The Black Cat (3 page)

The Earl of Camden was not used to being treated in this manner. Angrily, he took up the faro box and called the order of the cards. He hardly noticed when he was correct, merely repeating the process like a man possessed, his eyes fixed frostily on Fotheringham.

Fotheringham, clearly enjoying himself, did not appear to
mind
the debts mounting up his side of the table. In between calls, he regaled the earl with the story of Laura Rose's life. Born a gypsy, bred a gypsy, wild, free and unfettered. Until she had been tamed, that is, by Henry, Lord Fotheringham, his youngest and favourite son.

The marquis's eyes became moist and surprisingly faraway as he related the tale. Santana found his fingers relaxing as he listened to the age-old saga of star-crossed lovers, the divide of cultures, of a clandestine marriage and the inevitable birth of a baby girl. Fotheringham's voice was so strangely poignant as the wind whistled through the grates that the earl ceased his fidgeting and gave the man his full attention. The black cat prowled closer, eyeing Santana up and down before leaping with unerring grace upon his lap.

Startled, he nearly cursed the creature to perdition, but before the words were out his mouth, a strange peace settled over him, and the compelling, luminous green eyes soothed his impatient nerves to the point where he could settle back and allow Danvers to expound at length about the cruelty of society—no news to Santana—and the subsequent death of Lord Henry in a confounded curricle race.

Laura Rose had simply vanished into the mists, taking with her nothing but the lock of hair Henry had teasingly cut for her one day and the little bundle that was his eternal legacy. Baby girl and mother had disappeared completely, leaving the marquis bereft and inclined to some of the greater vices to which he'd become accustomed and renowned.

He never defiled young maidens, but the likes of Lady Leigh were a challenge and a distraction to him. Fair game in a world tawdry with iniquity. He did not
say
as much, but Santana, reading between the lines, was silenced. A piece of dirt hit the windowpane and the cat looked up inquiringly. Sensing nothing more, he allowed his head to sink gently back into the unwilling lap.

Unconsciously, Camden found himself stroking the animal, and while it did not precisely purr, the action must have found favour, for its claws retracted visibly and the lithe body relaxed, almost imperceptibly, at his touch.

It did not occur to Santana to ask what had become of the girl. When Fotheringham sank back into companionable silence, broken only by the offering of snuff, the earl roused himself from his unusually sedentary state and took stock of the game. How unlike him to come searching for an adventure and settle for something almost as tame as whist or . . . or . . . yes, dammit, cribbage! Faro was only marginally better than either of these miserable pursuits, and as for allowing himself to be bested at commerce. . .

The notion galled the young earl. He pushed his chair back and eyed the mountain of paper debts facing them. Clearly, by a quite vast margin, he was the winner. He swallowed in satisfaction. Devil take it! At least
that
part of the wind-spoiled day had not gone awry.

“You made the correct choice, my lord.”

Fotheringham looked at the debts stacked before him and raised a brow.

“How so, Santana?”

“If those debts were incurred in the flesh rather than on paper, you would have need of
more
than just an apothecary .”

“Very true. I pride myself on being sagacious enough to avoid all such encounters that would redound to my cost.”

“This
one has, however! You owe me a great deal by the looks of those markers.”

“Pshaw! Not a farthing! My granddaughter and the cat. Mind you, the loss of the prospect of your wine cellars is not insignificant. Lady Leigh may consider her honour avenged.”

“You seem remarkably sanguine under the circumstances. Do you intend to produce this granddaughter or do I merely take an IOU?” Santana's lips twitched humorously.

For an instant, Fotheringham's old eyes flashed, but only moments later, they were hooded once more.

“You may take the cat. I shall have the girl delivered to Camden Court on the morrow.”

“Good gracious, man. You cannot be serious!”

“Can I not?” Brown eyes met blue.

“You cannot dispose of your kin as if they were no more than three pieces of silverware or a basket of fruit!”

“You agreed to the terms, Lord Santana.”

Santana's eyes narrowed. “So! This is merely another ploy to foist the marriage state onto me. I might have guessed, Lord Fotheringham! You are a wily old creature, but I tell you, you shan't cozen me this way.”

“We had an agreement. . . .”

“Very true. But nothing, I may say, made mention of
nuptials
. If your granddaughter comes to me, it will be in the unwedded state or not at all. Ouch! What was that?”

Blood seeped through the earl's elegant white kidskin gloves. He looked suspiciously at the cat, but she was stretched innocently across his lap and hardly looked guilty of inflicting such an unexpectedly painful injury.

“What the devil . . . ?”

“Do not, I pray you, curse in my home, Lord Santana!”

“As far as I am aware, Dewhurst
Castle
is your home, my lord! Besides, I shall curse where I please. No! No! Take the blasted handkerchief away. The blood seems to have staunched itself. I will take the cat, your apologies, and no more.”

“Very well, Lord Santana. You shall take the cat. As for apologies, I am not in the habit of making them, and on the eve of my eighty-second birthday, I do not intend changing my ways for a fledgling like
you!
You may consider Lady Leigh's honour—such that it is—avenged. I shall set up some small pension for her and maintain her house in Richmond. Who knows? For such largesse she may
willingly
choose to furnish me further with her favours.” He cackled a little maliciously at the disgust that was evident on the earl's face. He continued with a little less levity. “If you remain adamant on the point, we shall say no more, for the moment, about my granddaughter.”

“I remain adamant.”

Lord Fotheringham's eyes shuttered for a moment. “I hope it is not an obstinacy you shall live to regret, Lord Santana. I shall pray you then good day.”

Santana allowed a breathtaking grin to stretch across his intense, darkly handsome features.

“Good day to you,
too,
my lord! By the by, what does this mangy scrap eat?”

“She adores turtle soup in the shell. A little turbot on the side is always pleasing, though I believe a bowlful of buttered lobster and some fresh sea oysters are regarded as her particular favourites.”

“Indeed?”
Lord Santana's brows arched. “Perhaps the creature is better off with you then, for I assure you my chef will balk at serving even
preserved
turtle to a mere feline! ”

“I do not believe the creature will have a problem with that. To be sure, fresh is best, but you will find her not an
unreasonable
companion, I assure you.”

Since the cat chose that moment to mew pitifully and look up at Santana with its piercing, knowing eyes, the earl was silenced. He merely scooped up his bundle, marched from the parlour, and made his way to the waiting stallion. He pocketed the animal in his capacious, elegantly cut greatcoat as if she were of no more account than a ha'penny coin, untethered the beast, and edged into an invigorating gallop guaranteed to shake the cobwebs from his addled mind. If he continued due west, he might find himself closer to a modicum of civilisation. The winds were too gusty to turn back and head home. He heartily prayed that the little town of Northumbleton was not too far a distance. The inn's culinary repute was now, unexpectedly, occupying his full attention.

“Patterson, I
implore
you not to poke your head so disapprovingly at me! Pretend, I beg you, the animal is a horse. A little mangier, perhaps, than you are used to, but a sound animal nonetheless. You have only to groom it and feed it, and I am tolerably certain you shall deal well together. Come, come, desist from that Friday face of yours! Cats need
far
less attention than your average pony—by all accounts they practically clean
themselves!
It shall not be such an unbearable addition to your stable duties I assure you!”

The head groom did not, in any way, appear mollified by these words of autocratic comfort. Since he was one of the select few who had known his lordship since childhood and been privy to all his bumps and scrapes in the past, he now viewed it as his prerogative—indeed duty—to remind the earl of what benefitted his rank. Clearly, an inky black feline of uncertain origin did not rank high on this list.

“Don't you go bamming me, savin' yer lor'ship! A ‘orse be 'orse and a puff of fur ball be somethin' very different, mind! Give over wiv vis nonsense, me lor'! I be takin' the animal all right and tight down to Annie Ludlaw I be!
She
be knowing what to do wiv it—like as not she's drownded a fair few in 'er time. . . .”

His voice trailed off as cat and master simultaneously afforded him a glare of intense displeasure.

“All right, all right, guv! I be takin' her but don' say I didn' warn yer—”

“Thank you, Patterson! You relieve me greatly! Now if you will be so good . . .”

He extended his arm and tried to extricate the cat from his shoulder. To no avail. She dug her little claws in tenaciously and refused to budge.

If Patterson snickered, the earl, particularly forbearing under the circumstances, chose to ignore him. He tried yet again and
again
the cat refused to dislodge.

“Curses! You are not a
cat
—you are a little vixen!” The creature purred and stretched luxuriously upon the tip of his immaculate epaulette.

“Don't stand there gaping, Patterson! I see I shall have to allow the scrawny little thing indoors. Perhaps Mrs.
Farrow
can make the little she-devil see reason.”

Apparently not. Mrs. Farrow, it must be said, was more inclined than Patterson to adopt the creature. She tempted it with little saucers of milk and heavenly tidbits of salted pork from the cellars, but to no avail. The cat stubbornly refused to leave the earl's presence for more than a few moments at a time.

His lordship, it may be said, found his new associate to be annoying, willfull, and excessively vain. Since being presented into the earl's dignified household, she was looking a lot less scrawny and altogether rather pleased with herself. She preened incessantly and he wondered, several times, what
severe
aberration of fate was now leading him to serve his tormenter turtle soup in a tureen of solid silver. That he caused this repast to be followed up with seasoned oysters and some particularly tasty salmon from his streams did nothing to improve his temper or discourage the belief that he must have finally lost his wits.

Only the emerald eyes of the little creature gave him pause. So like those
other
cat's eyes! And of course, there was the girl. Strange that he had not
noticed
the colour of her eyes—only the strange, slanted shapes and the dark lashes so thick that they curled. . . . He shook himself from his reveries.
She,
of course, was
just
as annoying, willfull, and vain! Not for the first time, he wished he'd at least exchanged names with his midnight siren. Who was she? Who, who, who? He'd returned to the spot several times, but of course, gypsies being what they were, she'd moved on. Perhaps forever. My lord sighed. He must do something before lethargy crept into his blood and tainted it entirely.

He glanced at the cat, who was looking very satisfied with itself as it licked its paws and prepared to stretch out upon the marble statue of Venus Santana had imported especially from Europe.

He contemplated it for a moment, then allowed a slow, mischievous smile to creep across his masculine lips. “So! I see I am saddled with you, my precious! Since your mother's name was legendary and you are looking rather more beautiful than mangy, I shall hereby name you after the god you seem so happy to repose upon. From now on, you are
Venus,
my pet, the goddess of love and beauty. Quite an elevation, wouldn't you say? Come, come, we shall have to garb you in attire that is fitting.” Suddenly energised, he allowed Venus to trail after him as he made his way directly to the chamber he'd selected exclusively for his use.

It was rather more stark than the rest of his elaborate castle, but functional, elegant, and supremely tasteful nonetheless. His desk, as always, stood bare but for a handful of blooms he had himself selected that morning. Apart from this deference to aestheticism, there was little in the chamber that revealed a softer side to his personality. The books arrayed across the whole of one wall, while well read, were nonetheless perfectly shelved and immaculately in place. None of the portraits that were abundant through the galleries and hallways hung here. To the right of his desk stood a high-backed chair, lined in blue velvet a shade deeper than the damask drapes just behind him. There were many round beaded windows with thin, artfully wrought glazing bars that he'd had fitted for increased light, but they were severely plain and unadorned by any of the Gothic extravagances that appeared, currently, to be the fashion.

Whilst the panes looked out on a courtyard and traditional rose garden below, the writing chair was placed
away
from them. A tall, bronze candelabra and a colza oil lamp offered further functionality to the chamber, which boasted several mahogany cabinets, a large map, and two life-size marble statues the earl particularly admired for their smooth, simple lines and subtle symmetry. The furnishings were complete with a single chaise longue in mottled hues of blue, gold, and dusty pink. The item, though charming, was a concession to comfort rather than prevailing trends, which dictated canary yellow or burnished red as colours of consequence.

The earl, now, ignored these features as he opened his drawer and fetched out a key. Striding purposefully to one of the mahogany cabinets, he fitted the key and unlatched a drawer that pulled out entirely. He reached his hand behind the panel as Venus watched from a distance, vaguely disdainful of the proceedings.

“Yes, turn up your nose, my little goddess! I will wager a sovereign that not many
other
females will appear as uninterested!”

The earl finally found what he was looking for. He nodded in satisfaction as he drew out an old satin-clad box. When he opened it, the sunlight danced on its contents and caused little flashes of light to filter across the small male preserve.

“Ah yes, my Venus! Come see what I have for you.” It was fortunate that his lordship was not superstitious, for he could
swear
the sleek creature understood every one of his silky, half-playful words. She leaped upon the writing table, gracefully avoiding knocking over the peonies.

“I should say so! Come here, you little vixen!”

Obediently, the cat took a pace forward and extended a sleek, shimmering black neck. Her eyes appeared very green as the earl removed the bracelet of ice-white diamonds surrounding a single, luminous, and utterly lovely cabochon-cut emerald.

“Will it fit? Excellent, Venus. It was meant to be! I now brand you my personal page. Wherever I go, you shall go, too. We shall be excellent friends, shall we not?”

The cat did not deign to reply. It seemed, to her, that the earl merely spoke the obvious. Instead, she leaped up upon his shoulder and rubbed her soft head just beneath his lordship's chin.

His lordship did not appear to mind being scratched by the jewels. He laughed shortly and rang for Sedgewick.

 

 

Lady Aurelia Callum looked as if her face had been slapped. How
dared
the man have the effrontery to appear in her drawing room with a . . . a . . .
cat
upon his shoulder! Was he mocking her? The cat appeared to be wearing
exactly
the type of bracelet that she most coveted. She grew crimson when she remembered hinting, a little, during the dance at Richmond.

My lord had attended as a duty, since the occasion was the betrothal of his good friend Lord Soames, and he had, much to her delight, been introduced to her as an eligible partner. His conversation had been disappointingly distant and
appallingly
noncommittal despite her
very
best efforts. And now this!

She would be the laughingstock of the
ton,
allowing him to ruin her gathering in this disgraceful fashion. She could picture it: no mention in the
Morning Post
of the elite get-together she'd slaved over for weeks, only pages and pages on Lord Santana's latest flight of fancy. It was sickening! There'd be speculation, snickering. . . . Perhaps she should, after all, give him the cut direct. She quivered a little and did not quite like the polite sneer upon her guest's amused countenance.

“May I share the jest, my lord?”

“Jest? I assure you, Lady Aurelia, there
is
none!”

She laughed a little nervously. “The cat. . .”

“Venus? Do not put yourself out on
her
behalf, I beg! A selection from that interesting-looking cold collation over there shall do perfectly.
Shan't
it, Venus?”

The cat looked approving and leaped from shoulder to table with such grace that his lordship could not quite resist pointing out her particular lightness of feet and delicateness of movement.

Her ladyship paled and Santana did not, somehow, think it was from admiration.

“Hartshorn, my lady? Here, allow me!” He pulled the stopper from her trembling hands and waved the vile substance in front of her nose. “The very thing, do not you think? You shall be all right in a trice, unless you prefer to repair to your chamber?” The lady gave an anguished moan that, sad to say, greatly satisfied the world-weary earl. With a cheerful nod, he allowed several lackeys to dance attendance upon their mistress before strolling, nonchalantly, into the supper room.

“Oh, my lord! What a perfectly
charming
animal! Amabel simply
adores
pets! Don't you, Amabel?” A disgustingly huge fan was fluttered in the earl's face before a limpid sigh was detected from beyond.

“Indeed I do, Mama. I would not for the
world
wish to push myself forward, but I do believe I have a special bond with all living creatures. I daresay
you,
my lord,
share
it!” The lady—a vision in a heavy pink creation of muslin and lace—pushed past the fan and extended her satin clad hand to pat the evening's social sensation.

The earl had just been concocting, in his head, a suitably dampening response to this
simpering
outpouring, when the cat did something he had not previously seen her do. The fur rose upon her back and she crouched threateningly against Santana's immaculate shirt points. He could
feel
her power, for her claws unsheathed and he had an uncomfortable, pricking sensation through his snowy, excellently folded cravat.

She hissed at first, then spat. She comprehensively spattered Miss Amabel Rutherford-Smythe's expensive gloves before emitting a slight snarl and relaxing back, innocently, upon my lord's shoulder.

The earl had the most lowering sensation that he was about to laugh. Instead, he cleared his throat, but the amusement lurking behind his limpid brown eyes was unmistakable. Miss Rutherford-Smythe smothered a most unladylike curse and allowed herself to be led to the powder room by her indignant mama. Unfortunately for her, the scene had not gone unnoticed, and it was the inspiration for a rather unseemly limerick published by the Post the following day.

For the first time in a long time, Guy Santana found himself actually
entertained
at these gatherings. He found himself discarding less and less mail into the
regrets etc.
pile and placing several rather key invitations into the
gratefully accept
basket. It was not long before Venus was an adept part of the social scene. Hostesses came to understand the inevitable. If they desired Lord Guy's attendance at their soirees, routs, and balls, then they must, quite naturally, expect and resign themselves to the ubiquitous presence of his goddess, Venus.

Some of the nastier spinsters—and indeed, some more elevated personages like the Countess Lieven and the Princess Esterhazy—withheld their judgment, but their very silence caused talk and gave certain circles to understand that there was still a lurking question mark behind the suitability of the third Earl of Camden's latest whim.

If it had been a
chère d'amour
or some such thing, it would have been quite different, for young ladies could feign no knowledge of the circumstance or, at the very least, did not have to come into regular confrontation with it. But an animal at an elegant rout? The social implications were enormous and rather too difficult to entirely condone.

The matter was settled, once and for all, by a rather pompous, hand-inscribed invitation from the Prince of Wales himself. This in itself was not remarkable, for Santana was known to be a particular intimate of the prince. What
was
remarkable was that it was to be one of his royal highness's fabled balls and
that,
everyone knew, was something the prince took very seriously indeed.