Almack’s was exactly as Ariadne had pictured it from Priscilla, Emily, and Daphne’s descriptions. Plastered walls set with statuary, polished floors that reflected the colors of the gowns sweeping over them, conversation rising and falling like a gentle tide, perfume mingling as the very cream of London Society entered the hallowed halls.
The stage was set, but the hero remained missing. She had not heard from Sinclair since he’d left her with his distraught grandparents. None of them could understand his behavior.
“What could we have done to so offend him?” his grandmother had wailed, crumpling the soggy ball of her handkerchief in her hand.
Ariadne had no idea. Some character motivation was missing, a scene not set to fit the mood. She could not determine the problem. She refused to believe him so calloused, so cruel. Something was driving him to push them all away. But what?
Emily, Priscilla, and Daphne had been supportive, consoling her and berating him in turn.
“If you ask me, he is an unfeeling brute,” Daphne had declared, eyes narrowed to chips of ice. “No one jilts my sister.”
Ariadne could not believe him unfeeling. From what she’d observed, he felt too deeply. Certainly he had had his share of heartache: his mother’s death, his father’s decline. But to throw off his last living relatives? That made no sense.
Now she stood with Daphne on one side and Priscilla on the other, her mother nearby, as the select company of Almack’s strolled past and the musicians tuned up in their alcove above the door to the supper room. She had not confided the end of her engagement to her mother; she’d even resigned herself to wearing white, this time a soft silk that draped her as effectively as the Grecian statues, with pearls at her throat and woven into her hair. Time enough to face her mother’s disappointment after they’d caught the villain and saved his intended victim. It was simply unacceptable that so few of the pivotal roles in their play had been cast.
Ack! Sinclair was right. She did persist in seeing the world like a play or novel. A shame she still could not convince herself that that was such a bad thing.
“Do you see him?” Priscilla murmured, looking stunning as always in a pink satin embossed with roses and molded to her impressive bosom.
Ariadne glanced around again. Mr. Cunningham was bowing over a lady’s hand, no doubt securing her promise for a dance later. She found she did not mind that he had not approached her. Archibald Stump, Freddie Pulsipher, and many of the other fellows who had called on her in the last week were likewise lining up partners.
“No,” she said with a sigh. “I fear Sinclair has no interest in attending.”
Priscilla shook her golden head. “Not Lord Hawksbury. Your French agent.”
Oh, of course. That was the entire reason she was here. She’d already noted Lord Hastings weaving through the crowd and felt certain his cadre must be present as well. Emily in a plum gown with black lace at the heart-shaped neckline stood across the room with one arm firmly linked to Jamie’s while her father flanked her. No doubt Emily and Jamie stood ready to move in at Ariadne’s signal. All she had to do was identify the spy.
Emily must have caught Ariadne’s gaze on her, for she murmured something to Jamie before hurrying across the room.
“Have you found him, then?” she asked. Ariadne could feel the tension in her, but she was fairly sure her friend was as concerned about Jamie’s reception among the ton as locating the French spy.
“No,” Ariadne reported. “I know most of the dark-haired men in the room, and I can count the strangers on one hand. No one matches the fellow from the coach.”
“Perhaps he won’t come as a gentleman,” Emily suggested. “He could be here as a server, or one of the musicians.”
“He said he was an old friend of Lord Hastings,” Daphne put in. “He has to be above a certain age.”
Ariadne glanced to where the spy master was chatting with his handsome son and a roguish blond-haired fellow. “No. He was younger than Lord Hastings, by a good bit. Though older than us.”
Emily narrowed her dark eyes. “Then he could not have been referring to himself. He isn’t Lord Hastings’s old friend. His master is.”
Ariadne stared at her. “We have two villains?” What a twist! She could hardly wait to tell Sinclair. Then she remembered he no longer wished to speak to her. Oh, but young men could be maddening!
The first dance was starting. Emily hurried back to Jamie’s side. Nathan Kent came to collect Priscilla. Three gentlemen petitioned Daphne, who settled for the tallest and started for the floor, creamy skirts swinging. One of the remaining gentlemen glanced Ariadne’s way.
She did not so much as encourage him with a look. She no longer had to accept her sister’s leftovers. Besides, she had a job to do.
Her mother moved closer as the music started. “You are wise to wait for Lord Hawksbury,” she murmured. “These young ladies who find themselves engaged and yet still must capture the attentions of every gentleman in the room do themselves no service.”
“Yes, Mother,” Ariadne said, knowing it was the expected response.
Her mother opened her fan and moved it slowly before her sapphire-colored ball gown. “Did he confide what time he would arrive?”
“No, Mother.”
The fan stopped. “Pity. I shall keep you company until then. You should not have to stand alone.”
Her mother’s cronies filled the room, ready to converse, remarking on this lady’s daring décolleté, that lady’s becoming hairstyle. Yet Lady Rollings chose to stay at her daughter’s side. That was family.
“Thank you,” Ariadne said, warm despite the low neckline of her gown. “The company was feeling a bit thin with everyone dancing.”
“There are a number of Eligibles in attendance tonight,” her mother agreed. “And relatively few gentlemen of Parliament. I’m surprised Emerson could spare the time.”
Ariadne glanced to where Emily’s father was now talking with Lord Hastings. It seemed odd to see the two together, like real life and art colliding. But she supposed it was inevitable they should meet, being the most senior members of government present.
Ariadne gasped. “Oh, no! Not Lord Emerson!”
Her mother nodded. “Yes, I quite agree. Napoleon rampaging across the Continent and one of the leaders of the War Office making time for Almack’s. Most likely he felt it incumbent to support Mr. Cropper’s debut here. I cannot imagine what the patronesses were thinking to admit him.”
Perhaps someone had encouraged it. Perhaps that someone knew that only his daughter’s happiness would force the duke out of Whitehall.
So he could be killed.
“I must speak to Emily,” she said.
Her mother tsked. “I doubt she’ll listen. She seems completely enamored of her Bow Street beau. I must say, Ariadne, that I am quite pleased you managed to secure a more presentable groom. At times, I feared you’d marry some penniless poet.”
She’d have been happy to marry a poet, penniless or not, if he had treated her as well as Sinclair did. He appreciated her just as she was, without expecting her to lose weight, change her hairstyle, or affect a different manner of speech or dress. He liked her.
Or at least he had liked her, until she’d tried to reunite him with his grandparents.
“Excuse me,” she said, heading for Emily and Jamie.
It wasn’t nearly as easy interrupting a set as she’d thought. Couples spun past, bumping into her and muttering apologies. Gentlemen frowned at her as if she were quite mad. And everyone kept moving so she could not get close enough to Emily to warn her. She found herself twirled to the side and shunted to the edge of the ballroom.
“Perhaps you require a partner.”
That voice! Ariadne turned to find Sinclair beside her. Hair confined back behind his head, jacket and breeches a merciless black, he took her hand and led her into the set, joining at the bottom.
“What’s the plan?” he murmured as they came together in the pattern of the dance.
His gaze was intent, determined. It was almost as if the last days had never been. She wanted to ask him why he had left, why he was here now. But she knew they had more important matters to settle first.
“The French spy is after Lord Emerson,” she murmured back. “We have to warn Emily.”
“I’d think warning him would be more effective,” he pointed out, taking her arm to dance along the floor.
They passed the other couples swaying on either side. Emily and Jamie were near the top of the set and working their way down as Ariadne and Sinclair worked up. A few more turns and they’d meet.
“He’d never believe me,” she said. “He might believe Emily.”
“And Cropper,” he surmised. They separated a moment in the movement of the dance, then came back together. “Have you spotted the spy?”
“Not yet. But it may be that he is only a tool of someone else here in London.”
Again the pattern of the dance separated them. Emily and Jamie were only a few feet away. She tried to catch her friend’s eye, but Emily’s gaze was all for Jamie.
“Who?” Sinclair demanded as they rejoined.
“I don’t know,” Ariadne admitted. “Someone Lord Hastings’s age, who is an old friend of his and has access to high-enough levels of government to know Lord Emerson’s power there. Someone who could convince the patronesses to admit Jamie Cropper to Almack’s so the duke would come to support him. Does that sound like anyone you know?”
Sinclair stumbled in the middle of the set, washing white. “Yes. My father.”