How to Master Your Marquis (29 page)

“Can’t we what?”

“Please.”

He kissed her forehead. “There’s no time. The other chaps might start turning up any minute. It’s nearly spring. The Boat Race is in a few weeks, and everybody’s coming back to the fold.”

She put her arms around his neck. “I’ll be quick.”

“Trust me, this pains me more than it pains you. As you can plainly see.”

She breathed into the side of his throat. Her linen-draped breasts touched his naked chest. “Hatherfield. Then let me touch you.”

He shut his eyes. His lips slipped against her silken hair. “We don’t have time, my dear.”

“All last night, we did the most intimate things together. We gave each other such joy. You’ve touched me everywhere, seen me everywhere, kissed me everywhere. I just want to
know
you, every inch of you.”

His knees sank into the soaking rug. Stefanie’s soft body fit into his arms, fresh and pure and smelling of soap. Her long-fingered hands rested against his chest. He was as hard as stone, as thick as a tree, as hot as a coal.

“Hatherfield, please. Let me worship you.”

He rose to his feet. “Let’s find your clothes.”

H
e managed to bring her back to Cadogan Square and through her third-floor window before the maid had come in to lay the fire.

“How am I supposed to sit next to you at breakfast, as if nothing’s happened?” she said.

He produced a fresh shirt and collar from her drawer and unbuttoned her jacket. “That’s easy enough. I won’t be at breakfast this morning.” He drew the crumpled old shirt up and over her head.

She snatched the long linen strip from her chest of drawers and wrapped it around her chest. “What? Why not?”

He was already popping the new shirt over her head, already stuffing the ends into her trousers. “I have a number of calls to pay this morning.”

“What sort of calls? And I can dress myself, by the way.”

“When I’m enjoying myself so thoroughly?” He pushed her hands away and attached her collar, and then he turned her around before the mirror and threaded her necktie underneath. “To answer your question, I shall first visit His Grace, the Duke of Ashland, and then His other Grace, the Duke of Olympia. And then I’ve got to bite the proverbial bullet and seek audience with His bloody damned Grace, my father, the Duke of Southam, during his party tonight.”

“Why?” She was watching his expert hands in the mirror, as they folded her necktie. Her breath was becoming rather shallow.

“In the case of my father, because I have a certain matter to take up with him, related to my Hammersmith project. In the case of the other two, because I can no longer ignore the rather pressing need to track down this damned group of anarchists who attempted to kill you last night.”

She spun in his arms. “You won’t! You can’t put yourself in danger like that. It’s not your fight.”

“If not mine, then whose?”

“My uncle and Miss Dingleby.”

“Forgive me, but I believe they’ve had time enough to sort things out on their own. I want these men caught immediately and put somewhere—six feet underground, if possible—where they’re no longer in a position to harm a single hair of your head.”

“But I’m not in any danger. Not if I stay hidden.”

He turned her around and wrapped his arms around her waist. Their tangled reflections gazed back at him, shirtsleeve against shirtsleeve, his broad forearms white against her dark waistcoat. “You can’t stay hidden forever, you know.”

“I know,” she said quietly.

“Particularly if any consequences arise from our reckless night’s work.”

Her eyes in the mirror went wide and shocked.

“You hadn’t considered that possibility?” he asked gently.

She whispered, “Yes, of course. But you needn’t say it out loud.”

He glanced at the clock. Five minutes to seven. He dropped a kiss on her temple and made for the open window. “I’ve got to leave, and you have breakfast down below, to say nothing of the conclusion of your case in court today. I’ve asked my driver to keep a close watch on you. He’ll follow you and Sir John about in the hansom; discreetly, of course. He’s well trained. You’ll be in good hands. I’ll return at nine o’clock to take you to the party. And for God’s sake, keep your head down and your voice deep.”

“But how are you to travel about town today?”

He angled himself through the window and turned to her with a last broad wink.

“Why, I’ll take the Underground, of course. And Stefanie, my dearest?”

“Yes?”

“Don’t forget your mustache.”

TWENTY-ONE

H
is Grace, the Duke of Ashland, regarded the notes before him with a critical eye.

Eye, singular, for the duke possessed only one. The other had been blown from his face in the mountains of Afghanistan over a dozen years ago, and the empty socket sat beneath a black leather half-mask that lent his formerly handsome features a distinctly piratical flavor.

The remaining eye, however, was keen and blue and missed nothing. He raised his head and said, “The handwriting bears certain characteristics of the German Gothic script, don’t you think?”

Hatherfield nodded. “My thought exactly. Do you recognize the hand?”

“No.” The duke looked back down at the letters and adjusted one to a more perfect longitude against its fellows. Adjusted it with his left hand, for his right—like its corresponding eye—no longer existed, another casualty of clandestine warfare. “But I’m no expert in this damned organization. I do have my suspicions.”

“Who?”

“There’s a fellow who keeps watch over the house in Park Lane. Hans, the old Prince’s valet. Emilie swears to his fidelity—so does Dingleby—but I take nothing for granted.”

“I’ll investigate, then.”

Ashland drummed his fingers on the edge of the desk. They were sitting in the study of his newly leased house in Eaton Square—the dukes of Ashland never had been much for town life—and the room lacked a certain air of lived-in comfort, to say nothing of furniture. Hatherfield perched on the edge of a rickety wooden chair that looked as if it had just been hauled hastily down from an attic for the occasion, while Ashland’s desk gleamed with the sharp-edged newness of a shop room floor. The duke himself rested his massive six-and-a-half-foot frame on a leather-seated chair that might have looked substantial beneath any other man.

“There’s no time for investigation,” he said at last. A rare patch of late February sunshine rested on his close-cropped silvery hair, turning it brilliant. “Our engagement ball is tonight, lavish affair, Prince and Princess of Wales and all that. A tempting target, deliberately so, and we hope to catch the perpetrators in the act and end all this rubbish once and for all.”

Hatherfield let out a long breath and turned his head to the window, overlooking the garden, where a groundskeeper was hard at work laying out fresh beds near the mews. Spring, just around the corner. “I suspected as much. Dashed risky, however.”

“I shall be glad when it’s over.”

He turned back to Ashland. “What can I do, then?”

The duke’s pale blue gaze locked with his. “Stay with the princess tonight. Do not, under any circumstances, let her out of your sight. I understand she has a reputation for impetuousness . . .”

“Perish the thought.”

“See to it that she acquires no notions of presenting herself in Park Lane. Occupy her by whatever means you deem most effective.” A certain emphasis on the word
occupy
.

Hatherfield coughed. “As it happens, my parents are holding a party of their own tonight, in protest at not having been invited.”

“Good. Take her there and keep her busy.”

“Exactly what I intended to do. But in the meantime . . .”

“It’s too late to bring you into our plans, Hatherfield, or I would ask for your help. I’ve heard the most extraordinary praise of your abilities. But if things go awry, I hope I may count on your immediate aid.” He rose and held out his left hand.

Hatherfield came to his feet and shook it. “We’ll be in Belgrave Square, at the Duke of Southam’s house. But are you certain?”

“Yes.”

“Damn it all, I can’t stand to sit around and wait . . .”

“Of course not. I daresay you’re ready to punch the walls out. I don’t blame you. But your task, your sole object, is to guard Stefanie. As mine is to guard Emilie, may God help us both.”

“And the other sister?”

“Olympia won’t say.”

Hatherfield sighed. “I don’t know whether to damn the old bastard or bless him.”

Without warning, Ashland burst into laughter, a warm, rich laugh from the bottom of his chest. “Both, my friend. Both in the same breath.”

N
ot guilty.

Stefanie accepted the celebratory glass of Madeira from Sir John’s own hands; from what source he’d obtained it, she had no idea. They were sitting with the accused—the newly free accused—in a small anteroom at the Old Bailey, and Mr. Northcote grinned broadly as Sir John handed him a brimming glass of his own.

“Not guilty,” repeated Sir John. “I congratulate you, sir.”

“Ah, now, that’s the stuff. Thank you kindly, Sir John.” Northcote stopped smiling long enough to take a long draught of Madeira. “A relief, it is. Though I don’t know what I’m to do next. Hardly seems fit to gather rubbish after all this.”

“Any honest labor does merit to the man who performs it.” Sir John finished off his own glass and gathered up his papers. “If you’ll excuse me. I have a few matters to address with the court. The formalities of release and so on. You will wait here with Mr. Northcote, Mr. Thomas, until I return.”

“Yes, sir.” Stefanie set down her glass and looked across the wooden table at Mr. Northcote, who was polishing off his Madeira with relish. She had never quite liked the man. It wasn’t his lowly station—she had rubbed shoulders with all sorts in her madcap escapades back in Germany, and knew they were all made of the same clay flesh—but rather his manner. He hadn’t yet thanked either her or Sir John for their efforts on his behalf, not once, though the Madeira had earned his appreciation. He had sat there throughout the proceedings with a slight smirk at the corner of his mouth, when he thought no one was watching.

Even now. Madeira finished, he stood from his chair and walked to the desk in the corner and picked up the bottle to refill his glass. “Good stuff, innit?” he said.

“Indeed.” Stefanie took another small sip.

“Lord, I’m chuffed.” He turned around and leaned against the table. He was wearing a brown suit, cheap but neat, and his shoes were polished. He pushed a greasy strand of hair from his forehead. “Did you see his face when they read the verdict? I looked over directly.”

“Whose face?”

“Why, Hammond’s, of course.” Hammond was the wronged husband. “As black as sin, he was. I daresay she gets a good smacking tonight, when she’s back home with him.”

“I hope not. The matter has brought enough grief to all parties.”

He threw back his head. “Oh, no doubt of that! No doubt at all. The way she carried on, when I first climbed in with her of a morning. Weeping fit to raise the dead.”

Stefanie straightened in her chair. “What’s that?”

“It took her a month at least to settle down proper and spread her legs nice and quiet-like.” He shook his head. “And then when she was on the stand last week, wringing her hankie like it was the end of the blooming world. I thought we was done for. Good on you, Mr. Thomas. Good on the both of you for straightening out that jury afterward.”

The edges of Stefanie’s vision grew white and blurred.

Who would have believed my word against hers? Who would have believed I didn’t want her there?

“Ha-ha,” Northcote was saying. “Her face, when she heard them words.
Not guilty.
She knew what she were in for, that’s . . .”

But he had no chance to finish his sentence. Stefanie had marched across the room, grabbed the bottle of Madeira, and upended it over his greasy head.

“You, sir, are a disgrace,” she said, and she left the room with a rattling bang of the door to await Sir John’s arrival outside.

I
n the carriage afterward, they were both quiet. Sir John consulted his notes, and Stefanie stared out the window at the damp gray landscape, the gloomy passing London.

If only she’d paid closer attention. If only she’d given this case a fuller share of her attention, amid all the briefs and studying and escapades with Hatherfield. If only she’d been allowed to interview him herself.

In a few hours, she would be readying herself for a splendid ball, a marvelous party on the arm of the handsomest and most dashing man in the world. A mile or two away, her sister would be celebrating her engagement to an English duke, and the threat that loomed over them both, holding them prisoner, would—if all went well—be extinguished. She would be free to resume her old life, or something like it; free, perhaps, to begin a new life with Hatherfield. Heal his wounds and make him happy. The two of them, happy and rich and fruitful, while Mrs. Hammond endured the shame and disgrace and physical retribution of Northcote’s
Not Guilty.