Raven's Ransom

by Hayley Ann Solomon

  He was not left wondering long, for Lady Rochester appeared sooner than he had dared anticipate. Her eyebrows rose markedly at the spectacle that confronted her, but she waved the footman away languidly, rather cleverly obscuring his view of the interior with her outrageous ostrich feather fan. Slamming the door shut on her gay damask shawl, she tutted a little but abandoned the thing to its fate.

  “Well, Gareth!” She chuckled a little as she viewed her son’s sudden discomfiture. She was not at all perturbed by the presence of a lady seated comfortably on her favorite squab. Her sharp eyes detected, even in the lamplight, the crimson cheeks and the demure lashes of copper gold that lowered, shyly, upon her scrutiny.

  “You need not look so gleeful, Mama! Miss . . . good heavens, I do not know your name!”

  “Chartley.” The words were chorused by both Primrose, and to her astonishment, the marchioness. Lady Rochester chuckled and winked at Primrose, who felt she had never been caught at such point non plus in her life.

  “I am not totally a scatter wit, Gareth! Miss Chartley is one of Esmeralda’s chicks.” She opened her fan then snapped it shut with a sudden click. “Gracious, I believe I may be your godmama!” Her smile was so infectious, Primrose lost her rigid bearing and sudden consciousness.

  “No, ma’am, that is my sister Lily.”

  “Well, well, I knew it was one of you. And you are ... ?

  “Primrose.”

  “Ah, yes. Esmeralda was always quirkish.” She regarded Primrose solemnly, but a little dimple fluttered on either side of her cheek. After a pause, she smiled. “The other one’s a flower too, I believe.”

  Primrose nodded. “Sadly, madame, that is so. It is a sore trial to us.”

  The marchioness chuckled. “As I am to poor Gareth. My manners! Forgive me! It was very wrong of me to call Esmeralda quirkish.” She held her hands to her face in such a delightfully flustered manner that Primrose felt her lips twitching.

  “You are perfectly right, ma’am! Mama was quirkish, though a dear from all I recall.”

  “That she was. That she was.” Lady Rochester’s eyes misted up in sudden memory. “One day I will tell you the tricks we all got up to. But come! You have to tell me the answer to this puzzle. Did my son lure you in here or did you happen to stumble into my chaise by chance? Or”—her eyes sparkled mischievously—“can it be you have a clandestine meeting . . .”

  “Mama!” Gareth brought her up sharply.

  “No? But how disappointing! Gareth, I began to cherish hopes.”

  Primrose giggled in spite of herself. The women shared glances of amusement at his lordship’s sudden discomfiture.

  “He is quite terrible, you know. Takes fright at a single dance and goes to impossible lengths to shirk his duties on the dance floor. I should not have been so softhearted. I should have left him to kick his heels all night as I threatened. Still, I’m not entirely sorry I cut the night short. I might not have had so much as a whisper of this interlude if I’d not seen it myself.”

  Her tone held an unmistakable interrogative that caused Gareth to explain the mistake at once. The marchioness said nothing, but glanced curiously at Primrose on occasion, especially at those times when her exasperating son’s eyes sparkled dangerously clear and when his lips curled just slightly, as if at some dear, much concealed memory.

  The marchioness was no fool. She knew her son would not be a Rochester born and bred if he’d not expurgated his account, somewhat. Besides, the adorable copper-curled miss was blushing furiously. She was also, she noticed, casting adoring glances Gareth’s way. She hoped she would soon rid herself of the habit. It would do the marquis no good to become too puffed up in his own conceit. When they were wed, she would drop Miss Chartley a little hint.

  Ah, yes! There was no doubt in the marchioness’s smug, self-composed, irrepressibly matchmaking mind that her son had at last met his match. It needed no more than a few moments in the eldest Miss Chartley’s company to know that. Too bad that meddlesome Lord Raven was making the trio the talk of the Ton. Lady Cornwallis was already letting her malicious tongue run riot and pointing to the knot of fortune hunters who were currently besieging the remaining two.

  She would have to do something to quash the nonsense, of course. The future marchioness of Rochester could not be permitted to be the subject of idle gossip and speculation. And Gareth, too. She would have to work on him. A small matter, for he was already halfway gone if the darkling glances he threw Miss Chartley’s way was anything to go by. The knack would be getting him to realize it.

  “Mama! You are not concentrating!”

  “Indeed I am!” The marchioness permitted her tones to sound indignant, though in truth her mind had been wandering. It had been exploring quite delicious avenues that had more to do with cherubic grandchildren than with getting Primrose out of her most immediate fix. Now, she fixed her attention squarely where it belonged.

  “I shall return indoors with Miss Chartley. No one need know we have left the ballroom. If rumor should perchance rear its ugly head, I shall thank her profusely for accompanying me to my chaise and applying spirit of lime to my aching forehead. As far as the world knows, Lord Rochester did not attend this evening. Gareth! Climb out the chaise at once and take the coachman’s seat.”

  “Now? It is cold!”

  “Excellent! You shall be well served for serving me such a trick this evening! You dress like a coachman, you shall be one! What is more, I have no notion how long I shall take, for it might take hours before we scotch any rumors. You know what they can be like.”

  Gareth did know. Accordingly, he suppressed a thousand muttered oaths and the annoying suspicion that his mother was enjoying herself thoroughly, and obediently moved to the door.

  “Good-bye, Miss Chartley.”

  Primrose felt a terrible pain that she could not quite place. Her voice was quite steady, however, when she calmly replied.

  “Good-bye, Lord Rochester.”

  The marchioness, privy to this polite exchange, shook her head quietly. Children! How tiresome they could be at times! Gareth could have swept her off her feet and kissed her till she swooned. He could have taken the reins reins and driven straight to Gretna. But no! He mildly says good-bye and chooses, instead, to gnash his teeth all night and shiver with cold. Gentlemen could be so dull-witted.

  The marchioness shrugged her shoulders and allowed Primrose to help her with her shawl. It had got jammed in the door, somehow, and was now looking sadly crushed. Still, she had to reflect, the calamity had been worth it. She’d found Gareth a gem of a bride and he was being well punished for his earlier sins. Out of the corner of her eye, she could see his cheek twitch in the moonlight Good! Rochester men only twitched if they were deeply moved.

  Six

  “Miss Chardey!” Miss Pemberton’s voice was coy as she playfully wagged her gloves at Primrose. “I had not thought to see you after the second quadrille.”

  Primrose kept her tone light as she smiled politely and adjusted the delicate bow of her shimmering organdy.

  “No?”

  “No, we had all quite thought you otherwise occupied!” The insinuation was clear in Miss Pemberton’s inquiring eyes. Primrose felt her cheeks burn, slightly, but she managed an eloquently quizzical brow as she feigned an interest in the delicacies. They were being circulated on fabulous salvers of sparkling crystal and silver. She chose a light pastry filled with salmon and a delicate pinkish cream, then bit into it slightly before formulating her response.

  “How intriguing! I cannot imagine what you think might have been occupying me so mysteriously?”

  “Can you not?” Miss Pemberton almost snickered, particularly as she noted a small collection of young debutantes gathering about her. Primrose felt decidedly hot, but was sufficiently self-collected to keep her back straight and her brows arched.

  “How short your memory must be. If I were caught clambering into Gareth, Lord Rochester’s chaise, I warrant I might have something t
o recall!”

  “No doubt.” Primrose allowed her tone to become contemptuous, causing Lavinia Pemberton’s eyes to narrow at the veiled insult. She was not mollified by several giggles behind her. How dare Miss Chartley! Particularly as it was she who had been caught flagrantly disobeying society’s conventions! Lavinia stifled several pangs of jealousy, for Lord Rochester was the catch of the Season besides being deliciously good-looking when he wasn’t staring frostily into the middle distance and ignoring one entirely.

  She decided that pointed politeness was wasted on Primrose, so she turned her back to the amber-gowned beauty and whispered something rather nasty to Miss Redding, who looked alternately amused and disbelieving. Unfortunately, the whisper was rather audible—possibly by ill-natured intent—and caught the attention of Lady Rochester, who had just been striding purposefully in Primrose’s direction. Ignoring both young ladies, who scrambled to curtsy to her—she placed her arm in Primrose’s and thanked her once again, in bell-like tones, for alleviating her suffering. “You really are a marvel, Miss Chartley., for I swear my headache was quite shocking before you ministered to it. How thoughtful of you to take me back to the quiet of my chaise, and how very solicitous. I really must invite you and your sisters to Rochester, sometime, for I feel certain my son Gareth would wish to meet with you and thank you personally.”

  She shot a mischievous look at Primrose with these words, but otherwise preserved a haughty and entirely convincing demeanor. Miss Pemberton looked sick, but never one to miss any opportunity, clapped her hands elegantly and declared that a party to Rochester would be the very thing to lift poor dear Primrose out of the dismals and she would talk to her mama about it at once. Whereupon Lady Rochester looked upon her with ill-disguised contempt and commented that it was not a party she had in mind, but rather a quiet country gathering of friends. She emphasized this last word rather cruelly, Primrose thought, but she would not have been human had she not rejoiced a little at the tone. Miss Pemberton deserved a hearty set-down, and in truth, she had received it, albeit in the sweetest of language and only with the very slightest raising of haughty brows.

  In another part of Almack’s entirely, Miss Lily Chartley was holding court to as lively a collection of rakes and rogues as a young lady of first Season could wish for. She was entranced by Lord Damson’s desire to paint her, and torn between agreeing to sit for him, or giving the honor to Mr. Ravensbourne, a quiet-spoken man with dangerous eyes that made her shiver quite delightfully. Of course, there was always the sadly impoverished Lord Windham, but he would do nothing more daring than lavish fulsome glances her way and fetch endless supplies of lemonade. All this, of course, was thoroughly satisfactory, for Lily was a spritely creature who cared nothing for the questionable motives behind her sudden spate of popularity.

  True, Grandfather had been rather naughty to leave his inheritance in such an equivocal fashion, but it was his, after all, and she was having the most agreeable time as a consequence. She flattered herself that the attention was not all due to the will, for even Lady Cowper had commented that she was in high good looks. She smoothed down the crisp white lines of her shimmering satin and glanced, for a moment, in the mirror. Yes, Primrose had been right, the simple clasp of pearls had been better than the diamonds she’d yearned to borrow. And how clever Daisy had been with the dewdrops! They framed her face perfectly. She was just turning to thank a gentleman in a stiff, starched collar, whose name she could not quite recall but who had just likened her dark hair to a night hallowed with the luster of moonbeams, when her eyes caught, in the mirror, a reflection that made her wide, green eyes widen just a fraction more than was usual. Just before she dropped her dark lashes in a sudden, wild, and quite stormy impulse of abandon, she felt her pulses quicken and her breathing become strangely shallow. When she looked up, the figure that had so silently assaulted her senses, had gone. Viscount Barrymore, similarly afflicted, had felt it wise to call up his horses. His situation was too desperate to take up a flirtation, however vivid, delightful, and thoroughly reprehensible the attraction. Despite Hoskin’s optimism, tomorrow, he was certain, he was bound for a debtor’s jail. He wondered gloomily what the pretty little snippet in the pearl white dress would say to that.

  It was a pity, of course, that he did not stop to ask her, for Lily would undoubtedly have waved his debts aside as airily as she did those of the other swain who had taken up her suit Indeed, she would have been confoundedly surprised had he been plump in the pocket, for so outrageously a handsome a rig as he was attired in must have cost a small fortune and everyone knew that gentlemen were always indebted to their hatters and bootmakers and the like. She sighed. She wished he had not disappeared so summarily! And now there was the clamor of people demanding the first waltz and she could not decide between them! Had it been Lord Alvaney or Mr. Campion to whom she had bestowed the honor? She wished she could remember, for both were approaching her forcefully and she rather hoped she could remember the steps. It was an age since she had practiced, and she’d never before danced the waltz at Almack’s, or indeed, even in the assembly rooms at Bath. Who was that man? Her thoughts were most abstracted as she curtsied delightfully to both Mr. Campion and the Earl of Alveney.

  On the west side, Daisy was fending off an almost equal share of admirers but, she, at least, had the presence of mind to remember that permissions had not yet been granted. The evening was sadly flat, for not one of the young bucks buzzing beside her bore the slightest resemblance to her dashing Barnacle Jack and that, of course, was damning enough. No one, she decided, without dark eyes and an imposing physique that was quite faultless without padding could move her in the slightest. Besides, without quizzical eyes and a slightly mocking mouth, whoever claimed her hand would undoubtedly be doomed to fail. She kept these thoughts to herself, however, as she declined the waltz very prettily and glanced around to remind Lily about the conventions.

  She was nowhere to be seen, but by the buzzing of gentlemen on the east side, she was probably to be located in that direction. The orchestra was tuning up and Daisy had the most sinking of feelings that Lily was going to forget. Oh, where was Primrose! She would remember and keep Lily from disgracing herself. But no, she had retired to the carriage, of course.

  Daisy hopped off her perch and tried to move toward the throng of people across the room. Her skirts were heavy, though, being trimmed with rosettes of velvet and pearls, so it was with resignation that she saw Lily place her gloved hand in that of Mr. Campion’s. There was no stopping it. Lily was about to commit the most unspeakable of social solecisms and with the first notes ringing loud in all of their ears, there was little anyone could do about it. Miss Chartley could hardly bear to look as she saw Lady Sally Jersey bearing down upon her sister. No doubt she was going to scold her mercilessly, for the patroness’s sharp tongue was positively infamous. Poor Lily!

  The youngest of the sisters, quite unaware of the sensation she was causing about the room, and of the jealous twittering of feminine fans as rival debutantes waited breathlessly for her downfall, stopped a moment to gaily smell some of the crimson hothouse roses that had been cultivated for the event. When she looked up, she startled, once more, for she was face-to-face with her debonair stranger and her legs trembled unforgivably in their daring undergarments of rouched pantalets.

  Lord Denver Barrymore, viscount of the realm, regarded her with amusement tinged with a hint of resignation. Trust him to not have bided by his instincts and called the damned horses up! But no, he would have to do a right turn and demand of Sally an introduction. By the looks of it, she needed it, for it was a waltz striking up and he could bet his last farthing—quite literally, as he probably did not have a guinea to his name—that the chit had not been visited with the celebrated permissions. He looked sternly at Sally, who could never, he knew, resist a gentleman of charm and address. He just prayed he had both. He obviously did, for Lady Jersey’s frown lightened considerably as she applied her lorgnette to Lily and gl
ared at poor Mr. Campion, who had the foresight to at once drop his arm and relinquish his prize.

  “Ah, Miss Chartley!” Lady Jersey scrutinized Lily from top to toe until the youngest Miss Chartley would undoubtedly have squirmed in alarm had she not been fortified by a most unscrupulous wink by the dazzling gentleman at her side.

  “I see Mr. Campion here was just escorting you to acquire permission to waltz. Well, permission granted, since you are a goddaughter of my very dear friend Lady Rochester and she has just rather obligingly vouched for you. You are fortunate.” This last tone was dry and Lily realized at once her mistake and the lady’s supreme graciousness in overlooking it. It did not occur to her to wonder how Lady Rochester—associated with her only by a prodigiously large diamond pin—should act her sponsor. She did, however, remember her manners sufficiently to bob a grateful curtsy. Mr. Campion seized her eagerly by her satin-trimmed arm. Lady Jersey froze him with a glance.

  “I believe you have not yet met the Viscount Barrymore, Miss Chartley. Be warned. He is both a scoundrel and a rogue, probably in equal proportions. He has, however, the felicity of being a gentleman, so I commend you to his care and trust you enjoy the dance.” With that, she deflated many a poor debutante’s hopes, caused untold matchmaking mamas to seethe, and headed for the antechamber, where she could enjoy a comfortable coze with Emily Cowper and the Baroness Esterhazy. Lily, of course, did not look back.

  Mr. Campion, seeing the direction of her gaze and divining, at last, that the great triumph of a waltz with Lily was not that night to be achieved, bowed perfunctorily and set his sights on the west wing, where he hoped he might make better headway with one of the other sisters. Again, Lily did not notice. She was blinded, in fact, by the deprecating smile of the gentleman before her, who apologized for his intervention and wondered, gazing all the time at her soft, berry red lips, whether she cared, at all, to favor him? Whereupon Lily uttered something that sounded very much like a squeal but which he obligingly took to be an affirmative. He then bowed, and led her, rather dazed, onto the floor.