Читать книгу Dicing with the Dangerous Lord - Margaret McPhee, Margaret McPhee - Страница 11

There was a note from Linwood the next morning.

If it is not presumptive of me, may I request the pleasure of your company this afternoon for a drive in Hyde Park?

Your servant,

L.

His letters were angular, sharp, boldly formed by a pen nib pressed firm against the paper, the ink a deep opaque black, expensive as the embossed paper upon which the words were written. As she read the words it seemed that she could hear the rich smooth voice speaking them, the slight irony of his reference to ‘presumption’ following her taunt the night he had saved her from the ruffians, and see the dark handsome face, all cheekbones and harsh angles, with its lips that could drive every last vestige of sense from a woman’s head.

She screwed the cut sheet of paper into a ball, her fingers curling tight, crushing it within, tempted to throw it onto the coals of the fire and watch it burn away to nothing. She did not want to go driving with him, not when, against all rhyme and reason, he made her feel the way he did. Aroused. Attracted. Out of control. She squeezed her eyes shut, knowing that she could not refuse him. This was part of what she had agreed to do, the game she had willingly entered into. With a sigh, she carefully eased the paper open, smoothing out every crease she had inflicted upon it. She stood by the window and stared at the paper for a long time in the cold autumn light, thinking of the man who had written the words and of the man he had murdered in cold blood. Then, taking a deep breath, she sat down at the small desk within her little parlour. She slipped Linwood’s letter into the drawer, then set a clean sheet of paper before her. Taking up her pen, she dipped it into the inkwell and began to write.

When Albert told her Linwood was waiting in her drawing room she felt a sense of dread and beneath it, for all she would deny it, a stab of satisfaction that he had come. Part of her wanted to have Albert send him away, and part, for all she was loath to admit it, was eager to see him. She felt unusually unsettled and told herself that she could not send him away, that she had a job to do here, that that was the only reason she must see him. She sat in front of her dressing table, staring into the oval peering glass and seeing nothing. Deliberately slowing her actions, she took her time inserting the wire of the pearl-drop earrings through the lobes of her ears, before smoothing butterfly fingers over the soft white-rabbit fur of her hat and checking the pins that held it in place.

Her dress and matching pelisse were of icy blue silk, the same colour as the sea on a sunny winter morning, clear and pale as her eyes. She was stalling, making him wait, calming herself as she did just before any performance, except that she had never felt this nervous before any other role. Taking a deep breath, she moved to resume the game.

‘Lord Linwood.’

He was standing by the fireplace, dressed in a midnight-blue fitted tailcoat, buff-coloured breeches and glossy black riding boots, as if he had known the colour of her outfit and dressed to complement it. Every time she saw him she felt that same small shock at the effect his dark handsome looks had upon her. Her eyes moved over him, noting that his hat, wolf’s-head walking cane and gloves, were still in his left hand, even though Albert must have offered to relieve him of them. The dark eyes met hers and she, the famously cool, calm and collected Miss Fox, felt herself blush. And that small betrayal made her angry and determined—which was exactly what she needed to be when she was with him.

She saw his gaze rove over her.

‘You are beautiful.’

‘You flatter me.’

‘You know I do not.’

They looked at one another and all of her body seemed to shimmer with the memory of the kiss they had shared.

‘Hyde Park,’ she said.

‘Unless you have another preference.’ And there was that same darkness in his eyes that had been there before he had kissed her. The air seemed too thin for her lungs, making it hard to breath and the atmosphere was thick and writhing with sensual suggestion. Images flashed in her mind. Too real. Too potent. His lips on hers, their tongues entwining, breathing his breath, tasting him, feeling the hard muscle beneath her fingers, her palms; the flickering flame of desire that just the scent of him seemed to fan to an inferno. She stepped back from him, from temptation, from danger.

She shook her head, the small lazy smile that curved her lips in such contrast to the race of her heart and the simmer of her blood. ‘All in good time, my lord.’

He drew her a small nod of acknowledgement, as if what would happen between them had just been agreed. Her heart fluttered with fear, but she had already turned away and was walking out of the room, out of her house, towards Linwood’s carriage.

He sat with his back to the horses, giving the direction of travel to Miss Fox.

His gaze studied her as he leaned back against the squabs. She was a woman he could have looked at for a lifetime and never grown tired. She appeared as relaxed, as cool and in control as ever she had been. But when he looked into those clear pale eyes, it was as if she had drawn a curtain behind them to hide herself from him.

‘A new landau.’ She stroked over the leather of the seats and bolster, the soft pale-cream kid of her gloves so stark in contrast to the black leather interior of the carriage.

‘My father’s,’ he said.

Her fingers touched the small neat coat of arms embroidered upon the bolster. ‘The Earl of Misbourne. Does he know that you are using it to squire actresses about London?’

‘One actress only,’ said Linwood and deliberately did not answer the rest of her question.

‘And yet you have taken an apartment in St James’s Place when your father’s house is not so very far away.’

‘You have been enquiring about me.’ The realisation would have been a compliment to any man’s ego and Linwood was no exception.

‘No more than you have been enquiring about me. You knew my direction without my telling you the other night.’

‘Then it seems we both are caught with an interest in the other.’

She glanced away, as if unwilling to admit it.

‘And yet you are not looking for a protector,’ he said in a low voice.

‘Nor you for a mistress,’ she replied silkily.

She looked over at him, her eyes meeting his so directly that he felt the desire lance through him swift and sharp. Her mouth curved to a small enticing smile that did not touch her eyes, before she turned her attention to their surroundings.

They had entered through Hyde Park Corner, taking the fashionable route along Rotten Row, although the lateness of year and the chill in the air meant the park was relatively quiet. They passed only two other carriages, one a group of elderly dowagers, who, having scrutinised the occupants of the landau, turned away as respectability deemed they must. And the other, the Duke of Arlesford and his wife. The two men exchanged a look that held distinct animosity, but Linwood was not troubled by it.

Overhead the sky was a clear white-blue and the sun hung so low that its pale dazzling light made him narrow his eyes. The chill in the air held the dampness of autumn and the leaves on the trees rustled in the flame-vivid colours, littering the grass around them. But the vibrant vital beauty of the surroundings paled to nothing against the woman sitting opposite him.

‘Your performance the other night was excellent.’

She seemed to still and, for a moment, he saw the flicker of confusion and a slight underlying fear in her eyes. ‘My performance?’

‘I brought my mother, my sister and her husband to see the play.’

She closed her eyes and smiled, and he could sense the release of tension, the relief that flowed through her in its place. He wondered at her reaction, but when she opened her eyes she was her normal self once more. ‘I saw you there, in your father’s box. How did your mother and sister find the evening?’

‘Most enjoyable.’

‘Your father did not accompany you?’

‘He did not.’ He did not expand upon it.

The breeze stroked against the fur of her hat, so that it quivered soft as down. They drove the rest of the time, speaking occasionally of nothing important, small things, and silences that were comfortable. He had never known a woman who did not try to fill them. Eventually the carriage reached the north-east Cumberland Gate. Her eyes moved to sweep over the greenery of the park and above to the sky and the sunlight. She inhaled deeply.

‘Such a fine day,’ she murmured almost to herself, ‘too often I see only evenings and nights’, and then she turned her gaze to him and smiled such a radiant warm smile. ‘Thank you for bringing me out in it.’

‘You are welcome’, and he felt his own mouth curve in response to the pleasure that lit her face.

‘Perhaps I could tempt you to a hot chocolate at Gunter’s?’ he asked as they left the park. Anything to prolong this time in her company.

‘You really have been enquiring of my vices, Lord Linwood.’ She smiled again.

And so did he.

And then the carriage turned into Park Lane and the sight there that, for Linwood, shrivelled all the sunshine of the day to darkness.

A costermonger’s barrow had overturned not far from the corner, spilling shiny red-and-green-striped apples across the road. Children swooped like starlings, chattering and grabbing and quarrelling with each other over the spoils. Linwood’s carriage was forced to stop directly outside the place he least wanted to be—the lone dark scar in the row of pale Portland-stone town houses.

Venetia stared at the charred wreckage of the burnt house, wondering if it were fate or Robert’s intervention that had brought the carriage to a halt at this very spot.

‘The Duke of Rotherham’s house,’ she said softly and the companionship that had been between her and Linwood only a moment early was ripped away, exposing it for the sham it was, even though it had felt real enough to fool her.

Linwood said nothing, but she sensed the change in him without even looking. Or perhaps the change was all in herself.

‘Apparently it was an act of arson.’ Venetia kept her voice light as if it were not a matter of such consequence of which she spoke.

‘Was it?’ All of Linwood’s reserve and caution had slotted back into place.

‘Someone must have disliked Rotherham very much indeed.’

‘So it seems.’ His expression was closed, cool, almost uninterested in the subject.

She turned her eyes to his, held his gaze with her own. ‘Did you know him?’

‘Of a fashion. My father and he ran together when they were young.’ His eyes did not so much as flicker. ‘Did you?’

She felt caught unawares by his question. She doubted any other man would have asked it of her. ‘Only a very little,’ she answered, and it was not a lie. ‘He was a patron of the theatre.’ But Rotherham had also been a lot more than that to her.

‘What was your opinion of him?’

She thought carefully. ‘He was a cold, precise man who liked things his own way, cruel in many respects, arrogant and rich, a man with too much power and yet one who did not default from his duty.’

‘Duty?’ Linwood gave a small ironic laugh.

‘He was a man of his word, to the letter,’ she said, knowing that, much as she had disliked Rotherham, she would defend him over this.

‘He was most certainly that,’ said Linwood with a hard edge to his tone as if he were referring to something specific that had happened between the two men in the past. ‘It seems that you knew Rotherham more than a little.’

Her heart gave a judder at his words. The seconds seemed too long before she found a reply. ‘Hardly,’ she said in a lazy tone she hoped hid the sudden fear coursing through her. Linwood could not know, she reassured herself. Hardly anyone knew. But it reminded her of how carefully she must tread in this game they were playing.

‘Did you like him?’ he asked.

‘No.’ Another truthful answer. ‘I tried, but I could not.’