Vanity (34 page)

Rupert, handing his cloak to Griffin, said, “Dismiss Nell as soon as she’s unlaced you.”

“I’m very tired.”

He smiled. “Nevertheless …”

For once she wanted to resist that smile, the caressing note in his voice, the promise in his eyes. Her fatigue was of the soul, not of the body, and much harder to overcome. She hesitated, one hand on the newel, then, with a tiny shrug, turned and went up the stairs. She couldn’t persist ill the hall with Griffin standing there. When Rupert came to her, she would send him away.

“Bring me a cognac, Griffin.” Rupert went into the library. The butler followed him in a few minutes. “Will that be all, my lord?”

“Yes, thank you. You may lock up.” He took the glass from the tray and sipped. It had been a long and strenuous evening for both of them. The cognac burned down his gullet to join the burning, seething turmoil in his belly.

Octavia must have submitted to Philip’s embraces again
in order to discover the ring hidden so well against his body. Soon Philip would know Octavia’s glorious body in all its rich intimacies. He would put his hands upon her and his flesh within her.

His glass crashed into the fireplace in a shower of brandy and shards of shattered crystal.

He couldn’t bear to prostitute her in this way. And that
was
what he would be doing. He’d tricked Octavia out of her maidenhood so that he could prostitute her. There was no sense in pretending otherwise. It didn’t matter that she’d agreed willingly and enthusiastically. She didn’t really understand what she’d been agreeing to.

He couldn’t let it happen.

A great calm swept through him at this final acceptance of something he’d tried to deny for several weeks. He would have to come up with an alternative plan. A highway robbery, perhaps?

The idea brought a wry smile to his lips, and yet it wasn’t an impossible scheme. He didn’t rely totally on Morris’s information for potential quarry. He kept his own ear to the ground as he went about social London, and when he heard of a likely heathward excursion by some rich degenerate, he would be there on the heath to greet him. What was to prevent him from waylaying his twin in such fashion?

Instead of going to Philip’s bed, Octavia would be the bait that would lead Philip to the heath. And on the heath, his twin would be waiting for him.

The idea bubbled, and he knew he would have to leave it to ferment and take its own shape. In the meantime Octavia was upstairs and waiting for him.

He left the library, his step light as he took the stairs two at a time. He arrived in Octavia’s bedroom to find her in her nightgown, gazing in astounded repulsion at the bed.

“Look what Nell’s put there,” she said, gesturing at a hollowed-out wooden board on the pillow. “She assures me that if I put my head carefully on that to sleep, then my coiffure will be barely disturbed and the hairdresser won’t
have to come again for at least three weeks! Three weeks, with this filth in my hair!”

“But, my lady, in my last position my mistress always slept on a wooden pillow,” Nell declared. “Her nightcap covered her coiffure, and it was barely disarranged in the morning.” She sounded thoroughly put out that her foresight was so little appreciated.

Octavia regarded her in some exasperation. She knew that Nell had difficulties with her present mistress’s generally unconventional appearance and considered that it reflected poorly upon herself, as the one responsible for sending Lady Warwick out into the world suitably attired and adorned. Nell’s delight at the powdering ritual this evening had been exceeded only by Octavia’s disgust.

“Nell, you should know by now that I have no intention of maintaining my hair in this fashion a moment longer than necessary. In the morning you shall wash it for me, but for now we will take out the pads and the pins, and you will brush it thoroughly to get the worst out.”

Nell’s mouth screwed into pursed disapproval, but she fetched the silver-backed hairbrush from the dresser.

“That’s all right, Nell. You may leave this with me,” Lord Rupert said, amusement dancing in his eyes. He took the hairbrush from her. “You may go to bed.”

Nell bobbed a curtsy and left in a waft of injured sensibility.

“I had thought you were going to dismiss her as soon as you were unlaced,” Rupert said, sitting in an armchair by the window, regarding Octavia through half-closed lids.

“I’m very tired,” she said, unconsciously stroking her throat. Then the movement reminded her of Philip’s hands around her neck and she stopped.

“Do you mind if we don’t … I mean … I would like to go to sleep,” she finished limply. Never had she turned Rupert from her bed and until this evening she could never have imagined wanting to do so.

“So you shall,” he said evenly. “Bring the ottoman over here and sit down so I can brush your hair.” He gestured to the carpet at his feet.

There was something about her that alarmed him—a dull, fatigued resistance, almost resentment, that he sensed came from deep within her.

A man who carved his way through life with the sheer force of his personality, Rupert could think of only one way to override this strange mood of Octavia’s: with the power of his own will.

Octavia reluctantly pushed the ottoman across the floor with her foot and sat down.

There was silence in the room as Rupert’s hands moved through her hair, tossing aside pins and pads, until the powdered and pomaded mass tumbled to her shoulders.

“How much did you pay the hairdresser this evening?” he asked casually, picking up her brush and drawing it through the sticky locks.

“Five guineas. Why?”

“It probably explains why most people try to keep his work intact for as long as possible,” he observed with a chuckle.

“Are you excusing me of extravagance?” She tried to turn her head to look up at him over her shoulder.

He placed his palm firmly on the top of her head, turning her head forward again. “No, I’m not. I was merely making an observation.”

The brush was coming more freely through her hair now, and despite herself, Octavia began to relax, white powder fluttering over her shoulders to the carpet. Rupert always enjoyed brushing her hair; he made of it a sensual ritual.

Her head bent beneath the rhythmic strokes, the brush stroked the back of her neck, and a wave of lethargy washed through her.

Rupert brushed until her hair fell in a gleaming canopy over her shoulders beneath the white nightgown. He dropped the brush to the floor, and his fingers dug deep and strong into the muscles of her shoulders and along her spine.

“I can’t do this properly over your nightgown,” he
said, his voice sounding unnaturally loud as it broke the languid silence. “Take it off and he on the bed.”

Octavia came out of her trance. She
still
wished to he alone tonight. She didn’t want to be seduced and stroked and persuaded. Not when all she could think of was tomorrow and that Rupert wanted her to sleep with another man.

“I’m very tired, Rupert,” she managed to say, but it didn’t sound as strong as she wanted it to.

“I know you are. Now, do as I say.”

Rebellion stirred, flared, at the cool authority Octavia knew so well. She pushed herself away from his knees so that she was sitting bolt upright on the ottoman. “Rupert, I don’t feel like making love tonight.”

“Did I say anything about making love?” He put his hands beneath her armpits and hoisted her upward. “If you don’t wish to make love, then neither do I, Octavia. It’s not an activity I could enjoy without your pleasure, as I’d have expected you to know by now.”

He was scolding her like an obtuse child even while he pulled her nightgown over her head in one swift movement. “I know you’re tired, and I know you’re wound as tight as a coiled spring. I intend to do something about the latter, so be a good girl and submit gracefully.”

He laughed at her indignant expression. This was familiar territory.

“Go, Octavia.” He turned her toward the bed with an admonitory pat, and when she glared at him over her shoulder, he swung her off the floor and onto the bed.

She bounced upright. “You’re not listening to me. I want to be left alone.”

“What kind of oils or unguents do you have?” he asked calmly, strolling to the dresser. “Something that will lubricate my hands?”

“Lud! What’s the matter with your hands?” she exclaimed in disbelief. She seemed to be losing her rational mind as well as her ability to assert herself. “Are they chapped or something?”

“No, you silly widgeon…. Ah, this should do.” He
picked up an alabaster jar of perfumed oil that Octavia used in her bath.

“What are you going to do?” She was still sitting upright on the bed, wearing nothing but her hair flowing over her shoulders, her tawny eyes no longer tired or dull.

“Boil you in oil, if you’re not cooperative,” Rupert said with a grin, putting the alabaster pot on the bedside table. As she continued to gaze at him in vexed confusion, he began without haste to take off his clothes, placing them neatly on the chaise longue. When he stepped over to the bed, Octavia saw with a shock of bewilderment that he was not in the least aroused.

“I have no desire to stain my clothes with perfumed oil,” he explained cheerfully, taking up the alabaster pot. He made an imperative circular movement with his forefinger. “Lie on your belly.”

“No…. I mean, why?”

“Because you want to go to sleep, so I’m going to help you to sleep,” he explained with an air of exaggerated patience. “However, in the interests of harmony and tranquillity I suggest you don’t oblige me to repeat myself.”

“A plague on you, Rupert Warwick. You’re a … a veritable Visigoth!” Octavia declared, flinging herself onto her stomach with a very poor grace.

“Oh, I wouldn’t say that,” he returned, swinging across her body and sitting firmly on her bottom. “I’m merely somewhat forcefully looking to your comfort. I wouldn’t call that the act of a barbarian.”

“Oh, I would,” Octavia declared into the pillow, clenching her backside in an effort to heave him off.

He merely laughed, settling himself more securely as he poured oil into the palms of his hands. “We’ll see if you think that in a few minutes.”

His hands began to move over her shoulders, the soft perfumed oil smoothing into her skin as his fingers cleverly worked the tight muscles, pushed into her spine and along the column of her neck. Octavia sank into the feather bed, her eyes closing, resistance floating from her.

Rupert smiled to himself, feeling the change in her.
How often had he done this for his mentor during their ramshackle years together? A lifetime of abusing his body with drink and debauchery, of sleeping in damp attics and howling drafts, had reduced old Rupert Warwick in his last years to a mass of aches and pains, plagued with gout and arthritis. Rupert had learned how to give him relief, but working on this slender satin body was a very different experience. And he could see no reason, now that he thought about it, to stop at her neck and shoulders.

His fingers moved down her spine, pressed into the hollows in the small of her back. Octavia groaned, but he could sense no resistance. Inching back so that he sat astride her thighs, he caressed her buttocks, his palms rotating the firm, round cheeks.

He was careful to keep his attentions sensual but not sexual—to avoid the two entrancing dimples low down on the curve of her bottom—and the effort involved in the sacrifice set his blood afire.

He moved down her legs, massaging her thighs, again carefully circumventing the sweet secrets between them. Strong fingers kneaded her calves and the soles of her feet. He could tell she wasn’t asleep by the little ripples running over her skin, although she was limp and formless under his hands.

Octavia was floating, lost in a blissful trance. When his hands turned her onto her back, she was as malleable as clay. She was vaguely aware of his thighs resting lightly now across her own, but his hands were on her face, delicately smoothing over her eyelids, over her cheekbones, her forehead. The smooth, circular movement of his palms caressed her breasts in turn, and then his hands were on her belly, delicate yet firm, sending deep currents of languid pleasure streaming through her veins.

He took her hands and pulled on her fingers; his thumbs pressed hard into her palms, stroked over her wrists, moved upward over the softness of her inner arms.

Vaguely, Octavia knew that she was smiling as she drifted way above her body on some delicious plane of purely self-absorbed pleasure. When he turned her onto her
belly again, she burrowed into the mattress, then felt the length of him measured against her back.

“I have less control than I thought, sweeting,” he whispered against her ear. “Do you mind?”

“No,” she mumbled into the pillow. “Come.” Her thighs parted to accommodate him, and he slipped his hands beneath her belly, lifting her onto the shelf of his palms as he slid within.

Octavia’s smile of languid pleasure grew as his flesh massaged her inner body as skillfully as he’d handled the rest of her. And the warm wash of bliss that flooded her veins brought an overwhelming peace and gratitude that swept away the dull miseries of fear and resentment. There was no longer a lonely future to imagine—only this glorious physical present.

She was asleep almost before he left her body, and Rupert lay beside her, listening to her deep, even breathing in the silence of the house. His hand, heavy with his own relaxation, rested in the small of her back. He would find a way through this tangle. He would achieve his object, but he would not sacrifice Octavia to do it.