“He refused before. Who’s to say he’ll take up the gauntlet this time?”
“By all accounts he’s no coward.” Preston shrugged. “If he does forfeit, he’ll lose whatever acceptance this night’s work has gained him. Not even that doddery old relict Cathcart will take his arm. No visits to Atterbury House, no playing the hero for the Randolph chit. Mark my words, he’ll rejoin his regiment, and I’ll start praying for Bonaparte’s success again.”
Berke kicked a stone out of his way. “And what if he does accept the challenge? Fellow must have learned to shoot straight in all these years.”
“What, dear Ansel, balking at the gate?” He looked over to the other man, where a paper lantern cast a reddish glow on the baron’s already empurpled cheeks.
“I ain’t no craven,” Berke stormed. “I’d call you out in a minute if I thought you’d accept, you blasted mortician.”
“Sorry, too, too fatiguing.”
Ansel muttered something under his breath. Then, “But what if I kill him? Having Warebourne out of the way is all fine and good for you, but my chances with the Randolph girl ain’t improved if I have to flee the country.”
“Do I have to do all the thinking? You are a crack shot, Ansel. You don’t aim to kill, for Satan’s sake. You’ve seen the condition he’s in. One more wound, another loss of blood, that should take the trick. Perhaps we might even help him along some, but not with your bullet, my dear baron. I’ll guarantee Prinny won’t kick up a dust. After all, if I as nearest relative don’t complain, how can the Crown?”
“I still don’t see why I have to be the one to force the duel,” Berke complained. “I ain’t the one who’ll inherit the title and the fortune.”
“And I’m not the one who needs to marry an heiress. Of course, there is still the Carstairs female.”
Berke grimaced, but said nothing. Conare went on: “Of course, her title is older than yours. I shouldn’t think a gentleman could sleep well, knowing his wife outranks him. Then again, waking to face Lady Blanche at the breakfast table…”
“She’s not as bad as all that, especially since Miss Randolph’s taken her in hand some.”
“Then why haven’t you offered? Why not go inside and sweep her off to the balcony, get down on your knee, and ask for her hand and fortune this very night? There’s no competition, no chance she’ll say no, not if she ever expects to wed, that is.”
“Rosellen wants me to have the Randolph girl,” Berke mumbled.
“What’s that? Oh yes, dear loving Rosellen, who’s agreed to bear-lead an Incomparable, just so you two will be thrown together. Imagine her chagrin if all those thousands of Atterbury pounds go to Hermione’s seducer. I’m afraid she might even stop helping you with those pressing debts of yours.”
“Are you holding the money over me, you bastard? It won’t wash. There’s always a rich Cit looking for a title. And don’t keep harping on Hermione, either. You don’t care about her, you never did, so don’t pretend you give a rap because she was Rosellen’s sister, too. You have everything to gain here, Preston, and you don’t even need the blunt. You’ll get control of the three Warebourne brats’ fortunes at the least, and all of Warebourne at the most.”
“Yes, dear boy, but what both of us, you and I, will get the most satisfaction from is ridding the world of Darius Conover.”
*
As the two men started back toward the balcony from the garden’s farthest wall, neither saw the black dog dash ahead of them between a topiary unicorn and an ornamental fountain. Neither noticed when the dog’s route intersected the graveled walkway they were taking back to the ballroom, nor were they the least aware that the animal paused a moment where the hanging lanterns cast the least light.
*
I hope you get a lot of satisfaction from ridding your satin dancing pumps of that, you maggots.
Chapter Twelve
And they say we fight like cats and dogs. I’d rather have an honest swipe at my nose than a knife in my back.
The ball wasn’t over till nearly dawn, and yes, there were leftovers. Tippy had saved me a nice bone, so I agreed to peruse her poems the next morning while I gnawed. At first I was reluctant, and not just because I had weightier matters to consider, like the conversation in the garden. Commenting on a friend’s work can be embarrassing. It can even cost the friendship. I did not want to hurt the little bitch’s feelings or discourage art in any form, but, quite frankly, I was expecting mere doggerel.
I was happily surprised. Tippy’s verses were on eternal themes, the turning cycles of the seasons, the orbits of the planets, the ultimate circle of life and death, dust to dust, ashes to ashes. Why should I have expected less from one who goes round and round half the day in a wheel? Tippy says her mentor, a mouse who used to live behind the wainscoting in the library, had advised her to write what she knew.
I suppose that is what I am doing, writing what I know, trying to write everything I know, in case I never get the chance again. This could not be how true novelists go about the thing, for I cannot believe Maria Edgeworth and the other ladies who write for the Minerva Press have ever been locked in dungeons, tossed from cliffs, set adrift, or sold into harems. They could hardly have time to write. No, they must have imagination, at which human persons excel.
When he couldn’t reach the grapes, Reynard decided the grapes were sour; he didn’t imagine sprouting wings and flying after them. Now, think of the poor dog of Icarus. The hound puts in a hard day guarding the house, warning of strangers, making sure his master is not disturbed. He looks up—and gets melted wax in his face. There is no way in hell that dog thought he had to protect Icarus from the Sun. He had no imagination; Icarus did. I admire creativity. Some have it, some don’t.
Consider the flowers that are arriving all morning. The custom here in London is for gentlemen to send a token of appreciation to the ladies who honored them with a dance, especially the young lady in whose honor the ball was held. The gifts are supposed to be trifles, not personal items such as clothing, nor expensive offerings like jewelry. As a result, the footmen have been carrying in floral tributes since before breakfast. Think about it. Not five hours before, those same gentlemen saw Atterbury House filled with daisies and violets and formal arrangements. We need more flowers like an affenpinscher needs more fleas. No imagination at all.
Baron Berke’s bouquet was the biggest. I suppose he sent his florist imaginary shillings.
Lord Wolversham had his groom deliver a treatise on sheep dips, with his compliments. This may have been too imaginative a gift. Miss Sonia went into whoops over her chocolate.
Sir Montescue Pimford, one of the new young men from last night, sent a lovely poem. Unfortunately it was one of Byron’s, according to Tippy.
Major Conover’s offering was everything a gift should be for such an occasion: appealing without being extravagant, original instead of outré, sensitive. Brilliant, in fact He sent a picture of me.
As I said, some have it, some don’t.
*
“Whatever that man sent, Sonia, you’ll have to return it.” Lady Atterbury was clutching her vinaigrette. “I shall not scold anymore over the damage done last night, but I shall not countenance a further disregard for proper behavior.”
Sonia held the wrapped package on her lap. “Fustian, Grandmama. If people were going to snub us because we—” she caught her grandmother’s glare “—very well, I invited Major Conover, they would not have sent flowers. Furthermore, I shouldn’t want to know anyone so stiff-rumped and prosy.”
“Sonia Randolph, your language! I told Elvin he was raising you up to be a shameless baggage. He never listened. Now look, low company, cant language. You’ll soon be a byword on the Town. I am too old for such a hubble-bubble.” She took a restorative sip of sherry, for her nerves’ sake only, of course. “Elvin has a lot to answer for, and I’ve a mind to send for the nodcock, wedding journey or no. At his age, it might kill him anyway. I could be doing the cod’s-hea
d a favor.”
“Humbug, Your Grace, you know Father would tell me to trust my own judgment. And keep my own accounts. Besides, you loved every minute of the admiral’s visit. Why, I wouldn’t be surprised if he became your cicisbeo. See, you are blushing! And Sally Jersey almost tripped over Mrs. Drummond-Burrell to meet him and invite him to her rout, so we are not sent to Coventry yet.”
“Yet. And that’s Admiral Cathcart, not some black sheep soldier. Conover ain’t been accepted yet, missy, and might never be. That remains to be seen, and till it is, he ain’t to be seen in my drawing room!”
Sonia raised her chin and looked her grandmother straight in the eye. “Then I shall meet him in the park if he asks.”
Lady Atterbury clutched her heart. “Catherine was such a nice, biddable girl.”
“I am not my sister.” She returned to the tissue-covered parcel in her lap.
“Whatever it is, I’m sure it’s unsuitable.” The dowager’s nostrils flared in disapproval. “What could a reprobate like that know about genteel manners? If that’s jewelry, miss, he is as much a loose screw as they say. I won’t stand for any havey-cavey business. Do you hear me, Sonia? No Harkness has fallen from grace yet, and I don’t intend you to be the first. There will be no expensive gifts and no clandestine meetings!”
“Yes, Grandmother, I shall invite him for tea, then.” She was too busy unwrapping the package to pay attention to her grandmother’s moans. Under the tissue were three separate rolled papers, each tied with a ribbon.
“By Jupiter, if he’s sending you the deeds to a love nest, I’ll have his liver and lights!”
Sonia chuckled. “Why do you insist he has designs on my virtue? They are most likely just poems like Sir Montescue’s.” She sounded disappointed. Then she untied the ribbons and just said, “Oh.”
“Well? What does the rake say that’s got you so moonstruck?”
“He doesn’t say anything. In fact, the gifts are not from him. They are from his nieces. Look.”
The first scrolled page was a black smudge, as if someone had rubbed ashes into the paper. The second was a definite drawing, a black many-legged figure on a green foreground, with a tree or perhaps a building in the back. Large, messy letters across the top identified the picture: “Fitz, by Genessa Conover.” The third page, though, needed no label. Benice had painstakingly colored Fitz, gold eyebrows, white bib, splinted leg, and all. He was sitting in a field of flowers, or perhaps on a Turkey carpet, and he was smiling.
Sonia searched in her pocket for a handkerchief to wipe her eyes. “This is the nicest present I’ve ever had.”
Lady Atterbury, her own eyes suspiciously damp, just said, “Humph.”
*
Lady Rosellen paid a morning call. Stunning in cherry-striped lutestring, she was everything gracious about the ball to Lady Atterbury. She ignored Sonia entirely, as if she were a schoolgirl permitted to take tea with her elders, or some type of upper servant.
“The darling flowers were just the right touch, Your Grace. So sweetly innocent, no one could blame Sonia for her faux pas. I mean, entertaining a man the belle monde turns its back on. Too, too farouche. I can only hope the Almack’s hostesses are as forgiving of the child, Lady Almeria, I was so looking forward to introducing her in King Street. Now, of course, I doubt she’ll get the vouchers.”
“They arrived this morning, Lady Conare,” Sonia was delighted to announce. “Lady Jersey’s own footman delivered them first thing. She even wrote that I might attend in her party if Lady Atterbury is not up to the outing, so if you’d rather not escort such a green girl, I understand perfectly.”
Lady Rosellen’s eyes narrowed. She wondered how much the chit actually did understand. Did she know, for instance, how much Rosellen needed Lady Almeria’s continued approval for the times her own behavior sailed a little close to the wind, or how much Rosellen’s brother needed the little bird-wit’s blunt? “Nonsense, my dear, of course I’ll be your duenna for the evening.” She gave her tinkling laughter. “Though I am scarcely old enough for the role.”
Both Sonia and Lady Atterbury nodded politely, but without the reassurances Rosellen expected. She pursed her painted lips. “Perhaps I am older and wiser enough, my dear, that you’ll heed my warning. Young girls cannot be too careful of their reputations, and the man is dangerous.”
*
The man didn’t look dangerous, Sonia thought, sitting as he was among Lady Atterbury and her cronies, trying to balance a delicate china teacup on his knee and fend off the circling sharks at the same time. He looked more like a minnow than a barracuda, and there was nothing Sonia could do but smile from across the room. She and Blanche had been assigned the tea cart and the pianoforte, respectively, half to keep them safe from his rakish clutches, half not to spoil the old ladies’ fun.
Lady Atterbury had complained that life was wearying enough keeping fortune hunters away from her granddaughter; now she had to worry about libertines. “Lud,” she said, “Catherine never even met one, much less brought one home to tea!” She was determined to send this thatch-gallows to the right-about. At least he’d be sure someone was looking out for Sonia’s interests.
Blanche was pounding away at the instrument, looking more than passable in a new pink frock that didn’t make her skin look so sallow. Sonia, in buttercup yellow, took every opportunity to refill cups, pass macaroons, and in general stand ready to toss a lifeline. So far the major was holding his head above water. He even managed to wink up at her once, when she brushed past him with a plate of almond cakes.
Darius hurriedly gathered his wits from where they’d gone begging after a sunbeam. “What’s that, Lady Atterbury? I’m sorry, you were saying…?”
“I was asking why you don’t use the title, boy. It’s a fine old name, almost as old as Atterbury. You ain’t ashamed of it, are you?”
“Ashamed? Of course not. I’m just not used to it. My brother was Warebourne for the last ten years. I still look around for Milo when I hear someone call Warebourne.”
“Then you’re not rejecting the title because you’ll bring shame to it?”
If a gentleman asked another man such a question, he’d have to name his seconds. Darius took a deep breath and contemplated the tiny teacup in his hand. He carefully placed it on the table in front of him, out of temptation’s way. “I am proud of my family name,” he said, “but I did nothing to earn it except get born into it. This”—he touched his scarlet regimental sleeve —“I earned. Until I sell out, if I sell out, I am a soldier, and damned―pardon, ladies—dashed proud of it.”
Lady Atterbury cleared her throat. Before she could get in her next question, one of the other ladies asked, “Then you don’t mean to abdicate? Talk is going around that you might.”
“I don’t know where such talk arose, except in drawing rooms such as this.” He smiled to take the sting from his words, then rose to take his leave. “I never wanted to be earl, and certainly never counted on it, by Jupiter, but Preston Conover shall not stand in my father’s shoes, or my brother’s, while I hold breath in my body. Is that what you wanted to know, ladies?” He bowed to each in turn. “If there are no further questions, I shall wish you a good day, and thank you for an…entertaining tea.”
The dowagers sat shamefaced, knowing even they had gone too far, and indeed, the boy handled himself well under fire. Sonia took their momentary loss of speech as an opportunity to say, “I’ll just walk the major out, Your Grace.”
As they walked down the hall toward where Marston stood with the major’s hat and gloves, Fitz bounded up to them. His greeting of the major was enthusiastic to the point of endangering Darius’s balance.
“I always seem to be apologizing for your treatment at Atterbury House,” Sonia told him.
He scratched behind the dog’s ears. “Think nothing of it, Miss Randolph. Fitz and I do fine.”
She laughed. “I didn’t mean Fitz, sir. I meant Grandmama!”
He gave her a crooked smile. �
�I was captured by the enemy once. Your grandmother and her friends were only slightly less humane than my French interrogators. In truth I was glad to see she keeps such a careful watch over you, the way you take up with strangers.”
Sonia turned away, petting the dog. “You make me sound a veritable peagoose.”
“No, no. I didn’t mean that, Miss Randolph, just that you are so trusting, so good. Not everyone is worthy of your regard.” He laughed, more at himself than anything. “Having said that, will you do me the honor of driving out with me this afternoon?”
“Oh, I’m sorry, Major, but I am already promised.”
“I see.” And he did. She had played Lady Bountiful, done her good deed for the day. Now they were even in her eyes, he supposed, and he could only thank her for her efforts on his behalf and be on his way. He accepted his hat from the butler. “I’ll be off then.”
Sonia could feel his hurt, despite the forced smile and the polite words. She stopped him with a touch on his arm. “Major, I really am promised for today. I would be more than pleased to have your company in the park tomorrow, though. Perhaps the children…”
Drat the children, he was thinking, his spirits soaring once more as he read the message in her blue, blue eyes. Then he came back to earth and remembered who, and what, he was. Yes, the children and the dog, the nanny, two footmen and a maid, anything to protect her reputation. From him. It wouldn’t always be so, he promised himself, while Sonia was having to hold her hand back from smoothing the lines on his forehead.
Marston coughed and pointedly opened the door. The two sprang apart and were completing their plans for the morrow just as a carriage pulled up. When the tiger went to the horses’ heads, Ansel Berke got down and strutted up the stairs when he saw Miss Randolph framed in the open doorway. He blew out his chest the better to show off his new waistcoat, green hummingbirds embroidered on crimson marcella. Then he stopped at the threshold as Darius Conover came into view. Red anger burnt up the baron’s neck to his face, clashing horribly with his outfit.
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