A Perfect Gentleman (22 page)

Lady Wellstone's dinner party in three days was the beginning. There would be no dancing, only food and conversation, perhaps cards or music afterward. A small, select group of Gwen's friends had been invited—and Strickland, plague take him. Ellianne had to go put herself on exhibit, so these people would invite her to their own gatherings. Then she would have to pay duty calls to thank them, and reciprocate eventually, playing the proper hostess. She could not provide lavish teas lest she remind the high-sticklers of Ellis Kane and his bank. She could not skimp, reminding anyone of Lady Augusta's parsimony and her problematic death.

What Ellianne most wanted to do, when she was not thinking of Lord Wellstone, was to stand at a busy street corner and call her sister's name at the top of her lungs: “Isabelle Kane, come home this instant,” as if she were calling the dog, Atlas. That would end this nonsense before it began. One forthright effort, without finesse and finagling, and everyone would know she needed help finding her sister. Ellianne could not do it, of course, for such a public display would also end any hope of saving Isabelle's reputation. And would embarrass Gwen, who had been so kind. No, Ellianne would have to attend balls where the younger ladies congregated with their beaus, and position herself to gain introductions to them. That might be hard to do while she sat on the sidelines, watching Wellstone dance with every other woman in the room but her.

She hoped they served something stronger than punch. She'd need it.

*

Gwen was in a dither, trying to make up a seating chart for her dinner party. Stony offered to help.

“Just do not put Strickland next to Miss Kane,” he warned. “The baron is liable to bolt. And the devil knows what she might do.”

“Very well, but that leaves Sir John Thomasford as her dinner partner on her other side. She'll be to your right, of course, as guest of honor.”

“The coroner? What the deuce is Sir John Thomasford doing on your invitation list?”

“Ellianne asked me. If you could add Lord Strickland, she wondered if she might add a gentleman who has been very helpful, she says, and has brought her books on criminal medicine.”

“Who the devil wants to read about stabbings and stranglings?” Stony certainly did not, losing some of his healthy color at the very thought.

“Ellianne must, I suppose. I myself prefer a good Gothic romance, where the heroine is dangled off the edge of a cliff until the hero finds her, or she is given poisoned wine and carried to a dark tower in some misshapen ogre's castle. I have never understood how the hero always knows where she will be, or why he carries a ladder or a length of rope, but perhaps—”

“Gwen, about the mortician?”

“Oh, Sir John? Dear Ellianne says he is kind enough to bring her the latest news from Bow Street.”

“Thunderation, that's what she has Lattimer for. Don't tell me the Runner is coming too?”

“No, only Sir John. I saw no reason not to honor dear Ellianne's request, even though the numbers will be uneven. I do not suppose it matters at such a small, intimate gathering as this.”

Stony did not want to hear Sir John's name connected to Miss Kane's, especially not with the word
intimate
nearby.

“The man is nothing but a toadstool.”

“No, dear, he is thoroughly respectable. And eligible.”

Stony wanted to hear that even less than the other. He muttered an oath.

“I did inquire into his people, so you do not have to look like thunderclouds that he is sitting at our table. From the Dorset Thomasfords, don't you know. I believe my uncle Sidney's wife's brother married a Thomasford. Or was that a Thomas Jamesford? My cousins will know. They have accepted, of course, their hotel's food being sadly unappetizing. They dine away a great deal, of course, although we have not had them here yet in a formal manner. How could we, when we seldom entertain? But this was an excellent time to invite them, do you not think? Except for the children, naturally. You would not wish to dine with those unmannered beasts.”

“I do not wish to dine with Sir John!”

“Oh, but he has accepted. And he is highly regarded in court circles, Aubrey dear. I should not like to recall the invitation. Why—”

“He is a bloody butcher, for heaven's sake!”

Gwen clucked her tongue and tapped her seating chart, wanting to get back to the troublesome chore. “Ellianne says he is an adviser to the coroner's office, I will have you know, not an employee. Detecting is a passion with him, dear Ellianne tells me, not a paying career. Sir John has made the study of crimes his life's work, to further the cause of justice, which is quite noble, I am sure, although I do not precisely see how knowing if someone has been struck by a brick or a bat makes any difference to the dead person. Oh, and I am certain he will wash the blood off before coming here.”

Stony made a gagging sound. “Blood or not, I do not think I could eat a bite with him in the room.”

“Of course you will, dear. The menu dear Ellianne's chef is providing could tempt a martyr's appetite. Besides, since when have you become so stuffy, dear, about gentlemen who work? You have always said that more of the aristocracy should dirty their hands, so they knew how hard their servants labor.”

“This is not about working for a living, by George.”

“That is good, because now that most people know how you are employed, that is, how you see your bills paid, a few doors have been shut to us. None that I wished to enter, of course, so you must not look so stricken. Still, Sir John will make an interesting addition to our little gathering. I am quite looking forward to meeting the dear man.”

“The dear man?” Stony could not believe his ears. “Why are you so enamored of the gruesome bloke, Gwen?”

“Because Ellianne likes him, I suppose.”

“Well, I do not.”

“What has that to say to the purpose? The dinner is for dear Ellianne, is it not? If she is more comfortable among friends than total strangers, who is to blame her? Furthermore, I doubt you would like any man Ellianne does.”

“What is that supposed to mean?”

“Nothing, dear. Nothing at all.”

*

“Hell's bells, girl, you are rigging yourself out like a dockside doxy just to take grub with a crew of fancy fribbles! Your father would be spinning in his grave.”

Ellianne turned her back on Aunt Lally and tugged up on the lace that bordered the minuscule bodice of her black gown. “But Lady Wellstone swears this style is all the rage.”

“Among what those jackadandies call fashionable impures, maybe. I say a whore by any other name is still making money on her back.”

Ellianne did not think the gown was quite that scandalous. The slim black silk skirt did cling to her legs, with the thinnest of silk petticoats beneath it, but the black lace overskirt veiled most of her anatomy. The high-waisted bodice did leave her breasts half revealed, but the matching black lace insert protected her modesty. The tiny puffed sleeves did leave her shoulders almost bare, but the long black kid gloves made up some of the lack. And no one would notice anyway. They'd be too busy ogling the large ruby that hung on a chain of diamonds right above her cleavage.

Gwen had insisted Ellianne wear the magnificent jewel that had been her mother's, to show she was no green girl. Aunt Lally had agreed, wanting Ellianne to thumb her nose at any silly rule that said unmarried women should not wear anything but pearls. She would have outfitted Ellianne in matching bracelets, ear bobs, brooches, and tiara, to show the useless swells her worth, and that she wasn't ashamed of her father and how Ellis Kane had made his riches.

Ellianne raised her chin. She was never embarrassed by her birth. Her looks, though, were another matter. The long, straight lines of the gown emphasized her height, and the new hairstyle added to it. Lady Wellstone had sent over her own coiffeur to arrange Ellianne's impossibly straight, unfashionably red tresses. Monsieur considered himself an artiste, and Ellianne his most challenging canvas. He sighed and he squinted and he snipped, and then he braided. He must have made twenty different plaits, it felt to Ellianne, sitting for hours on a low stool while monsieur worked above. He took the thin braids and brought them together into a pattern of swirls and loops that half resembled an opened rose, a very red rose, at the back of her head. Black silk leaves attached to combs at the base held the arrangement up, except for a few tendrils monsieur had cut to trail alongside Ellianne's cheeks. Ellianne's maid found a tiny diamond butterfly on a hairpin among her mistress's unused jewelry, earning the blushing woman a Gallic kiss on both cheeks. The Frenchman declared Miss Kane a flower of womanhood. The maid called her a blooming beauty. Timms said she belonged in the Garden of
Eden, and Aunt Lally called her a bird of paradise. She did not mean the exotic flower, either.

Ellianne nervously touched the ruby pendant that was cold against her bare skin. “Do you really think I look like a fallen woman, Aunt Lally?”

“Humph. If not fallen, then ready to tip over in a trice.”

“Then come with me. Your respectability cannot be questioned. Unless you talk, of course. I'd feel better having you there, and I know Lady Wellstone will not mind.” In fact, Ellianne knew, Gwen would go off in severe hysterics at having to change her seating arrangements at the last moment.

Her aunt refused. “Someone has to stay with old Timms, to make sure he doesn't fall asleep and set the house on fire.”

“You won't play cards with him again, will you? You won all his pocket money last time, and he is really trying to reform.”

“I'll keep him to the straight and narrow, never fear.” The aisles of the wine cellar were just that, straight and narrow.

“Then you are sure you won't come tonight?”

“Chum buckets, girl! With me as ballast, your chances of finding a first mate would run aground afore you left the harbor.”

“But you know I am going to ask about Isabelle, not to find a…first mate. I have told you a hundred times, I am not looking for a husband.”

“No, but I have seen the way you've been looking at your hired man. He might be the bonniest lad on land or sea, but don't you go thinking you can taste the rum without buying the whole barrel. We might not be top-drawer like your new friends, but the Kanes have never had a bastard in their midst.”

Ellianne gasped. “You know I would never do that. Why, I would never think of such a thing!”

“Cut line, girl. You think of every why and wherefore. Nothing gets away from that busy brainbox of yours.”

“Exactly. I am too downy a bird to follow any handsome man tossing breadcrumbs my way.”

“Begad, girl, I'm not talking about what's between your ears but what's between your legs.”

“Aunt Lally!” Ellianne looking around to make sure none of the servants were within hearing. She decided it was a good thing her aunt was staying home after all, vow of silence or not.

“What, plain speaking not fitting for your delicate ears? Hah. You're a female, ain't you? And Wellstone's a male. A demmed fine-looking one at that. You've thought of climbing the mast, and no denying it.”

Ellianne tried, her cheeks as red as the ruby pendant. “We are friends. And business partners, nothing else. Associates.”

“Is that what they are calling it these days? Association? In my day they called it—”

“Aunt, please! Wellstone will be here any moment to drive me to the party. Besides, I thought you approved of him now. I know you thought him nothing but a parasite at first, but I could have sworn you grew to like him.”

“Oh, I like him fine. In fact, were he a few years younger—not all that much younger, at that—I might hire him to escort me to a few places I never thought to see again. But for you? I still like him fine, even if he is a nob. But as a husband, my girl. Nothing else.”

“That will never happen, Aunt Lally, so please stop speculating.”

“What else has an old woman got to do? At least I am not meddling, like that goosecap Gwen.”

“Lady Wellstone? But she is helping to find Isabelle.”

“Like fish heads she is. Sending Wellstone to fetch you in their carriage when we have a perfectly good one of our own. Hah!”

“But she thought it would be safer.”

“Safer from what, is what I want to know. Safer from some other bloke winning your dowry?”

“I am sure Lady Wellstone has no such intentions.”

Aunt Lally went back to her needlework, muttering, “It's not her intentions I worry about in that dark carriage. You can tell your ‘associate' for me that if he offers you a slip on the shoulders, Wellstone will be looking for his stones in the nearest well.”

*

Stony brought flowers. White orchids, Gwen had declared, for Ellianne to carry.

He brought the carriage, freshly scrubbed with new straw laid on the floorboards. He was equally as neat, his blond hair still wet from his bath. He had a new dark blue superfine coat, and a new, more intricate knot to his snow-white neckcloth. He had his watch back on its fob chain across his new white marcella waistcoat, and a quizzing glass hanging from a ribbon.