Rules of Passion (29 page)

William blew out his cheeks. “I have every right. I am the head of the family and—”

“That has nothing to do with it. I-I am grateful for your concern,” she said, clearly not grateful at all, “but I have never sought your advice.”

He dismissed that with a wave of his hand. “You are a woman, Amy, and you need a man to correct you when you make mistakes. As your brother, it is my right to—”

“I am a mature woman, William. A widow with three grown-up daughters. I do not need anyone to correct my mistakes.”

“You do not know the world as I do, sister. There are men in it, marauders, who would worm their way into your affections simply for what they could pillage.”

Amy was breathing fast, her hand clenched upon the walking cane, and when she replied her voice was deceptively quiet. “Be warned, William, if you persist in interfering in my life then I will cut you from it.”

He stared at her a moment as if he could not believe what he had heard. “I am the head of the family, Amy. I will have no scandal and this man is—”

But she stopped him. “I will not hear Mr. Jardine slandered by you. Go home, William, and mind your own business. You are not wanted here today.”

He opened his mouth, closed it again, and then with an angry huff, stood up and left the room.

Amy took a deep breath, and then another. She was trembling. “I don’t know how I could have been burdened with such an insufferable brother. I do apologize.”

Mr. Jardine approached her carefully, as if William’s words had made him extra sensitive about his behavior around her. “It is not your fault, Amy. Do you think I would pay any attention to a windbag like that? You know me better, I hope?”

Amy laughed, tears of anger and upset drying from her eyes. “Yes, I do. At least I hope I do.”

“Then put it from your mind, as I shall.”

“I wish I could,” she sighed. “I wish I could understand what has him in such a state. He is always difficult, but lately he has been worse.”

“At least you can be sure when you return to Yorkshire that he will be unlikely to make the journey to see you.”

“Yes, I am safe from him there.”

She looked at him a moment, blinked, and then looked away. Her face paled slightly. “I-I will leave you to your work, Mr. Jardine.”

He bowed, and then stood, listening to her faltering steps fading in the hall. Had she seen something in his face? Had she suddenly realized that William was right, and that his feelings for her were much warmer than a secretary’s should be for his employer? Strangely he almost hoped that she had—at least then the truth about his love for her would be out in the open between them.

For so long he had been content to love her in silence. He was a hopeless case, he supposed, but what was the alternative? The thought of upsetting a sweet creature like Amy Greentree with inappropriate advances appalled him.

But she was right about William. For whatever reason he had been diabolical of late—perhaps the three girls had put him in a state, they seemed to be always attracting scandal or gossip. Had he heard the latest about Marietta and Barwon’s son? Maybe that was it. Whatever had put a flea in William’s ear, Mr. Jardine was looking forward to getting home to Greentree Manor and some sense of normality.

And then a glimpse of Amy’s face a moment ago flashed into his mind—her eyes not quite meeting his—and he wondered if things could ever be the same again.

Amy Greentree stood alone in the entrance hall. For some reason she felt disoriented, as though she were on the verge of some momentous decision. Although her anger for William still lingered it had been swallowed up by something else. Something she realized she should have seen a long time ago.

Mr. Jardine loved her.

But she loved Edward…
still
loved Edward, even though he had been dead now for a great many years. Losing your husband did not mean you stopped loving him. And yet at this moment she longed to feel a man’s arms about her, to rest her head upon a masculine chest, to be treasured and protected and loved.

Mr. Jardine loved her and she was very fond of him. She had not realized until a moment ago, when William was threatening him, just how fond of her secretary she was. Just how much she would miss him if he went away. Her life would be quite…empty.

Amy Greentree felt as if she had been asleep for a very long time, and now she was about to wake up.

“David?”

Startled, he stood up, knocking his pen and papers to the floor. Amy had returned, and she had called him by his first name, something she never normally did. As she came toward him he noted that her face was pale but determined, and this time her gaze was fixed on his.

“Amy?”

She placed her hand carefully upon his shoulder, and looked deep into his eyes. Mr. Jardine didn’t move—he couldn’t. He wondered what she would see there in his eyes—love for her, certainly, and all
the years of devotion and loyalty he had given to her. But would she see the promises he longed to make to her, and the life he wished to have with her?

Amy smiled, and she was so beautiful he blinked. And then she leaned forward and touched her lips to his, the lightest of kisses.

“This is for being you, David,” she whispered.

The door closed gently behind her.

David Jardine collapsed back into his chair like a man who has looked through the gates of paradise.

M
arietta reached up to make sure that her gold mask was secure. The smiling disguise covered the upper half of her face and it was surprising how difficult it was to tell her identity once she had it on. Her red cloak with the fur hem swirled every time she moved, while underneath the cloak was a dress of the same vibrant red. The color made her skin seem almost translucent, while her hair gleamed like gold and her eyes blazed like sapphires. Aphrodite had fondly told her she looked like a princess—Marietta had dressed at the club—but she did not think she resembled anything so insipid as a princess. She was more like a pagan goddess; an idol to be worshipped.

She smiled. Already the tingle in her blood was growing warmer, anticipation made her body alert and her heart beat faster. Her senses responded to the clothing she was wearing—the softness of the velvet and fur, the silken luxury of her stockings, the
tight push of her stays beneath her bosom. The neckline of her red gown was low, almost indecently so. Marietta had never worn anything so daring in public and she wondered what Max would think.

She glanced over her shoulder. Aphrodite had sent Dobson with her to Vauxhall Gardens, and she saw him now, waiting a few paces behind her until she found Max safely. Her mother was being very cautious tonight, but Marietta was glad of it. Dobson looked dangerous and tough, standing amidst the crowd with his arms folded.

Was Dobson the Jemmy her mother spoke of in her diary? The man she had loved and lost? Marietta did not know how the two of them had been reunited—the latter part of her mother’s story was yet to be told. At first she had not thought Dobson particularly remarkable, but as she came to know him and witness her mother’s affection for him, Marietta had revised her opinion. Behind his gray eyes lurked humor and a sharp intelligence, and, whenever he looked at Aphrodite, a flood of warm affection. Hmm, and desire. He loved her, and she loved him.

As if he had read her thoughts, Dobson winked at her, and spoiled the tough image he had been conveying. Marietta smiled beneath her mask as she turned to scan the crowd for her own lover.

There were colored lanterns everywhere; they hung from the trees and swung from poles. A man on stilts blew fire into the air, and a woman shrieked with more excitement than fear. The private boxes were for those who preferred to sit and eat their thin slices of cold ham, enjoying the ambience while they studied the endless stream of humanity that wandered past them down the tree-lined avenues. Marietta smiled at
one particularly loud group, the women shrieking with laughter as a gentleman drank champagne from a slipper. She knew that those who came to Vauxhall Gardens were a mixture of genteel and far-from-genteel, rich and poor, good and bad. The proprietors had attempted to ensure the safety of their patrons by increasing the number of lanterns in the walks, and employing men to patrol the area in search of pickpockets and to break up affrays, but no one could change Vauxhall.

It was rowdy and exciting and a little bit dangerous, and Marietta loved it.

The band in the rotunda finished their piece and were duly applauded, and as the sound died away, a voice spoke behind her.

“My lady.”

Marietta turned. A tall, broad-shouldered man in a black cloak and a silver mask was standing there. Her gaze dropped to the small scar on his chin, and then rose to his mouth. Oh yes, she knew that mouth very well.

“Sir,” her voice was throaty, “you are late.”

“I have been watching you ever since you arrived, enjoying the scenery.”

His head dipped and he stepped closer, until their bodies were almost touching. A lock of his hair brushed hers, and his fingers closed around her arm. “You are so beautiful, Marietta,” he murmured.

She smiled. Tonight she felt beautiful, because Max loved her and all was right with the world.

The band in the rotunda struck up again, and now a woman was singing, her voice wobbling a little on the high notes. Max grimaced as if his senses had been assaulted and Marietta laughed.

“Perhaps we should stroll in Dark Walk?” he suggested, his eyes narrowing behind the mask. “It will be quieter there and you might find it instructional.”

“Instructional?” Marietta breathed, her imagination taking flight.

“In an educational sense. I know a great deal about the Dark Walk, my lady. I can show you the secret arbors and the bowers where ladies have been ravished by gentlemen throughout the centuries.”

His voice had dropped a notch and Marietta felt it brush over her, exciting her. But she had a part to play, and she assumed a cautious pose as she replied, “I have heard that gentlewomen should not venture into the Dark Walk. That it might be injurious to their reputations.”

“What about gentlewomen who are engaged to be married? Surely they are beyond censure?”

“Only if they are in love.”

Max slid his arm about her waist and gazed down into her eyes. “And are you in love?”

“Oh yes.” Marietta stood on tiptoe and kissed his lips, a brief butterfly kiss. “Very much.”

Max groaned at the brevity of the kiss. The vocalist hit another high note and he began to lead her out of the crush, toward one of the tree-lined avenues. “If this is our last rendezvous I want it to be one we’ll both remember,” he said. “And I want to go somewhere quiet so that I can see if what you’re wearing under that cloak is as heart-stopping as I think it is.”

She pretended his words hadn’t affected her. “I don’t know if I should allow you to
touch
me, Max.”

He stopped by a hedge that shielded them from passersby and took her in his arms. And he kissed
her, deeply and thoroughly. “You were saying,” he said at last.

Marietta took a moment to answer and when she did she had abandoned her play-acting. “Will we be happy in Cornwall?” she whispered, with her head resting against his chest.

He bent and kissed her hair, his hands smoothing her back and shoulders. “Do you doubt it, my darling?”

“No, not really, only sometimes. I’m not used to being happy like this, Max. I’m not used to thinking about a future with you in it.”

Perhaps some of her lingering doubts did sound in her voice, because Max removed his mask so that she could see his face properly. His dark hair had been slicked back from his forehead, and he looked different, handsome certainly, but also more like an aristocratic stranger. This was Max Valland, Lord Roseby, the Duke of Barwon’s son, and Marietta did not doubt it for a moment.

Her heart gave a little skip of trepidation.

Max took her hands in his, his fingers strong and warm and comforting. She looked down and they were Max’s fingers, Max’s hands; they had held her and stroked her and made love to her. These were the hands she would hold as she made her vows on her wedding day, and that their children would grasp as they took their first steps.

“Darling Marietta, I want you to know that I will never leave you. We will go to Cornwall and I promise you I will do everything in my power to ensure that you are happy. With you at my side, Marietta, I feel as if I can be anything, do anything. I feel complete.”

It was a wonderful speech, the sort of speech she
used to dream about as a girl. And yet, as Marietta gazed in to his eyes, she found herself wondering what he would think when she explained to him about Aphrodite’s Club. She knew she must be a coward, but she was afraid to tell him that one day his future wife would be the proud owner of a bordello.

Vauxhall Gardens was so like a fairytale tonight, Marietta could not bear for reality to creep in.

“Come with me.” His breath was warm in her ear as he drew her along the gravel paths, further and further away from the crowds. The shadows were thick here, despite the lanterns, and the trees and shrubs loomed about them. It was isolated, and that was its charm, but after what had happened to him Marietta pondered whether it was entirely safe for Max to be here.

“Should we go back?”

He leered like a stage villain. “Why, are you frightened I’ll ravish you?”

Marietta gave a husky laugh. “Not frightened, Max. I’m looking forward to being ravished tonight.”

Max brushed his fingers down the opening of her cloak, parting it and holding it aside so that he could see the dress beneath. Her bosom, pushed up and prominently displayed, threatened to spill over the gold braided neckline. The waist was pinched in, displaying her hourglass shape to perfection, while the skirts were snug to her hips and fell in smooth folds to the ground. The dress was fashioned to appear medieval, and Marietta wore no petticoats so that Max could see the shape of her legs. Without the cloak it would be considered indecent.

“Oh yes,” he murmured approvingly.

His slid his fingers over her white skin so lightly
she might not have felt them, except that her body had become so completely sensitized to his. She trembled, her lips parting and her eyes fluttering closed. His mouth made warm, wet circles on her breasts, and then he had found the hooks that held everything together and began to undo them. The neckline sagged and her bosom spilled out into his hands.

“Max,” she gasped, “I need you. I need you now, Max.”

He covered her with his palms, preserving her modesty, his thighs brushing hers through their clothing. “I love the way you always tell me what you feel for me,” he murmured, kissing her throat, his mouth warm and seductive.

“I’m not straitlaced or conventional,” she said, trying to concentrate on what he was saying while his hands were stroking her breasts, making her flesh quiver and ache.

“And I thank God for it,” he said. He was drawing her along a winding path that left the main walk, into the trees, the scent of earth and foliage all about them. There was an arbor, overgrown and secret, and Max led her inside.

Marietta wound her arms about his neck, her breasts pressed to his chest in a manner designed to tease. “Do you?” she whispered. There was a devil inside her, urging her on, and she heard herself saying, “What if I did something outrageous, Max? What if I became the proprietor of a club like Aphrodite’s? Would you thank God then?”

He laughed. He thought she was joking. He didn’t take her seriously at all.

Just then the fireworks began to rain brilliantly
from the sky. The arbor reflected the colors, red and blue and gold, bright as day one moment and dark again the next. Marietta had jumped when the first volley went off, but Max wrapped her in his arms, safe, and he bent to cover her mouth was his. Tasting her, caressing her, promising her everything.

Marietta kissed him back, the ache in her body building as she pressed against him. And yet even as desire spun out of control, the little devil in her head was still there, spoiling the moment for her, gleefully listing all the terrors she had thought vanquished: Being left, being abandoned, her heart being broken.

Would Max leave her when he understood Aphrodite’s would one day be hers, or would he insist that she refuse her parents’ gift? Marietta wondered how she could bear to scorn what they had offered her with such love in their hearts. And was a man who insisted she do such a thing to preserve his own reputation really worth having anyway?

Max had stopped kissing her.

“What is it?” he asked, a new sharp note in his voice. “Marietta?”

She opened her mouth but nothing came out.

Max set her away, and even in the shadows she saw how his brows had drawn down over his eyes as he stared at her. Gently he reached around to the back of her head and undid the ties, finally removing her golden mask.

Marietta felt as if he had stripped her naked—and this time it was not a pleasant sensation.

Something was wrong. Max could see it in her eyes, read it in her face, sense it while he was kissing
her. One moment she was his, completely and utterly in tune to him, and the next he had lost her.

“What is it?” he demanded, worried. “Marietta, what’s the matter?”

She stared back at him like a rabbit would a fox. The expression in her eyes frightened him—he felt as if there were a hollow opening up inside him—and he wanted to shake her until she widened her gaze in that mock-innocent way and laughed and admitted it was nothing, and that she was just playing with him again…

“Max, I have something to tell you.” Her voice was quiet and a little tremulous. It was the voice that belonged to the girl who had spoken about her past; the somber girl who had been abandoned and hurt, and who had never recovered.

She is going to tell me she can’t marry me,
he thought bleakly.
Can’t or won’t. And everything I have been hoping for and planning for will be gone.
His sense of despair was so great it was beyond imagining, because Max knew that without Marietta Greentree his life would cease to be.

More fireworks thundered overhead, their beauty truly spectacular, but Max didn’t see them. His gaze was fixed on Marietta’s face, and he was waiting for her to speak.

That was the reason he didn’t notice the man in the shabby brown coat, walking along the narrow path that passed by the entrance to the arbor. He couldn’t hear him, either, the fireworks were too loud.

“Tell me then,” Max said, sounding cold and distant, as if he was already alone.

But Marietta’s gaze had shifted past him and widened. A splash of green in the sky turned her face a sickly color, and then her fingers dug hard into his arms. “You!” she gasped, just as Max began to turn.

The man standing behind them wasn’t very tall, but he was broad, with the sturdiness of someone who had worked physically hard all his life. His clothes were cheap and well worn, and his face was misshapen and rather frightening, as though he had once been a fighter. All of this Max saw in a moment, before he realized the man was holding a pistol.

Marietta screamed, clutching at Max’s arm as he tried to push her away, out of the line of fire. The man raised the barrel.

“Move aside,” he snarled. “I don’t want to kill you too, lady.”

“You’ve been following me,” she said, her voice shaking violently. “I’ve seen you before.”

“Not you,” the man retorted impatiently. “
Him!
I was waitin’ my chance, and now I’ve found it. Now get out o’ me way so I can earn me money.”