Page 36 of A Wicked Game

Wear something low-cut.

Morgan’s wicked command echoed in her ears.Ha!She wasn’t one of his sailors, bound to follow his orders.

She’d managed to scrounge a small navy-issue jacket from her neighbor, Jem Cooper, who’d spent his teenage years as a “powder monkey”—ferrying gunpowder and cartridges from the powder magazine in a ship’s hold to the artillery pieces in the decks above. She’d teamed that with a pair of baggy striped trousers, a jaunty red knitted cap, and a linen shirt that buttoned all the way up to her throat.

Her father, much to her surprise, had elected to join her. He’d cleverly decided to go as “a curmudgeonly oldmapmaker,” thereby eliminating the need for a costume altogether. Harriet helped him tie his cravat and don his jacket, then took his arm and assisted him up into the carriage waiting to take them to Carys and Tristan’s London home.

The queue of vehicles stretched right along the street when they arrived, and it took at least fifteen minutes for them to reach Carys and Tristan in the receiving line at the top of the steps.

Never one to disappoint, Carys was dressed as a Valkyrie, in a flowing white dress and a shining metal breastplate. Her glorious Titian hair was upswept in a wild, elaborate series of knots, and a curved Viking drinking horn hung from her belt.

Tristan, presumably to complement his wife, was dressed as Odin, complete with an eye patch over one eye, as befitted the god who’d sacrificed an eye in exchange for knowledge of the universe.

“Harriet!” Carys exclaimed, transferring the spear she held to her left hand so they could hug. “You’ve come as a sailor? How wonderfully scandalous!” She sent Tristan a cheeky glance. “I’ve dressed as a boy myself, on a few notable occasions, haven’t I, Tristan?”

This, clearly, was some private joke; Tristan’s lips twitched in amusement. “You have indeed, my love.”

Carys turned back to Harriet with a laugh. “Just be careful, or Morgan will mistake you for one of his cabin boys and start ordering you around.”

“I’ll do my best to ignore him,” Harriet said, not entirely truthfully.

Tristan drew her father forward. “Good evening, Uncle Henry. I think Constance and Prudence are in the ballroom. Would you like me to take you to them?”

“Dear God, no!” Father said, aghast. “I’d have to bedeaf as well as blind to endure the constant gossiping of those two harpies. Take me to the cardroom, Tris, there’s a good lad. I might not be able to play, but at least I’ll be able to converse with the gentlemen about something other than who’s marrying who.”

Tristan, laughing, led him away, and Harriet made her way into the crowded ballroom.

Carys had taken a nautical theme for her decorating. The room had been transformed into an underwater paradise. Huge garlands of green and white flowers festooned the walls and tables, studded here and there with coral and seashells. Gauzy fabric in shimmering silver, gold, and blue floated gently in the breeze coming from the open doors, giving the impression of fronds of seaweed waving in the ocean currents.

The orchestra, on a raised dais at one end of the room, was surrounded by what looked to be the wreckage of an actual ship, draped with dried seaweed and encrusted with barnacles. The violinist was seated inside a giant shell. Harriet could only assume that Carys had borrowed the scenery from one of the Drury Lane theaters.The Tempest, perhaps?

She spied Aunts Prudence and Constance at the side of the room and made her way over to them.

“Harriet, my love!” Prudence set her knitting on her lap. She seemed to be making an inordinately long scarf. “You look intriguing. Who are you?”

“The first woman to circumnavigate the globe: a Frenchwoman named Jeanne Baret.”

“My goodness. How did she manage that?” Aunt Constance asked.

“Her lover, a botanist named Commerson, was hired for a round-the-world expedition. Jeanne had been his assistant for years, but since the French Navy forbadewomen on their ships, she disguised herself as a man and went aboard as his valet and secretary. The crew didn’t discover ‘Jean’ was a woman forthree whole years.”

“How extraordinary!” Constance said approvingly.

“Circumnavigating the globe soundsexhausting,” Prudence sniffed. “I get fatigued just thinking about circumnavigating the Serpentine.”

Harriet laughed. “Yes, well, I’m rather envious of all her adventuring. But I expect you’re right. Perhapshalfwayaround the globe would be enough.”

“Don’t you just adore Carys’s outfit?” Constance sighed. “Tristan said she wanted to bring her ravens, Huginn and Muninn, up from Wales to sit on her shoulders, but he managed to talk her out of it. Said they’d be too disruptive, and steal things from the guests.”

“He’s probably right,’ Harriet said. “But you can’t deny that Tristan’s life is far more exciting with Carys as his wife. In a good way,” she hastened to add.

Constance chuckled. “That’s precisely how itshouldbe. Davieses have been livening up the existence of Montgomerys for hundreds of years. And vice versa.”

“In agoodway,” Prudence echoed drily. “Most of the time, at least.”

“Speaking of enlivening, is that Morgan Davies I see over there dressed as a pirate?”

Harriet forced herself not to spin around and look. She grabbed a glass of champagne from a passing footman’s tray instead and took a fortifying swig. “He was bound to come as something nautical. Being in the navy, and all that.”

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