chapter VI

A YEAR AGO, ALEC CAMPION WOULD HAVE TOSSED Lord Ferris’s brief note of invitation on the fire.

L et us sit and discuss together, it read, like reasonable men, matters to our mutual advantage.


Now the duke’s secretary drafted a reply saying that His Lordship of Tremontaine would call upon Lord Ferris at a particular day and time. Ferris replied that the day would be perfectly convenient, and as to the time, he hoped that His Lordship would not be much delayed.

The duke arrived early. Conceding the gesture, Ferris did not make him wait but had him shown directly into his study and insisted on sending for refreshments. With his good eye, he surveyed the younger man. Tremontaine had taken trouble to dress up for the visit: his lace was very white and there was plenty of it. Instead of his accustomed black he wore the green of the House of Tremontaine, which also matched his disturbing eyes. The duke did not lack for jewels: prominent among them was the oblong ring of the Tremontaine ruby, set with diamonds. Ferris knew it well; his own abuse of the jewel had helped bring about his humiliation at Tremontaine’s hands almost twenty years back. For the boy to choose to wear it to this meeting was either provocation or poor judgment—or possibly both.

The duke refused brandy. “Keeping a clear head?” asked Ferris, delicately sipping his. “Good. This needn’t take long, and I want you to remember what was said.”

“Stop enjoying yourself, Ferris. I’m here and I’m sober, and I want to know what you think you’re doing.”

“Consider it an invitation,” Ferris said cordially. “This is, after all, the first time you have ever bothered to call on me. If it took making a little trouble for some of your friends to get you here, I suppose it was worth it.”

“You admit it? All of it?”

“Why not? An invitation, as I said. To come sit down and discuss our situation together, like noble and reasonable men.”

“Which involves threatening my friends?”

“I was afraid you wouldn’t take me seriously.”

“I did. But I am preparing,” the duke said, “to revise that opinion. Stop playing and tell me what you want.”

“And you’ll give it to me?”

“What do you think? If it’s reasonable, I’ll consider it. If it’s not, I have the resources to annoy you very much as you’ve been annoying me. It’s true I have more scruples—but I’m willing to suspend them. I also have more money, you see—lots more money. I wasn’t planning to waste any of it on you, but I could be convinced to change my mind.”

“Ah.” Ferris rolled his glass between his fingertips. “That answers that question. The interference with my wedding plans was just one of your little pot shots, not the launch of a new campaign.”

“I never—” The duke began to say something, but then thought better of it. He settled back in his chair—which Ferris was meanly gratified to note was just a bit too small for the duke’s long body—and said simply, “No campaign. Your fiancée wanted out, and it was an easy fix.”

“Well, that’s all right, then,” said Ferris smoothly. It was all coming together, in one of the several patterns he’d laid out against this meeting. He felt the almost sexual thrill of being the one in the room with all the power. The words seemed already written for him to speak. “I have now, as you say, an easy fix for both our troubles. You don’t really trust me to stop attacking you where you’re vulnerable—or you shouldn’t, anyway—and I certainly do not trust you not to make such attacks necessary to me. Even with your great supply of scruples, not even you can always be quite sure what you’ll do next, can you?”

The duke glared at him, but said nothing. “So,” Lord Ferris went on, “you are going to provide me with a very fine token of your goodwill, which will also recompense me for the trouble you’ve caused already.”

“And that is?”

“You are going to contract with me to marry your niece.”

The duke turned very pale, right down to his lips. Then his cheeks flushed, making his green eyes appear to glitter.

“Oh, come, Campion, what else were you planning to do with her? It’s a generous offer. In one sweep she is reinstated in Society with a position higher than any she might otherwise hope for. Even your crimes against her delicate girlhood—” Tremontaine started to rise; Lord Ferris lifted a manicured hand “—I mean, of course, only the silly masquerade of sword and breeches—are forgotten in the general haze of romance. We’ll say I fell in love with her at the Godwin swordfight. It’ll delight the entire city, just like a play—like that swordsman one the Rose is doing now, in fact. Lady Katherine likes the theatre, I hear.”

The duke said nothing.

“You will provide her with a suitable dowry, of course. I know you are very fond of her. And should the two of us be blessed with issue—well, I would never presume to interfere with the ducal succession (that’s not my place, is it?)—but I know you would take them into consideration, being so fond of the Lady Katherine and wanting the best for all of your family.”

The duke sat very still, as if he were afraid to move. He wet his lips. “Are you sure,” he said, “there isn’t some ruling in the books somewhere stating that once you have slept with a woman it’s a crime to marry her great-granddaughter?”

“None that I know of.”

“Pity. I’ll have to put a motion up before the Council to have one passed.”

“Oh, no you won’t,” said the Crescent comfortably. “There’s a fine now for frivolous suits.”

“I’ll pay it,” the duke said. “But it might be cheaper for me just to hire a swordsman to settle the matter and put you out of your premarital miseries.”

“Well, now.” Ferris leaned back, brimming with his own particular kind of happiness. He’d always known he was ten times smarter than this man, but seldom did he get such a good opportunity to display it. “You might want to think that one through. You see, if it turns out that we are not to be wed, I might want to challenge your niece, instead. Having now seen her fight, I admit I misjudged her ability as well as her persistence this last time; but I don’t make the same mistake twice. I can find a swordsman with enough superior skill to mop up the floor with her. There are some serious ones left, you know—they can easily skewer a young blade, even one who somehow learned a few of St Vier’s tricks.”

The duke said, “I could send her away. Back to her mother’s house.”

“Oh? Do you think the mother would refuse my suit? I don’t. There’s some bad blood between you, isn’t there? Just what did your noble sister do, exactly?”

“She married,” the duke said dryly. “Against my will.”

“I am sure you have given her ample opportunity to regret it.” Lord Ferris rose, and stretched, and pulled on the bell by the hearth. “You act quickly,” he told his visitor, “but you don’t always think very quickly. So I’ll give you a little time to think over my offer and its ramifications.”

“How little?”

Ferris cocked his head. “One day should be sufficient. After that, I will expect your answer, or I may well extend another of my invitations. I will go well guarded until then.” A footman answered his summons. “His Grace of Tremontaine requires his carriage. Will you pass the word and see him out? I’ve Council business to attend to. Good night, my lord.”

It was a dismissal, and not a very civil one, from one great lord to another. Lord Ferris’s footman was therefore very surprised when the Mad Duke not only tipped him handsomely but gave him a schoolboy’s wink before getting up into his splendid carriage. He wasn’t called the Mad Duke for nothing, then. The footman couldn’t see anything to wink about. Neither could the duke, if truth be told, but he was damned if he’d let Ferris know it.

T HE BLACK ROSE COUNTED ON HER FINGERS, AND DID not like the results. The thing was possible, and it certainly explained a lot. She could play Ruthven to the hilt, now, understanding what it was to feel sudden changes in one’s body—transformation unwelcome, undesired, imposed from outside her by another person…. But could she get through the rest of the Season before she started to show? Could she keep awake? Could she remember her lines? Her breasts felt huge, now that she knew; they were like someone else’s, darker and bigger than her own. What is this heaviness about my chest, indeed?

The Rose composed herself for her morning meeting with Highcombe’s mysterious resident. She was a professional, after all, and Tremontaine was paying her well just to read a letter to some person here, an aged relative, perhaps, and to answer any questions he might have. Whatever her own situation, she could execute this not particularly demanding role with grace, dignity and ease.

When Richard St Vier walked into the room, she let out something between a squawk and a full-blown shriek.

He was unarmed, but she saw him start to make a move to defend himself, and then to realize, and stop, and smile. “He didn’t tell you,” he said.

“No.” Her hands were shaking. She fumbled in her bodice. “Oh, god—I have a letter—I had no idea—”

“Sit down,” he said. “It’s all right. He’s just being cautious, or theatrical, or something.”

Rose grimaced. “Well, why not?”

“Or maybe he’s annoyed with you.”

“He is, a little.” Rose sank into the chair by the window, looking up at the swordsman anxiously. “But he told me he trusted my absolute discretion.” She laughed shakily. “He must be desperate.”

“Do you think he is?” Richard St Vier asked her.

“Annoyed, or desperate?” She tried to recapture her usual lightness. She was not a Riverside tavern girl anymore. She was the Black Rose, the toast of the city, the honor of the stage.

“They go together sometimes,” St Vier said; “especially with him.” He pulled up a chair. He sat so close that when he breathed deeply, his knee ruffled her skirts. “What does he want?”

She thought of the Mad Duke’s plots, his vices and excesses, his quiet rages and his enemies. “You,” she said.

“Ah,” St Vier said. “What’s in the letter?”

That morning, with defiant panache, she had folded it carefully so that it nestled in the cleft of her bosom, planning to whip it out with two fingers and present it to the mysterious resident. If she hadn’t squawked before with so much force, it might not have slipped down that little extra way, causing her to have to fish for it with those same two fingers while her other hand kept her stays in place.

“You don’t even know who I am,” she said.

“Nor do I. You didn’t introduce yourself, and I don’t like to pry.”

That sobered her up. “I’m an actress. I’m Rose.” It reminded her, too, that even the neatest stage business sometimes misfired and costumes misbehaved, and then all it took was a quick hoist and a tug to bring the letter out into the light.

Rose broke the seal, and then she stopped. Shouldn’t she just hand it to him? “I’m sorry,” she explained; “he said to read it to you.”

“Yes, please do.”

She looked down at the page. “It’s short,” she said. “One line: Will you come for Katherine, if not for me?

She cleared her throat. “That’s all.”

“That’s discreet,” St Vier said. He did not ask her anything else.

“Katherine’s a nice girl,” she said.

“Yes. I know.” He stood very still in the middle of the room.

“He’s made a lot of enemies. He doesn’t mind it, but they do. I don’t think he’d ask if—if it weren’t…” Shut up, Rose, she thought.

He looked out the window for a while, and then he looked at her.

“Yes,” he said. “I will go. He didn’t say how soon?”

“He didn’t say anything. But I would make it soon.”

“I can be ready in a day or two.”

“All right.” Weariness washed over her, and the kind of sadness she had spent her life trying to keep at bay. She stood up. “Do you mind if I go lie down?” she asked. “The journey was very tiring.”

She wanted to make a good exit, but her balance seemed to have deserted her. She staggered against Richard St Vier, and for the first time in her life she felt the swordsman’s hand close around her, warm and firm on her elbow, holding her up. “Are you all right?” he asked. And she thought, No, I’m not all right. I’m stuffed with your sweet Alec’s child!

She said, “I’m fine. Just tired, is all.”

“What are you going to do?” he asked, and she thought somehow he knew, he knew with his supernaturally clever body that had kept him alive through so many fights, through his years in the streets and taverns, somehow it saw her and recognized her distress, her condition, and he knew—but then he went on, “Will you wait and ride back with me? or are you in a hurry to go home?”

Rose closed her eyes. “I don’t know. I need to think about things. It’s been a difficult season. I might stay here awhile; the rest would do me good. After that…we’ll see. Life in the theatre is so unpredictable.”