Chapter Three

During dinner Tony suggested to his mother that she signal an end to her mourning by calling upon Lady Clarice and Miss Braithwaite.

“Oh, you are so kind to worry about me, dear,” she said, emitting a small sigh. “Your suggestion is a good one. Before your father died, I was well acquainted with both ladies, and they are two of my favorite people.”

He explained about the charity of which they had spoken.

“I shall think about that, dear, I promise. I know you are concerned about me, but I shall come about in time. Right now it is all I can manage to attend the opera tonight. Where is Howie this evening?”

Tony felt his good humor vanish. “He was talking about visiting a new gaming club. I only hope it is a reputable one. He has not far to go before he exceeds his allowance for this quarter.”

“Then he shall just have to rusticate in Kent and miss the rest of the Season,” his mother said. “It is only the beginning of May!”

* * *

When Tony had settled his mother in their box at the opera, he took out his glasses and began to survey the noisy crowd. Though he knew it was bound to happen eventually, he was disturbed to see Pamela and her fiancé sitting in a box across the hall. She was as beautiful as ever with her honey-colored hair dressed high on her head, three ringlets caressing her left shoulder. As though staring straight back at him, she raised perfectly arched brows over her ice-blue eyes.

Quickly switching his glasses away from her, he was unable to take in much of anything else for a few moments. Perhaps he should have read her letter. But what was she doing sending him private correspondence when she was engaged to another man? And not just any man, but his own personal bête noire, the Earl of Sutton. For the next few moments all he saw was a sea of faces.

Then Beau Wellingham and his new viscountess swam into view across the opera hall. So, they were back from their honeymoon. Tony was deuced glad. London wasn’t the same when Beau was gone. His dandified attire masked a keen mind and great physical prowess. Tonight he was a vision in deep maroon with a figured waistcoat. And Tony liked Lady Wellingham. Having had a very short Season before becoming betrothed to his friend, she had not acquired any of the silly affectations of new debutantes.

The first and second acts of The Magic Flute proved humorous and well sung. Anxious to stretch his legs at the interval, Tony asked his mother if she would care to visit the Wellingham box.

“Beau and his wife are back from his estate. You have never met her, but I think you will like her.”

“Charming. I would love to make her acquaintance. Are they the ones who met at dawn in Green Park?”

“Yes,” he replied with a chuckle.

When they walked into his friend’s box, he found that Beau and Lady Wellingham had gone for refreshments, but he was pleased to be met by Arabella, Beau’s sister, whom he had known since she was in pinafores. His friend had raised her since the death of their parents had orphaned her at age six. Tony was very fond of Arabella.

She blushed when she saw him and rushed to say, “I met a friend of yours at Hatchard’s today! A Miss Livingstone.”

Surprised, he echoed, “Miss Livingstone?” Thinking how unlikely this connection was, he said, “However did you know I had made her acquaintance?”

“Well, it is a roundabout story. I took such a liking to her that Miss Graham and I took her with us to Gunter’s. We were eating ices when the Duke and Duchess of Ruisdell came over to our table. When I introduced them, the duchess remarked that they had been discussing her at lunch—that you had asked the duke if he knew her.”

Tony was abashed that the duchess had disclosed his interest in front of Miss Livingstone. Just then Beau and his bride returned to the box in time to hear Arabella’s rambling explanation.

“What kind of trouble have you gotten into now, Arabella? Good to see you, Tony.”

His friend clapped him on the shoulder, then turned to his sister for an explanation.

“It is all quite innocent, Beau,” she said with a winsome smile. “I met a lovely American lady at Hatchard’s today. Her name is Miss Livingstone. She is Lady Ogletree’s niece.”

“An American in London?” Beau asked. “And how does this involve Tony?”

“I met her briefly at Lady Fotheringhill’s ball,” he said. “I asked Ruisdell yesterday whether he knew anything of her, and he and the duchess apparently met with your sister and Miss Livingstone at Gunter’s. They made the connection.”

“The duchess took to her immediately,” said Arabella. “They talked about books. She invited Miss Livingstone to luncheon to meet with her book group.”

“You talked with her at Hatchard’s and then took her to Gunter’s?” Beau demanded. “An American! You do realize I work for the Foreign Office and that there is a war on?”

“She is not a spy!” Arabella insisted. “You have got spies on the brain!”

This was true. Beau had recently been wounded in pursuit of an enemy agent.

“Who spoke to whom first?” Beau inquired.

“I introduced myself to her. She was reading Pride and Prejudice. How could I not?”

“How, indeed?” interjected Beau’s wife, Penelope, with a little laugh.

“I shall have to have her thoroughly vetted before you have anything more to do with the woman,” Beau said. “I do not suppose you found out what she is doing here?”

“She is visiting her uncle and aunt, Lord and Lady Ogletree.”

“In the middle of the war? She is paying a visit?” Beau asked, an elegant eyebrow raised. “I find that most unlikely. There is no legal way she could have obtained passage.”

“She is lovely,” said Arabella stoutly. “I nearly invited her to the opera with us tonight.”

“That would have been a pretty scene. Lord Castlereagh’s box is across the way. How perfect for the Foreign Secretary to see me consorting with an American.”

Tony watched the interchange with concern. Could there be anything to Beau’s suspicions?

Surely not.

But Miss Livingstone was very young and idealistic. He remembered the lady’s guileless smile and her passion for the abused dog she had named for an American patriot.

Who was he to think he could read a woman’s mind? He had erred badly with Pamela and paid the price.

As though he had conjured her, Pamela appeared at the door of the box, the charmingly ugly Earl of Sutton in tow.

“Dear Beau,” she said, ignoring Tony’s presence completely. “I do so want to meet your bride.”

Tony’s friend flashed him a rueful glance, then turned to his wife. “Penelope, may I present Miss Pamela Longhurst and her fiancé, the Earl of Sutton? Miss Longhurst, Earl, I am delighted to present my wife, Lady Wellingham, the former Miss Swinton.”

Discomfort brought heat to Tony’s face as the lady conversed with Beau’s wife about the opera. Seen closely, Lady Pamela would still be beguiling if he did not know her to be false. The scent of lilies, her trademark cologne, filled the air around her.

How perfect. I never thought of it before, but she is a true hothouse flower.

She had played him for a fool, and the feelings she had aroused within him for so long had cooled considerably but, unfortunately, not entirely. They still had the power to wound.

Doing little more than offering a perfunctory greeting to Arabella, she turned to Tony and his mother.

“Lady Strangeways, Viscount, you are both looking well.”

Tony noticed her color was high and the gaiety in her voice forced. Sutton’s hand did not leave her waist.

“As are you, Miss Longhurst,” said his mother with asperity. Of course, she undoubtedly guessed Tony’s discomfiture. He knew she had never liked the woman he had admired so ardently.

“So when is the wedding to be?” Tony asked Sutton.

“Ask my fiancée,” he said, his voice rough. “She will not decide on a date.”

Tony and the man had been rivals since college days when they had competed on opposing cricket teams. The viscount’s batting record, the best of all the Oxford colleges, was marginally higher than the earl’s, and Sutton had made their competition personal, carrying out a campaign of bitter personal attacks during all the years that had followed.

Tony was certain Sutton’s engagement to Pamela was the latest move in his years-long vendetta. It had occurred but recently, during a time when Tony had every reason to expect the woman was favorably disposed to his own addresses. Every time Tony had seen his bête noire with Pamela, the earl had gloated with a fierce possessiveness.

The lady kept her eyes fixed on his mother. “We have missed you at the duchess’s soup kitchen. I hope now that your mourning period is at an end, you will rejoin our volunteers.”

The Duchess of Ruisdell had begun a soup kitchen for wounded soldiers in the East End, often providing the men their only daily meal. It had become a very fashionable charity. Tony had erroneously supposed that Pamela’s participation indicated a charitable disposition.

“I believe I am almost ready to take up my duties again.” His mother’s voice contained a tone of reproach, as though Pamela had accused her of malingering.

Pamela smiled. “I know this has been an exceedingly difficult period for you . . .”

She stopped as the gong sounded, signaling the end of the interval. Only then did she throw Tony an arch look.

“Dear one,” said Sutton. “We must get back to our box now.” He nodded curtly at Tony and his mother, then took leave in a more cordial manner from Beau, Lady Wellingham, and Arabella.

“I detest that man, Tony,” his mother said under her breath. “He treats Miss Longhurst as though she were a possession.”

“He was her choice,” he replied. Turning to Beau, he inquired, “Meet you at White’s for lunch tomorrow?”

“Excellent,” said Beau. “We have urgent business to discuss, as it happens.”

But as Tony and his mother went back to their box, he was not the least bit curious about what Beau had to say. His heart was still thrumming at a faster pace after the encounter with Sutton and Pamela. She had been uncomfortably familiar with his mother. What had been the meaning of that look she had given him?

The devil. Perhaps he should not have burned her letter. During the third act of the opera, his thoughts wandered.

He had first met Pamela at a ball where she was surrounded by beaux. Last year she was the undisputed Success of the Season.

He hadn’t been interested. Women who drew men like flies to honey were invariably vain and petulant. To his surprise, however, she had pursued him.

He first noticed it when she turned up at his curricle races. She gave him a favor—her handkerchief—to take with him during the race. Startled, he didn’t know what to say. He simply looked at her.

“Say something!” she had said with a tinkling laugh. “I am wishing you Godspeed.”

“Then, thank you,” was all that stumbled out.

He still had the handkerchief somewhere. It was a scrap of delicate lace, carrying the scent of lilies.

Days later he had received a note congratulating him on winning the race and asking if he could be of assistance to her in choosing a new mare. He was unused to such forward gestures. In order to rob the incident of anything personal, he met her at Tattersall’s with Bertie and his brother, Howie, in tow. He explained to Miss Longhurst that these men were far better versed at choosing livestock than he. Between them they chose a lovely Arabian with a beautiful head and a perfect gait.

It was to him she had written her letter of thanks. He wasn’t even sure that she had really been in the market for a mare.

If only he had left it at that. If only the proceeding months hadn’t seen him fall under her spell.

Attempting to wrench his thoughts away from the woman, he tried to concentrate on the opera. It was hopeless.

What had ultimately drawn him into returning her regard was her talent as a vocalist. He remembered the evening clearly. She was performing Mozart at a musicale at Lady Clarice’s home one evening. Her contralto voice was unusual and inviting, reminding him of warm syrup. Admiration for her slowly crept over him. He found himself fantasizing about taking the pins from her golden hair and kissing that lovely throat. Tony became completely enraptured.

Afterward, when expressing his admiration for her singing, he found himself holding her hand a bit too long. Now he knew it had been victory that had lit her eyes.

* * *

When Tony and his mother returned from the opera, she bade him join her in her sitting room.

“Did you enjoy being out tonight, Mother?” he asked.

“I did. It has had the effect of reconnecting me with society. Were you not very fond of Miss Longhurst, my dear? However did you allow her to become engaged to that awful man? I have never liked him.”

He stirred uncomfortably in the chintz-covered chair he occupied. “All that was over last Season. She took up with Sutton during the winter, I believe.”

“Whatever does she see in the man?”

Tony could no longer hold back his bitterness. “He is an earl and has one of the biggest incomes in the country.”

His mother looked at him sharply. “She wounded you, did she?”

“She accepted an offer from me but urged me to keep it quiet. Her father and I had come to terms, but it was never announced. She kept asking me to hold off. I never knew why. This winter, right before I was to journey to visit her, I saw the notice in the Post that she was to marry Sutton.”

His mother’s eyebrows rose. “I suppose you kept it from me in an attempt to spare me. She is nothing but a jilt, Tony, whether it was announced or not. You are well rid of her.”

Later, in his dressing room, he frowned at his reflection in the cheval mirror. When would this nagging sense of betrayal subside? Not having an answer, he downed a whiskey and went to bed.

* * *

“What did your bride think of Somerset Vale?” Tony asked Beau as they conversed over their luncheon at White’s. His friend was dressed all in cream today. Beau’s habit of turning himself out like a dandy had risen during their Oxford years. As the two of them had learned jujitsu from one of their tutors, it had amused Beau to camouflage his deadly abilities with his dress. It hadn’t surprised Tony in the least when his friend took up with the Foreign Office, involved in their most clandestine affairs.

“She was very taken with it. Penelope is a country girl, you know. And she just lost her childhood home to a distant cousin because of the entail.”

“Do you think she will adjust to London?”

“She is determined to. As you know that was not always the case, so I am grateful she married me despite the fact that we must live here much of the time. She is a plucky little thing. Her aunt, Lady Clarice, maintains she is destined to be an Original.”

Tony sipped his claret. Due to a largely sleepless night, he was in an indifferent mood today. “You had some business to discuss with me?” he prompted his friend.

Beau’s features tightened in a grim look. “You have met this Miss Livingstone Arabella has so unwisely befriended?”

“Yes.” Tony’s defenses rose instinctively. “She is a very kind person, Beau. You can’t seriously believe she is a spy!” He told of their adventure with Mr. Hale. “She wears her feelings on her sleeve.”

“Hmm. She could have been trying to take you in, you know.”

“Impossible. The lady was engaged to the point of endangering herself before I arrived on the scene.”

Beau swilled the claret in his goblet. “I have looked into her family connections. Her grandfather was the present Lord Ogletree’s brother. He would have been the baron had he not emigrated. It would have been easy enough to insinuate herself into their family.”

“In the middle of a war?” demanded Tony. “I don’t imagine any part of her arrival on these shores was easy. In all likelihood her uncle is her guardian, and her parents are deceased.”

“Has she said as much?” Beau’s eyes were hard in a look Tony recognized. When pursuing his job his friend was implacable.

Tony ran his mind back over his encounters with Miss Livingstone. “No. I must confess she hasn’t, but perhaps she doesn’t wish to speak of that which gives her pain. Her aunt is very protective of her.”

He told of their meeting when Freddie had been about to compromise the lady and Lady Ogletree’s almost panicked insistence that they leave the ball.

“Freddie the Flyer?”

“The same. I believe I rescued Miss Livingstone from a ruined reputation. He was literally taking her down the garden path when I claimed a dance.”

“So she is in your debt. That is good. I confess I am worried about this friendship Arabella and the duchess have struck up with the lady.”

“You truly believe she may be a spy?”

“She is young; she most probably idolizes so-called Patriots. Who knows what terrible things she has been told about Mother England? You must admit her arrival here is deuced odd.”

Tony stared into his wine. Again he remembered the lady’s actions of the day before. It would be false to say they hadn’t endeared her to him. If Miss Livingstone was a spy, she was a very good actress. Of all the women he had met, it seemed to him that her most obvious trait was sincerity.

“You think she somehow contrived the meeting with your sister?”

“I cannot know for sure. That is why I would like your assistance.”

“Let me guess,” said Tony. “You would like me to cultivate the lady’s acquaintance and give you my opinion.”

“Yes. And keep an eye on her while you are at it.”

Tony felt uneasy. “That will entail spending some time with her. I should not like to give the lady false hopes if she is innocent.”

Beau frowned. “Think of it as an assignment from the Foreign Office.”

“You have spoken to the Foreign Secretary about this?”

“This morning. Let us say he is concerned and would greatly appreciate your cooperation.”

“King and country, eh?” Tony didn’t want anything to do with the idea. He felt a horrible cad just thinking of it. It put him in a false position.

“Not such a terrible assignment,” Beau said. “Now, tell me how you’re getting on selling your studs. Any bids for Ares yet?”

Their conversation thus switched to horses.