Vanity (19 page)

She wore her hair unpowdered, her complexion was innocent of paint, her lips unrouged.

Octavia paused instinctively in the entrance to the ballroom,
and Rupert, taking his cue from her, paused too. A whisper rustled through the company; then every eye turned toward the double doors.

Octavia’s insistence on making her first serious public appearance in this unusual fashion had amused Rupert. He’d gone along with it because he couldn’t see that it would do any harm, but when he’d watched her descend the staircase at Dover Street that night, he’d understood exactly what she was about. The men would flock like vultures. The women would hate her, of course. Such a perfect complexion, such wonderfully unusual coloring, displayed without artifice. Octavia had no need of beauty patches to draw attention away from smallpox scars, or rouge to brighten a complexion dulled by lack of sleep, overindulgence, the clogged grease of paint and thick-caked powder.

Her hair, piled high off her forehead and falling in soft curls to her shoulders, glowed in the candlelight in all its natural glory, setting off the pale translucence of her cheeks and the deep-set tawny gold of her eyes. Her gown was a dainty confection of white and pink muslin opened over a petticoat of apple-green silk, the sleeves of the gown banded in the same silk, delicate lace ruffs falling over her wrists. A white lace fichu tucked into the low neckline drew attention to the swell of her bosom while seeming discreetly to conceal it.

All in all, it was a masterly costume designed to complement the madonnalike innocence of her face, the delicate curves of her body, yet at the same time, with its bold rejection of convention, to hint at a certain recklessness of character, a touch of defiance and mystery.

She would have the men at her feet in minutes, or such had been his initial assessment. An underestimate, he now realized, as the Prince of Wales moved his substantial bulk across the ballroom, his face red and sweaty, a lascivious gleam in his eyes and an eager smile on his lips.

“Madam.” He bowed low. “What a vision … a refreshingly unusual vision, indeed. Pray introduce me to your wife, Warwick.”

Blandly, Rupert performed the introduction, and the prince seized Octavia’s hand. “Where have you come from, my dear lady? To think of all the months we’ve been languishing here without a sight of you. How could you have kept yourself so far from our eyes? … Indeed, how could you have permitted this sly dog to steal you before anyone else had a chance?” He wagged a plump finger at Lord Rupert and laughed heartily.

“You are too kind, sir.” Octavia curtsied, her eyes darting around the circle of men gathering behind the prince.

“Oh, no no no. Oh, no, I believe not,” declared his highness. “Not too kind … not possible. Such a ravishing creature, Warwick. You’re a dog … to steal a march on us like this. Where did you find her?”

For all the world as if she were a rare specimen of insect life discovered under some remote stone, Octavia thought.

“In the country, sir,” Rupert responded as blandly as before. “In Northumberland, where I was recently visiting.”

“Northumberland!” The prince turned his little eyes upon Lady Warwick in some astonishment. “Gad, I’d never have believed it possible. Very far north it is, isn’t that so?” He glanced behind him for corroboration.

“Yes, sir,” agreed a courtier. “I believe it’s quite some distance from London.”

“Gad,” repeated the prince, examining Octavia through his quizzing glass. “If they keep such beauties as this up there, I must pay it a visit, meself … what?” He laughed heartily at this sally and extended his hand. “Come dance with me, you ravishing creature.”

“But I’ve not yet been given permission by one of the patronesses,” Octavia demurred, fluttering her fan. “I shouldn’t wish to break the rules, Your Highness.”

The prince roared with laughter. “As if you haven’t already done so, ma’am. Dolly … Dolly, come over here and give this exquisite creature permission to dance with me.” He beckoned vigorously to a lady in a gown of lilac tabby, her massive wig decorated with a score of tiny furry
animals peeping from between what looked to Octavia to be tufts of grass.

The Duchess of Deerwater advanced, a stiff smile for the prince on her lips. She stared rudely at Octavia and curtsied infinitesimally. “Lady Warwick.”

Octavia swept an elegant and deferential curtsy in response. “Ma’am.”

“If you wish the name of a competent hairdresser, Lady Warwick, I should be happy to furnish you with one.”

Octavia curtsied again. “You’re too kind, ma’am.”

“I am aware that people do things differently in the country,” the duchess stated, her nose twitching, her mouth pursing. “But we don’t bring country ways to London, madam. They don’t suit.”

“Oh, I believe there’s always room for improvement, ma’am,” Octavia said sweetly. “Even London should be open to modern ideas.”

The duchess stared at her in disbelief, clearly wondering if she’d heard aright. Had this newcomer actually had the temerity to describe London fashions as outdated?

Rupert raised an eyebrow. Perhaps Octavia didn’t understand the weight of this woman’s influence. He was searching for something to smooth over the jagged silence when the Prince of Wales burst into a hearty peal of laughter.

“Quite right, Lady Warwick. We’re shockingly stuck in our ways here. Too much convention and protocol and the lord knows what else. It’s all the fault of the court, y’know. Devilish strict and old-fashioned it is. Just wait until it’s my turn … then we’ll all see some changes, you mark my words.”

This shockingly unfilial statement that could only be interpreted as a desire to hasten his father’s demise was received in a silence so deeply disgusted that Octavia’s minor challenge sank without trace.

The prince seized her hand and whirled her away onto the floor, where a set was forming for a country dance. “His Highness is still only a boy … and somewhat headstrong,” Rupert observed quietly, bowing to the duchess,
offering her a smile that invited her participation in this mature reflection. “Youth tends to be.”

“Yes, of course,” thé duchess agreed, dabbing her upper hp with a scented handkerchief. She examined the figure of Lord Rupert Warwick and seemed somewhat mollified by what she saw. His lordship was dressed in black silk, his hair conventionally powdered and tied at the nape. He wore a gold fob and a diamond pin sparked blue fire against the blinding white of his ruffled shirt front. His expression was attentive, his smile pleasantly complicit, as if his last statement were offered as much as excuse for his young wife as for the Prince of Wales.

“Youth must be guided by their elders, Lord Warwick,” she said after a minute, her eyes going pointedly to the dance floor and the unconventional Lady Warwick. “Your wife appears to lack town bronze, sir.”

“Oh, I don’t believe that’s the case.” Lord Wyndham spoke suddenly from the attentive circle around them. “I suspect Lady Warwick merely dares to be out of the ordinary. What d’you say, Warwick?”

Rupert bowed in his twin’s direction, his eyebrows lifting, a glint of humor in his eyes. “An accurate assessment, I believe, Wyndham.”

The earl’s full mouth twitched into a thin smile. His gaze returned to the puffing ballroom antics of the prince with an expression of frigid disgust, but as his eyes moved to the prince’s partner, a spark of interest flickered below the cold gray surface.

How could Philip sense nothing? Rupert wondered. Every time they exchanged looks or words, his own body temperature seemed to rise, his blood to quicken in his veins as recognition and recollection hammered at the gates of his soul. Yet Philip showed not the slightest sign of unease or puzzlement in his brother’s presence. Perhaps because he knew his twin to be dead, there was no room for even an inkling of some disturbing twitch of recognition.

“You met Lady Warwick in Northumberland?” Philip asked casually, turning away from the dance floor, offering Rupert his snuffbox.

Rupert waved the enameled box aside with a polite smile. “I don’t care for scented snuffs, thank you. Yes, while I was visiting old family friends.”

“This is her first visit to London, of course.”

Rupert nodded. “We thought to postpone our honeymoon until after the birthday.”

The king’s birthday was in June and marked the end of the London season. Philip nodded again, his gaze returning to the dance floor. “But a honeymoon in London at the height of the season has its charms for the uninitiated, I would imagine.” Philip bowed and strolled away, making his way around the outskirts of the room where the chaperons sat in groups, sipping negus and gossiping.

The Countess of Wyndham, sitting bodkin between two starched matrons, looked up as he approached her, a nervous smile on her lips. She patted at her coiffure, straightened the lace at her neck, her eyes filled with anxious appeal as she awaited some humiliating public criticism of her appearance. But her husband merely looked through her as if she were a garden slug and passed on, leaving her as mortified by his lack of acknowledgment as if he’d heaped scorn upon her.

The name of Lady Warwick was on every tongue. And it stayed there throughout the evening. The Prince of Wales refused to relinquish the lady, and Rupert watched from afar as she became the center of the prince’s own sycophantic circle of young reprobates.

Octavia knew as well as did Rupert that for as long as she was favored by the prince, society might criticize, but it would never ostracize. For the plan to work, she must be identified with a circle that drank deep, played the tables to ruination, and threw conventional ethics to the four winds. The prince’s intimates formed such a circle, and by the end of the evening she’d deflected a dozen oblique suggestions and turned down four outright proposals, one of which came from the prince himself.

“La, sir, but I’m a married woman,” she protested as the prince held her hand tightly between both of his hot palms and beamed at her.

The prince guffawed but looked genuinely taken aback by this cavil. “I’d hardly suggest it, my dear ma’am, if you were not. A man can’t enjoy himself with an unmarried gal. Now, don’t tell me Lord Rupert is such a spoilsport as to be a jealous husband.”

“Why, sir, I don’t believe he’s been a husband long enough as yet to know whether he is or not,” she returned demurely. “I think it’s a little soon to be contemplating a leap from the marriage bed. We’ve been wed but two weeks.”

The prince chuckled and patted her cheek. “A forthright woman, that’s what I like. No missish nonsense about you. Well, well, my dear, we shall see how long it takes for your husband to start wandering. And when he does, I dare swear you’ll look upon the matter with new eyes.”

“Perhaps so, sir.”

Where exactly was Rupert? It was two o’clock in the morning, and Octavia glanced around the supper room, where the company had for the most part adjourned to nibble oyster patties and bread and butter and sip champagne.

She caught sight of Rupert in a window embrasure, deep in conversation with a highly painted lady in a gown of deep-red taffeta, a diamond collar glittering at her throat. Two heart-shaped beauty patches adorned the upper swell of her breasts, and when she moved an arm sideways to take a piece of bread and butter from the table, her right nipple popped out of her décolletage. She made no attempt to replace it, and as Octavia watched, Rupert delicately reinserted the nipple into her gown with a long, slender forefinger.

The lady laughed and tapped his cheek with her closed fan. Rupert’s lazy half smile played over his lips as he leaned back against the wall, turning the stem of his champagne glass between finger and thumb.

“There, you see!” pronounced the prince, whose gaze had followed Octavia’s. “Not a man to waste a minute is he? Warwick’s known as a philanderer, dear lady. Can’t expect a marriage vow to change a man’s character.”

Octavia offered a smile and a shrug of indifference.

The prince chuckled, wrapping an arm around her bare shoulders. His fingers played in the fichu at her neck. “Such a modest little thing,” he murmured. “No chance of your revealing a little too much of anything, Lady Warwick. Not like Lady Drayton … eh?”

“Lady Drayton has the advantage of me, sir.”

“Oh? How’s that?” The prince’s little eyes focused blearily. “A little more flesh there, is that it?” He patted Octavia’s bosom with a grin.

“No, sir. She has the advantage of years,” Octavia said smoothly, taking a step backward from the royal fingers.

“Oh, wicked! Such a little cat with her claws,” the prince boomed, highly delighted with this sally. “But I tell you, madam.” He wagged a finger at her. “Margaret Drayton would have your eyes out for that.”

“Indeed, sir. I tremble.” Octavia was at a loss to understand why there was an edge to her voice. Margaret Drayton was nothing to her. Rupert was simply playing his part, as she was playing hers. However, he’d certainly looked as if he was enjoying himself, dabbling in the lady’s bosom. But, then, why shouldn’t he? It was no business of Octavia’s. So why this dismaying curl of indignation in her belly?

As she watched, Rupert bent his head, his mouth close to the lady’s ear. Lady Drayton’s laugh shrilled abruptly over the hubbub in the supper room.

“They seem to be amusing themselves.” The dry voice spoke her thoughts. Philip Wyndham stood at her shoulder, his gaze fixed on the play across the room. A smile was on his lips, but it was a smile that sent a shiver down Octavia’s spine.

She looked up, meeting his eye, and was startled by the strangest sense of discordance, as if the rather beautiful face was not what it seemed. As if behind the smooth, broad expanse of his forehead, the clear gray eyes, the almost delicate features, lurked something venomous.

“Yes,” she said coolly, unfurling her fan. “They do. As does everyone else in the room. I do declare, sir, that this
has been the most entertaining evening I’ve passed since we arrived in London.”

“Oh, the best value in town, ma’am,” the prince declared. “A ten-guinea subscription for a jolly weekly ball throughout the season … and such an elegant supper!” The group around him laughed dutifully at the heavy-handed sarcasm, and Octavia smiled.