by Balogh, Mary
She looked forward to the Parley ball with some eagerness, just as she always did at the start of a new Season.
Gabriel arrived in London two days after disembarking from one of his own ships in Bristol. He was unfamiliar with England’s capital, having spent a total of perhaps two weeks there during his growing years. He expected, moreover, that he would know absolutely no one, though there was Sir Trevor Vickers, his father’s friend and his own godfather, who had been a member of Parliament at one time and might still be. Regardless of any reluctance on his part, however, he had chosen to come to London rather than set out immediately for Derbyshire and Brierley Hall. There was business to be done here.
He took a suite of rooms at a decent hotel and spent a busy week interviewing and engaging a good lawyer and a land agent. He was obliged to be frank with them about his identity, of course, though he did not want it generally known yet. He wanted first to get a feel for the situation he might find himself in when he was no longer merely Mr. Gabriel Thorne. He spent many more hours transforming himself into a respectable-looking English gentleman. He endured a tedious time with a reputable tailor and a barber the tailor recommended, along with a boot maker and a haberdasher and a jeweler. He interviewed a number of men sent him by an agency and chose a superior sort of individual named Horbath—no first name was provided—to be his valet. He acquired a horse after being directed to Tattersalls. And he discovered that Sir Trevor Vickers was not only still a member of Parliament but was also a senior member of the cabinet now.
Gabriel called upon him and Lady Vickers one morning and was fortunate enough to find them both at home.
“Rochford?” Sir Trevor said when he and his wife joined Gabriel in the salon where he had been put to wait. The baronet gazed at his visitor in open astonishment. “Gabriel Rochford? But bless my soul, you must be he. You look just like your father.”
“I go by my mother’s name of Thorne now,” Gabriel explained as he submitted to a very firm and prolonged handshake, though it was the name Rochford he had sent up with Sir Trevor’s butler. “But yes, sir. I am Gabriel.” He bowed to Lady Vickers, who had also looked astonished at first, though now she was beaming at him, her hands clasped to her bosom.
“Everyone has long assumed you are dead,” Sir Trevor said bluntly. “It is about to be made official. But bless my soul, here you are, looking very much alive. Where the devil have you been hiding all these years? Ah, I beg your pardon, my dear. It seemed after the death of Lyndale and his son that you had fallen off the face of the earth. No one has been able to find any trace of you.”
“I have been in America, sir,” Gabriel told him.
“America. As bold as can be,” Sir Trevor said, shaking his head slowly. “Yet no one found you there. You are going by your mother’s name, you say? I suppose no one thought to search America for a Gabriel Thorne. But whyever would you do a thing like that?”
“My name has been legally changed,” Gabriel told him, and explained how it had come about. He did not say that he had been using the name even before Cyrus adopted him and even on his passage to America.
“Good God,” Sir Trevor said, suddenly struck by a thought. “Young Rochford has recently arrived in town—the son of the man who is expecting to be the Earl of Lyndale by the end of the summer. Manley Rochford, is it? Or Manford? No, Manley. His son is busy introducing himself to society as the prospective heir, and it is my understanding that society is opening its arms to him. I believe he is a personable young man. The father is expected to join him here soon. I understand grand celebrations are being planned for later in the Season, are they not, Doris?”
“Indeed they are,” his wife said, “premature as it may seem. I have not met Mr. Anthony Rochford yet, but he is said to be very handsome and charming. He is being invited everywhere. But, goodness me, Mr.—My lord—Oh, may I call you Gabriel since I remember you well as a small boy? Goodness me, that young man is about to have the shock of his life. He is going to be overjoyed when he discovers that you are alive after all.”
Gabriel very much doubted it. So, from the look on his face, did Sir Trevor. Well, but this was interesting. Manley Rochford’s son was actually in London, and he was waiting for the arrival of his father and getting ready to celebrate his accession as the new Earl of Lyndale? He should, Gabriel supposed, save them some embarrassment, not to mention expense, and take steps without further delay to disabuse them of that notion and make his identity generally known. But he had hoped first to discover for himself if the prospective new earl and his heir were as bad as Mary had made them out to be. Not that Mary was prone to either exaggeration or spite.
“I would rather he not be told,” he said. “For a short while, at least.”
They both looked at him in surprise.
“But—” Sir Trevor began.
Gabriel held up a hand. “If the mere arrival of my cousin in town is causing a stir,” he said, “one can only imagine what my sudden appearance here will cause, as though I had risen from the dead. Have mercy on me, sir, ma’am. I have only recently arrived from America, where I have spent the past thirteen years. I am already bewildered at the strangeness of being here. I need some time to find my land legs.”
And perhaps . . . Well, was there a chance, however remote, that what Mary had told him really was distorted, exaggerated, a bit biased? Could even the Manley he remembered be cruel enough to evict her from her precious cottage when she had nowhere else to go? Her nieces, her sister’s children, had never had anything to do with her, as far as Gabriel remembered. Now it seemed he had an unexpected opportunity to observe Anthony Rochford for himself, the young man who had supposedly been throwing his weight about and making himself obnoxious at Brierley. A charming, personable young man, according to what Sir Trevor and Lady Vickers had heard. Was it possible that before winter came on he would be able to return home to Boston and forget about this whole unwanted distraction?
He was very willing to grasp at any frail straws.
“I do, however,” he added, “need some entrée into society. It seems unlikely the ton would afford even a passing glance at Mr. Gabriel Thorne, merchant trader from Boston.”
“Is that who you have been all these years?” Sir Trevor asked, frowning and shaking his head again. “When you ought to have been here for almost seven years past as the Earl of Lyndale? There is clearly something I do not understand about your way of thinking. I suppose we can introduce you to the ton as our godson. My name carries some weight in this town.”
“You forget, Trevor,” Lady Vickers said, “that I had some family connection to Gabriel’s mother. I never did understand quite what it was and neither did she. We had a good laugh about it once, I remember. Third cousin twice removed, I believe it was, or something absurd like that. But without having to resort to any outright lie, Gabriel, we can present you to society as our godson and my kinsman. And I do boast a viscount as a second cousin. Trevor, of course, has his own credentials—a baronetcy and an influential position in the government. Leave it to us. You will be accepted by even the highest sticklers before we are done with you.”
“Thank you, ma’am,” Gabriel said, grinning at her. “I would much appreciate your help.”
“It will not hurt that you are also a handsome figure of a man,” Lady Vickers said. “But why are we standing here in the visitors’ parlor, Trevor, just as though Gabriel were a passing stranger instead of our godson and my kinsman? Your arm, if you please, Gabriel. We will go up to the drawing room. Albert is still at home, I believe—our son, that is. I will send up and ask that he join us. You were three years old when he was born, I remember. It was not long after the death of your poor mother. He is a dear boy, but he has a large circle of friends and acquaintances and I think it will be safer if we introduce you to him just as our godson and my distant cousin. Do you not agree, Trevor?”
“Whatever you say, my dear,” Sir Trevor said as he followed them up the stairs.
Albert Vi
ckers—Bertie to my friends and long-lost relatives, he told Gabriel with a hearty laugh as he shook his hand—was delighted to make Gabriel’s acquaintance. Even before his mother could ask it of him, he insisted upon taking Gabriel about town and showing him what was what and introducing him to a few capital fellows.
During the coming days Bertie did just as he had promised, with the result that Gabriel visited White’s Club and Tattersalls again and Jackson’s boxing saloon and a fencing school among other places and made a number of male acquaintances, none of whom questioned his right to be one of their number.
And the ladies had not been excluded. Lady Vickers enjoyed herself enormously—or so she informed Gabriel—spreading word of the arrival in town of her handsome young kinsman and godson, who had recently returned from America with a sizable fortune. Gabriel began to receive invitations to ton events, most notably a ball being given by Lady Parley in honor of the coming out of her eldest daughter.
“The first grand ball of the Season,” Bertie explained to him when Gabriel told him of the invitation. “It is gratifying that you have been invited, Gabe. Everyone who is anyone will be there. You can count on it. It is bound to be a dreadful squeeze. But once you have put in an appearance there, you will be invited everywhere. Wait and see.”
Gabriel accepted the invitation. And if Anthony Rochford was in truth the darling of the ton, which was one term by which Lady Vickers had described him, then it was altogether probable that he too would be in attendance at this grand squeeze Bertie predicted. He must put himself in the way of meeting the man, Gabriel thought. He had no fear of being recognized. They had never met.
But the knowledge that Rochford was in town had been a mere distraction from Gabriel’s real reason for wanting an in with the ton and a chance to attend the more select social events of the Season. His primary focus while he was here in London during the Season must be to find himself a wife—assuming, that was, that he would not really find it possible to slip off back home to America and put this all behind him like a bad dream.
He found himself wondering if Lady Jessica Archer was indeed in London and if she would also be at the Parley ball. On the whole he hoped she would not be. He had not liked her at all.
At last Jessica was at the first grand ball of the Season, standing at one side of the ballroom close to her mother, who was in conversation with a couple of older ladies, waiting for the dancing to begin. It would not be just yet. Sir Richard and Lady Parley and their daughter still stood in the receiving line, welcoming more and more new arrivals. Some gentlemen had begun to gather about Jessica, all of them familiar members of what it amused Avery to call her court. The ballroom was filling, and looking and smelling very festive indeed with the myriad colors of ball gowns and banks of flowers and one mirrored wall to multiply them all to infinity. Crystal candelabra overhead, each holding dozens of candles, cast a rainbow of light over the newly polished wooden floor and the gathering guests. Conversations were growing louder and more animated. The orchestra members were tuning their instruments.
This was often her favorite part of any ball, this eager anticipation of music and dance and feasting and forgetting the cares of everyday life. How very privileged she was to be here and to belong in these surroundings and with these people, Jessica thought as she flicked open her fan and plied it slowly before her face.
And how very old she felt.
There were a number of people she had not seen before, mostly young girls making their first appearance in London society, gowned almost exclusively in white, and some fresh-faced young gentlemen newly down from Oxford or Cambridge or up from the country. One such gentleman was Peter Wayne, Aunt Mildred and Uncle Thomas’s middle son, who was across the ballroom with his older brother, Boris, trying unsuccessfully to look like a jaded veteran. She smiled and lifted a hand in greeting as she caught his eye. He grinned back, forgetting his chosen role for a moment. She met the glance of one of the young girls and thought she read envy in her expression. Well, that was cheering. Perhaps she did not look quite like a fossil after all.
Sir Bevin Romley reminded her that he had reserved the second set with her, to the loud complaints of those gentlemen who had not. Mr. Dean asked for and was granted the third set. Compliments meanwhile were being lavished upon her, many of them deliberately outrageous and provocative of laughter from the other men, and sharp retorts from her. Comments were being made also about other guests, some of them kind, some not, some witty, some not. She did not contribute any of her own.
It was all very familiar and really rather endearing. She might just as easily be a wallflower at her age and must be very thankful she was not.
Was one of these gentlemen going to be her husband? Oh, she really could not imagine it. She liked all of them to varying degrees and for varying reasons. But there was none she liked more than all the others. Sadly.
She laughed lightly at something that had just been said, fanning her face as she did so and glancing toward the door to see if the flow of new arrivals had slowed. There was still a trickle of guests moving along the receiving line.
And there was one man between Jessica and the door, his shoulder propped against a pillar, his eyes gazing very directly at her. He was not a member of her usual court. Indeed, he was a stranger. He did not immediately look away, as most people would when discovered staring. Neither did he move.
Jessica raised her eyebrows and fanned her face a little faster. He was an extremely good-looking gentleman, tall, broad shouldered, slender hipped, long legged, and elegantly and fashionably clad in black and white, his tailed evening coat looking rather as though he must have been poured into it, his neckcloth very white and arranged in a perfect, intricate fall. His silk breeches and stockings hugged shapely legs. His curly brown hair was short and expertly styled to look fashionably disheveled. His features were more harsh than perfectly handsome, perhaps, and his complexion was sun bronzed. But it was an attractive face nevertheless. Everything about him was attractive, in fact. Jessica felt an unexpected frisson of awareness and interest.
But his manners were not all they should be. He was still staring at her. Or, rather, he was gazing lazily, as though he had been doing it for some time. His whole posture was lazy, in fact, or perhaps relaxed was the more appropriate word. And informal. One did not lean one’s shoulder against pillars at ton events. Jessica raised her chin and looked haughtily back at him, just as another gentleman approached him and he looked away and straightened up to give the other man his attention.
Strangely, bizarrely, it was only at that moment that Jessica recognized him—the man who had been staring at her, that was. He was the man from the inn. The one she had taken for a cit, a member of the middle classes, with his overlong hair and unfashionable, ill-fitting clothes and inelegance of manner. He had looked at her boldly then too, from her head to her feet, with an expression that had bordered upon the contemptuous. And he had been ungracious about vacating the private parlor for her use. He had spoken openly in her hearing about the money he had paid for it. He had made her a mocking half bow.
She must have been mistaken on that occasion. No mere cit would have received an invitation to a ton ball. Not even if he was a wealthy man. But how very rude of him to have stared at her as he had just now, even if he had been as surprised to see her here as she was to see him. Who on earth was he?
“Jessica?” Her mother was approaching, and Jessica turned her attention back to the scene immediately before her. Mama was bringing someone to introduce to her.
The man from the inn was forgotten. For standing before her, dazzling in a dull gold evening coat with sparkling gold waistcoat, lace foaming at his neck and over the backs of his hands in this age of far more sober evening attire and darker colors, was the man of Jessica’s long-dead dreams. He was handsome beyond belief—of slightly more than average height and perfectly proportioned build, with handsome facial features that included slumberous eyes of a decided blue and very white, e
ven teeth, which were fully on display now in a wide smile. Even his thick hair was perfect, though red-haired men had never figured in the romantic dreams of her girlhood. They ought to have.
“Jessica,” her mother said. “Mr. Rochford has applied to me for an introduction to you. My daughter, Lady Jessica Archer, sir.”
“Charmed, Lady Jessica,” the gentleman said, making her an elegant bow while not removing his eyes from hers.
Oh, and so was she. Charmed, that was. Fortunately, she did not say so aloud. “I am pleased to make your acquaintance, Mr. Rochford,” she said, inclining her head to him. She did not curtsy to any man below the age of fifty or below the rank of earl.
Her court had fallen silent about her. She was hardly aware of it.
“Mr. Rochford is heir to the earldom of Lyndale,” her mother informed her. “Or soon will be, after his father succeeds to the title later this summer.”
Jessica raised her eyebrows in inquiry.
“My cousin, the present earl, has not taken up his title in the almost seven years since the demise of the late earl and his son,” Mr. Rochford explained. “He disappeared before that unfortunate event and has not been heard from since despite an exhaustive search. It has been very distressing to my father, who was dearly fond of him. Alas, the present earl is about to be declared officially dead. Both my father and I will be brokenhearted, but . . . Well, as the saying goes, life must go on.”
Ah. It was one consequence of being later than usual to London, Jessica supposed, that she had missed this tidbit of news—and really quite a sensational one. It was rather a romantic story too—for Mr. Rochford and his father, anyway. Not so much for the dead earl, she supposed. So this veritable Adonis standing before her and still smiling was about to be an earl’s heir, was he? And he was looking at her as though she were the fulfillment of all his dreams. She hoped her own interest in him was not so apparent. She fanned her cheeks slowly.