by Cheryl Bolen
She laughed. "Then I must commend you, Monsieur Rich, for having more intelligence than most of the bachelors in London. Lady Daphne, I am told is terribly clever, too."
"That she is. Marrying her will be like wedding one's best friend." He had the oddest notion that such a comment would be something Daphne's prospective husband might say. His glance flicked to where he'd left her standing, but Daphne wasn't there. He scanned the dance floor and saw that she waltzed with a nice-looking young officer who was considerably taller than she. "How long, Comtesse, have you been residing in England?"
"Ten years."
"Then you must have been a child when you came." Simple flattery. The woman was not a day under thirty.
"I was, indeed," she said, brightly smiling up at him. She really was exquisite. Where the regent had an eye for fine things, his brother had an eye for beautiful women.
As lovely as the comtesse was, Jack would never be attracted to a woman who took great pains to help nature along by kohling her eyes and darkening her lips. Nor would he have any interest in a woman who was a courtesan. "Are you able to communicate with friends and family back in France?" he asked.
She sighed. "I regret that I have no one left in France to communicate with. They are all dead."
"Then I'm very sorry." He held her some distance away and peered into her lovely face. "Your opinion of Napoleon?"
"The man, he is a beast."
A response that would no doubt appease her lover. Jack's glance leapt to Daphne, who was swirling around the room some twenty feet away from him. Good lord, he could see through her dress! The sight of those long legs was not something he wished other men to see. As he watched her smiling up at her partner--and watched the officer smiling back--Jack wondered how good of friends she was with the man. A slight twinge of jealousy strummed through him.
When he rejoined Daphne after the dance, she introduced him to her partner, a Lieutenant Cleveland, who promptly left them in order to dance with Annabelle Chalmers.
"Come," Daphne said, planting her hand upon Jack's arm, "allow me to introduce you to Lady Carlton."
A moment later he was being introduced to the lady, and a moment after that, he was actually dancing the quadrille with her, somewhat surprised that she was old enough to have grown children. He could see where a man like St. Ryse--a man who had no qualms about committing adultery--would have been attracted to her. Though there was no opportunity for private conversation, Jack was pleased that he had at least become acquainted with the regent's good "friend." If she was like other women, she would remember Jack. They always did.
Once that dance was finished, Daphne (herself no wallflower) dragged him across the room in order to acquaint him with Lady Hertford. That the regent's companion was matronly, Jack found rather astonishing. Even though the regent was no longer possessed of youth or of attractiveness, his lofty rank should be able secure any number of beautiful younger woman. The Duke of York seemed able to do so. Why not King George's heir?
Though Lady Hertford was no great beauty, she dressed most elegantly in a champagne-colored dress that dipped immodestly low at the bodice, then draped along the curves of her body without accentuating its lack of youthful form. Her hair was arranged in an attractive manner, her overall grooming was impeccable, and she smelled of roses. At once Jack could see why the regent appreciated Lady Hertford. They no doubt were in perfect agreement on matters of taste. If the regent had one clearly defined attribute, he was an aesthete. Jack, however, did not find such a passion an attribute.
When he returned to Daphne after dancing with Lady Hertford, Daphne said, "I must ask Papa to take you to the card room now."
He caught her hands. "Not yet. How would it look if I did not dance with the lady who has so singularly honored me?"
Daphne's head swirled to look behind her.
"I'm talking about you," he said through gritted teeth.
Those green eyes of hers--fine eyes, really, with long brown lashes--flashed with pleasure. "Oh yes, you're right. We do need to dance."
The orchestra began playing a waltz. He led her out some distance from the dance floor's perimeter and drew her into his arms. She stiffened. Which made him irrationally irritated. She hadn't stiffened when she danced with her lieutenant.
Jack could see that he would have to put her at ease. "You're very light on your feet, my lady." Every time he had been with Daphne, he had been aware of her peculiar scent but had not been able to place it. It was really quite a sweet fragrance.
"I'm actually very light. Period."
Now that he more or less held her in his arms he realized Daphne was delicately slim, which was much more appealing to him than a woman of Lady Hertford's girth. In fact, he had never been particularly attracted to buxom women. Not that he was attracted to Lady Daphne, of course. "Elegantly slender, I would say." He looked down into her now-smiling face, pleased that his comments had achieved the desired effect of relaxing her.
"You don't have to offer false praises, captain. No one's listening to us."
Even if someone would have tried, no one could have heard their private conversation over the strains of the orchestra music and the drone of conversations which filled the crowded ballroom.
"You should know me well enough by now to realize I don't offer false praises."
"Never?" she asked, looking up at him. The many-tiered chandeliers overhead reflected in her spectacles.
"Perhaps I did with the Comtesse de Mornet, but never with you."
"No one's ever called me elegant before."
"I didn't call you elegant. That would be a lie, though I believe you could be elegant with a little effort. I perceive that being elegant is not something you aspire to."
"Then you do understand me."
"As you are coming to understand me. And I meant it when I said you were elegantly slender. You must know, my lady, that many men prefer more . . . delicately built women."
She did not answer for a moment. "What about you, Captain? Are you enamored of women with large bosoms?"
He would bet a pony she was the only lady in the room who would discuss the unmentionable topic of women's breasts without so much as a blush.
His memory flitted back over the women in life. While it was true that most of the women with whom he'd had intimate relations were possessed of large bosom, the only woman he had ever formed an attachment to--Cynthia Wayland, whose father would not allow her to marry a second son--was exceedingly dainty with almost imperceptible breasts. "A woman does not have to be buxom to attract me."
Now Lady Daphne blushed.
"What about you, my lady? Are you attracted to the lieutenant?" Jack could not believe he had asked her such a question. Why in the hell was he seething with curiosity about the lieutenant's relationship with Lady Daphne? Remembering back to Almack's, he realized Lady Daphne gave the impression that she was comfortable with all the men who were her dance partners.
"What lieutenant?" she asked, then quickly answered her own question. "Oh, you must be asking about Lieutenant Cleveland! Of course I'm not attracted to him. He merely uses me in order to ingratiate himself with my sister Annabelle."
For some unaccountable reason, Jack was relieved to learn that.
When the dance was over, Daphne began to lead him to Lord Sidworth, who was seated at a whist table in the adjoining card room. Just inside the chamber, Daphne paused, her eye moving to a card table on the far side of the room. "There's Mr. St. Ryse."
He followed her glance. "Which one?"
"The youngest man at that table."
Since there was only one table without women on that side of the room and since the man's three partners were men well past sixty, Mr. St. Ryse's identity was assured. This was the man who was Lady Carlton's lover? He could not be a day over five and thirty.
"He's the only one who still has his hair," Daphne added in a whisper before she splayed her hand upon Jack's forearm and strode toward the table where her father was s
eated. "Papa, you must take Mr. Rich under your wing."
Jack frowned. He did not care to be likened to a fledgling.
Lord Sidworth set down his cards, backs up, and gazed up at Jack. "'Pon my word, you're in luck, Rich. Fielding was just looking for someone to replace him."
The man who sat beside Lord Sidworth agreed. "Allow me to finish this hand, then I shall depart. My wife's got the headache."
Before he took up his cards again, Lord Sidworth introduced Jack to his companions. "Mr. Rich is a very particular friend of my eldest daughter, if you understand my meaning."
Jack was grateful Daphne's father seemed proud of her betrothal to him. Even if he wasn't the learned, wealthy man Lord Sidworth thought him to be.
"Then you're a most fortunate man, Mr. Rich," Sidworth's elderly partner said. "Lady Daphne's an extraordinary girl."
Jack smiled. "Indeed she is."
A moment later Jack replaced the gentleman whose wife had the headache, and they played whist for the next hour. That he and his partner soundly beat Lord Sidworth bothered Jack. He certainly would not want to do anything that would upset Daphne's father.
Throughout the game he had watched St. Ryse. When he saw a man at that table begin to count his coins, Jack scooped up his own winnings, then got up. "I believe I'll take this opportunity to stretch my legs."
He strode toward St. Ryse's table, and when no one was watching, dropped a guinea on the Turkey carpet. Then he stopped and addressed St. Ryse. "Your money, sir?" He bent over, picked up the gold coin, and offered it to the man Daphne had identified as St. Ryse.
Mr. St. Ryse shrugged but held out his hand for the coin.
"Allow me to introduce myself," Jack said. "Jack Rich."
"I've heard of you," St. Ryse said. "It's all over town that you're pledged to Lady Daphne."
Jack smiled. Daphne's sisters could be counted upon to spread information more quickly and more broadly than any daily newspaper. "Unofficially."
St. Ryse introduced himself, then indicated the recently vacated seat. "Won't you play with us?"
"I do need a diversion." Jack sank into the padded chair. "Bloody bad form to win money from one's future father-in-law."
The other men chuckled. As their play progressed, Jack was pleased these men did not take their game so seriously that they did not speak of the government.
"Whip those Frenchies in a hurry if we had the blunt to feed a bigger army," muttered the gray-haired gentleman at Jack's right.
This was Jack's opportunity. "Daresay we'd have more blunt if the regent weren't so devilishly extravagant," Jack said.
St. Ryse jumped at the bait. "I've often thought Prinny has illusions of duplicating the Bourbon grandeur. He's awfully like Louis the Fourteenth."
"And look what happened to the Bourbons," Jack said.
St. Ryse winced. "Wouldn't like to see that happen to Prinny. There's something rather endearing about British Royalty, and I for one am happy our monarch is possessed of good taste."
Jack's glance flicked to St. Ryse's meticulous grooming. His charcoal-colored frock coat no doubt was fashioned by Weston himself, and Jack wouldn't be surprised if St. Ryse's valet hadn't spent an hour tying his cravat. Yes, Jack thought, like their regent, St. Ryse was a true aesthete. The man no doubt hung lavishly expensive Dutch and Flemish paintings on the walls of his mansion, and acquired Italian statuary and Gobelin's tapestries for amusement.
Jack had learned another thing about Lady Carlton's lover: St. Ryse did not dislike their ruler.
One suspect exonerated.
* * *
Daphne was very proud of herself for contriving to send her parents home in the Duke and Duchess of Lankersham's coach and her unmarried sisters home in Sir Ronald's coach so that she and Jack could be completely alone on the ride back to Sidworth House. Her mother had given her the most positively smug smile, which was as good as telling everyone she knew Daphne and Jack were going to be kissing in the coach during the ride.
Daphne was astonished that such a prospect did not repel her as such thoughts usually did. In fact, for a few seconds she allowed herself to wonder what it would be like to be kissed by Captain Sublime. Her previous experiences with men's mouths mashed against hers had been extremely repellant, but she thought a kiss from Jack might be a great deal more enjoyable.
As soon as her family carriage pulled away from Burnam House, Daphne said, "I'm dying to know if you learned anything from Mr. St. Ryse."
"He's not the one we're looking for."
She whirled at him. "How do you know?"
He narrated the conversation from the card room. "And," Jack concluded, "St. Ryse had no reason to suspect I was laying a trap for him. Besides, a man whose hatred was so profound that he wished to do murder would hardly be able to conceal such animosity. I do believe the man is genuinely fond of the regent."
"I believe you're right," she said with a sigh. "You can cross one suspect off your invisible list. I say invisible because I know you're averse to writing anything down."
"Let us, then, add to that invisible list."
"While I'm completely in favor of expanding that list, I can't share your opinion that the man we seek is the husband of one of the regent's mistresses. In fact, we can't even be at all sure the culprit is a man."
"Then that brings us back to Princess Caroline."
She nodded. "I can't imagine anyone hating the regent more than she."
"I agree, but it's not in her best interest to wish him dead. Does she not still hope to one day be queen?"
"I am told she does."
"Since you're not acquainted with her, I don't see how I can move into her circle."
Daphne smiled. The princess would no doubt salivate if she got a good look at Captain Sublime. "I think there might be a way," Daphne said.
Even in the carriage's darkness, she could discern the skeptical look on his face. "Enlighten me, please," he said.
"If Princess Caroline has hired someone to kill her estranged husband, she will not be satisfied until the deed is done. Therefore, she will be contacting her accomplice. We must see that she's watched at all times."
"We can hardly keep an eye on her day and night."
"Oh, yes we can."
His eyes narrowed. "How?"
"You, my handsome captain, are going to sweep her off her feet."
Chapter 7
Before Jack could protest, their carriage came to a jolting stop in front of Sidworth House.
"Come in, and we shall discuss my plan," Daphne said, lunging toward the coach door.
"Allow me to assist you," Jack said. Maddening woman.
He helped her from the coach just as Lord and Lady Sidworth were entering the house. "We can't have a private word when your parents are already here," he said in a low voice, beastly glad actually that he would not have to feign interest in Lady Daphne's ridiculous plan.
Daphne smiled up at him. "Leave everything to me."
A chilling thought, to be sure, given the lady's propensity to embellish the truth.
Inside Sidworth House, Daphne clutched his hand as she approached her parents, who were still staring at her with knowing amusement. "Mr. Rich and I have much to discuss. About our futures, you understand. We shall be in the saloon."
"I'll just send Annabelle along to keep you company," Lord Sidworth said.
"You'll do no such thing!" Daphne said. "I am a betrothed woman, and I vow my dearest Jack will not take liberties with my person until we are married." She gave him a winsome look.
Her confidence in no way assuaged Jack's embarrassment. Both her parents were staring at him as if the flap of his breeches gaped open. "Lady Daphne's virtue will be safe with me," he assured her parents.
Lady Sidworth's gaze bounced from Jack to Daphne and back to Jack again. "Well . . . since you've given your word . . ."
"Mama! I'm not a school girl! I'm four and twenty and on the threshold of marriage. Do be rational."
Muttering
apologies, Lord and Lady Sidworth began to climb the stairs as Daphne and Jack headed toward the saloon. Lit only by the fire in the grate and the single taper Daphne carried, the chamber was quite dark.
"I think I'm going to need a drink," Jack said, strolling to the room's liquor cabinet. He removed the glass stopper from a decanter of brandy and turned to her. "Brandy?"
"No, thank you. I shall need a clear head."
There was no telling what mischief Lady Daphne could get him into when she was possessed of a clear head. He poured the liquid into a snifter and came to sit beside her on the sofa that faced the fire. "What wickedness are you planning, Maiden of Evil?"
She giggled. "I've decided you must become Princess Caroline's lover."
He began to cough and spit out the brandy. Once he recovered, he glared at her. "I am not going to sleep with our future queen."
Daphne's brows scrunched together as she appeared to consider the matter. "Perhaps you won't actually have to sleep with her--if you're very clever."
He glared some more. "And how do you propose that I even meet the princess?"
"It so happens the lady uses my sisters' dressmaker, Mrs. Spence, on Conduit Street."
"And?"
"And you shall wait in front of that establishment until she arrives. I happen to know she will be coming for a fitting tomorrow because Cornelia mentioned it in passing."
He was coming to understand that there was only a fragile line delineating between Lady Daphne's considerable intelligence and her foolhardiness. "And how am I supposed to secure the lady's attention?"
"I have decided that you shall step on the hem of her gown as she is powering forward. It is my hope the dress will tear away, leaving you in a fit of remorse. At which time you will beg her to allow you to buy her a new one, and, of course, when she gets a look at you in your uniform she will nearly swoon over your handsomeness."
"Wait just a minute! You're proposing I practically disrobe the princess?"
"I assure you, she won't mind. The woman adores showing her skin--and much more."