Barbara Metzger (29 page)

“Something is wrong,” Lady Eleanor whispered to Alissa when the nearby wallflowers and their mothers got up and moved to other seats. “I’ll go find Rockford.”

“What, and leave me here facing all the stares?” Something was definitely amiss, for Alissa could feel all the malevolent gazes focused on her party, like a family of rabbits surrounded by a pack of wild dogs. She shuddered. “Send a footman.”

Aunt Reggie got there first. Two spots of rouge on her cheeks were all that remained of her color, and she looked far older than her years. Even her ostrich plumes were drooping forlornly as she sank into the now-vacant seat beside Alissa. “Someone is talking,” she reported. “Saying the most awful things about us.”

Alissa patted her hand. “Like what, Aunt Reggie?”

“They are saying that Eleanor is no better than she should be, that she ran off with a common thief.”

“There was nothing common about Arkenstall,” Eleanor declared, snapping the spokes of her fan.

“And…and that you, Alissa, dear, are less than a lady. That you trapped William Henning into marriage by getting with child, and then you did it again with Rockford, conveniently ‘losing’ the babe after he wed you. That’s why he left you in the country, they are saying.”

Alissa gasped. “Nothing like that ever happened. How could anyone say so?”

Aunt Reggie had to uncap her vinaigrette to go on. “There’s more. The rumors are that our sweet Amy is for sale to the highest bidder, with or without a wedding ring. That Rockford is giving such a handsome dowry because he cannot promise her maidenhood.”

Already as white as her gown, Amy silently slumped back in her seat in a dead faint.

Alissa pried the vinaigrette from Lady Winchwood’s trembling fingers. “How dare these awful people believe such vicious lies? And who could hate us so much that they would start them?”

“I think I know.” Eleanor jumped to her feet, ready to do battle. She strode straight across the dance floor, not caring how many dance patterns she disrupted. She went right up to her quarry, where he was leaning against a pillar watching the activities, and poked him in the chest with the broken edges of her fan. “You maggot.”

The Duke of Hysmith bowed. “Good evening to you, too, Lady Eleanor. I see you are your usual charming self.”

Eleanor was so angry she could only hiss, “Bastard.”

The duke polished his snuffbox against his sleeve. “I assure you my mother was a most circumspect lady, unlike others I could name.”

She drew her arm back to slap him, but Hysmith caught her hand. “Remember where you are, my lady. You do not want to create a scene here, on top of all your other troubles.”

“My troubles are thanks to you, Hysmith. No one else. But did you have to destroy Alissa and that sweet, innocent child, just to get back at Rockford and me?”

“I? You think I started the vile slander? Your low estimation of my character truly hurts more than any slap could.”

“You did not start the rumors?”

“No. Come. They are starting a waltz.”

“What? You are asking me to dance? Now?”

“No, I am telling you that you have to dance now, if you ever hope to lift your head in London again. Dancing with me might be a hardship, for which I apologize, but it is the only way you are going to scrape through this.”

“You have a high opinion of your social credit, then.”

“I have a higher title and deeper pockets than any man here. That is all that matters. Now smile, damn you, and act as if we are old friends.”

Old friends? She’d threatened to emasculate him, and he’d left her standing at the altar. Just this week he had called her a strumpet, and she’d left a barely faded bruise on his chin. Cats and mice made better friends.

Yet the duke had stood against the tide of opinion to waltz with her, and he was an excellent dancer besides, and just the right height for Eleanor. She actually felt feminine in his sturdy clasp, so dredging forth a smile was not as hard as she had imagined, especially when she glimpsed the open mouths of the tattlemongers along the edges of the room. There she was, the outcast spinster, in the arms of the most eligible, most respectable man in all of London, waltzing. She laughed outright, bringing an answering smile to Hysmith’s lips.

He twirled her in a dizzying circle. “I suppose it is fairly amusing, the two of us dancing in the sea of scandal again after all those years.”

“No, that’s not why I am laughing, although the astonished looks on the faces of the starched-up biddies who rule this place as if it were their own private island of morality are almost worth the cost. What’s so funny, your grace, is that those petty despots in diamonds and lace never granted me permission to waltz!”

He laughed with her, their appreciation for the absurd foibles of society matching as well as their dance steps. Eleanor regretted the end of the music, but not that attention had been diverted from Alissa and poor Amy, who was recovered from her swoon, but now appeared near tears.

The duke returned Eleanor to her companions and said he would fetch Rockford for them. Equally amazed at his kindness as everyone else in the room, Alissa managed a heartfelt thank-you before he left. Perhaps there was a little of William Henning’s sweetness in his elder brother after all.

*

Rockford was not as bored as he’d expected to be. At first he was busy accepting congratulations on his wedding—and on his choice of bride. Whoever thought he would be proud of a wife? A horse, naturally, but a wife?

Then, as the well-wishers faded away and most of the card players claimed they had to go perform duty dances, he was left with a half-deaf retired general for companion. Instead of listening to old General Cathcart refighting the India campaign, Rockford congratulated himself on his new secretary. Now here was a fellow who understood life-and-death matters. The new secretary had instantly recognized the importance of the message from Bow Street, and had sent a footman with it to Almack’s. While the general droned on, Rockford planned his wife’s seduction tonight, and Sir George Ganyon’s destruction tomorrow. The baronet was in London, it seemed, staying in rooms at the Albany.

Rockford did not intend to leave his wife’s bed too early in the morning, and he did not intend to leave that pond scum in England past noon. The future was looking bright, except for the large shadow that the Duke of Hysmith was casting across the deal table.

“If you are here to call me out for that blow to your chin,” Rockford said, “you are wasting your time. Make an appointment with my new secretary and I will meet you at Gentleman Jackson’s Boxing Parlor.”

The duke leaned over—his corset creaking slightly—and whispered in Rockford’s ear. He need not have bothered, for the general was too deaf to hear, and everyone else in the place knew the rumors.

“Bloody hell!” Rockford cursed, loudly enough to make the general frown.

“But we won the battle, I said,” he said.

Rockford ignored him. “Ganyon.”

“No, not a canyon. I told you, it was a mountain pass that day.”

Rockford pushed away from the table, threw down his useless cards and a few coins, and headed toward the ballroom.

The duke kept pace with him. “You know who would slander your family this way, and he is still alive?”

“Not for long.”

They had to go through the area set aside for refreshments before they reached the dance floor, and there he was. Speak of the devil; Sir George Ganyon was speaking to a fop in a puce waistcoat with shirt points so high he looked like a horse with blinkers on. The baronet was pouring spirits from a flask into the insipid punch served at Almack’s, and laughing at something his companion said. He touched his cheek, where a row of half-healed scars ran the length of his face. “This? Oh, I tried to pick up a wildcat, don’t you know,” he said with a wink and a snicker.

“That was no cat!” Rockford roared. “That was my wi—” He caught himself before he could plunge Alissa’s name into another sordid story. “My sugar tongs, by Jupiter!” He shoved the tittering fop aside in his haste to get his hands around Sir George’s chicken-wattle neck.

The duke stopped Rockford by grabbing his arm, and almost earned himself another livid bruise. “Think, man,” he urged. “You can’t kill him here. This is Almack’s, confound it. Ladies present.”

All the women had fled the refreshments room, shrieking. The gentlemen kept their distance, but some were placing bets on the forthcoming confrontation, whatever form it took. No one doubted, from Rockford’s expression, that some kind of challenge was about to be issued.

“If he spread those lies, I will stand your second,” the duke said, “but not here.”

“I will not face that cur on the field of honor,” Rockford swore, struggling to shake off Hysmith’s grasp. “For that would give him the courtesy due a gentleman.”

Sir George was grinning, a trickle of punch dribbling down his chin. He knew he was safe here in the cradle of civility. He also knew he had already had his revenge. He might be scarred for life, but that Henning bitch and her sister were ruined. And Rockford was stuck with both of them forever—and that shrewish sister of his, too. He laughed.

That drunken cackle was too much for Rockford. No one laughed in his face, especially not a midden worm in soiled linen, with three parallel claw marks down his cheek. He lunged, but Sir George sidestepped, holding up his glass of punch in salute.

Rockford was almost beyond reason now, but the duke managed to hold him back. “You cannot hit him here, by all that’s holy!” his grace said. “Think of your wife, her sister and yours, man. They will be the butt of more gossip, not less.”

Rockford thought of his gentle wife, his shy little sister-in-law, his freethinking sibling. Then he picked up the punch bowl and threw it at Sir George’s head.

The patronesses were lined up by the door. “I am sorry, my lord,” Sally Jersey said, “but you and your party will have to leave. Your vouchers have been recalled, at least until spring. We cannot have this kind of scene at Almack’s, we who are supposed to be the shining stars of the social galaxy. We do have rules, you know.”

Chapter Twenty-Two

Rules? Rockford did not even know what game they were playing anymore. He had neither committed murder nor issued an illegal challenge. Granted, Ganyon had slithered off before Rockford could do either of his first choices, but he had defended his wife’s honor, a gentleman’s right and duty.

Now he was barred from a place he never wished to visit, and a bedroom he wished very much to visit.

“How could you?” Alissa cried, guarding the door to her bedroom like Saint Peter at heaven’s gate.

“How could I?” he shouted in frustration. “How could I not?”

“But at Almack’s, of all places. You heard the ladies. Now we shall never be accepted!”

“Deuce take it, Alissa, a month ago you did not give a rap about Almack’s or that other useless twaddle.”

“A month ago I was not a countess. Now I am, and I do care about ruining your good name. I want to be worthy of my husband, not be a burden. I’ve already landed you with an entire family of castoffs. That’s enough. I will not have you throwing fists and punch bowls at every insult. You will be thrown out of your clubs and the diplomatic corps and every respectable house.” She sniffled. “I am going home.”

“You cannot.”

“Why?”

He had not thought that far, just that he did not want her to leave London. “Because, ah, because we do not know where Sir George is. The Runners lost his trail in the dark, and he was already gone from the Albany when they got there.”

“It does not matter where he is. The damage is done. If he wishes to make further mischief he need only send letters. People here are willing to believe whatever pig slop is tossed their way.”

“Not everyone. Hysmith stood by us.”

“He stood by your sister for some reason. Perhaps he felt guilty for not standing by her at the altar all those years ago. He would have let me and Amy be tarred and feathered, though, right there at Almack’s. And he has shown no interest whatsoever in meeting his nephews. So I am going home. The boys will have their ponies and their lessons and the dogs to run with. Amy will be happier, too. She hates it here, and I will never get her to go out in public again, not after tonight. One of the reasons I came to town in the first place was to find her a gentleman to wed, but the only man she met in London whom she talks to is the boys’ tutor. So coming to the city did not get my sons recognized by their father’s family, did not find a husband for my sister, and did not even keep Sir George Ganyon from bothering us.”

“But you also wanted to conceive a daughter,” the earl said, grasping for reasons to keep her here.

She had also wanted a marriage, but not at such a high price. Rockford could get killed in a duel, or get set upon some dark night. She would not put it past Sir George to hire thugs to satisfy the hurt to his pride caused by punch dripping down his balding head. She had to leave before Rockford was injured—and before she rushed into his arms begging him to go home with them. He would hate that, and hate her for causing him such bother in their marriage of convenience. Alissa could not bear the thought.

She shook her head. “I shall have granddaughters someday.”