"Ain't asleep, are you?" The dowager's sharp inquiry jolted Leila from her meditations and to the realization that the curtain had fallen for the interval. While assuring the dowager she was fully awake, Leila darted a glance at Avory's box. Empty now.
She turned to Fiona, who was watching her with a faintly amused expression.
"He was trying very hard not to look this way," Fiona said. "With mixed success."
"I collect you refer to Lord Linglay," Leila said coolly. "I'm told that jerking motion of his head is the result of a palsy." She addressed the dowager. "Is that not so, Lady Brentmor?"
"He's a decrepit old goat," the old lady answered. "Ogles everybody, especially the servant gels." The box door opened then, and she glanced over her shoulder. "Well, look what the Cat drug in."
Leila didn't have to look. She felt the air change and pulse even before she caught the faint, familiar scent. Turning slightly in her chair, she directed her forced smile at David, just as though every iota of her consciousness wasn't concentrated on the man with him.
She directed her chattily bright words to David, too, while pretending not to notice that Esmond, who had advanced to pay his respects to Lady Brentmor, was standing two vibrating inches away.
Several agonizing minutes later, the two men left, and Leila found she couldn't for the life of her remember a word of what had been said. All she could remember was scent...the brush of a coat against the sleeve of her gown...and the stabbing blue of his eyes.
Even while desperately hoping her delirium had gone unnoticed, Leila braced herself for a dose of Fiona's teasing.
The attack came from the other side, however, and the artillery wasn't aimed at her.
"Plague take you, Fiona Elizabeth!" the dowager cried. "What's that boy done to you to be treated so shabby?"
Fiona went rigid. Leila was too stunned to open her mouth.
"He asked after your sister," Lady Brentmor went on, leaning over Leila's lap to scowl at Fiona. "You know he's worried to death about her. And you look at him like he just crawled out of a rathole. Think Lefty's going to do better than him? A royal duke, mebbe? If I was you, I'd be thanking Providence the boy bothered to ask, after the scene you made last winter."
Lady Brentmor drew back. "Threatened to horsewhip him, she did," she told Leila. "Fine manners for a lady, don't you think? Fine way to show her gratitude. Horsewhip him—Langford's heir. Mebbe she forgot how Langford and her pa was bosom bows. Mebbe she forgot it was Langford found places for all them brothers of hers after her pa died."
Fiona had not moved a muscle through this diatribe, but sat woodenly staring at the stage. Now she sprang up. Without a word, she swept out of the box, slamming the door behind her.
Leila leapt up, too, but the dowager grabbed her arm. "Go careful," she said, dropping her voice. "Watch what you say. But don't let her off 'til she tells you. Not just about Avory, but about what Beaumont done. I'll lay you any odds he got his hands on Letty."
Leila glared at her. "That is my friend you just—"
"You can't afford friends this minute, my gel. This is business. You got a job to do. I primed her. Now you best set your mind to finishing it."
Leila shot a glance at Avory's box. The two men were talking, their heads bent close, but she was sure Esmond hadn't missed Fiona's exit. He'd expect answers.
"Goddamn," she muttered, and hurried out of the box.
A short while later, after a frantic search, she stormed into the ladies' retiring room. She dug into her reticule, thrust a coin in the attending servant's hand, and ordered her out.
When the door had closed behind the attendant, Leila marched up to the screen. "I know you're not there on nature's call," she said. "Shall I join you or will you come out and give me the explanation you should have done months ago, Fiona? What did Francis do to your sister, and why do you blame David? And what in blazes do you think to accomplish by hiding her away in Dorset?"
Fiona came out from behind the screen, her eyes bright with unshed tears. "Oh, Leila." Her voice caught. "She's breaking her heart over him. What the devil am I to do?"
Leila held out her arms. With a choked sob, Fiona went into them. The tears flowed then, and soon, she was stammering out the story.
It had happened at the Linglays' anniversary ball, in early December. Lettice had danced twice with David, despite Fiona's warnings to keep a safe distance from Francis' friends. Since Lettice had proved incapable of behaving wisely, Fiona had gone after David and warned him off. He left the party immediately after. But Francis stayed to plague Fiona. He had mockingly told her that everyone in the room could see Lettice was besotted. And all would agree she'd make Langford's heir the ideal wife: she was excellent breeding material, wasn't she? The Woodleighs did breed like rabbits. Beyond doubt she'd have David's heir in her belly when she stood at the altar, saying, not "I do," but "I did."
Just as enraged as he'd intended to make her, Fiona had responded by enraging him. She'd taunted him about Esmond.
"Forgive me, Leila," she said, drawing away. "But it was the only way I could think of to upset him."
Leila led her to a chair and nudged her down. "I understand," she said. She found her handkerchief and pressed it into Fiona's hands. "Francis had a gift for finding sore spots and he adored twisting the knife. So you went after his sore spot. Which is only natural. Though usually a mistake. Because, being Francis, he was bound to get even. Which he did, I suppose, by going after Lettice."
Fiona wiped her eyes and blew her nose. "It was hours later when she went missing. I wasn't terribly alarmed. I'd thought Francis had been long gone, that he'd left right after our row. I learned my mistake when I finally found Lettice. In the conservatory. Dead drunk on the floor." She gave a shaky laugh. "She was a sight—half in, half out of her gown. Her hair—" She hiccupped. "But he hadn't r-ravished her. He wasn't that reckless. All he t-took were her g-garters."
"To humiliate her. And you, of course." Leila moved to the washstand. Her hands trembling just a bit, she poured Water into the basin.
"You can guess why he stole them," said Fiona.
Leila kept her back to her friend, while her mind worked feverishly. "A trophy," she said, keeping her voice even. "To show off to his friends."
If he had shown David, she thought as she dampened a dainty linen towel, David would have killed him. Yet the timing was wrong. David would have done it right away, in the first heat of outrage—and not sneakily. David wasn't sneaky. And Francis wouldn't have waited until January—a month and more later—to show those garters. He would have done it within hours, or a day or two at most. And he'd want to show them off to someone he'd believe would applaud his daring. A more experienced rakehell than David. Someone to share a private joke. It would have to stay private, because Lettice was not just a virgin, but one of good family, a member of the nobility. Out of bounds, in short. If word got out, Francis would be...persona non grata. Which he had become. Thanks to…
Leila swung abruptly toward her friend, the damp towel clutched in her hand. "Sherburne," she said.
Fiona stared at her.
"Lord love you, Fiona." Leila shook her head. “I’ll wager David knows nothing about the garters business. It was Sherburne Francis showed them to." She shoved the towel into her friend's hands. "Wash your face. And tell me what’s so unspeakably wrong with David."
The answer Fiona gave proved to be the most venomous serpent of all. And the venom sped through Leila's system, leaving her shaken and sickened. She couldn't afford the luxury of indulging her emotions, however. This was business, as Lady Brentmor had reminded, and Leila was determined to handle it with all the brisk dispatch Esmond would have employed. Not with his infernal tact, though. That was beyond her capabilities at present.
"You asked me before what you were to do," she told Fiona. "You are the man of the family, are you not? David wants to wed Lettice. What would your father have done, in the circumstances?"
"Bid him to blazes, as I d
id," Fiona said. But there was a trace of doubt in her voice.
"Your father would have told him why," Leila said. "Your father would agree that a man has a right to face his accuser. And that man should be given a chance to defend himself if he can."
"Are you mad?" Fiona bolted up from the chair. "I cannot—"
"If you cannot, then you're a coward," Leila said calmly.
Fiona stared at her.
"Well?" Leila asked. "Are you or are you not?"
"Blast you."
That was all the answer Leila needed.
Moments later, the retiring room attendant—enriched by an additional coin—carried Leila's message to Lord Avory. Within minutes, he and Esmond were hurrying toward the main entrance of the theater.
Leila was standing there with a crimson-faced Fiona.
"Lady Carroll is unwell," she told David. "Would you be kind enough to take her home?"
David's countenance promptly assumed an equally vivid shade of red. But aristocratic breeding swiftly took over. With resolute courtesy he pronounced himself honored to oblige. The words were hardly, out of his mouth before he briskly signaled for a lackey and ordered his carriage.
"I believe Lady Carroll would prefer to wait outside for the carriage," Leila told him as the lackey bustled away. "She needs air. Do you not, Fiona?" she asked sweetly while bending a threatening look upon her friend.
"Above all things," Fiona replied, adding under her breath, "Confound you."
David dutifully advanced and offered his arm. Fiona grimly accepted it.
Leila waited until the two were safely out the door and upon the pavement before daring to meet Esmond's bemused gaze.
"I hope to heaven you're well on your way to curing him," she said. "I hope his male disability is all that's wrong with him. Because if it isn't, there'll be the devil to pay tomorrow."
His gaze slid away. "The play is nearly ended," he said in polite, carrying tones. "I understand you will be supping with Lady Brentmor after."
"I've lost my appetite." Leila turned away and left him.
Ismal entered Leila's kitchen in time to hear Lady Brentmor's carriage clatter away from the front door. He reached the ground floor hall just as Leila was heading up the stairs.
He called softly to her. She stopped short at the landing and swung round.
"I'm tired," she said. "Go home."
He continued up the stairs after her. "You are not tired. You are running away. I understood what you said to me before. I have a strong suspicion what the trouble is."
"Oh, no, it's no trouble at all." Her voice was caustic. "Just the usual thing. Just catching you out in a few more falsehoods, that's all. Or should I say discretions—because you seldom actually lie outright. You just sneak ever so cautiously about the truth."
She marched on up the stairs. "Every time I manage to drag one of your pestilential secrets out of you, I'm fool enough to think that's the end of it, and the picture's clear at last. But it never is, because you aren't. You're a goddamned Proteus. Every time I turn around, you turn into someone else, something else. No wonder Francis said you weren't human. The mastermind of Vingt-Huit, the genius at figuring out what people wanted and making them pay for it—even he couldn't figure out what you wanted. Who you wanted. Me...or him."
She had reached the first floor and was continuing up, Ismal trailing after her. The last bitter utterance did not take him by surprise. He remembered what she'd said about Avory: I hope his male disability is all that's wrong with him. Ismal had a good idea of what Lady Carroll had told her.
"It was my business to make certain he did not know what I wanted," he said mildly. "The success of my mission—even my life, perhaps—depended on this. Come, you must understand. You should not be so agitated."
"I am tired," she said. "I'm tired of having to wrench the truth out of you—and having it come down on my head like the club in a Punch and Judy show. I'm tired of being struck down and having to bounce up again, pretending I feel nothing."
She reached her bedroom door. "You could have warned me, Esmond. You could have prepared me. Instead, I had to stand there and listen to Fiona tell me my husband was a sodomite. That David was one of his—his boys. And that it was you Francis was jealous about, not me. That he made the fuss about you because he wanted you for himself. And while she treated me to these stunning revelations, I had to pretend I wasn't in the least affected."
She pushed the door open. "My bedroom," she said. "Please make yourself at home, Monsieur. I'm well aware you can't be kept out. What you might want here is another matter altogether. I haven't the least idea. But I collect I'll find out. And I suppose I'll survive. I'm good at that. At bouncing back. Surviving."
She stormed into the room, tearing her bonnet off and hurling it aside. Ismal followed and gently closed the door behind him.
"I'm good at a lot of things," she raged on. "At falling in love with the Devil's spawn, certainly. I have a genius for it, don't you think? And for leaping out of the pan, straight into the flames. From Papa to Francis to you."
He leaned back against the door, a sledgehammer driving at his heart with slow, fierce blows. "In love?" he repeated, his mouth dry. "With me, Leila?"
"No, with the Bishop of Durham." She fumbled at her cloak fastenings. "For all I know, you'll be him next. And do as brilliant a job as you did disguised as a constable." She ripped off the coat. "What else have you been, I wonder? How long have you been a French count? How long have you been French?"
He stiffened.
She swept to the dressing table, flung herself onto the chair, and began pulling pins from her hair. "Alexis Delavenne, Comte d'Esmond, is it? Where did they find your title, I wonder? One of the unfortunate families decimated during the Terror? Were you the infant Delavenne—sent away and hidden—until it was safe to return and claim your birthright? Is that the story you and your colleagues fabricated?"
He stood unmoving, outwardly calm: a normal, civilized man patiently absorbing the outpourings of an overwrought woman. Yet the barbarian inside him believed the Devil must be whispering these secrets in her ear. It was surely the Devil who made Ismal choke on the smooth denials and evasions ready to spill from his tongue. It must be the Devil who held him helpless, transfixed on one treacherous word: love.
It was that word which tangled his brain and tongue, which opened the rift in his proud, well-guarded heart, leaving a place that ached, needing tending. Needy, he could only ask, like a foolish, besotted boy, "Do you love me, Leila?"
"If you can call anything so monstrous love. I'll be damned if I know what else to call it." She snatched up her hairbrush. "But names don't signify, do they? I don't even know yours. There's the hell of it," she said, dragging the brush through her thick, tangled hair. "That I should care for and want the respect of a man who's utterly false."
His conscience stabbed deep. "You must know I care for you." He came away from the door to stand behind her. "As to respect—do you not understand? Do you think I would seek your help—send you on your own to work—if I did not respect your intellect, your character? Never have I relied upon and trusted a woman as I have you. What better proof could you want than what I did this night? I did not interfere. I trusted you to deal with your friend. I trusted that you judged aright in sending her away with Avory."
She met his gaze in the mirror. "Does that mean it wasn't a mistake? Does that mean David isn't what Fiona said he was? Was she wrong about him? About Francis—and the rest?"
The rest. It was himself she meant. Ismal stared incredulously into her accusing tawny eyes. "Allah grant me patience," he whispered, stunned. "Do you truly believe I was your husband's lover? Is that what has upset you?"
She set down the brush. "I don't know who you are," she said. "I don't know what you are. I don't know anything about you." She rose to push past him to the nightstand. Yanking the drawer open, she pulled out a sketchbook.
"Look at that," she said, thrusting it at him. "I draw wh
at I see, what I sense. Tell me what I've seen and sensed, Esmond."
He opened the sketchbook and began leafing through the pages. It was filled with sketches of him—standing before the fire, at the worktable. He turned the page and paused. On the sofa. Lying in state, like a pasha. He turned to the next page. Again. Pages later, her clever pencil was transforming him. The cushions about his head became a turban. The well-tailored English coat had softened into a loose tunic. The trousers were full, the fabric falling in silken folds.
The old scar in his side was throbbing ominously. This was the Devil's work, he told himself. The Devil whispered his secrets in her ear and guided her mind, her fiendish hand.
"You just said 'Allah.' " Her voice was low, troubled. "You call yourself Esmond. Es...mond. 'East of the world,' one might translate. Is that where you really come from? Another world, to the east? I've heard it's different. Altogether."
He closed the book and laid it down on the nightstand. "You have a curious image of me," he said.
"Esmond."
"I do not lie with men," he said. "It is not to my taste. I did not tell you about your husband's tastes because I knew you would make yourself crazy and sick. I was unaware Lady Carroll knew of the matter. In Paris, your husband was discreet. Evidently, in England he became reckless about this, along with everything else. Suicidal, perhaps, for it is a hanging offense in this intolerant country."
"Intolerant? Do you—"
"What does it matter what one human being does in private with a willing partner—or ten partners, for that matter? What should it matter what I have done or not done? Or what you have done or not done?" he demanded—and silently cursed himself when she backed way, to the foot of the bed.
He caught the shreds of his self-control. "How am I to know what tastes your husband cultivated in you?" he asked more gently. "Or fears? Or revulsions? Do you not think both of us must have some trust? Never have I wanted a woman as I want you, Leila. Do you truly believe I would wish to distress you, shock you?"
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