Virtue and Vice (32 page)

Forcing the maudlin thoughts away, Izzy moved carefully, listening for any change in the pattern of Belinda’s breathing that might indicate she were awake. It had always been a lucky happenstance her cousin slept like the dead.

On silent feet, she slipped into a dark blue taffeta gown suitable for mourning. She fastened her sapphires in her ears, leaving off the matching necklace that was too bright for this time of grief; both the court’s and her own. ‘Twas silly, she knew it was, but somehow, wearing the earrings Ram had bought for her in better times made her feel closer to him. She bundled the rest of her belongings into her small bag, and tiptoed down the stairs. The carriage had indeed returned in the middle of the night, and Thomas saw nothing untoward at her request to have it brought round.

She would go to White Hall as planned, but she would not go to Eric. She would take the carriage to Portsmouth and book passage to Fowey. At Portsmouth she’d send the carriage back. Belinda’s departure would be delayed only by a few hours.

The driver was hesitant when she gave him her destination and all but balked at taking her to White Hall. She assured Laurence he could await her beyond the Holbein gate, then, with a deep breath, she entered the ancient complex.

Never had she seen the streets around White Hall so empty. What traffic that existed raced against each other to make it out. Inside, she saw very few people aside from palace servants. The maze and hallway of the buildings were deserted. An anxious steward stepped into her path and attempted to dissuade her from entering St. James, but nothing would stop her now. The steward washed his hands of her with a mumbled comment about Bedlam, and Izzy proceeded unimpeded into the warren of hallways that were the domains of the courtiers.

As her eyes adjusted to the dimness that pervaded the hallways, her feet unerringly followed the path of what she knew from her previous visit to court were Paul’s’ private chambers. Apparently the servants had fled as well, for piles of linen were stacked in doorways and the hall lanterns remained unlit. Doubt assailed her for the first time since she’d embarked upon this crusade. Perhaps this wasn’t her wisest decision, after all. Oh, well. She need only add it to the incredibly long list of foolish decisions she’d already made in recent weeks. What was one more?

Relief swamped her as she reached Paul’s chambers through the maze of hallways, and heard his voice coming from the other side of the portal. Rapping softly upon the door, it was torn open almost violently before her face.

“Louisa, that better be you,” Paul growled. “We need to leave here at once.” He stopped short, surprise coloring his features. “Izzy? What the devil are you doing here? Get inside right away, it’s not safe out there.” He seemed agitated, his face very flushed, with irritation or impatience, she couldn’t tell.

Louisa
? Was he waiting for Ram’s ex-mistress? For a moment her mind wandered. Had Ram gone to Louisa last night? Would he make her his mistress once more? The crushing pain returned again.

Paul’s hand wrapped about her upper arm as he hauled her into his room. A very harried and disgruntled valet looked up at her entrance, then, muttering to himself, left the room through another door, one she assumed to be the wardrobe, to lend them privacy.

“Why have you come here?”

“I must speak with you. ‘Tis urgent.”

“More urgent than a contagion that could kill us all, you little twit?”

He’d never spoken to her in such a manner before. Taken aback, she tried diplomacy.

“I came to assure myself you had left London for your own safety. Why haven’t you departed yet? Where will you go?”

He sneered. “Back to Somerset, to rely on the goodwill and generosity of distant relatives, as I still have not a pot to piss in.”

She flinched at the vulgarity of his words. “Before you leave, there’s something you must know. About Ram.”

“Ah. So your reasons for coming here are, after all, selfishly motivated.”

For a moment, she faltered. What if Paul proposed marriage when she told him everything? She could say yes, leave with him, have someplace to belong. She still cared for him.

Nay. It would be the easiest thing to do, to use Paul like that, but easy didn’t equal right. How would she let him down, after he’d tried so hard to help?

“Aye. Nay. Paul. Of course I’m concerned for you. But there’s something else. You don’t have to tell Ram’s father what you know. I beg you not to. Ram wants to annul our marriage. There’s no reason now to tell his father about Ram’ secret.”

His eyes narrowed as he studied her. “You must be so pleased.”

She swallowed hard, past the lump in her throat that seemed to be a permanent feature. “To be honest, I’m not pleased. Not at all.”

Paul stared for a moment, his eyes roving over her from the top of her head to her feet, and then back again. “You’re in love with him.” It was a statement, not a question.

The last thing she wanted was to hurt Paul with the truth. “I cannot bear to see him hurt this way, not through his relationship with his father.”

“But you said he was going forward with the annulment. Why do you care?”

Because I do love him.
“Because he’s a good man and he doesn’t deserve to have his family life torn to shreds because of me.”

Paul’s intense stare made her uncomfortable.

“Oh, Izzy, it was never about you and your precious annulment. I am destitute, don’t you realize that? The war destroyed all that my family once was. And the secret you shared with me is just what I need to regain some of what was lost fighting the royal cause, since Charles can’t or won’t replace it.”

She gasped, suddenly unable to draw enough air to fill her lungs. “You mean Ram was right? You didn’t do this for me? You really blackmailed him only for money?”

“For you?” He crowed with laughter. “The only use I’ve ever had for you, Izzy, is in my bed! Even if you were unmarried, your father had no dowry for you. It would have been pointless to consider marriage to you.”

She heard the words he spoke, but her mind rejected them. He couldn’t be speaking true! She’d waited so long for him to return and marry her. “You never planned to wed me? What about the promises you extracted, begging me to await your return?”

He snorted inelegantly. “I was asking you to wait to let me make you my mistress before some other man took the opportunity.”

She gasped in shock. “You
never
desired to marry me?”

“I desired you in my bed, Izzy. Isn’t that enough?”

“Enough? I loved you! Do you truly believe I would have been content to be nothing but your mistress?” She threw her hands in the air. “I’ve thrown my marriage away because of those promises and what I thought were my deep feelings for you, and yours for me.”

“It’s not my fault if you were too naïve to understand my meaning. I never told you we would wed, I never declared my intentions to your father or promised I would. You should have known.”

“I was but eighteen years old! And you knew I believed you intended to marry me!”

He shrugged.

It was as if something physically snapped inside of her.

She launched herself at him, pummeling his chest with blows, sobbing harshly, hoping against hope a well aimed punch might make her feel...something. She wanted him to hurt as she was hurting, both for his cruel rejection and for his hand in the destruction of her marriage to Ram out of naught more than greed.

“Cease this!” Cursing, he grabbed her arms, pinning them to her side. “So I was correct? You are no longer in favor of an annulment?”

When she didn’t answer, he shook her roughly. “Answer me.”

She blinked back tears. Izzy didn’t know the man before her, not at all, and yet she’d wasted so much on him. “Nay. I’d do anything to stop it. But it’s too late, thanks to you. Ram will not pay you the money you demanded and will instead face the wrath of his father. And, since he thinks I colluded with you in your blackmail, he cast me out.”

“Ah, poor thwarted Izzy.” He laughed. Of all the horrendous things he could do in the face of her grief, his laughter told her more than words exactly how he felt about her. He’d never even truly been her friend, though she’d poured her heart out to him as if he was, so many times. The tender feelings she’d held for him for so long began to wither, and bitterness consumed her. How could she have been such a fool not to see what everyone else had seen so clearly?

She tried to jerk away from his grip, but his fingers tightened around her arms. Panic began to rise. She didn’t like the speculative way he suddenly eyed her, or the way his color heightened. “You might not be able to change his mind about an annulment, but you could change
my mind
about telling his father Royston’s secrets.” His voice turned husky.

Hope breathed to life in her chest like a barely lit ember, warring with suspicion. “How?”

“You pay me five thousand quid, and I’ll forget everything I know about your husband’s royalist sympathies.

Five thousand pounds? Where on Earth will I get that kind of money?

The answer came immediately. She would return to Cornwall, collect the most valuable gowns and jewels she had left, and sell them. And she would think of a way to make up the difference. Somehow, she would raise the exorbitant sum he demanded.

“I have one more condition, my sweet.” His hand slid down her arm, then up her side to cup the curve of her breast. It took every ounce of willpower not to shudder in revulsion. “You will share my bed, as you should have done years ago.”

She recoiled from his outrageous demand and opened her mouth to voice a protest, but it died on her lips. There would be no talking him out of this. He felt
entitled
to her for some reason. Some instinct screamed that it had more to do with Ram then with her. First he had made a conquest of Ram’s ex-mistress, now he wanted Ram’s wife. Paul had pitted himself in a one-sided competition with her husband, one he could never hope to win, although she’d never tell him so. The man she’d thought she’d known for so many years didn’t exist, and the man before her was unstable and surely a bit demented.

In the end, Paul’s reasons for wanting her in his bed didn’t matter. She’d told him about the wonderful thing Ram had done during the war and now, because of her, Ram’s relationship with his father was in jeopardy. She had to meet Paul’s demands because she had to undo the damage she caused, no matter the cost, or she’d never be able to live with herself. And who else would suffer, but she? Ram would never find out, and even if he did it couldn’t hurt him anymore; their marriage was over, he despised her, and with good cause. He certainly no longer cared about whom she did or did not go to bed with.

Even still, a chill crawled across her flesh as she nodded, feeling like she’d just made a pact with the Devil. She was trading her body for his silence. He would turn her into a whore in truth. The only thing she could do was try to put the reckoning off for as long as possible. “I agree to your terms, my lord. But not at court, not now. I need go to Cornwall to get you your funds, and there is a contagion here. My parents will not be in the country with me. Come to Cornwall in a fortnight and I’ll have your money, and the other part of your bargain shall be met as well.”

His eyes kindled. “I look most forward to it. But I fear I must insist upon a down payment before we part ways. A demonstration of your good faith, if you will.”

“But I don’t have any”-

Before she could stop him, he snatched one of the sapphires from her ear. “I’ll take this to seal the first part of our agreement.”

Izzy crushed the urge to protest. The earring had been a wedding gift from Ram and the only tangible thing she had from her time with him that held any true meaning, for he’d picked them for her before their wedding day himself, when he’d still been Julian to her. But what difference did it make? She’d have to sell the earrings and the necklace to raise Paul’s money, anyway.

Without warning, he pulled her flush against him. “And this will serve to heighten your anticipation for the second part of our agreement.”

He smashed his mouth over hers. She struggled to keep bile from rising in her throat as his moist tongue prodded against her lips, seeking entry. She had to do this, for Ram’s sake. Gathering her control with a deep breath, she opened to him, accepting his tongue inside her mouth.

His hands grasped her backside, cupping her, pressing her against the erection evident through his breeches. The fingers of his right hand inched down to the full skirt of her gown and began lifting, until his hand could caress the sensitive skin of her inner thigh. Instead of the shivery, pleasurable sensation that enthralled her when Ram touched her, nausea assailed her.

His left hand gripped her wrist, which she’d kept firmly planted to her side, and dragged her hand to the bulge in his breeches, pressing her palm against him. She took the cue and stroked him through the fabric.

Beneath her skirt, his fingers moved swiftly. Summoning every ounce of willpower she possessed, she suppressed a shudder of revulsion as he stroked the dry flesh between her legs. Moaning against her mouth, his fingers prodded her most sensitive skin, then thrust inside her, rudely. Her lack of desire left her unready, and his invasion was uncomfortable and even painful.