“You know there are no dragons, so your offer is quite meaningless.”
“You are a hard woman to satisfy,” he said, then immediately added, his tone wicked, “No, I didn’t mean that at all.” She slammed him in the stomach with her fist. He grunted obligingly. “What I meant, dear one, was that I shall have to come up with another daring deed that will prove my abject sincerity.”
“Abject sincerity?”
His inexhaustible supply of good humor and his easy wit were wearing her down. He knew it, of course. She knew that he knew it, curse him.
“I’m fatigued,” she said, on a big yawn.
“Let’s nap together, all right? I always wanted to sleep in that grand bed. As boys, Damien and I weren’t allowed in here. I’ll wager that bed is raised a good three feet off the floor. Shall we close the draperies at night?”
She was on the point of telling him that the evening air was quite healthy, when she realized he’d offered her complete and utter darkness to hide in.
“Yes, I should like that very much. It will be like we are the only two people on earth.”
He listened to the brightness of her voice, and quickly realized that he’d offered her a way around his seeing her body. And her ugliness. He sighed. He couldn’t very well retract now. It was all becoming too ridiculous. He wondered if the kitchen at Drago Hall were ever emptied of servants. The kitchen floor at Honeycutt Cottage had made him sing hallelujahs.
“Dinner is at six o’clock, if I remember rightly.”
“You remember. We dress for dinner. Elaine insists upon it.”
“Wear your peach silk, Victoria. You look more edible than a strawberry tart.”
“Tart.” She sent her fist into his stomach again, but he was laughing so hard he didn’t grunt for her.
He was wiping his eyes, still chuckling. “Shall I help you with that gown, Victoria?”
“Yes, please.” It was one that Lucia had chosen, assuming that she would have a maid, which she didn’t, nor did she expect to have one now.
She felt his warm hands on her, and responded quickly. Would it always be like this? she wondered, and devoutly prayed it would be. She held herself perfectly still.
She walked quickly to the painted Indian screen in the far corner of the mammoth bedchamber, a magnificent piece brought from Ceylon by a great-great uncle, and eased off her traveling gown. She peeked about the edge of the screen. “Rafael, could you please hand me my dressing gown? It’s on the bed.”
Some ten minutes later they lay together on the huge bed. Rafael yawned. “Come here and let me hug you. It’s been far too long.”
It sounded a fine idea, and she complied. It had been too long, since last night. Much too long.
She fell asleep with her head on his shoulder, her palm over his heart.
16
I am the very pink of courtesy.
—SHAKESPEARE
Victoria was being warm, excessively polite, and altogether adorable, Rafael thought as he listened to her wax enthusiastic about the wonders of the Pewter Room, an innocuous enough topic to pursue while the servants were serving dinner. “So utterly magnificent,” she finished, eyeing the very generous helping of red mullet Jeffrey had given her.
Rafael was watching Damien’s face while she spoke, but his twin’s expression remained that of a mildly interested host.
“More wine, sir?”
Rafael nodded and said nothing until the footman, Jeffrey, had resumed his post by the dining room’s double doors.
“I do wonder, brother,” Rafael said at last, “why you honored my wife and me with such splendid lodgings. Remember as boys we got hided once for tracking mud onto the carpet?”
“And told—rather, ordered—never to set our grubby feet in that room again. Yes, I remember quite well. As for giving you and Victoria that room, why not? I trust you no longer have grubby feet or hands?”
“Upon occasion, but I shall be on my best behavior.” Rafael turned to Elaine and continued smoothly, “I look forward to meeting my niece.”
“How unusual,” Elaine said, and helped herself to a crimped salmon with hollandaise sauce.
“Why?” Rafael’s black brow shot up a good inch.
“Gentlemen don’t particularly wish to be bothered with children.” She looked down at the expanse of table toward Damien. “Particularly little girl children.”
“Damaris is fine,” Damien said easily. “And soon she will have a little brother to play with.”
“And your precious heir for Drago Hall,” Elaine added, and Victoria thought she heard a touch of bitterness in her cousin’s voice. But why? Any man with property and a title to pass on must have an heir.
“Why, certainly,” said Damien easily. Conversation died. Victoria could think of nothing at all scintillating to say, so she merely kept her head down and continued chewing on her red mullet and her ris de veau aux tomates.
She raised her eyes after a few moments and saw that Damien was looking at her. He made her very aware that her shoulders were bare and her breasts were pushed up high, with only a confection of fine blonde lace keeping her bosom in place. Rafael, who’d assisted her to dress for dinner, had told her she looked delicious as creamy blancmange, since she didn’t appear to care for comparisons having to do with tarts. She’d fashioned her hair on top of her head, threaded a pale peach ribbon through the curls, and brushed two thick curls over her shoulder. She thought she looked well enough and was pleased. Pleased until they’d joined Damien and Elaine in the drawing room and Damien had looked at her as if she were naked. She stuck close to Rafael’s side, but if he wondered at her sudden and uncommon wifely clinging, he made no comment.
Victoria tried to keep her face expressionless and merely nodded toward Damien. Dinner continued with haunch of venison, boiled capon, oysters, and green peas.
Damien gave a nod, and the servants silently left the dining room.
“This room is positively medieval,” Rafael said, eyeing the heavy dark furnishing that filled the long, rather narrow room. Dark wainscoting climbed up three walls, and one could easily imagine flambeaux with rushlight torches on the walls rather than the modern classic, elegant chandelier above the mahogany table.
Elaine merely nodded to Rafael, then said without preamble to Victoria, “You look different.”
“It’s the gown. I am no longer wearing schoolgirl clothes. Lady Lucia picked it out for me.”
“I was under the impression when you were here that you wished to wear schoolgirl clothes, as you call them.”
“Elaine, my clothes were fine, really. It’s just that Lady Lucia believed I should wear different materials and styles, since I was no longer so young.”
“Who, pray, is Lady Lucia?”
“I spent my time in London with her. I stayed at her town house. She’s a grand old lady.”
“I’ve never heard of Lady Lucia,” Elaine said. “Why ever would she take you in?”
“Lady Lucia took Victoria in because I asked her to,” Rafael said mildly. “She’s always had a great deal of fondness for me,” he lied with the smoothness of a swindler of the first order. “Of course she quickly came to great fondness for Victoria as well. She stayed with Lucia until we were wed, as Damien knows.”
Elaine’s eyes flew to her husband. He was eating with single-minded concentration, seemingly ignoring the conversation at his table.
“Damien? You knew?”
So, Victoria thought, Elaine knows nothing of his perfidy. She waited, peas poised on her fork tines, to see what he would say.
“Yes, my dear. I wasn’t able to attend the small wedding, but I was present afterward. To give my best wishes to the bride and groom, of course. Indeed, it was incumbent upon me, as Victoria’s guardian, to give my brother permission to wed her.”
“Of course,” said Rafael.
Gentlemen, Victoria thought again. Why, they’d nearly come to blows.
“You know, brother,” Rafael said as he g
ently ran his fingertip along the crystal edge of his wineglass, “as a wedding present, would you consider giving us a ball? That way Victoria could see all her neighbors and friends, and I could renew old acquaintances. Five years is a long time, and it would take me an age were I forced to make morning calls.”
Elaine lost her belligerent look in an instant and exclaimed, “Oh, yes, Damien. That would be grand. We haven’t had a ball since—”
“—since the night before Victoria so precipitately left Drago Hall,” Damien finished, never batting an eye. “And she didn’t have the opportunity to attend that one.”
“But she couldn’t. I told you that she wouldn’t want to. After all, she is quite—”
“No, my dear, she isn’t at all. I don’t believe she cared for the ball gown I selected for her. Did you, Victoria?”
Rafael hadn’t been paying too much attention, but he was now. Victoria was quite what? What he saw at that moment was that his wife was quite without color. He assumed it was because of Damien’s ill-disguised attempts to embarrass her. He would give his twin a new direction for his thoughts, on the morrow.
“I had decided to leave,” Victoria said at last. “I didn’t want to be distracted with a ball.”
“The gown is still in your closet, I believe,” Elaine said. “A ball. I think it an excellent idea, Damien. You wouldn’t wish to be at all backward in your attentions.”
“Not at all. I agree. When would you wish to plan this evening of dissipation?”
“Next Friday, perhaps?” Rafael said.
Victoria looked toward Elaine, expecting her to shout out “lame and ugly leg” at any minute. But Elaine was still looking at Damien. She said at last, “Yes, I believe we could manage. Ligger will marshal the servants like a field general. He dearly loves to entertain, you know,” she added to Rafael.
Victoria was vastly relieved at Elaine’s reticence. She could dance without her leg collapsing under her, just not at great length. She asked her husband, “Are you a good dancer, Rafael?”
“Excellent,” he said. He leaned close to her and added, “Not as excellent a dancer as a lover, but close, Victoria, quite close. Dancing with me will provide you pleasure, just not the same sort as I give you in bed . . . or on the kitchen floor.”
She opened her mouth, snapped it closed, and clutched her fork in a death grip. “You will stop that,” she said, wishing she could smack that white-toothed smile off his face. “You are wicked as Satan. All you need is a forked tail and no one would doubt your identity even if you smiled that beautiful smile of yours.”
He gave a shout of laughter. “Satan, huh? Only I am firmly of this earth, Victoria, and all its earthly delights. What could be more delightful than a very responsive, very passionate wife? Now, about this tail business—”
“What are you saying?”
“Nothing of any particular interest, Elaine,” Rafael said easily, straightening back up in his chair. “Victoria agrees that Friday next would be charming.”
“I believe Victoria and I will excuse ourselves now, gentlemen.” With those few words Elaine rose and looked pointedly at Victoria. Victoria wanted to tell her that she was still hungry, but she dutifully followed her cousin from the dining room.
In the huge entryway, beside a rusted suit of Flemish armor, Victoria said lightly, “Ligger will be upset that you didn’t wait for him to pull back your chair, Elaine. Remember how he gave you those looks when we first came to Drago Hall?”
“I didn’t wish to wait any longer.” She gave Victoria a look that could only be described as contemptuous and said, “It appeared that your husband was ready to toss up your skirts right there. I didn’t wish to be witness to any further improper behavior. On second thought, I think you would have unfastened his breeches without a by-your-leave.”
Victoria stared at her, stunned.
“Oh, yes, I can imagine what you do with him. I imagine he uses you in unnatural and—”
“You will be quiet. You are a silly prig.” Victoria felt washed clean as the words left her mouth. Finally she’d said exactly what she wanted to. She held her head high and marched into the drawing room, her heels clicking loudly on the black marble tile. If she thought she’d done her cousin in, she was soon to be shown her mistake.
“Don’t think you can return here and try to seduce my husband again.”
Victoria closed her eyes a moment. She’d never heard Elaine speak in such a low, dangerous tone. So she had guessed. Thus the reason for her attacks. Why not tell Elaine the truth of the matter? She shook her head. She’d always heard that pregnant women should be spared unpleasantness. It could cause miscarriages and other dire results. To relieve her own spleen simply wasn’t worth the possible consequences.
“Elaine,” she said instead as she slowly turned to face her cousin, “I don’t even like Damien, at least as nothing more than a brother-in-law. Why do you say that?’
“Of course you like him. You married a man who is his very image. You couldn’t have Damien, so you settled for his twin. It is all very obvious to me, Victoria.”
“I married Rafael despite the fact that he and Damien are mirror images. You are being ridiculous, Elaine. I’m not lying, you know. Oh, no more, please. Won’t you play the pianoforte for me? I haven’t heard anyone who plays as well as you since I left.”
“Even you must realize that Rafael married you only for your money. And we know well why you married him. God, I wish you hadn’t come back.” When Victoria said nothing, Elaine gave her white shoulders a petulant shrug and strode like a small ship with a heavy cargo to the pianoforte in the corner of the drawing room.
She was playing Mozart’s C Major sonata when the gentlemen came in. Rafael paused, clearly startled. He had expected Elaine to be inept in all things, accomplished primarily in gossip and pettiness. She played beautifully. That would teach him, he thought, to make snap judgments about people. He sat beside his wife and took her hand in his and laid it on his thigh.
He whispered in her ear, “How many more nights am I to be celibate?”
He sighed, raised his left hand, and began to count off on his fingers.
Elaine executed a brilliant arpeggio and crashed down on a final chord.
“Two,” Rafael said, and clapped with great enthusiasm.
“That was beautiful, Elaine,” Victoria called out. “Please, play one of your French ballads.”
Elaine sang too, and Rafael found himself again surprised. Her voice was clear and strong. He watched his brother stroll to the piano and join his wife, his own tenor voice as melodious as hers.
“Are you also talented?” Victoria asked her husband.
“No, I sound like a rusty wheel.”
“So, you get ill riding in a closed carriage and you have no musical talent. I’m beginning to wonder about the wisdom of my bargain, Rafael.”
“Unfortunately I’m constrained to wait to prove to you that your decision to wed me is the wisest one you will ever make.”
“They are really quite good together,” Victoria said, ignoring him. Bitterness crept into her voice. “If Damien would but realize it.”
“I don’t care, but he will realize soon enough that he can’t have you.”
Victoria believed him. “He must realize that he will have to leave me alone now. Besides,” she added, her voice hardening, “I’m no longer a young virgin to be victimized. Surely he can’t still be interested.”
“I would be,” Rafael said, his voice as serious as she’d ever heard. “What the devil does virginity have to do with anything? Actually, discovering you were a virgin was frightening. I was concerned about hurting you. No, very little fun at all.”
“Bosh. I don’t believe you. Had I not been a virgin, you would have berated me until I was deaf, then sent me to a moldering estate in Northumberland.”
“Along with some chicken blood,” he said.
“It’s not amusing, Rafael.”
“All right, a bit of wh
at you said does have a small grain of truth, but the theory is valid, I swear. Now, truly, Victoria, all I have to do is look at you and I want you. It’s amazing, really. I’ve never felt anything like it in all my blighted years.”
Victoria didn’t believe him. She turned her attention back to Damien and Elaine.
The Ram was pleased. He sat a bit apart from his acolytes, a term he dared not use in front of the eight men. They were all sitting near to the fireplace, snifters of brandy warming between their hands, and their male bodies were well sated. All of them thought they were so very wicked, carrying on in the black of night, the Ram thought, garbed in their black capes and black hoods. But not one of them had asked why the girl wasn’t wide awake during her woman’s offering, as the Ram had named this ritual.
No, they’d simply taken their turns, plowed her thoroughly, and now perhaps they would consent to whatever he, the Ram, wished them to do. His surprise had pleased them, of that there could be no doubt. It was a pity, though, that the girl couldn’t have been procured in the same very proper way as the others. It could prove to be a bother. Possibly.
But who would believe a fourteen-year-old girl? Who would pay any attention to a girl’s mother who had no husband and no sons?
The Ram dismissed the group. Their next meeting would be All Hallows’ night. Johnny laughed and jested about flying a broom to the hunting lodge. Vincent wondered if he should bring a caldron and three witches. Let them laugh, the Ram thought. It was a ritual he was teaching them, and they would attend him. Yes, they would. They went with wide yawns, and he could imagine their disinterest in the girl who lay sprawled spread-eagled on the oak table.
Of course he had taught them that she was a vessel, nothing more. An unconscious vessel. He would have preferred that she be awake during her initiation, but what was done was done. He didn’t wish to, but he bathed the blood and seed from her and dressed her again.
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