Hugh was ready to resume hostilities.
Unaffected by Hugh's ready violence, Ethan gave him a weary look. "Rest easy. I'm no' ogling your precious Jane."
After a long moment, Hugh released him, believing him, although it was hard to understand how any man wouldnot be battling lust for her. "Then what held your attention?"Still he was looking over Hugh's shoulder, and Hugh followed his gaze. "Claudia? The one in the red mask?" That would fit Ethan. Hugh remembered Jane telling him Claudia possessed a wild and wicked nature.
When no answer came, Hugh turned back. "Belinda? The tall brunette?"
Ethan shook his head slowly, never taking his eyes from the object of his attention - the third girl, a short blonde wearing a blue mask, whom Hugh didn't recognize.
Since the injury to his face, Ethan had seemed to lose interest in so many things - including chasing skirts, as he'd once been wont to do. Now, it was as if years ofsomething , some kind of need, rushed to the fore.
Ethan, it seemed, wasnot immune.
The unusual notice shocked Hugh. "I doona know her, but she must be one of Jane's friends. And she looks young, no' more than twenty. Too young for you." Ethan was an old,old thirty-three.
"If I'm as bad as you and Court and all of the clan believe, then I'll find her that much more enticing for it, will I no'?" In the blink of an eye, Ethan's hand shot out to snare a passing masquerade-goer's domino. The man opened his mouth to object, took one look at Ethan's ominous expression, and darted away.
"Doona toy with her, Ethan."
"Afraid I'll ruin your chances with Jane?" Ethan asked as he donned the mask. "Hate to remind you, brother, but they were ruined before you even met her. And you've got a book to prove it."
Shadowed to walk with death...
"Your fate is just as grim as mine," Hugh reminded him, "yet you're going after a woman."
"Ah, but I'm in no danger of falling in love with her" - he turned to stride into the masquerade, tossing over his shoulder - "so it's no' likely my dallying will get her killed."
With a grated sound of frustration, Hugh followed him in.
Chapter 3~4
Chapter Three
Abrick dropped into a reticule was a necessary evil when touring Haymarket Street, Jane Weyland knew, but the drawstring strap was murder on her wrist.
As Jane and her companions - two intrepid cousins and their visiting friend - waited impatiently in queue for admission to the Haymarket warehouse, Jane shifted the bag to her other hand yet again.
Though tonight was by no means their first foray totickle a bit at London's dark underbelly - their decadent haunts included the east-end gaming dens, the racy stereoscopic pictorial shows, the annual Russian Circus Erotisk - the lascivious scene that greeted them gave even Jane pause.
A horde of courtesans fronted the warehouse like a painted, and aggressive, army. Masked, well-dressed patrons, in clothing that screamed stock-exchange funds or old-money tweed and university, perused the wares, physically sampling before deciding which one, or ones, they would sponsor and escort inside.
"Janey, you've never told us what brought about this change of heart about attending," her cousin Claudia said in a light tone, no doubt trying to relax the others. "But I've a theory." She must dread that the others would back out. Raven-haired "Naughty Claudie," tonight sporting a scarlet mask, lived for thrills like this.
"Do tell," said her sister Belinda, a heads-and-tails opposite of Claudia. Belinda was brilliant and serious-minded, here tonight for "research," and not euphemistically. She planned to expose "egregious social inequities," but wanted to write with authority on the subject of, well, the other side of inequity. Already, Jane could tell, Belinda was eyeing the scene in terms of reform from behind her cream-colored mask.
"Did we need a reason to come," asked the mysterious Madeleine Van Rowen, "other than the fact that this is a courtesans' ball?" Maddy was a childhood friend of Claudia's who was visiting for a few weeks. She was English by birth, but now lived in Paris - a seedy Parisian garret, if rumors were to be believed.
Jane suspected that Maddy had journeyed to London to call on an old friendship and see if she could snare Claudia's older brother, Quin. Jane was not at all perturbed by this. If Madeleine could get Quin to settle down and marry, then she deserved him and all his money.
In fact, Jane genuinely liked the girl, who fit in with their set perfectly. Jane, Belinda, and Claudia were three of the Weyland Eight - eight female first cousins notorious for adventures, pranks, and general hijinks - and were the only ones born and bred in London. Like all young Londoners who had coin in their pockets, they spent their days and nights recklessly pursuing all the modern pleasures to be had in this mad city, and all the old sins still on offer, within reason.
Jane and her cousins were moneyed, but not aristocratic. They were gently bred but savvy, ladylike but jaded. Like Jane and her cousins, Maddy knew how to take care of herself and seemed perfectly at ease in the face of this risqué masquerade.
As if revealing a great secret, Claudia said, "Jane's finally going to accept that gorgeous Freddie Bidworth's proposal."
Guilt flared, and Jane adjusted her emerald green mask to disguise it. "You've got me all figured out, Claudie." She and Freddie Bidworth were an item of sorts, and everyone assumed Jane would eventually marry Freddie - including him. But Jane had yet to accept the rich, handsome aristocrat.
And she feared she never could.
That conclusion was what had brought about her change of heart tonight concerning the masquerade - she needed something to get her mind off the conundrum she found herself in. At twenty-seven, Janeknew prospects like him would only become more and more scarce. And if she didn't marry Freddie, then whom? Janeknew the train was leaving the station, yet she couldn't board.
She'd told her cousins she wavered because of Freddie's horrid mother and sister. In truth, she'd hesitated because, her upstanding father excepted, she didn't trust men.
Over the last couple of years, Jane had begun to realize she'd been ruined. Not socially ruined. No matter how badly the Weyland Eight behaved, they never could seem to manage that coup, since her unassuming father, a mere businessman, had an inexplicable influence with the aristocracy and powerful government figures. Invitations continued to arrive, even as the cousins shook their baffled heads.
No, a black-haired Scot with a deep, husky voice and intense eyes had ruined Jane - though he had never touched her, never even kissed her, no matter how much she'd teased and tempted him.
Belinda frowned at Jane. "You've come to terms with Bidworth's family?"
"Yes, I believe so," Jane replied carefully. "I've just been moving slowly with something so important." Slowly? Freddie had asked her the first time nearly a year ago.
"Are these wild oats we're sowing, Jane?" Maddy asked, making Jane wonder how wild any oats would seem to a woman from the not-nice part of Paris. Sometimes on their nightly thrill-seeking adventures, Maddy had appeared...bored. "A last hurrah?"
"Did we need a reason to come," Jane said wryly, repeating Maddy, "other than the fact that this is a courtesans' ball?"
Luckily, they'd reached the bottleneck of the entrance, where a burly attendant with a pig mask and a shining pate accepted the steep admission price, so the subject was dropped. As the four labored to keep their skirts from being dirtied in the crush, Jane tendered a guinea apiece for everyone - mainly to pay for Maddy and not hurt her pride.
Though Maddy was attired in a lavish sapphire gown, Jane had seen the girl's trunks in Claudia's room and knew her stockings and underthings had been mended and remended. Her jewels were paste. Maddy spoke of French mansions and elegant parties, but Jane suspected she was nearly destitute. Sometimes the girl had a back against-the-wall air about her.
Once the attendant waved them through, Jane blithely crossed the threshold with the others close behind. Inside the warehouse, masses of perfumed bodies swarmed around the edges of the central dance floor, or waltzed to the jaunty music of a seven-man band. Legally, this place was termed an "unlicensed dance hall."
Those in the know called it "the Hive."
If the outside of the Hive had been rough and unassuming, the interior was lush. The walls were silk papered, and expensive-smelling incense burned, oozing a flat layer of smoke that floated just over the heads of the crowd. Along the walls were massive murals, hanging from shiny brass chains and painted with nymphs and priapic satyrs in lurid poses. Beneath the murals were Persian rugs with pillows cast about. There, women kissed lechers and fondled them artfully through their breeches - or were fondled in return.