by Lenora Bell
Adele had shed her bonnet and was swathed in what appeared to be one of the red patterned damask curtains from the nursery.
What on earth?
There were letters scrawled across a paving stone next to Michel. Mari drew closer to read them.
SNAKES CHARMED.
PALMS READ.
TUPPENCE FOR THE THRILL OF A LIFETIME.
And next to the lettering, Michel’s cap, upended, with several coins inside.
Oh dear. This hadn’t been what she’d envisioned when they said they’d be showing her their talents.
Unfortunately, they were also showing them to perfect strangers in Hyde Park.
She had to put a stop to it, but in a way that wouldn’t make them feel like they were bad for doing it.
“Who will have their palm read by the all-knowing Lalla?” Adele demanded in a husky, mysterious voice. “Cross my palm with silver, ye who dare.”
“Ain’t you a little young, Lalla?” a blowsy woman in shortened skirts called.
Adele fixed the woman with a piercing stare exactly like the duke’s. “You, madam. You think me too young, but the arts of divination know no age. Hold out your palm. I delight in proving skeptics wrong.”
When the woman kept her hand close to her side, Adele shrugged. “Free of charge. Just this once.”
Adele lifted the woman’s right hand, spreading her fingers out and bending over her palm.
Michel began playing a low, mysterious melody on his pipe, setting the scene for his sister’s act.
Their gestures were freer and they looked older. More confident and self-assured.
Mari realized that this must be what they had been like in France.
Adele ran her finger over the woman’s palm. “Your name is something that begins with the letter b . . . no, I’m receiving another letter. D. Your name is Deborah. But your friends call you Deb.”
The woman’s face drained of color. “’Ow did you know that?”
How had she known that, Mari wondered?
“Lalla knows all,” Adele intoned in a low, eerie voice.
The spectators hushed.
“This line here.” She traced a line on the woman’s palm. “Your heart line. It tells me that you fall in love easily. It ends here, at this fork. Oh . . .” Adele closed her eyes. “How very sad.”
“What?” Deborah asked in an urgent voice. “What do you see?”
Adele dropped the woman’s hand and held out her own. “If you want to know more, you must cross my palm with silver.”
Deb narrowed her eyes. “Where’s your mum, eh? Who are you?” She peered at Adele.
Mari stepped closer, to keep the woman from complaining. “Miss Lalla,” she said. “I’m prepared to pay the price.”
She dropped a coin into the cap.
The pace of Michel’s reedy tune increased as Adele made an ostentatious show of tracing the lines on Mari’s palm. “You have a fiery temper and you’ve been unlucky in love. This line shows that you were jilted at the altar, were you not?”
“How could you know that? Bert.” She rolled her eyes. “Left me standing at the altar, the blighter. Is there hope for me?”
Adele nodded. “I see a tall, broad-shouldered man in your future. Is he an earl?”
Deb snorted from the sidelines. “Not bloody likely.”
The small crowd laughed.
“No,” Adele shook her head. “No, he’s not an earl.” She paused, closing her eyes tightly.
Her eyes flew open. “He’s not an earl. He’s a duke.”
Mari snatched her hand away, shaken. “You must be mistaken.”
“Only in our dreams, eh?” said Deb. “’Ere now the sign says snakes charmed. Where’s the snake then?”
Michel lifted the lid of Trix’s basket and resumed playing his pipe.
Trix’s black head peeked out of the basket, and the onlookers gasped, but then he ducked back into his hiding place.
Apparently, English snakes weren’t meant to be charmed.
“That’s what the ton considers charming these days?” Edgar asked incredulously.
A gentleman in a ridiculously high collar with his hair plastered in waves over his ears and over his forehead minced along the footpath, waving a lace-edged handkerchief at every lady he saw.
“Oh yes.” Lady Blanche nodded emphatically, setting her golden ringlets bobbing under her pink bonnet. “Lord Crewe is an Exquisite and everyone consults him on matters of taste. He’s the arbitrator of the elegancies.”
“Matters of taste?” The man was wearing more maquillage upon his face than a bawdy house madam.
Crewe raised his quizzing glass to stare at them as they passed him.
Crewe waved his frilly handkerchief and Lady Blanche let out the breath she’d been holding in a loud exhale and happily waggled her fingers at him.
“Did you see that? He waved at me,” she said triumphantly.
“Congratulations.”
“You don’t find him exquisite?” asked Lady Blanche.
“That’s not the adjective I would use,” said Edgar.
Just as he’d promised West, they were putting in a fashionable appearance in his two-horse curricle, setting tongues wagging and drawing curious stares.
Lady Blanche had been nattering on about the intrigues of the ton the entire carriage ride.
She was everything his mother could ever hope for in a match for him. A wellborn English rose with a tidy fortune. But she didn’t interest him in the least.
As she prattled on about ladies and lords, balls and bonnets, and all the other tiresome goings-on of the fashionable set, Edgar’s thoughts ran toward aprons.
More specifically, apron strings tied with bows.
And the untying thereof.
He gripped the reins tighter. His mind had been in a constant loop, going over and over that moment with Miss Perkins.
The one where she’d stood on tiptoes, placed her hands on his chest, and said she felt like being bad.
There were so many other ways the evening could have progressed.
He could imagine at least twenty.
His imagination had been going down the wrong paths ever since. The ones that began with him kissing her, and ended with her in his bed, moaning his name as she reached her pleasure.
“Your Grace.”
“Um, yes?”
“Are you listening to me?”
“Yes. What were you saying?”
She sighed. “You’ve been away from society too long. You don’t flirt properly. You’re supposed to make Lord Laxton jealous with your attentiveness, you know.”
“Well I’m not going to wave a frilly handkerchief at you, if that’s what you want.”
“You’re no Exquisite, and that’s certain.” She turned her head toward him. “Your shoulders are far too broad. Are you a Corinthian, I wonder?” She tapped her pink parasol against his knee. “Do you box, fence, and ride?”
Lady Blanche seemed to want to fit everyone into neat little boxes.
“I lift barrows full of coal and stoke foundry fires,” he replied.
Lady Blanche closed her eyes briefly. “I’m just going to pretend you did not say that. Now. Back to the lighthearted conversation, where I say witty things and you laugh loudly.”
It wasn’t a suggestion, it was an order. “Hahaha.” He laughed loudly.
She hit him with her parasol. “I haven’t said anything witty yet. But I will. As soon as I determine what you are.”
“Do I have to be something?”
“Let’s see . . . you’re certainly not a Rake, because you haven’t even winked at me yet. Nor a Puritan, though some do pronounce you monkish.” She leaned closer. “What are you, Your Grace?”
“I’m retired.”
“Oh no, you mustn’t retire. Why, you’ll put all the ladies out of countenance. There are so few eligible dukes these days. One wouldn’t know it, to read the titles of the boudoir novels. The Devil Duke’s Dark Desires, and so
on and so forth.”
“My society days are over, Lady Blanche. When I decide to take a wife, I’ll do so in a manner that will mean I won’t have to attend even one more ball.”
She pouted. “My friends, not to mention my four lovely sisters, will be most disappointed. My friends all swoon over my brother, because he’s a duke, but he’s acting most shamefully of late. Do say you’ll exert a calming influence upon him? He’s been drinking too much lately. He’s terribly dissipated. I fear he has become a Rogue.”
What would she say if she could read his thoughts about Miss Perkins?
They were definitely of the roguish variety.
“Never say,” breathed Edgar. “Not a Rogue.”
“Yes.” She closed her eyes briefly. “A sister’s work is never done. He must be reformed, before it’s too late.”
“I’m sure he’ll settle down eventually, Lady Blanche,” Edgar said reassuringly.
“Well he mustn’t have too much fun. He has four more sisters to bring out. Do please say you’ll exert your influence on him?”
“I’m not sure I’m the right fellow for that.”
“Oh Heavens.” Lady Blanche waved at a lady in a passing carriage. “There’s Lady Philippa. Wasn’t she just green with envy, though? Did you see the set of her teeth? That will leave a mark upon her lip, I daresay.”
“I can only hope Lord Laxton will be overcome by jealousy, as well,” Edgar said, steering the conversation toward her intended and away from him. “Do tell me about him.”
“Lord Laxton is my ideal in every way.” Her face fell. “Except one . . .”
“He hasn’t offered for you yet.”
“That is his one and only fault. And I’m so willing to forgive him, if only he would . . .”
“Offer for you.”
“Precisely. I don’t like trickery, mind you. It can so easily go wrong. One need only read the comedies of Mr. Shakespeare to know how very wrong. However, this is but a small maneuver, designed to win a war with as little show of force as necessary. And I daresay, you don’t find the duty too onerous?”
“Hardly.” He winked at her. “Your company is delightful.”
“Why, Your Grace, perhaps you are a Rake, after all. It’s not true what they say, that you’ve taken vows of monkhood.”
The feelings he was having for Miss Perkins were hardly celestial in origin. Firmly rooted in the earthly.
Why couldn’t he stop thinking about her? When Lady Blanche giggled in that silly manner, Edgar couldn’t help wishing he were still at home with Miss Perkins and the children.
They’d been so contented, eating their French bread. Miss Perkins had smiled at him approvingly.
He wanted to make her smile again.
“There’s West’s carriage,” Edgar said with relief. “It’s nearly time.”
“So it is. And there’s Lord Laxton.” Lady Blanche fussed with her hair. “I do hope this works.”
“Don’t worry, I’ll be the rakish, doting swain of your dreams.”
“Thank you, Your Grace.”
Edgar leapt down in front of the flower shop, handed his reins to a groom, and helped Lady Blanche down.
“Don’t forget the violets,” Lady Blanche whispered.
The violets must convey some message. Edgar would never understand the intricacies of the ton’s mating rituals. He reemerged a few minutes later with a large bunch of pink roses punctuated by purple violets.
West and Laxton had exited their carriage and were chatting with Lady Blanche at the edge of the park.
This would all be over soon.
Edgar approached, flowers in hand, ready to pretend to be courting the lovely, if slightly vapid, Lady Blanche. “My lady,” he swept a low bow, holding out the bouquet. “For you.”
Lord Laxton frowned. “Banksford?” He turned to Lady Blanche. “I didn’t know you were acquainted with His Grace, Lady Blanche.”
“Oh yes, he took me for such a nice ride in his curricle just now.” She accepted the flowers, sniffing daintily. “Do smell the roses, Lord Laxton. They smell simply heavenly, as do the violets.” She giggled. “They’re for constancy, you know.”
Laxton brushed away the flowers, glaring at Edgar. “Quite extravagant.”
“I spare no expense when it comes to beautiful ladies,” said Edgar, giving Lady Blanche a smarmy smile.
West gave him a wink.
Could Edgar leave now? Laxton appeared to be insanely jealous.
“Will you be attending the dancing tonight at Vauxhall?” Lady Blanche asked Edgar. “I’m quite unspoken for.”
“But,” sputtered Laxton. “I assumed, that is, we always dance together, Lady Blanche.”
“Do we?” asked Lady Blanche, fluttering her eyelashes. “I hadn’t noticed.”
Lord, save him from these marital games. How soon could he leave?
“I say, what are those children doing?” asked West, pointing into the distance.
“What children—?” Edgar turned. Froze.
He must be hallucinating, although he’d know that glowing shade of auburn anywhere.
Miss Perkins. And the twins. Who appeared to be draped in curtains?
Michel sat cross-legged on the lawn, playing upon a pipe, while Adele was speaking to a small cluster of onlookers, gesturing dramatically.
And what was Miss Perkins doing? Putting an abrupt end to their antics?
Of course not.
She was playing along. She said something with a toss of her bonnet, and the onlookers laughed.
“Those aren’t, by chance, yours, are they?” asked West with a laugh.
Edgar glared. “They are,” he said through gritted teeth.
West whistled softly. “They didn’t make governesses like that when I was a lad.”
Miss Perkins did look fetching in a long coat and bonnet of a rich blue color that teased roses to bloom in her cheeks and found the deeper russet in her hair.
“Pooh. Governesses,” said Lady Blanche. “She’s quite negligent if you ask me, allowing your children to make such a spectacle.”
West peered at the inexplicable tableau. “What are they doing?”
“I’ve no idea,” said Edgar. All he knew was that he needed to stop them from doing it. This was far too public a place for playacting.
“Shall we go and say hello?” asked Lady Blanche, with a desperate edge to her voice.
Laxton hadn’t taken the bait yet. What did Edgar have to do, grab the lady and kiss her in front of him?
“While I would love for you to meet my children, Lady Blanche,” Edgar said smoothly. “These are not the circumstances I would choose.”
Lord Laxton threw Edgar a look that could only be described as murderous. “She’s never to meet them, Banksford. Why, the idea, an innocent meeting children such as those.”
“Don’t be silly. They’re just children,” said Lady Blanche.
Laxton lowered his voice. “They’re not respectable.”
“I’d like to meet your governess,” said West.
The gossips were openly staring now, waiting to pounce. He never should have agreed to take Lady Blanche riding. But it was too late now, he’d been seen escorting her, and now his children had been seen performing in Hyde Park.
What a disaster.
“No one is meeting anyone,” he said stiffly. “If you’ll excuse me, Lady Blanche.” He bowed over her hand and made his escape.
There was a rogue governess on the loose.
Chapter 11
Damnation!
Mari had never uttered a profanity before now, but a dark and stormy duke drove her to sin. He loomed suddenly in front of her like a giant cliff emerging from a treacherous mist, waiting to dash governesses to their deaths.
“I can explain, Your Grace,” she said.
“I don’t think you can.” Banksford turned such a ferocious stare on the small crowd of onlookers that they immediately dispersed.
He studied the chalk lettering. �
��Tuppence for the thrill of a lifetime?”
Why, oh why, hadn’t she erased the words?
“What exactly is happening here?” he asked, looking at first her, and then the children, whose eyes were wide as saucers.
“It was an experiment,” Mari said hastily. “We were conducting an experiment in the charming of snakes . . . and audiences.”
He glowered at her.
“Well obviously it doesn’t work on dukes,” she said.
“Here’s an experiment to conduct,” he said. “The speed with which all three of you can climb into that carriage.” He pointed at a dashing black curricle with gold wheels. “Right. Now.”
“I’m not sure we’ll all fit,” she said.
“We’ll fit. It’s only a short ride.”
The twins had already shed their sheets and packed up the chalks and instruments.
Mari helped Adele retie her bonnet strings.
“It was our idea, Father,” said Adele. “You weren’t meant to see it.”
“Clearly.”
“It was badly done of us,” said Michel, hanging his head.
The duke’s eyes softened and he laid a hand on Michel’s cap. “I’m not saying you’re bad. But it was a very public display, and my friends . . .” He glanced over his shoulder at the group of two gentlemen and a lady who were watching them. “They wouldn’t understand.”
Mari understood perfectly. She’d humiliated him in front of his aristocratic friends.
No wonder he was dressed in all the finery of a duke-about-town, from glossy black beaver hat to polished hessians, and everything broad-shouldered and trim-flanked in between. He hadn’t been going to his foundry.
He’d been going courting.
The lady, who had golden hair and wore a straw bonnet with pink ribbons, waved and began to walk toward them.
“Carriage. Now,” said the duke urgently.
“Too late, I’m afraid,” said Mari.
The group was upon them.
The duke drew himself up to his full height.
“Lady Blanche, Westbury, Lord Laxton,” he said in a pompous tone. “My children, Adele and Michel, and their governess, Miss Perkins.”
“Miss Perkins, you have a twig in your hair,” said Lady Blanche. “Just . . . there.” She reached out and plucked the twig free.
