The Hunger (3 page)

“Two days late,” Blendon noted sourly.

“You can’t regret he failed us,” Beatrix murmured. “He might have cut you out.”

Blendon had the grace to flush. Alvaney dashed forward and collected the new arrival. “Beatrix Lisse, Countess of Lente, may I present John Staunton, Earl of Langley?”

The big man came forward with the innate grace of a man who knew the use of his body, whether in sport or in bed. He bowed over the hand she extended. The curl on his forehead concealed a lump just beginning to color and a scrape. The scent of blood came to her, strongly. Not from the scrape. No, the man was bleeding somewhere or . . . or his clothes had been splashed by someone else’s blood. She saw no stain on his black coat. That augured for the blood to be his own. The scent made her need awaken and begin to tremble in her veins.

“I have waited for the pleasure of this introduction,” Langley murmured over her hand as his lips brushed her knuckles. His voice was a baritone rumble in his chest.

“I did not expect you, so did not instruct my staff to refuse you tonight,” Beatrix sighed.

Langley looked up, puzzled. “Lady Lente?” His countenance looked a trifle drawn.

“You were promised for Tuesday night, man,” Alvaney exclaimed.

“Truly?” Langley looked about himself in surprise that Beatrix thought was feigned. He sighed. “Well, one can hardly expect an engagement made a month ago to spring to one’s mind.” He bowed again. “My deepest apologies, Countess.”

The man should show more gratitude! Invitations to her drawing room were worth more than coin of the realm. “Your apology will be accepted upon account,” she returned. “You may repay my largesse by being interesting.” He wouldn’t be. Still, she did want to know why he had appeared at her door bleeding.

His eyes flashed a spark of rebellion before they went lazy and the mask descended. “A hard charge,” he murmured. “Since my hostess herself must be so interesting as to fill her rooms each night, her expectations would be great indeed.”

Beatrix was taken aback. He had put the onus back on her to prove she was interesting. “That would smack of competition, sir. It would not become a hostess, and it would be churlish in a guest, so I am certain your manners would not allow it,” she managed.

“They shouldn’t, though manners can be unreliable in my case,” he said, unrepentant. “A dangerous state, since manners are the only thing between us and our brutish nature.”

“Oh, manners can be used as weapons in service of a brutish nature,” Beatrix remarked sweetly. There, that would serve him out for challenging her.

He did not look abashed. Quite unexpectedly, he grinned. “Touché. Pique and repique.” The grin softened the hard lines of his face.

She liked him for acknowledging that she had won the round. “A swordsman, then?” she asked, letting her voice go husky. She would fascinate him and so take point and match.

“Langley is quite the sportsman,” Melly exclaimed. Beatrix had forgotten him. Strangely, she had forgotten all of them. “Bruising rider, crack shot. Strips to advantage at Jackson’s too.”

“I’ll wager he does,” Beatrix murmured. Langley feigned indifference, but Beatrix detected a slight flush. The most debauched man in London was used to being the hunter not the hunted. And yet, he was bleeding somewhere. Perhaps he had been hunted tonight.

“You’re both uncommonly lucky,” Alvaney noted. “You’d make a killing team at whist.”

“Are you as insulted as I am, Langley?” Beatrix asked.
“Chance plays only a limited role in life when you have enough experience to be truly aware of your surroundings.”

“Even in games like faro,” he agreed. Behind his lazy look he was studying her. “But perhaps we should consult Castlereagh. He is an expert. There is nothing so chancy as politics.”

He had decided to direct attention away from himself. She did not choose to let him. She sat forward in concern. “Dear me, my lord. Your forehead! Have you had an accident?”

Langley feigned surprise again. It would have fooled anyone but Beatrix. He touched his forehead. “Why, I hadn’t noticed.”

The other gentlemen crowded round. “By Jove, Langley, you’re hurt!” Melly exclaimed.

“Husband come in on you?” Alvaney snorted. “We won’t ask who she was.”

Langley’s countenance darkened before the eyes went languid. “Dashed footpads set upon me in Hay Hill Street. I hadn’t realized they marked me, or I would never have presented myself in such a state.”

“Footpads in Hay Hill?” the young men chorused. “What’s London coming to? Where were the watchmen? Did you report the incident to Bow Street?”

“Sit down, man!” Alvaney charged, standing to give up his own chair.

Beatrix motioned Langley down. He looked mulish for a moment. Then practicality intervened. He must be feeling it. She noticed he sat stiffly. As he moved, she saw a slight bulge at his shoulder. Ahhh. The bleeding wound was in his shoulder and it was bandaged. Not a new wound, then. He definitely looked pale now.

“Symington, a glass of brandy for Lord Langley?” But her ever-discerning majordomo already hovered with a salver laid with brandy.

Southey, the pedestrian poet laureate, pushed to the front of the crowd. “I can hardly credit footpads in Hay Hill.” Castlereagh and Chumley hung over Langley as well. Beatrix had lost the attention of the room. She took the opportunity to observe Langley. He gulped the brandy and the color came back into his face. He was deft with their questions, answering but not answering. It was if he
wanted
them to doubt the footpad story. Once he eased his shoulder and she saw the twinge of pain. He
had
been set upon in Hay Hill Street, but his assailants hadn’t made the wound in his shoulder, only opened it, she guessed. And footpads? Not likely. Ah, perhaps it would not do for the most debauched man in England to be set upon by mere footpads, and he wanted his listeners to make up other stories more in keeping with his reputation. What a devious way of achieving it! If he wanted to shock them, why didn’t he tell them about the wound bleeding even now in his shoulder and what adventure had occasioned it? Beatrix’s senses were heightened by the smell. Lord, she would need to feed again tonight at this rate!

She got to her feet almost without knowing she rose, and took the brandy decanter from Symington. The young men parted for her, unconsciously, as people always did. She stood over Langley. He looked up at her. The green eyes were jaded. They had seen much for one of his tender age and were disgusted by it. How old was he? Not yet forty, she wagered. She gestured with the decanter and he held up his glass. She poured, but her gaze kept returning to his face. He had determination. He thought he was implacable. Silly man! Implacable was the onward march of time, the loneliness, the endless repetition of small failures and large ones in people, in the world, in herself. John Staunton, Earl of Langley, was not implacable.

He was . . . What was he?

All she knew was that Langley was not what he seemed.

.  .  .

John looked up at Countess Lente as she poured him another brandy. She was stunning in a way that was quintessentially un-English. Her skin was almost translucent, like the petals of a flower that bloomed only at night. Her hair was thick and dark auburn in color. It reminded him of fields burning at night. Her features seemed to speak of former ages. Her nose was straight and only two steps away from prominent, her mouth generous. Her cheekbones provided her face with an inner strength. He would not have been surprised to see her in a Roman toga, or chain mail. But it was her eyes that captivated. He had always been fond of cornflower-blue eyes. Both Cecily and Angela had had blue eyes. Brown eyes had always seemed dull, until now. Lady Lente’s eyes were so dark as to be mistaken for black at a distance, yet up close they were bottomless pools of expression. Her eyes said this woman knew secrets men would kill to have her tell them.

Some of those men crowded round him. They fell back as she approached, like iron filings from the wrong end of a magnet. The minute he entered he had felt a hum of life in the room. Now it seemed to emanate from her. One would always know where she was, simply because her presence was so powerful. An elusive scent threatened his senses—spicy-sweet.

Her daring dress of strawberry silk revealed a lush figure. Pastels were fashionable, but fashion seemed irrelevant to a woman like the countess. Countess of what? he wondered as he tossed back the brandy. She was rumored to come from Amsterdam, but she did not look Dutch. Her accent seemed layered with several languages. And where was the count? Dead? Or had there ever been a count? A woman like this might have made him up to give herself a veil of respectability and an ability to move independently in the world.

Talk had it she was the most fascinating woman in
Europe. He hardly believed
that
. Still, he saw in her eyes more than the avaricious, self-centered courtesan. He saw that she had nearly lost hope. There was no . . . expectation in her. It was a strange feeling to look into eyes like that. It almost made one shudder.

“Feeling more the thing?” she asked, in that husky contralto that promised a passion her eyes said she was not sure existed anymore.

“Yes.” He realized the room was silent, listening. In actual fact, his head throbbed and his shoulder stabbed pain through him whenever he moved. He must extricate himself from this soiree before he embarrassed himself by fainting in the middle of Countess Lente’s drawing room. Still, his weakness could be turned to advantage. “An old wound . . .” he murmured. Let them embellish his rakish reputation. They didn’t need to know it was only nine days old.

“Langley,” Southey said with disapproval, “these husbands will kill you yet” Southey was bland-looking, with a certain smoothness about him.

“You, as a poet, surely must believe in the exigencies of love,” John drawled.

“I do.” Southey frowned. “But not the kind of love you practice.”

“And what kind of love is that?” the countess interrupted. She arrayed her curves across the chaise in an insouciant challenge, and raised her brows.

“The kind where no heart is engaged,” Southey said tightly.

“Ah, Mr. Southey, you cut me,” John said softly. “You do. My heart is always engaged.”

“Then your heart does not know true love.”

John kept his countenance impassive. “Your true love, now, what is that? You will say it is transforming, enlarging.” He waved a dismissive hand. “But perhaps it takes a narrow understanding to focus so intently upon one person
that one sees no faults. I have a wide vision, Mr. Southey. Perhaps I see love more truly than you do.”

“You are both right. Love is blind. But it never lasts,” the countess agreed. “That only makes one search for it again and again, looking for that brief moment of transformation—an addiction, really. Are you an addict, Langley?”

“No.” He should leave it there. What could possibly possess him to elaborate in front of this sad crowd? “That would admit both belief in the power of love to transform and a weakness I do not acknowledge. I seek amusement. My heart craves no more.” Did he believe that? Or was it the devastation tossed at him twenty years ago speaking? It created the right sensation, however. A murmur went round the crowd.

“When the conversation turns to true love, it is time for the evening to end,” the countess said, rising. She clapped her hands. “Carriages, gentlemen. The servants will see to your needs.”

A bustle ensued. Apparently they were used to this kind of curt dismissal. The countess murmured over lips that bent to kiss her hand adieu. Rich young idlers, important politicians, artists, scribblers, an architect and an admiral, all filed by to pay their respects. They were besotted, though some cloaked it in urbanity. He stood to go.

“Shall I take you up in my carriage, Langley?” Melford asked. “You do not look stout.”

“Lord Langley should recoup his strength before he goes,” Lady Lente said. Her eyes held unmistakable intent. Blendon’s face fell with comic intensity.

“As you wish.” John nodded, letting her know it was her command that he obeyed, not his desire. Once he would actually have stayed. The countess would be a skillful bedfellow. It would certainly enhance his reputation, and hers, as she probably knew. But he didn’t entangle himself these days and he daren’t expose his wound. He
could get the desired effect simply by lingering a moment. John closed his eyes briefly. What would these fellows think if they knew that it had been months since he had bedded a woman? Hardly an ecominium for his reputation. In truth, it had been getting more and more difficult. Not physically. He had not failed himself or his partners yet. But he could foresee a time when he would. It seemed a larger and larger effort to . . . engage with women, even in so transitory an act. On the Continent, he had bedded everything in sight. Hard, cold, he had his revenge on women everywhere for Cecily and Angela. He was lucky he had not come away with a souvenir of promiscuity. But it had all turned stale. Now he might bed them for king and country, and his needs still got the better of him on occasion, but he had no taste for it. He had no taste for any of it.

He watched the men exit. The countess was shushing Blendon out the door when John rose. He was about to refuse an invitation any man in London would kill for, he was sure. He managed a fair imitation of steady on his feet. “I must be going too, kind hostess.”

Her delicate brows drew together. Apparently she was not used to refusal. “As you will,” she said, her lovely, throbbing voice almost flat. “Perhaps our paths will cross again.”

He smiled. “I do not doubt it. You hold court on Tuesdays and Thursdays.”

“By invitation only, of course,” she murmured.

“Then perhaps at other events.” He would not give her the satisfaction of seeing him disconcerted. “The Duchess of Bessborough’s ball on Saturday?” He doubted she had been invited. Countess or no, she was a woman who lived outside society’s rules. And he wanted to punish her for making him feel small.

“Undoubtedly,” she said smoothly. “Or Lady Hertford’s rout?”

“I live for the occasion,” he said.