The Shadow of Albion (23 page)

cut-crystal lustres until the light was nearly enough to hurt Sarah’s eyes. To rest

them, she glanced about herself, careful not to move from her appointed place.

Most of the other ladies present were far younger than Sarah’s own advanced age

of five-and-twenty, and all were so nervous – even though they were, as Sarah was

not, accompanied by at least one hovering female relative – that Sarah felt herself

grow calmer in simple self-defense. There were a number of gentlemen of the Court

also present in the room, and as Sarah looked up, she saw that one of the

spectacularly-uniformed Hussars standing near the window was the Duke of

Wessex.

He was wearing a short blue jacket encrusted with the distinctive silver lace of the

eleventh Hussars, and a bearskin-trimmed pelisse was slung over one shoulder.

Cherry-red trousers were tucked into gleaming gold-laced tasseled Hessians, and his

plumed shako was tucked beneath one arm. The uniform looked unfinished without

the sword that should have hung at his waist – since Wessex could not come armed

into the King’s presence – though he was still wearing the sabretache embroidered

with the regimental honors slung from his belt. In uniform, Wessex cut a dazzling

and martial figure far removed from the languid and chilly harlequin with whom Sarah

was acquainted.

He saw her across the room and seemed to become utterly still, much as a

leopard who had sensed the presence of an unwary hunter. For a moment his black

eyes burned into hers –

Then he glanced away, without so much as the felicity of a common bow in

passing.

Sarah’s eyes flashed dangerously. So he thought to ignore her, did he, and

pretend he didn’t see her, as if she were some cast off, importunate mistress?

The situation would not have been so appallingly irritating had not the last several

weeks given Sarah a very good sense of her own importance – and if not for the

fact that she had sensed some strange bond between herself and Wessex from the

very first. It seemed so much more of a betrayal when all her instincts told her that

they ought to be friends – and they weren’t.

She glanced away, and when she looked back, Wessex had disappeared behind

another pair of gorgeously costumed officers. She had almost made up her mind to

pursue him when a footman bearing a long ivory stave entered through a hidden door

and thumped his shaft upon the marble floor, summoning the attention of all.

„His Royal Majesty, Henry Charles James Arthur Christian, King of England,

Ireland, Scotland, and Wales!“

The king’s image was, of course, to be seen on every coin from golden guineas

to copper ha’pennies and in a number of the pictures that hung in the Royal

Academy as well, but this was the first time that Sarah could remember laying eyes

on the living man. He was not as tall as she had expected, and the bright chestnut

hair that marked the Stuart line had faded and darkened with age, but even without

crown and royal robes, Henry was every inch the king, and Sarah found herself

responding to that aura of kingship with an almost unconscious reverence.

King Henry moved slowly about the circumference of the room, stopping and

greeting each person there. At its simplest, a Royal Drawing-Room was an

opportunity for the people of England to see that their monarch was hale and whole,

something that would stop the rumors of illness and even death that tended to run

rampant in troubled times.

A number of gentlemen of the court followed the King, and Sarah was faindy

irritated to see that Wessex was among them. She had not known that the Duke was

an intimate of the King, and the knowledge vexed her for some perverse reason.

At last the King reached her place in the tableau, and Sarah gracefully sank down

into the Court curtsey she had rehearsed for so many hours. Her hoops made a faint

thump as they struck the marble floor, and then collapsed neatly upon themselves,

folding the white satin and silver lace of her skirts as if it were the sugary

whipped-cream decoration at the top of a ornate dessert. She bowed her neck, and

the egret-feather headdress bowed with her until she could see the tip of the feathers

dangling in front of her nose. Then she looked up, and was astonished to see that the

King was holding out his hand to help her rise.

She had not looked for such a particular mark of favor; placing her gloved hand

into his, she allowed him to help her to her feet.

„And how do you find London, Lady Roxbury?“ King Henry asked, a twinkle in

his eye. Sarah smiled in return. She could not commit the incredible social solecism

of looking away from the King to see where Wessex was; wherever the Duke might

be, she knew that he saw her.

„It is an interesting place, Your Majesty,“ Sarah replied.

„But not so interesting as Mooncoign, eh, Your Ladyship?“ the King said with

dismaying insight. „You must tell me something about it.“

Almost without thought Sarah found herself describing the glories of the Wiltshire

downs to King Henry, who seemed completely enchanted by her depiction, until

abruptly Sarah realized she was rattling on like the veriest greenhead.

„But Your Majesty will not wish to hear about such things,“ Sarah finished

lamely.

„Au contraire; it is utterly delightful – but it only serves to convince me that we

must do more to amuse you here in London – and perhaps you will take pity on

Princess Stephanie when she arrives, and show her about the Town?“

„Of course,“ Sarah replied quickly. The plight of the Danish princess – to be sent

so far from home to seal a treaty, betrothed to a Prince Who didn’t want her to

come at all – had touched Sarah’s soft heart as soon as she had heard of it.

„Then that is settled – and it will be good for the Princess to have the guidance of

a young married lady of unexceptionable connection. You-must on all account send

me an invitation to your wedding breakfast; I shall be delighted to attend.“

„Your Majesty is too kind,“ Sarah said automatically. Only long practice kept her

features immobile as King Henry released her hand and moved on.

Married lady? Automatically she looked around for Wessex, only to find he

wasn’t there at all.

Chapter 10

The Prince of Our Disorder

„My dear, the King was all that we could have hoped for! He engaged you in

conversation for quite ten minutes – your success is assured,“ the Dowager Duchess

of Wessex assured her.

Sarah glanced away from the mirror; Knoyle was putting the finishing touches on

Sarah’s second full-dress toilette of the evening. „Yes,“ Sarah said slowly, „I

suppose that it is.“ But social success somehow seemed more irrelevant than ever.

King Henry had spoken as though her marriage was a certainty, me date set and

settled – and in the face of the King’s expectations, what could she say?

„Poor child,“ the Dowager said. „You already look all in – and you must see in

the dawn, you know, or the gossips will make heaven above knows What of your

absence. But come along – there will be just time for you to swallow a bite of supper

before you must greet your guests.“

* * *

The ball was all that the Dowager had predicted and Sarah had dreaded. All of

London was there, and ready to meet her – with, it seemed, one exception. The

Duke of Wessex was nowhere to be found.

Sarah was dancing with the Earl of Ripon, rather against her wishes. She knew the

Earl only by dinner-table reputation; the Highclères were a Catholic family which had

for generations held a grudge against the Stuart line for turning to me Anglican faith

and forsaking the Old Religion. Though they made their way in Society, the

Highclères could be counted upon to oppose any policy of the King’s – from the

continuance of the Continental war to His Majesty’s liberal dealings with the

American colonies.

But if the Dowager Duchess thought it good to invite Ripon to Sarah’s ball, the

Marchioness of Roxbury could do no less than dance with him. And she did have to

admit that Ripon did not tax her with his politics on what was, after all, a purely

social occasion.

Yet there was something about the Earl that Sarah could not like – not quite a lean

and hungry look, perhaps, but something just as dark –

As if it could be anything to do with me! Sarah told herself brusquely. She was

still seething at Wessex’s absence and knew that she was seeking other targets for

her anger.

The music spun down to its end, and the couples who had made up the set

looked to the sides of the dance floor in unconscious pursuit of their next partners,

but before the dance could reach its natural conclusion, Ripon dragged Sarah to a

halt as he stopped in amazement.

„Geoffrey!“ he muttered.

But the eyes of the jumbled dancers were not upon Ripon’s younger brother, but

his companion, now making his grand entrance into the ballroom as if the

entertainment had been given in his honor.

Jamie, Prince of Wales, had arrived – and he had not come alone.

Slowly, Sarah and Ripon moved to the edge of the dance floor. The Prince of

Wales had not been invited, although of course all the Royal Personages had de

facto invitations to any entertainment they might choose to grace with their presence.

But Prince Jamie’s interests ran with an entirely different crowd than that of the

reclusive Dowager Duchess of Wessex – and tonight’s guest list had been drawn

very much from the Dowager’s set.

Sarah recognized none of the half-dozen male sparks of fashion attendant upon

the Prince, save by reputation, but almost certainly the blond man at whom Ripon

stared so fixedly was Ripon’s ne’er-do-well younger brother Geoffrey. The man on

Jamie’s other side – dark angel to Geoffrey’s golden one – must be the notorious

Lord Drewmore, a man whose exploits were too scandalous for even gentlemen to

talk of. And the woman on his arm, whose bright yellow curls owed far more to Art,

Sarah was certain, than to Nature, was someone she thought she knew….

Caroline Truelove was the young relict of Sir Arthur Truelove, who had

distinguished (as well as extinguished) himself upon the field of honor less than three

years before. His young and beautiful widow had made her way through most of the

available European capitals and all of Sir Arthur’s money in her progress toward

England and the loving bosom of her husband’s family. But that assemblage – Sir

Arthur’s younger brother having inherited both the baronetcy and the guardianship

of Sir Arthur’s two young sons – was inclined to be far less indulgent of Lady

Truelove than her late husband had been. Balked of any attempt to enlarge upon her

widow’s jointure and quietly discouraged from seizing her boys to accompany her

upon her peripatetic round of house-parties, Lady Truelove found her natural

volatility of spirit drew her, like a leaf upon the bosom of the river, into the

whirlpools of fast company and high living in the company of a dangerously raffish

crowd.

In fact, Sarah recalled seeing Lady Truelove at Mooncoign not so very long ago,

though she was quite certain that the Dowager had not invited her tonight. Lady

Truelove was wearing a low-cut gown of Paris green silk adorned with knots of

diamonds at the shoulders and decolletage; in Herriard House’s chaste Palladian

ballroom she looked far less respectable man an opera dancer upon the Covent

Garden stage.

„You had better go and greet your guests,“ Ripon snarled in Sarah’s ear, and she

shot him a murderous look. How dare you speak to me as if this

disaster-in-the-making were my idea!

Music began to play once more as Sarah headed for the Prince’s clique. The

Dowager must have told the bandmaster to begin again, and Sarah was grateful to

the cover of respectability that the music afforded, for as she approached, she could

see that Prince Jamie was rather the worse for drink. His cheeks were flushed and his

eyes glittered brightly and he looked entirely too dangerous for Sarah’s peace of

mind.

„Lady Roxbury!“ the Prince of Wales cried gaily as he saw her. „How splendid

to see you here – and here is His Grace of Wessex! What a demmed fine fellow you

look in all that regimental lace – what a pity to waste such a uniform on a fellow who

might go overseas whenever he chose and doesn’t.“

Sarah risked a quick glance behind her. Wessex was standing behind her in the

same dazzling dress uniform he had been wearing at the Royal Drawing-Room – she

wondered when he had entered, as she had not seen him do so – smiling as though