Maggie MacKeever (36 page)

Things
had
been fixed up all right and tight.

Lady Georgiana and Hannah were currently arguing over the recent conduct of Princess Charlotte, who had fallen out with her mother, who had decided to live abroad. Clea had minimal interest in Princess Charlotte, and less in Wolfgang Mozart’s
Rondo Alla Turca
. She watched Kane make his way toward her.

His hair was much too long, and tousled. His handsome features were drawn. He looked angry, and impatient,
and there wasn’t a lady present who didn’t turn her head to wistfully watch the rakish Lord Saxe pass by.

Even Lady Georgiana and Hannah briefly broke off squabbling. Kane greeted them as he settled into the empty seat on Clea’s far side. “You are looking        remarkably grown-up tonight,” he said.

Clea
was
more grown-up than she had been mere days past. Kane, on his part, looked as though he had aged overnight.

She was old enough to know some things were better left unstated, and so Clea gave him a quotation.

“
Elsie Marley’s grown so fair

She won’t get up to feed the swine

But lies in bed til eight or nine.
”

Kane raised an eyebrow. “Nursery rhymes?”

“We had to do something to pass the time in that horrid place. I have added to my vocabulary. A rum duke is a queer unaccountable fellow. Like Cap’n Jack. And going to rest in a horse’s night-cap is to be hanged.”

Clea would have posed a problem for Cap’n Jack, thought Kane. Rose and Julie were expendable. The sister of an earl was not. “I wish that you didn’t know such people existed, brat.”

Clea wished he would stop calling her ‘brat’. She didn’t scold, however, because he was so sad. “The Cap’n called me a hellcat. After I kicked him in the gingambobs.”

Kane contemplated her.

“Or twiddle-diddles, if you prefer.”

Kane’s laugh was infectious. Heads turned. He noticed, and his
amusement fled. Clea wondered if Kane would notice when she finished growing up. If necessary, she would place herself naked in his bed. After she had grown bosoms. “‘The wild boar is often held by a small dog.’ Ovid,” she said.

Kane smiled at her.
“‘
I only spout poetry when my feet hurt.’ Ennius.”

Now it was Clea who chuckled.

She was well on her way to being a beauty already, with her
mahogany hair and
green eyes and dimples, her irrepressible spirits and unquenchable curiosity. Some young buck would be lucky to win her. Kane felt very old.

He had accompanied the Royal Visitors to Portsmouth, where they surveyed dockyards and barges and men of war, were cheered by ships’ companies and entertained with grand cannon salutes, all of which the Grand Duchess bore with surprising fortitude. Indeed, she went so far as to drink grog with the crew of the
Impregnable
. Kane had no stomach for the grand banquet that the Regent was hosting tonight at the Government House, for a select one hundred and fifty persons, and so returned to town.

Castlereagh had made no attempt to discourage him. The
Foreign Secretary would also, if for different reasons, mourn Sabine.

A smatter of polite applause interrupted Kane’s reflections. The young lady who had been abusing Mozart removed her hands from the piano keys.

Another young woman approached the harp. She sat down and plucked a timid chord.

“Oh, for heaven’s sake!” Tony could tolerate no more. He stalked across the room, shoo’d away the startled young lady, took up a position at the harp and placed his hands on the strings.

The richly brilliant strains of Louis Spohr’s
Fantasie in C minor
filled the room. Even Lady Georgiana and Hannah fell mute. By the time he finished playing, not a person present doubted that Lord Ashcroft possessed a tremendous musical ability. In the midst of the ensuing adulation, few (and of those, all were ladies) noticed the departure of Lord Saxe.

Kane gave his coachman instructions. The night was young, and he had no desire to be alone.

Had he loved Sabine, or she him? Kane didn’t know. He suspected they would have wearied of each other, in time. But that time had been cut short, and Kane felt a profound sense of loss.

Candles beckoned from behind plate glass windows. Soft music and seductive voices whispered through briefly opened doors. The Academy was doing a good business. Kane handed his hat and coat to a liveried servant.

Mrs. Kingston walked down the hallway toward him. “I left
instructions that I was to be informed immediately if you returned.”

She’d said ‘if’, but had meant ‘when’. “May we speak privately?” Kane asked.

“Of course.” She led him into a small, excellently furnished sitting room, poured brandy in two glasses, and handed one to him. “I was sorry to hear about Mrs. Viccars. I know she was Ned’s friend.”

Kane sampled his own brandy, found it excellent. “You won’t mourn Cap’n Jack.”

“Hardly. Pray be seated.” Lilah arranged herself gracefully on a satin-upholstered love seat. “I shan’t pretend he didn’t make me a wealthy woman. Or that I don’t have some concern about who may take his place.”

Kane reached into his pocket and withdrew the document that had brought him here. “Ned asked me to give you this.”

She took the paper, read it, set it carefully aside. Had Kane not been watching closely, he might have missed her trembling hand.

It didn’t surprise him. He had just given her the deed to this house.

She didn’t ask why Ned hadn’t brought the thing himself.

Lilah’s lavender eyes had seen a great deal of the world. Saw more, indeed, than her caller might have wished. “If you’re not in a hurry to take your leave, perhaps you would care to inspect the supper rooms, my lord. I have an excellent French chef.”

Chapter Thirty-Nine

There’s no point in seeking a remedy for a thunderbolt.
— Pubilius Syrus

It was close on midnight when Julie arrived at Wakely House, one of her grandfather’s servants trailing at her heels. James the footman opened the front door. Tidcombe hovered at his shoulder, curious about who was calling at this odd hour. “The master is in the library, miss. I daresay you would prefer to find your own way.”

Julie shrugged out of her cloak. “No, Tidcombe, I would prefer
that you announce me. Please have William taken to the
kitchen for a spot of something to keep him warm, because I expect I’m going to keep him out late.”

Tidcombe had long since accepted that he would never be able to anticipate what unusual circumstance he might next encounter at Wakely Court; but high among those various excitements must surely rank the night when she-who-not-so-long-ago-had-been-a-housebreaker presented herself at the front door, dressed in poppy red no less, and requested to be announced as Lady Julia Faulkner.

Announce her, Tidcombe did, with all due pomp, whereupon the earl’s feet thudded off the desk where he had propped them, and his batman’s jaw fell open so wide it almost hit the floor. The young lady smiled graciously at the pair of them as she swept into the room. What happened next, Tidcombe couldn’t say, because the door closed in his face. It being beneath the dignity of a butler to eavesdrop, Tidcombe descended to the kitchen, there to quiz Lord Carlyle’s servant, the gossip that went on below-stairs being no less energetic than above.

Julie held out her hand to Bates. “I have never properly thanked you for taking such good care of me.”

Bates flushed. “I was only doing my job, miss. Um, my lady, that is.”

“Odd, is it not? I haven’t gotten used to it myself.”

Ned was looking quizzical. Suddenly uncertain, Julie moved to the hearth where Cerberus was enjoying a snooze. Clea’s old muff lay on the floor nearby. Julie leaned down to pick it up.

The dog leapt to attention, with a snarl and a snap and a fine display of his numerous sharp teeth. Julie stepped quickly back. Bates said, “I’ll just be leaving,” and did.

“Cerberus has developed a tendre,” explained Ned. Julie eyed
the muff, which had not benefited from being the recipient of canine
l’amour.
Cerberus dragged the thing toward him, lay his head upon it, and went back to sleep.

Julie moved toward the desk, where the earl was seated. He was in his shirtsleeves. Pretty Ned the buccaneer. She said, “Do you like my dress?”

His eyes moved slowly over her. “It is very red.”

It was also very low-cut in the bosom. “Lady Georgiana had it made. I think she meant me to seduce someone.”

Ned contemplated the gown’s plunging neckline. “And why would she wish that?”

“She thought I had designs on Tony.” Julie circled the desk. “That’s why she pushed me in front of that carriage. What are you looking at?”

Ned nudged the miniature toward her. Julie took it in her hand. She might have been staring at a male version of herself.

“That, sunshine, is Julian Faulkner. Your father,” Ned explained.

He had been so young. Julie gazed again at the portrait, then set it aside. Tonight wasn’t for feeling sad. “I told my grandfather that if he means to claim me, he must take me as I am. I wondered for a time if you knew the truth all along.”

Ned frowned, which made him look even more piratical and handsome. “You thought I was interested in you because I knew you were the granddaughter of a marquess and therefore suitable to rub shoulders with an earl?”

“It made me cross.”

The earl felt a little cross himself. “May I hope you’ve changed your mind?”

“Rose said I was a peagoose. And anyway, you couldn’t have known any of that when we first met.”

“When you broke into my house, you mean.”

“When I stole your statue.” Which now sat primly on a bookshelf. Pritchett had returned the thing, along with Ned’s knife. “I have my blade back also. It was among the Cap’n’s things.” Julie flicked up her skirt so that Ned might see the blade strapped to her thigh.

Ned looked, and looked again. Julie was sufficiently encouraged by his expression to slide off the desk and onto his lap. “I’m trying to behave like a gentleman,” he sighed, as she nuzzled his ear.

Julie slipped one hand beneath his shirt to rest it against his smooth, warm skin. “Why?”

“Because I thought I should.” He caught her hand in his and held it flat against his chest. “I’ve been worried about you, buttercup.”

“I’ve been worried about me, too.” Julie fingered the fabric of his shirt. “But it has all worked out, if not for the best, maybe as it was meant to, and I don’t want to talk about that now.”

Ned didn’t either, truth be told. “What, then?”

“You promised me pleasure, if you will recall. You’re not going to spoil everything, are you, by saying this is the wrong time?”

“I wouldn’t dare refuse you. Not when you’re carrying that knife.” Ned plucked her hand from his chest and pressed a kiss into her palm. “Are you absolutely certain this is what you want?”

She gave him a look. He swept her up into his arms and carried her to the bookshelves; pressed the hidden mechanism that caused a section to swing out from the wall. Cerberus opened one mildly curious dark eye, then went back to dreaming on, about, his muff.

The passage was lighted with candles, the bedroom ablaze with light. Ned set Julie on her feet.

She spun around in wonder. The tapestries were as she had last seen them, and the Turkey carpets, but now flowers were strewn everywhere.

The coverlet on the four-post bed was turned invitingly back. “You were so certain that I’d come?”

“I hoped you would.” Ned pulled off his shirt and tossed it aside. All that lovely golden skin was beyond tempting. Julie placed her hands on his chest, felt the muscles ripple beneath his flesh. Felt his own hands make short work of the fastenings of her dress.

She was having trouble concentrating. “What if I had not?”

“I would have come to fetch you.” Ned eased the gown over her shoulders, paused for a good look.

She hadn’t worn a corset. His fingers tangled in the ribbons of her shift. “Bates informed me that there is a tree outside your bedroom window at your grandfather’s house.”

“You would have climbed a tree?”

“I would have swum an ocean.” A few deft movements, and her clothing puddled at her feet. Julie stood in the middle of the bedroom naked, save for her shoes and stockings and knife.

Ned knelt before her. His breath was warm against her belly as his hands slid down her hips. Julie clasped his shoulders, for her knees had turned to jelly and she feared she might altogether melt. He peeled away the knife, her garters and her stockings, all the time kissing and stroking and touching until she couldn’t decide if she wanted him to be done teasing her, or never to stop. As she was struggling with these possibilities, Ned picked her up and deposited her gently in the middle of his great carved bed.

Julie smoothed her hand over the sheets. They were the softest she had ever lain upon. She would have lain upon straw, and happily, if she could lie with Ned.

He stood beside the bed, looking down at her. There was no need for the fire burning on the hearth; Julie could have toasted herself in the heat of his emerald gaze. She trailed her fingers along one of his scars. “Trifling, remember? With me?” she said.

He’d made her uncomfortable. He truly was an oaf. She was
absolute perfection, and Ned would tell her so, just as soon as he regained the use of his tongue.

His hands moved to the placket of his breeches. The remainder of his clothing joined the other discards on the floor. There was nothing for Julie’s curiosity then but that she must crawl forward to take a closer look. Ned groaned to find his manly appendage in close proximity with her nose.

She extended one finger to give it a little poke. As male organs are wont to do, it swelled. All the more intrigued, Julie reached out. Ned caught her wrists and bore her down beneath him on the bed.