Page 20 of The Rebellious Lady and the Phantom Lord
Phaedra touched one fingertip to her lips, recalling how perilously close she had come to responding to her enemy’s kiss. She was beset by a sudden fear that one night it might be she who unlocked that door, a fragile white moth fluttering toward the flame.
No, she would be no man’s victim again. Maybe her wisest course would be to flee back to Bath as Armande had bade her. But she had never fled from any man, neither Ewan and his cruelties nor her grandfather and all his bullying ways. If anyone was driven off, it would not be she. Her only choice was to remain and solve the enigma that was Armande de LeCroix.
She would begin by coaxing Gilly into helping her, setting her cousin to spy upon the marquis, perhaps find out what he kept locked in that small chest. And then there was the matter of Armande’s strange reaction to the cloak. If Gilly could but make a few discreet inquiries into his background. They must be verydiscreet inquiries, for if Armande ever guessed what she was doing ...
Her mind clouded with the memory of his ice-blue eyes, the well-formed mouth that could be warm and enticing, or cruel when twisted into a menacing smile as he warned her not to cross swords with him. She shivered.
It was dangerous, what she meant to ask Gilly to do, but more dangerous still to go on fencing in the dark.
Six
Phaedra pasted on a smile for the benefit of the guests who were crowded into the green salon that adjoined the dining room. Nearly a week had passed since she had cajoled Gilly into making inquiries about the marquis. Now she had seen the sun set on another day without a word from her cousin.
There seemed little hope he might yet turn up tonight, Phaedra thought with despair as she stole a glance toward the tall windows. Beyond the festoons of the velvet draperies, shadows had long ago lengthened across the lawn. The starless night enveloped the mansion’s grounds, the brightly lit salon like a single lamp glowing amidst a world of darkness.
“Damnation, Weylin. Are we to be starved to death?” The growling complaint of one of the guests recalled Phaedra’s attention to the approaching ordeal of the supper party. She fixed her gaze with intense dislike upon Sir Norris Byram, one of her late husband’s gaming cronies. The stocky baronet thrust an ivory-handled scratcher beneath his wig, chastising the lice so vigorously he nearly knocked the false hair askew.
“We don’t keep city hours here at Blackheath House, Byram,” her grandfather huffed. All the same, he dug his hand into thepocket of the orange and pink striped waistcoat straining across his middle, and consulted his watch.
“City hours were good enough for you once,” Byram sneered. “I could do well without the sight of this marquis of yours if it means going without my supper half the night.”
But Byram’s grumbles went unheeded. Phaedra noted with cynical amusement that the rest of the guests were all agog to meet Armande. She suspected they would encamp in the green salon until dawn if need be, these honest, hard-working merchants and their wives, who needed their sleep to put in a full day’s work on the morrow. Most of those present were acquaintances from the days before Sawyer Weylin had sold his brewery and bought his way into parliament. But mingled amongst the lot were a few impoverished noblemen such as Sir Norris and Lord Arthur Danby, not too proud to cadge a meal at the table of a rich city man.
Everyone except Byram kept peering toward the salon’s door as though expecting as grand a show as any performed at Covent Garden. Just when Phaedra had begun to think the marquis meant to disappoint them, the door was flung open. John the footman announced in impressive accents, “Armande de LeCroix, the most noble Marquis de Varnais.”
Armande stepped into the salon with his usual effortless grace. Garbed in knee breeches and frock coat of ivory trimmed with gold, his white-powdered hair bound back into a queue, he looked like a crown prince carved from ice and snow.
A hush seemed to fall over the room. Or was it only herself, Phaedra wondered, who had caught her breath at the sight of those cool blue eyes with their distant expression, the handsome, arrogant features hewn into a mask of granite?
Her grandfather’s friends made no effort to stop gawking. Phaedra, although she despised herself, could not do so, either. As she followed Armande’s every movement, from the stiff bowto her grandfather to the way he unbent enough to be introduced to the company, she thought she now understood the charm Armande exercised upon Sawyer Weylin. The marquis was not condescending. That would have affronted her grandfather. No, he remained tantalizingly aloof, so that any mark of his attention conferred a tremor of delight. There was success in attracting the interest of this man, who seemed so far beyond everyone’s touch.
The crude Sir Norris was the only one present who seemed unimpressed by the marquis. With a sneer, Byram had extended only his small finger by way of greeting. Armande ignored him, flicking open his snuffbox, allowing just a hint of boredom to settle over his features. Byram flushed beet-red.
Phaedra smothered a laugh, restraining an urge to applaud a most magnificent performance. But her smile faded. Why did she have the feeling that was exactly what it was to Armande-a most deadly clever performance?
With an uncanny awareness, almost as though he had heard her thoughts, Armande turned. From across the salon, his gaze locked with hers. The meeting of their eyes gave her a jolt Phaedra felt all the way to her toes. He raised a pinch of snuff to his nose, but she realized with surprise that he only affected to take it. He replaced the snuffbox in his pocket, all the while holding her captive with his stare, his eyes both mocking and challenging. A half-smile tipped his lips, as though he acknowledged the fact that he was not fooling her, yet daring her to destroy the illusion he wove.
She broke the contact first, hastily looking away, ashamed to be caught ogling him like the others. She had scarce seen Armande since the morning she had burst into his bedchamber. He had returned the cloak, but by way of the maidservants, leaving Phaedra to wonder if she had only imagined Armande’s reaction to the garment. Had the marquis deliberately kept outof her way since then? Was he avoiding her questions, or merely heightening the effect of his appearance here this evening?
Phaedra longed to imitate his own expression of lofty indifference, but even with her back to him, she felt his presence in every fiber of her being. His image danced before her eyes, reflected a half-dozen times in the pier glasses set between the salon’s rococo panels. Which of those mocking visions, if any, was the real Armande de LeCroix?
“Phaedra?” Jonathan Burnell’s low voice penetrated her consciousness. Phaedra turned to acknowledge the wine merchant, her grandfather’s longtime friend. She had the uncomfortable feeling that the poor man had been trying to attract her attention for some time now.
His dark eyes regarded her sadly. “I beg your pardon, my dear. Have I done something this evening to offend you?”
“Certainly not.” Phaedra bit back a rueful smile at the notion that a man as gentle as Jonathan could ever offend anyone.”It is I who should beg your pardon. I have been so preoccupied of late.”
“With your grandfather’s guest, no doubt.” Jonathan’s smile did nothing to relieve the gravity of his expression. The glow from the green cut-glass lamps that illuminated the room only served to heighten his sallow complexion, making him appear more melancholy than ever. “I daresay you are as overwhelmed by the marquis’s magnificence as the rest of the ladies.”
“Indeed. Having him here is more enthralling than attending a frost fair.” Phaedra half-hoped Armande might hear her sarcastic remark, but although the marquis stood not more than a few yards away, she much doubted he could hear anything but her grandfather’s voice booming in his ear.
“I feared that something troubles you,” Jonathan whispered. “I trust it is nothing to do with your writings?”
Phaedra stole a cautious glance about her. No one else was within earshot except the foppish Lord Arthur Danby, and he had sagged down onto one of the armchairs, already in that befuddled condition that her grandfather described as being half-glazed.
“No, the writing is going splendidly,” she whispered back. “The next issue of the Gazetteer should be circulating amongst the coffeehouses by tomorrow. The contents may disconcert more than a few honorable members of parliament.”
To say nothing, Phaedra added to herself, of a certain marquis. She had a notion Armande de LeCroix would not be pleased to find himself the object of Robin Goodfellow’s speculations, the light of public attention fixed upon him.
