Edith Layton (2 page)

“Aha!” another gentleman chuckled. “A ‘billy due,’ unless I miss my guess. Sweet nothings and an invitation to more. Leave it to him, man’s got the luck of the devil. Never got one of them at a ball myself.”

“You never got one of them anywhere, sir,” another gentleman drawled. “If you had, your lovely wife would have slain you.”

“Likely,” the other admitted good-naturedly. “That’s what comes of having married in my infancy. Miss out on all the merry moments you bachelors have. Secret perfumed summonses are the stuff of my dreams, I fear.”

Alasdair drew the note under his nose. “This one was scented with cigar smoke.”

“And in handwriting bold and black as your heart, my friend,” Leigh observed, peering over his shoulder. “Since Napoleon’s left St. Helena for hell, I doubt it’s a summons from the War Office
or
a note from a French spy. I don’t think the nation has anything to worry about. But maybe you do. I wouldn’t care to meet the lady who wrote that!”

“I would,” Alasdair said with a smile. “Though I doubt it’s from a lady. My curiosity knows no bounds. If you’ll excuse me?”

He bowed his sleek dark head, turned, and strode away. His friends watched him go. Then they began chatting again, with no further comment about him. It wasn’t so much that he was a man of mystery. A man had his reasons, and Sir Alasdair likely had more than most.

Alasdair left the ballroom at full stride. When he got to the hall, a footman approached. “The gentlemen are gaming in the little salon,” he told Alasdair, indicating
the long hall on the right. “The gentleman’s withdrawing room is to the left.”

“And the library?”

“Past the gent’s room, down the hall, sir,” the footman said.

Alasdair turned left. Gentlemen at lavish balls were often given more means of diversion than dancing, eating, and gossiping. The gambling was small stakes, set up to ease the boredom of papas, husbands, and confirmed bachelors. The library was the best place for a nice nap until a fellow’s wife or daughter was done with all the tomfoolery and a chap could go home again. But Alasdair was looking for the blue salon the note said would be beyond the library. And he was looking for something more interesting there.

He didn’t know who the anonymous fellow who’d sent the note was. Nor what the “…
meeting that I’ve cause to know would be most especially suited to your keenest interest and most pressing desire
…” was. But he had a pressing desire, and it was known in certain places that he was always in the market for a special sort of information, arranged confidentially and paid for secretly.

There was no sound as he padded down the hall swiftly and silently as a wraith. This part of the house lay still around him. The quiet was a relief to his ears, but his heartbeat picked up. He had high hopes. Sending a note to him in the midst of a ball might mean someone had something new and valuable to sell him. Not that he hadn’t enough information now. But a man would be a fool to pass up any cream to go on top. Whatever he was, and he admitted that was a great many none too palatable things, he was no fool. Woe to the man or woman who took him for one. He was done with being a fool, forever.

The door to the library was open. He glanced in as
he passed. The place was as crowded as the ballroom, but private as a mausoleum, and just as lively. One stout gent sat back in a deep chair with a newspaper folded over his face, another dozed in front of the fire. There were other old parties littered on the furniture everywhere. Alasdair moved silently on.

There was a closed door a few feet farther down the hall. He eased it open.

The room was blue all right. At least the walls were covered with watered blue silk. It was difficult to see the rest of the room, much less the colors in it. The few lit lamps and blazing hearth only showed glimpses of fashionably spindly chairs and settees in the latest Egyptian style. The long curtains were pulled closed. The place looked deserted.

Alasdair knew better than to trust first appearances. He stepped in and closed the door behind him.

“Good,” a throaty voice said with deep pleasure. “You came.”

“As you see,” Alasdair said, peering into the shadows, “though I can’t. Am I to talk to shadows? It wouldn’t be the first time. Deuced uncomfortable though.”

“Not at all,” the voice said with husky laughter. “Good evening, Sir Alasdair.”

A tall woman stepped out of the shadows. Alasdair’s eyes narrowed. She was elegantly dressed in a silver gown with a black overskirt. Her shadow-colored hair was bound up high, exposing her long aristocratic neck and the sparkling diamonds on it. She was whippet thin, her face handsome rather than pretty. He estimated she wasn’t yet thirty years old, but not much less. The back of his neck prickled. She could be an informant, she could be about his omnipresent business. But he had the uncomfortable feeling that though her
business was his, it wasn’t what he wanted. He always trusted his feelings. He didn’t trust her.

“Good evening, ma’am,” he said, inclining his head in the merest bow. “I don’t believe I’ve had the pleasure…or have I? But so long ago I don’t recall? Many of my pleasures from the old days are ones I confess I have the damnedest time remembering now.”

It wasn’t what he would have said to a lady. But he was beginning to believe she wasn’t one, at least not in manners. She laughed again, reassuring him that she wasn’t.

“Lud! No, my dear Sir Alasdair, we haven’t met, in any construction of the words. It would be best if we get that over with now, and quickly, for we’re going to know each other a deal better in future, you see. I’m Lady Eleanora Wretton, of Wretton Hall. My father is Duke Wretton. We’re twenty-seventh—or-eighth—in line for the throne, not that it means much, but it will give you some idea of our standing.”

“Indeed,” Alasdair said lightly, though his face was still and he stood motionless. “And I should have that idea…because…?”

“Because it will show you the futility of trying to rush out the door now. My brother’s already stationed on the other side, you see. And his word will be taken far more seriously than yours.”

“I see. And it was his handwriting on the note?”

She nodded. “I’m sorry. But we felt a note from a smitten female would have been ignored.”

“Clever,” Alasdair said. “So it would have been. And so, unless I’m very much mistaken, this is not an invitation to dalliance, is it?”

“No,” she said, “That must come later.”

“Ah! Then it’s a proposal of marriage?”

She smiled. “Yes, I’m sorry, but there it is. Although
it’s much more than a proposal at this point, sir. After luring me here, alone, for your sole enjoyment? With the door closed so I can’t escape, and I, the unmarried daughter of a peer? It is, I fear, a certain engagement.”

“Is it?” Alasdair mused. “I wouldn’t bet on it, my lady. I have some options. I can challenge your dear brother to a duel, you know. Or your dear father, if it comes to that.”

“So you can,” she said mildly, “and maybe even kill them, you’re very good at that, I hear. But then,” she added sweetly, “you’d hang, surely. Or be forced to go abroad for the rest of your days. And you so lately returned to England from the Continent,” she said with sympathy. “I’m sure that would inconvenience you.”

“Aye, it would be the very devil,” he agreed.

“So then, there it is. Now, you’ve only to decide whether to walk out of here and announce the thing graciously, or let my brother do it, in much less amiable fashion.”

He said nothing. She sighed. She rubbed a hand over her lips to make them blush ruddily, and stepped toward him, shrugging her gown off one shoulder as she did. “I’d hate to expose myself entirely,” she said, looking down to see the silky material had stopped sliding, caught on the puckered nipple of one little breast. “I’d thought to keep that a treat for your eyes only. But this—and this,” she added, shaking her head back, letting her hair loose from its pins so it lay on her shoulders, “should suffice, I think.” She raised her arms and ran both hands through her hair to muss it even more. “Such ardor you showed, my dear sir!” She laughed when she saw her motion had bared both breasts. “Naughty fellow.”

“Yes, but not this time,” Alasdair said, standing aloof. “A pretty sight, but wasted. There are gaps in
your trap m’lady. I can exile myself, and will, I think, rather than be forced into wedlock.”

“Indeed? But everyone is saying how happy you are to be home at last.”

“So I was,” he said. He cocked his dark head. “Why me? Some baroque form of revenge?”

She laughed again. “Lud, no! But needs must when the devil drives…a singularly apt phrase in your case, you’ll agree. Look, my dear sir,” she said, suddenly serious, “you’re a fellow with a desperate reputation. I, unhappily, have one now, too. You may have committed all sorts of indecencies with all sorts of creatures. I merely forgot myself with one man who forgot his wedding vows. Yet I’ll suffer more for it than you with all your immorality. His wife is the vengeful sort.”

She shrugged again. “So my name will be ruined, and I’ll have to leave the social scene for years, if not forever. Is that fair? Hardly. So since I had to choose someone to cleanse my name in a sudden but acceptable marriage, we felt you’d be the most apt and the last to cry foul. You ought to understand. And you are, after all, getting a wealthy, titled wife, with the best social standing. I have a great deal to bring to the bargain, after all.”

“Including that forgetful fellow’s get to raise as my own?” Alasdair asked thoughtfully.

She had the grace to look away. “No,” she said after a moment. “I’ve some sense of fairness, you know.”

He seemed genuinely amused, though his hands were knotted to fists at his side. “No, my lady. I think not. I’ll do many things, and, as you say, have done. Not that you’re not charming,” he added, gazing with slow care at her breasts. “Indeed, I think if you’d met me in the normal way of things, you might well have achieved something like your aims. I do like a woman
of courage, not to mention guile. And who knows what time might have wrought?”

He raised his head. His expression was mild and his voice remained urbane, but his stance resembled a stag at bay. “But we’ve had neither time nor opportunity to know each other, nor will we. I’m no man or woman’s slave, or toy, or prey. Do your worst. I won’t marry you. Sorry.”

“You will be sorrier,” she warned him. “Your reputation can’t recover from this. I’ve had a good name—until now. If I marry, the other matter will be forgotten. The gentleman’s wife only wants to know that I’m safely away from her husband. She won’t pursue it once we wed. You are, among other things, greatly feared. One of the other reasons we chose you.”

He didn’t answer.

“And so?” she finally asked after a bit of wood snapped in the fire and broke the silence. “One last chance, sir. I look well kissed, I am half-dressed. Make me a pretty offer, or I’ll take the decision out of your hands. One more moment, then I’ll cry out. My brother’s waiting for that summons. He’ll rush in, accuse you of all things. How tedious. How bourgeois. But everything he says will be believed, you know. Come, Sir Alasdair. Though you hesitate, I
am
considered attractive. They say you did every vile thing in your wild youth. No one will be shocked to see you returning to such behavior now. But they
will
be shocked, and appalled, that you violated a gentleman’s code by attacking another gentleman’s daughter. Last chance, sir. We’ll be wed anyhow. Wouldn’t it be better to do it in dignified fashion?”

He shook his head. “No,” he said, “I shudder at the thought of the outcry, of course. But I’ve no intention of marrying you, certainly not like this. So shout, have
your damned brother in, have the world in, if you wish. Screech away, my dear, but even if you caterwaul like Catalani herself, I won’t have you.”

She looked shocked. Then her expression grew cold. Her body stiffened, and her widened eyes glittered.

He braced himself.

“Oh, my,” a light, breathless voice said from the corner of the room. “Oh, my dear lady, please don’t! My family would hate my name involved in a scandal. It’s what I get for always being in the wrong place at the right time…or is it the other way around? Whatever it is, I beg you, please don’t shout! Or at least, could you wait until I leave?”

A
lasdair and the lady spun around to stare at the young woman standing in front of the curtains, twisting her hands together. A very pretty and very worried young woman, simply dressed in white. She was white-faced, too.

“I was here, resting, when you came in,” she told Lady Eleanora quickly. “I thought you’d only be a moment, that you were here to fix your gown or some such. When the gentleman arrived, I hoped to slip away because then I thought you and he…” She hesitated, clearly embarrassed. “But it was nothing like that. I mean to say, you wanted him to, but he didn’t. Oh, Lord!” she said miserably. “What a strange situation! I’m making it worse, aren’t I? But please, don’t shout. I couldn’t bear it!”

“A servant,” the lady spat, spinning around to stare at Alasdair. “Never mind. She’s nothing. She won’t be believed.”

“I beg your pardon!” the young woman said,
sounding even more upset. “I’m not a servant. I’m not dressed for a grand ball, to be sure, but I only recently arrived in town, you see. I’m a cousin to the Swansons and very respectable, I assure you. I may not be dressed in the first stare of fashion,” she said, drawing herself up to her not very considerable height, “but at least I
am
dressed.”

Alasdair began laughing.

Lady Eleanora drew herself up, too, in every way. She pulled up her gown and swiftly retied her hair. “Good evening,” she said through clenched teeth. She walked past Alasdair, drew open the door, and swept out of the room. Only the door slamming behind her gave hint of her wrath.

Alasdair stopped laughing. “My thanks, and from the bottom of my heart,” he told the young woman. “But now we have to get you out of here, unseen, and fast. She’ll be bent on vengeance. She’ll cry rape on us, and then you’ll be in the soup.”

“And you, too,” she said wisely. “But don’t worry. I’ll leave the way I came in.” She gestured to the curtained wall. She saw his dumbfounded expression and smiled at last. “No, I’m not a ghost.”

“No, you’re an angel,” he said. “But you walk through walls?”

“Yes, as a matter of fact, I did. This is an old house, and there are hidden corridors for the staff to use throughout. They didn’t want servants lugging chamber pots and such through the halls for everyone to see in the old days, it seems. So I came in that way.”

“But why?” he asked, “Why did you come in here tonight?”

She hesitated. “Because it wasn’t fair,” she said. “We heard what she and her brother were planning. Overheard, that is. Sibyl and I. Sibyl’s the youngest Swan
son daughter. She’s not been presented to Society yet. We were standing at the back of the ballroom and heard them whispering together.”

She looked even more uneasy. “Not precisely the back of the ballroom,” she added. “Sibyl knows all the hidden places in the house, and was showing them to me. It’s really fascinating, architecturally.”

He raised one eyebrow.

She looked embarrassed, ducked her head, then raised it as she hurriedly went on. “But that’s not the point. The lady and her brother didn’t think anyone was there, of course. We couldn’t believe our ears! So gothic. And mean-spirited! Sibyl was on fire to rescue you. I couldn’t let her risk her name. She’s very young. And to possibly be ruined by a gallant gesture? I’m not very brave. Nor was I sure it was the right course. But she was so upset that she was going to rush in to mend matters if I didn’t. I couldn’t have that.”

They heard a commotion in the hall, the sound of several voices. She glanced at the door, and then back at him.

The first time he’d seen her he’d been too busy thinking about his predicament for a good look. He’d the fleeting impression of a charming face, a mass of curls, a slender but bountiful figure, loveliness that needed closer inspection. Now he gazed at her, and in that moment felt something shift in his perceptions, something alter his pulse, something he couldn’t name. It was gone in another moment. He never forgot himself for longer. There wasn’t time to think about it, not now. One thing was clear though, she was dressed plainly, but plain she was not.

She looked at the door and then back at him, and froze as her eyes searched his. He’d seen that reaction
before, but never from a female.
Fear?
Of him? But why should she fear him?

The sound of voices came closer. She only kept staring at him. She didn’t move a step.

His nostrils flared. “Oh,” he said softly, his face going still, “I see. I was rescued so as to be given a more deserving bride?”

She gasped as though he’d hit her in the stomach. Her head reared back. “That’s vile! I’d have done the same for any animal caught in a trap.” Even in the in-constant light he could see her cheeks flame at what she’d said. “I didn’t mean it that way,” she said at once, “I don’t mean to be rude,” she added, backing a step, “But I certainly don’t want
that
. I can think of few things more repugnant than marriage to you. Except for being caught in here right now. Good-bye.” She turned, hurried to the other end of the room, and drew back the curtain.

“Wait! I’m sorry,” he said, “I didn’t mean that. Or if I did, put it down to my disordered thinking, under the circumstances. I’m entirely in your debt and I know it. Please forgive me.”

She nodded curtly and ducked behind the curtains.

“Your name—at least that!” he called after her.

Her tousled head popped back out. “But you don’t have to thank me again, or worry about anything. I’m no one, really. Good-bye!” she said, and disappeared behind the curtain again.

The door to the blue salon flew open. A group of men burst in, led by an agitated gentleman. They glanced around the room, and saw nothing but Alasdair. He wore a pained expression.

“Where is she?” the agitated gentleman demanded.

“Who? And lower your voice please,” Alasdair said, wincing.

“These fellows think you’ve got a woman in here, Alasdair,” Viscount Leigh said with a wry smile as he stepped into the room, looking around curiously. “They claimed you were bent on rape. I tried to tell them it was always the other way round, and came to see if I had to rescue you from some besotted female.”

“Thank you, Leigh,” Alasdair said. “No such luck. I was summoned here with that damned cigar-perfumed note, but when I got here the place was empty. I was just waiting to see if anyone would appear. I didn’t expect a mob.”

The agitated gentleman stalked into the room, frowning ferociously. He looked in every corner, even peering behind furniture. Then, on an obviously sudden inspiration, he turned toward the curtains. With a triumphant flourish, he tore them back.

There was nothing there but a wall, a picture of an overfed ancestor, and the blank, black panes of a window staring into the night.

“Many things I have done, Wretton,” Alasdair said sweetly, “but I’ve not yet mastered the trick of pulling females out of thin air. God knows, I’ve tried. Now, if you don’t mind, I’m leaving. Speaking of air, I need some fresh. The atmosphere’s too stifling for me here. Good evening,” he said as he strode out the door.

The agitated gentleman looked confused. The others in his raiding party glowered at him. Some of them had unmarried sisters here tonight, too.

Kate reeled into her room, one hand on her midsection.

Her cousin Sibyl popped up from the chair she’d been curled in. “Kate! What is it?” she cried.

“Lord!” Kate said dazedly, sinking to her bed. “He’s
so
big
! He took all the air out of the room. He just siphoned it out, somehow.”

“Did you save him?”

“Consider him saved—if that’s at all possible,” Kate said on a shaken laugh. “At least I routed
her
. You should have seen it. Shocking! She pulled down her gown, and her breas…bosom was hanging out. He stared. Well, who wouldn’t? They were very nice,” she added generously. “Another man might have been left speechless.
I
was. I suppose he’s seen too many to care. She told him to marry her or else, just as she said she’d do. She had him cornered, but he didn’t give up. ‘No,’ he said. ‘Do your worst,’ or something like that. I was all admiration. She was about to shout, and her evil brother was outside the door, too. Then I stepped out and pretended to be stupid. Which I was.

“Who could have expected it?” she murmured almost to herself. “I thought I was so much older and more responsible than you. How could I have known? I never saw the like of him before. Sibyl,” she breathed, her eyes widening as the implications of what she’d done sank in, “my name could have been ruined, too.”

Some of the exhilaration began to wear off. “What a fool I was!” she marveled. “I’d heard so much about him. If half of it were true, it was too much. But I was ready to sacrifice myself to save him. I said it was to save you, too, but the truth was I felt sorry for him. I never blamed him because, I suppose, we tend to romanticize wild gentlemen, allowing them things we’d condemn women for.”

“But men are different. They have different needs.”

“Do they?” Kate murmured. “Well, at least they pay different consequences for them, don’t they?”

“Lady Eleanora was going to trap him, blackmail him. That was never right.”

“So it wasn’t,” Kate shook her head. “Lord! I did it!” She held up her hands and saw the fine trembling in her fingers. “How could I dare? I’m amazed at myself—and by him. Sib,” she said, “you can’t know how monumental the man is! I’m amazed I could speak straight at all.”

“He’s that handsome up close, too?” Sibyl asked breathlessly.

“Lord, no! Not with that face of his. It’s a mass of contradictions, nothing matches, that jaw is
impossible
. I’ve hung lanterns that were of subtler design. There’s no balance. But the sum is so much better than the parts. No, he’s not handsome. It’s better and worse than that.”

“You sound smitten,” her cousin said.

“Smitten?” Kate echoed, considering it, her head to the side, “No. ’Smote,’ though. Yes, absolutely. But what’s that got to do with anything? He’s too much for me, but I wasn’t angling for him, and I’m not going to have to deal with him again. But, as for
she
who was trying to,” she said with a sudden triumphant grin that made her look like a girl, “I did it. I banished the she devil, and set him free!”

Her cousin looked at her with admiration.

“Don’t think he was grateful,” Kate said with a laugh. “He couldn’t have been ruder. He accused
me
of trying to snare him! Yes. Because when she left, instead of nipping right out of the room the way I was supposed to do, I suddenly felt I couldn’t move. It’s the truth. I couldn’t. My legs turned to water. I’m glad he accused me of what she tried to do; it was like a bucket of cold water in my face. I fled—as much from him as those who were coming. Oh, but my dear cousin! He terrified me almost as much as the people who were coming to the door.”

“People came to the door?” Sibyl asked, her eyes widened.

Kate nodded. “She probably sent them after she left, trying to get him into trouble, no doubt.”

“And you.” Sibyl looked worried. “She might harbor a grudge and try to do you an injury.”

“Much chance of that,” Kate scoffed. “What? Send me home again? I’ll go soon anyway. I’m a country mouse in from the haystacks for a few improving weeks. No one knows me, or knows I’m here, and no one will know where I go, or when I do.”

Sibyl looked down at her lap, “I’m sorry. It’s just that Papa and Mama are having a hard enough time springing off Frances, Henrietta, and Chloe. If they gowned and presented you, you’d be too much competition.”

“Don’t feel sorry for me, there’s no need for it,” Kate said quickly. “I couldn’t be any kind of competition either.”

“What?” her cousin squeaked, gazing at Kate. “With your looks?” The excitement had put high color into Kate’s cheeks, making her piquant face glow. “Why, you’ve the most beautiful eyes, such a pretty shade, they match your hair. As for hair, you don’t have to spend hours in curl papers, you simply tie yours up with a ribbon, and
voilà
! It’s instantly in perfect style,
à la Meduse
.”

“Yes,” Kate said with a grimace, shaking her head until some of her curls tumbled from their moorings to dance around her face, covering her eyes. “Very appropriate. Because if I didn’t tie it, it would look just
like
a nest of snakes. My hair is brown, my eyes are ditto, I’m not impressed with my looks at all. Now, if I were slimmer and…Never mind that.” She swiped her curls back with one hand and looked keenly at her cousin. “I’m not talking about my appearance. It wouldn’t
matter if I looked like Venus. I can’t be competition for the gentlemen your sisters are on the hunt for.”

Sibyl began to protest, but Kate held up her hand. “I’ve no money, at least not the kind you need to be a social success in London.”

Sibyl fell still and looked at her own hands as though they suddenly fascinated her.

“Yes, exactly,” Kate said. “And though I’m ’connected’ to just about everyone, I’ve no social standing either.” She saw her cousin’s expression. “It doesn’t matter. I’m glad I’m here.
Glad?
Ecstatic. If I hadn’t visited you, I’d never get to see the sights of London.”

“But your parents sent you in the hopes…”

“That once I was seen one of the royal princes would come waddling over, fall to one knee, and ask me to be his wife?” Kate smiled ruefully. “I love my parents, but I’m three-and-twenty and firmly on the shelf. Sending me to family I hadn’t seen since I was christened was a wild hope. Not mine. I don’t fit in here at all.

“What a face! You look like you’re about to cry for me.” Kate laughed. “There’s no need. We’re not poor, mind. We’ve a neat, comfortable farm and a steady income. But the thing is we have to think about income, and it’s clear no one here does. When I first saw the gowns on the London ladies, I was staggered. I’d only seen such in fashion plates. And the way the gentlemen dress? Why, the pin in Sir Alasdair’s cravat could have bought a horse! We don’t have funds like that. What am I supposed to do, snare a footman? Not that Ffelkes isn’t pretty,” she added, to make her cousin giggle, because poor Ffelkes had spots and no chin, “but I don’t think he reads any more often than he bathes. I vow, the fellow must have himself dusted every day, along with the furniture. And oiled, too, just look at his hair.”