There were so many things to remember. No wonder most men of the aristocracy assumed an air of detached disinterest; they were probably frantically trying to remember what to say and do, and more importantly, what not to say and do.
You have commanded ships through storms and faced down a pirate queen, Santiago reminded himself. This is child’s play.
This should be child’s play…
‘Your Grace,’ said Mistress Blackmantle as Santiago reached the bottom of the stairs. Behind her, half the ballroom appeared to be crowding in, gawking at him. Panic filled him—was his outfit correct? Should he have allowed Robinson to cut his hair? Did he have something in his teeth or on his face? ‘How delightful to see you again.’
We saw each other thirty seconds ago when you brought me through some kind of magic door. Santiago smiled and nodded. ‘Mistress Blackmantle. The delight is all mine.’
He was aware of a murmur spreading out after he spoke. Perhaps they had expected him to speak in the same accents as themselves. And whilst Santiago could—he had, of course, learned from a man who spoke just as these people did—he did not see why he should.
He might wear the clothes and learn the dances and accept the invitations, but he had to keep some things for himself.
Mistress Blackmantle said, ‘May I be permitted the honour of introducing a few acquaintances? After we have greeted our hostess, of course.’
‘Of course.’
He offered his arm and they strolled away, quite as if this was all entirely normal and he wasn’t instantly terrified that offering her his arm had been a massive faux pas.
‘Remember, you are a duke, and therefore everything you do is correct,’ murmured Esme Blackmantle, before saying much more loudly, ‘My dear Lady Selby. How well you look, and what a splendid occasion this is.’
A woman of middling years turned and smiled, her split-second surprise almost unnoticeable. Before she could speak, Esme powered on.
‘Lady Selby, it is my honour to introduce to you His Grace the Duke of St James.’
He wanted to bow, because Tiffany had told him a Mr should bow to practically everybody, but he wasn’t a Mr, and she was going to be so furious when she found out. He managed a nod instead, which was beginning to present a problem in the form of his ludicrously high collar. He would not escape this occasion without a chafed face.
‘Your Grace,’ murmured Lady Selby, curtseying deeply. To him. Because he was a duke. He was a duke and now everyone knew.
He didn’t think he had been this afraid since he faced three days of storms in the Bay of Biscay.
‘It is indeed a beautiful occasion,’ he said, and then completely ran out of words in English. And in Spanish. And in any of the other languages he’d picked up along the way.
Well … not completely run out of words. A few came to mind, but Tiffany would have him horsewhipped if he used them in this kind of company.
Tiffany…
Mistress Blackmantle made some small talk about the company, and the music, and the flowers, and he smiled and agreed with her, trying all the while not to appear as if he was looking around for someone else. Which he was. Because Tiffany was going to be incandescent with fury and he had better get it over with.
What would she do, he wondered, as Lady Selby took it upon herself to introduce him to a horde of people the names of whom he hadn’t a chance of remembering. Lady this and Sir that and Miss whoever. There were a lot of misses. Fresh-faced, eager, some of them practically vibrating with nerves.
Yes, he agreed, the occasion was splendid. No, this was not his first ball—he and Tiffany had decided that pretending he hadn’t been at Lady Russell’s would be construed as a snub—but he had not met many people last time. Yes, his accent was delightfully exotic and no, he did not think everybody should be speaking like it soon. Dear God, he hoped not.
He realised after an interminable conversation about the weather that Mistress Blackmantle had disappeared. He was left with his hostess, who seemed perfectly pleasant but kept regarding him as if he was a tiger on a leash.
And all the while he kept wondering where Tiffany was and what she had planned. If she was planning to use her infernal magic to set off some monstrous event, or if she’d already used it to … to…
He realised he didn’t really understand what she could actually do. Make chalk drawings come to life, and … well, that was it. He didn’t seriously believe she’d made the water attack him. Tiffany was many things, but experimentally cruel was not one of them. Besides, Mr Noakes had seen the same phenomenon, and how could she have possibly been anywhere near his ship at the time?
‘Ah, Lord Cornforth, Lady Cornforth…’ wittered Lady Selby, and Santiago thought that sounded familiar. He turned with a bland smile that froze in the next instant.
‘… and Lady Theophania, it is my honour to introduce to you His Grace the Duke of St James.’
There were people with Tiffany and they were bowing and curtseying. Lady Tiffany herself was demonstrating the precise and exact degree to which one ought to curtsey to a duke, her eyes decorously lowered.
Her face was pale, almost as pale as her moonlit hair. There was no colour in her cheeks. Her gown was a washed-out pink with far too many frills. And when she raised her head, her face had all the expression of a china doll.
This isn’t really me, he wanted to tell her. I’m still Santiago, the ruffian you dragged off a beach, the vagabond with the tattoos, the tradesman you keep trying to despise. The Duke is just a … a character I’m playing. A charade. A suit of clothes.
If only he could discard it so easily!
‘Your Grace,’ said the woman beside her eagerly. She was perhaps twenty years older than Tiffany, and appeared in every respect to have aimed to look as much like everyone else present as possible. He doubted he would recognise her again. ‘We were so sorry to hear of the passing of your grandfather. He was such a great man and will be so sorely missed.’
From what Santiago could gather, his grandfather had been a miserable old recluse who had barely left the family estate in Yorkshire for years and had declined every invitation that arrived at his mausoleum of a house in Mayfair. Despite this, people kept sending them—and they were simply addressed to the Duke of St James, so Santiago was perfectly within his rights to, for instance, attend Lady Russell’s ball, where a siren with a glorious bosom had shouted at him in the garden.
Said siren was doing a very good impression of a statue now. Santiago kept smiling at her, but she barely met his gaze.
‘I had the honour of meeting him occasionally on parliamentary matters,’ said Cornforth, who must be Tiffany’s oldest brother. He looked very little like her, and had the air of a much older man weary of being trapped in a younger body. ‘I understand Your Grace has not been long in London?’
‘No,’ Santiago agreed. ‘A few months only.’ Tiffany had told him not to talk about his business, but that was when she’d thought he was a mere tradesman.
Of course, he was a mere tradesman. He was just also one who happened to have inherited a dukedom.
‘Your Grace, please excuse me,’ said Lady Selby, as a footman appeared at her elbow. ‘My lord, my ladies.’ She curtsied and hurried away.
Lady Cornforth appeared quite extraordinarily pleased that she had been left in custody of the ball’s star attraction. ‘I hear Castle Aymers is quite an extraordinary estate,’ she said. ‘Dating back to the twelfth century!’
‘Indeed,’ said Santiago, who wasn’t even entirely sure where Yorkshire was, let alone which bit of it he owned. Probably all of it, he decided gloomily. He’d have to visit at some point. Exchanging letters with a steward wasn’t really good enough. He had responsibilities now.
He didn’t want responsibilities. He wanted to sail and smuggle and barter, and he wanted to make Lady Tiffany’s eyes flash like sunlight on ice.
But Lady Tiffany wasn’t even looking at him.
‘Our own estate in Hertfordshire is not so grand, of course,’ Lady Cornforth demurred. ‘Although it is perfectly charming. Parts of it date back to the Restoration. We usually hold a house party there in May for Cornforth’s birthday. You simply must come, Your Grace.’
A house party? Was that one of those affairs that went on for days? With this woman in her own house? Santiago smiled politely and murmured a nothingness. But she still wasn’t done.
‘I must confess I mislike all these new styles of architecture, don’t you, Your Grace? There is no character in them.’
‘Perhaps it is up to us to put character in them,’ said Santiago, who had no particular feelings on the matter at all.
‘I quite agree,’ she said immediately. How did Tiffany live with this woman? ‘But Carlton House! Constantly under refurbishment. We attended the celebration of the Duke of Wellington last year, of course, and we were struck by the … the gaudiness of it. So much colour!’
Carlton House was the residence of the somewhat unpopular Prince Regent. Santiago knew that; he suspected even Billy knew that. He had seen prints of its opulence and colour. It looked a great deal more fun than this slightly insipid ballroom, lined with portraits that seemed to be looking down at him with disapproval.
‘And of course that dreadful man is remodelling the Marine Pavilion in Brighton. In some kind of oriental style!’
‘Oriental style?’ said Santiago. ‘I have travelled in the Orient. I should perhaps like to see it.’
‘Well, it will be nothing like the real Orient, I’m sure,’ sniffed Lady Cornforth. Somewhat belatedly, she added, ‘Are you acquainted with His Highness, Your Grace?’
‘The Prince Regent?’ Santiago paused before answering, just to make her squirm. ‘I regret I have not had the honour.’
‘A presentation at court is perhaps the thing,’ said Cornforth. ‘Now that you have assumed the title.’
That sounded appalling. He had enough people staring at him here. He could feel the weight of their collective gaze coming from every direction.
‘We had Lady Theophania presented at court in March,’ Lady Cornforth went on. ‘Such a dreadful crush, and those ludicrous gowns. You gentlemen must be very grateful you do not have to wear the hoops. Of course, Theophania did not enjoy it, did you? Dear? You are very quiet this evening.’
There was something pointed in those last few words. Something barbed.
‘Merely taking in the occasion,’ said Tiffany, raising her gaze to the level of her sister-in-law’s chin for the merest fraction of a second, before letting it drop.
‘She’s a very shy girl,’ Lady Cornforth said, of the young lady who had harangued Santiago mere minutes after their first meeting. ‘Very sheltered. Fresh, one might say.’
Fresh? She radiated more chill than an iceberg. Santiago worried for his extremities.
‘But very thoughtful and charitable. Indeed, she spends much of her time with her great-aunt. I am sure your presence is a great comfort to the dear old lady, Theophania.’
Dear old lady? The woman in the crimson gown who had dragged him through a magical door?
At this, Tiffany’s eyes slid sideways towards Lady Cornforth. ‘Indeed,’ she said, and her voice was like the blade of a knife.
‘However, she is also very lively, especially when dancing,’ said Lady Cornforth, which was so blatant a segue Santiago could barely keep his eyes from rolling.
‘Perhaps Lady Tiffany would do me the honour of a dance?’ he said, and realised his mistake a fraction too late.
She had been introduced to him as Lady Theophania. And it was clear from her demeanour that she was pretending they were strangers.
Lady Cornforth’s eyes flashed, and red spots appeared on her cheeks, but she didn’t seem to know how to respond to that. Her husband’s face went very blank.
‘Please, I beg your forgiveness,’ Santiago covered. ‘It is only that Mistress Blackmantle was telling me so fondly of her great-niece, whom she calls Lady Tiffany. It was a slip of the tongue. Please, permit my apology for the over-familiarity.’
Lady Tiffany herself gave a colourless sort of nod. Her sister-in-law gave a strangled sort of smile that said he wouldn’t have got away with that if he wasn’t a duke.
A mere title, a single word, and suddenly he could get away with anything.
Was this how his father had felt?
Santiago felt the hands of the past reaching forward for him, and tried not to flinch. I will never become my father.
‘Mistress Blackmantle?’ Lady Cornforth said. ‘The lady announced shortly before you?’
‘Yes. She has been very kind to me since I arrived in London.’
He could see Lady Cornforth trying to fit the elegant and fashionable lady into the box she had clearly already marked ‘doddering old fool’. ‘I see,’ she said slowly.
The orchestra began to play the opening chords of a dance, and hope stirred in Santiago because he thought he recognised the music from his lessons.
‘I have no partner for this dance,’ said Lady Tiffany suddenly.
‘It would be my honour to partner you,’ he said. Everything seemed to be his honour this evening. He’d never heard a more meaningless phrase in his life.
He offered her his arm, and she took it and he felt the steel tension in her body. She was not subdued. She was enraged.
She curtseyed. He bowed. The couple at the head of the figure began to dance, and Santiago kept his eyes on Tiffany.
She stood still and quiet, poised, elegant; but Santiago had felt the rage vibrating through her. He braced himself.
She said nothing as he took her hand and stepped towards her. He said, ‘It is a splendid occasion, is it not?’
‘Most splendid,’ she agreed tonelessly. She did not look at him. Her eyes were blazing in the direction of their hands.
‘Certainly livelier than the event at your aunt’s,’ he said.
‘I am sorry to have missed it.’
‘Are you?’
She looked up at him then, and he almost wished she hadn’t. Her blue eyes burned like ice.
‘It was not my choice,’ she hissed. ‘Your Grace.’
Here it was then. ‘You are angry with me—’
But the dance moved them apart, and he took the hand of the young lady closest to him instead.
‘Your Grace,’ she said breathlessly, and seemed to be trying to curtsey mid-dance.
‘It is a splendid occasion,’ he murmured, trying to keep an eye on Tiffany.
‘Your Grace, it is such an honour,’ she said, and Santiago realised he was beginning to hate that damn word.
‘Indeed,’ he replied, and then Tiffany was back, her polite smile for her partner vanishing the moment she saw Santiago.
‘I can explain,’ he promised rashly.
‘Explain what, Your Grace?’
‘You don’t have to keep calling me that.’
‘It is the correct form of address for a duke,’ she reminded him, eyes flashing.
‘Yes, but—’
‘But?’ she said politely. ‘You are the Lost Duke of St James, are you not? Fraud is a terrible crime, you know.’
‘I am the duke,’ he said through gritted teeth. ‘But it is just a title.’
That was the wrong thing to say. Again. ‘There is no such thing’, Lady Tiffany told him coldly, ‘as “just a title”.’
‘I mean…’ he began, and ran out of steam again.
‘Your title comes with lands. People live upon those lands and it is your duty to take care of them. To know whose roof needs patching and whose child is sick.’
‘I have stewards—’
‘But it is not their land and those people are not their people. You have the responsibility.’
Santiago sighed. ‘And I will take it, but—’
‘Not to mention your seat in the House of Lords,’ she added sharply, just as the dance separated them again.
Yes. Oh God. The House of Lords. Not so much the cut and thrust of politics but the dull shuffling of old men who cared only for their own interests. He’d rather be back in that foetid jail in Penang.
He exchanged polite nothings with his new partner, and then Tiffany was back.
‘Where is my aunt now?’
He shook his head. ‘I don’t know. She slipped away. Probably to her own event. I had hoped to see you there,’ he added, but she didn’t respond.
‘She came here solely to introduce you to our hostess and then left?’
Santiago sighed. ‘She used a … I don’t even know.’ He lowered his voice. ‘A magic door?’ He felt foolish even saying it.
But Tiffany seemed astonished. ‘She showed you that?’
‘More than showed,’ he said with feeling. ‘She brought me through it.’ The sensation had not been unpleasant in a physical sense, but there was still a profound wrongness to it. They had crossed Mayfair and half of Belgravia in a single step.
‘But … why? She said that was for emergencies.’
He gave her his most piratical smile. ‘Perhaps she thought this was an emergency.’
Tiffany rolled her eyes. ‘An emergency? You not being in attendance at this ball?’
‘You were not in attendance at her soirée.’
‘I had no choice,’ she hissed. ‘I would have been there.’
‘But you were not, and so she brought me to you.’
‘Why?’ She seemed baffled. ‘Because of the bargain we struck?’
‘What other answer can there be?’
Right then their hands touched, and a desperate tug of attraction pulled at him.
‘Please tell me my aunt is not matchmaking too,’ Tiffany groaned.
He snorted. ‘It will fall on deaf ears. I am not attracted to you.’ Her cheeks were pink with exertion and her silvery hair was flying and her bosom was—dear God, the way it bounced—
Her eyes flashed. ‘And you are a liar.’
‘I did not lie to you.’ Apart from the part about not being attracted to her.
‘And a blackmailer,’ she added.
‘I have never blackmailed!’
‘You’re blackmailing me over being a witch,’ Tiffany hissed.
‘I never threatened that.’
‘Well, it definitely sounded like it to me!’ Tiffany stepped back and he went to follow her, but the dance was ending, and everyone was bowing and curtseying again.
Santiago followed suit, aware all eyes were on him. ‘Thank you for the dance, my lady,’ he said.
‘Indeed,’ she replied, and with a catlike smile, added, ‘It was most invigorating.’
He opened his mouth to reply to that particular little insult, but then a sort of shudder ran through him.
It ran through Tiffany too. He saw the shock on her face. But no one else seemed affected.
‘Your Grace, I think I should perhaps like to sit down,’ Tiffany said quickly, and he nodded and gave her his arm. But as he began leading her towards the seating areas at the edges of the room, her fingers tensed on his arm and she turned him towards the French windows that had been opened to the night air.
‘What was that?’ he murmured.
‘I don’t know. But it felt…’
‘Magical?’
She nodded tersely. ‘But you are not a witch, Mr— Your Grace.’
He wanted to make some quip there, but they were accosted by Mistress Blackmantle, suddenly hurrying towards them. She had a distinctly windswept look about her.
‘Lady Tiffany, I require your presence most urgently,’ she said.
‘What was that?’ demanded Santiago. ‘I felt a … shudder. Like the earth shaking.’
She looked surprised. ‘You felt it? Did anyone else…?’ She looked around at the milling company, who seemed utterly unaware of whatever was going on. ‘Then Gwen was correct. The creature that attacked you is back, Your Grace, and this time it appears to be in the Thames.’