Vexing The Viscount (4 page)

“Desperate? Heavens, no.” She forced a laugh. “Just bored to tears. But if I were to attend your masked ball, it might take the edge from my tedium.”

“If—and mind you, I said
if
—I thought it advisable for you to come to night, what sort of costume might you assemble on such short notice?”

Daisy cast about in her mind. “I once wore a small papier-mâché boat strapped to my hips and a hat like a sail on my head so I could be an English schooner flighting off the Spanish Armada.”

“If you want men to notice you, and not your fortune, appearing as a warship is not the best idea.” Isabella shook her head. “Besides its being totally impractical on the dance floor, we haven’t time for the papier-mâché to set.”

“Well, I once wore a suit of mail for another play, but it was deucedly heavy.”

“Again, the subtext of that costume is excessive defense,” Isabella said. “Perhaps, my dear, the reason men have not seen you is because you’re not ready for them to.”

Not ready? She was twenty-one, for pity’s sake. When would she be ready?

“No, I think you’d best not attend this fete.” Isabella shook her head. “This is not a childish play, Daisy. This is an adult masquerade. And the amusements will be correspondingly…adult.”

“I am an adult,” Daisy said flatly. “And it is time I was treated as one. Perhaps I could come disguised as a courtesan. Mlle La Tour herself.” Daisy was pleased by the hard blink of surprise Isabella cast her. “Nanette has shown me your old wardrobe from your days as ‘La Belle Wren,’and the gowns are still stunning.”

“My, my, hasn’t Nanette been a busy little bee?”

“Don’t scold her. It’s my fault. She hasn’t done anything I haven’t asked.” Daisy’s heart raced a bit at the thought of appearing in public as a woman of pleasure. “You might have been a bit smaller than I, but surely there’s a gown in that collection I could squeeze into.”

“Being a courtesan is far more complicated than squeezing into a revealing gown.” Isabella drummed her fingertips on the arm of her chair.

“I know.” Daisy warmed to the idea with every breath. “I’d have to charm all the men in the room while making each one feel that he alone held my interest. I’d have to be gay and witty. Be available, yet unattainable.” She winked slyly. “I’d have to be you all over again, Isabella.”

Her great-aunt smirked, but Daisy could tell she was flattered by the reminder of her glory days.

“Please,” Daisy said.

Isabella raised her hands in mock surrender. “Very well. If we are going to do this thing, we’re going to do it right.” She tinkled the little bell on the serving tray, and Nanette appeared in the doorway. “Miss Daisy is attending the ball to night, Nanette. She will wear the red tulle gown and my best wig.”

“Oui, madáme.”

“She is coming as Mademoiselle Blanche La Tour, woman of pleasure, so give her the full regimen of toilette a courtesan must endure,” Isabella said.

Nanette’s eyes went round, but she merely bobbed her understanding in a shallow curtsy. “I shall prepare the bath
tout de suite
. This way,
s’il vous plaît
, mam’selle.”

Daisy stood to follow the lady’s maid out, but Isabella stopped her with a hand to her forearm.

“This may be just a game to you, Daisy, but it’s a dangerous one. You wanted men to see you. In this costume, I promise you, they shall,” Isabella warned. “You will feel very powerful to night. When a woman knows men desire her and she has it within her to please or thwart them with a glance, it can be heady. But there is another power at work.”

Daisy raised a questioning brow.

“Desire can overtake a woman as easily as a man. A mask may hide a person’s identity for only a short time,” Isabella said. “In the morning, you’ll wash your face the same as always, and I would have you bright eyed before your looking glass. Therefore, I must have your solemn promise that what ever may happen this night, the dawn will find you in the same state of purity you now enjoy.”

“I am in perfect control of my own person,” Daisy said, tight-lipped.

“I’m delighted to hear it. Just also make certain you control the men who will seek your attentions.”

“‘Do this. Don’t do this.’” She gently pulled away from Isabella. “Honestly, you sound like Aunt Jacquelyn.”

“Then my daughter is a wise woman,” Isabella said. “I’ll be the first to admit there are pleasures aplenty in a lover’s bed, but there are snares as well. I’d spare you, child. When you do finally go to a man’s bed, I want it to be with your heart’s and mind’s consent, as well as your body’s.”

Daisy leaned down and pressed a kiss to the older woman’s cheek. “It will be. Thank you, Great-auntie.”

“How many times have I told you to call me Isabella?” she said with feigned severity. “How shall I maintain the illusion of eternal youth if society is constantly reminded that I’m old enough to have a grown great-niece? Of you go, now.”

Isabella watched with fondness as her great-niece rounded the corner and disappeared after Nanette. Then she checked her mantel clock. Yes, if Isabella hurried, there was just enough time for her to issue one more invitation for tonight’s masquerade. Her footman would have to hand-deliver it.

There was always the possibility that the gentleman had a previous engagement, but Isabella would lose nothing in the attempt. Daisy wanted an adventure. This was the best way Isabella could make sure she had one.

Lady Wexford settled at her escritoire to compose a carefully worded request. Lord Wexford’s birthday masquerade would be lacking if not graced by the noble presence of Lucian Beaumont, Viscount Rutland.

“Are you sure this is the way it’s supposed to be worn?” Daisy eyed herself doubtfully in the long looking glass. The stays built into the red tulle gown cinched her waist so tightly, she could scarcely breathe.

That wasn’t so bad. She’d been laced snugly before, but this gown also seemed designed to shove her breasts up, presenting them squeezed together like a baby’s behind. Thanks to a hot bath and determined scrubbing, Daisy had succeeded in removing the ink stain, but now her skin was flushed. Not only that, her nipples peeped above the scooped neckline.

“Bien sûr,”
Nanette assured her. “Oh, la! I forgot the rouge.”

The lady’s maid dipped her thumb in a paint pot, then brushed Daisy’s nipples with the garish color. Daisy consoled herself that at least they matched the gown now. Nanette spritzed a liberal dose of jasmine perfume over Daisy.

“There,” Nanette said. “Much better,
non?
”

“If you say so.” Daisy coughed at the strong scent. She’d never worn anything heavier than a dash of rose water.

Daisy slipped on the plumed mask that covered the upper half of her face. The slanted slits tilted her eyes up at the outer corner, making her seem almost feline, despite the feathers. She also wore a top-heavy powdered wig and a black heart-shaped beauty mark affixed near one corner of
her mouth. Combined with the mask and the deep décolletage, Daisy stared at a stranger in the mirror.

An exotic, stunning stranger. A creature of night and passion and dangerous allure.

Daisy had never considered herself more than mildly presentable on a good day. The woman in the mirror was decadently gorgeous. “Jupiter!”

“You are lovely,
oui?
” Nanette said, obviously pleased with her final product. “The soreness, she is gone?”

“Mostly.” When Isabella had ordered the full toilette of a courtesan for her, Daisy had no idea that entailed the removal of all the small hairs from her body.

Even in her most intimate places.

Nanette’s hot beeswax left her skin smooth and sensitive. When Daisy tottered across the room on the tall Venetian-style platform shoes that added a full six inches to her height, the air moving beneath her voluminous skirt caressed her in unexpected places.

Strains of the string quartet wafted up to her.

“It seems the ball has started.” Daisy thanked Nanette for her unflagging efforts and glided to the door, walking in the tall shoes more gracefully with each step. The slight pressure of her own thighs on her freshly denuded sex sent a shimmering tingle through her.

She recalled Isabella’s warnings. Her body did possess a power of its own.

“Forewarned is forearmed,” she murmured, determined to ignore the strange warmth in her groin. She drew as deep a breath as her stays allowed and pushed open the door. Thanks to the boning built into the gown, her posture was perfectly erect.

Now if she could only bolster her conf dence to match.

She wanted an adventure, she reminded herself. Only her own timidity would ruin this one for her. She’d seen other women, perfectly respectable women, sporting a
neckline just as low as this one, and without the benefit of being masked. Only last week, Lady Lucinda Throckmorton bared her nipples as part of her décolletage at the opera in a daring froth of Parisian lace. It was unthinkable that a courtesan would do less.

And yet Isabella’s advice echoed in her head. What ever happened this night, she would have to wash her own face in the morning. Even courtesans should be allowed modesty when they wished it. Perhaps she could be a courtesan on holiday, not seeking a patron, and therefore not displaying her wares quite so boldly.

Daisy skittered back over to the dressing table and selected a filmy red fichu to tuck around her neck and into the deep-cut bodice. Her rouged nipples still showed darkly through the delicate fabric, but the slight additional covering gave her a mea sure of relief.

She caught Nanette scowling at her in the mirror. “You wish to say something?”

“Only that mam’selle has ruined the line of the gown,” the lady’s maid said with an injured sniff.

“Perhaps,” Daisy allowed. “But now the line of my conscience remains untroubled. Blanche La Tour is not trying to entice a new patron this evening. This is daring enough.”

Uncle Gabriel always said she could have had a career on the stage, if only the theater weren’t so tawdry an undertaking. She would look upon this evening as if it were a play, Daisy decided. The Venetian shoes lifted her to a new height. The gown was more daring than plain Daisy Drake would ever think of donning. She would speak nothing but French for the rest of the night. Her accent was excellent, and the nasal quality of that tongue should effectively disguise her voice, even if she met someone she knew.

No one would penetrate this disguise.

Daisy slipped into the role of Mademoiselle Blanche La
Tour, bird of paradise, albeit with a few of her finer feathers discreetly tucked. With a lace-gloved hand on the brass railing, she descended slowly to join Lord Wexford’s party, already in progress.

Lucian accepted the flute of champagne from Lord Wexford’s butler and surveyed the long ballroom. He rarely attended such events. Since the family fortunes were so depleted, Lucian didn’t have the resources to be fashionable. Cultivating the image of a misanthropic rake was more palatable than letting the threadbare truth be known.

The only enticement that drew him out this time was Lady Wexford’s suggestion in her invitation that he might find an investor for his newest enterprise this evening. He was surprised she’d heard of it so quickly. The gossip mill in London was obviously as ruthlessly efficient as ever. No doubt the news of his excavation and his hopes had been trumpeted and tittered at all over town.

At least Lady Wexford hadn’t laughed at him as the Society of Antiquaries had.

“Bunch of gossipy old hens,” he grumbled to no one in particular, and turned back to gaze over the assembly.

The theme of the masquerade seemed to be a bacchanal. Several guests sported Roman togas. One randy old fellow had bared his sunken chest, donned furred leggings and was cavorting about the dance floor. Already seriously in his cups, he chased the female dancers and interrupted the stately lines of the gavotte, proclaiming himself Pan incarnate. Finally, one of Lord Wexford’s servants in the guise of a praetorian guardsman firmly escorted him of the floor.

Lord and Lady Wexford looked cool and classical in their flowing white robes and gold leaf laurels. Though the lady was reputed to be her husband’s senior by some fifteen years, she still turned heads as they glided from one group to the next, greeting their guests.

Given the lateness of his invitation, Lucian decided his hostess couldn’t quibble about the fact that his costume consisted solely of a silk mask and a decidedly old-fashioned frock coat and knee breeches, all in black. The original buttons on the ensemble had been ornately worked silver, but he’d been forced to sell them to fund his work. Now somber pewter was his only decoration. If anyone asked, he supposed he could claim he’d come disguised as a Puritan.

And a good stretch that’d be
, he thought with a wolfish grin. His financial state might keep him from seeking gentlemanly pleasures, but his imagination was rife with them. Lucian dreamed of a well-stocked stable, membership at the most exclusive clubs and a beautiful mistress tucked away in a fashionable love bower. Of course, once he found the Roman hoard, he’d upgrade the family estates and ease the plight of his even poorer tenants. But after that was accomplished, a gentleman had a right to tend to his own needs.

However, at the moment, he was the nearly penniless Viscount Rutland. His father was kept from total ruin by a degradingly small stipend from Lucian’s mother’s family. When his mother had died, his Italian grandfather threatened to cut Lord Montford off, and probably would have if not for Lucian. Still, his father was deucedly tightfisted with his meager coin. Lucian couldn’t have afforded to hire a Roman-themed costume for this masquerade, even if he’d received his invitation in a timelier manner.

Still, Lucian didn’t feel too out of place. Despite the classical theme, many revelers had decided to dress to their own tastes. There was a smattering of medieval lords and ladies, a Turkish pasha accompanied by a shapely harem girl, and one fellow wearing an ass’s head.