Harlequin Historical February 2013 - Bundle 1 of 2: Never Trust a RakeDicing With the Dangerous LordA Daring Liaison

by Annie Burrows

  ‘Indeed, she has, Lord Fallingham.’

  ‘It is good news about their arrangement.’ Fallingham was all politeness, but he was unable to resist a quick glance at her breasts.

  Venetia could not bring herself to agree. ‘He makes her happy,’ she conceded and could not understand why, despite all of her warnings, Alice was so intent on being with Razeby.

  ‘As she does him. He is putty in her hand.’

  I doubt that. Venetia smiled and did not say the words. She was under no illusions as to how Razeby saw Alice. He would use her and dismiss her just like every other man of his ilk treated every woman of Alice’s and hers.

  ‘A toast to Miss Sweetly and Razeby.’ Fallingham raised his glass of champagne.

  Venetia raised her glass. Linwood did, too, but only Fallingham drank the champagne. Venetia noticed that Linwood did nothing more than touch the rim of the glass to his lips, in the same way as she did.

  Their eyes met, each knowing the other’s secret.

  Linwood’s eyes were dark and intense, and she felt the shadow of his last parting words still upon her. Was she his? It was the question she had asked herself these three nights past. She knew her own strength, knew her purpose in this game, knew she must not lose focus. If Linwood chose to raise the stakes a little, then Venetia believed herself more than capable of rising to the challenge. Besides, if the answer to his question was no, then she knew that he would walk away and Robert’s plan would be lost. And beneath all of those rationales was another reason that she could not quite bring herself to admit.

  ‘Ah,’ Fallingham smiled. ‘Here comes Clandon.’

  In her shock Venetia sucked in a mouthful of champagne and had to swallow it down, half choking in the process.

  ‘My dear, Miss Fox, please allow me...’ Fallingham was poised with handkerchief in hand, ready to dab in all the wrong places. She ignored him, turning her gaze to Linwood’s and accepting the plain white handkerchief that he offered without a single word.

  She pressed it to her lips, as if kissing it, as if kissing him, before returning the handkerchief to its owner.

  Fallingham seemed to realise that he was staring at the pocket into which Linwood had just slipped the handkerchief. ‘Just toasting our hosts, Clandon,’ he said. ‘You know Linwood, of course.’

  She felt a pang of annoyance that Robert had not warned her he would be present. She did not look at him.

  Robert gave a nod, but barely glanced at Linwood. The air between them was all cold formality. She watched Linwood’s eyes move over the black band of grief around Robert’s arm.

  ‘So sorry to hear about Rotherham,’ said Fallingham. ‘Terrible way to lose a father.’

  ‘Indeed,’ murmured Clandon and his eyes held the sudden shimmer of tears before he glanced away and cleared his throat.

  She saw the sympathy in Fallingham’s gaze.

  Linwood’s expression remained its usual unrevealing, unsmiling mask.

  ‘But I am confident that our justice system will find the perpetrator.’ Robert sounded as pompous as their father had been.

  ‘Indeed,’ agreed Fallingham. ‘Have you been introduced to Miss Fox?’

  Robert’s eyes met hers. ‘I have not yet had that pleasure.’ He bowed and looked at her with a degree of calculated interest that made her uncomfortable. ‘Miss Fox.’

  Her brother was better at this game than her, she thought.

  She curtsied. ‘My sympathies on your loss, Mr Clandon.’

  ‘Thank you.’ Robert’s gaze moved from her to Linwood, as if in expectation of him adding to the condolences, but Linwood remained stubbornly silent. The awkwardness of the moment stretched. The two men faced one another, neither seemingly willing to back down.

  ‘Clandon, you must allow me to introduce you to our hostess, Miss Sweetly,’ Fallingham said, placing a hand on Robert’s arm and defusing the situation by leading him away in the direction of Alice.

  Venetia waited until her brother was out of earshot before she spoke. ‘You did not offer him your condolences.’

  ‘Because I am not sorry that Rotherham is dead.’ Linwood was watching her, his expression daring a response.

  ‘That is a dangerous thing to say when the authorities are searching for his murderer.’

  ‘Maybe I like to live dangerously...’ he stepped closer, his breath brushing her cheek as he whispered by her ear ‘...as dangerously as you, Venetia.’

  Greensleeves was being played on the piano in the background, the notes soft and sweet and melodic. The room was bright with candlelight reflected from peering glasses and the thousand shimmering crystal drops that lined the heavy chandeliers overhead and sconces patterning the surrounding walls. All around them was the chatter and buzz of conversation—the deep tones of a man’s laughter, the flirtation of a woman’s response, the chink of glasses and somewhere in the distance the pop of a champagne cork. All of it was as nothing. Venetia and Linwood might as well have been alone. All of the pretence and flirtation fell away. She could feel the beat of her own heart—fast, hard, loud, and the way her pulse throbbed in her throat. Strings of bubbles fizzed from the glass in her hand. She watched their tiny trails, her mind sharpening, focusing, before she raised her eyes from the glass and looked into his. Black eyes that seemed to reach inside her and see too much, black eyes that lit a part of her she had not known existed until him.

  ‘I do not know what you mean, my lord.’ The words were breathy and low, and not through artifice. He could not know the truth of her, of what she was doing to him, could he? Maybe it was her own guilty conscience that gave his words another interpretation. And despite that danger, she had never felt more aware of him as a man or of the strength of the sinuous desire that rippled between them.

  ‘There is an unanswered question between us, Venetia.’

  There were many unanswered questions between them, but she knew the one to which he was referring—the same one that had haunted her dreams for three nights. If you are mine, you are mine alone... And if not, then we have nothing more to say to one another. The echo of those words seemed to whisper between them.

  ‘We cannot have you keeping Miss Fox all to yourself, Linwood.’ Devlin arrived with Mrs Silver on his arm, breaking apart the intensity of the moment.

  ‘Indeed?’ said Linwood but his eyes stayed fixed on Venetia.

  * * *

  Linwood let the questions hang between them, the ones he had asked and the ones that were silent. That Clandon and Venetia had pretended not to know one another was a sign that boded ill. Was she spying for her lover? Or was Rotherham’s illegitimate son paying her? He remembered her strange response to his allusion to her performance, and he thought again of her questions that seemed to edge more and more around Rotherham and the duke’s murder. And he understood now what lay behind them. Clandon and Venetia thought him guilty of Rotherham’s murder. It was a bittersweet realisation.

  Mrs Silver, madam of the highest-class brothel in St James’s, was wearing her customary muted dove-grey dress, as sober and respectable as those worn by her girls were provocative and revealing. Mrs Silver might have been accompanying him, but Devlin’s gaze was engaged entirely on Venetia, lingering over the curves that the audacious scarlet gown revealed too well. Venetia stepped closer to Linwood.

  ‘Miss Fox.’ Devlin kissed her hand. Venetia accepted his greeting with grace, but she did not allow her hand to linger in Devlin’s possession, withdrawing it immediately and slipping it casually around Linwood’s arm. It was a statement to Devlin and perhaps something of an answer to himself.

  ‘Linwood.’ Devlin’s gaze was cool and appraising, observing the message Venetia’s body was so clearly sending. Then to Venetia, ‘I saw your play the other night. Splendid performance. As usual.’

  ‘Thank you. You are too kind, sir,’
Venetia said and she smiled with her eyes, if not with her mouth, in that bold, provocative way he had come to recognise.

  ‘Have you seen it, Mrs Silver?’ Devlin asked the woman by his side.

  ‘I have not, sir.’ Mrs Silver smiled, but her gaze, when it finally moved to Venetia, was cold.

  He noticed that neither woman actually spoke to the other.

  ‘May be I shall get up a little party and take you,’ Devlin said, but his focus was once more on Venetia, more specifically on the smooth white skin that the neckline of the scarlet dress revealed.

  ‘Such a delightful offer, but unfortunately I am engaged every night of this week, and next,’ said Mrs Silver.

  Venetia’s mouth curved up ever so slightly at the edges, but the atmosphere between the two women was so frosty that Linwood wondered how Devlin failed to notice. ‘If you will excuse us...’ And with the smallest of curtsies Venetia and Linwood were drifting away towards the other side of the room.

  ‘Do you have your answer, Lord Linwood?’

  He looked into those beautiful silver-blue eyes and all that they were hiding. ‘I am not sure that I do, Miss Fox.’

  ‘You wish me to spell it out, my lord?’

  ‘I wish to be certain of where we stand.’

  She held his eyes for a moment longer. ‘Very well.’ She released his arm, stepped to stand before him and reached her lips to touch his ear. ‘I am yours. And yours alone.’

  Even knowing what he now knew of her, even with the worst of his suspicions he felt the words stroke against him as if she had boldly traced her fingers against the length of his manhood.

  Her gaze moved to his once more.

  ‘I am glad to hear it.’ He captured her hand in his, a small surreptitious movement, but one of possession before the crowd all the same. He would take what she offered because Linwood knew it was always best to keep one’s enemies close, and play them at their own game. And more than that, he wanted to ensure that Clandon’s suspicions remained focused on him alone.

  And he would take what she offered, because, despite everything, he wanted her.

  Devlin and Mrs Silver walked past them again. He saw the veiled hostility in Venetia’s eyes as she looked at the woman—and her realisation that he had seen it when she returned her gaze to his.

  ‘It seems I must work a little harder upon my acting skills when it comes to Mrs Silver.’

  ‘There is nothing wrong with your acting skills, when you choose to employ them.’

  Her hand went very still beneath his.

  ‘Ever the flatterer,’ she said, choosing to take it as a compliment, but well aware of the edge to their conversation.

  ‘Never the flatterer, but then you know that of me, by now.’

  ‘I suppose that I do...even if I know little else of you.’ He wondered if she realised how close to the edge she was treading.

  ‘What precisely is it that you wish to know, Venetia?’ The nub of all that was between them.

  ‘All that you are, my lord.’ She looked into his eyes and beneath his hand he felt the stroke of her fingers against his palm before she slid them from his reach. He managed to prevent a blatant arousal, but only just.

  ‘You do not desire much.’

  ‘No.’ She smiled that dangerous seductive smile. ‘Only you.’

  This time he did not smile in return, just pinned her gaze with his and did not let it go. ‘Then I shall tell you that which you want to know, Miss Fox.’ He lowered his voice to a whisper and breathed the rest of the words into her ear. ‘When you tell me what I want to know.’

  ‘And that is?’ Her whisper sounded breathless and he could feel the warmth of her breath against his cheek and the line of his jaw.

  ‘All that you are, Venetia Fox.’ He moved his face to stare down into her eyes.

  ‘A pact of honesty?’ She sounded amused, but there was a little flicker of something else in her eyes, something that looked triumphant.

  ‘We are sworn to speak the truth or say nothing at all.’

  They were still standing too close, their faces poised as if they were about to kiss, as if they were the only two people in the room, as if there was no crowd surrounding them.

  ‘Do we have a deal, Miss Fox?’

  She glanced down, her long dark lashes hiding her eyes, hesitating just long enough that he knew her glimmer of unease. But when she raised those beautiful pale eyes to his once more she showed nothing of disquiet. He had to admire the steeliness of her nerve.

  ‘We do,’ she said smoothly.

  ‘Let us seal our agreement.’

  ‘And do you have a suggestion for how we might do that?’ They were words designed to torture him. She was a woman who knew her power. Images of her naked and beneath him, of his mouth upon hers, of him riding her, swam in his mind. He thrust the imaginings aside with the ruthless hand of a master.

  ‘In the conventional way...for now.’ He took her right hand in his, a handshake in all except that they were standing so close it looked like the touch of two lovers. ‘Since it binds us in honour.’

  She said nothing but beneath his hand he felt the tiny shiver go through her as she understood that she was, in truth, honour-bound.

  And only then did he smile.

  Chapter Seven

  It was a little after three the next afternoon when Linwood learned something of what lay behind Venetia Fox’s dislike of Mrs Silver. The sun shone bright through the window of White’s Gentleman’s Club, lighting the elegant large room in pale white light, bleaching the colour from the dark-mahogany wood panels that lined the walls and the deep rich blue of the curtains and warming the room in such contrast to the icy temperatures outside. The room was almost empty. A few elderly peers were dozing in the line of high-back leather-wing chairs. Old Lord Soames was reading his newspaper, hard of hearing and oblivious to the loud snores of one of his neighbours. The ticking of the grandfather clock was slow and steady and comfortable. Linwood and Razeby were drinking coffee at the far end of the room, discreet and away from the famous bow show-window.

  ‘Alice worries over her friend’s association with you.’ Razeby sipped at his coffee.

  ‘That does not surprise me. Miss Sweetly thinks me the very devil.’

  ‘Ah, but I learned a few things about your Miss Fox that might.’ Razeby smiled.

  ‘Go on.’ Linwood was careful not to sound too eager.

  ‘I understand from Alice that you know of her secret—that she was in the employment of Mrs Silver.’

  ‘I hope she made it clear to you the nature of our dealings. That we did not...’

  ‘She did.’ Razeby smiled. ‘She is the sweetest little thing.’

  ‘You were telling me of Miss Fox,’ Linwood prompted.

  ‘Ah, yes.’ Razeby collected himself from his thoughts of his new mistress. ‘I thought you would be interested to learn that it was Miss Fox who persuaded Alice to leave Mrs Silver’s and join the theatre. She took her under her wing, made her her protégée. Alice is eternally loyal and grateful, of course.’

  ‘Of course. Old news, Razeby.’

  ‘But Miss Fox’s offer to Miss Vert on the night of my little dinner gathering is not.’

  Linwood stilled and raised an eyebrow.

  ‘To help her “escape” Mrs Silver’s establishment. Little wonder Mrs Silver is outraged, even if Miss Vert declined the offer.’

  Linwood thought of the barely concealed dislike he had witnessed between the two women and he knew exactly what Razeby was insinuating. ‘Miss Fox is poaching Mrs Silver’s girls.’

  ‘So it seems.’

  Linwood remembered the night the green-masked courtesan had been the table decoration at Razeby’s. He remembered, too, the fierceness of Venetia Fox’s reaction on seeing
Miss Vert’s display.

  ‘Alice let slip one other interesting little titbit.’ Razeby looked like the cat that had got the cream. ‘Did you know that all of the maids in Miss Fox’s employ were once

  ladies of the night? All rescued by Miss Fox.’

  ‘I did not.’

  ‘According to Alice, Miss Fox has very strong feelings when it comes to prostitution.’ He paused. ‘It does make one wonder as to why.’ And to Venetia Fox’s personal history. Razeby was too diplomatic to say it.

  ‘Indeed, it does.’ Linwood met his friend’s eyes. ‘How much do you think Miss Sweetly knows?’

  ‘Ah, there is the rub,’ said Razeby. ‘Very little, I am sure. It seems Miss Fox keeps her secrets all to herself.’

  But she would reveal them to him. One by one. Until he knew all that there was to know of her.

  * * *

  Venetia Fox sat opposite Linwood in the town coach that night. The lantern within had not been lit. The bright silver moonlight and the dull fiery glow of the street lamps that spilled in through the coach’s windows were enough to see each other by. The roads were busy already with carriages that queued to take their occupants into Covent Garden and the theatres that lined it.

  ‘Traffic jams at theatre opening and closing times. It is the disadvantage of living so close to Covent Garden, although they do not usually affect me,’ she said.

  ‘Why so?’

  ‘Because I am in the theatre hours before the curtain goes up.’

  ‘And hours afterwards?’

  ‘Not quite so long, but enough time for the jam of coaches to have disappeared.’

  ‘Along with the gentlemen waiting for you.’

  She held his gaze boldly. ‘It is the occupational hazard for any actress.’ And so it was. But not whatever was between her and Clandon.

  ‘You could always leave by the stage door.’ He was testing if she was adhering to their oath of speaking the truth.

  There was a small pause before she admitted it. ‘I do,’ she said.

  ‘I will remember.’

  Her eyes met his across the carriage. ‘Are you planning to surprise me one of these nights?’