“Well, there is still the unresolved puzzle over your malformed toe.”
“Oh, I see Mr. Rinsey coming and he’s still perspiring profusely. Poor man, what will you tell him?”
“The man has excellent timing,” Rafael said, “at least for you.”
Rafael, with a wink to Victoria, left her a moment to speak to Mr. Rinsey. He made an offer on the property. Mr. Rinsey, mopping his perspiring brow with a fine linen handkerchief, said he would visit with the Demoreton family on the morrow and give them Captain Carstairs’s offer. “They are currently living in Newquay. If I may venture to say so, Captain Carstairs, my feeling is that they will accept. You and your wife are still at Drago Hall?”
Given the affirmative and a firm handshake, Mr. Rinsey took his leave. As they walked back to their carriage, Rafael said, “Like that first De Moreton, perhaps we also will begin a dynasty that will endure hundreds of years.”
“You are a very grand thinker. A dynasty.”
“Indeed. That will require your cooperation, of course, and your, er, fertility.”
She poked him in the ribs, then tickled him, but his lecherous grin never slipped.
It very quickly became obvious to Victoria that Rafael was anxious to return to St. Austell and Drago Hall. They took their leave of the property after Flash, who hadn’t waited to have his opinion asked, told Rafael that he approved of the cove’s roost a long as Rafael didn’t insist that he, Flash, remain here with him for more than six months out of the year.
“A Proserpine arrangement,” Victoria said, grinning.
As that sounded like a poisonous sort of foreign snake to Flash, he immediately said that was the furthest thing from his mind.
At least, Victoria thought that evening when they at last reached Drago Hall at ten o’clock, we will be sleeping in our darkened nest again. Only Ligger was up to greet them. Rafael quickly dismissed him, and taking Victoria’s arm, assisted her upstairs.
“You’re exhausted,” he said as they climbed the staircase. He sounded worried, which surprised her. She didn’t realize that there were shadows beneath her eyes and that her face was as pale as Cook’s clabbered milk. Flash had set a brisk pace, and her stomach, none too pleased with a lunch of cold beef and dressed cucumber, had rebelled.
“And no,” he added, a slight smile creasing his lips, “I won’t let you have your way with me tonight. Tomorrow morning, however—well, that’s an entirely different matter.”
That sounded a fine plan to Victoria. Only Rafael didn’t know that Victoria had no intention of allowing him to strip her and love her in full daylight.
If Rafael was at all angered by her early-morning defection, he gave no hint of it. Indeed, he spent little time with her the following day.
Victoria polished silver under Ligger’s benign direction, assisted with floral arrangements, helped the footman carry a potted palm into the ballroom, and made three trips into St. Austell for immediate necessities, those items deemed by Elaine to be of premier importance.
On her third trip into St. Austell, this one made on Toddy’s back, she saw Rafael coming from Dr. Ludcott’s house on Raymond Street. What the devil was he doing there? Was he ill? Her forehead creased with worry. She approached him a few minutes later, waving wildly to get his attention.
His look of abstraction was replaced by an expression of chagrin at the unexpected sight of her, immediately becoming a wolfish welcome. “You look lovely, Victoria. Elaine isn’t working you too hard, is she?”
“Not at all. Why were you visiting Dr. Ludcott? You’re not ill, are you?”
He looked suitably surprised and Victoria relaxed. Then he looked evasive. She quickly held up her hand. “No, if you’re not going to tell me the truth, don’t bother making up an elaborate tale.”
“It wouldn’t be all that elaborate,” he said. “I’m only a man, after all.”
“Very well, it doubtless concerns this Hellfire Club business, and poor Joan Newdowns’ rape. Now, which gown shall I wear to the ball?”
“The rich cream silk,” he said without hesitation. “You look wonderful in it . . . and yes, it does— but I don’t wish to speak of it, all right?”
“All right,” she agreed on a sigh.
“What are you doing here?”
“Another errand for Elaine. I’m to see the caterer, Mrs. Cutmere.”
They parted company, and Victoria looked over her shoulder to see Rafael stroll into the Gribbin Head Inn. Perhaps he simply wanted to catch up on local gossip, certainly all the loquacious fellows in St. Austell could be found in the Gribbin Head, but that didn’t seem at all likely. Oh, no, her husband had much more in his kettle than just plain water. Much more.
That evening Victoria had no need to worry about anything. Rafael was so very hungry for her that no sooner had they enclosed themselves in the huge bed than he was yanking up her nightgown, his hands and mouth frantic and urgent on her body and mouth. Her own need was just as great and their mating was wild and quickly done. She did remember, however, to put her nightgown back on before she fell asleep in her husband’s arms.
And, of course, she was up before him the following morning. It was Friday, the day of the ball. Hectic, bordering on bedlam, she was to think many times during the day.
At precisely seven o’clock that evening she was gowned at last and sitting in front of her dressing table.
“You look exquisite.”
Victoria looked at her husband’s reflection in her mirror. He himself looked beautiful, she thought, and said it aloud. He leaned over and kissed her shoulders. “All mine,” he said, more to himself than to her, his eyes intent on her shoulders. “Cream silk and white velvet. Now don’t move. I have something for you”
He drew a pink-velvet-lined box from his pocket and handed it to her.
Slowly Victoria opened the jeweler’s box. It was a string of beautifully matched pearls, nearly as pink as the velvet upon which they lay. She sucked in her breath. “Oh.”
“Lovely with the cream silk, don’t you think?”
“I’ve never seen anything so beautiful. I’ve never even owned any jewelry save the broach and ring my mother left me.”
Her matter-of-fact words made him close his eyes a moment. He felt his guts twist with anger at Damien and Elaine, and tenderness. Nonsense, he told himself, and said quickly, his voice as leering as his expression was now, “Equally as lovely with your white-velvet hide, I think.”
“You’re dealing in fantasy now, Rafael. White velvet, indeed.”
He merely smiled and fastened the pearls about her neck. She stared at herself, then at him and his intent expression. He was such a beautiful man, warm and giving, not cruel like his brother.
“Thank you,” she said. “Thank you very much.”
“You, my beautiful bride, will be the most enviable lady at this blasted ball.”
“What you really mean to say is that the other ladies will want to tear my hair out once they see you.”
“You think so?” He was preening at the thought, and she laughed at him.
But what he was really thinking as he walked beside her down the wide staircase was how easily he would manage to be mistaken for his twin.
19
I will find you twenty lascivious turtles ere one chaste man.
—SHAKESPEARE
Johnny Tregonnet, a wastrel and a greedy little snitch since the age of eight years old, tossed down his third glass of brandy and slapped Rafael on the shoulder one more time.
“So long, old fellow! Glad you’re home, yes, indeed. Another brandy!”
Rafael had no doubt that Johnny was just the sort of fool to be involved with the Hellfire Club riffraff. Yes, just the sort of bastard to rape children, he added to himself, thinking of poor little Joan Newdowns.
“God, I can’t believe you two! It’s like looking in a bloody mirror.” Johnny glanced swiftly from Rafael to Damien, who stood some twenty feet away speaking to another young aspiring rake
, Charles St. Clement, whose father was a dour, overly stern magistrate.
“I suppose you and Damien are much alike in other ways, huh, Rafe?”
Rafael had always hated the shortening of his name, but he didn’t bother to correct Johnny. He was far too interested in the lecherous tone to discourage his prey. “What do you mean, Johnny? The, ah, ladies?”
Johnny Tregonnet went off on a shout of laughter. “Ladies,” he gasped, nearly choking on his hilarity. “Ladies! Ha, different kinds of petticoats, I tell you. Just because we’re stuck here in Cornwall, Rafael, it doesn’t mean there aren’t enough pleasures for us, I can tell you.”
“Certainly I enjoy all sorts of females,” Rafael said easily, hoping Johnny would keep chatting.
“Of course, you just got yourself leg-shackled. Now, Victoria is quite a little looker, that’s for certain. Keep a husband home at night, she would. David wanted her, if I remember aright, but then nothing came of it.” Johnny paused a moment, swishing the brandy in its snifter. “I remember David muttering that he’d never trust another woman, that they were all . . . Well, never you mind. I suppose that doesn’t matter in the least now.”
Rafael devoutly hoped that Johnny’s mouth wouldn’t lead him to say something so insulting about Victoria that he wouldn’t be able to ignore it. Then he would be forced to kill the fool, or at the very least beat him to a bloody pulp.
“No,” Rafael said, “it doesn’t matter.” What had he meant about David and his distrust of all women?
Fortunately, Johnny, in his twenty-five years, had honed his sense of self-preservation.
“About these other, er, diversions. I suppose you’re probably not interested for a while, huh?”
“One never knows, does one?” Rafael said blandly. “A man is a man, isn’t he? If he isn’t interested, he’s dead or too old to do anything about it.” He clapped Johnny on the back this time, and strolled off. He’d give old Johnny an hour to consume another three brandies, then give him another opportunity to be indiscreet. Perhaps just one more brandy would be sufficient; he could hear Johnny giggling at what he’d said.
Victoria smiled and chatted with friends and neighbors, gracefully accepting congratulations on her marriage and ignoring some covert glances at her waistline by several sly matrons, all the while watching her husband as he greeted young men he hadn’t seen in years. But she realized there was more to it than simply reacquainting himself. He was spending his time with the worst of the lot, and not nice young men like Richard Porthtowan, for example, or Timothy Botelet. Surely he would have known them as a boy, spent time with them, and not with such dissolute wastrels as Paul Keason and Johnny Tregonnet.
David Esterbridge swam into her ken for the first time that evening, eyed her stiffly, and muttered, “I suppose I should dance with you. It would be rude not to.”
Victoria would have much liked to laugh in his sullen face, but she forced herself to say with just a bit of irony, “I’ll wager that your father sent you over to do your duty.”
David shrugged, not bothering to deny it. “Yes, he’s a stickler for what’s proper, and you are Elaine’s cousin, after all.”
Victoria looked over at Squire Esterbridge, who was standing alone for the moment, and she smiled at him. He was regarding her intently, and nodded, and she wondered what he was thinking. She had known him since she had come to Drago Hall five years before, and he’d always showed kindness to her. He also held David in firm tow, she knew, still, despite David’s twenty-three years. The squire was a smallish man, slight, balding on the very top of his head. His eyes, though, were as intense and vivid as they must have been in his youth—a bright moss green, slightly tilted up at the corners.
David added, his voice waspish as he saw the direction of her attention, “I see you married the other Carstairs.”
“It appears so,” she said, waving toward the squire before turning back to David.
“Why? Because he looks like your damned lover?”
“No.”
“Are you pregnant? Do both of them share you now, Victoria?”
“No and no.”
He looked ready to spit. “God, how could I be so wrong about you? You don’t even bother to deny it.”
It was difficult, but Victoria didn’t slap him hard. “Didn’t I just say no and no? Deny what, David? Deny that you have a foul mind? Deny that you have an equally foul and mean mouth? Of course, that would be impossible to deny.”
“Curse you, Victoria. Oh, the devil. I might as well dance with you now. My father’s giving me one of his damned looks, and I’d never hear the end of it if—”
Her smile never faltered, but it grew more obviously a mockery. “You are such a useless ass, David,” she smoothly interrupted him. She gave him a small, insolent wave of her hand. “and a complete fool, of course.” She turned on her heel and walked away.
He stared after her, his lips thinning in fury. The damned little trollop. No longer was she interested in him. He would have married her if Damien hadn’t saved him, told him the truth. He made his way to Baron Drago, who was at the moment unoccupied by the punch bowl.
“David,” said Damien, and offered him a glass of Elaine’s champagne punch.
David tossed down the punch in one long gulp.
“I saw you speaking with Victoria,” Damien continued, his eyes resting on Victoria for a brief moment. “You don’t look very pleased.”
“No,” said David. “Do you know,” he added viciously, “that she didn’t even bother to deny that both you and your brother are her lovers?”
Now, that was a surprise, thought Damien, his expression never changing. Why was Victoria toying with the young fool? “Really?”
“Yes,” David downed another glass of champagne punch. “Does your brother know the truth about his wife?”
“An excellent question,” Damien said thoughtfully. “I really can’t say. I would say, though, that if you want to keep your nice teeth intact and in your mouth, you will not say anything to him in the nature of an insult to his bride.”
“I’m not a fool.”
Are you not? Damien thought, but said nothing. He watched David Esterbridge dutifully make his way back to his father, that miserable old martinet. Elaine came to him at that moment, smiling quite contentedly. “Everything is a success,” she said with great satisfaction.
“Yes, thanks to your brilliant organization and Ligger’s execution,” Damien said.
“Everyone is asking me about Rafael and his plans. I’m telling them to talk to you or to him.” Damien nodded, and she continued, her voice lowered suitably. “Would you look at her.”
“At her? Who? Marissa Larrick? She looks no more sallow than usual, though she really shouldn’t wear that particular shade of yellow.”
“No, Victoria. She is trying to take over, Damien, from me. But I shan’t allow it.”
To be honest about it, Damien thought, Victoria hadn’t done a single thing he could think of to so ruffle Elaine’s feathers. He merely arched a black brow and waited. He waited only a moment.
“She has upset David Esterbridge. I saw her give him a very mocking look and walk away from him. And she is dancing with simply all the men.”
“Why shouldn’t she?”
“What about her husband? She hasn’t danced a single time with him. She’s flirting quite shamelessly.” As Damien gave no more reply than a bored nod, Elaine added, “I hope her leg gives way under her. It should, if she continues the way she has for the past hour.”
Jealousy lessened Elaine’s prettiness, Damien thought as he watched his wife’s creased brow and her pursed lips. Thank God for the arrival of the Countess of Lantivet. Elaine turned immediately into a charming female bent on ensuring that the countess was superbly content.
As for Victoria, she wasn’t stupid. She was as gracious as she could be in turning down Oscar Killivose, the fourth son of a viscount, for the next set. She made her way as unobtrusively as possible to a sofa tha
t was set behind the potted palm she and the footman had brought into the ballroom just that morning. Unconsciously she rubbed her thigh, all the while humming to the sound of the country dance the orchestra was playing.
“You have suddenly become a matron?”
She looked over her shoulder and saw her husband grinning at her. “A matron?”
“Sitting out such a lively dance. Or perhaps you’re hiding from an overly ardent suitor?”
“You have found me out,” Victoria managed in a suitably mournful voice. She gave a delightful little shudder that made him instantly randy. “Ah, Oliver should find me shortly. You know how it is, I am certain, Rafael. Thrust and parry, advance, retreat.”
His gray eyes glittered. “Oh, yes, Victoria, I know.”
She laughed and patted the pale blue sofa cushion beside her. “Stay with me a moment, unless, that is, you are promised to another lady?”
“Very well,” he said easily, “and no, I am as free as you are for this set.” He sat down beside her, stretching his black, satin-clad legs in front of him. “You’re feeling just the thing, aren’t you?”
“Certainly. The ball is quite a success, isn’t it? Elaine should be quite pleased.”
“Yes, she should. The next dance is a waltz. Would you indulge me?”
A waltz, with Rafael. “Yes,” she said, praying at the same time that her leg wouldn’t complain too much.
“Should you like me to bring you something to drink?”
She shook her head. “No, thank you. I’ve been watching you, you know.”
He arched a thick brow and waited. It was a ploy identical to his twin’s, but somehow when Rafael did it, she wanted to smooth his eyebrow and grin like a besotted idiot at him. She managed to conceal her besottedness and said in a light voice, “You have been spending time with every young rotter from the entire area. Ugh, that Vincent Landower, with his loose mouth and shifty eyes, makes my flesh crawl.”
“I haven’t paid all that much attention to dear Vincent yet. Remiss of me. Now, what makes you think that I’m ignoring the moral cream of the neighborhood?”
Moonspun Magic Page 27
