Susan Carroll (22 page)

"Milady?"

"Aye, Lucy?" Phaedra asked, trying not to
sound as breathless as she felt. "What do you want?"

"Your grandfather is demanding to know what
has become of you. He sounds most dreadful angry."

"Tell him I will be down at once."

She waited until she heard the girl's
footsteps recede, then leaned against the door for a moment to
compose herself. She turned to discover Armande standing and
straightening his frock coat. He bore the same look of
disorientation-like a dreamer too violently awakened.

She stared from him to the rumpled daybed,
hardly able to believe what had nearly happened. It had all been so
sudden, the flaring of their passion-like a spark set to dried
tinder. But the flame appeared to have died as quickly, leaving her
embarrassed and shaken.

It helped to see that Armande was not looking
his urbane self, and the smile he gave Phaedra was uncertain. "I am
not sure whether we should curse that girl or thank her. It would
seem I was nearly the undoing of your reputation, after all."

He strode toward the door where she yet
leaned. Was he planning to leave her like this, with no more to say
than that? He might attempt to dismiss what had happened so
casually, but she could not.

"Armande, I-"

He placed his fingertips upon her lips. "I
fear we both have been behaving with less than wisdom, ma chere.
Nothing has truly changed. We still cannot trust one another. We
will only make matters more complicated by embarking on a
relationship sparked by mutual loneliness."

Mutual loneliness. Was that all it was, this
attraction between herself and Armande, that seemed both to draw
them together and pull them apart?

"I wish I could simply forget." His vehemence
startled er, but it vanished as quickly as his passion had done.
"But I cannot.”

Forget what? she wanted to demand, watching
that shuttered look settling over his eyes. He said, "It is best we
continue as we began, keeping each other at sword's length."

"I have every intention of doing so," she
said.

He briefly saluted her hand with his lips.
They might have parted thus if his eyes had not chanced to meet
hers. This pretense could not be maintained. She read in his gaze
the single truth that burned between them.

He might make what declarations he pleased.
But it could not change what they both knew was going to happen,
what had been inevitable from the night they first met.

The music gallery’s curtains were drawn,
closing out the night, but not the distant rumble of thunder.
Phaedra's hands faltered as she ran them along the spinet's
keyboard. She wished the storm would break and be done with. The
heavy stillness in the skies beyond the shielding of velvet seemed
to magnify the tension gathering within her.

Her fingers jabbed at the black and white
keys, plunking out a tune from Gay's Beggar's Opera. A song she'd
oft played, it required little concentration-which was as well, for
she had little to give. Her gaze traveled from the instrument to
the man who stood half-turned away from her, appearing lost in the
study of an elaborately framed work of Salvator Rosa's, mounted
upon the walls. The lace tumbled over Armande's wrists and gathered
at his throat seemed so at odds with the lean, dangerous slant of
his profile. As though he felt her staring at him, he turned to
face her. The silver candelabra mounted upon the torchere cast a
bright glow, but the tiny flames burned no more brilliantly than
what smoldered in the depths of Armande's eyes.

Phaedra's pulse skipped a beat as she felt
the embers of a similar fire stirring deep within her. Her fingers
stumbled, missing a few notes. Armande had insisted that nothing
had changed between them. He was wrong.

All during the course of the long, tedious
dinner, a meal they had both left nearly untouched, their eyes had
often met, furtive stolen glances as though in acknowledgment of
the secret they shared-that sweet, brief moment of passion. It was
that secret, Phaedra believed, that prevented Armande from
retreating behind his mask of impassive hauteur as he had done
before, and shutting her out so completely.

He might deny the mutual desire they had
known, declare that he had no intention of ever caressing her
again. It mattered naught, Phaedra thought, raising her gaze from
the keyboard to find him staring at her. His eyes were telling her
something far different.

Her cheeks flushed, her fingers somehow
located the right keys to end the song. The last note she struck
seemed to reverberate forever in the gallery, resounding off the
high, scrolling ceiling.

She had cut the song short, but no one
appeared to have noticed. Half-asleep on the bow-fronted chaise,
her grandfather's snort startled her. She had all but forgotten
that he and Jonathan were still in the room.

Jonathan broke into polite applause while
Weylin blinked and smacked his lips. "Eh-what? Oh, yes. Delightful,
my dear, simply delightful."

Phaedra dragged her gaze from Armande long
enough to stare at the old man. Her grandfather was strangely
mellow this evening, all his earlier peevishness gone. He had not
even rebuked her for her inexplicable behavior in bolting from the
Green Salon. Throughout dinner, he had beamed at her. She could not
imagine what she had done to deserve his approbation.

"Play something else for us," Jonathan
requested humbly. Her grandfather bolted upright. "What! Nay, it
was not that delightful." He harumphed, then struggled to his feet
with a wide yawn. "Damnation, how groggy I feel. It is the fault of
that port you brought me, Jonathan. Cursed heavy stuff."

"It was far superior to the other lot
Scroggins tried to pass off on me," Jonathan said. "The knave! I
only dealt with him at all upon Lord Danby's recommendation."

"Danby!" Her grandfather hooted. "You should
have known better than to listen to him. That fool'd drink
anything."

Phaedra could not help covertly studying
Armande to see if the mention of Danby's name produced any
reaction. He appeared absorbed in stacking her sheets of music into
a neat pile.

"Even Danby would have balked at this wine,"
Jonathan continued. "Scroggins had sought to make the wine seem
more full-bodied by treating it with oil of vitriol."

Weylin shook with amusement. "Hah! That might
have made a temperate man of Danby. One glass of that, and I trow
he'd have no stomach for another."

Jonathan waxed bitter over the foul tricks he
had often detected amongst his fellow merchants, sulphuric acid
substituted for vinegar, alum used to whiten bread. The exposing of
such deceits held a keen interest for him, one of the few subjects
that inspired the quiet man to passion. But he was cut short by her
grandfather, bellowing for John to unfold the card table.

Phaedra heard the command with dismay. She
had barely managed to get through dinner and her music. How could
she possibly spend long hours of card-playing seated across from
Armande, half-dreading, half-inviting his glance?

Armande circled behind her. Even the simple
gallant gesture of his pulling out her chair so that she could rise
from the spinet made her achingly aware of the honed grace of his
tall frame.

Jonathan prepared to seat himself at the card
table when Weylin prevented him. "Leave the cards to the young
people." He rested his hand upon Jonathan's shoulder, giving him a
wink. "What say we old men enjoy some of my fine Canary wine whilst
I show you the sketches my architect has done to refurbish this
room." He made a sweeping gesture of disparagement which
encompassed the music gallery's heavy elegance. "It would seem this
Roman palazzo stuff is now demaday."

And the heavens forbid, Phaedra thought
wryly, that anything in Sawyer Weylin's manor be classified
demode
- whether he understood the term or not. She fancied
that Jonathan looked a trifle annoyed to hear himself described as
an ‘old man.’ He cast a wistful look in Phaedra's direction when
Sawyer dragged him to the gallery's opposite end.

The music gallery was a long chamber that
could double as a ballroom, allowing a dozen couples to perform the
gavotte when the massive armchairs, sofas and torcheres were shoved
aside. With her grandfather and Jonathan taking a silver
candelabrum and ensconcing themselves at the end near the marble
chimney piece, she and Armande might well have been left alone.

She seated herself at the card table,
avoiding looking at Armande. Her voice sounded unnaturally high as
she asked. "What will you, my lord? Piquet? Vingt-et-un?"

"The choice is yours, milady," he replied,
settling into the chair opposite her.

"Piquet, then."

Beyond the curtains, the wind whistled and
rattled the panes. She donned a pair of mufftees to protect the
delicate embroidery of her sleeve hems. Armande's lips quirked into
a smile.

"It would seem that I have been left to the
mercy of a hardened gamester."

She shuffled the deck with rapid movements,
trying to make her voice sound light. "Aye, you shall find me a far
fiercer opponent than Charles Byng."

She dealt the cards, then quickly arranged
hers, scarcely noticing what she held. Armande fanned his out
between his fingers. Moments ticked by without his making another
move.

The thunder rumbled again, closer this time.
Phaedra shifted restlessly in her chair. Armande's gaze at last
drifted over the rim of his cards. His blue eyes appeared almost
hazy in this soft light. She didn't think he was focusing on her
cards so much as dreamily contemplating the curls falling past her
shoulders.

Self-consciously, she fingered one tendril
and brushed it back."I have dealt the hand, my lord. It is for you
to open."

"Is the game to begin with no wagers?" he
asked.

"I fear I am not accustomed to playing as
deep as you."

"I know you are not. That is what makes any
gaming betwixt us seem like I would be taking a most unfair
advantage."

When their eyes met across the table, Phaedra
was no longer sure they were talking about cards. "I have but
little coin for you to take advantage of," she said
uncertainly.

"Money is of no value to me. The only wagers
worth making concern matters more precious.” He hesitated. “Perhaps
a bid for what you desire most in the world."

"What I desire most?" She gave a shaky laugh.
"I have never been quite sure what that might be."

"Perhaps that I should leave your
grandfather's house and never return."

Once Phaedra had thought so herself, but now-
However, she made no attempt to contradict him.

"And you?" she demanded. "If you propose that
to be my prize, what do you ask for yourself if you should
win?"

He took a long time about answering her. Then
he looked up, making no attempt to mask the hunger in his eyes.

"One night with you," he said.

The cards fluttered from her fingers.

Armande's face darkened as though he
regretted his reply. He folded his cards, placing them in the
center of the table. "It would seem the stakes I set are too high
for both of us."

Her hand flashed out, pinioning his atop the
cards he sought to abandon.

"Done!" she cried. "I accept your wager." She
hardly breathed as she waited for his reaction. She expected him to
pull his hand free and withdraw at once. He regarded her
impassively, his features so still they might well have been
sculpted of marble. But for the muscle that worked along his jaw,
she would have had no clue at all as to the struggle that raged
within him.

Then he moved her hand from his and gathered
up his cards. Her heart hammering, Phaedra did likewise, splaying
the small rectangles before her face in an effort to conceal the
blood she felt rushing to her cheeks.

What was she doing? The passions seething
inside her must at last be driving her mad, just as Ewan had always
assured her they would. She tried to concentrate on the cards she
held, but they faded before her eyes in a blur of black and
red.

The rain broke at last, pattering against the
windows. Phaedra dimly noted Jonathan taking his leave and bid him
a preoccupied good night. The merciless flick of cards being laid
down seemed to cut through all other noise, the rain, the muted
sounds of thunder, her grandfather snoring upon one of the
settees.

Armande seemed to have recovered his
composure. He played with a grim intensity, yet continued to lose
points. It was some time before the truth occurred to Phaedra. He
was throwing the game by design.

But it had been he who had proposed the
wager, and the desire firing his gaze was so heated, she did not
doubt it was real. Was his present behavior prompted by gallantry
or some other, darker apprehension she could not begin to
understand? If he lost, did he truly mean to honor the bet and
leave, never to return?

Phaedra reached for the pack and drew out an
ace. Now she was almost sure to win both the next trick and the
game. She risked a glance at Armande. He appeared too absorbed to
notice anything she might do. With all the deftness Gilly had
taught her, she slipped the card into her mufftee.

She drew again, and almost cursed aloud at
the perversity of fate. What must the odds be against turning up
another ace so soon? With a quick movement, she sent the card to
lodge with its fellow up her sleeve.

She finally succeeded in pulling the right
cards to sabotage her hand. When Armande revealed his, she laid out
her losing sweep with a kind of defiant triumph. His impassive
expression did not change, but when she scooped up the cards to
deal again, his hand shot out, gripping her wrist. She had no time
to protest before his fingers delved into her mufftee, producing
the missing aces.