Chapter 3
Olivia watched Lord Quinn turn over a tarot card where he sat before a small table, and saw the light from a simple brace of candles dance in his eyes. He was very good at setting a mood. Olivia almost laughed at the absurd notion that watching for glimpses of his nipple was somehow less intimate than taking in one of his bare feet not covered by the table’s linen, or the sheerness of sleeves that scarcely covered his muscled arms. Part of her wanted to look away from his shocking ensemble--but part dared her to keep accepting his unspoken dare. Those others who stood about his barely lit table also seemed compelled to lean forward, to take in his appearance as well as try to spot what fate this irregular man saw spelled out among the cards.
The young blonde lady who sat posed before him gave a nervous little smile, a reflection of the pastime’s dark edge, one that Quinn’s very presence only increased. The night lent itself, too, to the game, with moonlit fog arms drifting past the windows as the midnight hour approached. Perhaps Lord Quinn ought to have been dressed as a gypsy to indulge in this game of fortune-telling, but his eerie, brazen appearance and the very low light lent to the persuasion that he could indeed read one’s future.
“What did that last card tell you?” the girl asked in a hushed voice, her eyes fixed to his face, which was gathered in a serious, pensive pose.
He turned over another card, and one eyebrow shot up toward the horn balanced above it, even while the corners of his mouth turned down. He looked at the fair-haired girl without lifting his chin. “Has something gone missing recently?”
Her eyes rounded, and her hand sprang to her hair. “Mama’s diamond-set comb,” she breathed. “I lost it. She was most vexed with me. Do you know where it is?”
He turned over another card. “The Hanged Man,” he noted softly.
The girl gasped. “Am I going to die?”
Quinn lifted his head now, giving her a tolerant look. “No. The Hanged Man represents change, not death. Although death can be a change, certainly.” He smiled, and the candle flickers made the smile more sinister. One corner of Olivia’s mouth tilted up in appreciation; she was more than half sure he knew the effect of the room’s dimness. “But, see, it is inverted. Which implies the opposite. Being stuck, without change.” He turned over two more cards. “I am afraid the comb may be beyond retrieval.”
“Truly lost?” the girl pouted.
“Or…stolen.”
Her pout turned into a scowl. “Are you telling me Anthony took it? That he
sold
it? For his gaming debts?”
Quinn made a gesture over the cards. “I see only that what is gone is beyond recovery.”
“That blackguard.” The blonde’s hands clenched on the table top. “It’s just like Anthony.”
Several of the observers whispered among themselves, confirming Anthony was the girl’s brother, while they enjoyed the drama of the moment.
“Then tell me this,” the girl said, words clipped. “How soon will I box my brother’s ears?”
Lord Quinn’s head tilted a little to the right, and a slight, perhaps not quite sincere smile formed as he spread several more cards. But the young lady seemed not to notice he was indulging her temper. He considered the cards for a long moment, then cried out, “Beware!” in a storyteller’s voice.
Even though she was certain he was merely play-acting, the tenor of Quinn’s voice sent shivers down Olivia’s spine. A murmur rippled through the gathered witnesses, proving it had the same effect on them. “You must be careful of a marriage,” he intoned, “a marriage just ahead.”
The girl bit her lip, distress replacing vexation. Another murmur rose and fell, for it was well known the young lady’s wedding was only a fortnight away.
“Be careful,” Lord Quinn repeated eerily, giving new life to the rumors that the man was “different,” even “bizarre.” Card readings were severely frowned upon by the Church; she’d been in his company for only a handful of minutes, but it was easy to believe he flouted their censure, or indeed anyone’s.
He smiled then at the girl, a slow roll of his lips. “Be careful…be very careful,” he drew out the words, then rushed ahead, “not to sleep late on November fourteenth, or you’ll miss your own wedding.”
The crowd gave a relieved laugh, and the bride sat back with an audible sigh of reprieve. She rose then, shaking her head, her relief taking her laughter into a titter.
“Are there others who wish to know their future?” Lord Quinn asked the crowd as he shuffled the cards between his two hands. There was a sudden silence, and furtive glances, but no one spoke up. It seemed the young bride had not been the first customer to be discomfited by the night’s spell and Lord Quinn’s uncanny execution of his little game.
Olivia stepped forward. She was not disconcerted, not really. She welcomed the tingle of the forbidden. “I would like to know my fortune,
Monsieur
my lord.”
He smiled, and again the two flickering candles only served to make his expression unsettling. So she sat with a flourish. How could she call herself daring, come the morning, if she couldn’t face a mere card-reading?
***
Ian turned from the group with which he had been standing, his sharp ears hearing the French accent that drifted through a doorway leading to a mostly darkened room. He made his excuses and passed through the doorway, seeing a brace of candles barely managed to highlight an attentive group--including the woman with the maybe-French accent. He crossed to see what had attracted the Lady Cat to this smaller gathering.
The night’s host, Lord Quinn, was shuffling a deck of cards, but his eyes were only for the masked cat seated on the opposite side of the table from him. It was clear Quinn tried to see beyond the cat’s face to the hidden woman. Ian saw the man give up the direct attempt, unable to know her that way. He crossed his arms and settled in to see if Quinn could bring anything forth from the lady.
Quinn laid out three cards, hmmming. His eyes flicked up once, settling on the lady’s bosom, as though it might be familiar to him where nothing else had been so far. Then he looked back to the cards and pronounced, “It is my great fortune to inform you the cards say your coming New Year will be a prosperous one.”
One of Ian’s hands rose to cup his chin. If the Lady Cat was the informer, why put herself forward this way? Again, was she hiding by not hiding?
The crowd grumbled, dissatisfied with Quinn’s conclusion. Dire or wayward predictions were ever so much more fun.
“Is zere no more?” the Cat asked, sounding amused. Ian noted the bit of ankle that showed under her skirts where she sat, and took a moment to admire the bit of stockinged leg revealed.
“There is more,” Lord Quinn said, his eyes rising to hers again. One could not tell in this light, but earlier Ian had noted the man had deep blue eyes, which now danced even in the dimness. “They also reveal that you are to meet a man. A dark-haired man. He will become your lover.”
The crowd reacted with appreciation--this was more in the way of what they wished to hear.
The lady’s eyes moved to Lord Quinn’s own hair, which was dark, only a few strands of scattered gray caught by the candles’s light. There was something in the set of her shoulders that hinted at a reprimand forming--but then she surprised Ian by giving a full-throated laugh.
Lord Quinn startled, too, at the gaiety of her laughter. By his expression, Ian judged the man had not anticipated such a response from the unknown lady either. But then the crowd was laughing, too, and Quinn along with them. He shook a finger at the woman. “Lady, you intrigue me. Before the night is out I must know either your face or your name.” There was something more in the man’s look, though, and Ian frowned to think Lord Quinn’s unspoken thought might be he desired more than just the woman’s name.
Ian’s hand came away from his chin slowly, his arms uncrossing, and he suddenly believed this woman was the informant. He believed it because she was clever, as an informant would need to be. Too, having spent an hour now at Quinn’s masquerade, Ian had not been slow to see the sensual tenor of the gathering. Despite the come-hither cut of her bodice, he was becoming increasingly convinced the Cat did not belong among this crowd. She had flirted lightly with him when they’d danced--but she’d turned her gaze away from the groping couple dancing nearby. She’d floated among the participants but, until the tarot, had not joined them in their peculiar games. She was, for this throng, behaving with circumspection.
So then, why hadn’t she approached him and let him know for a certainty she was the informant? It was true they’d been meant to make contact at midnight, but why had she chosen to be so visible earlier than the appointed hour? Or had he made her uncertain, since he’d approached her too soon? He’d been distracted, taking in these Englishmen he meant to rejoin; he ought to have waited, been more precise.
Well, he would know better at midnight, surely, if she came then to his side? He could wait another half hour.
Then again, why wait, when a few words could clear up the question? If she was not the right contact, he must be free when midnight did roll around.
As the crowd commented to one another, smiling and jostling, Lord Quinn set aside the deck of cards with a firm hand, indicating he was done with this game for the night. He made to rise, but before he could lean forward to offer the unknown lady his arm, Ian had stepped up to do the same.
“Another dance, my lady?” he asked.
Lady Cat looked up, clearly not having known he was there. She seemed to hesitate a moment, but then she inclined her head.
“My pleasure,” she murmured as she stood and took his arm.
“I say!” someone called as Ian made to pull her from the room and toward the dance floor. “Is this the bloke then? The ‘dark-haired lover’?”
“Nah, he’s not dark-haired,” called another.
The gathering gave a group sound of disappointment, but then Ian reached up and pulled the white wig off to reveal his own short, curly dark hair beneath. Truth to tell, he was grateful for the excuse to remove the hot, heavy thing, which he tossed aside now. The crowd gave a cry of appreciation, as he turned to see the Cat’s surprised eyes looking at him out of her mask.
Did he now look more as he’d been described to her? As soon as he had her away and on the dance floor, he’d know if she were the one.
***
Alexander, Lord Hargood, turned at the tug on his sailor costume’s sleeve, disappointed that among this licentious crowd it was but his oldest sister, Phoebe, trying to snare his attention. She was dressed in some elaborate ensemble he supposed was meant to represent a sheik’s lady, as it was comprised of multiple layers of shimmering cloth bedecked with multiple faux jewels, and a diaphanous veil “covered” (if that was the right word for something that was all but completely sheer) all of her face but her eyes. She said rather quietly near his ear, “Do you see that woman there?”
He looked in the direction her bejeweled hand indicated, and perceived his sister meant the woman in the cat ensemble. The woman was just coming from a darkened room, on the arm of the unknown fellow all made up like a French king, except now his wig was gone. Alex turned his attention away from the dark-haired man, back to the costumed cat, and replied in an appreciative tone, “Indeed. She’s quite the little baggage, isn’t she?”
He received a dark look for his efforts. “Ninny!” jeered Phoebe, her face-veil fluttering. “Don’t you know who that is?”
“Wish I did,” was his reply, his chin going up in defiance of his oldest sister's proclamation. He didn’t tell her that the lady had already caught his eye. He had just recently given up his mistress and was looking for some other likely creature to replace her. Tired of opera dancers, he’d agreed to escort Phoebe tonight because he’d hoped to see what his own circle had to offer in that regard. And there had been this lovely little minx, all disguised, showing a bit of ankle, playing at flirting, with charms evident for any who cared to admire them.
“Well?” prompted Phoebe with a second irritated tug at his sleeve. “Do you know who that is?”
“No thought at all.”
Phoebe let out an exasperated sigh, leaning even more closely to him to whisper in the quietest voice, “’Tis Olivia.”
His head whipped up at that, his eyes changing at once from appreciation, to doubt, to denial. Could this hoyden be their middle sibling? “Olivia!” he cried in a hoarse whisper. “Olivia’s in mourning. Never goes anywhere. And she’d never show up in a rig like…like that!”
“I tell you it’s her. Only listen when she laughs.”
Alexander turned and squinted at the masked woman, waiting for one of the trills of laughter she’d been emitting all evening, one of which came a minute later. His face registered astonishment, his ears having recognized where his eyes had been unable to do so. “Great heavens,” he said under his breath. “I believe you’re right.” He started forward, his intention to haul his sister away evident in every line of his body.
Once again his arm was caught, but this time firmly held. “Alexander,” scolded Phoebe. “You can’t do that. Then everyone here will know exactly who she is.”
His cravat felt uncomfortably tight as he glanced away from Olivia’s unseemly expanse of bosom to Phoebe’s forbidding look. “You can’t expect me to do nothing,” he sputtered.
“I can, and I do. I suspect Olivia knows what she’s doing.”
“I’m not so sure. And why did you call my attention to this fact if you don’t expect me to correct the situation?”
“Because you were making calf’s eyes at her.”
“I most certainly was not!”
“You were. But do not fret over it. Every man here is doing the same, and how can you be blamed, for I must admit this…this display is very unlike her.” She lifted her chin, a sign of support. “But I say ‘brava.’ She’s desperately needed to enter society again. I could never fathom why she hid away in that house for so long. Surely a year would have been sufficient? I took off my black for her Stratton after three months. I mean, I scarcely knew him.” She shuddered; she’d never envied Olivia’s marriage, having her own much happier one. “Olivia’s been in black so long, poor dear. But she clearly has some plan, being here tonight, and I say leave her to it. I want your agreement on this, Alex.”