Authors: Caroline Richards
The Darkest Sin (27 page)
“To a small entertainment hosted by Sir Galveston,” he answered shortly. In stunned silence, Rowena listened. “You will find the appropriate opportunity to tell Galveston that the Stone will be moved this Friday evening from the British Museum to a more secure setting after the museum's close.”
“Is this true?”
“The less you know the better.”
Her hands dropped to her sides, the rich silk of her evening dress rustling in the stillness. “If my aunt is in any way jeopardized by this ploy, I need to know. If you refuse to explain matters fully and I don't understand what you want of me, then I don't know if I can possibly help,” she said. But she did understandâher purpose was to mislead the Baronâand Faron. She shook her head. “Of course Galveston is keen to do your bidding because he wishes to avoid persecution for the murder of Felicity Clarence.” Her voice was sharper than she intended. “Do you like playing God, Rushford?”
Rushford ignored the barb. “I am asking you to do a simple thing, Rowena, one that will work in your favor. It's what the Baron is expecting of us. I will do what's necessary to protect you, and you will do what's necessary to protect your family.”
“And I'm to know no more about it than that.”
“Why so curious? It causes one to wonder.”
Rowena closed her eyes against a sudden surge of anger as she saw the inexorable logic of his thought process. He trusted her so little . . . “Why not simply tell him yourself, then?”
“Because you've already agreed to serve as a conduit of information to the Baron in exchange for learning the whereabouts of Faron and protection for your aunt. I'm surprised that I have to remind you.” His mouth curled cynically. “This evening you must reprise your role as my mistress and appear as though you have won my total confidence with your beauty and your wiles.”
“As though the Baron would believe it of someone like you,” she said wretchedly, watching a faint glimmer of anger in the flatness of his eyes. He had not weakened in the threat of losing the Duchess and he would certainly not weaken in the threat of harm to her family. Nothing worried Rowena more. “Once again, you underestimate not only me but also him, Rushford.” She stared at the remaining comb in her hand without seeing it. She felt as if she were teetering on the edge of an abyss.
“We are the most cynical of men, Rowena, never forget. The Baron will believe what he wants to believe of me. He is working both of us. He expects me to relinquish the Rosetta Stone to him for several reasons, among them my disillusionment with Whitehall and my desire to rectify the past. From you, he merely expects confirmation that I am not deviating from the script.” Rushford's countenance was impassive, and Rowena reached out blindly for the edge of the stool, holding on to it for balance.
“He would believe that you will do anything to protect me, after what happened . . .”
With the Duchess,
she wanted to add. “In other words, he believes that he has found your weakness. Guilt concerning your actions regardingâ”
With the Duchess,
she wanted to add. “In other words, he believes that he has found your weakness. Guilt concerning your actions regardingâ”
“Something like that,” he interrupted.
Her throat closed against rising panic. “You may use me in your scheme, but please do not jeopardize the well-being of my aunt or my sister. I am warning you, Rushford.”
He looked across at her and nodded. “I am forewarned then,” he said.
“Do I mean nothing to you?” she asked with a surge of anger.
He replied with equal cruelty, “Nor I to you?”
“Miss Warren is a beautiful woman,” observed Sir Ambrose Galveston, leaning over a tray filled with fresh oysters proffered by a footman. In the background, a small orchestra played an aria by Bizet, the cheerful melody an ironic counterpart to his foul mood. Rushford, through Sir Richard Archer, had made his expectations clear, and if Galveston wished to curry the favor of London's court chief justice, he would readily comply.
“Indeed,” the Baron agreed somewhat indifferently. “Although I confess I find a certain sophistication and finesse more to my taste.”
“Such as our Miss Barry,” Ambrose suggested with a heartiness he didn't feel. He popped an oyster in his mouth and made a show of enjoying it with relish. The small ballroom in the town house off Mayfair was a blur of candlelight, winking jewels, and sparkling laughter.
“I thought you would understand,” Sebastian conceded, “given your relationship with the late Miss Clarence.” He punctuated his sentence with a knowing laugh that grated on Galveston's already exposed nerves.
“But one must admit,” Galveston commented, changing the subject hurriedly, “that the Miss Warrens of the world do serve a purpose.” As did some actresses, he realized with great regret.
“All too true,” the Baron said dryly, and Galveston dutifully laughed. They both kept Rushford and Miss Warren, behind a phalanx of potted palms, in their sights. The latter was resplendent in a shimmering emerald choker and cream silk, looking every inch the indulged mistress. “I'm sure that you are far from impervious to Miss Warren's flirtations,” the Baron continued. “Why, I espied you earlier by the French doors in a little tête-à -tête.”
“You have sharp eyes and even sharper ears, sir,” Galveston said in an attempt at flattery, his own eyes darting around the ballroom to see whether they were being observed with any unusual interest. He had kept the guest list deliberately small, including only those in the demimondaine who would not be known to his wife or anyone else that mattered.
“And what did our Miss Warren have to say?” asked the Baron, smiling at an acquaintance who was trying to catch his attention.
Galveston gave a small bow in the direction of the mutual acquaintance before continuing, lowering his voice. “The object in question will be moved Friday evening.”
Sebastian gave a small smile of satisfaction. “Anything more?”
Galveston's brow furrowed. “Yes, some palaver about a man named Champollion. Unfortunately, I did not know what to make of it.”
“I'm not surprised,” the Baron said, watching Rushford take a glass of champagne from a passing footman and offer it to Rowena Woolcott, who gave him a glittering smile in return. “That will be all this evening, Ambrose, and thank you so much for hosting this wonderful little soiree.” He then bowed and excused himself, sauntering into the card room, confident that all was going according to plan.
Â
Rushford sat back against the leather squabs of his coach, his arms folded across his chest, his mood forbidding. Something about the evening at Galveston's town house rankled, his ill humor exacerbated by the woman sitting across from him.
He had not touched Rowena Woolcott for over five days and yet his body still hummed with the memory of her, her scent lingering on his skin, her taste on his tongue. And he damned her for it. Her profile was turned away from him as she watched the London streets pass from the coach's small window, gaslight illuminating the interior of the carriage. She was reckless and had always been, he knew, following impulse and little else. She climbed walls, rode like the devil, and would take on Faron herself if he allowed it.
He rubbed his eyes wearily, suddenly tired of the whole mess. It was over. He was done with his responsibility toward her. He watched as she hunched deeper into her cloak against the early-morning chill. “Well,” she asked. Her voice broke the silence with mockery. “Did I fulfill the role of mistress to your liking this evening, Rushford?”
“I saw Galveston and Sebastian with their heads together. So I suppose the answer is yes.” He tried to regard her with studied detachment, despite the fact that her eyes were dark with anger.
She threw back the hood of her cloak and ran her hands through her hair, loosening the sparkling combs before leaning back against the squabs. “As long as you are satisfied,” she continued in the same sardonic tone. “I await your further instructions.”
“There will be none,” he said.
She regarded him with a quizzical lift of her eyebrows. “Then I shall be shut up in the town house and await your return with bated breath. Is that it?” As if to taunt him, she leaned forward, touching his knee. “And then what?” She was continuing the charade she had portrayed so winningly earlier in the evening. Throughout the night, she had made certain to stroke his arm, or caress his hand lingeringly, whenever the Baron or Galveston cast a glance their way. It was as though she knew exactly what she was doing, the sexual current of a simple touch jolting him like a bolt of lightning.
“I shall send you home.”
“Are you certain of that?” She leaned against the squabs again.
His eyes narrowed. “Isn't that what you've always wanted? Faron will be taken care of.”
“I don't trust you.”
“The feeling is mutual,” he said. “And you may drop the coquettish tone. We're offstage for the moment.”
“Coquettishâhardly.” As though she had no idea what she did when she leaned in to him to catch something he was saying, or turned those lush lips up to him in a patently false smile. “Unless,” she added, “you are unable to separate fact from fiction, my lord. This evening I was merely fulfilling the role you requested of me.”
She looked at him with challenge in her eyes. He moved swiftly to the seat next to her, the rational part of his mind questioning his motives. Perhaps it was her sheer proximity, all evening and now in the coach, that was his undoing. Without waiting for a reply, wishing to silence that rebellious, wilfull mouth, he hooked a finger into the clasp of her cloak, pulling her toward him. His lips met hers in a hard kiss. Quickly, he unclasped the cloak and pushed it off her shoulders, his hands cupping the swell of her breasts under the thin silk of her gown. Her nipples sprang upright in instant response.
“I'm not in the mood for games, damn you,” she said hotly against his mouth. “I know what you are trying to do. To subdue me.”
“With what? An embrace?” His lips murmured against hers. “You're flushed. I can feel the heat coming off your skin.” He lifted his head, and his gaze slowly came up and met hers. A moment passed, and he felt an overwhelming need to assert his control over a situation that was becoming ungovernable. “I can do it again, Rowena, anytime I wish. Bring you to the brink and then leave you there.”
“As though our sexual congress has ever solved anything,” she said.
“Once you believed it did.”
“I was wrong,” she said flatly.
“Words have not been of much assistance, either,” he said. “However, don't discount the fact that we do have this between us.” She gasped and flinched back in shock as his hands deftly arranged her skirt, going to the divide in her pantalets. “Don't forget. Don't ever forget, what I can do to you,” he said while his hand smoothed over her already heated sex. She stared, even as her hips jerked and her body reponded to him. Then he lowered his head, parting her legs on the seat between them. She couldn't get away. She did not want to get away; lassitude instantly flooded her mind and her body. His tongue touched her core, and she gasped, her hips lifting from the bench. He focused on her silky wetness and the rhythm of her hips moving up and down, her body tightening against his mouth. And still he laved her, soothed her, kissed her until her body was as tightly wound as a clock. She panted and she gasped, the silk of her thighs tightening.
Somewhere in the recesses of his mind, beyond the deafening drumroll of his pulse, he realized he was lost, adrift in a maze from which there was no escape. He told himself it was what he wanted, what she needed, his lips slanting over her core, the sweet taste of her in his mouth. Her hand curled into the hair at the back of his head, and she clung to him as her other hand roamed restlessly over his back. She was warming now, her dizzying scent taking him over. Somehow he forced himself to slow, to pull away despite her moans of protest. Then he stopped, straightened, and turned away.
Rushford should have known her better. Only a moment passed before Rowena disengaged her hands from her skirts, sat up, and reached for his trousers, pulling them so the buttons snapped free, seemingly by magic. Her dark blue eyes refused to relinquish his gaze as she urged the fine wool down over his hips before shifting from the seat to the floor of the carriage. Taking him between her hands, she kissed him with her lips, then slid him into her mouth in a slow, tight motion that consumed every inch of him. As she drew back, she fed greedily, feeling him grow beneath her tongue. He caught his breath, and she paused to look up at him, satisfaction in her eyes, before he lost his fist in her hair. Again, she took all of him, cupping her hand beneath him as she withdrew, using her other hand to stroke and pump him with a gentle rhythm. His hand tightened in her hair as his breaths became shallower.
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