Sensation

by Thea Devine

  She knelt beside the small three-drawer dresser next to her bed, held her breath, pulled the drawer, and reached underneath it for the case.

  .. . there it was—yes ... no time to check if everything was there—she had to get out, now ...

  She opened one lock of one suitcase and shoved in the invita-

  tion and the jewelry case, closed it, and grabbed the two suit­cases.

  Oh, God. Staggered out into the reception room, got the door closed behind her. Punched the lift button. Hoped and prayed no one was coming up to this floor—

  Hoped and prayed Zabel wasn't returning from some meeting or the club or lunch; thanked the heavens that her father was a man of consistent habits, and that the hotel maid service was timely.

  The brass pointer started swinging upward. Her heart began pounding. That weakening terror suffused her body. The game wasn't over yet. She couldn't assume some­one wasn't in that lift. Couldn't assume it wasn't Zabel.. . couldn't assume her life wasn't over—yet.. .

  Held her breath. Wanted to sink into the floor. Felt time stop, heard the grinding, halting sound, and the smooth slide of the bronze door opening into the lift— The empty lift...

  She almost fainted. Not quite. Had the presence of mind to drag one suitcase to hold open the cage door, so she could pull in the other. And only after the door closed and the cage clanked tight did she let out her breath and clutch at the grab bar so her legs didn't give out.

  Almost over .. . almost...

  Down, down, down to the lobby—all those people—if she could just get a bellboy now—

  Her breath felt tight; her heart felt constricted. She lifted the suitcases and lurched out into the lobby—

  "Here, let me help you—why didn't you ring for a bellboy?" It was a gentleman emerging from the dining room, someone she didn't know, an older gentleman with a kind face—will you marry me?—it would save so much time and effort, but there was a woman with him ... "Here—boy—" he called for one who came with his merciful rolling cart, and he tipped the boy, tipped his hat to her, took his lady by the arm and disappeared. "Where to, ma'am?"

  She pulled herself together. "Please, would you secure a cab for me?" The pleasures of having money. She flashed the boy a smile. "Thank you so much."

  She followed him out to the carpeted canopy area at the side of the hotel. She was safe, finally. No one would see her here. This was for the arrival and departure of tired and bedraggled travelers, the real bustling heart of the hotel, not to be seen from the elegant front entrance where everyone emerged comme il faut and ready for the day.

  Almost there. A hansom drew up, the driver and bellboy si­multaneously reaching to open the door for her.

  One more step to anonymity. Almost there .. .

  "Where to, ma'am?"

  The driver was young, eager. She gave him the address and climbed into the cab, leaned into the shadow of the cushions and breathed a deep sigh of relief, because now, finally, as the hansom pulled away from the hotel, there was nothing to fear.

  Chapter Twelve

  "We have three days," Mrs. Geddes said, as they opened the suit­cases and sifted through the dresses. So many dresses. Even Angilee hadn't known how much she had stuffed into those two bags. And she surely didn't know the etiquette and subtleties of dress required on this side of the Atlantic.

  Mrs. Geddes lifted each dress out and made pronouncements:

  A green watered-silk evening gown with chiffon pleating and niching around the bodice—"That."

  A butter yellow chiffon over satin—"That."

  The white faille with feather trim. "No."

  The mauve chiffon with paillettes. "That."

  The purple-and-white taffeta. "No."

  The sky blue mousseline. "No."

  The ivory silk and chiffon. "That."

  A bronze taffeta with matching passementerie embroidered on the hem, waist and bodice. "That."

  The dresses fell in a heap to one or the other side of her bed.

  An ivory satin and lace. "That."

  A dress of black moire. "No."

  "Why not that?" Angilee asked, pointing.

  "Not with your coloring," Mrs. Geddes said briskly. "Beau­tiful dresses, all quite a la mode. Extremely quite. Perfect, actu­ally, but not if they wash out your complexion and make you look drab."

  "Oh." Who ever considered such things when on a spending spree?

  "Your father gave you carte blanche, didn't he?" Was that a bad thing? "Yes." Obviously it was. "I knew it." Mrs. Geddes picked up a moss green silk and gold-shot tulle ball gown. "That. Quite lovely, actually. Perfect. I think that one is perfect for the Queen's Ball. And how clever of you to ... obtain ... your invitation."

  "It was the only thing that made sense," Angilee said, picking up the ball gown and holding it up against her body. It was won­derful—a rich, elegant color that brought up the pink in her cheeks, and the gold flecks made her eyes seem to sparkle.

  Mrs. Geddes was right. In this gown, she would conquer soci­ety, find that husband, and she would show her father just how much she didn't need him and how independent she could be.

  Because he'd be there—he'd find a way; as she well knew. Zabel was a most determined man. He would have discovered by this time that someone—and who else could it have been but she?—had scavenged the suite and taken the clothes and his invi­tation. But what could he do, after all? What would he do, even if he accosted her at the ball? It just wasn't de rigueur to strong-arm your daughter in public. Especially at the social function of the year. With everyone watching. She was safe. Maybe.

  "We'll need accessories," Mrs. Geddes was saying. "You for­got the shoes, the gloves, a little bag. The jewelry—while it's not spectacular, I can make it look like more than it is."

  Angilee heard very little of that, just this tail-end warning which made her shudder: "So—we will go shopping tomorrow, Miss Rosslyn, and I hope you're prepared to spend some of that money."

  It was now one day until the Queen's Ball, and several days previously, Kyger had received the coveted invitation to Heeton's

  where he had spent two pleasant evenings playing cards and los­ing big, which, combined with his nonchalant attitude about the money, made a favorable impression on his hosts, who indeed had welcomed him most warmly on learning he was Lujan's

  brother.

  Conversation around the table that first night was idle, far-ranging, nonpolitical: they were feeling him out, testing his met­tle, looking for soft spots, making certain his philosophical positions were in line with theirs.

  He found it was easy to predict what they wanted him to say—and it was his job to say what they wanted to hear—but nevertheless, the camaraderie was so seductive once those tests had been passed, he could see how someone would just fall in and let himself be enfolded by the sense of community that subse­quently surrounded him.

  The second night things got a little more pointed. Politics now came into play in a seemingly casual way. Comments about the queen, the government, the prime minister, and in connection with that, finally, just a passing reference to the death of Tony

  Venable.

  "Not such a shame, that," one of the men, Hackford his name was, commented as he took two cards. "He was getting beyond himself. Knee deep into that autocratic nonsense. Thought if he were actually appointed prime minister, it really meant he'd be

  king."

  "Or dictator," another put in.

  "What do you think, Galliard? Heard enough about the ven­erable Venable to offer an opinion?"

  "I've heard some rumblings, of course," Kyger allowed. "Don't forget—I'm only back in London since mid-March. So I've heard a lot of talk in the street, a lot of grief, anger, a lot of breast-beat­ing."

  "And all that bogus religiosity, too," Hackford said disgustedly. "Makes me cringe. Not over yet, either. Did you see those pock­ets with those cards?" He made a sound. "Sleight-of-hand non­sense. Now, these cards make sense. So, where are you, Galliard?
"

  "Right here." Kyger lay down his cards. "And vengeance is

  mine, Hackford ..."

  "Clean and sweet," Hackford admitted, throwing in his cards

  and throwing up his hands. "All right. I concede—a man needs to be juiced up by a win every now and again. But this is the last one, Galliard. The next round is mine ..."

  And it was: Kyger made sure he sustained a healthy loss, tem­pered by a couple of unexpected wins. It was easier that way, too. These men, contrary to how they appeared, were sharks, and they were out for blood, whatever the undertaking. And they were se­rious cardplayers, and serious money turned over in these games. They were among the movers of society, and they tended to hide out in the clubs. Some were married, some were looking, some wished the Season and the heiresses would just go away, but they all would be attending the Queen's Ball, along with everyone else in London and beyond.

  They would not have supported a city full of those cards of supplication that disseminated Tony Venable's precepts and prom­ises like seeds. Because those words would sprout and grow if they were planted in the proper soil. And someone with money knew—the general populace, those who'd adored Venable, was ripe for the plowing.

  Just not these men. They hated Tony Venable, and they saw clearly what he had been about. Autocrat. Bogus religiosity. Sleight of hand...

  Exactly.

  At least that was what they said publicly. What did they think behind closed doors? Shit—what was he thinking? Nothing was exempt from consideration. Hellfire,

  The day before the ball, after an afternoon of bonhomie at an exclusive garden party at which all he heard about was who was the most eligible, the handsomest, the richest, the most desirable, the best catch, the least likely, he realized he hadn't done anything about proper evening dress for the next night. WelJ, good—he wouldn't have to go.

  No, not possible. So what did the gentleman of fashion do in such a situation? There couldn't be a tailor in London where something Jike that could be procured at this late date with this many bachelors loose around Town.

  However—the thought hit him—he did have a brother who

  sometimes came to Town. Maybe he kept a second wardrobe here. Maybe even—a waistcoat and tails.

  He rang for Cryder.

  "Sir?"

  "Mr. Lujan—does he keep some clothes here for when he's in Town?"

  "Yes, sir."

  Hope against hope: "Formal clothes?"

  "Yes, sir."

  "I need to borrow them. Would you bring them to my room please?"

  Cryder didn't look happy. "Yes, sir."

  He had taken the guest room. He hadn't gone into, hadn't even gone near, the room that was Lujan's and Jancie's. The guest room was commodious enough. The guest room wasn't redolent of her scent and their sex.

  He wasn't going to think about that. Too much loss in his life, between his mother and Jancie and everything that had happened in between. But those two years away had been good for him, had made him sinewy and strong in ways that he hadn't even counted yet.

  Maybe too sinewy to wear Lujan's clothes?

  The garments were on the bed when he retired for the night. They proved to be snug across the shoulders, and the trousers didn't break over his shoes at the angle he preferred, but on the whole, the suit fit at least well enough for him to wear the next night.

  Small mercies.

  But fate wasn't merciful. He found himself tossing and turning all night with the feeling he was missing something, that there was something among all the oddities and coincidences that he wasn't seeing. All those sevens. Those subtle references to sacred. The Samaritan. The mystery coachman. The seance. The moving walls.

  Check, check and check. He'd been over and around all that dozens of times since the moment he arrived. Wait—check. Right, he'd been on that point sometime in the past few days. Gates with triangles that separated into mirror-image sevens. Chevron sevens . ..

  No. That was really stretching things to imagine the equally angled chevron decoration on the gates of Waybury represented sevens. It had been a stunning moment, but—he was letting the idea of the coincidences get totally out of hand.

  But there was something about a check mark.

  Chevrons could look like check marks.

  No. No. Something else. Check marks. No—marks ...

  Death mark. There had been, early on, a reference to—where had he heard it? He pummeled his memory with no luck until he finally fell asleep.

  The next morning, he went for his now usual morning ride. The day was bright, beautiful, warm with the promise of spring, if not the promise of Tony Venable.

  He was amused that the prospect of attending the most presti­gious event of the Season that night had in no way deterred the debutantes and bucks from their morning exercise in attracting attention.

  They swarmed around and about him like bees, their conver­sation a lulling buzz enveloping him, and then they were off down the riding track with a verve and vigor he wished he felt.

  This was one morning, however, that he was of no particular mind to chase after or listen in on random conversations to try to solve the impenetrable mysteries surrounding Tony Venable.

  For once, on this bright spring morning when there was no unsettling fog creeping in around the sunshine, he just wanted to feel its warmth, and look at the flora and fauna in the Park, and let the passing lady-flowers take a good look at him.

  As if it all were real. As if he had a place here and the right to be among them, and to choose among them. As if things were normal and, outside the boundaries of the Park, there weren't -fa­natics trying to make Tony Venable into something he wasn't.

  Just for this morning—to enjoy the calm before the storm of the Season really began .. .

  And yet, even with all the life springing forth in the Park, trees were dying. Trees that weren't budding out, whose desiccated bark was peeling off in wallpaper-sized strips, whose trunks were bitten into by birds and blistered by lightning strikes . ..

  There, ahead of him a huge tree in its death throes, cross-

  hatched, with a huge chunk of it gone. And over there... He reined in suddenly, violently. Over there ... "Walked his horse slowly onto the grass to the tree ... on which there were slashes cut deep into the bark.

  They looked like check marks. They looked like upside-down

  sevens ...

  They had little points on the short end that looked like—

  ... fishhooks ...

  Fishhooks...

  His blood ran cold. There was the link—the thing he'd forgot­ten, was missing, couldn't think of. Fishhooks. Check marks.

  Death mark. He heard that long-ago, well-paid informant say­ing it as clearly as if he were behind him. The mark that was on Venable's body. The bloody little cut on his bare chest that was shaped like—a fishhook ...

  The death mark.

  Everybody knows, nobody tells . ..

  Nobody tells.

  But something else struck him as forcibly as lightning as he

  stared at the slashes cut into the dying tree.

  The mark on Venable's body could just as well have been a

  seven . ..

  "A ball of this magnitude is a fabulous thing," Mrs. Geddes said, as she arranged Angilee's hair into an ornate upsweep and dotted it with a handful of glittering earrings from Angilee's jew­elry case. "Barring, of course, the celebration of the Queen's Diamond Jubilee. But that will be later this summer, and a very different sort of... There. Lovely. A simple necklace. Diamond earrings. A bracelet. A wrap. Don't forget your gloves. The car­riage awaits..."

  Angilee slipped her feet into the too-expensive ivory silk slip­pers they had found in a small shop not far from Bond Street. And the gloves in a matching parchment color ... they felt like a second skin; their cost alone had skinned a fair amount of the money she'd allocated for the accessories, those details that were oh, so impor­tant, Mrs. Geddes insisted, and on which she must not skimp.


  She would count it money well spent only if that one man she

  needed, the one man who would agree to marry her, was among those attending the ball.

  He would be. She would go to this ball believing she would meet him there, tonight, and the rest could come later.

  Mrs. Geddes, who was attired in stringent black-watered silk, enhanced with lace-and-jet jewelry, had ordered a carriage for the evening.

  A carriage that immediately got caught in the crush of traffic approaching the Mayfair mansion of the Duke and Duchess of Shaftsbury, who were the evenings' hosts.

  The mansion sat on a corner, four stories of highly decorated stonework, with two arched doorways on the sides that faced the street, which gave immediate access to the reception rooms. The arrival times had been staggered to prevent such traffic tie-ups, but no one ever paid attention to that. One didn't want to arrive too early or too late, and it was considered a good strategy to plan to arrive at eight o'clock, which meant one might hope to be in the ballroom by nine or nine-thirty.

  Angilee's pulse began to thrum the closer they came to the mansion. This was it—entree into one of the most exclusive so­cial functions in Europe, The handsomest, wealthiest, most socially revered men in the country would be here. And after all, she didn't need a duke—a baronet would do just as well, Or the itinerant son of a diamond miner. .. Don't think about that...

  As the carriage crept closer to the entrance of the building, she could see all the flower dresses of the women, the bright bloom­ing colors, the bronzes and yellows, mauves and blues. The bril­liant women, dripping in diamonds and sapphires and pearls. The gorgeous men, so tall and formidable in formal dress. The bevy of chaperones clucking after their charges like mother ducks.

  It was a wonderful spectacle, and wholly unlike anything she had ever experienced. New York had not been like this, with its stiff, disapproving patronesses, who looked down their lorgnettes at her and her parvenu father. And the men and women, who'd known each other since the cradle—no room in there for anyone but themselves.