Elisabeth Fairchild (18 page)

Impatiently he stalked around the bed, fighting his need. Her perfume, on his skin, drove him close to the abandonment of his promise to her. “Animal what?”

“Mesmer’s theory.”

Mesmer again. This was neither time nor place for Mesmer in his mind, for theories. He customarily turned his back on a woman as soon as their mutual needs were met. Easier to remove himself from the well of emotions, from the entanglement of feelings. Easier to make a break immediately rather than suffer lovesickness and heartbreak. His life allowed no room for a permanence of feeling.

And yet, tonight he found but a second-hand satisfaction. He plucked up a straight-backed chair, and straddling it, leaned upon the harp-styled back to gaze upon her, hoping for more. He asked with a disappointed weariness of soul that surprised him, “What is this theory?”

She blessed him with a smile, beatific, sated, blissful. He had brought such a smile to her lips. The sight briefly lifted his spirits.

“Mesmer claims that the universe is permeated by invisible, intangible waves of a fluid or gas which can be sensed only by the inner faculties. ‘Animal magnetism.’”

“And is this animal magnetism what you see?” He leaned toward her, chair legs tipping, balanced on two, rocking a little, considering the pale oval of her face in flickering candlelight. Elbows on the back of the chair, chin in hand, the scent on his fingers intoxicated him. He wanted her, the wanting base, definitely animal.

Like candle flame, her face glowed above the pillow. She went on, naive to his need, intimate and trusting. “The fluid . . .” She shook her head.

The fluid within his sacks ached for release.

“I believe it is not fluid at all but light,” she said. He yearned to demonstrate otherwise, to release himself within her brightness.

“Either way, Mesmer believed it to be full of mysterious streams and tensions which forever touch and vivify each other, a magnetic pull or push between animate creatures.”

Her mouth drew him in saying pull and push. He longed to echo that rhythm. With a sigh, he sat back in the chair, all four legs on the floor, staring at the bed hangings above them, rumpled as a woman’s lifted skirts. Not the distraction he sought. His gaze drifted to the bedposts, ramrod stiff they poked their way into the bed hangings. Definitely not a distraction.

The chair back proved no better. Too vividly the curve of the harpback echoed the sweet curve of her bared back.

“Do you know why I do what I do?” he asked abruptly.

“The Gargoyle’s work? No, why?”

He bowed his head, ran a hand along the nape of his neck, and stared at the floor.

The color of him ran high, tinting the room, the blaze of blue purpling the pink haze in which her world had been engulfed.

“I would not waste my life as my parents wasted theirs,” he said. “I would have it mean something.”

She waited patiently for more. It hung about his head, waiting to be told.

“My mother’s own foolishness claimed her as a young woman. She risked her neck and that of my brother, and the horses and driver she commanded onto the ice. She risked all. Lost all.” He dimmed, dark past touching the present. “Her life was cut short by her own hand. Needlessly. A waste!”

What motivated his angry retelling of a tale so remote from the intimacy of body and feeling they had just shared?

“She left a husband bereft, solace sought in the bottom of a bottle. She left six children motherless.”

He fell silent, staring at his hands. She waited, watching the blue and yellow of him gray with past pain, focusing on the hands that brought her ecstasy. They were long and narrow, pale-complected, dusted with freckles, an artist’s hands. What might they have accomplished differently had his mother not died? Would they so artfully bring delight to her body?

He inhaled heavily, shoving fingers through cinnamon colored locks that caught the meager light and flickered and burned as if they too lived a flame’s life. He parted lips she longed to kiss.

“Father wasted the dregs of his life and finances when mother died. I did little better. I chose poor company. Drank too much. Spent too much. Gambled away still more. I developed a reputation for seducing women.” At last his gaze rose to meet hers, to regard her with an intensity that would relay the importance of his every word. “A reputation well-deserved.”

She allowed silence to pool between them like the candlelight, expectant and hushed, his eyes alive with the faded colors of concern as he awaited her response.

“Do you cling to that tarnished reputation? To the lie that you dwindle away with the pox? Does it serve to keep you safe?”

He gazed at her for the longest moment, the blue of him pulsing in the darkness. “Men do not question too much the movements of a vain, amoral man. They simply assume I am up to mischief. Women--” His lips curved, he shot a quick look her way, “should I say most decent women, avoid me. A man in my line of work is ill-served by too much attention.”

“Your work must matter a great deal to you to give up so much.”

His smile faded. “The day father was laid to rest, Charles and I spoke. I, berating our parents--accusing them of wasting their lives, of leaving ours in a tangled mess.”

The cloud of his past hung like a fog before his eyes. “I will never forget what Charles said. He is older, wiser. “Would you waste your life, too?” he asked. “It is up to you, you know, what you make of it from now on. You are not some Gargoyle, locked in stone, grimacing down at the rest of the world.”

His eyes glittered in the candlelight--hard, bright, resolute. He smiled a tight Gargoyle smile, irony in the curve of his lips. “Do you know, until he said the words aloud, it never occurred to me that I had a choice.”

He rose from the chair, his face lost to her in the shadows. “Just as I have a choice whether or not to rob you of your innocence, or to further endanger your reputation. And now I think it best to let sleep claim what is left of the night.”

He crossed to the window, his light stronger than the moon’s.

She refrained from calling out to him, from begging him to stay, from giving herself up to him entirely.

Chapter Twenty-Three

The Selwyn Townhouse, Wellclose Square, London

Was an iron filing intrinsically changed by the pass of a magnet? Was man? Or woman? Many believed it so. Dulcie remembered the elm on the village green in Buzancy, the bright-eyed conviction of those who convinced themselves a magnetized tree healed them. One need only sit beneath its branches, hands locked on cords strung through its boughs, to be cured, made whole again.

She had not been so easily convinced.

She had studied the tree, studied the magnetized water of the baguet Puysegur introduced later. The tree, the water, glowed with energy, certainly, the same life’s light she witnessed in all things, but she had not felt the tingling sensations others claimed to experience.

Not until Ramsay touched her.

The night, at his hands, forever changed her, rearranged her definition of north and south, left her humming with his pull. She, the iron filing, wanted nothing better than to vibrate once again within the powerful sway of his animal magnetism.

Where did one go after passion’s heat cooled? What did one do when the most highly charged moment of one’s life passed? All she wanted, thought or dreamed of, was more of the same.

Dulcie went back to the safety and comfort of her daily routine, no longer safe--she knew now the potential of her own desire--no longer comfortable--her comfort troubled by fresh expectations. She waited. It was women’s work. Of a positive inclination--she hoped. And as she half expected, her hopes were dashed.

Roger Ramsay disappeared from her life, abandoned her. Rudderless, she yearned for him, emotions rubbed raw by physical desire no longer boxed in ignorance.

Of course, she carried on life as normally as she could, attending galas and balls, heavyhearted even as she danced in other men’s arms. She responded with smiles to other men’s questions, accepted compliments from other men’s lips.

They meant nothing. She felt nothing. Her charity work at the Naval hospital could not rouse her from Roger’s spell. Her heart, thoughts, daydreams, the desolate emptiness of her nights, were distracted by the potential of seeing him, touching him, of being touched. She waited for the sound of her window shoved high.

She knew him for the consummate disguise artist he was, knew work alone might keep him from her, and yet, she could not help take his absence to heart. Did he regret the night in her bedchamber? Did he regret awakening her? Had she shamed herself before him with her wantonness?

She could hear his voice. “I developed a reputation for seducing women. A man in my line of work is ill-served by too much attention.”

She felt chastised by his absence, dishonored. Was she now no more to him than one of the whores he called upon when it suited his needs? He left her wounded and uncertain. As each day passed her conviction grew. He was not so affected as she.

When at last he intruded upon her life again, it took her completely by surprise, and not at all in the manner she might have imagined.

A knock upon the door heralded his renewed interest, a polite knock and not Ramsay upon the steps but Quinn. In his arms a basket full of oranges, and among the fruit a brown-wrapped parcel with a note attached. The upstairs maid answered the door, accepted the gift, and sent its bearer away.

Dulcie slit open the note and with no more than the first words scanned, raced downstairs and out into the street, expecting to see Roger.

Quinn waited beside the same rude wagon in which he had transported her to Spa Field. “Morning, miss,” he greeted her politely. “Do you mean to come?”

“Where?”

“I believe you will find everything detailed in the note.”

She read in earnest. A favor! Having left her to her own devices without a word for weeks, Roger dared ask favors?

“Why me?” she asked, trying hard not to sound irritable. Quinn, ever calm and gentlemanly, said, “He said you were uniquely qualified for this particular delivery--that he trusted you above all others.”

Unsure of the truth, but temper mollified, she tapped the note. “You mean to wait?”

He nodded. “I would deliver you to your destination.”

She read the note again. Roger’s instructions were specific.

“I shall require a quarter of an hour.”

She hurried to her room, tried to convince herself she jumped to the Gargoyle’s summons not out of any great feeling for Ramsay, but out of concern for her country.

Within the brown parcel, she found such clothing as an orange girl might wear. Stepping into another woman’s shoes, and thus her life, exhilarated Dulcie. These shoes were of a rosy hue with high, square, Turkish heels.

The beauty of the faded ruby dress, while horribly outdated, had not waned. The once fine fabric pinned back with aged ribbons exposed an inset petticoat of an unusual saffron hue, offered a brightness of attitude and color Dulcie enjoyed. About her breasts went a fitted black vest, neck scooped low. A filmy, if rather dirty, white fichu preserved her modesty. For her head, a lace-trimmed mob cap. She felt a stranger in the outfit, but took no more than a moment to regard the results in a mirror.

Her father looked up from his drawings when she went to his study. “Mmmm? What is it pet? Good Gad! What is this garish outfit?”

“Gargoyle’s work. I must go. Do you mind diverting the servants? I would not have them see me.”

“Not see you indeed, looking like a common harlot!”

“Not a harlot, father. An orange girl.”

“And what are they if not harlots?”

She frowned down at the Turkish-heeled shoes. He had told Quinn she was uniquely qualified for the role. What did he mean by it?

Her father was in a fret. “What is this business you are about? Where would Ramsay send you? Shall I go too?”

“No need. I go to the House of Commons to deliver a message. I shall be perfectly safe. Ramsay sends his man with me.”

“I would feel much better if Ramsay, himself, were here to escort you.”

Dulcie blushed, the blush deepening as her father went on, “You do not know the ways of men, Dulcie. They would, most of them, take advantage of your innocence, my sweet.”

She had not the time to argue, nor inclination to explain that Ramsay proved no better than other men in that regard. “I must go.”

“When can I expect you safely home again?”

“Soon. I have no more to do than deliver the note, wait for an answer, and I am returned to you.”

He made some noise of agreement as he rose. “Wait here a moment. I shall distract the servants.”

At the door she waited, listening, the noises of the house familiar. Bells rang to summon the staff. Footsteps sounded upon the stairs, fading in their trek to the kitchen. She peeped around the door before dashing down empty stairs, heart racing, basket of oranges bouncing.

The outer door shut her from the comfort and familiarity of home. She felt a stranger to herself, a sneaking sort of liar to want to go undetected from her own home. And yet, fear thrust aside guilt, for who should be descending from her coach at the curb, but Lydia—come to call.

Ducking her head, as befit her new station, Dulcie stood aside, allowing her superior passage.

“Oranges, madame?” she murmured in a changed voice, as Lydia yanked the bell pull. The words shook with her fear. Surely Lydia must recognize her, must recognize her voice.

Lydia made a dismissive gesture Dulcie had observed many a time before.

Down the steps she scuttled as a breathless Martha bade Mrs. Oswald, “Good day, marm. Please come in.”

Quinn handed her up to his bench and settled beside her. Dulcie trembled with an oddly exhilarating combination of fear, anger and anticipation. Roger wanted her. He trusted her. He asked her to do something important and dangerous. Surely this meant he cared for her.

“May it please you, miss.” Quinn handed her a bonnet. Giddy, she accepted it, a natural straw, decorated with velvet cherries.