Shall We Dance? (22 page)

“I doubt that is your concern. You only want what you sent me there for in the first place—information that would help you and your cronies destroy the queen.”

Sir Willard waved one hand dismissively. “Oh, that. Liverpool says he has plenty now. A pair of those Italians she dragged here, brother and sister. A purse apiece, and they'll be brought in front of the Lords the first week of the investigation, and there will be no need for more testimony. In fact, once the queen is apprised of these new witnesses against her, she'll agree to all of our terms.”

Perry kept his expression blank. “How fortunate for you.”

“And you're wondering why I'm telling you, aren't you? You won't betray us, Perry. You can't. You agreed, as a gentleman, to do as I asked, and you cannot in good conscience reveal anything you know.”

Perry got to his feet. “That must be some Tory code I've never heard, Uncle. I certainly don't ascribe to it, not when your target is a sick, frightened, defenseless woman. Although you shouldn't flatter yourself too much, as I know you only told me about these witnesses so that I'll be the one to tell the queen the game is lost, checkmate. I wouldn't count on that, either, Uncle.”

“Perry! Don't be a fool, boy. The sooner this is over,
the sooner you can talk this Amelia of yours round to whatever in blazes it is you want from her. Once you're rid of Rolin, of course. I apologize for that, son, I really do. I knew he was wild, but not that he's totally lost his senses. Do take of that, will you?”

“At this point, Uncle, I'd much rather give him a loaded pistol and a map to your study. Good day.”

And with that, Perry quit his uncle's residence, a bad taste in his mouth, little satisfaction in his heart and an almost unbearable desire to race to Hammersmith…and arrived home to find Amelia's note summoning him to exactly where he wanted to be.

 

“I
DON'T WANT HIM HERE
, Georgiana, so stop looking at me as if I'm counting the minutes, eager to leap into his arms or some such ridiculousness.”

“No, of course not, Amelia,” Georgiana said, doing her best not to smile as she watched her friend pace her bed chamber as the clock neared eight. “Is that a new gown?”

Amelia stopped her pacing and looked down at the cream silk confection that had been a present from the queen while they were in Italy. The style was French, the silk imported from China, and it was, she knew, quite the most flattering thing she owned. Especially when worn, as she was wearing it now, with the emerald choker and earrings the queen had given her on her sixteenth birthday. “No, of course not. Did you really think I would go to that sort of fuss and bother for a small dinner party?”

“Only if the Earl of Brentwood was to be among the
guests,” Georgiana said, no longer able to withhold her smile. “Oh, cut line, Amelia, you know you can't wait to see him again. He sends you notes every day, Nate told me. And Nate told you that even if his uncle did send him here, once he was here His Lordship took one look at you and decided that his uncle could just go hang, he would have nothing further to do with the scheme. You'll have to forgive him sometime.”

Amelia subsided into a chair, for two reasons. One, her slippers, dyed to match her gown, had never been comfortable. And two, the closer the clock hands moved to eight, the weaker her knees became. “Georgiana, he lied. It doesn't matter that he's sorry. When I think that I was going to entrust him with—no, no, I can't forgive him. He had no right to come here.”

Georgiana pursed her lips, had a silent conversation with herself, then sighed. “All right, Amelia, you're making me do this. I mean, it's not my fault and Nate can't be angry, and since he wasn't supposed to tell me in the first place, I see no reason why I can't tell you in the second place, because it's not as if I need to know, it's that you
should
know.”

Amelia took out a small linen square edged with fine lace and began picking at it with her fingers, a nervous habit she really should try to overcome. “Georgiana, would you mind terribly if I told you I haven't understood a word you just said?”

Georgiana pushed at the nosepiece of her spectacles, another young lady with a habit to break. “No, not particularly, because I know I ramble sometimes. Do you
remember Miss Stanley? She taught deportment. She said she despaired of my ever learning when to keep my tongue from running on wheels. She said—”

“Georgiana? You're doing it again. I think you want to tell me what it is that Nate told you that he shouldn't have told you but that I should know. Oh, dear, now I'm doing it.”

Georgiana giggled. “Yes, you are. It's as if we're back in school, isn't it, except that this is very real. Nate's been dragged into every alley and byway in London with the earl. He ate a meat pie he bought from a hawker and was sick for two days, poor lamb.”

Amelia remained silent, because if she commented she knew she'd have to hear much more about Nate's illness, and she really didn't think that was germane to whatever it was Georgiana wasn't supposed to know and wasn't supposed to tell her.

“Oh, dear,” Georgiana said, “I'm usually not this obtuse, really. Being around Nate seems to have addled my brains. Especially now that he's talked to Mr. Bateman and we're going to be officially engaged. Do you really think the queen was serious when she said Mr. Bateman could have the party here? Mama's so in alt she's unbearable, and it makes me nervous, having her dote on me, but I am getting a lovely new gown out of the thing, so that's all right.”

“Georgiana, please. It's almost eight.”

“And you want me to get on with it. I don't blame you. So,” she said, taking a deep breath and then letting it sort of
whoosh
back out, “even though Sir Willard—
the uncle, remember—asked His Lordship to come here and sniff around for dirt on Her Majesty, and His Lordship wanted nothing to do with such a tawdry business, he found he had to because if he didn't, his uncle was going to commission someone else to do it, anyway, and His Lordship doesn't like this other person above half.”

Amelia ran all of this back through her mind a second time, remembering that Nate had been about to say something about “another reason” one day, but Georgiana had stopped him. “Who?”

“I don't know him, but his name is Jarrett Rolin, and Nate says he's a rum touch, a very bad man. Sir Willard was going to send him here to pretend to court you while he dug dirt on Her Majesty, because he wanted His Lordship to, but His Lordship kept ignoring his notes and only found out about the plan at the same time he found out that Rolin would take his place if he didn't do it, so His Lordship knew he had to do the job or else this Rolin fellow would come here and ruin you. He's an honorable man, His Lordship. He didn't even know you then, and he was already hot to protect you from ruin.”

“I don't
ruin
all that easily,” Amelia said, stiffening. “But there's more, isn't there?”

So Georgiana, falling back on the notion that one may as well be hanged for a sheep as a lamb, told Amelia everything she knew about Jarrett Rolin, the Earl of Westham, and Perry Shepherd, including the fact that His Lordship and Nate had been hunting the man down in all sorts of low places (ergo the bad meat pie incident). “Nate says His Lordship is going to kill him when he finds him.”

Amelia looked down at her handkerchief to see that the lace was all in tatters. “Kill him?”

“Nate says His Lordship did some terrible and secret things during the war, and when Nate finally dared to ask what His Lordship would do once he found this Rolin fellow, His Lordship wouldn't answer him. He only said that he would
remove
the problem.”

“Because he thinks that
I
could be in danger? Because this Rolin person hates Perry and his friends and wants to harm them, too? Well, why didn't he simply tell me?”

Georgiana shrugged. “I imagine he thought that a female shouldn't know such things. Nate thought that, until I assured him that females are much more dangerous when they know they should know something and someone isn't telling them. So, are you going to forgive him?”

“Georgiana,” Amelia said with as much patience as she could muster. “I am here to serve and to protect Her Majesty. If Perry had never come here, I wouldn't be in danger, now, would I? After all, I'm not such a looby as to not have seen through anybody you describe as so patently a rogue as this Rolin person.”

“You didn't see through His Lordship,” Georgiana pointed out, then wished she hadn't. “And Nate says Rolin is quite the dasher with the ladies, so you might not have seen through him, either.”

“In other words, Georgiana, I'm a silly, stupid woman who should not be trusted in male company?”

“No, I didn't mean that. You were right to like His Lordship, because Nate says he's top drawer—and I re
ally must stop using all this cant, but it makes such sense when Nate uses it. And you are fond of His Lordship, Amelia, you know you are. Otherwise, you wouldn't be so angry with him.”

 

“T
HINK SHE'LL TALK TO YER
, sir?” Clive asked as, in the role of footman, he was the one who opened the door in answer to Perry's rap on the knocker. “She's that mad, yer know. Tried to weasel out of the festivities, but the queen told her she didn't want to hear about bellyaches or megrims and she'd best be ready to show herself once yer showed yerself. How do yer think I look in this here livery? Dovey says I look like a May game.”

By this time, Perry had stripped off his gloves and removed his hat, which he was tempted to place on Clive's head, except that Clive's head was already covered by a rather pathetic powdered wig.

“You look just fine, Clive. Where is the Italian?”

“Oh, him. He went off a while ago, grumblin' in that queer tongue of his, sayin' as how Her Majesty wants him to carry her train when she pokes her head inta the drawing room. Big doin's, sir. Food enough for the First Foot, and yer could drink yerself under a table a dozen times before yer made a dent in the wine we got ready to serve. Oh, and I peeked in a fancy box Miss Fredericks took from that there trunk we're supposed to be searchin', and she showed me the diamonds she took from it. Big as goose eggs, sir, I swear it. Good thing the queen's got a nice, strong peasant neck.”

“I couldn't be sure, Clive,” Perry said casually, “but
in some quarters, I do believe you could be considered to have just committed treason. We are always very careful not to notice that our English royalty is heavily steeped in good, solid German stock.”

Clive placed Perry's belongings on a large round table that also held a prodigiously ambitious arrangement of flowers, and all but skipped after him down the hallway. “Is it true, sir, that the first George couldn't even talk the language when he got here? And that all he ate was sauerkraut?”

“Another time, Clive. Am I the first to arrive?”

“No, sir. Miss Penrose is already here, locked upstairs with Miss Fredericks, and Sir Nathaniel is doin' m'rounds for me, checkin' to see if that Rolin fellow is hidin' himself in the bushes. A good sort, Sir Nathaniel, but enjoyin' himself a mite too much, if you take m'meanin'.”

“I agree, Clive. But, as he was on to us, anyway, I find it better to have him with us, rather than enjoying himself too much on his own. You agree?”

Clive shook his head, which set off a shower of white powder onto his velvet-clad shoulders. “Too many of us, sir, is what I'm thinkin.' You, me, the boy, Dovey. And that Nestor.”

“Nestor?”

“The butler, sir. Always pokin' his nose somewheres or the other. And if he's a butler, I don't know where he's been butlerin', because he ain't got a inklin' what butlerin's about, or so says Mrs. Pidgeon.”

Perry helped himself to a glass of wine, immediately
appreciating its fine bouquet. Clive was right; the wine, at least, would be excellent. There had to be tradesmen in London who were optimistic enough about the queen's chances in Parliament that they'd extended her credit.

“And who, pray tell, is Mrs. Pidgeon? I thought your Dovey was the housekeeper.”

“Oh, she is, she is, but Mrs. Pidgeon used to serve the queen before she done her flit, and she came back and asked Dovey to let her join the staff. Ridin' herd on half a hundred servants, just here in the house? Dovey would be all about if not for Mrs. Pidgeon.”

“So you don't think my uncle sent her?”

“Mrs. Pidgeon? No, sir. Just Nestor. There's a passel of us, sir. Not that Nestor lets on, so I don't lets on that I know. If I did, Sir Willard'd probably just send another one. Not a trustin' sort, your uncle. But I'm watchin' this Nestor close as an inkleweaver, so don't yer go worrin' yer head about that.”

“I have the greatest confidence in you, Clive. Even if you do look like a tripped-out monkey in that rigout,” Perry said, saluting his co-conspirator with his wineglass. “Ah, and here comes another compatriot in arms. Nate, good evening to you. Been out beating the bushes, have you?”

Nate closed the French doors and headed straight for the drinks table. “Thirsty work, that, poking about the posies. Good evening to you, Perry. I am happy to report that there is no sign of Jarrett Rolin hunkered down behind any of the bushes. I'm beginning to think
he's taken a flit. Probably scared all hollow that you'll skewer him. I know I would be, if I was him.”

Perry looked to Clive, who shrugged. “My congratulations, Clive,” he said. “I thought certainly you wouldn't have been able to contain yourself.”

“Yer said not ta tell, sir, so I didn't blab.”

“Blab what?” Nate asked, spreading his coattails and seating himself in one of the satin, blue-on-blue-striped chairs. “Oh, I say, Clive, that's not sporting. Keeping secrets from me. And I thought we were rubbing along so well. I'm crushed, Clive, crushed.”