Revealed (15 page)

“Yes, but without proof—”

“I have a feather from your brother’s library.”

“A feather is a feather, not absolute proof. No, Mrs. Benning, without proof, you would be rumormongering. And I may know little about you, but I do know that you do not go about starting rumors.”

“Heavens no. Other people do that enough in my stead,” she replied smartly.

“Mrs. Benning, my conditions are as follows: Keep your council until the Benning Ball.”

“That’s not a hardship; the success of the Ball depends upon your identity remaining a secret.”

Marcus impulsively placed a hand on her elbow. “I am hunting someone. Mrs. Benning, if it is who I think it is, he’s a very dangerous individual. If I am not successful in apprehending him before the Ball, you are to cancel the Benning Ball entirely.”

“What?” she exclaimed, staring at him openmouthed. Indeed, her cry had attracted no small amount of attention, for Totty and Lady Worth had begun to walk toward them, Totty wearing a look of concern, until Phillippa held her at bay with a small shake of her head.

“I will under no circumstances cancel the Benning Ball! It would be disasterous!” she said in a rushed whisper.

“It would be far more disastrous should I not capture my man before then.”

“Why?” she challenged.

“Two reasons: First, if I am revealed as the Blue Raven before he’s caught, I will be a marked man. I’d prefer to avoid that.”

She chewed on that for a moment.

“And second?”

“Second is quite simple: The Benning Ball is the last event on the list.”

For a moment, Phillippa forgot to breathe.

Oh God, she thought. She looked into his face, the utter seriousness there, and felt her stomach drop.

“You’re not teasing me anymore, are you?”

His thumb massaged her elbow, soothing her. “I shocked you, I see. I apologize. But you need to understand—to be aware of the seriousness of the situation. I’m not playing some game; one man has already had his throat slit in this business.”

If it was possible, Phillippa went paler. She felt his hand tighten on her arm. Was it possible her knees were buckling under her?

“Mrs. Benning, I’m sorry, I forgot myself, but I simply refuse to allow any harm to come to you if it can be avoided.”

Phillippa gained her ground and, with all the strength she could muster, found her balance and removed her arm from his grasp. “Surely . . . surely Lord Fieldstone will assist you now. I know he could not promise to help your quest previously, but given this latest development . . .”

But Marcus just shook his head. “Lord Fieldstone is no longer an option.”

A grimness overtook Phillippa. Part of her simply wanted to run away. Run to her family’s country seat and hide. What had she gotten herself into? But she couldn’t. Phillippa Benning did not run. Phillippa Benning was a force unreckonable. The Benning Ball was going to be The Event of the Season. And she didn’t need to look over her shoulder to see Lady Jane Cummings fawning over Broughton.

“Well,” she said, squaring her shoulders, “you could be chasing the wind, you realize. What if this, this
man
you hunt is no longer in London? I could end up canceling the Benning Ball for no reason.”

“You want reason?” he growled. “Get me invited to the first event on the list, and I’ll show you.”

Now Phillippa did look over her shoulder and did see Lady Jane fawning over Broughton. But more to the point, she saw Broughton leaning into her solicitously.
Very
solicitously.

“Mr. Worth,” Phillippa said brightly, putting forth her most pert smile. “Do you see that, er, rather large woman on the opposite side of the street? Wearing that very, er, patriotic blue and red ensemble? That is Lady Whitford.”

“Of the Whitford Banquet?” he asked.

“The one and the same. Now, give me your arm, thank you,” she said, and as he did so, “and lean down to me.”

When he did, she whispered in his ear, “Trim your sideburns.”

And then, leaning back, she let out her loveliest peal of laughter, turning heads from one end of Bond Street to the other. Pulling him gently, they promenaded toward Totty, Bitsy, and Lady Worth, strolling slowly, Phillippa giving a kind nod to Lady Whitford, beckoning that good lady to come and join their group.

“Totty, Mr. Worth was just telling me the most amusing story about a boxing match he had at Jackson’s Saloon.” Phillippa smiled, addressing the group.

“Marcus!” Lady Worth exclaimed. “Such tales surely would not be for a lady’s ears!”

“Oh, I don’t know, Mariah, I have the feeling Jackson could learn a thing or two from Mrs. Benning,” he replied, just before Phillippa’s elbow landed smartly against his rib cage.

As Marcus launched admirably into spinning a story about a sparring match he saw with the great Jackson himself, and Lady Whitford nimbly made her way across Bond Street, Phillippa chanced a coy look over her shoulder. There she saw Lady Jane trying desperately to get Broughton’s attention, and failing. For Broughton’s attention was fixed on Phillippa, the challenge glinting in his eye.

As well it should be, she thought, leaning a little closer into Marcus Worth.

Farther down Bond Street, seemingly letting his eyes graze over a display of watch chains, the man watched as Mrs. Phillippa Benning took Marcus Worth by the arm and guided him toward her friends, laughing throatily.

He nodded to an acquaintance, who tipped his cap as he strolled past. It was so easy to walk along and follow Worth as he and his sister-in-law did that day’s shopping. He had followed them down Brook Street, across Oxford, and now Bond, all without any incident. Indeed, he was beginning to think his associate’s fears about Worth were exaggerated, as he again followed Lady Worth into some milliner’s or haberdashery, a look of utter boredom on that young man’s face. The only time the Worths paused for any length of time to speak with anyone was when Lady Worth had spotted Mrs. Benning and bore down on her like a hound on a fox. Mrs. Benning spent some minutes in private conversation with Worth. Phillippa Benning, the unequivocal leader of the Ton, speaking at length to Marcus Worth. The man shrugged. Maybe they had developed a tendre for each other, but how or when he could not imagine.

As the lady let out a trill of laughter, he decided the entire errand was fruitless and turned away.

Marcus Worth was paranoid, yes. But whatever he suspected, it seemed he was more concerned with earning the favor of ladies than pursuing his hunch.

It was almost disappointing to find Marcus Worth was harmless.

M
AYFAIR during the height of the Season was, on an average day, awash in the well-dressed and the well-to-do, moving back and forth between houses and parks as if they were migrating birds, flitting from one end of St. James’s Square to the other. But in the evening, everyone in Mayfair had an absolute destination, whether it be Almack’s or a card party or a masked ball. Where there was movement, there was purpose.

And tonight, everyone who was anyone was headed toward the Whitford Mansion.

An enviably large house in the center of London’s fashionable district, the mansion was a freestanding structure in the elegant Palladian style, sitting snugly on a few acres of well-manicured gardens.

One would assume that such a large house, with such extensive private parks, would very easily accommodate several dozen of the Whitfords’ closest friends for an evening of drinking, dancing, and best of all, eating. And one would be correct.

However, when the number topped several hundred, the fit became a bit tighter.

It was an elite several hundred, mind, but one could easily become lost in the sea of faces, coats, gowns, and jewels.

Unless of course, one were Phillippa Benning.

There was something remarkably comforting about being half a head taller than the rest of the female population, Phillippa decided. Not only could she see over the majority of heads in the crowd, but she could be seen by everyone else.

And everyone else would then be able to get out of her way.

“Goodness, what a crush! I thought this event was meant to be exclusive,” Totty said, having barely managed to follow Phillippa through a packed hallway into the ballroom.

The Whitford Banquet was laid out in such a way that you had to pass through all the other rooms of dancing, cards, and of course, the great hall, which housed Lord Whitford’s impressive collection of firearms (some of which were of his own design) before entering the banquet hall. Servants wended their way through the crowd with silver trays of small bites and champagne, but the main spectacle of the evening, the banquet itself, was not served until midnight, when the Whitfords’ revered French chef, Marcel, revealed his famous Dove Pie.

It was a take on the nursery rhyme, “Four and twenty blackbirds baked in a pie,” but Marcel, in typical French fashion, had determined that white doves were far more asthetically pleasing flying out of the wafer-thin piecrust, than “ugly black birds.” Lord Whitford was, of course, more than willing to go along with just about anything Marcel decreed, as long as he produced the sumptuous feast year after year that made the Whitford Banquet one of the most celebrated events of the season. Once the doves were released, the banquet began: the resplendent courses of quail and pheasant, duck and truffle sauce, roasted candied ham, goose stuffed with currants, and curried lamb, all dressed with every fruit and vegetable imaginable, whether from out of this season or out of this hemisphere.

Marcel the chef was known to celebrate the exotic, and so the very brave were impressed upon to try the alligator stew or the shark fin flambé. The tarts, pies, cakes, bonbons, ices, marzipan, and meringues that made up the after courses were enough to pop even the staunchest woman’s corset strings. If one were intelligent, one would not eat the entire day before in preparation, and if one were successful, one would not need to eat for the entire day after.

Of course, one had to actually manage to
get
to the banquet hall to partake of any of this.

“I assure you, the Whitford Banquet
is
exclusive.” Phillippa replied, gently smoothing her perfectly coiled and curled hair. “Look about you; there’s no one here we don’t know.”

“That you don’t know maybe,” Totty grumbled. “I swear, I don’t know how you keep them all straight. You remember to an eyelash every person you’ve ever met.”

“While I regard it as far more remarkable that others find it such a difficulty,” Phillippa remarked. They were currently in the ballroom, where dancing took up too much of the space. She scanned the turning sets of couples in rows on the floor, banked by the matrons, older married gentlemen, wallflowers, and less-than-courtly young bucks that made up the sidelines of any party. Indeed, she recognized every face, could pinpoint where they had met, who their parents were, and how much they had in holdings at the Bank of England. Which alternately comforted her and terrified her.

If Mr. Worth was correct, and some threatening force would perpetrate mischief tonight, it would be done with the assistance of someone here. And since there was no one she did not recognize . . .

Unless, of course, it was a servant of some kind. That thought cheered Phillippa, until she remembered that Lady Whitford was notorious for her high wages, as a reward for staff loyalty. Not to mention the kitchen’s requirement of secrecy to guard Marcel’s culinary godliness from the average human. Indeed, even at a crush like this, the extra staff hired would have been well-known to them, likely the same people they used last year. And the year before.

Mr. Worth should be made aware of this, Phillippa thought, her mind moving as quick as lightning. He should know as much as possible about the circumstances he would walk into tonight.

“Where is he?” she muttered, alternately scanning the crowd and flicking her eyes toward the narrow hallway through which they had entered. They moved forward into the main ballroom, finally having enough elbow room to settle into an advantageous spot.

“Where is who?” an insipid voice came from behind them, causing Phillippa to cover a groan before she turned.

“Don’t tell me you lost dear Broughton already,” Lady Jane Cummings sneered at Phillippa. “Amazing. I’ve already danced with him. I do hope he hasn’t left yet. Pity you didn’t arrive earlier.”

“Lady Jane”—Phillippa gave the slightest possible curtsy—“you and I both know that no one leaves the Whitford Banquet without sampling some of the delicacies, which are served later. Indeed, I strive to not arrive too early, since it would be taken as being far too overeager for the treats that await. Dare I say unfashionable, too?”

Lady Jane’s eyes narrowed as her cheeks took on a mottled reddish hue.

“Speaking of,” Phillippa continued, “I must take it upon myself to counsel you to not wear this particular shade of green again. Ginger curls are hard to downplay, and this gown simply makes it look as if someone lit your head on fire.”