Duchess By Night

Page 7

Villiers was shaking his head. “Everyone dresses like that at Lord Strange’s house and they don’t bother with explanations. He owns the Drury Lane theater, so his house is haunted by actors. I do think it’s a good idea to go in costume,” he said to Harriet. “And under a false name.”
“Something like Isidore’s dress? I couldn’t.” She couldn’t wear a scrap of fabric that barely covered her breasts.
“No,” Villiers said. “More of a disguise than that. As I said, Strange is not fond of titles and he wouldn’t welcome a duchess—or two—on his doorstep.”
Harriet felt a stab of humiliation. Naturally Villiers didn’t want to see her in a scanty costume like Isidore’s. “What are you suggesting? I go as a man?”
It was a joke. The word flew from her lips but—
“You couldn’t be so brave,” Isidore said laughing.
“Lady Cosway need offer no proof of her courage,” Villiers said. “Please recall that she just carried a goose into the ballroom while wearing a nightgown. One doubts Saint George exhibited such steel while setting out to fight the dragon. Yet I am not certain…” His eyes rested thoughtfully on her chest.
Raising her chin, Harriet reached inside her voluminous sleeves and pulled out a rolled woolen stocking. And another. A third and fourth.
Then she flattened the fabric against her chest. “I think,” she said coolly, “that I shall look very well as a man.”
“Indeed,” Villiers said. “The idea has possibilities.”
Chapter Four
In Which Sin & Silver Boxes are Itemized and Explained
January 7, 1784 Fonthill Lord Strange’s Country Estate
“I don’t like his blue hair powder,” Eugenia Strange observed. “Papa, are you listening to me? Today his hair is all covered with red powder, and yesterday it was blue. I think he looks better in red. Do you agree, Papa?”
“Absolutely.” Justinian Strange, known to his closest friends as Jem, let his eight-year-old daughter’s words flow by him as he frowned down at the architectural drawing on his desk.
“Do you know what Augusta did to him, Papa? She locked him in the closet. She said that she was tormented by being surrounded by foolish men and she only allowed him out of the closet when he promised to have her coach relined in yellow silk. It’s going to cost two hundred pounds. But she says that her diamond earrings cost three hundred pounds, and those were given to her by Mr. Cornelys. I asked if she locked him in the closet as well, but she didn’t.”
“I expect not,” Jem said, looking up from the drawing he had spent the afternoon creating. “Eugenia, what do you think of the idea of putting this false floor in the ballroom? It’s quite ingenious, you see.”
His daughter came around the table and stood at his shoulder. “This mechanism would cause the platform to rise, Papa?” she said, putting her finger in precisely the place.
“Exactly.”
“Why?”
“Why? Because it would be striking,” he said, rather lamely. “The table would rise suddenly in the air when it was time for supper.”
But his daughter shook her head. “Striking is not a good reason, Papa. Striking is why Mr. Hodes is wearing blue hair powder, and I assure you that is not a good decision.”
He drew her little figure against him. “You’re my Sensibility,” he said into her curls. “Did you spend time with your governess today?”
Eugenia didn’t answer, but said, “Papa, did you know that Mrs. Mahon brought fourteen silver filigreed boxes with her? She carries them everywhere.”
“She’s the new lead from The Beggar’s Opera, isn’t she? I haven’t met her yet. Whatever does Mrs. Mahon keep inside her fourteen boxes?”
“Love notes. I believe that she has had fourteen protectors, which is a great many. Miss Linnet told me that when she was playing at the Hyde Park Theater a prince gave her ten pairs of diamond earrings, one a night for ten nights. I should very much prefer diamonds to silver boxes.”
“A prudent observation,” Jem said, pushing back in his chair. “A box is worth a few pounds, Eugenia, but a diamond might be very expensive. Though I trust you shall never have a protector. I’ll give you any earrings you wish.”
Eugenia had her mother’s turned-up little nose and sweet brown eyes, but other than that she looked just like him, which meant that she had an awkward face for a child. He glanced at himself in the mirror. He looked the same as always: pale, too gaunt. Clever, he supposed. The kind of hawkish cheekbones he had looked acceptable on a man in his thirties, but rather odd on a young girl. One had to hope that she would grow into them. Or out of them.
In fact, she looked rather odd today in other respects as well. “What are you wearing?” he asked, peering at her.
“My riding costume. But I put a silk petticoat underneath it, because I like the way the dark serge looks against this pink. Look, Papa.” She twirled, and sure enough, there was a light flutter at the bottom of her somber habit. “It makes me feel more festive to be in pink. And I pinned these roses here and the scarf breaks the color, you see?”
“What did your governess think of that?”
“We haven’t seen each other today. She’s in love, you know.”
“I didn’t know. Who is she in love with?”
“Well, for a long period of time she was in love with you, Papa.”
Jem blinked. “With me?”
“I think she has seen too many plays. She was convinced that you would discover her and I would stop being a motherless child. She’s always saying that I’m a motherless child, and no matter how many times I point out that not having known a mother, I feel no lack of one, she doesn’t understand.”
Jem could sympathize with the governess. Eugenia’s practical nature had deflated many a dream, including that of a spectacular false floor.
“But she finally realized that you weren’t going to notice her.”
“I do notice her,” Jem protested. “Don’t I?”
“Well, you didn’t notice when she left for ten days, Papa. What color is her hair?”
“Miss Warren’s hair?” He paused.
“I don’t think you’ve ever really seen her, Papa.”
“Of course I have, Eugenia!” She was making him feel guilty now. “I hired her, didn’t I? And we’ve had several conversations about your progress in French and mathematics.”
“She hates mathematics. She has to learn it with me, you know. And she’s not very good at it.”
“Why didn’t you tell me that she left for ten days?”
“I thought I could use a rest from schooling,” Eugenia said serenely. “I would have told you eventually, Papa, but she came back again. And now she is in love with a footman.”
“A much more suitable choice than myself,” Jem said. “Which footman?”
“The one with beetling back brows,” Eugenia said, leaning against his shoulder.
Jem pulled her onto his lap and she sat there, long legs dangling almost to the floor, but still as light as a feather. When she was a baby, she seemed so frail that he had been afraid her bones were like a bird’s, with air in the middle.