Lauren Willig - [Pink Carnation 04]

by The Seduction of the Crimson Rose

  “What happened?” I had an uncomfortable feeling I knew where this was going. Especially when I remembered the Dempster’s plummy voice rolling over the words, I think the answer lies in the Selwick collection.…The memory gave me chills, and not of a good variety.

  Watching me, Colin nodded once, as though something had already been asked and answered. “You can guess, can’t you?”

  I met his gaze straight on. “He was after her for the papers, wasn’t he?”

  “Got it in one.” Colin poked at a small green olive with his fork as though the olive had personally offended him. “He was very clever about it, too. For the first few months it was all art and music and mutual acquaintances. He didn’t mention the Pink Carnation at all, except offhandedly, as part of a paper he was writing on iconic representations of great English heroes, or something of that ilk.”

  “Hmm,” I said. That sounded awfully like a line in my dissertation prospectus. That did not please me. “And then?”

  “He asked Serena to ‘help’ with his research by looking for old family papers. She gave him one or two things—not much, but enough to whet his appetite.”

  That I could definitely understand. Just a glimpse of the yellowing papers in Colin’s aunt’s flat had been enough to set me drooling, provided the drool didn’t damage the papers, of course. To know that the papers were there, just out of his reach, must have been maddening to Dempster, like a brioche dangled in front of a man who had skipped breakfast. Not that I sympathized with Dempster’s methods, mind you. But I could understand the impulse.

  I wondered what I would have done if Colin’s aunt hadn’t miraculously offered me carte blanche among her papers.

  It wasn’t at all comparable, I assured myself. I wanted Colin entirely for his extremely attractive self, not for his access to archives. Even though that had been a very intriguing pile of papers I had left unexplored up at Selwick Hall….

  Perhaps Dempster had been initially attracted to Serena in the beginning, too, before archival fever took hold.

  “And then what?” I asked, preferring not to follow that line of thought to its conclusion. It was different. It just was.

  With the air of a man getting through a necessary but unpleasant task, Colin said briefly, “Dempster applied to Aunt Arabella for permission to see the rest. She refused.”

  “She didn’t refuse me,” I said smugly.

  Colin raised both eyebrows at me. “Aunt Arabella has excellent taste.” As I preened, he added, “Most of the time.”

  I made a face at him.

  “If you’re not going to compliment me, you might as well go on with the story,” I said resignedly. “I imagine Dempster didn’t take the refusal well?”

  “To put it mildly. He became more and more insistent. He even asked her if she couldn’t just remove a few documents, and return them before Aunt Arabella noticed.”

  I made appropriate noises indicating extreme horror and shock. The waiter hastened anxiously our way, but having ascertained that the choking sounds weren’t caused by an olive lodged in someone’s larynx, he obligingly sidled away again.

  “Naturally, Serena refused,” announced Colin, sounding rather proud of his little sister.

  “Naturally!” I echoed.

  “When Serena refused, Dempster became abusive.”

  “Physically?” I asked.

  Colin made a wry face. “He didn’t need to be. Working on her mind was easy enough. She was ugly, she was dull, she was fat, no one would ever date her if she didn’t have him—it was all an attempt to terrify her into doing what he wanted.”

  “But it stuck,” I said softly.

  “It stuck,” Colin agreed. “It was nothing she didn’t already think of herself.”

  “But she’s…” I brought my hands together in gesture indicative of extreme skinniness. “Tiny. Teeny-tiny. Super skinny. And she’s absolutely charming,” I added, as an afterthought.

  “Try telling her that,” said Colin grimly.

  “I will,” I said, resolving to shower Serena with compliments the very next time the occasion arose. It wouldn’t be that hard. She really was that charming, in that shy, slightly retiring way that tends to get plowed under when stronger personalities are present (i.e., just about everyone else).

  “So that’s why,” I said. “That’s why you reacted so badly when you saw me at your aunt’s that first time.”

  “That was part of it,” Colin agreed. “I wasn’t feeling too kindly towards academics at the time.”

  “And now?”

  Colin leaned back in his chair, looking at me from under half-lowered lids. “Let’s just say I’m willing to admit there might be exceptions.”

  “How very generous of you,” I drawled.

  Colin’s eyes glinted in the candlelight. “I try to be fair.”

  The sparks were coming along so nicely that I almost hated to spoil it by bringing it back to Dempster. “So when Dempster greeted me by name tonight, you must have assumed…”

  “That you two were in cahoots,” Colin finished.

  “Wow.” I shook my head to clear it. “That would be quite a plot. Dempster, having failed with your sister, goes and dredges up a female to try her wiles on the male half of the family. Since we all know men are notoriously susceptible to that sort of thing.”

  Colin’s eyes crinkled in a way that suggested the joke was on him. “We are here, after all,” he said, indicating the half-empty restaurant, with its dim lighting and cozy little tables.

  “Right,” I said sarcastically, trying to cover the little thrill that went through me at the implication that he might be susceptible to my wiles. “Me as Mata Hari.”

  For some reason, Colin didn’t seem to find this idea nearly as absurd as I did. “Why not?” he asked.

  “Did you really think I was interested in you only for your papers?” I demanded incredulously.

  It wasn’t until Colin raised one eyebrow, looking as smug as Lord Vaughn at his very smuggest, that I realized just what I had let slip.

  I cast about for a last-ditch way to talk myself out of it.

  “Um, what I meant was…would you like an olive?”

  I thrust the little olive plate at him.

  Colin took the plate and set it down, possessing himself of my hand instead of an olive. “It’s nice to know that it’s not just my papers you’re interested in.”

  “Well, yes,” I said, as red as the tablecloth. I dropped my eyes in front of his amused gaze. “I’m glad we’ve got that cleared up.”

  “Eloise?”

  “Yes?”

  “You’re all red.”

  “That happens when I drink,” I said hastily. “It’s the Irish flush. We call it the Curse of the Kellys. Happens to all of us.”

  “Does it?”

  “No,” I admitted. “I just made it up to have something to say. Don’t ask. I’ll just go and get my foot out of my throat now, shall I?”

  “Don’t let that stop you. I think you’re doing quite well,” said Colin, not bothering to hide his grin.

  “Do you know,” I said inconsequentially, “that Pammy wanted me to spend the week practicing seductively spitting out olive pits?”

  Colin looked deeply interested. “Is there a seductive way of spitting out olive pits?”

  “That’s exactly what I said! Pammy said I was hopeless,” I added.

  “Pammy doesn’t know what she’s talking about.”

  We broke off, grinning foolishly at each other, as the waiter arrived with the food that I couldn’t remember ordering. It seemed almost a shame to clutter the space on the table between us with the half-dozen little plates that seemed to go with our starters, baby eggplant stuffed and stewed, gooey concoctions of rice and raisins wrapped in grape leaves, something pureed that looked like baby food for grown-ups, with bits of flat, heavenly smelling bread stuck artistically round it for dipping. With all the fuss and clatter, Colin discreetly released my hand, and we settled back demure
ly on our own sides of the table as the feast was arrayed before us, as if we hadn’t just been holding hands like Lady and the Tramp with a strand of spaghetti between them.

  Not being of a romantic disposition, the waiter professionally doled out plates and departed, leaving us again to our own devices, without so much as a serenade.

  It’s very hard to remain sentimental in the face of hot food. Giving in to the inevitable, I took a large spoon and began ladling pureed eggplant onto my plate.

  “Why did Dempster want so badly to see the papers?” I asked, handing the spoon over, handle first, to Colin.

  Accepting the proffered spoon, Colin raised his eyebrows at me over the eggplant. “Why did you?”

  “That’s different,” I protested, poking a triangle of bread emphatically into the pureed eggplant. “I have a dissertation to write. What does he need it for?”

  “Can’t you think of more compelling reasons than a dissertation?”

  I considered. “At the moment? No.”

  Colin leaned back in his chair, somehow managing to fill all available space. “Not even money?”

  Chapter Seventeen

  Sigh no more, ladies, sigh no more,

  Men were deceivers ever….

  —William Shakespeare, Much Ado About Nothing, II, iii

  It was nearly a week before Mary saw Lord Vaughn again, but that didn’t matter. As Mrs. Fustian had so helpfully pointed out, hating was common, but had Mary been willing to take the time to do so, she might have been disposed to despise, loathe, and revile Lord Vaughn, all of which fell well within the permissible parameters of Mrs. Fustian’s lexicon.

  But she didn’t. Because he wasn’t worth the bother.

  It wasn’t as though she spent her spare hours reclining on her virginal bed, dreaming impossible dreams of what have been. Instead, she had spent them draped in white cheesecloth, reciting impossible rhymes, in Lady Euphemia McPhee’s private theatre in Richmond. The theatricals had provided a welcome distraction, even if the sight of St. George’s spear made her think longingly of running certain people through.

  Unfortunately, Lady Euphemia wasn’t the only one with a taste for the stage. On a miserable, rainy Tuesday, Mary found herself slogging reluctantly up the steps of the Uppington town residence, prepared to endure that ritualized horror commonly known as a musical entertainment.

  Mary’s slippers squelched against the black-and-white marble tiles of the entrance hall. She had landed with both feet squarely in a puddle when her brother-in-law handed her out of the carriage. She couldn’t even blame him for neglect. There had been no patch of ground that hadn’t contained a puddle. The Uppingtons’ footmen were having a busy time of it, scuttling about after the guests with cloths to sop up the rainwater that created gleaming slicks on the shining marble floor. One unfortunate young lady had already gone into a skid that landed her flat on an unmentionable part of her anatomy.

  A perfect day for a musicale.

  They were among the earliest arrivals. Although Lady Uppington had engaged a celebrated soprano for the entertainment, her daughter, Lady Henrietta, was to sing first. Loyal friend that she was, Letty had refused to risk missing so much as one syllable of her friend’s song.

  Mary trailed along behind her sister and brother-in-law into the music room, where Lady Uppington was bustling about, overseeing the disposal of a regiment of gilt-backed chairs, designed to cause anyone over five feet tall severe cramps in various parts of their anatomy. The prime seats, the ones towards the back that allowed for easy escape, had already been taken, one by the Dowager Duchess of Dovedale’s revolting pug dog, who yipped at the newcomers as though daring them to try to move him.

  Mary generally gave the Dowager Duchess of Dovedale a wide berth. The antipathy had been mutual ever since Mary’s first Season when the Dowager Duchess had trained on Mary her infamous lorgnette and pronounced, “I dislike showy looks!”

  Mary, younger then, and bolder, had curtsied, replying with deceptive sweetness, “Isn’t that better, ma’am, than having no looks to show?”

  The reference to the Dowager Duchess’s granddaughter, Lady Charlotte, sweet-faced but insipid, had been too obvious to ignore. Mary and the dowager had existed in a state of mutually acknowledged enmity ever since.

  If she had it to do over, Mary admitted to herself, she might be more circumspect. The dowager was a rude old bag, but she carried a great deal of weight in the segments of society that mattered to Mary. Mary had always wondered how many of the admirers who had never come up to scratch could be laid at the dowager’s door. All the Dowager Duchess had to do was whisper a few words in the right ears. A discreet hint that the chit wouldn’t be received—at least not in the houses that counted, of which the dowager’s was still one—and the word had gone out, from anxious mother to henpecked son. There had been at least three men her first Season who might have done, older sons from solid families with enough town polish to make the thought of matrimony more pleasant than otherwise. And all three had unaccountably moved, within the space of a month, from pursuit to apologetic retreat.

  Mary defiantly took a chair in the same row as the dowager. Other guests had begun to filter in, pouncing on the seats along the sides. Mary caught herself looking for a silver-headed cane among the throng of dampened shoulders and rain-spotted frocks and made herself stop. It was unlikely that Vaughn would stoop to so insipid an entertainment as a musicale, even with the city still half-empty.

  Miles Dorrington tottered into the room, wearing a beatific smile and bearing a large, padded chair, which he sat down with a satisfied thump just at the end of the front row.

  “Helping yourself again, I see,” commented Lord Richard.

  The simple words produced a palpable tension among the family circle. Lady Henrietta dropped her roll of sheet music and Lord Richard’s wife produced an indiscreet but heartfelt, “Oh dear.”

  Dorrington looked his former friend steadily in the eye, hurt and resignation written all over his straightforward face. Lord Richard’s own gaze faltered beneath his steady regard. He looked, thought Mary, almost abashed.

  “I don’t think Hen would appreciate the comparison,” Dorrington said quietly.

  “She doesn’t,” chimed in Henrietta, taking her husband’s arm. She jabbed an index finger into her brother’s side. “You, sit. And you—” Henrietta turned to her husband, who beamed at her expectantly. “You sit, too.”

  Miles stopped beaming.

  “And if you can’t speak nicely to one another, don’t speak at all. That means you,” she added to her brother, just in case he might be under any misapprehension.

  “Bossy as ever,” complained Miles good-naturedly, but he sat.

  “Completely power mad,” agreed Lord Richard, sitting, too.

  “Do you think that means they’re speaking again?” demanded Amy of her sister-in-law, in a hearty whisper that carried clear across the room.

  Henrietta rolled her eyes. “At least they’ve moved past words of one syllable. Whatever it is, it’s an improvement.”

  “Power mad and indiscreet,” amended Lord Richard from the front row, never lifting his eyes from the polished sheen of his Hessians.

  “Agreed,” grunted Miles, displaying an equal fascination with his own toes.

  The two men exchanged masculine nods of commiseration before quickly returning to their contemplation of their boots.

  Lady Uppington regarded her offspring with an expression of maternal satisfaction. It wasn’t a look Mary could ever recall seeing on her own mother’s face. Mrs. Alsworthy reserved her looks of satisfaction for the milliner and the mantua-maker.

  “I do wish you would consider staying,” Lady Uppington said to Henrietta. “Not long,” she added, in the tone of someone taking up an old argument, “but just until you’ve refurbished Loring House. It would be such a blessing to have all of my children under the same roof again.”

  “What about Charles?” Lady Henrietta pointed out, referring
to her oldest brother. As heir to the marquisate, he would have been a brilliant catch, but he had already been married by the time Mary made her debut, to the unobjectionable and uninteresting daughter of a minor baron.

  Lady Uppington went a guilty pink about the ears.

  Henrietta seized her advantage. “Ha! You always forget about Charles.”

  “Nonsense,” Lady Uppington declared loftily. “Charles has children of his own now. He gets his own roof.”

  “Hmph!” snapped the Dowager Duchess of Dovedale from the back of the room. “Roofs are wasted on the young! Leave the lot of them out in the elements. Toughen them up, I say. Most of this lot wouldn’t last the week.”

  The dowager jabbed her cane illustratively at the pastel-clad debutantes and dandies filtering into the room. Following the line of her thrust—it was either that, or be poked in the eye by her cane—Mary saw a diamond-buckled shoe cross the threshold, a glittering counterpoint to the muddy Hessian boots of the other gentlemen. The matching shoe followed, stepping across the parquet floor with a regal precision that practically demanded a fanfare. With one hand resting casually on the silver head of his cane, Lord Vaughn paused, surveying the crowd with the bored air of a visiting emperor.

  Mary’s chest tightened in a way that had nothing to do with the dowager’s cane “accidentally” scraping her ribs. Who would have thought that Vaughn would so lower himself as to attend a musicale? Among the chattering debutantes and tousle-headed Corinthians, his aquiline profile looked as remote and as dangerous as the portrait of a Renaissance prince.

  “Caro!” Mme. Fiorila greeted Vaughn with a cry of unfeigned pleasure, and Mary felt the little quiver of anticipation that had flared up in her chest blacken and crumble.

  Without missing a step or sparing a single glance for Mary, Vaughn moved smoothly to the front of the room, taking the singer by both hands and bussing her smoothly on first one cheek then the other, in the decadent European fashion. In the candlelight, the opera singer’s hair glowed pure red-gold, like the molten metal in a Byzantine emperor’s mint. She laughed, and murmured something in a throaty voice that was lost to Mary’s ears, something intimate enough to make Vaughn raise an eyebrow in amused reply, so at ease with this woman—this opera singer—that he didn’t even need to bother with words.