Mischief in Regency Society: To Catch a Rogue

For an instant, it seemed as if Westwood would actually alight from his phaeton and face the apoplectic wrath of Mr Mountbank. The ladies at the window held their collective breath, but, alas, fisticuffs—and shirtsleeves—in Mayfair were not to be. Mountbank, faced with an opponent potentially closer than several feet away, backed off and hurried on his way, steering his carriage precariously around the corner.

The ladies, disappointed, also backed away, leaving the view to return to their seats. The drawing room was soon filled with the mingling of chatter, music, tea being poured into delicate cups. Calliope, though, could not yet leave with them. Could not break that cord. Something tightened, binding her there, staring down at Cameron de Vere.

He laughed aloud at Mountbank’s precipitous retreat, his head thrown back with the unbridled freedom of his humour. His hair fell away from his chiseled face, the sharp angles of his cheekbones and nose. He leaned back easily on the cushioned seat, free as a corsair at the helm of his ship. Passers-by paused to stare at him, as if drawn by the sheer life of him, yet he noticed not at all, so comfortable in his own skin, his own world.

Blast him, anyway, Calliope thought wryly. Blast for being—him. For being all she was not. For being so free. Not bound to family responsibilities.

Calliope leaned her forehead against the cool glass, watching as Lord Westwood’s laughter faded and he once again collected the loosened reins. Even his casual movements were filled with a smooth, unstudied grace.

She watched him, and remembered their first meeting, at the beginning of the Season. Was that only weeks ago? It felt a lifetime. Or mere moments. That night when…

No! No, that didn’t bear thinking of. Not now. She was in the middle of a Ladies Society meeting! Her friends were nearby. Thinking of Cameron de Vere, seeing him, fantasising about him as some Greek fisherman on a beach, would only discompose her. Her friends were sure to ask questions, and that would never do. She was always collected and calm. Always in control. She had to be, her family relied on her.

Why, then, did she tremble so much, just from watching him down on the street? It was ridiculous!

Calliope reached up for the fringed edge of the satin drape, clutching at it to draw it over the window. Before she could do so, concealing herself and all her unruly emotions, Lord Westwood glanced up and saw her there. Saw her staring at him.

For an instant, it was as if a cloud passed over the Grecian sun. He frowned, his velvety brown eyes narrowing. Then, as swiftly as it came, the cloud vanished. He smiled, a wide, white Corsair grin, and gave her a jaunty salute.

Calliope gasped involuntarily, and yanked the curtain closed. The rogue!

She spun away from the window, wrapping her cashmere shawl tighter around her shoulders—only to find Clio observing her closely.

Calliope adored her sister, the closest to her in age and in artistic inclination, but sometimes, just sometimes, she was a bit uneasy to be faced with those unerring, unwavering green eyes.

“You should stay out of the sun, Cal,” Clio said quietly. “It makes your cheeks so flushed.”

Calliope Chase.

Cameron frowned as she thrust the draperies shut, as if to block out a demon from her home. To bar all laughter from the premises. To bar him.

He shouldn’t care. He didn’t care. Calliope Chase was beautiful, it was true. Yet London was filled with lovely ladies, most of them far less prickly and mysterious than Miss Chase. Yet somehow, ever since their first meeting—or first clash, as he thought of it—he couldn’t get her out of his mind. Was he becoming like his rather bizarre cousin Gerald, who paid lightskirts hefty sums to whip his bare backside with a riding crop, pain and aggravation equalling pleasure?

Cam laughed aloud as he guided his horses back into the flow of traffic, picturing Calliope Chase wielding a leather whip with fire in her brown eyes. It was not an unlikely vision. She was named after the wrong mythological figure, surely. She was not a Muse, changeable and capricious and seductive. She was Athena, goddess of war, marching into battle to defend what she believed in, right or wrong.

An Athena with such an intriguing sadness behind her gaze.

Cam glanced over his shoulder before he turned the corner of the street, but the Chases’ house was closed up tight. There was no flash of shining raven curls, no glimpse of fair skin and sparkling eyes. Yet he knew she was in there. Could still see her in his mind.

As he headed off into the park, a shortcut to his own home, he let his horses have their head a bit. He saw Mountbank far ahead. Such a silly puppy, getting so upset because Cam had danced with Lady Emmeline Saunders! Anyone could see he was no rival for her affections. She was a pretty girl, and full of interesting conversation (unlike most of the society chits mothers were always pushing his way!). She had a quick humour, too, despite being bosom friends with Miss Chase. But there was something missing when he talked to Lady Emmeline, looked at her.

There was always something missing. Something so empty and hollow at the centre of his life, something that was not filled by all his pursuits—his clubs, his horses, women, even his studies. It was a cold and echoing spot, always with him. He only really forgot it, felt a new warmth spark on that ice, when he crossed swords with Calliope Chase.

Curious. Very curious indeed. And not something he cared to think about too deeply.

His horses were now a bit winded after their gallop through the park, so he eased them out of the gates towards home and their own mews. But they were blocked by an unexpected traffic obstruction, a tangled knot of vehicles and horses and pedestrians that brought all movement to a temporary standstill.

“Blast!” Cam muttered, craning his neck to try to peer past a lumbering barouche. He was meant to attend a musical evening later, one he was rather looking forward to as it featured a speculative reconstruction of ancient Greek theatrical music. “What is it now?”

Then the barouche lurched to one side, and he understood. A great crowd had gathered in front of the Marchioness of Tenbray’s home, gawking up at the window where the infamous Lily Thief had climbed in to snatch away her ladyship’s Etruscan diadem. The thief had been gone from society for a while; his reappearance was the latest sensation.

Cam chuckled, and sat back on the seat to wait for the crowd to clear enough for him to pass. The Lily Thief—how dramatic the moniker was! And how amusing his exploits were, tweaking the noses of some of the ton’s most misguided collectors. If only…

If only it was not so dangerous, and destructive. Cam was usually the first to applaud daring, to laud independence, even eccentricity. Look at his own family! Eccentrics one and all. But some things were simply too important to trifle with, including objects of immense cultural heritage. Like that diadem, or the other antiquities that fell into the Lily Thief’s hands. Who knew where those precious pieces had gone? What would become of them?

And then there were objects that had not yet fallen to the Lily Thief. Objects whose fate was even more vile. Averton’s Artemis, for instance.

Cam’s gloved hands fisted on the reins, causing the horses to toss their heads restlessly. He forced himself to relax, murmuring to them soothingly, but by damn, there was nothing that made him more furious than the Duke of “Avarice”!

That Artemis was snatched from her home on Delos, the place where she had belonged for thousands of years. She was Greek, and now she was merely an object of greed for an English lord. A vile man who had no care for her true worth.

“You know of Artemis?” Cam could almost hear his mother whisper so long ago, her accent as warm and musical as her Athenian home. “Zeus’ favourite child, the goddess of the moon and the hunt, the Maiden of the Silver Bow. She races through the forest in her silver chariot, always free, never the possession of any man. Once she shot an arrow into a vast city of unjust men, and the arrow pierced all of them, never ceasing in its flight until justice was served…”

And now she was a prisoner, locked away from the Greek moonlight for ever.

What would the learned Miss Chase say about that? For Cameron was certain she had an opinion about the Duke of “Avarice” and his newest prize, his famed Alabaster Goddess. But would she tell that opinion to him?

The traffic snarl finally eased a bit, letting him guide the horses through on their way home. Yes, indeed. Calliope Chase was sure to have something to say about it all. And he very much looked forward to hearing it.

Chapter Two

Calliope watched in her dressing table mirror, distracted, as her maid brushed out her hair in preparation for the evening ahead. A musicale, featuring not the usual young and untalented misses with their harps and pianofortes, but a recreation of music that might have been performed at plays by Aeschylus and Euripides at the great festivals of ancient times. She had been very much looking forward to it, it was just the sort of thing that most fascinated her. But now her thoughts were scattered and hazy, scudding here and there like springtime clouds.

She couldn’t stop thinking about Lord Westwood. He just kept popping into her mind, the vision of him outside her window, laughing and windblown and carefree.

“Pfft,” she sighed impatiently, reaching for one of the small white roses on the table and tearing at the soft petals. It was ever thus when she saw Cameron de Vere. He unsettled her, made her feel so ridiculously flustered and foolish. His smiles, so mocking, made her angry and impatient. So disordered.

He was an impossible man, with such incorrect ideas. But why didn’t he like her?

“Miss Chase!” her maid protested. “There will be no flowers left for your hair.”

Calliope glanced down, startled to see that she had destroyed two roses. “Sorry, Mary,” she muttered, dropping the denuded stem.

“Shall I try that new Artemis style, miss? It’s ever so popular!”

“No, thank you,” Calliope said, shuddering at the thought of appearing at the party with the same coiffure as everyone else. “Just my usual.”

Mary pouted a bit. She had surely long thought her talents were wasted on Calliope and her conservative tastes! But Calliope could not help it. She knew what suited her, what she liked.

And she had even dared fantasise once that Cameron de Vere would “suit her”. When he first arrived back in London, after a very long voyage to Italy and Greece, rumours raced through the drawing rooms of how handsome he was, how dashing, how scandalous. But that was not what fascinated her. She was interested in the fact that he was a student of art and history, as she was. She longed to hear tales of his travels, to see the beautiful antiquities he had surely brought back with him for study and preservation.

It seemed they were destined to be friends, as their fathers had once been many years ago. Sir Walter Chase and the late Earl of Westwood were both scholars and collectors, great rivals as well as friends. The earl finally pulled the trump card in their collecting race, a bride who was actually Greek, not just French as Lady Chase was. Calliope and Cameron both grew up surrounded by the glories of the ancient world, though they never met after the de Veres departed for their incessant travels when their son was small.

When he came back to London, a grown man, the earl in his own right now, Calliope listened to the whispers about him and dared to let a tiny hope grow in her heart. Could this, then, finally be a man who could understand her? Share her passions, as none of her suitors could?

Those hopes were blighted when they at last met in person, at a reception he gave at his parents’ townhouse, his house now.

From her earliest childhood, Calliope remembered an antiquity she had adored, a bust of Hermes that once graced the foyer of that house. Her father had tried to buy it, but the old earl refused all offers, much to Calliope’s sadness. She loved Hermes’ mischievous smile, carved to be almost lifelike in the cold marble, loved his winged helmet and the swirls of his curling hair. She was so very excited the night of that reception, so looking forward to seeing Hermes again.

But he was not there! His niche was empty, as were all the others that had once held exquisite vases and goblets. Stunned, Calliope stayed there in the foyer as her father and sisters joined the gathering in the drawing room. She stood below that empty niche, staring up as if she could make her Hermes appear. Her plans for this reception—seeing all the lovely antiquities, meeting the new earl, talking with him about those cherished objects and perhaps forming a bond—were completely thrown awry.

Calliope did not much like having her plans upset.

“Well,” she heard a voice say, deep and velvety, faintly amused “you must be the missing Miss Chase.”

Calliope glanced over her shoulder to find a man standing a few feet away, a faint half-smile on his lips, as sensual as that of her lost Hermes. He was dressed most properly, in buff breeches, a dark blue coat, and a pale grey brocade waistcoat, his cravat simply tied and skewered with a cameo pin. Yet he seemed an alien creature dropped into the sumptuous foyer, a man of bronzed skin and too-long, glossy dark curls. Of flashing, familiar brown eyes.

“The Greek god,” she remembered Lotty sighing. “Oh, Calliope, he is a veritable Greek god!”

“And you must be Lord Westwood,” she answered coolly, disconcerted by her reaction to him, to that smile of his. This was not how she pictured their meeting!

“I am indeed,” he said, moving closer, graceful as a cat. He stopped close to her side, so close she could smell the faint lemony scent of his cologne, feel the heat of his skin, reaching towards her enticingly. She stepped away, closer to the reassuring chill of the marble wall.

“There used to be a bust of Hermes here,” she said, swallowing hard to still the sudden tremor of her voice. “A most beautiful piece.”

“Most beautiful,” he answered, gazing not at the niche, but at her. Steadily. “I returned it to Greece. Where it belongs.”

And that was when she knew they could never be friends…

“Miss Chase? What do you think?”

Calliope jumped a bit in her seat, startled out of her memories by the sudden sound of Mary’s voice. She glanced into the mirror, only to find that her cheeks were flushed, her eyes too bright. As if that scene in the de Vere foyer, weeks in the past now, had only just happened.

But her hair was tidy, swept back in her usual braided knot and decorated with the remaining white roses, her curls perfectly smooth.

“It’s lovely, Mary. As usual,” Calliope said breathlessly.

Mary nodded, satisfied, and went about finding Calliope’s shawl and slippers. Calliope reached for her pearl drop earrings, trying to forget that past evening, to focus on the soirée ahead. Cameron de Vere did not matter in the least! He was merely a misguided individual. Albeit a handsome one.

As she clasped on the earrings, there was a knock at her chamber door. “The carriage is waiting, Miss Chase,” the butler announced.

“Thank you,” Calliope answered. She took a deep breath, and rose slowly from her seat. It was time for the show to begin.

“If Lady Russell’s plumes were any higher, I fear she would launch up into the sky like some demented parrot and leave us quite without a hostess,” Clio whispered, leaning close to Calliope’s ear.

Calliope pressed her gloved fingertips to her lips, trying not to laugh aloud. The hostess of the musicale did indeed look a bit like a bizarre parrot, with towering, multi-coloured feathers spraying forth from a purple-and-green satin turban. Clio always did this; she was so very quiet that everyone believed she had nothing to add to any conversation and thus ignored her. This was a great mistake, for her sharp green eyes observed everything, and she sometimes broke forth with startling—and acerbic—insights. Comparisons to jungle parrots were quite mild for her.

“But what of Miss Pratt-Beckworth?” Calliope whispered back. “I’m afraid someone told the poor girl that orange stripes were all the rage this season and she believed them.”

“Indeed. It is better than that chartreuse creation she wore to the opera last week. Perhaps the Ladies Society needs to take her under its wing?” Clio shook her head sadly.

Calliope joined her in perusing the room, turning away from the mediocre painting of a stormy sea she and Clio had been pretending to admire. An evening of ancient Greek music would surely not sound too jolly to most of the ton, but Lady Russell was popular, turban or no, and tended to attract around her those of a more philosophical bent. So the room was quickly filling up, people milling about between the rows of gilt chairs, chatting and sipping lemonade—and stronger beverages—before the music began. It was not a “dreadful crush” by any means. There was no danger of overheating, or fainting, or having one’s train trodden on. But the colours were vivid against Lady Russell’s collection of bad paintings and very good antique statuary, a swirl of pastels, blues, greens, reds—and one orange—mingling with the hum of conversation. Talk of music and history were de rigeur tonight, exactly what Calliope usually loved.

But she could not entirely concentrate on the classical world. She still felt so restless. Unfocused.

Next to Calliope, Clio removed her spectacles, squinting out at the crowd as she rubbed the bridge of her nose. Unlike Calliope, who usually wore Grecian white muslin because it was the simplest choice, Clio was clad in emerald-green silk embroidered with a gold-key pattern, her auburn hair bound back by a gilded bandeau. A parrot of a far more subtle sort.

“What do you think, Cal?” she asked quietly. “Is the Lily Thief among us tonight?”

Calliope stiffened. The Lily Thief—how could she forget? Her gaze quickly scanned the gathering, jumping lightly from one young man to the next. There were so many there, tall, short, plain, handsome. Yet not the one she sought.

Could that possibly be the cause of her strange restlessness?

Certainly not! Calliope shrugged that away. The doings of Cameron de Vere were none of her concern. Just because she had been certain a Greek evening would appeal to him…

“I don’t believe so,” she said.

“Then you do suspect his identity?” Clio asked. “You know?”

“I don’t know,” Calliope answered impatiently. “How could I? I simply have an idea.”

“Yet he is not here, your suspect?”

Calliope shook her head.

“But then how…?” Clio could not say more, though. Thalia called to her from across the room, where she was closely examining the musicians’ instruments—much to their chagrin. Clio wandered away, leaving Calliope alone.

There were several friends she could join—indeed, a few people she really ought to speak to. She feared she would not be good company at the moment, not with such wild thoughts of de Vere and the Lily Thief whirling through her mind. She placed her half-empty glass on the nearest table and drifted away from the crowd towards the doors of Lady Russell’s conservatory.

The glassed-in space was invitingly warm, scented with the rich, green fragrance of geraniums, lavender, mint, the earthiness of the damp soil. The room was empty now, though softly lit and furnished with scattered wrought-iron settees for visitors. Calliope welcomed the silence, the moment to collect her thoughts and become her usual calm self again.

At the far end of the conservatory was a cluster of antique statues, a stone Aphrodite and her scantily clad acolytes. They watched all the horticulture with expressions of impassive, scornful beauty. They were quite stunning, and their cold perfection drew Calliope closer.

“If only I could be like you,” she whispered to the disdainful Aphrodite. “So very—certain. So unchanging. No doubts or fears.”

“How very dull that would be,” Westwood said.

“Did you follow me in here?’ she asked, not surprised, glancing over at him.

“On the contrary, Miss Chase,” he said, giving her one of his too-charming smiles. “I was in here enjoying a quiet moment to finish my wine…” He displayed a half-empty glass. “And here you came, talking to yourself. One couldn’t help but overhear.”

Calliope reached behind her to plant her palms on the cold stone base, trying to hold herself upright, to maintain some dignity. His cognac-coloured eyes, so deep and opaque, seemed to see far too much. She didn’t know where to look, where to turn.

“I, too, was looking for a quiet moment,” she said finally. “Before the music begins.”

He nodded understandingly. “Sometimes people ask for too much. The only recourse is solitude.” He took a step closer, then another. Calliope shivered in her thin gown, yet he no longer watched her. He gazed up at the statue.

“You chose a fine confidante,” he said. “She looks so very—knowing. As if she has seen everything in the long years of her life.”

Calliope, too, glanced up at Aphrodite, her pointed, cracked white chin, the clusters of her rippling hair. She did seem knowing, mocking even. Just as Westwood himself was. “I wonder what she makes of Lady Russell’s routs? How they compare to the revels of Greece.”

He laughed, that rich, rough sound that touched her to her very core. “I am sure she thinks them very tame affairs indeed! For did she not come from the inner sanctum of a temple to Aphrodite, where there were, er…”

“Orgies?”

He glanced towards her, his brow arched in sudden amusement. “Miss Chase. How very shocking.”

Calliope could feel her cheeks heat under his regard, but she forced the horrid blush away. A scholar did not always have time for niceties. “My father possesses an extensive library on the ancient world. I have read much of it, including John Galt’s Letters from the Levant. And Lady Mary Wortley Montague’s narratives of her travels.”

“Of course. Well, after the orgies, she must find musical evenings a bit tedious. I’m sure she was most happy you chose to converse with her.”

Calliope reached out to touch Aphrodite’s sandaled foot, the stone cold through the thin kid of her glove. This was the best sort of confidante—the mute sort. “If it was up to you, she would surely be sent back to moulder in the ruins of her erstwhile temple, with no one to talk to at all.”

“Ah, Miss Chase.” He leaned even closer to murmur in her ear, his warm breath lightly stirring the curls at her temple. “Who says all the orgies have ended?”

Calliope stared up at him, captured by his voice, his breath, his gaze—everything. It was as if she was suddenly paralysed and could not move, could not turn away. All time was suspended, and there was only him.

He, too, seemed startled by whatever this moment was. He watched her, his lips parted, the glass in his hand perfectly still.

“Miss Chase,” he murmured. “I…”

Outside their green sanctuary, the sound of music tuning up began, and it was as if the prosaic noise burst some enchantment, some spell. He shifted back, and she turned her head away, sucking in a deep breath. She felt as though she had just run a long distance, all achy and airless.

“Shall we go in?” he said, his voice taut, even deeper.

“Of course,” Calliope whispered. She spun around and marched back along the flagstone walkway, smoothing her palms over her warm cheeks. He was behind her. She could hear his steps, the soft rustle of his superfine coat, but mercifully he did not offer his arm or touch her.

She wasn’t sure what she would do if he did.

Chapter Three

Calliope slipped into the empty chair next to Clio just as the musicians finished tuning their instruments. Her throat ached as she tried to draw in a calm, normal breath, tried to still the clamorous beating of her heart.