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Clevedon would know better than most. Lord Warford had been his guardian. Clevedon and Longmore had grown up together. They were more like brothers than friends. And Clevedon had doted on Clara since she was a small child. It had always been assumed they’d marry. Then the duke had met his dressmaker—and Clara had reacted with “Good riddance”—much to the shock of her parents, brothers, and sisters—not to mention the entire beau monde.
“My father has resigned himself,” Longmore said. “My mother hasn’t.”
A profound understatement, that.
His mother was beside herself. The slightest reference to the duke or his new wife set her screaming. She quarreled with Clara incessantly. She was driving Clara to distraction, and they constantly dragged Longmore into it. Every day or so a message arrived from his sister, begging him to come and Do Something.
Longmore and Clara had both attended Clevedon’s wedding—in effect, giving their blessing to the union. This fact, which had been promptly reported in the Spectacle, had turned Warford House into a battlefield.
“I could well understand Clara rejecting me,” Clevedon said.
“Don’t see how you could fail to understand,” Longmore said. “She explained it in detail, in ringing tones, in front of half the ton.”
“What I don’t understand is why she doesn’t send Adderley about his business,” Clevedon said.
“Tall, fair, poetic-looking,” Longmore said. “He knows what to say to women. Men see him for what he is. Women don’t.”
“I’ve no idea what’s in Clara’s mind,” Clevedon said. “My wife and her sisters will want to get to the bottom of it, though. It’s their business to understand their clients, and Clara’s special. She’s their best customer, and she shows Marcelline’s designs to stunning advantage. They won’t want her to marry a man with pockets to let.”
“Are they in the matchmaking line as well, then?” Longmore said. “If so, I wish they’d find her someone suitable, and spare me these dreary nights at Almack’s.”
“Leave it to Sophy,” Clevedon said. “She’s the one who goes to the parties. She’ll see what’s going on, better than anybody.”
“Including a great deal that people would rather she didn’t see,” Longmore said.
“Hers is an exceptionally keen eye for detail,” Clevedon said.
“And an exceptionally busy pen,” Longmore said. “It’s easy to recognize her work in the Spectacle. Streams of words about ribbons and bows and lace and pleats here and gathers there. No thread goes unmentioned.”
“She notices gestures and looks as well,” Clevedon said. “She listens. No one’s stories are like hers.”
“No question about that,” Longmore said. “She’s never met an adjective or adverb she didn’t like.”
Clevedon smiled. “That’s what brings in the customers: the combination of gossip and the intricate detail about the dresses, all related as drama. It has the same effect on women, I’m told, as looking at naked women has on men.” He tapped a finger on the Spectacle. “I’ll ask her to keep an eye on Clara. With two of you on watch, you ought to be able to keep her out of trouble.”
Longmore had no objections to any activity involving Sophy Noirot.
On the contrary, he had a number of activities in mind, and joining her in keeping an eye on his sister would give him a fine excuse to be underfoot—and with any luck, under other parts as well.
“Can’t think of a better woman for the job,” Longmore said. “Miss Noirot misses nothing.”
In his mind she was Sophy. But she’d never invited him to call her by the name all her family used. And so, even with Clevedon, good manners dictated that Longmore use the correct form of address for the senior unmarried lady of a family.
“With you and Sophy standing guard, the lechers and bankrupts won’t stand a chance,” Clevedon said. “Argus himself couldn’t do better.”
Longmore racked his brain. “The dog, you mean?”
“The giant with extra eyes,” Clevedon said. “ ‘And set a watcher upon her, great and strong Argus, who with four eyes looks every way,’ “ he quoted from somewhere. “ ‘And the goddess stirred in him unwearying strength: sleep never fell upon his eyes; but he kept sure watch always.’ “
“That strikes me as excessive,” Longmore said. “But then, you always were romantic.”
A week later
Warford, how could you?”
“My dear, you know I cannot command his majesty—”
“It is not to be borne! That creature he married—presented at Court!—at the King’s Birthday Drawing Room!—as though she were visiting royalty!”
Longmore was trapped in a carriage with his mother, father, and Clara, departing St. James’s Palace. Though court events bored him witless, he’d attended the Drawing Room, hoping to spot a certain uninvited attendee. But he’d seen only Sophy’s sister—the “creature” his mother was in a snit about. Then he’d debated whether to sneak out or to hunt for an equally bored wife or widow. The palace was well supplied with dark corners conducive to a quick bout of fun.
No luck with the females. The sea of plumes and diamonds held an overabundance of sanctimonious matrons and virgins. Virgins were what one married. They weren’t candidates for fun under a staircase.
“Odd, I agree,” Lord Warford said carefully. Though he’d given up being outraged about Clevedon’s marriage, he’d also long ago given up trying to reason with his wife.
“Didn’t seem odd to me,” Longmore said.
“Not odd!” his mother cried. “Not odd! No one is presented at the King’s Birthday Drawing Room.”
“No one but foreign dignitaries,” Lord Warford said.
“It was a shocking breach of etiquette even to request an exception,” Lady Warford said, conveniently forgetting that she’d told her husband to commit a shocking breach of etiquette by telling the King not to recognize the Duchess of Clevedon.
But it was up to the husband, not the son, to point this out, and years of marriage had taught Lord Warford cowardice.
“I could not believe Her Majesty would do such a thing, even for Lady Adelaide,” Mother went on. “But it seems I’m obliged to believe it,” she added bitterly. “The Queen dotes on Clevedon’s youngest aunt.” She glared at her daughter. “Lady Adelaide Ludley might have used her influence on your and your family’s behalf. But no, you must be the most ungrateful, undutiful daughter who ever lived. You must jilt the Duke of Clevedon!”
“I didn’t jilt him, Mama,” Clara said. “One cannot jilt someone to whom one is not engaged.”
Longmore had heard this argument too many times to want to be boxed in a closed carriage, hearing it again, his mother’s voice going higher and higher, and Clara’s climbing along with it. Normally, he would call the carriage to a halt and get out, and leave everybody fuming behind him.
Clara could defend herself, he knew. The trouble was, that would only lead to more quarreling and screaming and messages for him to come to Warford House before she committed matricide.
He thought very hard and very fast and said, “It was clear as clear to me that they did it behind the scenes, so to speak, to spare your feelings, ma’am.”
There followed the kind of furiously intense silence that typically ensued when his parents were deciding whether he might, against all reason and evidence, have said something worth listening to.
“What with the aunts and all, the Queen would be in a fix,” he went on. “She could hardly snub Clevedon’s whole family—which is what she’d be doing, since the aunts had accepted his bride.”
“His bride,” his mother said bitterly. “His bride.” She threw Clara the sort of look Caesar must have given Brutus when the knife went in.
“This way at least, the deed was done behind the scenes,” Longmore went on, “not in front of the whole blasted ton.”
While his mother stirred this idea around in her seething mind, the carriage reached the front of Warford House. The footmen opened the carriage door, and the family emerged, the ladies shaking out their skirts as they stepped out onto the pavement.
Longmore said nothing and Clara said nothing but she shot him a grateful look before she hurried inside after their mother.
His father, however, lingered at the front step with Longmore. “Not coming in?”
“I think not,” Longmore said. “Did my best. Tried to pour oil and all that.”
“It won’t end,” his father said in a low voice. “Not for your mother. Shattered dreams and wounded pride and outraged sensibilities and whatnot. You see how it is. We can expect no peace in this family until Clara finds a suitable replacement for Clevedon. That’s not going to happen while she keeps encouraging that pack of loose screws.” He made a dismissive gesture. “Make them go away, will you, dammit?”
Countess of Igby’s ball
Saturday 30 May 1835
One o’clock in the morning
Longmore had been looking for Lord Adderley for some time. The fellow having proven too thick to take a hint, Longmore had decided that the simplest approach was to hit him until he understood that he was to keep off Clara.
The trouble was, Sophy Noirot was at Lady Igby’s party, too, and Longmore, unlike Argus, owned only the usual number of eyes.
He’d become distracted, watching Sophy flit hither and yon, no one paying her the slightest heed—except for the usual assortment of dolts who thought maidservants existed for their sport. Since he’d marked her as his sport, Longmore had started to move in, more than once, only to find that she didn’t need any help with would-be swains.
She’d “accidentally” spilled hot tea on the waistcoat of one gentleman who’d ventured too close. Another had followed her into an antechamber and tripped over something, landing on his face. A third had followed her down a passage and into a room. He’d come out limping a moment later.
Preoccupied with her adventures, Longmore not only failed to locate Adderley, but lost track of the sister he was supposed to be guarding from lechers and bankrupts. This would have been less of a problem had Sophy been watching her more closely. But Sophy had her own lechers to fend off.
Longmore wasn’t thinking about this. Thinking wasn’t his favorite thing to do, and thinking about more than one thing at a time upset his equilibrium. At the moment, his mind was on the men trespassing on what he’d decided was his property. Unfortunately, this meant he wasn’t aware of his mother losing sight of Clara at the same time. This happened because Lady Warford was carrying on a politely poisonous conversation with her best friend and worst enemy Lady Bartham.
In short, nobody who should have been paying attention was paying attention while Lord Adderley was steering Clara, as they waltzed, toward the other end of the ballroom, toward the doors leading to the terrace. None of those who should have been keeping a sharp eye out saw the wink Adderley sent his friends or the accompanying smirk.
It was the crowd’s movement that brought Longmore back to his surroundings and his main reason for being here.
The movement wasn’t obvious. It wasn’t meant to be. Men like Longmore were attuned to it, though. He had no trouble recognizing the sense of something in the air, the shift in the attention in some parts of the room, and the drifting toward a common destination. It was the change in the atmosphere one felt when a fight was about to happen.
The current was sweeping toward the terrace.
His gut told him something was amiss. It didn’t say what, but the warning was vehement, and he was a man who acted on instinct. He moved, and quickly.
He didn’t have to push his way through the crowd. Those who knew him knew they’d better get out of the way or be thrust out of the way.
He stormed out onto the terrace. A small audience had gathered. They got out of his way, too.
Nothing and nobody obstructed his view.
Chapter Two (#ulink_378738ca-a34f-5e9e-b5e9-34f98973c8f3)
NEW STYLE.— DRESS-MAKING.—Madame and Mrs Follett beg to solicit the favours of those Ladies who have not (and to return thanks to those Ladies who have) given them a trial; the decided superiority of their style and fit blended with most moderate charges never fails to give satisfaction even to the most particular. —53 New Bond street London and Rue Richelieu à Paris.
Mem the Address.
—The Court Journal, Advertisements,
Saturday 28 March 1835
Adderley.
And Clara.
In a dark corner of the terrace.
Not so dark that Longmore couldn’t see Adderley clumsily trying to help his sister get her bodice back in place.
Her dressmakers had cut the neckline of her white gown indecently low, which had already allowed every gaping hound at the ball to see a bit of the lacy thing she wore underneath. In the process of groping her, however, Lord Adderley had pushed her dress sleeves and corset straps well down over her shoulders, practically to her elbows. By the looks of things, he’d contrived to loosen her corset as well.
When she slapped his fumbling hands away, Adderley moved in front of her to shield her, but he wasn’t big enough. A fair-haired, blue-eyed beauty Lady Clara Fairfax might be. Petite she was not. As a result, her expensive underwear—not to mention a good deal of skin not usually on public view—was on display for any gawker who happened to be in the vicinity.
That included the dozen or so who’d drifted out to the terrace and were now circling like vultures over the carcass of Lady Clara Fairfax’s reputation.
“Her maid will never get the creases out of those pleats,” muttered the maidservant standing beside Longmore.
In a distant corner of his mind he marveled at anybody’s noticing at such a moment something as trivial as wrinkles in Clara’s attire. In the same distant corner he knew there was nothing to marvel at, given the speaker: Sophy Noirot.
That was only a distant awareness, though. The main part of his mind heeded only the scene in front of him, one he saw through a curtain of red flames. “I’ll take the wrinkles out of him, the cur,” he growled.
“Don’t be an id—”
But he was already storming across the terrace, knocking aside any guests who got in his way—though most of them, seeing him coming, moved out of the way, and quickly.
He marched up to Adderley and punched him in the face.
* * *
“—iot,” Sophy finished.
She swallowed a sigh.
She should have held her tongue. She was supposed to be a maidservant, and menials did not call their betters idiots. Not audibly, at any rate.
But that was the trouble with Longmore. He got in the way of everything, especially clear thinking.
She pushed away the first, emotional reaction and summoned her practical side, the one Cousin Emma had cultivated. A cousin by marriage, Emma was nothing like Sophy’s vagabond parents. Emma was not a charming wastrel like her in-laws. She was a hardheaded, practical Parisian.
Practically speaking, this was a disaster.
Lady Clara was Maison Noirot’s most important customer. She bought their most expensive creations and she bought lavishly, in spite of her mother’s hostility. It was Lord Warford’s man of business who paid the bills, and his orders were to pay promptly and in full, not to make fine distinctions among milliners.
Lord Adderley was bankrupt, or very nearly so, thanks to the gaming tables.
If Lady Clara had to misbehave with somebody, Adderley wasn’t Sophy’s first choice. Of the Upper Ten Thousand, he came in at nine thousand nine hundred fifty six.
Had Longmore been more intelligent, less impetuous, and several degrees less arrogant, she would have counseled him not to go barging in and kill his sister’s lover. Since Lord Longmore qualified in none of those categories, she didn’t waste her breath pointing out that murder would only complicate the situation and leave Lady Clara’s reputation in ruins forever.
He was furious, and he needed to hit somebody, and Adderley deserved to be hit. Sophy was tempted to hit him herself.
This wasn’t the only reason she didn’t close her eyes or turn away.
