Chapter Three
“For the husband hunt this is supposed to be, there are a shocking number of women here.”
Margaret bit back a smile behind her fan, which was no trick of fashion for once, as the heat in the room was truly abominable. “There’s a shocking number of everyone here,” she replied. “I didn’t think Lady Poole knew this many people.”
The dark-haired beauty that was Rosalind Arden snorted softly and fidgeted with the green ribbon at her waist. “She doesn’t. But as she’s growing desperate to get the Poole pack married off, they invited everyone in London worth any sort of salt.”
Margaret exchanged a quick, but surprised nod of acknowledgement to Lord and Lady Rothchild as the stunning couple passed by, wondering why the man who was one of the most popular dignitaries in Europe would have opted to come to an evening like this. She’d met him and his wife on several occasions on the Continent, and she knew his wife was certainly above the present company.
Lord Rothchild would probably enjoy this spectacle. He was full of good humor, as she recalled.
An overly exuberant dancer nearly crashed into Margaret and she backed up hastily, brushing off her cream muslin with a sigh. “Yes, and as the Season hasn’t officially begun, this is the first chance to do anything of amusement. Who will be this Season’s splash, hmm?”
“Why not you, Margaret?” Rosalind asked with a nudge. “Your fortune is admirable to the extreme, and you’re quite pretty. Men should be falling over themselves to get to you.”
Margaret shook her head. “See how they fall,” she murmured, gesturing faintly to the lack of attendants. She glanced over at the taller girl, who was stunning and regal in appearance and nature, and whose lack of suitors was truly the most mysterious thing.
She followed Rosalind’s gaze and saw where it was fixed, then smiled to herself.
Perhaps not so mysterious.
She cleared her throat a little. “What of you, Rosalind? I’ve heard some rather interesting things about a certain former captain of the Navy.”
Rosalind’s fan moved a bit more rapidly. “Will has no claim on me, and has not made any indication he wishes to.”
Margaret grinned. “Oh, it’s Will, now, is it?”
The fan snapped shut and a pair of dark eyes swung to hers. “Margaret Easton, spit out whatever ridiculous thought is swirling in your head, I’ve no patience for teasing.”
Margaret shrugged one shoulder as daintily as she could. “Nothing at all, my dear. I only find it curious that this winter you couldn’t stand him, and yet now he is Will.”
Rosalind glowered and looked away. “Our families have become acquainted. My sister is close with the Blackmoors and they are Riverton cousins. Will and I took it upon ourselves to waltz improperly as a distraction last Season, and now everyone thinks there is an attachment.”
“And what does Captain Riverton say?” Margaret asked, knowing the story already, having seen it for herself.
Rosalind’s jaw tightened. “Nothing. The fool says nothing but expects the rest of us to know what he wants and what he thinks, and blasts the whole world if he doesn’t get it.”
Margaret raised a curious brow. “Why do you care what Captain Riverton wants and thinks and gets?”
Her friend sighed and looked suddenly irritated. “I don’t. But he seems to think I do. We’re at odds, Margaret, and always have been. I daresay we always will be.”
Sensing the finality in her tone, Margaret let the conversation fade and looked around the overly elaborate ballroom with amusement. Sir Edgar Grimshaw was a socially ambitious man, and despite his comfortable house and fortune, it was never enough. Afraid of being found lacking, he overcompensated in an attempt to portray his estate and finances with all of the excesses and affluence that the highest circles did, though everyone knew the truth.
This evening, for example, rather than achieving the Grecian theme that was no doubt wished for, it rather looked as if one was mocking Greece, its rich history, and every legend, myth, and tale from its past. Ancient Greece might have died a rather painful death in this room. Additional Corinthian columns had been brought into the room and onto the terrace, each supporting overgrown ferns or badly formed busts of Grecian figures. Greenery adorned almost every sconce and open space of wall, wherever the swaths of white linen and what appeared to be green taffeta were gathered together, and, unless she was imagining it, atop the head of every footman in attendance. Sir Edgar and his male servants all wore a wreath of laurels.
Poor souls.
Sir Edgar also had the misfortune of having Lady Poole for a sister, and her three daughters each needed a match, and no one was asking. Lady Poole got more and more desperate every year, and her tastes ran from ridiculous to outlandish, and tonight she seemed to think that the London bachelors wished peacocks for brides, as they all bore gowns of rich blues and greens with the feathers of what could have been four of the birds in question on their persons.
And this was the select gathering that her companion had insisted she attend?
Margaret snorted. This was the most absurd event she’d ever attended, and she’d been to some rather inventive parties.
“Oh, look, someone is waltzing with a peacock,” Rosalind said with barely restrained mirth.
Margaret bit her lip hard, watching Christian Harris waltz with Cressida Poole, and the feathers were quite in the way. “At least she’s the sensible one.”
Rosalind snorted delicately, then coughed when one of the old women looked at her in shock. “Compared to Geraldine and Fanny, Cressida is perfectly angelic,” she muttered when she could. “Bless the dear Harris lad for taking pity on her.”
“Don’t call him a lad, he’s our age,” Margaret scolded with a snicker.
“So marry that one.”
She rolled her eyes and saw her companion glaring at her, and lowered her gaze at once. Her parents had been gone two weeks, and the change in the house was as sudden as it was unpleasant. Miss Ritson was all angles and sharpness, in features and manner, and her age was far beyond her years. She disapproved of everything Margaret was and loved, and the crisp, clipped tones with which she spoke had a jolting effect on both Margaret and the servants.
Miss Ritson had been tasked with maintaining Margaret’s social agenda, monitoring her behavior, and overseeing the courtships that were destined to follow this Season. She had been given explicit instructions to aid Margaret in securing a match with a suitable gentleman, be he peer or not, and had been assured of a reward if she would prove successful. A smaller reward would be administered if the Englishmen failed them and all she managed to do was prepare Margaret sufficiently for her marriage to a European suitor of her parents choosing. She reported biweekly to her parents via letter to Amsterdam, where they were beginning their tour, and the threat of including misbehaviors had already been weighing over Margaret’s head. She felt as though she were twelve instead of twenty-two.
“Why did that bat have to be the one who impressed your parents?” Rosalind asked with a dark look. “She’s a gargoyle. Any potential suitors would flee before her fire breath.”
“You’re confusing your creatures, Rosalind,” Margaret murmured as her cheeks heated.
“But the sentiment stands,” chirped another voice nearby.
Relief washed over Margaret as her cousin Helen came into view, looking like the picture of summer with her fair hair and pale blue muslin. Whatever plainness might have been ascribed to the Daltons, no one could deny that their daughter Helen was remarkably pretty.
“Thank you, Miss Dalton,” Rosalind said triumphantly, beaming at her.
Helen inclined her head proudly, then took a glass of punch from a passing footman. “Lord, but it’s hot. I hope they don’t tamper with the drink here, I shall need quite a few, and I’d rather not be inebriated when Mr. Timmons tries to propose again.” She sighed and smiled as she watched the dancing. “So, ladies, who are we ogling and how do we get him to come over here?”
Margaret laughed merrily, forgetting to hide the indelicacy behind her hand.
“All of them, Miss Dalton,” Rosalind quipped, dark eyes dancing. “All of them at once.”
Helen smiled mischievously. “Well, well, that should make things easier, don’t you think?”
“Not for me,” Margaret muttered, stifling a wince. “I can count my admirers without any fingers at all.”
She suddenly found her knuckles rapped by an ebony and ivory fan and yelped, turning to her cousin with wide eyes.
Helen’s delicate brows were lowered over her cobalt eyes and her jaw was tense. “Bite your tongue, Margaret Easton, and get out of the pity corner. Rickety Ritson might be charged with getting you a husband, but Rosalind and I are the ones to really see it done. I’m not letting you spend the rest of your life in Prussia.”
“Hear, hear,” Rosalind echoed, taking Margaret’s hand.
Margaret smiled at them both. “I’m not desperate, you know,” she informed them. “I want to love my husband, if I can.”
Helen gave her an odd look. “Did you think we would throw you at Lord Viskin because ‘any man will do’? Good lord, Margaret, with your generous heart and pretty face, we can find you a real suitor worth loving in no time at all.”
“Whether you love him or not is up to you,” Rosalind added, her gaze sliding to a woman sitting in a nearby chair, smiling sadly.
Margaret looked as well, and found herself sighing a little. It was a sad story, but Rosalind’s sister Lily had married a few years ago to a man she had cared deeply for, but the circumstances of their marriage had been unpleasant and purely financial, and by all accounts, her husband had nothing to do with her. Lily Granger had once been a lively, vivacious, and stunning woman of admiration. Now she was withdrawn, reserved, and hauntingly beautiful in a tragic sort of way.
Perhaps love would not be so wonderful after all, if that was where it could lead.
“Is there anyone in particular you would like us to try for?” Rosalind asked, the shadow passing as she smiled once more. “Who do you fancy, Margaret?”
An image of a dark and seductive pair of eyes and a devilish grin sprang to her mind, and she flushed a little as the full image of him rose before her. Heat coursed through her and her fan fluttered a little in her hold.
What would it be like to waltz in his arms? His hands on her body, properly placed and not so properly felt, his eyes on her face with the intensity of fire as his lithe and graceful movements led her around the floor. With his strength and heat and power, she would melt bonelessly into his embrace, letting him sweep her away, going breathless with the heady sensations he aroused, and she knew for a fact that the entire ballroom would be scandalized by only the look in her eyes as she boldly gazed back at her dashing partner, so familiar and so mysterious at once.
She swallowed hard against her suddenly parched throat and her hands shook once more.
Good heavens, it was hot.
“Lord, Margaret, no need to get so embarrassed,” Helen laughed from her side. “Just give us an idea, then, no confessions.”
She snapped out of her shocking reverie and cleared her throat. “It is just… Well… Who is the most dashing, do you think? Or desperate. Or both.”
Rosalind chortled from her other side. “Dashing and desperate, it is. Come along, ladies, those fellows take up the Eastern wall. If we’re lucky, Margaret, you might be asked to walk the gardens. Trap a man in the thorny hedges, and you might get somewhere.”
Margaret blushed as Helen laughed, and the three of them traipsed delicately across the ballroom to attempt suitors and partners for the next dance, if not beyond.
Damnation, that was close.
Rafe leaned against the column that had become his hiding place, letting his heart and lungs settle as feeling returned to his legs.
What the devil was she doing here?
More to the point, what was she doing here looking like that?
She was utterly delicious, tempting saints beyond their piety and more worldly men beyond their sanity. How could a demure, modest little thing like her appeal to his most secret desires? She ought to have looked exactly like every other miss he had spent his entire life avoiding, cream muslin and pearls and all, but instead she looked like the goddess this very soiree would have worshipped. That he would have worshipped, and would very much like to.
He shook his head, desperate to rid the sudden scent of lavender and honey from his senses. She was a distraction, and one he certainly could not afford.
He’d been perfectly composed and focused, the utterly bored and forgettable Lord Marlowe in place and ignored, for the most part. He’d plotted every detail of the evening before him, contingency plans in place, every detail of the house memorized and secretly traipsed already in the dark nights past. He knew the schedules of the staff and their duties, the rooms most likely to be used for meeting, and the portion of the hallway where the floorboards creaked. He was ready for the gathering that was supposed to commence and only waited for his host to make the move from his current position as the apparent Dionysus of the evening.
Everything was ready.
And then he’d seen her, and suddenly his feet had moved in her direction, desperate to get closer, to hear her voice, to see the captivating azure of her eyes, to learn what made her smile so fetchingly. It wasn’t until he had been almost close enough to touch that he’d realized what he was doing, and worst of all, that she would recognize him, and he’d hidden behind the pillar before she had seen him.
Why she should recognize him, he didn’t know. There was very little similar between Lord Marlowe and the man who stared and winked so boldly at her whenever he could get a glimpse. That was the beauty of his appearance and his skills; he could be anyone and anywhere at any time and no one ever placed or recognized him. He was a master of disguise and a creature of stealth and mystery.
But somehow he had known, and still knew, down to his core, that she would know him.
That was a terrifying thought.
This simple miss had the power to bring him down and she didn’t even know it.
What was worse was that he wasn’t sure he minded.
He swallowed harshly and leaned his head back against the column. It had been nearly a full week since he’d seen her. Her schedule was no longer the same, and his demands grew more and more inconvenient. He’d caught a glimpse of her sallow-faced chaperone the other day, and his instincts had kicked in, knowing she would not be so obtuse as the mother was. It had been miraculous they had managed a ten second look at all with her hovering about, but it had been managed, and Margaret had seemed both relieved and delighted by it.
It had never been so difficult to see her. She had always been there, like clockwork, and it had become part of his routine to include her in it. Now he had to trust in luck and creativity to see her, and he didn’t trust luck in the least bit. He didn’t like change, and he definitely didn’t like the change that had come over Margaret.
Despite looking angelic and ethereal, she also seemed pale and worn, and there was an odd tension in her frame that did not belong. She was a free spirit, the kind of girl who would have tipped her head back to feel the rain more fully, and now she was somehow confined, no doubt chafing against the restraints placed upon her.
He would free her. He could revive her. He could…
He couldn’t do anything here and now, hiding behind a pillar from the whole of Society.
But he couldn’t very well move yet, either.
He had watched her for what felt like an eternity, feeling like an intruder, and yet thrilling at the chance. He’d caught every flicker of her features, every twinkle of her eye, and his heart had stopped at the music of her laugh. For all he knew of her from observation, he’d never heard her laugh, and it seemed his chief regret in life now. She laughed frequently, he decided, but not usually with such freedom. He shook his head at the thought. How could he know her so well and yet not at all?
His breath had caught when he’d seen that faraway look, the blush creeping into her cheeks as if by a lover’s whisper, the change in her breathing, the faint tremor in her hand… She’d never been so attractive to him, and yet so tender. What were those thoughts that brought her to such a state? Could he have stirred her to it if given a chance?
He craved the opportunity to try.
Rafe winced and tapped his head back against the column once. He needed to find control. He was no lovesick puppy, and this was not the time to be entertaining the pleasant and increasingly addictive thoughts of her.
He wasn’t even alone in tonight’s activities, he’d just seen Weaver come in, and having one of England’s most accomplished covert operatives in attendance, knowing what was at stake, gave him additional confidence. Granted, he was here as his public persona of Lord Rothchild, and wasn’t supposed to be engaging in covert operations himself anymore, and was making a splash with his still-beautiful wife, but if it came down to it, Weaver would step in. He was second in command of all the covert operatives in London, he could do whatever he liked.
Rafe doubted he would have to, but if he were distracted any further, he might have to ask Weaver for assistance.
He needed to focus on Sir Edgar Grimshaw and his ruddy meeting this evening.
Sir Edgar had likely been a supporter of Napoleon, and now of the small but willful faction that had been unsettled since the monarch had been placed back on the throne. Some suspected they supported Sieyés and what he had envisioned for France all along, others that they wanted Napoleon’s son to return and take back his father’s place. Whichever it was, they were unpredictable and dangerous, and the fact that much of their funding seemed to be coming from English fortunes was appalling and embarrassing.
This was his purpose tonight.
Not wondering how complicated his life would get if he indulged in a quadrille with Margaret Easton.
He’d rather a waltz, but he’d never let her out of his arms once she was in them.
“Marlowe, you look even more pained than usual,” drawled a low, feminine voice that he’d come to know well.
He glanced over at the welcome distraction of Marianne Gerrard, wife of one of his closest friends, and a former project of his, though she had never known it. Before her days as a wife, she had been the subject of many scandalous rumors and speculation, and she’d lived for such gossip.
Now she was only envied by all who knew her.
“Mrs. Gerrard,” he said politely, straightening to bow.
She snorted softly, her dark curls bounding with the action. “Don’t be so polite, Marlowe, it’s only me.”
“Marianne, I must at least pretend at politeness, you know that.” He smiled evenly, reminding himself to be as boring as possible, but unable to resist teasing. He liked Marianne, which surprised him after all of the trouble he went to for her.
She returned his smile and raised a brow. “I know nothing of the sort. Now, before my husband finds you and interrogates you himself, I must ask when you are coming to see your godson again. He’s got a fine set of teeth, and Kit seems to think you need to see them yourself.” She folded her arms and smirked, though her eyes shone with pride and excitement.
Rafe forced his expression to remain devoid of either of those things, though he thrilled at the thought. “My namesake may be assured of my presence within a week, and his father need be reminded that I request the privilege of teaching the lad to ride when he is able.”
“Do you now?”
“You don’t wish Kit to teach him, do you? Not when I’ve beaten him in every race we’ve ever had.”
Marianne’s dubious expression amused him, and he bit back a grin. She, like everyone else, thought him a bit tiresome and utterly forgettable, but she also knew there was more to him than that. She would have made a fine operative if she weren’t so notorious.
“You ride, Marlowe?” she asked with more than a hint of doubt.
He shrugged. “When I can be persuaded. Activity, you know, good for the health. Strenuous though.”
She rolled her eyes and moved a bit closer, keeping her eyes fixed on the dancing behind him. “Pretend all you want, Marlowe,” she whispered, her lips barely moving. “I know you’re not as dull as you appear, and when you come to us at Glendare this summer, come as yourself.”
He allowed a ghost of a smile to flick across his face and inclined his head. “As you wish, Marianne.”
She gave him an amused look, then sauntered away, immediately gaining the attention of everyone around her.
Rafe exhaled and forced himself to focus. He stepped out from the pillar, blank expression in place, and began a slow, leisurely turn about the room, his eyes flicking repeatedly to Sir Edgar, still enjoying too much of his punch. Marianne and Kit made their way out to the dance floor, Kit giving him a serious nod, knowing better than to draw attention to him. He’d never told his friend what he did in any certain terms, but Kit had never asked. He seemed to know without any sort of information at all.
He noted the men circling Sir Edgar, studied the man himself with more care, and noted with some satisfaction, and grudging admiration, that he wasn’t nearly as drunk as he appeared. His eyes were fixed and clear, and at a very slight nod, those men around him began to migrate.
Rafe looked at them all in turn, noting features and state of dress, if he did not know their names. A visit to Hal would help him with identities and then they would finally have some answers. It was long past time for progress to be made here.
He eased his way around the crush, glancing at the dance floor again, feeling his chest seize up at the sight of Margaret dancing with some fresh young lad with adoring eyes and a perfect cravat. His gaze narrowed and he willed fate to be on his side, then wrenched his attention back to the retreating forms of the traitors he would root out.
He frowned a little, his mind whirling with the plans and predictions he’d made. They were choosing to depart by the proper exits and entrances, thus staying in plain sight of the guests for much of the time. He’d expected them to slink off into the lesser known areas of the house where the safety of anonymity could guard them. It was a much cleverer, more daring plan to behave like this, but it would make his task more difficult.
There would be no easy way to follow them once they left the safety of the crowded ballroom, not when he was dressed as he was. He would stir up comment and draw attention to himself, no matter how careful he was. On a night such as this, the servants would be traipsing back and forth with trays and work and might take no notice of him, but he would certainly be in their way. He needed a way to blend in and allow him to move as freely as he might have done otherwise.
He paused at the side of a footman standing stock still with a tray of punch in his hands. They were of a height, similar in stature, and with the ridiculous leaves strewn in the powdered wig, no one would pay any attention to his true features. He smirked at the dark livery, and further still at the sudden wariness in the lad’s eyes.
“My dear chap,” he said in a very droll voice, “I am about to make your night. How would you like to earn a fiver?”