Keating and Camille. Oh, goodness. They didn’t know all her secrets—only the man currently gazing at her with a half smile on his handsome face did—but they knew some things. They were her sisters, who’d begun at the Tantalus when she had. “You swear—
swear
—that you’re not bamming me,” she demanded.
“I swear it. I asked Haybury for assistance, and he arranged it. I’ll be the outsider, not you. Well, Laurie and I will be. If I wouldn’t agree to take him, he threatened to cry.”
That made her pause again. “If you don’t know any of them, why are you doing this?”
He sighed, leaning against the side of the coach. “Because I wish to spend time with you, and because I’ve returned Ebberling’s blunt and he might be eyeing me at the moment. If I went somewhere alone with you, he might notice. A group of old friends, though, is safer. And he has no idea that I’m not already aquainted with everyone in your circle.”
A few weeks ago the idea of going out anywhere when she knew that Ebberling was in Town, and possibly even looking in her general direction, would have sent her straight back into hiding. It nearly did, even tonight. But what Nathaniel had said, that he wanted to spend time with her, that lure was strong enough to overcome even her well-honed sense of caution. “Very well,” she breathed, and leaned up to kiss him on his smiling mouth. “You are very persuasive.”
He handed her up into the coach. “At times my skills become useful for things other than subterfuge,” he returned, sitting on the well-padded leather seat beside her.
Once he leaned over to pull the door closed, they rumbled down the drive. “Are we going to Drury Lane?” she asked, attempting not to sound like an excited schoolgirl.
“We are. It’s a good twenty-minute drive, especially if Sams goes the route I instructed him to.” Nathaniel cupped the nape of her neck and pulled her closer for another plundering kiss. “And whatever shall we do in the meantime?”
With a chuckle, Emily ran her hand up his thigh. “It seems you already have something in mind, sir,” she said, brushing across the bulge in his trousers.
“That I do.”
She unbuttoned his waistcoat and then continued down to his trousers, reaching in with delicate fingers to pull him free. With a groan he lifted her over him to straddle his thighs. For a moment she hesitated; she certainly hadn’t thought to bring any French condoms with her, and there wasn’t a stream or a cloth anywhere in sight.
Then he dipped into his pocket and produced one of the little confections. Emily smiled at him. “What if I’d refused to go with you?” she asked, slipping it over his member and tying the red ribbon.
“Then we would have been in your room doing this very thing,” he returned, pulling down on one of her sleeves to bare a breast, which he promptly took into his mouth.
Breathing unsteadily, she gathered her gown up around her waist and settled down over him, sighing as he slid deep inside. Emily flung her arms around his shoulders, bouncing enthusiastically as he held on to her hips, pulling her down on him again. Sex had always been about chasing away the dark, for her, at least. Over the past days, the past fortnight or so, however, it had become about … him. About Nathaniel Stokes, Earl of Westfall. About the way he looked at her, listened to her, parried and danced about their conversation like a master swordsman, the way he’d told her things about himself that no one else knew, and the way she’d been able to tell him things about herself that she’d never meant to speak.
She came around him, whimpering into his neck as he thrust hard up into her again and again. Finally he shuddered, pulling her down over him and kissing her openmouthed, tongues tangling. This could not end well—not for her heart or her happiness or her future—but she’d never been so tempted by the present. Or by any other man, ever.
* * *
For a man who kept himself out of gossip, under the notice of Mayfair’s wags, and away from politics, Nate reflected that he’d certainly chosen an odd set of box mates. He kept himself between Portsman and the rest of the crowd filing into the theater, not that anyone was likely to make note of either one of them on the way up the long, curved staircase. The return trip back to the coach was likely to be much more difficult, and all because of the seven people currently greeting her with great enthusiasm. Well, six of them, anyway. Laurie hadn’t become notorious yet, though given a few years he just might.
However much time Nate had spent away from London, away from England, over the previous few years, he’d made a point of learning everything possible about his peers upon his return. Once he’d inherited the earldom, it had become even more important to know the minds and characters of the aristocrats around him.
“Westfall,” Haybury greeted him, offering a hand. “Have you met Keating Blackwood and his wife, Camille?”
Nate inclined his head. “I have not. Thank you for joining us tonight.”
Sharp blue eyes gazed back at him. “Didn’t do it for you,” Blackwood commented, but shook the hand Nate proffered him.
I know all about you, Blackwood,
Nathaniel might have said, but he needed the man’s assistance tonight. And Keating Blackwood wasn’t the only killer in the box. At least the dark-haired gentleman farmer had been tried and found guilty only of self-defense. Nate couldn’t make the same boast, himself.
“Don’t mind him,” the lovely sprite with the buttermilk-blond hair broke in, stepping in front of her husband. “I’m Camille,” she said, smiling. “And if you truly mean to assist Em, then thank you, my lord.”
Emily stepped up beside him again, another young female in tow. “Westfall, this is my good friend Sophia White. I mean Baswich. The Duchess of Greaves. And her husband, the Duke of Greaves.”
This was the pair that had scandalized England over the winter. The young lady with the easy smile and the deep red hair was the illegitimate daughter of the Duke of Hennessy, and the tall, lean-faced Greaves had thrown over several far more eligible women and stolen her from a parson in order to marry her. Inwardly he sighed. Evidently a Tantalus girl, even one who wished to remain hidden away, could not have subtle friends. “Your Graces,” he said, bowing.
The duchess laughed. “Oh, don’t bow to me,” she whispered. “You’ll make Lady Velling in the box across from us faint, and she’ll fall on the orchestra.”
“She’d kill the lot of them, with her girth,” Greaves seconded, kissing his wife on the temple. He eyed Nate much as Blackwood had. “But I thank you for the courtesy, all the same,” he said, and offered his hand, as well. “Evidently Haybury judged you rightly.”
Nate glanced at the marquis, already seated with Lady Haybury at the back of the box. He’d asked for a group that would take attention from the pairing of himself and Portsman as anything more than a pair of lovers, and Haybury had certainly provided it. How much assistance being grouped with this notorious crowd would be for Laurence, he had no idea, but his brother looked happy enough to weep as he chatted animatedly with Blackwood and Haybury about horses and wagering.
Bloody hell
.
Then Portsman took his arm and pulled him toward the back of the box. “It’s about to begin,” she murmured.
“We could sit in the front, with your friends,” he said, holding the back of her chair for her.
“No.” She spoke a bit too sharply, but he understood her reluctance. In the dark he couldn’t tell if Ebberling was here or not, and he couldn’t look about without drawing attention to the fact that he was searching for the marquis.
He sat beside her. “You have very interesting companions.”
That made her smile. “Yes, I do.” Emily slipped her hand around his arm. “You, included.”
“I’m the opposite of interesting,” he murmured back, for the first time wishing he could stand up and toss his spectacles and cane aside and shout that he was a damned hero, for the devil’s sake.
“Yes, because only a dull, sensible man would arrange for a night like this, with people like this around us.” She leaned a breath closer. “I very much want to kiss you right now, Westfall. Thank you for dragging me out of my hermit’s cave.”
“You are welcome.”
The curtain opened to tumultuous applause, and Portsman sat forward. What would her fellows think, if they knew she was the daughter of a poacher and a washerwoman? After all, everyone else in the box bled blue. Even the illegitimate chit had a duke for a sire, and the other one, Camille, was an earl’s daughter, and Blackwood a marquis’s cousin. Lady Haybury was a viscount’s daughter and an earl’s widow and now a marquis’s wife, thrice blue-blooded.
And even with all that, he still found Emily, or whatever she chose to call herself, the most fascinating female—the most fascinating human, in fact—he’d ever encountered. She’d said they were different because his lies were for the benefit of England, while hers were only to save herself from a life of poverty. However far she’d managed to raise herself up from the mud, though, and considering their company tonight that was very far indeed, she’d earned it. She’d fought for every inch of ground, and she’d earned it. She belonged here, as much as anyone else in this box.
And no one, least of all the Marquis of Ebberling, was going to be allowed to take it away from her. No matter what he had to do to see that she had a happy life.
* * *
The Marquis of Ebberling set down his glass of wine as the play began.
Around him his fiancée and her family kept chittering about this lady’s necklace and that duke’s rumored wealth, but he wasn’t in the mood to enjoy either the gossip or the play. He sent another glance at the box three closer to the stage than his own. Damned clod. He should have known better than to hire a crippled slug to do his spying for him.
For a short time he’d thought Westfall might have found Rachel Newbury’s scent. After all, he’d gone to Shropshire, questioned ship’s captains and reviewed their records in Brighton and Dover, and then he and his dolt of a brother had come by twice, at least, to chat with the boy. Once he’d learned that the earl had begun to frequent The Tantalus Club he’d even taken himself there on the chance that his quarry might have found a refuge among those scandalous chits. Westfall had said he was on a trail, after all.
In all that, nothing. Nearly a month of nothing, and he had a wedding now only four weeks away. That damned sharp-nosed chit had enjoyed nothing so much as pointing out his supposed shortcomings to the boy and Katherine. Now that he meant to marry again, she would know. Now that he meant to marry the daughter of the wealthiest banker in England, she would know. And she would find a way to ruin things, again. Blackmail would be the best he could hope for, but he didn’t intend to wait for her to find him. No, he would find her first, and then it would finally be over with.
What he should have realized was that he’d been foolish to go to a broken-down, retired cripple when the man who’d recommended him was still in the game. Well, he learned from his mistakes. And he would see that Rachel Newbury learned from hers. Except for her, it would be too late.
Beside him his betrothed laughed at someone on the stage, and he joined in. By this time tomorrow Jack Rycott would be on the chit’s trail. And then he would see who won out in the end.
Chapter Twelve
Emily took Sophia’s arm as they waited for their various coaches to thread their way through the crowd. “You look so happy,” she whispered, kissing her friend on one rosy cheek.
“I am happy,” the new Duchess of Greaves returned, grinning. “In another few weeks I’ll begin waddling and complaining, but I’m still happy. Ecstatically so.”
Putting a hand on Sophia’s belly, Emily shook her head. “I can’t believe I warned you not to go to Greaves’s house party over Christmas. If you’d listened to me, you would be Mrs. Reverend Loines by now.”
With a shudder, Sophia shook her head. “Don’t remind me. Spending three days in the company of that hideous man and his mother was enough to last me a lifetime.”
Camille joined them after she nudged Blackwood toward the other men. “The lesson I choose to take away from all this is that Sophia and I both made narrow escapes and found a great deal more happiness than we thought we deserved.” She glanced in Westfall’s direction and back again. “And so will you, Em.”
Oh, she would give a great deal for that to happen. Just thinking about him started delicious shivers running through her. But she’d ruined her own chances of an auspicious marriage when she’d told Nate about her true parentage. Lying to him, though, after what he’d told her about his work during the war—she wouldn’t have been able to look him in the eye ever again if she hadn’t spoken. “I will be happy simply to come and visit you two from time to time,” she said aloud.
“Yes, why have you suddenly decided to venture out of doors?” Sophia asked. “Haybury’s note to Adam only said to come here tonight and be pleasant. Adam said he only complied because he wants a chance to win his horse back, but I think he was touched that Haybury thought of him when he wanted friends about.”
Camille nodded. “Keating says the two of them have nearly patched things up between them, though he refuses to tell me what the difficulty was in the first place.”
“Men and their stupid secrets.” The duchess sighed loudly, then grinned again. “Speaking of secrets, Em, you never said you had a penchant for bookish earls.”
“Westfall and I are friends, is all,” Emily returned, wishing for once that she hadn’t been speaking the truth. “I’m perfectly happy at the Tantalus. And as for me finally walking outside, I thought it was time.”
As she glanced back toward the well-lit theater entrance, however, her words died in her throat. He stood there.
Him.
Golden-haired and handsome as ever, with a woman on his arm. She was likely his new wife-to-be, but Emily couldn’t tear her gaze from him for long enough to get a look at the unfortunate lady. He was talking with another man, but at any moment he would look in her direction. He would see her looking back at him, and he would recognize her. How could he not? She’d only changed her hair and the way she dressed, but otherwise she was the same. It would happen, and she needed to run, but—