Lady Whistledown Strikes Back (13 page)

The author of twelve novels and four novellas for Avon Books, she is a graduate of Harvard and Radcliffe Colleges and lives with her family in the Pacific Northwest. Her next novel,
When He Was Wicked,
will be published in July 2004.

Please visit her on the web at
www.juliaquinn.com.

The Last Temptation

Mia Ryan

For my Mama.

I meant to dedicate one to you

a long time ago, Mams.

Hopefully God lets you take time off

from being the most beautiful angel up there

to get some good reading in. :-)

This Author suspects, however, that if any of Lady Neeley’s guests were to point to the true tragedy of yestereve, they would not mention the missing bracelet but rather the uneaten food. (The guests were, rather tragically, torn from their meal during the soup course.) This Author has it on the best authority that the menu was to have included lamb cutlets with cucumbers,

veal ragout, curried fowl, and lobster pudding in the first course. The second was to have

featured saddle of lamb, roast fowl, boiled capon with white sauce, braised ham, roast veal,

and raised pie.

This Author shall not remark upon the desserts, which remained uneaten. It is far too painful

a subject to ponder.

LADY WHISTLEDOWN’S SOCIETY PAPERS, 29 MAY 1816

The entire house smelled of lobster: old, overdone lobster. Not the lovely, enticing smell that had caused Isabella’s mouth to water as Lady Neeley had made them wait for dinner the night before. Oh, no, this morning the lobster smell had permeated every thread of every cushion of every sofa and chair, and it absolutely was no longer enticing.

Isabella Martin made her way quietly down the back servants’ stairs to the kitchen. She held her breath and carefully stepped over the stair that creaked.

She did not want to face Lady Neeley, not yet, at least. And she definitely couldn’t deal with Lady Neeley’s parrot from hell. That stupid bird had made an awful night nearly unbearable. And the fact that Lady Neeley had done nothing to help Isabella left a very bad taste in her mouth.

After ten years of being her constant companion, Isabella deserved, at the least, to have had the old woman put the pestering pest in the cupboard for an evening. But, no, Isabella had spent the entire night ducking out of the way as the stupid bird had tried to kiss her with its painfully sharp beak.

Bugger the parrot was bugger Lady Neeley, as well, Isabella thought as she finally pushed through the door to the kitchen.

Christophe was busy making some sort of pastry that smelled eerily of lobster.

He glanced up as she

came in.

“Good morning, Christophe,” Bella said with a bright smile.

“Good?” he asked. “You use this word and I do not think I understand it.

Maybe, yes, it is good a little

bit now that beautiful Bella brightens my kitchen with her smile.”

Bella laughed and smiled wider. Ever the charmer, Christophe was. Bella slid onto a stool across the table from the French chef she had found for Lady Neeley about five years before. He was a small man, about five years younger than Bella and a good foot shorter than she, with dark hair and darker eyes.

And whenever Bella felt even a little sad, she knew that she could sit in Christophe’s warm kitchen surrounded by succulent aromas and receive compliments, one on top of another until her head swam with them.

Christophe shook his head now and blinked his eyes as if fighting back tears.

“My dinner ruined!” he cried. “Ruined! For what, I ask you? Some ugly bracelet. Well, I’ll tell you, Bella, this household is going to eat lobster soup and lobster biscuits until they turn green.”

Bella grinned. “The biscuits or the people?” Christophe frowned and pounded at his dough. “I am not in the mood for laughing this morning, Bella,
ma cherie.
Is society all
abuzz
this morning about the artistry that comes out of my kitchen? They should be,
oui? Mais non! Ne pas c’est matin.
No, this morning Lady Whistledown talks about the dinner that never happened and some horrible bracelet.”

Christophe sniffed dramatically and shook his head as he viciously pinched off bits of the dough he had finished kneading and placed them onto a greased pan. “I have cried all of my tears, though, so you are fortunate that you will at least not have to see a watery Christophe this morning.”

“A watery Christophe sounds terribly unappetizing, I must admit,” Bella said.

Christophe paused in his work, a greasy bit of dough suspended between them. Bella frowned at the

fishy smell that wafted up from it.

“You seem rather more perky than you ought to be this morning,” Christophe said. “Must I remind you that your party was ruined last night? It was my food, oui,
but you are the one putting all of Lady Neeley’s parties together. And as I always do, I will once again remind you that you are a genius.”

Bella grinned. “Thank you, dear.”

“But you are not at all upset this morning?”

“Well, of course, I am a little sad. But, really, I’m just happy to be away from the parrot.”

Christophe grimaced. “What has happened to that devil bird? It was always a really awful thing, spitting

at everyone, but all of a sudden it is now trying to make love to you, I do swear. And according to Mrs. Trotter, it now talks incessantly. It will not shut up. It is making the housekeeper mad.”

“Yes, well, I was tempted on many occasions last night to leave a window open in hopes that the thing would make an escape,” Bella said.

Christophe giggled as only the young Frenchman could. “Perhaps Lady Neeley would follow the dreaded thing.”

“Christophe!” Bella frowned at the chef.

He just rolled his eyes and shrugged, and then he shrieked, “My tarts,” and ran for the oven. He twirled in a circle, grabbed a quilted pad off the peg on the wall, yanked open the oven, and pulled out a tray laden with beautiful, flaky strawberry tarts.

“I knew I smelled something that was not completely of the lobster variety.”

Bella sighed and clasped

her hands at her breasts. “They’re gorgeous!”

“Just wait until you taste them, my beautiful Bella,” Christophe said, prancing about the kitchen as he readied a plate for her. “We mustn’t forget the piece de resistance,” he said and sprinkled sugar over the whole lot.

Bella could barely contain herself and plunged into the lovely pastry the second Christophe put the plate

in front of her. “Ohhhh,” she said around a gooey bite. “You are divine, Christophe.”

“Of course I am,” he told her. “And before I forget, I need you to tell me what you want to eat for your birthday. Anything your heart desires is yours. Well, in the culinary sense, at least.”

“My birthday?” Bella asked, licking at bits of strawberry tart that had clung to her lips.

Christophe batted his lashes at her. “I shall wait until you have swallowed before continuing this conversation, thank you very much.”

Bella laughed and swallowed. “It
is
going to be my birthday, isn’t it?” she cried.

“I had forgotten.”

“Of course you have, darling, I shall probably put it completely out of my mind when I turn thirty as

well. Thank God that won’t happen for five more lovely years, though.”

Bella blinked. “Thirty?”

“A traumatic age,
je pense,”
Christophe said. “So you just write down exactly what you would like for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, and it is yours,
ma cherie.”

“But I am not turning thirty,” Bella said. “It is my twenty-ninth, I’m very sure of it.”

“Oh, come, you didn’t even remember it was your birthday. And, definitely, it is your thirtieth.”

The strawberry tart, which had been light and sweet and very near perfection, suddenly tasted like dirt

in Bella’s mouth.

“On June twelfth, eighteen-fifteen, you turned twenty-nine, Isabella Martin. I remember it clearly. You became drunk off the trifle and sang a song to Mrs.

Trotter that made Lady Neeley cry.”

“You promised you would not repeat that,” Bella reminded him.

“And that means that exactly two weeks from today you are going to turn thirty,” Christophe announced with a flourish of his hand.

Bella pushed her plate away, her appetite gone. “It is my thirtieth birthday,”

she said quietly. Thirty. It wasn’t the end of the world, of course. But she suddenly realized that she had forgotten the fact of her exact age on purpose.

She remembered thinking last year that something had better happen during the year, something to change her life. Because if her life was the same when she turned thirty years old, there really wasn’t much hope it would ever be different.

Because, even though from the time she had first entered Lady Neeley’s home ten years before, upon the death of her parents, Bella had been pretty sure that she would probably spend the rest of her life as a spinster in someone else’s home, until now she had held fast to a tiny slice of hope in her heart that
something
else might happen.

But, really, after one turned thirty, the chances of anything changing in one’s life became very slim. And they hadn’t been all that numerous when she was twenty-nine.

“Now then, your menu, Bella?” Christophe stood before her, a feathered quill in hand, a piece of paper on the counter between them.

“Er,” Bella said, food being the last thing on her mind.

“There you are, Miss Martin!” shrilled Lady Neeley.

Bella and Christophe turned as the thin, white-haired woman entered the kitchen, the wretched parrot perched upon her shoulder.

Christophe stiffened as the parrot screeched, “Martin, Martin, Martin,” and launched himself at Bella.

The bird’s talons pierced the material of Bella’s dress and scratched her shoulder as his beak pecked mercilessly at her neck and ear. She was going to kill the bird.

“Might I suggest a parrot stew?” Christophe whispered.

“I don’t know why he has suddenly found you so appealing, Miss Martin, but it is quite cute, isn’t it?” Lady Neeley asked with a laugh.

“Take that bird out of my kitchen,” Christophe said.

“Of course, Christophe, of course. Come along, Miss Martin, I have a very big favor to ask of you.”

Lady Neeley swished her skirts and walked out.

Bella stood, trying to keep the parrot’s beak away from her eyeball or anything else that could be permanently damaged, and followed Lady Neeley.

Hopefully the woman wasn’t going to ask anything too difficult of her. Bella did feel like getting back into bed and pulling the covers over her head.

“Martin, Martin,” the parrot screeched again and pecked at her ear. Lovely, she was turning thirty and had only ever been kissed by a bird.

That was utterly pathetic. And in that second, Bella decided that she really ought to do something about

it. She had two weeks, after all, before the turning thirty part happened.

Two weeks.

Though her imagination did tend to run away with her, she knew, of course, that her prince in shining armor would probably not show up in the next two weeks. He’d had thirty years, after all, and had not found her.

But perhaps, at least, she could find someone who would kiss her.

The parrot pecked at her again, and Bella shooed him away. Preferably a someone who lacked feathers and a beak for a mouth.

It is a commonly held belief that the matrons of society are the most mad for marriage (for their progeny, of course, not themselves; far be it from This Author to suggest that any of London’s leading ladies secretly dream of bigamy).

However, as there is always an exception to prove a rule, might This Author point a finger in the direction of the Earl of Waverly? The gentleman in question is a most affable sort, but terrifyingly single-minded when it comes to the marital status of his as yet unwed son and heir, Lord Roxbury.

Roxbury, who is, This Author is informed, on the darker side of thirty-five, has yet to show a particular interest in any specific marriageable miss.

As a future earl, he is considered a prime catch by persons other than his parents. (This Author assures all Dear Readers that this is not always the case.) But season in and season out, Roxbury evades the marital noose, and This Author fears that poor Lord Waverly might expire of frustration before his son finally accedes to his wishes and walks someone (anyone) down the aisle.

LADY WHISTLEDOWN’S SOCIETY PAPERS,
29 MAY 1816

Anthony Doring, Lord Roxbury leaned back against the elegant red silk that covered his favorite chair in his front drawing room and listened as his father, Robert Doring, fourth Earl of Waverly, regaled him with all the reasons Anthony should marry. Anthony nodded and smiled and nodded and smiled some more and then checked his watch and nodded again.

This was actually a common occurrence. Every Wednesday morning, Lord Waverly sat with his son in the front drawing room of Lord Roxbury’s town house. And each week the conversation was basically the same. The niceties of weather and health were gotten out of the way early and quickly, and they

were always followed by an accounting of any new ladies in town that would make perfect Lady Roxburys. And then, of course, Lord Waverly liked to remind his son of the reasons he must marry.

Lord Roxbury always heartily agreed with everything his father said, for it made the experience much more palatable, and usually shorter.

Today, just as they were coming up to reason number five, a slight knock at the door interrupted them.

Anthony glanced up to see his butler, Herman, at the door. “Beg your pardon, my lord, there is a lady—”

Anthony quickly stopped the man from continuing with a small gesture of his hand. He stood and walked over to the door. “Show her to the green room,”