Barbara Metzger (23 page)

“Waters is here, too? Capital! I should have known he’d see Mona to safe harbor. Do you think I could… That is…”

“I’ll take you up to the nursery as soon as you’ve spoken to my husband. I’m sure you’ll be even more eager to help with our plans for the ball when you hear that Mona stands ready to identify the traitors if they show up there. She overheard two men speaking after
the ambush, speaking of a Frenchman and counting French money.”

“Mona is involved? Just tell me what to do. I’m ready. Why, I’d walk to the moon and back, for her.”

*

Sir Parcival got off the sofa and winced. “Man, that gives me a headache.” He grimaced at Senta’s quizzical look. “The wonders of youth.”

Chapter Eleven

A
heavy rain was falling the day of the ball. A cold, unlucky rain, Sir Parcival felt.

“Nonsense. Rain is only unlucky for weddings. I’m just happy it’s not snowing.”

Sir Parcival still had mixed feelings about this evening. “Doesn’t sound like my kind of party,” was all he could say in explanation. He raised his lip at his own formal attire, black fitted coat and trousers, ruffles at his neck.

Senta thought he looked stunning. With his hair pomaded back, her strange guest could almost pass muster as a member of the
ton
tonight, unless you looked too closely at the cut of his jacket, the style of his neckcloth. For a moment Senta wished she could introduce him to some of the lady guests. What a stir he’d make with that sultry, brooding look of his, or that slow smile that could light up an entire ballroom, she swore. Then again, he’d most likely forget his dance partners’ names and insult any number of influential dowagers or tongue-tied debutantes. Just as well he was invisible. Besides, this ball wasn’t being thrown to raise hopes in the hearts of every unmarried female; it was being held to catch a vicious criminal.

Their plan had to work. With the blackmailer loose, with the threat of Michael’s disgrace hanging over them, and his brother’s murderer at large, Lord Maitland was not going to permit himself to be the husband Senta so desperately wanted.

They were waiting—Senta was waiting anxiously; Sir Parcival was just lounging about, as usual—downstairs for the first of her dinner guests to arrive, before the ball itself. Senta straightened a leaning rosebud in the Sevres vase on the mantel. Some of Sir Parcival’s uncertainty had rubbed off on her.

“What if Lieutenant Sayre’s brother and his friend don’t come?”

“Yeah, they could all get cold feet, with this rain in their shoes.”

“No, Wheatley’s had the men erect an awning from the carriage drive right to the front portal. And planks were laid, then carpeted. In addition, we’ve had fires going all day in the ballroom, to take the chill off.”

“Well, you said it was the promise of high-stakes gambling that would draw the men you wanted, not a hot meal.”

“Yes, and Teddy made sure to tell his brother that there would be a lot of wealthy younger men here, too, some of Michael’s friends from the Home Guard.”

“They’ll come then if they’ve got the gambling fever. There’s none such dumber, none such prone to taking risks.”

*

Senta still needed her husband’s reassurance, which he was happy to give after he caught his breath at the first sight of his exquisite bride. Senta was wearing a gown made of layer upon layer of chiffon in shades from the palest pink to the deepest scarlet, falling from a minuscule bodice of rose-blush silk.

“Worried?” Lee answered her query. “Why, no. Tonight I feel like the luckiest man on earth.”

Combined with the smile he gave her, Lee’s words
would have melted her soul if they’d stood in a blizzard. As it was, Senta felt the heat rising from her mid-section. And how could she have thought Sir Parcival handsome, when her husband outshone any man she’d ever seen?

Lee was opening a box he’d taken out of his pocket. “But just to make sure, I’ve bought you a good-luck charm. Happy Valentine’s Day, darling.” He took out a magnificent diamond necklace, embellished with an enormous ruby pendant. While Senta dabbed at her eyes, speechless, Lee unfastened her pearls and affixed the diamonds.

“There, now you look perfect,” he said, standing back to admire his handiwork. The ruby hung just above the low neckline of Senta’s gown, in the cleavage of her breasts. He frowned. “Perhaps too perfect. Don’t you have a fichu or something? Maybe a scarf or a shawl or a burlap sack, so no other man can get a look at you.”

Senta giggled. “The necklace is absolutely too stunning to hide, Lee. Thank you, but…but I don’t have anything to give you for Valentine’s Day.”

“Don’t you, Senta? We’ll talk about it tonight, after the ball.” Lee stared into her eyes, telling her without words that they’d do a lot more than talk.

Senta would have pursued the matter then and there—to perdition with spies and supper guests—but Sir Parcival cleared his throat from the window seat. Wheatley cleared his throat from the doorway. Their guests had arrived.

*

Dinner was a success, of course. Cook and Wheatley would have permitted no less. The few handpicked guests were excellent company even if they were mostly War Office minions or Bow Street officials and their wives. And Lieutenant Sayre at Mona’s right had that young woman laughing and smiling for the first time in Senta’s memory. The only fault Lady Maitland
found with her first dinner as hostess, in fact, was that her husband was so far away from her down the long stretches of linen-covered table. When he did glance her way, around the floral centerpieces, the serving dishes, and candelabra, his eyes seemed to drift to her necklace.

“My, it’s toasty in here,” she told her dinner partner, to excuse the warmth rising in her cheeks.

*

The gentlemen took their port and cigars in a hurry, then they all took their places. Senta and Maitland, of course, stood at the entrance to the ballroom to greet their guests. Some of the men went immediately to the rooms set aside for cards, while others took up positions along the ballroom’s fringes. Mona sat on a gilded chair in the space reserved for chaperones, dowagers, and wallflowers, with Teddy Sayre right beside her, his sling giving him excuse enough not to leave her for the dance floor.

“You have some interesting guests,” Sally Jersey commented as she passed through the receiving line and noted the preponderance of sober-sided gentlemen.

Senta quickly looked around for Sir Parcival. He was sitting up on the raised platform with the orchestra, behind a screen of potted ferns. “Amen to that,” she murmured as she greeted the next guest.

After most of those invited had arrived, Lord and Lady Maitland left their post, signaled to the orchestra, and opened the dance. The ball was on.

The music was lively, the refreshments were lavish, the gentlemen for the most part did their duty by the ladies before disappearing to the cardrooms. The quizzes could find no fault either with Senta’s marriage or her ability to manage a grand household. Only one old crow was heard to squawk about how the flighty chit was like to beggar the viscount, with all her redecorating and entertaining. No one even listened; Maitland’s pockets were some of the deepest in the land, and he obviously
doted on his young bride. No, there was no complaint, no criticism from any of the guests. Senta’s party was declared a sad crush, therefore a triumph.

Except for Senta. After that first dance with Lee, she’d been too busy to accept any other partners. There were all those scarlet-coated officers to introduce to the debs in white. The mamas and matrons and beturbanned grande dames had to be settled and served. Until Wheatley could leave the door where he was announcing latecomers, the servants needed direction about refilling platters and glasses. There was Private Waters, for instance, manning the punch bowl ladle in Maitland livery, his bald head covered by a powdered wig and his peg leg hidden by the tablecloth. Senta thought no one would recognize him; she hoped no one noticed him take the occasional sip.

“Just making sure of the quality, my lady,” he said with a wink.

And then there was Sir Parcival, humming along with the orchestra so loudly that he was creating a cold draft that had the music sheets fluttering and the musicians’ fingers faltering. That, in turn, had the dancers stumbling. Senta jerked her head in his direction to get him to move toward the dowagers’ corner, where clacking tongues were raising the temperature by a few degrees.

This wasn’t what Senta wanted. She wanted to be dancing with Lee again, to be held in his arms instead of being held in thrall by Lord Conovan’s boring narrative. She wanted to be whispering in his ear, instead of shouting into Lady Malverne’s ear trumpet.

And the suspects hadn’t arrived.

The very worst was that, while Senta was on tenterhooks over the absent evildoers, and on trial as a gracious hostess, her husband was on the dance floor. Lee seemed to be having the time of his life with every winsome widow and wayward wife in the
beau monde.
Now Senta was on her uppers. She made her way toward where Sir Parcival was leaning against a pillar.

“Do something,” she whispered at him, meanwhile smiling at Admiral Rathbone and his wife.

“Sister, if I could do something, no one would be sitting still.”

“This isn’t the time to speak about your problems. It’s Lee. He’s danced twice with that woman.”

Sir Parcival craned his neck to see. He whistled. Mrs. Admiral Rathbone shivered. Senta fumed.

The stunning redheaded widow was draped over the viscount like a fur stole, and he didn’t seem to be minding one little bit. In fact, his mind seemed intent on memorizing every inch of the lush female. Since her gown, what there was of it, was nearly transparent, his task was that much easier.

“Her name is Marie de Flandreau,” Senta told Sir Parcival when no one was nearby, through lips that were about to crack with the effort of maintaining her smile. “But they call her Marie Flambeau, for obvious reasons. She and Lord Maitland were close not too long ago.”

“Marie the Flame? His last year’s dame? Nah.”

“Yes, and she’s good
ton
, more’s the pity. Her husband was a
comte
who managed to send his much younger wife and the family coffers to safety before he lost his life.”

“She doesn’t look like a grieving widow to me.”

Senta tapped her foot. “And he doesn’t look like a happily married man to me. You have to do something.”

“Me?”

“You said you were here to help. So help.”

“Why don’t you go on over there? She’s a stunner, all right, but he married you.”

“What, and act like a jealous wife? Never.”

So Sir Parcival looked around until he spotted a woman hovering near Lord Maitland and his former
cherie amour
.
A refined but impoverished gentlewoman of a certain age, Miss Evelina Cadwaller was the
comtesse’s
companion, a sop to convention and a romantic
to the core of her flat-chested, knock-kneed body. She was also as chaste as a nun, not necessarily out of choice. Miss Cadwaller, of course, could see Sir Parcival. Or she would have, if she hadn’t been too vain to wear her spectacles.

“Ma’am,” he said, bowing in front of her, seemingly out of nowhere, “I can’t help but notice you’ve got the prettiest green eyes I’ve ever seen.”

Miss Cadwaller squinted in his direction.

“Yes, they remind me of the green grass of home.”

“Oh, are you from Sussex, too?”

Now Sir Parcival squinted. “I don’t think so.”

While Miss Cadwaller was trying to decipher that cryptic remark, Sir Parcival asked her to dance. “I know we haven’t been properly introduced, ma’am, but would you do me the honor?”

Well, Miss Cadwaller hadn’t been asked to dance in more years than she cared to remember, and here was such an attractive gentleman. With a cautious glance to see that her employer was still occupied with the viscount, she batted her colorless eyelashes and said yes. She placed her gloved hand in his. But his didn’t seem to be there. She scrunched up her eyes and tried again. This time her trembling hand went right through his.

Miss Cadwaller did the only thing possible for a spinster lady who’d just been opportuned by a ghost. She fainted into the arms of the nearest gentleman, with a smile on her face.

In the ensuing commotion, Senta was there to direct the footmen to carry Miss Cadwaller to a small side chamber. Madame de Flandreau would naturally wish to go along to see to her ailing companion, wouldn’t she?

When hell froze over, but Senta was already leading her husband away, to discuss whether they should have some of the windows opened. Did he not think it was growing a trifle warm in the ballroom if ladies started swooning? Should the footmen stop pouring wine for the royal duke who was becoming castaway? And
where the deuce were Sir Randolph Sayre and his friend Baron Northcote?

“Don’t fret, darling. It’s early yet. Creatures of the night like those two don’t crawl out from under their rocks until the night is half gone. Come, we have time for another dance.”

“I really shouldn’t. Supper is going to be served soon, and I need to be ready to hand out the valentines. And Miss Thurston-Jones has hardly danced all night. Really, you should—”

“Miss Thurston-Jones can find her own partners whose feet she can step on. I’m tired of doing the pretty with all of these boring, bothersome women when all I want to do is dance with my own wife.”