Authors: Lynne Connolly
When he stepped forward, she lifted her face, already prepared of his kiss, but he merely bent and swept the mask up from the floor.
“Turn around.”
When she obeyed, he fastened the ties deftly. Then he pulled her cloak back around her and tugged her hood back over her head. He caught a lock of hair, sending a shot of pain through her. When she lifted her hand to free the curl, she found him there. “You should ensure your maid covers all your hair next time. That color is singular.”
“My sister has the same. Our father used to, before he turned grey. My cousins on his side of the family have it.” She didn’t like to think she was so easily identified.
“It’s yours alone,” he murmured, tucking the offending curl into her hood. “There. Keep your head down and we’ll scrape through this.”
Her adventure was ending and she regretted it. “This is still my house.”
“That is what concerns me.”
He opened the door for her and took her downstairs. After handing the landlady the extortionate sum of a guinea—it would hire a room for a year if this house was not engaged in nefarious activities—they were allowed to leave.
Outside, he threw back his head and took some deep breaths, as if the very atmosphere in the house were tainted. It did stink of wine, tobacco, and other smells but she’d known worse. Pigsties, for instance, if they were not cleared out.
“Do you want to close this house?” she said. If he did that, maybe she could have it renovated. People of fashion lived around here. Cheek by jowl with less reputable houses, to be sure, but it could be achieved.
He glanced down at her. “Not immediately. Pretend we are lady of the night and her man for the next hour. We’ll draw less attention that way, and you may escape notice.”
He drew her to his side by curving his hand around her waist. She didn’t resist. She felt safer with him this close, anyway, and it worked as their disguise of whore and client. She rested her head on his shoulder. He must be six inches or even more taller than she was, so his shoulder was at a convenient level for her. Very convenient.
His chuckle vibrated her body pleasantly, rousing her senses.
“If the house remains open, I know where to find him. He has regular places he likes to visit. I was unaware of this one until tonight, although it does not try to hide itself. Those glasses are not easily concealed. Other subterfuges are more clandestine and easily denied. It speaks of overconfidence, or…something else.”
She glanced at him. He was frowning. Just then they walked into the brighter light of the Piazza and his features became better delineated.
She liked his face like this, without that society frivolity and lazy droop of his eyelids. Alert and strong, the lines carved with care by some celestial builder, this man appealed to her.
“Do nothing,” he said. “I’ll visit you tomorrow. Will your family be in?”
“I do not know.”
“I’ll send a message and ensure I can obtain an interview.”
Alarm streaked through her. She liked him, she was attracted to him, but that sounded far too much like he wanted to pay his addresses. She’d only met him twice! “What kind of interview?”
His glance at her face held amusement but also tenderness. “To discuss this situation. Not me and you—we’ll brush through this if you do not make a habit of running off to brothels—but the house and its contents. Your involvement in the affair.”
Affair. That word meant more than politics, threats to the Crown. She could see the knowledge in his eyes. He meant it.
He had kissed her like he meant it, after all.
“You mean that I own the property. My great aunt left it to me and she hadn’t visited London in years. I just wanted to see it.” She sighed. “I want somewhere of my own, a place I can close the door and know that nobody will come in. I love my family, of course I do, but just once—”
“If you keep sighing like that your bodice will give way,” he said. “While I would much appreciate another view of your lovely body, I don’t think this is quite the place.”
Aware she’d pushed her bodice down as far as she dared and consequently was not as securely laced in as usual, she drew her cloak closer around her. “You’ve seen that already.”
“I have. Only a taste. I want more, Claudia. You’re a respectable woman, so I’m going to have to wait.”
He gave her such a look of deep melancholy that she burst out laughing, her embarrassment forgotten. At the time, embarrassment had been the last thing on her mind, but now, brought back to a sense of reality, it could have suffused her. It should have, except he was right.
She wanted more, too.
Aware of her family’s exaggerated need to protect her and the other women, Claudia refused to go out with her mother the next morning, pleading a stomachache. She’d used the same excuse the night before, when she’d arrived home on her own. Dominic had left her at the end of the square until she knocked and went in. He made her feel safe, but that could be an entirely false premise.
When he arrived, he was in full society mode. Blue today, not a dark shade, but a vivid ultramarine tone. His breeches were as white as snow and his waistcoat embroidered in gold. She was too far away to see the design. As he handed his hat and the ridiculous cane as tall as he was to the footman, bright gold caught the sun and dazzled her.
When she blinked the light out of her eyes, he was looking up at her. She must have made a sudden move and alerted his attention. No point hiding now.
Claudia hurried down the stairs, trailing her hand lightly on the banister. “Did you think to find me away from home?” she said brightly. “Strange how insistent my mother was that I attend her this morning. That was just after my father let slip that you were visiting to discuss the house on Hart Street. I suspect my brother asked her to ensure I was out of the way.” She smiled saucily. “Well, as you can see, I am not.”
“You’re appearing to great advantage,” he said.
He didn’t mean her clothes. She could tell by the way he looked over her, taking in her bosom, today respectably covered with a linen fichu. He’d seen it uncovered, or part of it at any rate. The knowledge made her heat up.
“I love that blush,” he murmured.
She turned away, employing her fan to cool her complexion. She thought she’d controlled her reprehensible habit of blushing at the least provocation. The easy capacity to blush came with her coloring and that damned pale skin. “We should go to the study. They’re all waiting.”
She led the way but refused to take his arm.
The study was rather crowded, containing as it did, not only her oldest brother Marcus, Lord Malton, but her father, Val, and Darius. None of them were smiling.
Marcus glared at her. “You’re not supposed to be here.”
“I have a right to know what you’re discussing.” Claudia worked hard not to push her lower lip out as she had as a child. As soon as she said it, she felt like a child. How else to assert her rights? She tried again. “Let me make this clear. I have the last word on what happens to that house. My great-aunt said so when she made her will. Anything else would go against her desires.”
“How about if we discuss the matter and then inform you of the best path to take?”
She shook her head. “I want to hear the options.”
Glumly, Marcus got to his feet and brought his chair to her side of the desk. Putting up her chin, she thanked him and sat. It put her at a disadvantage, having to look up to the others in the room, but she had no choice.
To her shock, Dominic stepped up to stand by her side. “It seems reasonable that the owner is involved in any decision taken.”
Val glanced up from the papers strewn across Marcus’s desk. “She’s been anything but reasonable recently.”
“Maybe because you insist on treating me like a witless female.”
Dominic’s support had affected her more than she realized. Tears threatened, but they would prove her father and brothers’ opinion of her. She had behaved badly recently, last night the culmination of a series of escapades, but her aunt’s legacy had helped her decide what she really wanted. To be her own woman, to have men regard her as a sensible person and not a featherheaded fool.
Not to be bored any more. Her sister enjoyed reading and study—that was her escape. Livia spent as much time with her nose in a book as she spent begrudgingly attending balls and society events.
While Claudia was reasonably well-read, her passion didn’t lie there. Sensing the man at her side, she feared “passion” might describe what she wanted exactly. Which was a shame. As a well-born protected young woman, she was unlikely to find that this side of marriage. She wasn’t nearly ready to marry anyone yet.
While her brothers voiced their protests, her father held up his hand. When that didn’t work, he yelled, “Quiet!” in a tone so stentorian it would have stopped the whole of the House of Lords in its tracks.
It took her brothers a minute to wind down, but eventually silence fell.
“Since she’s here, Claudia may as well have a say. You are feeling well enough, my dear?”
His solicitous smile fooled nobody, least of all Claudia. She had not been ill, and her stomach pains of last night mere fabrication. She prayed he wouldn’t discover where she’d really been.
Tension tightened her stomach. Would Dominic tell them about her escapade? She glanced at him. He sent her a reassuring smile that told her nothing. She was in his hands, if not literally, figuratively. He could ruin her chances of being treated as an adult.
“I had the carriage drive past the house yesterday,” she said. “It’s a modest establishment.” She sighed. “I fear I couldn’t live there. I could rent it out.”
Her father shoved some papers across the scarred surface of the desk. “Read those while I ascertain why Lord St. Just saw fit to visit us this morning.”
“It’s about the house,” he said, “or I wouldn’t have intruded.”
Claudia picked up the first paper. Her hand trembled. Would he tell them? “I wouldn’t have thought such a modest establishment would interest you, my lord.”
If he detected the warning in her tone, he ignored it. “I think the information you have will explain my presence here.”
It would. Silently she handed him the first paper while she read the next one. The note informed Lord Strenshall that the suspicious activity concerning the house in Hart Street was confirmed. That was all. The second sheet was damning. It recorded the activities of one CJES, who could be none other than Charles James Edward Stuart on his visit to London two years ago. The address in Hart Street featured three times.
“Explain.” Lord Strenshall leaned back in the chair.
Marcus leaned against the bookcase behind him, while Val and Darius stood to one side.
Sometimes she hated that her family members were all so damned intelligent. She could never slip any subterfuge past them, although she’d tried often enough.
Dominic still stood close to her. He took the second document when she gave it to him.
Claudia took her time reading all six documents. They told a similar story. The house was a place where known Jacobites met. The authorities were leaving it alone because it was a useful fount of knowledge. They had not tried to infiltrate it or let the occupants know that they knew about it. But it had been a hotbed of sedition for at least five years.
Now it belonged to Claudia.
Dominic dropped the papers back on the desk. “I’m working for the government,” he said.
“Does that mean you’ll report anything we decide back to your masters?” Val shoved a hand into the pocket of his dark brown coat.
Dominic showed no alarm, even though Val could have his hand wrapped around a weapon. He put one hand on the back of her chair, as if protecting her. The gesture made her feel absurdly safe.
Today Dominic was all dandy, but she didn’t assume his foppishness was anything but faked. Perhaps he was a little less primped than he’d been the other day, his clothes less gaudy, maroon rather than crimson, buff rather than blinding white. He smelled the same, of citrus and clean male virility, reminding her vividly of what must lie beneath the clothes. He was all powerful male. She wanted him with a rawness that shocked her.
He took his time answering Val. “Not necessarily. I don’t obey orders blindly. I never have.”
Lord Strenshall grunted. “That must have made you an interesting soldier.”
“At times an army needs an officer who can think for himself.”
The pressure on her chair increased, tilting her slightly toward him. She would have gone to him, but the notion of a room full of angry males did not appeal.
“Why are you working for the government?” Marcus snapped.
Dominic turned his head to address Marcus directly. “Because I worked for them before, and this method keeps me informed. I prefer to have a say in what happens in my country. I believe we are in a state of flux, and if we’re not careful, we could find ourselves plunged back into civil war. The present monarch believes in consultation. We have taught him the value of it, and once Pandora’s Box is opened, it cannot be sealed again. Even if the Stuarts return, they would not be an absolute monarchy.” Even to say that much was treason, but nobody in the room appeared surprised at the statement. Dominic even garnered a few nods. “I believe that, for all their talk of sharing, that is what they want.”
Silence fell, but not for long. That pause was telling, allowing everyone to think over what he said, although Claudia had heard similar discussions over the breakfast table. Only
en famille
, though. They probably went to White’s and discussed everything, but she doubted it.
“Maybe I should start an exclusive club for ladies in Hart Street.”
She hadn’t realized she’d spoken aloud until Dominic snorted with laughter.
“If anyone could do it, Lady Claudia, I believe you could.”
She warmed to him even more, as the men in the room hooted. Claudia let them have their fun. She’d have the last laugh. When they had cleared the nest of traitors from her house, she’d put serious thought to her idea. A club for ladies sounded like the kind of establishment she would enjoy. They would thumb their noses at the men who thought they ruled the world.