A Prince Among Men (7 page)

"I know it."

"What on earth will keep them there?"

"I told Raj to stand, Ophelia."

Chapter 4

O
phelia slipped into the breakfast room of the Grays' Kensington townhouse unnoticed. The room smelled of coffee, apricot preserves, and hyacinth—every comfort familiar to Ophelia, from the print of berries and flower clusters on the walls to the clutter of jam pots and open books on the table, and her friends bent over their newspapers.

The select and restricted world of Miss Weston's Academy had been unintentionally kind to Lady Ophelia Brinsby and Miss Henrietta Gray when it had brought them together. At twelve years old, Hetty, the new girl, had been plump, pretty, and unprepared for the snobbery and cruelty of her classmates. Ophelia, though younger, knew the haughty ploys of her privileged schoolmates and set out to teach her friend survival. Hetty, for her part, offered Ophelia books, books Ophelia had never dreamed existed.

They read the
novels of Mrs. Smith, Mrs. Rad
cliffe, and Mrs. Brunton, following their heroines into ruined abbeys and down American rivers. They followed Samuel Richardson's Clarissa
Harlowe from the priggish confines of her family home through all her encounters with her seducer Lovelace to her inevitable death. They read Voltaire and Rousseau, Tom Paine and the French Encyclopedists and Wollstonecraft. At sixteen they wrote
A Treatise on the Ideal State of Man,
which Solomon Gray, Hetty's father, printed for them. Some five hundred copies were out when Ophelia's parents discovered the book. The duke purchased or reclaimed all of the copies and threatened Solomon's publishing business. Ophelia was removed from Miss Weston's Academy and forbidden to continue her friendship with Hetty.

Ophelia had a clear recollection of that day. Her father had taken her aside after he'd destroyed the copies of their treatise to tell her about the duties of her station in life and what she should do to please him. "You are to be lovely and proper and quiet. Call no notice to yourself while your mother and
I make every provision for you."
He had made repeated allusions to the disgrace Lady Caroline Lamb had brought upon herself, and had urged Ophelia never to make her family look ridiculous. After that episode she'd developed her strategy of compliance. She would willingly keep most of the rules, in order to break the one that kept her from Hetty.

Ophelia looked down at her friends, absorbed in their newspapers. Solomon Gray was entirely bald, but his lack of hair contributed to the fierce vigor of his face with its dark, sharply peaked brows, intense eyes, and strong, straight nose. Hetty's pale golden curls framed a delicate countenance in which a pair of intelligent blue eyes seemed at odds with her soft beauty.

"
What a solemn pair!"

Hetty's head came up instantly. "Ophelia! Where have you been? We've been very dull, as you plainly see. We've needed you." She rose and came to Ophelia, giving her a quick hug and drawing her to the table.

"And I you. You don't know how much."

Solomon Gray smiled broadly. "Miss Ophelia, come, sit," he invited. "Let me tell Mrs. Pendares you'll be wanting some coffee."

Ophelia took a chair beside Hetty, peeking at an open book. "What's this?" She scanned the title.
"Celia in Search of a Husband."

"It's for review," said Hetty, pushing the book aside.

"May I help?" Ophelia opened the volume.

"Of course. Where have you bee
n? I didn't know what to think,"
Hetty said, "or whether I should risk a letter."

"Father sacked William, and I've had to contend with a new groom this week."

"You must have brought the new man around to your side."

Ophelia kept her gaze on the little book. "By a lady," the title page read. "We've achieved a sort of truce."

"Has it been war?"

A little commotion outside the breakfast room made them both turn. Mrs. Pendares, the Grays' housekeeper, opened the door for Solomon, who carried a tray laden with coffee and a plate of biscuits.

"Now, Mr. Gray, you oughtn't to be taking my
business upon yerself in this way," Mrs. Pendares protested, blocking the door. She was slim and cheerful, with silver strands in her dark hair, and Ophelia could not remember a time when she had not been with the Grays.

"Step aside now, ma'am," said Solomon. "I don't want to drop your biscuits in Miss Ophelia's lap." He winked at Ophelia, who grinned in return. Poor Mrs. Pendares struggled constantly to hold onto her duties in the face of the two Grays, who besides being very self-sufficient, were fond of their widowed housekeeper. Indeed, Ophelia saw with sudden insight that Solomon and Mrs. Pendares felt rather more than fondness for each other. Their glances met and danced away, and Mrs. Pendares's cheeks brightened. It was so like the way Alexander moved in relation to Ophelia that unaccountably she felt her color rise and caught Hetty's intelligent gaze on her.

"
Good morning, Mrs. Pendares,"
she said.

"
Good morning, dear. It's good to have you back at the Gray table. My biscuits have been ignored this week."

"
Outright slander!" Solomon set the tray on the table and lifted a biscuit, taking a defiant bite. Mrs. Pendares laughed and retreated, and Hetty invited Ophelia to pour herself some coffee, dark and rich in a perfect white china rim, one of the ceremonies of their friendship.

"
Tell me what's new," Ophelia said.

Hetty cast a glance at her father.
"
Father has a poem for you to look at, and so do I. And we had a noted personage join us for Tuesday night supper. Amelia Hart."

"
The novelist?
"

Hetty nodded, and Solomon disappeared behind his paper.

"Is she as radical as we've always heard?" Ophelia broke open one of the biscuits and reached for the preserves.

"More so. Sensual, charming, daring." Hetty paused, her face taking on a careful air. "It's a performance, but an engaging one. Forthright, fierce, very sure of herself, but surprisingly conventional in dress and appearance, a classic oval face, large blue eyes, delicate features, not what
I
expected."

"And did she speak well?"

Hetty's gaze strayed to her father behind his newspaper and returned. "Oh, yes. A great deal about what is permitted a woman in this world. She firmly believes women are allowed to exercise power only by guile or charm, never by right."

"My life precisely. Did any gentlemen challenge her?"

"Berwick." Hetty made a face.

Ophelia watched her friend closely. Hetty had been talking about Berwick for weeks. "I suppose Mrs. Hart ate him alive."

"Yes. He mentioned that Princess Charlotte would someday rule vast numbers of men as queen, but Mrs. Hart was quick to remind him of the likelihood that Charlotte, if she does rule, will be governed first by her own sober husband."

"She calls herself 'Mrs.'?"

"She says she's as entitled to it as any widow, having once bound herself to a man. I can tell
you, she stirred up discussion all night."

Solomon put down his paper abruptly and stood. "Work to do. I'll leave you girls to your talk." He turned at the door. "Miss Ophelia, Berwick, who fancies himself the next Byron, has offered me a new poem. Take a look, will you?"

"Of course, Mr. Gray." Ophelia smiled. Just like that she had a commission. Her opinion mattered in the Grays' house as it never did in her own.

When the door closed behind Solomon, Ophelia turned to Hetty. "I take it your father doesn't admire Mrs. Hart as much as you do."

Hetty frowned, a little white crease between her brows. "He's published all her books, but they always fight about the money. She refused to call here before now."

Ophelia spread jam on her biscuit. Solomon Gray was a self
-made man, with an entirely un-
aristocratic air of confidence, the air of a man who'd achieved something, the sort of air Wellington had. To see him shrink from girlish talk was curious.

"You think your father's dislike of Mrs. Hart is something besides the money?"

Hetty poured fresh coffee. "I suppose he finds her fame irksome. We live far from your sort of society, Ophelia. One doesn't meet luminaries in Hetty Gray's drawing room."

Ophelia pondered it. The Grays did live in obscurity, though Solomon's success as a publisher was equal to that of John Murray, who published Byron. There were far more literary addresses in London, and the Grays could easily afford a
grander style of living in one of the newer squares.

After a little lapse, Hetty spoke again. "In some ways Mrs. Hart disturbs me, but she is exciting. There was definitely more energy in the room for her being there."

"I'd like to meet her." Ophelia sipped her coffee. It was an escape she'd yet to work out. To get away in the evening when the social whirl of London was at its peak, was more difficult than in the morning, when only servants and vendors were stirring.

Hetty said, "You must come some evening soon, no matter what tricks it takes to escape. It would be so much easier to make up my mind about Mrs. Hart if we could compare observations. But tell me about your week."

"Danced with Dent everywhere. Offended mother's demon hound. Hems will be deeper this spring. Princess Charlotte's wedding dress will be silver and has metal thread enough to circle the globe. My mother, by the way, has triumphed over her fellow hostesses. She's to give a ball for Charlotte and her prince, at which she hopes I'll announce my betrothal. Dent or Wyatt will do."

"Not Wyatt!" Hetty looked sympathetic. "He hasn't bothered you this season, has he?"

"No." Ophelia had seen him dancing attendance on a new girl, giving her that flattering sensation of being important to someone's happiness. She had no way of knowing whether the new girl was destined to be disillusioned, as Ophelia had been. Her pride wanted to believe it, but she didn't wish that suffering on anyone.

It had been mortifying to discover her vanity and frailty, flaws that were not even original, just the faults laid at every woman's door since Eve. She saw herself as she'd been last season, weak and trusting, allowing intimacies and touches, thinking that because Wyatt let her talk, he was actually interested in what she said.

He had been the crudest mirror into which she'd ever looked. On a bench in Vauxhall Gardens, her breasts spilling out of her stays, her skirts hiked up about her thighs, showing the tops of her stockings, Wyatt's hand on her knee, she learned Wyatt's true estimation of her.
You're one of the hot ones, Ophelia.
To think of it again sent an immediate wave of shame through her, hot and then cold.

Hetty's expression was quite sober. "Should you expose him?"

"How can I?" She couldn't, of course.

"Poor Ophelia."

Ophelia drew a breath and straightened. "I mean to ignore Wyatt, make him feel he has no power over me. But it's difficult. My new groom has more wit than my dance partners."

"Do you talk to him? I mean, have conversations with him?"

"Only minor philosophical discourses on the nature of man and beast."

Hetty laughed. "Be serious, Ophelia. You move in the best circles. There must be a man, men, of your acquaintance who are clever, amiable, and principled."

"All married, I'm sure." She picked up the little volume of
Celia in Search of a Husband.
"I suppose this heroine has her pick of eligible
gentlemen, but will meet the man of her dreams only when she has been reduced by every vicissitude of fortune to living in a hovel with her dying grandfather in some foreign land."

Hetty laughed. "After their canoe goes over a steep waterfall and capsizes, flinging them ashore on the edge of the darkest, most extensive forest in America."

"You see, it's easy for Celia. Now, if she were a duke's daughter, trapped in London society, there would onl
y be a score of men to consider.
"

"And your parents have fixed on Dent and Wyatt?"

"The right lineage, suf
ficient income, connections." O
phelia split another biscuit and regarded its sweet, warm center.

"There must be others."

"Last night I told Ayres that I made it a rule to sleep in a hair shirt. Do you know what he said?"

"Ophelia, you didn't."

"It was a test. I wanted to see whether he was listening."

"What did he say?"

" 'Interesting!' Handsome men are the worst. A man who catches his own eye in a glass and smiles approvingly! Spare me."

"Is there no one you might love?" Hetty asked, suddenly quite serious.

"Love," Ophelia spread preserves on her biscuit, "feeling, seems an untrustworthy basis for a marriage. What one wants is someone sensible enough to manage twenty thousand pounds. I should advertise."

"I don't think you should judge love by your experience with Wyatt."

"Oh, I agree. There was certainly no love in that."

"But you do believe in love," Hetty insisted.

"It's a bit like believing in the moon. One can see it, but one hardly knows how to get there from here."
Ophelia stirred her cooling coffee. It was true. Love was as remote as the moon. "Hetty, show me your poem."