With This Ring

  “Mrs. Cheslyn told me that I would find you here this afternoon.”

  Beatrice realized that her three students were eyeing Leo with considerable interest. “That is enough for today,” she said. “Remember to practice using mais oui and n’est-ce pas whenever possible.”

  The women jumped to their feet. Still giggling as though they really were the innocent young ladies fate had prevented them from becoming, they made their curtsies, said their good-byes, and filed past Leo down the stairs.

  When the last one had disappeared into the fitting rooms below, Leo met Beatrice’s eyes.

  “I assume this is where your traveling companion, Sally, gained her atrocious French accent?”

  “Her name is Jacqueline now, not Sally,” Beatrice said smoothly. “She is from an extremely remote village in France. Her accent is, therefore, not Parisian.”

  “I see.” Leo smiled. “I met your friend Lucy a few minutes ago. Tell me, how long have you two been turning young prostitutes into French seamstresses and ladies’ maids?”

  “About five years. Some time ago we hired a tutor to give the language lessons, but she sent a note saying that she was ill and would not be able to teach today, so I took on the task.”

  “How did you get started in such an unusual undertaking?”

  Beatrice gazed around at the low-ceilinged quarters she and Lucy had once shared. “It all came about by chance. But once we had begun, we could not seem to stop.”

  “Some things happen that way,” Leo said softly.

  She did not know what to make of the expression in his eyes. To distract herself from the intensity she saw in him, she spread a hand to indicate the tiny room. “This is where Lucy and I lived for the first two years of our widowhood.”

  He studied the room. “Cozy.”

  She laughed. “That is putting it very politely. Lucy and I pawned nearly everything we owned to obtain these lodgings and the shop downstairs. I wrote my first two novels up here while Lucy lured customers with her French accent and high prices. In the beginning I helped her with the sewing, although Lord knows I have no great talent for it.”

  “Lucy has remarried.”

  Beatrice wondered what had provoked that observation. “Yes. Her husband appreciates her business abilities.” She hesitated. “They have two children.”

  “Do they?” He met her eyes. “That is a topic that we have not yet discussed.”

  She cleared her throat. “Children?”

  “Yes. There are precautions that can be taken.”

  Memories of his unrestrained lovemaking flashed through her mind. “So I have been told.” Her voice sounded high and a trifle squeaky even to her own ears. “But I do not believe that we need worry overmuch about the matter.”

  He watched her closely. “Why do you say that?”

  She turned away and walked to the table, where a half-empty pot of tea stood.

  “I told you that the one thing my husband wanted from me was a son. I could not provide him with one.” The teapot trembled in her hand as she lifted it. “He did not know it, but I wanted a child more than he did.” Someone to whom she could give all the love that Justin had not wanted. “It was not to be.”

  “Did his mistress ever get pregnant?”

  She swung around so quickly, tea splashed over the edge of her cup. “Why, no. Not to my knowledge. Why do you ask?”

  Leo raised one brow. “Among other sciences, the men in my family have paid particular attention to animal husbandry for years. I have occasionally had strong young bulls that could never manage to get any of my cows with calf. But when I introduced those same cows to another bull, they conceived immediately.”

  “I see.” Her face was so hot now, she knew she must be an extremely vivid shade of red. “Justin was not exactly a, uh, bull, my lord, but he was quite, uh, healthy. I’m certain that the problem lay with me. Really, I do not think we need discuss this anymore. Please.”

  Because if she allowed herself to dwell on the impossible notion of holding Leo’s babe in her arms, she would surely do what she never allowed her heroines to do. She would burst into tears.

  He looked as though he were about to argue, but he changed the subject instead. “As you wish.”

  She took a large swallow of tea to fortify herself. Then she banged the cup down on the saucer. “You have not yet told me why you came to find me here this afternoon, sir.”

  “To give you a report of the results of my inquiries this morning. I went back to Trull’s. You will be interested to know that the porter has vanished and the establishment is closed to the public.”

  “Hmm. So much for discovering who prepared that tea.”

  “Indeed. I shall pursue the matter, but in the meantime I have made some plans for tonight. I thought I had better tell you about them.”

  That statement got her immediate attention. “What do they involve?”

  “The visit to Cox’s apothecary. I have put it off long enough.”

  “I will go with you.”

  “I have already said no.”

  “This affair of the Rings grows increasingly strange, my lord. I have decided that we must work more closely together. I will accompany you tonight.”

  He raised his brows. “Do you intend to quarrel with me over the matter?”

  She gave him her brightest smile. “Of course not, my lord. I would not dream of involving myself in a vulgar quarrel.” She paused. “I intend to blackmail you.”

  “HOLD STILL WHILE I adjust the seam, madam.” The seamstress, her mouth full of pins, scowled up at Beatrice from her position on the floor. “If ye keep wiggling like that, I’ll likely stick ye, n’est-ce pas?”

  “Sorry, Polly.” Beatrice looked down at the girl. She could not have been more than fifteen. It seemed that with every passing year the women who came to the back door of Madame D’Arbois’s dress salon got younger. “Are you nearly finished?”

  “Aye.”

  “Oui,” Beatrice corrected Polly absently. “Have you selected your new name?”

  “I fancy Antoinette Marie, but Madame D’Arby—”

  “D’Arbois.”

  “Right. Madame D’Arbois says she thinks Ameline would be best.”

  “It’s a lovely name. Are you going to train to be a lady’s maid? Or did you finally choose to be a seamstress?”

  “Madame D’Arbois says that I sew such a fine seam that I may continue to work here in her shop.”

  “Polly has a wonderful talent.” Lucy smiled as she walked into the fitting room. “She will make an excellent seamstress.”

  Beatrice looked at her friend. Dark-haired, blue-eyed, vivacious and—after two children—appealingly rounded, Lucy looked very attractive in a new maroon gown.

  “Hello, Lucy.”

  “How is everything going in here?” Lucy asked.

  “Very well, madam.” Polly eyed her work. “Strange to see a lady in a pair of trousers though.”

  “It is indeed.”

  “I rather like them.” Beatrice gazed down the length of her legs and examined the trousers that were in the process of being tailored to her figure. “Quite comfortable, actually. Perhaps they will one day come into fashion.”

  “I doubt that.” Lucy looked at Polly. “Lady Danbury is here for her fitting. Run along and see to her. I’ll finish Mrs. Poole.”

  “Oui, madame.” Polly spat out some pins and jumped to her feet. She disappeared through the curtain.

  Beatrice looked at Lucy. “What do you think?”

  Lucy knelt to finish the fitting. “I think Polly will make it. She has been on the streets less than a year. Her spirits have not yet been crushed.”

  “Yes, I believe you are right.”

  They both knew that the only women they could help at The Academy were those who had somehow managed to survive their wretched lives with their spirits unquenched. Far too many fragile flames were extinguished long before anyone could save them.

  Lucy pinned a pleat in
the trousers. “Can I assume that the sudden need for masculine clothing has something to do with your search for those antiquities of your uncle’s?”

  “Yes. I wish to be able to go about in the evening with Monkcrest, and there are places where a lady cannot go in a gown.”

  “I will not ask what sort of places you mean,” Lucy said dryly. “But I will advise caution. Not that it will do any good. Do you make progress with the search?”

  “Some. I will not bore you with the details. And you must still keep the matter a secret.”

  “I understand.” Lucy got to her feet and met Beatrice’s eyes. “What of you and Monkcrest?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Beatrice, today I met the man. I saw the two of you together for a few minutes. And I know you better than anyone else does. Do you think I cannot see the effect he has on you?”

  Beatrice groaned. “Is it that obvious?”

  “It is to me.” Lucy frowned. “You are falling in love with him, are you not?”

  “I am engaged in an affair with him. It is not the same thing.”

  “I fear that it is for you.”

  Beatrice started to argue, but she bit back the protest. Lucy did know her better than anyone else, including the members of her own family. It was sometimes like that between friends. And she and Lucy had been friends since childhood.

  They had made a pact in the old days. Neither would marry for anything other than love. Both of them had done precisely that. Both had lived to regret it.

  A year before Beatrice had wed Justin Poole, Lucy had married her Robert. He had proved to be an incurable gamester.

  Beatrice had a fleeting memory of the icy winter night Lucy had arrived on her doorstep clutching a small, battered case that held all of her worldly possessions.

  “What on earth are you doing here?” Beatrice asked.

  “I have nowhere else to go.” Lucy’s voice was hoarse from crying. Her eyes were dull with despair. “Robert lost everything at cards. Put a bullet through his head a fortnight ago. His creditors have taken everything. I have nothing left.”

  “Oh, Lucy, I am so sorry. But if it is money you want, I cannot help you with much. Justin left me with very little.”

  “I am really quite desperate.”

  “Come in.” Beatrice held the door. “We will think of something.”

  In the morning they talked.

  “It was all so very tragic.” Beatrice sniffed into a hankie. “Justin loved her. He pined for her the whole time we were married. He died climbing a tree to enter her bedchamber. It was a great star-crossed love, the sort you read about in novels.”

  “Bah.” Lucy narrowed her gaze over the rim of the teacup. “Sounds to me as if Justin Poole loved no one but himself. He was a self-indulgent, melodramatic fool. A good bit like my Robert, I should say.”

  Beatrice blew her nose and gave that statement close thought. “I think I know now why I have always considered you to be my best friend, Lucy.”

  Lucy sighed. “I cannot impose on your friendship for long. I must think of what I shall do. I could teach, I suppose, but I dread the thought of being a governess.”

  “So do I. My parents cannot afford to help me and neither can anyone else in the family. My relatives have never been very successful with money, as you well know.”

  “At least you have some relatives. I have none.”

  Beatrice could not argue with that bald statement. “I have decided to try my hand at writing a novel before I give up and apply for a post as a governess.”

  “Unfortunately, I have no talent for writing anything more than a letter.”

  Beatrice studied Lucy’s gown. It somehow managed to look fashionable though it had been redyed and remodeled at least three times. Lucy had always had a gift for style. “How is your French?”

  “A bit rusty, why do you ask?”

  Beatrice smiled slowly. “I am told that it is the language of fashion.”

  Hope gleamed in Lucy’s eyes. “What are you suggesting?”

  “It would mean going into trade,” Beatrice warned.

  Lucy considered that briefly. “My grandfather and his father before him were in trade. There was plenty of money in the family in those days. I believe I could get accustomed to the notion.”

  With the exception of her decision to marry a gamester, Lucy had always been blessed with a practical nature, Beatrice reflected.

  “THEIRS WAS A great, tragical love,” Arabella explained that evening. “The sort one reads about in novels. A perfect union of the physical and metaphysical. Poor Beatrice. After Justin Poole was shot down on the road by a highwayman, she vowed never to wed again.”

  “Indeed.” Leo swung her into another wide arc on the dance floor.

  It was the height of the evening. The glittering ballroom was crammed with expensively garbed men and women. The night was chilly, but inside, the warmth of a hundred bodies plus the heat of the massed candles in the chandeliers caused sweat to gleam on some brows.

  Leo was aware that every time he conducted Arabella into a new turn, she used the opportunity to search the crowd. He knew she was looking for Pearson Burnby, who, fortunately, had not yet chosen to put in an appearance.

  Leo glimpsed Beatrice as he guided Arabella past the terrace windows. She stood with her aunt, sipping lemonade and watching the dancers. Even though he was still annoyed with her for the spot of blackmail, the sight of her had the usual effect. He was aware of a deep sense of satisfaction and a quiet throb of sensual anticipation.

  Her elegant turquoise-blue gown was trimmed with graceful flounces of white satin. The low neckline revealed rather more bosom than Leo thought necessary, but he could not deny that it displayed her shoulders and throat to advantage. She wore matching gloves that reached to her elbows.

  “Do you think your cousin will ever change her mind on the subject of marriage?” Leo asked casually.

  “Oh, no.” Arabella smiled sadly. “She is one of those rare few who has known perfection. How could she accept less?”

  “Excellent question.”

  Beatrice had not known a perfect love, he thought, but he could well believe that she had vowed never to marry again. A woman of her passionate temperament and warm heart would think twice about taking such a risk a second time. The consequences were no doubt too devastating to even contemplate.

  He understood as only a handful could, he thought. Better to live alone than to make another mistake.

  “Actually, my lord.” Arabella said thoughtfully, “your own story is very much like my cousin’s, is it not?”

  “There are some similarities.”

  Leo swung Arabella off in the direction of the buffet and wondered just when during the past few days he himself had begun to contemplate the risks of a second marriage.

  BEATRICE WATCHED LEO lead Arabella into a long gliding turn on the dance floor. The skirts of Arabella’s pale blue silk gown wafted with butterfly-like grace. Her gloved fingers rested elegantly on Leo’s shoulder. The light from the tiered chandeliers gleamed on her hair.

  “You may relax, Aunt Winifred. I think it is safe to say that any nasty rumors concerning the Glassonby finances that may be circulating will be forgotten by tomorrow morning.”

  “I must admit I am deeply indebted to Monkcrest.” Winifred’s eyes glinted with satisfaction. “He has done us a great service by favoring Arabella with an invitation to dance tonight.”

  “Indeed.” Beatrice had no intention of telling Winifred that the only reason Leo had bothered to attend the Charter ball this evening was to create a smoke screen for the activities he planned to carry out later.

  His appearance in the ballroom was certain to draw attention, and he knew it. Beatrice could already hear the murmurs from those who stood nearby.

  She smiled to herself. Those who witnessed him dancing with Arabella would be too busy discussing his marital intentions to speculate on his disappearance later in the evening. It would be assume
d that he had taken himself off to another soiree or to his club.

  Beatrice was certain that her own disappearance at approximately the same time would go equally unremarked. No one paid much attention to widows of a certain age unless they were extremely wealthy or extremely scandalous. Thus far, she had managed to avoid both circumstances.

  That afternoon in The Academy’s schoolroom Leo had argued at length in an effort to talk Beatrice out of joining him in the clandestine activities he had planned. She had listened very politely until boredom set in and then she had been forced to put her foot down very firmly. For an intelligent man, Leo could be extremely stubborn at times, she thought.

  “I must say,” Winifred murmured, “they do make a handsome couple, do they not? I hope Helen notices.”

  “Lady Hazelthorpe cannot help but notice.” Beatrice sipped from the glass of lemonade. “Everyone in the room has noticed.”

  An odd wistfulness welled up out of nowhere as she watched Leo and Arabella. She had not danced since the days of her courtship with Justin, and those dances had been limited to country dances at the village assemblies. Her only experience with the waltz had occurred when she had amused herself with lessons from Arabella’s French dancing instructor.

  A rustle of skirts and the sound of a throat being cleared interrupted Beatrice’s reverie. She turned to see Lady Hazelthorpe.

  Helen was resplendent in lilac satin. A magnificent turban in a matching hue added some much-needed height to her short, bulky frame. An elegant fan dangled from her plump wrist. There was a grimly determined expression in her steel-gray eyes. Beatrice noticed that Helen’s small mouth was pinched even more tightly than usual.

  Winifred smiled the cool smile that one armored knight gave the other before they entered the lists.

  “Good evening, Helen.”

  “Winifred.” Helen’s glittering gaze switched briefly to Beatrice. “Mrs. Poole.”

  “Madam.” Beatrice inclined her head. “Lovely gown.”

  Helen was briefly distracted. “I have recently discovered the most wonderful modiste. Madame D’Arbois. French, of course. Charges an absolute fortune, but it is worth it. She uses only French seamstresses, you know.”