Читать книгу Regency Affairs Part 1: Books 1-6 Of 12 - Кэрол Мортимер, Кэрол Мортимер - Страница 14

‘I sincerely hope you are pretending an interest in this drivel rather than actually finding any enjoyment in it?’

Pandora did not show, by so much as a twitch of her bared shoulders, that she had overheard Rupert’s hissed comment next to her earlobe, as she continued to stare down upon the stage where the hero of the opera was currently—and rather loudly—lamenting his lost love.

As promised, Rupert’s ducal carriage had duly arrived at her home at seven-thirty that evening, that gentleman looking suitably and—Pandora admitted inwardly—breathtakingly handsome in his black evening clothes and white linen, a cloak draped about those broad and muscled shoulders, his rich gold curls revealed as being fashionably dishevelled once he had removed his tall black hat.

Pandora had coolly accepted his polite compliments on her own appearance: a deep-blue and feathered confection adorned her own fair curls, her silk gown of matching blue, its short-sleeved style leaving her shoulders bare, the high waist emphasising the full swell of her breasts, with pale-blue lace gloves covering her hands and arms to just above her elbows.

She had maintained that cool detachment as the two of them travelled to the opera, only thawing slightly under the Countess of Heyborough’s genuinely warm greeting and her husband’s twinkling blue eyes as he bent solicitously over her gloved fingers. A melting that had faded the moment Rupert took a proprietary hold of Pandora’s elbow in order to escort her into the theatre. He had nodded and bowed imperiously in acknowledgement of the greetings he had received—several of them markedly startled once they realised the identity of the woman at the Duke’s side. But, as he had promised, not a single one of those ladies or gentlemen had dared to offer her the cut direct in his presence.

Even so, Pandora’s legs had been trembling so much by the time they reached the Heyboroughs’ private box that she had been relieved to sink down on to the seat Rupert pulled out for her, before stepping back to fold his own lean length on to the seat directly behind her. A proximity he had just taken advantage of, the warm brush of his breath having felt almost like a caress against the bareness of Pandora’s skin as he spoke so closely to her ear.

‘Unless it has escaped your notice, your Grace, the heroine has just died and her lover is heartbroken,’ she whispered discreetly, aware as she was that there had been much gossiping behind fans and sidelong glances made in their direction during the course of the evening, as many people watched the two of them rather than the performance taking place upon the stage.

‘Then more fool him,’ Rupert drawled uninterestedly. ‘Personally I would consider myself well rid of such a weak and mewling creature! Why is it that you never wear jewellery, Pandora?’

Those smooth and bare shoulders appeared to stiffen momentarily at this sudden change of subject before she brought her reaction under control and answered Rupert with that same infuriating coolness with which she had been treating him all evening. ‘I have, on occasion, been known to wear my mother’s pearls.’

‘But not yesterday evening or tonight?’

Her mouth firmed. ‘No.’

‘Why not?’

‘Could this conversation not wait until the opera has come to an end, your Grace?’ She shot a meaningful glance in the direction of his aunt and uncle sitting in the box with them, the Earl and Countess giving every appearance of listening intently to the caterwauling rising up from the stage below.

Rupert affected a yawn. ‘I might have expired from boredom before that happens.’

Pandora bit her top lip in order to hold back the chuckle she almost gave in response to his irreverent comment. In truth, this truly was one of the most depressingly morbid operas she had ever attended—and she had attended many of them during the years of her marriage to Barnaby. ‘I believe your suffering is almost at an end,’ she assured him.

‘Thank God for that,’ he muttered with obvious relief. ‘I cannot believe that people actually attend such things with any idea of actually being entertained.’

‘Perhaps their idea of entertainment is not as exacting as your own?’

‘I believe I might find more to entertain me at a wake!’

This time Pandora could not hold back her smile of amusement. ‘Then it is to be hoped you do not attend many of them.’

‘More than I have the opera, thank God!’

Pandora frowned slightly. ‘Why did you bother coming here at all this evening if you hate the opera so?’

There was silence behind her for several long seconds before Rupert answered quietly, ‘Perhaps to see and be seen?’

She stiffened. ‘Might one ask whom you wished to see, and be seen by, your Grace?’

‘One might ask it, yes,’ he said blandly.

Pandora allowed her gaze to drift away from the stage, where it was to be hoped the hero was in the latter stages of his lament, in order to surreptitiously observe the other members of the ton who had attended the opera, believing—no, expecting—that she would espy the Dowager Duchess of Stratton amongst their number.

Pandora was not a particular friend of Patricia Stirling’s, the other woman being several years older and her friends much racier than any of Pandora’s acquaintances, but she had met the other woman on several occasions in the past, and so knew her appearance to be exactly as Dante Carfax had yesterday evening described Rupert’s preferred taste in women: tall and statuesque, with dark hair, eyes of pale blue and set in a classically beautiful face.

But despite a thorough, albeit discreet, search, Pandora failed to see her amongst the other theatregoers …

‘Did you find what—or should I say, whom—you were looking for earlier?’ Rupert raised mocking brows as he personally attended to Pandora’s entrance into his carriage outside the theatre a short time later. His aunt and uncle had already departed, the Countess anxious to return home to check on the welfare of the youngest of her four children, who had been running a temperature earlier in the day; he made a mental note to send his little cousin Althea some tempting bonbons in the morning.

Pandora’s gaze remained cool as Rupert removed his hat before entering the coach and making himself comfortable on the seat opposite. ‘I wasn’t aware I was looking for anyone in particular, your Grace.’

His mouth thinned at her continued formality even though there was no one else present to witness it. ‘No?’

‘No, your Grace—’

‘I believe I have several times expressed my displeasure about being addressed in that priggish manner by you!’ An evening of attending the opera, even in the company of a woman as beautiful as Pandora Maybury and his favourite aunt and uncle, had done nothing to soothe the inner feelings of oppressive disquiet he had suffered since the events of yesterday evening.

If anything, he now felt even more restless …

Restless?

Or aroused …?

There was no denying the arousal he had experienced earlier this evening, when he had called to collect Pandora and looked upon her eyes of velvety-drowning violet in the pale beauty of her face, the deep blue of her gown lending a pearly luminescence to the bareness of her shoulders and the full swell of her breasts visible above its low neckline. The interminable hours of sitting immediately behind her in the theatre box, allowing him to admire those pearly shoulders and the vulnerability of her slender, unadorned neck, as well as having his senses invaded by the lightness of her perfume, had only increased that physical awareness.

A physical awareness which now caused Rupert to shift slightly upon his upholstered seat, in the hopes of relieving some of the discomfort he was experiencing from the full and firm swell of his arousal.

Pandora seemed completely unaware of Rupert’s physical discomfort as she continued to speak levelly. ‘And is the voicing of your so-called displeasure usually reason enough for others to cease doing whatever it is they are doing to annoy you?’

‘Invariably,’ he clipped with satisfaction.

She raised haughty brows. ‘Despite all appearances to the contrary, we have never so much as been formally introduced, your Grace.’

‘Rupert Algernon Beaumont Stirling, the Duke of Stratton, Marquis of Devlin, Earl of Charwood, etc., etc.,’ he drawled with all formality. ‘Your servant, ma’am.’

‘I very much doubt that.’

He raised his brows at her obvious scorn. ‘I am sure I could produce several ladies who might vouch for my having … served them very well, in the past.’

‘Besides which,’ there was a warm blush in Pandora’s cheeks as she continued firmly, ‘I don’t appreciate being used as a—a means of muddying the waters in regard to another … even less socially acceptable friendship in your life!’ The fullness of her top lip curled upwards in her displeasure.

So the little cat had claws, Rupert noted appreciatively as he looked across at her, his eyes gleaming silver slits under his lids. Claws, which he could all too easily envisage scratching at and digging into his muscled back as he pounded himself remorselessly into—

What the devil!

His interest in Pandora was as a means to an end—Patricia Stirling’s end, he hoped—and nothing to do with how much Rupert would or would not enjoy making love to her. Admittedly it would be an added bonus to his plans if, as Dante had advised, he could entice the beautiful Pandora into his bed, but it was not, by any means, a necessity.

‘You made a similar remark to me this morning.’ He eyed her with amusement. ‘If you are referring to my father’s widow, then I wish you would do so directly and cease these less-than-subtle hints.’

Those violet-coloured eyes glared her irritation. ‘Why should I bother to explain myself when you so obviously know precisely to whom I am referring?’

How could Rupert not know, when all of London seemed to be aware that he and his stepmother had been sharing the same residence since the death of his father nine months ago! If not the reason for it …

Only Rupert’s lawyer, Patricia Stirling herself, and Rupert’s two closest friends, Dante and Benedict, knew the reason for his having to suffer the Dowager Duchess’s continued presence in the ducal homes.

And his deceased father, of course, the besotted Charles Stirling, the seventh Duke of Stratton, and the gentleman wholly responsible for Rupert’s present dilemma.

A dilemma which Rupert, with Pandora’s assistance, now had every hope he might soon bring to a satisfactory end. ‘Things are not always as they appear, Pandora,’ he said evasively.

Pandora knew that, better than most! Although she failed to see how Rupert Stirling could possibly explain—even should he care to do so—his present living arrangements in such a way as to give them the appearance of being anything other than what they were: he and his widowed stepmother, a woman he was known to have been intimately involved with prior to his father’s marrying her, had been openly living together since that gentleman’s death.

Her gaze flicked over the Duke in dismissal. ‘I believe this evening has taken care of any obligation I may have felt towards you, and as I neither expect, nor desire, to see you again after this evening, the subject of your present unorthodox living arrangements is of little interest to me.’

‘Ah.’

Pandora’s gaze sharpened warily on the aristocratically handsome face opposite, not at all reassured by the humour she saw glinting in those pale grey eyes and the cynical twist to that sensual mouth. ‘What do you mean by “ah”?’

‘Yet another subject I feel it would be best we wait until we are alone to discuss,’ the Duke said with an expressive glance up to where his groom was perched upon the back of the coach.

Pandora couldn’t help but approve of the way Rupert had taken account of the presence of his groom. So many of the aristocracy paid little heed to the presence of their servants when in conversation, seeming to regard them as they might a piece of furniture: of use, but without emotions or opinions of their own. A mistaken belief that all too often led to the servants knowing more of the personal business of their employers than was either prudent or safe. As Pandora knew to her cost …

She shook her head. ‘I see no other opportunity in which we might ever converse alone.’

‘The opportunity will occur, Pandora, when you invite me into your home for a nightcap, as a way of saying thank you for taking you to the opera this evening,’ Rupert drawled.

‘An outing I had no wish to attend in the first place!’

‘Well … no,’ he conceded drily. ‘But it’s still polite to say thank you.’

Had Pandora ever met such an infuriating gentleman in her life before as this one? If she had then she did not recall it. And she would most certainly have remembered if she had ever met anyone who annoyed and irritated her as much as this particular gentleman did!

And what annoyed and irritated her most was that she knew quite well it wasn’t just those two emotions he made her feel …

Beneath the exasperation, there was a feeling of … of excitement, of awareness, that Pandora had never experienced before. A frisson, something, that made her aware of Rupert Stirling’s every move and mood, even when she couldn’t see him, as she hadn’t been able to in the theatre earlier. She had certainly felt his presence behind her, been aware of his warmth, the insidious smell of him, of sandalwood and lemons and that something else that was unique to Rupert, that warmth and smell stirring her senses until she was aware of every breath he took as well as every shift in posture he made.

Pandora had no previous experience of those sensations to know how best to describe them, she only knew that she had felt them, deep inside her. That, in the close confines of the ducal coach, she felt them still, stirring her, arousing her, so that the tips of her breasts seemed to tingle inside her gown and between her thighs felt uncomfortably warm.

So much so that she now feared the very idea of being alone with him in the privacy of her home …

She straightened her spine against the upholstered bench seat. ‘Then I will thank you now and save us both the trouble of any further attempt at politeness between us.’

‘Oh, no, Pandora, that will not do at all.’ Rupert chuckled huskily. ‘The offer of a decent glass of brandy is the very least you owe me for having suffered through the opera this evening.’

‘Our choice of entertainment was your own suggestion!’

‘Only because I thought it would please you.’

Her eyes widened. ‘You thought no such thing!’

‘Do you presume, Pandora, after being acquainted with me for a scant twenty-four hours, to now know my character so well that you also know my thoughts?’ Rupert raised sceptical brows.

‘Well. No. Of course I don’t know you well.’ A blush once again warmed her cheeks. ‘At all, really,’ she amended with a frown. ‘If I may say so, you’re a decidedly enigmatic man at the best of times—’

‘And these are certainly not the best of times,’ Rupert cut in drily.

‘They most certainly are not!’ Those violet eyes glittered her displeasure.

He chuckled wryly. ‘Do not fear, Pandora, all will be revealed once we are safely ensconced in the privacy of your home.’

A statement she did not find in the least reassuring!

‘—talk to your household staff regarding the amount of candles they have left burning in your absence.’

Pandora, having fallen into a stony silence for the rest of the carriage ride to her home, a silence the Duke had happily emulated, as he, too, seemed lost in his own thoughts, now looked enquiringly across the carriage at him.

‘Your home is lit up like Carlton House,’ he explained in answer to her silent enquiry.

Pandora could see that for herself when she sat forwards to glance out of the carriage. As the groom opened the door, every room at the front of the house seemed to be alight with burning candles. ‘I don’t understand …’ she murmured faintly as she stepped down from the carriage.

‘Perhaps your household staff have taken advantage of your absence to indulge in a leaving-London party?’ Rupert suggested sarcastically as he stepped down beside her and placed his hat upon his head.

‘Don’t be ridiculous.’ Pandora shot him an irritated glance when he took a proprietary hold of her elbow as they walked up the steps to the front door of the house.

He frowned darkly. ‘That’s the second time you have called me such today.’

‘You deserved it,’ Pandora snapped.

No doubt, Rupert acknowledged ruefully, and yet, apart from Dante and Benedict, he knew no one else of his acquaintance who would have dared to speak to the Duke of Stratton in such familiar and dismissive terms.

It seemed that his respect and admiration for Pandora Maybury grew exponentially. ‘You are—’ Rupert broke off his comment as the front door of the house was opened by the butler, and in doing so allowing the sounds to be heard from within the house—primarily a wailing Rupert found almost as painful to his ears as he had the singing at the opera earlier! ‘What on earth …?’

All was pandemonium as Rupert put Pandora aside in safety before stepping into the small entrance hall of her home, the servants—dozens of them, it seemed, although Rupert doubted that Pandora actually needed to employ dozens of servants in this small mansion—milling about in what appeared to be unproductive disarray. The loud wailing was coming from a thin woman of middle years as she sat upon the bottom step of the staircase.

Rupert glared his disapproval. ‘Cease that infernal racket, woman!’ He nodded with grim satisfaction as the wailing, all noise, instantly ceased as everyone in the crowded hallway turned to look at him wide-eyed.

Rupert could now see that there were actually only six other people in the hallway besides himself: the elderly gentleman he knew to be the butler, two flighty-looking girls who were no doubts the upstairs and downstairs maids, a lady of middle years whom he presumed was the cook by her plumpness and the pinafore she wore over her beige gown and a bedraggled child of twelve or thirteen years, who might or might not be her kitchen maid. A motley crew, to be sure, none of whom Rupert would have seen employed in any of his own homes.

The woman seated upon the stairs started up her wailing again the moment Pandora stepped inside the house behind him. ‘I’m so sorry, your Grace!’ Tears now streamed down the woman’s thin cheeks as she stood up to rush over to look at her mistress with appealing, if reddened, eyes. ‘We none of us knew—we were all downstairs enjoying a late supper—I only discovered it when I went up to lay out your night things—all the beautiful things in your bedchamber …!’ She began to wail once again.

Rupert gave a pained wince as the return of that screeching seemed to go straight through him and succeeded in giving him a headache. ‘I will physically remove you from my presence if you don’t stop that noise instantly,’ he warned the woman coldly.

‘Stop it, Rupert.’ Pandora turned to give him a reproving frown. ‘Can you not see how upset she is?’ she admonished. ‘Try and calm yourself, Henley.’ Her voice softened into kindness as she crossed to the distraught woman. ‘Enough to tell me what has happened, at least.’ She took the older lady’s hands in hers and gave them a reassuring squeeze.

Rupert, having absolutely no patience for the woman’s sobbing and wailing, let alone her garbled explanation, turned instead to the butler who still hovered at his side. ‘Explain, if you please?’ he prompted quietly.

‘It’s just as Henley said, your Grace.’ The elderly man frowned. ‘Whilst we were all downstairs, partaking of a late supper, someone must have entered the house and gone up to her Grace’s bedchamber.’

‘And?’

The older man winced. ‘And the room is in great disarray, your Grace.’

Rupert’s arrogant brows rose. ‘Have the authorities been called?’

The butler looked uncomfortable now. ‘Not as yet, your Grace.’

Rupert scowled darkly. ‘Why on earth not?’

‘Well, I—’ The man glanced briefly, uncomfortably, to where Pandora was still in quiet conversation with her maid. ‘We only discovered what had occurred a few minutes ago, your Grace, and anyway, I was not absolutely sure that—’

‘I think there has been quite enough chatter for one night,’ Pandora stated. Having now learnt from Henley exactly what had occurred—in lurid detail!—in her absence, she had no wish to discuss it further in front of Rupert Stirling; he already knew far too much about her personal business for her comfort.

She certainly didn’t need Bentley to tell the overly curious and shrewdly intelligent nobleman that the reason he had not called the authorities as yet was because he had been unsure of whether or not she would want him to bring this to their attention.

Pandora turned to the butler. ‘Bentley, take everyone back down to the kitchen and see that they are all given a little brandy to calm their nerves—’

‘But first bring a decanter of the same and two glasses to her Grace’s blue salon,’ Rupert instructed the elderly man imperiously even as he took a firm hold upon Pandora’s elbow.

‘You are white as a sheet, madam,’ he added sternly as Pandora would have protested the need for strong alcohol.

Well … yes, she probably was. But she had thought—hoped— What did it matter what she had thought or hoped, when tonight’s events had so obviously proved her wrong?

‘Do as his Grace suggests, Bentley,’ she instructed wearily, knowing that there would now be no persuading Rupert to leave her or her home until she had offered him some sort of reasonable explanation for what had happened here this evening.

Although quite how much of an explanation Pandora wanted, or indeed, intended to give him, she was as yet uncertain …