A Prince Among Men (21 page)

"I came to tell you about my search for Prince Mirandola."

"Did you find him?"

"Yes. Yes, I did. Thanks to you."

"To me? How did I help?"

"Well, you
see
…
"
Jasper was determined to give credit where credit was due. "I would not have thought to ask about his appearance without your suggesting it."

"It was very forward of me. I knew nothing of your search or your methods."

"It was very intelligent of you," said Jasper. "Your good sense made me ask the right questions. And it turns out that the prince's friend Burke actually has a miniature of the prince, done when they were at Oxford. So I was able to recognize him when I saw him."

"You saw him?"

"And for that I have to thank you, too." Jasper knew he was grinning idiotically, but he couldn't help it. She was so pretty and she looked so admiring. He felt his heart swelling with joy. "Mirandola was here last night."

"Here?" Her eyes clouded with a momentary doubt, as if he'd taken leave of his senses.

"Mirandola is, was, Ophelia's groom. What did he call himself? Alexander?"

Hetty pressed her hands to her mouth and stood abruptly. She circled the room, moving in quick agitated steps. "Does Ophelia know?"

"Yes. Apparently he told her himself, sometime last night."

Hetty came to a halt, her eyes still troubled. "Well, it's probably all right, then." She took her seat again, smoothing her skirts. "It would not be good, you see, if he lied to her, because she trusted him."

Jasper hardly understood what she was saying, something about his sister, to which he should be paying attention, but it was hard to think about Ophelia while Miss Gray's lovely face was troubled. He reached in his pocket and drew out his mother's card of invitation. He'd been very clever, he thought, to manage the extra invitations under Graves's nose.

"What will happen now that you've found the prince?" she asked.

"That I'd like you to see for yourself, Miss Gray. The prince will be attending my mother's ball for the royal wedding, and I'd like you to be there, too." He handed her the white card.

"Me?" She frowned at the card, turning it over in her hands. "Thank you," she said, "but you know I must decline your invitation."

Jasper pulled his chair closer. "Don't." He reached out and stilled her hands on the card. "This is a great chance for us. I know my parents have foolish notions of rank, but they don't know you. They will see you at this ball in all your loveliness, and they won't be able to—"

"You didn't tell them I would be coming." She sounded faint.

"No. I know better than that. I can't win them over by argument, only by showing them that you are every inch a gentlewoman. They can't miss that once they see you."

"But they won't see me. They'll see a tradesman's daughter. They'll condemn me for my presumption. You would, too."

"No, I wouldn't. I've changed, and so will they."

Hetty smiled sadly at him. "I don't think so."

Jasper wanted to deny it, but he had to admit his parents were unlikely to change. There was no point in a dream picture of the duke and duchess being gracious to Hetty Gray and her father. He had to build his new life on reality. His parents were snobs and likely to remain so, and they might take nasty financial measures against him if he chose to disoblige them in the matter of marriage. He took a deep breath. So be it.

"All right. They won't change. My mother may create a scene. Will you brave it? Will you enter the lion's den?"

Hetty studied him.

"I have another reason for wanting you to come. Prince Mirandola will be there. I've arranged a meeting for him with Castlereagh. He'll need a friend in that crowd. And I can arrange to get you into the ball undetected by my parents."

"Unfair tactics," said Hetty.

"I want to dance with you in the ballroom of Searle House at least once. Say you'll come."

"I'll come."

Chapter 16

O
phelia watched a footman on a ladder, directing him in the placement of one of the fragrant green swags festooning the Searle House ballroom. Lady Searle had decided appropriately on a May Day theme for her ball. Every servant who could be spared from his or her duties had some occupation in the ballroom. Two men placed chairs, music stands, and candle braces on the dais under the direction of the orchestra leader, while the gardener arranged a bank of violets and lilies of the field below. Three girls pushed wide dustmops across the polished floor, while grooms wrestled potted fruit trees into position beside the tall terrace doors. Others bustled to and from Lady Searle with an alacrity a general could admire.

Ophelia stood in the middle of the room with an armful of lists, trying to keep her mind on the details of preparation and not on one treacherous prince. She hadn't decided yet what she should say to Jasper about him. Anger was better than wretchedness, and she struggled to keep it burning in her breast. She could not believe she'd
been so blind to his obvious rank. From the first he had held the horses like a man accustomed to possession. His groom's accent had been accurate enough, but his courtesies, his lack of submission, had been the qualities of a man of power in the world. Then the books, the educ
a
tion. True, a poor vicar's son might have such an education, but when he'd spoken at Hetty's, quoting Machiavelli, no less, she should have seen him for a prince.

And she, was she such a snob that she deserved to be tricked, mocked? She certainly hadn't taken advantage of her position as mistress, at least, not after the first day. Days. Once they had begun to go to Hetty's, they had been on an equal footing, or at least, as equal a footing as circumstances allowed. But he had deliberately let her believe he was leagues below her in rank and fortune. He had made a game of all their kisses.

And then, most unforgivable, he had coaxed her to yield to him, had made it seem as if giving him this bit of herself was a great gift, was water to a man in the desert, when all the while he was lying, amusing himself, knowing he was above her. Her thoughts had followed this same track for three days, always coming back to the black moment when she'd heard the voice in the hall and realized Alexander had taken her for a fool.

The footman attached the swag and waited for her approval. She nodded and checked her list again. Sharp footsteps made her glance up. Jasper came striding across the ballroom.

"Sprite," he called. "Glad I found you." He
grabbed her about the waist and whirled her in an impromptu waltz.

"Jasper, stop." The footmen had turned to watch them, and she pulled back from her brother's arms. "I'm busy."

"So I see. Looks like you're turning the place into a greenhouse."

"May Day, in case you've never seen it," Ophelia said. She gestured to the footman to move his ladder more to the right.

Jasper took her arm. "Can we talk?"

Ophelia frowned at him. "Go ahead, talk."

He shoved his hands in his pockets. "You're in a surly mood."

"I'm sorry," she said. "Mother's making everyone edgy with her lists." She held up her loose sheets of paper.

"Well, it's the party I want to tell you about," Jasper whispered. "Thanks to you, Sprite, the party is my big chance."

"Big chance for what?"

"To prove myself to Castlereagh." Jasper glanced around the ballroom, but there was no one near them. "I found Mirandola, you know. Or rather, you did. Right under our noses. Ironic, isn't it?"

"Very." Ophelia hugged the lists to her chest and concentrated on the footman's placement of the next swag. One dilemma solved. Jasper knew about him.

"He's remarkable, really. What he wants. How he's held out for months. Castlereagh and the others had him all wrong, thinking he was just some idle fop who could be satisfied with a decorative role. You know, he's written an entire
framework for a constitutional convention."

Ophelia stared at her brother. "You've certainly changed your mind about him."

"Well, we talked most of the night, night before last. After you left the stable."

"Oh." Ophelia stared at the floor. Why did it hurt so much to think that Alexander had spent hours chatting with her brother while she had been fighting tears of humiliation and wretchedness? She swallowed the ache of unshed tears in her throat. "Did you take him to Castlereagh?"

Again Jasper glanced around. He leaned toward her. "No one knows I've found him yet. I have a plan."

"Are you sure you know what you're doing? Won't Mirandola just disappear again?"

Jasper shook his head. "He won't."

Ophelia could hear the new certainty in his voice, a confidence that wasn't merely show.

Jasper put an arm around her shoulders and squeezed lightly. "I owe this to you, Sprite, and Miss Gray. You made me wonder why he was hiding, made me curious enough to read about Trevigna. It all made sense to me as I listened to him. I think I understand him—more than the others, at least."

"Really?" She couldn't help the sarcasm in her tone. Alexander wasn't worthy of her brother's faith or sympathy
. Alexander was false and self-
serving, and his idealism a sham. "Then what is your plan?" she asked.

"He's coming here."

Ophelia gasped.

"To the ball. I've arranged an informal meeting with Castlereagh. It's perfect." Jasper went on explaining the beauties of the plan while Ophelia tried to gather her wits. She saw so clearly an image of herself dancing with Alexander, whirling about the floor in a dizzying waltz. She fought the image. Prince Mirandola would be in some antechamber, negotiating his country's future, while she was dancing with Dent toward some future of her own, quite separate from his.

"And that's not all, Sprite. Hetty—that is, Miss Gray—is coming."

Ophelia spun toward her brother. "What? Jasper, mother and father will never admit Hetty here, especially not to a royal ball."

Jasper straightened. "She's coming. I've arranged it. Whatever they do or say, I will dance with her here." He glanced around the ballroom.

"That's a lovely dream, Jasper, but are you thinking of Hetty? Of what people may say, or how they may snub her? You don't know how cruel our classmates were in school."

"You are her friend. Can't you see to it that she's welcomed?"

"Oh, Jasper, don't you think I want Hetty here? But she doesn't know about Mrs. Hart's being her mother. And that's the first thing our mother will say to her. If Hetty gets through the receiving line!"

"I've arranged that. She'll be like Cinderella, arriving and departing mysteriously, with no one the wiser."

"Has Solomon agreed to this folly? He's sick with worry that Mrs. Hart will reveal herself to Hetty."

Jasper looked away. "Solomon's not to know."

"Jasper, I think you're being selfish. You want to show her off, but you're likely to cause her embarrassment and pain."

"I thought you'd be on my side in this, Ophelia."

"I am, but—"

"Then say nothing, and be a friend to Hetty—"

"Miss, miss!" Ophelia turned as a footman with his wig askew slid to a stop on the polished floor, breathless and flushed.

"What is it, James?" she asked.

"Beg pardon, miss. Cook says t' find 'er Grace."

Ophelia glanced around. "Lady Searle's here somewhere. What's wrong?"

"It's the dog, miss—'e's gone stark mad in the kitchen, 'e 'as, jumping on tables, barking at everyone. Cook and the others are 'iding in the larder."

"Oh dear. Thank you, James. Jasper, excuse me. I've got to find Mother." She started toward the far end of the ballroom.

"Ophelia, you owe me a silence," Jasper called after her.

"Very well," she called back over her shoulder.

A
lexander could just see his aunt reflected in the cheval glass over his left shoulder. She was enthroned, the only word for it, in one of the Pulteney Hotel's best chairs, and had been complaining steadily about her quarters, the wine, his outfit for the evening. He refused to wear the
splendid princely uniform and dress sword she'd brought from Trevigna, but he agreed to a sunburst pin that had been his father's, which Lucca was trying to fix to the right breast of his black evening coat.

Alexander felt like two people. His formal public self stared back at him from the glass. Even without the uniform that made him look like a toy soldier, he could not reconcile the image of the monarch in the mirror with the man he felt himself to be inside, a man he'd known only a short while, whose hopes for the evening had less to do with the fate of a nation than with the smiles of a capricious, spirited girl and his plan to steal a few minutes of time alone with her at a ball.

When he turned from the mirror, Francesca's brows were pinched above her thin nose and her eyes were a glacial blue. Her face was set in elegant, haughty lines that proclaimed her dissatisfaction with him.

Lucca, in Trevigna's blue and gold livery, adjusted the fall of Alexander's cravat and the placement of a sapphire stud.

"Stop fussing over the boy, Gavinana," Francesca said. "If he's not going to dress like a prince, what does it matter how many folds he has in his neckcloth?"

Lucca finished with the pin and straightened. But he could not resist tugging Alexander's shoulder seams to make sure the coat lay flat.

"The boy looks prettier than his betrothed."

Alexander nodded to Lucca, who rolled his eyes discreetly and retreated.

"
Aunt, you're not too fatigued to attend this bah?
"

"
I'm never fatigued. We must have your betroth
al to Tesio's daughter known…
the sooner, the better."

It was the answer he expected. Aunt Francesca's arrival had been as inconvenient as possible. Even one day later and he'd have been able to put her off, but as it stood, he was going to have to escort her to the ball at Searle House, and once there, Francesca was going to do her best to spread the news of his betrothal.

"I'd rather wait to announce any betrothal, Aunt," he said quietly.

Her blue eyes became piercing. "You've waited long enough. What have you accomplished in England? People wonder if you've forgotten how to be Italian." Her sharp glance swept his black evening clothes.

"Appearances are deceiving, Aunt. I have been most productive in England."

A careful look came into Francesca's eyes. "Good terms from Castlereagh, I hope."

"I'm meeting him tonight."

"Ah." Francesca's eyes snapped back and forth.
"
At this ball?" Alexander nodded. "Ah. Is he going to support the house of Mirandola?"

Alexander strolled to the hearth and picked up the poker. "He'd be happy to—in exchange for the port."

"Well, it can't hurt to have the British navy anchored at Laruggia. It will keep the damned Austrians out."

"I agree." Alexander stirred the fire to life.

Francesca sighed deeply. "But you didn't ask for that, did you?"

"How is Miss Tesio?" He watched the flicker on the edge of the coals.

Francesca allowed him to switch the subject, but her gaze told him she would not forget his evasion. "Your betrothed is not romantic, but quite regal. She should suit you, and you will behave toward the girl. She speaks no English."

"Aunt, I cannot dance attendance on her this evening. Most of my time at
the ball will be devoted to…
Lord Castlereagh."

"Of course. It will be my duty to let your intentions toward the girl be known."

Alexander stiffened. "I must ask you not to say word about a marriage."

"I've brought a priest with me, Alexander. Father Leonardo is prepared to marry you this evening, if you like. We've arranged a license. We can have the rite here, if the hotel staff is up to it.
"
She looked around the rather spacious room. "We'll have all the pomp and display in Trevigna when you return."

"Aunt, I won't marry the girl before the fund banquet.
"

"Well, you could at least bed her, start her breeding."

Alexander laughed. "Poor Miss Tesio. Does she know how you see her?"

"She's a dutiful girl."

"Aunt, I've not met her. We don't know that we'll suit.
"

"Suit? What does that matter? What matters is that if you'd not delayed, she could be months
along by now and everyone's confidence in the House of Mirandola restored.
"

Alexander grasped the mantel. "Is she clever? Witty? Sweet?"

"You're not balking now over mere feminine charms. You've always done your duty. What you need is a girl who'll do hers. Someone compliant, dignified, and fertile. Miss Tesio's two married sisters have produced six healthy babes between them."

Alexander turned to his aunt. "Francesca, even kings can make disastrous marriages. Tell your priest to plan nothing before the banquet."