Chapter Two #2
As he passed the gunsmith’s on the way home, however, he remembered the flint, and fingered it in his pocket. It comforted him. If the strange Mrs. Celestin demanded anything intolerable, he had the easy way out.
The next night, Maria entered the Yeovil mansion in a state of unusual turmoil. Few would guess, for it was her nature to conceal her emotions, but she knew, and she knew why.
He’d paid his debts. Everyone gossiped about that as much as they’d gossiped about his ruinous night at the tables.
Where had the money come from? they’d asked.
Had he gone to the moneylenders? If so, poor man.
Would he lose again? Then what?
A sad case, both men and women agreed. Hero in the war. Fine old family. No hope, though. Father ruined the properties, and the son doesn’t have the heart to start from scratch. Shame for such a promising young gentleman.
A promising young gentleman.
On hearing that, Maria had thought of the slack-lidded, stubbled man in the rumpled clothes, and the way he’d taken that pistol from her. Promising? Of what? Perhaps it was the fact that he was still a gentleman that had prevented him from shooting her.
If he was a gentleman, he’d work off his debt to her. He’d be here tonight. That terrified her almost as much as him not being here. If he was here, she’d have to deal with him.
For six weeks.
He did terrify her, and only the smallest part was a fear that he’d attack her. Instead it was fear of the energy and intensity he’d given off. She’d wanted to back away. To be safe.
Worse, she’d wanted to press closer, to inhale that energy, to absorb it, surrender to it. She’d surrendered to her physical nature once before, and lived to regret it.
She would not make a fool of herself again.
Harriette knew how she felt. Harriette was the one person who knew everything, and now her aunt glanced sideways and smiled—the sort of chins-up! smile given to someone before a trying experience.
They greeted the duke and duchess—the duchess was Maria’s cousin, twice removed—and their daughter, Lady Theodosia, who was being launched here. Then they moved into a reception room, and on into the glittering ballroom.
It was, of course, a most sought-after invitation, and therefore well on its way to being a “crush.” It might be hard to find her quarry. Or for him to find her. Maria felt an absurd temptation to climb on one of the chairs set around the walls, both to see and be seen.
“I don’t see him,” said Harriette, who was indeed stretching on tiptoe.
“Don’t make a fuss,” Maria hissed as she smiled and obeyed the beckoning Lady Treves. A pleasant lady, but she had a handsome, hopeful son, and so was destined to be disappointed.
So many hunted her fortune. She hadn’t lied to Vandeimen about that, or that she’d pay a fortune to be able to attend these events without a swarm of what she thought of as her wasps. She saw two of the more persistent ones buzzing toward her now.
Ten proposals she’d had so far. Ten. And she’d only been free of mourning for a few weeks.
Of course it wasn’t just the money, she acknowledged as she greeted Lord Warren and Sir Burleigh Fox. She was a Dunpott-Ffyfe. Marrying Maurice had not done her credit any good, but he was, after all, dead, and had left her a very wealthy widow with excellent bloodlines. A jam pot for wasps.
She smiled and chatted, trying not to favor any particular man and parrying the more clumsy attempts to flirt or flatter. Where was Vandeimen? Why wasn’t he here?
She froze in the middle of an idle comment to the duchess. What if he’d paid his debts and gone home to shoot himself?
“Maria?”
“Oh! So sorry, Sarah. Of course I’ll be a patroness of your charity for wounded soldiers. The government should have done much more. And after all, Maurice made a great deal of money from supplying the army.”
She’d be paying conscience money—to the soldiers who’d worn shoddy boots and uniforms, and to Lord Vandeimen who’d been ruined. Military charities were Sarah Yeovil’s passion, however, because she had lost her younger son at Waterloo. She was dressed tonight in dark gray and black.
Maria remembered Lord Darius as a charming young rascal, always up to mischief, but her mind was presently fretting over another young man of about the same age. Was Lord Vandeimen lying in a puddle of blood?
She itched to invade his rooms again, to prevent disaster, but she stayed where she was and smiled. If he was dead, he was dead, and discovering it would not repair matters.
“Tattoos, Mama?” queried Lord Gravenham, the duchess’s older son.
Maria paid attention and tried to guess what they were talking about.
“Sailors have them,” Sarah said earnestly. “So if they drown, their bodies are more easily recognized. If soldiers had tattoos, it would serve the same purpose.”
“It would do no harm,” said Lord Gravenham, but Maria suspected he was thinking as she was.
There’d been more than ten thousand corpses to deal with after Waterloo, most thrown into mass graves to prevent disease.
One of them had been Dare’s, but in a situation like that, who was going to note tattoos for identification?
“I had the idea from Lord Wyvern,” Sarah was saying.
“A friend of Dare’s,” she added to Maria.
“One of this Company of Rogues they formed at Harrow, though of course he wasn’t Wyvern then.
Just plain Con Somerford. Such good friends, and such good men .
. .” She pressed a black-edged handkerchief to her eyes and took a visible moment to collect herself.
“He and two friends had tattoos done before going to war. On the chest. A G for George.”
“That’s a very common name, though, isn’t it?” Maria said, trying to cover the moment and show an interest. “For true identification, it would need to be more distinctive. A full name?”
“They were all called George.”
Maria flashed Lord Gravenham a look, wondering if Sarah had finally slipped over the edge.
“So of course they needed something else,” Sarah went on.
“Wyvern has a dragon. It fits the title he’s inherited, though at the time he could not expect to.
The other two men were a George Hawkinville—a hawk, and George Vandeimen, a demon.
It goes with the sound of his title, of course, and it’s the family name too.
But not a wise choice.” She shrugged. “But then, they were only sixteen. I’m so glad to hear better news of him. ”
“Vandeimen?” Maria asked, and it came out a little high. “The one who lost his fortune?” He had a demon on his chest?
“I was saying to the duke that we should do something. He and the others were so kind to Dare last year. Professional soldiers, you know. But Vandeimen’s affairs seem to have sorted out.
So, can you help me there, too, Maria? I will have to hire people who can do these tattoos, and obtain the cooperation of the Horse Guards . . .”
The orchestra struck a louder note, alerting all that the dancing was to begin. Sir Burleigh hovered. Maria promised support for the foolish tattoo fund and gave the persistent wasp her hand.
She loved to dance, though she knew she did it with grace rather than verve.
They called her Lily because of her pale complexion and habit of wearing pale clothes, and Golden for her outrageous wealth.
She knew they also called her the Languid Lily, and shared scurrilous jokes in the men’s clubs about whether she was languid in bed.
She would love to be able to sparkle, and perhaps she had as a rompish sixteen. The years had taught her control and discretion, however, and they reigned even in the dance.
In the bed—well, that was a private matter.
Then as she turned in the dance pattern, she saw him.
She missed a step, and with a hasty apology she concentrated on the dance. When she glanced back across the room, Vandeimen was gone.
He was here, though. She couldn’t have mistaken that tall lean grace and primrose hair, made more brilliant by dark evening clothes.
He was here.
Alive.
Ready to fulfill his bargain.
With a sudden beat of the heart, she knew it had begun.