The Diamond Key (17 page)

Why, he was rich and well born, and since Boyce’s best efforts had been countered by Lord Duchamp’s and Marissa’s, he was accepted most places except Almack’s, where he never wished to go, and now Duchamp House. The earl had put his name up at White’s and seen that he was voted in, so Wynn was now a member of that august body. In some addled way, the
ton
had decided that members of the gentlemen’s club must therefore be gentlemen, placing him once more on the invitations lists. Or perhaps his fortune had outweighed his reputation. Or his bachelorhood had. Most of the cards on his mantel were to come-out parties or amateur musicales where the young women could show off their talents, as if harp-playing were requisite in a wife.

No, Wynn thought, he would have no problem finding an accomplished, accommodating wife now that he had decided he needed one. Lady Torrie, on the other hand, with her finicky, supercilious air of superiority and her haste to find all men wanting, could end her days leading apes in hell.

Somehow the notion did not please him as much as he’d thought it would. Nor did the idea of attending any of those dances or come-out balls. Now he had a choice, though. Now he could go to his club and get drunk and gamble his fortune away, which was the age-old remedy for a broken heart. Not that his was broken, of course. Just slightly bruised. Actually, he told himself, it was more his self-esteem that had been battered, his pride beaten to a pulp. He did not give that—another snap of his fingers; another miscue to the cur—for Lady Victoria Ann Keyes. No, he would visit White’s and pick a likely husband for Bette, Lady Lynbrook. Making another man miserable was a much better way of spending his evening.

First, he had to dress. For once he was confident of being turned out in proper fashion, as Marissa had kept her word and sent Redding to him. His brother’s former valet was a perfectionist, a boot-polishing paragon, and a prig. Just what Wynn needed.

He was a tall, well-built man, close to Wynn in age, with carefully smoothed blond locks and high cheekbones.

“At least this one, he is pretty,” Barrogi commented as they waited for Redding to evaluate his new employer’s wardrobe, physique, and circumstances.

Redding rocked on his heels, flared his nostrils, and spoke. He enunciated each word so carefully, the sibilants sprayed across the small space.

“Where I sserve there are no dogss.” He curled his lip at Barrogi. “No foreigners. No ‘pretty’ fellowss.”

No valet.

Before Barrogi could boot the swine down the front steps, Wynn asked how long he had been on the Ingram House payroll.

“For the previous six years, my lord.”

“Although my brother has been dead for the last two of them?”

Redding rocked back and forth. “That is correct. I have been acting as assistant to Lady Ingall.”

Marissa was so busy managing other people’s lives that she needed a personal secretary? A handsome, strapping fellow? “Exactly what is it that you do for my sister-in-law, if you do not mind my asking? I feel entitled to inquire, you see, since I am the one who actually pays your salary.”

Redding rocked some more, not replying.

“You write her correspondence and keep her social calendar?”

Redding nodded. “Precisely.”

Wynn wiped his cheek.

“And you run her errands and escort her on calls?”

“When required. I also advise madam about fashions, plan her journeys, and balance her accounts.”

Which would take about an hour a day. What did the man do with his nights, Wynn asked. Redding did not answer, which was answer enough.

“You warm her bed?”

“I ... I ...”

“You are a braver man than I, Redding. Soldier on.”

Wynn was delighted with that turn of events, despite finding himself sans valet. Now he had a bargaining tool for dealing with Marissa, who had yet to give Deanna and Howard her blessing. He would not exactly call it blackmail, for he would never reveal to the ton that the very proper Lady Ingall enjoyed a very close propinquity with her dead husband’s valet—but Marissa did not have to know that. When he went to report that he had made arrangements for Deanna’s cleric to have a living at St. Abner’s near Caswell, he also asked Marissa a favor. Would she please invite Bette to a few of her afternoon at-homes, an evening of cards, or to share her box— Wynn’s family box—at the opera?

Marissa peered at him as if he’d sprouted antlers. “First you convince my cousin to throw her life away in a moldering manse, and now you are asking me to entertain Lynbrook’s light skirt?”

“No, the lightskirt was Rosie. Bette is his respectable widow. If you have her at Ingram House, the ladies will see she is neither fast nor a social misfit.”

“Never.”

Wynn merely had to say “I see,” with a cock-of-the-walk smile on his face.

“I suppose I could invite her for tea one afternoon.”

Wynn rocked on the balls of his feet a time or two, touched the lumpish linen at his throat, and raised his eyebrow.

“Oh, very well. A small dinner or something.”

Wynn decided that one good turn deserved another.

If Marissa made Bette acceptable, he would see about making Redding a shade more respectable.

* * * *

Mrs. Reese was easier, if no less underhanded. Wynn had only to bribe her with a roof for her charity school to secure Bette an invitation to the ball. As the little old lady was writing out the card, however, she paused with her pen in the air. “You know, the school will not do the children much good if they are too hungry to study. If they go to work, or start stealing in order to put food in their bellies, they cannot have time for their lessons.”

So he promised to finance the kitchen, too, and keep it stocked.

She sanded the invitation and waved it, out of reach, while it dried. So he became a benefactor to a hospital, where the children might get care.

She might look like an ancient gnome, Wynn decided, but Mrs. Reese had the fortitude of an elephant and the wiles of a fox. Born to a titled family, she had married well, but well beneath her. Now her Croesus of a coal merchant was six feet beneath the ground, and the widow had bought her way back into the
ton.
Her invitations were highly sought after, her approval almost necessary for a young girl’s successful come-out. And she wanted a pound of flesh for her favor.

Wynn had the invitation when he left.

He had a great deal less money than when he arrived.

And he had a position as trustee of the school, the hospital, and an orphanage that got added while he was putting the card in his pocket. A fellow could do worse, Wynn decided, than use his time and money and skills to improve the lives of those less fortunate. He’d make more of a difference this way, too, than sitting in Parliament with the pettifogging politicians. And he could still learn to oversee his estates and raise prime cattle if he wanted.

Yes, Wynn decided, his future was looking rosier. But first he had to find a husband for Rosie.

He had made a good start to putting Bette in the way of eligible gentlemen, and better by letting it be known in the gentlemen’s clubs that she was not entirely penniless. Wynn could not begin to think, however, where to look for a father for a Paphian’s progeny, no matter how much brass he had to provide.

Rosie was not as despondent as she had been, thank goodness, nor as weepy. Perhaps she was happier because she was not alone all the time, or perhaps it was because she was respected in her neighborhood now. When one of the local boys had called out an insult, Barrogi had sharpened his knife. Rosie was treated like a lady after that.

“Don’t worry, love,” she told Wynn. “I’m sure you’ll think of something sooner or later.”

Her confidence in him was heartening, but time was running out for the baby—and for finding a valet to get him ready for Mrs. Reese’s ball.

Wynn was disgusted with the offerings of the Day brothers’ agency. They had recently sent him three valets: one man was so efficient he awakened Wynn with a booming voice that rattled the windows, before dawn; another was so efficient he tried to groom the dog, who took exception to the scissors, the comb, and the clunch; the third man was so efficient he kept sampling Wynn’s wine, to make sure it was not poisoned. Then the agency sent a note that they were closing their doors.

A man who had made his own way around the world had to be able to tie his own neckcloth, Wynn insisted to himself. Besides, he was desperate. So he went to Rosie for lessons. First she showed him how on Barrogi, who blushed, the old dog. Then she had Wynn practice on Barrogi, who growled, worse than the clean-shaven dog. Then Wynn got to tie his own in front of her hazy pier glass. He tied them and tied them, enough for Mrs. Reese’s whole school of boys to look like unhappy little gentlemen. His neck was chafed, his fingers were numb, his eyes were all but crossed, but he could manage a perfect fold at least most of the time.

He spent most of the afternoon before the ball getting ready, feeling like a girl preparing for her first grownup party. Everything had to be perfect. He could not appear gauche to his sister-in-law, whom he was escorting, nor raffish, lest he rake up the old scandal about Bette, who was also in their party. Getting Marissa to take Bette up in her carriage had taken almost as long as tying the perfect Windfall. If it wasn’t Wynn’s carriage, in fact, he doubted the outcome, Redding or no Redding. Most of all, his appearance had to be top of the trees, to show a certain featherheaded female that he was not entirely beneath contempt, that other women found him attractive.

Three hours later, Wynn was ready for battle, and ready to face Lady Torrie. That is, he was ready to find a lady of his own.

If clothes made the man, he would have a fiancée by morning. If clothes did not, he could fall back on his title and fortune.

Marissa came with her cousin in the town carriage to fetch him, right on time, of course. Wynn dutifully complimented both ladies on their ensembles, although all he could see by the dim couch lamps were dark capes and the Ingall diamonds gleaming magnificently around his sister-in-law’s greedy throat.

When they arrived at Lynbrook House, Wynn went in to collect Bette. She was not ready, naturally. While he waited, Wynn adjusted his lace cuffs, made sure the chain to his fob watch had not become entangled in his waistcoat buttons, and checked to see that his beard had not grown in the three hours since he’d shaved—and all without turning his head, lest he ruin the masterpiece at his throat.

Then Bette skipped down the hall in her shepherdess costume, crook and all.

“It’s a bloody masquerade?”

“Of course it is. Everyone knows Mrs. Reese’s annual costume ball is the highlight of the social Season. I suppose you left your mask in the carriage, although I thought you could do better than evening dress and a domino.”

He could do a great deal better. He could pretend to be a berserker, strangling Bette, his sister-in-law, and Madame Michaela, any one of whom could have told him the party was a blasted masquerade. The female he blamed most of all, of course, was Lady Torrie, for getting him started on this path in the first place. He would not have to pretend to be a Bedlamite, if he had his hands at her conniving, contrary, confounded neck.

Bette twirled her feathered mask, showing lace petticoats and red stockings no shepherdess could afford. Neither could Bette. Wynn had paid for the cursed costume, to boot. Botheration!

He nearly shoved Bette into the carriage with the others, saying he would join them later, that they would be less recognizable without his escort. Hah! By the added lights of Lynbrook House, Wynn could now see that Marissa was in her habitual black, this time striped with white. He doubted more than a handful of the guests had ever seen a zebra, unless there was one in the royal menagerie, so her costume was accidental. Prim and proper Deanna was demure in a nun’s habit. He had no doubt her Howard would be a monk. How original. As for Bette, no one who had ever met her could mistake that giggle, or the jiggle of her ample endowments in that low, ribbon-tied blouse.

A masquerade, by George. He’d wasted his entire day getting prettified for a demmed costume party. The only thing Wynn liked less than waltzing around in all his finery was acting the jester in motley. What was wrong with these people that they had nothing better to do with their lives than play at children’s games? Is this why he had worked so hard to come back to England?

He had already pulled the wretched neckcloth off, along with his swallow-tailed coat and pinstriped waistcoat, before the hackney driver pulled to a stop outside his Kensington residence. He ripped off the white satin knee breeches as soon as he got in the door.

“Fleas, eh?” Barrogi gestured toward the dog. “I told you how it would be.”

“Not bugs. A blasted masquerade.”

“I thought you knew that,
padrone.
You were pretending to be a lovesick swine, no?”

“A swain and, no, I was not! I am not. I was dressing like a deuced English lordling, which I am, dash it.”

Wynn pulled open the collar of his shirt and tied one of Barrogi’s clean red kerchiefs around his neck. He found his oldest buckskins and his favorite soft, scuffed boots. Then he dragged a paisley cloth off one of the side tables, rolled it, and belted it around his waist, letting the fringed ends hang down. He stuck a jeweled but serviceable dagger, in its sheath, into the sash. No hat, no gloves, no ruby tie pin.

“No mask,
padrone!
You could borrow mine.”

Wynn did not want to consider why Barrogi had a mask. “No. It is about time these apathetic excuses for aristocrats saw the real Wynn Ingram. No more costumes, no more masks. If they don’t like it, they can go hang.”

* * * *

“We’re gonna hang for this, you daft old dandy.”

“Shut up and put on the mask. No one will notice us in the crowd.”

“What am I supposed to be, then?”

Boyce glared at his henchman by the light of the shielded lantern. “You are supposed to be watching for an opening in this blasted hedge so we do not have to climb the side walls to get into the damned garden. What you look like is a grave robber.”