Courtship and Curses (26 page)

Aunt Molly was in transports as they strolled about, her bonnet-enclosed head whipping from side to side as she exclaimed at the fine trees and lush shrubberies. Walking slowly arm in arm behind her and Amélie, Parthenope and Sophie exchanged glances when she made them stop and admire a rhododendron with large, glossy leaves and fat buds.

Parthenope leaned toward Sophie as they walked on ahead of Aunt Molly and Amélie. “Too bad the comte isn’t here. I think she’s a little less …
botanical
when he’s around.”

“He told me before we left that he might try to arrange a visit, but that he’s very busy with his work. Maybe he’ll be able to combine a trip here with a visit to King Louis—he’s just in Ghent.” Sophie hoped so. Someone needed to have a happily-ever-after, and it didn’t appear that she herself would be that someone.

They left cards on Lady Capel, who was a friend of Parthenope’s mother, and a few other important British ladies who lived by the Parc. “Mama said most of them are here because it’s far cheaper to live here than England,” Parthenope commented. “The Capels are related to half of the aristocracy back at home, but she said they don’t have two farthings to rub together. Even the Richmonds are here in order to save money, and he’s a
duke
, for heaven’s sake. They still manage to entertain a great deal, though. The Duchess of Richmond is always having parties, they say, at the Duke of Wellington’s request.”

“The duke didn’t bring his wife?”

“No. One hears tales that they’re not in the best of—oh, drat!”

A small, muddy dog had come galloping down the path toward them, followed by a small and equally muddy boy, whooping loudly. The dog hurtled straight into Parthenope, staggered, shook itself, and gave her an annoyed look before resuming its flight. The boy never even paused.

Sophie looked down at Parthenope’s white skirt, now considerably less white. “It’s a good thing we were done paying calls,” she commented.

But Parthenope shrugged. “Can’t you just—you know”—she glanced back over her shoulder to make sure Amélie and Aunt Molly weren’t in earshot—“magic it away? Where’s my hanky?” She started to root around in her reticule.

Sophie didn’t answer.

Parthenope made a small triumphant exclamation and flourished a lace-edged white square. “Here we a—”

“I can’t.”

“What?”

Sophie stared straight ahead as she walked. “I can’t. It’s gone.”

“Gone? Your magic’s gone? Good Lord!” Parthenope’s voice rose to a squeak. She cast another guilty glance back at Aunt Molly and Amélie and asked more quietly, “You mean, totally gone? Since when?”

“Since before we left London.” For a day or two, Sophie had been too preoccupied and too busy packing and getting ready to leave to take much notice of her magic. But when she’d tried to put a locking spell on her trunks, nothing had happened, and nothing happened when she tried a concealing spell or a fire-starting spell or, the most basic of all, a summoning spell.

“Oh, Sophie … that’s … you’re sure?”

“I’m sure.” Sophie didn’t have the heart to talk about the dozens of times since then that she’d tried to do something as simple as lift a dropped snippet of ribbon with magic. All that she’d been able to do was cause it to twitch a couple of times … and even then, she wasn’t entirely sure that a stray current of air hadn’t been responsible.

Parthenope was silent for a moment as they continued down the gravel path. Sophie hoped they’d go back to the house soon; the gravel was difficult to walk on, and she was tired after paying calls on foot. She stole a look at her friend and saw that Parthenope was frowning, as if deep in thought.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” she finally asked.

“What was there to tell?” Sophie sighed. “So my magic is gone again. Maybe this is the way it will be from now on: It will come and go. I don’t know, and there’s nothing I can do about it anyway.”

“I’m not so sure about that,” Parthenope said thoughtfully.

“What do you mean?”

“Well, think about it, Sophie—oh, good God almighty!” Parthenope halted abruptly. “Do you see who that is?” She nodded toward a trio approaching them on the path coming from the pavilion at the Parc’s center.

Sophie looked. A gentleman accompanied by two ladies strolled slowly down the path toward them, one wearing a large and rather overtrimmed bonnet. As they drew closer, Sophie saw it was the younger of the two, a pretty girl of probably her age, so fair as to seem almost transparent. Her older companion was more soberly but just as richly dressed, handsome but with such dark hair that Sophie doubted they were blood relations. “Who? I don’t know the ladies—” Then the gentleman laughed, throwing his head back as if overcome with mirth, and Sophie got a clear look at his face.

It was Norris Underwood.

For a moment Sophie clutched Parthenope’s arm just as hard as Parthenope had hers, and the pleasant midday sun felt less warm on her shoulders. The last time they’d seen him had been at the theater in Haymarket, his nose bloodied and his eyes wild as he’d stumbled from the box with the purple couch. He’d certainly kept his promise to leave London, but why, oh why, had he fled to Brussels, of all places?

Because
, said a calm voice in her mind.
Parthenope just said it. Brussels is where all the English nobility in financial difficulties come.

“What should we do?” she whispered to Parthenope. Should they cut him—pretend not to know him—or acknowledge the acquaintance? Oh, if only her magic worked, she could do a spell to make them look like someone else, or to keep him from noticing them.

Parthenope’s eyes had taken on a devilishly mischievous glint that made Sophie nervous. “Why, wish him good day, of course! One should always greet a fellow countryman when in a foreign place, don’t you think?”

“Not if he’s a scoundrel of the first water!”

“Pooh. Anyway, the best way not to call attention to anything we know about him is to be polite. We’re bound to see him about—I’ll bet all the British in Brussels know each other—and if we go about cutting him dead, people will notice. Now, hush—I think he’s seen us.”

Sophie looked up and saw that Mr. Underwood was looking directly at her. He was still smiling after his laughter, but his complexion had paled, and his eyes gone wide and wary. She tried to school her own face into polite indifference, but wasn’t convinced of her success.

“Why, what a surprise!” Parthenope said loudly. “Isn’t that Mr. Underwood, Sophie? But how charming to see you in Brussels, sir!”

As Parthenope spoke, Amélie and Aunt Molly joined them, looking inquiringly. Mr. Underwood’s pallor was suddenly replaced with a flush, but he released his companions’ arms and stepped forward. His bow was more correct than it had been in London, less affected and sweeping. Could it be he’d learned something since their last meeting?

“Lady Parthenope—and, uh, Lady Sophie—what a pleasant surprise indeed!” he said. “Have you been in Brussels long?”

“Just arrived yesterday,” Parthenope said. “We were just—”

“Were you in Paris?” exclaimed his younger companion, stepping forward eagerly. “My stars, how frightening! Did you see Bonaparte? We were supposed to go there in a few weeks, but not now. Not now!” She placed one lilac-gloved hand on her breast, which heaved in agitation. “I fear for our safety even here. No one on the continent shall be able to find a moment’s peace while that monster is at liberty!”

“Kitty,” murmured the older woman reprovingly.

Mr. Underwood seemed suddenly to recall their presence. “Miss Barker, you know that you and your aunt are safe whilst I am here,” he said, turning slightly to smile at her. “I will have horses ready to bear you to Antwerp at a moment’s notice, if the need should arise.”

“Mr. Underwood is nothing if not resourceful,” Parthenope agreed.

He shot her a look, but she was smiling blandly at Miss Barker. That seemed to remind him of his duty. “Lady Parthenope, Lady Sophie, may I present Mrs. Barker and her niece Miss Barker? Mrs. Barker, Miss Barker, Lady Parthenope Hardcastle and Lady Sophie Rosier.”

Miss Barker’s eyes widened as she made her curtsy, and stayed wide as Aunt Molly and Amélie were introduced as well. “My stars! You have a prodigious lot of important acquaintances, Mr. Underwood! But then you’re going to be a baronet yourself someday, aren’t you?”

“Kitty,” Mrs. Barker said again, a little more sharply.

The girl flushed. “I’m sorry. It’s just that we’ve met so many people of consequence since we came to Brussels—so many more than we knew at home in Russell Square. Haven’t we, Aunt?”

Mr. Underwood smiled down at her. “You are a person of consequence to all who know you, Miss Barker.”

She blushed prettily, peeping up at him through her lashes with guileless coquetry, and Sophie immediately understood. The Russell Square address, the handsome if slightly overfussy clothes, the artless manner—Mr. Underwood had found himself a new heiress, probably one with a fortune sprung from trade … one whom he might entangle more easily than, say, a duke’s daughter like Parthenope.

At first Sophie was amused. Mr. Underwood wanted money, and Miss Barker (or her family) wanted a social step up, which they would get if she became Lady Underwood someday. But another look at the girl’s open, trusting countenance fizzled her amusement. A wave of protectiveness washed over her, and she heard herself say, “Miss Barker, I don’t know how consequential we are, but we should be delighted to call on you, if your aunt will permit it.”

Mr. Underwood’s eyes widened again, then narrowed, but Miss Barker clasped her hands ecstatically. “Oh, would you? I am sure Aunt Barker will be honored”—she paused, took a breath, then continued, more restrainedly—“that is, most pleased to welcome you. Won’t you, Aunt?”

Sophie felt Mrs. Barker’s regard and met her eyes. They were cool and appraising, and she guessed that while the niece was an unworldly innocent, the aunt was not.

“Of course we would be honored if Lady Sophie called,” Mrs. Barker said. “We have taken rooms at the Hôtel d’Angleterre in the rue de la Madeleine. You are welcome at any time.”

“Well, this is very jolly,” Mr. Underwood said, “but we mustn’t keep you from the calls you have to pay now by planning future ones.” He held out his arms to the Barkers with such a commanding air that they took them without demur. “Good day,” he said, nodding at them all, and firmly propelled his companions down the path.

“Good day!” Miss Barker called back at them from over her shoulder. “I shall look forward to seeing you very soon!”

“Well!” Parthenope said to Sophie in an undertone when they had resumed walking. “What was that all about? Call upon that infant?”

“Oh, like you’re such an aged old beldame. Don’t you see? She’s Norris Underwood’s new quarry!”

“I’m decades older than she is, in experience, anyway.” Parthenope tried to look world-weary and dissolute, and failed miserably. “Yes, I’d come to the conclusion that she’s his new object of pursuit too. So?”

“He’d make her miserable! She thinks he’s Sir Galahad and Beau Brummell rolled into one, and when she finally realizes he isn’t, it’ll be too late.”

“Twaddle. She’ll be so happy being addressed as ‘your ladyship’ that she won’t even notice. You don’t have to solve the entire world’s problems, Sophie. Besides, I’ll venture a guess her aunt knows just what he is.”

“But—”

“We’ll call on the chit, but I’m not doing any rescuing. I’ve got enough other problems to sort out.”

“Like what?”

For some reason, Parthenope blushed. “Never you mind what. All right, go ahead and save Miss Barker if you want to. Just don’t expect me to help.”

Chapter

16

The problem
soon became not
if
they would keep Sophie’s promise to call on the Barkers, but
when
. The calls they made that afternoon on the Richmonds and the Capels were soon reciprocated and redoubled, and invitations began to pour in. Both the Richmonds and Capels were large families with several sons and daughters close in age to Sophie and Parthenope, so the girls found themselves included in riding parties, picnics, impromptu concerts, and more, all liberally attended by young officers, among them the Hereditary Prince of Orange, heir to the new throne of the Netherlands. Brussels society suffered from that most delightful of problems: more gentlemen than ladies.

One of those gentlemen, Lord March, the Richmonds’ eldest son, raised Parthenope’s ire by making clear that he found Sophie’s company very pleasant. As he had been seriously wounded in the Peninsula while serving as one of the Duke of Wellington’s aides, he often sat out the dancing at parties and soon sought Sophie’s company whenever sets began forming.

“You’re going to get talked about, you know,” Parthenope said to Sophie severely one night after they returned from a small party at the Richmonds’ house in the rue de la Blanchisserie.

“Me? Whyever should anyone talk about me?” Sophie sat down at their dressing table in her wrapper to unpin and comb out her hair. Before she could start, Parthenope took the hairbrush from her.

“That March stripling. He spends far too much time with you. I’m sure everyone is starting to notice.” Parthenope set to brushing Sophie’s hair vigorously. Sophie gritted her teeth and held on to the edges of the stool.

“He’s not a stripling, and if everyone in Brussels weren’t so dance-mad, he wouldn’t spend so much time sitting them out with me. And anyway, he spends no more time sitting with me than Lord Hay does dancing with you,” she countered. “It’s quite shocking, and I’m sure everyone is starting to notice.”

“Lord Hay is a great hobbledehoy, as well as an old friend of my brothers’. We practically grew up together. And don’t try to distract me, you, because it isn’t working. You have to tell March to behave himself.”

“He does behave himself. He’s perfectly pleasant and tells very entertaining stories about all the high jinks he and his friends got up to in Spain with Wellington. Besides”—she twisted on the seat to look up at Parthenope—“why shouldn’t I be allowed to enjoy his company? It isn’t as if I’m engaged to be married, am I?”