Improper Advances (18 page)

He’d already guessed that; he heard her soaring soprano, accompanied by strings.

When he invaded her sanctuary, her music ceased.

“Is that a lute?” he asked, studying the instrument she cradled. At the top of its long neck were eight tuning pegs, four on each side; the bowl-shaped body was made of inlaid wood.

“This is a
mandoline.
I learned to play it when I lived in Naples. Mine came from the best workshop, it’s made of rosewood and fir. As you see, it has double strings, and they’re tuned in fifths, like a violin.

The top ones are gut and the lower brass.” She plucked to demonstrate the difference in sound.

“What do you use to pluck them?”

“A raven’s quill. I trimmed it down myself. Some players prefer ostrich.”

As she laid the instrument aside, he said, “Don’t stop. Play for me.”

Her left fingers dancing between the frets, she serenaded him in Italian, with such sweet wistfulness that he assumed it was a love song. When she finished, she tucked the bit of quill into a space near the bridge and placed the
mandoline
on the sofa cushion beside her.

“I know now why they call you the Siren of Soho-your magical songs have surely lured many an unwary gentleman to his doom. But you’re out of place in the city. Those sirens who gave Ulysses and his mariners so much trouble lived on an island.” And so could she, if only he could persuade her to exchange London for Glen Auldyn. “Will you perform that tune at Vauxhall?”

“No. I’ll have the accompaniment of a full orchestra. Today I’m practicing for my concert in Bury St.

Edmunds, which takes place after the racing at Newmarket.”

He perched on the armrest of the sofa and hovered over her. “You smell like a rose garden. Whom were you expecting?”

Her cheeks went pink. “Nobody. I always use floral water.”

“There’s a military review at St. James’s Palace today. Afterward, we can go walking in Hyde Park.

The next fine day, you said.”

“You’ve got a habit of persuading me to do things I shouldn’t.”

“I haven’t even
begun
to persuade you,” he responded. “And I won’t. I’ll not have you come along just to be civil. I thought you might enjoy being outdoors on so warm and bright a day. If not—”

“I can’t be seen with you, that’s all.”

Gazing at his feet, he said glumly, “New coat, new waistcoat, new breeches—and these very elegant shoe buckles. Wingate seems satisfied—I hoped you might be, also.”

“Oh, Dare, that’s not what I meant. I’m not concerned about your clothes, but about our reputations.”

“I haven’t got one,” he pointed out. “Nobody in London knows who I am.”

“Your anonymity will suffer if you take me to the Park,” she warned him, leaving the sofa.

For some reason she felt the need to change the placement of her figurines and straighten one of the prints hanging on the wall. He watched her in silence while she moved about.

Her inner struggle was brief. Facing him, she said, “Until you see what indignities I endure, you’ll never completely understand why that guidebook description of Glen Auldyn was so tempting. I’ll go with you, to the review and the Park, and anywhere else you suggest. I hope you won’t mind if my maid accompanies us.”

“Certainly not.”

Suke Barry, pretty and mannerly, had soulful blue eyes and soft brown hair. She appeared to be her employer’s contemporary, and was almost as elegantly dressed. Head demurely bowed, she trotted behind Dare and Oriana, responding with a shy smile whenever he glanced over his shoulder to see if she was still there.

“How long has she worked for you?” he asked Oriana.

“Three years. Rushton recommended her—she grew up on his estate—and I agreed to take her on.

She was apprenticed to a milliner in Chester, but when the business failed she found herself without a place. I’m fortunate to have her.”

Had the earl’s intervention in her household been as disinterested as she implied? Possibly he’d placed Suke Barry in Oriana’s household as a spy. But Dare’s tendency to leap to conclusions had already caused great strife, so he made no mention of his suspicion. Her easy friendship with the toplofty peer troubled him, but a show of jealousy and possessiveness would alienate her.

“The Lumleys have been part of my life forever,” she went on, “and Sam, the footman, is their nephew. My chef is a Belgian who cooked for my father—a very devout man, he goes to mass every day. The scullery maid is a pert little thing, and drives my older retainers to distraction.”

Outside the gates of St. James’s Palace, he had his first encounter with royalty. The Duke of Gloucester, brother to King George, presided over the parade of soldiers. The gold buttons and fastenings of their scarlet coats glistened in the sunshine; the sprightly march carried well in the humid air.

The crowd gathered at the edge of the streets cheered the procession, and Dare’s mood was similarly buoyant, till he noticed Oriana’s still face.

Her Henry, her beloved husband, had been a military man. If he’d remembered that sooner, he might have spared her a heartache.

Taking her elbow, he said, “I’ve seen enough.”

She glanced up at him. “But they’ve only just started. It’s a large regiment.”

“And a great deal more impressive than the Manx Fencibles,” he admitted. “If you don’t mind, I’d like to go to the bookshop I noticed the other day—on Piccadilly.”

“Hatchards? Yes, I know it.” She crooked her finger at Suke.

Gentlemen’s clubs and fashionable shops lined St. James’s Street, which extended from the redbrick palace to busy Piccadilly. At the bookseller’s, Oriana purchased a monthly journal, the
Universal
Magazine of Knowledge and Pleasure,
in addition to a selection of new music. He kept the clerk busy hunting for scientific literature, and left with Rashleigh’s
Specimens of British Minerals.

They arrived at Hyde Park in advance of the fashionable promenade, but already it was populated with smartly dressed pedestrians and stylish equipages. Many of the women were handsome, but none could eclipse his companion—the cold, disdainful glances she attracted were surely provoked by envy.

He, too, received curious stares despite being an unknown—or rather, because of it. He hadn’t been watched so closely since his forays into the Matlock Assembly Rooms, where the young ladies had studied his every move.

A group of gentlemen crowded round Oriana. In rapid succession, he was presented to Misters and Sirs and Lords, all of them looking at her in ways that made his blood simmer.

“You’ll be at Newmarket?” asked one excitedly.

“When’s your next Vauxhall appearance?” another wanted to know.

“Saturday evening,” she responded.

“We missed the last one. Will you dine with us after your performance? Do say yes, just this once!”

“Pray do not ask again, Mr. Launceston. You know I must decline.”

“Cruel Ana. Have a care, Corlett, she’ll break your heart as she did mine.”

Oriana listened patiently to their competitive banter, neither inviting nor discouraging their attentions.

When Mr. Launceston sought her opinion of his horse, she was complimentary. On being assured that she’d been greatly missed during her absence from town, she declared that she was happy to be back among friends.

“But you’ve made new ones,” observed Launceston caustically. He glared at Dare before cantering away on his bobtailed gray.

No sooner did the mob of young bucks disperse than Oriana gave a mournful little sigh. “Oh, no.”

“What’s amiss?”

“The Prince of Wales is here. The portly, fair-haired man in the blue coat.”

An equerry approached Oriana and informed her that His Royal Highness wished to speak with her.

With an apologetic glance at Dare, she followed the messenger along the pathway.

“I gather this commonly occurs when your mistress walks in the Park,” Dare commented to Suke Barry.

Her head moved up and down. “Those gentlemen-Mr. Launceston and the others—they cannot leave her be. Nor me. Sometimes they seek me out and give me letters for her, and I’ve received money for delivering them. The first time it happened, I told her. She laughed like anything, and said I might keep whatever I was given. I use the notes to light my bedroom fire.”

“You must pocket a tidy sum.”

“I do, sir.”

“Does Lord Rushton ever bribe you for information?”

“Bribe me? Nay, sir. In the spring he did ask me how often a particular gentleman called at the house, and I told him. But he didn’t pay me.”

“Which gentleman?”

“Mr. Powell, sir. The man who will wed his daughter.”

Dare decided there was nothing terribly sinister about a man ascertaining the habits of his future son-in-law. “I gather there’s no Lady Rushton.”

“Not for many a year. Her ladyship died soon after Lady Liza was born, and his lordship didn’t wed again.”

When Oriana’s audience with royalty concluded, Dare went to meet her.

She apologized for abandoning him. “I couldn’t present you to the Prince without his requesting it.”

“I was content to gaze at him from afar.”

When they made their way to Hyde Park Corner, she turned her hazel eyes upon him and asked, “Now do you see why I was so reluctant to come? I’m so very weary of all these predatory gentlemen.

Even though they often amuse me, they are an annoyance.”

“Is your fame always so burdensome?”

“There’s a difference between fame and notoriety,” she replied. “The quality of my singing receives less attention from the public and the press than the affairs I’m supposed to have had and the gowns I wear. The bucks of the town flock ‘round because they assume I’m an easy conquest. The Prince beckons from a belief that flirtation with me enhances his reputation for gallantry.”

“And because he wanted a closer glimpse of your lovely face.”

“At least he doesn’t want me for his mistress. He prefers ladies who are older—and married.”

A hackney coach returned them to Soho Square, and on entering Oriana’s house they discovered a chaotic scene.

Her elderly butler was seated on the staircase, clutching the rail, while his wife held a feather under his nose.

“What happened?” cried Oriana.

“Me legs turned all wobbly,” the sufferer reported. “And there’s a buzzing in me ears.”

“I told him to lie abed,” Lumley’s spouse huffed. “Where’s Sam with that brandy?”

The footman was coming down the hall, and Oriana went to take the glass from him. She presented it to Lumley, who took it in a shaking hand.

“Your wife is correct, you should be resting.”

“Aye, well, so I would, ma’am, if there wasn’t a dinner party tomorrow. The silver service wants polishing, and I need to choose your wines.”

“Never mind any of that,” she interrupted. “Louis knows his way around the cellar. Sam will clean the silver, and wait at table.” Oriana rose and descended to the entrance hall, where Dare remained. “I have a domestic crisis, as you can plainly see.”

“I’m confident that you’ll rise above it. Unless there’s anything I can do, I’ll leave you.”

She untied her bonnet ribbons. “We’ll manage. Somehow.”

Regretting his uselessness, Dare left the house.

“Lover, lover, lover!” Merton Pringle taunted.

He wished he could exchange the pesky brat for that damned noisy bird Oriana had kept at Glencroft. Given a choice, he much preferred the goose.

On the day of her dinner party, Oriana rose earlier than usual and dressed with uncommon haste. The doctor, after identifying her butler’s ailment as a fever, had recommended bed rest and regular doses of hot beef broth, and when she went belowstairs she found Mrs. Lumley was enforcing this regimen, despite her husband’s protests that he felt better.

“I mean to get up and be doing me duty tonight,” he assured Oriana.

“Listen to him,” scoffed Mrs. Lumley. “As if she’d want you handing ‘round her best dishes in your condition. Besides, what you’ve got might be catching.”

Said Oriana, “You must do exactly as the doctor said, Lumley.”

“Very well, ma’am. But take me missus out of here, I can’t abide all her cosseting and carping.”

“I’ve better things to do,” retorted his affronted spouse, nose in the air. “Till I’m home from the greengrocer’s, Annie will wait upon you.” Turning to Oriana, she added, “After an hour of so of being tended by that wench, he’ll be glad to have me cosseting him again, won’t he?”

The maligned scullery maid glared at the housekeeper.

After Mrs. Lumley departed, basket on her arm, Oriana conferred with her chef. The Belgian, whose opinion of himself was as large as his person, blithely informed her that the food, at least, would be impeccable, no matter how badly it was presented. This thoughtless comment made young Sam blanch.

Oriana took him to her parlor, where they would be safe from interruption, and soothed his rattled nerves as best she could.

“You know what needs to be done—this party will be no different from any other.”

“Yes, ma’am. I’ve put fresh tapers in all the drawing room sconces, and moved the
torchere
nearer the harpsichord. When Suke finishes ironing the cloth, I’ll lay the table.”

“Excellent. If you stay busy, you won’t have time to worry.”

She fully intended to follow her own advice and not fret about the disarray in her household. Her guests, she hoped, would be generous enough to excuse any deficiencies in her arrangements. If Sam could refrain from spilling food or drink all over the diners, she’d count the evening a triumph.

The pounding of the door knocker sent Sam rushing from the room, before she could tell him she wasn’t receiving. If the caller turned out to be Dare Corlett, she would have no qualm about sending him away at this most inconvenient time.

When Sam returned, a stranger accompanied him. The man, of medium height, had pewter gray hair and wore somber black clothing.

“My master, Sir Darius, sent me. I’m Jonathon Wingate.”

A horrifying possibility occurred to her. If Dare was unable to come, her numbers would be ruined—she’d need to find a gentleman to replace him. “Are you delivering his excuses?” she asked, waiting for the sword to fall.