Drury Lane Darling Read online

  “Worse, I’ve seen them perform, but with the excuse that it was in the line of duty. I cull performers from the traveling groups. Tuck’s has never yielded anything resembling the Flawless Fleur.”

  “She’s wonderful, isn’t she? I never could understand the story of Helen of Troy till I saw her.”

  “Fleur’s an intriguing cross between Helen of Troy and Lucrezia Borgia,” he said, with the unworthy aim of shocking her. She only looked confused. “You really ought to bestir yourself to attend the London Season.”

  “If I had the sort of initiative you’re recommending I’d move to London, but my parents are so unimaginative. Papa feels he must be home to look after the farm. Sugar, cream?”

  “Just sugar, please.” Breslau didn’t continue immediately. His eyes lingered over Miss Comstock’s lively face. The chit was no Incomparable, but she had a certain charm. He always preferred conversation to less animate pulchritude. “Nigel often speaks of you,” he said. What Nigel had failed to mention was that his intended was not in the first blush of youth. For himself, Breslau preferred a little maturity.

  “You have already warned me. What does he say?” she asked bluntly.

  Expecting some token of pleasure, Breslau was thrown for a loss by her question. “All manner of compliments. I shan’t repeat them, or—”

  “Afraid I’ll dash this hot tea in your face?” she said, and smiled at his discomfiture. That had removed his haughty expression. “Never mind, Lord Breslau. The only thing he might have said in my favor is that I have ten thousand pounds, and am his mama’s goddaughter.”

  “I shan’t repeat them, or your head will swell,” he continued, as though she hadn’t interrupted. Breslau examined her with disconcerting frankness, and noticed her head would have a hard time growing, confined as it was by that hair, all skinned into a bun. That gamine little face was crying out for curls. She was still young enough to make a charming ingénue.

  Miss Comstock lifted her cup and sipped daintily. “It’s going to be a lovely weekend, don’t you think?” she said, setting her cup down.

  He glanced toward the window, where a sullen and sunless sky bathed the landscape in gloom. “Are you speaking of the weather?”

  “Hardly! I refer to the company.”

  “You have bizarre taste, Miss Comstock. Like the weather, the party threatens to be stormy.”

  “That’s exactly what I mean! Something exciting will happen, at last.” She lowered her voice. “You can’t imagine how boring these visits usually are. I had no idea the Flawless Fleur would be here.”

  “And here I dared to imagine my presence added something to the pending excitement.”

  She considered this a moment. “I shouldn’t think so. Actually your presence detracts from the intrigue, but I’m sure Lady Chamaude will enjoy your company excessively. Nigel won’t have her all to himself.”

  “Nigel?” he asked, surprised.

  “Oh, you thought of that, too. No, Sir Aubrey wouldn’t dare tackle her when his wife is on guard.”

  Breslau felt a pronounced urge to exclaim, Miss Comstock! in the outraged accents of his spinster aunts. Then he saw the gleam of laughter in her topaz eyes, and feared he was going to speak as one shouldn’t to an innocent country lass.

  “How old are you?” he asked instead.

  “Twenty-two. What has that got to do with anything?”

  “The parents are slow in bringing this match between you and Nigel to fruition.”

  “Not really. Nigel is only twenty-two as well. It’s pretty ancient for a lady, of course, but the pragmatics of matchmaking decree that a gentleman of two and twenty is scarcely breeched. I expect we can stave them off for two more years, and by then I hope to have—” She stopped and bit her lip. Why was she rattling on so freely to this stranger?

  “Found someone more to your liking?” he suggested.

  “I’ve seen enough of marriage; I’m not eager to incarcerate myself. At twenty-four, I come in charge of my dowry. It was left to me by an aunt, and Papa can’t keep it from me.”

  “Will it be a farm in the country, like the ladies of Llangollen?”

  “Certainly not! I’ve had enough of that. I want to broaden myself in London. The theater, balls, the shops.”

  “An intellectual,” he nodded. “Will you be setting up a bluestocking saloon?”

  “I don’t own any blue stockings. Never mind smirking, Lord Breslau. I know what a bluestocking is,” she added sharply. “I have no intellectual pretensions. No, what I should like to do is live with my older brother, Harley. He’s an M.P., you must know.”

  “I didn’t. Nigel failed to relate that in your favor. Would his wife condone such a ménage à trois?”

  “He doesn’t have one at the moment, though two recent letters have mentioned a Miss Greenwood in such casual terms that I’m considerably concerned. In any case, I could always have my own apartment in their house, for I wouldn’t like to live all alone, with only some wretched spinster relative to keep me company.”

  “You know, of course, what happens to young ladies who don’t nab a parti? They eventually grow into that dread species, the spinster relative, themselves.”

  Pamela’s attention strayed to Nigel and the marquise. He was gazing into her eyes, besotted. “Would you mind rescuing him, Lord Breslau, before Lady Raleigh returns and catches him making a cake of himself?”

  Breslau took up his cup. “With the greatest reluctance, Miss Comstock.” A quick frown of incomprehension flashed across her mobile face. “That was a compliment. I am fond of Fleur’s company.”

  “Oh, but you prefer mine! How flattering!”

  Breslau inclined his head to hers. A glint of amusement removed the edge of cynicism from his aristocratic features. “If you and your ten thousand pounds have any notion of taking London by storm when you move in with Harley, I might just drop you a hint. Young ladies aren’t required to utter every thought that crops into their pates. A simple blush of pleasure would have been more appropriate.”

  “I shall bear that in mind, in the unlikely case that any other gentleman is kind enough to pretend he prefers my company to that of the marquise’s.”

  “Young gentlemen, too, are sometimes required to restrain their tongues. Mum’s the word on that charge of pretending. Why do you suppose we bother pretending to young ladies?” he asked with a lazy smile. This was flattery of a high order in Breslau’s opinion. It merited, and in any saloon in London would have earned, a simper of delight. Why did it cause Miss Comstock to frown, and stare at him so oddly.

  Good gracious, he’s trying to flirt with me! I must set him down at once. “In Chatham, it usually presages a flirtation, but no doubt in London they have some less innocent intention. Which I, of course, shan’t mention after your kind hint. I must have Lady Chamaude teach me to blush.”

  “You are blushing, Miss Comstock. Well, well. And here I thought Nigel was exaggerating when he called you—” A light laugh lifted his thin lips. “More unutterable phrases.”

  Her eyes darted over his shoulder, quite ignoring the advances of the most sought-after parti in London. “Lord Breslau, hurry! He’s holding her hand. His mother will kill him!”

  Breslau cast a fairly disinterested eye toward the sofa. “Surely she’ll reserve slaughter for the engagement. Holding hands merits no more than a hundred lashes.”

  “Aren’t you even a little jealous?”

  “Of whom?”

  “Nigel and the Flawless One, of course.”

  “No, only of Nigel,” he said, and finally rose to insert himself between Nigel and the marquise, leaving Miss Comstock to sip tea with a pensive gleam in her eye.

  She heard the muted hush of angry voices in the hallway, and wandered closer to try to make out the words.

  Lady Raleigh was laying down the law in no uncertain terms. “The downstairs bedchamber, you see. The hussy plans to entertain Nigel after we are all abed.”

  “Rubbish,” Sir Aubrey said
. “Let her sleep downstairs. We don’t want her any closer to the rest of us than she must be.”

  His wife approved of this un-Christian sentiment, but still Nigel’s virtue took precedence. “I have half a mind to lock his door and remove the key after he retires.”

  “He’d only crawl out the window, if that is what they’re up to.”

  Lady Raleigh was silent a moment while her mind canvassed other options. “We’ve put Breslau in the Tudor suite. Nigel can sleep in the spare cot in his dressing room.”

  “If Breslau sleeps in his own bed.”

  His wife was happy to see Aubrey was alive to all the sinful possibilities inherent in the situation. “If he’s with the actress, then Nigel is safe,” she pointed out.

  “It will look odd, billeting him on Breslau.”

  “I’ll throw some dustcovers over Nigel’s bed and open a bottle of turpentine. I’ll say the room’s being painted.”

  “What of the other guest rooms?”

  “Not aired, and very drafty. With Nigel’s weak chest, he must have a warm room. I’ll speak to the housekeeper about it at once.”

  “That’ll do then,” Sir Aubrey decided. “I’m retiring to my study till dinner. I can’t abide that woman’s vulgar chatter.”

  His good wife could hardly believe her ears. It almost seemed her prayers were answered, and Aubrey had given up his shameless ways. To voluntarily remove himself from an actress when his wife wasn’t even in the room was an unprecedented thing. She hastened off to consult with the housekeeper, and Sir Aubrey went to his office, trembling.

  How much would Corinne demand? He wasn’t a wealthy man. A thousand pounds would strap him pretty badly. He was sitting with his head in his hands when he heard a light tap at the door. Dot and the servants didn’t bother to knock. It must be Breslau. Was he aware of what was going on? He was a man-about-town at least—he might know what Lord Alban was soaked for.

  He hurried to the door. “Sir Aubrey, I find you alone, just as I hoped,” the marquise said, and sauntered in, hips swaying just as he remembered. “You and I shall have a little talk, hein? About the olden days, in Brighton. Perhaps we should close the door?” she suggested with an arch look.

  ****

  In the saloon, Breslau watched the marquise leave, and was at a loss as to why she should be running after Sir Aubrey. What had she meant by all that talk of Brighton? Breslau was familiar with all Fleur’s moods and expressions. The mood she took to Sir Aubrey’s office was one that presaged no good.

  It suddenly occurred to Nigel that he hadn’t exchanged a single sentence with Pamela since arriving. “I wonder what Fleur wants to talk to Papa about,” he said.

  “Probably the old days at Brighton. Is her book full of scandal, Nigel?”

  “Certainly not! It isn’t that sort of thing at all. Just because Fleur is an actress, it don’t mean she has loose morals, you know. She’s a regular martyr if you want the truth. A heroine. You’ve no idea what that woman’s been through.”

  “About two dozen lovers, according to gossip,” Pamela suggested before she got a rein on her tongue.

  Breslau listened silently as he went to the side table to exchange his teacup for a glass of wine.

  “She has not,” Nigel said like a sulky boy. “It’s just her generous nature that misleads folks. There are going to be a lot of surprised people if they think her memoirs are scandalous.”

  “A lot of disappointed people,” Pamela added.

  During a short silence, they all heard the sound of raised voices coming from the study. Pamela’s eyes lit up with interest. She noticed that Breslau didn’t return to the group, but hovered close to the door, where he might hope to catch the odd word from the study.

  She ran to the table, grabbed a glass of wine, and joined him. The draft from the front door sent a shiver up her bare arms. “It’s nice and cool here,” she said. “So stuffy by the fire.”

  “Goose bumps become you, Miss Comstock.”

  “Shh!” she exclaimed shamelessly, and tilted her head toward the study. “What did she say? Did you catch that?”

  “It sounded like ‘your son.’ You don’t suppose Aubrey charged her with corrupting a minor?”

  “Brighton—it sounded like Brighton.”

  “Shall we put a glass to the door?” Breslau asked, and smiled.

  “There!” Pamela said, her eyes glistening with excitement. “She said ‘your son,’ again. Doesn’t she sound angry? I wish Sir Aubrey would speak louder. I can’t make out a word he says.”

  “He was always a contrary gent.”

  Pamela sidled into the hall, ostensibly to look at a Chinese planter holding a fatigued palm tree, but with one ear turned to the door. Breslau peered toward the staircase, then down the other way, and looked a question at her.

  “Something about quarter day,” she whispered.

  “What the deuce are you two doing?” Nigel called in a querulous voice, and joined them.

  “We were just admiring the palm,” Pamela said, and quickly returned to the saloon with him.

  Nigel cast a certain look at Breslau, as though to say, What did I tell you? As dull as ditch water.

  That look called Pamela back to her role as dullard. “Mama has a very nice palm in the reading room at home,” she said. “Did I tell you, Nigel, your mother gave me one of Hanna More’s tracts for the reformation of the poor for Christmas? She recommends I join the Religious Tract Society. It sounds very interesting.”

  “What do they do?” Nigel asked.

  “Why, they reform the poor and write tracts about it I suppose,” she replied vaguely.”

  Breslau stared at Miss Comstock, wondering if he had been misled by the woman who had sat with him at the tea tray a moment ago. Had he mistaken country manners for wit?

  “Hanna would do better to reform the rich,” he said.

  Miss Comstock lifted an innocent eye and replied, “The rich, I fear, are past reclaiming.”

  “What are you calling rich, madam? Anything over, say, ten thousand pounds?”

  Pamela failed to catch the reference to her dowry. “Ten thousand per annum isn’t rich. It’s obscene,” she replied.

  “I didn’t mean per annum. And I hope I am not obscene.”

  She inhaled sharply. No one had ten thousand a year. “Do you have that much, Breslau? What on earth do you do with so much money?” Nigel gave a sound of disgust and she quickly added, “Did you ever consider joining the Religious Tract Society, milord? What a lot of tracts we could publish with your blunt.”

  “This is true, but I find better things to do with my blunt than chastise the poor for not being rich.”

  It was his odd manner of speech rather than his answer that caught her interest. She had observed it twice now. “Why do you say ‘this,’ when you mean ‘that’?”

  Before Breslau could answer, Sir Aubrey’s office door suddenly opened and the sound of polite laughter echoed in the hall. Pamela shot Breslau a curious glance.

  “I’ll leave you two a moment’s privacy,” he said. “I have a few matters to discuss with Fleur.”

  Miss Comstock’s eyes had lost their kittenish look. An angry hue suffused her cheeks. Nigel might be against this match; his opposition was nothing to Miss Comstock’s. She dreaded as much as a moment alone with her reluctant suitor. Breslau would like to have stayed for her performance of a prude, for he had decided that was what accounted for her sudden change in manner, but if Fleur was up to something, he wanted to know and put a stop to it.

  A self-promoting autobiography was all well and good. It might heat up interest in his leading lady, but he didn’t want her blackmailing her former patrons. That stunt would empty the theater, if word got around. Her raised voice had sounded quite angry. It wasn’t like Fleur to be so obtuse. She had recently developed a bourgeois mania for respectability. He assumed her persistence in getting herself invited to Belmont had been a step toward making herself respectable.

  Sir Aubrey
’s study door was closing when Breslau reached the hallway. Fleur was just snapping the clasp on her reticule and smiling contentedly. Breslau stared a moment at the reticule, then lifted his icy eyes to his leading lady.

  Fleur was not unduly perturbed by that look, but she was swift to speak of other things. “I hoped Sir Aubrey might recall a few anecdotes for my memoirs, but I drew a blank. What a gothic old heap this place is. I daresay they water the wine. I could use a glass of brandy.”

  “You won’t find any here, but the wine is excellent. You haven’t done something foolish, have you, Fleur?”

  The marquise assumed her most innocent pose, eyes wide open and guileless, a pucker of her brow indicating confusion. “What do you mean, Wes?”

  “It sounded as if you and Sir Aubrey were arguing.”

  “Not at all. I scolded him a little for his bad memory, but we patched it up in the end.”

  “He is on excellent terms with Max, you must know,” Breslau cautioned.

  “Why do you think I’m here?” she asked, and laughed. “General Maxwell mentioned he would be attending the winter assembly at Hatfield.”

  “Does Max know you’re here?”

  “I hinted I would be visiting Belmont. He didn’t believe me. Now he’ll see I’m accepted in respectable homes.”

  “So that’s it!” Breslau said, and nodded. “You hope to get an offer from him.”

  It was common knowledge in theatrical circles that General Maxwell was pursuing the Flawless Fleur. No one, including Breslau, knew what degree of success he had had, but Fleur was still residing in her own apartment, and paying her own rent. Max certainly didn’t have marriage in mind, but apparently Fleur was holding out for a golden ring.

  A prim and proper lady wouldn’t do for a gent like General Max, who had spent his youth racketing around from war to war. The chief obstacle was the general’s mother. Mrs. Maxwell was a friend of Lady Raleigh’s, and of similar piosity. As she had a large fortune and two daughters, there was plenty of competition for the fortune.

  “I don’t plan to grow old and fat and gray on the public stage, like Mrs. Siddons,” Fleur replied. “When I am past it, I shall marry and become a Mrs. Grundy. Max is the likeliest prospect at the moment. You must stand up with me at the assembly this evening, Wes, and present the loftiest lords at the ball to me. Max doesn’t care a groat for such things, but I must impress the old Tartar.”