The Earl Who Played With Fire

by Sara Ramsey

  “Very well. I want the most important artifact in your personal collection. I want you to sponsor me for membership in the Society of Antiquaries. And I want an introduction to Miss Etchingham’s mother.”

  They both gaped at him. Alex had expected a steep price, but this was…

  “You are mad,” Prudence declared. “I thought you seemed quite sane before, but you aren’t, are you?”

  Alex agreed. “That is a ludicrous price for knowledge that I can’t even trust exists — for knowledge you claim won’t help me in any event. How do I know you are not pulling off the swindle of the decade?”

  “Because no one else is clamoring to be introduced to Lady Harcastle,” Ostringer responded tartly. “And I should say that it is a reintroduction, not an introduction, if that matters.”

  “Still,” Alex said, “I want proof that the cure exists.”

  Ostringer sighed. “I cannot prove it without telling it to you. It’s quite simple, really, even if it is impossible. But I will tell you that I was in Egypt when the dagger was found in the personal effects Napoleon left behind in his rush to leave. I suspect the emperor himself tried it — one of the soldiers I talked to said that he had wished to be Emperor of France. Lucky for Britain, I suppose; the djinn took him at his word, since all his campaigns seem to fail just as he’s on the cusp of conquering the world.”

  “That’s not proof of a cure,” Alex said.

  “No. But Napoleon’s traveling army of historians unearthed all the legends of the dagger there were to find in Egypt. And one of them shared the cure with me while he was in his cups one night.”

  “If you saw the dagger and had the cure, did you use it yourself?”

  The collector held up both hands, palms forward. His skin was smooth. “We cannot have everything we wish for. I knew it then, and you should know now. If you don’t…then it’s certain you can’t break the curse. No matter how much you might wish it otherwise.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  Alex wanted to accompany her on her visit to her mother. So did Ellie. Nick, however, had no interest in participating in her familial drama.

  “Why do the lot of you always insist on interfering with each other?” Nick asked as the carriage carried them away from Ostringer’s. “Can you not find enough entertainment in your own lives?”

  “It isn’t interference. I merely want to help,” Ellie said.

  Prudence was sitting next to Ellie and couldn’t see her face, but Nick’s grin gave her a glimpse of what he must have seen in his wife’s eyes. “Between your schemes and Ferguson’s, it’s a wonder the two of you haven’t organized half the ton,” he said. “If the twins ever stop flirting with music masters and start applying their talents, London will belong to your line.”

  “The Avenels aren’t the only family capable of interference,” Prudence interjected. “Alex and Amelia are nearly as skilled.”

  Alex scowled at her, but Ellie was the one who protested. “Amelia is worse than I am. And Ferguson has never forced anyone to get married.”

  “Successfully, at least,” Alex murmured.

  Prudence wanted to kick him, but she refrained. “I do not need company to visit my mother. I’m sure we will more easily converse alone.”

  Alex frowned. “When have you ever easily conversed?”

  The answer tore at her heart. “Perhaps we can make amends.”

  “What do you have to make amends for?” Ellie asked. “Or do you think it is time to cut ties with her?”

  Prudence looked down at her gloved hands. Her gloves were pristine and perfectly cut, bought by her forgeries. Her mother’s gloves would either be old or cheaply made.

  What was there to make amends for? That her mother had mourned her brothers for too long? That Prudence had felt too lonely, too useless? That there hadn’t been enough money, and too much expectation placed on Prudence’s marital success?

  She wanted to say it all — it was all deserved, after all, a series of wounds that Prudence had never quite forgiven her for.

  But it sounded silly and trite, particularly if those excuses were meant to justify never seeing her mother again. That wasn’t what she wanted. And she was old enough to know that, if she never saw her mother again, the person who suffered for it longest would be herself. Her mother would pass away eventually, but Prudence would have to live with the guilt of it for years beyond that, without any hope of reconciliation or forgiveness.

  “Please, just leave me at her cousin’s house,” Prudence said. “I shall have her maid accompany me home.”

  Alex frowned. “If you’ll allow it, I will retrieve my carriage and come back to fetch you.”

  She didn’t want to allow it. She didn’t know how long she would be, and anyway, Alex should be working to complete the tasks that Ostringer demanded.

  But after a few minutes of argument, and another muttered curse from Nick about her friends’ meddling, she agreed. Riding home with Alex was better than finding a hackney coach.

  And if her mother refused to meet Ostringer, then she could tell Alex immediately that their hopes were destroyed.

  * * *

  Her mother came into the drawing room wearing a new dress. It was a rich dark blue calico, still somber, but so far removed from her old mourning dresses as to be shocking.

  “Mother,” Prudence said, standing to embrace her. “You look…lovely.”

  Lady Harcastle returned the hug, holding on a moment longer than she usually did. “Thank you, dear. Your cousin had bought the fabric but no longer wanted it. I don’t have the skill of a modiste, but I can be serviceable with a needle when I choose.”

  It was a choice Prudence never made. She hated sewing more than she hated being out of fashion. So did her mother, if she recalled. “I hope you shan’t need to sew your own dresses much longer,” she said as they sat down.

  Her mother was too proper to shrug, but Prudence heard the ambivalence in her voice. “I would rather tend a garden than sew a dress, but as long as I live here, I have little to do. There is time in my day to make any number of dresses.”

  She continued on for a few minutes about fabric choices and which colors might be suitable now that she was so far into her widowhood. Prudence gave noncommittal answers, distracted by the alternate path her thoughts had taken. They had both stayed in that house before, during the first year after her father’s death when she and her mother had circled through all their relatives. Her mother’s cousin was a kind woman, but she had not married particularly well. The husband was a barrister who practiced at Gray’s Inn. Their house was comfortable despite its less exalted situation in Bloomsbury, but their social circle was far removed from Lady Harcastle’s.

  Since the household wasn’t invited to higher functions and didn’t have the funds to buy seats at the opera or vouchers for Almack’s, her mother had likely been lonely. Lonelier now that Prudence was out of the house.

  Prudence took a deep breath. It was little wonder her mother usually talked over her. With no one else to listen to her, Prudence was her only audience.

  Her mother didn’t realize that Prudence was distracted. “I thought I should wear something better than what I might make for your wedding, though, so I had a fitting this morning. The modiste promised to have it done in time. I don’t wish to embarrass you. And Thorington would be dismayed if I turned up in rags.”

  That statement was enough to pull Prudence back into the conversation. “Why do you care what Thorington thinks?”

  “He visited yesterday, told me your wedding date, asked whether it was common for females in our family to wear outmoded mourning dresses, told me that he would settle upon you fifty thousand pounds, and left within five minutes of his arrival. He’s a beastly man, but fifty thousand pounds is nothing to sneeze at.”

  Prudence discovered yet another reason to despise him. “The duke is insufferable.”

  “Indeed,” her mother said. “But you can suffer a lot for fifty thousand pounds.”
>
  On another day, Prudence would have lashed out at her. But this time she listened — listened to the tone underneath, rather than immediately interpreting the words as an insult.

  Her mother wasn’t happy. She was making the best of a bad situation.

  Just as she had always, unconsciously, taught Prudence to do. Find satisfaction in the moment, because the future was destined to be bleak. Prudence had resisted at first, determined to find her idealized, idolized romantic love. But when Alex had rejected her that night in his study, she had unconsciously taken the lessons her mother had taught her and tried to forge her own path instead.

  Would her life have been different if she had never learned that lesson? Alex thought she was brave. But she wasn’t, not really. She was simply so certain that the future would be worse that she no longer had any fear about seizing the present.

  “What if I told you I don’t plan to marry the duke?” she said suddenly.

  She hadn’t planned to tell her mother. And the look on her mother’s face made her regret it. “Why on earth would you say that?” Lady Harcastle asked.

  “You know why. How can I condemn myself to a lifetime of having Thorington tell me what to do at every turn?”

  “But you’ll be ruined. You know this.”

  Again, she tried to listen to the tone, read the meaning in her mother’s eyes rather than reacting on instinct. Her mother’s voice was flat — a reminder of a fact she was sure Prudence already knew, not a dire warning. And her eyes were worried — worried, not angry, not judgmental.

  “I know,” Prudence said, some of the fight going out of her. “I know. But I can live without a reputation. I’m not sure I can live with Thorington’s attempts to control me.”

  Her mother was silent for a long time. A very long time. She stroked the brooch pinned to her dress. It was an instinctive gesture, the same as Alex’s relationship with his scar. But the brooch was different now. For years it had been a cameo surrounded by a braid of Prudence’s brothers’ co-mingled hair, a macabre reminder of the boys she had lost. But she had replaced it with a locket Prudence hadn’t seen in years. It had been her jewel of choice when Prudence was younger — a pretty golden circlet pinned to her dress.

  “What happened to your brooch?” Prudence asked.

  “It was time,” her mother said quietly. “And I hope you do not think that I am trying to force you to marry Thorington, because I am certainly not. He will not be a good husband. Nor, I think, will he be a good father. But he will certainly be a good provider. You may mourn what you could have had with Salford — I would be surprised if you didn’t. But please…just make sure you are sure you know what you’re about before you jilt Thorington. And be sure whatever pain you’re experiencing right now doesn’t make you ruin everything for yourself later.”

  “That isn’t what is happening,” Prudence said, her temper rising. “Why you would bring Alex into this, I don’t know. But being a provider isn’t…”

  Her mother cut her off. “I know it feels like your world is ending. I felt that when your brothers died. I felt it the Season I came out, before I married your father. Pain makes you do stupid things, Prudence. If I had been stronger four years ago, and not wallowed in my grief, I might have married again. Or I at least might have been more pleasant company for you. I am sorry I didn’t do more.”

  And just like that, Prudence’s temper died.

  “It doesn’t matter anymore,” she said. “Truly. No matter what happens, we will come out all right.”

  Lady Harcastle had been pretty once, before her grief had hardened her. But somehow, over the past few months, she’d lost some of the bitterness around her mouth. When she smiled, it seemed genuine, not a mask she put on because it was expected of her. “It matters. I want you to be happy where I wasn’t. But more, I don’t want you to regret your choices. Whatever you do about Thorington, I will support you. Just make sure you won’t regret it.”

  Prudence would only regret it if she hadn’t done everything she could to change her situation. She couldn’t tell her mother about Alex’s curse. Nor could she tell her that there was a chance she might be able to break it and win Alex for herself. But she had to ask the favor she had come for.

  “Did you ever know a Mr. Ostringer?” she asked.

  The transition was abrupt. Her mother stilled. It was the stillness of a cornered animal, in the instant before it chose to run. “Where did you hear that name?”

  “He owns an antiquities shop in Mayfair,” Prudence said, trying to sound casual even though her mother’s reaction had heightened her curiosity. “I visited there this afternoon.”

  “You should be visiting modistes, not furniture dealers,” her mother said sharply. “I’m sure it’s too soon to consider how you might redecorate Thorington’s house.”

  It was an odd reaction, given that moments earlier her mother had claimed a willingness to support her if she jilted the duke. Prudence pressed on. “He said that he would very much like to make your acquaintance. Or your reacquaintance, as it were. Those are his words, of course. I can’t think where you might have met him, unless you frequented his shop before I was out.”

  Her mother stroked her brooch again, staring off into space with some dazed introspection that was utterly out of character.

  “Did you know him?” Prudence asked.

  Lady Harcastle blushed. It was so rare that Prudence was sure it was a trick of the light until her mother cleared her throat. “I knew him. Before I married your father.”

  Prudence gasped. “Were you in love with him?”

  “No,” her mother exclaimed, as though the very thought appalled her.

  But then Lady Harcastle sighed. “Perhaps. I don’t know any more — it was years ago. I was too young to know any better, and he was so very handsome and learned.”

  “Did you meet him at his shop?” she asked.

  “He didn’t have a shop then. He was my father’s private secretary.”

  That told Prudence all she needed to know. Lady Harcastle’s father had been relatively wealthy, although not well-off enough to give her a large dowry. But their status had been too high to ever consider a liaison between the daughter of the house and a glorified servant.

  “What happened between you?” Prudence asked, too curious to let the subject drop.

  “You can guess, I’m sure. He wanted to make his fortune so that he could win me, but my father discovered everything. And then Lord Harcastle offered for me. It was either take his offer, or spurn him and be disowned for it.”

  She pursed her lips, not sharing how she had felt, only the barest facts. But Prudence wasn’t blind. She could fill in all the details from what she’d seen over the years. Her father and mother had not been a love match, even though they had gotten on civilly enough. But Lady Harcastle had rarely received or visited her own father before his death — a fact Prudence hadn’t given much thought to until now.

  It was odd, how generations repeated themselves.

  “Do you wish to see him again?” Prudence asked. “He seemed eager to be introduced.”

  “Did he really?”

  Her mother stared off into space again, as though she could read the story of the life she might have had in the air between them. But she cut herself off after only a few moments of daydreaming. “How silly of him,” she said briskly. “Even if we were the same class, it has been over thirty years since we last spoke. The chances that we have more to say to each other than a brief ‘how do you do’ are miniscule.”

  “Is class all that matters to you?” Prudence asked.

  “I’m too old to be a fool. You know as well as I do that I cannot move in the same circles if I associate with someone from the shop.”

  “He seems more interested in being a scholar than running a business,” Prudence said, choosing to gloss over Ostringer’s ruthlessness and remember how charming he had been to her. “And anyway, you can’t move in the same circles without money, either. He ha
s more than enough of that.”

  It was a mercenary argument. But something in her mother’s eyes, or the blush beneath them, made her want to see Lady Harcastle and Ostringer come together for their own sake, and not just because it was the price of breaking Alex’s curse.

  “Very well,” her mother finally said. “I shall meet him.”

  Prudence heaved a sigh of relief, but Lady Harcastle seemed too stunned by the events of the last half hour to have any suspicions about Prudence’s motivations. The conversation turned to safer waters after that, both warmer and more pleasant than any conversation they’d had in an age. When Alex finally came to retrieve her, she was almost sad to go.

  It wasn’t a full reconciliation — she was still too sensitive, and her mother still too abrupt, to make it easy. But it was a start.

  And for once, in one aspect of her life, Prudence was sure that the future would definitely be better than the present.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  It took two days to organize everything. Two days Alex didn’t have.

  Prudence had insisted on staying in London. He had disagreed with her, but she had dug in her heels — and pointed out that she didn’t need his help if he didn’t want to provide it, since she could afford to make her own escape. The reference to the money she’d swindled from Thorington should have upset him. But he, quite oddly, found himself not caring that she had forged anything.

  Those forgeries had given her hope that she might be able to live without a husband. That had, inadvertently, saved her for him. He couldn’t be too angry about that.

  Still, if Alex failed to implement the cure Ostringer was selling them, Prudence would have little more than twelve hours to escape London before her wedding. “Have you packed your belongings?” he asked as they drove to Ostringer’s shop.

  They were alone, but neither of them supposed it mattered. In the morning, she would either be his fiancée, Thorington’s bride, or the biggest scandal of the decade. Visiting a shop in Mayfair unescorted seemed like the utmost propriety compared to that.