An Innocent in Paris Read online

  When Lord Hartcourt called, he found his mistress on the satin-covered bed, wearing nothing except for the magnificent emerald necklace, which showed up the ivory whiteness of her skin.

  *

  It was some time later before the necklace was actually mentioned.

  “What is this bauble?” Lord Hartcourt asked her, touching one of the big stones with his finger and lifting a glass of champagne that he held in his other hand to his lips.

  “You like it?” Henriette asked.

  She had a habit of asking a question and looking under her eyelashes in a manner that was entrancingly provocative.

  “Have you a partiality for emeralds?” Lord Hartcourt next asked. “I am quite prepared to admit that they are becoming.”

  “I love them,” Henriette said and then with a sudden drop of her eyes, so that her lashes lay dark against her cheeks, she murmured, “but alas I cannot afford them.”

  “They are expensive?” Lord Hartcourt queried a little drily.

  “This, of course, is a bargain,” Henriette said quickly. “It is supposed to have belonged to Marie Antoinette and to have been part of the jewels given to her by her Swedish lover. A gift of love, mon brave.”

  She leaned forward as she spoke, her lips very close to Lord Hartcourt, the exotic scent that perfumed her whole body was seeming to envelop him.

  He touched the rounded column of her throat above the necklace.

  “But still an expensive gift, Henriette.”

  She pouted and drew back.

  “Are you saying I am not worth it?” she asked. “Are you bored with me? There are other men, men who are as rich and even as distinguished as you, but somehow – ”

  She paused.

  “Go on,” Lord Hartcourt prompted, “somehow what?”

  “Somehow they don’t make my heart beat any faster,” Henriette replied.

  Again there was that provocative look from beneath her eyelashes. For a moment there was no answer and she pouted again.

  She rose on her feet and walked across to the dressing table. Every movement was one of grace. Her body was lean and lovely as that of a young tigress. She stood staring at herself in the mirror, noting how the emeralds accentuated not only her white skin but the vivid red of her hair.

  She put up her arms and, as she pulled out the hairpins, the long red tresses fell over her shoulders and down past her waist.

  Lying against the pillows with a cynical expression on his face, Lord Hartcourt watched her.

  Then he said quietly,

  “Your methods are certainly primitive, my dear Henriette. Very well, you can have the necklace.”

  “I may?”

  The sulky expression vanished from her face.

  She turned and stood for a moment poised with her arms outstretched and ran towards him, a flashing mercurial beauty of white and red and green.

  He felt her lips, the soft silk of her hair and her hands caress him.

  “Tu es charmant. Merci mille fois. I am so happy, so very very happy!”

  Driving back to the Embassy a little later, Lord Hartcourt reflected how very easy it was to give pleasure when it was only a question of money. His friends would doubtless condemn him for being such an extravagant fool and then envy him because he possessed the most glamorous and most talked of Demi-Mondaine in the whole of Paris.

  He wondered why in these circumstances he always felt slightly depressed when he left Henriette. She amused him, she made herself extremely charming and she was in every way what a mistress should be, excitingly and unceasingly attractive.

  Why then, he wondered, did he often feel that there was something missing? Something that should be there in their relationship but which was not.

  There had indeed been a great many women in his life, but no one quite as satisfactory as Henriette. Granted she was, as regards her profession, in a class of her own. He knew that she spoke the truth when she said that there were other men only too willing to step into his shoes should their liaison come to an end.

  As far as Lord Hartcourt could see, there was no risk that it would, he had given her a very charming house, a motor car, a number of servants to wait on her, he paid bills that were out of all proportion to what any other man would have expected to spend on his mistress and he paid them without grumbling. He had also provided her with some very fine jewellery.

  The Demi-Mondaines had, as Bertie said, become more and more demanding of those to whom they granted their favours.

  But Henriette, unlike some of the others, at least expressed her gratitude and, although her demands were somewhat exorbitant, she made them with a finesse that took the sting out of the transaction.

  At the same time Lord Hartcourt knew that he was not satisfied.

  What did he want, he asked himself.

  The car turned into the Champs-Élysées and he looked with an almost jaundiced eye at the elegance of those still sitting under the chestnut trees even though the period of cinq-à-sept was over and soon it would be time for dinner.

  ‘What do I want?’ he asked himself again.

  He felt bored because he had promised after he had dined with the Ambassador to collect Henriette and take her on to Maxim’s. Friday night at Maxim’s was becoming too much of a habit. The magic and excitement paled a little when one knew that one would see the same faces, hear the same laughter, eat the same food and listen to the same fatuous jokes.

  ‘In fact I am feeling bloody-minded about the whole thing!’ Lord Hartcourt told himself.

  He stepped out of the motor car and then walked up the broad marble steps of the British Embassy.

  “Mr. Cunningham is waiting to see your Lordship,” the butler informed him.

  “Where is he?” Lord Hartcourt asked.

  “Mr. Cunningham went up to your Lordship’s room.”

  “Very good,” Lord Hartcourt nodded. “What time is dinner, Jarvis?”

  “At eight o’clock, my Lord. You have exactly forty minutes.”

  “Thank you, Jarvis. Are we wearing decorations tonight?”

  “The Sultan of Morocco will be dining here tonight, my Lord. I have instructed your valet that decorations are required.”

  “Thank you.”

  It was an unnecessary conversation he thought, as he climbed the stairs towards his own suite of rooms.

  His valet had been with him five years now and seldom made a mistake.

  He opened the door of his sitting room and found Bertram lying on the sofa with his feet on another chair, reading the English newspapers.

  “Hello, Vane,” he said making no effort to rise. “I want to see you.”

  “I don’t want to see you,” his cousin answered. “I want a bath and there is an official dinner tonight so I have to be downstairs at ten minutes to eight at the latest.”

  “You have time,” Bertie answered. “I wanted to show you this.”

  He rose to his feet and drew a letter from his pocket.

  “Read it, my dear fellow,” Lord Hartcourt urged, opening the door into his bedroom. “I dare not be late. Sir James will have a stroke if we are all not grouped about like unnecessary pieces of furniture by the time the first guests arrive. What does it say and who is it from?”

  Bertram followed him into his bedroom and perched himself on the edge of the bed.

  “It’s from the Duchesse,” he said, “and if you can tell me what it means I will be very grateful, I am damned if I can understand it.”

  “Read it,” Lord Hartcourt commanded.

  He took off his coat as he spoke and handed it to his valet.

  Holding the letter almost at arm’s length, Bertram complied with his cousin’s request,

  “Dear Mr. Cunningham,

  I understand from my niece that you have kindly asked us to drive with you in the Bois de Boulogne tomorrow morning. I regret to say that, as my niece has just arrived, we cannot accept your kind invitation. I hope, however, to see you tomorrow evening and that your cousin, Lord H
artcourt, will accompany you.

  Yours very sincerely,

  Lily de Mabillon.”

  Bertram finished reading and throwing down the letter on the bed looked at his cousin.

  “What the hell do you make of that?” he asked.

  “It seemed quite an ordinary refusal to me,” Lord Hartcourt remarked.

  “Ordinary!” Bertram expostulated. “From Lily de Mabillon! You realise she is saying that the girl ought to be chaperoned and so I had no right to invite her to drive with me in the Bois. Lily de Mabillon, I ask you! And what is her little game? She just cannot keep the girl locked up and, even if she does, no one is going to believe she is anything but Lily’s niece.”

  “After that incoherent statement,” Lord Hartcourt said, “I imagine you are suggesting that the Duchesse should have welcomed you with open arms. She clearly has ideas for her niece, Marquises, Earls, Barons or Counts. They all take precedence over a mere Honourable who, as Lily knows only too well, is often rather short of ready cash.”

  “You think it’s money, do you?” Bertram asked.

  “Well, I would imagine so,” Lord Hartcourt said. “After all she would want the best for her niece. It’s natural.”

  “Damn it all, Vane, if you tell me I am not good enough for Lily de Mabillon’s niece, I really shall be offended. I may not be a Croesus when it comes to money, but I am a damned sight better than those ghastly creatures she has hanging round the gaming tables.”

  “Perhaps that is why she does not want odds and bods hanging round her niece.”

  “I think you are now being really insulting,” Bertram said hotly. “You are certainly not explaining the letter. You would think she would be glad for the girl to get an invitation as soon as she arrived in Paris.”

  “She will have plenty of invitations, especially when the Duchesse has dressed her up.”

  Bertram let out an exclamation.

  “That reminds me,” he said. “I had something else to tell you, but you put it out of my head. What do you think is the latest rumour?”

  “I seldom give credit to rumours of any sort,” Lord Hartcourt said in a bored voice.

  His valet helped him into a dressing gown and he turned towards the bathroom.

  “No, wait. You must listen to this,” Bertram carried on. “Two people have told me about it already. I am quite certain it is true.”

  “Well, what is it?” Lord Hartcourt asked impatiently.

  “They say,” Bertram said eagerly, “that Lily took her niece to Worth’s this afternoon and she was wearing nothing, nothing mark you, except for a chinchilla cape worth millions of francs. She begged Worth to dress the girl, telling him that unless he did so, she had nothing, literally nothing, to wear.”

  “I can guess who told you that,” Lord Hartcourt said. “It is so obviously feminine.”

  He walked from the bedroom and closed the door of the bathroom firmly behind him.

  “Damn it all, Vane, you cannot go just like that. Do you think it’s true?”

  He went to the bathroom door and shouted,

  “Do you think it’s true, Vane? Everybody in Paris is going to say it is, are they not?”

  “I have not the slightest idea,” Lord Hartcourt replied through the door. “Go and dress for dinner, Bertie. If your little English sparrow goes out anywhere tonight, she will surely be at Maxim’s.”

  “By Jove, so she will!” Bertram exclaimed with some satisfaction. “Thank you, Vane, I will see you later.”

  There was a roar of rushing water behind the door, which told him that his cousin could not hear him.

  “Good night, Hickson,” he said to the valet who was tidying Lord Hartcourt’s things.

  “Good night, sir,” the valet said respectfully but when Bertie was out of hearing, Hickson muttered to himself,

  ‘Women, they’re all the same, women be. They always cost a man more than he can afford.’

  He glanced wistfully as he spoke at a pile of golden sovereigns that Lord Hartcourt had emptied out of his pocket onto the dressing table. The French girl he had been taking around was costing Hickson far more than he could spare out of his wages. For two weeks he had missed sending a money order to his mother and he felt bitterly ashamed of himself. There was something about the French girls, he thought, that got into your blood and under your skin and you just could not resist them.

  Hickson stacked the little pile of sovereigns neatly and knew that he would never touch a farthing of Lord Hartcourt’s money, however tempted he might be. He wondered if he dared ask for a rise. He knew that the little he sent his mother made all the difference to her comfort and yet he just could not resist that fascinating broken accent and the greedy little hand which seemed always to be held out for something.

  The Embassy dinner was identical with every other dinner which took place in the large panelled dining room with a footman behind each chair and the great golden ornaments and heavy chandelier interspersed with orchids and smilax.

  Lord Hartcourt was seated next to the beautiful Countess of Warwick, who regaled him with titbits about the Court in England. She interspersed these with her revolutionary ideas on Socialism, a creed that she had espoused much to the horror of her friends.

  “How is His Majesty?” Lord Hartcourt asked.

  “Getting plumper and at times very irascible,” Lady Warwick answered, but he still has an eye for the ladies, as Paris found last year. Mrs. Keppel keeps him amused. In fact he goes nowhere without her. But, although he has aged, he still notices a pretty face.”

  Lady Warwick, who had been one of the greatest beauties of her day, gave a little sigh.

  “We are all getting older,” she said. “It is very depressing. Make the most of your youth, dear Lord Hartcourt, it is something you can never have twice.”

  “You will always be beautiful,” Lord Hartcourt said in the tone of a man who states a fact rather than pays a compliment.

  She smiled at him, a gracious, unembarrassed smile of a woman who has been fêted for many years.

  “Thank you,” she said. “And who are you in love with at the moment?”

  “Nobody,” Lord Hartcourt answered truthfully.

  “But what a waste of time!” Lady Warwick exclaimed. “Men should always be in love, more in love than the women they court. It is the only way to keep the balance of the sexes.”

  “I must believe you as you obviously speak from experience,” Lord Hartcourt said, his eyes twinkling.

  Lady Warwick laughed.

  “So much experience that one day I must write a book. It is becoming the fashion. I shall put you in my book, Lord Hartcourt, as a very difficult and rather dangerous young man.”

  Lord Hartcourt raised his eyebrows.

  “Dangerous?” he questioned.

  “Yes,” Lady Warwick answered. “Because you are so reserved and controlled you will make women always fall in love with you while you keep yourself severely in check. Then it is inevitable that their hearts will be broken.”

  Lord Hartcourt’s expression seemed to darken.

  “I am afraid your Ladyship has a very poor opinion of me,” he remarked.

  His voice was harsh, and Lady Warwick, who had been speaking lightly, was startled. Then, at the back of her mind, she remembered a whisper that someone, some great beauty older than himself, had treated Lord Hartcourt rather harshly when he was very young. She had led him on, enslaved him and then cast him aside for someone more important. A Royal personage whom she had felt to be a more desirable catch than the somewhat callow youth.

  ‘So he has not forgotten,’ Lady Warwick thought to herself. ‘The wound still hurts him. Perhaps that is why he looks so cynical.’

  Aloud she said,

  “I am teasing you and you must forgive me. I am sure that you are always a model of kindness and consideration to the weaker sex.”

  “That sounds infernally dull,” Lord Hartcourt retorted. “I am afraid that the references you are giving me are not par
ticularly good ones.”

  “If you will come and stay at Warwick when you are next in England. I promise you that my assessment of your character will be couched in the most glowing terms,”

  “I accept willingly,” Lord Hartcourt replied. “I am told that the pheasants are going to be particularly good this year.”

  “You shall come when the King comes,” Lady Warwick said. “You know how much he enjoys a good shoot.”

  Lord Hartcourt thanked her, making a resolution that nothing would induce him to go to one of the huge pheasant slaughters, which amused King Edward, but which many sportsmen found too much of a good thing.

  It was a relief when dinner had come to an end and the Ambassadress was signalling to the ladies so that they could leave the gentlemen alone. Knowing that his job would be to talk to the Sultan, Lord Hartcourt moved his chair accordingly and poured himself another glass of port.

  The evening dragged on. When the gentlemen joined the ladies a singer from the Opera House regaled them with excerpts from Carmen.

  Lord Hartcourt was relieved when the Sultan finally rose to go. He accompanied him to his motor car and when he went back to the drawing room he found the Ambassador yawning behind his hand.

  “I think we did a good job tonight, Hartcourt,” he remarked.

  “I hope so, your Excellency.”

  “I think that I managed to explain the English point of view very much more clearly than our pompous Politicians had managed to do,” the Ambassador commented. “Anyway we will all wait for the results.”

  “Yes indeed, your Excellency,” Lord Hartcourt said, not having much idea of what the Ambassador was talking about. He had not followed the intricate letters exchanged between Morocco and England.

  “Well, goodnight,” the Ambassador said. “I expect you are going out now, Hartcourt. Maxim’s, isn’t it, on a Friday?”

  “Yes, your Excellency.”

  “Thank God I am too old for all that junketing. We have the Germans to lunch tomorrow and, if I don’t have a good night’s sleep, I shall lose my temper with them and that would be fatal.”

  “It would indeed, your Excellency,” Lord Hartcourt said and this time he knew in every detail how much depended on tomorrow’s lunch.