A Favor for the Prince

by Jane Ashford

  He looked slightly startled.

  “And a ship. I wonder if they’ll use…but I mustn’t spoil it for you.” She smiled at her companion, who was gazing at her as if she had said something curious. “You’ll enjoy it,” she added encouragingly.

  “Unlikely. I have no time for playacting. There are far too many intriguing problems in reality to be diverted by fictions.”

  “You can learn a great deal from plays,” Ariel told him.

  His expression showed that he disagreed, though he said nothing. She started to argue, then decided to bide her time.

  * * *

  When they entered the theater and made their way to the box Lord Alan had reserved, Ariel was nearly overwhelmed by the sights and sounds and smells of the place. She had not forgotten any of it, she realized. It was all there, only temporarily obscured by years of rules and conformity.

  “There are peepholes in the curtain,” she said as she sat down. “You can’t see them, but some of the actors are most likely observing us right now, checking whether the house is filled. My mother used to let me look when I was so small I had to stand on a chair to see out.”

  Every detail of that first time came flooding back to her. “You can see through here,” Bess said, lifting her up. Ariel put her eye to the tiny hole and gazed out into the noisy theater.

  It was nearly full that day; there was a new play, and the king and queen were expected. The sight of the audience took Ariel’s breath away. The glitter of innumerable candles illuminated the wealthier patrons in the tiers of boxes at the sides. Their clothes were strewn with gilt thread and jewels. In the galleries along the back sat scores of lesser members of the audience. Even from behind the curtain, Ariel smelled the heavy mixture of melting wax, a hundred perfumes, and unwashed bodies. The noise was terrific. In the pit, which occupied the floor of the theater, extravagantly dressed gallants strolled and flirted outrageously with any lady who caught their eye. A little intimidated by it all, Ariel drew back to make sure that her mother still stood beside her. She was there, gazing through another peephole.

  Reassured, Ariel let her gaze rove over the theater itself, with its carved and gilded walls and ceiling. Garlands, cupids, and great symbolic figures of comedy and tragedy graced them, a riot of shape and color that was almost dizzying.

  “It was like magic,” Ariel murmured. In this building, she had been repeatedly enthralled by tales of ghosts and heroes, princesses from far isles, witty ladies of fashion, and villains deep dyed in evil.

  “I beg your pardon?” said Lord Alan, leaning closer.

  “My mother used to tell me things about people in the audience,” she replied. “She knew everyone.” Best not to say the sorts of things she had told, Ariel thought, remembering.

  “Ah, the new Countess of Mallon,” Bess pointed out one night. “See, third box in the second tier.” Ariel looked and discovered a young woman, a girl really, very finely dressed in white with silver lace. “The great romance of last year.” Her mother laughed. “The lovely innocent and the rake. People said it was like a storybook. He full of protestations of reform, swearing he’d never met her like. She prettily doubting, and then convinced. Her parents forbidding and then giving in. And now we find her at the play alone, and her new husband squiring his latest mistress.”

  “Where is he?” Ariel asked. She couldn’t follow all of her mother’s sarcastic narratives, but she relished them nonetheless, not for the content, but rather because she knew Bess talked this way to no one else.

  “Just across. Both wearing black. And so dies a love match.”

  “Who are all those people in the first tier?” Ariel asked.

  Her mother looked. “The Sandersons. All eight of them hugger-mugger in one box, as usual.” Bess laughed without humor. “Take note, my dear. The rich are wondrously tightfisted. They’ll squeeze a penny till it shrieks. That’s why they’re rich. You’d think one of the wealthiest men in England could take a second box, would you not?”

  “Who are the children?” A richly dressed boy and girl in the box had first attracted her attention. She had little contact with those her own age.

  Her mother laughed again. “Children? That pair celebrated their betrothal not a sennight since.”

  Ariel looked again. She couldn’t believe the girl was much older than ten. The boy might be twelve. “Betrothal?” she repeated.

  “An old-fashioned family,” replied Bess. “Child marriage isn’t common now, but old Sanderson had a very important reason for it.”

  “What?”

  “Money. Those two are cousins, and heirs to vast chunks of England on both sides. It all flows together on their marriage, and Sanderson is making very sure that it does, before they are old enough to make any false steps.”

  Ariel gazed at them. “Do they want to marry?”

  “The gossips say that they hate each other most cordially. Ah, there’s the duchess and her footman. I’ve been longing to see him.”

  “Why?” Her mother never showed much interest in other people’s servants.

  “Indeed, most handsome,” Bess murmured, her eye to the peephole. “And from what they say, a man of large—” She broke off and straightened. “Never mind. You should go to your place now.”

  Something that she wasn’t supposed to hear, Ariel concluded. The theater always teemed with gossip. Like her own home, it was a place of mysteries and secrets.

  “I had a hidden seat in the prompt box,” she said softly now. “I was there nearly every day. I learned some of my mother’s parts by heart.” She could almost see her, Ariel thought—confident, resplendent before the painted scenery, speaking in perfect rounded phrases. Ariel was always amazed at the contrast between her mother in life and the gallery of characters she portrayed. Rather than the mother she knew—carelessly improvident, ruled by flashes of mood, doting on and then quarreling with an endless succession of servants—in the theater she saw women with purpose as well as fire, strength along with style. Sometimes, guiltily, she found herself wishing for a mother like one of these imaginary characters.

  The musicians began to play. “Oh, it’s starting,” exclaimed Ariel, and she leaned forward to watch the curtain rise.

  Ignoring the first speeches spoken by the actors, Alan watched her taking it all in. His gaze ran over the taut line of her throat, the glow of her skin where it curved into the bodice of her gown. What had become of the pert schoolgirl he had met at Carlton House, he wondered? There was little trace of her tonight, in this sleek, glittering creature in emerald-green, with her hair piled high and jewels shining at her throat. Had he made a mistake? Was she, in fact, the high flyer he had at first taken her for? And if so, what was she after?

  He had no large fortune to tempt such a woman. The life he had chosen allowed him to live very comfortably on the income that came to him from two small estates, but it would not stretch to the kind of gifts and luxuries a fashionable mistress expected, to the kind of emerald pendant this one wore, for example.

  No, she couldn’t be after money. But what then? This talk of investigation and discovering the truth was nonsense, of course. Women hadn’t the tenacity or sense of purpose for such a thing. What did she want?

  Alan’s insatiable curiosity, either an admirable trait or a besetting sin, depending on who one asked, was becoming thoroughly roused. He was certainly not ignorant of women. His family had made sure that he met a large number of lovely, eligible females of the haut ton, hoping that one of them would convince him to abandon his eccentric plan of staying on at the university. And he had not denied himself other sorts of female company when desire drew him to some willing woman who understood that such diversions meant nothing.

  But Ariel Harding was not like the women he’d met before, either during the two London seasons forced on him by his mother or the sporadic connections he had formed for himself. She had so far
displayed no tendency to flirt or fawn. She had not pouted or preened or cried. What was her game?

  In response to some interplay on the stage, Ariel laughed aloud, then turned to look at him and share the joke. Her smile lit her face. Light from the many candles danced in the hazel depths of her eyes. She looked open and honest—and thoroughly delightful. He could detect no scheming shadows in that gaze. An unfamiliar tremor of sensation moved in Alan’s chest—as if something had come loose from its moorings for a moment.

  He shook his head, shook it off. The prince regent’s rich, heavy cuisine did not agree with him, he thought, nor did all these nights in hot, overcrowded rooms where the air was tainted with smoke and perfumes and inane conversation. He needed to get back to his quiet, ordered laboratory, to the company of rational men. If he could only get this ridiculous business of the ghost settled, all would return to normal. He turned toward the stage, his jaw set. When would the damned play be over? He was sick to death of waiting. He wanted to get something done.

  The antics of the actors continued, oblivious to Lord Alan Gresham’s impatience. Numb with boredom, he made a halfhearted effort to comprehend the story. It seemed to involve a pair of witless young lovers, separated for reasons that he had missed at the beginning of the play. These insurmountable obstacles had, inexplicably, forced the hero to become a pirate in the West Indies. Did anyone in the audience actually believe that a young nobleman could, upon arrival in the islands, immediately gain command of a pirate vessel, Alan wondered? And did they imagine that his crew of bloodthirsty blackguards would tolerate endless maundering laments for his lost Lucinda? The idiot would have been robbed, gutted, and thrown overboard on the first night. And Alan would have very much enjoyed seeing such a scene enacted.

  As for Lucinda, her scenes revealed her as precisely the sort of simpering, sniveling female he most despised. Indeed, she epitomized all the weaknesses of the feminine character. She was a slave to emotion, incapable of clear thinking and prey to moods that led her to take actions he found insane. When she determined to disguise herself as a cabin boy and join her hero on his ship, Alan gave up listening. It was beyond absurd. These idiot playgoers would swallow anything. Did they imagine a gently reared young woman would not be immediately found out on a pirate ship? Was it credible that her supposed true love would not recognize her instantly? And did any of these people have the least inkling about the unhappy fate of cabin boys in such company?

  When the curtain fell for the interval, Alan was ready to suggest that they leave, returning to question the cast another time. But one look at Ariel’s glowing face told him that this plan would not be well received. “Shall I order some refreshment?” he asked resignedly.

  “Yes, please,” responded Ariel. “Wasn’t it cunning, the way they made the waves move around the ship? I haven’t seen that before. And did you notice how quickly the backdrops were changed from the London drawing room to the street in the Indies? They must have some new method for hanging them. The ship was rather well done, too, although I think it’s the one they have always used for The Tempest.”

  Alan gazed at her, surprised. He had expected some feminine rhapsodies about the romance of the story and the handsome hero.

  “Charles Padgett and Mr. Balfour were there,” Ariel continued. “I almost didn’t recognize Maria Edgecombe under all the paint and false hair. She was the fortune-teller.” She turned her animated gaze on Lord Alan. “Do you think we could have lemonade? I’m not very partial to wine.”

  He gave the order. Then, watching her looking around the audience, he was moved by curiosity to ask, “What did you think of the story?”

  Ariel shrugged. “Passable.”

  “You did not find it unbelievable?”

  “The actress playing Lucinda is not particularly convincing,” she conceded.

  “But the events, the whole idea. It is quite impossible.” He was actually rather interested in her answer, Alan realized.

  “It’s a story,” said Ariel, looking at him as if he had said something odd.

  He was about to reply when there was a knock at the door of their box and it opened to reveal two tall, good-looking young men dressed in the height of fashion. “Alan, you sly dog,” said one of them. “First we hear you’re living at Carlton House, and now we find you’ve acquired a chère amie.”

  “Might want to have a haircut though,” commented the other, looking him up and down. “Your rig-out is tolerable, but the hair, old son.” He shook his impeccably groomed head.

  “Do go away,” responded Alan.

  “Here now! Is that any way to greet your brothers?” said the one who had spoken first.

  “Your older brothers,” added the other. “Show a bit of respect, eh?” He waggled his fingers at Alan in good-natured mockery. “Going to introduce us? Don’t worry, we won’t try to cut you out. It’s past time you set up a—”

  “Miss Harding, these are two of my brothers,” interrupted Alan. “Lord Sebastian Gresham and Lord Robert Gresham. Pay no attention to them.”

  “Hold on,” objected Sebastian.

  “Miss Ariel Harding,” Alan finished with a significant glance at his brothers.

  “Harding?” said Sebastian. “As in…?”

  Ariel was examining their visitors with great interest. They were clearly cut from the same mold as Lord Alan—tall, handsome, broad-shouldered men with auburn hair and blue eyes. Robert was slighter, with a narrower face and paler coloring; his hair was almost red. Sebastian, the largest of the three, had the upright bearing and luxuriant side whiskers that marked him at once as a cavalryman; he looked like a lazy, good-natured lion. But although both the newcomers were far better dressed than Lord Alan and obviously very much at their ease, neither of them possessed his air of calm command, his look of razor-sharp intelligence, or his imperturbability. “Do I call them Lord Robert and Lord Sebastian?” she asked. “Are they younger sons, too?”

  Robert goggled at her.

  “They are,” confirmed Alan, one corner of his lips turning up.

  “Some connection of Bess Harding?” asked Lord Sebastian, who was not one to give up on an idea once he had grasped it.

  Ariel raised her chin. “I am Bess Harding’s daughter,” she answered proudly.

  “Miss Harding is assisting me in my investigation for the prince,” Alan added. “My confidential investigation.”

  Sebastian waved this aside. “Father told us to keep mum about the matter.”

  “Didn’t know Bess Harding had a daughter,” Robert said, seeming unable to tear his eyes from Ariel.

  “I have been away from London, at Ames’s Academy for Young Ladies, for several years,” she replied with dignity.

  Lord Alan’s brothers looked at each other, then at Alan.

  “You have mistaken the situation,” he told them.

  “What situation would that be?” asked Ariel sweetly.

  “Oh, come,” responded Lord Robert. “Daughter of an actress, that sort of thing.”

  “What sort of thing?” repeated Ariel in bell-like tones. She fixed Robert with a steady gaze and added, “Precisely?”

  Robert coughed. “Er…” He glanced at Lord Alan for help and received a bland stare in return.

  “Well?” demanded Ariel.

  Robert shifted from one foot to the other. Sebastian grinned, then took a step backward when she looked at him.

  “I believe my brothers are surprised to find a female involved in my investigation,” suggested Lord Alan.

  Ariel turned to him. “Do you?”

  “That’s it,” agreed Sebastian quickly. “Surprised. Why, Alan’s always saying that females don’t have two thoughts to…er…that is…”

  “This is deuced odd,” commented Lord Robert. “But then, I should have expected it. Your whole life is deuced odd.”

  “That depends upon y
our point of view,” said Alan. He raised his head at the sound of a chime. “The play is about to start again. Don’t let us keep you from your seats.”

  “I don’t understand you,” complained his brother Sebastian.

  Alan smiled at him with real warmth. “I know,” he said.

  Four

  “I would like to discuss what you and your brothers were talking about,” said Ariel at the end of the play as they waited for the audience to clear out.

  “It’s of absolutely no consequence,” Alan replied.

  “I disagree. They thought I was your mistress. Why can’t you just say so?”

  He threw her a startled look.

  “I don’t see how we will work together if you persist in treating me like a fool,” she continued. “It wastes time. And of course, it is quite annoying, not to mention insulting.”

  Most uncharacteristically, Alan found himself speechless. “I thought to spare you embarrassment,” he answered finally.

  “Really?” She raised her eyebrows. “It would have been far less embarrassing if you had simply stated that I was not, instead of circling the subject as if there might be some doubt.”

  Alan had no answer to this. She was right, of course, but he had never encountered a woman who claimed to share his preference for forthright statements rather than polite evasions.

  “We had better settle this matter right at the beginning,” Ariel added.

  “What ‘matter’?”

  Ariel took a bit of time to rearrange her diaphanous wrap around her shoulders. “We have made an agreement to aid each other in our investigations. It does not include anything more.”

  Alan raised one auburn brow. “More?” He was well aware of what she meant, but for some reason he wanted to hear her say it.

  She looked directly at him. “I know that men are ruled by their passions,” she stated. “You cannot help it, I suppose.”

  “Indeed?” Oddly piqued, Alan added, “And how did you come by this comprehensive knowledge?”

  “My mother was…thoroughly conversant with the subject,” replied Ariel stiffly.