Page 26 of Lady, Behave
“Oh, good!” Addy clasped her hands together, tingling at the idea of such a large strapping family, though she did sorrow that she’d have no little girl to fuss over.
Madam Alain tipped her head toward the door. “Take your prediction and go.”
“Oh, no! I don’t want to. I mean, I did not come for news of my future.”
The woman strolled forward and peered at her. But now, she looked not at Addy’s exterior but down, far down, into her soul. “Why did you say you came here?”
“I hope you will teach me about healing people of sicknesses. I know a few remedies. A midwife in my small town would sit with me each Sunday morning while others in the family went to church.” Addy licked her lips, seeing boredom on the face of this startlingly handsome woman. “I want to learn what you know. Good remedies to make people healthy.”
“When you learn how to heal, you also learn how to kill.”
This lady was no easy mark. “I understand, Madam.”
“She cannot kill, Drusinda,” came the voice from the back room.
“You have not seen her, Marska,” replied Drusinda with a harsh examination of Addy’s steady blue eyes.
So many had peered at Addy in that same intensity. Men in desire. Women in envy. Children in shock or reverence. She did not move but let the woman look her fill.
“I hear her,” was the gravelly voiced woman’s reply. “I smell her intent. I see her spirit.”
Drusinda pulled her shawl higher and pointed toward two chairs. “Sit.”
Chapter Seven
The next eveningat the Carstairs’ musicale, Addy rushed into the brilliant red salon behind her sisters, and Cass and swore she’d find an interesting man here tonight. One she might even indulge in the opportunity to kiss her. Or rather, she to test him for his “bliss factor.” Beauty, as she had always known firsthand, should never be a girl’s only drawing card. One had to have daring at the least, a pointed desire to taste as many men as possible before the choice was put upon one. Too bad her desire to kiss as many men as appealed to her had vanished at the sight of magnificent Gyles.
Addy resigned herself to a new and potent search for a reasonably attractive and jovial man. Her luck held when she was introduced before dinner to a young cavalryman, Captain Reginald Fitzroy. Handsome in a sharp, dark, and forbidding way, he endeared himself to her with his broad smiles and dangerous green eyes. Their hostess indicated the party was soon to go into the dining room when who should appear but Gyles.
“Heath” or “my lord” to her from now on.
Addy’s heart stopped at how madly he searched the room, ignoring all, even the hostess. Then he halted, locking his brown eyes on hers. She swung away from his lure, his mouth-watering might in formal black frock coat, trousers, and polished shoes. Yet his essence lived in her reverie. His highly starched stock had leant luster to his fine complexion, burnished by his ruby satin waistcoat and sunlight that he’d obviously enjoyed somewhere other than the Cowes regatta.
She busied herself talking to someone about some little thing but perceived he worked his way through a few remarks to his host and hostess. He even headed Addy’s way when Lady Carstairs indicated they were ready for dinner. Each guest filed up according to their station. Addy thrilled to find herself seated, a la the Prince Regent’s mixed-method, next to a moody fellow, a curate in a parish west of Brighton, and to her right, the very wicked-looking cavalryman, Fitzroy.
Heath had assumed his place four down the long table. Opposite her but within sight, he took long notice of her, smiled, and nodded with no hint of his feelings. While he was seated with an older lady to his left and Cass to his right, he could not for the next hour and a half take his gaze from Addy or her dashing companion to her right.
Addy, as a result, ate her dinner with relish.
Heath appeared to play with his food.
Good. Let him.
*
As the guestsadjourned to the music room, Gyles made his way toward Addy, through the throng of men. The curate who’d sat to one side of her at dinner—was Fellowes his name?—had seemed too animated to be a curate. Flirting with her, the rascal. And failing. Were not curates asexual creatures?
Fitz, who had sat to her right, stayed there. Looking all the crack, bright and shining in his red and gold regimentals, Fitz—the coy dog—was eyeing Gyles as he approached.
He was about to gain on them when Fitz handed her a glass of champagne. One, in fact, which she definitely did not need as much as the one in his own hand intended for her.
Curse it. He discarded the flute of bubbly and went for the object of his desire. Fitz would give over. Or should.
“Good evening, Miss Adelaide. Fitzroy. I say, you do look stunning in that ivory.”You are a goddess in anything. Nothing, however, would be my preference.
Addy regarded him cool as ice. “We were just discussing Napoleon’s new home in the south of the Atlantic Ocean. Captain Fitzroy, I did not know you two were acquainted.” She looked upon that man with more dismay than she ever had Gyles.
“We are,” Fitz replied with a wink at Gyles.
