sneered. ‘I told Heronvale where you came from, boy. He knows it all.’
A muscle twitched in Sloane’s cheek. His conception had always been a matter of conjecture in whispered conversations among the ton. Sloane always trusted his father’s inflated pride to prevent him from confirming such rumours. Apparently the Earl’s hatred of Sloane exceeded even that.
Sloane let his father’s dagger plunge into his gut and twist, and then he mentally pulled it away, telling himself it did not matter. Heronvale must spurn him now. There would be no seat in parliament. It did not matter. Sloane still had wealth and that alone would give him power enough to plague his father to the end of the man’s days.
Sloane leaned into the carriage. Giving his father a direct look, he lifted the corners of his mouth in the sardonic grin that always made the man hopping mad. ‘Dash it,’ he said with thick sarcasm. ‘My political career is ruined.’ He spun around and walked away.
‘Stay!’ the Earl ordered. ‘Stay. I command you!’
Sloane continued on his way, but to his dismay the carriage caught up to him. As he walked, his father shouted from the window, ‘And another thing! You’ll not marry that Cowdlin chit. I’ll see you do not.’ The Earl’s face turned an alarming shade of red. ‘I will ruin you first. I swear I will. I’ll send you back to the sewers or wherever you came by your ill-gotten wealth—’
Sloane stopped and the carriage continued on its way. He could hear his father pounding on the roof and shouting to the coachman to stop, but by the time the man did, Sloane had headed off in the other direction.
His destination was even more aimless than before. His cheeks flamed and he felt as sick to his stomach as if he’d again been nine years old. The streets had not been crowded and there was no indication that anyone had heeded the exchange, but Sloane felt as if he’d been laid bare in front of everyone.
By God, he’d thought he’d mastered this long ago, the humiliation of being pulled to pieces by the Earl in front of relatives, servants, schoolmasters—anyone. He’d perfected the appearance of not giving a deuce what his father said, or he once had. Why now? Why did his father’s words wound him now? Because the Earl had spoken to Heronvale about his mother?
A memory of her flashed though his mind. A fragment, all he had left of her. A pretty lady, smiling at him, laughing, bouncing him on her lap and kissing his cheeks. He had no idea if the memory was truly of his mother, but many a childhood night he’d forced himself to believe so.
* * *
Sloane walked until the dinner hour. He had an impulse to beg a meal from Morgana, but they were probably sitting down at this very moment. He would wait to see her at Vauxhall. He had the odd notion that seeing her would mend the wound his father created. Of course, that was nonsense.
Elliot, efficient as usual, had made the arrangements for Vauxhall, engaging a supper box for the Cowdlin party and ordering the refreshments.
Elliot also had Sloane’s dinner waiting for him. Afterwards his valet helped him dress for the evening, until all he need do was wait for the Cowdlin carriage.
He paced the Aubusson carpet of his drawing room, his footsteps so muffled by its nap he could hear the ticking of the mantel clock. His father’s voice kept ringing in his head. To mask it, he started to hum a tune.
Come live with me and be my love…
His butler announced that the carriage had arrived, and Sloane gathered his hat and gloves. The night was warm, a harbinger of summer nights to come.
He walked up to the carriage and greeted Lord and Lady Cowdlin and Hannah through its open window. ‘Would you like me to collect Miss Hart?’
‘She is not coming,’ said Lady Hannah.
Her mother added, ‘She sent a note today, begging off.’
Sloane frowned as he climbed in, suddenly dreading the long night ahead. ‘She is not ill, I hope?’
‘Not at all,’ Lady Cowdlin assured him.
He worried that something had happened with the courtesan school, while he was wandering the streets of Mayfair feeling sorry for himself. He frowned.
Hannah, who was in very high spirits, did not notice. She could barely sit still. ‘Poor Morgana!’ she said. ‘I hope she did not feel she would be out of place among my friends. Indeed, she has little to say to them. You have been kind to engage her, Mr Sloane.’
‘I find Miss Hart’s company quite pleasant,’ he said, tersely, offended at her characterisation of Morgana.
Hannah responded with a knowing expression, as if she understood he was merely being civil. Sloane gave it up. To say anything else might arouse suspicions that more went on than the Cowdlins should ever know about Morgana.
Hannah’s giddiness wore very thin by the time the carriage rolled over the new Vauxhall bridge.
‘I do wish we were to arrive by boat. It would be vastly more romantic,’ sighed Hannah.
‘Not good for my gout,’ grumbled her father.
Hannah continued to prattle on about everything being ‘exciting’ or ‘marvellous’ and how she could not wait to tell Athenia Poltrop this or that. She barely took heed of the spectacle that greeted them when they crossed through the garden’s entrance.
Thousands of lamps were strung throughout the tall elms and bushes, like stars come down to earth. Arches and colonnades and porticos made it appear as if ancient Greece had come alive in the stars, though the music of the orchestra sounded modern in their ears.
Sloane had always liked the fantasy that was Vauxhall. Nothing was as it seemed here, illusion was its only reality. Here a man could wear a mask and even the glittering lamps could not reveal whether he be a duke or the duke’s coachman. Here rogues and pickpockets shared the walks with frolicking vicars and extravagant nabobs. Indeed, a lady might walk by her maid without knowing her. She might dance next to her footman or the man who delivered coal to her Mayfair townhouse. It was impossible to feel one did not belong in this place.
But Hannah hurried them down the Grand Walk, past the Prince’s Pavilion and the theatre, past the colonnade, heading for the circle of supper boxes near the fountain.
Sloane wondered if Morgana would have rushed down the Grand Walk so quickly. Or would she have become distracted by the sights and all the people? Would she have tried to guess who the people were and to what sort of life they would return when the night was over?
‘I declare, this place is filled with riff-raff,’ Lady Cowdlin sniffed, apparently as oblivious to the splendour as her daughter.
‘Pay them no mind, dear,’ Lord Cowdlin advised. His lordship, however, paid particular mind to a group of women as pretty as flowers, all masked and escorted by two gentlemen. Sloane suspected Cowdlin would search out this very group as soon as the opportunity presented itself.
The supper box Elliot had arranged for them was in a spot with a view of the fountain, its water sparkling like tiny gold coins in the park’s illumination. The music from the orchestra rose and fell, carried in and out on the wind.
Lord and Lady Poltrop were already seated
