She shook her head.
“No. I should not involve you at all in this. I wouldn’t wish to
ruin your credit.”
He took her hand and
placed in on his arm. “Don’t you know by now that I have no credit
to ruin, and I don’t give a tinker’s damn anyway?”
“
Why
are you doing this?” she asked simply.
“
Because you are crew,” he replied as promptly. “I never run
from a fight.”
They left the box and
entered the dress circle. Despite all the people grouped about,
eyeing the paintings and one another with a studied air of
unconcern, the dress circle was amazingly silent. Jeannie’s heart
thudded in her bosom and she gripped the captain’s sleeve.
He touched her hand.
“Gently on the gold leaf, my dear,” he said. “Let us tack and wear
about like normal folk. Moving targets are always harder to
hit.”
She smiled because he
expected it of her.
“
We
could discuss the weather, Mrs. McVinnie,” he said, his tone
conversational, “but I prefer to consider tomorrow’s final
excursion, which you have promised Edward. I recommend a trip to
the Deptford Yards. It is not as aesthetic as the Tower, but I am
homesick for the smell of hemp and tar, and general naval
blasphemy. Edward will find it vastly educational.”
Jeannie laughed
outright and then tightened her grip again, gold leaf and all.
Beau Brummell walked
toward them, nodding and smiling to the other patrons of the arts
who had accumulated in the dress circle by the thousands, or so it
seemed to Jeannie. Sir Peter Winthrop, who had found a red rose,
peacocked about in the Beau’s wake, a smile of triumph upon his
face.
Jeannie thought of the
flower girl searching the stones for her wares, and the smile left
her face. She glanced at Larinda and noticed that her face, too,
was pale. Larinda looked at Sir Peter and shook her head, but he
merely broadened his smile and bowed to her.
“
For
what we are about to receive, may the Lord make us truly thankful,”
the captain muttered.
Jeannie stared at him,
momentarily diverted, as the Beau bore down on them. “Sir, what do
you mean?”
“
That
is the seaman’s prayer as he is about to receive a broadside. And
look here, if you will, and observe that I am in my finest uniform,
and you, my dear, are still as fine as five pence. Chin
up.”
The Beau was in no
hurry. He made his stately progress from friend to friend, admiring
this one’s gown, clucking over that one’s waistcoat, flicking
specks of imaginary dust off another’s coat, and casting about the
pearls of his conversation.
The captain rubbed his
chin. “Dash it, Jeannie, but he reminds me of Jesus on Palm Sunday,
except that I feel there is some humility lacking.” He considered
the Beau again. “And I defy our Lord and Savior to tie His
neckcloth with such divine precision.”
“
Captain,” Jeannie exclaimed, “is there nothing you will not
say?”
He looked down at her,
an arrested expression on his face. “Oh, there is. Believe me,
Jeannie, there is.”
She had not the time to
ask him more, for the Beau stood before them in all his quiet
splendor. He rested his weight delicately on one hip, assuming an
air of vast unconcern over the remarkable figure that was his
alone. No extravagant waistcoat for him, no superabundance of fobs
and seals. He stood before her utterly elegant, and she held her
breath and waited for him to raise his quizzing glass, rake her
from stem to stern, and administer his patented set-down.
No one in the dress
circle made any more attempts to appear uninvolved.
Good heavens, Jeannie
thought wildly, is everyone breathing together? I shall grow
distracted.
The Beau fingered his
quizzing glass. After a moment that stretched into the next century
and beyond, he suddenly turned to Larinda.
“
Larinda, my dear,” he began, “is this lady not your Scottish
nanny? Pray introduce us.”
Larinda’s face turned a
remarkable shade of putty. “No, please,” she whispered.
The Beau opened his
eyes wide in disbelief. “My dear, I insist,” he said. “You and Sir
Peter have been telling me such interesting things about her, and I
am desirous of acquaintance.”
“
Sir,
I am Jeannie McVinnie,” Jeannie said as she pried her fingers from
the captain’s uniform and stepped forward. “I met you in the
menagerie several days ago, when I had no idea who you
were.”
“
Mrs.
McVinnie, everyone knows who the Beau is,” Sir Peter stated in
round tones. He glanced around him for confirmation of this fact
and smirked when there was a general chuckle throughout the dress
circle.
“
Not
everyone, Sir Peter,” Jeannie replied. Her fingers strayed to the
emerald necklace and she clung to it like a lifeline. “Some of us
manage to struggle well into maturity without this
knowledge.”
“
Bravo,” the captain said behind her in a low voice. “A hit
below the waterline.”
She nearly turned
around in surprise. He must have come up quietly behind her. And I
told him not to get involved, she thought. For someone so smart, he
is remarkably ignorant.
But the Beau was
smiling at her. Even in her terror, Jeannie sensed that the smile
was genuine, unlike Sir Peter’s shark grin. She loosened her
death’s grip on the necklace and let her breath out slowly.
Brummell swung his
quizzing glass back and forth like a pendulum. Jeannie forced
herself to look away from the hypnotic motion. “Mrs. McVinnie,” the
Beau began after a moment’s careful thought, “now that you have
become better acquainted with our frippery society, what have you
to say about it? I am all ears.” He cast a sidelong look at
Larinda, who made an inarticulate sound deep in her throat, and
raised his eyes.
Jeannie considered the
question. If I must fall into the pit through this conversation,
oh, let it be an easy fall, she thought. “This is indeed a city
where there is much to do and much to see,” she said evasively.
The Beau shook his head
at her reply. “Too easy, too easy by half, Mrs. McVinnie. It has
been expressed to me—by you, bless my soul—that we are a singularly
foolish lot, fit for a midden. I may have been wrong, of course, my
hearing is not acute.”
Jeannie could hardly
believe her own hearing. Beau Brummell, the master of the set-down,
was giving her an out of sorts. She could titter, and blush, and
declare that she had never said such a thing, and perhaps, just
perhaps, the Beau would brush it under the rug. She could retire
from the dress circle with her dignity at least intact.
As she contemplated her
reply, looking from the Beau’s calm assurance to Sir Peter’s smirk
of victory impending, Jeannie McVinnie knew right down to her shoes
that she could not give Beau that satisfaction.
She released the
necklace and took a deep breath. “You were not wrong, sir,” she
replied, “and I have seen nothing to change my opinion.” She warmed
to her subject and only regretted that her voice shook a bit from
the intensity of it. “I have seen people tonight all of a twitter
over red roses and white ones. Such silliness is not worthy of you,
sir.”
Sir Peter gasped,
fluttered his hands about his lapel, and then laughed at her.
Enraged, Jeannie
wrenched the red rose out of his lapel and shook it under his nose.
“You wretched man,” she hissed. “You wouldn’t rest until you had
strewn that poor girl’s flowers all over the road. Don’t you
realize that is her livelihood?”
Sir Peter’s eyes
narrowed. “She is nothing. And I hardly consider my actions your
business.”
“
No?”
Jeannie asked. She moved closer to him and he backed away in an
undignified scramble. “I made them my business when you left that
little blind girl to grope about for her flowers. How dare
you?”
Sir Peter raised his
hand and Captain Summers leapt forward and grasped his wrist. “Only
touch her and I will call you out,” he snapped, his voice full of
command and hard as steel.
The dress circle was
utterly quiet as Beau Brummell strolled leisurely forward, still
swinging his quizzing glass. Jeannie sucked in her breath and her
eyes filled with tears as he slowly raised it to his eye.
But he was looking at
Sir Peter Winthrop. “Peter, really,” he said gently. “Since you
could not hit your valet with a sponge at five paces, I recommend
that you resist the challenge from this, er, this officer who, I
think, could kill you with his eyes alone.”
The captain released
his hold on Sir Peter and stood back a pace. He carefully placed
both hands behind his back, but he was still breathing heavily.
Sir Peter had gone
remarkably pale. He turned to Brummell and grew more milky yet as
the Beau slowly looked him up and down, not once, but twice, his
eye magnified by the quizzing glass, his face calm.
“
Peter, you must agree that was not worthy of you,” Brummell
said gently, as if he would admonish a child. “But do breathe, sir,
in and out, in and out again. Ah, that’s more like it.” He turned
to his audience. “Sometimes a little reminder works
miracles.”
Someone smothered a
laugh, and someone else went into a prolonged coughing spasm. Sir
Peter looked about him, his face dead white, as if he wore powder.
Brummell peered closer at his face and shook his head.
“
Sir
Peter, I wonder that you are well! Such an unhealthy pallor does
nothing to forward the claims of your rather presumptuous
waistcoat. Perhaps a repairing rustication to your Derbyshire
estates would be just the thing. The Duchess of Rutland is forever
telling me that country air puts a bloom in one’s cheeks. Only
observe Mrs. McVinnie.”
Brummell allowed that
bit of intelligence to sink in as he removed his quizzing glass and
pocketed it. He turned to Jeannie. “My dear Mrs. McVinnie …
Good God, madam, how attractive your hair is that way! In truth, I
have been meaning this little while to ask you whether you truly
prefer red roses to white, but there was such a distraction from
the stage. Lord, there is nothing like raw talent to ruin an
evening of quiet chatter in one’s box.”
Jeannie laughed. “You
are a very amusing man, Mr. Brummell, for all your frippery
ways.”
The Beau turned to the
others collected about them. “I adore the way she rolls her rrs!”
He took her hand and bowed over it. “Lovely, lovely Jeannie, will
you honor me with a turn about Hyde Park tomorrow afternoon? I will
listen to you say ‘Brummell’ and ‘frippery fellow’ in that
inimitable way, and consider myself the better for it.” He sighed.
“It is early in the Season, but I will do my duty and peacock
about.”
He glanced beyond
Jeannie then and noticed Larinda. “My dear, if you will behave
yourself and mind your Scottish nanny, we will likely find space in
the carriage for you. And you, too, Captain,” he added, “although I
suspect we would be slow company. There will be no one to
throttle.”
The captain merely
bowed and kept his own counsel. A bell tinkled; the interval was
over.
The Beau kissed
Jeannie’s hand and released it with such a sigh of reluctance that
she chuckled. “My dear, would you favor me with your company for
the remainder of the play? I am sure the Prince Regent will be
delighted to make your acquaintance.”
Jeannie shook her head.
“Your offer is so kind sir, but no, I will not.”
The Beau waggled his
finger. “My dear, you are the first to refuse such an offer.” He
leaned closer and whispered in her ear. “Has no one told you I am
immensely important?”
She twinkled her eyes
back at him and was gratified by the gleam of self-deprecating
humor in his own. “I am well, well aware, sir, but look you here, I
want to see this play through, and something tells me that we would
only talk in the royal box, and I would miss my treat.” She touched
his sleeve. “And didn’t I tell you only this day that this is my
first play?”
He bowed. “You did, and
I shall not insist. Until tomorrow, then?”
“
Until
tomorrow.”
He bowed again,
including Captain Summers in the gesture this time. He strolled
over to Larinda, who stood on the brink of tears, and touched her
under the chin. “Remember, my dear Larinda, that beauty may be
skin-deep, but meanness cuts right to the marrow.”
She nodded and blinked
back her tears. The Beau continued his progress around the circle,
chatting and pausing here and there, as if nothing had happened.
The patrons of the arts closed in behind him, and the bell rang one
more time.
The first person to
approach them was Lord Charles Smeath, who shook his head at
Captain Summers. “Really, Captain, you were safer in the blockade.”
His voice was serious for only a moment, and then a laugh rumbled
out of him like thunder from distant guns. He rubbed his hands
together. “I thought for a moment that Sir Peter would make water
before our eyes.”
Summers smiled. “Like
any number of midshipmen you could name, my lord?”
“
Aye,
sir, aye, beginning with one young sprite aboard the—oh, let me
see—the
Temeraire
?”
“
No,
my lord, it was the
Barfleur
.” Summers laughed. “And here I
was, hoping no one remembered that.”
“
Enough of these salty stories, my lords.”
Lord Smeath looked
about. “Lady Jersey approaches on a larboard beam,” he said, and
extended a meaty hand, which swallowed up both of Lady Jersey’s
hands.
She nodded to Captain
Summers, but addressed herself to Jeannie. “Mrs. McVinnie,
excellent! I daresay that we will see much of you in the best
circles this Season, and I, for one, can only count that a pleasure
already.”