by Gaelen Foley
There was one clubman called Bligh, who clearly belonged in an asylum, judging by his obsessive mutterings to himself. Even the other fellows gave him a wide berth.
Jordan had blanched and kept a wary eye on Bligh from the moment he had realized the unstable fellow had brought two pistols with him, right there in the Regent’s presence. This was not a comfortable state of affairs for the Realm.
Prinny did not appear in the least concerned about his batty friend’s Mantons, but Jordan had to restrain himself from leaping over the table to carry out a weapon disarm.
Most of the rest seemed harmless—though not to pretty young girls from the lower orders. Or boys. It was difficult to say. His gaze moved on. His Royal Highness might have an expert eye in choosing art, but with all the world at his fingertips, he had some rather strange taste in friends. Never had Jordan dined with such an exotic collection of giddy eccentrics.
The beaming boy, Golden Ball, kept bouncing about asking endless questions, blithely interrupting the literary man of the lot, Scrope Davies, who waxed poetic after each gulp of Scotch. Lord Yarmouth uttered shockingly lewd remarks about various ladies of the ton and what he’d like to do to them, scandalizing Lord Petersham, who lisped a comment of disapproval before pulling out his snuffbox to take a ritualistic pinch. Rumor had it Petersham owned a different snuffbox for every day of the year.
No one mentioned Beau Brummell, now exiled from the Regent’s presence. He had ceased to exist. But his dwindling influence could still be noted in the great care all the dandies still lavished on their dress. Jordan wondered if His Highness ever missed his former friend and sartorial advisor, but he appeared content, holding court like a great, ruddy lump at the end of the table.
At his elbow was the even larger Lord Alvanley, with his nonstop witticisms—a great, fat, hilarious giant—currently making sport of the Honorable “Poodle” Byng for bringing his dog to the club.
“But he’s good luck!” the doting pet owner protested as he fed his pampered poodle a bit of Chef Labourie’s duck à l’orange.
Meanwhile, across the table, Colonel Hanger was making a private side wager with Lord Barrymore, known as Hell-gate, on how long it might take the old “Drunken Duke” of Norfolk to fall out of his chair and pass out on the floor. His Grace already looked well on his way there.
All things considered, Albert seemed to be the most normal person there, aside from Jordan.
He seemed as perplexed by the rest of them as Jordan was. When Albert stepped out on the balcony to smoke a cheroot, Jordan saw it was the perfect time to approach his target.
“You have some skill at macao, Holyfield,” Jordan congratulated as he approached, remembering how much Albert had enjoyed the earlier praise.
“Hmm, yes, thank you. I am not without my little accomplishments,” he admitted, looking quite charmed with himself.
He was considered a handsome fellow by the ladies of the ton, and that, even before he’d got the dukedom.
Albert turned to look Jordan up and down. “Falconridge, is it?”
“Yes, Your Grace,” he answered with a bow, but a wary sneer flicked over Alby’s smooth countenance.
“Aren’t you Rotherstone’s friend?”
“We are club mates,” Jordan allowed, well aware that Max and Alby, born on neighboring estates, had despised each other from boyhood.
And then there was their whole rivalry over Daphne.
“But I’ve seen you around Town with him,” he persisted. “In Society.”
“Not lately, I should think,” Jordan said with a long-suffering look.
“Really?” Now he had Albert’s full attention. “How unfortunate. Did you boys have a falling-out?” he asked as a gloating smile spread across his face.
“Well, not exactly.” Jordan paused and looked askance at him. “Let’s just say there are some men who are changed by marriage.”
Albert stared at him eagerly. “How’s that?”
“Well, you didn’t hear it from me, Holyfield,” he lied in a low tone, “but that bride of his keeps poor Max on a very short leash.”
His eyes flared with glee. “You don’t say.”
“I fear he endures a considerable amount of nagging.”
“My God! Daphne is a shrew? How delicious,” Alby murmured. “I never would have thought.”
“Women change with marriage, too, sometimes,” he said sagely. “The most charming coquette can become a very harpy once the ring is on that finger.”
Alby shook his head, savoring Jordan’s revelations. “I am astounded. And yet, strangely pleased.”
“Didn’t you used to court her once? Daphne—I mean—Lady Rotherstone?”
Albert’s short laugh was part wince, part sneer. “That was ages ago. But fortunately, I lost interest and abandoned the notion. She was not my type.”
Ha.
“Well, from what I see, you are lucky to have been rejected.”
The reminder of his defeat persuaded Albert to drop the subject of Lord and Lady Rotherstone altogether.
Meanwhile, Jordan could imagine his best friend’s indignation if Max could’ve heard him describe the Divine Daphne as a shrew.
He suppressed a smile, recalling that he owed his team leader a report when he got home. Max had written to him yesterday, updating him on the progress Drake was making thanks to the influence of some mysterious servant girl called Emily.
Albert, meanwhile, had looked away, exhaling smoke from his cheroot while the night wind tousled his sculpted blond locks.
No doubt he had worn curl-papers for hours before coming out, the coxcomb. No man’s hair should look that good. His next words, however, dissolved Jordan’s mocking mood. “I hear you have made quite a conquest of Lady Pierson, Falconridge.”
He sent him a sharp but guarded look askance. “On the contrary, it is Her Ladyship who has conquered me.”
Albert snorted, taking his smooth-toned comment for idle gallantry.
Which was just as well.
Jordan hated feigning a cavalier attitude about Mara, but was not about to draw the attention of a suspected Promethean toward her. “One must amuse oneself somehow in this life, eh, Holyfield?” he tossed out.
Albert shrugged and bestowed his highest praise: “She dresses well.”
“Indeed,” he murmured, though he preferred her out of those fine Bond Street gowns she liked to wear.
“Doesn’t it bother you, though—” Alby turned to him, “how she’s always nattering on about that brat of hers? ’Sblood, the woman thinks her son is God’s gift to the world! It annoys me to no end.”
Jordan laughed softly. “I suppose she does. But you know, just because a woman talks, a man doesn’t have to listen.”
“True! And if there are benefits to be gained by pretending interest…”
“Precisely.” Jordan held up his shot glass of whiskey to the lady, wherever she was, then sent it down the hatch.
Albert was regarding him with some amusement, a degree of cautious interest. “Will you be escorting Mara to the ball at Carlton House next week? You know, the unofficial celebration for Princess Charlotte’s engagement.”
“Yes, I will have that honor,” he declared without concern. “Why do you ask?”
“There will be cards that night at the ball. I saw how well you were doing with Yarmouth.” He glanced toward the eating room, then looked again at Jordan slyly. “Since we both seem to know what we’re doing at the tables, perhaps we should partner at whist that night and give the others a thumping.”
Jordan flashed a smile. “I like the way you think, Holyfield. That sounds very profitable.”
“Excellent.” Albert drew himself up and gave Jordan a princely nod. “We’ll clean ’em out, then. I’m glad you’ve joined us, Falconridge. At least you’re a vast improvement over Rotherstone. He never really fit in with our set. But you might.”
“Why, thank you, Duke.” Jordan bowed, not trusting himself to say another word.
> Albert lifted his chin and took leave of him with a haughty nod. Nose in the air, the duke sauntered off to rejoin the only man in the room he seemed to think truly worthy of him: the Regent.
Jordan eyed his retreating back with jaundiced humor. In all, a good night’s work.
“Doesn’t she look absolutely beautiful?” Mara exclaimed, watching Princess Charlotte and Prince Leopold greeting their guests in a receiving line that seemed to stretch for miles through the doors of Carlton House and beyond. “How proud you must be of your little girl, all grown-up,” she said to the Regent, misty-eyed. “Look at the two of them together. They’re adorable!”
“I suppose,” the Regent murmured, though his eyes twinkled with fatherly pride.
“Oh, look at how he dotes on her.”
The second that the chubby, slightly awkward Princess Charlotte dropped her fan, Prince Leopold rushed to pick it up for her and presented it reverently to his betrothed.
Mara sighed at their sweetness, so young and innocent. “Anyone can see they are in love. The prince can’t take his eyes off her, and she is absolutely beaming.”
The large royal looked askance at her. “So are you, my dear.”
“Am I?” Mara turned to him with a deep blush and an irrepressible smile.
He lifted an eyebrow knowingly. “Just be careful with him. That is all I’ll say. You know how protective I am of you and Thomas. If he hurts either one of you, I will throw him in the Tower.”
“I’m sure that won’t be necessary. He is the soul of honor,” she declared. “We are thoroughly happy.” She glanced toward the card room, where Jordan was engaged in whist, but beside her, His Royal Highness let out a disgruntled sigh.
“My God, the place is full of people in love. I can hardly stand it,” he muttered wryly, but a wistfulness came into his eyes.
Mara wondered if he was thinking about his own first love—another widow—the unfortunate Mrs. Fitzherbert. He had been forbidden to marry her because she was a Catholic.
But he shrugged off sentimentality. “Enjoy, my dear,” he advised with a smile as he left her company and went to mingle among his countless guests.
Mara watched the aging prince return to his hosting duties with a sadness to think that, for all the power and immeasurable wealth His Royal Highness controlled, he had been deprived of that treasure free to the lowliest peasant: love.
She looked up at the Gerrit Dou, now hanging over the mantel in the Blue Velvet Room, where it had claimed pride of place. Even the painting, dark as it was in the Dutch style, bespoke a man’s love for a woman. Some elderly merchant had commissioned the portrait of his equally aged wife. What shone through was not the fresh-faced prettiness of a bride-to-be like Princess Charlotte, but the wizened beauty of an old woman’s face, deeply lined, her looks long faded, but in her calm eyes, the inward light of love that had already lasted a lifetime.
Feeling herself growing foolishly misty-eyed once more with the drift of her thoughts, Mara shook herself, then went over to peek into the great drawing room where many four-man card tables were set up.
Here the noise of the ball gave way to the hush of the players’ concentration. Mara fought a smile, seeing Jordan partnered with the insufferable Alby, duke of the dandies. Why, her cher ami must be a clever cardplayer, indeed, if the haughty Holyfield had condescended to pair with him at whist. Even as a second son, Alby had not been one to waste his time on losers. He did not even speak to men who bought their boots from the wrong maker, or, horrors—could not get in at White’s.
The Earl of Falconridge, however, lived up to Alby’s standards with ease, she mused, staring hungrily at her lover. His black and white formal clothes were simply masculine perfection. But that was Jordan for you.
As though he could feel her gaze perusing him, he looked over slowly toward the doorway and spotted her.
He sent her a smoldering smile from across the room, and Mara blushed, her heart skipping a beat as their eyes locked, a burst of gooseflesh tickling across her skin.
Oh, my. His plans for her that night were visible in his eyes’ banked fire. Mara swallowed hard, her blush deepening.
Heavens, all she could seem to do was blush these days, and laugh at nothing, and hum inane tunes. Delilah had grown quite fed up with her.
She returned his smile in patient anticipation but did not begrudge him his card game. She’d have him all to herself later.
She sent him a little parting smile and tore herself away. Waving her fan to help cool her blood, she suddenly saw poor Cole, alone and brooding, leaning on the balcony that overlooked the Octagon below.
Mara followed his gaze, then winced with sympathy to see that he was watching Delilah throw herself at a mustachioed captain of the Blues.
Blast it, why is she being such a fool? But she already knew the answer. Cole knew it, too, but he certainly looked like he was running out of patience.
Mara set aside her preoccupation with a certain earl and went over to offer him some sympathy—and encouragement.
“Don’t give up on her yet,” she said softly, joining him at the railing.
“Why not?” he grumbled. “I’m a fool not to, the hussy. She is deliberately tormenting me!”
“Yes, but, in her own odd way, the hussy loves you,” she said archly. “Believe me, she’s just scared.”
He turned to her with a look of abject misery. “Will you talk to her for me?”
Mara lifted her eyebrows. “I’m really not sure I ought to interfere.”
“At least get her away from that blackguard, whoever he is! Please?” he added, looking so desperate that Mara smiled ruefully.
“That I can do.” She patted Cole on the back as she moved past him, then she headed downstairs to try to talk her friend out of chasing her own destruction, or at least, to pry Delilah off the handsome officer.
At the victorious conclusion of their card game, Jordan rose and shook hands with Albert and their defeated opponents.
Even as they gave up their table to the next quartet of players, Albert was already gloating. “Well played, Falconridge! I’d say we did quite well for ourselves.”
“Thanks to your skill, Holyfield,” Jordan said without a trace of irony in his voice. “It was your play that carried the game.”
“Maybe so, but you didn’t make any major mistakes yourself.”
“You are too kind.”
Albert gave him a gratified nod, dismissing him, it seemed, then he went swaggering off into the crowd. Jordan gazed after him, wondering how Max had ever endured growing up next door to him. He had never met a greater jackass in his life.
In truth, he was surprised they had won, for once more, he had spent the game uncharacteristically distracted. All he wanted to do was be with Mara.
His mouth watered at the thought of her in the plunging rose-colored ball gown that skimmed her curves, and the sultry heat that had warmed her dark eyes when she had smiled at him from the doorway.
Beyond an appreciative gaze, he had not chanced any outward sign of his passion for her. Not with his target sitting across from him at the card table. After all, he had told Albert that his interest in her was merely sexual.
This was for Mara’s own safety, and Albert, a thorough cynic, was quick to believe it. But Jordan was well aware that the ploy could explode in his face if such words ever got back to her. Where the devil is she, anyway?
On his way out of the card room to look for her, he paused before the Regent, who came sauntering in just then, his ruddy cheeks aglow. “Falconridge.”
Jordan acknowledged His Royal Highness with a courteous bow. “Sir.”
The Regent apparently noticed his restless glance.
“Looking for someone?” he drawled, succumbing to a wry half smile. “She went that way.” He nodded over his shoulder.
“Thank you, sir.”
“Hmm.” Eyeing him skeptically, Prinny moved on and was again surrounded by his guests.
Jordan went out
to the balcony, nodded to Cole, and braced his hands on the railing, scanning the vast, airy space of the Octagon below, where the dancing would soon begin. There she is. A smile curved his lips as his gaze homed in on Mara. She was talking to Delilah.
He pushed away from the balcony to go to her, but on his way down the Grand Staircase, he glimpsed Albert from the corner of his eye. Jordan paused, registering some unknown, furtive mischief in the oh-so-casual way the duke was strolling along the wall below.
Albert enjoyed being the center of attention too much to stick close to the wall unless he was up to something. Where’s he going?
Jordan knew better than to let the duke out of his sight. So, rather than going to see his lady, he followed his target, instead.
Some yards ahead, Albert nonchalantly took a glass of champagne off the tray of a footman and lifted a small painted cake off a table of sweets as he strolled past. Nibbling the one and sipping from the other, he pressed on, but Jordan sensed a calculated purpose behind the dandy’s careless drifting.
As Jordan trailed him, he knew he was seeing Carlton House as it was meant to be seen, by the brilliance of its glittering chandeliers, a thousand bejeweled guests thronging its dazzling staterooms, gilded halls, and gleaming corridors.
The nude marble statues watched an endless parade of Europe’s rich and titled arriving in their best finery, the men in their elegant evening uniform of black tail coats and starchy white cravats like his own, the ladies blooming in every imaginable color, like the royal botanical collection at Kew.
Keeping Albert in sight, he heard snippets of conversation as he weaved among the crowd.
“The wedding will take place soon.”
“On the second of May, isn’t it?”
“Yes, at Westminster?”
“No, they’re having it right here at Carlton House.”
“Really?”
“It’s to be a very small and private affair, mostly just the family, according to His Royal Highness. He thinks they’re going to have it in the Crimson State Room.”