No Place for a Dame (11 page)

“I meant that I asked Travers to find me something
comfortable
to wear,” she explained. “I have with me the complete wardrobe of a young country gentleman, but I neglected to bring anything to wear when I am not on stage, so to speak. I did not think it advisable to risk the maids finding a dress amongst my clothing.”

He felt his lips twitch appreciatively. “Indeed. Well considered.”

“Thank you,” she said, her attention returning to her food.

“How did you achieve the brows?”

“Hm?” She pierced another bit of boiled potato with her fork and carried it halfway to her mouth. “Oh. Binder’s glue and a sable’s tail I liberated from an old tippet I found at Killylea. I anticipate I shall be able to harvest around another two dozen appearances from it before I am forced to find another carcass.”

He shuddered. “Must you say ‘carcass’?”

She popped the potato into her mouth and eyed him mischievously. “Corpse?”

Travers cleared his throat. She darted a guilty glance at him.

“May I serve your lordship?” he asked.

“Would you even know how? I didn’t think so. No, thank you, Travers. I seem to have lost my appetite.” He replaced the napkin on the table.

“Liar,” she muttered.

He ignored this, studying her. Seen in the daylight—such as it was; London was enjoying another of her infamous black days—all suggestions of immature girlishness disappeared. She was a woman in full bloom. The banyan skimmed over her breasts closely, leaving him to wonder what, if anything, she wore beneath. It was an uncomfortable conjecture.

“I hope the spectacles don’t strain your eyes,” he said. “I understand the reason you’ve adopted them, of course. Your eyes are simply too”—he smiled—“too beautiful to belong to a boy.”

She started, a rosy blush spreading up from her throat into her face. Her gaze flickered up to search his, then fell self-consciously to her plate.

He frowned. Didn’t she know she had beautiful eyes?

“Bosh.”

Apparently not.

He considered pursuing the matter but decided it would only cause her further discomfort. “And your new silhouette? A stroke of genius. You look exactly like I always imagined Humpty-Dumpty to have appeared.”

“Humpty-Dumpty?”

“A character in a book of juvenile rhymes my mother gave me when I was a lad.”

The slight defensive tension in her shoulders relaxed. “Thank you. I think. I own I do consider the disguise rather ingenious.”

How poignant that she so readily took this sort of praise as her due while doubting compliments other ladies would take for granted. What a waste.

“How did you do it?” he asked. “It looks quite authentic.”

“Basically it is several pillows sewn over Mrs. Bedling’s corset.”

“I applaud your ingenuity. I was rather afraid you were going to try to pass yourself off as a pretty, lithe young lad à la Caroline Lamb.” He leaned forward confidingly. “She never really fooled anyone, you know.”

She sucked in a tiny breath, deliciously scandalized. “I read about that! She was mad for love of Byron.”

Giles sat back. “She was mad for love of attention. Always has been.”

“You don’t think they loved one another?” She seemed indignant.

“I think both of them loved the celebrity their affair generated far more than one another.”

“I am sure you are being cynical.”

“I am sure you are correct,” he replied equitably.

She frowned. “Is there no romance in you?”

“Not a whit,” he said. “And neither should there be in a scientist. I am surprised you are not grilling me about when we can breach the front door of the Royal Astrological Society rather than rhapsodizing over what is in fact nothing more than a sordid little affair.” He was as surprised to hear the words coming out of his mouth as she looked. When had he become a prig?

She lowered her gaze, a little flustered. “Yes, of course, that is the most important consideration and I am a scientist first and foremost. But that doesn’t mean I am without sentiment.” She had put her elbow on the table—a deplorable habit he would have to convince her to eschew—and set her chin in her hand, regarding him as though he were one of her science experiments. “Hasn’t your heart ever urged you to pursue where your reason resisted?”

“Once or twice.” He shifted in his seat, ambushed by a long ago memory of a girl running through spring grass, a tumble of lithe limbs, breathless laughter…

She smiled and he had the lowering suspicion that she realized his discomfort and it amused her. “Oh…?” The word was drawn out invitingly.

If he were the sort given to snickering—which he wasn’t—he would have snickered then because really, did she honestly think he was going to sit here trading girlish confidences with her?

“Yes. Twice. Both times at Tattersall’s,” he said. “And a damned good thing much-reviled reason held sway, because to date neither filly has ever won a race.”

She sat back with a snort of disgust.

They had much work to do before he introduced her into Society. Even given her genius, no one would believe he would
ever
tolerate a protégé who snorted.

“That’s not what I meant,” she said.

“Really?”

A light blush tinted her cheek. She dabbed her mouth with a napkin and set it beside her empty plate. “Fine. I understand. I am overstepping. But pray recall that I was never schooled in deportment. Now, what do you propose is the next step in our plan?”

“I shall invite Sir Isbill to dine with us during which time you shall dazzle him with your astronomical expertise.”

“Excellent.” She rubbed her hands together. “At your club?”

“Hardly,” Strand said. “No woman has stepped foot in White’s in forty-one years. There are some holy of holies that I refuse to trample just so you might achieve astrological immortality.”

“Ach.” It was not
precisely
a snort, this time, though it carried just as clear a message. “So what if a woman’s feet tread across a few yards of marble and her hands touch a fork and she wipes her mouth with a linen napkin? Bury the fork, burn the napkin, and salt the tiles.”

He pressed his lips together to keep from laughing. She was so utterly unimpressed with his consequence. Not to mention his club’s sovereignty. It had been years since anyone had surprised him like she did. But then she always had.

“Besides…” She stood up, spurring him to rise hastily to his own feet. She might not think of herself as a lady, but she was, and, despite some proof to the contrary, he was still a gentleman. She blinked at him owlishly and a scowl started as if she thought he was mocking her.

“Now what insult were you about to levy?” he quickly prompted.

“What makes you think it was going to be an insult?”

“Let’s call it a hunch. You had said, ‘besides.’ Besides what?”

She grinned. “
Besides
, you’re the only one who would know. The rest of your precious club members would be blissfully ignorant, a state in which, I am loathe to say, it appears the majority of the peerage spend most of their time. Why are you smiling like that?”

“It’s gratifying to have one’s predictions fulfilled,” he said. “And I don’t believe you are loath to say that at all.”

“You may be right,” she readily admitted. “But the fact remains that given how perceptive the average aristocrat is, I’d bet there have been women loitering undetected about the halls of your clubs for decades.”

He burst out laughing. He couldn’t help it. The picture she painted was too delicious. After a second of looking alarmed by her own audacity, she joined him, her laughter rich and beguiling. Alas, that was not the only thing about her that beguiled.

As she’d risen, his silk dressing robe had fallen open at her throat, exposing a pale, satiny looking expanse of skin and the shadowed vale of her breasts. Her dark blue eyes glittered like sapphires and her lips,
curving in a smile, looked as red and lush as if she’d been eating brambleberries. And it was then, quite without volition, that he realized something he had almost forgotten, as he had forgotten so much of who he’d been.

Four years ago, he’d thought her the most desirable woman he’d ever known.

And that was as far as he would allow that particular thought to travel, because his father had already done quite enough to complicate Avery Quinn’s life and he wasn’t going to do more. He would instead continue doing his damnedest to see that something of value came out of the old marquess’s interference and machinations.

And if that allowed him to enjoy her unique and interesting company, that was all he would enjoy.

By God.

Chapter Eleven

S
ir Jameson had seated Lord Vedder in the only other chair in the room besides his own and inquired whether he would like something to drink. Upon receiving Vedder’s assent, he poured him a glass of port.

Tucked away in an inconvenient corner of Parliament, Jameson’s office was quite unlike that of his counterpart, Sir Robert Knowlton, whose large airy rooms on the top floor overflowed with artifacts and maps; deep, cushioned chairs that invited lengthy stays; and a host of libations to please any palate.

In stark contrast, besides the two chairs, Jameson’s office held nothing but a desk, a wall of shelves, and a small sideboard where a few bottles of indifferent liquor waited for those infrequent visitors who expected such things.

Jameson desired nothing of the trappings of wealth and aside from a predilection for exquisitely tailored—if uniformly dark—clothing, he lived the life of an ascetic. His appearance could not have better illustrated his nature. His head was aristocratically molded and sharp boned, a cadaverous Caesar, the skin cleaving to the underlying structure so
tightly the flesh appeared painted on, and any smile he offered endangered splitting his mouth at the corners. Likewise, his body carried not an ounce of excess flesh and, though elderly, he held himself with rigid exactitude.

He considered himself in all ways superior to all men with such conviction that he felt not the slightest need to verify it. Certainly no one observing his cordial ministration of Lord Vedder would ever suspect he was anything other than a rather finicky, though polite, gentleman from a previous generation. Though he no longer felt the necessity of cultivating Vedder’s cooperation—he held far too many of Vedder’s secrets—he understood to a science the benefit of providing a carrot alongside the whip.

A few months earlier Vedder had been pushed into actions to which his puerile—and need it be said, facile?—sense of honor had objected: He had been instrumental in an attempted assassination of Jack Seward. But he’d made a muck of it and Jack had survived.

Now Vedder must try again. And try he would.

Because whatever Vedder told himself at night—probably that whatever he did, he did for the good of the nation—the simple truth was that Vedder lived beyond his means. When he’d first been recruited, Jameson had provided Vedder with the wherewithal to accommodate his lifestyle. But as his desperation had grown—because the appetites of such men were always unquenchable—so, too, had his involvement in less savory undertakings until finally… well, Vedder was completely Jameson’s creature.

Sir Jameson had achieved his current position of power through a combination of ruthlessness and guile, statesmanship and fear, and a remarkable ability to subjugate emotion to cold impeccable reason. Indeed, he took great pride in his clinical dispassion.

Which is why it was so important to put this issue of Jack Seward, his adoptive son, his heir, and now his most dangerous enemy, to rest. Because when he thought of Jack, of how the most effective and lethal of all his agents had betrayed him, it filled him with pure, unadulterated rage. Such extreme emotion inevitably led to disaster.

Eventually his rage would cause him to make a mistake, make him vulnerable. And that was something he would not allow. The Prime Minister had voiced “grave concerns” over Jameson’s handling of his last
assignment. He needed to be able to concentrate his full attention on overseeing his portion of the Secret Committee, lest Knowlton be given sole directorship. He could not afford the distraction of hatred, of this… this
need
for revenge.

Which is why his hands shook with anticipation, with the
hope
, that Vedder had some information, some clue as to where Jack had gone to ground. He handed the glass of port to Vedder.

Vedder took the proffered glass. “Scant as it is, you don’t have pretend at civility. I could just as well have told you in the hallway everything I learned.”

“Pretend at civility?” Jameson echoed. “Good heavens, Lord Vedder. We are nothing without protocol.” He meant it, too. He firmly believed in keeping to a proscribed standard of behavior. At least, whenever possible. He smiled, though he knew his smiles did little to set people at ease. “One would think you didn’t enjoy my company.”

Vedder looked away, red spots appearing high on his cheeks.

“So then.” Jameson returned to his chair behind the desk. “What did you learn?”

“Nothing,” Vedder said gracelessly. “I asked the footman who showed me in if Seward had been there recently but the fellow had only just been engaged. When I asked Strand what had become of his friend, he asked why I wanted to know.”