Sebastian’s descriptions—and the scene shifted and sharpened, and individuals emerged. It was not unlike beginning a difficult text in Greek, finding one thread she could follow, with which she pulled meaning from the rest.
The first to reach them was an easy call: a voluptuous, barely-faded beauty of late middle age, still blonde, still trim in the waist, still glad to expose most of her capacious bosom in an immodest gown of rose silk and ivory lace. Lady Barham .
Her ladyship flung herself upon the marquess with a girlish leap, her elbows clouting the sides of his skull in her enthusiasm. His face was pulled into her plumped cleavage. “You’ve come!” she cried gleefully. “My Sebastian, back at last! It’s such a delight when you actually keep your promises!”
Sebastian chuckled and planted a kiss right in the valley between her breasts. “You look well, as always, dear Lady Barham,” he declared warmly. “And Lord Barham is in excellent health, I trust?”
The lady chimed with laughter. “Lord Barham is very well, indeed—happily abed back home in Regent Street, with all the lapdogs. Respectable as my Great Aunt Gertrude.”
“The more fool he,” replied the marquess, and kissed her again, this time on her lips, wrapping his arms about her back and lifting her until she stood on tip-toe.
A strange burning sensation flared just under Rachel’s ribcage, as if a live coal had lodged itself there. How easy such dalliance was for him, how little it must mean. How humiliating for the women he took in his arms.
And there were, apparently, plenty of them. A whole troupe of females—opera dancers, courtesans, and exceedingly merry widows—surrounded him now with kisses and embraces, their bejeweled hands slipping inside his jacket and waistcoat to caress him against his shirt. If not slipping rather scandalously lower.
He only smiled and flirted more with every touch.
Distressingly, Rachel fell under an assault herself as a crew of lavishly-dressed men pressed in to welcome her, their hands clutching everywhere like the tentacles of a giant sea monster. Several men eyed her with a look of unmistakable knowledge, and of open invitation, that made her stomach churn.
What had been an abstraction before, the notion that Sarah had actually used her body in the service of England, became abruptly palpable .
The smile became ever harder to affix to her face.
One of the gentlemen she recognized as the titular duc du Bourge, a broad-shouldered French aristo with thick, wavy black hair and handsome, shining black eyes. According to Sebastian, he’d had escaped Paris and the clutches of Robespierre at the age of twenty-five with little more than his exquisite manners and his life, and he now depended entirely on the good graces of the sixty-two-year-old Countess of Leeds. That kind lady had managed to set him up in his own London townhouse, and kept him there quietly for more than a decade, virtually under her husband’s nose.
Du Bourge must have slipped his lead tonight, for the countess was notably absent, and the duc stood far too close to Rachel’s side, gazing at her with almost pathetic longing.
“ Chère Salomé,” he exclaimed, waving a hand with an ostentatious signet ring glittering with rubies. “We have been so anxious! Such rumors we have heard!”
“Rumors, merely,” she said, remembering the French accent only just in time. She uttered a quick silent prayer of thanks for her tutor Mr. Rapson’s excellent ear. Sebastian had declared the pronunciation he’d taught her suitably Parisian, and quite identical to Sarah’s. “I assure you, my lord, je vais très bien .”
“ Grace à dieu ,” the duc murmured, and pressed his lips into her open palm.
Du Bourge had a rival in none other than Lord Cardross, the man in the gold satin jacket, who just moments before had had his hand up that other woman’s skirts, and whose waistcoat striped in lurid rose and violet left his identity in
The first to reach them was an easy call: a voluptuous, barely-faded beauty of late middle age, still blonde, still trim in the waist, still glad to expose most of her capacious bosom in an immodest gown of rose silk and ivory lace. Lady Barham .
Her ladyship flung herself upon the marquess with a girlish leap, her elbows clouting the sides of his skull in her enthusiasm. His face was pulled into her plumped cleavage. “You’ve come!” she cried gleefully. “My Sebastian, back at last! It’s such a delight when you actually keep your promises!”
Sebastian chuckled and planted a kiss right in the valley between her breasts. “You look well, as always, dear Lady Barham,” he declared warmly. “And Lord Barham is in excellent health, I trust?”
The lady chimed with laughter. “Lord Barham is very well, indeed—happily abed back home in Regent Street, with all the lapdogs. Respectable as my Great Aunt Gertrude.”
“The more fool he,” replied the marquess, and kissed her again, this time on her lips, wrapping his arms about her back and lifting her until she stood on tip-toe.
A strange burning sensation flared just under Rachel’s ribcage, as if a live coal had lodged itself there. How easy such dalliance was for him, how little it must mean. How humiliating for the women he took in his arms.
And there were, apparently, plenty of them. A whole troupe of females—opera dancers, courtesans, and exceedingly merry widows—surrounded him now with kisses and embraces, their bejeweled hands slipping inside his jacket and waistcoat to caress him against his shirt. If not slipping rather scandalously lower.
He only smiled and flirted more with every touch.
Distressingly, Rachel fell under an assault herself as a crew of lavishly-dressed men pressed in to welcome her, their hands clutching everywhere like the tentacles of a giant sea monster. Several men eyed her with a look of unmistakable knowledge, and of open invitation, that made her stomach churn.
What had been an abstraction before, the notion that Sarah had actually used her body in the service of England, became abruptly palpable .
The smile became ever harder to affix to her face.
One of the gentlemen she recognized as the titular duc du Bourge, a broad-shouldered French aristo with thick, wavy black hair and handsome, shining black eyes. According to Sebastian, he’d had escaped Paris and the clutches of Robespierre at the age of twenty-five with little more than his exquisite manners and his life, and he now depended entirely on the good graces of the sixty-two-year-old Countess of Leeds. That kind lady had managed to set him up in his own London townhouse, and kept him there quietly for more than a decade, virtually under her husband’s nose.
Du Bourge must have slipped his lead tonight, for the countess was notably absent, and the duc stood far too close to Rachel’s side, gazing at her with almost pathetic longing.
“ Chère Salomé,” he exclaimed, waving a hand with an ostentatious signet ring glittering with rubies. “We have been so anxious! Such rumors we have heard!”
“Rumors, merely,” she said, remembering the French accent only just in time. She uttered a quick silent prayer of thanks for her tutor Mr. Rapson’s excellent ear. Sebastian had declared the pronunciation he’d taught her suitably Parisian, and quite identical to Sarah’s. “I assure you, my lord, je vais très bien .”
“ Grace à dieu ,” the duc murmured, and pressed his lips into her open palm.
Du Bourge had a rival in none other than Lord Cardross, the man in the gold satin jacket, who just moments before had had his hand up that other woman’s skirts, and whose waistcoat striped in lurid rose and violet left his identity in
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