Page 13 of My Lady Melisende (Ladies Least Likely #6)

CHAPTER TWELVE

T hey moved through the parlor that was usually dedicated to dining, and Melisende was pleased to see that, all else aside, the count’s masquerade was a crush. With the lavish foliage and the lamps of scented oil, the count’s guests wandered through a garden paradise, sensual and exotic. The fruit trees were rented, the palms had been purchased from the royal gardens at Kew Park, and each of the count’s friends who had glasshouses had been busy forcing blooms in the past weeks, but it had all come together beautifully.

A circuit past the dessert table proved that the extra kitchen staff had outdone themselves. The chef’s centerpiece was an Acropolis of Athens made of sugar and fondant, with the temples to Athena designed to scale. The detail was exquisite—even the pillars on the Parthenon were fluted—and Melisende knew it had taken weeks to prepare.

She’d enjoyed planning the count’s ball, a welcome distraction while she tracked down the last three books. It had been a way to keep her skills sharp, for if all went as planned and she secured the patent, she would one day soon be planning entertainments in her own country for her father’s guests. She would be coming to the council table with skills and knowledge that would help her father govern, and her in his place when the time came.

Yet all the time she had been planning this for Voronsky, in and out of his house like a daughter, he was plotting against her.

She was no stranger to betrayal; her uncle’s turning of his coat had cut deep. But for Voronsky to surprise her meant she had not been vigilant. She had not learned her lesson about what she shared, and with whom.

A chill wound its way up her neck at a sudden realization. She had trusted Philip Devlin, a complete stranger, with a great deal. She’d entangled herself with a thief, and not long after, another thief had left her with scars.

Devlin couldn’t have been responsible for the attack in Lyon. And he’d seemed so earnest, telling her how he’d tried to track down her attacker. She paused before one of the tall windows, draped in royal blue brocade. Philip glanced out the window at the street, checking his environment out of long habit, and instead of pleasing her, his wariness was now a warning.

What if he were lying to her, too?

“What are you holding against the count?” she asked softly.

He met her eyes. “Nothing personally. Lord North had him watched—North was prime minister before Rockingham, I think you know. North wanted the Empress Catherine’s help fighting the American Colonies—likely you know that too.”

Melisende nodded. “The British tried to offer her the island of Minorca in return for her assistance. She rebuffed them and formed the League of Armed Neutrality instead. I imagine your Lord North felt the sting, but that does not make her ambassador a traitor.”

“He has only ever upheld the Russian cause in public, true. But in private, the count has expressed his sympathy for the rebels and their radical notions about self-government and the rights of man. And he’s facilitated the intellectual exchange his empress encourages, with French intellectuals and musicians circulating at her court.”

“Art and ideas can be shared even when politics are not.”

“But you can imagine how the British government feels about the rhetoric from the patriots, encouraging rebellions, the arming of militia, claims that King George is a tyrant.”

“Where do your sympathies lie?”

He gave her a slow grin that curled her toes in her shoes. She was behaving like a weak, foolish woman.

“I’m Irish at the core, highness. I’m with the rebels. But your Voronsky wears two faces, one he shows in public and one he shows to his friends. I want to know which face his power and money are serving.”

“We all have many faces we show to the world, do we not?”

Melisende knew how to flirt. She’d practiced as a survival tactic in dangerous courts and as a means of getting what she wanted. But when she drew her finger along Philip’s bare forearm, the spark inside her wasn’t flirtation. She wanted to draw off his facade and crumple it in her fist. She wanted to see the real man beneath.

He faced her fully, and though only an inch or two taller than she was, she sensed his strength. He was a dangerous man.

“I do not think your faces are false, highness.” His voice dropped in pitch. “I think you are only ever what you are.”

“And what is that?” she whispered.

“A ruler. A conqueror and a queen.”

The air rippled between them. She wanted to place her hand on his chest, feel his heartbeat, know if he was as affected as she was at being with him. A delicious heat, hungry and wild, knotted in her belly.

Lord Pinochle popped up before them, his heavy features arranged in a leer. “And what have we here? Spartacus? Leonidas of Sparta? Whoever you are, sir, you are monopolizing the most beautiful woman in the room.”

“Hail, Caesar,” Melisende murmured, guessing from his white toga and laurel wreath that he was mimicking some Roman emperor. She only just managed to keep her lip from curling in disgust.

“Julius, at your service. Won’t you take a turn about the room with me, Queen Cleopatra? If you like music, there is a harper in the parlor next door, and a string quartet in the drawing room above us.”

Melisende had heard the musicians when she interviewed them, and she needed to work her way toward the library. She sent a pleading glance at Philip.

“You flatter me, mighty Caesar, but I do not wish to abandon my escort entirely. He might fall prey to some conniving nymphet, and I would never get him back.”

“We don’t need him.” Pinochle sneered. “Go fetch the lady a punch. Leave the prizes of quality to your betters.”

Philip’s back stiffened, his mouth hardening at the taunt. He must receive such treatment all the time from first-born sons and lords who assumed him beneath them.

He turned to Melisende and raised one golden-brown brow raised in a question. He hadn’t had time for an evening shave and the beginning of stubble on his angled jaw made him look rugged. A soldier. A king.

“I might fetch myself a punch,” she nearly begged. “I must see the wine isn’t watered too well. The count mustn’t appear stingy.”

Philip lifted her hand to kiss, and as he did, he met her eyes, slid back her sleeve, and tapped the healing cut on her forearm, lightly.

She understood. This was a chance to gather information.

He let his lips linger a moment too long on her skin, then strolled away. Melisende watched the flex of his muscled legs and the twitch of the leather skirt suggesting his rear was as shapely and firm as the rest of him.

Pinochle tugged at her arm, drawing her attention. He didn’t have nearly the same shape filling out his toga, and his bare legs were white and hairy.

“Take care you don’t let that upstart aim too high, milady. He doesn’t have the sense to know what he deserves.”

“Oh? And what would you say he deserves?”

“Sharpers and brawlers, like he is. A rogue to his rotten core. I’ve only known him to associate with lady birds and Cyprians, not meddle with ladies of quality. Take care you don’t encourage him.”

“I imagine you have much more to offer a lady,” Melisende said with an admiring air.

Pinochle didn’t have the sense to snub her for this obvious probing. Instead he gave a self-satisfied chuckle. “In all ways, madam.”

“A townhouse in Pall Mall, I believe? Right across from St. James?”

They wove through the throng of guests, growing with every new arrival. Most of the disguises, Melisende could see through, but one or two had her intrigued.

“Not quite on the porch of St. James,” he bragged, “though I am often at the palace. My house is on Clifford Street, a bit north.”

“But I have seen you around the Duchess of Hunsdon’s antiquarian bookshop. A very fashionable place to be seen.”

“And a good place to knockabout while one is waiting for an audience at the palace. The best people are seen in the duchess’s bookshop. As good as Almack’s for rubbing elbows with quality, and better than a ride in the park if one hasn’t a fit mount at the moment. Besides, one is expected to purchase things at the higher end shops in Pall Mall.”

“I see.” Pinochle had the seedy air of a man living on credit, a man who thought he deserved more than he had actually earned.

“A word to the wise, Lady Melisende? I’m a great step up from that Devlin. That leech will cling to anything he thinks will help him rise.”

“I will take your words under advisement, milord. And you may address me as Your Highness,” she said coldly.

Pinochle seemed undeterred by the snub as he dragged her to the back parlor, where a woman with butterfly wings affixed to her back played the harp. This room was as crowded as the others, and heads turned to regard Melisende’s costume, guests craning their neck to see what woman of the ton was daring enough to wear pantaloons—a woman in pantaloons!—beneath her caftan.

On Pinochle’s arm, she’d prefer not to be identified.

Melisende wondered if Philip paid his tailor on time or stiffed the tradesmen who served him in favor of discharging the debts of honor accrued at the gambling tables. It was the way of the high-born all over the Continent, she knew; their obligations to one another took precedence over paying the workers who supplied their finery and kept their great homes. But living hand to mouth for the past eight years had taught Melisende a different sense of duty. She’d be accused of being bourgeois in her sympathies, but a kingdom didn’t thrive when the higher crushed the lower beneath their boot. Eventually the lower rebelled and tried to tear down the system oppressing them.

Just look what had happened in Britian’s own colonies, the places they had smugly assumed a treasure chest and reliable source of income. Far from the court with its king and ministers, the colonists had gotten ideas about setting up their own government and ruling themselves.

So might the people of Merania have forgotten her father, forgotten her. People were not reliable. Not in the least.

“Are you on good terms with the Count Voronsky?” Melisende asked her escort.

“Oh, quite. You know those foreign types. Always rubbing up against us lords, offering us favors if we lend our support.”

“Hmm,” Melisende said. “And what has the Russian asked of you, I wonder?”

His lordship turned to face her. He was a few inches shorter, his mouth at the level of her neck. Her breasts held his attention as he leaned in to whisper. “Just between us, milady?”

“Ooh.” Melisende flipped open her fan and inserted it between Pinochle and her bosom. “I adore secrets.”

He leered again; it seemed a habitual expression. “The count is concerned for the influence Devlin has over you. Thought it fitting if a better option came forward.” He chortled. “Put a word in my ear tonight, he did, right after I arrived.”

“Did he tell you to find us at the duchess’s bookshop, too?”

He nodded. “Knew I’m a regular, so he told me to look for you there. Keep an eye out for her, he said. Keep the riffraff away.”

She wheeled on him. “Did Voronsky tell you to take the book from me?”

His lordship wasn’t clever enough to dissemble; his vacant eyes and quick blink conveyed his bafflement. “Er—book?”

“I was set upon that day in Angel Court. You must have witnessed.” She stepped forward, crowding him toward a man dressed as a harlequin.

“I—er?—”

“Was it you? Did you hire the thief?”

“Me! Now see here. What are you implying?”

She stepped forward, longing for a sword in her hand. She’d press the bead on the end to his throat and enjoy watching his eyes widen in fear. “That thief.” He’d accosted the first woman he saw, the one coming out of the house behind the bookshop. He hadn’t known who precisely his target was, only that he was looking for a female. One carrying a book.

“Did you hire him? Did you ask him to cut my throat? He stabbed me, that cur, and he stole what I carried. Did Voronsky hire you to delay Devlin so he couldn’t come to my aid? Were you part of this?” She snapped her fan closed and pushed it against his fleshy jaw, digging the tip into his skin. “What did he offer you in reward? Treasure? Me?”

“You’re mad!” Pinochle yelped and raised his hands before him, eyes wide. “You’re absolutely starkers! I know nothing of what you’re raving about. Ought to know better than to meddle with a hot-blooded foreigner.”

He backed into Philip, who suddenly appeared behind his lordship, his sword drawn. It was his own sword, the one with the beautiful Italian hilt carved in silver.

“Confess your part, Pinochle, and we’ll be lenient. The count won’t.”

“I had no part,” Pinochle stammered, sweat beading on his brow. “I was only there for the woman. He said she was desperate, there’s a chance she would marry me, and I need a rich and important wife. I swear I don’t know anything about an attack!”

He smelled of fear, sour and acrid. Melisende slipped her fan into her sleeve. “How did the thief get through the gate?”

“You’re both mad. I don’t know what you’re talking about.” He raised his voice. “Mad, I say!”

Heads swiveled in their direction, the fracas an instant fascination for everyone nearby. Melisende knew she would be blamed. She was the woman, the foreigner, like Pinochle said.

“Mad that I will not accept your hand, milord?” she answered in a clear voice, straightening her shoulders. “That may be the case. But I wish you well finding another woman to accept that honor.” She inclined her head and swept away.

Pinochle turned and met an upraised sword; Philip still had questions of his own. Melisende left him to it. Let the men draw the attention, while she tried to calm her seething emotions. Voronsky was behind all of this. Pinochle had admitted as much.

She nearly collided with a woman dressed as Marie Antoinette, the French queen. The heights of her powdered wig dripped with starbursts of diamonds and pearls, topped with an ostrich feather, and she wore an elegant green silk robe cascading with red and gold rosettes. The only part of her not covered in richness was an expansive bosom, powdered white and as pale as the diamond circlet about her neck.

“Lady Bessington.” Melisende gathered herself and acknowledged the other woman with a graceful nod. She met the countess often at functions, diplomatic, social, and philanthropic, and while Melisende suspected her ladyship moved among any number of webs of scheming and power, she also sensed that they were on the same side. Lady Bess exuded an air of wisdom and elegance, much as Melisende imagined her own mother would, had she lived.

“Er, that is. Your Royal Highness.” Melisende dipped in a slight curtsy.

“You are the highness here.” Lady Bess slipped her arm around Melisende’s and drew her toward a table decked with another sugar centerpiece in the style of a marble bust with curly hair and beard, the craggy brow and plaintive expression of a hero of ancient Greece. “Who’s this—David?”

“No, I believe the chef modeled it after the Hercules by Bandinelli, the one that stands outside the Palazzo Vecchio. My father admired it when we were last in Florence, though he remarked how weary Hercules looks, after all his labors.”

“As your father is weary of his labors?” Lady Bess waved a jewel-lined fan before her face in a lazy manner, but her gaze was sharp and direct. “That statue became an outcry against the Medici, or so our guide described it to us when we were there. A warning that rule can be hard won and hard held.”

Melisende met her gaze. “I know that, milady.”

They turned to survey the brilliantly dressed partygoers. Philip and Pinochle in the midst of them still faced off, every line of Philip’s body tight with anger.

“Tell me you did not consider him, not even for a moment,” Lady Bess said.

“Pinochle?” Melisende scoffed. “Not for half a moment.”

“Devlin,” Lady Bess said softly.

Melisende felt the imprint of her ladyship’s steady gaze. She noted the stares of many others as well, idly curious, fascinated, suspicious, jealous. But Lady Bess saw too much.

“You believe I would?” She kept her voice diffident, uninflected. Everything in her wanted to rush to Philip’s defense, and she knew that would betray her. And she could not reveal herself, especially not if he were betraying her, too.

“A sixth son,” Lady Bess said. “And the family is poorer than they deserve. The baronet hobbled himself when he converted to Catholicism for his bride. It may have won her heart and her family’s approval, but it removed any chances of preferment at court, or any hope for office.”

“He is clever,” Melisende observed.

“And ambitious.”

“And accepted everywhere, or so he told me.”

“He is able to pass through many places, like a fox,” Lady Bess answered. “But is he admired? Respected? A man worthy of trust?”

At this woman’s side, Melisende fell prey again to that old, old ache, the longing for a mother figure who could teach her how to go on as a woman, how to navigate the treacherous channels of power. One who knew not just the burdens of a grand duchess and a ruler, but the particular pitfalls of womanhood. The danger of desire. The snares of love. The deep pull of longing to be seen, not for her station, not for her family, but for herself, as a woman of flesh and blood.

“He is admired by many women, certainly,” Melisende remarked, remembering how Philip had stumbled through the door with Florence Maplethorne hanging from his neck. Jealousy: that was the barb that had pierced her that night. The blonde nymph had come near the man who had fascinated Melisende, when she herself had no avenue to him.

Had not then. She did now, and what had that gained her?

“And he uses that appeal,” Lady Bess said. “It is part of his skill.”

Melisende glanced at her companion, wondering, and her ladyship indulged her curiosity with a brief nod, one that managed not to imperil her magnificent wig. “He is one of Fox’s more valuable men, because of the intelligence he can gather. As you said, he can make his way anywhere.”

“Perhaps I only need the fox,” Melisende said, though inside her chest, her heart banged in rebellion. Her dismissal of him was no better than Pinochle’s.

“That would be wise. He couldn’t help you at court,” Lady Bess said. “Or in foreign kingdoms, for that matter. He doesn’t have the station, or the family. A handsome face and a beguiling manner are currency that can take one to the edges of a court, but not to its heart.”

“I am not one to be taken in by a handsome face,” Melisende said, and she sincerely hoped she spoke truth.

“My dear girl,” said Lady Bess. “We have all been taken in by a beckoning smile, but you have too much to lose. Your head is meant for the crown of a kingdom. Be wary who wishes to share that crown with you.”

This time Melisende let her surprise show through. “You think him that ambitious?”

“I think him that winning.”

Melisende turned back to regard the crowd. Pinochle had stormed off in a huff. Philip mingled with the group of merry monks she had seen before, all of them with glasses of punch in their hands, laughing at their hilarity and jesting with him like a brother. A woman in a nearly transparent muslin gown drifted to Philip and ran a possessive finger down his bare arm, giving him a coy smile with painted lips.

Melisende’s skin prickled.

“I am clever, too,” she bit out.

“But beneath that clever head beats a woman’s heart,” said Lady Bess. “I am only warning you to have a care, dear. There are many who will wish to ascend with you as you rise.”

Melisende turned toward the older woman, scanning her face. She saw concern and a maternal softness. Her chest pinched.

“What is your opinion of the Count Voronsky?” she asked in a low voice. “Is he another who wishes to benefit by my rise, and my father’s? Or might he be trying to keep us down?”

Lady Bess pursed her lips. “The count is an interesting man. Subject of an imperial queen, an enlightened empress, but a tyrannical one. Yet for a supporter of empire, he has a strange affinity for the discourse about rights for the common man. He and Bessington have had many talks on the subject.”

“He told my father he will ask for Catherine’s endorsement when my father confronts my uncle for the throne of Merania.”

“I don’t doubt his affection for your father. But…” Her ladyship paused.

“What do you know?” Melisende gripped her ladyship’s arm. “A man came after me with a knife trying to steal something I have long been looking for. I need to know who sent him.”

“I don’t believe the count would try to hurt you.”

“I didn’t think so either, and yet.” Melisende touched the back of her shoulder. “I bear a wound inflicted by a very real blade.”

And Devlin, the man Bess warned her about, had saved her life, then saved her again from a festering wound, preventing an infection that might have killed her.

“Voronsky is ambitious, too,” Lady Bess said. She glanced around, and though curious glances attended them, there was no one close enough to hear. “His brother is in prison back in Russia for speaking out against a family higher than theirs. The count needs

his position, but he aims for higher. He believes a better rank will make him more secure. And he wants his daughter to marry well. A better dowry buys her a better match.”

“But how can hurting my father help him?”

Melisende poured herself a glass of punch and bolted it. Watered unbearably; she would speak with the steward she had hired for the party.

“That is your question to answer, my dear. I am only here to warn you about Devlin. I cannot say what drives the count.”

Melisende nodded, feeling a flash through her head as the vodka hit. She knew Devlin was a spy when she sought his help. Had she been foolish to think he was working only in her favor?

She poured herself another glass of punch. Watered spirits were better than nothing.

“I shall confront him and see what he has to say for himself.”

She needed to confront them both: the count, to learn what he was plotting, and Devlin, to learn the truth.

But she had to have the key in her hand first. Whatever they or anyone else was planning against her, she had to win.