Lie With Me Page 5

  Julianne lurched to her feet. Maman handed her the undergarment.

  “I lied to her about the value of Skylark,” Julianne said. “She caught me at it.”

  Maman narrowed her eyes. “Julianne. You live a constant lie. What makes this one different?”

  “Nothing,” Julianne said irritably, swiping the bottle off the table. “Nothing makes it different.”

  "Petit?"

  “Oui, Maman?”

  “What do you want from her?”

  Julianne shrugged. “Skylark.”

  “You don’t need Skylark.”

  “Alright, then. Nothing. I want nothing from her.”

  Maman caught her hand and stopped her from leaving. “Put that bottle down and sit.”

  Julianne obeyed, reluctantly.

  “Look at me.”

  Julianne looked into Maman’s brown eyes.

  “Lie to others, Julianne, because you are forced to. But never—jamais—lie to yourself,” she said. “Now. Tell me: What do you want from Lady Maryam?”

  “I want what I cannot have.” Julianne hung her head and covered her face with her hand. “Oh, Maman. I never thought I would feel such feelings. But the moment I saw her, I knew. I knew my heart was lost.”

  Maman’s stomach tightened. This was it. The thread had been tugged that could unravel Julianne—unravel Edgemere itself. The beautiful Lady Maryam, oblivious to what she had in hand, had tugged it.

  As soon as she had been able to politely take leave of Madame Delacroix, Lady Maryam retired to her drawing room. She had a plan, now, of something she could do, prompted by a question Madame had posed at dinner.

  Her hostess might not be of high birth, but her ability to read the human heart was of the first water. “It was difficult to see Skylark, non?”

  Madame’s question had been so gently posed that Maryam felt the irrational urge to fling her arms around the old woman and cry. Madame Delacroix was the embodiment of kindness and lately Maryam felt as if she were drowning in a swift current. Still, she did not reach for Madame’s proffered lifeline. Maryam’s solicitor had cheated her. D’Avenant had lied to her. She’d gotten sufficient taste of commerce to see the folly of confiding in her adversary’s Maman. “Yes,” she replied cautiously. “Difficult.”

  “Have you decided on a course of action?”

  A course of action. Maryam pondered Madame’s question. What should she do? She could have her own appraisal done–at a cost, with delay, and without the insight of its value to Edgemere, since she was not familiar with the estate’s operation.

  Or she could determine Skylark’s value indirectly.

  Maryam took a seat at the writing desk, pulled out a piece of paper, and dipped her pen. She was going to ask her cousin for help. Solicitors were ambitious men. Approached by the Duke of Kent in the men’s club, surely young Abercrombie wouldn’t be able to resist confiding what he knew about land values in Edgemere territory. As the nation’s Minister of Foreign Affairs, her cousin was a skilled interrogator—he could elicit the information from young James without his even realizing he had divulged it.

  She began writing.

  Julianne walked silently down the hallway from Maman’s room toward her own. In the distance, she saw the line of light illuminating the floor at the base of Lady Maryam’s door. She was awake. Julianne stared at that door, imagining the woman beyond it, wondering whether it was anger or disappointment that kept her sleepless.

  She turned the knob on her own door, entered, and closed it behind her. She was going to change for bed but altered her course. She walked over to her dressing table and sat down in front of her mirror—something she rarely did any more—and studied her reflection. It was sobering, almost shocking even after all this time, to see herself as others did. After her disfigurement, she had learned to live from the inside out, to interact with the world out of her sense of herself rather than from her appearance. Outer appearance was not only a disguise but it was also a lesser place. She snorted softly at her reflection. Don’t stare at the scar. See the pretty blue eyes. Oh, don’t burst into tears, baby. But look at the odd man. Be distracted by his clothes, his face, his lordly ways. Don’t see he’s really a woman.

  A woman who loves other women.

  She ran her index finger over the bridge of her nose, up over the break and onto the hard white scar. She followed it upward, a trail traversing her forehead into her hairline. Her hair parted, falling open at the cicatrix. Once, her hair had been part of her glory, luxurious tresses that reached the middle of her back. She’d often worn it loose, a gleaming cascade, a tool of seduction that, coupled with her brilliant mind and animated engagement, drew the lovers–male and female—into her bed.

  How she had extemporized about human freedom during those wild days of radical intellectual discourse! Her parents, progressive vineyard owners in the Cognac-Charente region, gave their workers little cause for revolution. They espoused compromise between the classes—reform rather than revolution. As an English-French couple they believed their marriage itself stood as proof that ancient enmities could be reconciled. But to Julianne this wasn’t enough. Young and idealistic, she espoused revolution, the absolute overthrow of the system that enriched the few at the expense of the many. She dreamt of universal human liberty that allowed all people to freely shape their own lives as they saw fit.

  What she had not understood then was that the consequences of her aristocratic birth were just as inescapable as the consequences of common birth. Her lineage placed her directly in the path of the countrywide bloodshed that followed the storming of the Bastille on July 14, 1789. Her ideals and beliefs did nothing to save her from the angry mobs marauding the countryside that September, baying for the deaths of the noblesse. Oblivious to the progressive policies of her family’s vineyard and to their relationship with the people in the surrounding villages, they raided the manor and summarily sliced the throats of her parents and brothers. They beat her severely when she fought back, slashed her across the face, and left her for dead in the foyer of the house, a pool of blood spreading beneath her on the cold tile floor.

  It was Maman, her childhood governess, who ran up to the estate with her cousins and pulled her out of the flames. Maman hid her from the marauders, nursed her back to health, and eventually escorted her safely back to England.

  Now, at her dressing table, remembering that attack on herself and her family, terror filled her. It leapt out from the shadows at her. Darkness filled the periphery of Julianne’s vision. Her reflection in the mirror retreated toward a vanishing point. Stop, she ordered herself. Stop remembering.

  She gasped, in a sweat, calling herself slowly back to the present moment.

  4. Requirement

  The next morning, on her way to breakfast with the children, Lady Maryam stopped Minnie and asked if she would post a letter to the Duke on her behalf.

  “Of course, Milady.”

  The children, hungry for breakfast and whatever the new day might bring, ran ahead of her and burst into the breakfast room. Edward, impatient because Elizabeth had stopped to say Good Morning to Madame, squeezed past her. His shoulder caught the cloth on the sideboard, and started dragging it—and all the chafing dishes and serving platters atop it—with him. Sophie clapped a hand on the cloth, stopping it all from following Edward, who proceeded obliviously toward his seat.

  To Maryam’s relief, Sophie acted calmly, with no air of irritation that everyone’s breakfast had come within a hair’s breadth of ending up on the floor.

  “Thank you, Sophie,” Lady Maryam murmured.

  “Not at all,” she replied evenly.

  “Lord D’Avenant,” Elizabeth said, before even greeting him, “may we go to the stables again today?”

  Megan started hopping around the table, repeating “Higgy Pop. Higgy Pop. Higgy Pop,” her version of the story Maryam had read her at bedtime, Higglety Pigglety Pop.”

  Lord D’Aven
ant, who had a journal laid open before him at an article titled ‘Norfolk Four Course Crop Rotation System’ closed the periodical. He was wearing reading glasses, small round lenses that gave him a quality of vulnerability Maryam had not noticed before. He took them off and folded them atop his journal.

  “Children!” Maryam hushed. The noise dimmed at once. The children cast sheepish glances in her direction. “Say good morning and settle down.”

  “Good morning,” Elizabeth said. “Morning,” Edward echoed.

  Edward and Elizabeth squeezed into their now-customary seats beside Madame Delacroix, who wisely set down her steaming bowl of café crème while they settled in.

  Maryam took the empty seat at D’Avenant’s left. Now. Where was Megan?

  Beneath D’Avenant’s elbow, inches from his beautiful waistcoat, a dimpled hand snaked into view. Before Maryam could react, Megan closed her fist around a strawberry bulging out of the preserves on his toast.

  As the hand retracted, D’Avenant leapt backwards, his chair toppling behind him, just as the tot’s sticky fingers streaked past his spotless waistcoat.

  “Megan!” Maryam said.

  Megan waved the gooey berry, trying to get it to her mouth. D’Avenant caught her wrist.

  Maryam sprang to her feet. Megan needed correction, but she wouldn’t have her child treated roughly.

  D’Avenant bent over the little girl. Maryam was going to object, but just in time realized he wasn’t holding Megan roughly, he was just gently keeping her hand away from his clothing.

  “You could have some of your own,” he said, stooping to Megan’s eye level, his voice low and soft. “Would you like that?”

  Megan nodded shyly. She had never allowed him so near.

  “Then let us get a few,” he said. He turned his palms upward. “Shall I pick you up so you can see what we’ve got up here?”

  Megan lifted her arms. He took her and went to the sideboard. Glancing over at Maryam, he said: “The mother bear may relax while Megan and I become acquainted.”

  With Megan set on his hip, D’Avenant used one free hand to put a piece of toast on a bread plate. “Now this?” he asked Megan. She nodded. He spooned two generous tablespoons of preserves onto the edge and took the child back to his own chair, which Mo had righted.

  Sophie materialized with a linen cloth. “Milord?”

  He nodded and Sophie draped it across his front.

  D’Avenant handed Megan a teaspoon.“Shall we spread it on the toast, or just eat it like it is?”

  “Eat.” Megan gripped the spoon tightly in her right hand and picked through the berries bare-handed with her left.

  Madame smiled, watching Megan and D’Avenant. “I am thinking a picnic would be wonderful today,” she said. “The day is warm, and we have had too much business on our minds. Sophie? Êtes-vous d'accord?”

  “We’re having a cold lunch today. It would travel very well.”

  “We could bring one of the ponies for Elizabeth to ride–” D’Avenant said.

  “Me, too!” Edward interrupted. “I want to ride, too!”

  “—Two ponies then. Cold lunch, a little vin rouge, some lime cordial for the children—”

  “It sounds lovely,” Maryam said. A welcome respite from negotiating Skylark’s sale.

  “I’ll work until everything is ready,” D’Avenant said, “and then you may come for me in the library.”

  Two hours later, the picnic baskets, ponies, carriages, wagons, and children were set to go in a wagon at the front entrance, beside the phaeton. Sophie declared that Lord D’Avenant could be called.

  “I’ll go!” Edward volunteered, and ran into the house shouting. “We’re ready, Lord D’Avenant! Let’s go-o-o!”

  Lady Maryam cringed.

  “He is so excited, non?” Madame said at her side. “It livens us up to have the little ones here.”

  D’Avenant came out and invited Lady Maryam to join him on the phaeton. A thread of trepidation curled through her. She still hadn’t spoken to him about her clumsy departure the night before.

  When all the entourage was settled and the wagon ready to follow him, he took up the reins. “Walk on,” he told the mare, and led off. D’Avenant exited through the main gates, and turned left.

  “I owe you an apology,” she said.

  “I'm the one who lied.”

  “And you don’t do it very well, either,” she said.

  He smiled. “Perhaps I’m redeemable after all.”

  “Did you wish to come clean about the appraisals, then?”

  “No,” he chuckled. “I do not.”

  “Your redemption leaves something wanting, D’Avenant.”

  He flicked the reins and the mare picked up the pace. “Our picnic spot is just around this bend. On the river, but a tranquil part of it.” Maryam glanced at D’Avenant—the leather threaded between his fingers, his strong legs braced out in front of himself. An unexpected ripple of sensual pleasure ran through her.

  He pulled alongside the water at a point where it was very shallow and burbled pleasantly. This, Maryam reflected, was not the stretch of the river that took children from their parents. A gentle slope rose gently from the river’s edge to a sunny clearing.

  D’Avenant locked the brakes and tied the reins, then jumped down and offered Lady Maryam a hand.

  While Sophie, Minnie, Mo, Brigid, Estelle, Sarena, Normand spread out blankets, unloaded food baskets, and untied the ponies, Maryam spread a large quilt beneath a beech tree so she and Madame could keep each other company.

  In minutes, D’Avenant was playing with the children. They were stalking him, pretending they were lions and he was their prey. “Curious, isn’t it,” Maryam smiled, “how such an agile man keeps getting captured?”

  Across the lawn, D’Avenant crumpled onto his back with a groan. The children bared their teeth and roared ferociously. Squealing with delight, they threw themselves on top of him, swarming over him like ants.

  “Oh, goodness,” Maryam said, sitting forward.

  Madame placed her hand on Maryam’s arm. “It does him good to laugh,” she said. “It is so rare he does.”

  “Are you certain? This exceeds even the loosest bounds of propriety—”

  “A dog knows how to scratch if the fleas annoy him, n’est-ce pas?”

  Maryam wouldn’t have likened him to a dog, but Madame’s point was taken.

  About fifteen minutes later, D’Avenant handed Elizabeth and Edward off to Estelle and Normand for pony rides. Brigid, with Maryam’s consent, took Megan to the water to drop twigs in.

  As he came up the rise to join Maryam and Madame, Maryam couldn’t take her eyes off him. His clothes were dusty, his cheeks flushed, and he moved with the grace of a fencer—athletic, but not muscular. Lithe. When he was relaxed, he looked… she searched for the right word. Beautiful. But then she shook her head. That couldn’t be right. He was a man. He had a broken face.

  As he passed by Sophie, she held out a bottle of red wine and three stemmed glasses for him to bring with him. He came up the hill. Sarena, just behind him, brought plates loaded with fresh-baked buns, hard boiled eggs, cheeses, pickles, preserved meats and sugar cookies.

  “Thank you Sarena,” Maryam said.

  D’Avenant lightly dropped onto the plaid fabric. He poured each of them a glass of wine, stretched out on his side, and ate and drank with his weight resting on one elbow.

  Maryam roused herself. She was staring. Imagining herself lying with him! She shifted her gaze to the river quickly so she wouldn’t blush, and watched tufts of tree pollen land on the water and float downstream. She loved country life. It was so easy to be contented in sunshine and fresh air.

  This picnic reminded her of the year she was seventeen and spent the summer at Lady Sarah Latham’s country home. She and Sarah had met in London and gotten on famously from the moment their eyes met. Their fast friendship had prompted Sarah’s parents to
invite Maryam to spend the summer with them. Three months of days slipped past in a haze of easy companionship, laughter, and shared confidences.

  From wake to sleep Maryam and Sarah were inseparable. They read each others’ minds. Finished each others’ sentences. Never tired of each other’s company. That was the summer her body felt the first stirrings of womanhood. The quickening of her body came upon her suddenly, in full, driving force, out of nowhere. She felt as if she had suddenly ripened. She found herself yearning for an intimacy, a depth of connection she could not articulate, except to say it felt like she was on fire.

  Later, of course, Maryam grew out of that coltish phase. Sarah married and sailed to America with her new husband. Maryam had her coming out to society, and by the time she started receiving suitors, that inaugural rush of physical wakening had steadied into temperance.

  At the end of the week the Duke’s reply to Maryam’s letter arrived. Sophie gave it to Lady Maryam at dinner, and after the meal, she took the packet up to her room to read. She broke the seal. He had obtained the information she requested. Skylark had been appraised twice. Once for 1,800 pounds, and the second time for 2,000 pounds.

  Eighteen hundred!? Two thousand?!

  “You can probably get another 1,000,” Ernest wrote, “because D’Avenant has a sentimental attachment to it. But press no higher. Edgemere is running a tidy profit, and he doesn’t need Skylark. He might like it, but he doesn’t need it. Of the following I can assure you: D’Avenant turned Edgemere from ruin to prosperity in ten short years. He did not do so by carrying unnecessary debt.”

  She dropped the letter to her lap in disbelief. If Skylark was worth 1,800 to 2,000 pounds at most and D’Avenant might pay up to 1,000 over that. That was 3,000 pounds at top. So why would he offer four? It made no sense.

  This must end. She was tired of this cat and mouse game. She left her room. She knew where he was. In his library. She hastened through the gallery, and down the stairs to the ground floor. The doors to the library were open. He was at his desk, working by lamplight.