“Why did you not inquire the mission of this French male person, Burgess?”
“Her Ladyship said it was none of my affair. Her tone and words were very much in your fashion, my lord.”
“It has never made you shut your mouth before!”
“Her Ladyship also asked me about my nephew who has a putrid throat, my lord. You have never shown such solicitude, thus, I favored her with my silence.”
“Damn you. I didn’t know you had a nephew!”
“No, my lord.”
Douglas, still more intrigued than otherwise, walked quickly down the corridor toward the back of the house. The morning room gave onto the enclosed garden. It was light and airy, a delightful room. He hadn’t been in here often. Sinjun had told him it was a room for the ladies and for him to stay away. He didn’t knock on the door, just opened it quietly. He saw a long-faced young gentleman dressed in frayed black, sitting across from Alexandra. He was silent. She was saying slowly, “Je vais à Paris demain. Je vais prendre mon mari avec moi.”
The young man exploded with evident pleasure. “Excellent, madame! Et maintenant—”
Douglas said abruptly from the doorway, “I am not going with you to Paris tomorrow, Alexandra. Nor is there anything excellent about such a suggestion.”
Under his fascinated eye, she flushed to the roots of her red hair, sputtered several times, then said to the French male person opposite her, “Je crois que c’est ici mon mari.”
“You only think I’m your husband?” Douglas nodded to the Frenchman, who was now on his feet, staring at him nervously, fiddling with his watch fob. A watch fob!
“What is he doing here, Alexandra?”
She was on her feet too and she was running lightly toward him, giving him a fat smile. “Ah, he is just a very nice young gentleman I met . . . well, yes, I met him at Gunthers’ and I asked him to visit here and we could, well, we could talk about things.”
“Things French?”
“I suppose you could say that.”
“Are you paying him?”
“Well, yes.”
“He is spying for you? Do you expect him to follow me and eavesdrop on my conversations and report back to you?”
She stared at him. “You really believe I would do that, Douglas?”
“No,” he said shortly. “No, I don’t, at least not in the usual run of things. But I do believe you would do anything you could think of to help me even when I don’t require it or want it or need it and would, in fact, beat you if you tried it.”
She cocked her head to one side. “You are saying several things there, Douglas, and I’m not at all certain—”
“Dammit, woman, who is this fellow and what is he doing here?”
Her chin went into the air. “Very well. His name is Monsieur Lessage and he is giving me French lessons.”
“What?”
“You heard me. If you would now leave, Douglas, we are not yet through.”
Douglas cursed in French with such sophisticated fluency that the young Frenchman was moved to give him a very toothy approving smile. He said something quickly to Douglas, and Douglas said something even more quickly back to him. Then the two men proceeded to speak in that accursed language, excluding her, making her feel like an outsider.
“Douglas,” she said in a very loud voice, “Monsieur Lessage is my teacher. You are interrupting us. S’il vous plaît, please leave.”
Douglas said something to Monsieur and the man grinned.
“I apologize, Alexandra, but Monsieur just remembered that he has another lesson to give, very shortly, and all the way on the other side of London.” Douglas shook the man’s hand, and money went from her husband’s hand into the Frenchman’s.
Alexandra wanted to hit him. She wished she could curse him in the fluent French he used so effortlessly. No, all she wanted was just one French curse word, just one. Her hands were fisted at her sides. She waited for the door to close, then bounded to her feet. “How dare you! He was my teacher, he was not at your beck and command! Ah, I would like to tell you in French just how angry I am!”