Page 43 of A Gentleman’s Offer

Prologue

The London Season, June 1803

It was a glittering, glamorous scene from a generation ago, before the Terror, before the King and Queen and so many others lost their heads to Madame Guillotine. The theme of the costume ball in the grand mansion in Mayfair was Old Versailles. The ballroom was white and gold, lined with tall mirrors, before which sat great pyramids of highly scented flowers in the same colours – a perfect setting for the small orchestra and the whirling dancers.

The height of fashion now demanded austere modern simplicity: straight white Grecian muslin gowns for the debutantes, set off by a backdrop of plain dark evening coats in the masculine style made so popular by Mr Brummell. But the young ladies and gentlemen present seemed to be enjoying the rare opportunity this evening gave them to parade in all the splendour of bright silk, lace, velvet and embroidery, as their parents and grandparents had not so long ago. They flirted behind fans, and bowed and curtseyed to each other with exaggerated politeness, laughing as they did so, as though they were children playing at dressing up as princes and princesses.

Many ladies, and some of the more daring gentlemen, had painted their faces in the old style and placed velvet patches here and there to enhance their beauty. Few people had gone so far as to set ridiculous tall wigs upon their heads, but some of them had chosen to powder their own hair silver, and most of the ladies sported elaborate old-fashioned coiffures adorned with ribbons and feathers. It was a colourful scene, and cheerful, unless any of the participants chose to reflect that it was all an illusion, and a recreation of a way of life, now gone forever, that had ended in disaster.

It wasn’t a masquerade ball. Nobody was disguised, apart from the unfamiliarity granted them by the costumes and the unusual ways they’d dressed their hair. Rafe, self-conscious in pale blue velvet embroidered with silver, shaking his hands free from trailing lace shirt cuffs, reflected that for him the shelter of a mask would have been most welcome. He was aware, as he always must be when mixing in society, of the sidelong glances and muttering that followed him about, and of that whispered word that he had come to hate, and yet could never avoid, because it was his own name, and his father’s: Wyverne.

He knew exactly what people were saying, even if he couldn’t overhear the actual words, since such poisonous gossip had been the constant backdrop to his life for years now, though he was barely three and twenty. He didn’t need to hear the scandalised enjoyment in their voices to know it was there. ‘That’s Wyverne’s boy, Lord Drake. Yes, the tall, young fellow in blue with the dark eyes. The Viscount. Eligible? Well, I dare say he is, if all you care for is the great fortune and the title. I suppose it is no great surprise he was invited, and since he is here, he clearly has no shame. But would you want to ally yourself with that family? Would you really care to be on visiting terms with them? The father is quite bad enough, as all the world knows, but let us not forget the stepmother, if you can call her that. A common hussy from the stage – and that’s the more respectable portion of her career! My dear, you must have heard the latest shocking rumours…’

It was no wonder Rafe generally avoided such gatherings, and lived his life in the country or in Oxford, as far away from London as he could. As a student and a green boy, he’d sometimes tried to argue with people who looked at him askance, to confront their prejudices head-on, but he was wiser now; he’d realised through painful experience that you might as well try to reason with the weather, or command an avalanche to stop tumbling down a mountain. He hated with a passion being the subject of scandal, but it was a fact of his life. He’d have said that nobody could enjoy such notoriety, except that it was perfectly clear that his father did enjoy it – revelled in it, took pleasure in provoking such shocked reactions, and in proving to the world that he wasn’t as bad as he was rumoured to be – he was much worse. The Marquess of Wyverne, he knew, was in London too this June, staying in his town house, for purposes Rafe didn’t want to consider, but his son and heir was not sleeping under his roof or calling on him there. He never did. He had as little to do with his father as was possible. At least the Marquess was most unlikely to be here tonight; this was hardly his sort of party.

But Lord Drake’s close friend and neighbour Simon Venables, who had been his youthful tutor at Oxford, was to be married in a few days, and Rafe had found himself included in the cheerful wedding party. It really would have been excessively ungrateful and churlish to refuse to participate in such a joyous series of celebrations. God forbid he should cast even the smallest of clouds over Simon and Elizabeth’s innocent pleasure, especially since he was best man. So he was staying in Simon’s family home in Half-Moon Street, and had agreed to come to this ball, and other, similar events. It would do the Viscount a great deal of good, Simon had said, to mix with people. To mix with young ladies, in particular, as any man of three and twenty should.

Simon was the best of friends, but he was also a minister in holy orders, and he believed – despite strong evidence to the contrary provided by Rafe’s father’s disastrous marital career, or even his grandfather’s – that the wedded state was the source of all human bliss. Rafe was perhaps a little young to settle down, even in the Reverend Mr Venables’s estimation – but he was showing worrying signs of becoming a recluse, and therefore this was an excellent opportunity for him to spend time in refined feminine society for a change. To show his willingness to be sociable, Rafe had already danced with Elizabeth, the bride-to-be, and with her sisters, and with Simon’s sister Mary. He was not well acquainted with any of these ladies, but they were all perfectly pleasant and friendly. No doubt they had been reassured in advance by Simon and his mother that, despite his family’s atrocious reputation, Rafe himself would not offer them any insult, nor whisper words in their ears that would bring a blush to their innocent cheeks. He was, whatever the world might think of him, not his father.

And here was Lady Venables again, wider than she was tall in a flowered gown with huge panniers, like a sort of mobile sofa, bustling him away. She was obviously bent on continuing her son’s campaign to raise Rafe’s spirits, this time by presenting him to a young lady who was not a member of their own party, which made him suddenly nervous of the girl’s reaction, in case she should recoil from him in horror, to the embarrassment of all three of them. But Simon’s mama was inexorable. ‘Mademoiselle de Montfaucon,’ she said firmly, refusing to meet Rafe’s gaze, ‘may I present Lord Drake to you as a partner for the next set?’

He bowed correctly, inwardly wincing, uttering a polite greeting. It was clearly far too late to withdraw without insulting the debutante who stood before him, which he had not the least desire to do. Perhaps, he thought desperately, since her name suggested that she was a French émigrée, she might not be aware of the Wyverne reputation, or the horrible rumours that swirled about his own name in particular. She was smiling at him shyly, and murmuring acceptance, so that appeared to be so, thank goodness.

She was a beauty. Rafe had no interest in young ladies making their come-out, and no intention of involving one of these innocents, ever, in the slowly unfolding disaster that was his family. But he was a healthy twenty-three-year-old, and could not help but notice the young lady’s sweet, expressive face, her lively brown eyes and spectacular red-blonde curls, piled up on her head in a style that became her greatly. The heavy coiffure emphasised the graceful curve of her neck, and her queenly bearing. Presumably she was indeed an aristocrat whose family had fled the Revolution; she’d have been a small child in 1793. Too young to remember anything of that dreadful time? He had quite a lot of experience of children, through his younger half-siblings, and he thought not. But whatever her private feelings might be on this occasion – he wouldn’t be at all surprised if she considered it more than a touch tasteless – she was composed and exquisite in pale green silk embroidered with pink, and perfectly in tune with the theme of the ball, as if she’d stepped straight from a painting by Boucher or Fragonard.

Mademoiselle de Montfaucon put her hand in his, and he bowed over it, and led her to the dance floor, saying, ‘It would be my pleasure, mademoiselle.’ He realised with some surprise that it would, in fact, be a pleasure. His partner had not yet cultivated the boredom that debutantes soon understood was required of them; she did not sigh, look about her wearily and say languidly, ‘It is a sad crush tonight, is it not, sir?’ As the dance began, her dark eyes were sparkling with infectious enjoyment; brighter, he thought, and far more naturally appealing, than the enormous and impressive pink jewel she wore about her neck, striking fire in the candlelight as they twirled about.

Any observer, standing aside and watching them, must surely have thought that they made a pretty pair in their silk and velvet finery, both so young and handsome, the lady fair and vivacious, the dark gentleman perhaps more serious in nature, but still looking down at her now, plainly charmed by her delight, an attractive smile transforming his previously rather stern, forbidding young features. Perhaps five years separated them in age, and it would require a heart of stone, surely, not to be touched by the picture they presented in their fairy tale costumes, if one could ignore the rumours for a moment or two. They could easily have been Cinderella and her prince.

But Rafe would not have been so carefree if he had seen who was tracking their movements from the shadows at the edge of the room, eyes hot and avid, gaze unwavering, pale face set in harsh, cynical lines. The watcher – who appeared to be perfectly capable of resisting the innocent charm of the scene that was playing out before his eyes – was a man in his sixties, dressed even more opulently than the rest of the throng, bearing several elaborate jewelled decorations upon his black velvet coat and diamond rings upon his thin fingers. He seemed quite at his ease, even though nobody spoke to him and there was a little space around him in the crowded room that suggested an odd reluctance of fellow guests to stray too close, as if they feared some physical or moral infection. Again the scandalised whispers raced around the room at lightning speed; again those ladies and gentlemen whose self-control was less than perfect craned their necks quite blatantly to see. Even those who professed complete fashionable indifference shot a sly glance or two the old man’s way, since one surely could not be blamed for wishing to set eyes upon the notoriously wicked Marquess in the flesh.

It was Lord Wyverne, and he watched his son and the lovely young girl as they danced not with fatherly pride, or even aristocratic indifference, but with the dark, intense, pitiless focus of a hunter with his prey.

Chapter One

Spring, 1811 - eight years later

Sophie, which was not her name, stood with self-possession in front of the Marchioness, while that lady surveyed her keenly from head to foot. The older woman – she was perhaps forty, lushly beautiful, voluptuous, skilfully painted even in her own boudoir – saw, she knew, a perfect lady’s companion in every tiny detail of Sophie’s appearance. She was immaculately presented, in a demure, high-necked gown of sober grey hue, which the Marchioness might assume had been given to her by a previous employer (it hadn’t). She was of medium height, and medium build, and her locks, which were an unmemorable shade of dark brown (they were dyed), were drawn back sleekly into a bun at the back of her head. Her hair was dead straight, and did not draw attention to itself in any way, as was entirely proper. She wore no rouge or perfume; her prospective employer was wearing enough for both of them. Sophie’s eyes were large and dark, quick with intelligence, and she could hardly have appeared any more French if she had been singing the Marseillaise and waving a tricolour flag, instead of standing sedately, hands folded, in a lady’s sitting room in Brook Street. Her insistent Frenchness might have been a drawback in other circumstances, in these desperate times of war, but no; for this situation, a Frenchwoman was specifically required. She had counted on that.

She’d told the Marchioness that she’d been brought to London as a tiny infant, Monsieur and Madame Delavallois, her parents, having fled the Terror like so many others, losing everything – their modest fortune, their small estate in Picardy – except their lives. The Delavallois family had really existed, though they were conveniently dead now – all this could be checked, if anyone cared to do so, and the affecting tale, if she were in fact their daughter, would make her twenty-one. She was in reality fully five years older, but Lady Wyverne, if she noticed, didn’t appear to care. Perhaps she thought, with some justice, that such a life as Sophie’s aged a girl before her time. The lady would know more than a lady should about such matters, since it was common gossip that she’d been born in poverty and made a living as an actress of sorts before her extraordinary, scandalous marriage to a marquess.

Faux Sophie had good references, which would stand a great deal of scrutiny, though they were all of them purest fiction. The first lady she had supposedly served, when she’d been a mere girl of sixteen, had gone to India to join her parents, leaving a very affecting and entirely uncheckable testimonial behind for her young companion. (It should be affecting; Sophie had written it herself.)

Mlle Delavallois had next, so she claimed, been the chief support of the wife of a dashing young cavalry officer, left alone while her husband served overseas for prolonged periods. This lady, who did actually exist, was of high birth but recklessly impecunious. Lady Wyverne was not to know that the pressing nature of the woman’s debts put her entirely in the power of others, most unscrupulous others, and anxious to retain their favour. She had been more than happy to put her name to a reference for an employee she’d never met.

Sophie had then apparently bettered her situation by entering the household of a widow, relic of the younger son of an earl. This lady had no debts to speak of, a matter for congratulation, but she did have secrets, and a spurious letter of recommendation was a small price to pay to see that they were kept. Sophie had, she said, attended her noble employer on visits to several notable country houses, and could reassure her prospective mistress that she knew exactly how to go on there. Rosanna Wyverne had unwittingly this much in common with her supposed predecessor – she too had secrets aplenty. But Sophie knew them all already.

The Marchioness asked why Mlle Delavallois had left her most recent employment. ‘You were not dismissed, I hope?’

‘Mais non, milady.’ Sophie was very French just now. ‘Her ladyship remarried, to a country gentleman, and so was no longer in need of a companion. In any case, they intend to live a very quiet life, residing entirely on his small estate in the county of Cumberland.’ Cumberland, pronounced by Sophie, had a great many syllables, which somehow conveyed a strong impression of uncouth remoteness. ‘It was a great romance.’ Sophie produced the words ‘small estate’ as another might say ‘dung-heap’, and ‘country gentleman’ as another might say ‘ratcatcher’.

The Marchioness smiled, showing teeth. She was amused, and her silken gown – it was red, and very elaborate – rustled. ‘You do not care for small estates in the remote country, Mademoiselle Delavallois?’

‘Non, madame. Pas le moindre.’ She shuddered; it might have been considered excessively theatrical, perhaps, but she knew what was expected of her.

‘Nor do I,’ said Lady Wyverne. ‘So excessively tedious, I am sure. Setting aside my poor mother-in-law and her odd requirements, which I am sure you will fulfil admirably, I think we shall deal excellently together. Or we shall as long as you always remember your place.’ Her voice was suddenly sharp, as were her eyes, and her voice grew markedly less genteel and languid as she said, ‘You are young, but I do not think you are foolish. Do what you are employed to do, and no more. I don’t give a fig if you engage in squalid intrigues in the servants’ hall. You may take a tumble with half the footmen and all the grooms for all I care. That’s your affair entirely. But if I catch you flirting with members of the family or any of my guests, you will find yourself cast out without wages or references so fast your feet won’t touch the ground. Do you understand me, missy?’

Sophie reassured the Marchioness that she did, and she was perfectly sincere in her assurances. She wasn’t there to flirt, and had no interest in romance or any kind of intrigue. The footmen and grooms would be perfectly safe, as would the men of the Wyverne family, who were truly the last people on earth she wanted any involvement with. The woman was unnecessarily warning her newest employee off her husband, which might be considered natural enough, especially given the Marquess’s atrocious reputation, but also her stepson, Lord Drake. As all the world so shockingly knew, Lady Wyverne’s interest in him could hardly be described as motherly.

But all this scandal in high life was no concern of Sophie’s, unless it could somehow work to her advantage, which seemed unlikely. She would be a very good companion, discreet and industrious, so that the Marchioness would be entirely satisfied with her work, and very happy with her own wise choice. Until suddenly she wouldn’t be.

Everything was arranged to both women’s satisfaction, and afterwards Sophie left the tall house and disappeared into the dusk. Ladies could not walk unaccompanied about the streets of London, but Sophie was not precisely a lady, or at least not one of the least consequence. She was, or appeared to be, an unremarkable female in a modest bonnet and a simple grey cloak, and nobody paid her the least attention. She walked, and enjoyed the freedom.

The partial freedom. She was always alert, naturally. If men looked at her, she cast down her eyes meekly – not too meekly, just the correct amount of humility – and maintained her pace. She was brisk, purposeful; above all, she was not prey. Meeting anyone’s glance could be dangerous. Being a woman abroad alone could be dangerous. It was a little early for a gentleman to be drunk – no, that was ridiculous, a gentleman could be drunk at any hour. She could not afford to be careless, and was not.

Her route was somewhat circuitous, and if anyone had been following her through the darkening streets – but why should they? – they would soon have found it impossible to keep their eyes upon one nondescript little figure among all the evening bustle of the great, dirty city.

She left the fashionable part of town soon enough, and London changed as she walked eastwards. Oddly for such a respectable-seeming woman, the confidence of her posture seemed to grow when it should have declined. She was in Seven Dials now, the Rookery, a place where the constables would hesitate to go, and certainly would not go alone. But she stepped around piles of noisome refuse and groups of disreputable-looking loiterers as though she had not a worry in the world. People watched her, but did not attempt to accost her. When a drunken costermonger lurched accidentally into her path, the sharp look she sent him made him shrink away, babbling apologies.

At last she reached a low tavern, a boozing ken, the unlikeliest of destinations for an honest woman, and made her way confidently inside. The ancient, panelled room was not well lit, and very crowded, but she passed surely through the haze of pipe-smoke and tallow fumes, and when the patrons saw her they drew apart as best they could to make a path. It was odd that they should show such deference to one so unremarkable and unintimidating in appearance, for some of them, men and women both, had the aspect of creatures out of nightmare. Their persons, their faces, and above all their watchful, glittering eyes, told a disturbing story. Any objective observer with a modest degree of imagination would surely have said that the room looked to be full of robbers, whores and murderers, which indeed it was. But the young woman seemed entirely unconcerned. She slipped behind the bar, saying, ‘Hello, Fred, all well?’

The tapster – a tall, imposing man with the battered features of a former prize-fighter – nodded and let her pass into the inner room, saying, ‘He’s waiting for you,’ as he closed the scarred wooden door behind her.

She threw off her drab cloak and untied her bonnet, setting them down upon a chest beside the fire. There was a man there, seated behind a desk, looking through some papers, and he did not speak, but raised an enquiring eyebrow.

‘Yes,’ she said in response to some unspoken query. ‘She gave me the position.’

‘As we knew she would.’

‘Indeed. One of the other candidates, a young woman with excellent references who was expected an hour before me, did not appear, and sent no word to explain why. Lady Wyverne was highly vexed.’

‘Most unaccountable,’ he said calmly.

‘She wasn’t harmed?’ Hard to say if this was truly a question.

Again the mobile eyebrow shot up. ‘Of course not. She is a little better off than she was yesterday, and the next plum situation that arises will be hers. I have said so.’ This rather odd statement was uttered with supreme confidence. ‘She was… persuaded that to work at Brook Street and, most of all, at Wyverne Hall would not have suited her constitution, and given the nature of the place, this may even be true.’

‘It may not suit mine.’

‘I dare say it won’t. But you can look after yourself.’

‘As you taught me.’

He inclined his head. He was a man past his middle years, and his neutral speech – he used no low cant, just now, nor did he swear – made it difficult to place him, for anyone who didn’t know exactly who and what he was. He didn’t look or sound as though he belonged in this place, which could have been described with perfect accuracy as a notorious den of thieves. Yet this was plainly his private room, and he seemed entirely at home here. He was short, spare of frame, nondescript (this had been useful in the past). His eyes and hair were of no particular colour, and his clothes were as unremarkable as they could be. In a society where status and position were everything, he gave little away. He could have been a tradesman in a small but prosperous way, a middling clerk in some government office, a solicitor in a backwater town. A confidential servant, perhaps, to a gentleman of rank. Yes, that. He projected an air of quiet confidence, and competence. One would instinctively trust such a man.

One would be seriously mistaken.