A Kiss at Midnight (21 page)

Beckham shrugged. “All this questioning . . . so unpleasant, gentlemen. Am I expected to remember every coquette whom I’ve met in my years? Almack’s is full of dissipated fair ones.” He drained his champagne. “I really must retire to bed.”

“No, no,” Gabriel said gently. “There is no reason for flummery amongst ourselves, Lord Beckham. Do you or do you not remember the name of the third young lady whom you accused of making an unwanted advance?”

Beckham set his teeth.

“I’ve got it,” Wrothe said. “Her last name was Wodderspoon, though I’ll be damned if I can remember the rest of it.”

“Sir Patrick Wodderspoon,” Dewberry said, drawing his brows together. “Died years ago; we were at Eton together.”

“No pa,” Algie said mournfully. “She had no pa either.”

“Dear me,” Gabriel commented. “England seems to have suffered a rash of trollopy young ladies without fathers.”

“All
right
,” Beckham snapped. He jerked his chin at the footman. “You. More champagne.”

There was silence as the wine gurgled into his cup. He drank, and looked up, a fugitive sort of courage burning in his eyes. “They wanted it anyhow,” he said. “They’re all nothing but cattle in fine clothing. Scratch the surface of a supposed lady and you find nothing more than a slattern, opening her legs to any spark of the first stare who happens by.”

“But you are no spark of the first stare. An obscure phrase, but clear enough,” Gabriel said. He turned and nodded to the footman. “Please fetch Berwick. Lord Beckham will be leaving shortly.”

“He could have done that to my Victoria,” Algie said, staring at Beckham with a kind of blurry horror. “She ain’t got no pa either. And then she’d have been ruined.”

“At this point it’s too late to help Miss Wodderspoon,” Dewberry said, folding his arms over his chest. “And Delia is married, snug and tight. But Miss Effie Starck—now that’s a problem. Because I would guess that the young men aren’t taking to her, not after your story.”

“He should marry her,” Algie said. “And he should promise on his word of honor that he’ll never do anything like this again.”

“He hasn’t got a word of honor,” Dewberry said, at the same moment that Wrothe said, “I doubt Miss Effie would take him. He’s too ugly, among other things.” He said it coolly, over the rim of his glass.

Another blotchy flush was rising up Beckham’s neck. He turned his back on Lord Wrothe and snapped a bow to Gabriel. “I ascertain that you’d like me to leave this moldering pile of bricks, Your Highness, and I will. Gladly.”

“Not just yet,” Gabriel said. “You will be leaving; my inestimable Berwick will help you along on your journey. But first . . . we really do have to discuss the question of making amends to Miss Effie Starck.”

Beckham’s titter had a virulent undertone to it now. “I’ll go out there and tell the pack of them, shall I? I’ll tell them that I had a kiss off the wench and she kissed like a dead fish, so I saved other men the trouble.”

Gabriel’s fist slammed into Beckham’s jaw. He flew backward, smashed into the edge of the billiard table, and caromed to the floor.

“Is he out?” Toloose asked, after Beckham didn’t stir.

“No,” Algie said, carefully pouring his champagne over the man’s face. “I think his eyelids are twitching.”

“Waste of good champagne,” Wrothe observed. “Though I want to congratulate you on your forbearance, Prince. I thought you were going to have at him when he ventured into barnyard talk.”

Gabriel walked over and hauled Beckham to his feet. The man blinked and swayed, but kept upright. “Do we need to have further conversation, Lord Beckham?”

“I’ll begad if you didn’t break my jaw,” Beckham said, putting a finger in his mouth to feel his teeth.

“Shall we practice what you are going to say about Miss Effie Starck?”

“I’ll tell them that the prince wanted me to clear the name of his little canary bird, shall I?”

Over he went again, this time sprawling on the billiard table itself.

“Don’t throw any champagne on him,” Toloose cried, alarmed. “You’ll ruin the felt!”

Algie pulled Beckham to a sitting position on the edge of the table. His eyelids fluttered, but then his head rolled over and he slumped back down on the table.

“Tiresome,” Gabriel observed, “but I believe that he is likely ready to tell the truth.” He turned to another footman. “Go to Lady Dagobert’s chambers. Give her my compliments and request that she attend me here, in the billiards room, on a matter of utmost urgency.”

Dewberry’s mouth fell open and Toloose laughed aloud.

A few minutes later Beckham blinked, gave a yelp, and sat up. “My tooth!” He spat a little blood and said, with something of a lisp, “You’ve taken out my tooth, you bloody foreign—” He stopped short, catching Gabriel’s eye.

“Lady Dagobert will arrive in a moment to hear your confession,” Gabriel told him. “Confession, so they say, is good for the soul. In your case, it is your only chance of keeping the rest of your teeth. Do you understand?”

“I can’t. You’re going to make me a pariah,” Beckham panted. “You don’t understand England, or the English.”

Algie reached over, picked up a yellowed tooth on the billiard table, and dropped it in Beckham’s hand. “Wouldn’t want you to leave this behind. Bit of a souvenir of your visit to the castle, one might say.”

“No one will invite me anywhere,” Beckham bleated. “You have no idea what you’re doing to me. I’ll have to rusticate.”

“For life,” Dewberry put in grimly.

“I’ll—I’ll marry the girl!” Beckham said, looking wildly from face to face. “That’s the best I can offer, and she’ll leap at the chance, you know she will. I’ll do it just to show what a gentleman I am because she—”

“Effie won’t want to marry you,” Gabriel stated. “Especially not with that big gaping hole where your tooth used to be. It makes you look like a degenerate, which is appropriate.”

“I’ve got a nice estate,” Beckham said, starting to blather. “She’d be lucky to have me. It’s unentailed and—”

The door opened behind them. “Pardon me,” came an imperious voice. “I expected to find a fire at the very least, but I see merely a gaggle of tipsy gentlemen, and I fail to see how
that
can be termed an emergency.”

Gabriel turned about and bowed. The countess had apparently been caught on her way to bed. She was dressed in a voluminous cap and swathed in enough ruffled white cotton to outfit an entire village.

“You do me too much honor,” he said, kissing her hand.

“I feel bound to tell you, Your Highness,” said Lady Dagobert, “that I do not consider the time of night salubrious for encounters with the opposite sex, nor do I appreciate requests of this nature.”

“I entirely understand, and yet you are the only person in the castle to whom I could make this appeal,” Gabriel said, drawing to the side so that the countess could see Beckham for the first time.

She sniffed in disgust. “Fisticuffs, I see.”

“Lord Beckham has a confession to make,” Gabriel explained, “and as an arbiter of the
ton
, I felt that you were the best person to hear it.”

“I trust you’re not implying I’m of a Romish disposition,” the countess said. “Lord Beckham, say what you wish. But only, if you please, after you wipe the blood from your chin. I am quite squeamish.”

Beckham did as commanded, gave a kind of shudder, and blinked several times.

“Get on with it, man,” Lady Dagobert commanded.

“Effie Starck—”

“That’s Miss Ephronsia Starck to you,” she interrupted. “I don’t hold with these relaxed manners among the younger set.”

“Miss Ephronsia Starck did not, ah, welcome my advances,” Beckham said. “In fact, she stabbed me with a fork after repulsing an unwanted intimacy on my part.”

The countess nodded. “You’re a blackguard,” she said. “Knew it the moment I saw you, and I’m never wrong about a character. I hope never to see you again in my natural lifetime.”

Beckham swallowed and looked as if he very much hoped her wish would come true.

“I’ll take care of Miss Ephronsia’s reputation tomorrow,” she continued, and no one in the room doubted but that Effie’s name would be as unblemished as that of a newborn babe by noon. “I shall ensure that she has her pick of the
ton
. I fancy that people give my opinion some weight.”

“Where you go, others will always follow,” Gabriel said.

“We’ll follow,” Algie piped up.

The countess gave him a disdainful look but managed to stop herself from delivering a judgment of his character. She turned to Gabriel. “Surely you said that Lord Beckham will be traveling for his health.”

“Yes,” he said, smiling at her. “He will.”

“I believe that Jamaica is a nice place,” she said. “I heard tell that one in two people there are eaten by sharks. That leaves fighting odds, as I see it.”

Gabriel bowed. “Your wish is my command, my lady.”

She snorted. “Continental flummery.” And with that, she exited the room.

“What did she say? I’m not going to Jamaica,” Beckham said, her words filtering through his mind. “I might rusticate for the fall. Or perhaps even for next season. Though that would be a sacrifice, I tell you. I would be missed.”

Gabriel glanced over his shoulder. Wick was lounging in the doorway, a phalanx of footmen at his back. A moment later Lord Beckham was escorted from the room, and all that was left of him was a wail dying away down the corridor.

“I knew enough to put two and two together, and I didn’t stop to think,” Lord Dewberry said, thumping the edge of the billiard table with his fist. “I’m ashamed of myself.”

“Perhaps it took a man with an interest in one of these young ladies to look straight at the problem,” Lord Wrothe put in. “Miss Ephronsia Starck is lucky to have met you, Prince.”

“Oh, I haven’t met her,” Gabriel said. “I’m afraid that I merely pretended an interest, the better to smoke him out. Would you give me a game, Toloose?”

“You took out Beckham from the goodness of your heart?” Toloose said, raising an eyebrow. “Such virtue . . .” He handed over a billiard cue. “I feel near to melancholy at the fact that I’m honor-bound to slay you at billiards.”

“Oh you are, are you?” Gabriel asked, chalking his cue.

“For the honor of my country,” Toloose said, nodding. “Who would have thought the Pomeroys had such a magnificent table, by the way?”

“They didn’t,” Gabriel said, leaning over to sight down his cue.

“Really?” Algie asked, cheerfully propping his elbows on the side of the table. “So where did it come from, then?”

“It’s the only piece of furniture I brought with me from Marburg,” Gabriel said, giving Toloose a wolfish smile. “You did say that you play for high stakes, did you not?”

His opponent broke into a bellow of laughter.

Twenty-six

A
s it turned out, Lady Dagobert’s information offensive was considerably more efficient than predictions of the noon hour. Kate learned of Beckham’s disgrace when Rosalie brought hot cocoa in the morning, and it was confirmed when, on Lady Arabella’s invitation, she met a small group of ladies in the rose drawing room for a demonstration of how to shape a reticule from a swansdown muff, to be given by Effie’s maid.

No one bothered to tinker with a muff, let alone shape it into a reticule. They were too busy agreeing that they had never trusted Beckham, and assuring Effie that she was a dove and a saint.

“Show us how you held the fork,” Henry said, snatching one from the tea tray. “I’d rather learn how to poke holes in a loose fish like Beckham than turn my favorite muff into a reticule. Like this? Or like this?”

Kate burst out laughing, watching Henry thrust her fork into the air like a man learning to fence.

“I really couldn’t say,” Effie said, her cheeks pink with excitement. “It all happened so fast. I just knew that I had to save myself and so I did.”

“I only hope that I’m not of an age where gentlemen might hesitate to offer me an impropriety,” Henry said. “I think I have the grip down perfectly. I’m sure I could do considerable damage, if only someone would give me the opportunity. Perhaps I could convince my husband that I need to practice.”

Lady Dagobert looked up from a small escritoire, where she was penning missives to, as she put it, everyone who mattered. “I consider forking husbands to show a lack of moral fiber,” she pronounced.

“That’s because she’d out-and-out bludgeon Dagobert if she wanted to,” Henry muttered to Kate.

“Let’s talk about the ball tomorrow,” Arabella cried after a hasty glance at her mother. “Miss Daltry, what will you wear? You have such exquisite taste . . . will you wear a pair of glass slippers?”

Kate opened her mouth, but Henry jumped in. “Glass slippers? What are they? Something I missed because of that dratted trip abroad last spring, I warrant.”

“They’re the most delicious slippers in the world,” Arabella gushed. “And Miss Daltry brought them into fashion. I only wish I could have a pair, but Mama is quite heartless on the subject.”

“Might as well be made of diamonds, for the cost of them,” Lady Dagobert said, raising her head again. “A waste of money.”

“Likely to splinter and cut your toes off, are they?” Henry asked with interest. “I think I’m probably too curvy to trust myself to glass.”

“They’re not really made of glass,” Kate said, wracking her brains to try to remember what Rosalie said about them. “And yes, I will be wearing a pair.”

“All the best fashion is frightfully expensive,” Henry said. “My dressing chamber was positively littered with ostrich feathers after that craze last year at court. They cost a pretty penny, and the weight of seven of them gave me a terrible headache.”

“I shall wear a white satin petticoat with gold Brussels drapery to the ball,” the countess announced. “With eight white ostrich feathers. I seem to suffer no ill effects at all from such plumage.”

“White, white, white,” Henry muttered. “You’d think she was a bride. Someone should tell her that an expanse of snow always looks ten times wider than a plowed field.”

“Henry!” Kate said, giggling madly.

“You are right to correct me,” Henry said. “That field hasn’t been plowed in years.”

“I am wearing a draped tunic to the ball,” Effie said. “Do tell me what you’re wearing, Victoria? I find you such an inspiration.”

Kate hadn’t the faintest idea. “I brought three or four costumes with me,” she said airily. “I never make up my mind until the very last minute.”

“Will you wear your hair in the Grecian or the Roman style?” Lady Arabella asked.

“I really couldn’t say,” Kate said, elbowing Henry in a silent entreaty that she change the subject of conversation. “At the moment I am enamored of my wigs.”

“I brought a gorgeous wig with me,” Arabella said.

“Gentlemen don’t care for wigs on a gal,” the countess said, looking up again. “I’ve told you time and again, Arabella, that a gentleman looks to a woman’s hair to see what sort of breeder she’ll be.”

There was a moment of silence. “It’s a good thing that I like wigs,” Henry said. “Otherwise my three husbands might have looked elsewhere.”

“I apologize for my mother,” Arabella said quietly.

“I hear you, daughter,” the countess said. “If there’s any apologizing to do, I’ll do it myself.” She looked over at the settee. “I’m sorry, Henry. I had no call to be talking about breeding in front of you.”

“It’s years in the past,” Henry said with a little shrug. “But do you know, Mabel, I believe that’s the first time you’ve addressed me by the name I prefer?”

“I shall not do so again,” the countess said, returning to her letter. “It’s dreadfully vulgar to use first names in conversation, let alone a pet name of that variety.”

“I knew I had some particular reason for liking the name,” Henry said. “It’s my incurable vulgarity.”

“I’ll tell you what is vulgar,” the countess said. “Vulgarity is the way that Miss Emily Gill makes eyes at that prince. Admittedly, he
is
a prince.”

“A particularly luscious one,” Henry put in.

“He isn’t objectionable,” the countess said. “But he’s a foreigner, and a prince, and our host. And there’s a princess supposedly arriving this very day to marry the man. Emily Gill has been staring at him as if he were a god or something of that nature.”

“Surely not,” Henry said, much shocked. “Those gods never wear a stitch of clothing, at least none of Lord Elgin’s marbles do. I spent a great deal of time examining them, so I know.”

“Take it as you will,” the countess stated.

“She is enamored,” Arabella said. “She told me that the prince smiled at her last night and her heart beat so that she almost swooned on the spot.”

“Even if he didn’t have a princess on the way, he’d never marry her. This castle must cost a fortune to run,” the countess said, glancing about. “The cost of maintaining staff alone must be thousands of pounds a year.”

“I wish I had a fortune,” Arabella said, sighing. “He’s so handsome.”

“I’m not marrying you to a fortune hunter,” her mother said, finishing her last letter with a flourish. “Here, you—” She beckoned to a footman. “Have them out in the evening mail, if you please.”

“It’s very kind of you,” Effie said shyly. “I know my mother would say the same, but she was so overset by the news of Lord Beckham’s departure that she took to her bed.”

“Your mama has the fortitude of a chicken in the rain,” the countess said. “This should do it.” There was a grim certitude about her tone. “Even if that ne’er-do-well escapes from whatever ship the prince bundled him onto, he won’t dare show his face in polite society again. I’ve written everyone I know. And anyone I don’t know ain’t worth knowing.”

“Truly most kind,” Effie said.

“Including,” the countess continued, “the former Miss Wodderspoon. She was one of the first ladies he accosted. Luckily her betrothal was arranged in the cradle . . . do you know who she is now?”

Henry frowned; Arabella, Effie and Kate shook their heads.

“The Duchess of Calvert,” the countess said triumphantly. “I wrote her
and
the duke as well. I knew him when he was a boy, of course. I thought he’d better know the truth about his wife.”

“In my opinion,” Henry said, “the truth about one’s spouse becomes clear after a mere few weeks of marriage. If not a few hours.”

“I agree,” the countess said. “But it can’t hurt. If Beckham dares to show his nose in England, the duke will cut it off. There’s just one thing I’d like to know.”

They all regarded her in silence. The countess had a way of convincing a room that she knew everything, so a disclosure of ignorance was fascinating.

“Why’d he do it?” she asked.

“Men of that stripe can’t stop themselves,” Henry said with distaste. “I’ve run into them before. Beckham had no luck on his own merits, so he destroyed those who had the character to reject his advances, such as our own Miss Effie.”

“Not
him
,” the countess said. “The prince. Why did the prince take after Beckham like that?”

“His Highness is like a king,” Arabella said worshipfully. “He saw an injustice and he addressed it, like King Solomon.”

“I think he has a moral nature and can’t stand a wrongdoer,” Effie said, her voice taking on a dramatic tone. “Like an avenging angel, he came down with the sword of heaven and smote the evildoer.”

“You’re not picking up that tripe at St. Andrew’s,” the countess said, frowning at Effie. “Don’t make me think that I should speak to your mother. She’ll have you reading the Bible this evening.”

“Please don’t say anything to Mother,” Effie said, alarmed. “She has already expressed concern that the dancing tonight will be too strenuous for me. I can’t wait to see the Russian princess. Apparently she’s due to arrive before supper.”

“Dancing tonight, is there?” the countess said. “And the ball tomorrow. We’d better retire for a good rest, Arabella. I’m quite worn out by scratching all that down on paper over and over. Ephronsia, you come with me as well.”

Effie and Arabella obediently rose to their feet, and they processed from the room like the queen’s barge attended by two small tugboats.