“Where the devil is Sophy, then, if she’s so indispensable?”
“Where she needs to stay,” Leonie said. She remembered what Clevedon had said about Longmore racing back to London to kill Swanton. It couldn’t happen within hours, though. They were in Scotland at present. “I’d better write to her, and send it express. I’ll tell her everything is in hand, and she’s not to come and complicate matters.”
She started toward the door. Lisburne caught her by the arm, an easy light grasp. But she felt the warmth and pressure everywhere, especially in the place where they’d come together last night.
“I haven’t the least expectation of losing my Botticelli,” he said. “But I want you to have a sporting chance. Do you want me to write to Longmore? Or talk to him, if that’s feasible.”
What could she do? She brought her hand up to his cheek. He turned his head and kissed the palm of her hand. “I want to help,” he said. “And I don’t want to sit about waiting for Fenwick to report. Shall I present myself to Longmore so that he can attempt to kill me?”
“You’re more useful alive and undamaged.” Leonie drew her hand away. “If I write, Sophy will listen, and she’ll manage him—or render him unconscious if necessary. I need you here in London.”
“That sounds so promising,” he said. “But I have a feeling you mean something other than what I’m thinking.”
“I need a spy,” she said.
“Does that mean I report to you, in disguise, in the dead of night?”
It was the low, insinuating voice. It was the hint of a smile. It was the way he drew nearer and the way his head bent and the way he seemed aware of nothing else in the world but her.
She could not have him come here again in the dead of night. She couldn’t risk it, not at present.
She was a businesswoman, first, last, and always.
But she was as well, like all her kind, a gambler.
“Don’t let anybody see you,” she said.
Chapter Thirteen
Almack’s.—The ball on Wednesday evening closed a most brilliant season. Dancing commenced, a little after eleven o’clock, to Collinet’s fine band, with Musard’s quadrilles ‘Les Gondeliers Venetiens,’ which were followed by the waltzes ‘le Soufle du Zephir,’ and the favourite ‘Les Souvenirs de Vienne.’ In the course of the evening ‘Les Puritans, Rome,’ &c., were performed in admirable style. At four o’clock the ball terminated, when the band struck up ‘God save the King.’
—Court Journal, 25 July 1835
Almack’s
Early Thursday morning
Though by now he’d observed enough of the new Gladys to be past shock, Lisburne was nonetheless taken aback to see her dancing with Crawford. One of the Earl of Longmore’s hard-living cronies, and owning neither a sharp intellect nor much in the way of wit, Crawford was nonetheless popular with women, because he was one of London’s best dancers.
He was dancing with Gladys, of whom Lisburne recalled somebody writing, during her first Season, “she puts one painfully in mind of a dancing bear decked out in silks, lace, and a king’s ransom in jewelry.”
Crawford had engaged her for a quadrille, and he was smiling, and so was she, moving as easily through the figures as any other young woman. Lady Alda stood not far away, avidly watching, her head turning this way and that, and occasionally disappearing behind her fan when she whispered one of her barbed comments to whoever was at hand.
When the steps brought Crawford and Gladys together, Gladys said something and he smiled. Then he said something. She laughed, and a great many gazes turned that way, Lady Alda’s included. Lisburne noticed a number of puzzled looks and some appreciative ones. Lady Alda’s expression soured.
Gladys had a pretty laugh, surprisingly warm, Lisburne realized. Not a titter. Not trying for a tinkling sound. Not feigned in any way. It came from within, a happy sound, and it seemed to make its hearer happy.
A voice, he knew, could be a powerful tool.
He’d learned to use his to command servants, to be taken seriously by men twice and thrice his age, and of course to win over women. Certainly Gladys’s seemed to have captured Swanton’s imagination. But he was extreme in everything. Lisburne found it agreeable, no more.
Leonie’s voice was another story altogether. There was the brisk, businesslike tone he found so perversely arousing. But even more delicious was her private voice, the one not everybody heard. The low, suggestive chuckle wasn’t for public consumption. Neither was the way she’d look at him from the corner of her eye, a ghost of a smile curving her lips . . .
And he couldn’t let himself dwell on that, even though he hadn’t seen her since Tuesday afternoon.
As he’d done at Lady Eddingham’s ball last night, at various clubs this day, and at dinner at Lady Gorrell’s not many hours earlier, he was here to gather information. Clevedon was doing the same, but elsewhere. Lisburne hoped the duke was having better luck, in both senses, at Crockford’s and whatever other gaming establishment he meant to visit this night.
Lisburne had never acquired a taste for gambling. A game of cards now and again was good fun, but gaming hells held little allure.
Tonight he’d undertaken Almack’s duty instead. His job was to flirt and dance with the foremost gossips. Next on his list was a waltz with Lady Alda Morris.
He watched Crawford lead Gladys back to her place, where Lady Warford presided as chaperon. Thence Geddings returned Clara. Several men loitered in the vicinity. Crawford lingered, talking to Gladys. Flinton advanced to claim his dance with . . . Gladys. Someone else led out Clara. Herringstone.
It was hard to be certain, but Crawford, Flinton, and Geddings seemed to be in Gladys’s circle. Or at least dividing their time between her and Clara.
All Gladys needed was six beaux, three invitations to country houses, and one marriage proposal, and the Botticelli would have a new home after the exhibition.
But the odds were still in Lisburne’s favor. Gladys had only eight days to meet the wager’s conditions. Meanwhile, she seemed to be doing well enough socially, a success Lisburne didn’t begrudge her.
But he would very much begrudge losing his two weeks with Leonie. Her undivided attention . . .
. . . which wouldn’t be undivided if they couldn’t put the Vauxhall incident to rest before then.
And so he made himself fix his mind on Lady Alda, whose acidic look vanished when he came to lead her out.
“How sorry I’ll be to see the Season end,” she said when they’d begun dancing. “Lady Gladys has enlivened it so.”
“Has she, indeed?” he said. “I’ve seen her only in passing lately.” He paused. “Though, like everybody else, I’ve kept up with her doings and sayings, thanks to the Spectacle.”
“There’s no predicting what astonishing thing she’ll say,” Lady Alda said. “I know some say it’s pert and unladylike to express opinions so forcefully. But we may acquit her of the charge of being too eager to
please, may we not? Some might say her dress is too mature for her, but I say a lady is wise to dress as suits her figure. Her dancing has improved, do you not think? She keeps time less awkwardly than she used to do, and I’m sure that if she continues to practice hard with a good dancing master, she’ll bend her arms with better grace. But Mr. Crawford always makes his partners look well. Lord Flinton, too, I see. It’s the mark of a good dancer, isn’t it?”
This monologue went on at intervals, as the steps brought them together.
A poem came to Lisburne’s mind—not one of Swanton’s, but one Swanton liked to quote. One of Mrs. Abdy’s comic creations. What was it? Something about a friend, and filled with similar backhanded compliments. Very likely Leonie would know the poem.
Lisburne remembered the way she’d acted out “The Second Son” at the Western Athenaeum. He tried to imagine what her rendition of the friendship poem would be like.
He became aware of Lady Alda’s expectant gaze, and realized she was waiting for him to say she was grace personified, no matter who partnered her. In another time and place he would have said the right words without thinking. At present, for some reason, he couldn’t put a sentence together, and the moment passed in an awkward silence.
“I’m so very glad on your account that the patronesses chose to overlook the dreadful scene at Vauxhall on Monday night,” she said.
She’d used the silence, evidently, to gather her breath for another blast of ill wind.
“This is the last Almack’s ball of the Season,” he said. “It’s hardly worth the effort to pitch out undesirables.”
She protested that he was not undesirable. She tittered. He knew flirtation was expected. He liked flirting. It was one of his favorite things.
Yet his mind went blank, and the best he could manage was a politely amused thanks.
They went on dancing, mute for a time, then, “I notice that Lord Swanton has chosen to absent himself,” she said. “It seems he declined to test the patronesses’ forbearance.”
“He’s not the only one,” Lisburne said. “I see no signs of Theaker. He was prominent in the Vauxhall performance, too.”