Surrender to Sin (36 page)

Cary led her quickly and stealthily into the dark interstices of the theater. The next thing Abigail could tell with any certainty, she was in a small dark room. He pushed her up against the door and kissed her hard, holding her there with his body while he used his hands to strip off his coat. “The couch,” he said urgently. “For God’s sake, lie down for me.”

Almost as distracted as he was, Abigail managed to find the lumpy sofa and had shoved some of the clothes piled on top of it out of the way before he caught her around the hips. She realized he was going to take her from behind, as he had done the night they had both taken too much laudanum. She remembered this method with ravenous pleasure.

Suddenly he groaned. “Drawers, Abby?” he said roughly, turning her about to face him. “What are you trying to do to me?”

“Sorry!” She jumped up and slipped the pantalets off hurriedly. The next moment he was lodged as far into her as he could go. As one person they fell to the couch, panting madly, his head on her breast. “Say you love me,” she begged. “Say it again.”

“I love you,” he said over and over again as he drove into her, turning the blood in her veins to wine. Her pleasure was so intense that for a brief moment she slipped away. When she came to, Cary was kissing her gently. The storm had passed for him as well, and his dark body was quiet and warm in her arms. “You like that, don’t you, monkey?”

She could feel him inside her still, stirring softly, without urgency. “Yes, I like it. Say it again,” she begged him. “I love to hear it.”

“Yes, indeed. It’s very nice to hear, isn’t it?” he said, beginning to withdraw.

“No, not yet,” she murmured, squeezing him between her legs. Knowing that she wanted him again so soon aroused him. The drugged sound of her voice, the light, flowery scent she wore coupled with the deeper, animal smell of their lovemaking spurred him on. “Love me,” Abigail urged over and over again, her head lolling from side to side. “Say you love me.”

But she never said the words herself, he noticed; no matter how wild with pleasure he drove her beautiful, soft body, Abigail’s heart remained locked away from him. Knowing that there was a part of her he could not touch filled him with sorrow, a sorrow he would never share with her because he knew that if Abigail guessed he was unhappy and why, her accommodating nature would lead her to pretend a love she did not feel. That would be infinitely worse.

“I don’t think I shall ever get enough of you,” he murmured, drawing away from her reluctantly. “But then we’ve never had any worries in the bedroom, have we?”

“No, indeed. You always make me so happy.” As she spoke, she knew that words were inadequate to describe her feelings. When their bodies were joined, she was in a continual state of bliss, but, when they parted, doubts of his love and fears of her own inadequacy assailed her. The only thing she could be sure of was her own love for him, which left her in a hideously vulnerable position.

“I wish we had more time.” Cary was already hunting for his clothes. “But Antony is due for a costume change any moment now. I shouldn’t like my wife to be caught in an actor’s dressing room.” He looked at her, a faint smile touching his lips. “Your crown is a bit askew.”

“Antony?” she echoed, as he set her to rights. “Is this Mr. Rourke’s dressing room?” Looking around she saw the familiar suit of Roman armor on the dressmaker’s dummy. Mr. Rourke was going to need that very soon for his meeting with Pompey at Misenum. Abigail hastily left the couch to help Cary dress. “Oh, dear God,” she cried in dismay. “What beasts we are! The poor man! His dressing room!”

“I daresay this isn’t the first time Mr. Rourke’s covert has served such a purpose,” Cary remarked dryly. Pulling his shirt over his head, he added, “This is absolutely the last time we part, Abigail. I’ve had enough sneaking around.”

“So have I,” she said fervently.

“We’ll go to the Regent’s bloody masquerade. I’ll explain everything to your good father. With any luck, he’ll disown you on the spot. Then I can take you home to Tanglewood, and make love to you properly in our bed. How does that sound?”

“Perhaps it would be better if we didn’t go to Carlton House at all,” she said quickly. “I tried to talk to my father this afternoon. Cary, he hates you. Very likely he
will
disown me. We may as well go to Hertfordshire and just send him a message.”

Cary frowned at her as he buttoned his trousers. “Run away, you mean? And spend the rest of our lives jumping behind counters when we see him in Town? No, Abigail. I shall tell him to his face that you are my wife. After all, he cannot hate me personally. Everybody loves me. I admit I
did have
something of a reputation in my youth. Drinking, gambling, making a general nuisance of myself. If your papa is a staunch Presbyterian gentleman—”

“Oh, he isn’t,” she said quickly. “I daresay he’s not been in a church above five times in all his life. And he’s not a gentleman. You might as well know it. He’s in Trade.”

He chuckled. “You mean he really
does
own a paper mill?”

“Among other things, yes.”

He smiled at her fondly as he put on his coat. “My dear Smith, you don’t actually think I give a damn about all that? I’m married to
you
, not your father. If he doesn’t like it, he’ll just have to jump in the Thames, that’s all. For myself, I don’t care who your father is. It could be bloody Red Ritchie for all I care.”

Abigail nearly choked. “Do you mean that?”

He was rapidly knotting his cravat with the aid of Mr. Rourke’s mirror. “Of course I mean it. Do you think Mr. Rourke would mind if I borrowed one of his costumes for the ball?” he said, picking up one of the actor’s scarlet cloaks from a box in the corner of the room.

“Beaks and claws! Beaks and claws,” a raucous and horribly familiar voice suddenly shrieked in the dark corner.

“No, it can’t be!” Abigail breathed, her chest tightening.

“Abby, get behind me,” Cary said grimly as the voice continued squawking from inside the box. “Show yourself, sir!”

Crouching down, Abigail saw that it was not a box. It was a birdcage. The red cloak had been covering it. “It’s not a man,” she cried. “It’s
Cato.
”

“It can’t be.” Cary joined her on the ground. “Cato’s dead.”

“Drawers, Abigail!” the macaw screamed at her.

Abigail turned white. “It
is
Cato, I tell you. Cary, he
knows
! He knows what we’ve been doing in here. You’ve got to get rid of him.”

“Darling, this is irrational. Cato is dead. My dog ate him.”

“Ride me sideways!”

“How dare you!” said Abigail, shaking her fist at the creature. “I
never
said that!”

“Well, don’t look at me,” said Cary, laughing.

She climbed to her feet. “Cary, he knows too much. You’ll have to get rid of him.”

“It’s only a bird, Abigail,” he told her sharply. “It doesn’t
know
anything. It’s got a brain the size of a dried pea. It won’t remember a blessed thing once we’ve gone.”

“Only a bird, Abigail!”

“For God sake’s, Cary, you’ve taught it my name!”

“Well, don’t teach it mine,” he snapped.

“Cary Wayborn, if you really do love me, you’ll get rid of that bird.”

“Get rid of it?” he said, flabbergasted. “Are you seriously suggesting that I
murder
a bird? Because it knows too much?”

“Cary, it knows my
name
. It heard us…coupling.”

“Darling, you’re not thinking clearly. There are lots of Abigails in the world. If the bloody thing does happen to say your name, Rourke will never know it’s you.”

“He
will
know it,” said Abigail. “Your sister introduced us. I didn’t want to come here. She made me. I told you, she’s a menace. It’s all her fault!”

“The best way to manage Julie is to push her down the stairs right away. After that, she’s mild as milk.” Now fully dressed, Cary knelt down to study the problem in the cage. “I suppose I
could
take him outside and let him fly away,” he said reluctantly. “We’ll scotch the bird, not kill it. All right, Lady Macbeth?”

“Yes, all right,” she agreed breathlessly.

“You’d better get back upstairs before Auckland sends out a search party. I’ll come ’round at intermission with some lemonade.” He smiled at her. “Then, who knows? Perhaps I’ll see you again in Act Three.”

“You’re not taking him out of his cage?” she cried in alarm as he reached for the bird.

“Don’t worry. I can handle him.”

Abigail shuddered. “Please wait until I’m gone. You know I don’t like birds.”

She dashed out of the room and closed the door behind her. There was no one in the hall, but, as she reached the top of the stairs a pair of men stepped out of the shadows, startling her.

“I beg your pardon,” she breathed. In the next moment she was caught roughly around the waist. One man stuffed a cloth in her mouth and the other forced a huge burlap sack down over her head. Kicking in rage, she was lifted bodily off her feet and carried outside.

Cary, leaving Mr. Rourke’s dressing room just a few minutes later with Mr. Rourke’s macaw tucked inside his coat, noticed nothing amiss. Whistling softly, he let Rourke’s macaw into one of the carriages outside, then wandered back into the theater.

“Where’s Abigail?” he asked Juliet when he returned to their box. The Duke was sitting alone in his box across the theater.

“Where is my lemonade?” his sister responded crossly. “You were gone long enough.”

Cary sat down, then stood up abruptly. “It’s nearly intermission. I’m going to have a word with Auckland. I’ll be back directly.”

“What does she want now?” the Duke greeted Cary without the least civility.

“You’d have to ask her that,” Cary replied. “I’m looking for Abigail.”

The Duke never took his eyes off of Juliet. “She went to meet
you
, didn’t she?”

“Yes, she—” Cary broke off, frowning. “You mean, she hasn’t been back at all?”

“How can you let your sister out in public dressed like that?” The Duke caught Cary’s arm. “She’s going to meet Rourke at intermission, isn’t she? Look, he’s going off-stage now, the little pest. Can’t you do something?”

Cary shook him off irritably. “I’m going to find Abby.”

He spent the remainder of the play hunting for Abigail in the bowels of the theater, berating himself for having left her to make her way back to the Duke’s box alone. She was nowhere near as familiar with the theater as he was, and had evidently gotten lost. Moreover, there were also highly disreputable people who hung about in theaters, preying upon the young actresses. In her Roman costume, Abigail might very well have been mistaken for one of them. As he described her to person after person, all to no avail, mild apprehension grew into panic.

When the play ended, to thunderous applause, the areas backstage filled with celebratory actors and their admirers. Caught in a throng on the stairs, Cary suddenly came face to face with David Rourke. Though still in costume, the Irishman had wiped most of the greasepaint from his face. He appeared to be in high spirits.

“Have you seen a girl about so high with butterscotch-colored hair?” Cary shouted above the din of laughter and gaiety from the crowd.

“Yes, your sister introduced us before the show!” Rourke shouted back.

“No, I mean, since then.” As he shouted, Cary was being swept farther away by the pressure of the crowd.

“I’m missing a bird myself, sir,” Rourke bellowed. “Scarlet macaw! Have you seen it by some chance?”

Cary was spared the embarrassment of having to answer by the sudden silence that descended oppressively over the throng on the stairs. The Prince Regent had come to congratulate his particular friend Mrs. Archer, preceded by an entourage of Home Guards.

The people on the stairs, Cary amongst them, were obliged to squash up against the walls. With no room to bow and scrape, the Regent’s loyal subjects could only murmur, “Highness,” and bow their heads as he passed.

“I know you, don’t I?”

Cary looked up to find that the plump and bored fellow with heavily rouged cheeks was addressing him. “Your Highness is very kind,” he replied courteously.

“You’re the one with those pretty bay horses.”

Cary gritted his teeth. “Chestnuts, Your Highness.”

“Yes, of course. Your cousin’s got the bays.”

“Yes, but he hitches their heads up too high,” Cary replied.

“He does, doesn’t he?”

The Regent passed languidly on, and, before anyone else moved, Cary was able to escape up the stairs and continue his search. At long last, he found an actor who claimed to have conducted a young woman to the Duke of Auckland’s box.

Full circle.

He made his way back to Auckland’s box, going against the grain of the departing crowd, only to find that the Duke, presumably with Abigail, had already left the theater en route to Carlton House. Looking across the theater, he saw that Juliet had gone as well. Outside, the attendants assured him that the Duke of Auckland’s carriage had been among the first to leave. There was nothing to do but go on to the Regent’s residence alone. By walking, he escaped the crush of a hundred carriages all leaving the theater at once.

A guard was taking tickets at the gates of the Prince’s residence, but this did not offer Cary much trouble. “Look here, Guard,” he said, assuming an angry tone. “You’ve let that fellow in without a ticket! He looks like an assassin to me.”

“What fellow? Where?”

Cary caught his arm before he dashed away. “No, no, no. You must never leave the gate unattended. I’ll take care of him. In the future, be more careful, or I shall have to report you.”

“Yes, sir! Thank you, sir!” the guard called after him gratefully.

A cursory glance around the front gardens established that neither Abigail nor the Duke were lingering among the shrubbery; the red-haired giant and the small girl with butterscotch hair could not have escaped his notice. At the main entrance to the house, he was stopped by the Master of Ceremonies. “I’m afraid no one is to be admitted inside without a costume, sir.”

“Well?” Cary snapped. “Where
is
my costume? I was told it would be here, waiting for me. This isn’t my first ball, you know. What sort of game are you running?”

“I beg your pardon, sir,” the man stammered. “If you step right through that door, you will find the men’s room. Attendants will assist you in finding your costume.”

“I should bloody well hope so,” Cary growled. He stepped through the door and helped himself to the costume of a captain of the Praetorian Guard.

“Whom shall I announce, sir?” the Master of Ceremonies inquired solicitously.

Cary looked past him into the crowded ballroom where Romans and Egyptians were crushed together in desperate gaiety. “I think I’ll go incognito tonight. It
is
a masquerade, after all,” he murmured, handing the man his brass helmet. “Hold this for me, would you?”

He spent an hour circling the balcony over the main room, but there was no sign of Abigail or the Duke. Remembering her dislike of crowds and confusion in general, he made his way to the back gardens, which were extensive and included a number of artificial streams and lakes. The carefully plotted acres offered thousands of secret spots ideal for conducting any number of illicit activities. Cary’s temper began to fray.

The farther into the garden he went, the more annoyed he became. Occasionally stumbling across pairs of panting lovers did nothing to improve his temper. What the devil was Auckland thinking, bringing Abigail into these lonely paths? Auckland was desperately in love with Juliet, of course. In his company, Abigail would be safe from unwanted advances, Cary told himself. But he could not be easy in his mind until he found her.

The sharp cries of a frightened woman suddenly rent the air. Already running towards the sound, Cary saw a man and a woman struggling on the ornamental bridge arching over the man-made stream in the distance. The woman was dressed like Cleopatra in a column dress of finely pleated white linen. A beaten gold headdress reminiscent of a bird slipped from her long black hair as she tried to break the desperate grip her attacker had on her wrists. Her attacker was a bald man. In his bottle-green coat and dark breeches, he looked decidedly out of place. He actually had Cleopatra by the hair.

The woman called Cary by name as he approached. “Oh, Mr. Wayborn, thank God you are come! This madman came out of nowhere and attacked me.”

Cary’s dislike of Serena Calverstock did not extend to allowing her to be forcibly abducted by uncouth and balding Glaswegians. “What the devil do you think you’re doing?” he snarled, shoving Red Ritchie hard against the balustrade. “Put your hands on this lady again, and I shall make you very sorry.”

“That woman has taken my child,” Red shouted, struggling to get past Cary. Cary stood firm. “They are holding her for ransom, sir, and this woman is part of the plot.”

“I believe he is mad,” declared Serena, reclaiming her golden headdress. “I was only walking across the bridge, when he attacked me. My hair, Mr. Wayborn! I thought he was going to pull it out by the roots. I know nothing of any kidnap.”

“I can prove what I say is true,” cried Red, producing a scrap of paper from his waistcoat. “This obscenity was left for me at my warehouse.”

Cary squinted at it in the torchlight. Fortunately, the ransom note had been written in large capital letters. “We have your daughter. If you ever want to see her again, bring your diamonds to the Orient Bridge at Carlton House. A lady dressed as Cleopatra will meet you there. Give her the diamonds, and your daughter will be returned to you unharmed.”

Serena gasped. “Monstrous! May I see?”

Cary frowned at Ritchie. “What diamonds?”

Ritchie showed him a hefty velvet bag.

Cary was skeptical. “Do you always carry bags of diamonds around with you?”

“Of course not,” Ritchie snapped. “I had to go all the way to my banker’s to fetch them out of my vault.”

“And you just happened to have a bag of diamonds in your vault?”

“Of course,” said Serena. “He’s Mad Red Ritchie! Aren’t you, sir? Everyone knows about your diamonds. He bought twenty thousand pounds’ worth,” she told Cary, “just to prove his daughter wasn’t a thief. Can you imagine?”

“No, he can’t,” Red sneered. “He hasn’t got two pennies to rub together.”

Serena took possession of the ransom note. “This is despicable,” she declared. “I’ve heard of such goings on in the back alleys of Naples, but this is England. Mr. Wayborn, I insist that you do something. Miss Ritchie must be in terrible danger.”

“I have been waiting for hours,” said Ritchie. “This wee hussy’s the first person to set foot on this bridge, and, as you see, she’s dressed as Cleopatra.”

“So are any number of people,” Serena pointed out calmly. “I’m very sorry for you, Mr. Ritchie, but I am not your Cleopatra.”

Red clutched Cary’s arm. “Sir! If you help me get my child back, I will give
you
the diamonds. You could use the money, don’t deny it.”

Cary bristled at the insult. “Sir, you are addressing an English gentleman, not a Hessian mercenary,” he said coldly. “I don’t actually charge a fee for rescuing kidnaped children. I’ll get your daughter back for you. You can keep your bloody diamonds.”

“She’s all I have in the world,” said Red. “I don’t know what I’ll do if I don’t get her back. We had a terrible argument this evening…about
you
, as a matter of fact.”

“About me?” said Cary, lifting a brow.

“She thinks I offended you with all those bills. She said it was not good business practice. But, sir, I thought you were one of the Derbyshire Wayborns. To them I extend no credit.” He shook his head sadly. “I wish I could take it all back. They wouldn’t…they wouldn’t hurt her, would they?” He looked forlornly at Lady Serena.