Chapter 1
London, 1820
“Damn, damn…there it goes, the frigging thing!” A stream of curses floated on the gust of wind, shocking the guests at the water party.
The yacht was anchored in the middle of the Thames, the guests assembled in honor of King George. So far the party had been dull but dignified, everyone dutifully complimenting His Majesty’s magnificently fitted yacht. With its brocaded furniture, fine mahogany, chandeliers of clustered crystal droplets, gilt sphinxes, and carved lions poised in every corner, the yacht was a floating pleasure palace. The guests had all been drinking heavily in order to attain the mild euphoria that would substitute for a real sense of enjoyment.
Perhaps the gathering would have been more entertaining had the king’s health not been so poor. The recent death of his father and a taxing ordeal with gout had taken their toll, leaving him uncharacteristically morose. Now the king sought the company of people who would provide laughter and amusement to relieve his sense of isolation. That was why, it was said, he had specifically requested the presence of Miss Lily Lawson at the water party. It was only a matter of time, a languid young viscount had been heard to remark, until Miss Lawson would stir things up. As usual, she did not disappoint.
“Someone get the deuced thing!” Lily was heard to shout between lilting bursts of laughter. “The waves are moving it away from the boat!”
Grateful for the reprieve from ennui, the gentlemen rushed in the direction of the commotion. The women protested in annoyance as their escorts disappeared to the bow of the ship, where Lily hung over the railing and stared at some object floating in the water. “My favorite chapeau,” Lily said in reply to the chorus of questions, indicating it with a sweep of her small hand. “The wind blew it right off my head!” She turned to her crowd of admirers, all of whom were ready to provide consolation. But she didn’t want sympathy—she wanted the hat back. Grinning with mischief, she looked from one face to another. “Who will play the chivalrous gentleman and retrieve it for me?”
Lily had tossed the hat overboard on purpose. She could see that some of the gentlemen suspected as much, but that didn’t stop the torrent of gallant offers. “Allow me,” one man cried, while another made a show of doffing his own hat and coat. “No, I insist that I be afforded the privilege!” A rapid debate ensued, for each one of them wished to gain Lily’s favor. But the water was rather turbulent today, and cold enough to cause a health-threatening chill. More importantly, it would be the ruination of an expensive, perfectly tailored coat.
Lily watched the controversy she had caused, her mouth curving with amusement. Preferring argument to action, the men were all posturing and making gallant statements. If anyone were inclined to rescue her hat, he would have done so by now. “What a sight,” she said under her breath, staring at the bickering dandies. She would have respected a man who would step forward and tell her to go to hell, that no ridiculous pink hat was worth such a fuss, but none of them would dare. If Derek Craven were here, he would have laughed at her, or made a crude gesture that would have sent her into a fit of giggles. He and she both had similar contempt for the indolent, overperfumed, overmannered members of the ton.
Sighing, Lily switched her attention to the river, dark gray and choppy underneath the heavy sky. The Thames in springtime was unbearably cold. She lifted her face to the breeze, her eyes slitting as if she were a cat being stroked. Her hair was temporarily straightened by the wind, and then the shining black curls sprang to their usual buoyant disorder. Absently Lily pulled off the jeweled ribbon that had been tied around her forehead. Her gaze followed the ridges of waves as they broke against the side of the yacht.
“Mama…” she heard a little voice whisper. Lily shrank from the memory, but it wouldn’t disappear.
Suddenly she imagined she felt downy baby arms encircle her neck, delicate hair brush against her face, a child’s weight settle in her lap. The Italian sun was hot on the nape of her neck. The quack and bustle of a duck procession crossed the glassy surface of the pond. “Look, darling,” Lily murmured. “Look at the ducks. They’re coming to visit us!”
The little girl wriggled in excitement. A chubby hand lifted, and a miniature forefinger extended as the baby pointed to the parade of self-important ducks. Then she looked up at Lily with dark eyes, and a grin that revealed two tiny teeth. “Dah,” came the exclamation, and Lily laughed softly.
“Ducks, my darling, and very handsome ones, too. Where did we put the bread to feed them? Dear me, I think I’m sitting on it…”
Another whisk of wind came, chasing away the pleasurable image. Moisture seeped beneath her lashes, and Lily felt a painful twisting in her chest. “Oh, Nicole,” she whispered. She tried to breathe away the tightness, willed it to disappear, but it refused to go. Panic built swiftly inside her. Sometimes she could numb it with liquor, or divert her mind with gambling or gossip or hunting, but the escape was only temporary. She wanted her child. My baby…where are you…I’ll find you…Mama’s coming, don’t cry, don’t cry… The desperation was like a knife twisting deeper every moment. She had to do something at once, or she would go mad.
She startled the men nearby with a high, reckless laugh, and kicked off her heeled slippers. The pink plume of her hat was still visible in the water. “My poor chapeau’ s nearly sunk,” she cried, and threw her legs over the railing. “So much for chivalry. I see I’ll have to rescue it myself!” Before anyone could stop her, she leapt off the yacht.
The river closed over her, a wave smoothing over the place where she had been. Some of the women screamed. Anxiously the men scanned the rippling water. “My God,” one of them exclaimed, but the rest were too astonished to speak. Even the king, informed of the goings-on by his grooms-in-waiting, waddled forth to take a look, pressing his massive bulk against the railing. Lady Conyngham, a large, handsome woman of fifty-four who had become his latest mistress, joined him with an astonished exclamation. “You know I’ve said it before—that woman is mad! Heaven help us all!”
Lily stayed underwater a moment longer than was necessary. At first the coldness was a shock, paralyzing her limbs, making her blood turn to ice. Her skirts turned heavy, pulling her down into the mysterious cold darkness. It wouldn’t be difficult to let it happen, she thought numbly…just drift downward, let the darkness overtake her…but a pang of fear impelled her hands to make a finning motion, propelling her to the dim light above. On the way up, she grasped the lump of sodden velvet that brushed her wrist. She broke the surface of the water, blinking the stinging salt from her eyes, licking it from her lips. Needles of intense cold stabbed through her. Her teeth chattered violently, and she regarded the shocked assemblage on the yacht with a shivering grin.
“I’ve got it!” she chirped, and held the hat aloft in triumph.
A few minutes later, Lily was pulled from the river by several pairs of willing hands. She emerged with her wet gown clinging to every curve of her body, revealing a slim, delectable figure. A collective gasp went through the crowd on the yacht. Women watched her with a mixture of envy and dislike, for no other female in London was so admired by men. Other women who behaved just as disgracefully were regarded with pity and contempt, whereas Lily…
“She can do anything, no matter how abominable, and men adore her all the more for it!” Lady Conyngham complained out loud. “She attracts scandal just as honey draws flies. If she were any other woman, she would have been ruined a dozen times over. Even my darling George won’t abide any criticism of her. How does she manage it?”
“It’s because she behaves like a man,” Lady Wilton replied sourly. “Gambling, hunting, swearing, and politicking…they’re charmed by the novelty of a woman with such masculine ways.”
“She doesn’t look very masculine,” Lady Conyngham grumbled, observing the dainty form sheathed in wet fabric.
Assured of Lily’s safety, the men crowded around her erupted into laughter and applause at her daring. Pushing the sodden curls back from her eyes, Lily grinned and gave a dripping curtsey. “Well, it was my favorite hat,” she said, regarding the ruined clump of material in her hands.
“Good Gad,” one of the observers exclaimed in admiration, “you’re absolutely fearless, aren’t you?”
“Absolutely,” she said, causing them to chuckle. Rivulets of water ran down her neck and shoulders. Lily wiped at them with her hands and turned away to shake her wet head vigorously. “Would one of you dear, dear gentlemen fetch me a length of towel and perhaps a bracing drink before I catch my death of…” Her voice trailed away as she caught sight of a still figure through the curtain of wet tendrils.
There was movement around her as the men scattered to find towels, hot drinks, anything to serve her comfort. But the one standing several feet away did not move. Slowly Lily straightened and pushed her hair back, returning his bold stare. He was a stranger. She didn’t know why he stared at her that way. She was accustomed to men’s admiring gazes…but his eyes were cold, emotionless…and his mouth was taut with contempt. Lily stood without moving, her slender body shivering.
She had never seen immaculate golden blondness combined with such satyric features. The breeze blew the locks of hair back from his forehead, revealing the intriguing point of a widow’s peak. His hawklike, aristocratic face was strikingly hard and stubborn. In his eyes, so brilliantly pale, there was a bleakness that Lily knew would haunt her for a long time afterward. Only someone who had experienced such bitter despair would be able to recognize it in another.
Profoundly disturbed by the stranger’s gaze, Lily turned her back to him and beamed at her approaching admirers, who were laden with towels, cloaks, and steaming hot drinks. She banished all thoughts of the unknown man from her mind. Who gave a damn about some stuffy aristocrat’s opinion of her?
“Miss Lawson,” Lord Bennington remarked with a concerned expression, “I’m afraid you’ll catch a chill. If you wish, I would be honored to row you ashore.”
Discovering that her teeth were chattering against the rim of a glass, making it impossible for her to drink, Lily nodded gratefully. She reached her blue-tinged hand toward his arm and tugged in order to make him lower his head. Her icy lips came near his ear. “Hurry, pl-please,” she whispered. “I th-think I may have been a little t-too imp-pulsive. But don’t t-tell anyone I s-said so.”
Alex, Lord Raiford, a man known for his self-discipline and remoteness, was battling an inexplicable anger. Ridiculous woman…risking her health, even her life, in order to make a spectacle of herself. She had to be a courtesan, one known in a few select circles. No one with a shred of a reputation to preserve would behave like that. Alex unclenched his hands and rubbed his palms on his coat. His chest felt tight and banded. Her high-spirited laughter, her lively gaze, her dark hair…dear God, she reminded him of Caroline.
“You’ve never met her before, have you?” he heard a scratchily amused voice nearby. Sir Evelyn Downshire, a fine old gentleman who had known his father, was standing nearby. “Men always have that look when they see her for the first time. She reminds me of the marchioness of Salisbury in her day. Magnificent woman.”
Alex tore his gaze away from the flamboyant creature. “I don’t find her all that admirable,” he replied coldly.
Downshire chuckled, revealing a carefully constructed set of ivory teeth. “If I were a young man I’d seduce her,” he said reflectively. “I would indeed. She’s the last of her kind, you know.”
“What kind is that?”
“In my day there were scores of them,” Downshire mused with a wistful smile. “It took skill and cleverness to tame them…oh, they required no end of managing…trouble, such delightful trouble…”
Alex looked back at the woman. Such a delicate face she had, pale and perfect, with fiery dark eyes. “Who is she?” he asked, half in a dream. When there was no reply, he turned and realized that Downshire had wandered away.
Lily climbed out of the carriage and made her way to the front door of her Grosvenor Square terrace. She had never been so uncomfortable in her life.
“Serves me right,” she muttered to herself, walking up her front steps while the butler, Burton, watched from the doorway. “What an idiotic thing to do.” The Thames, in which all of London’s refuse was dumped, was not an advisable place to swim. Her leap into the water had left her clothes and her skin tainted with a distinctly unpleasant odor. Her feet squeaked inside her wet slippers. The odd noise, not to mention her appearance, caused Burton’s brow to furrow like a millstone. That was unusual for Burton, who usually greeted her calamities without expression.
For the past two years, Burton had been the dominant figure in the household, setting the tone for servants and guests alike. When welcoming visitors into her home, Burton’s starched manner conveyed that Lily was a person of consequence. He overlooked her follies and adventures as if they didn’t exist, treating her as an impeccable lady although she rarely acted like one. Lily knew full well that she would not be respected by her own servants if it were not for Burton’s imposing presence. He was a tall, bearded man with a solid girth, his neat iron gray beard framing a stern face. No other butler in England had his precise combination of haughtiness and deference.
“I trust you enjoyed the water party, miss?” he inquired.
“A smasher,” Lily said, trying to sound animated. She handed him a wad of soggy velvet, adorned by a straggling pink feather. He stared blankly at the object. “My hat,” she explained, and squeaked into the house, leaving a wet path in her wake.
“Miss Lawson, a guest is awaiting your arrival in the parlor. Lord Stamford.”
“Zachary’s here?” Lily was delighted by the news. Zachary, Lord Stamford, a sensitive and intelligent young man, had been a dear friend for a long time. He was in love with her younger sister, Penelope. Unfortunately he was the marquess of Hertford’s third son, which meant that he would never inherit sufficient title or wealth to satisfy the Lawsons’ ambitious plans. Since it was clear that Lily would never marry, her parents’ dreams of social advancement were centered on Penelope. Lily felt sorry for her younger sister, who was betrothed to the earl of Raiford…a man Penelope reputedly did not even know very well. Zachary had to be suffering.
“How long has Zachary been here?” Lily asked.