The Purloined Heart (The Tyburn Trilogy) (13 page)

The devil hath not, in all his quiver’s choice, an arrow for the heart like a sweet voice. 
—Lord Byron

Of the many entertainments available to him this evening, Mr. Jarrow chose to present himself at a venerable mansion house in Piccadilly, where he was greeted with respect and affection, the house’s owner being a distant relative. As he climbed the great stone stair, one of the architectural features for which the ancient pile was noted, he reflected that his life would be much simpler had he not attended a certain masquerade.

The sweet strains of a harp greeted him in the upper hallway, and a familiar toe-twitching voice.

“But oh, fell Death’s untimely frost

That nipt my Flower sae early!

Now green’s the sod, and cauld’s the clay,

That wraps my Highland Mary.”

What was Maddie thinking? So much for playing least-in-sight.

The double drawing-rooms were furnished with mahogany, ormolu, buhl, brass and satinwood; upholstered in yellow satin and silk. Crystal chandeliers hung from the ceiling. Fitted Wilton carpets covered the floors.

The atmosphere was hushed. Such was the power of Maddie’s voice that the majority of her audience had temporarily ceased vilifying one another to listen to her sing. Accompanying her on a tall pedal harp was Viscount Ashcroft, subdued in evening garb and a black waistcoat. Jordan Rhodes stood nearest the performers, to Lord Maitland’s obvious annoyance, and clearly had no intention of surrendering his place. Lady Georgiana looked displeased, and Louise Holloway bored. Maddie wore a long-sleeved, high-waisted gown of white gauze striped with blue, satin slippers, and a fetching satin cap. In her gloved hands, folded at her waist, she held a fan of pierced horn leaves.

Angel was developing an appreciation for stripes.

He threaded his way through the crowd in search of his hostess, glimpsed Daphne and her conte squashed into a corner, pretended not to notice her beckoning to him. Angel’s inamorata was prone to appallingly energetic notions of late, and he was not as gymnastically inclined as he had been in his youth.

“There you are, you scapegrace.” Lady Rutherford —  a plump dowager decked out in diamonds and feathers and a great deal of purple satin —  took advantage of the fact that she had known Angel from the cradle to dare and pinch his cheek. “I believe you are acquainted with Mrs. Tate?” She grasped his arm and plowed through her guests, if not knocking them over like bowling pins, at the least causing bruises to bloom on assorted ribs.

Lord Maitland set his jaw and greeted Angel with a curt nod. Jordan Rhodes smiled, amused. Mrs. Holloway brightened, as had every other female Angel passed, save Lady Georgiana, whose mouth snapped sourly shut. Viscount Ashcroft glanced at his mama, and at Angel, and rolled his eyes.

Tony fingered a final flourish on the harp. Maddie bowed her head. “So moving!” announced Lady Rutherford, and applied a lacy handkerchief to the corner of one eye, while the other guests applauded and called out for more. “No, no, we must not strain that exquisite voice. Mr. Rhodes, will you be so good as to bring Mrs. Tate a lemonade?”

What was it about hostesses and lemonade? Angel’s sister had taken a similar notion —  although, unlike Lady Rutherford, she hadn’t slipped him a wink. Jordan Rhodes departed, as suggested, but not before awarding Angel a speculative glance.

Before anyone else could claim her attention, Angel offered Maddie his arm. Aware of listening ears, he said, “I must speak with you on a matter of some urgency. It concerns the dog.”

 “And I you, sir!” Maddie allowed him to cut her from the crowd. “At my suggestion, Matthew took the boys to view a locomotion exhibit —  they are fascinated with the steam railroad and talk incessantly about the ‘Catch-me-who-can’ and the ‘Salamanca’, and ‘Puffing Billy’. On the way home, they encountered a herd of cows.”

Angel winced. “The dog accompanied them?”

“The dog accompanies them everywhere. Sir Owen was presented with a staggering accounting of damages. It made him very cross.”

“I see how it might. You have my sympathy, Mrs. Tate. How may I regain your favor? Shall I show you Lady Rutherford’s gardens? They are considered very fine.” Behind them, the strains of Handel’s ‘Air on a G String,’ as performed on the harp, wafted on the air.

Mrs. Tate being agreeable to the suggestion, Angel escorted her out onto the small terrace behind the house and down stone steps into the garden proper, which stretched back to the stable block, the whole lit by lamps set at intervals in the old stone walls. “You may not be surprised to learn that I have made a study of London gardens,” he said amiably. “This one has many nice features. Pray permit me to point them out. Notice, if you will, the straight gravel walks that enclose small grass plots and flower beds, the trellised trees against the walls: walnuts, tulip, and ailanthus, all cleverly lit. See how the pink damask roses and purple lilacs and yellow laburnums flourish. And over there—”

She turned toward him, one hand upraised. “I admit that I was rude. You need not rub it in. I apologize for saying you are spoiled.”

“But I
am
spoiled,” admitted Angel. “Or so my sister says. And while you should never apologize for speaking the truth, your delivery left much to be desired. To properly convey disdain, you must draw back and survey me along the length of your nose. Not an easy thing, I grant you, when I am so much taller—”

Maddie’s fingers curled, if she wished to swat him. “But I didn’t wish to convey disdain!”

“I applaud your forbearance.” Angel drew her along a central stone-paved path, past a winged cherub standing on a pedestal, into a red brick pavilion containing a high-backed hardwood bench, where he sat her down. “Bea has been scolding me. For that matter, so has Kane. But that isn’t what I want to talk to you about.”

Maddie looked up at him, her expression somber. “I have been hearing the most disturbing things.”

Angel supposed it had been too much to hope that he might break the news to her. Everyone with the power of speech was speculating upon the identity of the body discovered in the churchyard of St. Paul’s. Since the cadaver had worn theatrical costume, the most likely candidate seems to be Verity Vaughan, but those people privileged to be present pointed out that the actress would have had to shrink a good six inches, as well as change the shape of her nose and chin.

Maddie gripped her fan. “Was it Miss Arbuthnot?”

Angel sat beside her on the bench. “Unfortunately, yes. Fanny was your Henry VIII. Did it not occur to you that it was unwise to sing tonight?”

“Of course it occurred to me! I could hardly refuse when Lady Rutherford asked me to perform.”

Angel caught Maddie’s hands before she could squeeze her fan to splinters. She added, “It
didn’t
occur to me that Henry might have been female. If only I might pack up the boys and Matthew and return to Meadowmount!”

Mr. Jarrow enjoyed a moment’s madness, in which he considered leaving Maddie’s father and his wife behind, along with Kane and Lord Castlereagh. “If you desire to depart London, I daresay something might be arranged.”

She tilted her head to one side. “Are you offering
me
a slip on the shoulder? Because I have it on good authority that I’m not that sort of female.”

 Angel wondered what numbskull had told her that taradiddle. “Would it be so terrible if I did?”

“I daresay it wouldn’t be terrible at all,” Maddie responded frankly. “But I must think of Benjie and Penn. Sir Owen frequently threatens to remove them from my keeping on the grounds I haven’t the good sense of a goose. Beside, you are married, sir.”

She displayed less outrage at his suggestion than Angel felt himself. “You believe in marital fidelity?”

“I am aware that is a provincial point of view.”

“Ah. Mr. Tate did
not
believe in marital fidelity.”

“I do not care to discuss Mr. Tate.”

Angel knew from long experience when a woman needed kissing, and this woman needed kissing now. By him. Here in Lady Rutherford’s garden. Where they were seated, once again, on a convenient bench.

He’d give her a friendly kiss, Angel decided, as atonement for his unsettling talk of danger and death; an affectionate kiss, not the kind that scorched paint off every building in the vicinity. He would soothe instead of arouse, and enable her to forget her troubles for a brief space of time.

At least that was Angel’s intention when he took her in his arms.

She said faintly, “We must not,” and relaxed against him nonetheless.

Angel knew they mustn’t. But her breasts were soft against his chest, and she smelled of peppermint again.

By the time Angel managed to wrestle his baser instincts into submission, which was no little while later, Mrs. Tate was again arranged across his lap. Angel had no notion how she’d gotten there. He didn’t want her to leave. She nipped his earlobe. He groaned.

Maddie opened her eyes, regarded him with bemusement, and then sprang to her feet. She tugged up her bodice, twitched down her skirt, smoothed her hair, so flagrantly flustered that he experienced another sharp stab of desire. He wanted to drag her beneath him on the bench, feel her body arch against his, hear her beg him for completion, notions so heady that it took him a moment to realize Maddie was indeed speaking to him. She concluded, “I fear I have little self-control where you are concerned.”

Angel smiled up at her. “Whereas I have none at all.”

“Why should you?” she said somberly. “When females are forever flinging themselves at your feet? This cannot happen again. I am not for you, or you for me.”

Angel didn’t follow her out of the pavilion. He was in the grip of some strong emotion. It took him several moments to recognize it as regret.

Vanity, working on a weak head, produces every sort of mischief. 
—Jane Austen

Tony had concluded his harp recital with Bach’s ‘Jesu, Joy of Man’s Deserving’ and was —  again —  listening to his mama scold. Lady Georgiana was indignant that Maddie had —  again —  gone into a garden with Angel Jarrow. ‘Amorous vagaries’ were mentioned, and ‘evil toils’. She pulled her son into a corner, where they might not be overheard.

“Now
that,
” interrupted Tony, “is doing it too brown. Even if Angel
is
a scapegrace, that don’t mean his toils are evil
.
What are
toils, anyway? Tolls I understand, and trolls, not that I’ve ever met one and don’t expect I will. A troll, that is! Anyway, I’m not sure Angel is as much of a rogue as everybody claims. For one thing, he ain’t got no by-blows, or if he does he’s kept them well hid because nobody knows about them yet.”

“By-blows!” gasped Lady Georgiana, elegant in lilac crepe vandyked round the hem and a turban with a lilac ostrich plume. “Not in polite company!”

 “I never heard he did that, either!” Tony protested. “And I
would
have heard it if he’d done it, and so would everybody else. You want to lock Maddie away like poor Princess Charlotte so you can make certain Angel ain’t included in the list of visitors she’s allowed to see. That’s a bag of moonshine. Maddie’s no green girl.”

“Certainly not, if she’s sneaking into gardens with Angel Jarrow!” Lady Georgiana hissed.

Retorted Tony, with relish, “I don’t think you can call it ‘sneaking’ when everyone present saw them go.”

His mama’s jowls quivered with outrage. “Are you smiling? How dare you smile! This is a disaster, and you are to blame.”

What was a disaster? wondered Tony. And how was it his fault? “I didn’t do anything.”

“That is my point.” The viscount’s fond parent glared at him. “I told you Angel Jarrow would ruin Maddie, but did you listen? You did not.”

Tony thought it might not be a bad thing if Angel
did
render Maddie unmarriageable. If Maddie became unmarriageable, his mama would stop insisting that Tony marry her.

Or maybe Maman wouldn’t. Maybe she’d insist that Tony play the knight errant and rescue the damsel in distress.

Lady Georgiana wrinkled her nose. “What’s that scent? Patchouli? Have you taken to wearing
perfume?”

What was wrong with patchouli? Tony liked the smell. Patchouli was an excellent antidote for venomous snakebites and warded off moths as well.

Alas, it did not ward off venomous mamas. “How,” demanded Lady Georgiana, “did I give birth to so unnatural a son?” Without waiting for an answer, she returned to the topic of rogues leading innocent young women up the garden path.

“Where else would he lead her?” inquired Tony, returning to the fray. “They’ve gone into the garden. Naturally there will be paths.”

“I didn’t mean that sort of path, you ninny!”

“If there’s another sort of path, I wish you’d tell me what it is.” Tony had the satisfaction of hearing his mama grind her teeth. “Beside, Maddie ain’t all that young. She’s six-and-twenty if she’s a day. For that matter, I don’t know how innocent she is.”

His mama looked astonished. Tony flushed. “That’s not what I meant! I ain’t—”

“I don’t want to know what you are not!” interrupted Lady Georgiana. “Madalyn has been married and widowed and therefore should know better than to allow herself to be drawn into a clandestine liaison.”

Tony had a notion that young widows were prone to allow just that. “You can’t be sure Maddie
is
liaising,” he protested.

“If she isn’t, she will be! Mark my words.”

Tony’s mama sounded like, given half a chance, she would liaise with Angel herself, which wasn’t a notion a fellow liked to dwell upon. Before Tony could share this opinion with her, Lady Georgiana reached out and snagged the arm of the nearest passing guest. This happened to be Louise Holloway, who had been scheming how best to escape the brother who was sticking as close as a court-plaster, at the moment hovering by the elbow Lady Georgiana hadn’t clutched.

“My dear,” cooed Lady Georgiana, after they had exchanged greetings. “What a charming gown! Or it would be,
had you chosen another color. Redheads shouldn’t wear coquelicot.”

Louise curled her lip. “My hair is russet, not red.”

Lady Georgiana tutted. “You may call a persimmon a potato but it remains a persimmon all the same. That combination of copper hair and poppy red must draw every eye. Or perhaps that was your intention, in which case it has worked well. What do you know about this corpse found at St. Paul’s? I am appalled. Bodies lying about in graveyards —  it simply is not done!”

Since his mama was of the opposite opinion, Tony decided that Louise looked splendid in poppy red. “Why not? Seems to me that graveyards are where bodies belong.”

Lady Georgiana’s brows drew downward. “Buried properly belowground!”

Louise attempted to remove her arm from Lady Georgiana’s grasp. “Isn’t Maddie with you?”

“She’s gone with Angel into the gardens,” explained Tony. “Maman says his intentions are dishonorable.”

Lady Georgiana did release Louise then, so that she might pinch her son. “I said no such thing!”

 “Beg pardon. I must have mistook what you’ve been nattering about the past half hour.”

Jordan Rhodes had been quietly enjoying this exchange. Now he said, “Maddie’s gone into the garden? I’ll fetch her back.”

“No! Tony will fetch her.” Lady Georgiana gave her son an ungentle shove. “Don’t stand there gaping like a gaby. Shoo!”

With as much dignity as he could muster, Tony escaped to the terrace. Next thing he knew, Maman would have him challenging Angel to a duel, no matter that Angel was a crack shot while Tony was not. He would fight a duel, and get a bullet in him, and die a painful prolonged death.
Then
Maman might regret not having appreciated him all these years.

More probably, she would not.

In any event, he wasn’t anxious to get shot.

Tony wasn’t anxious to get married either. Unfortunately, his not wanting something had made no difference thus far in the overall scheme of things.

He walked down the steps into the gardens, chose a random graveled path. The bushes beside him rustled, and he jumped. It was a small animal, Tony soothed himself. Or someone who had stolen away from the drawing-rooms to agitate the shrubbery, in which case they were as beetle-headed as his mama claimed
he
was.

 “Hah!” he said aloud. This so excellently expressed his feelings that he said it again. As he did so, a young woman burst out of the bushes in front of him.

Tony caught her by the shoulders before she could bowl him over. “Oof!” she wheezed.

 The skin beneath his hands was warm and smooth and porcelain-perfect, draped in diaphanous muslin worn in the French style over flesh-colored tights. Dampened petticoats made the gown cling to every dip and curve. Tony wondered if he should warn this young woman that mere months earlier the Empress Josephine had died of the muslin disease, after strolling in a similarly moist condition with Czar Alexander in the gardens of Malmaison.

 “You aren’t Angel,” the young woman announced, in disappointed tones.

Tony was flattered that anyone should even for a moment mistake him for Angel. “There may be a faint resemblance,” he suggested modestly. “I’m Ashcroft.”

The young woman dimpled at him. “And I am the Contessa DeLuca. Are you searching for Angel, too?”

The Contessa DeLuca? Tony raised his gaze from the yards of dampened muslin to its wearer’s face. Chestnut hair, pouting lips, big blue eyes—

Here was a pretty pickle. Tony could hardly tell Angel’s mistress that he’d been sent to rescue another female from her protector’s clutches. “No. Why should I? Don’t like strolling about in gardens. Don’t even like gardens, if you want the truth. Thing is, Angel’s well enough —  some would say better than well enough —  but he ain’t to my taste.” Had he insulted his companion? Hastily, Tony added, “But I can see how he might be to yours!”

“I’m not sure he is.” The contessa leaned closer, and sniffed. “Patchouli? How nice. Blended with several other fragrances, I believe. Did you procure it from Floris in Jermyn Street, or Harris in St. James’s?”

“Floris.” Tony was impressed by his companion’s clever nose. “I prefer Harris for shaving supplies and soaps and creams.” The contessa confessed that she liked Harris for her flower water. She slipped her arm through his and they continued down the path.

Tony asked if she wasn’t cold, the rectangular silk gauze shawl draped over her elbows incapable of providing much warmth. The contessa confided that she had recently purchased a satin-lined opera cloak of cherry-red velvet, braided and ruched, but had not brought it tonight. Tony in turn described his own newly-acquired top coat of tan broadcloth with a collar of gold velvet. They discovered a shared unfavorable opinion of mamaluke sleeves; and agreed that whereas Lady Rutherford dressed her age, Tony’s mama dressed rather less.

It occurred to Tony that he was strolling through the garden with a female of dubious morals. He wasn’t sure how he should address her. He wasn’t sure he should address her at all, lest she take it into her head that
he
was
offering her a slip on the shoulder, which he definitely was not, lovely shoulders though they were. As was the rest of her, from the kid slippers on her slender feet to the intricate arrangement of her curls. One didn’t achieve that degree of perfection without effort, as Tony knew from the hours he spent in front of his own looking-glass.

And even if he
were
of an inclination to go about shoulder-slipping, which of course he wasn’t, such a perfect creature could only laugh at him. Or call him a cork-brained mooncalf. Tony lapsed into silence, feeling ill-used.

Daphne stole a sideways glance at her companion. She had no fondness for the company of her own thoughts. As result of Angel’s recent coolness, she had quarreled again with her husband. Forever short of funds, the conte had no intention of allowing so rich a prize to escape his net.

No more did Isabella. It was all well and good to talk about being more adventurous in the bedchamber, but Daphne didn’t know how much more adventurous she could get without damaging herself. Next she’d be dressing like a dairy maid and tempting Angel to act the randy bull.

Not long ago, the prospect might have filled her with anticipation. It did not do so now.

However, her prospects were improving, a viscount in the hand being worth any number of disobliging angels flitting around the bush.

Daphne liked Mrs. Bell in King Street for her gypsy hats and bonnets and ladies Chapeau Bras, she informed Tony, as if their conversation had never lapsed. Tony in turn praised Lock’s for men’s hats; and spoke well of Mr. John Weston in Bond Street for gentlemen’s attire. Daphne confided that, while her favorite modiste was Mme Devy in Grafton Street, she preferred Mrs. Duval in Bond Street for her tippets, and Mrs. Shabner in Tavistock Street for equestrian wear.

Talk of Tavistock Street, located as it was near Covent Garden, put them both in mind of the corpse recently discovered in the churchyard of St. Paul’s.

The contessa shivered and drew closer to the viscount. She was a small woman and the top of her head didn’t reach his chin. Feeling protective, he bent to pat her hand. His corset protested. Tony flinched.

“I creaked,” he confessed. “As you must have heard. Truth is, I’m designing a corset for gentlemen, and haven’t perfected the design. Maman says if I exercised a little self-control I wouldn’t
need
a corset. But when times are trying, nothing lifts the spirits like a cherry tart.”