The Wild Marquis

by Miranda Neville

  “And now for a more robust texture.” He sensed firmness with a slight grain. “The virile strength of morocco.”

  She leaned over him, her breath caressing his cheek. With an effortless move he grasped the book, laid it on the table, and snatched her by her slender waist. She landed on his lap, a snug armful of enticing heat.

  Keeping his lids hooded, he settled her against his chest, and his hands set forth on a slow voyage of exploration of flesh and bones beneath stiff fabric: slender shoulders; the bumpy ridge of her back (a different, more practical part of his brain registered that her garments must fasten at the front); the pronounced curve from waist to hips; breasts well-rounded, firm, and begging to be freed from the confines of cloth and corset.

  He sensed an acceleration in her breathing and opened his eyes. At close quarters, by lamplight, hers glowed a deeper green. They gazed at him soft and vulnerable. Notions of self-restraint trickled away as her lips parted in invitation.

  He kissed her, and any doubts he might have had about the widow Merton’s limited sexual experience were put to rest. When he ran his tongue around the sensitive entrance to her mouth, then all the way in, there was an unquestionable frisson of shock, a stiffening of her muscles beneath his caress. But scarcely a second later she relaxed, sweet and receptive. Her hands, which had been trapped against his chest, fought free to cradle his jaw. The movement of her lips answered his own and her tongue emerged shyly, then with increasing boldness, to meet his.

  He deepened the kiss, inhaling her breath. She was every bit as delicious as he’d suspected, tasting both honeyed and spicy.

  And of his best Bordeaux.

  He never seduced intoxicated women. It was one of his rules.

  His mouth stilled, though his hands continued to caress her back and hips. Unwillingly he made his mind overcome his senses, engulfed by the warmth and fragrance of Juliana’s body. He recalled her second glass of wine, the sway of her body as she’d returned to the room with her hair a glorious golden cloud. And the fact that she was behaving in a manner surely foreign to her better judgment.

  And his own too. This hadn’t been his plan for the evening. Avoiding middle-class women was another of his rules. They were too much trouble and tended to come with relatives. He’d once fallen afoul of a father with an evangelical bent and well-aged hams for fists. Only his skill for dodging trouble had kept him from serious injury.

  Though he had to admit avoidance of the bourgeoisie was more of a recommendation than a rule. And Juliana appeared blessedly free of protectors. Perhaps…

  But never drunk women. It was unsporting.

  He lifted her off his lap and, with reluctant precision, set her on her feet.

  Juliana tottered backward and somehow regained her own chair, her head in a daze. Cain’s kisses made her feel rather as though she’d landed in the middle of an explosion of fireworks. She regretted they had ended, and felt bereft.

  Lingering bedazzlement gave way to a wave of humiliation. She’d thrown herself at him and he had rejected her. She stared at the table, feeling small, powerless, and unattractive.

  And drunk, but no longer in the light effervescing way that had melted her inhibitions. Her head felt fuzzy and slightly sick.

  Cain broke an uneasy silence. “I apologize, Juliana.” He spoke gently in that foggy voice. “It’s probably better if we keep our acquaintance on a business footing.”

  Why was he apologizing? She was the one who’d made the first advance. And he, a rake, a man who reputedly would bed any woman that moved, had found her wanting. She wanted to die from the shame.

  “But I hope we can be friends,” he added. “I enjoy your company and your conversation and I value your knowledge.”

  Feeling marginally better, she ventured a glance upward. His blue gaze was on her. Those beautiful eyes that got her into this predicament. She fixed her attention on the half inch of claret in the bottom of her wineglass.

  “May I ask you a question?” he said.

  She nodded mutely.

  “Who was—or is—Cassandra Fitterbourne?”

  “Who?” she said weakly.

  “The previous owner of the Romeo and Juliet quarto. Your middle name is Cassandra. I thought she might be a relation.”

  She looked up again and came to an abrupt and rash decision.

  “She was my mother.”

  She’d said it. The truth known only by herself. The fact that must never be mentioned. She had no idea why she’d broken a lifetime of silence to confide in this particular man.

  “Did she die?”

  “When I was an infant. My father too.”

  “Who brought you up? Was it George Fitterbourne by any chance?”

  “Yes, my grandfather.” The words emerged with strength and pride. She felt a surge of pleasure at finally claiming her guardian, the human she’d always revered above all others, as her own kin. For once she could imagine herself a young woman of good family instead of a nameless orphan of mysterious parentage.

  She realized why she’d told Cain the truth. She might not be a beautiful actress, worthy of his attentions, but at least he’d know she wasn’t a nobody.

  “So that’s how you learned about books?” His question contained nothing but friendly curiosity. Cain had no idea of the enormity of her confession.

  “He was a great collector, with brilliant knowledge and taste. He taught me all he knew.”

  “Why did you choose to become a bookseller, instead of following in his footsteps as a collector?”

  “Tarleton,” she said bitterly.

  “What did he have to do with it?”

  “Tarleton was our neighbor, and my grandfather’s rival. He always had more money. And greater luck. Without possessing one tenth of Mr. Fitterbourne’s knowledge he beat him over and over again to the best books.”

  “The folios?”

  “Yes. And others. By any means. Hatred of Tarleton ate away at my grandfather’s soul, and I believe it killed him. He died with Tarleton’s name on his lips.”

  “Why, then, did you sell the quartos to Tarleton?”

  “It wasn’t my idea, I can assure you. My grandfather’s heir made the sale. The entire library in one underpriced lot to that man. He wouldn’t listen to me, wouldn’t even let me have Cassandra’s favorite book.”

  “You were not, then, your grandfather’s heir.”

  “The estate went to a cousin and the books had to be sold to pay my grandfather’s debts. I had only a small legacy.”

  “Why didn’t you remain with your cousin?”

  “I preferred to leave,” she said. Obviously she wasn’t going to repeat Frederick Fitterbourne’s assertion that her presence in the house would mar the reputation of his own family. “The books were gone. I married Joseph and we used my fortune to move to London and open our shop.”

  “You lost your home. I’m sorry,” he said softly. His sympathy warmed her, and she felt their kinship. Like her he had been forced from his home. Even though he hadn’t been deprived of his fortune he was, in a way, an exile. What she hadn’t told him was that she too was an outcast.

  “You want your grandfather’s Shakespeares, don’t you? Especially your mother’s.”

  She felt a complete fool. All her stratagems had been exposed.

  “You could have just told me, you know? I wouldn’t buy something you want for yourself.”

  “I don’t know that I can afford them,” she said miserably, hoping she wouldn’t succumb to the ultimate humiliation of tears. She wanted to present herself as a coolheaded professional, not a sentimental lachrymose female.

  “Let’s make an agreement. You can have first choice of any books you want. I will only bid on them if the prices are beyond your purse. Is that fair?”

  “Thank you,” she said with real gratitude. Her rakish client was apparently a gentleman after all.

  He grinned and his blue eyes danced, far from innocently. “Not that I regret your efforts to distract
me. The Aretino is a most interesting book. And I wouldn’t have wished to miss this evening’s lesson in bookmanship.”

  Chapter 6

  During eight years in London, three of them as a marquis in full possession of his inheritance, Cain had never entered that bastion of aristocratic privilege, White’s Club. Mounting the steps in full view of the famous bow window overlooking St. James’s Street, he scorned to give fashionable London’s most influential men a hint of his emotions.

  “Chase,” he said curtly to the porter who relieved him of hat and coat in the hall. “To meet Mr. Compton and Mr. Iverley.”

  His quiet words drew the attention of a gentleman in a Guards’ uniform emerging from one of the rooms. They stared at each other, then the other averted his eyes.

  “Bardsley,” Cain said. “I haven’t seen you since Eton.” He allowed himself a slight smile. His own school career was cut short after the maid-ogling incident, his father having decided his son’s lecherous urges were fed by the immoral company of his youthful peers. An early sign of his sire’s developing irrationality, since most of his contemporaries, Bardsley included, had been as undersized, spotty, and naïve as Cain himself. He’d never have recognized the strapping officer from those days.

  “But now I recall,” he went on, “that we met on one occasion since.”

  Bardsley’s throat convulsed. He’d never been an articulate boy. And they hadn’t exchanged a word when Bardsley’s father, a viscount, had brought his younger son to Mrs. Rafferty’s to lose his virginity. Surprising really that his former schoolmate was embarrassed now. At that meeting he had been a customer while Cain was helping out the bullyboys keeping order at the bordello. Yet Bardsley now looked as if he’d been caught buggering a sheep.

  Even though he’d got the better of this first encounter, Cain still felt, as he followed a flunky up the main staircase, he was entering a lions’ den.

  A dozen pairs of eyes lifted at his entrance into a spacious room, redolent of leather, spirits, and cigar smoke. No woman ever set foot in this haven of self-confident masculine comfort, nor ever would. This place had nothing in common with Mrs. Rafferty’s brothel save some of the customers. Cain gained a glimpse into a world to which he belonged by birth, the milieu from which his sire had banished him.

  No one arose and denounced him for unspeakable depravity. Not even the ghost of his father, who had, of course, been a member.

  His hosts welcomed him from a pair of deep leather armchairs. “Let’s go straight into dinner,” Compton said. “We have an engagement later.”

  Of course, Cain thought, they wouldn’t wish to spend the whole evening with him. Compton and Iverley probably regretted the invitation.

  The food was indifferent, the wine excellent, and the conversation entirely of books. Cain’s companions spoke with knowledge and approval of the plays he’d purchased in the past few days. Iverley, especially, displayed a deep knowledge of every aspect of book collecting that arose in conversation.

  “Wise of you to hold off the Aphra Behns,” he said. “The condition of the volumes was not as it should be and the prices much too high.”

  “I can’t take credit for my restraint. Mrs. Merton told me the same thing and dissuaded me from bidding.”

  That was a mild way of describing her refusal to buy them for him, an argument conducted in furious whispers in the middle of a crowded auction room. Cain hadn’t cared that much about the books in question. He continued the dispute when he saw Mrs. Merton’s indignation dispel her lingering mortification. The first time they’d met after their tipsy dinner she had scarcely been able to look him in the eye. His teasing had her right back on her high horse.

  “Can’t think why anyone would want them, anyway,” Iverley added. “A female playwright can’t be any good.”

  “Your prejudices are absurd, Sebastian,” Tarquin Compton said. “I don’t know about Mrs. Behn, but Uncle Hugo thinks very highly of Mrs. Merton.”

  Iverley grunted derisively but Cain silently agreed. The grounding Juliana had given Cain in only a few days, including that amusing impromptu overview of the materials of book bindings, enabled him to hold his own with this pair of seasoned collectors. As he became immersed in book lore he lost the feeling that a large sign hung over his head, inscribed with the word debaucher.

  From time to time other diners nodded at them as they passed the table.

  “There goes that idiot Bardsley.” Compton broke into Iverley’s description of an armorial binding he’d lately acquired. “I drew his cork at Jackson’s yesterday and would have knocked his brains out if he had any.”

  “Always astonishes me, Tarquin, you can beat a hulk like that when you look like a male milliner,” Iverley observed.

  “I can assure you that were I a milliner the ladies of London wouldn’t sport such hideous headwear.” He turned to Cain. “Do you box?”

  “I can fight but I don’t care for it.”

  Compton gave him an assessing look. “You would strip well, I think. You must come to Jackson’s one day and put on the gloves. All in sport of course.”

  Sensing no hidden aggression in the offer, Cain accepted. He’d have to study the rules of gentlemanly fighting.

  Compton’s shoulders shrugged beneath his impeccable tailoring. “We’ll talk about it later, since Sebastian refuses to take an interest in any sporting pursuit. You’ll come with us to the Berrys, Chase? The company is always entertaining, and even our friend here forgives them for being female.”

  Cain knew of Misses Mary and Agnes Berry, who had entertained luminaries of society, politics, and the arts for decades at their North Audley Street house.

  “Why not?” he said.

  Apparently tonight’s new experiences weren’t over yet. Cain had never attended a bluestocking salon. He had a disturbing, but not disagreeable, sense of being drawn into a new world of masculine friendship and reputable female company.

  “Isn’t that the Tarleton heir Gilbert’s dining with?” Iverley said. Compton followed the other’s gaze to a table in a far corner occupied by two men. One of them Cain recognized as the man Juliana had spoken with at the auction room, just before her Aretino fiasco.

  “Who is the darker man?” Cain asked.

  “Gilbert. Excellent bookman. Wonderful taste. I’ve bought from him for years,” Iverley said.

  “Interesting,” said Compton. “Do you think Tarleton’s after the Burgundy Hours?”

  “How deep are his pockets?” Iverley asked. “I’m thinking of bidding myself and I’d like an idea of what I’m up against.”

  “That depends on the state of his personal fortune.”

  As his hosts talked, Cain examined the man under discussion. From a distance all he could see was a head of fair hair.

  “Rather a mysterious fellow, Sir Henry Tarleton,” Compton continued. “Hasn’t been in London long. He grew up in some outlandish place like the West Indies.”

  “Jamaica, I believe,” Iverley said. “Very prosperous plantations there. Tarquin thinks anywhere ten miles outside London might as well be the American wilderness.”

  Compton shuddered. “Ten! Even five. I went to Kensington once. It was distressingly rural. Anyway,” he continued, “rumor has it Henry Tarleton’s father, the book collector’s brother, married a Creole heiress.”

  Iverley looked skeptical. “If you believe rumor, every person in the colonies has made a fortune.”

  “Why does he have to buy anything at the auction?” Cain asked. “Doesn’t it all belong to him?”

  “Old Tarleton died in debt, virtually penniless. Aside from a fortune in books of course.”

  Cain began to see that Lord Hugo’s warnings about the perils of bibliophilia weren’t so far-fetched. First Fitterbourne, Juliana’s grandfather, and then his rival Tarleton had been driven to the brink of ruin by their passion for books.

  “He never changed his will after his son died. If Uncle Hugo is correct,” Compton went on, “and he usually is, Tar
leton left everything to his son and his son’s children. Since the son never married there shouldn’t have been a problem. But some old relation or retainer claimed the son had been secretly wed. There was enough credibility to make the executors investigate the claim.”

  “A missing heir?” Cain said. “How dramatic.”

  “Henry Tarleton arrived in London and announced he intended to follow in his uncle’s footsteps, carry on the great Tarleton tradition, and generally behaved like a jumped-up parvenu.” Compton glanced across the dining room with distaste. “He looked a bit of a fool when the will was questioned. The court ordered the sale to satisfy the creditors.”

  “Poor sod,” Iverley said, with more sympathy than Cain had yet heard him express for a fellow human. “You’re such a stickler, Tarquin. If I’d been in the fellow’s situation I’d have wanted the books. I would not be happy to see them sold from under my nose.”

  “Why are you interested in the Burgundy manuscript?” Cain asked Iverley.

  “The binding. I collect royal bindings. That book was bound as a gift from Francis I of France to Henry VIII.”

  Compton laughed. “You see, Chase. Sebastian always judges a book by its cover.”

  How right she’d been to see her presence at the Tarleton sale as an opportunity. Juliana would never have been invited to one of the Berry evenings had she not encountered Miss Agnes at the auction. The sisters had been occasional customers, some of the few females she’d seen either in her shop or in the sale-rooms. But she was fairly sure she had the Marquis of Chase’s growing number of purchases to thank for the invitation.

  She was happy to spend an evening away from her rooms. Twice more she’d awoken with a sense that something was moving down below in the shop. She convinced herself she was suffering from nerves, but those restless nights made her uncomfortable in her own home.

  Among the crowd in the rapidly filling room at the Berry house, she recognized several people, including Lord Spencer. How splendid it would be to meet him at last! She was grateful for her new gown, which she considered very elegant, though the low-cut bodice made her a little self-conscious.