Ballrooms and Blackmail

by Regina Scott

  Daphne was fairly bouncing in her seat, as if she’d been the one given such an honor. “What will you wear?”

  Priscilla tapped her chin. “Something tasteful, classic, but with a dash of style.” She looked to Ariadne. “May I borrow your new bonnet? I’ll change out the plumes before I return it so no one will know I wore it first.”

  “Of course!” Ariadne agreed.

  “You could take my pearls,” Emily offered. “They should not be too ornate for a breakfast.”

  “Perfect,” Priscilla agreed. “Now, we just need to make sure my blackmailer doesn’t share my shame with the world.”

  The light of their excitement dimmed.

  “How can we do that?” Daphne complained. “We don’t even know who he is.”

  “She,” Ariadne corrected her, making a note in her journal. “I believe we agree the female is generally deadlier than the male in these sorts of matters.”

  “Based on the plays and books you’ve read?” Priscilla couldn’t help teasing.

  “No. Based on the tenants of nature,” Ariadne replied. “The female lion is the one who hunts and kills, you know.”

  “But Daphne raises a good point,” Emily insisted. “We should consider men as well. Mr. Kent certainly seems determined to keep His Grace and Priscilla apart.”

  Priscilla refused to comment. She thought she’d done rather well this morning, thwarting his attempts to stop her pursuit of the duke. But it still stung that he thought so little of her, particularly when she’d tried to impress him. The gambit she’d used last night had worked on every other man she’d met this Season. Why was he different?

  Why was he immune to her charms?

  She certainly wasn’t immune to his. Having him sitting beside her had made her aware of every movement of his lean body. Intelligence sat in those deep brown eyes, was expressed in his word and deed. And he was absolutely brilliant at turning a conversation to his own devices. How could she not admire him?

  “But what would a gentleman gain by blackmailing Priscilla?” Daphne asked with a frown. “Why warn her away from the duke?”

  “Because he has conceived a passion for her!” Ariadne cried, eyes shining. “He is tormented by the fact she might love another. She has refused six offers, if you recall. Surely at least one of those men was devastated by the blow.”

  Priscilla sighed. “I thought we had narrowed on Miss Bigglethorpe, but if we must add gentlemen, our list has grown unacceptably long. It seems I am to be concerned about any fellow who might have turned his head my way!”

  “My word!” Daphne exclaimed, sinking back in her chair. “We’re looking for the entire male population of London!”

  “Not necessarily,” Emily cautioned. “The inability to capture Priscilla’s heart may have encouraged many a man to drink, but a large portion of them would have had no opportunity to slip the note into her pocket. And you forget about the note Acantha received. We are looking for a man well known to both.”

  “That ought to narrow things down,” Daphne said with a smirk. “Acantha and Priscilla cannot have too many beaux in common.”

  Emily leaned forward. “It seems we have several lines of inquiry, then. I propose we divide to conquer. Daphne and Ariadne will visit Miss Bigglethorpe.”

  Ariadne frowned. “To what purpose?”

  “To determine whether she has received a note warning her away from the duke. And to notice what sort of writing paper she favors.”

  Ariadne nodded thoughtfully. “I can think of a stratagem or two that might help there.”

  Daphne pouted. “If you cannot find a more active role for me, I shall not accompany you. I’m no good at this tittle-tattle business.”

  As Ariadne bristled, Emily eyed her. “Very well. Why don’t you take a groom and go race a gentleman or two in Hyde Park?”

  “Emily!” Priscilla scolded.

  “No, she’s right,” Daphne declared, rising as if ready to go that very moment. “It’s the perfect opportunity to talk to boys. I’ll ask about, see if I can learn who’s enamored of both Priscilla and Acantha.”

  “That’s all very well and good,” Priscilla protested, “except I have the greater skill at winkling out a fellow’s secrets.”

  Daphne’s face fell.

  “True,” Emily replied. “But it is safer for Daphne to ask. A man who resorts to blackmail is no gentleman, Pris. Who knows how he would react if he thought you were aware of him?”

  Priscilla felt chilled. “Do you see him as dangerous, then?”

  “Perhaps,” Emily acknowledged, and Priscilla realized she was being kind. “He is a coward, or he’d have faced you directly. He could be a very bad actor.”

  “Excellent!” Daphne proclaimed, rubbing her hands together. “I can’t wait to find him!”

  Her sister climbed to her feet as well. “Perhaps I should accompany you, and you me, just to be safe.” She smiled at Priscilla and Emily. “We’ll report back as soon as possible.”

  Priscilla waved them on their way.

  “And what do you advise for me?” she asked Emily as they left.

  Emily took a deep breath as if fortifying herself to say something she suspected Priscilla would hate. “I think it time we asked for help.”

  Priscilla must have stiffened, for her friend hurried on. “No one unknown to you, I promise. I think your parents should be warned. That way, they can prepare themselves should the worst happen.”

  Priscilla shook her head. “No, Emily. Believe me, ignorance can truly be better than knowing. I will tell them when I must, not before.”

  “Very well,” Emily said, fingers twisting in her lap. “But there is another who could help our cause, an expert investigator who never rests until he’s found the villain.”

  Priscilla eyed her. “Mr. Cropper.”

  Emily nodded. “If you would allow me to share the situation with him, not all the details about your aunt, of course, he might be willing to advise us on our best course of action.”

  Something inside her quailed. Aunt Sylvia had always insisted that men were weak, easily led by their baser instincts. Priscilla had had better luck appealing to their chivalrous natures, the desire to be seen as strong, protective. But to involve a gentleman in her problems, to allow one close enough to hurt her? That was another matter entirely.

  Still, Jamie Cropper was a Bow Street Runner. Any number of members of the ton hired his like to investigate threats, put fears to rest. Even Aunt Sylvia had been known to purchase their time to look into the finances and propriety of a prospective husband. If Emily could gain such advice at no cost, how could Priscilla refuse?

  “Very well,” she agreed. “Call for Mr. Cropper. See what he says.”

  She had never seen Emily move so eagerly.

  Realizing that it might take a little time to locate the Runner and secure his attentions, Priscilla excused herself to make a few calls in the area. Emily loaned Priscilla the Southwell’s lady’s maid, Mary, so Priscilla would not go unescorted. For once, she would have preferred to return home, craft the perfect ensemble for the duke’s breakfast, consider her options for the masquerade. But if she was to maintain the fiction that all was well with her, she had to remain part of the social whirl.

  So, she called on anyone who might further her cause of marrying well, from young misses who were also on their first Seasons to the Grande Dames of Society who could now look on each Season secure from their lofty positions. The former gave her all manner of insight into how to improve her behavior until she was beyond reproach. The latter had the ability to open doors for her. By the time she had finished, she had been promised invitations to two balls, a musicale, and a rout.

  She was on her way back to Emily’s when a shadow detached itself from a lamp pole and fell into step beside her.

  “Mr. Cropper!” She couldn’t help her exclamation. He looked all business, his hat low over his coppery hair, his brown coat and trousers merely serviceable, his boots too well worn to b
e praised. “Has Lady Emily explained our need for your help?”

  His strides matched hers, gaze on the street. “I received word she wanted my help for a friend. I take it I was right that it was you.”

  Priscilla nodded. Her gaze darted about, noting the man on the corner hawking news sheets, the girl across the way with posies. No member of Society was about, but it was only a matter of time before she ran into someone she knew. What would they say if they realized she was speaking with Bow Street?

  She seized his arm and drew him across the street and into the shade of a tree in the park there. Mary scuttled in their wake.

  “I am very grateful for your help, Mr. Cropper,” she assured him as he regarded her with upraised brows. “Lady Emily and I are at our wit’s end.”

  She thought he might smile at the mention of the woman he clearly admired, but he took a step back from her, sobering further.

  “That’s why I wanted to talk to you before approaching her,” he said. “I can’t take your case, Miss Tate.”

  Couldn’t or wouldn’t? Was he already regretting the obvious chasm between a duke’s daughter and a servant of the courts? Or had his recent brush with other members of high Society like his nefarious half-brother, Lord Robert, left him with a sour taste in his mouth?

  She peered up at him, filling her eyes with tears and allowing her lower lip to tremble along with her voice. “Oh, Mr. Cropper, I do wish you’d reconsider. I know you are very busy, and your time is valuable but . . .”

  He sliced a hand down to cut her off. “It isn’t the time or the money. It’s a clear conflict.”

  Priscilla straightened, frowning at him. “Because you admire Emily?”

  He actually colored. “No. That is, I have the highest regard for Lady Emily. The fact is, I’ve been ordered to investigate you, Miss Tate.”

  Priscilla stared at him. “Me? By whom?”

  Jamie met her gaze. “The commission was delivered to Bow Street in the name of Nathan Kent, personal secretary to the Duke of Rottenford.”

  Chapter Twelve

  The moment Warburton opened the door of the Emerson town house later that afternoon, Priscilla stalked inside, leaving Mary to slip past him and hurry off to her other duties.

  “I must speak to Lady Emily,” Priscilla informed him. “Immediately.”

  She had known the butler since the first time she’d visited Emily, at age eight, on a holiday from the Barnsley School. Never had she seen him less than composed. But this time, for a moment, his snowy brows drew down, and his face saddened, as if he knew she was the bearer of ill tidings. Then he inclined his head. “Of course, Miss Tate. This way.”

  Emily was in her painting room, dabbing color on a massive battle scene, the windows shuttered and curtains drawn, candles offering a golden light. Before meeting the traitorous Mr. Cropper, she’d preferred larger canvases and darker colors. Now the portrait she’d been painting of him was leaning unceremoniously against the wall, and Priscilla could not help but feel a certain vindication.

  “Your inamorata is a brute,” she said.

  Emily eyed her, hands moving surely across the surface of her canvas. “I take it you’ve spoken with him too.”

  Priscilla puffed out a sigh. “Yes. Though I admit to walking about Mayfair for a time before coming here, I was so upset. This is monstrous, Emily. Have you any idea how much damage he could do?”

  Emily appeared to be focusing on a puddle of blood in the center of her battle scene. “I tried to explain that to him, but he said I wouldn’t understand his duty. I’m too much of a Nob, it seems.”

  Her voice was as dead as the warriors in her painting were. The sound cut across all Priscilla’s indignation, her fear. She drew in a breath, then hurried to Emily’s side and lay a hand on her shoulder. “I’m sorry this caused a rift between you and Mr. Cropper. If I must, I can apologize to him. I won’t mean it, but I’d do it for you.”

  “You needn’t bother,” she replied, face turned away from Priscilla. “I should have realized this was coming. We have had several quarrels recently. It seems Mr. Cropper is all too aware of the differences in our stations. A shame, for I was quite willing to overlook them.” She smeared the red and dropped her brush into the pot, shoulders shaking.

  Priscilla enveloped her in a hug. “Oh, Emily. I’m so sorry.”

  It was a testament to her friend’s state of mind that she, who rarely showed any emotion, allowed Priscilla to hold her a moment before pushing back and wiping away a tear.

  “Enough of this,” Emily said with a sniff. “We must determine our next steps.”

  “Oh, I know my next step,” Priscilla assured her, dropping her arms. “I need to borrow your most somber pelisse.”

  Emily pursed her lips. “It will be a little short, and it won’t close properly as I have not been blessed with your curves.”

  Priscilla smiled at her. “In this case, the cut doesn’t matter. I must look serious and pitiful.”

  Emily chuckled. “So naturally you want to raid my wardrobe.”

  “You are serious, Emily,” Priscilla answered, heading for the door. “Leave it to me to manage the pitiful. I know just what to do to get Mr. Kent’s attention.”

  *

  Nathan frowned over the many papers the duke’s steward and man of affairs had brought to him. The duke’s position as head of a large family and owner of multiple properties required dozens of decisions on a daily basis. Nathan hadn’t the authority to make those decisions, but his influence over his cousin had helped sway His Grace one way or the other, until recently. He didn’t know whether His Grace was growing more confident in his role or whether he was being advised elsewhere. But Nathan didn’t like the feeling that things were out of his control. Too many lives depended on him giving the duke wise counsel and keeping him on a steady course.

  “Miss Tate, please! Allow me to announce you!”

  Nathan heard his butler’s cry a moment before the library doors burst open and Priscilla Tate all but ran into the room. Her hair had come loose of its pins on one side, shadowing her face by a golden curtain, and her figure was outlined in a smoke-colored pelisse of watered satin.

  Nathan was on his feet before he thought of it. “What’s happened?”

  She rushed up to the desk that straddled the back of the room and held out her hands beseechingly. “Please, Mr. Kent, have mercy! Don’t ruin my family name!”

  Close up, he could see tears glistening on her pearly cheeks, and her eyes were wide with panic.

  “I’m sorry, Mr. Kent,” the family butler said, coming more slowly into the room behind her. “She simply wouldn’t listen to reason.”

  “And why should she?” Lady Minerva, sister to the Duke of Emerson and aunt to Lady Emily, stalked in past the butler and narrowed her eyes at Nathan with lethal intensity. “You, young man, are a dastard!”

  The butler shifted from foot to foot as if unsure whether to offer her a restorative cup of tea or throw her out on her ear.

  In front of Nathan, Priscilla heaved a sigh, and no man alive could have ignored the rise and fall of her exquisitely molded chest. “Lady Minerva is quite right. How can I be reasonable when my life is over?” She threw herself onto the nearest chair and buried her face in her hands. The sobs echoed against the white-lacquered bookcases surrounding them. He was certain the sound would have melted the hardest heart.

  “Now see what you’ve done?” Lady Minerva scolded. “I warn you, she won’t stop until you’ve settled this. That girl is a regular watering pot.”

  Priscilla’s shoulders tightened, as if she meant to raise her head and protest, but her wails only grew in volume.

  Nathan felt like a curmudgeon for ignoring them. He bowed to Lady Minerva. “Your ladyship, if you would be so kind as to explain what I have done to so discompose Miss Tate, I will do everything in my power to make the matter right.”

  Was that a pause in Priscilla’s sobbing, as if she were listening?

  Lady
Minerva put her hands on the hips of her gray lustring gown. “Why should I tell you anything? You know very well what you’ve done to this poor girl. I have a mind to turn you over to the magistrates and demand that you be whipped within an inch of your life, then castrated.”

  Nathan raised his brows.

  Priscilla rose majestically from her seat and put herself between him and his accuser. “Oh, dear Lady Minerva, I so appreciate your zeal on my behalf, but we must be merciful, even if we are denied mercy.”

  Lady Minerva peered around her, as if gauging how Nathan was taking all this. He turned to his goggle-eyed butler. “Leave us a moment, Pierson, and take Lady Minerva with you. I’m sure she’d appreciate a tour of the house. Keep the door ajar.”

  Lady Minerva glared at him a moment before suffering to be led out. He couldn’t help noticing she was fingering an ivory broach at her throat, very similar to one he had seen Miss Tate wearing recently.

  As if she’d been abandoned by her last friend, Priscilla returned to the chair, shoulders slumping. Nathan went and crouched beside her. “Come now, Miss Tate. It cannot be as bad as all that.”

  Her sculptured rosy lips trembled. “You think not? You asked Bow Street to investigate me!”

  Nathan rocked back on his heels. “Of course I did. That is standard practice when His Grace shows particular interest in a person.”

  Her eyes widened, an expanse of emerald. “You investigate everyone who comes close to the duke?”

  He nodded, rising. “Everyone. So, you see, it’s nothing personal.”

  “Nothing personal?” She stood, head on a level with his. “Of course it’s personal! You gave strangers the right to pry into the most intimate details of my life!”

  Put that way, he sounded like a peeping Tom. He returned to the safety of the desk and straightened his cravat. “If you are innocent, you have nothing to fear.”

  She shook her head, and the histrionics fell away. “You truly have no idea what you’ve done, do you?”

  Something in her attitude nettled him. “I have done my duty, Miss Tate.”

  “I see.” She cocked her head, and more of her golden curls spilled over her shoulder, like sunlight piercing the clouds. “These other people you’ve had investigated, how many were women?”