A Wicked Lord at the Wedding (26 page)

He turned and gave her a distracted kiss on the cheek. “Give Will my regards and ask him to come back tomorrow.”

“Ask him yourself. He’s almost here.”

He glanced down the street and saw Will running toward them. A line of carriage lights burned in the mist like the eyes of a dozen banshees. The waiting horses whickered uneasily.

“Get inside the house!” Will shouted. “They’re going insane!”

“There must be some sort of important person passing through,” Eleanor observed. “I wonder who it is.”

“I’ll find out,” Sebastien said.

“But we—”

“And I’ll be right back. I need to know what is going on.”

More flickering lights shifted in the fog. He ran past Will on the pavement and muttered, “Both of you, go inside. And behave yourselves.”

“You don’t need to ask me twice,” Will retorted.

Sebastien hurried toward the square to investigate what ever mischief was afoot. If he hadn’t promised Heath Boscastle that he would stay on the alert, he would have thought twice about leaving the house again.

He might even have thought long enough to realize that his dearly beloved was the cause of the uproar raging across Town.

* * *

Will handed his coat to the maid and a crumpled edition of the evening news to Eleanor. “Do you think that I should go with him?” he asked, turning back to the door.

She cast a concerned look into the street. “No. He’ll be fine. And you aren’t supposed to come here at all hours anymore. I’m making an effort to reform.”

They looked at each other for several moments. Suddenly her conscience stung her. She knew her cousin had thought Sebastien would never come home to stay, and now he had not only returned but had displaced Will. She blamed herself for encouraging him to visit at all hours.

“I’m sorry,” she said, smiling wistfully. “Reforming isn’t easy on me, either.”

He grinned back at her. “You might have no choice. Read the news.”

Her frown deepening, she walked toward the wall sconce for better light and scanned the paper, skimming over the usual heartening rumors of riots, sedition, and Prinny’s excesses, to a subject closer to home. A little too close, it seemed.

She lowered the paper. “Well, at least the police can’t start searching tonight with what ever celebration is in progress.”

Will paused. “Don’t you understand?”

The blood drained from her face. “You mean that the mob—”

“Yes. They are celebrating the Masquer. And staging their own hunt for him.”

Eleanor practically dragged Sebastien through the doorway into the hall when he returned an hour later. He was relieved to find her as he’d left her. And also that her cousin had gone home. He wasn’t in a mood for Will’s hysterics.

He glanced into the darkened corridors, then back at the door. Everything appeared to be in order—except for the small arsenal of brickbats, walking sticks, and parasols stacked against the hallstand.

His brows rose.

“Are we preparing to walk in bad weather or build a nursery?” he asked, unfastening his cloak.

“You didn’t see the swarm of people?”

“Of course I did.”

“They were hunting for the Masquer, Sebastien.”

“Yes,” he agreed. “We have a problem on our hands.”

“What are you going to do?” she asked, following at his heels. “I cannot leave the house alone.”

“Yes, you can.” He hesitated. “But the Masquer can’t.”

She gave him a baleful look. “Nor can he handle an impassioned mob should his identity be discovered.”

“Isn’t it a good thing I’m here to take care of you?”

“I’m not convinced that even you could hold back that crowd.” She waved a newspaper under his nose. “Read this. The police are—”

“Yes. I’ve heard. It’s all the people in the street can talk about.” He drew her against him, enfolding her in his arms. “You have caused quite a scandal, my love.”

“It wasn’t supposed to be like this.”

“Secrets have a way of entangling us.”

“Yes,” she said. “Don’t they?”

He felt potent, protective, capable of solving all her problems. “I have got everything under control,” he said consolingly. “I also have a plan.” He smiled, glancing past her. “And fortunately I don’t think it involves parasols.”

“What is it?”

“We’re leaving London.”

She escaped his embrace, looking subdued. “What about the masquerade at Castle Eaton?”

“We attend, under my supervision. And then we shall retire to the country like any other well-bred couple. No one will question our sudden departure at this time of year. In fact, it would seem odd if we stayed here.”

She stared down at the newspaper she was still holding.

“What do you say, Eleanor?”

“You’re right.”

Five minutes later they were upstairs packing their belongings for a winter sojourn in Sussex.

Trousers, his and hers, were heaped upon the chairs, the stool, and even the escritoire. He walked into the dressing closet and spotted the bottle that the apothecary’s boy had delivered that day. With his earlier focus on a possible assassination plot, he had forgotten. Dear God. Was she sick?

“What is this bottle of foul-looking stuff that came for you today?” he called to her from the depths of the closet.

“My elixir, you mean?”

He returned to their room. “I wasn’t prying. But if anything is wrong, I think I ought to know.” He looked at her. “But if there isn’t—I, well, what I’m trying to say is that I don’t want anything to be wrong with you.” Plots and mobs he could handle.

She had already undressed and slipped into a lawn nightrail. Before she’d tightened the drawstrings, he removed his outer garments and put on his black dressing robe. For all their uninhibited behavior in bed, he and Eleanor were too essentially English to engage in naked conversation during a crisis.

“When I lost our baby,” she said, with a directness that seemed unmerciful at first, “I could not imagine that I should want another. And, of course, conception seemed unlikely without you home. But now—well, I’m taking a tonic.” There was no plea for his pity in her voice; nor did he detect any blame.

“A tonic? For …?” he inquired after an awkward pause.

“Do not be thick, Sebastien. It is to enhance my fertility.”

“Is it safe?”

“It seems to be.” She bit her bottom lip. “Half the time I only pretend to take it to please Mary. But there should be no reason why we cannot have another child.”

“I care more that I have you.”

She nodded, and he thought that she finally believed him. Now if he could convince her to trust him in other ways, everything would be fine.

She settled into one of the two wing chairs at the window, glancing amusedly around the room. “Where did we bury the evening post that Mary brought up?”

She looked well, he reassured himself. She had the energy of ten soldiers. And he desired her enough for a dozen men. Did either of them need a tonic when they had each other?

“There it is,” she said in relief. “On the desk. Let’s have a gander.”

He sat opposite her, leafing with feigned enthusiasm through the letters that had been hidden under his shirts. “Shall I read them to you?”

“I’m not an invalid all of a sudden,” she said with a chuckle, curling into her chair.

“Perhaps the country will do you good.”

“Bore me silly, you should say.”

“There will be other entertainments,” he said meaningfully.

She blushed.

“You’re as bad as the duchess’s boys.”

“Perhaps
I
should take you captive.”

“You already have.”

“No. It’s the other way around.”

He cleared his throat, breaking an elaborate seal. “Here we go. An invitation to a Christmas ball in Kent.”

“From?”

“My cousin the Marquess of Sedgecroft and his wife.” He shook his head ruefully. “My mother was afraid of my father’s family, I think.”

“Perhaps it’s time to mend the family divide.”

“I don’t need anybody else,” he said. “Only you and …”

“Our dog?”

“I wasn’t thinking of Teg.”

“Well, he is family.”

He laughed. “At least he’s my friend again.”

“Yes.” She sighed in resignation. “You’ve won us all back over.”

“Except for Mary. And Will is scared of me.”

“Open the other letter,” she urged him. “A Christmas ball has possibilities. Plum pudding and pantomimes.”

He did, his brow lifting slightly. “It appears to be another invitation. Aren’t we the sought-after couple?”

She leaned forward. The scent of her hair enticed him. He stopped, everything, but her, suddenly forgotten. “Come closer,” he invited in a dangerous voice. “I won’t bite hard.”

“But you do bite,” she whispered, her dark eyes amused.

“So do you,” he retorted.

Her smile tightened his heart. “Continue reading.”

He shook himself, trying to look surprised as he read on. “What a coincidence. This is a
legitimate
invitation to the masquerade at Castle Eaton. We won’t have to pose as chambermaids after all. Fancy that.”

“You cheat,” she said slowly. “You underhanded, beguiling
rat
. You planned this—you listened to me babble on about Loveridge’s damned stupid—”

He laughed helplessly. “It was Heath. He told me he could wangle an invitation. I had no idea how fast.”

“Conniving clearly runs in your family.”

“Then our children will be doomed.” He traced his thumb across her tender lower lip. “It’s not such a bad plan, is it, for us to masquerade as man and wife?”

“No,” she agreed after a deep silence. “Who knows? We might just start a fashion in society for devotion in marriage again.”

“I hope so.” He leaned over her, his gaze intent. “I have never looked forward to a winter as much as this one.”

“I shall need a new wardrobe,” she said thoughtfully.

“One without trousers, I hope.”

“Actually I had this costume designed—”

“Elle,” he interrupted firmly. “It is a good time for us to go. I don’t want to share you with all of London.”

She lifted the letters from his hand and dropped them one by one on the desk. “You do know how to get your way, don’t you?”

He lifted her into his arms and carried her to the bed, undressing her in fervent need. Their clothing fell willy-nilly to the floor. She pulled the bed curtains closed and wrapped her arms around his naked body. He kissed every inch of her bare skin. She made threats. He made vows. She groaned. He whispered her name between kisses so bittersweet that she quivered, and though the past might still matter, it wasn’t enough to keep them from each other.

He broke before her, and her body drank, overflowed, following him into bliss moments after. Heated pleasure expanded her veins. She floated. He soothed the taut skin of her ribs with his fingers and listened to the slowing of his heart and breath until he drifted off.

When the church bells woke him hours later, he realized he and Eleanor still lay entangled. A floorboard creaked somewhere in the house. He eased out from her arms and half-sat, pushing the bed curtains apart.

Not a blade of light penetrated the curtained
windows. Something other than the bells had awakened him. He stared at the door. Had he seen candlelight?

She stirred. “It’s early. Is anything wrong?”

He shook his head. “Have you ever read any of the letters that you’ve recovered for the duchess?”

“Of course not.” She snuggled deeper into the covers. “They’re private. If they contained secrets that would embarrass her or the duke, I should not wish to know.”

A cart rumbled over the cobbles below the window.

“Why did you ask?”

“Just curious.”

“I thought you were above our petty affairs.”

He laughed.

She rose on her elbow, studying her silent husband, the masculine angles of his body, his shoulders, his narrow hips. His hard features lent his profile a forbidding look.

When would he tell her the truth? Should she confront him, or let him play his hand? If he didn’t work for the duke, could he be working for someone else? A double agent? Impossible. What would a spy want with love letters?

He glanced around suddenly, his gaze so penetrating that she shivered. In the dark he looked a little fierce, harder than the man she had married.

Overwhelming, to want someone this desperately.

The cart in the street slowed. A back door in the house creaked open.

“What is that?” he asked, rising to stare out the window.

“The coal man, I imagine.”

“I thought he came earlier this week.”

“Pray don’t say they’re coming for me,” she whispered in alarm. “I haven’t even got my new wardrobe. And you—You aren’t wearing a stitch.”