PROLOGUE
LONDON, JUNE 1805
Max Severin stood at the edge of the crowded ballroom, watching the colourful throng of dancers, men in evening black, ladies showing all the colours of the rainbow, and wondering what the point of it all was. Well, he knew that, because he was almost six and twenty, not a green boy. It was the marriage mart. Society existed to perpetuate itself, and it did that by ensuring that suitable young ladies met suitable gentlemen – they didn’t have to be young, the men, though the ladies emphatically did – and married them, and in due time produced more suitable young ladies and gentlemen. That was what it was for, and to question it was foolish. It would be like asking what cats were for, which any nodcock knew: to catch mice, look superior, and make more cats. The members of the haut ton had other people to catch their mice for them, which left them with plenty of time to concentrate on the rest. Looking superior apparently came naturally; everything else took a little more effort. The dancing, the flirting, the subtle or not-so-subtle manoeuvring – the making of good matches.
His friend Tom Ivory had told him that a Wednesday night atAlmack’s Assembly Rooms was worse. More boring, with worse food, worse music, and even more naked desperation. He didn’t know; he’d never been offered vouchers that would permit him to go there. It wasn’t a place one chose; one was chosen, and Max hadn’t been. Perhaps some of the fearsome lady patronesses who decided such things might have condescended to admit him, but not all of them, clearly.
He asked himself now, in one of the moments of uncomfortable clarity to which he was subject, if he’d recklessly destroyed his reputation as a man of honour at the age of eighteen just precisely so he would never be quite sure – not 100 per cent – if those members of the ton who refused to accept him, despite his wealth, his education, and his fine properties in London and Kent, did so because of his besmirched name, or really because of his part-African origin, written plainly on his face for all of them to see.
He wasn’t special in that respect; far from it. London, of course, was full of people from every nation under the sun, and as far as he could tell always had been. You could call yourself a Londoner wherever you came from. How many languages were spoken in the world? He had no idea – it wasn’t the sort of thing they’d taught at Oxford – but surely most of them could be heard in this great city of nigh on a million people.
He wasn’t even the only well set-up black man in London, he didn’t suppose – he was confident there’d be traders, merchants, probably for all he knew Yoruba princes and haughty, gold-rich aristocrats from Berber lands, or further afield. But he wasn’t a prince or a tribal lord; he wasn’t even the son of an Englishman and an African woman. That was not uncommon; the other way round was entirely unthinkable, of course. Nobody knewwhathe was, not even his friends, and he intended to keep it that way. But he wouldn’t hide himself, all the same.
And maybethatwas why he was here. To make them see him. To force the so-called elite of society to acknowledge that people like him existed, however little they liked it. He certainly wasn’t present tonight and on all the other nights because he wanted to involve himself in marital entanglements, apart possibly from the kind that meant sleeping with other men’s wives, supposing those ladies were willing.
He imagined, cynically, that some of these people – debutantes, and their noble parents too – might be quite prepared to overlook his dubious origins if it meant getting their hands on his heavy purse. They’d hold their noses and swallow him like bitter medicine, if they were impoverished enough and saw no better alternative. But they wouldn’t get the chance, because marriage was the very last thing on his mind.
That being so, he didn’t dance. He came to parties like this with his friends, Tom and Gil, and lounged about, perhaps played a little at the card tables, drank a glass of warm champagne, surveyed the scene and listened to the latest gossip, then left for more congenial entertainments. Safer ones. Because he knew the rules. To take the floor, as a single man of his age, was to signal publicly that one was available as a life’s partner too. He wasn’t, so he didn’t raise expectations he had no intention of fulfilling.
It was true that there might be a perverse sort of a pleasure in asking a particularly disdainful young lady to dance. If she refused him, she wouldn’t be able to accept anyone else for the rest of the evening; she would be obliged to stand and watch and waste her precious time. She’d know that, and so would probably therefore accept him, just for a single set, however much she might inwardly hate the idea. But no – that would be self-destructive and also unnecessarily cruel; he had not the least desire for an unwilling companion, even for ten minutes. And the girls here were at the bottom of the heap, despite appearances, in someways not entirely unlike him, or even worse off, becausetheycould never have financial independence. They too could not choose, but only wait to be chosen, even the loveliest of them. The only power they had was the power to say yes or no, and take the consequences, in life as in the ballroom.
Max had been watching the dance with more attention than his casual, relaxed pose might have led anyone to imagine. His handsome face was impassive, even a little bored, as was fashionable, and his unusual eyes, somewhere between amber and hazel, did not betray a flicker of emotion. But he’d been observing one person all the while; his intent gaze had never left her as she moved through the steps, partnered with another man. She wasn’t an especially good dancer, or an especially bad one, neither graceful nor clumsy but somewhere in between, but that didn’t matter a jot to him.
He didn’t usually regret his decision, taken a few years ago, not to fully participate in events like this; to be a mere observer, a cynical onlooker, and never to flirt directly with danger. But that, of course, had been before he’d laid eyes on Miss Allegra Constantine.
1
It was a fine, warm early summer day, which was just as well, for a lady of the haut ton had planned an al fresco breakfast and invited many guests. The unpredictable English weather always made this a risky enterprise, but she had been bold enough to hazard it, and her gamble had paid off in glorious sunshine. Though she was young, not yet thirty, she was formidable – perhaps it didn’t dare rain on her celebration.
Mrs Singleton, one of society’s cleverest hostesses, had set little tables here and there in her town garden with a nice eye for their picturesque arrangement, and a small group of musicians played lively airs on the terrace, the music blending with the chatter of the colourful throng. Female guests wore their crispest muslins and brightest silks, echoing the flowers that surrounded them, and gentlemen in dark coats, pale breeches and shining boots were the perfect foils for their beauty. The event had been pronounced charmingly informal and a great success by everybody, and the lady responsible was beaming in relief.
She had caused archery targets, quoits and croquet sets to be laid out at the far end of the lawn, and challenged ladies inparticular to try their luck. The games allowed blushing debutantes to display incompetence as well as skill, which naturally encouraged gentlemen to step kindly in and teach them with all their innate, superior masculine wisdom. Mrs Singleton, though she ruled unquestioned in her own marriage and took no schooling from anybody, was well aware that most men enjoyed nothing more in life than the opportunity to instruct the fairer sex, whether it was actually necessary or not. Guiding hands might be placed on slender muslin-clad arms in perfect innocence. If the ladies were truly feeble, or pretending to be, they might even need masculine aid in drawing back the arrow and the string, or aiming the mallet correctly. This required what was practically an embrace. It was an occasion, therefore, for decorous flirting, and for that rarest of things outside the ballroom – sanctioned physical contact between gentlemen and ladies. Her younger guests were not slow to take advantage of the opportunity, and the warm summer air was fairly humming with intrigue as the afternoon progressed. Matches might be made here today – or broken.
Allegra Constantine, though, wasnotenjoying herself. She had never so much as picked up a bow before, and croquet was a mystery to her. Apparently being left-handed was making matters even worse than they might otherwise be. She had no brothers; nobody had ever ridiculed her for being unable to throw straight, but now she realised she couldn’t. This was a pity, as she didn’t like being bad at things, and liked even less being bad at things in public. She felt as though she were fourteen years old again, mangling some wretched hour-long sonata on the pianoforte or causing pained winces, even in her loving parents, with her tuneless singing.
And as for appreciating being schooled, nothing could be further from the truth. She wouldn’t mind men explaining thingsto her, she told herself dubiously, if they actually knew what they were talking about, and her admirers really didn’t seem to. No doubt the scene she was an unwilling part of was highly amusing, to an observer who cared nothing for her humiliation.
And shewasbeing observed. Mr Severin, who wasn’t one of her suitors but rather someone who seemed mysteriously to revel in mocking her at all times, was standing watching. He had his arms folded comfortably across his broad chest, and was smirking provokingly at her uselessness, while her most devoted admirers, Mr Englishby and Sir Harry Eager, were practically coming to blows over the privilege of instructing her in how best to hit a target with an arrow. It was an undeniable truth that she wasn’t going to manage that feat by herself in this lifetime, but their intervention wasn’t helping either.
Lord Milton, her older and less impetuous wooer, stood a little apart too, also smiling wryly, but not in mockery of her, she was fairly sure. If he was impatient with his rivals, he – unlike her – didn’t show it. His handsome face gave nothing away; it was impossible to guess what he was thinking. But whatever it might be, he certainly wasn’t stirring himself to come to her rescue.
It wasn’t at all clear to her that either Mr Englishby or Sir Harry had a better idea of what she should be doing with her unskilled hands and ungainly arms than she did herself, but they certainly did not lack the confidence to try to improve her anyway. Mr Severin was being greatly entertained, lounging at his ease, sardonic dark eyebrows raised at the undignified struggle and her mounting blushes. Curse the man! If she must be made an object of public ridicule, she couldn’t see why he had to be there to witness it. Or why he seemed to dislike her so much that he must make his disdainful amusement so plain. She’d never done anything to provoke such an unkind reaction, and she refused to rack her brains over it. He did not merit so much of herattention as she was currently bestowing on him. Even more annoying than the fact that he always seemed to be watching her was the added truth that she had now developed the habit of checking if he was present whenever she arrived at a ball or party. And usually, he was.
Sir Harry Eager was the most enthusiastic and inept of her would-be teachers, as befitted his surname. Allegra’s mother had entirely dismissed her objection that to marry him and be obliged to endure everyone addressing her as Lady Eager for the rest of her life, and tittering at her expense, as though she were a painted and beribboned character in a Restoration comedy, would be very hard to endure. This was frivolous, Mrs Constantine had said firmly. To Allegra’s further caveat that, as well as taking on a silly surname, she would be tied forever to someone with all the intellectual capacity of a large and over-friendly dog, Leontina had said drily that there were worse fates. Dogs, she implied, could be trained, as could men in her experience, and excessive amiability in a husband was not necessarily something to be regretted.
Nobody could accuse Mr Englishby of being too agreeable or too compliant. He was civil always – as one would hope a gentleman wooing a lady should be – but Allegra detected signs of an unruly temper in the set of his mouth and his hot eyes, and he wasn’t being terribly polite to Sir Harry just now, or to her. Only her presence, she thought, was restraining him, at least temporarily, from cursing. Really, the foolish pair might come to blows if she didn’t do something to stop it. She shouldn’t have to, but there were no signs of anyone else jumping in to save her. They were like two schoolchildren fighting over some coveted toy, where possession of a thing mattered more to both combatants than the thing itself. Allegra had five sisters; she had ample experience of such struggles. The plaything, if won by one or theother, would surely soon be abandoned for some fresh amusement; the struggle for it was the point. As the object in question, tugged this way and that with no regard being paid toherwishes or comfort, Allegra could not find any part of the experience flattering.
‘I don’t believe you have any special knowledge of archery, sirs,’ she said crossly. Another, more cunning woman might have intervened with greater tact, smoothed down their ruffled feathers with pretty deference and well-concealed feminine skill, but she was not that person and could not help it; conciliation was simply not part of her nature. ‘I do not know how I am supposed to hit a target with one of you on each side of me, pulling on my arm and saying entirely contradictory things in each ear. Perhaps Lord Milton could advise me better.’
She looked up at the third gentleman for help, hoping she wasn’t simpering. It wasn’t at all the sort of helpless, borderline flirtatious thing she normally said, and she didn’t care to seem to be favouring one of them over the other when her mind was still so confused. But her current situation was unbearable and she could see no other way out of it, presuming that simply throwing down her bow and storming off wasn’t a realistic option, which it decidedly wasn’t with her sharp-eyed mother watching.
She felt obscurely that she should not have had to ask Milton – almost beg him – to intervene on her behalf. He should have thought to do it from his own natural sense of courtesy, or was he not as bad as Mr Severin, who was looking on, grinning lazily and enjoying the ridiculous spectacle? She was hot, thirsty and cross, and wished they’d all go away and leave her in peace, ideally after bringing her a cool drink. Since that was apparently impossible, at least Lord Milton was a grown man whose distinguished manners surely wouldn’t allow him to tug at her sleeve or paw ather, as Mr Englishby had been doing for what seemed like an hour.
Her two young admirers broke out immediately in fierce protest, still jostling her despite what she’d just told them, but Lord Milton, who never seemed to lose his cool composure, finally entered the fray. ‘I’m glad you have said so, Miss Constantine, as it has saved me the fatigue of pointing it out. I can’t claim any great prowess in the sport, but I can surely do better than this. If your unmannerly swains cannot bring themselves to cede any ground to each other, they must at your request step aside for me.’ When neither of them showed the least disposition to give up their places, still glaring pugnaciously at each other and grasping her reluctant arms proprietorially, he went on, with a little welcome edge in his voice, ‘At your request they really must stand down, or appear shockingly discourteous to you. They are not dogs – one hopes – and you, my dear Miss Constantine, are not a bone for them to tussle over.’
At this open reproof they both flushed, and were obliged at last to release her and move away, shooting angry glances at each other and – on Mr Englishby’s part at least – at Lord Milton. Mr Severin, still grinning derisively, lounged casually away also, no doubt to pull the wings off flies or torture kittens for his further amusement.
‘Thank you, sir,’ she said, turning her eyes back to Lord Milton and adding frankly, ‘They can both be quite odious, and sometimes put me out of all patience.’
