by Jo Beverley
“I agree,” Nicholas said. “That’s why I asked Ruyuan to help you.”
“And I thank you.” As they walked on into the street Dare asked, “Do you practice his religion?”
“It’s not precisely a religion, but a path.”
“Tao-jia,” Dare said.
“To take life as it comes.”
“It sometimes comes damn unpleasantly.”
“But sometimes we invite the pain. Why did you come to London?”
“You think I shouldn’t have?”
“I think,” said Nicholas, “that you were placing rocks in the stream and thus creating turbulence. I don’t see that as a bad idea. But then, I am too much a part of my world to be a dedicated Taoist.”
Dare thought about his motives as they walked. He’d like to think he flowed like water, but he felt more as if he drifted like a ghost. A ghoul, trapped in Castle Cruel.
“I was stuck,” he said at last. “I couldn’t make progress and I couldn’t make the final break. I hoped that different places and experiences would move me to a new point.”
“It seems to be working then.”
That startled Dare into laughter. “I suppose I hoped the point would be a little less sharp.”
“They rarely are. Now I really do have business. I’ll see you at Francis’s tonight?”
The gathering of Rogues held too many possibilities of disaster, but Dare knew he had to attend. “Yes, of course.”
“I assume I’ll meet Lady Mara. I can’t wait.”
Dare walked back to Yeovil House thinking he should find a way to warn Mara. But about what?
Chapter 20
A lighthearted visit to a dressmaker with three friends should have been a perfect distraction, but it wasn’t working.
Mara was trapped in a whirl far madder than she’d ever known and could finally understand why lovers behaved so insanely. She would haunt Dare, pursue him, sing serenades beneath his window. She understood poor Berkstead better now.
“Mara, are you all right?” Jancy asked.
She’d been sitting in silence for far too long. “Yes, of course. I’m sorry. I…I didn’t sleep well last night.”
Jancy smiled understanding, but all she understood was the strain of the secret betrothal.
Mara made herself take part in the discussions, though fashion seemed irrelevant. Who cared about the fullness of a sleeve or the cut of a bodice? Who cared about Circassian cloth as opposed to Manchurian? But she had a job to do today—to chivvy Jancy into ordering the finest gowns.
She wasn’t needed. Having purchased the silk Jancy didn’t balk at the cost of having it made up and settled to an earnest and knowledgeable discussion with the mantua-maker. Mara twiddled her thumbs, wishing she’d not come.
She and Dare might have been alone in Yeovil House.
Anything could have happened.
Also, she would have had opportunity to visit Mr. Feng to ask him about opium. Instead, she was stuck here amid fussing about flounces and fringing, satin and sarcenet and was soon going to embarrass herself by screaming.
At last all the decisions were made and they could leave, but now the other ladies wanted to stroll to nearby Bond Street and investigate more shops. At least talk turned from clothes to the dinner tonight.
“Nicholas has arrived,” Serena said. “So we’ll be sixteen.”
That caught Mara’s attention. “Who else besides Nicholas and Eleanor, you and Francis, Laura and Stephen and Jancy and Simon?”
“You and Dare,” Serena said.
Of course she’d not meant that as a couple, but Mara looked down to fuss with her spencer to hide a blush of delight. “That’s only ten,” she said.
“Miles and Felicity Cavanagh have arrived,” Serena said, “and Lord and Lady Charrington are in Town. I’ve invited Saint Raven and his wife as well.”
Not long ago that would have stabbed Mara with envy, but now it didn’t ruffle her at all. You and Dare. And it was truer than Serena knew.
“So who won’t be there?” she asked. “Lord Arden, Lord Amleigh…”
“And Hal,” Serena said. “Blanche is performing, and he never misses one.”
They paused by a jeweler’s window to inspect and discuss the items on display. Mara had an idea. She went inside, the others following. A young man hurried forward, eyes bright at the sight of obviously rich customers.
“I only want beads today,” Mara warned him. “Do you have beads of stones, like jasper, jade, and quartz?”
Clearly he’d hoped for purchases of rubies, but he asked about size and cheerfully produced trays with containers of different colored beads.
“You wish to have a necklace strung, ma’am?”
“Something like that.” Mara studied the many colors and textures. Some she recognized, some she didn’t. She asked for names, pointing.
“White jade,” the clerk said. “Malachite, obsidian, rose quartz, clear quartz, amber, garnet, blue agate, amethyst, lapis lazuli, red jasper, coral, bloodstone…”
Mara began to pick one each out of different sections, simply choosing colors and textures that appealed to her.
“What are you doing?” Jancy asked. “That will make a peculiar necklace.”
“I’m going to collect a string of Rogues. Yes,” she told the clerk, “I will need a string.”
He summoned an assistant to bring it.
“I’ll put on beads in the order I met the Rogues,” Mara said, but realized that would put Simon and Dare at one end. “From each end,” she added.
When the string arrived, she picked a dark red bead first. “For Simon. This is garnet, I assume.”
The clerk agreed.
Mara wished she had more time to think about Dare, but let instinct be her guide. She chose a creamy gold bead.
“Topaz, ma’am.”
Mara slid it onto the string. “Now Hal, Francis, and Stephen.” She chose the greenish-red bloodstone for the soldier, then turned to her companions. “You should choose for your husbands.”
“Oh, no,” Serena said. “It’s your image of them that counts. I wouldn’t have chosen topaz for Dare. But then I didn’t know him before Waterloo.”
Mara turned back to the tray, thinking how strange that was—that people might think the present Dare was the real one. But then what was reality? They’d talked about that in the coach.
She picked a green-flecked brown.
“Jasper, ma’am.”
“That’s for Francis,” Mara said, “and this blue for Stephen.”
“Blue agate, ma’am.”
She put them on either side of the three beads. “How do I choose for the rest, though? I haven’t met them yet.”
“Then you wait,” Laura said.
Mara grimaced. “I’m not good at waiting, but I suppose I must.” She chose an assortment of about twenty stones. “There have to be six there that suit.” But then she said, “There were twelve Rogues originally.”
“Two are beyond earthly contact, alas,” Serena said.
“Roger Merrihew and Allan Ingram,” Mara said. “They should be represented.” Mara looked automatically at the jet beads, so suitable for mourning, but then shook her head. “Pearls,” she told the clerk. “I want two pearls of the same size. And I’ll put them in the very middle.”
“Mara,” Jancy murmured. “The cost.”
“It’s the right thing.”
“I never knew them,” Laura said, “but Stephen speaks of them. It’s terrible that so many men died so young because of Napoleon.”
Laura said, “When the Rogues heard of the casualties at Waterloo, and of course they thought Dare one of them, Nicholas proposed a toast. Francis wrote it down and had it carved on a plaque in our church at Middlethorpe in memory of all the victims of the war. ‘To all the fallen, may they be young forever in heaven. To all the wounded, may they have strength and heal. To all the bereaved, may they feel joy again. And we pray God, may there one day be an end to war.’”
Mara watched the clerk put her purchases into silk pouches.
Amen, she thought. But the true end of the war for us all will be when Dare is fully healed.
On returning to the house, Mara sent a footman to ask if she could speak with Mr. Feng, but the man returned to say the Chinese man was not available. Instead, Mara took a nap—a strange enough event to put Ruth in a fret again.
It meant that she arrived at Lord Middlethorpe’s Hertford Street house that evening with her wits sharp, but her emotions were a mess. Once she would have been innocently thrilled at the prospect of a gathering of Rogues, but that seemed of no importance now.
She’d promised Simon she wouldn’t make the commitment public until she and Dare had spoken to her father. Dare didn’t want it known until he was free of opium. She wasn’t sure she could conceal her feelings for a moment.
As they entered the house, Dare seemed at ease, but she knew he wasn’t. It was frightening how strongly she felt his shielded emotions. She wanted to take his hand, but had to content herself with being his acknowledged partner at this gathering of couples.
She was introduced to Miles and Felicity Cavanagh, an Irish couple, and to Lord and Lady Charrington.
Miles and Felicity were jolly and Mara took to them immediately. He was the sandy-haired sort of Irish and she the type called Black Irish because of their dark hair. It was said to be an inheritance of the crews of the Armada wrecked on Ireland’s shores.
The Charringtons were another matter. The sleek dark-haired man was Leander, but Mara wasn’t sure she would ever be able to use his Christian name. She remembered Simon talking of him as the perpetual diplomat and ‘’foreign”—neither of which were admired traits in a schoolboy. He still was both smooth and foreign in ways she couldn’t pin down. She felt an alarming temptation to dip a curtsy.
His plump wife didn’t have that effect, but she was a surprise as well. Lady Charrington had been the widow of the famous poet, Sebastian Rossiter, and thus his “angel bride.” “How sweet the sight of dainty wife,/ Light-footing through the gloaming./ A fairy trembling on the air,/ My Judith gone aroaming.”
Dainty? Fairy? Rosy-cheeked Judith reminded Mara of practical country ladies like her mother. Ah, well, she never had understood poetic metaphor.
The rakish Duke of St. Raven’s wife was another surprise. Cressida St. Raven was a composed young woman with steady gray eyes who looked like a reforming influence, but St. Raven didn’t strike Mara as tamed.
Then she met King Rogue. Despite appropriate evening clothes, Nicholas Delaney managed to look casually dressed, but there was nothing casual about his sherry brown eyes.
“The famous Lady Mara,” he said.
“Famous?” Mara asked, prickling.
“You have the hair.”
She touched it nervously and then wished she hadn’t. “A blessing and a curse.” Seeking deflection, she asked, “Your wife isn’t with you, Mr. Delaney?”
“That depends on how precisely you mean ‘with.’ She’s upstairs feeding the baby.”
Babies made a safe subject. “How old, and boy or girl?”
“Two months, a boy—Francis—and he should be at home. London is dirty, both physically and psychically, but Hal and Blanche need help.”
And Dare? Before Mara could decide whether she wanted to talk about Dare with this man, Lord Middlethorpe interrupted. “Mara, I have a complaint to make.”
She turned to him, increasingly nervous. “What have I done?”
“I gather you’re choosing beads for us all, and I am boring jasper.”
Despite the humor in his eyes, she squirmed. She’d picked it because he seemed so steady. “I could choose something else….”
“Don’t indulge him,” Nicholas said. “But now you have to tell me what stone I am.”
“I haven’t had time to decide.” Wishing she’d never started this fancy, Mara turned to Stephen. “I chose a blue agate for you, sir. I hope that doesn’t disappoint.”
“I think it’s perfect,” Laura said.
Her husband smiled at her. “Then I’ll commission a necklace of it for you.”
“How fortunate Mara didn’t choose a sapphire,” Nicholas remarked. “Have you decided on any more?” he asked her.
“Simon is a garnet, and Dare a topaz.” She avoided looking at Dare by turning to the easygoing Irishman. “Would it be too trite to designate green jade for you, Miles?”
“Trite or not, I’m ever proud to be Irish!”
“And me?” asked Lord Charrington.
Mara thought quickly, surprised by how much she was disliking being the center of attention. “Malachite.”
He laughed. “An excellent choice. The Tsar gave my father a table made out of a slab of the stuff. It’s a great honor. Russian nobles value the status of such gifts more than gold.”
“What bead for a duke?” St. Raven asked.
But Nicholas said, “Rogues only. Twelve we are, and twelve we shall remain.”
“Except, by marriage. Wives are full Rogues, remember.” The speaker was an auburn-haired woman, who came over to take Nicholas’s arm.
He smiled a ready welcome at her. “I grant you that.”
The connection between the two was palpable and somehow both powerful and gentle. Mara felt more kindly toward Nicholas.
“Entry only by marriage?” St. Raven looked sorrowfully at his wife. “It’ll have to be divorce, my dear.”
Cressida St. Raven smiled. “I am not a-tremble, sir. Whom could you marry to gain entre´e?”
The duke flashed a grin. “Dare.” He fluttered his dark lashes. “Could I pass as a woman, do you think?” He strolled up to Dare and laid fingers on his arm.
“Be mine, my lord, be mine. You bring such a precious dowry.”
Dare slapped his fingers away playfully. “Too precious for the likes of you, you strumpet. I’m open to legal offers, however,” he said to the room. “Let the auction begin.”
Everyone laughed, but Nicholas pointed out, “Only Mara’s in a true position to bid.”
Everyone looked at her. Mara knew she was blushing fiercely, but the only thing to do was act along. She looked Dare up and down as if assessing his value, then circled him thoughtfully. “Entry to this select association is, I grant, of value. I bid”—she let the silence hang—“a farthing. Going, going, gone!”
Everyone laughed again.
“Alas to be valued so low,” Dare complained, but his eyes said something else, something connected to love and kisses that deprived Mara of wits and speech.
Thank heavens Miles Cavanagh broke the moment. “That’s the trouble with going to auction at the wrong market, Dare. Always make sure there’ll be competing bidders, even if you have to provide them yourself.”
“Then bring in some maids,” Dare commanded.
“Or hold the auction again at Almack’s,” Francis suggested.
Mara took Dare’s arm in a possessive way. “A deal is a deal. Isn’t it, Mr. Cavanagh?”
The ladies applauded, and a grinning Miles said, “It is, indeed. You’re bought and done for, Dare.”
“For now, at least,” Mara said, finally enjoying herself. “After all, a lady can always change her mind.”
Dare sighed. “I’m devastated. Even at a farthing you think I might be overpriced?”
“There are certainly horses like that,” Mara said. “Aren’t there, Mr. Cavanagh?”
“No more of this Mr. Cavanagh, Mara, but you’re right. Ask Francis about Banshee.”
Lord Middlethorpe gave a smiling grimace and told a story of ill-formed but speedy horse he’d purchased from Miles in order to trick Serena’s brothers and get her jewelry back. Dinner was announced and he finished the story as they sat.
“Couldn’t walk for a week,” he said, but smiled at Serena by his side. “Worth every ache and pain.”
Talk became general, and Dare said, “Couldn’t you at least have set my value at sixpence?”
&nbs
p; “But it is above rubies.”
Their eyes locked and Mara wondered if they might kiss, but then they had to concentrate on soup. Mara listened to lively conversation, appreciating the relaxed friendship around her. The Rogues were not alike, but they behaved like the best sort of family—loving and accepting. Stephen and Leander even got into a political argument about Austrian policies without disrupting harmony.
At the same time Mara noticed how little Dare spoke, and how lightly he ate. A stranger would detect nothing amiss, but she did, and she was sure the Rogues were as aware and as protectively concerned. She also recognized what a burden this put upon him.
They all needed him to be healed, which meant to be the person he’d been before Waterloo, but it was like expecting him to be a performing monkey. Or expecting a corpse to revive.
She realized she’d hardly touched her food and ate before her plate was taken away and the next course put on the table.
Discussion of Hal and Blanche’s situation held off until the meal was finished and the servants dismissed. Port and Madeira circulated along with nuts and small cakes, and Nicholas said, “I give over rule of this meeting to Labellelle.”
Laura smiled at him. “Matters of acceptance in society are women’s work, yes, and I’m the one with the most experience. The first foray will take place at Almack’s on Wednesday.”
“They’ll never let Blanche in,” St. Raven objected. “Not even under an armed escort of Rogues.”
“Of course not,” Laura said, “and she has no interest in attending. But it will be the perfect place to introduce the subject.”
“In what way?” St. Raven was clearly skeptical.
Nicholas answered. “Those present can make it an assumption that Mrs. Hal Beaumont is part of the ton, and that many people of significance would be offended if she were offered any insult.”