The older woman tapped him lightly on the arm with a flirtatious smile. “You are incorrigible for interrupting us, Lord Archer. Lady Woolcott and I were just debating the merits of Mr. Worth’s designs over Mr. Manning’s.”
He said in perfect seriousness, “A splendid question for Lady Woolcott.” He turned toward Meredith. “Do satisfy Lady Tattersall’s curiosity.”
“I shall try,” Meredith returned with a tight smile.
“Will you not join us?”
“I’m afraid not, Lady Tattersall. Although the invitation is much appreciated.”
Shaking her head, the ostrich feather in her hair positively quaking, Lady Tattersall affected great disappointment. “I am shattered, heartbroken, my dear man, that you do not join us. I should adore learning more about your adventure in Rashid with Lady Woolcott. She has told me little enough. Although I see by your expression that my hopes are dashed.” She sighed ostentatiously. “Oh, but do take her away, sir, as I see that you are quite determined. I shall simply have to finish tea on my own.”
“I’m certain you will not find yourself without company for very long, a woman of your charm,” Rushford said. Lady Tattersall beamed. “Thank you for your understanding. We have some unfinished business. Before Lady Woolcott sets sail tomorrow.”
“Business? How positively tedious. Do tell me that you have more enjoyable subjects to discuss. Surely you can do better, Lord Archer,” she entreated. “And of course, I shan’t send out a search party if you do not return to the conservatory and keep me company, you rogue.”
Reluctant to cause a scene, Meredith rose to take Archer’s proffered arm. “Your understanding is much appreciated, Lady Tattersall. And thank you so much for the invitation to tea.”
“So whom do you prefer, Worth or Manning?” Archer asked a moment later, as they made their way from the conservatory under the raised lorgnettes of at least thirty pairs of eyes. Meredith smiled over her shoulder for the benefit of their audience.
“Neither. And you well know it.” She gritted her teeth.
The hum of conversation dissipated as they rounded the corner through Shepheard’s lobby, a paen to hushed red velvet opulence where even the servants melted into the extravagant detail. Traversing the space, Archer steered them down a narrow corridor. The heavy pile beneath their feet turned to a shining expanse of gumwood parquet.
When she was sure they were quite alone, Meredith said, “I thought I had lost you in the desert and yet you persist in reappearing like a bad penny.”
“Have I ever remarked upon your persistent lack of charm, Lady Woolcott?”
“What is the purpose of this encounter? Tell me now and you may save us both some time.” She was all false bravado, almost afraid to hear his answer, but in response his eyes flashed with some inscrutable emotion as he propelled her onward.
“Forgive me for my presumption,” he said. “Perhaps I simply wished to see you again. Is that so impossible for you to believe?”
“Ah, of course,” she said softly, aware of the hardness of the muscles beneath her hand. “Do not mock me, sir.”
“A constant and erroneous accusation.”
He was looking for privacy and the notion disquieted her. The library beckoned, its wide doors open and flanked by two magisterial bronze lions. The shelves of books and heavy mahogany appointments were an homage to all that was British. Rich brocade drapes shut out the heat of the afternoon, but a pair of sconces burned just beyond the doors. Archer pulled her into the room and shut the doors behind them.
She took her hand from his arm. “Please say what you wish, but I would appreciate brevity. I have little time at hand and must prepare for tomorrow’s departure.”
He ignored her, moving over to the sconces to turn the lights higher.
“What are you doing? I do not intend to stay. We are not here to peruse the latest issues of Punch.”
“No, we are not. We have unfinished business. Pertaining to the matter at the fort. “ He seemed in no hurry, strolling in leisurely fashion around the room, pausing to examine a letter opener on a side table before picking it up.
“I am in your debt, I realize.” In repeating the words, she hoped to hasten an end to the proceedings.
He shook his head, tapping the opener against his palm. “Is that what you believe?”
“You made the body of the man I killed disappear today. The debt is mine to repay.”
“You need not worry. The matter has been resolved.”
“What did you tell them?”
He shrugged. “Does it matter?”
“To me it does.” Meredith turned away, pretending to examine a shelf of books, their gilded titles demanding her attention as she tried to keep the anxiety from her eyes. “I should present myself to the British Office. Should there be a subsequent inquiry, I may answer their questions.”
“There will be no inquiry.” He said the words as though he ruled the world by fiat. Not for the first time, Meredith wondered what truly lay behind Archer’s deliberately laconic façade. She turned back to face him.
“The man in question is a wanted felon with a long list of heinous crimes to his sorry credit. Besides which”—he paused for a moment, looking down at the ornate handle of the opener, before raising his eyes to hers—“I told them I was responsible. For the shot that killed him.”
Meredith’s breath caught in her throat. “You did what?”
“Of course, you and I know otherwise. And we also realize that there was another purpose behind the attack which you refuse to acknowledge.”
“Why do you persist in taking off in that direction? You have no proof. Those men were simply after easy gold. You say yourself that my attacker has a long list of heinous crimes to his credit.”
“What of your guide, Murad?”
“He would have been rewarded with a portion of the spoils.”
Archer shook his head. “You are too intelligent to believe that theory. Murad is a civil servant. He would not risk his employment and his good name unless the inducement was rich indeed.”
For an instant, she railed against his logic. “That is merely an assumption on your part.”
He set her hands on her shoulders and she flinched. “I did not come here to argue with you. Only to tell you that the matter of the attack at Rashid is resolved.”
“For which I am to thank you,” she said, her eyes hard. “You would like that, would you not? To keep me in your debt.”
His hands tightened on her arms. “Your interpretation, not mine. Do not put words in my mouth. I don’t recall having asked for anything in exchange.”
A long, uncertain moment passed. “So you say.”
“Have I asked anything of you?”
The image of the two of them together on the desert floor and then in the sandstorm rose in her mind. She thrust it away. “No, you have not,” she conceded with brutal honesty. “But I must ask something of you. And I have asked twice before.” He waited for her to continue. “I insist that you not accompany me back to London. I appreciate your efforts on my behalf and acknowledge that Lord Rushford and Rowena are concerned... .” Her voice was raw. “I have already sent a cable, as promised.”
Archer stood before her, like a desert mirage hovering just beyond her reach. Something inside her chest twisted and she suddenly wished that she had no past, that she was seventeen again with her life before her. Yet her weakness angered her and, ruthlessly, she shoved the thoughts away.
“What are you so afraid of, Meredith? That I will do you harm?” He took a step closer. “Or are you frightened that I can’t help you?”
“I don’t require help,” she said, her eyes hardening. “Those years are gone when I lived with Rowena and Julia at Montfort, startled by every shadow, every missive that crossed my doorstep, a stranger’s footstep. I refuse to go back.”
“And if you have no choice?”
“I have every choice,” she gritted out. “And it’s precisely why I pulled the
trigger. I refuse to live in fear any longer. When I believed Julia and Rowena dead—” She stopped unable to go on, closing her eyes.
Suddenly Lady Meredith Woolcott was as fragile as spun glass. Archer held back, the hiss of the gaslight the only sound in the room. He didn’t know what he wanted. He wanted her to believe him, wanted her to trust him, even though he didn’t trust himself with this woman. Frustration and lust spiked through him. She stepped back, her eyes blazing, fragility falling away. “I don’t know what you wish of me, Lord Archer,” she said, “when all I wish is to say good-bye.”
“You have a strange way of showing it.” His own breath came roughly. “Your response is not indifferent.”
A flush ran up her throat. “You are all too full of yourself. My response is merely physical, and a reaction to recent, rather volatile events,” she said in her low voice. “And it has absolutely no bearing on our situation.”
“You are certain?” His voice had lowered to a hot whisper.
Meredith’s lips parted. “All too certain. After tomorrow, I do not believe we have any reason to see one another again. You are under no obligation to me or to Lord Rushford.”
Archer watched to see if the mask would fall again. She backed away from him, alone in her defiance and strength.
“If that is what you wish,” he said finally. Such simple words. Words that smacked of defeat.
She clasped her hands before her and nodded. “That is what I wish.” There was a weariness in the set of her shoulders. “I appreciate all you have done, Lord Archer, truly. But I have come to depend upon myself over the years. And in these past several months, my circumstances have been transformed. I truly believe that. I refuse to return to living in a state of fear.”
“Despite recent events—”
Meredith threw up her hands in frustration. “Please let me travel to London and put this regrettable incident behind me. I do not need reminders, Lord Archer, and I assure you that I am no longer in a perilous situation. And please do not pretend you feel anything for me beyond duty and obligation. Find your next adventure elsewhere.”
He dragged a hand through his hair. “Do not ignore the danger you are in, Meredith. Nor discount other events that have transpired. Between us.”
“Don’t do this, Archer. I will think better of you for it.” She lowered her eyelids as if hiding some emotion. “We are both too old and experienced for such drama. And all over nothing.”
He shook his head. “You are making a mistake by hardening yourself against those who seek to help you.”
“Is that what I’ve become?” she asked softly. “Hardened? Well, perhaps that is what happens when the two people you love most in the world, whom you’ve sworn to protect, are ripped away from you.”
Her honesty was brutal. And cut him to the core, reminding him of how good he’d become at dissembling. He no longer knew if what he was feeling was genuine or feigned. He was deeply confounded, and he was not sure why. It was the same undeniable frustration he had felt on the night he had first met Meredith Woolcott at Montfort. He wondered whether it was some buried sense of chivalry, an awareness that this woman needed rescuing when, in truth, he’d learned that it was the last gesture she wanted from him.
He should be brutally honest with himself, and now was the time. Spencer had asked him to undertake the assignment to ascertain whether Faron was still among the living, using Lady Meredith Woolcott as the temptation to lure the Frenchman from his lair. And Archer had said yes, out of a familiar combination of boredom, intrigue and admittedly from a desire to get closer to one of the most challenging and maddening women he’d ever encountered.
Though he had not spoken in some minutes, Meredith had made no effort to step back. Caught in the moment, he lifted his hand and stroked the back of his knuckles along her cheek. The thick lashes lowered, hiding her response from him.
“If this is what you call drama,” he finally said, “then I find myself wanting it. Despite my advanced age.”
She opened her eyes, unblinking. “We both know this is ridiculous and unsustainable, Archer. No more than a reaction to a tumult of events.”
He lifted his hands to cradle her face, then stroked his thumb over her full lower lip. Leaning forward, he skimmed his mouth along the velvet of her cheek. “A reaction.”
“A simple effect of recent upsets.” Her voice lowered.
“The distress.” He drew back and smoothed his thumb across her cheekbone.
“Exactly,” she breathed when he slowly lowered his mouth to hers. He needed to savor each moment, tucking it away in the recesses of his memory, hiding it away for a time when he would not have the pleasure of Meredith Woolcott in his arms.
He molded his mouth softly to hers and, after a second’s hesitation, Meredith was kissing him back, opening beneath him as he swept into the warmth of her mouth. Her hands came up to hold his face and she kept him there, their tongues twining together, her breath coming more urgently with every moment. He wanted her. She wanted him. And if it was a reaction to the tumult of events, so be it. He simply desired this woman with an intensity that cut him to the quick.
Playing at lust was what he did best, and this was merely more of the same, he told himself. She moaned softly, the sound of it vibrating in his chest. He withdrew his tongue to bite her bottom lip gently and then took her mouth again. She took as much as he did. She tasted sweet and dark, leading him down a path that had only one end. With long-learned discipline, he lifted his head, watching the flickering light play over the elegant bones of her face. Her hands remained on his shoulders, restless and urgent. He kissed her again, long and deep, experienced enough to know the precariousness of the situation. He’d had a lifetime of having sex in the wrong places, was adept at moonlit assignations and boudoir trysts, with women he knew too well and others he scarcely knew at all. Gently, he slipped a hand between her shoulder blades, freed the marching row of hooks at the back of her shirtwaist.
Meredith did not protest when the crisp poplin shuddered down her shoulders. Nor when he turned his attention to the surprising swell of her breasts beneath the fine batiste camisole. It came as no shock that there was no corset hindering his exploration. Her hands skated up the warmth of his back as she arched away from him. His mouth skimmed down her throat; then his lips brushed the swell of her breast as his hand weighed it.
He felt her hesitation; she pushed halfheartedly at his shoulders with the heels of her hands. But her mouth and her soft lips did not hesitate when he claimed them once again, delving into her softness. And when she twisted her mouth from his, it was as sudden as a clap of thunder. Archer spread his fingers into the hair at her nape and slipped his hand from her waist.
Meredith turned her face away even as he stroked his lips over her ear, along her jaw and down the perfect length of her throat. “Meredith,” he whispered. “You wish this as much as I do.”
He dropped his hand along the length of her back, the indentations of her spine like a strand of pearls. A part of his mind told him that they were in the library of the Shepheard’s Hotel, a public place, and only an instant away from discovery by an errant houseboy or, worse still, Lady Tattersall looking for her parasol.
“I don’t want this,” she whispered, lowering her lashes in a sweep. “And right now I can’t think straight.” All the while her hands roamed down his shoulders, stroking his biceps, then sliding around his waist and down the small of his back.
A door slammed somewhere in the corridor. They both stiffened and he became aware of the heat of her body searing his, the swell of her breasts and the taut muscles of her long thighs. In the gaslight, her breath came fast and urgent, almost drowning out a clatter in the hall, a drinks trolley perhaps or tray borne by a servant. The sound sliced through the thick air, returning Archer to the present. Reluctantly, he drew his mouth across her lips one last time and then lifted his face from hers.
First the chemise and then the shirtwaist were quickly patted back i
n place. Without saying a word, she turned her back to him, offering the row of buttons marching from her waist to the soft nape of her neck. He couldn’t resist and dropped a kiss to the silken crook of her naked shoulder, his whiskers rasping at her delicate skin, his breath hot and swift. Her body melted into his and he heard her whisper. “Just a kiss.”
Archer didn’t trust himself to speak until their breathing slowed. His fastened up her shirtwaist swiftly, fearing that he could not trust himself. Then she turned around, looking into his eyes, her lips parted.
“Do you really wish me to forget any of this happened, Meredith? I will if you tell me so.”
The question surprised her so completely that she did not have time to disguise the truth that blossomed on her face. He cursed himself for asking.
He brushed his palm along the side of her cheek.
She stared at him and then nodded. “I’m sorry,” she said thickly after a moment.
His smile was bitter, knowing that she was right.
Chapter 4
London, six weeks later
It was another late night at Crockford’s, or early morning depending upon one’s point of view. A private club on St. James, luxurious and discreet, it played host to those with a robust appetite for deep play and a careless disregard not only for morality but also for good sense. The scent of brandy and fine cigars thickened the air, swirling about the six men who gathered round one of the club’s mahogany tables.
The nimble fingers of Rugston, one of Crockford’s world-weary dealers, shuffled the cards. His gauntness and pallor recalled those of an undertaker. With eyes that were both jaded and studiously neutral, he noted the face of each card as he dealt it and registered with preternatural precision the reaction of each of the men deep in their cups and even deeper in play. The game was vingt-et-un with a one-hundred-pound minimum and at least one of the players, noted Rugston, was in over his head.
Pale and perspiring, Mr. Hector Hamilton fingered the last of his chips like a child at his wooden playing blocks. The others had already retreated, leaving only the bespectacled man and Sir Chauncy Hunt in the game, the former having just shot Rugston a desperate glance for the last card. Hamilton had the unfortunate tendency never to hesitate, not even when a cooler head should have prevailed. The man bet wildly, lost reliably and seemed to produce a steady supply of notes to make up for his headlong rush toward disaster. His suit rumpled and his cravat stained, Hamilton looked all the more out of place in a club habituated by the aristocracy and plutocrats with their easy elegance and mantle of confidence that confirmed those to the manor born.
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