Frost Fair

by Edith Layton

  The silence in the coach was palpable. The runner said it as easily as he might have asked if Uncle preferred wine or beer. But to him it was fact of life, Lucian supposed. And so it was. He cleared his throat. “I doubt he fancied men or boys. He was a bachelor because he was selfish, and preoccupied with books more than people, male or female. How should I know if he liked being whipped? And…little girls?”

  “Aye, well, at least virgins, and there aren’t any other kind for sale in London. It’s a thriving business, my lord. There’s some that think the only way to cure the clap is to have a virgin. They cost the earth, and the only way a man can be sure he’s got one is to buy a child.”

  “They believe that works?” Lucian asked in astonishment.

  “Some. But for myself, I think if it did, the rich would have made it legal by now, and in a year there wouldn’t be any rich men with clap—nor one virgin—left in all London.” Will laughed.

  But Lucian didn’t.

  “So. I take it you won’t be coming with me on these inquiries,” Will said knowingly.

  “No, I will,” Lucian said. “The sooner we find an answer, the sooner I’ll be free.”

  “Aye, of my company. I do understand,” Will chuckled.

  “That isn’t what I meant,” Lucian said, and was surprised to discover he meant it. His uncle’s death had cast suspicion on him. Whatever anger and distress that had caused him, still there was no doubting that events since then had also made his life more interesting. Much more interesting. “No, that’s not what I meant at all,” Lucian said slowly, and with dawning wonder.

  Chapter Nine

  “I’m astonished. I wouldn’t know you in a hundred years. It’s a master of disguise you are and no mistake!” the runner said the moment he clapped eyes on the viscount.

  “Amusing, I am so incredibly amused,” Lucian said in a flat voice, somewhat muffled by his mask.

  That was all he wore as a costume. The only incorrect thing about his scrupulous formal evening dress was that he wore a truncated domino over his head. He didn’t wear the entire cloak, only the headpiece. It was almost a pillow slip, a fall of black silk hanging from the tricorne hat attached to the top, with a white mask over his eyes in the ancient Venetian style. The impressive nose was covered by the mask’s even more impressive travesty of a nose, but there it stopped. His lips and chin were bare. Even so, silk billowed with each puff of air when he spoke.

  “No one can recognize me. I believe you did say that’s all that was needed,” Lucian said, somewhat angrily.

  He’d rejected all the costumes he’d seen at the shop he’d gone to, opting for an old domino mask he found in the back of his wardrobe instead. It was one he’d worn to fancy dress balls and masquerades in his youth. Even then, it had struck him as too much and he’d trimmed it. He felt silly enough in it as it was. But he told himself that at least it was a costume he could put on in the privacy of the carriage he’d rented. That way he could leave his house without his valet or any of his staff looking at him askance.

  He was a man supposedly in mourning, after all. He mocked society, but hesitated to fly in its face. His uncle had been right in that at least, he did know the right thing to do, and when he could, he tried to do it. The world had a certain order, and no matter how he might scoff at it, order did make the world go round.

  But now, perversely, he felt even more foolish because he hadn’t tarted himself up. He loved a good jest but wasn’t the sort of man who risked being made one himself. He hadn’t known that before tonight. It did not endear the runner to him. Especially since Spanish Will had gone the whole hog, and looked surprisingly elegant, and somehow completely right.

  The runner was a Spanish Grandee tonight. Black cloak, black suit and hose, black gloves, a dress sword at his side, complete to a white ruffle around his neck, and a false goatee. A simple black eye mask concealed his dark eyes. His smooth olive skin and shining black hair complemented the effect, but it was his arrogant air of command that completed it.

  “They’ll have a hard time guessing who you are, all right,” Lucian muttered, eyeing Will as he settled into the coach.

  “Don’t care if they do,” Will said smoothly. “It may be even better do I set them wondering. ‘Is he making fun of the runner? What cheek!’ ‘…Or could it be Spanish Will himself?’ If they think it’s me, fine. If they think I’m bold enough to mock big, bad Spanish Will, even better. The point is no one will know. That’s the game within my game tonight. Can’t be all work, can I? Though, I allow, I like my work so much I need no other play.”

  Lucian sat still, annoyed with himself and the runner, and feeling like a fool because he was. He wasn’t used to that. He was a fashionable gentleman, and until recently he hadn’t known how much that had pleased him. He was known as a Corinthian, a man devoted to sport, to the turf, the hunt and the chase. Not for him the fripperies of the Dandy set, or the dull and endless politics of the Reformer. He didn’t attempt essays or poetry as so many other gentlemen did. He worked at play.

  He gambled, he fenced, he was good with pistols. He drove his cattle and tried to set new coaching records for speed with them. He stripped at a gentlemen’s boxing club once a week so he could spar. He competed for pleasure, never for applause or anything but his own approval. He minded his own business, and that business was simply to amuse himself.

  But still and all, he was aware of who he was. He couldn’t help knowing he was respected, admired, even envied. Now suddenly, he felt somewhat inadequate. But until now the game had always been to remain cool and amused, a man who was above wondering about how he was regarded.

  His life certainly had changed since his uncle had died, he thought moodily.

  Everything that had happened since then had been different. Remarkably different. And while not always pleasant, at least always enlightening. That was what fascinated him, and made him temper his tongue now. “I’ll say I’m pretending to be a gentleman,” he said.

  Will laughed. “Do that, but say it different and you’ll be a better success.”

  “Oim playin’ at bein’ a gent, don’cha see?”

  Will turned to look at him. “Very, very good,” he said in surprise.

  “Well, but one must have some surprises up one’s sleeve, mustn’t one?” Lucian said, surprisingly pleased with himself.

  But they were both surprised when they called for Maggie. Her serving girls opened the door, ushered them into her front parlor, then fled in a gust of giggles. Even little Davie looked as though he had a rare laugh hidden in him, and Will caught a glance of his street rat of a watchboy peeping in around the doorway, his narrow face brimming with suppressed smirks.

  They forgot about that when Maggie walked into her parlor. Spanish Will had the audacity to dare the world by dressing as his namesake. Maggie Pushkin went him one better. She was a fishwife—dressed as a mermaid. And she made an exquisitely sensuous one.

  She wore a shimmering gown of green, its long train cut out like a great fish tail. Her sleeves were long, her bodice was cut low, made decent only by a sparkling net of crystals sewn over the green net that covered her from her shoulders to the tops of her shapely breasts. The shawl she wore over all was a filmy green veil with more spangles dotting it. Green net gloves covered her reddened hands. She wore a small gold crown over her long black wig, and now, with all the blazing red of her concealed, even though she wore a tiny green eye mask, both men could clearly see those eyes were vividly blue and green and sparkling with mirth.

  Her gown showed she had an excellent figure, her eyes showed how much she knew it, and her powdered skin glowed like a pearl. She was exotic and lovely, and fairly vibrated with the excitement and pleasure of it.

  She seldom went out, and never to parties, and was so thrilled at the thought and then at the sight of herself transformed that she was actually short of breath now. Her customers, her neighbors, she’d wanted to show the world. But now she was glad the runner had warned her to ke
ep it close. Mrs. Gow and Mrs. Gudge would have got the joke, but it was just as well. If Tom had seen her as she saw herself in her mirror, she’d never have got him out of her shop. Flea had seen her, by accident, while she was swanning around the kitchen, showing the girls her costume. He’d been awed. So was she. She swept her long veil around her, curtsying to the viscount and the runner.

  Lucian gave her a deep bow in return. Spanish Will roared with laughter. “We’re a fine trio,” he said, “the three of us looking like we stepped right out of a caricature.”

  Lucian straightened, his back stiff. “There have been more?”

  “No, but could they see us, there would be,” Will answered, “and they’d sell out of the window faster than they could print them. That is if they could see us and know us for who we are. That’s the whole idea. We’re in costume. We could be Prinny and his mad father, and the old Queen herself, and no one would know—or care. And if they are there too, how should we know? There’s the point.” He chuckled. “My compliments, Mrs. P. You’ve outdone us all.”

  “My friend Mrs. Blum,” she said, preening, “sews for the theater.”

  “You could step on to the stage in that, that’s certain. Just be careful no one traps you offstage tonight,” Will said gallantly. “A fine masquerade. I don’t know if I’ve ever seen better. A joke in a jest, and a beautiful thing besides. So what’s your patter to be?”

  Maggie and Lucian stared at him. Spanish Will sighed.

  “See,” he said patiently, “the costume sets the patter. Were you dressed like a shepherdess, Mrs. P., you’d talk broad, like a country girl. That’s why the place will be filled with them, that’s an easy voice to do. A fellow dressed like a Harlequin either says nothing or else he talks in rhyme—all the time. The girls who are Columbines will all be giggling. A man dressed like Death would stay silent as the tomb. Were you dressed like a Queen you’d command folks, telling them what to do instead of talking to them—and so on. See? It’s the fashion at a masquerade, you act as you’re dressed, and if you did different, you’d be noticed—at first, that is to say.

  “They serve rack punch, and there’s a full table of wines. They don’t stint at the opera, you get worth for your money—and should at that price of admission. After a while it gets crowded and everyone gets drunk as owls, and then it makes no nevermind, though some stay in character all night, because the longer a man pretends to be something the harder it is to get out of it. Some have real trouble with that. I’ve heard tales of the woes they have…

  “Remember that, young villain,” he called to his watchboy still hiding behind the door in the hallway, “because this soft life is a game you’re playing too. When you leave this place, you have to be yourself again. Be sweet-mannered and sweet-smelling when you’re back in your own hole on the river bank and you’d be daft as some fellow still playing Harlequin as he’s emptying his master’s chamber pot the morning after a masquerade. Aye, I’ve heard of such, and so have the officers at Bedlam. You’d never get that far. You’ll be at the bottom of the Thames with a hole in your head—if you forget the easy life you’re leading now is nothing to do with your real life.”

  “Don’t worry,” Maggie said, “the boy’s clever. And as for me? Why, if I stay in character it would only be that good for business.” She giggled. “But I’ll try, and so how should I speak? I’m a mermaid. I can’t blow bubbles, and I don’t want to be mute. So, you think if I hiss when I say something, it would be mermaidly enough?”

  “Love,” Spanish Will said, with a wink, “tonight, whatever you do will be fine.”

  “I’ll thank you to remember my name,” she snapped.

  “You’ll thank me not to!” Will said, suddenly serious. “From now on whoever speaks a name is an idiot, remember?”

  “And what sort of voice for man in a domino?” Lucian asked thoughtfully.

  “A man of mystery,” Will replied. “No challenge at all. Disguise your voice, that’s all you have to do. But don’t expect any ‘my lords’ from us tonight, my lord, either, unless you don’t mind giving your name away.”

  It was a warning more than an insult. “I’ll do as you say,” Lucian said in a deep hollow voice. “A man who doesn’t listen to his guide is a fool, and I’m not dressed as one tonight.”

  “Very good,” Will said approvingly. “But we have to call you something so you know if we need your attention. The trick is to stay as close to your own name as we can, so you can recognize the sound of it. That’s how all the best rogues do it. So, not ‘my lord,’ but…‘My…my…Milo’! Aye. Do you approve?”

  “Perfect,” Lucian said. “And Mrs. Pushkin?”

  There was a thoughtful silence.

  “Missus P. …‘Mystery’—‘Missus P.,’ ‘Mys-tery.’ Get it?” Will’s slum boy shouted, so carried away by the game he forgot to hide himself from Will.

  “Got it, and well done,” Will said, and added, “aye, it’s a clever lad. Feed it and warm it and it comes up with ideas. Take care, Mystery, or you’ll have yourself another boy in your kitchens, for his sort get under your skin like dirt under fingernails. Now, we’d best be going.”

  “But you, Mr. Corby?” Maggie asked. “How will you speak? And what should we call you?”

  “Oh, I’m a Spanish gent tonight, though I can’t speak a word of it. But I can murder English with a lisp with the best of them. And as for my name? Why, ‘Spanish Will,’ what else?” he laughed. “Half who hear you saying that will believe it, half the time, and the other half won’t, and it’s all the same to me.”

  “But you’re never going out into the cold like that, Mrs.…Mystery, are you?” Lucian asked Maggie when she walked toward the door with them. “It’s clear at last, but it’s freezing.”

  “Ice is good for keeping fish,” Maggie said with a grin, pleased with him for thinking of her comfort, pleased with herself for looking like the kind of woman a gentleman might worry about. “But I’ve no wish to freeze. I have a good warm cape—or should I go wrapped in burlap like any other delivery of fresh fish?”

  “Very fresh,” Lucian said with an answering smile.

  “And she’s not the only one,” Will cautioned sharply. “It’s fine to be a gentleman, and Mystery looks like a lady, but a little gallantry goes a long way tonight. Remember, Milo, we go together, and keep an eye on each other, but don’t forget why we’re going. It’s not to dance and drink and lark about together, much pleasure as that might be. We should do that, because not to would call attention to ourselves. But we have to keep our eyes open, mingle, talk to others when we can, if we want to discover who’s there and what they’re up to.”

  “I’ll remember,” Lucian said, smiling under his mask, delighted to have discovered what he already had tonight. Because it seemed the runner didn’t at all care for him being charming to the fishwife. And she bloomed in the light of his praise, though she certainly deserved it. Who’d have thought she’d dress up to be such a charming baggage?

  He helped Maggie on with her good woolen cloak, and then the three of them got into their hired coach and rode off together to the public masquerade.

  But they were silent for several minutes after they got there. Maggie had never been to the opera, and so it took a while for her to get over her awe of the place itself, much less what was going on inside. It was so vast and bright and gilded, with so many tiers of seats and hanging boxes and its enormous stage, she thought it looked like a cathedral that had actually gone to Heaven.

  Lucian had a box at the opera, but he’d only been there when there were performances. He’d certainly never seen it as it was tonight, or even imagined it so, with common folk in the audience, the aisles and on the stage itself.

  Will was busily looking at the throng of people, trying to see around masks, under costumes and through disguises. A good runner could recognize a walk, a voice and a gesture. He tried, as Maggie gaped, and Lucian tried to pretend he wasn’t there.

  They’d done the place u
p as a Sylvan retreat, or so the program they got at the door with their tickets said. There were green trees, hedges in pots, arbors and urns and vases filled with hothouse flowers. It was frigid outside, but here it was some fanciful, mythical, eternal Spring. The orchestra played and the customers danced, posed, play-acted, prattled, gossiped, haggled and groped at each other.

  “See,” Will told Lucian in an undervoice, as Maggie stood staring. “As I said, whores and ladies, and you’ll have to ask their price before you could tell them apart, and not even then, I’ll wager.”

  But there were Turks and Egyptians and more Harlequins than she could count, Maggie thought, and princesses and dairymaids and a Satan or five, and gypsies and oh, my, look at those two—they weren’t actually doing that there in the corner, were they? No, but it was close. And there were fairies and huntsmen, Amazons and Queens, nuns and witches, and more outrageous characters than she could recognize right off. Spanish Will had been right too. There was an old woman with three simpering shepherdesses at her side, and there was no doubt she was negotiating the price of them to a pair of ardent young Turks.

  But that was only part of it, the way it was only part of life in London. Maggie was enthralled. It was an astonishing display, and everyone was having such a good time. But now she wondered how she could have been foolish and brazen enough to declare she could find the Lady Louisa here. She hated to be wrong. More so, when she thought of how both the runner and the viscount would react. They’d think she suggested this only because she’d wanted to go out for a night, and because it was such fun. But she hadn’t known that before she’d come. And she didn’t want to admit that either.

  But the more she stared, the clearer the picture became. Soon she saw that the pattern could be pierced, an individual could be observed, and her heart slowed to a more bearable pace.