The Birth of Blue Satan Read online

  “Her dowry is adequate. You above others know that I have no need to wed for funds.”

  “Adequate? Need? When have I ever given you the notion that a portion of three thousand pounds is enough to gain admission to this family? For such a paltry sum, I wouldn’t accept her if she was the Virgin Mary herself! And if she’s inherited her mother’s tendencies, I can assure you she is far from that. I will not allow you to be caught by a buxom figure. You can find your fill of those in Drury Lane. And above all—”

  As his father paused to gather his breath, Gideon braced himself for the words he knew would come.

  “— I will never permit a son of mine to marry the daughter of an accursed Whig!”

  Gideon winced as his father launched into another tirade, not about Gideon’s betrayal, but about his duty to their party. It was a theme he had been lectured upon all his life.

  But for once he had heard enough of his father’s diatribes. He refused to allow Lord Hawkhurst’s bitterness to rule his heart.

  So, in a terrible calm, he asked, “How do you mean to stop me, my lord? I will not have my love for Isabella sacrificed on this altar of yours. I intend to wed her, and so I ask you—how do you plan to stop me?”

  At his quiet words, Lord Hawkhurst grew so enraged, Gideon thought he would surely burst a vessel. The flesh on his face turned a purplish hue.

  “I shall withhold your allowance,” Lord Hawkhurst blurted finally. “That should bring you to heel.”

  Despite the tension between them, Gideon nearly smiled. Every time his father was the least bit annoyed, he threatened to withhold Gideon’s allowance. The problem was that Gideon possessed a sizeable fortune of his own, derived from an estate in France, which had been bequeathed to him by his maternal grandfather. It would suffice to maintain him and a wife in a comfortable style. Given this, as well as his disinclination to waste money on vices, and Lord Hawkhurst’s threat lacked punch.

  “I hate to inform you, but you have done such an admirable job in raising me that I save much more money than I spend. It will be a very long time, I fear, before this deprivation can cause me any hardship.”

  Lord Hawkhurst’s expression had begun to relax, and his tantrum might have ended there if Gideon had not perversely added, “So, I shall have to marry Mrs. Isabella without your blessing.”

  This last statement was a leap of faith, since Gideon had not yet proposed and Isabella had not yet accepted. But Lord Hawkhurst did not know this, and his age-lined face hardened again.

  “Then . . . it is over, sir. But I warn you, St. Mars, that that Whig’s daughter shall never enter this house.”

  They parted on that hostile note. As Gideon left by way of the antechamber, James Henry, his father’s receiver-general, glanced up from his work to give him a condemning look. Enraged by this impertinence from his father’s favoured servant, Gideon strode quickly past the white-faced stares of the liveried footmen, who waited in the hall for their master’s orders and stormed out of the Abbey.

  His anger, which was normally quick to fade, remained with him throughout the long, cold journey back. Changing horses at the posting houses he had used on the way down, he pushed them each so hard over the deep Wealden roads as to cover them with mud and sweat. The last horse was his, a fine, handsome bay with a great deal of strength. When he saw how badly he had tired it, he walked it over London Bridge instead of taking the horse ferry at Lambeth.

  It was long after dark by the time he guided his exhausted horse through the shops and the traffic on the bridge, only to find that the City streets were more than usually teeming. In spite of the bitter March air, men spilled out of the coffee houses and taverns, discussing—some in shouts and some in whispers—the day’s disturbing news. Bolingbroke, Viscount St. John, had tried unsuccessfully to justify his actions before Parliament in negotiating the Treaty of Utrecht. Mr. Walpole, the paymaster general of the armed forces—and an up-and-coming force—would chair a Committee of Secrecy to investigate the former ministry and its dealings with France.

  Such an investigation, Gideon knew, was likely to turn up Bolingbroke’s communications with the Pretender, for like many careful men he had hedged his bets, publicly welcoming King George while secretly encouraging James Stuart.

  Gideon had learned this from remarks his father had let drop while bemoaning the lack of leadership in the Stuart cause. But the Jacobites must be aware of it as well, for those in London had clearly been roused.

  He passed an alehouse known to be a Jacobite haunt and heard an itinerant singing man booming out the words of an old and treasonable ditty.

  The Baptist and the Saint

  The Schismatick and Swearer

  Have ta’n the Covenant

  That Jemmy comes not here, sir

  Whilst all this Pious Crew do plot

  To pull Old Jemmy down . . .

  It was not the deposed James II, but the new Jemmy, his son—the Pretender, James Francis Stuart—who inspired them now. The working people would never tire of the rowdy verses that poked fun at the Whigs and Dissenters, the German, and the Dutch, which dated from the time when James II had been overthrown by the Dutch William of Orange. Even with George of Hanover securely on the throne, the treacherous songs were still sung.

  Their harmless words could only rankle Gideon’s feelings now. Bitterness gnawed at his tongue when he thought of how his father’s political sentiments had driven them apart that morning. Their confrontation had confirmed his fears, that the politics practiced by Isabella’s father would count much more heavily against her than a lack of dowry or her mother’s morals. Gideon had known all this, and the state of his father’s mind was the reason he had not informed him of his wish to marry Isabella.

  Lord Hawkhurst lived at his country estate rather than play the hypocrite to Hanover George. Even if he had not chosen to absent himself from St. James’s, his Majesty had made it abundantly clear that Lord Hawkhurst and other High Church Tories would not be welcome at his court.

  Lord Hawkhurst was a Cavalier of the old school, who would rather draw his sword on a Whig than speak civilly to him. If he would seldom remain in a room that a Whig had entered, he was unlikely to permit his son to marry one. Gideon did not agree that his father’s politics should decide whom he could wed, especially when Isabella had no professed opinions of her own. She was young and had no interest in the country’s affairs. Even if she had, Gideon had grown so weary of the political strife tearing his country apart that he had made up his mind that party politics would not rule his life as it had his father’s.

  Now that his temper had had time to run its course, however, he regretted upsetting his father at a time when he had suffered so much disappointment. Lord Hawkhurst had been among the men who had gathered in Kensington at the time of Queen Anne’s death to wait for their Tory friends in government to proclaim James III as king. But the party leadership had failed them. The Whigs had moved faster, taking their places as regents to hold the throne for George’s arrival nearly two months later. Gideon did not know how his father had survived the blow of seeing the Pretender’s best chance wasted through hesitation. He could only be grateful that Lord Hawkhurst’s fiery opinions had never led him to take a rash part in one of the rebellions that had occurred in previous years.

  He hoped for a chance to repair the breach between them. And he consoled himself with the knowledge that Lord Hawkhurst’s tantrums never lasted long. If past experience was to be his guide, he would receive a new summons in a pair of days, bidding him come for a reconciliation. Still, he could not convince himself that Lord Hawkhurst’s opinion of Isabella would undergo as rapid a change.

  While Gideon would permit no faults to be ascribed to her, he had to admit that her mother, Mrs. Mayfield, might have merited his father’s opinion. A shrill voice and the occasional hint of hardness in her eyes had blighted a once-famous beauty. The Honourable Geffrye Mayfield, a man of impeccable lineage, was said to have eloped with her within a month
of their first meeting, an unseemly haste which had given rise to speculation. But whatever the reason for it, Lord Stokely, Mr. Mayfield’s father, had cut his son off with barely a groat. If Mr. Mayfield had not secured a position at Court with the help of a maternal relative, his family would have suffered much.

  But Isabella was so far superior to her mother in every way that Gideon believed it grossly unfair to hold Mrs. Mayfield’s sins against her. He had no fears on the subject of Isabella’s fitness to be his wife. Last autumn, he had returned from three years’ study abroad to find her joy and innocence a welcome contrast to the cynicism and experience of the ladies at the European courts. But in spite of her artless youth—or perhaps because of it—she had raised a desire in him such as he had never known, not even in his earliest encounters with women. He knew he must not marry just to satisfy his carnal desires—the Church was very clear on this subject—but he could not help yearning for the moment he could make her his.

  Consumed by these thoughts, Gideon had ridden back to Hawkhurst House, across from Green Park in Piccadilly, still in such a foul humour as to speak curtly to the new boy in his stables who was slow to take his reins. Normally quick with a smile for his servants, he had soon regretted his angry tone and resolved to go out of his way to speak more kindly to the boy in future. But he had been so anxious to see Isabella, to have her smile reward him for his loyalty, that he had not bothered with such a trifling matter then.

  Now Philippe’s insinuations about the Duke of Bournemouth increased his impatience. His need to speak with Isabella deepened with every passing moment, so he resisted his valet’s more elaborate attempts to arrange his long, powdered wig.

  Eventually, clad in a knee-length coat with large, turned-back cuffs and matching waistcoat in peach-coloured silk with elaborate brocade, a pair of silk inexpressibles, a fall of long, blond lace at his throat, clocked silk stockings and high-heeled shoes, a gold-hilted sword riding at his hip, and a three-cornered hat, Gideon was at last able to leave his house. He had already sent word to have a fresh horse saddled, aware that riding to the ball would get him there sooner than taking a chair. In truth, he still had an edge to his passion to work off before seeing Isabella.

  Stepping out into the wide courtyard of the house, he spied the stocky figure of Thomas Barnes, his groom, walking his mare. Noting the scowl on the face of the man who had guided him and watched over him since his fourth birthday, Gideon smothered an impatient sigh. He was sure to get a sharp scolding, both for his abuse of the horse today and for his intention to ride out unaccompanied so close on midnight.

  No moon was in evidence, and the small bit of light that might have been expected from the stars had been smothered by a layer of cloud. On a night like this, the streets would be thick with thieves, eager to strip an unwary man. Tom would be sorely displeased. But Gideon was not in the mood to take a scolding, not after the one he had received from his father.

  “Good evening, Tom.” Affecting not to notice his servant’s scowl, Gideon reached to take the reins.

  “‘Tis more good morning, my lord.”

  “Do you think? I have not heard the clock strike, but perhaps the chimes are off. You must remind me to have them checked.”

  Gideon’s irony was seldom lost on Thomas Barnes, who snorted. “Your lordship knows full well what time o’ the clock it is, and what your lordship’s asking for t’ be riding out at such an hour.”

  “Now, Tom, you must be aware by now that I am a man fully grown, and as such I may keep the hours I like.”

  “If you are so fully growed, how come your lordship don’t know there’s footpads wandering these streets just a’waiting for a pigeon like your lordship to pluck?”

  “A pigeon? Tom, I fear you do not flatter me.”

  “No. Nor I won’t be flattering your lordship neither till you shows a bit of the sense your father give you.”

  Reins in hand, and reaching for the saddle, Gideon froze. His words, when they came, were very low. “Thomas, this scolding will have to cease or I shall be forced to find a groom who does not seek to remind me that he instructed me to hold the reins. It is quite beyond my limits to have you pull a prosy face in front of my friends.”

  “I don’t see no friends about,” Tom mumbled, as he bent to give his master a leg up, but he threw Gideon up into his saddle without further comment and made the final adjustments to his straps. There would be no point in remonstrating further when my Lord St. Mars took on that tone.

  Not that Gideon’s voice had betrayed anything more than a wry amusement, but Tom had sensed the steel underneath. And his experience told him that nothing would shake St. Mars from his reckless course when he took the bit between his teeth.

  Tom could not be certain why his lordship was in such a pent-up mood of late, but he had a fairly good notion. He had ears just as keen as that fancy French valet’s. And, knowing both my Lord Hawkhurst and his tantrums better than the Frenchy did, Tom could well imagine the scene that had just transpired at Rotherham Abbey. His sympathies were divided fairly equally on this occasion, but no words of his would improve Master Gideon’s disposition. And it was not for a servant like him to tell my Lord St. Mars whom to wed.

  “Foolish is as foolish does,” he muttered to himself as he helped his master’s diamond-buckled shoe into its stirrup. “And I wonder how he thinks he’s going to look, struttin’ about her ladyship’s ballroom after a ride in them fancy clothes?”

  Tom followed Gideon’s horse to the immense wrought-iron and gilt gate that shielded Hawkhurst House, with its thirty rooms, its stables and its outbuildings, from the roughness of the city streets. He moved past him to swing the heavy gate open, and Gideon walked his horse through it. There was no more need for talk. Gideon knew the risks he took and had no patience with his servant’s worries. For his part, Tom knew that he would not sleep until his master was safely home that night.

  The night was as black as the depths of a well, the park uncannily empty, the street immensely quiet, as Tom swung the gate closed. Gideon turned in the street. “On my return, I do not wish to find you manning this gate. The porter will let me in. It is, after all, his job.”

  Tom was on the point of responding when he heard a horse coming slowly, then faster down the darkened street, its iron-shod hooves ringing sharply on the cobblestones.

  With a sudden worry, he swung the gate open again, starting forward just as the shadowy form of a rider came within view.

  Gideon swiveled in his saddle to peer at the approaching figure. “What the—”

  The stranger was hurtling towards him like a kite diving for its prey. Tom strained to make out the man’s face, but nothing could be seen on this moonless night except a black, fluttering mass riding swiftly towards them, its features shrouded or obscured. He had an uneasy impulse to reach for his master’s reins, but Gideon stopped him, spinning his mare, one hand reaching for his sword.

  “A word with you, St. Mars!” the rider called out, easing up on his horse.

  Gideon released his hilt.

  It’s a messenger, Tom thought with relief—a relief still tinged with a nagging anxiety. A messenger belike from the Abbey and Gideon’s father.

  Then, as the stranger’s horse moved within the circle of light cast by the gate’s one lamp, the figure, which was swathed in a long black cloak, began to ride at Gideon again at full tilt.

  He wore a Venetian mask. His head was covered by a long, black hood. A glint of steel flashed in his hand.

  “Master Gideon, your back!”

  Gideon’s horse spun on its two hind hooves, knocking Tom aside. As the rider flew past, he raised his weapon and slashed. Reaching for his own sword too late, Gideon jerked with a cry. His horse reared and twisted, flinging him hard to the ground.

  Fair Nymphs, and well-dressed Youths around her shone,

  But every eye was fixed on her alone.

  On her white breast a sparkling Cross she wore,

  Which Jews might k
iss, and Infidels adore.

  Her lively looks a sprightly mind disclose,

  Quick as her eyes, and as unfixed as those:

  Favours to none, to all she smile extends;

  Oft she rejects, but never once offends.

  Bright as the sun, her eyes the gazers strike,

  And, like the sun, they shine on all alike.

  Yet graceful ease, and sweetness void of pride,

  Might hide her faults, if Belles had faults to hide:

  If to her share some female errors fall,

  Look on her face, and you’ll forget ‘em all.

  CHAPTER 2

  “Master Gideon!”

  As the stranger galloped away, his long, black cape streaming after him like the wings of death, Tom rushed to kneel at his master’s side.

  “Go after him, Tom.” Gideon struggled to sit, clasping a pale, lean hand to his left shoulder. “Take my horse and ride after the devil. Take my sword.”

  “No, sir! You’re hurt!” Tom reached shaking fingers to feel a spot that was widening on Gideon’s sleeve.

  “Go after him, I said! The damned coward’s getting away!”

  “Aye, but there’s nothing can be done about that now. His lordship would eat me for dinner if I let you bleed in the street.”

  Ignoring Gideon’s swearing, Tom scooped him up and staggered towards the door. A warm, sticky liquid pooled in the palm of his hand, giving him strength. In a matter of seconds, he had crossed the courtyard and climbed the steps to the house.

  “Open up!” he shouted, kicking furiously at the door.

  “Curse you, put me down!”

  “Not on your life, my lord.” In the shock of the moment, Tom had forgotten to use his master’s proper address, but he was reminded to use it now.