Lord of Sin (9 page)

Deborah swallowed. “Can you see into my mind?”

“Not now. It usually only happens when someone feels very strong emotions. And I try very hard not to intrude.”

Deborah tried to imagine what it must be like to actually know what someone else was thinking, and saw at once how extremely unpleasant it could be. One might hear the ugliest secrets, glimpse the darkest sins that existed among men. How could one live with such intimate knowledge?

“You understand,” Julia whispered. “I’m afraid few others would.” She smiled, an expression so rare on her face that it turned her from plain to pretty in an instant. “I wish…” She sobered again. “Something is troubling Nuala. Something about her past. People dressed in strange clothing—”

“What sort of clothing?”

“Dark, very plain, with wide collars. And there are people crying. Screaming.”

“How horrible! When did you first…hear these thoughts?”

“Just when Nuala came into the room.”

And she and Deborah had come directly from viewing Nuala’s portrait. The portrait in which Lady Charles had been wearing a dark, plain gown with a wide collar.

“You can’t see anything else?”

“Not about that. And I won’t force myself into her thoughts. That would be very wrong.”

“Of course.” Deborah frowned. “What has this to do with Lady Winthrop and the man who won’t have her?”

Julia bit her lip. “Have you met Lord Donnington?”

Deborah suppressed her excitement. “Yes. He was at the garden party today.”

“I know.”

“You were there? But I never saw you!”

Mrs. Summerhayes shrugged. “I am seldom noticed.”

“Why did you not tell us you were coming?”

“That isn’t important. Lord Donnington did not see me, but I was near him several times. His feelings were so strong that I could not avoid his thoughts.”

“And he was thinking of Nuala.”

“Yes. In the most violent terms.”

“Violent? You mean he wished to harm her?”

“No. At least not…” She took a breath. “Even when he was with other ladies, he did not see them. Only her.”

“Then Lord Donnington was the man who would not be interested in Lady Winthrop!”

“It was a foolish thing to say. I have no evidence of this. It was, as I said, only a feeling.”

“Perhaps you’re right.” Deborah placed her hand on Julia’s. “Was Nuala thinking of him, too?”

“If she was, I did not sense it.” She met Deborah’s gaze. “It is none of my business what goes on between them. I shall endeavor to shield myself more effectively next time.”

“I am very sorry that it was so unpleasant for you.”

Julia smiled again wanly. “One never does get entirely accustomed to it. That is why I seldom go out, you see. I shall not soon attend another party.”

“Oh, Julia.”

“It’s quite all right, Deborah.” She glanced up sharply, and after a moment voices sounded in the corridor. By unspoken consent she and Deborah fell into bland conversation, which was soon enlivened by the others who remained…especially by Nuala, who was uncharacteristically voluble. She seemed reluctant to leave Frances’s house even after the others had gone.

“It is strange,” Deborah said as the carriage clattered toward Grosvenor Street, “that this will be my last night in my husband’s house.”

Nuala emerged from her reverie and touched Deborah’s shoulder. “Does it trouble you greatly?”

“No. Lawrence wouldn’t have wanted me to live alone.” She hesitated. “Nuala…do you ever wish that you might marry again?”

“The thought has never crossed my mind.” She looked more carefully at Deborah. “Has it entered yours, my dear?”

“If it had, I should not belong to the club.”

“Deborah…if you find someone to love again, you must not let anyone stop you. All of us know that you are young….”

“And so I cannot know my own mind?”

“Of course you do. No one can doubt it.” Nuala leaned back in her seat. “What brought you to broach the subject of marriage?”

“It is hard to avoid it during the Season.” She looked sideways at Nuala. “I saw several girls and their chaperons pursuing Lord Donnington at the party.”

Nuala showed no signs of agitation. “Ah, yes,” she said. “I do not envy the young lady who finally wins him.”

“It does not seem as if he would make a very devoted husband.”

“He most certainly would not.” Nuala seemed to recognize the sudden harshness of her tone and smiled. “But that is neither here nor there.”

Isn’t it?
Deborah thought. But she held her tongue, and soon they were at Deborah’s house.

She was very tired as she entered the entrance hall and handed her coat and hat to Jacques. She was prepared to go immediately up to bed, but Jacques stopped her before she reached the stairs.

“Your ladyship,” he began, and hesitated.

“What is it, Jacques?”

“Your ladyship, there is a man waiting in the yard. He claims to have a package for you, but has refused to leave it with me. Shall I summon the police?”

“Why should you summon the police? What sort of man is he?”

“He is not a gentleman, your ladyship. If you will pardon my boldness, he is of the sort one might expect to encounter in the rookeries.”

The rookeries.
Deborah’s heart began to beat a little faster. “What does he look like, Jacques?”

“Not tall, your ladyship. Dark. His clothing is not of good quality. I believe he is not English.”

“I shall see this man.”

“But madam…”

“I believe I may have met him when I accompanied Lady Charles and Lady Selfridge to Whitechapel.”

“But for such a man to come here…”

Deborah knew that Jacques’s concern for her was real, but she had no patience for it now. “Please ask Stella to meet me in the servants’ hall. Should I have any difficulty, she will be within call.”

“Very good, your ladyship.” He bowed and, with a slight frown, left her. Scarcely waiting for his departure, Deborah dashed downstairs to the basement, paused to smooth her hair and continued on to the servants’ hall. She opened the door to the yard, her hand not quite steady on the latch.

I
OAN
D
AVIES LOOKED UP
. He hastily removed his cap, ran a hand over his hair and bowed.

“Madam,” he said, “I am sorry to disturb you.”

“You are not disturbing me.” She smiled. “How are your fingers, Mr. Davies? Improved, I hope?”

He raised his right hand, displaying clean bandages and the splints still in place. “They do very well, madam.”

“The wound? It is healing?”

“Yes, Lady Orwell.” He cleared his throat. “I came to return this.”

He held out his left hand. In it was a brown paper package tied with a bit of string.

“Mr. Davies,” Deborah stammered. She took the package without thinking, holding it between numb fingers. “What is this?”

“Your handkerchief, madam.” He cleared his throat. “It is not in the same condition as it was when you gave it me, but I did not wish to…” He straightened and held her gaze. “I thank you for the use of it, Lady Orwell.”

Deborah looked down at the package. The hand
kerchief had been soaked with Mr. Davies’s blood the last time she had seen it. She knew full well that the stains could not have been entirely removed, especially given the limited resources available to him, and she would not shame the Welshman by unwrapping it here.

“However did you find…how did you learn where I lived?” she asked.

He held his cap in both hands, turning it round and round. “There are many tradesmen who deliver their goods to your door, madam. I am acquainted with one of them.”

“Then you do not live…you do not spend all your time in Whitechapel?”

“I was not always without employment,” he said, lifting his chin. He returned his cap to his head. “I shall leave you to your rest, madam.” He bowed again and turned to go.

“Wait!” She took a step after him, realized what she was doing and stopped, flushing with confusion. “Mr. Davies…”

He faced her again. “Madam?”

“If you are in still in need of employment, perhaps I can make inquiries. We are still seeking men to purchase and transport food and other goods to Whitechapel on a regular basis.”

Davies’s expression, already so serious, went blank. “I thank you, madam,” he said, “but you had better give such employment to those with little ones to feed.”

“Mr. Davies…” She swallowed, wishing herself several feet under the earth. “I did not mean to offend.”

“Indeed you did not cause any offense, madam.” He touched the brim of his cap again. “Good night.”

This time when he walked away Deborah made no move to follow. She touched the back of her hand to her face. It was so hot that she longed to duck her head in a bucket of cold water.

How dare he speak to her so? Not only rejecting her offer, but doing so with such rudeness, such…

She sighed. She could almost hear Lawrence gently chiding her for thinking such arrogant thoughts.
“Just because he is poor and a commoner does not make him less worthy of respect.”

“But that does not excuse his discourtesy!” Deborah said aloud.

“Your ladyship?”

Stella ducked her head through the servants’ door, her face screwed up in concern.

“It’s all right, Stella. I shall be in directly.”

The maid went back inside. Deborah slowly untied the twine and opened the neatly wrapped package.

Her handkerchief was stained, just as she had expected. But it was evident to her eyes that Mr. Davies had taken great pains to remove as much of the blood as he could.

She folded the handkerchief and pressed it to her cheek.

N
UALA ADJUSTED
the wide, flowing sleeves of her crimson medieval gown and paused at the door to the ballroom. She, Deborah and Clara had arrived relatively early to Lady Oxenham’s ball; there were few
couples on the dance floor, and the dowager Marchioness of Oxenham had not as yet been accosted by the hordes about to descend upon them.

She glanced at Deborah, who was so enchanting in her Georgian gown, all bows and pastels. Clara had chosen the unconventional costume of a Japanese princess, complete with elaborate kimono and a stylized black wig.

“I do not see how you intend to dance in such an ensemble,” Deborah said teasingly. “You will be quite hobbled by that robe.”

The older woman arched a brow. “But I don’t intend to dance. I much prefer observation.”

And that, Nuala thought, was what she would have preferred, as well. If it hadn’t been for her desire to show her appreciation for Lady Oxenham’s friendship, she might have avoided the ball entirely. She had a strong feeling that the earl of Donnington would put in an appearance tonight, in spite of his general disdain for any social event that would compel him to keep company with women in search of husbands.

Over two hundred and forty years, and you are still as nervous as a schoolgirl at her coming-out.
The very notion made her angry. She and Sinjin had come to terms, and that was that. She must live with her mistakes, but she had no desire to have them constantly thrown in her face by Lord Donnington.

“Shall we go in?” Clara asked. Without waiting for their agreement, she hobbled into the room and bowed, Japanese-style, to the first woman she met. Nuala and Deborah followed.

Once again Nuala noted the high color Deborah’s cheeks. The girl had pretended to have mixed feelings about the ball; though she had left off wearing the usual subdued colors of half-mourning tonight, she projected supreme indifference to the men who noticed her fresh, innocent beauty. Nuala was far from convinced by her display.

Three weeks ago, the girl had spoken almost heatedly of her opposition to the prospect of remarriage. At the time, Nuala had wondered if Deborah had begun to suspect the strength of Nuala’s interest in her relationship with Mr. Melbyrne and had been determined to refute any speculation on the matter. Certainly the two young people had only met a few times since the garden party. They had spent no significant time together.

But then again, Lord Donnington was almost always with Melbyrne. That might give any young lady pause. What had Mr. Erskine said? “
He guards his friends’ virtue as savagely as Cerberus guards Hades.”

Perhaps Deborah had been discouraged. Perhaps Nuala should have been more supportive. Nevertheless, she had far from given up hope. If Sinjin came to the ball, so would Melbyrne.

Deborah scanned the room with its half-pillared, mirrored walls. Before she could take another step, Lieutenant Richard Osbourne begged the honor of Lady Orwell’s hand for the second dance set. Deborah politely agreed.

“It will not be long before every one of your
dances is taken,” Nuala said. “You’ll spend very little time sitting tonight, I daresay.”

Deborah smoothed the wrinkles in her long white glove. “I don’t expect that
you
will spend much time as a wallflower, Lady Charles.”

Indeed, before another half an hour had passed, Deborah had been approached by a half-dozen male acquaintances, and Nuala by nearly as many. Deborah stayed close to Nuala until the swell of music signaled the first dance, though her gaze continued to wander about the room.

Where was Mr. Melbyrne? Nuala smiled at her first partner, the plump Lord Manwaring, who looked greatly encouraged. “You dance exceptionally well, if I may say so, Lady Charles,” Manwaring said.

“As do you, Lord Manwaring. It is always a pleasure to dance with a partner so light on his feet.”

The viscount, obviously surprised by the directness of her compliment, looked as if he would have liked to return the favor, but he thought better of it and applied himself to the dance. When it was finished, he escorted her back to her chair, thanked her effusively and offered to fetch her punch.

Nuala agreed absently, her thoughts on something far more important than refreshments. She searched for the pink Georgian gown and found it, situated at a proper distance from a handsome, fair-haired young man wearing the doublet and trunk hose of an Elizabethan gentleman. There was something in Melbyrne’s attitude that more than hinted at his pleasure in seeing Deborah again, and
she
…

An older man with thick black side-whiskers came to claim Deborah, and she glanced back at Melbyrne as the distinguished gentleman led her back to the floor. There was no doubt as to the longing in Melbyrne’s expression. Deborah’s true feelings were shielded by the smile she gave her partner, but Nuala sensed that the girl’s mind was not on the dance at all.

The next few sets passed quickly. Nuala’s partners were uniformly pleasant and undemanding, though Mr. Hepburn seemed particularly intent on charming her. As odd as it seemed, a few gentlemen seemed to believe that Nuala might be amenable to courtship, or perhaps even a less respectable liaison.

Nuala did nothing to encourage them. She was grateful for a chance to sit out the sixth dance by secreting herself in the corner of the room, where she could watch as Melbyrne and Deborah whirled across the floor. The boy held Deborah a little closer than was quite proper, and Deborah gazed into his eyes with such intensity that she forgot the requisite bland smile.

“Hiding, Lady Charles?”

Mr. Erskine smiled conspiratorially, his easy manner belying the seeming mockery of his question. Nuala let herself relax again and expressed her admiration for Erskine’s desert robes.

“It isn’t actually a costume,” Erskine said. “It was given me as a gift by a sultan in Morocco.”

“I didn’t know you traveled, Mr. Erskine.”

“A trifle, here and there…though I daresay I don’t look the type.”

“It’s always a mistake to judge anyone by appearance,” Nuala said.

“You are a perceptive woman, Lady Charles.”

“It’s only common sense.”

He made a little bow. “Would you care to dance, Lady Charles? Or are you perhaps waiting for someone else?”

“Not at all, Mr. Erskine. But I would prefer to talk, if that suits you.”

“Would you care for punch?”

By now Nuala was thirsty again, and she accepted Erskine’s offer. He had no sooner left her than she heard the familiar voice sounding in the doorway, and her heart skittered into the soles of her dancing shoes. She darted behind a large potted shrubbery just as Sinjin and his companions entered the ballroom and stopped almost directly beside her.

S
INJIN COULDN’T FIND HER
.

He knew she must be somewhere in the room; she would have been one of the first guests invited by her sister-in-law, and it was unlikely that she would refuse her friend and patroness.

Perhaps she had taken ill. The thought made Sinjin distinctly uncomfortable. He should be thanking Providence if she were absent; he had still not determined how he should respond to her when they met again.

Her supple body, writhing beneath his…

He pulled his hand across his face and remembered the real reason why he had come. It was only a precaution, of course. Melbyrne had seemed
wholly indifferent about attending the ball; he had agreed to go at Sinjin’s urging, if only to prove that he was done with Lady Orwell once and for all.

“I swear to you, Donnington, I shall not see her again
.” Melbyrne had made the promise immediately after the dowager duchess’s garden party, and then again that very evening. He had listened attentively to Sinjin’s repeated warnings that any further marked attention to Lady Orwell would convince Society that he was about to request the young lady’s hand in marriage.

Scowling at the very thought, Sinjin looked for the boy. He caught sight of the former Duchess of Vardon, dressed in full Egyptian regalia and gazing out over the crowd with remote approval. Across the room, Lady Meadows—in a costume smothered in flowers made of ribbon and lace—chattered happily to an overwhelmed gentleman of middle age who found it impossible to contribute a single word to the conversation. Lady John Pickering, bound up in a crimson kimono, seemed to challenge the other guests with her blatant lack of convention. As if determined to outdo her friend, Lady Selfridge—whom Sinjin never would have expected to find at a ball—wore the draperies of a Celtic warrioress, complete with crested helmet and golden bands wrapped about her firm, bare arms.

He forgot them all when he saw Lady Orwell. Dressed in a high-waisted gown as frothy as foam, she stood talking with Melbyrne, her fan raised coquettishly, her gaze fixed on his face as if he were the
only man in the room. Melbyrne was laughing; his skin was flushed, and he leaned toward his fair companion in such a way that no one could mistake his partiality.

Sinjin permitted himself a single brief moment of disbelief and laughed shortly. After all his years of experience observing the ridiculous posturings of deceitful women and the men they sought to impress, he had nevertheless chosen to believe in Melbyrne’s sincerity.

“Look at her,” Sir Harry Ferrer said. “She believes she is the superior of every other person in this room.”

Sinjin turned to the others, his patience stretched to the breaking point. “To whom are you referring, Ferrer?”

The baronet, looking none too slender in his buccaneer costume, lifted his glass of punch, gave it a sour look and drank. “The dowager Duchess of Vardon,” he said. “Sitting in her chair as if it were a throne, putting off every gentleman who has the temerity to request a dance.”

Achilles Nash laughed, the metal of his breastplate creaking. “Why the bitterness, Ferrer? Did she refuse your romantic overtures?”

“As if I would have her,” Sir Harry said. “But perhaps her kind is more to your taste…if she’d deign to stoop so low.”

“Well,” Waybury said, “I find Lady Selfridge to be far worse than the dowager.
She
believes that women should have all the rights of men…even the vote.”

“Waybury,” Sinjin warned. “You will be heard.”

“Since when have you cared for the opinion of polite society, Donnington? Or are you getting soft?”

“Pity poor Adele if he is,” Nash said with a soft guffaw.