The Courtesan's Secret (20 page)

"Naturally," Louisa said, though until that moment she had not given it any more thought than it took to be insulted and slightly confused. Something about talking to Sophia Dalby brushed silly responses like confusion to the floor. "I just wanted to make clear to you that Lord Henry has a plan to acquire the Melverley pearls for me, which means that our... discussion...of this afternoon—"

"Of course, darling," Sophia interrupted, again. "You have no need of me and my little plans for you. I'm quite certain that between you, you and Lord Henry shall manage it beautifully. I am so pleased for you, of course, but do be certain that all shall be concluded quickly as Molly is quite firm in her plans for Lord Henry's imminent marriage. But Blakes knows his mother's wishes. I'm sure all will be managed tonight and you shall have your pearls back before the wedding."

And with those words, she smiled, turned, and drifted into the general move to the red reception room and the table laid for them.

Louisa felt her heart drop into her hips, which was a terrible sensation to have just before going in to dinner. Blast Penelope Prestwick and her endless array of diamonds.

"YOUR most irritating trait," Sophia said as she nearly bumped into the Marquis of Ruan, "is your habit of following me about. I sense you intend it as a compliment. It is actually more of an annoyance."

Lord Ruan smiled and said, "I've interrupted something. I hope it was a sordid appointment you had planned for later tonight."

"I do not engage in sordid appointments, Lord Ruan. You have mistaken me completely."

She brushed against his coat as she walked past him and managed to snag one of the small openings on her glove with a button on his waistcoat. It was a handy bit of work, and one she had used countless times before.

"We are ensnared, Lady Dalby," he said as they stood, her wrist to his belly. It was most provocative, which was precisely the point. "It feels entirely natural, does it not?"

"Release me," she said softly, looking up at him and giving him a grand view of her décolleté.

"Is that my cue to say ‘never'? I'm dreadful at these comic operas. You must teach me my lines so that I don't disappoint."

"Too late, Lord Ruan," she said, giving him a brief, genuine smile. "I am freed."

She twitched her wrist and cast him off, walking as swiftly as the crowd would allow, getting as quickly away from him as she could.

He was offered a fine view of her back as she left him, which was all he was going to see tonight. It was so important to keep a man, especially a sophisticated man like Ruan, on his toes. One couldn't allow a man to become complaisant.

Particularly a man like Ruan. Ruan, she suspected, was rather more accustomed to having his way with women than would be tolerable for her. And, really, wasn't it always about what was tolerable for her?

Sophia smiled and made her way to the Duke of Edenham, her escort into dinner.

"You came," she said to him. "I promise you that you shall not be disappointed."

"You are on my arm," Edenham replied. "I am hardly disposed to being disappointed."

"Your grace, you are first among gentlemen."

"You're flattering me obscenely. What am I to expect tonight? To be drawn and quartered by dawn?"

"Is that what they're calling it now?" Sophia said with a sly smile. "Darling Edenham, would you rather be drawn or quartered first? I am entirely at your disposal."

Edenham laughed and patted her hand lightly. "Who is it you are punishing, Sophia? You are never so charming as when you are tormenting someone and you are being excessively charming, even accommodating. It is very unlike you."

"I'm so delighted that you're here that I'm not even going to bother to be insulted. For you, darling Edenham, only insult those who intrigue you. Now it is I who am flattered."

"I came because you asked me to honor the invitation and you know how I hate going about in Society," he said. "For that alone you should be flattered."

"And I am," she said as they entered the red reception room.

It was magnificently displayed under hundreds of white candles and the gleam of fine French chandeliers dripping with crystals.

The room was filling rapidly with the finest of London Society, the ladies in their pale gowns and glittering with the sparkle of jewels, the gentlemen in fine coats and waistcoats, their legs brilliantly displayed in white breeches. The current fashion was so favorable if a woman happened to enjoy the look of a shapely male leg. Which she did.

"But, darling, you were earnestly invited tonight, your company sought after by the Hydes and by everyone in this room, certainly. Certainly, by me."

Edenham looked down at her from his very elegant height, his dark brown hair falling forward over his brow. A most attractive man, and so eligible, why, the mind spun with possibilities.

"By you? I shall flatter myself this time and choose to believe it. But by them? No, I know better."

"If you are going to believe gossip, Edenham, then believe the gossip as I tell it. You are, as you well know it, a very desirable man. Why not act like one?"

"Meaning?"

"You know very well what I mean. You were not married from birth, darling, or can you not remember that far back?"

"Witch," he said, grinning reluctantly. He ought to do that more often, poor man. Humor was what was needed in Edenham's life, not the solitude he had shrouded himself in. "I am not that many years older than you, dear Sophia. Kindly remember that."

"Then act your age, as I do."

"You hardly act your age."

"You'd have to know my age to judge that, and I, for one, do not go about singing my age and other particulars to every shopkeeper in town."

"And I do?"

"You are a widower, Edenham. I am a widow. There. It is said. It is known. There is no more to it than that."

"You are simplifying."

"And you are complicating," she said. "See that lovely girl? The one with the curling ginger hair? That's Lady Louisa Kirkland, Melverley's older girl. Talk to her, your grace. Amuse yourself."

"What are you up to, Sophia? She wants a husband, certainly. All these young things want husbands, and I shall never be a husband again."

"Don't bore me with your pronouncements, darling. Certainly you shall marry again, when you meet the woman who can properly manage you, but Louisa is not that woman. She does not want you, so you are perfectly safe with her."

"She does not want me? Just like that? Does she even know me and yet she does not want me?"

Sophia laughed and said, "And you say you will not marry again? You are a perfect liar, darling. But you are safe from Louisa. She will not threaten you, at least not in any particularly harmful way. I'm fairly certain you will emerge relatively unscathed."

"It is when you qualify your facts that you frighten me, Sophia," he said, grinning down at her, for they both knew perfectly well that he would never be tempted by Louisa Kirkland. Ginger-haired virgins were not at all to his tastes. Not anymore.

"Enjoy your meal, darling," Sophia said with a smile. "And don't be afraid of these young things. Even you cannot kill them by conversation."

Edenham looked momentarily stricken by her comment and then he grinned ruefully. He needed teasing, poor dear, and she was just the woman to do it.

The table was set, the footmen at their places, and the company seated. All the pieces in their places. The game was begun.

Sophia could not possibly have been more delighted. It was going to prove to be a most delicious evening and she smiled in pure anticipation.

THE seating for sixty-four people for dinner was all prearranged, obviously. It was naturally presumed that Molly, the Duchess of Hyde, had done the arranging. If she had, she was a devious, vindictive woman.

Louisa found herself seated at one of the far ends of the table, the center being reserved for those of higher precedence as well as personal favorites of the Duke and Duchess of Hyde, who sat opposite each other in the dead center of the long table. Sophia Dalby was near the center, across from the intimidating Duke of Eden-ham, whom everyone gossiped could kill a woman practically by touching her hand through a glove, which was flatly ridiculous as it was perfectly obvious that the Duke of Edenham had to do much more than that to kill a woman, namely, marry her and get her with child. That, however, did the trick.

Edenham had buried three wives and had two smallish children to show for it. Even Amelia had not grown quite so desperate as to look at Edenham. Yet.

Lord Iveston was seated across and down a few seats from his father, the Duke of Hyde, who looked anything but happy to be in such a large room with so many people, even if it was his own house and those people his particular guests. Hyde, by all reports and certainly from her own observation, was rather peculiar for a duke in that he preferred his own company to that of any other. Unless it be the company of his wife, Molly, for whom, it was gossiped, he was completely faithful.

Again, most odd behavior for a duke or any man.

But as to Molly's character, it was perfectly obvious to Louisa that Molly must hate her completely, for she had placed her as far away from anyone who mattered to Louisa and who must matter to Molly. Namely, the sons of Hyde. Blakesley was at least ten people away from her, as were Blakesley's brothers, who numbered four if one included Iveston, which she did.

That was not the worst of it, of course. She could have enjoyed a dinner without Blakesley at her side, and had done so more than once at affairs of this sort, but what was the worst of it was that George Grey was seated immediately on her right and Lord Penrith on her left.

It was perfectly obvious to her that the Duchess of Hyde intended her to be ruined by the fourth course.

Across the table and far too distant to be of any service at all was Amelia, who, to judge by the slightly frantic look in her eyes, was feeling some of the same panic. Amelia, who could not possibly have earned either Molly's favor or enmity, was seated between the Marquis of Ruan and the Marquis of Dutton.

Yes, Dutton.

It was intentional, clearly. There was no mistaking Molly's intention. She wanted Louisa to see Dutton, to watch his every nuanced gesture toward her cousin and yet be able to do nothing about it. It was cruelty at its finest.

That Lord Ruan was added in was just honey on the porridge. Lord Ruan was, while not as lovely as Dutton,
dangerous
in a particular sort of fashion. While mamas throughout the ton warned their daughters about Dutton, knowing that their daughters would ignore every word, no word of warning was ever required of Ruan. Ruan was so dangerous, so worldly, that he was not even attempted.

And they were Amelia's dinner companions, if one discounted Aunt Mary, which one was regularly disposed to do as Mary was more frequently than not practically snoring into her plate by the second course. Mary, in this instance, was seated to the left of Ruan, where she would do no harm at all.

It was for perhaps the first time since she and Amelia had made their come out that Louisa wished for a sober chaperone.

From where she was sitting, Louisa could just make out Sophia sitting far down and across the table from her, sitting next to Blakesley, as it happened. Blakesley looked none too pleased at his placement, which was absurd as it was a family celebration of a dinner party and he could most likely have sat wherever he pleased. On second thought, if Molly, Duchess of Hyde, were her mother, Louisa had little doubt that she wouldn't be much pleased at all, even in such a small matter as to where she was seated to dine. Molly Hyde, who, now that Louisa thought about it, was from the American colonies back when they
had
been American colonies and for that reason alone was more than casual friends with Sophia Dalby.

It was all too very convenient and she was more certain than ever that going to speak with Sophia had been very near to consorting with the enemy. She was no closer to getting back her pearls, Dutton was miles away as the distance was measured across the dining table, and she had an American Indian breathing, quite literally, down her neck.

If she hadn't been so well brought up, Louisa would have hit someone.

"You don't look happy," George Grey said. "I could fix that for you."

"You are misinformed," she said stiffly, staring with what she suspected was longing in the precise direction of Dutton, who was saying something to Amelia at the moment, which resulted in Amelia smiling politely.

Good girl, Amelia.

Polite, but not enthusiastic. As Dutton was twelfth in line for some obscure dukedom in Northumbria, which was inhospitable at best, Dutton could not fail to be of no interest to Amelia.

"Don't listen to him, Lady Louisa," Penrith said softly, his voice as seductive as a siren's call. Though the sirens were supposed to have been women and almost certainly Greek, she thought the description more apt than not. "You look as you should and as you always do: completely lovely."

It was at that point that Dutton whispered something in the general direction of Amelia's ear. Amelia blushed and laughed rather more enthusiastically than was proper. Ruan cocked his head and studied Ameila in what looked to be surprise.