Page 20 of The Viscount's Seduction
Aye, but she’d got bad news. Walter O’Brian had come up with a sad report. Jamie was very likely dead, according to a seaman who’d known another man who’d sailed on theHoney Bee, a man who, with any luck, she’d meet on the morrow.
Did he see him die?Walter had asked, but the man hadn’t known.
She’d not felt this low since Papa’s death. Not even her cousin’s insulting treatment of her had depressed her so. Actually, that hadn’t depressed her at all, it had made her hungry to know more about Jamie…and to exact a suitable revenge.
And perhaps her pulsing head would be the perfect excuse to slip away and begin searching. Her father had left many of his mundane tasks to her, and she knew the general way men managed their papers. A spymaster would be more careful, but she’d take her chances on finding something.
Glittering eyes turned on them as they stepped across the hallowed portal of Shaldon House. The Hackwells were not considered goodton, she with her charitable pursuits, he with his Whiggish tendencies.
Aye, but she was lying to herself, wasn’t she? She was the reason for the stares. Even after the Hackwells moved on to greet guests, the quizzing glasses stayed trained on herself, bloody owl eyes searching for the night’s prey.
“Ladies, how lovely you look this evening.” Lady Perpetua squeezed Sirena’s hand. “The primrose becomes you wonderfully. I, myself, look like a spoiled sausage in that shade.”
“That’s exactly what Lady Hackwell said about herself when she offered the frock to me. ’Tis the truth that this is one of her old gowns made over, Lady Perpetua.” That came out less jaunty than she’d hoped, and she couldn’t help it. She had a mission, her head hurt, and she was more than a little irritable.
But Lady Perpetua’s smile only grew. “How practical and honest you are. Call me Perry. We shall be fast friends, I think. I’m going to have a go at plucking a tune on my harp. Will you also participate tonight?”
“I must beg off. I’ve a wee hammer pounding nails into my head, but Lady Jane was a complete dragon and insisted I come anyway.”
Lady Jane turned from the couple she was greeting and tapped her fan on Sirena’s arm while Lady Perry giggled. “You dreadful girl. You must at least stay for your hostess’s performance before running off to the retiring room.”
Sirena forced a chuckle. “Do you see how she bullies me?”
Lady Perry laughed and excused herself.
Sirena looked around. She’d memorized the route and counted the doors from the entry to this room.
“Is this the ballroom, Lady Jane?”
“I believe so.”
It was much grander than Hackwell’s, though not nearly as inviting. Paned glass doors opened out onto what must be a garden, but the room itself was all gilded and burnished in the style of the last century. The heiress Lord Bakeley would marry could have a go at refurbishing it.
Her gaze found him, and she chuckled. He wore a tight mask, ever so polite, but she saw well enough his desire for escape. Surely the young lady next to him in her white ruffles, and her mama next to her—for that must be the relationship—could notice it also.
“I’m glad to see you enjoying yourself.” Lady Jane linked arms with her. “Come, I see an acquaintance of mine. We’ll greet her and find seats.”
“Where is the great lord himself?” she whispered.
“Over there.” Lady Jane tilted her head toward a kind of dais, and Sirena saw Lord Shaldon nearby, leaning on his cane. He was engaged in deep conversation with an ancient man in an old-fashioned wig and he’d not noticed her, else he would be gamboling down the aisle between chairs, clacking that cane on the polished floor, getting ready to thwack her with it.
“Will you mind ever so much if I find a seat at the back?” She pulled her arm free and touched her hand to her forehead. “This pounding is quite more than I can bear.” And if the musicians were as awful as she anticipated, well...
“Go to the ladies’ retiring room,” Lady Jane said. “When the music starts, come back. If all the seats are taken, some gentleman will yield one for you.”
She asked a maid for directions, and hurried along the corridor, counting doors. The room designated for the ladies was, as yet, empty and she settled onto a chair. When two ladies entered, she fiddled with her shoe, as though she’d picked up a pebble, or her stocking had bunched. She didn’t know them, and they ignored her. Not exactly the cut direct, yet she felt the full force of their superiority.
Lord love the English. The boys at home had whispered that, at Belfast, they’d locked women and children in a barn and burned them to death. She could withstand a mere haughty attitude. While they turned up their noses, she would nose around, and wouldn’t invisibility make it easier?
And what would his esteemed English Lordship, Shaldon, do if he caught her sneaking? She closed her eyes and imagined her punishment. The English had a great many means of persuasion, but most of them came with a fist—to the head, the stomach, the limbs. If she were caught searching his things, she would not be catching a husband with that battered body.
“Are you quite all right?”
She opened her eyes to a most fashionable woman. Her gown cupped her upper arms and two half-mooned breasts, bared down almost to the very nipples, and all about the rest was a rich, sensuous fluttering of silky stuff in the most seductive shade of red. It was a rousing dress, designed to establish her friendliness, especially with the male guests.
The astonishing blue eyes set against pale skin and ebony hair, those were not friendly, no matter how warm her words.
With such haughtiness, and in such a dress, she was surely fashionable and wealthy. Sirena should stand for a creature like this, who was so clearly above her.
