Читать книгу One Forbidden Evening - Jo Goodman - Страница 6

London, November 1817

If it was possible to die of boredom, Ferrin was of the opinion he was not long for this earth. Only minutes ago he had been contemplating murder. Not seriously, of course. Perhaps if he had been contemplating the murder of someone other than his own mother, he reasoned, he might have been able to think the deed through to completion. But murder his mother? No, it was just not done. Not even in his own mind, no matter the provocation.

He could, however, cheerfully throttle Wynetta. The masquerade had been her idea and everyone—save him—had pronounced it a splendid notion. He would have pronounced it corkbrained, but since his views on such things were well known, no one considered it necessary to consult him.

There was never any doubt but that he would throw in his lot with the rest of them. He was ever the easy touch when it came to matters of family, though he knew this would surprise his society and many of his acquaintances. That was just as it should be, else what was the point of cultivating a reputation for not suffering fools?

“I say, Ferrin, you’re a dark one, right enough. Are you going to make your play or merely scowl at your cards?”

One of Ferrin’s dark eyebrows lifted in a perfect arch; the scowl remained unchanged. “Why cannot I do both?” He tossed a four of spades toward the other cards at the center of the table and took the trick with trump.

Across from Ferrin, Mr. Porter Wellsley returned to the contemplation of his own cards. “Don’t know how you manage to do that,” he said idly, rearranging his hand. “Damned if you do not always make the right play.”

Ferrin led the next round with an ace of hearts. “Then count yourself fortunate that you are my partner.”

“Oh, I wasn’t complaining. Just don’t know how you do it.”

To the left of Ferrin, Mr. William Allworthy flicked his cards with the buffed nail of his index finger before choosing one. He didn’t look up as he spoke. “Enough chatter, Wellsley. This ain’t the ladies’ table.”

Wellsley was about to respond, but he caught Ferrin’s deepening scowl and thought better of it. He threw off a card and sat back, waiting for their fourth to make his play.

Mr. Bennet Allworthy folded his cards, tapped one corner of the slim deck on the table, then fanned them out again. He studied them as carefully now as he had upon receiving them. He glanced repeatedly at the cards already thrown down as though they might have changed their spots while his attention was on his hand. He never looked at his cousin.

Ferrin placed two fingers on Bennet’s wrist just as he was about to make his play. “Not the spade, Allworthy. Not when you still have a heart in your hand. You do not want to renege, do you? Wellsley might not be so generous of a nature as I and consider it a cardsharp’s trick.”

Bennet froze. Just above his carefully crafted neckcloth the first evidence of a flush could be seen creeping toward the sharp point of his jaw. He did not raise his eyes from his cards, nor did he shake off Ferrin’s light touch. “Is your lordship calling me a cheat?”

“Merely doing my part to make certain you don’t become one. Wellsley is credited to be a decent enough shot.”

Wellsley rubbed the underside of his chin with his knuckles. “Decent enough?” he asked. “Is that the best you can say about me, Ferrin? Damned by faint praise. That’s what that is. I’d do better by you, you know.”

Ferrin removed his fingers from Allworthy. He regarded his partner at cards from beneath his hooded glance. “That’s because I’m better than a decent shot.”

“What? Well, there is that.”

“Indeed.” Ferrin waved idly in Bennet Allworthy’s direction. “Play the heart and have done with it.”

For the space of a heartbeat three of the four players were aware of nothing so much as the music from the adjoining ballroom, the drone of too many guests crowded into the space, the flirtatious laughter of a few as new liaisons were made and old partners were dismissed. It was only in the card room that others seemed to sense a shift in the atmosphere. Voices dropped pitch to a whisper; glances shifted uncertainly toward the center table. No one made a play. For a moment, no one save the Earl of Ferrin breathed.

Mr. Bennet Allworthy dropped the ten of hearts on the table.

As simply as that, the natural order was restored. Ferrin collected the trick as if nothing untoward had taken place. Indeed, from his perspective, nothing had, except perhaps that for a few moments he had not been bored. He led trump, resuming play. It required only another minute to finish the set. He and Wellsley thoroughly trounced the Allworthy cousins. When it was done, no one suggested another go at whist. The cousins excused themselves and exited for the refreshment table in the ballroom, making rather too much of their parched throats by clearing them loudly and often.

“I shouldn’t wonder if they don’t trip over themselves in their haste to be gone,” Wellsley said. He shuffled the cards absently. “You were rather hard on Bennet, don’t you think? Playing trump out of turn might have been an honest mistake.”

Ferrin shrugged. “If you thought that was so, you could have come to his defense.”

“And pass on an opportunity to shoot someone?” He unbuttoned his frock coat and patted the pistol tucked into his breeches. “Not bloody likely.”

“A pistol, Wellsley?”

“Part of the costume.”

“What part? I don’t recognize your intent. Save for that much abused hat you are wearing, you are dressed as you always are.”

“I’m a highwayman. You did not notice the disreputable twist of my neckcloth?”

“Disreputable? I do not think it can properly be called that when your valet has merely failed to tie the mathematical.” Ferrin’s coolly colored glance dropped to the pistol. “Never say it is primed.”

“Do you take me for a fool?” Wellsley immediately thought better of his question and held up one hand, palm out. “Pray, do not answer that. It’s lowering enough that you did not take me for a highwayman. Mayhap I should have forsaken the highway for the high seas as you have. A pirate would have been just the thing. Which do you suppose the ladies find more dashing?”

“You are welcome to put that poser to them this evening.”

“Don’t tempt me, Ferrin. I might.”

Ferrin merely grunted softly.

Wellsley cocked his head toward the ballroom. “You find all of this tiresome.” It was not a question.

“It is obvious, then. Bother that. You will warn me, will you not, if some member of my family wanders in this direction? They will take exception to my ennui, and I cannot watch the doorway easily from here.”

“Indeed. You will get a crick in your neck.”

Ferrin laid the flat of his hand against his nape and massaged the corded muscles. “I already possess the crick. I am hoping not to break the thing.”

“Poor Ferrin. Your family is such a trial to you.”

“Can you doubt it?”

Wellsley regarded his friend a moment longer before he spoke. The eyes that held his study were glacial, yet there was a hint of something that might have been amusement. “As a matter of fact,” he said, “sometimes I can. It occurs on occasion that you could be naught but a fraud.”

“Careful. I will not hesitate to run you through.” Ferrin’s hand dropped to his cutlass. “My sword trumps your unprimed popper.”

Heads turned in their direction as Wellsley gave a bark of laughter. “Just so.” He continued to shuffle the cards. “How did you know Bennet had a heart remaining in his hand?”

“Because he told his cousin.”

“Told William? Are you quite certain, Ferrin? I didn’t hear such an exchange.”

“Because while you were contemplating my scowl, Bennet was tapping his cards on the table. One for hearts. Two for diamonds. Three for—”

“I get the gist of it.”

“See? Perfectly discernible to even the meanest intelligence when one is not preoccupied.”

“Did you just insult me?”

Now there was no mistaking the amusement in Ferrin’s ice-blue glance. “If you are uncertain, then there is no harm done.”

Grinning, Wellsley handed over the cards. “Do not be so sure. I am of a mind to get a little of my own back.”

“By all means. You must do as you see fit.” Ferrin began to deal the cards, setting up two dummy hands just to keep things interesting. When he was done, he fanned open his cards and examined them.

“What is to be done about the Allworthy cousins?” asked Wellsley.

“What do you mean, what is to be done?”

“They are cardsharps, Ferrin.”

“They are dullards, and they are not so deep in the pockets that they can do much damage at the clubs.”

“I am not sure the amount of the wagering matters. I was thinking that someone less forgiving than you will surely call the pair of them out. Do you want that on your conscience?”

Ferrin was uncertain how the consequence of the cousins’ cheating had become his concern. “What would you have me do? Spread the tale of what was done here so they will become pariahs in the card rooms?”

“That would do nicely, yes. Save them from themselves.”

“At considerable damage to their reputations. One or the other of them will call me out, and we shall be precisely at the juncture you are bent on avoiding, save I will be the one facing a pistol at twenty paces. If that is your plan for revenge, you are deuced good at it. I will choose my words more carefully when I am speaking of the meanest intelligence.”

“Thank you, but I have some other revenge in mind for that slight. One with a more certain outcome than you and one of the Allworthys in a field at dawn.” He held up his hand when Ferrin looked as if he intended to object that there would be any doubt about that outcome. “There is always doubt, Ferrin. Your opponent might turn too soon. Your pistol might misfire. Allworthy—whichever cousin throws the glove—might be on the side of the angels that day. When I cast about for revenge, I want complete assurance that there can be but one end.”

“I believe you make me afraid, Wellsley.”

Wellsley threw down a card in the manner a man might toss the gauntlet. “Good.”

Chuckling, Ferrin turned over a card from one of the dummy decks, then laid his own card. “How many shepherdesses do you think are here tonight?”

“I counted six, one of them your sister Imogene. Will she be put out, do you think, that her costume is not at all original?”

“She is the only one carrying a crook with a blue bow. In her mind it is enough to set her apart from the rest of the flock. Besides, she is married and not set on making the same impression upon the guests as Wynetta. It is Netta’s debut, after all. Or nearly so. She made her come out at the Calumet affair a few weeks ago.”

“I danced a set with her, remember?”

Ferrin did not, but he didn’t say so. “Good of you. She was frantic she would go unnoticed.”

“Not possible. Your sister is quite lovely, a diamond really, though I suppose that’s escaped your notice.”

“Hardly. I admit that it surprises that you find her so.”

“I will not inquire what that means. It’s bound to be an uncomfortable conversation.”

Ferrin nodded. This evening his sister was Cleopatra. A black wig covered her cornsilk-colored hair, and she’d darkened her brows and lined her eyes. The effect was as dramatic as she was. Never shy about holding court whether she had admirers or only her family around her, Netta was immediately taken with her role as queen. It did not matter in the least if they were young bucks in togas, Corinthians wearing armor, or gentleman courtiers from two centuries past, she gathered them to her like children to a bake-shop window. Early in the evening he’d stood with his stepfather and watched her effortlessly charm her company. In contrast to Sir Geoffrey, who nervously shifted his weight from one foot to the other, Ferrin was all admiration. The success of this sister, his stepsister really, meant that she would be off the marriage mart quickly and that he would have to suffer but a handful more of these occasions. Ian and Imogene, his stepfather’s twins, were both married four years ago at twenty. If Wynetta accepted a proposal this Season, then it was left only to Restell, another stepbrother, to succumb to leg-shackling. Unfortunately, Restell was not as interested in the state of marriage as he was in the state of his affairs. For reasons that Ferrin could not entirely comprehend, Restell was determined to pattern his own life after Ferrin’s, or rather what he imagined Ferrin’s life to be. As Ferrin was still unmarried at two and thirty, it occurred to him that Restell would require rescue and intervention for years to come if he was not to bankrupt the family with his gaming or be at the center of a scandal with his paramours.

Ferrin wondered if settling his stepfather’s four offspring in good marriages was merely preparation for what lay ahead. At twelve and eight, his half-sisters Hannah and Portia were already twice the handful that Wynetta had ever been—or was likely to be. For all that Netta could have trod the boards at Drury Lane with her penchant for dramatic sighs and asides, she still was possessed of a keen mind and a sensible disposition. Hannah and Portia were not. His youngest sisters were intelligent, he supposed, but hadn’t sense enough between them to find shelter in a rainstorm.

The fault for that lay at his own dear mother’s feet. Sir Geoffrey Gardner had always impressed as practical, if somewhat romantic. Ferrin’s mother, though, was a flibbertigibbet, and he could no longer ignore the signs that Hannah and Portia were strongly influenced by her. He was already calculating what it would cost in six years’ time, and four years after that, to see that these sisters found decent partners who could take them in hand but not abuse their generous though silly natures.

A bloody fortune, he thought.

“What’s that?” Wellsley asked, drawing another trick toward him. “Did you say something?”

“Did I?” Ferrin had not realized he might have spoken aloud.

“We’re not making a wager here, are we? I thought you said something about a fortune.”

“Can’t imagine what you heard.” Ferrin picked up his tumbler of whisky and sipped. “Your play. Go on.”

Wellsley’s dark glance drifted momentarily from his cards to a point past his friend’s shoulder. He did not allow his eyes to linger on the doorway but applied himself to choosing a card and schooling his features. He placed a seven of spades on the table.

“Aha! So it is true! Lady Arbuthnot did not mistake the matter when she said I would find you here!”

Ferrin was about to make his play when every hair at the back of his neck stood at attention. Many a grown man so neatly caught out by his mother might have dropped the card he was holding over the table, but Ferrin managed to slip it back into his hand and set all the cards down as though nothing untoward was taking place. It was no good reminding Wellsley that he’d agreed to give him fair warning of any family members approaching. This had been done of a purpose. The look he speared his friend communicated that it would have been kinder to allow him to face the Allworthy cousins at daybreak than to have his mother bear down on him unaware.

“Enjoy your revenge, Wellsley,” he said under his breath. He doubted he’d been heard. Wellsley was chuckling, in every way enjoying himself. With a last sour look in his friend’s direction, Ferrin got to his feet as his mother came to stand beside his chair. “Mother. How good you are to make your way round to the card room. You will perhaps join the play?”

Lady Marianna Gardner, the former Countess of Ferrin, and now the wife of Sir Geoffrey, regarded her eldest child as if he had the sense of a bag of hair. She had to look a considerable distance upward, as she was a diminutive woman and he stood half a foot taller than most of the men of her acquaintance. This never mattered, of course, as she had once suckled him at her breast before being persuaded to give him over to a wet nurse. The bond that had been forged on that occasion was still very much intact, at least in her mind. “Join the play?” she asked in hushed accents. “Can you really have made such an outrageous utterance?”

“He did,” Wellsley said. “I heard him.”

Her ladyship turned a gimlet eye on Mr. Wellsley. “And you will not repeat it, for I have no doubt that it is your unseemly influence at work here. Did I not recently say as much to your grandmother? You are a scapegrace, Mr. Wellsley. I have always thought it unfortunate that I like you so well, but there you have it. I cannot account for it myself.” Before that worthy could answer, her head swiveled sharply to her son. She was supremely unaware that Ferrin had to draw back to avoid being tickled by the long ostrich plume fixed in her turban.

“You do not mean to spend the whole of the evening in here, do you?” she asked pointedly. “It is not done. I cannot help but think you have forgotten you are the host.”

“I believe I have provided a great deal of the ready as well as the location,” Ferrin said dryly. “In every other way I am well out of it.”

“Oh, this is too bad of you. What will people say? And your sister is working so hard to make a success of the evening. It will surely be noticed that you occupied yourself playing cards. Nero fiddled while Rome burned. People remember that.”

“I will fetch my fiddle directly.” Ferrin observed his mother beginning to push her lower lip forward. This was but the opening salvo. The weapons that she kept in her arsenal included the moue, the tear, the trembling pout, and the tremulous voice. These were generally more effective than her reasoning, which Ferrin found nonsensical and a trial to his gray matter. “You are looking quite splendid tonight. The plume is particularly charming.”

“Thank you.” She allowed the silver half mask she held over the upper portion of her face to fall away and reveal her full pleasure of the pretty compliment. “You will join us in the ballroom, will you not?”

“Of course, Mother.”

“My friends delight in seeing you. I fear they do not know many rakes. They are quite fascinated by your manner.”

“I see.” He bent forward so there was no danger that he could be overheard. “May I roam freely or will you want to parade me on a leash?”

This time when her ladyship lowered her mask it was to snap it sharply against her son’s forearm. “You are the very devil,” she whispered.

Grinning, Ferrin straightened. “You are mistaken, Mother. Tonight I am a pirate.” From beneath his tricornered hat, he pulled down a black silk patch and fixed it over his right eye. “See?”

“The very devil,” she repeated. There was no censure in her tone, only affection. She touched his cheek and smiled, perfectly content with this outcome. Turning to go, her ladyship paused when she glimpsed Wellsley standing at attention on the other side of the table. “And you, Mr. Wellsley, you are of an eligible age, are you not? Well past it, I should think. As is Ferrin. Do not squander your inheritance in one sitting at the card table with my son when there are so many young women in the next room willing to relieve you of it over the course of a lifetime.”

Before Wellsley could make a reply, Lady Gardner presented her back to him and made a grand exit for the ballroom. Wellsley sunk back into his chair and looked up at Ferrin. “I need libation.”

Ferrin nodded, waving over one of the footmen. He finished the last finger of whisky remaining in his tumbler and gave it over. “Two more of the same,” he said. “None of the punch from the fountain, please.” When the liveried servant was gone, Ferrin took measure of his friend. “Will you be all right? I cannot tell whether it is astonishment that put you back in your chair or relief.”

“Both, I think.” Wellsley tossed his hat on the table and used four fingers to rake back his hair. The effect was to lend him more in the way of a disreputable air than the disheveled neckcloth. “She said she likes me well enough, so that is something, I suppose.”

“Well, of course she likes you. Why wouldn’t she? You have £12,000 per annum, a townhouse in London, an estate in the North, a family with as few rascals as one can properly hope for, and a countenance that does not stop clocks. God’s truth, Wellsley, I can’t think why I haven’t proposed.”

Wellsley’s staccato burst of laughter had heads turning in their direction again. He collected himself, straightening in his chair just as the drinks were brought to them. He raised the tumbler, saluted his friend, and drank deeply. “Dutch courage,” he said, setting the glass down. “Mayhap Miss Wynetta will take another turn on the floor with me.”

“The queen of the Nile? You will have to cut through the throng to get to her. Will you take my cutlass?”

“No. I do not think that will be necessary.” He returned his hat to his head and relied on Ferrin’s judgment to let him know when he’d achieved the proper roguish angle. With most of his bright-yellow hair covered, it was left to him to disguise his face. He withdrew a scarf from beneath the sleeve of his frock coat, folded it in a triangle, then used it to hide his nose, mouth, and squared-off chin. “Well?” he asked, getting to his feet. He removed the pistol and aimed it at Ferrin’s chest. “Stand and deliver.”

“Convincing. You will not credit it, but I am quaking in my boots.”

“Good. Now let us see who—” Wellsley stopped, his attention caught by the figure who had stepped forward and was now framed in the open doorway.

Seeing his friend’s gaze fixed on the threshold of the card room, Ferrin thought his mother had returned. “Never say she has brought reinforcements to drag us out.”

Wellsley merely shook his head.

Seeing something akin to reverence in his friend’s eyes, Ferrin was forced to turn and see what manner of creature could inspire it. He was aware of a niggling hope that it was Netta.

The queen standing at the threshold was not the woman-child Cleopatra, but she was immediately recognizable to him and every other man in the room. They were all staring at Boudicca come to life. The heavy mass of flame-red hair, the brightly dyed orange tunic and thick blue mantle, the twisted golden torc at her throat, and gold bracelets on her left wrist and arm proclaimed her as the fierce warrior queen of ancient Britain. Lest anyone doubt it, she carried a spear a head taller than she was.

Wellsley started to take a step forward, but Ferrin managed to rise and insert himself directly in his friend’s path. “You do not even like redheads,” Wellsley whispered from behind.

Over his shoulder, Ferrin said, “I am prepared to reevaluate. One must, you know, when presented with new evidence. It is in the nature of scientific inquiry. Do you know her?”

“If I did, I would go to my grave with it.”

It was just as well, Ferrin decided. She was Boudicca, and more than that he didn’t need to know. Like the torc at her throat, the brooch that held her mantle closed, and the bracelets on her wrist and arm, the mask that covered her upper face was hammered gold. Gold threads were woven into her tunic, and her bodice shimmered in the candlelight as she drew in a deep breath. Ferrin had the odd notion that she was steeling herself for battle. She had yet to hold the glance of any one man, but she had paused long enough on the threshold to examine all of them.

He stepped forward and closed the distance between them. “My queen,” he said, making a courtly bow. “There is someone in particular you are seeking? A pirate, perhaps?”

She did not smile or incline her head to acknowledge the overture. Her posture was unyielding: shoulders back, head high, feet planted slightly apart so she would not be moved. “A shepherdess,” she said.

Ferrin indicated the occupants of the card room with a wave of his hand, encouraging Boudicca to take a second look. “Knights Templar. Roman centurions. King Arthur. A highwayman. Two Harlequins. A king’s executioner. Sir Francis Drake. A cardinal and a friar. Not a single shepherdess. Tell me, does she have ribbons on her crook?”

“Yes.”

“Their color?”

“Green.”

“I have only seen pink, blue, and yellow.”

“That is what I have observed also.”

“May I escort you through the squeeze in the ballroom? Mayhap with two pairs of eyes making the search, we shall find her.” From behind her mask, Ferrin could make out the faint narrowing of her gaze. She was regarding him skeptically, her attention riveted on the black silk patch covering his right eye. “Three eyes are not as good as four,” he said, “but they’re half again as good as two.”

She smiled a little then, not enough to show her teeth or brighten her eyes, but enough that he was encouraged.

“Will you take my arm?” he asked. When he saw her hesitate, he added, “We will make but one circle of the ballroom, and I will release you.”

She raised her weapon slightly. “I am carrying a spear. Of course you will release me.”

“Point taken.”

“No, not yet you haven’t,” she said. “But I won’t hesitate to see that you do.”

Ferrin gave a shout of laughter, unwittingly making him the envy of every one of his guests within hearing of it. He saw she did not startle. Rather she held her ground and gripped her spear more tightly as if she might have use of it sooner than she’d thought. He held out his arm and waited patiently for her to accept it. “As pirates go, I am not considered a particularly ruthless one.”

“Like Blackbeard.”

“Far and away more ruthless than I.”

“And Bluebeard?”

“I have yet to take a wife, let alone murder one.” She took his arm and allowed him to lead her back into the ballroom. “Do you think I would be afraid if you had?”

He did not have to pause to think on his answer. “No. There is the spear, after all.”

“Just so.”

As soon as they stepped beyond the threshold they were swallowed in the crush inside the ballroom. Ferrin had the advantage of height and he immediately spied two crooks with pink streamers near the stringed orchestra. He steered Boudicca in the opposite direction, weaving her in and out of the conversational clutches that formed near the refreshment table and beside the fountain of cider punch. They skirted the drooping fronds of the potted plants that made a veritable jungle of one corner of the ballroom and drifted among the dancers as though they were taking a set themselves. Ferrin was quick to notice that their passage around the room was made easier because the guests parted for her, not him. The novelty of it amused him.

She was not the amazon that Queen Boudicca was alleged to have been, but she was taller than many women present, taller certainly than all of the shepherdesses he had seen thus far. Her bearing was in every way regal. She moved with a certain fluid grace among the guests but somehow remained apart from them. He wished he might know the shape of her nose better, but the mask defined it, not flesh and bone. The arch of her cheeks was also hidden and he could not quite make out the color of her eyes. Candlelight from the chandeliers and wall sconces glanced off the hammered gold and defied his best efforts to determine whether they were gray or green or even blue. Her mouth was the feature most openly revealed to him, and when she was engaged in looking over the crowd, he took the opportunity to mark the shape of it, noting the full bottom curve and the way her upper lip curled slightly each time she caught him out.

“You are staring,” she said, not bothering to look at him this time. “We have not met before, my lord, so you should not apply yourself to divining my identity.”

“But you know mine?”

“I would be a very shabby guest if I did not know the name of my host.”

“Perhaps, but are you certain I am he?”

“You were pointed out to me earlier.”

Ferrin wondered that he had not seen her before. He had obviously been too eager to quit the ballroom, though he was reminded now of all his reasons for wanting to be gone from it.

The room, in spite of being quite large, was too warm. The energy of the dancers, the milling of the onlookers, the occasional heated discussion, bursts of laughter, smoldering glances, and all of the incessant gossip combined to raise the temperature five degrees above what was comfortable. Guests spilled into the adjoining rooms so that revelers now occupied a drawing room, the gallery, and Ferrin’s library. All of this was in addition to room he’d gladly given over to card play at the outset of the evening.

As they passed the refreshment table, Ferrin managed to lift two glasses of lemonade, though it meant releasing Boudicca’s arm. She thanked him for the refreshment, but of necessity both hands were now occupied, one with her drink, the other with the spear. She hadn’t an arm for him as they proceeded, a turn of events Ferrin regretted.

“Perhaps the library,” he said. “Your shepherdess might have slipped inside in want of a good book.”

“Unlikely.”

He made to turn her away from the entrance to that room, but she shook her head and indicated they should look anyway. “You are thinking that there might be some other reason the shepherdess would be interested in the library? A tryst, perhaps?”

“Perhaps.”

Ferrin wondered if he would know this shepherdess. Boudicca was not forthcoming, and he suspected it was because she did not want him to be able to identify her through her friend. He decided not to press. In truth, he was disappointed that she knew him. He would have liked to have remained a pirate to her this evening, not her host, certainly not the Earl of Ferrin.

He stepped to one side of the pocket doors and gestured to Boudicca to proceed. When she passed him his senses were teased by the light fragrance of lavender. A favorite scent of hers? he wondered. Or something she wore for this evening only, like the rest of her costume?

Ferrin followed her into the library and saw quickly that she would not find what she sought there. The musketeer on the chaise longue gave up trying to kiss his lady-in-waiting and eased his arms from around her shoulders. Ferrin’s lips twitched. It seemed she would be a lady-in-waiting a bit longer.

“Something amuses?” Boudicca asked.

“Always.” When she did not ask him to explain himself, he had the impression she was drawing her own conclusion. “Your friend does not appear to be here, either.”

“No, she doesn’t.”

“Shall we try the gallery?”

“You do not mind?”

“Not at all.”

Ferrin pointed in the direction of the door that would lead them through to the gallery. Not many guests had stumbled upon this room, though the evening was hours yet from being at an end. Several couples were touring the room, some unattached females were exchanging the latest on-dit. There was not a single shepherdess.

He thought Boudicca would want to leave immediately, but she turned her attention to the paintings. “Would you like to view them?” he asked.

“I would.”

He took her empty glass and set it on the entry table with his own, then he offered his arm again. She accepted his escort without pause this time, and he drew her toward the full length portrait of his great-grandfather. “This is George Howard Hollings,” he told her. “The third Hollings to hold the title. Intimidating, is he not?”

“Impressive, I was thinking. You have his eyes.”

“One of them.”

She smiled again, this time more easily than before, then pointed to the painting to the right. “His father?” she asked.

“His grandfather. The first earl.”

“He looks vaguely disreputable.”

“You are putting it too mildly. He was wholly disreputable.”

“How did he acquire the title?”

“A letter of mark. He preyed on Spanish galleons in the Americas. It was quite lucrative.”

“Then he was a pirate…as you are.”

“A privateer, I believe, is the proper term. A pirate has no letter of mark from his queen. He served the interests of the Crown and he was rewarded with a title and lands.”

“And considerable fortune.”

“That is my understanding, yes.”

“How was he called?”

“Captain Hollings, I imagine.” He could not quite temper his amusement when Boudicca’s splendid mouth flattened. So his queen did not suffer fools, either. It was a mark in her favor, though he kept his own counsel. He was quite certain she did not care for his opinion, good or otherwise. “He was called Christopher Charles Hollings.”

“As you are.”

“I am Christopher Andrew, but I think I see where you are going with your inquiry. If I lent him my patch we might be mistaken for twins. You are aware, I collect, that I am also disreputable.”

“Wholly?”

“I never do anything in half measures, so yes, wholly disreputable. You should probably not be alone with me.”

She purposefully looked to the fireplace where a Roman senator and a Greek goddess were admiring the large landscape hanging above the mantel. “We are hardly alone.” Her chin lifted to indicate the clutch of young women still gathered in the center of the gallery. “Although I wish our chaperones were less inclined to titter.”

“You do not titter?”

“No.”

Another mark in her favor, Ferrin thought. “My sisters titter. All of them. My mother also.”

“That must be a considerable cross to bear.”

It was her dry-as-dust tone that raised one corner of his mouth. He answered in like accents. “You cannot imagine.”

Boudicca returned to her study of the first earl. Ferrin could not summon the same interest in it. The resemblance was so profound it was rather like regarding his own face in a mirror, and he did little enough of that. What was the point, after all? Nothing could be changed. His brow would stand as high; his eyes would retain their peculiar heavy-lidded cast. A scar might draw attention away from the cut of his cheekbones and chin, but only a collision with a stone wall or a fist would flatten the aquiline shape of his nose. He had no particular desire to acquire either as pain was a consequence of both.

His mouth twitched slightly as Boudicca turned from the portrait to make the same study of his profile. “I am unused to such scrutiny. Most people remark on the likeness and have done with it.”

“I beg your pardon. I fear I have been unconscionably rude. I did not mean to give you discomfort.”

“Do I strike you as one so easily discomfited? It is more in the way of diverting.” He paused a beat. “And curious. I am wondering if your study would be so open if you were not wearing the mask and the raiment of a queen. As Boudicca, you may say or do as you please.”

Boudicca glanced at the spear she carried. “It does give one pause, I suppose.”

“It certainly gives me pause.” He glimpsed her faint smile again, this time recognizing the reluctance of that mien as it crossed her features. She did not want to be amused, or at least she did not want to be amused by him. The possibility that her disinclination was in some way personal intrigued Ferrin more than put him off. “Shall we go on?” he asked, indicating the next portrait. “Or have you seen enough? There is still the matter of your shepherdess.”

“She will not leave me. I’d like to see more, but you are perfectly welcome to attend to your other guests. I can manage to navigate this room, indeed all of the rooms, on my own.”

“I have already observed that is the case. Only Moses might be more effective at parting the sea of guests. However, you will be doing me a very great favor by allowing me to escort you. I am discharging my responsibilities as host and no longer in danger of expiring from boredom. Until you stood on the threshold of the card room, I wasn’t at all hopeful that I could do the former without succumbing to the latter.” Ferrin saw that she did not seem to be moved by his request. The damnable mask was not all that was keeping her expression shuttered from him. He suspected that she was as adept at confining her emotions as she was at confining her thoughts. “I understand that you have no reason to grant me such a kindness,” he said rather stiffly. “All the benefits are undoubtedly mine.”

“What a foolish thing to say.”

Ferrin’s dark brows lifted. “I beg your pardon.”

“You tempt me to prick you with this, you know.” She tilted her chin, indicating the spear. “It is you who have done me the favor. I am quite glad of your escort, but it is passing strange to me that you have invited so many guests and express so little interest in them.”

“The invitation list is not my doing. That detail was left to my sister and my mother.”

“But this is your residence. Surely they—”

He stopped her with a shake of his head. “They surely did not. Do not misunderstand. I gave them permission to act on my behalf, so I accept responsibility, but playing host at affairs of this nature is far and away more about duty than personal choice.”

“You would rather be at your gentleman’s club.”

“That might suit.”

“Playing cards and gaming.”

“Perhaps.”

“Discussing politics.”

“That is done on occasion.”

“Scheming.”

He smiled slightly. “That is done more often.”

She made no response to this last but allowed him to resume their tour of the gallery. The other couples in the room were moving on as well. The wizard Merlin entered not long afterward, accompanied by Pocahontas and a shepherdess.

“She is not the shepherdess I’m seeking,” Boudicca said.

“I know. She’s Mrs. Edward Branson, better known to me as my sister Imogene.”

“I had not realized. I was introduced to her earlier, but I did not understand she was a relation.”

“Then she is not the one who placed you on the invitation list.”

Boudicca gave him a sidelong glance. “I think your lordship is fishing for my name. I will not take the bait, you know. I am finding anonymity to be in every way to my liking.”

“As you wish.”

She smiled a little then. “I did not expect you to give up quite so easily.”

“Do I disappoint? The truth is I’ve never enjoyed fishing. You are aware, are you not, that there are worms involved. And fish. It’s a messy business.”

“I think you are teasing now.”

“Am I?” When she did not reply, he wondered if he had finally disconcerted her into silence or if she was so certain she was in the right of it that no argument was necessary. She was quite correct in one assertion: He had been fishing.

They paused in front of another portrait that intrigued her, and while he gave her an account of his ancestor’s accomplishments and missteps, he watched her out of the corner of his eye, searching for some feature that he would be able to identify at a later date. The flame-red hair would distinguish her, of course, if it were indeed her own. He was no longer confident that was the case. Skillfully woven, natural in every detail, Ferrin could imagine the wig—if indeed it was one—had cost a goodly sum. He wondered that anyone considered this one evening’s entertainment to be worth such expense.

He did not voice this thought aloud. She would have found it more peculiar if he had. After all, he’d paid far more to provide tonight’s entertainment, as she was likely to point out. He could explain it as fulfilling an obligation to his family, another responsibility of his station, yet duty was no factor in this night’s work. A rake’s reputation was never served, however, by admitting that there was little he would not do for his family. Netta, in particular, merely had to crook her finger and he would walk through fire. That he was so vulnerable to the whims of his mother and sisters, and only marginally less susceptible to the impulses of his stepfather and brothers, was not an element of his character that he wanted known. He would be exploited to distraction and very nearly helpless in the face of it.

“Why Boudicca?” he asked.

“I don’t understand.”

They began to walk again. “What I mean is, why not Cleopatra? A lady-in-waiting. Guinevere. Or even, Heaven help us, a shepherdess. How did you come to choose Boudicca?” She remained quiet so long that Ferrin thought she did not mean to answer. When she did, he was struck by the gravity of her response.

“I chose her for her ruthlessness.”

“I see.”

She smiled a little at that. “That cannot possibly be the case, for I am uncertain that I understand it myself.”

“It is rather surprising.”

“Yes.”

“You admire ruthlessness?”

“It would be truer that I have come to respect the need for it.”

“It has its place.”

She nodded. “You are more than passingly familiar with it, I expect. A man of your reputation would have to be.”

“Because I am a pirate?”

“Because you are accounted by the ton to be a rake.”

Ferrin glanced sideways, marking her profile. What he could make out of her features appeared to be composed. She had not even the grace to flush at her own boldness. “Is it Boudicca that makes you daring or do you always speak so directly?”

“Did I misspeak? I wasn’t aware. You cannot be unfamiliar with your reputation in society.”

“You will allow, perhaps, that it is disconcerting to have it placed so plainly before me.”

“I didn’t realize. It was not my intention to cause you discomfort, indeed, I thought gentlemen were agreeably flattered by that reputation. Was I wrong?”

“Some gentlemen are, I suppose.” Ferrin waited to see if she would pose the question to him. She did not, thereby saving him from the complication of a lie. “You are acquainted with a great many rakes?” he asked.

“No, not at all, else I would be more certain of my facts regarding their character.”

He chuckled. They were almost upon another couple, so Ferrin slowed his step and pretended interest in the landscape above the mantelpiece. “Tell me more about a rake’s character,” he said. “I am frankly fascinated.”

“I believe you are more amused than fascinated, but I will indulge you, nevertheless.” She disengaged herself from his arm, though she did not turn to face him. “By the accepted definition, he is a libertine. A rakehell. Someone given to licentious behavior. It is not so much that he has disdain for the conventions of society, but that he is unrestrained by them.”

“It is a fine distinction.”

“Mayhap it is.”

“You will have to say more about these conventions of society—the ones that do not restrain a rakehell.”

“Now I know you are amused because you cannot be ignorant of them.”

“There is always the possibility that I have restrained myself unnecessarily. I certainly hope that is not the way of it. I should very much like to hear your list.”

“Freethinking,” she said. “Libertines are by their nature freethinkers in matters of religion and morality.”

“Yes, I can see how that could disturb the order of society.”

“Drink.”

“Pardon?”

“Rakes are given to excess in drink.”

“Oh.”

She glanced at him. “I do not think it was lemonade you were imbibing in the card room.”

“You have me there. It was whisky. I am compelled to point out that I am not foxed.”

“And I am compelled to counter that it is yet early in the evening, by your own admission boredom was upon you, and who is to say that my interruption has not saved you from an overindulgence of spirits?”

“As you are of the firmly held opinion that I am a libertine, I suppose you will not accept my word on the matter.”

“It would be foolish of me to do so, would it not? Rakes cannot be relied upon to tell the truth, else how would they manage the seduction of so many females?”

Ferrin’s brows lifted. “My, you do speak frankly, Boudicca.”

“Perhaps you think that is only the province of men.”

Ferrin recognized dangerous waters without having to put his toe in. He chose his words carefully. “What I think is that convictions such as you are wont to espouse should have the support of fact, not fancy.”

Her step faltered, and she held back, drawing Ferrin up short as well. “Then you are not, in fact, a rakehell?”

He turned slightly, facing her. His superior height and position drew her eyes upward. “A question first,” he said. “Why is my answer of so much consequence to you?”

There was no hesitation, only a slight shift in the forward thrust of her small chin. “Because what I wish above all things this evening is that you will seduce me.”