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He bowed to Lady Jonas, and introduced Grey to her; she greeted them kindly, but with that air of distraction that attends a hostess in search of more-distinguished guests. They kissed her hand in turn and retired to the drinks table.
“You don’t do this often, do you?” Grey murmured to Percy.
“Does it show?” Wainwright cast him a glance of half-comic alarm, and he laughed.
“Not at all,” he assured Percy. “It is only that no one save Lady Jonas has spoken to you since we entered. How do you come to know her?”
Wainwright shrugged a little, looking embarrassed.
“She stepped on my foot at a ball. At Sir Richard Joffrey’s house—the general had taken me there to meet Colonel Quarry. But Lady Jonas apologized most gracefully, asked my name—she knew the general, of course—and ended by inviting me to her salon, with any friend I might choose to bring. She said”—Percy blushed, avoiding Grey’s eye—“that beautiful boys were always welcome.”
“I have found that generally to be the case in society,” Grey said, tactfully ignoring both the blush and the implied compliment. “Regardless of sex.” He nodded at the Honorable Helene Rowbotham, whose swanlike neck and doelike eyes were exciting their usual admiration near the window where she had placed herself so as to take best advantage of the pale winter sun.
“On the other hand,” he said lightly, “a party at which the guests are all of the beautiful persuasion tends to be dull indeed, as they have no conversation that does not pertain to themselves. A successful gathering requires a number of the ill-favored but clever. The beautiful are but ornaments—desirable, but dispensable.”
“Indeed,” Percy said dryly. “And in which camp do you place yourself here? Beautiful and dull, or homely and clever?”
“Oh,” Grey said lightly, and touched Percy’s wrist, “I’ll be wherever you are…Brother.”
The blush, which had receded, surged back full force. Wainwright had no chance to reply, though, before Grey perceived Lady Beverley drifting toward them, an intentness in her eye at sight of Percy.
“Light-frigate off the starboard bow,” he said under his breath. Percy frowned in bewilderment, but then saw the direction of his glance.
“Really? She looks most respectable,” Percy murmured, he having evidently spent enough time with General Stanley in military circles as to have acquired familiarity with such terms as “light-frigate” for a woman of easy virtue.
“Don’t go into an alcove with her,” Grey murmured back, already nodding and smiling at the approaching lady. “She’ll have her hand in your breeches before you can say—Lady Beverley! Your servant, madam—may I present you my new stepbrother, Percival Wainwright?”
Seeing the hint of hesitation in Percy’s eye, he grasped Lady Beverley’s trailing hand and kissed it, thus signaling to Percy that, yes, she wasmarried, reputation notwithstanding, then gracefully relinquished the appendage to Wainwright for the bestowal of his own homage.
“Mr. Wainwright.” Lady Beverley gave him a look of approval, then turned the force of her not inconsiderable charm on Grey. “We are obliged to you, Lord John! Monstrous kind of you, to bring such an ornament to decorate our dull society. Do come and have a glass of punch with me, Mr. Wainwright, and tell me what you think of Mr. Garrick’s new role—you will have seen it, I’m sure. For myself…”
Before either man could draw breath to answer, she had got Percy’s hand firmly trapped between her elbow and her yellow silk bodice, and was towing him purposefully toward the refreshment table, still talking.
Wainwright cast Grey a wide-eyed look, and Grey sketched a small salute in return, suppressing a smile. At least Wainwright had been warned. And if he took care to keep Lady Beverley out in the public view, she would be good company. Already she had drawn him into the circle around the guest of honor, which she cleft like the Red Sea, and was introducing him to the French philosopher.
He relaxed a bit, seeing that Percy seemed able to hold his own, and deliberately turned his back, not to embarrass his new relation with undue scrutiny.
“Lord John!” A clear voice hailed him, and he looked round to find his friend Lucinda, Lady Joffrey, smiling at him, a small leather-bound book in one hand. “How do you do, my dear?”
“Excellently well, I thank you.” He made to kiss her hand, but she laughed and drew him in, standing on tiptoe to kiss his cheek instead.
“I crave a favor, if you please,” she whispered in his ear, and came down on her heels, looking up at him, expectant of his consent.
“You know I can deny you nothing,” he said, smiling. She reminded him always of a partridge, small, neat, and slightly plump, with a kind, soft eye. “What is your desire, Lady Joffrey? A cup of punch? Sardines on toast? Or had you in mind something more in the way of apes, ivory, and peacocks?”
“It may well be pearls before swine,” she said, dimpling, and handed him the book. “But the fact of the matter is that I have a…relation…who has written some verses—negligible, I am sure, but perhaps not without a certain charm. I thought to present them to Monsieur Diderot…” She cast a glance toward the window where the distinguished man of letters held court, then turned back, a faint blush mantling her cheeks.
“But I find my nerve fails me.”
Grey gave her a look of patent disbelief. Small and demure she might be in appearance; by temperament she had the guile of a serpent and the tenacity of a sticking plaster.
“Really,” she insisted, both dimple and blush growing deeper. She glanced round to be sure they were not overheard, and leaning close, whispered, “Have you by chance heard of a novel entitled Les Bijoux Indiscrets?”
“I have, Lady Joffrey,” he said, with mock severity, “and I am shocked to the core of my being to discover that a woman of your character should be acquainted with such a scandalous volume. Have you read it?” he inquired, dropping the pose.
“La, everyone’s read it,” she said, relaxing into comfortable scorn. “Your mother sent it to me last year.”
“Indeed.” He was not surprised; his mother would read anything, and maintained friendships with several similarly indiscriminate ladies, who kept up a constant exchange of books—most of which would have shocked their husbands, had those worthy gentlemen ever bothered to inquire about their wives’ pastimes.
“Have you read it?” she asked.
He shook his head. Les Bijoux Indiscretswas an erotic novel, written some years before by M. Diderot for Madeleine le Puisieux, his mistress at the time. It had been published in Holland, and for a time, there had been a mania in England for smuggled copies. He’d seen the book, of course, but had done no more than flip through an illustrated copy, looking for the pictures—which were indifferently executed. Perhaps the text was better.
“Prude,” she said.
“Quite. Am I to infer that these…verses…share something of the sentiments of that particular volume?” He weighed the book in his hand. It was both small and slender, befitting poetry.
“I believe they were inspired by certain of the events depicted therein,” Lady Joffrey said, circumspect. “The, um, author of the verses wished to present them to Monsieur Diderot as an acknowledgment of the inspiration, I believe—a tribute, if you will.”
He raised a brow at her, and opened the cover. Certain Verses Upon the Subject of—
“Jesus,” he said, involuntarily, and shut the book. He immediately opened it again, cautiously, as though afraid it might spit at him.
By an Admirer of the Works of that Urgent Genius, Monsieur Denis Diderot, who in Humility stiles himself “Sub-Genius.”
“You didn’t write them yourself, did you?” he asked, glancing up. Lady Joffrey’s mouth fell open, and he smiled. “No, of course not. My apologies.”