The Impostor (2 page)

She must do the same.

As the daughter of a simple soldier, Tessa had no notion of what a fashionable and incomparably lovely actress might wear to a ball given by the Prince Regent. Pearls or diamonds? Gold or silver? Sapphire or rubies?

She finally selected several pieces from a parure of diamonds and sapphires that matched the exact shade of Jane Cameron’s eyes. The bandeau and brooch seemed excessive, but she set aside the necklace, bracelets and drop earrings. In the firelight, each individual gem gleamed like a shard of starlight.

She wished futilely that she might send for a maid. It was out of the question, of course, with the true Jane Cameron sprawled unconscious across the bed, but Tessa, who spoke half a dozen languages and could impersonate a French cardinal to perfection, had no idea how to dress a lady’s hair for a Carlton House ball.

She finally elected to pile the dark mass high on her head and stabbed it through with a jeweled comb. Small, red-gold curls fell loose and danced enchantingly against her heart-shaped face. She slipped on the earrings, then fastened the heavy bracelets around her wrists.

When she had finished dressing and had powdered her shoulders, she trailed to the tall cheval glass and studied her reflection carefully, from the curls piled high on her head to the slippers on her feet. Jane Cameron looked beautiful, but more importantly, Tessa hoped she also looked correct.

Then, closing her eyes, she focused for a moment on a memory of the way the actress had carried herself, that languid, lazy walk, the swan-like arch of her neck.

“I am Jane Cameron,” she said to herself, and fastening a white velvet cloak over her shoulders, she stepped out into the hall to summon the butler and Jane’s carriage.

Chapter Two

Sebastian Montague, fourth Earl Grenville, despised most of Society, particularly the fat Prince Regent. And most of Society, including the fat Prince Regent, returned the sentiment. Therefore, it was a miracle that despite his scars, his limp and his total lack of charm, he still continued to receive invitations.

But then, though Sebastian might be ugly and crippled, he still wielded considerable power in Parliament, and no one wanted to accidentally offend him.

He seldom attended any of the various balls, soirees and routs that constituted the main events of the Season. Tonight, however, he had come to Carlton House to hunt for a traitor wearing the face of one of his old mistresses.

The thought filled him with a surge of energy. It had been years since the end of the war and the disbandment of the Omega Group, and though he did not miss the war, he did miss the excitement of the hunt and of outwitting his French enemies.

He enjoyed his work in Parliament, of course, supporting reform and the abolition of slavery, and not merely because he knew his reactionary grandfather must be turning over in the grave. He also genuinely enjoyed the responsibilities of being the Earl Grenville, caring for his lands, seeing to the needs of his tenants.

But he had missed being just Sebastian Montague. And though he could never return to his past—to the unscarred, undamaged self he had been before the war—tonight his country needed him again.

A traitor wandered these crowds, a traitor responsible for the deaths and disappearances of his old friends from the war, and he intended to catch her.

With a swift, dismissive glance, he scanned the crowd at Carlton House tonight. Prinny’s usual cronies: drunks and dilettantes, rakes and whores. As his gaze passed over a small gaggle of tittering matrons in nearly translucent gowns, one of them whispered, “the Grenville Gargoyle”, and another, “Lady Jersey is right. He is
quite
the Ugliest Man in England!”

He did not flinch. He was used to the sobriquets now, and in fact took a great deal of pleasure in making the ladies extremely uncomfortable by presenting them with the scarred side of his face. His beauty—or lack of it—did not trouble him in the least, and their opinion meant nothing to him.

He would not have been here at all tonight if his oldest friend, Sir Francis Hughes, had not told him that a traitor responsible for the deaths and disappearances of countless good Englishmen would be attending Prinny’s ball in the guise of Jane Cameron.

Unlike Sebastian, Francis had continued working as an agent of the Crown following the conclusion of the wars with America and Napoleon’s France, and when he had appeared on the doorstep of Grenville House earlier that evening and asked for help, Sebastian had agreed immediately.

Sebastian now bowed and nodded to an acquaintance before making his way to the supper table. He was quite hungry and had to admit that Prinny did know how to lay an excellent table. As he consumed his crab patty with great pleasure, one of the earnest younger Whig lords who also supported the abolition of slavery stopped to congratulate him on his last speech. Otherwise, no one spoke to him, though nearly everyone paused when they saw him to bow and murmur a greeting.

After all, Sebastian was still one of England’s best-known heroes, and a great favorite of the Duke of Wellington. No one would dare give him the cut direct.

As he reached for a second crab patty, something prickled at the back of his neck, a kind of strange awareness, though nothing around him had changed. He turned slowly, scanning the laughing, glittering crowd.

And then he saw her. She stood at the top of the curving marble stairs, a tall, slender woman with a lush bosom prominently displayed in a nearly diaphanous white gown, her flaming hair piled in coils at the crown of her head. For a moment she stood uncertainly, gazing down at the crowd with one gloved hand resting on a banister.

Sebastian smiled. The traitor, wearing Jane Cameron’s face, had arrived.

The hunt was on.

Three years before, on a hot summer night in July, while the British army had camped on the south banks of the Tormes River, Lord Wellington had conjured up a storm.

For reasons that Tessa had never understood, the British general always conjured up a storm in secret before a battle. It was as though he wished to remind the half-dozen Gifted members of the Omega Group who served on his staff that he, too, was not without psychic powers.

The rest of the British army, unaware of the secret activities of the Omega Group and at a loss to explain the sudden storms, called it Wellington weather—violent tempests that caused the rain to fall in sheets, soaking their blankets in mud. That night, as the British prepared to face Marmont’s army, lightning bolts had torn apart the sky, causing the cavalry horses to rear and break their tethers in terror. As the horses ran, they had trampled their half-drowned masters underfoot.

The general’s Gift was not a particularly powerful one. He had little control over the storms that he called. This one had eventually overwhelmed him, and as the thunder and lightning raged outside and the first white light of dawn had touched the horizon, he had collapsed in his tent.

It had been Tessa’s father who had called her to Wellington’s bedside. The general had looked frighteningly frail and old, but when he had spoken it had been in his own strong accent. It was imperative, the general had informed her, that he should be seen on the field of battle in the morning. If the men knew that their leader was ill, they would panic and all would be lost.

Tessa had understood immediately what he wanted of her. Ever since her father had informed the general of her particular Gift, he had often asked her to take on the appearance of others—a French staff officer, a Spanish peasant, a noblewoman in the Madrid court of Joseph Bonaparte. She knew that now, he wanted her to ride into battle in his guise and lead his men into battle.

She had agreed to the deception. Her father, Edward Ryder, was a staff officer whose particular Gift was for telepathy, and he had ridden at her side, communicating psychically with Wellington, who remained sequestered safely behind the lines. Sebastian had been at her side too, a calm, commanding presence, and Tessa had been unafraid.

But now Tessa was alone. And she was afraid.

She stood in the center of a drawing room furnished entirely in gold, gazing around her at the glittering crowd of England’s elite. The night was perfumed and warm, and inside, a thousand chandeliers illuminated the extravagantly furnished hall. The candlelight glowed over the elegantly garbed men and women below. A large supper table ran the whole length of the room and straight through to a conservatory on the far end.

To her astonishment, an actual stream flowed above the middle of the table from a silver fountain. Flowers spilled in fragrant profusions from silver bowls and vases. A uniformed band played at the far end of the room, though the chatter of the crowd was so loud Tessa could hardly hear the music.

The pounding of her heart had calmed since her arrival, but thus far she had discovered little to help her find Sebastian. She could only pray that her flimsy plan would work and that this was not all for naught.

After an hour, she had learned nothing of use from any of the people who approached her. Instead, she had spent the evening fending off Jane Cameron’s admirers. Fortunately, as always, the faint traces of the actress’s memories had lingered.

Now, as a man Tessa did not recognize bowed to her at the foot of the stairs, she nevertheless knew his name, a whisper in her mind accompanied by a sharp feeling of dislike.

She had hoped Sebastian would be here tonight. She should have known better. The research she had conducted on Sebastian’s life after his return to England had indicated he did not go about much in Society, but the Prince Regent’s ball was one of the great events of the Season, and with no other scheme in mind, Tessa had no choice but to try.

As one of Jane’s admirers hurried off to fetch her lemonade she did not want, someone called out from not far behind her, “Jane!”

She turned. A vivacious, richly gowned woman beckoned to her. The woman was not beautiful, but her sharp, clever features had some indefinable appeal. A distant wave of affection swept through her, an echo of Jane Cameron’s feelings. Her mind produced a name.

“Hello, Harriette,” Tessa said easily, bending to kiss the rouged cheeks.

“You look absolutely r
avishing
, Jane!” exclaimed Harriette Wilson. “The parure—that way of dressing your hair—you must have your maid show mine how it is done! So simple and yet so elegant—I always forget how very beautiful you are, my dear.”

She swept Tessa along, chatting easily.

“It’s a perfect crush, is it not? It’s taken me ages to find you.” Her smile widened as she gazed at Tessa. “You see, Jane—the
Gargoyle
has been looking for you.”

Tessa blinked, wondering if she had misheard. “The…gargoyle?”

Harriette rolled her eyes. “
Grenville
, my dear. Have you forgotten the man
completely
already? He did you give you that necklace.”

Grenville
. He was here. Her heart skipped a beat and her stomach dropped. “Yes, of course,” she said, faintly.

“I promised I would bring you to him if I chanced across you. This is simply too delicious, Jane. I wonder what the Gargoyle has to say to you, after the perfectly odious note he sent you with that
parure
?”

“I have no notion,” said Tessa truthfully.

Why
was
Sebastian seeking out Jane Cameron? From what she had gleaned, his association with Jane had ended months ago, and though the actress had put it about that she had been the one to end the affair, it was an open secret Sebastian had been the one to hand Jane her
conge
. What reason would he have for speaking to the actress now?

Though Tessa had been seeking Sebastian, she had expected to need to approach him, to seek some way of gaining an audience with him. Her stomach curdled unpleasantly like soured milk, and her heart beat faster.

In the next moment, she squelched the feeling, reproaching herself for her own foolishness. Sebastian had no reason to suspect anything. She had confided her plans to no one.

“He was here just a moment ago,” said Harriette, craning her neck to peer over the crowd. “Fortunately, he’s tall as well as being excessively ugly. It should not take long to find him… Ah, yes.”

Tessa looked up sharply. A tall man in precisely tailored evening clothes stood on the far side of the room, conversing casually with three brightly garbed women.

Her first, dazed impression was that Sebastian had not changed much in the last six years. His dark hair still curled carelessly over his cravat. His face, the memory of which she had never permitted her father to take from her, even when its recurring appearance in her dreams devastated her anew each time, was still as dark and harshly compelling as it had been when she had first known him in Portugal and Spain.

Only the long thin bayonet scar that bisected his left cheek was new. She had known he had been injured at Waterloo, but she had not known it had been in the face, and her heart clenched at the thought of the pain and agony the wound must have given him.

For a moment, the room spun around her; she was eighteen again, in love with a man she would never—could never—have.

At the last instant, she felt the transformation slipping, and she recalled herself to the present with an effort. Maintaining the form of others was not difficult, but it was an active process, much like sucking in the stomach. The moment her concentration faltered, the disguise would vanish, and she would only be herself.