Scandal on Half Moon Street Page 5

  “Just a few people over for cards,” Mama had said. But of course it included supper and half their in-town acquaintance, with tables for several different games scattered about the downstairs drawing room, Candace arranging the chips on the cassino table and Gregory setting out unbroken packs of cards. Long before she could claim to be ready—

  “My dear Miss Kirkhoven, how charming to see you again so soon.” His Grace bowed over her hand, all courtesy and smiling elegance. A blaze of candlelight brightened the claret-colored broadcloth of his double-breasted tailcoat, flowing up his arm as he bowed, then receding like the tide as he straightened. His nostrils flared and his smile deepened. “The hyacinth scent becomes you well.”

  Again those delicious prickles trailed up her arms and heat blossomed across her face. It was more than just the intensity of his gaze; something sensual and knowing in his expression, some underlying mannerism, quickened her breathing and spurred on her pulse. Frederick was the man she loved, but she couldn’t deny an attraction existed here, as well.

  And if his delight in seeing her was no more than an act, then his talents would be better directed toward Shakespeare than the Kirkhoven drawing room. Anne couldn’t stop herself from smiling in return, at least until she noticed the fascinated, surreptitious stares surrounding them. With a gentle tug, she removed her hand from his.

  Best to avoid him as much as possible for the evening. No matter how delicious the sensations nor how mesmerizing his eyes. Silly to deliberately stir up the gossips. And ridiculous to give Mama false hopes.

  Disappointingly, he made the avoidance easy. As was proper, during supper he sat with Mama at the table’s head, while she herself hosted the foot. If he ever glanced at her, even once, during that interminable meal, she wasn’t aware of it. Not that she was watching, of course.

  Well, she wasn’t. No matter how many times Alicia nudged her foot beneath the table.

  Then in the drawing room, he played whist with Mama, Mrs. Lethbridge, and Colonel Danning, another quietly competitive whist table beside them and a group getting rowdy over Pope Joan beyond, while she led Alicia, Letitia, and their set through cassino. The distraction and fun served her well, clearing and settling her thoughts as she concentrated on reducing the Honorably Abominable George Anson’s winnings enough so the other players didn’t feel abused.

  “Well, that was fun.” Letitia tapped her two remaining chips together then tossed them into the table’s center. “Oh, look, the tea’s ready. Come, George, you took away all my chips even if you couldn’t keep them. Now you must serve as my squire for refreshments.”

  Scowling at his diminished collection, George reluctantly pushed back from the table and offered Letitia his arm. The others crowded behind them, even Alicia, surrounding Candace and the tea tray, and within moments Anne stood alone.

  She should assist with the serving. But Candace was the most organized housemaid alive and wouldn’t appreciate having to work with someone else behind the table with her, especially not the sole remaining daughter at home. Besides, the midnight blue velvet settee before the fire looked quiet and elegant. Anne settled in solitary comfort, surreptitiously arranging her pale blue silk around her; it would show so well in the flickering firelight. There—

  —and a pair of legs, in the most tasteful white silk stockings and black leather pumps, had somehow approached in silence and now stood beside her.

  Only a miracle of self-control prevented her from jumping to her feet. Across the room, Alicia, her previous strong support and handy distraction, sat at the whist table with Mama, Mrs. Lethbridge, and Colonel Danning, a half-played deal of cards in her hands. She looked bewildered, as if wondering how on earth she’d gotten there.

  “I hope I didn’t startle you.” Smooth; too smooth by half. Of course she knew whose voice that was. No need to look up.

  But she did.

  And found herself managing a smile into his still-amused eyes.

  She’d been cornered.

  Chapter Seven

  Friday, December 11, 1812 (continued)

  “Rational, yes,” His Grace said, “that’s an excellent description of Mozart’s music. Even in its wildest flights of fancy, there’s an underlying logic and sense that cannot be denied. The listener can follow the instruments’ arguments and discussions even if he’s overwhelmed by the raw emotions, even if he hasn’t the proper and necessary musical training to facilitate true understanding.”

  Ah, point to her, and Anne flashed a smile. Ungallant of him, to make her fight so hard for one; worse than the Honorably Abominable George Anson, that was. “And that very rationality is the element I’m not hearing in the modern composers we discussed earlier, the ones you’ve so strenuously defended. Their works are carried by emotion and neglect the rationality required for those arguments and discussions.”

  In response to hers, his smile widened, pleasure and satisfaction mixed, and his pale eyes flashed like her watered silk in the firelight. Her victorious flush died away. Looked as if she’d lost the point even before he spoke.

  “But does it follow that the emotion is irrational?”

  Anne couldn’t help it. She laughed.

  “Indeed, Miss Kirkhoven, an honestly-felt emotion is as rational as a scientific debate.” His eyebrows arched. “And considering some of the scientists I’ve heard debating—”

  Anne laughed again. She’d told Frederick that His Grace’s conversation sparkled. Clearly she’d underestimated his abilities by a country mile. “But sense and sensibility are deemed to be opposites.”

  “Yes; however, those are patterns of approaching and interacting with the world around us, whereas emotions and rationality are the factual underpinnings of those patterns. It’s entirely possible for a person of deep sensibilities to be rational, just as it’s possible for a person of deep sense to be emotional. It does not follow that one cancels out or contradicts the other.”

  And why, precisely, had none of her education prepared her for that paradox? “I had considered these Romantics as unworthy of serious study. I see now that I must pay more attention to them.”

  His eyes flashed again, pure satisfaction, as if he’d debated all the evening merely to bring her to this moment. “Or rather to the emotions themselves. Some of us, my dear, are too much in one camp or the other. Either we indulge our sensibilities to the exclusion of our rationality, or we imagine that sense is all-important and neglect our emotions.” That pleased, glowing smile died away, leaving the expression of a wise, gentle, affectionate friend, imparting the most necessary advice of all. “Our feelings, as well as our rational thoughts, define who we are.”

  Which made absolutely no sense at all. She’d been taught all her life that emotions occurred merely to be controlled, not to be indulged—

  —no, she’d been taught that the expression of emotion was to be controlled. Her governess had never differentiated between the feeling of an emotion and the expression of one.

  And that felt as if something necessary and inexplicable had been omitted from her otherwise excellent education.

  Perhaps she should expand her reading again beyond Gothic novels.

  The man couldn’t possibly be serious in his pursuit of her, could he? Such deep, wide-ranging intelligence would hardly find more than an answering spark in such as she. Nor was she his match in any other way. She could claim a little beauty, a little learning, a few accomplishments, a comfortable dowry—

  But if he was…

  Would it be so horrible, being the wife of a rich — a very rich man, a man who wandered in front of the Regent at will (or so they said) and who was welcome in any society at any level? Would it absolutely devastate her to be the Duchess of Cumberland?

  Was she wrong about Frederick? About His Grace?

  About herself?

  ****

  It was all coming together so nicely, unlike the terrible hand of cards Lady Wotton had been dealt. Of course, her distraction had something to do with how b
adly she was losing, and dear Alicia wasn’t close to that lovely duke as a whist player. But she’d willingly lose ten times the stakes to see this marriage finalized.

  There they were, her very own Anne sitting, straight and gorgeous, on the settee, her skirt spread around her like a royal train, and His Grace, the Duke of Cumberland (some said a foreign prince) standing over her, a bemused smile on his face and sheer appreciation in his expression. Across the room, Letitia sketched freehand, glancing up at their brilliant tableau then down at her paper for several quick, certain strokes. Letitia’s artistic skill was not inconsiderable, and if the sketch turned out well, perhaps she could ask for it and frame it, for posterity, of course. Or ask her to paint it; that would look lovely above the morning room fireplace.

  All the company noted the glowing couple; perhaps it wasn’t too early to use that word. Beside her at the whist table, Mrs. Lethbridge watched them as much as her cards — hungrily, as if she couldn’t get enough of their splendid profiles (her sister, of course she’d always shown such excellent taste). Even Colonel Danning, that serene military tactician, glanced over his shoulder once or twice, and normally even the best gossip left him disinterested.

  Not now. Not when her very own Anne had hooked and was reeling in the most eligible bachelor in the ton.

  It was all so very wonderful and thrilling. She looked forward to a quiet wedding with only the family, of course at St. James’s, Piccadilly.

  Then His Grace smiled.

  And Lady Wotton’s heart froze within her.

  ****

  Chilling. Calculating. Predatory.

  Mind-numbingly terrifying.

  Astonishing, how each successive muscle in her face first relaxed, slackening her jaw and erasing the smile that had seemed so natural. Then each of those muscles tensed in its turn, stiffening her expression into something so fearful, it couldn’t be hidden even from the one wearing it. Especially astonishing was how aware she was of her face’s response to His Grace’s changed tenor, how a glimpse beneath his façade had such horrible influence over her facial muscles.

  Over her entire world.

  Anne swallowed and a shiver echoed down her spine. Her earliest presumptions had been correct. His Grace had no more intention of asking for her than for the scullery maid. She was a toy, an amusement, an ill-advised rabbit on the wrong side of his shotgun smile.

  No matter how sparkling his conversation.

  Most astonishing of all was how she’d so very nearly allowed herself to be persuaded to forget dear, loyal, honest Frederick, whom she’d promised never to forget nor forsake. Humiliating, how she’d permitted vile flattery, appraising glances, and quick wit to beguile her attention from the man she claimed to love. What had her heart intended to do, if she’d married His Grace — take Frederick as a lover? Bile rose in her throat and her stomach twisted. If the two men had accepted such an arrangement, would she truly want either of them?

  That was rationality. The temptations His Grace dangled in front of her were no more than fantasy, no matter how deep the intelligence doing the dangling. She’d allowed one heady moment of emotion, no more, to warp her sense.

  Whispers swirled around the drawing room like a waxing tide, sharper, more excited than whispers around card tables — card tables — had any right to be. These were her friends and neighbors, and she’d known many of them since she’d been quite small. Sweet Colonel Danning had been her first real dance partner, standing up with her at the Holly Hall ball in her fifteenth year and whirling with her down the Roger de Coverley line with delighted courtesy, as if she’d been a princess. Now, the kindest man in Mayfair slid an over-the-shoulder glance at her from an expressionless face, then leaned across the table toward Mrs. Lethbridge, her most intimate friend’s mother — toward her mother’s sister. Their faces vanished behind his shoulder, then Mrs. Lethbridge’s plume waved as she nodded.

  They were talking about her. They all were, and none of it was kind.

  His Grace still stood above her, that horrid smile entirely erased, a polite questioning in the tilt of his head and lift of his eyebrows. Only seconds could have passed since his feral smile had violated her silly dreams. But already it seemed like the most torturous of lives.

  But before she could think of a single worthy response, he lifted her hand and again bowed over it.

  “I’m afraid I must draw our evening to a close, my dear, and our conversation has made it one of the most delightful in my memory. No, do please remain seated; the image you present, with your bewitching gown arranged so charmingly about you, is one I wish to carry away with me.”

  How mortifying. Perhaps she’d been transported to the seaside. The roaring in her ears, ferocious and constant, certainly sounded like surf breaking against a towering wall of rocks.

  But she could not avoid the sight of His Grace taking his leave of Mama, her ashen, fixed face testifying that she, too, had seen his one incautious moment. Nor could she miss his final, satisfied smile and bow to her, Anne, before Gregory closed the door on their ducal company.

  And if she’d suddenly been blinded, she’d still have known what happened next: how every eye in the room swiveled to follow him as he exited their presence; then, as if they’d rehearsed it for a mummer’s play, how they all turned in unison.

  And stared at her.

  Before lowering their eyes to their cards, their tea, their companions.

  At least Letitia had the courtesy to lay her drawing board aside.

  ****

  Saturday, December 12, 1812

  The witching hour in London, with the neighborhood’s sober entertainments long over, the less sober ones not near to finishing, and Half Moon Street dark and deserted. His Grace’s footsteps echoed from the tall, unbroken lines of facing townhomes crowding the narrow street. Then he turned onto Piccadilly. Lines of glowing streetlamps stretched above the sidewalks, the black expanse of Green Park yawned empty on the street’s far side, and a light mist began to fall, spattering his hat and topcoat with liquid beads. Not yet what he’d call cold, but gloomy as a sentry’s post in a besieged city. A carriage and pair rattled past, running footmen ahead carrying torches, the flames hissing in the damp and reflecting from the horses’ liquid eyes. One lonely pedestrian well ahead on the street; Queen’s Walk abandoned. Well, he’d survived the worst Napoleon’s armies had thrown at him; surely he’d survive the few blocks between Half Moon Street and St. James’s Square, no matter the weather.

  Mist collected on his cheeks and dripped down his neck, but His Grace found himself smiling. Sweet Anne’s eyes had out-rounded saucers, beneath the distracting little fringe of cornsilk curls framing her charming face. And no need to analyze Lady Wotton’s expression.

  But beneath Anne’s, another face intruded into his thoughts, someone he'd known, oh, years ago. The most exquisitely tender face he could recall and so the most exquisitely tender memory in his possession, and for the most exquisitely agonizing moment he allowed the remembered pain to flood him.

  But that way madness lay, as an old, foolish king might have said, as Dante’s damned souls could attest. And while Lady Baldwin and her amoral artiste might delight in such horrific images, a duke had more productive errands for his time.

  Such as defeating a little emperor who’d outgrown his boots and hat and needed reducing to his own peculiar level of mediocrity.

  And finishing his game with dear, tender Anne.

  Tasty little morsel that she was.

  Chapter Eight

  Saturday, December 12, 1812 (continued)

  Lady Wotton crumpled over her dressing table. Bit by bit, the multitude of tiny pressures against her scalp slipped away and vanished as Abigail plucked the hairpins from her upswept arrangement, and the released tresses tumbled curl by curl over her shoulder, dangling in an open container of facial powder. For a few stolen moments, she allowed herself to feel the helplessness she hadn’t permitted free rein during that wretched entertainment.

&
nbsp; It had been a mistake, believing herself capable of managing such a man, of tantalizing him with Anne’s beauty and innocence and expecting him to fall entranced at her feet. Instead he’d played them both like a spinet, and if he hadn’t slipped and shown them that predatory smile, she’d have allowed the flirtation — for no better word did it deserve — to continue, ruining her daughter’s prospects and reputation in pursuit of an uncatchable beast.

  The last painful pressure vanished, releasing her from the weight of her hair and the ache of helplessness. Lady Wotton straightened as Abigail gathered the heavy tresses back and swept the silver-backed brush down their length. A tug on her scalp, a pause, a quick motion of the maid’s fingers in the mirror, and the tangle was swept away.

  Thankfully she’d recognized the situation in time, before it tangled into something irreparable. His Grace’s unrestrained smile had given her a sobering warning, and she intended to take full advantage.

  There was no one she could turn to, with the Baron Wotton away in Kent, fighting for his precious common. She’d have to deal with His Grace with her own wits.

  ****

  “We’ll be returning to Kent in two days’ time.”

  Anne nearly dropped her teacup.

  “Candace will help you pack for the journey.” Lady Wotton scooped another spoonful of plum preserves onto her hot roll and spread it about, pressing down with the spoon’s concave back. Yellow pushed out beneath the purple, slid to the roll’s edge, and dripped onto her plate with a few miniscule splats. “We’ll be in time for Christmas Eve.”

  Calm. She had to stay calm. If she panicked or permitted her distress to show, she’d only arouse Mama’s suspicion. Her tight throat aching, Anne set the teacup carefully in its saucer, grabbed a roll from the basket, and ripped it open. Freshly-baked warmth and that delicious yeasty smell rose into her face. She should be famished; they’d risen late and supper was a distant memory, but even hot rolls with butter and jam didn’t arouse her appetite after Mama’s announcement. “Before the Holly Hall ball.”