The Bargain (13 page)

“I'll help you,” Ariel resolved. “The best thing would be for me to meet her, or at least observe her. Why don't you take me along the next time you're likely to encounter her?”

“I can't just show up at a
ton
party with you on my arm,” protested Lord Sebastian, aghast. “It's not the thing. People know who you are, and besides—”

“They won't notice me,” put in Ariel, who had already thought of this obstacle and formed a plan to overcome it. “But I see what you mean. We need someone else, someone to give us the proper appearance.” She frowned. “An older woman, very respectable-looking but not too striking—”

“This ain't a good idea,” said Lord Sebastian loudly.

Ariel's eyes had drifted to the right. “Hannah,” she said.

Lord Sebastian's eyes seemed to bulge.

“I could get her a perfect gown from the theater,” Ariel continued. “If you got us in the door, we could—”

“You're mad,” cried the visitor. “But it don't matter, because Hannah ain't. She'll never go along with this scheme, will you, Hannah?”

Both of them turned to look at the older woman.

She gazed back at them imperturbably. “What would I do?” she asked.

“Hannah!” sputtered Lord Sebastian.

“No one will notice us,” promised Ariel. “Or if they do, they will dismiss us as unfashionable nonentities.”

“Can you be certain of that?” asked Hannah.

“It don't matter, because I won't do it,” said Lord Sebastian, looking stubborn.

“Do you know how the hero won his bride in
The
Rake
Reformed
?” insinuated Ariel.

“I don't know, and I don't care. Life isn't some dam… dashed play.”

“It was exceedingly clever.”

He stuck out his jaw. “Why don't you just tell me about it then, and I'll see if I want to give it a try.”

Ariel shook her head. “I must observe Lady Georgina first, to make certain.”

“Blast it!” He frowned again. “You think you can get her to take some notice of me?”

“I believe so.”

He glowered over this for a bit longer, then made a gesture as if throwing something away. “Very well. I suppose I shall be very sorry for this, but let's give it a go.”

Ariel smiled up at him. “If there is the least problem, we will abandon the scheme at once,” she promised.

“Umm.” He considered. “The Coningsby ball is tomorrow. Hundreds invited. Be a good place to escape notice.”

Although she sincerely hoped to help Lord Sebastian in his courtship, Ariel saw no reason why she could not use the occasion to gather information about her mother. The ball would likely offer less scope than gatherings at Carlton House, but one could pick up a great deal simply by being alert.

“Perfect,” said Ariel. “Well be ready.”

“Maybe you will,” he muttered. “But will I?”

***

Ariel stood back from the long mirror and made a critical survey of her appearance. She wore the gown that had been her old schoolmistress Miss Ames's favorite. It was made of pale blue muslin with long sleeves and a high neck with a small frill encircling it. The bodice was otherwise unornamented and slightly loose on her; the skirt fell in heavy plain folds to her feet. All in all, the dress looked as if it had been sewn for a somewhat larger, heavier woman. Ariel looked childlike in it, her curves obscured.

She had bundled her glossy brown locks into a knot at the back of her head, without so much as a curl at the temples. And she had dusted her face with some of her mother's powder, dimming her glowing complexion to a pale shadow of itself. She looked countrified, short of money, and unimportant, she thought with satisfaction. Any member of the
ton
who did happen to glance her way would dismiss her instantly as unworthy of close scrutiny, and she was certain that no one who had seen her at Carlton House would recognize her tonight.

She moved in the mirror. She could almost hear her mother saying it—mannerisms were as critical as costume to a character. She bent her head and lowered her eyelids, slumping her shoulders just a little, as if conscious of her own insignificance. She took a tentative step, like someone who asks permission to exist. The transformation was complete.

Turning, she went downstairs to the front parlor where Hannah was waiting for her. The older woman wore a dress of rich materials but little style with a matching turban that announced her position as chaperone. “What do you think?” asked Ariel, walking across the room in her beaten-down gait.

A laugh burst from Hannah, quickly stifled. “No one would take you for the girl who left here to go to Carlton House,” she admitted.

Ariel straightened and grinned. “I told you.”

“So you did, miss.”

***

The street before the Coningsby town house was choked with carriages letting off elegantly dressed passengers and moving on. It took a full twenty minutes for them to reach the entry and be ushered into the towering front hall. Attendants took their wraps and then they climbed the curving staircase along with a throng of others to where their hostess and the daughter she was presenting this year waited to greet them. Lord Sebastian had timed it so that they arrived at the peak hour, when most of the invited guests would also be filing past. No one could keep track of all the names at such a time, he assured them. And besides Lady Coningsby was a bit of a lightweight in the brains department.

Consequently, they were able to move by her with a muttering of names and a bare minimum of courtesies. “Slipped us in ahead of a countess,” Lord Sebastian murmured as they continued on. “Knew she'd be champing at the bit to speak to her.”

The ballroom was already crowded. As he had been instructed, Lord Sebastian found them a pair of gilt chairs against the wall and settled them there. Then he went off to find his Georgina and signal Ariel.

Ariel sat primly in the straight chair observing from under lowered eyelids. She had decided that it would be best to stay on the sidelines at first, until the dancing was well under way. She would drift through the crowd later and pick up what she could.

For the next half hour, Ariel secretly watched Lord Sebastian's chosen. Lady Georgina Stane had golden hair and pale skin. She was slender and willowy. Her face was piquant rather than beautiful, with large expressive eyes, a straight nose, and a pointed chin. At the end of the half hour, during which Georgina talked and danced and stood silent by the long windows on the far wall, Ariel made up her mind. Georgina appeared to be a woman of some intelligence, and impatience. She gave short shrift to the more fatuous-looking of her admirers and appeared to brush aside fulsome compliments. She obviously enjoyed the ball, but not all of the attentions her large fortune attracted. She was just the sort of person on which the stratagems Ariel had been concocting would work.

This established, Ariel rose and suggested to Hannah that they take a turn about the room as a change from sitting. Hannah agreed, and they began to walk, Ariel keeping to her shy shuffle and subdued manner. They skirted the edges of the large room, forced to move very slowly by the press of people. Ariel listened to every scrap of conversation, prepared to linger if she heard anything of interest. But they made the circuit of the room without happening upon any mention of Bess Harding's death, which had apparently already faded from the consciousness of the
ton
. This wouldn't do, thought Ariel. She had to have a way to bring up the subject, but it would be quite out of the question for the character she was portraying tonight.

“Good God,” said a male voice nearby. Footsteps rang on the parquet floor, and then a large figure loomed. “What the deuce are you doing here?” it said.

Ariel looked up to confront Lord Alan Gresham in evening dress.

Before she could reply, he said, “Hannah!” in a shocked tone.

“Not so loud,” urged Ariel. At least one person had turned to look, she saw.

He stared at her. “What are you up to? If you have—”

“We'd best go somewhere more private,” interrupted Hannah.

“Yes,” agreed Ariel fervently. She took Hannah's arm and hurried toward the exit, trusting that Lord Alan would follow them, and forgetting for the moment that she was supposed to shuffle modestly along the floor.

They moved down the hallway outside the ballroom, glancing into the open rooms they passed. All held groups of older guests drinking and talking or playing cards. But at last, near the end, they came upon a small parlor that was empty. Ariel ducked in, pulling Hannah after her. Lord Alan was hard on their heels, and he closed the door behind him.

“What the devil are you doing?” he demanded. “I called at the house, and I was told by the maid that you had gone out to a ball.” He looked her up and down. “Why are you dressed as a schoolgirl?”

“I didn't wish to be recognized.”

“Recognized,” he echoed. He looked at Hannah as if for a more sensible answer, then winced at the sight of her turban.

“By anyone who saw me at Carlton House,” she explained.

The thought of what some of those who had seen her at Carlton House might do if they encountered her alone and unprotected—and in this ridiculous disguise—made Alan's jaw clench. She really had no idea of the sort of libertines and roués who had marked her appearances there, or of their ideas of amusement. “You are here without an escort and without an invitation?” he asked.

“We have a perfectly good escort,” Ariel informed him.

“Who?” he demanded. He was upon her in two steps, grasping her upper arms. “Who?” he repeated, conscious of the flare of jealousy her admission had roused in him.

“Enough of this, now,” said Hannah sharply.

Two heads turned to look at her.

“We came with Lord Sebastian,” the older woman continued. “To see this girl he wants to marry. There's no need to fuss so.”

“Sebastian?” echoed Alan. “Marry?”

Hannah smiled a little. “It is a surprise, isn't it, my lord? But he does seem to mean it.” Her eyes shifted to Ariel. “She seemed an acceptable young lady.”

Ariel nodded, then wriggled. “
Will
you let me go?”

Alan dropped his hands and stepped back. “I don't understand,” he said. “How did you come to know anything about Sebastian's affairs?”

Ariel rubbed her upper arms. They didn't actually hurt, but his touch left behind a kind of tingle that was deeply unsettling. “There's no mystery about it,” she said. “He came to my house to talk to—”

“Me?” Here, finally, was something that made sense, Alan thought. For some years now, his brothers had been turning up pretty regularly to ask his advice. They seemed to imagine that his studies gave him knowledge about quite unrelated topics—like investments and chances of preferment in the royal navy and the soundness of the latest agricultural theories. Apparently it was to be marriage next. The whole thing was a bit of a burden.

“No, he—” began Ariel.

“Why didn't he just come to Carlton House? It is rather difficult to call there, I suppose.”
He
wouldn't want to, Alan thought.

“Actually, he was looking for—”

“What does he need?” he asked with a hint of resignation.

“Nothing now.”

“What do you mean, now?” He examined her dowdy gown once again and noticed that she looked pale. If Sebastian had involved her in one of his endless romantic tangles, he thought, he'd wring his neck.

“Matters are well in hand.”

“What matters?”

“Matters of the heart,” replied Ariel loftily.

“What?” She never behaved predictably, Alan thought. He was almost convinced she did it on purpose, to keep him off balance.

“I mean to offer him some advice,” she said.

“You? What sort of advice?”

“About how to win the lady.”

“Nonsense,” Alan declared. “Sebastian needs no help on that score.”

“This young lady does not seem—” began Hannah.

“Why are you really here?” he added.

“I told you.”

“You're using my brother as a way to continue your investigations,” he said, not even hearing her.

“I am
not
,” Ariel said hotly. “I came here to help him.”

“What exactly do you intend to do? Play the innocent schoolgirl and recommend him to the lady as a sterling character? You'll be caught out at that.”

“You wouldn't understand.”

“My understanding has been judged well above the average,” he answered.

“Not about this sort of thing,” she responded.

“What sort of thing?”

“Matters of the heart,” Ariel told him again.

“We are speaking of Sebastian?” He let some of his annoyance come out in sarcasm. She seemed to think he didn't know his own family.

She merely nodded. “He has fallen in love,” she declared.

“Don't be ridiculous.”

“He has.”

“He told you this?” Alan was incredulous, both at the idea of Sebastian in love and at the notion that he had told Ariel Harding about it.

“Well, I'm not sure he is entirely aware of the fact as yet,” Ariel conceded.

“Ah.” He nodded in comprehension. “You have made up some kind of fairy story about—”

“It is not made up! And anyway, how would you know? You think there is no such thing as love.”

“There isn't, particularly if you are talking of Sebastian.”

She pressed her lips together and looked away.

She was infuriatingly beautiful, Alan thought, even in that silly dowdy gown. And for exactly that reason, she had to be made to understand that she couldn't wander about London pursuing any scheme that occurred to her. “You must stop this,” he said.