Beyond A Wicked Kiss (42 page)

West sat down, his faint, appreciative smile fading the longer he regarded her. "I have to return to London," he said. He pressed a finger to her lips when she would have spoken. "I'll go to Ambermede first so my presence can be accounted for, then tonight I visit Beckwith's home, though not Mr. Beckwith. I cannot make the return trip to London as quickly as I came. Draco will not stand for it, and in truth, neither will I."

Ria was relieved he was not going to ride hell for leather over the countryside. She waited for him to withdraw his finger. "You will write regarding news of Jane?"

He nodded. "I will."

"I wish I might go with you."

West didn't doubt it. He also suspected that Ria knew all the reasons she must stay, chief among them her responsibility to the girls of Miss Weaver's. "There are things I must do in London apart from finding Miss Petty," he told her. "But they will not engage me overlong."

"I understand," she said. "You will have a great many invitations to choose from. You cannot avoid the
ton
forever."

"You do
not
understand. It is not the
ton's
affairs I must attend to, but the colonel's."

"Oh." She searched his face but found that his expression yielded nothing in the way of his thoughts. "Colonel Blackwood is rather more to you than you would have me believe." Ria was not deterred by his shrug, finding that it communicated something other than the indifference he intended. "And your friends, I think, are not at all what they seem."

"They are friends," West said slowly. He gave her full marks for trying to draw him out with a lengthy silence. It was a good effort, but she gave in before he did.

"They are friends," she repeated. "And something more besides."

"If you wish to think so."

The singular look that Ria gave him indicated she was not fooled by his mild protests. She did not pursue the subject, but chose another. "Thank you for the book of verse," she said. "I should not have left it to so late to tell you how much I treasure it."

"It was my mother's."

She nodded. "I thought it might have been."

West found her hand and squeezed it. "Do not forget that I will need a copy of Sir Alex's portrait."

"Yes. I remember. You shall have it as soon as Miss Taylor can accomplish the thing."

"Good."

They fell silent again, not to draw the other out, but because each was reluctant to say the thing that was uppermost in their mind. It was West who finally spoke.

"Last night... the last time we... you are aware that I did not..."

"It was this morning," she said, taking pity on him. "And I am perfectly aware."

"Just so."

"If there are consequences, I will write." Ria reconsidered what the waiting would be like for him. "I will also write in the event there are none."

He nodded once. "Thank you." Releasing her hand, he stood. "You will tread carefully if any of the governors visits the school."

"Yes. Of course." She glanced toward the window. Sunlight was beginning to filter through a part in the drapes. "You must leave now, else you will be seen."

West nodded again and turned to go. Almost immediately he paused, spun on his heel, and roughly pulled Ria from the bed. He brought her flush to his body and kissed her hard and long and deeply.

Just as he meant her to, she felt the stamp of his mouth on hers long after he was gone.

* * *

From what West could determine, the French Ambassador's ball was a glittering affair, inside and out. A light snow covered the ground outside the grand residence. Carriages lined the street in front of the gate and filled the drive leading to the main entrance. Drivers, footmen, and young tigers, all splendidly turned out in their best livery, waited stoically in the cold January night to be of service again. Strains of music could be heard from the opposite side of the street where West stood taking up his post against a stone pillar. He wore neither the livery of the servants, nor a fine satin waistcoat or frock coat that was the uniform of choice for the ambassador's gentlemen guests.

It was not West's ambition to be noticed this evening. He had accomplished what was to be done in the ambassador's very private study and was now awaiting the results of his efforts. He remained huddled inside his black greatcoat, leaning back against the pillar, the brim of his beaver hat tipped forward over his brow. If he drew someone's attention, it would be because he was perceived to be sleeping. No one who did not know him well would comprehend that he was alert to everything.

His task had been made simple enough by the colonel's preparation and the ambassador's cooperation. He had only to make certain the ambassador had not changed his mind. West discovered upon making his undetected entry into the man's study, that he had kept his word. The documents and jewelry that were meant to trap the Gentleman Thief were still there as promised. He stayed in the small room that adjoined the library only long enough to glance at a few of the books that had been secreted away. It said something about the breadth of Beckwith's collection that the ambassador's own could not hold a candle to it.

Now, standing at his post, his thoughts strayed back to Ria even as he watched the entrance. He wondered if she would have liked to have attended such an affair as this one and if she would have been made happy or less so to have attended it on his arm.

It did not seem likely that there would ever be cause to escort her. His own invitation lay on a silver tray in his town house, left there because his work did not require him to join North and East inside. He did not have to mingle with the ambassador's guests to accomplish his task. That is what he told himself, but in this quieter moment he knew it was not the entire truth.

Beneath this greatcoat, he fingered the letter he had received only that afternoon. Ria was not going to have his child.

He should have been relieved, he told himself.

What he was, was alone.

Chapter 12

Ria examined the drawings Miss Taylor had completed of three of the governors. She had engaged the teacher's cooperation by suggesting she had an idea for a special present of thanks to the board. The girls would write letters that described their experiences at Miss Weaver's and make their own drawings, but to assure that there was one to serve as a centerpiece, Miss Taylor's talent was required.

"I am not certain that any of these quite captures the look of them," she said, glancing up from behind her desk. It was difficult to keep the disappointment from her voice, but she struggled to do so because she did not want to hurt Jenny Taylor's feelings.

"You think they are not good enough," Jenny said. From the opposite side of Ria's desk, she was studying them critically as well. "They are not what I hoped for either. I am afraid none of them is an inspiring subject, though please do not repeat that I have said so. I should not want anyone to think I meant to be insulting."

Ria forced a small smile. "No one would think that of you," she said, collecting the drawings into a pile. The one on top was Sir Alex's. "Allow me to keep these so I may begin to think of how to arrange them with the girls' letters and their own watercolors. If you should like to begin on the others, or even to make a second attempt at these, I would consider it a great favor. You did that very lovely drawing of Jane Petty." Ria was careful to offer her next suggestion tentatively. "Perhaps if you tried watercolors instead of ink, you would find you like the result better."

"Perhaps."

Ria did not think Miss Taylor sounded at all certain but did not press her. She held up the three sketches. "May I keep these?"

"Of course." She started to go, but then hesitated. Her plump arms crossed in front of her, lifting the shelf of her bosom. The posture was not challenging, but uncertain. "Is there news from London?"

Ria regretted that she had not conveyed more satisfaction with Mr. Lytton's report at the outset. She did not know if the teachers had sensed her uncertainty or if she had sensed theirs, but in the end it had not mattered, because she had informed them she would not let the matter rest. A few days after West had gone, Mrs. Abergast had stepped forward and asked somewhat diffidently if the duke might not exert some influence in the matter of finding Jane. Ria admitted that she had asked him and that he had agreed to help. She was aware of the excitement this engendered among the staff, for the news did not remain long with Mrs. Abergast. Miss Webster and Miss Taylor came to her in turn, followed by the housekeeper, Mrs. Jellicoe, and Mr. Dobson. What news she had for one went swiftly to the others.

A full sennight passed and a letter arrived from Lord Herndon announcing the Duke of Westphal's appointment to the board of governors. Ria dutifully passed this along to the teachers, staff, and students, as she would have for any new member, but she understood the adults, at least, believed it had special significance.

"There is nothing from London," she said. Because Miss Taylor's disappointment was a palpable thing, Ria added, "I will tell you as soon as I know something of import."

Miss Taylor caught her lower lip in her teeth to keep it from quivering. When she could trust herself, she released it. "Jane was one of my best pupils. I miss her."

Ria nodded. "I understand." She watched Miss Taylor turn sharply and hurry away, and then sat back in her chair and closed her eyes. She rubbed them for a moment, thinking that West's continued silence made the passing of every day a little harder to bear. She knew she had his promise that he would write with news of Jane, but she could admit to herself now that she'd hoped he would write regardless.

Penning the letter to him in which she revealed there would be no child had been difficult. She had begun the thing on three separate occasions and stopped because weeping had caused the ink to smear. Her tears surprised her. She had been truthful about not wanting to present him with a bastard, but perhaps less than honest about wanting a child. When her courses came, she could not reconcile the sense of loss she felt with the reality of her situation. Loss of what? she wondered. She'd had nothing but hope for a time. There was never any child to mourn, only the knowledge there would be none.

Ria turned over all of her thoughts as though she were looking for the right and wrong side of a bolt of cloth. Right and wrong was not so easily established, however, and she came gradually to the realization that had the outcome been different, she would be crying as well. He would have insisted that they marry, and her choices then would have been narrowed to two, neither of which was likely to bring her happiness.

She touched her fingers to her lips and imagined she could feel the impression of his mouth on hers. Since he'd gone, there were times she shuddered awake in the middle of the night, just as though she'd been pleasured. Afterward, she would lie awake for a time and wonder if the same ever happened to him, or if he had found release in a very real way in the bed of another woman.

Those thoughts made her impatient with herself. It was never welcome to discover that after years of thinking she knew her own mind, she was merely out of it. Dark, self-deprecating humor was something else she'd learned from West, and she found a certain comfort in it.

Sighing, she wondered how her circumstances might be changed if she'd told him that she loved him. What would he have done with that confession? Teased that he'd known for some time? Made his own confession? Kissed her quite breathless? Perhaps all of those things, but she would still be here in Gillhollow and he would be in London, and having said the words aloud, she would not just be alone, but lonely.

There had been news from London, though not from West. Margaret and Tenley had come down from Ambermede to bring it to her. They had learned that the notorious Gentleman Thief had been caught and that Lord Northam—if one could depend upon the
Gazette
to have gotten the story right—had been shot. Whether the shooting had occurred during the apprehension was much less clear, but Margaret gave an account that touched on the threads of each tidbit of gossip she'd heard and repeated the whole of it as if it were fact.

Margaret found a moment outside of Tenley's hearing to inquire discreetly after West, and Ria had admitted she'd heard nothing at all from him. She could tell that Margaret found this odd, though why that should be so was not discussed, as Tenley came upon them.