Infamous
Infamous
Laurel Ames
He Was Surrounded By Meddlesome Women!The thoughtless antics of his mother and sister had dashing shipping magnate Bennet Varner fleeing all females… until he collided with the impregnable wit of the infamous Gwen Rose Wall - a woman as clever as she was captivating.Besieged by scandal, the beleaguered Miss Wall had vowed never to wed. But the dauntless Varner had his own plan of attack - to use all the wiles at his disposal to scale the ramparts of rumor and rescue the lady's heart!
Praise for Laurel Ames’ previous titles (#ucee74ff4-28b3-5740-9428-e2a49f3fd243)“Would not a broken mainmast put our departure for Europe off even further?” (#u464810e0-0a36-505a-b8a8-784d8a071a1b)Letter to Reader (#u87c2e516-d539-54b6-bb64-a9c934dabfe6)Title Page (#ud08df5ce-bc01-5ab2-b274-dfaea2a4be06)About the Author (#u68c2b9e6-6bed-5c59-a7ec-830c4a84d79f)Dedication (#u7355a8cb-55ee-5744-a7d4-f042cc7dc703)Chapter One (#uda10d3a6-d754-5f6f-81ea-a562bdf33c25)Chapter Two (#u212fc324-fcd5-5fb4-b383-346ef5b08b8a)Chapter Three (#u19a51bf3-f759-53d4-9ff7-74805638484c)Chapter Four (#u3e22a85d-9e22-5bbf-8afc-40f39dd6f7a8)Chapter Five (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Six (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Seven (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Eight (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Nine (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Ten (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Eleven (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Twelve (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Thirteen (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Fourteen (#litres_trial_promo)Epilogue (#litres_trial_promo)Copyright (#litres_trial_promo)
Praise for Laurel Ames’ previous titles
Nancy Whiskey
“A spellinding romance guaranteed to quicken hearts everywhere.”
—Rendezvous
Tempted
“A rollicking romp filled with romance and mystery!”
—The Literary Times
Playing to Win
“A truly delightful and humorous tale...”
—The Paperback Forum
Besieged
“Witty dialogue and heartwarming characters combine for a wonderfully old-fashioned tale of true love.”
—Rendezvous
Homeplace
“...the perfect summer read...”
—the Literary Times
Castaway
“This special treasure is on the cutting edge of the genre...”
—Affaire de Coeur
Teller of tales
“...so hauntingly good ..it seems impossible that this is her first published work.”
—Affaire de Coeur
“Would not a broken mainmast put our departure for Europe off even further?”
Rose asked astutely.
“Oh, what is another day or two when you are making such a hit in London?” Bennet replied.
“A hit? I am no such thing. I am probably the most talked-about woman in town.”
“Yes, that is what I meant,” Bennet said, staring into her eyes. They reminded him of the sea.
“Do be serious, Mr. Varner,” she said sternly. “You cannot want to be in the company of an infamous woman.”
“My friends call me Bennet.” He rested his elbow on the table and his chin on his hand to study her better.
“What do your enemies call you?”
“I see to it that I have no enemies,” he said with that determined smile of his, and Rose wondered if he did not make them or if he simply eliminated them.
Dear Reader,
It’s June, so start thinking about your summer reading! Whether you’re going to the beach or simply going to relax on the porch, don’t forget to bring along a Harlequin Historical
novel. Since publishing her very first book with us in 1993, Laurel Ames has gone on to write eight books, which critics have described as “hauntingly good,” “cutting edge” and “endearing.” Her latest, Infamous, is a delightful Regency about a dashing nobleman and spy whose silly and snobbish mother and sister do their best to foil a romance between him and the one woman he feels is worth pursuing—a beautiful and smart country heiress who’s hiding secrets of her own.
Tori Phillips returns this month with Midsummer’s Knight, the sequel to Silent Knight. Here, a confirmed bachelor and a wary widow betrothed against their will switch identities with their friends to spy on the other, and fall m love in the process. In Runaway by Carolyn Davidson, a young woman who becomes a fugitive after an act of self-defense is discovered by a kind cowboy, who takes her back to his parents’ Missouri home as his “wife.”
And don’t miss Widow Woman, the first historical title by long-time Silhouette Special Edition
author Patricia McLinn, about a feisty female rancher who must win back the heart of her ex-foreman, the man she once refused to marry and the unknowing father of her child.
Whatever your tastes in reading, you’ll be sure to find a romantic journey back to the past between the covers of a Harlequin Historical
novel.
Sincerely,
Tracy Farrell
Senior Editor
Please address questions and book requests to:
Silhouette Reader Service
U.S.: 3010 Walden Ave., P.O. Box 1325, Buffalo, NY 14269
Canadian: P.O. Box 609, Fort Erie, Ont. L2A 5X3
Infamous
Laurel Ames
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
LAUREL AMES
Although Laurel Ames likes to write stories set in the early nineteenth century, she writes from personal experience. She and her husband live on a farm, complete with five horses, a log spring house, carriage house and a smokehouse made of bricks kilned on the farm. Of her characters, Laurel says, “With the exception of the horses, my characters, both male and female, good and evil, all are me and no one else.”
For Ma and Dad, whose unfailing support
and enthusiasm have encouraged me
to write far more than I ever thought possible.
Chapter One
London, February 1815
“Men are the most arrogant, helpless and stupid creatures on the earth,” Miss Gwen Rose Wall said out loud as she strode along South Audley Street into a brisk head wind, strangling her reticule with both hands. “Especially my brother, Stanley.” Her almost military gait caused her brown wool pelisse to flap open, cooling her heated anger to a becoming flush by the time she found the house number she was seeking on one of the corners. Its generous size, the tripartite Venetian windows and long side portico distinguished Varner House from the other residences on the street. However, it was not this grandeur that daunted Rose from entering, but a series of shouted expostulations in a high-pitched female voice. Though the content of the expletives was shrouded by the stout brick walls of the house, it was clear the woman was neither being attacked nor in pain, but was extremely angry. When the screeches momentarily ceased, Rose shrugged and began to ascend the steps under the portico, thinking that once she paid this duty visit her time in London would be her own, no matter what Stanley said.
A youngish man dashed out, putting on his hat and skipping down the steps so rapidly he collided with Rose. He would have overbalanced her backward had he not caught her in his arms. He stared at her with such a look of surprise and friendliness that Rose stared back, wondering if he recognized her. But his boyish face, creased with laugh lines and alight with a pair of merry blue eyes, was unknown to her. She found herself to be holding his hat, which she must have caught as it tumbled from his head. His long black hair was hanging over his brow now in tempting disarray and she had the most maddening urge to run her hands through it to stroke it back in place.
“Bennet!” shrieked the voice from the open doorway. “You come back in here this instant and explain.... What do you mean by kissing female persons on the front steps?”
A small hatchet-faced woman appeared with her fists clutching a silk shawl closed. Her perfectly black hair seemed unnatural planted on top of a face so seamed with age and frustration.
“I wasn’t kissing her, Mother.” He finally released Rose. “I was running her down in my haste. So sorry, miss—uh miss—?”
Rose cleared her throat and handed him his hat. “Miss Gwen Rose Wall.”
“I am Bennet Varner, and this is my mother, Edith.”
“I know. I mean, I was coming to pay a call on my godmother, Edith Varner.”
“Wall? Wall? I swear I must be godmother to half of England. Who is your mother?”
“Mrs. Eldridge Wall.” When this failed to elicit a spark of recognition, Rose added, “Who was formerly Miss Maryanne Varner, a rather distant cousin of yours, I believe. But I see I have caught you at a bad time. Perhaps another day would do better. I’ll leave my card with you.” Rose flicked this out of her reticule and handed it to Bennet, who accepted it eagerly.
“Nonsense,” Bennet said. “You must come inside. Too cold a day to be standing about on the steps.” He took her arm and pulled her up the remaining steps and through the door past his mother, who was staring at him as though he had taken leave of his senses. “And I’ve given you a fright,” he added.
“But you were going out, and in some haste, as I recall,” Rose protested as she surrendered her pelisse to the butler and tried not to gape at the grand staircase leading to the next floor, which must contain a ballroom, she surmised, to do justice to so much carved and polished oak.
“Oh, I wasn’t going anywhere important.”
“You said you had an appointment,” his mother accused as she followed them into a cheerful morning room where a fire blazed on the hearth and a modish young woman sat petulantly at an escritoire.
“My sister, Harriet Varner. This is Miss Gwen Rose Wall from...”
“Wall,” Rose supplied. “It is near Bristol.” Rose seated herself on the sofa Bennet indicated. He claimed the seat beside her, totally ignoring his mother, who had planted herself on a nearby chair.
Harriet stared at Rose appraisingly and Rose felt the girl to be adding up the cost of her blue wool walking dress and weighing it against her own filmy muslin gown and pearls. Harriet’s was a ridiculous costume for February, even the last day of February, Rose decided. Harriet was pretty enough, her sharp features still softened by the bloom of youth, but she had been ill-advised to crop her hair so short. That sort of wavy, flaxen hair was much better left long rather than attempting to tame the remaining short locks with a curling iron.
“I said, are you making a long stay in London, Miss Wall?”
Rose jumped at the imperious question from Mrs. Varner.
“Only a week or so, until we have arranged passage. I am accompanying my brother and his wife on a...a sort of grand tour.” Rose could not admit to playing nursemaid to a young bride. She was not yet twenty-three herself and only her mother could think such an arrangement suitable.
Bennet jumped up and tugged at the bellpull. The butler burst into the room as though he had been standing with his hand on the doorknob. “Tea, Hardy, and some cakes. Perhaps a suitable wine,” Bennet said, rubbing his hands together. “Oh, I expect you know what we need.”
Rose smiled at Bennet’s clumsy orders and she thought that Hardy was tempted to do so as well. She had already put Mrs. Varner down as a shrew and she suspected Harriet also gave her brother a hard time. Why else would he have been escaping the house so hastily? He did not strut or put on airs like her brother, but moved quickly and naturally. And he was strong, she thought, the memory of those arms holding her so safely causing her to stare at him raptly. She forced her attention away from him. No matter how much she thought she could like him, she must not, she reminded herself.
“I expect you know the roads are a bit torn up still,” Bennet offered.
“Where?” Rose asked, remembering their recent drive from Bristol.
“Europe.”
“Where in Europe?” she asked, thinking his comment unnecessarily vague. “France?”
“Pretty much all of it. Perhaps I should explain I am in the shipping business, so I have occasion to get news—”
“Not in business,” corrected Harriet. “Bennet has interests, as we all do. He is not directly involved in business.”
“Oh, I see,” Rose said as she watched Bennet roll his eyes heavenward. Rose smiled, for it did not matter to her that Bennet was in trade. Nor did it matter to him, but it obviously caused Harriet some pain and made his mother wring her hands nervously.
The tea tray was brought in and Edith Varner began to serve. “And how is your mother, Miss Wall? She is still...alive, I assume.”
“Yes, of course,” Rose said as Bennet cringed. “She is arranging to move into our house in Bristol, thinking that Stanley and Alice will like to have Wall House to themselves. She wrote to you that the three of us would be stopping in town. But perhaps her letter was misdirected.”
Edith looked guiltily toward the stuffed escritoire, and Rose schooled herself not to glance in that direction.
“It is too bad you are not making a longer stay,” Mrs. Varner said. “Or we might be able to arrange some entertainment for you. As it is...”
“A ball!” Bennet decided.
“A what?” Harriet demanded. “But you just said—”
“How long could it possibly take to arrange? A day or two, no more. I can have my secretary help you. Besides, your birthday is coming up on March third, Harriet. We must celebrate that.”
Bennet ignored his gaping sister and mother to pace about the room and throw out suggestions as to whom to invite, what musicians to engage, as though someone should be taking notes. Rose was glad it was not her responsibility. She liked Bennet quite well as a man, but as a brother or son she thought he might leave much to be desired.
“I shall arrange everything,” Bennet decided, seating himself and taking up his teacup, then turning abruptly to Rose. “Are you sure I did not hurt you when I ran into you?”
“Of course not. I am used to pushing about thousand-pound horses. I do not hurt easily.”
“Ah, you ride. We will go tomorrow. I have a stable full of hacks champing at the bit for exercise.”
“I could not impose in such a way.”
“You would be doing me a favor. What is your hotel? I shall call for you at ten.”
“Greeves Hotel, but I...”
“That is no more than a mile from here. What a happy coincidence.”
“But I do not know what Stanley, my brother, may have planned.”
“I shall bring horses anyway. At least you and I may ride.”
“Bennet,” his mother admonished. “With no chaperon?”
“With a groom, of course,” Bennet added.
“I should be delighted to ride,” Rose said for no other reason than to see Edith Varner’s expression turn sour again.
Bennet looked thoughtful for a moment. “You know the season is just starting, Miss Wall. I would encourage your party to spend a month with us at least to get a proper taste of London before venturing off to foreign parts. Why, you can stay at Varner House.”
This offer brought such sharp gasps from Edith and Harriet that Rose hastened to say, “We simply cannot impose in such a way. It will not be worth the bother of removing from our hotel to here, for I am quite sure Stanley has secured passage for us by now.”
“Oh, I shall speak to him. He should leave that up to me. If you want decent accommodations I will get you staterooms on one of my ships.”
And so it went until the prescribed half hour was up. Then Rose asked if the butler could call a hack for her. Bennet immediately sent round for the carriage and insisted on delivering her to Greeves Hotel himself, giving her a running account about all the buildings they passed as they made their way down Oxford Street.
Rose was careful not to mention a liking for bonbons or diamonds, for she feared Bennet would simply stop the carriage to hop out and purchase some. He was a strange man, not at all what one would expect of a London smart. Rose decided he was some sort of cit, with a family aspiring to society. She could almost feel sorry for Edith and Harriet. Almost, but not quite, for she had no doubt that if Bennet had not dragged her into the house, both mother and daughter would have refused to acknowledge her. What of that? She had been snubbed before and was quite used to it. She rather thought she had grown a thick enough skin to carry her through any situation.
Rose had thought Greeves Hotel a rather grand structure with all its rows of windows and wrought-iron railings, until she had seen Varner House. But Bennet had given specific directions to his coachman, so Greeves could not be too pedestrian. Though why she would care what Bennet Varner thought was beyond her.
“At ten tomorrow,” he said, kissing her gloved hand as he helped her down from the open carriage. “I shall hope to meet your brother and his wife.” He was gone then in a flurry of orders to his driver and a spin of carriage wheels. Rose stared after him as she walked up the steps and through the double doors into the lobby. They were on the third floor and the long climb gave Rose time to consider just what Bennet Varner’s game was. Could he be smitten with her? She knew she was pretty, but she did not think about it much since she knew she would never marry. Bennet might be boyish, amusing and sweet in the middle of a crisp February afternoon, but what was he like when drunk? That was what mattered. She shrugged off such thoughts and went to unpack her riding habit and shake out the wrinkles from the dark green velvet. At least she could look forward to a ride the next day.
“Sir, just three more,” the spectacled young man said as he deftly slid documents under the poised pen of Ben-net Varner. Any possible boyishness was wiped from Varner’s face as he perused the papers with a knit brow. He focused his gaze on the contracts and tried to put out of his mind the surprised green eyes of Miss Gwen Rose Wall as he had held her on the steps of his house. Her eyes were more of a blue-green, he decided, picturing them in his mind and causing his secretary to clear his throat to get his attention. Bennet signed a document without reading it at all. That look she had, like a startled doe, her russet hair brushing her shoulders, her pert nose, those eyebrows drawn in concern and those luscious lips...
“Sir? Sir? Are you unwell?”
“Fine, Walters, I’m fine.” Bennet cleared his throat. “Is the Celestine still in port?”
“Yes, due to sail tomorrow.”
“Her departure will be delayed,” Bennet said absently.
“Some special cargo you have engaged?”
“No. She needs her...her mainmast replaced.”
“Her mainmast? It’s the first I have heard of it. I would have thought Captain Cooley—”
“He doesn’t know it yet,” Bennet said firmly.
“But, sir.”
“I feel quite strongly that the mainmast is about to go and I want it replaced. I’m sure you can handle all the necessary arrangements.” The piercing look Bennet shot at Walters sent him scurrying from the room, leaving Bennet to get back to a contemplation of Rose. He must stop her from taking ship for Europe by whatever means he could.
Through the half-open door he watched Walters dispatch a messenger to inform Captain Cooley of his fate, then draft an order for the new mast. Probably they could find one in London, but Bennet would stubbornly insist on his course of action even if Walters had to send to the Highlands for a tree. He meant to delay the Celestine, and with good reason.
Bennet pushed aside the dull paperwork on his desk and thought once again of those blue-green eyes and that burnished hair like fine silk. Resignedly he put on his hat and greatcoat and walked through his secretary’s office without a word, leaving Walters to rehearse in his own mind the Banbury story he would feed to Captain Cooley when the man came storming up from the docks.
“I don’t care if we are distantly related,” Stanley said as his long strides carried him down the hotel stairs the next morning. “You cannot just go off riding alone with a perfect stranger.”
Rose looked up to her brother, a serious young man with brown hair and sincere blue eyes. “I am not going alone. My groom is coming,” she said, glancing at the slight youth who followed silently in their wake.
“Martin is just a boy. What sort of protection would he be?”
“All the protection I need. He is...” Rose’s protest trailed off at a warning look from Martin’s sharp brown eyes.
The boy moved around the brother and sister, holding the door open. The street in front of Greeves Hotel seemed to be full of riding horses. Bennet dismounted from a fidgeting black brute and tossed his reins carelessly to his groom, an older man who already seemed to have his hands full.
“I brought enough hacks so we could all ride, or you can have your pick of horses.”
Rose introduced the two men, embarrassed by her brother’s stuffiness. Bennet seemed not to notice he was being sized up by Stanley, and pointed out the most dangerous-looking of his beasts as a little fresh if Wall had a notion for a brisk gallop. Rose did not choose the dainty mare that would have been a good mount for Alice, had she the slightest interest in riding, but the strong-boned gelding with the white blaze, who met her gaze with interest. Martin replaced Bennet’s groom as escort and poor Stilton had to lead the mare back to Varner House.
Conversation was brief and confined solely to the points of the horses as they made their way through the noisy streets to Hyde Park. When they reached this landmark Rose knew she must be smiling foolishly as the full expanse of the park broke upon her gaze. “I had not thought there could be so much grass in all of London,” she said to Bennet with delight.
“Oh, the city isn’t all cobbles and paving stones.”
Bennet let Rose set the pace and try out Gallant’s long strides. Rose smiled at Stanley, who cantered at her side on Victor, and he grinned back. The only time they were in perfect accord was when they were on horseback, for they did both love to ride.
Rose glanced back at Bennet and Martin who seemed to have fallen into conversation. Why this should worry her was beyond her. Martin had far more discretion than she. But there was something so disarming about Bennet Varner. His friendliness, she supposed. She would have to be careful.
As Stanley urged Victor into a gallop, Rose fell back slightly, sacrificing a faster run to talk to Bennet. “You keep a fine stable, sir.”
“Call me Bennet I know it’s unfashionable, but everyone does.”
“Who usually exercises your horses?” Rose asked, matching Gallant’s steady trot to the black’s capricious jogging and head tossing as best she could.
“I do, or the grooms. A bit of town training is good for the young ones. Settle down, Chaos,” Bennet said firmly and the black rolled a wary eye at him.
“You train your own horses, then?”
“As much as I can manage. Business keeps me in town a good deal, so I bring my young favorites with me. Your brother is a bruising rider.”
“It is the one thing he does really well. I shall have no fear in placing the breeding stock at Wall into his hands.”
“I take it that task fell to you before?”
“Before he came of age Stanley was at school the better part of the time. Now...”
“Are you meaning to move to your house in Bristol with your mother?”
“I had hoped to stay at Wall and help him, but he does not want my help. And I am certainly no comfort to Alice. I suppose it will have to be Bristol after all.”
“That will be a pure waste of your talents.”
She looked inquiringly at him.
“I mean, unless you marry yourself,” he hastened to add.
“That will not happen,” Rose said, still sorting out what talents he was talking about.
“London is full of men who will fall in love with such a face as yours, even if you have no fortune.”
“As it happens I have just as large a portion as Stanley, from my mother. And therein lies the problem.”
“Problem?” Bennet gave her a blank look. “Beauty and fortune, not to mention a good seat and excellent conversation.”
Rose did not blush at his mention of her seat and cast him a speculative look. “How would I ever know if a man wanted me for my conversation or my face, or even my seat, so long as the money is in the way? No, I will not marry. I feel I can go on quite well myself. And if Bristol is too dull, in a few years I shall be old enough to set up a horse farm for myself.”
“You will never be old enough to do that. And you can be sure of your man if he has an equal or better fortune,” Bennet replied with a satisfied smile.
“Perhaps I prefer to maintain my independence.” Rose eased Gallant into a canter, thinking to interrupt the conversation.
“Perhaps he would let you,” Bennet said, matching Chaos’s stride to Gallant’s and riding dangerously close to her side so as not to have to shout. “Not every man insists on taking control of his wife’s money.”
“It is not a worry I will have. I will not marry and that is that,” Rose said, shaking her head. She brought the animal back to a more sedate trot with no more than a small tug on the reins.
“After I have removed every impediment?” Bennet asked with a grin.
“Not every one. I do not like men,” she said, slowing Gallant to a walk.
“All men?” he asked in surprise as he trotted past her.
“All the ones I have had occasion to meet.”
“And how many is that?” Bennet teased, pulling up his horse to try to intercept the gaze Rose resolutely directed straight ahead.
“Too many.”
“I see. What a fortunate circumstance, then,” he said as Rose rode past him.
His pause caused her to look around at him. “What is?”
His blue eyes glittered with mischief. “Why, I too have been pursued by fortune hunters until I confess I am quite marriage-shy myself. I too have decided never to marry.”
“That seems an odd coincidence.” Rose pursed her lips.
“Yes, it does to me as well, but there you have it. Since we are both confirmed bachelors, there is no impediment to our friendship.”
“Friendship? I can think of one.”
“Look, your brother is stealing a march on us. Race you to the edge of the park.”
Rose spurred her horse to try to overtake Bennet before he came up with Stanley. In at least one feature the two men were alike. They knew when to run away from an argument they were destined to lose.
“I have not had such a ride since hunting season,” Stanley said, patting Victor’s steaming neck and letting the horse cavort playfully, before bringing it down to a walk beside Bennet and Rose.
“You must make yourself free of my stables whenever you have time to ride. You can see they need the exercise.” Addressing Stanley, he added, “I have also put your name down as my guest at White’s and Boudle’s, so feel free to drop in there when in need of some solitude, or some companionship.”
“That is most kind of you,” Stanley said sincerely. “I fear we shall not be in town long enough to take advantage of so much hospitality.”
“You must at least stay for my sister’s coming-of-age party. She and Mother would be pleased to have family there. Oh, and I had meant to tell you, my ship Celestine is in port and the cabins are not booked. I beg you to make use of them if France or Italy is your destination. Otherwise they would travel empty.”
“Vamer, I am overwhelmed. I will pay for passage, of course.”
“I had offered rooms at Varner house but Rose would not hear of it. We get so little company.”
“But you have done so much,” Stanley said. “You must come visit us at Wall when we return. We shall be back in time for hunting season.”
“I should be delighted.” Bennet smiled at Rose in that self-satisfied way that said he had charmed her brother completely.
By the time they returned to the hotel Bennet’s groom was back to take charge of the horses, leaving Bennet free to dine with Stanley at White’s, and, Rose presumed, introduce him to his cronies. She went upstairs, shaking her head and plotting how to get the better of Bennet Varner. He was a provoking rogue. She supposed she should have expected some sophistication from a London male, but intelligence had been a surprise, though he masked it well enough. She had never known a man like him, and found to her surprise that she was looking forward to a third meeting just to match wits with him again.
“Where is Stanley?” Alice asked from the settee as Rose whisked into the parlor that was common to their two suites.
“Gone off with Bennet Varner to his club. Do you feel well enough to shop? We are invited to a ball at Varner House, and I have my doubts that I own anything elegant enough to do the occasion justice.”
“Stanley was going to take me shopping.”
“But if he goes with you it will take forever,” Rose said, unbuttoning the frogs of her jacket. “You know he cannot make up his mind about such things. Then he gives those heavy sighs when he is tired of waiting for you.”
Alice frowned in thought. “I suppose we could make a start. I shall need some new gowns.”
“Also we may be here some few days until the Celes-tine is ready to sail.” Rose opened the door into her bedroom and her maid, Cynthie, took her coat.
“Then we are going?” Alice asked with a pout.
“Of course,” Rose said. “What made you think we were not?”
“Stanley.” Alice followed Rose into her bedroom. “He said if I was meaning to be sick for days on end I might as well do it at home.”
Since Rose had had some such thoughts herself, she felt a little guilty at Alice’s tearful reply. “Don’t worry. I will bring Stanley up to scratch.” Rose selected a buff walking dress, and stepped out of her riding skirt. “I have been promised Europe and I mean to see it. I have no intention of wasting the whole season here in London.”
“But I never had a London season. Neither did you, if it comes to that. Would it be so awful to stay just a few weeks?”
“If we do not embark for France within a fortnight I shall return to Wall or Bristol,” Rose vowed, emerging from the top of the dress.
“But why are you so dead set against London?”
“Because I might meet...any number of fribbles and fops. You know I have no patience with such men.” Rose adjusted her hair in the mirror and glanced at Alice to see if she believed her.
Alice shrugged and went for her reticule and pelisse while Rose sent Cynthie to tell Martin to find them a hack. Stanley had caviled at paying passage for four servants—his valet, two maids and a groom—especially when there would be no horses involved. But Rose had held out for Martin’s quick usefulness as a footman and general dogsbody and finally prevailed when Alice begged them to stop arguing over so trivial a matter.
The young women spent a successful afternoon at the modiste and mantua makers’ shops. Rose found two evening gowns that needed no alterations, but Alice chose to have hers made from scratch and risked not having any for Harriet Varner’s birthday ball. When the carriage returned them to the hotel, Alice grabbed one small parcel of ribbons and left Martin and Rose to transport the large stack of bandboxes to the third-floor suite.
“What do you think of Bennet Varner?” Rose asked her groom as they trudged up the stairs.
Martin darted her an uncertain glance. “He’s a quick’un, miss.”
“Yes, I thought so myself. Though he acts the part of a jovial carefree fellow, I find myself expecting some hidden agenda.”
“But what could it be, miss? No one in London knows—”
“No one we know in London knows anything about what happened at Wall five years ago, but many people go to London.”
“Are you thinking of Lord Foy?”
“The war was over last year. I cannot imagine where else Axelrod Barton, Lord Foy, would be except London. Surely not at that Yorkshire estate that he described as moldering into the rock from which it was built.”
“But what are the chances of meeting him? It’s such a very big city, miss.”
“I am sure you are right, Martin, and I have nothing to fear. Ten to one Axel is still tripping about Vienna or haunting the gaming hells of Paris.”
“Besides, even if you were to encounter him, he knows nothing.”
“He remembers nothing. There is a difference and I should not wish to jog his memory.”
“I shall keep an eye out for him, miss, and warn you if he’s about.”
“Martin, don’t say anything to your sister, Cynthie. No need to alarm her unnecessarily.”
“Yes, miss,” Martin agreed as he deposited the boxes in the common sitting room for Alice and Rose to sort out.
Susan and Cynthie, the two maids, unpacked the treasures and the women spent a profitable hour planning several toilettes. Rose and Alice got on better when they spoke of trivialities. Rose truly had no intention of marrying, but she saw no point in being a dowd either. She had money and meant to enjoy it. She also knew that the best way to put forward their tour was to get Alice tricked out as soon as possible and in good twig for the crossing.
The chance that they could actually be traveling to where she might meet Lord Foy did not disturb her so much as encountering him in England. He was not likely to be touring museums or ruins. So long as they avoided British society abroad she would be safe. Therefore, the sooner they left England the better.
Bennet Varner sighed and paced from door to window for the twentieth time, looking out on the dismal courtyard below Viscount Leighton’s small room in the group of apartments known as the Foreign Office. Leighton growled and cast his pen aside, running his hand through his fair hair in exasperation. It suddenly occurred to Bennet he was annoying his best friend.
“You always get like this where there’s a woman involved,” Leighton complained. “Will this be another of those uncomfortable seasons when I am forever worrying about Foy blowing your head off?”
“That’s only happened once, and if you recall he merely wounded me,” Bennet said, throwing himself into one of the wing chairs pulled close to the small grate.
“Only because he knew you would not have him arrested for that. If he could have killed you with impunity he would have done so. And that was over your sister. Every time you make up to a woman, Foy seems to appear to take her away from you. When will you two stop this stupid competition? It started at school years ago, and you have never grown out of it, either of you.”
“I don’t know what you mean. Besides, my first meeting with Lord Foy was when I saved your skin on the playing field. Are you forgetting that?”
“I would like to. So what is this new inamorata like?”
“I don’t know what makes you think—”
“Heavy sighs from a man normally tied to his desk when he is not crawling about one of his ships.” Leighton pushed his papers aside and rose from his desk.
“She’s my mother’s goddaughter, just arrived from the country.”
“An innocent?” Leighton rifled through his desk drawers.
“Yes, in many ways, but not stupid. She is already suspicious of me.”
“Suspicious of you, a man without the sense to know when his intended has taken another man as her lover.” The slight man extended his search to the corner cupboard.
Bennet hopped up to pace again.
“Sit down. I’m sorry I said anything. Aha.” Leighton held up the brandy decanter triumphantly, sloshed some of the liquid into two glasses and handed one to Bennet as his friend paced past him. “What are you doing that she is suspicious of?”
“I’m trying to keep her in London and having a damned hard time of it.”
Leighton seated himself by the fireplace and jabbed at the small blaze with the poker. “Why keep her here, where Foy may get at her? You can follow her wherever she goes. A few weeks of dalliance in the country might be just the thing to ease your nerves.”
“To Paris?”
“Oh, that’s another matter, but the rumors may be completely false. When you think about it, does it not seem entirely fantastic that Napoleon could have any thought to leave Elba? France is facing economic ruin, the peace negotiations are nearly completed. Probably it is all a hum.”
Bennet threw himself into the other chair again. “Perhaps if I warn her of our suspicions she can delay her brother’s departure—”
“No, that you must not do, for we do not know what sort of economic panic such news would cause if it were to get about. You know what fools we aristocrats can be.”
“If I cannot tell her I will simply have to deceive Rose.”
“Rose, a country rose?” Leighton mused. “When may I meet this latest paragon of yours?”
“Harriet’s coming-of-age party tomorrow night. I don’t suppose you are in the market for a wealthy wife?”
Leighton looked sharply at him. “Not a chance, Bennet. Remember, I know Harriet Besides, she always said she was going to marry Foy when she was old enough.”
“Yes, I suppose there’s no stopping that now. Will you come anyway?”
“Yes, so long as there is no pressing business here. I will attend. I must meet the woman who has thrown you into such a fuddle.”
Chapter Two
Rose breakfasted in bed, a luxury she now allowed herself since Alice was not an early riser, and, judging from the hour at which Stanley had stumbled in, she rather thought he would be abed till noon. Of course, at Wall, she would have been up and riding two hours ago, but she was on holiday and should try to enjoy herself. She could enjoy herself now that Varner had expanded her horizons. Rose decided she could like London quite well now that she knew there was such a delightful place to ride.
Cynthie helped her into her green riding habit again, and Rose promised herself that she would buy another if Bennet appeared today. He had said they would ride every day, but it would be just like such a careless fellow to forget and leave her standing in the lobby of Greeves Hotel with Martin on watch in the street.
She spent the remaining hour before ten o’clock writing a long letter to her mother in the comparative privacy of the lounge off the lobby. Rose had just handed this over to be mailed when she saw the horses from the window and looped up the tail of her habit to go down the steps. Bennet leaped to her elbow and helped her to mount Gallant so solicitously she decided she would rumble his lay today. She would, at least, take up yesterday’s argument where he had interrupted it.
They had brought Victor for Martin to ride, and the two grooms kept a respectful distance back from Bennet and Rose.
“No horses for Stanley and Alice?” Rose asked, looking innocently around from her perch atop Gallant.
“Your brother told me Alice does not ride.” Bennet flicked an imaginary speck of dust from his plum-colored coat.
Rose wondered if he had deviated from his usual black riding jacket for her benefit. “Did he also tell you he planned to have such a bad head from staying out late drinking that he would not be able to sit a horse today?”
“No, I surmised that myself,” Bennet said proudly.
“You were with him, then?” Rose asked as she steered her horse through traffic.
“Yes, for part of the evening. I left him around midnight.”
“I cannot say that I like Stanley taking up gambling and drinking. I know all men do it, but that does not make it a safe pastime.”
“If you are worried that he will get into fast company, I assure you my friends would never fleece a guest of mine.” Chaos gave a little jump at a bright red curricle, but Bennet’s grip turned to iron and brought the animal under control. The man’s leg muscles bulged tautly under his buff riding breeches.
“You have a high opinion of your friends, sir. I shall reserve mine until I meet them.”
“Hah, I see. A recommendation from me is worthless, as you have decided to mistrust me.”
Rose stared at him to have her mind read so accurately, then turned her attention back to the last thoroughfare to separate them from their destination.
“I have surprised you, haven’t I?” Bennet prodded as they approached Hyde Park.
“Yes. As I was about to say yesterday when you galloped away to avoid the remark, you are not at all trustworthy.”
“Yes, when you said you could think of one reason we could not be friends. I saw the barb coming so thought I would avoid it until I could think of a rejoinder.”
Rose laughed. “You are a jump ahead of me today, and yes, you did surprise me. It will not happen again,” she assured him as she urged Gallant into a trot.
“That I can believe. Why do you not trust me? And do not waste time dissembling.”
Rose looked at Bennet thoughtfully. He was riding carelessly with both reins gathered in one hand and not paying any obvious attention to his horse, yet the beast was minding his subtle leg signals much better than yesterday. It struck her that Bennet rode as naturally as a soldier, and her experience of soldiers should make her dislike him. But she could not think of a clear reason to do so. She urged Gallant into a canter, using Bennet’s own trick against him. The horses would be used to having a brisk canter as soon as they got to the park, would expect it if they rode here again, she thought. Why did she not trust Bennet Varner? At the end of fifteen minutes and on the other side of the vast park she was ready to bring her mount down to a walk again and answer him, even if it meant never riding here with him again.
“All of this, the horses, your kindness to Stanley, the offer of your ship, why?”
“I did not think courtesy required a reason,” Bennet replied, his dark eyebrows arched in surprise over those innocent blue eyes of his.
“You have been more than courteous, you have been kind in the extreme, and charming enough to allay the suspicions of a brother, who though dense around women, can generally take the measure of a man.”
“Hah. Is that a compliment or an accusation?”
“You decide. It is your motivation that is suspect.”
“I’ll take it as a compliment. My motivation is quite simple. I am, in the general way, bored silly by society and the women thrown at my head by a well-meaning mother and sister who think it is high time I married. To encounter a woman who is no danger to me is refreshing in the extreme. That is why I thought we could be friends, because I am no danger to you, either.”
Rose stared at him and felt herself smiling at those laughing eyes. If he was not telling the truth, his performance at least deserved the compliment of her pretense of belief.
“And something else,” he added.
“What?” she asked, wishing she could really have such a friendship.
“I enjoy jousting with you. Do you know how rare it is to find someone able to hold her own in an argument?”
“Unfortunately, yes.”
“So there you have it. I am in some need of companionship of the abrasive kind, someone who does not agree with me at every turn just because I am as rich as Croesus.”
“You are not.”
“Not what?”
“As rich as Croesus.”
“How would you know?”
“If you were you would hire a man of business and not be at all involved in trade.” Rose lifted her chin as though his vocation mattered to her.
“It is precisely because I am involved in trade that I am so rich.”
“No matter how much your sister would like it to be otherwise?” she chided.
“Rose, don’t tell me you won’t countenance an acquaintance with a cit I had not thought you so stuffy.”
“On the contrary,” Rose said, deciding to change her tack, “I regard your involvement in trade to be the most stable thing about you. It is your avocation I disapprove of.”
“Gambling? I assure you I—”
“No! Gammoning people into thinking you a charming, empty-headed fellow when in truth...”
“In truth, what?” he prompted with a grin.
“I haven’t figured that out precisely, but I will.”
“I shall anticipate the moment. Bring sweet Alice to tea this afternoon if you wish to extend your study of my character. Bring Wall, too, if you can manage it. Mother wants to meet him, even though he is safely married.”
“Is she looking for a husband for Harriet?”
“Always. I scared off one suitor by challenging him to a duel. The offers since then have not been as forthcoming.”
“I should think not, if they are in danger of being shot.”
“Actually, I was the one who was punctured. It was a pure waste of my claret I should have let him carry Harriet off to Yorkshire.”
“That is a very hard thing to say of your own sister. How old was she?”
“Seventeen.”
“Not old enough to know her own mind.”
“Old enough to know better than to get involved with a man like Foy.”
Rose halted her mount and pretended to be checking the tightness of the girth. Bennet looked back in some concern, dismounted and went to help her down. “What is it?”
“Nothing. Martin, check the cinch,” she called. “I shall walk a little way.”
“I’ve said something to disturb you. Do you find it unnatural that I do not love my sister?”
Chaos followed behind Bennet like a large dog.
“No, of course not. It is I rather who have spoken out of turn. To condemn you for something I know nothing of is ill-done of me.”
“Well, I was going to mention that, but as you have admitted your fault I am left with no barbs to fire.”
Rose managed a brief smile, and she almost told him she knew Foy. But no, he would find out soon enough. Why ruin this day, when Axel was likely to ruin the next?
“Tell me what is wrong,” Bennet begged, looping the reins over his arm and taking her hand between his two.
“The engagement and duel, this all happened years ago.” Rose said, shaking the mental image of Axel’s piercing brown eyes from her mind. “Surely it is past history. Perhaps Foy did not even survive the war,” she said hopefully.
“No such luck. He was wounded several times and kept turning up like a bad penny to cut up our peace. This time when he begs for Harriet’s hand I shall agree.”
Rose became conscious of her surroundings and began walking again, forcing Bennet to surrender her hand. “That might make Harriet like you better, but if you did not think him worthy of her then...”
“It is not that Axel has become more acceptable, but that Harriet has managed to descend to his level. I must get her married off before she causes a scandal that I cannot squelch.”
Rose’s glance flew to his face.
“No, do not ask me what all she has been up to. By emulating her intimate acquaintances she has become very jaded. She may merely be trying to get revenge on me for being in control.”
“Perhaps, if you talked things through with her, there might be a reconciliation.”
“Harriet forgive me? Not a chance. Not with Mother on her side, and Harriet is like Mother in that respect. The catalog of my wrongs never has anything erased from it, but grows with time like the national debt. I doubt I could ever be forgiven for all my offenses.”
“You are joking.”
“Except that this birthday ball may wipe out a few. You should have your invitation by now. You are coming, of course.”
“You make it difficult to say no. But then we must be off to Paris.” She watched the smile fade from his face as he halted again.
“Do not go,” he begged.
“But I must. I must go whenever Stanley and Alice are ready to leave.” She signaled to Martin to bring Gallant, and Bennet helped her to mount.
“Help me convince Stanley to spend the season in London. You can stay in Varner House. Mother and Harriet would love to have you.”
“Now that is an untruth,” she said with her usual pert smile as she watched him swing up onto Chaos.
“Then stay to keep me from boredom.”
“To argue with you? I think you will find that grows stale after a bit.”
“Bantering with you? Never.”
The look in Bennet’s eyes could not be misread. He was not joking this time or making game of her. She smiled sadly and shook her head. One mention of her to Axel and he would revise his opinion about that. She urged Gallant into another canter, and the horse responded willingly to have two such treats in one day. What a strange man Varner was, to trust her with confidences about his family that if repeated would do them a great deal of discredit. She would not repeat them, of course. Rose never gossiped and took pains to say the best of people. She was well aware what careless chatter could do to a woman’s character, how it could mar her very life. Was Bennet Varner naive or merely the first frank man she had ever met? She would have liked to further her acquaintance with him just to puzzle that out
Bennet left Rose reluctantly at the hotel and wondered if he should risk delaying the ball just to buy a few more days. No, a celebration at Varner House would be no particular lure to the Walls, at least not to Rose. They would simply shrug and board the next packet. Just as the promise of a fine ship might not hold them. There was the possibility of making London so interesting for young Wall that he did not mind dallying in town, but Bennet caviled at introducing Stanley to any new vices just to serve his own ends.
He returned to South Audley Street, as he did frequently, to a house in pandemonium. Bennet heard his head groom sigh heavily as Bennet surrendered the reins to him and mounted the steps, prepared to untangle whatever setback was making his mother shriek in that disconcerting way. Had she only known, she could have gotten better work from the servants if she maintained her dignity rather than screaming at them like an angry fishwife.
For all her pretensions to society, Bennet felt his mother’s plebeian tantrums more of an impediment to the family’s acceptance than his involvement in trade. After quieting the seamstress and bribing her to finish Harriet’s gown by the following day, after soothing the ruffled feathers of Mrs. Marshall, the housekeeper, and convincing Armand, the chef, not to pack up and leave, be cornered his mother and sister in the morning room.
Harriet was sprawled on the sofa, crying over the dress, which she pronounced ugly beyond words. Her tears would have been more convincing if she had not been wearing an expensive new blue walking outfit.
“Then wear one of your other dresses.”
“I have worn them all. The only thing that will make the new dress acceptable is a proper necklace of diamonds.”
“And I suppose you know just the ones to set it off. Very well, write down who has them and his direction and I will have Walters pick them up tomorrow. They will be your birthday present. By the way, you have sent an invitation round to the Walls, haven’t you?”
“Well, I have invited them, though I do not see the need.” Edith spoke now, two spots of color still remaining in her sallow cheeks from her recent tantrum. “They are, after all, just country cousins. What if they embarrass us with their dress or speech?”
“They won’t, Mother,” Bennet assured her absently as he picked up the Times. Just to discomfit her he glanced critically at her black bombazine. It was an affectation, this wearing of black three years after his father’s death, when she would have looked better in some other color. But like the dyeing of her hair, Bennet put it down to bad advice from someone.
“I’m inviting Axel, then,” Harriet said in the subdued silence that followed.
Bennet raised an eyebrow, and was about to say “why not?” but decided too prompt an acceptance of her suitor might make Harriet suspicious. “If you must.” He sat and tried to focus on the financial news.
“If you get to invite the wallflower and company, I should be able to ask my friends. After all, it is my party.” Harriet seated herself at the messy escritoire and pulled a list toward her.
“What did you call her?”
“A wallflower. Those dowdy clothes. And can you imagine her playing nursemaid to a young bride? She must be odd indeed.”
“If I hear that title fastened on Miss Wall I will know where it came from, and I won’t forget your maliciousness.”
“In another day you will not have any say in what I do. I shall be in possession of my own fortune and I may marry Axel if I wish.”
“Yes, I suppose you may, but do you not think you ought to shop around a bit first? Tomorrow you become one of the most marriageable young ladies in London, and I should think you could do a great deal better than Foy. Don’t you think so, Mother?”
“Harriet is in love with Axel. Aren’t you, Harriet? Why else would she have run off with him?”
“It has been four years,” Bennet said, trying to bury himself in the paper. “May I point out Axel has made up to several other women since then, every time he lands back in London, in fact.”
Harriet’s blue eyes were ablaze with anger. “It does not seem like four years. It was my coming-out season and I remember every moment of it.”
“I too recall the entire season with nauseating clarity, especially that bullet I took for you.”
“That was your fault, Bennet,” his mother informed him.
“Don’t tell me you favored that havey-cavey elopement.”
“It was better than having you break Harriet’s heart by not letting her marry Axel.”
“Well, I will no longer be the impediment.”
“What if he does not ask me, Mother?” Harriet rose, clenching her hands together dramatically. “What if Axel’s feelings have changed, or he has been too put off by Bennet?”
“Oh, he’ll ask you all right,” Bennet interrupted. “He needs your fortune more now than ever. Oh, by the way, I have made an appointment for both of us to see Barchester tomorrow morning. The reins of your future will then be put in your hands, Harriet. Have you engaged a man of business?”
“Not...not yet.”
“Do you wish Barchester to recommend someone?”
“Certainly not. Is it necessary to have such a person with me tomorrow?”
“Not really, unless you mean to change banks immediately.”
“I haven’t decided yet.”
“Let Barchester know when you do and where you want your monies deposited. He can arrange everything.”
“I don’t want him to do anything. He always treats me like a child.”
“He means no harm by acting fatherly. Most women of independent means do not care to handle their own affairs.”
“Most women do not have such an unreasonable guardian. I suppose you will charge me rent now to stay here?”
“Do not be absurd. You are still my sister, but I’ve no doubt you will be married within the month and off my hands for good.”
“Must you both bicker like this?” their mother demanded. “You give me a splitting headache.”
“I have tried bickering alone and it just doesn’t work,” Bennet quipped, sending his mother charging from the room, grumbling to herself.
Harriet waited until their mother was gone before she giggled. “Why do you bait her, Bennet? She cannot defend herself.”
“And I cannot help myself. If only she realized how much we enjoy arguing. Seriously, Harriet, I will be placing a great deal of wealth at your disposal tomorrow. I hope you have considered that it might be wiser to keep control of it yourself than turn it over to a husband—any husband, including Axel.”
“I know what I am about. I am not the green girl I was at seventeen.”
“No, I realize that. There will also be investments to discuss. You will have to decide how you want to manage those.”
Harriet walked dreamily to the window and stared out at the redbrick residences across the way. “I think once I am married I will set up a proper town house. I consider it highly unfair Papa left you both Chesney and Varner House.”
“Hasn’t Axel some residence other than his lodgings and that estate in Yorkshire?”
“He has a house near Epsom, but I require one in London.”
“I am looking for a house for the Walls to rent. I can have Walters make inquiries for you...if you wish to make use of his services.”
“Why are the Walls looking for a house?”
“To rent merely. They cannot stay in that hotel forever, and Mother has made it abundantly clear she does not want them here.”
“But I thought they were on the point of embarking for Europe, at least before you introduced them to the social whirl of London.”
“One invitation can hardly constitute a social whirl—oh. I forgot to tell Mother I asked them to tea today to make her acquaintance before your birthday ball.”
“She won’t like that.”
“Yes, I know, but perhaps you can tell her for me. A diamond necklace should be worth one favor.”
“Very well, I will tell her,” said Harriet, walking in a businesslike way toward the door. “Just make sure my diamonds and my dress are ready by tomorrow afternoon.”
“I have nothing else to concern me at all.”
“Nothing but that nasty shipping business.”
“That nasty shipping business keeps you both in fine gig.”
“But must you flaunt it?” she asked with her hand on the doorknob.
“The world is changing, Harriet. I and other men like me helped win this last war. Don’t ask me to be embarrassed about that. Didn’t Wellington himself come to dine?”
“One evening.”
“Well, he did have a war to fight. Now go and tell Mother the Walls are coming and I expect you both to be polite to them.”
“If we must. But they are such encroaching mushrooms.”
“You have not even met Stanley and Alice yet.”
“Are we expected to entertain every country dowd we are remotely connected with?”
“Why not?”
“Why not? I have better things to do with my time.”
“Just tell Mother.”
Harriet ducked out of the room. Sometimes, just for a moment, Bennet thought he had got through to her and made some impression. There was sense in her somewhere, but then she would quote their mother or one of her fashionable friends and turn his stomach. No, he did not love his sister anymore. She had changed into some creature he disliked exceedingly.
When the Walls were shown into the elegant gold salon there were already two guests present, enjoying their tea, Lady Catherine Gravely, and her daughter, Cassandra. After the coldly polite introductions it became clear to Rose that the other two women were intimates of Harriet’s and had been invited to amuse her, since conversation with the Walls was not expected to. It was also clear who had tempted Harriet to savage her hair so badly, for both women sported a head of tight curls.
Every time Bennet introduced a topic Rose or Stanley might care to discuss, Harriet changed the subject to some personage they did not know, thus shutting them out of the conversation. Poor Alice took everything in with such wide eyes, Rose knew they would put her down as a simpleton. Lady Catherine and Mrs. Varner were no help. The former stared speculatively at Rose any time she opened her mouth and the latter seemed interested only in her daughter’s gossip. If Edith remembered Rose’s mother at all she never made reference to her.
Rose was annoyed and in the mood to show it, but she liked Bennet Varner and did want him for a friend. She admired the way he had charmed her brother and sister-in-law, no matter how much she suspected his motives. And here he was, sending her embarrassed grimaces because his sister and mother were snubbing them. She could at least enjoy that repartee with him. She gazed about the lovely ground floor salon that was used only for tea. She could imagine the elegance of the rooms that must lie above. And yet she felt sorry for Bennet Varner, always having to apologize for his mother and sister. When Stanley cleared his throat meaningfully, Rose gulped her tea and was about to make some excuse to get them away early. Suddenly Harriet did mention a name they all knew.
“Lord Foy?” Alice piped up. “Wasn’t that the man you were engaged to, Rose?”
Stanley choked on a gulp of tea and Rose paused with her cup halfway to her mouth. Bennet looked at her in inquiry.
“Foy...Foy...” Rose pretended to muse. “Is his name Axelrod Barton?”
“Yes,” confirmed Cassie, her red lips parted in surprise, the bodice of her white muslin gown straining as she turned her plump form the better to stare at Rose. Rose was surprised to discover the look of utter disgust Lady Catherine bestowed on her own child. She knew there were women who hated their children, but she had never actually seen it before.
“Yes, it must be the same man,” Rose confirmed “He was a subaltern whom Father brought home one winter. I believe he was recovering from a leg wound.”
“Shoulder,” corrected Stanley, nervously clearing his throat.
Rose shrugged and silently thanked her brother for his attempt to draw talk away from the engagement.
“By engagement,” Cassie asked playfully, “you don’t actually mean...?”
Rose stared at her as though she had not comprehended. The figured muslin Cassie wore was meant for a younger girl, or perhaps a slighter girl, and did not become her.
“I fear it was just a schoolgirl passion,” Rose said lightly. “You must know how entrancing those red uniforms can be. Was I sixteen or seventeen? I cannot recall, but when I considered seriously marrying a soldier, I thought of all the worry Mother had gone through and I backed out of the engagement. Foy understood.”
This speech damped the interest of the others but failed to appease Harriet, who was staring at Rose as though she wished her to disappear from the face of the earth. Bennet’s gaze was not one of condemnation as Rose expected, but one of sympathy and understanding.
“Then there was that dreadful incident,” Alice said, taking a provoking bite of cake so that everyone had to hang on her words until she had swallowed. Stanley gave one of his impatient sighs.
“What incident?” Lady Catherine finally demanded sharply with more than casual interest.
“Colonel Wall’s untimely death,” Alice replied knowingly.
“Yes,” agreed Rose. “The marriage would have had to be put off for a year anyway, so we mutually agreed to part.”
“How did Colonel Wall die?” Harriet asked, her intense gaze darting between Rose and Alice, “if I’m not being too personal?”
“He was trampled by a horse,” Stanley said without elaborating.
“That is why I never ride,” Alice added. “Nasty, dangerous beasts. I wonder you did not shoot the stallion, Stanley.”
“Perhaps I would have, if I had been there, but Rose was right. It was not Redditch’s fault that Father and Foy decided to ride him when they were in their cups. He’s a little wild around men he doesn’t know, anyway. I assure you he behaves perfectly for me.”
Rose wondered if part of Stanley’s tolerance derived from thinking he had tamed a beast his father could not handle.
“Still, to keep a killer horse...” Cassie shook her head in condemnation as though she knew something about horses, when Rose was quite sure from Cassie’s stout figure that she did not even ride.
“But it was an accident,” Bennet said. “I would never get rid of one of my beasts if it accidently threw Harriet and broke her neck.”
“Bennet!” Harriet cried, incensed. “That is the most unfeeling remark you have ever made.”
“No, I don’t think you can be right there. It comes nowhere near the time I compared you to the opera dancer. Then there was the incident at the East India Docks...”
“If you tell anyone about that I shall—”
“Stop it, Bennet,” his mother commanded. “To upset your sister in this way is very ill-mannered.”
“So sorry, Mother. Sometimes I forget everything you taught me about manners.”
Mrs. Varner had the conscience to look abashed at this. “You must excuse my son,” she said finally to the Walls. “Sometimes his rather misplaced wit takes him beyond the bounds of what is pleasing.”
“Humor is always pleasing,” Rose said, giving Bennet a grateful smile for drawing fire upon himself. “And anyone should be able to take a joke so long as it is made in good fun. And as much enjoyment as we are deriving from the tea, I fear we must be going soon. Alice’s dress is nowhere near completion and I am sure you must have a thousand things to see to before tomorrow night.”
They did not linger over their departure. Bennet would have sent them home in his carriage, but Stanley said they would find a hack.
“What an old tartar the mother is,” he said to Rose in the carriage. “I suppose we must go to this thing, seeing as Bennet has been so obliging.”
Alice stared at her husband, her limpid blue eyes outraged. “Surely you do not mean you would rather not?”
“Not if we are to be subjected to so much frostiness from Mrs. Varner and that other old dragon! Those two chits were not much better. I think they might have spoken to you, Alice, just for the sake of politeness.”
Rose sighed. If Stanley noticed being cold-shouldered, then it was blatant indeed. “Perhaps they will when they know her better. Ten to one she will be so busy dancing tomorrow night she will not even have time to converse with them, but there is no real need for me to go.”
“No, I think you must, Rose. After all, she is your godmother,” Stanley said firmly.
Meaning, Rose took it, that if she cried off, he would as well. That would leave Alice in floods of tears and with her to blame.
“Yes, I suppose I must. After all, an evening can last only so long. Then we will finalize our arrangements for Europe.”
“Mmm,” Stanley replied.
Chapter Three
The next day, in spite of Rose’s sporting a new pearlgray riding habit with a modish top hat, Bennet did not come to ride. He did, however, send Stilton with two mounts. Martin conferred with the older groom, making arrangements for returning the horses, Rose supposed.
They sprang Victor and Gallant as soon as they reached Hyde Park, and the carefree ride reminded Rose of their rides together at home. Her feelings for Martin, when she bothered to analyze them, were those of an older sister. She had wrested him and his sister, Cynthie, from a workhouse when their parents had been carried off by influenza. Having made herself responsible for them, she felt closer to them in many ways than to her own brother and mother. At least they had no secrets from each other, which was not the case with her own family.
Martin drew rein first to walk Victor near one of the ponds and let him get a short drink. Rose let Gallant lower his mouth to the water also, but the large gelding only played in it, flapping his lips at the icy ripples. She missed the provoking conversation of Bennet, but was unwilling to say so.
“I imagine Mr. Varner is busy today,” Martin suggested.
“Yes, I am sure that he is always busy, today especially.”
“I made some inquiries about Foy yesterday. He did survive the war.”
“I know. His name came up at tea yesterday. But Stanley and I were so engrossed in distancing ourselves from him, we never got to hear what they were saying about him.”
“He’s on the hunt for a wife, done up, by what I could make out.”
“That’s not much of a change from five years ago.”
“They say he will make a match with Varner’s sister if Varner will give his consent.”
“He will give it.” Rose scratched her mount’s withers then turned to Martin. “I keep feeling I should warn Harriet about Axel.”
“How can you do that without giving yourself away?”
“I do not know. Yet I must do something. Perhaps I should tell Bennet.”
“You can’t do that either.”
“I think I can trust him far enough to tell him how rotten Axel is without going into specifics.”
“I wish we were well out of this town. Now that we know Foy is here, France is looking better and better to me, even if I don’t know the lingo.”
“To me as well. Perhaps we should hope for a disastrous evening. That might convince Stanley that London is not as much fun as he thinks.”
“That depends on how disastrous. If Foy is pursuing the Varner chit he is like to show up at this ball.”
“I am well aware of that possibility, but I will be on the lookout for him. To be sure there will be a hundred people there. I should be able to avoid one man. If all else fails I will hide until it is time to leave.”
Martin nodded and suggested they ride on toward Green Park now that the horses were rested.
“Walters!” Bennet shouted as he came into the office, tossing a paper at his secretary and casting his hat aside. “Trace this shipment back to its source. I want to know who sent it, who paid for it and who delivered it to the dock.”
“Now?” Walters asked as Bennet went into his inner office and attacked his desk, a drawer at a time, making a mangle of the papers inside and finally knocking onto the floor the stack of documents that had been carefully arranged on the blotter.
“It’s only a matter of national security. Yes, of course, now.”
“A trunk full of books?” asked Walters, peering at the bill of lading as he gathered up the contracts.
“With a heavy bottom. There was enough gold under those French plays and poems to finance a small army, or a large army for a few days.”
“Where was it going?”
“Elba.”
“Good Lord!” Walters said, his arms full of documents as he stared myopically at the shipping order. “And on the Celestine.”
“The matter is now in the hands of the Foreign Office. Get cracking, Walters. We need that information.”
“Right away, sir, but you will be terribly late if you wait for this.”
“Late for what?”
“Your sister’s ball, of course.”
“Oh, my God. I had completely forgotten. I’ll rush ’round there and fly up the back stairs to change. You know Leighton at the Foreign Office. Seek him out and give him the information, then come to the house. Oh, did you...?”
“I picked up the necklace and earrings and delivered them to Varner House.”
“Excellent! They had them in good time?”
“Carried them ’round myself before noon.”
“You are a paragon. Give yourself a raise. I must go. Have a footman interrupt me tonight, whatever you learn. I must know.”
Gwen Rose sat observing the dancing couples in utter and unremitting boredom. She looked down again at her ivory silk gown with the scallops of seed pearls. She was impeccably dressed and had her hair gathered up in a Medusan knot of curls, restrained by a silver riband, yet no one had asked her to dance all evening. Nor was any gentleman likely to without an introduction. Several men had cast curious glances in her direction as she sat alone almost within the embrace of a large parlor palm she had struck up a friendship with. She was grateful for its company and it did seem more likely to converse with her than the dozen dowagers who were similarly ensconced in the corners of the Varner ballroom. At least its conversation, if it had any, would have been neither silly nor malicious.
She did not know how it was that she always imagined people to be talking about her. Perhaps because they so often were discussing her at the assemblies around Bristol. Typically it would be the duty of the hostess or even the hostess’s daughter to introduce newcomers about until they had struck up a conversation that seemed promising. Neither Mrs. Varner nor Harriet had made the slightest effort to ease the Walls into society.
Fortunately Stanley had become acquainted with half a dozen men from the clubs and could make Alice known to their wives, one of whom was not much older than Alice and took her under her wing. Rose supposed she could have trailed after them, but since Alice never thought to include her it would have taken some effort to attach herself to them. And she frankly found the palm better company.
The Varner ballroom, which extended out over the ground floor portico, looked much as she had suspected it would, glittering gold in the light of hundreds of candles and richly alive with music. She could see through the far doorway into the refreshment salon, which had red wallpaper. She would dearly have loved to go there to get something cool to drink and to look at the paintings on the wall. But women looked so singular when they moved about a room this size alone. The worst part would be when they had to go in to supper. She would wait until near the end so she would not be so conspicuous for not having a partner, but then it would be hard to find a place to sit. Perhaps Stanley would think to save her a seat, if he remembered to leave the card room at all. Trapped again, she thought as she sighed heavily.
She had hoped Bennet would put in an appearance, not that he would have time to joust with her. Probably his tardiness was what had the Varner women so disturbed as they whispered between themselves, casting occasional dark looks at Rose. Edith looked like a black crow in her silk, and Harriet’s dress was far too old even for a woman celebrating her twenty-first birthday, the bosom revealing the spareness of her breasts. Rose mentally took herself to task for being critical. It did not matter that she did not say these things out loud. She should not even be thinking them.
When the Gravelys arrived Lady Catherine was impeccably dressed in lavender silk and traded insincere kisses with both Varner women. Cassie was wearing a white gown trimmed with scarlet scallops and large red silk flowers to set off, Rose supposed, the exquisite necklace of rubies at her throat. They were jewels more appropriate to an older woman, but would have looked misplaced against Lady Catherine’s stark-white skin. Whatever else one said of Cassie she did have the most creamy skin. On second glance the rubies shone like drops of blood around her neck, and with the cropped hair, the specter of the guillotine loomed in Rose’s mind. Rose wondered if the association was particular to her or an intentional ploy of Cassie’s for attention. A sharp look from this miss warned Rose that she had been staring too long at her, but so had others, so Rose did not take herself to task again. If they were going to bore her, what did they expect?
She was attempting to ignore them by mentally coppicing the hedgerows around Wall, since she was quite sure the hired men were not doing so in her absence. She had rounded the horse pasture, had gotten past the stream and nearly to the stone fence when someone entered the room who caused every head to turn.
She hoped desperately that it was Bennet and she could at least exchange a bored smile with him. But the man wore a scarlet coat, and for a moment Rose’s eyes blurred with shock. It was Axelrod Barton.
Rose tried to shrink even farther into the plant’s embrace. She would wait for Foy’s attention to be diverted and slip toward the refreshment salon. Surely it had a door into the hall and she would be able to make her escape. But Axel surveyed the room like a hunter picking out his prey, his fair head thrown up arrogantly, his brown eyes slicing through the crowd, his tanned hand gripping the hilt of his dress saber. Rose felt his speculative gaze come to rest upon her. Perhaps he would not recognize her after five years. She had changed much more than he. She tried to avert her eyes, but it was as though he compelled her to look at him. When she did meet his gaze he nodded and ran the back of his hand along the faint scar on his jaw.
Rose covered her hand. The ring that had made that scar was no longer there, but it felt as though it was. She had thrown that mark of his possession back in his face. She reminded herself that she was free of Axel, that he could do nothing to hurt her, but she knew that was not true.
She sent him in return a cold, challenging look and he came to her with his wicked lip-curling smile. It was the nicest thing about him.
“You remember me,” he said, taking her hand and kissing it possessively.
“I could scarcely forget you.”
“You nearly did for me. You and that ring and that stallion of yours. I tell you, Rosie, never in all my years in the Peninsula have I seen the like of your efficiency at mayhem.”
“Must you go on about it?” Rose asked, looking distractedly at the attention they were drawing.
“What? Have I offended your maidenly sensibilities?”
“At one time or another you have offended all my sensibilities.”
“Dance with me. I think it would be so much more amusing to argue with you while you are concentrating on your steps.”
“I am not dancing,” she said firmly, daring him to dislodge her from the palm tree.
“Never say you don’t remember how, for I recall quite distinctly the dancing at our engagement party.”
“Of course I remember how. I simply am not dancing tonight.”
“Why not tonight?” he demanded, compelling her to rise to her feet so as not to have a tug-of-war with him over her hand.
“Don’t be so stupid, Axel. If I dance now they will think I have been wanting to dance all evening.”
“And haven’t you?” he asked with a laugh.
“Yes, of course, but I don’t want to let them know that,” Rose said, nodding toward the Varner women.
“But—no! This is all too complex for me. You will dance,” he said, placing an arm forcibly about her waist when the players obligingly struck up a waltz. “You owe me that much.”
As Axel whirled her down the floor Rose caught a glimpse of Harriet’s flushed and angry face, and an almost jealous look from Cassie. Certainly Mrs. Varner knew the man who was pursuing her daughter was waltzing passionately with his former fiancée. She whispered something to Lady Catherine just as they danced past. Lady Catherine’s face looked as though it had been cut in stone, for all the expression it bore.
“You have grown even more lovely with the years,” Axel said in his caressing way.
“Fustian.”
“A lady would return the compliment. Do you not still find me handsome?”
Rose glanced up at him and had to admit that she did not. “I find you dissipated.”
“Then I have achieved my aim.”
“If looking dissolute were a worthwhile object.” Rose turned her face away, desperately searching for Stanley, or Alice’s petal-pink gown.
“But women love it.” He bent to whisper in her ear. “The more scarred and disheveled I am, the more I have to fend them off.” His sun-bleached blond hair fell mockingly over his brow from its central part.
“Not all women,” Rose corrected, trying to push herself back from his embrace without tripping. “At least one woman sees you for what you are.”
“And what is that?”
“A spoiled, selfish blackguard—”
“Yes, of course.”
“You’re impossible,” she whispered viciously.
“I give you impossible. What else?”
“And dangerous.”
He gripped her even tighter. “Most certainly. I commend you on your excellent reading of my character. Though I think you should have mentioned what a fine dancer I am.”
“I had no intention of complimenting you, sir. I think very ill of you. And do not smolder, Axel. It makes you look childish.”
This last remark seemed to shake his poise. “I am a dangerous man,” he warned.
“I know that,” Rose said, fixing him with her angry green eyes.
“Then why do you not act like other women?”
“Seek you out, you mean? Common sense. A coiled snake has a certain fall-from-grace fascination about it,” she said with disgust. “That does not mean I would stretch out my hand to pet it.”
“You are piercing my hand with your nails,” Axel complained.
“I will draw blood in a moment if you do not put some space between us.”
“Any other woman in the room would be enjoying herself. They are all watching you.”
“I am well aware of that I detest being the object of so much scrutiny.”
“I can take care of that.” Axel spun her into the hallway and dragged her toward the only closed door. It turned out to be the library.
“This is the outside of enough,” Rose complained as Axel kicked the door shut and turned her wrist around behind her back to hold her close to him. “Release me or you will regret it.”
“I don’t think so,” Axel said as he captured her mouth in a hungry kiss.
But Rose had one arm free and that was enough. She drew back and punched him in the throat as hard as she could manage. Axel went to his knees, gasping for air.
The door opened and Bennet appeared, seeming startled to see a guest of his in difficulty. “Are you—Axel, what happened?”
“He cannot talk now. He is choking,” Rose informed Bennet, as though it were an everyday event.
“I can see that. Perhaps we should get him some water,” Bennet said, searching the glasses and decanters on the side table.
“Oh no, let’s not. I mean, it’s only Axel. He’ll be fine.”
“Brandy!” Axel gasped, staggering to his feet and supporting himself with a hand on the edge of the desk.
“See,” Rose replied.
“Still,” Bennet said, repressing a chuckle, “I think I should do something. Can’t have him expiring in the library.”
“Oh, very well,” Rose agreed. “I will get some.” She exited in no particular hurry.
Axel gulped from the glass Bennet put in his hands and had a renewed fit of coughing that lasted several minutes.
“Well, perhaps brandy wasn’t the best choice,” Bennet decided. “What happened?”
“She punched me in the throat,” Axel complained hoarsely.
“No! Really?” Bennet bit his lips to keep from laughing outright.
“Yes, ow!” Axel was still feeling the injured area.
“Dangerous woman,” Bennet observed sympatheti-cally. “Shall I call my carriage to take you home?”
“Devil take you, Varner!”
“He probably will, and you as well,” Bennet said, refilling Axel’s glass and pouring some wine for himself.
“See that this doesn’t get about”
“Would a host gossip about his guests? Besides, I do not even know the lady.”
“Just see to it. And I want a word with you later,” Axel said menacingly as he left the room.
“As soon as you feel up to it.” Bennet sat down at his desk and laughed at the thought of Rose fending off Axel so efficiently. But then, she knew Foy. He had to keep reminding himself of that. The two of them probably knew each other better than he knew either one of them, and that was a sobering thought.
Where the hell was Walters? He wanted to know what was going on. He went to the small side door and unlocked it. Opening it, he stared down the dark back stair that came out in the stable block, but there was no unusual activity so he closed it.
Music flowed into the room as the hall door opened and Rose spun in. “I could not find any water. Will champagne do? Oh, he is gone.”
“You do not seem much bereft.”
“I am not, actually. Had he still been here I might have felt compelled to apologize.” Rose fingered her injured arm.
“To Foy? No, my dear. I feel sure he had it coming. Did he bruise your wrist?” Bennet came to take the glass from her and put it on the desk.
“Probably, but I wear gloves most everywhere.”
“I am sorry, Rose,” he said, keeping hold of her hand. “If only I had not been detained.”
“Oh, do not regard it. Axel and I always clash. I only hope I have not distressed Harriet.”
“How could that be so?”
“She saw Axel dancing with me.”
“She will get over it.”
Rose sighed. “What... what did he say about me?”
“That you are a dangerous woman. But I had already surmised that.”
“My antagonism toward Axel is of long standing, but I do not know why he thought he could get away with dragging me in here.”
The smile suddenly left Bennet’s face. “Did anyone see you leave the room with him?”
“Bennet, everyone saw.”
“Then you must go back in on my arm.”
“I do not care so much for myself,” she said, letting him take her arm, “but if there is talk, Stanley will never forgive me.”
“Do not worry. We shall put a stop to it.”
As they entered the ballroom during an interval between two dances, the buzz of talk and the subsequent lull that followed them through the room convinced Rose she had been the subject of conversation. She scanned the crowd for some friendly face, or at least a familiar one. There was only Alice standing near Cassie, and Axel talking earnestly to a stone-faced Harriet. Fortunately Stanley was nowhere in sight—probably still in the card room.
Bennet ignored them all. He spoke to the musicians and had them strike up a waltz. Rose admired the masterful way he got just what he wanted. Other couples joined them on the floor after frantically checking dance cards and discovering that this waltz was nowhere on the program. Rose wondered how much of the gossip was about her hasty exit with Axel and how much sprang from what he might have said about her. It hardly mattered. She could not show her face again in London. But the Walls were poised to launch themselves toward Europe. They should be able to stay ahead of even Axel’s agile tongue. And in four or five months she would go to live at her mother’s house in Bristol, a city that had run its length gossiping about her.
It was worth facing them all down to stand up just once with Bennet Varner, the only man she had ever met who was worth talking to. She forgot about the rest of them and focused her attention only on him and the music. These few minutes made up for the whole interminable evening. He smiled at her and she sailed around and around almost as though they were one being. Only his stopping signaled her that the music had ceased as well.
“Come, I shall lead you in to supper.”
“Surely there are many with precedence over me.”
“None, in my estimation. At any rate I have no idea who they would be.”
Rose let Bennet escort her into the formal blue and white room, fill her plate with all manner of delicacies and supply her with a glass of iced punch. The table seemed to go on for miles and no one sat close enough to disturb them. Except for an occasional glare from Harriet or Mrs. Varner, Rose could have imagined she was some quite ordinary girl enjoying a first flirtation with an extraordinary man. He rattled on about the Celestine, his ship, and how much fun she would have in Italy, just as soon as the mainmast was replaced.
“The mainmast?” she asked, swallowing a bite of lobster cake the wrong way. “But that sounds rather serious.”
“The work of a day or two—no more.”
“You make everything sound so easy, when actually I am quite sure it is an enormous undertaking, to change a mast and get it fastened to the ship.”
“No, were you thinking that the deck held it up?” he asked, standing a candle in an aspic jelly and watching it fall over.
“Yes, well, I have never thought much about it. I have stayed in Bristol, of course, and watched the ships but I have never been on one.”
“What holds the masts up is all of the rigging. It is most important that for every line pulling forward there is one pulling backward with an equal amount of tension. The same thing left to right.”
“It all makes such perfect sense when you explain it, but does not that put our departure off even farther?” she asked astutely.
“What do you mean?”
“All that rigging will have to be taken down, then put back up again.”
“Oh what is another day or two when you are making such a hit in London?”
“A hit? I am no such thing. I am probably the most talked-about woman in town this night.”
“Yes, that is what I meant,” Bennet said, staring into her eyes.
“Do be serious, Mr. Varner,” she said sternly. “You cannot want to be in the company of an infamous woman.”
“My friends call me Bennet.” He rested his elbow on the table and his chin on his hand to study her better.
“What do your enemies call you?”
“I see to it that I have no enemies,” he said with that determined smile of his, and Rose wondered if he did not make them or if he simply eliminated them.
“You have one—Axelrod Barton, Lord Foy. He is looking daggers at you this very moment.”
“Like yours, my antagonism with Axel goes back so far he is like a bunion. It feels odd when he is not rubbing at me.”
Rose laughed and then sobered herself. “Unfortunately Axel is more dangerous than a bunion. He is at home here and I am the outsider. Whatever he says will be believed.”
Bennet forcibly drew his gaze away from the slender mounds of her bosom and got lost in Rose’s eyes again. “Oh, I think if you are accepted by my family your character will bear scrutmy.”
“If my acceptance hinges on your family’s approval, then it is fortunate that it does not matter to me what people think.”
“I can take care of Mother and Harriet. But if you do not care what people think, then why did you come back into the library when another woman would have run off and had the vapors.”
“Because I do care what you think of me...friend.”
“And I care—what is it?” Bennet said impatiently to the footman whispering in his ear. “I must leave you for a few minutes, Rose. Forgive me.”
The glow of Bennet’s safe aura lasted only a moment after he followed the footman out. Rose now found herself to be the object of scrutiny from so many pairs of eyes she felt she had to do something. She brushed at an imaginary stain on her gown, then got up in mock frustration and went upstairs to find one of the chambers prepared for the ladies to withdraw into to relieve themselves or repair torn hems. She was not lucky enough to find an empty one so she did not stay to listen to the idle chatter. The talk seemed rather forced after her entrance.
She crept back down one flight and stole into the unoccupied library. Such a delightful room, a fire burning in the grate and her pick of books. She chose a volume of Diderot’s encyclopedia and seated herself in the high-backed armchair turned toward the fire. She curled her legs up in the chair, thinking that the cozy leather must have embraced Bennet often. The dark paneled room said Bennet to her, from the highly polished furniture to the shelves and shelves of well-used books. No matter how much she tried to apply herself to the text her mind kept wandering to her friend and that provoking smile of his.
She thought she must have dozed, for a sudden draft awakened her and subsequent covert sounds of liquid being poured indicated that whoever had come through that oddly placed side door was no burglar but was quite at home. The hall door opened and she heard confident steps.
“Gaspard, what news?” Bennet demanded in perfect French.
Rose gaped in the privacy of her chair as Gaspard revealed plans to free Napoleon from his island prison. He mentioned half a dozen ships, L’Inconstant by name, and a thousand men.
“They managed to evade the British cruisers then,” Bennet said. “Amazing.” Bennet’s contributions to the conversation, though in fluent French, were noncommittal. None of the news, though he demanded details, seemed to be much of a surprise to him. Rose listened to his inflection to see if she could tell if he were a part of this heinous plot, but she could not.
The door was flung open again and Rose thought the room was getting a trifle crowded. Her danger of being discovered was great, even if she made no sound.
“Leighton, come in,” Bennet said. “You are very late.”
“I just got Walters’s message,” the new voice said excitedly. “I had to dispatch a flurry of reports just in case.”
“Gaspard seems to have little doubt his news from the fishermen on Elba is true.”
The door to the library thumped open again and Rose moaned inwardly, drawing tighter into the cover of the wing chair.
“Bennet, I want to speak to you now,” Axel demanded drunkenly.
“Not now, Foy, can you not see I am engaged?”
“This cannot wait.”
“Oh, very well. Leighton, take Gaspard, go to your office and await me there.”
This last was spoken in English, Rose supposed, for Axel’s benefit. To her relief at least two of the men left by the exterior door.
“I am not asking permission this time. I am telling you. I mean to have Harriet.”
“Yes, of course,” Bennet replied. “Brandy?”
“What do you mean? She told you?”
Rose heard glasses being filled and wondered what Bennet was playing at.
“We discussed all this when I turned her inheritance over to her,” Bennet said calmly. “She is responsible for her own fortune now. It was nice of you to come to ask formally for her hand, but there was really no need.”
“But I didn’t,” Axel replied.
“But surely you intend to,” Bennet countered.
“You cannot stop me.”
“I do not mean to. I only stood in your way four years ago because of her young age. Since her attention has remained fastened on you all these years, I see now that I was wrong.”
“You admit you were wrong?” Axel asked incredulously.
“Yes, her love for you, compared to the length of most affairs in London, amounts to a grand passion. Without a doubt, you and Harriet belong together.”
Rose heard their glasses click together, but she did not imagine Axel was participating in the toast.
“We do? Yes, of course we do. So there are no settlements to work out?”
“Not between the two of us. You have only to deal with Harriet. Do you plan a large wedding?”
“I—we haven’t decided yet.”
“Allow me to put one of my traveling carriages at your disposal for your honeymoon. Also Harriet has taken a notion to have a London house. I can be no end of help to you there.”
“I prefer to make my own arrangements, if you don’t mind.”
“Not at all. Just let me know if I can be of service.”
“I—I will.”
The door opened and closed with less assurance this time and Rose breathed a sigh of relief. If only Bennet would leave now. She heard him chuckling to himself. So, he was not really foisting his sister on such a villain as Foy, but was making a May game of the man. She heard footsteps coming toward the fireplace and closed her eyes as if in sleep. She detected a slight gasp when Bennet discovered her, but maintained her pose. He said nothing, but she could feel his weight on the arms of the chair, his breath on her forehead, then his lips on hers. Her eyes flew open.
“Wh-what are you doing?” she stammered as she shrank into the chair.
“Waking a very appealing sleeping beauty.”
“I do not think you really believed me to be asleep.”
“Of course, you were asleep. Otherwise I might suspect you of eavesdropping.”
“No one could have slept though Axel’s incoherent ranting.”
“Aha, that should have been my line, not yours.”
“Very well, I was pretending to be asleep to avoid embarrassment.” She stood and closed the volume.
“For you or me?”
“For both of us. And as long as I have been accused of spying—” she laid an accusing emphasis on the word but Bennet only grinned at her “—what do you mean by handing your sister over to such a rake?”
“But if I make it easy for him, he may decide he does not want her. Believe me, I know Axel.”
“I know him too.”
“I have been trying to forget that,” Bennet said with the first edge to his voice that she had ever heard. He put down his glass and deliberately kissed her. And she let him, only coming to her senses when she realized this was just the sort of thing she would have killed Axel for. But Bennet was nothing like Axel. Still, this was not a kiss of friendship, and she had to put him in his place.
When he finally released her she sniffed and said, “In your own way you are just as ruthless and manipulative as Axel.”
“Something tells me I should take offense at that,” he replied, trying to get close to her lips again and finding a volume of Diderot thrust in his face instead.
“Something tells me you won’t. I must go and find Stanley and Alice. It is time we were taking our leave.”
He did not try to detain her but chuckled again as he replaced the volume on the shelf. It was in French and if he knew anything about Miss Gwen Rose Wall, he could make a guess that she was not just looking at the pictures. He went over his conversation with Gaspard in his mind. Even if she spoke of it, and he did not think she would, she was scarcely likely to spook their quarry, not before the trap had been sprung. He really must remember never to underestimate her again.
Chapter Four
The next day Rose and Martin had ridden alone again and Rose decided to go with Martin to return the horses to Varner House. They rode around the corner past that larger side portico to the stable block off the alley. Rose was not surprised at the opulence of this part of the house. She was just complimenting Stilton on the facilities when Bennet drove in with a high-stepping team that required all the efforts of his tiger to subdue while Bennet jumped down in order to be the one who lifted Rose from the saddle and set her gently down on the paved brick courtyard. “I’m sorry I missed our ride today. Surely you were not going to walk back to the hotel.”
“I had some thought of getting a hack and going shopping down Oxford Street on the way back,” she replied, stepping out of his embrace.
“Did you enjoy your ride?”
“Immensely, since I did not have to fend off either Axel or you.”
“I must apologize for my behavior last night I was...drunk.”
“I know when a man is drunk and you were no such thing.”
Bennet, looking boyish in his somber attire, blinked at being contradicted. “Excited then. I lost my head.”
“That’s not much of an excuse for your behavior in the library last night,” Rose said, turning her back.
“Stealing a kiss?” Bennet walked around in front of her, blocking her retreat from the stable block. “Is it my fault you are utterly irresistible...friend?”
Rose noticed that both grooms and the tiger were pointedly ignoring them, meaning they could hear every word. “That was not a kiss of friendship,” she whispered urgently. “Martin,” she called. “Please go find us a hack.”
“Don’t bother, Martin,” Bennet countered. “I will take you back to your hotel or shopping if that’s what you wish.” Saying that he lifted Rose into the curricle, which seesawed slightly behind the agitated team. He had swung her about so effortlessly it almost made her giddy. She should resent that, but somehow she found that she liked to be a bit dizzy when in Bennet’s company. It let her say things she would never think to say to another man.
Bennet hopped in, grabbed the reins and spared no more than a backward glance to make sure Martin and the tiger had swung up behind. “Now where were we?” he asked Rose as he feathered the turn into the street.
“In too public a place to discuss anything private,” Rose reminded him.
“I’m sure I can rely on the discretion of my tiger just as you trust Martin.”
Rose stared at him, wondering how much of her connection with Martin he divined. “It was not your loss of control that worried me the most.”
“What then?” Bennet glanced at her in such apparent innocent good humor she felt unable to upbraid him about the presence of the Frenchman in his library. If he were guilty of clandestine activity against the government would he be likely to have the effrontery to invite her condemnation? The answer was yes. From her brief experience of Bennet Varner, there was little he would not dare and nothing he could not carry off. She must not let herself be as swayed by his charm as everyone else was. Beginning to feel her long silence had grown awkward, Rose scrambled in her mind to find some other flaw with which to upbraid him, but she could not.
Bennet grinned at her speechlessness. “Do you go to the party at Lady Catherine’s house tonight?” he asked absently.
“No, why should they invite us?”
“Because it would be the gracious thing to do for the relatives of a close friend, which is precisely why they have not.”
“You sound as though you resent them as much as...”
“As much as I dislike my own mother and sister? That was what you were about to say, wasn’t it?”
“Yes, but then I remembered my manners.”
“You won’t have much use for them in London,” Bennet said, passing a string of carts and running the danger of locking wheels with a mail coach before he nipped back to his side of the street. “You will meet a great many people here who will be gracious to your face, but who will talk about you unmercifully behind your back.”
“And how are they different from people anywhere else?” she asked, clutching the side of the curricle as he feathered another corner. It suddenly occurred to her that they were not going to Greeves Hotel, that they were not, in fact, even going in the right direction.
She was about to point this out to Bennet when he turned a look of genuine surprise upon her. “You have been the subject of gossip before?”
“Yes,” she said guardedly. “The breaking of an engagement, even when done by mutual agreement, is bound to be a cause for gossip.”
“Was that the only reason for the gossip?” He asked it casually, as though it were a matter of little interest to him. But Rose read it as an invitation to confide in him. Had there not been the tiger pointedly ignoring them, she might have been tempted, but there were Martin’s feelings to consider as well.
“You know what Axel is. I offended his pride by crying off. Even though he took the ring back with relief, he gave it about that he was the one who jilted me and hinted at some dark reason for his decision.”
“Yes, putting all the blame on you without saying anything actionable.”
“As though I would take him to court when all I wanted to do was forget...” Rose ran out of breath, and Bennet looked at her with concern.
“Forget Axel? Impossible. He is like a boil on one’s neck. It is impossible to forget him even when he is a thousand miles away.”
Rose laughed nervously. “Does Lady Catherine entertain often?”
“Nearly every week. She needs material and that is the easiest way to get it.”
“Material? Whatever do you mean?” Rose stared about at the shops they were now passing, mapmakers, chandlers and an excise office.
“For her rumor mill. When I said Harriet had fallen under some bad influence it was the Gravelys I was referring to. They have taught her to be spiteful with a smile, playing people against each other for amusement—the sort of social torture I would like to warn you of.”
“In order to be hurt by them I should have to care what they thought, what anyone thought of me, and I do not.”
“Does Alice?” Bennet asked, drawing a conscience-stricken look from Rose.
“Yes, but she is an innocent. What has she to worry about?”
“Last season they took Miss Robin Coates on as their protégée, led her into excesses that became too dangerous. Now they have dropped her. She will never receive another invitation from either family, and no word of explanation.”
“But what has that to do with—”
“Ah, here we are,” Bennet said with satisfaction, and he pulled the team to a halt on the dock.
“But where are we?” Rose demanded, letting him swing her down from the curricle all the same.
“The Celestine. I was sure you would want to inspect her.”
“And if I feel that the staterooms are too small?” Rose looked critically at the three-masted schooner with its green and gilt trim.
“Why, we can have them enlarged. Of course, we shall have to throw part of the cargo overboard, but it’s only money. Actually I knew they were to remove the old mast today, so I thought you might like to watch.” Bennet looked up at the intricate block and tackle arrangements and nodded.
“You are impossible!” Rose said as she let him take her arm to help her along the crowded quay.
“Just when I was congratulating myself on how agreeable I was being.”
“You know what I mean.”
“Shall I carry you? I would not want you to trip on your riding habit and fall into the Thames.”
“I can manage,” Rose said as she threw the tail of her long skirt over one wrist and skipped up the planked gangway.
“This is Captain Cooley,” Bennet said. “Miss Gwen Rose Wall will be sailing with you to Europe.”
“Aye, if we ever get out of port. It’s yer own ship and all, but to be replacin’ a perfectly fine mainmast...” Cooley shook his head grimly as the chocks squeaked and the men heaved. The mast was belayed with stout ropes until the pulleys could be repositioned, run out and fastened to the mast again as the huge billet of wood swayed ponderously over the deck. A man in a carpenter’s apron was excitedly crawling about underneath the many tons of wood, making Rose’s flesh creep. Cooley went over at the seaman’s excited exclamation and lay down on the deck himself to examine the butt of the mast. He rose again and waved his hand, shouting some order that started the pulleys to squeaking again.
“Well, I’ll be blasted! Beggin’ yer pardon, miss. It beats me how you knew that mast was cracked afore I did, Mr. Varner. You can see the interior crack from the base. It would probably have riven into splinters in the next storm. You are a wonder, sir. Yer father would’ve been proud of ye.”
Rose thought she had caught a look of surprise flit across Bennet’s face before his usual aspect of cheerful confidence reasserted itself. If Bennet had known the mast was cracked then this had not been a deliberate ruse to keep her in London a few more days. But if, as she surmised, it had been a lucky guess, it meant Bennet was still suspect. What could he hope to accomplish in a few days or a week—the liberation of Napoleon? The realization hit her in a warm rush. If Bennet were trying to contrive that, then he must know Europe would soon be a very dangerous place for the English, or was it just that he could not afford to let her and her knowledge loose on the Continent?
Absurd! She was much more of a danger to Bennet here in London than in Paris. She could and probably should march right into the Foreign Office and tell them what she had overheard. She went over in her mind how she would tell it, how she would probably be unsuccessful in gaining an audience with anyone of importance, how they would disbelieve her even if she got someone’s ear. She would appear a fool, but what did that matter where the safety of the country was at stake? She considered for no more than a moment confiding in Stanley. He was so unused to trusting her judgment in any matter of importance that she knew he would only say she must have misheard and dismiss her concern.
“Seen enough?” Bennet’s abrupt question caused Rose to jump.
She cleared her throat. “We have not seen the cabins yet.”
“I think you will be quite pleased on that account. Let me go down the companionway first so that I may assist you.”
“I do not need any help,” Rose insisted. But the effort of bunching up her riding skirt and trying to keep it tucked about her so as not to expose her ankles left her with only one hand to hang on to the ladder. She could not see her feet, and one misstep caught her off balance. She let go of her skirts but too late to avoid a tumble backward into Bennet Varner’s arms. After her initial gasp she clutched him around the neck and looked accusingly into his eyes. “Knowing you as I do I might almost think that was no accident.”
“Of course not. I bring all my chères amies here, hoping they will fall down that ladder into my arms ”
“You can put me down now.”
“What?”
“Miss, are you all right?” Captain Cooley called from the deck.
“We’re fine,” Bennet shouted back.
“Harrumph. I was askin’ Miss Wall.”
“I’m all right, Captain Cooley. Thank you,” Rose called. “He seems to have your measure,” she said quietly to Bennet.
“He’s like a father to me.”
“Exactly.”
When Bennet finally did set her on her feet again, it was some minutes before the warmth of his touch could be driven from her mind. He hefted her as though she weighed nothing. Bennet Varner was neither an office recluse nor a society lapdog, but a man capable of physical prowess, and Rose did not believe he had got that way just training horses.
“Do the cabins meet with your approval?” he asked after she had meticulously looked through all of them. They did have small windows but she was agreeably surprised by their scrubbed and polished look.
“They are much more spacious than I ever dreamed. Shall I have our trunks sent down?”
“Not quite yet. They would only be in the way for the moment,” Bennet said as he conducted her to the ladder. Rose made him go first for she was quite sure ascending was much easier than going down, especially if there was no one staring up your dress. And she must get the hang of it, for Bennet would not always be there to catch her.
Rose turned her face into the breeze and inhaled deeply. She could imagine clinging to the rail as the ship plunged between waves like a frisky horse, tossing its head and glorying in what it did best. Bennet came to stand behind her. She could almost feel the heat of his body vibrating through the slight space of air that must remain between them.
“Do you not fear seasickness?” he asked, quite out of tune with her romantic thoughts.
“Not in the least,” she said with a smile.
“I did not mean you, of course, but your sister-in-law seems of a delicate constitution.”
“Oh, I am sure Alice will be sick, but it will not be as bad as being shut up in a carriage with her the whole way from Wall. On the ship she can have her maid to mop her brow with lavender water.”
Captain Cooley strolled over to see them off the ship. “Seasickness? Not unless it be a rough crossing. If you are used to a horse galloping under you, the Celestine will seem like a cradle.”
Rose almost laughed out loud at the look of woe this caused on Bennet’s face. “But I suppose we will be delayed weeks over this mast, sir,” Rose said ingenuously.
“Weeks? Bless you, miss. No. This is but a trifle. We could sail day after tomorrow if we was not waitin’ fer a cargo.” As this last was said with a somewhat accusing glance toward Bennet, Rose surmised that the delay was deliberate.
“Thank you, Captain Cooley, for letting me see the Celestine. I can look forward to the voyage with a quiet mind now.”
Cooley clicked his heels together, bowed and kissed her hand for good measure.
“What a gentlemen,” Rose said as she negotiated the narrow gangway. She did not refuse the hand Bennet stretched to her as she made her way down the ramp to the quay nor the strong arms that lifted her into the carriage.
“I suppose you think it rather archaic for a bride to need the comfort of a sister along on her wedding trip, and not even her own sister at that.”
“It’s as good a way to escape home as any,” Bennet replied, getting in beside her and taking the reins from his tiger.
“Disabuse yourself of the notion I came willingly. My mother insisted upon it.”
“Your mother?” Bennet queried as he skillfully turned the curricle in the tight area of the wharf and set off.
“Yes, I think she wanted to dislodge me from Wall, make me give up the management of it. Perhaps she and Stanley even conspired to rip me from my moorings in this fashion.”
“Then you do not really want to go to Europe?” Bennet asked hopefully.
“Oh, for lack of anything better to do, but no, it was not my idea.”
Rose glanced at Bennet’s profile, watching the wheels grind behind his so innocuous eyes. She wondered if he would now try to give Stanley and Alice a disgust of the voyage, or failing that, the Continent itself.
“I was thinking,” Bennet said, “since you have no engagement for tonight you might like to use my box at the theater. It’s a new play and I think you might like it. You can at least be sure your pleasure will not be interrupted by the appearance of Mother and Harriet, since they will be at Lady Catherine’s rout.”
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Laurel Ames
He Was Surrounded By Meddlesome Women!The thoughtless antics of his mother and sister had dashing shipping magnate Bennet Varner fleeing all females… until he collided with the impregnable wit of the infamous Gwen Rose Wall - a woman as clever as she was captivating.Besieged by scandal, the beleaguered Miss Wall had vowed never to wed. But the dauntless Varner had his own plan of attack - to use all the wiles at his disposal to scale the ramparts of rumor and rescue the lady's heart!
Praise for Laurel Ames’ previous titles (#ucee74ff4-28b3-5740-9428-e2a49f3fd243)“Would not a broken mainmast put our departure for Europe off even further?” (#u464810e0-0a36-505a-b8a8-784d8a071a1b)Letter to Reader (#u87c2e516-d539-54b6-bb64-a9c934dabfe6)Title Page (#ud08df5ce-bc01-5ab2-b274-dfaea2a4be06)About the Author (#u68c2b9e6-6bed-5c59-a7ec-830c4a84d79f)Dedication (#u7355a8cb-55ee-5744-a7d4-f042cc7dc703)Chapter One (#uda10d3a6-d754-5f6f-81ea-a562bdf33c25)Chapter Two (#u212fc324-fcd5-5fb4-b383-346ef5b08b8a)Chapter Three (#u19a51bf3-f759-53d4-9ff7-74805638484c)Chapter Four (#u3e22a85d-9e22-5bbf-8afc-40f39dd6f7a8)Chapter Five (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Six (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Seven (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Eight (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Nine (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Ten (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Eleven (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Twelve (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Thirteen (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Fourteen (#litres_trial_promo)Epilogue (#litres_trial_promo)Copyright (#litres_trial_promo)
Praise for Laurel Ames’ previous titles
Nancy Whiskey
“A spellinding romance guaranteed to quicken hearts everywhere.”
—Rendezvous
Tempted
“A rollicking romp filled with romance and mystery!”
—The Literary Times
Playing to Win
“A truly delightful and humorous tale...”
—The Paperback Forum
Besieged
“Witty dialogue and heartwarming characters combine for a wonderfully old-fashioned tale of true love.”
—Rendezvous
Homeplace
“...the perfect summer read...”
—the Literary Times
Castaway
“This special treasure is on the cutting edge of the genre...”
—Affaire de Coeur
Teller of tales
“...so hauntingly good ..it seems impossible that this is her first published work.”
—Affaire de Coeur
“Would not a broken mainmast put our departure for Europe off even further?”
Rose asked astutely.
“Oh, what is another day or two when you are making such a hit in London?” Bennet replied.
“A hit? I am no such thing. I am probably the most talked-about woman in town.”
“Yes, that is what I meant,” Bennet said, staring into her eyes. They reminded him of the sea.
“Do be serious, Mr. Varner,” she said sternly. “You cannot want to be in the company of an infamous woman.”
“My friends call me Bennet.” He rested his elbow on the table and his chin on his hand to study her better.
“What do your enemies call you?”
“I see to it that I have no enemies,” he said with that determined smile of his, and Rose wondered if he did not make them or if he simply eliminated them.
Dear Reader,
It’s June, so start thinking about your summer reading! Whether you’re going to the beach or simply going to relax on the porch, don’t forget to bring along a Harlequin Historical
novel. Since publishing her very first book with us in 1993, Laurel Ames has gone on to write eight books, which critics have described as “hauntingly good,” “cutting edge” and “endearing.” Her latest, Infamous, is a delightful Regency about a dashing nobleman and spy whose silly and snobbish mother and sister do their best to foil a romance between him and the one woman he feels is worth pursuing—a beautiful and smart country heiress who’s hiding secrets of her own.
Tori Phillips returns this month with Midsummer’s Knight, the sequel to Silent Knight. Here, a confirmed bachelor and a wary widow betrothed against their will switch identities with their friends to spy on the other, and fall m love in the process. In Runaway by Carolyn Davidson, a young woman who becomes a fugitive after an act of self-defense is discovered by a kind cowboy, who takes her back to his parents’ Missouri home as his “wife.”
And don’t miss Widow Woman, the first historical title by long-time Silhouette Special Edition
author Patricia McLinn, about a feisty female rancher who must win back the heart of her ex-foreman, the man she once refused to marry and the unknowing father of her child.
Whatever your tastes in reading, you’ll be sure to find a romantic journey back to the past between the covers of a Harlequin Historical
novel.
Sincerely,
Tracy Farrell
Senior Editor
Please address questions and book requests to:
Silhouette Reader Service
U.S.: 3010 Walden Ave., P.O. Box 1325, Buffalo, NY 14269
Canadian: P.O. Box 609, Fort Erie, Ont. L2A 5X3
Infamous
Laurel Ames
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
LAUREL AMES
Although Laurel Ames likes to write stories set in the early nineteenth century, she writes from personal experience. She and her husband live on a farm, complete with five horses, a log spring house, carriage house and a smokehouse made of bricks kilned on the farm. Of her characters, Laurel says, “With the exception of the horses, my characters, both male and female, good and evil, all are me and no one else.”
For Ma and Dad, whose unfailing support
and enthusiasm have encouraged me
to write far more than I ever thought possible.
Chapter One
London, February 1815
“Men are the most arrogant, helpless and stupid creatures on the earth,” Miss Gwen Rose Wall said out loud as she strode along South Audley Street into a brisk head wind, strangling her reticule with both hands. “Especially my brother, Stanley.” Her almost military gait caused her brown wool pelisse to flap open, cooling her heated anger to a becoming flush by the time she found the house number she was seeking on one of the corners. Its generous size, the tripartite Venetian windows and long side portico distinguished Varner House from the other residences on the street. However, it was not this grandeur that daunted Rose from entering, but a series of shouted expostulations in a high-pitched female voice. Though the content of the expletives was shrouded by the stout brick walls of the house, it was clear the woman was neither being attacked nor in pain, but was extremely angry. When the screeches momentarily ceased, Rose shrugged and began to ascend the steps under the portico, thinking that once she paid this duty visit her time in London would be her own, no matter what Stanley said.
A youngish man dashed out, putting on his hat and skipping down the steps so rapidly he collided with Rose. He would have overbalanced her backward had he not caught her in his arms. He stared at her with such a look of surprise and friendliness that Rose stared back, wondering if he recognized her. But his boyish face, creased with laugh lines and alight with a pair of merry blue eyes, was unknown to her. She found herself to be holding his hat, which she must have caught as it tumbled from his head. His long black hair was hanging over his brow now in tempting disarray and she had the most maddening urge to run her hands through it to stroke it back in place.
“Bennet!” shrieked the voice from the open doorway. “You come back in here this instant and explain.... What do you mean by kissing female persons on the front steps?”
A small hatchet-faced woman appeared with her fists clutching a silk shawl closed. Her perfectly black hair seemed unnatural planted on top of a face so seamed with age and frustration.
“I wasn’t kissing her, Mother.” He finally released Rose. “I was running her down in my haste. So sorry, miss—uh miss—?”
Rose cleared her throat and handed him his hat. “Miss Gwen Rose Wall.”
“I am Bennet Varner, and this is my mother, Edith.”
“I know. I mean, I was coming to pay a call on my godmother, Edith Varner.”
“Wall? Wall? I swear I must be godmother to half of England. Who is your mother?”
“Mrs. Eldridge Wall.” When this failed to elicit a spark of recognition, Rose added, “Who was formerly Miss Maryanne Varner, a rather distant cousin of yours, I believe. But I see I have caught you at a bad time. Perhaps another day would do better. I’ll leave my card with you.” Rose flicked this out of her reticule and handed it to Bennet, who accepted it eagerly.
“Nonsense,” Bennet said. “You must come inside. Too cold a day to be standing about on the steps.” He took her arm and pulled her up the remaining steps and through the door past his mother, who was staring at him as though he had taken leave of his senses. “And I’ve given you a fright,” he added.
“But you were going out, and in some haste, as I recall,” Rose protested as she surrendered her pelisse to the butler and tried not to gape at the grand staircase leading to the next floor, which must contain a ballroom, she surmised, to do justice to so much carved and polished oak.
“Oh, I wasn’t going anywhere important.”
“You said you had an appointment,” his mother accused as she followed them into a cheerful morning room where a fire blazed on the hearth and a modish young woman sat petulantly at an escritoire.
“My sister, Harriet Varner. This is Miss Gwen Rose Wall from...”
“Wall,” Rose supplied. “It is near Bristol.” Rose seated herself on the sofa Bennet indicated. He claimed the seat beside her, totally ignoring his mother, who had planted herself on a nearby chair.
Harriet stared at Rose appraisingly and Rose felt the girl to be adding up the cost of her blue wool walking dress and weighing it against her own filmy muslin gown and pearls. Harriet’s was a ridiculous costume for February, even the last day of February, Rose decided. Harriet was pretty enough, her sharp features still softened by the bloom of youth, but she had been ill-advised to crop her hair so short. That sort of wavy, flaxen hair was much better left long rather than attempting to tame the remaining short locks with a curling iron.
“I said, are you making a long stay in London, Miss Wall?”
Rose jumped at the imperious question from Mrs. Varner.
“Only a week or so, until we have arranged passage. I am accompanying my brother and his wife on a...a sort of grand tour.” Rose could not admit to playing nursemaid to a young bride. She was not yet twenty-three herself and only her mother could think such an arrangement suitable.
Bennet jumped up and tugged at the bellpull. The butler burst into the room as though he had been standing with his hand on the doorknob. “Tea, Hardy, and some cakes. Perhaps a suitable wine,” Bennet said, rubbing his hands together. “Oh, I expect you know what we need.”
Rose smiled at Bennet’s clumsy orders and she thought that Hardy was tempted to do so as well. She had already put Mrs. Varner down as a shrew and she suspected Harriet also gave her brother a hard time. Why else would he have been escaping the house so hastily? He did not strut or put on airs like her brother, but moved quickly and naturally. And he was strong, she thought, the memory of those arms holding her so safely causing her to stare at him raptly. She forced her attention away from him. No matter how much she thought she could like him, she must not, she reminded herself.
“I expect you know the roads are a bit torn up still,” Bennet offered.
“Where?” Rose asked, remembering their recent drive from Bristol.
“Europe.”
“Where in Europe?” she asked, thinking his comment unnecessarily vague. “France?”
“Pretty much all of it. Perhaps I should explain I am in the shipping business, so I have occasion to get news—”
“Not in business,” corrected Harriet. “Bennet has interests, as we all do. He is not directly involved in business.”
“Oh, I see,” Rose said as she watched Bennet roll his eyes heavenward. Rose smiled, for it did not matter to her that Bennet was in trade. Nor did it matter to him, but it obviously caused Harriet some pain and made his mother wring her hands nervously.
The tea tray was brought in and Edith Varner began to serve. “And how is your mother, Miss Wall? She is still...alive, I assume.”
“Yes, of course,” Rose said as Bennet cringed. “She is arranging to move into our house in Bristol, thinking that Stanley and Alice will like to have Wall House to themselves. She wrote to you that the three of us would be stopping in town. But perhaps her letter was misdirected.”
Edith looked guiltily toward the stuffed escritoire, and Rose schooled herself not to glance in that direction.
“It is too bad you are not making a longer stay,” Mrs. Varner said. “Or we might be able to arrange some entertainment for you. As it is...”
“A ball!” Bennet decided.
“A what?” Harriet demanded. “But you just said—”
“How long could it possibly take to arrange? A day or two, no more. I can have my secretary help you. Besides, your birthday is coming up on March third, Harriet. We must celebrate that.”
Bennet ignored his gaping sister and mother to pace about the room and throw out suggestions as to whom to invite, what musicians to engage, as though someone should be taking notes. Rose was glad it was not her responsibility. She liked Bennet quite well as a man, but as a brother or son she thought he might leave much to be desired.
“I shall arrange everything,” Bennet decided, seating himself and taking up his teacup, then turning abruptly to Rose. “Are you sure I did not hurt you when I ran into you?”
“Of course not. I am used to pushing about thousand-pound horses. I do not hurt easily.”
“Ah, you ride. We will go tomorrow. I have a stable full of hacks champing at the bit for exercise.”
“I could not impose in such a way.”
“You would be doing me a favor. What is your hotel? I shall call for you at ten.”
“Greeves Hotel, but I...”
“That is no more than a mile from here. What a happy coincidence.”
“But I do not know what Stanley, my brother, may have planned.”
“I shall bring horses anyway. At least you and I may ride.”
“Bennet,” his mother admonished. “With no chaperon?”
“With a groom, of course,” Bennet added.
“I should be delighted to ride,” Rose said for no other reason than to see Edith Varner’s expression turn sour again.
Bennet looked thoughtful for a moment. “You know the season is just starting, Miss Wall. I would encourage your party to spend a month with us at least to get a proper taste of London before venturing off to foreign parts. Why, you can stay at Varner House.”
This offer brought such sharp gasps from Edith and Harriet that Rose hastened to say, “We simply cannot impose in such a way. It will not be worth the bother of removing from our hotel to here, for I am quite sure Stanley has secured passage for us by now.”
“Oh, I shall speak to him. He should leave that up to me. If you want decent accommodations I will get you staterooms on one of my ships.”
And so it went until the prescribed half hour was up. Then Rose asked if the butler could call a hack for her. Bennet immediately sent round for the carriage and insisted on delivering her to Greeves Hotel himself, giving her a running account about all the buildings they passed as they made their way down Oxford Street.
Rose was careful not to mention a liking for bonbons or diamonds, for she feared Bennet would simply stop the carriage to hop out and purchase some. He was a strange man, not at all what one would expect of a London smart. Rose decided he was some sort of cit, with a family aspiring to society. She could almost feel sorry for Edith and Harriet. Almost, but not quite, for she had no doubt that if Bennet had not dragged her into the house, both mother and daughter would have refused to acknowledge her. What of that? She had been snubbed before and was quite used to it. She rather thought she had grown a thick enough skin to carry her through any situation.
Rose had thought Greeves Hotel a rather grand structure with all its rows of windows and wrought-iron railings, until she had seen Varner House. But Bennet had given specific directions to his coachman, so Greeves could not be too pedestrian. Though why she would care what Bennet Varner thought was beyond her.
“At ten tomorrow,” he said, kissing her gloved hand as he helped her down from the open carriage. “I shall hope to meet your brother and his wife.” He was gone then in a flurry of orders to his driver and a spin of carriage wheels. Rose stared after him as she walked up the steps and through the double doors into the lobby. They were on the third floor and the long climb gave Rose time to consider just what Bennet Varner’s game was. Could he be smitten with her? She knew she was pretty, but she did not think about it much since she knew she would never marry. Bennet might be boyish, amusing and sweet in the middle of a crisp February afternoon, but what was he like when drunk? That was what mattered. She shrugged off such thoughts and went to unpack her riding habit and shake out the wrinkles from the dark green velvet. At least she could look forward to a ride the next day.
“Sir, just three more,” the spectacled young man said as he deftly slid documents under the poised pen of Ben-net Varner. Any possible boyishness was wiped from Varner’s face as he perused the papers with a knit brow. He focused his gaze on the contracts and tried to put out of his mind the surprised green eyes of Miss Gwen Rose Wall as he had held her on the steps of his house. Her eyes were more of a blue-green, he decided, picturing them in his mind and causing his secretary to clear his throat to get his attention. Bennet signed a document without reading it at all. That look she had, like a startled doe, her russet hair brushing her shoulders, her pert nose, those eyebrows drawn in concern and those luscious lips...
“Sir? Sir? Are you unwell?”
“Fine, Walters, I’m fine.” Bennet cleared his throat. “Is the Celestine still in port?”
“Yes, due to sail tomorrow.”
“Her departure will be delayed,” Bennet said absently.
“Some special cargo you have engaged?”
“No. She needs her...her mainmast replaced.”
“Her mainmast? It’s the first I have heard of it. I would have thought Captain Cooley—”
“He doesn’t know it yet,” Bennet said firmly.
“But, sir.”
“I feel quite strongly that the mainmast is about to go and I want it replaced. I’m sure you can handle all the necessary arrangements.” The piercing look Bennet shot at Walters sent him scurrying from the room, leaving Bennet to get back to a contemplation of Rose. He must stop her from taking ship for Europe by whatever means he could.
Through the half-open door he watched Walters dispatch a messenger to inform Captain Cooley of his fate, then draft an order for the new mast. Probably they could find one in London, but Bennet would stubbornly insist on his course of action even if Walters had to send to the Highlands for a tree. He meant to delay the Celestine, and with good reason.
Bennet pushed aside the dull paperwork on his desk and thought once again of those blue-green eyes and that burnished hair like fine silk. Resignedly he put on his hat and greatcoat and walked through his secretary’s office without a word, leaving Walters to rehearse in his own mind the Banbury story he would feed to Captain Cooley when the man came storming up from the docks.
“I don’t care if we are distantly related,” Stanley said as his long strides carried him down the hotel stairs the next morning. “You cannot just go off riding alone with a perfect stranger.”
Rose looked up to her brother, a serious young man with brown hair and sincere blue eyes. “I am not going alone. My groom is coming,” she said, glancing at the slight youth who followed silently in their wake.
“Martin is just a boy. What sort of protection would he be?”
“All the protection I need. He is...” Rose’s protest trailed off at a warning look from Martin’s sharp brown eyes.
The boy moved around the brother and sister, holding the door open. The street in front of Greeves Hotel seemed to be full of riding horses. Bennet dismounted from a fidgeting black brute and tossed his reins carelessly to his groom, an older man who already seemed to have his hands full.
“I brought enough hacks so we could all ride, or you can have your pick of horses.”
Rose introduced the two men, embarrassed by her brother’s stuffiness. Bennet seemed not to notice he was being sized up by Stanley, and pointed out the most dangerous-looking of his beasts as a little fresh if Wall had a notion for a brisk gallop. Rose did not choose the dainty mare that would have been a good mount for Alice, had she the slightest interest in riding, but the strong-boned gelding with the white blaze, who met her gaze with interest. Martin replaced Bennet’s groom as escort and poor Stilton had to lead the mare back to Varner House.
Conversation was brief and confined solely to the points of the horses as they made their way through the noisy streets to Hyde Park. When they reached this landmark Rose knew she must be smiling foolishly as the full expanse of the park broke upon her gaze. “I had not thought there could be so much grass in all of London,” she said to Bennet with delight.
“Oh, the city isn’t all cobbles and paving stones.”
Bennet let Rose set the pace and try out Gallant’s long strides. Rose smiled at Stanley, who cantered at her side on Victor, and he grinned back. The only time they were in perfect accord was when they were on horseback, for they did both love to ride.
Rose glanced back at Bennet and Martin who seemed to have fallen into conversation. Why this should worry her was beyond her. Martin had far more discretion than she. But there was something so disarming about Bennet Varner. His friendliness, she supposed. She would have to be careful.
As Stanley urged Victor into a gallop, Rose fell back slightly, sacrificing a faster run to talk to Bennet. “You keep a fine stable, sir.”
“Call me Bennet I know it’s unfashionable, but everyone does.”
“Who usually exercises your horses?” Rose asked, matching Gallant’s steady trot to the black’s capricious jogging and head tossing as best she could.
“I do, or the grooms. A bit of town training is good for the young ones. Settle down, Chaos,” Bennet said firmly and the black rolled a wary eye at him.
“You train your own horses, then?”
“As much as I can manage. Business keeps me in town a good deal, so I bring my young favorites with me. Your brother is a bruising rider.”
“It is the one thing he does really well. I shall have no fear in placing the breeding stock at Wall into his hands.”
“I take it that task fell to you before?”
“Before he came of age Stanley was at school the better part of the time. Now...”
“Are you meaning to move to your house in Bristol with your mother?”
“I had hoped to stay at Wall and help him, but he does not want my help. And I am certainly no comfort to Alice. I suppose it will have to be Bristol after all.”
“That will be a pure waste of your talents.”
She looked inquiringly at him.
“I mean, unless you marry yourself,” he hastened to add.
“That will not happen,” Rose said, still sorting out what talents he was talking about.
“London is full of men who will fall in love with such a face as yours, even if you have no fortune.”
“As it happens I have just as large a portion as Stanley, from my mother. And therein lies the problem.”
“Problem?” Bennet gave her a blank look. “Beauty and fortune, not to mention a good seat and excellent conversation.”
Rose did not blush at his mention of her seat and cast him a speculative look. “How would I ever know if a man wanted me for my conversation or my face, or even my seat, so long as the money is in the way? No, I will not marry. I feel I can go on quite well myself. And if Bristol is too dull, in a few years I shall be old enough to set up a horse farm for myself.”
“You will never be old enough to do that. And you can be sure of your man if he has an equal or better fortune,” Bennet replied with a satisfied smile.
“Perhaps I prefer to maintain my independence.” Rose eased Gallant into a canter, thinking to interrupt the conversation.
“Perhaps he would let you,” Bennet said, matching Chaos’s stride to Gallant’s and riding dangerously close to her side so as not to have to shout. “Not every man insists on taking control of his wife’s money.”
“It is not a worry I will have. I will not marry and that is that,” Rose said, shaking her head. She brought the animal back to a more sedate trot with no more than a small tug on the reins.
“After I have removed every impediment?” Bennet asked with a grin.
“Not every one. I do not like men,” she said, slowing Gallant to a walk.
“All men?” he asked in surprise as he trotted past her.
“All the ones I have had occasion to meet.”
“And how many is that?” Bennet teased, pulling up his horse to try to intercept the gaze Rose resolutely directed straight ahead.
“Too many.”
“I see. What a fortunate circumstance, then,” he said as Rose rode past him.
His pause caused her to look around at him. “What is?”
His blue eyes glittered with mischief. “Why, I too have been pursued by fortune hunters until I confess I am quite marriage-shy myself. I too have decided never to marry.”
“That seems an odd coincidence.” Rose pursed her lips.
“Yes, it does to me as well, but there you have it. Since we are both confirmed bachelors, there is no impediment to our friendship.”
“Friendship? I can think of one.”
“Look, your brother is stealing a march on us. Race you to the edge of the park.”
Rose spurred her horse to try to overtake Bennet before he came up with Stanley. In at least one feature the two men were alike. They knew when to run away from an argument they were destined to lose.
“I have not had such a ride since hunting season,” Stanley said, patting Victor’s steaming neck and letting the horse cavort playfully, before bringing it down to a walk beside Bennet and Rose.
“You must make yourself free of my stables whenever you have time to ride. You can see they need the exercise.” Addressing Stanley, he added, “I have also put your name down as my guest at White’s and Boudle’s, so feel free to drop in there when in need of some solitude, or some companionship.”
“That is most kind of you,” Stanley said sincerely. “I fear we shall not be in town long enough to take advantage of so much hospitality.”
“You must at least stay for my sister’s coming-of-age party. She and Mother would be pleased to have family there. Oh, and I had meant to tell you, my ship Celestine is in port and the cabins are not booked. I beg you to make use of them if France or Italy is your destination. Otherwise they would travel empty.”
“Vamer, I am overwhelmed. I will pay for passage, of course.”
“I had offered rooms at Varner house but Rose would not hear of it. We get so little company.”
“But you have done so much,” Stanley said. “You must come visit us at Wall when we return. We shall be back in time for hunting season.”
“I should be delighted.” Bennet smiled at Rose in that self-satisfied way that said he had charmed her brother completely.
By the time they returned to the hotel Bennet’s groom was back to take charge of the horses, leaving Bennet free to dine with Stanley at White’s, and, Rose presumed, introduce him to his cronies. She went upstairs, shaking her head and plotting how to get the better of Bennet Varner. He was a provoking rogue. She supposed she should have expected some sophistication from a London male, but intelligence had been a surprise, though he masked it well enough. She had never known a man like him, and found to her surprise that she was looking forward to a third meeting just to match wits with him again.
“Where is Stanley?” Alice asked from the settee as Rose whisked into the parlor that was common to their two suites.
“Gone off with Bennet Varner to his club. Do you feel well enough to shop? We are invited to a ball at Varner House, and I have my doubts that I own anything elegant enough to do the occasion justice.”
“Stanley was going to take me shopping.”
“But if he goes with you it will take forever,” Rose said, unbuttoning the frogs of her jacket. “You know he cannot make up his mind about such things. Then he gives those heavy sighs when he is tired of waiting for you.”
Alice frowned in thought. “I suppose we could make a start. I shall need some new gowns.”
“Also we may be here some few days until the Celes-tine is ready to sail.” Rose opened the door into her bedroom and her maid, Cynthie, took her coat.
“Then we are going?” Alice asked with a pout.
“Of course,” Rose said. “What made you think we were not?”
“Stanley.” Alice followed Rose into her bedroom. “He said if I was meaning to be sick for days on end I might as well do it at home.”
Since Rose had had some such thoughts herself, she felt a little guilty at Alice’s tearful reply. “Don’t worry. I will bring Stanley up to scratch.” Rose selected a buff walking dress, and stepped out of her riding skirt. “I have been promised Europe and I mean to see it. I have no intention of wasting the whole season here in London.”
“But I never had a London season. Neither did you, if it comes to that. Would it be so awful to stay just a few weeks?”
“If we do not embark for France within a fortnight I shall return to Wall or Bristol,” Rose vowed, emerging from the top of the dress.
“But why are you so dead set against London?”
“Because I might meet...any number of fribbles and fops. You know I have no patience with such men.” Rose adjusted her hair in the mirror and glanced at Alice to see if she believed her.
Alice shrugged and went for her reticule and pelisse while Rose sent Cynthie to tell Martin to find them a hack. Stanley had caviled at paying passage for four servants—his valet, two maids and a groom—especially when there would be no horses involved. But Rose had held out for Martin’s quick usefulness as a footman and general dogsbody and finally prevailed when Alice begged them to stop arguing over so trivial a matter.
The young women spent a successful afternoon at the modiste and mantua makers’ shops. Rose found two evening gowns that needed no alterations, but Alice chose to have hers made from scratch and risked not having any for Harriet Varner’s birthday ball. When the carriage returned them to the hotel, Alice grabbed one small parcel of ribbons and left Martin and Rose to transport the large stack of bandboxes to the third-floor suite.
“What do you think of Bennet Varner?” Rose asked her groom as they trudged up the stairs.
Martin darted her an uncertain glance. “He’s a quick’un, miss.”
“Yes, I thought so myself. Though he acts the part of a jovial carefree fellow, I find myself expecting some hidden agenda.”
“But what could it be, miss? No one in London knows—”
“No one we know in London knows anything about what happened at Wall five years ago, but many people go to London.”
“Are you thinking of Lord Foy?”
“The war was over last year. I cannot imagine where else Axelrod Barton, Lord Foy, would be except London. Surely not at that Yorkshire estate that he described as moldering into the rock from which it was built.”
“But what are the chances of meeting him? It’s such a very big city, miss.”
“I am sure you are right, Martin, and I have nothing to fear. Ten to one Axel is still tripping about Vienna or haunting the gaming hells of Paris.”
“Besides, even if you were to encounter him, he knows nothing.”
“He remembers nothing. There is a difference and I should not wish to jog his memory.”
“I shall keep an eye out for him, miss, and warn you if he’s about.”
“Martin, don’t say anything to your sister, Cynthie. No need to alarm her unnecessarily.”
“Yes, miss,” Martin agreed as he deposited the boxes in the common sitting room for Alice and Rose to sort out.
Susan and Cynthie, the two maids, unpacked the treasures and the women spent a profitable hour planning several toilettes. Rose and Alice got on better when they spoke of trivialities. Rose truly had no intention of marrying, but she saw no point in being a dowd either. She had money and meant to enjoy it. She also knew that the best way to put forward their tour was to get Alice tricked out as soon as possible and in good twig for the crossing.
The chance that they could actually be traveling to where she might meet Lord Foy did not disturb her so much as encountering him in England. He was not likely to be touring museums or ruins. So long as they avoided British society abroad she would be safe. Therefore, the sooner they left England the better.
Bennet Varner sighed and paced from door to window for the twentieth time, looking out on the dismal courtyard below Viscount Leighton’s small room in the group of apartments known as the Foreign Office. Leighton growled and cast his pen aside, running his hand through his fair hair in exasperation. It suddenly occurred to Bennet he was annoying his best friend.
“You always get like this where there’s a woman involved,” Leighton complained. “Will this be another of those uncomfortable seasons when I am forever worrying about Foy blowing your head off?”
“That’s only happened once, and if you recall he merely wounded me,” Bennet said, throwing himself into one of the wing chairs pulled close to the small grate.
“Only because he knew you would not have him arrested for that. If he could have killed you with impunity he would have done so. And that was over your sister. Every time you make up to a woman, Foy seems to appear to take her away from you. When will you two stop this stupid competition? It started at school years ago, and you have never grown out of it, either of you.”
“I don’t know what you mean. Besides, my first meeting with Lord Foy was when I saved your skin on the playing field. Are you forgetting that?”
“I would like to. So what is this new inamorata like?”
“I don’t know what makes you think—”
“Heavy sighs from a man normally tied to his desk when he is not crawling about one of his ships.” Leighton pushed his papers aside and rose from his desk.
“She’s my mother’s goddaughter, just arrived from the country.”
“An innocent?” Leighton rifled through his desk drawers.
“Yes, in many ways, but not stupid. She is already suspicious of me.”
“Suspicious of you, a man without the sense to know when his intended has taken another man as her lover.” The slight man extended his search to the corner cupboard.
Bennet hopped up to pace again.
“Sit down. I’m sorry I said anything. Aha.” Leighton held up the brandy decanter triumphantly, sloshed some of the liquid into two glasses and handed one to Bennet as his friend paced past him. “What are you doing that she is suspicious of?”
“I’m trying to keep her in London and having a damned hard time of it.”
Leighton seated himself by the fireplace and jabbed at the small blaze with the poker. “Why keep her here, where Foy may get at her? You can follow her wherever she goes. A few weeks of dalliance in the country might be just the thing to ease your nerves.”
“To Paris?”
“Oh, that’s another matter, but the rumors may be completely false. When you think about it, does it not seem entirely fantastic that Napoleon could have any thought to leave Elba? France is facing economic ruin, the peace negotiations are nearly completed. Probably it is all a hum.”
Bennet threw himself into the other chair again. “Perhaps if I warn her of our suspicions she can delay her brother’s departure—”
“No, that you must not do, for we do not know what sort of economic panic such news would cause if it were to get about. You know what fools we aristocrats can be.”
“If I cannot tell her I will simply have to deceive Rose.”
“Rose, a country rose?” Leighton mused. “When may I meet this latest paragon of yours?”
“Harriet’s coming-of-age party tomorrow night. I don’t suppose you are in the market for a wealthy wife?”
Leighton looked sharply at him. “Not a chance, Bennet. Remember, I know Harriet Besides, she always said she was going to marry Foy when she was old enough.”
“Yes, I suppose there’s no stopping that now. Will you come anyway?”
“Yes, so long as there is no pressing business here. I will attend. I must meet the woman who has thrown you into such a fuddle.”
Chapter Two
Rose breakfasted in bed, a luxury she now allowed herself since Alice was not an early riser, and, judging from the hour at which Stanley had stumbled in, she rather thought he would be abed till noon. Of course, at Wall, she would have been up and riding two hours ago, but she was on holiday and should try to enjoy herself. She could enjoy herself now that Varner had expanded her horizons. Rose decided she could like London quite well now that she knew there was such a delightful place to ride.
Cynthie helped her into her green riding habit again, and Rose promised herself that she would buy another if Bennet appeared today. He had said they would ride every day, but it would be just like such a careless fellow to forget and leave her standing in the lobby of Greeves Hotel with Martin on watch in the street.
She spent the remaining hour before ten o’clock writing a long letter to her mother in the comparative privacy of the lounge off the lobby. Rose had just handed this over to be mailed when she saw the horses from the window and looped up the tail of her habit to go down the steps. Bennet leaped to her elbow and helped her to mount Gallant so solicitously she decided she would rumble his lay today. She would, at least, take up yesterday’s argument where he had interrupted it.
They had brought Victor for Martin to ride, and the two grooms kept a respectful distance back from Bennet and Rose.
“No horses for Stanley and Alice?” Rose asked, looking innocently around from her perch atop Gallant.
“Your brother told me Alice does not ride.” Bennet flicked an imaginary speck of dust from his plum-colored coat.
Rose wondered if he had deviated from his usual black riding jacket for her benefit. “Did he also tell you he planned to have such a bad head from staying out late drinking that he would not be able to sit a horse today?”
“No, I surmised that myself,” Bennet said proudly.
“You were with him, then?” Rose asked as she steered her horse through traffic.
“Yes, for part of the evening. I left him around midnight.”
“I cannot say that I like Stanley taking up gambling and drinking. I know all men do it, but that does not make it a safe pastime.”
“If you are worried that he will get into fast company, I assure you my friends would never fleece a guest of mine.” Chaos gave a little jump at a bright red curricle, but Bennet’s grip turned to iron and brought the animal under control. The man’s leg muscles bulged tautly under his buff riding breeches.
“You have a high opinion of your friends, sir. I shall reserve mine until I meet them.”
“Hah, I see. A recommendation from me is worthless, as you have decided to mistrust me.”
Rose stared at him to have her mind read so accurately, then turned her attention back to the last thoroughfare to separate them from their destination.
“I have surprised you, haven’t I?” Bennet prodded as they approached Hyde Park.
“Yes. As I was about to say yesterday when you galloped away to avoid the remark, you are not at all trustworthy.”
“Yes, when you said you could think of one reason we could not be friends. I saw the barb coming so thought I would avoid it until I could think of a rejoinder.”
Rose laughed. “You are a jump ahead of me today, and yes, you did surprise me. It will not happen again,” she assured him as she urged Gallant into a trot.
“That I can believe. Why do you not trust me? And do not waste time dissembling.”
Rose looked at Bennet thoughtfully. He was riding carelessly with both reins gathered in one hand and not paying any obvious attention to his horse, yet the beast was minding his subtle leg signals much better than yesterday. It struck her that Bennet rode as naturally as a soldier, and her experience of soldiers should make her dislike him. But she could not think of a clear reason to do so. She urged Gallant into a canter, using Bennet’s own trick against him. The horses would be used to having a brisk canter as soon as they got to the park, would expect it if they rode here again, she thought. Why did she not trust Bennet Varner? At the end of fifteen minutes and on the other side of the vast park she was ready to bring her mount down to a walk again and answer him, even if it meant never riding here with him again.
“All of this, the horses, your kindness to Stanley, the offer of your ship, why?”
“I did not think courtesy required a reason,” Bennet replied, his dark eyebrows arched in surprise over those innocent blue eyes of his.
“You have been more than courteous, you have been kind in the extreme, and charming enough to allay the suspicions of a brother, who though dense around women, can generally take the measure of a man.”
“Hah. Is that a compliment or an accusation?”
“You decide. It is your motivation that is suspect.”
“I’ll take it as a compliment. My motivation is quite simple. I am, in the general way, bored silly by society and the women thrown at my head by a well-meaning mother and sister who think it is high time I married. To encounter a woman who is no danger to me is refreshing in the extreme. That is why I thought we could be friends, because I am no danger to you, either.”
Rose stared at him and felt herself smiling at those laughing eyes. If he was not telling the truth, his performance at least deserved the compliment of her pretense of belief.
“And something else,” he added.
“What?” she asked, wishing she could really have such a friendship.
“I enjoy jousting with you. Do you know how rare it is to find someone able to hold her own in an argument?”
“Unfortunately, yes.”
“So there you have it. I am in some need of companionship of the abrasive kind, someone who does not agree with me at every turn just because I am as rich as Croesus.”
“You are not.”
“Not what?”
“As rich as Croesus.”
“How would you know?”
“If you were you would hire a man of business and not be at all involved in trade.” Rose lifted her chin as though his vocation mattered to her.
“It is precisely because I am involved in trade that I am so rich.”
“No matter how much your sister would like it to be otherwise?” she chided.
“Rose, don’t tell me you won’t countenance an acquaintance with a cit I had not thought you so stuffy.”
“On the contrary,” Rose said, deciding to change her tack, “I regard your involvement in trade to be the most stable thing about you. It is your avocation I disapprove of.”
“Gambling? I assure you I—”
“No! Gammoning people into thinking you a charming, empty-headed fellow when in truth...”
“In truth, what?” he prompted with a grin.
“I haven’t figured that out precisely, but I will.”
“I shall anticipate the moment. Bring sweet Alice to tea this afternoon if you wish to extend your study of my character. Bring Wall, too, if you can manage it. Mother wants to meet him, even though he is safely married.”
“Is she looking for a husband for Harriet?”
“Always. I scared off one suitor by challenging him to a duel. The offers since then have not been as forthcoming.”
“I should think not, if they are in danger of being shot.”
“Actually, I was the one who was punctured. It was a pure waste of my claret I should have let him carry Harriet off to Yorkshire.”
“That is a very hard thing to say of your own sister. How old was she?”
“Seventeen.”
“Not old enough to know her own mind.”
“Old enough to know better than to get involved with a man like Foy.”
Rose halted her mount and pretended to be checking the tightness of the girth. Bennet looked back in some concern, dismounted and went to help her down. “What is it?”
“Nothing. Martin, check the cinch,” she called. “I shall walk a little way.”
“I’ve said something to disturb you. Do you find it unnatural that I do not love my sister?”
Chaos followed behind Bennet like a large dog.
“No, of course not. It is I rather who have spoken out of turn. To condemn you for something I know nothing of is ill-done of me.”
“Well, I was going to mention that, but as you have admitted your fault I am left with no barbs to fire.”
Rose managed a brief smile, and she almost told him she knew Foy. But no, he would find out soon enough. Why ruin this day, when Axel was likely to ruin the next?
“Tell me what is wrong,” Bennet begged, looping the reins over his arm and taking her hand between his two.
“The engagement and duel, this all happened years ago.” Rose said, shaking the mental image of Axel’s piercing brown eyes from her mind. “Surely it is past history. Perhaps Foy did not even survive the war,” she said hopefully.
“No such luck. He was wounded several times and kept turning up like a bad penny to cut up our peace. This time when he begs for Harriet’s hand I shall agree.”
Rose became conscious of her surroundings and began walking again, forcing Bennet to surrender her hand. “That might make Harriet like you better, but if you did not think him worthy of her then...”
“It is not that Axel has become more acceptable, but that Harriet has managed to descend to his level. I must get her married off before she causes a scandal that I cannot squelch.”
Rose’s glance flew to his face.
“No, do not ask me what all she has been up to. By emulating her intimate acquaintances she has become very jaded. She may merely be trying to get revenge on me for being in control.”
“Perhaps, if you talked things through with her, there might be a reconciliation.”
“Harriet forgive me? Not a chance. Not with Mother on her side, and Harriet is like Mother in that respect. The catalog of my wrongs never has anything erased from it, but grows with time like the national debt. I doubt I could ever be forgiven for all my offenses.”
“You are joking.”
“Except that this birthday ball may wipe out a few. You should have your invitation by now. You are coming, of course.”
“You make it difficult to say no. But then we must be off to Paris.” She watched the smile fade from his face as he halted again.
“Do not go,” he begged.
“But I must. I must go whenever Stanley and Alice are ready to leave.” She signaled to Martin to bring Gallant, and Bennet helped her to mount.
“Help me convince Stanley to spend the season in London. You can stay in Varner House. Mother and Harriet would love to have you.”
“Now that is an untruth,” she said with her usual pert smile as she watched him swing up onto Chaos.
“Then stay to keep me from boredom.”
“To argue with you? I think you will find that grows stale after a bit.”
“Bantering with you? Never.”
The look in Bennet’s eyes could not be misread. He was not joking this time or making game of her. She smiled sadly and shook her head. One mention of her to Axel and he would revise his opinion about that. She urged Gallant into another canter, and the horse responded willingly to have two such treats in one day. What a strange man Varner was, to trust her with confidences about his family that if repeated would do them a great deal of discredit. She would not repeat them, of course. Rose never gossiped and took pains to say the best of people. She was well aware what careless chatter could do to a woman’s character, how it could mar her very life. Was Bennet Varner naive or merely the first frank man she had ever met? She would have liked to further her acquaintance with him just to puzzle that out
Bennet left Rose reluctantly at the hotel and wondered if he should risk delaying the ball just to buy a few more days. No, a celebration at Varner House would be no particular lure to the Walls, at least not to Rose. They would simply shrug and board the next packet. Just as the promise of a fine ship might not hold them. There was the possibility of making London so interesting for young Wall that he did not mind dallying in town, but Bennet caviled at introducing Stanley to any new vices just to serve his own ends.
He returned to South Audley Street, as he did frequently, to a house in pandemonium. Bennet heard his head groom sigh heavily as Bennet surrendered the reins to him and mounted the steps, prepared to untangle whatever setback was making his mother shriek in that disconcerting way. Had she only known, she could have gotten better work from the servants if she maintained her dignity rather than screaming at them like an angry fishwife.
For all her pretensions to society, Bennet felt his mother’s plebeian tantrums more of an impediment to the family’s acceptance than his involvement in trade. After quieting the seamstress and bribing her to finish Harriet’s gown by the following day, after soothing the ruffled feathers of Mrs. Marshall, the housekeeper, and convincing Armand, the chef, not to pack up and leave, be cornered his mother and sister in the morning room.
Harriet was sprawled on the sofa, crying over the dress, which she pronounced ugly beyond words. Her tears would have been more convincing if she had not been wearing an expensive new blue walking outfit.
“Then wear one of your other dresses.”
“I have worn them all. The only thing that will make the new dress acceptable is a proper necklace of diamonds.”
“And I suppose you know just the ones to set it off. Very well, write down who has them and his direction and I will have Walters pick them up tomorrow. They will be your birthday present. By the way, you have sent an invitation round to the Walls, haven’t you?”
“Well, I have invited them, though I do not see the need.” Edith spoke now, two spots of color still remaining in her sallow cheeks from her recent tantrum. “They are, after all, just country cousins. What if they embarrass us with their dress or speech?”
“They won’t, Mother,” Bennet assured her absently as he picked up the Times. Just to discomfit her he glanced critically at her black bombazine. It was an affectation, this wearing of black three years after his father’s death, when she would have looked better in some other color. But like the dyeing of her hair, Bennet put it down to bad advice from someone.
“I’m inviting Axel, then,” Harriet said in the subdued silence that followed.
Bennet raised an eyebrow, and was about to say “why not?” but decided too prompt an acceptance of her suitor might make Harriet suspicious. “If you must.” He sat and tried to focus on the financial news.
“If you get to invite the wallflower and company, I should be able to ask my friends. After all, it is my party.” Harriet seated herself at the messy escritoire and pulled a list toward her.
“What did you call her?”
“A wallflower. Those dowdy clothes. And can you imagine her playing nursemaid to a young bride? She must be odd indeed.”
“If I hear that title fastened on Miss Wall I will know where it came from, and I won’t forget your maliciousness.”
“In another day you will not have any say in what I do. I shall be in possession of my own fortune and I may marry Axel if I wish.”
“Yes, I suppose you may, but do you not think you ought to shop around a bit first? Tomorrow you become one of the most marriageable young ladies in London, and I should think you could do a great deal better than Foy. Don’t you think so, Mother?”
“Harriet is in love with Axel. Aren’t you, Harriet? Why else would she have run off with him?”
“It has been four years,” Bennet said, trying to bury himself in the paper. “May I point out Axel has made up to several other women since then, every time he lands back in London, in fact.”
Harriet’s blue eyes were ablaze with anger. “It does not seem like four years. It was my coming-out season and I remember every moment of it.”
“I too recall the entire season with nauseating clarity, especially that bullet I took for you.”
“That was your fault, Bennet,” his mother informed him.
“Don’t tell me you favored that havey-cavey elopement.”
“It was better than having you break Harriet’s heart by not letting her marry Axel.”
“Well, I will no longer be the impediment.”
“What if he does not ask me, Mother?” Harriet rose, clenching her hands together dramatically. “What if Axel’s feelings have changed, or he has been too put off by Bennet?”
“Oh, he’ll ask you all right,” Bennet interrupted. “He needs your fortune more now than ever. Oh, by the way, I have made an appointment for both of us to see Barchester tomorrow morning. The reins of your future will then be put in your hands, Harriet. Have you engaged a man of business?”
“Not...not yet.”
“Do you wish Barchester to recommend someone?”
“Certainly not. Is it necessary to have such a person with me tomorrow?”
“Not really, unless you mean to change banks immediately.”
“I haven’t decided yet.”
“Let Barchester know when you do and where you want your monies deposited. He can arrange everything.”
“I don’t want him to do anything. He always treats me like a child.”
“He means no harm by acting fatherly. Most women of independent means do not care to handle their own affairs.”
“Most women do not have such an unreasonable guardian. I suppose you will charge me rent now to stay here?”
“Do not be absurd. You are still my sister, but I’ve no doubt you will be married within the month and off my hands for good.”
“Must you both bicker like this?” their mother demanded. “You give me a splitting headache.”
“I have tried bickering alone and it just doesn’t work,” Bennet quipped, sending his mother charging from the room, grumbling to herself.
Harriet waited until their mother was gone before she giggled. “Why do you bait her, Bennet? She cannot defend herself.”
“And I cannot help myself. If only she realized how much we enjoy arguing. Seriously, Harriet, I will be placing a great deal of wealth at your disposal tomorrow. I hope you have considered that it might be wiser to keep control of it yourself than turn it over to a husband—any husband, including Axel.”
“I know what I am about. I am not the green girl I was at seventeen.”
“No, I realize that. There will also be investments to discuss. You will have to decide how you want to manage those.”
Harriet walked dreamily to the window and stared out at the redbrick residences across the way. “I think once I am married I will set up a proper town house. I consider it highly unfair Papa left you both Chesney and Varner House.”
“Hasn’t Axel some residence other than his lodgings and that estate in Yorkshire?”
“He has a house near Epsom, but I require one in London.”
“I am looking for a house for the Walls to rent. I can have Walters make inquiries for you...if you wish to make use of his services.”
“Why are the Walls looking for a house?”
“To rent merely. They cannot stay in that hotel forever, and Mother has made it abundantly clear she does not want them here.”
“But I thought they were on the point of embarking for Europe, at least before you introduced them to the social whirl of London.”
“One invitation can hardly constitute a social whirl—oh. I forgot to tell Mother I asked them to tea today to make her acquaintance before your birthday ball.”
“She won’t like that.”
“Yes, I know, but perhaps you can tell her for me. A diamond necklace should be worth one favor.”
“Very well, I will tell her,” said Harriet, walking in a businesslike way toward the door. “Just make sure my diamonds and my dress are ready by tomorrow afternoon.”
“I have nothing else to concern me at all.”
“Nothing but that nasty shipping business.”
“That nasty shipping business keeps you both in fine gig.”
“But must you flaunt it?” she asked with her hand on the doorknob.
“The world is changing, Harriet. I and other men like me helped win this last war. Don’t ask me to be embarrassed about that. Didn’t Wellington himself come to dine?”
“One evening.”
“Well, he did have a war to fight. Now go and tell Mother the Walls are coming and I expect you both to be polite to them.”
“If we must. But they are such encroaching mushrooms.”
“You have not even met Stanley and Alice yet.”
“Are we expected to entertain every country dowd we are remotely connected with?”
“Why not?”
“Why not? I have better things to do with my time.”
“Just tell Mother.”
Harriet ducked out of the room. Sometimes, just for a moment, Bennet thought he had got through to her and made some impression. There was sense in her somewhere, but then she would quote their mother or one of her fashionable friends and turn his stomach. No, he did not love his sister anymore. She had changed into some creature he disliked exceedingly.
When the Walls were shown into the elegant gold salon there were already two guests present, enjoying their tea, Lady Catherine Gravely, and her daughter, Cassandra. After the coldly polite introductions it became clear to Rose that the other two women were intimates of Harriet’s and had been invited to amuse her, since conversation with the Walls was not expected to. It was also clear who had tempted Harriet to savage her hair so badly, for both women sported a head of tight curls.
Every time Bennet introduced a topic Rose or Stanley might care to discuss, Harriet changed the subject to some personage they did not know, thus shutting them out of the conversation. Poor Alice took everything in with such wide eyes, Rose knew they would put her down as a simpleton. Lady Catherine and Mrs. Varner were no help. The former stared speculatively at Rose any time she opened her mouth and the latter seemed interested only in her daughter’s gossip. If Edith remembered Rose’s mother at all she never made reference to her.
Rose was annoyed and in the mood to show it, but she liked Bennet Varner and did want him for a friend. She admired the way he had charmed her brother and sister-in-law, no matter how much she suspected his motives. And here he was, sending her embarrassed grimaces because his sister and mother were snubbing them. She could at least enjoy that repartee with him. She gazed about the lovely ground floor salon that was used only for tea. She could imagine the elegance of the rooms that must lie above. And yet she felt sorry for Bennet Varner, always having to apologize for his mother and sister. When Stanley cleared his throat meaningfully, Rose gulped her tea and was about to make some excuse to get them away early. Suddenly Harriet did mention a name they all knew.
“Lord Foy?” Alice piped up. “Wasn’t that the man you were engaged to, Rose?”
Stanley choked on a gulp of tea and Rose paused with her cup halfway to her mouth. Bennet looked at her in inquiry.
“Foy...Foy...” Rose pretended to muse. “Is his name Axelrod Barton?”
“Yes,” confirmed Cassie, her red lips parted in surprise, the bodice of her white muslin gown straining as she turned her plump form the better to stare at Rose. Rose was surprised to discover the look of utter disgust Lady Catherine bestowed on her own child. She knew there were women who hated their children, but she had never actually seen it before.
“Yes, it must be the same man,” Rose confirmed “He was a subaltern whom Father brought home one winter. I believe he was recovering from a leg wound.”
“Shoulder,” corrected Stanley, nervously clearing his throat.
Rose shrugged and silently thanked her brother for his attempt to draw talk away from the engagement.
“By engagement,” Cassie asked playfully, “you don’t actually mean...?”
Rose stared at her as though she had not comprehended. The figured muslin Cassie wore was meant for a younger girl, or perhaps a slighter girl, and did not become her.
“I fear it was just a schoolgirl passion,” Rose said lightly. “You must know how entrancing those red uniforms can be. Was I sixteen or seventeen? I cannot recall, but when I considered seriously marrying a soldier, I thought of all the worry Mother had gone through and I backed out of the engagement. Foy understood.”
This speech damped the interest of the others but failed to appease Harriet, who was staring at Rose as though she wished her to disappear from the face of the earth. Bennet’s gaze was not one of condemnation as Rose expected, but one of sympathy and understanding.
“Then there was that dreadful incident,” Alice said, taking a provoking bite of cake so that everyone had to hang on her words until she had swallowed. Stanley gave one of his impatient sighs.
“What incident?” Lady Catherine finally demanded sharply with more than casual interest.
“Colonel Wall’s untimely death,” Alice replied knowingly.
“Yes,” agreed Rose. “The marriage would have had to be put off for a year anyway, so we mutually agreed to part.”
“How did Colonel Wall die?” Harriet asked, her intense gaze darting between Rose and Alice, “if I’m not being too personal?”
“He was trampled by a horse,” Stanley said without elaborating.
“That is why I never ride,” Alice added. “Nasty, dangerous beasts. I wonder you did not shoot the stallion, Stanley.”
“Perhaps I would have, if I had been there, but Rose was right. It was not Redditch’s fault that Father and Foy decided to ride him when they were in their cups. He’s a little wild around men he doesn’t know, anyway. I assure you he behaves perfectly for me.”
Rose wondered if part of Stanley’s tolerance derived from thinking he had tamed a beast his father could not handle.
“Still, to keep a killer horse...” Cassie shook her head in condemnation as though she knew something about horses, when Rose was quite sure from Cassie’s stout figure that she did not even ride.
“But it was an accident,” Bennet said. “I would never get rid of one of my beasts if it accidently threw Harriet and broke her neck.”
“Bennet!” Harriet cried, incensed. “That is the most unfeeling remark you have ever made.”
“No, I don’t think you can be right there. It comes nowhere near the time I compared you to the opera dancer. Then there was the incident at the East India Docks...”
“If you tell anyone about that I shall—”
“Stop it, Bennet,” his mother commanded. “To upset your sister in this way is very ill-mannered.”
“So sorry, Mother. Sometimes I forget everything you taught me about manners.”
Mrs. Varner had the conscience to look abashed at this. “You must excuse my son,” she said finally to the Walls. “Sometimes his rather misplaced wit takes him beyond the bounds of what is pleasing.”
“Humor is always pleasing,” Rose said, giving Bennet a grateful smile for drawing fire upon himself. “And anyone should be able to take a joke so long as it is made in good fun. And as much enjoyment as we are deriving from the tea, I fear we must be going soon. Alice’s dress is nowhere near completion and I am sure you must have a thousand things to see to before tomorrow night.”
They did not linger over their departure. Bennet would have sent them home in his carriage, but Stanley said they would find a hack.
“What an old tartar the mother is,” he said to Rose in the carriage. “I suppose we must go to this thing, seeing as Bennet has been so obliging.”
Alice stared at her husband, her limpid blue eyes outraged. “Surely you do not mean you would rather not?”
“Not if we are to be subjected to so much frostiness from Mrs. Varner and that other old dragon! Those two chits were not much better. I think they might have spoken to you, Alice, just for the sake of politeness.”
Rose sighed. If Stanley noticed being cold-shouldered, then it was blatant indeed. “Perhaps they will when they know her better. Ten to one she will be so busy dancing tomorrow night she will not even have time to converse with them, but there is no real need for me to go.”
“No, I think you must, Rose. After all, she is your godmother,” Stanley said firmly.
Meaning, Rose took it, that if she cried off, he would as well. That would leave Alice in floods of tears and with her to blame.
“Yes, I suppose I must. After all, an evening can last only so long. Then we will finalize our arrangements for Europe.”
“Mmm,” Stanley replied.
Chapter Three
The next day, in spite of Rose’s sporting a new pearlgray riding habit with a modish top hat, Bennet did not come to ride. He did, however, send Stilton with two mounts. Martin conferred with the older groom, making arrangements for returning the horses, Rose supposed.
They sprang Victor and Gallant as soon as they reached Hyde Park, and the carefree ride reminded Rose of their rides together at home. Her feelings for Martin, when she bothered to analyze them, were those of an older sister. She had wrested him and his sister, Cynthie, from a workhouse when their parents had been carried off by influenza. Having made herself responsible for them, she felt closer to them in many ways than to her own brother and mother. At least they had no secrets from each other, which was not the case with her own family.
Martin drew rein first to walk Victor near one of the ponds and let him get a short drink. Rose let Gallant lower his mouth to the water also, but the large gelding only played in it, flapping his lips at the icy ripples. She missed the provoking conversation of Bennet, but was unwilling to say so.
“I imagine Mr. Varner is busy today,” Martin suggested.
“Yes, I am sure that he is always busy, today especially.”
“I made some inquiries about Foy yesterday. He did survive the war.”
“I know. His name came up at tea yesterday. But Stanley and I were so engrossed in distancing ourselves from him, we never got to hear what they were saying about him.”
“He’s on the hunt for a wife, done up, by what I could make out.”
“That’s not much of a change from five years ago.”
“They say he will make a match with Varner’s sister if Varner will give his consent.”
“He will give it.” Rose scratched her mount’s withers then turned to Martin. “I keep feeling I should warn Harriet about Axel.”
“How can you do that without giving yourself away?”
“I do not know. Yet I must do something. Perhaps I should tell Bennet.”
“You can’t do that either.”
“I think I can trust him far enough to tell him how rotten Axel is without going into specifics.”
“I wish we were well out of this town. Now that we know Foy is here, France is looking better and better to me, even if I don’t know the lingo.”
“To me as well. Perhaps we should hope for a disastrous evening. That might convince Stanley that London is not as much fun as he thinks.”
“That depends on how disastrous. If Foy is pursuing the Varner chit he is like to show up at this ball.”
“I am well aware of that possibility, but I will be on the lookout for him. To be sure there will be a hundred people there. I should be able to avoid one man. If all else fails I will hide until it is time to leave.”
Martin nodded and suggested they ride on toward Green Park now that the horses were rested.
“Walters!” Bennet shouted as he came into the office, tossing a paper at his secretary and casting his hat aside. “Trace this shipment back to its source. I want to know who sent it, who paid for it and who delivered it to the dock.”
“Now?” Walters asked as Bennet went into his inner office and attacked his desk, a drawer at a time, making a mangle of the papers inside and finally knocking onto the floor the stack of documents that had been carefully arranged on the blotter.
“It’s only a matter of national security. Yes, of course, now.”
“A trunk full of books?” asked Walters, peering at the bill of lading as he gathered up the contracts.
“With a heavy bottom. There was enough gold under those French plays and poems to finance a small army, or a large army for a few days.”
“Where was it going?”
“Elba.”
“Good Lord!” Walters said, his arms full of documents as he stared myopically at the shipping order. “And on the Celestine.”
“The matter is now in the hands of the Foreign Office. Get cracking, Walters. We need that information.”
“Right away, sir, but you will be terribly late if you wait for this.”
“Late for what?”
“Your sister’s ball, of course.”
“Oh, my God. I had completely forgotten. I’ll rush ’round there and fly up the back stairs to change. You know Leighton at the Foreign Office. Seek him out and give him the information, then come to the house. Oh, did you...?”
“I picked up the necklace and earrings and delivered them to Varner House.”
“Excellent! They had them in good time?”
“Carried them ’round myself before noon.”
“You are a paragon. Give yourself a raise. I must go. Have a footman interrupt me tonight, whatever you learn. I must know.”
Gwen Rose sat observing the dancing couples in utter and unremitting boredom. She looked down again at her ivory silk gown with the scallops of seed pearls. She was impeccably dressed and had her hair gathered up in a Medusan knot of curls, restrained by a silver riband, yet no one had asked her to dance all evening. Nor was any gentleman likely to without an introduction. Several men had cast curious glances in her direction as she sat alone almost within the embrace of a large parlor palm she had struck up a friendship with. She was grateful for its company and it did seem more likely to converse with her than the dozen dowagers who were similarly ensconced in the corners of the Varner ballroom. At least its conversation, if it had any, would have been neither silly nor malicious.
She did not know how it was that she always imagined people to be talking about her. Perhaps because they so often were discussing her at the assemblies around Bristol. Typically it would be the duty of the hostess or even the hostess’s daughter to introduce newcomers about until they had struck up a conversation that seemed promising. Neither Mrs. Varner nor Harriet had made the slightest effort to ease the Walls into society.
Fortunately Stanley had become acquainted with half a dozen men from the clubs and could make Alice known to their wives, one of whom was not much older than Alice and took her under her wing. Rose supposed she could have trailed after them, but since Alice never thought to include her it would have taken some effort to attach herself to them. And she frankly found the palm better company.
The Varner ballroom, which extended out over the ground floor portico, looked much as she had suspected it would, glittering gold in the light of hundreds of candles and richly alive with music. She could see through the far doorway into the refreshment salon, which had red wallpaper. She would dearly have loved to go there to get something cool to drink and to look at the paintings on the wall. But women looked so singular when they moved about a room this size alone. The worst part would be when they had to go in to supper. She would wait until near the end so she would not be so conspicuous for not having a partner, but then it would be hard to find a place to sit. Perhaps Stanley would think to save her a seat, if he remembered to leave the card room at all. Trapped again, she thought as she sighed heavily.
She had hoped Bennet would put in an appearance, not that he would have time to joust with her. Probably his tardiness was what had the Varner women so disturbed as they whispered between themselves, casting occasional dark looks at Rose. Edith looked like a black crow in her silk, and Harriet’s dress was far too old even for a woman celebrating her twenty-first birthday, the bosom revealing the spareness of her breasts. Rose mentally took herself to task for being critical. It did not matter that she did not say these things out loud. She should not even be thinking them.
When the Gravelys arrived Lady Catherine was impeccably dressed in lavender silk and traded insincere kisses with both Varner women. Cassie was wearing a white gown trimmed with scarlet scallops and large red silk flowers to set off, Rose supposed, the exquisite necklace of rubies at her throat. They were jewels more appropriate to an older woman, but would have looked misplaced against Lady Catherine’s stark-white skin. Whatever else one said of Cassie she did have the most creamy skin. On second glance the rubies shone like drops of blood around her neck, and with the cropped hair, the specter of the guillotine loomed in Rose’s mind. Rose wondered if the association was particular to her or an intentional ploy of Cassie’s for attention. A sharp look from this miss warned Rose that she had been staring too long at her, but so had others, so Rose did not take herself to task again. If they were going to bore her, what did they expect?
She was attempting to ignore them by mentally coppicing the hedgerows around Wall, since she was quite sure the hired men were not doing so in her absence. She had rounded the horse pasture, had gotten past the stream and nearly to the stone fence when someone entered the room who caused every head to turn.
She hoped desperately that it was Bennet and she could at least exchange a bored smile with him. But the man wore a scarlet coat, and for a moment Rose’s eyes blurred with shock. It was Axelrod Barton.
Rose tried to shrink even farther into the plant’s embrace. She would wait for Foy’s attention to be diverted and slip toward the refreshment salon. Surely it had a door into the hall and she would be able to make her escape. But Axel surveyed the room like a hunter picking out his prey, his fair head thrown up arrogantly, his brown eyes slicing through the crowd, his tanned hand gripping the hilt of his dress saber. Rose felt his speculative gaze come to rest upon her. Perhaps he would not recognize her after five years. She had changed much more than he. She tried to avert her eyes, but it was as though he compelled her to look at him. When she did meet his gaze he nodded and ran the back of his hand along the faint scar on his jaw.
Rose covered her hand. The ring that had made that scar was no longer there, but it felt as though it was. She had thrown that mark of his possession back in his face. She reminded herself that she was free of Axel, that he could do nothing to hurt her, but she knew that was not true.
She sent him in return a cold, challenging look and he came to her with his wicked lip-curling smile. It was the nicest thing about him.
“You remember me,” he said, taking her hand and kissing it possessively.
“I could scarcely forget you.”
“You nearly did for me. You and that ring and that stallion of yours. I tell you, Rosie, never in all my years in the Peninsula have I seen the like of your efficiency at mayhem.”
“Must you go on about it?” Rose asked, looking distractedly at the attention they were drawing.
“What? Have I offended your maidenly sensibilities?”
“At one time or another you have offended all my sensibilities.”
“Dance with me. I think it would be so much more amusing to argue with you while you are concentrating on your steps.”
“I am not dancing,” she said firmly, daring him to dislodge her from the palm tree.
“Never say you don’t remember how, for I recall quite distinctly the dancing at our engagement party.”
“Of course I remember how. I simply am not dancing tonight.”
“Why not tonight?” he demanded, compelling her to rise to her feet so as not to have a tug-of-war with him over her hand.
“Don’t be so stupid, Axel. If I dance now they will think I have been wanting to dance all evening.”
“And haven’t you?” he asked with a laugh.
“Yes, of course, but I don’t want to let them know that,” Rose said, nodding toward the Varner women.
“But—no! This is all too complex for me. You will dance,” he said, placing an arm forcibly about her waist when the players obligingly struck up a waltz. “You owe me that much.”
As Axel whirled her down the floor Rose caught a glimpse of Harriet’s flushed and angry face, and an almost jealous look from Cassie. Certainly Mrs. Varner knew the man who was pursuing her daughter was waltzing passionately with his former fiancée. She whispered something to Lady Catherine just as they danced past. Lady Catherine’s face looked as though it had been cut in stone, for all the expression it bore.
“You have grown even more lovely with the years,” Axel said in his caressing way.
“Fustian.”
“A lady would return the compliment. Do you not still find me handsome?”
Rose glanced up at him and had to admit that she did not. “I find you dissipated.”
“Then I have achieved my aim.”
“If looking dissolute were a worthwhile object.” Rose turned her face away, desperately searching for Stanley, or Alice’s petal-pink gown.
“But women love it.” He bent to whisper in her ear. “The more scarred and disheveled I am, the more I have to fend them off.” His sun-bleached blond hair fell mockingly over his brow from its central part.
“Not all women,” Rose corrected, trying to push herself back from his embrace without tripping. “At least one woman sees you for what you are.”
“And what is that?”
“A spoiled, selfish blackguard—”
“Yes, of course.”
“You’re impossible,” she whispered viciously.
“I give you impossible. What else?”
“And dangerous.”
He gripped her even tighter. “Most certainly. I commend you on your excellent reading of my character. Though I think you should have mentioned what a fine dancer I am.”
“I had no intention of complimenting you, sir. I think very ill of you. And do not smolder, Axel. It makes you look childish.”
This last remark seemed to shake his poise. “I am a dangerous man,” he warned.
“I know that,” Rose said, fixing him with her angry green eyes.
“Then why do you not act like other women?”
“Seek you out, you mean? Common sense. A coiled snake has a certain fall-from-grace fascination about it,” she said with disgust. “That does not mean I would stretch out my hand to pet it.”
“You are piercing my hand with your nails,” Axel complained.
“I will draw blood in a moment if you do not put some space between us.”
“Any other woman in the room would be enjoying herself. They are all watching you.”
“I am well aware of that I detest being the object of so much scrutiny.”
“I can take care of that.” Axel spun her into the hallway and dragged her toward the only closed door. It turned out to be the library.
“This is the outside of enough,” Rose complained as Axel kicked the door shut and turned her wrist around behind her back to hold her close to him. “Release me or you will regret it.”
“I don’t think so,” Axel said as he captured her mouth in a hungry kiss.
But Rose had one arm free and that was enough. She drew back and punched him in the throat as hard as she could manage. Axel went to his knees, gasping for air.
The door opened and Bennet appeared, seeming startled to see a guest of his in difficulty. “Are you—Axel, what happened?”
“He cannot talk now. He is choking,” Rose informed Bennet, as though it were an everyday event.
“I can see that. Perhaps we should get him some water,” Bennet said, searching the glasses and decanters on the side table.
“Oh no, let’s not. I mean, it’s only Axel. He’ll be fine.”
“Brandy!” Axel gasped, staggering to his feet and supporting himself with a hand on the edge of the desk.
“See,” Rose replied.
“Still,” Bennet said, repressing a chuckle, “I think I should do something. Can’t have him expiring in the library.”
“Oh, very well,” Rose agreed. “I will get some.” She exited in no particular hurry.
Axel gulped from the glass Bennet put in his hands and had a renewed fit of coughing that lasted several minutes.
“Well, perhaps brandy wasn’t the best choice,” Bennet decided. “What happened?”
“She punched me in the throat,” Axel complained hoarsely.
“No! Really?” Bennet bit his lips to keep from laughing outright.
“Yes, ow!” Axel was still feeling the injured area.
“Dangerous woman,” Bennet observed sympatheti-cally. “Shall I call my carriage to take you home?”
“Devil take you, Varner!”
“He probably will, and you as well,” Bennet said, refilling Axel’s glass and pouring some wine for himself.
“See that this doesn’t get about”
“Would a host gossip about his guests? Besides, I do not even know the lady.”
“Just see to it. And I want a word with you later,” Axel said menacingly as he left the room.
“As soon as you feel up to it.” Bennet sat down at his desk and laughed at the thought of Rose fending off Axel so efficiently. But then, she knew Foy. He had to keep reminding himself of that. The two of them probably knew each other better than he knew either one of them, and that was a sobering thought.
Where the hell was Walters? He wanted to know what was going on. He went to the small side door and unlocked it. Opening it, he stared down the dark back stair that came out in the stable block, but there was no unusual activity so he closed it.
Music flowed into the room as the hall door opened and Rose spun in. “I could not find any water. Will champagne do? Oh, he is gone.”
“You do not seem much bereft.”
“I am not, actually. Had he still been here I might have felt compelled to apologize.” Rose fingered her injured arm.
“To Foy? No, my dear. I feel sure he had it coming. Did he bruise your wrist?” Bennet came to take the glass from her and put it on the desk.
“Probably, but I wear gloves most everywhere.”
“I am sorry, Rose,” he said, keeping hold of her hand. “If only I had not been detained.”
“Oh, do not regard it. Axel and I always clash. I only hope I have not distressed Harriet.”
“How could that be so?”
“She saw Axel dancing with me.”
“She will get over it.”
Rose sighed. “What... what did he say about me?”
“That you are a dangerous woman. But I had already surmised that.”
“My antagonism toward Axel is of long standing, but I do not know why he thought he could get away with dragging me in here.”
The smile suddenly left Bennet’s face. “Did anyone see you leave the room with him?”
“Bennet, everyone saw.”
“Then you must go back in on my arm.”
“I do not care so much for myself,” she said, letting him take her arm, “but if there is talk, Stanley will never forgive me.”
“Do not worry. We shall put a stop to it.”
As they entered the ballroom during an interval between two dances, the buzz of talk and the subsequent lull that followed them through the room convinced Rose she had been the subject of conversation. She scanned the crowd for some friendly face, or at least a familiar one. There was only Alice standing near Cassie, and Axel talking earnestly to a stone-faced Harriet. Fortunately Stanley was nowhere in sight—probably still in the card room.
Bennet ignored them all. He spoke to the musicians and had them strike up a waltz. Rose admired the masterful way he got just what he wanted. Other couples joined them on the floor after frantically checking dance cards and discovering that this waltz was nowhere on the program. Rose wondered how much of the gossip was about her hasty exit with Axel and how much sprang from what he might have said about her. It hardly mattered. She could not show her face again in London. But the Walls were poised to launch themselves toward Europe. They should be able to stay ahead of even Axel’s agile tongue. And in four or five months she would go to live at her mother’s house in Bristol, a city that had run its length gossiping about her.
It was worth facing them all down to stand up just once with Bennet Varner, the only man she had ever met who was worth talking to. She forgot about the rest of them and focused her attention only on him and the music. These few minutes made up for the whole interminable evening. He smiled at her and she sailed around and around almost as though they were one being. Only his stopping signaled her that the music had ceased as well.
“Come, I shall lead you in to supper.”
“Surely there are many with precedence over me.”
“None, in my estimation. At any rate I have no idea who they would be.”
Rose let Bennet escort her into the formal blue and white room, fill her plate with all manner of delicacies and supply her with a glass of iced punch. The table seemed to go on for miles and no one sat close enough to disturb them. Except for an occasional glare from Harriet or Mrs. Varner, Rose could have imagined she was some quite ordinary girl enjoying a first flirtation with an extraordinary man. He rattled on about the Celestine, his ship, and how much fun she would have in Italy, just as soon as the mainmast was replaced.
“The mainmast?” she asked, swallowing a bite of lobster cake the wrong way. “But that sounds rather serious.”
“The work of a day or two—no more.”
“You make everything sound so easy, when actually I am quite sure it is an enormous undertaking, to change a mast and get it fastened to the ship.”
“No, were you thinking that the deck held it up?” he asked, standing a candle in an aspic jelly and watching it fall over.
“Yes, well, I have never thought much about it. I have stayed in Bristol, of course, and watched the ships but I have never been on one.”
“What holds the masts up is all of the rigging. It is most important that for every line pulling forward there is one pulling backward with an equal amount of tension. The same thing left to right.”
“It all makes such perfect sense when you explain it, but does not that put our departure off even farther?” she asked astutely.
“What do you mean?”
“All that rigging will have to be taken down, then put back up again.”
“Oh what is another day or two when you are making such a hit in London?”
“A hit? I am no such thing. I am probably the most talked-about woman in town this night.”
“Yes, that is what I meant,” Bennet said, staring into her eyes.
“Do be serious, Mr. Varner,” she said sternly. “You cannot want to be in the company of an infamous woman.”
“My friends call me Bennet.” He rested his elbow on the table and his chin on his hand to study her better.
“What do your enemies call you?”
“I see to it that I have no enemies,” he said with that determined smile of his, and Rose wondered if he did not make them or if he simply eliminated them.
“You have one—Axelrod Barton, Lord Foy. He is looking daggers at you this very moment.”
“Like yours, my antagonism with Axel goes back so far he is like a bunion. It feels odd when he is not rubbing at me.”
Rose laughed and then sobered herself. “Unfortunately Axel is more dangerous than a bunion. He is at home here and I am the outsider. Whatever he says will be believed.”
Bennet forcibly drew his gaze away from the slender mounds of her bosom and got lost in Rose’s eyes again. “Oh, I think if you are accepted by my family your character will bear scrutmy.”
“If my acceptance hinges on your family’s approval, then it is fortunate that it does not matter to me what people think.”
“I can take care of Mother and Harriet. But if you do not care what people think, then why did you come back into the library when another woman would have run off and had the vapors.”
“Because I do care what you think of me...friend.”
“And I care—what is it?” Bennet said impatiently to the footman whispering in his ear. “I must leave you for a few minutes, Rose. Forgive me.”
The glow of Bennet’s safe aura lasted only a moment after he followed the footman out. Rose now found herself to be the object of scrutiny from so many pairs of eyes she felt she had to do something. She brushed at an imaginary stain on her gown, then got up in mock frustration and went upstairs to find one of the chambers prepared for the ladies to withdraw into to relieve themselves or repair torn hems. She was not lucky enough to find an empty one so she did not stay to listen to the idle chatter. The talk seemed rather forced after her entrance.
She crept back down one flight and stole into the unoccupied library. Such a delightful room, a fire burning in the grate and her pick of books. She chose a volume of Diderot’s encyclopedia and seated herself in the high-backed armchair turned toward the fire. She curled her legs up in the chair, thinking that the cozy leather must have embraced Bennet often. The dark paneled room said Bennet to her, from the highly polished furniture to the shelves and shelves of well-used books. No matter how much she tried to apply herself to the text her mind kept wandering to her friend and that provoking smile of his.
She thought she must have dozed, for a sudden draft awakened her and subsequent covert sounds of liquid being poured indicated that whoever had come through that oddly placed side door was no burglar but was quite at home. The hall door opened and she heard confident steps.
“Gaspard, what news?” Bennet demanded in perfect French.
Rose gaped in the privacy of her chair as Gaspard revealed plans to free Napoleon from his island prison. He mentioned half a dozen ships, L’Inconstant by name, and a thousand men.
“They managed to evade the British cruisers then,” Bennet said. “Amazing.” Bennet’s contributions to the conversation, though in fluent French, were noncommittal. None of the news, though he demanded details, seemed to be much of a surprise to him. Rose listened to his inflection to see if she could tell if he were a part of this heinous plot, but she could not.
The door was flung open again and Rose thought the room was getting a trifle crowded. Her danger of being discovered was great, even if she made no sound.
“Leighton, come in,” Bennet said. “You are very late.”
“I just got Walters’s message,” the new voice said excitedly. “I had to dispatch a flurry of reports just in case.”
“Gaspard seems to have little doubt his news from the fishermen on Elba is true.”
The door to the library thumped open again and Rose moaned inwardly, drawing tighter into the cover of the wing chair.
“Bennet, I want to speak to you now,” Axel demanded drunkenly.
“Not now, Foy, can you not see I am engaged?”
“This cannot wait.”
“Oh, very well. Leighton, take Gaspard, go to your office and await me there.”
This last was spoken in English, Rose supposed, for Axel’s benefit. To her relief at least two of the men left by the exterior door.
“I am not asking permission this time. I am telling you. I mean to have Harriet.”
“Yes, of course,” Bennet replied. “Brandy?”
“What do you mean? She told you?”
Rose heard glasses being filled and wondered what Bennet was playing at.
“We discussed all this when I turned her inheritance over to her,” Bennet said calmly. “She is responsible for her own fortune now. It was nice of you to come to ask formally for her hand, but there was really no need.”
“But I didn’t,” Axel replied.
“But surely you intend to,” Bennet countered.
“You cannot stop me.”
“I do not mean to. I only stood in your way four years ago because of her young age. Since her attention has remained fastened on you all these years, I see now that I was wrong.”
“You admit you were wrong?” Axel asked incredulously.
“Yes, her love for you, compared to the length of most affairs in London, amounts to a grand passion. Without a doubt, you and Harriet belong together.”
Rose heard their glasses click together, but she did not imagine Axel was participating in the toast.
“We do? Yes, of course we do. So there are no settlements to work out?”
“Not between the two of us. You have only to deal with Harriet. Do you plan a large wedding?”
“I—we haven’t decided yet.”
“Allow me to put one of my traveling carriages at your disposal for your honeymoon. Also Harriet has taken a notion to have a London house. I can be no end of help to you there.”
“I prefer to make my own arrangements, if you don’t mind.”
“Not at all. Just let me know if I can be of service.”
“I—I will.”
The door opened and closed with less assurance this time and Rose breathed a sigh of relief. If only Bennet would leave now. She heard him chuckling to himself. So, he was not really foisting his sister on such a villain as Foy, but was making a May game of the man. She heard footsteps coming toward the fireplace and closed her eyes as if in sleep. She detected a slight gasp when Bennet discovered her, but maintained her pose. He said nothing, but she could feel his weight on the arms of the chair, his breath on her forehead, then his lips on hers. Her eyes flew open.
“Wh-what are you doing?” she stammered as she shrank into the chair.
“Waking a very appealing sleeping beauty.”
“I do not think you really believed me to be asleep.”
“Of course, you were asleep. Otherwise I might suspect you of eavesdropping.”
“No one could have slept though Axel’s incoherent ranting.”
“Aha, that should have been my line, not yours.”
“Very well, I was pretending to be asleep to avoid embarrassment.” She stood and closed the volume.
“For you or me?”
“For both of us. And as long as I have been accused of spying—” she laid an accusing emphasis on the word but Bennet only grinned at her “—what do you mean by handing your sister over to such a rake?”
“But if I make it easy for him, he may decide he does not want her. Believe me, I know Axel.”
“I know him too.”
“I have been trying to forget that,” Bennet said with the first edge to his voice that she had ever heard. He put down his glass and deliberately kissed her. And she let him, only coming to her senses when she realized this was just the sort of thing she would have killed Axel for. But Bennet was nothing like Axel. Still, this was not a kiss of friendship, and she had to put him in his place.
When he finally released her she sniffed and said, “In your own way you are just as ruthless and manipulative as Axel.”
“Something tells me I should take offense at that,” he replied, trying to get close to her lips again and finding a volume of Diderot thrust in his face instead.
“Something tells me you won’t. I must go and find Stanley and Alice. It is time we were taking our leave.”
He did not try to detain her but chuckled again as he replaced the volume on the shelf. It was in French and if he knew anything about Miss Gwen Rose Wall, he could make a guess that she was not just looking at the pictures. He went over his conversation with Gaspard in his mind. Even if she spoke of it, and he did not think she would, she was scarcely likely to spook their quarry, not before the trap had been sprung. He really must remember never to underestimate her again.
Chapter Four
The next day Rose and Martin had ridden alone again and Rose decided to go with Martin to return the horses to Varner House. They rode around the corner past that larger side portico to the stable block off the alley. Rose was not surprised at the opulence of this part of the house. She was just complimenting Stilton on the facilities when Bennet drove in with a high-stepping team that required all the efforts of his tiger to subdue while Bennet jumped down in order to be the one who lifted Rose from the saddle and set her gently down on the paved brick courtyard. “I’m sorry I missed our ride today. Surely you were not going to walk back to the hotel.”
“I had some thought of getting a hack and going shopping down Oxford Street on the way back,” she replied, stepping out of his embrace.
“Did you enjoy your ride?”
“Immensely, since I did not have to fend off either Axel or you.”
“I must apologize for my behavior last night I was...drunk.”
“I know when a man is drunk and you were no such thing.”
Bennet, looking boyish in his somber attire, blinked at being contradicted. “Excited then. I lost my head.”
“That’s not much of an excuse for your behavior in the library last night,” Rose said, turning her back.
“Stealing a kiss?” Bennet walked around in front of her, blocking her retreat from the stable block. “Is it my fault you are utterly irresistible...friend?”
Rose noticed that both grooms and the tiger were pointedly ignoring them, meaning they could hear every word. “That was not a kiss of friendship,” she whispered urgently. “Martin,” she called. “Please go find us a hack.”
“Don’t bother, Martin,” Bennet countered. “I will take you back to your hotel or shopping if that’s what you wish.” Saying that he lifted Rose into the curricle, which seesawed slightly behind the agitated team. He had swung her about so effortlessly it almost made her giddy. She should resent that, but somehow she found that she liked to be a bit dizzy when in Bennet’s company. It let her say things she would never think to say to another man.
Bennet hopped in, grabbed the reins and spared no more than a backward glance to make sure Martin and the tiger had swung up behind. “Now where were we?” he asked Rose as he feathered the turn into the street.
“In too public a place to discuss anything private,” Rose reminded him.
“I’m sure I can rely on the discretion of my tiger just as you trust Martin.”
Rose stared at him, wondering how much of her connection with Martin he divined. “It was not your loss of control that worried me the most.”
“What then?” Bennet glanced at her in such apparent innocent good humor she felt unable to upbraid him about the presence of the Frenchman in his library. If he were guilty of clandestine activity against the government would he be likely to have the effrontery to invite her condemnation? The answer was yes. From her brief experience of Bennet Varner, there was little he would not dare and nothing he could not carry off. She must not let herself be as swayed by his charm as everyone else was. Beginning to feel her long silence had grown awkward, Rose scrambled in her mind to find some other flaw with which to upbraid him, but she could not.
Bennet grinned at her speechlessness. “Do you go to the party at Lady Catherine’s house tonight?” he asked absently.
“No, why should they invite us?”
“Because it would be the gracious thing to do for the relatives of a close friend, which is precisely why they have not.”
“You sound as though you resent them as much as...”
“As much as I dislike my own mother and sister? That was what you were about to say, wasn’t it?”
“Yes, but then I remembered my manners.”
“You won’t have much use for them in London,” Bennet said, passing a string of carts and running the danger of locking wheels with a mail coach before he nipped back to his side of the street. “You will meet a great many people here who will be gracious to your face, but who will talk about you unmercifully behind your back.”
“And how are they different from people anywhere else?” she asked, clutching the side of the curricle as he feathered another corner. It suddenly occurred to her that they were not going to Greeves Hotel, that they were not, in fact, even going in the right direction.
She was about to point this out to Bennet when he turned a look of genuine surprise upon her. “You have been the subject of gossip before?”
“Yes,” she said guardedly. “The breaking of an engagement, even when done by mutual agreement, is bound to be a cause for gossip.”
“Was that the only reason for the gossip?” He asked it casually, as though it were a matter of little interest to him. But Rose read it as an invitation to confide in him. Had there not been the tiger pointedly ignoring them, she might have been tempted, but there were Martin’s feelings to consider as well.
“You know what Axel is. I offended his pride by crying off. Even though he took the ring back with relief, he gave it about that he was the one who jilted me and hinted at some dark reason for his decision.”
“Yes, putting all the blame on you without saying anything actionable.”
“As though I would take him to court when all I wanted to do was forget...” Rose ran out of breath, and Bennet looked at her with concern.
“Forget Axel? Impossible. He is like a boil on one’s neck. It is impossible to forget him even when he is a thousand miles away.”
Rose laughed nervously. “Does Lady Catherine entertain often?”
“Nearly every week. She needs material and that is the easiest way to get it.”
“Material? Whatever do you mean?” Rose stared about at the shops they were now passing, mapmakers, chandlers and an excise office.
“For her rumor mill. When I said Harriet had fallen under some bad influence it was the Gravelys I was referring to. They have taught her to be spiteful with a smile, playing people against each other for amusement—the sort of social torture I would like to warn you of.”
“In order to be hurt by them I should have to care what they thought, what anyone thought of me, and I do not.”
“Does Alice?” Bennet asked, drawing a conscience-stricken look from Rose.
“Yes, but she is an innocent. What has she to worry about?”
“Last season they took Miss Robin Coates on as their protégée, led her into excesses that became too dangerous. Now they have dropped her. She will never receive another invitation from either family, and no word of explanation.”
“But what has that to do with—”
“Ah, here we are,” Bennet said with satisfaction, and he pulled the team to a halt on the dock.
“But where are we?” Rose demanded, letting him swing her down from the curricle all the same.
“The Celestine. I was sure you would want to inspect her.”
“And if I feel that the staterooms are too small?” Rose looked critically at the three-masted schooner with its green and gilt trim.
“Why, we can have them enlarged. Of course, we shall have to throw part of the cargo overboard, but it’s only money. Actually I knew they were to remove the old mast today, so I thought you might like to watch.” Bennet looked up at the intricate block and tackle arrangements and nodded.
“You are impossible!” Rose said as she let him take her arm to help her along the crowded quay.
“Just when I was congratulating myself on how agreeable I was being.”
“You know what I mean.”
“Shall I carry you? I would not want you to trip on your riding habit and fall into the Thames.”
“I can manage,” Rose said as she threw the tail of her long skirt over one wrist and skipped up the planked gangway.
“This is Captain Cooley,” Bennet said. “Miss Gwen Rose Wall will be sailing with you to Europe.”
“Aye, if we ever get out of port. It’s yer own ship and all, but to be replacin’ a perfectly fine mainmast...” Cooley shook his head grimly as the chocks squeaked and the men heaved. The mast was belayed with stout ropes until the pulleys could be repositioned, run out and fastened to the mast again as the huge billet of wood swayed ponderously over the deck. A man in a carpenter’s apron was excitedly crawling about underneath the many tons of wood, making Rose’s flesh creep. Cooley went over at the seaman’s excited exclamation and lay down on the deck himself to examine the butt of the mast. He rose again and waved his hand, shouting some order that started the pulleys to squeaking again.
“Well, I’ll be blasted! Beggin’ yer pardon, miss. It beats me how you knew that mast was cracked afore I did, Mr. Varner. You can see the interior crack from the base. It would probably have riven into splinters in the next storm. You are a wonder, sir. Yer father would’ve been proud of ye.”
Rose thought she had caught a look of surprise flit across Bennet’s face before his usual aspect of cheerful confidence reasserted itself. If Bennet had known the mast was cracked then this had not been a deliberate ruse to keep her in London a few more days. But if, as she surmised, it had been a lucky guess, it meant Bennet was still suspect. What could he hope to accomplish in a few days or a week—the liberation of Napoleon? The realization hit her in a warm rush. If Bennet were trying to contrive that, then he must know Europe would soon be a very dangerous place for the English, or was it just that he could not afford to let her and her knowledge loose on the Continent?
Absurd! She was much more of a danger to Bennet here in London than in Paris. She could and probably should march right into the Foreign Office and tell them what she had overheard. She went over in her mind how she would tell it, how she would probably be unsuccessful in gaining an audience with anyone of importance, how they would disbelieve her even if she got someone’s ear. She would appear a fool, but what did that matter where the safety of the country was at stake? She considered for no more than a moment confiding in Stanley. He was so unused to trusting her judgment in any matter of importance that she knew he would only say she must have misheard and dismiss her concern.
“Seen enough?” Bennet’s abrupt question caused Rose to jump.
She cleared her throat. “We have not seen the cabins yet.”
“I think you will be quite pleased on that account. Let me go down the companionway first so that I may assist you.”
“I do not need any help,” Rose insisted. But the effort of bunching up her riding skirt and trying to keep it tucked about her so as not to expose her ankles left her with only one hand to hang on to the ladder. She could not see her feet, and one misstep caught her off balance. She let go of her skirts but too late to avoid a tumble backward into Bennet Varner’s arms. After her initial gasp she clutched him around the neck and looked accusingly into his eyes. “Knowing you as I do I might almost think that was no accident.”
“Of course not. I bring all my chères amies here, hoping they will fall down that ladder into my arms ”
“You can put me down now.”
“What?”
“Miss, are you all right?” Captain Cooley called from the deck.
“We’re fine,” Bennet shouted back.
“Harrumph. I was askin’ Miss Wall.”
“I’m all right, Captain Cooley. Thank you,” Rose called. “He seems to have your measure,” she said quietly to Bennet.
“He’s like a father to me.”
“Exactly.”
When Bennet finally did set her on her feet again, it was some minutes before the warmth of his touch could be driven from her mind. He hefted her as though she weighed nothing. Bennet Varner was neither an office recluse nor a society lapdog, but a man capable of physical prowess, and Rose did not believe he had got that way just training horses.
“Do the cabins meet with your approval?” he asked after she had meticulously looked through all of them. They did have small windows but she was agreeably surprised by their scrubbed and polished look.
“They are much more spacious than I ever dreamed. Shall I have our trunks sent down?”
“Not quite yet. They would only be in the way for the moment,” Bennet said as he conducted her to the ladder. Rose made him go first for she was quite sure ascending was much easier than going down, especially if there was no one staring up your dress. And she must get the hang of it, for Bennet would not always be there to catch her.
Rose turned her face into the breeze and inhaled deeply. She could imagine clinging to the rail as the ship plunged between waves like a frisky horse, tossing its head and glorying in what it did best. Bennet came to stand behind her. She could almost feel the heat of his body vibrating through the slight space of air that must remain between them.
“Do you not fear seasickness?” he asked, quite out of tune with her romantic thoughts.
“Not in the least,” she said with a smile.
“I did not mean you, of course, but your sister-in-law seems of a delicate constitution.”
“Oh, I am sure Alice will be sick, but it will not be as bad as being shut up in a carriage with her the whole way from Wall. On the ship she can have her maid to mop her brow with lavender water.”
Captain Cooley strolled over to see them off the ship. “Seasickness? Not unless it be a rough crossing. If you are used to a horse galloping under you, the Celestine will seem like a cradle.”
Rose almost laughed out loud at the look of woe this caused on Bennet’s face. “But I suppose we will be delayed weeks over this mast, sir,” Rose said ingenuously.
“Weeks? Bless you, miss. No. This is but a trifle. We could sail day after tomorrow if we was not waitin’ fer a cargo.” As this last was said with a somewhat accusing glance toward Bennet, Rose surmised that the delay was deliberate.
“Thank you, Captain Cooley, for letting me see the Celestine. I can look forward to the voyage with a quiet mind now.”
Cooley clicked his heels together, bowed and kissed her hand for good measure.
“What a gentlemen,” Rose said as she negotiated the narrow gangway. She did not refuse the hand Bennet stretched to her as she made her way down the ramp to the quay nor the strong arms that lifted her into the carriage.
“I suppose you think it rather archaic for a bride to need the comfort of a sister along on her wedding trip, and not even her own sister at that.”
“It’s as good a way to escape home as any,” Bennet replied, getting in beside her and taking the reins from his tiger.
“Disabuse yourself of the notion I came willingly. My mother insisted upon it.”
“Your mother?” Bennet queried as he skillfully turned the curricle in the tight area of the wharf and set off.
“Yes, I think she wanted to dislodge me from Wall, make me give up the management of it. Perhaps she and Stanley even conspired to rip me from my moorings in this fashion.”
“Then you do not really want to go to Europe?” Bennet asked hopefully.
“Oh, for lack of anything better to do, but no, it was not my idea.”
Rose glanced at Bennet’s profile, watching the wheels grind behind his so innocuous eyes. She wondered if he would now try to give Stanley and Alice a disgust of the voyage, or failing that, the Continent itself.
“I was thinking,” Bennet said, “since you have no engagement for tonight you might like to use my box at the theater. It’s a new play and I think you might like it. You can at least be sure your pleasure will not be interrupted by the appearance of Mother and Harriet, since they will be at Lady Catherine’s rout.”
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Laurel Ames
Тип: электронная книга
Жанр: Современная зарубежная литература
Язык: на английском языке
Издательство: HarperCollins
Дата публикации: 16.04.2024
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О книге: He Was Surrounded By Meddlesome Women!The thoughtless antics of his mother and sister had dashing shipping magnate Bennet Varner fleeing all females… until he collided with the impregnable wit of the infamous Gwen Rose Wall – a woman as clever as she was captivating.Besieged by scandal, the beleaguered Miss Wall had vowed never to wed. But the dauntless Varner had his own plan of attack – to use all the wiles at his disposal to scale the ramparts of rumor and rescue the lady′s heart!