by Mary Balogh
It was surely as hot as hell beneath the black clothes and the veil. She waited hopefully for clouds to cover the sun, but they were few and far between.
The whole of the beau monde must be squashed into this really quite small segment of Hyde Park. She had forgotten what the fashionable hour was like. Not that she had ever been a part of it. She had married young, and she had never had a come-out or an accompanying Season. Her eyes moved over all the ladies in the crowd and noted their bright, fashionable, costly attire. But it was not upon them that she focused her attention. They meant nothing to her.
It was at the gentlemen that she looked closely and consideringly. There were many of them, all ages and sizes and conditions. A few of them looked back at her despite her disguise, which must be singularly unappealing. She saw none she particularly fancied. Not that she had to fancy the man who was going to put money into her empty coffers.
Her attention caught and held upon two particular gentlemen, not just because they were both young and handsome, though they were, but because there was such a startling contrast between them that she felt she was looking at the devil and an angel.
The devil was the older of the two. She would put him in his middle thirties if she had to guess. He was very dark of both hair and complexion, with a handsome, rather harsh face and eyes that looked black. It seemed to her that he might be a dangerous man, and she shivered slightly despite the terrible heat in which she was enclosed.
The angel was younger—probably younger than she. He was golden blond and classically handsome, with regular features and an open, good-humored face. His mouth and eyes—she was sure they were blue—looked as though they smiled frequently.
Her eyes lingered on him. He looked tall and graceful in the saddle, well-muscled legs showing to advantage in tight buff riding breeches and black leather boots as they hugged the sides of his mount. He looked slender but well formed in his dark green close-fitting riding coat. It molded itself to his frame, and she knew that it must have taken all of his valet’s strength to get him into it.
Angel and devil had both noticed her and were looking—the devil boldly and appreciatively, the angel with what looked like sympathy for her widowhood.
But then they were distracted by the sight of someone they knew—two people actually, a very fashionable lady on horseback and her companion, a man who was mockingly handsome.
The angel smiled.
And perhaps sealed his doom.
Something about him suggested an innocence to match his angelic looks. He was no doubt a very wealthy man indeed—Cassandra had just realized that the women behind her were talking about him.
“Oh,” one of them said with a sigh, “there is the Earl of Merton with Mr. Huxtable. Have you ever seen a more gorgeous man than he? And all that wealth and property to go with the looks. As well as the title. And golden hair and blue eyes and good teeth and a charming smile. It does not seem fair that one man should have so much. If I were just ten years younger—and single again.”
They all laughed.
“I think I would prefer Mr. Huxtable,” one of the others said. “In fact, I know I would. All that brooding darkness, and those Greek looks. I would not mind if he set his boots beneath my bed one of these days when Rufus was gone.”
There were shrieks of shocked glee from her companions, and Cassandra noticed when she glanced at Alice that her lips had thinned almost to the point of disappearing altogether and that there were two spots of color high in her cheeks.
Angel and innocence and wealth and aristocracy, Cassandra thought. Could there be a more potent mix?
“I am either about to melt in a puddle on the path,” she said, “or explode into a million pieces. Neither of which is something I would enjoy. Shall we leave the crowd and walk home, Alice?”
“Some people,” her former governess said as they set off across an almost deserted lawn, “ought to have their mouths smacked and then washed out with soap. It is no wonder their children are so badly behaved, Cassie. And then they expect their governesses to exert discipline without scolding or slapping the little darlings.”
“It must be very provoking to you,” Cassandra said.
They walked for a while in silence.
“You are going to go to that ball, are you not?” Alice said as they stepped out onto the street. “Lady Sheringford’s.”
“Yes,” Cassandra said. “I shall be able to get in, don’t worry.”
“It is not about your not getting in that I worry,” Alice said tartly.
Cassandra lapsed into silence again. There was no point in discussing the matter further. Alice must have come to the same conclusion, for she said no more either.
The Earl of Merton.
Mr. Huxtable.
Angel and devil.
Would they be at the ball tomorrow evening?
But even if they were not, plenty of other gentlemen would be.
Cassandra was forced to spend some of her precious diminishing hoard of money on a hackney coach to take her to Grosvenor Square the following evening. It really would not do to walk the distance at night, dressed in evening finery, especially when she had no male servant to accompany her. Even so, she did not ride the whole way. She had the driver set her down in the street outside the square and then walked in.
She had timed her arrival to be on the late side. Despite that fact, there was a line of grand carriages drawn up outside one of the mansions there. The windows of the house blazed with light. A red carpet had been rolled out down the steps and across the pavement so that guests would not have to get their dancing shoes dusty.
Cassandra crossed the square and stepped onto the carpet, up the steps, and inside the house in company with a loudly chattering group. She handed her cloak to a footman, who bowed respectfully when she murmured her name and made no move to toss her out into the night. She moved to the staircase and climbed it slowly along with a number of other people. Presumably there was still a receiving line at the ballroom doors and that was what was causing the delay. She had hoped to avoid that by coming late.
She had forgotten—if she had ever known—that in order to be late at a ton entertainment one really had to be very late indeed.
Everyone about her was greeting everyone else. Everyone was in a festive mood. No one spoke to the lone woman in their midst. No one gasped in sudden outrage, either, or pointed an accusing finger or demanded that the impostor be removed. As far as she knew, no one even looked at her, but then she looked directly at no one and therefore could not be sure.
Perhaps no one would remember her after all. She had come to London two or three times with Nigel, and they had attended a few entertainments together. But it was altogether probable no one would recognize her now.
That hope soon became quite irrelevant. She gave her name to the smartly uniformed manservant outside the ballroom doors with cool, languid voice and, though he consulted a list in his hand and clearly did not find her name there, he hesitated only a moment. She raised her eyebrows and leveled her haughtiest look on him when he glanced up at her, and he gave her name to the major-domo inside the doors, and he announced it in a loud, clear voice.
No one could have missed hearing it, she thought, even if they had been humming with fingers pressed into both ears.
“Lady Paget,” he announced.
And with those two words went any hope of anonymity.
Cassandra proceeded to shake the hands of the dark-haired lady she presumed to be the Countess of Sheringford and of the handsome man beside her, who must be the notorious earl. But this was no time to study the two of them with any sort of curiosity. She curtsied to the elderly gentleman who was seated beside them. She assumed he was the reclusive Marquess of Claverbrook.
“Lady Paget,” the countess said, smiling. “We are so happy you could come.”
“Enjoy the dancing, ma’am,” the earl said, smiling too.
“Lady Paget,” the marquess said gruffly, inclining his head
to her.
And she was in.
As easily as that.
Except that her name had preceded her inside.
Her heart thumped in her bosom, and she opened her fan and plied it languidly before her face as she moved farther into the ballroom and began a slow promenade about its perimeter. It was not an easy thing to do. The room was crowded. Yesterday’s five ladies had been proved quite correct in their prediction that large numbers would come, even if only out of the spiteful hope that the marriage whose nuptials they had all attended three years ago was visibly crumbling.
Cassandra had felt an instinctive liking for the earl and countess. Perhaps it was because she could identify with their notoriety and sympathize with the pain it must have caused them—and probably still did.
Being alone was not a comfortable feeling. Every other lady appeared to have an escort or a companion or chaperone. Every gentleman seemed to be part of a group.
But it was not just her lone state that was causing her discomfort. It was the atmosphere in the ballroom. As a chill feeling of dread crawled up her spine, she knew that her name had indeed been heard by more people than just the Earl and Countess of Sheringford and the Marquess of Claverbrook.
And those who had not heard were now hearing it as fast as whispers could circle the ballroom. As fast as wildfire could spread in a gale, in other words.
She stopped walking, unfurled her fan, and plied it slowly in front of her face as she looked about her, her chin high, her lips curved into a slight smile.
No one was looking directly at her. And yet everyone was seeing her. It was a curious contradiction in terms, but it was perfectly true. No one had stepped out of her path as she walked, and no one stepped back from her now that she was standing still, but she felt isolated in a pool of emptiness, as though she were wearing an invisible aura that was two feet thick.
Except that she also felt naked.
But all this was no more than she had expected. She had decided not to use a false name, or even her maiden name. And she had come with an uncovered face tonight. There was no black veil to hide behind. It was inevitable that someone would recognize her.
She did not believe she would be tossed out even so.
Indeed, all this recognition might well work to her advantage. If the ton had come here tonight in large numbers to see a man who had once eloped with a married lady, how much more might they be fascinated by the sight of an axe murderer? Rumor and gossip loved that description of her, she understood, far more than it would have loved anything more approximating to the truth.
She looked deliberately about her, secure in the knowledge that no one was going to meet her eyes and catch her staring. She did not recognize anyone. She concentrated upon the gentlemen, realizing as she did so the difficulty of the task she had set herself. There were young and old and everything in between, and all were immaculately dressed. But there was no way of knowing which among them were married and which single, which were wealthy and which poor, which had strong moral scruples and which were debauched—and which were somewhere between those two extremes. She had no time to find out what she needed to know before making her choice and her move.
And then her eyes alit upon a familiar face—three of them, actually. There was yesterday’s devil, looking just as satanic tonight in black evening clothes. The lady who had been on horseback yesterday was standing beside him, her hand on his sleeve, and she was talking and laughing. The gentleman Cassandra had thought of as mockingly handsome looked on, an amused smile playing about his lips.
The devil looked across the room from beneath his brows, and his eyes locked on Cassandra’s. She fanned her cheeks slowly and gazed back. He raised one eyebrow and then lowered his head to say something to the lady. She laughed again. They were not, Cassandra guessed, talking about her.
The devil was Mr. Huxtable. Cassandra continued to look at him for a few moments. He had given her an opening, which she might use later if no better prospect presented itself.
“I saw you looking at me earlier, sir,” she might say, “and I have been puzzling ever since over where we have met before. Do please enlighten me.”
They would both know that they had not met before, and he would know that she knew. But the door would have been opened and she would make sure that he stepped through it with her.
Except that she could not help feeling that he was a dangerous man. And when all was said and done, she was not an experienced courtesan. She was only a desperate woman who knew that men found her attractive. For years she had considered that fact to be a liability. Tonight she would turn it into an asset.
Her eyes moved onward. And then, directly opposite her across the ballroom, she saw her angel.
He looked even more handsome than he had yesterday in the park. He was dressed in a black evening coat with silver knee breeches, embroidered waistcoat, and crisp white shirt and neckcloth and stockings. He was tall and perfectly built—slender and yet well muscled in all the right places. And his golden blond hair, though short and well styled, was wavy and looked as if it might be unruly in its natural state. It looked like a halo of light about his head.
He was standing with a lady and a gentleman who resembled Mr. Huxtable to such a close degree that Cassandra looked quickly back at the latter to make sure he had not flown around one quarter of the ballroom ahead of her eyes. But this man was not dressed in unrelieved black, and his face was more good-humored. The two men must be brothers, though. Perhaps even twins.
Cassandra looked back at the angel—the Earl of Merton. He was the only gentleman in the room about whom she knew anything at all. If the five ladies in the park were to be believed—and they had been right about this ball being a grand squeeze—he was a very wealthy gentleman indeed. And single.
And there was that air of innocence about him. Was that a good thing, though, or a bad?
And then, as had happened with Mr. Huxtable, his eyes met hers across the room and held her gaze.
He did not smile. Neither did he raise one mocking eyebrow. He merely gazed steadily at her as she slowly fanned her cheeks and then half smiled at him and raised her own eyebrows. He inclined his head slightly in return—then someone stepped in front of him and he was blocked from her view.
Cassandra’s heart was fluttering. The game had begun. She had made her choice.
The dancing was about to begin at last—though she guessed she had been in the ballroom for no longer than five or ten minutes. The Earl and Countess of Sheringford had stepped onto the floor, and others followed them. The Earl of Merton, she could see, was in the line of gentlemen, smiling across at his partner, a very young and very pretty young lady. The orchestra, at a given signal, played a chord, and the ladies curtsied while the gentlemen bowed. The music of a lively country dance began.
Cassandra resumed her leisurely perusal of all the gentlemen in the room while the pool of emptiness about her appeared to expand.
Stephen had dined at Claverbrook House with his sisters and brothers-in-law, and with the Marquess of Claverbrook and Sir Graham and Lady Carling, Sherry’s mother and her husband.
Meg had been quite nervous about the ball. She had been convinced no one would come, despite the fact that everyone else had agreed with Monty’s prediction that the walls of the ballroom would have to be pressed outward before the evening was over in order to accommodate everyone who would wish to stand inside it.
And despite the fact that almost everyone who had been sent an invitation had replied in the affirmative.
The ball had been Meg’s idea in the first place. There was no point in their coming back to town this year, she had said, if she and Duncan were going to creep in and hope that no one noticed. They might as well be quite brazen about it and throw a grand ball while the Season was in full swing. Her grandfather-in-law, who had been a total recluse for years before Meg’s marriage to Sherry and not much better since then—apart from his rather frequent and lengthy visits to the country�
�had surprised them all by offering Claverbrook House for the event before either Elliott or Stephen could speak up to offer their own London homes.
And now Meg was a bag of nerves. At least, she was until the guests began to arrive—and continued to arrive and continued and continued until the early comers must have been wondering if the dancing would ever begin.
Of course, there was the major distraction that took all their minds off the lengthy wait. There was a gate-crasher. A woman, who had, rather shockingly, come alone. She was a lady—she was Lady Paget, in fact. She was also notorious, if that was a strong enough word. She had killed her husband just a year or so ago. At least, that was the story when it reached Stephen’s ear.
With an axe.
“Which I very much doubt,” Vanessa, the Duchess of Moreland, said to both Stephen and Elliott as she stood between them, waiting for Meg and Sherry to leave the receiving line and begin the opening set. “How could she take an axe, after all, without the gardeners stopping her and wanting to know where she was going with it so that they could do the job for her? She could hardly have told them she was taking it to chop Lord Paget to bits, could she, and would they be kind enough to do the job for her? Besides, unless she is a very strong woman, she would not be able to lift it high enough to do damage to any part of him higher than his ankles.”
“You have a point,” Elliott said, sounding amused.
“And if she really killed him,” Vanessa continued, “and if there was proof that she did—that is, if someone saw her swing the axe—would she not have been arrested?”
“On the spot,” Elliott said. “And she would probably have been swinging in a different way soon afterward. She certainly would not be gracing Claverbrook’s ballroom right now looking for dancing partners.”
She looked up at him suspiciously.
“You are laughing at me,” she said.
“Not at all, my love.” He took her hand and raised it to his lips, winking at Stephen as he did so.