Shall We Dance? (16 page)

“I'll show myself out,” Perry said quietly.

“No! I'm sorry, son, if I sicced Rolin on you. I didn't mean for that to happen. Kill him, it makes no nevermind to me, or anyone else, come to think of it. And the girl? Hell's bells, Nevvie, it's just a shock. You? Never thought you'd be bit. Do you really think Rolin is dangerous?”

“Not for long, Uncle, damn you. Not for long.” Perry tapped his curly brimmed beaver back down on his head and turned to the open window.

“Just so it doesn't lead back here, Nevvie,” Sir Willard said quickly. “Just so it doesn't lead anyone back to Liverpool. God, boy, the door. Use the bloody—oh, hell's bells, I don't know why I bother…”

 

“S
UCH A FUSS AND BOTHER
, Clivey,” Maryann Fitzhugh said, fluttering from place to place in her small sitting room, looking at the menu she'd left on the table, flit
ting back to read once more the menu she'd rescued from the waste bin, smoothed out again and was now reconsidering.

Clive sat at his ease in the window seat, a weak, watery sun at his back, watching his flustered beloved. “Yer said Her Majesty wanted three, Dovey. She won't get them if you keep ballin' them up and tossin' them in the scrap. How about parsnips? I'm partial to them. Parsnips, Dovey. Go on now. Write that down.”

Mrs. Fitzhugh rolled her eyes. “Queens don't eat parsnips, Clivey. They nosh down on quail eggs and pigeon tongues. Nasty stuff. The nastier the better. Oh, laws, Clivey, I'll be out of here on my ear, you just count on it, and he won't like that. And don't you just sit there. I thought you were come here to help me. Oh, look at me, I'm all at sixes and sevens.”

“Sorry, Dovey. Too busy admirin' that pretty flush yer gets in yer cheeks when yer're all aflutter. Shame it always turns into a bumpy rash. Who's this
he
yer're talkin' about?”

Mrs. Fitzhugh yelped and slapped her hands to her cheeks just as there was a knock on the sitting room door and Miss Fredericks entered a moment later.

“Good morning,” she said, smiling at Clive and the housekeeper. “Mrs. Fitzhugh, I do hope you don't mind, but I've taken the liberty of making up three different menus for you, as I am more conversant with Her Majesty's favorites.”

“Cheeky, that,” Clive said, getting to his feet. “Beggin' yer pardon, miss, but it's not like Mrs. Fitzhugh,
here, hasn't been runnin' houses for some of the snootiest gentry in all of London. She has. Don't need no help scribblin' down pigeon tongues, that she don't.”

Mrs. Fitzhugh silenced Clive with a glare that could possibly have cooked those pigeon tongues, and turned to Miss Fredericks. “I suppose I could just give them a look? Seeing as how you went to all that trouble and all.”

Miss Fredericks handed over the pages, looked again at Clive, and said, “Is the earl here, then?”

“No, miss,” Clive said, shaking his head. “Me and Maryann—we're old friends. We're visitin'.”

“Oh,” Miss Fredericks said, frowning slightly. “Isn't that…isn't that nice. Well, sorry to have interrupted you. Good day.”

Once the door was closed, Mrs. Fitzhugh turned to Clive once more and began smacking him with the menus. “Out of my mind, that's what I was, telling the man you were a good one. Cheeky, is it? Sassing Mistress Fredericks! Get out, Clivey. Just you get out!”

Clive, who had been holding up his crossed arms to protect himself, at last grabbed at the menus as he stood up, to look at his beloved. “Yer told who I was a good man, Dovey?”

Mrs. Fitzhugh's eyes went wide and she tried to step back, only to have Clive take hold of both her wrists. “Clivey. Clivey, let go, you're hurting me.”

But Clive Rambert, in love or nay, happy to be reunited with his Dovey or not, was first and foremost a Bow Street Runner. And nobody's fool. “That's how I got here? That's how I got picked? Yer told Sir Willard
about me. Didn't yer, Maryann? And that's how yer got here, ain't it?”

“Who?” She lowered her eyelids, hiding her eyes. “I…don't…”

“Yer knew I was still aboveground. Yer knew, Maryann. Yer knew where I was and yer knew what I was doin'. Didn't yer?” He gave her a small shake. “Didn't yer!”

“I…I might have…mayhap have seen someone I thought was you…maybe…”

“And the other day? All that big hoo-ha over seein' me again? What were yer doin' while I was gone, Maryann? Trottin' the boards? That was some playactin', makin' me think yer were shocked all hollow to see me. Why, Maryann? Tell me why!”

“Please, Clivey, let go of my arms. You're hurting me.”

“Too bad. Yer broke my heart, yer did. Twice! Tell me about Sir Willard. Tell me how yer got here.” He turned her about, gave her a push so that she landed in the window seat. “And no more lies, Maryann. I'll have no more lies from yer.”

She drew her arms and legs close to her in a protective manner and mumbled, “I told you he wouldn't swallow it, Mrs. Fitzhugh.”

And then, as Clive stood there, fascinated, she began having a conversation. With herself.

“Quiet, Maryann, let me think.”

“I'll not be quiet, Mrs. Fitzhugh! We could still be sewing up costumes at Covent Garden instead of worrying ourselves silly about pigeon tongues, if it
weren't for
your
flapping tongue. Listening to Sir Willard pillow talk to that chippy opera dancer, and tapping him on the shoulder when he was leaving, to tell him you knew the perfect man for the job. If Sir Willard would do something for you. And now look. What a disaster!”

“Yes, I did it. I can think, Maryann, which is more than
you
could ever do. Sitting all night with one smoky candle, sewing fine seams for all those tarts and tramps. You could no more go to Clive and tell him that than to tell him you were once one of those round-heeled chippies, till your knees gave out. But I got you in here, where you could see him again, work your wiles. And now you tell me you didn't want to do it? Ha! Pull the other one, Maryann, it's got bells on!”

“But I shouldn't have listened to you, Mrs. Fitzhugh. I just wanted to see him so bad, that's all.”

“You wanted, but I'm the one who figured out the how of it. Give him Clivey's name and get a place here, to help. Except you're such a whiny ninny.”

Clive just stood there, eyes half-bugged out of his head, while this conversation washed over him. His memory clicked back over the years, to a much younger Maryann, who had tended to live much of her time in a dream world where she was not a poor blacksmith's daughter, but a fine lady clad in silks and satins, talking to her fine friends conjured up out of her imagination.

He'd sit and watch as she danced across the meadow for him, flowers in her hair. One of them gazelles, that
was his Dovey. None too pretty, skinny as a stick, but her heart was always dancing. Dancing and dreaming. And then he'd taken her innocence, and then he'd left her to fend for herself, no virgin to get herself a husband, but only another soiled dove, wings too sooty to ever hope to fly (Clive also had his poetical side…).

It was his fault. It was all his fault.

“Ah, Dovey, what a mess we've made, the two of us,” he said, gathering the thin, stiff-backed woman into his arms, where she sobbed and sobbed.

While Clive cogitated. He was here because Dovey had been hiding behind a door while Sir Willard spilled secrets while he was spilling his old-man seed. He was here because Dovey had known where he was but was too ashamed to seek him out. He was here because Dovey had struck a deal with Sir Willard, who had somehow gotten her out of the opera house and into the queen's residence, to spy on the woman.

He was here because Sir Willard did not put all his eggs in a single basket.

“It'll be all right, Dovey. I promise, it will be all right.” He held his Dovey close and whispered to nobody in particular, “Crikey, what do I tell His Lordship? He's goin' to go spare.”

“Who, Clivey?” Mrs. Fitzhugh asked, sniffling.

Clive grimaced. Was he really about to tell his Dovey that the two of them weren't the only ones sent by Sir Willard to snoop about the queen? No, he was not. Only a looby would spill secrets to a female. “Nothing, Dovey. Yer just cry, there's a good girl.”

 

A
MELIA PICKED UP
the small stick the spaniel had brought back to her and tossed it once more, laughing as the floppy-eared animal went on the chase once more.

“Yours?”

She turned about sharply, startled, to see the Earl of Brentwood standing there, leaning on his ever-present cane, his handsome, smiling face caught by the early-afternoon sun. He was so beautiful, from his clothing, all in the first stare, to his truly marvelous green eyes. And that mouth? Shame on her, she'd dreamed about that mouth.

“My Lord—Perry,” she said, wanting to kick herself for stammering. What was the matter with her? She'd chatted with heads of state, princes and kings, for goodness sake. But one look at this man and her tongue went all thick and her body went…oh, dear,
soft and gooey
seemed like such embarrassing words. “You startled me.”

“I seem to have that effect on some people, yes, but surely not you, Amelia,” he said, motioning for the spaniel to come to him. The dog, a female, obeyed at once, neatly dropping the stick at his feet. “A fine animal. She has a name?”

“Lucretia Borgia,” Amelia said, watching as the dog went racing after the stick once more. “But I call her Lucy.”

“So she's yours,” Perry said, holding out his crooked arm, so that she would take it, and they walked after Lucy. “Do you mind that I've shown up unannounced and unsummoned yet again? Before you answer, may I simply say that I could not stay away?”

Amelia lowered her head, hoping the brim of her bonnet hid her delighted expression. “The queen will be so pleased.”

“I did not come here to see the queen, Amelia.” Perry picked up the retrieved stick yet again and this time, tossed it a rather prodigious distance, nearly into the decorative stand of trees and shrubbery that was woefully overgrown.

Lucy retrieved the stick yet again, but when Perry lofted it into the trees, the dog looked that way, yipped her disapproval and headed for the terrace.

“You've worn her out, poor old thing,” Amelia said, not surprised that Perry didn't immediately steer her toward the terrace, as well, but only continued on, until they were standing beneath the shade of a convenient oak. Most definitely out of sight of any of the windows that overlooked the gardens and river.

“I have a confession to make. The same one, I'm afraid, as before. I'm a bad man, Amelia,” Perry said, turning her toward him, placing his hands on her shoulders. His gaze concentrated on her mouth. “A bad, bad man. Some would even say dangerous.”

“I am becoming more and more aware of that, yes,” she said, throwing caution to the winds, and not at all sad to see it go. “Are you going to kiss me again?”

“I should ask first, shouldn't I?” His smile turned her knees boneless. “Very well. Miss Fredericks, would you be thoroughly opposed to the notion that I should like to kiss you? I would begin, I believe, with your delightful mouth.”

“Begin?”

Now his smile made her breath catch in her throat. Yes, she had met princes, heads of state. But never before in her life had she been so…so
taken
with any man. Never before had she thought beyond a silly flirtation, beyond a few stolen kisses in a dark garden. There was more, so much more, to her reaction to this man. She wasn't a naive schoolgirl. She'd been curious before, but never curious enough to act on that curiosity, never interested enough, moved enough. Until now.

“Yes, sweet Amelia, begin. Forget the Park. A first embrace is more experiment than decision. Impromptu, unplanned, and with no thought save the moment. And often clumsy, ashamed as I am to admit to that failing.”

He used the tip of one finger to lightly trace her bottom lip, so that her mouth opened on an involuntary sigh. “This kiss, Amelia, if you allow it, begins everything. And, even if I am risking all to admit this to you, for the first time in my rather checkered life, I do not already see the ending. Nor do I want to.”

There was nothing she could say to that, so she said nothing, but simply closed her eyes and waited for the pressure of his mouth against hers.

He touched his lips to hers, lightly, then withdrew, advanced again, still lightly, tenderly. Again. And then again.

Just as she was about to reach up and grab him by the shoulders, impatient with all this gentleness, he was kissing her cheeks, her brow, her closed eyelids.

Breathing became a voluntary exercise, one she chose to ignore as his breath began to tickle at her left
ear, as his teeth lightly nipped at her sensitive lobe…as his tongue explored her ear as if he were mapping an uncharted area, investigating, discovering. The tingle that began at her ear skittered all the way down to her toes.

She had to work to remember how to swallow, but her mouth had gone dry, anyway, her throat thick. She slid her arms around his waist to anchor herself, as she knew she was in danger of floating away, of losing all touch with anything so mundane as the ground beneath her feet.

Now his lips blazed a trail down the side of her neck, and she tipped her head to the side, granting him complete access.

He did not touch her, other than to keep his hands lightly against her upper arms. He did not threaten her as he gently breached her every defense, silently struck down every inhibition and raised his flag of capture as she gladly surrendered any remaining vestiges of maidenly common sense.

“Beautiful,” he whispered, somehow now cupping her face in his warm hands, looking down into her face as her eyelids fluttered open, so that she was amazed with what her eyes now saw. He was looking at her as if she was something rare, even precious.