Chapter Two
“Sink me. Would you look at that.”
Reynard Boulton stood with his back to the ballroom, a week later, and was not tempted in the slightest to turn from the punch table and learn the source of Milroy Stevenson’s wonder. Milroy, after all, thought indoor plumbing a miracle of God.
Reynard did, however, pause in the midst of topping off his cup of punch with a shot from his flask and glance up into the reflection of Sir Marion Tutty’s gaudy ballroom. The place was stuffed with mirrors, in imitation of either the palace of Versailles or his host’s favorite bawdy house . . . hard to say which. He sighed. He despised these cursed debutante do’s—had gladly quit them years ago. If it weren’t for the possibility of a confrontation between his heavily indebted host and a mysterious business rival, he would never have put in an appearance.
“No, look, Fox.” The big fellow elbowed Reynard. “She’s the prettiest—no, the most gorgeous creature I’ve ever seen.”
A female had caught his eye? That wasn’t exactly noteworthy, considering Stevenson had spent most of his life in a Yorkshire village surrounded by ham-fisted farmers’ daughters and the pigs they tended. Reynard shot a glare at Milroy before spotting Carlton Laroche on the other side of Milroy, gawking in the same direction.
“A walking dream.” Laroche sighed. “Just look at those eyes.” Apparently, he’d been struck by the same creature. But he had spent the better part of his life in London—his standards had to be higher.
With a huff of disgust, Reynard turned and followed their gaze across the ballroom to a clutch of bright-eyed young things gathered around a young woman with chestnut hair and eyes as big and blue and decadently fringed as any he had ever seen. He froze. She wore a rich blue gown that enhanced her eyes and a corset that enhanced a figure that needed no correction. Just standing there she seemed fluid and graceful and utterly—what the hell?
“Dammit, Stevenson—” His tone became uncharacteristically fierce as he grabbed the big fellow’s arm and turned him away from the sight of her. “Don’t go near that one.”
“What?” Stevenson gave a half laugh as he strained to turn back to that feminine vision. “Don’t be absur—”
“I said, don’t go near her.” The pressure Reynard exerted on the Yorkshireman’s thick arm finally reached the fellow’s thicker head. “I’d hate to have to pound you to pig feed to make you see reason.”
Stevenson was taller and more muscular than Reynard, but it was a wood-cutting, plow-pulling kind of strength. The Fox, as both friend and foe alike called Reynard Boulton, possessed a more refined sort of power. He was a formidable swordsman, a dead-on shot with a firearm, and a tireless bare-knuckle fighter. Half of his physical prowess came from years of training under Europe’s elite blade masters, the rest was the result of risky escapades in London’s underbelly. Those who underestimated his elegant appearance and mannerly demeanor did so only once.
Stevenson’s response was a confused laugh.
“What’s got into you, Fox?” Stevenson stared at him, then back at the young woman with widened eyes. “You know her! Who is she?”
“No one you need to know.” Reynard abandoned his grip on Stevenson, sensing his reaction had drawn too much attention.
“C’mon, Fox,” Laroche chimed in. “Who is she?”
“Someone who will get that fine Roman nose of yours rearranged if you don’t keep it to yourself.” He turned back to his spiked punch, sensing mounting interest in the looks Stevenson and Laroche exchanged. They weren’t going to let it drop.
Laroche raised his eyebrows and strode away. He returned after a quick word with their host, wearing a mischievous smile.
“Bumgarten,” he said to Stevenson. “She’s one of those Bumgarten females. Sir Marion wasn’t sure which one.”
The pair turned to him expectantly.
“You know the Bumgartens, Fox—those rich American girls.” Laroche was clearly the foolhardier of the two. “Come on—tell us about her. You wouldn’t be keeping her for yourself, would you?”
Reynard glanced up into one of those mirrors that gave him a view of what was happening near the door. Several young stallions had descended on that covey of females and Frances too-pretty-for-her-own-good
Bumgarten was flirting with those devastating eyes of hers.
“Very well.” He turned back to his companions, downed the rest of his doctored punch, and leveled an icy gaze on them. “Word is, she practices dark arts to entice reckless young idiots into her arms—then sucks the life from them and discards them like locust husks. Others say she turns into a deer at night and runs naked through the forest, participating in wild animalistic rituals. Still others say she becomes a banshee at will and slithers through the city’s gutters collecting secrets with which to ruin the high and mighty. Personally, I have seen her mesmerize grown men with a single glance at fifty paces.” He glared pointedly at the pair. “Just now, in fact.”
He had them hanging on every word. The horror on their faces was proof of how gullible they were—especially regarding canny young virgins—canny young American
virgins.
It took a moment for them to react to the fact that he was having them on. They scowled and drew back.
“I am trying to save you from yourselves. Take it from me—ignore your curious and lusty impulses and walk away unscathed.” The pair were hardly the worst London’s elite had to offer, but he couldn’t imagine either being up to the challenge of mating Frances “Frankie” Bumgarten. And he was sworn to protect her family. And her.
He poured another cup of that execrable punch and strode off in search of Sir Marion’s library, or whatever retreat the beleaguered tycoon had fashioned for himself in his house full of horse-faced females.
* * *
Stevenson and Laroche watched Reynard Boulton stroll away—a slow, controlled prowl that seemed as natural to him as breathing. The Fox knew things. Hell, the Fox knew everything. He had eyes and ears in noble houses and bawdy houses, in government offices and gambling dens, in bank vaults and boardrooms, back alleys and bedchambers. He was London’s foremost information broker, the unofficial keeper and sometimes dispenser of society’s secrets. If he said the Bumgarten girl was poison dressed as pie, they had reason to believe it.
With a glance at each other, then back at her, the pair headed straight across the ballroom for those mesmerizing blue eyes.
Moths to a flame.
* * *
“There he is. Isn’t he marvelous?”
“Not even tolerable.” Frankie Bumgarten cut a dark glance across the Tuttys’ ballroom at Reynard Boulton, who seemed to be lecturing two nicely turned-out young gentlemen. So full of himself.
Arrogant wretch.
Why on earth would the Fox deign to appear at Ardith Tutty’s coming-out party? Surely, he had better things to do. Like being fitted for a new hat. That custom-made silk topper she had ordered as a replacement had cost her a bundle. It wasn’t easy to come up with the funds without alerting her mother, which would have opened up another whole bag of worms. She’d had to hit up Uncle Red and shame him into contributing to the purchase.
She glanced furtively at Boulton’s elegant figure, telling herself she was looking for evidence that the goose-egg on his forehead had turned into a black eye. She couldn’t tell; his left side was turned away from her.
He behaved as if he were already the viscount and outranked every other man in the room. Much as she would like to find fault with him, it couldn’t be with his appearance, he was too easy on the eyes. His perfectly tailored evening clothes conformed to every angle of his tall, lean body. Then, of course, there was that hair, every wheat-gold strand in perfect order. Yes, well,
she shook herself back to reality. His appearance had to be the reason the man was invited everywhere, because his constant air of superiority and relentless observation were enough to put off the most charitable of hosts.
She had learned his prickly, difficult nature early on. He was an old schoolmate of her sister Daisy’s husband, Lord Ashton Graham. They had been introduced at Daisy’s wedding three years ago, and since then he had pointedly avoided her entire family.
Bounder
. She had finally put his distaste for her and her sisters down to the fact that they were new American money and he was old English nobility with all of the judgment and superior airs that status implied. If she had any delusions that his opinion of them might have mellowed over time, her encounter with him in the kitchen a few nights past had dispelled them.
What she wouldn’t give to see him taken down a peg or two.
“And soooo talented.” Claire, Frankie’s younger sister, leaned close to whisper: “His every movement creates a melody.”
“His—what?” Frankie turned to Claire and found her staring at the orchestra—no, the conductor
of the orchestra. That tall, smartly clad figure directed the flow of delightful music from a twenty-piece ensemble.
Her heart sank.
Him. Julian Fontaine was Claire’s developing passion. She had heard his chamber orchestra perform at an exhibition and now secretly scoured the Times
and the society pages for mention of him. So, this was why Claire had been so eager for their mother to accept an invitation to the disagreeable Tutty girl’s ball.
Claire read disapproval in her frown and grabbed her arm. “Don’t tell Mama. Please, Frankie.”
“He’s a musician, Cece. For God’s sake—Mama will lock you in the cellar when she finds out.”
“If
she finds out. Please don’t tell her. Promise me you won’t tell her.” Claire squeezed her arm. “I’m desperate to make him see me. If you can just keep her out of the ballroom for a little while . . . pleeeeease.”
Frankie stared at her, seeing in her soulful eyes a yearning that Frankie had never experienced but recognized as something fundamental to her younger sister’s sensitive spirit. She groaned quietly.
“You’re not going to do anything scandalous, are you?”
“No.” Claire feigned affront at the notion, but melted a moment later under Frankie’s interrogating glare. “Well, not exactly.” Claire nodded toward a sideboard where a servant stood watch over a violin case.
Oh, Lord. Frankie groaned. Cece was going to play and draw attention to herself, smack in the middle of London society. It was not only going to catch Fontaine’s eye, it was probably going to ignite an unquenchable flame of attraction between them. He’d be madly entranced by her beauty and talent and in coming days there would be a flurry of private communiques and assignations—all of which she’d be sworn to secrecy about. But sooner or later, news of their scandalous romantic entanglement would reach her mother and all hell would break loose.
She
would be blamed for allowing it to happen and Mama would rail about the betrayal and the indignity and the gossip, not to mention the ascribed immorality of it. Romance had always been tainted with sin in her mother’s mind. As the storm subsided, they would be banned from balls and parties, packed up and whisked off to some cottage in the back of beyond—worse, back to New York—even Nevada! And while she loved horses and could tolerate the ranch hands’ rough ways, the cows and sagebrush made her itch and her nose always ran and her eyes swelled—
“Frankie, please
.” Claire now gripped both of her hands tightly and the intensity of their exchange drew a few glances. She allowed Claire to pull her back toward the nearby entrance, and before she could refuse, the raw hope in Cece’s angelic face and sea green eyes demolished her defenses. Her beloved younger sister was a true romantic. It came with her uncommon sensitivity and talent for music. So, who was she to deny something that was probably a fundamental part of Cece’s soul?
Damn it
. She sagged. She was probably going to regret this.
“Give me a few minutes and I’ll find a way to steer Mama to the retiring room. When you see us leave, you’ll have a quarter of an hour to enchant your musician.”
Seconds later they were engulfed by a gaggle of tittering girls fresh from primping and gossiping in the ladies’ room, and there was no escape. She glanced around, hoping her mother couldn’t see them. Elizabeth Bumgarten was clear on her instruction to avoid such situations: “No man wants to have to wade through a clutch of giggling ninnies to pluck out a desirable maid for a dance.” Frankie sighed quietly, seeing in Cece’s pained expression that she was recalling it, too. The whispers of excitement and girlish intrigue all around them that made her feel older than her twenty-two years.
Ardith Tutty, nineteen and the deb of the hour, had completed the obligatory first dance with her father and the second with her godfather, and had taken the floor with two other gentlemen since—neither of whom was under age fifty. Still, she didn’t seem in the least beset by such a dismal start to her life in society. Moments later, Frankie understood why.
Several smartly attired young men descended on the group and spirited girls away to dance, giving lie to her mother’s social wisdom. Soon, the only one left standing with Frankie and Claire was Ardith, who had made herself all but unavailable during the pairing . . . turning aside to greet a nearby matron and brandishing her fan in a way that forbade any approach. Now, however, she fluffed her bodice frills and applied her fan, staring over it at two gentlemen making their way across the dance floor toward them.
“He’s mine,” she said to Frankie, under cover of her fluttering fan.
Frankie blinked, wondering if she’d heard correctly. “I beg your pardon.”
“The one on the right. Carlton Laroche. He’s mine.” She gave Frankie an icy little smile. “You two can fight over the other one.”
Stunned, Frankie watched Ardith appropriate Laroche’s arm and bat her eyes in a calculated way. The gentleman escorted the deb of the hour onto the floor, but not, Frankie noted, without a backward glance at her.
Conniving heifer
. When vexed, Frankie reverted to colorful ranching lingo, peppered with Uncle Red’s miner slang—to her mother’s dismay. She stared at the departing pair, thinking that Ardith might be young but she was already a determined competitor in the marriage sweepstakes. She had sized up Frankie as competition and brashly warned her off as she staked a claim to one of the more handsome men in the room. Silly cow
. As if Frankie would ever be interested in jumping such a claim.
The other fellow presented himself before Frankie and Claire with a stiff bow, muttering his name with a heavy north-of-England accent. “Milroy Steve’son, a’ yar service. Would either of you farr ladies, um, carrre to dannce?”
Frankie edged back a half step, which left Claire closer to the fellow. He flushed slightly as he offered his arm. Claire gave her a look before accepting the invitation and proceeding to the dance floor.
That left Frankie standing alone, or so she thought. A moment later a girlish voice whispered, “A lot of good that will do her.”
She turned with a start to find a stout, frizzy-haired young woman in a too-tight bodice leaning in to speak to her. Hazel Something. They had been introduced at Lucinda Mazur’s coming out party. Plain and self-effacing, Hazel hadn’t been especially memorable, except for the way Ardith and some of the other girls had belittled her.
“What will do who no good?” Frankie frowned, turning to the girl.
“Ardith.” Hazel glanced around to be certain no one was paying attention, then nodded to the evening’s honoree as she whirled past. “She’s set her cap for Laroche, but it will come to naught. Her father won’t give her permission to wed until her older sister Marcella is married.”
“Really? He demands his elder daughter be married first?” Frankie said. “Why would he do such a thing?”
Hazel looked puzzled for a moment, then realized she didn’t know. “It’s an old custom in noble houses and the Tuttys have always aped fancy manners. Barbaric if you ask me.” She grinned wickedly. “Especially when the eldest is Marcella Tutty.”
Frankie felt even more at sea and her face must have shown it. Hazel produced a tight little smile. “She’s so plain and disagreeable, where would they ever find someone to take her on?” She shot a satisfied look Ardith’s way. “Ardith will die a spinster if she can’t change her father’s mind.”
Frankie glanced at arch-competitor Ardith with new eyes.
“Of course, there are ways,” Hazel added. “And Marcella and Ardith Tutty are nothing if not determined.”
Before Frankie could respond, Hazel was discovered and bustled off by her irritable lady mother.
Frankie watched the dancers and the knots of conversation going on around the edges of the dance floor . . . the furtive glances to see who might be in earshot, the whispers and quiet exclamations of surprise or indignation, the hearty laughter and back-slapping of those who endured these honored traditions of camaraderie, connection, and engagement.
It was a sea of intrigue, she thought, watching the couples on the dance floor and those populating the sides and the conversation nooks. How many of them had secrets that would cause their lives or social connections to unravel if they were to be uncovered?
Already tonight she had been made privy to three confidences that she would rather not have heard. What was it about her that made people tell her things? She turned to go in search of her mother, knowing there were seating areas filled with mamas and matrons outside the ballroom and on a mezzanine balcony overlooking the far end of the ballroom. That was most likely where—
Two gentlemen blocked her path and she was surprised to find their host, Marion Tutty, in company with another man, staring down at her.
“Sir Marion.” She took a half step back and used her fan, uncertain what she had done to draw their host’s notice. “Such a lovely party.”
“Miss Bumgarten, I believe.” Sir Marion’s smile had a tension about it. “Such a delight to have you here, my dear. You have brightened our gathering with your presence and acquired admirers this evening, one of whom I bring for an introduction.” He turned to the man at his shoulder, who stepped forward and caused Frankie to inhale sharply. “Your Grace, may I present Miss Bumgarten, of America.”