Lisette started to speak, then shook her head. “Come into the drawing room.”
The Duchess didn’t hesitate. Only the truth would serve, and she spit it out quickly with no digressions, speaking as quickly as her French would allow, finishing finally, “ . . . So you see, I must consummate my marriage with his lordship else he could annul it and then all would be lost, for him, that is. I was told that you were an honest woman, Mademoiselle DuPlessis, that you weren’t out to . . . well . . . take all his money. Would you help me save him?”
Lisette could only stare at the beautiful young woman sitting so calmly opposite her. “You are truly married to him? You truly drugged him? All of this is true?”
The Duchess nodded. “It is true, all of it.”
“I can’t imagine Marcus standing for it. Mon Dieu! A woman getting the better of him. It would not be a happy thought for him. It would wound his male dignity to eternity, I think. Ah, it is glorious what you did.” This brought out a wicked smile that the Duchess saw before Lisette lowered her eyes. “My Marcus, he must be truly enraged. He must be beside himself, you, a girl, outsmarting him. He is a man who must be in control. Is he even now tearing Paris apart with his bare hands?”
The Duchess smiled, she couldn’t help herself. “I imagine he would if his ribs weren’t so very sore. Perhaps he will after he has healed. However, I hope that by next week he will see more reason than not, and realize that what he now has he won’t want to give up again.”
“And what would you like me to do?”
“I would like to give you ten thousand francs to change your lodging and not see Marcus again. I do not wish you to be hurt financially for your assistance in this matter, thus I willingly give you the francs so that you can find a new lodging and a new gentleman that you like.”
“I see,” Lisette said, her mind racing. Ten thousand francs! It was a great deal of money, surely enough to tide her over until she had a new protector, one of her choice, one like Marcus, not one she had to settle for. She wondered if she would find another man like Marcus, a man who was an excellent lover, a man who enjoyed a woman’s pleasure, a man who knew more ways to pleasure than even she, Lisette, had yet experienced. She looked over at Marcus’s new wife, a young lady who really was quite lovely and quite nice, but there was such innocence about her, such an air of frankness and simplicity. Marcus would surely eat her for his breakfast. She had drugged him and married him? All to save him? It was all a very strange notion to Lisette. Then she sat back and thought about this entire strange interview. She found herself beginning to laugh. “I am sorry,” she said after a moment. “It’s just that a wife coming to see a gentleman’s mistress—it has never happened to me before. It is too much.” She wiped her eyes and smiled at the Duchess. “And you aren’t jealous. If you don’t approve of me, you hide it well. Don’t you care anything about his lordship?”
“Oh yes,” the Duchess said, “but that isn’t the point, don’t you see?”
“Yes, perhaps I do see,” Lisette said slowly as she rose. “His lordship will be here in three hours. That is his normal time. I have much to do if I am to be gone before he arrives.”
The Duchess rose. She pulled a small slip of paper from her reticule. “Here is the address of a new lodging in the Faubourg Saint Honoré. There are many embassies there, many gentlemen of wealth and influence. The apartment is very close to the Elysée Palace, a center of power.”
Lisette walked to stand face-to-face with the Duchess. She said, “I have never met a lady like you before. You are too young to be as you are, so very understanding, so accepting of the fact that I have slept with the man you have married. I am fond of Marcus, but he is like a volcano. You appear to be more like Lake Como, all calm and clear, with no waves.”
The Duchess smiled. “Perhaps. However, what is important here is that Marcus not annul our marriage. I do thank you for your help, Mademoiselle DuPlessis.”
Lisette said, “Next to the Elysée Palace, you say? Excellent, just excellent.” She paused, then very gently she laid her hand on the lady’s sleeve. “Marcus is a good man. Don’t let him hurt you, madame.”
“Because he is who he is, it is impossible for him not to hurt me.” With those confusing words, the Duchess left her husband’s mistress, her husband’s former mistress.
She left the door to the drawing room open. She heard him come in the front door, slam it and yell for Spears, then Badger, and when neither of those two very intelligent gentlemen responded, he stomped into the drawing room. He looked like a very handsome bandit in his officer’s scarlet-and-white uniform, his sword strapped to his waist. Uniforms should be outlawed, she thought. It made men look too splendid. Just now Marcus looked dangerous and splendid, an unlikely combination, but it was true.
He stopped in the doorway when he saw her, seated next to the fire, a book in her hands. She was dressed charmingly, even he realized that, in a gown of gossamer yellow muslin, her beautiful black hair loosely braided and wound through with yellow ribbon on top of her head. She wore no jewelry.
Except for that plain golden band on her third finger, that damned wedding ring she’d shoved on her own finger. He certainly hadn’t done it, damn her.
She smiled at him. “Would you care to have dinner now, Marcus? It’s very late, but Badger prepared dishes that wouldn’t be ruined if you weren’t here earlier, which, of course, you weren’t. Or would you care to change and bathe?”
Marcus stopped himself. With great difficulty, he managed to keep his mouth shut, managed to keep the furious words unsaid, at least for the moment. He strolled into the room. He pulled off his cloak and tossed it over the back of a chair. He walked to the fireplace and stretched out his hands to the flames, for it was an unseasonably cool evening for early June. It would rain later, the air was thick with moisture.
“How are your ribs?”
“Yet another question, Duchess?”
She said nothing more.
“Yes, my ribs are better. There is still pulling, but I hadn’t really noticed them all that much. As you know, I intended to visit my mistress this evening. But it is such a very odd thing.”
She remained studiously silent. He said in a low furious voice, “Couldn’t you at least flinch? Perhaps raise a flush on those pale cheeks of yours?”
She said nothing.
“It seems Lisette is gone. No one was able to tell me where. She left in the early afternoon in a very nice carriage, all her valises piled atop. Do you find that strange, Duchess?”
“Should I believe it strange, Marcus?”
“Where did you send her, Duchess?”