A Proposition For The Comte

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But Antonia had not finished with all her questions. ‘I have heard you have bought a house in Sussex, my lord, and a very fine one by all accounts.’

‘Indeed. I was down south for a few weeks last year and purchased it on a whim.’

A whim?

The Comte de Beaumont did not look like a man who ever acted upon whims. Light and fancy things, whims. When he saw Violet smile at such a musing his eyes darkened.

‘Would you like to dance, Lady Addington? I think I can just about remember the steps of the quadrille.’

She could not refuse under such close perusal, though Antonia did not look pleased at all.

Within a moment he had shepherded her on to the floor, the touch of his good arm burning into her back. When they stood to face each other she was lost for words.

‘Thank you.’ His voice was low and quiet.

For the lie? For the dance? For not calling in at the Home Office and telling them her story in detail? For standing there and pretending she did not know him? For rescuing him from certain death on a frozen night?

‘You are welcome.’

Here was not the place for more with the cream of the ton present, as their love of gossip and scandal could ruin him. Violet wondered if de Beaumont held a knife in his pocket even under the lights and among the rustle of silk. She decided that he must.

‘You have made quite an impression in society since arriving in England, Comte de Beaumont. Everyone is talking of you and you have not been here long.’

‘A daunting thing that, Lady Addington, given our circumstances.’

‘I received your note.’ She whispered this, just in case.

‘And I meant every word on it.’

She felt the tightening of his fingers against her hand, a small and hidden communication. Barely there.

‘Why?’

Suddenly she no longer wanted to be so careful. If he had murdered a man the other week he was not someone she should encourage. But then again if he hadn’t...

‘When someone saves your life there is a debt owed.’

‘And when someone takes a life it is just the same.’

‘Touché,’ he whispered as the dance pulled them apart into the arms of others.

When he returned she felt a giddy sense of place, but firmly squashed it down as his arms linked with her own.

‘Do you try to make yourself unattractive, Lady Addington?’

She nearly missed her step.

‘The turban does not suit you. Neither does the gown.’

The shock of such an unexpected and personal remark ran through her unchecked. ‘My dressmaker would be distraught.’

‘How old is the woman?’

‘Pardon?’

‘The female who fashions your garments? What is her age?’

Violet frowned, thinking of how hard she had worked all week to modify her ancient gown with her lady’s maid to make it presentable. She had never been offered a budget for clothing when she had been married and now even making ends meet was hard. Harland’s heavy gambling had all but ruined them, the town house the only thing as his widow she had been able to save unencumbered. There had certainly not been enough left for a refurbishment or for new gowns.

‘I think you should hardly be—’

He interrupted her.

‘Tell her to find a dark blue velvet and to slash down both the neckline and the sleeves. More is not always better,’ he added and she saw a definite twinkle in his eyes.

‘The Parisian love of decadence might not suit the British mentality.’

‘And you think the Puritan look does? Look around you. Others show much more than an inch of skin. You are still a woman beneath the heavy serge and one with gentle curves. I felt them when you helped me up from the frozen street.’

‘A gentleman does not mention such things, sir.’

‘Yet it seems to me you need to hear them, my lady. You are hiding yourself and I am wondering why?’

This sort of conversation was one she was unpractised at, though the tone of it was exhilarating.

‘Is every young lord in Paris tutored in this art of shallow flattery?’

‘I wasn’t at school in France.’

‘Oh.’ She was surprised by his answer.

‘I went to Eton and then on to Oxford. A proper English upbringing with all my manners minded.’

‘But then you left. You went home again?’

‘Home,’ he repeated, ‘is often not where one expects it to be.’

‘You talk in riddles, my lord, and I comprehend that your dancing style is so much more proficient than my own. Do not ask me to stand up with you again because I shall refuse.’

‘Because you would worry about the opinions of those around you?’

‘Oh, indeed I would, sir. If you do not realise that, then you fail to know me at all.’

‘A disappointing honesty.’

‘And there are so many more of them.’

‘Violet.’

‘Yes.’ She jumped at his informal use of her name.

‘Stop talking and dance with me.’

When he pulled her closer and his arms led her into steps she had never before learned she wondered if perhaps he was a magician making gold from clay, making flame from ashes.

‘Will you be in London for long, Comte de Beaumont?’ She asked this as the music slowed a few moments later.

‘I hope not.’

‘You will return to Paris, then?’

‘No.’

Her effort at small talk faltered back into silence and on the final flourish of the violin he dropped her hand and bowed at her solemnly. Then he was gone.

Violet found Antonia with two of her other friends and joined their small group. She would have simply liked to have walked to the door and left, to have found her carriage and retreated from the battle. For that is exactly what this meeting had felt like. As it was, she would need to wait for Amara’s return from wherever it was she had disappeared to because she knew there would be questions otherwise.

It seemed that any conversation with the unknowable French Count always spiralled into uncertainty. She felt the anger of him, too, the hidden man under the urbanity of the more public one. His hands were not soft. They were the hands of one who had toiled and worked hard. He smelt of both brandy and lavender, the two scents combining into a wholly masculine flavour.

His sense of humour worried her the most. She knew that he watched her for she caught his glance across the room and hurriedly looked away.

What could he want? What did she? She wished suddenly that they might have met in the park, sheltered by the greenery from the eyes of others. And then what?

Lord, what was happening to her? For six years she had been frozen into shame and woodenness, any sense of the intimate pushed away firmly and resolutely. Yet just with one small dance it was as if a dam had been breached, allowing life to begin again, to green and blossom.

Le Comte de Beaumont probably had not even realised he was doing it. He was a man who would be overrun with feminine company, a male who would understand exactly his effect on the opposite sex.

She was twenty-seven years old, after all, and not a debutante filled with hopes and fantasy. She frowned, remembering Harland. He had swept her off her feet within a month and she had never thought to question all the things that did not quite add up about him.

Well, here was another man where nothing about him truly made sense. A wealthy foreign aristocrat in London and looking for what? He had said that he would not be here long and yet he had purchased a place in Sussex? A further question. The top portion of the third finger on his right hand was missing, a scar attesting to the injury.

A man of war, she thought, but not a soldier.

The settle of coldness within her began to build just as a shout of anger and challenge rang out from his direction.

‘You think that you can get away with this, you French bastard, just walk in here and have society at your feet?’

The shorter fellow standing before de Beaumont had pulled himself right up into the Comte’s face and had raised his voice in a threatening manner.

‘You are more than inebriated, sir, and most irritating with it. Perhaps you should go away?’ These words were strained and less than flattering, the Comte’s accent all perfect English privilege and wealth.

But the other man was not backing off, whether by reason of hard liquor or of poor judgement, and she watched him raise his fist and slam it directly into the mouth of the Frenchman.

A general gasp emanated all around them and there was a skittering as those in the burst of violence rushed out of the way, the exodus bringing her in closer to the action. It was easy to see the fury on de Beaumont’s face.

Another assailant spun into the fracas, but the Comte simply caught his hand and twisted it, the aggressor screaming in pain. Then everything disintegrated as further punches were thrown. Suddenly the whole side at this end of the room seemed to be involved in a brawling fight.

This would never have happened in any other social situation of the ton, but those here this evening were a varied lot and the chance of a fight seemed to be exactly what they were waiting for.

De Beaumont looked more than at home and he was a most proficient adversary, for he shook off his assailants while barely breaking a sweat.

Violet shouted out a warning as a further man came from behind him, but already Antonia was pulling at her arm.

‘Come, Violet. It is dangerous to be so close. There is no sense here—’

She did not finish, for there was the crash of a body hard against their own and then dizziness. When Violet put her hand up to her head she felt a sizeable lump and she straightened her silk turban with shaking fingers.

The room stood still, a slow-motion dance of eyes turning, the floating yellow fabric ballooned against each wall strange and blurring. Sound seemed diminished and distant and she was having difficulty in breathing.

Tilting her head, she saw the Comte watching her, blood on his lip and fury in his eyes. Then Antonia grabbed at her and lead her away.

‘Are you hurt, Violet? My goodness, I have never in my whole life seen such a terrible thing.’

Her head ached and she was dizzy, but she did not wish to make a fuss. Amara was at her side now, too, shaking her head.

‘We should not have come here—I knew it. The Creightons have little taste and even less sense. We should leave straight away.’

With a ringing in her ears and a feeling of nausea rising, Violet did just as they both wanted her to and turned for the door.

The French Comte had disappeared and she thought that he would just have to take his chances even with a recent bullet wound to the side. Only a few weeks had passed since his being almost dead and she imagined that he might have had the sense to lie low and recover. The beautiful woman he had been attached to was nowhere to be seen, either, so perhaps they had both left together? That realisation was surprisingly hurtful and she quickly shook it away.

Violet awoke in her room just as the clock outside in the hallway struck three. The Comte de Beaumont sat on the chair beside the bed, watching her. Surprisingly, she felt in no danger at all.

‘I am sorry for what happened tonight.’

Violet held up her hand as though to stop any apology.

‘How did you get in?’

‘Your locks are very flimsy. It would be safer to have them changed.’

Ignoring that, she sat up further. The evening before had been like a small window into the life of a man for whom violence was a common theme and she could scarcely believe that he was here. ‘Who are you?’

‘Aurelian de la Tomber. My friends call me Lian.’

‘And am I that? A friend?’

‘You tried to help me a few hours ago. Why?’

‘Help you?’ She was stalling for time and he knew it.

‘By calling out. By warning me. By involving yourself in something you should not have.’

‘Because you are dangerous?’

‘Completely.’ One word ground out slowly. One word that didn’t seem quite so English now. ‘And you got wounded because of it.’