London society was still abuzz with speculation as to whom exactly, Elizabeth Sheffield was. So far, none had pegged her to the sixteen-year-old girl who went missing years before, because at the time, her father was living in India. But if it was learned exactly how she'd survived while there, it would be the scandal of the season, and her father would have no chance of making a match, so she'd told her father a half-truth—after arriving in India and finding her mother on her deathbed, she stayed with her until she died, then she worked as a nanny for a British family living in India.
Perhaps in time she'd return to Shanti Bhavan where buried memories had begun to surface and try to find the answers her father refused to give, but it was an unattainable dream as long as she was wanted for a murder she didn't commit, and for stealing an opal that belonged to her grandmother's tribe. Nor would she tell her father about the gem, though she felt no remorse taking it from a man who'd killed his brother to gain a title. But for now, she hoped that being the woman her father wanted her to be would help close the rift between them.
"If you want to please your father," Cora said, "you'll marry a man of his choosing. He missed seeing you growing up so he won't want to miss being a part of the next generation."
Elizabeth tucked a vagrant curl into the upsweep of hair. "I'm not ready to marry yet. I've only just finished school. Having to mollify a husband sounds most unappealing at the moment."
"Then you must find a man who doesn't need mollifying," Cora said, while straightening a flounce on Elizabeth's dress, "one who wants to spend his life treating you like a princess, in fact making you his princess."
Elizabeth laughed heartily. "Like Prince Rao Singh, you mean. I've heard all about the man. Every eligible woman in London is talking about him. In fact, he's subject for gossip with half the married women as well, though what I've heard they're saying about him would make a sailor blush. Why Father invited him to my ball is beyond me."
Cora stopped what she was doing and stared at Elizabeth's reflection in the mirror. "Whatever have you heard, and from whom?" she asked, eyes eager with interest.
Elizabeth felt heat creep up her face. "I can't repeat it. It's too embarrassing. Besides, what I heard came from my friend Nell, whose lady's maid heard it from her friend, who was the lady's maid for a certain countess who had a tryst with the prince while aboard the ship crossing from India, and raved to a certain baroness aboard—whose name I won't mention—that the prince had—" Elizabeth stopped short.
Cora caught her eyes in the mirror. "Go on. The prince had what? If the man is a potential suitor and husband for you, I'd like to know what's being said about him... to pass on to your father, of course. So do tell."
Elizabeth looked more closely at her step-mother and saw her face color, and knew Cora wanted the information on her own behalf. She loved a tidbit of gossip to pass on, if only to hear the collective gasps of shock from her lady friends. "Well, the countess said the prince was very much a man—" she stopped short again, her face feeling as if on fire.
Cora leaned toward the mirror, lips parted in prurient interest. "Very much a man in what way?"
Elizabeth's eyelids fluttered as she said, "Well, in the way that… men are men." Fire burned like embers in her cheeks.
Cora laughed. "I presume we're talking about his prowess in bed?"
Catching Cora's gaze in the mirror, Elizabeth nodded vaguely.
"I think I know exactly the countess in question," Cora said, lips quivering with excitement. "She's been known to rave about certain conquests outside of marriage, men with robust appetites for lovemaking."
Elizabeth eyed her step-mother in the mirror, agitated with the gist of the conversation. "Why would any decent woman want a man like that?" She busied herself arranging a flounce on her skirt while hoping the heightened color in her cheeks would fade. Discussing the prince's maleness was having a decidedly unnerving effect on her. She remembered all too well the heated kisses she'd shared with a certain lord, and the things she'd allowed him to do the night he caught her dancing.
Forcing that timeworn memory back into the recesses of her mind, she said, "In any event, returning to India with a prince from the Punjab is the least appealing of any offer I might get."
"Don't discard the prince too quickly," Cora said. "I met him a few days ago. He's an extraordinary looking man. Gracious, intelligent, and speaks flawless English."
Elizabeth glanced at herself in the long mirror. With the tiny clusters of pearls and delicate sprays of sequins worked into the bodice of her gown, and the small diamonds glittering from the tiara encircling her head, she looked like a princess. For an instant she considered allowing Prince Rao Singh to find his way among prospective suitors, then dismissed that notion. India held too many uncertainties, even if she were to return as the wife of a prince. "No thank you," she emphasized. "I've had my fill of India."
"The prince also has an estate in England, so you wouldn't always live in India if you were to marry him," Cora continued, seeming determined to hold to the subject of Prince Singh. "In fact, he plans to return to England in the near future."
"I have no desire to form a marital alliance with Prince Singh," Elizabeth clipped, irritated with her step mother's doggedness. "I'll set my sights on an Englishman, express my wishes to Father, and hope my intended turns out to be either well past ninety years of age, or won't want to marry for at least twenty years."
Cora laughed. "I doubt any man betrothed to you would want to wait at all. Not only has your father promised a sizable dowry, but your beauty is celebrated in London. But maybe you'll find the right man at the ball and be eager to form a marital alliance."
Elizabeth was certain she would not. She'd not met a man in all of England during the entire season who so much as turned her head. True, she'd met all manner of fops and dandies, but none made her breath catch, or her heart hammer, or her knees weak, and none sent warm tingles coursing through her to settle low in her belly, and none made her want to throw her arms around him and kiss him until she couldn't breathe, as if her life depended on the air in his lungs, all the while savoring the sweet, smoky taste of him. And try as she might, she couldn't put Lord Damon Ravencroft, or the hedonistic effect he had on her, out of her mind.
But tomorrow night at the ball she would rid her mind of the man, just as she rid his bedchamber of mice, three years before.
***
Damon moved the curtain aside and peered out the window of the coach as it made its way through St. Giles while enroute to Lady Elizabeth Sheffield's coming out ball. Normally he avoided balls and cotillions like the plague, but this particular ball held the means to an end. Not only was Elizabeth Sheffield something to look on, if there was anything to the ravings he'd heard, but the sizable dowry she'd bring to the marriage would pay the legal fees necessary to restore his name and secure his inheritance, and she'd be as good a wife as any.
Beyond the coach window, dreary rain splashed against flagstones and splattered in puddles, tall lamps flickered and flared over narrow crooked streets, and he could see the shadowy figures of forlorn, bedraggled men and women huddled against doorways and hunkered down in protected corners. St. Giles was as he'd remembered—an aggregate of hopeless habitation where garbage was thrown into gutters each night to become a mass of grime and foul vapors, and the contents of chamber pots was pitched from windows to the street below to find its way into stagnant water so charged with decaying matter, in hot weather it filled the air with a stench akin to rotten eggs. He rapped on the window and the coach came to a halt.
For a few minutes he stared at the place where he'd lived with his mother. The building was abandoned now, but at the time they were there it was occupied from cellar to garret by families living in one-room flats. Back then, stairwells sheltered the homeless, and the pungent odor of urine and unwashed bodies was so strong, doors to the flats remained closed day and night. Each morning his mother sent him with two wooden buckets to fetch water from a community cistern in which l
itter and an occasional dead rat floated. One bucket was for bathing and washing clothes, the other for washing dishes and scrubbing the flat. Then he and his mother would leave for work, pushing a barrow and selling mussels, or picking through refuse for odds and ends to sell on the street when mussels weren't available. But however desperate things got, his mother refused to beg.
The strange thing was, until the day he first saw Westwendham, when he was nine years old, he hadn't known how utterly poor they were because they'd always had food on the table and managed to stay out of the poorhouse. His mother had been careful to point that out. Their flat was scrubbed, faded gingham curtains hung over the single window, jute mats that covered the floorboards were beaten each day, and the table was always dressed with an unsoiled cloth that was removed for meals. And sitting on a shelf above the table, like a piece of fine porcelain, was the china swallow with the broken wing he'd rescued from a mound of rubbish and given to his mother for Christmas the year he turned twelve. But no matter how hard she tried, his mother could never keep out the rats.
Instinctively his hand went to his chest where the tattooed image of a rat, pricked into his flesh by a gypsy chit who still haunted his memories, stood as a reminder of the life he and his mother had been forced into by a cruel father he'd never met, a man who divorced his wife and booted her out without a penny because she defied him by reading books. She was an abomination, he'd raved. Women were not to be educated in a man's world. But she had the foresight to take her precious books with her when she left, which she placed on shelves that covered one wall of their small flat.
Damon shared his mother's thirst for knowledge, and from those books he learned Latin, the classics, and proper English grammar. From etiquette books and her Patrician upbringing, his mother instructed him in the social graces he needed to one day assume his rightful place at Westwendham, and on occasion, he made his way to the Royal Victoria Theater, where for three pence, he joined a rowdy crowd of dustmen, porters, and black-faced sweeps to watch a melodrama or a farce, or if he was lucky, a burlesque.
The rest of his education was wide-ranging. On the streets of St. Giles he learned bare-fisted fighting and back-alley boxing, and in the crowded marketplace he learned how to spot and subdue a thief and return a coin purse to a dandy for a few pennies reward. He hadn't been back to St. Giles since the night his mother died, and tonight he needed a reminder of why he'd come back to England. Westwendham was his, and he intended to claim it, if not for himself, then for his mother. He could still see the zealous look on her face when she impressed upon him the importance of seeking justice and claiming what was rightfully his. He was his father's first born, his heir, though his father never knew he existed because his mother was four months pregnant when he turned her out...
He rapped on the window and the coachman gave the command. The coach lurched forward and moved at a fast clip through the muck and grime of St. Giles towards the splendor and stateliness of South Kensington, and by the time he arrived at the great hall where Lord Sheffield's daughter would be presented, the rain had stopped and carriages and coaches of every shape and size began arriving in rapid succession.
Footmen stepped down and opened coach doors for stunningly dressed ladies and their immaculately clad escorts. Even the harnesses and trappings of the horses were oiled and polished and every bit as splendid as the liveries of the coachmen and footmen.
He stepped out of the coach and was immediately ushered inside. While waiting for Lord Sheffield's daughter to make her grand entry, he gazed around the room at daughters of folly wearing white kid gloves and enormous gowns; and dandies with more money than wit, with their impeccable white neck cloths and faultlessly made habiliments, and feet encased in mirror-like patent leather boots. But after a while, the voices in the room died, and Damon looked up to where Lord William Sheffield's daughter stood poised at the head of the long stairway.
Wearing a magnificent gown of white satin adorned with pearls and sequins, and with a small tiara sparkling with tiny diamonds gracing her ebony hair, she looked like an exquisite princess. But, as she slowly descended the stairs, the realization of exactly who Lady Elizabeth Sheffield was, gradually began to dawn. Elbowing his way closer, he stared up at her, certain he must be mistaken. Surely Elizabeth Sheffield could not be...
"Bloody hell!"
The words slipped out as a whispered gasp. But that didn't change the fact that the woman making her grand entry was a thief, a liar, and a felon, and he had no intention of letting her get away with her trickery. She owed him a substantial sum, and he intended to collect.
CHAPTER 5
As she made her way down the stairs, Elizabeth's gaze drifted over the guests, singling out a tall, extraordinary-looking man, whose gaze was fixed on her. A half-head taller than any other man in the room, and dressed in a white tunic, fitted black breeches, and flashing a ruby from the aigret of his gold and burgundy silk turban, he was undoubtedly Prince Rao Singh, the source of female gossip in the parlors of London. But as the gap between them closed, something about the man reminded her of Lord Damon Ravencroft. A good portion of his face was hidden behind a thick mustache and full beard, and his hair was caught up in his turban so she couldn't see if it was dark. And his eyes? Behind his spectacles, she was unable to tell their color, whether brown or gray or… cobalt blue.
Certainly Lord Ravencroft wouldn't be so bold as to parade about British soil where he was wanted for murder, and do it with such a brazen display, although the facial hair and Indian garb would serve to distract from who the man really was. But to arrive at her coming-out ball? Would he be that bold? Of course, if it was Damon Ravencroft she‘d be in danger of being exposed by him as a thief and a murderer, so his secret would be safe with her.
Several hours later, still aware of the prince's incessant gaze while she danced with one potential suitor after another—though the prince made no attempt to dance with her—Elizabeth tried to maintain a gracious facade. But as the evening drew to a close, she saw the prince coming her way. She stood frozen, unable to move, unable to breathe, as he walked toward her with the stealth and grace of a big cat stalking its prey.
Turning to her dance partner, she said in an anxious voice, "I'm feeling lightheaded, Lord Silsbury. Please escort me off the dance floor so I may sit out the next dance."
"As you wish, Lady Elizabeth."
They'd just left the dance floor when the prince walked up to them, and said to Lord Silsbury, "I'll take Lady Elizabeth now."
Lord Silsbury started to protest, but catching the look of warning from the prince, he released Elizabeth's arm, bowed graciously, and stepped aside. The prince cupped his palm around Elizabeth's elbow and escorted her onto the dance floor.
Elizabeth tugged against his solid grip. "I did not give you permission to dance with me."
Continuing toward the dance floor, the prince's hand remained firmly attached to her elbow. "Then I humbly ask your permission. May I have the honor of this dance, Lady Elizabeth?"
The timbre of his voice caught Elizabeth's attention. But surely it couldn't be… mustn't be… She chanced a glimpse at him then shifted her gaze so quickly she couldn't capture the entirety of his face. With the beard and mustache covering a good portion of his features, and the turban concealing his hair, and his eyes somewhat obscured by the reflection off is spectacles, she had no way of knowing if the man could, in fact, be Lord Ravencroft, farfetched as it seemed.
Not wanting to be so rude as to deny the man a dance, should he be exactly who he presented himself to be, she said, "Yes, but only one dance. I'm very tired and wish to sit out the remainder of the evening."
On the dance floor, the prince placed his hand at Elizabeth's waist but held her away from him, appearing as if to study her. She could not be certain how intense his perusal was because she avoided looking directly at him.
Picking up on that, the prince said, "You are a very beautiful woman, Lady Elizabeth, but you avoid looking at me. Wh
y?"
"Perhaps you read me wrong," Elizabeth said, refusing to look directly at the man, fearing she might find him not to be the prince he claimed to be. Which was absurd. Lord Ravencroft would never show his face in England. Unless, perhaps, disguised as a prince from the Punjab.
"Read you wrong, Lady Elizabeth? How is that?"
Elizabeth felt the man's eyes boring into her as she gazed over his shoulder. But it was the tone of his voice that set her heart thrumming and sent prickles of dread coursing through her. "Our cultures are very different. In England, a young lady refrains from looking directly at a potential suitor and chance sending him the wrong message."
She felt his breath on her damp forehead as the prince said, in a low evocative voice, "Is that why you think I'm here tonight, Lady Elizabeth, as one of your suitors?"
Elizabeth fought the urge to look at the arrogant man and shoot mental daggers at him accompanied by a sharp retort. Another time, and another place, she could certainly match him in verbal and mental sparring, but here, tonight, this man held the advantage, whoever he was. "I assumed my father invited you for that reason," she said, while anxiously scanning the room, hoping to catch the eye of a would-be dance partner to cut in and sweep her away from this man who set her nerves on edge and her heart tripping.
"You assumed correctly," the prince said. "I was told not only did Lady Elizabeth Sheffield possess rare beauty, but she'd spent several years in India. It seemed appropriate that she be among the young ladies I'd consider to take as my wife."
"Your wife?" Elizabeth was certain her heart stopped momentarily. The idea of marrying either man was unthinkable. Under normal circumstances she'd give no credence to it, but whichever man this was—Lord Damon Ravencroft or Prince Rao Singh—he held enough power, money and finesse to convince her father he'd make a fine match for his daughter. That thought alone brought another rush of chills coursing through her.
"You seem surprised I'm seeking a wife here tonight," the prince said. "It's my understanding this is what tonight is all about, finding a suitable match for Lord Sheffield's beautiful daughter. Perhaps I misunderstood when I spoke to your father. He led me to believe I'd make an excellent match for you."
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