Chapter 8
Once in town the marquess lost little time in going to Blanche’s house. She threw herself into his arms. “Lucien, love!”
He buried his head in her sweet-smelling hair and sighed. “You know why I have come?”
She pulled back and smiled sadly at him. “It’s goodbye? I saw the notice of your engagement. Is she worthy of you, love?”
He let her go and said fiercely, “What do you mean by that?”
Blanche went as white as her softly draped gown. “I’m sorry, Lucien. I didn’t mean it badly. If you have chosen a bride from nowhere you must love her, and that’s all that matters.”
He ran a hand through his curls. “We shouldn’t even be discussing it.”
“Well then,” said Blanche lightly, though she was still pale, “let me order tea, and I can tell you all the scandal.”
He sat across from her and let her chatter.
Blanche hoped he could not tell how hard it was for her.
She had prepared to receive her conge ever since she had seen the notice, but she had not been prepared for the shadow in his eyes.
What had happened? It clearly was not a love match he was entering, but more than that she could not guess. She ached for him.
When she interrupted her light account of the latest crim-con to refill his cup, he asked abruptly, “How can a man tell if a woman is virtuous, Blanche?”
She looked up, puzzled. “Do you mean, if she’s a virgin?”
“No. Just the tenor of her mind.”
Blanche shrugged. “I could ask, why should a man care? He could see how easily she was shocked, I suppose.”
He laughed without humor, put down his cup, and pulled her up and away from the table. “And are you easily shocked, my winter rose?”
She knew she had colored, which didn’t happen often these days. “I think you’ve shocked me now, Lucien. You said this was goodbye. You’re as good as married.”
He drew down both the loose sleeves of her gown until her breasts were bare, then gently cupped them in his hands and pushed them up. “That’s no impediment to making love to the most beautiful woman in London.” He lowered his head to kiss the swell of each.
Blanche was already halfway to passion just from simple memory. “You said ‘in England’ the last time,” she teased softly.
He looked up and smiled, and it was his old smile. “Did I?” He swept her into his arms and headed for the stairs. “Well, that diminution of your sphere must be my tribute to the obligations of matrimony, ma belle.” He stopped to pay tribute to each sensitive nipple. “We are in London, aren’t we?”
Blanche arched and clutched him. “That or heaven, dear one.”
As he laid her on the bed, he held back her hair and let it drift down last to lie all around her like a silvery pillow. “That’s all right then,” he whispered and lowered his head to kiss her.
Later, he leaned over her and pushed her damp hair off her face. Gently he said, “It is still goodbye, my lovely one.”
Blanche stroked his smoothly muscled shoulder. “I know it, love. You’re not a man to keep a mistress when newlywed. I hope you never keep one again. I’ll miss you, though.”
He smiled. “That’s soothing to my ego. If you want, you’ll have the pick of London to replace me.”
“Ah, but there’s not many with your beauty,” she said honestly and with a cheeky twinkle. “I like to just look at you, you know. Care to come back and pose a few times?”
He laughed and sprang out of bed to strike a noble pose.
“Mmm.” She lay watching as, he dressed.
When he was ready, he took a flat box from his pocket with a trace of hesitation and came back to sit on the bed. “There’s always been more between you and me, Blanche, than payment,” he said. “Can you take this gift in friendship, with my gratitude? I never have enough friends.”
Blanche had expected a gift, and in a way she had dreaded it.
It smacked too much of a baser relationship.
She felt tears tickling the back of her eyes at his sensitivity, even though she should have expected it.
She opened the box to see a paper which proved to be the deed to the house in which they stood.
She glanced at it, but her attention was snared by what was underneath—a glittering rainbow of a necklace, exquisite flowers of emerald green, sapphire blue, ruby red, and topaz yellow.
She gasped then laughed up at him. “Lucien, you gaby. What am I supposed to do with this?”
He grinned. “Save it for your retirement?”
“I’ll wear it in private if I’m feeling low.” She gave him her sweetest smile. “You will always have a friend in me, my dear, and,” she added carefully, “you need never fear I’ll try to be more.”
She looked down at the necklace for a moment and then back, frowning slightly.
“I would like to say something else. About virtuous minds. There’s little I don’t know about men and women, love, and little I haven’t experienced, but you’ve always treated me as a woman of honor.
Virtue is a standard society puts on us, often an unreasonable one.
Honor is something within ourselves. Only we can give away our honor. ”
Moved by her words, he kissed her hands and her lips. “I will always honor you, Blanche.”
With that he was gone, and she could let the tears fall as she smiled at the ridiculously gaudy necklace.
Lucien impulsively stopped by at White’s.
He was in no mood for his own company and found the Belcraven mansion a bleak place unless filled with guests.
He was rewarded by the sight of Con Somerford, Viscount Amleigh.
The dark-haired young man was frowning as he read the day’s Times.
When he heard his name, he looked up, and the frown was replaced by a smile. “Good day, Luce.”
“It’s good to see a friendly face, Con,” Lucien said as he took the viscount’s hand. “I’d no real hope of meeting anyone I knew. I thought everyone would be in Melton still.”
“Was,” said the handsome young viscount as he summoned more of the claret he was drinking. “Couldn’t keep my mind on foxes with all this going on.” He waved the paper. “Anyway, I heard Nicholas was in Town.”
That could only be the Honorable Nicholas Delaney, leader of the schoolboy clique to which they had both belonged and which had been revived the year before for more serious business. “Nick’s here? Why?”
“Same thing,” said Con, indicating the paper. The viscount’s gray eyes turned bleak. “There’s nothing to do, of course, but he must feel as sick as I do over it after all he did last year.” He looked soberly into his wine. “I’m rejoining my regiment.”
Lucien felt a chill. “It’ll come to that again?”
“Bound to.”
“God damn it all, someone should have shot the Corsican.” Lucien thought of all the friends who had lost their lives in the long war. Was it all to do again? “I wish to heaven I felt free to fight. Perhaps if I have a son….”
Con looked at him quizzically. “I don’t think Boney’ll wait that long. You’re not even married yet.”
“As good as,” Lucien admitted. “Notice is in the papers. Doubtless in that very one you’re reading.”
The viscount blinked in astonishment but then raised his glass. “Congratulations! The Swinnamer girl?”
“No,” said Lucien, making a snap decision not to reveal the truth to this or any other friend. “You won’t know her. Name of Elizabeth Armitage. From Gloucestershire.”
“Knocked you for a loop, has she?” remarked the viscount, clearly not giving the matter much attention. “Even so, old boy, I don’t think the question of Napoleon will last ten months or so. It’ll be this summer and you’d do best to stay home. It’ll be bloody.”
“What of you? You have responsibilities now.” Con had sold out the year before when he inherited the title.
“The army’s short of experienced officers,” said Con.
“Shipped the best regiments off to the Americas when Napoleon seemed done for. Dare’s offered his services at the Horse Guards.
I tried to warn him off, but they’ll probably find something for him to do.
I think that’ll be it from the Rogues. But look,” he said in a brighter manner, “there’s a gathering at Nicholas’s tonight. ”
“Who’ll be there?”
“Stephen,” Con said, adding in a sonorous tone, “being an important man in the government.” Stephen Ball was member for Barham. “And Hal.”
“Hal!” exclaimed Lucien, a grin starting. Hal Beaumont had been his closest friend until their paths had split when Hal joined a line regiment and been posted to the American war. “I haven’t heard from him in over a year. Thought he was still in Canada.”
“Part of him still is,” Con said gently. “He’s lost an arm.”
“Christ.” Lucien stared at his friend numbly. He and Hal had been partners in so many youthful adventures, most of them depending on superb physical condition.
“Cannon exploded. He’s come through it well enough. He’ll want to see you. Was thinking of going up your way.”
Lucien wanted to see Hal, too, but was aware of a reluctance to see him maimed and was instantly ashamed of it. “Tonight at Lauriston Street?” he confirmed briskly. “I’ll send round a note. Is Eleanor here, too?”
“Of course. And the child. They’re on their way to a family gathering at his brother’s place. Just came up a bit early to get the latest news.”
Lucien buried the shock of Hal’s injury under the pleasant prospect of meeting friends.
He wondered how Nicholas Delaney was now, four months after his return to England, seven months after their last meeting.
That had been on the night when Nicholas had succeeded in gaining the plans of a plot to liberate Napoleon from Elba and restore him to power in France.
That success had been at great cost to himself, and in those days Nicholas had been tense and worn. His efforts had almost cost him his life, and his marriage, too. And after all the sacrifices it had all turned out to be a fraud. Or had it?
Napoleon, after all, was back in France and in power.