Lauren Willig - [Pink Carnation 04]

by The Seduction of the Crimson Rose

  The walls of the upper gallery had been paneled in dark wood, each square carved with a portrait head in profile. Wattle-necked women in stiff headdresses and long-nosed men glowered at Mary from their coffered prisons. The fabric of Sibley Court hadn’t changed much since the Armada. It suited Letty brilliantly. She looked right against the finicky paneling and the musty old tapestries, right in a way that Mary never would have. If Mary had had her way, she would have torn the whole monstrosity down and started all over again in good clean marble.

  Lucky for Sibley Court, then, that Geoffrey hadn’t married her. Lucky for Geoffrey, lucky for Letty, lucky for everyone.

  If she was being honest, lucky for herself as well. All through the era of his adoration, Pinchingdale had been a crashing bore.

  Even a boring husband was better than being left on the shelf, forced to rely on the charity of her relations, pointed at and whispered about by giggling girls fresh in their first Season.

  Reaching the end of the upper gallery, Mary slipped beneath an elaborately carved lintel, no proper destination in her head except away. She found herself in a seemingly endless corridor, where the plastered ceiling stabbed down in regular points like pawns suspended upside down. After a moment of disorientation, she realized where she was. Originally constructed during the reign of Henry, before being “improved” during the tenure of his daughter, the house had been built in the shape of an H, in a rather obvious compliment to the monarch. She was in the crossbar of the H, a long and narrow gallery that connected one wing of the house with the other.

  On either side of her, narrow-faced Pinchingdales gazed superciliously down on her, their gilded frames spotted with age. There was at least half a mile between the two wings of the house, long enough to display three centuries’ worth of relations and even one or two particularly prized pets. Mary wandered aimlessly among them, absently noting the dull sheen of painted jewels, repeated over and over. There was the large pearl that hung from the waist of an Elizabethan Pinchingdale; the three matched sapphires set into the collar of Spotte, A Faithfull and Lovinge Companyon (there was something decidedly smug about the set of Spotte’s paws); the emeralds that adorned the neckline of a woman with tight curls and a simpering mouth, holding tight to the hand of a cavalier in a plumed hat (one assumed from her grip that he must be the donor of the emeralds); and the famous diamond parure worn by Geoffrey’s grandmother to the coronation of George II, impressive even rendered in oil and dim with dust.

  Those diamonds made up for a great deal of boredom.

  At the time, it seemed like a fair trade. She got the diamonds and Pinchingdale got her, an ornament for an ornament, each with its price. She knew her price and she set it high.

  What else, after all, was there to do? She didn’t have it in her to be a bluestocking and write dour tracts. She had no interest in educating other peoples’ brats. The days when a woman could make a career as a royal mistress had long since passed. Mary had always thought she would make an excellent monarch—the skills required for international diplomacy were much the same as those that Mary used to keep the various members of her entourage in check—but no one had had the consideration to provide her with a kingdom. There was only one game to be played, so Mary played it and, she had always thought, played it well.

  Obviously, she had been wrong. Because, in the end, she had lost the game.

  She had also come to the end of the gallery. Ahead of her, an immense, mullioned window looked out onto blackness. In the daytime, it was no doubt a pleasant prospect, looking out over the vast sweep of gardens and park that stretched out from the back of the house. At night, the leaded panels glistened like a hundred obsidian eyes. On either side of the window, doorways led off to realms unknown, unlit by either candle or moonlight. A sweeping curtain of red velvet shielded each opening, dragged back on one side like a cavalier’s cloak.

  Mary lowered herself slowly onto the matching red velvet that cushioned the window seat. Ordinarily, she never sat at parties. It wrinkled one’s dress. Tonight, she couldn’t bring herself to care. It felt good to relax into the well-worn velvet of the ancient cushion, good to stare into nothingness and not have to smile and pretend that she didn’t mind that her sister had married her best chance at matrimony. Her short, plump, practical, managing little sister. Who had nonetheless learned the secret to catching a man’s heart and holding it. Mary had failed to master the holding bit.

  With the moon obscured by clouds, the prospect in front of her loomed as blank as her future. It didn’t matter that she had been voted Most Likely to Marry an Earl three years running in the betting books at White’s. No earl had proposed. Not marriage, at any rate.

  What was she to do with herself? For the first time in her life, Mary simply didn’t know. Her beauty had always provided both means and goal, ever since her nurse had first leaned over her cradle and clucked, “Eh, she’ll marry a prince, that one, see if she doesn’t!” But she hadn’t. She wasn’t going to. The results of three Seasons didn’t lie.

  Mary rested her elbows on the stone of the windowsill, staring sightlessly through the phantom tracery of her own face. What did it matter if her elbows wrinkled? She had three sonnets to them already. Four would be superfluous.

  Behind her, the worn boards of the gallery creaked. Not ghosts, as Geoffrey had promised all those months ago, but a human tread. Someone else had escaped to the quiet of the Long Gallery.

  Mary would have preferred a ghost. A specter might be ignored, while a fellow guest would expect conversation, might even try to persuade her back into the discomfort of the Great Chamber. Hadn’t she smiled enough for one evening?

  Holding herself very still on her bench, Mary hoped her presence might go unnoticed in the uncertain light. Torches had been lit at intervals along the walls, set into iron brackets placed well away from the more important portraits and flammable items like velvet swags. Her window seat was safely in shadow, aside from the dim reflection of light on glass.

  Oh, go away, Mary thought irritably. Was it too much to ask to be allowed to brood unmolested?

  Apparently, it was. The measured tread continued inexorably onwards, one creak following another with the rhythmic beat of an executioner’s drum. Whoever it was must have seen her. Her dress was too painfully pale to do anything but stand out against the grim crimson of the cushions. The footsteps stopped a scant distance behind her—and showed no sign of reversing themselves.

  Mary could feel the prickle of scrutiny scuttle across the bare skin of her shoulder blades as she sat resolutely deaf and dumb, willing the intruder away.

  “Admiring the view?” inquired a masculine voice.

  Chapter Two

  For thou thyself art thine own bait,

  That fish that is not catch’d thereby,

  Alas, is wiser far than I.

  —John Donne, “The Bait”

  Mary rose reluctantly from her cocoon among the cushions. She drew it out as long as she could, unfolding limb by limb, waiting until the very last moment to turn her head and face the intruder. The longer she avoided looking at him, the longer she had to compose her face along appropriate lines. She didn’t want this man—this man in particular—to see her at a disadvantage.

  She had known him from his voice, a slow drawl flavored with the arrogance of the last century. It was the sort of voice that had known duels and red-heeled shoes, that was as comfortable with a rapier as a powder box.

  Behind him, the half-drawn velvet curtain looked as though it had been designed merely as backdrop for his presence. He stood with one foot set carelessly in front of the other, one hand resting lightly on the silver head of his cane. The cane had been cunningly fashioned in the shape of a serpent, the long silver tail writhing in spirals down the ebony shaft. At the top, the snake’s mouth yawned open, bored after a long day of tempting souls away from paradise. The heavy-lidded eyes looked uncannily like those of its owner.

  “Lord Vaughn.” Through her prolonged as
cension, he hadn’t said anything at all. He just stood there watching her with detached interest, as though she were a new entr’acte at Drury Lane presented for his delectation. “I didn’t hear your approach.”

  “Next time I shall contrive to tread more heavily.” Instead of removing himself, he strolled towards her, glancing over her shoulder at the dark carapace of the window. The sleeve of his jacket skimmed again the unprotected skin above her glove. “You show a curious taste in landscapes.”

  “I call it A Study in Solitude.” Mary leaned heavily on the last word.

  Vaughn dismissed both the hint and the landscape with a wave of one ringed hand. “Better to label it Ennui.”

  Mary tilted her head, and found herself in far too intimate proximity with the clean line of his jaw. For a dark-haired man, he was ruthlessly well-shaven, without any of the distressing stubble one often found on other men. She hastily turned her attention back to the window.

  “You don’t find the party amusing, my lord?” she inquired of his reflection.

  Vaughn’s eyes glinted silver in the window. “I haven’t—until now.”

  That was an invitation to a flirtation if Mary had ever heard one. What she couldn’t understand was why.

  Vaughn had never shown himself susceptible to her charms before, and it wasn’t for want of trying. Vaughn certainly wasn’t perfect—there were rumors that he had murdered his first wife—but ghosts were insubstantial things compared with three estates, one of the finest mansions in Mayfair, and the famous Vaughn rubies. He was wearing one now, buried deep in the snowy folds of his cravat, the one touch of color in his otherwise midnight-hued ensemble. Even the buckles of his shoes reflected the cold glint of diamonds, like flecks of distilled moonlight. The ruby smoldered against the white linen, pinned a hand’s breadth away from the heart.

  If Vaughn did have a heart, Mary hadn’t been able to get anywhere near it.

  Oh, she had laid her snares very delicately, very discreetly. It was simply a matter of conveniently dispatching her admirers on errands as Lord Vaughn happened by; of finding herself in his vicinity just before the supper dance; of declaring, in her most carrying tones, that she simply must have some fresh air—and making sure the balcony door remained open. These methods had all worked for her in the past. Vaughn, fresh from years of dissipation on the Continent, undoubtedly in want of a wife to perpetuate his ancient (and wealthy) line, was sure to be easy prey. Older men were always flattered by the attention of a pretty young thing. Mary wasn’t as young as some, but she was still younger than Vaughn. Bat your lashes a few times, ask breathless stories about the triumphs of their youth, and they were yours.

  Vaughn ignored every single lure. He had continued walking as she sent her other suitors running off for lemonade and fans and he left her to cool her heels through the supper dance. Oh, he had gone out onto the balcony—but it had been the balcony on the other side of the ballroom. Alone.

  If he had deliberately followed her out of the Great Chamber, his ennui must be quite overwhelming indeed. Well, he was just going to have to find other entertainment. She was not for hire. Not by him, at any rate.

  “You might beguile the time with contemplation of art,” she suggested primly. “There is a great deal in the gallery of interest to the educated eye.”

  “How very true.” Vaughn’s quizzing glass traveled the sweeping circumference of her neckline. “I consider myself something of a connoisseur.”

  Mary rather doubted they were discussing the same type of art. “My brother-in-law informs me there are several fine works by Mytens, as well as the Holbein portrait of the first Baron Pinchingdale.”

  Vaughn rolled the head of his cane idly between his fingers. “I was seeking something a bit more modern. Perhaps you might be able to assist me.”

  Mary seized the opportunity to drift away from the confines of the window embrasure. With Vaughn standing next to her, the arch felt uncomfortably close. She waved a graceful hand at the portrait of Spotte, liberally spotted with dust. “Sibley Court tends to the antique.”

  “You mean the antiquated.” Vaughn strolled easily in her wake. Mary felt as though she were being stalked by a particularly graceful beast of prey. “I find that being surrounded by decay generally renders one all the more eager to gather one’s rosebuds.”

  Mary paused in front of a painting of a sour-faced dowager holding a sullen pug. “You’ve come at an inauspicious time for rosebuds. I’m afraid in winter we must be satisfied with the memory of summer’s bounty.”

  Vaughn moved to stand directly behind her, so close that she could feel the tickle of his cravat against her bare shoulder, the burr of his breath against the nape of her neck.

  “But my dear Miss Alsworthy,” Vaughn’s cultured vowels teased the edge of her ear, “it is not winter yet.”

  Mary’s skin prickled with a heat that had nothing to do with the few sullenly smoldering torches that lined the unheated gallery. His posture echoed hers so closely that all it would take would be the merest whisper of movement to bring them into embrace. If she tilted her head just the slightest fraction, if she permitted her taut shoulders to relax…

  She would be the greatest fool in all the West Country.

  “I assure you, my lord,” Mary said frostily, staring straight ahead at the dowager’s bad-tempered pug, “there is a definite chill.”

  And so there was. One minute he was looming behind her, the next he had casually strolled away, as though they had been discussing the weather! Which, in fact, they had been. Mary’s lips quirked in sour amusement.

  “I could offer to warm you,” Vaughn said meditatively, as though it were a matter of intellectual speculation, “but that would be far too commonplace.”

  Mary’s sapphire eyes narrowed as she faced him across the width of the gallery, where he leaned casually against the plinth of a marble bust. “Not to mention unwise.”

  Vaughn wagged his quizzing glass approvingly, a miracle of urbane detachment. “I couldn’t agree more.”

  Where was the man who had been oozing illicit intentions a moment before? At the moment, his demeanor was positively avuncular. Mary’s head was beginning to ache in a way that had nothing to do with the smoke from the torches.

  “Good,” she said shortly. “I’m glad we agree.”

  “How agreeable,” drawled Vaughn.

  Mary felt rather disagreeable. Disgruntled, even. Had he never intended to seduce her? It wasn’t that she wanted him to seduce her—of course not!—but it was very off-putting to be defending one’s honor one moment and spiraling through empty space the next. She certainly hadn’t welcomed his interest. A flirtation with Lord Vaughn was the very last thing she needed.

  Mary had the uncomfortable feeling that the entire interlude, from that very first honeyed compliment, had been an extended joke. On her.

  Pasting on her very best social smile, Mary gathered her skirts and swept past the painted faces of a censorious crowd of Parliamentarian Pinchingdales. She hoped all of them were preparing a particularly thorny berth in hell for one Sebastian, Lord Vaughn. “If you would be so kind as to excuse me, my lord, I should be getting back. My sister does fret so.”

  Vaughn’s soft voice interrupted her just short of Praise-God-For-Your-Salvation Pinchingdale (Proggy, to his friends), a grim fellow in black chiefly famed for having even more warts than his friend Cromwell. “Before you go…”

  It was said very quietly, but it carried all the authority of a command. Mary found herself pausing, her skirt drawn back over one white satin slipper. The toe, she noticed, was beginning to show signs of wear, the fabric rubbing thin over the stiffened frame.

  “Before you go,” Vaughn repeated, in that same, well-modulated tone, “you should know that I was, in fact, sent to seek you tonight.”

  “To seek me?” Vaughn, being dispatched, must have decided to amuse himself with a little spot of dalliance along the way. It was all beginning to make a certain amount of sense. Mary all
owed herself the luxury of a small eye roll. “I suppose my sister sent you. She seems to think I ought to be fed.”

  “Does she?” Vaughn’s gaze moved lazily over Mary’s form in a way that suggested he found nothing whatever the matter with her proportions. “No. Your sister had nothing to do with it.”

  Mary looked at him quizzically. Her mother? Mary couldn’t see Vaughn voluntarily playing lackey for her mother; he would more likely just shrug and walk away. As for the rest of the party, most of them were better pleased by her absence than her presence. She was under no illusions as to that.

  “I don’t understand,” she said.

  “I rather wish I didn’t,” murmured Vaughn. Bracing his cane on the ground between his knees, he looked at Mary over the silver serpent’s head. “What do you know of the current blight of flower-named spies?”

  “As much as anyone here,” Mary said shortly, and couldn’t for the life of her understand why that seemed to amuse her companion so. “I do know how to read, my lord. Occasionally, I even employ that skill. Why do you ask?”

  “I come here tonight as emissary.”

  “From a flower-named spy.” Mary didn’t bother to keep the skepticism out of her voice.

  The only flowery spy at Sibley Court, as far as Mary knew, was Lord Richard Selwick, the spy formerly known as the Purple Gentian. The likelihood of his seeking her out for anything—other than a good gloat—was nonexistent. Lord Richard had all but ordered fireworks in celebration when he discovered that his best friend had escaped from her clutches (his words, not hers) and married her younger sister instead.

  “What does our esteemed Purple Gentian want of me?” Mary asked.

  “Oh, it’s not the”—Vaughn coughed discreetly, as though the name came with difficulty to his tongue—“the Purple Gentian for whom I happen to be acting.”