Flametouched Page 22

  He kept a careful eye on Arianne as the ladies dove in and out of her circle, probably pecking at her for news. It would take work to pry her away from the needling women to have any real chance at extracting news from her. While he couldn’t say for sure, it appeared the men were busily and hopefully commenting among themselves while throwing inviting glances her way. Perhaps her rejection of the Earl of Longford’s presumptuous proposal had circulated, as well.

  The hall continued to fill with familiar faces and Davon kept to his plant until he grew tired of its company. This is ridiculous. He amended his plans. He just needed to leave as soon and as inconspicuously as possible. While the Queen might not see him, he could, if called upon to report, honestly tell her that he had attended. He could appeal to the strange Melchor Raines as proof. Chances were that Filippa wouldn’t even miss him or even care that he had come, despite the specific invitation.

  “Mr. Harper!” Lady Hightower exclaimed, emerging from the crowd with a bemused face. “What are you doing here?”

  Davon bowed. “The Queen incomprehensibly invited Mr. Lambert and me to this ball. I’ve been asking this plant to dance for some time now to no avail, so I was about to leave.”

  She laughed. “I am sorry for your lack of success with such a lovely plant. I am glad to see you, though I’m afraid I have a complaint to lodge against you.”

  What have I done now? “And what is that, Lady Hightower?”

  “Well, after your assistance several days ago, I commented to Missa that you made a better doctor than a patient. But a good doctor, Mr. Harper, checks up on his patients to make sure the remedy has taken hold. No apologies for your failure, Mr. Harper, only explanations.”

  She was playful. That was good. Her spirits had returned. “Doctoring is a new profession for me, I’m afraid, and I do not know my duties well. How is your cheek faring?”

  She seemed satisfied with the answer. “Very well. The herb had set a reek about the entire room by morning, but the bruise was nearly imperceptible in two days.”

  “And can I assume by the speculative glances of the young men in the crowd that you must have had some resolution to the other matter as well?”

  A blush reddened her cheeks. “Yes. I think I exercised considerable restraint considering how violent my feelings had been. The Earl of Longford took it well but is undaunted in his determination. As for my parents, my restraint was less shackled as I wrote that particular note. They have yet to send a reply or even visit me since that time, though they are here in town. I thank you for your advice as much as your herbs, Mr. Harper. You seem to see very clearly. It must be your spectacles.”

  The herald pounded his staff. “Earl Weston Kernwill of Tahbor and his fiancée, Widow Lady Emile Carver of Frostbourne.”

  Davon shrunk involuntarily behind the plant, Lady Hightower’s gaze following his to the entryway where the couple entered. It took a concentrated force of will to steady the hammering in his chest and clear his mind. He couldn’t determine if fear of discovery or the woman herself caused his indisposition. She was clearly in her element, a trophy for her lordly fiancé and proud to walk at his side. She was happy then. He wasn’t sure if he should feel loss or be pleased at the success of his plan.

  “Are you well, Mr. Harper?” Lady Hightower asked, eyes sympathetic.

  “I am fine, thank you, Lady Hightower,” he said. “I think I am a little hungry. I have yet to eat because I’m afraid that if I approach the table dressed like this, I will either end up serving food or getting kicked out for looking like I came in off the street to beg. You’re a friend of the Queen. Perhaps you could ask her to explain this bizarre invitation. It sent Mr. Lambert to his sickbed.”

  Arianne laughed. “I will inquire for you and report. Do you—”

  “Dearest Arianne! Why are you talking to this…person?” It was Lady Carmen Drury of Underton, wife of a Baron. Davon recognized her, the Lady’s penchant for gaudy fashion setting her apart from the rest of the finely dressed ladies. Her dress was colored an improbable green, and he was sure her hat had denuded an entire gilded partridge. She had turned the corner from youth to age and possessed an enthusiasm for all things gossip.

  “This is Mr. David Harper, Lady Drury,” Arianne said. “He’s the one that rescued us from the scandalous Aid Society plot that robbed our estates year after year. He is also Flametouched.”

  “That’s nice, dear,” Lady Drury said while scanning the crowd. “My nephew is around here somewhere, and I wondered if you would do me the honor of meeting him. He is quite handsome! Now that the matter with you and the Earl is in question, I thought it might be a good opportunity for you to meet a few eligible men.”

  The Herald’s staff struck again. “Duke Miles Longford, Duchess Dayna Longford, and Earl Uticus Longford, Hero of Harrickshire.”

  The Longfords, prim, proper, and dressed to shame the room, were one of the oldest families in the Kingdom, one of the few left whose names matched the property they owned. The Duke was an average-sized man with a controlled, oval face, coal black eyes, and a gray wig hiding whatever time had done to his hair. His wife was plump and bedecked with a drawer full of jewelry. For having recently earned the rebuff of the woman he was courting, the Earl of Longford appeared in remarkably good spirits. Lady Hightower didn’t even bother to turn to look at him.

  All part of the game, Davon surmised with a smirk.

  “Shall we go, Lady Hightower?” Lady Drury prodded. “I should like you to get acquainted with him before Earl Longford siphons away all your time in an attempt to recover you.”

  The Lady Hightower seemed torn, so Davon rescued her. “Thank you for your well wishes, Lady Hightower,” he said. “I was about to leave. It was a pleasure to speak with you.”

  Did she appear disappointed?

  “Very well, but I will get you the answer you requested as soon as I can.”

  He genuflected and Lady Drury dragged her off into the crowd.

  Time to leave.

  He checked the room to ensure that Emile was nowhere near his intended route of departure and waited for the orchestra to kick up a tune to dance by. The dance would pull all eyes to the floor and no one would notice him scurry away like a rat into the night. As soon as the violins began their lilting tune, he commenced his journey, noticing Lady Hightower—paired with Lady Drury’s nephew—regarding him.

  I think I could tolerate a ball if I could spend it with her.

  He continued on, swooping in close enough to the food table to grab a bit of the proffered cake before walking nondescriptly toward the door. The servants stationed there were about to open it for him when a hand grabbed his arm in a firm grip, sending his cake to the floor. The Lord High Sheriff pulled him aside. “Leaving, are we, Mr. Harper?” he asked, voice flat, but emphasis on the name chilling.

  “I was, Milord,” Davon said. “I can’t see a purpose in staying here amongst my betters, so I thought I might try the ceremonies at the Flame Cathedral.”

  The Sheriff’s expression was impossible to read, a skill that had no doubt served him well in his profession. It froze Davon’s blood. “The Queen asked me to make sure you didn’t leave before she arrived. So sit tight, Baron, and watch your equals for a while.”

  Baron. Davon’s face blanched, fear pricking his skin. It was over. His charade had come to an end. His limbs didn’t seem to want to work anymore, and he let the Lord High Sheriff pull him aside. What had betrayed him? In his mind he retraced his actions and his interactions. At no point had anyone shown the slightest flicker of recognition when they had met him. Perhaps Mr. Lambert or another of the Queen’s agents had actually decided to investigate his fabricated background, of which, he realized, he had not been particularly consistent in the telling.

  “Perhaps we should retire to some location more private?” Davon suggested.

  “No, no,” the sheriff replied, eyes and face hard, even a little angry. “I have orders to keep you here, Lord Carver. I’m sure
this will be one of the more memorable Day of Burning Balls in recent history. There was always something just a little off about you. I had started to forget my first impressions of Mr. Harper. I’d wager skulking off on your wife would account for that nervous, hunted cast to your face that I noticed when I first saw you.”

  Running for the door crossed Davon’s mind. The sheriff no longer had a lock on his arm and Davon could run like a purebred racehorse in a pinch. Only two bored servants and the outer door guard separated him from the freedom of the street.

  “Don’t even think about it, Carver,” the sheriff remonstrated. “I know that look. I’ve got men in the street that will put a bullet in you if you so much as poke your nose out the door.”

  “Queen Filippa of Bittermarch!”

  The music died and the entire room bowed as the Queen and two Ladies in Waiting entered through the door Davon had just eyed as his escape route. Noticing Davon, the Queen shuffled over and grabbed his arm, pulling him forward.

  “I must apologize, Lord Carver, for what I am about to do. I’m afraid this easy life you have constructed for yourself is at an end. I no longer need Mr. David Harper. I need Baron Davon Carver. All rise!”

  Davon turned to her. “I beg of you, do this privately, Your Grace, not for my sake, but for that of the Lady Carver.”

  Her return expression was almost sinister, and she lowered her voice to a whisper. “I have no mind to spare Lady Carver any pain whatsoever. She certainly spared you none. I think a good shock might take a little of the starch out of her stockings. Again, forgive me.”

  She stopped as the assembled nobles awaited her pleasure, some nattering to each other, no doubt about why the Queen chose an underclerk as her escort. Releasing his arm but indicating that he should stay put, she turned to the audience. Davon, stripped of his pride, face burning, stared at the floor in shame.

  “Lords and Ladies, friends and enemies, welcome to the Day of Burning Ball!” Polite laughter and clapping ensued, which the Queen waved off. “Now, I am quite sure that by now you have all run out of any good or witty conversation and are no doubt in want of some bit of gossip to fill your mouths and the time. It is with some sadness I announce the death of a rather illustrious person, Mr. David Harper.” The Queen appeared to enjoy the confusion for a moment. “While his demise is tragic to say the least, his birth, perhaps, was the greater tragedy. You see, David Harper had no natural mother, but was rather the offspring of one man’s pain and desperate imagination.

  “Beside me is the man who brought David Harper into the world nearly a year ago. David Harper has done us honorable and brave service, but I must lay him in his grave now. The man who has served as my underclerk, who exposed the Aid Society plot, and who is registered as a member of the House of Light is not Mister David Harper as he would have us think, but rather Lord Davon Carver of Frostbourne.”

  Gasps faded to gawking, searching stares. In a fit of pride, Davon lifted his burning face to the on-looking crowd, fighting to keep his knees from pounding out a racket one against the other. Shock. Disgust. Disdain. Anger. And then Arianne. Pity and tears. The whispering began to boil when the Queen raised her voice.

  “Hear me!” she yelled. The crowd quieted. “Hear my punishments that—”

  Before she could finish, a haunted, disbelieving Emile emerged from the throng. She stepped forward cautiously, mouth agape, as if approaching someone so diseased or mutilated as to be repulsive at a distance. She stopped in front of him and Davon removed his glasses. The crowd went dead quiet as she examined him and then punished him with a stinging slap.

  “Cannot even the grave rid me of you?” she screamed hysterically, naked fury consuming her. She backed away from him. “I hate you! I hate you! I HATE you!” She swooned, unsteady. “I am getting married! Do you hear me! To a Duke! Die! Just die…” Her words faded with her consciousness, eyes rolling into her head as she collapsed in a heap on the floor.

  “Oh dear,” the Queen intoned coldly. “Would one of you gentlemen please scoop the Lady up? Earl Tahbor, perhaps? No? By all means, someone help her and convey her to the infirmary.”

  In the end, the Lord High Sheriff drafted two of his men to the task, shooting Davon a look of disgust while they executed it.

  The Queen continued. “Now, good people, hear what I have to say. I pronounce that Davon and Emile Carver are divorced effective from the date Lord Carver left her. Her marriage to the Earl of Tahbor may proceed unhindered…that is, if both parties are still agreeable. I strip Lord Carver of his lands, his honor, and his freedom until such time as I redeem him. He will be resident in the Queen’s dungeon until I will it otherwise. Lord High Sheriff, remove him and deal with him as I have instructed you.

  “Now where is the cake? I hear it is especially moist and I wouldn’t want it to go stale before I sampled it.”

  Melchor Raines couldn’t suppress a grin. So Mr. David Harper, sharpshooting clerk, had no connection with the Queen’s agents and had stumbled upon the Aid Society plot by chance? He had abandoned his wife and assumed another identity? It explained a few loose ends that had troubled Melchor.

  First, the trained eye could spot Mr. Harper’s sloppy disguise in an instant. The glasses clearly hindered rather than helped him, and the poor man could hardly remember which leg to limp on. But had he really stumbled into the Boot and Wheel Caravan Company and uncovered the suspicious accounting by happenstance? Had he really been perfectly placed to shoot down the phony assassins in Harrickshire? And would a Lord of Bittermarch be so clever as to sneak the ledgers into Bellshire as he did, not to mention blasting down the men sent to kill him with uncanny skill?

  And then actual shame and embarrassment as the Queen exposed him. These from a man who fought Dales with knives and shot men without a second thought. Lord Davon Carver simply didn’t add up. Perhaps the man didn’t see that the Queen had merely taken from him what he had already given up, or notice that she had a particular fondness for him.

  He would ask Ambassador Creetis what he knew of Davon Carver, but for the present the disgraced Lord would disappear from view and would no longer serve as the patsy as Melchor had planned. He needed another, and now that Melchor knew the secret of the pretended fame of Earl Uticus Longford, he could squeeze him into filling the role Agor Ghest, leader of The Fist, had in mind.

  If the original plans of Ambassador Clout had provided any fruit whatsoever, then this next move would not have been necessary. But parading all the dead bodies of the supposed victims of the massacre through Bittermarch and all the fiery rhetoric in the House of Lords had hardly started the rebellion against the Queen that Horace had hoped. The old lady had grit. She was cleverer than Horace had anticipated. She knew that if Creetis dared take the first step toward war that Bittermarch would rise up and squash them like insignificant insects.

  So with Horace’s plan failing miserably, Agor Ghest had sent Melchor some private instructions outside of the Ambassador’s knowledge. Still, the Ambassador had one more part to play.

  From the relative safety beside the plant previously occupied by the late Mr. Harper, Melchor surveyed the room. The Queen had certainly been right about one thing: the scandalous affair had woken up tired tongues and minds, the entire room now aflame with speculation and mockery. The sleepy Earl of Tahbor had left soon after his fiancée had collapsed. Some speculated that he went to console his bride; Melchor rather thought he would be consoling his horses after whipping them all the way back to Tahbor. The Queen, quite oddly pleased with herself, appeared the only content, carefree person in the room.

  After a little searching he found his intended target, Uticus Longford, in a side room accompanied by his parents and the lovely Arianne Hightower. A pale, drawn visage afflicted the noblewoman, the only one, Melchor noticed, who had shed any tear of sympathy for poor Davon Carver. It would be a shame when such a beautiful bird as Lady Hightower ended up caged in a real dungeon rather than the Queen’s more accommodating one where Davo
n would serve.

  She was a vision, though. Melchor reined in his thoughts with effort. The ladies of Bittermarch, like the larders, were luxurious and well appointed, unlike the ascetic, scrawny offerings of his own land. These distractions, however, were beneath a member of The Fist and he turned his attention back to the business at hand.

  The Earl had placed himself across from his intended bride, no doubt to lend himself an advantageous view of her gifts. His father, the Duke of Longford, had embarked on a sour lament.

  “Such a blight! Such a blight on our fair country to have this cowardly, base behavior turn us all to fools! Were I a younger man, I would shoot Lord Carver myself! I hope the Queen has him horsewhipped daily until either the idiot or his idiocy is dead!”

  Lord Longford cut his comments short as Melchor approached. The four nobles eyed the representative of Creetis narrowly as he invaded the area where they conversed. Lady Hightower appeared on the verge of tears.

  Melchor dropped into his ridiculous fop persona. “I do hate to trouble you,” he apologized obsequiously. “But I wonder if I might have a word with the Earl.”

  The incensed Duke Longford regarded him as he would a pile of dung on his driveway. “Creetis can have no business that concerns my son. Now be gone. Back to your Master and his lies.”

  Melchor bowed low. “Pardon me. I just wished to inquire about some rumors going around about Harrickshire and the credit of it. I will leave you.”

  He turned to go, noting Lady Hightower’s surprised look. Uticus, while not as demonstrative, remained composed by comparison. His parents might mistake their son’s shocked expression for indignation.

  So the Lady Hightower knows, Melchor thought as he hummed and minced back to the main room. The reports of the events hadn’t mentioned her as a witness. Had Uticus told her that Davon Carver had killed the three horsemen? Had Davon Carver confided it to her during his brief visit to Hightower? Most importantly, did other people know of Uticus’s fraud?

  The Earl found him sooner than Melchor had expected, stopping him near the food table during a dance.