“People see what they expect to see,” she said. “In the shop, one is the modiste. When one isn’t in the shop but in a place where she isn’t expected to be, she merely seems vaguely familiar.”
Her false voice, the false accent, the mangled English slipped away, and he marveled at that, too: the ease with which Sophy shed one personality and assumed another.
“Shopkeepers are like servants, invisible,” she went on. “Outside their proper sphere, their customers don’t recognize them. If one pretends, boldly and confidently, to be someone else, the observer simply accepts.”
Servants were another matter. No one was invisible to them. If that hadn’t been the case, Madame would be residing at Clevedon House, and Longmore would have one less worry. But that was out of the question. One couldn’t expect a large household to keep such a secret—or any secret, for that matter. She’d gone out in one of her guises and hired French servants from one of the agencies she knew and trusted. These made up the retinue attending her at her hotel. In time, the Spectacle would explain the circumstances under which she’d fled France. That, he had no doubt, would be a bloodcurdling story of treachery and betrayal and flight under cover of darkness and harrowing escapes from Enemies.
He shook his head. “It’s still hard to swallow: the same men who gawked at you through White’s bow window, all competing now to be witty and charming in French.”
“Because the scene was so beautifully set,” she said. “All we needed was for you and Lady Clara to pretend not to recognize me.”
“Clara contrived to do it without telling an outright lie, I noticed.”
But Clara had had only a small part to play. It was Sophy who’d had to take center stage. It was she who’d had to adopt another identity—with every single eye in the theater on her.
She’d done it with a flair and assurance that took his breath away. She’d seemed thoroughly at ease, and he’d thought, She’s in her element.
“You played your part splendidly,” she said. “So well, in fact, that you almost threw me off-stride. I’m still not over the shock of your perfect French.”
He shrugged. “That won me some flattery from Adderley. He even had the temerity to compliment my uppercut—and to say he deserved it.”
“He’ll say anything,” she said. “He’s in very bad trouble.”
And that was one of the many matters worrying Longmore’s brain. “He’ll do anything, too,” he said. “Kindly remember that. And remember as well that he’s not stupid. You’d better have a care.”
She stiffened. “I can’t believe you’re giving me acting advice. Have you forgotten our day at Dowdy’s?”
“This is different.”
“It’s the same thing,” she said. “I’m pretending to be somebody I’m not. I do it all the time. I pretend I don’t want to slap a customer. I pretend she isn’t an idiot. I pretend I like changing the ribbon fourteen times because she doesn’t know what she likes or wants until thirty of her friends have all given their opinions.”
“This isn’t women in a shop,” he said.
“I’m well aware of that,” she said. “Have you forgotten whose idea this was? Have you forgotten that you said it was a perfect plan?”
“You were stark naked when you told me,” he said. “At the time, any plan would have struck me as perfect.”
“Well, then. It ought to be imbedded in your brain.”
“Well, nothing. That was before Clevedon gave us the nasty details about Adderley.”
While they’d been hunting for Clara, Clevedon had been doing his own sleuthing. He’d learned that Lord Adderley’s debts were considerably greater than rumored—and rumor had named a very high figure. He was in so deep that some of his creditors were keeping a close watch on him. He wouldn’t be the first gentleman to decide to flee his obligations via a packet to Calais or other continental parts.
“He’s dealt with some unsavory moneylenders,” she said with a dismissive wave. “I know about them.”
“Their methods aren’t always sporting,” he said.
“I know what they’re like,” she said.
“They’re not harmless oafs like Dowdy’s hired ruffians,” he said.
She let out a huff. “I told you: I know. You’ve no idea what we dealt with in Paris.”
“I don’t,” he said. “It grows clearer and clearer how little I know about you.”
. . . except that her breasts were perfect, and her bottom was beyond perfect, and when she made love she was completely honest.
. . . and that he was spending far too much time working on the problem of how to get her back into his bed.
“We’ll have to indulge in reminiscences another time,” she said. “There they are.”
He looked up. Adderley’s carriage was approaching.
“I only want you not to be overconfident,” he said. “I don’t want you to get into trouble.”
“You don’t know what I’m capable of,” she said. “I’m not your sister. I never had a sheltered life. You don’t know what it takes to establish a successful shop. You have to stop fretting about Adderley’s creditors and unsavory moneylenders, and leave him to me. You need to trust in me to know what I’m doing, so that you can concentrate on doing your own part. You have to be Longmore, who’s taken a fancy to Madame de Veirrion. Look at me. I’m Madame now.”
And she changed.
It was a marvel to him, to watch her. As the other carriage approached, her demeanor changed completely: her posture and the way she moved—even her face wasn’t quite the same face. This all happened in a way too subtle for one to put into words.
Unlike her stint as his cousin Gladys, she wore no disguise this time: no tinted spectacles to dull the brilliant blue of her eyes, no artificial blemishes to spoil her perfect skin, no noxious mixtures to dull the gold of her hair. She was dressed more expensively and extravagantly than usual—and that was no small accomplishment—but her face was in plain view.
Yet she became someone else, as though she had a hundred souls at her disposal, and could become another person as entirely and as easily as another woman changed hats.
In some way, through the sheer force of personality, she made the world believe the illusion she created.
But she was right, or at least partly right: He had to stop thinking about the delicious and troubling puzzle that was Sophia Noirot and concentrate on the allure of Madame de Veirrion.
He’d driven into the park through the Cumberland Gate, at the park’s northeast corner, in order to “accidentally” meet up with the other couple. Most of London’s fashionable set typically entered at Hyde Park Corner, making a great crush at the southeastern edge of the park. The aim was for Longmore and his companion to seem to be on their way out of the park when the encounter occurred.
Once abreast of each other, the two vehicles halted, and Longmore made the introductions.
Clara showed exactly the right degree of feminine curiosity about Madame.
Adderley was doing the masculine version: trying to size up Madame’s assets under the capes and gigantic sleeves of her carriage dress without being obvious about it. But of course it was as plain as plain to Longmore, as it would be to any man, that Adderley had discerned her splendidly rounded figure, and dwelt on it rather longer than he needed to. He made a valiant effort not to appear interested—one must give him a little credit, as little as possible—but Madame kept his attention. He was the hapless fish, swimming into her nets without realizing the nets were there.
Longmore had watched her captivate his friends last night. This afternoon he watched her casually throw the bait: a sidelong glance at Adderley, a tilt of her head, a gesture here, a fleeting smile there. In five minutes, she had him. A speculative gleam came into Adderley’s eyes, and a silent dialogue went on between them—and Longmore was developing a headache from the effort it took to pretend not to notice.
All the while, Madame was talking mainly to Clara. She made it seem th
at she was eager to win Clara’s approval. And all the while Clara listened to Madame’s mangled English with a perfectly sober expression, seeming completely oblivious to the silent byplay between Madame and Adderley.
“I am too much—oh, what is the word I want?” Madame frowned prettily. “To go ahead too much. Ah, forward. I am too much forward, yes? Too bold.”
“Not at all,” Adderley said, gallant fellow. Conceited, sneaking swine.
Madame feigned not to notice, her attention apparently given to Clara. “But my Lady Clara, this I demand: Who knows what arrives? Today we are content, so ’appy. The day after this, the one we love so much—poof!—he is gone. This is what arrives in my life. One day all is content and peace. The day that succeed, all is agitation. Mon époux, he die. Then Paris go mad. Who can say what will pass?”
“Not I, certainly,” said Longmore.
“The time, he run away from us,” she said. “One cannot attend.” She closed her eyes. “That word is not correct.”
“The word you want, madame, is wait,” Longmore said. He’d learned her trick of using English words that sounded similar to French but whose meaning was not quite the same. Demand when she meant ask. Succeed instead of follow. “I believe you meant that because time does not wait for us, you will not wait for time.”
“This is so true,” said Madame. “I make haste. My Lady Clara—la très belle sœur of Lord Lun-mour—let us make an acquaintance with each other. Let us encounter again.” She sent a fleeting glance Adderley’s way. “Tomorrow, yes? We attend the exhibition of the paintings at—What is the place, Lord Lun-mour?”
“The British Institution,” he said.
“That place,” said Madame. “I persuade Lord Lun-mour to accompany me to regard the art.”
“Oh, yes, I should like that above all things,” Clara said. She did not break into hysterical laughter or mention how many times her brother had said he’d rather have his eyes put out with hot pokers than join a mob shuffling about, gaping at paintings and making pompous, and inevitably wrong, comments about them.
She simply turned to Adderley and donned a sympathetic look and said, “But perhaps you’ll find it dull, Lord Adderley? If so, there’s no need to try your patience. My brother can easily escort two ladies. He can borrow Papa’s landau.”
“Milord does not enjoy to regard the paintings?” said Madame, looking up at Adderley, her mouth turning down in an adorable little pout.
“In the company of two such beautiful and charming ladies, I should enjoy looking at paving stones,” Adderley said.
Exclusive to Foxe’s Morning Spectacle
Friday 12 June
A Curious Coincidence? An intriguing piece of information has been brought to this correspondent’s attention. We recently learned that, mere days before the King’s Birthday Drawing Room on the 28th of May, a certain gentleman was denied further credit at a number of establishments where he has large accounts substantially in arrears. As we are all aware, many of our tailors, purveyors of furnishings, vintners, tobacconists, boot makers, &c, often find themselves obliged to wait months, sometimes years, for their patrons to attend to accounts. His late Majesty, it may be recollected, left debts amounting to many tens of thousands of pounds. To what extremity a merchant must be driven, to refuse one of his lordly patrons further credit, we can only speculate. We need not puzzle our minds quite so much, perhaps, regarding the close proximity between this turn of events and the one leading to the same lord’s hasty engagement, a consequence of his luring to her disgrace a certain lady. The lady concerned, as everybody knows, will bring to her marriage a dowry reported to be in the vicinity of one hundred thousand pounds.
That afternoon
It was the British Institution’s annual summer exhibition of old masters, featuring works from the collections of everybody who was anybody, from His Majesty on down through a selection of dukes, marquesses, earls, lords, ladies, and sirs. A privileged few had attended a private viewing on the previous Saturday. On Monday, the exhibition had opened to the public.
In spite of his aversion to pretentious mobs shuffling past fusty works of art, Lord Longmore might have found some entertainment in paintings of battle scenes and grisly deaths.
He wasn’t in the mood. Within a very short time of their arrival, Adderley and Madame had begun trailing behind Longmore and his sister. Now they’d moved out of hearing range though still within sight. Adderley stood quite close to Madame as they ostensibly discussed No. 53, Rocco Marconi’s “Woman Taken in Adultery.”
“You saw the Spectacle, I suppose,” Clara said, drawing him out of a darkly enjoyable fantasy whose highlight was the breaking of Adderley’s teeth.
“Like the rest of the world,” he said.
“Adderley was furious,” she said. “We had another scene when he came to collect me. He’s threatening to have Foxe arrested for scandalum magnatum. I feigned sympathy, but pointed out that the week before our wedding seemed not the ideal time to get involved in legal wrangles. I told him that Papa said they couldn’t hope to prosecute Foxe, since he named no names. Papa pointed out that if the previous king hadn’t been able to arrest every man who wrote scandal about him, a nobody like Adderley hadn’t a chance.”
“ ‘A nobody like Adderley,’ ” Longmore said. “You said that to his face.”
She turned an innocent gaze on him. “I was only repeating what Papa said.”
“How unfeeling of you,” he said.
“Yes. I daresay he’s telling his troubles to Madame.” Clara threw them a glance. “She looks very sympathetic, don’t you think?”
Madame was gazing up at Adderley, listening for all she was worth, one gloved hand resting over the center of her extremely tight bodice.
“She missed her calling,” Longmore said. “She belongs on the stage.”
“I’m amazed you can watch them with a straight face,” Clara said. “She’s so funny, is she not? So clever while seeming so thoroughly bubble-headed. I quite love her.”
“Which her do you mean?”
“Both,” Clara said. Her gaze came back to her brother. “You don’t seem to be enjoying yourself.”
“I’m not supposed to,” he said. “The fellow’s poaching on my preserve. That’s the scene. I’m supposed to be sending suspicious looks their way.” This had turned out to be extremely easy. “Then, after running out of patience, I’m supposed to have a blazing great row with Madame.”
“Perfect,” she said. “She’ll run into his arms for comfort.”
That ought to be very funny. It wasn’t.
“Yes,” he said. “That’s the plan.”
He started toward them.
Chapter Fourteen
British Institution. As pilgrims approach a hallowed shrine in adoration mingled with fear and trembling so do we ever regard the summer exhibition of the works of the old masters at the British Institution . . . Here are 176 pictures . . . and there is hardly one amongst them the possession of which might not be coveted as a gem.
—The Court Journal, Saturday 13 June 1835
Though one would have thought it impossible for Adderley to look more conceited, he managed it. He wore a provoking smirk while he took his time about drawing away from Madame, into whose ear he’d been whispering.
“Lord Lun-mour, Lady Clara,” said Madame with a too-innocent smile. “We are too slow for you, I think.”
“No hurry,” Longmore said. “The paintings will be here for some time. We merely grew curious as to what you find so fascinating about this one.”
“Eh bien, it gives me a memory of another thing, and so I tell Lord Add’lee a little anecdote.” She blushed.
She actually blushed.
Longmore knew she possessed astounding acting skill. She’d demonstrated time and again. He knew she could weep on command. She could even let her eyes fill with tears that didn’t fall. He’d never heard of anybody who could blush on command.
“I should like to hear it,” h
e said.
Adderley glanced at Clara. “I’m afraid it isn’t suitable for an unwed lady’s ears,” he said.
“But it’s perfectly suitable for a bridegroom-to-be?” Clara said, eyebrows aloft, eyes chilly. It was a look their mother had perfected.
“I pray, ma chère—my dear lady—you will take no offense,” said Madame. “It is only a naughty little joke. Lord Add’lee will tell it to you after you marry.”
Clara turned her icy gaze to the painting. “It’s interesting, is it not, what a vile crime adultery is when a woman commits it. But with men, it’s practically a badge of honor. I daresay this is a fine painting, but it is not to my taste.”
She walked away, spine stiff, chin aloft.
After a moment’s hesitation, Adderley went after her.
“I should have a care, madame, if I were you,” Longmore said. “Some might misinterpret your—erm—friendliness.”
“A care must I have?” she said. “You English. So stiff in the neck. I flirt a little. What is the harm? It is a privilege of the married woman.”
“In the circumstances, it might be misunderstood as more than flirtation.”
She waved a hand. “English ways are so strange. Here, everyone attends to the unmarried girls. They flirt and dance, and all the men chase them. In France, these mademoiselles sit tranquil with their chaperons. They must be quiet and modest, like nuns. It is the married ladies who have the flirtation and the affaire, but very discreet.”
“You’re not in France anymore, madame.”
“You do not approve of me, milord? You find my manners not amiable?”
“On the contrary, I find your manners rather too amiable,” he said.
“But what does this mean? In what regard am I too amiable? To converse with your friend?”
“With my sister’s betrothed,” Longmore said.