She looked even more uneasy. “Not precisely the back of the ballroom,” she added. “Sibyl knows all the hidden places in the house, and was showing them to me. It’s really fascinating, architecturally.”
He raised one eyebrow.
She looked embarrassed, ducked her head, then raised it as she hurriedly went on. “But that’s not the point. The lady and her brother didn’t think anyone was there, of course. We couldn’t believe our ears! So gothic. And mean-spirited! Sibyl was on fire to rescue you. I couldn’t let her risk her name. She’s very young. And to possibly be ruined by a gallant gesture? I’m not very brave. Nor was I sure it was the right course. But she was so upset that she was going to rush in to mend matters if I didn’t. I couldn’t have that.”
They heard a commotion in the hall, the sound of several voices. She glanced at the door, and then back at him.
The first time he’d seen her he’d been too busy thinking about his predicament for a good look. He’d the fleeting impression of a charming face, a mass of curls, a slender but bountiful figure, loveliness that needed closer inspection. Now he gazed at her, and in that moment felt something shift in his perceptions, something alter his pulse, something he couldn’t name. It was gone in another moment. He never forgot himself for longer. There wasn’t time to think about it, not now. One thing was clear though, she was dressed plainly, but plain she was not.
She looked at the door and then back at him, and froze as her eyes searched his. He’d seen that reaction before, but never from a female. Fear? Of him? But why should she fear him?
The sound of voices came closer. She only kept staring at him. She didn’t move a step.
His nostrils flared. “Oh,” he said softly, his face going still, “I see. I was rescued so as to be given a more deserving bride?”
She gasped as though he’d hit her in the stomach. Her head reared back. “That’s vile! I’d have done the same for any animal caught in a trap.” Even in the in-constant light he could see her cheeks flame at what she’d said. “I didn’t mean it that way,” she said at once, “I don’t mean to be rude,” she added, backing a step, “But I certainly don’t want that. I can think of few things more repugnant than marriage to you. Except for being caught in here right now. Good-bye.” She turned, hurried to the other end of the room, and drew back the curtain.
“Wait! I’m sorry,” he said, “I didn’t mean that. Or if I did, put it down to my disordered thinking, under the circumstances. I’m entirely in your debt and I know it. Please forgive me.”
She nodded curtly and ducked behind the curtains.
“Your name—at least that!” he called after her.
Her tousled head popped back out. “But you don’t have to thank me again, or worry about anything. I’m no one, really. Good-bye!” she said, and disappeared behind the curtain again.
The door to the blue salon flew open. A group of men burst in, led by an agitated gentleman. They glanced around the room, and saw nothing but Alasdair. He wore a pained expression.
“Where is she?” the agitated gentleman demanded.
“Who? And lower your voice please,” Alasdair said, wincing.
“These fellows think you’ve got a woman in here, Alasdair,” Viscount Leigh said with a wry smile as he stepped into the room, looking around curiously. “They claimed you were bent on rape. I tried to tell them it was always the other way round, and came to see if I had to rescue you from some besotted female.”
“Thank you, Leigh,” Alasdair said. “No such luck. I was summoned here with that damned cigar-perfumed note, but when I got here the place was empty. I was just waiting to see if anyone would appear. I didn’t expect a mob.”
The agitated gentleman stalked into the room, frowning ferociously. He looked in every corner, even peering behind furniture. Then, on an obviously sudden inspiration, he turned toward the curtains. With a triumphant flourish, he tore them back.
There was nothing there but a wall, a picture of an overfed ancestor, and the blank, black panes of a window staring into the night.
“Many things I have done, Wretton,” Alasdair said sweetly, “but I’ve not yet mastered the trick of pulling females out of thin air. God knows, I’ve tried. Now, if you don’t mind, I’m leaving. Speaking of air, I need some fresh. The atmosphere’s too stifling for me here. Good evening,” he said as he strode out the door.
The agitated gentleman looked confused. The others in his raiding party glowered at him. Some of them had unmarried sisters here tonight, too.
Kate reeled into her room, one hand on her midsection.
Her cousin Sibyl popped up from the chair she’d been curled in. “Kate! What is it?” she cried.
“Lord!” Kate said dazedly, sinking to her bed. “He’s so big! He took all the air out of the room. He just siphoned it out, somehow.”
“Did you save him?”
“Consider him saved—if that’s at all possible,” Kate said on a shaken laugh. “At least I routed her. You should have seen it. Shocking! She pulled down her gown, and her breas…bosom was hanging out. He stared. Well, who wouldn’t? They were very nice,” she added generously. “Another man might have been left speechless. I was. I suppose he’s seen too many to care. She told him to marry her or else, just as she said she’d do. She had him cornered, but he didn’t give up. ‘No,’ he said. ‘Do your worst,’ or something like that. I was all admiration. She was about to shout, and her evil brother was outside the door, too. Then I stepped out and pretended to be stupid. Which I was.
“Who could have expected it?” she murmured almost to herself. “I thought I was so much older and more responsible than you. How could I have known? I never saw the like of him before. Sibyl,” she breathed, her eyes widening as the implications of what she’d done sank in, “my name could have been ruined, too.”
Some of the exhilaration began to wear off. “What a fool I was!” she marveled. “I’d heard so much about him. If half of it were true, it was too much. But I was ready to sacrifice myself to save him. I said it was to save you, too, but the truth was I felt sorry for him. I never blamed him because, I suppose, we tend to romanticize wild gentlemen, allowing them things we’d condemn women for.”
“But men are different. They have different needs.”
“Do they?” Kate murmured. “Well, at least they pay different consequences for them, don’t they?”
“Lady Eleanora was going to trap him, blackmail him. That was never right.”
“So it wasn’t,” Kate shook her head. “Lord! I did it!” She held up her hands and saw the fine trembling in her fingers. “How could I dare? I’m amazed at myself—and by him. Sib,” she said, “you can’t know how monumental the man is! I’m amazed I could speak straight at all.”
“He’s that handsome up close, too?” Sibyl asked breathlessly.
“Lord, no! Not with that face of his. It’s a mass of contradictions, nothing matches, that jaw is impossible. I’ve hung lanterns that were of subtler design. There’s no balance. But the sum is so much better than the parts. No, he’s not handsome. It’s better and worse than that.”
“You sound smitten,” her cousin said.
“Smitten?” Kate echoed, considering it, her head to the side, “No. ’Smote,’ though. Yes, absolutely. But what’s that got to do with anything? He’s too much for me, but I wasn’t angling for him, and I’m not going to have to deal with him again. But, as for she who was trying to,” she said with a sudden triumphant grin that made her look like a girl, “I did it. I banished the she devil, and set him free!”
Her cousin looked at her with admiration.
“Don’t think he was grateful,” Kate said with a laugh. “He couldn’t have been ruder. He accused me of trying to snare him! Yes. Because when she left, instead of nipping right out of the room the way I was supposed to do, I suddenly felt I couldn’t move. It’s the truth. I couldn’t. My legs turned to water. I’m glad he accused me of what she tried to do; it was like a bucket o
f cold water in my face. I fled—as much from him as those who were coming. Oh, but my dear cousin! He terrified me almost as much as the people who were coming to the door.”
“People came to the door?” Sibyl asked, her eyes widened.
Kate nodded. “She probably sent them after she left, trying to get him into trouble, no doubt.”
“And you.” Sibyl looked worried. “She might harbor a grudge and try to do you an injury.”
“Much chance of that,” Kate scoffed. “What? Send me home again? I’ll go soon anyway. I’m a country mouse in from the haystacks for a few improving weeks. No one knows me, or knows I’m here, and no one will know where I go, or when I do.”
Sibyl looked down at her lap, “I’m sorry. It’s just that Papa and Mama are having a hard enough time springing off Frances, Henrietta, and Chloe. If they gowned and presented you, you’d be too much competition.”
“Don’t feel sorry for me, there’s no need for it,” Kate said quickly. “I couldn’t be any kind of competition either.”
“What?” her cousin squeaked, gazing at Kate. “With your looks?” The excitement had put high color into Kate’s cheeks, making her piquant face glow. “Why, you’ve the most beautiful eyes, such a pretty shade, they match your hair. As for hair, you don’t have to spend hours in curl papers, you simply tie yours up with a ribbon, and voilà! It’s instantly in perfect style, à la Meduse.”
“Yes,” Kate said with a grimace, shaking her head until some of her curls tumbled from their moorings to dance around her face, covering her eyes. “Very appropriate. Because if I didn’t tie it, it would look just like a nest of snakes. My hair is brown, my eyes are ditto, I’m not impressed with my looks at all. Now, if I were slimmer and…Never mind that.” She swiped her curls back with one hand and looked keenly at her cousin. “I’m not talking about my appearance. It wouldn’t matter if I looked like Venus. I can’t be competition for the gentlemen your sisters are on the hunt for.”
Sibyl began to protest, but Kate held up her hand. “I’ve no money, at least not the kind you need to be a social success in London.”
Sibyl fell still and looked at her own hands as though they suddenly fascinated her.
“Yes, exactly,” Kate said. “And though I’m ’connected’ to just about everyone, I’ve no social standing either.” She saw her cousin’s expression. “It doesn’t matter. I’m glad I’m here. Glad? Ecstatic. If I hadn’t visited you, I’d never get to see the sights of London.”
“But your parents sent you in the hopes…”
“That once I was seen one of the royal princes would come waddling over, fall to one knee, and ask me to be his wife?” Kate smiled ruefully. “I love my parents, but I’m three-and-twenty and firmly on the shelf. Sending me to family I hadn’t seen since I was christened was a wild hope. Not mine. I don’t fit in here at all.
“What a face! You look like you’re about to cry for me.” Kate laughed. “There’s no need. We’re not poor, mind. We’ve a neat, comfortable farm and a steady income. But the thing is we have to think about income, and it’s clear no one here does. When I first saw the gowns on the London ladies, I was staggered. I’d only seen such in fashion plates. And the way the gentlemen dress? Why, the pin in Sir Alasdair’s cravat could have bought a horse! We don’t have funds like that. What am I supposed to do, snare a footman? Not that Ffelkes isn’t pretty,” she added, to make her cousin giggle, because poor Ffelkes had spots and no chin, “but I don’t think he reads any more often than he bathes. I vow, the fellow must have himself dusted every day, along with the furniture. And oiled, too, just look at his hair.”
Sibyl laughed, but then grew serious again. “No, I mean it, Kate. You’ve got such looks. And the loveliest figure. Why, you don’t need expensive gowns.”
“Of course I do!” Kate said in annoyance. “That’s the point. It’s not that I want them, it’s just they’re required in your set. It’s a uniform.” She sat straight up and lectured like a schoolmistress. “I reasoned it out after I’d been here a day. London’s a crowded city. I imagine you could live here all your life and still not know everyone walking on the street with you. So expensive clothes are how the rich can recognize each other, even from far away. It’s necessary. Like in the army or navy, where you can tell whose rank equals yours at a glance. Or more appropriately, and since I’m a country girl, it’s exactly like the way birds put on their spring plumage for mating. To attract their own kind.
“Don’t giggle,” she chided, “I’m quite serious. Just look right outside this window. Every person dresses for his station in life. It takes the guessing out of things. It’s true that these days, with all the new money being made after the war, there’s bound to be some confusion. Commoners are getting as rich as noblemen. But money speaks to money, even so. I’ve little, and everything about me shows it. Education,” she went on, holding up one slim finger to silence whatever Sibyl was about to say, “can be got cheap, in a book, or from someone wise, so it doesn’t matter. And breeding only serves the well-bred person.
“But don’t pity me,” Kate warned. “If your parents bought me expensive gowns, it would be dishonest, like a false front, because there’d be nothing behind it. We’re only third cousins. It’s a wonder we get on so well, and I’m glad of it. Your parents owe me nothing, nor do I expect it. The crime is what they’re doing with you. Or rather, not doing. You’re pretty as you can stare, nineteen, and never presented at a ball? They keep you like a mad wife in an attic. And you’re their own daughter and the best-looking of the lot!”
Sibyl shook her head. “No. But I’m the youngest, and so shouldn’t be upset at being the last to be ‘popped off,’ Papa says.”
“Well, you’ll be the easiest to pop off,” Kate insisted, gazing at her cousin fondly. Sibyl had the sweetest temperament of all seven Swanson sisters, with not an ounce of the competitiveness that ruined the others’ personalities. She was the changeling child in all ways, looks and manners. She lacked her sisters’ sturdy bodies and heavy features as well as their jealous natures. But she couldn’t even show her face at a ball until the last of her elders was wed. It was the only way to keep peace in the family. So Sibyl was left to wait, alone. Kate knew she’d been invited to keep her company and didn’t mind, except for Sibyl’s sake.
“But you saved Sir Alasdair,” Sibyl said eagerly, glad to get off the subject of her future. “I’ll bet he’ll be intensely grateful, when he thinks about it. Like the lion in that Aesop fable.”
“Absolutely,” Kate agreed, “I saved him like the slave did the lion with a thorn in his paw. And nearly got my head bitten off for it, too!” She winced. “And didn’t I just about tell him that in so many words? I said I’d do as much for any animal caught in a trap.”
Her cousin gasped.
“Well, but that was after he insulted me by guessing I was trying to snare him. But he is like some mighty animal at that,” Kate mused. “The man’s larger than life, full of pride and vigor.” She shivered and wrapped her arms around herself. “He terrorizes as much as fascinates. Exactly as they say. One thing’s sure, for all I think Lady Eleanora’s a monster, she’s a very brave monster, indeed! I saved him, but I’m glad I’ll never have to see him again.”
“But you seem so taken with him.”
“What’s that to do with anything?”
“Is it his reputation?”
“Lord, Sib! No. Haven’t you been listening? Please do. It’s this world, his life, your life…all this.” She threw her hands in the air. “I’ve been impressed by so much since I arrived here. Not just the sights, but the people seeing them. The elegant men—dandies, poets, Corinthians, more types than I’ve seen in one place in my life. Goodness! More people than I’ve ever seen in my life! I’m just as overwhelmed by the ladies of fashion. And by the women you pointed out, the expensive Cyprians we saw riding in the Park. Yes, even those poor creatures I saw from the carriage, selling themselves in the streets. Sib, as far as I’m con
cerned they’re all from another world. As is Sir Alasdair. I’ve traveled in books but nowhere else. I’m dazzled. Of course. But I know the difference between fiction and fact. What has such a fellow to do with me? Or any of them for that matter? I’m here to visit and learn, and I am. There’s an end to it.”
Sibyl gazed at her cousin sadly. “It’s a shame.” She sighed. “You’re so very pretty.”
Kate smiled gently. “How pathetic! We sound like old spinsters trying to cheer each other up on a lonely night. ‘But you’ve still got four lovely teeth, dearie,’ she said in a quavering falsetto. ‘Aye, sister, but you can still see out of one of your pretty eyes, my sweet.’”
“But, you—you’ve got most of your hair, too,” Sibyl said in a trembling voice, getting into the spirit of things.
“More hair than wit,” Kate muttered, suddenly serious. “Lord,” she said in wonder, “I actually went and saved the most dangerous man in the ton!”
“Well, I don’t know about that,” Sibyl said thoughtfully. “Markham’s rumored to have killed his wife, remember. Dearborne is an utter cad. FitzHugh has a wicked temper and is fast with his fists. Lord Dance and Mr. Jellicoe are always ready with pistol and sword, but so many gentlemen are that it’s hard to say which one is worse. Wycoff was even naughtier in his day. As for lethal, everyone knows Drummond and his friends Dalton and Sinclair, and a whole slew of others were involved in dangerous doings for His Majesty during the war. So, as for dangerous…”
“Sib,” Kate said with authority, “you weren’t there.”
“No,” Sibyl admitted with deep envy.
“It’s another good tale to bring home,” Kate said. “That’s all.”
“With all your protests,” Sibyl said with a grin, “I begin to believe you wish it were more.”
“Of course,” Kate said with a touch of acid, “I wish he’d clasped me to his chest, thrown me on his steed, and carried me off to his flaming circle of hell.”
Edith Layton Page 3