Kitabı oku: «Regency High Society Vol 7», sayfa 2

‘Oh, say nothing of that, sir. I beg you,’ Morgana countered in a fierce whisper.

‘My lips, dear Miss Hart—’ the lips he referred to turned up at the corners ‘—are sealed.’

Chapter Two

Sloane handed Miss Hart into the carriage, to the cheerful greetings of her aunt, uncle and cousin. He climbed in after her and sat between the two young ladies, catching a whiff of Miss Hart’s perfume, a faint scent but distinctly French and expensive.

She settled herself closer to the carriage window, which somehow caused his blood to race, more so than Lady Hannah’s nearly imperceptible move closer to him.

Lady Cowdlin spoke. ‘We must do the introductions, mustn’t we? Morgana, may I present Mr Cyprian Sloane to you? This is my niece, Miss Morgana Hart. Her father is Baron Hart, you know.’

Sloane did know of Baron Hart, though the covert circumstances by which he was acquainted did not bear mentioning. It would cause more questions than he cared to answer.

He turned to the young lady. ‘Miss Hart, is it?’

She did not miss his attempt at humour. ‘Mr Sloane.’ A smile tugged at the corner of her mouth.

Lady Cowdlin went on, ‘Morgana is my dear sister’s child, God rest her soul.’

‘Ah.’ He hoped the sound was appropriately sympathetic.

The carriage lurched forward and they were on their way.

When Lady Cowdlin requested that her niece be included in the party, she’d not given the niece’s name. Neither had Lady Hannah, though she’d chattered on about her cousin that very afternoon when, during the fashionable hour, he’d driven her in his curricle through Hyde Park. Lady Hannah had explained this was her cousin’s second London Season. Hannah’s mother had sponsored her years before, but the cousin ‘didn’t take.’ Sloane had only half-listened to her account, attending more to how many of the beau monde saw fit to greet him. More each day. Two years ago none of them would have dared acknowledge him in public.

‘Mr Sloane has been so good as to invite us to the King’s Theatre, Morgana,’ Lady Hannah said in a somewhat smug tone and unnecessarily, for Sloane was certain her cousin must have been told their destination ahead of time.

‘Yes.’ Miss Hart turned to him again so that their faces were very close. ‘It was good of you to include me, Mr Sloane.’

‘My pleasure.’ He smiled.

The irony of his scrapping Hyde Park virago being none other than Lady Hannah’s cousin made him want to laugh out loud. He contained the impulse, but found he liked sharing the secret with Miss Hart. It felt… wickedly intimate.

When she’d emerged from her town house, he’d first only been aware of a swish of green silk, then he’d recognised her. But instead of the look of an efficient governess, she’d had a regal air, as if her intricate hairstyle were a crown upon her head.

When he had offered her his arm, the torch at the doorway illuminated her face, and he at last discovered the secret of her eyes. They were light brown—no, that was not descriptive nough—they were ginger-coloured, ginger flecked with chocolate. With the frame of her dark brows and lashes, the effect was remarkable. What’s more, her eyes shone with alertness and intelligence, as if they could not get their fill of all there was to see. For that very brief moment he’d felt caught in them, as if they also had the capacity to set a trap.

Miss Hart was a decided contrast to the classically beautiful Lady Hannah with her abundance of blonde curls, liquid blue eyes and blushing pink complexion. Lady Hannah, fashionably petite and curvaceous, was like a sweet confection, while her taller, slimmer cousin brought to mind something with more spice—ginger, perhaps.

‘Mr Sloane is seeking to buy a property in Mayfair,’ Hannah continued to her cousin. ‘Will that not be splendid?’

‘Very nice,’ Miss Hart agreed.

‘We shall be neighbours!’ Lady Hannah laughed, lightly placing her hand on his arm.

‘Mayfair is a big place,’ intoned Lord Cowdlin.

Sloane knew Cowdlin was not at all happy about any proximity between Sloane and his daughter.

Lady Cowdlin piped up, ‘Not so very big. He’d be hard pressed to be farther than a few streets from our fine residence.’ She gave a toadying smile. ‘Why, we may be certain to see him often as we are out and about.’

Lady Cowdlin undoubtedly favoured his suit, but then she was probably not privy to tales told about him in the gentlemen’s clubs and gaming hells. Still, Sloane was confident his money would wear down Cowdlin’s reservations, as would his efforts to behave in an impeccably respectable fashion.

Lady Hannah leaned into his side. ‘That will be so lovely,’ she purred.

Lady Hannah also made no secret of favouring his suit, though the increasingly proprietary flavour of her flirtation, so gratifying that very afternoon when she had sat by his side in his curricle, suddenly irked him. He’d not yet proposed to her, he wanted to protest in front of her cool, ginger-eyed cousin.

‘Do you have a property in mind, Mr Sloane?’ Miss Hart asked. It was the sort of polite question anyone might ask, but her gaze had flicked back and forth between him and her cousin.

‘I have hired a secretary to search for me. A very bright young man—’

‘Who is that, Sloane?’ Lord Cowdlin interrupted. ‘Someone known to me?’

Cowdlin probably thought he’d hired a man out of the rookery to handle his affairs. Sloane certainly knew such men, but he would be a fool indeed to mix that part of his life with his newly respectable one.

‘His name is Elliot. I doubt he would be known to you, but he is extremely efficient.’ Cowdlin would probably scowl in disapproval if he knew Elliot’s background: the son of a man who had run London’s most sophisticated smuggling operations. Now retired, he’d managed to get his son respectably educated. Working for Sloane was an opportunity for Elliot to join the respectable world. In that, he and Sloane had much in common.

‘Ah,’ responded Cowdlin without true interest.

The carriage soon drew up to the entrance of the King’s Theatre. There was a long line of carriages behind them, signalling a large crowd. Sloane assisted the ladies from the carriage, Lady Cowdlin an awkward bulk, Lady Hannah all soft and melting in his grasp, and Miss Hart a mere formality, relying on herself, not his hand, to alight.

Sloane predicted Hannah would some day be a warm and responsive bed partner; it was one of the qualities that had fostered his interest in her. But he could not imagine what sharing a bed with Miss Hart would be like. His senses flared with a sudden curiosity to find out.

Sloane mentally shook himself. He was thinking like a rake, not a gentleman. In a very gentlemanly manner, he offered each of the young ladies an arm and allowed Lord and Lady Cowdlin to precede them into the theatre and on to the box he’d rented for the Season. It had cost a pretty penny, as had the boxes he’d rented in all the important theatres. These were investments, he told himself, the necessary expenditures of a wealthy gentleman of the ton.

His investment was already paying off. Lord Cowdlin had given up his own subscription to the opera this year, more evidence of his dismal financial situation. Lady Cowdlin and her daughter had been in raptures when Sloane offered his box to them. They insisted he must be part of their group or they could not possibly accept his generosity. Lord Cowdlin had been less enthusiastic about this invitation. No doubt that gentleman would prefer to find a wealthy son-in-law who did not come encumbered with a rakehell’s reputation.

Sloane ushered Lady Cowdlin into the box. ‘My lady, I would be pleased for you to take the front seats. The view should be excellent.’

Lord Cowdlin snapped to attention. ‘What? What? You would sit in the back with my daughter?’

Sloane refrained from rolling his eyes. Did Cowdlin think him so big a fool? In such a public place, to sit in the dark with a maiden would surely compromise his efforts to raise his reputation from the depths it had sunk in the years he’d been on his own. Sloane was no fool. ‘You misunderstand me, sir. I meant the front seats for all the ladies of our party.’ He kept his voice deliberately bland. ‘I fancy you and I will be less interested than the ladies in either the performance or the audience.’

‘Oh,’ mumbled his lordship. ‘I beg your pardon.’

‘I will sit in the back, Papa.’ Lady Hannah batted her eyes. ‘I do not mind in the least.’

Apparently Lady Hannah had fewer scruples than he. Either that or she was impossibly naïve.

Sloane noticed Miss Hart watching this exchange with those lively eyes. What was she thinking? If he sat in the back with her, he could ask. He fancied she was the sort who would tell him.

Lady Cowdlin seized her husband’s arm with a dramatic flourish. ‘I will sit with my husband, Mr Sloane. You young people must sit in the front seats. I insist upon it.’

And Lady Hannah insisted that she sit in the middle chair, Miss Hart on one side, Sloane on the other, to which arrangement Miss Hart acquiesced without complaint. She took her seat and immediately scanned the theatre, somewhat methodically, Sloane noticed. She slowly examined the house left to right, eyes lingering longer on certain boxes, watching certain people on the floor.

The theatre was filling rapidly, the expensively clad patrons taking their seats in the boxes, the less fashionable packing the floor below. The din of voices melded with the orchestra tuning their instruments, creating a buzz of general anticipation.

‘Oh, look, Mr Sloane,’ Hannah cried. ‘There is Lady Castlereagh and her husband as well.’

Lord Castlereagh caught sight of Sloane as he took his seat. The gentleman acknowledged Sloane’s nod. Castlereagh was one of the few who knew of Sloane’s service during the war, when the government had needed a man to crawl around the city’s underbelly, to sniff out traitors more interested in profit than patriotism. Sloane was compensated for his deeds by a portion of the spoils seized from those who betrayed England for French gold. The bounty had been the seeds of his fortune. Skill at cards had done the rest.

He was compelled to remain silent on those years, and to endure from those who recruited him the belief he had done it only for the money. Still, when he had asked Castlereagh to use his influence with his wife, one of the patronesses of Almack’s, to issue him a voucher, the man had done so. Sloane’s mere appearance in those hallowed halls had gone a long way to giving him entrée into the ton.

Sloane had forgone serious card play and other gaming, his quest for respectability being a more challenging game. Admittance to Almack’s, however, had been like breaking a faro bank.

‘Oh, I also see one of my dearest friends from school,’ Lady Hannah exclaimed, her attention darting to the other side of the room. ‘And my brother is with her! How nice. I have high hopes in that quarter.’

Sloane dutifully glanced in that direction.

Hannah turned to her cousin. ‘Morgana, look, there is my brother Varney, and he is with Athenia Poltrop, my best bosom friend…’

Sloane no longer heeded Lady Hannah’s chatter. He no longer thought of her cousin. His vision was riveted upon another box, where the erect, silver-haired figure of the Earl of Dorton entered, followed by his son, Viscount Rawley and his Viscountess. Last entering the box was a fine-looking young man Sloane could only guess was his brother’s son.

What a friendly family party. How cosy for them all to attend the theatre together. Only one family member had been excluded from the familial tableau.

Sloane. The black sheep. The disreputable son.

He had no wish to be included in any of their activities, but one day they would not dare ignore him. One day he would have so much power and influence that his father would be forced to pay him respect.

‘Who is that, sir?’ Miss Hart’s sharp eyes were upon him, obviously noticing the direction of his gaze.

Hannah answered for him. ‘That is Lord Dorton and his son, Lord Rawley, and Lady Rawley. The young man is her son.’

‘My father and brother,’ Sloane finished for her.

Miss Hart’s eyebrows rose a notch.

Hannah leaned over to whisper into her ear, but not quietly enough for Sloane to miss the words. ‘They are estranged from Mr Sloane.’

Miss Hart darted a quick glance at him, one that did not linger.

The orchestra struck its opening chord, but the cacophony of voices from the audience did not subside one bit. The audience was too busy watching the spectacle of each other to bother with the opening of the curtain and the entrance of the first performers on the stage.

Morgana smiled to herself, taking in the disorder in the seats below, the ogling going on from box to box, the beautiful music and powerful, stirring voices. But all seemed mere background to the man who sat so near to her, Mr Cyprian Sloane.

Cyprian was an odd name, one she’d rarely heard except as another term for harlot. What would it have been like to grow up with such a name?

She stole another glance at him, pleased that her cousin sat between them so she could do so without him being aware. He’d said very little to any of them and still less to her, but she thought she perceived a hint of the man who fought with such restrained violence in the park. In a way, fighting in the park seemed a more fitting occupation for him than sitting in an opera box.

He was not quite focused on the stage, but still on the box where his father sat. There was a story there, she was certain. If she had the opportunity, she might ask him why he was estranged from his family. It was the sort of direct question she often later regretted. Such directness from a lady was not at all the thing.

She suspected it was one of the reasons she did not take with young men. It had been four years since she’d last been in a London theatre. She’d been nineteen, like Hannah, and it had been her come-out. But she’d ended that Season without a husband. She’d since decided she was glad of it.

Sloane shifted in his seat, and she stole another glance at him, seizing a few seconds to study his strong profile. His looks were faintly Latin, with his dark hair, strong nose and wide mouth.

She never would have guessed those gentlemen in the other box were related to him. She’d have more readily believed them related to Hannah. Lord Dorton, his son and grandson all shared the fair hair and complexion she saw so often in England and so rarely in Spain.

Sloane turned his head in her direction and she quickly averted her gaze, pretending she’d been watching the stage. She fancied she could feel his grey eyes upon her, and her pulse quickened.

For the first time in her life Morgana wished she were her frivolous cousin Hannah. She wished she’d been brought up in an English country house, with an English governess, attended an English girls’ school, and learned to be thrilled with ladylike pastimes and housewifely pursuits.

But even so, would Cyprian Sloane be sitting next to her instead of her cousin?

She forced her gaze back to the stage.

The opera was Penelope, and Morgana thought herself fortunate to be present at the soprano’s début performance in the King’s Theatre. Violante Camporese’s voice proved rich and full, and Morgana set herself to focus her attention on the performance.

She managed tolerably well, and believed herself in complete mastery of her thoughts when the interval came. A servant arrived with refreshment, but soon nothing would do for Hannah but that she be taken to her bosom friend’s box, and, because she could not go with Sloane alone, they all must go. So Morgana pushed herself through the crush of people all bent on calling upon someone else. She noticed one box with several gentlemen hovering at the door and made a mental note to figure out who was seated there.

When they knocked on the door to Miss Poltrop’s box and the young lady saw who’d come to visit her, there were squeals of welcome and hugs between the two friends. The rest packed themselves in and, for a moment, Morgana had to squeeze by Mr Sloane, very aware of where every part of his body touched hers.

‘I beg your pardon,’ he said in his deep smooth voice, as if he, too, had noticed the contact.

Introductions were made. Lady Poltrop and Morgana’s aunt were quickly deep in whispered conversation, and her uncle and Lord Poltrop just as quickly exited the box. While Hannah and her friend Athenia were giggling together, Morgana was momentarily at eye level with the knot in Mr Sloane’s neckcloth. The man had to stand at least six feet tall.

‘Do you enjoy the performance, Miss Hart?’ he asked politely.

She had to tilt her head to look at him. ‘Oh, yes. The drama and intrigue. Who is seated with whom? Who is cut and who not? The conquest by man of woman.’

His eyes crinkled in puzzlement.

She smiled and deliberately fluttered her eyelashes. ‘You meant the performance on stage, perhaps? I was speaking of the entertainment in the boxes and on the floor.’

Then he did a marvellous thing that made her heart quite jump up and down in her throat. He laughed, a deep rumble of a laugh, complete with twinkling eyes and wide grin.

Hannah looked over. ‘Mr Sloane, come talk with me and Athenia. We have great need of your company.’

Morgana’s pulse still raced when he moved away without even a look back at her.

Her cousin Varney came to her side. ‘Glad to see you out, Morgana.’

She was grateful he’d come to distract her. ‘I am glad to be out at last.’

Varney glanced over to where Hannah stood clutching Sloane’s arm in a lively, giggling conversation with her friend. ‘What do you think of that?’ He bent his head in their direction.

Morgana raised her brows. ‘What am I to think? Are they to be engaged? Hannah has said she has hopes of it.’

Varney nodded. ‘Oh, she has hopes, all right. He’s flush enough, to be sure, but I still cannot like it.’

‘Why?’ Morgana could not help but ask.

Varney squirmed a little, glancing back at Sloane. ‘A lot of talk surrounds that fellow. Some people say he was a smuggler during the war, in it for his own profit. He has a reputation as a philanderer and a card player—and not always in gentlemen’s clubs.’

Morgana, too, directed her gaze at Sloane.

‘I cannot think he is the man for Hannah,’ Varney added in a gloomy tone.

Sloane looked every bit the part her cousin Varney described. She could more readily see Sloane at the helm of some smuggling vessel or seated at a green baize table staring at a hand of cards, than here chatting with two misses in their first Season. Morgana said what she was thinking. ‘Does your father know of this talk? Why would he allow Sloane to court her then?’

Varney grimaced. ‘Truth is, the family needs Hannah to make a good match. A wealthy one, that is. Sloane has been the best prospect thus far, and no one can complain of anything in his recent behaviour.’

‘He is reformed, do you say?’

‘I do not say it,’ he protested. ‘But others insist he is reformed. Castlereagh, for example. And the Marquess of Heronvale. Both are known to speak well of him.’

‘Indeed,’ she mused, more to herself than to him.

Lady Cowdlin roused herself from her conversation. ‘Mr Sloane, I believe the performance is due to start soon. We must return to the box before there is a mad rush.’

Sloane responded with great affability, ‘As you wish, my lady.’

Hannah clutched his arm, but spoke to her friend. ‘Athenia, do walk with us. You have not had a promenade yet this evening. You and your mother can walk with us and Varney can escort you back.’

Varney hurried to Athenia’s side, but Hannah insisted he escort the older ladies.

Sloane looked at Morgana. It appeared he was the only one who noticed she did not have a man’s arm to hang on to. In any event, she could certainly walk the short distance to the opera box without assistance.

The corridors were every bit as congested as they’d been at the start of the intermission. Morgana dived into the crowd, trying to keep up with Varney and Sloane and the ladies on their arms. Sloane looked back once to check on her. If he looked back again, she did not know it. She became separated from the group by several men who had left the box she’d been curious of before. One young man gave her a very appraising look, which Morgana returned with a cool repressive one, just before she spied her uncle and Athenia’s father coming out of the box as well.

Whose box was it who attracted her uncle and Lord Poltrop and all these other gentlemen? She pushed her way past, calculating that the box was five doors from Mr Sloane’s. She’d gone no more than a yard when he came towards her in the crowd.

He gave her his arm. ‘I ought not to have allowed you to proceed unescorted.’

She put her arm through his, thinking of how that arm so lethally had held a sword. ‘I assure you I only had one illicit encounter,’ she quipped. ‘However, I am well able to take care of myself.’

He again gave that devastating smile and leaned down to her ear. ‘I feared I would be compelled to break up another brawl.’

She could not help but laugh in return. ‘You might recall exactly who ended that first brawl.’

They reached the door to his box and halted, each smiling into the other’s eyes. ‘I recall it,’ he said, and for Morgana time seemed to stand still.

He opened the door, and the other ladies and Varney were crowded in the box saying their goodbyes. Sloane escorted Morgana to her chair and they were still standing next to each other when her uncle entered.

Morgana thought her uncle’s complexion in high colour. She turned to check the boxes, counting carefully to discover who it was he and half the gentlemen in the house visited.

In the fifth box over sat a brightly clad, auburn-haired woman holding court to several gentlemen who flocked around her. Her dress, while not scandalously low cut, none the less displayed to advantage her ample bosom. She looked the very paragon of fashion and gaiety. The woman caught Morgana’s eye and smiled.

‘Who is she?’ Morgana asked Sloane.

He frowned. ‘No one you should know, Miss Hart.’

Morgana glanced back at the woman. ‘Why not? Is she a demi-rep?’

He drew her from the edge of the box, making her turn away from the audience. ‘It would be best for you not to ask about such women.’

She pursed her lips. ‘I am not missish, Mr Sloane, as you well know. My uncle and Lord Poltrop visited that box. I saw them. I would like to know who she is.’

He shushed her again, something that always raised her hackles ever since she’d been a small child. She gave him a direct stare and waited.

He returned the stare, much too long for her to be comfortable. Finally, he spoke, ‘That is Harriette Wilson. She is a celebrated courtesan and not the sort of person a young lady of your station should know about.’

Morgana persisted, now more out of a desire to deflate his sudden prosiness than out of curiosity about the captivating Harriette Wilson. ‘Do you know her?’

He paused, their gazes still locked. ‘I am acquainted with her.’

She opened her mouth to ask him what he meant by that, when Hannah hurried over. Her friend had left, and she’d undoubtedly noticed her gentleman-of-choice had engaged in a brief conversation with someone other than herself.

The orchestra sounded its first chords and they all took their seats, Morgana feeling more stimulated by the brief conversation with Mr Sloane than anything else of that evening. She consoled herself that, since Sloane was Hannah’s probable fiancé, she might have other opportunities to converse with him.

She peeked at him. He would make an interesting friend, and she could content herself with that. Her gaze wandered back to Harriette Wilson. No one in that box paid the least attention to the performance on stage. They were riveted on Miss Wilson, who exuded self-assurance and charm, as well as a frankly sensuous appearance.

Even Morgana could recognise her allure, though she could not explain it. Suffice to say the gentlemen flocked around her, even though she was not a young woman, perhaps even near her father’s age.

Miss Wilson looked in the direction of their box, but not at Morgana this time. At Sloane.

What precisely had Sloane meant by being ‘acquainted’ with the celebrated courtesan?