The Secret Duke (9 page)

Robin raised his glass. “To the fact that one of us is completely free!”

They all drank and another fractious moment passed, but it was time to end this. Thorn captured the decanter before Robin could top up glasses again. “You have to be coherent tomorrow.”

“Today,” said Christian, standing and stretching. “It’s gone one. Get to bed, Robin, or you’ll disappoint your bride.”

“Never happened yet,” Robin said, smiling blissfully, but they took their leave.

As they walked down the corridor, Christian said, “He’s happy.”

“Yes.”

They’d arrived at Thorn’s room, and Christian followed him in. Thorn’s valet slipped away.

“Why are you so antagonistic toward Lord Rothgar?”

It was a serious question, so Thorn considered his answer. “He holds too much power, especially in his influence with the king. Someone, perhaps many, need to provide a counterbalance, and I have the advantage of outranking him.”

“You’d be safer getting your thrills on the
Black Swan
.”

“Go away,” Thorn said, and Christian did.

His valet returned to help him undress.

“Do you think I’m looking for trouble, Joseph?” The valet was ten years older than Thorn, a quiet, steady man who’d dressed him since Thorn was fourteen and had begun attending court and other fashionable events. They had no secrets.

Or rather, very few.

“Perhaps a little restless these days, sir. Since you decided not to go to sea.”

“I have been aware of the imbalances at court for longer than that.” As Thorn put on his robe, he asked, “Should I marry?”

“Only when you want to, sir.”

“And if I never want to?”

“The world won’t end if the Ithorne title does, sir.”

“Sacrilege! I do want it, you know.”

Robin was correct that the draw was family. He had been thinking of looking closely at one of Christian’s sisters, for he was fond of that large brood, but he couldn’t do that. They should all marry for love, not convenience.

“I need a wife to manage my homes and be hostess when I entertain,” Thorn said, aware of arguing with himself. “Someone to buy jewelry for and have it stay in the family. Someone to bear healthy children to carry on the line.”

Children to teach to sail on the lake. Who’d play pirates and Robin Hood . . .

“All in good time, sir. You’ll find the right woman.”

“I hope so,” Thorn said, and yawned. “It would be hell on earth to marry the wrong one.”

 

 

 

 

 

“H
ere you are, ma’am.” The nervous maid indicated a plain door at the end of a short, whitewashed servants’ corridor. “Brings you out near some bedchambers, ma’am, and they’re not properly open to the guests. But turn to your right and you’ll soon find company.”

The maid was gone thirty, but turned her fingers together in her apron like an anxious child. “If you’re caught, you won’t say as it was me let you in, will you, ma’am? I do what I can for Lady Fowler, but I need my place. And this isn’t so bad a house, really. The duke keeps his sin elsewhere. It’s just drink here, and gaming. . . .”

Bella touched the woman’s arm. “I’ll never let slip that anyone in this house assisted me. Return to your duties now, and forget all about me. And thank you.”

The maid bobbed a curtsy and scuttled away. Though Bella had no intention of scuttling, she faced the door with some of the maid’s fears. She had invaded the home of a nobleman—a duke, even. What was the penalty for that? To make it worse, in moments she was going to invade a select gathering of the highest in the land.

She shivered at the thought.

Lady Fowler had received a letter from the maid, distressed that the duke was to host the Olympian Revels, an annual and wicked masked ball for the London elite. The servants would be forced to wear indecent garments. What was she to do?

Lady Fowler had seen a prime opportunity to hunt for the vilest secrets of those who ruled the country and made its laws. The maid must provide a way in for one of her flock. But which? The eventual, unwilling choice had been Bella—or rather, Bellona Flint.

Bella had achieved her original plan. She had assumed the persona of Bellona Flint—plain, severe, with eyebrows that met in the middle and a small wart on her nose. She’d rented a small house close to Lady Fowler’s and spent her days at Lady Fowler’s house copying the Fowler letter and being useful in any way she could. Over five months, however, she’d become disenchanted with the lady, her coterie, and her work.

Lady Fowler, poor woman, had been given an unfortunate disease by her husband. It was destroying her health so that she was now almost bedridden, and perhaps was affecting her brain. Her letter had degenerated into a scandal sheet, but now flirted with danger in radical political rants. Many of her flock were distressed, but they were timid birds, unable to protest. Bella was not timid, but she hadn’t known what to do. She’d begun to think of leaving.

Now, facing this door into danger, she wished she’d already done so. Failing that, she wished she’d found a way to outmaneuver the Drummond sisters.

These recent arrivals were birds of a different feather. The Irish sisters, Helena and Olivia Drummond, had beaks and claws, and were full of ideas for dramatic action. They’d already organized a noisy protest outside one of Madame Cornelys’s Venetian masquerades, and the throwing of ink on the legs of an actress playing a breeches part. On reading the maid’s letter, they’d immediately embraced the idea of invading the revels, assuming Olivia would play the role.

Bella had been so alarmed at what they might do that she’d offered to take on the task herself, but she’d forgotten her Bellona Flint persona. Olivia and Helena, both handsome in a bold way, had scoffed at her ability to act appropriately, which had led to a fiery argument. Bella had finally produced a trump card—experience of a fashionable masquerade.

When she’d arrived at Lady Fowler’s, she’d kept her Bellona Flint story as close to her own as possible, omitting only the abduction and adding a few years to her age. Bellona was from a gentry family, but had been mistreated when she refused a foul husband of her father’s choosing. She’d been rescued by a modest inheritance from an elderly relative.

Thus she could truthfully claim to have attended two fashionable masquerades, once as Betsy, a dairy maid, and the other time as Queen Eleanor of Castile. She knew how to behave—how to act her part and talk to others as if they were their character. Lady Fowler had awarded her the victory.

What she hadn’t realized was that at the Olympian Revels, everyone dressed in classical style. Politicians wore togas, and military men wore Greek or Roman armor. Married ladies dressed as matrons or goddesses, but the unmarried should be scantily dressed nymphs.

If she’d understood that, she might never have fought for the role, but having done so, she’d lacked the courage to back out. She certainly couldn’t lose her nerve now. She touched her full black wig and face- concealing mask for comfort. No one would ever know this scandalous creature was her.

A nymph’s costume, by custom, was only a light, sleeveless robe. She’d insisted on wearing her shift beneath, but it had been necessary to cut off the sleeves. Her upper arms had never before been exposed to public gaze.

Nor had her toes. She’d wanted to wear stockings, but with delicate Grecian sandals, it had been clear it wouldn’t do. To make the situation worse, the eye was drawn to her toes by sparkling stars on the sandal straps.

Lady Fowler or the Drummonds—she wasn’t sure which—had decreed that she would be Kelano, one of the Pleiades, nymphs turned into stars after a rapacious attack by the god Orion.

“A living symbol,” Lady Fowler had declared in her overly dramatic style, “of the cruelty of men!”

Thus Bella had stars on her sandals, on the dark blue girdle that gathered her white robe, and in her wig. The latter caused her no qualm, but she regretted the ones near her naked toes.

Praying there would be others even more scantily dressed, she put her hand on the latch and opened the door to the corridor a crack. She wasn’t nervous solely because of her costume. She was invading a nobleman’s house. Given the draconian unfairness of the laws protecting the nobility, she could probably hang for it.

She straightened her spine and peered out. Here was the ducal world. The gleaming corridor floor held a carpet runner, and the walls were painted a delicate green and hung with watercolor landscapes.

For a moment she wondered if she were in the wrong house. The Duke of Ithorne was a rake, but here was no lewdness or coarse taste. When she considered the faint sounds from elsewhere in the mansion, she was equally puzzled. She heard lively music, but no shrieks or wild laughter, yet people had been arriving for over an hour.

There could be no mistake, however, so she touched her mask again and stepped out into the corridor, closing the door behind her. She walked toward the music, and as she drew closer, she recognized a dance tune. Before she knew it, she was dancing a few steps down the carpeted corridor. It had been so long since she’d danced, and she had loved it so.

She stopped.

She walked on, and now she heard voices and laughter, but still of the type she’d expect at an elegant assembly, not an orgy. She turned a corner and halted at the first sight of invited guests, heart suddenly hammering. She made herself move on toward the two groups, taking comfort from the fact that, yes, some of the nymphs ahead were dressed as scandalously as she.

Again, however, these people seemed to be engaged in harmless conversation. In the first group, three men in classical armor spoke with a matron and a shy nymph. Probably mother and daughter. In the second, two men in togas flirted with two bolder nymphs, but their behavior was quite within the bounds.

Seeing those nymphs, Bella wondered if she’d be caught out by being too well covered. One young lady had mere ribbons to cover her shoulders and her gown scarce covered her knees! One ankle was circled by what looked like diamonds, which seemed much more scandalous than stars on toes.

As she walked toward the first group, Bella surreptitiously raised her gown by pulling some fabric up over her belt. A quick glance told her six inches of her right leg showed. She conquered the urge to tug the skirt back down.

The soldiers and the modest ladies seemed to be talking of everyday matters—the state of the streets and the weather. Then one man mentioned John Wilkes.

She would rather not have been reminded of Wilkes. Last year he’d been imprisoned for creating an edition of the
North Briton
newspaper that criticized the king. He’d escaped the law only by fleeing the country. Now, under the influence of the Drummonds, Lady Fowler had used part of a startling donation of a thousand guineas to purchase a printing press. She said she would use it to print her letters so they could be freely distributed in London.

That was worrying enough, especially given its inflammatory content these days, but Bella feared that the Drummond sisters had more dangerous plans. They were managing to weave England’s tyrannical rule of Ireland in among rants about the legal oppression of women, and that came close to treason. If they used the press to print on that subject, the poor sheep of the Fowler flock were likely to end up like lambs to the slaughter.

Sheep or birds, equally vulnerable…

“Alone, fair nymph? Pray, join us.”

Heart pounding again, Bella turned to face a toga’d gentleman. “Alas, sir, I am obliged elsewhere.”

“What else could constrain a nymph at the revels? Pray, grant us the pleasure of your company.”

The other man endorsed that, but the two nymphs clearly didn’t favor a rival.

“Perhaps I wish to be obliged elsewhere,” Bella said lightly. “Please excuse me, sirs.”

She walked on, braced to be pulled back, perhaps accused of being an imposter. When that didn’t happen, she relaxed a little. No one there had been suspicious, so her manner must have been appropriate.

She approached another cluster of people cautiously, but apart from glances, they paid her no attention. They too seemed to be discussing serious political matters. She caught reference to Greville, Newcastle, and the French ambassador.

She knew this event was supposed to be an opportunity for the great to meet and negotiate beyond the constraints of traditional rivalries and entrenched enmities, but she was surprised to find it so. It certainly wouldn’t serve her purpose.

There was still time for it to become wild.

Bella turned another corner and was relieved to blend with livelier company. All was movement and lightness here, and she could pass through the mobile crowd with casual interactions. It was clear that many of the guests recognized one another, but some were playing the masquerade game and trying to guess the character another person portrayed.

A number of gentlemen tried to guess her identity, inviting her to pause with them and attempting to flirt. It was all in good humor, however, and she responded with a tease about their toga or armor and moved on. Yes, she could do this. She remembered how.

Her spirits began to match those around her. Her smile came more easily, the music danced in her mind . . . and then she realized she was glowing at male appreciation. They called her pretty and lovely, and admired her stars. . . .

They do not appreciate you
, she told herself.
They are ogling your painted lips, false hair, and lewd costume.
All the same, the mood swept her back to her stolen youth and she liked it too much. It would be hard to return to her dull life after this, but what choice did she have?