Fortune's Lady

by Patricia Gaffney

  “We’ll see about that,” Claudia chided gently. She sat on the other side of the bed, stroking her father’s high, pale forehead.

  “Touch of indigestion is all it was—I’ll be sitting up at my desk in the morning, you see if I’m not.”

  “I’m sure of it.” Riordan squeezed the bony hand lying open on the pillow and stood up. “We’ll let you rest now, so you can be up all the earlier.”

  Claudia rose with him. “Good night, Father.” She leaned over to kiss the aristocratic old cheeks. “I’m so happy you’re better. If anything happened to you—”

  “I’m good for a long time yet, my dear,” he said with a weak smile, patting her hand. His heavy eyelids dropped closed then, and he was asleep almost instantly.

  Claudia spoke in a quiet voice to Lord Winston’s manservant, who would sit up with him during the night, before she and Riordan tiptoed from the room. “Father was right,” she said ruefully, taking his arm as they went down the wide staircase to the hall. “I really shouldn’t have bothered you.”

  “Nonsense, I wanted to come.” He hurried on before the sheer enormity of this lie could discompose him. “You must have been terribly frightened.”

  “I was, Philip. I sent for you almost before I sent for the doctor.”

  “And the doctor said it wasn’t his heart?”

  “Yes, thank God. But he’s been having these attacks more frequently lately, and they always send me into a panic.”

  “He looks frail, but sometimes I think he’s as strong as we are.”

  “That’s exactly what he says.” They were standing in the entrance hall under a massive crystal chandelier, unlit. “Thank you, Charles, I’ll see Mr. Riordan out,” she said, dismissing the hovering butler.

  “Are you all right now, Claudia? I can stay if you like.”

  “I should like it very much,” she answered, startling him. “But it isn’t at all necessary and you’ve been so kind already. Besides, it’s very late; it wouldn’t look quite right, would it?”

  “I hadn’t thought of that,” he admitted. He was uncomfortably aware of a feeling of relief. “Well, then, if—” He broke off when she ran a hand up his arm to his shoulder and looked at him with wide, searching eyes.

  “But hold me before you go, Philip, will you?”

  He couldn’t have been more surprised if she’d asked him to carry her up to her bedroom. He had the wit to answer, “Delighted,” as he put his arms around her and drew her close. She smelled of the expensive perfume he’d once given her, and all at once he realized he was comparing her fragrance to Cass’s fainter, more elusive scent. Guilt assaulted him. Why was it that when he was with Cass he never thought of Claudia, but when he was with Claudia—he put the bothersome question out of his mind and drew back to look at her.

  Her eyes were closed and she seemed completely relaxed in his arms, for once. She really was a beautiful woman—perfect skin, classic features. He tilted her chin up. No resistance. He kissed her gently. She sighed and put her arms around him. Without thinking, he parted her lips with his. He felt her stiffen slightly and went back to light, soft kisses on her lips and cheeks. She relaxed again and tightened her arms around his neck. More as an experiment than from any real desire, he slipped his tongue into her mouth.

  She jumped away as if he’d bitten her.

  “Claudia—God, I’m sorry—”

  “No, no, my fault—” She made frantic erasing movements with her hands and turned around so he wouldn’t see her wiping her mouth.

  Riordan ran a hand through his hair and stared at her rigid spine, feeling a mixture of dismay, pity, and disillusionment—but curiously, no surprise. “You don’t really like it, do you, love?” he said gently.

  “I’m so embarrassed. I don’t know what to say.”

  “Never mind.” He moved around to face her and folded her in his arms again, careful to keep his touch impersonal. “It’s all right,” he told her, patting her shoulder. “It doesn’t matter in the least.”

  “It does matter,” she snuffled against his shirt. “I’ve heard the stories, I know you’ve had lots of women. That Merlin woman tonight, so beautiful, so—” She shook her head and wiped her eyes, fighting for composure. “Oh, Philip, how can you still want me if I’m cold?”

  “You’re not cold. You’re not.” He wondered which of them he was trying to convince. “You just need time, that’s all, and I can be very patient.”

  “I don’t know, I don’t know.”

  “I know. It’s all right, Claudia. Everything’s going to be all right.”

  But as he held her stiff, unyielding frame against him he was filled with misgiving. What was he promising? What was he giving up? A coldness began somewhere in his midsection and rapidly spread through his whole body. His eyes were bleak as he stared over Claudia’s head, knowing she couldn’t warm him.

  The next morning, before dawn, Riordan got out of bed and reached for his robe. Barefoot, he padded out of the room and went downstairs. There was a carafe of tepid water on his desk in the library. He poured a glass and carried it to the windowseat. Cass’s windowseat. He thought of her as he’d seen her here a few days ago, hunched over some book, completely engrossed, her hair falling down in wisps around her face. Pausing occasionally to take off her new glasses and rub the bridge of her nose.

  He took a swallow of water and made a face. He’d come down here to stop thinking about Cass, stop obsessively comparing her and Claudia. It was insane, it was disloyal—Claudia was incomparable and she was going to be his wife. That was that. Cass was the kind of woman a man slept with, took for a lover, but never, never married. Why couldn’t she see that? Why couldn’t she be reasonable and become his mistress? Her talk of marriage was ridiculous, a joke—no wonder he’d laughed! Who did she think she was? And who did she think she was fooling, telling him that making love with him would be “wrong”? She was only nineteen, and for all he knew she’d had as many men as he’d had women, deny it all she would. But whatever her game was, it wouldn’t work, because he was marrying Claudia.

  He put down the glass and picked up his viola; he’d dropped it in the windowseat last night after he’d seen Cass standing in the doorway, watching him. He plucked the strings absently with his thumb, remembering. She’d wanted to tell him something. What? He’d had something to tell her, too, but couldn’t force the words out. She would go to Wade over his dead body, he vowed, his hand surrounding the delicate neck of the instrument in a suddenly violent grip.

  What would Oliver say if he knew he’d not only neglected to pass on the message about Wade, but had actually asked Cass to live with him? He shuddered inwardly, shrinking from a vivid mental picture of Quinn’s wrath. But worse than his wrath would be his disappointment. Nothing pierced him more deeply than Quinn’s disapproval. The power he held over him was very strong and very real, and it had been that way since he was nine years old. On top of that, he owed Oliver an enormous debt, and part of it involved handing Cass over to Wade.

  He stood up, watching the sky lighten through the branches of the locust tree. The choice wasn’t difficult. He wouldn’t do it, not even for Quinn. The consequences of the choice didn’t matter. Cass was his.

  Two days later, he knocked loudly at the door to Number 47 Ely Place.

  “Well, if it ain’t Mr. Riordan. Good afternoon ter you,” grinned Clara, dropping her version of a curtsy. “Come up, why don’t yer? The young miss ain’t home, but you could speak to ’er ladyship instead, if yer like.”

  “Where is she? Miss Merlin, I mean,” asked Riordan, following the maid up the unlit staircase. The place was gloomy and damp and depressing, and he felt his usual frustrated annoyance at the thought of Cass living here.

  “Mayhap yer’d best ask ’er ladyship about that,” Clara advised after a pause, rolling her eyes mysteriously. She said no more until she had led him into the small, overcrowded sitting room where Lady Sinclair was seated at her desk, writing a letter. “Here’s Mr.
Riordan, merlady,” she announced briefly, and retired.

  They regarded each other across the width of the room with mutual dislike—he because of the way she treated Cass, she because her attempt to seduce him one night while he waited for her niece had been a humiliating failure.

  “I understand Cass isn’t at home,” Riordan said coldly, forgoing a greeting. “Would you be good enough to tell me when you expect her back?”

  Lady Sinclair laughed lightly and leaned an elbow on the back of her chair so that her breasts were more prominently displayed beneath her amber silk gown. “I’m sure I couldn’t say, Mr. Riordan. I long ago gave up trying to keep track of my niece’s whereabouts.”

  “Yes, I know,” he agreed stonily. “I sent her a message. She was to meet me this morning in Green Park.”

  “Green Park! How outré.”

  “Do you know if she got my note?” he persisted, determined to keep his temper.

  “I think it highly unlikely.” She tapped her teeth with the tip of her pen. “Indeed, highly unlikely.”

  “And why would that be?”

  “Why would that be? Because she wasn’t here this morning.”

  His fists clenched at his sides. “Where was she?”

  “This morning? At what time?”

  He counted to ten. “At the time she would otherwise have been here to receive my message,” he enunciated slowly.

  “Ah! Well, I expect that would have been sometime around eleven. Now, let me see. If they stopped overnight, and I’m not at all sure they did, they might possibly have reached Stratford-upon-Avon by eleven this morning, I should think. He’d hired a post-chaise, though, and I believe they drive them straight through the night nowadays. Isn’t it marvelous? Now, if that were the case, I expect they’ll have nearly reached Manchester by now. But it’s difficult to say, isn’t it? It all depends—”

  “Wade!” His face was livid and his voice shook. He took two steps toward her and Lady Sinclair’s satisfied smile wavered. “It was Wade, wasn’t it?”

  “Why”—she laughed falsely—“I can see there’s no use trying to keep a secret from you! Indeed, Mr. Wade came for her yesterday morning, very early. She was taken quite by surprise—or so she said,” she amended with a little malicious sneer. “They spoke privately for a few minutes, and the next thing I knew she was packing a bag and bidding me a fond adieu.”

  “And you let her go?” He held his hands behind his back to prevent himself from shaking her.

  Her ladyship shook her head sorrowfully. “In all honesty, sir, Cassandra has always been a wild, ungovernable child. And unfortunately, where men are concerned, completely lacking in discretion.”

  “If that’s true, it’s because she had an excellent teacher,” he snarled. “Where are they bound for?”

  She rose from her chair with an admirable imitation of affronted dignity. “I refuse to be insulted in my own home. Please leave.”

  She let out a little shriek when he sprang at her and pressed her back down in the chair. “I asked you where they were going. If you don’t tell me, I’ll break your arm.”

  She believed him. “Lancaster. He has a house there.” She spat the words out, her eyes glittering with hatred. “Now get out. If you ever come back, I’ll have you arrested.”

  He released her shoulders and smiled pleasantly. “You can’t. I’m immune from prosecution for anything except treason.” He bowed formally and went to the door. He thought he could hear Clara scuttling away on the other side. With his hand on the knob, he turned back. He regarded Lady Sinclair’s tightly corseted figure, her reddish-blonde hair, the generous expanse of white bosom. She reminded him of a Rubens nude, fleshy and voluptuous, alluring, corrupt. “I’m going to find Cass and bring her back to London,” he told her. “After that, madam, if it’s in my power, I promise you you’ll never see her again.” He waited, but she didn’t speak, and he closed the door in her spiteful face.

  VIII

  “WILL THAT BE ALL, MISS?”

  “Yes, Ellen, thanks.”

  “Have a good night’s sleep, then, miss. I’m sure you can use it.”

  Cass smiled at the pretty lady’s maid and watched her go. She was more efficient and infinitely more polished than her maid at home, but somehow she missed Clara—missed her humor, which wasn’t always intentional, and her blunt way of speaking. And Clara would have enjoyed the long, raucous journey much more than Cass had. She’d hinted as much to Wade on the morning he’d proposed this outlandish outing. But he’d derided her tentative scruple that a chaperone might be desirable, saying there would be so many people crowded into his hired post-chaise that they could all chaperone each other—which rather missed the point, she’d thought—and that when they arrived at Ladymere she could have as many maids as she wanted.

  She settled back in the comfortable overstuffed armchair and took a bite of biscuit. She pushed her bare feet closer to the small fire Ellen had made in the grate to drive out the dampness. It had rained the whole last day of the journey, dousing the mood of the travelers along with the roads. But spirits had revived this evening among the six ladies and gentlemen riding in her coach when they’d won the impromptu race, arriving at Wade’s palatial Lancashire estate well ahead of the other two chaises they’d set out with from London. There was a rumor that one had gotten stuck in the mud at Stoke-on-Trent, and the fate of the third was still a mystery. The charm of riding for thirty-six hours without stopping except for meals and tolls was lost on Cass; for her the best part of the journey was this moment. She was finally alone, finally comfortable, and finally able to think.

  She hoped she’d done the right thing in coming on this wild ride. There had been no time to consult Riordan or Quinn about it; she’d had to rely on her instincts. But this was what she was being paid for, she reasoned, to learn as much as she could about the private life of Colin Wade. And she could hardly refuse an opportunity to discover if some of the guests this weekend were not only friends of his but members of his secret organization of assassins as well.

  She looked around at the large, comfortable bedroom, expensively decorated in blue and yellow and lime green. As Wade’s special friend, she’d been given the best guest room, and yet all the rooms she’d seen on her brief and incomplete tour this evening had been large and grand and opulently furnished. It made her wonder about the conflict between Wade’s style of life and his supposed revolutionary goals. He was nearly as rich as Riordan, whose wealth he ridiculed. How did he rationalize the contradiction? Like Riordan, he too was playing a role, living a life of luxury and even decadence while hiding his true ideals. She suspected that, unlike Riordan, he relished the decadence, and his ideals allowed him to embrace violence and political murder. If he ever took her into his confidence, she supposed she could ask him how he justified the difference between his way of life and his principles, but until then she could only speculate.

  It was very late, and she was exhausted. She took a final sip of tea and stood up, stretching. The bed looked lovely. She blew out the candle, pulled back the soft counterpane, and crept between the sheets. Presently she could make out the shapes of tree branches cast on the ceiling by the moonlight. Where was Riordan right now? she wondered on a tired sigh. It wasn’t a new thought—she’d wondered it a dozen times over the course of the journey. Had he gotten her note yet from Aunt Beth? And if he had, would he care that she’d gone off with Wade? Probably not.

  It had been four days since she’d seen him—the longest they’d been apart in over a month. He probably welcomed the separation; it would give him more time to be with Claudia. Were they together now? Perhaps they were dancing, or walking arm-in-arm in a moonlit garden. Or listening to music together. Yes, that was more likely—they were both musical. In her mind’s eye she saw Claudia’s glossy chestnut hair, her calm, superior smile and perfect poise. “Such glorious bombast, what sublime histrionics!” she remembered her saying in her oh-so-refined accent. If Cass lived to be a hundred, she
knew she would never achieve that airy, effortless sophistication. With a groan, she turned on her side and drew up her knees.

  It was all very well to say she’d come here to spy on Wade, but she knew in her heart that the true reason had been to get out of London, away from Riordan. She felt again, as she often had in the last four days, the scathing humiliation of his last abandonment—made all the more awful by the awareness of how close she’d come that night to giving in to him. God, how she’d wanted him! She hadn’t known it was possible to want a man that way. No one had ever told her. Had her parents loved each other like that? She hoped so. Then a thought struck: was it possible Aunt Beth felt this same helpless, uncontrollable yearning for each of her lovers? Was it? No. A sure instinct told her that couldn’t be true, that what she felt for Riordan was completely unlike her aunt’s furtive, short-lived encounters with men.

  And yet she didn’t feel particularly loving or passionate at the moment. She felt angry and hurt and jealous, and she hoped whatever fatal disease Claudia’s father had was contagious.

  She rolled into a tighter ball, realizing what she’d just wished. I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, she chanted to her hazy, somewhat superstitious version of God, I didn’t mean it! Oh, she was such a child. When was she going to grow up? She’d had some idea that wearing glasses and reading lots of books would turn her into an adult, but evidently it was going to take more than that. She had an urge to do something brave and wonderful so that Riordan would love her. That was even more childish, she knew, but the fantasy was too compelling to relinquish. She wanted to do something glorious and tragic, like—like dying for her principles. She saw herself walking toward the guillotine, her head held high, shoulders thrust back bravely. Rather than betray him, she was going to sacrifice herself for Riordan. The taunting crowd would fall silent, awed by her courage. And he would be standing somewhere among them, watching her, overcome with his terrible grief and fear. At the last minute he would shout out his love for her and she would be saved. Somehow. After that they would be together forever, and he would adore her. She fell asleep imagining herself riding before him on a white stallion, his arms around her, both of them staring straight ahead into the future ….