by Zoë Archer
By angling his body just so, one guest indicated that he refused to acknowledge another’s presence. A woman whispered into another woman’s ear as they both watched a laughing female guest. Three men stood in a group, their conversation as portentous as their waistcoats. The very air buzzed with influence.
“I feel like a naturalist accompanying a Royal Society expedition.”
Anne smiled over the rim of her glass. “There’s more treachery here than in the jungles of Suriname or Guiana.”
“Spoken as one having experience with both places.”
“Not personal experience.” She glanced away. “Barons’ daughters are seldom taken on Royal Society expeditions.”
He suddenly found her much more fascinating than the tangled encounters of the assembly. His gaze traced the slim line of her neck as she kept her face averted. “But you want to go. To Suriname or Guiana.”
She shrugged. “Having never been on a ship in my life, especially traveling somewhere over four thousand miles away, I couldn’t say if I would find the experience enjoyable.”
Interesting that she would know the distance between England and the distant northern coast of South America, when few men let alone women could locate Portugal on a map.
“There is no way to know until you try,” he said.
“I am not a fanciful person.” She turned back and her eyes were very clear. “I don’t entertain ideas that cannot come to pass.”
“Yet ...”
“Yet.” His wife glanced around the chamber, as if concerned any of the guests might be within earshot. Seeing that no one paid too much attention, she continued. “I don’t long to travel. Not so far. However, on the rare occasions I was given pin money, I spent it at print shops on the Strand. On maps.”
He could only regard his wife with genuine surprise. “Maps. Of South America.”
“Or the Colonies, or Africa, or the East Indies. Maps of anywhere. Even England. It isn’t the places so much as the drawing of the maps.”
“I had not pegged you for a lover of cartography.”
She studied him, looking, he believed, for signs of mockery or dismissal. Yet what she saw in his face must have encouraged her, for she admitted, “It is ... an interest of mine.”
“An unusual interest for a young woman.”
“I had not cultivated it on purpose. It just seemed to happen.” She smiled softly, an inward smile at some remembrance. “I recollect the day, I couldn’t have been more than eight, and I was with my father at a print shop. The printer was trying to get my father to buy a map of the Colonies. A special reduced price because the map was no longer accurate. New discoveries had been made, territory west of a great river, and there were new settlements, too. It fascinated me that something as stable and immense as land, as a whole country, could suddenly change. Not because of an earthquake or a flood, but because of human knowledge.”
She caught herself. Her voice had grown stronger, less hesitant, as she had spoken. Her eyes gleamed, and the flush in her cheeks came not from the wine nor the overheated room, but from the fire of her passion.
Leo was enthralled. The quiet beauty of his wife became altogether vibrant. And it wasn’t unnoticed. He glowered at several men who sent her admiring glances, and they averted their gazes quickly.
“Did your father buy the map?”
She shook her head. “Such things were unnecessary, and the expense profligate. In truth,” she confessed, “I never had enough money to buy maps, but I did annoy the shopkeeper by endlessly browsing.”
“Thus your knowledge of far-flung places.”
“The same places from which you buy your coffee, cotton, and spices.” She waited, then glanced at him, a faint crease between her brows. “Well?”
“Well, what?”
“This is when you chide me for my decidedly unfeminine interests. My parents certainly did.”
Leo’s sudden, unadulterated laugh drew more curious glances from the assembly’s guests. “Hell, I’m the very last person to lecture anyone on acceptable behavior.”
“Your opinion might change when I tell you something very wicked.”
He said nothing, merely waited.
She lowered her voice. “When I was thirteen, I ...” After a deep breath, she pushed on, so that her words came out in a rush. “I stole a map.”
“How?”
“I was in the print shop, looking at a map of the Moluccas. It was beautiful, but so costly. A customer came in and distracted the proprietor. That’s when I did it. Ran out the door with the map. The proprietor didn’t even notice, he did not cry thief or summon the watch. Even so, I never went back.”
“And you threw away the map. Your ill-gotten gains.”
Her eyes widened. “Lord, no. I kept it under my bed and pored over it every chance I had. Until my younger brother grew spiteful and tore it up.” She stared at Leo. “Are you not ... shocked? Appalled?”
“It would take far more than a single act of theft to appall me. Besides,” he added, smiling, “I like having a secret about you. It’s something private, only for us.” A darker heat stole into his voice, deepening it.
The blush in her cheeks grew brilliant. In her saffron-colored gown, canary diamonds at her throat and hanging from her ears, she held the pure luster of sunshine.
“The way that I know about your coins,” she murmured.
He blinked. A few words from her transported him from the radiance of her allure to the shadows of foreseen disasters. Her luminosity to the darkness of his Devil-given power. And Whit threatened everything—his power, his strengthening relationship with Anne. Yet Leo had no intention of allowing Whit to destroy all that Leo had created for himself.
“Like that, yes.” Talk of his gift sharpened his resolve. He eyed the guests. Many of them had potential for exploitation, either by benefit of their deep coffers or because they had been vocal in their denouncement of social climbers like Leo. Others he didn’t know, but wanted to—for he seldom let an opportunity to make use of someone pass.
Spotting Lord Overbury, Leo turned to Anne. “Excuse me for a moment. I want to speak with someone.” At her murmured agreement, Leo took his leave and made his way to his host for the evening.
The viscount gave a polite but aloof nod at Leo’s approach. Anne’s birth might have gained him entrance to Overbury’s home, yet Leo and the viscount would never be considered friends.
After giving his own restrained bow, Leo said, “My lord, I require your assistance.”
“However may I be of assistance, Mr. Bailey?” Overbury’s eyes scanned the room, his offer of help hardly more than a token.
“I actually possess magical power.”
His interest piqued, the viscount raised his brows. “You do?”
“My wife is of similar disbelief.” Leo addressed Overbury. “The only means I have to demonstrate my power requires a coin.” He patted his pockets, making a pantomime of looking shamefaced. “All my coins are at home. Play the champion and give me one of yours.”
Overbury produced a thruppence from the pocket of his satin waistcoat and handed it to Leo. “Show me this magic of yours.”
“I have the coin here.” He held it up for the viscount’s inspection, then closed his fingers around the coin. “And now, it has disappeared.” His hand opened, revealing that it was, in fact, empty.
The viscount made a sound of astonishment.
“Ah, wait, here it is again.” Leo plucked the coin from beneath the lace of Overbury’s jabot, and his host chortled.
“Clever, Bailey. You must show me how to perform that trick.”
“’Tis no trick, my lord. Magic. Which I now must show my wife.”
With the sounds of Overbury’s chuckle behind him, Leo wended his way back to Anne.
“An ingenious way to get another coin.” She smiled, and when Leo performed the same trick for her as he had for Overbury, her smile turned to a charming laugh. “I did not know you were a conjurer.”
<
br /> “Sleight of hand, nothing more.” His words were glib, yet a tempest filled his mind. He saw cane fields washed away by a Caribbean storm, and a plantation house half buried beneath a wall of mud as the people within the house fled and palm trees bent double from the hurricane’s wind. The odor of sodden sugar clogged his nostrils—noxiously sweet and damp. Yet he breathed it in deeply, for it was the smell of privilege’s destruction.
“Perhaps you might teach me.” Anne’s voice perforated his vision, and he blinked to clear it from his thoughts.
He was not in Bermuda, watching the future destruction of Overbury’s sugar crop, but at an assembly in the viscount’s Mayfair mansion. He slipped the thruppence into his pocket. “I can. Later. Who’s that nob over there?” He nodded toward a gent in embroidered satin, his coat cut unfashionably full.
Anne smothered a shocked laugh at his language. “The Earl of Toombe. He’s the eldest son of the Marquess of Gough.”
“Rich?”
“Uncommonly so. There’s rumors he has thirty thousand pounds a year. His estate is in Buckinghamshire. I don’t know how he votes in Parliament,” she added, smiling.
“Children?”
“Two married daughters, three sons. His oldest son is the Viscount Berrow.”
A name Leo knew from the Exchange. Leo had encouraged the viscount to invest in new cotton-milling equipment, which had more than tripled the mill’s output. Suitably armed with information, he now eyed Berrow’s father.
Leo tucked Anne’s hand into the crook of his arm. “We’ll talk with him.” He took a stride forward, then stopped when he noticed Anne staying rooted to the spot.
“We cannot simply walk up to him and start a conversation,” she protested. “Not even to perform some legerdemain.”
“Why the devil not?”
“I only know Lord Toombe by reputation, but I’ve never had a formal introduction. And our hosts tonight have not introduced us yet!”
“Our hosts are busy.” Lord and Lady Overbury were now drinking and flirting, respectively. He tugged on Anne’s hand. “Following ceremonial codes of conduct is idiotic. This is the modern era, not the Age of Chivalry.”
Still, she looked uncertain. He might have simply towed his wife behind him, or gone on without her. But he wanted her to make the choice.
After a moment’s hesitation, she matched her step with his. “It is rather absurd, to pretend someone doesn’t exist unless you adhere to a set of outdated rules.”
As they crossed the chamber together, her step grew more confident, her chin tilted higher. When Leo first saw Anne, months ago, she had been standing at the side of a chamber, much like this one, at an assembly very similar. It had been one of the few times Leo had attended such a gathering and paid any attention. He preferred wilder masquerades and revelries where the company was decidedly less virginal.
Yet something about the shy girl watching the festivities had intrigued him, even as she hung back from the entertainment and spoke only when spoken to. Then, she had been the suggestion of potential. Now, as they walked together toward the phenomenally wealthy earl, throwing off convention like dried carapaces, he could actually see her change, grow bold. She felt the eyes of the guests upon her, and she did not shrink. She soaked in their attention as if it were her due.
That night, he had seen aristocratic breeding in the fine structure of her face. This evening, her bearing came not just from bloodlines, but from action and confidence.
What was that sensation in him? That strange, rising warmth? A new kind of magic? No.
Respect. Not self-admiration, in what he could achieve or earn or buy, but appreciation of her, and that he could help fashion her metamorphosis.
He stopped in front of the earl. The older man stared at him, baffled. Leo stuck out his free hand. “Lord Toombe. Leo Bailey. My wife, Anne.”
The earl, still mystified, shook Leo’s hand, and bowed to Anne. “Do I know you, sir?”
“Your son and I are friends.” Which was not precisely true, but Leo considered netting Berrow a handsome profit a decent foundation for friendship. “A singularly intelligent fellow.”
Everyone is gratified to hear their children praised, and Toombe proved no different. He smiled, self-congratulatory. “He reminds me of my father, with his brains.”
“You are too modest, my lord,” Anne said. “The resemblance between Lord Berrow and yourself is remarkable. Both in appearance and acumen.”
As Toombe blustered his approval, Leo’s admiration of his wife grew to encompass the whole of the chamber. She possessed a natural instinct for finessing a potential target, no prompting required. Catching the approbation in Leo’s gaze, she glowed with pride in herself.
When Leo and Anne strolled away ten minutes later, they had been invited to Toombe’s for dinner the following Sunday. Three other men and their wives would be attending the dinner as well, three men with expansive pockets and an untapped interest in commercial enterprise.
Anne’s eyes gleamed. “That was ... exhilarating.”
“Nothing gets the blood moving like stalking one’s prey.” He felt his own surging, not just from hooking an invitation to a wealthy peer’s home, but because his wife had worked with him in perfect harmony.
Her brows rose. “Prey? Is that how you see these men?”
“Those Suriname jungles follow the same principles. To survive, one must see everything and everyone as either a threat or sustenance.”
“Quite mercenary.”
He slanted her a grin. “Exactly. We see to our own interests. Come,” he cajoled, guiding her to stand by the windows at one end of the chamber. “You knew precisely what our purpose was, and you fought the battle flawlessly.”
“My part was very minor,” she demurred.
“I’ll have no false modesty, not from my wife.” He watched the guests, but was acutely conscious of Anne’s hand on his arm, her slender form beneath silk, panniers, and stays. “Negotiating business deals—that is my expertise. You, however, understand the nuances of polite society. You guided the conversation without appearing to. Toombe honestly thinks that inviting us to dinner had been his idea.”
At first, it seemed as though she would protest again, but then she pursed her lips and allowed herself the faintest trace of conceit. “It was rather well done of me.”
He laughed. God, he found her more and more delightful, as unexpected as a butterfly amongst moths. “If you have given me the ailment of respectability, it’s only fair that I corrupt you.”
They gazed at each other. With her eyes bright, her cheeks flushed, she looked like a woman eager for ravishment. He quickly assessed the chamber. There was a folding screen in one corner. He could draw her behind the screen, kiss her again, and see if this morning’s heat was atypical, or something he could coax forth once more.
He liked knowing things. Futures, investments, strategies. But nothing seemed more worth knowing than whether or not he could kiss his wife breathless with desire.
Something in his eyes must have given him away, for her smile faded and a look of anxious expectancy crossed her face.
Yes, he’d lead her away now—
A familiar voice said his name. “Leo, what the devil are you doing here?”
He smothered a curse and turned to find John staring at him in utter astonishment.
“Conducting the world’s most discreet robbery,” Leo answered.
“Mrs. Bailey.” John offered Anne a bow, and she curtsied in return. He glanced at the guests within the chamber. “This circle is a good deal more sober than your normal company.”
“Spoken as a constituent of my normal company.”
“Are you so scandalous, then?” asked Anne.
Before John could answer, Leo said to him, “You never mentioned associating with this crowd.”
John narrowed his eyes. “I have interests beyond your understanding of me. Lord Overbury hosts some of the most influential figures in the government.”
“Please pardon me, gentlemen.” Anne disengaged her hand from his arm, and he felt a strange compulsion to snatch it back again.
“Are you well?” he asked. Though she had insisted that she had recovered from whatever mysterious ailment had troubled her earlier, he didn’t want to risk a relapse.
“Yes, yes certainly. I just need to ...” She glanced toward the corridor, which led to the ladies’ retiring room.
Within the chamber they now stood, servants were removing furniture and rolling up rugs in preparation for dancing. Anne saw this, and said, “Perhaps when I return, we might dance.”
“I don’t know the steps,” Leo said.
“I could teach you.”
“Many things I’m willing to try, but I’d sooner kiss John than learn to dance in public.”
“Flattering,” drawled John.
Yet Anne looked disappointed. Clearly, the girl who had hesitantly danced at their wedding celebration had transformed into a woman more comfortable in herself. Leo felt his own stab of remorse. He wanted to please her.
“John, you had a dancing master.”
Seeing the direction Leo was heading, John spread his hands. “Monsieur Desceliers never had a less apt pupil than I. It is rumored that, in despair, he fled back to the Continent and became a rat catcher. Or a drunkard. Or both.”
“I do not want to cause mass drunkenness,” said Anne. “Nor would I appreciate the spectacle of my husband kissing anyone but me.” She blushed, but did not lower her gaze. “We shall save the dancing for another occasion. Pardon me, gentlemen.”
Both Leo and John bowed as she took her leave. Leo watched her as she circled the room, noticing how she kept her chin tilted up, her tread confident. When they had come in, less than an hour earlier, she had kept her chin tucked low, and her step had hesitated. She grew before his very eyes, as if he could somehow watch a rose unfurl its petals within the span of a moment.
