His own enjoyment, or his own ease, was in every particular, his ruling principle.
—Jane Austen
Angelo Basile Jarrow — known to the world as ‘Angel’, or alternately, ‘that devil’, the latter sentiment often expressed by his estranged wife — strolled through the supper rooms, where excellent wines flowed in abundance while rare delicacies, both in and out of season, were being served. The members of Watier’s Club mingled with the guests, pausing behind this chair and that. The club’s perennial president, George Brummell, sat teasing a lady wearing a wax mask, declaring he would not leave her side until he saw her face.
Angel might have made an educated guess as to who hid behind that wax. It was in his nature to recognize the elegant turn of an ankle, the sweet slope of a shoulder, the flirtatious tilt of a head. He paused to speak with one of his friends, an event that would in the ordinary unmasked way of things have attracted no little feminine attention, the pair of them being the town’s most notorious flirts. Where Lord Saxe was dark and diabolic and devilish handsome, Angel was temptation incarnate, with the face and form of an Adonis (his wife said, Narcissus), sun-kissed skin and gleaming fair hair. Even his hazel eyes were flecked with gold. The more moonstruck among his admirers claimed the day became a little brighter when Angel appeared, as if he drew the light to him and reflected it back again.
Lord Saxe wore a domino of rich blue
Gros de Naples.
Angel, who was lazy, spoiled, and indolent, and not inclined toward effort, had permitted his valet to dress him as one of Charles II’s merry cavaliers in brocade and velvet and lace, square-toed high-heeled shoes and a broad-brimmed hat with luxurious ostrich plumes. He carried a walking stick adorned with bright ribbons, a snuffbox and an embroidered handkerchief; sported a smallsword of Toledo steel at his hip, and a nice diamond bob in one ear. His hair had been powdered a delicate pale blue.
Lord Saxe had had a trying time of it recently, during what he called the Allied Invasion, which followed the cessation of the long hostilities with the French. He was still having a trying time, even after the departure of various foreign princes and potentates. “We are to celebrate the centenary of the House of Hanover in grand style,” he informed Mr. Jarrow. “With temples, taverns, pagodas and bridges in the royal parks, and a mock naval battle on the Serpentine.”
“And drinking booths,” added Angel. “There must be drinking booths, Kane.”
The baron scowled. “Are you never serious?”
“The day will come, I know it will — I
am
eight-and-thirty and have one foot already halfway in the grave — when my entertainments are restricted to giving long and boring speeches in the House.” Angel rearranged his priceless lace. “There will be time enough to be serious then.”
“Time, the devourer of all things,” murmured Lord Saxe.
“I shall skulk about the old manse in my nightshirt,” Angel added. “Stealing kisses from housemaids.”
The baron’s lips twitched. Angel was pleased. Rumor claimed Kane had suffered a recent romantic disappointment. Difficult to credit, but there it was. A man chased one too many times after Aphrodite’s golden apples, tripped, and tumbled head over heels.
Such were the risks one took when embarking upon any game of chance. Angel enjoyed games of chance. Such was his luck that he almost always won.
He saw a gypsy girl approaching. She possessed a well-turned pair of ankles, as he recalled. Leaving the ankles and their owner to the baron, Angel departed the supper rooms. Tonight’s event, for all that highborn ladies were fraternizing with courtesans in an unprecedented manner, was turning out to be a dull affair.
At least Isabella wasn’t present. Angel’s wife made it her practice to avoid being caught under the same roof. He ventured deeper into the house, currently owned by Lord George Cavendish. Pope had visited this old pile, and Swift; Handel dwelt here three years as an honored guest. Mere weeks past, the Allied Sovereigns had been feted in tents and temporary rooms erected in the gardens, at a cost of £10,000.
In those same gardens, the marbles brought by Lord Elgin from Athens were decaying in a coal shed. As Angel was pondering the problem posed the gardens’ owner by rubbish tossed over the walls, a female dressed as the goddess Diana raced around a corner and smacked into him.
His first impression was that the lady made a pleasant armful; his second that he didn’t think he knew her, though in that costume it was difficult to tell. Young, but not too young, he decided; she hadn’t the feel of an untried miss. Her skin (a fair amount of it exposed by her costume) was pale and smooth. He sniffed. She smelled of—
Peppermint?
The lady had been running. Her bosom heaved as she gasped for breath, hissed, “Let me go!”
Angel appreciated a heaving bosom. He pulled Diana through a nearby doorway. She ceased struggling to survey the huge chamber, which contained a fireplace and a bay and walls lined with book-filled shelves.
Meantime, Angel surveyed her. He was a connoisseur of females, after all. This particular female wasn’t overly tall, or overly short, and — especially in the bosom area — generously formed. Her mask hid the upper portion of her face so well he was unable to determine whether her eyebrows arched or marched or stuttered, if her nose was a girlish button or a frigate’s bold prow. Her earlobes were delicate, he noted; her neck elegant; her jaw and chin line firm. Impossible to tell the color of her hair under that atrocious wig, but her eyes were a honey brown, her mouth neither sensually suggestive nor prettily pouting but almost prim.
Ah. Did he glimpse a quiver? Indicative of some strong emotion? Perhaps, even, fear?
She should have been afraid, in light of his reputation. Angel let her go. “Where are we?” she asked, rubbing her wrist.
Ordinary? He had thought the lady ordinary? There was nothing in the least bit ordinary about the glorious golden voice that curled his jaded toes. “We have strayed a considerable distance from the festivities. Across the room is the west door, which will take you back to the grand staircase.”
Came a sound from the hallway, as if distant doors opened and closed. “Kiss me!” Diana demanded, and flung her arms around his neck.
Angel had long since passed the stage of kissing every female who asked him. Females, ladylike and not, were forever putting themselves in his path, and if once he had done his best to oblige them all, he was more discerning in these his later years. Still, he found it difficult to resist that voice. Not to mention the warm body fitted so snugly against his. Angel let his walking stick fall to the floor and slid his arm around her waist.
He had no sooner touched his lips to hers than the hallway door crashed open. Angel raised his head. An Egyptian pharaoh stood on the threshold.
The pharaoh stepped into the room. “I am searching for Diana. It would seem that I have had some success.”
Angel felt her body stiffen. “Find yourself another. This Diana is with me.” He dropped one hand to the hilt of his smallsword.
The golden mask turned toward him. Time stretched out interminably before the pharaoh spoke again. “I have interrupted. My apologies.” The door closed behind him. Diana let out her breath.
Angel loosened her grip on his sleeve. “I shan’t plague you with questions. A lady has the right to change her mind. You mustn’t clutch me quite so hard. My valet will fall into hysterics if you tear this lace. Much better! No, no, you must not leave me. The pharaoh may return. Now where were we? Ah, yes. ‘Queen and huntress, chaste and fair. Thou that mak’st a day of night. . .
’ ”
He raised her fingers to his lips.
She snatched her hand away. “You, sir, have had too much to drink.”
He smiled at her. “Have I? It seemed the perfect amount.”
The young woman blinked. Angel’s smile often had that effect, drawing as it did attention to the most kissable — and undoubtedly most kissed — mouth in London. “Are you
flirting
with me, sir?”
“I believe I must be. Do you mind?”
“I daresay I wouldn’t. But you might. I’m not the sort of female—”
“Nonsense.” In Angel’s considerable experience, under the proper circumstances, every female
was.
“You are attending a masquerade. None of us are ourselves tonight. And I owe you a proper kiss. No, don’t argue! I have a reputation to uphold.”
She opened her mouth as if to protest. Angel swooped, launching a sensual assault with lips and tongue.
He was expert at kissing. With so much practice, how could he not have been? He drew back to salute the corner of Diana’s mouth, brushed his lips across hers, once and then again; teased and tormented and tantalized with nips and nibbles and caresses, earlobe to breast, throat to chin, until she vibrated like a plucked harp string.
The masks were deuced awkward. Angel reached to untie hers. “No,” she murmured, and drew his mouth back to hers.
Very well, the mask could stay. Her armament, however, was damnably in the way.
Angel divested Diana of her quiver. She tossed aside his plumed hat, grasped his shoulders, rose up on her tip-toes and kissed him as if nothing else mattered in the world.
Moments passed — how many, Angel could not be certain; he had been distracted by a hot sharp stab of desire. He became aware of his surroundings only when Diana placed her hands against her hands against his chest and shoved.
Reluctantly, he released her.
“ ‘L
ay thy bow of pearl apart, and thy crystal-shining quiver. . .
’ ”
She backed away from him. “Do you recall what happened to Acteon, sir?”
Acteon? Who the devil was Acteon? Something to do with stags, thought Angel, but could not remember what. As he was wrestling with his memory, Diana snatched up her bow and quiver and slipped out the west door.
Angel retrieved his various belongings from the floor where he had dropped them, readjusted his wig and mask.
What an extraordinary female.
He was almost tempted to try and find out her name.
And yet a little tumult, now and then, is an agreeable quickener of sensation; such as a revolution, a battle, or an adventure of any lively description.
—Lord Byron
Maddie glanced at her reflection. The dark circles beneath her eyes matched the grey stripes in her gown, result of a sleepless night spent trying to convince herself that her imagination had run riot as result of overindulgence in spontaneity and sparkling wine. Gingerly, due to the headache throbbing at the base of her skull, she opened the door into the hall.
It was Maddie’s custom of a morning to visit the schoolroom, one of a series of large chambers at the top of her father’s impressive four-story brick house in Portman Square, where the juvenile members of the family were kept tucked away except on rare occasions when they were dressed up in their finest and trotted out to be inspected by their grandpapa. If the furnishings seemed shabby to her grown-up eyes, Maddie still found these rooms the most welcoming in this house.
Certainly their occupants were. Benjie and Penn greeted her with identical broad smiles. They were identical overall, from their stubborn cowlicks and mischievous expressions to the circumstance that each wrote with his left hand. Their tutor, an earnest ginger-haired young man, said “G-good morning, Mrs. Tate,” and blushed. The family ignored Matthew’s stammers and blushes. He’d been with the boys since they were very young.
The twins both spoke at once. Today, Benjie informed his mama, they were discussing Mr. Henry Shrapnel’s invention of a hollow cannon ball filled with shot that burst in midair. Since Matthew mixed the study of ancient history and languages with modern developments in science and industry, one as often found his pupils studying Monsieur Lemarck’s theory of evolution (Monsieur believed that giraffes developed long necks as result of stretching to reach the higher branches of trees) as pondering the Trojan War.
Maddie murmured a polite response. In the presence of her sons she felt like an ordinary hen that one day wakened to discover a pair of exotic peafowl in her nest. Prior to their father’s death, she hadn’t spent much time in their presence. Mr. Tate had disapproved of what he called maternal coddling.
Mr. Tate had disapproved of many things. He resembled Maddie’s father in that regard as well as others, including their shared belief that women should be seldom seen and less often heard.
The twins were still explaining missiles. “B-boys!” interrupted Matthew, and blushed again. “A little less graphic, if you p-please. Ladies in general do not care to hear about arms and legs b-being shot off.”
“Fiddle!” protested Penn. “Mama don’t care about such stuff.”
“Mama
doesn’t
care,” corrected Maddie. “However, most ladies have more tender sensibilities.” The tutor awarded her a quick, shy smile.
Maddie’s father wanted to replace Matthew with someone more sophisticated. Maddie was resisting the suggestion, despite being scowled at and berated and told she didn’t know the difference between prunes and peas. The boys had experienced one unexpected loss. It would be beyond cruel if their tutor, of whom they were fond, also vanished from their lives.
For all their similarity in appearance, the boys differed in temperament. Penn was more bookish, less bold, took things more to heart. Benjie was more sporting-mad, less studious, more inclined to get into scrapes.
There had been too many scrapes since they arrived in town. Maddie joined them at the scarred table “Benjie. Is there something I should know?”
“No.” His face in profile, Benjie did not meet her gaze.
“But yes. Look at me.”
He turned toward her, revealing a blackened eye. “It wasn’t Benjie’s fault,” protested Penn.
“As to that,” said Matthew, “I b-believe the b-blame more fairly rests with the stable boy.”
“It ain’t so bad,” Benjie muttered. “I popped his cork.”
Maddie touched his cheek. “I’m pleased you gave such a good account of yourself. May one inquire why?”
The twins exchanged glances. Matthew cleared his throat. “It concerns comments m-made about Mr. Tate’s accident.”
Benjie scowled. “You said you wouldn’t tell.”
“I haven’t t-told your grandfather,” retorted Matthew. “Which by rights I should, this being his house, and that b-being his stable lad. But you’ve no cause to be k-keeping secrets from your mother. The move to London has not been easy on her either, as you would realize if you thought about anything other than yourself.”
Benjie flushed. “I’m sorry, Mama.”
“Apology accepted.” Maddie struggled with an impulse to pull her pugnacious offspring onto her lap. “Tell me what the stable boy did to put you in a tweak.”
Penn was hovering. “It was what he
said.
Which was that Papa was a pompous puffguts, and if he hadn’t stuck his nose in where he shouldn’t, he wouldn’t have broke his head.”
“And then I drew the clunch’s claret, which is what he deserves for telling whoppers.” Benjie chewed his cheek. “They
were
whoppers, weren’t they, Mama?”
That depended on one’s definition of a ‘whopper’. The boys’ father had tumbled off a roof whilst demonstrating to his carpenter the proper way to hammer in a nail. No one had suggested outright that the carpenter might have pushed him, though Maddie suspected the idea may have occurred. There had been moments — were she truthful, many moments — when Maddie had been tempted to shove Mr. Tate herself.
And what did it say about her marriage that she referred to her deceased spouse as ‘Mr. Tate’?
It hadn’t been unhappy, she supposed, as marriages went. Maddie had even enjoyed those moments when her husband wasn’t treating her like a comfortable old chair in which he sometimes liked to perch.
Perching had occurred less and less often after the arrival of their sons. Maddie conceded that the twins might be offspring enough for any man.
Benjie was waiting for her answer. She dared ruffle his hair. “Your papa died of a fall from the conservatory roof. I’m sure he would rather have not. In any event, you can’t go about brawling with everyone who makes unkind remarks.”
“That’s what Matthew said.” Benjie didn’t seem convinced. “He also said I should avoid the stables in the future, because it wasn’t fitting for me to be rolling about in the muck, and that if Sir Owen learned of it, he’d scold
you
for my conduct
,
which I think dashed unfair!”
The tutor winced. “I suggested there might be b-better ways to d-deal with a stressful situation. In consequence of his actions, B-Benjamin has been set to studying Socrates’ thoughts on justice, injustice, and appropriate response.”
“I will leave you to it.” Before Maddie left the room, she gave both boys a quick kiss. If at nine years of age they considered themselves too old for demonstrations of affection, in this rare instance she put her own needs first. In passing, she removed a peppermint drop from the covered candy dish and popped it in her mouth.
Maddie closed the schoolroom door behind her, wishing for the hundredth time that she and the boys and Matthew might have stayed at Meadowmount. But her father insisted it wouldn’t
do
. Sir Owen had been named the boys’ guardian until they came of age. Was her father a less interfering person—
Alas, he was not, and so here they were in London, the boys engaging in fisticuffs while she flirted with strange chevaliers and witnessed mayhem being done.
If
she had seen mayhem done.
Sometimes Maddie wanted to plant someone a leveler herself.
The sunny breakfast room was deserted, save for the footman stationed at the sideboard. Maddie selected poached eggs on toast accompanied by cold ham; collected the newspapers and chose a chair. Sir Owen believed in being well-informed. She could peruse the
Morning Chronicle,
the leading Whig daily, much of its content supplied by journalists labeled as radicals; the
Examiner,
which had published a diatribe against the Prince Regent that resulted in the writer, Leigh Hunt, and the editor, his brother John, being sentenced to two years in gaol; the
Morning Post
, a Tory publication ever since Prinny took a share in the paper under the terms of a libel settlement several years past; or
The Times,
which to its credit refrained from slandering anyone not in public or political life.
Maddie knew a great deal about Tories and Whigs, due to Sir Owen, who was the former and prone to make his unflattering opinion of the latter known.
The city parks, from all accounts, were a-bustle with preparations for the Great Fair. The
Examiner
reported that five hundred men had been set to work to produce the ‘most brilliant fireworks ever seen in this country.’ The
Morning Post
promised spectacles of unparalleled splendor. Lamenting ‘Alas! To what are we sinking?’ the
Times
— amid ominous references to debauchery, drunkenness, and abominations — condemned the gingerbread stalls, the facilities for selling ale and gin, and the scanty precautions against the intrusion of a violent mob.
In a change of pace, the wife of a certain butcher had delivered her twenty-sixth child.
At last Maddie found a description of the Burlington House masquerade. Princess Caroline, perhaps due to her husband’s efforts, hadn’t numbered among the guests; Caro Lamb had drunk more than was prudent and persuaded a Guards officer to strip off his scarlet cloak. There was no mention of a hostile encounter between an Egyptian pharaoh and an English king.
Maddie shoved aside her eggs and toast and ham. Maybe she
had
imagined the whole thing, result of those six glasses of iced champagne. Maybe she hadn’t seen murder, or at least mayhem, committed; hadn’t been pursued by a pharaoh and rescued by a handsome rogue — she assumed he was handsome; he certainly possessed a splendid jaw and chin — who charmed her so thoroughly that she quite forgot the pharaoh, and kissed her so well she barely recalled her own name.