Читать книгу Regency Rogues: Candlelight Confessions - Marguerite Kaye - Страница 14

Deborah jerked awake, exhausted from lurid dreams in which she was always in the wrong place, with the wrong person, in the wrong attire, at the wrong time. Dreams in which she was endlessly chasing the shadow of the man who had made a shadow of her. Dreams in which no one could see her, no one would acknowledge her, in which she existed only to herself. When she spoke, the words were soundless. Time and again, she tumbled into the room where he was, only to have Jeremy look straight through her.

In her dreams, she was sick from her failures, sick from knowing that no matter how hard she tried, she would fail again. The familiar weight of that failure made the physical effort of rising from her bed a mammoth task. No amount of telling herself that it was just a dream, nor any reminder that it had no basis in reality, could shift that lumpen, leaden feeling, for the truth was that Deborah believed she had failed, and it had been her fault.

Long experience had shown her that hiding under the covers and willing fresh dreamless sleep had no effect whatsoever, save to nourish the headache which lurked just under the base of her skull. Slowly, with the care of a very old woman afraid of breaking brittle bones, Deborah climbed out of bed and went through her morning ablutions, blanking her mind against the lingering coils of her monochrome nightmares, forcibly filling her head with colourful images from her adventures last night.

She winced as she soothed a cooling lotion on the chafe marks at her knees and thighs, but as she folded away the male clothing she had worn, out of sight of the daily help, her mood slowly lifted. By the time she sat down to take coffee at her desk, she was smiling to herself. Bella Donna, that vengeful, voluptuous creature of the night, would not be confined to history after all. At last, after several barren months, she had her inspiration for the next story.

What would Elliot think if he knew he was her muse? Deborah paused in the act of sharpening her pen as a lurid image of herself atop the hall table, her legs entwined around him, flooded her body with heat. Closing her eyes, shuddering at the memory of his lips, his hands, the rough grate of his jaw on her skin, she was astounded at the speed and intensity of her arousal. Had the painting not fallen, had she not fetched a light and broken the mood, she would have given herself to him. As she recalled raking her nails on his skin, urgently pressing herself against the hard length of his manhood, she turned cold. What on earth had come over her?

It would be a salve, to persuade herself that she had become so caught up in Bella Donna’s character as to have forgotten her own, but it would not be the truth. Bella Donna took her pleasures in a calculated way. Bella Donna used and discarded men as she used and discarded her various guises when she had no further use for them. Last night, Deborah had wanted, needed, desired with a purity of feeling which left no room for anything else. It frightened her. The intensity of her feelings, her lack of control, terrified her. She did not want any of it.

Ever since we met, I’ve wanted you, Elliot had said. But the circumstances in which they met were coloured each time by danger. It was surely that which made him want her, as it made her want him? Only the thrill of defying the rules, the edge which recklessness and daring gave to fear, could explain the strength of their mutual desire in its wake. Nothing else, surely, could explain why she had forgotten all the inhibitions her marriage had taught her and allowed an instinct she hadn’t known she possessed to drive her.

No, last night, she had not been Bella Donna, but neither had she been Deborah. She could not reconcile that vivid, bold creature with the one sitting at her desk in her grey gown in her equally grey life. But then, wasn’t that what she had wanted from last night’s adventure? To shed her skin, to step out of the tedium of her day-to-day existence, to escape from herself for a few hours? She had certainly achieved it beyond her expectations.

Now, though, she must get back to reality, which might very well be grey by comparison, but at least it was safe. Never mind that it was unexciting, unadventurous and above all lonely. She was used to being lonely. Most of her married life she had been lonely. And lost. And hurt. She would do well to remember how quickly the bride with stardust in her eyes had become the hated wife.

Now she was no longer a victim of her own gullibility. She was not the source of every disappointment, the cause of every misfortune. She need not hide from her friends for fear they discover her unhappiness. She need not pretend to herself that she was anything other than miserable. Guilt and insecurity need no more drive her actions than that most cruel emotion of all, love. Her life might be bland, but it was her own. Safe from feeling, maybe, but it was also safe from pain. She intended always to be safe from now on. Whatever had come over her last night, the person she had been was not the real Deborah. The experience had been a release. Cathartic. An antidote, a dose of danger to counteract the malaise of boredom. That was all, and it was over now.

Resolutely, Deborah picked up her pen. It was past midnight when Bella Donna made her way stealthily out into the night dressed in male attire, on a mission which would scandalise the ton and throw her into the orbit of the most dangerous and devastatingly attractive man in all of England, she wrote.

‘You look tired, Elliot.’ Elizabeth Murray drew her brother a quizzical look.

The resemblance between the siblings was striking enough to make their relationship obvious. The same dark, deep-set eyes, the same black hair, the same clear, penetrating gaze which tended to make its object wonder what secrets they had inadvertently revealed. Though Lizzie’s complexion was olive rather than tanned, and her features softer, she had some of her brother’s intensity and all of his charm, a combination which her friends found fascinating, her husband alluring and her critics intimidating.

‘Burning the candle at both ends?’ she asked with a smile, stripping off her lavender-kid gloves and plonking herself without ceremony down on a comfortably shabby chair by the fire.

Elliot grinned. ‘Lord, yes, you know me. Dancing ‘til four in the morning, paying court to the latest heiress, whose hand I must win if I’m to pay off my gambling debts. Generally acting the gentleman of leisure.’

Lizzie chuckled. ‘I am surprised I did not see you in the throng around Marianne Kilwinning. They say she is worth twenty thousand at least.’

Elliot snapped his fingers. ‘A paltry sum. Why, I could drop that much and more in a single sitting at White’s.’

Lizzie’s smile faded. ‘I heard that your friend Cunningham lost something near that the other night. I know it is considered the height of fashion, but I cannot help thinking these gentlemen could find better things to fritter their money away on.’

‘You’re not alone in thinking that.’

‘Did you speak to Wellington, then?’

‘He granted me an audience all right,’ Elliot said bitterly, ‘but it was the usual story. Other more pressing commitments, a need to invest in the future, resources overstretched, the same platitudes as ever.’ He sighed. ‘Perhaps I’m being a little unfair. He told me in confidence that he was considering taking up politics again. Were he to be given a Cabinet post, he said he would do all he could, but—oh, I don’t know, Lizzie. These men, the same men who have given their health and their youth for their country, they can’t wait for all that. They need help now, to feed themselves and their families, not ephemeral promises that help is coming if only they will wait—we had enough of those when we were at war.’

‘Henry. I know,’ Lizzie said gently, widening her eyes to stop the tears which gathered there from falling as her brother’s face took on a bleak look. She hated to cry, and more importantly Elliot hated to have this deepest of wounds touched.

‘Henry and hundreds—thousands—of others who were brothers, friends, husbands, fathers. It makes me sick.’

‘And Wellington will do nothing?’

‘I’m sorry to say it, but at heart he’s a traditionalist. He is afraid, like Liverpool and the rest of the Tories, that too many years abroad have radicalised our men. He thinks that starving them will bring about deference. I think it will have quite the opposite effect and, more importantly, it’s bloody unjust. I’m sorry, I shouldn’t swear and I didn’t mean to bore you.’

‘Don’t be so damned stupid. You neither bore me nor shock me, and you know it. I have no truck with this modern notion that we women have no minds of our own,’ Lizzie said tersely.

She was rewarded with a crack of laughter. ‘Not something anyone could ever accuse you of,’ Elliot replied.

His sister grinned. ‘That’s what Lady Murray says.’

‘Alex’s mother is in town? I thought she never left that great big barn of a castle of theirs. Won’t she be afeart that the haggis will go to ground and the bagpipes will stop breeding without her,’ Elliot asked in an appalling attempt to mimic Lady Murray’s soft Scottish burr.

‘Very amusing,’ Lizzie said drily.

‘So what momentous event has driven her to visit Sassenach territory, then?’ To his astonishment, his sister blushed. ‘Lizzie?’

‘I’m pregnant,’ she said with her usual disregard for polite euphemisms. ‘The news that’s driven her south is the forthcoming arrival of a potential grandson and heir, if you must know.’

‘Elizabeth!’ Elliot hauled his sister from her chair and enveloped her in a bear hug. ‘That’s wonderful news.’

‘You’re squashing me, Elliot.’

He let her go immediately. ‘Did I hurt you? God, I’m sorry, I—’

‘Please! Please, please, please don’t start telling me to rest, and put my feet up, and wrapping me in shawls and feeding me hot milk,’ Lizzie said with a shudder.

‘Alex?’

‘Poor love, he’s over the moon, but when I first told him he started treating me as if I was made of porcelain. Lord, I thought he was going to have me swaddled and coddled to death,’ Lizzie said frankly. ‘You can have no idea what it took for me to persuade him we could still—’ She broke off, colouring a fiery red. ‘Well. Anyway. Alex is fine now, but his mother is a different kettle of fish. Or should I say cauldron of porridge? She wants me to go to Scotland. She says that the fey wife in the village has always delivered the Murray heirs.’

‘You surely don’t intend to go?’

Lizzie’s shrug was exactly like her brother’s. ‘Alex would never say so, but I know it’s what he’d prefer. I’m already beginning to show, too. I have no wish to parade about the town with a swollen belly and I’ve certainly no desire at all to have myself laced into corsets to cover it up, so maybe it’s for the best. It’s not really a ruin, Alex’s castle. Besides, you can’t blame him, wanting the bairn to be born in his homeland.’

‘Bairn!’

Lizzie laughed. ‘Give me a few months up there and I’ll be speaking like a native.’ She picked up her gloves and began to draw them on. ‘I must go, I promised Alex I wouldn’t leave him with his mother for too long.’ She stood on tiptoe to kiss Elliot’s cheek. ‘You do look tired. What have you been up to, I wonder? I know you’ve not been gallivanting, for I’ve lost count of the number of young ladies who’ve enquired after my handsome, charming, eligible and most elusive brother. And don’t tell me it’s because you lack invitations, because I know that’s nonsense. What you need is …’

‘Lizzie, for the last time, I don’t want a wife.’

‘I was about to say that what you need is gainful employment,’ his sister said, in an offended tone. ‘The Marchmont estates aren’t enough to keep you occupied, they never were. You need an outlet for all that energy of yours now that you don’t have your battalions to order around; you need something to stop you from brooding on incompetence and injustice. I’m not underestimating what you’ve been through, but it’s past, Elliot, and you can’t undo it. It’s time to move on, put your experience to some use rather than use it to beat yourself up. There, that is frank talking indeed, but if I am to go to Scotland with a clear conscience, I don’t have time to tread lightly.’

‘Not that you ever do.’

Lizzie chuckled. ‘Any more than you do. You don’t lack opinions and certainly don’t lack a cause. Why don’t you go into politics yourself?’

‘What?’

‘I don’t know why you look so surprised,’ Lizzie said drily. ‘What is the point in you berating the likes of Wellington and all the rest.’

‘I hadn’t thought.’

‘Then think. And when you’ve concluded that I’m right, think about taking a wife, too.’ She tapped his cheek lightly. ‘A woman with a bit of gumption, who can force her way past that barricade of charm you arm yourself with. You see how well I know you, brother dear? You don’t let people in very easily, do you? I expect the army is responsible for that stiff upper lip and all that—it makes sense in war, but we’re at peace now, thank the Lord.’ Lizzie nodded decisively. ‘Yes. What you need is a woman of character, someone who can stand up to you, not some malleable little thing who would bore you to death before the wedding trip was over, no matter how pretty she was. I shall have to redouble my efforts before I go north, but I am quite set on it, so don’t despair,’ she said with a bright smile.

‘I shall try my very best not to,’ Elliot replied, as he opened the door for her.

‘I wish you would be serious. I know I’ve spoken out of turn, but you’re clearly not happy. I will fret about you down here all alone when I am up in Scotland.’

‘You’ve got more than enough to worry about. I’m not unhappy, just not quite sure what to do with myself now that I don’t have the army. I feel as if I’ve lost my purpose.’

‘Politics will give you that. Will you at least think about what I said?’

‘We’ll see. Did you come in your carriage?’

Lizzie nodded, deciding against pushing him any further. She was on the step outside when she remembered the package. ‘My book!’ she declared.

Elliot retrieved the brown-paper parcel from the marble table which sat under the hall mirror. ‘What is it?’

‘Nothing. It’s just a novel. Give me it.’

Intrigued by her cagey look, Elliot held on to the parcel. ‘What kind of a novel?’

‘I’m not … it’s just that—well, Alex doesn’t approve.’

‘Good Lord, Lizzie, don’t tell me you’ve been browsing in one of those bookseller’s back rooms in Covent Garden.’

He meant it as a joke, but, to Elliot’s astonishment, Lizzie’s face crimsoned. ‘And what if I did? Oh, don’t look so shocked, it’s not that kind of book. It’s a novel. The latest Bella Donna novel, if you must know.’ Seeing her brother’s blank look, she sighed. ‘The whole ton is agog at her exploits, I can’t believe you’ve not heard of her. Bella Donna is the most shocking literary creation, she’s a sort of voluptuous sorceress. The stories are quite Gothic, extremely racy and wholly entertaining. I personally see no reason why they should be kept under the counter, nor why I, a married woman, should not read them,’ she said darkly. ‘If Bella Donna were a man—well, it would be a different story, if you’ll forgive the pun. It is the fact that she is a woman who treats—intimacy—exactly like a man that is so shocking. She is quite ruthless, you know, incredibly powerful. I think it would amuse you, I shall send it round once I am done with it if you like.’

‘Why not,’ Elliot said, surrendering the package, ‘it sounds amusing.’

Lizzie chuckled. ‘Yes, and now I can tell Alex that you lent it to me if he discovers it. I really must go. You’ll come to dinner then, tomorrow? Oh, did I forget to ask you? Never mind, I won’t take no for an answer,’ she said, turning her back and tripping lightly down the steps to her waiting carriage. ‘I promised Alex I’d persuade you to join us. Lord Armstrong will be there—the diplomat. You can talk politics with him.’

Wriggling her fingers at him over her shoulder, Lizzie climbed into her barouche without looking back or giving Elliot a chance to refuse her invitation.

He returned to the parlour, deep in thought. Incorrigible as she was, his sister was all too often right. He could not continue in this mode for much longer. Housebreaking, even if it was for a cause, was hardly a lifelong occupation. And he did need an occupation, though he had always known, as Lizzie herself said, that he was not cut out to play the country gentleman. Perhaps politics was the answer? It was certainly worth considering. Lizzie’s ideas usually were. She did not know him as well as she thought, but she knew him better than anyone else.

And a wife—was she right about that, too? Picking up the Morning Post, which his man had left, carefully ironed, on his desk, Elliot pondered this question half-heartedly. He hadn’t ever seriously considered a wife. As a soldier with an increasingly dangerous sideline in espionage, it would have been irresponsible to marry. Not that that was the reason he hadn’t. Such a precarious and transient life hardly lent itself to fidelity, but Lizzie was right, curse her, that was just an excuse. The fact was, he didn’t let people in, he was wary of allowing anyone to see past whatever form of veneer he showed them. War made you like that. War taught you how fragile life was. It taught you how easy it was to be crushed by that fragility, too—he’d seen it too many times, written too many letters to grieving widows, listened to the last heartbreaking words of too many of their husbands. Pain like that, he could do without. It could not possibly be worth it.

He sighed. Blast Lizzie for putting such thoughts in his head. If she only knew that he’d been living like a monk since returning to England. What’s more, until he’d met Deborah Napier, he had been relatively content to do so. Last night had been so—so bloody amazing! Just thinking about it—oh God, just thinking about it. If only he had not dropped the painting. If only he had not allowed Deborah to go in search of a candle, she would not have found her inhibitions.

‘Dammit, what is wrong with me,’ Elliot exclaimed, ‘England must be full of attractive, available, experienced women looking for nothing more than a little light flirtation and a few indulgent hours in bed.’ Except that wasn’t what he wanted, not any more. He wanted Deborah. He didn’t just want to bed her either, he wanted to understand her. He wanted to know what went on in her head and what had gone on in her past. He wanted to know why it took breaking and entering to release her passion. And he wanted her to release it again.

What was it Lizzie said he needed? A woman with a bit of gumption, who can force her way past that barricade of charm you arm yourself with. A woman of character. Deborah was certainly that. Lizzie would definitely approve. Not that he was in any way seeking her approval. Politics, perhaps he would consider. Marriage—no. But the train of his thoughts disturbed him. Elliot shook out the newspaper, seeking distraction. He found it in the middle pages.

Last night, the Notorious Housebreaker commonly known as the Peacock struck again, this time at the abode of a most Distinguished Member of Parliament who resides in Grosvenor Square. The Villainous Thief has stolen a most valuable painting, the subject of which being a Very Important Personage. Said painting, executed by a Spanish Master, was torn asunder from its frame in the Most Honourable Gentleman’s Study. Once again, the Peacock had the effrontery to leave his Calling Card behind, along with the Rope by which he made his escape. Any Member of the Public who saw anything or anyone suspicious is urged to contact the Magistrates at Bow Street.

The portrait of the Very Important Person was currently wrapped in oilskin and safely tucked under the floorboards in Elliot’s bedchamber. A certain Spanish official, when approached by way of the intricate web of contacts which Elliot had been careful to maintain from his days in the covert service of the British Government, would most certainly pay a substantial sum for it. Tomorrow, he would set about making the first of those contacts. Today though, he had another alluring, beguiling and altogether intriguing contact to see.

Folding the newspaper into a neat square which would fit into his coat pocket, Elliot loped up the stairs three at a time, calling for his man to fetch his hat and gloves and his groom to have his curricle brought round.

Looking over from her writing desk at the clock, Deborah was astonished to discover that it was well past two. The stack of paper before her bore testament to her labours, the neat lines gradually deteriorating to an unruly scrawl as her pen struggled to keep up with her fevered imagination. She had forgotten what it was like, to be so inspired. It made her realise how much of a chore her books had become. The wisps of this story clung to her like plucking fingers, willing her to pick up her pen once more lest she lose the thread, but she knew that she had reached her limit for today.

Her wrist ached. Her head felt as if it were stuffed with cork. Wiping her ink-stained hands on the equally ink-stained linen smock she wore to protect her gown, Deborah thrust the manuscript into the desk and closed the lid.

Returning from the kitchen, where she had made herself a much-needed pot of tea, she froze on the threshold of the parlour.

Elliot was immaculately turned out, not a crease in his olive-green coat of superfine nor his biscuit-coloured pantaloons. The gloss on his tasselled Hessians showed not a speck of dirt. In contrast, Deborah was horribly conscious of her hair pinned up anyhow under its cap, her work smock, her grubby fingers. Why did he always have to see her looking at her worst? And why did he always have to be so much more attractive, every time she saw him? Taller. More muscular—those pantaloons fitted like a second skin. More everything! And why did he have to smile like that? And why, when she was quite resolved to forget all about him, was she so absurdly pleased to see him?

She clutched the tea tray to her chest. ‘How on earth did you get in?’ The shock of seeing him, as if he had just walked out of Bella’s story, combined with the traitorous shiver of simple pleasure which had been her first reaction, made her sound aggressive, but better that, than let him see the effect he had on her.

‘It would be a poor Peacock indeed who could not break into a house with such flimsy defences,’ Elliot said with a grin, relieving her of the tea tray and giving her no option but to follow him into her own parlour.

‘I did not think to see you again.’ Deborah sat down on the edge of a chair by the fire. She longed to pour her tea, but was afraid her hands would shake.

Elliot raised a brow. ‘Surely you must have known I would call?’

‘We said goodbye last night.’

‘You said goodbye.’

Deborah gazed at him helplessly. He waited for her to say something, but she began measuring leaves from the little wooden caddy. Water splashed as she poured it from the kettle into the pewter teapot. ‘I brought only one cup.’

‘I hate tea,’ Elliot said, sitting himself opposite her.

She poured her drink, took a sip and then a deep breath. ‘Why are you here?’

Her antagonism didn’t fool him. She was as nervous as a cat, but she hadn’t been able wholly to disguise the fact that she was pleased to see him. Elliot handed her the newspaper. ‘I thought you might like to see this.’

Deborah scanned the report, her face lightening to a shadow of a smile as she read. ‘I woke this morning persuaded that I had imagined the whole episode. I can’t quite believe it happened even now, despite seeing it reported in print.’

‘Fortunately, there is no indication that anyone knows I had an accomplice, but all the same, you must have a care not to let slip, even inadvertently, anything which might betray you.’

‘I won’t,’ Deborah said, thinking guiltily of the account she had written just this morning of the episode, reassuring herself at the same time that she had changed sufficient details for it not to matter. ‘There is nothing to fear, I am sure. You did not strike me as a worrier, Elliot.’

‘I am not worried for myself, but for you. I care little for my own safety, but I would rather not have yours on my conscience.’

‘You don’t. It was I who persuaded you, if you recall.’

‘I would never have allowed myself to be persuaded if I had not wanted you with me,’ Elliot said with a wry smile. ‘How does it feel, to be so vicariously notorious?’

‘Vicarious,’ Deborah replied pithily. ‘I feel as if it was someone else who clambered down that rope. Though I must confess, my conscience has been bothering me rather belatedly. That painting was very valuable.’

‘And you’re worried about what I’m going to do with the ill-gotten gains,’ Elliot said. ‘No, don’t look like that, I can’t blame you. I’m surprised you haven’t asked before.’

‘I am ashamed to admit that I most likely did not because I didn’t want a reason not to go,’ Deborah confessed. She put down her half-drunk cup of tea. ‘Why do you do it, Elliot? I mean, I can understand, that it’s partly what I wanted—the sheer thrill of it. I can understand, too, that you find civilian life rather boring compared to what you’re used to, but—to say that you care little for your own life as you just did—I can’t believe that you are hoping to be caught.’

‘Of course not. I am bored though, that is a part of it. My sister thinks I need gainful employment and she’s probably right,’ Elliot said, grimacing.

‘Gainful doesn’t sound very like you. I didn’t know you had a sister. Is she in town?’

‘For the moment. Lizzie is married to a dour Scot, who has plans to whisk her away to the Highlands for the birth of their first child.’ Elliot grinned, happy to be sidetracked. ‘I foresee some epic battles between her and her mother-in-law and I know who I’d put my money on. Lizzie is short of neither opinions nor the will to enforce them.’

‘I’d have liked to have a sister,’ Deborah said with a wistful smile. ‘I don’t have any family. My parents died when I was very young and my uncle, who became my guardian, was a bachelor, very set in his ways. When I came back to live with him after finishing school, he didn’t know what to do with me. He didn’t like Jeremy, he told me that he was only marrying me for my inheritance, but he didn’t make much of an attempt to stop me either. “You must make your own bed, and don’t come running to me if you don’t like lying in it,” he said. Not that I would have,’ she concluded, with a twisted little smile.

Did she know how much she had given away with that last little sentence? Elliot wondered, touched by her pride, angry on her behalf at the need for it. ‘Is he still alive?’

Deborah shook her head. ‘He died five years ago. I rarely saw him once I was married. I often wish I had made more of an effort.’ It was surprising how guilty she felt even now, and no amount of telling herself that Uncle Peter had made no effort to keep in touch either made any difference. She had been afraid to let him see her and had kept him at a distance as she kept everyone else. ‘I don’t know how we came on to this subject,’ she said brusquely, ‘you cannot possibly be interested in my rather pathetic life.’

‘I’m interested in you, Deborah.’

She concentrated on tucking a stray lock of hair back behind her ear, dipping her head to cover the faint traces of colour in her cheeks. ‘I can think of any number of topics more interesting.’

Elliot was much inclined to pursue the subject, but his instincts warned him it would be unwise. Teasing out secrets was second nature to him. Knowing when to stop lest he betray just how much he had garnered was a subtle art, but one which he knew he had mastered. Though it had to be said, he admitted wryly to himself, that Deborah was proving to be more of a challenge than any close-mouthed diplomat. ‘Why did I invent the Peacock, then? Does that constitute a more interesting topic?’

Deborah nodded. ‘Provided it does not also constitute an intrusion. I would like to know, for you puzzle me. Your victims are selected too carefully for them to be random. Do you have some sort of personal grudge against them?’

‘What makes you say that?’ Elliot asked sharply.

‘I don’t know.’ Deborah frowned. ‘I suppose I cannot believe you do it for personal gain and there are too many robberies for it to be simply the thrill of it which drives you. You’d have become bored by now if that was it.’

‘You are very perceptive. It is to be hoped that none of the gentlemen at Bow Street has your wit.’

‘None of the gentlemen at Bow Street has my inside information. Is it too personal? I will understand if you don’t wish to say any more.’

Elliot drummed his fingers on the arm of the chair. His instincts were to confide in her, though common sense told him that by doing so he was taking an unwarrantable risk. Not of deliberate exposure, she would not do that, but an inadvertent comment, a remark let slip in the wrong company—how could he be sure she would not do that?

He just knew. She was as close as a clam and, of her own admission, she lived like a hermit. Besides, he wanted to tell her. He wanted her to know. ‘You were right about my victims,’ he said. ‘They are very carefully selected. All of them were at some point responsible for the supply chain—or lack of it—to the army. Medical supplies, orderlies and doctors, boots, basic rations, horses. Most of all horses. They kept us short of all of those things, because after all, what does an army need to fight except guns? Even if you can’t get the guns to the battlefield. Even if you can’t get the men wounded by those guns misfiring back to a field hospital. What do they care? They don’t,’ he said flatly. ‘I know they don’t because all my letters and protests and reports fell on deaf ears at the time, and now—well, now it is done and everyone wants to forget all about it, so there is even less point in letters and reports and protests.’

‘So you take what will hurt them instead.’

‘Yes, that’s exactly what I do.’

‘Did you lose many men because of such shortages?’

‘Yes.’

‘Friends, too? Forgive me, but it seems to me such a very personal thing you are doing, there must have been someone …’

‘There was. My best friend.’ Elliot gripped the arms of his chair so tightly that his knuckles showed white.

‘Henry,’ Deborah said gently. ‘I’m so sorry.’

Elliot nodded curtly.

‘I truly am sorry, I didn’t mean to upset you; you don’t need to say any more.’

‘I want to,’ Elliot said, surprising both of them. ‘I want to tell you.’ He swallowed repeatedly, cleared his throat. ‘We joined up together, Henry and I, I told you that already. We worked our way through the ranks together, though he was much too ill-disciplined to keep his stripes for long. He made it to captain once, but it only lasted about six months. He was a first-class soldier. We always looked out for each other. When I needed an extra pair of hands, I always turned to Henry. He was quick with his fists, but he knew the importance of keeping other things close, which was important in my—my alternative line of business.’

He paused. Across from him, Deborah was gazing at him intently. Would she be shocked? He doubted it, somehow. More likely excited, as she was by the Peacock. That decided him. ‘The thing is, I wasn’t just a fighting man. There’s a reason why the Peacock is so able.’ He grinned. ‘Actually, it’s ironic that the very skills I learned in order to steal secrets are the same ones I use to steal their property now. Most of which, I hasten to add, was stolen in the first place.’

Deborah stared at him in utter astonishment. ‘You mean—what you’re saying is that you—you stole? At our Government’s behest? But why? What did you—oh! My God, you were a spy?’

He should have known how she would react. Her eyes were sparkling. Elliot laughed. ‘Yes, I was.’

‘Good grief! No wonder civilian life bores you. You must tell me—I wish you will tell me—I don’t know—anything, all of it—no, I don’t expect you can tell me all of it. Goodness, what secrets you must know.’ Deborah chuckled. ‘How horrified the likes of Jacob would be if they knew. You are quite right, Elliot, it is irony past price. Can you tell me more? Were you a master of subterfuge?’

Danger, even if it was vicarious, certainly brought her to life. ‘I’m afraid it was rather more mundane than that. If anything, I was a master of patience.’ He told her a few choice stories because he liked to see her laugh, because he found her laughter infectious, and he told her a few more because returning to the subject in hand was too painful, but he underestimated her.

‘He must have been more like a brother than a friend. Henry, I mean,’ Deborah said suddenly, interrupting him in the middle of a story. ‘What happened?’

‘He was wounded in the Pyrenees during the siege on San Sebastian. He took a bullet in the leg, above the knee. It smashed the bone—he’d have lost his leg, but it shouldn’t have been fatal. Only they couldn’t reach him because there were no carts and no mules.’

‘Oh God.’ Deborah covered her mouth, her eyes wide with horror.

Elliot’s knuckles were white. ‘For more than a week, he lay in agony in the blistering sun with his wound festering. He died of a fever a few days after they finally got him to the field hospital. I was with him, at the end, though he hardly recognised me. He died for want of a mule. A mule!’ He thumped his fist down hard on the chair. ‘But what do those bastards in the War Office with their lists and their budgets know of that? What does it matter, when a man with one leg would have been no bloody use to them anyway? What do they know of the suffering, the agonies that Henry and thousands like him went through, and what do they care now for the survivors?’

‘But you care,’ Deborah said, shaken by the cold rage. ‘You care enough to steal from them, to make reparations for them, is that it?’

‘The money goes to a charity which helps the survivors.’ Now that he had opened the floodgates his bitter anger, so long pent-up, demanded expression. ‘Someone has to help them,’ Elliot said furiously. ‘While they fought for their country, their country learned how to do very well without them. Now that the Government no longer needs them to surrender their lives, their limbs and their hearts on the battlefield, it has decided it has no need to reward them with employment, back pay, pensions. It is not just the men, it is their widows and children who suffer.’

‘I didn’t realise,’ Deborah said falteringly.

‘Few people do. All they see is a beggar. Just another beggar. Proud men, reduced to holding out a cup for alms! Can you imagine what that does to them? No wonder so many cannot face their families. And they are portrayed as deserters, drunkards, criminals.’

The scar which bisected his eyebrow stood out white against his tan. The other one, which followed the hairline of his forehead, seemed to pulse. How many other, invisible scars did he bear? His suffering made hers seem so trite in comparison. The grooves at the side of his mouth were etched deep. His eyes were fierce, hard. Deborah trembled at the sorrow and pain they hid, such depths, which made shallows of her own suffering. ‘I just didn’t know,’ she said simply. ‘I am quite ashamed.’ The truth was so awful, it made her conscience seem like a paltry consideration. ‘I wish now that we had taken more from that house in Grosvenor Square.’

Her vehemence drew a bark of laughter from Elliot. ‘Believe me, over the last two years, the Peacock has taken a great deal more.’

‘So it is a war of attrition that the Peacock is waging, is that it? And of vengeance?’

Deborah’s perception made Elliot deeply uncomfortable. He was not accustomed to thinking about his motivations, never mind discussing them. ‘What do you know of vengeance?’ he asked roughly.

Enough to recognise it. Deborah hesitated, surprised at the strength of her urge to confide, but the very idea of comparing their causes appalled her. Besides, his voice held an undertone of aggression that warned her to tread lightly. He obviously thought he had said too much already. She could easily empathise with that. ‘The painting that we stole,’ she said, seeking to lighten the subject, ‘you knew about it because of your spying, didn’t you?’

‘You’ve no idea how much ransacking and looting goes on in the higher echelons in wartime. That painting was a bribe.’

To Deborah’s relief, some of the grimness left his mouth. She asked him to explain; when he did, she encouraged him to tell her of other bribes, relieved to see the grooves around his mouth relaxing, the sadness leaving his eyes. The battered armchair in which he sat, she had rescued from a lumber room at Kinsail Manor. His legs, in their tight-knit pantaloons, stretched out in front of him. If she reached, she could touch her toe to his Hessian boots.

‘I’ve said too much,’ Elliot said, interrupting himself in the middle of a story, realising abruptly how much he had revealed, how little he had talked to anyone of his old life before. It had been too easy to talk to Deborah. He wasn’t sure what he thought of that, accustomed as he was to keep his own counsel. His instincts were to retreat. ‘I must go,’ he said, getting to his feet.

How did he close his expression off like that? Ignoring the flicker of disappointment, Deborah rose, too. ‘You have certainly said enough to make me realise how shockingly ignorant I am. I shall not look on those poor souls with their begging bowls in the same way again.’

Outside, it was grown dark. Elliot lit a spill from the fire and began to light the candles on the mantel. ‘I’d like to call on you again,’ he said.

Deborah bit her lip. It would have been so much easier, had he not chosen to confide in her, if he had not given her so many reasons to wish to know more about him. To like him. In another world, in another life, Elliot was the kind of man she would have …

But there was absolutely no point whatsoever in thinking like that. Slowly, she shook her head. The pang of loss was physical, a pain in her stomach. ‘I live a very secluded life.’

‘I’m not suggesting we attend Almack’s together. We could go for a drive.’

Why did he have to make it so difficult? ‘I can’t, Elliot. I am perfectly content with my own company.’

‘So content that you need to break into houses and climb down ropes to make you feel alive?’

Deborah flinched. ‘I thought you understood. That was an escape from reality, merely.’

‘I don’t understand you.’ Elliot cast the spill into the fire. ‘One minute, you are hanging on my every word, the next, you imply that you never want to see me again.’

‘I’m sorry. I didn’t think that you would expect—I never considered us continuing our acquaintance after last night. I should not have encouraged you to confide in me, but I was so caught up in what you said and—I should not have,’ Deborah said wretchedly. ‘I’m sorry, Elliot.’

‘And what about last night? You are sorry about that, too, I suppose? Dammit, I was not imagining it, the strength of attraction between us. Why are you hell bent on ignoring it?’ Frustrated and confused, Elliot pulled her roughly towards him. ‘You can’t deny it! I can feel your heart beating. I can see it in your eyes that you want to kiss me just as much as I want to kiss you.’

‘No. Elliot, please …’

He was so sure, so certain that if he could just kiss her, it would rekindle the flame that had flared between them last night, but he had never in his life used persuasion on a woman in that way, and would not do so now. Elliot threw himself away from her. ‘I apologise,’ he said curtly. ‘I have obviously completely misjudged the situation.’

‘No,’ Deborah whispered, ‘it is I who did so. Last night, I gave you to think that I would—when I could not. Cannot. You have nothing to apologise for.’

It went against the grain to leave her like this but she left him no option. ‘Your servant, Lady Kinsail.’ Elliot sketched a bow.

‘Goodbye, Elliot.’ He was gone before she had finished saying the words, the front door slamming behind him. Deborah could not resist peering out into the gloom through the window, but he did not look back.

Alone in the parlour, she squared her shoulders. It had cost her dear, not to kiss him. It had cost her even dearer, that look on his face when she behaved so contrarily, but it was for the best. Elliot was not Jeremy, but it made no difference. Never, with Jeremy, had she come close to feeling what Elliot made her feel, but that just made things worse. She did not want to feel anything.

‘It’s over,’ she said to herself, pulling the curtains across the window. It would have been easier, knowing Elliot less, but it was too late for that now. Knowing him better simply made her more certain she was right. But staring into the flames of the fire, Deborah couldn’t help wishing that things were different.