The Courtesan's Daughter (17 page)

“I shall call at another, more convenient time,” Dutton said as he walked out, his gold-handled stick clicking arrogantly on the floor.

“I’ll tell Mrs. Warren to expect you, my lord,” Fredericks said.

Damn if Dutton didn’t hear a note of laughter in the man’s voice. Impertinent, improbable American. Sophia ought to get herself a new butler.

 
 
THE moment that Lady Dalby’s butler closed the door after Lord Dutton, Louisa Kirkland made her excuses. The three women, with Lady Louisa in the lead, left the Dalby house as if they had wings. Whether they had found out what it was they had come to find was left to speculation. That they had found out more than they had intended was not.

Anne could have danced for joy. From the look on Caro’s face, Caro was eager to dance right along with her.

“They’ll be looking for Lord Dutton, of course,” Sophia said, looking out the front windows at the street. “If he’s fortunate, they won’t find him.”

“Lord Dutton seems always to find fortune,” Caro said.

“Yes,” Anne said with a smile. “He does, doesn’t he? One wonders how being denied what he wants will affect him.”

Sophia burst out laughing and looking at Anne, said, “One wonders? Oh, come now, Anne. I don’t believe any of us need wonder that. I’m quite certain, and so are you, that he is quite put out.”

“One hopes,” Anne said with a sly smile.

“What have we got against Lord Dutton all of a sudden?” Caro said.

“His good fortune, I should say,” Sophia said, still gazing at Anne.

“And his never-ending expectation of it,” Anne finished.

“Are you still interested in Lord Staverton?” Sophia asked, leaving the window to sit again on the sofa.

“Yes, more than ever,” Anne said.

Sophia nodded. “You will not regret it. Now, off with both of you. We’re to the Duke of Hyde’s assemblie. Absolutely everyone will be there. Look your best. This will be a very interesting evening, I promise you.”

The problem was, that sounded more like a prediction than a promise.

“YOU’LL be at Hyde’s tonight, of course. It looks to be an interesting gathering,” Sophia said to Lord Henry Blakesley in her white salon.

“Is that why you asked me to come? To make certain I would be at my father’s entertainment tonight?”

It was just on seven and all the good little girls and boys were tucked safely away, preparing for another evening’s round of fun. Sophia was not a good little girl, and she was wagering that Blakesley was not a good little boy. In fact, she was counting on it.

“I enjoy your company, Lord Henry. I would have more of it,” she said, walking to the window and gazing out into the heavy twilight. It was a clear evening, the moon bright, a night for romance, if one believed that romance could be contained to a single kind of night. She knew otherwise.

“Really?” Blakesley said, his golden eyebrows rising just slightly. “The word was that Richborough was your companion of choice.”

“I am allowed but one?” she said, laughing. “But you misunderstand me, Lord Henry. I am not asking for myself.”

“Who are you asking for, Lady Dalby?”

“Why, for you and no one else.”

“You’ll pardon me, but I’ve found that women don’t think of others. They are simply too busy thinking of themselves.”

“You are speaking from personal experience, surely. And of Lady Louisa Kirkland,” she added softly.

“I speak only of myself, Lady Dalby,” he answered just as softly, eyeing her like a particularly interesting snake. Wise Blakesley; he knew not to underestimate her. It was one of the reasons she liked him so well.

“A man of restraint,” she murmured, letting her gaze travel the length of him. He was a tall man, lean and spare of frame. So many blond, blue-eyed men had a certain vacuous expression that displayed a sort of vapid hope that the world would treat them well; Blakesley had none of that look. He was cynical, sophisticated, and observant. And he was the son of a duke. Really, he could not have been more perfect. “I so like that in a man.”

Blakesley bowed curtly in her direction and held his tongue. Yes, a man of rare restraint. He would serve very well.

“Will I see you at Hyde’s?” she asked again.

Blakesley nodded, studying her through narrowed eyes.

“Do I frighten you, my lord?” she said on a trill of soft laughter.

“Let us say instead that I am wary, as any man should be when Lady Sophia looks too closely.”

“A compliment,” she said, walking toward him, her skirts rustling. “How lovely.”

“Was it a compliment? I wasn’t certain,” he said, grinning slightly.

Sophia laughed. “Oh, I do like you, Lord Henry. I think we shall get on very well. Now, how best can we serve each other?”

“I can think of one way,” he said, letting his gaze travel over her. She smiled and let him look his fill; looking cost her nothing, and she had found that it usually increased her negotiating power.

“And I can think of another way,” she said, sitting down on a settee covered in white velvet and trimmed with pale blue braid.

“You and I are of an age, my lady,” he said.

“Yet I have lived so much longer,” she said.

“No, you only pretend you have.”

“Pretend? You have not been listening carefully, Lord Henry. My reputation is built on solid foundations. Ask anyone, ask Richborough, if you doubt. Besides, this is still all of flattery. You and I both know who has engaged your interest. I love being flattered, but not when it is a blatant fiction.”

“Lady Sophia, there is nothing fictional about my interest in you.”

“Lord Henry, I applaud your chivalry. In the future, any rumors I hear of you being a cold man I will instantly decry. Now, shall we leave off flirtation and find in what way we may best serve each other?”

“I’m listening,” he said, sitting on a chair opposite her.

“I’ll be direct, shall I? The hour is late and we must still dress. My daughter has need of a strand of pearls.”

Sophia paused. Blakesley crossed his legs and leaned back in his chair.

“I’m still listening,” he said.

“A rather long strand. In fact, the longer and more luxurious, the better.”

“There’s nothing unusual in that, is there? Women usually want pearls, and the longer and more luxurious, the better. The question is why I should give Lady Caroline pearls.”

“Because, Lord Henry, it will enrage Lady Louisa.”

Blakesley uncrossed his legs and tipped the chair back so that it balanced on two legs and studied Sophia with cold and cynical eyes.

“Should I want to enrage Lady Louisa?”

“My dear Lord Henry,” Sophia drawled, “if you have to ask, you truly are an innocent.” She sighed and shifted her hips on the settee. “I suppose I should also mention that Lord Dutton might find it somewhat inconvenient if you were to give Caro pearls.”

They stared at each other, the silence in the room full of weight and form, and then Blakesley said, “I’m still here, Lady Dalby.”

Sophia smiled. Bless Fredericks for his weekly meetings with the other butlers in Town, otherwise, it might have taken her days instead of hours to find out that Dutton and Ashdon had worked out an arrangement.

“I knew you and I would get on famously, Lord Henry. Now, the most immediate question is, can you have a pearl necklace ready by the time of Hyde’s assemblie?”

“Yes,” he said.

“A long strand? Perhaps that lovely pearl necklace your mother used to wear?”

“And if I give your daughter my mother’s necklace, what do I get in return?”

“Why, you’ll get your necklace returned to you tomorrow, Lord Henry. This is no grab-and-run. This is for dramatic effect. You understand?”

Blakesley grinned and nodded. “I think so. I’ll have the necklace, but I’ll pick the time. Agreed?”

“Of course. You’re a man of the world. I was certain you’d know how to best manage it.”

“Flattery again, Lady Dalby,” he said, shaking his head at her, smiling. “As fellow conspirators, I think honesty must rule between us.”

“Then as fellow conspirators,” she said, holding out her hand for him to take, “to a successful drama.”

Blakesley kissed her hand lightly and said with a wry smile, “I suppose I must go home and rehearse my lines.”

“Lord Henry, you will never convince me that you don’t know your part by heart and have known it for a decade at least.”

“Lady Dalby, you are entirely correct,” he said, grinning.

Sixteen

ABSOLUTELY everyone was at the Duke of Hyde’s magnificent house on Piccadilly, opposite Green Park. Everyone, that is, who was not at the Duke of Devonshire’s just down the road. Those who traveled in Devonshire’s circle, political and otherwise, did not travel in Hyde’s. Sophia’s choice had been made long ago. That the two houses were giving parties on the same night was in the same spirit of competition that had ruled them for decades.

Everyone enjoyed it completely. What else was London but a mass of alliances and changing loyalties? Tonight would only be more of the same. It was the predictability of viciousness and ruination, of engagements and liaisons, of gossip and firsthand accounts that made the London Season a season worth its ruinous price.

Ashdon, more aware than most of London’s ruinous cost, was still gaming at White’s when the assemblie at Hyde House formally began at nine. He had a pearl necklace to pay for, didn’t he? He wasn’t going to rely on Dutton, especially as he hadn’t heard a thing from him since their bout at Jackson’s. Talk was one thing, but a pearl necklace was quite another.

“How much are you down?” Viscount Tannington asked from behind him.

“I’m up more than fifty pounds, if you must know,” Ashdon said.

“Saving for something specific?”

“If you have something to say, Tannington, just say it,” Ashdon said, increasing his bet. “And don’t stand behind me.”

Tannington moved to Ashdon’s right and said in an undertone, “The word is going around that Lady Caroline is in the market for a pearl necklace.”

Ashdon felt his stomach clench and worked to keep his face neutral. “Isn’t every woman?” Ashdon said lightly. His left hand was trembling; he fisted it and kept his eyes on the gaming table.

“I suppose so,” Tannington said. “I suppose it’s also true that whoever gives her pearls first will have her first favors. I thought you’d want to know.”

“Why would you think that?”

Out of the corner of Ashdon’s eye, he saw Tannington shrug. “Everyone knows you gave her pearl earrings. It doesn’t seem fair for you to lose out on first favors because you can’t raise the blunt for a necklace. Unless you didn’t. Unless you got fair recompense on the earrings. Did you?”

Ashdon was out of his chair before Tannington could get out of the way, which was just perfect. Ashdon landed two solid blows to Tannington’s gut before another member of White’s pulled him off, a member who turned out to be Cal.

“Talk about her like that again,” Ashdon growled in a fierce undertone, “and it’s swords at dawn. You understand me?”

“Naturally,” Tannington said stiffly.

“Good-bye, Tannington,” Cal said, his hand heavy on Ashdon’s shoulder.

“Until Hyde’s,” Tannington responded, and then he left the room, the sound of startled murmuring from the other members leaving with him.

“What now?” Cal said as Ashdon collected his winnings.

“Now I go to Hyde House. What else?”

“Without a necklace,” Calbourne said.

“Unless Dutton has one on him, without a necklace,” Ashdon said. “What else can I do?”

“I think the question is, what else can she do?”

Ashdon’s gut tightened and he said, “I’m about to find out.”

 
 
THE crush was especially heavy at the entrance to the reception rooms of Hyde House, which of course was precisely the point. What other reason to have an assemblie than to see, be seen, and converse? The first-floor rooms of Hyde House were ideally situated for the flow of foot traffic of the assemblie variety. One entered the double reception rooms fronting the house and proceeded to the right to the red reception room, then to the yellow drawing room, to the dressing room, the bedchamber, the closet, the antechamber, the music room, and back to the first reception room, done in an intriguing shade of blue. It was noisy, it was crowded, and it was great fun.

Sophia, Caro, and Anne were each wearing white muslin gowns with long enough trains to make negotiating the feet of the other guests a purely feminine challenge. Sophia was wearing her Westlin sapphires, a purely symbolic gesture, and wore a plume of blue feathers in her black hair to accentuate the point. Anne wore a pair of delicate garnet earrings and had arranged a petite strand of well-cut garnets in her dark red hair. The effect was striking. Caro, after much convincing, wore Ashdon’s pearl earrings. Her throat was bare in anticipation of the gift of a pearl necklace. Other than her earrings, Caro’s adornment was confined to a shell pink silk cord with hanging tassels that was fastened securely under her rather nice bosom. She looked innocent and virginal, which was completely intentional.

Sophia was anticipating a rather rousing evening.

“I don’t see Lord Ashdon,” Caro said from behind her fan.

“Darling, the point is that Lord Ashdon see
you.
”

“And the difference is?” Caro said.

“Oh, Caro, you simply must learn how to play this game,” Sophia said softly.

“There’s Lord Staverton,” Anne whispered. “Should we approach him?”

“No, darling,” Sophia purred. “Let him come to us. It’s so much sweeter that way, and he’ll enjoy himself so much more if he can play the tiger to our gazelle.”

“It’s a metaphor, darling, no need to be alarmed. And here he comes. Darling Staverton, he really is so good at this. You’ll be blissfully happy, Anne, I promise you.”