Chapter 13

 

“Music often draws a person to mix with much company as she would otherwise avoid.”

—Lady Ratchett

 

The Upper Assembly Rooms at Bath consisted of a central anteroom, charmingly octagonal in shape, from whence visitors might proceed into the ballroom to the left, the tearoom to the right, or the card room straight ahead. No sooner did the Duke of Charnwood step through the front door than he was accosted by several of his acquaintances, one of whom was eager to discuss the possibility that the Czar might sign an alliance with England; and another of whom had recently visited Sydney Gardens, and had an adventure in the Labyrinth, as result of which he was now embarked on a course of the waters in search of a cure; while the third lamented the sort of people one encountered in such places, a sentiment with which Justin could not argue, since he was present only on the orders of Lady Syb. Lady Augusta took immediate advantage of her cousin’s distraction to vanish into the card room, which had a musician’s gallery, four marble fireplaces, and a fine chandelier; walls containing frames for portraits; and most important, cloth-covered tables where whist was being played. Within moments of her own arrival, Madame de Chavannes was surrounded by a group of gentlemen with names such as Edouard, Achille, and Baptiste. Elizabeth stood beside her and listened to animated speculation about the difficulties involved in landing an expeditionary force in small boats along the English shoreline, a seven- or eight-hour passage which demanded long nights and thereby entailed all the hazards of winter weather, for invasion by sloops in calm weather wouldn’t be practical; but at all events it wasn’t likely that the French would embark upon such a project this year. The rooms were crowded with the fashionable and unfashionable tonight, entrance being available to all who could afford the subscription, with the exception of those who carried on any occupation in the retail line of business, or the theatrical, or performed publicly.

Or were known to perform publicly. Madame de Chavannes was clad dramatically tonight in red and white, amazingly low-cut. She glanced up as Conor Melchers strolled into the room, irresistibly sinful in a dark coat and tight breeches that had no need of padding to broaden his shoulders or false calves to improve the shape of his legs.

Deftly, Magda extricated herself from her admirers. “Mon cher. I feared you might you would not come.”

Her gown could hardly have been more revealing. Mr. Melchers was amused. Mr. Melchers was frequently amused, if not by his own foibles, by those of his fellow man. Or fellow woman, for Conor was partial to the ladies and their foibles, especially those foibles displayed in the boudoir.

If he was not in a lady’s boudoir at the moment, Conor had been recently, and might have been still: where some ladies wore dampened petticoats to make their gowns cling closer, Magda eschewed petticoats altogether, to provocative effect. “I could hardly resist so charming an invitation,” he said, and raised her hand to his lips. “You are plotting. I remember that look.”

Magda smiled as she took his arm. “How well you know me. I need a small favor, mon chou: go talk to Justin’s wife. It will cause you no great inconvenience. She is a good girl.”

Good girls did not appeal to Mr. Melchers. He could not recall the last time he had as much as spoke with one. “Why should I do that?”

“For the novelty, perhaps?” Magda dimpled. “Or because you love me, if for nothing else?”

Conor’s lazy gaze moved over her. “Unkind of you to remind me. You owe me a forfeit, as I recall.”

“Allons! You cannot be bored already, for you have just walked in the door. Go amuse yourself with the duchess. She will not know what to make of you. If Charnwood is a saint, you are Satan, n’est-ce pas?”

Mr. Melchers studied St. Clair’s duchess, who was trying valiantly to keep Madame’s émigré admirers entertained. “You can’t mean me to seduce the chit.”

Magda’s green eyes twinkled. “That might be beyond even your talents. Merely, I need you to distract her while I seek out Gregoire.”

Conor was relieved that he wasn’t required to embark upon a seduction. He had nothing against seduction, as countless ladies could attest, but preferred the business be his idea. Interesting, that Magda believed Charnwood’s duchess proof against him. Or maybe she did not. “Very well. Be off about your intrigues.”

Magda beckoned to the duchess. “You remember Conor Melchers, petite. He will take you on a grand tour of the Assembly Rooms. Do not fear his reputation. He will treat you with the utmost propriety, unless you invite him otherwise.” Without a backward glance, she melted into the crowd. Or came as close to melting as was possible in light of her lush person and marked absence of petticoat and stays.

Bemused, Elizabeth stared at Mr. Melchers, at the silver threads in his dark hair, the world-weary lines around his lazy eyes and mouth. Here stood a gentleman with a love of dissipation. Did a lady decide to do what she should not, this was the ideal gentleman to do it with.

She was gaping at him as if he were some queer exhibit. Amused, Conor inquired, “Do I have a smudge?”

St. Clair had said she should not speak with Mr. Melchers. St. Clair, however, was nowhere to be seen. Elizabeth could hardly go wandering about by herself. Moreover, she had never before had the opportunity to speak with a rakehell. “I have heard the strangest conversation. Is England is in danger of invasion by a handful of Frenchmen in fishing boats?”

“You have been listening to Magda’s émigrés. They are all talk and little substance. Shall we take that tour of the rooms?” Conor offered her his arm.

Mr. Melchers had a nice smile, Elizabeth decided. A nice, warm, intimate smile. Hesitantly, she inquired, “Have you known Magda for a long time, sir?”

Conor was surprised the girl didn’t go running in the opposite direction, so wicked had Magda made him sound. Not that Magda had exaggerated. Conor was living proof of the odd circumstance that a gentleman might be rendered even more intriguing by his known practice of vice.

“It certainly seems like a long time. Your husband and I are also old acquaintances. How is it that St. Clair does not accompany you tonight? Never mind, I shall entertain you in his place. See that ancient gentleman in the Bath chair?” Conor proceeded to beguile his companion with gossip of a somewhat scurrilous, and highly amusing, nature. She knew, of course, that here was where Prince Bladud cured himself and his leprous pigs by plunging into a reed-grown spring. The same Prince Bladud whose statue stood watching over the Roman Pool. Perhaps the duchess had a fondness for Roman ruins? Or maybe it was not an appreciation of antiquities that had brought the duchess to Bath, but concern for her health? Mr. Melchers refused to be persuaded that she had a predisposition toward gout, or rheumatism, Cold Humors or Hypochondriacal Flatulence.

Elizabeth had to admire Magda’s choice in gentlemen. Her escort’s manner was polished, his smile wicked, his physique superb.

He would hardly qualify as a gentleman, she reminded herself. “I am in excellent health, I assure you. Tell me, Mr. Melchers, how do the Assembly Rooms compare to the gates of Hell? Ah, you are startled. I have not so proper a way of thinking as you had expected I would?”

Saint’s little duchess was a surprising sort of female. And she wasn’t all that little, because she could almost stare Conor in the eye. “It is not as warm here, I’ll warrant. You will notice the construction of the room. Heat from the fireplaces rises to the ceiling and escapes through the upper windows. Tell me, Your Grace, why do you not dance?”

Mr. Melchers was smiling, as if he had an interest in her answer. Through the open doorway, Elizabeth watched the minuet that was under way. “I lack musical coordination, alas. Lady Augusta is in the card room. She dances nicely, and would be more to your taste.”

Leisurely, Conor inspected Lord Charnwood’s duchess, her long nose and strong chin and gold-flecked eyes. Her hair was pulled back in flattering ringlets tonight, and the bodice of her gold silk gown was surprisingly low-cut. “Duchess,” he informed her, “you might be surprised by what suits my taste.”

An unwary maiden might be overwhelmed by the warmth of his attention. Elizabeth now understood what made up a heated look. The sort of look that felt like a caress as it moved over her lips, her chin, her—

She tugged at her neckline.

“Don’t fuss,” said Mr. Melchers. “You will draw attention to yourself. Beside, your bosom is quite nice.”

How easily Mr. Melchers spoke of bosoms. Elizabeth narrowed her eyes. “Are you trying to shock me?” she inquired.

His lazy gaze moved to her face. “Did I succeed?”

Oddly, he hadn’t. “You are an authority on the subject of bosoms, I daresay, Mr. Melchers. Therefore, I am not shocked. All the same, I am not accustomed to going about half dressed.”

Conor nodded to a passing acquaintance. The lady regarded Elizabeth with avid curiosity. The duchess raised an eyebrow and coolly turned away.

Point to her, thought Conor. “And since I am an expert, I will inform you that you are only a quarter naked at best. I’mm surprised that Saint approves of his wife wearing such a dress.”

It hadn’t occurred to Elizabeth that the duke might not approve of her bosom. He certainly didn’t seem to mind when Magda put hers on view. “My husband has not seen me tonight without my cloak. I doubt that he would notice my, ah, bodice anyway.”

Conor doubted that Saint wouldn’t. Idly he wondered for what reason Magda had stuck her fingers in this particular pie. “You are fine as fivepence, Duchess. Anyone who failed to notice you must be either blind or dead.” He escorted her into the tearoom, which featured a two-storied colonnade on its west end, in the upper section of which the musicians sat. Corinthian columns surrounded the room at that level. From the coved ceiling, three chandeliers hung. “If the minuet does not tempt you, some other sort of dance might better suit.”

Elizabeth doubted Mr. Melchers was referring to the sort of dancing that was done in a ballroom. “First bosoms, and now dancing. Are you trying to get up a flirtation with me, sir?”

Conor smiled at her surprise. “You do not approve of flirtation, Your Grace?”

Certainly Maman did not approve of flirtation. This conversation would have already caused her to grope for her hartshorn. “I don’t know. No one has ever flirted with me before.” Elizabeth knew without asking that Mr. Melchers would never refer to bedding a lady as though it were an unpleasant chore.

That gentleman, bless him, reacted with astonishment. “How can that be? Young women imbibe instructions on the fine art of male entrapment along with their mother’s milk. Were you locked up in a convent? Allowed no contact with the cruder sex? Until Saint rode up on his white horse and spirited you away.”

Elizabeth found this a charming fancy. A pity it was so far from the truth. “So far as I can tell, dashing knights on horseback live solely in the pages of my abigail’s romantic books. What I was fed along with my mama’s milk—which is a figure of speech; Maman would not have been so crude as to nurse a child herself—was an entire manual on propriety. You will have heard of propriety, Mr. Melchers, although I suspect you’ve never given it a single’s moment thought.”

Despite her stern words, Saint’s duchess was smiling. Nor had she removed her hand from his arm. It was second nature for Conor to notice such things. “You wound me, Your Grace. And you will I hope forgive me if I point out that, whereas my character may admittedly be less than perfect, I have not been so impertinent as to make such personal comments as you have done. Which is not to say I won’t, but I haven’t yet.”

She had indeed been impertinent. Elizabeth wanted to sink through the floor. Then she caught the mocking expression on Mr. Melcher’s face, and called him a rude name. “Oh, blast!” she added, when he laughed aloud. “Now I suppose I must apologize.”

“Never apologize, Duchess, and never explain.” Conor was enjoying rather more than he had expected this effort to aid Magda in her scheme. “I provoked you to it, after all. And as I had anticipated, you are even lovelier when you let down your guard.”

“Moonshine! I am nothing of the sort.” Elizabeth was also enjoying her first conversation with a rakehell. “In truth, I meant no criticism. To be not bound about by restraints must be a fine thing.”

“It depends on the circumstances of the binding. There, I have made you smile. Next, you will laugh for me. And after that—” Maybe Magda wouldn’t owe him a forfeit after all.

The man was deliberately wicked. Elizabeth had no doubt it was most improper in her to be amused. “You are determined to provoke me, Mr. Melchers. I do not think that you would force a lady to do other than she wished.”

In truth, Conor hadn’t come across a great number of ladies who didn’t wish. “Do you fear for your virtue, Duchess? I can hardly debauch you in the midst of the tearoom.” He considered his surroundings. “Or perhaps I could. Observe, if you will, that large cloth-covered table against the wall. We could disport ourselves beneath it. No one would ever notice, providing we did not upset the teapot.”

As he had intended, his companion laughed. “I remind you that I am a married woman, sir.”

For someone who had never before engaged in a flirtation, Saint’s duchess was getting the hang of the thing quick enough. Mr. Melchers made a mental list of what else he might teach her, and when. “Ah, but I would be a paltry sort of scoundrel, would I not, if I were discouraged by the minor impediment of a spouse?”