Midnight Pleasures Read online

  She was not going to have her heart broken by a libertine, the way her mama had. She was not going to turn into a bitter old woman, watching her husband circle the floor with Dalindas and Lucindas. She might not be able to stop her future husband from chasing other women, but she could certainly control the extent to which she cared about the matter.

  “I am not a fool,” Sophie said to herself, not for the first time.

  Hearing a scratch on her door, she stood up.

  “Enter!”

  “His lordship would be very pleased to greet you in the antechamber,” said Philippe, one of the footmen.

  Sophie had no illusions about the wording of the actual message. Her father had bawled to Carroll, “Get that chit down here!” and Philippe had been dispatched by a nod of the butler’s head. Carroll’s portly demeanor and his French sense of dignity precluded delivering messages of this sort.

  She smiled. “Please inform my father that I will join him directly.”

  As Philippe backed out the door, Sophie picked up her fan from the dressing table. She paused again in front of the mirror. What looked back at her was an image that had set fire to gentlemen’s hearts all over London, had inspired some twenty-two proposals of marriage and numerous intoxicated compliments.

  She was small in size, only coming up to Patrick’s shoulder, Sophie thought absently. And her wispy silver dress emphasized every curve, especially those of her breasts. The fabric stiffened above its high waist, making it look as if she might fall out of the inch of material.

  Sophie shivered. Lately she couldn’t even look at herself in the mirror without thinking about the melting softness of her breasts pressing against Patrick’s muscled chest. It was time to go. She grabbed her wrap and left the room.

  Chapter 2

  In the afternoon before the Dewland ball, there was an unprecedented gathering of young gentlemen in the Ministry for Foreign Affairs, presided over by the minister himself, Lord Breksby. Breksby was growing old, but at the same time he was growing more and more comfortable with the power he wielded. Thus, although he welcomed his visitors from a somewhat bent-over posture, and his white hair flew eccentrically off to the right, rather than staying neatly tied back as it ought to have, there was nothing humorous about him.

  Lord Breksby had been England’s Secretary for Foreign Affairs for some seven years. He saw the civilized world as a puppet theater in which he controlled many strings (never mind Pitt, as he had often told his wife, the man can’t make up his mind). One of Breksby’s greatest assets, to William Pitt and the English government in general, was his skill at creative manipulation.

  “One must make use of the tools at hand,” he rather pompously told his wife over a dessert of orange jelly.

  Lady Breksby sighed in agreement and thought longingly of a small cottage in the country, next to her sister, where she could grow roses.

  “England has underutilized its nobility,” he told her yet again. “Of course, it is true that aristocratic rakes tend toward dissipation—look at the degenerate nobles who thronged around Charles II.”

  Lady Breksby thought about the new kind of rose that had been named after Princess Charlotte. Could it be trained to climb a wall? she wondered. She quite fancied a southern wall, covered with climbing roses.

  Lord Breksby thought about the libertine rakes of the old days. Rochester was probably the worst, writing all that naughty poetry about prostitutes. Must have been getting up to Lord knows what. A regular hellion, he was. Boredom, that was Rochester’s problem.

  “Still, that was the past,” Breksby said meditatively, spooning up the last of the orange jelly. “Our rakes now are useful chaps, if you approach ‘em the right way. They’ve got money. They’re not elected. And they’ve got class, m’dear. Invaluable when dealing with foreigners.” Even though his own title was only honorary, he found it served him well. Lord Breksby privately thought that the day might come when England would have to rely on class more heavily than on its navy.

  “Take this Selim III, for example.”

  Lady Breksby looked up politely and nodded.

  “He’s ruling the Ottoman Empire at the moment, m’dear.”

  Now that she thought about it, the Princess Charlotte rose probably had too heavy a head to be a good climber. The best climbing roses had smaller heads … like that lovely pink specimen that Mrs. Barnett had growing up her front gate, back in the old village. But how could she find out what that rose was called?

  “The man is dazzled by Napoleon, even though Napoleon invaded Egypt a mere six years ago. Thinks Napoleon is God, so I hear. Recognized him as emperor. And now Selim is planning to exchange the title of sultan for emperor! His father must be turning in his grave.” Breksby considered whether to have more orange jelly. Better not. His waistcoats were already a trifle strained.

  He returned to the subject at hand. “It’s up to us to dazzle old Selim in return. Otherwise he’ll go hand in hand with Napoleon, the silly turnip, and declare war on England, no doubt about it. And how are we going to dazzle Selim?”

  He looked triumphantly at Lady Breksby, but after thirty years of marriage she knew a rhetorical question as well as the next person, and simply looked past him, trying to picture Mrs. Barnett’s roses more precisely. Did they have just a tinge of crimson inside?

  “We send over a prime piece of nobility. We dazzle ‘em with some of our homegrown near-royalty, that’s what.”

  Lady Breksby nodded dutifully. “That sounds wonderful, my dear,” she said.

  The result of this conversation, the fruit of the orange jelly, so to speak, was twofold. Lord Breksby sent out a series of beautifully inscribed notes that were carried around London by one of the king’s messengers, and Lady Breksby wrote a long letter to her sister, who still lived in the small village of Hogglesdon where they had grown up, asking her to please walk by Mrs. Barnett’s house and request the name of her roses.

  As it happened, Lord Breksby enjoyed the fruit of his idea rather more quickly than did Lady Breksby. Mrs. Barnett turned out (disappointingly) to have died, and her daughter couldn’t say what the roses were named. But the king’s messenger returned to the Ministry for Foreign Affairs triumphant, having found all five noblemen residing in their London town houses and available to meet Lord Breksby at his convenience.

  Alexander Foakes, the Earl of Sheffield and Downes, was the first to arrive at the ministry. Breksby looked up quickly as the elder Foakes twin was announced. Then he got up, holding his hand out affably. Sheffield was a prime exemplar of his, Breksby’s genius, to his mind. He’d sent Sheffield off to Italy a year or so ago on an entirely successful, and very delicate, mission.

  “Good afternoon, my lord,” he said. “How are your lovely wife and daughters?”

  “My family is very well,” Alex replied, sitting down. “Why did you summon me, Lord Breksby?” He fixed his black eyes on the foreign secretary.

  Breksby smiled genially. He was too old to be overset by an impetuous young man. Instead he sat back and templed his fingers. “I would rather wait until my small party is assembled,” he remarked. “But I hasten to tell you, my lord, that I did not ask you here to request that you undertake an assignment on behalf of the English government. No indeed. We hesitate to interfere in a man’s private life, once that man has children.”

  Alex rose a sardonic eyebrow. “Except when the government decides to press its citizens into the army.” He was referring to the practice of sweeping up men and shipping them off to war, willy-nilly.

  “Ah,” Breksby responded gently, “but we never press our nobility into service. We rely on the goodness of their hearts and their wish to aid their country.”

  Alex almost snorted, but restrained himself. Breksby was a wily old Machiavel whom it wouldn’t be prudent to antagonize.

  “Your presence here is not exactly superfluous, however,” Breksby continued. “I have a proposition for your brother.”

  “He may be interested,” Alex
said, knowing well that Patrick would jump at the chance to travel. He had been back in England for only a year or so, and in Alex’s opinion, Patrick was nearly mad with boredom. Not to mention irritable as a cat ever since Sophie York had rejected his marriage proposal.

  “So I thought, so I thought,” Breksby murmured.

  “Where do you plan to send him?”

  “I was hoping that he would agree to travel to the Ottoman Empire during the coming summer. We hear that Selim III intends to crown himself emperor, à la Monsieur Napoleon, and we would like an English presence at the so-called coronation. Given the inadvisability of sending any of the royal dukes”—with a mere waggle of the eyebrows, Breksby expressed his opinion of the fondly foolish and often drunk sons of King George—”I fancy that your brother would make a magnificent ambassador from England.”

  Alex nodded. Patrick would undoubtedly return with a valuable cargo of exports in his ship. It seemed a reasonable exchange.

  “Now, the reason I asked you to attend this little meeting,” Breksby said, “is due to the question of nobility.”

  “Nobility?” Alex looked at him blankly.

  “Precisely, precisely. Granted, your brother will represent England in a resplendent fashion. His personal finances allow him to dress appropriately, and the English government will, of course, send a costly gift along with our ambassador. We are contemplating a scepter ringed with rubies—very similar to the scepter used by King Edward II. I believe we shall have to add more rubies to this version, as Selim is very vulgar indeed, and he particularly values that gem.

  “But the real question is: What will Selim think of Patrick Foakes? Given the delicate relations between our two countries, that is an important point.”

  “Patrick appears to have met with the approval of the leaders of Albania and India,” Alex observed. “In fact, I believe that Ali Pasha begged him to take a place in his cabinet, and you know Albania is overrun with Turks. I shouldn’t think that Selim will present a problem.”

  “You miss my point, dear sir. Selim is fascinated by titles: Emperor Selim!” Breksby snorted.

  Alex, who had been staring meditatively at Breksby’s oak desk, raised his head and looked the foreign secretary straight in the face.

  “You mean to give Patrick a title.” It was a statement, not a question. Then a smile spread across his face. “How splendid.”

  “There will, of course, be difficulties.” Lord Breksby implied that these were a matter of little consequence to him. “I think they can be overcome.”

  Alex smiled. “He can have half of my estates and that half of my title.” Alexander Foakes was the Earl of Sheffield and Downes, meaning that he ruled (nominally speaking) over two portions of English land.

  “My dear sir!” Breksby was shocked by that suggestion. “We could never do such a thing. Breaking up a hereditary title: oh no, no, no. However …” A cunning look passed over his face. “We could petition to liberate one of your other titles.”

  Alex nodded thoughtfully. He was in fact not only the Earl of Sheffield and Downes. He was also Viscount Spencer.

  “I was thinking of the Scottish title,” Breksby said.

  For a moment Alex was at sea. “Scottish title?”

  “When your great-grandmother married your great-grandfather, her father’s title—Duke of Gisle—lapsed, since she was an only child.”

  “Oh, of course.” Alex knew of his Scottish great-grandmother but had never given a second thought to her father’s lapsed title.

  “I’d like to petition to have that title resurrected,” Breksby said briskly. “I think I can present a reasonable case, given the importance of winning Selim III over to the English cause. If Selim is not sufficiently impressed by our ambassador, I would guess that the Turkish empires will declare war on England in the near future, following the lead of our dear Napoleon, naturally. I expect that the fact that you and your brother are twins will also please the Parliament. Patrick Foakes is, after all, only the lesser brother with regard to a moment or two.”

  Alex nodded. Given that Breksby never presented an idea until he was convinced it would be successful, Alex thought that Patrick would be declared the Duke of Gisle within a few months.

  “I’m not sure—” he said, but the door opened.

  Lord Breksby’s servant announced, “Mr. Patrick Foakes; the Earl of Slaslow; Lord Reginald Petersham; Mr. Peter Dewland.”

  Lord Breksby immediately took charge. “Gentlemen, I asked you to visit me today because you each own a clipper ship.”

  “Goodness me,” Braddon Chatwin, the Earl of Slaslow, said confusedly. “I don’t think so, sir. Unless my man of business has bought one behind my back.”

  Lord Breksby gave him a hard look. Apparently the reports he had received about Slaslow’s mental capabilities were not exaggerated. “You won this clipper while playing écarté with—” He paused for a moment and raised his glasses to read a piece of a paper on his desk. “Oh yes, while playing écarté with a Mr. Sheridan Jameson. A merchant, I believe.”

  “Oh, right you are,” Braddon replied, considerably relieved. “It was that night you and I stopped at an inn, on our way to Ascot, Petersham. Do you remember that?”

  Petersham nodded. “Remember you were throwin’ the dice long after I went to bed,” he confirmed.

  “And I won a boat,” Braddon said cheerfully. “I remember it all now.”

  “Is the government requisitioning our clippers?” Patrick Foakes asked, a trifle sharply. He was the owner of three clippers, none of which he cared to give up.

  “Oh no, no, no,” Lord Breksby protested. “A man’s home is his castle, as they say. We were wondering whether one of you might like to sail down the shore and around the coast of Wales in the next few months. We have ordered the building of fortifications on the Welsh coast, but the West Countries are very difficult to manage.” Breksby frowned. “They simply won’t follow orders over there.”

  All five gentlemen looked at him expectantly.

  “That’s all there is to it, gentlemen,” he said. “Sources inform us that there is a small chance that Napoleon may attempt to invade England from the rear, as it were, probably sailing from Boulogne around the coast, and landing on the coast of Wales.”

  Braddon frowned. “Why would he do that? It’s much faster to just sail across the channel from France. Why, I’ve done it in six hours.”

  What his mother must have endured when he was a child! Why, the chucklehead doesn’t even know the channel is blocked, Breksby thought. Then he said, with utmost courtesy, “I’m afraid that Napoleon has raised a blockade in the channel at the moment, my lord. In point of fact, that is precisely why I am asking one of you gentlemen to take on the task. Naturally, I could order our navy to inspect the Welsh fortifications, but it would pull a boat away just at the time when we are forced to deal with Monsieur Napoleon’s attempt to block the channel. In short, we would be very grateful if one of you would take on the task.”

  “Well, I can’t do it until the season is over,” Braddon said promptly. “I got myself engaged this morning, and now my mother tells me that I shall have to attend any number of events.” There was a pause. “And then, of course, I have to get married,” Braddon added.

  Lord Breksby looked interested. He liked to know exactly what alliances were being formed within the aristocracy.

  “May I enquire whether Lady Sophie York accepted your hand?”

  “She did.” Braddon beamed.

  Alex met Patrick’s eyes as they both stood up and offered their congratulations to the future bridegroom. Only his twin saw the spark of derision in Patrick’s black eyes, the mocking twist to his lips.

  Patrick turned abruptly to Lord Breksby. “I’ll do it.” His voice was clipped, cool.

  Lord Breksby beamed. He too had stood up, and was leaning slightly forward, balancing his outstretched fingertips against the desk.

  “Splendid, splendid. In that case, if you could spare me a few
minutes of your valuable time, I will show you where the fortifications are supposed to be.” Breksby’s voice was suffused with irony. The Welsh were a trying and tenacious people who showed no sign of becoming accustomed to English rule. He had very little hope that the fortifications existed.

  Patrick nodded. As the others made quick, relieved farewells, Patrick sat back down. His brother also remained in the room.

  When the three of them were alone, Breksby succinctly explained the situation in the Ottoman Empire.

  “I won’t need the title,” Patrick stated, his tone admitting no argument.

  Alex grinned to himself. He had been about to tell Breksby that persuading Parliament to grant Patrick a dukedom wouldn’t make his brother accept the title.

  But Breksby did little without extensive research. He knew that Patrick Foakes had more money than almost any other gentleman in London, as much if not more than his brother had. He knew very well that Foakes literally had no interest in or reason to want a title. To the best of his investigators’ knowledge, Foakes had never showed any resentment of his brother’s rank, for example.

  But Foakes was also a brilliant tactician, a man who had found himself in many a tight spot while traveling all over the East. If anyone, he would understand Selim III’s passionate lust for Western fripperies—including titles.

  “You don’t have to use it,” Breksby said with calculated indifference. “You can even repudiate the title after you return from Turkey. We certainly don’t care. We would, however, prefer that you not jeopardize this ambassadorship by refusing to accept the title in the first place.”

  Patrick sat, utterly relaxed in his chair, thinking it through.

  Breksby templed his hands and watched the two brothers. They made an arresting picture, the Foakes twins, two long-legged men whose faces were uncanny images of each other’s, both sporting unruly black hair gleaming with streaked silver and eyebrows with a devil’s arch. Carelessly dropped into chairs, their hard muscles relaxed for a moment, they resembled tiger-striped cats caught napping in the shining of a sudden light. And yet, had Breksby the imagination to amend that image, it would have been more accurate to see male tigers: identical, dangerous, exhibiting an ease as picturesque as it was momentary.