Regency Innocents. Annie Burrows

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СКАЧАТЬ he had picked up a plain little bourgeoise like her, and elevated her to the position of Countess.

      ‘Allow me to be the first to congratulate you,’ a voice purred. Dropping her spoon with a clatter on the table, she looked up to see Mrs Austell hovering over their table, her beady eyes fixed on Felice’s emerald ring. ‘Though I had heard …’ She paused to smile like a cat that had got at the cream, and Heloise braced herself to hear whatever gossip had been noised abroad concerning the Earl and her sister. ‘I had heard that you were going to make an announcement at the Dalrymple Hamilton ball.’

      ‘Circumstances made it impossible for us to attend,’ Charles replied blandly.

      ‘Ah, yes, I hear there was some unpleasantness in your family, mademoiselle?’

      Laying his hand firmly over hers, Charles prevented her from needing to answer. ‘Mademoiselle Bergeron does not wish to speak of it.’

      ‘Oh, but I am the soul of discretion! Is there nothing to be done for your poor sister? Too late to prevent her ruination, I suppose?’

      ‘Oh, you have the matter quite out. The affair is not of that nature. The young man fully intends to marry my fiancée’s sister. Has done for some considerable time. It is only parental opposition that has forced the silly children to feel they needed to run off together in that manner.’

      Heloise marvelled that he could appear so unconcerned as he related the tale. Deep down, she knew he was still smarting. But it was this very sang-froid she had factored as being of paramount importance to her scheme. Why should she be surprised, she chastised herself, when he played the part she had written for him so perfectly?

      ‘A little embarrassing for me to have an escapade of that nature in the family,’ he shrugged, ‘to be sure. But it is of no great import in the long run.’ With a smile that would have convinced the most cynical onlooker, Lord Walton carried Heloise’s hand to his lips and kissed it.

      ‘Of course I never held to the prevalent opinion that you would make the younger Mademoiselle Bergeron your wife,’ Mrs Austell declared. ‘A man of your station! Of course you would prefer the more refined Mademoiselle Bergeron to her flighty little sister. Though I must warn you—’ she turned to Heloise, a malicious gleam in her eye ‘—that you ought not to make your dislike of Wellington so apparent when you get to London. They idolise him there, you know. If anyone were to catch a glimpse of that scurrilous drawing you made of him …’ She went off into a peal of laughter. ‘Though it was highly entertaining. And as for the one you showed me of Madame de Stael, as a pouter pigeon!’

      ‘I collect you have had sight of my betrothed’s sketchbook?’

      ‘Felice handed it round one afternoon,’ Heloise put in, in her defence. ‘When a few ladies connected with the embassy paid us a visit.’

      ‘Oh, yes! Such a delight to see us all there in her menagerie, in one form or another. Of course, since the one of myself was quite flattering, I suppose I had more freedom to find the thing amusing than others, to whom mademoiselle had clearly taken a dislike.’

      At his enquiring look, Heloise, somewhat red-faced, admitted, ‘I portrayed Mrs Austell as one of the birds in an aviary.’

      With a completely straight face, Charles suggested, ‘With beautiful plumage, no doubt, since she always dresses so well?’

      ‘Yes, that’s it,’ she agreed, though she could tell he had guessed, even without seeing the picture, that all the birds portrayed on that particular page had been singing their heads off. If there was one thing Mrs Austell’s set could do, it was make a lot of noise about nothing.

      And dare I ask how you portrayed Wellington?’

      But it was Mrs Austell who answered, her face alight with glee. As a giraffe, if you please, with a great long neck, loping down the Champs-Elysées, looking down with such a supercilious air on the herd of fat little donkeys waddling along behind!’

      ‘For I see him as being head and shoulders above his contemporaries,’ Heloise pleaded.

      ‘Oh, I see!’ Mrs Austell said. ‘Well, that explains it. Have you seen your own likeness among your talented little betrothed’s pages, my lord?’ she simpered.

      ‘Why, yes,’ he admitted, feeling Heloise tense beneath his grasp. ‘I feature as a lion in a circus, if you please.’

      ‘Oh, of course. The king of the beasts!’ she trilled. ‘Well, I must not take up any more of your time. I am sure you two lovebirds—’ she paused to laugh at her own witticism ‘—would much rather be alone.’

      As soon as you have finished your ice,’ Charles said, once Mrs Austell had departed, ‘I shall take you home. Our “news” will be all over Paris by the morning. Mrs Austell will convince everyone how it was without us having to perjure ourselves.’

      He was quiet during the short carriage ride home. But as he was handing her out onto the pavement he said, ‘I trust you will destroy your sketchbook before it does any more damage?’

      ‘Damage?’ Heloise echoed, bemused. ‘I think it served its purpose very well.’

      ‘There are pictures in there that in the wrong hands could cause me acute embarrassment,’ he grated. He had no wish to see himself portrayed as a besotted fool, completely under the heel of a designing female. ‘Can I trust you to burn the thing yourself, or must I come into your parents’ house and take it from you?’

      Heloise gasped. She had only one skill of which she was proud, and that was drawing. It was unfair of him to ask her to destroy all her work! It was not as if she had made her assessment of her subjects obvious. Only someone who knew the character of her subject well would know what she was saying about them by portraying them as one type of animal or another.

      It had been really careless of her to leave that sketchbook lying on the table when she had gone up to change. She had not been gone many minutes, but he had clearly found the picture she had drawn of him prostrate at her sister’s feet, while she prepared to walk all over him. And been intelligent enough to recognise himself, and proud enough to resent her portrayal of him in a position of weakness.

      He was not a man to forgive slights. Look how quickly he had written Felice out of his life, and he had loved her! Swallowing nervously, she acknowledged that all the power in their relationship lay with him. If she displeased him, she had no doubt he could make her future as his wife quite uncomfortable. Besides, had she not promised to obey his slightest whim? If she argued with him over this, the first real demand he had made of her, she would feel as though she were breaking the terms of their agreement.

      ‘I will burn it,’ she whispered, her eyes filling with tears. ‘I promised you, did I not, that I would do my best to be a good wife, and never cause you a moment’s trouble? I will do whatever you ask of me.’ However it hurt her to destroy that which she had spent hours creating, the one thing in her life she felt proud to have achieved, her word of honour meant far more.

      ‘Heloise, no—dammit!’ he cried, reaching out his hand. That had been tactless of him. He should have requested to examine the book, and then decided whether to destroy the one or two sketches which might have caused him some discomfort. Or he should have been more subtle still. He should have asked if he could keep the whole thing, and then ensured it was kept locked away where nobody could see it. Not demand her obedience in that positively medieval way!

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