The Companion (30 page)

He was trapped.

His steps slowed, dragged down by the wet and by despair.
Vampire
. He looked up and saw that he was in some square he did not know. Hunger tingled in him. He could resist it yet. But to what purpose? If he denied himself, it
would only be more difficult to take only a little later. With despair eating at his gut, he saw two girls dressed in the height of fashion hurrying out of a carriage in front of a house with brightly lit windows.

One of the young things gasped and said, “Do go on, Clarissa; there is no sense in having both of us wet. I have left my muff in the carriage.” She spun and hurried back through the darkness. The carriage had already begun to clatter away. She waved to no avail.

Ian looked around. The square was deserted, even at so early an hour. A park gleamed wetly black at the center. It was surrounded by wrought-iron palings, but they should not prove difficult for one as strong as he was. The girl sagged and turned back toward the house.

With a groan, he followed.

“There you are, Miss Rochewell. Where have you been hiding yourself?”

Beth’s stomach sank. “Mr. Blakely,” she greeted the pale young slip of a man who waved at her from across the main ballroom at Almack’s Assembly Rooms in Kings Street. The room was bright with candlelight flickering from the giant chandeliers and sconces placed along the walls. Dancing couples swirled in the center. Around the outside, small groups formed and re-formed at tables laid out with orgeat punch and tiny insipid cakes. Beth glanced up at the Admiral. How could she bear both of them at once?

“I have written a new poem,” the young man announced. “ ‘
To Elizabeth, Whose Eyes Shine from Another World
.’ ” Beth noted with alarm that he held a tiny much-creased paper in his hand, which he unfolded. “Your eyes speak softly of a land beyond the seas—”

“Dear me, Mr. Blakely,” she interrupted. She could hear the titters of several fashionable young women as they whispered behind their hands and glanced from the Admiral to Mr. Blakely. The Admiral himself tut-tutted disapprovingly. “I’m sure the poem deserves much more attention than we
could give it in the middle of Almack’s. Wouldn’t you agree, Admiral?”

“Damned puppy is what I say! Poetry, of all things.” The Admiral’s long sideburns waggled along with his very bushy brows. He spoke loudly, since long experience of cannons on a ship of the line had made him deaf. “A girl wants a pretty compliment to be sure, lad, but no sad long bouts of poetry. Enough to make her go into a decline.”

Mr. Blakely looked crestfallen. He refolded his paper carefully.

“I am not the kind to go into a decline, Admiral,” Beth returned with some asperity. “And I like poetry very well. But not,” she added as she saw Mr. Blakely’s eyes light and his fingers begin to unfold the paper once again, “in the middle of Almack’s.”

“What you want is to come sailing,” the Admiral declared roundly. “A good breeze just abaft the beam on my tight little yacht would set you up remarkably. Shall we say Wednesday?”

“She is promised to a reading by Mrs. Pierce-Northcott with me,” Mr. Blakely returned.

“I am promised to neither of you,” Beth replied. “And I am afraid, since I could not possibly choose between you, I must keep it that way.” She looked imploringly between a disapproving face and a petulant one. “Neither of you happens to play chess, do you?”

“Chess?” they exclaimed in unison.

“Never mind,” she sighed. She pretended to see one of the party of young women waving at her. Miss Fairfield was one of the few kind faces in the room, one Beth had met at her aunt’s rout party last week. Beth had liked her at once. “Oh, there is Miss Fairfield motioning to me. You will excuse me, won’t you?” She hurried over to the group of pastel flowers.

“Miss Fairfield,” she whispered at that startled girl, “I throw myself upon your mercy. Do save me from the competitive attentions of the gentlemen behind me. I am about to go mad.”

The other young women frowned, but Miss Fairfield glanced to Beth’s suitors. “I should think you do need rescuing. Join us.” She drew Beth into the circle.

Beth sighed in relief. “I feel positively persecuted.”

“Poetry?”

Beth nodded. “From one and sailing terms from the other.”

“Blakely was after Susan Wethersby last month.”

“How did she rid herself of him?” Beth whispered.

“I believe she retired to Bath in the end.” Miss Fairfield laughed at Beth’s crestfallen expression. She had a very attractive laugh. “Your aunt should protect you from them.”

In fact, Emma Fairfield was very attractive in general.
All the things I am not
, Beth thought. Fair skin, well-opened blue eyes, and hair the color of sovereigns. Beth was feeling decidedly unattractive in the pale pink dress her aunt had ordered. She knew very well that pink did not go with her coloring. Lady Rangle dismissed Beth’s qualms about taking charity by saying that if she looked ragged, it would spoil her aunt’s own reputation. But Beth could hardly think she did her aunt any credit. “My aunt has decided they are the only ones who might offer for me, so she encourages them shamelessly.”

“What a strange girl you are,” Chlorinda Belchersand’s sandy brows drew together over a face one might say was rather pinched. “Still, if you are like to have no other offers . . .”

“You have been in town less than a month. It is early days,” Miss Fairfield said.

The other two looked doubtfully at Beth.

“
My
mama has set her sights high,” Jane Campton said, smoothing her unfortunate primrose half dress. Blondes with that ruddy complexion could rarely wear yellow. “Nothing but the best will do for me, Mama says.”

“If she wants a Duke, only Cumberland is unattached, and he is nearly eighty.” Miss Belchersand was most damping.

“It’s not a title Mama wants.” Miss Campton smiled slyly. “The younger Stanbridge, Rufford, is just come back to town. Have you seen him?”

Beth’s heartbeat ratcheted up a notch. No one was paying her the least attention at the moment, which was excellent, since they would miss her blush.

“I heard he made his fortune in some odd foreign place.” Miss Belchersand’s tone was dismissive, but her eyes took on a most disconcerting glow.

“What a fortune! And the Stanbridges are ever so old a family.” Miss Campton began fanning herself with the little painted ivory fan.

Miss Fairfield laughed again. “And what you are both
not
saying is that he is very pleasing in his person. What do you think of him, Miss Rochewell?”

The other girls’ stares snapped to Beth, one reflecting disdain and one amazement that Miss Fairfield would even bother to ask Beth her opinion. “I . . . I have not encountered him at any parties I’ve attended,” Beth said, her calm regained. It had the virtue of being truth.

Pitying looks were cast her way. “Well, you certainly could not miss him if you had.”

“Now you can’t say that his hair is fashionable.” Miss Fairfield smiled. “It is much too long. And his neck cloths are only moderate in height. I thought you two always went in for fashionable fribbles like Sir Lucius Wentworth.”

“One must make allowances,” Miss Campton sniffed. “He has not yet been in London long. And you cannot fault the cut of his coat.”

“No,” said Miss Fairfield thoughtfully. “It fits most exactly. As do his riding breeches when one comes to think about it.”

Miss Campton gasped at Miss Fairfield’s bold language. Beth smiled. She liked the fact that Miss Fairfield said “breeches” and did not take refuge in calling them inexpressibles.

“Where did you see him?” Miss Belchersand queried sharply.

“He was going into Manton’s Shooting Gallery just at sunset. He was up on that big chestnut mare.” Miss Campton and Miss Belchersand scanned the crowded room across the
field of dancing couples anxiously. “You cannot think to find him somewhere so insipid as Almack’s!” Miss Fairfield exclaimed, amused. “He attends only the most dashing events.”

“No wonder I have not encountered him.” Only Miss Fairfield caught Beth’s irony.

“I heard he won a fortune from old Beardsley,” Miss Campton said confidentially. “Beardsley shot himself. And the Duchess of Devonshire introduced him as a special friend at her moonlight boat picnic on the Thames, though how he could have gotten cards when he is so new in town one cannot fathom.”

“I heard he has a sponsor,” Miss Fairfield said, lifting her brows, “or perhaps two.”

“A sponsor? What do you mean?” Miss Campton tore her gaze from the doors.

“I mean Lady Mulgrave doted on him down at Oakhurst. Lady Sofingham invited him to Ashley to try his mare in the field, but he didn’t hunt at all and only appeared at dinner.”

“They are both married,” Miss Belchersand said, dismissing two very powerful members of the
ton
at a single blow.

“You are so young sometimes, Chlorinda,” Miss Fairfield remarked. They must have been at school together for Miss Fairfield to call her by her first name.

Sir Lucius Wentworth minced over from the table with the punch fountain and bowed in front of Miss Campton, who simpered as he led her to the floor.

Miss Belchersand was claimed a moment later by a grand figure in the uniform of the Seventh Hussars, but Miss Fairfield declined his friend, saying that she was still much too hot to continue dancing. She deftly rid herself of his company by pointing out an available partner.

“You quite amaze me, Miss Fairfield,” Beth said as they turned to procure another glass of orgeat punch. She was absurdly grateful she had not been left alone. “You navigate the shoals of these social waters as though you were born to it.”

“This will be my third season.” But experience alone could not explain her proficiency.

“You must have had many offers,” Beth observed.

“None tempting enough to give up my independence. My brother despairs of me.”

Beth was wondering if she should ask if Miss Fairfield believed in love when her companion called out, “Oh, oh, Major!”

A handsome man with blond mustachios in a well-cut civilian coat glanced up and smiled. “Major Ware was walking home from Whitehall Lane this afternoon when my brother and I chanced upon him,” Miss Fairfield murmured. “We have known him these many years. His father’s hunting lodge is adjacent to our own.” Major Ware’s eyes rested on Miss Fairfield with an eagerness Beth could not mistake as he crossed the room and bowed over Miss Fairfield’s hand. Now she would be left alone for certain.

“Major Ware, let me introduce you to Miss Elizabeth Rochewell. She is as much fixated on North Africa as you are. I think she has been quite everywhere in the Mediterranean.”

“Not everywhere,” Beth deprecated as he tore his gaze from Miss Fairfield and bowed punctiliously. “The Levant, Egypt, Tripoli, Marrakech . . .” She trailed off, remembering how dull people found references to places they did not know and did not care about.

“I was at El Golea with the British delegation. I am just back.” His face grew serious. “I came with dispatches on the fastest sloop we could find. Marrakech has fallen.”

“The Dey is deposed? Is he displaced by one of his brothers?” In Beth’s long experience brothers and uncles constantly deposed one another in the complicated politics of the region.

The Major gave a nervous smile and glanced apologetically at Miss Fairfield. “I’m afraid it is worse than that.” His eyes hardened. “An army follows a woman as though she were a goddess. They are sweeping across the desert, leaving destruction in their wake, and worse.”

“What worse?” Miss Fairfield asked.

“That is not for a lady’s ears.” He managed a smile, but his eyes were troubled.

“Tell, Major. We shall not let him off so lightly, will we, Miss Fairfield?” A premonition of evil shivered down Beth’s spine.

Before the Major could respond, the doors at the far side of the room opened. It was five to eleven and Almack’s was about to close to newcomers. A woman entered, with several attendant satellites hovering behind her. All heads immediately turned. Conversation stopped.

She was the most beautiful woman Beth had ever seen. Her beauty did not lie in her pale, creamy skin, now faintly flushed, or her eyes, which seemed black at this distance, or her hair, which was dark yet laced with a red glow. Her figure was remarkable, and the décolleté of a dress that had been dampened showed a great deal of it. But it was the life that seemed to fairly blaze out of her that turned the room’s attention. Beth had never seen a woman almost vibrate with energy. The fact that she wore deep rose satin when all other women dressed in pastels only made her burn with life the more.

“Who . . . who is that, Miss Fairfield?” Beth asked.

“The Countess of Lente,” Miss Fairfield whispered, herself awed. “From Amsterdam. Took the town by storm when I was still in the schoolroom. She was not quite the thing, though all the men were at her feet, if you know what I mean. Especially an earl—what was his name? Black hair, green eyes—you know the one. Now she wanders about Europe with some fabulously wealthy French nobleman. Word has it she stays in London only to conclude some urgent business and is anxious to return to him. I thought perhaps time would dim her.”

“I cannot imagine anyone being more full of life.” The Countess made her way across the room to Lady Jersey and the Countess Lieven. Beth was sensible that the whole room now subtly revolved around the woman.

“Something in her has changed.” Miss Fairfield paused. “There was once a sense of . . . boredom about her, as well as dissipation and a kind of recklessness.”

Beth tore her eyes away. “Really? She hardly seems bored.”

“No. My mother called her a dangerous woman. If anything, she looks more dangerous than ever. . . .” Miss Fairfield trailed away, then looked up with a guilty expression at the Major. “How unkind of me! I can’t think what came over me to say such things.”

They watched the magnetic woman greet her fellow lionesses of fashion and glance around the room. Her attention was riveted by a young woman standing just behind Beth. Suddenly the Countess of Lente had eyes for no one else. Beth’s little group followed her gaze as one. The girl was nothing remarkable. Her dress was fashionable, a creamy satin whose tiny puff sleeves accentuated her plump arms. She wore a scarf twined around her neck and trailing out behind her and a pretty shawl of Norwich silk.