Ravishing in Red (28 page)

“Up from Brighton again?” she asked.

“Yes, a short leave. I expect we will all be enjoying much of the season here. There is not much to do down there, except when the Prince Regent visits. The French aren’t going to invade now, are they?”

“I am sure there will be invitations aplenty in both towns. Hostesses always like having young men in uniforms about.”

They chatted about upcoming balls and parties. “It is my hope to meet individuals in government who can help my career in peace time,” he explained. “The country requires many fewer officers and I do not fancy living on half-pay.”

Audrianna had come to recognize the overture. She pretended she had not.

“Perhaps you will put in a good word for me,” he added when she did not offer herself.

“Roger, only a stupid woman would ask her husband to help a man to whom she was once affianced. You are no rival, but men are men.”

Her response truly surprised him. “Your husband? Lord Sebastian? I would never request such a thing of you. It was my hope that you would speak on my behalf with the marquess.”

“Wittonbury is an invalid. He never leaves the house. His influence is nonexistent now.”

“He is not a hermit, is he? I am told he enjoyed considerable influence before he went to war, and engenders even more sympathy now. A well-directed letter from him would find favor with the recipient, who would want to do him a good turn. He was a friend of the army and still is, and the War Office will not treat his recommendation of an officer lightly.”

“He does not even know you. Why would he so recommend you?”

“He knows you, doesn’t he? How else do you think this happens? Someone knows someone who knows someone who does a favor in kind.” He looked amused and sly. “It is said he has affection for you. If so, he will be glad to write a letter.”

“It is said? By whom?”

He shrugged. “It is known. It is around. I heard he let his affection be known in order to ease your way, so that being caught with his brother near Brighton would not cause you too much disdain.”

She had underestimated the marquess. He might be a prisoner of those chambers, but as Roger said, he was not a hermit. He still received a few friends and he could write letters. It touched her that he had tried to ease her way.

“If Wittonbury favors me, I am flattered. I think that it would not do for me to overvalue my good fortune, however. I can only dip from that well so often, I expect.”

Roger heard the rejection of his petition buried in her musing. His face assumed a severe passivity. He masked his disappointment beneath formality, and soon took his leave.

Deciding she had awaited callers long enough, Audrianna went up toward the marquess’s apartment. She had not visited him as much the last weeks as before. In part that was due to the increase in social obligations, but his days had altered as well.

One of those physicians called in had detected some sensation in Wittonbury’s legs. Sebastian had ordered exercises be resumed. Most afternoons, if one passed those chambers, one could hear Wittonbury cursing while Dr. Fenwood forced flaccid muscles to move.

When she entered the apartment’s library, those exertions were finished. The marquess sat near the window, his face to the crack of fresh air.

“Ah, my dear sister. I am relieved you are here. Fenwood won’t dare interfere with me now.”

She could not help but glance at his legs. The blanket never covered them now, unless he had guests. It seemed to her that they showed more mass. They no longer resembled thin bundles of rags stuffed into trousers.

“Do not ask,” he said. “It is all a fool’s errand, and I weary of talking about it.”

“Then we will not. Should I read to you, or would you like a chess match?”

 

 

 

 

“
P
ettigrew and Eversham. P & E.” Mr. William Holmes, Treasurer for the Board of Ordnance, muttered the name over and over while he perused his account books in his Tower office.

It had taken two weeks and considerable political capital for Sebastian to procure this meeting. Mr. Holmes, like all of the Board, held his office from the Crown and felt no obligation to accommodate a mere member of the House of Commons. Only when the Prime Minister had intimated that the Crown might be persuaded to reconsider Mr. Holmes’s recently attained position, and the handsome salary he drew, did Mr. Holmes finally decide time could be found for this inquiry after all.

“Ah, here it is. A small mill, from the looks of it. Fairly late to the game. It appears that powder was purchased from them beginning in 1811. Maybe seventy thousand was paid overall. That may sound like a handsome sum, but for an industrial affair it is quite small. It is a wonder we bothered with them, but the need for reserves was severe.”

“And the last payment?”

Mr. Holmes ran his thick finger down the page. “May 1814. They probably thought the war would last forever. One wonders if they even realized their investment back in three years.”

Perhaps they had not. That thought opened a new path in Sebastian’s mind. “Do you know who owned P & E?”

“The records do not say. I could probably discover the name of the person to whom the money was sent, but it may not be the owner. The name itself implies a partnership, although neither Pettigrew or Eversham are familiar names to me. My predecessor, Mr. Alcock, might have known them, but of course, he is not available.”

“If you were to find to whom the payments were sent, I would appreciate it. I will await your letter.”

Sebastian rode back to the City. He visited one of his solicitors. He had charged the man with learning what he could about P & E, and now he had a date when the company might have been formed. That alone should make digging for information more productive.

“
T
hat fellow is flirting with your wife again.” Hawkeswell made it a point not to look in Audrianna’s direction while he spoke.

“So he is.” Sebastian did not look that way either. All the same, he had been keeping an eye on things.

“I trust that the passing weeks have reduced the novelty of marriage and that you will not want to be an ass this time.”

That remained to be seen. “That Fellow” had called on Audrianna last week, according to his valet, who heard about it from the butler. It appeared That Fellow had friends enough to be invited to more parties than expected too. What was the good of having a regiment at Brighton if the officers never stayed there?

“His name is Major Roger Woodruffe. I found out about him for you,” Hawkeswell said. “His introductions come through an aunt of his mother. The aunt is married to a baronet, and Roger there mines the connection for all it is worth.”

Hawkeswell had checked rather thoroughly. Which meant Hawkeswell probably knew Major Woodruffe and Audrianna had once been engaged.

“I expect he will be underfoot all season then,” Sebastian said. He did not mind that too much. Audrianna said she no longer loved Major Woodruffe. He was inclined to believe her, if only because the alternative was wanting to be an ass, as Hawkeswell put it.

However, Woodruffe’s presence reminded him of the odd caprices of fate. He had assumed that if not for her father’s disgrace, and a cryptic notice in the
Times
, and a disastrous first meeting that resulted in scandal, he would have never met Audrianna.

Only, most likely he would have, it turned out. He could have been at a party like this and seen her after she was married to this army officer.

What if she had captivated him then? He would have been faced with seducing another man’s wife. Since he did not much like Major Woodruffe, from what he could see, that would not bother him too much. Unfortunately the Audrianna he knew might very well have refused to be seduced.

“Lord Notorious has arrived, I see,” Hawkeswell mused.

That explained the little agitation that flowed through the garden party. Heads turned and whispers buzzed as Castleford made his entrance. He smiled like a man amused by the attention, but who also considered it his due. Mothers beckoned their virginal daughters to come admire The Rarest Blooms’ artistry at the other end of the property.

“At least he is not drunk,” Sebastian said.

“He could not enjoy the fame if he were. Nothing like being a dissolute rogue to make one popular. When the book of scandal is written, he will get a whole chapter, and you and I will be reduced to footnotes, despite our concerted attempts to make our mark. Thus does even mild discretion breed obscurity.”

While the girls were pulled away, the young men gravitated toward Castleford like he was a magnet.

“He has a talent for making one feel old and boring, I will give him that. I may go and bask in the glow of his outrageous infamy myself,” Sebastian said.

“No need. It appears he is coming to us. Promise to keep me from hitting him if he unleashes that sarcastic wit of his. I will do the same for you.”

 

 

 

 

“
I
need to apologize, Audrianna. I was too bold at your house when I called.”

“You are too bold now. You must not address me with such familiarity anymore. Especially not where others can overhear.”

Roger glanced about and flushed. “Of course. It is just . . .” He labored over his words, keeping one eye on the bodies milling around them. “I should have known that you could not speak freely there. I was relieved to see your notice.”

Notice?

“In the
Times
,” he whispered. “Did you not receive my response? I left it as instructed.”

Suddenly she understood. She had been placing notices for the Domino. In an effort to be cryptic, she had perhaps been too much so. Roger had concluded, stupidly, that the message was for
him
.

She had not been to her mail drop in several days. Whatever note Roger had written still waited there.

“I do not know to what you refer. I placed no notice for you.” She had never lied so baldly in her life, but she saw no alternative. And she had placed no notice
for him
.

“‘
A.K. requires a meeting with D to discuss matters most confidential. Send response care of Mr. Loversall of number 7 Portman Square.’
That was not you?”

“Indeed not. Why would you think it was for you?”

He flushed. “You know I was called Dumpfry at school. I assumed . . .” He glanced in the direction of Sebastian. “You could hardly use R.W., could you? That would be blatant.”

“There must be a thousand A.K.s in London. I am sorry that you misunderstood.”

“Zeus. He is coming this way,” Roger hissed.

Sebastian was striding through the tunnel of blooms devised by Daphne, aiming their way. Hawkeswell was with him, and another man that she recognized as the Duke of Castleford.

Roger turned away. “I will—”

“You will stay right here,” she said. “You will be introduced. If you avoid my husband, he may misunderstand your interest and our friendship, and I’ll not be explaining your cowardice to him for the rest of my life.”

Sebastian had come to introduce Castleford to her. The Duke was blessed with a tall, lean elegance and a beautiful face. Yet, despite his almost courtly bearing, he exuded something that raised an alarm in her feminine instincts. As he bent to kiss her hand, warning bells sounded loudly.

Bad. Dangerous. Trouble and heartache,
they tolled. Only the most foolish woman would not run and hide if this man cast his eyes upon her. The duke’s smile implied, however, that the world was full of very foolish women.

 

 

 

 

“
I
have been negligent in my friendship with your husband, and not done my part to welcome you to society,” Castleford said to Audrianna. “Such a beauty you have caught, Summerhays. I understand your willingness to be domesticated, if this sweet lady was the lure.”

Sebastian could tell that Audrianna viewed Castleford with veiled skepticism, but the flattery still made her blush. As always, she acquitted herself well in the conversation of pleasantries that followed.

That Fellow had not left and had gotten an introduction to everyone too. He did not seem to notice that Castleford had forgotten he was there now. Major Woodruffe kept reacting to the duke’s witticisms as if the duke was watching for it.

Sebastian sidled over and claimed Woodruffe’s attention. “You are an old friend of my wife’s, she tells me.”

“Yes, from years ago.”

“Childhood friends?”

“Not quite that long ago, but a goodly time now.”

As they chatted, Sebastian moved Woodruffe away from the others, just enough for some privacy. “She says that your regiment is in Brighton. I expect we will see more of you this season then.”

The fool brightened at what he interpreted as a friendly overture. “I hope so. I look forward to it.”

Of course he did, the blackguard.

“You will have to forgive me, Major Woodruffe. I am new to marriage, and perhaps more given to jealousy than some of the more experienced husbands that you know. It is possible that you seek only friendship with my wife. If, however, you entertain any other—”

“I assure you that such a thing is the furthest idea from my mind.”

“Come now, Major. We are both men. Such ideas are never far from our minds at all. But if you do anything that causes me to think that your mind dwells long on that particular idea, I will thrash you, I will ruin you, and I will probably kill you.”

Woodruffe just stared at him, aghast at the bald threat. Sebastian smiled.

“The letter was a mistake, sir, I assure you, if she has it and you discovered it,” he rushed to say. “I misunderstood her notice. It will not happen again.” Woodruffe quickly took his leave.