Jo Beverley - [Malloren]

by Devilish

  “I try not to let my feelings for a nation affect my feelings for individuals, madame.”

  “So,” she said with another enticing sip and a sliding look from under her long, darkened lashes, “you do not feel enmity for me?”

  “Assuredly not.”

  “I am so glad,” she murmured, holding out a hand. When he took it, she curled her legs and predictably drew him down to sit on the chaise beside her feet. “I feel no enmity toward you, Lord Rothgar. None at all …”

  “Why should you, indeed?”

  That seemed to disconcert her for a moment, but she put aside her glass and pressed her stockinged feet against his thigh, flexing her toes there. “Quite the reverse, in fact …” She held out both hands, swaying closer. “Oh, my lord, this is a madness … But … I cannot resist you. All evening I have wanted you!”

  Agile as a cat, she was on him, her arms snaked around his neck. “Take me!”

  He obliged, and at least took her hungry, perfumed mouth, though he was not at all fond of patchouli. Her hands began to work frantically at the buttons of his waistcoat.

  He seized them. “Slowly, madame, slowly. I am a man who likes to drink pleasure’s cup one sip at a time …”

  Sitting bolt upright on a chair in her bedroom, Diana seethed with restlessness. What was going on? What should she do?

  She’d set her own servants to watching, and knew the doctor had visited, found nothing particularly wrong, and left. She also knew that the marquess had taken the Frenchwoman, swooning, to his private dining room.

  Why? She could guess. In his place, she too would want to find out exactly what the de Couriacs were up to. A little part of her, however, still worried that he’d been sucked into the viperous woman’s coils. The urge to rush to interrupt was almost uncontrollable, but she did control it.

  She had a man watching de Couriac’s room who would tell her if the Frenchman began to stir.

  It was surely folly to think that the marquess was putting himself in danger, especially after her warning, but she couldn’t just ignore it and go to bed.

  She was not, she told herself, upset at the thought of what might be going on in the dining room next door. Not at all. She didn’t deny curiosity—she’d give a great deal for a hole in the wall—but that’s all it was.

  Not jealousy. She could never be jealous of a creature like Madame de Couriac.

  At that moment her footman knocked and came in. “There’s some noises from the Frenchie’s room, milady. He’s likely dressing.”

  At last! She leaped up. “Go back to the bottom of the stairs. Here.” She thrust a heavy book into his hands. “If he starts to come downstairs, drop it. Go!”

  She left the door open and stood there, ears straining for the thump though she knew it would be loud enough to hear through the closed door.

  Perhaps the Frenchman had just been finding the chamberpot. If not, he was either preparing to search through the marquess’s papers, or more likely, to burst in and issue a lethal challenge.

  Come on. Come on.

  If Monsieur de Couriac did not come downstairs she’d have no excuse to interrupt the marquess and the Frenchwoman. That would be a shame both for her curiosity and her jealousy.

  No. She would not be jealous or she’d go mad. Doubtless London was full of the man’s lovers, including the mysterious scholarly poet—

  Thump.

  Diana jumped, then with a deep breath, followed her plan. She walked briskly along the corridor and into the dining room without knocking, ready with her exclamation of shock.

  “Oh,” she said, finding the marquess sitting on the chaise with one of Madame de Couriac’s slender stockinged feet in his hands. He appeared to be massaging it, and the lady had been lounging back languorously.

  Madame had given a little scream, however, and sat up. Now she was staring at Diana in befuddlement. Clearly not whom she had expected. She pulled her foot free even so, and swiveled to sit straight and put on her shoes. “So soothing, my lord.”

  “Indeed.” He rose, expression unreadable. “You require something, my lady?”

  You could rub my feet, she thought, but said, “Cognac.”

  “The servants are not available? I must speak to them about it.”

  Was he annoyed? Impossible to tell. However, he poured some cognac into a glass, and turned to pass it to her. The door burst open and a disheveled Monsieur de Couriac staggered in.

  And stopped.

  “Monsieur,” said Lord Rothgar at his most benign, “you are recovered. How wonderful. Cognac?”

  After a frozen moment, Madame de Couriac leaped to her feet and ran over to her husband. “Jean-Louis, cheri. I am so happy! But come back to bed and rest. You cannot be completely well.”

  After a furious, frustrated glare, Monsieur de Couriac allowed himself to be led out.

  The marquess walked over and shut the door, leaving Diana alone with him. Her nerves twitched. He was angry? How could he be angry? She might have just saved his life!

  He put the glass of brandy into her hands. “Perhaps we have some confusion, Lady Arradale, as to who is guarding whom.”

  He was angry. How typical of a man. Warming the cognac between her palms, she said, “Are you saying you wanted to be caught, my lord?”

  “Massaging the lady’s feet? Unusual, but hardly more than that. Especially when she was so very distressed about her poor husband’s illness.”

  “I couldn’t know you would be doing that.”

  He sipped and made no comment.

  Diana tasted the cognac, then warmed it some more. “So, you were deliberately avoiding anything more scandalous?”

  “It seemed wise.”

  Should she apologize? Damned if she would. Damned, too, if she’d be dismissed without knowing what was happening.

  “Very well,” she said, sitting on the chaise still warm from Madame de Couriac’s body, and even carrying a ghost of her suggestive perfume. “What are they up to?”

  He came and sat at the other end, as he’d sat with the other woman except that three feet of blue damask stretched between them, uninvaded. “Perhaps it is as it appears, Lady Arradale. She is wanton, he is ill.”

  “Perhaps.”

  “You doubt it?” He put his glass aside. “Put your foot in my lap.”

  Diana stared at him. “Why?”

  “I am in the mood for rubbing feet.”

  He was in a strange and possibly dangerous mood, but she longed to know what it felt like. She slipped her left foot out of her shoe and shifted so she could place it on his thigh. That alone required a mouthful of fortifying spirits. He put both hands around her foot and began to rub her instep with his thumbs.

  She suppressed a moan of pleasure. “She may be wanton,” she said as steadily as she could, “but he is not ill.”

  “He likely is somewhat after the potion the doctor left. But no, you are fundamentally correct.”

  “So, what are they up to?”

  His thumbs were working now along the base of her toes. She could not help but relax back and feared she must look as limp and languorous as the Frenchwoman had.

  “They could have been after my documents,” he said, thumbs working magic, but eyes on hers, “but then de Couriac would have gone to my bedchamber, not here. Therefore …”

  “Therefore,” she supplied, “he was hoping to force a duel. Are you further ahead for knowing that?”

  “A little.”

  “He could have demanded a duel anyway. You were alone with his wife.”

  “Who had asked for my help and been seen in distress. No, he could not have insisted on a duel.”

  She had to believe he understood these arcane male ways. “What now, then?”

  His hands stilled. “Now, Lady Arradale, I should kiss your foot.” One hand, one nail, trailed along her instep around her heel and up to the bone of her ankle. “But that requires the removal of your stocking. Which is an interlude of its own …”

&nbs
p; As his fingers slipped up from her ankle toward her calf, she stared into his dark eyes, dizzied.

  “Do you wish the game to continue?” he asked.

  Her rising heart rate steadied. This, she saw, was like his invitation to seduction at the ball. Not so much an amorous petition as a dare. Even, perhaps, a minor punishment for meddling in his affairs.

  With aching regret, she pulled her foot out of his lax hands and sat up straight. “I don’t think so.”

  “I didn’t think so, either.”

  She drained her brandy and stood, but had to ask, “Why did you do that?”

  He, against etiquette, remained seated. “Your curiosity was palpable.”

  Yes, punishment of a sort. She refused to show embarrassment.

  Perhaps she should have called his bluff, but she knew he’d have gone through with it, even to sex. Which was an interesting thought in itself. He might think of it as punishment, but she could see it in a completely different light.

  “I am curious,” she said, ignoring the heat in her cheeks. “About a great many things.”

  “Curiosity, however, is one of the scourges of the soul, and enlightenment can lead to the darkest paths.”

  “How tedious to always move in the light.” Could she? Here? With him?

  “But safer.”

  “Do we want to be safe?”

  He did rise then. “Some perils are far too serious for games. And you, my dear, are playing games.” He raised her hand to kiss it with no greater warmth than courtesy required. “Good night, Lady Arradale. We leave early in the morning.”

  Dismissed, Diana could do nothing but leave, though she couldn’t resist one glance back. Had he really meant what she thought he’d meant—that their interlude had been perilous for him?

  In her room, she stood limp as Clara undressed her and prepared her for bed, trying to grasp what had just happened.

  His hands on her feet.

  A simple thing, and not particularly wicked. She could have Clara do that for her if she wished.

  It would not be the same.

  The slide of his fingers up from her ankle to her calf.

  Still, nothing shocking except the suggestion that she let him remove her stocking. When she’d thought longingly of lust and sin, the removal of her stocking had not been a significant part of it.

  Nor had massage of her feet. What a lot there was to learn!

  Curiosity, however, did not explain this devastation in her mind. She was overcome, dazzled, by the suggestion that despite his cool manner, the Marquess of Rothgar might be experiencing the same perilous pull to dangerous interaction that she was.

  In bed in the dark, with Clara sleeping beside her, Diana lay awake, mind fluttering around ideas like a moth around a glass lamp. And that, of course, was the problem.

  A clear barrier stood between her and the tantalizing flame. Beat against it as she might, the fire was not for her. She could not afford to marry, and now she knew that he could not be a casual lover.

  As he had implied, the very heat between them made it far too dangerous to approach.

  Chapter 12

  Diana descended to breakfast the next morning warily, but if the marquess had slid out of control for even one moment the night before, he had corrected the flaw. Over eggs and excellent sausages, he treated her precisely as an aristocratic lady he was escorting to London. The effortless flow of small talk was again a carefully woven iron grille between them.

  Diana could only be relieved when his manservant, Fettler, knocked and entered.

  “Yes?” the marquess asked.

  “About the French couple, my lord. They left in the night.”

  Lord Rothgar’s brows rose. “Without paying their shot? How reprehensible.”

  Diana came to the alert. The marquess did not, in fact, sound surprised. For the first time she wondered if he had ruthlessly disposed of his potential assassins.

  “As to that, milord,” the valet said, “they left adequate coins. And traces of blood on the floor.”

  Diana stared. Her speculations had been idle, but now she had to take them seriously.

  “What is more,” the valet said, “a servant nearby heard a scream and then a cry.”

  “A feminine scream, and then a masculine cry?” Diana demanded. First one murder, then the other. She was beginning to be shocked after all.

  The middle-aged man turned to her. “Precisely, milady.”

  “Then,” she asked, “did anyone actually see them leave?”

  “Oh yes, milady. They roused a groom to saddle their horses. It was with him they left the money. He would not have let them depart otherwise.”

  “Wounded?” she asked, both deflated and relieved, and casting a quick glance at the marquess. Amused by her again.

  “The groom could not be sure, milady, but he thought Monsieur de Couriac favored his arm, and the lady might have had a mark on her face.”

  “Anything else, Fettler?” the marquess asked. When the valet said no, he dismissed him, then turned to her, easing the plate of sausages toward her side of the table. “Do have more of these, Lady Arradale, as you speculate.”

  Diana speared one with her sharp fork. “Don’t patronize me, my lord.” It also galled that he had noticed that she’d enjoyed two of the sausages already.

  “I do beg your pardon. I certainly have no desire to be fatherly. What do you make of the little saga?”

  Ignoring a twitch at the thought of what relationship he might desire, Diana said, “That he hit her for failing to compromise you, and she did something—perhaps with a knife—in response.” She cut into the meat. “I certainly would have done.”

  “I will bear that in mind.” He served himself more coffee. “So why leave, especially if he was wounded?”

  Diana chewed, thinking. “Out of fear of you? Or,” she added, “out of fear of their master.” She halted in the process of raising another piece of sausage to her mouth. “To prepare some other trap?”

  He did not pale in apprehension, of course, but he did say, “How fortunate that we travel with armed outriders.”

  Diana put her food down. “Lord Rothgar, why would the French be so determined to murder you? As one caught in the middle, I think I have a right to know.”

  “What reasons does anyone have for wishing the death of another?”

  “A tendency to ask too many questions?” she responded tartly. “You are not Socrates, my lord, and I am not your pupil.”

  A smile tugged at his lips. “Then I will play Socrates to myself. What reasons does anyone have for murder?” He counted on his long fingers. “One: revenge. Extreme, and I don’t think I have hurt France to that extent. Two: gain. The only person to gain materially from my death would be Bryght, and he isn’t working for the French.”

  “Three,” offered Diana, “fear of what you might reveal.”

  “I have no secrets.” Over her snort of disbelief, he said, “Four: fear of what the victim might do.”

  “If you have no secrets, milord, you delight in being falsely mysterious.” But she sat in thought, meeting his eyes. “The French fear what you might do? You are a one-man Armada?”

  “I would like to think so.”

  “Need I remind you that the Armada failed and sank?”

  “Alas,” he said, eyes crinkling with what looked like true hilarity. “We can only hope that my armed fleet would manage somewhat better.”

  “Which presents another problem, my lord,” she said, trying to be stern. “The Armada was our enemy. I take as model Great Queen Bess, who stirred the opposition to the Spanish fleet.”

  “And think foul scorn that any prince of Europe should dare to invade the borders of your realm?” he said, giving a version of the queen’s famous speech at Tilbury, when she dispatched her navy to face the mighty foe.

  “Precisely, my lord. As I showed last year.”

  The smile tugged at his lips again, but he said, “Oh dear. Must I remind you of the plan for
you to act the conventional lady?”

  “Perdition.” Her cheeks warmed with guilt. “I will do it when necessary.”

  “So says the drunkard ordered to give up brandy.”

  “This is my problem, my lord, and I will deal with it.”

  “Yet I have yoked myself to you in this.”

  “Not of my choosing!”

  “No, but we are bound by fate.”

  She stared at him. “Until this is over.”

  He took another sip of coffee. “And when will it be over?”

  “When I return north.” She was unsure now what they were speaking about.

  “This engagement will be over then, but as with the French, the problem will linger. Constant vigilance will be required. This connection, my lady, ends with death. Or with your marriage.”

  They were not speaking of her behavior.

  “Or yours,” she suggested breathlessly.

  “I will not marry. But even so, it would not end your need of my protection. Outside of marriage, your situation makes you vulnerable.”

  Now she didn’t know what they were talking about.

  “I cannot ignore your situation,” he said. “I will not intrude, but if problems arise in the future, I will be at your service.”

  She was not so foolish as to deny the benefits of that, but swallowed bitter disappointment. Protection again. Was that all? “We were talking, I think, of your problems, my lord, not mine. If the French wish to be rid of you, what will you do?”

  “There is little defense against a resolute assassin. In this case, however, it seems they wish to make it look like an act of passion rather than one of cold blood.”

  “Resist passion, then, my lord, and we are both safe.”

  His tranquil gaze came to rest on hers. “My thought entirely, dear lady.”

  So, they had not only been speaking of the French. After a frozen moment, Diana looked down at her half-eaten sausage, and found her appetite completely gone.

  Safe.

  She’d always thought safety promised a damn dull life.

  Scarce noticed at the time, she had just enjoyed a heady exchange of wits and barbs of a rare and precious kind. There’d also been something close to friendship, which she certainly had never expected of this man. Not the cozy friendship she had with Rosa, but friendship all the same.