How To Distract a Duchess (12 page)

“Everyone is having a lovely time,” her mother gushed, returning a wave to a matron across the dance floor. “You may tell Mr. Beddington I’m pleased. I did send him an invitation. Is he here?”

“Oh, yes. I’m sure he’s here someplace,” Artemisia said. “You know, Mother, part of the charm of a masquerade is not knowing who is behind the mask.”

“Well, I hope to heaven Florinda knows who’s behind that musketeer’s mask and manages not to make a fool of herself by stuttering like an imbecile,” Constance said. “She’s partnered with the young man I intend for her.”

“Trevelyn Deveridge?” Artemisia narrowed her eyes at the man dancing with her sister. “You should know that Mr. Beddington reported some troubling unanswered questions about his military service. It seems he may have left the corps under less than ideal circumstances.”

“That doesn’t concern me in the least.”

“It might matter to Father.”

“What your Father doesn’t know would fill the library at Oxford.” Constance gave her a toothsome smile for the benefit of anyone who might be watching. “Angus has nothing to say about the girls’ matches. Besides, in the case of the honorable Mr. Deveridge, his stint with soldiery doesn’t matter one iota. It’s his familial connections that are important, and his father, Lord Warre, cuts a wide swath through Parliament.”

“I didn’t know you were political,” Artemisia said with a frown.

Constance laughed musically, as if her daughter had just uttered a witticism. “It’s not the politics. It’s the power. That’s all it ever is, really. The Dalrymple name is joined to Southwycke, but you must admit, a dowager duchess only counts for so much. Once the house of Angus Dalrymple is entwined with both Shrewsbury and Warre, I defy anyone to ever snub me again.”

Artemisia bit her tongue. Even though they were discussing her sisters’ futures, as usual, her mother had managed to turn the situation so it was about her. Artemisia tried to remind herself that her mother had grown up barefoot in a Highland hovel. That might account for being overly self-conscious about her station—or lack thereof.

Still, it wouldn’t hurt for Constance to think of her girls for once.

The string ensemble struck up a stately gavotte and Artemisia looked back to Florinda and her dancing partner. The gentleman bared his white teeth in a dazzling smile. Then he bent in a courtly bow and finished it with a flourish. He excused himself and retreated from the dance floor.

Artemisia gasped and had to force herself to close her gaping mouth. The man her sister had been dancing with, the man her mother claimed was Trevelyn Deveridge, had just bowed as smoothly as that wretched pretender, Thomas Doverspike.

Trevelyn pushed his way through the throng, making obligatory acknowledgments as he passed members of the
ton
he recognized beneath their costumes. He’d never been too fond of masquerades, but his father was keen on his attendance at this one. The earl had all but shoved him onto the dance floor with that tongue-tied little peacock.

Lord Warre had tried numerous times to see him wedded to a socially prominent wife. So far, Trev had eluded capture, but there had been some near misses over the years. As long as he was careful not to compromise some darling debutant, Trevelyn planned on enjoying his bachelorhood for the foreseeable future. After all, he wasn’t destined for the earldom. It wasn’t as though he needed to sire an heir and a spare.

His work in Her Majesty’s Secret Service, which he took pains to be sure his father knew nothing about, nearly made being single mandatory. Especially once he made the transfer to the Delhi office. A man couldn’t disappear into tribal regions to play the Great Game for months at a time if he had a
memsahib
and a passel of little ones depending upon him.

Besides, the girls his father shoved him toward—he couldn’t think of the simpering creatures as women—seemed even shallower than ever since he met the unconventional Duchess of Southwycke. There were more layers to her personality, and surprising sensuality, than a dowager has petticoats. He’d have been delighted to peel them back one by one, but not as her kept fancy man. As Trevelyn Deveridge, he’d have had no objection to making her
his
mistress, but as Thomas Doverspike, he was still furious that she thought she could own him as if he were one of her damn cats.

Part of his mind recognized the inconsistency in that view, but he wasn’t prepared to examine it more closely. If not for the urgency of locating Beddington, he’d avoid her completely.

Angus Dalrymple was no help, even to himself. The duchess was cagey and secretive about her trustee. Mr. Beddington had shown an almost wraithlike ability to disappear into thin air. Trevelyn practically met Lady Southwycke coming out of the office door in his guise as Terrence Dinwiddie. But when he arrived at the business address of J. S. Beddington, Esq. the only person in the well-appointed suite was the be-spectacled James Shipwash. Lady Southwycke surely hadn’t spent the better part of the morning closeted with Beddington’s assistant. He’d met with another dead end.

A suspicious dead end.

Beddington holds the key.
Since Angus Dalrymple trusted him with it, surely the man must realize its vital importance. If the key wasn’t found soon . . .

To escape the press of people, Trevelyn slipped into the duchess’s dark studio. He slid the bolt home behind him to make sure of a few moments peace. With his luck, one of the debs would follow him in, claim he took liberties, and before he knew what was what, he’d be led down the aisle.

The strains of the string ensemble and the nattering small talk that reminded Trev of a gaggle of geese faded behind the closed door. The smell of oil paint and chalk and the sweet lingering scent of violets, the fragrance the duchess always wore, greeted him. It was almost as if she were there in the dark. He brushed away the unwelcome longing that thought stirred.

With only the light of the moon shafting in the long windows, the room was awash in shades of gray. The canvases of Her Grace’s work stood around the room shrouded with white linen to protect them, like so many disembodied souls. Curiosity niggled at him. This might be his only chance to see
Mars
. He crossed over to the draped easel nearest the windows, pulled back the covering and stared at his own likeness as the god of war.

In battle, Trevelyn had done his part and been commended for valor more than once. In the midst of smoke and blood and cannon fire, a man couldn’t think. He could only act. But he’d never become inured to the suffering of the wounded and dying. It was what had led him to resign his commission. His records had been sealed lest the numerous honors draw undue attention to him, and he embarked on a career in intelligence. With the right information in the right hands, he’d help avert future bloodshed.

The background of the painting was fuzzy and indistinct, but the figure of Mars nearly leaped off the canvas. Somehow, the duchess managed to capture his sense of needless waste and despair in a few thousand brushstrokes. The expression on the god of war’s face was grim. His muscles were strained and taut, his long limbs stretched out as if on a rack of agony, cleanly defined by her deft hand. He was just about to pronounce the unfinished work a masterpiece, till his gaze swept down the torso of Mars.

The duchess had rendered his balls pea-sized and his penis the length of a cigar butt.

A very short cigar butt.

“Something vexes you about my painting?”

She stepped from the shadows into a silver pool of moonlight. He should have trusted his instincts and his nose when he first entered this dark lair.

Much as he’d hoped to avoid her this evening, still he had to admit she was dazzling. The jewel on her forehead winked at him. And, Good Lord, was there one in her belly button as well? The pale skin of her bare midriff made his palms burn to touch her there, to feel the silken softness of her abdomen.

She was as enchanting and exotic as the Eastern princess in Richard F. Burton’s salacious missives from Aden.
 
The princess in that tome neglected the short-sleeved half-blouse beneath her sari, her breasts proudly displayed for all eyes. Trevelyn dared not let his mind wander that route as he gazed at the duchess. But his mouth went suddenly dry.

“
Bonsoir
, Your Grace.” Trevelyn affected a thick French accent in keeping with his costume. The Gallic nasality should mask his voice’s normal timbre. He hoped that even though he saw through her disguise quickly—by Heaven, there was little enough of it—she’d have no reason to associate a musketeer with her erstwhile model. “What makes you think something vexes me?”

“Possibly the little snorting sound you made a moment ago,” she said with poisonous sweetness as she came to stand beside him, seemingly as intent on the canvas as he had been. “I don’t usually allow my work to be seen before it is finished, but since my model for this piece has disappeared, it’s likely this one will remain forever in its current state.”

The thought of his image depicted with miniscule genitals for eternity bothered him more than it should have.

“Are you sure this is an accurate likeness, madam? The model seems somehow . . . disproportioned.”

“Really?” she said with incredulity, stepping forward to squint at the offending portion of the canvas. “It’s exactly as I remember him.”

“Indeed?”

“Indeed,” she affirmed. She drew herself up to her full height and removed the filmy veil covering the lower half of her lovely face. She extended a regal hand to him. “You seem to know who I am, my fine
D’artagnon
. I can return the compliment, though we’ve yet to be properly introduced. You are, I believe, the Honorable Mr. Trevelyn Deveridge, son of the Earl of Warre, are you not?”

“Your Grace does me honor.” He bowed over her offered fingertips and brushed a kiss on her knuckles, hiding his disappointment that she’d ferreted out his true identity. She was clearly furious with his alter-ego for deserting her. If things were different between them, he’d have turned her palm up and pressed his lips into her soft hand. “Surely, a second son is unworthy of your notice.”

“Oh, there’s where you’re wrong. You’ve done a great deal that’s come to my notice. In addition to being Mr. Deveridge, you are also Terrence Dinwiddie, a stoop-shouldered, graying scribe in want of a position.”

He froze.

“Though why you should solicit employment at the office of my trustee, I can’t imagine. Not receiving enough of an allowance from the earl, are you?”

“Your Grace, I—“

“Or perhaps you were dissatisfied with your wages here. Is that it, Mr. Doverspike?”

She smiled at him, her teeth silvered by moonlight. It was the feline smile of a tabby directed at a mouse she intends first to toy with, then to devour.

“Have there been any other incarnations or did I get them all?”

He straightened and met her smoking gaze. “There are others, Your Grace.” Some of his disguises were far less salubrious than Doverspike and Dinwiddie. Several extortionists and one wife-beater were still quaking over their run-ins with the ruthless Tobias Dunsworth. He took a step toward her. “But you’ve no cause to have met them. Not yet anyway.”

“You’re not terribly good at it, you know,” she said. “If I can see through you, your disguises can’t be that effective.”

“Before I saw the unfortunate proportions you’ve given your Mars, I would have said your powers of observation are keener than most, Your Grace,” he said smoothly. “In truth, you are the first to connect me with either of those alternate identities.”

“Are you a criminal, Mr. Deveridge? Or were you merely trying to learn more about the family you intend marrying into?”

Trevelyn swallowed hard. “What?”

“You needn’t be so circumspect. Mother assures me the arrangements are nearly complete.”

“Arrangements for what?”

“Your betrothal to my sister Florinda, of course,” she said. “I suppose I owe you a word of thanks. I must say, I now understand your reluctance to become my lover since you are destined to become my brother-in-law. This canvas of Mars is somewhat awkward, though. I never expected to paint a family member in the nude.”

“Naked,” he corrected as he took another step closer. Her scent worked its way to his brain and drove caution to the winds. “I was naked. And so were you, madam. Gloriously, splendidly naked.”

He thought the pulse beat at the base of her throat spiked a bit.

“Yes, well, under the circumstances, I shall have to rely upon your discretion in the unfortunate matter,” she said, her confident bearing slipping. “Pray banish that episode from your memory. I certainly have.”

“Liar,” he said.

Her eyes flared at him. “You, sir, will not insult me in my own home.”

“The truth is no insult.” He grabbed her and pulled her close. She struggled, but couldn’t break free of his arms. “And this is the truth between us, Your Grace.”

He covered her mouth with his. At first, her lips were hard and unyielding and she pummeled his chest with her fist. She almost convinced him her protest was genuine. But just when he was about to concede defeat and release her, he felt the stiffness drain from her body and she relaxed into his.