Beauty in Black

by Nicole Byrd

  John knew his own face must reflect the same reserve. He hesitated for a moment on the threshold as the butler announced in an impassive voice, “The marquess of Gillingham, my lord, my lady.”

  The servant withdrew, and for a moment there was silence. The woman turned to her husband and seemed to be waiting.

  Gabriel spoke, his voice gruff. “Come in, then. I shall not threaten to put the dogs on you, as my father did me at our last meeting. Not that we have any guard dogs at the moment, nor did he, but the menace was genuine. At any rate, there’s no need to stand in the doorway.”

  He had not meant to reveal so soon his lack of enthusiasm over this visit. Grimacing, John advanced into the room.

  His newly met sister-in-law smiled at him and gestured toward a chair. John made her a polite bow, awkward as it likely was, but he remained on his feet, like a warrior unwilling to chance a sudden attack from his enemy.

  “I am—ah—amazed to see you in London,” Gabriel said. His face was still blank, revealing nothing at all of the emotions he must be feeling.

  But John could guess at them accurately enough. “Circumstances forced me to come.”

  Gabriel lifted his brows. “What incredible occurrence necessitated such a radical change of habit?”

  John swallowed hard. “I have few acquaintances among Polite Society. I find that I am in need of some introductions.”

  This time it was easy enough to glimpse Gabriel’s amazement, as well as his skepticism. “You wish to enjoy the Season in London? Why on earth? I don’t recall you having any taste for Society.”

  “I don’t, but it seems I am forced into it,” John admitted, trying not to grit his teeth. “I need—”

  His brother and sister-in-law watched him, both apparently at a loss. “I need to wed,” he forced the words out. “I must have an heir.”

  “So that, if you die as suddenly as our father did, the title does not fall to me?” Gabriel’s tone was almost choked. Was he on the verge of angry denunciation?

  But they were interrupted before he could continue.

  “Dinner is served, my lord, my lady,” the butler said from the doorway. He withdrew, but the silence lingered.

  Lady Gabriel looked startled, but it was her husband whom John turned back to observe. He stared at the younger man and felt his bile rise as he recognized, from years past, the wicked gleam in Gabriel’s sea-blue eyes.

  The bastard was laughing!

  Dinner seemed interminable, and although the food was excellent, John found it hard to get down. He had swallowed enough of his pride for one day; perhaps that was what lessened his appetite.

  He was surprised to find a schoolroom miss joining them for dinner. The child, who was thin with straight brown hair pulled out of her face, had unnerving green eyes and a concentrated gaze, which she fixed on his face through the whole of the first course. Had she never seen a pox victim before?

  He glared at her while the footmen were taking away the dishes and bringing in the next course, and she met his look without flinching. That was unusual enough, but he tried again, speaking to her in a low voice.

  “I’m sorry if my countenance offends you,” he said, his tone grim. “However, if no one has informed you, it is rude to stare at people.”

  Lady Gabriel made a sound deep in her throat, and his brother looked up, his own expression icy. “It is also rude to correct a child in whose home you are being entertained.”

  His wife added, “Circe is an artist, you see,” as if that explained everything.

  But the child with the unlikely name did not seem abashed. She simply raised her brows, for a moment looking more like her sister. “Oh, no, I am not offended. The pox marks are not that bad, and you have excellent bone structure. I was thinking that your face would be interesting to draw.”

  He was so disconcerted that he did not attempt to speak to her again, and it was a relief when the ladies withdrew.

  Although then, he was alone with his brother.

  Gabriel, who had maintained a facade of cool civility in front of his wife and her sister, dropped the pretense when the door shut behind the females.

  “You haven’t changed, have you, John? Still like to browbeat those younger and weaker than yourself?”

  John bristled, even as he thought that the child hadn’t appeared intimidated in the least. “She’s an odd thing, you must admit. And you obviously indulge her too much—no wonder she sounds so little like an ordinary schoolgirl.”

  “Circe will never be an ordinary schoolgirl. And you will not criticize my family in my own house!” Gabriel’s perfect features were rigid with anger, anger that had been simmering for years, John suspected. His sibling had always been a whiner, running to their mother when he’d taken a cuff from his brother.

  So be it. John had not come here to apologize for imagined and ancient wrongs. He took a deep drink of his wine. “I was the older brother. Boys get into scrapes. What did you expect? Don’t be such a craven, crying over every little smack.”

  Gabriel’s blue eyes narrowed. “You were as cruel as our father, if that is possible, taking any excuse to knock me around. Why in hell do you think I should help you now? So that some other woman will suffer your rudeness, some future child your vicious handling?”

  “You prefer that I remain single and childless, so that you can someday come into the title and the estate?” John thrust back. “You’d like that, wouldn’t you?”

  “I don’t want your precious title! Nor one guinea of your inheritance, and I certainly would never live in that house again! If it were mine, I would burn it to the ground.”

  “I would burn it first, if I thought you were going to inherit! Even if I left no other heir, you wouldn’t deserve it, if the truth were told—”

  John paused as Gabriel pushed back his chair so suddenly that it tilted and hit the wooden floor with a bang. Gabriel jumped to his feet, and John sprang up, too.

  They faced each other, a scant three feet between them, three feet and years of antagonism, as well as the family secret which Gabriel was so loath to admit. Tension charged the air, but for an instant no one spoke.

  John felt his own anger swell; he, too, harbored grievances from the past. Why had he been so foolish as to come here, to give his wretched brat of a brother the chance to turn down his ill-considered request? He should go soak his head in the Thames, it would do him as much good. No, he would go home.

  If one of them did not die right here. He glared back at Gabriel, finding that, just like his brother, his own hands had curled into fists. The silence sizzled, and neither man relaxed his stance. If there had been a weapon at hand, John could not have said who would have reached for it first.

  When the door opened suddenly, they both jumped. John pulled his gaze away to see who stood there. Her expression concerned, Lady Gabriel hesitated in the doorway.

  “Circe has gone up to bed. I thought you two would join me in the drawing room?” She glanced at the overturned chair, but did not comment on it.

  “I’m afraid that will not be possible. Our guest is leaving,” Gabriel answered, by the sound of it through gritted teeth.

  John nodded. He tried to speak evenly. “I must thank you, my lady, for the excellent dinner. I fear I will not be seeing you again.”

  “Why not?” Lady Gabriel demanded. She glanced from one to the other. “I thought you had come to London for the Season?”

  “It was an ill-advised plan,” John said, as brusque as his brother. “I will be leaving town shortly.”

  “Nonsense,” the woman said, surprising him one more time. “You will join our excursion to Vauxhall Gardens on Saturday. It will be an easy way for you to make some acquaintances in London, and the evening will be relaxed and not at all formal. It will be the perfect occasion for you to test the waters.”

  Did she perceive just how unaccustomed to polite company he was, how poorly equipped to navigate the complicated seas of Society? John hesitated, and his brother spo
ke.

  “Psyche, I need to speak to you.”

  She smiled. “Of course, my dear, in a moment.” To John, she continued, “I shall send you a note with all the particulars. At which inn are you staying?”

  He told her, wondering if Gabriel would command her to rescind the invitation. Was anyone able to command this woman? He was beginning to doubt it; she was as singular, in her own way, as her strange little sister.

  Still, John had no desire to linger. He gave his hostess a stiff bow and glanced toward his brother.

  Gabriel nodded. “We shall not stand on ceremony.”

  In other words, John could see himself out, a major concession, since he knew perfectly well that Gabriel longed to forcibly eject him by the seat of his pantaloons. As if he could! Gabriel might have grown into a height of over six feet and could now meet his brother eye to eye, but he lacked the width and breadth of John’s physique. Although John, too, would relish the excuse for a good set of fisticuffs. Whine about mistreatment, would his pampered little brother? He’d show him mistreatment!

  John stomped down the hall, was bowed out by the footman, and found his carriage waiting. The butler must have summoned it. The whole household seemed to run as evenly as a calm stream through a meadow. He thought of his own home, its patchy housekeeping and indifferent meals, and frowned. That was what came of not having a mistress for his household. Surely that was reason enough to stay a few days more in London, as much as he still longed to tell the coachman to turn the carriage and gallop south, toward home and refuge.

  John leaned against the seat and shut his eyes for a moment. Why not admit it? He envied his brother his beautiful bride, his elegant and well-managed dwelling, his no-doubt countless friends among the Ton. Gabriel was as good-looking, as charming to the ladies, as cunning as he had been as an angelic-faced child, and John felt much the same emotions as he had then.

  Damn Gabriel, anyhow.

  And why was his sister-in-law so determined to help him? John hadn’t a clue, but he might as well take advantage of her strange benevolence.

  When he reached the inn, he hurried up to his room. Runt whined when he opened the door, and he bent to scratch the dog behind her ears. “Yes, we’ll go out for a walk,” he promised her.

  Yet she waited for his petting before barreling toward the open door. Someone, at least, was happy to see him.

  John thought again of his brother’s wife, considered what a pleasure it must be, making love to a woman who could love him back. Unlike the quick, joyless unions John sometimes had with the occasional village girl who was willing to share his bed, always in darkness, and the woman nearly always a little stiff with fear. . . . What would it be like to have a woman feel real passion for him? He had almost given up hope of finding out.

  Just a few more days, he told himself. He could stomach a few more days.

  They had reached town without incident. Marianne was a bit afraid that Louisa might be disappointed in her aunt’s modest town house, but Louisa seemed determined to like everything that met her eyes. She exclaimed over the buildings and the parks and even the traffic all the way in from the outskirts of the city. The tall, narrow house, which sat side by side with its neighbors, met with her full approval, nor did she cavil when she found that the guest room was two flights up.

  Instead, she pronounced the bedchamber charming, with its rose-patterned draperies and bed hangings, and set her young maid to work unpacking.

  Marianne had greeted her footman and the housemaid and kitchen maid, heard about the squirrel that had got into the attic and made such a mess before finally being driven out, and conferred with her cook about meals to plan for the following week. Then she sat down to look through the correspondence that had piled up during her absence.

  Scanning one gilt-edged card, she told Louisa when the girl joined her in the small but elegant drawing room, “I am invited to a luncheon tomorrow with a party of my women friends, most unexceptional, and you will enjoy it. Then tea with the countess Sealey on Wednesday next, an old friend. And a visit to Vauxhall on Saturday evening, no, I think we should postpone that till another time—”

  “Oh, no,” Louisa cried. “That is one of the places I most want to visit! I have heard so much about the amazing array of lights, and the fireworks, and the dancing, and—”

  “But you have not yet been formally presented, Louisa,” Marianne reminded her. “I’m not sure how much you should be seen about town until you can make your bow at court.”

  “But that will not happen for weeks, you said,” Louisa protested. “And then we will have my coming-out party, just a small affair, but tasteful and with music, you promised! But Vauxhall, oh, please, please, I will wear a domino if you like! But I must go.”

  Marianne laughed despite herself. “It is not a masquerade, just a group of friends going for dinner, a concert, and the fireworks afterwards.”

  “Then, you see, it is quite an unpretentious affair and just the thing for me,” the younger woman argued.

  Marianne sighed. If she said no, she would never hear the end of it. And it was true, it was only a small informal party.

  “Very well, I will write and convey our acceptance,” she agreed. “And now, I think we should both retire—the journey was fatiguing, and we have much to do tomorrow.”

  “I’m not sure I shall sleep a wink,” Louisa declared. “I am so excited—London, at last! I could almost fall down and kiss the cobblestones!”

  Marianne laughed at such an absurd idea. “I beg you will not,” she said. “You will have a face full of mud, if you do.”

  Louisa giggled. “I didn’t really mean it. Oh, Aunt Marianne, you are so good to me! Thank you, thank you for bringing me to London.”

  She gave Marianne a hug, and then they went up the staircase together. In her own room, Hackett helped Marianne shed her traveling costume and put on her nightgown, then brushed out her dark wavy hair.

  “I think Louisa will be a pleasure to have with us,” Marianne told her maid, remembering her dresser’s earlier warnings of dire consequences. “She is so happy to be in town that she is quite amenable to my suggestions.”

  “It’s early days, yet,” her dresser replied, her expression as dour as always.

  Marianne waved away her maid’s pessimistic reply and retired to bed with an easy mind.

  The next day she spent the morning writing notes, answering invitations, and making plans for Louisa’s presentation, and after lunch she took Louisa off to see her own dressmaker. The next few days were filled, to Louisa’s great delight, with shopping, fittings, and visiting friends. Louisa had her hands measured for new gloves, her feet for riding boots and delicate dancing slippers, and even her supply of underthings and lacy nightgowns and nightcaps had to be replenished. The first of the new gowns arrived just in time for the expedition to Vauxhall, and Louisa’s excitement was almost impossible to contain.

  They took a hackney to the famous garden just after sunset, since the pleasure park appeared to best advantage after dark when its hundreds of lights could dazzle newcomers.

  Louisa was suitably impressed. “Oh, it’s heavenly,” she cried. “I have never witnessed such a spectacle! I have dreamed of this for so long, Aunt Marianne. You are such an angel to allow me this pleasure!”

  Marianne, who knew what went on in the more secluded glades of the gardens and the tree-lined walks that were deliberately less well lit, thought that heavenly might not be the right metaphor. But she kept these reflections to herself, vowing to keep a sharp eye on her charge so that Louisa did not discover, too soon, just what worldly debaucheries sometimes were enjoyed among couples in the garden’s darker corners.

  As usual, the garden was crowded, but they met Marianne’s party of friends at the arranged table and enjoyed a dinner of the finely sliced ham, roast chicken, and other delectables for which Vauxhall was famous. Then after eating and chatting, they enjoyed listening to the concert from the rotunda, with its dazzling lights and
impressive facade.

  Afterward, there was dancing, and Louisa begged to see more of the gardens.

  “We can take a stroll along the pathways,” Marianne agreed. “But you will have to stay beside me, Louisa. This is a public place, please remember, and some of the rougher elements are often present, eager to take advantage of a young woman alone.”

  “I will,” Louisa promised.

  But as bad luck would have it, they had hardly risen from their table when a matron, who was an acquaintance of Marianne’s, appeared and greeted her with enthusiasm.

  Mrs. Mendall was full of news, since it had been a whole two weeks since they had met, and Marianne had to pause and listen to the woman’s chatter.

  Trying to hide her impatience, Louisa turned a little away. Marianne sensed when the younger woman stiffened. What was it?

  While Marianne made automatic responses to Mrs. Mendall about a somewhat dull party she had missed because of her sojourn in Bath, she scanned the crowd to find out what had upset her charge.

  There, the good-looking young man with the brunette in pink on his arm who moved so smoothly on the dance floor, that was whom Louisa watched, though she tried not to make her attention apparent. Obviously, he was someone Louisa knew, and, since her acquaintances in London were few, could it be the young baronet from Bath whom Caroline had mentioned, Sir . . . Lucas Englewood. Marianne dredged the name from her memory. If so, oh dear.

  Louisa’s color was high. As the couple circled on the dance floor, the young man, who had brown hair and appealing bright brown eyes, glanced up and met her gaze. His expression altered in a quick and almost comical succession: first pleasure, then guilt, then alarm, and finally even more complicated emotions impossible to read. Then he swung back into the dance pattern, and his face was hidden from them.

  Louisa wheeled abruptly to face the two older women. “They do seem to let just anyone into Vauxhall, do they not?” she interrupted, her tone brittle.

  Marianne winced for her charge’s manners, but Mrs. Mendall did not seem to take the sudden comment amiss. “So true, my dear, which is why one must not be unchaperoned.”