A Wicked Lord at the Wedding

by Jillian Hunter

The only person Sebastien spotted in the vicinity was a buxom laundress in a frilly cap who, upon sighting him, froze and then began haphazardly yanking half-damp sheets and shifts from a communal clothesline that stretched between the houses. That she seemed unnerved by his appearance did not offend him in the least.

  What sensible woman would wish to attract the attention of a big man skulking about the back alleys of London at this hour? At any hour, if the truth be told. He only wished his own wife would observe such cautions.

  He watched the rotund laundress scurry off with her wicker basket. Sorrowful. Did every woman in London have to make him think of Eleanor?

  Miss Elliot’s bedchamber overlooked a stygian back alley that bore the scent of chamber pot slops and stagnant rain. Sebastien jimmied the servants’ entry door and proceeded inside while his manservant Mick acted as crow in the alleyway.

  From the partially opened door of a bedroom emerged a duet of snores. He glanced inside.

  Tess sprawled, bare arse rising, across her corpulent partner, who was also naked, but for a grimy cloak fastened about his flabby neck. A flintlock musket stood propped against the bedpost.

  His mouth flattened in distaste. Hardly a challenge here. He’d be halfway across Town before this pair could disentangle themselves to give chase, let alone possess the wits to find their clothes.

  He was glad Eleanor had not accompanied him. He disliked the notion of bringing her to a low neighborhood even if she had ventured to such dives with Will serving as her dubious protector.

  She believed herself invulnerable, a lady of adventure. He could teach her a trick or two about the art of furtive ingress and infiltration.

  He moved silently around the bed to a dressing table thumbnail-thick with dust. As he lit his pocket taper, he thought of his wife, of her soft red mouth swallowing him, inch by inch, their bodies bathed afterward in the fragrance of sex and intimate secrets. His head swam with a black desire.

  A blob of wax slid onto his glove.

  Damn.

  She distracted him even when they were apart.

  If he didn’t concentrate, he’d set this heap on fire, himself included.

  He frowned, searching the wardrobe and dressing case of Mistress Elliot. Sad, really, that a beauty had come to this. Baubles—a comb, a broken watch, some cheap paste jewelry, two letters from a cousin in Surrey demanding payment on a loan, a golden sovereign.

  Nothing. Nothing of interest.

  In his mind he could hear Eleanor laughing, teasing that she would beat him at his own game. He smiled and imagined how he would tease her back. She would probably still be with the duchess when he got home. He would try to be modest about besting her. She’d forgive him and admit to his superior skill once they were alone again.

  The colossus on the bed behind him emitted a gurgling snort.

  He knelt at the low chest of drawers. More trinkets. No signs of intrigue. Bloody waste of time. Humiliating.

  Ah, a … chastity belt? Apparently never worn. Eleanor had been chaste on their wedding night. Was it all that long ago?

  She wasn’t innocent now, God help him. Why hadn’t she taken up another pastime like writing poetry or painting—

  No. Not painting.

  Probably not reading poems, either.

  The last drawer.

  Concentrate.

  His lower back ached, an unwelcome reminder of the past.

  He found a folded paper buried under a fan of broken peacock feathers.

  He unfolded it and scrutinized the message in the faint light.

  Darling Rival,

  I forgot to mention last night that I would locate the next letter. Do be careful of the dog on your way out. He’s even more unfriendly than Teg.

  A reluctant smile tightened his mouth. How had she gotten here first? Why? To remind him again not to underestimate her?

  He’d never do that again.

  A short blow on a whistle came from the alley.

  Mick’s warning.

  He closed the drawer, straightened, and escaped the house with only seconds to spare before a mastiff bounded from the drawing room with a deep-throated growl.

  She felt wickedly victorious as she reached her room, dropping the wicker basket of damp laundry at her feet. She’d find a way to return the stolen laundry later. For now she would have to hide it. She suspected that her lady’s maid had witnessed her clandestine return to the house. Eleanor was certain she’d seen a shadow at the bottom of the stairs when she had been running up.

  But then Mary had witnessed many peculiarities in the course of her service, and had never uttered more than a sigh of censure.

  She untied her frilly cap and withdrew the bulky breast padding from beneath her cloak. Sighing with the pleasure of another letter recovered, she leaned her head back against the door. Her heart had finally slowed enough that she could breathe.

  How she would have loved to be in Miss Elliot’s room when Sebastien discovered her hidden note. Had he laughed? Sworn to get even? Was he this moment tromping back home in defeat?

  Not that she meant to gloat, but she had to admit that her changed husband had brought out a competitive energy she hadn’t felt since she’d been a girl vying for her father’s attention between patients. The odds were that the male would win, but if he didn’t—

  For a moment, anything seemed possible.

  She could be Robin Hood stealing from the rich and not Maid Marian moping about praying he hadn’t gotten caught.

  A king who ordered beheadings and not Anne Boleyn.

  She could be a man’s wife and the Mayfair Masquer.

  When she came back to herself, she realized how empty the room seemed. The cheval glass reflected an unremarkable woman with bedraggled hair and someone else’s laundry.

  A woman who slept alone.

  She did not look adventurous at all.

  “Sebastien?” she called out tentatively in the direction of the dressing closet, just in case he had beaten her back home.

  At the answering silence she saw that the wardrobe door had been left open and that he’d hung his nightshirt neatly on a peg. She laughed, throwing herself across the bed.

  He said he’d stay this time. For better or worse, it would seem, she was not a woman who slept alone anymore.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Sebastien could not bring himself to go straight home after conceding her little victory. In fact, sitting in the carriage that Mick drove through the bustling London streets, he realized how brazenly Eleanor had tricked him.

  The laundress, of course. He pictured that plump figure with her basket of sodden bedding and started to laugh. No wonder she’d been so anxious to get away from him. And why she’d reminded him of his wife.

  Well, let her enjoy her moment of triumph, short-lived as he intended it to be.

  He examined the peacock feather he held in his hand.

  She had given him no choice but to retaliate, and with her own weapon, as it were.

  It was only fair that the punishment fit the crime.

  He doubted she would complain about his form of revenge.

  From now on, however, he would deal with the Mayfair Masquer man to man—and take advantage of the wily fellow in every way he could.

  Yet for the second time that day, as he perhaps should have anticipated, it was his wife who delivered the surprise.

  When he returned to his Belgrave Square house, he discovered her in the drawing room, another man holding her hand. He could have been knocked down with the Masquer’s feather. How many secrets had she been keeping from him? Had he not been forceful enough in explaining that he desired a conventional English marriage?

  Indeed, neither she nor her stoop-shouldered visitor, long, graying hair streaming over his bony shoulders, paid much attention to his arrival.

  The pair of them sat on the sofa in clandestine absorption. He waited, dumbfounded, the feather he held seeming to wilt a little in commiseration.

  The unattr
active stranger had grasped her delicate hand in his gnarled fingers, as if he were—was he studying her palm? What utter nonsense was this now?

  The curtains had been closed on this conspiracy. The woodsy odor of burning herbs arose from the grate.

  “Pardon me,” he said, tossing his coat, hat, and gloves onto an unoccupied chair. “Does my presence bother either of you?”

  “I would appreciate it if you would not stand in the light,” the odd man murmured.

  “What light?” Sebastien asked, tempted to raise his arms like bat wings into the air.

  Eleanor glanced up at him. Her eyes glinted in the false gloom, and her white shoulders shone as if inviting kisses. “I see you’ve made it home for an early supper. How nice. Did you get the message I left you this morning?”

  He slipped the feather into his waistcoat pocket. He noticed a bottle of Scots whiskey on the sideboard. “I did. It was awfully good of you to warn me about the dog.”

  Her appraising glance slid over him. “I’m glad that you escaped none the worse for wear.”

  He’d make her glad, all right. Giddy. Quite out of her head.

  He poured a splash of whiskey into a glass, then offered it to her.

  She shook her head.

  He took a sip. Undiluted. Not watered down at all. A man’s drink, this.

  “Is he your glovemaker?” he asked as the whiskey settled in his stomach.

  “Four, madam,” the presumptuous man said, rudely ignoring Sebastien. “Four, including the one lost. This concurs with your astrological chart.”

  “Sir Perceval is my fortune-teller.” Eleanor peered down at her outstretched palm. “The duchess consults him on every important decision.”

  “Madam and her grace are too generous,” Sir Perceval said with an ingratiating smile.

  Sebastien fixed her with a disbelieving stare.

  She stared back briefly, a sultry scold, then looked back down. He studied her lowered head, the wisps of hair upon her nape, that pearly skin.

  Four what? he wondered. Four lovers? Letters? Four husbands?

  Including the one lost.

  He wanted to see what this humbug saw in her future.

  The soothsayer mumbled some incantation. The flames in the fire danced.

  Eleanor glanced up again, her mirthful eyes meeting his.

  “What rot,” Sebastien said under his breath. “How long does this go on?”

  “Sir Perceval,” she said with a gentle smile, “perhaps we should continue at another time?”

  “As you wish, madam. One cannot ignore the influence of either devils or angels.”

  Sebastien waited to address her until after the wiry figure had collected his cape, then charts, and taken his leave. “You caught me unaware today,” he began. “I admit it.”

  Eleanor remained on the sofa, barely restraining a grin. If she hadn’t been so pleased with herself, she would have sensed he was up to something. Well, they would both live and learn.

  “Then you aren’t upset that I found the letter first?” she asked gleefully.

  He unbuttoned his waistcoat. He always felt warm in her company. He would presently return the favor.

  “Of course I am.” He frowned at her. “More so that you visited such a dangerous part of town. You have not been there before today, I hope.”

  She stared for a moment at his unbuttoned waistcoat, then warily shook her head. He was afraid she had probably been to worse. Why had Will gone along with her schemes?

  “I—we—employ a servant with family in that neighborhood,” she said in a careful voice. “I have passed through once or twice.”

  He glanced away. The strain in her tone suggested she had begun to question the direction of their conversation.

  “That doesn’t speak well of this servant’s character,” he said, looking at her again.

  “After four years in service to my father, then six to me, I daresay Mary’s character is not in question. Furthermore, one cannot choose one’s relations.”

  “The same does not go for one’s friends. Eleanor, really. Who are these people you bring home? Fortune-tellers, portrait painters—who will I find in the library next? A troupe of traveling mountebanks?”

  “I don’t think there’s room. You’ve obviously forgotten you ordered that monstrous desk when you last visited. It occupies all the space.”

  “I did not visit,” he said with a flare of annoyance, reaching for his glass again. “A man does not visit his home.”

  “Oh.” Her mouth glistened like a sugar plum. He felt his body heat in anticipation. “Of course you’re right. It was a regrettable observation on my part.”

  “Come here, Eleanor.” He motioned to the armchair upon which he’d placed his coat, hat, and gloves. The whiskey had given him confidence to implement his lesson. The darkened windows heightened his wicked mood. “Sit down a minute.”

  “I am sitting,” she said, flicking him a curious look.

  “Near me,” he said lightly.

  “Why?”

  “You’ll see in a minute. Come.”

  She rose, glancing over her shoulder. “What mischief are you about now?”

  “Afraid I’ll one up you?” he asked with an innocuous smile.

  She laughed. “No.”

  “I have a surprise for you.”

  Her gaze followed his movements as he gestured with his black silk hat. “What sort of surprise?”

  “If I told you, it would take all the pleasure out of it, don’t you think?”

  She walked slowly from the sofa, approaching him cautiously as one would an untamed animal. “That depends on which of us is meant to have this … pleasure.”

  He smiled as guilelessly as he could. “I hope what I have in store is mutually pleasurable.”

  She crossed her arms. “I don’t trust you for a moment.”

  “I trusted you to trust my judgment.” “I’ve locked away the letter if that’s what you’re after.”

  She reached the chair.

  He reached behind to push the door shut. The lock failed to catch.

  “I’m not going to apologize,” she said with a thin smile. “I warned you what I would do. You shouldn’t have interfered.”

  “We’ll address that matter afterward. Now sit.”

  “Why should I?”

  “Please, darling. Humor me.”

  “I suppose you’ll keep on until I do.”

  “That’s right.”

  She sat stiffly, and he deliberately kept her waiting, returning to the sideboard to finish the whiskey he’d poured. “You make a beautiful prisoner, by the way.”

  She laughed uneasily. “Is this an interrogation?”

  He shook his dark head in mock dismay. “That doesn’t sound pleasurable.”

  Her eyes widened in realization as he drew two strips of black silk from his coat. “You would not dare,” she said with a breathless laugh. “In the middle of the day, in our drawing room . On a chair. Baron, you are a wicked one.”

  “I don’t suppose you would prefer the table?” he asked with a hopeful smile.

  “Between the teacups?” she said in shocked amusement as he advanced on her. “As if I were—”

  “A dessert?” He bent, his hands braced on the back of the chair, his arms entrapping her.

  Her heart thudded as she stared up from his throat into his sardonic face.

  His mouth quirked into a dangerous smile. Her pulses soared. This was trouble.

  She made a belated attempt to rise; he knelt, one scarf between his even white teeth, the other brought forth to quickly bind her wrists to the chair.

  “Sebastien, this is so preposterous,” she said, then subsided, curious, despite herself, to see what he planned to do. And to what she would submit. “I have never been put in such a position.”

  “Ssh.”

  “It’s embarrassing,” she whispered, the crimson heat in her cheeks stealing down her neck.

  “Not from my standpoint. Emba
rrassing is being chased through an alley with a mastiff at your heels.”

  “Have you done this to people before?” she asked, half-rising again in a spurt of indignation. “Oh, you have.”

  “Not for the same purpose I intend,” he said with a droll smile.

  “Did you torture—?” She gave a small huff of panic, testing the strength of the silk bindings. “Don’t answer.”

  He shook his head, his face dark with desire. “I won’t.”

  “You haven’t closed the door all the way,” she exclaimed. “Someone could walk by and see us. You would be hard-pressed to explain tying me to a chair.”

  He nodded gravely. “Which is why I advise you to be very quiet. To save us the trouble of an awkward explanation. After all, we have appearances to maintain.”

  She gazed down into his merciless eyes. “Do you plan on leaving me in this humiliating position?”

  “That would be a most ungentlemanly act.” He swept his hands over her skirts and placed them around her ankles. “You have beautiful legs,” he murmured. “Good muscles.”

  “All the better to give you a kick in the—”

  “But you won’t.” He stroked her calves through her pale stockings.

  She quivered. Her back arched in such desperation that he felt the briefest moment of shame. “You’ve made your point, Sebastien.”

  “Not quite,” he said, his voice soothing.

  “Yes, you have,” she insisted. “You resent that I checked you, and this is your retaliation.”

  His slow grin lit a fire in her belly. “One person’s retaliation might be another’s redress.”

  His hands glided up her calves, raising her skirt in tantalizing stages. She strained her wrists, crossing one leg over his forearm to discourage him. At this admittedly belated effort he merely captured her ankles again and lifted his head in warning.

  “Be still, baroness,” he said, and rose up briefly to give her a kiss more potent than the whiskey she tasted on his lips.

  “That was a very dangerous neighborhood you visited today,” he said against her mouth.

  “I seem to be in more danger now,” she whispered.

  “You need me,” he said with infuriating certainty.

  “Not to tie me to a chair.”