St. Raven (40 page)

“Forbid her.”

“Bar her from her old home? No, I’ll have to let her continue. I’ve not said anything to the Swinamers, thank heavens, though I’m sure Cornelia’s hinted.” He thought for a moment and smiled. “I’ll invite Cressida and her family. We’re close enough to Plymouth. I’ll announce our betrothal at the masquerade, but she will not, of course, be in a houri costume.”

“Alas. I would have liked to see it. You are very confident, my friend.”

Tris looked at him in surprise. “Nothing now stands in our way.”

“She might have come to her senses.”

It was clearly a tease. “Hell, I know better than any what a poor bargain I am, but I can make it worth it to her. I can’t give her Matlock, but I’ll make Nun’s Chase into a home, a refuge. Or if she doesn’t want that, I’ll buy somewhere new. We never need to go to London unless she wishes to, and there will be compensations. We are right for each other, Jean-Marie. Two halves. I’ve known it almost since we met. Without her, I’m half a man. It is the same for her.”

“I hope so, cousin.” Jean-Marie raised the glass he’d taken from him. “To perfect women and perfect love.”

Cressida prepared for the farewell ball with no expectation of pleasure. She’d argued against it, but her father had been adamant. He and her mother bubbled with excitement and delight, but she was more in the mood for a wake.

Tonight marked the end of her life in England, and she was discovering daily how much she would miss it. Spices held no lure for her—she didn’t even like mulligatawny soup. The sarees her father had brought home with him were pretty, but she preferred a sensible cotton dress. Temples of gold and diamonds only made her think of naughty statues, which made her think of orgies, which led her straight to Tris, and pain.

It was not a pain that would be assuaged by distance. In fact, she was realizing that India would be full of such painful memories.

It was done, however. The house in Matlock had been sold, and farewells taken of friends there. She had promised long letters, but planned a cleaner break. Letters from India would mean letters to India. Unfortunately, her supposedly brief brush with the great already made everyone assume she wanted to hear every scrap of news about the Duke of St. Raven.

He had returned from Cornwall to dance at his foster sisters’ weddings. He had attended a house party in Bedfordshire. He had won an impromptu horse race at Epsom for a purse of a thousand guineas. Invitations had gone out for a masquerade party at Mount St. Raven, presumably one suitable for polite society. Rumor said he might announce his choice of bride then, and even that it might be Phoebe Swinamer.

Cressida discounted that. They would not suit, but Miss Swinamer and her mother were quite capable of spreading such a rumor themselves in an attempt to force his hand. She knew Tris would not be maneuvered by a stratagem like that.

At least he would not be here tonight. Her father had insisted on sending an invitation, but they had received a polite regret. She told herself that made her very, very happy.

She glared in the mirror and adjusted the turban her maid had placed on her carefully arranged hair. Deliberately, she was wearing the outfit she’d worn when she’d set off with Crofton—the Nile green silk dress and the striped turban. A suitable end, and after this event she would give it all to the maid.

This time, however, the curls were real—well, with tedious help from a curling iron. Since the curls were part of what made it impossible that she be St. Raven’s houri, she’d gritted her teeth and had her front hair cropped and daily endured the curling iron.

One attraction of India was that in time she’d be able to let her hair grow again. And surely once she was so far away, weak wistfulness about a certain rakish duke would fade.

She opened her jewel box, now full of expensive pieces. It was weeks since her adventure, and scandal had not crashed on her head, but this would be the first large gathering since Crofton’s orgy, the first with ton people present.

Including, surely, some of the men at Stokeley Manor.

She had to create the right impression.

She knew gossip hummed through the men’s clubs. Lavinia had passed on more stories from Matthew. Crofton had fled the country—something to do with attempted rape of a child, which disgusted even the most rakish of the ton. His wild attack on her in Hatfield had somehow been woven in there, however. The stories said nothing to her discredit, Lavinia assured her, but as had been pointed out, any brush with soot left marks.

Recently, there had been an increase in speculation— formless, but damaging and moving beyond masculine circles to feminine. Cressida had received some strange looks from the ladies and could imagine what was behind them.

What exactly had Miss Mandeville been doing in Hatfield, unchaperoned? No matter what the necessity, should a lady be attempting to sell a risque statue to a foreigner, especially one who had spent some days in jail under suspicion of being a highwayman?

Of course, the Frenchman was an acknowledged connection of the Duke of St. Raven, but all the same—she was sure the mamas were saying to the daughters—only see what happens when a young lady forgets correct behavior.

As far as she knew, no one was talking openly of her having been at Crofton’s party dressed as a harem girl and in the company of St. Raven, but the idea must lurk in the minds of some of the men. It could be her imagination, but she’d thought in the past few days that some visiting gentlemen had looked at her in a searching way.

She’d been pursing her lips and wearing her spectacles. Tonight she must confirm the impossibility.

She’d had the bodice of her dress raised high, and the dowdy effect would be helped by the fact that the gown hung loose. She seemed to have no appetite these days. She put down an emerald necklace and took out her old string of small pearls. Her father would think it strange, but so be it.

She eyed herself in the mirror. A pity she couldn’t wear her spectacles, but no one did so to a ball. Such a peculiarity might raise suspicions.

A pity her lips were so pink. Easy enough to redden pale lips, but how did one create pallor? She pursed them. There, that was better. She tried a pursed-lip smile and achieved a horrible smirk. Better still. Thoughts tended to show on the face, so she must act all evening as if saying the word
breeches
would give her a fit of the vapors, not to mention
codpiece
or
aphrodisiac
.

Drat, that made her blush, and blushing became her. She concentrated on sermons, cold porridge, and Mrs. Wemworthy as she stood to let the maid drape a diaphanous shawl across her elbows. Then, tight-lipped and stiff-spined, she went to join her parents.

The ball was being held at Almack’s Assembly Rooms, rented for the occasion. Soon she and her parents were receiving their guests there. The earliest arrivals were the City families—the merchants and professional men, as well as some friends from Sir Arthur’s India days. All of those seemed to envy him his planned return. Cressida told herself that she might enjoy the adventure.

Then came the fashionable guests, lighter, more brittle. These were the dangerous ones, teased by tedium to a lust for scandal. Cressida didn’t recognize any of the men—until Lord and Lady Pugh were announced.

Fat-faced Lord Pugh looked comical in fashionable wear that was unforgiving of huge stomach and swelling thighs, but the way he peered at her was not funny at all. Had he come precisely to check out his suspicions?

Wemworthy
, Cressida thought, smirking at him.

Poor Lady Pugh was looking gratified by his presence at her side. There was something very wrong with a marriage when the wife was delighted by such crumbs.

After a moment of staring, Lord Pugh shook his head, muttered something about a waste of time, and headed off for the card room. Lavinia took Lady Pugh under her wing and led her away. What a sad way to be, and marriage was for life.

When the dancing began, Cressida gave her hand to Mr. Halfstock, eldest son of a rich silk merchant who was pretending tragic hurt at her departure. She chose to be amused, though she could easily have screamed at him. What did he know of broken hearts?

By the end of the first dance, she realized that she had abandoned Wemworthy. She loved to dance, and was smiling at Tim Halfstock’s airs. So be it. She seemed to have satisfied Pugh, and surely her reputation had to act to her advantage. Except for her curiosity about how the world worked, she’d always been held to be the sort of young lady who did just as she ought. An interest in water supply, metals, and the shaping of bonnets hardly marked her out for hell.

So she gave her hand to Sir William Danby for the cotillion and lost herself in the steps, pushing aside all other matters, including the fact that she did not want to leave England. That she had been right oh so long ago, when she had decided that she enjoyed small adventures, but had no interest is the exotic or the wild.

Except, perhaps, in a man…

Naked.

Glistening with exotic oils.

Heavy-lidded with sated desire…

Hoping her red face was taken for exertion, she blocked those thoughts and focused on her steps.

Tris strolled around Nun’s Chase with a smile on his mustachioed face and a houri on his arm, disgusted by the mess and disorder all around him. For his purpose, he’d had to invite some of the men who’d been at Stokeley, and some of them had arrived already drunk.

It was of interest to hear what they said about Crofton. Some washed their hands of him, but some doubted the truth of the stories.

“Liked a little rosebud, Croffy did,” Billy Ffytch said, “but no need to snatch one from a good family.”

“Some predators,” said Tris, “don’t like tame prey.”

Ffytch nodded. “Aye, that could be it. Shame, though. He could stir wild times, Croffy could.” The man’s bleary eyes slid to Tris. “Some say you had a hand in it, St. Raven. Had it in for him over that Hatfield affair.”

“Hatfield?” Tris allowed a momentary hesitation, as if it had slipped to the back of his mind. “Oh, yes, when he raved at that poor Miss Mandeville. I do fear the man was unbalanced. To imagine I was trysting
her
, and at such a minor hostelry when this place was not far away. I believe he offered for her hand and was refused, which might explain his bile. Before her father lost all his money, of course.”

Ffytch was clearly having trouble following the switches of focus. “Got it all back,” he said at last.

“I believe Mandeville had a reserve of gemstones. We must rejoice for him.”

“Aye. Almost makes the daughter worth going after. If I wasn’t married, of course.” He took a frowning swig of rum punch. “Croffy had more than that on his mind, you know. Kept saying your Turkish delight was Miss Mandeville.” He swayed forward to study the houri on Tris’s arm. “You’re right, St. Raven. The man was mad.”

Ffytch lurched off toward a group including some welcoming nymphs of the night, and for effect, Tris gathered Miranda to his side and kissed her through her veil. “You are performing the part beautifully. Thank you.”

She had the build and was wearing a long wig, but he was surprised by how cleverly she was reproducing Cressida’s manner, half bold, half uncertain. No one would guess this was La Coop.

“Amusing to act the innocent,” she said. “But you really wish to marry Miss Mandeville? A woman like that will clip your wings.”

“If you mean curtail events like this, then I will be delighted.”

She chuckled. “It’s perhaps as well I’m off to France. Tragic, positively tragic, to see such a wild fire tabbied inside a hearth.”

“No constraints for you? Or for Jean-Marie? He is to go with any woman who catches his eye?”

Her eyes narrowed, and then she laughed. “You’re a devil. But at least neither of us is conventional.”

Tris just smiled, but then Miranda said, “I remember that houri… Perhaps you’re not so foolish as you seem.”

He didn’t respond to that. “I think everyone is relaxed and sozzled enough for the next move of this game.”

He clapped his hands to gain the attention of those around. “As bloom on ripe fruit, so is novelty to love— and to lust, my friends. For your novel pleasure tonight, I give you—country dancing!”

The men looked at each other, puzzled. At a gesture from Tris, a curtain was drawn back to reveal a trio of musicians, all blind. They were well known in London for both normal and outrageous affairs.

They began to play, and Tris clapped his hands again. Ten whores came into the room, specially chosen by Miranda for their ability to look like pretty, innocent young ladies. They were dressed almost as if attending Almack’s, the
almost
being that their fashionable dresses were of sheerest gauze and they wore nothing beneath but the scarlet dye on their nipples, and striped stockings held up by scarlet garters. Their jewels were maidenly pearls—artificial, but convincing—and virginal white roses wreathed their hair.

Coyly, they each chose a man and led him into the dance.

Tris watched, amused by just how well the ploy worked. He’d arranged this to make a tight connection between a ball in London and this event, but he’d clearly hit on an erotic novelty. The men were glassy-eyed at the sight these wicked simulacra of the virtuous young ladies they must not touch unless they had marriage in mind.

The men seemed happy just to dance for now, exactly as if they were at Almack’s. Tris paraded around the room, making sure he and his houri were in view; then, as the set ended and new men rushed to partner the whores, he led her into the long dance. Her jewel-like garments flared amid the flimsy pale dresses.

These men would never doubt or forget that they’d seen St. Raven with his houri at the same time Miss Mandeville was on display at her own ball in London.

He looked around for his cousin, who had the next part to play. The sooner this was settled, the sooner he could move away from center stage. The party could riot on without him, and tomorrow he could go to London. As soon as decently possible, he’d call on Cressida. Decently possible meant, damn it, after noon, but he’d see her, scandal scotched.