The Bargain (15 page)

“No, I mean… nothing like that. Standing guard.”

“What?”

“Me. I'm standing guard.”

“Over me?”

Lord Robert met her masked eyes fleetingly. He seemed to grope for a suitable reply and not find one.

“Lord Alan asked you to watch over me?” she repeated.

He looked hunted. “Told me to come along and lend a hand,” he said finally. “Supposed to keep mum about it, though.”

Ariel blinked. The idea that Lord Alan had planned carefully for her welfare, and asked the help of his family to ensure it, made her feel odd. It
was
arrogant interference in her life, like arranging for servants without telling her first. But it also meant that he was thinking of her, wishing her… well. She looked across the room to where he was in earnest conversation with his father. The duke glanced at her. Ariel couldn't tell if he was puzzled or irritated or just impatient. He turned back to his son and appeared to ask him a question.

Lord Robert cleared his throat.

Ariel returned her attention to him.

“Rather you wouldn't mention that I told you,” he said.

“Lord Alan does not want me to know that he asked you to help him?”

This seemed a bit too complicated for her companion. “Asked me to keep mum about the matter,” he said again.

“I won't mention it,” Ariel assured him.

Lord Robert looked considerably relieved. He let go a deep breath. His habitual pleasant, somewhat vacant expression descended upon his handsome features once again. He wore a black domino over his evening dress, but this was the only concession he had made to the occasion.

“Do you often come to Carlton House?” asked Ariel.

He shook his head. “Not my sort of company. Too old, you know. I look in on the great fetes, but otherwise…” He shrugged, then made an infinitesimal adjustment to the intricate folds of his neckcloth.

“It was very kind of you to come tonight, then,” she said.

“Alan asked me,” Lord Robert replied, as if his compliance was a given.

“And you do whatever he asks?”

Lord Robert pondered a moment. “Yes,” he concluded.

“You're very fond of him,” suggested Ariel. This was how a family worked, she thought.

“Ye-es. Well, he's my brother.” A tiny bit of feather floated off the intricate headdress of a passing matron and landed on his sleeve. He brushed at it. “The thing is,” he continued as if it had just worked itself out in his mind, “Alan never asks anything. Always kept to himself a good deal, even when we were small. Always had some scheme of his own going, and never seemed to think any of us could be of the least use. So when he asked…”

Ariel, who was extremely interested in this, nodded encouragingly.

Lord Robert shrugged, as if the answer was self-evident.

“What sort of schemes did he have as a child?” she asked, wanting to hear much more of this.

Her companion made a vague gesture. “Examining things,” he replied. “Puzzling out how they worked. I remember when we were still in the nursery, the servants were constantly finding a clock or some bit of machinery all in pieces in a corner. Alan was seven or eight when he got the knack of putting them together again.”

Ariel made an encouraging noise to keep him talking.

“We all wandered about in the woods down in Kent, collecting things,” Lord Robert mused, “but it went further with Alan. He was always reading some dashed treatise and trying to experiment.” He grinned. “I remember once he got it into his head to stick things in the oven.”

Ariel raised her eyebrows.

“To see how they responded to heat,” Lord Robert explained. “Our mother's favorite vase exploded. Sounded like a cannon shot.” He shook his head. “She shouted at him. She hardly ever did that.”

A sudden vivid impression of a household including six young boys rose in Ariel's mind. Her respect for the Duchess of Langford increased abruptly. Hannah, too, she thought.

“He had to play for her six nights running to get back in her good graces,” Lord Robert added.

“Play?” echoed Ariel.

“The pianoforte.” He shook his head again. “He's deucedly good. Teachers used to rave about it.”

“He plays the pianoforte?”

Lord Robert looked self-conscious. “Ain't usual, I know. But then nothing about Alan is usual.”

“No.” Nothing at all, thought Ariel, assimilating this surprising new bit of information.

“And now he's not even acting like himself,” he complained. “Hanging about London, going to evening parties. Not like him at all.”

“The prince summoned him,” Ariel pointed out.

“Yes, but my mother says…” He stopped, seeming to recall the identity of his listener. “Er…” He looked around the room. “Ah, here's Alan back,” he finished with obvious relief.

Lord Alan joined them, to Ariel's regret. She was certain she could have gotten a great deal more interesting information out of his brother given a little time.

“Royalton is here, somewhere,” Lord Alan said.

“We should find him,” said Ariel, and she received a grimace in response.

“Excuse me,” said Lord Robert. “Have to speak to someone.” He melted into the crowd.

“Your brother is very kind,” ventured Ariel. She was becoming curious about all of the Gresham family.

“He's not a bad sort,” acknowledged Lord Alan. “If he would find some useful occupation for himself, he might do very well.”

“Work like yours, you mean?”

He smiled. “He wouldn't care much for that. It would have to be something that interested him. But Robert appears to care only for the latest fashion in dress and the gossip of the
ton
. He and Sebastian fritter away their days at the tailor or on the promenade. It would drive me mad to live as they do.”

“Do they feel the same way?”

“What?”

“Would it drive them mad to live as you do?”

He stared down at her. “I suppose it might,” he admitted.

“What about your other brothers?”

“James is the captain of a navy ship. Randolph is rector of a parish in the north. Nathaniel, the eldest, works with my father in managing the family properties.”

“There are so many of you,” Ariel murmured.

“A few too many, perhaps.”

“You don't mean that.”

Lord Alan shrugged. “I just hate waste, and it seems to me that Robert and Sebastian waste most of their time.”

“Are all your brothers afraid of you?” wondered Ariel, half teasing.

“Afraid? Of course not. What a ridiculous idea.” He looked down at her as if he couldn't imagine what she meant.

“Not afraid,” she conceded. Belatedly, she remembered that she had promised Lord Robert not to mention his assigned role here tonight. So she had no excuse for asking if they all agreed to any request he made. “Shall we look for Lord Royalton?” she said instead.

“No,” he replied. “I draw the line at Royalton. From what my father tells me, his reputation is… black.”

“What is he? A libertine? A drunkard? Does he cheat at cards?”

He said nothing.

“If he is so bad, he is exactly the sort of man I wish to speak to,” she announced. “Perhaps he threatened my mother!”

Lord Alan shook his head. “I will speak to Royalton myself, but—”

“Gresham. Ho there, Gresham,” came an odd furtive cry. They turned to find the prince regent bearing down on them, his Persian costume billowing and glittering in the light of innumerable candles. Resignedly, Alan watched him approach. A trickle of sweat was running down the prince's neck from under his bulbous, bejeweled turban. His robe, though expensively tailored, still resembled nothing more than a spangled circus tent. His pudgy face was red and his pale eyes bulged with some strong emotion. It was hardly the picture of a great monarch, Alan thought.

The prince stopped before them and looked stealthily to the left and right to see if anyone was listening, effectively drawing the attention of everyone nearby by his odd behavior. Then he leaned closer to Alan and hissed, “She's here! Bess is here!”

“What?” Alan was startled, and sharply disappointed. He had been certain that tonight he would trap the haunters and end this hoax.

“I saw her by the stairs,” panted the prince. “She was…” His mouth dropped open. “No, by God, she's over there in the corner. How did she get…? It's uncanny!”

Alan had already given a sign to one of the men posted about the room. “Stay here,” he said to Ariel, and he started toward the figure in the yellow gown.

The prince came panting along at his heels. “I left her by the stairs, I tell you. She couldn't have gotten all the way down the room by any ordinary means. If she's taken to hopping about the place like some sort of—”

“People are listening, sir,” Alan pointed out. Ariel was right behind the prince, he noticed with annoyance.

Two of the guards converged on the suspected woman as they did, and took up positions on either side of her. The creature's face was powdered dead white, Alan observed, and her long hair was red. The yellow dress seemed the same. A half mask hid the upper part of her face. But instead of emitting frightening noises or calling for justice, this female offered a simpering smile and a curtsy. “Your Majesty,” she said, as if delighted to see them all.

“Eh?” exclaimed the prince, shying like a spooked horse. “Bess?”

The woman tittered.

Ariel started to step forward, and Alan blocked her. “I am afraid we must ask you to remove your mask,” he said. “What is your name?”

The woman didn't hesitate or object. Pulling off the mask, she revealed a beaming face. “It's Nellie Jenkins,” she said. “Surely Your Majesty hasn't forgotten the opera house, and the time we—”

“Oh, er…” sputtered the prince.

The woman batted her eyes at him. Brown eyes, Alan noticed. “Your costume?” he said, to verify a sinking feeling.

She tittered again. “I've come as the ghost,” she told them. “Dora and I thought it was the best joke, didn't we, Dora?” She beckoned to another woman who hovered nearby, obviously longing to be presented to the prince.

The latter groaned.

“There's another one coming down the stairs,” said one of the men Alan had summoned.

“There's one at the buffet as well,” observed the other man.

Alan felt like groaning himself. He extricated the prince from the two fawning women and led him away. “Apparently, the ghost is a popular costume this evening,” he said. “We will question all of them, but I think we will find that none of them is involved in the earlier incidents.”

“I've become a laughingstock,” moaned the prince, leaning heavily on Alan's arm as they walked across the room.

Alan met Ariel's eyes and saw his own response so clearly mirrored there that he had to press his lips together to restrain a smile.

“Champagne,” said the prince then. “I must have champagne.”

They reached the buffet where he downed one glass immediately and took up another. “It's like a nightmare,” he said, emptying that glass as well. “Only I'm not asleep, you see.”

“No, sir,” replied Alan, keeping himself sternly in check.

“You said it would be all over tonight,” he accused. The monarch drank off half of a third glass of champagne.

“If people consider it a joke to wear ghost costumes, then it has become a kind of fad,” put in Ariel. “They'll forget all about it in a week.”

“Eh?” The prince looked up as if he hadn't noticed her before. “Who's this? Oh, yes, the girl from the cupboard.” His gaze sharpened, taking in her charming costume and the glow of her eyes and skin. “That's a dashed fetching rig,” he commented.

“Thank you, Your Majesty.”

“Gypsy, ain't you?”

Ariel nodded.

“Dancer, eh? Can you…?” He gestured with his hands and waggled his broad hips. Ariel shook her head, smiling.

“Oh, come. Give it a try.” The prince swayed again, his faux Persian robe fluttering. His eyes were devouring every detail of Ariel's person, and he seemed to have forgotten all about the uproar of a moment past.

“I have no talent as a dancer,” responded Ariel evenly.

“Too hard on yourself,” insisted the sovereign. “Nothing to it.” Wriggling, he turned in a circle, drawing a host of amused glances and hidden smiles.

“You are very good, Your Majesty,” said Ariel. “Perhaps you should have come to the masquerade as a Gypsy.”

Alan choked and threw her a warning look, which she ignored.

“Oh, I did so, my dear, in my younger days,” was the reply. “I could teach you a thing or two about… dancing.” He leered down at her.

Ariel laced her hands around Alan's arm and leaned against him, causing him to forget everything in the room but the feel of her along his side. “You're very kind,” she told the prince. “But my time is fully… occupied.”

“Eh?” He looked from her to Alan and back again. “Ah.” Conflicting emotions passed across his florid face. “Mustn't poach,” he murmured halfheartedly. He glanced at Alan as if he expected him to hand Ariel over like a gift.

Ariel pressed closer. Her breast was molded against his arm, and Alan was washed by a wave of heat. She rested her head on his shoulder, providing the crowd with the very picture of an acknowledged mistress. He wanted to shake her. He wanted to make love to her.

The prince gave a disappointed grunt. “You told me the ghost would be finished tonight,” he complained, his frustration clear in his tone.

“So I believe,” replied Alan tightly.

“It'd better be,” was the petulant response. “I didn't bring you down to London to spend your time dallying with the ladies. Eh?”

Blood pounded in Alan's temples, but all he could say was, “No, sir.”