Catspell

by Colleen Shannon

  For the first hour, she did try, truly she did, to enjoy herself and mingle as she partook of the watery punch and tiny sandwiches, but she felt so small and insignificant beneath the grand ballroom ceiling. It was gilded and mirrored, and gas lights blazed everywhere. Most of the other young people seemed equally awe struck, and as tongue tied, so she finally gave up idle conversation.

  When the orchestra struck up a country dance, she walked with as much dignity as she could, limp notwithstanding, to the sidelines where she vowed she’d take up residence until her father returned from the cigar room. Then she’d insist they’d leave.

  She’d let him coerce her into leaving her comfortable solitude, but she not only was not enjoying herself, she was getting irritated that he’d subjected her to this farce ‘for her own good.’ Where was the good in feeling worse even than a wallflower? In this company, she was more a weed buried in prickly thorns! Even before her accident, she’d not had the proper constitution for a simpering miss on the marriage mart. Indeed, against her father’s wishes she’d insisted on a dress in blue when virginal white was the norm, and every word out of her mouth seemed as awkward as her gait.

  She could only twist her kerchief between her gloved fingers and scowl toward the parquet floor, wondering what was taking her father so long. He was deliberately lingering, hoping she’d mingle and make new friends. Right-o.

  Shiny, large evening slippers appeared in her field of vision. She followed them up long, lithe legs to a superfine cutaway coat and white vest. Higher still to a chiseled jaw and…her heart flip flopped. His features were disguised by the bright lights behind his head, his countenance illuminated by a nimbus of light that added to, rather than detracted from, the glory of his spun golden hair.

  Just like her dream, a man she could see in gorgeous detail, but for his face. Except in this case he was properly clothed, though it was so easy to picture his perfect form in nothing but a sarong, fit for a god on an Egyptian relief.

  The dream come true spoke.

  “Why are you scowling? Should I fear for my life or offer to save yours?” His voice was equally pleasant, mellifluous with an intriguing undercurrent of an accent she could not place.

  She blushed and would have risen regally to her feet if she hadn’t been certain he’d still tower above her. From a place she didn’t know she had came a pert retort. “Most gentlemen on first acquaintance introduce themselves before they take it upon themselves to be guardian of my person.”

  “Pity, that. It’s such an enticing person. But if you insist.” He bowed deeply. “Luke Simball, your most abject servant.” He leaned close so only she could hear, “But only until I can work my way up to white knight. How am I doing so far?”

  Based on the goggling stares of the other wallflowers around her, he was doing quite well indeed. Since some of these girls had given her cuts direct at her own coming out ball, she would not have been human if she hadn’t enjoyed the brief glow of feeling so desirable. But when his gaze fell upon the dance card dangling from her wrist, she put her hand behind her so he couldn’t see that she had not a single entry.

  “Arielle Blaylock,” he read from the top of the card before she whisked it away. “Arielle. Lioness of God. Charming name. May I have this dance, Miss Blaylock?”

  She hesitated. “I do not dance. Normally.” She rose and unconsciously rubbed her wounded leg.

  “Then it’s a good thing neither of us are normal this evening. It is far too fine a night for such restrictions, anyway.” He offered a regal hand to her.

  She could finally see his face and this time, when her heart flip flopped, it did so not from recollection of a dream but from tangible reality. His eyes were the exact sun-dappled green of her favorite isolated pond on her father’s estate, and his skin was burnished almost golden. On second glance, he resembled even more a gilded god than on first. In short, he was gorgeous. And he was flirting with her.

  Accepting his invitation, she put her hand in his and let him lead her to the middle of the floor. They were in position between staring couples before she realized the graceful music now beginning was a waltz. She froze, one hand on his broad shoulder, the other in his warm clasp.

  The golden face smiled down at her, reckless, daring, and so handsome she knew most of the stares were directed at him. “Afraid?”

  She lifted her chin. “Merely wondering how well you lead.”

  His gaze dropped suggestively to her well covered but rather agitated bosom. His smile deepened as he said, “Shall we find out?”

  His appreciative laugh purred above her flushed cheeks, and then he swept her away into the dance. At first she was self conscious about her leg, but he was quickly attuned to her rhythm and disguised the slight halt of her limp in the way he dipped her slightly backward when their movements put weight on her damaged leg. Indeed, the next time she glanced at the couples around them, she realized they now stared at each of them equally.

  She even heard a muttered, “What a handsome couple they make. Night and day. Bright and dark.”

  Emboldened, she forgot about her infirmity, forgot even that she detested socializing. For the first time since her accident, she knew only the joy of losing all her troubles to gaiety and the warm touch of a handsome man.

  Some ten minutes later, her father found his sullen, unsocial daughter dancing so well with a golden-haired stranger that most of the other couples had slowed to watch them. He stood stunned, a cup of punch halfway to his mouth, as Arielle was not only dancing, she was dancing a waltz with a total stranger. He held her far too close for a father’s comfort.

  He was about to weave forward through the dancers, be hanged to the stares, when a vaguely familiar voice said at his elbow, “Would you like me to cut in?”

  The Earl of Darby had to look up at the man, and that alone was a rare experience for him as he was rather tall himself. But this vaguely familiar young man in a somber black suit was much taller, lean and lithe. When he moved, his feet didn’t make a sound on the hard parquet floor. The earl looked down, thinking the music merely covered the sound of his hard soled shoes, but no, when the young man moved to face him fully during a lull, the earl still heard no scrape of heel.

  Somewhat disconcerted, and wondering why he looked familiar, the earl answered, “Do you know my daughter, sir?”

  “No. Not personally. But I have heard you speak of her.” He inclined his shining black head, his strange golden brown eyes as somber as his dress. “We attend the same club.”

  “Ah, yes!” They attended in totally different circles but at least that explained why the chap was so familiar. Name started with an S…Something Biblical.

  “Seth Taub at your service.” Seth bowed slightly. “I shall be more than happy to intercede and lead your daughter in a much more proper dance.”

  “Would you? I wanted her to have fun. But not quite that much fun.” The earl turned to glare back at the floor where the blond man was whirling his daughter around so fast to the lively beat that her hair was coming loose of its pins.

  He watched Seth wend his way through the dancers, apparently startling them also with his soundless stride, for in several cases he had to dodge aside to miss a collision. As the waltz ended with a gay crescendo, he was standing beside the couple that made, even the earl had to admit, a pleasing duo. His daughter was small and dark, and the man who held her was tall and golden. It almost seemed as if, and the earl was not fanciful, they completed one another, night and day, bright and dark, both needing the other to rule the sway of time…

  The earl cleared his throat, wondering if he was dizzy from cigar smoke. He was sounding like his deceased wife, poor insane woman that she’d been. And no matter what it took, how much money it cost paying Miss Holmes or others like her–well, other investigators, for there was no one like her–he’d see his daughter safe.

  The golden haired man had relinquished his intimate hold on Arielle, but he looked straight into Seth’s eyes and said somethi
ng obviously cutting.

  Seth retorted. The set down must have been excellent based on the shocked expressions of the couples within ear shot. The golden haired man took a slight, aggressive step toward Seth, stopping only when Arielle clasped his arm and murmured something. He looked down at her, his body stiff with anger, but finally he nodded shortly and stalked through the dancers, who made way for him.

  When another tune began, this one a lively country dance, Arielle started to move away but Seth blocked her, bowing deeply. She glanced around at the staring dancers. Short of giving him the cut direct, she had no other options. Reluctantly, politely, she took his hand and began to dance.

  Satisfied, the earl turned away, only to face an angry, golden haired young man. “Did you set him upon me like your watch dog?”

  The earl stiffened. “If I’d done that, you’d be bleeding.” What kind of arrogant young pup was this and why was he so fixated on Arielle? Given her dreams of bold, golden cat creatures, the earl knew he was being too protective, but still, it was hardly any wonder he viewed with suspicion anyone who fit that description.

  “If you let Arielle around Seth Taub, it will be she who’s bleeding, if only from within. He’s an emotional leach.” And the golden haired young man swung around on his heel and stalked out.

  Peculiarly, the earl noted that his expensive evening slippers with hard soles also made no sound, despite his high, agitated steps.

  Good riddance. He turned back to watch Arielle and her partner, relieved to see that only the tips of their fingertips touched as they ducked beneath the tented arms of other dancers. Arielle’s limp was becoming pronounced. She was getting tired.

  Just as he’d about decided to break up their dance, Seth Taub apparently reached the same conclusion. When they next met in another step, he gently took Arielle’s hand, nodded his excuses to the dancers next to them, and led her off the floor.

  The earl began to like this dark, somber browed young man. He had a care for the female kind, who always needed the protection of those stronger than themselves. It was as it should be.

  Arielle, however, apparently felt differently. Her deep blue eyes were almost black, so wide were her pupils, when she finally stood next to her father. She glared up at Seth. “How prim and proper you seem. But if my behavior needs modifying, it will not be at your hand. As Luke said, you are not to be trusted, Mr. Taub.”

  “Luke, is it? And he is, a man you just met tonight who was taking liberties with your person? I only intervened at your father’s request to stop wagging tongues.”

  The earl looked at him askance. That was putting too fine a point upon the matter, but he let the fact that Seth had offered his help slide. Arielle was already angry enough.

  “They can wag until they fall off for all I care. These people don’t give a fiddle faddle for me.” She looked around for her reticule and grabbed it when Seth offered it.

  How Seth knew which one, on a table piled high with them, was Arielle’s, the earl couldn’t say. But it was certain Seth had not only been watching Arielle tonight but he was also obviously interested in her. And also obviously he knew this Luke and was in competition with him.

  The earl rubbed his aching brow and muttered, “I’m calling for the carriage.” And he hurried out of the ballroom, thinking next time he’d watch what he wished for. His sweet, innocent, biddable Arielle certainly seemed different out among a crowd. Perhaps it was best to keep her at home, after all. Or did both of these young men bring out the worst in her?

  The moment he was gone, Arielle turned a cold shoulder on the man who had ruined the only good time she’d ever had at one of these tiresome affairs.

  “Forgive me,” Seth Taub said softly. “I only had a care for your reputation. Luke Simball is a rakehell. He will ply you first with charm in a public venue, then with drink in a private one. Next…”

  His pause was pregnant with a meaning that, innocent though she was, she understood well enough. She whirled back on him. “And what do I know of you?”

  “Nothing. But I shall fix that soon enough.”

  “Perhaps I want to be…plied. Perhaps I’m tired of being good.” Where the words came from she did not know, she only knew that this man, as tall as Luke, but dark in every way where Luke seemed bright, irritated her beyond belief. Enough to make her bold in return, where she felt shy with Luke.

  “Indeed? We shall discuss this topic more at length at a later time.”

  The response was proper. The expression was not. His amber eyes took on dancing glints of gold, making her wonder what they looked like in sunshine. With the hint of that smile on his face turning wicked, she realized abruptly that, in a very different way, he was as handsome as Luke. Those golden eyes trailed down over her figure with a lazy promise that made her wonder what he’d look like in an Egyptian style sarong.

  He offered his arm in a very proper way, his propriety spoiled by the quick appraisal of her figure that hinted of an interest much deeper than politeness. But he merely said, “Please allow me to escort you to your carriage.”

  Still miffed and off balance by her unwelcome attraction to this…this interloper, she debated turning away. However, her leg was aching from the unaccustomed activity, and at least with his support she could retreat gracefully.

  She accepted his arm. They walked slowly to the front steps, Seth guiding her ably through the crush of departing guests. She gave him a curt nod of goodbye as they reached her carriage, where her father awaited.

  After the earl helped her up into the seat, he turned back to Seth and spoke softly, so she could not hear. “Thank you, Seth. I shall see you soon at the club.”

  “I shall be honored, sir.” Seth gave his polite, old fashioned bow and then disappeared down the steps, blending well with the night with his silent walk and dark dress and hair.

  The earl noted Arielle, despite her anger, stared after him curiously.

  He tried to decide how he felt about that, but instead he collapsed back against the seat, gasping, “The next time you wish to go dancing, warn me in advance. I shall have to shore up my constitution.”

  Arielle did not answer, still staring into the darkness after Seth Taub.

  CHAPTER TWO

  Two weeks later, a preternatural calm had descended upon Hafford Place. The ancient pile of moldering stone on London’s outskirts had been built, Shelly was told, by the first earl, who was given his title by a grateful Queen Elizabeth in reward for his daring captaincy of one of the frigates that helped defeat the Spanish Armada.

  The structure he’d built followed the Tudor style with mullioned windows, dark cross timbers and white stucco. But the turret crowning both towers and the battlements bridging them with a walk bearing cutouts for archers betold an earl who didn’t wear his new title comfortably. He was a fighting man, and so he remained to his dying day, when he was buried beneath the house in the crypt in which Shelly now stood.

  She walked around his final resting place, glad for the sunlight shining through the high windows on each side of the crypt. She sought a smaller, less significant catafalque than that of the liege lord.

  During this lull in which Arielle seemed safe–depressed, but saf and free of nightmares–Shelly had spent the last two weeks trying to decipher the glyphs on the back of the amulet. She’d researched dusty tomes in the library. She’d even made a trip to the Royal Society asking for help, but the markings were not the royal Egyptian still being deciphered from the Rosetta Stone. Nor were they Coptic, and certainly not Greek. They must be a more ancient version of text.

  Today, after a luncheon in which the bewildered earl watched his daughter as if he expected her to sprout whiskers and lap at her Dover sole, Shelly had decided to follow a hunch down to the crypt. Perhaps the mother’s final resting place bore some trace, some clue that would be the key to the amulet’s deciphering.

  Sure enough, Isis Blaylock’s catafalque was smaller, less ornate, than the others, obviously carved in haste. The
poor woman had died in her early thirties, when Arielle was a child. Perhaps the distance of the years accounted for why the earl seemed somewhat indifferent to her memory. Shelly had seen no portraits of her, no cherished mementoes she’d left, either stitched with her own hand or painted with her own brush. Only Arielle, with that photo in her chamber, seemed to miss the mother she scarcely remembered. Even the servants refused to utter her name.

  Shelly peered at the soapstone casket. Not granite, not marble. The very medium of her interment in this friable, easy to carve stone, hinted of her lack of regard by her husband. Shelly shined the lantern in her hand onto the side of the tomb, trying to read the tiny markings carved there.

  Words, but strange words. Familiar, but not quite….

  “The Book of the Dead. Do you know it?”

  Shelly almost dropped the lantern onto the shining leather shoes that had appeared at her side. She surged to her feet, glaring at the man who made her look up to him in a way she didn’t like. She was taller than most men, but this towering bean pole resembled an escapee from a very bad nursery rhyme.

  He was all arms and legs, but elegantly appointed arms and legs, and the fine figure he presented almost disguised his ungainliness. His waistcoat was severe black to match his black cutaway coat. His cravat was purest white, and he bore a diamond stickpin that matched the diamond studded head of his walking stick. He had a prominent Adam’s apple, and a deep dimple in his chin that somehow drew attention to the perpetually merry set of his mouth. Quite against her will, Shelly’s gaze paused there. His mouth was wide, the top lip rather thin, but the lower lip bore an indentation that gave him a pout that bespoke either a truculent or a passionate nature, she wasn’t sure which.