Phaedra set a hand on her mother’s shoulder. “Just go downstairs, Mamma, and tell Cook to put the sprouts back until Saturday,” she said patiently. “Sprouts will keep nicely. At your birthday dinner, we shall have so much to choose from, Nash will never notice.”
Lady Nash was nodding intently. “Yes, quite so, quite so,” she said. “My dear Miss Neville, will you excuse me? Phaedra will show you back to your room. I will go down to the kitchens.”
They parted company near the grand staircase, Lady Phaedra at Xanthia’s side.
“Well, that was interesting,” said Xanthia as they started up the steps together.
Lady Phaedra laughed. “It always is,” she said. “Mamma is a dear, but she never stops talking.”
“I find her most gracious,” said Xanthia. “But I do have one burning question, Lady Phaedra.”
Lady Phaedra shot her a quizzical look. “Yes?”
“Just what color is the
celsiana
rose?”
The young lady grinned. “Oh, that!” she said. “Your brother’s impressive horticultural abilities aside, I fear the
damascena celsiana
is always pale pink.”
Xanthia laughed and looped her arm through Lady Phaedra’s. “My dear, that is so cruel,” she answered. “I think you must share your brother’s black humor.”
“Well, you know what they say,” answered Phaedra equivocally. “A sharp wit is a dangerous weapon.”
By the time they reached Xanthia’s suite, she and Phaedra were laughing like old friends. Phaedra went directly to the door which opened onto Xanthia’s bedchamber, and threw it open. “Ugh!” she said, recoiling in disgust. “That smell must be driving you mad!”
Xanthia followed her inside, and sniffed. The musky scent, which had been barely discernible upon Xanthia’s arrival, was indeed powerful now. The late-day sun was streaming through the wide bank of windows, warming the air. Phaedra sneezed violently and headed straight for the windows.
“I am not terribly bothered by the scent,” Xanthia reassured her.
Phaedra, apparently, did not agree. She was already throwing up the sashes. “Ugh!” she said again, straining at one of the windows. “I cannot bear it.”
Xanthia went to help her. “What is it?”
“Nutmeg mace,” she answered as the sash gave, and went rumbling up. “And some sort of musk, I think.”
“It certainly is unusual,” Xanthia remarked.
Phaedra was looking about the room as if she suspected vermin. She headed straight to the heavy mahogany wardrobe, threw open both doors, and pushed Xanthia’s gowns aside. “Pardon my familiarity, Miss Neville, but you will thank me for this.”
“By all means,” murmured Xanthia, looking on.
Her nimble fingers went sorting through the wardrobe’s contents. “Ah-ha!” Phaedra finally said, turning around. A round latticed ball on a pink ribbon dangled from the tip of her forefinger.
“What is it?” asked Xanthia. “Some sort of pomander?”
“One of Jenny’s,” said Phaedra in a put-upon voice. “She gets the scent in Paris. ‘Tis bad enough she wafts it all over the house, but I wish she would not leave these lying about after she’s gone. I think it is disgusting.” As if for emphasis, she sneezed again.
“Oh, dear,” said Xanthia. “I hope I did not take Mrs. Hayden-Worth’s room?”
Phaedra hesitated. “No, she and Tony have a large bedchamber attached to his private study in the east wing,” she said. “But Jenny often takes this one. She says she likes to see the front gardens.”
“Oh, dear,” said Xanthia again. “I should be happy to move elsewhere.”
Phaedra’s expression darkened. “Well, it’s not your problem, I daresay, if she doesn’t wish to sleep with her husband.”
Xanthia scarcely knew what to say. “I am sure, Lady Phaedra, that it is not my business, either,” she managed.
But the girl behaved as if Xanthia had not spoken. “Besides, Jenny will be away for a week, at least,” she went on. “She finds Mamma’s friends dull. And as to Nash—well, let us just say that he and Jenny are both possessed of strong personalities. I am not surprised she found an excuse to go away.”
Phaedra’s intimations precisely matched Xanthia’s impression of Mrs. Hayden-Worth, but she said nothing. She decided it was prudent to change the subject. “Well, so long as we have the wardrobe open, come have a look, Lady Phaedra, at my favorite gown,” she said. “You must tell me if you think it will do for Saturday’s dinner party.”
Phaedra brightened at once. “Oh, fabulous! No one ever asks my opinion about clothes.”
Suddenly, however, the clatter of hooves and the jingle of a harness rang out across the front gardens. Phaedra’s face broke into a huge smile, and she darted toward the windows. “Nash!” she cried, leaning halfway out. “Nash is here! And Tony, too! Hurry, Miss Neville. Let’s go down.”
Xanthia felt a moment of panic and went at once to the dressing table. As usual, her heavy hair was slipping from its arrangement, and she was a little pink from the overheated room.
“Come on, you look lovely,” said Phaedra, grabbing her by the arm. “Nash would never have invited you if he did not think so.”
Xanthia drew back, and cut a chiding glance at the girl. “Phaedra, don’t make more of this than—”
“I am making of it what it is,” said Phaedra flatly.
“I beg your pardon?” said Xanthia.
Phaedra looked at her as if she feared Xanthia were slightly simple-minded. “Miss Neville, you are the only unattached female my brother has ever invited to Brierwood,” she said. “And Nash—well, what can one say? He is known to be quite the connoisseur.”
“Oh,” said Xanthia quietly. “Oh, Lady Phaedra, I fear you have much mistaken the situation. We are good friends, no more.”
Phaedra smiled with false brilliance. “Yes, and I am Queen of the Nile,” she answered. “Now, come on. Do you mean to go down and greet your good friend—or not?”
I
n the end, Xanthia did not ride with Lady Phaedra the following day. Kieran did, accompanied by the jovial Mr. Hayden-Worth and Lady Phoebe, who planned a trip into the village to view the local church, and to permit Mr. Hayden-Worth to post an urgent letter. The latter declared himself devastated that Xanthia would not accompany them, and if he missed his wife, one could not discern it.
For her part, Xanthia found, somewhat to her surprise, that she rather liked Nash’s stepbrother, though she recognized him for what he was—charming and handsome, but a politician to his very core. Nonetheless, he had kind eyes, and he utterly doted on his mother, which Xanthia believed spoke well of a man. But Mr. Hayden-Worth’s charm aside, Xanthia’s company had been claimed by Nash for the afternoon, who offered her instead a tour of Brierwood’s magnificent gardens.
It was admittedly clever of him, for in the gardens they remained ostensibly under the watchful eye of his mother—and yet they were very much alone, for the gardens were inexhaustible, and Lady Nash’s attention span was not. Their footsteps were quiet on the flagstone path that led around to the back of the house.
The front gardens were quite formal with many fountains, and a variety of hedges cut in complex geometric patterns, all of which were better viewed from the upper floors of the house. But in the rear of Brierwood, the gardens were gloriously English, with rambling paths of flagstone and pea gravel, and walls of stone cleverly interspersed with stretches of wrought-iron arches which allowed one a tantalizing peek from one garden into the next. Behind the wrought-iron arch would appear a fountain, a rose-covered pergola, or perhaps a clever piece of topiary.
Her arm linked in his, Xanthia ducked just as Nash smoothly lifted a lush, green limb from their path. “How verdant they seem,” she said, admiring a long row of shrubs. “They are lilacs, are they not?”
“My dear, I have no notion,” he said, drawing her a little closer and settling his opposite hand over hers where it lay upon his arm. “I can scarce tell an English oak from an English rose—save for that blush I occasionally see in your cheeks.”
“So this garden tour was a sham?” Xanthia teased. “A mere ruse to lure me from your stepmother’s side?”
“Pray do not look to Edwina to guard your virtue, my dear,” said Nash dryly. “Can you only imagine what it will be like when Phae and Phoebe come out? I shall have to hire Bow Street Runners to keep watch.”
“So we are quite alone in the gardens?” said Xanthia in a low, suggestive voice.
“I daresay,” he responded. “The gardeners always respectfully disappear whenever I come out—which is perhaps once a year. Not such a dreadful imposition, do you think?”
Xanthia looked up to study his face. “It is so beautiful here,” she answered. “And Brierwood is quite the most magnificent house I have ever seen. Do you find it intolerably dull?”
Nash looked down the garden path pensively. “Perhaps it is growing on me, Zee. I have begun to feel…differently about it, somehow. But come—let’s not talk of such serious matters.” He paused to stroke the backs of his fingers across her cheek. “I should rather we conspire as to how I might slip into your bed later tonight—preferably without being caught by your brother.”
Xanthia laughed. “I think it will be a straightforward matter. There is quite a large sitting room between his bedchamber and mine, and my door onto the corridor has a most unreliable-looking lock.” She looked up at him again. “On the other hand, I could come to you.”
Nash smiled down at her, and appeared to be mulling it over. She could sense that something else was weighing on his mind, too. Last night during dinner, and the coffee and whist which had followed, he had remained exceedingly hospitable to all yet somehow removed from the crowd. He had the look of a man who did not quite fit in—and the quiet withdrawal of one who had something serious on his mind. Even Kieran had remarked upon it.
Dear heaven, she hoped Nash was not thinking about the missing letters! Xanthia had not seen Mr. Kemble since dismissing him in Wapping. Her heated threats aside, she would likely never get the letters back. She felt the needling sense of guilt return. A part of her wanted to confess, but she had given her word to Lord de Vendenheim. At least the correspondence she’d stolen had appeared benign—even Mr. Kemble had admitted as much. Perhaps by now de Vendenheim, too, was convinced. Perhaps he had given up on Nash and was in hot pursuit of some other hapless Englishman. The thought eased her conscience a bit.
Arm in arm she and Nash strolled through a pair of the stone gateposts which divided the shrub garden from an orchard which lay just beyond. Nash halted abruptly on the garden path and drew her to him, his heavy black hair falling forward to shadow his forehead. His exotic black eyes moved over her face as if searching for something unspoken.
“Kiss me, Zee,” he rasped.
For an instant, Xanthia hesitated, but then his lips touched hers, so delicate and yet so hungry, she sucked in her breath. With it came the delicious, dizzying scent of him, and she was lost. Gently, Nash set her back to the cool stone gatepost and opened his mouth over hers. Unable to resist, Xanthia lifted her face to his and kissed him back deeply.
As always, he smelled of enticing citrus, and the heady fragrance of fresh linen and fine tobacco. But beneath it all was his own male heat, a scent too well remembered. The enticing combination conspired to throw her back to another time, another place—that dark, dangerous evening when she had first offered her lips to him on Sharpe’s veranda. Then as now, Nash’s tongue plundered her mouth and weakened her knees. Xanthia sagged against the stone post. The fear of being seen was melting away, draining with it her resolve. She drew him inside, entwining her tongue with his in a delicious dance of temptation—and of promise.
Yes,
this
was what she had come for. To others, she might deny the depth of her attraction—but her body would not be denied. She came away from the gatepost and leaned into him, allowing him to deepen the kiss as her hands slid down his back. The soft wool of his lapels brushed the silk of her gown, and her cashmere shawl went slithering unheeded onto the orchard grass. Already he seemed to know her body as he knew his own. Xanthia felt his hand on her buttock, warm and heavy as it circled. And when he lifted her against the unmistakable ridge of his erection and groaned, the sound seemed to come from the very pit of his soul.
Tonight
, she thought blindly. Tonight he would make love to her again. He must—or she would die from the aching. And the ache was no longer simple lust. Indeed, it had long ago ceased to be, had she but allowed herself to realize it. Now she ached to please him. To share herself in every possible way with this man she had come to adore against her will. At that thought, a sudden surge of tenderness almost overwhelmed her.
He slanted his lips over hers again, raking her skin with the faint stubble of his beard, and she shivered. She drew back and stared into his eyes as she clung to him. “Yes, tonight,” she whispered. “I will come to you as soon as I may.”
Nash gave a muted smile and smoothed the fabric of her skirt back over her hip. “And what if we are discovered, my dear?” he murmured. “We might have a hard decision to make.”
Xanthia dropped her gaze. He was asking, no doubt, if she would force him to do the honorable thing. It was something he feared, and she had known that from the first. Was it not the very reason he had come to call on Kieran on that long-ago afternoon?
“We shan’t be caught,” she answered. “But if we are, the decision will be ours, as you say. No one can force us to—”
He cut her off with another kiss, but swift and short. “Come,” he said, tucking her hand around his arm. “There is a pretty pond just beyond the orchard, and a little folly sits at its edge. I think we may dare to venture so far beyond the bounds of propriety.”
Xanthia laughed and went with him willingly. “I cannot believe we are worrying so about appeasing your stepmother.”
“We are not appeasing her,” he said solemnly. “We are preserving your good name.”
“But I venture regularly into places no lady would ever go, often in company no lady would ever keep.”
Nash frowned faintly. “Yes, but that is not the same as being alone in
my
company,” he pointed out. “What you do in Wapping…well, one might almost say it is out of sight, out of mind when it comes to the
ton
. But having an
affaire
with a man like me is another thing altogether.”
Xanthia went up the steps of the folly and settled onto the semicircular bench. “So I am simply to give you up?” she asked, looking him straight in the eye. “Is that what you are suggesting?”
To her surprise, Nash looked away. “No,” he said quietly. “Not…exactly.”
“What, then?” she demanded.
Nash said nothing for a time. “I hardly know,” he finally confessed. “I have been thinking of you quite a lot, my dear. Thinking of how we fell into this treacherous business in the first place.”
“Stefan!” she said chidingly. Xanthia slipped an arm around his waist and set her cheek against his shoulder. “It was desire at first sight. Sometimes, I think, it just happens like that. And I have been thinking of you, too—thinking of you at times when I really ought not.”
He did not reply but instead glanced at the orchard behind. Then, as if reassured they were indeed alone, he set one arm around Xanthia’s shoulders. It was a wonderfully comforting moment. The folly and its environs were charming, too. For a long time they simply sat thus, listening to the twitter of the birds and observing the tranquil, glistening surface of the pond. She felt a rightness in his embrace, a oneness with Nash she had never expected with any man. And there was a joy—a joy which she feared might be fleeting.
After a time, she drew a deep, uncertain breath. “There was one question, Stefan, which you have never asked me,” she said. “I thought you would, after our little escapade at Lady Cartselle’s.”
“And what is that, my dear?” he murmured, dipping his head to look down at her.
For a long moment, she said nothing. “About my virginity,” she finally answered. “About…why I wasn’t one.”
Did he stiffen slightly, or was it her imagination? “A virgin?” he asked, his voice perfectly normal. “Well, on that score, Zee, I fear I have a little confession to make.”
She looked up at him strangely. “Of what sort?”
“Prepare yourself, my dear.” He bent his head, and set his lips very close to her ear. “I was not a virgin, either.”
She erupted in laughter and sat up again. “Yes, I had heard the rumors,” she answered. “Now, Nash, will you please be serious?”
“I am being entirely serious,” he said. “What business is it of mine if you have taken lovers before me? I have had more than I can count. But—very well, yes—I have wondered. I am a man, and we are weak, curious creatures. Nonetheless, I think I’ve managed to figure it out.”
Xanthia crooked one eyebrow. “Did you indeed?”
He smiled lazily, and leaned forward to lightly kiss her nose. “I decided that you once fancied yourself in love with that angry young man in your office—Mr. Lloyd, was it?” he said quietly. “The fellow is quite handsome, and he looks at you with…well, with that look.”
She laughed and pressed her fingertips to her chest. “What
look
?”
Nash shrugged, and dropped his gaze. “A possessive look,” he said. “A heated lover’s look. Do not tell me, Zee, that you have not noticed it.”
Xanthia sighed. “I suppose so,” she admitted. “It…it is hard to explain.”
“And you do not need to.”
She set one hand against his cheek. “But I think perhaps I should like to do so,” she said honestly. “Or at the very least, Nash, I should like you to understand what our lives were like when we lived in the West Indies.”
He hesitated a moment. “Then I should like to listen.”
Xanthia chose her words carefully. “Barbados is an insular society,” she said. “A small island with very few privileged whites. When Gareth came to the island as a boy, and began to work for Luke, we were thrown together. A sort of friendship sprang up between us. One might say we almost grew up together on the island. Neither of us had very much in the way of supervision.”
“I think I understand,” said Nash. “How old were you?”
Xanthia lifted one shoulder. “Fourteen, perhaps?” she answered. “In those days, I did all Luke’s filing, made the tea, swept the floors—anything to be with Luke, whom I worshipped.”
“I felt the very same about Petar,” Nash confessed.
She smiled a little sadly. “Luke found Gareth down at the docks, looking rather lost,” she said. “He was just a few months older than I. We took him on as an errand boy, and then as a clerk, copying contracts and such.”
“Where was his family?”
“I don’t know,” she confessed. “He never really said, but I know his parents were dead. So he was just an orphan, like us. For years we were…well, best friends, I suppose? But we grew up and began to live separate lives. Unfortunately, one evening, when we were working late, a terrible storm came up—almost a hurricane, really. I had sent the staff home, and Kieran was inland, at one of the mills. Gareth and I were trapped in the shipping offices alone.”
“My dear girl.” Nash took her hand in his, and squeezed it hard. “You must have been terrified. How old were you?”
“Oh, I was a woman grown—almost twenty, I think.” Her voice was low, and fraught with memories. “But we both were terrified. Barbados rarely got such storms. The sea was wild; even the careenage was storm-tossed. We were caught in a whirlwind of debris; shingles and torn sails and palm fronds flew at the windows. Then something metal—part of a windlass, I think—shattered a window, missing my skull by an inch.”
Nash winced. “My dear, you could have been killed.”
She nodded. “We knew it, too,” she agreed. “But we pulled some furniture against the leeward wall, and hid behind it. And then…well, we began to cling to one another. In looking back, I can honestly say we thought we might die.”