by Jane Feather
Alasdair raised the latch and pushed the door open. He stepped out onto the paved terrace that ran the width of the music room. He stood still, gazing around, ears cocked for the slightest sound. All he heard was the chatter of a squirrel in the beech tree that stood against the wall at the side of the garden facing the service passageway that ran between this house and its neighbor. His eye roved the garden, and then he saw it. The indentation of a footprint in the flowerbed against the wall by the beech tree.
He strode across the grass and stared down at the print. It was a man’s foot. Just one. Alasdair glanced up into the tree. One foot in the ground while the other reached up for that large knothole a quarter of the way up the trunk. A hand on the branch above, and an agile man would be up the tree and over the wall in a flash.
Just who was snooping around the garden? And did it have any connection with the man at the front? He certainly hadn’t looked agile enough for wall vaulting and tree climbing. But he’d been huddled in a greatcoat. There was no telling what had been beneath the voluminous garment.
There was a gate set into the rear wall. Examination showed it to be bolted and padlocked, with no evidence of tampering.
Disturbed and thoughtful, Alasdair returned to the music room, latching the door carefully behind him and shooting the bolt at the top. Interest in Ned’s document was heating up. But speed was of the essence. The paper had to be stolen before Wellington began his spring campaign in Portugal if its contents were to be any good to Napoleon.
He glanced once more around the room, then went to the door. “Harris, tell Lady Emma I was here,” he said casually as he crossed the hall. “I thought I’d left a glove behind in the music room, but it seems not. I’ll be sending Lady Emma information about stabling for her horses … if you could just tell her.”
Harris seemed perfectly satisfied with this and bowed Lord Alasdair from the house.
Alasdair ran lightly down the steps to the street. His expression was still troubled as he walked toward Audley Street. He was about to turn the corner when he caught sight of a tilbury bowling down Mount Street from the direction of Park Street. It drew up outside Emma’s house.
Alasdair paused out of sight at the corner and watched. Emma and Paul Denis appeared to be having a lively conversation. She was laughing, animated, her face, framed in a black sable hood, aglow with the cold air. Her companion had a hand resting on her arm. He too was laughing, pointing up at the house.
Alasdair’s mouth took a grim turn. They seemed to be on the best of terms in a dangerously short time. And just where were Maria and the barouche? Abandoned for more lively companionship presumably.
“Oh, no, my friends, this really will not do,” he murmured. He continued grimly on his way.
Neither Emma nor Paul had been aware of the watcher. Emma was in the best of spirits. She and Maria had come upon Paul Denis driving his tilbury down Bond Street, and Emma had instantly accepted his offer to drive his horses. Maria had been left in the barouche to continue alone on their errand to Col-burn’s Lending Library, and Emma had taken advantage of her new escort to go to the carriage makers in Longacre and purchase her curricle.
“I don’t know whether I would have had the courage to purchase a racing curricle without some serious encouragement,” she said with a chuckle. “There are bound to be some raised eyebrows. It’s so very dashing.”
“Your trustee will have no objections?” Paul raised a thin black eyebrow.
“Good God, no,” Emma said. “Alasdair is never one to abide by convention himself. Besides,” she added, “it doesn’t concern him. He has control of my fortune, but of nothing else.”
Paul heard the underlying note beneath this seemingly airy speech. Lady Emma was still not in charity with her trustee. Whatever the estrangement, it suited him very well. He wanted no interference from her friends and relations in his present scheme. The Witherspoon chaperone could be easily dealt with. She seemed under Emma’s thumb anyway. But Lord Alasdair struck him as a man of very definite opinions and somewhat dominant character. To have such a man as an overinvolved trustee would prove meddlesome.
He laid a hand on her arm, smiling down at her. “Permit me to say, madame, that I find you entrancing.”
Emma was used to compliments, and generally mistrustful of them. Alasdair never flattered her. He never needed to. However, Paul Denis’s admiration was a promising sign. She returned his smile, saying, “You put me to the blush, sir.”
“And how prettily too.”
Emma had an absurd desire to laugh. She was quite certain she wasn’t blushing in the least. She squashed incipient mirth vigorously.
“Tell me, where is your chamber?” Paul said, looking up at the house. “Is it in the front?”
“Up there.” She pointed to the windows above the door. “The three central windows. Why do you wish to know?”
He looked a little flustered and self-conscious. “Forgive my foolishness. But if I walk down the street at night, I shall be able to look up and imagine you there.”
This time Emma did laugh. It was irresistible. She went into a peal of merriment. “Mr. Denis, you must know that it’s no good paying me compliments, particularly absurd ones. I have the most inconvenient sense of the ridiculous.”
“Was it ridiculous?” Paul asked mournfully.
“Utterly,” she said. “But don’t look so cast down, sir. You weren’t to know how hopelessly practical and unsuited I am to the gentler arts of courtship.” Then she bit her lip. “Forgive me, that was very forward of me.”
“Not in the least,” he said earnestly. “To pay court to you would make me the happiest man in the world.”
And a very rich one too, Emma thought. Why did she find this haste unseemly when it so exactly suited her own purposes? The feast of Saint Valentine was not many weeks away, after all. And of course he was interested in her money. How could he fail to be? And she found him attractive. He would make as good a husband as many and a better one than most. But there was something predatory about him. She had thought she found it appealing, but now she wasn’t so sure.
But that was nonsense. She was set on this course, and it was going very smoothly to plan. “I must go in,” she said. “Do you go Lady Devizes’s masked ball this evening? Shall I see you there?”
“Without doubt. Wild beasts couldn’t keep me away.” He descended to the pavement and handed her down. His fingers closed over her hand for much longer than necessary. “Tell me what color domino you’ll be wearing?” He added with a rueful smile, “And pray don’t laugh at me this time. My pride is a fragile thing.”
“Oh, indeed I won’t,” she said warmly, liking him again with this show of amused self-awareness. “I didn’t mean to hurt you before.”
“Your domino?” He raised a mobile eyebrow again.
Emma shook her head. “No, sir, you must find me yourself.” She raised a hand in farewell and went up the steps, turning for a minute before she entered the house, to wave and smile again.
Paul climbed back into his tilbury, and his expression was now set, his black eyes once more hard and calculating. He looked up at the house. It was the devil’s own doing that her bedchamber should be at the front. Direct access from the street would be impossible.
Unless of course she invited him into her chamber. Emma Beaumont was no naive chit. She was handling him with the sure touch of one who was not inexperienced in the games of flirtation and seduction. And that experience, Paul knew, was going to play right into his hands.
Chapter Seven
“Do you think anyone will know me, Maria?” Emma tied the gold silk loo mask behind her head and examined herself in the long mirror. The domino of silver gauze floated gracefully over her ball gown of ivory crepe adorned with knots of silver velvet. Her hair was bound in smooth plaits around her head, with side ringlets clustering around her face. A pair of very fine diamond drops complemented the diamond pendant at her throat and the bracelets at her wrist.
> “Oh, my love, I’m sure they will,” Maria said. “You have such a distinctive figure, and your hair … the color is so unusual. Is there a reason you don’t wish to be recognized?”
Emma considered. “In truth, it would be amusing to be truly incognito. But I suppose masked balls aren’t really intended to hide identities…. Thank you, Tilda.” She smiled at her maid, who draped over her shoulders a cloak of midnight blue velvet trimmed with ermine.
There would be something both dangerous and exciting about a real masked ball, Emma thought. If people genuinely were unable to recognize each other. It would give the participants incredible license. Liaisons, flirtations, seductions, all conducted in near invisibility. What a wonderful prospect for some entrancing mischief.
“Emma love, you have a very wicked look in your eye,” Maria said uneasily. It was just like the look she had had before going off to play highwayman at Ranelagh, and Maria shuddered anew at the recollection. “The duchess of Devizes is very straitlaced, my dear.”
“I had a wicked thought, but I won’t put it into practice,” Emma reassured, bending to kiss Maria. “I doubt I’m too old and wise now to have such fun.”
“Oh, what nonsense. You’re but two and twenty,” Maria declared. “But you do look quite enchanting, my love. Right out of a fairy tale.”
“Oh, pah!” Emma scoffed. “I’m far too tall and my mouth is too big.” She moved to the door, saying over her shoulder, “Don’t wait up for me, Tilda. I’ll put myself to bed.”
As the carriage bowled toward Connaught Square, Emma gazed out of the window, her chin resting in her elbow-propped palm. Alasdair and Ned would have seen the possibilities in a real masked ball. A tiny sigh escaped her. Life seemed so very melancholy these days. She knew she was still grieving for her brother, but it wasn’t just that. So often these days she felt such a sense of futility about everything … about making plans … about contemplating the future.
If it weren’t for Ned’s damnable will, she could buy herself a house in the country and retire with her music and her horses, to live the life of a cheerful, reclusive spinster. But then Alasdair would control the purse strings, and she couldn’t bear that. It was an insufferable prospect. Utterly unendurable.
And anyway, the little voice of honesty niggled, how cheerful a spinster would she be? Better, surely, a marriage of convenience with a personable and agreeable man. At least she’d not spend the rest of her life in an empty and passionless bed. And surely she’d have children. They would give purpose to her life.
The carriage drew up outside the imposing stucco mansion. An awning covered the flagway from the road to the front door, and linkboys ran up with flaming torches to light the ladies into the house.
At the strains of music from the vast ballroom at the back of the house, Emma’s depression dropped away. She loved to dance. She’d promised herself that she wouldn’t waltz this season, because Ned had detested the dance. She could hear his deep, amused tones even now, saying it had no life to it and he couldn’t see why anyone would want to hold a woman that close just to moon around a dance floor. But the other dances, the quadrille, the cotillion, the boulanger, not to mention the country dances, had all found favor in Ned’s eye, and Emma knew she could enjoy herself there with her brother’s blessing.
She gave up her cloak to an attendant footman and with Maria ascended the stairs to greet their hostess. The ballroom was already thronged. They paused in the doorway, Emma’s eyes darting around. She couldn’t see Alasdair in the crowd. Although why his absence should have been the first thing she noticed was a mystery.
“My lady. May I have the honor of this dance?”
She turned at the familiar, delicately accented voice. Paul Denis wore a black domino and mask that covered more than half of his face. It accentuated his prominent, narrow nose and the thinness of his lips while giving him an air of mystery, but Emma felt a strange little shiver of apprehension. It seemed as if that predatory quality she’d noticed in him before was deepened, become truly sinister, as he stood bowing, all black, from the top of his dark, dark head to the toes of his black-shod feet.
But perhaps it wasn’t a shiver of apprehension so much as a thrill of anticipation. There was something undeniably unsettling about Mr. Denis. And Emma was very ready to stir up the flat pond of her present existence.
“So, you found me, Mr. Denis. It wasn’t difficult, I gather.” She regarded him with a smile and candid invitation in her eyes.
“I sensed your arrival before I saw you,” he murmured, bowing over her hand. “And once seen, permit me to tell you, madame, you are unmistakable and unforgettable.”
“How prettily you do talk, Mr. Denis,” Emma said approvingly. “But I did warn you that I’m a hopeless accepter of compliments.”
“I am duly warned.” He smiled into her eyes and maintained his hold on her hand. “But you must believe I don’t flatter you. I speak only the truth.”
Emma went into a peal of laughter. “Very prettily said, sir.”
“Ah, madame, I am crushed,” he said, placing a hand on his heart and regarding her soulfuliy. “Is there nothing I can say that you would believe?”
“That you find this conversation as absurd as I do,” she said. “You’re an expert at the game of flirtation, sir, but don’t ever think I can’t distinguish the game from the real thing.” Her foot was tapping; her eyes looking longingly to where sets were being formed for the next dance.
“Ah, but would you agree to embark upon the real thing with me, madame?” His voice now was utterly serious, his eyes fixed upon her face as if he would look into her skull.
This man was in a serious hurry. Was he so deeply in debt, then? Once again, Emma felt that flicker of distaste. But she told herself firmly that she had to get over it. She was under no illusions. Paul Denis might find her attractive, but he was in love with her money. She found him attractive, but she could never love him. This was not about love. It was about convenience. And convenience before the feast of Saint Valentine.
“Perhaps,” she said in a low voice. “But for the moment, let us play the game.”
“As you command,” he said with a smooth smile. “I will follow your lead, my lady.”
“Then let us dance.” She gestured to the floor.
Paul gave her his arm and led her onto the floor. He had sensed her withdrawal, read it in her eyes. He would have to go more carefully, but he had so little time. If he couldn’t achieve his object by seduction, he would have to use force, and that would be messy and dangerous, and altogether unsatisfactory. He was a man who liked to work smoothly, to come and go without leaving a trace of his passing.
Maria watched them dance for a minute or two, trying to put a finger on the source of her unease. She hadn’t cared for that Mr. Denis from the very first. There was something about him that disturbed her. Perhaps he was too smooth, too suave, with his dainty French manners and handsome if saturnine countenance. He was an excellent dancer too, which would further endear him to Emma.
But Emma was a levelheaded young woman, as strong willed as she was independent. There was no need to fear that she would make a foolish choice when she would have every young buck in the Upper Ten Thousand at her feet. Marry she must, of that Maria was convinced. But she would make a wise choice … of course she would. Maria, thus heartened by her own strictures, went off to join her cronies in the card room.
For propriety’s sake, Emma danced with everyone who solicited her hand, although she was not alone in noticing that while she was dancing with someone else, Mr. Paul Denis was standing against a wall, arms folded, his black eyes following her every move through the slit in his mask.
Emma knew that such devotion would be generally remarked and bets on the outcome of their flirtation would soon be laid in the clubs of St. James’s. It amused her, but it also annoyed her. It made her feel like some prize specimen at a county fair. She didn’t think it would amuse Alasdair, either. Not that he was around to
be annoyed tonight.
It was close to midnight when Alasdair arrived. He strolled up the great staircase in a crimson domino ten minutes after his hostess had decided there would be no other latecomers and she could at last relinquish her post.
He saw Emma the minute he entered the ballroom. She was dancing with George Darcy, but as the dance came to an end her hand was immediately claimed by Paul Denis. Alasdair watched, his expression dour. She was laughing at something Denis said. The man’s hand was on her arm and he bent and whispered something in her ear. She threw back her head, exposing the long white column of her throat in a gesture that was so achingly familiar he felt once again that jab to his breastbone. Then they walked off together in the direction of the supper room.
Alasdair was detained by his hostess for a few minutes, then, duty done, he made his own way to the supper room. He heard Emma’s laugh, deep and melodious and filled with amusement. Her companion was smiling, all complacence at having so amused her. Denis raised a hand in greeting as Alasdair passed close to their table. Emma, in conversation with a young lady at a neighboring table, appeared not to notice him.
Alasdair acknowledged the man’s greeting with a slight bow, his expression inscrutable, although his eyes burned behind half-lowered lids. He took a glass of champagne from the tray of a passing waiter and joined a group of his own friends. The conversation was not designed to improve his frame of mind.
“Lady Emma didn’t waste time finding herself a favorite,” Darcy observed.
“Lucky devil,” muttered Lord Everard. “It’s that smooth address, you mark my words. Something about a Frenchman, I’ve noticed it before,” he added rather dolefully. “Had my sights set on a young filly two years ago. Twenty thousand pounds. A nice little fortune, nice little girl. But damme if she didn’t up and marry a Frenchman.”
“Your trouble, Everard, is that you’re too slow off the mark,” Alasdair said with an assumption of jocularity. He was not going to let his friends see that he was in the least dismayed by Emma’s conquest. “While you’re still weighing the pros and cons, someone else has run off with the prize.”
