“No such thing!” Esperanza surreptitiously tucked Lady Arabella’s Curse deeper into her reticule.
Isabella had heard little past the word “dirty.” Her tiny nose wrinkled. “It could never be as dirty as Paris!”
“Oh, querida,” Carmen murmured, putting her arm around her daughter’s shoulders. “You liked living in Paris, did you not?”
Isabella thought this over very carefully. “I liked our house, and the carousel in the park. And Monsieur Danet’s sweetshop. He always gave me extra raisins glace, because they were my favorites.”
Esperanza’s lips pursed at the memory of smears on dainty white frocks. She loved order and proper-ness above all, and unfortunately Carmen and Isabella were not the sorts to always live by those precepts.
“But it was very dirty,” Isabella concluded.
“Well, London will surely be no dirtier than Paris,” said Carmen. “And I am certain that you will like our new house, Isabella. The estate agent says there is a small park right across the square, and Esperanza and I will even take you to have ices at Gunter’s, and to Astley’s Amphitheater. If you are very, very good.”
“What is an Astley’s, Mama?”
“Come and lay your head on Mama’s lap, and she will tell you all about the acrobats and trained bears at Astley’s.”
Minutes later, lulled by the motion of the carriage and the soft sound of her mother’s voice, Isabella was fast asleep, her rosebud mouth open against Carmen’s red velvet cloak. Even Esperanza was snoring softly.
Carmen leaned her head back against the leather squabs, and finally let her smile slip away. It had been a long and arduous journey, and it was far from over. It would not be over even when they reached London. Not for her.
They had not left Paris only for a change of society, as she had told Esperanza when she had asked her to pack their trunks yet again. The fortune she had inherited from her mother’s family, along with the annuity from her first late husband, was vast, and they could have gone anywhere—Rome, Venice, Baden-Baden.
Anywhere but the one country Carmen had so carefully avoided on all their ceaseless travels.
If not for those letters ...
She reached into her own reticule and drew out the cheap envelope, grubby and creased, sealed with sinister-looking black wax. She knew the words by rote now, the ugly words, but she unfolded it and read it again:
“If you have no desire for your own, treacherous role in the occurrences of September 1811 ... Alvaro Hill ... the deaths of so many fine Englishmen ... treacherous spies ... send five hundred pounds to the address which will soon be revealed to you, Countess Shadow.”
“Shadow” had been her name on the dispatches of long-ago days, days of great secrecy and danger in Spain. No one could know of that now, or know of that awful day when she had lost her whole world with the speed of a bullet.
No one but this person. This person who sent her nasty letters from England.
She shoved the letter back into her reticule with a whispered curse. There had been three such missives coming to the house in Paris, each becoming nastier as she refused to capitulate. She had nothing to fear from any revelations of her life in wartime Spain. She had only done what she had to do. But a scandal on Isabella’s head, when Carmen had worked so very hard to build a place in Society for her, would be unbearable.
Carmen had only the best planned for her little girl. The best schools, the best tutors, the finest marriage. A duke at the very least! Perhaps a prince. It was only fitting for her daughter.
Carmen had her own way of dealing with offal that threatened Isabella’s golden future. It had to be someone who had known her in Spain, perhaps a member of Peter’s regiment. If any of them had survived. When she found this letter writer, he would be very sorry indeed.
But, oh! To go to England!
Her nerves had been on edge ever since their ship reached the English shore. It had been just as she feared. She saw him in every red coat, heard him in every aristocratic accent.
Over the years, she had dashed across the Continent so fast that she had almost outrun the sound of an indifferent voice saying, “What, that blond bloke? He’s dead, he is. Died back at Alvaro. Din’t you hear?”
Dead. Her Peter, her husband, was dead.
Yet he was not truly dead. Not in her heart, not in their child.
Carmen’s hand smoothed over her daughter’s guinea-gold curls, pushing them back from her small face. Isabella felt so tiny against her, so vulnerable.
“Oh, Peter,” Carmen whispered. “If only you were here. I am so tired, I do not know how much longer I can do everything by myself. If only ...”
But Carmen knew all too well the horrible futility of “if only.”
Chapter Two
“Shall I lay out your blue coat for the evening, my lord?”
Peter Everdean, the Earl of Clifton, sat staring down at the papers on his desk, ostensibly reading them. In reality, he had not seen a word in fully fifteen minutes, or heard anything that Simmons, his valet, had said.
He had been contemplating the offer of marriage he was thinking of making to Lady Deidra Clearbridge, a very suitable, pretty, accomplished, and (it had to be confessed) rather dull young lady of good family.
“Hm?” he murmured. “Blue coat?”
“Yes, my lord.”
“Why the deuce would I need my blue coat?” He tugged absently at his rather disheveled cravat, which had, only that morning, been a perfectly executed Mathematical. “I am quite well dressed enough at the moment for an evening at home.”
“Yes, my lord. Quite.” Simmons looked down his rather long nose at the rumpled cravat and shirtsleeves. His lordship’s clothes did tend rather to wrinkle when he was going over estate business. “However, it was my understanding that Lady Elizabeth arrives this afternoon from Italy, and that she has sent word she wishes to attend the Duchess of Dacey’s ball this evening.”
Peter looked up at that, his ice-blue eyes almost horrified behind his spectacles. “Elizabeth! By Jove, I had quite forgotten all about her arrival. No one but my sister would ever wish to attend a confounded crush like the Dacey ball after a grueling journey from Venice.”
“Yes, my lord. So—the blue coat?”
“Yes, yes, the blue coat. And quickly, man! She could be here at any moment.” The sun was setting beyond his library windows even as they spoke.
Simmons bowed and retreated. ,
Peter cursed again, and tore off his spectacles. He loved his sister, and of course the house was a great deal livelier when she and her crowd of artistic friends and admirers were about. But she felt that when she was in London, she had to attend every rout, every musicale, every ball, every tea in order to find clients and further her promising career as a portrait painter. It was the only reason, she said, to ever leave her sunny Italian home for the gloominess of London.
And, more often than not, Peter’s old friend, Sir Nicholas Hollingsworth, would find a way to wriggle out of escorting her and she would insist on dragging Peter along behind her. What was worse, she insisted on introducing him to every pretty, unmarried girl she could find. This was a severe disruption of his purposely quiet life, filled with political discussions at his club, meetings at the House of Lords (when in session) a few respectable parties with serious-minded people, Lady Deidra by his side ... perhaps a cozy evening or two with Yvette, until their association had come to its recent end.
Peter called his life quite satisfactory, peaceful, and quiet after years at war. Elizabeth called it an early crypt, and saw it as her bounden duty to get him out into the world again.
He sighed, and shoved his spectacles and account books into a drawer. He would just have to resign himself to the social whirl for the next few weeks. And perhaps Elizabeth was correct in her opinions; he had played the mourning recluse, the wounded war hero, for too long. It had been six years since he had been invalided home to England; his melancholy, his “spells,” had been a very con
venient excuse not to live since then. It hurt far less that way.
Well, Elizabeth would surely be happy to hear of his intentions toward Lady Deidra.
“Isabella? Isabella, querida, wake up. We are here. Home.” Carmen lifted her daughter’s sleepy weight against her shoulder. “Can you walk?”
“No.” Isabella buried her nose against the fur collar of her mother’s cloak.
“Then, I shall have to carry you, even though you are almost too big and heavy for your mama!” Carmen hoisted her high in her arms and stepped down from the carriage.
The house, a narrow, respectable, cream-colored stone on a well-kept square, was shuttered and quiet as Carmen made her way up the scrubbed marble steps. Esperanza hurried before her to unlock the door.
Late afternoon sunlight streamed from the high windows of the small foyer, revealing furniture still shrouded in holland covers. The butler, housemaid, and cook were not engaged to start until the next day, though there were signs that someone had been in to clean for them.
One round, gilded table was uncovered and held a silver tray piled high with cards.
“Look, Carmen!” Esperanza whispered excitedly as she sifted through them. “Look at all the invitations that have already arrived.”
“That is most gratifying, Esperanza, but I absolutely must put this child down before I peruse them. My arm is quite numb.”
“Oh, Carmen, give her to me! I will find her bedroom.”
“Excellent. Gracias, Esperanza.” Carmen surrendered her daughter’s weight with a grateful sigh. “Do you suppose there might be some tea to be had?”
“I will look. A pot of tea would be most soothing.” Then Esperanza carried Isabella up the narrow staircase, crooning to her a soft Spanish lullaby, which she had once sung to Carmen as a child.
Carmen unpinned her small fur hat and ruffled her cropped black curls wearily. She sorted through the invitations, mostly from people she had met on her travels and who had known of her arrival in London, without a great deal of interest.
It was gratifying that there were so many of them. Her quiet demeanor, her natural sense of reserve, had quite unwittingly created an aura of mystery and elegance about her life that people she met found intriguing, even though she did nothing to foster it. It appeared that London Society would be no different.
That was fortunate. The more balls and routs she attended, the greater her chances of ferreting out the identity of this scoundrel.
One invitation in particular captured her attention. “Look, Esperanza,” she called, as her companion came back down the stairs, sans child. “I have been asked to the Duchess of Dacey’s ball tonight. The Gazette said it is the event that opens the Season. It is always a mad crush.”
“A crush?” Esperanza sounded doubtful as to the charms of such a thing.
“Yes.” Carmen laughed. “Perfect.”
“I have heard that she is a gypsy.”
“A gypsy? Oh, my dear Millicent, no. I was speaking with Lady Treadwell, who was introduced to her in Paris earlier this year. She said that she is an heiress to a great Spanish family. Perhaps even the royal family.”
“No, no! I heard that she is a Russian princess, fleeing an unhappy love affair.”
Peter leaned against the silk-papered wall of the Duchess of Dacey’s grand ballroom, attempting to ignore the cluckings of three matrons who were gathered in front of him, blocking his view of the dancers.
The duchess’s ball had become quite a crush, as predicted. Excellent for her reputation as a hostess, but a blighted nuisance if one actually wished to move about. Peter was quite trapped between the three women, a potted palm, and a young couple engaged in a deep flirtation involving a great deal of simpering and giggling.
How they could even converse, let alone flirt, above the confounded racket Peter could not say. The ball was a roaring bore, and Lady Deidra had not even attended. Peter drained his glass of champagne, and glanced again at his watch.
It was all of seven minutes since he had last looked.
He sighed as he tucked the watch away. He loathed London during the Season. Every proud mama had their snares out for him, parading their white muslin-clad darlings before him as if they were at a sale at Tattersall’s. The newspapers all referred to him coyly as “that elusive bachelor, the Earl of C,” and speculated on which young lady he would eventually settle on. It was quite revolting, and one of the central reasons he was thinking of ending it all by wedding Lady Deidra.
He would never have agreed to come to this, one of the grandest balls of the Season, if Elizabeth had not begged for his escort.
“It would be so very good for my business, Peter,” she had said when he tried to demur. “I absolutely must renew my acquaintance with the duchess, she knows utterly everyone in the ton.”
“Where is your husband? Why can he not take you?” Peter had protested, even as he sensed the futility of it. “Didn’t he take some sort of vow at your wedding? For better, for worse, for every rout where there could be potential patrons of the arts?”
“He has gone to inspect that country manor we have just purchased, as I wrote you! Evanstone Park, only a short distance from Clifton!”
So here Peter was, in the corner of a crowded ballroom, drinking poor-quality champagne and listening to some silly women prattle on about some gypsy.
He glanced at his watch again. Almost ten o’clock. Surely he could respectably take his leave now. He forced his way out of the corner, past the matrons, and went in search of his sister.
“Look!” one of the matrons hissed. “It is the Ice Earl! I did not know he was in Town. Dangling after the Clearbridge chit, do you think? I did hear ...”
Peter ignored that silly sobriquet of Ice Earl and the reference to Lady Deidra, and hurried onward, intent on his errand.
Elizabeth was found holding court in a small sitting room off of the ballroom, surrounded by her friends. The diamond bracelets fastened over her kid gloves flashed as she waved her feather fan to emphasize some point.
“Peter!” she called. “Do come and join us. I just heard the most remarkable on-dit.”
“Oh?” He sat down beside her on her settee, and took another glass of champagne from a nearby tray. “What is it? That that woman over there in the rather egregious orange satin is a princess of France in disguise?”
Elizabeth wrinkled her nose. “Lud, no! That is quite a horrid frock. What I heard is ever so much better. I heard that the Condesa de Santiago is invited to this ball, and that she has accepted! I did not even know she was in England.”
“Who?”
“The Condesa de Santiago. My, but you have buried yourself in the country, Peter. Simply everyone has heard of her. I even saw her once at a ball in Venice last year.”
“Ah. So we have established that she is famous,” Peter answered. “What is she famous for doing?”
One of Elizabeth’s friends, a young lady in pink silk, interjected helpfully, “I have heard she is a gypsy.”
“No, one of those red Indians from America,” said a gentleman in a shocking purple waistcoat.
Elizabeth waved all this away with a flick of her fan. “She is almost Spanish royalty, and she makes her way from one European court to another. She is very beautiful, and very mysterious. To have her at one’s ball guarantees it will be a great social success.” She glanced scornfully at the man who had expressed the Indian theory. “So I daresay the fact that she is Spanish means she cannot be American, Gerald.”
“And Santiago hardly sounds Russian,” Peter murmured wryly.
“Her whole name is very long and far too complicated. But what is that about Russia, dear?” said Elizabeth.
“Merely another opinion I heard offered when I was trapped beside a potted palm.”
“Really?” Elizabeth’s brow arched curiously. “What did you hear?”
“Nothing at all of interest, I fear.”
“Pooh! I did want some new tidbit to send on in my next letter to
Georgina. We are both quite fascinated with the condesa. Georgina wanted to paint her portrait, but the condesa left Venice before we could meet her.”
“Oh, well,” said Peter. “If Georgina Beaumont is interested ...”
“Oh, hush! I don’t know why you hate Georgina so, she is my dearest friend in the world.”
“I think the fact that when last we met she chased me with a fireplace poker had something to do with it.”
“That was only because ...”
A woman wearing an astonishing headdress of flowers and fruit interrupted this familiar brother-sister squabble. “I heard that the condesa was the mistress of a duke.”
Elizabeth was appropriately distracted. “Which duke?”
“I did not hear that part,” the headdress woman said. “Perhaps it was a marquis.”
“But what of the rumor that she was seen in Vienna with Lord Riverton?” said the girl in pink silk.
In spite of himself, Peter was beginning to be intrigued with this condesa. The usual gossip at ton affairs was usually completely uninteresting to him, perhaps because he was so often the center of it.
But this seemed rather different from the usual elopements of heiresses with dancing masters and who was seen going into whose room at which country house party.
A condesa, a foreigner whose connections were really quite unknown, who was seen at the finest houses in Europe. A woman of mystery ...
He had not encountered such an intriguing female in ... well, in many years.
His jaw tightened at the memory of another dark, mysterious Spanish lady. Her name had even been similar to this woman’s.
“And she is coming here?” he said, carefully indifferent.
Elizabeth blinked at him in astonishment. “Why, Peter. Never say you are interested in the doings of this condesa?”
“This fete has been—less than stimulating. A beautiful lady, whether she be Spanish, Russian, or red Indian, would surely enliven things.”
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