The Temptation of the Night Jasmine (9 page)

‘Why?’ demanded Lord Henry Innes, trooping over to join the group, a brown jug in one hand and his pistol in the other. ‘It ain’t going to shoot back.’

Medmenham rose to Robert’s aid. ‘Ricochet,’ he said succinctly. ‘I, for one, have no desire to breathe my last because of a bullet bouncing off a tree.’

‘Better than at the hand of a jealous husband, eh?’ put in Frobisher, sending an elbow towards Medmenham’s ribs.

Medmenham neatly sidestepped, sending Frobisher stumbling sideways into the tree. Given the way Frobisher bounced off, Robert decided that the score was tree: one; men: zero. ‘My dear fellow,’ he said in a tone of mock censure, ‘I do not toy with married women.’

‘Safer than the unmarried ones,’ retorted Frobisher, brushing bark off his sleeve. ‘Right, Staines?’

Staines looked up from his pistol with a smug grin. ‘I’d say it depends on which unmarried woman.’ It was painfully clear to whom he was referring.

Tommy pushed away from his post by the tree. ‘Don’t you mean
lady
?’

Staines regarded him coolly, his fashionably high shirt points pushing against his cheekbones. ‘I always say exactly what I mean.’

Something crackled in the air that wasn’t the bonfire.

Robert stepped neatly between them. ‘Isn’t it about time we got our revels under way?’

Neither man moved. Robert could hear the puff of their breath in the cold air, the shuffle of feet against the cold ground in the unnatural stillness that preceded a challenge.

But there wasn’t going to be one. Not if he could bloody well help it.

Robert seized on the first expedient that came to mind. Assuming his best ducal air, he called out, ‘As your
host
, I claim the privilege of the first toast.’

He didn’t have a glass to hand, or even a jug, so he made up for it by lifting both hands in what he hoped was a magisterial gesture.

‘To Epiphany Eve, a time for revelry’ – there was some cheering and lifting of bottles at that, a nervous, too shrill sound – ‘reconciliation’ – he looked pointedly at Tommy, who looked grimly back at him – ‘and revelation.’

Around him, he could hear the popping sound of stoppers being yanked from jugs. ‘Epiphany Eve!’

Staines let his pistol drop to his side.

Robert raised his voice to be heard above the others. ‘And now – let’s drink!’

‘I’ll drink to that!’ one of the locals called out and the group dissolved into a milling mass, separating into small groups, as the men let their weapons fall and dropped onto the frozen ground for a good spot of drinking and masculine companionship. Robert wouldn’t have been surprised to learn that the whole ritual was largely an excuse for getting out of the house while the women fussed over preparations for Twelfth Night. Charlotte would probably know, or at least have a theory about it.

No one seemed particularly concerned about frightening away the spirits; they were far more interested in getting at the cider and telling long, boastful stories about their weaponry. Given the amount of cider sloshing into the roots of the tree, any evil spirits were going to be too sloshed by the end of the evening to work any harm. Robert hoped that the same could be said for the humans.

Tommy stalked past, moving in the direction of the house. ‘I’ll be in my room,’ he tossed over his shoulder in passing. He was clearly not in the mood for either revelry or reconciliation. That still left revelation.

Snagging Tommy by the arm, Robert fixed a wide smile to his face. ‘I need you to talk to Frobisher,’ he said softly, smiling all the while. ‘Engage him about their club. Find out whatever you can.’

‘Can’t you do it?’

‘I’m going to tackle Innes.’

Tommy shrugged his shoulders irritably. ‘All right. Just don’t expect me to cosy up to Staines.’

‘Trust me,’ said Robert. ‘You will immeasurably improve my evening if you both stay as far from each other as possible. And I don’t mean forty paces.’

Tommy knew exactly what he meant. ‘He deserves it,’ he said.

Considering that the lady in question had absconded to a balcony with Staines, the question of her honour was rather debatable. But he knew better than to say that to Tommy, at least not if he didn’t want to be facing the other end of his friend’s pistol. Tommy tended to fall in love about twice a year, and it was always excruciating while it lasted. Fortunately, it seldom lasted long.

‘Fair enough,’ Robert said evenly. ‘But not now. Not when we need him to find Wrothan. Who knows? We may discover enough to bring your friend down as well.’

The latter argument had its intended effect. Without saying anything else, Tommy turned and made his way towards Frobisher. With any luck, Frobisher would already be foxed enough not to notice that the smile pasted across Tommy’s face was decidedly lopsided.

Meanwhile, Robert set off in search of his own quarry. Medmenham might know the most, but of all the group, Innes struck him as the weakest link, blunt, straightforward, a reminder that man wasn’t all that far removed from the animals when it came down to it. He was also, unfortunately, the one least likely to be entrusted with information of any use.

‘Is that the famous cider?’ Robert asked by way of opening gambit, flinging himself down onto the turf beside Lord Henry. Damp immediately began to seep through his breeches. The frozen ground was bloody cold and bloody hard.

Hoisting the jug up in the air, Lord Henry regarded it tenderly. ‘The very same. Norfolk’s finest.’

Yanking out the cork with his teeth, Lord Henry spat it out onto the ground beside him and took a long pull from the bottle. ‘Ah,’ he said, shaking his head like a dog after a dousing. ‘That’s more the thing. Dovedale?’

Robert accepted the jug in a philosophical spirit. It was many years since he had tasted English cider, apples not being exactly a staple of the Indian diet. But it was made out of fermented fruit. How bad could it be?

It was like drinking gunpowder.

Robert took a swig and nearly spat it out again. That had been apples once? He didn’t believe it. After just one slug, his ears were ringing as though he’d been standing in the middle of a cannonade.

‘Good God, man, what do they put in this brew?’

Innes snagged the bottle back. ‘Don’t ask, just enjoy.’

‘Words to live by.’ Robert snatched the bottle back and made a show of drinking deeply, working the muscles of his throat in imitation of a swallow even as he blocked the flow of liquid with his teeth. He knew how to make it look convincing. Hadn’t he been trained by his father, after all? The man’s main talent, the one of which he had been the most proud, had been his ability to drain any cup of spirits without coming up for air.

The effort wasn’t a wasted one.

‘Not bad.’ Innes’s voice was tinged with a connoisseur’s appreciation for the concerted consumption of alcohol. ‘My turn.’

His exhibition was even more impressive, given the fact that Robert was pretty sure that Innes was actually drinking. His throat muscles worked convulsively as he held the jug tilted over his mouth, some of the amber liquid trickling down along the sides of his face. Putting the jug down with an explosive gasp, he dashed the back of his hand across his mouth.

‘You are clearly a master,’ said Robert politely.

‘It just takes practise.’ Innes’s voice was a little ragged, so he soothed his throat with another slug of cider.

‘Cider-drinking contests at your secret society?’ Robert suggested, just to get him talking. ‘I’ll have to start getting back in practise, then.’

The cider hadn’t had time to do its work. Innes tapped his nose. ‘Can’t expect me to give away the club’s secrets till you’ve been initiated, old man. Strictly against the rules.’

‘Whose rules?’

Innes dropped his voice. ‘Our avatar.’

‘You mean Medmenham?’

‘No, no. Medmenham’s the fakir.’ Innes helped himself to more cider.

‘The
what
?’ Robert didn’t have to feign incredulity. Fakir or faker? It was just the sort of play on words Medmenham would enjoy, promising exotic mysteries to his credulous friends and laughing up his sleeve all the way.

‘Some Oriental something-or-other,’ said Innes vaguely. ‘He used to be the Abbot, back when we still called ourselves the Friars of Medmenham, but then old Francis decided that that was too last season.’ Innes hiccuped on the last word. ‘Bloody stuff,’ he said, regarding the cider fondly.

Leaning on one arm, Robert adopted his best man-to-man voice. ‘You strike me as a man of action.’

In fact, Innes struck him as a man of violence, a very different thing. But Innes preened, just as Robert had known he would. He was the sort who had never entered the army, but always wished he had. He did have some sort of position in the king’s household, as gentleman usher or gentleman-in-waiting or something of that ilk, a role Robert found entirely incongruous for the blunt-speaking, hard-drinking, horse-hounds-andwenches Innes. Almost as incongruous as hearing the Eastern terms ‘avatar’ and ‘fakir’ issuing out of his chapped lips.

‘Do you actually believe all this rubbish about avatars and ancient rites?’

Innes sputtered into the cider jug. ‘Hell, no! I’m here for the same reasons you are.’

A deathbed promise to a good and noble man?

‘The women,’ finished Lord Henry. ‘It’s too much demmed trouble hunting them down oneself. I don’t know where Medmenham finds them, but his lot will do anything. No screeching, no “I’ve changed my mind.” I tell you, they’re above rubies.’

It had been a while since Robert had consulted a Bible, but he could have sworn it was the virtuous woman who was above rubies. Lord Henry obviously had a rather different concept of virtue.

‘Only the best for our orgies, that’s our motto.’

‘I imagine it sounds better translated into Latin,’ said Robert kindly.

Lord Henry waved the jug, sending cider sloshing in an arc across his own coat. ‘Oh, it’s all Indian these days.’

It didn’t seem worth explaining to him that there wasn’t any such language. During his twelve years on the subcontinent, Robert had picked up a smattering of Hindustani and Marathi, just enough to say ‘please,’ ‘thank you,’ ‘is this really the price?’ and ‘can you tell me where the Mahratta intend to attack?’

Robert leant back on his elbows, watching as Turnip Fitzhugh executed a mock duel with a tree branch, using another tree branch. ‘Really? I didn’t realise Medmenham had travelled in India.’

‘Francis? No.’ Innes was beginning to look vaguely cross-eyed. ‘Freddy brought the chap back from India.’

‘Chap?’

‘The avatar.’ Lord Henry tossed aside the empty jug, narrowly missing one of the locals in the process, and reached for another from the little stockpile he had cunningly set up next to his chosen spot on the ground.

‘Is he Indian, then?’

‘I haven’t the foggiest, old chap. Comes masked, you know,’ slurred Lord Henry. ‘We all do. I say’ – Lord Henry’s eyes took on a gleam of animal cunning – ‘shouldn’t be telling you this. Not before the sh-sheremony.’

‘Of course,’ said Robert smoothly, uncorking the next jug and handing it to him. ‘Any idea when that might be?’

If he could find out the date and time, there was always the chance he could spy on their ceremony and assure himself of Wrothan’s presence rather than actually going through with the whole rigmarole himself. If he could waylay Wrothan either on the way there or the way back … the whole dirty business could be done.

And then?

Rather than the winter-scarred tree, Robert had a hazy image of summer at Dovedale, summer as it had been all those years ago, with the gardens bright with flowers and summer sun gilding the surface of the lake. They had played bowls on the lawn and rowed on the lake and risked the wrath of the gardener making garlands for Charlotte to wear on her unicorn-hunting expeditions. Memory played tricks, though. Instead of a little girl in a black frock, it was a very grown-up Charlotte across from him in the boat on the lake, dabbling her fingers in the water and getting pecked at by an irate swan.

It might not be so very unpleasant staying on at Dovedale if Charlotte were there with him.

Robert viewed the brown jug with something approaching awe. That was certainly powerful stuff to send him woolgathering after just one swallow. Robert set the jug down. Hard.

‘When’s the next meeting?’ he asked, somewhat more brusquely than he had intended.

‘Next meeting?’ muttered Innes, trying to focus and failing. ‘Dunno. Never know.’

‘Then how will I know to go?’ asked Robert reasonably.

‘When Francis wants you to come, you’ll know.’ Innes upended the jug, following its movement backwards straight onto his back. It was a bit like watching a tree falling. His voice rose hollowly from the ground. ‘Trust me, you’ll know.’

I
t wasn’t until eight the following night that the party reassembled in the Red Room for the opening of the fabled Twelfth Night festivities. The Epiphany tree had obviously put up quite a fight. Against the crimson wall hangings most of the gentlemen looked only a shade less green than the boughs of holly decorating the hall. Except for Robert, who remained perfectly tan without a hint of green.

A portrait of a long-dead duchess leered at him appreciatively from above the mantelpiece. Charlotte could more than understand why.

‘Oooh, it’s your duke!’ hissed Henrietta unnecessarily.

‘I knew that,’ muttered Charlotte.

A whole troupe of morris dancers jostled for space in Charlotte’s stomach. After a whole day of reliving almost kisses, with improvements, Charlotte had had so many conversations with Robert in her head that she was a little fuzzy on what had actually happened and what hadn’t.

Henrietta propelled Charlotte directly into Robert’s path like a horticulturalist displaying a prized specimen.

‘Doesn’t she look ravishing?’ demanded Henrietta.

Charlotte shot her a quelling glance that had absolutely no quelling effect whatsoever.

‘Ravishing is just the word that comes to mind,’ said Robert gallantly. ‘Good evening, Cousin.’

Charlotte’s morris dancers stopped dancing. She couldn’t look all that ravishing if he was thinking of her as cousin. Drat. She knew she should have eased her bodice that crucial inch lower. Penelope had always told her that her gowns were cut too modestly, and now she was beginning to see why.

‘Happy Twelfth Night!’ she said brightly, trying to make up in enthusiasm what she lacked in décolletage. ‘Did you have a nice day?’

Robert’s lips twisted with amusement as he surveyed the collection of green faces scattered about the drawing room. ‘Better than most, I should think.’

‘How did you escape the general blight?’

‘I struck a deal with the tree spirits. I wouldn’t bother them if they wouldn’t bother me.’

Charlotte nodded emphatically. ‘Very sensible of you.’ Henrietta had drifted away, but not quite far enough. She grinned encouragingly at Charlotte from behind a potted plant. Charlotte pointedly turned to the side, blocking Henrietta from her line of vision. If she couldn’t see her, she wasn’t there. ‘I imagine they took some persuading. Tree spirits aren’t known for being cooperative.’

‘Tree spirits?’ demanded Lieutenant Fluellen, appearing at Robert’s side. Despite his carefully brushed hair and a festive red flower stuck into his buttonhole, he looked as prickly as a bunch of mistletoe. It didn’t take much guessing to determine the cause. Penelope was with Staines again.

‘They’re spirits—’ Charlotte began.

‘—who live in trees,’ Robert finished obligingly, and smiled down at her.

Life couldn’t possibly get any better than this, thought Charlotte. Not for all the towers toppled in Ilium, not for all the knights slain in Camelot.

‘We’ve received our marching orders from the duchess,’ announced Tommy, giving his best friend a very odd look. ‘You,’ he said to Robert, ‘are to take in the charming Lady Charlotte—’

‘The
ravishing
Lady Charlotte,’ Robert corrected with a slight bow in Charlotte’s direction that thrilled her down to her very toes. Her neckline was suddenly perfect just as it was. In fact, everything was utterly perfect, even Turnip Fitzhugh’s emerald green cravat.

‘—while I have the pleasure of the company of Miss Arabella Dempsey.’

Charlotte knew Miss Dempsey only vaguely; she rather suspected the other girl had only been invited because she was even more of a wallflower than Charlotte and thus likely to pose little competition.

‘What about Penelope?’ asked Charlotte.

‘Miss Deveraux,’ articulated Tommy, ‘will be going into table with Lord Frederick Staines.’

‘Oh, dear,’ murmured Robert.

Charlotte gave Robert’s arm a warning pinch as she made a sympathetic face at Tommy. Being madly, head over heels in love herself, she wanted everyone else to be just as happy as she was. ‘I wouldn’t refine too much on it. Grandmama enjoys setting the seating for her own personal amusement and it probably amuses her to see Penelope poke fun at Lord Frederick.’

‘I would feel far better if that’s what I thought she would be doing,’ said Tommy gloomily.

‘Penelope hasn’t the slightest interest in Lord Frederick,’ Charlotte said firmly. ‘Besides, he has a laugh like a braying donkey.’

‘A very
wealthy
braying donkey.’

‘You can gild the donkey all you like, but he’s still a donkey,’ said Charlotte.

‘Is that like worshipping a golden calf?’ asked Robert blandly.

Charlotte beamed giddily up at him. ‘Yes, and you know what happened to
them
.’

‘Frogs, toads and assorted pestilences?’

‘Hmmm.’ Tommy seemed unconvinced. Across the room, Penelope was flirting her fan at Staines in a way that suggested she found him anything but pestilential. ‘They still had a jolly good revel before the smiting began.’

‘And so shall you. Just wait till the dancing begins after supper and you can sweep Penelope away from Lord Frederick’s clutches.’

‘Tossed over his saddlebow?’ enquired Robert.

Charlotte dimpled. ‘Can’t you picture the look on Grandmama’s face at a horse in the ballroom?’

‘Impertinence!’ mimicked Tommy, thumping an imaginary cane.

‘She’d be expecting you to carry her off, no doubt,’ commented Robert.

‘I wouldn’t dream of it,’ said Tommy, so earnestly that they all laughed. ‘She’d probably have my head chopped off.’

‘I don’t think they let you do that anymore,’ said Charlotte thoughtfully. ‘Chop off heads just like that.’

‘Yes, but once my head’s off, I won’t be there to complain to the authorities, will I?’

‘Don’t worry, old chap, we’ll complain on your behalf,’ said Robert offhandedly. ‘And we’ll build you a smashing funerary monument.’

‘Oh,
that
’
s
all right, then,’ grumbled Tommy, and took himself off, either to find his appointed dinner companion or to moon after Penelope from another angle. Charlotte suspected the latter. Charlotte wondered if Lieutenant Fluellen knew about the balcony. For his sake, she hoped not.

‘Poor man.’

‘Why poor Tommy?’

‘Because Penelope will never take seriously any man who admires her so obviously.’

‘And what about you?’

Charlotte’s heart danced a quadrille under her velvet bodice. ‘That would depend on who was doing the admiring.’

Robert lifted her hand to his lips. ‘Any man with eyes enough to see.’

Despite being the sort of compliment Charlotte had always daydreamed about, the praise had something a little unsatisfying about it, like a piece of hollow, gilded wood, all shimmer on the outside, but no substance within. Charlotte shrugged the feeling aside. She was ungrateful and silly and it was a perfectly lovely compliment.

Robert tucked her hand back into the crook of his arm. ‘Shall we go in to supper?’ he said prosaically. ‘If we don’t start the procession soon, your grandmother may take it upon herself to prod us into place.’

‘
May
?’ said Charlotte, making Robert laugh. ‘You really ought to be taking Grandmama in.’

‘May I say that I’m delighted to bend etiquette in this instance?’

‘I would be more flattered if I thought you desired my company more than you feared Grandmama’s stick,’ Charlotte said ruefully.

Robert arched an eyebrow. ‘Fishing for more compliments?’

‘Will I get any?’ Charlotte asked hopefully.

Robert patted her gloved hand. ‘As many as you like.’

Charlotte wrinkled her nose at him. ‘That won’t do at all. An overabundance would cheapen their value.’

Robert looked down at her. A curious smile creased the corners of his lips, fond and rueful and wry all at once.

‘Nothing could cheapen your value,’ he said matter-offactly.

There was nothing in his voice to have made Charlotte turn pink and look away, but she did. ‘Shall we go in to supper?’ she said hastily.

‘If you’ll show me where it is,’ joked Robert. ‘If you leave the guests to me, I might lead them to the stables by accident.’

‘I should hope the smell would be rather different,’ said Charlotte, steering him deftly down a long corridor hung with Lansdownes. It was so cold in the passageway that her breath formed little puffs in the air as she spoke. Girdings had been built for show rather than comfort, with fur cloaks rather than short sleeves in mind.

Two by two, their fellow guests fell in behind them as they wound their way from the Red Room to the state dining room. It was, thought Charlotte, a bit like Noah’s Ark, only with a great deal more jewellery and fewer elephants. In their pairs, they took their seats at the long, mahogany table beneath a series of lurid murals representing the first duke’s triumphs in King William’s wars. There was to be an intimate supper for the thirty-odd houseguests, after which would follow a proper ball with town musicians and town guests, gorgeously arrayed, jewelled and feathered, arriving in richly caparisoned coaches that would give the villagers something to talk about until next Twelfth Night.

Charlotte took her seat beside Robert, wondering at the odd arrangement of the table that left the two of them stranded in state at the head, like a medieval lord and lady in an illuminated Book of Hours. Trying to fathom her grandmother’s purposes was generally a fruitless task; she might have meant it as a statement about the superiority of the Lansdowne blood, a punishment to Robert by giving him no one but Charlotte to talk to, or a spot of ducal matchmaking.

Charlotte snuck a sideways glance at Robert. She knew which theory she preferred.

The service was
à la française
, with dishes left upon the table for all to serve themselves. Wielding a carving knife, Robert neatly helped her to a serving of roast swan, smoothly transferred oyster patties from a platter to her plate, and manoeuvred the transition of a spoonful of peas without any daring to roll away, making sure her plate was full before taking anything for himself.

Taking up her fork, Charlotte toyed idly with it, watching her dinner companion as he repeated the procedure for his own plate. In profile, with the candles casting shadows across his face, picking out the long lines of his cheekbones, he seemed suddenly very remote, as far away as the flat painted faces of the long-dead Lansdownes on the walls.

She hoped, very much, that he didn’t mind being secluded with her at the head of the table. Had she daydreamed their interlude in the chapel anteroom last night? Read too much into simple cousinly kindness?

Charlotte’s mouth moved without bothering to consult her brain. ‘I missed you in the library today. Not that I expected you, of course.’ She stabbed furiously at a pea, which promptly rolled over the edge of her plate and dribbled its way along the tablecloth.

‘I wandered down to the estate office.’

He had kept his voice carefully neutral, but Charlotte’s heart did a mad little hop, skip, and a jump. ‘Really?’

Robert shook his head in wonder, looking younger than she had ever seen him. ‘I had never realised quite how … involved the estate is. I meant to spend only half an hour. Four hours later, I was still squinting at ledgers, and we hadn’t even got past the home farm.’

‘It does take a lot of managing,’ said Charlotte carefully. ‘Even with a good estate agent. And Grandmama is getting on.’

Robert smiled a little ruefully. ‘Are you implying I should take on the task?’

Keeping her eyes on her plate, Charlotte picked at a congealing slice of roast swan. Grandmama’s culinary extravagances always sounded better in theory than in practice. ‘You are the duke.’

‘I certainly wouldn’t be the first absentee landlord in the history of the realm.’ Robert’s eyes slid sideways, away from her. ‘Girdings will probably fare far better free from my inept ministrations.’

‘How do you know they would be inept?’

Robert pushed his chair back restlessly from the table, making the wine rock back and forth in his glass like a ship on an unquiet sea. ‘I don’t see how they could be anything but. I haven’t been trained to this, Charlotte. I haven’t been trained to any of this.’

‘I imagine the first baron wasn’t either,’ Charlotte said thoughtfully. ‘The one who fought at Agincourt. He was a soldier, you know. A professional soldier,’ she added, just in case he had missed the point. ‘A sort of hired mercenary. When King Henry V gave him this land to hold, he probably didn’t have any more idea what to do about it than you do.’

‘How did he manage?’

‘Oh, he had a very clever wife,’ said Charlotte without thinking. ‘I didn’t mean—’ she began in confusion, and broke off, covering her hot cheeks with her hands.
That you should marry me
? There was no way that sentence could end well.

‘An excellent solution,’ agreed Robert, mischief dancing like candlelight in his eyes. ‘Are you suggesting I try the same?’

Charlotte bit down hard on a mouthful of swan. ‘Not as such,’ she said rather indistinctly. ‘After all, you do have Grandmama.’

‘I am not marrying your grandmother,’ said Robert decidedly. ‘However clever she may be.’

‘To help you manage, I meant,’ Charlotte said reprovingly, chasing away the swan with a long draught of wine. The liquid tingled on her palate, making her feel bolder. ‘As you know very well.’

Robert shook his head, the light from the chandelier overhead burnishing his dark blond hair. ‘I know few things very well.’ He peered at her over the rim of his wineglass. ‘Will that be a disadvantage in the acquisition of a clever wife?’

‘One doesn’t acquire wives, one woos them,’ said Charlotte decidedly, feeling on rather firmer ground. Wooing was a topic of which she had made extensive study, even if it was entirely in the abstract. ‘Preferably with deeds of great daring.’

‘Deeds of great daring are increasingly hard to come by in this modern world. They’ve gone extinct. Like dragons.’

‘Next you’ll be telling me there are no unicorns.’

‘Never that.’ They exchanged a gaze warm with shared memories. ‘But it is hard to imagine anyone going on a quest anymore. What would there be for them to find?’