Seduction & Scandal

by Charlotte Featherstone

  Black. That was who she saw when she had written that. It had been so clear. Somehow, her vision of Death had meshed with Black’s beautiful face.

  She also realized that for the first time she had written her own name. She was Death’s mistress, his lover. And Lord Death was Black. And her dreams…they were of Death and Black, and herself.

  Frightened by what she had written, and the dreams of lying upon that black chaise longue made her toss the book aside, as if touching it burned her fingers.

  Glancing at her cousin, Isabella wanted to see what her expression was after hearing such an intimate tale of seduction, but with a relieved sigh, she saw that Lucy had fallen asleep. Her pillow the mass of emerald velvet. She looked like a sad little pixie, her face pale and awash with the glistening trails of her tears.

  Isabella wondered how much Lucy had heard of that scandalous tale. Why had she written it, something so personal, so intimate…? What was happening to her?

  Resting her head against the glass, she peered out at the dark, silent night beyond the window.

  She had always been given to fancy, it had been her way of surviving the harshness of her world. But this…this felt different. It was too real, no imaginary tale. There was a story being unraveled here, and it was a triangle between her and Black and Death.

  Just as she was closing her eyes, she heard carriage wheels coming closer. And then, as if by magic, the wind howled, and the previously still trees began to sway. A black carriage pulled by four magnificent black stallions came into view. It slowed before the house, and Isabella held her breath, noting how gleaming and shining the black lacquer was. The shades were drawn, and she saw them slowly rise. And there was a most familiar face in the window, looking up at where she sat. It was Lord Death. It was the Earl of Black.

  “DEAR ME, you’re very quiet this afternoon, Miss Fairmont,” Lady Elizabeth exclaimed as they walked arm in arm along Bond Street. Behind them, Maggie, Elizabeth’s companion, followed silently, watching the three of them like a mother duck. Beside her, Sibylla kept a sharp eye on them, though not quite as conscious of her charges as Maggie.

  “Yes, Issy, you’ve hardly said a word since we left,” Lucy said.

  “A headache, I fear,” she answered. “I beg your pardon. I know I’m not good company today.”

  “Then we must go back,” Elizabeth announced and pulled to a stop. “Bond Street is open all year for business. We can postpone our shopping excursion for another time until you are feeling better.”

  “Yes, a nap will set you to rights,” Lucy encouraged.

  Oh, no, she couldn’t do that. She didn’t want to be left alone. The dream would return, and she couldn’t have that.

  “No, please,” Isabella said while sharing a glance with Lucy. “I’m already feeling a touch better. The air, you see, it’s clearing my head.”

  “It is brisk today, is it not? I can smell autumn in the air, and the taste of winter is not too far behind,” Elizabeth murmured as she raised her lovely face so that cool air could caress her cheeks. “Tell me, what is the sky like this afternoon?”

  “Gray, like the shade of the sky in the bleak midwinter right before the snow approaches,” Lucy answered.

  “Oh, yes, I can see it now. I remember that sky as a child, how chilly and foreboding it looked.”

  “The clouds are heavy, shaded like charcoal colors. Rain will come later tonight, I think,” Lucy continued. “I can feel the dampness.”

  So could Isabella. The sky was foreboding this afternoon, a moody visual that fit perfectly with the state of her emotions. She had not slept well last night. After leaving Lucy’s room, Isabella had paced her own chamber, lost in thought about what had transpired in the library. She could still not comprehend how she had allowed herself to disassemble quite so easily. She had been gelatin in Black’s skilled hands.

  Once she had fallen asleep, she had been plagued by the same dream she had the first night after meeting Black. She was in a room, lying on a black velvet chaise longue. She was wearing a crimson gown—the gown Lucy had made for her, and she was sleeping. Someone was watching her, she could sense the presence in the room with her, but in her dream could see only shadow, the shape of a man—tall, broad, compelling. And then she had felt it, a hand caressing her face, slowly slipping down her neck where the fingers of that hand had slowly begun to squeeze.

  She had awakened on a silent scream, her sheets tossed aside, her body sweating and chilled. It was the second time she had dreamed that particular dream and the importance of that number struck fear in her. So, too, did the mysterious note that had been awaiting her at the breakfast table. Jennings had put the missive beside her teacup, her name written in a highly stylized form of script, in very fine black ink. It wasn’t Black’s writing, she had memorized that. This was a different hand altogether.

  In the end, the missive had not been signed, but that hardly mattered, for she had been rendered a mass of jumbled nerves anyway. It was fortunate she had been alone at the table then, since she had no wish for her uncle or Lucy to see her emotional state.

  Even now, the missive had the power to make her shiver, and Elizabeth sensed it, and asked her if she was chilled.

  “Are you chilled to the bone, Miss Fairmont?” Elizabeth inquired.

  “No, indeed,” she replied. “But the air is crisp this afternoon, isn’t it?”

  “You would let us know, wouldn’t you, if you desire to end our excursion and return home.”

  Isabella smiled and tried to make light of the situation. “I’m of good hearty Yorkshire stock, I vow a little chill will not send me running.”

  They made small talk after that, and occasionally they would stop before a shop window, and Lucy and Isabella would take turns describing what they saw. Elizabeth’s face was always in raptures over their descriptions, and as they came away from a milliner’s shop, she laughed and told them how she occasionally dragged her brother on outings like this, and he proved utterly useless to her.

  “He is a man of very few words, and his descriptions are sadly lacking. ‘Brother,’ I’ve often asked him, ‘how do you fare with the opposite sex, for you have no knack of the language? Your compliments are sparse, and your talent for flattery nonexistent.’ And do you know what his reply is?”

  “No,” Isabella said, because Lucy would not—she could not partake of any conversation that included the duke, and now Isabella knew why. Her heart was engaged elsewhere. However hopeless that was. “How did he respond?”

  “With a grunt! Can you believe it? How easily he proved my point!”

  Isabella laughed. She could see the duke responding as such. It was true that he did not speak all that much, and his comments were always very proper and direct. But she had seen the looks he sent Lucy when he thought no one was watching. There was such longing in his gaze—such passion, locked up behind an ironclad control and propriety.

  “Shall we stroll to the dressmaker’s, then? I could use a new gown. I was told that you, Isabella, wore a rather rapturous concoction in crimson last evening. I have a very great desire to have something done up in a brilliant shade.”

  “Oh, you should most definitely consider amber, Elizabeth, or perhaps burgundy,” Lucy suggested. “I saw the most luscious of colors at Simon and Water’s the other day. The softest silk, and the colors…so deep and rich it was like looking upon gems.”

  Soon the two were lost in a discussion of colors and fabrics, and Isabella was led back to worries of before.

  The missive. Black. The strange dreams that felt less like dreams but like premonitions of her death.

  Death comes in threes,

  the mother, the brother and the lover who weeps, the harlots, the charlatan and then, at last, to thee.

  She had memorized those lines, had been haunted by them even after folding the letter back up. What did it mean? On the heels of her dream, her imagination ran riot. She was being warned, by whom? About whom? Death? It seemed impossible, bu
t it was a warning. Someone knew she had been at Alice Fox’s séance, and now she was dead. And the women at the Adelphi, they were often referred to as harlots, and now three of them were missing. And then there had been Black last night, his carriage rolling along the street, coming to a stop before her house.

  She shivered again, this time most violently, and Elizabeth demanded that they take a carriage ride to the park, and then back to her house for tea and cakes.

  Isabella was most relieved that Elizabeth had mentioned no more about returning home. She did not want to stay alone. Nor did she want to walk any longer. Her head was pounding, and it had begun to rain.

  “My brother is to meet me at the haberdashery. He’s picking out a new tie and a pair of gloves for the winter and he wants my opinion. How I am to give it, I haven’t any idea,” she said with a smile, “but I do like to indulge him. He is all I have in the world, and one day I know that he will wed, and I will become something of a third wheel.”

  “Nonsense,” Lucy scoffed as she led the way. “His Grace is the kindest man I’ve known in a long, long while. He would never cast you aside. Of that I am most certain.”

  “Oh, so you have noticed that about my brother,” Elizabeth asked slyly. “What else has caught your attention, pray?”

  With a groan, Lucy led them into the store and out of the rain, where the duke turned and greeted them with a smile.

  “Ah, ladies, how lovely to you see. I’m quite perplexed. You see, I cannot decide between gray, dove gray or steel gray for my new gloves.”

  “Oh, Adrian, you always get gray,” Elizabeth chastised. “Do try something else.”

  “What would you suggest?”

  “Black,” Lucy whispered as her fingers caressed a pair of fur-lined kid-leather gloves. “Such a mysterious color, don’t you think?”

  “Yes. And mysterious is good,” Elizabeth concurred.

  “Black it is,” the duke quickly announced after tearing his gaze from Lucy’s face. “Faircourt, pack those up, will you, and put them on my account. It seems I’m breaking with tradition and living dangerously. A man of mystery, I daresay you might be very close to the truth, Lady Lucy.”

  When he smiled, Isabella saw Lucy flush, and for the first time that day, Isabella felt a measure lighter, her worries gone—for now.

  “Miss Fairmont,” Elizabeth murmured, “perhaps we might wait for my brother and Lady Lucy in the carriage, hmm?”

  Elizabeth had a hold of Isabella’s arm and was dragging her out of the shop before she could protest.

  The footman jumped down from the carriage and carefully handed Elizabeth up the stairs. Isabella promptly followed and settled back against the squabs, relishing the warmth that infused her chilled body.

  “Tell me your worries, Miss Fairmont,” Elizabeth demanded. “I won’t give you a moment’s peace until you do.”

  Isabella was relieved that the duke’s sister could not see her expression. She was horrified that Elizabeth could so easily discern that something was bothering her.

  “Out with it,” Elizabeth demanded.

  “Nothing but a poor night’s sleep, I’m afraid,” she replied.

  Arching her dark brows, Elizabeth slipped her gloves from her fingers and rested them on her lap. “You’re frightened, Miss Fairmont. I can feel the tremors of fear flickering along your body—and don’t bother to deny it. Nothing will convince me otherwise. Why don’t you tell me what it is.”

  “I couldn’t,” she whispered.

  “Because it involves Black?”

  Isabella gasped, and Elizabeth’s face tilted upward. “I was right, then. You fear him.”

  “I…I don’t know what to think, truthfully. I only know that strange things have been happening since we’ve been introduced.”

  “What strange things?”

  “Letters that are a warning, but from whom, or about whom, I have no idea. They talk of death, and are most…disconcerting.”

  “Read them to me.”

  Isabella didn’t have to pull the missive out from her reticule. She could recite it by heart.

  “Death comes in threes,

  the mother, the brother and the lover who weeps, the harlots, the charlatan and then, at last, to thee.

  “I know it’s about me, but who I am being warned away from…? I can only guess that it’s Black.”

  “You have nothing to fear from Black,” Elizabeth murmured, “but I cannot tell you more, other than he has secrets, and you must ask him for those yourself. I cannot tell them.”

  Isabella studied the duke’s sister. “You know a great deal about him. Were you…are you…” She swallowed hard, not knowing quite how to phrase her question.

  “Have we been lovers?” Elizabeth smiled. “No. What I can tell you, and you must realize that this is not to be repeated, is that our families are quite closely connected. I’ve known him since childhood.”

  “And Alynwick?”

  “Yes. But again, I must impress upon you that our connection with them must not be spoken of. I cannot say why, only that it is so. I trust you, Isabella, with this, just as you must trust Black.”

  “Tell me, then. Why does he hide in his home? What secrets does he keep?”

  “I want to tell you,” Elizabeth whispered, “but I cannot. That is his story to tell. You must be brave, Isabella, and go to him. He won’t hurt you.”

  Isabella wasn’t so certain he wouldn’t hurt her. She already cared for him, and she was starting to worry that she might actually be falling in love with him,

  God help her…the last thing she should do is go to him.

  IT WAS TOO SUSPICIOUS to ride in the park. There was a deluge outside, and no one would be riding, which would raise questions, if anyone happened to see them, as to what the three of them were doing jaunting along Rotten Row in the pouring rain. That is what happened when a recluse was seen out and about, talking with others.

  Black had a reputation to uphold. It had served him well, but it was moments like this, when his appearance was noted and remarked upon, that made things sticky.

  So Sussex had decided to meet at his house. It was a risk, but then, they had to do something. The chalice and pendant had been missing for days, and there was no telling how long they had been gone before Sussex had noticed their disappearance.

  Try as he might, his attention was not focused on the relics he had sworn to protect, but something else.

  As Black paced the perimeter of Sussex’s study, he listened to the murmurs of feminine voices, and the occasional laugh. Isabella was in the salon next to him visiting over tea with Elizabeth and Lucy. She had looked beautiful, if not a bit pale and withdrawn when he had arrived.

  Something was wrong. He’d known it instantly; she would not meet his eyes, and when she stiffened as he took her hand in greeting he had felt a tremor run through it. It was not a frisson of sexual awareness, but of fear.

  Was she feeling embarrassed about what had passed between them last night? Hell, he hadn’t slept for thinking of it. How damn good she had felt in his arms. How perfect her arousal was clinging to his fingers. When he finally fell asleep he had thought of when he would make love to her. When he would open her, stretch her, making her his.

  She would be passionate and wild beneath him—he would make certain of that. He would hold her in her his arms and watch her unravel. Would savor every nuance of her climax.

  She had wanted him last night. But something had made her wary this afternoon. He had felt that wariness, seen it in her eyes. She had another headache. He could smell the licorice on her breath from the valerian herb and her pupils had been small, the effect of the opium. She had taken her tonic and that meant she had suffered a dream, and a resulting headache. How he wanted to know about those headaches, and why they held such fear for her.

  He longed to take her in his arms, hold her, kiss her temples and lay her on his lap and let her sleep. He would watch over her. Protect her. Kiss her awake and then slowly make love
to her.

  “If Black here would cease attempting to eavesdrop on the ladies, then we might get started.”

  Alynwick’s perturbed voice intruded on his thoughts, and he turned to the hearth to watch the flames, and thought of what it would be like to lay Isabella on the rug in his library and kiss her naked body, watch the flames cast shadows along her curves. He would chase those shadows with his mouth, his tongue…

  “Poor sod, he’s lost,” Alynwick muttered. “I wager he didn’t even make it to Alice Fox’s place last night, but stood standing outside Miss Fairmont’s window like a depraved Romeo.”

  “I found nothing there,” Black announced, trying to think of anything other than the image that was trying to consume him—him chasing shadows, and his tongue dipping and darting into the most erotic places. “The police have cleaned out her house. There was nothing there. If the letter was not burned, then the police now have it.”

  “I doubt she kept it,” Sussex said. “She was a fraud, she wouldn’t want evidence to be found that she could be bought for a staged séance.”

  “Whoever wrote that letter killed her,” Black announced. “And wanted me to look guilty. Or at least to cast suspicion my way.”

  “Yes, it’s strange, that. Who have you managed to provoke, Black?” Alynwick asked. “Other than Knighton? You must admit you have made it quite clear you covet the lady he has been courting.”

  “Indeed,” Sussex agreed. “The letter only referenced you and Miss Fairmont. The author has to be someone very close to her.”

  “Knighton does have the motivation,” Alynwick reminded them. “And the background knowledge of Miss Fairmont. He must be intimately acquainted with her to know about her past.”

  “He doesn’t know a damn thing about her,” Black snarled. Someone was trying to scare Isabella away from him and it made him wild with rage to think of it.

  “Nevertheless, you must proceed with caution. If your name, and that black carriage and four, comes up one more time, you’re bound to have Scotland Yard knocking on your door, and you—and we—don’t need that.”