Maggie MacKeever (15 page)

Alexander made a romantic figure as he swept around the dance floor. “Marvelous,” remarked Ned, “how deficiencies of figure can be disguised by a nipped-in waist and extravagantly padded shoulders under large epaulettes. One hopes that Prinny won’t take it in his head to try something of the sort.”

“Prinny already has. It didn’t serve. He has graduated to a
corset.” Kane had today been privileged to
accompany the Czar and his sister to Whitbread’s Brewery, where
they’d been shown about by no less than Samuel Whitbread, one of the most radical of the Whig MP’s. This circumstance had displeased the Prince Regent, who was seldom reluctant to make his feelings known. Kane was feeling immensely put-upon.

Sabine looked romantic herself in an evening gown of celestial blue satin and gauze. “That would explain the creaking,” she said.

Kane glanced at her. “Creaking?”

“When Prinny bends. It is disconcerting. Someone should oil him, like one might a rusty hinge.”

Kane looked startled at this irreverence. Then he gifted Sabine with not the heartbreaking smile that served him so well in both ballroom and boudoir, but a spontaneous grin that rendered him less lover-like and infinitely more likeable.

Sabine studied him. “When you smile like that, you’re almost as pretty as Ned.”

Ned had been paying little attention to the byplay. Now he felt compelled to defend himself. “I’m not pretty,” he protested.

Sabine raised one gloved hand to pat his cheek. “Of course you are. You have about you a tantalizing air of illicit adventure as well. Perhaps— Didn’t Vikings have red hair? I can see you at the prow of a long ship. Pillaging and plundering and breaking hearts by the score.”

“Yours among them?” Kane inquired.

Sabine turned back to the dancers. “I gave my heart away long ago. The set is ending. Shall we put me in the way of the Czar?”

The three of them attracted a great deal of attention as they strolled through the crowd. Sabine was generally believed to be Ned’s latest paramour, or Kane’s, or both. How the gossips would have stared to see her fitted out to accompany Wellington’s staff on the line of march, perched atop a donkey with her small dog on her knee, followed by a second donkey laden with luggage topped by a cage of canaries, with a parasol in her hand and a straw hat on her head.

Neither the dog nor the canaries had accompanied her to London. Ned supposed they must be dead.

The Czar greeted Sabine with a pretty condescension. Kane and Ned, he brushed effortlessly aside
.

The orchestra struck up a waltz. Alexander led Sabine onto the dance floor. “England, for all her wealth, is to Alexander no more than another Poland,” remarked Kane. “With France out of the way, he believes nothing can stay Russia’s predestined advance. Speaking of advances, here comes your cousin. I believe I shall retreat.”

Hannah wore her customary black. Her hair was arranged in the Grecian mode with a curled fringe on her brow, and a mass of pendant curls at the back. “That woman is too old for you,” she said.

Try as he might — and he
had
tried, for Clea’s sake — Ned could not like his cousin. “Mrs. Viccars is seven-and-thirty, while I am thirty-two. That is not so great a difference.”

“Gad. She admits her age?”

“Sabine and I are friends.”

“Men and women may be many things, but friends are not among them. I remember Mrs. Viccars as a girl. She was spoiled and headstrong and refused any number of flattering offers, only to turn around and run off with a penniless younger son.”

His cousin was a font of information. Ned wondered if she forgot anything she’d heard. “What do you remember about Julian Faulkner?” he asked.

“Carlyle’s eldest? He died young. Carlyle was devastated about losing his heir, though he had a spare from his second wife.” Hannah’s attention was on the dancers. “The Czar appears quite taken with your ‘friend’. Lady Jersey’s nose will be put out of joint.”

“Lady Georgiana’s nose as well, since she and Sally are bosom bows.”

So they were. Hannah brightened. Anyone with half a brain might have anticipated that Lady Jersey would soon fall from grace, said she, for Silence was a silly frivolous creature prone to constant chatter and the airs of a tragedy queen. Hannah set off in search of her old friend, keeping Ned in tow.

Lady Georgiana was easily tracked down. Atop her head she wore a cap of white satin edged with pearls and finished off with a plume of white feathers. The rest of her was decked out in mulberry crepe ornamented above the hem with silver cord. One and another portion of her person fluttered every time she moved. Laden down with indispensable items, her companion hovered in the background.

“All that hair, dear Hannah!” Georgiana said, before her rival could get off a shot. “I did not realize you had so much. Dorset, you will want to speak to Miss Wynne about Yorkshire. Be off with you, while your cousin and I have a comfortable coze.” Hannah, who in point of fact did
not
have so much hair, but had appropriated it from a number of sources, looked annoyed. Julie deposited her burdens on an empty chair. She was unusually fashionable tonight, Ned noted, in a lace gown worn over a chartreuse-colored silk slip.

A startlingly low-cut gown. As Ned watched, she tried to tug up the neckline.

Julie’s resemblance to Sabine’s miniature was startling. “Miss Wynne, I am yours to command.”

She raised her chin and glowered. Ignoring her reluctance, Ned shepherded her toward the tall French doors that opened out onto
the terrace. “Young ladies are expected to simper and bat their eyelashes at eligible gentlemen, not grimace as if they’ve bitten into a sour fruit. Bates thought you had recognized him. I see he was correct.”

“What you are eligible for is Bedlam, my lord.”

She was flushed and furious. Ned grasped her elbow and propelled her out onto the terrace, down the steps and along one of the lesser-traveled paths. “You and I, buttercup, are going to have a coze of our own.”

“I don’t wish to talk to you!” snapped Julie. “Not that it signifies. You’re a lordship, after all, while I’m merely an ill-mannered baggage who has no notion of my place.”

“Ah. Lady Georgiana, I presume.”

“You set a spy on me, damn you. How long was he following me about?”

“Long enough. I know you went to Drury Lane. Are you an actress?”

“Are you cockle-brained?” She huffed out a breath. “You needn’t bother answering that, my lord.”

“I understand that you are angry with me. Were I in your shoes, I would be angry, too.” And pretty shoes they were, dainty kid confections tied with ribbons round her neat ankles. “You are very fine tonight, sunshine.”

“You needn’t throw the hatchet at me. I know how I look.” As if
she couldn’t help herself, Julie fingered the fabric of her gown. “Lady Georgiana had her abigail alter this to fit me. It’s the nicest dress I have ever owned.”

That, too, was a telling statement, to be saved alongside
references to Newgate and St Giles. The dress was far from remarkable. Save for the neckline, which made a man long to slide his fingers beneath the flimsy lace and silk.

Even as he told himself he shouldn’t, Ned brushed his knuckles against Julie’s soft cheek. “I’ll make you a promise,
canaria
. I’ll never tell you something that isn’t true.”

Her eyes lifted warily to his.
“‘
Canaria’
?”

“Portuguese for canary.” Ned smiled at her expression.
“‘
Frag’
means frog, if you want to know. And
‘feijão verde’
is green bean.”

She stood still beneath his hand, yet at the same time seemed poised on the verge of flight. “Lady Georgiana warned me that you might try to trifle with my virtue.”

Ned’s fingers trailed from her cheek down the smooth column of her throat. “Did she, indeed?”

“I told her I thought I’d know if I was being trifled with. Is that what you’re doing, my lord?”

Ned supposed he was. He almost felt ashamed. “I’ve told you already that I’m yours to command.”

She snorted. “You also said you wouldn’t lie to me. The truth is that you’re nothing of the sort.”

Ned wasn’t so certain. “Would you like me to be?”

“You can’t gull a gammoner, my lord.” Julie set her hand against his waistcoat. “It’s Rose who is the parson’s daughter. My friend at Drury Lane. Why aren’t you a soldier anymore?”

Ned wondered if she realized how intimately she was touching him. “Most young ladies would prefer not to know about such things.”

“I’m not most young ladies, am I?”

So much was she not most young ladies that Ned experienced
an almost unbearable desire to kiss her. “I’m no longer a soldier because I became a bloody earl.”

Julie smoothed the lapels of his coat. “Betwixt and between, aren’t you? No longer a soldier, and not wishing to be an earl. But you
are
a lordship, whether you wish it or no. Sometimes there’s naught one can do but play out the hand that’s been dealt.”

“Is that what you’re doing? Playing out the cards you were dealt?” Her hand rested against his ribs. Ned wondered if his watch was still in place.

Julie studied his cravat. “I’ll return your statue. And then we’ll be done.”

She’d driven him daft, Ned decided; otherwise he wouldn’t have been so inept as to remind her of who and what they were. “What did you do with the glove?”

“I can’t tell you that.”

“Things would be much simpler if you could bring yourself to trust me.” Not that Ned had expected she would.

Julie looked up at him, lips parted to speak. Ned succumbed to impulse, cradled her face between his hands and gently brushed his mouth against hers.

The kiss did not stay gentle long. Julie’s hands clutched at his shoulders as if to keep her balance. Ned traced the outline of her lips with his tongue. She tasted like temptation, and honey, and lemonade.

She made a funny little noise deep in her throat. Wrapped her arms around his neck. Ned ran his hands over her slender body, her back and waist; drew her more tightly to him, her belly soft against the hardness of his groin.

Had he shocked her? It seemed not. Her hands burrowed in his hair and she kissed him back with considerable enthusiasm and an enchanting lack of skill.

If only— Reason reasserted itself, and along with it came the questions Sabine and Kane had raised. Much as he might want Julie, Ned couldn’t stand back while she committed another crime.
He recalled the numerous crimes he had committed during his chequered career and amended the thought: he couldn’t stand back while she committed a major misdeed. “I don’t want to let you go,” he murmured, against one delicate earlobe.

Julie gave no indication of wishing to be let go.
“No one has ever kissed me before,” she whispered. “I wish you’d do it some more.”

How could he refuse? Ned swept her up in his arms. “Are you daft?” Julie demanded. Ned thought he surely must be. There was nothing for it but that he must kiss Julie again and again.

The night was overcast, and the gardens only dimly lit. In the intimacy of the shadows, Lady Jersey’s ballroom might have been a world away. Ned pulled Julie down with him on a marble bench.

The stone was cold. She was not. In a trice he had her sprawled across his lap and was exploring the confines of her low-cut bodice. One sweet breast fit perfectly in his palm.

Viking forebears or no, Ned could hardly ravish a damsel in the middle of Lady Jersey’s garden. He drew back and leaned his forehead against hers, both of them breathing hard.

Julie murmured in disappointment. If Ned didn’t have her off his lap he wouldn’t be held accountable for what happened next, and so set her on her feet and put her clothing to rights. “There’s no room in this gown to conceal anything,” he remarked.

She stiffened. “You think I mean to snaffle something tonight.”

Ned ran his thumb over her lower lip. “I think you already have.” He might have gone on to mention that said snaffled item was his good common sense, but Julie drew back her fist and thumped him with it, hard. Ned yelped and clutched his ear. Julie gathered up her skirts and fled back along the pathway to the house.

Chapter Sixteen

Our advantages fly away without aid. Pluck the flower.
— Ovid

The hour had grown quite late by the time the occupants of Ashcroft House at last retired to their beds, Lady Georgiana to mutter unkind things about Hannah in her sleep, and Tony inexplicably home early from one or another gaming hell.

Julie glanced one last time around her room. Were someone to check her room, they
would think that she was sleeping, due to the pillows she had arranged beneath the coverlet on the bed.

Were Lady Georgiana to see her in these breeches and boots and old furze jacket, she would expire of an apoplexy on the spot. Julie stuffed her hair under a boy’s cap, opened the window, and slipped out. She crept carefully along the ledge, down the tall oak tree, through the garden, past the stable-block, and out into the dark streets.

Ned did not return to Lady Jersey’s ballroom. Julie had spent the rest of the evening alternately scolding herself for her ill-temper and expecting that he would denounce her for boxing his ear. Lady Georgiana had been curious about their conversation and skeptical
of Julie’s explanation that Lord Dorset had informed her ‘York’ derived from the Latin name for the city,
Eboracum,
which in turn derived from the Brythonic
Ebon-acor
meaning ‘Place of yew trees’; but she did not scold. On the contrary, so amiable was her ladyship that Julie’s suspicions were aroused.

No one was following her tonight. Julie was almost certain. She hadn’t forgotten Pritchett’s warning that she should watch her back.