Don't Tempt Me (11 page)

“Yes, miss,” Jarvis said, looking about her doubtfully.

“There is no need to be frightened,” Zoe said. “I do not believe he will try to poison us.”

Jarvis's eyes widened. “Good gracious, miss!”

“It is most unlikely,” Zoe assured her. “In the harem, they were always plotting to murder Yusri Pasha's third wife, so disagreeable she was. But they were too busy quarreling with one another to organize a proper plot.”

“Oh, my goodness, miss!”

Zoe brushed off the maid's alarm with a wave of her hand. “When my sisters were teaching me about running a great household, it seemed like the most tiresome of a number of boring duties. In a house like this, though, it could be most interesting.”

 

The Duke of Marchmont did not notice anything out of the way among his staff. He scarcely noticed his staff except when, as at the present moment, they were annoying him.

A full quarter hour after he'd left Zoe in Harrison's care, the duke stood in his dressing room in his pantaloons and shirtsleeves, watching his valet take up and reject yet another coat and waistcoat.

“Hoare, we shall
not
drive in Hyde Park at the fashionable hour,” said His Grace. “No one will be taking any notice of me but the lady—and that will
not last long. The fashion plates and fabric swatches will soon absorb all her attention.”

“Yes, Your Grace, but the lady—what is she wearing?”

“Ye gods, you don't mean for us to
match
?”

“Certainly not, sir. But it is necessary to achieve the correct tone.”

Marchmont silently cursed Beau Brummell. Valets used to be sensible fellows before the Beau came along and turned dress into a religion. “Carriage dress,” he said impatiently. “Pale yellow with green trim. A year out of date, she informed me.”

The valet regarded him with a panic-stricken expression.

Marchmont did not know or care what had thrown the man into a panic. He only wished he had not hired the most high-strung valet in London.

They would be at this all afternoon and into the evening if the master didn't take matters in hand.

“That coat,” he snapped, pointing. “That and the green waistcoat.”

The valet's eyes widened. “The
green
, sir?”

“The green,” Marchmont said firmly. “It will amuse Miss Lexham.”

“Oh, dear. Yes, Your Grace.”

“When the lady is bored, appalling things happen. We must strive for a little inconsistency, perhaps a hint of originality. We do not wish to be thought dull, do we?”

“Good heavens, Your Grace. Certainly not.”

And at last, Hoare began to bustle.

The duke made Jarvis ride with Filby the groom in the seat behind the carriage.

Neither servant was happy with the arrangement. This was perfectly plain to Zoe.

But she knew it was not Marchmont's business to make servants happy. It was their job to make him happy, and judging by the set of his jaw, they were making a hash of it.

The groom, plainly, was mortified to be seen sharing his seat with a female. Jarvis, equally plainly, was terrified of the curricle and her high perch thereupon. But there was no room for her inside the carriage. It was built to hold the driver and a companion.

Zoe was not sure what the proper procedure was for a maid in such cases. She only understood that Jarvis must accompany her to the dressmaker's, and this was the simplest way to do it.

In any event, it was Marchmont's curricle, he was the master, and everyone else must like it or lump it.

If he did not want to keep his restive horses waiting, then everyone had better move quickly—or be moved quickly, as Zoe discovered.

His way of helping her into the high vehicle was to wrap his gloved hands round her waist, lift her straight up off the pavement, and toss her onto the seat.

She was still tingling from the contact when his big body settled next to hers. He muttered something about “damned finical servants.” Then, more clearly, he addressed the horses: “Walk on, my lads.”

Though they seemed as eager to be gone as he was, the beautifully matched horses set out slowly from St. James's Square and proceeded calmly through the narrower and more crowded streets.

This sedate pace did not last for long, though.

The driver, Zoe was aware, was as restive as the horses. She had been taught to be keenly sensitive to a man's moods. She was acutely aware of tension. The impatience or restlessness or whatever it was throbbed along the side of her body nearest his.

At last they reached a broader thoroughfare. The horses began to move, faster and faster. Zoe heard Jarvis shriek each time their pace increased. Yet they moved so steadily, stepping beautifully in time. They were big, powerful, high-couraged animals, yet Marchmont controlled them absolutely, without seeming to do anything. The lightest flick of the whip—and that not touching them—the slightest motion of his hands on the reins, were the only outward signs.

The wind ruffled the fair hair under his sleek
hat. Other than that, he seemed almost still on the outside, all the power fiercely contained within him—something the animals, surely, sensed and responded to.

The buildings and lampposts sped by, giving way to greenery, then buildings again. She held onto the side of the carriage as they passed riders, coaches, wagons, and carts and while the world went by in a blur, as though it were a dream.

It was like flying.

It was wonderful.

She laughed. She was a bird, flying, free. He glanced at her, and when he turned away he was smiling a little.

Then, by degrees, they began to turn into narrower streets again, and the pace slowed. After a time she recognized Bond Street, where Jarvis had found the ancient hackney.

Zoe had expected him to return to St. James's Street, where Mrs. Bell's Magazin des Modes stood. Mrs. Bell was very fashionable. She featured prominently in
La Belle Assemblée.

But he turned into an unfamiliar street.

“Grafton Street,” he said, though she had only glanced inquiringly at him and he had not appeared to be looking anywhere but at the way ahead. “We start at Madame Vérelet's.”

She was about to ask him who Madame Vérelet was when another vehicle barreled round a curve ahead, straight at them.

 

Marchmont saw it coming: an antiquated coach and four, overburdened with baggage and traveling far
too fast for this busy street. It had shaved the corner of Hay Hill to half an inch, but then the vehicle went wide.

The duke easily stopped his pair in time, but the bloody fool on the coach box drove straight on at them. At the last instant, he pulled the horses hard to the left. He missed the curricle, but the weight on top of the coach shifted, overbalancing it. The coachman fell off his box. One of the wheelers shrieked at the same time the duke heard the crack of splintering wood. After that, it was difficult to sort anything out, amid the din and confusion. Horses plunged and screamed, people ran into and out of shops, shouting and shrieking and getting in the way.

Marchmont leapt down from the curricle, leaving his team to Filby, who was on the pavement as quickly as he.

The duke started toward the overturned coach. It had fallen on top of some of the luggage and lay precariously on a great trunk.

The leaders had broken loose, but some men farther along the street caught them. The wheelers, meanwhile, were wild, one bleeding and clearly maddened by pain and fear, the other in a panic.

Marchmont shouted orders. A boy ran up and nearly had his head kicked off, but he caught hold of the injured animal. The duke caught the other one and was calming the frantic beast when he heard a familiar voice cry, “Someone fetch a doctor!”

He looked back and saw Zoe, half under the coach and pulling at the door of the insecurely balanced vehicle.

“Get away from there!” he shouted. “It's going to collapse!”

She ignored him and tugged at someone inside. The trunk bulged and the coach sagged downward.

“Zoe, damn you, get away from there!”

To his horror, she crawled under the coach.

“Someone hold this curst animal!” he shouted.

All that held up the old coach was the trunk. One wrong move and it would fall…and crush her.

Someone came and took over the animal. At the same instant, before he could get the wretched girl away from the coach, she gave another pull.

The trunk gave way.

The coach seemed to fall so slowly, while he was still lunging for her, before it landed with a great crash and a choking cloud of dust.

“Zoe!” he roared, and plunged into the wreckage.

 

She'd seen the boy hanging out of the door. Zoe feared he was badly injured, but she hadn't time to check. She pulled him out and dragged him out of the way. An instant later, the coach hit the ground and flew apart.

“You idiot.” Marchmont's voice easily penetrated the clamor about her.

He took the boy from her and carried him into the nearest shop. He demanded a doctor, and one soon arrived. Then he went out and supervised those tending to the horses and damaged coach.

When a constable arrived, Marchmont ordered the coachman taken into custody and charged with drunkenness, disturbing the King's peace, and endangering public safety. The coachman was taken away.

All this happened in a remarkably short time. Zoe watched the street's concluding events through the shop window while behind her the physician attended to the boy.

Marchmont, she saw, could be remarkably efficient when he chose—or when he had to be. Or perhaps he was not so much efficient as impatient and intimidating.

He came back inside the shop at last. He didn't look at her but folded his arms and leaned against the door, stone-faced, until the boy came to his senses and proved able to remember his name, the date, and the present sovereign. Zoe caught only the last part of this, because the boy said it loudly: “King George the Third.
Everybody
knows that.”

He had a lump forming on the back of his head and a number of bruises and scrapes, but the doctor pronounced him fit to return home.

“My groom will take him home in my carriage,” Marchmont said. These were the first words he'd uttered since reentering the shop.

He watched them drive away until they were out of sight. Then he turned his attention to Zoe, who'd followed him out of the shop. He eyed her up and down.

She was dirty and bedraggled, she knew, but she didn't care. She was still exhilarated, because she'd saved the boy from serious injury, perhaps death. The big, cumbersome coach could have crushed him when it fell. He could have been impaled on a jagged piece of wood or metal.

She'd saved him. She'd been free to act, free to help, and she'd done something worthwhile.

Marchmont did not look either exhilarated or bedraggled. He still had his hat on. His neckcloth seemed crisply in order. The coat that so closely followed the contours of his big shoulders and upper body showed spots of dirt here and there but no tears. The green waistcoat hugging his lean torso hadn't ripped anywhere or lost buttons. The pantaloons clinging to his long, muscular legs were very dirty, though. Her gaze trailed slowly down, to his boots. They were scuffed and coated with dust.

She became aware of a soft, slapping sound. He had taken off his gloves. He slapped them against his left hand.

Slowly she brought her gaze up.

His face was as hard as the marble in his house's entrance hall. His eyes were angry green slits.

“That way,” he said, jerking his head toward a shop.

She looked in the direction he indicated. The shop bore a black sign with the word
VÉRELET
in gold letters. That was all. On either side of the door, bay windows held a splendid array of colorful fabrics and delicious bonnets.

“Clothes?” she said. “Now?”

“My curricle is on its way to Portland Place with that wretched boy. What do you suggest instead? Perhaps a leap off Westminster Bridge?”

She had trained herself ages ago to keep her temper in check, because survival in the harem often depended upon keeping a cool head. She told herself she could do it at present.

She reminded herself of her conversation with Jarvis. Zoe needed this man's help in order to live the life she'd risked everything for. She needed his
help to banish the shame she'd brought on her family. She needed this help if she wanted a chance to find a good husband. Once she was wed and settled, her father could stop worrying about her.

She told herself all this, several times. Then she lifted her chin and entered the shop.

 

Marchmont's heart still pounded.

It was as though his brain had overturned, like the coach, and boxes had fallen out and broken, spilling their contents.

He heard himself shout, “No! Don't!” and heard Gerard laugh in the instant before he went over the fence. Again and again the scene played in his mind: Gerard, galloping ahead of the rest of the boys, heedless as always.

Marchmont would never know why he'd shouted the warning, whether he'd seen or sensed something amiss with the fence ahead or the ground or his brother's horse. He'd never know what it was that had made him slow his own mount and cry, “Look out!”

But Gerard wouldn't listen. He never did.

“No! Don't!”

Gerard only laughed, and on he galloped, toward the fence, and over it.

And then he was dead. Like that. In the blink of an eye.

Again and again the scene played in Marchmont's mind.

He followed Zoe into the shop, staring hard at her back, at the stains and dirt and ripped ruffles of the carriage dress. He concentrated on these and thrust
the unwanted images back into the dark place they'd escaped from.

Madame Vérelet's was a large shop. As he finally took note of his surroundings, he felt as though he'd entered an enormous birdcage. What seemed like hundreds of females fluttered about the place, bobbing and clucking, picking up buttons and ribbons, pretending to be busy sewing or putting trimmings into drawers and taking them out again. They opened books and flipped through pages, then shut them. They bent their heads together and whispered. They darted furtive looks from him to Zoe and back again, again and again.

Madame Vérelet bustled out from a back room quite as though she'd been deeply engaged in important business there for this last hour. A man less cynical than Marchmont might be taken in. Another man might believe that Madame was too elegant and dignified to take any notice of public disturbances on her doorstep. Madame, after all, was a great artist, not one of the rabble who gathered at accident scenes.

Marchmont, though, hadn't any doubt that she'd been gawking out of the shop window along with all her employees, and had hurried into the back room only when she saw him coming.

She made him an elegant curtsey. “Your Grace,” she said.

He gave the little wave of his hand. “Everyone out.”

“Out?” said Zoe.

“Everyone but
you,”
he said. The women darted for the door leading into the back of the shop, where the workrooms were. They all tried to squeeze through
at the same time, with a good deal of pushing and elbow thrusts. Madame did not fly, but she did not linger, either. She shoved aside one girl who didn't get out of her way quickly enough.

“Miss?” said Jarvis.

“You, too,” said Marchmont.

“She is required to stay with me,” said Zoe.

“Out,” he told Jarvis. She hurried after the seamstresses and shopgirls.

Zoe folded her arms. Her face took on a mulish expression.

He knew this expression. He'd seen it scores of times. She'd worn it a moment before she'd picked up the cricket bat. He was aware of this, in the churning stew that was his mind; but since it was a stew, he wasn't capable of calm and logical thinking. The pose and the expression only made him angrier.

He didn't wait to hear what she'd say.

“Are you utterly mad?” he said, his voice low and taut. “Are you deaf? Are you completely without brains? Did I not tell you to get away from that coach?”

“You had the horses to deal with,” she said with a calm he found maddening. “I could not leave the boy there. He was hanging out of the door. I knew he was hurt. He might have been bleeding. What if he bled to death while you dealt with the horses? What if the coach fell on him?”

What if it fell on you?

“He wasn't bleeding,” he said.

“You didn't know that.”

“I didn't need to know!” he snapped. “It was a thoroughly decrepit coach and four, and if it had
fallen on you, it would have smashed you to pieces! And that's if you were lucky. If you'd got a piece of it stuck in your gut, you'd die by inches.” Such accidents happened all too frequently, the victims lingering in agony for days, sometimes weeks.