“I’m not fussy! It’s just that…” She let the rest of her sentence trail off. And Rutherford picked it back up.
“It’s just that none of them were Peter Ravenshaw.”
The earl bumped her shoulder in a fraternal fashion and gave her a wry smile born of bittersweet experience.
“Love doesn’t come to us easily, does it, puss?”
They turned down Old Bond Street where fashionable homes were dotted among shops that served the well-to-do; tailors, jewelry merchants, antique dealers.
Rutherford stopped before a green painted door on which was attached a discreet brass plaque.
It read:
G Bridges esq
Specialist in quality old wares, curios and sourcer of specialist items
Inquiries by appointment only
He rapped at the door. There was no immediate answer.
“We are expected, aren’t we?” Opal asked, her humor restored.
Her companion gave her a level look before the door opened. An attractive young woman stood there. By her dress, she was not a servant. Mistress of the house? That was most unusual.
The woman was about her own age, and Opal was struck by the resemblance. They shared the same brown eyes and black hair which she had styled with the most unusual combs. They were nothing like anything Opal had ever seen. They were in the shape of an open silver fan from which little inch-long silver streamers dangled. The whole effect was striking.
“Good morning, Lord Rutherford,” she said. “Please enter. I have tea waiting in the drawing room.”
“Miss Bridges, I should like to introduce a friend of mine. Miss Opal Jones. Opal, this is Miss Jade Bridges. She and her father run this establishment.”
He turned his attention back to Miss Bridges.
“I hope you don’t mind. I would feel more comfortable having someone I trust to help me make such an important decision.”
An important decision? About what?
Opal asked the question silently, but Rutherford understood her look, and he seemed decidedly uncomfortable.
They entered a hall filled with some of the most remarkable pieces Opal had ever seen. A marble figure of Diana the huntress stood beside a bronze of Winged Mercury. Curio cases lined the hall. She only caught a glimpse of what was inside. Coins by the look of them, but whether ancient or modern, she didn’t have time to ascertain as their host led them into a well-appointed drawing room.
She had expected it to be equally overstuffed with objets d’art, antiques and various objects of interest, yet this room was simply but elegantly furnished.
They sat as Miss Bridges served tea from what Opal recognized was a very expensive Sèvres porcelain tea set. Each piece of the service featured a vignette of exotic birds surrounded with gilt laurel leaf border on a pale green ground.
“I hope you don’t mind me saying so, Opal is a very charming name,” the young woman commented.
She returned her attention to their host.
“I grew up in India. My parents discovered that gemstone was regarded as a symbol of happiness and hope, so they chose it as my name. Did you acquire your name in the same fashion?”
Miss Bridges laughed. “I could only hope that my father possessed such a poetic turn of mind! If truth be told, my father made a substantial fortune on the importation of jade pieces from the Orient and thought it was a pretty enough name for his daughter.”
Rutherford coughed, drawing attention back to himself.
“My pardon for interrupting, but I am keen on getting our business concluded.”
“Of course.” Miss Bridges rose to her feet. “I shall return presently.”
Opal waited for her to leave before turning on Rutherford.
“Now will you tell me what’s going on? Are you low on blunt? Are you secretly selling heirlooms to fund your gambling habit?”
“Hush!” He looked seriously annoyed. “What do you take me for? A fool?”
She merely shrugged.
“That is a question that could go either way. My conclusion comes from putting together the assembled facts. What else am I to think about this clandestine meeting?”
“This is important to me, puss. Don’t say a word to anyone. Please.”
Oh my, twice in one day, the great Earl of Harcourt said the word “please”. This was serious indeed. Opal set a sober countenance on her face. She would tease her friend no longer.
“Then tell me all. No more secrets. Why did you invite me and not any other of the ‘Brothers Bachelor’?”
Rutherford held his strident look as long as possible before his façade of composure crumbled.
“I have been a fool, and I risk losing the woman who owns my heart and soul.”
Opal paused the teacup in her hand before it reached her lips. She set it back down on the saucer and placed both back on the tray.
“Amber?”
The answer was a curt nod.
“Oh Miles, that is wonderful news! I could not be more thrilled that you are reconciling. Amber never stopped loving you when you were declared missing. She was your most ardent defender.”
“You think I don’t know that?” Anguish was written on his face. “Her belief in me kept me going through more dark nights than I care to count. Do you know how many times I wanted to tell her how my amnesia was feigned, knowing that one move on my part would have put her in greater danger?”
Their conversation came to an end with the arrival of Miss Jade Bridges, carrying several jewelry cases.
If the curio dealer had heard their conversation, she was discreet enough to make no reference to it.
“You gave me quite a specific task, my lord,” she began. “I hope I have not disappointed. You have described the young lady to whom this gift is intended and were very liberal in your budget for the task. I have selected two suites to show you.”
The first was a suite of sparkling foil-backed beryl stones in the shape of a flower and butterflies, their pale apricot color perfectly setting off a rose gold mounting.
“The second I thought interesting, but not to all tastes.”
Miss Bridges opened the second blue leather fitted case. Displayed inside was a collar necklace made of gold featuring graduated pieces of oval amber in different hues. The amber was fitted in matching mounts – finials at the end, curling handles at the top that reminded Opal of ancient amphora.
The earrings were perfectly color matched clear amber drops topped with a cognac-colored stud.
Opal lifted out the necklace. Something caught her eye – a flaw? She examined one of the drops closely. A small insect, a mosquito, had been forever trapped in solid yellow resin.
“This is the one,” she said.
Opal handed the piece to Rutherford and knew he saw what she saw – a moment trapped in time, forever captured, never forgotten. It was imperfect, but beautiful when viewed as a whole.
Just like Rutherford and Amber’s relationship.
Miss Jones closed the other box.
“Shall I arrange to have this sent on to the lady?”
The earl shook his head.
“No. Give me the invoice for the balance, and I’ll see it paid. There is something I still need to do before I give it to the young lady.”
They left the curio shop. Rutherford directed her groomsman to return to the park and bring their horses. That gave them a few minutes alone.
“I’m going to ask Amber to marry me once again, and this time there will be a wedding.”
Opal turned away and fished a handkerchief from her reticule. “Fustian! You’re going to make me cry.”
“You see now you were the only one I could bring here and none of the others? You know our story better than they do. Your friendship with Amber means the world to me. She remained steadfast because of you.”
Opal dabbed at her eyes, happiness bubbling up into a laugh of joy. Rutherford, too, grinned, almost giddy if a man could own such a thing.
“I don’t know wh
at I can ever do to repay you.”
This was her chance.
“Arrange an introduction for me at The Lyon’s Den.”
“Opal…”
“I’m serious, Miles. My love for Peter is now a lost cause.”
“You just told me you received expensive gifts from him today!”
“Sent more than a year ago! And with a letter that had no more than just the most peripheral news of the type he would write his mother. There was no declaration of love. Nothing to suggest that I’m anything to him at all other than a fond childhood memory. I’ve lived too many years in love with a man who is nothing more than an apparition.”
She didn’t hide her desperation. “Please, Miles, an introduction. That’s all I’ll ask.”
“I can’t do that.” He saw her look of disapproval and knew it for what it was. The man gritted his teeth. “Just wait, please? Promise me you’ll wait just one more season? Attend all the right parties and balls and say yes to the first good man who offers.”
“My dear friend, I would rather take my chances with a professional matchmaker and wed a stranger of her choosing than go through the misery of another season. If you will not secure me an introduction, I will source one myself.”
Before she could further mount her protest, Rutherford held up his hands. “All right, you win. But only because The Lyon’s Den holds a rare public event each year, a fundraising charity gala for the Royal Hospital Chelsea for the wounded and indigent veterans, and it’s coming up in three months’ time. I will see you are added to the guest list on one condition.”
She forced the elation down so it didn’t show so readily on her face. “What’s the condition,” she asked.
“The man who is chosen for you will have to meet the approval of the ‘Brothers Bachelor’. We’ve always had the welfare of our honorary ‘member’ at heart. Agreed?”
“Agreed.”
Chapter Five
Peter Ravenshaw took in his appearance in the mirror expecting to see the gaunt and haunted face that stared back at him the day before.
Today his face was that of a nineteen-year-old young man. The smartly tailored red coat of the British Army was as rich and vivid a scarlet as he had ever seen, the white shirt crisp beneath it, the gray trousers stuffed into black leather boots buffed to a high shine.
How long ago had that been? Six years?
It felt like sixty.
Back then, his only thought was whether his father would have been proud. It had been the man’s dearest wish that his son follow him into the army. His application to Sandhurst was a promise he made on his father’s deathbed.
His reflection swam before him and the pale and gaunt twenty-five-year-old Peter stood before him. Disoriented, he took a step back, head spinning and stomach threatening to cast up accounts. He doubled over, taking in heaving breaths, and felt his servant rush over and urge him to sit on an elaborately carved teak chair.
“Are you not overdoing things, sir?” he said. “The colonel did offer to send a secretary to take your statement for the Board of Inquiry.”
A fast shake of his head did nothing to improve Peter’s delicate state.
The doctor had pronounced him out of danger but given firm orders to recuperate. He’d been lucky the knife had not nicked an artery, otherwise he would not be here. Lucky… unlike six men in his unit.
He owed it to them to deliver a full accounting of his actions.
“If I am to give evidence, I will do so in person.” His voice had changed, raspier as a result of his near strangulation at the hands of the Thuggee.
The British had been engaged in skirmishes with members of the murderous cult for years, but the bandits had become bolder in recent weeks, attacking armed patrols as well as innocent travelers.
The Thuggee were notoriously difficult to find and capture. They blended into the local populations and their practices were secretive. They pretended to be friends of travelers, sometimes traveling with them for days before turning on their hosts, strangling them from behind with a yellow scarf tied with a knot in the center to ensure crushing of the wind pipe.
That might have been Peter’s fate also, except he fought back, having found himself in possession of a silver-handled kirpan with its distinctive curved blade.
Peter stood and looked in the mirror again. He looked and felt older than his years. The black collar of his uniform brushed uncomfortably against his newly healed throat. Eyes which had been bloodshot were now looking close to their normal color.
He stepped outside to the verandah. Across the way, men were at their drills. Although he was too far away to hear the commands, in his mind he heard the bellowed orders and his muscles fairly twitched with the instinct to instantly obey.
A couple of corporals waited for him at the bottom on the steps as an escort to the hearing, not a court martial, as the colonel was at pains to reassure him. It was not much comfort when his own conscience was judge, jury, and executioner.
His body still ached, but Peter forced himself to move in step with his escort. On his way to the colonel’s quarters, he passed the fence covered over with flowering bougainvillea that marked the family residential compound. A group of children squealed and laughed as they played with a ball.
Not so many years ago that had been him and Opal.
Peter would be forever grateful to her mother and father for the consideration and care shown to him and his mother during that most difficult time following his father’s death.
As a youth then, he was unsure how to navigate the world between child and adult. Having a course charted for him by fulfilling his father’s wishes was the structure he needed to build on, so he could help provide for his mother. He had become the man of the house. There were responsibilities and obligations. And he intended to master them.
That was another thing which nagged at him.
He had not yet written to his mother who now resided on the family estate in Berkshire. He wondered if anyone else had written on his behalf. She would worry and there was no need to.
He’ll live… he did live, but at what price?
He couldn’t even join his men out on patrol. He’d be lucky to last an hour on horseback, let alone mount an attack on gangs of the Thuggee. He was too weak to defend himself, his comrades, or the remote villages in the mountains.
Whatever the outcome of the inquiry, there was one thing Peter knew for certain – his military career was over.
Opal raised her head from the book she was reading. It was a fine day in St. James’ Park and she watched the two young persons at the edge of the water banter and flirt with one another. The girl was attempting to paint. The boy was doing his level best to distract her – and succeeding.
Ah, young love was something to be savored before one grew up and knew the world as it really was – full of duty, obligations, compromises and practicality.
How the couple she watched reminded her of their final day in India before they returned to England…
She had spent the day on the grounds, seeking a cool spot to sit and paint a picture of the lush tropical garden with plants and flowers, the likes of which she would never see in England. She loved the vibrant reds, pinks, and oranges of the bougainvillea – but beware its thorns!
When she breathed in deep, she could smell the waxy sweetness of frangipani, but the flower she loved the most was the lotus and a perfect specimen lay just out of her reach.
“Opal!”
She had ignored the voice in the distance, Peter’s voice, and continued her quest. Holding on to one of the long willow branches, she reached out over the edge of the pond on one leg, the other extended back as a counterbalance.
Her fingers just brushed the pink petals of the bloom that bobbed on the water’s surface.
It was a true pink, deep and rosy, the veins along its length a deeper hue still. The stamens in the center were golden yellow. She kept her eyes on her prize and stretched further.
She ra
ked her fingers in the water, hoping to draw in the flower and the large green leaf on which it floated. But the pad moved away from her.
Oh… if she picked the lotus now, she could paint it, and it would still be perfect when she departed. And the watercolor could be a memory of India to hold on to on the long, long voyage back to England.
She wiggled her toes to position her foot on the very edge of the pond and leaned forward once more to try to capture her elusive prize. It was just at her fingertips…
The branch of the weeping willow slipped in her grasp. She squealed and dug her toes into the pond bank which started to collapse under her weight.
The inevitable fall didn’t come.
Firm hands grasped her waist and swung her around, away from the water.
She squealed, then giggled. “My lotus flower! Let me go!”
“Shall I send you in after it?” Peter swung her around again, as though he actually meant to toss her into the pond before he set her back on her feet.
He’d had a funny expression on his face, serious… but there was something more. And as for her, standing this close to Peter made her insides flutter. She liked looking at him. A good-looking, kind boy had grown into a handsome young man – just the right sort of seriousness that revealed his character, but still enough of her childhood friend to know exactly how to tease her.
He had not let go of her waist and, in truth, she was in no hurry to evade him.
“Well?” she asked, pointing to the pond.
She forced the grin from her face as he frowned with confusion.
“My flower if you please, good sir.”
Of course, he picked up on her tease, giving her a raise of an eyebrow and a quirk of his lips before stepping back and bowing.
“Anything, my lady wishes,” he said before addressing his quest.
It was just as well he turned away at that moment. If he hadn’t, Opal believed she might have swooned.
How dare he be so… delicious. Truly, it was wicked of her to watch as he leaned over the edge of the pond, holding on to one of the willow branches as she had done. But Peter was taller, his reach greater, his derrière perfectly formed as he bent over to snatch the lotus flower.
The Lyon Sleeps Tonight Page 3
