Much Ado About Jack

by Christy English

  “You are a damn fool,” Pembroke said.

  “Is that so?” James leaned back in his chair, satisfied. “It seems that I have discovered where Angelique Beauchamp will be this evening. I fail to see what’s foolish about that.”

  “You’re a fool because that’s her ex-lover, the Earl of Ravensbrook.”

  “The man who saved your life twice at Waterloo?”

  “And a hundred times before that.”

  James craned his neck to see if he could find the man in the room, but Ravensbrook had already left. “I wish I’d known,” James said. “I would have thanked him.”

  “For telling you where to find Angelique?”

  “For saving your hide.”

  Pembroke drank deep, as he did anytime anyone said anything remotely truthful or kind.

  “Do you think he’ll shoot me?” James asked.

  “He might. He loves his wife, no doubt of that, but he just might shoot you.”

  “For making love to his mistress?”

  “Ex-mistress. No. For asking about her in a public place.”

  “Hmmm,” James said. “I’m not brilliant with a pistol. If he calls me out, it’ll have to be rapiers.”

  “Oh, Anthony won’t call you out,” Pembroke said. “He’ll just shoot you in the street like a dog.”

  James laughed and downed the last of his whisky. “I look forward to it.”

  James Montgomery forgot about Ravensbrook then. He couldn’t care less how many lovers Angelique Beauchamp had, or who they were. He only cared that the next man in her bed would be him.

  Three

  Angelique stood in front of her full-length mirror as she dressed for the Duchess of Claremore’s ball. Lisette fussed with one errant curl that refused to lie in submission along her neck. Only a few tendrils fell against Angelique’s throat to frame her face and to lead a man’s gaze downward to her deep décolletage.

  She wore the gown that had been delivered from the dressmaker’s just that morning. Instead of her usual shade of midnight blue to match the indigo of her eyes, Angelique dressed in a clear sapphire that made her eyes seem to sparkle even when she was not smiling. She wore the set of diamonds and pearls Anthony had given her the first year they were together. So much time had passed that no one save he and a few old dowagers, and perhaps Prinny himself, would remember.

  “Zut alors, Madame la Comtesse, je ne comprends pas le beau monde à London.”

  “English, please, Lisette. The war is barely over. I do not want someone spreading lies about you, saying that I harbor a French spy in my household.”

  Angelique had rescued the girl when she was on the Continent years before, meeting Anthony between battles for the supremacy of Europe. She had celebrated with the victorious allies in Paris during the heady days before Napoleon had escaped from Elba. She had returned to London as soon as hostilities began again in earnest, at Anthony’s insistence, and she had taken Lisette with her.

  After years in London, the girl was still as thin as a whippet, not a spare ounce of flesh on her bones. Her piercing green eyes were as cynical as her politics, for she loved nothing in the world save for Angelique and her lost emperor.

  “Madame la Comtesse,” Lisette began.

  Angelique raised one curved eyebrow, and Lisette caught sight of its reflection in the silvered looking glass. She tried again, her voice still thick with the shadow of France. “My Lady Devonshire,” she said. “I do not understand the paranoia of the ruling class of the British aristocracy. They have won the war. What do they care what a maid says in the privacy of your boudoir?”

  Angelique smiled, taking a seat in an armchair upholstered in watered silk, inclining her head so that Lisette could weave a rope of diamonds through the darkness of her curls. “I do not know why, Lisette. I know only that they do.”

  “Vive l’empereur,” Lisette muttered under her breath.

  Angelique caught the girl’s eye in the looking glass, and Lisette fell silent for the length of a breath, obediently arranging her mistress’s hair. But when Lisette saw her mistress’s lips quirk in a smile, she began to hum “La Marseillaise.”

  ***

  At the Duchess of Claremore’s ball, Angelique went straight to the font of all gossip, Anthony’s aunt, Lady Westwood.

  “My lady,” Angelique said, offering a curtsy, her inherent grace making the older woman smile. “I am happy to see you here.”

  “And I, you, my dear. No need for such formality between us. We’ve been allies far too long for that.”

  “It gives me pleasure to show you respect,” Angelique said.

  “You outrank me, my dear.”

  “No one outranks you, Lady Westwood.”

  Her old friend took her hand and squeezed it. “It seems Arabella Hawthorne needs our help.”

  “The rumor about her taking a lover is absurd,” Angelique said.

  “Of course it is. That is why it makes such a lovely on-dit. Fortunately, this rumor has not caught fire yet, though someone has been spreading it assiduously. I will call on my friends in the old guard. We’ll put a stop to that nonsense.”

  Angelique smiled, relief coursing through her. She had not realized how worried she was for Arabella until Lady Westwood offered her a remedy. If the old cats of the ton joined in full support of Arabella, no one would stand in their way.

  Two more unlikely friends could not be found in the London ton. Arabella, a quiet, biddable woman who had married the Duke of Hawthorne in secret over ten years before, left her town house only to go to church. Angelique, on the other hand, traveled as she pleased and slept with any man who caught her fancy. She and Arabella were nothing alike, which was why their friendship flourished. The idea that sweet, almost silent Arabella had ever been unfaithful to her husband was ridiculous.

  Arabella was a kind woman, at the end of a hideous marriage. She did not deserve to have her reputation shredded on the eve of her freedom.

  Angelique, a widow for more than ten years, knew just how sweet that freedom was.

  Satisfied that all was well in regards to Arabella, Angelique left Lady Westwood’s side and caught the eye of her last lover from across the ballroom. Victor Winthrop, Viscount Carlyle, smiled at her from his post by the doors that led out into the garden. Her old paramour looked as if he hoped to flee through them, leaping over flower beds in an effort to escape, as if he wished to take wing and fly above the city, far away from his debutante fiancée.

  Angelique knew that he would do nothing of the sort. He needed her money too much to risk running away.

  Victor moved through the dancers with an unstudied grace, almost as if they were not there, as if she and he were the only two people in the room. She remembered now why she had kept this man as her lover for so long.

  At first, she had taken him as her lover because he was Anthony Carrington’s mortal enemy. She had kept him because of his lack of interest in anything but himself and his soft smile. Victor, Lord Carlyle, loved nothing and no one, which made it impossible to love him. But he had been a very easy companion in the dark reaches of the night.

  Angelique wondered if she would ever feel an honest emotion again. Since Anthony left her, she had felt the sharp dagger of betrayal, the pain of lost love, heartache, headache, and all the rest. But now, for the last six months or so, she had felt absolutely nothing. Not even amusement, unless her maid was close by, spouting her treasonous twattle. Angelique wondered if she had lost the capacity to feel.

  Earlier that day, on the deck of her ship, the tall, auburn-haired stranger had held her in his arms. She had felt something then. All was not lost if she could still feel desire, even for a common sailor.

  Victor was at her side. He did not speak, but took her hand, and she stepped into his arms as he drew her into the fluid movements of the waltz. The rest of the ton drew back to watch the
m, the mother and aunts of his fiancée murmuring in quiet protest from the side of the room.

  “Do I see the ring you once offered me on your girl’s finger?” she asked.

  Victor smiled and drew her closer. The sensuous warmth of his touch on the dance floor was an illusion. In the bedroom, with the curtains drawn, he was as selfish a lover as any she had known. Occasionally he had bothered to pleasure her, but like so many men of wealth and status, he had thought it her business to please him. She had done so, if only to make Anthony Carrington squirm.

  “You refused me,” Victor said, his lazy drawl surrounding her, cocooning her as the music did, the strains of the waltz drawing her into another world.

  Against her will, she moved for a moment into the bliss of the first days of her marriage to Geoffrey Beauchamp. A world in which everything was beautiful, an enchanted place where men said the words I love you and meant them.

  She forced herself to push away the memory of Geoffrey and that first betrayal. She came back to the here and now.

  Victor was amusing, but he was her opponent, as was every other man in that room. She tossed her head back, knowing that the diamonds at her earlobes caught the light from the chandeliers when she did, sparkling with cold fire.

  “You might have bought her something more suitable, instead of handing over one of my castoffs.”

  Victor laughed. “She’s good for bedding once or twice and breeding my heir, but little else. Once she’s tucked away in the country, I’ll be counting her money here in town.”

  “No doubt the whores of Cheapside will welcome your wife’s gold,” she said, her eyes roving over the crowd around them as if she were bored with the conversation.

  Victor laughed again. The waltz ended, and he escorted her back to the edge of the ballroom, where she had been standing alone.

  Angelique looked down at Victor’s golden hair as he pressed his lips to her gloved hand, bowing over it as over some great treasure. “You have only to change your mind,” he said, “and that sapphire is yours.”

  She forced herself to smile, though the sight of him suddenly wearied her. “You honor me,” Angelique said. “But let us keep the sapphire where it is.”

  Victor stepped away from her and went to meet the girl in question. His pretty fiancée smiled brightly at his approach as if he were a hero in a fairy story, come to change her life for the better.

  Angelique sighed and turned away. She had loved Geoffrey with just such blind devotion. She hoped Victor would have a little more compassion for the girl than Geoffrey once had for her.

  The gong for dinner sounded, banishing her thoughts of the past, and Angelique felt some of the tension in her shoulders melt away.

  By now Lady Westwood no doubt had squelched all rumors that Arabella Hawthorne had ever been anything but a faithful wife. With her friend’s reputation being protected by that great she-cat of the ton, Angelique could leave.

  She had no idea whom the duchess had assigned as her dinner partner, and she did not care to find out. She wanted only to go home to soak her feet, which had been pinched for too long by the new dancing slippers she wore.

  She turned to slip away just as the rest of the company began the precession into the dining room. False laughter mingled with the sound of tinkling crystal, and Angelique nodded once to the Duchess of Claremore across the ballroom. Isabelle Claremore had married the same year Angelique had, but the duchess’s marriage had lasted a good deal longer. In spite of his advancing age of seventy-two, the Duke of Claremore seemed in no hurry to die.

  Angelique was known among the ton for her eccentricities as much as for her prowess as a lover, so no one would think much of the fact that she had left before supper had been served. She slipped along the edge of the ballroom, nodding to acquaintances when she could not avoid them, smiling absently and moving on steadily whenever it looked as if someone might try to stop her. She had almost reached the doorway of the ballroom and freedom when a masculine hand caught her arm.

  She stared at that hand, shocked that someone would be so bold as to touch her without permission. Angelique opened her mouth to rebuke the offender only to meet the blue gaze of the man who had tried to buy her ship that morning.

  Dressed in the dark-blue uniform of a captain of the line, her Scot stood in front of her, the navy wool of his coat stretched across his broad shoulders, a vibrant contrast to the gold braid on his lapel and the white breeches that encased his powerful thighs. Her words of censure died in her throat, unspoken.

  The auburn-haired stranger from the wharf did not speak to smooth over the moment, but seemed to enjoy the fact that the sight of him in uniform had managed to fluster her. He simply smiled.

  Four

  Angelique was forced to take a deep breath at the sight of him, her stays suddenly too tight along her rib cage. The scent of cloves caught her, and the scent of cedar. His auburn hair gleamed in the candlelight, and his smile made her feel as if she were the only woman in the room.

  Whatever else he was, whatever he pretended to be, he was certainly a beautiful man.

  “How did you come to find yourself at the Duchess of Claremore’s ball?” Angelique asked, allowing her mask of control to slip just enough to reveal a little of her inner fire, the sight of which never failed to draw a man in. It brought this handsome man a step closer to her. “Perhaps you are acquainted with the duchess herself?” she asked.

  The stranger in the naval uniform found his voice at last. His eyes still lingered on her lips, rising to caress her face as if he would drink her in. But his voice was smooth and cultured, with only a hint of Aberdeen buried in it.

  “It turns out that I am acquainted, very distantly, with His Grace, the Duke of Claremore.”

  “How charming for you,” Angelique said. “You have your evening free then, for I have not seen the duke all night.”

  The man smiled. She felt certain that at any moment he would begin to peruse the curves of her body beneath the sapphire silk of her gown, but for now, he kept his eyes on her face. “I did not come here for His Grace. I came here for you.”

  Angelique laughed outright at that, not her practiced, seductive laugh but a burst of genuine mirth. The naval stranger did not seem to think her uncouth in spite of her sudden lack of polish. His eyes lit up as with a victory.

  “You don’t know me,” she said.

  “But I will,” he answered.

  She thought to leave him where he stood, but his hand was on her elbow, and she found that she could not slip away.

  “I hope you will let me partner you at dinner,” he said, steering her toward the dining room.

  “I was just leaving,” Angelique said.

  “And now you are not.”

  Angelique thought about making a scene, pulling away from him and leaving him flat, but then she realized that they were making one already. Not only had they missed the procession into dinner, but also it went against all etiquette for a naval captain to escort a countess at a duchess’s ball.

  As soon as she heard the hum of horror fill the room around her, Angelique decided to let the stranger do what he would.

  Everyone watched as her partner seated her at table. People stared openly, speaking about her and the man they took to be her new lover in sinuous whispers. Angelique did not look at her new dining partner, but smiled as if the only reason she had come to the ball at all was for him.

  It always amused her to set the ton on its ear. And if tonight was any indication, the captain had provided just the fodder she needed. If anyone had thought to give credence to the rumors of Arabella’s supposed infidelities, surely her own antics would distract the gossipmongers until they found a fresh tale to spread in the morning.

  So Angelique sat where he bid her and decided to enjoy herself.

  She picked up her fork to sample the light halibut, carefully breaded a
nd roasted so that the white flakes of fish nearly fell off the bone. One of the benefits of the war with France had been the influx of French chefs into London and the subsequent rise of London cuisine. Angelique savored the salty flavor of the halibut before taking a sip of cold white wine.

  The man beside her still had not spoken or touched his own food. He simply watched her eat as if nothing on Earth might give him greater pleasure, a soft smile on his face.

  “You have not touched your fish,” Angelique said. “Does it not meet your exacting Scottish standards?”

  The stranger laughed, his teeth showing white against his tan face. His dark blue eyes sparkled with mischief, and he leaned in close, his voice pitched low so that only she could hear. “I ate enough fish in my years at sea to last me a lifetime.”

  It was Angelique’s turn to laugh, and once more she did not keep her voice pitched in its usual seductive tones, but indulged in open, genuine mirth. She still had not asked his name. She waited, wondering if he might offer it, but he simply smiled at her as if he could see behind the mask of social grace she wore, as if he knew who she was already.

  That, of course, was utter nonsense. A fanciful notion at best, a foolhardy one at worst. Only a handful of people had ever seen behind her mask, and only two of them still lived. Anthony Carrington, Earl of Ravensbrook, who even now sat across the table from her with his lovely young wife, ignoring Angelique’s very existence. The other, Arabella Hawthorne, never came out in public, so was not at the ball. No matter how warm his smiles or his touch, the man beside her did not truly know her. She would do well to remember it.

  Never before had any man blotted out Anthony Carrington’s existence for her, especially when her old lover was in the room. Not just in the room, but across the dining table from her. But for the entire dinner, Angelique found that she had little interest in the man who had abandoned her, nor in his wife.

  On any other evening, Anthony’s presence at his wife’s side would have rankled, getting under her skin like an itch she could not scratch. But tonight, Anthony sat less than six feet away, and Angelique felt nothing but fascination for the man beside her. Whatever his name might be, whoever he was, friend or foe, she owed him for that.