Caprice: The Masqueraders Series - Book One (7 page)

Startled from her spell, Clarissa said softly, “The earl would seem most accomplished, but we detain the gentlemen. Surely they must have an engagement.” Her tone of dismissal was unmistakable, even before she moved away from the window.

“Another time, then.
Au revoir,
gentlemen,” Heloise called gaily, and the driver sprang into action.

Only after the carriage turned the corner and rolled out of sight did Emory glance over to find Hadrian still gazing thoughtfully in that direction. “What are we to make of that?”

“I wish to God I knew!” Hadrian answered, feeling slightly stunned by what had just transpired. From the instant the veiled lady had appeared in the window, it was as if he had been transported from Grosvenor Square to an Algerian bazaar. Looking into her sloe-plum eyes had been like stepping into the forbidden world of the odalisque. Then she had spoken. Never in his life had he been so summarily summed up and then dismissed by a woman.

“Do you suppose the veil is to be the latest fashion for disguising pockmarks, crooked teeth, and hairy moles?”

“Shut up, Emory,” Hadrian said softly.

“Yes, well, perhaps I am being a bit harsh. But, dammit all, Hadrian, a man has a right to know what he’s being offered on the marriage market. As it stands, one can scarcely keep count of the false bosoms and padded posteriors abroad these days. Not to mention the various disguising creams, pastes, and powders with which the ladies falsify themselves. If they take to the veil as well, I, for one, will publish abroad my refusal to wed.”

“She wears the
yahmak
of the harem,” Hadrian said quietly. “It’s the custom of ladies of the East. Perhaps she is one.”

“How can you be certain she’s not just ill-favored?”

“It was all in her eyes,” Hadrian replied in a strangely tight voice. “Did you not see them? Dark as the secret stars of the heavens, deep as a pool at dusk. Not Ethiopian black, but more mysterious for their hint of color.”

“You saw all that, did you?” Emory’s interest in his brother’s behavior became pointed. “Didn’t know you had a poetical bent. Don’t dress the part.” When the jibe didn’t get a response, he added, “I say, are you fixing an interest on the veiled one?”

“Lord, no!” Hadrian said too quickly and turned away.

Yet as he walked rapidly in the opposite direction the carriage had taken, Hadrian could not keep from wondering why those eyes had seemed at once familiar and so stimulating. Who was the lady? Lady Arbuthnott had been remarkably vague in her introduction. Why, she had even neglected to give the girl a name.

“Emory, did you happen to notice which house Lady Arbuthnott was leaving?”

“The Feathergates’, I believe. Lud! What a dull set.”

“Hm.” Hadrian paused at the Feathergates’ threshold. “As long as we are in the neighborhood, we should stop by.
Maman
would be delighted to hear of our civility to her lady friends.”

“You cannot be serious?” To Emory’s consternation his brother climbed the steps to pull the bell. “She squints,” he imparted under his breath when he reached his brother’s side. “The Feathergate daughter most definitely squints!”

“My dear, my dear! Just look at these invitations!” Heloise marched in and placed a thick stack of embossed envelopes on the foot of her niece’s bed. “It’s seems our little tête-a-tête with Lord Ramsbury was enough to induce him to inquire, discreetly, after you. That, in turn, has resulted in this positive avalanche of invitations. Running into the earl and his brother was most fortuitous. We could not have done better had we planned our strategy months ahead.”

Clarissa lifted the ice pack from her throbbing brow and stared determinedly at her aunt down the length of her bed. “I have never, but never, been more mortified in my life. Playing mummery games with a peer of the realm! What could I have been thinking of?”

“You could be thinking of the roses the earl sent you yesterday.” Heloise’s gaze moved significantly to the cut-crystal bowl at the bedside which contained a half dozen yellow and pink florabunda rosebuds. “Or the ones his brother sent today.” She smiled as she spied the enormous bouquet of pale pinks that had been relegated to the table by the window. “One can’t but admire the restraint shown by the more experienced gentleman. Two dozen upon a meeting in the lane, that is quite overdone. Quite!”

The entire matter was quite overdone, to Clarissa’s mind. Adventure, indeed. One nefarious outing was enough to convince her that she did not possess one dram of the famed Holton “wild” blood.

She had nearly tossed her tea when her aunt had explained on their ride home who exactly the earl was. One by one the accomplishments of Hadrian Temple Blackburne, fifth Earl of Ramsbury, had been ticked off. An exalted peer. A pillar of the community. Late a captain of His Majesty’s Light Cavalry. A decorated soldier. A miraculously returned hero of the Napoleonic Wars. Later, a peek at the book of peerage in the Holton library had resulted in a match between the crest on the silver baggage tag in her possession and the Ramsbury family arms.

The fact that this paragon of manly virtues had returned home swathed in the garments of an Arab in no way mitigated the damage that would have been done had he recognized her. Just the thought of what could have resulted from mutual recognition set her head pounding afresh.

“Which one should we accept?” Heloise fingered an invitation. “We don’t wish to seem eager.”

“I am ill and refuse to consider any of them.”

“Oh, perfect, dear! An illness after only the briefest of introductions. That will whet their appetites. What a clever girl you are.”

“I don’t feel clever. I feel quite wretched.”

“Well, we certainly won’t say that. We will say that owing to your recent arrival in London, you have yet to become accustomed to the noise and bustle of the city.”

“I wish to go back to Surrey,” Clarissa said petulantly.

“We will. But first we must capitalize on our advantage.”

Clarissa sighed. “Oh, Aunt Heloise, do see reason. We mustn’t pursue the matter. We’ve had our little outing, as you call it, and by mercy’s grace we were not found out. There’ll be no more. And that’s an end to it.”

Clarissa closed her eyes in the expectation of a barrage of objections from her aunt. Instead, only silence greeted the end of her speech. Finally, she opened her eyes. Her aunt stood at the foot of her bed with invitation in hand. Then she saw in amazement a teardrop fall from her aunt’s eye, drop onto the card, skim quickly across its engraved surface, and drop to the bed coverlet. Immediately a second fell, and then another.

Sweeping aside the bedding, she slipped from the bed to hurry over and embrace her aunt. “Please, please don’t cry,” she said in a stricken voice. “I did not mean to upset you, dearest, truly I didn’t.” But the older woman’s slim shoulders still shook with the enormity of her unhappiness, and moments later Clarissa felt hot tears spill down her own cheeks in sympathy.

“I—I only want—to see you—happy, dear,” Heloise gasped out between sobs. “And a little diversion in my life … before I am shut away to die. Is that so much to ask?”

“No, no, of course not,” Clarissa replied, patting her aunt’s shoulder gently. “We must simply think the matter through. There are all manner of diversions to be had in London.”

Heloise lifted her head. “None of them can repair the injury done me by Letticia Throckmorton. At this very minute she’s gloating about my exclusion from the patroness list at Almack’s.”

“I doubt that,” Clarissa said comfortingly.

“Do you? Do you, indeed?” Her once-tear-filled eyes turned bright with challenge. “I hadn’t meant to say a word, but since you will not believe me”—she rose to her feet—”come along.”

Glad for this retreat from tears, Clarissa followed her across the hall and into her bedroom. Heloise marched directly over to her desk and pulled out a letter which she opened and handed to her niece. “This came yesterday. Read it. Read every line, though I can quote it by heart.”

Clarissa took the letter, her brows lifting as she saw the poor script which she was being asked to decipher. “Dear Lady Arbott—why, she misspelled your name.”

Heloise sighed. “The beginning is conventional. You may skip that.” She ran her finger down the page. “Yes, here is the part that speaks of you.”

Clarissa’s attention quickened. “Me? What could she possibly say about me?”

Heloise smiled serenely. “She extends her condolences—let’s see, how did she phrase it?—‘… upon the continued desertion by your ungrateful niece.’”

“Ungrateful? Let me see that.” Clarissa bent her head to read the lines. “Why, she did pen those very words!”

“And more,” Heloise assured her with a little nod. “She hopes I will not despair of your return, for ‘children can be so trying.’ She then reminds me that her own daughter, Charlotte, an Incomparable of last Season, has made an excellent match with Lord Hart. She says that should my niece visit London in future, Charlotte will be pleased to receive you and introduce you to one or two suitable widowers.”

Heloise took the letter from her niece. “Now how did she phrase the last? Ah, yes. This you will enjoy.

“‘It is to be hoped that the Excessive Distress your niece has suffered will not adversely affect her reasonable looks and personality. Men are such shy creatures. It takes little to put them off even the most eligible match. Then, too, your niece’s precipitous marriage without a Season may further hamper her chances.’”

Heloise paused to see the effect this was having on her niece. “Of course, it’s not as though you cared about having a Season. The last is directed to me. ‘As a patroness of Almack’s, I find it distressing to discover how few young persons are fit candidates for its invitations. Many unsuitable persons who once squeezed through will now be barred. There will be no more merchants’ daughters, clergymen’s sons, or most especially those in the theatrical field.’”

“The nerve! The very nerve of the creature!” Clarissa knew she raised her voice but she did not care. She all but snatched the letter from her aunt’s hands. “She would not have dared pen that final remark about theatrical people had Uncle Quentin been alive. I had no idea of the extent of the insults you’ve endured. How have you stood it?”

“As there is no one to defend me, I must turn the other cheek,” Heloise said mildly, but her eyes were riveted on her niece.

Clarissa’s eyes flashed with a rare combination of anger and indignation. “And those remarks about me. Excessive distress! Reasonable looks! Men are such shy creatures! Why, she implies that I never was excellent marriage goods! She is so smug about her position!”

“Such heat, Clarissa!” Heloise admonished her softly.

Clarissa rubbed her palms together, for they were itching to so some physical violence to the collection of bric-a-brac on the nearby table. Instead, she stalked twice around the room before pausing before her aunt, her headache forgotten. “Father said that only a fool takes umbrage at every slight. A reasonable man chooses his fights.”

“A commendable position,” Heloise answered faintly.

She met her aunt’s gentian-blue gaze. “If only there were some way to reveal Lady Throckmorton as the hypocrite she most certainly is.”

“If only,” Heloise echoed.

Clarissa frowned. “Lady Throckmorton thinks she has the final word on moral character and breeding. What, do you suppose, would she make of Lady Arbuthnott’s new charge?”

Heloise’s expression was guileless. “But, my dear, you detest the very idea of going about in disguise.”

Clarissa answered with a wicked grin. “I disapprove of playing tricks on innocents. But Lady Throckmorton has thrown down the gauntlet. That leaves the choice of weapons to us. I say we undertake to discover if she can, indeed, ferret out an impostor.”

“What a clever idea!” Heloise answered. She took and refolded the letter. She was perfectly at ease in her conscience with the final lines of Lady Throckmorton’s letter, convinced that the Throckmorton creature would have written those very words—if she had dared.

The Marquess of Bascombe peeled a boiled chestnut with a small pearl-handled knife, but his eyes were on his schoolmate. “ ’Tis your own fault, Ramsbury. Playing dead dog in the Araby desert. Then hopping up alive after you’d been planted. There’s a rumor that you returned to England wearing a shroud! What can you expect but that you should become the liveliest grist for the rumor mill?”

Hadrian smiled at the mention of his costume. Who had set that rumor about? But of course. The staff had seen him arrive on his Park Lane doorstep. “The shroud you describe was Arabic clothing and quite as comfortable as riding attire.” He reached for a sliver of blue-veined Stilton cheese. “As for the rest, I could not in my wildest imagining have contrived what the gossips say about me.”

Bascombe lounged in his dinner chair. “What they say is that your earldom is in doubt because your reputation’s been darkened by intrigue abroad.”

Hadrian shrugged. “I do not accommodate my life to suit rumor. Hope you didn’t invite yourself to dine in my club thinking to hear confessions of my wickedness. Why are you here?”

Though two years Hadrian’s senior, James appeared the younger. It was his bright-gold hair and sherry-colored eyes surrounded by a thicket of golden-brown lashes, and his fresh coloring. Just now his coloring deepened. “I ought not tell you for, damme, if you aren’t the most ungracious host.”

“The Baron of Beef was not to your satisfaction?” Hadrian inquired politely.

“It was superb,” James answered.

“Perhaps it was the turtle soup—too bland? Or the roast pheasant? Too dry? Sand in the spinach? Too much spice in the apple pie? Perhaps the port was improperly decanted.”

Bascombe’s eyes widened. “You’ve changed, Ramsbury. This lightheartedness, ’tis not like you.”

“What is like me?” Hadrian questioned in all seriousness.

“You were always a serious pup, struck clean through with the consequence of your responsibilities. Thought you’d settled young, what with so many siblings to see off. But then you bolted, joined the army.” He said the last in a tone the
haut ton
reserved for speaking of the merchant’s trade. “Not saying you hadn’t cause. Boney needed taking down. But, confound it, Hadrian, to take rooms in your club, when you’ve a perfectly fine house in Hanover Square and country houses elsewhere. It don’t serve.”

“Maman
sent you,” Hadrian said mildly. He lifted a hand to forestall a protest. “Don’t try to bam me, James. You aren’t the first to ring a peal over my head but I beg you, believe me, you shall be the last.”

Bascombe’s color brightened. “Dash it all. Knew it wouldn’t serve. But your mother’s a kinswoman, in need of a gentleman’s aid. ‘Pon honor, never thought to read you a Quaker sermon, for all that.”

“We are cousins, James. It breeds these awkward moments. But enough of me. I hear you’re to marry?”

This time James’s blush was accompanied by a self-serving smile. “Miriam Yarwood done me the honor. ‘Pon my oath, don’t know why. She’s a veritable confection while I’m lamb pudding.”

Hadrian laughed. “ ’Tis plain you’re in love. You’ve never discounted your considerable looks before. As I recall, you were notorious for setting aswoon half a dozen ladies each Season.”

“A man can count himself lucky who escapes this Season’s crop. The girls come up younger and greener every year. Or it is we who grow older?”

“I don’t believe we should be collected as relics,” Hadrian remarked dryly. “Yet surely there is at least one young lady who kicks over the traces for inanity.”

“There is one, so I hear. A dark-eyed lovely with the remarkable habit of wearing a veil at all times.”

“A veil?” Hadrian reined in his wandering attention. “Would she, by chance, be a relation of Lady Arbuthnott?”

“You’ve met her?”

“A merest chance meeting of the ladies in the lane.” He forced himself to relax. “Sent roses round the next day.”

“That’s more of an acquaintance than any other gentleman I know can claim. Lady Arbuthnott is keeping a tight rein on her. Been in town a week and only been glimpsed coming and going to tea. Tell me, is she as beautiful as they say?”

“She wears a veil, James.”

“Oh, right. The wags have dubbed her the Mysterious Veil.” James’s expression turned lascivious. “As well they might. Surely you’ve heard the talk?”

Hadrian smiled. “You may tell me.”

“The least interesting rumor is that she’s a servant sent to England by one of Lord Arbuthnott’s heathen connections to look after his widow. Bolder gossip would have it she’s Arbuthnott’s natural daughter.” He winked. “Don’t doubt the old satyr has by-blows scattered to the four winds. His poor lady wife, without issue of her own, might have decided to take the girl in after Arbuthnott’s death. Needing some consolation, don’t you see?”

Hadrian merely nodded.

“The last, you will not own it! Don’t even know that it should be repeated.” He glanced at the door. “Keyholes, don’t you know.”

“My man Melsham is a paragon of exquisite sensibilities and discretion.”

“Well, then!” James said heartily. “The spiciest
on dit
is that she is related to a
certain
peer of the realm.”

“Who would that be?”

“The Regent, dear boy, was amorous before you and I were bred. Notorious! I had it from one elder courtier that a Turkish pasha once sent Prinny no less than three concubines as royal tribute. Our Mysterious Veil may be the result of—
ahem,
you understand.”

“Each rumor raises her higher,” Hadrian mused. He was as curious about her as the next man, but every instinct he had developed resisted the gossip. It was too self-serving. “What do you think?”

James smiled. “The natural daughter of a viscount, not to mention a Regent, is not without consequence. Society dares not snub her outright, yet they stand back to see how the
haut ton
will treat her. Almack’s patronesses will get to the bottom of it.”

“Yes, Melsham?” Hadrian replied as his man entered with a note borne on a small silver salver.

“A note for my lord.”

Hadrian took it, a frown running two parallel lines between his brows. “If this is a summons from
Maman,
I shall be put extremely out of temper.” But his brow cleared almost at once. “Do we know the Stanhopes?” He tossed the card to his cousin.

James scanned it. “Lord, yes. Though the connection is more in Emory’s line. The son is a Tulip, a veritable
Pink.”

“Then we must all look to our own,” Hadrian replied dryly. “Why, do you suppose, I’m invited to play cards this evening?”

James shook his head. “Could be a mistake. Perhaps they thought to find Emory with you.”

“Wherever I am would be the last place to look for Emory these days,” Hadrian said shortly.

James glanced sharply at his cousin. “Then that rumor doesn’t lie. You and Emory have had a falling out. Is it the earldom?”

“It is not.” Hadrian’s mouth firmed. “ ’Tis a woman.”

“Oh. Oh!”

“Oh, indeed,” Hadrian echoed, releasing a smile. “But here, what’s that address?” He took back the card. “I’m in the mood for gambling. Do you suppose I shall pass muster at their door?”

James’s gaze ran over his cousin’s wine-red velvet swallowtail coat and white breeches, neither of which was ornamented by a bow or tassel or fob. Yet the severity of his costume could not be faulted. He nodded. “May as well warn you that a fellow by the name of Tibbitts is counted among their set.”

This last brought a gleam of interest to Hadrian’s light eyes. “Isn’t Tibbitts accounted to be a Machiavelli with cards?”

“Devil’s own luck, so I hear. Miriam disapproves of gaming.”

“In that case, you’d better come with me. I wouldn’t want it said that I didn’t tempt you to all manner of calumny upon your character before the shackling day.”

As they gathered their hats and canes, James ventured one more subject. “Suppose it shan’t be long before you’re betrothed.”

Hadrian turned to him, his eyes ablaze with some secret fire. “I’m not ready for the altar, James. You may publish that abroad.”

“So you know, the book at White’s is taking even odds on an autumn wedding, though the bride’s not yet been named.”

Hadrian did not reply, but he smiled as he walked out to his carriage. A wife was the very last burden he wanted. He had found his comfort and ease. Her name was Helene Rossiter. It was a financial transaction that satisfied her wants and his needs. If it was heartless, it was, at least, simple.

Five hours later, as the clock chimed the hour of four
A.M
., Hadrian pushed back his chair from the card table and reached for the last of his winnings. Or rather, he thought in grim amusement, what was left of his original stake. “Thank you, gentlemen, for an instructional evening,” he said to no one in particular. “We’re for home, Bascombe.”

“You are welcome to return, my lord.”

Hadrian turned to the owner of the lazy voice. “Is this your club, Mr. Tibbitts?”

The man smiled, but the warmth did not quite reach his cool blue gaze. “I enjoy certain benefits through my association with Lord Claret. Your brother, the erstwhile earl, also vouches for me at his club.”

Hadrian’s bright gaze sharpened. “I see that you keep abreast of familial as well as public rumor.”

Mistaking the earl’s tone for affront over his heavy losses, Tibbitts’s became amused. “I look forward to another game, my lord, perhaps in the near future? Fortune is so changeable.”

“Indeed, Mr. Tibbitts, indeed. Fickle, and as jealous as any woman. A man misrepresents himself to
her
at his own hazard.”

A few minutes later Hadrian was out on the street, feeling the chill of early morning on his slightly flushed face. The anger he had not shown before now stung him like a wasp.

“Never known you to lose so heavily, Ramsbury,” James offered as he raised his hand to signal for their carriage.

“Don’t you find it strange that Tibbitts never lost when it mattered?”

“Forewarned, he had Lucifer’s right ear,” James grumbled, wondering how he would cover his own losses and still manage to buy that sweet filly waiting for him at Tattersall’s. “The play was rather deep for my temperament.”

“That, too. I know many of those gentlemen, if only slightly. None of them would seem to bear easily the loss of several thousand pounds on a regular basis.”

James opened the carriage door to step inside. “I shouldn’t repeat it, but then Tibbitts isn’t a gentleman. He is known to have killed a man in a duel in France.” He leaned close. “Rumor has it Tibbitts will honor a voucher.”

Hadrian turned in surprise as James climbed into the carriage. “You mean he advances gentlemen money like a Cent per Cent?”

James turned and put a cautioning finger to his lips. Such things were never mentioned in public. “As you saw for yourself, he is uncommonly lucky.”

“There is something, certainly, uncommon about him.” Instead of entering, Hadrian shut the carriage door. “Take Lord Bascombe home,” he called to his driver. “I shall walk.”

“When shall I see you again?” James called, thrusting his head out of the window as the carriage began rolling away.

“I’ll call at your club,” Hadrian responded.

Hadrian was tempted to head up the street. The apartment he had rented for Helene was in the next block. His rooms at the club were a necessary diversion to keep his mother from asking too many questions about his comings and goings. Helene had expected him before midnight. She would be furious that he had not sent his regrets. But he had been distracted by the unexpected invitation to meet Tibbitts. Once the game was joined, he forgot all else, even his plan to play a little and lose lightly. Still, he had learned what he needed to know. Tibbitts was indeed a cheat!

“A brilliant cheat!” he muttered to himself as he set off in the opposite direction from his mistress’s apartment. It had taken four hours and the loss of eight hundred pounds before he understood the method by which the man ran his game. Anyone who had not played often and widely with soldiers, seamen, and professional gamblers might never have suspected him.

Yet now that he had ferreted it out, he had to decide on a plan of action. That was why he was not going to Helene’s. Their stormy reunion and its aftermath would completely obliterate from his thoughts the puzzle now fresh in his mind.

The idea stimulated his pulse and brought a gleam of excitement to his eyes. James was right. He had changed. Intrigue suited him. He did not know what he would do when he had to live without it.

Surprisingly, however, his thoughts did not long remain on Tibbitts. Instead, as he reached the gas-lit street where his club was, his mind came to fix upon the paradox of the Mysterious Veil. He had not set eyes on her since their first brief encounter in Grosvenor Square, yet he had not been able to forget her. There had been nothing missish or shy about her. Those dark eyes had challenged and then dismissed him as though they had had a previous, and unfriendly, connection. Yet that leveling look had ignited something other than enmity in him. The memory of it was enough to draw a totally ungentlemanly reaction from him now. His stomach muscles bunched and tightened as a tide of heat moved lower down.

In his experience only two kinds of women met a man’s gaze so boldly: a lady with the tastes of a wanton and a harlot selling her favors. If there were a third kind, he wanted very badly to find out all about her.

When he had clipped Tibbitts’s wings, he might seek to learn the secrets behind the Mysterious Veil. The thought gave his mood an unexpected lift. Perhaps he had been wrong about life in London being dull work after Algiers.

At the fashionable hour of ten o’clock Lady Ramsbury and four of her five children were at breakfast when the butler announced a guest.

“Who would think to call at this hour?” Looking quite the lady of leisure in a morning gown of sprigged muslin, Lady Ramsbury turned a questioning glance on her second son. “Would it by any chance be one of your friends, Emory?”

A forkful of broiled kidney had just arrived in his mouth, obliging him to chew and swallow before replying. “Lud, I’d cut any acquaintance who showed his face before two of the clock.”