Chapter Seventeen

Ben Pike had just returned from a very satisfying errand involving haggling over—then purchasing for much lower than the original price—supplies he was going to use to repair a portion of the roof over the annex. He was quite proud of himself. From the moment he'd begun working at The Grand Palace on the Thames, Mrs. Hardy and Mrs. Durand had trusted his judgment and made him feel like an essential contributor to the happiness and comfort of everyone who lived there. Rather than like, for instance, furniture one could order around, which was how his erstwhile, dastardly employer the Earl of Brundage had treated his servants.

He loved his job at The Grand Palace on the Thames.

But every rose had its thorn.

He was on his way to the top of the stairs through the foyer to report the good news to Mrs. Durand and Mrs. Hardy, when he paused at the sight of the bane of his existence in the sitting room.

Dot appeared to be, of all things, caressing a lamp.

He watched, mystified, as she pawed at it.

Once.

Twice.

Three times.

Much the way one would stroke a cat.

Then she took a large step backward and stared at it, hands held to her mouth in apparent excited expectation.

A few seconds later, she stepped forward and did the whole thing all over again.

What the devil... ?

Her face a picture of disappointment, she moved over to another lamp.

This time she tried a sort of twisting stroke that made the back of his neck feel uncomfortably hot.

She took a large step backward and stared at the lamp again, her posture tense with anticipation.

"What are you doing, Dot?"

She shot nearly straight up in the air and spun around. He watched with fascination as her face took on the exact shade of a tomato.

"Nothing important," she said. After a long silent moment during which she was clearly deciding how to reply.

"You were rubbing lamps," he noted, wickedly.

"If you could see what I was doing, why did you ask?"

"That's a fair question. I'll be more specific. Why were you rubbing the lamps?"

She studied him for a long, speculative time. "I will tell you, if you promise not to laugh."

"I promise." He might laugh later, alone in his room.

"In the sitting room at night, we're reading a book about a genie who emerges from a lamp when you rub it. He's a magic being. And he offers you wishes when he appears."

He took this in.

"I see. You thought perhaps genies lived in our lamps?"

"Wouldn't it be foolish not to find out if they do?"

He stared at her. He honestly had no idea how to reply to that. He could not quite bring himself to say yes.

She had the most remarkable eyes, Dot. Sometimes they seemed almost vacant to him, other times all-seeing, as though she was privy to realms he couldn't possibly imagine. They were perfectly round, like saucers, and the palest blue. He found her absolutely, teeth-grindingly frustrating, and he wasn't even certain he liked her, yet she had begun to fascinate him almost relentlessly. The other maids seemed more sensible, if infinitely gigglier. But they were somehow far less interesting, too.

He was solid and shrewd and literal. He felt even more solid and shrewd and literal around Dot. He sensed she saw the world more vividly, more richly, than he ever could. And because he was proud and intelligent, he had begun to believe the way she experienced things was something he could never quite comprehend. This had begun to get under his skin.

"Well, it's brave of you to want to conjure a genie. But then again, you weren't afraid of ghosts, either, when you knocked me right down in the kitchen."

"Thank you. I suppose I might be a little brave. Although that is not a moment I am proud of, Mr. Pike, so perhaps you will consider not mentioning it so often," she said with great dignity.

He smiled at this. "Fair enough. Forgive me. It's just that it's one of the more memorable moments of my life so far."

This made her smile. She had two dimples, and her cheeks made charming little apples when she smiled.

"Have you ever considered," he ventured hesitantly, "that one of the main reasons I want to open the door at night is to keep you safe from harm? As well as everyone else?"

Her eyes flared.

"Oh," she breathed, thoughtfully. She paused. "I see." She cleared her throat. "Thank you."

He nodded once, shortly. Pressed his lips together.

They regarded each other from across the foyer.

"What would you wish for, Dot, if you did find a genie?" he asked softly. It suddenly seemed important to know.

She tipped her head and studied him somberly. If he'd had a wish right now, he would have used it to learn what was going on behind those eyes.

"I'd wish... that The Grand Palace on the Thames had two front doors. So you could open one, and I could open the other."

He stared at her. "Oh, for God's—"

His head went back on a gusty sigh, and he spun on his heel away from her mischievous little smile to go to report to the infinitely more sensible Mrs. Hardy and Mrs. Durand.

Catherine slowly rotated beneath the chandelier at The Grand Palace on the Thames, the crystals sprinkling tiny rainbows over her like a blessing while Mrs. Hardy, Mrs. Durand, and Mrs. Pariseau stood around her, hands clasped beneath their chins in admiration.

"You are just beautiful, my dear," Mrs. Pariseau assured her. "The dress was meant for you."

"You look like a princess!" Angelique exclaimed.

"A crown would be redundant," Delilah agreed.

But not one of those women envied Catherine, because they had each been in her place before. They didn't miss balls. They didn't miss husband hunting. They remembered the nerves, the uncertainty, the joy, the judgment, the hopes raised and crushed. They wished her the very best of luck from the bottom of their womanly hearts.

Lady Wisterberg and Lucy came to collect her, and they at last were off to the Shillingford ball.

Plumley. Seacombe. Leffingwell. Marbrooke. Vaughn. Holroyd. Gunston. Vaughn again.

Catherine had surrendered her dance card to Lady Wisterberg, who had examined it like a professor reviewing a pupil's exam, her eyes glinting.

"Vaughn twice! That young man is charmed," she declared. "And he at last responded to our invitation. He'll be attending our party! With his parents."

Catherine's heart gave a jump.

Privately, Catherine thought the young man—Lord Vaughn—sensed her ambivalence and found her a safe dancing partner. Like a cat who excels at finding the one person in the room who doesn't want a cat in their lap.

Or perhaps he had a sixth sense for detecting which females knew what it was like to have a man's clothed erection pressed against them in the dark of a carriage.

Tonight when footmen holding aloft lit torches led Catherine and Lucy and Lady Wisterberg into the Shillingford mansion on Grosvenor Square—a vast white marble edifice, featuring enormous columns and gilt and crystal glinting everywhere in the corners of her eyes—Catherine decided: I would indeed enjoy this, if this was part of my regular life. I think I might take to being a countess. I could throw fancy parties, and insist all the ladies wear dresses that were two years old or older. Ha!

If she nurtured this thought, really savored it, she could convince herself it was what she wanted. It was how habits were formed, after all.

And then perhaps it would, in fact, be all she wanted.

Only the cream of the ton was invited to this ball, or so Lady Wisterberg assured them. Lucy and Catherine were quite pleased to be considered cream, although there seemed to be a lot of people considered cream. The place was indeed brimming. She thought she never would forget the sounds of countless dancing slippers clicking across the spreading sea of gleaming marble as they funneled into the ballroom.

She was conscious of heads turning in her wake as she moved with Lady Wisterberg and Lucy into the ballroom, and she held her head high, her heart pounding. The blue dress, the most magical thing she'd ever owned, a dress to which she did not quite feel equal, conferred upon her a special glamour, and certainly was more at home in this mansion than she was.

Magic could be dangerous in the wrong hands, as she'd learned from The Arabian Nights' Entertainments.

The wonder and pride in the eyes of her first dancing partner for the evening set her aglow; she began to believe that this was no different from happiness.

Kirke was gathered with a clutch of MPs near an arrangement of Grecianesque statuary—marble blokes and maidens wearing togas and wreaths—on the periphery of the Shillingford ballroom. He'd always viewed this event as the sort of halfway point in the season; soon the social whirl would end and Parliament would adjourn and he'd move out of The Grand Palace on the Thames and back into his home.

"Looking forward to your usual rousing speech to send Parliament out on an inspiring note, Kirke," Shillingford said. "I know your voters will count on it."

"Do you think it ought to be something like my Freedom Speech?" Kirke asked, expressionlessly.

"Yes!" Shillingford enthused with glee, as if Kirke had read his mind.

He hadn't yet written a damned word worth speaking aloud in front of a crowd of hundreds. Nor had he yet heard from Leo.

"My son will be dancing with that pretty girl in blue tonight. Miss Keating, I believe her name is." Lord Holroyd gestured with his brandy to the dancers. "He seems quite taken with her. Or, at least he's mentioned her twice, which is the most he's ever mentioned a girl. Does anyone know anything about her family?"

Kirke didn't answer. He suddenly couldn't speak, regardless.

He watched her, mesmerized, as she moved in the figures of the dance. Smiling, radiant.

The morning of the night he'd kissed Keating, he'd had his man of affairs send a note with a certain request to Madame Marceau, who had custody of a dress for which he'd already paid.

He had tried to sort out all the reasons why he shouldn't do it, which were legion, but they collapsed beneath his primary motive.

Which was why he frankly thought he'd be willing to watch his entire house burn down for the pleasure of seeing how happy Keating was to have that dress.

During a lull between dances, Catherine fanned herself and demurely sipped her lemonade. After her night at the Coopersmiths', she doubted she would ever touch ratafia again. She had awakened the following morning with a headache that felt like someone wearing heavy boots was trying to kick her eyes right out of her skull.

It seemed impossible that a ball should become a crush in a house this vast, and yet between the dancing and the hundreds of bodies, she felt as though she was coated in a sheen of perspiration. She'd wanted a moment to chat with Lucy alone to giddily compare dancing partners, but unfortunately, Miss Seaver and Lady Hackworth had drifted over to join them.

"We're so looking forward to Lady Wisterberg's party in honor of you and Miss Morrow, Miss Keating. I understand everyone in London who matters will be there."

Good try, Miss Seaver, Catherine thought. She was too wise to fall into that particular little trap. "I'm honored and flattered that so many people are looking forward to joining us! We're going to have a fine little orchestra and other entertainments." She was tempted to add, "And we'll be singing a song with a clap in it instead of ‘arse'!"

Regardless, she was increasingly excited about the party and she wondered if she returned to Madame Marceau if another beautiful dress wouldn't magically appear for the occasion.

"I've never seen so many pretty dresses as I have this evening," Catherine said to them.

"Indeed. Your dress, Miss Keating, is... splendid." It sounded as though it pained Miss Seaver to admit this. As if she hadn't thought Catherine capable of finally wearing something stylish. "It must have cost a fortune." She added this last bit lightly, but also a trifle suspiciously.

"Oh no. Not at all. It was after a fashion a gift," Catherine said airily.

Lady Hackworth's fan ceased moving. She fixed her eyes on Catherine, and a confusing, fleeting succession of expressions—wonderment and envy and astonishment—flickered across her features swiftly before—oddly—a sort of respect settled in.

Though her eyebrows remained knit.

"Interestingly, Miss Keating..." she said hesitantly. "I had my eye on that precise bolt of blue shot silk at the import shop near Fleet Street. But when I asked to purchase it, the clerk informed me it was... ah, already spoken for."

She stared piercingly into Catherine's eyes. As if she could read her thoughts.

How very peculiar. Catherine was nervous. She did not want to learn the provenance of her magical dress, lest it tarnish her pleasure. And she'd lost patience with Lady Hackworth's machinations.

"This color would look beautiful with your eyes," Catherine told her magnanimously, on the theory that she was the sort who could be distracted by a compliment.

Lady Hackworth merely looked more puzzled. Suddenly she turned her head and called over her shoulder, "Lady Pilcher. Here is the young lady you said you were curious to meet."

Catherine's heart jolted. Lucy had pointed out Lady Pilcher to her previously. She was a countess, and she was what people meant when they used the word "stunning." Both of these things made Catherine feel intensely shy. It seemed quite unreal that such a woman would specifically want to meet her.

Lady Pilcher drifted over gracefully. Her shiny, seal-dark hair was artfully curled and loosely piled atop her head, which was perched atop a swanlike neck, which was encircled with diamonds. Her dress was a confection of floating golden gauze and spangles and embroidery. More of what must be diamonds sparkled in her headpiece.

Catherine curtsied. "An honor to meet you, Lady Pilcher."

Breathlessly, she wondered if one day she would stand in a ballroom in front of another young woman from a small country town, who would address her as Lady Vaughn and feel shy because she was a countess. The notion plucked a strange, panicky note from her heart.

"And likewise, Miss Keating." Lady Pilcher inspected Catherine while wearing a soft little smile. Her golden-brown eyes tipped up at the corners, and the way her short top lip sat above her full bottom lip made her mouth look like a pink bow. "My dear, your dress, as I'm certain you know, is magnificent. And what a charming necklace. I have so many beautiful pearls, and yet it never occurred to me to wear only one at a time."

Cat eyed her in surprise. Perhaps it was true, and the wearing of one pearl was novel to Lady Pilcher.

Her instincts told her no: for some reason, the beautiful Lady Pilcher saw her as a threat.

This was disappointing and fascinating—and then she felt an odd spike of dizzy elation. This was perhaps why the people in the ton said and did such things—it was an attempt to taste this sensation of power again and again. Perhaps Lady Wisterberg felt something similar at the game table.

"Thank you, Lady Pilcher. So kind of you to say. It was a gift from my mother for my seventeenth birthday. It was once hers."

"And how old are you now?"

Did women normally ask this question of each other? "Twenty-two."

"Twenty-two. An important age." She leaned forward, alarmingly close, close enough to kiss her on the forehead, and, to Catherine's surprise, lifted the pearl on her fingertip. This seemed outrageously bold. "So many realizations at that age."

Catherine stiffened uneasily.

"Such a charming little birthmark, too," she murmured so very softly that likely no one but the two of them could hear. "Kirke has a darling freckle about that size on his hip."

The astonishing thing was that she'd looked Catherine full in the face when she'd said it. Such was her confidence in her supremacy, and her desire to perpetuate what she hoped was cruelty, a sword plunge, that she had no compunctions about meeting her eyes.

Catherine was so awestruck by the audacity it was nearly anesthetizing.

So there was a moment of respite before the searing, suffocating pain set in and nearly engulfed her.

"It's not always easy to see it when his hips are... moving... of course," Lady Pilcher added softly.

She drifted back into the crowd and never once looked back.