“A particular chartreuse waistcoat I had admired. Had gold frogs embroidered on it. You know what a dandy I am.” Fox laughed.
“In almost thirty years, no one has yet beat Lord March’s racing chaise record.”
DeVere dismissed the notion. “I said no horses.”
“Steal a lion from the Royal Menagerie?” Lord Malden suggested.
DeVere looked to Ned with a grin. “If I recall, we both agreed that roasted lion had a rather unpleasantly gamey taste.” He gave a dismissive wave of the hand. “No. Nothing further with animals. It’s all been done before. Come now.” His eyes gleamed. “You can do better.”
“I have a proposal.” All eyes turned to the Prince of Wales, grinning like a monkey escaped from the aforementioned Royal Menagerie. “And one that has certainly never been done before. But I fear, even you, DeVere, may not wish to risk the consequences.”
“And why not?” asked DeVere.
“Because failing would mean much more than the loss of your gold. It would almost certainly land you in the tower.”
“Indeed?” All trace of boredom had left DeVere’s face. “I am fascinated to hear more, Your Highness. What would you lay before me?”
“I challenge you this night to take a woman of pleasure into the Bed of State at St. James Palace and bring back to me the soiled monogrammed sheet as proof.”
“You wish me to defile the king’s bed with a whore?” DeVere roared with unbridled mirth.
The prince smiled. “A bit crudely put, but precisely.”
“I wish to add a proviso,” Lord Malden whispered to the prince, his gaze on Phoebe. “Not just any whore, but that one.” He gestured with a nod.
“Why her?” the prince asked.
Lord Malden replied with a smug smile, “Because, Your Highness, she’s a Sapphist.”
***
“Not on your life,” Ned said, departing Carlton House with a throbbing head and shaky legs. “Our escapade with the lion was one thing; we at least had a fighting chance that time, but this? I don’t relish a march up Tower Hill. I quite like my head right where it is.”
“But where is your sense of adventure, Ned? Your passion for life? You didn’t use to be such a lackluster bore.”
Ned turned to face him. “Unlike you, I grew up!”
“I beg to differ. You’ve grown old. Old and dull. Dull Dog Ned.”
“I’m not the least moved by your taunts, DeVere. I’m perfectly content with my life, while you can’t seem to stand yours.”
“What the devil does that mean?”
“The reason you run amok. You’re miserable!”
“Me? Miserable?” DeVere barked with laughter. “I’m the happiest sod in England! Unlike some people who suppress their carnal appetites behind feigned respectability, I do whatever the hell I want, whenever I want. And moreover, with whomever I want.” He slanted a meaningful look to Phoebe.
“Think what you like, DeVere. It’s your bloody wager. Not mine.”
“And I’m not about to lose a thousand guineas over your cravenness.”
“I won’t rise to that,” Ned said. “You know damned well I’m no craven. I proved it eighteen years ago, or did that old blow to your head affect your long-term memory? Besides, according to the terms of the wager, a second man is very much de trop.” He also looked to Phoebe.
“You both take much for granted,” Phoebe answered with an indignant sniff.
“What do you mean?” asked DeVere.
“I have no interest in any of this.”
“Of course you do,” DeVere insisted. “You are part and parcel of it.”
“I am no such thing!” she retorted and signaled a passing hackney coach.
“What do you think you are doing?” DeVere demanded.
“It’s very late. I’m very tired. I’m going home.”
“I shall escort you,” Ned said.
“The hell you will!” DeVere cried. “You are both coming with me to St. James Palace.”
“And do what?” Phoebe confronted him toe-to-toe, her hands firmly on her hips. “I heard the wager. I am not a woman of pleasure.”
“No?” DeVere murmured. “Then what, precisely, was the arrangement you sought with me earlier tonight?”
She cocked her head haughtily. “That was a private affair, certainly not for public consumption. News of this escapade will be all over London within four-and-twenty hours.”
DeVere smirked. “Surely you misjudge. I estimate it’ll travel at least far as York by then.”
She shot daggers with her eyes. “The result is the same. Even should I agree to such a lewd proposition and we succeed, my reputation would be in tatters. I could never recover from it.” She spun on her heel.
“But think what the notoriety could do for your career!”
She ignored the remark and trudged on. DeVere grabbed her arm and spun her back around. “Then think how very comfortably you and your tattered reputation could live.”
She made to pull out of his grasp and stopped in her tracks. “What do you mean by that?”
“If you are not of an exceedingly extravagant nature, a thousand guineas might go a very long way. It could buy a modest town home or perhaps a lovely seaside cottage in Bath. The remainder, if shrewdly invested, could pay out a nice enough dividend to provide your needs for the next ten to twenty years. As to your reputation, you could always change your name.”
She was thunderstruck. “You propose to give me the money...all the money if you win?”
“I have no need of the money, my dear. This is entirely about the adventure. And it was you who inspired it, after all.”
“She inspired this madness?” Ned interjected. “How?”
“He took seriously a remark I made only in jest,” she explained. She turned back to DeVere. “You are truly in earnest about the money?”
“On my honor,” he replied, hand over heart.
Phoebe regarded him with suspicion. “I don’t think I can trust you.” She turned to Ned. “Can I trust him?”
***
“Yes,” Ned answered with a scowl. “It may be an oxymoron, but he’s an honorable rogue.” Ned looked incredulous. “You aren’t seriously contemplating this insanity?”
It was insanity, but DeVere was right. A thousand guineas could possibly meet her needs for life. And it was for only one night. She had already intended to barter far more for far less. She would be a fool to turn away now.
“A thousand guineas places matters, even my lost reputation, in quite another light.”
“Then you intend to go through with this?”
Her heart wrenched at the open disgust on Ned’s face. She hesitated, knowing her answer would surely reduce her to nothing more than a whore in his eyes. She closed her own so she at least wouldn’t see it. “Yes,” she said. “I intend to go through with it.”
Ned groaned. “Bloody hell! What did I ever do to deserve this?”
“You needn’t involve yourself,” Phoebe said, refusing to meet his gaze. “The wager only requires the two of us.”
“And I despise that he’s got you entangled in his antics.” He heaved a martyr’s sigh. “While DeVere can go to the devil for all I care, I won’t see you taken by the palace guard for his flight of madness.”
“A thousand guineas is a powerful inducement,” she said. “I go willingly.”
“Nevertheless, I will accompany you.” Ned turned back to DeVere who regarded them both with an amused smirk. “I’m acting against all my instincts and inclinations, so be forewarned I’m more than likely to pummel you before this night is through.”
DeVere threw his head back and crowed, “That’s my Ned of old!”
While this ludicrous exchange was taking place, Phoebe had already signaled a hackney coach. “What need have we for a hack when St. James Palace is only across the square?” DeVere asked.
“Don’t you suppose this requires a plan?” she countered. “Covent Garden Square,” she instructed
the driver.
“A plan?” DeVere repeated blankly.
“Aye,” she answered. “I don’t intend to risk my neck without one.”
“She has a point, DeVere,” Ned said.
DeVere regarded her, his expression both perturbed and perplexed. “And I suppose you have already devised such a plan?”
“Aye,” she answered without elaboration. “And if you step into the hack, I will reveal it to you.”
“Damme if she hasn’t usurped control of this!” Ned laughed.
“Well, are you coming or not?” Phoebe replied. “I can’t do this by myself.”
***
After a brief stop in which DeVere was obliged to provide a few silver coins in exchange for Mrs. Andrews’ key, Phoebe led Ned and DeVere to the warehouse where the theater costumes were stored. By the dim glow of a shuttered lamp, she began to rifle the racks for miscellaneous items. “Take your clothes off. Both of you,” she commanded.
“I hardly think there’s time,” DeVere remarked drily. “Besides, I’ve never known Ned to be partial to sharing.”
“You know that’s not what I meant. Your outer garments. Please,” Phoebe tossed over her shoulder along with a footman’s livery in red and gold and a white wig. “Does your mind ever surface from the gutter, my lord?”
“Rarely,” Ned answered on his friend’s behalf.
“Oh!” She cried with delight upon her next discovery. “We now have a footman and a Yeoman Guard. She pulled out a white ruff, flat hat, and an elaborate Tudor-style tunic such as was still worn by the palace guard. She tossed the garments to Ned.
Stripped of outer clothes, his white linen shirt and breeches revealed an impressive breadth of chest and shoulders, tapering to a narrow waist. She sized up his considerable form with a hard swallow and managed to summon a frown. “Good thing you’re the guard,” she mumbled with feigned nonchalance. “The footman’s livery never would have fit.” She hid her discomposure by digging further into the wardrobe until she retrieved a plain black gown and apron. “I daresay these should do very nicely for me.” She then shuttered the lamp, leaving them in near darkness.
“How do you expect us to dress in the dark?” DeVere complained.
“You can’t expect me to undress in the light?” she said.
“Don’t you think modesty a bit futile, my sweet, when we will be in bed together an hour from now?”
Phoebe could detect an audible grinding of teeth coming from Ned’s direction.
“Who says I have to undress for you?” she answered back. “I don’t recall any such stipulation. I remind you that this is entirely a business arrangement, my lord. Surely the act can be accomplished quite efficiently while clothed.”
“Efficiently, yes,” DeVere argued. “But not pleasurably. I always make a point of mixing business and pleasure, you see.”
“But my business is not your pleasure,” she argued.
“Enough!” Ned snapped at DeVere. “Must you continue to go on about it when it’s clearly distasteful to her?”
“But if we are to soil the sheets together—oof!” The rest of DeVere’s reply was muffled by a stifled curse followed by the distinctive sound of flesh striking a solid surface.
Phoebe froze. “What was that? Are we discovered?”
“I stumbled,” Ned retorted.
“Into me!” DeVere said. “Damned clumsy of you, Ned!”
“Both of you, be more careful! Blast it all!” she cursed.
“What is it?” Ned asked.
“I can’t reach my laces. Can you help me?”
“Yes,” both men answered simultaneously.
Phoebe reopened the shutter to find both men half-dressed and Ned glowering at DeVere. She looked from one to the other and finally turned her back to Ned who promptly dropped his Yeoman’s tunic to attend her.
Drawing up her cascade of curls with one hand, he used the other to access her laces. His touch was gentle and lingering and seemed to take much longer than necessary. The feel of his fingers in her hair and the sheer intimacy of the act sent a shiver of awareness down her spine. “Pray, make haste,” she snapped. “If we’re here much longer the watch’ll be down on us, and we’ll all three end up in the Round House.”
She looked to DeVere to find him watching them, a sly smile hovering over his mouth. He pulled a flask from his pocket, taking a long drink before offering the bottle to Ned who took no notice as his gaze was now affixed to Phoebe’s face. The strange way he looked at her set her nerves on edge and made her skin tingle. “What is it?” she asked.
“N-Nothing,” he replied. “You’ve removed the mask. I hadn’t seen your entire face until now.”
“Oh,” she replied, feeling self-conscious. His expression made her fingers fumble as she tucked her long hair up into a mobcap. Her laces loosened, she instructed them both to turn their backs while they all three finished dressing.
“Are we quite ready?” she finally asked.
“Indeed,” answered DeVere, pocketing the flask in his red velvet footman’s coat and donning the white wig with a grin. “Though in truth, I think it highly unlikely that I’ll be the first footman to roger a chambermaid in the king’s bed.”
CHAPTER EIGHT
Phoebe was amazed how easily DeVere had fallen in with her plan. As she’d directed, the hackney dropped them on the mall on the garden side of the convoluted maze of wings and courtyards that comprised St. James Palace.
“We’ll go through the Palace Gardens,” she said.
“But there are some fifty Yeoman of the Guard at St. James,” Ned said. “How the devil do you propose to get by them?”
“There are only twenty at night,” she corrected him. “And there is a private entrance through the Chair Court that is little known and only used by the Royal Family. Since they are not currently in residence, it should be lightly guarded.”
“How can you possibly know this?” DeVere asked.
“I was a member of the Royal Household for almost four years. Although I spent the majority of my time at the Bower Lodge and the queen’s house at Kew, I have been to most of the royal residences.”
“You have?” Ned looked astonished. “How? I mean in what capacity?”
“If you must know, I was once a nursery maid to the royal princesses.”
“A nursery maid?” Ned seemed more puzzled than ever. “But you are an actress.”
Phoebe lifted a brow. “What do you imply, sir?”
“Only that such positions are not come by easily, and the queen takes great care in selecting her servants, especially those to the children. Only a gentlewoman...”
“I secured the position through my aunt who was wet nurse to the Prince of Wales. Is it so impossible to believe I might have been gently bred?”
Ned flushed. “That’s not what I meant—”
“Then what did you mean?”
“I don’t know! I’m just confounded to understand what would lead a young woman from the Royal Nursery to the Covent Garden stage.”
“Dismissal, perhaps?” she offered drily.
“But why?” Ned asked.
“Does it really matter, Ned?” DeVere interrupted. “So you know the lay of the land, do you?” he asked Phoebe.
“I have been to the private apartments at St. James on several occasions.”
DeVere laughed. “Damn if I don’t find that another capital stroke of luck.”
They approached stealthily from the garden side, where they concealed themselves behind a tall yew hedge formed into a miniature maze. As predicted, there was, indeed, only a single Yeoman at the gate. “Although there’s only one, I doubt he’ll be inclined to let us pass,” Ned said with a healthy dose of sarcasm.
“We only want for a diversion.” Phoebe chewed her lip.
Ned looked to DeVere. “You are the master of mayhem. Any brilliant ideas?”
“If we want him to leave the gate, we must provide proper motivation,” DeVere answered.
“Such as?” Phoebe prompted.
“Let us keep to the basics, my pet. Men are primarily moved by either their stomachs or their cocks. If we cannot tempt the one, it must be the other.”
Ned glared. “What are you suggesting?”
“Our little chambermaid can take the blighter off by offering him a hand job.”
“The hell she will!” Ned barked before Phoebe could answer for herself. “Think of something else!”
“Come now, Ned. She’ll be well-compensated for her trouble. He laughed. “Hell, for a thousand, I might be tempted to do it myself.”
“Damn, but you’re dangerously close to lighting my fuse this night!”
While Ned and DeVere heatedly argued other possible means of entry, Phoebe looked to the gate where a stroke of fortune had sent the guard off to relieve himself. “Or,” she interrupted, “we might simply wait until he has need to answer the call of nature—like now.”
Happily finding the door unlocked, Phoebe and DeVere snuck inside with Ned in his Yeoman’s uniform bringing up the rear. “This way,” she beckoned in a whisper. “And take off your shoes. At the top of the gallery is the guard room.”
The centuries-old palace at St. James was a dreary place during the day but extraordinarily eerie by night. Its stone walls and floors failed to emanate any warmth, and its long passageways resounded with eerie echoes. Luckily they had not far to travel, having entered the gate nearest the staircase leading to the state apartments.
Dousing the lamp, they ventured stocking-footed up the grand staircase. One at a time, they slinked through the long gallery which had once served as the armory and upon whose walls were still mounted every conceivable kind of weapon. Phoebe suppressed a shiver at the menacing gleam of an executioner’s ax on prominent display. With her heart racing, she scurried past the guardroom where several Yeomen dozed while others played at cards and dice and held her breath until reaching the safety beyond in the adjoining chamber.
After the trio slipped through well-oiled doors, Phoebe rekindled the lamp to reveal the “old” presence chamber. “Look at that,” Ned said on a drawn breath, pointing to the carved shield above the huge fireplace, a remnant from the Tudor reign. On the foreground were the initials H and A united by a lovers’ knot, and in the background, a fleur-de-lis of France, the arms of England, and the rose of Lancaster. The relic only made Phoebe think again of the headsman’s ax.
A Wild Night's Bride (The Devil DeVere #1) Page 6
