Rogue in Red Velvet (19 page)

Alex rolled his eyes but let Watson walk to Julius’s book room at the back of the hall. After a brief consultation, he returned. “Would you go through, my lord?”

Julius glanced up from his place behind his desk and rose.

“Is it too early for brandy?” Alex demanded.

“Looking at your face, I’d say not. You’re looking a trifle hagged, dear boy.” He handed Alex a glass of fragrant brandy.

Alex took a seat in a wide leather chair and downed the contents of the glass thankfully, savoring the warmth it brought. Infinitesimally, he relaxed, partly the result of the spirit and partly the influence of this room, a strongly masculine one with leather chairs and dark mahogany furniture in a no-nonsense solid style. Dark green curtains hung at the window and a picture of the Kirkburton family seat on the wall above the fireplace, which was presently filled with a comfortably glowing fire.

“So what has put you in such an agitated frame of mind?” Julius raised an elegant brow. Many people made the mistake of thinking Julius Winterton’s porcelain complexion and fine features, not to mention his extravagant taste in fashion, made him some kind of weakling but he disabused them of that notion with reasonable ease. If he wanted to.

“I came here instead of killing Jasper Dankworth.”

Julius nodded. “The man is becoming a nuisance. More than a nuisance.” He frowned. “What’s this story about his fiancée from the country appearing in London?”

Alex’s heart sank. Too late, too late. “How widespread is the news?”

“All over White’s, which means it’ll be all over town by nightfall. Scurrilous gossip, getting worse every time it’s repeated. No matter that Mrs. Rattigan is a little-known lady, the story has caught the fancies of our most notable gossips. Walpole is making hay with it. His wit knows no bounds.” He took a sip from his own glass. “None.”

Alex swore, after which he brought Julius up to date, sparing him nothing except the intimacies he’d shared with Connie. He described the scene at the brothel well enough to make Julius toss the remainder of his drink down his throat and reach for the decanter.

When Julius was angry, his lips thinned and his face paled to porcelain white. He was angry now. Julius wasn’t just Alex’s cousin, he was his best friend and he would trust him with his life. If anyone could help, Julius could.

“I like your plan to send her home,” he said. “Except it’s too late now. The cat is well and truly out of the bag. If we don’t do something about it, Constance Rattigan will have a reputation so black they’ll even reject her in Cumbria. Do you have an alternative? You know I’ll give you every support.”

Whatever it cost him. Yes, Alex knew that and it was a measure of their friendship that he’d do the same, without hesitation. “I went to Lloyds yesterday and dropped the information that Dankworth was a bad risk. Or hinted at it. The gentlemen of the City prefer to discover information for themselves. Today I plan to visit to Doctor’s Commons.”

Julius raised his brows. “Rather extreme, Alex?”

“I want the lady and if I have a special license in hand, once I can persuade her, we may do the deed quickly and become man and wife before the week is out. No one will refuse her then.” He would never have made love to her without being sure of his intention to marry her. It was her refusal that had thrown him off course.

“So you’re getting wed because you compromised the lady by bearing her off?”

“Not entirely.” Alex said no more. He didn’t have to, with the perceptive Julius.

His cousin sipped his refilled brandy and put down the glass, never taking his attention from Alex’s face. “You interest me strangely.”

“She won’t have me.”

Julius’s mouth curled in a slow smile. “You interest me even more. She sounds like a woman of character.”

Alex grimaced. “You could say that. She’s being naïve. It will take all the influence I can scare up to face this scandal down but I will do it.”

Julius studied him in silence, a faint frown creasing the skin between his brows. Alex wished Julius’s eyes weren’t quite such a vivid blue. It made that perceptive stare all the worse to bear, but he’d had more practice than most. He bore it. His cousin was thinking.

“Bring her here,” Julius said abruptly.

“What on earth are you talking about?”

“You’ll be doing us a favor. I have my own problems, Alex.” He pinched the bridge of his nose. “Yesterday we lost the chaperonage of Aunt Amelia. Aunt Frederica has fallen ill so Aunt Amelia rushed off to attend her, leaving Helena alone here.” His fine features hardened. “Aunt Frederica has nothing too serious, I assure you.”

Aunt Frederica took great pleasure in detailing her many and varied illnesses. “So she lured Aunt Amelia away from town?” And Helena, being single, could not live in her brother’s household without a chaperone to escort her.

“I suspect it was a touch more sinister than that. My mother is determined to get Helena back. My esteemed parent has decided that Helena will attend her in her old age.” She had done everything possible to deny Helena her rights in society until Julius had taken a hand and brought her to live with him.

“I will prevent it,” Julius said smoothly. “I was about to look about for someone to act as a chaperone when you came visiting. Would Helena like your Constance?”

Alex didn’t hesitate. “Yes, I’m sure she would. Mrs. Rattigan is a woman of good sense and she has a cheerful disposition.”

“You make her sound like a candidate for housekeeper.”

Perhaps he’d withdrawn his interest a little too much. “And damned beautiful. She’s a widow, not straight out of the schoolroom, so a perfectly acceptable chaperone. And she has an unfortunate sense of humor,” he said with feeling, remembering the incident at the Downhollands’ with the dusty books.

“Helena would like that.”

Yes, she would. Alex grinned. “Mrs. Rattigan might not be as well dressed as you might expect. Her luggage was lost at the inn when we arrived. I suspect the bawd took it and sold the contents, or they were dispersed when the mob wrecked the house.”

“Then we’ll ensure she’s dressed appropriately. Does she have a maid?”

“I have the maid she brought with her in my house, using another name. When I thought Dankworth planned to kill Connie, I thought he might seek the maid out as the only witness to his intended perfidy.”

Julius took another sip of his brandy and waved the decanter at Alex. Both men had extremely hard heads and it would take more than a couple of snifters of brandy to render either of them incapable in any way. Alex pushed his glass forward for a refill.

“Excellent,” Julius said. “Then we have a plan. Put the maid and some luggage together—no matter if it’s an empty trunk, just fill it with books or something and take her to the
Belle Sauvage
. That place is busy enough to cover your activities and the landlord owes you a favor. Connie has only been in London for, what, three days? It’s easy to lose three days on the road, especially on such a long journey. She could have taken ill, or stopped her journey to visit a relative. Make sure you make a fuss, and that people know she’s arrived.”

Yes, he could do that. He had the landlord in his pocket. Then Connie could enter London respectably. “You would look after her?”

“Tell me something, Alex. Just to satisfy my rampant curiosity. You say you mean to marry her and intimate that she rejected you. That in itself is enough to excite my pique.”

Alex gritted his teeth. Did his cousin have to be so damned clever with words? The double entendre was delicate but assuredly there.

“Are your interests in her more than mere expedience? Or revenge on Dankworth?”

“That, sir, is none of your business.”

“I see.” Julius took a long sip from his glass, watching Alex the whole time then a sudden smile split his features. “Damned Dankworths. They’re playing Cupid now.”

Alex ignored the Cupid comment. “You spoke to Devereaux? He has his own reasons to detest the Dankworths. He’ll help you.”

“Yes. We are at war with them, as always. Any reason they have resurfaced?” The Dankworths had been remarkably quiet recently, but maybe they were regrouping after their latest conspiratorial failure, the assassination attempt on the King a couple of years ago.

Julius frowned. “Not that I’ve discovered, but there’s bound to be something. And they will strike at us, because our influence is wide-reaching and because we support the status quo. Or rather, we don’t favor a return to absolute rule.” He smiled thinly.

“Do you think this attack on Connie is anything to do with Jasper being a Dankworth?”

“I’m not sure. Let me make some enquires. If he noticed your interest in the beauteous Connie, he’d certainly see that as a way to weaken us.” He put down his empty glass. It hardly made a sound against his desk. Then he pulled a piece of paper out of a drawer and dipped a pen in the standish.

“I won’t tease you any further, until I discover more. Leave that side of the business to me.” He scratched a note. “Back to your side of the business. We will say that Helena and I met your lady at a house party last year and she and Helena have been corresponding ever since, so that when Mrs. Rattigan declared her intention to visit the city, we naturally invited her. Plus, she’s a respectable widow and she may chaperone Helena. That will add credence to your story, because I do not welcome riff-raff into this house.”

“Only people who interest you.”

“Precisely.”

Alex sipped his drink thoughtfully. “I hope you weren’t planning any extravagant entertainments. I thought she could live quietly for a while, and you’d give me a chance to court her.”

“Oh no, we can do better than that,” Julius said gently. He was at his most formidable when he was gentle. Alex’s “We must ensure they are thwarted.”

Alex smiled, the grim determination only a few close friends would have recognized. “Indeed we must.”

* * * *

Waiting was driving Connie mad. She’d never had so much inactivity in her life but at least she’d had the opportunity to think.

The bawd provided her with clothes and a bath, both of which she received gratefully but she opted to remain upstairs and ate another hearty meal when a maid brought it up to her. The fewer people who saw her in this place, the better.

She spent some time observing the world from her bedroom window. While the house bustled downstairs, the occasional shout telling her they were cleaning and the girls preparing for the night’s work, Covent Garden transformed from daytime market to evening center of revels. She thought about what happened within these walls every night.

When the house opened men began to gather in the square outside. Not many and some just wanted to stare at the wreck of the house next door. At least Connie assumed it was a wreck but she couldn’t see it. Nobody had set fire to it.

She couldn’t remember her sojourn there clearly, however hard she tried, except in flashes of memory, elusive snatches of visions that eluded her when she tried to chase them, like that vision of her on the auction block. It scared her to know that people like that existed and they could take control of her so completely.

With a scrape of bolts and a clang, the front door opened and the few men below, the early birds, began to enter the establishment. Mrs. Dawkins’s house was open for business. A clock struck three. But Connie didn’t see Alex.

She continued to watch, trying to fool herself that she wasn’t on tenterhooks, not waiting for him.

Eventually a coach drew up and a man alighted. He turned and handed some money to the jarvey, who touched the brim of his hat. When he entered the house, the hackney remained outside.

The man was Alex. The way he moved told her it was he. Already she knew him so well. He made her heart ache, although she refused to allow it to affect her judgments. At least, she’d try her best.

But when he knocked on the door and called her name, softly, in case anyone heard, she flew across the room and turned the key in the lock. He entered with eagerness and then she was in his arms and he was kissing her. She opened her mouth to him eagerly and just as eagerly he took her invitation, holding her close enough that the hardness of his erection pressed through all their layers of clothing.

Losing her mind was so easy with him. She’d allow it once, this once.

“We can’t take long,” he muttered, “But by God, I need you, Connie.” Already he was grabbing her skirts, lifting them and she helped him, hoisting them out of the way, tucking them under her arms and behind her. Getting him out of his breeches took less time. He lifted her.

She raised her legs and gripped his hips with her knees.

Fumbling a little, he guided his shaft to her entrance.

She took him in, gasping with relief as he breached the walls of her inner passage, opening them for his invasion. He thrust then thrust again, and she found the rhythm.

He sighed, a deep expulsion of tension. “Oh, Connie. How do you do this to me?”

“I—could—ask you the same thing,” she managed, between his pounding. She caught her breath, sighed his name and he groaned, pulled her closer and kissed her.

How did he do it? Make her forget all her good intentions. Make her forget—everything except him. He drove inside her, each plunge pushing her further towards the peak he’d shown her before. Waves of hot ecstasy built and rose, taking her senses with them. She relaxed into them, let Alex take control and guide her to that special place he’d shown her before.