An Innocent in Paris Read online

  But doubtless the Duchesse was prepared to sell the girl off to the highest bidder. It was always the way with the Demi-Monde. All they thought about was money and, although from all reports the Duchesse had a packet of her own, it was unlikely that she would be prepared to spend much of it on her niece, apart from setting her up with grand clothes.

  “I’ll drive myself,” Lord Hartcourt said to his chauffeur.

  The man took off his cap respectfully as the motor car moved away.

  Lord Hartcourt had a sudden desire for fresh air. There had been something cloying and over-fragrant in the ballroom and nauseating in the thought of Gardenia being pushed first on to this man and then another until the Duchesse could find someone of whom she approved. Was this one of the Baron’s ideas? Lord Hartcourt wondered.

  He disliked the Baron even more than Gardenia did.

  Having encountered him for over a year now in the Diplomatic Service, he knew that he was a bully and a brute and totally unscrupulous when it came to women. How any woman, even one as déclassée as the Duchesse, could take up with von Knesebech was just beyond his comprehension.

  He felt as though he was being involved in a plot to which he could not yet see the finish. He remembered again Gardenia’s cry for help when the Comte had tried to kiss her in the hall when she first arrived.

  He recalled just how frail and helpless she had looked lying on the sofa, her eyelashes long and dark against the pallor of her cheeks. He had to admit to himself that she looked so different and so lovely tonight.

  There was something about those wide innocent-seeming eyes and that small piquant face which made one feel that she must be telling the truth however incredible it might seem.

  Of course that was ridiculous.

  She must by this time have guessed what her aunt was.

  She could not imagine the women she had met at dinner or seen in the salon came from Parisian Society or that any respectable woman would cross the threshold of Mabillon House. Her air of innocence must be an act, Lord Hartcourt told himself.

  She knew what she was saying when she told him her aunt wanted him to be her friend. Of course she did!

  Well, he just was not having any of that! He had Henriette, she satisfied him and what man could ask for more?

  He must have driven for some miles without realising where he was going, for he found himself in the Bois, nearing one of the restaurants he often patronised. He drew up outside, thought he would go in for a drink and then decided that it looked too full and noisy. The band was certainly raucous after the delicate tones of Ventura’s violins.

  He suddenly decided what he would do. He would visit Henriette. He felt a sudden need for her. At least she was not complicated. There was no pretence about what she was and what she was not.

  “Des fleurs, monsieur?” The throaty question came from an ancient flowerseller with a large basket filled with flowers.

  “Non, merci,” Lord Hartcourt answered. Then he changed his mind. “Give me those!” he said, pointing to a large bunch in the corner of the basket.

  “They have not yet been arranged, monsieur, the flowerseller explained. “They are for buttonholes. My daughter has only just brought them to me from the country.”

  “I will buy the lot,” Lord Hartcourt said tersely.

  He gave her a five franc note, which brought a spate of ‘merci beaucoups’.

  The bunch of white flowers was handed over and Lord Hartcourt set them down beside him on the seat. It was only as he drove away that he realised that they were gardenias. With their green leaves not yet trimmed away, they made a bouquet, the fragrance of which wafted to his nostrils.

  Gardenias!

  They made him think of that damn girl again.

  He put his foot hard on the accelerator. The sooner he saw Henriette the better. She was not expecting him. but that would make their reunion all the more enjoyable. He had been with her between five and seven and, when he had left, she had clung to him a little and begged him not to go so soon.

  He thought of her with affection as he drove back through the Bois de Boulogne.

  He turned down the small unfashionable boulevard where he had bought a house. The whole place seemed deserted.

  He left his car under the trees in the centre of the street, walked across the pavement and opened the door with his latchkey. It gave him an amusing sense of adventure to be stealing in unexpectedly to see Henriette. Usually there was a trim little maid whom he also paid to open the door for him and take his hat.

  Henriette would be waiting for him up the stairs, sometimes dressed exotically, at others sensationally naked, as she had been last night when she wished him to buy her the emerald necklace.

  The carpet was soft and the lights were out in the hall and on the stairs. The streetlamps shining through the window showed him the way. He was well aware that Henriette’s room would not be in darkness.

  She had a horror of the dark and a light was always kept burning by her bedside. When she was a child, her father, to punish her, had shut her up in a dark cupboard and now she had claustrophobia. At the mere idea of being in the dark she became hysterical.

  Softly Lord Hartcourt then turned the handle of Henriette’s bedroom door, holding the bouquet of gardenias in his hand. He thought whimsically that he would scatter them over her pillow, so that her head would be scented with them. As he had expected, the light was on.

  Lord Hartcourt could see Henriette’s red hair trailing over the pillows. Then he stood very still! There was a strange naked arm thrown over Henriette’s shoulders and another head close beside hers.

  Henriette was not alone!

  He must have stood there motionless for perhaps three or four seconds before Henriette opened her eyes. She gave a scream, a scream of sheer terror.

  “You must forgive me if I intrude,” Lord Hartcourt said in an icy voice that seemed to freeze the very air of the room.

  “Mon Dieu! But you said you were not coming tonight!” Henriette gasped.

  The man beside her moved and half-raised himself in the bed. He was middle-aged with greying hair and thick dark eyebrows.

  He stared at Lord Hartcourt with an almost ludicrous expression of embarrassment on his face.

  Lord Hartcourt turned on his heel.

  “May I wish you both ‘good night’?”

  His voice was resonant with sarcasm and then he went out of the door and closed it very quietly behind him.

  As he went downstairs, he could hear Henriette screaming.

  Her voice was shrill and unpleasant and he knew that she would both scream after him and berate her lover, whoever he might be.

  Lord Hartcourt climbed into the car and drove away. He drove furiously, making for the woods, away from the streets and houses of Paris. He was furious not only with Henriette but with himself for having been made to look such a fool.

  It would have been better, he thought, if the man with whom she had been unfaithful to him had been young and attractive, but a middle-aged lover could only mean one thing, that she wanted more money, more jewels and that her greed was insatiable.

  He despised himself for being mixed up with anyone so avaricious and so utterly without scruples.

  When he thought of the bill that he would have to pay for the emerald necklace he had given Henriette the night before, his foot clamped down on the accelerator and he went faster still. It would be easy to refuse to pay the bill, to tell the jeweller he had not sanctioned the gift and that it must be returned. But he knew that he would grit his teeth and pay. He had given his mistress a gift and as a gift she could then keep it. He only hoped that eventually it would throttle her.

  Yes, she could keep her jewels, but he would instruct his Attorney to turn her out of the house immediately.

  He thought to himself bitterly that it would be a long time before he allowed himself to be caught up with such an obvious trollop again.

  He knew now that he had never cared for Henriette, except as a
n acquisition that was the envy of his friends. She was attractive, of course, it was a part of her stock-in-trade. She amused him at times, but he found almost to his relief that he had no affection for her. All that was left was the pique of knowing that she had made a fool of him.

  Dawn was breaking as Lord Hartcourt drove back to Paris. He was suddenly very tired, his anger had burned itself out and all he wanted was his bed and sleep.

  Tomorrow would be time enough to think of what he would tell his friends.

  “You have finished with Henriette?” they would ask. “Why, what has she done?”

  Of one thing he was quite certain, he was not going to tell them the truth. It might be conceit, it might seem childish, but he just could not bear them to laugh at him.

  He had reached the bottom of the Champs-Élysées before he was aware of a fragrance beside him. He must have unconsciously carried the flowers he had bought for Henriette back into the car and set them down beside him.

  The big fountains of the Place de la Concorde were in front of him. They were iridescent in the morning sunshine, catching the first gleams of gold that were creeping up the sombre sky.

  Lord Hartcourt drew the car to a stop and then, picking up the bouquet, he leant over the door and threw the flowers into the water.

  They landed with a splash in the middle of the basin. The string that tied them together must have come loose, for they floated away singly, their white faces turned towards the sky and their green leaves encircling them.

  They looked very fragile and he saw that some of them were not yet in bloom but were only half-open buds.

  Annoyingly and aggravatingly they reminded him of Gardenia!

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Lord Hartcourt returned to the Embassy late on Monday afternoon. He had spent Sunday in the country in an ancient Château.

  He enjoyed the company of his French friends and he had been annoyed to find that on this occasion they had other English visitors besides himself.

  He had met Lady Roehampton several times before in England, but he had not expected to find her in Paris or that she should be accompanied by her debutante daughter.

  Lord Hartcourt had not been a few hours at the Château before he realised all too clearly that Lady Roehampton looked on him as a very desirable son-in-law. She was charming and no one knew better how to charm than Lady Roehampton, who had been a great beauty in her time, but on this occasion she was doing her best to attract Lord Hartcourt not for herself but for her daughter.

  The Roehampton girl was dull, shy and obviously determined to make as little effort on her own behalf as possible. After enduring her company for several meals and on some very obviously manoeuvred walks, Lord Hartcourt found himself longing passionately for Paris and for any gay uninhibited spot where debutantes and their matchmaking Mamas were not likely to be found.

  He therefore left on Monday morning earlier than he had intended, making as excuse the amount of work he had to do at the Embassy. But, as the journey back to Paris was slow and the day hot, he arrived in an exceedingly bad temper.

  He stalked up to his rooms on the second floor of the Embassy building, knowing that no one expected him back until the next day and feeling that Paris on a warm day was a waste of time when he might have been in the country fresh air.

  However, anything was better than Lady Roehampton’s machinations.

  His rooms at the Embassy were quite delightful. They constituted a self-contained flat and, although he could enter from the main building, he could also use a small staircase with a private door which led into the garden and only he had a key.

  His secretary had placed the letters in the usual three piles that he knew so well. On the left hand were those that were personal and unopened, in the centre were those of Diplomatic importance, which were also unopened, and on the right were those that the Ambassador had sent him to deal with and which were opened and neatly clipped together.

  One glance was enough to tell Lord Hartcourt who had written the majority of letters in his personal pile.

  There was no mistaking the mauve writing paper with the flamboyant monogram. There was also Henriette’s familiar scent, which seemed to percolate the room. One, two, three, four letters! She must, Lord Hartcourt thought, have written feverishly the whole of yesterday and sent them round at varying intervals.

  He stared at her large, slightly illiterate writing and, with a gesture of disgust, picked up the letters one by one and dropped them into the wastepaper basket. He then walked across the room and opened the window, the light breeze coming from the Champs-Élysées seemed to sweep the last vestige of Henriette from the room and from his mind.

  The past was closed and he had no intention of reopening it.

  He poured himself a glass of Perrier, drank it and sat down at the desk. As he was there, he might as well do some work.

  It was too early to go out in search of amusement and, besides, for the moment at least, he had lost all interest in women.

  He opened the rest of his private mail. There were innumerable invitations to parties, Receptions, dinners, soirées, all socially very gratifying, but Lord Hartcourt knew only too well how the same formula would be repeated on each occasion.

  The same people would greet him and sit next to him at dinner, they would mouth the same old platitudes and the same entertainment would be provided by each hostess in varying degrees of expenditure.

  He yawned and began to slit open the Diplomatic letters.

  Then there was a knock at the door.

  “Come in,” Lord Hartcourt called out without turning his head.

  “I have just heard that you have returned unexpectedly,” said a well-known voice.

  Lord Hartcourt jumped to his feet.

  “Good evening, your Excellency. I did not realise that it was you.”

  “I was not expecting you until tomorrow,” the Ambassador replied, “but I am glad you are back. I have various issues to discuss with you.”

  “Why did you not send for me?” Lord Hartcourt enquired.

  “I have just come back from a luncheon at the Traveller’s,” the Ambassador answered. “Jarvis told me that you were here so I thought I would come and visit you. Do you mind?”

  “No, I am always delighted to see your Excellency,” Lord Hartcourt said with obvious sincerity.

  The Ambassador settled himself comfortably in one of the deep armchairs.

  “Things are bad, Hartcourt,” he began.

  Lord Hartcourt raised his eyebrows.

  “Worse than usual?”

  “Much worse,” the Ambassador replied. “The Kaiser is playing a double game. You will remember when the King travelled to Berlin in February he said openly that his Majesty was merely coming to ‘thwart and annoy’? Well, the Germans have decided to annoy us. They are building more Dreadnought Battleships.”

  “Not more, surely, your Excellency?” Lord Hartcourt expostulated.

  “Four more is what I am told. You know that Reginald McKenna, speaking for the Sea Lords, has demanded that we should build four to be equal with them? The King now wants eight!”

  “England cannot afford it,” Lord Hartcourt protested.

  “That is what the Opposition is saying,” the Ambassador answered wearily. “They want the money spent on social services. But Battleships we will have whatever the cost might be! They will, I believe, be cheaper in the long run.”

  “What do you mean by that?” Lord Hartcourt enquired. “Anstrudter returned from Berlin last night. He told me that it is now absolutely confirmed that at all their Regimental dinner parties the Germans raise their glasses and toast ‘Der Tag’.”

  “Meaning the day they fight us?” Lord Hartcourt commented drily.

  “Exactly,” the Ambassador agreed. “The Germans have always loathed us.”

  “I am surprised that anyone should have thought otherwise,” Lord Hartcourt said slowly.

  “God knows that the King has done all he can to improve the r
elationship between our country and theirs. But things are looking serious. I thought you ought to know.”

  “Thank you, your Excellency. I am grateful for your confidence,” Lord Hartcourt said.

  The Ambassador rose to his feet.

  “Incidentally the Germans have changed their codes so, naturally, we have had to change ours. Only the new Naval one has arrived so far. I don’t suppose we shall have much use for it. The Diplomatic one has been promised in a few days.”

  “How long will it take us to break their new ones?” Lord Hartcourt asked with almost a boyish grin.

  “I cannot answer that question,” the Ambassador replied in all seriousness. “Our Secret Service has been extraordinarily inefficient lately. Anstrudter tells me it is getting more and more difficult to employ anyone in Berlin. The contacts we have are small people of little use. I think I had better have a talk with MI5 next time I go to England.”

  “I think that would be a good idea, your Excellency,” Lord Hartcourt said. “I suppose the French Government are aware of all these developments?”

  “The French don’t trouble to disguise their hatred of the German race,” the Ambassador answered. “In a way it makes it easier for them. We have to pretend to be friends, realising all the time that the hands we clasp are just waiting to point a pistol at our bellies.”

  “A charming thought,” Lord Hartcourt said drily. “Anyway, if Tubors from the French Secret Service calls, you can be comparatively frank with him,” the Ambassador said. “He is a good man and there is not much he misses. I wish I could say the same of all our chaps.”

  He walked to the door.

  “Do you like your new job, Hartcourt?” he asked as he reached it.

  “Very much, your Excellency. I find it most interesting.”

  The Ambassador’s tired face seemed to brighten.

  “I am glad about that. I like having you here.”

  He walked briskly away and Lord Hartcourt closed the door after him.