Beyond Rubies (Daughters of Sin 4)

Kitty felt like tossing the shoe she’d just removed from her right foot in Jenny’s direction, but remembered that ladies didn’t do such things—although she’d seen Araminta do just this when spying on her through the window once. Snatching up her only suitable evening gown from where it was folded among a pile of her other modest belongings, she shrugged herself out of her robe and began to dress for the most exciting night of her life.

“Thank you for offering me such pearls of wisdom and insights on your own life, Jennie,” she said through gritted teeth. To her chagrin, Jennie was now helping do up the tiny pearl buttons at the back of her gold net evening gown.

When the girl had finished, she ran her hands over the beautiful fabric and murmured, “Where did you get this? Not from a secondhand barrow for it is barely worn? Did you steal it? Or were you once a loyal retainer given it by your mistress before you were dismissed without a character? That’s what ’appened to me, you know. I wasn’t always an actress. In fact, I were quite ’appy in service until the master of the ’ouse took a liking to me, causing ’is missus to take a definite unliking to me and throwing me out on my ear. If there’s anyone who knows the fickle ways of men, it’s me. So now I’ve warned you about ’is Lordship, you go out and enjoy yerself. Just don’t come crying on my shoulder when ’e breaks your foolish, naïve heart.”

Kitty didn’t respond. She bent down at the dressing table to secure her feathered headdress, pulled on her gloves, stood up to fasten her pelisse quickly down the front, and then hurried toward the door.

She could hear Jennie’s light footsteps behind her, but ignored her parting words. “My, my, but ain’t you the lady of quality? ’Eads will turn as ’is Lordship squires you to London’s finest establishments, though I reckon ’e might take you to better places than ’e took me. I always wanted to dine at Madame Mirabeau, a most rarefied and elite establishment for dancing with a fine bit of supper served, but I never ’ad the rigout and I couldn’t get my voice quite right. You’ll do just fine.”

Kitty refused to turn her head, but she could hear the sudden brightness in Jennie’s voice as she added, “But ’e’ll break your ’eart just the same.”

***

Kitty was able to dismiss this prediction the moment she beheld his Lordship’s beatific smile as he met her at the theater door.

“I thought we would dine at Madame Mirabeau,” he told her. “If anyone asks who you are I shall tell them you are a runaway foreign princess. That’ll keep them guessing.” It seemed he was as caught up in the excitement of the evening’s possibilities as she was. Beneath a gas lamp, she slanted a look up at him and was instantly reassured by his smoldering look and the tiny scar beneath his right eye. Yes, he was the man of her fantasies. She’d dreamed of him; she could almost persuade herself she’d known him from another lifetime, and she was sure he felt the same. They were as one. The future was thrilling. She imagined the gossip sheets gushing over the extraordinary Miss La Bijou who’d taken London by storm and then stolen the heart of Lord Nash, a viscount who was in the marital sights of every designing debutante and her mama.

“Up here, my sweet.” Lord Nash stood back for her to step through a low doorway from which swept a narrow staircase. Kitty could hear a rumble of noise from the hidden chamber above and excitement fizzled through her, but at the same time she felt nervous.

“Where are you taking me?” she asked.

“To Madame Mirabeau’s salon, and if you have not heard of her, let me tell you she has the only salon in London worth attending.” He paused and lowered his voice. “Only at Madame Mirabeau’s salon will you see a duchess take tea with an actress, which is why it amused me to bring you tonight. Madame Mirabeau is a great admirer of the arts and will no doubt already have heard of you.”

“Do you really think so?”

To her astonishment, he bent his head and gave her a quick kiss on the nose. “Who would not have heard of the astonishingly talented and completely delectable Miss La Bijou? Ah, here is our hostess herself, the Countess of Orne. Comtesse, might I have the pleasure of introducing to you fair Juliet. I told you it was my intention to pluck her from the theater and bring her here to meet you.”

Kitty stared wide-eyed at the stately woman who was regarding her critically through a pair of bright blue eyes that seemed to have been chosen to match her gown of blue satin. She inclined her head and Kitty curtsied, suddenly afraid, for the comtesse did not seem to look kindly upon her at all. But then, her hostess smiled and held out her hand. “Child, for that is what you are, you have stolen the very role I coveted when I was your age, and might have played as well as you had such pursuits been permitted to one of my station. Alas, I was forced to follow a very sedate path, if you discount the upheavals that forced me to flee my old home in Paris.”

“I’m sorry, Comtesse.”

“Life is too short for regrets. I find enjoyment in meeting the artistic world here in my drawing room. Tell me a little of your life in the theater. Lord Nash knows how much I love to hear such stories, though he may choose to leave us alone for such a conversation. That’s right, Lord Nash, you are dismissed.”

To Kitty’s astonishment, this woman of such rarefied grandeur seemed to hang on her every word as Kitty told her of the rehearsals and the mishaps, but the excitement and triumphs, too.

“If I could have had the choice when I was a child, it would have been to live daringly. To be someone daring and different, like you. Make the most of what you have been given. Don’t squander your gift and beauty.” Kitty was enraptured. Lord Nash had obediently left her side to converse with various others, but every few minutes he’d return like the most attentive of lovers. Kitty was sure of the path she was taking. It was all as the gypsy had foretold.

After an hour of riveting conversation, she looked up when he touched her

arm, indicating the exit with a smile. Kitty was fully aware that going out into the night, alone with Lord Nash, was the start of her greatest adventure and her heart skittered with excitement.

In the moonlight, he looked at her with such love and longing, she almost stamped her foot with impatience that he bundle her into his carriage and take her to their place of assignation. He would brand her his. She had learned much since she’d left her cloistered home. The stirrings of her body when Lord Silverton had kissed her had been the start, but she knew he was mixed up in dangerous activities, and that he was not the destiny that had been foretold.

Silently she settled herself in the carriage, enjoying his warmth as he joined her, sitting close and gently tipping her head up so he could kiss her in the dark. The gentle motion over the cobblestones seemed to feed the kiss. There was something magical about being in a capsule, transported through time to some unknown but exciting and magical destination with the gentle, sensitive mouth of the man of her dreams making magic in her first real kiss.

No word was uttered throughout the short journey. Nor did they speak when they stopped in front of what she presumed was his townhouse, and he led her down some stairs and through a back entrance. His concern was that she not be recognized, and so going through the servants’ entrance bolstered her belief in his care for her. She was taking a dangerous path—one that would horrify every member of her family—but so assured was she that it would lead to the outcome she believed was her destiny, she was prepared to take risks along the way. If she hadn’t taken the risk of coming to London, she’d still be at home looking after Mama and the baby, and she’d be miserable. If she weren’t taking this risk to prove to Lord Nash how much she trusted him, he’d lose faith in her.

He took her hand at the bottom of a staircase and gently led her, with only the light of a candle he’d plucked from a sconce in the scullery, up two flights of stairs and along a dark passage. Near the end, he stopped before a door and quietly turned the doorknob.

Kitty’s heart was almost bursting by the time he’d opened it, led her inside, and put the candle down upon a chest of drawers. She needed no persuading, melting into his arms and raising her head for his kiss. Tenderly he touched his lips to hers, trailing sparks of fire along her décolletage. She went limp in his arms, and he whisked her from the floor and placed her on the bed. The mattress was the softest she’d ever slept on. She thought of Mrs. Mobbs’s dreadful straw pallet and imagined her life with darling Lord Nash.

In two weeks, she’d become the toast of Covent Garden, and Lord Nash had feted her after every performance in the most gentlemanly manner. He’d lauded her beauty and talent to the Comtesse, taking Kitty to mix with high society. Was that not proof of his ultimately honorable intentions? It did not occur to Kitty to play the coy maiden, even though it had been drummed into her since infancy that young ladies did not go alone—anywhere—with single men. But nor did they become actresses and have any kind of adventure. Kitty was taking charge of her destiny, one adventurous step at a time, to achieve the marvelous outcome, the dazzling destiny, she knew was her reward.

Lord Nash was respectful, thoughtful and kind, and she was going to steal his heart, just as Lady Emma Hamilton had stolen first that of Lord Hamilton, and then that of England’s finest war hero, Lord Nelson. Being an actress and illegitimate would not prove the irrevocable impediments everyone said they would. Not in the face in true love.

She gave a little giggle when he caressed her ankle and tossed off her slipper. “A bed is not the place for that, is it?” she whispered, and he nuzzled her nose, his smile faintly discernible, and laughingly agreed. “Nor for these,” he added, walking his fingers up her calf to her knee and playing with the laces that tied up her stockings. “Oh, and my goodness, is this a petticoat? We shall have to remove that also. Only we can’t reach that until we remove your gown, can we, my love? Oh, but you are a goddess. I want to see you naked. Completely naked.” And he rose onto his knees, turned her on her front and undid the five tiny buttons that secured the back of her gold net and silk evening gown.

Kitty would agree she didn’t want to spoil her gown, but she wasn’t entirely sure she liked the idea of being viewed with nothing on.