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PART II

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MAY, 1780
ST. JAMES’S
LONDON, ENGLAND

“YOU’RE DOING IT up a bit too brown, Unk,” Sandy muttered to Elliott the next evening once he had finished flirting his way around the packed ballroom.

“I should say so,” Niall agreed, sipping at his arrack punch.

“Subtlety is boring and does not … ” Elliott trailed off as he, Sandy, and Niall watched, stupefied, as Marchioness Rathbone glided by in panniers six feet wide, in pink-embroidered white silk. That was de rigueur. What was not was the toy sword attached to her pink stomacher; or the tall, light blue wig; or the miniature ship sailing the sea of blue hair whose tiny stern had even tinier lettering: THUNDERSTORM.

“Dear God in heaven.”

Elliott didn’t know whether his brother or nephew said it, but it echoed his thoughts precisely.

“Elliott,” Niall said, nudging his elbow and directing his attention to his right. Another one, dressed nearly identically but for the embroidery. White and peach. Toy swords. Pink or peach or blue wigs. Ships in their hair or embroidered on their dresses.

“Lethal hoops to starboard.”

And that one, whose skirt was a ship, had soft black silk cannon bores popping out of the lustrous brown silk. Her bodice had standing rigging strung from her ribs to the far ends of her hoops.

It was an invasion of the first water, and every noble lady of substance was wearing some homage to the Lady Captain Fury.

“When did this happen?” Sandy whispered.

“It had to have been planned,” Niall whispered back.

“And a perfectly executed plan it is,” Elliott said low and tried to hide his smile. “Lud, Fury would laugh until she shattered.” He surmised from this display that Rathbone’s tête-à-tête with his wife may not have gone as well as one might hope. “Why do I not engender this outpouring of devotion?” he grumbled good-naturedly. “At least I’m British.”

“Say, Unk, where is Miss Simpleton? Is she not the reason we are here swimming in an ocean of Furys?”

“Actually,” Elliott drawled, “we are here because your Lady Jane is here and I am playing matchmaker for you as I promised. I am also looking for the object of all these women’s affectations.”

“Affections,” Sandy muttered.

“Alexander!” Elliott snapped, cursing himself for relaying the events of the previous evening, including Miss Simpleton’s guileless insults, which had sent the two of them up into the boughs with laughter. “I said ‘affectations’ because I meant ‘affectations.’ If you were not so quick to judge me an idiot, you would know it for a pun, thus who is the idiot amongst us is in question. You are quickly becoming de trop.”

The flush on his face could be seen even under the light coating of powder and he hunched a little in his tasteful coat. “Sorry, Unk.”

Elliott stood silent, grinding his teeth against his mounting anger. “Where’s the object of your affections?”

“There,” his nephew muttered, thoroughly cowed, then tilted his head slightly left. “With her père, who roundly disapproves of me. I wished to write my name on her card, but was sent off as if I were a footman attempting to steal a kiss.”

Elliott took a quick glance at the girl, who was clad in light blue silk, her blonde hair piled high, and her face unpowdered. She had one small black circle adhered just under the corner of her mouth.

“She is sneaking glances at you,” Elliott said under his breath, still using his cup as a shield. “Are you sure she would not welcome a seduction?”

“Elliott!” he groaned. “Are you mad?”

He cackled. Loudly. “Of course I’m mad, dear Nephew!” he crowed. “My solicitor of all people should know that beyond a doubt!” All eyes were suddenly upon them, but most particularly those of Sandy’s tendre, which then slid to Sandy to watch him when the boy was otherwise occupied with cooling his still-flaming cheeks.

“You are not helping my cause.”

At that, Elliott shoved his cup into Niall’s hand and strode over to Lady Jane Iddlesleigh, ignoring her father’s glare, but noting the way she shrank away from him with barely disguised disgust. “My lovely Lady Jane, may I have your dance card?”

“Now see here, Tavendish!” the Earl of Iddlesleigh said with some bluster. “I’ll not have my daughter hanging off the arm of a traitor and, and, and macaroni!”

Elliott slid his attention to Lord Iddlesleigh and said smoothly. “Oh no? Even one with a bit of blunt to get you out from under your bad investments?” The earl inflated like a sea squab, but Elliott took a step toward him such that their bodies touched rather more intimately than permitted by etiquette and far more suggestively than Iddlesleigh would have liked. “My nephew, Mister Alexander Kerr,” Elliott whispered in his ear, “would like to pay his respects to your daughter and I am disposed to believe she would not rebuff him. Lest you see your every financial secret exposed in the Gazette, including what Sandwich is paying you to back him on his naval strategies, I suggest you allow him at least to dance with her once.”

Iddlesleigh’s throat bobbed.

“Should they continue together and they court in an entirely proper manner and find themselves in sympathy, I will settle upon you the aforementioned blunt. If not, no one is put out.”

“Except my daughter if his courtship has tainted her,” the man hissed.

“Or I can make sure your missteps damage her irreparably, at which time, Sandy will likely be her only reasonable alternative. After all, a highly respected and successful solicitor whose residence is in an earl’s household in Berkeley Square is not one’s common commoner. Your move, Iddlesleigh.”

“Very well. I’ll not forget this, Tavendish.”

Elliott had already turned to the young lady in question and held out his hand, into which she reluctantly placed her card. He scrawled his name on the line of the next gavotte, and then scribbled Sandy’s name on the allemande. Once finished, he clicked his heels and bowed to her, then walked away without saying another word.

Upon his return to his family, young Viscount Vickers caught his arm and pulled him close. “Your lordship,” he cooed. “Dare I hope you’d join me for coffee at Mary’s this eve?”

Elliott cast him a knowing glance. “Magdalen’s, do you mean?”

“Yes, of course.”

“Not this eve, alas,” Elliott sighed with exaggerated regret. “M’sister, you see. Once I get her married off, I should have more time to pursue my … manly pleasures.”

“And do I … please you, my lord?”

Elliott stepped back to inspect him with appropriate lasciviousness. “You’ve an alluring manner about you, Vickers. Prithee do not let me keep you and I shall avail myself of your services anon. But, Vickers … ” He leaned down to the boy, who could be no older than Sandy. “Get me your mother first.”

The viscount stepped back a bit, keeping his countenance carefully pleasant. Elliott was satisfied to see him adequately shocked. “My … my mother, my lord?”

He looked over the boy’s head to see his mother in one of those ridiculous Captain Fury gowns. She was beautiful, indeed.

“Aye,” he purred, still looking to her. He flicked his glance back to Vickers. “Do you want my cock riding your arse, I’ll have your dam’s cunt first.”

The boy gulped. Hard. Elliott wouldn’t be surprised if he cast up his accounts all over his hideous pumps. “Should— Should I send word if—if—if she agrees?”

“You do that.”

Elliott would have laughed, but he was reaching his point of fatigue and Camille had not yet seen fit to interrupt her selection of a husband to relieve him. Nor was Celia Bancroft in sight, even though her aunt was, which did not bode well for his opportunities to rest. He spent some time looking for Miss Simpleton and could not catch Milly’s eye (deliberately, he believed, the brat), but just when he decided to slip off to a dark, quiet corner where he could rest, the gavotte began. He sought out Lady Jane to claim her, and, as he had expected, she did not look upon him with disgust this time. In fact, she granted him a smile of shy conspiracy. Neither of them said a word during the gavotte (she was an excellent dancer, he noted), but when he bowed to her, he murmured, “I shall send Mr. Kerr along to you in a trice.”

“Thank you, my lord.”

He had just set Sandy to dancing attendance upon Lady Jane when Lord Rathbone and the Honourable Miss Bancroft were announced. She was dressed incredibly badly—worse than usual—and he wished he’d thought to approach Rathbone concerning her wardrobe.

She stood stock still and, as usual, staring ahead of her as if her mind was far away. Mayhap it was. In the past week, Elliott had collected a dozen salacious rumors as to where she had been all these years and what had been done to her.

If the rumors had not made her a target of everyone’s attention, her coif and cosmetics would have accomplished it. Piled lopsided upon her head, her unpowdered brunette hair stood out amongst all the white, pink, blue, peach, yellow, and silver wigs—his included—gliding, turning, and bobbing about the ballroom. Her face powder was splotchy and her rouge was badly done. Her red lips were painted too large for her gaunt face. Her pea-colored gown made her look as sickly as her mother.

In short, she was a calamity.

Elliott strode forward, wondering why Celia had arrived with her uncle instead of her aunt. The marquess was right behind her, bending low and whispering in her ear, gently guiding her with a hand to her shoulder.

Whatever else Elliott thought of Rathbone’s handling of his family, he could not deny that appearing here with his imbecile niece was a kindness most gentle­men of the ton would not have shown. Then again, Munro truly did not care for the ton or its opinion of him. He had one goal in his life, nothing would distract him from it, and likely he saw Celia as the personification of his own daughter.

As Elliott broke through the crowd, he called her name in the high pitch that near froze his throat. Rathbone saw him and sneered.

“Tavendish,” Rathbone said disapprovingly.

Elliott whined, “La, Admiral, a body would think you have no use for me!”

“Not in that custom,” he said flatly. “Your tailor should be run out of the country.”

He slid a glance at Celia and said, “Your household has its own sartorial crises, Munro. Seeeeleeeeaaaaa, how are you, my dahling gehl? Let me look at you. Ravishing, just ravishing, I say.”

“You would say, Tavendish,” Rathbone drawled.

“Your wife’s lovely tonight, Marquess, though I cannot fancy what would possess her to float a toy boat in her hair, blue or not. What in God’s name is the Thunderstorm? And why are all the ladies in Town wearing it?”

The look Rathbone leveled at him told him to prepare for a pummeling later, but Elliott smirked. “Run along, now, Munro,” Elliott chirped as he took Celia’s hand and tucked it into the crook of his arm. “I’ll see she comes to no harm.”

“Celia?” Rathbone asked gently.

“Thank you, Uncle,” she said dully. “Lord Tavendish is my friend.”

If by “friend,” she meant he was using her to shield his deplorable acting, then yes, he was definitely her friend. “Come, my dear,” he cooed. “Walk with me whilst we await the next dance.”

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Pirates!