Perry swallowed hard. He was making a supreme effort not to think about the particular skin in question. He managed to say, “Object? Who could possibly object?”
“Object to what?” demanded a husky female voice directly behind Perry.
Perry turned to find himself face to face, practically nose to nose, with Lady Weldon.
He took a cautious step backward, trying not to look like he was retreating. “What man could object to sharing a roof with yourself and two lovely young ladies such as these?” he improvised, gesturing elegantly toward Cecily and Amelia, who stood on either side of Lady Weldon. He smiled and withstood Lady Weldon’s survey of his person with fortitude. He was used to matrons looking down their noses at him.
“I don’t believe a word of it,” she said when she seemed to have passed her private judgment on him. “But I accept it, for it was very prettily said. Most men of your generation have no address.” She paused to cast an accusatory glance at Wilfred, who was contentedly studying the cuff of his sleeve. She dismissed her son from the conversations with a “Hmph!” and turned back to Perry.
“Now let me present my daughter, Miss Amelia Weldon. And my dear niece, Miss Cecily Bettencourt.”
Perry inclined his head, avoiding making eye contact with Cecily.
“And now you’ve met all our guests, Cecily,” Lady Weldon said. “I hope you paid close attention to their names, for I’m sure Wilfred will be endlessly pestering you to tell him who’s who. The boy has the most uncanny ability to forget a name the instant he hears it.”
“Except the names of the prettiest ladies,” Amelia corrected. “He always remembers those.”
“Well, I think Cecily’s the prettiest lady here tonight,” Wilfred blurted out. He blushed furiously the moment the words left his mouth, as if they had taken him by surprise.
Perry glanced at Cecily and caught a look of surprised pleasure on her face, but it was gone as swiftly as it had appeared, replaced with a look of wicked amusement.
“Now don’t say that, Wilfred,” Cecily chuckled. “Cousins still marry now and then. You’d best watch out or you may come to regret your words.”
Wilfred’s jaw dropped in mortification. Only Lady Weldon appeared to have something to say in reply, but Cecily forestalled her with an abrupt change of subject.
“You said I’ve met all your guests now, Aunt Bea, but I thought there was one more.”
“I suppose you mean that Italian prince. He’s Reginald’s guest and he’ll be here tomorrow. He wants to look over Reginald’s horses, but why, I can’t imagine. That man would never sell one of his darlings to a foreigner. ‘English horses need English oats’, he always says.”
By the time the bell rang to announce dinner, Reggie had returned from the stables, so the entire party was present to file down the stairs to the dining room. Once in the dining room, Perry found himself seated between Henry Bettencourt and a squire’s son from Kent and directly across from Cecily. Amelia was on the other side of the squire’s son, so Perry guessed that he would not need to make conversation in that direction, and the table was too wide and heavily laden with candelabras to allow easy conversation across it. That left Henry for Perry to talk to, who was the only person Perry was supposed to want to talk to anyway.
From one course to the next, Perry questioned Henry under the cover of polite conversation. He inquired about Yorkshire and the goings on of some mutual acquaintances who lived in Henry’s neighborhood. He wondered if Henry had gotten much of a chance to travel abroad before the current war broke out and did he not miss the taste of good French brandy?
By the time the fruit and cheese were served, Perry felt ready to let out a very improper wail of frustration. Henry had thwarted him at every turn of the conversation, somehow, always quite adroitly, turning the subject back to his paragon of a daughter. Perry had learned as much about her as the most ardent suitor could desire to know and he almost felt that was what Henry was attempting to turn him into. He knew that Cecily’s governess had retired to live with her brother in York when Cecily came out because, as she said, she could never again hope to find as able and pleasant a charge as dear Miss Cecily. He knew how bravely the ten-year-old Cecily had comported herself when she fell out of a tree and broke her arm. He knew her taste in literature, the degree of her artistic ability and her ancestry. If Henry Bettencourt was engaging in the dangerous business of espionage, which Perry’s employer assured him tended to wear a man’s nerves down to the roots, he was hiding it well.
Perry only allowed himself to look in the direction of the subject of all this praise three times during the meal. The first time, while Cecily sipped her soup in happy innocence, the dandy from the drawing room was peering none too surreptitiously down her dress. The second time she was in the middle of a tiny sigh and a sorrowful look and the third time she was watching Perry.
By the time Perry saw her again in the ballroom, she was coolly accepting more of Wilfred’s compliments. Or perhaps she was thoughtfully accepting gambling tips. It was difficult to tell across the room, what with neighbors arriving in a great swarm and bits of Lady Weldon’s autumn garlands already fluttering about the room. Perry began to despair of being a good enough spy to find the traitor. If he could not read the expression of an inexperienced young woman, how was he to expose a traitor?
“Quite a vision, isn’t she?”
Perry leaped away from the assailing voice.
“Beg pardon, sir?”
“My niece, Cecily. Never thought she’d dress up to be such a beauty, but I’m not surprised. She’s got good blood. “Don’t believe we’ve met. I’m Reggie Weldon.”
“Oh! I’m pleased to meet you, sir, and grateful for your invitation. I’m Pericles Munk.”
“Rob’s boy!”
Perry realized too late what was about to happen and found himself engulfed in a hearty embrace before he had the chance to beat a retreat. When Lord Weldon released him, Perry was surprised to see that there were tears in his eyes.
Lord Weldon wiped the tears away with a complete lack of shame.
“I can’t tell you how much I miss your father, lad. Such times we had. And not just as boys, let me tell you. Right up to his death, he and Lily and I had grand times. A fine woman, Lily. I don’t suppose you ever hear from her, do you?” he asked with a touch more warmth in his voice than politeness required.
Perry cleared his throat and glanced around the room in hopes a finding a source of rescue.
“But of course, you’re right, my boy. Not the time or place. Well, I’m glad to have you here. We’ll have a nice little chat one of these nights.”
He slapped Perry on the back and made his way toward the punch bowl with an energy that belied the dark circles under his eyes.
Perry rubbed his chin and wandered over to an uninhabited corner of the ballroom, where he stationed himself next to a large potted plant. He considered following Henry into the small side room where tables were set up for cards, but he decided that perhaps he and Henry had seen enough of each other for one evening. He doubted if it was the habit of professional spies to trail behind their subjects like puppies. It was time, Perry decided, to enter into an alternate route of inquiry. What better source of information about a man could there be than his daughter? If she was devoted, she would sing his praises and perhaps let slip some pertinent bit of information. If she wasn’t devoted, so much the better.
He made his decision too late to ask Cecily to dance the first set with him. When he looked about for her, couples were already scurrying to arrange themselves in the middle of the room. It wasn’t until the music began that he realized that Cecily wasn’t among them, as he had at first assumed.
He found her at length, sitting on a couch between her aunt and an elderly lady, engaged in what must have been an amusing conversation, judging by the wry smile on her face. He lingered by the punch bowl for a while, not sure how best to approach her while she was flanked by matrons.
Wilfred sauntered up and scratched his head. “I just lost my last guinea to my own father. I’m thoroughly disgraced.”
“You’d have done better asking your cousin to dance,” Perry suggested.
“My cousin? Good Lord, no! She’s fine to look at, but dance with her? It’d be almost as bad as dancing with my sister.”
“Hmm. No worse disgrace than that, is there?”
“I should say not,” Wilfred agreed fervently. “If you’re so keen on the idea, why don’t you ask her yourself?”
“I think I shall,” Perry said with a smile.
He kept an eye on Cecily as he wandered about, moving from one conversation to another, and he was quite pleased when he finally saw her stand up and move away from the cluster of matrons. Just as he was about to wander nonchalantly toward her, though, he caught sight of Henry sneaking out of the card room. He watched as Henry, glancing over his shoulder every few seconds, crept along the wall and out the door.
As soon as Henry was out of sight, Perry hurried after him and followed him away from the noise of the ballroom, downstairs and through the back of the house to the library. Perry spent several minutes lurking in the shadow of a pedestal that held the bust of some ancient Weldon, listening to the creaking of a leather chair and what sounded like an occasional satisfied sigh. If Henry had come to meet somebody, that somebody was late. More likely, he was rifling through Lord Weldon’s desk. Weldon, Perry had learned, was quite dutiful about making regular appearances in the House of Lords. He had even spoken on occasion. Who knew what sorts of high-level intrigue Lord Weldon might be involved in? Maybe Henry Bettencourt knows, Perry thought.
Perry took a few exploratory steps toward the library door. Henry had left it ajar. Perry supposed spies did that so as not to arouse suspicion, assuming that a person seeing an open door would not suspect that anything underhanded was taking place. Or perhaps it was a signal to the person Henry was waiting for.
The sudden recollection of a possible accomplice caused Perry to spin around for a look both ways down the corridor. Unfortunately, in his alarm, Perry trod on a squeaky floorboard. The sound bounced against the plastered walls like canon fire, or so it seemed to Perry. It was certainly loud enough to bring Henry to the library door, looking startled and pale.
“Good Lord, lad, you gave me a start,” he said when he recognized Perry. “I was afraid for a moment that you were my wife.”
“Your wife?” Realization dawned upon Perry in an embarrassing rush. “Oh! I beg your pardon, sir. I’m sorry to have intruded.”
He started to turn away, but Henry gave a little chuckle.
“You misunderstand, my boy. As though any man with a wife like mine would desire to stray. Ha! This is as far as my faithlessness goes.”
He held out his hand, which he had been hiding behind the half-opened door, revealing a plump cigar.
“Mrs. B. can’t abide the things,” he explained. “There’ll be hell to pay when she smells it on me, but what can she do? The deed will be done and I’ll have had my small pleasure.” He chuckled again. “She’ll order me to take a bath before I can come to bed and the servants will grumble about having to haul the water upstairs after all the work of the ball. They’ll call me hen-pecked when they return downstairs, but if she’s not too tired out from dancing, she’ll forgive me in fine style. Not so terrible a penance, I’d say.”
Perry was glad of the dark, for he had the terrible suspicion that he was blushing.
“I take it you’re escaping from all the noise upstairs. Can’t say I blame you, but that’s no way to be winning yourself a wife. Little Amelia does admire a good dancer.”
Was this meant to imply that Perry wasn’t being encouraged to attempt winning Cecily? Perry didn’t doubt it. For all Henry’s friendly bluster, Perry knew that no father cared much for the idea of having a fop for a son-in-law. Maybe that was what all the praise of Cecily had been about. Demonstrating how far she was above Perry’s reach. At least Henry didn’t suspect him of being there for any other reason than to land a rich wife.
Perry mumbled a few incoherent syllables that must have sounded like the reply Henry expected, because he opened the door wider and stepped aside.
“Come join me, lad. You can’t find a quieter place than this. And Reggie keeps his best brandy stashed away in here.”
“Oh! Well, actually, sir, it was fresh air I was after, but I must have taken a wrong turn in the dark.”
“Ah, you share my wife’s opinion of cigars. The morning room is two doors down on the left. It opens out onto a very pretty little terrace,” Henry informed him.
A moment later Perry was standing in the damp evening air on what was indeed a very pretty little terrace lined with potted plants and nearly filled with wrought iron garden furniture. Perry imagined it would be a cozy place to sit in the morning, facing the east and sheltered from the wind, but with a cold, full moon shining down on it, he felt exposed. The garden, already glittering with dew, looked inviting and Perry felt himself drawn out onto the open expanse of lawn that flanked the formal garden with its gravel paths and flower beds.
Perry crossed the lawn, careless for once of the well-being of his best dress shoes. He paused under the low-hanging branches of a solitary oak tree and gazed up at the moon. It was truly one night in a hundred, everything crystal clear and nearly light enough to read by. He sighed. He knew he should not be too long from the ball. If he was to learn anything of use to his investigation, it would happen there, not out here in the garden. He was just about to head back to the house when the sound of footsteps on gravel sent him backing further into the shadow of the tree.
Peering around the trunk, he saw a pale apparition moving slowly through the rose garden, though certainly it wasn’t the classic sort of apparition one heard tell of in ghost stories. This apparition was more solid than wraithlike and was rooted quite firmly on the ground. No genuine apparition would crunch gravel beneath its feet. Perry doubted, though, that he would be likely to encounter a lovelier apparition in any ghost story. While the moonlight reflected cold and silver off the rest of the garden, it cast a warm glow around Cecily.
Cecily herself looked cold and just a little bit desolate. Perry wanted to walk up behind her and wrap his coat, or better yet, himself, around her but he didn’t dare move for fear of alarming her. He watched while she came to the place where he had scattered rose petals several hours earlier. She paused and looked down at the petals for a moment and nudged one of them with her toe before moving on.
If the world had been a different sort of place, she would have looked up then and seen him standing in the shadows of the tree and she would have crossed the lawn to join him. She would have walked right up to him and raised her face for a kiss, and Perry would have pulled her against his body and let himself drown in her. He would have felt those lovely breasts pressed against his chest and her fingers in his hair and when she felt his cock grow rigid in response, she would have rubbed her body against it, unafraid and without shame.
But that wasn’t the world they lived in. He would be lucky to get close enough to touch her hair when they danced.
Chapter Six
Cecily sat at the far end of the breakfast table from her aunt and the chattering Cunninghams, two widowed sisters-in-law, possessing one marriageable son each. The sons were out riding with Amelia and several others. Cecily was beginning to wish she had joined them. She took a bite of toast and rattled the newspaper that she was using as an excuse to avoid becoming embroiled in a discussion of the relative merits of marigolds and daisies. Aunt Beatrice smiled and made agreeable sounds, bravely allowing herself only the occasional hopeful glance in Cecily’s direction.
Cecily, though she felt a little guilty about it, was too busy with her own thoughts to take pity on her aunt. Besides, Aunt Beatrice should be used to endless, nonsensical conversations with that chatterbox Wilfred for a son. Cecily poured herself some more tea and shook the newspaper emphatically. She only ho
ped nobody questioned her about its contents. The only news she was interested in was that of the turn for the better that the previous evening had taken when she finally got out on the dance floor.
She was almost ashamed by how grateful she had felt when that kind Mr. Munk asked her to dance after she returned from her walk in the garden. She didn’t care if he had asked because he felt sorry for her or because the night air had put roses in her cheeks. The important thing was that after she danced with him, she had danced with nearly all the other gentlemen too. Only Mr. Munk, though, had twice asked her to dance and she was fairly certain that the second invitation had been extended out of pity or something very like it. Why else would he have gone to such trouble to put her at ease, telling all those jokes that were so ghastly she could not help but laugh at them, no matter how hard she tried to retain an air of grown-up dignity? He was really very kind and she found herself liking him in spite of his foppishness.
All in all, the more she thought about it, the more pleased she felt with the results of Amelia’s ball. True, it would have been gratifying to have had half the gentlemen competing for her attention, but she had to be honest and admit that next to Amelia’s golden curls and substantial dowry, the daughter of a mere mister from Yorkshire was a distant second prize. Let Amelia bask in the admiration. Soon she would narrow her focus down to one or two gentlemen, which she was very likely to do after seeing them on horseback this morning.
Then, of course, there was Franco Comestibili, the Prince of Persepoli, due to arrive later that day. He was the only one who truly mattered, for he was the one she would use to make her father regret manipulating her with his outrageous lie about Sebastian’s imprisonment.
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