Authors: Lucinda Brant
“Stop this instant or not one of you will dance at the Haymarket again.” She jerked her dark head in direction of the windows. “Keep your eyes on the windows, and when the handsome Major and his friend they appear, you will all do as instructed.
Sí
?
Bene
,” she added, when the dancers nodded obediently. “Now please to contain your impatience at seeing Major Fitzstuart in all his glory. When he comes through that window, then you have my permission to screech the excitement so loud, his pleasant friend will run into this room and save my life.”
She turned back to Rory and said merrily, “Soon it will begin, and so you are not alarmed, me I will tell you what is to happen. But first promise me not to tell Signore Romney’s servants. It is most important to keep the surprise so the Major’s pleasant friend, who is naturally infatuated with me, believes I am terrified and he has saved me from a fate worse than death.”
Rory was so intrigued she could only nod. She shuffled down the chaise longue in anticipation of receiving Consulata’s confidence regarding Major Fitzstuart. But no sooner had she done so than the dancers at her back began jumping up and down and squealing their delight. This had Consulata Baccelli on her feet. At the same time, one of Romney’s assistants threw paints and brushes into the air as if in panic and fled the room, while two of the dancers swept up the trailing folds of their drapery, skipped lightly down the three steps of the stage and ran across the studio towards the three sash windows.
Such was the instantaneous outburst of excitement from the dancers that Rory instinctively swiveled to look over her shoulder—at them, not out across the studio to see what had caused their agitation. By the time she reoriented herself to look at the windows, an intruder, who had dropped silently into the studio via an open window, was chasing the two dancers across the room.
Rory was shocked into speechlessness by such outlandish behavior, and while she blinked several times in response, as if convincing herself the scene presented before her was indeed unfolding, she did not sense any immediate danger to her person, or to any of the dancers. This surprised her, because the intruder was male, and naked but for a belt around his waist that positioned a modesty cloth between his legs. Watching him chase after the giggling dancers, who were showing no resistance to being caught, the cloth proved no covering at all, and Rory’s face flooded with the heat of outrageous embarrassment
And then, within the blink of an eye, her acute embarrassment turned to profound shock, and from shock panic sprang, not for herself but for the intruder. When he came running up the room towards the stage and caught the two squealing dancers about the waist and held fast, Rory saw that his hair was powdered gray, his eyes blackened, and his laughing face disguised with thick stripes of white paint. But it was a thin disguise and would fool no one who knew him. Rory knew him better than anyone else. The naked intruder was Harvel; Harvel Edward Talbot, Lord Grasby; her only brother.
T
HREE
E
ARLIER,
L
ORD
G
RASBY
had tiptoed behind Dair, staying close in the darkness as his friend navigated the pathways of the small garden at the back of George Romney’s townhouse. Dair knew his way in darkness. His night vision was considered second to none and had been used to good purpose while leading many late-night scouting parties into enemy territory. George Romney’s garden and house were definitely enemy territory. He knew the painter’s studio was conveniently located on the ground floor at the back of the house, because he had paid a visit to the painter’s house earlier that day to reconnoiter.
A soldier did not go unprepared into battle. With the promise of half a shilling, one of Romney’s assistants agreed to leave a window ajar in the studio. For the promise of the other half, this same servant would ensure his master was momentarily called away from the studio at the agreed hour. He then offered Lord Fitzstuart a tour of his master’s painting studio, even going so far as to show him the little garden at the back of the house, and the high stone wall with its door that gave access to Red Lyon Lane. That, too, would be unlocked at the specified hour.
Mr. George Romney’s secretary had then discovered his lordship wandering the studio alone and offered profuse apologies at Mr. Romney’s absence. Perhaps he could be of assistance? Dair said he could. They then discussed his lordship’s desire to commission a portrait as a gift to his mother. This was a half-truth. The Countess of Strathsay had been haranguing him to have his likeness painted since he was decommissioned the previous winter. She wanted him presented as the noble heir to the earldom of Strathsay. She showed no enthusiasm for the full-length portrait unveiled at his recent birthday celebrations. Painted in the regimental regalia of the 17
th
Light Dragoons, Farrier holding the reins to his mount, Phoenix, against the backdrop of battle, the portrait was not two minutes on the wall of the ancestral Gallery when the Countess made her opinion known. The portrait was striking, but it would be replaced with a more suitable portrait, possibly a half-length, that better befitted her eldest son’s place in Society as the great-grandson of Charles the Second, heir to the Strathsay earldom. As was his usual practice in response to his mother’s proclamations, he smiled blandly and made no comment, but kept to his mantra: Hell would freeze over before he allowed her, or his sanctimonious noble relatives, to fashion him into a proxy of his contemptible father.
“Dair!
Psst
! Dair?” Grasby hissed in his ear. “Is this it? Is this the window?”
Dair snapped back to the present and nodded. They were crouched under one of three sash windows, this one with the window pushed up off the sill and the velvet curtains pulled back on the night. He took a peek through the window. Grasby joined him, nose just above the sill, blue eyes very wide.
Candlelight blazed everywhere. At the far end of the room on a raised platform, with a backdrop of white linen drapery, half a dozen scantily-clad beauties giggled and flirted with two soberly-dressed gentlemen attempting to position them in some sort of order around the back of a damask-covered chaise. Here on a chaise reclined the well-known Italian ballet dancer Consulata Baccelli, fluttering a fan and in conversation with a female who was obscured from the line of sight of the window by a third Romney assistant, who was ordering his two fellows assistants about.
Neither Dair nor Grasby was interested in this unknown female. If anything, her presence was a complication Dair could do without. Consulata had made no mention of a companion, and the fact she was not dressed like the dancers meant she was possibly an annoying patron, come to see the painter about a portrait. Dair dismissed her as unimportant, and soon forgot all about her as he joined Grasby in admiration of the mesmerizing sight of a troupe of beautiful ballerinas in thin silks, their milky white breasts freed of the restrictive confines of stays. These exquisite orbs of fascination jiggled and swayed with intoxicating movement as the dancers playfully jostled one another and teased the painter’s ever-patient assistants doing their best to reposition flowered wreaths atop teased and pinned coiffures.
Had Grasby been less inebriated and less mesmerized, he might have noticed the partially obscured female’s walking stick, an anomaly amongst a group of dancers. And having noticed the walking stick, he would have wanted to see the face of the owner of what was quintessentially a male accoutrement, only used by females who were elderly or infirm, and by his sister Rory since he could remember.
It was fortuitous for Dair that his friend remained oblivious to the walking stick, and that the assistant continued to obstruct their view of its owner’s face. Recognizing his sister, Grasby would not have jumped through the window and run towards the stage with arms raised, howling like an escaped Bedlam inmate. He would have turned his skinny behind away from the window and fled back down the garden path and into the blackness of night, leaving his friend stranded and bemused by such a cowardly act.
“That’s a stroke of luck. Romney’s not in the room. The canvas is unattended. It’s now or never, Grasby!”
“By God they have lovely legs,” Grasby blurted out, unable to hold back his admiration. “They go up to their ears!”
Dair chuckled and nudged his friend. “All the way to paradise, my friend. Now get up and over that ledge.”
“What? Me?
First
?”
“Yes. I’ll be one foot behind you. You head left towards the stage and those lovely long legs, hollering as loud as you can to get their attention. I’ll take the right flank, but stay silent, so I can creep up on those fellows and take them by surprise, should they prove to have a brave bone in their body. I suspect they’ll flee on sight of us. But you never can tell, particularly with females present. One may want to play the hero.”
Grasby liked the idea of Dair dealing with any ensuing violence, but he remained reluctant.
“We could seriously upset such delicious creatures with our carryings-on, and I don’t think I can—upset them. They may only be dancing girls, but one must remain a gentleman, to all females, high and lowborn. It doesn’t feel right to frighten them.”
Dair understood. He had no wish to terrorize females, defenseless or otherwise.
“I’ll let you in on a secret, something Cedric doesn’t know because he is determined to be the hero of the hour. Consulata is well aware of what’s about to happen; I had her tell the girls. They are expecting us. I presume that’s why there’s so much giggling and jiggling going on. Have another look and you’ll see they can’t keep still.” When Grasby popped his eyes above the sill, he grinned. “Lovely, aren’t they?”
“Heavenly… I could watch them wiggle like that all day…”
“Me too.”
Grasby dropped back down below the sill. “I like this plan much better.” He pretended to button his lips. “Not a word to Cedric.”
Dair stuck out his hand. “Good luck.”
Their handshake was firm. Both grinned with the anticipation of running after semi-clothed dancers squealing with delight.
Dair slowly pushed up the sill, and when it was high enough to allow human trespass, he nodded. Grasby straightened from a crouch. Dair briefly gripped his shoulder to give him courage, then Grasby pushed himself up onto the ledge, scrabbled over the sill and dropped into the room.
Thirty seconds was all it took.
The studio walls reverberated with the piercing squeals of half a dozen overly-excited dancing girls jumping for joy. Two of their number ran with open arms across the studio to greet the intruder playing at being an American Indian.
Lord Grasby was in seventh heaven.
R
ECOGNIZING
HER
BROTHER
, Rory was up off the chaise longue and leaning on her stick, as if she feared collapse should she not have the benefit of its assistance. When a hand caught at her gloved wrist, she tore her gaze from Lord Grasby cavorting with two giggling dancers and stared unseeing at Consulata Baccelli.
“Do not be alarmed,” the ballerina reassured her. “There is no danger. The Major and his friend, they are merely playing a game—”
“I must get down from here at once!”
Consulata’s grip tightened but her smile remained.
“That is not possible, not until the performance it is over. Please sit and maintain calm.”
“You do not understand. I cannot be seen here. I must go, without delay!”
“It is natural we females become anxious by the games men play, because always they are unpredictable,” Consulata replied, misunderstanding Rory’s determination for feminine anxiety. She tried to make her see reason. “But their games they are harmless. And these two, they are like two little boys who pretend to be savages. And my dancers, they are greatly amused to be so entertained. So, signorina, you will sit and not spoil our enjoyment of their performance,
sí
?”
“I assure you, if I do not leave here at once, the consequences for those men will be far worse than spoiling your enjoyment. Now, please, let go of my hand.”
“Why are you such a wet goose about a trifle of a thing?” Consulata demanded indignantly, voice rising as she tried to be heard over all the excitement.
A quick glance across Rory’s shoulder and she saw the reason for the increase in the dancers’ vocal admiration. A second male intruder had now dropped into the studio via the sash window. It was Major Lord Fitzstuart. Her gaze reluctantly returned to Rory. She was now furious with this young woman to whom she had given a front row seat to the handsome Major’s outrageous display. To reject her offer and be so ungracious as to want to leave just as the male entertainment was beginning decided Consulata she had misjudged Rory entirely. The young woman was indeed one of those indignant moralizing spinsters the English were capable of producing in monotonous abundance.
“You are tiresome in the extreme!” she declared, up off the chaise to stand beside Rory. “And me, I do not apologize to one who goes frigid with fright at the sight of a man uncovered! Eh? The male body ’tis beautiful, powerful,
stupendo
. If one is to faint, it is in appreciation! You want to run away over a thing that is most natural, but Consulata, she will not allow you to do this! The perfect opportunity it has arrived for your eyes to be opened and for you to
see
.”
The principal ballerina grabbed Rory’s shoulders, swiveled her to face into the studio, and gave a snort of satisfaction.
“Now take a good look at what is before your eyes, because me, I have a vast experience of men, and none is more impressive in its handsome masculinity than the figure possessed by Major Fitzstuart.
Ecco
!”
Rory did not struggle to be free of Consulata’s hold, neither did she do as requested and search out the Major. She kept her gaze on the middle distance, where strewn across the floor were the paints, artist’s brushes and paraphernalia that had been tossed into the air and left scattered and spilled by a retreating assistant. In so doing, Rory hoped to avoid catching sight of her brother, so that if he chanced to take his focus from the two dancers in his arms and recognized her, he would not be instantly acutely embarrassed. For surely finding her amongst a troupe of scantily-clad dancers of questionable morality, while shocking in itself, was as nothing when compared to the fact his little sister had discovered him cavorting with these very same females.