Knaves' Wager (12 page)

Or tried to wait. Because he seemed to have no inkling he was kissing a glacier.

His mouth moved slowly over hers, lazily tasting, while his fingers idly stroked the back of her neck. Under that light, almost negligible touch, the stiff muscles warmed and relaxed, and warmth trickled down her spine. She caught her breath in surprise, and his tongue flicked over her parted lips lightly, teasingly, before his mouth closed fully over hers once more. Tingling heat washed through her then, weakening muscles, swamping will, melting everything in its path, so that she scarcely knew she was answering his kiss until it stopped.

She opened shocked eyes to a heavy-lidded green gaze. His face was still very near.

"You appear skeptical yet," he whispered. "I had better provide more evidence."

"No!"

He did not move. She could discern the faint lines at the corners of his eyes and a minute scar over his left cheekbone. His breath lightly caressed her face, and the scent of sandalwood teased her nostrils. Her heart skittered wildly.

She looked the other way, and wished frantically he would move away, because she could not. His face was so cool and assured, while her own was hot — with shame, no doubt, because he had so bewitched her that she'd very nearly brought her lips closer again… for more. But there was no magic and therefore could be no bewitchery, and so she made her voice cold and steady as she spoke.

"I certainly need no further proof," she said, "that you are despicable."

"I was much goaded, Mrs. Davenant. Your perfume made me desperate."

She was desperate in any event, because he still had not moved, and in the narrow space between them was a treacherous current. She had been drawn in once, all unwitting. She would not be so again.

She pushed him away and, on unsteady legs, quitted the room.

Lord Brandon discovered that the other door opened onto a hall that would take him out of the house unseen by any but a few servants. One of these, upon retrieving his lordship's hat and stick and whispering a few words, received a generous vail.

It wanted two hours until the marquess's appointment with an actress. He might have spent these at the theatre, but her onstage performance was not what entertained him. Therefore, he returned to his town house to change into less formal attire.

As he was unwrapping his neck-cloth, his glance fell upon his left shirt cuff. He frowned.

"Hillard," he called.

His valet hastened into the dressing room.

"M'lud."

"Bring me a pistol."

Mr. Hillard had been with his master twenty years.

"Yes, m'lud. What sort of pistol did you have in mind? Mr. Manton has made you several."

"You cannot ask me to make such a decision at a time like this. I am a broken man. There is a thread," Lord Brandon said in sepulchral tones, "hanging from my cuff."

"M'lud, that is impossible. I beg your pardon for contradicting, but it is completely impossible."

His lordship put out his hand and pointed to the offending cuff. "What do you call that?" he asked in the same hollow voice.

Hillard stepped closer and peered at the object. "M'lud, I call it a hair. A long, reddish one," he added, his face immobile, "with a curl to it. I can't think how it got there, but it isn't a thread. Shall I remove it?"

"No, Hillard. You have suffered enough. I have grievously offended you. I hope you will come to forgive me one day, for there were extenuating circumstances. The light is dim and my eyesight is failing me. That has been pointed out to me on more than one occasion."

"I am sorry to hear it, m'lud."

"Now I have depressed your spirits. You had better step round to the butler's pantry and restore yourself with some beverage appropriate to the circumstances."

"But you meant to go out, m'lud, did you not?"

"Later. Perhaps I had better rest first."

When the valet had left, Lord Brandon carefully removed the gleaming strand from the stud on which it had caught — when he had caught her, he reflected with a small smile. Cornered and caught her, trembling, in his arms.

That had been a novel experience. He had never before embraced a frightened woman. Angry women, yes, and those who feigned shyness, and those who were eager — but never one genuinely afraid. Never before, either, had he encountered so powerful an effort to resist.

Yet she could not, and he'd known she could not. Which was no conceit in him, only statement of fact. Elise notwithstanding, he would not have pursued the widow if he had not believed there was an attraction from the start

His instincts never failed him in such cases. Even so, he had toyed with her first, to be certain, and all his artful teasing since had had one clear object: to make her inescapably aware of him.

Lord Brandon's smile twisted slightly. He had teased himself as well. That could not be denied. Wooing her he'd known would require patience. Nevertheless, though he was not an impatient man, tonight…

He drew the strand of hair out between his fingers.

For that endless time when she'd refused to succumb — when she stood, rigid as a marble column in his arms — he had wanted to shake her. The silken alabaster skin, the rich mass of curling hair, the surprisingly lush perfume wafting languorously to his nostrils… yes, the haughty countenance as well, and the strong, lithe body recoiling from his own. It had been, for a moment, maddening. But only for a moment, because she had weakened at last.

"At last," he murmured. "What was it then, madam?" he asked the fragile trophy of his night's work.

Then, he answered silently, he had tasted a young girl's kiss, tentative and inexperienced. Though she had been married six years and widowed five, one might have believed it was a virgin prisoned in his arms. All the same, her response had moved him. Even now, reflecting upon it made him… uneasy.

He glanced at the fresh linen, coat, waistcoat, and pantaloons Hillard had set out for him. It was time to dress. Brandon never kept his paramours waiting.

He could not repress a sigh. He had done it all a thousand times before. He had known them all, drab to duchess, and they were all, apart from details of packaging, the same. There was no challenge in the pursuit — no pursuit required, actually. No need for guile, as Elise had said. No danger and certainly no consequences of failure.

Small wonder the widow excited him.

"Thank heaven
that's
done," said Cecily when the door had closed behind the last of their guests.

"My dear, I hope you don't mean your comeout ball was an ordeal," said Emma. "You seemed to be enjoying yourself well enough."

"Oh, I did," Cecily said with a quick glance at her aunt. "How could I help it, when Aunt Lilith made all so splendid — so perfect?"

The widow was staring at a centre-piece one of the footmen was carrying out of the supper room. She did not respond.

"Aunt Lilith?" Cecily moved to her aunt's side and took her hand.

Lilith looked at her blankly.

"Thank you so much, Aunt It was the most beautiful party, and I cannot think when I've had a better time — away from my mare, that is," she added with a grin. "I was only relieved I managed to survive the evening without committing any outrageous
faux-pas"

"Oh, Cecily." To the girl's astonishment, her aunt threw her arms around her and hugged her — almost desperately, it seemed.

Then, just as abruptly, she drew away. "You are a great success," she said with her usual composure. "Equally important, you have deserved it. I am very proud of you, my dear."

"Well, I'm glad to hear it, Aunt. I shall have to tell you every compliment I received, naturally, and every silly thing the gentlemen contrived to say, and draw up a lengthy list of the men in London who'd do better for a dancing master. But not tonight — or this morning, rather. It's nearly dawn, isn't it? You must be exhausted, because the hostess has the most laborious job of all. Indeed, my aunt had better go to bed right away, don't you think, Emma?"

Emma bent a troubled glance upon the widow. "You have one of your headaches," she said. "Why don't you go up, as Cecily advises? I shall make you a nice herbal tea, shall I?"

"Thank you, but I am only a bit weary. This has been altogether a long day… and evening… and…" Lilith turned back to her niece. "Of course I shall want to hear every detail ofyour triumph," she said with a forced smile. "But we will all do better for some sleep."

As soon as she had attained the safety of her dressing room, Lilith tore the flowers and pins from her head, took up her brush, and savagely attacked her hair. Tears had started to her eyes when she heard her abigail's light footstep. "Go to bed, Mary. I told you not to wait up."

The brush was taken from her hand. "But it's as well I did, isn't it? You being run off your feet, and your head probably ringing from all the noise. I'm sure this was twice the crowd we had for Miss Georgiana. And, naturally, twice the number of biddies needing to be attended to. I could hear them squawking all the way downstairs, pesky old hens," Mary grumbled, all the while plying the dark auburn tresses with slow, soothing strokes. "And here I am, bad as any of them, jabbering at you when you must be tired to death of talk."

Lilith was more than tired to death. Her guests had pricked and stung her at every turn, in chorus to the pricking and stinging of her own conscience.

Every female in the company, it seemed, had remarked her brief disappearance and felt compelled to point out the odd coincidence of Lord Brandon's vanishing at the same time.

Their hostess had her answer ready, the same answer for them all. Had Lord Brandon left? She had not noticed, yet she was scarcely surprised. A young girl's comeout must seem to him a very tame affair. One could not be amazed at his leaving to seek livelier entertainment.

Thus she had endured, and told herself she had endured Worse — her marriage, for instance. Still, she prayed for great news from abroad to distract the Beau Monde from its obsessive attention to herself. Such news would not be forthcoming this evening, but tomorrow, perhaps. Tomorrow, perhaps, Lord Brandon's odd whims would be forgotten… by others, at least.

8

Unfortunately for mrs. Davenant, rumours of Buonaparte's attempted suicide the previous day could not possibly reach London in time to distract her gossip-hungry acquaintances. The afternoon following the comeout saw her drawing room packed with visitors, not all of them Cecily's dancing partners.

Lady Enders did her best, making a great piece of work of minor matters, such as Hobhouse's obstinate determination to procure passports to Paris for himself and Lord Byron, despite the Government's equally firm resolve not to issue any. She even went so far as to describe in tedious detail the illuminations at Carlton House celebrating the triumph of the Bourbons, though everyone had seen them and raved sufficiently days before.

Neither illuminations, Louis XVIII, nor even the capricious Lord Byron could be half so sensational a subject as the lavish bouquet of lilies that arrived just as Lady Jersey did, and five minutes before Lord Robert Downs made his appearance.

"I have never heard such a fuss about a lot of posies," he whispered to Cecily when he had elbowed several other fellows out of the way and had her, for the moment, to himself.