The Bargain

by Jane Ashford

  “Nothing now.”

  “What do you mean, now?” He examined her dowdy gown once again and noticed that she looked pale. If Sebastian had involved her in one of his endless romantic tangles, he thought, he’d wring his neck.

  “Matters are well in hand.”

  “What matters?”

  “Matters of the heart,” replied Ariel loftily.

  “What?” She never behaved predictably, Alan thought. He was almost convinced she did it on purpose, to keep him off balance.

  “I mean to offer him some advice,” she said.

  “You? What sort of advice?”

  “About how to win the lady.”

  “Nonsense,” Alan declared. “Sebastian needs no help on that score.”

  “This young lady does not seem—” began Hannah.

  “Why are you really here?” he added.

  “I told you.”

  “You’re using my brother as a way to continue your investigations,” he said, not even hearing her.

  “I am not,” Ariel said hotly. “I came here to help him.”

  “What exactly do you intend to do? Play the innocent schoolgirl and recommend him to the lady as a sterling character? You’ll be caught out at that.”

  “You wouldn’t understand.”

  “My understanding has been judged well above the average,” he answered.

  “Not about this sort of thing,” she responded.

  “What sort of thing?”

  “Matters of the heart,” Ariel told him again.

  “We are speaking of Sebastian?” He let some of his annoyance come out in sarcasm. She seemed to think he didn’t know his own family.

  She merely nodded. “He has fallen in love,” she declared.

  “Don’t be ridiculous.”

  “He has.”

  “He told you this?” Alan was incredulous, both at the idea of Sebastian in love and at the notion that he had told Ariel Harding about it.

  “Well, I’m not sure he is entirely aware of the fact as yet,” Ariel conceded.

  “Ah.” He nodded in comprehension. “You have made up some kind of fairy story about—”

  “It is not made up! And anyway, how would you know? You think there is no such thing as love.”

  “There isn’t, particularly if you are talking of Sebastian.”

  She pressed her lips together and looked away.

  She was infuriatingly beautiful, Alan thought, even in that silly dowdy gown. And for exactly that reason, she had to be made to understand that she couldn’t wander about London pursuing any scheme that occurred to her. “You must stop this,” he said.

  “You haven’t any heart,” she answered, a slight tremor in her voice.

  “My heart is in perfect order. It is an admirably efficient pump.”

  “Pump?” she repeated.

  “See William Harvey’s treatise on the circulation of the blood,” he suggested.

  “No, thank you,” was the stiff reply.

  He dismissed this with a gesture. “You must take more care—” he began, but just then the door handle rattled, and it opened on the buzz of noise outside.

  “There you are,” said Sebastian, peering through the opening before coming in. “I’ve been looking everywhere. Hullo, Alan. You here?”

  “As you see,” answered Alan sardonically.

  Sebastian threw him a glance. “Anything wrong?” he wondered.

  “Nothing at all,” answered Ariel. “Everything is perfect.”

  Sebastian drew back a bit at her tone. There was a short silence. Hannah looked from one of them to the other with an interested expression.

  “Came to see if you were ready to go. You did say eleven,” Sebastian added finally.

  “Quite ready,” was the crisp reply.

  “I’ll escort you home,” declared Alan.

  “We don’t require an escort, do we, Hannah?”

  This appeal to a higher authority appeared to unsettle both the Gresham brothers. Hannah gazed at them for a moment longer. She might have been amused, or merely thoughtful. It was impossible to say. “I don’t believe we do,” she answered finally.

  “Of course not!” Ariel swept out of the room, her schoolgirl pose forgotten, and Hannah followed.

  “What set her back up?” wondered Sebastian.

  “I haven’t the faintest idea,” replied his usually omniscient brother.

  Ten

  Ellen offered to help Ariel get ready for the Carlton House masquerade, and she showed an unexpected talent for dressing hair. “I was studying with Harriet—Her Grace’s dresser,” she said when Ariel complimented her skill. “She’s teaching me how to be a lady’s maid.”

  “I’m sure you will be a very good one,” replied Ariel warmly.

  Ellen flushed with pleasure as she went to test the curling irons she was heating. Satisfied, she carefully picked one up and brought it over to begin transforming Ariel’s glossy brown locks into the wild corkscrew curls of a Gypsy girl. She bit her lower lip in concentration as she wrapped strands of hair around the hot iron and twisted them for just the right amount of time—enough to curl but not to scorch. When she finally stepped back to assess her work, she grinned. “You look quite… different, miss,” she said.

  Ariel consulted the mirror. Her hair was a cloud of brown above the multicolored Gypsy gown. Her hazel eyes peered out of it brightly, like those of a small animal. The glow of her cheeks and lips completed the illusion. She did look like someone else entirely.

  Ellen began to pin the spangled scarf, with its dangling bits of gold, onto the top of Ariel’s head. This tamed her hair slightly, though it still curled about her face. She slipped the gold hoops into her ears and checked the mirror again. It was a wonderful costume, she thought. She couldn’t imagine anyone having a better one.

  Ellen cocked her head and went to peer out the front window. “A carriage is here, miss,” she said. “I’ll see to the door.”

  Standing, Ariel shook out her voluminous skirts and tried tossing her head. She had seen lots of plays with Gypsies as a child, she recalled. It was easy to remember the way the actresses walked and turned and threw flashing glances. She wheeled before the mirror, raising one shoulder and looking back over it, then giggled at the effect. Picking up a black half mask from her dressing table, she headed downstairs.

  Ariel was a bit surprised to see Hannah come out of the front parlor and cross the entryway as she came down. Lord Alan was standing in the center of the parlor when she went in. It would have been very interesting, Ariel thought, to have heard what Hannah had said to him.

  “Do you like my costume?” she said in greeting. She lifted her arms and whirled about, drawing the bodice of her Gypsy gown tight across her breasts and making the ruffled skirts flare out. She moved her hips as she remembered seeing the actresses playing Gypsies do onstage.

  “You didn’t tell me you were wearing fancy dress,” he pointed out. A flush mottled his high cheekbones.

  “It’s a masquerade.”

  “I’m well aware of that fact. But that dress…” He gestured in her direction as if he couldn’t find words.

  “Isn’t it gorgeous? I found it among Bess’s things. She was very extravagant about clothes, I’m afraid.”

  “It makes you look…” His flush deepened. His eyes were hot. He looked as if he might explode.

  Very flattered by his reaction, Ariel decided to go to his rescue. “It makes me look exactly right for a masquerade. Many people will be wearing quite similar ensembles.” She knew this was true from her mother’s long-ago descriptions.

  She then surveyed his conventional evening dress. “But I see you haven’t troubled yourself.”

  “I have been occupied with arranging for more guards and trying to secure every opening in the building.
We won’t be able to identify any of the guests for certain. A dozen ‘ghosts’ could make their way in.”

  “Oh.” She should have realized, Ariel thought. The progress of his investigation was all that was important to him.

  “However,” Lord Alan added, “our haunters may have other difficulties.” He appeared grimly pleased with this idea.

  “What?”

  “I have set a watch on the actors from the theater that they will not be able to evade, as several of them have before this. If they are behind these tricks, they will be caught tonight. And that will be the end of it.”

  “You expect it to be them.”

  “I do. In fact, I expect this whole irritating farce to be finished tonight.” He took a breath as if this notion cheered him considerably.

  “Congratulations,” she said, wondering why she found the idea so depressing. A pall seemed to have fallen over the entire occasion, which she had anticipated so eagerly.

  “Shall we go?” he asked.

  Silently, she followed him out to the carriage.

  ***

  Carlton House was lit from top to bottom for the evening, and streams of costumed and merely fashionable people were already passing through the door. “Just what do you intend to do tonight?” Lord Alan asked as he handed Ariel down to the pavement.

  “Take advantage of whatever opportunities come along,” she replied.

  “What do you mean by ‘opportunities’?”

  “I won’t know until they appear,” she answered, and moved away before he could say more.

  As always at the prince regent’s festivities, the reception rooms glittered, the talk rose to a roar, and the champagne flowed inexhaustibly. Also, as always, it was stiflingly hot, and no unattached woman was safe from ogling glances and brazen approaches of the aging gallants who surrounded the sovereign—not to mention the sovereign himself. The addition of masks and supposed disguises merely intensified this atmosphere. The prince seemed to take it as license to be even more outrageous than usual, even though his portly figure was quite identifiable in the trappings of a Persian autocrat.

  “You are not to wander off on your own,” Lord Alan instructed.

  “I have no intention of doing so,” Ariel informed him. Indeed, she was quite grateful for his escort, considering some of the things that were going on in the room.

  “I’m certain you have some plan for the evening,” said Lord Alan. “Do you intend to communicate it to me?”

  “I shall be a silly, empty-headed young girl who is fascinated with the idea of Bess Harding’s ghost,” she told him. “I shall ask everyone I encounter if they saw it, and then if they knew Bess, and then if they don’t think it is terrible what happened to her. It will be much easier with people masked. They will say more than they would otherwise. And we shall see what sort of answers they give and where the conversation goes.”

  “And from this you expect…?”

  “To gather bits of information that can be pieced together to reveal something,” she retorted. “Isn’t that the nature of investigation?”

  Lord Alan said nothing.

  “Why are you looking at me that way?” asked Ariel. He was staring down at her as if she had said something extraordinary, or as if she were a house cat who had suddenly spoken to him. When he didn’t reply, she raised one shoulder and turned to examine the crowd. “Do you know Lord Royalton?” she added. “I have heard that he and my mother quarreled over something. We should be sure to speak to him. Do you think he will be here tonight?”

  “I have no idea. I am not acquainted with the gentleman.”

  “We must find out,” urged Ariel.

  “Must we?”

  She threw him a look.

  “Oh, very well. My father will know. I’ll ask him.”

  With a satisfied nod, Ariel took his arm. “Shall we begin?”

  “Do I have any say in the matter?”

  Throwing him a reproachful glance from behind her mask, she tugged on his arm and led him into the chattering crowd. “There is no need to be sarcastic.” Ariel surveyed the people before them. “There’s Lady Feverel. She was well acquainted with my mother. I meant to talk with her, though I doubt she will remember me.”

  She was mistaken, however. As soon as Lady Feverel noticed them, she dismissed the small man she had been talking to and beckoned imperiously. “Bess’s daughter, isn’t it?” She peered through a glass mounted on a long, much-tasseled ivory handle, seeming to look right through Ariel’s mask. “Yes, I’m sure it is.” She turned. “And one of Langford’s sons. The prince has you staying here, does he not?”

  Lord Alan merely bowed in acknowledgment.

  Large and stately as a frigate, and well draped in yellow satin, Lady Feverel turned again. “Forgotten your name,” she stated. “My memory’s shockingly bad. Something unusual, wasn’t it?”

  “Ariel.”

  “Yes. Out of a play, I believe. Bess was such an original.”

  Her wide-eyed innocent role would not be of any use here, Ariel thought. She nodded soberly. “I am trying to find out what happened to her,” she said.

  “Surely that’s… er… clear,” answered Lady Feverel.

  “Not why it happened.”

  “Ah.” The older woman paused, seeming to consider this. She blinked her small eyes at the chattering crowd like a sleepy bear.

  “Did you see the ghost?” wondered Ariel.

  “On several occasions. Once fairly close. It wasn’t Bess, of course.”

  Ariel moved involuntarily.

  “My dear, surely you didn’t think it was?”

  “No. No, of course not.” She hadn’t, thought Ariel. Naturally she knew better.

  “Much younger woman,” Lady Feverel was saying. “Not nearly so beautiful, under all the makeup.” She shot a glance at Lord Alan. “Caught her yet?”

  “Possibly,” he said.

  She gave a nod like a thoroughbred horse throwing up its head.

  “Did you notice anything… odd before she died?” asked Ariel. “Was she different in any way? Did she say anything to you about… oh, I don’t know?”

  “Bess was the same as ever,” said Lady Feverel. “Running about a bit more, perhaps—always in motion. But she had her moods.”

  Ariel nodded.

  “She liked to laugh,” said the older woman quietly. “Never wanted to hear unpleasantness. I miss her.”

  Ariel’s eyes filmed with tears.

  “I must go,” added Lady Feverel. “My husband will tolerate only so much of these affairs, and then he begins to offend people out of irritation.” She gazed at Ariel through her glass once again. “Take care, my dear.” She moved off like a ship under full sail.

  Ariel swallowed, then took a breath. “This is harder than I expected,” she murmured. She felt a hand on her arm. Lord Alan was looking down at her with an odd expression on his handsome face. It might have been sympathy; Ariel wasn’t sure. But something about it made breathing a bit difficult. She had to turn away and look for someone else to accost.

  “Did you know Bess Harding when she was alive?” Ariel asked an aged roué some time later. He had come dressed in the powder and paint of his early youth and looked rather like a spectral figure from the past himself.

  “Knew her intimately,” he leered, his grin revealing a row of blackening teeth.

  What a blatant lie, Ariel thought. Her fastidious mother wouldn’t have come within five feet of such a man. “It was so shocking, what happened to her,” she breathed. “You must have been deeply affected by it.”

  “Eh? Oh. Of course, of course. Shocking.” The man’s rheumy eyes were fixed on Ariel as if she were edible.

  “Why do you think she did it?” she asked, trying to look even more innocent and gullible.

  “What?” He looked su
rprised by the question, and completely uninterested in the topic.

  “Killed herself,” answered Ariel in a quietly relentless tone.

  “No idea,” was the reply. “Very foolish of her. Never the answer to anything, eh?” He leered at Ariel again, trying to look dangerously attractive, she thought. “Shall we stroll in the garden?” He crooked his arm and offered it. “Or take our leave? Even better, eh?”

  Ariel let her eyes widen even farther, as if she couldn’t imagine what he was talking about.

  “I could show you a thing or two.” He leered more markedly. “Experience beats out the young men every time.”

  “I couldn’t leave the prince’s entertainment,” answered Ariel. She took a step back and, as she had counted on, bumped into Lord Alan close behind her. “I’m here with friends.”

  “Eh?” The old libertine’s eyes traveled upward and upward, taking in the tall figure of her escort. Then he blew out his lips in disgust and stumped away in search of other prey.

  “Enjoying yourself?” asked Lord Alan, sounding amused.

  “We are eliminating possibilities,” replied Ariel. But she was less certain than she had been earlier in the evening. No one had told her anything interesting. All she had accomplished so far, she thought, was giving everyone the impression that she was a silly, naive chatterbox as well as Lord Alan’s mistress. “Is Lord Royalton here?” she asked.

  Lord Alan shrugged. “There is my father. I’ll go and ask him.”

  Ariel made ready to follow him across the room. But she saw him make a small quick movement with his hand, and in the next instant his brother Robert materialized from the crowd at their back and made a mock salute. “At your service,” he said.

  Lord Alan merely gave him an admonitory look. “I’ll be right back,” he said and strode off toward the duke.

  “What was that about?” wondered Ariel.

  Lord Robert raised his eyebrows as if he didn’t know what she was referring to and said, “Would you like a glass of champagne? Or lemonade perhaps?”

  “No, thank you. He gave you some sort of signal. I saw it.”

  “Dashed hot, ain’t it? But then Prinny’s evenings always are. You’d think he could do something about it.”