A Season for Love

  “What if sumthin’ ’appens to the boy?” Alfie asked, though his companions could see he was wavering. “What good’s your gold then?”

  “It’s worth the risk,” said Bert Tunney, the light of revolution filling his eyes. “I kin cart the dook’s goods to hell ’n’ back, but he never sees me, do he? I’m just part of the furniture. Same for all the others starvin’ ’cuz of the blasted Corn Laws. A dook looks up, he sees old Boney. He sees France and the Peninsula, but he never sees me. Bert Tunney, who lives in London right under ’is nose. This time”—the carter lifted his head, seeing sights his companions could not fathom—“this time the duke sees me.”

  Flann McCollum, the picklock, turned to Alfie Grubbs, the pickpocket. “Well,” he demanded, “what’s it to be then? Are ye in or out?”

  “God help me,” Alfie sighed, “I’m in.”

  With all the solemnity of a vow, the three men shook hands.

  ~ * ~

  Chapter Fifteen

  “Are you quite certain you do not mind an evening at Vauxhall?” the duchess inquired anxiously. “Tony and his friends are quite suitable as escorts.”

  The Duke of Longville paused over the jewelry boxes that had somehow not yet found their way into the vault, a necklace of shimmering opals, each stone surrounded by a frame of tiny diamonds, dangling from his fingers. “You do not wish me to go?” he murmured, his face betraying not the slightest emotion.

  “Of course I wish you to go,” Jen countered swiftly, “but I cannot think it something you would enjoy.” She dropped her head, avoiding his penetrating eyes. “After all, you spend so many evenings with your friends, at your clubs—wherever else gentlemen go—that I could not help but wonder at your accompanying us to Vauxhall. I would not, of course, wish to see you suffer from ennui.”

  “Are you implying,” asked the duke quite softly, “ that I do not enjoy the company of my wife and my daughter?”

  “No, oh, no!” Jenny Carlington’s fingers flew to her mouth.

  The Duke of Longville stepped behind his wife, carefully fixing the opal necklace around her exceedingly stiff neck. “You know, Jen,” he said in a simple conversational tone that frightened her far more than his roar, “I may not have made it clear that I am not an idle twit like your brother.” Ignoring his wife’s indignant gasp, he added, “It so happens there are some among the ton’s so-called decadent noblemen who actually lead this country. And some of us, oddly enough, are in charge of the war against the miraculously resuscitated Little Emperor. I happen to be one of them. I am not out carousing. I am not gaming. I am not seeing Harriet Wilson or any of her cohorts who excel in sins of the flesh. I am, in fact, attending meetings or dinner parties at which all the guests are male, and each one thinking he knows exactly how to keep Boney from re-taking Europe.”

  “You might have told me so!” Jen declared. An odd combination of fury and relief poured through her as she recalled all the nights she had cried herself to sleep, picturing her husband in the arms of some petite and exotic chère amie.

  The duke busied himself looking for the earrings that matched the opal necklace. It took all his considerable courage to admit, as he handed them to her, “You are quite right, my dear. I have been answerable to no one for far too long. Amy—my first duchess—was endlessly jealous, questioning me at length about every woman to whom I so much as doffed my hat on Bond Street, even at church. It was . . . unpleasant.” The duke attempted a wry smile. “Which is no excuse at all for shutting you out. You have brought warmth and life to this house, Jen, and I am grateful for it. You have every right to know where I am going and why, just as you are so careful to inform me where you and Caroline will be.”

  It was an immense concession, and Jenny was wise enough to recognize it. Even more happily, she believed him. For, when being perfectly honest with herself, the continuing enthusiasm her husband brought to the marriage bed was not that of a man who had had his needs well satisfied elsewhere. The Duchess of Longville was still blushing over her wayward thoughts when her husband draped her claret velvet evening cloak about her shoulders and they hastened down the stairs to meet Tony and Caroline who were waiting below.

  “Am I allowed to say it is quite splendid?” Caroline hissed in Tony’s ear as they walked along pathways lined with lanterns and torches, while smaller lights seemed to twinkle from the trees themselves. The latter, Caroline noticed, unabashedly craning her neck, appeared to be exotic paper lanterns strung on long ropes from tree to tree.

  “Do not become too polished, my dear,” Tony shot back. “You will be in danger of becoming as dull and listless as all the rest of society’s offerings on the Marriage Mart.”

  Caroline rapped the viscount on the arm with her fan. “Unfair, Tony! You keep telling me I must obtain town bronze and then you fault me for acquiring it.”

  “Then pray exclaim over the gardens,” Tony told her roughly, “so I may castigate you for a country miss or, perhaps, even a cit.”

  “You are inconsistent, my lord,” Caroline offered loftily.

  “The devil you say,” the viscount muttered under his breath.

  “I heard that! Oo-oh!” Caroline’s sharp response faded to awe as they entered the spacious courtyard between two crescent-shaped tiers of private boxes where guests might partake of Vauxhall’s famed suppers featuring layers of finely shaved ham. From a broad balcony on one side wafted the sweet sounds of a string orchestra.

  For such a large party, Lord Frayne had reserved three boxes adjacent to each other. Under cover of the flurry of arranging the seating, Caroline whispered to Tony, “You will not forget your promise about the Dark Walk?”

  “Quiet!” the viscount said from the side of his mouth.

  “You promised.”

  “Later, blast it, Caroline. Later.” He looked up to discover his sister favoring him with a very odd look indeed.

  It took forever. By the time everyone had eaten, enjoyed a leisurely stroll to take in the evening’s featured concert, in addition to a quite splendid patriotic display demonstrating what Wellington would do to Bonaparte the second time around, not even the promise of fireworks could keep Lady Caroline from fidgeting. Soon the evening would be over, and she had not yet seen the infamous Dark Walk. Every time she glanced at Tony, he was looking elsewhere. Quite deliberately, she was certain.

  As the drama on stage ended in a burst of fireworks, Tony turned to the members of their party. “I suggest we each follow our own inclinations,” he said. “Some may wish to dance, others may wish to indulge in more food or even a game of whist. Still others may wish to explore the grounds before the grand fireworks finale. Does that meet with your approval, Your Grace?” the viscount inquired, ever mindful of his highest-ranking guest.

  “Excellent,” the duke pronounced after a swift glance ’round at the other guests. “Shall we meet at our supper boxes after the fireworks?”

  The members of the viscount’s party seemed to melt away, almost instantly dissolving into dark shadows, drifting along the various labyrinthine pathways of Vauxhall Gardens. Caroline was certain, however, that she had seen Sir Chetwin wink at Tony before he and Mr. Trimby-Ashford followed the path taken by the three other young ladies in their party. A quick survey of the concert area showed everyone doing the same, a vast crowd of people moving purposefully toward whatever entertainment was closest to their hearts, all with their backs turned, leaving her alone with Tony, Viscount Frayne, who suddenly seemed to have metamorphosed into a villain out of one of Mrs. Radcliffe’s novels.

  He held out his arm, his grin appearing quite evil. “The Dark Walk, it is,” he declared. “Exactly as promised.”

  “Are you sure you can find it?” Absurd question. The Dark Walk had undoubtedly seen a good deal of Viscount Frayne.

  Tony, glaring, crossed his arms over his chest. “Do you, or do you not, wish to see the Dark Walk?”

  “I wished to go to the Cyprian’s Ball,” Caroline reminded him. “The Dark Walk was the
sop I received instead.”

  “Delightful,” Tony mocked. “Then shall we join the duke and duchess for a rubber of whist?”

  “When will you take me to a gaming establishment?” Caroline demanded.

  “When hell freezes over.”

  Tony neatly caught the delicate arm that was about to let fly with what he suspected would be a far-from-delicate blow to his cheek. In a swift, but firm, maneuver, he pinned Caroline’s arms to her sides. With seeming nonchalance, in the posture of two lovers rather shockingly entwined, he maneuvered his companion away from the concert area.

  The Dark Walk was a haven for lovers, usually illicit lovers who were anxious to indulge in a bit of love play away from the prying eyes of spouses or other eagle-eyed family members. Gentlemen entered the Dark Walk with someone else’s wife, with dem-reps, with the most daring debutantes or desperate young ladies in their third or fourth Seasons. Gentlemen seldom entered the Dark Walk, however, with young ladies seething with rage. In fact, by the time they reached the walk that was lit only by moonlight and an occasional lamp shining through tree branches from some distance away, Tony had decided he was shockingly demented to be here at all. Only a few feet onto the path, and already he could hear rustling in the bushes, furtive sighs and moans and . . . well, sounds he could only hope Caroline mistook for noises from small creatures of the night.

  Since she had stopped struggling, Tony loosed her hands. Caroline did not, he noted, attempt to throw off the arm he kept close around her shoulders.

  “It is dark,” she conceded in a whisper. A shadow moved. “Oh! Is that? . . .” Tony increased their pace. “There were two people on that bench, were there not?” she hissed as they left the writhing shadows behind. “Tony?”

  “Yes.” He could only hope Caroline’s eyes had not yet adjusted to the dark. “Perhaps we should return to the supper area and enjoy a dance or two,” he suggested, pausing in the middle of the path.

  “I wish to see it all,” Caroline declared. “I must understand what men see in women who will come to such a place. What is the attraction of such . . . such clandestine activities?”

  “Caroline,” the viscount said with a sigh, “may I point out that you are here on the Dark Walk? With me?”

  “That is quite . . . different.” Lady Caroline paused before continuing with renewed vigor. “You cannot tell me,” she declared, “that the other women on this path are here because they wish to better understand the outrageous inclinations of men.”

  Viscount Frayne, who was beginning to relish the intellectual stimulation, quite forgetting his opponent was an eighteen-year-old barely out of the schoolroom, countered swiftly. “Not at all,” he drawled. “They come to enjoy the outrageous inclinations of men. And some ladies enter the Dark Walk to goad their companions into indulging those very same outrageous inclinations. Loving and being loved, Caroline, are not bad things. Contrary to everything you have been taught, they can even be enjoyable when the love is merely lust. As long as no one is hurt—as long as the walk remains truly dark—then it is not such a terrible thing.”

  “And when people do get hurt?” she demanded.

  “Then it is wrong,” Tony responded. “But sometimes,” he added, quite seriously, “the hurt is only in someone’s mind. It is not real at all.”

  “You think my mother . . . exaggerated my father’s faults.”

  “That is the general assumption,” Tony responded softly.

  “And you, of course, have never before strolled down the Dark Walk,” Caroline accused, shying away from what she strongly suspected was the truth.

  “I,” said the viscount, “am not married. Strolling with a lovely lady down the Dark Walk is not forbidden. In fact,” he added, dropping into an entirely different tone of voice—admiring and seductive—“I am finding this evening’s excursion the most intriguing and delightful of a goodly number of sojourns down this particular path.”

  “It will not end like those two on the bench back there,” Caroline told him tartly. “Or,” she added, looking over his shoulder, “like the two—merciful heavens!—the three in the bushes behind you.” As she spoke, two sets of high-pitched giggles rang out above a rumbled baritone.

  Tony grabbed Caroline about the waist, hustling her down the path so fast she was swept right off her feet, the toes of her slippers barely skimming the ground. “You did not see that,” he told her. “Never, ever, tell your papa or Jen you’ve even heard of the Dark Walk.”

  “I am not yet ready for Bedlam, thank you,” Caroline sniffed. “Nor for being rusticated to Castle Longville. You may put me down now,” she announced, a bit breathless. She was discovering the Dark Walk was quite insidious, putting dreadful thoughts into a young girl’s head. Thoughts that played havoc with the strict and conventional upbringing of a modest young lady from Little Stoughton.

  Tony released his grip about her waist, but gave her no opportunity to catch her breath. Grasping her hand tightly in his, he strode down the path at such a pace she almost had to run to keep up with him. Disaster was inevitable. The viscount missed a turn, careening into another couple closely entwined on a marble bench tucked back against a tall hedge. “I beg your pardon,” Tony muttered, backing off, momentarily disconcerted and unable to find the path.

  “Frayne?” hissed a voice from the bench. “Is that you? What have you done with Caroline?”

  “Marcus?” Tony choked out. “May I ask what you’ve done with my sister?”

  “Don’t be foolish, Tony,” the duchess snapped, albeit a bit faintly, “I am right here.”

  “Papa!” Caroline burbled. “You are on the Dark Walk . . . I thought you were playing whi . . .” Her voice trailed into shocked silence. She had never been so embarrassed in her life. Papa and Jen. At their age!

  “I believe we are de trop,” the viscount murmured. “Come, Caroline, let us see what other amazing sights we shall find on the Dark Walk.”

  Head down, unable to look at the duke or his bride, Lady Caroline followed. Near the end of the walk, where a modicum of light fell from a lamp post not far away, Tony tugged Caroline down onto an empty bench. “Caroline,” he said gently, “surely you did not think that your father and Jen . . . well, that Longville did not wish to have any more children.”

  “I did not think about it at all,” Caroline sniffed.

  “But you were shocked, were you not, to find them there, like any other pair of newlyweds?”

  “Their’s was a marriage of convenience. To find them on the Dark Walk . . .”

  “Caroline . . . I fear you have much to learn about the attraction between men and women. It is powerful and can be very . . . quite . . . ah—wonderful,” he supplied after rejecting an array of terms that might have frightened her. “For example, did you mind when I put my arm around your shoulders? Did you mind when I held your hand?”

  “I minded when you held my wrists!” declared Lady Caroline, game to the end.

  “Caroline . . .” Tony shook his head. “One day I will show you what I am talking about,” he promised, “but ’tis apparent now is not the moment.” And he’d had such high hopes. He had actually dreamed of his intimate journey with Caroline Carlington down the notorious dark path at Vauxhall Gardens. “Come”—the viscount held out his hand to help her up—“I imagine Jen has already dragged Longville back into the light. She was, I suspect, quite as discomforted as you.”

  As fireworks once again lit up the sky, Viscount Frayne’s party reassembled at the supper boxes, Lady Harriet and Emily Bettencourt looking as suspiciously disarranged as the Duchess of Longville. So might she have been, Caroline thought, managing to be both chagrined and self-righteous at the same time. If she had not been so busy minding other people’s actions, she, too, might have discovered the pleasures that lured people down a path lit only by moonlight.

  She was eighteen. Old enough to be married.

  Yet she was afraid. So afraid she scorned Tony’s friendship as well as that strange inner
longing she greatly feared might be love.

  He was an uncle, for heaven’s sake, her step-mother’s brother. Viscount Frayne was simply being kind to a relative by marriage. That’s all there was to it.

  One day I will show you what I am talking about. Tony had said. A far from avuncular statement. Caroline found the words ringing in her ears all the way home.

  Neither Tony, the duke, nor either of the ladies, noticed the three men standing in the shadows of a large tree in Grosvenor Square’s small park. Three men who had been persuaded that housebreaking, at which at least one of them was an expert, might be preferable to kidnapping, at which none of them had experience. Flann McCollum, in a deliberate foray into a tavern not far from Grosvenor Square, had encountered a second footman who walked out with the maid responsible for cleaning the Duke of Longville’s bedchamber. Somehow, over the course of an evening where the ale flowed freely, talk of the Carlington jewels had surfaced—the dowager’s reluctance to part with them, the duke’s evident enjoyment in personally selecting his new duchess’s ornaments each evening. Thus leaving the jewelry boxes in a fold-down desk a child might have open in two shakes of a lamb’s tail.

  Even Flann McCollum, whose strong roots in the green of Ireland made him wish to see the duke suffer almost as much as did Bert Tunney, conceded that the loss of Carlington family jewels might be almost as satisfying a blow to the duke as nabbing one of his children. And certainly a more direct—and less risky—way of tapping Longville’s deep pockets.

  Of course . . . if they happened to encounter one of the children while they were at it . . .

  Flexible, that’s what they had to be, Bert Tunney told his cohorts as they discussed their surveillance over a heavy wet at The Gull and Griffin. Flexible. Maybe nab the duchess when she was wearin’ the diamonds. Better yet, grab her up when the girl was with her, wearin’ all them pearls.