Praise for USA TODAY bestselling author
KASEY MICHAELS

“[A] hilarious spoof of society wedding rituals wrapped around a sensual romance filled with crackling dialogue reminiscent of The Philadelphia Story.”

—Booklist on Everything’s Coming Up Rosie

“A cheerful, lighthearted read.”

—Publishers Weekly on Everything’s Coming Up Rosie

“Michaels continues to entertain readers with the verve of her appealing characters and their exciting predicaments.”

—Booklist on Beware of Virtuous Women

“Lively dialogue and characters make the plot’s suspense and pathos resonate.”

—Publishers Weekly on Beware of Virtuous Women

“A must-read for fans of historical romance and all who appreciate Michaels’ witty and sensuous style.”

—Booklist on The Dangerous Debutante

“Michaels is in her element in her latest historical romance, a tale filled with mystery, sexual tension, and steamy encounters, making this a gem from a true master of the genre.”

—Booklist on A Gentleman by Any Other Name

“Michaels can write everything from a lighthearted romp to a far more serious-themed romance. [Kasey] Michaels has outdone herself.”

—Romantic Times BOOKreviews, Top Pick, on A Gentleman by Any Other Name

“Nonstop action from start to finish! It seems that author Kasey Michaels does nothing halfway.”

—Huntress Reviews on A Gentleman by Any Other Name

“Michaels has done it again…. Witty dialogue peppers a plot full of delectable details exposing the foibles and follies of the age.”

—Publishers Weekly, starred review, on The Butler Did It

“Michaels demonstrates her flair for creating likable protagonists who possess chemistry, charm and a penchant for getting into trouble. In addition, her dialogue and descriptions are full of humor.”

—Publishers Weekly on This Must Be Love

“Kasey Michaels aims for the heart and never misses.”

—New York Times bestselling author Nora Roberts

KASEY MICHAELS
The Secrets of the Heart

The Secrets of the Heart

CONTENTS

PROLOGUE: A SIMPLE VOLLEY

BOOK ONE:THE GAME BEGINS

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

BOOK TWO:ADVANTAGE, PEACOCK

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

BOOK THREE:A MASTER STROKE

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

EPILOGUE: WINNER TAKES ALL

PROLOGUE

A SIMPLE VOLLEY

I vow, I love the game, for this is the finest sport I have yet encountered. Hair-breadth escapes…the devil’s own risks! Tally ho—and away we go!

Baroness Orczy

Once more into the breach,

dear friends, once more!

William Shakespeare

JUST SHORTLY BEFORE TEN of the clock, Herbert Symington bade his host and hostess a pleasant good night and rather drunkenly tripped down the stairs toward the impressively designed if a tad overly ornate coach and four that was his latest acquisition and one of which he was enormously proud.

It was a grand time to be alive, Herbert Symington truly believed. An Englishman with his wits about him could make a tidy profit from the cheap labor filtering in to Little Pillington. Independent weavers put out of business by the big new mills had lost their livings and would work from before dawn to past dusk for a few shillings a week in order to feed their families.

“Take me home, coachie,” Symington commanded, giving a sweeping wave to his driver and a drunken kick to the groom, who didn’t move fast enough in lowering the steps to the coach to suit his master. “Lazy jackanapes, I ought to sack you,” he muttered under his liquor-sour breath, pulling himself into the coach and collapsing heavily against the velvet squabs as the coachman prematurely gave the horses their office to start.

“Stupid oafs, the lot of them,” Symington grumbled into his gravy-stained cravat as he adjusted his considerable girth more comfortably.

And then he blinked—twice, just to be certain—and peered inquiringly into the semidarkness. “Who’s there?” he asked, leaning forward to address the vague shape he believed he saw sitting cross-legged on the facing seat. “God’s eyebrows, am I in the wrong coach? That’ll teach me to steer clear of the daffy. Speak up, man—say something!”

The click and scrape of a small tinderbox answered him, followed by the sight of the growing, disembodied glow of the business end of a cheroot.

“Good evening, Herbert, you’re looking well,” a low, well-modulated voice answered him at last. “And how charitable of you to share your coach with me. Well sprung, I must say, and doubtless cost you a pretty penny. Enjoy yourself at the trough tonight?”

Symington swallowed down hard at the sudden lump of fear that had lodged in his throat. “What the devil? Who are you? Coachie!” he bellowed. “Stop at once!”

“Please, good sir, lower your voice,” the unknown intruder pleaded as the coach raced on through the night, bypassing the turn to the right that would have led to Symington’s house and rapidly leaving the dark streets of Little Pillington behind. “The confines of this coach preclude such full-throated volume. Besides, as your coachman and groom have seen fit to leave your employ and join mine—no loyalty in today’s topsy-turvy times, is there, Herbert?—I fear I must point out the fruitlessness of further protest. And, to be sporting, I should also advise you that I am armed, my pistol cocked and aimed directly at your ample stomach. Therefore, as any sudden movement might cause the nasty thing to go off, you most probably would be well advised to remain quietly in your seat.”

“The devil you say!” Symington’s gin-bleared eyes were fairly popping from his head now as a fragrant, blue-tinged cloud of cigar smoke wreathed the shadowy figure from chest to curly-brimmed beaver. “You—your coachie, you say? Am I being kidnapped, then?”

An amused chuckle emanated from the shadowy figure. “Hardly, Herbert. Kidnapping you would indicate that I believed you had some sort of intrinsic worth. I am here this evening merely to request a boon of you.”

“A—a boon?” Symington repeated, automatically holding out his hand to take the neatly rolled and tied sheet of paper the stranger was now offering. “And what is this?” he asked, holding the paper gingerly, as if it might somehow turn on him and bite his fingers.

Another blue cloud of smoke issued from between the stranger’s lips, blowing across the coach to accost Symington’s nostrils. “Yes, it is dark in here for reading, isn’t it? You do read, don’t you, Herbert? Very well, I shall attempt to recall the salient points. Let’s see. First, you are to immediately cease and desist employing persons under the age of ten in your mills.”

“What?”

“Hush, Herbert, as it is not your turn to speak. Second, you will oblige me in setting up schools for these children, keeping them occupied while their mothers are at work. You will also feed these children one meal a day—even on Sunday, when henceforth no one will work the Symington mills—with meat served to the children twice weekly.”

Symington’s ample belly shook as he began to laugh. He laughed so heartily, and with such enjoyment, that soon tears streamed from his eyes. “Are you daft?” he choked out between bouts of mirth. “Why would I do that?”

“I do not believe I had finished, Herbert,” the stranger said quietly once Symington’s hilarity subsided, which it did when he remembered the cocked pistol. “You will roll back the laborers’ shifts from fifteen to fourteen hours and present every worker with a mug of beer at the end of each shift. You will employ a doctor for your workers. You will also increase all wages by ten percent, beginning tomorrow. I think that’s it—for now.”

The cocked pistol was no longer of any importance, for this man, this arrogant stranger, was talking of dipping into Herbert Symington’s pockets, the depth of which were more important to him than his own soul, let alone his corpulent corporeal body. “The devil I will! Coddle the bastards? Fill their bellies? And cut their hours? How am I supposed to make a profit?”

“Ah, Herbert, but you do make a profit. A tidy profit. Enough profit to afford this coach, and that most lovely new domicile you have been building for yourself this past year. You’re to move into it early next month, I believe, and have even gone so far as to invite a few of the ton to join you in a party to celebrate your skewed belief that fortune and breeding are synonymous. I’m delighted for you, truly. Although I would not have chosen to use so much gilt in the foyer. Such ostentation smacks of the climbing cit which, alas, you are. You know, Herbert, I believe I detest you more for your mistreatment of your workers because you were one of them not so long ago.”

“Who are you to judge me?” Symington bellowed, not caring that his voice echoed inside the coach. This man had seen his house, been inside his house? How? But if he had been, then he should know how far Herbert Symington had come since his long-ago years in the Midlands. “Yes, I was one of them, never so bad as the worst of them, better than the best of them. Smarter. More willing to see what I needed and take it!”

“Yes, Herbert. You did. But you chose to make that steep climb on the broken backs of your fellow workers, screwing down their wages, damning them to damp hovels, disease, and crippling injuries,” his accuser broke in neatly. “And now you call them the swinish multitude and keep your heel on their throats so that no one else might have the opportunity for betterment that you had. Do you have any idea of the hatred you are fomenting with your tactics? You, and all those like you, are creating a separate society, a generation of brutalized workers turned savage in their fear, their hunger, their—but enough of sermonizing. We are nearly at our destination, Herbert, as your monument to your greed lies just around this corner, I believe. Observe. Soon you will be toasting your toes by your own fireside.”

As the stranger used the barrel of his pistol to push back the ornate lace curtain covering the nearest window of the now slowing coach, Herbert Symington looked out to see his nearly completed house, his pride, his proof of affluence, engulfed in flames from portico to rooftops.

“No,” he whispered, shaking his head, unable to believe the horror he saw. His house. His beautiful house! “Oh, sweet Christ! No!”

“The paper, Herbert,” the stranger said, coldly interrupting Symington’s anguish. “Don’t crush it so, or you might not be able to read my demands, for shock has a way of erasing recently learned specifics from one’s mind. What I have offered you tonight is in the way of a small exercise in consequences. In addition to the home you still inhabit in Little Pillington, I believe you have recently acquired a townhouse in London. Not in Mayfair, of course, but amid its increasingly fashionable fringes. And we must not forget those three lovely mills. So many possessions. So much to lose. Tonight’s lesson would prove enough for an intelligent man. Are you an intelligent man, Herbert? Or are you willing to risk disobeying me?”

“You bastard!” Symington growled, clenching his hamlike hands into impotent fists as the glow from the fire glinted on the barrel of the pistol. “Oh, I know who you are now! I’ve heard the stories. I know what you’ve done to other mill owners. So now you’re after me, are you? Well, I won’t bow down to you like the others have. You’ll hang for this, you miserable scoundrel—and I’ll be there to watch you dance!”

“That’s the spirit, Herbert. Down but not out!” the man said encouragingly as the door to the coach opened and the groom reached in to let down the steps. “You take that thought with you. Take it and hold it close to your heart, along with my list of demands. And, oh yes, thank you for the coach. It will bring a considerable sum, I’m convinced, proceeds which will doubtless fill many a stomach these next months. Once again, Herbert, good evening to you. I sincerely wish I will not find it necessary we should meet again.”

“Oh, I’ll see you again, you heartless bastard. See you and more!” Symington tried desperately to make out the facial features of his tormentor in the glow from the fire, but it was useless. He felt himself being pulled unceremoniously from his beloved coach before a well-laced kick from his former employee nearly sent him sprawling onto the gravel drive in front of the inferno that was once his house.

The coach drove away, the sound of delighted laugher floating back to mock him, and Symington angrily yanked off the ribbon holding the list of demands, bent on ripping the paper into a thousand pieces.

As he unrolled the single sheet, something long and soft fluttered to the ground and he picked it up. He held it to the light from the blaze before cursing roundly, flinging the thing from him, and turning to slowly walk the three miles back into Little Pillington.

Behind him, lying abandoned on the drive, a single peacock feather winked blue and green in the light from the blazing fire.

BOOK ONE
THE GAME BEGINS

The world is full of fools, and he who would not see it should live alone and smash his mirror.

attributed to Claude Le Petite

CHAPTER ONE

Society is now one polished horde,

formed of two mighty tribes,

the Bores, and Bored.

Lord Byron

LADY UNDERCLIFF HAD BEEN sadly out of sorts for a month, or so she informed anyone who applied to her for the reason behind her perpetual pout.

She was incensed because her thoroughly thoughtless husband had adamantly refused to return from his hunting box in Scotland until the second week of the Season, thus delaying the annual Undercliff Ball, which, as everyone was aware, had been held the first week of the Season these past sixteen years.

Not that she could not have pressed on with her plans for the ball without Charles, for heaven only knew the man had never lifted a finger for any but his own pleasure in all his life. But her ladyship was very conscious of appearances, and opening the ball without her husband at her side would only cause speculative gossip, especially since that sad interlude the man had indulged in most publicly three years past with that absurd Covent Garden warbler.

Besides, Lady Undercliff considered herself to be a perfect wretch at recollecting names, and she had grown to rely on his lordship’s guidance during those tedious hours spent in the receiving line, complimenting friends on the birth of another grandchild or remembering to inquire as to the welfare of another acquaintance’s old-as-God Great-aunt Imogene.

And Charles knew she counted on his memory, damn his hunt-mad, philandering hide to perdition!

In the end, there had been nothing else for it but to live with the consequences of her mate’s selfishness, and Lady Undercliff had been forced to take her pleasure where she found it, which is the same as to say that the tradesmen’s bills her dearest husband Charles would find falling like snow upon his study desk in the next weeks would much resemble a blizzard.

Lady Undercliff had always taken great pride in her ability to delight both her guests’ eyes and stomachs with her lavish entertainments, but she had definitely outdone herself in her preparations for this particular ball.

The delicately draped bunting that hung everywhere, the dozens and dozens of ceiling-high plants, the hothouse bouquets, the rented gilt-back chairs, the painted cherubs and other statuary, the hiring of a score of servers, the presence of musicians in three drawing rooms in addition to those in the ballroom, the luscious sliced salmon, the dazzling variety of Gunther ices, indeed, even the silver-on-silk gown and flashing diamonds worn by the lady herself—all had been ordered with a glib “And have all bills forwarded directly to my husband, the earl.”

And yet, with the hour relentlessly creeping toward midnight on the evening of the ball, and with the compliments of the happy partygoers still ringing in her ears as she remained adamantly at the top of the stairs, Lady Undercliff continued to pout.

“This is entirely your fault, Charles,” she sniped at her husband, who was most probably wishing himself away from the receiving line and safely ensconced in the card room, a drink at his elbow, although she’d not give him that satisfaction. “He isn’t coming.”

“Prinny?” Lord Undercliff asked, frowning. “Who wants him here anyway, Gert? We’d have the servants scraping rotted eggs from the windows for a week if the populace caught sight of him rolling his carcass in here. Ain’t the least in good odor with the masses, you know—or you would, if you weren’t always worrying about all the wrong things.”

“Not his royal highness, Charles,” Lady Undercliff gritted out quietly from between clenched teeth, “as if I’d want that terrible old man lumbering in here with his fat mistress and shoveling all that lovely salmon down his greedy gullet. And don’t call me ‘Gert’! The man I am speaking of is St. Clair.”

Lord Undercliff looked at his wife down the length of his considerable nose. “St. Clair? That pranked-out mummer? Thunder an’ turf, now you’ve gone and slipped your moorings, Gert. What is he to anything? He ain’t but a baron. You’ve got three marquesses, a half dozen earls, and two dukes cluttering up the place already. What do you need with St. Clair?”

“You don’t understand,” Lady Undercliff spat. “But then, you never do. He must be here!”

“Yes, yes. He’s amusing enough, I’ll grant you that, but I can’t say I like what he’s done to our young men. Everything poor Beau has taught them about proper dress seems to have flown out the window thanks to St. Clair and his colored satins. Soon he’ll have us all powdering up our heads, Gert, and if he does that I just might have to call him out myself. Demmed nuisance, that powder, not to mention the tax. Besides, didn’t we turn the powder closet into a water closet just a few years past?”

Lady Undercliff gripped her kid-encased hands together tightly in front of her, knowing that if she did not win this struggle to control her overset emotions she would soon plant her beloved but woefully obtuse husband a wisty facer straight on his mouth.

“Charles, I don’t care a fig if St. Clair has all you gentlemen shaving your heads and painting your pates purple. No party is a success unless he attends. No hostess worth her salt would dare show her face in public again if Christian St. Clair deigned to ignore her invitation. Now do you understand, Charles? And it’s all your fault—you and your stupid hunting box. I’ll never forgive you for this, Charles. Never!”

“Females!” Lord Undercliff exploded, slapping his thigh in exasperation at his wife’s outburst. The single life was much preferable, he had often been heard to remark, if only there existed some way of setting up one’s nursery without having to shackle oneself with a bride who was never the sweet young beauty you thought she’d be but only a female like any other, with contrary ways no man could ever fathom, shrewish voices, and feathers for brains.

He peered past his wife and into the crowded, overheated ballroom. “You’ve got Lord Buxley, Gert. He’s popular enough. And that Tredway chit as well. Wasn’t she the toast of London last Season?”

“Yes, Charles—last Season,” Lady Undercliff informed her husband tersely. “Lady Ariana Tredway lends the party some cachet, as does Lord Buxley, but my primary coup for this evening seems to be the presence of Gabrielle Laurence, although I cannot for the life of me understand the attraction. Red hair, Charles. I mean, really! It’s not at all à la mode.”

Peering around his wife once more, Lord Undercliff caught sight of a slim, tallish girl waltzing by in the arms of the thrice-widowed Duke of Glynnon. He could not help but remember the chit, for he had bowed so long over her hand during his introduction to her in the receiving line that his wife had brought the heel of her evening slipper down hard on his instep to bring him back to attention.

Miss Laurence’s lovely face, he saw now, was wreathed in an animated smile as she spoke to the duke, her smooth white complexion framed by a mass of lovely curls the color of fire that blazed almost golden as the movements of the dance brought her beneath one of the brightly lit chandeliers. He grinned, remembering her dark, winglike brows, her shining green eyes, and, most especially, the small round mole he’d noticed sitting just to the left of her upper lip. Ah, what a fetching piece!

“Your judgment doesn’t seem to be bothering the duke overmuch, Gert,” Lord Undercliff remarked in an unwise attack of frankness, sparing a moment to catch a glimpse of Miss Laurence’s remarkably perfect bosom, which was modestly yet enticingly covered by an ivory silk gown. “As a matter of fact, I believe old Harry is drooling.”

“Oh, go back to Scotland, Charles, until you can learn to control yourself,” Lady Undercliff spat out, then broke into her first genuine smile in a month. “He’s here! Charles, darling, he’s here! Stand up straight, and for goodness sake don’t say anything stupid.”

Lord Undercliff, once a military man and therefore accustomed to taking orders, obeyed his wife’s command instinctively, squaring his shoulders and pulling in his stomach as he turned to greet their tardy guest and his small entourage of hangers-on, a wide, welcoming smile pasted on his lordship’s pudding face.

“Lady Undercliff! Look at you! Voyons! This is too much! Your beauty never ceases to astound me! I vow I cannot bear it!” Lord Christian St. Clair exclaimed a moment later, having successfully navigated the long, curving marble staircase to halt in front of the woman and execute an exquisitely elegant bow, while gifting her hand with a fleeting touch of his lips.

Lord Undercliff’s own lips curled in distaste as he watched this ridiculous display, taking in the baron’s outrageous costume of robin’s-egg-blue satin swallowtail coat and knee breeches, the elaborate lace-edged cuffs of his shirt, the foaming jabot at his tanned throat, the high collar that by rights should have sliced off the fellow’s ears by now.

The man was a menace, that’s what he was, bringing back into fashion a fashion that hadn’t been fashionable in years. And the young males of Society were following him like stunned sheep, more and more of them each day sauntering down Bond Street in clocked stockings, huge buckles on their shoes, and wearing enough lace to curtain a cathedral.

“I throw myself at your feet, beseeching mercy. A thousand pardons for my unforgivable tardiness, dear lady, please, I beg you,” Lord St. Clair pleaded, rising to his full six foot three of sartorial splendor to gaze adoringly into Lady Undercliff’s rapidly widening eyes.

“I had been dressed and ready beforetimes, eager to mount these heavenly stairs to your presence,” he lamented sadly, “but then dearest Grumble here observantly pointed out that the lace on my handkerchief—” he brandished an oversized, ornate lace handkerchief as proof “—did not in the slightest complement that of the rest of my ensemble. Imagine my dismay! There was nothing else for it but that I strip to the buff and begin again.” He sighed eloquently, looking to Lord Undercliff as if for understanding.

He didn’t receive any. “Could have just changed handkerchiefs, St. Clair,” his lordship countered, he believed, reasonably. “Or left off altogether trailing one around with you everywhere like some paper-skulled, die-away miss with a perpetual fit of the vapors.”

St. Clair’s broad shoulders shook slightly as he gave a small gulp of laughter that soon grew to an appreciative if somewhat high-pitched giggle. “Sans doute. Ah, Undercliff, what I would not give to find life so simple. Grumble,” he said, turning to George Trumble, one of his trio of constant companions, “how naughty of you not to point out that alternative to me. No, don’t say anything,” he continued, holding up a hand to silence his friend, who hadn’t appeared willing or able to answer. “I remember now. My affections lay more deeply with the handkerchief than the remainder of my costume. Forgive me, Grumble. Ah, well, no hour spent in dressing is ever wasted.”

“Only a single hour—for evening clothes?” Lord Undercliff spluttered, giving the baron’s rig-out another look, this time appreciating the cut of the coat, which was not quite that of the past century but more modern, with less buckram padding, flattering St. Clair’s slim frame that boasted surprisingly wide shoulders and a trim waist. And the man’s long, straight legs were nearly obscene in their beauty, the thighs muscular, the calves obviously not aided by the careful stuffing of sawdust to make up for any lack in that area.

“Used to take Brummell a whole morning just to do up his cravat,” his lordship continued consideringly, wondering if sky-blue satin would be flattering to his own figure. "Just pin that lace thing-o-ma-bob around your neck and be done with it, don’t you? And the ladies seem to like it. Maybe you have something here, St. Clair. Thought satins would take longer, but if they don’t—well, mayhap I’ll give them a try m’self. Rather weary of Brummell’s midnight blue and black, you know.”

“Charles,” Lady Undercliff interrupted, her smile of pleasure and triumph at having snagged St. Clair for her ball rapidly freezing in place as she listened to her bull of a husband making a cake of himself, “you are neglecting our other guests. Lord Osgood, Sir Gladwin, Mr. Trumble—we are so pleased you’ve agreed to grace our small party this evening.”

Lord St. Clair stood back to allow his friends to move forward and greet their host and hostess, which they did in order of their social prominence.

Lord Osmond Osgood, a tall though rather portly young gentleman known to his cronies as Ozzie, was first to approach, winking at the earl before clumsily bowing over her ladyship’s hand and backing away once more, nearly tripping over his own feet.

Sir Gladwin Penley, his usual uninspired gray rig-out brightened by his trademark yellow waistcoat, simultaneously apologized for his tardiness and grabbed hold of Lord Osgood’s forearm, saving that man from an ignominious tumble back down the staircase. “My delight in the evening knows no bounds, my lady,” he intoned solemnly, giving no hint to the fact that he’d been dragged to the Portman Square mansion under threat of having St. Clair in charge of the dressing of him for a fortnight if he cried off in favor of the new farce at Covent Garden.

George Trumble was the last to bow over Lady Undercliff’s pudgy hand, keeping his comments brief and hardly heartfelt, for everyone was aware the only reason an invitation had been delivered to his door was the usual one: If George Trumble were not one of the party, then the hostess could go cry for St. Clair’s presence. “How good of you to invite me, your ladyship,” he said quietly, then turned his back on the woman before she could be sure she’d seen cold disdain in his eyes.

But if George Trumble knew he was here on sufferance, and Sir Gladwin Penley may have already been wishing himself elsewhere, and Lord Osmond Osgood might be wondering how soon they could leave without causing a stir, Baron Christian St. Clair’s posture showed him to be in his element.

He turned back to Lady Undercliff and offered her his arm, telling her without words that it was no longer necessary for her to stand at the top of the stairs now that the premier guest had arrived.

And if the Prince Regent did dare venture out of Carleton House under cover of darkness to attend, well then, he could just find his own way into the ballroom.

With her ladyship at his side, and Lord Undercliff following along behind with the remainder of the St. Clair’s entourage, the baron entered the ballroom just as the clocks all struck twelve, stopping just inside the archway to gift the other occupants of the room with a long, appreciative look at the magnificence—indeed, the splendor—that was Baron Christian St. Clair.

MISS GABRIELLE LAURENCE was enjoying herself immensely, as befitted both her hopes for her debut and the reality of the past ten days that had found all her most earnest wishes coming true. For her instant success within the rarefied confines of Mayfair and the select members of the ton was not the result of mere happenstance.

Gabrielle had planned for it—indeed, trained for it—and if her smile was brighter than most, her manner more ingratiating, her conversation more scintillating, her behavior, her gowns, her air of vibrancy more interesting than was the case for any of the other hopeful debutantes, those young ladies who were not enjoying a similar success had only themselves to blame.

The Undercliff Ball had proven to be another feather in Gabrielle’s figurative cap of social success, the evening thus far a never-ending whirl of waltzes with dukes, cups of lemonade brought to her by adoring swains, effusive compliments on her “ravishing” gown, her “glorious” hair, her “rosebud” lips, and even a single stolen kiss on the balcony, especially when she considered that the “thief” had been no less than Lord Edgar Wexter, heir to one of the premier estates in Sussex.

All in all, Gabrielle Laurence was at this moment a very happy young woman, which explained her sudden chagrin when she belatedly realized that the young viscount she had been regaling with the latest gossip about Princess Caroline was no longer listening to her but instead staring in the general direction of the doorway, his usually vacant blue eyes glazed over with slavish admiration.

Gabrielle sighed, snapping open her fan to furiously beat at the air beneath her softly dimpled chin. “I’d look,” she said to herself—for the viscount certainly didn’t hear her, and probably wouldn’t if she screamed the words at him—“but I already know what I would see. It’s that overdressed ape St. Clair, isn’t it?”

No matter where she was, Gabrielle knew she could not for long escape hearing about Baron Christian St. Clair, arbiter of fashion, purveyor of inane wit, and the single man who held the power of social life or death over the members of the ton.

No matter what she was doing, her enjoyment of the moment could be instantly reduced to ashes by his entrance onto the scene, where he immediately became the cynosure of all eyes, the center of the social universe.

The man wielded more power than the Prince Regent, held more social consequence than Beau Brummell had ever commanded, and was more sought after than the Duke of Wellington, hero of the late war against Bonaparte.

It was indecent the way Society fawned over the man, adopting his ridiculous fashions, aping his effeminate ways, shunning green peas on Tuesdays because he did, strolling rather than riding in the park because he abhorred horses, eagerly hopping through each foolish hoop he set up for them as if his every drawled inanity were gospel, his every soulful sigh to be worried over, his every smile to be cherished as if a gift from the gods.

It was enough to make Gabrielle Laurence wish she could dare turning her back on the man.

Which, of course, she couldn’t, not without risking social disaster.

But that did not mean she would fawn over him the moment he entered a room the way those giggling debutantes and their hovering mamas were doing now as St. Clair leisurely made his way down the long ballroom, his loyal trio of dull wrens undoubtedly freed to go their own way now that their leader was in his glory.

Counting slowly to ten, and waiting until the last possible moment, until she could absolutely feel the man’s presence behind her, Gabrielle blinked rapidly to put a sparkle in her wide, tip-tilted green eyes, spread her mouth in a welcoming smile, and turned, her hand extended gracefully as she trilled, “La, St. Clair, I would know you were approaching even if I were to be suddenly struck deaf. The visible stir your presence makes in a room is almost akin to that of a Second Coming. All in blue this evening, I see. I believe the viscount is nearing tears, so overcome is he by your exquisite presence.”

“Miss Laurence, I vow you bid fair to unman me with your sweet compliments,” St. Clair intoned, bowing over her hand, the touch of his firm, dry lips searing her skin, a shiver of awareness, of stubborn, defensive dislike skipping down her spine as his blue-green gaze lifted and met hers, holding her in thrall for several heartbeats. “Zounds, but I can yet again feel my puny attempts at brilliance fading into nothingness, faced with your overwhelming beauty.”

“Which you have so very kindly served to bring into fashion, my lord,” Gabrielle replied sweetly, inwardly gritting her teeth at the infuriating knowledge that she was speaking the truth. If St. Clair had used his seemingly bubbleheaded yet razor-sharp wit to comment disparagingly on her red hair she might as well have retired to the country and taken the veil for all her chances of ever becoming a success in Mayfair.

For despite Gabrielle’s planning, all her careful preparation to take London by storm, she knew she owed the man considerable thanks for his unexpected championing of her, and it galled her no end to admit it.

Yet admit it she did, tonight and every time she was in his company, for if she was young and somewhat sure of herself, she was not stupid. Her ritual obsequiousness was the unspoken price she nightly had to pay for St. Clair’s continued public favor. Shylock, in comparison, could not have been more insidiously demanding than Baron Christian St. Clair when he had called for his “pound of flesh.”

“I’ve visited your tailor just this afternoon, my lord,” the young viscount piped up after nervously clearing his throat, for he had been hovering around Gabrielle for the past quarter hour, partly because it did him no harm to be seen with her, but mostly in the hope St. Clair would appear, for everyone already knew St. Clair had been making it a point to single out Miss Laurence first at any engagement he favored. “I’ve commissioned an entire wardrobe from the man, paying him double if he has half of it complete next week,” the young man ended, clearly proud of himself.

“Indeed.” St. Clair inclined his head apologetically to Gabrielle for having to desert her to speak with the viscount, then turned to the young man, inspecting him through the stemmed, gilt-edged quizzing glass he leisurely lifted to his left eye. “How commendable of you, my lord, and how woefully overdue. Ah, that was too bad of me. Please, my lord, forgive my naughty tongue. However, if I may be so bold as to inquire,” he drawled, allowing the quizzing glass to fall to midchest, for the piece was suspended from his neck by a thin ivory silk band, “would you tell me what colors you selected?”

The viscount swallowed down hard, making it painfully clear to everyone that his throat had gone desert dry. “Green, Clarence blue—and dove gray, I believe. Did I choose correctly?” he asked dully, as if already sorrowfully convinced he had erred in his choices.

St. Clair allowed time for the silence to grow and for their near neighbors to lean closer to hear his pronouncement when it came. “Bien. Excellent choices, my lord,” he exclaimed at last, beaming at the young viscount. And then he frowned. “Oh dear, how do I put this delicately? I fear you will have to shed a few pounds in order to do credit to the cut of the jacket, my lord, not that anything I say is of the slightest consequence. Still, may I suggest you stable your mount and walk yourself briskly through the park each day for the promenade? That should rid you of your, um, bulges in no time. Don’t you think so, Miss Laurence?”

Longing to tell him that she thought it would be lovely if the visibly wilting viscount were to quickly search out his backbone and summarily stuff St. Clair’s quizzing glass down the baron’s gullet, Gabrielle smiled and said, “I have always believed judicious exercise to be healthful, sir.”

“Ah, exactement, Miss Laurence,” St. Clair responded just as Lady Undercliff’s overpaid musicians struck up yet another waltz. “And, so saying, perhaps you would honor me with your participation in the dance, another highly desirable form of healthful exercise?”

As social suicide was not on Gabrielle’s agenda for this or any evening, she dropped into a graceful curtsy and then allowed St. Clair to guide her onto the dance floor even as other couples joined them, the floor rapidly becoming crowded with persons eager to prove their agreement with the baron’s prescription for “healthful exercise.”

At last they were alone—or as alone as any two people could be on the dance floor—and now their private war could recommence. St. Clair lightly cupped Gabrielle’s slim waist with his right hand while she rested hers in his left, their bodies precisely two and one half feet apart. A slight pressure from St. Clair’s hand moved Gabrielle into the first sweeping turn of the waltz, and she smiled up at him, saying, “I do so loathe you, St. Clair.”

His smile was equally bright as he appeared to enjoy her opening salvo of the evening, for they had been throwing verbal brickbats at each other from their first meeting, exchanges Gabrielle could not remember which one of them had begun and which she still could not decide if she enjoyed or dreaded.

“Encroaching mushrooms, my dear,” he answered smoothly, sweeping her into another graceful turn, “usually do dislike their betters. Tell me, please—as I am all agog to know—do you lie awake nights, Miss Laurence, planning sundry vile terminations to my existence?”

“I wouldn’t care to waste my precious time thinking of you in any way at all, my lord,” Gabrielle countered, nodding a greeting to a female passerby, who was looking at her in undisguised envy for having snagged St. Clair yet again for his first waltz of the evening.

“Too true, Miss Laurence, too true,” St. Clair said, his hand on her waist gripping just a hair tighter than it had before, causing another unwelcome, disturbing frisson of awareness to sing through her blood. “You are much too occupied in forwarding yourself to think of others. Fame is fleeting, dear girl, and you are clever to enjoy the pinnacle of popularity upon which I have placed you while you can. Consider this: I may deign to cut you tomorrow, and all your fine success would come crashing down around your ears. Wouldn’t that be dreadful? Perhaps you should encourage our fuzzy-cheeked viscount to offer for you while you still bask in the sunshine of my approval.”

“I am visiting this fair city only to enjoy the Season, my lord. I am not on the hunt for a wealthy husband, not in the least,” Gabrielle bit out from between clenched teeth, still maintaining her smile, but with an effort, for she knew she was lying. Lying, and desperate, not that she could ever allow St. Clair to know.

“You don’t wish to marry? Gad, there’s a shocker! Feel free to perceive me as astonished!” St. Clair countered. “Then I was wrong to take one look at your meticulously constructed facade of gentility and see an empty-headed, fortune-mad beauty out to snare a deep-in-the-pockets title? Forgive me, Miss Laurence. I should have realized that you are in hopes of setting up an intellectual salon, or perhaps intent upon conquering Society in order to gain their cooperation with some private agenda you have yet to reveal—a series of good words, perhaps?”

Gabrielle opened her mouth to argue with him, but he cut her off.

“But, no. That isn’t it. Why, do you know what I think? I think you loathe and detest men. Don’t you, Miss Laurence? You hate us and wish to have us all fall in love with your beauty so that you might, one by one, grind our broken hearts in the dust. Why didn’t I see it before? How deep you are, Miss Laurence. How very deep.”

“Oh, cut line, St. Clair!” Gabrielle declared hotly as, the waltz over, he took hold of her elbow and guided her toward the balcony. “I may as well admit it, for it is obvious to me that you will keep mouthing inanities until I do. Yes, like every other unattached young lady here this evening, I am on the hunt for a rich, titled husband. The deeper his pockets and the loftier his title the better. I am mercenary, hardheaded, strong-willed, and so depraved by my ambition as to be capable of debasing myself by being polite to you in order to advance my standing in Society. Fortunately for my plans, in general I enjoy the company of gentlemen. It is only you I despise. There! Are you happy now?”

“Ecstatic, my dear,” St. Clair answered genially, drawing her toward a small stone bench and motioning for her to be seated. He then spread his lace-edged handkerchief beside her and, carefully splitting his coattails, sat down himself. “I had begun to wonder if you were to be content merely trading barbs as we have done this past fortnight. But we have progressed. We are becoming, at long last, entirely open with each other. You despise me, and I return the compliment.”

“Which in no way explains why you have deigned to bring me into fashion,” Gabrielle said, studying Lord St. Clair out of the corner of her eye, taking in the sight of his expressive winged eyebrows above eyes that turned from blue to lightest green with his moods, the straight, aquiline nose he looked down to such effect, the shape of his generous mouth, the marvelous way his longish, light, golden mane was tied back in a small queue.

The man wasn’t simply handsome, drat him. He was beautiful! What a pity the Fates, which had gifted him with such beauty, had somehow neglected to stuff his handsome skull with a brain. Or was she as wrong in assuming that as she was in her protestations that she couldn’t abide him?

“So, as we are being honest this evening—why have you chosen to bring me into favor, my lord?” she dared to ask outright, wearying of their constant fencing.

St. Clair produced a small enameled box from his waistcoat and went about the business of taking snuff, his expertise in the movements of the procedure marred only at the last, when he screwed up his handsome face most comically, pinched two fingers against the bridge of his nose, and then gave out with a prodigious sneeze.

She giggled, unable to help herself, for he looked so silly. Almost adorably silly.

“Ah, please forgive me, Miss Laurence,” he said, drawing a more serviceable handkerchief from his sleeve and wiping delicately at his nose. “Deuced evil habit, snuff. I’ve seen men with half their noses eaten away from the stuff.”

He gave a horrified shiver, then smiled. “Do you know what, Miss Laurence? I believe I will forswear the nasty habit beginning this very evening, if only by way of a public service, as no one will dare take snuff if St. Clair does not. Am I not wonderful to use my elevated stature for the betterment of mankind? Indeed, I am confident I am, especially when I consider my vast and most costly collection of snuffboxes. Too small to make into posy pots, I imagine I shall just have to give them all away to needy snuff takers in Piccadilly. And then I believe I shall reward myself with a new waistcoat. I saw the most interesting fabric the other day—silver, with mauve roses. Now, dear girl, what were you saying?”

“Never mind, my lord.” Gabrielle rolled her eyes, giving up any notion that she would ever understand this man, and telling herself that she didn’t want to understand him. He was probably only what she saw before her: a paper-skulled, imbecilic clotheshorse with more hair than wit, more self-consequence than a strutting cock, and all the mental acumen of a cracked walnut. She would be the world’s greatest fool to believe otherwise, no matter how pretty he was, no matter how many times his smiling face had invaded her dreams these past two weeks.

Besides, she believed she already knew why he had undertaken to champion her. He had done it simply to prove that he could take what he considered to be an unknown, fire-headed country bumpkin and raise her to the level of a Lady Ariana Tredway. The only thing she couldn’t understand was why he allowed her to speak so uncivilly to him—and why he found it so necessary to be mean to her whenever no one was about to overhear them.

And one more thing bothered her, unnerved her, haunted her in the night long after she should have found her rest. Her reaction to each touch of his hand, each penetrating look of his oddly intelligent, impossible-to-read eyes. Why, she could almost think herself attracted to him, if she didn’t believe herself above such nonsense.

“Yes, well then,” St. Clair said as the silence between them lengthened, rising and holding out his hand to her after retrieving his lace handkerchief, “as we seem to have run out of cutting things to say to each other, may I suggest we return to the ballroom? We have been absent for a sufficient length of time for those who are inclined to low thoughts to have taken it into their heads that we have been indulging in a romantic assignation. Why I continue to be so kind to you I do not know, but once again I have served to raise your consequence. Now, I fear, I must reward myself by twirling a less unwieldy partner around the floor and then take my leave. I wouldn’t wish for Lady Undercliff to preen overmuch at having snagged me for an entire evening.”

“Unwieldy?” Gabrielle angrily snatched her hand from his, stung by this latest in a string of insults even as she relaxed in her resurgence of anger, which was much easier to deal with than any softening of her feelings toward the inane dandy. “I’ll have you know I am considered to be a wonderful dancer. Why, the viscount has only this evening vowed to pen an ode to my grace in going down the dance.”

“That unpolished cub? Odds fish, m’dear, what is that to the point?” St. Clair responded as they reentered the ballroom. “The sallow-faced twit also seriously believes he will cut a dash in dove gray. He’ll probably insist upon a pink waistcoat as well, a thought that nearly propels me to tears! Ah, look, the gods have smiled! I do believe my poor trammeled-upon feet are saved. Lady Ariana approaches, smiling a greeting to me, her dear friend. You would be wise to observe her, Miss Laurence. Lady Ariana is a veritable gazelle on the dance floor. To quote the illustrious Suckling, ‘Her feet beneath her petticoat, like little mice, stole in and out as if they feared the light. And oh! she dances such a way, no sun upon an Easter day is half so fine a sight.’”

“You quote so often, St. Clair,” Gabrielle shot back, inwardly seething. “It is so sad that you never have an original thought.”

“Oh, I am mortally wounded by your sharp tongue,” he responded theatrically, “and needs must retire the field at once.” He gave a subtle signal to the viscount, who had been hovering nearby, painfully conspicuous in his hopes for another moment’s notice from the popular baron, and that man hopped forward sprightly to take Miss Laurence off St. Clair’s hands.

“How exceedingly amicable of you, my lord,” St. Clair intoned, bowing slightly in thanks. “It is the true sign of a Christian to be willing to graciously take back a young lady who has just recently deserted him for the better man. Miss Laurence, I leave you in good company. If you will excuse me?”

Gabrielle’s smile beamed brighter than the chandelier hanging above their ballroom, the chandelier she secretly wished would slip its moorings to come crashing down on St. Clair’s arrogant head.

“Will we be seeing you at Richmond tomorrow, for her ladyship’s garden party?” she asked, praying for a drenching rain on the morrow so that the baron would not dare attend and chance ruining one of his exquisite ensembles. If the painted popinjay refused to ride because he considered hacking jackets too barbaric for words, he most certainly would not deign to appear at a picnic in anything less than his usual outlandish satins.

“Point du tout, Miss Laurence. I fear you all shall simply have to make do without me,” he replied, lifting the lace handkerchief to his lips. “I abhor picnics, and can think of nothing more uncivilized. If I wished to be crudely rustic I should never have fled the countryside for London in the first place, which I did the moment I realized there existed an entire lovely segment of the populace that did not believe the pinnacle of their existence to be an afternoon spent lying on their backs in the fields, chewing hay. Why, just think, Miss Laurence: Can you really imagine me pushed into a tent with the milling crowd, or forced to sit on a blanket spread on the grass?”

“And pray why not, my lord?” Gabrielle could not resist asking. “After all, I hear most idling, wastrel grasshoppers flit about in the grass quite happily without benefit of a blanket at all.”

St. Clair gave a small, trilling laugh just as the viscount winced, evidently convinced Miss Laurence had said something dreadful and wondering why he had thought being in her company would do his own reputation any good.

“C’est merveilleux! But you are so droll, my dear girl,” the baron continued, smiling broadly. “You almost make me believe you have some sort of sense for amusing repartee. I shall leave you now, my heart light that you have said something brilliant. Good evening all,” he said, bowing once again, this time lifting Gabrielle’s hand to his lips before turning to Lady Ariana and leading her onto the floor, at which time the musicians immediately halted in the midst of the Scottish air they were playing and broke into another waltz.

“Isn’t he magnificent, Miss Laurence?” the viscount gushed, his tone filled with awe, earning himself a speaking look from Gabrielle as she excused herself, wishing her skin didn’t still tingle from the touch of St. Clair’s lips, and, mumbling something about having a crushing headache, asked to be returned to her chaperone.

CHAPTER TWO

There was a general whisper, toss, and wriggle,

But etiquette forbade them all to giggle.

Lord Byron

LADY ARIANA TREDWAY DID her best to put a bright face on her position of Baron St. Clair’s second choice as he whirled her around the dance floor, listening to his inane but amusingly risque chatter concerning a certain peer recently winged in the buttocks by his pistol-waving wife, the silly man having been discovered in flagrante delicto in his own library with a certain fast matron.

St. Clair was such a fool, but a powerful fool, and Lady Ariana hated him for his slight defection from her side in this, her second Season, as greatly as she adored him for having deigned to speak with her at all.

It was silly to have such a brainless popinjay as the arbiter of every step Society took, every stitch they wore, as all of Society was silly, but it was the way of the world, and Lady Ariana accepted it as thoroughly as she accepted the fact that she was the most beautiful woman to grace Mayfair in decades.

And Lady Ariana was not entirely conceited in her determination of that beauty. Her hair was soft blond, a most necessary color for a young lady wishing to be thought of as a true English beauty, and her china-blue eyes were the envy of two Seasons of hopeful debutantes. Her petite form provided an added fillip, as did her softly rounded curves, straight white teeth, and a sulky mouth that owed none of its deep pink color to the paint pots many misses were forced to use.

She was known all through Mayfair as the young lady who had in the past year turned away the suits of no less than two marquises, a truly lovestruck earl, and one Honorable whose fortune was favorably compared with that of Golden Ball himself.

She was pampered and petted by her powerful Tory father, indulged by her rather plain mama who in these past twenty years had still not quite moved beyond her gratitude that the Fates had blessed her with such a comely daughter, and sought after by all who would be invited to the best parties.

Indeed, in the insular, almost incestuous twelve hundred or so souls that made up the crème de la crème of English Society, Lady Ariana Tredway had, just this past Season, shared the premier social pivot with only Baron Christian St. Clair.

Until this new Season, that is, when that same socially powerful Baron St. Clair had taken it into his silly head to champion Gabrielle Laurence. No wonder Lady Ariana despised the chit without having spoken more than a half dozen words to her.

“Christian?” Lady Ariana chirped, hoping to gain his full attention. She addressed the baron informally, as their acquaintance had progressed to that point, if no further—for everyone knew the young lady was hanging out for a duke and was written up in the betting book at White’s as being certain to snag one this Season.

Besides, as everyone also knew, Baron Christian St. Clair remained uninterested in females other than to squire them on the dance floor, and Lady Ariana Tredway was much too intrigued with herself and her ambitions to care overmuch for anyone else. “Must you persist in teasing that poor Laurence girl so horribly? You’ve been at it for nearly a fortnight, and it’s thoroughly embarrassing to watch.”

St. Clair raised one eloquent eyebrow and stared at her just as if he hasn’t understood her. “Teasing, Ariana? Sacrée tonnerre! Whatever do you mean?”

“Oh, stop it, Christian. You know very well what I mean,” she said, pulling away from him so that he had no choice but to follow her off the dance floor or remain standing there, abandoned. “You are only puffing her up in order to prick her soundly, deflating her consequence in an instant. I believe you to be very mean in this, which is not at all like you. Usually you are droll and amusing, not brutal.”

“Mon dieu, has it come to this?” St. Clair clucked his tongue as he stepped in front of her, halting her progress. “You’ve gone and had a thought, haven’t you, Ariana? How very bad of you. And it will cause lines in that lovely forehead if you are not careful. Can’t get a duke with wrinkles. Of course, as I understand the duke of Glynnon was seen waltzing with Miss Laurence earlier this evening, you might be worrying yourself needlessly, your hopes already dashed.”

“Don’t avoid my question, Christian,” Lady Ariana countered, bristling at the baron’s deliberate dig and pointedly looking past him, yet only vaguely noticing a commotion to her left, at the doorway to the ballroom. “You took one peep at that dowerless girl—her father gambles, or so Papa says—and immediately decided you could not like her. I agree she is presumptuous, believing she could sweep into Mayfair and conquer us all, but is it really necessary to humiliate her?”

“Au contraire, my dear. You couldn’t care less that I have the power to destroy the fair Laurence. What you are really asking, I fear, is when I will bring her down,” St. Clair responded amicably, lifting his handkerchief to the corner of his smiling mouth. “Leaving you, I presume, free to once more reign as the toast of London. I may be dim, but I can see where this conversation is heading and want no part of it. If you dislike Miss Laurence, cut her yourself, and see if your consequence is up to the challenge. But please, save me from these female machinations. I am only a simple man acting out of charity, totally devoid of intrigue, and I dislike your insinuations intensely. Why, if you two beautiful young ladies were to descend into a catfight I would doubtless be forced to cut you both and take up another cause, another delightful creature whom I would then instantly catapult to social success.”

Lady Ariana was stung into replying without first measuring her words. “I believe I might be better served to join forces with Miss Laurence and see if we couldn’t discover some way to put you out of favor, Christian.”

St. Clair’s shrug was entirely French, for if he was every drop the Englishman, he had spent the years following Waterloo enjoying Parisian society, obviously taking on some of their more eloquent mannerisms, even to the point of sprinkling his conversation with snippets of not necessarily germane French.

“If you must, my dear,” he returned affably. “I am naught but a momentary whim, like poor Brummell before me, and exist merely at the pleasure of Society. But, then, as I recall, it took both Prinny and a year’s long disastrous run at the tables to bring Beau down. Do you believe you and Miss Laurence to be capable of a similar feat?”

Lady Ariana looked closely into St. Clair’s now deeply blue eyes and wished herself out of this potentially dangerous conversation, which she had only entered into because she was upset at the man’s attention to the Laurence chit. She was within a heartbeat of going too far with the usually affable baron, and she decided to pull back.

“Forgive me, Christian,” she said, smiling apologetically. “I have barely eaten all day in order to be certain the line of my gown would be as you desire it. I am all out of sorts tonight, I suppose.”

Then she turned toward the doorway and the sound of raised voices that had momentarily ceased but had now begun again. “Christian? Do you think something is wrong?” she asked, gesturing toward the doorway with her fan.

St. Clair turned and lifted his stemmed quizzing glass to his eye. “How fatiguing. I’ve heard less ruckus in a fish market. Not that I’ve ever visited any such establishment, but I have heard stories, you understand. Comment—do you suppose the place has caught on fire? That is what will come of layering the place with bunting. Come, we will make our escape.”

St. Clair offered Lady Ariana his arm and they made their way toward the main doorway, becoming part of the throng of partygoers now congregating there. He stopped just beside the equally tall but darkly handsome Lord Anthony Buxley, who, Lady Ariana was depressed to see, had the opportunistic Miss Gabrielle Laurence hanging from his sober midnight-blue sleeve.

Almost immediately, seeing that the four purest diamonds of society were in their midst, several people politely gave way, until the quartet of exquisites had a clear view of what was transpiring in the hallway just outside the ballroom.

“And I’m telling you, Undercliff,” a red-faced, corpulent man of at least fifty was informing their host, “I don’t give a bloody damn if you’ve got the bleeding king inside. I swear it, the Peacock’s come to Little Pillington. We have to talk, Undercliff! Now!”

“Good Lord, Miss Laurence,” Lord Buxley declared clearly above the sly titterings of the onlookers, trying to draw his companion from the scene, “it’s naught but some importuning tradesman. Come away and we’ll go down to dinner before all the best tables are taken. There’s nothing here of interest.”

Miss Laurence, however, appeared to have no intention of removing herself from the inquisitive throng. “What would his lordship have to do with a tradesman? And didn’t the man say something about the Peacock?” she asked Lord Buxley, whose good manners obviously forbade him from deserting the scene in favor of the summer rooms, a bolt hole that seemed to appeal to him very much more than continuing to be in such close proximity to Lord Undercliff and his loud, crude, uninvited guest.

“Please, Miss Laurence,” Lord Buxley repeated quietly, looking to Lady Ariana, who believed she interpreted his glance correctly, and he wanted nothing more than to be shed of the situation. She felt much the same herself. No wonder her papa spoke so highly of the man. Pity he wasn’t a duke, for she had set her cap for a duke and would not settle for less.

“Why, my lord?” Miss Laurence persisted with, to Lady Ariana’s mind, no more intelligence than she expected of the young woman. After all, hair that red was bound to have singed the girl’s brain. “All I asked was what the man might have to do with Lord Undercliff.”

“What would his high-and-mighty lordship have to do with me?” Herbert Symington all but shouted, having heard Gabrielle’s artless question in the silence that had immediately followed St. Clair’s polite, suggestive clearing of his throat.

Symington took two steps forward, showing all intentions of not stopping until he was nose to nose with the curious beauty, and said, “We’re partners in business, Undercliff and me, little missy, even if he don’t want anyone to know it. Partners in the Symington weaving mills, in Little Pillington.”

A ripple of excitement, of disgust, of amused understanding, ran through the crowd of peers who considered any endeavor even vaguely related to trade to be a sin on a par with treason or even incest—although those two transgressions could be excused if there existed ample motive for either profit or personal satisfaction.

But to descend to trade! It was the outside of enough, completely beyond the pale, as poor Lady Undercliff immediately proved by fainting dead away in Lord Buxley’s reluctant arms.

Lady Ariana, sensing a golden opportunity to show Miss Laurence in an ill light, snapped open her ivory-sticked fan and began waving it as she pronounced clearly, “I should hope you’re happy now, Miss Laurence. Thanks to your unseemly curiosity, poor Lady Undercliff has swooned in embarrassment. St. Clair, be a dear and assist me in extricating myself from this sad crush of titillation-seeking nosey-parkers.”

Now, she then thought, inwardly preening as she looked to the frowning baron. You have no choice, St. Clair, but to cut her now!

Lady Ariana held her breath. She could feel the hesitancy and indecision that held the remainder of the partygoers frozen in place, awaiting St. Clair’s decision as to the correctness of their presence at Lord Undercliff’s social destruction. By simply turning his back the baron could destroy the Undercliffs, and Miss Gabrielle Laurence as well.

St. Clair lifted his quizzing glass once more, leisurely surveying the multitude, hesitating as his gaze took in the puce-faced Herbert Symington, the visibly quavering Lord Undercliff, and the obviously unconscious Lady Undercliff.

“Tiens! Do I detect a want of steadiness in our small group, an unwillingness to act? Very well,” he then drawled affably, “as it would appear it is left to me to take charge, I will. Lord Buxley, I commend you on your timely capture of our dearest hostess in her time of need. Perhaps you will now retire and give her over to the servants—with Lady Ariana’s assistance, as she considers herself too angelically pure for such goings-on as we are witnessing—while we vile, despicable souls remain riveted here at gossip’s head table, ravenous for sensation and unabashedly avid to lap up any drop of scandal. After all,” he continued, allowing the quizzing glass to drop, “as some observant wit has written, ‘Society in shipwreck is a solace to us all.’”

Lady Ariana winced as the shaft of St. Clair’s verbal arrow unexpectedly sank home in her chest. He had not cut Gabrielle Laurence. He had turned the weapon of his tongue on her instead, damning her with faint praise, calling her angelic when what he’d really meant was that she was a stiff-backed prude who had not insulted just Miss Laurence but all these several dozen milling people who were eager to witness Lord Undercliff’s very public embarrassment.

“Christian,” she began, squeezing his arm as she looked up at him, “please—”

“Tut, tut, my dear,” he broke in as two footmen came to Lord Buxley’s aid, taking the slowly recovering but still unsteady-on-her-feet Lady Undercliff away, “don’t say another word. We are all human, and therefore we all understand. Of course you may remain—you and Lord Buxley both. I know I could not leave now, even if I shall most sincerely hate myself in the morning—as we shall all most sincerely berate ourselves for our eagerness to hear what Mr. Simons here has to say.”

“That’s Symington, my lord,” Herbert Symington broke in rather rudely even as Lord Buxley, known far and wide as a true stickler for the conventions, sharply turned on his heel and strode away.

Lady Ariana didn’t know which of the two gentlemen she disliked more at that moment: Christian St. Clair for forgiving her, or Lord Anthony Buxley for having the courage to defy the man. Lord Buxley, probably, for now the smiling Miss Laurence and her most annoying, vulgar beauty mark were standing directly beside the baron, basking in the glow of his approval.

“Symington, you say?” St. Clair inquired casually, again employing his quizzing glass to great effect as he inspected the mill owner from head to toe, but quickly, as if the sight of the man’s poorly cut brown jacket and too-tight breeches were offensive to his sensibilities.

“La, sir,” the baron continued, “I can’t imagine why you have taken it into your head to believe I care either way what name you give to yourself. But, please, we are most avidly interested in what you have to say, as it is obvious you are operating under some sort of strain. You look, to be frank, as if you have just recently been ridden hard, and then put away wet. Not that such things matter in light of other, more interesting gossip. Miss Laurence here, for one, appears to be eager for news of the Peacock. Whatever has that terrible, terribly exciting creature done this time?”

And now, at last, Lady Ariana understood. How could she have been so stupid? The baron was attempting to protect Lord Undercliff, his inquiry deliberately bypassing Undercliff’s association with Symington to concentrate on the much more provocative subject of the Peacock.

And the rest of the evening’s guests also understood and would not speak publicly of Lord Undercliff’s acute embarrassment, knowing St. Clair would not be best pleased if they did so. Oh, he was clever, Christian St. Clair was, earning himself the powerful Lord Undercliff’s undying gratitude while still indulging Society’s appetite for scandal. Everyone was happy. Everyone save Lady Ariana, and Herbert Symington.

“What did he do?” Symington bellowed, causing Lady Ariana to bring herself back to attention after indulging herself in a lesson on how St. Clair’s mind worked. “I’ll tell you what the Peacock did. Just tonight he robbed me of my new coach and then burned my new house straight down to the ground!”

“’Tare an’ hounds! Another house? That’s the second this month,” someone behind Lady Ariana exclaimed.

“And the sixth—no, the seventh—this year,” another gentleman added, before both subsided, probably realizing that such intimate knowledge of the Peacock’s activities might urge the others present to look at them and wonder if they, like Lord Undercliff, might owe some part of their fortunes to secretly dabbling in trade.

“Now that you mention it, there is the air of burnt wood about you, Simons,” St. Clair said, lifting his scented handkerchief to his nostrils. “How lamentable.”

“Why did he burn down your house, Mr. Symington? Are you like the mill owners the Peacock has written about in the newspapers?” Miss Laurence asked, proving to Lady Ariana once again that the girl didn’t have a smidgen of sense in her head. A wise young lady, a prudent debutante, would never speak directly to someone as obviously common as the mill owner.

Mr. Symington opened his mouth, ready to answer, when St. Clair cut him off by waving his hand, the one holding the lace handkerchief—an object the mill owner stared at almost greedily. “Please, please, don’t subject us to a recitation of your virtues and the disaster of your poor, burned house, Mr. Simons, as I am convinced you were about to do. Likewise, we all are already quite familiar with sundry uplifting tales of the Peacock’s mission to punish the wicked for the wretched despair of the poor. Why, I have been so very affected by the man’s anonymous treatises to the newspapers concerning underfed children and injured workers that I have had to raise my servants’ quarterly wages, out of pure guilt. Haven’t we all reacted similarly?”

A murmuring chorus of “Of course!” and “Raised ’em all just last week! Can you even ask?” and “Those letters! So affecting!” trilled through the throng, all of them sounding very self-satisfied at having done their part to boost the Peacock’s mission.

“Did you see him—see the Peacock?” one plumparmed matron dared ask, poking Symington with her fan. “We hear he is magnificent!”

“And so daring,” another, younger woman put in. “I heard that just last week he and his brave band rode directly into Spitalfields to rescue a poor wretch about to be taken to Newgate for nothing more than picking up an apple that fell from a grocer’s cart.”

“He’s very tall, isn’t he?” a dark-haired debutante asked, her kid-encased hands pressed to her breast. “Tall, so very, very handsome, and gallant and prodigiously well-spoken, or so I’ve heard. He’s no common highwayman, everyone says. He must be one of us—but who?”

“Ladies, please,” St. Clair interrupted at last, just as a few of the gentlemen began to grumble that this Peacock fellow was becoming much too much the sensation with the females to be anything but an out-and-out rotter. “We are all enthralled with the Peacock’s romantic exploits, but the man is just that—a man, and one who chooses to keep his identity a secret, which cannot be considered commendable. We shouldn’t be raising him onto a pedestal.”

“Heavens no,” Miss Laurence slid in quietly, so that Lady Ariana and the baron were most probably the only ones who heard her amid the general murmurings of the crowd. “That would mean we first would have to topple you off, wouldn’t it? Unless you are already tottering? How does it feel to know you have competition?”

“I don’t believe this!” Symington exclaimed, spreading his arms wide, which he could do with ease, for no one in the small crowd appeared willing to be within ten feet of him. “You blockheads care for nothing but adventure! The bounder’s burning up houses to make honest mill owners like me bow down to his demands. And they’re doing it, curse their timid hides. Well he’s not going to best me! I’m going to fight him, and I’m not going to rest for a moment until I see his pretty hide turned off from the gallows outside Newgate prison.”

“Mon Dieu! Such enthusiasm, Simons,” St. Clair remarked, shaking his head. “I commend you for your determination to bring the crusading scoundrel to justice. However, what is much more to the point than your swaggering braggadocio—did you say his ‘pretty’ hide? That would mean you have seen him, wouldn’t it? Dear man, if for just a moment—indulge the ladies. How does he appear, this Peacock person? Is he all they say?”

“How should I know?” Symington asked, breathing heavily now as the two footmen returned and, at Lord Undercliff’s easily interpreted gesture, placed themselves on either side of the mill owner. “He was waiting for me inside my coach just as I came from m’dinner, sitting in the corner smoking a cheroot and hiding his face in the dark. Couldn’t see him worth a damn except to know he’s most likely tall, like you, and he speaks like a gentleman. Then he took off with my brand-new coach and left me to walk three miles back to Little Pillington,” he ended, seemingly close to tears.

“He did? Why, I do believe I must begin to admire this Peacock fellow. Obviously he saw your crying need for exercise, Simons.” St. Clair’s high-pitched, musical laugh was the signal for everyone to indulge their own amusement even as the footmen firmly took hold of Symington’s arms at each elbow and all but dragged him into a small anteroom at the head of the stairs, Lord Undercliff hastening after with nary a backward glance for his guests.

“And that, good friends, concludes this evening’s farce, I believe. Come, my dear ladies,” St. Clair said after a moment, holding out his crooked arms so that both Miss Laurence and Lady Ariana might avail themselves of his escort as he led them back to the alcove where their chaperones waited.

“What now, Christian?” Lady Ariana inquired, honestly intrigued as to what he would do next.

“What now? Why, first, I believe Lord Undercliff is to be commended for his originality,” he commented loudly, “don’t you? This has been quite the most stimulating entertainment any host has offered this Season. Yes, yes, I must remember in the morning to join his lordship’s other guests in sending round my compliments.”

“You may have been amused, but I think the entire episode was distasteful in the extreme,” Lady Ariana said feelingly, knowing now for certain that Lord Undercliff would be safe from social disaster, thanks to St. Clair. “In fact, Christian, much as it pains me to agree with that crude man, the best thing that could happen is for that absurd Peacock and his band of marauding brigands to be captured and dealt with as rapidly as possible. Did you hear those silly women? They seem to believe the man is to be admired, when everyone knows he is little more than a thief, a ruffian. You’d think they didn’t know the price of goods will rise twice for every penny the mill owners are forced to raise wages. Why, Papa says—”

“Ah, dearest child, you aren’t about to tell me what your papa says again, are you?” St. Clair interrupted wearily. “The man,” he explained, looking at Gabrielle, “like our suspicious home secretary, Lord Sidmouth, sees insurrection lurking around every corner.”

“But it’s true, Christian,” Lady Ariana persisted, sure she could show up the country miss with her knowledge of government. “The Peacock is inciting the populace to illegal acts. Why, he’s even worse than that odious Orator Hunt, telling the common people that they deserve better. Why? We are all suffering now that the war is over. It isn’t only the ungrateful peasantry that has had to live with deprivation, but to have to maintain iron gates on our townhouses in order to keep the rioting rabble away is preposterous. Or do you wish to see a copy of the late French Revolution brought to our own doors?”

“Tiens! Why would I care a snap about such farfetched nonsense? What I do wish, dear girl, is for you to desist in being such a staunch little Tory and remember that bluestockings tend to frighten off suitors, most especially dukes. Or do you believe I shall be amused to champion you when you are in your fifth Season, long in the tooth and still prosing on and on about insurrection?”

“If you’re still powerful enough five years hence to wield any influence at all over Society,” Miss Laurence piped up, causing Lady Ariana to draw in her breath in surprise at the girl’s daring in defending her. “I would say the Peacock has already begun to make inroads on your consequence. After all, breathlessly awaiting your entrance in order to admire the cut of your latest new coat barely compares with hearing of the daring exploits of the Peacock. Are you jealous, St. Clair?”

“Hardly, Miss Laurence,” St. Clair replied with a smile, so that Lady Ariana longed to box his ears. Didn’t the man know when he was being insulted? Then he went on, renewing Lady Ariana’s faith in him: “But you must tell me, my dear: Are you to be numbered in the growing multitude of eager ladies wishful of having the Peacock kidnap you as he did Mr. Symington, not to punish you, but to whisk you away for a night of unbridled passion?”

His words were a slap in Gabrielle Laurence’s face, reducing her to a witless child who not only couldn’t see the danger in the Peacock’s provoking exploits but also one who was so infantile as to indulge in romantic musings about the man. Lady Ariana found herself almost feeling sorry for the senseless chit who had thought she might get the better of St. Clair.

Except that Gabrielle did not seem to take offense at St. Clair’s words. “You’re nearly correct, my lord,” she answered as she moved away from him and toward Lord Buxley, who had reappeared in the ballroom and was even now heading in her direction. “I am quite taken with the Peacock. It would, after all, be such a social coup to be the one who unmasks him. Oh, and by the bye, St. Clair, I believe I should point out that you slipped just now and referred to Lord Undercliff’s uninvited guest by his correct name, proving that even you have not been unaffected by the Peacock. Either that, or you are not as witless as you would have us all suppose. Interesting thought, isn’t it?”

St. Clair stuck his quizzing glass to his eye as he watched her go. “Odds fish, Ariana, I begin to believe I have petted our little country kitten just so she could hiss and scratch at me. I vow there is no gratitude left in this world. No gratitude at all, although I imagine Undercliff will be trailing after me soon, wearying me with his thanks. Ah, the tribulations of social consequence. Sometimes, dear lady, I question whether the prize is truly worth the trouble.”

“Anything is worth it to people like us, Christian, as social consequence remains the be-all and end-all of our existence,” Lady Ariana said quietly, watching Miss Laurence and Lord Buxley move off toward the supper rooms, mentally restructuring her earlier opinion of the young lady and wondering if it would not be possible to become friends with her, if just to bedevil St. Clair, who seemed to derive great pleasure from setting the two beauties at each other’s throats.

CHAPTER THREE

Men are but children of a larger growth.

John Dryden

THE SMALL PRIVATE STUDY situated on the second floor and to the rear of the St. Clair mansion in Hanover Square was crowded with long-legged men slouched at their ease in burgundy leather chairs ringing the blazing fireplace, their discarded jackets draped behind their heads, cravats hanging loose, snowy white shirts undone at the neck, their hands gripping glasses of warmed brandy, for the April day had gone damp and chilly.

Lord Osmond Osgood, who had stayed so long at the Undercliff Ball card tables the previous evening that his usually indifferent luck at gaming had finally turned in his favor sometime just before dawn, stretched and yawned widely as he languidly waved away Sir Gladwin Penley’s offer of a cheroot.

“Haven’t the energy, Winnie, thanks just the same,” he said. “Suckin’ in, blowin’ out, tappin’ the ashes. And there’s the singein’ of m’cravats, and fishin’ pieces of tobacco off m’tongue—and for what? Like the smell, can’t abide the taste. I’ll just breathe in whenever you blow a cloud if it’s all right with you. I say, did I tell you how much I won?” he ended, winking.

“That you did, Ozzie—twice,” Sir Gladwin answered dully, the rarely animated features of his long face assembled in their usual passionless expression. “And if you were to give me half the winnings to apply toward your outstanding bills, I would appreciate it. Having duns at our door is beginning to lose its novelty.”

“Warned you not to move in with Winnie, Ozzie. It’s like being married, but with no bedding privileges.” George Trumble, who had been eyeing the dish of comfits on the table beside him, rose, picked up the dish, and placed it out of harm’s way. He was beginning to see his stomach before he could catch sight of his toes and did not wish to end like his late father, who’d entirely let himself go until he had to be winched up onto his favorite horse.

“Kit,” George continued after seating himself once more, Lord Osgood’s description of the ennui to be found in smoking having interrupted his conversation with St. Clair, “are you convinced he didn’t recognize you? I can’t believe you dared to look him straight in the face, allowed him to hear your voice. That’s taking daring too far.”

“Now, Grumble, don’t fret like an old hen over her single pullet,” St. Clair answered, crossing one long, booted leg over the other. “Symington was much too dazzled by my glorious rig-out last night to connect me with his newfound nemesis. I told you that handkerchief was just the correct touch. Besides, I enjoyed myself thoroughly, which made the unexpected interlude worth any risk.”

“You know, Kit, at times I wonder if you can tell anymore where the play-acting ends and the truth begins, for I truly don’t understand you sometimes.”

“Ah, then I am become an enigma to you, Grumble?” St. Clair teased. “Would it help if we were to work out some sort of private signal which would alert you whether you were addressing Kit or London’s darling?”

George looked at his friend of more than twenty years, a man’s man who at least for this moment barely resembled the simpering, lace-edged-handkerchief-waving, overdressed fop who reigned supreme amongst the ton.

Christian’s buckskins were comfortably old and slightly shabby, his black, knee-high boots thoroughly polished but bare of tassels, his open-throated, full-sleeved white muslin shirt a far cry from the starched splendor of his evening clothes.

Even his chin-length blond hair, swept back severely and anchored with a satin ribbon whenever he was in Society, hung freely around his youthful, handsome face from a haphazard center part, giving the man the air of a swashbuckling pirate.

How George loved his friend, and how he worried for him.

“Look, Kit,” George began earnestly, hating the tone of pleading in his voice, “we’ve had a jolly good time these past months, and done a world of good, to my way of thinking, but perhaps we should draw back for a while. I mean, having Symington smack in front of us at Undercliff’s ball? That’s cutting it a slice too fine for my mind.”

“Spittin’ mad, wasn’t he?” Lord Osgood piped up, winking at George, who could only roll his eyes and look away. “Aw, come on, Grumble, don’t be such a sober prig. Consider it. Symington has issued us a challenge. We can’t back off now. It wouldn’t be sportin’.”

“True enough, Ozzie,” St. Clair agreed, pushing his spread fingers through his hair, allowing the heavy blond mane to fall toward his face once more. “Neither sporting nor honorable, in a skewed sort of way. As a matter of fact, I have already decided the Peacock should make Mr. Herbert Symington a return visit tomorrow evening, just to see if he has introduced the new rules to his mills.”

“And what about Undercliff?” Sir Gladwin asked, shifting slightly in his chair. “Symington isn’t in this alone. I still can’t picture it—Undercliff dabbling in trade.”

“Neither can I,” St. Clair agreed. “I’d have given a hefty sum to have been present when dear Gertie recovered sufficiently from her indelicate swoon to begin ripping strips off his lordship’s hide.”

“Yes, it must have been a jolly good ruckus,” Lord Osgood chimed in.

“But, be that as it may, my friends,” Sir Gladwin persisted mournfully, “we’re now left in the uncomfortable position of knowing we are attacking a fellow peer when we attack the Symington mills. The Peacock’s reputation as a rascal to be admired might suffer an irreparable dent if Society were to understand that, besides tweaking the mill owners and our dear nemesis, Sidmouth, he is also dipping a hand into the pockets of one of their own.”

George tried to hide a wince as he saw a steely look come into Christian’s eyes, and he hastened into speech. “Now, Winnie, you know the Peacock doesn’t exist for the titillation of Society. We have a mission, a serious mission. People are suffering untold horrors, and it is our duty to bring their plight to Society’s attention. Isn’t that right, Ozzie?”

“Never said it couldn’t be fun,” Lord Osgood grumbled into his glass, avoiding everyone’s eyes. “Besides, Kit tried it the other way, being hangdog serious and all in his single speech to the Lords, and look what it got him. Roasted the fella to a turn. Ain’t that right, Kit?”

St. Clair smiled at his friend. “Please, Ozzie, it isn’t polite to remind me of my debacle. That was so long ago, and the incident has luckily faded from most minds. Disappearing back into the countryside was the best thing I could do at the time, and my years in Paris proved a boon. No one remembers the Johnny Raw I was when they are being dazzled by the exquisite I have become.”

“And there’s not a man jack of them who wouldn’t fall to the floor, convulsed in hysterics, if anyone was to say you was the Peacock,” Sir Gladwin added. “Still, with everyone in town so hot to discover the Peacock’s identity, I can’t help but worry.”

“Good, Winnie,” St. Clair said, grinning. “You worry. Both you and Grumble do it very well.” Then, sobering, he turned to George to ask, “What did we get for Symington’s coach?”

George allowed himself to relax for a moment, happy to act in his role of St. Clair’s loyal “lieutenant” of sorts. He saw himself as the man who managed all the details of heroism or, as he was wont to think, played the part of crossing sweep, clearing Christian’s path of the mundane, and then going a step further, following after him with a sturdy broom, managing the consequences of his friend’s grandiose schemes.

It had been thus since their childhood: Kit dreaming up mad adventures and George making sure they had meat pies tucked up in their pockets before they ventured out for an afternoon of dragon slaying.

“Sufficient to buy twenty dozen pairs of clogs for the children in and around Little Pillington,” he told St. Clair, “and with enough left over to have weekly deliveries of bread to the town square for three months, deliveries I’ve already arranged. I didn’t sell the horses, though. They’re being ridden north by Symington’s coachman and groom, to the Midlands, where they can be of use to some of the few farmers still left on their land. All in all, Kit, a good night’s work, even if we didn’t have sufficient time to salvage much from that grotesque castle before we heard you coming and had to torch the place. It’s a shame Symington couldn’t stay later at his party.”

“I doubt Symington makes a pleasant guest. His host must have intelligently called for evening prayers an hour early, then quite happily waved dear Herbert on his way,” St. Clair commented, reaching into his pocket to draw out a scrap of paper. “Good work, George, as usual. I commend you. However, I received rather disconcerting news a few hours ago from our connection in Little Pillington.”

“What is it?” Lord Osgood asked, leaning forward as if to read the note himself.

“A hapless mill worker by the name of Slow Dickie was apprehended last night, lurking about somewhere in the area of Symington’s burnt mansion,” Christian told them, crushing the note into a ball and flinging it into the fire. “No one could say he was stealing, as they found nothing on him save a rather bedraggled peacock feather. So sad. I had imagined Symington saving the thing and perhaps having it preserved beneath a glass dome on his mantel. But that is beside the point. This Slow Dickie fellow is to be publicly whipped for trespass. We can’t have that, gentlemen.”

“Any suggestions?” George asked quickly, looking to the two other men, hoping to see some sign that either of them shared his growing unease. Or was he, George Trumble, the only one among them who saw what was happening?

More than a year before, Christian had brought his three oldest friends into his scheme to tweak both Lord Sidmouth’s and the communal Tory nose while bringing aid and comfort to the downtrodden at the same time. But what had been initiated for all the best intentions had begun to turn dangerous these past six months, not only for themselves, but for those downtrodden masses as well. Poor, hopeless, hopeful men like this Slow Dickie person, for one. Perhaps such insight was beyond Ozzie and Winnie. But didn’t Christian see what was happening?

Or was the proud Christian too consumed with avenging old grudges, with getting some of his own back from those who had scorned him, to recognize when enough was enough?

Although, in the beginning, Christian had been brilliant. If St. Clair’s fire-breathing, well-intentioned speech to the House of Lords all those years before had done little else, it had proven to him that the comfortable few were not about to put themselves out for the masses. George could still recall that inglorious day and the Member who had called out jeeringly, “Regulate the mill owners? Did you hear that? Next he’ll be taking up the Irish cause! Shout him down, my lords. Shout the seditious rascal down!”

St. Clair, George remembered, had been devastated by his first real defeat. A young man of means, with both wealth and privilege carved out by his forefathers and given to him as his birthright, St. Clair, who had helplessly watched Lord Sidmouth’s actions from the sidelines for several years, was convinced that he had been gifted with the money, the talent, and the courage to right the wrongs done the displaced farmers, turned-off soldiers, and exploited mill workers.

From the time they had been children together in Kent, George had known that Christian would always be a man with a mission, a man imbued with his father’s courage and his mother’s soft, caring heart. All Christian lacked was the power to convince his fellow peers of the folly of keeping their collective government heel on the peasantry’s collective neck. Taking his fight against exploitative mill owners, repressive Corn Laws, and other inequities to Parliament after Wellington’s soldiers returned to England to be met with high prices and no source of employment had been just the sort of thing the hotheaded St. Clair had deemed “reasonable.”

But, after his speech, the younger Christian had immediately been branded persona non grata in a society that did not appreciate having a mirror held up to its shortcomings. As he had told George when the two old friends had gotten woefully drunk that same night to commemorate Christian’s political debacle, he now knew that his would be a lone voice in the wilderness if he continued to be a firebrand for his unpopular causes.

But what could Christian do? He could, of course, give away his vast fortune to those less fortunate and earn himself the mantle of martyr, but he could do that only once, and the problem would not be solved.

As Christian had seen it, there was nothing else for it than that he should change his strategy. He had retired to Kent for a space to lick his wounds and anonymously set up charities George agreed to administer for him.

He had then departed alone for the glittering court of postwar France, stopping first in Calais to visit with a bitter but still brilliant Beau Brummell, trading dinners and gifts of wine for tidbits of helpful information on the exploitable weaknesses of Society from the acknowledged master of manipulation.

Once in Paris, that centuries-old hotbed of intrigue, Christian learned how even a young, brash, somewhat abrasive lad from the country could use the arts and cultured airs of the sophisticated gentleman to succeed where determination and belligerent indignation had failed.

The Baron Christian St. Clair who had finally returned to London was barely recognizable as being the same angry young fellow who had been in Society’s orbit for scarcely a sennight two Seasons earlier, for this Baron Christian St. Clair was exquisitely dressed, beautifully mannered, and a constant source of delight to both the gentlemen and their ladies.

To those he now enchanted, the baron was an elegant fop whose presence at any party was to be considered a social coup, a deep-in-the-pockets dandy with delicious notions as to fashion, an amusing dinner companion, and a clear favorite with the eligible debutantes and their doting mamas.

In short, George thought now with a wry smile, within the space of the first few weeks of his triumphant return to the city of his great embarrassment, Christian had wrought a veritable miracle, replacing the departed Beau Brummell as the most dazzling light in the glittering world of a ton eager to discover and then worship at the shrine of another dashing figure of manners and fashion.

Never giving up his private charitable contributions on behalf of the mill workers and other poor souls, Christian had begun to implement his influence with Society through wit and humor and his immense social consequence, tweaking them into awareness of the terrible problems that plagued England without them ever knowing he was doing it.

And the method of his enlightenment bordered on pure genius.

Letters to the London newspapers, eloquent, beautifully written letters, told of the terrible injustices of Sidmouth’s government, informing, educating, but without preaching. Each missive arrived at the newspaper offices accompanied by a single peacock feather, causing the interested but not very original publishers to dub their unknown contributor the Peacock.

While enjoying the social round, St. Clair made it a point to comment favorably on the concerned soul who was penning the letters. From that moment on it became de rigueur for all those in the ton to read these letters, even to commit the most affecting passages to memory in order to recite them at parties.

Every week another communication was published. Each related a sad tale of a despondent mother forced to sell her young son to a chimney sweep, or spoke of an old woman found starved to death in an alleyway, or profiled a father of ten incarcerated for debt and denied habeas corpus because he could not afford £25 for a lawyer.

The Peacock’s story of the plight of a crippled soldier—a man once seen fighting by the side of the Iron Duke at Salamanca—who had been caught stealing the piddling amount of five shillings’ worth of bacon, then sentenced to death because he was “undermining the whole structure of a free society and was not fit to live,” had been rumored to have reduced the Queen herself to tears.

One other particular column had caused quite a stir throughout Mayfair, with a rich and pampered Society lining up on either side of the issue as to whether or not a hapless youth should be hanged for chipping the balustrade of Westminster Bridge!

These letters, that gave the poor names and made them real, alive, and no longer faceless multitudes, had proven to be an inspiration. Soon the ton had been agog with delicious titillation, all the lords and their ladies certain that this mysterious, eloquent Peacock was one of them, but not knowing his true identity.

But, over time, it hadn’t been enough for Christian to make his peers aware of the problems. He needed the laws changed, and he lived for the day Lord Sidmouth and his hidebound Tory cronies were removed from power. Christian was impatient for change, too impatient to content himself with working entirely behind the scenes.

And that, George remembered now half joyfully, half worriedly, was when the Peacock’s further adventures had been conceived. Christian understood the ton now, had correctly deduced how their minds worked. He saw how they adored being amused, knew they universally despised ambitious mill owners and other tradesmen who believed their newfound wealth had earned them a higher rung on the social ladder, and cleverly surmised how they would rally behind a romantic figure who dashed about righting wrongs and causing Lord Sidmouth and all authority fits.

The first mill owner had bowed to the Peacock’s demands within a week—not twenty-four hours after his vacant country house had mysteriously burned to the ground. The victory was heady, delicious, and soon to be repeated, even enlarged to missions designed to rescue individuals from Lord Sidmouth’s zealous laws—with all of it reported to the populace every week in the Peacock’s entertaining letters.

George had seen this week’s letter before Christian had sent it on to the newspapers, and his comic depiction of the boorish, bombastic Herbert Symington was sure to send Society into convulsions of mirth at that ignorant, greedy man’s expense.

And so it was that Christian, who had carefully set himself up as the last possible person who could be the daring Peacock, was now free to listen to the growing discontent for Lord Sidmouth’s laws within Society, help the peasantry, feel as if he were living out his convictions, and have a jolly good time while he was about it.

Which, George had decided some weeks ago, was precisely the problem.

To George’s mind, since the advent of the Peacock’s adventures throughout the countryside several months ago, Christian had begun to lose sight of his initial mission. He—indeed, all of them—had been caught up in the thrill of the thing, the hairbreadth escapes from Sidmouth’s spies, the purposeful hoodwinking of Society, the power to bend mill owners to their demands.

And at what cost? Lord Sidmouth was drawing down on the masses more cruelly each day, punishing them with ever more oppressive edicts and deeper penalties, taking his revenge on them because he was thus far unable to capture the Peacock.

Now Symington—backed by Lord Undercliff’s fortune—had openly declared that he would not buckle under pressure from the Peacock’s threats. Would Symington hire his own private army of brigands to seek out Christian and the rest of them? It wasn’t inconceivable. And how many more men, poor wretches like this Slow Dickie person, would be made to suffer for Christian’s ideals?

George felt ashamed of himself, hated himself for what he was thinking. He was close to seeing himself as Christian’s Judas, a disciple who loved him dearly, admired him for his good works and high ideals, yet feared for what his friend was doing in the name of goodness. Judas had turned his friend over to his persecutors in the conviction he was helping him, helping those who blindly followed, believing in salvation. Would it come to that? Dear God, don’t let it come to that!

“Grumble? Grumble!” St. Clair called out, laughing. “For the love of heaven, man, pay attention. You’re staring at that candy dish as if it contained golden nuggets. Why not just throw some into your mouth and have done with it? God’s teeth, but that’s revolting. Port and sugarplums,” he said, shuddering. “Now listen for a moment. Winnie has concocted an idea as to what to do about the problem of Slow Dickie. You must hear what he has to say. It’s priceless, Grumble, I promise. Absolutely priceless!”

George looked up, shaking his head to clear it, happy to avoid Christian’s gaze by pretending to concentrate on Sir Gladwin’s scheme. “I know I’m going to regret this, but—what sort of idea, Winnie?”

Sir Gladwin pulled a face, slicing a look at St. Clair. “I don’t know as how I want to repeat it, seeing as how Kit is grinning like a bear.”

“Well, it is different, old friend,” Lord Osmond piped up, winking at George. “Especially that part about dressin’ up poor Grumble here as a washerwoman and settin’ him down in the village square as lookout. Grumble—you think you could manage a wriggle when you walk?”

George rolled his eyes, sighing. How could he have been so stupid? Kit was no Christlike figure, and he, George Trumble, was no traitorous disciple. To think so would be nothing short of blasphemous. They were, all four of them, nothing more than overgrown children, perhaps a little more caring than some, and definitely more foolishly adventuresome than most—but still fairly ordinary, in their own twisted way. Unfortunately, they had placed themselves in extraordinary positions.

George reached for the candy dish. No wonder he ate so much, he thought, sighing again. If he didn’t, he shouldn’t have the strength to worry so much. “Never mind, Winnie. You’re right. I don’t want to hear it.”

Christian stood up, then leaned one arm negligently against the mantelpiece. “Very well, Grumble. You’re aptly named, I’ll grant you that. I suppose we should move on. After all, I have promised to grace the theater this evening and must soon begin considering my rig-out. Do you suppose the peach would suit? I shouldn’t wish to clash with the draperies.”

Sir Gladwin frowned, obviously considering St. Clair’s question as if it really mattered, which everyone else knew it didn’t. “I don’t know, Kit. Refresh my memory: What color are the draperies?”

George chewed another sugarplum, then quickly swallowed both the confection and his guilt. “Leave it, Winnie,” he said. “Kit’s only trying to muddle our minds so we’ll be confused enough to accept his plan to rescue this poor Slow Dickie fellow. You do have a plan bubbling inside that clever head of yours, don’t you, my friend?”

St. Clair nodded, then flashed his closest friend a bright smile as he took his seat once more, perched just at the edge of the chair, obviously eager to lay his plan out for his friends. “I never could fool you, could I, Grumble? Yes, I have a plan; one that will serve us in two ways. Grumble, Winnie’s notions of you as a washerwoman to one side, tell me: Are you up for a bit of play-acting?”

George stopped his hand inches from his mouth, the sugarplum hanging suspended in air as he narrowed his eyes, looking at St. Clair. “Why?” he asked, already sure he didn’t wish to hear his friend’s answer.

St. Clair leaned back in his chair, still smiling. “No real reason. Let’s just say there is a certain beautiful young lady whose keen intelligence I have never doubted but whose shallow priorities disgusted me. Let us also say that this certain young lady has now shown not only the usual hysterical female interest in the Peacock’s identity but also an unnerving acuity which must be deflected. In other words—”

“Don’t play the dandy with me, Kit. In plain words,” George interrupted, sensing danger, “Gabrielle Laurence is beginning to pierce your disguise—or thinks she is. Damn and blast, Kit, I told you to stay away from her. She’s not brick-stupid like Lady Ariana and the rest. And Miss Laurence is also not at all grateful to you for bringing her into fashion when she was determined to accomplish that feat on her own. I doubt she appreciates going to her bed each night wondering if the great St. Clair is going to cut her the next day, destroying her.”

“True enough, Kit,” Sir Gladwin added. “She don’t like you above half, and anyone with a clear eye can see it. And, the way Grumble tells it, I don’t know as how I can blame her. We all warned you not to tease the chit.”

“Ah, gentlemen,” St. Clair said, pressing his hands to his chest and raising his pitch a notch as he deftly employed the affected tones he used to such advantage in Society, “but I do so delight in her dislike.”

“Well, there’s always that, I suppose,” Lord Osgood said, winking as he snatched the candy dish from George, obviously not bothered that he too would be abusing his palate by mixing fine port with the sugary confections. “Though I never thought I’d live to see you tumble into love, Kit.”

“Love?” George exploded, taken totally off-guard. “Ozzie, however did you come up with such a ridiculous notion?”

“I didn’t,” Lord Osgood answered simply as George looked up at St. Clair in an assessing manner from beneath hooded eyes. “I just now remembered my Aunt Cora once tellin’ me I was top over tail in love with m’cousin Abigail because I was always pinchin’ her. Of course, we were both little more than infants at the time, and when Abby up and married that Dutchman last year I didn’t turn a hair. Never mind, Kit. Sorry I mentioned it.”

“Thinks nothing of it, Ozzie,” St. Clair answered, but, George noticed uneasily, for once his friend’s smile did not quite reach his eyes.

CHAPTER FOUR

La! Did you ever see such an unpleasant person?

I hope when I grow old I shan’t look like that.

Baroness Orczy

FRAPPLE, I’M SO DAMNABLY tired. All that dashing about from here to there last night, and no less than three different parties this evening, with everyone demanding my presence…” Christian trailed off wearily, collapsing into a chair in his dressing room. “I seem to remember hearing of some equally exhausted man putting a period to his existence some years ago because he had been so defeated by this constant dressing and undressing.”

“I shall have the kitchen staff sequester all the knives at once, my lord,” Frapple answered calmly, continuing to layout his master’s apple-green velvet evening clothes. “And don’t muss your breeches by slouching, if you please. Meg had the devil’s own time pressing them.”

“How good of you to worry so for Meg. Do I scent a romance in the air, Frapple?”

“Hardly, my lord. Riding herd on you at all hours, when would I find the time?” A tall, still ramrod-straight man of two and fifty, Frapple had been Christian’s trusted adviser and man-of-all-work since his lordship had been in short coats, and he did not frazzle easily. Indeed, as he was rumored to be the by-blow of the baron’s great-uncle Clarence St. Clair, he may have come by his flippant nonchalance quite naturally, just as he had come by his slowly graying blond hair and thin, aquiline nose. If it weren’t for the man’s mustache, and his more advanced years, in a dim light Frapple might even be taken for an older Christian.

In any event, Christian loved him as he would have the older brother he’d never had, and Frapple returned this affection, although he refused to allow his lordship to forget their very disparate stations in life.

Christian smiled now at the man he privately considered to be the best of his relatives, then yawned widely. “I won’t be returning home this evening, Frapple, if you wish to spare a moment for romance,” he said, raising his legs in front of him so that he would admire his new evening shoes. “I need to travel to Little Pillington to remind Herbert Symington of my existence. Thank God I’m known not to tarry too long at any one party, and won’t be missed. If I’m lucky, I should be in Little Pillington at least two hours before dawn.”

“You won’t allow yourself to be caught, will you?” Frapple asked, intent on examining his lordship’s chosen lace neckpiece for wrinkles before sighing, roughly stuffing the offending thing into his pocket, and removing its twin from the cabinet.

“Frapple!” Christian exclaimed. “Don’t tell me you’re worried about me.”

“Not in the slightest, my lord,” the servant answered, already heading for the door to the hallway, the apple-green velvet jacket in his hand. “It’s only that I’m much too long in the tooth to have to begin again with a new employer. Why, the man might even think I’d kowtow to him. Now, I’m just going to have Meg do something with this left sleeve. It’s rather crushed. Please, my lord, as I may be detained for some minutes, I must beg that you do not change your mind about your rig-out for the evening and endeavor to dress yourself. We both, I hope, remember the disaster that befell the ecru satin.”

Christian nodded and waved Frapple on his way, not wishing to revisit the subject of the form-fitting ecru satin jacket and the seam he had split in attempting to don it without aid, or even to think of any of his Society clothing.

If he had his druthers, which he of course did not, he would step back in time and attempt to bring into vogue a more comfortable, less constricting fashion than he had done in reinventing flamboyant Georgian dress. Thank God he’d stopped short of powdering his hair.

He rose from his chair and drifted into the adjoining bedchamber, seating himself at the desk he used when composing his weekly letters to the London newspapers. What would be his subject for next week? Would he tell of the mill workers he had seen who’d been crippled by faulty machinery, their thumbs mashed into useless lumps of nothingness? No. That might unduly upset the ladies, who did not appreciate detailed descriptions of gore served up with their morning chocolate.

Starving babies were more to the ladies’ tastes, Christian had already learned. The ladies could delicately weep into their handkerchiefs between helpings of coddled eggs and bemoan the fate of the “poor, wretched darlings” without having to do more than send off a bank draft to one of the local orphanages. It was so morally uplifting, this generosity that soothed their shallow consciences and that cost them nothing but money.

Christian propped his elbows on the desktop and rested his head on his hands. He was tired. So tired. And it had little to do with the endless social whirl, his private missions, or even the strain of keeping his two identities separate from each other.

He was tired of the poverty, the heartache, the sad, hollow eyes and the crying mothers. He was tired of hearing about men such as Slow Dickie, being beaten merely because he could not defend himself against being beaten.

He was exhausted by the futility of saving a few while the many still suffered. He was weary of this back-door subterfuge meant to waken his peers to the desperate plight of those they would call the “solid English citizenry.”

But mostly, Christian was angry. How could his fellow peers be so blind, so damnably selfish, so fearful of the masses that they would be foolish enough to incite them to insurrection?

His peers. Idiots! Jackals! The whole bloody lot of them! Christian slammed a fist against the tabletop, jarring the small lidded crystal bowl holding his supply of ink. All they cared about was the cut of their coats, the latest gossip, and clinging to their supposed superiority with all their might.

When Christian went into Society he did it to hold up a looking glass to their foibles, showing them with his own overdressed, overly impressed-with-himself posture the folly of worshiping such cultivated shallowness and hoping they would somehow summon up the brainpower to compare their pampered, wasteful, wasted lives with the majority of their countrymen who had to scrabble for their daily bread.

Yes, he had pricked their consciences. Yes, a few of them now interested themselves in good works. Yes, they slyly ridiculed Lord Sidmouth as they went down the dance, tsk-tsking at his insistence upon championing the master over the servant. But they did it only to mimic the popular Baron St. Clair, to show their wit, and to prove their “humanity.” Not a man jack of them had yet dared to stand up in Parliament to say a word against either Lord Sidmouth or his oppressive edicts.

Christian balled his hands into fists, feeling wave after wave of angry impotence wash over him. Setting himself up as the leading influence in Society had not been enough. The letters had not been enough. Only when the Peacock had begun to ride had any real changes come to places like “Mud City” and other squalid manufacturing villages in the Midlands.

Only when Christian had escalated his mission from cajoling, to eloquence, to violence, had most of the ton even acknowledged that there might be some real injustice to be found in the oppressive Corn Laws and the working conditions in the mills.

And still they didn’t really understand. Instead of emulating the Peacock, Society had decided to be dazzled by him, and to set themselves the project of discovering his true identity.

What a waste. What a damnable, damning waste! And for what? A few dozen pairs of clogs? One more crust of bread for the sad-eyed, stick-thin children of the mill workers? One less hour of near slavery in an already interminable workday?

Christian could see the growing disillusionment in George Trumble’s eyes, sense the unspoken questions, the quiet censure. Their mission, begun with such enthusiasm, such purity of purpose, had grown almost beyond their control, the tail now beginning to wag the dog, their ever-increasingly dangerous exploits demanded by an easily distracted Society’s hunger for more adventure, more excitement, more titillation, more, more, more.

And now Herbert Symington and his partner, the powerful if obtuse Lord Undercliff, had dared to challenge the Peacock’s one great success. Turning fire-starter had not been pleasant for Christian, but what had been an impulsive ploy had immediately proved effective. Mill owners were beginning to ease their stranglehold on their workers on their own, in the hope the Peacock would then spare their houses, their possessions.

However, if Christian were to allow Symington to best him, the work of these last six months—indeed, the success of the past year and more—would all vanish in the twinkling of an eye.

For Christian knew Society now, had learned all about it at the knee of the disenchanted Brummell, and he recognized that English Society loved only one thing more than raising a person onto a pedestal.

That one thing, as Brummell’s disgrace had shown so clearly, was to topple him off again.

And if Christian St. Clair were to fall, if the Peacock were to fail, then the poor would have no champion left to them. Men like Slow Dickie would have put themselves in jeopardy for nothing.

Was it any wonder Christian was so tired? Tired, and disillusioned, and thoroughly disgusted with his fellow man. Was he the only person in London with the intelligence to understand that, unless something were done to alleviate the suffering of the many, it was inevitable that the privileged few would eventually become equal victims of their degenerating civilization?

England was stunting the physical and spiritual growth of an entire generation, a generation of children uprooted from their farms and villages and forced into slums, away from sunlight and open fields.

An entire generation was being raised without mothers close by to teach them, without seeing the inside of either church or school, watching their mothers and sisters turning slattern with poverty, their fathers and brothers either beaten down in the mills or becoming hard, cruel, reckless men whose only ease came either in a pint of cheap gin or in bashing one of their fellows senseless for no other reason than violence brought with it a modicum of power.

Yet in London the chandeliers still glittered, the supper-room tables groaned beneath piles of exotic foodstuffs, the sound of music, and laughter, and the rustling of silken skirts, echoed throughout ballrooms from one end of Mayfair to the other.

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 absurdité! 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, fêted, 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.

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