Microsoft Word - Sherwood, Valerie - Nightsong Read Online Free PDF

boudoir tales, whispered into feminine ears, were so marvelously risque and yet so gallant that they were repeated and tittered over behind waving fans--though seldom murmured into husbands' less appreciative ears.
    It was the lighthearted opinion of the ladies of Port Royal's elite that the fascinating Monsieur Deauville was a nobleman traveling in disguise (a rumor perhaps inspired by his own lips), that he was a man of vast wealth back in France (for was he not everywhere running up bills?), a beau of the Parisian haut monde-and that he had slept with every desirable woman in Paris!
    He presented, therefore, an alluring challenge.
    Carolina did not believe Louis Deauville was a nobleman in disguise. She thought he had been more likely a dancing master or a fencing master back in France-e-certainly that would explain his nimbleness and wiry strength. She had little doubt that he had bedded every pretty lady who was willingto go to bed with him, but she was inclined to doubt that his conquests included the French king's mistresses (as he claimed) or the beauties of the French Court. She thought him a charming rogue and was wary of him.
    But the story that had reached her third-hand over tea with the wife of a rich merchant in a handsome residence on Broad Street had intrigued her indeed. It seemed that Monsieur Deauville had spent a brief time in London. While there he had unhesitatingly hurled himself in front of a runaway carriage and when he had gotten the horses to stop, he had been promptly embraced by the carriage's sole-and trembling-occupant, a striking lady in a peacock-blue gown. She had taken him home with her, regaling him along the way with the story of how she, a former headmistress, had turned her fashionable school into an even more fashionable gaming house.
    At that point Carolina had sat up straighter. Jenny Chesterton! she had thought in amazement. For she herself had attended Mistress Chesterton's School for Young Ladies in London and knew that when scandal had broken over her pretty ears, young Mistress Chesterton had quickly converted her fashionable school into a gaming house.
    "Do go on," Carolina had urged her hostess.
    "Well, there was not much more," her hostess had told her with a shrug. "Save that he claimed he had an affair with a beautiful former charge of the lady, who was in residence at the gaming house." Her lips twitched. "I am not sure that I believe it, but it is a delightful story."
    Save that he had an affair with-l Carolina had set down her cup with a slight clatter.
    Could the affair have been with Reba, her former roommate? Reba who had since caused her so much trouble? Reba had certainly been "in residence" at Jenny Chesterton's gaming house for a time!

    That had been on Thursday, and she had been dying to ask Monsieur Deauville about it ever since.
    Now, as he approached, walking jauntily and twirling his cane, she eyed him speculatively. She would indeed love to question him. . . . But now, with Gilly in tow, was not the time.
    "Perhaps I should invite Monsieur Deauville to dinner as well," she murmured irrepressibly to Hawks. "'Tis said there's safety in numbers, Hawks!"
    Beside her, Hawks had no inclination to reply. He watched with deep disapproval as the Frenchman greeted Carolina effusively. It had not escaped Hawks's attention that Carolina seldom left her front door but that their new French neighbor, a dandy who this morning dangled a single earring and was resplendent in a suit of popinjay-green, managed to stroll along after. He wondered if that was how they managed things in France, getting on with married women, and his dark frown deepened.
    "'Tis good to see you, Monsieur Deauville," Carolina was saying. "But I am surprised that you are still here. I thought you said you were on your way to America?"
    In point of fact, Monsieur Deauville had but recently fled from America with an angry husband thundering on his trail, but he had chosen to claim that he was but lately