Sharon Sobel (3 page)

Lark knew she owed it to her brother-in-law to put a cheerful face on these proceedings, but turning to greet the newcomers proved a very difficult business. She sought to understand a reason for it, for she quite adored John and ought to feel kindness towards the man responsible for restoring him to Del. But Mr. Queensman’s presence frankly disturbed her, making her more aware of herself and her frailties than ever before in her life.

“Lark?” John said quietly, the confusion evident in his tone.

Lark turned around, feigning surprise at the interruption. She saw John first, and fixed her eyes on him, as if he were the only gentleman deserving of her notice.

John frowned. “I hope I am not coming between the two of you.”

“Of course not, John. Lord Raeborn and I were just comparing remembrances of the family. We are distantly related, you know.”

“Excellent! For I bring you yet another cousin to share in your conversation. Mr. Queensman, may I present my sister-in-law, Lady Larkspur? Lark, Mr. Queensman is also my old friend, having been responsible for saving my life in America.”

“We owe you a debt of gratitude, sir,” Lark said politely, and finally looked up at him. Mr. Queensman appeared very tall, even taller than John, and his eyes were most decisively blue. They settled upon her with uncommon warmth, and Lark knew what a moth must feel as it drew towards a candle flame. She lowered her lids. “But if, in fact, we are cousins, it is only in such a distant way as to make any relationship nonexistent. It is very, very distant.”

“So very bad as that, my lady?” Mr. Queensman said, and Lark heard his voice for the first time. Very deep, it echoed with a resonance that made his words clear even if he spoke quite low. It was the sort of voice capable of taking
command of a situation, and it seemed replete with the confidence that once so ordered, its commands would be obeyed.

If Lark were not already disposed to be nervous in his society, such an attribute would have been enough to set her against him.

“Why, it is not so very bad, sir,” Lark said, lowering her own voice. “We, who have nothing in common aside from a few twigs on an overgrown family tree, have only few occasions to ever meet. I cannot imagine why we would wish to do so more often.”

The air of confidence surrounding Mr. Queensman wavered, but just for an instant. He narrowed his lids and lifted his chin slightly so that he seemed to study something above her head. She hoped he asked himself why an otherwise pleasant young lady would rebuff him, and then she thought perhaps she might begin to explain it to him.

Of course, she really did not understand it herself.

Nor did John. She saw the confusion and annoyance in his dark eyes and noticed when his hand came up protectively to his friend’s shoulder.

“Come, Ben. Let us leave Lady Larkspur to her conversation with your cousin, for I fear we have interrupted something of import. And there are so many more people to whom you must be introduced.”

“Have I not already met every young lady present? And every dowager who ever knew my dear mother? Come, John, grant me a respite from such delights. The music is playing, and I yearn for exercise. I have a mind to ask your kind sister-in-law if she will stand up with me for the next dance.”

“I am sure you will find dancing with Lady Larkspur a delight as well, Ben,” John said defensively. Lark felt a certain pity for him, for as the most agreeable of all men, he could not help but be mystified by the unbidden tension between his guests.

Lark put on her most fetching smile, which Lord Makepeace had once compared to the rising sun of a summer’s day. “I am sure your friend would find it so, John, but it is a pleasure to be denied him. After all, I am practically engaged to marry Mr. Moore, and I owe all my dances to him.”
Mr. Queensman looked around him, as if expecting to discover
a member of their company of whom he had remained hitherto unaware. “And yet your gentleman allows you to provide your own refreshment and does not accompany you to the buffet? Or is my cousin Raeborn his trusted emissary?”

Lark glanced at the old man, who had remained silent all this time. Mr. Queensman’s question seemed to send him into spasms of happiness, such that he could barely catch his breath.

“Your cousin is not, nor could he be, since neither Mr. Moore nor I has had the pleasure of his acquaintance before tonight,” Lark explained quickly. “And as it turns out, Mr. Moore is not yet arrived.”

The barest touch of a smile tickled Mr. Queensman’s lips.

“How very loyal you prove yourself, Lady Larkspur, though I daresay you will let your Mr. Moore know of your disapproval concerning his tardiness. I hope he has an excellent excuse.”

“It is none of your business, sir.”

“You are right to put me in my place. And yet I feel a natural bond with all men who find themselves in some sort of discomfort or trouble. Perhaps it is an affinity nurtured by my years in military service.” He glanced at John, and Lark understood at once how the ties between them remained secure. “So would I not be helping poor Mr. Moore by dancing with his lady and deflecting some of her anxiety? He surely could not have prohibited it. And we are cousins, in any case.”

Lark opened her mouth to protest, but the words did not come. She felt momentarily powerless to defy him and unwilling to embarrass John by refusing to dance with his friend.

Raeborn stepped into the breach, clapping his hands like an excited child.

“Excellent! Excellent! One must admire your talents of persuasion, my boy! It is no wonder the king likes you at his side …” Raeborn continued his praises, but Lark ceased to hear him.

What sort of audience did Mr. Queensman enjoy with the king?

“It is settled, then,” Lark heard John say, utterly relieved. “I believe the next dance is a reel.”

“No,” said Mr. Queensman, and Lark knew her guess about the authoritative nature of his voice was well founded. “It is not settled until the lady agrees.”

Three sets of masculine eyes settled upon her, and Lark felt lost in the forest their bodies made around her. She looked up at Mr. Queensman and wondered why he insisted upon granting her even the illusion of independent choice.

“I will tolerate the diversion, Mr. Queensman, if you will but understand that my dancing with you is a most singular event.”

“I never thought otherwise, my lady,” he said, his eyes not leaving her face.

And so Lark was propelled into the center of the room by the combined forces of John’s long sigh of relief, Raeborn’s stupid and insistent clapping and the strength of Mr. Queensman’s muscled arm. Though she looked straight ahead of her and never said a word, she was fully aware of the interested glances in their direction and her sisters’ frank curiosity. Lily and Rose, who seemed to regard Mr. Moore as their maiden sister’s Last Great Hope, looked ready to break in between them and therefore save Lark for her intended.

For her part, Lark only prayed Hindley Moore would witness the scene for himself and feel well put out and truly jealous. Mr. Queensman, for all his arrogance, might have known something of what she felt when he offered to deflect her anger.

“I am very eager to meet your Mr. Moore,” Mr. Queensman said.

“And why is that, sir?” Lark asked, though she waited to speak until they faced each other along the line of the reel.

Mr. Queensman, in his turn, waited until the first steps of the dance brought them closer before he answered. “Owing to his present negligence, Lord and Lady Southard’s guests have not yet seen you during the course of the festivities. And such continued absence would prove a misfortune, for you are quite the most beautiful woman here.”

Lark did not trust herself to speak at first, for never did her most ardent suitor offer up such hyperbole, not even in pursuit of her father’s fortune. And Hindley Moore, who spoke
her praises at every opportunity, never looked as if he entirely meant what he said.

“To what purpose is your compliment, sir?” Lark finally asked, genuinely perplexed and just a little bit flattered.

“Must a compliment have a purpose, my lady? Need it be anything more than observation?”

“I believe so, Mr. Queensman. Otherwise we would all be expending a lot of air with very little direction.”

He seemed to consider this as they continued to dance, and Lark wondered—with just a touch of regret—if her practical view made her somehow less beautiful. If not, then they must present a very splendid spectacle as they danced, for she did not think there was a man who measured up to him.

Of course, Hindley had not yet arrived.

“Then your society is very different from my own, my lady. There is little artifice in the small community of Brighton, and one may freely speak one’s mind without generating undue suspicion.”

“Can such a thing be possible? Has not our king built a great palace there and made the place his home?”

Benedict Queensman laughed and his whole face seemed transformed. He looked approachable, his guard let down.

“What you imply is perhaps treasonous, my lady, but I must admit you are absolutely right. Since the completion of the Pavilion, a continuous caravan of royal followers has entered Brighton, building their own monstrosities along the beach and changing the temperament of the town. The locals have gained much by the sudden influx of wealth and demand for products, but there is growing sentiment that much has also been lost.”

“And are you one of the offenders, Mr. Queensman? Do you travel in the circle of the king?”

“I do not travel with him at all, Lady Larkspur. However, I am often invited to the receptions at the Pavilion when the king is in town. I have also … ah … advised him concerning certain matters of health.”

“You are not his personal physician, then? I thought Lord Raeborn implied it.”

“I am not. Nor would I wish to be. I am my own man, my lady.”

Lark rather thought so.

“Then what brought you to Brighton, sir? Are you a fishing enthusiast?”

“I prefer swimming with sea creatures to killing them. But that is not what brought me to Brighton, in any case. My estate is there, a modest inheritance from my mother’s family. But I also operate a small hospital in the town, one I established when I returned from the wars. It keeps me very busy.”

“I daresay it must, if we have never seen you before in London.”

“I confess, London is among my least favorite places.”

Lark took this comment as implied criticism against herself, as if she were the Lord Mayor himself. But the music was nearly at an end, and she wished to have the last word on the matter and their little interlude.

“Then we most certainly will never see each other again, Mr. Queensman, for it is one of my most favorite places.”

She smiled as the fiddler played his last, and graced her partner with a curtsy designed to show off the most tantalizing parts of her anatomy.

But as he reached for her hand, Lark felt herself gripped by much smaller fingers than he possessed. Mr. Queensman did not have a chance to protest as she was dragged off the floor.

“Janet! What is the meaning of this? Could you not allow the man to escort me to the tables?” Lark protested as she turned around and then twisted to get out of Janet’s firm grasp. “He will think us very poor mannered—”

“It should be the very least of your concerns, sister,” admonished Columbine, coming up from behind.

“Why, what is this?” Lark said quietly and let her arms go limp. Janet and Columbine stood before her, and between their shoulders she saw Rose and Del making their way through the crowd. “It is not good news, I fear.”

“Nor is it, Lark,” said Janet. “We would have interrupted your dance but that it would have called too much attention to yourself. And you will already suffer the consequence of more attention than you could wish.”

Delphinium, looking more like the elder sister of their childhood than like the lofty Lady Southard, joined them then and pressed Lark into the corner. Someone else came up
behind, and Lark assumed it was Lily, completing the set.

“Does she already know?” Del asked Columbine, as if she spoke in the presence of a child.

“Know what?” Lark asked irritably.

“Brace yourself for the worst, dearest,” Del said, reaching out both hands to hold Lark by the elbows. “We have just heard the most dreadful report from Mr. Calvin, who only just arrived at the party. It is about your Mr. Moore.”

“Hindley?” Lark gasped. “Is he … dead?”

Would she be a widow before ever being a wife?

“It is much, much worse than that,” Del said slowly.

“Whatever can be worse?” Lark asked, her voice barely a whisper.

Sound was suspended in the Southard ballroom, and the sisters and their friend seemed quite alone.

“Mr. Moore has eloped with Miss Eleanor Davenport, on the very eve of her wedding to another. They have departed to the north, where a marriage may be performed in haste.”

Lark closed her eyes, unable to believe the indictment her sisters brought before her, the perfidy of the man she had trusted. Her life, her direction, seemed full of chaos and disarray, and she felt herself falling backward into some great dark pit. The candles and bright colors of the room swirled above her, and she reached out to grasp hold of something. Little fingers pressed against her arms and shoulders, but, like tendrils of early spring ivy, they were not strong enough to secure her.

And so she fell, into the darkness. In her last conscious moment, she felt a painful shock of surprise. Instead of dropping against a soft, perfumed, sisterly breast, she felt something hard and unyielding beneath her shoulders and was surrounded by the fresh scent of sea pines.

Her last thought was of Margate, of summers spent walking along the beach.

B
en Queensman sat across the broad oak table from Lord Raeborn and observed his elderly cousin with a practiced, professional eye. Though he seemed very lively this morning, almost boyish, the unmistakable signs of a life spent in utter disregard of one’s physical well-being were plainly evident.