His smile broadened to indicate how very little he cared about her warnings.
“Perhaps it’s just that you haven’t had enough to drink, Mr. Redmond?” she suggested. “It’s early, but champagne is a bit like drinking sunshine. It ought to do you and the rest of us who must look upon you good.”
Argosy intervened. “You must forgive my friend, Miss de Ballesteros, but he’s been deprived of his allowance, you see, which would darken the mood of any man. I’m certain a moment or two of basking in your charm will set him right. Your presence could make any man forget his troubles.”
Tommy wordlessly watched Argosy’s mouth move.
When he was done, she said, “Oh . . . you,” she finally said, and gifted him with a tap from her fan.
Jonathan stifled a laugh.
She made a three-quarter turn and pointed herself at him. “I thought I heard the word ‘silks.’ ”
She sounded shockingly businesslike.
“Do you like silks? I’ll buy a shipload of them for you,” Argosy volunteered casually.
“Be a pet and do that,” she encouraged him just as casually over her shoulder.
Jonathan coughed a laugh into his fist. “You heard ‘silks,’ Miss de Ballesteros, because I invested in a cargo of them.”
“And . . . ? Surely that isn’t how the story ends. Entertain me, Mr. Redmond. Make me laugh or weep.”
“And I doubled my profits.”
She sighed. “I do love a happy ending.”
“I suspect it’s just the middle of the story. I invested those profits in another cargo of silks.”
“And now . . . ?” Tommy prompted, starry-eyed, like a child being told a favorite bedtime story.
“And now we wait.”
“In other words, it could very well become a never-ending story. Like Scheherazade and The Arabian Nights.”
“You catch on quickly. Investment is just that enchanting. A fairy tale come to life.”
She laughed. And now the rest of the room shifted restlessly because her laugh was husky and genuine, and called to mind bells and Spring and mating and all sorts of things that stirred a man, and they all wanted to be the one to make her do it.
“The last time you were here, Mr. Redmond, I believe you mentioned something about a color printing press.”
She had a fixed gaze, he noted. Quite a green one, when observed in close proximity, the iris traced in a circle of silver. Almond-shaped eyes, like a Gypsy or a Persian, beneath slanting little dark brows. A pixie or a sorceress’s face, Argosy would have called it, but then, he would. Jonathan preferred his women blond and cool. “Unusual” invariably equated with “complicated,” in his experience, and “complicated” was synonymous with “anathema.”
Argosy would have completely missed the pragmatism and intelligence that shone in them.
The thing was, he hadn’t mentioned the printing press to her, and this was fascinating. Apparently not only did she lurk outside the homes of powerful dukes, she selectively overheard bits of conversation, and not the sort he might have anticipated. For all he knew the sole purpose of these salons was for her to gather intelligence.
And yesterday she had asked why he needed the duke’s money.
“A friend of mine, a German gentleman currently living in London, has developed the capability to print mass quantities in color—chromolithography, it’s called. I believe its possibilities are legion. He’s not the only lithographer hoping to print in color, but he’s the only one I know of in London.”
Argosy’s head dropped back in a pantomimed snore. “And Redmond would invest in that, too, but I may have mentioned he hasn’t any blunt to speak of at the moment.” He’d momentarily forgotten to be languid in a surge of desperate and unworthy-of-him competition. “He invested it all in the silks. He has. No. Money. At all.”
Jonathan turned his head slowly toward Argosy and pinned him with an incredulous black look.
Argosy looked back at him almost helplessly, an apology in his eyes, as if he couldn’t help himself. She was that sort of woman. She didn’t particularly try to do it, but Jonathan suspected it was really only a matter of time before men came to blows—or pistols—over her.
He, of course, wasn’t going to be one of them, but he didn’t particularly want Argosy to be one of them, either.
Tommy seemed to be all but deaf to Argosy. “Mr. Redmond, has your friend considered that he could likely make a fortune printing . . . shall we say . . . colorful playing cards featuring . . . explicit images?”
Jonathan went still.
He briefly closed his eyes as the suggestion spiraled into the depths of his mind like a guinea tossed into a wishing well.
It was brilliant.
Illegal. But brilliant.
“Or perhaps . . . depicting members of the current court? Or members of high society?” he mulled, half to himself. Ideas rippled out from ideas rippled out from ideas.
“Do you speak euphemistically when you say ‘members,’ or . . . ? Because either, I’m sure, would be popular.”
It was an excellent double entendre and he rewarded it with the wicked grin it deserved, and she grinned back at him, and the air surrounding them was dangerously effervescent for a moment, until he remembered he had no money and he was supposed to be married by the end of the year.
“Tell me, Mr. Redmond.” And here her fan drooped forward to touch his chest, in something perilously close to a caress. “Are you good at this sort of thing? Investing?”
“Yes,” he said shortly.
He’d just noticed that Argosy’s eyes were fixed on where her fan met his chest, and he was reddening in a way that boded no good.
“I like investing in ruby necklaces that match the flames in a certain temptress’s hair,” Argosy volunteered curtly. Forgetting to be languid, but not to be hyperbolic.
Tommy swiveled to Argosy again. “Do you? I think Rundell and Bridge may still be open for business at this time of the day, but you may need to hurry,” she said briskly.
Jonathan couldn’t help it. He laughed. It was only what Argosy deserved, given the allowance announcement. But then he took pity on him. It wasn’t as though he particularly wanted Miss de Ballesteros’s attention.
“Why don’t you tell our hostess what your particular talents are, Argosy, before she becomes bored of us and drifts away to pollinate another conversation.”
Tommy sent Jonathan a sharp, unreadable, narrow-eyed glance.
Then turned a brightly expectant gaze on Argosy.
“Of the ones I may properly discuss in a public gathering,” he began, and she nodded, acknowledging the hint of suggestiveness, like a schoolteacher with a clever pupil—“I’m a very fine dancer. I handle the ribbons of my high flyer as if I were Apollo bringing the sunrise to the world. I excel at anticipating a woman’s needs. I can carry on a conversation about many topics, if not investing, when I’m not competing for your attention with a dozen other men. When I compete, I fear I tend to speak in hyperbole.”
Argosy looked mollified when Tommy laughed. She gestured with the empty champagne flute she was holding. “Can you anticipate the need I have now, Lord Argosy?”
“Your wish is my command.” Argosy bowed low and whimsically and immediately went in search of champagne for her.
Not, however, without trailing a suspicious warning look back at Jonathan.
“Meet me at midnight tonight in Covent Garden outside the Half Moon Theater,” she said immediately to Jonathan, on a hush.
“What? No.”
“It’s not what you think, Mr. Redmond.”
He aimed a look skyward. “Dear God, tell me you didn’t just say that again. No. I’ve no interest in the affairs of complicated, circumspect, ginger-haired women. No.”
“And you know very well I’ve no interest in the affairs of currently penniless rakes.”
Well.
“I ought to say ‘ouch,’ ” he said gingerly.
“You would, but you
don’t care what I think any more than I care what you think. Since we share a particular interest, I do however think you’ll be interested in a business proposition I’d like to share with you.”
“And every grain of sense I possess tells me I’d be wise to pretend I never heard you say that.”
“How many grains of sense do you possess?”
“Let me see . . . three grains, at last count. I used to have four, but I forfeited one when I agreed to accompany Argosy to this salon. Again.”
“That’s such a shame! Three grains is one fewer than you need to prevent you from a trip to the Half Moon Theater at midnight.”
Jonathan laughed. He couldn’t help it.
If the two of them laughed again the whole of the place would likely call him out, such was the delicate tension she’d built with her strategically allotted attention and strategically low-cut bodice. And here she was, of course, talking to the one person who genuinely didn’t care whether she talked to him or not, much the way a cat could pick out the one person in a room who loathed cats.
“Come now, Mr. Redmond,” she urged, her voice lowered. “What else are you going to do with your time? It’s not like you’ll head to the gaming tables, not if you’ve sense, and from what I understand you have three entire grains of the stuff. You’ve been deprived of your allowance, and correct me if I have it wrong, but your father isn’t the sort to cheerfully pay your vowels should you play without funds. So meet me at midnight outside the Half Moon Theater. You’ll hear something of interest. Oh—and bring your pistol.”
And with that she pivoted and aimed the full radiant beam of her attention at Argosy, who’d returned, champagne in hand, with the air of a warrior bearing the head of his queen’s enemy.
“Lord Argosy,” she greeted him delightedly. “How impossible it is to resist a man who sees to my needs.”
Just like that, she threw what amounted to a net woven of sunshine and jewels over Argosy. He basked, captivated, his envy of Jonathan forgotten, and in a few short minutes he was convinced he was her favorite, simply by the quality of her attention. She was charming, Jonathan observed. Effortlessly charming, it seemed. She enjoyed charming. That much was clear.
It was also all a show, that much was also clear—to Jonathan, at least. But it was a show he appreciated, as long as he could remain safely in the audience. He observed, amused and somewhat relieved to be completely ignored, while she allotted Argosy a few more champagne sips worth of flattery and warmth before drifting off to enchant another guest.
He wasn’t about to meet that woman anywhere at midnight.
But he did like the way she moved, Jonathan thought absently, watching her walk away. It was the way champagne would move if it was a woman, all light and fluid elegance.
Chapter 7
HE LEFT A HOPEFUL Argosy behind at her salon before the sun dipped too low in the sky, with a vague promise to see him at White’s this evening, but only if Argosy was buying. He walked as far as Bond Street, taking great punishing, cleansing draughts of clear cold air, where he paused.
He was held captive in front of a shop featuring Italian confections.
For there, right in the window, nestled in among a number of different pastries, was a pile of fruit molded from marzipan.
And lo and behold, among them was what appeared to be a cluster of raspberries.
He smiled. It was an omen, he was sure of it. Surely things would go his way, despite his father’s threats.
He fished through his pockets, decided he’d sacrifice a few pence for the sake of his sister. Violet would laugh when she saw them. He chose several, and the shopkeeper wrapped them as tenderly as eggs. Jonathan tucked the little bundle into the inside pocket of his greatcoat, and turned to leave, a smile on his face.
And the smile froze, for there, with her hand on the door of the shop, dressed in sleek scarlet wool, stood the beautiful Lady Philippa Winslow.
Except at the moment her eyes and mouth were narrow slits. Which was unusual, since both were generally large and generous and . . . open.
Right now her mouth seemed to be trembling with the effort of holding back some sort of verbal earthquake.
“Philippa!” His voice thrummed with memories and enthusiasm. “What a pleasure it is to see—”
“You might have told me,” she hissed. And before he could blink or duck—SMACK!—up flew her hand and cracked him on the cheek.
It sent him staggering a step backward.
“The bloody hell . . . ?”
But she’d whipped around and was already gone, boarding her carriage again, trailing a look of melodramatic heartbreak over her shoulder.
The shopkeeper, witnessing the entire thing, was shaking his head to and fro, and tsking.
“The women, they are lunatics, si?”
“Si,” Jonathan agreed fervently. Hand against his cheek. Staring, narrow-eyed, after the rapidly disappearing carriage. An awful suspicion uncoiling in his mind.
“The amore, it is worth it, si?”
“This is where, kind sir, I fear our opinions diverge,” he said darkly.
Baffled and furious, he walked the rest of the way home, allowing the air to cool his face while he rifled through his memories, his assignations, his every move since he’d last seen her two weeks ago, to ascertain what he might have done to deserve assault.
Women were mad capricious creatures; this was the only explanation he could arrive at.
So much for omens. He would tell Violet about it, and then tell her it was all her fault.
THE THEME OF the day appeared to be rude surprises; he arrived home to find his parents unexpectedly in residence at their London town house.
“Mother. Father. What a pleasure.” He tried and failed to inflect that sentence. “I thought you intended to stay in Pennyroyal Green for a time.”
He stood still for a cheek kiss from his mother; his father lowered a newspaper, nodded to him, and raised it up again.
“Violet insisted I would enjoy a bit of shopping in town and said she would be just fine for a day or so without me, so I decided to accompany him. Just for a day or so.”
I’ll bet she insisted, Jonathan thought, bleakly amused.
“And your father has a meeting with the Duke of Greyfolk.”
Ah. The Duke of Greyfolk. Jonathan suppressed a dry smile. So his father had been listening to him.
He tried to peer through his father’s newspaper to read his devious mind, but his father didn’t so much as twitch.
How unsurprised Jonathan would be if the Duke of Greyfolk was suddenly invited to join the Mercury Club. For men like his father and the duke tended to get what they wanted in any way they possibly could, and they both wanted that Lancaster Mill.
And so at eight o’clock he sat down with his parents to a full dinner of lamb chops and peas. He listened to his mother tell his father about a relative who suffered from a liver complaint. His father actually appeared to be interested. Then again, he’d had years to perfect feigning interest in all manner of things in order to get what he wanted.
The conversation was giving Jonathan a liver complaint. He absently thought it would be an excellent idea to marry, if only in order to bear progeny and then torture them with conversations about liver complaints.
He’d learned over the years that a little wine was often the answer to life’s general other complaints, so he took a hearty gulp.
“Your father tells me you intend to wed before the year is out, Jonathan.”
Jonathan choked.
“Smaller sips, dear,” his mother said, as if he was nine years old.
He recovered with some aplomb and gently set down his glass. “I didn’t precisely say that, Mother,” he began carefully.
“Your father isn’t in the habit of mishearing things, Jonathan. I think it’s a wonderfully mature decision and I must say I approve.” She smiled lovingly at him, damn it all. She was so happy, and this was so rare. “We’ll fill a nursery with your
babies in no time. Surely you noticed the heaps of invitations awaiting in the entry. I put the word about the moment we got in. How fortunate you are that so many beautiful girls have come of age this season.”
And this “putting it about,” as his mother put it, very likely explained Philippa and the insult to his cheek. News of that sort would spread like cholera in London.
Jonathan took this in, nodding, and eyed his fork speculatively. He had two options, as he saw it: He could drive it into his own heart. Or he could hurl it straight into the tiny black heart of his father. Perhaps his aptitude for darts was all in preparation for this moment.
He met Isaiah’s eyes. His father was smiling blandly and indulgently.
No, his heart is too small and shriveled of a target, even for a marksman like me, Jonathan decided blackly.
It was true, however, that beautiful girls did abound this season. But beautiful girls were like flowers; he was quite certain he enjoyed them so thoroughly because he wasn’t the one responsible for watering and tending and keeping them alive and happy, and listening to them discuss liver complaints.
There were also going to be a few other beautiful girls, some of them the sort who would never be invited to the balls he attended, who could potentially hurl things at him, sob, or orate about how he had allegedly wronged them. He hadn’t a permanent mistress. But a few had . . . auditioned . . . for the role, so to speak. Including Philippa.
God. London, his favorite place, was going to be a veritable gauntlet for the next several weeks.
The walls of the dining room suddenly seemed to be closing in on him.
He wasn’t a heartbreaker. Or rather, he never set out to do it. He could never understand how women did it so freely, offered hearts without telling a man they were doing it, and then accused a man of stomping on a gift he hadn’t known he’d possessed. Didn’t they know what a dangerous business love was? How reckless it was to fall in? Falling in love alone was proof of insanity.
His last few bites of lamb chop tasted of sawdust. He swallowed them, finished his wine, and pushed himself away from the table.
“Well, I’m off to fashion a noose,” he said grimly, by way of excusing himself.
Julie Anne Long - [Pennyroyal Green 08] Page 6