A Crown for a Lady

by Crosby, Tanya Anne

  At any rate, why should it matter what she wore?

  She wasn’t the least bit interested in gaining the prince’s favor. And she wasn’t in the mood to be proper. It was enough that the dress was black, she decided, choosing the velvet and lace, and proceeded to dress almost entirely without help before making her way below stairs to ask Mrs. Tandy to help her make the final adjustments.

  * * *

  With every passing moment, Ian envied Merrick less and less. In fact, he was starting to pity the poor bastard.

  In preparation for the evening’s celebration, he’d been dragged about by the proverbial collar, scrubbed, trimmed and polished until even his nose shone. He’d been fitted with a pair of trousers and a jacket that had to be adjusted to fit his width and breadth. Apparently, Merrick was of a slightly smaller build, and the tailor had shaken his curly red head, wondering aloud if the prince had gorged himself during his absence from London.

  Damnation, did they also dictate Merrick’s diet?

  It seemed they told his brother what to wear, where to go, how to speak, whom to speak to and—he clenched his jaw—whom to wed.

  You’d bloody well think by the age of twenty-eight, Merrick could be trusted to make a few decisions for himself.

  In contrast, even as a child, Ian had been allowed to run free. He woke when he wished, ate when he was hungry, and never, in his wildest dreams, could he ever imagine his mother dictating whom he should wed.

  Ryo, for his part, had become a shadow, always watching, his black eyes unreadable. Although Ian had managed to evade him during the brief outing to High Street yesterday, the servant had caught him in the hall outside his father’s office and then had remained by his side ever since.

  A fish that nibbles at every bait will soon be caught, Ryo had warned.

  More bloody riddles. Ian had had enough of his cryptic lessons.

  With mere moments remaining before the evening’s guests were due to arrive, he ducked into the library, hoping for a moment’s respite from Ryo’s scrutiny.

  Upon entering the room, one portrait caught his attention. Something about it seemed oddly familiar.

  On closer inspection, he realized it was a depiction of Merrick standing in a field that looked very much like Glen Abbey’s parklands—at least, he presumed it was Merrick. The image had been painted at a considerable distance and the figure was blurred. Perched on the young boy’s arm was a white saker preparing to take flight. The bird was similar to one Ian had owned as a child. He tried to remember how he’d acquired the bird—a gift, perhaps—though he couldn’t be sure.

  Curious, he continued studying the portrait. There was no house depicted. Were that Glen Abbey, the white house would have been directly behind the boy. But there was no house painted here. And, besides, the portrait was painted at an odd angle, almost as though the painter were seated up high, looking down through a pane of smoky glass. Details were undistinguishable. Still, the woodlands in the background were familiar, and the field was covered with a purple haze that reminded Ian of a blanket of wild heather.

  “That was a very, very good day,” Ryo commented, appearing at his side. He joined Ian in perusal of the painting.

  Ian frowned, peering down at the top of Ryo’s balding head.

  “You will be expected to join your father soon,” Ryo announced.

  “Of course.”

  “The duchess has arrived.”

  “Splendid,” Ian said, his tone intentionally sardonic.

  He returned his attention to the portrait, determined to make his way into the hall at his own pace. In fact, it was on the tip of his tongue to tell Ryo to go to the devil, but he wanted to learn more about the painting… and that very good day.

  “There is an old saying in my language,” Ryo said.

  “Yes, I’m certain you will share it.”

  Ryo seemed oblivious to his sarcasm. “‘First I saw the mountains in the painting—then I saw the painting in the mountains.’”

  Ian cocked his head at the man. What the devil was that supposed to mean?

  And then, as though he hadn’t the sense to decipher the annoying proverb, Ryo continued. “Not everything is as it seems.”

  That was rather obvious, wasn’t it?

  Ryo peered up at him. He opened his mouth to speak and then closed it again, as though reconsidering his words. He once again focused on the painting, placing his hands behind his back, and after a moment of silence, he said, “You were very pleased that day.”

  Ian cast Ryo an irritated glance. Of course Merrick would be pleased. The man hadn’t had to concern himself with his best friend’s child dying of starvation or his mother sobbing herself to sleep every night.

  Ryo’s black eyes were sparkling. “Do you remember?”

  As if the question conjured it, an image materialized in Ian’s head. For an instant, he forgot it wasn’t he who was depicted in the painting. In fact, he remembered releasing his newly acquired bird from his arm, watching it soar high, laughing as he chased it across the field. He remembered his mother watching from a distance, her expression melancholy. And he remembered the joy he’d felt when the bird had returned to him of its own free will.

  For a long, long moment, he was lost in reverie.

  “It was painted only a few days after your thirteenth birthday, from the loft inside the carriage house,” Ryo disclosed. “The year before it burned down.”

  Ian’s lips curved at the memory. His mother had been convinced the carriage house was haunted. She claimed to have spied strange faces peering down at them through the upstairs window.

  Ian blinked in confusion.

  It took him an instant too long to realize the images in his brain were real. His focus snapped downward to find that Ryo had slipped away.

  God’s truth, if there had been a chair nearby, he would have sat down, so unsettling was the realization.

  The carriage house had, in fact, burned down, the very year after his thirteenth birthday. His mother had ordered the building destroyed to make room for her expanding garden.

  Where did the lies end?

  As much as he had uncovered, he still knew nothing at all. Day by day, he was left with even more questions.

  What had his father done to anger his mother so much that she would refuse him a presence in her life and in the life of their child? That she would burn down a building out of spite… or perhaps out of fear?

  Had she once been his mistress?

  Had he discarded her?

  Ian couldn’t imagine his mother would allow herself to be entangled in such a sordid affair. She was entirely too proper, and too proud, to be someone’s kept woman.

  But if the fault were entirely his father’s, then why would his mother allow him to raise one of her children? And more, how could she have allowed Ian and Merrick to be separated? His heart hurt over the loss—not simply the loss of a proper father, but a brother as well.

  Where by God did the truth begin and the lies end?

  Chapter 11

  Standing in the receiving line, Ian turned to study his father’s profile—familiar despite their estrangement, because it was uncannily like looking into a mirror that aged.

  The Duchess of Kent—the influential Victoria—stood beside him, introducing guests as they arrived.

  “Welcome,” his father was saying. “Welcome.”

  Very enthusiastically, he shook the hands of arriving gentlemen and patted the hands of ladies, kissed a few as well. To one he showed particular interest.

  “Lady Stanford! So nice to see you again. And this—this cannot be your daughter!” he said, gesturing to the child hiding behind the woman. “My, how she’s grown!”

  He turned to Ian then. “You do remember young Lady Margaret, Merrick? Isn’t she absolutely delightful?”

  “Indeed,” Ian agreed.

  And she was.

  In fact, he might have been quite besotted by her, if only he were twelve.

  Ian extended h
is hand to the lady, and then to her pink-faced child. “Very good to see you again,” he said without feeling.

  And so it progressed, one guest after another moving through the receiving line, until the room behind him was a veritable crush of human flesh and the chatter of conversation drowned out the band.

  He stood there, listening to the incessant drone, and wondered what the devil he was doing in this infernal place, wearing his brother’s clothes, his brother’s shoes and his brother’s name, when he could simply look his father in the face and ask the old man what he wished to know.

  Because it isn’t that simple, he reminded himself.

  Someone led him away from the receiving line to the dais, so he could better inspect the females being paraded before him. As he watched the procession—skinny women, fat women, young women and some who were long in the tooth—he was suddenly struck with a sense of regret so deep that he wanted to walk away not simply from this wearisome party, but from London as well. For all he knew, Merrick would have sent his father to perdition before subjecting himself to such a travesty. In fact, his brother’s decision to leave London had likely been, in part, due to these very circumstances. And here Ian was about to choose a bride his brother would very likely abhor. His only comfort was in the fact that he wasn’t about to walk anyone down any aisle, and Merrick didn’t have to go through with the farce if he didn’t wish to.

  “Do you see that young lady standing by the door?” the duchess was asking.

  Ian turned his head in the direction she pointed but saw nothing but a sea of sashaying gowns. “Yes,” he lied.

  The duchess smiled. In her late thirties or early forties, Victoria might have been handsome but for the plump figure and the ever-present censure upon her too-round face, and jowls that constantly jiggled in disapproval.

  “That,” she informed him, “is Von Munching’s daughter. Her papa has a baronetcy in Germany, her mother is the daughter of the Earl of Berkshire. Very proper family, indeed. Very well connected.”

  Ian hadn’t a bloody clue to which woman the duchess was referring. Everyone looked precisely the same. By the light of a dozen chandeliers, everyone was aglitter, like tiny fireworks winking insistently in his eyes.

  And then he saw her.

  She was a like a sultry shadow slipping through a rainbow. For the first time in more than a day, he felt the blood begin to pulse through his veins.

  Gone was the peasant-like garb. She was now dressed in black velvet—a black so rich it bordered on blue—with ebony lace spilling like Spanish moss from her sleeves. Her glorious hair was twisted into a lovely but simple coif, with curls teasing her face. Her ears and neck were unadorned and her bodice was modest, though he did, indeed, spy a hint of her creamy breasts from his perch high above the floor.

  His reaction was immediate. His body heated with desire. His breath burned in his lungs, until he had to remind himself to exhale. God help him, if he’d thought her lovely before, she was unparalleled at this instant.

  In fact, he couldn’t remember seeing a more incredible woman in all his life.

  It was all he could do to stand and pretend to listen to the duchess as she prattled on about barons and dukes and earls all the while his father listened.

  “What about her?” Ian asked, interrupting the duchess in the midst of her monologue.

  The duchess lifted her fan to her breast. “Who, dear boy?”

  Boy? Ian thought, taking mild offense, but he smiled, nevertheless. If she thought him a boy, let her slip a hand into his trousers and see if she still believed it. He was hard as a stump. “That one,” he said, nodding in Claire’s direction. She stood beside a woman dressed in mauve.

  “Do you mean the lovely young lady standing next to the display?”

  Ian realized, with a private smile, that Claire had chosen a spot in perfect view of the crown jewels.

  “Yes,” he said, watching her intently. She hadn’t even bothered to look his way. Come to think of it… he didn’t recall her coming through the line. She must have arrived late.

  “That would be Lady Alexandra, Lord Huntington’s only child,” the duchess revealed. “She’s quite lovely, I agree, and her lineage is impeccable, as well.”

  Ian frowned. “The girl in black?” he asked. “Her name is Alexandra?”

  The duchess reared her head back. “The girl in black?” she repeated, looking befuddled by the question. Then she shook her head and put two fingers to her forehead as though he had given her a megrim. “Oh, no, no, no, dear boy! That would be Lady Claire Wentworth.” She turned to look more directly at Claire.

  Claire was still studying the crown jewels, oblivious to their regard.

  “Poor child,” the duchess said. “Her mother passed when she was but a little thing, and her father turned his toes up some months ago.” The duchess raised her fan to cover her mouth as she stretched up to whisper in Ian’s ear, “I hear tell they are in quite deep.”

  So she was in debt.

  That would explain much.

  Ian turned to look at the duchess, and she nodded, fanning herself as she peered back at Claire. “She’s lovely, I suppose, but her brother Ben inherited all the wit and charm—if nothing else, poor dear boy.”

  Ian couldn’t disagree more. If Claire’s wit were any sharper, he’d be six feet under by now.

  “As I understand, she’s quite the bluestocking and keeps to herself,” the duchess added with unmasked disapproval.

  “Really,” Ian said. “No husband?”

  The duchess gave him a shrewish glance and cackled. “What man would shackle himself to a penniless woman who cannot even abide by the rules of propriety? Why, look at that dress! I cannot believe she wore velvet tonight.” She shook her head. “It’s quite disrespectful of her father, though I suppose it’s to be expected with that one.”

  “I don’t recall meeting her,” his father commented.

  “You wouldn’t,” the duchess assured. “She didn’t attend the last soiree—but for the life of me I can’t remember why.”

  It seemed to Ian that the duchess recalled quite enough. It was a wonder her nose hadn’t stretched clear across Britain, as she seemed to have it entrenched in everyone’s affairs.

  The duchess added somewhat absently, “I haven’t seen her brother around of late. I wonder where he’s off to.”

  “At any rate, she doesn’t appear to be the sort we are interested in,” his father interjected. His dismissive tone grated on Ian’s nerves.

  Ian could speak for himself.

  “Of course not,” the duchess agreed. “You’d fare much better with Lord Huntington’s daughter.” And then she laughed and smacked Ian’s arm with her fan. “But, you rascal, I’m certain you have no memory of your first encounter with that poor darling. You were—” she smirked, fanning herself a little faster “—less than interested, I should say. I heard it for months thereafter from her mother—how you broke her sweet daughter’s heart.”

  Ian found himself nettled.

  Devil hang him, he was sandwiched between two old shrews—one of the female variety and another who happened to have a cock between his legs. No wonder they got along so famously.

  In Ian’s opinion, Claire was far more appealing than any ten women in this room together.

  He watched as she spoke to the guard. Even from this distance, her gaze and stance looked flirtatious.

  Something like jealousy pricked at him.

  Evidently, she hadn’t the least bit of interest in presenting herself to the prince; she had yet to even look his way.

  Her true motive for coming was apparent.

  She coveted those jewels.

  She might be a lady, in truth, but she was also a beautiful, conniving little thief, and he suddenly wanted nothing more than to drag her outside and slip his tongue between her sweet, red lips.

  He wanted her, damn it. Desperately—and not simply for some dalliance. In fact, this very instant, he wanted her more than he want
ed the answers to all his bloody questions.

  He was deaf and blind to all the guests who approached him, the mothers introducing their daughters, the widows introducing their breasts.

  He was focused only on Claire.

  And then, suddenly, he stumbled on a perfect solution for everyone.

  “Excuse me,” Ian said, and walked away, leaving his father and Victoria to chatter on without him.

  * * *

  The jewels had been placed at center stage, inside a display case flanked by four guards. They were all armed, though not in the conventional fashion—shiny scimitars were sheathed on ornate belts. All four guards were muscular, with billowing white shirts and loose, black breeches that did little to hide their hulking forms.

  Claire listened to the guard who was speaking now, trying to ignore Lord Huntington, whose smiles and winks and brushes against her person had suddenly taken on entirely new meaning.

  “The queen, having lost her true love to the sea, was drawn to the shore where the lovers spent so many hours together. Each day,” the guard continued, “the queen wept, her tears spilling into the tide, and every evening when she retired, her handmaiden knelt where her mistress had stood, scooping up the evidence of her sorrow… her tears, which had crystallized upon striking the water.”

  “Goodness! She must have wept for months,” Alexandra exclaimed.

  Claire didn’t believe it, of course, but she thought the fairy tale charming. She wondered how many times the guard had recounted it this evening already.

  “There are so many jewels,” she said, examining the sapphires, which were all precisely equal in size and shape. The tiara itself was covered with the brilliant blue gems and detailed with sparkling diamonds. The ring was a tear-shaped sapphire framed by three more tiers of tiny diamonds.

  Peering over her shoulder, Lord Huntington scooted closer. In fact, he was so close now that Claire could almost feel the warmth of his breath on her nape, and it repulsed her.

  For her part, Alexandra scarcely seemed to notice her father, or how he was carrying on.