Promise Me Heaven (17 page)

He dared not—no, he
must
not—remember the feel of her in his arms, her intoxicating response to his kisses. Instead, he must dissuade her of her affection before she discovered the sort of man for whom she’d developed a tendre. How strange. Perhaps he was developing a taste for masochism.

He swung away from the dark vista before him. But first, he thought desperately, a dance. Just a dance. Just one more small memory to add to the others. Another lesson he could surely bear to learn. A dance was no great thing.

He was walking too quickly. His haste invited comment, but he could not rein in the need to see her. He stopped at the entrance of the room, his great height allowing him to look easily over the crowd.

She was there, bent over her great-aunt, who was shooing her away. With a patent expression of disgust, Cat straightened and set her hands on her hips.

As though she felt his gaze or heard his voice whisper in her ear, she turned. Their eyes locked. He moved toward her, once more too quickly, too eagerly. It would never do to draw unwelcome attention to her. He forced himself to approach at a leisurely pace.

“Is it really all that much fun, standing about with a group of men and drinking brandy?” she greeted him. Her calm, slightly disapproving tone was balm to Thomas’s tightly stretched nerves. She was so matter-of-fact, a perfect contrast to the years Thomas had spent in near theatrical high tragedy.

“I think this new custom boorish in the extreme,” she continued. “If men want to be alone, let them go to their clubs. But to invite a woman to dine and then summarily abandon her is nothing short of rude.”

“I swear never to abandon a lady again for the questionable pleasure of brandy and snuff.”
Fool
, thought Thomas,
mask your delight.

“And snuff!” she exclaimed, well launched on her tirade. “Disgusting habit. People, perfectly nice, well-dressed people, ending up looking like sugar-sprinkled seedcakes.”

Thomas lifted his brows. “Now I must forswear not only the company of men, but also snuff. You demand much for the pleasure of your company.”

She suddenly grinned. “I know.”

“If I am to forfeit my harmless indulgences, you must forfeit your time. They have struck up a waltz,” he said, holding out his hand. “I warned you that you must dance. And, as your instructor, I am compelled to sit judgment over your abilities before I let you loose on the rest of these pitifully hopeful males.”

He looked over at Hecuba. “If I may?”

Hecuba muttered under her breath. “Yes, yes, yes. Take the chit away and keep her there so she ceases her irksome hovering.”

Thomas led Cat out, placing one hand at her waist, the other enveloping her much smaller one. She set her hand atop his shoulder. And then they were dancing.

He was not a dance master, but his performance on the floor was more than adequate. As a rake, it was only to be expected. And yet, it felt so perfectly fluid, so effortless, dancing with her. A full, quick twirl and she was smiling, giddy with the sheer delight of it, closing her eyes against the distraction of colors and lights, never questioning the direction of his lead.

“Are you not afraid we draw perilously close to an open window?”

“No, indeed. Were I to dance out onto the air, what harm could befall me? For I swear I am already flying!”

He drew her closer. She opened her eyes and he bent closer to her, unable to resist her near magnetic pull. She leaned in to meet his nearly imperceptible advance.

And the dance ended.

Thomas was breathing too hard, even considering the rigors of the dance. But he could not tear himself away from the promise in her fern green eyes. Her lips were parted, her color high. And then he saw, reflected in her dilated black pupils, Colonel Seward. So it begins.

Thomas stepped back from her and bowed just as a male voice hailed her. “Lady Catherine!”

In confusion, Cat looked at the handsome, slender blond man addressing her. She did not know him. Thomas’s face had become shuttered, an impersonal mask, and she felt an odd tension emanating from him. His hands were curled into near fists at his sides.

“Colonel Seward, Lady Catherine,” Thomas introduced them. “Attaché, sometime secretary to the Foreign Office. Currently temporary social aide to Prince George.”

It was a gross breech of manners to relay the history of a gentleman’s employment to a lady, and Cat looked at Thomas in shock. But he was watching Colonel Seward. The man returned Thomas’s gaze with bland indifference, only the dusky hue rising up his neck betraying any emotion.

“Lady Catherine, I regret to inform you that Lady Montaigne White has been taken ill and requests your presence. Megrim, Mr. Montrose. I assure you ’tis nothing serious and completely unforeseen,” Colonel Seward finished with odd emphasis.

“Please take me to her,” Cat said and followed Colonel Seward to the chamber where her great-aunt lay on a red chaise.

Hecuba’s face was pasty and damp, her eyes closed.

“Please arrange for transportation immediately,” Cat said, gaining her great-aunt’s side and taking up one wrinkled, beringed hand.

“Of course.” Colonel Seward beckoned a footman and was on the point of instructing him when Thomas broke in.

“I shall take Lady Montaigne White back to the hotel, Seward. Have the coach brought round in five minutes.” His tension was palpable. “There is no reason for you to leave, Lady Catherine. I shall see your great-aunt settled with Fielding and return for you.”

“I couldn’t enjoy myself knowing that Aunt Hecuba—”

“Oh, for God’s sake—” Hecuba grumbled, adding as a repentant aside, “and sweet Jesus too, Lord bless and protect us—I have the headache, Catherine. I am not dying, not yet, and your fussing and fidgeting will only exacerbate my discomfort. Please stay.”

“But—”

Seward cleared his throat. “His Royal Highness would, I am sure, be most disappointed if you leave, Lady Catherine. Were you to consent to stay, he would extend his royal person as chaperone, with myself as surrogate, for the duration.”

“That is very kind of you, Colonel Seward. But, Thomas, don’t you think…?”

Thomas’s beautiful eyes were blank, deadened beyond recognition. “I think you are making a great deal too much out of a situation which does not warrant it,” he said. “I will return for you. You have nothing more to do than enjoy yourself for a short while. You can do nothing at the hotel but be underfoot. I beg you to stay, Cat,” he finished, an edge to his last words.

Colonel Seward was watching them intently, his gaze flickering back and forth. The undercurrents were too strong. Unspoken words hovered between the two men. Cat could find no reasonable way to demur. She nodded.

Thomas supervised Hecuba’s loading onto a litter that had been brought into the room. A pair of stalwart footmen lifted her, preceding Thomas out the door.

“I will be back within the half hour. Seward, you will see Lady Catherine is well occupied until then?” Thomas asked tightly.

“Yes.” The two men’s eyes held an instant longer than was necessary, and then Thomas was gone.

Colonel Seward smiled at Cat. For the first time, she noted how handsome he was. And he was not so slight; it was just that his rapier-slenderness and breadth of shoulder were lost when he stood near Thomas. His hair was the color of old gold, neither blond nor brown, and his eyes were gray and searching.

“Now, how shall we keep you entertained, Lady Catherine?” he asked pleasantly.

A derisive laugh issued from near the doorway. Hellsgate Barrymore leaned against the jamb, his arms crossed over his chest, a sneer on his leathery visage.

“Isn’t this interesting? Montrose flown. The ladybird still here—at least one of the ladybirds—and the ubiquitous and useful Colonel Seward raking his imagination for entertainment. Perhaps I can be of assistance? Let me see… I have it! Let’s tell stories.”

Chapter 15

T
he air in Thomas’s suite was thick with perfume, an exotic combination of musk and roses. He looked around the room, unwilling to play a juvenile game of hide-and-seek. Daphne’s shawl was draped over a chair, her shoes beside it. Hanging opposite the entrance door was a tall beveled mirror. He could see the entire shadowy room reflected in its length.

“Daphne?” He started to close the door but, after a second’s hesitation, left it slightly ajar, hoping to dispel any sense of intimacy and communicate the message that he wanted her to deliver her information and be gone.

“Patience, Thomas.” The husky accents purred from behind a painted screen partitioning the room.

“You have some information you wish to sell.” He deliberately ignored the assumption in her tone, going to the sideboard and pouring himself a full glass of brandy.

“Sell?” Daphne’s voice took on a pouty note as she emerged from behind the screen. She had undone her elaborate coiffure. Her dark locks hung in rippling disarray upon her bare, sloping shoulders. The transparency of the muslin clinging to her slender thighs revealed a shadowy apex.

“I thought we were old friends. What is this ‘sell’? In the course of our… conversation perhaps I will be less than discreet. What woman would think to guard her so foolish female tongue when engaged in other activities? Later, perhaps, I am given gifts. But what is more apropos from an admirer? ‘Sell’ is so vulgar, Thomas.”

“And we must never be vulgar, no matter how base,” Thomas murmured, downing the brandy in one long draft.

“Exactly!” She held up her own glass to be filled.

“Daphne, we are, as you have said, old acquaintances. Can we not be frank with one another?”

Daphne wrinkled her small nose. “ ‘Frank’ is sounding too much like ‘honest,’ Thomas. When have such as we ever concerned ourselves with such pedestrian notions? ‘Honest’ is ugliness, hurtfulness. I am thinking it is better not to be frank.”

She smiled seductively up at him, reaching out and delicately scoring his lean cheek with one long nail. His expression remained impassive. She glanced over to where the door stood a few inches ajar and narrowed her eyes. She sighed. “Fine. If you must be honest, by all means, get on with it.”

“You are a rich woman, Daphne. The English government has been responsible for much of that wealth. Your associations with Bonaparte’s military have proven useful in the past. But Napoleon is no longer in power. I have some doubts as to whether any information you have to impart can be sufficiently useful to justify your presumed fee.”

Her eyes flashed. She set her glass down hard upon the table. The brandy sloshed over the sides, staining the lace scarf.

“How ugly, this ‘frank’! No, I do not like it at all. And you,
mon beau raffin
, you are unrecognizable!”

Visibly upset, she swung away from him. The clock ticked upon the mantel, chiming the quarter hour into the silence. Finally she turned back, her small, white teeth glinting between her blood red lips.

“Come, let us begin again. You are no gentleman to doubt my, ‘veracity’ is the word? But it was never your gentlemanly attributes that appealed to me. So see? I am not angered. I tell you openly, Bonaparte is not so toothless as you English wish to believe. And I think the number of cannons secreted in the countryside awaiting Napoleon’s return is a matter worthy of your time.”

“How many? In what part of France?”

She laughed. “Ah, so intense! So patriotic! So determined and single-minded!” Silently she opened her hand, patting the fingertips of the other against her palm in a parody of applause.

He continued to regard her stonily.

“But I am not. I wish to renew our friendship before I entrust my secrets to you. You have, as I have pointed out, changed, and I do not feel quite sure of you any longer. Come, Thomas, prove to me you are the Thomas Montrose I have known.”

His mouth became a hard line, but his voice was quiet as he asked, “And how am I to do that?”

She crossed the small distance until she stood so close, her thighs bracketed one of his knees. She pressed against him, rubbing her hands up his hard, flat stomach to his chest. “Intimately.”