A Prince Among Men (13 page)

Dear Ophelia,

No sign of you for three mornings. Should I
worry? Has anything bad come of your visit on
Tuesday night? I would hate to
thin
k…

…
today at Hatchard's. I'll wait for you as
long as I
can.

As ever, Hetty

Ophelia smiled. Hetty offered just the escape she needed.

O
phelia tried three floors of Hatchard's before she found Hetty in the poetry section, examining a collection of Mr. Coleridge's poems. She had the arrested look she got in the presence of poetry, an absolute stillness of inner attention, undistracted by anything around her. Ophelia chose a book of her own and waited, rewarded after a time by Hetty's looking up and smiling.

"You made it home safely," she cried. "I'm so relieved. I didn't know what to imagine when you didn't come these past few mornings."

"I'm sorry to worry you. I should have sent a message."

"I feared you'd been caught by your father and locked in your room."

"With irons on my legs and thin gruel to eat?"

"Yes, while you carved your dying message in the plaster with a spoon."

They put aside their books and arm in arm made their way out of the store to Piccadilly. With a little coaxing, Ophelia persuaded Hetty
to try Gunter's, society's favorite sweet shop. They strolled along Piccadilly and up Berkeley Street to the confectioner's, enjoying the mild day. The budding trees of the square seemed to rain down sunshine. Most of the patrons of the famous shop sat in open carriages around the square, while white-jacketed waiters scurried back and forth with trays of ices and pastries.

Ophelia returned waves and greetings, but kept moving.

"Do you know all these people?" asked Hetty.

Ophelia looked about the crowd. "No. There's a gentleman and a lady just below that plane tree, there," she indicated them with a glance, "whom I've never seen before."

"It's like a holiday. Is this what the rich do?"

"Yes, as little as possible." Ophelia realized the scene was strange to Hetty, who did not often come to Mayfair, and who imagined that most people had some duties with which to occupy themselves during the day.

"Even the gentlemen?"

"Especially the gentlemen," said Ophelia.

"You're teasing me," Hetty protested.

"Hardly. You should know the idleness of society is no joke. Ask Berwick."

They found a quiet table inside, among other parties of ladies, and gave their order to a prompt waiter.

"I was glad to meet your friends at last," Ophelia said. "How spoiled you are!"

"Me?" Hetty looked up from unbuttoning her gloves.

"By good conversation. I like talking with peo
pl
e whose interests take over, who forget themselves in talk."

"Did you like everyone?"

"Most everyone." Ophelia wouldn't lie. "Especially Mr. Archer and Mrs. Fenton and the Gardiners."

The waiter brought them coffee and slices of yellow cake with creamy frosting.

"But you didn't like Berwick?" Hetty asked, her fork poised above the cake, as if she didn't quite know how to attack it.

"Well," said Ophelia. "He…
was
witty…
and
…
confident."

Hetty laughed. "You didn't like him at all. Why not?"

Ophelia finished a bite of cake. "Berwick is the sort of young man who thinks it is the duty of women to be unfailingly polite and patient while he talks on whatever subjects he knows best."

"Ophelia, you are too severe on him."

"Am I? He never once took a woman up on any remark. Mrs. Fenton had a wonderful insight into Byron, but it would have led the conversation in quite a different direction, so Berwick simply repeated his point and went on."

Hetty made a series of precisely equal little cuts in her cake. "I confess I was disappointed in him, too, but he was not so
…
strident until your Mr. Alexander appeared. That somehow brought out the worst in Berwick."

It was Ophelia's turn to concentrate on her cake. This was the part of the conversation she dreaded. She feared Hetty would have no trouble connecting Alexander to Ophelia's recent absence from the Grays' breakfast table. She
wanted to tell Hetty about the kiss in the garden, but her feelings about Alexander were too confused for her to speak them. She hated the way he made her weak, but the worst of it was that she
was
weak, and that she wanted to hear his confession of weakness again. She pushed a dollop of frosting over the edge and spread it down the exposed slope of the cake.

"You did not tell me he was so very handsome and so assured. He seemed to know just how to conduct himself. When he came in from the stable, I thought I would have to prompt him, you know, but I didn't at all
.
"

Ophelia could not meet Hetty's eye. "He told me once that his father was an educated man."

Hetty tilted her head to one side, taking in the information, weighing it. "That may explain his speech, but there was something unusual in his manner, I thought. He felt very strongly about the Regent, I'm sure."

"He felt strongly about Mrs. Hart."

Hetty looked surprised. "I thought it was just the other way around. I thought Mrs. Hart was drawn to him."

Ophelia frowned, trying to recall the picture in her mind. She could see the two golden heads bent together, but at whose instigation she could not say.

"What did you think of her?" Hetty asked.

Ophelia saw that the question mattered to her friend. "What puzzles me is your father's reaction to her. He seems disturbed by her, and he lets her manage things."

"That's what Mrs. Pendares says. I'm afraid she disapproves of Mrs. Hart entirely." Hetty
sighed, "It's
an
…
uncomfortable situation."

"But she's so lovely, isn't she?" Ophelia said quietly.

"And so strong." Hetty smashed the perfect little cake bites under her fork. "You just feel her strength. She won't let anyone stop her from doing what she means to do."

Ophelia wondered why she didn't admire Mrs. Hart for her strength, why she admired Hetty more. Mrs. Hart had published her work to the world, while Hetty's poems collected in drawers, seen by no one except Ophelia.

"Sprite," said a familiar voice. Ophelia looked up to fi
nd Jasper standing beside them,
looking elegant in a blue coat and buff breeches and staring at Hetty with an entire lack of discretion.

"Hello," he said, a dry-throated, unpolished greeting.

Hetty sent Ophelia an uncertain glance. Ophelia did some quick thinking. Jasper would not recognize Hetty's name or connect her to the scandal of their book. He would probably assume Hetty was some ordinary friend of Ophelia's.

The stunned concentration of his gaze made Hetty blush.

"Miss Gray, my brother, Lord Jasper Brinsby," said Ophelia.

"I'll get a chair," said Jasper. He was back before Ophelia and Hetty could exchange a word. "May I treat you to ices?" he asked.

"Of course," said Ophelia, drawing his gaze to her.

"I missed you at Candover's the other night," Jasper said in an ordinary voice.

Ophelia shrugged. "Well, I was quite safe. Miss Gray and I were at a perfectly respectable party."

"I hope so, Sprite." He turned to Hetty too easily, with a confiding air. "Our parents are sticklers."

Ophelia tried to draw her brother's too interested gaze back her way. "Yet Jasper has managed dozens of exploits."

"Don't embarrass me in Miss Gray's eyes before I've had a chance to prove my worth to her."

"You won't prove it with ices," said Ophelia, "You're not at work."

"Ah, but I am. I'm in hot pursuit of the missing prince."

"Like a Bow Street Runner?" Hetty asked.

A waiter appeared to take their order.

"What is this pursuit?" Hetty was daring to look at Jasper now.

"An important diplomatic mission," said Jasper, turning the full force of his smile on her. "The Foreign Office believes Prince Mirandola of Trevigna is hiding somewhere in London. He disappeared in the midst of delicate negotiations that would secure an important port for the British navy as well as an alliance in a difficult and dangerous part of the world."

"I've never heard of Trevigna. Where is it?"

Jasper seemed to forget Ophelia's presence, his gaze focused on Hetty's mouth, shiny with a trace of icing. "It's a tiny triangle of land north of Venice, sloping from the foothills of the Dolomites to the coast."

"
You've been there?" Hetty asked.

"No." Jasper's gaze had moved to a golden
curl, lying across Hetty's collarbone. Hetty's bare hand fluttered up to the strand uneasily.

"How does a prince disappear?"

Jasper appeared to understand the question through some delayed process that required staring at Hetty's mouth, as if he were reading her lips. "Well. He gave up his villa outside Windsor and his lodgings in town."

"But a prince could not conceal himself easily. He has a retinue and trappings, surely?"

"This prince has only one servant that we know of."

"Why did he disappear?"

Again the long pause while Jasper's apparently sluggish brain made sense of the question. "He wasn't satisfied with the terms we were offering."

The waiter returned and set their ices in front of them. Ophelia picked up her spoon, but Jasper and Hetty had fallen into a daze of mutual admiration while the ices melted.

After a moment, Ophelia judged it time to interrupt. "Have you made any progress in your search, Jasper?"

"No. That's the devil of it. Apparently Mirandola is sending letters to the London Committee for the Restoration of the Italian Republics, but they can't or won't work with us to discover how he does it."

"Sounds un
-
British to me," said Ophelia.

"The sapskulls want a Republic of Trevigna, which would be an invitation to French intervention again."

"
I don't understand," said Hetty.
"Why does this prince write to them, but hide from you?"

The word
you
seemed to mean Jasper, not England, and there was a little silence. If her brother wished to impress Hetty, he was doing a poor job by appearing so slow to comprehend her.

"Money must be his motive." He rallied. "The committee is trying to raise money for the treasury of Trevigna."

"Jasper, that still makes no sense," said Ophelia. "Why would the committee for a republic give funds to a prince?"

"I agree. Another reason I've got to find him."

"You've talked with his friends?"

"Some of them. Apparently, the last person to see him is a fellow named Burke, who was with the Prince at Tatt's about a month ago when he sold off his horses. No one's seen him since. They think he's living on the proceeds, and Burke might know."

"Where's this Burke now?" Ophelia asked. Her brother had no difficulty answering her questions, and even managed a few bites of his dessert.

"He's been out of town. His uncle died, and he inherited. But he should be at Ingram's tonight. Will you be there, Miss Gray?"

The question caught Ophelia off guard. Hetty directed an imploring glance her way. She should have expected her brother's pointed interest in her friend. She knew his weakness for a certain kind of beauty, but once he knew Hetty's real position in the world, he would withdraw his attentions abruptly.

"No." Hetty lowered her gaze. "I have another engagement for this evening." Jasper's disappointment was plain. Hetty temporized. "Perhaps another time we'll be going to the same party."

Jasper smiled, a blinding joyful smile. Ophelia put down her spoon and gathered up her gloves, giving Hetty a swift glance. "We've got to be going," she said.

"Let me take you up in my curricle," Jasper offered.

"Thanks, Jasper, bu
t we're just going round the corn
er to a fitting." Hetty stood, following Ophelia's lead with mechanical gestures, gathering gloves and parcels.

They exchanged parting words, and Ophelia resolutely turned Hetty away. She could sense Jasper standing just where they had left him. She linked her arm with Hetty's and kept them mov
ing until they'd turned the corn
er.

"You think I'm an idiot to be so affected by a first meeting with your brother." Hetty's eyes were lowered.

"No."

"He has an extraordinary smile. It makes one feel light, as if one had swallowed bubbles."

Ophelia glanced at her friend.

"I know nothing can come of it, Ophelia," Hetty said firmly. "I would have admitted who I am at once, but I thought maybe you didn't want him to know we were meeting."

A
fter their encounter at Gunter's, Ophelia avoided Jasper at the Ingrams', gravitating toward the small crowd around
the outspoken Miss Mercer-Elphins
tone. They were an elite group, the inner circle. The ladies changed a
feather or a hem and found themselves instantly copied. Their talk, all private allusion and slang, could not be comprehended by an outsider, fit their snobbery they were something like the hydra, a shared body from which the multiple heads dispensed venom. They could be counted on to outdo one another in malicious witticisms, but Dent never went near them.