Barbara Metzger (12 page)

Every dirty dish in London was panting at her skirts, like a pack of foxhounds with their tongues hanging out. Blast, why couldn’t they find their own light-o
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-loves for the evening and leave his alone! He couldn’t get her away by dancing with her, not with his bad leg, and it was too soon to leave. Then he saw his friends Algie and Woody. The very thing.

After the greetings and Kitty’s introduction to Sir Vernon Woodbury, Bart., Courtney begged a favor. “I don’t like Kitty being importuned by these rotters. I need you two to help shield her from the wilder elements. You know, dance with her, stand around making conversation, not let her get dragged off to waltz with any castaway court-cards.”

Algie volunteered immediately. “No hardship, I assure you, old man.” He was a little too eager, earning a frown from Lord Chase, so he added, “Don’t get in a fidge, Court, you know I wouldn’t poach in your preserves. I’ll guard Miss Kitty as carefully as one of m’own sisters.” No, Algie didn’t want to mention sisters again. “Better, I’ll treat her like a china doll, that’s it.”

Swept off into her very first waltz, Kathlyn looked back toward the viscount, who was left standing with a roistering group of men in togas, tights, and more typical evening wear. Lord Chase was the most dashing by far. She’d much rather be in his arms this very minute, swaying to the rhythms of the music, but he couldn’t waltz. He couldn’t— She let the thought die. “How tragic it is about his lordship’s wound.”

“Old Courtney? He’ll get over it.”

Get over it, she wondered, like a sprained ankle? Or perhaps Algie didn’t know. “But it keeps him from so many things,” she hinted. “Like dancing.”

“He did used to dance, now I think on it, but old Court always had devilish odd notions about women, even before the war. Too particular by half. Can’t tell you how happy I am to see you, miss.”

As they took their places for the next set, Sir Vernon, Woody to everyone, proved to be no more help to Kathlyn in understanding the viscount than Algie had been. He merely grinned his schoolboyish smile and held his hand over his heart, so it didn’t fall out of his chest at her feet. After the dance he escorted her back to the viscount, “Sorry, Court, I’ll be no help defending your lady. Want to carry her off m’self, don’t you know. And I ain’t in the petticoat line any more than you were. She’s irresistible, that’s all.”

“Thunderation, you clothhead, can’t you see you’re putting Kitty to the blush?” They were all watching the blush rise from her décolletage. “Blast, if I can’t trust my best friends with her, we better go home.”

“Not so soon,” begged Woody, pale eyes popping out of his head.

Algie put in, “Not everyone’s here yet. Court. You’ve got to stay and let them all drown in their envy.” Algie had money on Courtney’s bringing the handsomest female to the ball, to be decided at the midnight unmasking. Algie wasn’t about to confess that to Chase, not with the viscount looking thunderclouds already. Courtney fell hard, when he finally fell. Too bad it was over a ladybird. “Stop acting like a hen with one chick or people are going to get the wrong idea. People like your mother,” he warned in a loud whisper.

Meanwhile, Woody had been thinking of a way to keep this goddess at the ball where he could worship her at a short distance—the length of Chase’s sword. “I have it, Court. Let her tell fortunes. We’ll pull some chairs together, screen her off a bit, then let one or two females at a time come by for her to tell if they’re going to marry tall, dark strangers.”

“The fortune-teller’s is the first tent m’sisters visit at every fair.” Damn, there Algie was, mentioning his siblings again to a demirep. “Well, females here can’t be any sillier. And you might earn a few pennies, too, Miss Kitty, ‘cause you’re supposed to cross a Gypsy’s hand with silver for a reading.”

Kathlyn was thinking what nice gentlemen these two addlepates were to concern themselves with protecting their friend’s inamorata from the rougher elements of such a gathering. Surely they had to know of his handicap, then, to think him not man enough to defend his property. Laughing at their method of assistance, Kathlyn said, “Gammon, my lords. I cannot tell fortunes. I never even heard one because my father thought it all pagan superstition. Besides, we have no crystal ball.”

“You don’t need one. The old hags m’sisters consult just look at their hands. See this line here on my palm? That means long life. After you say that, you can promise ‘em whatever they want to hear.”

Woody added, “Only don’t tell the females here they’ll have a parcel of brats. Bad for business, don’t you know.”

Courtney was smiling. “That sounds like a fine idea to me. Here, start with me.” He held out his hand.

It must be the champagne, Kathlyn decided, for she couldn’t think of her name, much less his fortune. She shook herself. Kathlyn. No, Kitty. No, she was Katerina tonight, and her trembling hand might hold his, but Courtney’s future did not hold her. Kathlyn didn’t need any tea leaves to know that.

They were all waiting, so she said, “Whatever your heart most desires is within your grasp. You only have to recognize it.”

“That’s the ticket,” Algie congratulated. “General, with a hint of mystery. The more obscure the better. Now try Woody’s.”

“I don’t care about m’future,” the baronet confided, “if I get to hold a pretty gel’s hand.” They all laughed— except Courtney—so Woody told Kitty, “I don’t want to hear about legshackles and offspring, either. No need to get a fellow depressed. But I’m devilish anxious to know who’ll win the speed trials at Epsom next week.”

Kathlyn smiled. “I don’t even know who’s running, Sir Vernon. I’m sorry, I’m not very good at this.”

Algie urged her on. “Nonsense, you’ve got women’s intuition and all that. Just think.”

So she thought, then finally said, “Well, the fastest horse will win, and the one with the most luck. That’s all my intuition tells me. I’m sorry it’s not more profound.”

Woody wrote it down while the others sipped their champagne. “Do you see any silks. Miss Kitty? Colors?”

She was still seeing the golden hairs on Lord Chase’s chest taper into the red sash. “Gold,” she said. “Gold and scarlet.”

Woody kept writing. “Couldn’t be a worse system than the one I’ve been using.”

When it was Algie’s turn, Kathlyn told him, “I see an older gentleman and green fields and, yes, sheep.”

“By George, she does have the knack! The pater wrote that he’s delayed in Kent overseeing repairs to the sheep pens after the heavy snows! Deuce take it, Courtney, how’d you find a female as talented as she is beautiful?”

“You might say she fell from the sky, like an angel, or a snowflake.”

And so Kathlyn sat smiling through ninety minutes of the Cyprians’ Ball, his lordship’s hand on her shoulder, Algie and Woody flanking her. She told fortunes to the frail sisterhood, mixing in French and her smattering of German to sound more authentic and more arcane. Trying not to give false hopes by predicting anything too far-fetched, Kathlyn, Madame Katerina, promised the ladies great riches, a handsome gentleman, a trip in an elegant carriage, a shiny trinket.

“Do you see any diamonds, madam?” one bottle blonde in a shepherdess’s costume wanted to know. “A necklace with a stone the size of a pigeon’s egg set in a crown of rubies, and diamond and ruby earbobs that hang to your shoulders.”

Oh dear, that was a high order. The woman must really want them, she was staring at Kathlyn so intently, but the tall shepherd with her didn’t seem prosperous enough. Wearing a hooded weskit that must be itchy, he seemed more interested in food than the tightly laced blonde. Kathlyn didn’t want to lie to the poor woman, who must have seen such a set of jewels in some Bond Street window. It would be cruel to lead her on that way. “No, but I do think I see something else around your neck. Something...”

“Are you sure? Sure you ain’t never seen anything like that recently?”

This telling fortunes was an odd business, but Kathlyn had to laugh. “Oh, I’m sure I’d remember seeing a necklace like that, in your future or mine! I’m certain neither of us would be here if we owned such a treasure.”

“I’ll drink to that, ducks.”

* * * *

“She ain’t got it,” Harry’s widow told Quigley. Ursula had decided to bring him along in case the female was wearing Harry’s jewels, so the thug could help waylay the handsome swell the mort was with. That was too bad. Ursula wouldn’t mind some time with the gentry cove herself, after they got the sparklers back. She didn’t think he’d look at her with his Gypsy around, though; the out-and-outer wasn’t noticing any of the other half-naked females waggling their wares in front of him. Crossing the viscount off her list of possibilities, Ursula figured she might as well see about finding herself a new protector while she was here, since the jewels weren’t.

She got rid of Quigley easily enough, sending him and his crooked staff in the direction of the refreshments room, then she looked around. But damn, Ursula Miner hated the idea of earning jewelry the old way. 

* * * *

Inspector Dimm was outside in the cold. He knew now which viscount that article had meant, knew which carriage belonged to Lord Chase, and knew his quarry would be easy to identify when they left the ball. He had a hackney all ready to follow them, so he chewed on his pipe, tried to keep his feet out of the puddles, and watched the front door.

“What a disguise!” Dimm had seen a lot of disguises in his line of work, but tonight he was impressed. “The woman must be some kind of mastermind.”

“What, the Gypsy whore?” Ripken asked.

“No, you clunch, the spinster schoolteacher.”

Chapter Thirteen

“But it’s bitter out, and there is ice on the streets. You cannot walk home in this, not with your bad leg.”

“Hush, Kitty.” The viscount held her to his side, his arm at her waist, as they walked up the little path to Nanny’s. He moved his head to indicate the driver turning the coach. “There’d be talk if I didn’t spend the night. I’ll see you inside, stay a few minutes, and then leave. Not even Nanny can find impropriety in that, but it will satisfy the gabble-grinders if my driver or the footman mentions where they’ve been. I can hire a hackney to take me home afterward if my leg is bothering me.”

Once inside, Kathlyn lit the parlor candles, hung her cloak on a peg, and fussed with the banked fireplace coals. Anything to avoid watching him walk out of her life.

Courtney was leaning against the windowsill, smiling at her nervousness. “Goose, don’t you know by now that you can trust me?”

“Of course. It’s not that, but. . . “

“But it’s over, right?”

“That was our bargain.” Kathlyn was fingering the bracelets at her wrists.

“And we succeeded tonight, didn’t we? Beyond my wildest expectations. Everyone loved you!”

“And it was fun, telling fortunes that way. I liked it much better than if I’d had to make conversation with all those strangers.”

“No one offended you, did they?”

“Of course not, not with you growling like a bear over my shoulder all evening.”

Courtney removed the gold hoop from his ear and pretended to study it. “I, ah, realize some of the public displays at an event like that are not for tender sensibilities.”

“Oh, no, you and your friends kept anything untoward out of my sight.” Three large males standing so close blocked almost everything.

“Yes, well, I don’t want you to think that all men hold women so cheaply, even at a marketplace such as tonight.”

“No, Algie and Woody and yourself, of course, my lord, were perfect gentlemen.”

He nodded, satisfied, and took a bank draft out of his pocket. “That’s it, then. Our business is concluded. But,” he hurried on when she came over to accept the check, “but you mustn’t think you have to rush off right away. Nanny would love you to stay on, at least until her Meg has the baby, and we never did get to view the waxworks. Besides, no trip to London can be complete without a visit to Astley’s Amphitheatre to see the equestrian acts. We could even take Meg’s children along, as an excuse for pursuing such juvenile entertainment. What do you think?”

Kathlyn thought that sounded heavenly, except that she had her way to make in the world. The longer she stayed in such comfortable surroundings, the harder
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would be to leave. And the harder it would be to leave his lordship. She started to shake her head.

“No, no, don’t refuse out of hand. Think about it, and listen to Nanny’s pleas in the morning. If it’s the money you’re worried about, you won’t have a ha’penny’s expense, you know, for the mortgage here is all paid, and the coal and such is my responsibility. You don’t eat more than a bird, so that won’t bankrupt anyone either.”

“Very well, I’ll think on it, and ask Nanny’s advice about starting a school here in London.”

After attending the Cyprians’ Ball? Courtney didn’t think it was likely anyone would send their daughters to her, but there was no reason to discuss that now. As long as she was staying, there was no reason for him to linger at Nanny’s tonight, either. No honorable reason, that is. “Excellent. I’ll be going, then. Good night, Miss Kathlyn Partland, and thank you.”

Then he took her in his arms and kissed her good-bye. He hadn’t meant to do it, knew he shouldn’t do it, and did it anyway. She was too blasted beautiful not to.

“But... but there’s no one here to be impressed,” Kathlyn said when she got her breath back.

Oh no? His lordship was barely breathing himself. “I’m sorry, it just seemed like the thing to do,” he said, which was, he knew, an inordinately lame excuse for the inexcusable.

Because of the late hour, the champagne, the excitement of the evening, whatever, Kathlyn felt she had to say what was in her heart. “No, my lord, you needn’t apologize. I think you’ve behaved admirably, in light of your great sacrifice.”

Blast and botheration, Courtney thought, how did the female figure it out? Was his kiss so inexpert, then? Well, she was no one to judge, obviously not knowing where to put her hands or her tongue, for that matter.

“I’m sure the country owes you a great debt,” she was going on.