It Happened One Midnight (PG8) (8 page)

Argosy grinned. “I’ll tell you what’s magnificent. Or rather, who.” He gestured subtly with his very fine chin to Thomasina de Ballesteros, who stood angled away from them, busily captivating a guest.

Jonathan raised his voice a little. “Trouble de Ballesteros? That very ordinary ginger-haired female?”

She didn’t stop talking. But her mouth quirked at the corner, and her shoulder turned every-so-slightly toward them, like a weathervane.

He’d
known
she was listening.

Argosy swiveled on him. “Are you
mad?
” he said on an indignant hush. “Just look at her skin. Like amber and cream! And her hair is . . . oh God, don’t say another word she’s coming she’s coming over here she’s coming she’s coming . . .”

She had indeed graciously extricated herself from her conversation and was now gliding toward them.

They bowed to her, and she curtsied with the grace of a silk handkerchief fluttering to the ground. She was in white muslin today, her hair dressed in the Grecian style, and her neckline, as usual, could only be described as adventurous, for which every man in the room was grateful.

A far, far cry from yesterday’s big bonnet and homely shawl.

“Mr. Redmond. If you brood any more darkly I may need to eject you, lest you blot out all the light in the room like an eclipse and people begin speaking of omens. Although some women consider brooding picturesque, and perhaps that is why you do it? Something to do, perhaps, with the maintenance of your mystique? Or is it perhaps related to that little bruise you’re sporting?”

Jonathan listened to this with a faint smile. He let a strategic little silence go by. “Have you seen any dukes lately, Miss de Ballesteros?”

She smiled tolerantly, as if he’d said something whimsical.

Her eyes, however, flashed a warning.

His smile broadened to indicate how very little he cared about her warnings.

“Perhaps it’s just that you haven’t had enough to drink, Mr. Redmond?” she suggested. “It’s early, but champagne is a bit like drinking sunshine. It ought to do you and the rest of us who must look upon you good.”

Argosy intervened. “You must forgive my friend, Miss de Ballesteros, but he’s been deprived of his allowance, you see, which would darken the mood of any man. I’m certain a moment or two of basking in your charm will set him right. Your presence could make any man forget his troubles.”

Tommy wordlessly watched Argosy’s mouth move.

When he was done, she said, “Oh . . .
you,
” she finally said, and gifted him with a tap from her fan.

Jonathan stifled a laugh.

She made a three-quarter turn and pointed herself at him. “I thought I heard the word ‘silks.’ ”

She sounded shockingly businesslike.

“Do you like silks? I’ll buy a shipload of them for you,” Argosy volunteered casually.

“Be a pet and do that,” she encouraged him just as casually over her shoulder.

Jonathan coughed a laugh into his fist. “You heard ‘silks,’ Miss de Ballesteros, because I invested in a cargo of them.”

“And . . . ? Surely that isn’t how the story ends. Entertain me, Mr. Redmond. Make me laugh or weep.”

“
And
I doubled my profits.”

She sighed. “I do love a happy ending.”

“I suspect it’s just the middle of the story. I invested those profits in another cargo of silks.”

“And now . . . ?” Tommy prompted, starry-eyed, like a child being told a favorite bedtime story.

“And now we wait.”

“In other words, it could very well become a never-ending story. Like
Scheherazade
and
The Arabian Nights
.”

“You catch on quickly. Investment is
just
that enchanting. A fairy tale come to life.”

She laughed. And now the rest of the room shifted restlessly because her laugh was husky and genuine, and called to mind bells and Spring and mating and all sorts of things that stirred a man, and they all wanted to be the one to make her do it.

“The last time you were here, Mr. Redmond, I believe you mentioned something about a color printing press.”

She had a fixed gaze, he noted. Quite a green one, when observed in close proximity, the iris traced in a circle of silver. Almond-shaped eyes, like a Gypsy or a Persian, beneath slanting little dark brows. A pixie or a sorceress’s face, Argosy would have called it, but then, he would. Jonathan preferred his women blond and cool. “Unusual” invariably equated with “complicated,” in his experience, and “complicated” was synonymous with “anathema.”

Argosy would have
completely
missed the pragmatism and intelligence that shone in them.

The thing was, he hadn’t mentioned the printing press to
her,
and this was fascinating. Apparently not only did she lurk outside the homes of powerful dukes, she selectively overheard bits of conversation, and not the sort he might have anticipated. For all he knew the sole purpose of these salons was for her to gather intelligence.

And yesterday she
had
asked why he needed the duke’s money.

“A friend of mine, a German gentleman currently living in London, has developed the capability to print mass quantities in color—chromolithography, it’s called. I believe its possibilities are legion. He’s not the only lithographer hoping to print in color, but he’s the only one I know of in London.”

Argosy’s head dropped back in a pantomimed snore. “And Redmond would invest in
that,
too, but I may have mentioned he hasn’t any blunt to speak of at the moment.” He’d momentarily forgotten to be languid in a surge of desperate and unworthy-of-him competition. “He invested it all in the silks. He has. No. Money. At all.”

Jonathan turned his head slowly toward Argosy and pinned him with an incredulous black look.

Argosy looked back at him almost helplessly, an apology in his eyes, as if he couldn’t help himself. She
was
that sort of woman. She didn’t particularly try to do it, but Jonathan suspected it was really only a matter of time before men came to blows—or pistols—over her.

He, of course, wasn’t going to be one of them, but he didn’t particularly want Argosy to be one of them, either.

Tommy seemed to be all but deaf to Argosy. “Mr. Redmond, has your friend considered that he could likely make a fortune printing . . . shall we say . . . colorful playing cards featuring . . . explicit images?”

Jonathan went still.

He briefly closed his eyes as the suggestion spiraled into the depths of his mind like a guinea tossed into a wishing well.

It was
brilliant
.

Illegal
. But brilliant.

“Or perhaps . . . depicting members of the current court? Or members of high society?” he mulled, half to himself. Ideas rippled out from ideas rippled out from ideas.

“Do you speak euphemistically when you say ‘members,’ or . . . ? Because either, I’m sure, would be popular.”

It was an excellent double entendre and he rewarded it with the wicked grin it deserved, and she grinned back at him, and the air surrounding them was dangerously effervescent for a moment, until he remembered he had no money and he was supposed to be married by the end of the year.

“Tell me, Mr. Redmond.” And here her fan drooped forward to touch his chest, in something perilously close to a caress. “Are you good at this sort of thing? Investing?”

“Yes,” he said shortly.

He’d just noticed that Argosy’s eyes were fixed on where her fan met his chest, and he was reddening in a way that boded no good.

“
I
like investing in ruby necklaces that match the flames in a certain temptress’s hair,” Argosy volunteered curtly. Forgetting to be languid, but not to be hyperbolic.

Tommy swiveled to Argosy again. “Do you? I think Rundell and Bridge may still be open for business at this time of the day, but you may need to hurry,” she said briskly.

Jonathan couldn’t help it. He laughed. It was only what Argosy deserved, given the allowance announcement. But then he took pity on him. It wasn’t as though he particularly wanted Miss de Ballesteros’s attention.

“Why don’t you tell our hostess what
your
particular talents are, Argosy, before she becomes bored of us and drifts away to pollinate another conversation.”

Tommy sent Jonathan a sharp, unreadable, narrow-eyed glance.

Then turned a brightly expectant gaze on Argosy.

“Of the ones I may
properly
discuss in a public gathering,” he began, and she nodded, acknowledging the hint of suggestiveness, like a schoolteacher with a clever pupil—“I’m a
very
fine dancer. I handle the ribbons of my high flyer as if I were Apollo bringing the sunrise to the world. I excel at anticipating a woman’s needs. I can carry on a conversation about
many
topics, if not investing, when I’m not competing for your attention with a dozen other men. When I compete, I fear I tend to speak in hyperbole.”

Argosy looked mollified when Tommy laughed. She gestured with the empty champagne flute she was holding. “Can you anticipate the need I have now, Lord Argosy?”

“Your wish is my command.” Argosy bowed low and whimsically and immediately went in search of champagne for her.

Not, however, without trailing a suspicious warning look back at Jonathan.

“Meet me at midnight tonight in Covent Garden outside the Half Moon Theater,” she said immediately to Jonathan, on a hush.

“
What?
No.”

“It’s not what you think, Mr. Redmond.”

He aimed a look skyward. “Dear God, tell me you didn’t just say that again. No. I’ve no interest in the affairs of complicated, circumspect, ginger-haired women. No.”

“And you know very well I’ve no interest in the affairs of currently penniless rakes.”

Well.

“I ought to say ‘ouch,’ ” he said gingerly.

“You would, but you don’t care what I think any more than I care what you think. Since we share a particular interest, I do however think you’ll be interested in a business proposition I’d like to share with you.”

“And every grain of sense I possess tells me I’d be wise to pretend I never heard you say that.”

“How many grains of sense
do
you possess?”

“Let me see . . . three grains, at last count. I used to have four, but I forfeited one when I agreed to accompany Argosy to this salon. Again.”

“That’s such a shame! Three grains is one fewer than you need to prevent you from a trip to the Half Moon Theater at midnight.”

Jonathan laughed. He couldn’t help it.

If the two of them laughed again the whole of the place would likely call him out, such was the delicate tension she’d built with her strategically allotted attention and strategically low-cut bodice. And here she was, of course, talking to the one person who genuinely didn’t care whether she talked to him or not, much the way a cat could pick out the one person in a room who loathed cats.

“Come now, Mr. Redmond,” she urged, her voice lowered. “What else are you going to do with your time? It’s not like you’ll head to the gaming tables, not if you’ve sense, and from what I understand you have three entire grains of the stuff. You’ve been deprived of your allowance, and correct me if I have it wrong, but your father isn’t the sort to cheerfully pay your vowels should you play without funds. So meet me at midnight outside the Half Moon Theater. You’ll hear something of interest. Oh—and bring your pistol.”

And with that she pivoted and aimed the full radiant beam of her attention at Argosy, who’d returned, champagne in hand, with the air of a warrior bearing the head of his queen’s enemy.

“Lord Argosy,” she greeted him delightedly. “How impossible it is to resist a man who sees to my needs.”

Just like that, she threw what amounted to a net woven of sunshine and jewels over Argosy. He basked, captivated, his envy of Jonathan forgotten, and in a few short minutes he was convinced he was her favorite, simply by the quality of her attention. She
was
charming, Jonathan observed. Effortlessly charming, it seemed. She
enjoyed
charming. That much was clear.

It was also all a show, that much was
also
clear—to Jonathan, at least. But it was a show he appreciated, as long as he could remain safely in the audience. He observed, amused and somewhat relieved to be completely ignored, while she allotted Argosy a few more champagne sips worth of flattery and warmth before drifting off to enchant another guest.

He wasn’t about to meet that woman
anywhere
at midnight.

But he did like the way she moved, Jonathan thought absently, watching her walk away. It was the way champagne would move if it was a woman, all light and fluid elegance.

Chapter 7

H
E LEFT A HOPEFUL
Argosy behind at her salon before the sun dipped too low in the sky, with a vague promise to see him at White’s this evening, but only if Argosy was buying. He walked as far as Bond Street, taking great punishing, cleansing draughts of clear cold air, where he paused.