Promise Me Heaven (15 page)

Hecuba, seated on a chair behind Thomas, snorted.

“Montrose!” Prince George exclaimed. “How pleased we are to see you! We insisted Seward bring you to us that we might convey our appreciation.”

“Your Highness is far too kind. Any small assistance I have been privileged to offer is my duty.” Thomas bowed and then, noting the shadow of petulance on the royal face, he added, “And, of course, my pleasure.”

The Prince Regent’s face immediately brightened. His sharp little eyes slid to Cat.

“May I present to Your Highness, Lady Catherine Sinclair?”

Cat dropped into a deep curtsey before her future king. When she rose, he was smiling at her in open admiration.

“We are delighted to have you with us this evening, Lady Catherine. We know your mama. Delightful woman. Delightful. Do you enjoy music? But of course you do. We have arranged a minor entertainment after dinner.” He drew forth the Frenchwoman at his side. “And see? We have found an old friend of yours, Montrose! Madame Daphne Bernard, may we present Lady Catherine Sinclair?”

The woman’s dark eyes locked on Thomas, a slow smile bending her bright red lips. Her glance flickered briefly to Cat. “
Bien
, Lady Catherine.
Bonsoir, mon grand raffin
,” she said, caressing the last word.

A disgruntled cough came from behind Thomas. Hastily, he stepped aside to expose the seated form of Hecuba, her lorgnette raised to her eye, her head at an imperious angle. She did not rise. “Your Highness.” She inclined her head.

The Prince Regent went pale. He cleared his throat and fidgeted nervously with his collar under Hecuba’s hooded glare. Hecuba sighed, raising her eyes heavenward before allowing a slight jerk of her head in Daphne Bernard’s direction.

“Oh, yes, yes indeed,” muttered the discomforted Prince Regent. “Montrose, we were not informed that you would be escorting Lady Montaigne White as well as Lady Catherine. A gross oversight on our secretary’s part. A most gross oversight. But a delightful one, of course.”

He did not look delighted. The Prince Regent squirmed under Hecuba’s quelling stare. “Lady Montaigne White, Madame Daphne Bernard.”

“How do you do?” Hecuba said as the Frenchwoman, confused by His Imperial Highness’s obvious agitation, sank into a demi-bow.

The Prince Regent all but hauled the Frenchwoman to her feet. “We are well pleased you have come. We believe dinner is soon to commence. We will converse with you afterwards, Montrose. Lady Montaigne White. Lady Catherine.” Prince George beat a hasty retreat.

“What did you do?” Cat asked, rounding on Hecuba.

“I did nothing. The Prince Regent, on the other hand, has done a great deal. As have all his disreputable cronies. A guilty conscience, Catherine, is a sinner’s worst flail.”

“Are you calling the Prince Regent a sinner?” Thomas asked in mock horror.

“We are all sinners, Mr. Montrose. All of us, whether king or commoner. And we all have freely chosen our course.” Hecuba fixed Thomas with such a penetrating look that, for the second time in as many minutes, a grown man squirmed.

Cat looked around for a timepiece. The dinner started promptly at nine o’clock, fifteen minutes from now, and Thomas had disappeared. So, too, had Daphne Bernard. Hecuba was involved in a heated debate with the elderly Lady Brent. The two of them unceremoniously waved Cat off when she offered to fetch them some refreshments.

“Lady Cat. How au courant you are!”

Cat knew the owner of those oily tones. She turned and coolly greeted the older man before her. “Milord.”

Hellsgate Barrymore pouted his lips. “So formal. So reserved. Such hauteur. I find it intensely stimulating. Particularly in this gown.” His gaze fell to the daring décolletage of her new gown, his fingers fluttering a hairsbreadth away from her exposed bosom. She stepped back. With a nasty smile, he followed her retreat.

“M’dear, you are now in my milieu. There are no stodgy matrons to impress here.” He gestured around the room. She wanted to recoil from him, slap his leering face, but knew that to do so would only provoke a scandal. A scandal that would reach the ears of Lord Strand and thereby destroy her plan. Her sensible, necessary, abhorrent plan.

“No stiff-necked defenders of pedestrian morality here.” He licked his lips. “You may indulge yourself to whatever extent you wish. We are all guilty here, therefore all unaccountable. In the Prince Regent’s circle, no one hears. No one sees. No one cares,” he ended in a whisper, reaching out to touch her.

“How unfortunate, Barrymore, that age and disease have deprived you of whatever sense you once claimed,” Thomas’s voice drawled from behind Cat. “And most arrogant of you to surmise that the rest of us share your disabilities.”

Thomas reached out, catching Hellsgate’s wrist as it hovered inches above Cat’s skin. The blood fled from Barrymore’s already pale hand, leaving it deathly white. Thomas smiled, a slow baring of his teeth, and dropped Barrymore’s hand.

“I hear. I see. And I can assure you, I care,” Thomas said.

“Montrose,” Barrymore hissed, rubbing his wrist. “The mastiff whelp has grown into a dog. I’d thought you were running in French kennels. Tiresome that you are here. I didn’t realize you were once more in your old haunts, nor that your attention had been fixed.”

His eyes darted behind narrowed lids at Cat. One side of his mouth lifted in a sneer. “Not your usual fare. But perhaps you’ve taught her a few—”

Thomas was suddenly inches from Barrymore, his eyes glittering dangerously, his upper lip curled in a snarl. But it was Cat who spoke from beside him. Her voice was cool, composed, detached.

“Thomas, thank you for offering to escort me to view the Prince Regent’s menagerie. But I infer it to be a pitiful, raggedy, noisome lot—I distinctly hear the braying of an ass—and not nearly as amusing as its reputation suggested. Might we not, instead, proceed in to dine?”

Lifting the hem of her gown, Cat scanned the faces of the assembly, looking directly through Hellsgate Barrymore as though he were not there. Thomas laughed, suddenly and loudly. Several people nearby turned to see what so amused the tall, elegant man and found themselves instead viewing the angry, sputtering countenance of the Earl of Barrymore. The venom in his face caused not a few to shudder; Barrymore’s hellacious temper was well known and feared.

Thomas offered Cat his arm and together they left the earl standing alone, having cut him quite dead.

“Well done, m’dear,” Thomas said as they gained the dining hall. Hecuba, in respect for her title, had gone in earlier on the arm of a decidedly uncomfortable-looking duke.

“Yes?” Cat asked as Thomas seated her. “The man scares me, Thomas. He is so utterly loathsome.”

“He is standard for the breed. Dangerous, but eminently predictable. I doubt he’ll trouble you again. His consequence could not afford another set down. His intimates shall be dining out on that little episode for months.”

“But shall he seek redress?”

“Only if a perfect opportunity presents itself. Barrymore and his ilk have not the energy or imagination to pursue revenge. Don’t worry, Cat.” He bent his dark head close to hers. “I would never allow Barrymore near enough to cause you any unpleasantness.”

It was not so much a vow as a promise of continued concern and Cat’s heart constricted painfully in her chest as she watched him take his chair. A small, unbidden hope sprang up at his words. Their kiss might have been nothing to him, but his concern for her was obvious, his regard genuine. She would swear to it. Perhaps regard might become affection, even love.

Dinner was the long, drawn-out affair common at the Pavilion. Luckily, Barrymore was seated some distance down the table from Cat, between an unknown blond and the dainty Daphne Bernard. The Frenchwoman’s titters could be heard the length of the table. At one point, Cat chanced to find Daphne staring at her with open speculation as Barrymore whispered in her ear.

Cat had been placed between a duke’s younger son and an older military gentleman. They were well within her league, the duke’s son attempting to impress her with his worldliness, the older man with his East Indian experiences. She found she merely had to arrange her mouth into an occasional moue of appreciation to satisfy both.

Thomas, seated a short distance down from her, appeared to find more enjoyment in her performance than the one being acted out by the ladies on either side of him. He listened politely to a plump, bejeweled woman and made appropriate noises of assent when the curly-haired girl on his right paused for breath, but the lift of his dark brow was reserved for Cat alone.

She was having fun. Not because of her dining companions, but because of the amused expression on Thomas’s face when she put to test all the arts they had practiced. It was to him she looked after lowering her eyes in maidenly modesty, or pouting in feigned intellectual consternation, or sighing with rapt attention.

At the end of the hour’s meal, the duke’s young son begged to escort her to where a sextet had been assembled for the guests’ dancing pleasure. But seeing Thomas go off with the Prince Regent and several other men, she demurred, and went in search of Hecuba. Her great-aunt looked a trifle pale, not surprising considering the warm, heavily scented room and quantities of rich, spiced food she’d eaten. Cat was immediately solicitous.

Helping Hecuba to a chair by an open door, Cat spread her fan and wafted the air gently over her great-aunt’s face.

“Don’t fuss, Catherine! It is nigh hellishly hot in here, and your hovering about so closely isn’t doing anything to alleviate the problem. Go off and get me an ice!”

Cat was hurrying to do so when Daphne Bernard appeared before her, blocking her exit.

“Lady Catherine,
n’est-ce pas
?”

Cat nodded.

“We must talk. I am intrigued by you. You set milord Barrymore a nasty knock and lead
le grand homme
Montrose about by the nose. How so?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about, Madame Bernard,” Cat replied coldly, surprised the Frenchwoman would be so bold.

The other woman laughed. “But,
ma chère
. We are both women, is it not so? Of two different styles,
oui
, but
certainement
, we can, how shall I say? Compare notes?”

The speculative, knowing look in the petite beauty’s face was unpleasant in its avidity. “Compare notes?”

“But yes! You are so different from Thomas’s usual type.”

“And you are more representative of that ‘type’?” Cat asked stiffly, hating herself for being drawn into this vulgar conversation, but compelled to find out what this woman meant to Thomas.

Again Daphne laughed, unfurling her ostrich feather fan and languidly caressing her décolletage. “Oh, I think that is a reasonable assumption. We share a certain history, certain affinities, certain… tastes. But you, so English! So naive and fresh! Like a glass of milk! And yet you have handled milord Barrymore most adroitly. There are depths to you, no?”

Daphne wrinkled her tiny nose. “It is a conclusion foregone. So demanding, so virile a man as Thomas would not be satisfied with less. But you are white, Lady Catherine! It is something I have said? Ah, me.
Pardonnez-moi
. I do not mean to offend.”

“I doubt that very much, Madame Bernard. And now, if you will excuse me?” Cat lifted her head, determined not to let this tiny woman and her insinuations upset her. Thomas had shown not the least interest in the Bernard woman. Cat swept from the room, a soft snicker following her.

Chapter 14