Within ten minutes of joining the throng at Helena Martin's, Ismal located three of the men on the list. Two—Malcolm Goodridge and the Earl of Sherburne—were busy vying for Helena's attention. After exchanging a few social pleasantries, Ismal decided he would leave Helena to them. Though she was a beautiful, vivacious woman, he saw in a moment that she wouldn't make a satisfactory substitute.
With two possible suspects so intensely occupied, and no other female in the vicinity promising sufficient distraction, Ismal focused on the third man on the list: Lord Avory, the Duke of Langford's heir. Ismal noted that the marquess was tall, fair, and aristocratically handsome—and he didn't belong here.
Though he was trying to belong by flirting with a red-haired ballet dancer, Ismal was certain His Lordship's heart wasn't in it. A man bent on pleasure with an accommodating female would not have that hunted look in his eyes.
Since they'd met at Beaumont's funeral, it was easy enough for Ismal to strike up a conversation. And, since the young man didn't want to be where he was, it was even easier to detach him from the redhead and extract him from the party altogether.
A half hour later, they were sharing a bottle of wine in a private room of a club on the fringes of St. James'. Ismal's admiration of the Canaletto landscape hanging over the mantel had led to a discussion of art and so, very soon to Leila Beaumont, whose talents Avory couldn't praise highly enough.
"It isn't simply that she makes excellent representations," the marquess was saying. "It’s that the subject's character and personality truly infuse the work. One day, mark my words, her portraits will be priceless. I'd give anything to have one—of anybody."
"But surely you own one of yourself," Ismal said. "You are a good friend, after all."
Avory studied the contents of his glass. "She hadn't the time."
"I sympathize," Ismal said. "She had no time for me, either. I had almost lost hope until, at Norbury House, Lady Carroll told me that Madame had no new commissions."
"Mrs. Beaumont stopped accepting them after she finished Lady Sherburne's portrait. Near Christmas that was. She'd been working nonstop since moving to London and she wanted a good, long rest, she told me."
"I was unaware of this." Ismal wondered why neither the artist nor Lady Carroll had told him.
"All I comprehended was that there might be time for me. But she had left Norbury House, and so, in the next moment, I was in my carriage, making for London, posthaste." He smiled ruefully. "Little did I know I would be obliged to admit this to a coroner and jury. Yet I cannot regret my action. If not for my vanity and greed for a portrait, I should not have arrived at the Beaumont house when someone, clearly, was needed."
"It must have been ghastly for her." The marquess turned the wineglass in his hands. "I didn't get word until late that night. I called first thing next morning, but Lady Carroll was there by then and—Well, I could only do Mrs. Beaumont the kindness of keeping away, and urge everyone else to do likewise—as she asked. And they all obliged, though I'm sure they were dying of curiosity."
He looked up. "Odd, isn't it? Society is rarely so considerate, even of its own, and she's not—well, one of us, I suppose you'd say, though that sounds hideously snobbish."
Ismal wondered just how many had kept away out of loyalty, and how many out of fear. Beaumont knew secrets. People might worry that his wife was privy to some of them. Ismal wondered whether Avory, for instance, had heard a request or a threat.
"It was good of her friends to respect her privacy," Ismal said.
"Frankly, I was happy to keep away from the inquest. It would have made me wild to watch her being questioned." The glass turned round and round in the marquess' hands. "Father said you were one of the first to testify, and you left immediately after."
"I felt this would be wisest, in the circumstances," Ismal said. "All the men at the inquest, except for her respectable solicitor, were either elderly or plain. I was the only one of her admirers there. I wanted the jury to attend to the proceedings—not to speculate whether I was her lover. Because you and the other fine gentlemen kept away, I was too...conspicuous."
Avory reached for the wine bottle. "I should think you'd be that regardless who was there. You're rather out of the common way."
Ismal knew perfectly well he was. He was also aware the remark was a probe and wondered what exactly Avory was looking for.
He said nothing. He waited.
The marquess refilled their glasses. When this was done and still Ismal didn't speak, a muscle began to work in the younger man's jaw.
"I didn't mean any offense,” Avory said tightly. "Surely you've noticed the women swooning in your vicinity. Even if you've grown inured to that, you must have realized—" He set down the wine bottle. "Well, I am putting my foot in it. As usual."
Ismal's expression was mildly curious, no more.
"I thought you realized you were the exception," Avory went on doggedly. "That is to say, Francis had never been jealous of anyone. He'd never worried about Mrs. Beaumont at all…until you came along. I thought you knew."
The marquess was mightily curious about Beaumont's jealousy. Perhaps Beaumont had dropped some hint of the true reason. He might have done, if he and Avory had been very intimate. That was a reasonable assumption, given Beaumont's attraction to both sexes and the marquess' apparent discomfort with courtesans. It would explain, too, his devotion to a man so much older, and so far beneath him in every way.
There was an easy way to find out.
"Beaumont was tiresome, and most unkind," Ismal said. "I should not say this of your friend, but in truth, he vexed me greatly."
"He could be…vexatious."
"Because he made such a show of jealousy, I could scarcely speak to his wife without stirring scandal," Ismal said. "This was not only inconsiderate of her reputation, but also unfair."
"He wasn't always…considerate."
"I am a reasonable man, I hope," Ismal went on. "If she does not wish the liaison, I must accede to her wishes and make do with whatever small privilege she bestows—a dance, conversation, flirtation. I contented myself accordingly. Why could he not do the same?"
"With Mrs. Beaumont, you mean? I'm afraid I don't—"
"Non, non," Ismal said impatiently. "With me. Never before did I have this problem with another man. I was tactful, I thought. I told him I had no interest in him—in any man—in that way. I—"
"Good God." Avory sprang up from his chair, spilling wine in the process. He quickly—and shakily—set the glass upon the mantel.
One question answered. The marquess hadn't even suspected Beaumont was infatuated with the Comte d'Esmond.
Ismal promptly assumed a deeply chagrined expression. "I beg you will excuse my indelicacy," he said. "In my vexation, I forgot myself and where I was. Such matters are not spoken of openly in your country."
"Not generally." The marquess raked his fingers through his hair. "At least not on such short acquaintance."
"Please forget I mentioned this thing," Ismal said contritely. "I would not dream of offending you—but you are too easy to talk to, and I let my thoughts go straight from my brain to my tongue without reflection."
"Oh, no, I'm not—well, not offended. It’s flattering that you find me easy company." Avory tugged at his neckcloth. "I was just...startled. That is, I knew you upset him. It never occurred to me that he was jealous in—in that way. Well."
He collected his wineglass and returned to his seat. "You'd think, after two years, I'd know better than to be shocked at anything to do with him. Yet he never—I hadn't an inkling."
"Ah, well, I am older—and French."
"I can hardly take it in." Avory drummed his fingers on the chair arm. "He—he mocked them, you see—men of that sort. He called them…'mollying dogs' and—and Tnim boys'—and—well, I daresay you've heard the names."
Beyond doubt, the marquess couldn't have been Beaumont's lover. Why, then, the unsuitable friendship? Was it by choice, or because Beaumont knew something about him? That Avory was another man's lover, then? Unaware that Beaumont was guilty of the same so-called crime, Avory would have been vulnerable to blackmail. That was a good motive for murder, though by no means the only possible scenario.
Which was just as well, Ismal told himself. Pursuing the possibilities would keep his mind busy. Off Madame. For a while at least. "I know many names," he said amiably. "In twelve languages."
His companion snatched at the conversational escape route. "Twelve? Indeed. I'm impressed. And are you as fluent in the rest as you are in English?"
Though he hadn't mentioned a time, Leila had assumed Esmond would appear at eight o'clock the following evening. Instead he turned up an hour earlier, unannounced, at her studio door—while she was bent over her sketchbook, wearing the same grubby gown and smock she'd donned after luncheon.
It could have been worse, she told herself. She might have been spattered with paint and stinking of oils and varnish. Not that that would have mattered, either. A man who intended to spend several hours a night plaguing an artist—and who, moreover, appeared without invitation or notice—had no right to expect fashionable perfection.
"I trust you sneaked in the back way," she said, snapping her sketchbook shut.
"Unobserved, I promise." He laid his hat on the empty stool opposite her. "Nonetheless, that task will be much easier when Eloise and Gaspard arrive."
"You mean the Parisian servants, I collect. The 'loyal and trustworthy' ones."
He moved a step nearer. "You have been working," he said, nodding at her sketchbook.
"Not really. Just sketching. Keeping myself busy." She set the sketchbook on top of another and neatly aligned the edges. "I shouldn't do even that during early mourning. It’s disrespectful of the dear departed. On the other hand, Francis would find it hilarious that I kept idle out of grief for him."
"Lord Avory tells me that you ceased accepting portrait commissions more than a month ago. I did not know this was your own decision—that offers were made, but you rejected them."
"I wanted a rest," she said.
"So Lord Avory explained last night."
"Last night?" she echoed, a bit too shrilly. "You saw David last night? But I thought you were going to study my list."
"I did." He took up a pencil and studied it. "Then I went out, and happened to meet the marquess."
She had nothing to be dismayed about, Leila told herself. One could hardly expect the Comte d'Esmond to be innocently tucked into his bed before midnight. She wondered where he'd met David in the middle of the night. At a gambling hall, probably. Or a whorehouse. She shouldn't waste energy feeling disappointed in David. As to Esmond, a night's dissipation was in keeping with his character. Yet an image filled her mind of his devil's hands caressing...someone else...and her temples began to throb.
"He was on your list," said Esmond. "Yet you have some objection."
"Certainly not," she said. "One must assume you know what you're about."
"But you do not like it." He put down the pencil and strolled away to the sofa. Frowning, he sat down and appeared to give the shabby rug his deepest consideration. "Your countenance is all disapproval."
She hoped that was all he saw, though she hadn't any right to disapprove of his amusements. Her feelings about David, on the other hand, she needn't conceal from anybody.
"Oh, very well then," she said. She took up the pencil he'd handled and quickly set it down again. "I don't like it. I didn't like putting David on the list—but you said all of Francis' friends, and I could scarcely leave David off, when he was with Francis so often. But the idea of David as a murderer is ludicrous. Can you actually picture him sneaking poison into Francis' laudanum?"
"Mine is a lively imagination, Madame. You would be surprised at what I can picture."
She was sitting on the opposite side of the room from the fire, and the draught from the windows behind her was a brisk one for early February. The warmth stealing over her face, therefore, could not be ascribed to climatic conditions. Certainly not to his words, either.
It was the cursedly hinting tone, the voice that could make "How do you do?" sound like a double entendre.
Or maybe it couldn't.
More likely the trouble was her own damnably active imagination.
"Very well," she said. "If you want to waste your time, that's your concern—or whoever's paying you. The government, I suppose."
"You are fond of Lord Avory, it would seem."
"He's an intelligent and agreeable young man."
"Not Monsieur Beaumont's customary type of companion."
"Not the average rogue, if that’s what you mean," she said. "But it wasn't at all unusual for Francis to take up with younger and less experienced people."
"And lead them astray?"
"Francis was hardly the sort to lead them in the opposite direction. Most of them came fresh from a Grand Tour of the Continent. He gave them a Grand Tour of the demimonde."
"Young men must sow their wild oats."
"Yes."
"But you wish this young man had not done so."
Really, what use was it to try to keep anything from him? And what was the point? Esmond was investigating a murder. He needed to know everything. He'd warned her yesterday: endless questions, some impertinent.
"I wish David had never met my husband," she said. "He's not like the others, not the typical idle aristocrat. And he does have the most dreadful parents. They haven't the least idea how to manage him. He was never meant to be the heir. I'm not sure he was ever meant to be born. There's a considerable gap between him and Anne, the next youngest," she explained.
"His birth came as a surprise to the parents, perhaps."
She nodded. "There are two more older sisters—I don't remember their names. I never met them. Francis had met the older brother, Charles, ages ago."
"An older brother? Avory did not mention this."
"Charles died about three years ago," Leila said. "A hunting accident. Broke his neck. His mother still wears black."
"She does not accept her loss."
"The Duchess of Langford doesn't seem to accept or understand anything," Leila said. "The duke is even worse. A dukedom is a sizable burden, even for a young man reared to bear it. But his parents haven't helped David at all. They simply expected him to become Charles—adopt all of Charles' interests, friends, likes, and dislikes. Naturally, David rebelled. And, understandably, in the process of asserting his individuality, he went to extremes."
"Madame, you are most enlightening." Esmond rose. "You open some interesting avenues of speculation. The reasons for certain friendships, for example. Not always what they seem. How I wish I could remain to pursue this…and other matters. But I have promised to dine with the marquess, and I must not be late."
And afterward, will you go to a whore? Leila wanted to demand. Your mistress? For all she knew, he had one. It was none of her affair, she reminded herself. "Does that mean we're done for tonight?" she asked.
He crossed the room to her. "I could return afterward. But that, I think, would be most...unwise."
Leila told herself she heard no innuendo. "Undoubtedly," she said. "You and David won't be done much before dawn, I suppose."
"It is impossible to say."
"In any event, you'll be the worse for drink."
"It would appear that you also possess a lively imagination,” he said.
The laughter she heard in his voice made her look up. Yet he wasn't smiling, and his unreadable blue eyes were focused on her hair. "A pin near your ear is falling," he said.
She reached up instantly—and an instant too late. He was already pushing the pin back into place. "Your hair is always so clean," he murmured, without withdrawing his hand.
She could have drawn back or pushed his hand away or protested in some way. But that would let him know how very much he disturbed her—ammunition he'd surely use.
"I couldn't abide it otherwise," she said.
"I wonder, sometimes, how long it is." His gaze slid to hers. "I want to see."
"I don't think—"
"It will be a week before I see you again. The question will plague me."
"I can tell you how long it—A week?" she asked, distracted.
"After Eloise and Gaspard arrive. Until they are here, my coming and going is fraught with inconvenience. Best to keep away meanwhile."
And while he spoke, he pulled out the pin he'd just pushed in, and drew a lock of her hair out between his fingers…and smiled. "Ah, to your waist."
"I could have told you," she said, her heart thudding.
"I wanted to see for myself." He toyed with the thick, tawny strand, his eyes still holding hers. "I like your hair. It is so wonderfully disorderly."
Francis, too, liked her mussed, she could have told him. But she couldn't keep Francis and his taunts in her mind. Esmond's soft voice and light touch drove everything else out.
"I-I couldn't abide to have servants fussing with me," she said. "I can't even sit still for a coiffeuse."
"You arrange your own hair and dress yourself." He glanced down. "That is why all your frocks fasten in front."
It took all her self-control to keep her hands from her bodice. It would be a futile gesture, anyhow, to shield garments he'd already analyzed in detail. She wondered if he'd surmised that her corset fastened in front as well. He'd probably worked out how many inches apart the hooks were, for all she knew. "How very observant," she said.
His smile widened. "The inquiring mind. That is one of the reasons I am so very good at what I do."
A lazy smile it was, sweet and utterly disarming. She fought to keep her guard up. "Perhaps you've forgotten that I'm not a suspect," she said.
"I cannot seem to forget that you are a woman." He was absently twisting the lock of hair round his finger.
"Which means you have to flirt, I see," she said, trying to keep her tone light. "That's not very considerate of David. A while ago—rather a long while—you were worried about being late for dinner with him."
He released a sigh, and the captive tress as well, and took up his hat. "Ah, yes, the tiresome suspects. I comfort myself that at least Lord Avory is interesting company. Too many of your husband's friends, I have noticed, are not shining lights of intellect. They can talk of nothing but sport and women—and women, to them, are merely sport, so it is all the same. But I must cultivate them all, if I hope to learn anything. With Avory as my guide, I shall meet them in their natural habitat and observe them when they are most themselves."
"I wonder what you'll see." She took up a pencil. "I wonder what they'll tell you unwittingly, and how you'll get them to tell you. I've never watched you at work as a detective. I almost wish I were a man, so that I could be there."
He laughed softly. "What you wish, I think, is to keep an eye on your young favorite."
That wasn't all she wished, but it was what she could admit. "Worse than that," she said. "If I could, I'd put David on a leash. But I can't."
"Ah." He bent nearer, and the familiar masculine scent wrapped about her like a net. "Shall I leash him for you, Madame? Will that ease your anxieties?"
She focused on the pencil. "Why should you? Won't that impede your detecting?"
"Not if he wants to be reined in. From what you said a while ago, I received that impression. If the impression is correct, he will be grateful for a friend who leashes him—and all the more inclined to trust me. You see?" he asked softly. "I listen carefully to what you say, and I am not altogether unwilling to be led. But now I must go to gather my clues." He drew back.
He bowed, and the unsteady light flickered over his pale gold hair, touching a thread here, another there. A fleeting, uncertain motion. In the same way, her hand moved, the fingers lifting from the table—as though they wanted to be the light, and touch, too. It was no more than a flicker of movement in no more than a pulsebeat of time. Her fingers were properly still by the time he straightened. Yet a part of her wished she dared to be as bold as he had been—to let her hand go where her eyes were drawn. Where her heart, too, was being drawn, she feared.
"Au revoir," he said. "Until next week, then. After Eloise and Gaspard arrive."
"Next week, then." She opened a sketchbook to avoid giving him her hand—because she wasn't sure she could trust herself to let go. "Good night, monsieur," she said politely.
¯¯
Eloise and Gaspard appeared a week later.
Either one of them could have stormed the Bastille single-handed.
Eloise stood—and that was ramrod straight—five feet ten inches tall and was built along the lines of a public monument. Every inch of her was solid muscle. She was Michelangelo's ideal woman—if he bothered with women. One of Leila's painting maitres had insisted Michelangelo's models had all been men. "One has only to study the musculature," he'd said. "Masculine, beyond doubt."
The painting master, clearly, had never met Eloise.
Her thick hair was dyed an uncompromising black and drawn back into a large, mercilessly tight knot—all as smooth and sleek as though lacquered over. Though she couldn't possibly dye her eyes, they were nearly as black as her hair, with the same steady sheen, so that they, too, seemed coated with varnish. They were enormous—or would have been if the rest of her face hadn't boasted equally powerful proportions: a great nose—beside which Wellington's would have appeared dainty—broad cheekbones, a wide mouth filled with large white teeth, and a jaw that made one think of nutcrackers.
Gaspard, too, was dark, large, and equally well muscled. Still, despite his two-inch advantage in height, he seemed much the slighter of the pair. In the circumstances, it was altogether strange to hear him call his monumental wife "ma petite" or "ma fille," or any of the other diminutive endearments he treated her to.
Eloise scorned endearments. She addressed him by his name. She referred to him as "cet homme"—that man. As in "That man has not yet brought the coals? But what can one expect? They are all the same. Insensible."
After a mere twenty-four hours, Leila still found the housekeeper rather overwhelming. She wasn't at all surprised that even Fiona was utterly bereft of speech for a full two minutes after Eloise had left the parlor.
The housekeeper had brought tea—and enough sandwiches and pastries for two score ladies. Fiona stared at the mountains of food, then at the door through which Eloise had exited, then at Leila.
"I contacted an employment agency in Paris," Leila explained, as she'd rehearsed. She took up the teapot. "I've never had much success with English servants, and in light of recent events, I doubted I had a prayer of getting good ones. English servants, generally, are exceedingly particular about their employers. I doubt one suspected of murder—even if it was only for a day or two—would meet their standards of respectability."
She filled Fiona's cup and handed it to her.
"Perhaps they misunderstood," Fiona said. "Perhaps they thought you wanted a bodyguard. I daresay she wouldn't experience any difficulty in keeping out curiosity-seekers and undesirables. She has only to stand there."
Clearly, Esmond had thought of that. He certainly hadn't attempted to find someone unobtrusive.
"She doesn't seem to experience any difficulty with anything," Leila said. "She's been through the entire house, scrubbing and dusting and polishing every item out of its wits, yet somehow she also managed to cook—for a regiment, it would appear."
"It looks delicious, at any rate. And whether it tastes so or not, I expect we'd better make a good show of eating it."
They ate and talked and talked and ate, and the sandwiches and pastries disappeared at a startling rate. That is to say, Leila was as startled as Fiona when they finally stopped and discovered they'd left scarcely a crumb.
"Devil take her!" Fiona exclaimed, staring at the devastated tea tray. "I shall have to be carried to my carriage—by six burly guardsmen." She leaned back against the sofa cushions, her hand on her stomach. "Come to think of it, that's not such a bad idea."
Leila laughed. "Don't get your hopes up, my lady. Eloise can carry you. She won't even need Gaspard's help."
"Gaspard." Fiona's eyes twinkled. "I suppose he's even bigger than she is?"
"It's a matching set."
"How divine. I might have known you'd do something out of the ordinary. Parisian servants, and each of them built like a man o' war. To what end, may one ask? To keep your beaux out—or to keep the right one in?"
"To keep them out, of course," Leila answered lightly. "Haven't I always kept them out?"
"Even Esmond—the so-beautiful and charming Esmond? Surely he's called, and surely you didn't turn him away."
"Except for you, I haven't seen a visitor in days."
"But, my dear, he seems to be quite settled in dreary London. One can't help wondering why he prefers it to Paris. And one must bear in mind that he did set out in pursuit of you practically the moment he heard you'd left Norbury House. And he came directly here, did he not?"
"Certainly. He was all a-fever to have his pretty face immortalized," Leila said.
"Yes, he was consistent on that point. That was the excuse he gave me, and he stuck to it with the coroner. But then, Esmond is discreet. How silly of me to forget. Naturally, he wouldn't call so soon."
"He can't possibly be discreet to put that speculative look in your eyes."
Fiona laughed. "I think he's divine. Just perfect for you."
"I'm flattered to learn that a French debauchee is perfect for me."
"Come, you must admit that you'd like to do his portrait," Fiona said. "He's perfect in that way at least—a subject worthy of your talents."
"I've spent the last six years painting nothing but human faces. At present even a Royal commission couldn't tempt me."
"A pity you ended with Lady Sherburne." Fiona glanced up at the trio of oriental watercolors hanging over the mantel. "The portrait isn't in then-drawing room, or anywhere that anyone can see. In fact, no one's ever seen it."
No one ever would, Leila thought, remembering Sherburne's last visit to her studio, when he'd destroyed the canvas with a stickpin. She hadn't told even Fiona about the episode. She hadn't told Esmond either, she realized. She'd written the earl's name, that was all. Well, she hadn't had time to talk about anything but David, had she?
"Not that one is surprised." Fiona went on. "Sherburne left all of London in no doubt he couldn't bear the sight of his wife—and, naturally, everyone soon deduced why. But then, he could hardly keep it a secret. He had to do something."
Leila looked at her friend. "I'm out of touch with town gossip. But I can guess what this is about. I've heard that tone and seen that expression in your eyes before. This has something to do with Francis, I assume. What happened? The usual? Was Lady Sherburne another of his conquests?"
"The evidence seems to point in that direction. Sherburne was one of his constant companions for months. Then, suddenly, Sherburne would have nothing to do with him. Meanwhile, it was obvious the Sherburnes were at war—living in separate wings of that immense house—she, rarely going out and he, rarely going home."
And so the affair was public knowledge after all, Leila thought. Very likely Esmond had heard about it by now. "I'm sorry to hear it," she said. "I liked Lady Sherburne very much. A lovely girl, with golden curls and great blue eyes. All that innocence—and lonely besides. I can see how Francis wouldn't be able to resist. Still, you'd think even he would have known better. Sherburne wields considerable social power. If, as you say, he snubbed Francis—"
"He did, and a great many others promptly followed Sherburne's lead. About bloody time, too, that Francis got what he deserved."
Fiona had never made any secret of her dislike. Never before, however, had Leila heard such bitterness in her friend's voice.
The disquiet she felt must have shown in her face, because Fiona laughed. "You needn't look so amazed. You know I despised Francis. And I know you did."
"The way you spoke..." Leila hesitated. "I wondered if he'd offended you personally, that was all."
Fiona shrugged. "In Paris, I was mainly aware of his callous disregard for your feelings. Here, I watched him use and hurt others I cared for as well. Sherburne's a jackass in some ways, but he acted right in cutting Francis. He was a beast who should have been banned from Society ages ago. The demimonde was better equipped to handle him. Their feelings wouldn't be hurt, their marriages wouldn't be wrecked. Furthermore, the Cyprians get paid for their trouble."
"I wish he'd kept to the professionals, too," Leila said tightly. "But there was no way I could make him do so."
"I know that, love." Fiona's voice softened. "No one would dream of blaming you."
Leila rose and walked to the window. "Still, I can't help wishing I'd realized he was after Lady Sherburne." She gave a forced laugh. "I could have played the jealous wife. That might have frightened her off. She's younger than her years. But I couldn't have dreamed Francis would betray Sherburne, who was not only a boon companion, but also an influential one."
"A fatal mistake. It’s as though Francis was begging for trouble."
Through the window, Leila watched a stooped, elderly woman's painfully slow progress toward the opposite corner of the square. "Deteriorating," she murmured. "He was only forty years old, but he was falling to pieces." She sighed. "And he left a shambles in his wake."
"The Sherburnes seem to be the only major shambles," Fiona said. "And tonight I get to view the damage for myself. Or the repair. They haven't been seen in company together since Christmas, you know."
Leila came away from the window. "I wouldn't know—about anybody. I wasn't about much, except with you, and even then I was...oblivious." On purpose, she thought. She had shut her eyes, not wanting to know, to see, even to guess.
"Yes, darling. That's one of your eccentric charms." Fiona's smile was affectionate. "And since you haven't been out and about, you won't have heard that Sherburne ordered a sapphire necklace from Rundell and Bridges, which he was to collect this very day. If his wife isn't wearing it tonight, one can safely assume there has been no reconciliation. In that case, I'll expect to see it adorning Helena Martin's snowy bosom at the theater tomorrow. Rumor has it Sherburne has beat out Malcolm Goodridge and the other rich tomcats vying for her favors."
"If he hadn't been competing with the other tomcats for a series of tarts, his wife wouldn't have fallen under Francis' claws," Leila said. "It's Sherburne's own dratted fault. It's unjust—cruel—to punish her."
"Perhaps I shall tell him so tonight." Fiona rose. "In that case, I shall want to appear my intimidating best—and Antoinette will want hours to accomplish that. All the same, she'll complain that I never give her time enough to dress me properly. You don't know how fortunate you are, my dear, to be allowed to dress yourself."
"And what a fine job I make of it," Leila said dryly. "If Antoinette could see me now, she'd go into palpitations—and this is one of my better efforts." She shoved a hairpin back into place.
"You look wonderfully artistic, as usual—but rather pale." Her expression concerned, Fiona took her hand. "I hope I didn't upset you, speaking of Francis in that way."
"Don't talk nonsense. If I'm pale, it's only from gluttony. My blood has been flooded out by tea."
"Are you sure you're all right?"
"The fussy mama role ill becomes you," Leila said. "When I'm truly ill, I shall tell you so—and make you nurse me."
Fiona answered with a look of horror so theatrical that Leila laughed. Melodramatically clutching her throat, Fiona ran from the room. Leila chased after her. There was more laughter, and joking farewells, and by the time the door closed behind Fiona, Leila's niggling doubt about her was altogether forgotten.
Leila returned to her studio, took up a sketchbook and pencil, and focused on the untidy bookshelves. But they wouldn't take shape upon the page. She drew instead the elderly woman she'd seen making her slow way down the street, then the carriage that had entered the square just as the old lady turned the corner. A dashing carriage, sleek and assured.
So Francis had been once, long ago: sleek and assured and strong. She had been frightened, confused, and sick. A damsel in distress. And he had been her knight in shining armor, carrying her away to live happily ever after.
Only it wasn't forever after, because he had changed. Paris, with its easy pleasures and easy vices, had corrupted him. Slowly, year by year, Paris had dragged him down.
Fiona didn't understand. She hadn't known him, the way he'd been at the beginning, when he'd first entered Leila's life.
"She doesn't understand," Leila said very softly, her eyes filling. "You were good once. It's just so easy...to slip. So damnably easy."
A tear fell onto the page. "Oh, damn,” she muttered. "Weeping—over Francis. How ludicrous."
But another tear fell, and then another, and she let herself weep, ludicrous as it was, beast that he'd been—because she had known him when he wasn't a beast, and if she didn't weep for him, no one would.