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“Yes,” confirmed Cassie, her red lips parted in surprise, the bodice of her white muslin gown straining as she turned her plump form the better to stare at Rose. Rose was surprised to discover the look of utter disgust Lady Catherine bestowed on her own child. She knew there were women who hated their children, but she had never actually seen it before.
“Yes, it must be the same man,” Rose confirmed “He was a subaltern whom Father brought home one winter. I believe he was recovering from a leg wound.”
“Shoulder,” corrected Stanley, nervously clearing his throat.
Rose shrugged and silently thanked her brother for his attempt to draw talk away from the engagement.
“By engagement,” Cassie asked playfully, “you don’t actually mean...?”
Rose stared at her as though she had not comprehended. The figured muslin Cassie wore was meant for a younger girl, or perhaps a slighter girl, and did not become her.
“I fear it was just a schoolgirl passion,” Rose said lightly. “You must know how entrancing those red uniforms can be. Was I sixteen or seventeen? I cannot recall, but when I considered seriously marrying a soldier, I thought of all the worry Mother had gone through and I backed out of the engagement. Foy understood.”
This speech damped the interest of the others but failed to appease Harriet, who was staring at Rose as though she wished her to disappear from the face of the earth. Bennet’s gaze was not one of condemnation as Rose expected, but one of sympathy and understanding.
“Then there was that dreadful incident,” Alice said, taking a provoking bite of cake so that everyone had to hang on her words until she had swallowed. Stanley gave one of his impatient sighs.
“What incident?” Lady Catherine finally demanded sharply with more than casual interest.
“Colonel Wall’s untimely death,” Alice replied knowingly.
“Yes,” agreed Rose. “The marriage would have had to be put off for a year anyway, so we mutually agreed to part.”
“How did Colonel Wall die?” Harriet asked, her intense gaze darting between Rose and Alice, “if I’m not being too personal?”
“He was trampled by a horse,” Stanley said without elaborating.
“That is why I never ride,” Alice added. “Nasty, dangerous beasts. I wonder you did not shoot the stallion, Stanley.”
“Perhaps I would have, if I had been there, but Rose was right. It was not Redditch’s fault that Father and Foy decided to ride him when they were in their cups. He’s a little wild around men he doesn’t know, anyway. I assure you he behaves perfectly for me.”
Rose wondered if part of Stanley’s tolerance derived from thinking he had tamed a beast his father could not handle.
“Still, to keep a killer horse...” Cassie shook her head in condemnation as though she knew something about horses, when Rose was quite sure from Cassie’s stout figure that she did not even ride.
“But it was an accident,” Bennet said. “I would never get rid of one of my beasts if it accidently threw Harriet and broke her neck.”
“Bennet!” Harriet cried, incensed. “That is the most unfeeling remark you have ever made.”
“No, I don’t think you can be right there. It comes nowhere near the time I compared you to the opera dancer. Then there was the incident at the East India Docks...”
“If you tell anyone about that I shall—”
“Stop it, Bennet,” his mother commanded. “To upset your sister in this way is very ill-mannered.”
“So sorry, Mother. Sometimes I forget everything you taught me about manners.”
Mrs. Varner had the conscience to look abashed at this. “You must excuse my son,” she said finally to the Walls. “Sometimes his rather misplaced wit takes him beyond the bounds of what is pleasing.”
“Humor is always pleasing,” Rose said, giving Bennet a grateful smile for drawing fire upon himself. “And anyone should be able to take a joke so long as it is made in good fun. And as much enjoyment as we are deriving from the tea, I fear we must be going soon. Alice’s dress is nowhere near completion and I am sure you must have a thousand things to see to before tomorrow night.”
They did not linger over their departure. Bennet would have sent them home in his carriage, but Stanley said they would find a hack.
“What an old tartar the mother is,” he said to Rose in the carriage. “I suppose we must go to this thing, seeing as Bennet has been so obliging.”
Alice stared at her husband, her limpid blue eyes outraged. “Surely you do not mean you would rather not?”
“Not if we are to be subjected to so much frostiness from Mrs. Varner and that other old dragon! Those two chits were not much better. I think they might have spoken to you, Alice, just for the sake of politeness.”
Rose sighed. If Stanley noticed being cold-shouldered, then it was blatant indeed. “Perhaps they will when they know her better. Ten to one she will be so busy dancing tomorrow night she will not even have time to converse with them, but there is no real need for me to go.”
“No, I think you must, Rose. After all, she is your godmother,” Stanley said firmly.
Meaning, Rose took it, that if she cried off, he would as well. That would leave Alice in floods of tears and with her to blame.
“Yes, I suppose I must. After all, an evening can last only so long. Then we will finalize our arrangements for Europe.”
“Mmm,” Stanley replied.
Chapter Three
The next day, in spite of Rose’s sporting a new pearlgray riding habit with a modish top hat, Bennet did not come to ride. He did, however, send Stilton with two mounts. Martin conferred with the older groom, making arrangements for returning the horses, Rose supposed.
They sprang Victor and Gallant as soon as they reached Hyde Park, and the carefree ride reminded Rose of their rides together at home. Her feelings for Martin, when she bothered to analyze them, were those of an older sister. She had wrested him and his sister, Cynthie, from a workhouse when their parents had been carried off by influenza. Having made herself responsible for them, she felt closer to them in many ways than to her own brother and mother. At least they had no secrets from each other, which was not the case with her own family.
Martin drew rein first to walk Victor near one of the ponds and let him get a short drink. Rose let Gallant lower his mouth to the water also, but the large gelding only played in it, flapping his lips at the icy ripples. She missed the provoking conversation of Bennet, but was unwilling to say so.
“I imagine Mr. Varner is busy today,” Martin suggested.
“Yes, I am sure that he is always busy, today especially.”
“I made some inquiries about Foy yesterday. He did survive the war.”
“I know. His name came up at tea yesterday. But Stanley and I were so engrossed in distancing ourselves from him, we never got to hear what they were saying about him.”
“He’s on the hunt for a wife, done up, by what I could make out.”
“That’s not much of a change from five years ago.”
“They say he will make a match with Varner’s sister if Varner will give his consent.”
“He will give it.” Rose scratched her mount’s withers then turned to Martin. “I keep feeling I should warn Harriet about Axel.”
“How can you do that without giving yourself away?”
“I do not know. Yet I must do something. Perhaps I should tell Bennet.”
“You can’t do that either.”
“I think I can trust him far enough to tell him how rotten Axel is without going into specifics.”
“I wish we were well out of this town. Now that we know Foy is here, France is looking better and better to me, even if I don’t know the lingo.”
“To me as well. Perhaps we should hope for a disastrous evening. That might convince Stanley that London is not as much fun as he thinks.”
“That depends on how disastrous. If Foy is pursuing the Varner chit he is like to show up at this ball.”
“I am well aware of that possibility, but I will be on the lookout for him. To be sure there will be a hundred people there. I should be able to avoid one man. If all else fails I will hide until it is time to leave.”
Martin nodded and suggested they ride on toward Green Park now that the horses were rested.
“Walters!” Bennet shouted as he came into the office, tossing a paper at his secretary and casting his hat aside. “Trace this shipment back to its source. I want to know who sent it, who paid for it and who delivered it to the dock.”
“Now?” Walters asked as Bennet went into his inner office and attacked his desk, a drawer at a time, making a mangle of the papers inside and finally knocking onto the floor the stack of documents that had been carefully arranged on the blotter.
“It’s only a matter of national security. Yes, of course, now.”
“A trunk full of books?” asked Walters, peering at the bill of lading as he gathered up the contracts.
“With a heavy bottom. There was enough gold under those French plays and poems to finance a small army, or a large army for a few days.”
“Where was it going?”
“Elba.”
“Good Lord!” Walters said, his arms full of documents as he stared myopically at the shipping order. “And on the Celestine.”
“The matter is now in the hands of the Foreign Office. Get cracking, Walters. We need that information.”
“Right away, sir, but you will be terribly late if you wait for this.”
“Late for what?”
“Your sister’s ball, of course.”
“Oh, my God. I had completely forgotten. I’ll rush ’round there and fly up the back stairs to change. You know Leighton at the Foreign Office. Seek him out and give him the information, then come to the house. Oh, did you...?”
“I picked up the necklace and earrings and delivered them to Varner House.”
“Excellent! They had them in good time?”
“Carried them ’round myself before noon.”
“You are a paragon. Give yourself a raise. I must go. Have a footman interrupt me tonight, whatever you learn. I must know.”
Gwen Rose sat observing the dancing couples in utter and unremitting boredom. She looked down again at her ivory silk gown with the scallops of seed pearls. She was impeccably dressed and had her hair gathered up in a Medusan knot of curls, restrained by a silver riband, yet no one had asked her to dance all evening. Nor was any gentleman likely to without an introduction. Several men had cast curious glances in her direction as she sat alone almost within the embrace of a large parlor palm she had struck up a friendship with. She was grateful for its company and it did seem more likely to converse with her than the dozen dowagers who were similarly ensconced in the corners of the Varner ballroom. At least its conversation, if it had any, would have been neither silly nor malicious.
She did not know how it was that she always imagined people to be talking about her. Perhaps because they so often were discussing her at the assemblies around Bristol. Typically it would be the duty of the hostess or even the hostess’s daughter to introduce newcomers about until they had struck up a conversation that seemed promising. Neither Mrs. Varner nor Harriet had made the slightest effort to ease the Walls into society.
Fortunately Stanley had become acquainted with half a dozen men from the clubs and could make Alice known to their wives, one of whom was not much older than Alice and took her under her wing. Rose supposed she could have trailed after them, but since Alice never thought to include her it would have taken some effort to attach herself to them. And she frankly found the palm better company.
The Varner ballroom, which extended out over the ground floor portico, looked much as she had suspected it would, glittering gold in the light of hundreds of candles and richly alive with music. She could see through the far doorway into the refreshment salon, which had red wallpaper. She would dearly have loved to go there to get something cool to drink and to look at the paintings on the wall. But women looked so singular when they moved about a room this size alone. The worst part would be when they had to go in to supper. She would wait until near the end so she would not be so conspicuous for not having a partner, but then it would be hard to find a place to sit. Perhaps Stanley would think to save her a seat, if he remembered to leave the card room at all. Trapped again, she thought as she sighed heavily.
She had hoped Bennet would put in an appearance, not that he would have time to joust with her. Probably his tardiness was what had the Varner women so disturbed as they whispered between themselves, casting occasional dark looks at Rose. Edith looked like a black crow in her silk, and Harriet’s dress was far too old even for a woman celebrating her twenty-first birthday, the bosom revealing the spareness of her breasts. Rose mentally took herself to task for being critical. It did not matter that she did not say these things out loud. She should not even be thinking them.
When the Gravelys arrived Lady Catherine was impeccably dressed in lavender silk and traded insincere kisses with both Varner women. Cassie was wearing a white gown trimmed with scarlet scallops and large red silk flowers to set off, Rose supposed, the exquisite necklace of rubies at her throat. They were jewels more appropriate to an older woman, but would have looked misplaced against Lady Catherine’s stark-white skin. Whatever else one said of Cassie she did have the most creamy skin. On second glance the rubies shone like drops of blood around her neck, and with the cropped hair, the specter of the guillotine loomed in Rose’s mind. Rose wondered if the association was particular to her or an intentional ploy of Cassie’s for attention. A sharp look from this miss warned Rose that she had been staring too long at her, but so had others, so Rose did not take herself to task again. If they were going to bore her, what did they expect?
She was attempting to ignore them by mentally coppicing the hedgerows around Wall, since she was quite sure the hired men were not doing so in her absence. She had rounded the horse pasture, had gotten past the stream and nearly to the stone fence when someone entered the room who caused every head to turn.
She hoped desperately that it was Bennet and she could at least exchange a bored smile with him. But the man wore a scarlet coat, and for a moment Rose’s eyes blurred with shock. It was Axelrod Barton.
Rose tried to shrink even farther into the plant’s embrace. She would wait for Foy’s attention to be diverted and slip toward the refreshment salon. Surely it had a door into the hall and she would be able to make her escape. But Axel surveyed the room like a hunter picking out his prey, his fair head thrown up arrogantly, his brown eyes slicing through the crowd, his tanned hand gripping the hilt of his dress saber. Rose felt his speculative gaze come to rest upon her. Perhaps he would not recognize her after five years. She had changed much more than he. She tried to avert her eyes, but it was as though he compelled her to look at him. When she did meet his gaze he nodded and ran the back of his hand along the faint scar on his jaw.
Rose covered her hand. The ring that had made that scar was no longer there, but it felt as though it was. She had thrown that mark of his possession back in his face. She reminded herself that she was free of Axel, that he could do nothing to hurt her, but she knew that was not true.
She sent him in return a cold, challenging look and he came to her with his wicked lip-curling smile. It was the nicest thing about him.
“You remember me,” he said, taking her hand and kissing it possessively.
“I could scarcely forget you.”
“You nearly did for me. You and that ring and that stallion of yours. I tell you, Rosie, never in all my years in the Peninsula have I seen the like of your efficiency at mayhem.”
“Must you go on about it?” Rose asked, looking distractedly at the attention they were drawing.
“What? Have I offended your maidenly sensibilities?”
“At one time or another you have offended all my sensibilities.”
“Dance with me. I think it would be so much more amusing to argue with you while you are concentrating on your steps.”
“I am not dancing,” she said firmly, daring him to dislodge her from the palm tree.
“Never say you don’t remember how, for I recall quite distinctly the dancing at our engagement party.”
“Of course I remember how. I simply am not dancing tonight.”
“Why not tonight?” he demanded, compelling her to rise to her feet so as not to have a tug-of-war with him over her hand.
“Don’t be so stupid, Axel. If I dance now they will think I have been wanting to dance all evening.”
“And haven’t you?” he asked with a laugh.
“Yes, of course, but I don’t want to let them know that,” Rose said, nodding toward the Varner women.
“But—no! This is all too complex for me. You will dance,” he said, placing an arm forcibly about her waist when the players obligingly struck up a waltz. “You owe me that much.”
As Axel whirled her down the floor Rose caught a glimpse of Harriet’s flushed and angry face, and an almost jealous look from Cassie. Certainly Mrs. Varner knew the man who was pursuing her daughter was waltzing passionately with his former fiancée. She whispered something to Lady Catherine just as they danced past. Lady Catherine’s face looked as though it had been cut in stone, for all the expression it bore.
