The Blue Devil (The Regency Matchmaker Series) (24 page)

“I . . . I meant no offense. It is just that you . . . you—”

“Look awful. I know.” He sighed. “I did not expect anyone to be here, and I have not taken much notice of my appearance this evening. I have had . . . other matters to consider. Are you offended? Would you rather I left?” He started to turn away.

“No!” Kathryn cried and then more softly she said, “No.” She coughed. “Of course not. But . . . you must understand, my lord, that my husband, whoever he will be, is unlikely to be able to afford a glasshouse.”

He shook his head. “You never know. You have a superior mind, Kitty, a solid education. And you are lovely. Were I a younger man—” He forced a smile. “Were we closer in age, Kitty, I am afraid you would not be safe here in the glasshouse with me. But I am older than you—too much older. And you can afford to wait for a young man of means who can appreciate you. A love match. You deserve nothing less.”

Was he saying that he didn’t love her or that she was simply to young for him?

The temptation to tell him how old she really was was almost too much, but Kathryn mastered herself and turned away from him so that he would not see her sweep the budding tears away from her stinging eyes. Even if he had, by some miracle, formed some sort of attachment, telling him that they were not so very far apart in age would serve no purpose. Not yet. Not until she had Auntie’s diary in hand!

“I have learned to set aside silly dreams, my lord.”

She felt the warmth of his hand then as his fingers curled under her jawline and he brought her around to face him.

“You lie,” he said softly. “Dreams are all that sustain any of us.” He brushed the back of his fingers across her cheek and then took her hand. “Come, Kitty, and dream with me.”

“What? I—”

“Shh! Indulge me in a daydream.”

She let him lead her down a row of orange trees heavy with blossom.

Breaking off a cluster of the white, sweet-smelling flowers, he put them into her hair. “Orange blossom is traditionally a wedding flower. Did you know that?” he murmured.

She nodded, feeling as though her knees might give way.

“Imagine for a moment that you have just been wed to a handsome young man just your age. You are in love.” He’d drawn her to the center of the glasshouse, where stood a bubbling fountain. The sound of it echoed off the glass around them.

“Hear the music!” he said, nodding toward the falling water. “A waltz, I believe.” He dropped her hand and bowed low before her, then straightened once more. “He asks you to dance,” he asked softly.

He stood there in the moonlight, strong, virile, and handsome, his formal black evening clothes almost fading into the shadows. His snowy shirt and cravat bespoke elegance in their stark contrast. On his inky coat, he wore a flower, a spiky delphinium. His eyes were half closed, and he was holding out his hand to her. His outstretched fingers and his eyes invited her. Enticed her. Commanded her. Though her heart beat a warning, her head did not listen. Kathryn lifted her hand slowly and placed it in his. His warm fingers closed around hers, and Nigel moved closer to her. Looking into her eyes, he began humming a melody with a slow beat. Much too slow. He enfolded her in his arms and pulled her into the steps of a gentle waltz. Kathryn closed her eyes and let him guide her, as he had last night.

“Dreams can come true,” he whispered. “Do not give up on them, Kathryn. I beg you. You are too young to give up. Someday, you will be dancing like this with your husband.”

Kathryn squeezed her eyes shut. Madness! It was all she could do not to tell him her age, to tell him she loved him, to beg that he love her back!

He cared for her—of that she was now certain. But love her?

She knew she should flee, but, heaven help her, she wanted to be here, alone with him. She wanted to imagine for a moment that she had already found the diary. That she had accepted his proposal. That he was her husband, that this was her glasshouse.

But she could not.

She chose instead to ease his heart.

“I . . . I am sorry to hear about your mother,” she said softly. She felt him stiffen against her and instantly wished she had said nothing.

“Who told you about her?” he asked tightly.

“Jane.”

“What did she say?”

“That your mother died on your fifth birthday and that you blamed yourself. Jane said she found out from your servants.”

“They should not have told her. I tried to conceal from her the . . . the misery this day holds for me. She has had enough misery in her own life, enough loss, without taking on my own.”

“Is that why you chose today to give her a ball?”

“I tried to make this a day for Jane to be happy, not a day for pity.”

“I do not believe pity is what she intends.” Kathryn gave him a tender smile and shook her head. “You and she have become a family, my lord.” She paused. “Do you wish to know what I think?”

“Do I have a choice?” he asked, one glossy, dark eyebrow rising.

But Kathryn detected amusement in his carefully constructed expression. “No,” she answered. “You do not.” She bit her lip, pondering how to say what she felt. “I think,” she said finally, “that neither of you quite knows how to behave now that you are a family. Jane doesn’t know when to keep confidences, and you, it seems, do not know when to share them.”

His expression registered surprise before he sighed and drew her to him in a weary embrace. Suddenly, Kathryn found herself swaying to and fro, held against him, though it seemed more like rocking than it did dancing.

“I was there when it happened,” he said suddenly. “We saw a young bird hopping about in a tree. It could not yet fly, and I saw the idea to capture it blossom and spread over my mother’s pretty face. She asked me if I’d like to have a baby bird for my birthday. I remember nodding eagerly. She patted my head, and I watched her climb the tree, but her skirts tangled about her feet. And then she fell. She died instantly, though I was but five and did not realize . . . ” He paused for so long that Kathryn thought he would say no more, but then he spoke again. “I ran to her. She still had the baby bird clutched in her hand. It was dead. I understood that plain enough, for it was crushed in her fingers.”

Kathryn’s breath caught in her throat, remembering how tenderly he had lifted the baby bird in Auntie’s garden, how gentle his voice.

He continued. “It was a bluebird nearly fledged, its feathers already turning blue like its parents’. And my mother was dressed in blue as well. It was dusk, and even the sky was a deep blue. Her eyes were open, and they were more blue than I had ever seen them, staring up and reflecting the sky like that. She looked surprised, and I thought she was marveling at the beauty of the sky. I lay down on the grass, my head next to hers, so I could look at the sky too, but it was not long before I discovered—” He stopped swaying and bowed his head against hers. “The entire world turned blue that day.” He closed his eyes.

Kathryn put her hand to the side of his face. “That is why you always wear something of that color, then.”

His hand tightened around her waist. “Yes,” he said. “For me, blue is the color of loneliness. I have been alone for a long time.”

Kathryn’s heart thudded in her chest. She ached for him. “You have Jane now. And I am here with you.” she said.

“Yes,” he whispered. “You are. And you should not be, Kitty.”

The dishonest syllables of her false name struck her forcibly, coming as they did on the heels of his admission. “Kathryn,” she said, looking down. “My real name is Kathryn,” she confessed, knowing she could not tell him the whole truth, but needing to tell him the basic truth about herself. “And, as you know, I am older than I appear, but”—she swallowed and her heart fluttered in her chest—”but what you don’t know is that I—”

“Whatever it is, it does not signify,” he said. “I must leave now, and you must go inside. He stepped away from her and hesitated, and it seemed to Kathryn he wanted to say something more. After a moment, though, he simply turned and strode for the door.

“Wait!” she called. He glanced back at her, and Kathryn took a step toward him. “I must tell you that I . . . I love you.”

Nigel’s eyes softened. Slowly, he walked back toward her. Kathryn’s heart beat wildly as he framed her face in the palms of his hands and lowered his face toward hers. His mouth brushed hers for the barest instant, and then he drew away. “My dear Kathryn . . . as you have no doubt guessed, I do care for you. But I have seen things and done things I am not proud of . . . things I have no right ask you to share. You are still so young and I . . . am not.” He paused and a look came into his eyes, a look of longing, but then he shook his head as though to clear from it a haze. “If I stay, I will hurt you,” he said. “Good night.” He turned and walked away from her, into the darkness.

She sighed, allowing her eyes to become unfocused, and tilted her head to one side.

What if she found the diary tonight and she told him she wasn’t eighteen but nearly three-and-twenty? That she wasn’t the tender, innocent Kitty but the worldly-wise Titania, champion of innocents and swatter of behinds, who dared deliver the cut direct to dashing noblemen and then kiss them in moonlit gardens all alone. That didn’t sound like some silly girl to Kathryn, and she was sure it wouldn’t to Nigel either. He’d see there was more to her than met the eye. He’d confess his love the moment he realized who she really was, what she’d really done.

Oh
! Her senses went a-begging as she considered the possibilities.

They would have a grand wedding by special license, immediately, before the week were finished. How Aunt Ophelia and Jane would beam! And John and her parents, who would, of course, love Nigel too. He would carry her off to one of his magnificent estates in Brighton or in Bath, where they would . . . they would do what was necessary to have a child. Ah, but Blackshire would be as quick and as gentle as he could be, and then they would have a darling babe, and they would never have to do that awful thing again, and they would live happily for the rest of their days.

She came to her senses with a thud. He’d said he cared for her, not that he loved her. It was one thing to have formed an attachment to a girl and quite another to want to marry her.

Still, the urge to run after him, throw herself into his arms and confess all almost overcame her reason, but not quite. She couldn’t tell him the truth. Not until she found Auntie’s blasted diary. It was for his own protection.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

S
OMETIME IN THE
small hours of the morning, Kathryn pulled her wrapper on and started downstairs to search the high shelves of the library for the diary. Then, halfway down the long main hall of the school, she felt her stomach rumble. She’d been too much at sixes-and-sevens at Jane’s ball to eat. She hadn’t had so much as a morsel. A short detour to the kitchen was in order.

The long, cluttered room was empty at this hour. Drawn to the warmth and the light of the banked kitchen fire, she purloined a pair of biscuits, poured herself a glass of warm milk, and added a few drops of honey. Her mother had always prepared her the very same concoction whenever something was troubling her at home, but Kathryn found it did her no good this night. She stood drinking her milk and looked about her, wondering where Nigel was and what he was thinking at that moment. Listlessly, she wandered to the hearth, and that’s when she saw the book.

It rested on the wide mantel.
The Corsair,
its spine proclaimed. Kathryn missed a breath or two. It was the title Cook had received from Madame Brand! Cook must have forgotten to deliver the book to Lady Marchman.
No
, Kathryn thought with a chuckle, it was more likely that grumpy old Cook simply chose not to deliver it! Why had Madame Briand been so insistent the book be delivered to Lady Marchman without delay?

Kathryn took the book down and opened it, half expecting hidden papers to tumble out, but there were none. The book appeared to be quite ordinary. She’d deliver the thing to Lady Marchman in the morning. Reading the first few pages as she ate, she found The Corsair to be engrossing. So she sipped the last of her milk and read a little more, relieved to escape thoughts of Nigel Moorhaven if only for a few moments.

NIGEL, MEANWHILE, SAT in his bedchamber, staring into the fire.

He loved her. By the devil,
he loved her
!

She had changed everything. He’d expected to pass this night as he passed every other birthday since that terrible day—alone and miserable, but Kitty—Kathryn, he amended—had changed everything. He’d been alone in the garden, alone in the world, until he’d stepped into the glasshouse and seen her there, standing in the moonlight. She’d been an enchanting sight, dressed in pearl and muslin. He had danced with her to encourage her to dream, but he’d stumbled upon one of his own.

She understood about the color blue.

She didn’t know how much her understanding meant to him. She didn’t know she’d put an end to his reason for wearing blue in the first place, an end to his isolation. Her understanding meant he was no longer alone in the world. Nigel reached for the delphinium he wore in his lapel with a half smile on his lips and tossed it into the fire, where its blue petals curled and disappeared.

He would never wear blue again.

No longer would he mourn this day each year. Kathryn had given him so much. He laughed loudly, startling his valet, who had fallen asleep on a chair in his dressing room. Nigel dismissed the man.

He remembered how she had kissed him: with an innocent passion that had shaken his very soul.

He remembered her outrage when she’d thought he’d had Thomas fired and her daring madcap scheme to bring Jane and Bankham together. She was outrageously spontaneous and rudely outspoken and maddeningly stubborn.

She was perfect.

And Nigel wanted her.

He loved her.

Dear God . . . she was so young! Eighteen . . . and yet she was so different from the other chits her age. She was an old soul, wise beyond her years. She made a man wish to never let her go.

He came to a decision.

He would not let her go, by God. He would keep her by his side forever. He would do anything to ensure her happiness—give up his service to Sir Winston, move to the country . . . give her children, have a house full of a hundred stray cats, whatever it took to keep her happy. Nigel pulled the bell cord. He intended to ask her to be his marchioness. She loved him—she loved him!—and he was certain she could help him to regain the serenity . . . the sense of wonder . . . the innocence he’d lost. Hell, she’d already begun. Nigel laughed aloud. Pure joy washed over him. He felt alive. Happy. Content.

When his sleepy-eyed butler arrived, Nigel sent the man down to fetch his mother’s wedding ring from the vault below the house. It was a large, fine sapphire, intricately faceted and flanked with two fiery diamonds. Whistling, Nigel went downstairs. He would have to see Lady Marchman, he supposed, but he could not—he would not—wait. He had been alone too long. He would not wait another night. By dawn, he would be betrothed. He would awaken Lady Marchman. He would rouse all of London if necessary!

He rose across Mayfair, ordering his coachman to drive neck-or-nothing. They startled a Bow Street runner, several prostitutes, and two footpads—all of whom waved a greeting after Nigel’s coach as it passed.

HER MILK AND biscuits gone, Kathryn tucked The Corsair into her pocket and, holding the candle high, made her way to the library.

The only shelves yet un-searched were the high ones, the ones accessible only with the tall, rolling library ladder. Kathryn climbed and, holding the candle high, scanned the topmost shelf in front of her and suddenly realized that this was the very shelf where Madame Briand had hidden her papers. Kathryn’s eyes widened.

The slim volume she’d hidden them in was gone!

FROM THE SHADOW at the far end of the library, Brian O’Flaugherty watched as the girl slowly descended the ladder. Was she looking for the papers? What else would she be doing up there at that shelf in the middle of the night? Could she be looking for a book to read? He doubted the coincidence, but it didn’t matter in any case, for she would not find the papers. He had already looked. The entire book was missing.

What if the girl were looking for the papers? He’d seen her peering into the library that day when she oughtn’t have been. Why had she been spying? She was too clever . . . too watchful. And now she was up there where the papers should have been.

He watched her climb carefully down. He would wait until she had both feet safely on the floor before he moved. It would not do to have her fall and break her pretty neck.

Not yet.

His employers had hinted that the operation at this ridiculous English girls’ school would soon be terminated. Brian couldn’t wait. He had only to pass this last package. He’d been trying! But something had gone wrong three times. They were losing their patience with him. They would not pay him if he did not deliver this time.

It wasn’t his fault.

Bumbling Lady Marchman loved books, but she was not careful with them. She had lost the first book his accomplice had given her,
Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage.
The second attempt to pass the package might have been witnessed by this girl, and now the papers were gone. The third book,
The Corsair,
though it had been delivered to the school, had never made it to Lady Marchman’s foolish fingers. He’d asked her about it himself this afternoon when he’d come to give the day’s dancing lesson. She hadn’t even seen it.

Damn Meaghan to hell! He would beat her for being so careless with the thing. Meaghan had been playing at being Madame Briand for so long she had put on airs.
Madame Briand
, indeed! Meaghan actually enjoyed buying fancy English gowns and riding in Hyde Park. Faith, she’d forgotten why the two of them had come to England in the first place. Puffed up with her own importance, she was. Sure, and he’d enjoy flattening the woman, damn her.

And damn this little blonde for peeking into the library at the wrong time, too! How his fingers shook at the thought of tightening them around her throat!

If she did have the papers he was supposed to deliver to the dock, he would have to kill her as soon as he took them from her. He would not be quick, either, damn her. She’d pay for the trouble she’d caused him.

As he watched her bare feet touch the smooth, polished wood floor of the library, he thought of the pleasure he would take from her before he snapped her neck to one side, ending her life, and he laughed softly.

She heard him, gasped, and whirled about. “Who is there?”

He did not answer her. He would let the fear in her grow until it consumed her reason. Then he would strike.

But she surprised him. Suddenly, she blew out her candle and made a mad rush to the door, but he caught her easily and pinned her with one crushing arm while he fastened his other hand over her mouth. She struggled furiously. He would enjoy her struggles when the time came, but now they only frustrated him. He twisted her arm savagely, wrenching a satisfying cry of pain from her.

“Where are ye going in such a hurry, lass?” he said, not bothering to replace his natural Irish brogue with the thick French accent he’d been using while he played the part of Monsieur Revelet, dancing master. Brian laughed. It felt good to speak properly for once. “Ye’ll stay here awhile and chat wi’ me. I insist,” he said. “I’m going to let ye go now. If ye try to run away or scream, I’ll tell Lady Marchman ye’re not what ye seem to be.”

She stilled instantly, and he let her go.

“I thought that would calm ye down. Sit.” He placed a hand on her shoulder and with cruel pressure pushed her down onto the floor. She looked up at him with fear in her eyes. Good. “We’ll have our chat now.” He stopped in front of her and tilted her face into the moonlight that streamed in through the windows. “Ye’ll look up at me now and not look away.”

He sat down on a chair and looked at her through narrowed eyes. Brian was very good at seeing into people’s hearts, seeing the blackness there. If she had intercepted the book and read the messages meant for him, he would know it, after a few moments of questioning.

NIGEL FOUND THE door of the school unlocked. Though slightly ajar, it was not gaping open. His practiced eye saw the reason immediately: it had been wedged with a stick above the jamb. Rigged that way, it was unlikely the unlocked door would be noticed by anyone, yet whoever had fixed the wedge in place could escape without making a sound. Quickly, Nigel removed it, stepped inside, and carefully replaced the wedge once more.

“WHERE IS THE book?” Brian asked bluntly. After a moment, she shook her head, but her hesitation and the panicked look in her eyes suggested she was lying, but he wasn’t yet sure. Settling into his chair, he regarded her closely and then began to speak. He told an old Irish tale his grandmother had told him, but as he told the story, he wove in as many of the English bastards’ code words as he knew, hoping to strike one or two the girl might recognize. He watched for the signs, but her smooth, round face showed nothing but her fear.

She thinks I am mad.
She would pay for that, too.

Growing frustrated with her continuing look of innocence and bemusement, he uttered a particularly long string of words, a pass phrase, deliberately leaving out a word. Then he ordered her to repeat it, hoping she would slip and complete the phrase.

She appeared to try, but the results did not please him. “Again!” he ordered roughly. She complied, but the phrase was even less complete than it had been the first time she tried. He caressed her jaw and neck with his gloved ringers.

AS HE APPROACHED the library, Nigel heard a voice, faint, but barely intelligible. It was a man’s voice, with a low Irish flavor, Nigel thought.

“Where is the book?” the man asked. There was a pause, and then the voice droned on. To an unenlightened ear, the man would seem to be telling a story, but Nigel immediately recognized several English code names cleverly entwined in the tale. There must be someone else in there with the man. It must be Lady Marchman, and the man must be her accomplice. Nigel’s heart pumped hard, and he silently cursed himself. He had no weapons with him, not even the dagger that had twice saved his life and which he normally kept hidden on his person. He had taken it off when he reached Berkeley Square and, in his impatience to see Lady Marchman, he had not remembered to bring it with him. He was going to have to take the two of them with his bare hands. Nigel stood, his hand hovering over the brass knob of the door, waiting to spring. He had only to hear Lady Marchman speak, to get a fix on her location before he burst inside, but when he did hear a woman’s voice, he did not move in, for the voice he heard was heartachingly familiar.

It was Kathryn’s voice, and it froze his blood.

Her voice was quaking as she repeated a phrase the Irishman had just spoken. Nigel knew the pass phrase, but she evidently did not and was trying to memorize it. She did not repeat it with any accuracy, and the man impatiently ordered her to try again.

A surge of bile rose in Nigel’s throat. Fighting the urge to rush headlong into the library, he left the house as silently as he had entered it. Walking blindly past his astonished coachman, he waved his hand in dismissal and kept on walking until the dark streets of London swallowed him up.

“I WOULD HATE to see anything . . .
ugly
happen to one so young as yerself.” Brian O’Flaugherty told the girl. “I’ll give ye one more chance to tell me where ’tis. Give it to me, and I’ll forget ye took it.” He put both of his leather-sheathed hands on her neck and rubbed his thumbs up and down the delicate column. Slender and almost birdlike, it would require the barest movement to break.

“Please. I do not understand,” she begged him.

He smiled at the way her voice trembled. “No, ye don’t understand, do ye now?” He straightened suddenly. “Ye may go.” She stood shakily. “Do not,” he said softly, “tell anyone about this—or I’ll have to make things quite unpleasant for ye”—he touched the open hem of her wrapper with one fingertip—”and for those ye love.”

She swallowed and nodded her understanding. His hand rose, his fingertips tracing higher, skimming upward over the thin cotton which clung to her high, ripe breasts.

She fled the room, and he laughed softly. She had not found the papers. He was certain of that now, though at first he had thought she was lying about not having seen the book.