The Secrets of the Heart

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Lords still drove to Newmarket for the races, their ladies still spent lavishly on dinner parties and routs and soirees, young men lived for the turf and table, and silly debutantes still whispered behind their fans, their minds filled with nothing but the anticipation of securing themselves wealthy husbands who drove to Newmarket for the races so that they could stay home and spend lavishly on dinner parties and routs and soirees.

Christian leaned back in his chair, all this deep thought giving him the beginnings of a headache. Foolish gentlemen. Spendthrift ladies. Posturing, preening young lords. And feather-brained, mercenary young debutantes. All of them not worth one Slow Dickie and his fight for survival. The devil with all of them!

“And the devil with Gabrielle Laurence,” Christian said out loud, startling himself with his vehemence.

Gabrielle Laurence. So startlingly beautiful, so unusual. So very intelligent—or at least he believed she could be as he’d watched her shift her brilliant green gaze around the ballroom, obviously mentally measuring everyone she saw. But even Gabrielle, whom Christian had discovered the very first night of the Season, had quickly shown herself to be no more than another pretty shell washed up on the glittering beach of the ton, with nothing of substance, of worth, inside her.

Oh, yes, she was bright, even witty. But her aspirations rose no higher than making herself the Sensation of the Season and then snaring a brilliant match with some wealthy, titled gentleman. Still, Christian could not quite lose his fascination with her, could not cease wondering how it would feel to hold her, how she would taste if he kissed her, how those lovely green eyes would open wide as he introduced her to ecstasy.

And so he’d employed his social consequence to give the fiery-haired Original what she wanted, just to find himself despised for his helpful intervention—which fascinated him ever more.

George had been correct to say that Gabrielle did not appreciate being in Christian’s debt. Gabrielle, whose dowerless state had made social success nearly impossible on her own, must have recognized the very real possibility that the powerful St. Clair’s favor could be withdrawn at any time, leaving her just another hopeful debutante. Or even less in fashion than the other young ladies making their debut, as she would then be plagued with two problems: her unusual and unfashionable red hair, and St. Clair’s defection, which would cause others to shun her.

Gabrielle’s quick understanding of her precarious position, that of having her continued success depend upon the whim of a man she so obviously loathed, had served to reinforce Christian’s conclusion that beneath that beautiful shell there was at least the possibility of intelligence.

Over these past two weeks he had become convinced of it. Her daring when they were alone, her deliberate baiting of him in ways that no other person save the inimitable Frapple had dared since his ascension to the pinnacle of social power, had shown him that Gabrielle Laurence was his match in many ways. Which had served to make him even more angry with her.

She, a young woman who was not poor but yet not nearly as wealthy as most debutantes, should know that the social whirl was a hollow world. She, of anyone he had met, possessed the intelligence to thoroughly disdain this same social whirl and apply her great resolve and determination to more substantive matters.

Of course, there was also this business of how she disliked him—never failing to describe him as a brainless dandy more worried over the cut of his coat than anything else.

Did she loathe all men?

She said she didn’t, reserving her disdain exclusively for him. But there was something—some negligible something—that told him that she knew this was all a game, that Society itself was a pawn in that game, and she played at it only because she was a woman, and if it was the only game she was allowed to play she was determined to be the clear victor.

Unfortunately for Christian, he was beginning to believe Gabrielle had discovered another game, and she was out to win that one as well. That game? To discover the identity of the Peacock. It wasn’t as if everyone else hadn’t already figuratively signed on for a turn at this contest, everyone in Society agog to know the Peacock’s identity. But everyone else only toyed with the game, contenting themselves with wild guesses and the “romance” of the thing.

Gabrielle Laurence was playing the game in earnest, whether in order to cement her position in Society without having to worry about continuing to curry Christian’s favor or because reigning over Society had been too easy a success and she was now looking for another challenge, Christian did not know.

He knew only that she had come dangerously close to seeing beneath the veneer of his social pose, to catching his verbal slip the other night and immediately pouncing on it. Lady Ariana hadn’t noticed. Christian doubted that anyone of his acquaintance save George would have noticed. But Gabrielle had.

“Which either proves that she is as intelligent as I thought, causing me to dislike her more for choosing to expend that intelligence so wastefully,” Christian mused aloud, “or makes me a wishful fool, looking for more than is there and hoping against hope that the beautiful Miss Laurence fits the image of a woman I could love.”

“Or,” Frapple said from behind him as he entered the room, holding the apple-green velvet jacket in front of him as if it were the Holy Grail, “you are a lustful rutting dog like your Uncle Clarence, hot to bed a lovely lady, but trying to tell yourself you are different from him, and above such animal urges.”

“That too.” Christian turned slowly on his chair, one side of his mouth rising in a rueful smile. “Educating you may have been a mistake on my part, Frapple,” he observed quietly. “Not only do you insult me, but you do it with great articulation. I should sack you for insubordination, you know.”

“True, but then who would dress you, my lord?” Frapple motioned for Christian to follow him into the dressing room. “We must hurry,” he told his employer. “Lord Buxley is below, asking to see you.”

“Lord Buxley?” Christian repeated questioningly as the servant helped him shrug into the tight-fitting jacket. What did that sober Tory prig want with him? Or had the incident at Lord Undercliff’s caused suspicion in someone other than Gabrielle Laurence?

Damn and blast! He didn’t need this now. He was to visit Little Pillington tonight, not have one of Sidmouth’s staunchest supporters tagging at his heels so that he could not chance leaving Mayfair. “Deny me, Frapple.”

“I do, my lord, as often as possible. St. Peter in all his disgrace could not deny his master more,” Frapple replied flippantly, giving Christian a sharp tap on each slightly padded shoulder as if to be sure the coat fit securely. “However, in this instance, his lordship will not retire. He says he is on the King’s business.”

Christian chuckled low in his throat, laughing in reaction to both Frapple’s irreverent wit and the thought that Lord Anthony Buxley would stoop to using the King’s name to gain access to the mansion.

“And what service would Lord Buxley have Baron St. Clair perform in the King’s name, do you suppose?” he ventured, slipping his distinctive dull silver ring on the middle finger of his right hand. “Would he have Society’s premier dandy bring Prinny back into favor with the ton? I fear that particular herculean feat, Frapple, would be beyond even me.”

Frapple stepped behind Christian to secure the carefully constructed foaming lace neckgear around his master’s throat, a much less time-consuming exercise than the starched-to-perfection neckcloths with which Brummell had tortured the gentlemen of the ton in his time. “In that case, I’ll just have Meg chase his lordship out of the square with her broom.”

“That will not be necessary, although it’s a sight I’d pay dearly to witness. I’ll see him, for my curiosity is piqued. A moment, Frapple, whilst this country bumpkin transforms himself.”

Christian took a last, assessing look at himself in the glass over his dressing table, picked up his lace handkerchief, and turned to Frapple, a rather high-pitched giggle escaping him as he deliberately struck an elegant pose, flourishing that same handkerchief. “Impossible to bring the Prince Regent back into a good odor, you say? Quelle absurditе! That I, Baron Christian St. Clair, should be believed incapable of anything? Bruise me if I should countenance such arrant nonsense for even an instant. Frapple!”

“Yes, my lord!” the servant replied sharply, bowing as his eyes twinkled in amusement.

“My quizzing glass, man!” Christian commanded, lifting his chin. “Would you have me go naked to meet my guest?”

A few moments later, Frapple having satisfied himself that his lordship was complete to a shade, Christian sauntered leisurely down the wide, curving staircase on his way to the drawing room, his agile mind busy behind the blank handsomeness of his face.

Lord Buxley had never visited him here in Hanover Square. Indeed, the man barely nodded to him when their paths chanced to cross in public. They were both gentlemen, so they were civil to each other, but they were at opposite ends of the same rung of the social ladder.

Lord Anthony Buxley was a staunch Tory, a backer of Lord Sidmouth’s government and proud of the fact. Baron St. Clair, Christian thought with a small smile as he deliberately halted in front of a large mirror in the foyer and adjusted his sleeves, was a staunch nothing, backing only himself, and everyone was aware of that fact.

Lord Buxley, a good dozen years senior to the six-and-twenty Christian, was known as a Corinthian; a bruising rider, handy with his fives at Gentleman Jackson’s, and a man who dressed well but was not overly obsessed with fashion.

Christian, in comparison, was the Compleat Dandy; he shunned horseflesh except to cowhandedly tool his high-perch phaeton in the promenade at five each afternoon, decried physical exertion other than brisk walking as brutish and prone to produce unwanted perspiration, and lived only to dress and undress and dress himself yet again.

They had little in common, Christian St. Clair and Lord Anthony Buxley, except perhaps their physical attractiveness, their pedigrees, both of them being descendants of illustrious families, and their prominence in Society. But if locked up together in a room, they would have nothing to say to each other. Nothing.

So why had Lord Buxley come here this evening?

“Yoo-hoo! Lord Buxley! Halloo!” Christian exclaimed as he entered the immense drawing room decorated in the elegant Empire fashion, taking his lordship’s hand in his as that man stood up and approached him. Christian limply shook the older man’s fingers before meticulously arranging his tall frame on a small, armless chair and motioning for his guest to seat himself once more.

“Voyons, Buxley,” he began quickly when his lordship didn’t speak, “but this is an unexpected delight. And don’t you look exquisite this evening, my lord? The cut of your coat is to weep for, truly it is! C’est merveilleux! What is that shade—funereal black? And we must each have some champagne to celebrate your presence in my humble abode. I shall summon Frapple at once.”

Christian watched as Lord Buxley bit down on his anger and distaste, pleased to see that the man was here very much against his wishes. Something was afoot, but whatever mission had brought his lordship to Hanover Square had clearly not been his idea.

“Can we get directly to the point, St. Clair?” Lord Buxley asked, obviously uncomfortable in the role of supplicant. “You witnessed that embarrassment at Lord Undercliff’s the other evening?”

“Witnessed it?” Christian repeated, lifting one eyebrow. “My dear man, in all modesty I must remind you that I salvaged the moment. Why, if it were not for me, dearest Undercliff would even now be repairing to his country estate in abject disgrace, unable to show his head in the metropolis for years. Tiens! Don’t tell me you are here to thank me, my lord? I assure you, thanks are not in the least necessary. I was only doing—” he giggled at his own wit “—the Christian thing.”

Lord Buxley hopped to his feet. You vacuous twit!” he exploded, his hands balled into fists as if only his fine breeding kept him from beating the baron into a bloody pulp. “Everything is a bloody game to you, isn’t it? A test of your social power. Well, St. Clair, let me tell you a thing or two!”

Christian spread his hands, palms upward, as if to show he had nothing to hide, and nothing to fear. “Feel free to tell me anything you wish, my lord,” he said soothingly. “I only ask you, do not exert yourself in such a way, as it is so wearying to see a man in your high state of agitation. Why, if I were to so exercise my nerves, I should then have to retire to my bed for a week. Have you tried taking a brisk walk, my lord? I owe all my good health and calmness of spirit to such excursions. I vow, it does wonders for the temperament, and the spleen as well, or so I’m told.”

“Damn your brisk walks, and damn you!” Lord Buxley turned his back on St. Clair for a moment, then wheeled about, his black-as-raisins-in-a-pudding eyes flashing fire. “I’d rather drink flaming pitch than come to you for help, St. Clair, but I have no choice. You saw how the herd followed your lead the other night. I don’t know how you do it, or why any of them gives a fig for your good opinion, but that’s the way it is. I need you, Lord Sidmouth need you. God help us all—England needs you!”

“Moi? Such an infinite honor, I’m sure.” Christian pressed his fingers to his lips even as a girlish giggle escaped him. This was just too good! “Dear Lord Buxley, how disturbingly serious you are. A veritable old sobersides, I’ve no doubt, and deuced earnest. And how you do flatter me.”

Lord Buxley strode toward Christian as if intent on throttling him, stopping only a foot in front of him. “We want the Peacock,” he intoned earnestly. “He has made fools of us long enough. The newspapers refuse to stop publishing his letters because their circulations have doubled since the Peacock became a contributor. The caricaturists are making a public circus of our efforts to capture the man—”

“Yes, yes, say no more,” Christian interrupted, giggling yet again as he raised his lace-edged handkerchief to the corners of his mouth. “I have seen them. None of the artists has quite captured dearest Lord Sidmouth well, have they? I mean, to see his lordship depicted mounted on a jackass, racing about the countryside while blindfolded as a large peacock snickers at him from behind a tree—or drawn on his knees, his rump facing skyward, searching beneath octogenarian ladies’ beds for the elusive Peacock—well, what can I say?”

“I would like you to say nothing, St. Clair,” Lord Buxley countered, walking away once more, to begin pacing the small oriental carpet that lay against the highly polished wooden floor. “That is, I would like you—our government would like you—to stop quoting from the Peacock’s letters. We would like you to say once and for all that the Peacock is a menace to all loyal Englishmen. In short, we would like Society to see this Peacock debacle for what it is: an assault against the government and all in the law which we hold sacred.”

Christian looked up at Lord Buxley owlishly, wondering what the man would think if he knew he had just asked St. Clair to condemn himself. “Is that all, my lord? You simply wish the creature out of fashion? Wouldn’t you desire for me to capture him as well? Oh yes, oh yes!” he exclaimed, as if caught up in the moment. “I must be in on the capture of this vile man who has for so long tweaked at our esteemed government. I hadn’t realized the government was in danger. I must come to the rescue! Again, my lord, I am so honored. My head is veritably swimming—my senses are gone!”

“You? Capture the Peacock?” Lord Buxley’s eyes narrowed as he turned to Christian, pointing a finger at him, clearly not similarly caught up in his lordship’s enthusiasm. Not that he was amused by Christian’s fevered declaration—or at least Christian didn’t think so. But then, remembering that he had never seen the man smile, Christian decided only that he couldn’t be sure.

“We will handle the ultimate capture, St. Clair,” Lord Buxley said coldly, “and without your help. As if the painted ninny could catch a drop of rain in a downpour,” he ended only half beneath his breath.

Christian clapped his hands in delight. “You will capture the Peacock, my lord? You, personally? Death and fiends, how above everything wonderful! Conceive me before you now, awestruck! Tell me: How do you propose to go about it? You must have been inspired by some brilliant new plan, for you have been so woefully unsuccessful in discovering him this past year and more.”

Lord Buxley furtively looked to his left and right, Christian thought in some amusement, as if he expected the Peacock’s spies to be lurking in the corners of the St. Clair drawing room, waiting with bated breath for word of this new “plan.” Which, Christian considered further, discreetly coughing into his fist, would not be far off the mark.

“Lord Buxley?” he prompted as his lordship continued to hesitate. After all, Christian thought, this was too good a moment to let slip away.

Lord Buxley shrugged his broad shoulders. Really, Christian thought, his lordship would be an exceedingly handsome, well-set-up man, if he weren’t so unpleasant. How would he look in emerald-green satin, a fall of ivory lace tied around his strong neck? E-gad! Christian mentally yelped. Were the fop and the adventurer beginning to meld together? Perhaps he had been working too hard at this play-acting and it was time to bring the farce to an end before he no longer recognized his true self.

“All right, St. Clair,” Lord Buxley said at last. “It isn’t as if you’d know what to do with the information, is it?” He bent slightly forward, somehow still maintaining his ramrod posture, and intoned quietly, “We have succeeded in infiltrating his latest wretched gang of malcontents—in Little Pillington.”

Christian’s blood ran cold, but the only indication of interest he showed was to tip his head to one side and giggle inanely. “Mille diables! Little Pillington, you say? Isn’t that where that horrid man, Simons, has his factories? What genius, my lord! But so dangerous. Mingling with desperate cutthroats? I feel nearby to expiring at the mere thought of it! However did you manage this coup?”

“It was simple enough, and all my idea. Groups of seditious laborers have been meeting in secret all over the country, including Little Pillington, where the Peacock is currently operating. We’ve had men—agent provocateurs, if you will—introduced into nearly every group, so that there is little we don’t know or can’t learn with a few well-paced questions. We knew the Peacock was in Little Pillington a full hour before he struck at Herbert Symington. It’s only a matter of time before we have him within our grasp! Then we will make short work of punishing all those miserable malcontents and lazy wastrels who would meet to bring down their own government!” he ended proudly.

“And all your idea, you said? Gad, sir, how very proud you must be,” Christian complimented effusively, rising to escort Lord Buxley to the door. “However, exhilarating as this conversation is, I fear I am going to be late to Lady Skiffington’s select soiree before the theater if I am not on my way within the minute. You don’t mind, do you?”

“You’ll do as I’ve asked, St. Clair?” Lord Buxley inquired, as Frapple stepped forward smartly to present him with his hat and cane.

“I’ll sleep on the matter, if you don’t mind, dear fellow,” Christian told him, personally opening the door to the square for the man. “I confess to being malicious enough to enjoy my power, but I hesitate to use it in this instance. After all, my lord, when we think of the starving children, the desperate mothers…” He allowed his voice to trail off, shrugging eloquently.

“The Peacock must be stopped, St. Clair,” Lord Buxley reminded him from between clenched teeth. “You owe your service to your King.”

“Odds bobs, my lord,” Christian responded, drawing himself up to his full height and screwing his face into a comically belligerent scowl, “I know that. But do I owe my service to Lord Sidmouth? That, dear man, remains the question. And you refuse to allow me to be in on the Peacock’s capture. That is disappointing. But I will think on it, you have my word as a gentleman.”

“I’d rather have your words spoken in the ballrooms of Mayfair. At least there they carry some weight. Good evening to you, St. Clair,” Lord Buxley said, jamming his hat down on his head and rigidly descending the stone steps to the flagway, halting at the bottom to turn and add, “I should have known I’d get no help from you.”

“Nonsense, old fellow,” St. Clair called after him. “You could apply to me at any time for my assistance in selecting your wardrobe. To each man his forte, I say. Have a good evening, Lord Buxley. I know I shall.”

Christian stood in the light from the chandelier, still smiling and waving at his lordship with his handkerchief until Frapple closed the door, at which time his inane grin evaporated. “Not a word, Frapple,” he warned softly, knowing the servant had overheard everything Lord Buxley had said. “Not a single word of this to anyone—most especially Grumble. Do you understand?”

“What wouldn’t I understand, my lord?” Frapple countered, handing Christian his hat and walking stick. “If your friends were to know how the noose tightens, they’d refuse to ride again. Why confuse the issue with common sense?”

Christian patted his servant and friend on the shoulder as he motioned for him to open the door once more. “I’ve no thought of running my head into a noose, Frapple,” he assured the man. “And now, as my carriage awaits, I fear I must be going.”

“Will you still visit Little Pillington tonight?” Frapple asked.

Christian winked, already planning his next meeting with Herbert Symington. “Frapple, how you wound me. Was there ever any doubt?”

CHAPTER FIVE

She was…the darling of a brilliant throng,

adored, f?ted, petted, cherished.

Baroness Orczy

THE SAME WEAK, FADING, late-afternoon sun that lighted St. Clair on his way to his first social engagement of the evening stole timidly through the front windows and into the small drawing room of the narrow Percy Street townhouse, falling on the furnishings some might find elegantly simple and others might condemn as rather sparse. There were four chairs scattered about the room, two of them clustered near the fireplace, a few tables uncluttered by much in the way of vases or figurines, two paintings of little merit, a gilt-edged mirror, and a single couch.