Caprice: The Masqueraders Series - Book One (22 page)

“I knew your mother,” Lady Ramsbury declared, mollified by the ability to make a connection with the stranger. “You have something of her looks, though in coloring the Holton blood won out.” She smiled fondly at her son. “Blackburne looks run along the same line.”

“Yet the Blackburne green eyes offer an enchanting contrast which we Holtons lack,” Clarissa offered without glancing at the earl, who stood beside her.

Pleased by the easy manners displayed by the remark, Lady Ramsbury turned a smile upon her son. “Hadrian, dear, you go up and speak with Jane, at once.”

Hadrian frowned, not wanting to be bothered with family matters this night. “Can it not wait until later,
Maman
? I offered to show Mrs. Willoughby the house before our other guests arrive.”

“No, it cannot wait!” Lady Ramsbury’s expression altered to one of great distress, her complexion dappling. “Jane has turned up freakish when I can least afford to indulge her!”

“What do you mean?”

Lady Ramsbury glanced apologetically at Mrs. Willoughby. “You will understand, I’m sure. Have you children of your own?”

“Maman!”
Hadrian objected.

“Very well,” she continued, not at all embarrassed by her question. “Jane is refusing to come down. She says she’s not properly attired, though I said she looked well enough. Perhaps if you tell her, she will believe it. She does so dote on you.” She glanced at Clarissa. “All my daughters dote on their elder brother. He is so forceful and commanding.”

Clarissa smiled. “Really? I have found him a delight of compromise, deference, and amenability.”

“Hadrian?” Lady Ramsbury gave her son a quizzical look. “You mean Emory, certainly?”

“No, my lady. Mr. Blackburne, I find, is a tower of strength, highly opinionated and uncompromising in his goals.”

“You couldn’t know my brother,” Hadrian said in astonishment.

“Oh, but I do, my lord. Like you, he made haste to welcome me to London.” She smiled at him serenely. “I am quite amazed, Lady Ramsbury, by the lengths to which your sons have gone to make a stranger welcome. Perhaps I might repay a bit of my gratitude by offering to speak with your daughter, if you think I might be of help.”

Lady Ramsbury responded at once to that dimpled smile. “What an excellent idea. It was seeing you from her window that put her in a pet. Do take her up, Hadrian. I must see to my guests.” She glanced at the opening door. “Ah, yes, it’s the Duke of Devonshire! What luck! We’re bound to be a success. I feel it in my bones!”

“You did not tell me my brother had been to call,” Hadrian said in a low voice as he led Clarissa up the stairway.

“You did not ask me who my callers had been. Was I to deliver to you a list?”

“Of course not. I only meant that I am surprised that you did not mention it before now.”

Clarissa merely smiled at him in a way that made his hand on her elbow tighten possessively. Lord, he wanted to kiss her so badly he could almost taste it. No, that was wrong. He was thinking of Soltana. That must be it. But the lips he was staring at were more than enough temptation. Softly parted and smiling, their lush deep-rose fullness begged a kiss. He looked away, a little shocked at his thoughts. He would have to try harder to keep his emotions from tangling with his thoughts.

When they reached the landing, he quickly crossed the hall to knock at his sister’s door. A forlorn “Come in” was the reply.

Hadrian opened the door and poked in his head. “Jane? Jane, I have brought someone up to meet you.” He opened the door wider and indicated with a gesture that Clarissa was to enter before him.

Seeing a lady enter, Jane jumped to her feet, dashing away spilled tears with the back of each hand.

“Mrs. Willoughby, permit me to introduce my eldest sister Jane. Jane, this is Mrs. Willoughby.”

“Mrs.?” Jane inquired. “I thought you were …” She paused, remembering too late her brother’s warning that his guest bore a great resemblance to Princess Soltana.

Hadrian looked at Clarissa. “I’m afraid my sister’s manners have deserted her in the excitement of the moment. Mrs. Willoughby is Lady Arbuthnott’s niece, Jane.”

Jane’s attractive face lit up. “Then that explains it.”

Hadrian’s face stiffened. Doubtless, even Jane had heard the rumors circulating about Soltana being related to the Holtons. He would have shaken her, but that would only have drawn further attention to the gaffe. Instead he said, “What’s this nonsense about your refusing to come down? ’Tis no time for vapors. Your mother needs you.” He fairly growled at her, “Go down at once!”

“I won’t,” Jane replied decisively and crossed her arms under her lush young bosom, but her trembling mouth threatened a new thunderstorm of childish tears.

Clarissa touched his arm. “Perhaps, my lord, if you were to leave your sister and me to discuss what I would imagine is essentially a ladies’ matter, we might come to some resolution.”

“Very well,” he answered, but he continued to scowl at Jane. “You disappoint me, Jane. I shall expect you downstairs, instanter!” With that parting shot of masculine thunder, he left.

“Now then,” Clarissa said crisply. “How may I aid you?”

Jane flung her hand toward the offending plumes. “I should have worn those, if mere chance had not instructed me otherwise.” She looked at Clarissa, her young eyes full of tears. “You might well imagine what would have happened had I worn
plumes!”

Clarissa had not the least idea, but she knew what would happen if she answered incorrectly: the poor child would burst into tears. “It was a lucky escape, to be sure.”

“Now I have no hair ornament,” Jane answered. “Therefore, I cannot go down.”

Clarissa braced her chin between thumb and forefinger, considering the matter. “Turn around, Jane, and let me look at your gown.” When Jane had done as she asked, she said, “Very pretty. ‘Tis a pity the modiste did not make extra flowers for the hem, in case some were damaged or lost.”

“She did!” Jane went to her armoire. “They are in this box.” She opened a velvet case to reveal half a dozen pink satin roses nestled in pink ribbon trim.

“That will do quite satisfactorily,” Clarissa said with a confident smile. “Now sit you down and don’t say a word until I have finished. I’ve had some experience with the fashion of young ladies, having recently been one myself.”

Jane’s delicate brows rose on her brow in a perfect imitation of her brothers’ bolder ones. “Oh, but you are still young. I can’t believe you are a day over twenty-three.”

“I’m twenty-two,” Clarissa replied with a rueful smile.

“There, you see?” Jane’s mischievous gaze met Clarissa’s in the glass. “Hardly one to put upon the shelf.”

Within a few minutes, Clarissa had fashioned a lovely hair ornament from the ribbon and roses.
“Voila, mademoiselle!”

“It’s perfect!” Jane sprang from her bench and gave Clarissa a huge hug. “You are a wonder! We need but desperately a lady of fashion beneath this roof.” Belatedly, she glanced at the open doorway in the hope that she had not been overheard. “Mama does very well, of course, but she has not been young for such a long time.”

Clarissa smiled and patted the younger girl’s cheek. “I do understand what you mean. Now run along. Your brothers will be quite proud of you. Oh, and Jane,” she added as the girl danced away. “I beg you not to say anything particular to your elder brother about me.”

Jane paused in the doorway. “You mean you do not want me to point out what a treasure you are because he might take it into his head to dislike treasures.”

“Something of the kind,” Clarissa admitted.

Jane made a face. “Hadrian cannot abide being told what to do; therefore, I promise not to recommend you to him.”

“Thank you,” Clarissa replied and devoutly hoped the girl would keep her vow. She did not want Hadrian to think she was trying to worm her way into his family’s good graces. That would be a toady thing to do, wouldn’t it? The smile that spread across her face was as wily as it was charming.

The Ramsbury Assembly gave every appearance of being a great success. Any number of guests could be overheard making favorable remarks about the decor. Boughs of ivy intertwined with pink roses and orange blossom hung in swags from the staircase while vases filled with every variety of spring flower covered every mantel and side table of the main rooms. Flowering orange trees alternating with hothouse ferns lined the ballroom and spread the sweet fragrance of nature over the dance floor.

In the anterooms, silver epergnes overflowing with apricots, strawberries, grapes, and pineapples decorated each food table. The French chef, borrowed for the evening from Countess Lieven’s kitchen, filled the tables with
filets de saumon, consommé de volaille, côtelettes d’agneau, poulets Médicis, asperge d’Argentine, petits poussins au cresson, patisseries assorties, fraises,
and a never-ending sparkling river of frosty, foaming champagne, which contributed mightily to the conviviality of the evening.

None of this went unremarked by Hadrian, but none of it mattered. From the moment she descended the stairs with a radiant Jane at her elbow, he had not been able to take his eyes off Clarissa Willoughby.

Everything about her was compellingly familiar, yet strangely new. It was as though he were viewing her through a kaleidoscope’s prism. As he watched her move quietly through the throng, the various aspects of her manner and looks slid and changed before his eyes, yet remained essentially the same. The clarity of her resemblance to Princess Soltana was so strong in the candlelight that he nearly approached her to question her again. But some instinct toward survival of their friendship held him back. In fact, he deliberately watched her from a distance the first hour, pretending interest in the conversations surrounding him, but aware of her every move.

Finally she looked up across the length of the room, as if in search of someone, and her gaze met his. The smile she sent him was so warm that he could feel the heat of it ten yards away. The answer came to him so abruptly it felt like a bolt of revelation.

Everyone had been nattering away about the Mysterious Veil’s parentage. Most of the rumors connected her to the Holton family through Lord Arbuthnott. None of them had considered the notion which had just struck him. Princess Soltana and Clarissa Willoughby looked remarkably alike, not because they were cousins, but because they were sisters!

It made sense. Major General Holton had been a widower since his daughter’s birth. A soldier by profession, he had spent most of his life abroad. It was not unlikely that he had formed liaisons with foreign women.

Watching Clarissa cross the room toward him, Hadrian began to smile. He had known several soldiers who had fallen in love with Moorish and Moslem women during their time on the Peninsula. The daughter of an illicit union would not have found favor with either family. Or, perhaps, the major general had wished to spare his first daughter’s feelings by keeping his second child a secret. But now that he was dead, tenderhearted Lady Arbuthnott had brought the girl to London in the hope of her marrying well. How much did Mrs. Willoughby know about Soltana? Her frank manner on the subject from the first suggested that she knew everything and did not begrudge the girl a thing.

“You look bemused, my lord,” Clarissa said when she reached his side. “Are you concerned by the Tsar’s continued absence?”

“Only insofar that it robs me of the opportunity to ask you to dance, madam.” He leaned away from the column against which he had been resting a shoulder. “I am anxious to waltz with you.”

“Waltz?” Clarissa’s expression was faintly shocked. “Your mother allows the waltz beneath her roof?”

Hadrian grinned. “She does not. Yet somehow I thought a lady who prefers to ride astride would not mind a turn about the floor with me, though it might scandalize the party.”

“I should not want to scandalize your mama,” she said and placed a gloved hand on his sleeve. “But I own I did learn the steps in Spain. There were several evenings on the frontier when my father invited his French counterparts to a dance in our camp. French officers make excellent beaux as they are both gallant and skilled in the art of the waltz.” Her eyes clouded with memories suddenly not so pleasant. “I will never understand how men can be civil one day and then gladly kill one another the next.”

She had astonished him again. Its cause was not the disclosure of the civilities exchanged between British and French troops. That occurred often in the lulls between battles. It was that she openly admitted that she enjoyed the attention of men without simpering or smirking or exhibiting any of the suggestive coquetry a man usually expected from a married lady when she was making her romantic interest in him known. Perhaps she was more experienced than most. Or was she simply more honest?

The thought angered him in a way it should not have. “Did you have many lovers, Mrs. Willoughby?”

She regarded him with widened eyes. “I must suppose you mean suitors, Lord Ramsbury. Yes, of course. A young girl in a military camp composed almost exclusively of soldiers will quickly become the fixed object of interest for many lonely, frightened young men. My father taught me to be firm but gentle. I was the last lady many of them ever saw.”

The setdown struck him smack between the eyes, deservedly so, he realized. “Forgive me. The question was phrased insultingly. I did not mean it to be.”

“Yes, you did,” she countered readily. Those searching dark eyes were on his face again, and he wished she’d turn them away, almost. “I cannot think why.”

“Can you not?”

He saw many shades of emotion flow through her expression until she did at last lower her gaze. “You must think very carefully about your feelings, Lord Ramsbury. I should not wish you to be mistaken.” With that she shifted away from him. But he was not ready to let her go. He had seen too much, felt too much in her company to simply let her go.

The sudden cessation of voices and music kept him from calling her name. Jane came rushing up his side even as he reached out to catch Clarissa’s sleeve.

“ ’Tis the Tsar!” Jane whispered frantically. “He’s here at last!
Maman
needs you. Come quickly!”