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One
February: the Season, London
It was a veritable crush.
In the year 1817, with the Napoleonic Wars well and truly won and the American Colonies well and truly lost, nothing less than an utter squeeze would do, not when the hostess was the Countess of Livingston and well able to put the wealth of her husband’s earldom on display. The ballroom was spacious, framed by its gilded and frescoed ceiling; impressive with its shining wall of mirrors; fragrant from the banks of hothouse flowers set about the vast space; and yet… Nothing about it was unlike any other ballroom in London, where hopes and dreams were realized or dashed upon the rocks of ignominy. Packed to the walls with the great and good of the Englishhaute ton, the society ball was as lively and bright as any before it and any that would follow.
Despite having traversed a well-trod path of lineage and reputation all their lives, the guests gave themselves to the event with an abandon that appeared newly coined. They came to the dance, and to the gossip, and to the planning of alliances and assignations with the energy of girls fresh out of the schoolroom and young lords newly decanted from Eton and Harrow. Those undertaking the lively reel threw themselves into it as though it were the first opportunity they had to perform it; the watchers congregated at the sides of the dance floor observed it as though they’d never seen such a display in all their lives. Though the room was lit by more than two thousand candles in crystal chandeliers, shadows lurked in the farthest corners; the gloom was not equal, however, to the beauty of the silks and satins of the ladies’ gowns or to the richness of their adornments. As the multitude of jewels and those eddying skirts caught the light, the setting looked like a dream.
Unless it had all the hallmarks of a personal nightmare. Alfred Blakesley, Seventh Duke of Lowell, Earl of Ulrich, Viscount Randolf, Baron Conrí, and a handful of lesser titles not worth their salt, found the Livingstons’ ball to be an unrelenting assault of bodies, sounds, and most of all, scents. This last was a civilized term covering a broad range of aromas that encompassed the pleasant—perfumes, unguents, and those hothouse arrangements—to the less so, among them the unlaundered linen of the less fussy young bucks and the outdated sachets used to freshen the gowns of the chaperones. If he wouldn’t look an utter macaroni, he’d carry a scented handkerchief or, in a nod to the Elizabethans, an orange studded with cloves. Whilst either would save his sensitive snout from the onslaught of odors, it would defeat the purpose of his presence this evening.
As usual, said presence, after an absence of five years, was causing a flurry of gossip and conjecture. With jaded amusement, the only amusement he was able to muster these days, and without appearing to do so, he eavesdropped on the far-ranging theories regarding his person that were swirling around the ballroom, much as the dancers spun around the floor itself. If the gossips only knew how acute his hearing was, they might hesitate to tittle-tattle…
“My Lord, he is divine,” last year’s premiere diamond of the first water sighed.
“That chiseled face, that muscular form.” Her friend, at best a ruby, fanned herself vigorously.
“If only my dear Herbert would grow his hair until it touched his collar,” Diamond said.
“If only my Charles would pad his jacket. And his thighs. And his bum!” Ruby laughed wickedly.
“I doubt very much that there is any padding on the duke’s person,” Diamond said.
Ruby peeked at him over her fan. “If only he would stand up with one of us so we could get a hand on those shoulders.”
Two bucks of vintages separated by at least twenty years waited out the current set. “He may be among us, but he will not stay as much as an hour. My valet would thrash me did I not pass at least three hours allowing the entiretonto remark upon his prowess,” the aging young buck opined.
“And yet, he is dressed to a turn, his linen pristine, his coat of the latest cut,” the actual young buck replied.
“His linen may be,” scoffed his elder, “but there is something queer in the lineage.”
“Lineage!” One old gent bleated to another as they made their way to the card room. “Hodgepodge more like. A ragbag of dependents of no known origin, a mishmash of retainers, a mélange of—”
“Yes, yes.” His companion flourished his cane. “My own family claims quite a healthy acreage near to Lowell’s shire, and ne’er the twain shall meet, I can tell you.”
“I do not take your meaning,” Gent the First said.
Gent the Second put his hand on his friend’s arm and leaned in. “My nephew’s housekeeper’s brother’s wife’s granddaughter is from the neighboring village and says there is never a house party, never a ball, and never a need for outside help. And we all know what that means.”
“Penury.”
“Not a groat to his name.”
Along the mirrored wall, an older matron rustled her organza. “He is rich as Croesus, although the origins of the fortune are suspect.”
Her bosom friend gasped. “Surely it does not come from trade?”
“He keeps no sheep, he tends no crops—well, he has no people to do such things. Even he is not so far gone to propriety to engage in animal husbandry firsthand.”
“Some say the entirety of his holding is a gold mine, a literal gold mine.” Bosom Friend looked ecstatic at the notion.
“Hardly,” Matron replied. “There’s not a nugget of gold on this island; the Scots mined it eons ago.”
A merry widow and her ardent admirer lingered near the drinks table. “No one I know has had him, and I know everyone who has had anyone of import,” Merry grumbled.
Ardent moved closer. “Is he…?” He gestured to a group ofvery goodmale friends clustered in the corner.
“Quelle tragedie, if so,” said Merry. “It is true that he is seen nowhere without his steward, Bates, by his side.”
