For what do we live, but to make sport of our neighbors, and laugh at them in our turn?
—Jane Austen
Angel Jarrow. Maddie had kissed Angel Jarrow. No wonder she had enjoyed herself so well. From all accounts, the man had kissed a good three-quarters of London’s demimonde.
She should be horrified. She
was
horrified. And she regretted that on their reacquaintance she had resembled a plump pullet trussed up in white striped with apple green.
Maddie had suspected her masked chevalier might be handsome. She realized now that ‘handsome’ was far too colorless a word. Angel Jarrow was even more glorious in evening breeches than in brocade and lace. His unpowdered hair gleamed like spun gold.
She’d wrapped her arms around his shoulders. Pressed herself so tight against him she’d almost skewered herself on his smallsword.
And then, upon encountering him again, she’d acted gauche as a schoolgirl. Mr. Jarrow hadn’t seemed surprised by her reaction. No doubt he was accustomed to females being struck witless by the splendid sight of him.
Lest Matthew also deem her witless, Maddie forced herself to concentrate on the tutor’s passionate defense of Rousseau’s philosophy of education, currently under attack by Sir Owen, who opposed children asking questions of any kind. Benjie and Penn (she would never dare call them ‘children’ in their hearing) were eager to enlighten her about the Final War of the Roman Republic, which (as she understood them) concluded with Antony falling on his sword, and Cleopatra being bitten by a venomous snake, and Octavian being named Pharaoh. Reminded of her own pharaoh, Maddie withdrew to the drawing room, a bright and rather formal chamber located at the back of the house.
Oriental rugs protected the polished wooden floor. Green and white striped paper covered the walls. On either side of the windows, damask curtains hung. The room was furnished with mahogany, ebony and brass.
No sooner had Maddie settled on a shield-back sofa than a fragrant-smelling whirlwind swept into the room. “I didn’t bother to have myself announced. Did you fear I was never coming? Things have been in such a whirl!”
Exquisite in form and feature, with flaming hair and bright green eyes and translucent skin, the newcomer was a walking advertisement for the latest fashions. Resigned to being allowed no peace, Maddie said, “Good afternoon, Louise.”
Mrs. Holloway tilted her head to one side. “Gracious, what a dull dress! At least you are not wearing stripes.”
Maddie smoothed the sleeve of her simple morning gown, printed cotton with long sleeves and a modest neckline. She’d been deep in Angel-inspired abstraction when her abigail dressed her, and this absence of stripes was the result.
Louise peered around the room. “Where are the boys?”
“With their tutor. I believe they are—”
“Then that is all right! And Sir Owen?”
“Off about some political business having to do with Prinny and—”
“Excellent! We may have a comfortable coze. How kind it was of Viscount Ashcroft to agree to escort you to the masquerade when I couldn’t go. Such an obliging sort! You might as well marry him, you know. He would not do for me, of course; I require more
dash
in a man. Oh, I know you say you don’t mean to remarry, but you will change your mind. Being a widow is not as liberating as one might expect. I don’t suggest one might
want
to be a widow, because of course one would not, and I’m sure I miss my poor dear Frederick—” Louise raised one hand to the pearls at her throat, presented by her deceased spouse shortly before he broke his feckless neck. “But you have been widowed for a mere two years, and I assure you, it soon becomes dull! I would not say so to just anyone, but we have known each other from the cradle, and so I can speak plain.”
True, they had been childhood friends. However, the acquaintance had lapsed during the years Maddie lived immured in Gloucestershire with Mr. Tate, years during which Louise had wed, and been widowed, and gained a reputation as a dashing young woman about town.
How
dashing, Sir Owen didn’t realize, or the association would end.
Maddie didn’t explain that Viscount Ashcroft was no more anxious to enter the wedded state than she. “Tony is an amiable noodle,” she pointed out.
“But that means you can
manage
him! A husband who is manageable is infinitely preferable to one who is not.” Louise paused in front of a gilt framed looking-glass to regard herself. “I am so glad you have returned to town! I have longed for a friend.”
“You have countless friends,” Maddie protested.
“Not like you. You
understand
!”
Maddie understood all too well. She was the perfect foil. Her ordinariness made Louise’s exotic looks stand out all the more.
Mrs. Holloway cast one last admiring glance at her high-crowned Parisian bonnet. “Jordan has been in Calcutta — or maybe Bombay — doing something with saltpeter, or was it the spice trade? Would that he had stayed there!”
Maddie recalled her childish tendre for Louise’s half-brother, whom she hadn’t seen in years. Jordan had spent the past decade in East India, following in the footsteps of his maternal uncle, who during a distinguished career with the Company had amassed a fortune in Indian commodities and provided various financial favors to the Crown. “You said he had agreed to pay your debts.”
“And so he has! But I may have held a few in reserve.” Louise extricated a lace handkerchief from her sleeve. “Jordan vows he is scandalized by my behavior. I am vexatious and fidgety and a sad shatterbrain, he tells me — and for him to call my poor Frederick a paltry pillock was not at all kind.”
Maddie was accustomed to thinking of Louise’s late husband as a wastrel, but ‘paltry pillock’ had a nice ring. “Is that a new outfit? Penn and Benjie would say you are all the crack.”
“And then they would put their grubby handprints all over my skirts. We will not ask their opinion, if you please! Everywhere I turn, I find Jordan at my heels. It is only because I said I was going to visit you that I escaped him today. But enough of that! Tell me about the
bal masque.
If only I might have gone myself! But Jordan would not have approved.”
Maddie wasn’t certain
she
approved. Louise forever teetered on the brink of financial disaster — ‘milliners, modistes, mantua-makers, shoemakers, glove makers, and if all that were not enough, there is the price of tea!’ — yet managed to remain much in demand with hostesses eager to hear of the latest scandals, which were her stock-in-trade. “Everyone has something to hide,” she told Maddie now; “some private vice or folly they are anxious to conceal. Or almost everyone,” she added, pointedly, as if Maddie were the sole person in all London who lacked a secret to her name.
In other words, concluded Maddie, she was excruciatingly dull.
Angel Jarrow had kissed her, all the same.
Would Mr. Jarrow kiss Louise with equal enthusiasm, did he encounter her in a deserted hallway, wearing a shocking costume that left a large amount of her person bare?
A costume that now lay hidden in Sir Owen’s attic, buried in Maddie’s travelling trunk “I still don’t understand why it was so important I attend.”
“One hates to waste an invitation. Just think: society matrons mingling all unaware with the frail and fair!” Louise fluttered her handkerchief in front of Maddie’s face. “You’re not paying attention! What is wrong with you today?”
Maddie had kissed Angel Jarrow. That was what was wrong. Or perhaps it was right, because that kiss had been a revelation, and Maddie hadn’t quite recovered the proper working of her brain. She told Louise what she had seen and overheard, and how her path had crossed with Angel’s, though she was not so foolish as to supply certain details.
“Angel Jarrow,” Louise repeated. “He must have been on his way to an assignation. You should have followed and discovered who he met.”
Maddie wondered at Louise’s interest in Mr. Jarrow. Did she number among the hordes of females who aspired to catch his eye?
Being Louise, she may have already caught his eye. “Did you not hear what I told you about the pharaoh and Henry VIII?”
“
You
didn’t hear what the pharaoh said to Henry. And if anything untoward had taken place, the whole world would know about it by now. You should have followed Angel and discovered who he met and immediately send me word.”
“How was I to do that, pray? You told me you would not be at home. Should I have sent a footman to try and track you down?”
Maddie’s tone was indignant. Louise looked surprised. “Come down off your high ropes! You will do better the next time.”
“There won’t be a next time! I seldom frequent the sort of places where scandal may be unearthed. Unless you think I might have discovered some shocking circumstances at Beatrice Denny’s musicale?”
“You have met Beatrice Denny?” Louise sank down beside Maddie on the sofa. “How?”
Maddie eyed her friend, wary of this sudden interest. “Mrs. Denny’s husband is Viscount Ashcroft’s cousin. I attended her most recent musical party. She complimented my voice.”
Louise clapped her hands together. “There is a perfect example of how gentlemen are useful. Beatrice Denny knows everyone who is anyone. And now
you
have the entrée!”
The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.
—Edmund Burke
Angel was whiling away an idle hour in the coffee-room of his club, listening to the various conversations going on around him, which ranged from the gala Prinny was planning at Carlton House in honor of the Duke of Wellington (Nash was building a huge polygonal hall in the garden for the occasion, the rooms to be studded with W’s in tribute) to the Duke’s appointment as His Majesty’s Ambassador and Plenipotentiary to the Court of France. White’s was the most exclusive of London gentlemen’s clubs. Many a career had been made within these walls, many a cabinet post decided, many a fortune lost and won.
Angel wasn’t a peer. His name had not been entered in the candidate’s book at birth. For him, neither political influence nor card play held out irresistible allure. He was on the verge of joining Brummell, Alvanley and Sefton in the bow window, where they were mocking themselves and their fellows and the people passing by outside, when a familiar figure approached.
“I wondered how much time would elapse before someone came to plague me,” Angel drawled.
Lord Saxe seated himself in a comfortable leather chair. “And?”
“It has been all of ten minutes. Have you seen Denny? I suspect he may be avoiding me.”
“I take it you desire a word.”
“Several words, though it goes against the grain. My sister is unhappy, and I am uncommonly fond of Bea.” Angel beckoned a waiter. “You prefer something stronger than coffee?
I
don’t imbibe in spirits this early in the afternoon, but you must suit yourself.”
“Suit myself?” echoed the baron. “What an unusual idea. Yesterday I attended a ball where Platoff performed what he called a national dance, which consisted of nodding his head and stamping his feet like a horse.”
“Definitely something stronger.” Angel ordered a bottle of claret. “
I
spent the evening furthering my acquaintance with an agile actress and am in a mellow mood.”
Kane eyed him with interest. “Not the vivacious Verity?”
“Ah no, I shan’t tell you. Lest you try and steal a march on me.” In the spirit of companionship, Angel accepted a glass of claret for himself.
“
I’m
not one for poaching.” Kane had been on the verge of fixing his interest with a certain charmer before Angel interfered.
“The Allied Annoyances distracted you. Else Daphne would never have given me a second glance.”
Lord Saxe awarded this outrageous clanker all the attention it merited, which was none. Mr. Jarrow hadn’t met a female who failed to give him a second glance, and then a third and fourth.
“My conscience has struck me, albeit belatedly,” Angel added. “You may have her back.”
“Not I. You wanted her, you must keep her now.”
“But I don’t want to keep her. I don’t know why birds of paradise insist on thinking they may feather their nests at my account.”
“Because you are a veritable Adonis, a buck of the first head. And, let us not forget, well inlaid with brass.” Kane’s tone was wry. Angel dealt generously with his ladybirds, showering them with attention and affection and expensive presents, so long as his ardor burned bright, which was usually about six weeks. “In any event, I suspect it is the fair Daphne’s conte who considers you a pigeon to be plucked.”
“In return for my enjoyment of his wife’s body, the conte thinks he should enjoy the contents of my purse?” Angel raised his glass. “I anticipate that I may soon have to depart London on a repairing lease.”
“You would run away?”
“I would abandon the field, an altogether different thing.”
“Call it what you will, Castlereagh prefers you don’t leave town.”
“Oh?” inquired Angel. “And why is that? More to the point, why might anyone think I arrange my travel plans to suit Lord Castlereagh?”
Kane didn’t answer him directly. “You wouldn’t want to miss the Grand Jubilee. Or the balls being given in honor of the Duke of Wellington. Or the Regent’s fête.”
“I haven’t recovered from the last occasion when I sat up late drinking cherry brandy with Prinny. I’m not anxious to again observe the great majestic backside swaddled in bright white inexpressibles.”
Lord Saxe was an astute gentleman, who had been acquainted with Angel Jarrow for a great many years. “Cut line. What aren’t you telling Castlereagh?”
“Any number of things, I should imagine. None of them are his — or your— concern. What a monstrous glower. I grow weak with fright.”
“You are determined to be an irritant.”
“Ah, but I do it so well. You, on the other hand, are turning into a dead bore, and so I shall say what I should not. That you are not plump current is as plain as the nose on your face, and that your blue devils are caused by loss of Daphne, I
don’t
believe! I’m as fond of the ladies as any other man — very well, more fond than most — and so you won’t take it amiss if I tell you that when one door closes another opens, and all cats are the same in the dark.”
“Some cats have sharper claws than others,” the baron pointed out.
“I didn’t say,” Angel replied, with dignity, “that I’ve never made a mistake. We shall go on much more prosperously if you refrain from mentioning my wife.”
Lord Saxe wasn’t one of Isabella’s conquests, or one of her admirers either; and his annoyance eased with this reminder that Angel had blue devils of his own. “All cats are grey in the dark?”
“I was trying to divert you. Clearly it didn’t serve.”
It had not. Lord Saxe knew his friend too well. Angel wafted through society like a butterfly, so charming and frivolous that he was seldom suspected of any serious intent. This misapprehension sometimes served Lord Castlereagh’s purposes. The trick to gaining Angel’s cooperation was to present him with something sufficiently intriguing to prompt him to bestir himself.
Therefore, Kane told Angel what the Foreign Secretary had not: Fanny Arbuthnot had come into possession of a packet of politically sensitive documents.
“Good God,” Angel responded. “Is everyone a spy? I wonder if I want to know what these documents are.”
“Trust me, you do not.”
Angel swallowed some claret before he replied. “Diana was running away. From a pharaoh, I imagine, because one was close on her heels. I offered him a taste of my smallsword and he left us alone. I can tell you little more, save that a falcon mask represents Horus, Egyptian god of the sky, or war, or protection, or all three. Horus was born to the goddess Isis after she retrieved the dismembered body parts of her murdered husband Osiris, save for his penis, which had been thrown into the Nile and eaten by a catfish. Isis used her powers to fashion a gold phallus, and brought Osiris back to life long enough to conceive her son. You marvel at my knowledge? I am reading Napoleon’s
Description de l’Egypte.
The penis-eating catfish sticks in a man’s memory.”
Kane refused to be distracted. “His age?”
“Our pharaoh? It’s anyone’s guess. He was fit enough to wear naught but a kilt and headcloth without embarrassing himself.”
“A headcloth? You didn’t see the color of his hair?”
“No, and now I think on it, he had no hair on his chest, so either he was very young or — horrors — had shaved. Horus and Mrs. Tate were in a part of the house not given over to the festivities.” As had been Angel, but then, he often was. “You may be interested to learn that Diana has turned out to be Madalyn Tate. Don’t try and tell me
she
is a spy. That would stretch credulity too far.”
On the contrary, thought Kane. Maddie Tate was daughter to Sir Owen Osborne, who along with Creevey and Broughton numbered high on Lord Castlereagh’s list of Whigs he’d like to see tossed into the Thames. Sir Owen wasn’t beyond putting his daughter to use, with her consent or otherwise. “How did you discover her identity?”
Angel explained the circumstances of his sister’s musical party and his instant recognition of Mrs. Tate’s voice. “Castlereagh,” said Kane, “is in as foul a temper as I have ever seen.”
Angel set down his empty wineglass. “What has annoyed him now?”
Corn Laws and income tax and the civil list, thought Kane, along with James Madison, the American president, who was rapidly assuming the role of principal public enemy and appropriating the epithets once reserved for Napoleon; the Corsican himself and the not-so-allied sovereigns; Princesses Charlotte and Caroline and the Whig attempts to use them as weapons to bludgeon the Prince Regent and the Tories— “What has not?”
“Have it your way! I will question Mrs. Tate. I daresay a sympathetic shoulder may prove more effective than thumbscrews and the rack.”
“I daresay.” Kane pushed back his chair.
Angel watched the baron exit. He was not surprised that Fanny Arbuthnot had been engaged in subterfuge. It had cost him a most generous parting gift to extricate himself from her, if memory served.
He wondered what extricating himself from Daphne might require.
Angel would have extricated himself from Isabella in a moment, were not her price a platter bearing his severed head.
As for Mrs. Tate—
Who the devil was the pharaoh, and what the devil had she seen?