“If I were to act on impulse, I’d ride to London, storm into Lady Melbourne’s fashionable home, toss Alexandre de La BrouMorehamover my shoulder and carry her off.” Rafe grimaced. “I can assure you, my intentions would be far from angelic.” He pushed the account ledgers away and leaned back in his chair. “I tell you Cole, I don’t know how I’ll react when I see her. All I know is that I have to see her again.”
Alix layin bed in Lady Melbourne’s guestroom, staring at the intricate folds of the canopy draped overhead. Though it was mid-afternoon, she was still in her dressing gown and had yet to open the rose-colored window curtains. She knew she should get up, see the sights of London, and socialize with Lady Melbourne and her friends. But somehow she couldn’t find the energy or the enthusiasm. She had the oddest sense that if she could only stay in the semi-darkness of the room she could suspend time. At this moment, she thought staring at the intricately knotted fabric overhead, she could imagine she was neither a homeless French émigré, nor the wife of a man whosetouch waited to draw her into dreams of passion should she close her eyes and fall asleep.
The clattering sound of porcelain on a tray, followed by the thick aroma of coffee, and then her mother’s lilac perfume signaled that Alix was no longer alone. She turned her head and saw that a maid was arranging a light breakfast on a table while her mother swept from window to window drawing back the curtains.
As the maid left the room, Madeleine approached the bed. “Alexandre Charlotte, enough is enough. I know you were close to your father and that his death has been a terrible loss for you. And since I have said I will not pry, I can only imagine the horrors you must have suffered trying to reach me.” She placed her hands on her hips. “But you have been lying in this bed for nearly a week. It is time to get up and start living again.”
Madeleine handed Alix a cup of coffee and began pacing the room. “I have given it a great deal of thought, and I believe we should throw ourselves into this English season. The upstart government in France has been repossessing our fortune and there is simply no way to know what will remain to us.” She shuddered. “I am just grateful I was able to get out as much as I did. It should keep us in good stead for a while, but not in as good stead as a wealthy husband,” she said, tapping a manicured finger on her full red lips.
Madeleine settled into an armchair and poured herself a cup of coffee. “Only imagine, Alix, this time we have no male relatives to choose husbands for us; we may decide as we like.” She placed the cup down and leaned towards the bed. “Certainly in this country there must be some wealthy titled gentlemen who are not old enough to be our fathers.”
“But mother,” Alix interrupted, “we are in mourning.”
“Oh yes,” she said clasping her hands together with delight. “I’ve thought about that and I’ve discussed the problemwith Lady Melbourne, and I have come up with the most delicious idea. We shall be the brave and tragic de La Brou women. I shall wear only black to express my grief at the loss of your father and the misfortunes of the Bourbons.” She smiled gaily. “Black is such a wonderful compliment to my skin and hair, it will be so dramatic, and I shall never dance, or at least not for several months. The season is not truly in full swing until March anyway. You, however, are young. I think you should wear only gray, it will look wonderful with your eyes. We can trim it up with silver and black, perhaps some green or lavender for effect, but always gray. Oh, we shall be such a sensation.”
Alix closed her eyes, thinking of the sensation she would cause when it was discovered that a married woman was husband-hunting during the London season. She couldn’t imagine Rafe’s reaction, but she could guess that it would not be sympathetic. She hadn’t been able to come up with a discreet way of contacting him without the servants informing her mother or the duchess, and she wasn’t yet ready to face the uproar it would cause.
Madeleine was out of her chair again and rummaging through Alix’s armoire. “You must get up and get dressed now,” she said, tossing garments onto Alix’s bed. “We have an appointment with Lady Melbourne’s dressmaker this afternoon, then we have supper at Lady Albright’s this evening, then cards with the Percy’s. I’ll have a maid sent up to help you dress and style your hair and off we’ll go.”
She departed in a swirl of silk and lilac, leaving Alix stunned. A round-faced maid, freckles liberally sprinkled across her snub nose, entered Alix’s room and began bustling about, her rapid-fire conversation quickly filling the vacuum created by Madeleine’s abrupt exit.
“I’m Guinevere, but you can call me Ginny miss. I’ll be the one helping you dress most times. And I’m good withhair, too. Lady Melbourne’s hairdresser’s been teaching me. You’ve got lovely hair, if you don’t mind me saying so, miss, and a lovely figure, too. I’ll just help tie your stays for you now, if you’d like.”
As she pulled the laces tight, Ginny continued to chatter. “It’s a good thing you’re tiny like your mother, most of her dresses will fit you. Sure we may have to let the hems down a tad, but nothing that can’t be whipped up in a moment. She’s got lovely taste, your mother. Should you like the yellow with the flowers and the ribbons or the rose stripe?” Alix gestured toward the yellow floral and Ginny slipped it over her head.
“Course I could never wear me mum’s clothes. We Potters tend to run stout as we age. My mum is the housekeeper here. You may have seen her about. Lord, there’s been Potters serving the Melbournes forever.” She stopped and took a breath. “Forgive me miss, I tend to rattle on when I’m nervous and I do so want to do a good job for you.”
Alix smiled, a slight smile, but the first genuine one since she’d discovered Rafe was an earl. “It’s quite alright, Ginny. Indeed, you remind me a bit of my maid Solange Chaumier. We practically grew up together.” Alix fell silent, wondering whether David had made it safely back to Solange and how she’d fared without her identity papers. She looked up at Ginny. “I’m sure we’ll get along fine.”
Alix emerged two hours later,dressed and ready for her mother’s series of appointments. As they rode in Lady Melbourne’s coach to the dressmaker’s (not, Alix breathed a sigh of relief, Madame Guenard’s) her mother continued to chatter excitedly about her plans for their entrance into London society. Alix began to think that perhaps Madeleine had the right idea. She did need to get outmore, see what the world had to offer. Moping about in the dark certainly wasn’t going to change anything.
With this in mind, she found herself enjoying their shopping spree. Madeleine offered advice, but did not dictate Alix’s choices. It was a novel experience for Alix. She’d never had much interest in clothes before, since someone else had always decided the cut and color. Assessing the look of a large gray hat with a deep green plume in the looking glass, she considered that her mother was right. Grays tinged with just the right shade of blue or green suited her well. It felt good, she thought, as she tilted the hat at a rakish angle, choosing styles that reflected how she saw herself, rather than how others wanted her to appear.
She wasn’t an innocent young girl anymore, she mused as she waved away the modiste’s suggestion of adding more flounces to the bottom of one of her gowns. Not that she considered herself a woman of the world, but she liked the idea of appearing a bit more sleek, a bit more elegant, a bit more daring than a pink gown smothered in rosebuds might suggest.
As the footman piled their purchases onto the back of the coach, Alix considered that perhaps things would turn out all right. She didn’t have to think of the season as “husband hunting.” She could think of it as a time to learn more about English society, to meet some new people, to learn her own mind. And if she encountered Rafe, she told herself as her heart began to pound at the mere thought of his name, the new Alix would greet him cordially. Perhaps they would dance, exchange a few words, agree that it was all a strange adventure that should best be put behind them. She shifted uncomfortably in her seat as her skin recalled the hot traces of his touch. Surely if she threw herself into her mother’s planned schedule of activities, this longing to see him, to touch him, to be with him would fade.
She glanced out the window, still amazed at how wide and well paved the streets of London were, and studied the mass of expensive coaches moving smoothly, two across on Oxford Street. Perhaps she would stop this endless searching among the crowds for him, and her heart would stop lurching about every time she saw a man with a similar walk or color hair. She shook herself so firmly that Madeleine, who’d been describing a particular style of gown she admired, stopped abruptly and inquired if she was cold.
“Not at all mother,” Alix replied, patting her hand. “It’s been a perfectly lovely day, and I agree, a black redingote would be striking.”
After all, she continued musing, he’d made no effort to contact her; he’d probably been relieved when she’d left him. Scandal had been averted. Her stomach tightened. For all she knew he’d hurried back to the woman he’d been courting before he’d met her and was even now planning how to arrange a new marriage. She straightened against the cushions of the coach. One thing was for certain, when and if she encountered Rafe Harcrest, or Moreham, or whatever it was he called himself, he would not find her mooning in the darkness over him.
“Mother,” she said, “tell me more about what you think we should wear to the Kensington’s assembly next month.”
ExercisingRafe’s gelding in St. James Park several days later, Jervis Jones was startled to see a familiar figure clad in a smart gray riding habit and seated on a spirited bay, chatting animatedly to a dark-haired woman all in black. Pulling his tricorne down over his eyes, he reined Rafe’s gelding in to get a better look. It was Alix all right He watched as the two women disappeared down the path, frowning his displeasure as two young bucks who’d been watching the women’s progress spurred their horses to follow.
According to the groom who’d brought his lordship’s horses to town in anticipation of the opening of Moreham House, Rafe was more out of sorts than a bear who’d been disturbed before the spring thaw. Alix didn’t look like she was pining a bit. Jervis pushed his hat back up thinking that while he had great respect for the captain as a gentleman, a leader, and a businessman, the man had no sense about how to treat women. If you sweet-talked them, said the right things, they didn’t go tearing off to their mothers. He shook his head. He’d never seen Rafe as happy as he’d been in Calais. But if he knew the lad, and after fifteen years, he had a pretty good notion that he did, he’d probably tumbled the girl and then never said a word to her about how he felt.
They were married, Jervis reflected, and even if the ceremony had been most peculiar, they ought to stay that way. Alix was a damn sight better for his boy than any stick-up-her-arse Lady Dinsmore.
“You know,” he said companionably to the black, who was tossing his head, urging Jervis to pick up the pace, “I do believe things are going to get very interesting when his lordship returns to London this week.”
Jervis noticed several grooms wearing the livery of the Duke of Melbourne trotting across the park and urged the black to join them. When Rafe had left for the country, he had chosen to remain in London. Not only because he enjoyed the alehouses and the women, but because he thought it might be handy if he became familiar with the Melbourne servants, perhaps discover if any fancy French ladies had taken up residence in the house. His timing in exercising the gelding this afternoon was no accident. Nor was his cultivation of a certain freckle-faced maid. Jervis smiled as he thought of Ginny Potter, a sturdy woman with breasts like two freshly risen loaves of bread and a rump like a packhorse.
That, he thought as he clicked his tongue to the black, was how a proper woman should be built.
Once he’d discovered Ginny was Alix’s personal maid, he’d wangled an introduction from Jake, a downstairs footman. Now he sometimes joined her on her errands. She was a good-natured, talkative sort, a bit like his first wife. Last Sunday he’d even accompanied Ginny to church. He had to admit it made him feel a bit guilty. He wasn’t a praying man, but he had enough faith to believe the creator knew exactly what Jervis Jones was up to. But then, it couldn’t be too much of a sin if a man’s intentions were good, could it? And he intended to make sure that Alix and Rafe stayed together.
