Page 4

Three

HASKET HOUSE, LONDON - JUNE 5, 1816

XANDER

I’d been dreading this night from the moment I received the invitation. It had all the makings of a disaster—the kind that would be spoken of in hushed, warning whispers for years to come.

“Tell me more of the venue for this evening, darling boy,” Mother demanded in her usual over-enunciated manner. She and her poor lady’ maid had delved so deep into the depths of her wardrobe room that I wasn’t certain they would ever resurface.

“I’ve told you, Mother. It’s a gaming hell. There are gaming tables. They’ve promised dancing, so I imagine they’ve set up some sort of floor. And there is alcohol—though not enough.” I muttered the last bit under my breath as I inspected the decorative hair feathers Mother had pulled from somewhere.

“And this couple—the Waylands. They are fastidious in their hosting?”

“You’ve met Lady Juliet, Mother. We nearly wed.”

The vanity Mother used for her toilette was an ominous sign. I hadn’t seen that many pots and powders since panniers went out of fashion.

She humphed from the depths of her wardrobe. She’d taken over Father’s room after his death and had her own converted entirely for the purpose of storing her many garments. Row upon row of gowns hung from the converted shelving. The majority of them were the stark black and whites she favored, but the older gowns, the ones she was examining at present were as bright as they were ostentatious

My stomach sank with the sneaking suspicion that she was going to choose something from before the turn of the century, and I could feel the humiliation bubbling up in advance.

Mother considered fashion to be an art form. Each piece of her ensemble was carefully considered to achieve a truly magnificent effect. The problem was that no one else shared her vision. Oh, they were polite enough to her face. But behind her back, laughter followed her every move.

My mother was beautiful, but it was an odd, discomfiting beauty if one wasn’t intelligent enough to look for it.

She hadn’t always been this way—so vain. I rather thought my father’s callous disinterest in everything to do with his wife had something to do with her wardrobe statements. Every time he wandered off while she was mid-sentence, every time he failed to return home, every time he ignored her every word, my mother had found a newer, bolder, louder piece to add to her collection. She had spent her entire life screaming in perfect silence. And I was the only one who noticed, who heard.

I fussed with the ornate sleeve of my coat as I finally made my way to the settee. The sounds coming from her dressing room weren’t overly promising—I suppose I would oomph , too, if I were being laced into one of her court gowns.

A silver thread had loosened in the seam of my coat, and the temptation to tug at it until the entire garment disintegrated on my body was nearly impossible to resist.

A rustling sound interrupted before I could enact my destruction, and Mother slipped out of her wardrobe with her haggard lady’s maid in tow. I bit back a sigh at the overwrought expression on the girl’s face—probably ought to put the notice back out. This one wouldn’t last long at all.

I couldn’t entirely fault her. Mother had chosen a robe à la francaise that I strongly suspected was from her debut season. The gown was beautiful, truly, and impeccably preserved. I was certain it had been admired by all in its time. But now it was so dramatic that I could hear the snickers already.

The skirts were too wide Mother had to turn sideways to escape the confines of her wardrobe. A lovely viridian, the hem was decorated with burnished pewter lace nearly a foot wide. It almost certainly cost more than the annual income of a small German principality. The dressmaker had carried the pewter detailing up the skirt in exquisitely embroidered swirls and leaves. The entirety of the stomacher was stitched with intricately detailed vines and flowers; it was truly breathtaking. And the pièce de résistance was the enormous grey wig with matching ribbons, jewels, and ostrich feathers woven throughout that the maid held clasped in both hands.

“Well, darling, shall your mother rouse the ton to raptured awe?”

I rose and sidled up to her with a sincere effort not to crush the skirts and pressed a kiss to her cheek. “You look beautiful.”

“Yes, but will it inspire the proletariat and patricians alike?”

“I cannot imagine how you could do anything else.”

“Splendid. Now, leave me and Marie to our ablutions and see to your sister.”

I nodded and left to find Davina, ignoring the maid’s quiet, “It’s Marianne, Your Grace.” She could sort that out herself.

Dav was already in the drawing room bedecked in massive peacock feathers that splayed out from the embroidered bird on the center of her gown. Her matching mask hung from her wrist as she distractedly plucked at the tassels of the pillow she had plopped across her lap.

“ Cacaw, ” I muttered at the sight of her.

“Peacocks do not caw,” she informed me in a pert huff.

“How would you know?”

“They scream. It’s sort of an angry mah-mah sound.” Her impression was absurd and almost certainly based in reality.

“When have you met a peacock?”

“Irrelevant,” she said, then set the pillow aside and rose to smooth out my cravat. “When is Cee to arrive?”

A ludicrous story was almost certainly associated with the peacocks. One I had no interest in learning. Often, as long as Dav was unharmed with her reputation more or less intact, it was best to remain ignorant of such things.

I waved away my worries. “Any time now. And Mother should be down in an hour or six.”

“How is she?”

The fireplace called to me. Once I reached the brick hearth, I knocked the coals about with the poker before setting it back in the rack. “No one will be impressed by the height of your plumage, I can promise you that.”

“If she’s already dressed, how much longer can she take?”

“She had yet to begin her ablutions.”

“Ablutions?”

“She meant toilette but the common vernacular was lacking.”

Dav sighed as the butler announced Celine’s arrival. She swept into the room in a flurry of elegant mauve silk, delicate beading, and metallic threads catching the firelight. She was, of course, the picture of elegance.

After a quick greeting, she joined Davina on the settee. The ladies chatted amiably about something or other. It was impossible to maintain my seat as the minutes ticked by. Nervous energy stretched into my extremities, refusing to yield, and I strode to the fire again, repeating the previous exercise.

Dav snapped at me for my pacing before, as always, wandering down the most infuriating path. “Do you suppose they’ll play hazard tonight? I find myself in need of funds.”

Dread spread through my chest and I rounded on her. “Davina, you cannot—you must behave with decorum tonight. These people will be playing for real coin. And what could you possibly need funds for? Your pin money is more than generous.”

I willed her to understand me, to recognize for once that she could not do precisely as she wished the second that she wished it.

“What on earth else would they play for? And it is hardly your business,” she snapped as she crossed her arms over her chest. Her feathers rumpled with the effort.

“Davina—” My voice had reached an unholy pitch.

I cleared my throat as Cee jumped in to salvage the night. “Davina, darling, perhaps you might go see if your mother is in need of assistance?”

Dav sighed but rose and wandered off to find mother. Or trouble. There was no way of knowing.

I collapsed into the chair across from Cee, my head hinged back in exhaustion.

“What has a bee in your bonnet?” she asked.

My head lolled to the side to shoot her a glare. “We’re taking my mother and my sister to a gaming hell. To a masquerade, no less. Mother will certainly expose herself to ridicule and Davina to ruin—and I shall be left with nothing but the scattered pieces of my dignity.

“Surely it will not be so bad as all that.”

I sat up properly. “You have, in fact, met my mother and sister, yes? Gabriel always made it a point to arrive far later than fashionable, merely so he would miss Mother’s grand entrances. And that was before Davina was in society.”

She tutted, unimpressed with my explanation. “It’s a masquerade; a certain amount of pageantry is to be expected.”

“Remember that sentiment when you see her,” I cautioned.

But Celine, ever skilled with reading between the lines, tilted her head, parsing my expression. When she settled back a little on the settee, I could see that she knew that my worries about the ladies upstairs were not the entire source of my agitation.

“I ran into Parker and Beaumont—at the club,” I explained, my hands dancing in front of me, tight and sharp in their movements. “There were some… insinuations bandied about.”

“What did they say?”

“Nothing fit for a lady’s ears.”

“I was married to your brother. I’ve heard a great many things not meant for a lady’s ears,” she insisted.

I nudged the rug with my toe. A strand had come loose and would need to be seen to. “There was an implication that I would be… better able to secure a wife if I feasted on a lady’s… flower the way that I feast on a man’s… well, you know. Then there was the generous offer to demonstrate the proper technique on Davina.”

Returning their vile words to the air brought the disgust and rage burning back up to the surface.

When Celine demanded to know which of the men said it, I waved the answer away. She was bold enough to give the cut, which would only lead to Beaumont knowing he’d managed to needle me enough to mention it to her.

“Does it matter? They may be the only ones brave enough to voice it, but they all think it.”

Celine made a joke about spreading a rumor involving pustules on the speaker’s member, and I was forced to give up the name in hopes of seeing that dream come to fruition.

Several minutes spent in the dispersal of the most intriguing gossip was enough to distract me until Davina returned, pressing herself against the wall to make room for Mother to enter through the double doors of the drawing room—which still were not wide enough, and she had to turn sideways to make her way into the room.

The wig was even more impressive atop her head, adding nearly five hands. Predictably, she caught it on the—intentionally unlit—chandelier, and I rose to untangle her while Dav and Cee hid their mirth poorly.

Also predictable was the struggle to fit Mother, her gown, and her wig into a carriage. Cee and Dav left in one, and Mother and I in the other in darkness—lanterns were too risky with the wig. I traveled scrunched and half smothered beneath layers of skirts and panniers. Astonishingly, the drive to the club was so unpleasant that I was actually relieved to arrive.