister, not troubling to lower his voice. The two older women stopped talking. “Madame de Veirrion. A friend of the duchess from her Paris days. A widow—of some means, I’d say. I bow to my sister’s knowledge of dress, but the lady’s looked deuced expensive to me. The jewelry’s easier to judge, and it isn’t paste, I assure you.”
Lady Bartham put her glass to her eye and proceeded to inspect the French lady.
After the briefest hesitation, Mother did the same. “A widow, did you say, Longmore?”
She always took care to use h
er eldest son’s title with Lady Bartham, who had two marriageable daughters, both dark-haired little fairies, too bony for his taste.
“Quite a young widow,” Longmore said. “Speaks the most appalling English.”
