Never Lie to a Lady (24 page)

“How wise you sound.”

“Because it was the same for my brothers,” she answered. “When our parents died, no one here was willing to take us in, so we were sent out to Barbados to live with my father’s elder brother.”

“That is a long journey to a strange place—especially for three small children.”

She smiled faintly. “Indeed,” she said. “And I realize now how terribly traumatic it must have been for them. They remembered England and the happy life we had as a family. I did not.”

“I wonder which is worse,” he mused.

It was a question Xanthia had often pondered, but there seemed to be no good answer. Certainly she saw no point in pondering it any further tonight. She picked up a crystal dish of pickled vegetables. “Tell me about your mother,” she said casually. “Was she remarkably beautiful?”

He looked up from his plate in some surprise. “Extraordinarily so,” he answered. “Why?”

Xanthia lifted one brow. “Well, you are very beautiful,” she said, spearing a sliver of cucumber and passing it to him on her fork. “And not in the English way.” She watched Nash draw the morsel from her fork, and thought again of how sinfully delicious his mouth was.

“No,” he said thoughtfully. “There was nothing remotely English about my mother. I think that is why she was so miserable here. And whilst I believe that her abandoning us was selfish, I do understand how she felt.”

“She was homesick?”

“It was more than that.” He leaned close to offer her the wineglass, and the warm, erotic scent of neroli teased at her nostrils. “I have always felt astride two cultures,” he went on. “For almost half of my life, it was made plain to me that only two things mattered—our Montenegrin nationality, and our alliance with Mother Russia—this from my father as well as my mother.”

“And then…?”

“And then everything was turned upside down,” he answered. “In the time it took for my uncle and cousin to drown, my father’s ambitions completely altered, and my life entirely changed.”

“Yes, my older brothers’ lives changed similarly.”

“How so?”

“When our parents died, it left my elder brother Luke as my uncle’s heir,” she said. “The holdings were worth very little then—just a run-down plantation on the island and a neglected estate in England—so it was more of a burden than a stroke of good fortune.”

He looked at her with sympathy in his eyes. “Yes, I would gladly give up this life and this wealth—give it all to Petar—were it in any way possible,” he said. “A title brings with it much obligation—as you seem to comprehend.”

“And as my brother Kieran has learnt,” Xanthia agreed. “He, too, was a second son. He never expected or wanted to inherit. But tragedy often intervenes, does it not? My elder brother died in a fire—a slave rebellion, actually. It was…horrific. For all of us.”

Nash winced. “A rebellion,” he said. “How gruesome.”

It was Xanthia’s turn to shrug. “I do not think Luke was meant to be killed,” she said. “But he was caught in the cross fire, quite literally, in a burning cane field. These things happen. We were not the only family touched by tragedy that day.”

“And so the younger brother was left to deal with the aftermath,” said Nash. “Good Lord. I suddenly find myself in charity with Rothewell—but do not worry. I rather doubt it shall last.”

“No, it rarely does,” said Xanthia on a laugh. “He is not one who inspires charity. But I love him. We are…close in a way which is difficult to explain.”

They ate in silence for a time. Xanthia found it exceedingly pleasant and felt no need to fill the void with unnecessary words. From time to time, Nash glanced at her and smiled. His dark, unusual eyes looked especially mysterious this evening, as if the talk of his homeland and family had heightened something of the exotic in him.

“You have changed your scent,” she finally said, glancing over at him. “When we met, you were wearing a hint of amber oil.”

His slashing black brows lifted. “Ah, but a beautiful woman told me she did not like it,” he explained, sliding another slice of beef onto her plate. “A beautiful woman whom I wished desperately to pursue. So I asked my perfumer to stop blending it in.”

Xanthia was touched by his words. He rose from the table and went to the sideboard to decant more wine. She loved the way he moved, with such a languid, fluid grace—and he made love that way, too. A frisson of sensual awareness ran down her spine as she watched him. Yes, tonight one could well believe that the blood of Byzantium ran through his veins, or that his proud stance signified his descent from the Mongol horde.

“You must have your mother’s eyes.” She blurted out the words unthinkingly.

He flashed a wry smile, and returned to his chair. “Ah, yes,” he murmured. “Yet another part of me which will never be mistaken for English.”

Xanthia reached out and set her hand over his. “They make my heart stop,” she whispered.

His expression softened. “I wish only to make it skip a beat or two, my dear.”

Xanthia settled back against her chair and laid down her fork. She watched his long, elegant hand tip the crystal decanter over the glass which they shared.

“If I am not being too forward,” she said quietly, “how did your mother die?”

The exotic eyes grew distant. “We were never entirely sure,” he said, setting the decanter down sharply. “When she made ready to leave England, she asked me to escort her to Danilovgrad—I was a big, strapping youth for my age, and well accustomed to travel—but Father said I was too young. So Petar insisted on going, against father’s orders. But within a few days, they, too, were caught in—what did you call it? The cross fire?”

Xanthia nodded.

“Well, this was Napoleon’s cross fire.” The pain in his eyes was unmistakable. “They meant, I suppose, to go round Spain, and perhaps cross over Italy, but they did not make it. We never knew for certain. They died in Barcelona when the French seized the city.”

“What a tragedy,” murmured Xanthia. “In Barbados, the war did not greatly affect us.”

“Then you were fortunate in one way, at least.”

Xanthia watched him carefully. “Were you angry with her?” she asked. “Your mother, I mean?”

His head jerked up. “I don’t understand how a mother could just leave her children,” he said quietly. “Yes, Petar was a young man. To some extent, he could make his own choices. But we were no happier here than she. And yet, she made no effort to take us home.”

To take us home…

Perhaps he still considered the Continent his home. She hoped de Vendenheim never guessed as much. On impulse, she leaned across the table and set her hand over his.

“Nash, you cannot know what your mother may have tried to do,” she said. “Who can say what may have gone on between your parents?”

He looked at her oddly. “What do you mean?”

“The laws in England are very strict,” said Xanthia. “A mother has no say as to where her children live, or even with whom they live. It is quite possible she tried to take you. Perhaps her request that you accompany her was but a ruse. Perhaps her real objective was to get you off English soil? How old was your brother?”

“Eighteen,” said Nash hollowly. “He had already purchased his army uniform.”

“So you were much younger,” Xanthia mused. “That is probably why she asked you first. To get you away.”

Nash had obviously never looked at it that way. “My mother always seemed like a force of nature,” he said. “She was so prideful. So willful. I cannot imagine her beholden to the laws of England—or any country, really.”

“Her pride and her will would have mattered little here,” said Xanthia grimly. “To take away an English marquess’s son against his express wishes? She could not. It is probably a hanging offense.”

Nash considered it, then shrugged. “Well, it makes little difference now,” he said. “I am here. I am the Marquess of Nash, and I am carrying out the duties of the title—at least minimally.”

She released his hand and said no more. As if to dismiss the topic, Nash began picking over an assortment of fruit. He selected an especially succulent apple, sliced it, and offered her a sliver.

“What was he like, Zee, this uncle of yours?” he asked lightly. “Was he like your brother—a sort of hard-bitten colonial?”

Xanthia laughed. “Is that what you think of Kieran?” she asked, after swallowing a bite of apple. “No, my uncle was what one politely calls a wastrel. A habitual drunkard—and a violent one, too.”

Nash winced. “How dreadful for you, my dear.”

Xanthia stared into the darkened depths of the room. “I have tried to look upon him with more charity as I’ve grown older,” she said a little wistfully. “He was a bachelor of almost forty when we were thrust upon him. Even with his egregious neglect, the plantation threw off enough money to keep him in rum, dice, and women. He liked his life as it was.”

“He could have sent you back,” said Nash. “Better that than to hint that you were unwanted.”

“Hint?” said Xanthia. “There was no hinting. A litter of sniveling, stinking whelps, he used to call us. He was quick with his riding crop, too, when we annoyed him. But he did not send us back. I think Aunt Olivia threatened him with something.”

“Threatened him?”

Xanthia shrugged. “He’d had some sort of legal trouble in England. In any case, we survived. But Uncle did not; he lived less than ten years after that. Kieran used to laugh and say that the horror of inheriting us killed him—but he was so pickled in rum, it took him a decade to keel over.”

“That is a grim sort of humor.”

“It is the only sort of humor Kieran has,” Xanthia returned. “Anyway, Luke inherited the title and the estate in Cheshire.”

“Cheshire?”

“It is a county below Merseyside.”

Nash grinned. “Yes, I still have the map Tony’s tutor gave me,” he teased. “But I was unaware that Cheshire was Rothewell’s seat.”

“Well, he behaves as if he is unaware,” said Xanthia. “In any case, it wasn’t worth much then, for Uncle had let it go to rack and ruin. The plantation was unentailed. It went to the three of us equally.”

“I see,” said Nash. “And how did you begin your business?”

“The shipping?” said Xanthia. “Oh, Luke did that. A few years after Uncle’s death, he married a woman who owned a couple of dilapidated trading vessels—and Neville’s was begun.”

Nash lifted the wineglass in a toast. “And did he make you all immediately rich?”

“More or less,” Xanthia admitted. “With Luke running the shipping concerns and Kieran buying up new mills and new acreage as fast as he could, it did not take us long to pay off Uncle’s debts and begin to prosper.”

“No, your brother does not look to be a lazy man,” murmured Nash. “What does he do with himself nowadays?”

Xanthia shrugged and looked away. “He drinks and lives in the past,” she said. “His life—well, it has never been happy. And now he misses the mills and the sugar plantations. But that way of life in Barbados is gone—or should be. Kieran is wise enough to know this, and to accept it. Many in the West Indies do not.”

“Is there no woman in his life?” asked Nash. “He has never been married?”

Xanthia shook her head. “He was in love once, but he handled it very badly,” she admitted. “And now there is only Christine, I suppose. That is Lord Sharpe’s half sister. They are having an
affaire
—if one can actually call it that.”

Nash’s harsh eyebrows lifted. “Ah, yes,” he murmured. “The lovely Mrs. Ambrose.”

“Do you know her?”

He cut a strange glance in her direction. “There are few rich men in London who do not.”

“Do you know her
well
?” Xanthia clarified.

“Well enough,” Nash hedged.

“Have you slept with her?”

Nash looked at her chidingly. “Zee, have I asked you such questions?” he asked. “Do you wish me to make out a list of names? You will be a long time reading it, I do assure you. And no—I have never
slept
with her.”

With a mischievous smile, Xanthia settled back into her chair and crossed her arms over her chest. “Yes, you
do
know her well,” she murmured. “I vow, I should not be surprised. I think she is a very wicked woman.”

Nash was methodically slicing up the apples and putting them back in the bowl. “It depends, I daresay, on your definition of
wicked
.”

Xanthia leaned conspiratorially nearer. “Mrs. Ambrose and Kieran go to clubs together,” she whispered. “Vulgar places in Covent Garden. I overheard the servants giggling about it.”

Nash’s voice, when he spoke, was measured. “Mrs. Ambrose sometimes provides—well, a service, one might say,” he agreed. “A service for men of…unusual appetites.”

Xanthia felt her eyes widen. “Unusual appetites?”

Nash hesitated. “Mrs. Ambrose knows people and can gain entrance to certain types of houses around town,” he said. “Houses of erotic pleasure. And she is, shall we say, a woman of open and liberal habits herself.”

“Ah,” said Xanthia, taking another fortifying sip of wine. “That explains it.”

Nash looked up from the apple he was slicing. “Explains what?”

Xanthia cut her gaze away. “One evening Mrs. Ambrose came to dinner,” she said. “And when she took off her gloves—well, there were…red marks. Around her wrists, I mean. She wore bracelets, but one could still see if one looked closely.”

Nash’s expression faltered. “If Mrs. Ambrose had rope burns, my dear, then someone got out of hand,” he said. “Restraint is one thing, but—”

“Is it?”

He ignored her. “But wounds—well, let us say that even Mrs. Ambrose is not that debauched—not so far as I know.”

Xanthia plucked a sliver of apple from the bowl. “You are mutilating this fruit, Nash,” she remarked. “One almost gets the feeling that this discussion makes you uncomfortable.”

He was still calmly slicing. “I am not entirely sure this discussion is appropriate for your ears,” he acknowledged.

Xanthia nibbled off half the apple sliver. “Do you know, Nash, how many prostitutes live in a port like Bridgetown? Or Wapping, come to that? Have you any notion the things I’ve seen and heard in my lifetime?”

“I shudder to think, my dear,” he answered. “But what we are discussing is…a rarefied form of sexual experimentation, not a quick tumble that costs two quid. A talent which is not easily acquired—and the women and men who are highly skilled at it can command quite a price—if they wish to.”