Read Caprice: The Masqueraders Series - Book One Online
Authors: Laura Parker
Tags: #FICTION/Romance/Regency
“Princess Soltana?”
“Yes.” He did not feel in the least like explaining himself so he did not. “What brings you to London, Miss Willa—”
“Willoughby, my lord.
Mrs.
Evelyn Willoughby.”
“You are married?” He did not prevent amazement from showing in his expression.
“I am widowed, my lord. Just above a year.”
His gaze dropped to her left hand where a thin circle of gold spanned her third finger. A widow! Now that was something to jog his memory. He had met a widow in Plymouth! Yes, that was it. His jaw dropped. “We
have
met before!”
She continued to gaze at him in pleasant inquiry. “Have we? I think I should recall it.”
“Nearly three months ago. At Plymouth harbor.” He grinned at her. “You were dressed in widow’s weeds and borrowed my carriage for a kiss.”
Her dark eyes grew round. “A kiss in exchange for a carriage ride? It would seem matters of commerce have grown strangely whimsical during the years in which I have been away. But you did say Plymouth three months ago?”
He nodded emphatically, wondering how she could forget. Then he remembered. “I was dressed in the robes of an Arab and wore a beard. You may not recall my face, but you must remember the encounter.” His expression grew smug. “I found it singular.”
She shook her head slowly. “I can only tell you that I came to London via Calais yesterday.” She must have seen the look of disbelief clearly marked on his features, for she added, “Would you care to see my passage bill? It is just upstairs.” She began to rise.
“Indeed not. It is only …” Hadrian stared at her. She looked so like two different women of his recent acquaintance, yet she withstood his probing gaze without batting an eye. His mind was playing tricks on him, that was it. But he did not believe that. “I see now I am mistaken,” he murmured after a moment. “Yet there is a remarkable likeness.”
“Do you think so? I find gentlemen often mistake one stranger for another, especially where a pretty face is concerned.” She smiled and a dimple appeared in her left cheek. Soltana had no dimple, at least he did not think so. “But I think I adopt for myself a compliment that you have not offered. Perhaps you did not find your little widow in the least attractive.”
“She was,” Hadrian hastened to assure her. “As you are, Mrs. Willoughby.” He was not certain why it rankled when she responded with laughter. Perhaps it was because it, too, reminded him of Soltana’s ability to catch him off guard. “You are new to London?”
“I am brand-new to England, my lord. I have spent the last year in mourning with my deceased husband’s family on the Isle of Jersey. Evelyn was an officer in the Infantry. He fell at Vitoria. The Willoughbys were kind enough to take me in.”
“Willoughby? I have been to Jersey, yet I do not recall a family by that name,” he said, baldly fishing for more information.
“There are no aristocratic families on Jersey by that name. Perhaps that is your confusion.” The twinkle in her eye told him that she had seen right through his ploy. “My husband’s father is a clergyman, my lord. Simple but respectable.”
“I’m sure.” His mouth thinned. She had served him a setdown that he could not contradict. “You say you have not met Princess Soltana.”
“Did I? I doubt I said that, for I have.”
“Have what?”
“Have met her.”
Hadrian waited several seconds before being forced to ask, “Have you seen her recently?”
“Recently?” She put a finger to her lips as if the matter required deep thought. “I suppose it must be termed recent though I cannot pretend to know a gentleman’s perception of time. What would
you
consider recent, my lord?”
Vexation strained the muscles of his neck. “If you would but tell me when last you saw her, I should be obliged.”
“I see.” Her dimple deepened. “I must answer your question before you can answer mine. Isn’t that a tidy way of doing things? I so admire the mind of a man. Precise, to the point, fastidious, one might almost call it.”
“Madam!”
He was shocked by his bombastic tone and by her reaction to it. His mother would have had a fit of hysterics. This unflappable young lady laughed again.
“Oh, but I am abusing your good nature abominably,” she said when she recovered her breath. “And you are too good to allow me to do it. I will make it up to you by ordering tea.” She did not wait for him to agree but went to pull the bell cord. “Potsman shall be here shortly. He’s a wonder—oh, yes, Potsman,” she said when the door opened immediately. “We would like tea … unless you would prefer something more fortifying, Lord Ramsbury?”
“Scotch,” Hadrian answered shortly.
“How flattering of you to recall that my uncle was a Scottish laird as well as the Viscount of Arbuthnott. A Scotch whiskey for his lordship, Potsman.” She moved to a small settee and sat, patting the place beside herself. “Come and join me, my lord. Even Potsman requires a few moments of preparation.”
Reeling from the contortions of this extraordinary conversation, Hadrian decided that it might be better if he did sit. He chose a chair beside the settee. Though her kind expression did not alter, he had the uneasy sense that her dark eyes were laughing at him. Those
eyes
! So alike and yet impossible, of course. Cousins, perhaps? One rumor had claimed that Soltana was Lord Arbuthnott’s natural daughter. That would explain the family resemblance.
“Do I have a blemish on my nose, Lord Ramsbury?”
“I beg your pardon?”
“You are staring, my lord. I thought perhaps I had forgotten to check in my mirror before coming down. Did I leave a dab of soap on my chin?”
“Indeed not. It is only that you so resemble your—ah, cousin?”
“Soltana and I are not cousins,” Clarissa responded smoothly. “Rumor is seldom reliable, don’t you find?”
He blanched. God! How had he come to speak his thoughts aloud? What an insult to her family. “I beg your pardon.”
“You have done so before, begged my pardon. Might I suggest we change the topic of conversation before you grow tired of the civility? You may tell me all that is to be seen and done in town. I have been absent from London these six years. Even so, I’m afraid there shall be little at present I may do. Without my aunt’s companionship, I am housebound for the present.”
“That can be easily amended. My mother and sisters would be glad for your company. You may meet them next Friday evening. We are hosting a small soiree, a few guests. It would introduce you back into society.”
And give me the chance I need to further interview you,
he added silently.
“I should not wish to be an imposition. After all, I am a stranger. Moreover, your mother will have made her arrangements. A last-minute guest is seldom a welcome one.”
“On the contrary.
Maman
loves company. The more the merrier.” Truth was, his mother’s present state of hysteria over her preparations for entertaining the Tsar was not likely to be altered much by the addition of any other guest.
“In that case, I should be delighted. Ah, Potsman, you are a wonder. And so quickly.”
Potsman led in two footmen bearing trays. When they had set out the generous contents of the afternoon repast, he turned to her. “Would you be requiring anything else, Mrs. Willoughby?”
“We are not to be disturbed. And you may bring in the Scotch whiskey decanter. Lord Ramsbury would seem to have a prodigious thirst.”
Only then did Hadrian realize he had upended his glass and emptied it in a single swallow. With a sheepish smile, he nodded to the butler.
He decided at the end of the half hour that the time he spent in Mrs. Willoughby’s company was the strangest “pleasant experience” he had ever had. She had asked dozens of questions which he answered, but she had never answered a single one of his. It was not that she refused, she simply turned it into something else which he could not redirect, no matter how he tried.
When she stood up at the end of the tea, he could do nothing else but rise with her.
“What famous company you have been, my lord. I never thought to enjoy my first day in London half so much. What luck that you should happen by. I shan’t forget your kindness to a stranger.”
“You have promised to join my family on Friday evening,” he reminded her.
“The imposition—”
“There will be none. I shall call for you myself at nine
P.M
. Thank you for a diverting afternoon. If you will excuse me.” He saluted her hand and was about to turn away when he suddenly asked, “Do you ride, my lady?”
“Why, yes. I am a bit rusty, I should wager, but I love a good gallop in the park.”
“Gallop?” She must ride well. “You would needs be an early riser to enjoy a gallop in the city. The afternoon set merely amble in the parks.”
She smiled and nodded. “I shall remember that good advice.”
“Might I hope that you would join me?”
“Perhaps.”
“Tomorrow?”
She laughed again and the sweet sound of it felt like a caress on his taut nerves, smoothing away a little of the abuse of the afternoon. “I should say ‘no,’ but I do not really want to. Would it be too forward of me to agree?”
“I would expect nothing less.”
“Then until tomorrow, my lord.”
“Eight o’clock?”
“I shall be ready.”
Potsman waited a good five minutes after Lord Ramsbury left before he knocked on the salon door. When his rap brought no response, he opened the door a fraction and peeped in.
He had seen many strange sights beneath this roof these last weeks, some of them quite shocking to his sensibilities. But the sight of Miss Clarie sitting in the middle of the salon floor, her arms full of roses, laughing and weeping almost undid him.
“He … did … not … guess,” she gasped out when she saw the majordomo in the doorway.
“Very good, my lady.”
“Oh, Potsman, how can one man be so stupid!”
“I could not say, my lady,” he answered politely and, thinking back to the nonsensical ways of her aunt, decided retreat to be in order. He closed the door as softly as he could.
Clarissa urged her uncle’s Arabian blood into a full gallop on the long straight bridal path at the back side of the park. The ostrich plume in her top hat flew like a banner in the breeze. The wide skirts of her royal-blue riding habit fluttered in the wind, giving any who cared to notice glimpses of her ruffled petticoats and an occasional flash of stocking above her half boots. She did not care. Leaning low in the saddle to ease the drag of the wind, she gave in to the giddy joy of youth that had not been hers for some time.
For two years she had been pretending to be anyone and everyone but herself, Clarissa Holton. The part of dutiful daughter had come naturally to her, but the role of obedient martyr to her father’s dream had not. Neither were the roles of humbled and troubled wife, inconsolable mourner, duplicitous companion to her aunt, nor the sultry mirage who called herself Princess Soltana true portraits of her character. She no longer knew who she was, but she meant to find out.
Once she had said she never wanted any part of the “wild” Holton tradition. But she now realized that by denying her heritage she had lost some inexplicable but vital part of herself. She was not willful nor heedlessly reckless. But she now knew that she was not a sheep either. Nor were her feelings stunted. Never again would she allow duty or circumstance to force upon her a decision she knew, at heart, to be wrong. Something wonderful waited for her if only she was determined to seize it. Was it the man who trailed after her on this glorious morning? She felt so. And she meant to give him every chance to come to the same conclusion.
Hadrian smiled when Clarissa Willoughby looked back at him and lifted her riding crop in salute. He had deliberately allowed her the lead in order to better study her. She rode exceedingly well, for a woman. He had been watching her for the past four mornings, and he doubted he could have managed any better, hampered as she was by a sidesaddle.
The smooth curve of her hips was clearly outlined from behind, and her narrow waist was accented by the tight military fit of her jacket. He had always had a weakness for tiny waists, though the prevailing Empire styling of ladies’ gowns prevented a man from frequent observation of any sort of waist. Clarissa Willoughby had a narrow span and the soft contours of a woman in her prime.
When she pulled up at the end of the lane and turned her mount toward him, he saw the laughter in her eyes and the flattering color of exertion in her cheeks and knew without being told that she was no severely nurtured flower but a fresh and healthy English lady who would thrive in the country as well as in town.
In the clear light of day, it was impossible to believe that he had ever confused her with the sultry, pampered Soltana. They were alike in coloring, size, and general feature, yes, but hardly in temperament and physical agility.
“You’ve a fine seat, madam,” he complimented her when they drew apace.
She laughed at him, her dimple on shameless display. “I’m certain I look altogether like a bale of cotton tied crosswise, but you are too gallant to say so. It’s been more than a year since I rode.” She leaned forward, a conspiratorial smile on her lips. “And then—it will shock you to hear it, my lord—I rode astride.”
It did surprise him, but not for the reason she might have supposed. “You must be a natural horsewoman, madam. Not many riders would have dared the pace you set just now had they been idle a year.”
“You see!” she declared as she lightly struck his sleeve with the tip of her crop. “You are gallant. I shall have to contrive to keep you near me until I’ve gained my confidence about being in London. I am most dreadfully afraid of the
ton.
Though my uncle and aunt are peers, as a daughter who followed her military father on his campaigns I received no Season, no training, no polish at all.”
“Then allow me to offer you my escort,” he replied. “It will be a delightful change from the usual insipid damsels my mother would foster upon me, if I allowed it. I shan’t be in dull company with you.” Her dimpled smile of gratitude, if it was that, struck him clean through.
“You should be careful, my lord. You will not want to be known as the Widow Willoughby’s lackey for long.”
She laughed at his shocked expression, then touched her heel to her horse, urging him into a turn. Hadrian followed her immediately, a smile drawn in spite of himself.
It was strange how much at ease he felt with her, considering the disaster of their first meeting four days earlier. When he thought back on it, he squirmed inwardly. What a fool he must have seemed, bursting in on her and embracing her without a word. It was a wonder she did not scream the room down upon them. Devilishly awkward, that would have been. But she was much too sensible a lady for that. As a member of a household where the women outnumbered the men two to one, he could well admire her self-possession.
By the time they reached the end of the bridle path, she was chatting with him, as she always did on their morning rides, about her years on the Peninsula with her father. He noticed that she always omitted mention of her husband except in passing, and he sensed that there was some unhappiness connected with the memory. But, of course, he could not pry. After only four days in each other’s company, they were merely friendly strangers. So why was it that he felt an acute sense of loss whenever they parted?
“You will join me again, I hope,” Hadrian said as they came out onto the street and crossed into the narrow lane that led to her residence.
“You know me well enough to know I wouldn’t refuse if it was possible,” Clarissa answered readily. “Though I should know better than to admit as much to you. But I repeat my warning. I do not wish idle chatter to fix too pointedly on our association. You’ve your reputation to think of, and I have mine to establish. Handsome young earls don’t make a habit of associating with widows unless, well …” She lowered her gaze. “I need not say more.”
“I will call out the first man who dares utter a word against you,” Hadrian rejoined.
“Then we
would
be in the suds!” She shook her head with a knowing smile. “I shall attend your soiree tonight because I have given my word. But after today, we must wait for my aunt to return from the country before furthering our friendship.”
Her reply prompted another matter to his mind. “Will Lady Arbuthnott be returning directly?”
Clarissa saw the wishful look enter his eyes, and her smile faded. “May I speak frankly, my lord?”
“By all means, Mrs. Willoughby.”
“Since our meeting was unconventional, I will do so. I know that you formed a friendship with Princess Soltana. I do not know your hopes in that direction, but I would discourage you from placing too much value on the connection. The lady is not …” She paused to search his face and saw, unhappily, that his open expression had retreated to one of reserve. “I see I say too much. Forgive me.”
“There’s nothing to forgive,” Hadrian assured her, but the dull ache of loss for Soltana would not be stilled. “I would only ask a favor of you, if it is not too much.”
“Ask, my lord.”
“If you should hear of Princess Soltana, through your aunt or otherwise, would you convey my addresses to her?”
“Done.” Clarissa held his gaze. “Is that all?”
“Yes.”
“Then I bid you good day. This is my stable.”
“Until this evening, madam.” Hadrian tipped his hat before riding off.
Clarissa was glad he did not look back as he rode away, for it gave her the chance to watch him and admire the economy of grace with which he handled his mount. She would have known he was a cavalry officer had she never met him. He rode with a uniformity of motion so in harmony with his steed that she did not doubt his ancient mounted ancestors had been the source of the legend of the centaur, believed to be half man, half horse. How proudly and confidently he moved down the lane. He did not know it yet, but he was a man under siege.
“I will win him from you, Soltana,” she said in a low voice and turned her horse toward the Holton stables. “I will!”
“How many feathers do you suppose a Tsar is worth?” Jane asked her mother as she fiddled with her hair. Dressed in a gown of pale pink with three tiers of satin roses at the hem, she held up first one then two and finally added a third egret plume to her crown. “What do you think, Mama?”
Lady Ramsbury’s main concern was her daughter’s décolletage, which was giving her pangs just under her heart. “You may not wear plumes. You’ve not yet been presented at court. Oh, dear! I don’t know that you should wear that frock after all. Grindle! Grindle? Now where is that lazy maid?
Grindle?”
“She’s helping Thordis and Saxona dress,” Jane answered calmly, “though I doubt she would know any more than we. Grindle’s not been presented at court either.”
“Now that’s a pretty way to address your mama, I’m sure!” Lady Ramsbury’s complexion mottled under stress. After a day’s worth of hysterics and frets, she looked decidedly spotted. “Oh, we shall never have it aright! I can’t think how I allowed Hadrian to talk me into this affair. And that he would choose this moment to absent himself. What can he possibly be thinking of! Escorting a widow! Why not an eligible
parti
?”
“I should think the widow has taken Hadrian’s interest,” Jane said, unconcerned with her brother’s affairs. “He was at pains to present her in a favorable light at nuncheon. Perhaps he’s thinking of marriage.”
“Don’t be a widgeon! Family duty will not permit Hadrian to settle until he’s well past two score years.” Lady Ramsbury did not mention her real concern, that she feared Hadrian was about to set up a love nest with the widow as his turtledove. It was not at all the sort of confidence a mother shared with her unmarried daughter. “My gracious! What is that frightful caterwauling?”
Jane moved to glance out of her second-story window. “Mama! You will not believe the number of people who have gathered in the street. Hadrian says crowds of well-wishers follow the Tsar everywhere. I wonder how they learned that we are expecting him? And, more to the point, how will his carriage ever reach our door without being overset by the crowd?”
“Overset? The Tsar’s carriage? Oh,
MY
!”
Jane knew what to expect as she turned from the window. Even so, the sight of her mother sprawled on her bedroom floor in a heap of ice-blue lace was a shock. It was, after all, the third time today her mother had fainted. Jane quickly rang for aid and then bent to apply a vinaigrette beneath her mother’s nose.
Grindle arrived with Thordis and Saxona in tow. “Not again!” the two girls chorused when they saw their mother.
“Why does Mama keep fainting?” Saxona questioned crossly as her sisters and the maid helped her mother into a sitting position. “I should think a Tsar is not so important as the Regent. And the Regent’s not coming.”
This bit of news was not the first thing Lady Ramsbury needed to hear upon opening her eyes. “Not coming? Who’s not coming? Don’t tell me. The Tsar has sent his regrets. Oh, I shall never live down the humiliation! Never!”
“Now, Mama, no one said the Tsar isn’t coming. Saxona was discussing the Regent.” Jane gave her sister a dark glance. “Why don’t you go downstairs, Saxona, and tell Emory that Mama is coming directly. I think I hear carriage wheels. The first of the guests must be arriving.”
Lady Ramsbury sat up straight. “Did you say carriage wheels? Well don’t just stand there. Help me rise. I must be there to greet my guests.” As the girls helped their mother gain her feet, Lady Ramsbury wailed, “Why, oh, why, does Hadrian dawdle? He knows Emory never remembers names. I hope Emory did not ask an excessive number of his friends tonight. The Tsar may not favor Tulips. Oh, but we are headed for disaster, my dears! I feel it in my bones!”
“It’s Hadrian!” Thordis said from the window where she had gone to look out. “He has a lady with him.”
“Is she very beautiful?” Saxona asked, for her mother had her firmly by the arm, preventing her from joining her sister at the window.
“Excessively, I should say, from what little I can see of her. She is wearing a yellow gown trimmed in swansdown.”
“Does she have plumes in her hair?” Jane asked.
“No, she wears a ribbon and lace cap, a most becoming daffodil shade, in her dark ringlets.”
“Ribbons?” Jane’s usually modulated voice rose alarmingly. “But I have no ribbons!” To the amazement of her sister, maid, and mother, Jane’s lower lip began to tremble wickedly. “I see now that I cannot go down. I should have made a cake of myself by appearing in plumes when Hadrian’s widow wears ribbons.”
“Then do not wear plumes,” Saxona said reasonably. “You shall do as well without them.”
But Jane was beyond simple explanations. She had nursed and cajoled her mother these last days until her own nerves were worn through. She marched over to her vanity and sat down. “I shan’t go down, and there’s an end to it.”
The other Ramsbury women glanced at one another, uncertain how to behave when the one level head among them seemed to have taken a sharp inclination toward hysteria.
“I shall send Hadrian up to her,” Lady Ramsbury whispered to her other daughters. “He knows how to deal with Jane. Come along, now. Thordis, you will have to retie your slipper when we reach the hall. Saxona, remember, one hour to mingle, then up you two girls go. Jane is permitted to remain because she is the only one of you who is Out.”
At the top of the main staircase Lady Ramsbury met with the sight of her eldest child removing the wrap of a most attractive lady. A little above medium height, slender but quite nicely curved, the dark-haired lady moved with a natural grace that was quite pleasing. How solicitously Hadrian treated her. His hand lingered quite too long on her shoulder as he removed her cape, and never in her life had she seen her son fluff a crushed sleeve! Her mother’s heart began to beat a little quickly. Jane was right. Hadrian behaved like a smitten man. Who was this lady? She moved down the stairs with the determination of a general joining the battle.
“Mrs. Willoughby is newly arrived in town,” Hadrian supplied a few minutes later as the introductions were ending.