The young man turned with a smile. “You mean how can I afford a club so exclusive as this? I can’t. I was just visiting his grace the duke of . . . well, I am visiting an acquaintance here.” He strolled toward Alban as he spoke.
“And how is Lady Severn?”
Sir John smirked. “Last I left her, she was as fine as she always is.”
“And that would have been . . . ?”
“At the end of January, your grace, if you must know.” He looked down at his hat and turned it around “We have parted ways, though my wishes for her good health and happiness continue.”
“I didn’t think a young fellow like you would be satisfied with a woman like that for long,” Alban said.
“A woman like that? What do you mean, sir?”
Shrugging, Alban said, “You know . . . older than you by some years and . . .” He couldn’t say it. To say she was plain would be truthful but discourteous.
“You seem to be under some misapprehension. I wished to continue our special friendship, but Lady Severn very kindly but firmly dismissed me after our months together. I think . . . it is my belief that she has someone else in mind for her next, uh . . . conquest.” His tone was amused but reflective as he added, “Someone younger.”
Alban shook his head and clapped the younger fellow on the shoulder. “I’m sorry for my clumsiness, Fitzhenry.”
“Let me be clumsy in return, then, sir, if I might,” the baronet said with a sly smile. “It is bandied about that Lord Orkenay has left England for the Continent.”
“Yes.”
“With a very intimate friend of your grace’s.”
Alban sighed and did up his coat with his free hand. “Yes. Orkenay, apparently in some trouble with gambling debts, disappeared with my former paramour, Jacqueline. Why does every person I meet feel compelled to inform me anew?” He stopped and cast a suspicious look at the baronet. “And why, I ask again, were you following us up to Yorkshire last autumn? I never got a satisfactory answer out of you, nor anyone else, and I did ask around once I returned to London.”
“I know, your grace. I was informed of your queries.” Sir John chuckled and started toward the door, held open by Manchester. “It was the most idiotic bit of tomfoolery I have ever been a part of. Not even worth canvassing. I am leaving just now, your grace, as I must be elsewhere in one hour, but I will tell you a story as I go, if you are walking?”
“No, I’m not walking,” Alban said, following the younger man. “In London? In March? I would not consider it, but I am going to some awful ball a relation is giving and that I am honor-bound to attend. I could drop you somewhere if you would like?”
“I would very much appreciate it, as it appears to have begun to rain.”
“Again,” Alban said. “It stopped for a while, but this is March, after all.”
The two men exited the club and climbed into Alban’s waiting carriage. Sir John gazed around at the luxury of the interior, the velvet and brass and mahogany fittings. Running one gloved hand over the squabs, he said, “Oh, to have your position and wealth, sir, and I know that makes me sound hopelessly grasping, but I would have made Lady Severn stay with me if I could have. Not that jewels or furs would have done so, but I could have made a better show.” He shook his head and sighed. “I don’t suppose it would have made a jot of difference in the end. She will do what she will. I am certainly the better man for having known her.”
“Better?”
“More experienced, certainly, and the value of a woman of a certain age who is not afraid to tell you what women like . . . it is inestimable. I find I was under some severe misapprehensions about the fair sex’s desires in the boudoir.”
Alban chuckled. “Yes, I remember one ecstatic summer, and how thoroughly I learned that same lesson. You were going to tell me the story of Lord Orkenay and why you were so interested in him.” Grilling young Sir John helped him forget for a while the emptiness of the evenings he was spending, and how much he dreaded this, in particular, a ball at the home of a relation who always plagued him to choose from among her acquaintance a new wife. He had decided he was not ready to wed.
“Yes . . . Lord Orkenay. It reflects poorly on many things, myself included. I suppose you know that I am employed by our government in a capacity I would prefer not to elaborate upon?”
Alban nodded and sat back, waiting for more.
“Last summer, at Brighton, I was watching Lord Orkenay. We were troubled by some of his secret activities and acquaintances, and by his closeness to Prinny. There has been much trouble in the north, with the Luddite uprisings, and when Lord Orkenay so persistently made sure he was included in your trip north, we thought he was going to use that excursion for another purpose. In short, as ludicrous as it seems now in retrospect, we suspected Lord Orkenay of being a revolutionary.”
Alban burst out laughing and had to hold his stomach, it hurt so bad. “You suspected him of being a Luddite? How amusing. The man could not care for anything past his next drink, conquest or bet.”
“Or revenge,” Sir John said, leaning forward.
“What?”
“Do you still not know, then? The earl was infuriated when you stole La Petite Jacqueline from him two years ago. He had been poised to retain her inestimable services when you waltzed in and made an irresistible offer, which she then, apparently, rubbed in his face. He had been looking since that moment for an opportunity to exact revenge on you, and when you went north, he thought you were going with some other motive. When he saw your . . . uh, reaction to Mrs. Kittie Douglas, he thought he had found you out. From then on, his sole purpose was to steal her from you.”
“So that was why he—”
“Tried to seduce her? Yes. But of course, with her feelings for you so strong, he was—”
“What did you say?”
“That the earl tried to seduce her?”
“No, after that.”
Sir John lapsed into confused silence.
Alban, his stomach twisted into a knot, said, “You said something about Mrs. Douglas’s feelings for me. What did you mean by that?”
“Uh, well, Rebecca told me that Mrs. Douglas was terribly in love with you.”
“She must have been mistaken.”
“How could she be? They spoke of it intimately, as the ladies do, you know. She has known Mrs. Douglas for many years, and says she never saw the lady so in love. Rebecca was furious with you for . . .” Sir John colored. “Your grace, I have forgotten my manners.”
His heart hammering so loud he could almost hear the echo in the dim carriage, Alban said, “No, be honest. I will hold nothing against you, nor the excellent Lady Severn, whom I begin to think I should have befriended.”
Frowning, his smooth brow furrowed, the younger man stared down at the floor. “Rebecca said that her friend confessed her turmoil after your . . . after you and she spent those hours in the . . . the cabin in the woods.”
Alban felt his stomach clench. That explained Lady Severn’s steady glare at him the last two days of his visit. He had forgotten the feminine impulse to talk over every problem or anxiety with their intimate lady friends.
“She said,” Sir John continued, “that Mrs. Douglas’s feelings for you were rather a jumble. She was angry that you . . . that you were attempting to seduce her. She felt it indicated a lack of respect and a misunderstanding of her character. And yet . . .” He took a deep breath and fixed his gaze, his expression flustered, on the lamp bracket. “And yet she was tempted, she told Rebecca, because her feelings for you were so powerful. If you had been just a little more . . . more patient . . . or . . .”
When the baronet lapsed into embarrassed silence, Alban didn’t urge him to speak on. He had heard all he needed to know his own heart. She had cared for him and he had thrown away her regard as if it was dross. How pigheaded and miserably inadequate had he been that even when his aunt pointed it out to him, he still refused to see. And how arrogant that he could not admit those fee
lings even to himself until he knew that they were reciprocated.
“Your grace, this is where I need to go.”
The carriage had stopped and the baronet was opening the door.
Brought back to the present, Alban muttered, “Yes, yes . . . uh, thank you, Sir John.”
“Thank you, sir, for allowing me to go north with you last fall. I went for one reason, but as it turned out what I learned was that women are more fascinating than I thought. And that a plain woman’s favors are every bit as valuable as a beautiful one’s.” He grinned, his face youthful and unlined in the lamplight. “Lucky fellow who has Lady Severn’s attentions now.”
Alban smiled as Fitzhenry dismounted and shut the door behind him. As the carriage pulled away from its stop, though, his expression sobered. He had spent the long winter months trying to ignore or deny the urging of his heart, but now it seemed that he might have to go back to Yorkshire, and more quickly than he had intended. Even if there was no hope for him, he could not leave things as they stood with Kittie. How badly must he have hurt her by behaving as he did if she truly had loved him? Those tender feelings might be dead now, killed by his own repulsive inadequacy, but he had to try.
But first there was this wretched ball to attend. Perhaps he would just go home after all. He knew what lay ahead of him that night, and it was endless hours of tedium while young lady after young lady was paraded past him. He knew now that no simpering virginal schoolroom miss would ever do for him. He wanted a woman who had experienced passion, who understood love, who could inspire him to yearn for her as he did for Kittie Douglas.
He would decide by the time he got there whether he could bear to enter the ballroom. Family loyalty demanded that he attend, as he did every year, but personal desire was urging a return to home and bed. Bed to think about Kittie and feel all the new sensations coursing through him. She had cared for him and like a fool he had thrown her away, had misused her, had underestimated her worth. He covered his face with his hands. He surely didn’t deserve her, and that was merely the barest truth.
Twenty
Byron, Byron, Byron.
Kittie had been in London just one week, long enough to have a few new dresses and have met some of Lady Eliza’s oldest friends and acquaintances, and she was already heartily sick of the name of Byron. By the kindness of one of those friends, Kittie had the two cantos of Childe Harold and had read them aloud to her employer.
Lady Eliza snorted at Byron’s seeming self-condemnation at his familiarity with Sin’s long labyrinth—for though the poet insisted on distancing himself from the hero of his tale, most thought it was his own world-weary self he spoke of, at the ancient age of twenty-one—and had merely laughed at anyone at his age thinking those old sins had not been well covered by many others.
Kittie was intrigued by Byron’s undeniable ability but didn’t understand the fervor surrounding the man himself. It was the rage to be dying of love for him, and girls Kittie had met—including the daughter of the house they were staying in, a second cousin of Lady Eliza’s—sighed over him or burst into tears whenever his name was mentioned.
It was ridiculous. And so Kittie told herself over and over as she sighed in wasted desolation over the Duke of Alban. She was not in love with him. It was tedious to be in love with a man who did not feel the same. She would not allow herself to be in love with him.
Coming to London would have seemed to be a foolhardy project for one who had no wish to see him again, but she had learned in Alban’s last letter that he didn’t intend to be in the city until April. They would be back up in Yorkshire by that time, Lady Eliza had promised. Though knowing how her employer cared for her nephew, it was unfair to press for an early retreat.
And now she was at a ball. She glanced around herself in wonder at the glittering candlelight, the elegant decorations, all gilt and white, and at the beautifully gowned and plumed ladies. It was a surfeit for the senses, a banquet of sight and sound and odor. Sometimes pungent odor.
It had been many years, before her husband died, since the last time she had attended a ball. And then Roger would disappear into the card room for hours and she would be left with friends to dance, and occasionally to fend off the improper proposals of men who wished to become her “intimate friend,” as they so often styled it.
“Why are you standing here alone looking so forlorn?”
Kittie smiled at Rebecca, who approached her, her face pink from the exertion of dancing. She stopped and fanned herself energetically, all the while looking around.
Happy that her employer had managed to obtain an invitation for Rebecca, Kittie smiled at her friend. “I am not looking forlorn,” she replied. “I just . . . I don’t know anyone yet.”
“We can soon remedy that. I already have. Where is Lady Eliza?”
Kittie indicated a group of women seated in a bank of velvet seats. She was the center of the group—most old friends—and many chattered at her, touching her hand, plucking at her gown to get her attention, whispering to her on occasion.
“Why don’t we join her for a moment,” Rebecca said. “I have something to ask her, and then I demand that you dance with some of my acquaintance, for I’m being run off my feet.”
They made their way through the growing crowd to the chattering group of women surrounding Lady Eliza. When Kittie made her employer aware of her presence, Lady Eliza clutched at her hand.
“Could we walk just a little ways away for a few minutes?” she gasped. “I am finding all of this noise distracting. The street noise of carriages and vendors and horses was enough, but this—after the quiet of Yorkshire, this is going to take some time to become accustomed to.”
With Kittie on one side and Rebecca on the other, they moved to an archway partially filled with potted palms. The hubbub around them melted into a soothing babble, no particular words or voices distinguishable, almost like wind rustling through the trees in Yorkshire.
“This is a little better,” Lady Eliza said, clutching Kittie’s hand. “I am afraid I underestimated the affect of my blindness, both on myself and on my acquaintance. I was quite inundated with well-wishers.”
Her tone was dry, but Kittie sensed the edge of panic. “I won’t leave you alone again,” she said. “I thought you would be well entertained renewing all of your acquaintance.”
“Oh, I am, my dear. Please don’t feel you must hover over me all evening. I brought you to London for a very specific reason, you know, and that will not best be served by dancing attendance on me.”
She referred to her project of finding a husband for her companion, and Kittie sighed, regretting she had ever mentioned her discovery of her own loneliness. It was ridiculous, when considered, that an employer would so go out of her way to get rid of the companion she claimed to value. Kittie knew it came from the goodness of Lady Eliza’s heart, but it had been many years since she had anyone make such a fuss over her and it was disconcerting, to say the least.
And she really wasn’t sure anymore that she had a heart to give to another husband.
“Don’t worry, Lady Eliza,” Rebecca said. “I have a vast acquaintance, old and new, and they will be happy to engage dance partners for her.”
“I wish you would not concern yourself, Lady Severn,” the older woman said. “I am seeking information on the most likely prospects and will be guiding Kittie accordingly toward those most eligible.”
“But I feel certain she’ll easily find a husband if she will appear at her best, which is on the dance floor, where men can see her.”
“However, exclusivity is not to be frowned upon as a method of inflaming interest. She must not appear common, or—”
“Are you saying my acquaintance is common?” Rebecca said, bridling.
“No one is saying anything of the sort,” Kittie at last intervened. It was amusing at times, but fatiguing when two such managing women got together on a project close to both of their hearts. She appreciated their efforts but occasionally felt a
little like a bone being tugged at by two determined terriers. As she sighed and glanced around, her eye was caught by a beautiful older woman, gowned exquisitely in peacock blue silk. Her hair was white and piled atop her head, with curling tendrils drooping on her long neck. She lingered nearby, gazing at Lady Eliza and biting her lip, wishful it seemed of approaching but held back by something.
“Do you know that lady, Rebecca?” Kittie asked, nodding toward her.
Slewing her glance around, Rebecca caught sight of the lady and said, “Yes. Or at least, we’ve been introduced. She looks like she wishes to come over to us, doesn’t she? That is the widowed countess, Lady Montressor.”
Kittie heard a sharp intake of breath beside her. “My lady?” she said to her employer. “Are you all right?”
Lady Eliza’s lined face had paled. Her grip on Kittie’s hand tightened. “Perhaps we ought to . . . go back to my friends. And Lady Severn, I defer to your judgment; introduce Kittie to whomever you please.”
Kittie was about to fall in with her employer’s desires when she saw the lady in blue hesitantly walking toward them, gaining speed as she approached.
“Eliza,” she said, reaching out one hand. “It is I, Harriet. Do you remember . . . well, of course you remember, but . . .”
Lady Eliza had gone still but her tight expression had melted into one of confusion, pain and uncertainty. “Of course I remember, Harriet. How could I ever forget?”
Lady Montressor stretched out her hand and touched Lady Eliza’s cheek. Kittie watched in puzzlement. Rebecca, with a knowing smile that broadened, had dropped back after a nod of recognition at the other lady.
“My lady,” Kittie said. “Should I—”
“Oh . . . Kittie,” Lady Eliza said in an odd choked voice. “May I introduce you to Lady Harriet Montressor? We were . . . we were friends many years ago.”
“My lady,” Kittie said, dropping a curtsey.
“More than just friends, Eliza,” Lady Montressor demurred, her tone soft, her gaze fixed avidly on the other woman’s face.
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