That did not, however, make the situation much easier for her. Diagonally across the table Aidan laughed and flirted openly with the ladies on either side of him, at the same time carrying on a disdainful if silent discourse with the icy blonde Laurel had met earlier, Lady Amanda Beecham, who happened to be seated directly opposite him.
She tried to ignore it all—the gossip, Aidan’s dalliances, even the ankle Lord Munster attempted to rub against her own beneath the table. He had been drinking heavily all evening, evidenced by the increased stutter in his speech and his unsteadiness in handling his fork. Though he might not remember much in the morning, her success in capturing his regard for the remainder of the evening seemed all but assured until, during dessert, the splatter of a bit of raspberry florendine on his neckcloth threatened to undermine her and Aidan’s plans.
What if he happened to pass a mirror and saw the violation to his snowy cravat? Might he rush upstairs to change it at just the precise moment Aidan tore through his bureau or clothespress or bedside table?
“Do you c-care for s-sailing, my dear?” the man asked her a second time, and Laurel realized that in staring so intently at that small but conspicuous stain and pondering its significance she had neglected to respond.
“Oh . . . I cannot say.” She affected a neutral expression. “I’ve never sailed.”
Perhaps she should mention the stain herself, but when? Supper was ending. In another moment the ladies would adjourn to the drawing room for tea while the men remained here for brandy and cigars. Lord Munster might not care about the state of his neckcloth without the ladies present, and wait until just before the entertainment began to visit his bedchamber. Laurel might not be able to warn Aidan in time. . . .
Too late. The gentleman all came to their feet and held the ladies’ chairs as they rose to leave the table. Laurel found herself swept along in the tide of rustling silks and excited giggles. Apparently the Countess of Rockingham, newly arrived from Brighton, had a scandalous morsel to report and had been waiting to have the women alone to impart the tale. Laurel tried not to think of herself as the future topic of such accounts.
When the men rejoined them some twenty minutes later, Aidan was not among them. Several footmen brought extra chairs into the drawing room, and people began finding seats. Lord Munster drew Laurel to his side on a settee placed close to the doorway.
“Do you p-play, madam? Or s-sing?” he asked her.
“Not well enough for this gathering,” she replied honestly. She began to relax. He had apparently not noticed the raspberry stain, leaving Aidan free to conduct his search.
Amanda Beecham went to stand beside the piano while an older woman took a seat on the bench. They conferred for a few moments, then appeared to reach an accord, and the first notes were struck. Amanda Beecham’s clear soprano floated through the air.
Sitting across the room, Lady Devonlea sent a solicitous gaze around the room, undoubtedly making certain that each guest had found an agreeable place from which to enjoy the performance. Her eyes lingered on her brother, and then she made a face. Her hand came up, moving over her neck as if, like him, she wore a cravat. She waggled her fingers in the air.
“Whatever is she c-carrying on about?”
“I cannot imagine,” Laurel said. “Lady Amanda’s voice is superb. Wouldn’t you agree, my lord?”
“My n-neckcloth? Is that what she is s-signaling about?” He fingered the starched linen and attempted to angle his chin so he could peer down at the knot. “Oh, d-damn me, I’ve s-spilled something.”
“Did you, sir? I hadn’t noticed.”
“If you’ll exc-cuse me, my d-dear.”
Before she could protest, he stood up and disappeared into the hall. Laurel came to a swift decision. Scurrying after him might ruin her in the eyes of all present—and all of Bath society by tomorrow—but she could not abandon Aidan when he needed her.
“Lord Munster . . .”
Laurel arrived at the foot of the stairs in time to witness a small miracle. Lord Munster had ascended halfway up when his butler came hurrying out from the service corridor.
“Milord, a word if you please.”
The earl looked quizzically down at Laurel, then flashed an impatient frown. “Yes, R- Rimsdale, what is it?”
“It appears the champagne is running low, milord. Would you like us to serve wine with Lady Devonlea’s birthday cake or shall we delve into the reserved stock?”
Lord Munster expelled a breath. “No, Lady D-Devonlea would not like it if we s-switched to w-wine.”
On his way back down the stairs, he fished a small set of keys from his coat pocket and with a jingle dangled them between his fingers. “S-some things one should not trust to one’s s-servants,” he said to Laurel, “and reserves of f-fine champagne is one of them.”
At the base of the stairs he stopped and grazed her chin with the backs of his fingers. “Whatever sent you out after m- me, my dear, d-do hold that thought. I shall r-return shortly.”
Laurel waited until he had retreated into the servants’ domains before she lifted her skirts and raced up the stairs.
At the faint click signaling a turn of the doorknob, Aidan extinguished his candle, dashed into the dressing room, and slipped behind the door. Damn! How maddeningly inconvenient. He’d had time only to scan the first of the sheets of parchment he had discovered in a small, leather-bound portfolio tucked at the bottom of a bureau drawer. His pulse rattled in his impatience to continue his scrutiny.
The page bore the seal of the Duke of Clarence.
The door opened long enough to admit a few high notes of Amanda Beecham’s distinctive voice accompanied by the pianoforte. With another soft click the sounds were shut out of the room. The approach of footsteps across the rug in the outer sitting room prompted him to hold his breath. Holding his ear close to the gap between the door and the lintel, he heard those steps come to an uncertain halt. He tucked the map and the portfolio into his waistband and drew his waistcoat down over it.
A whisper darted through the shadows. “Aidan?”
He rushed out from behind the door and traced a swift path through the darkened rooms to her. His hands closed over her bare arms, her skin warm against his fingers. He was at once happy to have her back with him, away from Fitz, and apprehensive about what had brought her. “Laurel. What are you doing here?”
“He’s coming. A shortage of champagne sent him belowstairs, but soon enough he will be here to change his neckcloth.”
“The raspberry florendine.”
“Yes, you noticed it, too? I thought we were free and clear until his sister pointed it out to him from across the drawing room.”
“Drat Bea for her keen observations.” He drew out the parchment he had been studying. “See here, Laurel, I’ve found something.”
With no light to aid her, she squinted to make out the writing. “But this isn’t a letter. It appears to be . . . why, a map.”
“Indeed.”
Frowning, she shook her head. “We are supposed to find correspondence between the Duke of Clarence and André Rousseau. Victoria never said anything about a map.”
Aidan’s insides went still, his thoughts silenced by the echo of the name Laurel had uttered. She realized her mistake, for her eyes went wide and a hand flew up to cover her lips.
“Victoria
who
?”
She grabbed his wrist and tugged. “Aidan, he’ll be coming shortly. We must go.”
“Victoria the
queen
?” He felt as if the shreds of a tapestry had suddenly mended themselves to reveal an astonishing landscape he could never have imagined. “The
queen
sent you?”
She looked over her shoulder at the door and gave another tug. “Aidan, please.”
Outside, footsteps thudded across the upper landing.
Laurel gasped. “It’s him! We must hide.”
“No time. Come here.” Shoving the map back beneath his waistcoat, he seized her in his arms and crushed his mouth to hers.
A muffled sound of protest vibrated against his lips as she struggled to break free. He held her fast and lifted his lips a fraction. “We’ve no choice. Play along.”
The door opened, throwing a rectangle of candle-light across the floor. Turning Laurel to the right, Aidan glanced up through her hair to see Fitz’s ungainly hulk silhouetted in the doorway.
“Who’s h-here?”
Fitz reached for the candle burning in the sconce beside the door and held it in front of him to illuminate the room. “By God, B-Barensforth, you b-blackguard!”
The candle went out, thrusting them all into darkness, as Fitz pounded into the room. Clamping Aidan’s shoulder, Fitz hauled him away from Laurel. The force of Aidan’s back hitting the wall sent pain radiating through his already injured ribs. In another instant Fitz was on him again. Gripping a lapel, he dragged Aidan forward and at the same time raised a fist.
Aidan ducked the blow, pulling out of Fitz’s grasp and darting around him. Fitz swung around and staggered, then grabbed the back of a chair to catch his balance.
“She b-belongs to me, you s-swine,” he ground out between clenched teeth. “How d-dare you?”
Head down, he released the chair and charged. Again Aidan moved out of the way, then gave Fitz a shove from behind that sent him reeling. “I beg to differ, old boy. The lady’s with me.”
“Stop it, both of you!” Laurel yelled as Fitz struck a side table and stumbled hard to his knees. A lamp teetered, but lurching forward, Aidan caught it before the crystal piece hit the floor and shattered. “Good heavens, grown men behaving like schoolboys. And making such impertinent assumptions, not to mention insulting advances. I have never experienced the like.”
Frozen in place, both Aidan and Fitz gaped at Laurel—Fitz in somewhat inebriated confusion, Aidan in consternation. What had she not understood when he had commanded her to play along?
Her admonition called for a quick change of course and he pretended to see her—truly see her—for the first time. “
Mrs. Sanderson?
Good heavens, how embarrassing.”
“Indeed, sir. Whom
were
you expecting?”
He shot his cuffs. “A gentleman doesn’t like to say.”
“Laurel, d-darling,” Fitz said from his semiprone position on the floor, “then you d-did come up here to w-wait for me?”
Her hands snapped to her hips. “It is Mrs. Sanderson, sir, and no, I most certainly did not. Nor did I expect to be manhandled by Lord Barensforth. Had I known these were your private chambers, Lord Munster, I should never have set foot inside.”
“Then . . . wh-what
are
you doing here, m- madam?” Fitz struggled to his feet, accepting the hand Aidan offered to help him up.
“I had merely sought an empty room in which to”—here she paused, drew herself up, and gave a dignified sniff—“to right an article of clothing that seems to have come loose. And that is all I shall say about the matter. A lady does not discuss the particulars of her wardrobe in mixed company.”
With that, she whirled and swept from the room, leaving Fitz looking thoroughly dejected and Aidan filled with new admiration for a woman with the ability to take on two rogues and trump them both.
As her footsteps receded down the staircase, Fitz murmured, “W-well, old boy, it seems we’ve b-both lost this one.”
An hour later, having left the party in separate carriages, then rendezvousing at his town house, Laurel and Aidan sipped strong tea in the proper environs of his downstairs parlor. Sifting through the documents strewn among their teacups and soda cakes, they made their plans.
From what they had been able to piece together, they learned that before the wars Lord Munster’s and Victoria’s fathers had been part of an intellectual society dedicated to the advancement of the alchemical sciences. The French traitor André Rousseau had been among the group’s members.
“This is not at all what I believed I would find,” Laurel said, lifting one of the letters signed by André Rousseau and holding it to the light beside her. “Can they truly have believed in the transmutation of base metals into gold? Or that immortality could be achievable through an elixir created with this so-called philosopher’s stone?”
“It’s been my experience that the promises of wealth and eternal youth often make the ridiculous seem sublimely plausible.” Aidan gave a waggle of his eyebrows. “Both the dukes of Clarence and Kent lived lifestyles that exceeded their incomes. It isn’t hard to imagine them seeking miracle cures for their financial woes.”
She fell to studying a diagram that outlined the alchemist theory on the connections between wisdom, morality, bodily harmony, and salvation. “It’s rather like a religious doctrine, only without God.” She chose another page. “Rousseau seemed initially skeptical that the basic properties of the stone could be extracted from the minerals in Bath’s thermal waters.”
Aidan nodded. “Until the Duke of Clarence produced this map. That appears to have finally convinced the others.”
She reached for the parchment he had briefly shown her in Lord Munster’s bedchamber. The rendering of Bath’s Lower Town depicted all the significant landmarks, among them the Pump Room, Bath Abbey, and the Guildhall. But superimposed against the city’s streets, bold black lines stretched from the west end of Pulteney Bridge to the docks south of Avon Street. “What do you suppose these signify?”
“I have my theories.”
“Yes?”
Silence stretched. He took the map from her and laid it aside. Evenly he said, “You work for the queen.”
She sighed. “Yes.”
His eyebrow arcing, he aped Micklebee by rolling his fingers in a gesture that meant he wanted more from her than a one-word reply.
“Oh, all right. I am here at Victoria’s behest to discover whether George Fitzclarence is plotting treason against her, most specifically with Claude Rousseau.”